Chapter Text
Kaveh had always viewed himself as an optimist, favoring looking on the brighter side of things than to despair about all the wrongs in the world.
He definitely does not do this as a coping mechanism because the world has wronged him so many times that he does not have the time nor money to find a therapist who he wouldn’t scare away after hearing all his trauma.
Nope.
Not at all.
Anyways, yes, he’s an optimist, but really, there are only so many “let’s look on the bright side of things” that can be said before it's just someone becoming borderline delusional, and Kaveh draws the line at borderline delusional because if he doesn't, he’ll become full-on delusional.
And so, at this very moment, Kaveh admits that he can feel himself falling into the bottomless pits of sorrow and woe and the archons above can’t even save him this time.
At this very moment, Kaveh can further believe that the world truly has it out for him and him specifically.
He has been bestowed more traumatic tribulations than the average person and gone through too many tears and sacrifices to only begrudgingly get back up again and again.
Thus, he has ultimately concluded that it has been written in the world’s inner workings, in fine and clear, 12-point-sized, Times New Roman font:
Do not let Kaveh be happy.
Currently, it is one of these instances in which he truly and firmly believes that the world simply does not wish to see him be able to feel some semblance of happiness for a long period of time before crushing, crumpling, and setting said happiness on fire and tossing him in as well for extra flare.
And so, here he is, forced to smile as he fights the urge to cry, scream, breakdown, and laugh maniacally- all in that order, or all at the same time- as he is forced to once again, endure the shit show that Celestia above has once again bestowed upon their, apparently, favorite victim.
“But mom!” A piercing and very whiny scream resounded throughout the establishment. “I saw it on BikBok! I want the Aranara drink!”
“Sweetie,” replies an exasperated mother. “I’m sorry but that’s not on the menu. How about a hot chocolate instead? I promise it’ll taste better than this… Aranara drink.”
“But mom! I want this drink and I want it now!”
“Celestia please have mercy! Have you not had enough of your fill of tormenting me for entertainment?” cries out Kaveh internally as he watches this damn kid whine and cry and piss himself over some non-menu drink.
Tears begin to well up in the corners of his eyes as he sees the kid begin to flail about on the floor now.
Kaveh begins to reflect upon all his life choices that have led up to this certain point, and he curses the heavens for the umpteenth time this morning that he might as well be deemed a blasphemous threat to the church.
Fatherless, broke, a student of the Akademiya, an architecture major in the Akademiya, a hopeless romantic yet single, and worst of all, a part-time Starcucks barista.
No way the list can get any worse than this.
It is currently 9 in the morning and here is Kaveh desperately trying not to let his tears free flow this early into his shift as his smile becomes harder and harder to keep plastered onto his face.
After a few more moments of watching this 7-year-old entitled brat continuing to make a ruckus in the middle of the store, Kaveh decides that it’s time to stop agonizing over how terrible his life is and decides to finally do something about the little shit.
He silently gestures to the mother with a wave of his hand to come closer to him and he asks what exactly her kid usually likes.
She sheepishly tells him that her son usually likes the Java Chip Frappuccinos, and from there, Kaveh punches in a Grande Java Chip Frappuccino, directs her to the credit card pad- making sure to emphasize gratuity, while not required, is greatly appreciated (especially since her kid is going to be one of the reasons why he’ll be banging his head against the break room walls in a few moments after they leave) and tells her that her son’s drink will be right up.
The mother nods and he watches as she picks up her whining kid and drags him over to a chair.
Kaveh has no clue what the hell an Aranara Drink is and curses the white women millennials who most likely influenced this damn brat with unsupervised internet access, but he does know how to make a Java Chip Frappuccino.
He whips up the drink, and while he holds an utter disdain towards this kid for ruining his morning, he decides to take some artistic liberty and instead of the usual frantic drizzle of chocolate, he decides to use the chocolate syrup to create a little Aranara face on top of the whipped cream.
The drink’s wretched “:]” stares at Kaveh, and Kaveh directs a glare at the utterly condescending look the source of all his anguish this early in the morning gives him.
“You wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for my benevolence” scorns Kaveh in his mind, facial expression morphed into nothing but contempt for this chocolatey abomination.
“:]” says his ungrateful creation.
Before he starts throwing hands with a coffee, Kaveh grabs the drink (squeezing it harder than he should), and brings it up to the counter.
“One Java Chip Frappuccino!”
The mother and son walk to the counter, and the boy (who seemed to have tired himself out from making a scene and is thankfully just now sniffling) grabs the drink.
He looks at the face of the chocolate syrup Aranara face and he instantly lights up.
Seeing her son’s reaction, the mother relaxes and looks eternally grateful for Kaveh as she shares a look of relief and utter gratitude towards the man. She also has the look of being on the verge of a mental breakdown that Kaveh is hauntingly familiar with, accustomed to the very look on his face pretty much every night.
