Chapter Text
There are many things a rational man will not do.
He will not, for instance, allow his sunburnt, debt-swamped, emotionally reactive, domestic hurricane of a roommate to move in rent-free. He will not sit across from said roommate every morning and endure the aggressively floral aroma of a homebrew Sumeru spice coffee monstrosity. He will not, after one too many nights of hearing “I’m not crying, it’s the stress of creative vision” from the hallway at 3 a.m., begin cataloguing the patterns of his roommate’s outbursts, the cadence of his arguments, the precise moment when his voice hit that ridiculous octave that meant he was about to start throwing coasters.
But Alhaitham, unfortunately, is not just any rational man.
He is the Acting Grand Sage. He is an academic. A scholar. A man of reason.
And he has just turned in a 37-page, single-spaced, citation-heavy thesis paper to the Akademiya’s internal social philosophy journal titled:
“The Spatial and Emotional Consequences of Sharing Living Quarters With an Architect in Denial: A Case Study.”
Subject: Kaveh al-Saran.
He hasn't named him directly, of course. That would be irresponsible.
(He includes a physical description, a design portfolio, and an appendix with scanned architectural sketches found near the rice cooker. In other words, he has named him completely.)
“It’s a thought experiment,” Alhaitham says dryly when Faruzan nearly chokes on her tea mid-skim. “A personal exercise in observational ethnography. Methodologically sound.”
“You included the bit where he cried in the bathroom because his window treatment ‘wasn’t receiving the proper poetic light.’” Faruzan looks both scandalized and delighted. “You charted his meltdowns, Haitham.”
“They are impressively rhythmic,” he replies, flipping another page. “Almost Pavlovian.”
“You’re in love with him.”
“That’s conjecture,” Alhaitham says blandly, adjusting his headphones. “Unsupported.”
---
When Kaveh finds out, he's holding a spatula and wearing an apron that said “Kiss the Architect (He Deserves It)” in gold embroidery. The apron had been a gag gift from Nilou. The spatula is for his dumb little almond tofu pancakes, which are, admittedly, excellent.
The moment he opens the living room door and sees a giggling Tighnari sprinting down the hall and shrieking “HE REALLY DID IT—ALHAITHAM REALLY WROTE A PAPER ABOUT YOU—THERE’S A FOOTNOTE ABOUT YOUR ANKLE TATTOO,” Kaveh knows something dark and unholy had occurred.
He storms into the study.
“YOU—YOU ABSOLUTE—YOU ACADEMICALLY DERANGED DICK.”
Alhaitham does not look up from his book. “You’ll have to narrow that down. My week has been eventful.”
“You submitted a formal thesis on me?”
“I did not use your name.”
“You drew a diagram of my dramatic posture when I argue!”
“I thought the hands-on-hips, head-thrown-back angle was notable. Very Greco-Romantic.”
Kaveh makes an inhuman sound. “You—you—you made me into a case study!”
“A compelling one. You’re my only prolonged exposure to irrational behavior that hasn’t ended in expulsion, therapy, or incarceration.”
“You called me—oh my Gods, you called me—‘a delicate sociocultural storm system with legs.’”
Alhaitham blinks slowly. “That was poetic license.”
Kaveh turns purple. He clutchs the counter like it might anchor him to the mortal realm. “You’re unbelievable. You're sick. You need—like—a vacation. A kiss. A swift punch to the jaw.”
Alhaitham finally closes his book.
He looks at Kaveh in the way one might regard an approaching weather pattern: inevitable, dramatic, prone to thunder.
“You’re upset.”
“Upset? I’m going to sue. I’m going to write my own paper and publish it in the same damn journal.”
“That would require effort.”
“I will effort your face into the ground.”
“You’ll need a thesis.”
“Oh, I’ve got one,” Kaveh hisses, voice trembling with righteous fury. “‘On the Emotional Repression and Passive-Aggressive Domestic Tendencies of Self-Satisfied Sages: A Case Study in Terminal Hotness and Zero Social Skills.’ Subtitle: ‘Why My Roommate is the Smartest Man Alive and Also a Bastard Who Stole My Heart and My Last Slice of Lava Cake.’”
There's a silence.
A long, stupid, velvet-thick silence.
Alhaitham tilts his head.
Kaveh realizes what he has just said.
“No—NO—not like that, obviously—metaphorically—I meant metaphorical heart theft—you know, like when you deeply loathe someone so much it wraps around into affection like a Möbius strip—”
“Interesting metaphor.”
“I hate you.”
“You said I was hot.”
Kaveh’s soul exits his body.
---
The next day, the academic bulletin board at the Akademiya has a new anonymous paper under the name “K. Saran, Probably” with the title:
“Lust in the Time of Logic: An Exhaustive Critique of Alhaitham’s Personality, Pectorals, and Persecution Complex.”
It has charts. It has footnotes in pink font. It has several poetic interpolations about his “unreasonably veiny forearms” and an embedded photo of Alhaitham doing push-ups at dawn captioned:
“Exhibit A: the physical form of my suffering.”
The paper has eighty downloads in an hour.
---
By the end of the week, the student body takes sides.
Team Haithaveh prints stickers.
Faruzan starts selling “Cognitive Dissonance Is Hot” mugs.
Cyno creates a meme slideshow titled “Ship of Thesis” and presented it during a mandatory ethics seminar.
