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Alhaitham doesn't like mangoes.
Except for when his grandmother would cut them into long slices like crescent moons, unpeeled and laid in a circle like an initiation of a ceremony. Not that he's never tried telling her, there's only so much a mere five-years-old can do to slip away from the relentlessly persuasive tactics she'd use on him. So, he makes a ritual out of it. Step after messy step, he drags his teeth on the surface, feeling the instant burst of sweetness on his tongue as he tears the fruit off the peel. The mango colouring his hands yellow with its sticky juice that just as inconveniently goes about marking its way on whatever book Haitham has open in front of him. And his grandmother would sit right next to him, often settling on sucking the leftover fruit from the gutli despite his attempts to share the perfectly arched pieces with her.
"This is the beauty", she would say. "The complexity of this simple fruit. Its completion is in its tactility. Don't you feel it", nodding at him, gutli in her palm. "The need to connect with more than just the mouth."
"It's just a mango, nani." And she'd always laugh.
Alhaitham doesn't like mangoes.
Despite him following through his design, his ritual as a duty to his grandmother, he can't get around the striking sweetness and the slight stringiness he'd always pick up on. Always dripping down till the hem of his sleeve, little droplets of juice drawing patterns on his running notes making the book smell like a freshly cut mango every time he'd refer to it.
It's all a part of it until it's not. Until no arched crescents of sunburned yellow are arranged around a plate for him. Alhaitham doesn't like mangoes and now he can hardly tell the last time he had one.
--
"Shouldn't we set ground rules or something?"
He doesn't bother looking up from his book, simply waving a hand as he grunts like swating away a bee. He hears a sigh like its carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders as Kaveh takes a seat on the sofa across him.
"I can't believe this, you actually did get worse over the years", he hears him shuffling through papers, starting to arrange and pile them up to his convenience. "They do say social skills simply atrophy when you hardly use them."
Haitham shuts his book, getting on his feet with a momentary glance at the clear surface where all the clutter was and then looking at Kaveh with a frown.
"What... clearly I'm going to have to get a handle on the chores around the house since you're too good for mundane tasks", they both roll their eyes only Haitham turns to head out of the living room.
"Don't change things around here, there you have it", he turns unable to help a subtle upturned smirk, "a ground rule."
Kaveh huffs.
"You already know how to get about this place, do whatever you want", Haitham says.
"Such a heartfelt housewarming, I feel so welcomed", Kaveh said impassively. Haitham only dropped his poker face after shutting the door to his study behind him, his eyes softening and mouth falling into a smile he'd never admit.
Alhaitham doesn't like mangoes. And so, he never buys them for himself. Of course he grocery shops, he's particular about his food and so far, his grocery shopping has fared both him and Kaveh well.
So when he comes home to find a grocery bag seemingly full of mangoes dumped on the table, he's caught off guard despite himself. Kaveh walks out of the kitchen.
"What is this."
"Oh you're back", he says rubbing his wet hands on his sleeves. "And you're one to constantly comment on my observation skills."
Haitham rolls his eyes, "Yes I can see mangoes, what for."
"Cause I wish to have them, why else?"
At Kaveh's confused expression Haitham realises he'd been frowning at the bag like it had personally offended him and relaxes his face.
"Wait are you allergic or something?"
He wants to say yes.
"No", he turns away, taking off his cloak to place it on the rack and beginning to clear his pocket.
"Great, I was beginning to wonder why you never get them. A Sumeru summer without mangoes, unacceptable", Kaveh continues working his way around the kitchen as he talks and Haitham simply puts milk on the stove, walking out without a word knowing Kaveh would take care of the rest.
When they work next to each other they're in sync. And it's dangerous. Haitham realises he can hardly settle. Haitham realises he can't help but look at him. Often times he would catch himself gazing at Kaveh like he's the first ray of the sunrise peering from the horizon. He can only take in long enough before it burns his eyes. Most times he recollects verses in his head to refocus. Other times he simply walks away.
