Chapter Text
It goes like this: The four of them piled into their usual booth at the back of Puspa Café under Enteka’s watchful eye, a little buzzed and delirious from the late hour and the beers. Cyno and Tighnari pressed together on one side of the table as usual, arm to arm and thigh to thigh. Kaveh, growing increasingly self-conscious about the volume of his voice as he rattles on about nothing in particular.
Setaria takes a delicate sip from her glass (water, for the designated driver) and clears her throat. “I’m thinking about moving back home,” she says apropos of nothing.
Kaveh blinks. Cyno crunches down loudly on a candied Ajilenakh nut, prompting Tighnari to elbow him in the side. Thigh to thigh, calf to calf. Kaveh wonders if their ankles are hooked together under the table as well.
“That’s—I’m not renewing my contract,” Setaria adds. “That’s all I wanted to say. I thought I should tell you guys first.”
Tighnari, bless him, is quick to dispel any awkwardness. He nods with understanding, untangling himself from his best friend?—partner?—colleague? Kaveh always thought it was safest not to ask—just enough to reach over and squeeze his bandmate’s hand reassuringly. “I’m happy for you,” he says.
“You’re not upset with me?”
Tighnari shrugs. “It’s our seventh year, right? We all know how it goes. We were never going to stay with DSB forever.”
Kaveh grimaces reflexively at the thought. “Yeah,” he chimes in, voice wobbling slightly. He wishes he wasn’t such a lightweight. “Maybe it’s time for all of us to try something new.”
Setaria lets out a sharp, relieved laugh and leans back against the bench. “It’s just so strange to say it out loud,” she says. “I keep waiting for someone to try to talk me out of it.”
“Why would we? I trust your judgment,” Cyno says, straightforward as ever.
Kaveh hums into his beer and thinks about how long it’s been since they first sat here in this booth, how long it’s been since he was twenty-two years old, rummaging around in his pockets for his earbuds to show the demos he was working on to this vocalist Dori had thrust at him at the last minute. How long it’s been since they were here celebrating the end of Tighnari’s final exams, Cyno nearly diving across the table to save his precious limited edition holographic Genius Invokation cards from a catastrophic spill, Kaveh scribbling furiously in the beat-up sketchbook he’d had since high school.
And then, even further back—padisarah pudding for two on the table, ankles hooked together. Shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand. Kaveh doodling stupid teenage things (rings, houses, star maps), Kaveh feeling the warm flush of alcohol spread through his body, Kaveh dreaming of packed stadiums and his mother’s smile, always Kaveh, Kaveh and—
Well. He’s not going to ruin the moment by throwing up right now.
Enteka stops by their table to politely but firmly remind them that the café’s closing time is rapidly approaching, and the band apologetically scrambles out the door into the Sumeru City night. Setaria pulls Kaveh aside and gives him a meaningful look that he’s not quite sober enough to parse right now.
“Hey,” she says. “Are we okay?”
He frowns. “Of course.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell with you.” She sighs. “I’m not worried about the others, but you … I want to be sure you’ll remember your worth, when it comes down to it.”
“Setaria. This is really not the time to talk contract negotiation strategy, as much as I appreciate your concern.”
“Hm.” She raises a single, precise eyebrow. “Get in the car, Kaveh.”
[Interlude: Kaveh adjusts the guitar strap on his shoulder. His bangs are already starting to stick uncomfortably to his forehead under the heat of the stage lights. He looks out at the murmuring crowd, the violet glow of lightsticks held aloft.
Kaveh smiles, leans into the microphone. “Thank you, everyone, for always supporting us for all these years. I hope we can continue to create precious memories together for a long, long time,” he says. Someone in the audience shouts something inaudible, and he laughs.
His fingers find the familiar opening chords of “Winding Through” as he makes eye contact with Setaria standing center stage, then Cyno on her opposite side with his bass guitar. Behind them, Tighnari starts counting off.
A cheer rises, and the music follows.]
In the end, Tighnari and Cyno are the next ones to move out of the dorm after Setaria. They’d kindly offered to look for a place with Kaveh, more as a gesture than anything else. He declined immediately—he didn’t want to intrude, not to mention that continuing to third wheel them at this point sounded unbearably pathetic. No, he’d make his own arrangements somehow. How hard could it be?