Nilou weeps in public about “how love blooms in shared spaces of mutual disdain.”
Meanwhile, back in their apartment, Kaveh shrieks, “TAKE DOWN YOUR PAPER,” while Alhaitham changes the thermostat out of spite and brews stronger coffee until their domestic power dynamic spiraled into something resembling postmodern warfare. Or foreplay.
They are probably going to kill each other.
Or kiss.
Possibly both.
---
It's supposed to be a quiet morning.
Which is, of course, a laughable expectation in the same way Kaveh’s budgeting skills are laughable or Alhaitham’s claim that he “isn’t doing this to be petty” is laughable.
The Akademiya is abuzz.
No, not abuzz—frothing.
The architecture students forms a defensive circle around Kaveh and are carrying him on a fainting couch like a war hero. The scholars from Haravatat start a betting pool. The Amurta department is conducting a psychological study on “academic homoeroticism as a natural byproduct of spatial cohabitation.”
Someone graffities “THESIS ME, DADDY” across Alhaitham’s office door.
He doesn't even flinch.
---
Kaveh is, in theory, supposed to be working on a commission.
In reality, he is hunched over a pile of scrolls, surrounded by six highlighters, three empty coffee cups, and one very stressed-out frog figurine that he has named Sir Croak-a-Lot and designates as his “emotional support amphibian.”
He's writing a rebuttal.
A scholarly rebuttal.
A takedown.
A masterpiece.
“You thought you could embarrass me,” Kaveh mutters, deranged curls falling over his eyes as he scribbles. “You thought you could reduce me to a psychological footnote with pretty hair. But I’m the footnote now, bitch. I’m the whole appendix. I’m the postface. I am the epilogue of vengeance—”
“You’re talking to a frog,” says Tighnari from the kitchen.
“I’m talking to my audience.”
Sir Croak-a-Lot says nothing. But even if he does, he will absolutely agree.
---
Meanwhile, Alhaitham is rereading Kaveh’s latest paper.
“On the Interpersonal Impacts of Coexisting with a Muscular Megalomaniac with the Emotional Range of a Fern.”
Alhaitham turns the page.
“Appendix B,” he reads aloud, “Detailed ranking of my roommate’s muscle groups. Triceps: 9/10. Biceps: stupidly large, makes shirts unfairly sexy. Obliques: a war crime. Brain: unused. Dick: alleged.”
He closes the paper with a hum. “Impressive syntax.”
Cyno pops his head in. “You’re blushing.”
“No.”
“You are. You’re pink.”
“It’s warm.”
“It’s 17°C, you hydra of denial.”
“I’m simply intrigued by his rhetorical structuring.”
Cyno gives him a look.
“I find his emotional instability fascinating,” Alhaitham says mildly, returning to his tea. “Like observing weather patterns. Or earthquakes. Or a very hot, very dramatic landslide in a silk robe.”
“You are deeply in love with him.”
Alhaitham takes a sip. “Love is a subjective term often used to explain temporary cognitive lapses in otherwise rational beings.”
“Is that a yes?”
“I do not traffic in binaries.”
“Oh my gods, you’re flirting through peer-reviewed insult.”
Alhaitham says nothing.
(But internally: he knows.)
---
Three days later, Kaveh stands at the center of the Akademiya courtyard, flanked by posters, graphs, and a life-size cardboard cutout of Alhaitham shirtless.
“This is my TED Talk,” he declares, hair windswept, eyes mad with power and espresso. “Today I present: ‘The Alhaitham Delusion: A Study in Egotism, Seduction, and Unresolved Tension.’”
Audience: packed.
Thesis: petty.
Visual aids: explicit.
Kaveh gestures to a chart. “As we can see, incidents of Alhaitham being infuriatingly hot increased exponentially after he started doing shirtless yoga in the living room. Coincidence? I think not.”
There's a slide that simply said:
"LOOK AT HIM."
(with a zoom-in of Alhaitham’s back muscles and a small caption: 'for science')
The next chart was titled:
“How Often I Think About Punching and/or Kissing Him (the Graph is a Circle).”
Another one read:
“My Roommate: A Case Study."
The final slide:
“He Made Me Breakfast Once and I Think I Saw the Face of God.”
Kaveh turns to the crowd, breathless. “I rest my case.”
Everyone applaudes.
Faruzan throws confetti. Cyno dabs.
Alhaitham, leaning in the back with his arms crossed and the most unreadable, slightly amused, definitely fond expression known to man, says absolutely nothing. He doesn't need to. His smirk is already a six-page retort.
---
That night, the house is… silent.
Eerily so.
No dramatics. No slamming doors. No declarations about “emotional labor.” No accusations about dish sponges. Just stillness. And, in that stillness, something almost dangerous.
Tension.
Thick, humid, domestic tension.
Kaveh stands at the window, arms crossed, watching the rain drip off the balcony.
Alhaitham stands in the kitchen, drying a mug.
“…Do you have a response,” Kaveh says finally, low and sharp like the edge of a wineglass.
“I thought your visual aids were a bit unrefined,” Alhaitham says calmly, setting the mug down. “But your use of sarcasm was structurally sound.”
“That’s all you have to say? After I publicly psychoanalyzed your entire existence?”
“I appreciated the attention to detail.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You’re loud.”
Kaveh turns. “You’re insufferable.”
