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His date is late, Kaveh thinks, tapping his foot on the linoleum floors of the café they’ve chosen to meet in. The way that they texted seemed perfectly perfunctory and punctual, so Kaveh was hoping that they would be the same way in real life, but they seem to be running late, and not so much as a message has popped up on Kaveh’s phone.
The only other possibility is that they saw him and left, and Kaveh doesn’t know if he’d prefer that over his date being late.
Until a shadow falls over him, and Kaveh blinks up to see—
Alhaitham.
He’s grown, which is the first thing Kaveh thinks, which is a ridiculous thought to have because of course he’d grown. They both have. But Kaveh doesn’t look at himself to notice the difference; but Alhaitham, he was looking at on a near-daily basis, and for that reason Kaveh knows that he looks so similar yet so different from the twiggy beanpole Kaveh had known before.
Fuck, he’s hot, is the next thought he has, and it immediately has him recoiling in place, because what the fuck is wrong with his brain?!
“Kaveh?”
“Alhaitham,” he returns as easily as he can, which is not that easy because Alhaitham’s staring down at him with his piercing gaze that’s always made Kaveh feel a little like he was a worm being studied under a microscope.
“What are you doing here?” Kaveh asks, when Alhaitham doesn’t say anything but looks at him quizzically. “I’d love to catch up, I really do, but I think my date might be here any second now.”
It’s a lie. Kaveh doesn’t know if his date’s going to be here at all.
“About that…” Alhaitham pulls out his phone and thumbs through his screen, and turns it around to show Kaveh a messaging window.
With himself.
Where he’d sent a text five minutes ago asking where his date was.
Fuck.
“Fuck,” he says, a little flatly, because at this point the universe is just laughing at him for daring to think he could have at least one normal, nice day. “You’re Volans?”
“And you’re Paradisaea,” Alhaitham confirms, and unlike what Kaveh had expected, instead of running for the hills—maybe not an entirely apt descriptor, because Alhaitham would never run. Strolling leisurely for the hills does not have the same connotations, though—he slides into the seat opposite Kaveh. “Satisfy my curiosity.”
“No, mine first,” Kaveh interrupts him, “I’d never known you to be late before. Why were you—” he checks his watch—“twenty minutes late?”
“I was planning on not showing up,” Alhaitham says frankly. Well, there’s something to be said for candor.
“And you changed your mind because?”
“If my date was still waiting for me fifteen minutes after our agreed meeting time, I figured I should at least offer an apology and pay for their food,” Alhaitham shrugs. “And this café is near my house.”
“Right,” Kaveh says, a little faintly. “And you knew it was me, because…?”
“I didn’t. But when you mentioned your date being late—what are the odds? So I checked.”
“I…see,” Kaveh says. It’s quite awkward to realize the fact that someone he thought he was getting along with swimmingly had just turned out to be someone else he used to get along with swimmingly before it all went up into flames.
He thinks about it, sometimes. Of how harshly he’d spat his words at Alhaitham, because his greatest wish at that time was to make it hurt. Of how Alhaitham had first pointed out, in that rational and therefore almost cruel way, that Kaveh’s ideals were going to kill him.
Well.
He isn’t dead, yet. Suck that, Alhaitham.
“So,” Alhaitham says, “it’s my turn.”
“Hm?”
“I have questions.”
“I have one. Can I run away?”
“Like you usually do?”
Kaveh huffs. Looks away. Drums his fingers on the table. Finds an interest in the tissue and begins tearing it apart strip by strip. In front of him, Alhaitham sits. Still as stone. Kaveh doesn’t understand how he can be staring into Kaveh’s soul like this and not feel the urge to buzz out of his skin.
“Of all people,” Alhaitham says, slowly, like he’s testing the words in his mouth. “I would not have thought you would use a dating app.”
“The same can be said for you,” Kaveh replies, quick as ever. “What made the great and solitary Alhaitham put himself out there in the dating world?”
“I was bored.”
Kaveh blinks, not having expected that answer. Alhaitham levels a smug little smile at him as he continues talking.
“My boss decided I was too lonely and got a hold of my phone and put a dating app in it.”
Kaveh’s eyebrows raise into his hairline. He plants his hands onto the table and leans across it to stare at Alhaitham.
“Who are you,” he asks very seriously, “and what have you done with Alhaitham.”
Surprisingly, that draws a laugh out of him. Kaveh’s close enough that he can almost feel Alhaitham’s puff of laughter as he shakes his head and leans back against the chair. Slowly, he returns to his own seat.
“I only left it unlocked around her once,” Alhaitham tells him, “and normally she’s very considerate.”
“But?”
“But she thought it was sad that I had no friends. So she downloaded the app and set up a profile. And I admit to being curious about what happens in these dating apps.”
“And what have you found out?”
“Ninety-nine percent disappointment.”
“And the other one percent?”
“You.”
Fuck. Fuck! Kaveh’s not going to be flustered by this. He’s not.
He’s so flustered he stammers unintelligibly through his next sentence and gives up, and stands up rather abruptly.
“What do you want to drink,” he says very loudly, trying not to choke on his tongue as Alhaitham smirks up at him with his arms crossed. Don’t look at his arms, Kaveh, don’t look at his arms—he looks at his arms. Fuck!
“Caramel latte, please,” Alhaitham says, “Iced. With extra whipped cream.”
