Chapter Text
“Ah, fuck.”
Kaveh, with his eyebrows furrowed, looks in his sling bag for his house key by fumbling with it, but can’t seem to feel that distinct lion keychain attached to it. Getting furious, he takes his phone out of his pocket and turns the flashlight on, placing it down in his bag and eagerly looking for the key. But to no avail.
“Fucking hell,” he whispers, turning the flashlight off instantly as he notices his phone battery life is dying just like him, and stuffing it back in his back pocket.
13%, just like my patience, he muses.
Kaveh shrugs his shoulders and starts to feel like at this point, maybe he should just phone his housemate and ask for help because what can he do, he’s an idiot, that’s all. But him calling the guy means war and his day has already been shitty enough to ruin it some more. He can’t bear destroying the rest of his evening. He may as well rot outside or offer himself to the unknown.
Kaveh dramatically sighs before turning around and listlessly situating himself on their front porch step. He doesn’t understand how someone like him can be this so unlucky. Does God or whoever it is up there hate him? He’s the unfavoured one or something? Like dropping his phone on a cement floor leaving minimal cracks on its screen protector because he just carelessly tripped this morning is one thing, and some idiot bumping against him at the cafeteria with a cup of iced coffee in his hand at lunch is another. And now this. He doesn’t even remember where he has placed his key.
“Kaveh, Kaveh, Kaveh, you’re such a dumbass,” he can only whisper, staring down at his shoes. He now wonders when his housemate will be back. He presses on his watch to check the time. 22:00, it reads, which earns a disappointing sigh from him. Knowing that the other guy is a ‘workaholic’, he may or may not be home before midnight.
Kaveh looks up and notices for the first time how the stars in the sky are visible from his viewpoint. They look beautiful, and it makes him sad how awfully busy he has been that he has not had the time to admire beautiful things in life. This is why he despises a busy schedule.
Streetlights right across the street start to flicker, earning a soft gasp from Kaveh. He swallows gradually, placing both of his palms on his lap, running them up and down to calm himself down. He presses his watch to check the time again- 22:44, it now reads. He has been outside for how long again?
Kaveh then shifts to look straight ahead of him when he suddenly hears footsteps. He knows those footsteps; in fact, the silhouette alone is enough for him to identify the person arriving. It’s Alhaitham.
Standing up from the porch step, he dusts himself off and anxiously greets his housemate.
“H-Hey…”
Alhaitham stops dead in his tracks, probably appalled to be seeing him right outside their house. Kaveh sees him raise an eyebrow, his head gently tilting to the left and Kaveh swears he saw a smirk slowly forming.
This bastard, he thinks, careful not to show a clenched fist.
Kaveh then sheepishly offers a half-smile as he twirls the zipper of his sling bag between his thumb and index finger. He does not want to receive an earful from the other one, nor does he want to be teased like there’s no tomorrow, so he is praying to the gods that Alhaitham will let this go.
Alhaitham makes two steps forward, fishing his keys out of his front pocket.
“Someone forgot their key again, it seems?” his housemate speaks, revealing a mocking smirk as he flashes his own house key right in front of him. Kaveh cries on the inside.
“No shit, punk. Now open the door because I am getting cold out here,” Kaveh hisses, looking at Alhaitham like he is crazy, and crosses his arms against his chest. Shit, the coldness is starting to seep through his hoodie and that is bad news.
Alhaitham chuckles faintly. “Relax, princess. Try to enjoy the cold breeze.”
“I,” he pauses, and with clenched teeth he continues, “have been enjoying it and suffering from it at the same time, don’t you see? So just please… not tonight, just…open the door.”
Kaveh sees Alhaitham pretending to be thinking, with his index and middle fingers cradling his chin. He proceeds to shrugging his shoulders to annoy him some more.
“I shouldn’t really care, should I? It’s not like I’m the one who keeps messing up, forgetting things that I deem important.”
He’s positive he is now resembling a gaping fish as Alhaitham turns his head towards him with a frown. Is this guy serious? Because if he is, Kaveh is now compelled to hurl something at him. His shoe? Or a rock, perhaps?
“You’ve got to be kidding me! I don’t mess up a lot, excuse you?” he snarls. “It’s just…today! Alright?! Now can you stop wasting my time and open the fucking door?”