“You’re dramatic.”
Kaveh stalks forward.
Alhaitham doesn't move.
“Are you going to keep intellectualizing this until we both die of repressed attraction?” Kaveh snaps.
Alhaitham blinks. “You think it’s repressed?”
Kaveh sputters.
A beat.
Then another.
“…You what?”
Alhaitham, ever the master of emotional bait-and-switch, calmly adjusts his shirt collar. “I said it’s not repressed.”
“That implies—it’s pressed??”
Alhaitham takes a step forward.
Kaveh steps back. Right into the wall.
“You’ve been cataloguing my behavior like some—some emotionally constipated anthropologist—”
“You catalogued my forearms.”
“That was for—for aesthetic rigor—”
“You wrote poetry about my hands.”
“Metaphorically!!”
“You footnoted my sighs.”
“They were notable!!”
Alhaitham is close now.
Too close.
Dangerously, heartstoppingly, press-your-back-against-the-wall-and-hope-he’s-not-smirking close.
(He is definitely smirking.)
“…You’re not serious,” Kaveh breathes.
“I submitted a 37-page paper about you,” Alhaitham says, voice low, dry, and deadly sincere. “That’s more commitment than most marriages.”
Kaveh’s brain melts.
His knees visibly considers collapsing.
“But you’re—you’re—!”
“Yes.”
“And I’m—!”
“I know.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You’ve said that.”
Kaveh’s voice cracks like lightning. “If you kiss me I will destroy you.”
Alhaitham leans in.
“Try it.”
---
There are kisses that happen like rain.
Soft, accidental. A drizzle of realization, a stumble into sweetness, a wet surprise that leaves both parties blinking and damp and awkwardly human.
This is not one of those kisses.
This is war.
This is thunderclap.
This is an earthquake disguising as a moment, masquerading as a conversation, swaddling in the silk robes of idiocy.
Kaveh kisses Alhaitham like the man has written something unforgivable about him (he has). Like he is personally offended by the existence of Alhaitham’s jawline (he is). Like he has waited too long, argued too hard, dreamed too vividly, and now the only logical next step is violence via lips.
It is all teeth and fury and chest and maybe a moan so feral Kaveh hopes to every god above that it isn't his.
(Unfortunately, it absolutely is.)
And Alhaitham—Alhaitham kisses back like he has written a thesis on this moment.
Because he probably has.
“Kinetic Expressions of Repressed Homoerotic Rivalry: A Case Study in Mouths, Hands, and Stolen Oxygen.”
He angles Kaveh’s chin like a sculpture he's correcting. He touches his waist like he is adjusting a theorem. He kisses him slow but firm, a controlled variable in a wildly chaotic experiment, and somewhere in the distance Kaveh can hear the sound of his dignity curling up like a dead scroll.
He pulls back.
He pants.
He says the first thing that came to mind.
“…I’m going to kill you.”
“I doubt that,” Alhaitham says, brushing a curl from Kaveh’s forehead with such ungodly tenderness it made Kaveh viscerally ill. “You’d miss me too much.”
Kaveh makes a strangled sound.
It sounds like love.
Which is horrifying.
---
The next morning, they don't talk about it.
Obviously.
What are they, functional?
Ha.
No.
Instead, they wage war in subtlety.
Alhaitham adjusts the coffee ratio to the perfect bitterness level Kaveh likes, and then claims it's coincidence.
Kaveh cleans the bookshelf, rearranges Alhaitham’s journals in thematic order, and labels it “aesthetic necessity.”
They are clearly fine.
Perfectly platonic.
Totally normal behavior for two grown men who spent the previous evening making out against the fridge like hormonal undergrads.
(It had knocked the ice tray loose. Kaveh almost slipped and died. Alhaitham called it “natural selection.”)
---
Then comes the monthly seminar.
And with it: disaster.
Because someone—and by someone, we mean Faruzan, that gremlin of mischief and intellect—has the brilliant idea to invite both of them to speak.
“Joint panel,” she says innocently. “About the implications of personal bias in field research.”
“You mean, like how Alhaitham emotionally manipulated his roommate into a breakdown and called it data?” Kaveh asks sweetly.
“You mean, like how Kaveh violated half the Akademiya’s ethics codes by publishing romantic limericks about my collarbones?” Alhaitham replies calmly.
Faruzan grins. “Exactly.”
Kaveh almost bites her.
---
The seminar is packed.
Someone is selling popcorn.
Someone else brings a sign that says “KISS OR DIE (ACADEMICALLY)”
Kaveh adjusts his lapel with the flair of a condemned prince. Alhaitham adjusts his headphones like a man about to lecture God Himself.
And then it begins.
“Good morning,” Alhaitham says. “Today we will be discussing bias.”
Kaveh smiles. It is violent.
“Yes,” he says. “Specifically, what happens when your research subject is also your emotionally stunted, passive-aggressive, pointy-faced roommate.”
A collective gasp.
Alhaitham doesn't blink. “Bias,” he explains, “occurs when one’s ability to separate analysis from emotion is compromised. For example, when an architect allows his hurt feelings to infiltrate his academic voice.”
“Oh,” Kaveh coos, dangerously soft. “You want to talk about hurt feelings? How about the time you gaslit me into thinking your deadpan commentary was affection?”
“I wasn’t gaslighting. I was using observational logic.”
