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It is in April that Kaveh decides that he’s better off just killing himself than emailing his academic advisor for the fourth time in two hours about not being able to add physical chemistry to his fall semester schedule.
“Why would you even take p-chem in your senior year,” Tighnari deadpans from next to him as Kaveh drops his forehead onto his laptop’s trackpad and lets out a groan so guttural it quivers through his skull.
“Wow,” he says, still facing the floor, “it isn’t as if I literally need to take the course to graduate.”
“That’s really sad for you,” says Tighnari.
“Thanks,” says Kaveh, and then he straightens up and presses the compose button in the corner of his inbox.
Someone drops their bag into the seat on his other side, and Kaveh glances sidelong at the computer being placed on the table next to him just as he sends off the email.
“Oh, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, immediately perking up, “you’re here. Do me a favor and help me figure out my schedule, will you? My advisor is being useless and it’s not like you have anything better to do.”
Al-Haitham sits down. Then he peers over Kaveh’s shoulder and says, “Why do you have nine thousand unread messages.”
“That’s not what’s important,” says Kaveh. “Look, these are the only two p-chem sections that work with the a-chem I need to take—”
“What is a-chem?” Tighnari pipes up.
“Analytical chemistry,” says Kaveh. “Anyways, I need to take a-chem and p-chem, but a-chem also has a three hour lab I need to fit in somewhere, but these are all of the other classes I need to take—”
“You just need to switch your elective,” Al-Haitham interrupts. He points to the screen, at a little blue block covering Mondays Wednesdays and Thursdays from two to three o’clock in the afternoon. “Free this time and fit in the other p-chem lecture here. Then add another elective on Tuesday and Thursday mornings instead.”
Kaveh squints at him. Then he squints at his schedule planner.
“But then I have to find another elective to take,” he says, frowning.
Al-Haitham levels him with an unimpressed look.
Kaveh sighs. “Okay,” he says, and then, “archons, I fucking hate it when you’re right.”
“Why were you even taking biophysics as an elective?” says Al-Haitham. “It’s an elective. You can take whatever you want.”
“Yeah,” says Kaveh, “but I can take biophysics since I finished all the pre-reqs last semester. And it’s tangentially related to chemistry, so!”
“But it’s an elective,” Al-Haitham says again. “You should take something unrelated to your major.”
“But it’ll help me in the long run.”
“You’re taking several upper division science courses next semester. I think you’ll be fine.”
Al-Haitham looks away from him, moving to open his own laptop. Kaveh watches him as he presses the pad of his index finger against the fingerprint sensor, his screen instantly being filled with an open word document. Kaveh leans over, peering at the small chain of words at the very top.
“The role of phonetics in language acquisition,” he reads out loud, pulling a face. “Okay, sure. You have fun with that, Haravatat. When’s it due?”
“End of the week. You should pay less attention to me and more attention to finding a new elective to take,” says Al-Haitham pointedly. “You wouldn’t want to find something that interests you and then realize all the spots in the class have already been filled, would you?”
Kaveh scowls at him.
“Hmm,” says Tighnari. He leans his chin onto his palm, dragging his elbow closer to Kaveh’s side and ignoring the way Kaveh yelps in surprise. “What do you think you’re going to take?”
“Whatever’s open,” Kaveh mutters. He mouses over to the drop-down menu within the Akademiya’s registration page, and as the hundreds of department names roll out on his screen, he thinks he feels a headache begin to smear against his temples. “What if I learned how to play the bassoon?”
Tighnari grins. “I think that’s an excellent idea.”
“An excellent joke,” Kaveh rolls his eyes. “Okay, let’s see. What about pharmacology? Neuroscience? No, but I’d need the intro neuro class for that—how about oceanography?”
“How about something that’s not related to chemistry?” Tighnari suggests.
Kaveh turns to look at him. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s an elective,” says Al-Haitham out of nowhere. “It’s a class that is taken outside of your major.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Kaveh tells him.
Al-Haitham ignores this, continuing to type away at his essay. Tighnari, meanwhile, gets a hold of Kaveh’s laptop and turns it so that the screen is facing him instead. Kaveh tilts his head a little, watching as he clicks through several pages before finally landing on one. He clicks his tongue, then turns back to face Kaveh.
“What about architecture?”
Kaveh blinks. “Why would I take that?”
“Because it could be fun,” says Tighnari, shrugging. “I don’t know. It’s open and it fits with your schedule, by the looks of it.”
“What use would architecture have for me?” says Kaveh. He snatches his laptop back and huffs before placing it back in front of himself. “Forget it. I don’t need your guys’ help. I’m just going to email my advisor again with Al-Haitham’s idea and ask her if she knows if any courses are open that I could take.”
Later that night, after yet another unhelpful email from his advisor, Kaveh logs back onto the Akademiya website five minutes before registration closes. Without thinking any further about it, he adds ARC 306: Fundamentals of Architectural Design to his schedule, and then he passes the fuck out.
Summer comes, and with it, the end to Kaveh’s junior year at the Akademiya. Considering how his mother now lives in Fontaine with her new husband, however, Kaveh decides that it would just be better for everyone if instead of going “home” for the summer, he spends his time right here, at the Akademiya.
“I see the number of unread emails has only gone up since the last time I saw your inbox,” Al-Haitham says from his spot next to him on their living room couch.
“Again,” says Kaveh, “that’s not what’s important.”
Al-Haitham sighs a little. He doesn’t sigh very often, so it makes Kaveh sit a bit straighter despite himself. “Who are you emailing now?”
“Professor Gafoor,” says Kaveh. “I’m doing research in his lab this summer, so I just need to take care of a few logistical things and whatnot. You know how it is.”
“I don’t,” says Al-Haitham, and then, “You aren’t going home?”
“Nah,” Kaveh says. He shakes his head, then sighs and tips his head back. It lands unceremoniously on the backrest of the couch, and as he looks up at his ceiling, he thinks about what would happen if he called his mother and asked her if it would be okay if he went to stay with her in Fontaine for three months. “I’m technically out-of-region now since my maman sold our old house in the port, so. And it’s too late to try to find an internship in Fontaine.” He gestures to his screen, the half-written email to his professor sitting pretty in the forefront. “In any case, I’m committed to Professor Gafoor’s lab now, so.”