He dreams of Dori Sangemah Bay locking him in an empty apartment. She smiles and opens her mouth to reveal rows and rows of tiny shark teeth.
Kaveh wakes up with a throw pillow to the face. “It’s moving day,” Tighnari announces brightly from the doorway to Kaveh’s room. “You said you’d help pack the car.”
“What car?” Kaveh asks, voice muffled by a combination of sleepiness and decorative pillow. “We don’t have a car anymore.”
Tighnari’s tail twitches almost imperceptibly. Kaveh sits up with a groan and narrows his eyes.
“Just grab a box and come downstairs. And—“ Tighnari hesitates for a moment. “Be nice. Please.”
“I’m always nice.”
“What the fuck.”
There’s a car parked outside the apartment complex. A nice, expensive car, if Kaveh knows anything about cars (he doesn’t). He can just make out Cyno’s head poking out from the opposite side, turned away with his back to the car as he speaks to—
“Hello, Kaveh.”
Kaveh wants to crawl out of his own skin and burrow into the concrete.
Failing that, he could change his name and move to Inazuma.
Failing both of the above, Kaveh lets Tighnari pluck the box of SPECIMENS A-H - NON TOXIC (according to the scrawl of permanent marker across the side) from his hands and load it into the trunk. Slowly, painfully, he drags his gaze over to the man in front of him.
He’s, well. The same as he’s always been. The same as he was the last time Kaveh ran into him at one of those industry parties he loathes and therefore probably attends for the sole purpose of ruining Kaveh’s evening. Wearing one of his awful identical too-tight black t-shirts. The same irritatingly fluffy head of silver hair that Kaveh hates himself for remembering in excruciating detail.
“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible.
Tighnari coughs rather pointedly.
The thing about Al-Haitham, which Kaveh can and will tell anybody caught in his immediate vicinity, is that the man is completely and utterly tactless. Really, it’s a great relief that Al-Haitham never did become any kind of idol or actor or public figure—and people did try, you know, with his looks (this part is usually accompanied by a vague flailing gesture)—because he would have managed to offend anyone and everyone there is to offend within a month. Out of spite. Spite for Kaveh specifically, probably. There isn’t a PR team in all of Teyvat that could smooth over that personality.
“You look well,” Al-Haitham says.
Kaveh looks down at his rumpled pajamas and bristles. “You—“
“—are doing us a great favor! Thank you very much,” Tighnari finishes, starting to usher Kaveh away from the scene. “Come on, there’s still more boxes.”
Kaveh swears he can feel Al-Haitham’s (judgmental, condescending) eyes burning into the back of his head as Cyno resumes what sounds like a particularly belabored joke about bass polish and canned fish.
“Was there seriously nobody else you could have asked?” Kaveh hisses as the elevator doors are closing.
“Look, Dehya was originally supposed to help out but something came up last minute—I would have given you a heads up otherwise.” Tighnari lowers his ears apologetically. “It’s okay if you’d rather not go back down; Cyno and I can take care of the rest.”
“I… It’s fine.”
“For what it’s worth, I think Al-Haitham was actually trying to be nice.”
Kaveh sniffs. “Him? Never.”
Tighnari surveys the living room with his hands on his hips. “We should have enough room in the car to fit the bass, but I think we’ll swing by another day to pick up the keyboard.”
“Got it.”
The apartment already seems different somehow. Kaveh’s artfully arranged decor still hangs on the walls, the same carpet spread out under the coffee table, but Kaveh feels the little absences nonetheless. Here, the spot on the windowsill where Tighnari kept one of his houseplants. There, the shelf that held Cyno’s box set of King Deshret and the Three Magi (the original series, not the remake) that he insists on rewatching every year. The fragrance diffuser Kaveh had given Tighnari for his birthday, the coffee mug that Cyno bought on vacation in Fontaine emblazoned with the words, “Better Latte Than Never!” (“You don’t even like lattes,” Tighnari muttered under his breath).
