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“I just…don’t see a future with you. And it’s not…your fault. Like, not at all. You were the best boyfriend you could ever be, it’s just that…it wouldn’t be fair to you if we stayed in this relationship and you—”
“Amina,” Kaveh stopped her. “Listen, I—I got it.”
Amina’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry.”
Kaveh shook his head. “I get it. It’s fine.”
“Maybe we can still be friends?”
Kaveh rose from the chair. Of course, Amina had to pick the most bustling, public cafe to break up with him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I’m sorry.” Amina’s lower lip wobbled, and she looked so sad that Kaveh’s stomach started to twist with guilt, as if he were the one breaking her heart and not the other way around.
“It’s okay.” And it was. It was fine. It wasn’t like this relationship had started to give him hope or anything, especially not when it’d passed the five month mark which was just about one of the longer relationships he’d ever had. And it wasn’t like just being in this very cafe was bringing back haunting memories of how they’d met: him accidentally picking up her order, her politely tapping him on the shoulder, her brown eyes turning gold under the stray streak of sunlight, him apologizing, her saying he could make it up to her by giving her his number. No, not at all. It was fine.
Amina must have seen something in his face. She stood. “Kaveh—”
“Nope, nope. It’s fine. I’ll, uh, see you around. Or not.” Kaveh pulled away. “Bye.”
It was a good thing he’d already paid for his coffee right at the start of the date because it meant he could make a beeline straight out of Puspa. Kaveh had also paid for her drink, too, because he’d thought it was a date and he was being a good boyfriend. He never would have expected she was breaking up with him! Especially when it’d been going so well.
Or, so he thought.
Whatever. Kaveh sighed and pushed further into the street, swallowing the lump in his throat as he walked to the nearest bus stop.
By some grace of Devi Kusanali herself, Kaveh managed to keep it together the entire twenty minute bus ride home. Even when the bus zipped past the park where he and Amina had their first date. Even when a couple boarded the bus and took seats next to each other, one girl laying her head on the other’s shoulder like how Amina used to do with him. Even when Kaveh got tired of staring at them and out the window and he pulled out his phone to find Amina’s text still laying at the top of the app:
[10:23] Amina <3: can we meet at Puspa in half an hour?
[10:24] Kaveh: ofc!!
He should have said no. He wanted to go back in time and grab himself by the shoulders and shout, NO! DO NOT AGREE TO EVERYTHING YOUR GIRLFRIEND SAYS IT WILL NOT SAVE YOUR RELATIONSHIP!
Kaveh knew his bus stop had come when the bus lurched to a stop so suddenly that he almost flew out of his seat. It happened every gods-damned time and yet he never learned.
“Treasures Street,” the robotic voice of the bus announced.
Kaveh stood and stepped off the bus, carefully averting his eyes from the two girls.
The walk back to his apartment was short and miserable. Kaveh tried not to think about walking this route back with Amina, hand in hand, the miserable roadside turning lovely with her next to him.
When he reached his apartment complex, he heaved himself up the three flights of stairs and unlocked the door to find his roommate reading on the couch.
“I’m surprised you remembered your keys this time,” said Al-Haitham, not looking up from his book.
Kaveh scowled. “Fuck off.”
“Back from your date so soon?”
Kaveh heaved a sigh as he pulled his shoes off. “She dumped me.”
“Oh?” That had Al-Haitham looking up. “How many months was it this time?”
“Five.” Kaveh collapsed on the other couch, opposite of Al-Haitham. “I thought—I thought this one would’ve made it.”
“You’re entirely too optimistic about your prospects.”
Kaveh jerked his head up. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“I meant what I said. There’s a reason you keep getting your heart broken.” Al-Haitham turned a page in his book.
Kaveh went horizontal, burying his face in the decorative pillow. This one belonged to Kaveh—he’d bought it when he first moved in, insisting that Al-Haitham needed to decorate the place better, despite Al-Haitham’s comments about it being entirely impractical.
“I’m doing fine, Al-Haitham. Thank you so much for asking. I really appreciate your support in these trying times.” Kaveh could feel his breath burn hot against the pillow.
“This is—what, your fifth breakup this year?” Al-Haitham finally closed his fucking book and set it aside. “I thought you would’ve been used to it by now.”
Kaveh peeled his face off the pillow. “Thank you so much for reminding me. That is exactly what I needed to hear right now.”
“You’re welcome.”
“That was sarcasm, dickwad.” Kaveh sat up, hugging the pillow to his chest. “I just. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
“Did you say I love you on the third date?”
“FUCK OFF!” Kaveh threw the pillow at him. Al-Haitham dodged infuriatingly elegantly, the way he did most things—infuriatingly, not elegantly. Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow at him, sending a hot flush of embarrassment down his neck. “It was. The fifth date this time.”
“Perhaps you should stop declaring your love so soon to your sub-six-month relationships.”
“Perhaps you should shut the fuck up.” Kaveh made a face, then sighed. “I can’t help falling in love so quickly. I really do mean it when I tell them I love them.”
“I’m sure you do.”
Kaveh cut him a glare, but Al-Haitham’s face looked fully serious. He sighed again.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he repeated. “I listen. I pay attention. I try to be a good boyfriend but they all keep telling me they can’t see a future with me, or I work too much, or like I can’t open pickle jars and that’s embarrassing, and then they break up with me.”
Al-Haitham furrowed his eyebrows. “Was the last one Vikram?”
“Of course, it was Vikram!”
Vikram had lasted a grand total of two and a half weeks. Kaveh, of course, had also told him he loved him on the third date, but Vikram had seemed to take it pretty well. Instead of an awkward smile and a pained, “Thank you,” like he usually got, Vikram had flashed him that blinding white smile and said, “Hell yeah, you do,” and then dapped Kaveh up across the foosball table. It’d made Kaveh think, maybe this one will last, except Vikram started getting on his case about the most random things: that Kaveh drank his coffee black but his alcohol disgustingly sweet, that he got dressed socks first, that Kaveh brushed his teeth after eating breakfast instead of before. A litany of inconsequential grievances that had spilled over into Vikram breaking up with him over text.
“I didn’t like that one,” said Al-Haitham.
“You don’t like any of my partners.” Kaveh threw himself back on the couch again and stared up at the ceiling, watching the fan spin aimlessly around the light.
“Because none of them seem to treat you well,” said Al-Haitham quietly.
“That’s because you only see the part where they break up with me. They treat me fine otherwise.”
There was a beat of silence, filled only by the hum of the fan. Kaveh reached a hand up trying to feel the wind, but he was laying in the wrong spot to feel the full effect so all he grabbed was a faint breeze, the tail of it brushing his fingertips before slipping away.
“What are you going to do now?” asked Al-Haitham.
Kaveh turned his head to see Al-Haitham watching him intently. “What do you mean?”
“Are you going to get on a dating app? Or are you too heartbroken at the moment to even consider that?”
Kaveh thought about it for a moment, then sighed. “Fuck it, it’s not worth it.”
Al-Haitham tilted his head. “What?”
“I’m over it.” Kaveh sat up again, resolute this time. “I’m over this bullshit. I’m never going to fall in love again.”
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow. “That’s not possible.”
“Of course it is.” Kaveh crossed his arms. “You of all people should believe that.”
Al-Haitham blinked, as if caught off guard. When he spoke again, his voice sounded strange. “What do you mean?”
“You’re not the type to romanticize anything. You don’t date, you scoff at every rom com we watch, and every time I bring flowers home you just talk about how they’re going to take up space and then die. You’re like the least romantic person I know, Al-Haitham.”
“You have no evidence to back that up.”
“Because I’ve never seen you date anyone! All you do is read and make fun of my relationships.”
“I do not.”
“You do.” Kaveh wet his lips. “Have you ever been in love before?”
Al-Haitham furrowed his eyebrows, inhaled as if to speak, and then paused. That was confirmation enough for Kaveh.
“Yeah, I thought so.”
Al-Haitham frowned. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to.” Kaveh swung his legs over the couch and stood. “Well, this was fun, but I’m going to go shower and delete Amina’s number from my phone and then eat a gallon of ice cream.”
Al-Haitham was silent for a moment. “Were you serious about never falling in love again?”
“As serious as I’ve ever been.”
A strange expression flashed across Al-Haitham’s face, but before Kaveh could read it, it vanished.
“You look like you have something to say.” Kaveh crossed his arms. “Out with it. So I don’t have to deal with you after my shower.”
That strange expression appeared again, more prominent in the furrow of his brow.
“You can’t just not fall in love,” Al-Haitham finally said.
“Of course, I can.” Kaveh tilted his chin up. “I have free will.”
“This isn’t like you to just give up on love like that.”
Kaveh huffed. “What do you know about what’s like me or not?”
“Kaveh, I’ve known you since undergrad. And we live together.”
He pursed his lips. “Touché.”
Al-Haitham stood. “Would you really give up the idea of love after a few bad relationships? Is it really worth giving up any possible joy you could have just to mitigate the risk of suffering?”
“Who are you and what have you done with my roommate?” Kaveh looked at him, alarmed. “What—why are you getting so worked up over this?”
“Giving up on love goes against every philosophy I know you to hold.” Al-Haitham’s voice was oddly quiet. “You’re not one to give up hope so easily.”
“‘Easily.’” Kaveh snorted. “It’s been—what, two years since I moved in? And you’ve seen how many relationships I’ve gone through?”
So, so many. Kaveh had brought in a rotating list of partners in and out of the apartment, all of them ranging from a full-on meet-cute with hands brushing and flushed faces, to some random stranger he’d met at a bar. It wasn’t that Kaveh wanted to date around so much, it was just that he couldn’t make anyone stay. At the start, he’d tried bringing all his partners home to meet Al-Haitham. Eventually, he’d given up on that though because he had no idea how long they would last.
Al-Haitham must have been thinking about that too because Kaveh could see the moment whatever little defiance was left drain from his shoulders.
“I’m just. I’m tired, Al-Haitham.” Kaveh’s voice wobbled and it was a shade too vulnerable than he’d originally intended being. “I don’t have it in me to try anymore.”
“Kaveh…”
“Oh, Archons, no. No, don’t look at me like that.” Kaveh turned away from Al-Haitham’s eyebrow—which was the equivalent of a mournful wail. “It’s fine. I’m fine. I literally—it’s just me not falling in love anymore. If I don’t date anyone, then I won’t fall in love. And then I won’t get my heart broken anymore.”
Kaveh waited a second longer, just to see if he would say anything. And when he didn’t, Kaveh sighed and turned back to the hall.
“Prove it.”
Kaveh paused. Slowly, he turned around. “What?”
“Prove that you won’t fall in love.”
Kaveh tilted his head. “And how do you suggest I do that?”
“Date me,” said Al-Haitham. “Prove to me that you won’t fall in love.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Kaveh laughed. He couldn’t help it—it was just so… absurd. Never in his drunkest, most delirious state would he ever imagine Al-Haitham standing across from him so resolutely asking Kaveh to date him.
“Are you done?” Al-Haitham’s eyebrow twitched irritably.
“Oh, you were serious.” Kaveh searched his expression for any hint of a smile, of teasing, just to make sure he wasn’t mistaken. When he found nothing, he sobered up. “While I’m flattered that you would sacrificial-lamb yourself to date me, what exactly would it prove?”
“That keeping yourself from falling in love is impossible.” Al-Haitham tilted his chin up, eyes flashing. “If you date me and you don’t fall in love, you’ll prove me wrong and yourself correct.”
Kaveh snorted. “So, I just have to not fall in love with you? That’ll be easy.”
“Then there should be no reason to refuse.” Al-Haitham crossed his arms. “Unless, of course, you’re afraid you’re going to lose.”
Indignation flared hot in his chest. Kaveh grit his teeth. “I know what you’re doing.”
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow. “Is it working?”
Kaveh glared at him, hoping that the force of it would make his roommate break, but Al-Haitham remained impassive.
“Ughhh, fine.” The groan dragged out of him like scavenged roadkill. “Fine, I’ll date you. And I won’t fall in love with you.”
“Confident, are you?”
“Smug, are you?” Kaveh mimicked. “Why do you think you have any chance of winning this bet?”
“Why do you think?” Al-Haitham countered. “Given your track record, there’s certainly a nonzero chance of me winning.”
“Archons, you’re so fucking annoying.” Kaveh dragged a hand down his face. “Alright, fine, what are the terms? Is there a specific measurable time I shouldn’t be in love with you by? Just so, you know, this isn’t going on indefinitely.”
Al-Haitham pressed his lips together. This was his thinking face: mouth flat, eyes restless, and hand glued to his chin like he would find secrets there. Al-Haitham’s eyes drifted from Kaveh’s to a spot on the wall beside him before slamming back, like two glass marbles colliding. Kaveh jolted.
“You usually say, ‘I love you,’ by the third date,” said Al-Haitham. “If I take you on three dates and you haven’t fallen in love by then, you win. If you have, then I win.”
Kaveh fiddled with the sleeve of his sweater, palms surprisingly damp. Al-Haitham’s voice was steady, firm, as if he were well and truly serious about this proposition.
“What happens if I win?” Kaveh finally asked.
“Is the satisfaction of being right not enough?”
Kaveh let out a dry laugh. “Nice try, but gambles aren’t nearly as fun without any stakes.”
The corner of Al-Haitham’s mouth twitched. “I didn’t realize one of your vices was gambling.”
“Not usually.” The fan whirred above them, metal chain clanking in the wind. “Normally, it’s just the alcohol. But I’m not letting you cheap out on a bet you proposed.”
“Fine. If you manage not to fall in love with me by the third date, I'll buy your drinks for a month.”
Kaveh choked. “Seriously?”
Al-Haitham nodded.
Kaveh swallowed. No fucking way. This would be way too easy.
“And if you win?”
Al-Haitham paused at that. He tapped his chin, looking thoughtful again. Then, “Why don’t I let you know when the time comes.”
“‘If,’ asshole. And that isn’t fair. How am I supposed to know if it’s an equivalent favor to you buying my drinks? What if you ask me to, like, give you half of my savings.”
Al-Haitham rolled his eyes. “One: I don’t need your savings. Two: do you know me to be unfair?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
Al-Haitham gave him a flat look. “Fine. If I win, I will ask you for a favor. You’re free to turn it down if you think it’s too much, but I get to have that favor until you agree to one of my suggestions. Fair?”
“Fine,” said Kaveh after a moment. “Fine. That’s fair.”
Al-Haitham held out his hand. “Should we shake on it?”
Kaveh hesitated. “I guess.”
He reached out and grabbed Al-Haitham’s hand. It was rough, he noticed, and warm.
Al-Haitham gripped his hand firmly and shook once before pulling away. Kaveh’s palm cooled in the open air.
“Alright, then that’s settled. We’ll begin tomorrow.” Al-Haitham turned to leave.
“Wait!” Kaveh reached a hand out. “Are we—is the first date tomorrow?”
“Archons, no. I haven’t had time to prepare.”
He tilted his head. “Then…wait, what?”
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow. “You realize that dating also involves being a couple outside of planned date events.”
“Obviously, I fucking know that. I just—didn’t think we’d be doing that.”
“How else are we supposed to create the authentic experience of being in a relationship if we don’t follow the steps of your previous ones?”
Kaveh hated when Al-Haitham was right. His pride wouldn’t let him admit it, though his principles would.
“Fine, fuck. You’re right. Whatever.”
“Don’t sound too enthusiastic now.”
Kaveh threw up his middle finger.
Al-Haitham laughed at that—more snort than bellowed laughter, but coming from Al-Haitham it was about as loud as a hearty guffaw. He didn’t often laugh, but when he did, it was usually at Kaveh’s expense. “Go take your shower, Kaveh.”
“I will.” Kaveh huffed and spun around, irritated. Then, he looked back hesitantly, “Can we watch a movie when I’m done?”
Al-Haitham let out another airy laugh. “Sure.”
It was their usual Kaveh-breakup routine: Kaveh eating a gallon of ice cream while watching yet another trashy rom com with Al-Haitham and making fun of everything happening on screen. The thought would be comforting if Kaveh didn’t have to think about the fact that he’d agreed to the most bizarre bet ever.
“Okay.” Kaveh sucked in a breath. “Okay. See you in…twenty minutes?”
“No rush,” said Al-Haitham. “In fact, take your time. I could use some more quiet to finish my book.”
“Oh, fuck you.”
Al-Haitham snorted again, which was one too many laughs than usual and it made Kaveh feel oddly flustered. But perhaps it was the fact that his emotions were still high from getting broken up with and then getting propositioned by the most annoying roommate he’d ever had, who was somehow his best friend, thorn in his side, and strangest of all: future boyfriend.
“Go shower,” said Al-Haitham, voice warm.
“I am, I am.”
Then Kaveh turned and stormed into the bathroom, trying not to think about whatever the fuck he’d just agreed to.
-
Kaveh woke the next morning in a better mood than he’d expected.
The world still felt a little fuzzy, a little unreal, like the last wisps of last night’s dream were still clinging to him. His mouth tasted sour and his head felt cottony, but the sun was spilling in through the slats of his windows and it was the start of a new week. Surely, things were looking up.
He rolled over and grabbed his phone to send his ‘good morning’ text to Amina when he remembered all at once that he’d been dumped yesterday.
“Ah.” The grief swelled in his throat. Kaveh should have been used to it by now, given how many failed relationships he’d had, but every morning, like this one, caught him off guard just the same.
All at once, memories of the previous night came flooding in. He felt exhausted because he’d gone to bed late last night, watching the promised rom com with Al-Haitham like they usually did. They’d picked a newer teenage rom com that Tighnari had suggested after watching it with Collei. It’d been hilariously bad in the way the directors clearly had never spoken to a modern day teenager with how “how do you do, fellow kids?” the dialogue was.
And it’d been cheesy. So cheesy that it made Kaveh bury his face in Al-Haitham’s shoulder so he didn’t have to deal with the second-hand embarrassment. He’d laughed so hard that he cried. And then he cried for real, and Al-Haitham had silently patted his back until he could breathe again.
Pathetic, really. The way he behaved like this after every breakup. He knew, objectively, they weren’t supposed to get easier, but the grief always felt new each time. Like a wound picked raw and touched with salt over and over.
“Alright,” he muttered to himself. “Get up.”
Kaveh dragged himself out of bed and wandered into the living room area where he found Al-Haitham. He was up early, as usual, even though he’d gone to bed at the same time as Kaveh. He was reading a book and sipping his black tea so serenely it was almost as if he hadn’t also gone to bed at two in the morning.
“Hi,” said Kaveh.
“Morning.” Al-Haitham didn’t look up from his book.
Kaveh never knew how to deal with Al-Haitham the morning after. How are you supposed to behave around your emotionally stunted roommate after crying all of your snot into his left shoulder sleeve? Kaveh had never figured it out, so he made his graceful escape to the kitchen.
“How are you feeling?” asked Al-Haitham.
Kaveh flinched. “Fine, whatever.” He waved his hand. “It’s just another breakup. Not like I haven’t been through one before.”
Outside, the birds were chirping at the coming light. It was early enough that part of the sky was still a pale, diluted blue without the sun emboldening anything, and cool enough that Kaveh almost considered a sweater. He thought it was a little cruel how kind the weather was the day after Kaveh had been broken up with, like the day was so beautiful and Kaveh would spend all of it wallowing.
“Well, don’t sound too miserable now.”
Kaveh took a sip of his coffee—black and bitter in a way that made him feel more alive.
“Fuck off. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m going to be looking for a relationship for a while.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
The clock in the kitchen ticked once, twice.
“Fuck.” Kaveh set his mug down. “Oh my gods.”
“I appreciate the enthusiasm,” said Al-Haitham flatly, “But don’t strain yourself.”
“Ha, ha. You’re hilarious.” Kaveh shoved a hand through his hair. Right. Right, he was supposed to be dating Al-Haitham and he wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, stop freaking out Kaveh.
“Is this how you treat all your partners?”
Kaveh glared. “No. Normally, we enter a relationship under more normal circumstances.” He paused, taking another sip of his coffee for courage. “Is there—am I supposed to be acting a certain way or…?”
“Nothing specific. Just act how you would normally act around your partners.”
Easier said than done. “Al-Haitham, I don’t even like you.”
“You like me enough to be my friend.”
Kaveh scowled. “Alright.” He stepped into the living room, mug in hand, planting his feet right in front of Al-Haitham’s spot on the couch. “How are you going to act around me now that we’re dating?”
Al-Haitham finally looked up from his book and raised an eyebrow. “How do you think I’m going to act?”
“Are you going to be nice to me?”
“I’m always nice to you.”
“You are not always nice to me.”
The corner of Al-Haitham’s mouth twitched, almost like he wanted to smile.
“See?” Kaveh poked him in the cheek. “Even you know that’s a massive joke.”
Al-Haitham jerked his head away, smile falling.
Kaveh snorted.
“Don’t you have work?” Al-Haitham grumbled.
“Don’t you?” Kaveh said because he was feeling childish.
Al-Haitham gave him a flat look, as if to say, Obviously. He just always left after Kaveh since his office was so much closer.
“We should talk about this arrangement after work since you seem so uncertain about it,” said Al-Haitham simply.
His heart thumped. “What’s there to talk about?”
“Logistics. Expectations, but further in depth. What is allowed and what isn’t.”
“What’s…allowed?” Kaveh’s face steadily began to heat.
Al-Haitham gave him a flat look. “Yes.”
“Allowed to…what?”
“What do you think, Kaveh?”
A rush of images flooded his mind. Some more PG than others. Some less. He looked at Al-Haitham, suddenly panicked because he couldn’t imagine doing any of these things with Al-Haitham. The what—the hand holding? The hugging? The kissing?
Oh, Devi fucking Kusanali, it was one thing to kiss your partner for the first time, it was another thing to kiss your estranged friend whom you recently repaired your relationship with. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to date Al-Haitham, what it meant. Al-Haitham had certainly touched him before—accepting a hug from Kaveh after a breakup, letting Kaveh lean against his shoulders when he was stumbling home drunk, running a slow thumb down his spine when Kaveh was hyperventilating. He couldn’t imagine it touched with anything more.