“You were flirting, you sand-brained taxonomist!”
“Then it worked.”
Silence.
Dead silence.
Someone in the front row faints.
Kaveh’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
“…You—you just ADMITTED—”
“I said it worked. I never denied intention.”
“You emotionally constipated slab of marble—”
“Are we still pretending this isn’t mutual?”
The crowd looses it.
Cyno throws a shoe.
Tighnari yells “GET A ROOM—preferably not the one we’ve all heard you screaming in.”
Nilou sobs into a tissue embroidered with their ship name.
Kaveh, red-faced and tremble-lipped, points a shaking hand at the ceiling. “I am going to compose an ENTIRE SYMPHONY OF SPITE just for YOU—”
“You’re welcome to dedicate it to me,” Alhaitham says with all the smugness of a cat who knocked over an entire library and called it art. “Put it in your next thesis. Footnote my name.”
Kaveh screams.
---
That night, they end up kissing again.
Harder.
Meaner.
Sloppier.
Because what else do you do with that much tension?
What do you do with someone who drives you insane, intellectually matches you at every step, and has a jawline sculpted by the gods and a personality forged in the ninth circle of argumentative hell?
You kiss them.
You drag them into your room and you argue about shelving order while he unbuttons your robe. You curse his name while you memorize the shape of his spine. You throw a pillow at his head and then crawl into his lap and pretend it's not because you like the sound of his laugh when you’re angry.
You fall in love and deny it.
Aggressively.
---
They are still disasters.
Still idiots.
Still pretending they are having a long-term domestic academic debate and not, in fact, dating.
Kaveh: “He’s not my boyfriend, he’s just a deeply aggravating presence in my life who happens to sleep in my bed and make me tea and understand my dreams and kiss me like the world is ending.”
Alhaitham: “Boyfriend is a reductive term. We share space. And fluids. And psychological phenomena of mutual infatuation. It’s clearly more complex.”
Everyone else: suffering.
---
A week has passed by now.
Seven days. One hundred sixty-eight hours. Roughly 603,720 seconds. (Kaveh knows this because he has counted, with a pen between his teeth and the precise emotional fervor of someone who refuses to acknowledge he's spiraling.)
They haven't kissed again.
They also haven't not kissed again.
They have built a fortress of avoidance so elaborate it deserves architectural awards. Kaveh calls it “Strategic Domestic Partitioning.” Alhaitham calls it “an unfortunate byproduct of our differing approaches to shared spatial engagement.”
Everyone else calls it “the weirdest, most sexually tense Cold War in Sumeru.”
---
Observed Symptoms of Mutual Denial: A Field Log by Tighnari
Day 4 – Kaveh drops a book on Alhaitham’s foot. Stares too long at his ankle. Pretends it didn’t happen.
Day 5 – Alhaitham makes two cups of tea. Pretends the second one is for “symmetry.”
Day 6 – Kaveh burns his toast, blames “the patriarchy,” and refuses to explain.
Day 7 – Alhaitham mutters “you’re beautiful” while half-asleep on the couch. Kaveh dies. Silently. For twenty minutes.
Conclusion: These two are one thesis proposal away from a public breakdown.
---
The tension is unbearable.
Like walking on cracked eggshells made of literature and longing. Every sentence between them is a double entendre in disguise. Every brush of fingertips, every exchanged glance, every shared sigh—
Charged.
Static-heavy.
Alhaitham accidentally touchs Kaveh’s back during breakfast and Kaveh drops a fork like he’s been shot.
He says that it's a muscle spasm.
Alhaitham doesn't believe him.
(Spoiler: it isn't a muscle spasm. It is a thirst spasm.)
---
And then there's the Pillow Incident.
It begins, innocently, with Kaveh reorganizing the living room throw pillows in a way that's aesthetically harmonious and spiritually necessary and, also, perfectly correct.
Naturally, Alhaitham ruins it.
He sits down.
On the pillows.
On the wrong ones.
Kaveh stares.
“You’re sitting on the accent set.”
“I’m sitting on the couch.”
“The couch is fine. The pillows were intentional. That set is curated.”
Alhaitham blinks slowly. “They’re soft objects, not sovereign states.”
“They had a hierarchy!”
Alhaitham crosses his arms. “Are you implying the mustard yellow pillow had a tax bracket?”
“I’m implying you have no taste and the emotional capacity of a wet rag.”
“The mustard one is itchy.”
“It’s textured, you brute.”
The next words are fateful.
“Well,” Alhaitham says, deadly calm, “if it bothers you that much—”
He flops backward. Full weight. Directly onto all six curated pillows.
Kaveh blacks out from rage.
And then hurls another pillow directly at his stupid, gorgeous, criminally comfortable face.
Alhaitham catches it.
“I could sue,” Kaveh hisses, storming closer. “I could have you exiled for crimes against interior design.”
“Go ahead,” Alhaitham says, lying supine like the smuggest casualty of a taste war. “Then you won’t have anyone to argue with.”
Kaveh halts.
Because that's… unfair.
True.
Viciously vulnerable in the way Alhaitham never is. A little hint, a note in a margin, a whisper of—
Don’t go.
And Kaveh—fool, fool, bleeding heart in silk—just stares down at him and says, “I hate you.”
“You’re holding a pillow,” Alhaitham replies, eyes half-lidded. “You could smother me right now.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“You won’t.”
