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Tuesday, 4 August. 5:15 PM.
Kaveh always went to the grocery store on the same day.
His office closed down for cleaning exactly at five on Tuesdays, which meant he was forced not to stay obscenely late at work once per week - and he liked the serenity of shopping when it wasn’t as crowded. He was typically out of food by then anyway, having eaten through all the chips and pastries and various junk foods he’d picked up the week prior.
He’d recently started doing his shopping at a new supermarket near his apartment... but it only took him one trip to spot a problem.
Unfortunately, that problem manifested in the form of a handsome grey-haired man. With a large pair of headphones covering his ears, he seemed oblivious to everything around him as he rolled his cart in a perfectly straight, methodical line, never veering from his path - as though he was shopping with guardrails invisible to the rest of the store.
Ignoring the initial jolt of unwelcome attraction that sparked in his stomach, Kaveh shook his head and pulled up Tighnari’s lentil soup recipe on his phone.
Kaveh’s eating habits were far from healthy, and he wanted to improve them - but he simply didn’t have time to waste cooking gourmet meals that would end up getting burned anyway. Instant noodles, cheese, baklava, and simple snacks were usually enough to keep him upright through his long workdays.
Now that he was in his thirties, however, the wear of constantly working with such poor nutrition to fuel him was starting to show in his body. His back ached, his head always hurt, his wrists sounded like potato chips when he moved them too loosely, and he fell ill with infuriating frequency.
Finally, he’d reached out to Tighnari for tips on migrating into a slightly more mature diet - and had received this recipe in response, along with an assurance that even he couldn’t mess it up.
Though he doubted it, he decided it was worth a try.
Attempting to make out the name of an unfamiliar ingredient - what the hell was kishik powder? - Kaveh didn’t notice the cart that pulled out in front of him, too busy squinting at his phone and mouthing the syllables to himself.
Crash.
Kaveh slammed directly into the back of someone’s heels.
“Oh, I - oh my god, I’m so sorry, are you okay?” Kaveh stammered, instantly abandoning his cart and rushing forward with his arms outstretched.
The man he’d hit met his gaze only for a moment - harsh turquoise eyes glaring daggers at him that shanked straight through Kaveh’s stomach, surrounded by silvery-grey hair and large headphone cuffs on either side of his head.
Great. It just had to be him.
And, in perfect alignment with Kaveh’s luck, those eyes - while very pretty - were full of pure hatred.
Kaveh shifted awkwardly, heat crawling up his neck in the silence that followed. As he waited for a response, he glanced down at the contents of the man’s cart - meticulously organized, a far cry from the piles of random crap in Kaveh’s. Maybe he was a good cook, judging from the neat stacks of bundled herbs, fresh vegetables, whole grains, and lentils.
After an achingly long pause, the man simply grunted, gave Kaveh an extended, harsh once-over that felt suspiciously thorough, then turned around and pushed his cart away without so much as a single word.
Okay, asshole.
Kaveh stood there for a second longer than necessary, staring at the back of his head as he disappeared into the next aisle, and told himself the sting in his chest was nothing more than indignation.
Tuesday, 11 August. 5:15 PM.
The following week, Kaveh once again caught sight of that head of grey hair immediately upon entering the grocery store. Apparently, this time for shopping lined up with the man’s schedule, too. How annoying.
Whatever. Today was just not his day. An infuriatingly picky client had spent the afternoon rejecting perfectly reasonable design proposals for a new performing arts center, and Kaveh’s temples still throbbed from smiling through it.
He turned to grab a cart - only to find the stall empty. So, too, was the basket holder.
Of course.
With a low grunt of frustration, he stalked into the store. Making his way through the aisles, he began carefully amassing various bags and boxes in a delicate, precarious pile in his arms - a balancing act that slowly inflated into something increasingly difficult to maintain, chips crinkling against his chin and the sharp edge of a kolompeh tin pressing into his forearm.
Once he’d grabbed enough to sustain him for at least a few days, he turned toward the registers - only to see a large display of baklava calling out to him from an endcap. After a moment of consideration, he decided it was worth the strain, reaching one hand out at an awkward angle and stretching a foot behind himself for balance.