He begins finding mangoes everywhere, it's a bit unnerving. From the table to the refrigerator to the fruit basket on the kitchen counter. Mangoes all around but no ceramic plates no arched crescent shapes. He doesn't care. He doesn't like mangoes.
--
"Then what about aamras?"
Haitham slouches down by the armrest of the sofa, book over his eyes, long legs stretched out. "What about it", he mumbles.
"I was thinking about making some tonight", Kaveh walks over to him, removing the book from his face to reveal his eyes closed and face bearing an expression of calmness. One would think he's asleep, Kaveh knows better. He makes a little fold on the page the book was open at, shutting it and placing it on the table.
"The scribe seems uncharacteristically tired today", he says in a mocking whisper as he sits by the armrest, Haithams head next to his thigh with his fingers slowly making their way to his hair. Running along the shape of his hairline, fingertips optimally pulsating a pattern across his scalp. Haitham let's out a shaky sigh, eyebrows twitching as if to feign annoyance, but it only amuses Kaveh. "Such be the qualms of the traditional working life."
"Get a job, maybe you'll find out."
Kaveh pulls his hand away, gripping Haithams chin and tilting his face up and he leaned down, "How blissfully arrogant."
"How imperturbably ungrateful."
"Hah!", Kaveh's eyebrows shoot up with surprise, eyes wide with offense yet amused. Clearly aware of the taunt and still biting into the fish hook as he does. "And there we have it folks, the ice heart thaws."
Haitham bites his inner cheek to keep himself from smiling yet his lips perk up, his eyes playfully reciprocating the mirth dripping from Kaveh's own. He pulls himself up, their nose momentarily brushing against each other before he pushes past him to head for the room.
"You better not go to sleep."
"Don't tell me-"
"What to do, sure whatever. I'm making aamras for the ages, recipe perfected from the core to the rind of the fruit.. you'll know the map of its creases on your tongue."
Haitham sucks in a laugh as he shakes his head, and ah if it is anyone as comically brilliant with words yet can't help but drop the hammer on his own foot, it's Kaveh. "Whatever you say."
Kaveh makes aamras as much a staple in their household as morning tea. A weekly ritual of the season with a good few days in between so the routine doesn't wear him out.
"Too be bored of aamras, could you imagine", and Haitham would nod along as if he understood every bit of what hes supposed to imagine. He does however, finds himself lost in the process. The sweet, thick nectar collecting in the bowl as Kaveh would strip the mango and keep the peeled skin. A syrup of bright yellow resembling nothing of the fruit, even the sweetness was the cups of unholy amount of sugar Kaveh would add insisting it's a dessert after all. Haitham doesn't know if he likes aamras. It holds nothing of everything his nani ever told him a mango means. Drinking it felt alien to the expected feeling of pulp of the fruit against his teeth, the feeling of the fibers in every bite. In all its truth it was the fruit squeezed dry and made into something else.
"Well of course it is, you don't expect to taste wheat when you eat roti."
"That's way far off the point being made here", but he doesn't wish to argue. It was rhetoric, he says instead. He was just thinking out loud.
Albeit what anyone else thinks, Haitham wasn't entirely oblivious to the affection Kaveh would prepare it with. A whole language being designed on its own in a couple of hours and taken away in a mere few gulps. His hair changing shape a few hundred times in the kitchen, preparing and tasting each dish— an entirely unnecessary ordeal for every other day but he digresses. The fruit he knows now, is the effort. The fruit is them taking turns and assigning roles, it was something he never had before. The fruit was them sitting across each other with their fair share of care out on the plate. Its banal, he hears his grandmother. Its primal and its beautiful, I wish for you to find it and when you do I pray you make it yours.
A few mere gulps to satiate the thirst this season brings with itself. Afterall, there will always be more mangoes to look forward to.
A mango is a metaphor. An object of nostalgia and a seasonal coming of home. A craving without warning that he doesn't wish to admit. Be it a plate on his table or a glass by his dinner.
