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Growing up, Kaveh’s father used to take pictures of everything. From the dinner they were having to photos of the flowers his mother planted in their back garden, he was determined to capture every moment of his family’s lives.
“When your grandfather died, I realized I only had one photo of him,” his father would later on explain, handing that singular photo to Kaveh. “I wish I had more photos of him, which is why I take so many photos. It’s all so that you don’t live with that same regret I have.”
By the time his father left this world, Kaveh was left with hundreds of photos of him, and yet, it still doesn’t feel like it's enough. He’s not sure that there is any amount of photos his father could have left behind that would suffice. He’ll always be left wanting more, this aching hole in his heart forever mourning for what could have been.
Kaveh still takes his father’s words to heart, and takes photos whenever he can. A cute kitten he spots on the way to work, a pretty flower he encounters on the street, or even a nice coffee cup served to him at the new coffee shop he’s trying out with his boyfriend, he takes a moment to capture them all on his phone.
Or at least he thought he was.
Kaveh kicks back on the couch, leaning into the armrest with his cat Mehrak on his lap as he doom scrolls through social media. Everyone is on vacation this week and posting about it, pristine beaches and exciting cities in each photo. Everyone but him, who is currently stuck in his home city, trying to work out how he’s going to move out of his ex’s apartment.
“I told you, you can stay for as long as you need to. There is no rush,” Alhaitham explains as he takes a seat on the loveseat farthest away from the couch.
“As if I want to stay in your vicinity any longer than I have to,” Kaveh contends as he glowers at him. “The sooner I’m out of here, the better.”
“You’re the one that wanted to break up,” he reminds him.
Always quick to remind Kaveh of the things he does, but unwilling to admit his own faults, or why they broke up in the first place. Typical.
“Yeah,” Kaveh grits his teeth in frustration as he sits up and glares at Alhaitham, “and you readily agreed to it. Like you do with everything. It’s always that passive, disinterested ‘whatever’ response of yours that I’ve always hated that got us here, not me.”
“What else was I supposed to do? Beg you to stay?”
“Yes!”
“It was pointless. You had already made up your mind.”
“But at least you would’ve fought for something that you wanted out of this relationship for once. Just admit it: you lost interest in this relationship a long time ago. Perhaps you never even cared to begin with,” Kaveh mumbles as he returns to his phone.
“I’ve cared the entire time,” Alhaitham argues.
Kaveh ignores Alhaitham as he continues doom scrolling through his feed, wishing he was anywhere but in this suffocating apartment before his feed decides to play a cruel trick on him.
This photo was taken a year or so ago when the two had gone on a date after classes were over. Kaveh recalls holding the two cups of coffee on the counter as Alhaitham snapped the photo. He remembers that date being the one where Kaveh first told Alhaitham that he wanted to marry him someday.
Back then, Alhaitham was the only person he could ever see himself having a future with. Now, he’s facing a future without Alhaitham, and it’s never felt more uncertain. To think this site would be so cruel as to put the photo back on his feed, forcing him to relive a sweet memory that has now been tainted.
He should scroll away, but Kaveh’s eyes are glued to the photo. Not only does its presence remind him of what they used to be, but it also slaps him with the fact that this is what their pages are like. Photos upon photos of their relationship, every memory they’ve shared is stored there, for the world to see. Now that they’ve separated, it’s useless to have them up. It’s only going to bring pain for both of them.
“In addition to moving out, I’m going to wipe my page of our posts too,” Kaveh says as he goes to open his page. “You should do the same.”
Alhaitham’s expression instantly changes from passive annoyance to hesitation as he studies Kaveh. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
What other choice do they have? There’s no point in keeping these photos anymore. Why would either of them want to keep them anyway?
“I’m sure,” Kaveh confirms as he sits up. “Why? Do you have any reservations?”
Alhaitham looks down at his phone. For a moment, Kaveh thinks he’s going to protest Kaveh’s decision. Is he finally going to make a stand instead of nonchalantly telling Kaveh “if that’s what you want” as if he has completely lost interest in the conversation?
“Fine,” Alhaitham states, much to Kaveh’s disappointment. He stands up and moves over to the loveseat next to the couch. “But let’s first look through our posts. For old time’s sake.”
“Right,” Kaveh dumbfoundedly answers as his eyes drift down to his phone again. “For old time’s sake.”
Kaveh begins to scroll down his page, in search of every post he has taken on a date with Alhaitham.
Each photo was taken on separate dates, and he remembers them all. The market was after they first moved into this apartment together and went shopping for decorations. The food was their anniversary dinner when they first exchanged ‘I love yous,’ and the coffee was from one of their first dates ever, back when they were still too nervous to look each other in the eye.
