Archive of Our Own

“I need a potion,” Kaveh announces as he walks into the front room of Universality: Elaborations on Form.

He’s not trying to be particularly bold with this declaration. It’s more or less a statement of intent as he enters the store. Just to, you know, break the ice. Get the conversation flowing, establish himself as someone interested in the business and its products, et cetera.

Rather than rising to greet the only client in the room, however, the man seated behind the counter barely looks up.

“I should hope so, considering this is a potion shop.”

Kaveh’s eye twitches.

Look. He gets it, woes of customer service and all, and he’s not trying to be an asshole here —  but what kind of attitude is this, right out the gate!? Especially when he’s here in the first place on a friend’s recommendation!

Nilou had enthusiastically endorsed Universality as the undisputed best potion dealer in Sumeru City — “You’ll never find anything better outside of Khaenri’ah,” she swore. “I’ve been going to him for all my muscle salves and topical treatments ever since I started with the company, and they’ve all been outstanding. Plus, the owner is really reliable too!”

The owner of the most pretentiously named alchemical brewery in existence does not look particularly reliable, or even like he’s actually interested in speaking with a potential buyer of his wares. Case in point: he’s wearing headphones as he flips through a thick leatherbound volume by the register.

In the whole of the sparse interior, the wooden retail counter is stationed in an especially barren stretch. The shop’s precious few features — shelves of tinctures, a line of beautiful green-gold stained-glass windows, and a few menu boards advertising common remedies — seem strategically limited to the edges of the room, leaving a wide berth around the counter. It’s as if the store is designed to maximize the distance between the shopkeeper and any browsing potential customers.

The guy’s lucky that the storefront probably came with such lovely windows, because it sure doesn’t look like he’s invested any further energy in sprucing up the place. The only decor in the store with any real personality is the two towering, ceiling-height bookshelves behind the counter, each handsomely stocked with dozens and dozens of well-read volumes.

The shelves are nice and all, sure, but Kaveh’s initial distaste for the place is only amplified by the otherwise apathetic interior design (or lack of it, rather.) A potion store, of all things, should be a place of beauty! The profession is practically begging for it.

Gods. What Kaveh would give to be commissioned by a client who would use the space for all those beautiful bottles and jars. He can picture it already: a veritable rainbow of unique shapes and sizes and colors, arranged with tactically mismatched charm along the walls, all twinkling magnificently in the golden hour sunlight.

Instead, he gets…soulless rows of filing cabinets crammed with tax audits, or missile plans, or whatever monstrosity his ongoing nightmare client is going to propose at their meeting tomorrow. He shudders.

The thought of his current client gives him the strength to push forward, powered by spite, if nothing else. As Kaveh draws nearer to the service counter, the shopkeeper finally bothers to raise his head.

Ah, shit.

Unimpressed teal eyes meet his own from behind a fringe of fluffy gray hair. Exquisitely muscled arms reach up in a stretch as the man spots Kaveh and lets out a deep sigh, flipping shut a sales ledger. Watching those shoulders and that back move, the architect’s fingers practically start twitching at the thought of booking him for a figure drawing session.

Goodness. What on earth does he need all that muscle for? Doesn’t the man stew potions for a living? It’s been a long time since Kaveh brewed anything more complicated than a pot of chai, but he doesn’t remember anyone prescribing strength training as part of any alchemical recipe. Is he climbing all the mountaintops required for those ingredients himself? That seems like the only possible explanation for his physique, unless everyone has been keeping the proper techniques for using a mortar and pestle from Kaveh his entire life. The only job he can imagine that’s more indoor and more sedentary is filing paperwork. Frankly, it seems like a complete waste for a chest of that proportion to be attached to a person with such unfortunate taste in decor.

After ten seconds of Kaveh silently but blatantly checking him out, the man coughs.

“Any particular kind of potion you’re looking for today?”

Kaveh opens his mouth to offer a snappy reply and promptly chokes on his own spit. His own coughing fit ensues — much less pointed, much more short of breath — and continues for long enough that the shopkeeper begins to eye him with concern.

“Something for respiratory illness, then?” he guesses.

Kaveh pulls himself back up onto the counter with one arm and shoots him a stink eye.

“N-no, I’m —” he stifles a cough into the corner of his elbow — “I’m fine, thank you very much. Do you greet all of your clients this way?”

“Only the ones who come into my store unable to breathe normally.”

Everything is going terribly. Kaveh tries his very best to be a kind, respectful, and accommodating client wherever possible; given his line of work, he has a lot of empathy for employees dealing with entitled customers. In his own professional life, he runs into his fair share of people who earnestly believe they have the right to mistreat others just because they’re paying for a service.

That said, something about this guy just pisses him off. Maybe it’s the dismissive way he responded to Kaveh the moment he stepped foot into the store. Maybe it’s the spartan decor despite the store’s prime location on Treasures Street. Maybe it’s his face, which — he darts a quick glance over — is also sickeningly symmetrical, with a strong, square jawline and handsome nose.

More likely, though, it’s the fact that Kaveh is literally here to find something for Mehrak, his darling baby girl, the light of his life, and has received nothing but attitude from an unfairly hot guy who may also be the only person who can help him in this situation.

He takes a deep breath and attempts to center himself. That’s fine. Kaveh will be the bigger man. Even if it seems like he’s actually a bit shorter than the shopkeeper. (Kaveh’s in flats. Maybe the man is wearing heels behind the counter. One should never assume.)

“To be more precise,” he barrels on. “I’m looking for something more specific than what I could buy over the counter. I have a…mechanical assistant that I use in my daily work, and I need a cleaning solvent I can use to prepare her for repairs that won’t ruin her internal wiring.”

Mehrak’s rather one-of-a-kind, so he pauses here to trace back their shared history: the day he’d stumbled upon her core in the ruins, the painstaking pet-project-turned-companion she’d become over the years, and his careful study of the magic that’s interwoven through every millimeter of her beautiful golden plating.

And, most relevantly, the disastrous expedition last week that had left her with a smoking crater on one side and residual sand, dirt, and dust in every crevice. All damage that he can’t clean, repair, and re-cover without a substance he doesn’t have, because he himself doesn’t know the specifications.

The shopkeeper listens with surprising attention, pausing only to pull out a notebook and jot down a few notes as Kaveh talks.

“So, you see,” he finishes, “I can’t exactly pull up at a home goods store and use something from there to flush out the debris. Whatever I use has to be magically stable enough to guarantee that nothing in her core will rupture or react — given the elemental enchantment we encountered, even pure water might be a hazard — and I don’t know enough about the inner workings of the core to attempt synthesizing something myself. Hence…a potion.”

The man behind the counter nods. “You would need something with layers of functionality woven in. It’d have to be brewed stage by stage, with multiple ingredients at each phase.”

His eyes look brighter than they did just a few minutes ago, like he’s excited by the prospect of the challenge. The intellectual spark is devastatingly attractive.

“Do you have the item in question with you?”

Kaveh nods. He pulls Mehrak up off the floor and hefts her gently onto the counter, patting the worn sides of her casing with affection. The LED interface remains quiet and blank for the time being; he’d already shut off her power out of an overabundance of guilt. Just in case something in her ages-old wiring could trigger sensations of pain.

It’s silly, but he still feels a rush of apprehension as the shopkeeper slides her over to his side of the countertop to examine her more closely. The man’s earlier attitude seems to have evaporated with the appearance of an interesting problem. Now, as he probes the edges of the impact crater with careful fingertips, he maintains an air of the utmost professionalism.

“I’m going to get some tools to inspect the interior more closely,” he announces after a few moments. “Wait here.”

The shopkeeper disappears behind a door next to one of the bookshelves, and then Kaveh is by himself in the store.

He waits a moment to confirm that he’s indeed been left entirely alone. Then, with nothing else to do, he pulls out his phone and shoots Nilou a text:

[1:24 PM] Me: what the hell nilou
[1:24 PM] Me: you didnt mention he was hot

The typing bubble materializes the moment he hits send, and a reply appears.

[1:25 PM] Nilou 🪷: You’ll have to be more specific than that Kaveh !!
[1:25 PM] Nilou 🪷: We talk about a lot of beautiful people o(〃＾▽＾〃)o

Kaveh throws a furtive glance over his shoulder. There are no signs of the shopkeeper nor any other customers — early afternoons are probably slow anyway — so he fires off a quick explanation.

[1:26 PM] Me: the potions fellow
[1:26 PM] Me: the store with the convoluted name that you recommended
[1:27 PM] Nilou 🪷: Oh !! Did you take my recommendation?
[1:27 PM] Me: yes
[1:27 PM] Nilou 🪷 reacted to your message with ❤️.
[1:27 PM] Nilou 🪷: Are you feeling alright? ⊙﹏⊙∥ Did you finally decide to get something for your migraines?
[Draft unsent] Me: no

He pauses with his fingers above the keyboard.

[1:28 PM] Me: not yet
[1:28 PM] Me: its for mehrak
[1:29 PM] Me: just offended at how much my type he is and how you said nothing abt that at all
[1:29 PM] Me: wait
[1:29 PM] Me: was this one of your schemes
[1:29 PM] Nilou 🪷 reacted to your message with 😂.
[1:30 PM] Nilou 🪷: Sorry Kaveh! I have to get back to rehearsal now!
[1:30 PM] Nilou 🪷: Good luck with your man !!
[1:30 PM] You reacted to Nilou 🪷’s message with 👎.

Scowling, he pockets his phone just in time to see the shopkeeper emerge from the back with a small leather case in hand. The man motions Kaveh closer as he begins removing tools from the case’s interior: pliers, a thin pair of mesh gloves, and what looks like a network of sensors woven into a net-like square the size of a handkerchief.

“You know the structure better than I do,” he says, pulling the gloves on. “It’ll work best if you take the lead while I observe.”

It’s weird, because he’s already wearing a pair that look like compression sleeves, or maybe like those brace things Kaveh’d been recommended for his repetitive strain injury years ago and never got around to buying because they were just so damn expensive. But the mesh suits him, in an unexpected way. He has nice fingers.

The shopkeeper directs Kaveh to remove the outermost layers of Mehrak’s construction, the cosmetic plating he’d added to match the details of her core. He doesn’t have his usual stuff with him — Mehrak would usually carry that for him, but he’d emptied out her carrying compartment after her injury — though the leather case turns out to have nearly everything that he would need, and there’s more than enough to make do whenever something is missing.

They work in startling harmony for about ten minutes. The shopkeeper issues his requests in an orderly, methodical fashion, only pausing in his examinations every now and again to write something down or sketch a quick figure in his notebook.

Once or twice, he uses a thin pair of forceps to tease out pieces of the rubble. He instructs Kaveh to deposit them into a rack of miniature test tubes along with cotton-swabbed samples of the built-up residue, and to his surprise, Kaveh finds he doesn’t mind complying. Appearances aside, he’s always found curiosity and competence to be attractive traits in a lover, and Mr. Universality unfortunately appears to possess both in spades.

After they’ve finished sampling, the shopkeeper straightens back up, skims his notes with a critical eye, and sets his cool gaze back on Kaveh.

“I can have something for you within the week,” he says, and slides Mehrak back over the countertop. “Come back three or four days from now. I can’t guarantee the first batch will work; I have a few different ideas about how to approach this, and I’ll need access to some other research texts I don’t keep copies of in the shop to get started. Some of the potential formulas will also require ingredients that are difficult to come by.”

At Kaveh’s starstruck expression, he adds dryly, “Don’t get your hopes up just yet. You’ve presented me with an interesting challenge, but you should be realistic about your expectations. I’m the best alchemist in Sumeru, yes, but even I can’t brew a catch-all formula to flush and sterilize multi-elemental damage to a quasi-conscious Deshret-era magi-engineered briefcase overnight. Besides, I stop working after five.”

Kaveh shakes his head as he takes Mehrak back into his arms. “Still. Thank you. I didn’t even know if what I was asking for would be possible in the first place. This has been eating at me day and night ever since it happened. I can’t thank you enough for being willing to try.”

Mr. Universality shrugs. “It is, quite literally, my job. Speaking of which, I won’t charge you for anything upfront, seeing as this was effectively a consultation with no product to speak of, but do you have a preferred method of payment for the future?”

Right. Yes. Payment. Kaveh thinks about the credit card bills sitting on his dining room table at home right now and winces.

“Ah. That’s…um, do you take card?”

Teal eyes study him carefully. Then, to his shock, the shopkeeper waves a hand almost lazily.

“Yes. But don’t worry about that for now, after all. I suppose money is tight for you currently, given that you’re missing a major component of your ability to work. I’ll just ask for a cut of your next commission once your assistant has been restored.”