“…Why not?”
“Because you like having me around.”
And the worst part?
Kaveh does.
Likes it. Wants it. Needs it. Craves it.
Alhaitham is chaos and calm at once, unbearable and irreplaceable, every contradiction Kaveh has ever tried to design his way out of. He is home and hell in one man-shaped problem set.
And so Kaveh, instead of saying any of that like a sane person, just shoves another pillow under Alhaitham’s head and walks away muttering about “bastards with too many abs and too few emotional coping skills.”
---
Later that night, Alhaitham stands in the kitchen, sipping water and rereading Kaveh’s architectural blueprint for a proposed exhibit space titled “The Room of Theoretically Unsaid Things.”
It is shaped like a heart.
Kaveh insists it was metaphorical.
Alhaitham traces the lines with his finger.
“…Coward,” he murmurs.
Then closes the scroll.
And leaves a sticky note that said: “Page 7 has a symmetry flaw. Also, you’re projecting.”
Meanwhile, Kaveh is writing a new paper.
It's titled: “Re: That Time My Roommate Emotionally Ambushed Me Via Academia – A Memoir in Seven Acts and One Nervous Breakdown.”
Act I: “Why Does He Breathe Like That?”
Act II: “We’re Just Two Guys Sharing A Lease”
Act III: “I Am Not In Love, I Am In Rage”
Act IV: “He Touched My Hand. I Dropped A Mug. It's a Coincidence”
Act V: “We Kissed. It Was Fine. I’m Fine. It’s All Fine.”
Act VI: “Why Is He So Pretty When He Reads”
Act VII: “I’m Going to Die Hugeless and He Will Step Over My Corpse Like It’s a Rug”
He ends it with a footnote.
Footnote: I think I’m in love with him. Don’t tell him.
He prints it. Folds it. Stares at it.
And then buries it under a pile of receipts and absolutely does not cry.
(Not even a little.)
(Maybe just one single noble tear.)
---
They are both waiting.
Each thinking the other might say something first.
Each thinking, maybe if I just stay quiet, they’ll confess.
Each one yearning. Stubborn. Terrified.
Refusing to admit they are already halfway in love and ten years behind schedule.
---
Tighnari has seen many things in his time.
Rogue fungi infestations. Students who forgot to breathe during exams. Cyno’s jokes.
But never—not once—has he seen a case of intellectual codependency quite like Alhaitham and Kaveh.
It's like watching a tragic opera composed entirely of unfinished sentences, misdirected longing, and sexual tension so thick it is probably a Class IV environmental hazard.
They are in denial so dense, you can mine it for ores.
So Tighnari, being both a man of science and vengeance, does what any concerned friend would do.
He schedules an intervention.
Cyno, naturally, agrees. Loudly. Too quickly.
“I already have a spreadsheet,” he says ominously.
---
The Intervention: Operation Homoerotic Thesis
Date: Thursday, 5:00 PM sharp
Location: Tighnari's House (neutral ground)
Guests of Honor: Two emotionally repressed academics
Snacks: Yes.
Backup: Nilou (emotional support), Faruzan (for chaos), and one reluctant Collei (who brought juice boxes).
---
It begins, as all disasters do, with a lie.
Kaveh has been promised wine, gossip, and “an exclusive preview of the latest architectural philosophy symposium.”
Alhaitham has been told there would be a debate about “rhetorical frameworks in ethical praxis,” which—Tighnari admits—he did kind of make that one up on the spot.
They arrive at the same time.
(Obviously. They're on the same psychic calendar of shared delusion.)
Both pause at the door.
“You?” Kaveh sneers, coat perfectly flared, hair wind-kissed, rage barely restrained.
“You,” Alhaitham says flatly, sipping his coffee like it has personally betrayed him.
They step inside.
The room is too quiet. Too well-lit.
Nilou smiles gently. “Hi, you two.”
Faruzan waves from the couch. “Take a seat. Anywhere. Except near each other.”
Kaveh blinks. “What—?”
“Please sit,” Cyno says, gesturing to a diagram titled ‘Trajectory of Your Mutual Emotional Avoidance.’
It features graphs. And red strings.
Alhaitham narrows his eyes. “This is… an ambush.”
“It’s an intervention,” Tighnari corrects. “We’re staging it because none of us can live like this anymore.”
“You’ve become a public health concern,” Cyno says, deadpan.
Kaveh gawks. “What does that even mean—?”
“It means your mutual pining is affecting the atmosphere,” Tighnari snaps. “Last week, Collei said she felt a pressure system shift when you two stood next to each other.”
Collei waves shyly from the snack table. “I got a headache.”
Cyno holds up a large laminated flowchart. “Here is a breakdown of every known interaction you’ve had this month, categorized by emotional volatility.”
It includes:
“Kaveh slams a door and whispers ‘he’s so smug I want to eat drywall’”
“Alhaitham drinks from Kaveh’s mug and calls it ‘resource efficiency’”
“Nine (9) instances of shirtless accidental encounters in the hallway”
“Sixteen (16) tension-filled silences exceeding thirty seconds”
“One (1) kiss (documented), followed by catastrophic avoidance behaviors”
Kaveh turns the color of repressed longing.
Alhaitham sets down his coffee very carefully, as if resisting the urge to throw it.
Nilou clasps her hands. “We think you’re in love.”