“Hm,” says Al-Haitham.
Kaveh rolls his eyes. He reaches over, flicking his bicep with the tip of his index finger. “Is that all you’re going to say? Seriously?”
“Well,” says Al-Haitham, “you’ve clearly made up your mind, so.”
“What about you?” Kaveh asks, turning his head so that he can better face him. “I mean, I assume you’re going home.”
“I am,” Al-Haitham nods. “I think bibi will claim that she is on her deathbed if I tell her that I’m not coming home for the summer.”
Kaveh grins. “That sounds like her.”
Al-Haitham shakes his head. “It’s good that you at least have something to do while you’re here.”
Kaveh winces. “Just one more year after this.”
Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow. “And then?”
Kaveh’s shoulders slump downward. “I don’t know. I don’t even want to think about it right now.”
“You are going to be entering your fourth year,” says Al-Haitham pointedly. “I think now is a better time than any to start thinking about it.”
“Shut up,” says Kaveh, closing his eyes. “Just worry about yourself, okay?” A pause. “And tell bibi I say hi, and that I wish her luck in having to deal with your annoying ass for three entire months. Archons, Al-Haitham. Do you even know how long three months is?”
“We have been living together for almost a year,” Al-Haitham deadpans.
Kaveh sighs. “We have, and it’s awful. Why did I decide to renew my lease again?”
“The same reason I renewed mine,” says Al-Haitham. Simple.
And—yeah. It really is quite simple.
Then summer ends too, and with it, the beginning of what Kaveh thinks is going to be the worst year of his university life. Funny how that works out. Aren’t senior years supposed to be smooth sailing?
“Oh, Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham the day he moves back in. He rolls in with a singular suitcase, his set of keys to the apartment dangling off of his ring finger. Kaveh looks up from where he’s flopped over the couch, his shirt riding up slightly over his abdomen and his pants sticky with sweat from the blazing heat outside.
“Oh,” Kaveh mirrors. He doesn’t bother straightening up, but he does meet Al-Haitham’s eyes. “You’re back.”
“Are you…” Al-Haitham pauses, swings his gaze over him.
“Sorry,” says Kaveh. He shakes his head, lets some of the tension wash out of his figure. “I just got back from the lab. It’s so fucking hot outside. Here, do you need help with your things? Lucky for you, I didn’t mess with anything too severely while you were gone. Though I did put away all your books, like, two months ago since they were cluttering the place. Did bibi cry when you left? Did you cry when you left?”
“One thing at a time,” says Al-Haitham as Kaveh moves to stand up. He holds his hand out to stop him from touching his luggage. “Kaveh, you look like you’re about to pass out. I can take care of my own bag.”
Kaveh frowns at him. “But you just got off a long bus ride.”
“And you were just on your feet for several hours in your lab,” Al-Haitham says back.
He raises an eyebrow. Kaveh deflates.
“I think I need to sleep, or something,” he says.
“I think you need to sleep too,” says Al-Haitham. He wraps his palm around the handle on his suitcase, and he pushes past Kaveh in the direction of his bedroom. “Get some rest. Do we have enough ingredients to make dinner? Or should I make a trip to the market?”
“There should be enough,” Kaveh says, waving his hand before yawning and beginning to head to his own room. “Are you sure you want to cook? We can just order take out, you know.”
“How many times have you eaten take out this week, Kaveh?”
Kaveh squints at him. “This is going to be some stupid gotcha moment, isn’t it?”
Al-Haitham shrugs.
“Fine,” Kaveh rolls his eyes. “See if I care. You cook, then. I’ll do the dishes after dinner.”
“All right.”
And so, Kaveh turns on his heel and stalks into his room, closing the door shut behind him and flopping like a fish onto his bed.
With that, the first semester of Kaveh’s senior year at the Akademiya begins.
“Kaveh!” says Tighnari with a bit more enthusiasm than Kaveh thinks he can stomach right now, waving out to him as he and Cyno approach his table in the corner of the library. “How’s your first Tuesday of the semester going?”
“My professor asked me how many sig figs are in three point four two and I said one,” says Kaveh.
Tighnari furrows his eyebrows. “What?”
“Nothing,” says Kaveh. “Just—nothing. I think that I’m going to kill myself.”
“Don’t kill yourself, Kaveh,” says Cyno. “You’re a significant figure in my life.”
Kaveh drops his forehead onto the table. If it weren’t for the fact that they are in the quiet section, he would probably scream. Or at the very least groan really loudly.
“When’s your next class?” Tighnari asks, taking the seat next to him.
Mentally, Kaveh tries to conjure up the screenshot of his schedule in his camera roll. “In forty minutes, ish. It’s the Kshahrewar elective you told me to take. Fundamentals of architectural design, or something.”
Tighnari’s lips part. “Oh, you’re actually taking it?”
“What?” Kaveh spins to look at him. “Yes, I am! You’re the one who told me to take it!”
“True,” says Tighnari. “Well, tell me how it goes. And if you don’t like it, then Cyno is the one who told you to take it.”
“What?” says Cyno.
“We’ll see,” says Kaveh. He turns to Cyno. “You took a-chem last semester, right? Who did you have?”
Cyno’s brows furrow a little. “Professor Isha, I think?”
“Oh! I have her too,” says Kaveh. “How was it? I’m terrified because I heard she’s pretty hard. She also, like, doesn’t write letters of rec for anyone.”
“The exams are indeed very difficult,” Cyno says with a nod.
Kaveh slams his head onto the table again.
“I can lend you my notes, if you want,” says Cyno.
“Thanks,” Kaveh mutters as he straightens back up and gently rubs the growing bruise on his forehead. “I will be taking you up on that.”
“It was a very enjoyable class, though,” says Cyno, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s one of the chemistry's where you have to think a little differently. Lots of long word problems. And the labs are, like, titrations and spectrofluorimetry and electrochemistry and—”
“Please stop talking,” says Kaveh, closing his eyes.
“Oh, I think you’ll enjoy the chromatography lab,” says Cyno.
“And why is that?”
“Because it’s about analyzing alcohol.”
Tch. Kaveh rolls his eyes. “Probably the only lab I will enjoy.”