Kaveh isn’t, like, inherently expecting him to be lying, but he’s still a little pleasantly surprised to return to Universality: Elaborations on Form three days later and have his credit card waved away.

“I told you, I’ll accept payment after you’ve managed to get your own in from a client,” insists the shopkeeper, slapping away the plastic as if it offends him.

Today he’s wearing a sleeveless turtleneck that does absolutely terrific things for his physique, especially as he slides over a tube rack of glass vials. “Just take these in the meantime. The vials marked with a dot on the label are more unstable formulations, and should be stored away from heat or direct sunlight. But I’m optimistic that at least one holds promise.”

Frowning, Kaveh slides his card back into his wallet. “Maybe this is looking a gift horse in the mouth, but you don’t exactly strike me as the magnanimous type. How are you sure I’m not just going to swindle you and run off with these?”

“I’m not,” he says bluntly. “But I have a feeling you won’t. Besides, I haven’t had a request this stimulating for some time. I don’t specialize in mechanical formulas, so it was a good reason to pick up some research in the area I’ve been meaning to return to for a while.”

Kaveh hems and haws for a bit longer, hands still fluttering over the row of shining liquids. He’s absolutely itching to start testing out the solvents, but he can’t let his eagerness override his integrity.

The shopkeeper sighs. “If you’re so unwilling to accept an act of good faith, just think of it as an investment.”

“An investment? In what?”

“In your continued business.”

For the first time, he smiles. It’s a little lopsided, and his canines are prominent enough to jut out over his lips. Kaveh thinks about crossing the line into his personal space and kissing them.

Instead, he huffs and crosses his arms. “Fine. Well, luckily, I expected that this might be the case, so I brought my own advance. You can think of it as my own show of good faith.”

The cardamom latte is still steaming hot as he retrieves it from the drink carrier tucked away in his satchel and passes it over to the shopkeeper, who accepts it with raised eyebrows.

“It’s good,” he says, after taking a long sip. “Thank you.”

He sounds surprised, which is enough to make Kaveh feel simultaneously smug at being right and a little annoyed. Does he look like the sort of person to make erroneous judgments about a person’s coffee preferences?

“You can thank me by telling me your name,” Kaveh offers, leaning forward over the counter. “I’m Kaveh, in case you were wondering.”

He’s coming on a little strong, he knows, but he’s going slightly crazy thinking of the man only as “hot potion guy”, and he’d been too embarrassed to text Nilou back admitting his attraction so he could pry the name out of her.

Plus, like — the potions are for fixing Mehrak. It seems like the least he can do is slut himself out a little to her savior. Even if he’s been so busy lately (okay, the last few years, but who’s counting) that he’s a little out of practice.

The man’s eyebrows raise even further as Kaveh tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, but he doesn’t comment on the overt flirtation. Instead, he takes another long sip of coffee, letting out a sigh of content.

“I suppose you’ve earned it with this offering. It’s Al-Haitham.”

Despite his own intentions, it’s a few weeks before Kaveh gets to talk to Al-Haitham the Hot Potion Guy again. The fourth solution in the rack of test tubes — one of the more unstable formulations, according to Al-Haitham’s notes — yields the best results in his first round of testing, and after some more careful trial and error on scrap material, he determines it’s safe enough to try on Mehrak.

Three cups of coffee, one vodka Red Bull, and a sleepless night and a half later, his sweet girl is back up and running. Kaveh is so grateful to see her LED interface blinking at him again that he considers sending a whole bouquet of roses to the front door of Universality in thanks.

In the end, he decides that’d be a bit too over-the-top even for him. Al-Haitham seems like the kind of man who’d appreciate a more practical approach to thanks, anyways. Like payment for the services he’d rendered free of charge upfront. And besides, Kaveh really is running behind on his commission schedule; it’d been terrifically difficult to focus on his work when he was sick with worry, let alone make any technical progress without a functioning assistant.

With Mehrak restored, he throws himself back into the familiar rhythm of work. He’s juggling two major projects at the moment, each with an expectant client awaiting some new and exciting update, plus another project he’s been asked for input on as a consultant; not to mention the materials he needs to prepare for his next semester of teaching as an adjunct at his alma mater. Between sketching foyers, web conferencing with shareholders abroad, and drafting lecture slide decks, he’s too busy to swing by the store in person.

He doesn’t forget about the payment, of course — Kaveh’s a man of his word, especially when it comes to money. Accepting Al-Haitham’s test solutions without payment was enough of an act of charity. The thought of being unable to pay anything else in a timely manner is enough to get him gritting his teeth and chewing on the end of his pencil as he rotates shapes in AutoCAD.

As soon as the payment for his first commission comes in, Kaveh writes off a generous check and attaches it to a handwritten note thanking the man for his help. After a moment’s thought, he reaches for the bottle of perfume on his vanity and applies a light spritz to the cream-colored envelope. Tasteful, hopefully forward, but not ostentatious.

The thought is still embarrassing enough that he doesn’t have the face to give it to the shopkeeper in person. Instead, he drops it off in a box on the door labeled “CORRESPONDENCE - ONLY CHECKED DURING BUSINESS HOURS” and scurries off to his other errands.

As it turns out, working with no breaks for three weeks straight is great for his bank account, but not so much for his health. By the end of the month, his shower drain is upsettingly full of fallen hair, and he’s too restless at night to fall asleep. How could he rest when there’s always more to do?

Mehrak clearly disapproves of his work habits, which is odd, because Kaveh certainly didn’t program any of that attitude into her. She’ll bump his elbow to remind him to eat around mealtimes and beep warnings to at least lie down and close his eyes when the sun is threatening to break through the blinds. Still, there’s only so much she can do as a semi-sentient toolbox, and Kaveh is only a mortal man.

It gets bad enough that he considers going to the pharmacy to ask for something, but he doesn’t have any prescription — the life of a freelancer demands sacrifice, the foremost of which is employer-sponsored health insurance. Worst of all, the more he stresses about his health, the worse it becomes.

Without any expertise of his own, he’s not even sure what he’d go asking for. More energy? Coffee and energy drinks sure haven’t helped. Fewer migraines? Well, yes, please and fucking thank you. But it’s not like he can avoid eye strain or sedentary work, given his occupation.

The labels of over-the-counter potions and medications staring out from the pharmacy shelves don’t seem any more helpful. Should he opt for brahmi or ashwagandha to “calm his mind” and “refresh the senses”? What about melatonin for “easy, peaceful sleep”? Would that do the trick? Perhaps it’s because he’s vitamin D-deficient. Or dehydrated? Oh, but he’s already been downing chamomile tea like a maniac to no effect. Maybe what he really needs is fish oil…?

No, he should ask someone who actually knows what they’re talking about before he starts buying supplements left and right. He whips out his phone and sends a quick explanation of his situation to the ever-reliable Tighnari, whose advice is predictably straightforward.

[11:29 AM] Tighnari: Still not sure why your theoretical friend wouldn’t see a doctor
[11:29 AM] Tighnari: But your second best bet would probably be a potions brewer
[11:30 AM] Tighnari: Their training is very interdisciplinary so they have more holistic expertise than the avg med professional
[11:30 AM] Tighnari: And more experience in customer service which is never a downside
[11:30 AM] Tighnari: You can tell your “friend” that

That’s sound enough reasoning. He replies with a thank-you anyways, because Tighnari is a good friend and it’s a good idea.

[11:31 AM] Me: thanks tighnari thats really helpful!
[11:31 AM] Tighnari: No
[11:32 AM] You reacted to Tighnari’s message with ⁉️.
[11:32 AM] Tighnari: Np* sorry Im typing in gloves
[11:32 AM] Tighnari: Nilou said you have a crush on a potion seller anyway
[11:32 AM] Me: ???
[11:32 AM] Me: when did she say that
[11:33 AM] Tighnari: So just think of this as an excuse to see him again if you need one
[11:34 AM] Me: this is a hypothetical scenario for a friend why would i specifically send them to the one potions guy i know
(✓ Read by Tighnari at 11:34 AM)

Never mind. Tighnari is a shit friend and it’s a terrible idea.

In any case, he’s overdue for a return to Universality. Mid-afternoon on a Tuesday finds him slipping through the front door with another tray of drinks in hand. He’s selected a saffron rose latte today, a combination he hasn’t gotten the chance to try himself, and he’s eager to see the man’s reaction.

Like last time, the store is nearly empty when Kaveh enters. There’s a young woman perusing the allergy potions and someone in an adventurer’s getup comparing bottles of strength-enhancing brew. Al-Haitham himself is seated behind the counter as usual, this time mashing something bitter-smelling with a large mortar and pestle.

When Kaveh draws near, he doesn’t bother looking up, just reaches under the counter for a few chunks of some gnarled orange roots that he tosses into the mixture. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I, um, ordered one too many coffees for myself again and was hoping someone could take the second off my hands?”

He’s satisfied to see Al-Haitham’s head jerk up at the sound of his voice. Those teal eyes flick between the twin cups in his hand, then up to his face.

Kaveh waits uncertainly for a moment while the man studies him across the counter. Then, he nods and puts down his pestle to accept the drink.

“You look unwell,” Al-Haitham says conversationally. He takes a long sip of the coffee. “This is good, by the way. Thank you.”

Someone else in the store coughs loudly.

Kaveh grits his teeth as all of his goodwill immediately evaporates. He’s certainly aware of the bags under his eyes, but he’d been hoping the shopkeeper wouldn’t comment on them. So much for “more experience in customer service”, Tighnari. He’s starting to regret not just asking someone at the pharmacy.

“Well, my bad for trying to do something nice for you. Do you insult all of your customers who come bearing gifts?”

“None of my other customers bring me gifts. I certainly never asked you to bring me anything; unlike certain other alchemists, you don’t need to bribe me to do my job. Speaking of which, I assume that’s what you’re here about?”

“Is it that obvious?” he asks sarcastically.

Drumming his fingers on the countertop, Kaveh leans a little closer as he lowers his voice.

“Look, I…it’s been a hard couple of weeks, okay? I’ll admit that I’ve probably been overworking myself, but if you had talked to some of my clients, well…you probably would have too.”

He fixes his gaze on the polished dark wood of the counter. He’s had some time to think about the root cause of his problems, and he thinks Al-Haitham will be able to help. At the very least, he might take Kaveh’s concerns more seriously than a doctor; even back when he was reliably under Akademiya health insurance, the physicians he saw had a tendency to sweep his worries under the rug. Nothing to do but bite the bullet and make the request.

“I’m just looking for something to help me…relax a little. I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting to sleep, and I think it’d help if I had something to take the edge off first. I tried looking around at the pharmacy for something, but I didn’t even know where to get started with all the options.”

“I…see,” says Al-Haitham, after a brief silence. “Just to clarify: are you asking me for a sleeping draft, a depressant, or lubricant?”

Kaveh jerks backwards, nearly dropping his latte in the process.

“I — excuse me?”

Al-Haitham shrugs, looking (in Kaveh’s opinion) much less embarrassed about this question than he should be.

“You didn’t specify. You’d be surprised how often a customer comes in asking for something to ‘help them relax’ thinking I’d somehow intuit exactly what they meant. Curiously enough, telepathy isn’t something I can induce through a potion.”

When Kaveh doesn’t reply, he adds, “I can still supply any of the three, of course, but I’d prefer to get it right the first time before I go wasting materials. Some of these herbs take weeks to grow, and I’d rather not have to turn down any walk-in orders while I wait to accumulate inventory.”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Kaveh interrupts hastily. “No need to complain about your other customers any longer. I really was just looking for a sleeping potion. Unless that’s not interesting enough to be worth your time?”

It’s a little mean, he’ll admit, but the lube comment caught him so off-guard that he’s desperate to divert attention away from himself. He’s certain his humiliation reads clear as day on his face, which currently feels hot enough to power a forge.

Al-Haitham puts down the coffee, his face returned to its usual neutral set. “If I had to take personal interest in every single request I receive, I’d be out of a job in a day. Wait here for a minute.”

Kaveh shuffles around awkwardly as Al-Haitham disappears once again into a back room.

He’s made solid progress on his latte (which is just as good as he’d hoped) by the time the man re-emerges with a flask of something pale blue in hand. As Kaveh watches, he tips out a healthy amount into a sleek crystalline bottle, then reaches under the counter for a pinch of some fine powder that he sprinkles on top. An instruction label is carefully applied to the front face, followed by a perfect round cork stoppering the bottle shut.

“For you,” he says, offering it across the counter. The glass feels cool to the touch. “To help you sleep.”

Kaveh accepts the potion with something like wonder. Al-Haitham has chosen a lovely vessel: the slender neck is beautiful and shapely, but the design discourages overpouring so he won’t tip out too much at once. It’s both appealing and functional, exactly the kind of thing he’d select for himself.