His luck - or, rather, lack of it - held.
As soon as he pulled a solitary box of baklava from the shelf, the Fontainian instant noodles balanced in the crook of his elbow went crashing to the ground.
“For fuck’s sake, goddamn -” Kaveh began, spluttering and flailing with one hand to try and catch the package - then stopped short when a tall figure crouched in front of him and swiped the fallen noodles from the floor.
It was Headphones Asshole again.
Up close, without the barrier of distance, Kaveh could hear the faint thrum of music leaking from the earpads. He wondered idly what kind of music such a grumpy man would deign to listen to.
“... Thanks,” Kaveh muttered, extending a few fingers to reach for the package - but the man simply stared at his hand, keeping the noodles held aloft and outside of his reach.
What kind of weird power trip was he on?
For a fleeting, ridiculous moment, Kaveh became convinced that Headphones Asshole was actually going to steal his noodles and stroll away without a backward glance - but then the man slowly lifted the package toward Kaveh, brow scrunching together in a way that softened his otherwise severe expression.
“This much sodium is bad for your heart. You shouldn’t eat these,” he said gruffly.
Oh. His voice was lower than Kaveh had expected, textured and rough, and the gravel of it settled somewhere unhelpful in Kaveh’s chest. The words spoken in that voice, however, snapped him right back to irritation.
Scowling, Kaveh snatched the package from the man’s hand and mumbled something about stress and judgment being a much greater strain on the heart, then stormed away. He could feel the man’s gaze on his back and stood a little straighter out of sheer spite, willing his aching wrists not to drop anything else.
Tuesday, 18 August. 5:15 PM.
Kaveh was exhausted. His attempts at soup-making had not only been a disaster, but he’d made so much that he forced himself to eat it all anyway rather than waste it - day after day of tupperware full of sludge. This week, he was determined to make something appetizing.
Like a zombie, he shuffled into the spice aisle, snagging some cumin and dropping it into his cart. Yawning, he rolled the cart around the corner - only to crash into something yet again.
This time, at least, it wasn’t Headphones Asshole. Worse, though, it was a giant display of oranges, meticulously stacked in a tall pyramid.
Or at least... it had been.
All at once, the entire pile of oranges scattered and began rolling away in every direction, slipping beneath the shelves and knocking lightly against his shoes.
“Motherfucker - my god, who puts a display right in front of a blind corner like this?” Kaveh hissed to himself, trying futilely to scoop them into his arms and place them back onto the platform, huffing in frustration when they immediately rolled right back off and wandered past him as though they were mocking his efforts.
As the scent of citrus from one that had burst against a corner shelf filled the air, a kind-faced employee appeared from around the endcap and patted him genially on the back. “Oh, it’s okay, honey. You leave that be, I’ll take care of it. I told them not to make it so tall.”
After murmuring several sincere apologies, Kaveh bowed and steered his cart away, rubbing a hand over his flushed face as his heart pounded with embarrassment.
He had only made it a few steps when he saw Headphones Asshole - frozen in place, cart full of the exact same ingredients as usual, all stacked in the same positions as always, looking straight at Kaveh... and smiling.
Oh.
He looked much, much different when he smiled. It softened something sharp in his expression, curving his mouth in a way that made him look decidedly less asshole-y - and the sight of it consequently sucked the air straight from Kaveh’s lungs before he had a chance to brace for it.
Kaveh lingered there longer than he meant to, taking in the contrast between the usual indifference he had seen so far on the man’s face and this strangely endearing expression of subtle warmth.
Then, with a huff fueled more by self-preservation than annoyance, Kaveh jerked his cart sideways and hurried into the next aisle, heart now thudding from more than mere embarrassment.
Tuesday, 25 August. 5:16 PM.
When Kaveh locked eyes with the man the following week, he gripped his cart a little tighter - determined not to make a fool of himself in front of him again.
He’d tried convincing himself he didn’t even care what the man was doing - that he was here for groceries, not psychological warfare courtesy of an infuriatingly enchanting microscopic smile that had lingered in his mind all week.