"For someone who claims to not like mangoes, you sure indulge quite a lot", Kaveh says, wiping off the juice dripping from the edge of his mouth, his fingers marred with yellow trails. Haitham licks his own subconsciously and turns the page on his lap, returning the pen to the ink pot.
"You sure know a lot of indulgence", dipping the nib twice and swiftly making its way to the paper. He lets a beat pass before he continues, "Could you try to be a bit civilized" nodding his head at the fruit he's supposedly sucking since there's nothing of substance really left.
Kaveh pauses, eyebrows knotted in offense all directed towards Haitham. "You see", he swallows before wiping his lips again dropping the peel and picking up another boat shaped piece, "with that question you've betrayed your roots and disappointed every grandmother in all of Sumeru." Before digging into another one he gets up from his chair and walks over to him. Haitham straightens his back as he lays the pen down and stares at Kaveh, trying not to make too much of the comment just thrown at him.
"Is that what it is? You're a neat freak now?", Kaveh prompted after a momentary silence passed between them.
"What is what..."
"You not liking mangoes."
Haitham rolled his eyes, "oh not this-", he sighed. "I never liked mangoes."
"I know that's not true," he pulled the peel off taking a bite and then holding out the slice near his mouth. "Open."
"What, you're going to feed me now?"
Kaveh shrugged, the slice of mango still held out, hand patiently waiting. "It depends, are you five?"
"What is this really about Kaveh."
Kaveh sighed, resigning as he placed the slice back on the plate. "Or I could cut it neat and nice, make it all pretty on the plate."
"Wh-"
"Cause that's what we do Haitham", voice not agitated enough for the expression he bore. He sits on the table, two fingers on his chin as he lifts his head up to look at him. "It's what we do. We care. We share. We pay attention."
Haitham removes his grip but keeping his gaze fixed, Kaveh's soft and expectant to his own defiant and reluctant.
"We put effort. We shove things we appreciate at others", a bright grin holding an entire village worth of smugness in it taking over his face. "We cut fruit and put it on the table. It's how we show love."
"You're thinking too mu-"
"Oh stop it", Kaveh pulled the plate towards him, pushing it slightly towards Haitham. "I don't want to ask because I know you won't say but we've lived together for years now."
Haitham eyes the plate, moving it away from on top of his papers. "And what does that tell you."
Kaveh pulls it back in, "That there's a story I expect you'll share someday, till then don't be so dismissive of my efforts."
"And this effort we talk about, is what? Cutting a fruit."
Kaveh sighs as he shakes his head. Haitham can hear a million different remarks directed at him, he's hopeless, ungrateful, unbearably cold, unaware of his own transparency, a terrible actor.
"But it's not just a fruit after all, is it...", is all he says instead.
In Sumeru, buying and gifting mangoes is something of a doctrine, a practice so deeply ingrained its almost an unwritten law. Perhaps it's the unbearably short seasonal prevalence that makes the fruit so profoundly exceptional. After all its the people that make the norm and a nation's norm may as well be an on-paper representation of the people. There's a metaphor somewhere there, of simplicity and service. Of connectedness and appreciation.
Of the very absurd human error in seeking validation via gift giving. As one could tell through a singular look at what their kitchen and dining looked like. Baskets after baskets full of mangoes covered in coloured cellophane.
"Don't look at me like that, these are all gifts."
"Didn't you say you hate people knowing where you live?"
"Gossip is wildfire, Haitham", he says, ripping open a covering and picking up a few mangoes. "Too many satisfied customers, maybe I can send some over to Tighnari", he mumbled.
"Fruits of your labour?"
Kaveh chuckles, "What a day, to get a joke out of the Akademiya's Scribe".
Haitham takes the mangoes from his hands, nodding his head towards the door, "I'll take care of it."
"Huh?", Kaveh's eyebrows knit together in a mixture of confusion and an offensiveness of just being asked to get out of his own kitchen.