“We’re not,” they say. In unison.
Faruzan throws a pillow at them.
“Let me be clear,” Tighnari says, pacing like a professor confronting academic fraud. “You live together. You argue like rivals, care like husbands, and kissed in front of the fridge. You wrote an entire academic paper about each other’s emotional habits.”
“That was a thought experiment,” Alhaitham replies, coolly.
“It had three footnotes about Kaveh’s eyelashes,” Cyno deadpans.
“They’re very symmetrical,” Alhaitham mutters.
“I’m leaving,” Kaveh says, rising like an angry sun.
“No, you’re not,” Faruzan says, shoving him back into his seat. “Sit your lovelorn ass down and face your trauma.”
Kaveh crosses his arms. “We’re fine.”
“You screamed his name in your sleep last week,” Cyno says.
“That's not proof!”
“You were dreaming about IKEA,” Tighnari adds. “You said, and I quote, ‘Alhaitham, put the Malm together with me, for the love of the Dendro Archon.’”
“I am going to set myself on fire.”
“Good,” Cyno says. “Maybe the heat will burn off some of the denial fog.”
---
They keep trying.
They ask questions like:
“Do you miss him when he’s gone?”
“Do you fantasize about kissing him or committing murder, or both?”
“Do you like his voice?”
“Does your heart do weird shit when he touches your shoulder?”
Alhaitham: “My heart doesn’t do ‘weird shit.’ It does blood circulation.”
Kaveh: “No comment.”
Everyone else: SCREAMING.
After two hours, Alhaitham finally cracks. Slightly.
“He’s… emotionally chaotic,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But it’s… tolerable. Preferable, even. Sometimes.”
Tighnari blinks. “Was that a confession?”
“No,” Alhaitham says, instantly defensive. “It was an observation.”
Kaveh stands up. “This is ridiculous. I’m leaving.”
Nilou: “Kaveh, do you love him?”
Kaveh: “I—he’s—he doesn’t even fold laundry correctly—”
“That’s not an answer,” Cyno says, holding a hand out. It buzzed softly.
Kaveh stares at the hand.
Then at Alhaitham.
Then at the floor.
“I don’t know what this is, okay?” he explodes. “I don’t know if it’s love or trauma bonding or some elaborate slow-burn hostage situation, but—he’s always there, and I don’t know what to do with myself when he isn’t.”
Silence.
A very long silence.
Alhaitham blinks.
Faruzan whispers, “Oh my gods.”
Alhaitham opens his mouth.
Closes it.
Opens it again.
“I don’t do things halfway,” he says, voice low. “If I wanted to leave, I would’ve. If I’m here—it’s because I choose to be.”
“Then say what it is,” Kaveh snaps, suddenly shaking. “Say it. Define it. Use your stupid words.”
More silence.
Alhaitham swallows.
“It’s…”
He looks at the room.
Everyone leans in.
“…unquantifiable.”
Kaveh screames.
Tighnari actually collapses.
---
The intervention fails.
Of course it does.
They leave together. Still not holding hands. Still not kissing. Still not defining the thing.
But as they walk home—shoulders brushing, breaths synced, fingers twitching with restrained affection—Tighnari sighs.
“Well,” he says, biting into a stress muffin. “We tried.”
Cyno opens his spreadsheet and marked the outcome as: "HELLISH STALEMATE."
Nilou cries softly into her scarf. “They’re so close.”
Faruzan is already taking bets. “Another two weeks. Maximum. Or I’m faking a wedding invitation and locking them in a dressing room together.”
Collei raises her juice box. “To emotional repression!”
Meanwhile, Alhaitham and Kaveh arrive home.
Silence.
Tension.
Alhaitham says, “Do you want tea?”
Kaveh says, “Yeah.”
Alhaitham makes tea.
Kaveh stands in the kitchen doorway, watching him like he's trying to memorize the shape of safety.
Neither says anything.
Their fingertips touch when the mug passes between them.
And nothing else happens.
---
There is nothing—nothing—more dangerous to a man in denial than a formal banquet.
Nothing with the same lethal ratio of tight clothing, atmospheric lighting, live strings, and seating charts designed by someone who clearly wants to watch the world burn.
And so it is that Alhaitham finds himself in a very tight, very tailored black suit, sitting at a long obsidian banquet table with gold trim, staring across it at a man who once told him architecture is like sex: best when structurally unsound.
Kaveh.
Draped in wine-red robes embroidered with flame motifs and hubris. Hair loosely tied back like he is starring in a state-funded tragedy. One earring. Too much lip gloss. The kind of smirk that can trigger a man’s fight-or-flight instincts. Or worse—his feelings.
Alhaitham takes a slow sip of his wine and tries very hard not to imagine licking the gloss off Kaveh’s—
“Alhaitham,” Cyno whispers from beside him. “You’re vibrating.”
“I’m not.”
“You just stabbed your asparagus.”
“It was soft.”
Tighnari, two seats down, stares at his bread roll like it has personally wronged him. “You’re both unbearable.”
Faruzan clinks her wine glass. “I give them an hour before one of them makes a scene. Five mora.”
“Ten says they make it through dessert, but only because Kaveh trips and falls into Alhaitham’s lap.”
“I never trip,” Kaveh says sweetly from across the table, somehow hearing them. “Unlike certain people who lack core stability and emotional range.”