Excluding the solutions he’d requested for Mehrak last time he was here, he’s never actually bought a potion for himself before. Holding something made just for him in his hands feels… well, magical.

“Add a small amount — around a teaspoon, although it doesn’t need to be precise — to whatever you drink, about an hour before you want to fall asleep,” the alchemist continues. “This is a more concentrated solution, so you can add it to whatever you’d like, even coffee. Obviously, don’t take any before driving or operating heavy machinery. A standard dose should keep you asleep through the night, though the formulation may need some calibrating if you’re an especially light or heavy sleeper. Come back if you want it adjusted or need a refill. I’ll get you a new bottle.”

The instructions are also printed neatly in Al-Haitham’s clerical script; the ink is still wet to the touch as Kaveh turns the bottle around in his hands.

“What did you add at the end? Was it something to strengthen the formulation?”

Al-Haitham’s mouth quirks up. “No, it was a pinch of cinnamon.”

“Cinnamon? I didn’t know it had alchemical properties.”

“It doesn’t,” he agrees. “I just thought you’d enjoy the taste.”

Kaveh’s entire body flushes warm at that. Al-Haitham’s eyes twinkle as he returns to his coffee, tipping his head back until the cup is empty.

“Anything else I can help you with?”

“No, I…um, I think that’s everything for today. Oh, shit,” he fumbles for his wallet. “Let me pay for that. It’s a higher concentration than standard, so it’s probably more in raw materials too, right?”

Al-Haitham crosses his arms. “No need. You already overpaid me far too much for what I gave you last time. If we’re going off of production costs alone, I already profited far more off that batch of experimental solutions than any potion I’d brew on request for the average customer.”

Kaveh frowns. “But I still —”

“Consider it store credit,” interrupts the shopkeeper. “Argue if you’d like, but I won’t accept your payment. If you really want to thank me, you can get out of the way so I can serve my other clients. I’ve got to finish grinding this batch of roots before they oxidize and turn this mana potion into a tapeworm medication.”

True to his word, a small line has formed behind Kaveh. As he steps aside, the adventurer behind him tips their hat as they pool an armful of health potions onto the wooden countertop.

“Thanks, man. I thought you guys were never gonna stop flirting. No offense.”

Kaveh does drop his latte this time. Well, he thinks mournfully, staring at the rose-scented puddle spreading across the floor of the shop, at least he was almost done with it.

“You’d better clean that up,” comes Al-Haitham’s unamused voice over the countertop. “Flirting or not. That’s going to turn sticky when it dries, which is completely unacceptable.”

Kaveh does mop up the spill, because it’s the polite thing to do and he wasn’t raised in a barn. He even gets a glimpse of the elusive backroom when Al-Haitham hands him the mop from a pile of cleaning supplies stored near the doorway.

Unsurprisingly, it looks like the space is used mostly for storage. There seems to be a small table with two chairs, a table full of complex-looking brewing equipment, and a few doors that must lead off into other storage areas. Al-Haitham catches him peeking over the counter and raises a brow, but Kaveh doesn’t bring it up until the next time he stops by.

“By the way, what’s in the back?” he asks, leaning over the counter.

It’s another weekday afternoon, and Universality is peaceful as usual. With the recent start of the semester, Kaveh’s been subject to an endless amount of off-topic student questions and mundane university gossip during his lectures, so he has a newfound appreciation for the quiet atmosphere of the shop.

Al-Haitham hums as he takes a sip from his drink. “It’s not as exciting as you think. Just some equipment and my material storerooms. I have a garden and a small crystal grotto back there as well. How was the sleeping draft?”

Today, he’s skipped the fancy flavors for his coffee offering and opted for a high-quality brew. There’s a coffee shop with incredible imported beans from Natlan that he treats himself to after finishing a big project, and since he’d submitted final deliverables for his consultation client two days ago, he brought two steaming cups to Al-Haitham’s place today. If he can’t make the shopkeeper accept real payment, then at least he can offer refreshments.

“It was good! Really helpful. If you can’t tell, I’m feeling much better,” Kaveh admits. “I’m a heavy sleeper once I fall asleep, but if a neighbor’s dog so much as barks while I’m dozing off, I’ll jolt back awake. The potion helped a lot with that.”

“Good. I would still try to avoid overreliance on sleeping drafts in the long term. Once or twice a week is fine, or more often during periods of notable stress, but some of the ingredients will lose their efficacy when taken regularly. Not to mention the possible impacts of psychological dependency — ah, excuse me a minute.”

A customer comes to the counter with a brilliant white bottle that turns out to be a potion of speed, and Al-Haitham turns away to ring her up for the purchase.

When it’s just the two of them again, he asks, “What do you do for work again? Based on your mechanical assistant, I assumed it was something like engineering, but you never specified.”

Kaveh puts his chin on his hand. “Sort of. Mostly, I’m a freelance architect; I run my own independent design studio and work with clients who commission my services. I also consult on the side, especially for my alma mater. I’ve been teaching some of the introductory courses as an adjunct lecturer there for the past two years, and a lot of that content is essentially art history combined with engineering.”

Al-Haitham hums. “An architect and a teacher. That seems fitting for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You seem like a person who appreciates the value of aesthetics, that’s all. And like you’re opinionated enough to pass your views on to the next generation.”

Kaveh wrinkles his nose. “Now there’s a backhanded compliment if I’ve ever heard one.”

Still, he can’t help but feel a little flattered. He’s proud of his work and passionate about his field. It’s nice when other people recognize his philosophy.

Straightening up, he goes to wander around the edges of the store, inspecting the rows of labels written in Al-Haitham’s neat hand. Strictly speaking, he doesn’t need any other potions right now, but it’s still fun to see the various tinctures lined up along the shelves.

“Speaking of teaching, what were your studies in? I have to admit, I know very little about the process of becoming an alchemist.”

“It’s surprisingly lenient, considering the amount of damage I could do if I ever decided to be less rigorous.”

Ignoring the alarmed expression of a shopper browsing by the door, he continues, “I completed my undergraduate studies at the Akademiya and decided to stay for their potion school program and certification. Different countries enforce different regulations surrounding professional licensing, but I have no plans to relocate from Sumeru City, so it made sense to complete my entire education and settle here.”

Kaveh puts down a small blue bottle ominously labeled “Shrinkage (DO NOT SAMPLE)”. “What a coincidence! I also graduated from the Akademiya — I did my bachelor’s there, before my mother remarried and I moved with her to Fontaine for my Master’s. What school were you in? Wait, no, let me guess. Spantamad for alchemical studies, right?”

“Nope. Try again.”

“Wait, seriously? Hmm, let me think…Amurta, then, if you were more interested in medicine?”

Al-Haitham shakes his head. “Wrong again.”

Another customer interrupts their conversation, this time with a potion for hair regrowth. Once they’ve scurried off, the shopkeeper reaches under the counter for a series of ingredients and begins to toss them into a cauldron one-by-one as he talks.

“There aren’t many darshans left to guess, you know. Statistically, chance is on your side this time.”

Kaveh sniffs, drawing nearer to the reception counter again so he can inspect the shopkeeper more closely. “I don’t need your pity. I’ll get it this time for certain. Mm…I can cross out Kshahrewar, at least. There’s no way I wouldn’t have noticed you if we were in the same darshan. That leaves…Rtawahist? Or Vahumana? You don’t strike me as the sociological type…so maybe you had your sights set on Rtawahist?”

“I’ll admit that I’m curious about what your definition of a ‘sociological type’ is, but no, I wasn’t in Rtawahist either. I did consider it briefly when I applied, but most careful field study of astrological bodies requires venturing to remote areas with lower light pollution, and I’m not fond of getting sand in my shoes. You should know the answer by now, thanks to process of elimination.”

Spantamad, Amurta, Kshahrewar, Vahumana, Rtawahist…that leaves only…

“No way!” Kaveh exclaims.

He jabs an accusatory finger at the gray-haired man before him. “You — you were a Haravatat?!”

Al-Haitham tilts his head. “Why is that so surprising?”

“W-well —” On second thought, the mascot for the darshan is a bull. Some pieces — or, at least, one big, stubborn piece — are starting to fall into place.

“Never mind. Anyway, how did you end up pivoting into potions from Haravatat?”

Using a shiny silver paring knife, Al-Haitham neatly trims the dirt-speckled stems off a fistful of green mushrooms and adds them into the mortar. Smashing them with the pestle releases a hazy aroma like coriander into the air of the shop, and then they, too, land in the bubbling cast iron pot.

“People tend to assume I experienced some kind of change of heart, but the truth is that the two subjects are more interrelated than most would expect. After all, Haravatat does concern itself with the study of symbols.”

Entranced, Kaveh watches as Al-Haitham tilts the standing ladle on the countertop. A clear, sweet-smelling stream of liquid pours forward and lands with a soft hiss into the cauldron, where the alchemist begins to mash the ingredients with the back of a spoon.

“Wait, I didn’t know you could use wine as a potion base,” he says, intrigued. “How does it affect the potion outcome?”

Al-Haitham shoots him a wry look. “I should start charging you for apprentice’s lessons at this rate. Wine is a less common potion base than water or oil, but the end result doesn’t differ much; it just changes how I approach the brewing process. I mostly employ it by request due to the price. Some clients get the idea that the more they pay me for a potion, the more sophisticated the product must be. It’s paid my bills comfortably thus far, so I haven’t disturbed the illusion.”

Yep, that sounds like Al-Haitham through and through. “It doesn’t have any effect on the flavor either?”

“Nope. Most of the alcohol cooks off during the brewing process, just like using a cooking wine as the basis of a soup or sauce. The remaining aromatic compounds tend to be drowned out by other ingredients. At most, you’ll get the barest hint of wine, and even that much is likely to be expectancy bias.”

Kaveh puts his elbows on the counter and lets his head rest onto his hands, sighing. “What a waste. Anyways, you were saying about Haravatat?”

“Ah, right.” Al-Haitham puts down the spoon and moves to the left of his workspace, where a table-sized bellows is pointed at the coals beneath the cauldron. The arms of his bizarrely-revealing-for-an-alchemist’s top flex visibly as he pumps it up and down a few times.

“I originally planned to go straight into the workforce after school, possibly in an administrative role at the Akademiya, but the timing —”

The mention of the Akademiya begins to resurface old memories. Kaveh can’t help but interrupt as the revelation strikes him.

“Oh! Was this when the whole internal corruption scandal was coming out? I remember hearing about it…what, two years after I left? They had to replace the Kshahrewar sage, too. Some of my colleagues at the time had joked they’d have nominated me as a candidate if I weren’t so early in my professional career back then.”

“Precisely,” Al-Haitham says grimly. “It happened exactly in the spring of my graduation year. They restructured the entire mahamata force, and the vacancy I had been angling for was filled by someone more senior who was given greater oversight.”

With the extra blast of heat from the bellows, the cauldron below begins to bubble merrily. Al-Haitham stirs the solution inside as he talks, examining the consistency on the back of his spoon with a critical eye.

“I had already been working on some side projects around interpreting the symbology of historical alchemical recipes, so it seemed natural to move more into the modern field. Regardless of what I did, I wanted a specialty that would support me comfortably, and enough flexibility to maintain my own pursuits in my off time. Establishing the shop and building a customer base after my certification posed more of a challenge, but the core coursework was straightforward enough to complete.”

When he puts it like that, it all sounds so simple. Artless, even, Kaveh thinks with some disgruntlement as he watches the alchemist ladle out the opaque purple liquid. A drawer below the countertop opens to reveal a glass bottle with a handwritten label attached, which Al-Haitham carefully funnels the finished potion into. Then it’s off to another contraption on the side of the whole workspace. A loud thunk echoes through the shop, and finally the finished potion is presented to Kaveh.

The blond lifts himself off his elbows so he can inspect it more closely. The tapered glass neck is still warm to the touch, and even from inside the bottle, the faint but distinctive scent of coriander persists.

“It’s lovely,” he murmurs, drawing a finger down the length of the bottle. Al-Haitham flinches minutely when Kaveh’s skin contacts his where he’s still holding the bottle, but he doesn’t move away. His hands are warm enough to feel through the compression sleeves. “What’s it do?”

The temperature inside the store seems to shift as the alchemist coughs delicately.

“I’d admire it from a further distance if I were you. The client requested, and I quote, ‘an aphrodisiac strong enough to knock a horse’s dick off’. He seemed to hold the somewhat…romantic view that the wine base would contribute to his virility.”

Kaveh springs back from the counter so violently that the shelf of potions nearest to the checkout — a narrow stand of travel-sized vials intended to treat minor ailments — begins to wobble. His face burns as the sound of jingling glass echoes throughout the store.