Still, Kaveh found himself drifting closer without consciously deciding to, tugged along by sheer curiosity. He wanted to know what the man did for a living. Wanted to know why he always bought the same ingredients. Wanted to know whether he always looked that composed, or how often he smiled that tiny yet world-tilting smile. Wanted to know if he lived alone or with - god forbid - a partner.
Annoyed by the slight pang that crept into his chest at the idea that the man might be heading home to someone else after these weekly shopping trips, Kaveh was too caught up in his thoughts to realize he’d ended up directly in front of him, blocking his path in a way that was entirely accidental - but that looked dubiously intentional.
“Uh...” he said stupidly when Headphones Asshole raised an expectant eyebrow at him. Thinking on his feet, he cleared his throat and gestured vaguely toward the spices and vegetables tucked into the corner of the man’s cart. “Uh, I - you like soup, huh?”
“No,” the man replied with a flat expression. “I hate it.” Then, without another word, he swerved around Kaveh and continued down the aisle.
Kaveh spun around to stare after him, mouth hanging slightly open. After a pause, he released a short, petulant exhale and turned back to his own shopping.
He spent the rest of the trip whispering heated complaints to a bottle of hot sauce about the unbelievable audacity of certain assholes, arguing with it about why that exchange bothered him so much when it shouldn’t really have mattered at all.
He tossed a block of Mondstadt cheese into his cart, once again attempting to write off that strange sensation in his chest as simple annoyance - not, as he was increasingly apprehensive of acknowledging, disappointment.
Tuesday, 1 September. 5:17 PM.
Right on schedule, Kaveh had come down with one of his regular monthly colds.
Hoarding theraflu and nyquil in his cart alongside his usual snack foods, he didn’t bother grabbing ingredients for soup - not every week needed the fixings of a gourmet chef. He also tried not to dwell on how disheveled he looked, clad in an old hoodie with his hair twisted into a half-assed bun that was already slipping.
The store felt painfully bright, fluorescent lights jabbing into the dull throb behind his eyes. Halfway through the cereal aisle, he started hacking up a lung, throat suddenly burning as dehydration caught up to him.
Ignoring the child walking past with their mother’s hand clasped in theirs, who slowed just long enough to fix him with a startlingly judgmental look for someone so small, Kaveh snatched one of the sweet teas from his cart. He spluttered into the drink and downed several large, messy chugs before lowering it again, panting heavily, sinuses now even more irritated than before.
He took a moment to steady himself against the edge of his cart, brushing off the stray drops of liquid he’d spilled onto his hoodie, grateful that only the sour-looking child had witnessed his minor catastrophe.
But of course, when he looked up, he found himself face-to-face with Headphones Asshole yet again.
“What?” Kaveh snapped defensively, slipping the drink quickly back into the cart like he’d been caught committing some sort of crime.
The man paused to take in the scene with a glint of unmistakable amusement in his eyes before he finally spoke. “Are you always this much of a mess?”
Kaveh bristled instantly. He was painfully aware of the way he must look - damp hoodie, red nose, hair escaping its tie.
“I’m sick!” Kaveh shot back, lifting his chin indignantly.
The man’s lips twitched. “Hm. Sounds inconvenient,” he said gruffly, briefly sizing Kaveh up before turning his cart away and tossing one final comment over his shoulder. “Take care of yourself. Get some rest.”
Scrunching his mouth in irritation at how absurdly pleased he felt over the simple comment, Kaveh spun around and stomped off in the opposite direction.
Tuesday, 8 September. 6:03 PM.
The next week, Kaveh intentionally dragged out his departure from the parking lot at work just long enough to throw off his usual schedule before finally driving to the store, hoping to avoid running into the man again entirely.
He was far too skilled at getting into Kaveh’s head, and that was the last thing he needed on top of his already crushing workload. Throughout the week, Kaveh kept catching himself wondering what the man was eating. What he did when he wasn’t being a judgmental ass in the grocery store. Whether he lived nearby. Whether he always wore those headphones.