Alhaitham’s jaw tenses. “You’re referring to that one time I fell off a stepladder retrieving your hair serum.”
“It was a crime of physics. Your center of gravity betrayed you, not me.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Neither do your bibliographies.”
Everyone goes silent.
Alhaitham’s eye twitches.
He takes a slow, deep breath and recites pi under his breath like a spell to banish lust and rage.
3.1415926535—
---
By the second course, the sexual tension has gotten so thick someone could slice it and serve it with garnish.
The room is warm with candlelight. A string quartet plays something romantic and stupid. Kaveh is laughing too loudly at something Nilou said, neck tilted just so, and Alhaitham—
Alhaitham stops breathing again.
He doesn't notice until Cyno elbows him.
“Drowning in your own repression?” Cyno mutters.
Alhaitham blinks. “He’s being loud.”
“He’s being charming.”
“It’s manipulative.”
“You’re in love with him.”
“I am in a long-term cohabitation arrangement.”
“With your soulmate,” Cyno deadpans.
“I will kill you,” Alhaitham says, still staring at Kaveh’s clavicle.
Cyno sips his wine.
---
By the third course, Kaveh is fully playing with fire.
He leans over the table to reach the bread basket (unnecessary), letting his sleeves fall just enough to expose wrist and forearm and sins. His voice is lower. He laughs more. He is glowing. Bastard.
“You’re doing it on purpose,” Alhaitham mutters.
Kaveh tilts his head. “Doing what?”
“Glowing.”
“I moisturized.”
Alhaitham stares at his water glass as if it might offer divine intervention.
“You wrote an entire thesis comparing me to a crumbling ruin,” Kaveh adds lightly. “You think I’m not allowed to be moisturized?”
“You were metaphorically unstable,” Alhaitham mutters. “Not physically—”
“Oh, no, say it louder. Tell the whole banquet how much you think about my foundation cracks.”
Alhaitham stares him down.
Kaveh stares back.
Tighnari stares into his wine and whispers, “Someone end me.”
---
Then comes dessert.
A lavender soufflé, allegedly. It could be a bomb. Alhaitham doesn't care. He can't taste anything. His sense of taste has been obliterated by Kaveh, who just leans in and licks a bit of cream off his spoon like a sinful fairytale prince.
Cyno makes a noise. “He’s doing it again.”
“I know,” Alhaitham whispers hoarsely.
“He’s trying to destroy you.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to stop him?”
“No.”
---
Eventually, after wine and shame and several near-accidental touches beneath the table (each of which lasted a moment too long), the formal program begins.
A speech. Long. Boring. Words about Sumeru’s academic future. Alhaitham is supposed to pay attention. He does not.
Because Kaveh is now doing something even more dangerous than existing attractively.
He is taking notes.
On a napkin.
With one of Alhaitham’s pens. (He can tell. It has bite marks.)
And Alhaitham, helpless, watches the shape of his wrist curl around the page, the way his brow furrows in focus, the small almost-smile he has when he understood something—
You’re in love with him, whispers a voice in his head. It’s embarrassing.
“Shut up,” Alhaitham whispers to no one.
Kaveh glances up. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you having an episode?”
“Yes. You.”
---
After the speech, people mill around, glasses clinking, violins singing something soft and ridiculous.
Alhaitham stands alone by the pillar, sipping water like it might keep him from grabbing Kaveh by the waist and dragging him into a supply closet.
Then—
Kaveh appears at his side.
Of course.
He looks unfair. Too bright. Too near. His voice soft.
“Did you hear any of that speech?”
“No.”
“Same.”
A pause. Long enough to be dangerous.
“You look good in black,” Kaveh says, not looking at him.
Alhaitham’s brain short-circuits.
“Statistically,” Kaveh adds, voice loftier, “black is slimming. Even on emotionally constipated rationalists.”
Alhaitham’s mouth opens. Closes. “That was almost a compliment.”
“You’re almost dateable.”
“Are you flirting with me?”
Kaveh raises a brow. “Do you want me to be?”
A long silence.
Neither moves.
“Define flirting,” Alhaitham finally says, voice slightly too low.
Kaveh licks his lips. “I’d rather demonstrate it.”
They do not kiss.
Of course they don't.
That could've been progress.
Instead, someone drops a tray. The moment breaks. Kaveh turns away.
“I’m getting more wine,” he says, and leaves.
Alhaitham watches him go.
Curses him.
Wants him.
Later, he finds the napkin.
Folded. Left on the table.
In Kaveh’s handwriting.
The note said:
If I were writing about you again,
I’d footnote everything with ‘I love you.’
…But I’m not writing. I’m living it.
No signature.
Alhaitham reads it five times.
Then carefully folds it back up and places it in his coat pocket like it might explode.
He does not go after Kaveh.
He goes home.
Stares at the ceiling.
Tries to sleep.
Fails.
Again.
---
It begins, as all disasters do, with laundry.
More specifically: Kaveh’s.
More specifically: Kaveh’s underthings, which Alhaitham did not mean to see but now can’t seem to forget. And which are currently dangling off the balcony railing like satin flags of war.
“You washed lace with my research linens,” Alhaitham says from the doorway, holding one of his now-lightly-pink towels like it’s evidence in a criminal trial.
Kaveh, completely unrepentant, is lounging in a bathrobe like a Roman emperor. “I separated the delicates.”