Al-Haitham rolled his eyes. “Don’t overthink it, Kaveh. That’s why we’re having the talk after work.”
“Okay,” said Kaveh, very steadily. “Okay, sure.”
“Don’t freak out about it.”
“I’m not freaking out about it.”
Al-Haitham gave him a look that said, Seriously?
“Agh, don’t look at me like that!” Kaveh held his coffee mug up to his face to hide it.
Al-Haitham made a light sound of amusement before lifting his book again and going back to reading.
Kaveh’s heart pounded unsteadily in his chest. Archons. He’d been in dozens of relationships before—what was different about this one?
That it’s with a friend. But that wasn’t quite right. That it’s with Al-Haitham. That was more like it. Because he knew this person. Because he wasn’t starting from scratch the way he usually did. Kaveh didn’t know how to superimpose the ‘boyfriend’ label on top of Al-Haitham: friend, no boy attached to the front.
Archons, what if Kaveh didn’t feel anything and the whole thing would be awkward. What if he did? How do you go back to being friends after falling in love?
Kaveh shook his head. It shouldn’t matter because he wasn’t going to fall in love. Easy. It was just Al-Haitham after all.
He drained the rest of his mug for courage and took the escape route to the dishwasher to put the mug away. Then, he grabbed his bag off the floor and headed to the door.
“Um,” he said. “I’m off. I’ll…see you in the evening?”
“Hm.” Al-Haitham didn’t look up from his book. Typical.
Kaveh rolled his eyes. “Alright, see you later, boyfriend.”
He turned ready to leave when he suddenly heard, “Wait.”
His heart stumbled in his chest. Was it something he’d said? Was the boyfriend comment going too far?
Kaveh slowly turned around to see Al-Haitham getting up from the couch. He walked over until he was standing face-to-face with Kaveh, watching him with an unreadable expression.
Kaveh swallowed. “What?”
Al-Haitham reached around his head, forearm grazing Kaveh’s ear, before drawing back. He held up his hand to show a gold key with a little lion keychain dangling from the head.
“Don’t forget your keys.”
“Oh.” The adrenaline in his blood plummeted. Devi fucking Kusanali, what was he thinking? “Thanks.” Then, because nerves did strange things to his cognitive functions, added, “And here I thought you were going to give me a goodbye kiss.”
Al-Haitham gave him an odd look which made Kaveh regret the words immediately. An awkward silence flitted between them, long enough that Kaveh was just about to force out a laugh and say it was a joke when Al-Haitham took a step forward.
Panic lurched in his chest. “Wait, wait, I was joking!” Kaveh backed up until he was pressed against the door.
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow, unfazed. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
His neck flushed hot with embarrassment. Kaveh tore his gaze down. “Um, right. Sorry. I just thought—nevermind.”
“Kaveh.”
Al-Haitham’s voice was low, still husky from the morning. His name came in what felt like a whisper, soft enough that it drew his face back up.
“What?” Kaveh blinked.
Al-Haitham looked at him, eyes piercing. “You’re going to be late for work.”
Alarm seized him. He jerked his phone out of his pocket and checked the time to see that yes, in fact, he was going to be late.
“Fuck!” Kaveh spun around and threw the door open.
“I’ll lock it,” said Al-Haitham.
“Thank you!”
Then, Kaveh shoved his keys in his pocket and dashed to the bus stop, thinking about how stupid he was for thinking Al-Haitham was going to kiss him, and worrying about how stressful this bet would actually be.
-
Kaveh had met Al-Haitham in undergrad.
He’d been a junior and Al-Haitham had been a freshman. At first, Kaveh never thought he would’ve become friends with a freshman of all things—he was grown, he was older and wiser, he simply didn’t have the patience to deal with overconfident eighteen-year-olds the way he had to once before.
And Al-Haitham certainly acted like an over-confident freshman. They’d met in a philosophy class they were both taking to satisfy a gen ed requirement. Kaveh had responded to something the professor had said, and then Al-Haitham had raised his hand immediately after to argue against him. That had snowballed into a five minute long argument before the professor interrupted them both to say, “While I appreciate your enthusiasm on this topic, for the sake of timing, I need to ask the both of you to continue this conversation outside of class.”
Kaveh’s face had burned because he’d never gotten in trouble with a professor before, let alone a reprimand. But there was something to be said about the way Al-Haitham brought out the worst in him—or something like that. After class, Kaveh had marched out into the hall determined to leave the god awful memory behind him, except Al-Haitham had come running out after him all the way outside of the building just to talk to him.
He’d said something obnoxious and pretentious like, “While I admire your insistence to adhering to your views, these are a few areas where your reasoning breaks down.” To which Kaveh had said something like, paraphrased, “Okay, well you’re a dick also and here’s where your reasoning breaks down and have you ever heard of differing philosophies and multiple truths coexisting?”
They’d argued all the way to the other side of campus where Al-Haitham’s next class was. Kaveh knew because Al-Haitham had cut him off right in the middle of his sentence just to tell him so.
And Kaveh had thought that would be the end of it, thought that he would leave this annoying freshman behind and never have to think about him again. Except, Al-Haitham then said, “If you gave me your number, we could continue this discussion later.”
Kaveh should have scoffed. Kaveh should have laughed and walked away. But he couldn’t remember what twist of fate had compelled him to say yes, he only remembered reluctantly swapping phones with Al-Haitham and typing in his number. Al-Haitham returned his phone and Kaveh had set his contact name as, Little Fucker. He’d managed to get a peak of Al-Haitham’s phone and saw that Al-Haitham had named him, Kaveh Philosophy.
Then, Al-Haitham had turned and left.
Kaveh had fully believed the conversation would end there. Except Al-Haitham did, in fact, text him later that evening, picking up with startling recollection where they’d left off. Kaveh had responded and the next thing he knew, it was two in the morning and he hadn’t done any of his homework. He texted Al-Haitham, Let’s continue this later, to which Al-Haitham had responded, Will you be at the dining hall tomorrow morning?
And so, that was how Kaveh’s strangest friendship formed: from pissing off a professor, pissing off each other, and arguing all the way until he found himself lonely without Al-Haitham’s presence. It was startling and strange, but Al-Haitham just got him in a way no one else did. Kaveh had never expected he’d find that in his lifetime, let alone from a random philosophy gen ed in the first week of his junior year.
Then senior year came and everything fell apart. Al-Haitham and Kaveh had been studying in Kaveh’s apartment—well, “studying” because they spent over half of it arguing over the meaning of an indie movie Al-Haitham had to watch for one of his classes. Then, one of Kaveh’s group mates texted him about their group project, said something about his grandmother not doing well and he wouldn’t be able to finish his part even though the project was due tomorrow.
“No worries,” Kaveh had said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You will not,” said Al-Haitham. “This is the fifth time this has happened this semester. Aren’t you getting suspicious?”
“It’s not my place to be suspicious or not,” Kaveh had argued. “What if something’s actually wrong with his grandmother? I don’t want to make it worse by acting suspicious.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Excuse me?”
He’d whirled on Al-Haitham, remembered his face—clear as day—Al-Haitham standing there with his arms crossed and his eyebrows flat and unamused, not a touch of remorse, just the cold hard truth of it spitting him in the face.
“You are,” said Al-Haitham. “Even when you’re tearing yourself apart over your own work and your assignments, you still prioritize everyone else apart?”
Kaveh’s throat went hot. “I’m not—tearing myself apart.”
Al-Haitham gave him a flat look. “This is the first time I’ve been able to drag you away from the library all week. And this is the first time you’ve eaten a fruit in two weeks.”
“What do you know?” Kaveh had spat.
“I know you,” said Al-Haitham. “And you’re being taken advantage of.”
“I am not.”
“You are. You try to please everyone, even people who don’t care about you, and that’s why everyone walks over you like a doormat.”
It must have been the sleep deprivation, the fatigue, the culmination of an entirely too stressful week overflowing into a not-so-gentle scolding from someone that was supposed to be his friend.
Kaveh had stood, pissed. “Well. If that’s what you think…”
“It’s the clear truth.” Al-Haitham’s gaze did not falter.
Kaveh grabbed his bag off the ground. “Alright. If that’s what you think, I’ll just leave then.”
The first flash of alarm crossed Al-Haitham’s face. “Kaveh—”
“Don’t.” Kaveh held up a hand as he yanked his shoes on. “I think you’ve said enough.”
“It’s late.”
“Another clear truth you’re stating?” Kaveh yanked the door open. “Don’t text me.”
Then he’d left. He remembered thinking that he should have known better. He should’ve known better than to look at Al-Haitham for comfort when he could offer none. Kaveh had known Al-Haitham to be blunt with his words, but had never thought he himself would be cut by such cruelty. It caught him off guard. It made his throat tight. It made him so mad.
And so, senior year ended with a broken friendship whose jagged edges still sliced at him years later. Kaveh and Al-Haitham—the most obnoxious fuckers in PHILO1338—had fallen apart. Kaveh had said, Don’t text me, and for once, Al-Haitham listened. They didn’t talk for the rest of the week, and then the rest of the month, and then the rest of the semester. Kaveh walked across the stage at graduation without so much as a hint of Al-Haitham, as if he’d vanished from his life entirely.
Kaveh went like that for years: wandering Teyvat alone, following wherever the glow of his title shined brightest, kissing strangers and missing his friends and still going, going, going all the while. Then, later—much later—when all of that fell to shit and he found himself homeless and back in the same city he’d grown up in, Al-Haitham was suddenly there again. Door open. Palm open. An olive branch after years of silence— come stay with me. And so he did.
There was something to be said about their friendship—that they broke, that wandered the world separately for years, and then all of a sudden they were living together again, arguing again, talking again. They’d broken and still they were able to put themselves back together again which was more than Kaveh had ever expected, and something he would never stop being grateful for. That even after all these years, you could still fix a broken thing no matter how long you’d left the pieces laying.
It was a lovely thought—that something so intangible, so ephemeral, so unexpected yet sincere really could last after all.
-
When Kaveh got home, Al-Haitham was in the living room standing next to a whiteboard large enough to span the width of their carpet. There was a T-shaped diagram drawn on it in black marker with three headers labeled, Yes, Maybe, No.
“Where the fuck did you get that?” Kaveh couldn’t stop staring at it as he set his backpack down.
“My room,” said Al-Haitham.
“What— where?” Kaveh had wandered into Al-Haitham’s room dozens of times before but he swore to every Archon out there that he had never seen this gods-damned whiteboard before.
“Behind my headboard,” said Al-Haitham, as if it were the most ordinary place to put a classroom-sized whiteboard.
“When did you get that?”
“Oh.” Al-Haitham tapped his chin with his marker. Then said, “Two years ago,” and did not elaborate.
Kaveh stared at him. “Okay. Okay, what’s this?” He gestured at the diagram.
“We’re talking about the terms of this relationship,” said Al-Haitham. “As I mentioned earlier this morning.”
“I didn’t think you’d get this official about it.” Kaveh took a seat on the couch and looked up warily at Al-Haitham. “Well…what did you have in mind?”
Al-Haitham, surprisingly, pulled out his phone. “I found an article with a list of things couples do. I’ll read each item out loud and you tell me which category to place it in.”
“You found…an article.”
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes, I did. I figured it would be more productive to have a pre-written list than come up with ideas on the spot.”
“I—” Kaveh really couldn’t argue with that logic. Even if it was stupid. “I guess.”
Al-Haitham seemed to take that as confirmation to continue. He lifted his phone and began.
“First, hand holding.”
Kaveh choked on his spit.
“What?” Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow.
“Nothing.” Kaveh still hadn’t quite processed that they were technically dating, and his busy day at work didn’t give him any space to think about it either. Suddenly talking about it with a fucking whiteboard in front of him made it all the more real.
“Well?” Al-Haitham tapped the whiteboard impatiently with the marker cap.
“Fine,” he managed to force out. It was just hand-holding. He could platonically hold a friend’s hand. He could hold Al-Haitham’s, too.
Al-Haitham wrote HAND HOLDING under the Yes column. “Hugging.”
Kaveh looked at him. “We already do that.”
“When you get your heart broken.”
“So? That doesn’t make it any less of a hug.”
“Yes or no, Kaveh.” Al-Haitham gave him a flat look.
Kaveh waved his hand. “Yes, yes, fine whatever.”
Al-Haitham wrote it down. “Kissing.”
Kaveh choked again.
“What?” Al-Haitham asked with a little more annoyance in his voice.
A nervous laugh bubbled out of his throat. “Haha, um. Kiss, like, on the mouth?”
“That’s what couples do, according to this article. And according to past events where I came out to find you and someone else occupying the couch—”
“Okay!” His face flamed hot. “I already apologized for all of those times.”
Al-Haitham’s face was unamused. “Yes or no, Kaveh?”
“Um.” Kaveh wondered how red his face looked. He felt so warm that the back of his scalp felt itchy, and suddenly being faced with Al-Haitham’s unwavering stare asking if he wanted to kiss him became too much. “Can we…get back to this?”
“Just make a decision,” said Al-Haitham. “Unless…you don’t think you could win this bet unless you refrain from kissing me.”
The knot in his chest tightened, and he could feel the streak of competitiveness blazing through his skull.
“I know what you’re doing,” said Kaveh through gritted teeth.
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow. “Is it working?”
He saw the taunt from a mile away but he still couldn’t help leaning towards it. That was the worst part of their friendship, of knowing someone so closely: they knew how to push all your buttons, and Al-Haitham tap danced on Kaveh’s last nerve every single day.
Kaveh clenched his hands into fists on top of the couch cushion, digging his nails into his skin before he screamed.
He let out a growl of frustration. “Ugh, fine. Put it under Yes. But, like, you have to warn me first.”
“Noted.” The corner of Al-Haitham’s mouth ticked up, as if the bastard was amused. But Kaveh only caught the tail end of his smile as Al-Haitham turned and wrote KISSING right under all the other items.
The next half hour was spent reading the list and sorting them into categories. Stargaze? Yes. Go on walks? Yes. Exercise together? No. Bake together? Maybe. Grocery shop together? They do that already. Provide emotional support? They also do that already, though Al-Haitham’s brand of care had an acquired taste. Cuddle? “Maybe,” Kaveh had said through the heat of his face.
“Make a playlist together,” read Al-Haitham.
“Pass. I don’t trust your music taste.”
Al-Haitham wasn’t even phased. “Wine tasting—”
“Yes. Yes, yes, please.”
Al-Haitham snorted. “Sleeping togeth—”
Al-Haitham clamped his mouth shut.
Kaveh’s face burned. “I am not having sex with you.”
“I think,” said Al-Haitham delicately, “it meant…sharing a bed. But regardless, it doesn’t matter to me either way.”
Which was Al-Haitham’s very Al-Haitham way of saying, It doesn’t matter because I wouldn’t sleep with you anyway.
A little tick of outrage burned through the embarrassment. So much so that Kaveh burst, “Wait, what the fuck? Why wouldn’t you sleep with me?”
“I thought you didn’t want to have sex with me,” said Al-Haitham flatly.
“I don’t . But like, is there something wrong with me?”
Al-Haitham sighed. “I’m putting ‘sharing a bed’ under No.”
“Don’t avoid the question.”
Al-Haitham turned to him with an unamused look. “Why does it matter if we’re not going to sleep with each other?”
“It’s the principle of it!”
Al-Haitham gave him a flat look. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Just that this arrangement won’t have any of…that. Right?”
Kaveh, despite everything, actually considered it for a brief second. Just a thought. What if they did? Wouldn’t that be part of the full dating experience? But then what would happen to their friendship afterwards? Kaveh had never stayed in contact with any of his exes, so how could he look someone he’d slept with in the eye again and pretend like it was nothing?
No, that was a line he couldn’t cross.
“Correct,” said Kaveh.
“Good,” said Al-Haitham. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
Then, mortifyingly, he wrote SEX under the No column.
Kaveh pressed the backs of his hands to his cheeks, felt the burn of his skin before dropping his arms.
“Are we done?” he grumbled.
Al-Haitham scrolled down on his phone, then looked up. “Yes, we are.”
“Great.” Kaveh stood. “Wonderful. Can I leave now?”
Al-Haitham took a picture of the whiteboard and a moment later, Kaveh’s phone buzzed with the notification. Then, Al-Haitham took a rag and wiped it clean. “Yes, you can.”
“Thank the gods.” Kaveh stood and meant to walk to his room, but then he remembered the hour and paused. “Um, what are we making for dinner tonight?”
Al-Haitham had begun to roll the whiteboard away, but he stopped at Kaveh’s words.
“Masgouf,” he said simply. “I bought a fish on the way back from work.”
“Oh.” Despite himself, Kaveh brightened. He loved Al-Haitham’s masgouf. He never would have expected it in his college days, but Al-Haitham really was a cook. “Cool.”
Al-Haitham’s face did something funny—it looked like it was about to smile. “I’m going to put the whiteboard away and then I’ll be in the kitchen. If you want to help.”
They always helped each other cook, even if sometimes it meant getting in the way of each other in the kitchen.
“Yeah, of course.”
So, Al-Haitham put his absurd whiteboard away and Kaveh went to the kitchen to start pulling out the ingredients from the fridge. When Al-Haitham returned, he put an apron on and forced one over Kaveh’s head, like he usually did.
They cooked together the way they usually did and it almost felt ordinary. And if Al-Haitham stood a little closer than normal, if their shoulders brushed a little more than usual, then Kaveh tried not to think about it.
-
The next morning when Kaveh woke up for work, he did his usual routine of arguing with Al-Haitham, making coffee, and then running towards the door when he realized he was late. He was slipping his shoes on and about to leave when Al-Haitham stopped him again.
“You’re forgetting your keys again.” He reached up behind Kaveh’s head like the morning before.
“Oh, fuck off—” He cut off when he felt Al-Haitham’s hand graze his ear, hot and alarming.
“Here,” said Al-Haitham, perfectly nonchalant.
Kaveh’s heart thudded in his chest. It was one thing to know that they were technically dating, and it was another thing to know they were technically dating. Yesterday’s debrief must have thoroughly fucked with his head because Kaveh suddenly couldn’t look Al-Haitham in the face. Couldn’t bear the weight of his eyes.
“Thanks,” he muttered, focusing on the couch behind Al-Haitham.
Al-Haitham grabbed his wrist—gently, but it was still a shock to his system. Al-Haitham moved the hand up until Kaveh’s palm was open and flat towards the ceiling. Then, he dropped the key in Kaveh’s hand.
“I’ll see you in the afternoon.” Al-Haitham dropped his hand, leaving a ring of fire around his wrist. “Don’t be late.”
Kaveh blinked, snapping out of his daze. “What? Why?”
“I’m taking you on our first date,” he said simply, as if it were a simple declaration of the weather and not a situation even the strongest Naku weed could make Kaveh hallucinate. “The reservation’s at six-thirty.”
“Oh.” He blinked once. Twice. “What are we doing?”
“Come home on time and you’ll see.” Then, Al-Haitham did another unexpected thing: he placed his hand on Kaveh’s shoulder and gave it a light shove. “Go. You’re going to be late.”
And it was that shove that made Kaveh finally move again. He turned and ran out the door before he could lose his nerve and call the whole thing off.
-
Al-Haitham had found Kaveh in one of their old college bars, destitute. Before he’d moved in with Al-Haitham, before he rekindled their old friendship, Kaveh had lost all of his savings building his magnum opus at the grand age of twenty-six, and to deal with it, he’d gone to Lambad’s Tavern just a few blocks south of campus to drink his weight in beer.
He remembered not having the money to buy all that beer, but he’d swiped his credit card anyway. What did it matter? He was already broke, what did a few tens more make?
“Do you remember me, Lambad?” he’d asked, six beers in.
“There are a lot of faces that come in here, kid.” Lambad was wiping the tables.
“I graduated four years ago.” Four years of mistakes and tromping around and being young and foolish. “I used to come here with my friends.”
“I’m sure you did.”
Kaveh took another swig of beer. “I’m the first one to come back here. Isn’t that sad?”
That gave Lambad pause. “Why do you say that?”
“I’m drunk,” said Kaveh, slamming the beer bottle down on the table a little too hard. “And old. And sad.”
“You’re still in your twenties.”
“I remember you.” Kaveh pointed sharply at him. “You let me cut ahead to get water for my friend.”
“I’m…sure I did that.”
“All of my other friends are doing things except me. Well, I was doing stuff, but not now.” Now he was broke and sad and probably the oldest patron at this seedy college bar. Kaveh dropped his hand and stared at it, curling over the dark wood of the table. “I don’t think I’m worth remembering anymore.”
He couldn’t see Lambad’s face, but the following silence said enough about his reaction. Behind him, there was a shriek of laughter followed by a chorus of voices all chattering about the same thing. This bar was far too alive for him, far too happy.
“...I think you’ve had enough to drink.”
There was a tug at the beer bottle in his hand and Kaveh instinctually tightened his grip. There was a slightly harder tug that had Kaveh jerking his face up.
“I’m not done with that,” said Kaveh.
“I think you should be.” Lambad pulled harder.
“Hey—”
“Kaveh?”
He froze. He hadn’t heard that voice in years.
Lambad took the opportunity to finally yank the bottle out of Kaveh’s hand, but he hardly noticed. He was too busy trying to figure out if he was dreaming or if this was some alcohol-induced hallucination. He remembered the shame crawling hot down his neck at the thought of being caught fighting with the bartender, and he remembered the fear that this was real, and the fear that it wasn’t.
Kaveh took a shuddering breath and turned around.
There was Al-Haitham, standing in the shadows of their old stomping grounds. He looked different than when Kaveh had last seen him: hair longer, eyes sharper, arms bigger, but the slant to his mouth was the same. The questioning eyebrow was the same.
Kaveh snatched his hands back. “Sorry,” he muttered to Lambad.