“You know,” says Tighnari, “this is my third year knowing and being friends with you, Kaveh, and, like, do you even enjoy chemistry?”
“I’m good at it,” Kaveh shrugs.
“I think there’s a slight difference between enjoying something and being good at it.”
“Wrong,” says Kaveh. “It’s enjoyable to be good at what you’re doing! Oftentimes it’s all you need.”
“And oftentimes it’s not,” says Tighnari. He’s frowning, and, well.
“This is my fourth year studying chemistry,” says Kaveh with a small shrug. “And my last year of undergrad in general, so. Not much I can do about it now. Plus, I am good at it. And it’s not like I don’t enjoy it.” A pause. Kaveh’s nose scrunching painfully at the tip of his face.
Anyways. Talking about it has never made him feel particularly great, so.
“I have to go,” he says, moving to stand up. “I’ve never been to the architecture building before, so. I should probably go early to try to figure out where the room is. And maybe say hi to the professor if she’s there early.”
“Good luck, Kaveh,” says Tighnari.
“Good luck, Kaveh,” says Cyno.
“Thanks,” says Kaveh, and without another word, he’s off.
The professor arrives about five minutes after Kaveh has already selected his seat somewhere in the center of the lecture hall. She’s a short woman, so short that the projector behind her looks as if it is engulfing her, and when she catches Kaveh’s eye through the mass of incoming students, she smiles.
Kaveh smiles back.
“Welcome to Fundamentals of Architectural Design,” she says several minutes later, when the lecture hall is decently packed and the students are quieting down from chatting between themselves. “I’m Professor Lina. You can call me whatever you want, I don’t mind. I’m excited to be here and for the semester ahead of us!”
She goes on to introduce herself, and then she goes on to introduce the course. She says that the purpose of the class is to develop design solutions to architectural challenges by combining concepts with formal and visual principles and techniques. She then says that by the end of the course, everyone will be able to demonstrate a fundamental understanding of formal and spatial architectural principles and relate them to the human experience.
Kaveh listens to her with rapt attention, and when she moves on to show a set of slides depicting different architectural creations from around Teyvat, Kaveh finds himself sitting up just a little bit straighter. The Grand Narukami Shrine in Inazuma, the Jade Chamber in Liyue, the Favonius Cathedral in Mondstadt—
“They were all built by different artists using similar principles,” says Professor Lina, gesturing with her hand up to the screen, “though since each had their own vision and purpose in mind, every design ended up as something vastly unique. A little piece of the artist themselves standing on the very ground we walk on. Isn’t that such a beautiful thing? To be able to share a part of yourself like that for all the world to see?”
Kaveh’s fingers curl in his lap.
“The thing is,” Professor Lina continues, “we don’t even really realize what an impact the man-made world around us has on us, do we? We think of a building as exactly what it is. A building. We don’t think about how it’s actually just another form of life, or at least, a memory of a life’s ambition and their creative vision. We have no idea how our lives would differ were it not for the things we built around us.”
And she’s right. Kaveh doesn’t have any idea. He’s never thought about it like that, actually.
One hour and fifteen minutes pass just like that. When Professor Lina dismisses everyone, Kaveh swings his backpack over his shoulder and makes his way to the front of the lecture hall.
“Professor,” he says as he approaches, and Professor Lina pauses where she’s gathering her things. She looks up, and when she sees Kaveh, she smiles.
“Hello,” she greets.
“Hello,” says Kaveh. He swallows. “My name is Kaveh. I just wanted to introduce myself.”
“Nice to meet you, Kaveh,” Professor Lina nods. She leans against her desk, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at him appraisingly. “Actually, I noticed you listening during the lecture. Are you an architecture disciple in Kshahrewar? A first year? Second?”
“I—” Kaveh cuts himself off. “No, I’m not. I actually study chemistry, in Spantamad.” A slight pause. “And I’m a fourth year.”
“Oh?” Professor Lina tilts her head. “Are you taking this class as an elective?”
Kaveh nods.
“I see,” Professor Lina says slowly. “Well in that case, you must be worried about the workload, ah? I should tell you that this class isn’t too difficult, so you don’t need to stress about it too much. I assume you have many chemistry courses for your major that are probably going to be taking up the majority of your time.”
“Haha, no, it’s fine,” says Kaveh. He feels the corners of his lips begin to quirk upward. “I…really enjoyed your lecture, professor. I just wanted to tell you that.”
Professor Lina is looking at him as if she wants to say something, but evidently, she decides against it. She reaches over and gently pats his shoulder. “I look forward to seeing you in lecture on Thursday, then. And you’re always welcome in my office hours if you’d like to chat about architecture or if you have any questions about the course.”
Kaveh nods. “Thank you, professor.”
Professor Lina smiles. “Have a good day, Kaveh.”
Kaveh turns to leave. Before he walks away, he looks over his shoulder and meets her eyes, “You too, professor.”
Later that night, Al-Haitham finds him yet again hunched over his email.
“Who are you emailing now?” Al-Haitham asks him, coming up behind the couch and bending down until their faces are hovering next to each other. “Kaveh, do you live in your email?”
“No, I don’t,” says Kaveh, rolling his eyes and tipping away from him. He presses the palm of his hand to Al-Haitham’s cheek and pushes him away. “And I’m sending a message to the students in the class I’m TAing this semester. I need to tell them I’m moving my office hours to a different building.” He twists his lips, looking over the draft on his screen. “Al-Haitham, I was thinking about this earlier, but I literally haven’t taken o-chem one in two years. How the hell am I supposed to TA these people?”
“Shouldn’t you have thought about that before applying to be a TA in the first place?” says Al-Haitham.
“Actually,” says Kaveh, puffing his chest a bit, “the professor asked me last year if I could TA for her, but I was too busy, so I told her I’d do it senior year instead.”
“Right,” says Al-Haitham slowly. “Of course.”
He comes around to sit down next to Kaveh, and when he does, their knees brush together lightly. The touch is warm.
Kaveh leans back onto his arm resting on the back cushion and finds his eyes. “You know,” he starts, then stops. Considers. “Do you remember last semester’s registration week? When I was panicking over fitting all of my classes in my schedule.”
“That’s been every registration week since I met you,” says Al-Haitham.