“R-right,” he squeaks. Casting his gaze around, he’s grateful to find that there are no other customers browsing around. “Thanks for the heads up. That sounds — um, like a lot.”

“That’s a diplomatic way of putting it.”

Al-Haitham blows out the fire beneath the cauldron, waves away the ensuing smoke, and reaches for the enormous ledger behind his brewing stand. After jotting down the completed order, he deposits the finished potion in a crate behind the counter and shuts the book.

“I’m certain he’ll come to regret asking for such a thing, because I did exactly as he requested. But it’s not my place to question my clients’ life decisions. If I tried, I’d be out of business within the day.”

Kaveh nods jerkily from his safe spot several feet away from the counter. He wants to say something more substantive, but he’s not really sure what else is appropriate. Like, That seems like a rather hands-off approach, considering that you can literally sell poisons or Haha, yeah, it’s crazy that people ask you for sex potions all the time, who would ever do that? Though, to be fair, he’d bet that most people have never encountered a situation where their extremely attractive crush has just warned them not to accidentally ingest an aphrodisiac that is chemically powerful enough to castrate a farm animal.

“Speaking of which.” The shopkeeper checks his watch. “I’m only open for another hour or so, and I don’t have any consultations or pickups scheduled for the rest of the day. Would you like a tour of the backrooms?”

He perks up at that. “Really? But, uh, what if a customer comes in?”

Al-Haitham shrugs. “It’ll only be a few minutes. Besides, I used the last of my dryad’s saddle earlier. I need to check on my stock in the garden, so I’d be heading back there anyway.”

“R-right!”

Al-Haitham gestures for him to join him behind the counter. This time, Kaveh gives the nearby shelf of potions a wide berth, stepping gingerly past until he’s standing next to the ergonomic rolling chair.

It feels strange to be standing in the shopkeeper’s usual position. From this vantage point, he has a clear line of sight to everywhere else in the shop’s interior, not to mention the sidewalk outside — Al-Haitham must be able to see him coming from all the way down the block, he realizes self-consciously.

On the counter below him are the familiar staples he’s come to associate with Universality: the huge leather-bound volume of sales records; the stone mortar and pestle, recently wiped clean; the bellows and ladle; and the inky black cauldron resting on its miniature hearth on the tabletop. All of the equipment is much bigger than he thought up close, especially the cauldron. It makes sense given that most potions are likely brewed in larger batches for efficiency’s sake, but it is a little jarring to stand over the cauldron and realize that the mouth of the vessel is bigger than his head.

Al-Haitham drains the last of his coffee and tosses the empty mug into a trash can under the counter. “There’s even more in the back. I keep the smaller set out here because I can still use it while keeping an eye on the store, but I do all the bulk production in the backrooms with the larger fire.”

“There’s an even bigger one?” Kaveh’s eyes widen.

In his very limited experience, the lab component of his mandatory alchemy classes was minimal — he’d never touched a brewing vessel larger than a kitchen saucepan. Even with the Akademiya’s level of funding and rigor, they’d kept the projects small to minimize waste. Most of the potions he brewed back in school couldn’t fill a teacup.

“Yep. Comes in handy when flu season comes around and everyone and their mother is asking for minor restoratives, I’ll tell you.”

The alchemist holds the door open and inclines his head. “After you.”

Kaveh steps into a cozy little room packed to the gills with potion-making paraphernalia. Empty bottles, rolls of label tape, and countless jars of powders and extracts and minerals share space with huge barrels of solvent; presumably alchemical-grade water, oil, and wine.

Drawing the eye at the center of the room is the promised extra-large cauldron — positioned over a bona fide campfire pit in the ground, it looks large enough for the architect to comfortably stand inside. If he put both feet on the bottom of the pot, the opening at the top would probably come to around mid-thigh level.

The chimney above the cauldron sweeps into a surprisingly high vaulted ceiling, lit with even more surprisingly tasteful warm lights around the room’s perimeter. Crates labeled in Al-Haitham’s neat script are scattered all around the room. The positioning looks haphazard at first, but there seems to be a clear method behind the madness: each stack of boxes is separated from the next with enough space to walk in, and the labels suggest each quadrant of the room is dedicated to a different material.

It’s like an ingredient library, Kaveh realizes, and feels his face warm a bit at how much he enjoys the idea despite the untidy execution. He likes a well-organized man, sue him.

Al-Haitham gives him a few moments to take in the space and then strides his way through the narrow aisles. Pushing aside yet another door reveals a small, cramped-looking space illuminated from within by a dim multicolored light.

“This is the grotto,” he explains, inviting Kaveh inside. “It’s how I maintain the stock of most of my crystals.”

The architect pokes his head in. The small room is barely the size of a linen closet, but entering is like walking into a room-sized geode: twinkling clusters of crystals, ranging in size from grapes to baseballs, jut out from the walls in every direction. Some are sprawling in their growth; others seem so fragile that Kaveh instinctively pulls back to avoid damaging any future ingredient stock.

“It’s lovely,” he murmurs. The sight is certainly enough to inspire — he’ll have to come back here with his sketchbook, or at least a DSLR camera he can rig up to capture the unique lighting better than his piece of junk phone camera. “Where do you get the starters from?”

“I have a dealer who sells the seeds. Some of the less stubborn varieties are also easier to self-propagate using the previous round of growth. It’s similar in principle to deriving seeds from the last harvest for the next planting cycle.”

Retreating back from the grotto, Kaveh fixes his gaze back onto the shopkeeper with his hands on his hips. “You’ve been holding out on me! You never told me you were doing so much else back here.”

“Was I supposed to? You of all people should know that far more goes into running an independent business than meets the eye.”

Al-Haitham smirks.

“Besides, you haven’t even seen the other garden yet.”

Kaveh pretends to shove him out of the way in his eagerness to see, a bit of physical comedy made more challenging by the fact that he does not know where the target location is.

“Just as long as you’re prepared to encounter me in the backrooms on the daily after this. Do you know how hard it is to find a genuine geological site like this within the confines of Sumeru City, let alone one that doesn’t charge an exorbitant fee for admission? And I’m not carpooling on an expedition for inspiration when you’re a 15-minute walk away.”

“Who says I’m not charging for admission,” says Al-Haitham seriously, but he still steers them towards a different door away from the grotto, this one notably wider than the last.

Kaveh’s jaw drops as the alchemist elbows the door open. The space inside is like a portal to another world — one lusher, greener, and more climate-controlled than the dry autumn chill waiting for him outside Universality. Flora of all shapes, sizes, and colors populate the neatly arranged planting rows. The air smells faintly sweet.

The clusters of different plants don’t seem to be arranged according to any particular visual logic — creeping vines dangle down into the space of squat, strawberry-like shrubs, and bright orange blossoms dovetail into purple-leaved stalks with no regard for color theory — but somehow, the lack of strict organization lends the garden a sense of charm. It makes the small plot of earth feel cozy and lived-in, like wildflowers growing in a neighbor’s yard instead of the cultivated elegance of a botanical garden.

He rounds on Al-Haitham, who has the gall to stand there in the doorway with his arms crossed like he’s expecting something. “Haitham, this is beautiful.”

“You don’t sound happy about it,” the shopkeeper observes. “I thought you were an admirer of aesthetics.”

“I am! Which is why I can’t believe you have something this gorgeous in your shop, and you’re keeping it hidden all the way in the back, where no one but you will ever see it.”

He can picture it already: a display at the front of the shop, even just a miniature one, with only a fraction of the foliage growing in here. A little bit of green would bring so much vibrance to the otherwise lifeless main room. It’d take advantage of the ample natural light pouring in through those exquisite stained glass windows. And it’d be free marketing, to boot: Look! We grow our own ingredients in-house; that’s how fresh these potions are!

Before he can articulate a pitch for his new official dream version of Universality, Al-Haitham shrugs.

“It’s not designed to be gorgeous, it’s designed to stock my inventory. Besides,” he adds, “it’s not like ‘no one’ ever sees it. You’re here, after all.”

“Well — that’s —”

Kaveh flushes. His creative vision for the storefront abruptly seems rather unimportant.

“And I suppose I’m the only one, aren’t I? With that attitude of yours towards customer service, I can’t imagine you tour guests around your backrooms regularly. Not willingly, at least.”

“Correct. You’re the only one — well, aside from my suppliers from time to time, though that’s hardly for leisure.”

Clearing his throat, Kaveh shuffles out of the doorway to make room for the shopkeeper, who sidesteps him to reach for a watering can.

“W-where did you learn all of this, anyway? I took a few Amurta electives to fulfill degree requirements, and none of them ever covered horticulture to this extent. Is that something you learned in potion school?”

“Not at all. Actually, it was my grandmother who taught me. She always loved to garden.”

As he speaks, Al-Haitham begins to circulate around the room with the watering can in hand. Like the pattern of the plants, he seems to follow some program of logic known only to him, stooping over each cluster of herbs and carefully awarding the appropriate amount of water. Sometimes, he kneels and rubs the dark earth between his fingers to test for moisture before pouring.

“I was raised by her for most of my childhood, and she had me help her with the garden chores for most of that time, especially as she got older. The knowledge turned out to be quite useful, even if I didn’t expect it at the time.”

Kaveh hums. It does make an awful lot of sense, somehow, that Al-Haitham was raised by his grandmother. “She sounds wonderful.”

“She was,” Al-Haitham agrees.

He shoots Kaveh a wry look. “In fact, she was also a graduate of Kshahrewar.”

The blond pretends to sigh. “That explains any and all of your competence — you were at least raised by a real scholar. And yet, somehow you still managed to choose an inferior darshan. Well, I’m sure she did her best.”

Rising to his feet, Al-Haitham hangs the watering can back on the wall and dusts off his hands.

“Unfortunately, my father was a Haravatat scholar, so depending on your views on heredity, I may have been doomed from the start. Are you ready to leave? I still have a few things to wrap up out front, and it’s getting close to closing time.”

“Cruel of you to initiate a debate on the influences of nature versus nurture and then usher me out the door,” Kaveh complains, but he still follows Al-Haitham out of the garden, through the main storeroom, and back behind the front counter of the store.

True to the alchemist’s claim, Kaveh’s phone informs him that it’s already 4:45 pm, and he’s gotten two new client inquiry emails plus a text from an old classmate asking about a networking dinner. “Only a few minutes” apparently turned out to be more than half an hour, though it feels like they’ve only just stepped into the backrooms. Curse you, ADHD time blindness.

“Oh, goodness. I had no idea we’d spent so much time chatting — I’ll get out of your hair right away. I’m sorry for keeping you away from the shop for so long.”

Al-Haitham waves a hand. “It’s not an issue. This time of day, few customers tend to drop by anyway; it’s too late for students just getting out of school, but too early for office employees. I only need a few minutes to tidy up and ensure that my records for today are up to date.”

“Right.”

“Mm-hmm.”

They stand in silence for a moment, each waiting for the other to do…something. Kaveh feels slightly dizzy with the experience of the afternoon, and the picture of the annoyingly handsome shopkeeper that’s starting to come into focus.

He’s a Haravatat, Kaveh thinks with no small amount of disdain. And…a grandmother’s boy, two years his junior, with a green thumb; a master of his craft, who’s never walked anyone else through his tiny, enchanting gardens. Maybe, just maybe, it balances out.

Al-Haitham’s probably waiting for him to leave so he can do his damn job. The realization is embarrassingly delayed. As soon as it hits, Kaveh scurries back out from the counter until he’s standing among the racks of ready-to-buy potions again.

“I’ll, um — I’ll see you another time, then?” he asks, trying and failing not to sound too hopeful.

Al-Haitham is already buried nose-deep in some document or another, but he looks up at the sound of Kaveh’s voice.

“Sure. Come again soon.”

Kaveh doesn’t exactly get into a routine of visiting Universality after that — store credit or not, there are only so many reasons he could ostensibly need potions in his day-to-day, and he certainly can’t afford to buy one every time as a pretense for visiting.

Still, he picks up refills of his sleeping draft once or twice, because it really does help with the insomnia. When Nilou asks him if he’d be free to swing by the shop during a particularly busy period of rehearsals to pick up her regular order of muscle balms, he agrees with a little more eagerness than he’d like to admit.

(She’s definitely setting him up, especially when “just this once” turns into “Could you manage this week too? (●'◡'●)” but the opportunity is unfortunately too good to pass up.
And besides. If Kaveh is in the store picking up her orders for the dance troupe, that means Nilou will be less likely to also come in and see him interacting with Al-Haitham, which she would most certainly find some way to tease him about. So really, it’s the most advantageous decision he could make as far as his own well-being is concerned.)