“Oh.” Lambad looked between them. “Maybe I do remember you two.”
Kaveh couldn’t take it. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw you through the window,” said Al-Haitham, and even his voice sounded deeper, “and wanted to ask you the same thing.”
Kaveh snorted. It wasn’t funny, but he couldn’t help it anyway. “Am I not allowed to visit home?”
Al-Haitham stared at him, and Kaveh remembered all over again how it felt to be scrutinized by him. Like Al-Haitham could see straight through the bullshit into the thing you weren’t saying.
Finally, he asked, “Where are you staying?”
Of course, that was a reasonable question. They’d been best friends once, so of course Kaveh told Al-Haitham all about his childhood, what happened to his father, the way his mother sold the house and left. There was nowhere in Sumeru City for him to stay.
“Nowhere.” Kaveh laughed again. “I’m broke.”
A glass-shattering silence dropped between them. The bar was still lively, but the space between Kaveh and Al-Haitham suddenly felt cold. Kaveh waited for the jab, the snide comment, the ‘I told you so.’ He braced himself for it.
“Come stay with me then.”
The cold broke over him. “What?”
“Come stay with me,” said Al-Haitham. “Since you have nowhere to go.”
“What?”
Then came the exasperated look. “Do you want me to repeat it a third time?”
“Are you serious?”
Al-Haitham rolled his eyes. “If I wasn’t serious, I wouldn’t be offering.”
Kaveh jerked to his feet, then swayed because of the six bottles of beer sloshing around inside of him. Al-Haitham lurched forward, as if to catch him, but Kaveh righted himself with the edge of the bar counter.
“Sure,” said Kaveh. “Why not?” It wasn’t like he had anything else left to lose.
So, with Al-Haitham’s help, Kaveh paid his tab with his debt-filled credit card and then staggered out of the bar into the night. The sky cracked open before them and they’d gone from a slow drag down the hill to a mad dash to the nearest awning so they could call a car and escape the rain.
Later, Al-Haitham offered a towel and a change of clothes to Kaveh. Later, Kaveh showered and took the guest bed in Al-Haitham’s two-bedroom apartment. Later, Kaveh would wake up and find breakfast at the table. He would sit and eat it and then sit there longer, wondering when the threshold of Al-Haitham’s patience would be crossed, wondering how long he was allowed to take up space before he got punted out.
Kaveh had thought the Come stay with me had been an invitation for the night, just long enough to sleep off his hangover and get on with his sad miserable life. But Al-Haitham never told him to leave, so Kaveh never stopped using the towel Al-Haitham lent him and kept sleeping in the guest bed. Then, one day, when the new lease rolled over, Al-Haitham asked Kaveh if he officially wanted to sign onto the property.
And Kaveh, still unsure if he was dreaming, said yes.
-
Al-Haitham took them painting.
Pottery painting, to be exact. They went to a place nestled in a tiny corner downtown called Pottery Paints which was a women-owned business apparently lasting ten years. The way it worked was that you would choose a plain pottery object to paint and then select the glaze colors. It would be fired, and then you could pick it up a week later.
Kaveh had been terrified the entire workday that they were doing something big and dramatic and romantic, like dinner at a fancy restaurant. He spent all morning thinking about what fancy clothes he should wear and if he had time to iron his nice shirts and if he had to squeeze into his uncomfortable nice shoes only to come home to Al-Haitham wearing sweats and a T-shirt.
“Ready?” asked Al-Haitham.
“Um,” said Kaveh, sweating. “I guess.”
Al-Haitham had taken them to the car where Kaveh proceeded to bounce his leg the entire twenty minute ride. He was still sweating, all the way up until they got to the building and his nerves shifted to confusion because this didn’t look like a restaurant. He stepped out of the car and walked up to the front door, but not before Al-Haitham could come up and open the door for him.
“After you,” said Al-Haitham in that voice that could have been taunting or could have been fully serious.
Kaveh was charmed the instant he walked in. There was a pile of lace and stamps on a table right at the front of the door. The walls were painted yellow. And every table was a different shape, every chair a different height, and the employees’ own painted pottery sat as decoration all around the space. It was so lovely that all of his nerves melted away, and he was almost offended that he hadn’t found this place for a date first.
“So, did you just, like, Akasha search, ‘cute date places,’ until you found this place or…?” Kaveh asked as they waited for one of the women to finish with the current customer.
“No,” said Al-Haitham. “I already knew of this place.”
“And you never told me?”
“Why would you need to know?”
“Because it’s cute! I could have taken Sandhya here and maybe she wouldn’t have broken up with me!”
Al-Haitham gave him a flat look. “I highly doubt a single date here could have fixed that relationship.”
Sandhya had been a mess. So, so kind and so brilliant, but still so deeply in love with her ex. So.
“Rude.” Kaveh huffed. “You never know.”
Al-Haitham gave him a look that said, Oh, I know.
The two customers in front of them suddenly moved away, led to a cute circular table by another employee. Al-Haitham pushed Kaveh forward with a light touch to the small of his back before drawing his hand away and saying, “Reservation for six-thirty.”
Kaveh had to bite back a gasp. Of all things, he wasn’t used to Al-Haitham touching him so casually. Normally, he’d be more likely to shoulder check Kaveh forward and then make a snide comment about standing in the way. But certainly not this. His skin tingled where Al-Haitham’s hand had touched him over the fabric.
This is a date, he reminded himself. So maybe that was why Al-Haitham had touched him there. To…act more couple-y?
“This way, please.” The woman behind the counter stepped around and led them inwards.
They could choose any of the plain pottery on the shelves lining the wall, she explained. And the prices were written in pencil somewhere on the figures. The lace and stamps on that table over there are for help with making patterns. After, they could look at the glazed tiles mounted on the wall to choose what colors to paint their pottery.
“You only get six colors,” she said. “But you can get as many refills as you’d like.”
“Maybe we can share colors,” Kaveh murmured under his breath. “So we can use more than six.”
“Say that again a little louder,” said Al-Haitham dryly. “I don’t think she quite heard you.”
Kaveh shot a glance at the woman, but she just gave him an amused smile.
“Heard what?” she whispered conspiratorially, and Kaveh decided he liked her right then and there. Then, she gestured toward a table resting under the window.
“That’s your table. Let me know if you need anything.” Then, she was gone.
Kaveh turned to Al-Haitham. “Shall we?”
“Sure.”
Kaveh took off toward the back wall that was stacked with fun figurines, like animals and mushrooms and even a game controller.
“Mohammad would have found this one funny.” Kaveh lifted it up.
“Would he,” said Al-Haitham wryly.
“Yeah. Too bad he broke up with me to go back to his toxic ex.” Kaveh sighed.
Al-Haitham said nothing.
Kaveh continued to search the shelves, jumping from the bowls to the figurines to the leaf dishes and back. Surprisingly, Al-Haitham didn’t complain at his indecision, just hummed along to Kaveh’s musings on why he should or should not pick an object.
“What would I do with a yarn bowl? My mom doesn’t even knit.”
“I don’t think the mugs would be dishwasher safe.”
“I can’t pick a rabbit.That was Rishi’s favorite animal.”
“I highly doubt the glaze would be food safe enough to eat off of.”
“Megha would have really liked the fairy—”
“Do you always talk about your exes this much in front of your current partner?” Al-Haitham interrupted.
Kaveh flinched. “Ah…”
Right. Right, because…they were technically partners. Al-Haitham was currently, technically, his boyfriend. Shit.
“No…I don’t.”
“Then don’t do it around me.” Al-Haitham then turned and pulled out his phone.
If Kaveh didn’t know any better, he would have thought Al-Haitham sounded…mad.
“Gods, I’m sorry.” Kaveh turned to the shelves. “Force of habit.” As in, whenever he needed to complain about a partner or ex, Al-Haitham was always the first person he turned to. He’d forgotten that in this specific arrangement, doing that might be…in poor taste.
Kaveh continued the rest of his search in silence, picking his way through the shelves while Al-Haitham read Archons knew what on his phone.
Finally, his gaze caught on a small bird shoved into a corner behind two different cat figurines. Gently, he pushed the cats aside and plucked the bird out from its hiding place.
It was small—so small he could wrap his fist around it. It was shaped like a falcon—proud and fierce-looking with its sharp teeth and angled eyes, wings folded gracefully against its body. But looking at its eyes, the downturned curve of its beak, the puffed chest, Kaveh almost thought it looked like—
“What are you doing?” Al-Haitham looked up from his phone.
Kaveh was holding up the bird and staring at Al-Haitham’s face right next to it, swallowing down his laughter at the resemblance. He almost wanted to tell him. Just to see his face scrunch up at being compared to a bird.
“Nothing.” Kaveh hid his smile. “Now let’s find you something.”
Al-Haitham didn’t move. He stayed at the shelf in front of them before his eyes widened slightly like he’d spotted something good. Kaveh watched him push aside the mushrooms to pull out a nearly spherical frog with a gaping, open mouth with wide, bulging eyes.
“What the fuck is that?” Kaveh stared at it in disgust.
The corner of Al-Haitham’s mouth twitched. He lifted the frog higher and looked Kaveh straight in the eye. “You don’t think it’s cute?”
“Oh no. Oh no, you are not painting that and you are not using that to decorate our apartment.”
“Who’s the one paying for this date?”
A shiver of rage rolled through him. “Oh my gods, fuck you. Pick something else.”
Al-Haitham’s smile went imperceptibly wider. “I think I’ll keep this one.”
“Al-Haitham.”
“Oh, calm down. We still have to pick our colors.”
Kaveh sucked in a breath, counted to ten, and then blew it out. He knew that Al-Haitham knew exactly what he was doing, which meant the harder he pushed, the harder Al-Haitham would push back.
“Fine,” he muttered.
Al-Haitham let out a quiet snort.
They walked to the wall with a spray of tiles, all of them painted with different glazes and labeled with different numbers. Underneath the tiles sat little squares of paper and small golf pencils to mark down the numbers of the colors. Kaveh stepped closer to peer at two different shades of green when Al-Haitham suddenly stepped next to him, close enough to press their shoulders together.
“Um, excuse me?” Kaveh glanced at him.
Al-Haitham didn’t even look at him. “I’m looking at these reds.”
Kaveh shuffled over an inch just so they weren’t squished together. “Okay…”
After a few more minutes, they both chose their colors. They gave the papers to the woman behind the counter and she filled up the color palettes and then they were off to their little table nestled under the window.
His shoulder was still warm from where Al-Haitham had pressed into him, and it unnerved him. First the hand on his back, then the shoulders pressed together. What was Al-Haitham doing?
Was it because they were technically on a date? Was this Al-Haitham’s idea of being a boyfriend?
Kaveh flushed warm—out of embarrassment or something else he didn’t know. But when he looked up again, saw Al-Haitham’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration through the silver curtain of his hair, he could only think, That’s my boyfriend right now.
He shuddered.
“What?”
Al-Haitham lifted his head because he saw Kaveh shiver. Of course he noticed, there wasn’t a person more attuned to details than Al-Haitham.
“Nothing.” Kaveh ducked his head and dipped his brush in the first glaze color.
They were on a date. They were dating. Al-Haitham was his boyfriend.
What the fuck?
Kaveh painted his bird and tried not to think too hard. He could hear the other patrons around them chatting, talking in low voices with the occasional laughter. There were different groups of people in the building: friends, families, a few couples, and even a birthday party with a table of six people. The point was: all of them were talking except them.
He couldn’t take it anymore. Kaveh finally kicked a leg out and tapped Al-Haitham’s foot under the table.
Al-Haitham lifted his head. “What?”
“If this is your idea of a date,” said Kaveh. “Then I’m sorry to tell you but it kind of sucks.”
He expected Al-Haitham to scoff, to turn and say, Well, if you don’t like the date then you can go.
Instead, Al-Haitham furrowed his eyebrows and frowned. “What’s wrong with it?”
Kaveh hadn't expected him to look genuinely ruffled. Hadn't expected the little crease between his eyebrows and the pull of his frown like he was deep in thought, earnestly, genuinely trying to figure out what was wrong.
It tugged at something tender in his chest, like a fish hook through the meat of his heart.
“We’re not talking,” said Kaveh, a little gentler.
“We always talk,” said Al-Haitham.
“Al-Haitham.” Kaveh placed a hand on the table. “The first date is where you’re supposed to learn things about each other. How are we supposed to do that if we don’t talk?”
“I already know things about you.”
Kaveh smiled at that. “True, but as a friend. Not as…” He coughed. “Not as my, um, boyfriend. So, you’ll have to try a little harder than that.”
Al-Haitham’s resulting frown was the closest approximation of being a pout that someone with his facial structure could have.
Kaveh couldn’t help it—he laughed.
Al-Haitham furrowed his eyebrows. “What?”
There. Al-Haitham almost sounded grumpy.
Before he could register what he was thinking, he said, “You’re cute when you’re mad.”
Al-Haitham’s eyebrows climbed all the way up to his forehead, face full of so much genuine shock it startled another laugh out of him.
“What? ” Al-Haitham repeated.
Kaveh shoved his clean fist into his mouth to bite down on his laughter, but he could still feel his smile leaking around the sides. Al-Haitham was still looking at him, absolutely bewildered.
“I’m not mad,” said Al-Haitham gruffly.
“Really? Because I can see a frown right here—”
Kaveh reached across the table and poked Al-Haitham in the cheek, right where the dimple should be.
Al-Haitham flinched away. “Is there a point to this?”
Kaveh leaned back, laughing again. “The point is: we’re on a date, so ask me a question.”
“Okay.” Al-Haitham eyed him warily. “What is your problem?”
“Okay, first of all. Fuck you.”
The corner of Al-Haitham’s mouth twitched.
“Second of all—” Kaveh hadn’t thought this far. “Second of all…you made a big deal about being my partner earlier but now you’re not trying. You haven’t done one boyfriend-ly thing.”
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow. “What would count as ‘boyfriend-ly?’”
Kaveh flushed. “Um.”
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
Archons, what did he want Al-Haitham to do? Did he even want Al-Haitham to do anything?
“I don’t know.” Kaveh gestured. “Ask me a different question. Try getting to know me.”
“Alright. What’s your issue with my frog?”
“Oh my gods.”
Al-Haitham barked out a laugh, full-bellied and resonant. It was so startling that Kaveh nearly dropped his paintbrush. He watched the laugh settle into a smile, and then into a pressed mouth and a raised eyebrow, still glowing with amusement.
“Well?”
Kaveh kicked him under the table. “It’s ugly and I know you chose it to piss me off on purpose.”
“Kicking me under the table? Now who’s not the one doing boyfriend-ly things.”
Kaveh jabbed his paintbrush at Al-Haitham. Or, he meant to, but he forgot about the green glaze still wet on the brush and when he flicked it in Al-Haitham’s direction, a little bit of glaze landed on his cheek.
“Oh fuck.” Kaveh stood and leaned over the table. “Fuck, sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”
He grabbed the side of Al-Haitham’s face and used his thumb to wipe the glaze off. A little green still remained on his cheek, but it was less enough that it eased his guilt.
But then he caught a glimpse of the wicked glint in Al-Haitham’s eye and he felt something wet streak across his nose. Kaveh went cross-eyed to see the red now painted on his nose.
“What the hell?”
“Now we’re even,” said Al-Haitham simply.
Kaveh’s arm stuck out faster than he could think, drawing another wet smear on Al-Haitham’s cheek.
Al-Haitham retaliated immediately, slashing another streak across Kaveh’s exposed forearm. Kaveh painted his shoulder. Al-Haitham painted his hand.
They devolved into splattering glaze onto any exposed skin. Kaveh didn’t know when he started laughing, only that his stomach started to ache so he leaned back in his chair. Al-Haitham must have been laughing too because there was a spark in his eye that Kaveh only saw when Al-Haitham gave one of his rare smiles.
Eventually the glaze ran out on their paintbrushes and Kaveh fell back into his chair, still laughing, still aching. Al-Haitham’s knee was pressed against his own under the table, warm and firm. Like the hand on his back. Like the place in his life: steady, present, enduring. There was a smile on Al-Haitham’s face that he’d never seen before, and it cut him through the chest.
Things Kaveh knew but finally learned: Al-Haitham could smile, but rarely. His teeth were straight and white and Kaveh knew this was only because Al-Haitham had told him he’d had braces but rarely did he ever feel that smile turned on him.
“We’re gonna get kicked out,” Kaveh breathed out through his laughter.
“We are not.” But even Al-Haitham didn’t sound so certain.
“If we get kicked out, I’m blaming you.”
“You were the one to get glaze on me first.”
“On accident. You retaliated.”
“Convenient excuse.”
“You know it was an accident.”
Al-Haitham’s knee was still warm under the table. Neither of them had moved.
After a long moment, Al-Haitham said, “I need to refill my glaze.”
“Because you painted all over me,” snorted Kaveh. “I do, too. Wait for me.”
“Wait.” Al-Haitham stopped him. “We should clean off before we go to the front.”
“Ah.” Kaveh took one look at his glaze-streaked face and nodded. “Right. Smart.”
Luckily, the bathroom was right behind him. The building was small enough that the bathroom was a single room with no stalls. Al-Haitham and Kaveh crowded into the room together before shutting the door and grabbing paper towels out of a basket to wipe off the paint on their skin. Al-Haitham, of course, took up all the counter space in front of the mirror, so Kaveh stood off to the side to wipe off the glaze.
“Are you done yet?” Al-Haitham turned to him, face spotless.
“Almost.”
“Well, hurry up.”
“If you let me stand in front of the mirror, then I could—”
“Wait.” Al-Haitham stopped him. “You’ve got a spot here.”
Before Kaveh could take his next breath, Al-Haitham was reaching up and brushing his thumb at the corner of his mouth. Kaveh’s pulse hiccuped. When had glaze gotten near his mouth? How had he not felt it?
His face was burning when Al-Haitham pulled his hand away, thumb a teal green. He rinsed his hand under the sink and then turned to Kaveh.
“Done now?”
Kaveh blinked, a little unsteady on his feet. He shot a glance at himself in the mirror and confirmed that there was no more glaze anywhere, so he nodded.
“Sure.”
“Great.”
They stepped out of the bathroom, now clean, and very unsuspiciously asked for more glaze from the woman at the front. Yes, all six colors please. She refilled their palettes with a smile with no anger in sight, which told them that perhaps their antics had not been heard by the front. When they walked back, though, the nearby table was glaring at them.
“Sorry,” Kaveh mouthed before sitting down.
“Truce?” asked Al-Haitham, eyebrow raised.
Kaveh narrowed his eyes. “I don’t trust your truce.”
“Well, it’s that or we are at danger of spending the rest of this date at odds with each other.”
Kaveh stared at him, the word pinging around his head like a pinball, each ricochet echoing the same thing: Date. Date. Date.
“When are we not at odds with each other?” Kaveh licked his lips.
Al-Haitham kicked him lightly under the table, just shoe against shoe. “I can always paint you again.”
“Fuck! Fine, fine. Truce.” Kaveh glared. “Very reluctantly from me.”
It almost looked like Al-Haitham was smiling.
Before Kaveh could comment on it, Al-Haitham was speaking again. “Tell me about work today.”
All of his previous anger rushed out of him, replaced with a rush of annoyance. “Oh my gods, let me tell you about work today.”
Kaveh launched into a rant about all of his annoying coworkers and the terrible bureaucratic bullshit of the firm. It was part of their daily routine: Al-Haitham returned from work first, then Kaveh, then Kaveh would start bitching about his day while Al-Haitham started getting dinner ready. But they missed this part two days in a row now, so they had a lot to make up for.
It was like they were home. Like they were back in their apartment instead of on a “date” at a pottery cafe Al-Haitham found on a whim. Kaveh’s shoulders sagged as he leaned into the familiar feeling. Finally, something about the night felt right.
-
It was fully dark by the time they left. All the orange and pink from the sky bled into the dark purple of the night—a yawning open sky pierced only by stars and street lamps. It was cooler out now, cool enough that Kaveh almost felt like he could use a jacket, but nights in Sumeru were for the young and the bare-skinned, all the heat and humidity of the forest wrapping around like a blanket.
On the drive home, Al-Haitham asked, “What would you rate the date?”
Kaveh nearly choked on his spit. “Damn, you’re just starting with that?”
“Answer the question, Kaveh.”
He thought about it for a moment. Thought about how he’d started the night terrified because he couldn’t handle having a fancy dinner with Al-Haitham, then how charmed he’d been by the pottery cafe and how that fear had morphed to wonder. His stomach still ached from laughing when they smeared glaze all over each other, and he could feel the phantom chill of a wet paintbrush still grazing his cheek.
“It was good.” Kaveh looked ahead through the dark, the headlights of the car nearly blinding.
Al-Haitham kept his eyes straight on the road. “...really?”
“Yeah.” Kaveh exhaled. He meant it. “I had a good time.”
“Ah. That’s…good to know.” There was a stiffness in his voice that conjured up the image of a throat stretched too wide around a word. It was the closest Al-Haitham had ever come to sounding awkward.
“Did you not believe in your date-making skills?”
“I’m just noting down the results of this experience,” said Al-Haitham. “Considering…I’ve never done this before.”
Kaveh whirled on him. “Never done this before like…taken someone on a pottery date? Or…just. A date?”
Al-Haitham cleared his throat lightly. “The latter.”
Kaveh’s mouth fell open. “No fucking way. There is no way that was your first date ever.”
“Why not? I don’t see how that could be surprising.”
“One: because you’re, like, almost thirty—”
“I’m twenty-seven. And twenty-nine is closer to thirty than twenty-seven.”
“Okay, but I’ve been on dates before.” Kaveh wetted his lips, still cold in shock. “Two: how have you never been on a date before when you look like that?”
Al-Haitham’s eyes darted to him. “Look like what?”
“Oh, you know what I mean.”
“I don’t think I do, Kaveh.”