Kaveh swats him with his free hand. “Don’t be a smartass. Anyways, you know how Tighnari told me to add that architecture class to my schedule? Well, I had the first lecture today.”
Al-Haitham nods. “How was it?”
“It was…” Kaveh thinks about Professor Lina. He thinks about the Grand Narukami Shrine and the Jade Chamber and the Favonius Cathedral. He thinks about sitting in that lecture hall and having his world tipped on its axis, just a little. “It was good.”
Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow. “Just good?”
“I enjoyed it,” Kaveh elaborates. “The lecture was interesting. The professor is…good at her job.”
“The professor is good at her job,” Al-Haitham repeats.
“Yes,” Kaveh nods. “Exactly.”
“Well, you would hope she’s good at her job,” says Al-Haitham pointedly. “Is it really such a high bar to cross?”
“You’d be surprised,” Kaveh mutters, and then, for some reason, he feels an inexplicable urge to reach out and ruffle Al-Haitham’s hair.
So he does. Al-Haitham immediately goes still as a rock, sitting there pin-straight as Kaveh gently runs his fingers through his hair, and once he’s finished, he snaps his own hand up and wraps it around Kaveh’s wrist.
“What was that?” he asks, raising his left eyebrow delicately.
Kaveh blinks at him. His body feels frozen all of a sudden. “What?” he says. “Is it such a crime to touch your hair?”
Al-Haitham blinks at him. “You ruined it.”
Kaveh’s jaw hinges a little. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” says Al-Haitham. “So go and get a hairbrush and fix it for me.”
“I—” Kaveh’s mouth dangles open. Al-Haitham’s expression is as serious as ever, though. So. “All right, fine. Give me a second.”
He disappears into his room, and a few seconds later, emerges with his brush in his hands. Al-Haitham glances at the tool, his features relaxing.
“For a moment, I considered if you were going to get a comb instead of a brush,” he says.
Kaveh huffs. “So picky,” he says, and then he presses his free hand into the crook between Al-Haitham’s neck and his shoulder and pushes him down so that he is sitting on the floor in front of the couch. Kaveh takes a seat behind him, spreading his legs so that Al-Haitham can comfortably wedge himself between them, and with that, Kaveh begins to run the brush through the silver of Al-Haitham’s hair.
“Don’t miss any strands,” Al-Haitham hums from beneath him.
Kaveh scowls audibly. “I don’t think you should be provoking the man with the hairbrush in his hand right now.”
“You’re overreacting. It’s not as if it’s a knife or something.”
“Oh yeah?” Kaveh presses the buds of the brush into Al-Haitham’s scalp and grins when he sees Al-Haitham’s shoulders start in obvious surprise. “Take that, asshole.”
“If you are so unable to perform a task as simple as brushing hair, then by all means, I can do it myself.”
“You could have done it yourself anyways,” says Kaveh, scoffing. “Clearly you wanted me to do it for you.”
“I think you are far too overconfident for your own good.”
“And I think you’re a big baby, so, where do we go from here?”
Al-Haitham spins around, and Kaveh yelps as the hairbrush falls out of his hands and onto the floor next to him. He blinks, glancing downward, and sees that Al-Haitham is now resting his elbow between Kaveh’s legs, looking up at him with a look that Kaveh cannot begin to decipher without feeling a little sick. The curl of his eyebrows are one degree higher than they normally are, the line of his mouth a little thicker, and then he’s looking up at Kaveh through his lashes and not saying anything at all. It’s the worst thing in the world, Kaveh thinks, the way he is staring at him. For a moment, Kaveh feels the world around him begin to spin.
“Hm,” says Al-Haitham after what feels like forty years. He backs away, reaching behind him to pick up the brush. Then he finishes the job himself, running it through his hair and sweeping his bangs to either side of his eyes.
When he’s done, he hands the brush to Kaveh, who is still sitting there and looking back at him.
“You have class at nine tomorrow,” Al-Haitham murmurs. “You should go to sleep.”
“Why do you have my schedule memorized,” says Kaveh.
Al-Haitham’s shoulders drop. Then he says, “As if you don’t have mine memorized too,” and, okay, yeah.
“Touché,” Kaveh mutters. And that is that.
The following afternoon, Kaveh is hurrying around the top floor of the biochemistry building, pushing several small tables together and lining them with a circle of chairs. When he’s done, he looks upon his little makeshift classroom with pride swelling in his lungs, and approximately three seconds later, he mentally swats himself for putting so much effort into this when the probable reality is that no one is even going to come to his office hours in the first place.
But then—
“Hi!” comes a voice from somewhere behind him, and Kaveh turns around to see two girls walking up to him. “Is this…the o-chem office hours?”
“Yes!” says Kaveh quickly, straightening up until he is nothing but a ruler against the building wall. “Yes, yes, here. Take a seat. I’m Kaveh!”
“I’m Emina,” says the girl.
“And I’m Alina!” says the other girl next to her.
“Nice to meet you two,” Kaveh nods. “Did you have a question?”
“I don’t understand a single thing that’s happening in this class,” Emina announces.
Next to her, Alina nods. “Yeah,” she says, “me neither.”
“Oh,” says Kaveh. Right. So. “Well, organic chemistry is pretty difficult, so don’t beat yourself up over it too much.”
Emina shakes her head. “I’m not beating myself up over it.”
“She is,” says Alina. “She keeps a cry log. Every time she cries, she writes down the date of the cry and also the reason for it. We’ve had two lectures of o-chem so far and she’s already entered it into the log eight times.”
“Oh,” says Kaveh. “I see.”
“You really didn’t have to say all of that,” says Emina to Alina.
Alina shrugs. “I just think you were being a little dishonest.”
“Okay, so should I tell Senior Kaveh about how you were reading fanfiction in class instead of paying attention?”
“What the hell is wrong with you—”
“Okay,” says Kaveh, interrupting them. “Um. Did the two of you have anything specific you needed help with? I’ll try my best to work through the problems with you guys.”
“Everything,” says Emina. “I need help with everything.”
Kaveh sighs. “Well, since it’s only been two lectures, I suppose I can go through it all.”
Immediately, the two of their faces brighten up. “Thank you, senior!”