Alhaitham places a hand on his chest, acting hurt and offended. “Me? Wasting your time? That’s new.”
Kaveh gives up. He decides to stop responding since this is clearly useless. Bickering with Alhaitham is a waste of his time. Alhaitham might have noticed since Kaveh sees the furrow between his eyebrows gradually disappear, followed by a shiver.
“I’m heading in. If you want to sleep here, feel free,” Alhaitham exclaims quietly, wrapping his jacket tightly around his body. Kaveh can only offer him an exasperated sigh.
I told you it’s cold, asshole.
The sun was scorching hot when Kaveh arrived at his new academy, leaving him feeling all sticky and sweaty after he got off the cab that he was in 10 minutes ago. He wasn't so sure as to why he couldn't move any steps forward but there he was with his navy-blue duffel bag in his hand, dumbfounded while staring at the huge banner hanging over the entrance that said "Welcome to Sumeru Academia! Have a great day!" Oh, hell no, he already had this gut feeling that he wouldn't be enjoying his stay because firstly, this wasn't the academy that he wished to transfer to in his third year; secondly, his friends didn't want to go there because for some reason, they all hated it; lastly, he did not deserve this. If it wasn't for his uncle who took him in after his parents passed away, he wouldn't even have gone here. The old man had high hopes about this, who clearly believed that he could manage, that he could survive without anyone, which was obviously a bad idea somehow. Well, surprise, surprise. He never thought that he could, anyway.
He originally wanted to stay at the academy that was just near his place, and he already had everything planned with his friends, as a matter of fact, but when he got the results from his examination, he then found out that he failed miserably and needed to transfer somewhere else, away from his family, relatives, and close friends. It sucked badly, because he anticipated being with his buddies until they graduated, but he guessed fate worked differently for him. Now there he was, heaving a deep breath from the very bottom of his chest, feeling nervous, reluctant to even go in. Who is he going to talk to first? Where the hell is his dormitory? Lots of questions were currently running in his head and he's pretty sure they're going to drive him crazy any minute from now.
"My god, look at all these brats," he muttered under his breath when he was greeted by a lot of students. Some were busy chitchatting with each other, some were doing their activities on their respective spots, and some were just minding their own businesses. He started to take a few steps towards the school grounds, hoping he could find his dormitory as soon as possible. He's so tired from the trip, but he couldn't really whine about it, could he? He carefully inspected the whole area and just realised that the place was huge, surrounded by black fences and high trees, and the sight made him chuckle a bit. He guessed cutting classes is a big no-no in this institution. Which made him chuckle a bit more, since he's not really a fan of cutting classes anyway.
Kaveh reached the building located in the middle as to which he considered to be the main building. Carrying his heavy bag with his anxiety slowly creeping into his stomach, he went inside hoping to find the reception quickly. He didn't feel like communicating with other people now, especially when it was his first day there. He caught sight of the information desk after cursing in his head for like a thousandth time. He walked towards the table and was greeted by a beautiful lady, who's probably in her ear early 30's. He gave her an awkward smile before he spoke.
“Good morning,” Kaveh greeted meekly.
“Good morning! What can I do for you?” she responded in a giddy manner, and that was enough to calm Kaveh’s senses down. His anxiety suddenly vanished into thin air.
“I,” he answered and bashfully scratched his nape as he continued, “I am new here. And I am lost. I am looking for my uh… room? Or house. Uh, it says house number so does that mean I get to live in a house and not in a dormitory?”
The lady smiled at him. “Yes, you are correct. You will be living in a house, and you will have a housemate. Can I please have your house number for me to help you?”
Kaveh nodded and handed her his card. “Here.”
She entered the digits into her computer, waiting alongside Kaveh for the result. She then gave him a quick glance, giving him his card back. The printer worked its magic, showing what seemed to be a map. That was cool. She coughed softly before giving him details.
“Hmm. Here is a map showing you where your house is,” she said, placing it at the counter. “I promise you that you won’t get lost. However, I must fill you in on your housemate.”
“M-My housemate?” he asked, nonplussed. “What about my housemate?”
The lady smiled at him worryingly. “He will be tough. A lot of students quit being his housemate for how difficult he is to handle. According to them, he is very hard to talk to, he glares at people, he ignores people. In short, he is…kind of a dick.”