Kaveh rolled his eyes. “Devi Kusanali— Al-Haitham, you are objectively attractive. Are you happy now?”
Al-Haitham said nothing, but Kaveh could feel the smugness radiating through the air between them.
Kaveh shoved his arm. “Fuck off. I’m never saying that again, by the way.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You were being obnoxious in my direction.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“You don’t make any sense.”
Al-Haitham darted a glance over. “You are a twenty-nine year old man.”
“Are you trying to say something to me, Al-Haitham?”
“I don’t know. Surely an honors graduate from the Akademiya could use his deductive reasoning skills to figure out what someone may be implying.”
“Oh, fuck yourself.”
Kaveh gave Al-Haitham another light shove on the shoulder, drawing out a true, honest-to-the-gods laugh out of his mouth. It was so sudden that he fell silent for a moment. He sat there, listening to the rumbles of it echo through the car.
“This is a horrible way to end a date, by the way,” said Kaveh after a moment. He swallowed, mouth dry. “Making fun of your date. But you would know that if this wasn’t your first date.”
“I didn’t think you’d be the type to mock my inexperience.”
“I’m not mocking your inexperience. I’m mocking you.”
Al-Haitham, shockingly, let out a snort. “Yes, that was very clear.”
Kaveh rolled his eyes and slumped back into his chair. Then, he conceded, “...the pottery painting was a really good idea, though.”
Al-Haitham hummed.
Kaveh kept his eyes forward just so he didn’t have to see Al-Haitham’s smug smile.
After a moment, Al-Haitham spoke again. “Why did you pick a bird to paint?”
The city lights blurred past the windows, streaks of multicolored lights before fading into darkness. They would soon reach the residential areas, where there was less light and more character. Graffiti on the walls instead of storefronts, lamps hanging like a moon to guide people home.
He didn’t know what compelled him to be honest, but Kaveh said, “It reminded me of you.”
“What a coincidence,” said Al-Haitham. “That’s also why I picked the frog.”
“Oh my gods, fuck off!”
They bickered for the rest of the car ride, Kaveh adamantly defending himself from having frog-like features while Al-Haitham stayed resolute in his statement. Kaveh had been so nice about the bird. It looked proud, it looked fierce, it looked like Al-Haitham. But what the fuck about that ugly fucking frog reminded him of Kaveh?
“The look of bewilderment it had looks very similar to the expression you’re wearing right now,” said Al-Haitham.
“This is still terrible date etiquette, by the way.”
Al-Haitham pulled into his parking spot behind the apartment building and turned off the engine. The light in the car flashed on, washing the space out in white light. Kaveh could only see Al-Haitham’s profile, the line of his jaw sharpened by the new shadows, and when he turned to Kaveh, it almost hurt to look at him.
Al-Haitham tilted his head. “What would be correct date etiquette, then?”
Kaveh blinked. “What?”
“If I’m doing it wrong, how would you correct my behavior? What typically happens on first dates?”
Kaveh huffed. “Well, for one, my date’s usually nicer to me.”
Al-Haitham snorted.
“Stop laughing, asshole.” He drummed his fingers against his thigh. “Okay, so, my date’s usually nicer to me. We’ll talk about how much fun we had, plan the next date if the first one went well, say more pleasantries, kiss each other goodbye. You know, like that.”
“Like that,” repeated Al-Haitham.
They’d been sitting in the car long enough that the inside light began to fade. Kaveh watched Al-Haitham’s face sink back into the darkness until all he could see was the shadow of his ear. There was some rustling, and then he felt a faint puff of warm air.
“Kaveh.” Al-Haitham’s voice suddenly sounded very close.
He startled. “What?”
“I’m going to kiss you now.”
It took a second for the words to sink in, but when they did, some terrible panic seized him. “Wait, what? Al-Haith—”
A pair of warm lips pressed against his right cheek. The world shrunk down to the point where they were connected; it was all he could feel in the dark. And the twitch of his fingers. And the hitch in his breath. Al-Haitham’s lips were soft, he realized.
The kiss lasted only for a second—there and gone, just like that. He barely felt the breath of an exhale before Al-Haitham moved back again.
A bird crowed outside. Something in the engine dislodged and tinkered to the ground. Kaveh touched his cheek, unsure if his hands were real.
“It’s late,” said Al-Haitham, voice now a respectful distance away. “We should get to bed.”
“Um—”
“You have that nine a.m. meeting, right?”
Kaveh swallowed, heart still shaking. “Y-yeah…”
“Then, let’s go.”
The driver’s door opened.
Kaveh shivered at the sudden gust of cool air, but Al-Haitham was already stepping out of the car. If he had the nerves, he would have made a joke about Al-Haitham opening his door for him, but since he didn’t, he sat there unmoving until Al-Haitham made an impatient sound.
“Are you coming?”
Archons. It sounded like they were coming off another argument, not like Al-Haitham had just taken Kaveh’s entire world and shook it like a snowglobe. Kaveh could still feel the imprint of his mouth on his skin. Like the hand at his back. Like the shoulder pressed to his shoulder.
“Yes.” Kaveh scrambled to open the passenger’s door. “Yeah, I am.”
They walked back to their apartment one person in front of the other. No speech, no fuss, as if they were simply returning from the grocery store. When they reached the top, Al-Haitham did not look at Kaveh like he’d kissed him. In fact, when he unlocked the door, he shot Kaveh an irritated glance when he didn’t immediately step inside.
“Did you need permission?” He asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No,” said Kaveh, too dazed to think of a proper response.
Al-Haitham shot him a confused look, as if he didn’t know why Kaveh was suddenly acting strange.
This is your fault, he wanted to say. But if he said it out loud, they’d have to acknowledge it. And if they acknowledged it, Kaveh feared he may not survive the night.
“After you, then.”
Kaveh stepped inside and kicked off his shoes. Al-Haitham turned on the living room lights. He hung up his keys and then stepped further into the apartment.
“Do you want the bathroom first or should I take it?” asked Al-Haitham, as if they hadn’t just gone on a date. As if he hadn’t just kissed Kaveh on the cheek.
“I’ll take it,” said Kaveh gruffly.
Again, Al-Haitham raised his eyebrow as if he was confused as to why Kaveh’s voice was trembling.
This is your fault, he thought again, a little more emphatically.
Kaveh went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He washed his face. He flossed his teeth. He picked at the dirt under his nails until he couldn’t bear standing in there any longer. And when he emerged, Al-Haitham was back on the couch, presumably reading some epub on his phone.
“Bathroom’s yours,” said Kaveh, a little steadier.
They didn’t brush shoulders as they swapped places in the bathroom. Al-Haitham didn’t say a word to him as he started to get ready for bed. It was that time of night, after all, where the silence settled in, too still to be broken by voices.
It was so ordinary. So terribly ordinary. Like it was just another night for the two of them, like Kaveh wasn’t suffocating under the weight of the day.
As he lay in bed that night, moonlight seeping around the blinds and spilling over the sheets, Kaveh couldn’t help but wonder if he’d imagined it all.
-
The funny thing about moving in with your old estranged best friend is that you have to relive your grief in real time. When Kaveh had first moved in, all he could think about was how easily he and Al-Haitham used to talk to each other and how stiff they were now, as if they were strangers.
And, they were, effectively, strangers. That’s what happens when you break off a friendship and go without talking for four years. It was fucked up, in all seriousness, the way you could learn a person, could push every button they had and map every fear in the sky and suddenly not know them anymore, as if all those years were for nothing.
Blah, blah, there was a saying about how no time was truly wasted but that kind of friendship break up fucked Kaveh up for at least two years. He’d gone through those years of meeting people, going to new places, achieving new heights and still wondering, What would Al-Haitham think? What if I just texted him now? Of course, he never did, or otherwise their first meeting in four years wouldn’t have been at an old college haunt.
So when Kaveh had woken up the next morning the night after Al-Haitham found him at Lambad’s, he’d crept into the kitchen unsure how much sound he was allowed to make. If Al-Haitham’s habits had stayed the same, he’d be up early either reading or listening to music.
He hoped Al-Haitham wasn’t in the living room. Then, at least, he could sneak out before Al-Haitham officially kicked him out.
But when he crept past the kitchen, Al-Haitham zeroed in on his footsteps like a sniper. Kaveh’s foot made one loose floorboard creak and suddenly Al-Haitham was whirling on him from the stove.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Uh…” Kaveh glanced at the door. He was still wearing the clothes Al-Haitham had leant him. “Um, honestly. I don’t know.”
Al-Haitham watched him for a moment before he rolled his eyes. “Sit down.”
Kaveh blinked, taken aback. “Why?”
“I made too many eggs,” said Al-Haitham simply.
Kaveh had blinked again, unsure if he’d heard right. But since he was still wearing Al-Haitham’s clothes, and he was rather fond of the button up he’d worn to the bar that was still sitting in Al-Haitham’s dryer, he’d taken a seat.
Al-Haitham continued to cook away at the stove.
Kaveh sat there, unsure what to do with his hands, unsure what to do with his arms. Al-Haitham’s T-shirt was soft, and he realized it was one of the free T-shirts the Akademiya gave out at orientation. He remembered seeing Al-Haitham wear it around his old apartment when Kaveh crashed on the couch, too tired to go home.
The reminder of the Akademiya stabbed him through the chest. Here they were, four years later, Kaveh still wearing something from a time they knew each other, memory stitched into the fabric, but standing as if there were oceans between them.
After a long moment, Al-Haitham returned with two plates. He set one down in front of Kaveh before taking a seat and picking up his fork, eating as he stared at his phone and very resolutely did not talk to Kaveh.
That was how they spent their first meal together for the first time in four years: in silence, the both of them doing their separate things. It was almost poetic. They used to spend their time doing their separate tasks next to each other in a comfortable silence. Now there was certainly silence. The “comfortable” part was up in the air.
Kaveh ate until he was sure that Al-Haitham would kick him out. And when he didn’t, Kaveh asked if he could have his clothes back from the dryer. After that, he took another shower because he couldn’t stand the smell of Al-Haitham on his skin when it reminded him so badly of the friendship he lost. Then, when he tried to leave, Al-Haitham asked, “Did you miraculously find a place to stay overnight?”
Kaveh had said, “No.”
And Al-Haitham had said, “Then where are you going?”
Living with Al-Haitham proved to be a strange task. Imagine walking into a room in your old house but all the furniture had been shifted four inches to the left—familiar place, familiar face, yet something so subtly skewed.
The jagged edges of their break had been blunted by time, and Kaveh found it hard to be angry about the things he once did. It would rise in his chest and at a provocation—or what he might have once thought was one—but then the anger would ebb, would draw back into the recesses of his heart and settle. Out of fear or fatigue, he didn’t reach for it.
Al-Haitham remained a difficult read—made even more difficult by the years apart. Kaveh’s anger may have settled but he didn’t know if Al-Haitham’s had, so he still found himself hesitant, unsure if Al-Haitham would ever snap at him again.
He never did.
And that felt wrong in and of itself, too. Where was the bite? Where was the argumentative freshman he once knew?
Relearning Al-Haitham was a fear. Every familiar thing he did slapped Kaveh across the face with such aching nostalgia, he thought it would send him to his knees at times. Like: remembering how Al-Haitham didn’t drink coffee and remained adamantly attached to his black tea. Like: remembering the subtle sound of his laugh, like he hadn’t meant to let it out. Like: remembering the way Al-Haitham would frown at him for staying up too late working on something, but instead of homework, not it was job applications.
It made Kaveh’s chest ache. The way Al-Haitham would come out into the hall, rap on the wall and mutter, “Your neurotic noises of distress are keeping me awake.” But that was his way of telling Kaveh to calm down, to not worry. And when Kaveh inevitably didn’t listen to him, Al-Haitham retreated into his room only to return a few seconds later with a book.
“Not sleeping?” Kaveh would ask.
“You already woke me up,” said Al-Haitham as he settled into the couch. “I might as well finish this chapter.”
A year later, when the new contract rolled around and Kaveh officially had a job again, Al-Haitham popped the question: “Do you want to sign the lease together?”
Kaveh had blinked. Blinked again because he wasn’t sure he’d heard right. Sure, it objectively made sense—Kaveh had already been living there for a year and all of his stuff had accumulated into the “guest room.” But to be asked, to officially sign his name on a legal document stating, Yes, washed out architect Kaveh the Light of Kshahrewar lives here, felt so solid it sank a weight into his chest.
“Are you serious?” Kaveh had asked.
Al-Haitham had looked at him like he had asked the bizarre question. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
It was always so simple for Al-Haitham. Yes or no. Black or white. Live with me or not. Nevermind the years stretched between us.
“I don’t know why you let me stay with you in the first place,” Kaveh admitted. “I don’t know if this is just one long setup to a terrible joke.”
“You needed a place to stay,” said Al-Haitham. “I had one.”
So simple. So easy. Night or day. Land or sea.
“Is that all?” asked Kaveh.
“What more would there be?”
What more would there be to letting someone stay with you for a year? What more could there possibly be to finding each other again after four years of separation?
Kaveh had laughed then. It burst out of him like a firework, bright and booming until it fizzled to an echo. Al-Haitham looked bewildered.
“You’re such an asshole,” said kaveh, the first time he’d called Al-Haitham that in five years. “It’s okay to say that you missed me.”
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re not projecting?”
There, that was more like it. Kaveh smiled.
“I mean, maybe I am, but at least I’m not too shy to say it.”
Al-Haitham rolled his eyes. “Are you signing the lease or not?”
Kaveh laughed again. “Yes, Al-Haitham. I am. And I missed you, too.”
Al-Haitham didn’t quite smile, but his voice was soft when he said, “Alright, let me email the landlord, then.”
It was a little wonder. A little miracle. The both of them were stitching their quilt back together until they were patchwork, all the memories—good and bad—wound into something whole once again.
-
The next morning, breakfast commenced as usual. Al-Haitham was reading in the living room with his mug of black tea and Kaveh was standing at the coffee machine waiting for it to heat up.
Kaveh had woken up with a feeling like his face was on fire. He could feel the imprint of Al-Haitham’s mouth on his cheek and it stayed with him all the way into the hall. Now, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He didn’t know what direction to face. If he looked at Al-Haitham, he knew his face would flame all over again and he’d have to run out the door a sputtering mess.
What the fuck? This was Al-Haitham, his best friend. Why was he getting so flustered over a man that had taken him on a tour around campus of all the places Kaveh had thrown up after getting too drunk the previous night?
Al-Haitham didn’t seem phased at all. He just peacefully turned the pages of his book like he didn’t have a care in the world, which made Kaveh feel more insane. How could he be sure that anything had happened last night at all?
“Are you sure you pressed the on button?” Al-Haitham called from the living room.
“What? Of course, I did—” Kaveh checked the machine. “Fuck.”
“I heard that.” There was the sound of a page turning.
Kaveh scowled and pressed the on button. The machine bubbled to life, finally making the correct water-heating sounds.
“Good job. You learned how to use your own coffee machine.”
Kaveh whirled and glared at Al-Haitham over the counter. How could this man kiss him last night and then turn around and taunt him like usual? It was so fucking unfair how unbothered he was.
Al-Haitham didn’t even look up. “Can I help you?”
“You kissed me last night,” burst Kaveh, face burning.
“I did.” Al-Haitham finally lowered his book. “That’s what people in relationships do, and what you clarified you were comfortable with.”
“I—” Kaveh choked on his tongue. “I didn’t—I mean. You were taunting me, so of course, I had to—”
Al-Haitham cut him a glance. “Are you saying you weren’t comfortable with it?”
“Not—” His face burned. “I wasn’t… uncomfortable.”
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Kaveh swallowed. “I just didn’t expect you to actually do it.”
“Then, do you not want me to do that again?”
No, he thought automatically, and Kaveh was struck with the mortifying revelation that he didn’t.. not want Al-Haitham to kiss him.
“I didn’t say that,” he grumbled.
A spark of amusement lit in Al-Haitham’s eye. “Oh?”
Kaveh whirled around “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t. Shut the fuck up, I’m making coffee.”
Al-Haitham snorted. “I didn’t say anything.”
“SHHHHHHHH!”
The coffee machine burbled and finally began to spit out coffee. The smell of Kaveh’s breakfast blend filled the air in a thick cloud, strong enough that when Kaveh inhaled, he could almost pretend that they hadn’t just acknowledged that Al-Haitham kissed him.
Archons. Al-Haitham had kissed him last night. On the cheek, but it was still very solidly in the realm of absurdity. Kaveh remembered the warmth of Al-Haitham’s mouth, the way the light in the car had faded, the way he’d moved through the dark, so suddenly near Kaveh’s ear, so suddenly near. He didn’t know Al-Haitham had it in him.
He’d never been so flustered around Al-Haitham before and he hated it. They weren’t like that—they were just friends, have been friends for years now. he knew, objectively, how attractive Al-Haitham was, but he’d never been affected by it before—not until this fuckass bet they made—
There was something about Al-Haitham: his laugh, his grin, the way he raised his eyebrows at Kaveh when he wanted to make fun of him. The way he’d craned his neck in the car to reach Kaveh’s cheek and the way his exhale had ghosted over his lips—
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
The coffee machine finally shut off and Kaveh drained the mug of its contents, even though it scalded his mouth.
Sufficiently in pain and sufficiently distracted, Kaveh grabbed his work bag and headed toward the door.
He pulled on his shoes, and then when he turned to open the door, he heard, “Wait.”
Al-Haitham’s footsteps approached. Kaveh whirled around and held his keys out triumphantly. “Nope, I don’t think so. I actually remembered my keys this time—”
Al-Haitham leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
Kaveh nearly dropped his keys.
“Have a good day at work,” said Al-Haitham as he pulled away.
Kaveh sputtered, fingers flexing as he barely managed to catch his own keys before they fell to the floor.
“Um.”
“You’re going to be late.” Al-Haitham nodded toward the door.
“Ah.” Kaveh turned around and grabbed at the lock first before he remembered he needed to grab the doorknob. When his fingers finally found the correct thing, he hastily yanked the door open.
“I’ll lock it,” said Al-Haitham, voice closer than he’d expected.
Kaveh yelped. He managed out a stuttered, “T-thank you,” before he ran down the steps of their apartment complex, then out into the street, and then all the way to the bus stop where he spent the rest of the workday in a daze.
-
When Kaveh came home, Al-Haitham did not kiss him at the door.
Kaveh was not disappointed by this, by the way. Absolutely not. In fact, when he walked past Al-Haitham and did not get a look of greeting, he did not backtrack and restart his walk from the door until Al-Haitham looked up from his book.
“Did you need something?” asked Al-Haitham.
No, he did not. And it would be embarrassing to admit so even if he did.
“No,” said Kaveh.
Al-Haitham continued to read his book. “Then why did you walk past me three separate times?”
“So you did notice me come in?”
“Of course. I have ears.”
Anger simmered under his skin. Then why hadn’t he looked up? Kaveh walked over and dropped onto the couch next to Al-Haitham. “What are you reading?”
Al-Haitham’s shoulder was warm this close to him, and when Kaveh sat down, the cushions sank down until they were sliding together.
“The Entropy of Language.” Al-Haitham turned the page.
Kaveh rolled his eyes. It looked like a textbook. “Of course you are. When did you start that?”
“When I got home about an hour ago.”
Kaveh threw his hands up. “I hate you. I hate that you work so close to the apartment.”
“You could have picked the architecture firm that was closer to our neighborhood, but you were the one that was afraid they’d actually know you.”
“Fuck off.”
Al-Haitham finally lowered his book and turned to look at Kaveh. “Did you need something?”
Their faces were terribly close, this pushed together on the couch. Kaveh couldn’t handle it. He scrambled backwards until he hit the arm of the couch, burning.
“No. I didn’t.” He swallowed.
Al-Haitham shot him a curious look before he went back to reading, per the status quo.
So, Al-haitham didn’t kiss him that night and Kaveh was resolutely not upset about it, but an hour later when they cooked dinner together, Al-Haitham’s shoulders still bumped against his. And more later, when they finished and brought their plates to the living room to start a new reality T.V. show, Kaveh did not test the waters by sitting closer than normal. He did not feel a thrill zip down his spine when Al-Haitham let him. And when Kaveh hesitantly dropped his head on Al-Haitham’s shoulder, Al-Haitham let him stay.
-
After that first morning, Al-Haitham made a habit of kissing Kaveh on the cheek before he left for work. Each time, Kaveh would close his eyes and brace himself as if he were preparing for a gunshot; but Al-Haitham’s mouth was feather-light when he kissed him, and more fleeting than a bird.
Kaveh was fine with this new development. He was soooo chill about it! He definitely did not start randomly thinking about it at work and then have to bury his face in his hands to hide how red he was from his coworkers. He definitely did not start texting Al-Haitham more throughout the day—random memes and incoherent messages—just because he wanted Al-Haitham’s attention. He definitely did not start racing home from work in anticipation of seeing his roommate and best-friend and trial boyfriend. Absolutely not.
Fuck. Gods. It was getting so bad that Kaveh was actually looking forward to work meetings because it gave his mind something else to think about that wasn’t Al-Haitham’s stupid fucking face.
This was how all of his flings started: the hot face, mind being plagued with thoughts of them, the denial and the panic at what was happening. All roads lead to disaster and Kaveh had been riding the wave since he’d agreed to the stupid bet.
“Fuck.” Kaveh swore into his keyboard.
“You okay, Kaveh?” A coworker leaned out from around his cubicle wall.
Kaveh flushed. “Yep! All good. Sorry about that.”
The coworker gave him one long, strange look before sliding back behind the wall.
Archons. He had feelings for fucking Al-Haitham. His gods-damned roommate and formerly estranged friend. He couldn’t have feelings for Al-Haitham.