And so office hours commence. Kaveh goes through the material with as much patience as physically possible, and really, it does warm his heart a little as he watches the two girls' eyes lighten with understanding after what is probably the fourth time going over the same concept. Then again, Kaveh can’t really blame them. He had trouble when he took this same professor simply due to the fact that no matter how good of a person she is, she is just not a very good lecturer.
“The steric number is three, so?” he prompts.
“It’s sp2 hybridized,” says Emina slowly.
Kaveh smiles. “Which means its molecular geometry is?”
“Trigonal planar!” says Alina.
Kaveh nods. “Okay, good. Why?”
The two of them look between each other.
He sighs. “The lone pair is delocalized. See here? It’s allylic to the pi bond, which means it participates in resonance, so—”
“Senior Kaveh,” Emina interrupts. “You’re a fourth year, right?”
Kaveh stops, blinking at her. “Yes, I am. Why?”
“Do you know what you want to do once you graduate?” she asks. Her arms are crossed on the table in front of her, and she’s looking at Kaveh with literal stars in her eyes. It is quite the sight. For a moment, Kaveh is a little scared of her.
“Well,” says Kaveh. A pause. “No, if I’m being honest.”
Emina’s head tilts. Next to her, Alina looks up from where she’s scribbling a cyclic compound on her tablet screen.
“Really?” Emina asks.
“Really,” says Kaveh. “Well, I assume I’ll apply to grad school, or something. Eventually. Maybe I’ll work in a lab for a few years before I apply. Or I’ll get a job in industry before I go, or something. Or, well. Applications aren’t due for several months. I can always just apply right now, too.” He raises an eyebrow. “Do you know what you would like to do after you graduate, Emina?”
She nods. “I’m going to medical school.”
She says it so assuredly, so deliberately, that for a moment, Kaveh is a little floored. Then again, she is just a freshman, and who knows where her university life will take her in the next four years—still, though. She has the resolve Kaveh could not even dream of having at eighteen, the want and the need and the drive to create a goal for herself and work to achieve it.
“Do you not want to go to medical school, senior?” Alina asks him.
“Oh, no thank you,” Kaveh shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s my calling in life.”
Alina nods. “Yeah, it’s not mine either. I want to go to grad school too. My favorite subject is actually physics, and my favorite topic in gen chem was thermo, so. Maybe physical chemistry is my true calling.”
Kaveh nods, eyes going wide. “You know, I’m taking p-chem right now.”
She perks up. “Oh, are you? How is it?”
“It’s pretty okay,” he says. “We’ve really only just started, so. I do love physics a lot though. So hopefully it’ll be smooth sailing.”
It’s throwing him a little off-kilter, talking to these two. These two freshmen already know exactly what they want to do with their lives. Or, at least, they have an idea of what they like. Whenever Kaveh is asked the question of what he wants to do after he graduates, he’s never said anything more than oh, I’m not sure yet, but I have time to figure it out! We’ll see where life takes me, haha. Sometimes he lies awake at night and kicks himself for it, takes a needle between his fingers and uses it to carve his skull.
Sometimes, and this one really is quite rare, he looks at himself in the mirror and wonders what he’s even doing with his life.
You know, this is my third year knowing and being friends with you, Kaveh, and, like, do you even enjoy chemistry?
But that is a dangerous thought, so he doesn’t entertain it very often. Its ugliness is too terrifying to face head-on, so he does not face it at all.
“Well,” he says, forcing himself out of his own head, “if the two of you need any more help, or even if you want to just chat about different options, my office hours are always here for a reason.”
“This is definitely not the last you have seen of me, senior,” says Emina very seriously.
“And me,” Alina nods.
And Kaveh ignores the slowly building pit in his stomach. He doesn’t think about how while he has always been good at studying for his major, he has never felt the burn of passion that these two girls clearly hold so deeply in their cores. He doesn’t think about how he’s not sure if he can stand in a laboratory for the rest of his life. He doesn’t think about how he felt the faintest flicker of that fire just yesterday, for the first time in his life, as he sat in Professor Lina’s lecture hall and willed the wet sting in his eyes away.
On Friday, Kaveh gets a text from his favorite person in the entire world.
[10:49] nilou: kaveh!!! my dance troupe is having a party tonight if you wanna come! i’ll get you + anyone you wanna bring in for free!
[10:50] you: I AM SO DOWN
Well. Until then, Kaveh will go to his third physical chemistry lecture of the semester and wonder if it is possible for the concepts of thermodynamics to cause the ache in his head to just make him explode into pieces right there and then. His professor is no help, naturally, though Kaveh cannot be surprised. He does, after all, have a solid one-star rating on the Akademiya professor rating forum.
Halfway through the lecture, the girl sitting to his right turns to him and says, “Are you following anything he’s saying?”
Kaveh gives her a pitying look. “Sort of, but only because I read the textbook for this section yesterday.”
“Oh, archons, that’s a good idea, I should do that from now on,” she says, then turns in slow motion back to face the screen projecting up ahead. Under her breath, she mutters, “I’m going to fucking kill myself,” and privately, Kaveh agrees with the sentiment.
After the lecture, he finds himself a nice couch on the third floor of the chemistry building, and he looks around at the clusters of students hunched over themselves and their tablets. Some are talking animatedly between themselves, and some look like they are on the verge of tears. Typical.
Then he looks down at his own tablet, open fresh to the first page of his analytical chemistry homework, and he tries to stifle a sigh before succumbing to the reality that is stoichiometry.
This lasts for the next hour and a half, in which Kaveh’s sig figs only fuck up his work a humble three times. All in a day’s work.
Which is how Kaveh eventually finds himself standing in front of a large house right off campus with Tighnari, Cyno, Dehya, Candace, and Al-Haitham. Truly, what a group.
Dehya turns to give Al-Haitham a once over. “You know,” she says, “normal people don’t show up to a party with a book in their hands.”
Al-Haitham looks up from where he’s turning a page. “It’s small enough to fit in my pocket, if that’s more socially acceptable for you.”
“That’s not the point? You—”
“Kaveh!” comes the voice of Kaveh’s favorite person in the entire world, and Kaveh spins around to see Nilou rushing over to him, her bright red hair flying out behind her as she leaps up to embrace him. “How was your summer?”