A sudden pang of guilt emerges from Kaveh’s chest as his finger slides over to the delete button. As the offender stares up at Kaveh, he suddenly finds himself unable to make the final push. They’re making Kaveh feel nothing but pain, and yet, the memories are still too precious to Kaveh.
He closes his eyes and hits the delete button. The photos are gone in an instant, lost to the void and never to be seen again. Part of him feels like it disappeared along with those photos.
“Wait, don’t delete anymore,” Alhaitham cuts in as he scoots to the edge of his seat so that he can show Kaveh his screen. “We should go through them together.”
“Oh, you wanted to…” Kaveh trails off, already too embarrassed to finish that sentence. He assumed that Alhaitham wouldn’t care enough to revisit the memories, but he supposes after how long they’ve been together that he’d want a proper goodbye to them.
Mehrak hisses in protest as Kaveh lifts her off his lap and puts her on the floor. She stares at him as if he had just committed the most offensive crime known to man (because it is) before angrily walking over to her bed on the other side of the room and going back to sleep. Kaveh fully sits up on the couch and scoots over, patting the empty seat next to him. “Well, if we’re going to go through them together, you should sit next to me.”
Kaveh can’t tell if Alhaitham is eager to sit next to Kaveh again or just wants to get the entire thing over with as soon as possible by the way he practically flies over to Kaveh to sit down. They make themselves comfortable, knees brushing as Kaveh crosses his legs and leans into Alhaitham.
“Since it’s the last time we’ll be going through these photos, we should take them from the same date,” Alhaitham explains. “You post more often than I do, it’ll be easier to find our photos if I pull the photo up first.”
Seeing Alhaitham’s profile forcibly reminds Kaveh that he rarely posts something that isn’t related to Kaveh. His entire page has photos from each date of theirs, including their hangouts before they officially started dating. It might as well be a page dedicated entirely to Kaveh, and the few coffee shops he visits on his own.
“Oh my god this is when we went to that farm to pick Saffron,” Kaveh gasps.
He remembers the date just like it was yesterday. They took a three hour train ride to the countryside to visit the closest farm that had saffron just for the chance to pick some as well. It was a cloudy afternoon that ended up with them standing in the middle of drizzling rain as they picked out the flowers. Alhaitham had brought an umbrella and kept Kaveh dry, sacrificing himself in the process.
By the time they made it back to the main building, Alhaitham was soaked to the bone and Kaveh’s hair was frizzy from all the humidity. After picking out the stigma from the flowers they collected, Alhaitham spent the rest of their time there braiding Kaveh’s hair to hide the frizz and using the plucked flowers to decorate it.
There’s a photo of Kaveh’s braided hair next to the photo of saffron that Alhaitham took. Though his face cannot be seen, Kaveh knows that he’s smiling in that photo, filled with elation that his boyfriend lovingly did him a favor.
“That was one of my favorite dates,” Alhaitham remarks. “And the tea we made from the stigmas later was just as enjoyable.”
“Yeah,” Kaveh solemnly agrees, suddenly at a loss for words, “it was a great date, wasn’t it? I had a lot of fun too.”
It takes him a minute, but Kaveh has to close his eyes to delete this photo too. A lump of remorse forms in his throat as he stares at the spot where the post had originally been, but he pushes it down.
The next set of photos are more recent, taken just a few months back. The rings on their fingers were exchanged as gifts for their anniversary. They both had laughed at the realization that they got each other the same gift before exchanging them.
“Next time, I’ll be putting an engagement ring on your finger,” Alhaitham promised as he slipped the ring onto Kaveh’s finger. Without breaking eye contact, he lifted the hand up to his lips and pressed a chaste kiss right where the ring rests.
Alhaitham held his hand the rest of that day, proudly showing off their rings as if they truly were engaged. And to further commemorate the anniversary, there’s an additional photo of Kaveh proudly displaying his ring to the camera with the widest smile on his face.
A few months later, Kaveh would remove that very ring Alhaitham gave him and throw it at his face as he declared that they were through. How things have changed. They used to be so happy and in love with each other. When did they lose that spark?
Kaveh couldn’t remember exactly when it happened, but one day, he just woke up and realized Alhaitham had grown complacent in their relationship. He started to sound disinterested in everything. If Kaveh asked him if they wanted to go out, or if they wanted to try a new place, he would agree to it without any enthusiasm. If Kaveh wanted to know if there was something Alhaitham wanted to do, he would shrug and tell him to pick.