Soon, Kaveh will have to gather up the pieces of his life in his hands and carry them away, too. The painting he purchased on a whim from a street vendor because it reminded him of childhood visits to family in Port Ormos. The dutar that his mother had left behind when she moved away. (The old sketchbook at the bottom of his closet with photographs shoved between the pages. The soft gray hoodie he borrowed from Al-Haitham some eight, nine years ago and never returned.)
Cyno sticks his head out of the passenger side window as they finish shoving the trunk closed. “Nari, we’re going to go ahead and drop off the stuff at the new place first, then Al-Haitham can drive back around and pick you guys up?”
“Wh—” Kaveh whips his head around to look at him. “Am I in this? Since when was I in this?”
“I thought you wanted to see the apartment,” Tighnari says. Cyno nods gravely.
Kaveh does, in fact, want to see the apartment. He buries his face in his hands. “Fine,” he says, decidedly not glancing over at the driver’s side. (Is he wearing fucking Chioriya boots? Asshole.) “I’ll go get changed, then.”
[Interlude: Kaveh and Al-Haitham, ages nineteen and eighteen, huddled over an old company laptop in the DSB Entertainment practice room late at night. Kaveh fiddles absentmindedly with the edge of the hoodie Al-Haitham is wearing, relishing the plush texture of the fabric.
Al-Haitham leans back, twists around to pick up the acoustic guitar propped against the wall behind them. “Here,” he says. “This part here is too sparse—it feels unfinished.”
Kaveh scrunches up his nose as Al-Haitham starts to strum. “That’s the entire point,” he protests. “You’re too caught up in convention to understand what I’m trying to do here; I want the instrumentation to breathe.” He swats at Al-Haitham’s knee until the other boy puts the guitar back down.
“If you were listening properly, you’d know I didn’t say anything about convention. In any case, it wouldn’t hurt you to put some consideration into the kind of songs people are looking to buy these days.”
Kaveh groans. “Haitham!”
“Senior Kaveh.”
Al-Haitham always pronounces Kaveh’s name with such gravity, as if Kaveh isn’t a gangly teen running on four hours of sleep but something singular and luxurious and golden. Kaveh shivers involuntarily.
Kaveh slips his headphones back on and replays the track to himself anyway, biting his lip in concentration. They sit in comfortable silence, Al-Haitham scrolling through his phone as Kaveh works.
And when Kaveh leans over to sleepily prop his head on Al-Haitham’s steady shoulder, Al-Haitham doesn’t move away.]
The new apartment is lovely, of course. The neighborhood is quieter than Kaveh is used to, a bit farther away from the heart of the city but within walking distance of public transportation. There’s even a little balcony that Kaveh can already picture overflowing with lush greenery.
Cyno sets down the box of cleaning supplies in his hands, brightening at the sound of the front door opening.
“Well, this is it,” says Tighnari, taking off his shoes. “Home sweet home, or whatever.”
Kaveh swallows down the pang in his chest. “It’s really great, you guys,” he says, truthfully. “I can’t wait to see what you do with the place.”
“You’re always free to come look at furniture with us,” Cyno says. “It’s been awfully dull so-fa.”
“Urgh.” Tighnari’s expression is equal parts exasperated and sickeningly fond.
“Do you get it? As in, it’s been dull so far , except I’ve substituted the last two words—”
Kaveh lets his friends whisk him away on an impromptu tour of each and every room, the views of the rainforest, their plans to convert the spare bedroom into a home studio. He takes in this place that is not quite yet a home but has the unmistakable shape of one, not because of anything intrinsic to the walls and floorboards themselves, but the intent and care wielded by the people within it: This will be a home because we are making it so.
(There is something small and ugly in Kaveh that adds, This will be a home because you are not living in it. Because that’s the story of Kaveh’s life, isn’t it?)
His train of thought must be showing in his expression, since Tighnari goes, “Oh, Kaveh ,” much in the same way he’d speak to an anxious dog or a small child, and pulls Kaveh into a hug. “We’ll still see each other all the time.”
Cyno makes a goofy little hand sign in the shape of the number four. “4ggravate will never die,” he intones.
“It’s like you’re all grown up,” Kaveh mumbles into Tighnari’s sweater.
The drummer snorts. “Don’t act like you’re that much older than us.”
