Chapter Text
Five hundred and thirty eight days after Kaveh signed a contract in the rubble of the Palace of Alcazarzaray, he makes his final payment.
Five hundred and thirty nine days after Kaveh sold his childhood home in the pursuit of his dreams, he begins to pack.
Five hundred and sixty two days after Kaveh stood alone in the rubble of his second-greatest mistake, he drops a golden key into Alhaitham’s outstretched hand.
He opens his mouth– to say thank you, perhaps, or maybe good riddance– but closes it again with a click. He is grateful, surely. But the words cannot find the light.
“See ya, Alhaitham,” he says instead, because he must say something. Alhaitham looks back, as impassive as stone and unmoving as the sky. Finally, he nods. Kaveh sighs and tightens his grip on Mehrak.
I don’t know what I expected.
The door closes behind him with a quiet click.
His new home is a bit of a walk, but not outrageous. Without Dori’s exorbitantly high payments and interest rates, Kaveh is making a decent amount of mora from his commissions. Not enough to live a lavish life, but he had never expected to. It was enough to rent a small home on the outskirts from a young man in Akademiya robes.
“It used to belong to my parents,” he had explained when Kaveh had arrived to tour the home two weeks ago. “I… just can’t deal with it right now.”
The home is already furnished. And since Kaveh has agreed to complete some simple repairs around the home, the rent is actually rather reasonable. The structure itself is sound. The problem came with the small maintenance tasks that become difficult as a person ages– cracks in the baseboard and drafts at the seams of windows. All perfectly manageable, perfectly reasonable.
Kaveh unlocks the door with his key– plain bronze with a simple filigree twist meant for a keychain– and sets Mehrak down just past the threshold.
He’s really done it.
After all this time, he’s free.
He collapses on the couch, which smells faintly of that smell that seems to emanate from grandparents and cooped-up spaces. He’ll need to spend a few days airing out the place, cataloging what things he wants to keep and what things he can store in the second bedroom he intends to use as an office.
No use in keeping it a guest room, after all.
Eleven days after he’s moved out of Alhaitham’s home, he sees his old roommate for the first time.
Now that he has a home to return to, Kaveh frequents Lambad’s tavern less.
(Not that he drinks less. He still has problems, and the sweetness of wine and the fuzziness of his thoughts is still a welcome relief from them. The only thing that changes is where he lays his head when the heaviness of the alcohol becomes too much for him.)
But it’s TCG night, so he pushes back from the drafting table crowded in a corner of the overfilled guest bedroom and stands. His back cracks as he goes to wash up and brush his teeth. He hadn’t bothered to get dressed today since he was planning to just work on blueprints at home, and who was in his home to care if he wandered around half-dressed? It wasn’t like he had a roommate to complain about his state.
The Kaveh reflected back in the gaudy mirror in his bathroom has heavy bags under his eyes. Fingers press to the bruised skin.
Huh.
Maybe he should try getting a bit more sleep.
(It was hard to pay attention to the passing of time when he was working. Some nights, the only thing that reminded him of time’s inevitable march was the sliver of sun that would creep across the wooden surface.)
He brushes his teeth and splashes cool water on his face. The smile he sees in the mirror feels remarkably fake, but he doesn’t have time to think about that, so he doesn’t.
Alhaitham looks exactly like he always has. Kaveh can’t put into words why that bothers him.
Cyno and Tighnari are overjoyed to hear about Kaveh’s change in fortune. Cyno even buys him a drink to celebrate, which Kaveh sips while watching Tighnari and Alhaitham play.
Alhaitham says nothing about Kaveh moving out. Not that Kaveh had expected anything of course- perhaps a snarky comment about how much quieter his home has become, or how glad Alhaitham is to be free of Kaveh’s presence.
Instead, it’s like Kaveh isn’t even at the table at all.
Sixteen days after he pressed his key into Alhaitham’s palm, Kaveh opens the pantry and realizes he’s out of rice.
Which isn’t a problem, of course. He can run to the market easy enough, and he has the mora to purchase his own pantry staples. But Kaveh pulls the container from the pantry and shakes it anyway to listen to the last few grains of rice rattle inside anyway.