“Long,” says Kaveh with a grimace. Then he smiles. “How was yours, Nilou?”
She wilts a little. “Also long. But now we’re back here! Oh, hey guys!”
The others wave hello, and then Nilou beckons them inside, and Kaveh thinks that for at least an hour now, he can forget about the woes of the real world.
In the corner of the blue-lit room, a couple of students are handing out solo cups filled with a liquid colored halfway between pink and red. Kaveh raises an eyebrow at Nilou, who smiles at the person working the bench before turning back to him and passing him one of the cups. “Here you go!”
Kaveh peers into the cup. “What is it?”
Nilou shrugs.
“Fair enough,” says Kaveh, and then he begins to chug.
“You should be careful,” comes another familiar voice right by the shell of his right ear, and Kaveh starts in surprise, twisting halfway to find Al-Haitham standing so close to him that their sides are practically pressed together. “I’m not going to make soup for you tomorrow morning if you wake up with a hangover.”
Kaveh rips his lips away from the rim of the cup. “Yes, you will.”
“Overconfident, are you?”
“No, I just know you,” says Kaveh as the world begins to tingle and blur. Archons above, already?
“Really,” says Al-Haitham as Nilou passes him his own cup. He blinks down at it, then looks up at her. “Really?”
“Oh, come on,” says Nilou, rolling her eyes a little. Kaveh hides his smile behind the back of his hand. “When do you ever come out anyways? You should make the most of this time.”
“What benefit do you receive if I’m the one who’s drinking,” says Al-Haitham.
“The knowledge that my word alone was enough to make you do it,” Nilou grins.
Al-Haitham sighs. It is inaudible over the pounding of the base beneath the soles of their shoes, but Kaveh can see it in the slight downturn of his lips, the way his eyebrows relax atop his forehead.
“I didn’t know you were so picky with your drinks,” says Kaveh, crossing one of his arms over his chest. “What, are you too good for cheap party liquor? You have no problem at all drinking the wine in our cupboard that we bought with our own money.”
“You mean the wine in our cupboard that I bought with my money,” says Al-Haitham.
Kaveh waves a hand. “Semantics.”
“Not quite,” says Al-Haitham, and then he takes a few sips as Kaveh drains the rest of his cup and is immediately handed another.
“Kaveh,” says Cyno out of literally nowhere, and Kaveh raises both of his eyebrows when he notices him stumbling over. “I have a question to ask you. Why was the gas chromatograph feeling sad?”
Kaveh’s legs are beginning to feel a bit like jelly. “Huh?”
“It had separation anxiety,” Cyno trills, and then he begins to laugh, and Kaveh is staring at him, and then, for some reason, he begins to laugh too.
“Cyno, wait, listen to this one!” he says, straightening up and thinking really, really hard. The music around them is deafening, loud and thunderous in his ears. “Oh—I’ve got it! What kind of fish is made out of two sodium atoms?”
Cyno is gasping. He looks a bit ridiculous, and vaguely, Kaveh is aware that he probably looks ridiculous right now too. “What kind of fish is it?” Cyno asks, and perhaps it is just Kaveh’s drunken state, but his eyes are fucking sparkling.
“2 Na!” Kaveh exclaims.
Cyno trips over, reaching out and taking Kaveh’s hands into his. “Wait, I have one about fish too. What do you call an sp2 hybridized fish?”
Kaveh squints at him.
Cyno is grinning. “A carbon-eel!”
Suddenly, there is a strong weight on his shoulder, and Kaveh looks up blearily to find Dehya standing between the two of them.
“Show’s over, nerds!” she shouts. “Do the two of you realize how you sound right now? Kaveh, I cannot wait to see your face tomorrow when you realize you exchanged chemistry puns with Cyno—”
“We actually sound really, really smart,” says Cyno very seriously as Kaveh decides to ignore both of them and reach for a third cup. Whatever this is, it’s probably something strong, but at this point it’s just fucking juice, so. “We’re using our scientific knowledge in a way that both enhances our creativity and helps us relate those concepts to—”
“Archons, has anyone seen Tighnari?” Dehya says, looking around. Her eyes brighten up. “Oh, there! Tighnari! Tighnari!”
Tighnari must appear, because the next thing Kaveh knows, Cyno is being forcibly dragged away from him, “I will miss you, Kaveh!” he’s shouting, “I’ve got my ion you!”
Kaveh waves at him, “I’ve got my ion you too, Cyno! I’ve got my ion you too!”
Al-Haitham comes up behind him. Kaveh can tell it’s him because nobody else would so easily wrap their arms around him like this, clasp their palm around his shoulder and lean fully against him. Is he drunk too? Kaveh could turn and meet his eyes right now and find out, but his body is suddenly so much heavier than he is used to it being, and there is a weight suspended over his eyes.
His lips part. “Al-Haitham.”
“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham.
“What if I don’t actually become a chemist.”
Al-Haitham does not move, and it is right there, in the middle of a crowded Friday night college party, that Kaveh pours his heart out into the world for the very first time.
“What if I—fuck.” Oh, god. “What if I don’t—what if I don’t become a chemist. I don’t even—I don’t even think I’ve ever really thought of myself as someone who is going to eventually become a chemist, you know? Isn’t that so stupid? All of this—the past three years of my life. And now I’m here and saying what if I don’t actually become a chemist. Isn’t that so fucking pathetic?”
“It’s not,” says Al-Haitham, and it’s quiet, yet Kaveh can still hear him. “Three years or none. There is always enough time.”
“No,” says Kaveh. He’s laughing, he thinks, yet nothing is funny. “There really isn’t enough time at all, Al-Haitham. I only have a year left of my degree. I’ll finish it and graduate and enter the real world and hate my life.”
“You will not hate your life,” says Al-Haitham.
“But I’ll hate my career,” Kaveh whispers.
“Do you not like it?” Al-Haitham asks.
“I do like it,” says Kaveh. He swallows. “I do. I do like it. I just don’t…I don’t know.”
Al-Haitham nods. “It’s okay to not know.”