Kaveh knew he was easy to love, and that was because he, in turn, loved so easily. He woke up every morning and fell in love with the day, with the sunlight streaking through the city skyline and the mint growing through the cracks in the asphalt. He fell in love with strangers’ laughs on the bus because they were so full of joy. He fell in love with couples that bent their heads toward each other, whispering a quiet intimacy to each other. He fell in love with the bus driver, who actually said “you’re welcome” when he said “thank you” and he fell in love with the pharmacy worker that called him “darling” and he fell in love with the old people that asked to hold his elbow as they crossed the street. And when all was said and done, he came home and fell in love with Sumeru at night—the smokiness of a city going to sleep, the wave of darkness rolling over like a blanket, the stars persisting despite the artificial lights.
Kaveh fell in love with his friends, but he did not fall in love with his friends. For all the years he’d been alive, he never once dated a friend because that would be disastrous. He couldn’t bear the idea of losing anyone permanently.
So the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about Al-Haitham’s mouth and Al-Haitham’s laugh and Al-Haitham’s shoulders was a very, very bad sign.
He’s literally your boyfriend, he reminded himself.
Only for three dates! And one of them is done!
They still had two dates and Kaveh had no idea when the second one would pop up. Maybe he could avoid going on a date with Al-Haitham and just keep dating forever. Or, and this may be the better idea, he should call the next two grocery shopping trips dates and end this whole excursion as soon as possible.
But another fear gripped him. The idea of this ending. How was he ever supposed to act normal again knowing what Al-Haitham’s lips felt like on the skin of his cheek?
So Kaveh continued to suffer through his nine-to-five at work and then his five-to-nine at home. He endured the cheek kisses in the morning and then the brushed shoulders in the evening and screamed into his pillow at night wondering what was wrong with him.
-
A week later, Al-Haitham came home with their pottery. Kaveh’s bird turned out beautifully while Al-Haitham’s frog turned out sufficiently ugly. Kaveh commented on this as Al-Haitham set up the two clay figurines next to each other.
“You’re ruining my carefully curated decorations of the apartment,” said Kaveh.
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t want to commemorate our first date together?”
Kaveh’s face flamed. He smacked Al-Haitham across the shoulder. “Don’t—call it that.”
“Don’t call it what it is?”
“Just—shush.”
Al-Haitham gave him a flat look. “Where are you going to be tomorrow night?”
Kaveh looked at him, a bit taken aback at the sudden topic change. “Here? Probably?” A sudden sense of foreboding washed over him. “Why?”
“I’m scheduling our second date.”
Kaveh choked. “Oh.”
Al-Haitham gave him an unimpressed look. “So you’re free tomorrow?”
“I-I mean. Yeah…?”
“Great. Remember to come on time tomorrow.” Then, Al-Haitham stepped away from the mantle and headed towards the kitchen.
Kaveh stared at the spot where he’d been, feeling the frog and the bird burning a hole into the side of his head.
-
Kaveh didn’t know where they were going until they stepped off the metro.
He first became suspicious that they were going somewhere unusual when they didn’t take the car. The second was when they walked to the metro stop because they never took the metro. Kaveh bused to work because he didn’t have a car and it was the quickest route to work and Al-Haitham drove everywhere otherwise.
“Where are we going?” Kaveh jogged to keep up with Al-Haitham through the thick crowd of people at the exit of the metro station.
Al-Haitham paused for a moment amid the flow of traffic until Kaveh caught up. “You’ll see.”
They walked further out into this new part of the city. It was evening, which meant the sky had already begun to purple in the middle. The dusk cast the buildings in a strange sort of gold that made everything look gilded and polished, like the city was untouchable. Perhaps that was why it felt so unfamiliar.
Kaveh expected the crowds to thin the further they got away from the stop, but instead they became denser. Much denser. The jumble of people seemed to converge from every other road into the same intersection before jostling forward into the same direction Al-Haitham and Kaveh were headed.
A stray mother knocked into Kaveh as she chased after her child calling, “Saqib, slow down.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Kaveh.
Before he could close his mouth, a surly teenage boy shoulder checked him as he rushed toward the nearest bus stop. Then a business man with a whole ass leather briefcase nearly knocked him to the ground. The crowd closed in and Kaveh nearly lost sight of Al-Haitham’s head.
A hand came and grabbed him around the wrist and tugged him forward. Kaveh emerged from the sea of people, gasping for air like he’d been nearly drowned. Al-Haitham looked at him, thin-mouthed, gaze heavy.
“Thanks,” said Kaveh.
Then, shockingly, Al-Haitham’s hand migrated from Kaveh’s wrist to his palm and then he was lacing their fingers together.
“So we don’t lose each other,” said Al-Haitham by way of explanation.
Kaveh swallowed, face hot. “Right.” Yep. Yep. That’s all it was.
Al-Haitham’s palm was warm as they pushed through the crowd. The jostling continued—it was a very busy street after all—but Al-Haitham’s hand anchoring them together kept him steady. His heart thumped with each footfall. Steady and persistent, until the frantic pulse racing through his head melted into the bustle of the crowd.
Finally, they broke through the other side, spilling onto the outskirts of what looked to be a market. The crowds finally thinned here as people flowed through the rows between stalls or stood at the edges, waiting for a friend to arrive or to leave. The air smelled thick with smoke and oil, loud steaming sizzling of food frying and pans burning hot over their fires. Lights were strewn all through the stalls overhead, bulbs of orange that looked like drops of the sunset behind them had been condensed into paper lanterns. Kaveh almost wished it were darker so he could appreciate the ambiance.
“Here.” Al-Haitham let go of his hand and Kaveh punched and kicked at himself trying not to mourn the loss. “Where do you want to go first?”
“What is this?” Kaveh took a step forward and the zipped tang of spices hit him like a wave.
“The Razan Garden Night Market,” said Al-Haitham. “I found it online.”
“Of course, you did.” Kaveh looked at the sea of stalls ahead of him and promptly felt like he was drowning.
“It’s one of Sumeru City’s most popular attractions. Though, since it’s on the other side of the city and so far from the Akademiya, not a lot of students actually hear about this place. But to the common tourist, this is supposed to be a must-see.”
“Wow.” Kaveh looked around. “All this time living here and I never knew.”
“Because all you do is work instead,” said Al-Haitham flatly.
“Oh, fuck off.” Kaveh inhaled the humidity in the air, the salt of sweat. All these bodies around them didn’t daunt him anymore. He wanted to soak in their laughter. “It’s so nice here. I would’ve loved to come here sooner if I’d known about it.”
“I thought you would,” said Al-Haitham.
Kaveh turned to him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I know you, Kaveh. I know you like the human parts of cities, so it’d only make sense for you to like this market, too.”
He did. He loved the residential areas of the city, away from the shiny gentrified neighborhoods. He loved the windchimes and the planters hanging from old windows. He loved signs dotted with stickers and he loved graffiti and old buildings—all the rough-hewn places with people whose families had lived there for decades. Every inch soaked through with history.
And he loved this market, too. He loved the stench of smoke and the crowded stalls and the sticky late summer air. He loved all the little plastic chairs and tables littered throughout for sitting, even though many people were just walking and eating.
“I do,” said Kaveh, a little touched. “Damn, Al-Haitham. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
It was Al-Haitham’s turn to ask him, “What do you mean?”
“You’re such a romantic.” Kaveh elbowed him lightly. “Your two date ideas were—are—so cute and thoughtful.”
“Did you think they wouldn’t be?”
Kaveh nudged him again. “I don’t know. I half expected you to just, like, take me to dinner and then take me to the movies.”
“Surely your other partners didn’t take you on such boring dates.”
“I mean, some did. Some didn’t.”
“Well, I didn’t want to be one of the ones that did.”
Kaveh flushed again.
“What’s that look for?” Al-Haitham asked.
“I keep forgetting we’re dating.” Kaveh sputtered. “Wait, no, that sounds wrong. I mean, obviously, I remember because you—” He cut off.
“I…?” Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow.
“Fuck off. You know what I’m talking about.” Kaveh sucked in a breath. “I just forget, sometimes because it feels easy with you. It’s just—it’s nice.”
It could have been the oncoming nightfall, but he swore he saw Al-Haitham’s face soften in the lamplight. “I’m glad.”
Kaveh warmed from the center of his chest outward. Before he could properly burst from it, he turned toward the market. “Shall we?”
Al-Haitham was almost smiling when he said, “Sure.”
-
Most of the stalls had food: fried wraps bursting with vegetables, fruit dipped into sugar and hardened, pastries sprinkled with powdered sugar, juicy meat skewers, noodles, seafood, and so on. Some sold smoothies with fruit blended right in front of your face.
Other stalls sold little souvenirs like artwork and handmade jewelry, or they had little games for the passerby to win prizes. Some stalls, alarmingly, had alcohol, but something about the night made Kaveh want to experience everything clear-eyed.
Al-Haitham and Kaveh bought food at the first stall they saw. The vendor was selling cold noodles topped with vegetables, an egg, and chili oil, and it came in a small handheld paper bowl with chopsticks.
“Enjoy,” the vendor smiled.
They’d bought a single bowl to split between the two of them. They passed it back and forth to each other, slurping down a few of the noodles before passing it back to the other person. Theoretically, it should have been a fair way to split for the food, were it not for the fact that Al-Haitham had a big mouth.
“Dude, that was like two mouthfuls of noodles!” Kaveh cried.
“You can have more,” said Al-Haitham, passing the bowl back to him. “No one said you had to take rabbit bites out of it.”
“I’m not taking rabbit bites. I’m taking normal bites, and you’re taking too much of the food.” Then, Kaveh furiously shoved a bundle of noodles into his mouth before passing it back.
“Rabbit bites,” repeated Al-Haitham. He took the chopsticks and lifted a huge chunk of the noodles and held it up to his mouth.
“Wait! You’re going to finish the whole fucking thing!”
Al-Haitham lowered the noodles right before they made it to his mouth. “No, I’m not.”
“You are! What the fuck, put some of the noodles back.”
“I’m not going to put food back into the bowl when I’ve already grabbed it.”
“Don’t be such a dick.” Kaveh reached for the bowl, grabbing right around where Al-Haitham’s hand was holding it.
Al-Haitham froze. Kaveh froze. His hands were so warm even compared to the late summer air. But maybe that was just always Al-Haitham—a burning spot in the world around them.
Kaveh dropped his hands. “You can have it.”
Al-Haitham placed the noodles back in the bowl, nevermind whatever bullshit he’d said earlier. “No, you have it.”
Al-Haitham tugged one of Kaveh’s wrists up and placed the bowl delicately in his hand.
Kaveh pushed back. “No. Didn’t you say something about not putting food back when you already grabbed it?”
Al-Haitham grabbed Kaveh’s other hand and pressed it to the bowl. “The noodles didn’t actually touch my mouth. And besides, I ate before this, so you should have it.”
“You did?” Kaveh found himself holding onto the bowl, even as Al-Haitham’s hands fell away. “Without me?”
“Yes,” said Al-Haitham. “You were coming home late from work so I had a snack.”
“Oh…”
Al-Haitham nodded toward the bowl. “Eat.”
“Okay.” Kaveh hesitantly lifted the chopsticks. “Thank you.”
“No need.” Al-Haitham turned away, pressing back into the crowd.
They kept walking.
-
After eating through several other stalls, they found their mouths were dry from not drinking water since literally before getting to the metro station. So, they wandered to the nearest smoothie stall where several blenders were mixing various orange and plum colored juices.
“Can we have two berry blast smoothies?” Kaveh asked.
The vendor, a young woman probably a few years younger than them, nodded and smiled. “Sure thing!”
She grabbed a cup out of the back and pulled one of the blenders off the blades and poured the plum colored liquid into the cup. She capped it, then handed it to Al-Haitham.
“There’s one!” She said brightly before turning to the back again.
“Here,” said Al-Haitham, passing the cup to Kaveh.
“Thanks.” Kaveh took a sip. The smoothie felt cool and tart on his tongue after countless hot foods.
The woman opened a box under one of the tables and paused. Kaveh saw her frowning on the side of her face, and she stood and turned to another girl who was working the other side of the table. The other girl nodded and then left the squared area of tables.
The woman came back. “Ah, I’m so sorry, but we’re out of cups. My friend’s going to get more cups from the car, though, if you don’t mind waiting?”
Al-Haitham glanced at Kaveh, a question in his eyes. “Are you okay with waiting?”
“We did park about twenty minutes away…” The woman winced.
Kaveh turned to Al-Haitham. Was it worth waiting twenty minutes for a single smoothie when they still had so much market left to see?
Al-Haitham was watching Kaveh patiently, the decision deferred entirely to him.
“It’s fine,” said Kaveh. “We can share.” They’d been food all night after all, what difference did sharing a drink make?
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow.
“Ah, okay. I’m so sorry once again.” The woman pressed her hands together. “Do you want a second straw?”
That would make a lot of sense, in all honesty. If they didn’t have another cup, they could just use two straws in one cup, but there was a block to that idea for some reason. Kaveh told himself it was for environmentally friendly reasons to not want to use another plastic straw, but he still surprised himself when he said, “No, that’s okay.”
Al-Haitham’s other eyebrow climbed up his forehead.
“Alright.” The woman leaned back and handed back half of the Mora. “I’m so sorry once again for the inconvenience.”
“It’s totally okay,” Kaveh reassured her.
The woman gave him one last kind smile before she picked up a sign from the ground that said, BE BACK SOON and then started tidying up around the stall.
They made it a few stalls away before Al-Haitham said, “No second straw?”
“Yeah, so?” Kaveh flushed. “We’ve been sharing food all night, Al-Haitham. We’re a little late to food hygiene. But I can go back and ask for another straw if you’re that squeamish about sharing spit.”
Al-Haitham laughed unexpectedly. Not the quiet snort, not the understated puff of air, but a full bodied, Ha, that had Kaveh nearly dropping the smoothie.
“I wouldn’t be the one we should call squeamish, tonight, Kaveh,” said Al-Haitham, smile still twitching at the corner of his mouth.
“Shut up.” Kaveh took a sip of the smoothie before handing it back to Al-Haitham.
Al-Haitham took a sip out of the same straw, amusement still glinting in his eye.
-
On the way to the meat skewers, they passed a ring toss stall where instead of plastic spikes, there were long-necked bottles with goldfish swimming around in a few of them.
“Oh my gods,” said Kaveh. “Al-Haitham.”
Al-Haitham shot one glance at the stall before turning back. “What?”
“Al-Haitham.” Kaveh gestured again for emphasis. “Goldfish.”
“I have eyes.”
“We could adopt a child!”
“You want to take care of a goldfish?”
Kaveh punched him lightly on the arm. “We’d take care of it together. It’d be cute.”
“Why don’t you try taking care of yourself first?”
“Hey, don’t turn this back on me!”
Needless to say, they walked past the goldfish.
-
After paying for the skewers, they wandered to a bench to sit. All night, they’d been alternating back and forth on who paid for the food and this time it was Kaveh, leaving Al-Haitham to hold all the skewers while Kaveh dug through his wallet.
Al-Haitham continued to hold them even when they sat down because in the process of Kaveh pulling out his wallet, he’d also unearthed the entirety of his pockets. Now, with a mess of receipts, hair ties, gum, keys, and other miscellaneous items, he started to sort them on the bench into categories of Throw Away What the Fuck Why Was That In There and Keep.
“How did you accumulate all that over the course of a day?” asked Al-Haitham around a pork skewer.
“Shut up, oh my gods.” Kaveh looked up. “Wait, hey! Don’t start without me.”
Al-Haitham swallowed. “It’s one skewer.”
“Give me that.”
“Finish cleaning out your pockets.”
“No, let me have a bite before you eat it all.”
Al-Haitham suddenly held out the skewer in front of him.
Kaveh’s face heated for the millionth time that night. “Seriously?”
Al-Haitham gave him a flat look. “Do you want some or not?”
Kaveh swallowed—both his pride and the lump in his throat—and leaned forward. Al-Haitham held the skewer steady as Kaveh took a bite with his front teeth, ripping the meat off, before pulling away.
He felt like all of his blood was on fire as he chewed and swallowed.
“What do you think?” asked Al-Haitham.
His heart fluttered wildly in his chest as he said, “It’s good.”
“Good.” Al-Haitham leaned back. “Ah, you have something on your face.”
Kaveh turned away, embarrassed. He wiped at the side of his mouth and turned back. “Did I get it?”
“No.” Al-Haitham turned to face him fully. “May I?”
There was an out in that statement. Al-Haitham was giving him the chance to say no, to turn away and wipe his mouth like a normal person. But there was an oddly hesitant light in Al-Haitham’s eye that made him feel uncomfortable. Al-Haitham wasn’t supposed to look like that. Al-Haitham wasn’t supposed to look uncertain.
Kaveh wondered what it’d feel like to give in. Just once.
“Okay,” he said, half whisper, half surrender.
Kaveh blinked and then suddenly Al-Haitham’s thumb was at the corner of his mouth—smooth, warm—and swiped away at whatever lingering sauce there was.
Kaveh sat there frozen as Al-Haitham leaned back and then licked the sauce off his thumb.
“There,” said Al-Haitham, satisfied.
The skewer meat sat like a lit coal in his stomach, heating him up all over. He was so warm. Too fucking warm for this weather. Oh, Archons, why did he wear so many layers?
“Thank you.” Kaveh found it hard to meet his eyes.
There was a pause, and then another laugh. Al-Haitham’s punctured exhale instead of that louder one earlier, thankfully, because Kaveh didn’t know how he’d react if he heard Al-Haitham’s full-bellied laugh again. Probably combust on the spot. Probably run away.
“No need.” Al-Haitham took another bite. “Are you done clearing out your pockets?”
Kaveh looked at the pile of receipts still sitting between them like a barrier, keeping him safe from the other side.
“Give me a second,” said Kaveh.
He took the excuse to look away from Al-Haitham until his face cooled down.
-
Eventually, after evening had bled away into proper night, when the purple in the sky sunk into ink and Al-Haitham and Kaveh had stuffed their stomachs full, they peeled themselves away from the night market.
The metro ride home was quiet, the both of them tired from the date. Kaveh’s feet ached pleasantly and the sweat on the back of his neck was beginning to cool under the air conditioning of the train.
They sat next to each other on the train, of course. Even though there were a dozen other seats free and they were both sweaty messes, Al-Haitham had sat down first and Kaveh, for some inexplicable reason, felt himself drawn to his hip like a magnet. So when Kaveh took a seat next to him, Al-Haitham had only raised a single eyebrow before making space for him.
“I had fun,” said Kaveh into the quiet. His voice was a whisper among the fan of the air conditioning.
“Good,” said Al-Haitham. “That was the plan.”
“I really am impressed with the dates you’ve come up with.” Kaveh bumped their shoulders together. “This was…really sweet.”
“I wouldn’t pick a bad date idea.” Al-Haitham slouched towards Kaveh. Whether that was intentional or not, Kaveh didn’t want to think about it.
“Knowing you, it’d make sense for you to pick something easy so you wouldn’t have to waste any effort thinking about it.”
Al-Haitham glanced at him. “I put effort into things I care about.”
Kaveh flushed again.
“What? You care about me?” Kaveh elbowed him lightly.
Al-Haitham looked at him, unsmiling. “I thought that was obvious.”
Kaveh’s heart hiccuped. It was obvious, in the way he took care of Kaveh after every breakup, in the way he invited Kaveh into his apartment when he found out he had nowhere to stay. But Al-Haitham had never stated it so obviously. That wasn’t his style.
Kaveh didn’t know what to say, so he turned and pressed his face into the meat of Al-Haitham’s shoulder to hide the burning in his cheeks.
“You’re so embarrassing,” said Kaveh.
“I’m not the one that’s getting embarrassed.” Al-Haitham’s voice was an aftershock.
Kaveh buried his face deeper so he didn’t have to see. Al-Haitham, like always, let him stay.
-
They arrived home long after midnight. They were both exhausted—feet aching, hair salted through with sweat. They also, unfortunately, both had work in the morning.
Kaveh didn’t even have the energy to complain about it. As they walked home from the stop, brief thoughts flitted through his head, like: He kept us out so late. Why does he keep picking dates after work? What about the weekend? Gods, I’m exhausted. But in the end, none of that mattered, because he really had had fun that night.
It took Kaveh five tries to open the door because his eyes were blurring with sleep. When they broke into the cool air-conditioned space of their apartment, Kaveh nearly fell to the floor in relief. He really wanted to, but he knew Al-Haitham would make fun of him so he didn’t.
Al-Haitham stepped in wordlessly behind him and locked the door. Kaveh made his way to the lamp in the living room while Al-Haitham kicked off his shoes.
The quiet settled over them this late at night, all the sleep-hazed clouds pouring in from the sky. The old lamp in the room had supposedly belonged to Al-Haitham’s grandmother. Kaveh had never asked for the story, but he had a feeling as to why this nice ornate lantern now belonged to Al-Haitham.
Kaveh pressed his hand against the wall for a moment, trying to catch his breath when he felt a puff of air against the back of his neck.
“Do you want to shower first or should I?”
“Devi Kusanali!” Kaveh shrieked and whirled around. “Can you not sneak up on me like that?”
Al-Haitham was half a breath away, close enough that he could see all the different sunset hues ringed in the center of the green. His eyelashes were unfairly long. How had Kaveh never noticed that before?
“I was hardly sneaking up on you,” said Al-Haitham, half a whisper.
Kaveh swallowed. Al-Haitham’s eyes flickered down for a moment, as if watching the movement, before looking back up.
“You scared the shit out of me.”
“Skill issue.”
Kaveh scowled. “Did Collei teach you that?”
“No, Cyno did.”
His chest was still heaving from the way his heart had kicked up between his ribs. The air between their faces felt terribly hot, cloying like a heavy perfume. He couldn’t breathe this close to Al-Haitham and he didn’t like this development.
“Of course, he did,” said Kaveh, trying to keep his voice steady. “You can shower first, by the way.”
Al-Haitham stepped back. “Alright.”
There was a beat where neither of them moved. They stood there washed in dim egg-yolk light staring at each other, his heart hiccuping in his chest like he’d missed a step on the stairs. Al-Haitham blinked, still in arm’s reach. Still close enough to touch.