Kaveh is not incapable of living alone. He’s done it for years. He’s done it since he was a child, if he is being honest. Kaveh has lived alone since the day his father had left for the desert with the promise of bringing home kulfi when he returned.
His stomach growls. Kaveh sighs and replaces the container on the pantry shelf and takes a slightly overripe Zaytun peach from the wooden bowl on the counter instead. He’d bought too many fruits and not enough rice. How was one person supposed to eat all of this fruit?
Normally, he would slice the peach into neat segments and lay them on a plate, but who else in his house would complain about his manners? It was only him here. So instead, he rinses the skin and bites into it. Juice flows from the corners of his mouth to drip from his chin. Kaveh wipes the sticky juice with his arm and stares at the bite mark he’d left.
The fruit is sticky sweet, at the point of being almost too ripe to eat. But Kaveh eats it anyway, because he’d paid for it, and there is nobody else to eat them. When he finishes, he tosses the pit into the bin and leaves to wash his hands. He’d need to go to the market before the shopkeepers close up for the night and he had no rice for dinner, either.
(Quietly, he thinks about the nights when Alhaitham would arrive home from work a little later than usual with takeout meant for two or a bag of groceries Kaveh hadn’t even realized they were running low on until he went to put them away. But those thoughts didn’t help, so instead Kaveh bites his cheek with a viciousness that leaves marks and tugs his shoes onto his feet.)
Twenty days after Kaveh let the door close behind him with a final click, he wakes up on his drafting table with an ache in his neck and ink on his face. His inkpot must have tipped over in the night, because a river of dried ink flows across his half-completed blueprint and into his hair.
Kaveh stares down at the ruined drafting paper below him. His face is stiff. The hairs in front of his eyes are dyed black from the ink.
He crumples the paper between shaking hands and stands to take a shower. Maybe the hot water will ease the soreness in his spine.
As he stands beneath the lukewarm spray, watching blank ink make trails down his body and swirl away down the drain, Kaveh thinks of Alhaitham’s hand on his shoulder. Of being gently shaken awake and guided to bed. Of trusting Alhaitham so implicitly that on some nights, Kaveh didn't even bother to open his eyes.
Of the few nights where Kaveh would remember working on a draft late into the night only to wake up in his own bed, with the covers tucked around him and his earrings on his bedside table.
If he is rougher with himself as he scrubs the ink from his hair, well… who else is in the house to know?
He feels marginally better as he steps out from the shower and wraps himself in a towel. There isn’t much in his kitchen that doesn’t require him to cook– some naan that’s gone a little hard at the edges and some dregs of honey in a jar that have partially crystallized. But he eats it anyway, because his head hurts and his stomach growls and he’s not even sure he ate dinner last night.
Out the window, he can see the high branches of the Divine Tree swaying faintly in the breeze. They wave cheerfully as Kaveh chews and swallows his last few bites of breakfast.
He wonders if they are still as happy behind his back. Do the leaves and boughs know of loneliness?
His house is silent as he returns to his office and closes the door behind him.
Twenty eight days after Kaveh’s departure, he returns again.
The young man he was renting the home from had been very understanding about Kaveh needing to leave. He had been renting the home short-term anyway, on the assumption that he would only live there until he was able to find a house to purchase. Kaveh was in no hurry to clear up the misconception, so he let the other man believe what he wished as he dropped the key into his waiting hand.
All the promised repairs had been completed, and a few cosmetic updates besides. Kaveh had returned every piece of furniture to its original location and swept the home clean of his presence. It was like he had never lived there at all.
Not like here.
There is a potted plant by the door. The pot had been empty for four months before Kaveh had managed to convince Alhaitham to let him try to grow something in it.
Alhaitham had kept it.
Kaveh’s heart is in his throat. The grip he has on Mehrak tightens as he raises his free hand. He feels exposed, as though every eye in Sumeru City is fixated on his back.
He wonders if Alhaitham has been lonely.
Gently, he knocks.
And he hopes for an answer.