“No, it’s not okay,” says Kaveh. He steps forward, and he trips, barely managing to catch himself and straighten back up. Or, maybe, that’s Al-Haitham helping him up again. Kaveh looks up. Red meets teal. “You’re supposed to know by now. Aren’t you supposed to know by now? Even the people I meet who are years younger than me already know what they want with their lives. They have these—” He makes a nebulous gesticulation, “—big plans for themselves. These visions for where they want to go and how exactly their passions are going to help them get there. And I am damn good at chemistry. I know I can do it if I try. I just—I just—”
Al-Haitham steps closer to him. Kaveh debates stepping back. “You do not know if you want to try.”
Kaveh hangs his head. “Isn’t that so awful?”
“It’s not,” says Al-Haitham. He shakes his head, and even through the blabbering throng of people around them, it curls around Kaveh’s gut and squeezes so gently he could cry.
He does not cry. Al-Haitham takes his hand into his, and he leads him home.
He sits closer to the front of the lecture hall next Tuesday, and he listens to Professor Lina wax poetic about the Sangonomiya Shrine in Inazuma. Around him, his classmates are furiously typing notes on their respective computers, while Kaveh sits there with his laptop open on a perpetually blank page.
He wonders what it would be like, to draw a blueprint and bring it to life, to have a vision of beauty and art, and to use math and structure and engineering to build it up from nothing. He thinks of Sumeru. He thinks of Sumeru City. He thinks of the Akademiya, its swooping halls, bright infrastructure, the way the pavement curls further and further up the divine tree and blossoms around students and professors and patrons both alike and unalike. He wonders what it would be like to build something for himself, or maybe for someone else. A small home, or a mansion, or maybe even a palace.
When the lecture ends, he meets Professor Lina’s eyes, and once again, she smiles at him.
Kaveh smiles back. Inside, his heart is crying.
The first assignment is simple. Students will have two weeks to develop a basic design proposal for a small structure. Kaveh pulls out his tablet, opens up a brand new notebook with a dotted paper design, and he sketches. He sketches, and he sketches, and he sketches. He’s chosen a bridge, one that extends within the tops of the very port he grew up in. It’s large and it’s beautiful and it arches overhead, lamps curving in increments along the sides, and as his pen moves over the blueprint, he feels the knot in his stomach loosen and begin to unfurl.
His proposal earns him a score of 100%. In the comments, Professor Lina writes just two words:
Absolutely brilliant!
It is like this that the semester continues on—Kaveh, his chemistry lectures, his lab reports, and his one elective that allows him a moment to breathe twice a week.
“Hey, Robin,” Kaveh says as he drops his bag down in his cubby and pulls on his white coat and goggles. “How was your week?”
“Well,” says Robin, his a-chem lab partner, “I had my first interview for medical school yesterday. So that’s something.”
“Oh,” says Kaveh, and then, “wow, how did it go?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” Robin says. They stick on their gloves and reach for a clean volumetric pipette. “Now, let’s blow some shit up.”
So on and so forth.
Then one Monday afternoon, he goes to his lab TA’s office hours to ask a question about his UV-Vis spectroscopy lab, and she looks him dead in the eye and says to him, “Kaveh, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I wanted to let you know that Professor Isha would be more than happy to write a letter of rec for you if you asked her.”
Kaveh freezes. “What?”
“I mean,” his TA, Banu, says, “You’re doing very well in the class, and you attend office hours pretty often, and you must already know that she doesn’t write them for just anyone.”
“Oh,” says Kaveh. What the fuck? “I—thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” says Banu.
“What if,” Kaveh starts, then stops, because yikes. This is not a good idea. This is not a good idea, and yet his TA is looking at him with curious eyes, and this is someone that has gone through everything he has gone through and come out with the same degree that he will earn in just a few months. His expression twists.
“You don’t want to go to grad school?”
“It’s not that,” says Kaveh quickly. “I do want to go to grad school. Just…”
Understanding dawns over her features. Kaveh can see when it clicks in her head. “Just not for chemistry.”
Kaveh winces.
“That’s fine,” says Banu, frowning. “What? Why do you look so upset? Don’t worry, even if you go for something else, Professor Isha will still write you a recommendation. Her rec isn’t dependent on what you want to study, Kaveh. That much should be obvious.”
Kaveh stares at her. She sighs.
“A lot of my chemistry major friends from undergrad didn’t continue with it after they graduated,” she says, leaning back a little and looking thoughtful for a moment. “One became a computer scientist, and another went to law school. Several went to med school, but well, that one’s to be expected I suppose. It was only me and a few others who stayed in it in the most literal way. You have a lot of different paths you could take with this degree.”
“What if,” says Kaveh slowly, “what I really want to do is not related to chem at all?”
“That’s fine too,” she says. “Like I said, there are a lot of different paths you can take.” Then she smiles. “Don’t beat yourself up over it too much.
“Thank you,” he mutters.
“Now,” she says, brightening. “What should I have for lunch? I was going to go with the other TA, Waniya, but she texted me last minute that she's going to eat with her boyfriend instead. Isn't that crazy?”
He goes to Professor Lina’s office hours later that same week. Not because he needs help in the class, but—well, quite honestly, he doesn’t know.
Until he does.
Until he—
“If I graduate with a degree in chemistry,” he says when the only other student there stands up and leaves. Professor Lina turns to look at him, her hands circling around a faded yellow mug of matcha. When Kaveh starts speaking, she starts smiling, and she tilts her head, nodding for him to continue. Kaveh swallows. He feels it burn down his throat as he takes a breath and asks, “Is it possible to go to graduate school for architecture?”
“Yes,” says Professor Lina without missing a single beat. Her smile is wider now, stretching east to west across the bottom of her mouth. “Yes, it is. The program you’ll do will be a year or two longer than the one you would have taken if you did your undergraduate studies in architecture, but it is very possible, Kaveh, and many people do it. Several of my classmates in my own master's program didn’t have a bachelor’s degree in architecture.”
“Oh,” says Kaveh, his throat feeling a little dry all of a sudden, “I see.”
She sits up, sets her mug down and leans forward. “I’ve seen you in my lecture. You listen with more interest than some of the students who are in Kshahrewar—though, of course, don’t tell them I said that—and the sketches you submit for assignments are some of the best I’ve seen, especially considering that you have no experience.”
Is the world spinning, or is it just Kaveh? “Thank you, professor.”