Did he want to?
Kaveh inhaled. “Al-Haitham—”
“I should get going.” Al-Haitham took a step back. “Before it gets too late.”
Kaveh swallowed. “Right.”
Al-Haitham stared at him for a moment longer, face unreadable, before turning to disappear down the hall, leaving Kaveh alone in the living room.
He sank to the floor and hugged his knees.
Al-Haitham had heard him. He totally had—it wasn’t in his nature to steamroll over a voice if someone had something to say, but Al-Haitham had chosen his escape over Kaveh, and that unsettled him. It made him wonder: what was Al-Haitham afraid of?
After a few more minutes, he heard the shower turn on. The water hissed through the old pipes of the apartment like the faint shriek of a tea kettle. He listened to the thumps in the bathroom as Al-Haitham presumably climbed into the shower.
Kaveh stood and began to pace around the room, replaying the moment in his head. The beat of silence. The stuttered air. The hasty exit into the bathroom. Something was missing, like a shout without an echo.
He thought of the entire night—Al-Haitham holding his hand, wiping his face, the way they’d shared a drink, the way he’d let Kaveh bury his face in his shoulder.
Kaveh realized he’d been waiting for something. And it never came.
The shower turned off.
Kaveh jumped to his feet.
There were a few more sounds in the bathroom before the door opened and steam billowed out into the hall. Kaveh peered around the corner to see Al-Haitham step out of the bathroom, T-shirt a little damp from the water, towel around his neck to wipe at his hair, and a solitary droplet of water sliding down the line of his chin. He could smell the steam in the air.
“Bathroom’s all yours,” said Al-Haitham.
“Thanks.” Kaveh stepped forward, heart hammering.
Al-Haitham waited until Kaveh had walked into the doorway before he turned around to leave. Panic gripped him. He didn’t Al-Haitham to go, because if he left, he’d go into his room. And if he went into his room, they’d be done talking. Kaveh would lose the moment—and with it, his nerve.
“Al-Haitham,” he called.
Al-Haitham paused and turned around. “What?”
He spoke before he even knew what he wanted to say. “Thank you again for tonight,” he said, though that wasn’t quite right. “I really did have a lot of fun.”
Al-Haitham’s nodded. “I’m glad to hear it.”
There was another pause. Another stuttered breath where they were once again at an impasse. A chess piece that didn’t know how to move forward.
Nothing was going to happen. Whatever Kaveh had hoped, it didn’t seem it would move forward.
“Um, I’m going to go shower now.”
“Thank you for announcing that, I suppose.”
Kaveh flipped him off. “Nobody asked you.”
He took one step into the bathroom before he heard, “Wait, I forgot something.”
Kaveh turned around. “Oh, let me get out of the way—”
Al-Haitham grabbed his chin, somehow teleporting from the end of the hall to right in front of Kaveh. His eyes were luminous in the light, eyelashes unfairly long, et cetera.
“Kaveh,” said Al-Haitham. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
“Oh.”
Kaveh didn’t have time to blink before Al-Haitham was leaning forward. The only warning he got was the puff of warm air spilling across his lips before Al-Haitham pressed their mouths together.
The kiss was quiet like the empty metro train, soft like a murmur. Al-Haitham’s hand came up like a whisper against the side of Kaveh’s face, ghosting along the skin as if he were afraid to startle him. Kaveh barely felt it, could only feel the burning star of Al-Haitham’s mouth.
He tasted like rain, and smelled overwhelmingly like the mint body wash he always used. A stray drop of water slid down the side of his face and into Kaveh’s mouth, and Al-Haitham smelled so much like their apartment it almost drowned him
Kaveh only remembered to close his eyes when Al-Haitham pulled away. There was a pause where all he saw was darkness, and when he realized how cold his mouth was, he opened his eyes.
Al-Haitham’s face was unreadable. They stood there for another moment as if suspended in time, like the rotation of the planet had slammed to a halt. Kaveh’s heart knocked into his chest, punching out a breath, and they were moving again.
“Good night,” said Al-Haitham, hand falling away. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“Um.” Kaveh couldn’t feel his mouth.
Al-Haitham gave him one last glance before he turned and disappeared into his bedroom, leaving Kaveh alone in the hall.
-
They’d kissed once before that night.
Back in college, during Kaveh’s senior year, Dehya decided to host a party to herald in the coming of the spring semester and told everyone to invite their friends and tell their friends to invite their friends.
Kaveh invited a few of his architecture friends, a few of his non-architecture friends, and, of course, Al-Haitham.
Al-Haitham wasn’t the partying type. Kaveh had learned that early on. It was easy to figure out: the way Al-Haitham liked the quiet, how he wore his headphones to block out noise, the way he preferred to stand in corners to read books on his phone or argue with Kaveh.
So it was a miracle that he’d decided to come. An even greater one that he hadn’t immediately fucked off to the quietest corner of the apartment. He followed Kaveh around as Kaveh said all of his hellos to every single person he knew at the party, and then cycled through various drinking games until he was too dizzy to stand.
No one knew who suggested the game first, just in one moment, everyone was dispersed together in the living room and the next there was suddenly a circle and an empty beer bottle and it was spinning around and around and around like Kaveh’s head.
“Truth or dare, Kaveh,” said Tighnari.
“What?” Kaveh had blinked blearily. “Since when was I playing?”
“Since I decided you should. Truth or dare.”
Kaveh, drunk on several bottles of wine and shitty beer, had felt giddy and bold. He leaned forward, stared Tighnari straight in the eye, and said, “Dare.”
Tighnari grinned. If Kaveh were more sober, the glint in Tighnari’s eye would have made him nervous. Since he was not, his pulse jumped pleasantly at the challenge.
“I dare you…to kiss Al-Haitham.”
“What are we—five?” Al-Haitham cut in.
Tighnari almost smirked. “You’re welcome, Al-Haitham—”
“Pfft. That’s easy.” Kaveh turned to Al-Haitham sitting next to him.
“What,” said Al-Haitham.
“What,” said Tighnari.
“What?” Kaveh shrugged. “You’ve never kissed your homies goodnight before?”
“Um,” said Tighnari. “Can’t say I have.”
“But you kiss Cyno all the time!”
“Kaveh, we’re dating.”
“Holy shit, you are? Since when?”
Dehya cleared her throat. “Are you going to do your dare or not?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kaveh turned back to Al-Haitham. “Easy.”
Al-Haitham frowned at him. “How is this easy?”
Kaveh leaned forward. “We’re just friends, so it won’t be weird.”
“It could get weird—”
Kaveh kissed him.
Al-Haitham made a small noise of surprise in his mouth, but that was quickly swallowed up by the kiss. Al-Haitham’s mouth went slack, unmoving, and Kaveh didn’t like that. What a shitty kiss. If they were doing a dare, he’d at least put on a show.
Kaveh pressed forward until their noses smashed together. Then he tilted his head to make it more comfortable. Kaveh placed a hand between them for support as he kept pushing forward and forward, licking the seam of his mouth, darting his tongue out all in a challenge for Al-Haitham to move.
When Kaveh’s hand brushed the fabric of Al-Haitham’s pants, he finally started to kiss back. Al-Haitham was ferocious, as pushy and forward as Kaveh. He opened his mouth and let Kaveh lick the backs of his teeth. Kaveh pushed and Al-Haitham pushed back. Finally, this was the challenge he’d been looking for. This was the kid he’d met in that philosophy class who argued with him for three hours straight afterward.
He felt a finger brush the edge of his pinky. Kaveh shivered.
And then Al-Haitham was gone. He was leaning back, red-faced and panting while Kaveh’s neck was still craned forward.
“Wow,” said Tighnari. “I…was not expecting that.”
Kaveh turned. “You told me to kiss him! So I did!”
“Dude. I didn’t say that you had to be that…enthusiastic.”
“I never do anything by halfsies,” declared Kaveh. “Even kissing my friends.”
“Is that how you kiss your friends?” Al-Haitham sounded bewildered.
“Well, yeah.” Kaveh turned to him. “I think it’s actually a testament to our friendship that I could tongue you and we’d still remain friends.”
A strange look appeared in his eye that Kaveh was too drunk to decipher.
“Right,” said Al-Haitham flatly. “Friends.”
“You get it.” Kaveh nudged him and then turned back to the group. “Alright, Tighnari, truth or dare?”
“It’s not my turn.”
“Fuck you. Truth or dare?”
The rest of the night faded into oblivion. All of Kaveh’s last remaining consciousness was used to come up with an equally embarrassing revenge dare for Tighnari, and then the game fell apart and they went back to their separate party groups. After, Kaveh played a few more drinking games, talked to a few more people, procured Dehya’s nice vodka and challenged her to match him. It was all silly, all in good fun, and Kaveh sank into the oblivion so deep he didn’t notice how quiet Al-Haitham had gone for the rest of the night.
-
Kaveh woke with a feeling of cotton on his tongue and a head too heavy with sleep to hold itself upright. It made him feel like he was either a) hungover or b) freshly broken up with, but when he replayed every single detail from last night in excruciating detail in his head, he realized that those two options were very, very out of the realm of possibility.
Kaveh lay in bed for a long moment, thinking. He touched a finger to his chin where Al-Haitham had grabbed it, and then promptly rolled over and screamed into his pillow.
Kaveh, I’m going to kiss you.
Maybe the warning thing was a bad idea. Maybe it would have been better if Al-Haitham had caught him off guard, instead of that half a second warning giving Kaveh just enough time to feel like he’d jumped off a cliff before Al-Haitham pressed their mouths together. Soft. Featherlight. A barely there kiss that felt like a fading dream.
Devi fucking Kusanali. Kaveh needed to get a grip.
He counted to ten and then threw himself out of bed, staying as long as he could in his room figuring out the work outfit of the day before he braced himself and pushed into the hall.
Al-Haitham was reading in the living room, drinking his black tea peacefully as if he hadn’t also gone to bed far past midnight. Kaveh was sure Al-Haitham hadwoken right at the end of a sleep cycle, right when his six a.m. alarm went off, and then made his tea while Kaveh had been thrashing around in his covers. He was just like that.
Kaveh stepped into the living room. Al-Haitham hadn’t seemed to notice him yet, because he was still reading his book as if no one was there.
…were they going to talk about it?
Kaveh didn’t know if he had the guts, or quite frankly, the mental facilities at the moment. It was very early in the morning and he’d gotten very little sleep last night and he wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed instead of more annoying things he should be doing—like going to his job or thinking about his feelings.
How would he bring it up? Rip the bandage off type approach? Hey, Al-Haitham, you kissed me on the mouth last night so we should probably talk about that. What about it? I don’t know!
Would he dance around it? Ask, So, last night was a lot of fun, and see if Al-Haitham would pick it up?
Or would they just not talk about it at all?
Somehow, that felt like the worst option.
Kaveh stood there for enough time that he started to feel weird having not said anything. So, he cleared his threat and said, in his most normal voice, “Morning.”
Al-Haitham did something weird. He…flinched.
“Good morning,” said Al-Haitham, voice surprisingly steady.
Kaveh shot him an odd look. “What’s up with you?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Al-Haitham held his book up higher.
Kaveh stepped around, trying to find Al-Haitham’s line of sight around the book. “You’re jumpy.”
Al-Haitham ignored him, flipping another page. “Am I?”
“You are.” Kaveh narrowed his eyes. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing, as far as I can tell.” He turned another page.
Kaveh took a deep breath. “Are you seriously reading while I’m trying to talk to you?”
“I can multitask.” Al-Haitham flipped another page.
Kaveh dragged a hand down his face. He might as well bite the bullet. “Look, if you’re thinking about last night, you don’t have to be weird about—”
“Shouldn’t you be making your coffee by now,” interrupted Al-Haitham. “You have to leave in ten minutes.”
Kaveh darted his gaze to the clock. “Shit.”
“Better get to it.”
Kaveh hurried into the kitchen and turned the kettle on. He kept one eye on the coffee pot and one eye on the digital clock on the oven.
Five minutes later, the coffee was ready. He dropped three ice cubes in it to make it more bearable to drink before downing the entire mug of hot coffee. It burned his tongue and the roof of his mouth but he did not want to be late.
Kaveh grabbed his bag, his keys, yanked on his shoes, and threw out a quick, “Bye, Al-Haitham!” Before he ran out the door.
He was halfway to the bus stop when he realized that Al-Haitham hadn’t kissed him on the cheek, as if last night had ruptured something unspeakable between them; and he hated that he missed it. He entered the office and was three-fourths of the way to his desk that he realized in his haste to make his coffee before the caffeine withdrawal headache hit, he’d completely forgotten what’d they’d been talking about,
Clever Al-Haitham. Sneaky Al-Haitham. Knew-how-to-distract-Kaveh Al-Haitham. The downside of someone knowing who knew you well.
Goddammit, Al-Haitham, thought Kaveh as he logged into his computer.
-
The workday passed in a blur.
It took Kaveh three cups of coffee to get through the day—a new record low!—filled with client meetings, drafting discussions, and general administrative corporate bureaucratic bullshit that gave people more headaches than caffeine addictions. It was a frantic rush all the way to five p.m., and would have been a welcome distraction were it not for the fact that Kaveh was so thoroughly pissed at Al-Haitham.
By the time he got home, he couldn’t tell if those insane heart palpitations were from the amount of caffeine he’d consumed or from power walking all ten minutes from the bus stop to the door of their apartment.
When he got up to the top of the stairs, he felt like he was going to burst.
Kaveh pushed the door open and there sat Al-Haitham—man of the hour, man of the day—reading a goddamn book once again.
“Al-Haitham,” he spat.
This time, Al-Haitham didn’t flinch. He simply turned the page before slowly lifting his head.
“Yes?”
If Kaveh didn’t know Al-Haitham the way he did, he wouldn’t have heard how controlled that “Yes?” was. He wouldn’t have noticed the tendons in Al-Haitham’s neck flexing, the slight grit to his teeth, the way Al-Haitham spoke when he was nervous.
“You—” Kaveh’s courage suddenly fled him. It felt ridiculous to say out loud. You kissed me last night. And then what?
“I…?” Al-Haitham raised his eyebrows, an imitation of normalcy. But Kaveh saw how hastily he closed the book and went to stand. “If you have nothing to say, I’ll go back to my room and—”
“You didn’t kiss me this morning,” burst Kaveh.
Al-Haitham went rigid. He blinked once, twice, and then turned to Kaveh looking very much like an owl peering through the night. It was rare seeing Al-Haitham caught off guard, and he would have loved to take a picture were it not for the fact that he felt like he was going to combust.
“I didn’t,” said Al-Haitham slowly.
Kaveh’s face burned. “ Why?”
Al-Haitham blinked at him, looking genuinely confused. “...I didn’t think you wanted me to.”
Kaveh couldn’t believe this. “Why?”
Al-Haitham sighed like a man accepting his jail sentence. He set the book down on the coffee table and looked at Al-Haitham. “I didn’t—I didn’t know if I’d crossed a boundary last night.”
Last night.
The two words rang in his head, as if smashed by a gong, reverberating through his skull until he felt the buzz in his fingertips.
“How? It—” He couldn’t say it. “It was a ‘yes’ on that list.”
“I—” Al-Haitham took a deep breath. “I just…wasn’t sure.”
“Since when are you ever unsure?”
Al-Haitham closed his eyes. He seemed to be counting to ten. After a few beats, he opened them again.
“When it involves you,” said Al-Haitham, “it’s never out of the realm of possibility.”
Kaveh felt his face heat up. Any hotter and he could boil water.
“Well,” said Kaveh delicately. “You’re fucking stupid.”
Al-Haitham blinked, “Excuse me?”
“I said—” He grit his teeth. “You’re fucking stupid. If you think that. By the way.”
Al-Haitham stared at him, bewildered.
They watched each other for a long moment, waiting to see which party broke first. But Kaveh couldn’t explain. Al-Haitham wouldn’t. And after a solid minute of staring at each other, Kaveh couldn’t take it anymore. He turned and marched toward the kitchen.
Kaveh could hear his heart hammering in his head. He welcomed it, as long as it drowned out all the thoughts of, What the fuck did I just say what the fuck did I just say why did I say that what the fuck—
He quickly dropped his bag onto the ground and went to unload his dirty utensils from his lunchbox into the dishwasher. A moment later, he heard footsteps padding into the kitchen behind him,
“Kaveh,” said Al-Haitham, and thank the Archons he sounded to be a good distance away. “Explain.”
Kaveh straightened. He turned around and then rolled his eyes. “What is it you always say to me? ‘A scholar like you should be able to use your deductive reasoning skills to figure it out?’” He sucked in a breath, trembling. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“I’m not trying to be,” said Al-Haitham. “I just…I need to make sure.”
Make sure—
Kaveh marched forward and dropped his hands onto Al-Haitham’s shoulders and shook them. “What do you mean you need to make sure? I’m being so clear, you don’t even understand, and you’re a dick for trying to make me say it—”
Al-Haitham’s eyes were wide in bewilderment. “Kaveh, what are you doing—”
“This whole thing was your idea and now—look at what you’ve done. You take responsibility for what you’re doing to me!”
The fight suddenly whisked out of him. Kaveh realized what position he was in, how close their faces were, what he’d just said, and dropped his arms.
“I—I mean—” Kaveh took a step back
Finally, finally, after a whole afternoon of an unreachable Al-Haitham, he finally saw something close to mirth sparking in his eye.
“What am I doing to you?” Al-Haitham tilted his head, inquisitive like a cat. There was an amused curl to his voice, like the tone of someone who knew they’d won.
Kaveh wanted to jump out the window. “You stupid fuck. I like it when you kiss me. You didn’t cross a boundary or whatever dumb shit excuse you came up with, so just don’t—don’t be weird about it again.”
Al-Haitham’s eyes were wide with wonder, crinkling at the corners in the dawning of a smile. Not quite there yet, not quite day, but bleeding pink at the horizon, just a hint of teeth showing.
“That,” said Kaveh delicately, “was an invitation. By the way.”
Al-Haitham smiled. Fullblown, starburst, solar flare. He took a step closer. “Was it now?”
“You’re such an asshole,” said Kaveh, face still on fire.
Al-Haitham’s hands came around his face, thumbs tucked under the ridge of his jaw. “Yeah,” he said, and then kissed all the protest out of Kaveh’s mouth.
-
Al-Haitham kissed him all the way into the wall with a desperation Kaveh didn’t know was in him. His hands were warm around Kaveh’s face, cradling him like something delicate, something cherished, thumbs running over the bolt of his jaw. Kaveh pulled away briefly to suck in a breath before Al-Haitham’s hand wound through his hair and yanked him closer.
Kaveh bit back a grunt. He liked the feeling of Al-Haitham’s hand in his hair more than he cared to admit, but Al-Haitham showed no signs of moving and Kaveh certainly had no plans to either, so he leaned into Al-Haitham as much as he would allow.
Al-Haitham’s mouth was hot like a star, and all Kaveh could feel shrank down to where they were touching—Al-Haitham’s hands, Al-Haitham’s mouth, Al-Haitham’s spine shifting under his fingertips. It was a much better kiss than the one they’d had after the night market because it was actually lingering. Staying. Staying long enough that he could feel the rattle of Al-Haitham’s breath against his mouth.
Was Al-Haitham nervous? Was that what that tremor in his breath meant? Or was it just the thundering pulse beneath his skin? But how could he be nervous when his hand felt so steady around the back of Kaveh’s neck?
If anything, Kaveh should be nervous. How frightening it was to admit that he was kissing his best friend and that he liked kissing his best friend and that he admitted that he liked kissing his best friend—to his best friend. But Al-Haitham’s mouth felt so sure against his own that he forgot about what he was supposed to be nervous about in the first place.
Kaveh let out a little gasp when Al-Haitham sucked his lower lip between his teeth and he could feel the curve of Al-Haitham’s smile against his mouth. He shivered. He felt light-headed. He felt so insubstantial that he was sure he would fall directly through the earth were Al-Haitham not anchoring him to shore. It was a terrifying thought how much he liked kissing Al-Haitham. What would it mean when they stopped?
He didn’t get a chance to follow that train of thought further because Al-Haitham suddenly bit his lip and Kaveh let out the most mortifying groan that he shoved Al-Haitham away in a violent burst of force, chest heaving.
They stared at each other as if from across a river—wide-eyed and silent. Both of them were breathing hard, chests heaving. Kaveh was sure his face was flushed high to hell, but aside from his lips, which looked pinker than normal, Al-Haitham looked completely composed.
“Um,” said Kaveh after a long moment. “Sorry for pushing you.”
Al-Haitham snorted. “It’s fine,” he said, voice warm with amusement.
It was honestly unfair how normal he sounded. Not a hint of breathlessness when Kaveh felt like his lungs were going to collapse. He felt so warm he had the urge to jump out the window for fresh air.
“Um,” he said again, uncertain what the end of this sentence would be.
Al-Haitham inclined his head, as if to say, Go on.
Go on, Kaveh. What did he want to say? What do you say after kissing your best friend because you told him you liked kissing him?
“Al-Haitham,” he began, voice unsteady. “I—um.”
“Yes?”
Where do you go from here?
“I—” Liked kissing you a lot. Liked holding your hand a lot. Liked going on those dates with you a lot. Where in this jumble of thoughts did he begin to express how he felt? How frightening it was to feel these things? “Nevermind.”
Kaveh didn’t continue. He let his mouth hang open like a fish before he dragged his gaze down.
There was a beat of silence before he heard Al-Haitham laugh through his nose again. “Alright, should we start dinner then?”
It was so unfair how unfazed he was. Kaveh wanted to chew through an electrical cable.
But even so, part of him felt relieved about being able to carry on as normal. He took the escape route and said, shakily, “Yeah. We should.”
When he risked looking up again, Al-Haitham was smiling which sent another rush of heat through his face. He averted his gaze and walked toward the fridge to pull out all the ingredients. It was his turn to cook that night, which gave him a great excuse to keep his eyes on the stove instead of anywhere near Al-Haitham’s face.