"Go do something else", Haitham placed a plate and picked up a knife, making long cuts on the mango, peel intact. Then slicing around the gutli for the pieces to come apart looking like long crescent moons.
"What're you doing", voice laced with amusement as he leaned on the kitchen counter, eying fingers meticulously cutting through the mango and oddly fixated on making every slice perfectly crescent. A smile teased its way to his face. "Haitham", he repeated.
"I'm", he sighed, stopping and looking at his hands, yellow juice webbing its way till his wrists, grip on his knife now sticky. "Putting effort", the final piece carved out and placed on the plate. Kaveh watches as he brings the gutli to his mouth, sucking a bit of the fruit from the seed and holding the other side out to Kaveh. "I'm shoving what I appreciate at others."
Kaveh sucks at the seed from Haitham's hand, juice from the seed dripping down his lips, tainting his chin the same as Haitham's wrist before he gets up and wipes it off with the back of his hand.
"I'm cutting fruit and putting it on the plate." Haitham draws the plate and passes it towards Kaveh. "Apparently that's how we show love", he adds, trying to sound aloof, being anything but.
Kaveh laughs, soft yet unabashed. He picks up a piece, biting into the skin and taking it apart from the peel. The plate promptly pushed between them as Kaveh holds out a piece for him.
"We share."
Haitham takes it not without rolling his eyes. "You're insufferable."
Alhaitham doesn't like mangoes.
Except for when he'd hear his grandmother rejoice the first rain of monsoon, a dramatic seasonal shift that becomes celebratory occasion without much explanation required in their nation. Something so vicarious about joy, about the humming of a song with such feeling it strums the soul.
"Isn't it powerful, the pull a memory can have on you."
Haitham hums as he feels fingers rubbing circles at the back of his ear. The carpet a sanctuary for his back against the floor. He peered his eyes open to see Kaveh looking out the window, reminiscing something Haitham could only guess was a lifetime away from them. A slice in his hand, a slice in Haitham's as the ritual begins again. Bite, pull, gnaw.
"Did you know that stories of old proclaim Buddha meditated under the shadow of a mango tree? Next to our house was a mango orchard. Heavily guarded as it belonged to some Nawab. But they'd let me in, maybe after a dozen failed attempts to break in, they [rpbably thought what a harmless child can do."
"Harmless child", Haitham mockingly muttered under his breath which earned him a flick on his forehead. So close. Their knees touching as they sat cross-legged. Haitham stares. At his fingers. The juice dripping from between Kavehs fingers so he pulls the plate closer lest the carpet suffer a trip to the dry cleaners. He leans down as he takes another bite. Close enough to see his freckles and how the differ in shade how the play along his face. Wisps of pulp between his teeth.
"Don't interrupt", Kaveh continued, "As I was saying, they'd let me in. And when I tell you walking under the shade of the mango trees with a Koels song and the leaves rustling... it was only a waterfall short from having entered the gates of heaven." There was a yearn in his voice that irked Haitham.
"To be under that shade again, even if only for no more than a second. Hide among the barks and suck on a mango, come back home with sticky palms and juice trailing down the crook of your elbow." Much like his own.
Haitham's gaze never once leaving Kaveh, waiting for his eyes to find his own. He hears the soft chuckle at a distant memory slowly sizzle into a sigh so heavy its almost tangible for him. Like he could just reach out and-
"What are you looking at?"
He's caught off guard by the ruby in his eyes, boring deep in him like he's nothing short of the skin he wears. And despite himself he speaks like juice lining his upper mouth has a parasitic grip on his tongue that seems to have lost hold of his command, "I like it when you laugh."
The silence, it's oddly comfortable like fresh wound numb around the edges. He watches Kaveh and his failed attempt to mask his surprise, mouth agape eyes only widening by a fraction breath momentarily caught before he flicks him again.
"You really...", he sighs, closing his eyes and then turning to look out the window again. "You shouldn't say things like that."
He really shouldn't.