“I still remember your high school graduation like it was yesterday!” Tighnari had been so cute back then with his huge ears squished flat beneath his cap. Kaveh still has the photos saved somewhere.
“Swear to Kusanali, I will have you physically removed from my property.”
It’s well into the afternoon by the time Kaveh finally says his goodbyes to Cyno and Tighnari, once they’ve promised multiple times to meet up for lunch after they’re more settled in.
“Took you long enough.”
Kaveh’s blood runs cold, then hot again. “ You ,” he says, fixing his eyes firmly on the empty space above Al-Haitham’s shoulder.
“Yes, me.” Al-Haitham pushes off the wall with ease and starts to walk ahead of Kaveh. “Come on, I’m not going to rearrange my entire evening schedule just to drive you home.”
“I can take the bus just fine, thank you.”
Al-Haitham just keeps walking towards his car, unaffected. Kaveh has to scramble to keep up with his long strides. “By all means, if you’d rather spend more money to travel slower.”
“Maybe I would, if the alternative is accepting a favor from you.”
There’s the slightest flicker of amusement at the corner of Al-Haitham’s lips. It would be incredibly easy to miss, if it wasn’t Kaveh on the other side. If it wasn’t Kaveh and Al-Haitham, somehow different and just the same as they’ve always been.
Kaveh sighs and gets into the car.
The car window is pleasantly cool against Kaveh’s cheek as he pretends not to stare at Al-Haitham’s profile. Run-ins were inevitable in a business like this, especially with all of their mutual friends and acquaintances, but he can’t remember when they last spent any time one-on-one.
From an objective standpoint, Al-Haitham has grown up well. He stands a little bit straighter, his jaw a little sharper, his shoulders a little broader than they were when Kaveh first saw him looming stiffly over Dori’s tiny figure at the entrance to the company. And yet, and yet. The angle of his nose is the same, the teal of his eyes, the strand of hair that endearingly resists any attempts to style it otherwise. (Kaveh, nineteen, one hand tangled in Al-Haitham’s hair while the other scrabbles against the floor for a hairpin. “You’re going to regret this,” he announces cheerfully. “I’m going to ruin you.” Al-Haitham watches him through the mirror and shakes his head as Kaveh yelps in protest. “If this is your idea of ruin, senior, I have no objections.”)
“I heard your song at the supermarket the other day,” Al-Haitham says.
Kaveh glares reflexively. “Oh, and you have a problem with it?”
“When did I ever say that? You’re always jumping to conclusions.” A long moment passes as Kaveh makes an indignant noise. It’s mostly out of habit. “You don’t sing as much as you used to.”
Another pause. Kaveh considers pointing out that this was only one song. What would Al-Haitham know about how much Kaveh does or doesn’t sing? He considers coming up with an excuse.
“I guess I don’t,” Kaveh says quietly, letting his head fall back against the leather seat.
He’s waiting for the strangeness of the situation to hit him, trapped in an expensive car with his former best friend he’s been doing a terrible job of avoiding for the better part of a decade. (His former best friend whom he was absolutely never in love with, because that would have been pathetic and humiliating and pointless even before Kaveh let it all come crashing down around him, because even if Al-Haitham had stayed they’d have debuted as idols with images to maintain and Kaveh could never look over the edge of a cliff without falling, because Al-Haitham couldn’t have ever loved him back anyway, because Kaveh would never have allowed it, because Kaveh has never loved anyone without destroying them in the process.) Instead, there is only the ache of familiarity, the terrifying recognition that after all this time, Al-Haitham sees him exactly as he is, bruised and bleeding and coming apart at the seams.
“It wasn’t the company’s idea, if that’s what you’re thinking. It just worked out that we brought Setaria on to sing, so I started writing more songs with her voice in mind, and then I started feeling weird about having to perform ‘Shining Light’ all the time … ”
Al-Haitham’s grip is tight around the steering wheel. “I remember. You were nominated for Song of the Year.”
They were. They didn’t win, in the end, but for one glorious moment everything Kaveh had ever wanted had been just within his reach. 4ggravate was still relatively new on the scene back then, and suddenly people knew their names, their faces, their voices, all for a song that Kaveh had knocked out in an afternoon. Here was real, tangible, numerical proof that they must be doing something right, because how could you deny the charts?