What was the point of lingering on the thoughts, anyway? The man clearly harboured nothing but disdain for him - perhaps slightly amused disdain, but disdain all the same - and it couldn’t be healthy to get so hung up on a stranger who seemed to find him such a nuisance.
When Kaveh finally arrived at the store well past his usual time, headlights sweeping across the parking lot, he felt relieved for all of three seconds - before his eyes caught on increasingly familiar silver hair.
Despite Kaveh’s attempt to dodge him, Headphones Asshole was still there, stationed outside the entrance with his groceries bagged in his cart and an unusually frazzled expression on his face. He was tapping incessantly against the handle of his cart, glaring at the people walking through the entrance as though he were waiting for something.
Kaveh sat in the parking lot and watched the impatient motion for longer than he realized. He didn’t even comprehend how creepy he was being - staring at a stranger for absolutely no reason at all - until the man finally glanced at his watch, shoved his cart forward with a muttered curse on his lips, then disappeared into another aisle of the parking lot.
This was getting ridiculous.
Tuesday, 15 September. 6:25 PM.
“Hey.”
Kaveh whipped his head around so quickly he nearly pulled a muscle.
Despite another attempt to alter his schedule to avoid a run-in, Kaveh abruptly came face-to-face with Headphones Asshole. He was hovering just inside the doors with a fully bagged cart once again, glaring at Kaveh like he’d personally disrupted his entire evening.
“... Hi,” Kaveh replied hesitantly.
The man sized him up for several long moments, staring with an unnerving intensity that made Kaveh suddenly aware of every awkward angle of his poor posture.
“What?” Kaveh said defensively after the silence stretched too long, nervously smoothing out a nonexistent wrinkle in his shirt.
“You’re usually here at five fifteen,” the man said, flat as ever. “But you’re late. You were late last week, too.”
Kaveh’s brain stalled. “I - what are you, a stalker?”
Then again, who was he to talk?
“No. I’m just perceptive.”
“Why are you perceiving my grocery routine at all? You don’t even know my name.”
“... What’s your name?”
“Kaveh.”
“Well now I know your name,” he said resolutely.
Kaveh huffed - but before he could respond, the man pushed his cart forward toward the doors.
“I’m Alhaitham. See you next week, Kaveh. Don’t be late.”
“Unbelievable,” Kaveh muttered to himself, rubbing his temple as he turned away.
The nerve of that man. Who did he think he was, giving orders like that?
... Even more annoyingly, the sound of his name in that roughened voice lingered in Kaveh’s ears on a constant loop for the remainder of the night.
Tuesday, 22 September. 5:15 PM.
Though he’d spent the week determined not to center his grocery routine around the grumpy yet strangely demanding stranger, Kaveh still found himself pulling into the parking lot at five fifteen on the dot.
He firmly ignored the ridiculous flip in his stomach when Alhaitham lifted a hand in greeting the moment Kaveh stepped through the doors, clearly pleased to see that he had arrived at his usual time. Though the gesture was small, Kaveh had to look away and busy himself with adjusting the handle of his cart so the idiotic smile threatening to creep onto his lips couldn’t betray him.
He went about his shopping with exaggerated focus, double-checking ingredients he didn’t care about and pretending not to notice whenever Alhaitham drifted into the same aisle as him.
“Hi,” Alhaitham eventually said in that deep, smooth voice as Kaveh rounded a corner, standing patiently in front of the cheese section with his arms crossed.
Was he waiting for him?
“Um... hi,” Kaveh said softly as he approached, pointing toward the shelf above Alhaitham’s shoulder. “Sorry, I just need to grab something behind you.”
Alhaitham didn’t move.
With visible annoyance, Kaveh edged forward and reached past him, brushing the sleeve of Alhaitham’s jacket as he stretched onto his tippie toes. His fingers scrabbled uselessly at the bottom corner of a bag of his favourite shredded cheese - just barely out of reach - yet the shift also brought him close enough to notice a subtle scent of cedarwood and pine that clung to Alhaitham.
For being such an infuriating asshole... Alhaitham certainly smelled alarmingly nice up close.
“I can grab it for you if you’d like,” Alhaitham said, head tilted slightly as if he understood what a direct attack on Kaveh’s dignity the words were.