Al-Haitham doesn’t look much different between visits. He’s always wearing the same compression gloves and headphones, and the rest of his wardrobe is a nonstop rotation of tight-fitting numbers in black and teal.

As the weeks fly by, the only real change is behavioral. Recently, the shopkeeper actually glances up at the door when Kaveh comes in — probably because the windows give him a view all the way down the street — and the past few times, he’s even gotten a small…well, to call it a smile would be a stretch, but it’s a departure from the never-ending resting bitch face, at least.

It’s nice to go somewhere other than his shithole apartment and the Akademiya campus and whichever overpriced cafe of the week his clients are setting meetings at. Al-Haitham never minds it if he pulls out a sheaf of unfinished blueprints to work through or whips out his laptop to input grades into Canvas. He’s even proven to have some decent insight on the tasks at hand, when he isn’t busy ignoring customers or cooking up something mysterious and exciting behind the counter. He’s certainly much better company than Kaveh’s uneven bedframe or the upstairs neighbors who seem to run a bowling alley out of their apartment.

Gods. He really needs to get out more.

“You know, you don’t need to keep bringing me coffees every time,” Al-Haitham tells him on the eighth or ninth visit, which immediately puts a dent in this plan.

Kaveh tries not to feel too hurt at this statement, as the shopkeeper is currently holding the mug with both hands and inhaling deeply like it’s healing something in him. He empathizes deeply; winters in Sumeru City may be mild, but the transition into colder weather always manages to catch him off-guard, and the advent of a hot drink had totally transformed his own Thursday.

“Well, it’s only right that I —” he begins defensively, but the potion seller shakes his head and puts the coffee down.

“I was only joking about charging an admission fee, you know. And you do typically purchase something when you’re here. Though it’d be fine if you didn’t,” he adds. “I only mean that it doesn’t have to be transactional. I’m not charging you to walk around the shop, Kaveh.”

“I’m not doing it because I think you’re charging me,” Kaveh argues hotly. “I’m doing it because I —”

“Because?”

“Because…”

He fumbles for a response that won’t sound too…much. Because I feel like I still owe you for fixing Mehrak? No, that’s exactly the point Al-Haitham is trying to dispute. It’d only make his enormous head larger. Anyway, it’s not even really true. Because the coffee place near my apartment knows I order for two now every time? Way too revealing, and completely besides the point. Because I haven’t been in a serious relationship since I was fresh out of grad school and it’s been so long that coffee is basically the only way I still know how to flirt now? 

…Absolutely fucking not.

“Because I want to,” he settles on, and immediately cringes at how childlike it sounds coming out of his mouth. Fully grown man, by the way! Tax-paying adult of almost 30 years of age, reporting for duty!

Al-Haitham takes a long sip of coffee.

“Well, far be it from me to tell you what to do. Still, I thought I’d just state it clearly.”

A gaggle of customers comes up after that — buying warming potions for what seems to be an upcoming sports match, based on their debate about how many bottles they need for a whole section of the bleachers — and the shopkeeper is forced to tear himself away from his beverage long enough to ring them all up.

When they’re gone, he leans back in his chair and lets out a long sigh. “What a noisy bunch. Anyway, I do keep coffee on hand, so if you’re ever inclined to try, I can always brew us a fresh batch.”

Kaveh’s eyebrows go up. He tries to think back to the last time he was behind the counter, or maybe in the storeroom — he doesn’t poke his head in every time he comes to Universality, but he did make good on his desire to photograph the crystal grotto on his previous visit as part of a vision board for a client. Was there a French press next to the ledger? An espresso machine among the walls of ingredients in the back? Honestly, he wouldn’t put it past the alchemist, whom he’s come to know as a creature of comfort and convenience.

“I’m assuming you use separate equipment from the rest of your brewing materials?” he asks rhetorically.

Al-Haitham actually snorts at that. “Unless you’d prefer to find out the hard way about the unexpected effects of ingredient residue on shared equipment, I wouldn’t recommend it. I don’t even cook down here.”

“You bring all your lunches from home, then?”

The shopkeeper points up at the ceiling. “It’s a short commute.”

“Oh.”

In all honesty, Kaveh had never really thought about where Al-Haitham might live — he’d sort of imagined the alchemist spawning into the shop every day at exactly nine and then despawning straight into his home at the stroke of five. It does make sense that the upper floor of the building is reserved for residential use, and it totally makes sense that a man who waits for customers to walk all the way across the floor to ask him a question rather than leaving his counter would minimize the distance to his workplace so efficiently.

“It came as a package with the downstairs storefront,” Al-Haitham goes on, when Kaveh doesn’t say anything. “It’s a modest apartment, but I don’t require much to be comfortable. In any case, it was constructed with more than one resident in mind. I still have an unused guest bedroom.”

What a normal thing to mention to a regular customer at your business. Oh, gods, he didn’t think the flirting was actually going to be reciprocated. That is, if this is reciprocation. Is Al-Haitham flirting with him right now?

“Well,” he forces out, “if the decor in this place is any indicator, then I’m sure it looks much more ‘modest’ than it has to, at any rate. A little bit of attention to aesthetics can go a long way towards dressing up any space, you know.”

The bravado sounds false even to his own ears, but if Al-Haitham notices anything, he doesn’t call him on it.

“It serves its purpose as my living space, and that’s enough for me.”

On that note of finality, he drains the last of his coffee and sets aside the empty cup to wash — since the time before last, Kaveh’s taken to bringing his own reusable travel mugs, seeing as he’s doing this often enough to generate considerable waste with single-use cups. If he does take particular pleasure in forcing Al-Haitham to drink from his Kshahrewar-branded alumni tumbler, then, well, the man’s getting free coffee anyway, so it’s not like he’s in a position to complain about what it’s served out of.

“How utilitarian,” Kaveh grumbles, because he’s a man of principle at the end of the day, no matter how predictable Al-Haitham may be.

Though, he still snatches up the empty cup and elbows his way into the backroom to wash it himself. Next time he’ll come with both mugs empty and let Al-Haitham do the work himself, if he cares so much about things serving their purpose.

He needn’t have bothered, it turns out, because the next time Kaveh turns up with matching white lion mugs and a stack of papers to grade, Al-Haitham turns right around and pulls out a pair of the ugliest vessels he’s ever seen in his life.

“What is that,” Kaveh cries.

In his shock, he almost drops his own mugs, which are themselves very cute, normal, and bearing the normal amount of appendages for mugs to have (namely, zero). 

“You want me to drink from that?!”

Al-Haitham glares. “Lower your voice. We’re indoors, and you’re going to startle my customers in a room full of glassware.”

Fair enough. Across the room, one of the shelves rattles audibly as an older man with a frankly astounding mustache shoots him the stink eye of the century.

“Well, pardon me for not wanting to — to put my mouth on — that!”

A pair of girls by the door begins snickering. Kaveh puts his own cups down on the counter so he can point an accusatory finger at Al-Haitham’s crimes against drinkware. “You’re doing this on purpose!”

“I do many things on purpose,” Al-Haitham says mysteriously. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Kaveh lets out a frustrated groan in his best inside voice. “Fine! Then at least explain. What’s with the…the feet?”

“As an architect, I thought you’d appreciate them. A wider base lends more stability to the structure, no?”

The snickering grows louder. Attempting and failing to ignore them, the architect glances over for long enough to visually confirm they’re not his students (thankfully) before mustering the nastiest expression he can.

“This’d better be the coffee of a lifetime. I have high expectations for your craft, you know.”

Al-Haitham thumps a spot on the counter. “Wait here. If a customer shows up, let them know I’ll be right back.”

Without further ado, he disappears into the backrooms, leaving Kaveh alone with two catty teens and the mustachioed monsieur now browsing the hair growth potions with an air of expertise. Well, there’s one mystery solved for today, at least.

The architect crosses behind the counter and makes himself comfortable as directed. On his fifth or sixth visit to the shop, Kaveh had delivered his usual coffee and then shyly asked if Al-Haitham minded him finishing up some work before closing; it had been a particularly quiet day for customers, and Kaveh had an evening client meeting he wanted to prepare for. There wasn’t really any seating in the store except for the chair behind the counter, so Al-Haitham had gone and dragged out one of the stools from the backroom so they could sit side by side.

The next time he came back, the stool had been replaced with a nice high-backed chair like Al-Haitham’s, and the usual paperwork and brewing accoutrements had been carefully cleared away to create a little workspace for Kaveh. Now it’s something like his de facto spot whenever he comes back to Universality. He likes having something of his own in this place. It’s nice.

None of the customers approach him for anything — the man leaves without buying anything, and the girls get lost in conversation by the antidotes shelf — so Kaveh gets through grading a whole paper and a half in peace before Al-Haitham returns.

“Delivery for the esteemed Light of Kshahrewar,” he announces. The uncannily detailed feet of the mug land on a coaster next to his pen. “One coffee of a lifetime, coming right up.”

Kaveh wrinkles his nose even as he reaches eagerly for the cup, which smells like heaven descended in an extremely unfortunate package. “Ugh, who told you about that? As nice as it is to be praised, no one ever refers to me that way except for the Akademiya brochures. Thankfully. I do have a name for a reason, you know.”

“We did attend at the same time, remember,” Al-Haitham reminds him over the rim of his own cup. The toes of the mug stick out in opposite directions when he raises it to his lips. “By the time you graduated, the title was already in use.”

Kaveh pauses in the middle of lifting his coffee to his mouth.

“We didn’t cross paths while we were in school, did we? I can’t say I remember ever running into you, but, well…I met a lot of people during university, and everyone is bound to change in the amount of time that’s passed since we both graduated.”

He’d feel horrible if he and Al-Haitham had once been school friends, or something along those lines, and all this time Kaveh had been treating him like a total stranger. Luckily, Al-Haitham disconfirms the theory.

“Not at all. I simply heard about you and your exploits, as underclassmen are bound to. Your darshan was very proud of your achievements. Even we outside of Kshahrewar heard about their generational prodigy.”

Kaveh shrinks a little at that. He’s glad to have made a name for himself and all, and it’s flattering to hear that his alma mater had apparently been marketing him so hard even to its own student body, but for some reason, the acclaim feels unbearable coming from the shopkeeper’s mouth.

“Now you’re just laying it on thick,” he mumbles, and busies himself by taking a sip of the coffee in his hands.

One long sip turns into two, then three, and then he puts down the mug on the table and looks the alchemist dead in the eyes.

“I can’t believe you’re capable of making coffee like this all the time and you’ve allowed me to make a fool of myself by wasting money on inferior alternatives every single visit.”

Al-Haitham looks more than a little smug.

“I told you that you didn’t need to bring it every time. Though, I have to say, it was a nice touch. I appreciate that you saved me the labor.”

“How you manage to run a business this successful with such an attitude still boggles my mind,” Kaveh laments. “And with those gardens in the back, too! You’d never believe that you could find such a lazy potion seller in all of Sumeru.”

“I prefer to think of myself as self-driven.”

“Maybe, if by ‘self-driven’ you mean ‘driven by yourself to not do much of anything’.”

Al-Haitham tuts. “Such judgment. Is it so hard to believe that I prefer to live my life that way?”

Kaveh gives it some thought. Putting aside the grandiose name of the shop and the theatrical images it invokes, the alchemist has never come off as anything but down-to-earth. Most times Kaveh comes in, he’s at work brewing, sorting shipments of new materials, or taking custom orders from clients. If it’s a slow day, he’ll be leaning back in his chair reading. He finds the idea of Al-Haitham leading an unremarkable life rather unremarkable, after all.

“I guess not,” he admits. “It’s just…different from the kinds of things I value, I suppose. Maybe it’s just the nature of being an architect, but I always find myself wondering about…well, my legacy as an artist, and what I’ll leave behind. It must sound very high-handed to you. Probably just part of the trade, when the things you build may very well outlive you.”

He takes a long sip of coffee to stop himself from rambling any further. True to his word, the drink is brewed to alchemical perfection: deep and complex, with lingering aromatic notes. Al-Haitham’s even gone to the trouble of adding cream and some kind of sweetener, if the richness and distinct lack of bitterness is any indication. Evidently, he’s been paying attention to Kaveh’s past orders.

“Your business also essentially depends on your reputation,” points out Al-Haitham. “I’d still have a storefront and a paying customer base even without word of mouth, but that’s because I operate in a completely different economic niche. I don’t need to rely on a curated artistic vision to achieve success in my field the same way you do. As long as my products get the job done, my clients are satisfied.”

He crosses his arms and smirks.

“Besides, between the two of us, your level of fame is far greater. How could a lowly potion seller hold a candle to you?”

Someone clears their throat from the doorway. “Sorry, am I interrupting something?”

Tighnari’s unimpressed expression nearly knocks Kaveh right off his chair.