Of course, Kaveh wouldn’t have called “Shining Light” the greatest song he’d ever written; it was simple and catchy and sweet, a crowd-pleaser. But it was his, and that had to mean something.
After years of walking past the trophy case outside Dori’s office, years of training and writing and hoping, they had a chance. Kaveh never forgot what Dori had said to him when he first joined the company, Akademiya Music Award gleaming in her hands. “Anyone can build a fanbase and sell a couple thousand albums these days,” she chirped. “We’ll know you’re an investment worth making when you win something real .” It sounded easy enough, the way she put it: Get on the weekly music shows, hope you’re not up against anyone too popular, take home a little shiny trinket. Get enough little trinkets until they stop meaning anything to you, and then you can work up to a big shiny trinket. Get a big shiny trinket, get a big shiny paycheck.
In practice, it broke you.
In practice, you could always have done better. Your song was too obtuse, too old-fashioned, too broad, too niche. You weren’t young or pretty or handsome or charming enough. You’re running on two, three hours of sleep between the late night radio spots and early morning call times. You wonder if it’s been you all along, because how could anyone say your friends aren’t talented and brilliant and charismatic? You wonder if the Bulletin posts were right. You wonder if you’re dragging your group down.
And then they had a hit on their hands, and Kaveh thought if he could just hold one of those little shiny trinkets in his hands, maybe it would all make sense. Maybe Tighnari could get his own studio so they could work without tripping over one another. Maybe Dori would get them better gigs, better clothes, better music videos. Maybe 4ggravate could be an investment worth making.
They were so, so close. A matter of a few arbitrarily calculated points, and Kaveh’s hands were still empty.
And oh, he knows—he’s always known that art cannot be quantified, boiled down to profits and sales and the shine in his CEO’s eyes. Kaveh makes music because he loves it, because he can’t help it, because Kaveh does not know how to exist any other way. He knows that art matters the same way he knows how to breathe.
But how far has that ever gotten him?
“Plenty of groups never even make it to the seven-year mark,” Al-Haitham says, and Kaveh startles. He didn’t mean to say any of that out loud.
The thing about Al-Haitham, as much as Kaveh would rather die than admit it, is that he has always been an exceptional listener. It’s part of what made him such an excellent co-writer and collaborator when they were younger; Al-Haitham would perceive Kaveh’s train of thought with a look and respond in kind, pushing and prodding his creative vision to take new forms and reach new heights. It surprises Kaveh, how easy it is to fall back into that same effortless equilibrium, how easy it is to come undone when Al-Haitham is here to make sure he comes back together.
The car pulls up once again to the building where Kaveh will return to silence and an empty apartment. He watches as a stray sunbeam pierces through the trees to be reflected briefly in Al-Haitham’s eyes—sunset over the rainforest.
“I can’t stop feeling as if I’ve done something horribly wrong, Haitham,” he spills out. “Like I just closed my eyes one day and now the band has fallen apart around me, like there was something important I was supposed to do beforehand but I fucked it up again somehow like I always do—or I’m just being selfish, because I’m so afraid of people leaving me that I would rather make my friends miserable by staying instead of letting them move on with their lives, because I’m the only one who doesn’t know who I am if I lose this.”
Kaveh curls into himself. “I can see it all so clearly. Setaria is back home in Aaru with her family and friends, Cyno and Tighnari will probably spend the rest of their lives together gardening and watching bad movies or whatever the fuck, but me? I’ll be turning thirty soon enough and I—I have nothing to show for it. You were right. I spent all these years trying to make music that mattered, music that’s real and true and worth remembering, but what does it matter if nobody’s going to remember it? It’s been thirteen months since Dori let us release an album; my time’s run out; I’ll let my contract expire and one day someone will say, ‘Remember Kaveh?’ and someone else will answer, ‘Yeah, from the group with that one viral song,’ and that’ll be it. That’ll be me.” His shaky breaths are so, so loud.
“How does it feel to have me all figured out? Haven’t you known it all along?”