Kaveh snorted. He never liked gossip, not unless it’s interesting, would turn him on. But gossiping about someone he’s never met, coming from such a pretty face too? Fuck, no.
“Perfect. That’s the housemate I am looking for. If you’ll excuse me,” he annoyingly replied and before he could turn around to leave, he snatched the map off the counter.
A pretty face with a big mouth, Kaveh thought.
“Yeah, sure, but you need to hear this rumour about Alhaitham…”
Kaveh doesn’t mean to pry into his classmate’s affairs, nor does he even want to, but she just happens to be so loud and engaging that he can’t help it. It’s like she’s doing it on purpose, it’s almost as if she aspires to be a paparazzi- well, a school paparazzi, that is. Plus, now that she’s added Alhaitham to their conversation, there is no escape for him. Kaveh is going to go for it, he’s going to listen and absorb the scoop.
“So… I’ve heard,” she trails, “that Alhaitham has a huge dick…”
Kaveh’s eyes gradually widen, his grip on his pencil tightening. Alhaitham has a WHAT now? He didn’t think the whole thing would become extra spicy for him because the last thing the group has talked about was how they successfully cheated on their exams earlier. So, imagine how shocking it is for him to now be hearing about his housemate’s dick from hearing about their dark side with their academics.
He wants to blame their professor for leaving them alone in the classroom with nothing but a task to sketch their very own Sumeru Academia. He is annoyed at first, of course, because their classroom is buzzing with boisterous laughter instead of being occupied with silence from working on their activity. Although he must be feeling a little bit of great now that he can earn some top-tier gossip from these chimps.
“Where did you even get that from?” one of the girls chirps in, obviously sounding so excited.
Kaveh is about to nod but halts himself because then it will be apparent to the girls sitting behind him that he is paying serious attention to their gossip.
“From one of the sluts in Class B. I think she used to date Alhaitham,” is the reply, and Kaveh raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t know about this. He hasn’t heard about this, at all.
Sure, Alhaitham is his housemate, sure, they can be friends??? but there really is never a time that they’ve gotten to talk about their private lives. They mostly talk about their studies and the likes when they’re both civil with each other. He, being Alhaitham’s senior, doesn’t help either, and it’s one of the reasons why Kaveh has put up that barrier for him not to ever cross. He doesn’t want Alhaitham to think that he’s THAT curious about him and his life. But damn, he must admit that this whole conversation is suddenly too much for him to handle. Hearing about Alhaitham’s dick size and now his ex-girlfriend? Just wow.
“She’s probably delusional? I mean, not that I doubt it, you know, because I’m sure Alhaitham has a fat dick, but…you know…” a reply is thrown in the air which is instantly blocked by the girl who started it all.
“Ugh, delusional or not, I just want that dick inside my mouth. Why is he so fucking hot, anyway? It’s unfair because he barely notices us too…”
Kaveh rolls his eyes and goes back to sketching on his paper. If there’s one thing that he knows about Alhaitham, it’s that he hates people like them. Alhaitham despises the loud and the horny, but wouldn’t that mean he hates Kaveh, too?
Kaveh slowly grins at the thought. The loud and the horny, AKA me!
“Right? I wonder if he’s seeing anyone right now, though. Should we- “
The voice goes quieter than the usual, but Kaveh can still pick it up.
“Should we ask Kaveh? They’re housemates, aren’t they?”
Try me, bitch, is what is on his head, before one of the girls taps him gently on the shoulder which prompts him to turn around and face them.
“What?” he flatly asks, earning a nervous laughter from the group.
“H-Hi, Kaveh. Uhm, we just want to ask you something about Alha-“
Kaveh coldly cuts her off as he squints his eyes. “Nope, not answering anything. Ask him yourself.” After which he proceeds to work on his sketch again.
Kaveh can hear them sigh dramatically and he’s happy with that reaction. Clearly, that’s what he’s wanted. It’s not like he didn’t want to answer, if only he has something to say, anyway. He just doesn’t know. And he doesn’t want them to think that there is nothing special between him and Alhaitham. As much as possible, he wants to establish an impression that he and his housemate are close. Even when he knows that it is not possible.
But I wonder if Alhaitham really has a huge pet down there, he muses. He can only giggle internally.
-tbc-