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Kaveh should have realized it when the morgue contacted him about the body.
When he first heard about Alhaitham’s death through the chatters, he had been incapable of mustering up any real feelings. He had been awake for nearly 48 hours by then. Running around the city trying to keep too many buildings from going up in flames. Helping the Bimarstan with the mass psychosis the way only a Dendro Vision holder can. Even though Lesser Lord Kusanali tried her best, chaos still reigned.
That is why his first reaction to that rumor was tired disbelief.
Perhaps, he just couldn’t imagine Alhaitham being dead. He thought it was just a rumor because Alhaitham had been spotted with the group responsible for the ruination of the Sages’ plan. He remembers seeing them after the dust had settled. Bloodied, singed but alive. So, there is no reason to believe Alhaitham is dead, right?
That is until a nervous nurse pulls him aside.
He doesn’t quite remember what happened in the morgue. Mostly, he remembers the staring. Him staring at the body on the table and the others’ stares on him.
Death has not been kind to Alhaitham. Well, not that death is kind to anyone to begin with but death has taken away the spark that made him see the body on the table as his Alhaitham. He had come to adore the physicality of Alhaitham and all of its facets, the angles he could paint and those unreachable by a brush and canvas. If the world and all its wonders serves as his muse, then Alhaitham had been something else - a fascination, a mania.
Alhaitham, so strong in life, is fragile in death.
He lies in the half-light, utterly still, eyes closed. His lips are blue, skin grey. He is as lifeless as fallen leaves, though they at least get one last dance in the winds. Kaveh’s hand finds its way to Alhaitham’s face without thinking. It’s cold. He knows then the body isn’t Alhaitham at all.
Alhaitham is dead.
He expects grief to explode in his chest yet in truth he feels nothing at all, feels as if he'd never feel anything ever again.
He signs the papers with numb yet steady fingers and leaves with dry eyes.
Marriage in Sumeru is simple. Or more exactly, the marriage itself is hard, getting the law to recognize a marriage is simple. You only need two signatures on a piece of paper, a witness and a clerk to file the paperwork.
That was how they got married. Kaveh and Alhaitham.
Kaveh knew he was committing marriage fraud when the thought came to him. He was running on little sleep, too much coffee and a deep certainty that he wouldn’t last another month with his current roommates. It was him or them. The Matra, a distant third.
He'd already tried to switch rooms, but no one he asked was gullible enough to take it and he would feel bad if he tricked someone nice. He'd even gone to the dorm heads, they were of no help. All the normal rooms were full, except for the few allocated to married couples who attended the Akademiya together.
“Marry me,” he told Alhaitham when murder plans were dancing behind his eyelids.
The look of blank surprise on his usually stoic junior was the one he would treasure until the last of his days.
“Give me a compelling reason for why I should marry you,” was his answer instead of a straight refusal. And Kaveh knew his plan would succeed. He was only wary of Alhaitham’s stubbornness. Trying to convince Alhaitham when he didn’t want to be convinced was like trying to get intelligent conversations out of sumpter beasts, just as hard and twice as pointless.
However, an Alhaitham who was open to listen? Kaveh could work with.
They got married at the end of the week. Afterwards, Kaveh gave him a small silver mirror as it was proper. Fake marriage or not.
Alhaitham stared at the mirror like he was handing him a live scorpion but he took it anyway. Later, they shared a packet of gaz and a pot of strong tea over assignments. Alhaitham’s treat because he was like that.
He puts together the service and funerary arrangements alone.
Fortunately for Alhaitham, he already has the experience. The only thing that stumps him is that while he knows Alhaitham had coworkers, he doesn’t know if he had any friend he would want to invite to his funeral. So, he ends up leaving a notice on the message board obituary column for anyone who wants to come.
Alhaitham would have hated it. As he is dead, there is no objection.
On the morning of the funeral, the sky is steely grey. The clouds are heavy with rain and every breath tastes of petrichor. Figures that Alhaitham still manages to be dramatic even in death.
Kaveh washes the body himself, declining the offer from the morticians. It’s a way to give himself closure, he thinks. Maybe, this time, his heart will get on with the program and start working already.
Standing before Alhaitham now, it is difficult to apply any other word to the cadaver before him. Pale, still handsome, for now. Let it never be said that he is without any graciousness. Grey hair has been fire-kissed into short, uneven tufts - Kaveh runs his fingers through it almost absent-mindedly, lifting his head on his limp neck to inspect his face. Once he was radiant. Kaveh does remember that. But even beauty is no match for the hollowness of the soul.