“T-tighnari! What are you — I didn’t know you were —”

The forest ranger hefts a box he’s carrying under one arm. “I’m a supplier. Al-Haitham’s got a decent setup in the back there, but some species are particularly picky about their growing conditions. I maintain some stocks for wholesale in addition to my experimental colonies.”

He raises an eyebrow at Al-Haitham. “I didn’t know that you also knew Kaveh.”

The shopkeeper raises his mug in acknowledgement, looking utterly unbothered by this collision of worlds. “We met a few weeks ago. He brought a particularly interesting request to my attention. Now he’s something of a regular.”

“Uh-huh.”

Tighnari’s eyes flick between the matching cups of coffee in their hands to Kaveh’s seat behind the counter to the stack of ungraded papers and red pen still sitting on the tabletop.

“Well, here’s this week’s shipment, anyway. Be careful with the magma morel in there. You’ll want to use it soon; I only harvested it this morning, but the color’s already starting to fade. I would guess it’ll only maintain its potency until maybe…end of day tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

Al-Haitham puts down his coffee to accept the box over the counter. He notes something down in his ledger and then disappears into the storeroom, presumably to put away the mushrooms.

Tighnari is upon him the moment the alchemist is out of sight.

“So. ‘Hypothetical scenario for a friend’, huh?”

“Nari, he’s right there,” Kaveh hisses. “The door isn’t even shut.”

“So? He has those soundproof headphones on all the time. Do you know how many times I’ve had to practically climb over the counter to get his attention while he’s wearing them? There’s a spectrum of sound sensitivity in this world, and I’m on one end, and Al-Haitham’s on the other.”

Kaveh frowns. “Really? That’s weird. I guess he must’ve started turning them off before I met him, because that’s never happened to me before.”

Tighnari studies him. “There’s no way you’re actually this dense.”

“What? I’m serious! I’ve only ever seen him ignore customers before, and that’s usually when it’s later in the day and he’s already preparing to close. You’ve known him for longer than I have; you know that he hates staying after hours.”

“I think you know him a little better than I do, seeing as he and I have an almost exclusively transactional relationship. I’ve been a supplier for Universality for over a year, and he and I have never had a conversation longer than five minutes.”

There’s that word again. Transactional. It makes sense for Tighnari — he and Al-Haitham are, quite literally, in the midst of a transaction right now as buyer and seller — but something about the idea of framing Kaveh’s own relationship with the alchemist that way leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

Kaveh drains the last of his coffee to cover it up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just — I come here sometimes to get a little work done. And for potions. Like for sleeping. And picking stuff up for Nilou.”

Tighnari taps his foot. “Right. And he just makes you coffee for you two to discuss your philosophical visions of life over because you’re a normal customer, and he’s the man that behavioral economists are writing about when they assume purely rational judgment.”

“Nari!”

“What? I’m serious. I stood in the doorway for a whole minute before either of you noticed me. Look, if you’re having fun, great, but tell me you’re not in denial over…whatever is happening here, at least.”

“I’m coming out of the storeroom now,” Al-Haitham announces. “If you two want to finish talking about me before I can hear it all with absolute clarity.”

The forest ranger lets out a deep sigh as Kaveh scrambles to sit up straight. Ignoring them both, the shopkeeper emerges from the storeroom with a neutral set to his face.

“Great. I sent the payment through my business account as usual, so you should see it by the end of the day today. Thanks again.”

Tighnari nods. “Sounds good. I’ll see you two weeks from now, then. I’ll keep my eye on my email in case you need to request anything different than the usual order.”

“Alright. See ya then.”

Without further preamble, Al-Haitham begins pulling out odds and ends and arranging them around his workspace. With the help of the bellows, the dull spark beneath the cauldron flares to life, and he begins chopping and mashing, tossing in ingredient after ingredient in with practiced ease.

“Don’t think I forgot about you.”

Hands on his hips, Tighnari turns to face the architect.

“Cyno told me to tell you to stop ignoring his texts about TCG. Also, you’re going to call me later. It’s the least you can do after the advice I gave you.”

“I’ve been busy,” Kaveh mumbles, gesturing in the direction of his ungraded papers, but he drops his head down in defeat anyway. “Fine. I’ll text him back. He’s probably going to invite me over to your place for dinner and a game anyway, so you can harass me then.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen me harassing you yet,” warns Tighnari, waving a finger even as he starts towards the door.

“Really, though. Think about what I said. You…deserve to be happy, okay?”

On that surprisingly heartfelt note, he slips through the front door.

Kaveh half expects Al-Haitham to begin interrogating him over the discussion at once, but the potion seller simply continues working as though nothing has happened. He returns to the storeroom to retrieve some of the mushrooms and adds them in with no further ado.

“Thank you for the coffee, by the way,” Kaveh says. “I didn’t mention it before, but it was excellent. You lived up to your reputation.”

Al-Haitham adds some more water to his concoction and peers at the surface critically. “You’re welcome.”

Right. Just keep on keeping on, then.

It’s not like they have anything in particular to discuss, anyway. Tighnari making a fuss about his happiness doesn’t have to change anything in this moment. He’s happy enough as it is, sitting in this eccentric little store he’s come to cherish despite its spartan decor, warm and satiated by a lovely beverage made by a man who is an undisputed master of his craft.

Al-Haitham doesn’t say anything else as he stares at the potion below him. The long line of his body seems drawn taut, like there’s something bubbling beneath his own exterior, but Kaveh doesn’t know what to say to break the silence.

Instead, he drags his chair a little closer, picks up his pen, and settles in to grade.

“Kaveh?”

He looks up. For some reason, Al-Haitham is hovering above him with a concerned look on his face. His head hurts very badly.

“H — What are you doing here?”

Al-Haitham kneels down next to him and oh, that’s why he was hovering. Kaveh was on the floor.

“I was going to ask you that, actually. What’s the last thing you remember?”

He squints as the shopkeeper rummages around somewhere to his right. There’s a soft click, and then an orange light flicks on.

Slowly, like wisps of smoke, details of his surroundings drift back into focus: the dimly lit wooden walls of the storage room of Universality, the faint scent of earth from the gardens, and the distinctive warmth of Al-Haitham by his side.

“I…had just gotten out of a meeting with a client,” he recalls slowly.

It’d gone well, but in an altogether unsurprising way — Kaveh had submitted a final blueprint the week before, so this meeting had really been more to tie up loose ends than anything else. He thinks about the signed invoice burning a hole in his bag and wonders how long it’ll be until he’s gotten ahold of the next one.

“I went home to my apartment afterwards, and…” He winces.

Al-Haitham turns back to him rapidly. His eyes scan over the architect’s body as if inspecting him for something. “What was that? Are you hurt?”

“N-no, I just remembered…” Kaveh presses his palms to his eyes, which are burning with strain and something that hopefully isn’t tears. Agh, fuck, he’s only just remembered he was wearing mascara. He’ll have to hope that 24-hour staying power advertised on the package was, in fact, guaranteed.

“There was a notice. On my door. I’m being evicted.”

“With how much notice?” Al-Haitham asks sharply. There’s a sound of something clinking, and then a hand is tapping on the side of his elbow. “Tenant protection laws require at least 10 days’ advance notice in Sumeru City.”

Kaveh shakes his head even as he peels his hands away, wincing at the brown-black grit that’s collected on his palms where he was scrubbing at his eyes. So much for that guarantee. He must look like a fucking mess.

“I’m not officially on the books here. It’s — I know, I know,” he adds desperately at the look that Al-Haitham gives him.

“It’s just…my last place had a terrible bedbug infestation, so I had to move on short notice. This was the only place I could find that would take me without a reference from my last landlord, who ghosted all of us tenants as soon as we started complaining to the city about the pest issues. I didn’t find out that I wasn’t officially registered as a tenant anywhere until I tried to renew my lease and found out I…didn’t have one in the first place.”

The alchemist presses his lips together so tightly they turn pale. Kaveh’s half-expecting some kind of nasty comment to follow, but instead he just looks away and presses a vial into his hands.

“Drink this before you say anything else. It’s a minor restorative. It should help clear your head as you talk.”

A potion in a pretty shade of grapefruit swirls around inside the vial. When Kaveh removes the cork, it smells like grass in the sun.

He thinks about arguing against it (after all, it’s not like he’s going into shock or anything, he’s just…lying on the floor with little memory of how he got here for fun and leisure), but his hand starts shaking as he holds it up to eye level to inspect further, so he tips the little glass tube back and takes it like a shot.

Thankfully, the potion goes down a whole lot smoother than the last shot he’d taken, though he can still feel its warmth traveling down his throat as if it’s liquor. The aftertaste is strangely like licorice.

Kaveh wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and offers the empty vial back to Al-Haitham, whose eyes linger for just a second too long. “Thanks.”

“Of course.”

The alchemist stands to dispose of the vial. When he returns, Kaveh’s already feeling a little steadier — those potions must metabolize quickly.

He accepts the offered hand to pull himself up and only barely stumbles when he makes it back onto his feet. Al-Haitham reaches out to brace him, and together the two gravitate towards the little cafe-style table with its two chairs set to the side of the storeroom. Kaveh always thought it looked a bit out of place, surrounded by stores of reserve ingredients and bottles in all shapes and sizes, but he’s grateful now for the privacy it affords from the rest of the store as Al-Haitham clears away the books on the table and flicks on a nearby lamp.

“So,” he begins, and folds his hands together. “What did you do next?”

Kaveh frowns. What did he do next? The throbbing in his head is slowly starting to dull, but it still feels hard to jump back into his own memories. Remembering feels like trying to make out the face of an acquaintance through a fogged-up window — he could make some educated guesses, maybe, but the details are all blurry.

He glances at the floor where he was sitting earlier. Mehrak is still lying on her side there, LEDs dimmed; he must’ve put her in sleep mode at some point since he arrived, or else she auto-enabled her battery-saving setting. Crap. Surely Al-Haitham has at least one USB-C charger in this stupid alchemy joint.

“I…packed up most of my valuables, I think,” he speculates. “Legal documents and a few family heirlooms. I must’ve stored them in Mehrak, since I was carrying her with me back from the meeting and she’s here now. And then I guess at some point, I made it here.”

Al-Haitham’s face is impossible to read. “I see.”

Is he angry? Disappointed? Those teal eyes are narrowed in thought, but he doesn’t quite know how to interpret the expression. He’s never seen the alchemist look like this before.

The thought can’t come as much of a surprise; Kaveh is more or less a stranger, after all. A stranger who’s been coming by for a few months, sure, but he doesn’t really know Al-Haitham. Why would he? Their relationship is that of a regular customer and a craftsman.

If it’s ever felt like anything more than that — if he’s ever felt like he was special, like the alchemist was trying to set him aside from the others — then it must have simply been his own desires interfering with his judgment. Just Kaveh’s stupid bleeding heart getting in the way, reading too much into things as usual.

A hot rush of humiliation warms his face, and he shuts his eyes almost involuntarily.

Gods. He’s been such a fool. It’s ludicrous that his first thought was to come here, into the private workspace of someone who is, at best, a friendly acquaintance. Now he’s been lying on the floor for who knows how long, taking up space. And he’s forced Al-Haitham into giving him free merchandise, because Kaveh’s in crisis and it’d be inhumane to withhold product from a person in need, meaning he’s been put even further in the hole by Kaveh’s selfish needs. Worst of all, he’s certain he’s made the man stay past working hours.

“ —veh,” comes Al-Haitham’s voice. “Kaveh. Can you hear me?”

He cracks one eye open. The opaque expression from before is gone; the potion seller’s face has returned to a look of distinct concern as he stares at Kaveh from…uh, way closer than before.

“You’re spiraling again. Can you focus on my voice for now?”

Kaveh sags forward onto the table, too exhausted to even pull away as he attempts to do as he’s told and listen. “Ayoustyatetday,” he mumbles into his forearms.

“Excuse me?”

“Mayoustayatetoday.”

“Maybe so,” says Al-Haitham dryly, “but I’ll have to figure out exactly what you’re insisting I did today before I can dispute the point. Once again?”

Reluctantly, Kaveh pulls his face out of his arms.

“I made you stay late today,” he repeats. “Finding me down here and looking after me. I got home in the evening, so it’s definitely after five now. You hate staying late after work.”

Al-Haitham barks out a shocked laugh that startles them both. The table shakes slightly with the motion.

“Kaveh. Have you forgotten? I live upstairs. I forgot the charging cable for my headphones in the storeroom, so I came downstairs to find it and heard you barreling through the door.”

A pause. Then, “How did you get in, by the way? I was under the impression that the storefront was locked quite thoroughly.”

