Work Text:
All his life, Kaveh had thought that falling in love with your neighbor was a stupid cliché from movies and TV shows. But a few months ago he ran into a tall, gray-haired guy on the stair landing, and everything changed. Now Kaveh, just like the protagonist of some ridiculous rom-com, checked the time so he could step out to the elevator at the same moment as Alhaitham.
Was it stupid? Of course. But Kaveh couldn’t help himself — the Akademiya’s secretary was simply too handsome. And their conversations, short as they were, were worth everything. Thanks to them, Kaveh had learned that Haitham was a big fan of scientific literature, foreign poetry, and warm coffee brewed in a cezve. Specifically in a cezve, because otherwise the taste just wasn’t the same — something Kaveh agreed with, even though every morning he made himself the most ordinary store-bought 3-in-1 coffee.
“You do realize this is complete nonsense, right?” his best friend Tighnari said one day, now forced to listen about that guy every single day.
“It’s not nonsense!” Kaveh insisted. “You just haven’t heard how nicely we chat, so you’re biased.”
“You lie about drinking coffee from a cezve too, and that’s clearly not ‘nice.’”
“Oh, shut up.” The architect lightly shoved him in the side. “Step by step and we’ll exchange numbers — you’ll see!”
“Sure,” Tighnari rolled his eyes. “I’m ready to bet a thousand mora that it won’t happen.”
“Ha.” Even though Kaveh didn’t like betting, this time he agreed with complete confidence that sooner or later he and his neighbor would cross the line beyond ordinary elevator conversations.
Fortunately, that’s exactly what happened. Another month later, Alhaitham mentioned that the electricity in the building was going to be turned off. When Kaveh blinked in surprise, he asked for his phone number so he could forward the message about it. And even though, according to Tighnari, it didn’t mean anything, the bet had been won. Since then, Kaveh had occasionally received messages from Alhaitham. Of course, they were strictly about various notices for residents, but still, every time his heart squeezed pleasantly.
Two more months passed like that, and by the end of them Kaveh decided it was time to act.
“Tighnari, I have an absolutely brilliant plan!” he began in a voice message in their chat. “So I thought about it and decided I need to take the initiative into my own hands. Today I’ll go to my neighbor and tell him I need help with my computer. If you know what I mean.” Kaveh winked to himself and quietly giggled.
The plan sounded ridiculous, but at the same time not half bad. Girls he knew had pulled off things like that back in college, and it had worked for them — which meant it would work for him too. All he needed was to dress up a little, fix his hair, and not forget the most important thing:
“My ace up my sleeve will be perfume! He mentioned he likes herbal-fruity scents, and I bought something that should be perfect. So he definitely won’t be able to resist and will agree to ‘help with the computer.’”
As he said this, Kaveh giggled again, sent the voice message without looking, and went over to the mirror. Fifteen minutes remained until the time Alhaitham usually stepped out onto the landing, and that was more than enough to smooth down his unruly strands one last time and spray the perfume he had just mentioned.
Its scent filled the room right as a message arrived on his phone. But not from Tighnari, as he had expected — from Haitham, who had accidentally received something he definitely wasn’t supposed to hear. And Kaveh was, of course, to blame for that himself — he should have checked everything just in case, instead of now feeling the urge to sink through the floor.
Especially when the doorbell rang.
“Oh no, no, no, no…”
“Kaveh?” The voice, unsurprisingly, belonged to his neighbor.
At that moment Kaveh didn’t just want to sink through the floor — he wanted to immediately fly off to another planet where no one would know what an idiot he was.
“I know you’re home. Please open the door.”
Without overthinking it, Kaveh rushed to the door while simultaneously trying to come up with an escape plan: lie and say it wasn’t about him? Say he was just imitating how his friend was supposed to confess to his crush? Or maybe pretend nothing had happened and that he had no idea what this was about?
Before any of those thoughts could be fully analyzed, the door opened, and a pair of gray-green eyes fixed on him.
“Before you say anything, I—”
“At seven in the evening I’ll come pick you up, and we’ll go to a restaurant,” Alhaitham interrupted.
“A restaurant?” His light eyebrows drew together in confusion.
“For a first date, that’s clearly better than ‘fixing a computer,’ so don’t be late. And by the way,” his hand suddenly smoothed down the stray blond strand, “the perfume really does smell nice.”