"I like it when you laugh. I like it when you talk about the most menial of the things like they're so effervescent."
"Haitham-"
"I like it when you share parts of yourself you were sure would never slip from under your tongue."
Kaveh looked almost fuming, blood rushing to his cheeks. "I never-"
"I like it when you place those parts in things like little trinkets of your soul", he smirks as Kaveh grabs hold of his wrist pinning him down and shutting him up with his other palm on his mouth. A second too late in realizing the sticky sweetness now a film on mouth.
"That's enough from you", Kaveh snapped. Haitham tried to move his hand, but Kaveh won't budge. He removed his palm from his mouth, letting it rest at the nook of his jaw. "Why must you be so..."
Haitham waits for a frustrated groan. Instead it's another sigh. Their nose touch. Kaveh pulls back and the distance between them stretches to infinity, nagging and gnawing and seeping with ice cold tension until Haitham, still pinned down, pushes forward. Their lips collide with enough intensity for their teeth to hit each other and he feels a muted yelp against his tongue before Kaveh bites back.
In the back of his mind, bound to happen. In the back of his mind, a ritual. He bites and sucks through his teeth, a layer of saccharine coating Kaveh's lips, behind his teeth. When they pull apart Haitham feels his heart pounding in his brain, his throat, his lips a buzz. There's a sting he can't locate until Kaveh runs his thumbs along the raw skin. Only when Kaveh plants a kiss, tender and sweet, does Haitham taste the blood.
"I pulled blood", his voice softer than a rustling leaf before he kisses again, closer. Haitham kisses but Kaveh pulls away, searching his face as a memory takes seat. Saccharine sweet. Enough to lure one in, enough to make one sick. Resinous and lingering. He'll be washing this off till the end of time.
"What're you thinking?"
Haitham unpins his wrist, sitting up while simultaneously pushing Kaveh and putting enough space between them before he gets up and looks around, feeling clumsy on his feet and comfortably whelmed.
"You've made a mess", before he walks out, leaving the door open behind him.
Sometimes when Haitham would look himself in the mirror he would catch a glimpse of the physical evidence he carries of his heritage. He only has one picture of his parents, a night in celebration of their first shared publication taken by a traveller prevailing from Fontaine. He remembers still as his nani told him how the traveller was so charmed by them he decided to give it to them as a memento. The same picture now at the back of every book cover written about their works and contributions.
They never owned a camera before he started working for the Akademiya so the only remaining bits of his grandmother's appearances are the charcoal sketches from her Akademiya days that Haitham never enquired about. If she was alive, shed think they look alike. She often said his mother's genes prevailed against his fathers as it can be seen in his face, his hair, his thin dainty fingers, his long proud nose.
"And thank the archons for that", she would joke.
He thinks he would find himself agreeing with her if she ever called him her reflection. Especially if he pinned up his hair a bit and smiled with wrinkles at the side of his eyes. Two of the things he'd never be caught doing. Sometimes he would catch the deep wisdom she held reflected in his eyes and ache, just for a moment, for her to see him as he is now.
"How come you never wear your hair like that?", Kaveh asks from behind him, laying on his stomach with his chin resting on his palm.
"It's inconvenient."
Kaveh scoffs, "seems incredibly convenient to me, no hair getting in between you and your beloved."
Haitham quirks his eyebrow at him as he turns around.
"Books, of course", Kaveh clarifies with a smirk.
Haitham rolls his eyes, throwing his cape over the mirror and walking over to the bed, sitting on the floor with his back to Kaveh who instantly started running his fingers through his hair. Clip after clip as he let out a humoured sigh. "You seem awfully vain today, what's with it."
Haitham tilts his head back meeting Kavehs eyes upside down. Kaveh starts with behind his ears, pulling the clips out and running his fingers through the hair, letting it loose.
"The human mind betrays."
He hears Kaveh chuckle as his hands continue their voyage along his scalp. "Does it now?"