“This was a delicate.”
“You bought that on clearance and it has bloodstains.”
“Those were from a papercut.”
“You are the most dramatic man alive.”
Alhaitham opens his mouth to reply but is interrupted by a low roll of thunder from outside, ominous and full of metaphor.
Kaveh looks up. “Oh. Rain.”
“It’s the monsoon season. Of course it’s rain.”
“I left my umbrella at Nilou’s place.”
“Why would you—”
“She needed it.”
“You’re going to get soaked.”
“And die beautifully,” Kaveh says with a sigh, standing to retrieve his laundry.
And that’s when it happens.
The world pauses.
Because the robe slips.
Just enough.
Just barely.
And Alhaitham—scholar, sage, sufferer—gets a full, glorious view of Kaveh’s lower back. A stretch of golden skin. The dip of his spine. A single mole.
Sensuality weaponized. Sartorial terrorism.
Alhaitham turns violently away. “For Archons’ sake, cover yourself.”
“You have seen me naked.”
“That was an accident!”
“You stared for ten seconds.”
“I was in shock.”
“You touched my hip.”
“I was trying to get out of the shower stall.”
“You lingered.”
“I slipped.”
“Then why did you moan?”
“THAT WAS A SIGH.”
The thunder cracks again, louder this time. The kind that rattles windows. The sky opens like a bad breakup and starts weeping.
Kaveh stares mournfully at the downpour. “Guess I’m stuck.”
Alhaitham, bone-dry and clinging to rationality, mutters, “Tragic.”
“…I could die here.”
“You live here.”
“Emotionally.”
Alhaitham doesn’t respond. He’s busy not looking at the way Kaveh’s robe has slipped again. Or at the way Kaveh’s damp hair curls slightly at the ends. Or at the way his collarbone looks under warm lamplight, like the site of a religious epiphany.
Focus.
“Do not—” Alhaitham begins, too late.
Because Kaveh is already reaching for a wine glass.
“It’s noon.”
“It’s raining. Therefore, it is art.”
“That is not logic.”
“That is living.”
Alhaitham glares. Kaveh drinks.
Thunder crashes.
The cat—Alhaitham's cat, tragically named “Footnote” thanks to a long story and a bet Kaveh won—yowls and runs into the room like the house is on fire.
It leaps onto the couch.
Onto Kaveh.
Settles in his lap like it’s paying rent there.
Alhaitham watches, helpless, as Footnote purrs like she’s never loved anyone more.
“You traitor,” he mutters.
“She senses beauty,” Kaveh says smugly, sipping again.
Footnote licks his wrist.
Alhaitham considers walking into the storm voluntarily.
An hour later, the storm is full apocalypse.
Rain slashes sideways. Wind howls like a B-tier opera. The walls tremble. So does Alhaitham.
Not from fear.
From the realization that Kaveh is not leaving.
Worse: Kaveh has declared the living room “too gloomy” and migrated to Alhaitham’s bed. With a book. With his book.
“You’re getting the pages wet,” Alhaitham says from the doorway.
“I’m drying.”
“You’re soaking the sheets.”
“It’s ambience.”
“You’re on my side.”
“There are no sides in a bed.”
“There are. That’s why it has two.”
“It’s just a concept,” Kaveh says, lounging diagonally across it like a crime scene chalk outline of lust.
“You’re a concept,” Alhaitham mutters.
“…Explain?”
“I’m not giving you the satisfaction.”
---
Later, much later, Kaveh falls asleep.
Half-curled. One arm thrown dramatically across the pillow. Lips parted like he’s dreaming about making Alhaitham cry.
Alhaitham stands at the door for thirteen entire minutes.
Just…watching.
Processing.
Suffering.
He should leave. Go sleep on the couch. He’s done it before.
But the couch has a spring problem. And Footnote has claimed it.
And the bed is—
Warm.
Smelling faintly of bergamot and rosewater.
Of Kaveh.
“Objectively,” Alhaitham mutters, to himself, like an idiot, “this is the most logical choice.”
He climbs in.
Does not look at Kaveh.
Definitely doesn’t look when Kaveh sighs and turns over, flinging one leg across him like they’re in a tragic romance novel written by someone who hates plot.
Alhaitham freezes.
Heart hammering like a criminal at a border checkpoint.
Kaveh’s hand finds his hip.
Even asleep, the bastard has range.
“Don’t,” Alhaitham whispers.
Kaveh murmurs something in his sleep. It sounds like “Haitham.”
Alhaitham dies. Quietly.
---
In the morning, Kaveh wakes up spooning Alhaitham.
Alhaitham wakes up pretending not to be enjoying it.
Footnote stares at them both from the foot of the bed with the judgment of a thousand grandmothers.
No one speaks.
The silence grows.
Finally, Kaveh says, “So. This is happening.”
Alhaitham, eyes closed, replies, “It’s raining again.”
Kaveh leans in, breath warm against his ear.
“Should we pretend that’s a metaphor?”
Alhaitham doesn’t move.
“Statistically,” he says, very quietly, “this is still denial.”
“Statistically,” Kaveh replies, “you like it.”
They don’t kiss.
Not again.
But they breathe the same air.
And the tension, the storm, the want—it builds like something ancient and aching and slow.
They’re still idiots.
But now they’re idiots in the same bed.
Progress.