“What do you need me to do?” asked Al-Haitham after a moment.
Kaveh pursed his lips. “Chop the onions.” He passed them over the counter without looking.
“Is that all?”
“Yep.” He pulled the defrosted chicken onto the cutting board. “I’ve got the rest.”
There was a beat of silence, and then Al-Haitham laughed through his nose again. “Well, if you need any more help, I’ll be here. Just in case you decide to look at me again.”
Kaveh turned furiously towards the sink. “Fuck off!”
Al-Haitham laughed into the space between them.
-
The next morning when Kaveh woke up, he thought Al-Haitham had gone missing. He had walked out into the living room to see that Al-Haitham wasn’t sitting in his usual spot in the living room, reading a book. It took him a moment—an embarrassingly long moment—to realize that it was because Al-Haitham was standing in the kitchen instead.
Kaveh walked in hesitantly, unsure what to make of this change in routine. The stove wasn’t on so he wasn’t cooking, and his book lay closed on the counter. It took him another moment to realize that the coffee pot was already brewing.
“Al-Haitham?”
He hadn’t been able to look Al-Haitham in the eye the rest of the night, not even when they settled down onto the couch next to each other to watch their designated bad reality TV show. Kaveh had gone to bed with his heart trembling and his lips tingling at the memory of Al-Haitham’s hands in his hair.
Now, he braced himself when Al-Haitham turned around. His green eyes were soft with sleep and he looked slightly confused that Kaveh was standing there.
The moment passed quickly. Kaveh could see the moment his presence registered on Al-Haitham’s face and he sucked in a breath.”
“Good morning,” said Al-Haitham evenly.
“Hi.” Kaveh darted his eyes back and forth between the coffee pot and Al-Haitham’s face. “What are you doing in the kitchen?”
“What am I doing in the kitchen of the apartment I am currently renting?” Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow.
“Smartass.” Kaveh looked down at the coffee pot and focused on it instead of Al-Haitham’s face. “I mean, why aren’t you reading in the living room?”
“Oh, that,” said Al-Haitham as if the answer wasn’t obvious from the start. “I was making coffee.”
“Why?”
Al-Haitham hummed. “For you,” he said as if that was obvious. “You’ve been waking up later and late so I figured I’d step in to help at this part.
“Oh.” Kaveh’s heart plunged abruptly into the core of Teyvat. “Thank you. You…didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.” Al-Haitham waved his hand.
“Like, really.” Kaveh couldn’t handle this. “I know you don’t like coffee.”
“I don’t like the taste,” said Al-Haitham. “Everything else is fine.”
The coffee pot finished brewing right at that moment. Kaveh stared at it, then stared at Al-Haitham, then jerked back into motion and grabbed a coffee mug from the cabinet. Al-Haitham was still watching him.
Kaveh poured himself a cup, lifted it to his face, and inhaled.
“Well?” asked Al-Haitham.
“Doesn’t smell poisonous,” said Kaveh.
Al-Haitham gave him a flat look.
Kaveh took another deep breath to prepare himself. Then, he took a sip.
It was hot, but well-done—not too bitter, not too sour, just a good coffee taste, like how Kaveh would make it. He had no idea that Al-Haitham knew how to make coffee, but then again, perhaps he’d watched Kaveh do it enough times that he figured it out.
“How is it?” asked Al-Haitham.
“Good.” Kaveh took another sip. “Thank you.”
Al-Haitham nodded. “That’s good to hear.”
Kaveh looked down at the mug, then held it out with a little smile. “Are you sure you don’t want to taste the fruits of your labor? It is pretty good.”
Al-Haitham looked at him for a moment. Then, he stepped forward and kissed Kaveh on the mouth.
Kaveh gasped, surprised, giving Al-Haitham the chance to slip into his mouth, brush their tongues together once before licking the back of his teeth and pulling away. Kaveh stood there, reeling.
“Bitter,” said Al-Haitham with a wrinkled nose. “I don’t know how you drink that.”
Then he grabbed his book off the counter and walked back into the living room.
Kaveh stood there for a very long moment, mouth tingling. He couldn’t tell if the line of heat in his mouth was from the coffee or Al-Haitham. Outside, the sounds of cars clanked through the city and cut through the quiet of their apartment. He could hear Al-Haitham turning a page. A bug slammed into the window with a light thunk, and Kaveh’s heart pounded loud in his ears.
What the fuck?
“I didn’t think that would get you that bad,” said Al-Haitham from the living room. “Are you really just going to stand there?”
Kaveh snapped out of it. He whipped his head around to glare at him. “Why—why did you do that?”
“I wanted to,” said Al-Haitham simply. “Why—did you not want me to do that?”
Al-Haitham wasn’t smiling, but there was the slightest crinkle at the corner of his eye saying that he was amused. The way his voice curled suggested that he did, in fact, know the answer to that, but wanted to ask it anyway for Kaveh’s reaction.
Kaveh balled his hands into fists. “Fuck you. I’m not answering that.” He’d already given one embarrassing declaration, he didn’t need to give another.
Al-Haitham laughed then—the sharp exhale through his nose—and leaned back to read his book. Kaveh drained the rest of his coffee without looking at Al-Haitham and went to pack his work bag. For the first time in a few days, he was actually running on time for work so he wasn’t rushing around to get everything done.
By the time he got to the front door, he was already holding his keys, his bag, his lunch, and everything he needed. The only thing he was missing was Al-Haitham saying goodbye to him.
“Ahem.” Kaveh cleared his throat.
Al-Haitham did not look up from his book.
“Ahem.” Kaveh coughed again.
“Did you drink your coffee too fast to be coughing that much?” asked Al-Haitham as he turned a page.
“Oh, fuck you.”
Kaveh marched over to the couch and yanked Al-Haitham up by the collar of his shirt. He kissed him once—just a brutish smash of their mouths together before he pulled back.
“Bye,” he said resolutely.
Al-Haitham looked at him with an open mouth, finally caught off guard for once. Kaveh let go of his shirt and pulled away, face burning.
Then, Al-Haitham’s face softened. “Bye, see you after work.”
Kaveh whirled around and marched back to the door before he could see that expression soften anymore. When he left, he was sure Al-Haitham was smiling.
-
The thing about kissing Al-Haitham was that Kaveh liked it far too much. He thought about Al-Haitham on the bus. He thought about Al-Haitham at work. He thought about Al-Haitham in meetings he should have been paying attention to and nearly spat out his name instead when the Principal Architect asked him a question.
It was fucking horrible for his work productivity. Instead of powering through ten email chains, he was thinking about the way Al-Haitham made him coffee. Instead of doing any meaningful research on the materials they could use for the new office building, he was thinking about Al-Haitham’s hands on his face, in his hair, gentle like a bird despite the rough calluses on his hands. Like maybe, just maybe it meant something to him, too.
Kaveh didn’t know what it meant to him—the kissing. All he knew was that he liked it and he would die if they stopped.
He thought about Al-Haitham licking into his mouth to taste the coffee he’d made while walking out of the office and down to his bus stop. On the way, he passed by Puspa, which he often went to when he ran out of time to make coffee in the morning.
What a morning. What a fucking day to be honest. Kaveh deserved a little treat so one block before his bus stop, he took a detour and pushed into the cafe.
Puspa was one of those dainty mainstream cafes that everyone went to when they didn’t want to go to a chain. The coffee and the drinks came in slowly because there were usually one or two people working at a time, and the whole atmosphere was relaxed, sleepy. With the purple chair cushions and the light green clothes spread across the warm wood tables, it felt like a place to lay down and nap while everyone languidly moved around you.
Kaveh remembered bringing Al-Haitham here during their college years because he’d been outraged that Al-Haitham hardly knew the city. He’d been so outraged, in fact, that he dragged Al-Haitham out of the dorms by the wrist to the nearest bus stop where they used their student IDs to pay the bus fare to drive halfway across the city to get more homebrewed coffee—and in Al-Haitham’s case, a regular chai.
“It’s not as good as my grandma’s,” Al-Haitham had said.
“Well, duh,” said Kaveh. “Nothing’s going to taste as good as home, but this is pretty close, right?”
“...it is,” Al-Haitham had admitted, almost begrudgingly.
“And this was fun!” Kaveh had nudged his foot under the table. “It’s really nice to get off campus. We should go on more excursions!”
“If you want.”
“If you want,” said Kaveh. “If today didn’t make you sick of me.”
Al-Haitham blinked at him with an unreadable expression. “No, I’m not.”
Kaveh remembered smiling because of the way the words had made him feel like the sun was rising in his chest. It had always felt easy with Al-Haitham—dragging him on adventures just because he wanted to.
Now, though, Kaveh was walking into the cafe after a long workday. It was well past five p.m., and he knew he shouldn’t have another cup of coffee, but he remembered the way he’d acted after their night market date when he was falling asleep on his feet. He’d felt so unalert, so unaware. He’d lain his head unguarded on Al-Haitham’s shoulder and completely missed the signs that Al-Haitham was going to kiss him. He couldn’t lower his guard again.
So, coffee at five p.m.
“Can I have a grande iced latte?” he asked the barista.
“Sure thing,” said a college aged girl with pink hair and a septum piercing. “Will that be all?”
Kaveh pulled out his card to pay. “Yep.”
“Kaveh?”
The voice sent chills down his spine. He whirled around to find his fucking ex-girlfriend staring at him.
He blinked at Amina. Amina blinked back at him. A rush of memories came flooding in—of their dates in Puspa, of their dates around the city, in their apartments, still fresh wounds in his mind, and though he hadn’t poked them in a while, hearing his name in her mouth felt like prodding at the scabs. It hadn’t been so long since their breakup that seeing her didn’t send a needle through his chest, but he found that it didn’t hurt as much as it could have. Even so, it still felt odd looking at her.
“Why did I say that?” Amina slapped her hands to her face. “I’m sorry, I should have just pretended I didn’t see you.”
“No, no. It’s fine.” Kaveh stepped away from the counter where he could see the barista’s eyes lighting up at watching the drama unfold. “Um, were you ordering?”
Amina rushed forward. “Yes. Yes I am.”
He watched her order a grande iced latte, but with a pump of vanilla instead—an order similar enough that he’d mixed up their drinks when they, and how they’d started dating in the first place.
Gods. Horrible.
A few minutes later, another barista called out his order and he went over to retrieve it. At the same time, Amina reached for it.
They both snatched their hands back.
“Ha,” Amina laughed nervously. “Not again.”
Kaveh looked at the markings on the plastic up. There were no other marks except for the X to indicate that it was a latte.
“I think this one is yours,” said Amina.
“Right,” he grabbed it. “Thank you.”
A moment later, another latte appeared, this time with a distinct ‘V’ written on it which meant that drink was definitely hers. He took a nervous sip of his coffee.
Amina turned around. “Do you, um, do you have some time?”
He grabbed the cup. “Why?”
“Do you…want to catch up? I just feel like I left our relationship on a bad note and…wanted to talk to you about it? Maybe?”
Kaveh’s rational brain told him, this is a trap and don’t do it you fucking idiot, but the other part of him was purely curious. And Amina had been kind when they dated, not at all toxic like Kushi had been, who’d broken up with him three times in the span of two months. So maybe it’d be fine.
“Sure.”
They took their drinks and headed to a small table in the back corner of the cafe. A little strand of sunlight had thrown itself across the table, but was mostly in the shade enough that they wouldn’t have the sun in their eyes.
Kaveh took a drink of his coffee for moral support. Then said, “So, what did you want to talk about?”
“I just wanted to know how you were doing,” she said gently. “How you were feeling after I—um.”
“Broke up with me?”
She winced. “Yeah, that.”
He gave her a small smile to let her know that it was fine. “I’m doing alright. Working a lot, as usual, nothing exciting. How about you?”
“Ah, good, good.” She curled her long fingers around the curve of her cup. Al-Haitham had long fingers like that, but thicker with a wider palm. Kaveh remembered those fingers on his face and then wondered why he was thinking about that at all. “I’ve also been working, thinking about what I want for my life. Like career wise and…relationship wise.”
It was fascinating how people could become strangers again after so little time. He remembered Amina, of course—remembered the way she made him feel, the things they used to do together, but it came with a wall of separation now like he’d done all that with a different person. Not the girl in front of him. Looking at her now, she really did feel like a stranger.
“And…?” Kaveh tilted his head. “What’s the verdict?”
“I think I just shouldn’t date for a while,” she said in a rush. “I got too caught up in things and we were moving so fast that it freaked me out so I just. Broke it off. And I’m really sorry for that.” She took a sip of her vanilla latte. It was funny that she had also ordered coffee well into the evening. Both he and Amina were caffeine addicts while Al-Haitham was morally aligned with only drinking tea. “And, I think I’m going to move to the desert for my job.”
“Oh.” Kaveh blinked. “Oh, wow. That’s exciting. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “Enough about me though—what about you? How’s work? Are you seeing anyone?”
Kaveh choked on his coffee. His first instinct was to say “no” he wasn’t seeing anyone, then he remembered that wasn’t quite true. But how do you explain to a normal sane person the situation where your roommate propositioned you into dating for only three dates?
The corner of Amina’s mouth twitched. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Uh, maybe. I mean kind of.” He took another long drink of coffee to try and clear his throat.
“Hmm,” Amina hummed. “How long?”
The day after we broke up.
“A few weeks,” was what he said instead.
“I’m curious,” she started. “What does Al-Haitham think?”
At first, he panicked because he thought she must have realized he was dating his roommate. Then he thought about it further, and the question sounded like she was viewing Al-Haitham as a different person than the one Kaveh was seeing. “Why are you asking about Al-Haitham?”
Amina gave him a mysterious look. “I just had a feeling he never liked me.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s very curt, which I understand is part of his personality, but he seemed particularly short with me.”
“If it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t just you.” Kaveh gestured. “Al-Haitham never likes any of my partners.”
Amina’s eyes widened. “Ah, that makes sense then.”
Kaveh dropped his hand on the table. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Amina leaned back in her chair. “I know you guys have been friends for a while, so I’m just an outsider speculating.”
“What are you speculating?”
“I think I’d do more harm than good if I said it out loud so I’ll just keep it to myself.”
“Amina, you’re killing me.”
She smiled. “Sorry, Kaveh.”
Talking with her was a lot easier than expected, as if they weren’t exes, but friends. And, well, they had been good friends for the five months they dated. Breaking up with him aside, there wasn’t a lot Kaveh disliked about her.
And maybe it was that ease that finally made him admit. “It’s Al-Haitham.”
She sat up. “Sorry?”
“The person I’m seeing is Al-Haitham.”
“Oh?” She was blinking rapidly, like there was something caught in her eye. Except there was nothing, she was just staring at Kaveh with an expression that bordered on bewilderment.
“So…I mean, he wouldn’t have a lot to say about who I’m seeing.”
“You’re, like, dating? Or just, like, testing something out with him? Because I know you’re roommates so if it doesn’t work out…”
A little bit of both, he thought. “We’re dating. He’s my boyfriend.”
“Oh, congratulations—”
“For like three dates.”
She blinked again. “What?”
Oh gods, now he’d done it.
“So,” he started, wringing his hands together under the table. “Um.”
He explained the day they’d broken up—while also not mentioning it was the day they’d broken up—Al-Haitham had propositioned him. He left out all the embarrassing quips Al-Haitham had made about his dating history and explained the despair he'd felt when Kaveh had made the statement about giving up on love. He explained Al-Haitham’s proposition—the fact that Kaveh had agreed. And then he gave a quick rundown of their two dates, and then nothing more.
“Wait.” Amina set down her coffee. “So, like, do you actually like him?”
That gave Kaveh pause. “Uh…”
He certainly liked Al-Haitham as a friend. He’d always been kind to Kaveh, even after their fight. He’d given Kaveh a place to stay, saw him through all his breakups, stayed there steady and persistent even though Kaveh left him first.
He liked when Al-Haitham watched bad movies with him and he liked cooking with Al-Haitham. And he really liked when Al-Haitham kissed him, which was an entirely new development and a bit frightening to really think about.
But did he like Al-Haitham?
Amina sat back. “Oh, Kaveh.”
“What?” He straightened. “Why are you ‘oh, kaveh-ing’ me?”
She gave him a flat look. “You have one guess.”
Kaveh sighed and dropped his head into his palm. “Amina.”
“Kaveh.” She placed her hands delicately on the table. “I am just trying to look out for you.”
“What is there to look out for?”
“Kaveh,” she said a little more urgently. “You are trial dating your roommate and you don’t even know if you like him.”
“It’s just a bet.” He gestured. “It’s just—like, as long as I don’t fall in love with him before the third date, I win.”
“And then what? You stop dating after that?”
He tried to imagine life after they finished dating. He imagined cooking without their shoulders brushing and he imagined leaving for work without Al-Haitham kissing him. It was frightening to admit that the idea made him feel cold.
“I…don’t know,” he admitted.
Amina sighed. “I’m just—I think you should think about what you want so you don’t end up like…how we did.”
“I think these are very different circumstances,” defended Kaveh, though part of his stomach roiled at the thought.
“That may be true,” said Amina. “They’re much weirder. But regardless, you still need to answer the question: what do you want, Kaveh?”
-
Kaveh was debating the ethics of whether or not he should tell his trial boyfriend that he spoke to his ex when Al-Haitham met him at the door with a kiss.
He’d just unlocked the door, head still craned down at his phone, when he looked up and felt a pressure at his mouth that could have lasted one second or one year before Al-Haitham was pulling away and saying, “You’re home late.”
And, well, Kaveh didn’t want to lie.
“Sorry,” said Kaveh. “I, um, ran into Amina at Puspa.”
Al-Haitham raised an eyebrow. “Amina, your ex-girlfriend?”
He flushed. “Yes.”
Al-Haitham stared at him with an unreadable expression. His eyebrow twitched, teeth shifting under his mouth, and Kaveh couldn’t quite tell if Al-Haitham was upset or not. His first thought was: what would Al-Haitham be upset about? His second thought was: you two are dating, you fucking idiot. But did this also count if they were just trial dating?
“I see,” Al-Haitham finally said, voice carefully neutral. “Why?”
It was almost a relief to have Al-Haitham breach the conversation instead of Kaveh, to have him push open the door instead. Admitting it on his own felt like the confession of a secret, but answering a question seemed less daunting.
“Well, I didn’t mean to run into her,” said Kaveh. “It was an accident. I was just getting coffee at Puspa on the way home and she happened to be there.”
Al-Haitham frowned. “Coffee this late in the evening?”
“I know, I know.” Kaveh sighed. “This is actually the last time.”
“You said that last time as well.”
“Well, I mean it this time.”
Al-Haitham gave him a flat look like he didn’t believe him.
Kaveh fidgeted anxiously. “Why did you focus on the coffee part instead of the ex-girlfriend part?”
Al-Haitham rolled his eyes. “Because one is more detrimental to your health than the other. But fine, what were you doing with her?”
Kaveh had the strangest urge to laugh. “We were just talking. Like, catching up on stuff since we—since we last saw each other.” Since they broke up.
It was almost hard to see in the light, but Al-Haitham’s eyes darkened imperceptibly. “About what?”
A chill ran down his spine, and a little knot of panic fisted in his chest. “Like, work and life and stuff.” He swallowed. “She’s moving and I congratulated her.”
“I see.”
He felt like his heart was knocking out of his chest. He quickly said in a rush, “I also told her about us.”
That gave Al-Haitham pause. The furrow between his eyebrows slackened. “You did?”
“Yeah.” Sweat gathered in his palms, heart kicking up speed. Somehow, this was more nerve wracking to admit than saying he’d spoken to his ex-girlfriend for an hour. “She asked if I was seeing anyone. And I said I was seeing you.”
“Oh.”
To the passerby, to anyone that didn’t know Al-Haitham the way Kaveh did, he would have looked the same. But Kaveh knew the difference between Eyebrow Raise #1 and Eyebrow Raise #6. They were part way up his forehead in a way that let light into his eyes—in a way that meant he was halfway to smiling. If Kaveh didn’t know any better, he would almost think Al-Haitham sounded pleased.
“Yeah.” Kaveh wrung his hands. “I hope that’s okay.”
Al-Haitham gave him an odd look then. “Why wouldn’t it be okay?”
They’d never talked about what their bet meant outside the two of them—if they were supposed to announce it to other people or not. There hadn’t been an occasion for Kaveh to mention it before now, and it seemed he’d made the decision for the both of them.
“I didn’t know if we were…supposed to tell other people or not.”
The corner of Al-Haitham’s mouth twitched, bordering on amusement but lacking the mirth in his eye. “I don’t mind. If you don’t.”
“I don’t.” And he meant it.
They stared at each other for another long moment, the silence flitting between them. Outside, all the sounds of the city were converging into the hollow sound of the room and Kaveh could hear his heartbeat roaring in his ears. He felt shaken in a way that didn’t make sense. He wanted to run away and bury his face in a pile of snow to curb the burning. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Then, finally, Al-Haitham broke his gaze first. He turned toward the kitchen. “Well, is that all?”
“Huh?”
“I was waiting for you to make dinner,” said Al-Haitham simply. “It’s your turn tonight.”
This was what he liked about Al-Haitham—the way things could always turn back towards normalcy. With Al-Haitham, there was always an escape route.
And Kaveh, the coward, took it.
“Right, sorry for getting home so late.” He stepped toward the kitchen. “Let me make something really quick.”
“Take your time,” said Al-Haitham. “I’ll help wherever you need me.”
Yes. Yes, he would.
-
Kaveh made a quick thing of split pea stew for dinner because it was nearly eight thirty at night and neither of them had eaten. Al-Haitham helped chop the onions while Kaveh was busy with the stew and the rice. After they ate, they returned to the living room to watch their usual shows until it was time to go to bed. It felt a little off acting so normal when it had felt like there was supposed to be a seismic shift, as if admitting to someone else that he was dating Al-Haitham made it all the more real.