Kaveh groans. The shock of relief at realizing he hasn’t forced the shopkeeper into evening overtime is immediately swapped out for mortification.

“I must’ve used Mehrak to get in. She, um…well, I’ve had issues with my keys before, so I installed a, uh…lockpicking module a few weeks ago.”

When Al-Haitham doesn’t say anything, he adds, “It’s not as bad as it sounds, I promise! I’m not in the habit of breaking and entering. It’s just — there was one time when I got back and found out that they changed the locks without any advance notice, and no one was in the maintenance office when I got there, so I kind of had to…break into my own apartment to go home.”

The silence sounds even more pointed this time. At last, the alchemist heaves a deep sigh.

“Well, it sounds like it’s for the best that you won’t be living there any longer. Do you have anyone you can stay with for now?”

Dread comes crashing back down at the reminder. He’ll have to find somewhere new to stay in the long term, which will be even harder now that he’s missing two past landlords as references, but Al-Haitham has a point. Where is he even going to sleep tonight?

He bites his lip. “I…I’ll figure something out.”

Al-Haitham taps his fingers on the tabletop. Evidently, he’s not going to let Kaveh go that easily. “Is there someone in the area you could call?”

Well, he has colleagues and old classmates downtown for sure, but he’d rather not send any of them an urgent text about housing at — he fumbles for his phone — 10:47 pm.

Fuck. That’s so much later than he thought. Just how long was he out for?

“I…know some people in the area, but I’d rather not bother them this late. The closest people are all professional contacts that I would prefer to maintain a…professional relationship with, if you know what I mean.”

Meaning, he’d rather not send out a mass email blast with the subject line “Re: MY CRUSHING DEBT AND HORRIBLE CREDIT SCORE (CAN I SLEEP ON YOUR COUCH TONIGHT)” to people who still actually look up to him. The thought of asking one of his junior colleagues if he could crash in their guest room makes him physically ill. Any one of them would say yes at once, which is the worst part.

He turns his face back to Al-Haitham just in time to see the shopkeeper grimace. “Right. What about family or friends?”

What about friends or family, indeed. “I — my mother lives abroad, so I couldn’t ask her even if I wanted.”

Not that I ever would, he doesn’t add, but he has a feeling that this part goes without saying. Who else is there again?

“I have a few friends I could ask, but…one is touring outside of Sumeru City right now, and the others live outside of the downtown area. I’d have to take the commuter rail or ask one of them to pick me up, and I don’t want to bother them at this time of night.”

Which leaves precisely no one that he could — or would, really — ask.

It’s a depressing thought. He supposes that if it comes down to it, he could always just go back to Lambad’s, undo a few buttons on his top, and procure a few drinks for the night, maybe even a place to stay if he’s particularly lucky (or unlucky, as it were). Though, the idea of relying on a one-night stand for running water feels low even for him.

Kaveh braces himself for a look of pity or superiority or whatever holier-than-thou condescension he’d expected from the almighty financially free Al-Haitham, but the shopkeeper just looks thoughtful, his eyes flicking back and forth in the empty air of the storeroom.

“Right,” he says abruptly. His gaze turns back to Kaveh.

“You can take the guest room, then. No one’s using it, and I have plenty of spare linens for the bed. Naturally, if you find somewhere else to stay, you’re free to leave at any time, but this seems like the safest option at least for tonight. I don’t suppose you’ve eaten dinner yet?”

“I…what?”

“Dinner,” Al-Haitham repeats. “You were quite out of it when you arrived, so unless you met with your client for a meal, it must’ve been a few hours. Even with the minor restorative you took earlier, it’ll be hard for you to do anything else on an empty stomach.”

“No, I know what dinner is,” he snaps. It comes out sounding much meaner than he’d like, and he immediately clenches his fists. Like it or not, this is an offer he really can’t afford to turn down.

“Sorry, I…didn’t mean to lash out. I mean, are you really alright with me staying in your apartment? We…”

Hardly know each other, is what he wants to say, but that feels unnecessarily cruel — even if he feels uncomfortable burdening Al-Haitham, he doesn’t really want to hurt the man’s feelings — so he swallows the words down and lets the sentence trail off.

Al-Haitham shrugs.

“You’ve made your situation clear. There’s no one else you can, or would prefer, to ask. I assume hotels are altogether out of the question. Knowing you, I imagine it has something to do with maintaining your reputation. If that’s the case, then you can rest assured that I won’t go sharing the information with others. And like it or not, you’ve found yourself here. I already know the truth of your situation, and my home is the closest possible safe place for you to stay.”

As expected, it’s a perfectly logical sequence of thoughts, not to mention an accurate read of his character — that clinically neutral point about “maintaining his reputation” is an uncomfortably clear statement of truth. Like always, Al-Haitham’s right, though that doesn’t stop Kaveh from feeling like his head is going to explode.

“Realistically,” he continues, “it’ll also take you some time to find another apartment. There’s proximity to your workplace to consider, as well as the locations of your clientele. As I said, the extra space in my apartment doesn’t serve any other use. As long as you need it, it’s yours.”

What other choice does he have? “I — I’ll find some way to make it up to you,” he says, wildly, desperately.

He’s exhausted all his lines of credit, and he doubts Al-Haitham would accept real payment anyway, but he could offer —

“I can pay rent. I’ll…I’ll have to take out another loan for the first month, but —”

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham interrupts tersely. “I won’t accept your money.”

Darkness swirls at the edges of his vision. Gods, of course, he’s right. Al-Haitham has a successful independent business that probably takes in far more than Kaveh could offer with his inconsistent freelancer’s income. There’s scarcely anything left every month after taxes and the minimum to get the loan sharks off his back.

What else can he offer, though? Professional expertise? Al-Haitham already has a functional storefront, and construction on the premises would disrupt his ability to operate the business. Plus, it’s not like he’s the kind of person who would actually invest extra in the aesthetics of the shop. The current layout gets the job done, and Al-Haitham won’t spring for more than the bare minimum, so he can’t offer an interior design refresh. Nor could he contribute meaningfully to the theoretical side of Al-Haitham’s job — Kaveh’s good with his hands, but he doesn’t have the technical expertise for composing his own brews.

“Kaveh.”

“I — I could work as your assistant,” he offers, already mentally running the calculations. Assuming he gets paid around minimum wage per hour, and Al-Haitham charges him the typical fee for a 1-bed, 1-bath in the area, he’d have to work…ugh, shit, around 70 hours a month to afford rent. The thought makes him light-headed.

But. He wouldn’t be sleeping in the back room of Lambad’s bar. That alone makes all the difference.

Working for Al-Haitham wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. They’re…well, his earlier breakdown aside, they probably are friends, at least. Besides, the alchemist is too laid-back to be a terrible boss. Kaveh…Kaveh could handle around 20 hours a week. Maybe he could tend to the crystals in the back or handle customer transactions while Al-Haitham brewed potions with his noise-canceling headphones on.

He’d like that, probably. Not having to deal with annoying clients. And Kaveh could keep working on blueprints when the shop got quiet. It’d make scheduling client meetings more restrictive, but he’s worked around worse before.

“I could handle the register, or stock shelves, or —”

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham snaps.

He raises both hands as if to seize the architect by the shoulders, then balls them into fists and drops them back down at his sides. At some point, he’s shifted to standing, and the architect has to tilt his head back to meet his eyes.

“Listen to me. I’m not accepting any payment from you, period.”

Kaveh is so shocked that he stops dead in the middle of computing how long it’d take him to commute between Universality and his most recent build site.

“You’re — what?”

It’s the first time he’s ever heard Al-Haitham raise his voice. Even when he was confronting the most unpleasant, irritating customers the shop ever got, he’d just point one finger at the door and make his point with the same blunt, sardonic inside voice as ever.

Taking a proper look at the other man, Al-Haitham doesn’t look happy about it either. His lips are pulled back in a grimace, as if speaking at that volume is taking more out of him than Kaveh. His teal eyes flick back and forth across Kaveh’s face, scanning for something he doesn’t know how to identify, and there’s a tension in his brow that seems more…sad than angry.

“I don’t want you to make it up to me,” the alchemist continues. His fingers flex like a cat’s paws kneading at a blanket, as if the motion is purely instinctual.

“I want you to accept it as something I want to do for you, because I’d rather you lived in a house with a roof than on the street. Is that so hard for you to believe?”

Kaveh is on his feet in seconds. All thoughts of commute times and hourly rates disappear from his mind. His chair screeches horribly as he rises; he ignores the stab of guilt that lances through him as Al-Haitham winces at the noise.

“Right, because money grows on trees, and anything is possible through the power of good intentions. Aren’t you supposed to be the realist between the two of us?”

When Al-Haitham doesn’t immediately reply, he takes one step forward, then another, getting closer and closer until he can see the sheen on the shopkeeper’s lip as he chews it in anxiety. He doesn’t feel like he has control over his own body anymore.

“I see how you look at me when you think I’m not looking,” he murmurs. “No one makes an offer like that without ulterior motives. Do you think I’m stupid?”

Al-Haitham rears back like he’s been slapped.

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” he says coldly, pushing his own chair out. “I think you hold such a high opinion of your own guilt that you can’t conceive of any alternatives. Are you only a believer in kindness when it suits you?”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Kaveh retorts. “I thought you only offer kindness when you expect something in return.”

“And just what do you think I expect in return from you, Kaveh?”

His jaw snaps shut. Al-Haitham’s called his bluff. He — really, he should have a rebuttal to that question ready, but he can’t make the words surface; they get stuck somewhere in his throat and refuse to emerge, as if being spoken aloud will make them real.

Sensing an opening, the alchemist pushes his advantage.

“I’m not ashamed of my attraction to you,” he says evenly.

Despite the intimacy of his words, his tone is frigid, almost clinical. A grim sense of satisfaction settles across his face as he watches Kaveh jolt visibly in response.

The statement should be a victory. Under any other circumstances, he’d be happy to hear Al-Haitham say the words aloud — proof that his efforts have been worthwhile, that coffee offerings and backroom tours and hours spent chatting meant something to the shopkeeper too, that it hasn’t just been his stupid crush and his loneliness projecting an illusion of reciprocation — but in the moment, the confession feels like an attack, not a gift willingly given.

Now, Al-Haitham wields his affection as a weapon, the razor-sharp edge turned towards Kaveh with the intent to make him yield. With the tables turned back in his favor, he advances with a strange light in his eyes.

“You’re an intelligent man, Kaveh. Even if you’re unwilling to admit otherwise, you’ve made your intentions clear enough. Take it as a romantic favor if you must, but let me do this for you.”

A hysterical sound bursts from Kaveh. “Fine! What then? I move in, I don’t give you anything for rent, you never ask me for a mora of recompense, and we just — what, happily ever after?”

Whatever happened to their relationship being non-transactional? In what world could Kaveh accept an offer of fucking…unconditional, free, last-second housing, and then just continue on like usual, flirting over coffee and picking up his custom-made brews, as if he didn’t owe Al-Haitham an insurmountable debt?

The man himself looks unimpressed by this hypothetical. “If you’d like to frame it as such. The most parsimonious solution is usually the preferred one, after all. Shouldn’t an idealist like you appreciate that?”

“Gods, you’re pretentious.” It’s low of him to rely on ad hominem attacks, he knows, but he just can’t stand to listen to this pompous asshole preach at him about his own values for any longer.

“You’re not going to fix me by letting me stay at your apartment for free. Sorry to break it to you, but I’ve made it this far in life on my own terms. I don’t need your charity, and I certainly don’t need your pity. I’ll get through it by myself, like I always do.”

Al-Haitham crosses his arms. “Is that what you think I feel for you? Pity?”

“Well, it certainly isn’t love,” bites out Kaveh, and then immediately slaps a hand over his mouth.

“I — I didn’t mean that —”

Al-Haitham’s reply is practically venomous. “No, I think you’ve made your meaning clear enough, Kaveh. For someone who accused me of pretension, you certainly feel comfortable telling others what to think about their own feelings.”

The alchemist’s eyes burn into his. “I questioned why you would come to me when you clearly have other close relations in your life, but it’s evident to me now that you prefer to hold them all equally at arm’s length. Your unwillingness to believe that you deserve good things utterly prevents you from accepting help from others.”

Chest heaving, Kaveh makes for the door, only barely remembering to snatch up Mehrak from where he’d left her on the storeroom floor. He doesn’t have to listen to this anymore.

Al-Haitham doesn’t give him a break, following closely behind him as they move into the empty main floor of the store. It’s an eerie sight at this time of night — Kaveh’s never been here past closing before, and the shop feels almost haunted without its usual foot traffic. The only lighting comes from the dim orange glow of the lamp posts on Treasures Street outside.