He shoots her a genuine smile as he looks at the poor mother, letting his anger subside as he mentally salutes a fellow soldier who courageously endures their own set of mentally taxing tribulations.
“You two have a good day!” he yells out as he sees them walk out the door.
Kaveh watches them leave and lets out a tired sigh. He checks the clock and sees that he still has a good amount of time before morning rush hour, and begins to head to the break room to scream into a trash can before hell breaks loose.
However, the annoyingly familiar jingle of the front door opening rings stops him just before he enters through the back and Kaveh mentally yells out in anguish.
Kaveh turns and walks to the cashier, groaning as he has to plaster his customer service face on once again.
“Hi welcome in-” he immediately stills as his eyes fall on a familiar figure and he is once again ensured that he’s most definitely playing the victim in one big cruel joke bestowed by the universe.
“Oh fuck me,” Kaveh cries for the nth time today.
Not out loud though, because if he did the absolutely wretched man that had just walked through the door would instantly shoot him a face of disgust while replying to Kaveh in that grating smartass voice- “No thanks, I’m not desperate.”
Well, Kaveh isn’t that desperate either! He’d rather consume 70 Jueyun chili peppers than trade spit with this man. He doesn’t sleep around with anybody, and certainly not with a man like him who has absolutely no class, no elegance, and certainly no-
“One grande cold brew with regular cold foam.”
-manners.
Kaveh grits his teeth as he smiles. “What happened to hello? How are you? I did not know you’re the kind to treat minimum wage workers so unkindly. I held you in a higher regard.”
The other's response is immediate. “I didn’t know you even revered me in any way, but I’m flattered to hear you do respect me to some degree despite how you seem to shamelessly flaunt your vehement disdain towards me at any given chance.”
Choosing to ignore the beginning of the other’s comment, Kaveh rolls his eyes and scoffs. “Of course I would express my utter distaste towards a man who has the inability to be anything but an unfeeling and automated machine. Why bother respecting someone who knows nothing of even the basic concepts of kindness or empathy”
“Well, this so-called automated machine just also happens to be a customer. Is it not your duty to ensure the satisfaction of your customers? It would surely be a shame if your manager caught wind of how one of their workers is ruining the sense of ‘community’ this establishment preaches.”
“You…” Kaveh feels like he is already going to get a brain aneurysm after only interacting with this man for a few minutes.
Fatherless. Broke. A student of the Akademiya. An architecture major in the Akademiya. A hopeless romantic yet single. A part-time Starcucks barista. And somehow, somehow, worse than everything that was mentioned previously- worse than everything that is within this world, worse than working at this damned establishment:
Acquainted with Alhaitham.
Kaveh is begrudgingly and against his will, acquainted with Alhaitham.
Unfortunately, he has had enough interactions with the man to be acquainted, enough to even be friends at this point if they were any other people (which makes Kaveh shiver in horror at such a prospect); however, the mutual distaste the two share with each other is so overpowering they’re better off as strangers than this forced acquaintanceship.
Maybe if their interactions did not consist of what started off as offhanded passive-aggressive comments, that gradually become more heated, and ultimately end up with Kaveh calling him an “abhorrent brute who manages to be knowledgeable in everything except basic decorum and everything else related to interpersonal relationships” and Alhaitham, in kind, calling Kaveh a “person who had potential in life if he did not choose to favor the pursuit of his indulgence of romanticisms and flamboyantly lavish lifestyles that he can't even afford.”
And then the interactions, after a couple of hours of back and forths, with their brains tiring from the useless banter that both parties put an unnecessary amount of effort into, would then turn into them resorting to pathetic last-ditch effort attempts to get the last word because while they are glaringly different, they both share an unyielding stubbornness paired with immense pettiness.
“Barbarian,” bites Kaveh.
“Fool,” grits Alhaitham.
“Beastly.”
“Deranged.”
“Handsome.”
“What.”
“What.”
And then either an exasperated Tighnari, Cyno, Dehya, Nilou, or any other of their shared friends pull them both away from each other before they just resort to a physical fight once they tire out their last brain cells that allow them to speak.
Yes, maybe if their interactions were not like this every time, without fail, then maybe they could have been friends. But right now, they are nothing but acquainted.
Some would call them enemies, but neither party holds enough genuine hatred toward the other to be called such a thing. Enough hatred to be well acquainted but is disallowing them to be friends, but not enough hatred to determine them as enemies of any sort.
Enemies, friends, acquaintances, who cares. Kaveh doesn’t care, but he does care about being a nuisance to Alhaitham as much as he can, and it’s the aforementioned immense pettiness in him that causes him to want to do so.
“Can you please repeat your order again, sir?” Kaveh asks, greatly emphasizing the formality with dripping sarcasm.
“It’s awfully hypocritical of you to often criticize my lack of decorum when you, yourself, are currently acting utterly insufferable,” Alhaitham says as he rolls his eyes. “I want a grande cold brew with vanilla cold foam."
Kaveh resentfully punches in the brute’s order.