“You won’t be able to reach it either,” Kaveh insisted, shooting him a glare. “We’re the same height.”
“No. I’m taller than you.”
“Wh- you are not!”
Alhaitham stepped closer before Kaveh could say another word, closing the distance until Kaveh had to tilt his head slightly to hold his gaze. The height difference was minimal, but it somehow felt far more dramatic with Alhaitham’s imposing demeanour and hawk-like eyes fixed sharply on his.
Kaveh’s breath caught abruptly in his chest, lungs refusing to cooperate as he stared up at him. Then, without breaking eye contact, Alhaitham reached up and grabbed the bag Kaveh had been attempting to get with infuriating effortlessness.
He lowered it and held it out between them, one eyebrow rising faintly in amusement. “If you need more help reaching things because you’re too short, let me know in the future. No need to struggle.”
Heat rushed to Kaveh’s face. “I am not short!” he spluttered. “You’re just freakishly tall!”
“Well if you’re nearly as tall as I am, wouldn’t that make you freakishly tall too?”
Kaveh opened his mouth to fire back, only to realize that Alhaitham’s tiny, microscopic smile had returned - and it immediately softened Kaveh’s irritation into something far more dangerous.
He realized, with a faint sense of doom, that Alhaitham was enjoying this.
Even worse... Kaveh was enjoying it as well.
Tuesday, 29 September. 5:14 PM.
Now unsure whether they were friends, enemies, or something else entirely - but finding himself increasingly curious about the answer - Kaveh decided that today would be the day he finally had a real conversation with Alhaitham.
He found him in the snack aisle, of all places.
“What are you listening to?” Kaveh asked with forced casualness, stopping beside a display of flavoured seeds and poking idly at the bags while trying to appear relaxed.
Alhaitham leaned against his cart and studied Kaveh in silence for several long moments before answering.
“Taylor Swift.”
Kaveh nearly burst out laughing. Unfortunately, with the perfectly straight expression on Alhaitham’s face, it was impossible to tell whether he was being sarcastic or stating a genuine musical preference.
“... What’s your favourite song of hers, then?”
“Don’t have one.”
Kaveh sighed internally, assuming this was the part where he was meant to take the hint and leave. Of course - what had he expected? Just because Headphones Asshole enjoyed teasing him didn’t mean they were suddenly anything more than... grocery-store-mates.
He shifted his stance and began edging away, hoping to retreat from the conversation with what dignity he had left - but Alhaitham suddenly straightened and regarded him with renewed attention.
“Do you want to, uh...” Alhaitham cleared his throat and glanced briefly toward the floor, rubbing the back of his neck as an unusual flicker of nervousness crossed his face. “Do you want to shop together today?”
Kaveh blinked at him. For a few seconds, he simply stared in silence as the flutter in his stomach intensified, raging as though his internal organs had decided to throw a celebration over the most mundane invitation imaginable.
“Sure,” he said, unable to suppress the faint lift warming the edges of his voice.
Returning to their carts, they fell into step beside one another, handlebars occasionally bumping. Even though the aisles were cramped, neither of them slowed to fall behind the other.
“So do you just eat the same things every week?” Kaveh asked, trying very hard to suppress the excitement buzzing in his tummie as they turned a corner together, steering around a display of canned vegetables in sync. “I never see anything different in your cart.”
“What are you, a stalker?” Alhaitham said sardonically. Then, when Kaveh only scoffed and rolled his eyes in response, he continued, “Yes, I do. I have plenty of questions about your diet as well, though.”
“Pff. Like what?”
“Do you ever eat anything healthy?”
Kaveh gasped dramatically. “You-! I’m just not a good cook. I’ve been trying to make soup because my friend told me it was easy and would last me all week, but every attempt has turned out disgusting. Or maybe I just don’t like soup, I don’t know. Never has enough cheese...”
Alhaitham made a strange expression somewhere between confusion and concern, though he didn’t respond.
Kaveh narrowed his eyes as they continued on in silence - wondering what, exactly, about his perfectly reasonable desire for cheese had induced such intense contemplation.