While they’ve always had their fair share of arguments, Kaveh began to realize that they were fighting more often after he noticed the shift in their relationship. While Alhaitham barely cared about their dates, he sure had a lot to say about Kaveh and his shortcomings. It just felt like Alhaitham had lost interest in him and their relationship.
But looking at the posts on Alhaitham’s page told a different story. Every date included a photo of Kaveh, happily posing for the camera. Though he hardly ever captioned his posts, it was clear by the sheer amount of photos of Kaveh on his page that he was leaving behind one clear message: “This is who I am proud to call mine.”
Kaveh can’t help himself from comparing the posts to his own. He scrolls through his page, looking at what remains, only for his heart to sink in despair. While he has far more posts than Alhaitham, most of them aren’t about their relationship, and he hardly ever shares Alhaitham’s face.
He’s not sure why that's the case. When it came to the two of them, Kaveh was the one who was constantly taking photos on their dates. Alhaitham hardly ever went past five, and yet he always made sure one of those photos was of Kaveh.
Maybe he just has the photos in his album? When he opens up the photo gallery however, he’s met with the reality that there is still a severe lack of photos of the two of them together.
Tears start to form as regret seeps into his heart. His father always encouraged him to take photos but it seems like in following that advice he forgot to take photos of the most important thing: the person he loves.
Alhaitham immediately catches onto Kaveh’s crying, looking at him with worry as he gently asks, “What’s wrong?”
“You have a lot of photos of me, but I hardly have any of you… or any photos of us together for that matter,” he laments as he sniffles.
As he wipes his tears, he notices from the corner of his eye Alhaitham’s hand moving to comfort him before retreating. A sigh escapes his lips as he drops his hand altogether.
“I don’t have as many photos of us as I’d like to have either,” Alhaitham confesses. “I was always more focused on capturing you, rather than us.”
“The photo from our last anniversary is nice. I just wish we had something with our faces too,” another stream of tears rolls down Kaveh’s face as he says, “God, I never realized how much you enjoyed taking photos of me. Here I thought you stopped caring.”
“I never did.”
“Then why did you start acting like you don’t care about this relationship?!”
“Because you started acting like you lost feelings.”
Kaveh freezes. “I— I never— You always responded like you didn’t care what we did! As if the entire notion of going out and spending time together bored you!”
“You’re right, I don’t care what we do, because what matters most to me is that we are doing it together. There is nobody I feel more at peace with than when I am with you. It was never my intention to give you the impression that I was bored of us.”
He can’t take it anymore. Now that the truth has been revealed, he is full of nothing but regret. Regret for not taking enough photos together. For jumping to conclusions when in the end, he was reading the entire situation incorrectly to the point that he somehow convinced Alhaitham that the break-up was over him losing feelings. If Kaveh had taken a moment to just breathe and talk it over properly rather than assume things, he wouldn’t have broken up with him in the first place.
“Recently, you’ve been distant, and when you finally suggested we should break-up, I thought that if you truly lost feelings for me, then there was no point in trying to convince you to stay,” Alhaitham explains, a frown forming on his face as he adds, “The last thing I want is for you to resent me for forcing you to stay in a relationship.”
Another tear falls down Kaveh’s face. “I could never resent you.”
“And I only want you to be happy.” Alhaitham cups Kaveh’s face, wiping away his tears with his thumb. “I’ll be satisfied as long as you are.”
“Even now it’s about what I want, but never about what you want,” Kaveh sobs. “Please tell me, what do you want? Just for once, forget about me and tell me what is the most selfish request you have?”
“I want to take more photos with you,” Alhaitham answers.
Laughter rumbles out of Kaveh’s chest. “I want to do that too.”
“But I don’t want to do that as friends,” Alhaitham adds as he takes Kaveh’s hands and locks their fingers together. “I want to be able to hold you, and kiss you and tell you that I love you in every photo we take together.” Hesitation suddenly overtakes his face as he pauses and locks eyes with Kaveh. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“Then I’ll stay,” Kaveh answers as he leans into Alhaitham. “Because I want us to get back together.”
A smile graces Alhaitham’s face as he closes the distance between them. Though they’ve shared several kisses before, there’s something about the hesitant press of Alhaitham’s lips against his that makes his heart race faster than ever before. The spark has never left, Kaveh just stopped looking.
When they part, Kaveh wraps his arms around Alhaitham and pulls him into a hug.
“I think today is a good day for a photo,” he says.
Alhaitham hugs him back, holding onto him tightly as he kisses his ear and whispers, “I think so too.”