Haitham closes his eyes and exhales. "I'm beginning to forget", Kavehs hands pause for a slip second before he resumes, leaning closer as Haitham feels his breath on his forehead. "What she looked like, what she sounded like... what she smelled like when she'd put me to sleep."
Kaveh played around with the clips holding back his bangs before changing his mind and sliding his hands down to his shoulders.
"So tell me", he said and almost surprised Haitham with the hesitance in his voice. "Tell me what you do remember, and I'll remember for you."
Haitham couldn't dare peer his eyes away. Unwittingly waiting for challenge and if not then preparing to initiate one. Instead, he folds.
"Her eyes would always glint with this unkempt excitement whenever she would talk about her unrealised ideas... well beyond passionate despite the absolute absurdity of it", Kaveh snickers as he digs his thumb at the back of his neck, rubbing circles around the muscle. "The short moment she tutored as a means to pass time, she would purposefully put very obviously misleading pointers to catch students who are too by the book."
"The Akademiya could surely use someone like that."
"Don't I know it", Haitham smiled. "She loved origami and even created original designs she would never share with anyone."
Kaveh gasped, palms cupping Haithams cheeks as he pulled him further back, "No way Haitham, do you have any idea how famous her crystal fly is among Kshahrewar students? Did she teach you?"
Haitham smirked, eyes sly and giving the answer away without a word.
"You!", Kaveh pulled at his cheeks, "you have to teach me." He pouts, letting go as he leans down, nudging his forehead with his own. "I'm serious, Haitham."
Haitham only rolls his eyes before sighing.
"What else", Kaveh says.
"She used to make aamras for the ages", then he smirks, voice picking up pitch as he mockingly imitates, "recipe perfected from the core to the rind of the fruit... you'll know the map of its creases-"
Kaveh flicks him on his forehead not without a groan escaping his lips followed by a laugh, "I do not sound like that. And I thought you said you didn't like mangoes."
And Haitham laughs with him, hearty and echoing foreign to his own ears. It subdues and his voice softens, "I don't."
Kaveh hums and runs his finger along his jaw, resting at the carotid. He plants a kiss behind his ear and whispers, "Could've fooled me."
Most certainly fooled myself, Haitham thinks to himself.
"Is there a metaphor there somewhere?"
"As most things are with mangoes."
Kaveh rolls his eyes, shaking his head before lifting it up, going back to rubbing circles on his neck, "As most things are with you."
"Maybe, maybe not. If you were to ask me what I would ask you to place it."
Kaveh stares for a moment, rolling down from the bed and laying his head on Haithams lap. Haithams fingers play along, adjusting at the crook of his neck and rubbing up and down below his ear. Kaveh closes his eyes before he speaks. "Time and attention. It's how we show love. And it's what they demand from you."
He opens his eyes to find Haithams never left his. A hand lifting up to pull at his ear, his nose, slide down to his mouth and pull at his chin, "they're the sweetest just moments before they decay."
"Quite a metaphor indeed", Haitham jokes.
"It's every inch is salvageable by the one who sees potential."
Haitham lets him draw a map on his face with his fingers, feeling the dig of the nails, the brush of the skin. Tearing down like he's the rind around his fruit. Picking nerves apart to suck at the pulp.
"Certain in its sweetness and often overcompensating for-"
Haitham pulls his finger away, palm on palm as he intertwines their hands. To be peeled apart and raw in someone else's hands. To be bleed dry of your very essence and still prevail with significance. To put effort till the very right moment, till-
"-you see me stand, open and raw, a reflection of my idealized perfection", he gets up, hand going around his waist as he leans his head on his chest, head under his neck. "-moments before everything yours is mine and mine is yours, and we can't come back from that which changed forever."
Haitham exhales, feeling his chest shake at the breath he didn't realise he was holding. "Kaveh-"
"Shh", he doesn't move. "Don't ruin the moment."
Haitham laughs. "A marvel of a confession right there, Kshahrewar."
"As if there was anything to confess, Haravatat."