“Fine, you sugary heathen.”
Kaveh pays for their drinks and settles back into his chair, upon where Alhaitham, like a dog with a bone, immediately jumps back into the previous topic.
“What about you, then, senior?”
Kaveh thinks about it, and decides why not? Alhaitham’s already seen him at his worst. And right now, he’s hit rock bottom and he’s ready to dig.
“I needed a date for a trip.”
“A trip.”
“Mhm. You remember my mother, yes?”
“It would be hard to forget her.”
“Yes, so—she’s been inviting me to visit her in Fontaine for the longest time, and I’ve always refused. But this last time, I accepted, and so I think that somewhere she must’ve misunderstood that I was bringing along a boyfriend. And! Before you say just tell her the truth, she’d be heartbroken. She’s already planned all our accommodation and travel plans and if I just tell her now then she’ll just be so sad but she’d try to hide it and I’d feel terrible for doing that to her!”
By the end of his speech, Kaveh’s panting, and he takes a moment to compose himself, before opening his mouth to tell Alhaitham more.
“Excuse me, sir,” a waitress says, and puts down their drinks—the hot black coffee in front of Alhaitham and the sugary sweet monstrosity in front of Kaveh. Kaveh thanks her and watches her leave, and then shares a look with Alhaitham before Alhaitham helps him swap their drinks over.
Sighing in relief at his first coffee of the day, Kaveh gestures in the air as he talks. “So, I’ve been in a bit of a pickle. I’ve been trying to find people to date, and even went on those fishy sites where someone pretends to be your partner if you give them money, but the rates were exorbitantly high for going on a trip together—even if they’re all paid for—and so I just resorted to going out on dates and hoping someone sticks enough that I can desperately ask them to at least pretend to do something to appease my mother.”
Silence. Alhaitham already looks tired listening to him talk as he sips on his drink.
“It’s a plan only you could come up with, that’s for sure.”
“Wow, you’re making a sarcastic comment? Say it isn’t so.”
Alhaitham cracks a half-smile at that, and it makes Kaveh smile too, just the slightest bit.
“So you came on this date in hopes for someone to take on the trip?”
Kaveh nods. “Though that’s a bust now, evidently.”
“Is it?”
Kaveh blinks. “Isn’t it?”
“I could come on the trip with you.” Alhaitham shrugs, like he isn’t turning Kaveh’s brain upside down right this very moment. “If you’d consider me a good candidate for it.”
“I—Are you sure? You’re going to have to pretend to be dating me, you know.”
“I’m not like you. I wouldn’t have offered without knowing my own capabilities.”
“Keep talking like that and we’ll break up before we get to see my mother,” Kaveh snaps, but it only makes Alhaitham laugh. That infuriating man. “But—if you would—it would be great. Better, I think. I’m still—ahem, I think we know each other beforehand, so it’s more. Comfortable.”
“Yes. But there’s an issue. Have you told your mother we… lost contact?”
Losing contact is quite a nice way to put we screamed at each other over our thesis and I ripped it up and never talked to you again.
But Kaveh will say that, for Alhaitham, this is quite tactful. “I don’t… I don’t tell her much.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t—I don’t want her to know? Obviously? I don’t want her to worry about me.”
“And you think she won’t worry about you if she knows you’ve been lying?”
“She doesn’t,” Kaveh says firmly. This, he knows for certain. She wouldn’t have left for Fontaine if she’d known he’d been lying. Kaveh slumps against the back of his chair, all the fight suddenly draining out of him. Why does he always have to make things so complicated for himself?
“You can say no,” he says quietly, looking back up at Alhaitham. “I know you don’t want to do things that are inconvenient for you.”
“On the contrary. One—I get out of work. Two—it’s an all-expenses paid vacation. What’s not to love?”
“My mom pestering us about our relationship?”
“I’ll live.”
Kaveh snorts, and then suddenly, he can’t stop laughing, because the situation is just so ridiculous. Here he is, at a random café on a Tuesday morning having half-reunited with his childhood best friend who he’d parted ways with due to an argument, who’s just offered to fake-date him to keep his mother off his back. Who’s just talking with him after all these years of no communication. Kaveh had thought, at the start of their meeting, that they’d still be contrary to each other, too stubborn to agree with the other’s words, and yet he’s found himself falling back into the same easy banter and squabbles he used to have with Alhaitham back in university.
What even is his life?
Alhaitham seems faintly amused too, when Kaveh looks at him, though whether it stems from laughing with or at him, Kaveh will never know.
“Alright,” he says breathlessly when he’s done laughing, “Erm—do you want to talk about it now? Or meet another day? There’s still time. It’s only in two months. And I’d send over the itinerary and trip details if you’d like to see them?”
“Next time then. And do send them over, I’ll take a look at everything.” Alhaitham says, sliding his phone towards Kaveh, “Here. Put your number in. The layout of the dating app sickens me.”
With a surprised chortle, Kaveh thumbs in his number, and saves it under Kaveh! <3 before handing it back to Alhaitham, who takes it with a raised eyebrow.
“I’ll text,” he says, standing up, cradling his sugary sweet monstrosity in his hand. “Until our next date, then, senior. It’s my treat next time.”
And then he leaves, flouncing out of the café with a swish of his coat, leaving Kaveh to wonder just why the fuck his heart skipped a beat when Alhaitham said it’s a date.