“If you’re serious about it,” she continues, “then allow me to prod you to apply to our program, right here at the Akademiya. I’ll even write one of your letters of recommendation.”
“Professor—” Kaveh starts, not knowing at all what he is supposed to say to that. What he can say to that.
“You’ve got real skill, Kaveh,” Professor Lina says, “and I can see the passion in your eyes. No matter how cliché a thing that is to say.” She laughs. “Sue me, Haravatat was never my calling.”
And—god. Does she know that she has just changed his life? Is this something that professors are used to doing? Do they go in to teach their classes and just expect that somewhere in the lecture hall, there is a student that is just teetering on the edge of a cliff of hope? That they are about to have their entire life flipped right upside down with just a few slides and an assignment or two?
“It was never mine either,” Kaveh says, and now, he is smiling.
“But Spantamad was, clearly,” says Professor Lina, and Kaveh looks up at her with wide eyes. “You enjoy science.” She grins. “You’ll make a fine engineer.”
And, well—isn’t that just something?
His mother texts him one night while Kaveh is busy prodding Al-Haitham to help him look over the first draft of his personal statement. He jumps slightly when he sees the name at the top of the notification: maman, and he looks up at Al-Haitham.
Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow. “Well? Aren’t you going to read it?”
Kaveh groans, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “I was avoiding this for as long as possible.”
“No better time than the present,” says Al-Haitham, and then he reaches over and presses the message notification before Kaveh can stop him. Kaveh watches, his heart racing, as his phone screen spills and settles into the familiar white of his messaging platform. And right there, at the bottom, are his mother’s two replies to the block of text he sent her just a few hours ago. He had drafted it over the course of the morning, and right before he slipped his gloves on to enter the lab, he fired it off in order to maximize the time between sending it and reading her reply.
He swallows.
[21:03] maman: I’m so proud of you, Kaveh. You’re going to be a brilliant architect.
[21:03] maman: Your father would be proud of you, too.
Immediately, his eyes fill with tears.
Al-Haitham shifts from where he’s sitting next to him, bending closer so that he can look over Kaveh’s shoulders and read the messages too. Kaveh lets him, and then they’re sitting there with their shoulders pressed together in the middle of their living room, and—
“That’s good,” Al-Haitham murmurs, tilting his chin back slightly. “There was nothing to be worried about.”
“There was plenty to be worried about,” says Kaveh, wiping at his eyes. Then, he smiles. “God. I’m really doing this, aren’t I?”
“What, are you going to back out?” says Al-Haitham.
“Absolutely not,” says Kaveh. His hand finds his computer on Al-Haitham’s lap again, and he urges, “Now, come on, you need to finish looking over my personal statement. Give me as much advice as humanly possible. Al-Haitham, I am literally giving you a free ticket to red-pen over all of my hard work! You’re never going to have such an opportunity ever again!”
“Knowing you,” says Al-Haitham, “I probably will.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t worry about it, senior,” says Al-Haitham. One side of his mouth is quirked upward, and he’s smirking, the motherfucker. “Now, be a little quieter, will you? I need all of my attention ready at my disposal so I can edit your statement.”
Kaveh leans over until his mouth is hovering by Al-Haitham’s ear, and he screams.
One semester goes, and another opens. Kaveh submits all of his applications, passes analytical chemistry and physical chemistry and all of his labs with flying colors, and sends Emina and Alina a thumbs up from across the lecture hall on the last organic chemistry class day. They’ve both earned As in the course, and they’re able to drop the final exam according to the class grading policies. Kaveh knows for a fact that they are both on cloud fucking nine right now.
He passes his architecture course, too, and at registration, uses all of his elective space to sign up for several more.
And life is good. Life is great. Kaveh wakes up every morning and accepts the cup of fresh coffee that Al-Haitham passes him across the kitchen island. He goes to his new classes and dies a little less inside. He comes home and takes turns with Al-Haitham to cook dinner, and on the days that he doesn’t, he washes the dishes and sticks his tongue out at Al-Haitham where he’s sitting on their living room couch with some sort of book in his lap.
In March, he checks his email approximately once an hour. Sometimes twice. Sometimes thrice. Sometimes—
Dear Kaveh,
Congratulations! It is our absolute pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted to the Master of Architecture program at the Akademiya for…
Kaveh drops his phone when he reads the email. Then, he screams.
Al-Haitham’s head sticks out of his bedroom. “What?”
“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh whispers, voice broken, turning in slow motion to look at him. “I got in.”
Al-Haitham leaves his spot. He makes a beeline for Kaveh, and Kaveh watches, wide-eyed, as he approaches. His steps are strong, purposeful, and when he’s no more than a few centimeters away from him, he raises his hands until his palms are cupping Kaveh’s cheeks.
“Congratulations,” he says quietly.
“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh. His eyelids flutter downward, pupils following, and he’s only looking at Al-Haitham’s lips for two seconds before Al-Haitham is leaning over and kissing him.
It’s quick. It’s sweet. And it’s not enough. When Al-Haitham breaks away, Kaveh chases him, lifting his arms to wrap around the backs of his shoulders and pulling him down against him. He licks into his mouth, runs his tongue over his teeth and swallows Al-Haitham’s quiet sigh into his throat.
They break apart. Kaveh is panting, and when he opens his eyes, he finds Al-Haitham already staring at him with his kiss-burned skin and red, swollen lips.
“Oh,” says Kaveh. Al-Haitham is still touching him, still curling his fingers into his arms and not letting him move away for even a fraction of a second. “Is that…are we doing that now?”
“If you want to,” says Al-Haitham.
“I feel like,” says Kaveh, “you can’t really say if you want to after literally making out with me—”
Al-Haitham leans forward again, lightning quick, and presses their lips together. “I want to,” he says against his mouth.
Kaveh’s jaw goes a little slack. “Oh.” And then, “Okay.” And then, “Al-Haitham, I got into the Akademiya’s master’s program. For architecture.”
“You worked hard for it,” says Al-Haitham. “You deserve it.”
“Ugh,” says Kaveh. “You can’t just say that to me.”
“I can say whatever I want,” says Al-Haitham, and before Kaveh can get another word in, he kisses him yet again, and again, and again, and—