There’s a soft rustle as Al-Haitham moves, uncharacteristically uncertain, to reach a hand over the divider to where Kaveh can see it hovering in his peripheral vision, almost but not quite touching the other man. “I see you’re still dead set on misremembering my words.”
“Are you seri—“
“You’re not listening to me, Kaveh. I never said your values were worthless. Not then and not now.” Kaveh allows himself to make eye contact—sunset over the rainforest again. Perhaps there are some things that have changed between them, because there’s a flash of an emotion he can’t quite place.
Al-Haitham continues. “I won’t insert myself in a situation that’s between your band and the company. But I’m not going to watch you take on the blame for things that are out of your control, either.”
“Huh?”
“Think of it this way. We would never have been friends to begin with if my estimation of your value as a person had anything to do with how many number one singles you would produce in your lifetime.”
“Archons, your bedside manner is atrocious.”
Al-Haitham smiles at that—or at least, what passes for a smile when it comes to Al-Haitham. The tiniest curve of the lips, the crinkle of mirth around his eyes and oh, Kaveh might really be doomed if this is all it takes to send all his pretenses toppling in an instant. Al-Haitham smiles, distressingly handsome with his stupid shirt and his stupid nice car, and Kaveh is back to being a teenager discovering what it’s like to free fall.
[Interlude: Kaveh’s newest song is for Al-Haitham.
Al-Haitham doesn’t know it yet. He’ll undoubtedly recognize it when he hears the song for the first time; the whole thing had grown out of something he’d said to Kaveh during one of their so-called study sessions.
As usual, any actual homework had been completely forgotten in an instant—instead, Al-Haitham smugly held up a slim volume entitled Empire of Signs by some stuffy old Fontainian scholar and the next thing Kaveh knew, they were an hour deep into Al-Haitham’s opinions on fucking semiotics.
“We’ve been arguing the same thing!” Kaveh had declared triumphantly, snapping his fingers for emphasis. “I mean, we’ve already agreed that de Petrichor isn’t interested in other nations outside of their ability to reinforce his own theories regarding Fontainian language and culture. Whatever you say about symbolism or signs, the heart of it is the same. We’re debating two sides of the same coin.”
Al-Haitham glanced down at the book in his hand, open to what looked like a rough approximation of an Inazuman city map. “Two sides of the mirror might be more appropriate. I’ve always thought of us that way,” he said in a tone that suggested he was enjoying a private joke with himself.
Kaveh had rolled his eyes at the time, but the phrasing stuck with him for weeks, even months after. You and I are two sides of the mirror.
Not a mirror, but the mirror. Kaveh knows his friend is nothing if not intentional—the definite article to indicate that the object in question is singular, unique, all-encompassing. The mirror, he said, in the same way that he would say the world. There is only one mirror and it is us. It’s always been us.
So Al-Haitham might be the most deeply unromantic bastard Kaveh has ever met, but that just means every once in a while he’ll say something strange and cryptic that Kaveh has no choice but to turn over and over again in his head, a puzzle-box of language that opens to reveal a line of thought too intimate to bear. And Kaveh is left wondering how exactly Al-Haitham goes through life breaking hearts all over the place like this. Kaveh is doing the world a great service by entertaining this monster, truly.
Anyway. Kaveh is writing a song for Al-Haitham to distract himself from thinking too hard about the way Al-Haitham lights up when he gets his hands on a book he wants, the movement of Al-Haitham’s long fingers over piano keys, the elegant line of Al-Haitham’s neck when he falls asleep at his desk and Kaveh needs to rescue the papers underneath him before they get drooled on. The distraction is not working.
On the days when Kaveh is feeling especially self-indulgent, he imagines the things Al-Haitham might say when Kaveh finally works up the nerve to play the song for him.
“Sentimental as ever, Kaveh.” (Typical.)
“I thought I asked you to write a ballad, Kaveh.” (Kaveh has written plenty of ballads. Al-Haitham just likes being contrary.)
“Are you in love with me, Kaveh?” (Kaveh would die of embarrassment.)
“I love you too, Kaveh.” ]
The large glass windows surrounding the entrance to DSB’s main headquarters are decorated with massive shiny posters of all the artists signed to the agency. Kaveh averts his eyes as he approaches the doors. He can still sense poster-Kaveh winking down at him from underneath the name 4GGRAVATE!, all sparkly-eyed and glossy.