As Kaveh puts in the order, Alhaitham further pushes Kaveh’s buttons and puts in one last comment- “it seems not only are you incapable of following your own philosophies, but you seem to be incapable of hearing as well.”
Kaveh’s hands stop inputting Alhaitham’s order to direct a glare at the other.
Alhaitham raises an eyebrow seeing how the other stopped putting in his order and was about to ask if Kaveh seemed to have somehow become even more incompetent and is unable to input a basic order, but Kaveh opens his mouth before him.
“Oh noooo” Kaveh deadpans, his tone containing a lilt of feigned disappointment. “I actually forgot to tell you, but we’re out of coffee, so I am unable to complete your order. Sincerest apologies for the great inconvenience,” he pouts.
“What.”
“Yeah, once again, I’m so sorry about this inconvenience, if you come back another time, we might have it in stock! However, at the moment, I am unable to give what you have requested.”
And just to further piss off Alhaitham…
“Brrring… brringg… oh hold on my manager is calling me,” Kaveh says, terribly mimicking the sound of a telephone, bringing his phone out of his pocket, and putting it against his ear.”
Alhaitham’s eye twitches.
“Uh huh… uh huh… oh my… really? Oh no! Alright, thank you. See you.”
Kaveh pockets the phone and turns to Alhaitham. “Oh wow, turns out that there has been a fatal manufacturing error that will take many years to repair, which actually leads us to no longer having coffee for a while, so might as well never come back.”
“This is a Starcucks.”
“I’m well aware of where we are currently, sir! No need to state such an obvious fact that anyone with two working eyes can see!”
“I’m going to drag out your manager.”
Kaveh sighs. He knows Alhaiham is not the type to do such a thing because it’s too much effort, but Kaveh is an exception and Alhaitham would go the extra mile if it’s just to see him suffer.
“Ugh. Pulling out the manager card is so Karen of you. Get your head out of your ass, why don’t you?”
“Not until you pull yours out first.”
Kaveh is going to wring this man’s neck with his own two hands like a washcloth.
“Can I get a name?”
“You know who I am.”
“Keep your self-importance in check, you’re feeding into your pretentiousness.”
“Alhaitham.”
“Alright Alhaitham, here’s the payment screen. Your drink will be out soon,” Kaveh huffed as he watched the other pull out his wallet.
You know, Kaveh was genuinely going to make Alhaitham’s drink because he didn’t want the other to actually bring out his manager; however, after seeing how Alhaitham didn’t bother to tip- and Kaveh knows that man has more than enough money to be able to- Kaveh decides that getting fired is a risk he’ll take.
After Alhaitham takes a seat and Kaveh gets to work, Kaveh rings up the finished drink after a few minutes.
“Drink for Alhaitham?”
Alhaitham approaches the counter, and as he does he directs the most violent and murderous glare at the barista as if he was the main culprit behind the burning of the Library of Alexandria.
Well, that may be because what this damned barista just did might as well be the equivalent of the aforementioned universal tragedy to Alhaitham.
“What is this?” Alhaitham seethes out.
“Your order, sir. Unless your brain is too full of the intricate workings of useless languages that only allow you to communicate with remote villages that have a total population of three in fuck-off-nowhere.”
“No, my memory is not at fault,” Alhaitham states, slight venom in his voice as he tries to maintain his typical stoic demeanor. “If anything is at fault, it should be your incompetence as a barista because this certainly is not a cold brew.”
Kaveh tuts. “This is most definitely a fault on your part because I remember distinctly conveying my utmost regret relaying to you how we are out of coffee for the next decade.” Kaveh keeps talking despite the murderous aura that Alhaitham is exuding at the moment. “I just gave you an alternative I’m sure you would like since it’s in my best interest as a Starbucks barista to ensure your satisfaction.”
“This,” Alhaitham gestures to the drink in front of him, “is an abomination that most definitely violates at least twelve food regulations.”
“Sir, you’re being dramatic. This is nothing but a simple Strawberry Açaí Lemonade. If it violated that many regulations it would not be on our menus.”
Kaveh directs Alhaitham a blinding smile just to piss him off even more as he keeps talking.
“I think this drink would do you more good than your plain cold brew, as it’s quite evident that you could use more color in your life as you’re a walking borderline greyscale.”
Alhaitham looks to be on the verge of jumping over the counter and wiping that infuriatingly smug smile off Kaveh’s face with his fists.
However, unfortunately, for him- but fortunately for Kaveh- he can’t carry out such actions because he has a lecture at 10 and all he can do is just sigh and take the disgustingly vibrant and reddish-pink drink instead.
“Have a good day!~” sings Kaveh as he watches Alhaitham subtly storm out the door in quiet anger.
When he leaves, Alhaitham takes a sip of the drink and can feel his arteries collapsing with how terribly sweet the drink is. He sighs knowing how he has to finish this drink because he desperately needs the caffeine.
“He gave me a Venti too…” Alhaitham can't help but mentally bemoan.