And he supposed it was. They’d gone on two dates. Al-Haitham had kissed him on the mouth. Kaveh had told Al-Haitham he liked being kissed on the mouth. They certainly weren’t behaving the way they used to.
But now, Kaveh turned off the T.V. and Al-Haitham rose to go back to his room. He followed down the narrow hallway and stopped at his door, directly across from the door of Al-Haitham’s room.
“Good night,” said Al-Haitham.
“Good night,” said Kaveh.
He waited for Al-Haitham to lean in because that was how it usually went—and Al-Haitham did lean in, slowly yet without warning, and kissed Kaveh good night.
It was sweet. It reminded him of that morning when Al-Haitham had licked the coffee straight out of his mouth. It reminded him of the way Al-Haitham’s hands had cradled his face before they twisted into his hair, and a hunger lit a fire in his stomach. Kaveh pressed forward, but Al-Haitham was already moving away, his mouth a ghost on Kaveh’s. There and then gone. Just a brush of wind.
“Hey,” said Kaveh. “Why don’t you kiss me?”
Al-Haitham blinked at him in the dark, puzzled. “I just did?”
“No, like…” Like how you did earlier. “Like for real.”
“You’re going to have to elaborate on that.”
Kaveh stepped closer. What do you want? Amina had asked. He had to figure that out for himself.
“Al-Haitham,” he said, voice low enough that his breath felt warm. “Can you kiss me again?”
Al-Haitham licked his lips. “Whatever you want to do, Kaveh.”
“What do you want to do?”
Al-Haitham smiled in the dark, more feeling than sight. Just the slice of his smile cutting deeper into his cheek. “I’ll kiss you if you want me to.”
Kaveh’s voice hardened into a challenge. “Then do it.”
Al-Haitham kissed him. His hands came up around Kaveh’s face like they had that afternoon, thumbs sliding under the edge of his jaw. He pressed Kaveh into the frame of the door and Kaveh yanked him further into his room. They stumbled backwards until his knees hit the edge of the mattress and his heart jumped three feet into the air.
There was a moment before he fell backward that stretched infinitely into the horizon—the vertigo hanging high over his heart, suspended between the spot where Al-Haitham’s hands were gripping the sides of his skull and the moment his spine crashed into the mattress.
Al-Haitham let out a quiet oof above him and Kaveh rolled him back until they were both lying on the bed. Al-Haitham’s hands went from around his face to next to his ear, his knees bracketing Kavhe’s left leg, the full weight of his body pressing them both downard. Their teeth clacked together uncomfortably but they didn’t stop. Kaveh didn’t let them, because if either of them stepped, he felt like he would drown.
He wound his hands through Al-Haitham’s hair and fisted it between his fingers. Al-Haitham let out a quiet grunt against his mouth that sent a zip of electricity down his spine.
The room was so warm—or maybe it was the skin over Al-Haitham’s skull. All over, his body flushed at the heat and the hum of the vents and the roaring in his head. Everything was so much, but Al-Haitham’s mouth wouldn’t stop moving so Kaveh’s didn’t either. He tasted like the wintergreen of the toothpaste he bought that was different from Kaveh’s because Kaveh didn’t like the taste. He smelled like the detergent of their apartment and the musk of his sandalwood deodorant and felt like a storm rolling through his head, like a tidal wave with no limit. Al-Haitham crested over and crashed Kaveh into the shore, over and over and over.
Something tugged at Kaveh’s fingers and it took him a moment to realize it was Al-Haitham’s neck pushing upward. He tightened his grip.
“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham huffed against his mouth. “I need to breathe.”
Kaveh yanked him back down. If Al-Haitham breathed, then Kaveh would stop.
“Kaveh,” he panted. “Kaveh.”
The sound of his name in Al-Haitham’s mouth felt like a thunderclap that made all the hairs on the back of his neck stand. He couldn’t let go of the lightning rod because the storm would strike elsewhere unplanned. If he kept the storm against him, up to his mouth, then at least he controlled where the damage struck itself.
“Kaveh.” Al-Haitham yanked his head back and broke the circle of Kaveh’s fingers. Even in the dark, Kaveh could see his pupils blown wide. If there was better lighting, he was sure his mouth would be red and puffy. “What are you doing?”
Kaveh wanted to touch him and it made him feel like he was diving headfirst off a cliff. He couldn’t answer the question when he had no clear idea himself. So he said, “Can you keep kissing me? Please?”
Al-Haitham sat up higher, further from the circle of his hands. “Why?”
His pulse rose to a roar in his head, like the waves crashing against shore. He didn’t know how to answer in a way that made sense. He didn’t know how to answer.
“I don’t want to be afraid of you,” murmured Kaveh.
Al-Haitham fully sat back up on his legs and frowned. “What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t know,” said Kaveh. But what he wanted to say was, What would it mean to love you?
If he loved Al-Haitham, it meant loving his best friend. If he loved Al-Haitham, it meant he’d fallen far too fast and far too soon once again. Like a fool that did not learn. Like a jester of the court. If Kaveh loved Al-Haitham, it meant a storm was rolling in because if Kaveh looked at his track record, the only forecast was disaster.
“It’s just me,” said Al-Haitham. “You don’t need to be afraid.”
If I just hold out, thought Kaveh. He never has to know.
“That’s why I’m scared.” Kaveh covered his hands with his face, heart eating its way out of his chest.
“Don’t be.” Al-Haitham pulled his hands away. “It’s just me.”
It’s you. It’s you. It’s you. And that was the issue. It was Al-Haitham dragging him to paint pottery together and it was Al-Haitham taking them to a night market to share foods. It was Al-Haitham saying, I’m going to kiss you shaking his entire world like a snow globe. It was Al-Haitham saying, Come stay with me then because you have nowhere else to go and it was Al-Haitham holding him through every break up, through every mourning period, his hand steady like an anchor on his back, his shoulder wet with all of Kaveh’s grief. It was his best friend that he’d lost and found again and couldn’t bear to lose no matter the circumstance.
It was Kaveh kicking himself because he never should have accepted this stupid fucking bet knowing he would lose.
“Kaveh,” said Al-Haitham. “Kaveh, what are you thinking?”
I don’t know, he wanted to say. I can’t tell you.
He looked up at Al-Haitham, wide-eyed. Al-Haitham’s weight was steady on his thighs as he stared down at Kaveh.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Maybe I don’t need your help,” huffed Kaveh petulantly.
Al-Haitham sighed. The expression on his face was so comically flat that a laugh startled out of him—a bright burst of sound. Kaveh quickly clamped a hand over his mouth, but the damage was done. The annoyance on Al-Haitham’s face had been wiped away by pure confusion.
“Sorry,” said Kaveh behind his mouth. “I didn’t mean to laugh.”
Al-Haitham furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t understand what you’re afraid of.”
“I don’t know either,” admitted Kaveh.
Al-Haitham was silent for a moment before he spoke again. “What do you think I’ll do?”
What did he think Amina would do? And Kushi? And Vikram? And Mohammad? What had he thought at the time when he was still naive and making the same mistakes over and over? Loving too fast and giving himself away too quickly until there was nothing left?
“I don’t know how I feel about you,” said Kaveh instead of answering. He felt Al-Haitham tense above him. “And I’m trying to figure it out. You’re my best friend and now you’re not just that and it scares me.”
Al-Haitham leaned forward, brushing a sweaty strand of hair away from Kaveh’s forehead. “You don’t need to figure it out right now.”
“Don’t I?” What would it mean for their bet? What would it mean for their friendship? “What if you win?”
Al-Haitham took in a shuddering breath. “Don’t worry about that right now. Just do what you want to do.”
What do you want?
“Okay,” said Kaveh, voice a whisper. “Can you keep kissing me?”
-
They stayed on Kaveh’s bed until midnight where they simultaneously jerked up in a panic wondering about the time. They caught a glimpse of the clock on Kaveh’s nightstand and then reluctantly peeled themselves off of each other, muttering something about it being late and needing to be up for work tomorrow—which was true, but also felt like a default excuse.
Their clothes were rumpled and their hair was mussed and both of their mouths were wet and kiss-swollen and Kaveh didn’t know how to look Al-Haitham in the eye as he properly bid Kaveh goodnight for real.
He slept uneasily that night, tossing and turning and tangling his feet in the covers of his comforter. He dreamt of kissing Al-Haitham again, except when he lifted his head, it turned out he’d been kissing Amina, whose face morphed into Rishi’s, and then Megha’s. Kaveh jerked up off the body below him and muttered apologies that he thought they were something else, that he hadn’t meant it. Then the door opened to Al-Haitham walking in with a hardened jaw and a mouth set into disappointment. “I thought you’d at least have the respect not to fool around with other people while we’re in this arrangement,” dream Al-Haitham had said. Kaveh had cried out again that no, he hadn’t meant it! But Al-Haitham’s face shifted into Armaan’s, then Nida’s, and then the two bodies in his room became faceless masses that lost form for their bodies and gelatinized around Kaveh until he joined them in the formless nothing.
He woke up drenched in sweat.
“Devi Kusanali,” he muttered before throwing off his covers.
When he wandered into the living room, Al-Haitham was sitting at his usual spot reading a book.
“How did you sleep?” asked Al-Haitham in a voice that was so ordinary it made Kaveh wonder if he’d dreamed it all last night.
“Terribly.” Kaveh walked into the kitchen. “I had the worst nightmare.”
“About what?”
You. “My exes,” he ended up saying, because that was also true.
“Ah.” One beat. “Perhaps you should take it as a sign that you shouldn’t be drinking coffee so late in the evening.”
“You’re mixing up sugar and caffeine just to further your agenda,” he muttered as he started the coffee pot.
“My agenda to curb your caffeine addiction?” There was a sound like Al-Haitham was setting down a book.
“Yes.”
Al-Haitham snorted and the sound of his aborted laugh shot through Kaveh’s chest like a star shard. He’d always liked making people laugh, had made Al-Haitham laugh many times before, but he didn’t understand this sudden delight at this causality. It made Kaveh turn away, to hide his embarrassment and his flushed face.
There was a sound like someone rising off the couch. Kaveh tensed as footsteps padded up behind him.
“I’m surprised you were able to sleep at all after the evening you had.” Al-Haitham’s voice sounded startlingly close.
Kaveh whirled around. “You—”
“I meant the coffee.” Al-Haitham was standing further away than he’d expected. Kaveh couldn’t help but let out a quiet sigh of relief. “And the ex-girlfriend. But we can talk about the other thing if you want—”
“No, no.” Kaveh stepped back. “I don’t want.”
Al-Haitham snorted again. “Alright.”
He turned back toward the coffee pot. Steam was beginning to hiss out of the spout and Kaveh felt the urge to hold his fingers over it. Al-Haitham would probably grab his hand and say something about how water vapor is hotter than boiling water and to be careful. He’d probably like it, too.
Embarrassing.
“Why are you watching me?” Kaveh pulled a coffee mug out of the cupboard.
“Am I not allowed to stand in my own kitchen?”
“Not unless you wanted something.”
Al-Haitham huffed a laugh. “I wanted to know how you were feeling after last night.”
Kaveh’s face burned. What the fuck? They weren’t supposed to talk about it!
“Why?”
“Why do you think, Kaveh?”
He turned around slowly, bracing himself for the full weight of Al-Haitham’s gaze. “I haven’t figured anything out, if that’s what you're asking.”
“Do you need help with that?”
Kaveh blinked. “What do you mean—”
Al-Haitham kissed him.
Kaveh made a noise of protest before he remembered how nice this felt and melted into it. It was actually probably unfair the way Al-Haitham could disarm him like that and he missed the days when Al-Haitham used to warn him before it happened.
The kiss didn’t last long. Al-Haitham pulled away after a second and looked at Kaveh with wide, questioning eyes.
“How did that make you feel?”
“Urghh.” Kaveh dropped to the floor. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“Because you said you liked it.”
Kaveh buried his face in his knees. He had said that, didn’t he?
“Well,” said Kaveh. “You should start warning me again. My heart can’t take it.”
“Alright.”
Kaveh did not look up because if he did, he knew he’d see Al-Haitham’s smile full of mirth. Instead, he turned around on the ground and stood up to where he was facing the coffee pot again.
“Let me finish making my coffee in peace,” muttered Kaveh.
“Alright,” said Al-Haitham. “I’m heading out early so have a good day at work. I’m going to kiss you now.”
“Wait, you’re heading out e—”
A warm pair of lips pressed themselves to his right cheek before pulling away faster than it’d come. There was a cool imprint on his face where Al-Haitham’s mouth had been and Kaveh quickly whirled around to glare at him, but Al-Haitham was already halfway to the door and pulling his keys off the hook.
As Al-Haitham stepped outside and let the door swing shut, Kaveh wondered if this was Al-Haitham’s version of running.
-
When Kaveh came home that evening, there were flowers on the table.
“What’s this?” he asked, setting his work bag down.
“Flowers,” said Al-Haitham with a tone that said, Obviously.
“I have eyes,” he deadpanned. “What are they for though?”
“Oh.” Al-Haitham blinked. “They’re for you.” Obviously.
Kaveh stared at him for a long moment before he slid to the floor and buried his face in his hands. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m sure there’s something, but I can’t pull up any of my flaws right now.”
“No, you asshole. Why did you get me flowers?”
There was a sound of shuffling and then Kaveh felt a warm breath puff over the crown of his head. He peeked his eyes through his fingers and saw Al-Haitham’s socked feet, crouching in front of Kaveh.
“You don’t know how you feel,” said Al-Haitham, voice low. “So we’ll figure it out together.”
Kaveh groaned again and rolled forward. Al-Haitham caught him by the shoulders before he could crash into the floor and his post-work caffeine-deprived brain said there was something symbolic about that, but he was too frazzled to really think about it.
“What does that even mean?” Kaveh groaned into Al-Haitham’s chest.
“It means,” said Al-Haitham, pushing him lightly back. “That we will keep doing what we’re doing and see what evidence we gather.” Al-Haitham stood and Kaveh finally looked up to see a hand held out to him. “Starting with dinner.”
“Dinner?” Kaveh’s voice sounded comically shaky.
“There’s a reservation,” said Al-Haitham, “in half an hour.”
Kaveh shot to his feet, ignoring the hand. “Fuck! That’s like no time to get ready!”
“Better hurry, then.”
“Asshole.” Kaveh shoved past him and fled to his room.
-
Dinner turned out to be very nice. Candlelit with mood lighting and a nice bottle of red wine that Kaveh drank exclusively by himself because Al-Haitham had driven them. They ate lamb and spiced rice and when they returned home, Kaveh felt so warm and full of food that he couldn’t help but fall against Al-Haitham. He pressed his face into Al-Haitham’s shoulder the way he did on the way back from the night market.
“Wait,” said Kaveh as Al-Haitham began to unlock the door. “Was this a date?”
Al-Haitham went still. One beat passed and then he pushed the door open. “No,” he finally said. “It wasn’t.”
“Oh.” A cool relief washed through him in a way that didn’t make sense. “Good.”
“Good?”
“It means there’s still time for you to lose.”
Kaveh couldn’t see it, but he could hear the smile in Al-Haitham’s voice when he said, “I think your logic is a little twisted.”
“I’m drunk,” he slurred. “Give me a break.”
Al-Haitham snorted again. He dragged the both of them into the apartment and down to their rooms, but before he could toss Kaveh in, Kaveh finally got a grip of himself and lifted his head.
“Hey,” said Kaveh. “Can you kiss me again?”
“Whatever you want,” said Al-Haitham, and then he pressed their mouths together softly in the dark.
He pulled away as fast as he’d come and opened the door to Kaveh’s room to drag him inside. Kaveh swore he heard Al-Haitham say something else, but he couldn’t quite process it. He could only feel something warm press at the crown of his head before he was deposited onto his pillows and the door to his room closed.
-
“Figuring it out together” turned out to mean going on little excursions with each other, all for the sake of helping Kaveh figure out his feelings. Al-Haitham took him on after work, then to a museum over the weekend, and then to a farmer’s market the following weekend. Each time he sprung it on Kaveh with little warning, just told him, “We’re leaving” before dragging him out the door, never giving him the chance to mentally prepare.
But each time it was sweet and left him aching with an emotion he didn’t want to look at. They ended with Al-Haitham bringing them home and kissing him on the mouth until he felt dizzy from feeling.
And each time, Kaveh would ask, “Is this the third date?” And each time Al-Haitham would say, “No. Not yet.”
It was a relief each time but also struck a new chord of fear because he didn’t know when the third date was, how much time he had left and how much longer he had to hold out. It felt like a bomb ticking to no end, one that would blow up in their faces but neither of them knew how long the fuse was.
It had Kaveh looking at all their interactions and wondering, Is this a date? No, it was just a new restaurant Al-Haitham wanted to try. Is this a date? No, they were just grocery shopping, but he found himself hooking his chin over Al-Haitham’s shoulder all the same and breathing in the smell of him.
Sometimes he wondered what this was for Al-Haitham—how it felt for him to kiss Kaveh like it was only natural. What did any of this mean for him? How would they ever go back to being normal once they went on their third date?
That was the thing about Al-Haitham: he was very good at pretending at normalcy. He’d started this bet and taken it in stride while Kaveh had a breakdown midway through. Kaveh imagined that once this ended, Al-Haitham would treat it normally, too. The very idea of waking up one morning and not having Al-Haitham kiss him on the cheek before work twisted a knife in his gut.
And maybe that was the answer all along, wasn’t it? The devastation of this ending. The fear of the third date. The pain of loving again because he would feel the loss so much more acutely.
He imagined losing Al-Haitham and wanted to cry. Not again. Not after the first time. He couldn’t tell Al-Haitham, not until their third date was over.
-
Al-Haitham took them stargazing.
He woke up Kaveh from a nap that he’d started at four p.m., swearing up and down that he would wake up after one hour and everything would be fine.
Al-Haitham woke him up at nine p.m., hours after the sun had gone down and dragged a groggy Kaveh to the car. He drove them out past the city and into the countryside where the trees of Avidya rose high like guardians in the distance and stopped when they were far enough from the light pollution of the city.
He laid out a blanket on the ground and sat on it, looking up at Kaveh expectantly.
Well? His expression seemed to say.
Kaveh hurried forward and sat next to him.
“Have you figured out what you’re feeling?” asked Al-Haitham.
Kaveh pressed his lips together. “No,” he lied. “And I’ve decided I don’t want to.”
That had Al-Haitham tilting his head. “Why’s that?”
“It goes back to why we started this bet in the first place,” said Kaveh. “I think it'll be easier if I don’t think about it. Loving people has never gotten me anywhere anyway.”
Al-Haitham was silent for a moment. Then, “It’s not a bad thing to love so easily.”
Kaveh turned to him and murmured, “Each time I’ve loved someone, I’ve lost them.”
“It’s better to have loved than not, Kaveh.” Al-Haitham shifted closer. “It’s a privilege to grieve.”
Kaveh’s hands were buzzing. Something impulsive leapt out of his chest, something that wanted to feel the knife-edge of courage. “...even if you lose a friend?”
Al-Haitham’s eyes went soft under the starlight. “You’ll never lose me.” Not again, was what he didn’t say.
Archons. Devi Kusanali. Kaveh pressed a hand to his chest and fell backwards, all the fear in his chest spiraling out of his lungs and back into the air. He felt like the world was collapsing in on him, but nothing was collapsing. His back was on solid ground, on Al-Haitham’s blanket that he’d brought so they could stargaze. Kaveh pressed his hands over his eyes and sighed.
“What is it?” Al-Haitham had shifted somewhere until his voice was close to Kaveh’s ear.
“I can’t tell you,” said Kaveh, hands still pressed to his face.
“Why?”
Kaveh swallowed. “Because if I did, then this would be over.”
A long silence fell over them. He couldn’t bear it. Kaveh lowered his hands and turned to find Al-Haitham staring at him, wide-eyed.
“Then don’t tell me.” Al-Haitham was leaning forward, breath puffing over Kaveh’s face. “I know what you mean anyway.”
When Al-Haitham kissed him, Kaveh felt a cry of relief burst in his chest. He wrapped his arms around Al-Haitham’s neck and tugged him down onto the blanket like the night in Kaveh’s room and kissed him until he felt dizzy, until all the stars in the sky spun behind his eyes instead of above them. Al-Haitham’s hand was soft along his jawline and he smelled like home. It felt like a relief to know what it meant and to kiss Al-Haitham without any reservations.
When Kaveh pulled back for air, Al-Haitham’s eyes were still closed.
“Is this the third date?” asked Kaveh.
Al-Haitham opened his eyes. “It can if you want it to be.”
“If it’s the third date, that means our bet ends and I win.”
“I suppose it does,” said Al-Haitham.
Kaveh shuddered. “Do you want it to end?’
“Do you?”
An echo and an answer and that was all they were. Kaveh closed his eyes and breathed in the air free of city pollution.
“What would you say if I told you no?” he ventured.
It was hard to see Al-Haitham’s face in the dark, but he swore he could see the corner of Al-Haitham’s mouth twitching. “I would respect your decision.”
Kaveh laughed and pulled him down again so Al-Haitham's face was tucked into his neck. “You’re the worst.”
“Sure,” said Al-Haitham before pressing his lips to the edge of his jaw.
Kaveh lay back, heart pounding so hard in his chest he felt lightheaded. “Does this mean I lose?”
“You haven’t said anything, Kaveh.”
“I think it was pretty obvious” He laughed. “You said you knew what I meant, so spare me the humiliation of saying anything further.”
He could feel Al-Haitham smiling into the skin of his neck. “Alright, then I suppose I win.”
Kaveh huffed a laugh. As if it weren’t doomed from the start.
“What’s the favor you want from me? And don’t make it too fucked up because remember that I can turn it down.”
Al-Haitham lifted his head and looked Kaveh in the eyes. “Keep dating me. Can you do that?”
Kaveh smiled and pulled him back down again. “I suppose that can be done.”