Kaveh has never quite been able to reconcile the person from the posters and music videos and subway station ads with the person he knows himself to be. Poster-Kaveh is effortless, airbrushed, blond hair artfully pinned up in a way that declares, I wasn’t even trying that hard to look good . Poster-Kaveh beams at the Kamera in borrowed designer clothes. Poster-Kaveh never dry-heaved over a toilet after recording his debut stage, nauseous from the lack of sleep and solid food other than a couple of hard-boiled eggs from the previous afternoon. Poster-Kaveh didn’t wake up on his own couch and stare at the ceiling for half an hour before remembering that this time, no one was going to walk around the corner and berate him into getting up.
Kaveh’s phone vibrates in his pocket. You got this, Kaveh! Tighnari texts the band’s group chat. A thumbs up emoji from Cyno. It’s not so bad as long as you stick to your talking points, Setaria adds.
He takes a deep breath and enters.
Dori sits on the opposite side of the conference room table. She takes off her tiny diamond-shaped glasses and sets them down next to her stack of paperwork to demonstrate candidness and vulnerability.
“Kaveh!” she chirps. “Thank you for cooperating with all the last-minute schedule changes on such short notice. Please, sit down.”
“President.” Kaveh sits. He notes that Dori’s chair has been raised so she can meet his eye level.
“I see someone’s all business today.”
“I, uh—”
She rubs her hands together. “Right, let’s see. Your bandmates have already informed me of their decisions to allow their contracts to expire without re-signing. I assume you’ll be joining them?”
Kaveh nods. “Yes, we—“ He runs through his notes in his mind. “We’re very grateful to have had DSB’s support for all these years. It’s really just a matter of where all of us see our careers going forward … “
“Of course, of course. I understand completely. Although—” Dori slides a paper across the table. “We do need to discuss the matter of royalties.”
A cold knot of dread unravels in Kaveh’s stomach and makes itself at home.
“Naturally, per our original contract, DSB will retain the rights to the 4ggravate name and associated trademarks. As you know, the current distribution of royalties for the songs you’ve produced under DSB was originally agreed upon as a way to offset your, ah, sizable debts.”
He remembers it well—How could he not? It’s always been standard practice in the industry for prospective idols to take on the costs of training, housing, equipment, and so on in the form of debt. Kaveh’s own training period was the longest out of the members; he was newly sixteen when he passed auditions and spent the next few years being shunted from aborted debut lineup to shitty survival show to another delayed debut, teaching himself to use the refurbished MIDI keyboard he bought with what was left of the funds his mother had put aside for him before getting on a plane to Fontaine, begging his instructors until they agreed to let him bring in his own compositions for weekly evaluations. He was overambitious and stupid and reckless, really.
Then again, he was a kid back then, young and inexperienced enough to believe he could simply shape his own destiny through sheer force of will. He didn’t understand how someone could end up crushed under the weight of their own dreams. He had stars in his eyes.
And who’s supposed to catch you when you fall? Al-Haitham had asked him once.
“—better than the alternative, which would cut you off entirely from your percentage after leaving the company. How does that sound to you?” Dori’s voice cuts through his reverie.
“Uh,” says Kaveh. He’s always been praised for his lyricism. “Yeah, I’ll think about it.”
Dori smiles sweetly, like a cat after disemboweling a bird. “Wonderful! I can have something drawn up and sent to you by the end of the week, then you can look it over and get back to me.”
Kaveh blinks at the sheet of numbers in front of him, meticulously broken down across the past seven years of his life. Strange, how the music he’d carved out of little pieces of himself looked so trivial and fleeting when printed out in neat black ink. “Is it okay if I hang onto this?” he asks, indicating the paper.
“Sure.” Dori leans back in her comically raised seat and moves onto the next bullet point in her agenda. “We can go ahead and put together an announcement to the press as soon as you’re ready.”
“Right.”
“It’s been nice working with you, Kaveh. Won’t be the same without you around here.” She holds out her tiny hand for him to shake. He grasps her hand firmly and hopes this is the right decision. Only time will tell.