Kaveh starts with where it would be covered by cloth, and then works his way up. Alhaitham’s hands come last. Kaveh likes them better without the bruises and broken bones.
Even after the casket has been nailed shut, Kaveh’s heart still can only see a stranger. Kaveh can grieve for a stranger. He wants the sort of biting hurt that cuts deep into the heart and carved out a permanent, empty void in there, the kind that he should feel for a decade-long connection forcibly severed.
Yet, he can’t. Does this mean that their relationship isn’t as important to him as he thought?
He hopes not.
Their divorce (but not actually because of Alhaitham) went like this:
His thesis had taken over his life for months. He had gained a certain reputation that made greener underclassmen to scutter out of his way and his batchmates to dread for their turns.
Cyno had to tell him to dial back his intensity for a bit lest his reputation irrecoverable. When the one who was on track to possibly be the youngest General Mahamatra in a century told you you were being excessive, you were being excessive.
All for a good, noble cause, however, his thesis defense was a smashing success.
He barely saw Alhaitham for just as long except for the changes in their room that indicated there was another person who lived there. Alhaitham had finally settled down on what he wanted and was cramming enough classes into his schedule to give any other student nightmares, or daymares even.
He couldn’t even join the afterparty Kaveh hosted as an apology for any undue scares. At the party, a Herbad gave him an invitation to join her on her research trip to Fontaine. The part of Kaveh that always wanted to get out of Akademiya, get out of Sumeru to sink his teeth into what all Teyvat had to offer salivated.
Most of his things had been moved back to his childhood home. His mother would understand his decision because she was the one who encouraged him to get on this path to begin with. He only needed to pack, charm the paperwork clerks into processing his papers faster than usual a little bit and he was ready to go.
In the whirlwind of his haste, he had forgotten about Alhaitham and their marriage. He broke into their room with a bundle of divorce forms the day before he had to leave.
(Only, it wasn’t their room anymore, was it? It was only Alhaitham’s now. Kaveh wasn’t supposed to be here after graduation but no one stopped him on his way in and he even used his key.
Their marriage occurred when Kaveh was just barely a blip of notice and Alhaitham was completely unknown. Early enough that nobody cared enough to gossip about them. Early enough that by the time their names were known throughout the marble halls, they had been roommates long enough nobody remembered the time when they weren’t.
Cyno probably knew and Kaveh knew Cyno liked him enough not to insinuate marriage fraud allegations.)
The room was empty, which was expected but disappointing nevertheless. He had no time to wait for Alhaitham to return. So, he put the pre-signed papers in plain sight, where Alhaitham had no way to miss it, scribbled down a note and left his key on it.
Alhaitham only needed to give the papers to the clerks down the marriage office and their marriage would be over. He was also certain that nobody would try to make Alhaitham change his room at this point.
This sham of a marriage had served them well. It was time to put it to rest.
There are more people at the funeral than Kaveh thought. Well, he had half-feared that there would only be him and the casket so any other people would make a pleasant surprise.
Alhaitham’s coworkers swing by, respectful. Leave just as fast because their most efficient Grand Scribe will never return.
Cyno, Tighnari and Collei’s arrival doesn’t bring any ripple. He hadn’t known they were close enough to Alhaitham to go to his funeral. Saving the country together has a way to strengthen bonds, he guesses. Cyno’s clasp on his shoulder and his gentle “sorry for your loss” just make Kaveh want to laugh out loud. Does even Cyno believe there is something more than a fake marriage too?
Candace and a woman that reminds him of a lion follow. This may be the first time he had seen Candace beyond the Aaru Village boundary. It takes him a moment to link the other woman to the Flame Mane in the rumours. They are almost spot-on about her this time.
For some reasons he doesn’t want to ask, Dori arrives with the exalted traveler and their companion fairy. Dori extends another offer to him to live in the Palace of Alcazarzaray. Kaveh has to turn her generosity down once more, because after the completion of his magnus opus, he has lost taste for opulence. There is no sign of it coming back yet. He isn’t a minimalist in any definition but if he had to live there he would do something unwise and she would lose her precious mora.
(“I thought you disliked Alhaitham,” he has to ask anyway. Curiosity has always been his weakness.
“I came for you,” Dori answers, golden eyes gleaming like gems in low light.)
Kaveh has to blink and blink and blink some more when Lesser Lord Kusanali steps in to pay her respect. She is truly a gentle goddess.