Tuesday, 6 October. 5:15 PM.
They shopped together again the following week.
At first, Kaveh didn’t notice anything unusual - mostly because he was too busy talking. He complained about a difficult client while they moved through the aisles, gesturing animatedly with one hand and steering his cart with the other.
Alhaitham, though he didn’t interject often, listened with a faint smile touching the corners of his mouth, occasionally reaching past Kaveh to grab something without breaking stride or offering the occasional dry, witty comment.
But Kaveh finally registered something was off when they paused near the cheese section and Alhaitham reached toward the shelf as well, pulling down a thick block and placing it in his cart.
Before Kaveh could process the change in routine, Alhaitham steered them toward an entirely new aisle. Intrigued, Kaveh followed him into the gardening section and watched as Alhaitham carefully selected a beautiful bouquet of mourning flowers from a display.
Kaveh’s face gentled immediately, sympathy settling into his newly somber expression as Alhaitham slipped the bouquet into a bag. “Are you doing okay?”
Alhaitham looked at him with a mildly puzzled grunt, as though trying to determine what had prompted the concern. “Fine. Why do you ask?”
“I just... those are usually flowers for a funeral service.”
Though he didn’t respond, Alhaitham’s neck turned faintly red just beneath the cuff of his headphones.
“I mean - they’re beautiful,” Kaveh added quickly. “They get a bad reputation, but I really do love them -”
“I’m not going to a funeral,” Alhaitham said stiffly, muscles tensing with a reluctant hint of embarrassment colouring his expression. “I...” he hesitated, suddenly and uncharacteristically uncertain.
Understanding that this must have been a rougher week than he’d been letting on, Kaveh shook his head and tried to spare him. “It’s okay,” he began gently. “You don’t have to tell me -”
But Alhaitham inhaled an abrupt, sharp breath and launched into a rushed explanation. “I usually harden my soup because I hate when it’s runny” - what? - “but I’ve been researching different ways to make it. I found some Fontainian cheese-based recipes you might enjoy, and I bought a new fondue pot if you’d... if you’d like to come over sometime. I’ll make you something with it.”
Kaveh stared at him, mind briefly blanking as his heart thumped in a way that felt wildly out of place under the harsh fluorescence of the grocery store lighting - which suddenly seemed much kinder than it had a second ago. The noise of the store around them faded into the background as Kaveh glanced from the bouquet to the cheese in the cart, then back to Alhaitham, who stood there looking inexplicably unsure of himself while trying very hard to appear unaffected.
“You told me you hate soup,” Kaveh managed to say weakly.
“I do.”
“You don’t usually buy cheese, either.”
“I don’t.”
“Yet you bought a fondue pot,” Kaveh said slowly.
“Yes.”
“For me?”
Alhaitham’s jaw tightened slightly. “... Yes.”
Kaveh blinked rapidly, certain he must have misunderstood something. Perhaps this was some sort of elaborate metaphor that he was failing to comprehend. Perhaps the fondue pot represented something symbolic. Perhaps the flowers were symbolic as well. Perhaps this entire conversation had taken a turn into a deeply confusing philosophical allegory about soup.
But the cheese was in the cart. The flowers were tucked lovingly into the bag. And Alhaitham was there, hovering impatiently while he waited for a verdict.
A breath escaped Kaveh before he could stop it, melting into a surprised laugh as a smile spread across his face at the realization that the asshole beneath the headphones had gone to this much trouble just for him.
“Then yes,” Kaveh said warmly. “I’d love to.”
Alhaitham went still for half a second, like his mind needed time to catch up with the answer. Then a small, unmistakable smile crept across his face, tension draining from his expression and his shoulders all at once.
“Good,” Alhaitham said after a moment, voice returning to its usual dry steadiness - though the faint waver suggested he’d been bracing for a very different answer.
Kaveh’s smile didn’t fade as they headed toward checkout together.
He’d been feeling it more and more over the past few months - finding himself looking forward to Tuesdays instead of the weekends - but now, he finally had to accept it.
Tuesdays were officially, and perhaps permanently, his favourite day of the week.