They look at him oddly, everyone who comes (except Cyno, because he is starting to suspect Cyno knows more things about him than he even knows himself).
Kaveh supposes he can understand why: marriage and Alhaitham don’t seem to belong together in a sentence. Their marriage has never been a secret, they didn’t advertise it either. Then, Alhaitham, the purely rational Grand Scribe, went off and died in the middle of saving Sumeru and the world from ruination. Suddenly, his history becomes a sensation and their marriage is pushed into the limelight as a way to humanize Alhaitham.
The marriage that should have ended years ago.
Some small parts of Kaveh want to scream on top of his lungs for the whole world to know that their marriage is fake and there is nothing.
Then, what?
Nothing.
They kissed once, during simpler days. It would be generous to call it a kiss anyhow. Kaveh had been going through a phrase where he was convinced he desired Alhaitham carnally. Or worse, romantically.
Desiring Alhaitham was easy. It was always there, on his fingertips, quiet in the back of his head. A glass of alcohol was enough to oil the hinge and let it out without him knowing.
It had been a sweet thing, innocent, the kind of kiss with more hope than want that could have woken a fairy tale princess. It had also been what made Kaveh understand that Alhaitham was not interested.
Kaveh accepted with surprising ease.
Alhaitham had drawn his line. Kaveh liked the clear refusal and used it as a blade to cut that part of his life out. Left it on the floor of that dorm room.
When the dirt above the casket is still soft, he returns to Alhaitham’s house. It belongs to Kaveh now, yet he knows he will never be able to become its owner as long as he remembers Alhaitham.
He doesn’t think he can forget Alhaitham.
(He also didn’t think Alhaitham could die either.)
It’s tempting to just move out and let the house as it is. To preserve the last trace Alhaitham ever left in it. Without its owner, Kaveh feels like an intruder. Unwanted.
The door of his room still hangs open from several days ago. He can’t think of it as his own room anymore. Alhaitham’s house has subsumed it into itself, takes it to the grave where its true owner lies.
He can move out and hire somebody to come to pack everything up. For donation. Somebody will find uses for them better than Kaveh can. Better uses than rotting in a house with an owner who no longer comes home. Better uses than someone who can’t even bear to touch them.
The thought that some strangers touching Alhaitham’s things makes him want to commit violence. He wants to break the house and everything in it then sets the wreck on fire. So that his last memories of Alhaitham will be dust under his nails and ashes in his lungs. There is nobody who can stop him because somewhere in Sumeru, there is a piece of paper with both their names at the bottom saying he is their owner now. He can do everything he wants with Alhaitham’s leftovers.
Alhaitham would have hated it.
Kaveh has to draw the line at doing things Alhaitham would have hated somewhere. It isn’t fair to pick on someone who couldn’t fight back. He might as well start now.
It is not to Kaveh’s credit that the first room he opens is Alhaitham’s bedroom. He has to check everything in the house before deciding what he wants to do anyway. Doing Alhaitham’s bedroom first is self-preservation. If he can get through it, he can get through the rest.
He is not surprised by how impersonal the room looks from a cursory scan. Alhaitham had been the same when they were students. There are traces of personal touches in the bookshelves, on the working table that tells him everything he needs to know.
It is an unfamiliar room filled with unfamiliar belongings and he still sees Alhaitham in it.
On the second look, he realises he can recognize one thing and it isn’t something he expected.
There is a small chest at the bottom of a bookshelf. The chest itself is unremarkable, good but not stellar workmanship. Simple and functional. A complicated locking mechanism keeps it shut.
He remembers making the lock in his second year for a class with a terrible lecturer who could barely explain the concepts in understandable words. The lock was crafted under the influence of spite and copious amounts of alcohol. Alhaitham had been intrigued so he traded it for a meal after the grading.
The mechanism still works well after years. He solves the puzzle with more muscle memories than his brain.
Kaveh flips the lid open.
It’s almost laughable, in retrospect. That even in death, Alhaitham can still surprise him.
In the box, a silver mirror, tarnished with age, nests upon a bundle of papers. He unfolds the papers with their yellowed edge.
At the bottom, there is only one signature.
The world blurs at the edge. A frisson sparks through his spine, something cold dripping down every knob in meticulous tip-tip-tips. Nausea crawls up his throat. A drop of water falls on the paper and rolls down, leaving a dark trail.
His tears strewn across the floor like broken glass.
(Then, what?
Nothing.)