“No matter what your conscience may lead you to believe, you hurt others by refusing their help,” he continues. “You’re not the only victim in your relationships, Kaveh.”

Kaveh keeps his head down as he pats down his pockets and does a quick check of Mehrak’s contents. Keys, wallet, phone. There’s nothing left for him here.

“Right, because you’re doing such a great job at modeling interpersonal closeness yourself. Am I to trust the master of self-imposed social distancing on affairs of the heart?”

Al-Haitham is relentless. “I don’t care about affairs of the heart when it comes to others. I care about you not getting yourself hurt because you’re too stubborn to allow anyone to stop you from driving yourself into the ground.”

“Great! Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out already! Then, if you know me so well, Haitham,” he hisses, whirling around, “then you’ll know that I don’t appreciate being psychoanalyzed by know-it-all Haravatats. If you really want to do me a favor, you can kindly fuck off.”

In the light from the street lamps, the turquoise in the alchemist’s eyes has nearly vanished, leaving nothing but swirling pools of orange.

“I won’t ‘fuck off’ until I know you’re not going to do something stupid. Where are you going to stay tonight?”

“You’re not my fucking keeper!” shouts Kaveh.

The sound echoes around the empty shop, breaking through the midnight silence as deafeningly as a gunshot. Across the street, a light flicks on in one of the windows.

Abruptly, all of the energy drains out of Kaveh. He’s just…tired, and he still needs to find someplace to sleep, and now he’s making a scene late at night in a street full of small businesses.

“I…sorry,” he murmurs, and staggers towards the front door again. “Really, I don’t want to fight. I’ll…I’ll call Tighnari. Thank you again for the restorative.”

“Kaveh —”

He turns around before he can see the shopkeeper’s face and reaches for the handle. “Sorry for making a mess of things.”

The door closes behind him without even a squeak — Al-Haitham must take good care of the hinges, he thinks dully. Probably he’d get annoyed by them creaking every time a customer entered or exited the store. Kaveh would too.

He walks for a few blocks until he reaches a bench. No one follows him, which he doesn’t know how to feel about yet.

It takes him a few minutes after sitting down to stop shaking. The cool night air clears his mind enough that he has the sense to dig around in Mehrak’s storage compartment and find something to eat. The best he can do is a packet of complimentary chocolate he’d taken from some networking event or another. It’s better than he expected, given his luck today.

The bittersweet flavor blooming on his tongue washes over him like a bucket of water. After the last square melts in his mouth, he reaches into his pocket for his phone. It’s time to go home.

[12:46 AM] Me: hi nari are you awkae
[12:47 AM] Me: sorry
[12:47 AM] Me: sorry its urgent
[12:59 AM] Outgoing call to Tighnari (00:12:35)
[1:03 AM] Tighnari: Cyno is on his way to pick you up
[1:03 AM] Tighnari: Hang tight until then ok?
[1:03 AM] Tighnari: I’ll bring the service truck around your place tmrw so we can get your stuff
[1:03 AM] Me: ok
[1:04 AM] Me: im sorry agian
[1:04 AM] Me: i know i said before but i really am sorry
[1:04 AM] Me: i woke you guys up and evrything
[1:05 AM] Tighnari: It’s ok
[1:05 AM] Tighnari: I’m glad you called me instead of going to Lambad’s
[1:09 AM] Tighnari: Cyno says he’s 5 min away
[1:09 AM] Tighnari: Don’t ask me how
[1:12 AM] Tighnari: You there Kaveh?
[1:12 AM] Me: yes
[1:12 AM] Me: sorry
[1:13 AM] Tighnari: You know you can say thank you instead
[1:15 AM] Me: cynos here
[1:15 AM] Me: thank you
[1:15 AM] Tighnari reacted to your message with ❤.
[1:15 AM] Tighnari: Of course
[1:16 AM] Tighnari: See you soon
[1:17 AM] You reacted to Tighnari’s message with 🐕💨.

Cyno’s bright purple SUV is, as ever, easy to see coming from a mile away. As Kaveh slips his phone back into his pocket, his friend puts the car into an effortless parallel park, takes Mehrak from his shaking hands, and gestures towards the empty passenger seat without a word.

Instead, he turns out of Treasures Street and heads in the direction of Gandharva Ville with an uncharacteristic lack of either small talk or bad jokes. Tighnari must have briefed him, or else experience tells him it’s wiser to wait until his passenger is ready to speak.

Fine by him. Kaveh’s not exactly feeling talkative, so he settles into his seat as Cyno switches on a playlist of 80s hits. Somehow, the other man doesn’t seem any worse for wear despite the fact that it’s past one in the morning, and he probably violated several traffic laws to arrive downtown in less than a half hour. His red eyes are as tranquil as ever as he reaches into the cupholder and hands Kaveh a water bottle and a snack.

The granola bar feels like dirt going down, but he can feel himself grow steadier after it settles. Much to his annoyance, Al-Haitham was correct in assuming he hadn’t eaten since before his client meeting.

The car remains quiet until they’re already on the highway, which feels foreign enough even without the surrealness of the whole night. Ever since he graduated and could no longer carpool with classmates, Kaveh’s relied almost exclusively on public transit and his own two feet to carry him around Sumeru City. It’s been ages since he was last in a car, and his exhaustion and the late hour only serve to make the distant lights flying by feel like part of a dream.

“Have you ever felt like you fucked something up before it even began?”

His words come out rough around the edges. He’d really laid into Al-Haitham earlier in the evening, and his voice is paying the price now. Kaveh winces and takes a swig of water.

Cyno says, “Yep.”

Kaveh waits for him to elaborate.

And waits.

The first chorus of “Don’t Stop Believing” comes and goes, and his friend still doesn’t say anything, just bobs his head slightly to the music.

“So, are you…”

“Did Nari ever tell you the story of how he and I met?” interjects Cyno.

Kaveh frowns. Has he?

“Um, I don’t think so? I always assumed that you two met at the Akademiya while I was studying in Fontaine. I remember Tighnari being a year or two behind me during my bachelor’s, and neither of us knew you then, but by the time I consulted him about foliage for the Palace, you two were already dating.”

“Nope.” Cyno pops the “p” as he merges out of the exit lane. “We studied at the Akademiya at the same time, yes, but I was in the year above him. I’d already graduated and started working by the time we met. Wanna guess how it happened?”

Kaveh eyes him suspiciously. “This isn’t the setup to some kind of punchline, is it?”

“You won’t know until you guess.”

The reply is so typically Cyno that he can’t help but let out his first laugh of the night. He can see the corners of his friend’s mouth curl up at the sight.

“Hmm, well…if you were already working, did he come to you with an academic concern?”

“The opposite, actually. Someone else filed a complaint with the office alleging plagiarism in his dissertation.”

Kaveh pauses with his water bottle raised halfway to his lips. “Oh, shit. Wait — really? Tighnari? Plagiarize his dissertation?”

“Yeah, I know. Anyone who knows him could tell you that he’d sooner drop out than steal someone else’s work. But that’s exactly the point. We found out later that the petition was filed by one of his classmates who was competing with him for a dissertation grant from the university. They raised the claim in the hopes that he’d be automatically dismissed from the running and their chances would improve.”

“That’s awful! And probably speaks to the quality of their research, too…making false claims against your colleagues doesn’t exactly inspire faith in the integrity of your own work.”

“I’d have to agree. Anyways, I was the primary investigator assigned to the case.”

For the first time in his life, Kaveh does an actual physical spit take. After he’s finished apologizing and hastily wiping water off the dashboard using his already-mascara-stained sleeves, he turns to face the other man head-on.

“Sorry, let me just make sure I’m getting that right. You and Tighnari — your husband, who you’re married to now — met because you were assigned to formally investigate whether he stole his dissertation?”

“That about sums it up.”

“Wow.”

He lets that sink in. “Well. I guess I’ve never gotten off on the wrong foot with someone that badly before. How…how did you end up…well, still getting along after that?”

Knowing Cyno, there’s no way his friend would ever intentionally involve himself with someone still undergoing active investigation. He must’ve figured out early on that Tighnari wasn’t guilty — which, to be fair, wouldn’t have required much sleuthing — and somehow worked up the nerve to stay in touch after the case officially concluded. It’d take guts, for sure, but that’s Cyno for you.

“Actually, it didn’t have much to do with either of us.”

To his surprise, Cyno smiles.

“At the time, Nari was volunteering with a mentorship program for high school students interested in STEM fields, and his mentee had just gone through some pretty serious trauma. She didn’t have any other remaining family in Sumeru City, so she’d been relying on him as a safe person. When the Akademiya suspended some of Nari’s privileges because of the claims against him, there wasn’t anyone else who could check in on her. I was a neutral party, uninvolved with everything that had happened to her, and for some reason…he trusted me.”

“Collei,” he realizes. “She’s the one who brought you together?”

“Uh-huh. She’s amazing. You know that already, of course, but it’s true. I’ve never met a stronger kid. She was having the worst time of her life when I met her, but she was so resilient — is so resilient — she even managed to pull Nari and I along with her on the journey.”

The pride in his voice is so overwhelming that Kaveh feels something well up in his own throat, like water flowing over the rim of a cup.

Closing his eyes briefly, he lets the waves of secondhand feeling wash over him, replacing the hollow in his chest with sentiment: joy, love, closeness, warmth. It’s the first real positive emotion he’s felt all day.

“Perseverance is one of the traits that I admire most,” Cyno continues. “Along with integrity. Standing up for what you believe in, but also making choices in your life that reflect what you really value. It’s part of what drew me to Nari. Not many people would turn down the offers he was given, especially after the dissertation case, but he still walked away from academia because he thought it was what was right for him.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, though theirs is the only car in sight. Instead, he bumps one elbow against Kaveh’s with a gentleness that feels harder to stomach than anything else he’s experienced today.

“I see that in you too, you know. Kaveh, you’re one of the most resilient people I know. Whatever happened tonight, I believe you’ll take it in stride. For now, Nari and I will be there while you find your footing.”

[1:46 PM] Me: hey nilou
[1:46 PM] Me: sorry but whenever you get back to sumeru city could you pick up your troupes supply stuff from universality for the next few weeks
[1:47 PM] Me: something came up
[1:47 PM] Me: sorry i know im texting you mid rehearsal
[1:48 PM] Me: if it turns out you cant then its fine ill figure something out
[2:24 PM] Nilou 🪷: Oh no !! Do you want to talk about it?
[2:24 PM] Nilou 🪷: And I can definitely pick it up myself, don’t worry ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ
[2:24 PM] Nilou 🪷: You were doing me a favor originally after all !!
[2:24 PM] Nilou 🪷: Does it have to do with Haitham?
[2:27 PM] Me: no
[2:28 PM] Me: long story short i got evicted
[2:28 PM] Me: im crashing with nari and cyno for now dont worry
[2:28 PM] Incoming call from Nilou 🪷
[3:01 PM] Call with Nilou 🪷 ended (00:33:47)
[3:02 PM] Nilou 🪷: Don’t forget about brunch next Saturday !!
[3:03 PM] Nilou 🪷: I even sent a google calendar invite so you have no excuses mr freelancer ( •̀ .̫ •́ )✧
[3:04 PM] Me: thanks nilou ❤️
[3:04 PM] Me: i feel like i dont deserve you sometimes haha
[3:04 PM] Nilou 🪷: Don’t talk to my friend Kaveh like that !!!!
[3:05 PM] Nilou 🪷: You deserve anything that makes you happy
[3:05 PM] Nilou 🪷: As long as it’s not hurting yourself or anyone else
[3:05 PM] Nilou 🪷: But I know you’re not that kind of person !!
[3:06 PM] Me: i dont know what i would do without you
[3:06 PM] Me: hows that
[3:06 PM] Nilou 🪷 loved your message.
[3:06 PM] Nilou 🪷: Getting warmer ♪(´▽｀) We’ll keep working on it
[3:06 PM] Nilou 🪷: I’ll send you pics as soon as we arrive in Inazuma City !!

[6:23 PM] Me: hi maman
[6:23 PM] Me: are you free to catch up for a bit? it’s been a long time
[6:30 PM] Maman 💝: Of course
[6:30 PM] Maman 💝: I’ll call you
[6:31 PM] Incoming call from Maman 💝
[6:47 PM] You sent 20251206_draft04.jpeg
[6:47 PM] Maman 💝  reacted to your message with ❤️.
[6:53 PM] Maman 💝 sent 20251206_draft04_markup.jpeg
[7:14 PM] Call with Maman 💝 ended (00:43:21)
[7:15 PM] You: it’s late in fontaine
[7:15 PM] You: bonne nuit 🌙
[7:15 PM] You: tell camille i say hi
[7:15 PM] Maman 💝: شَب بِخِير و روياهایِ زيبا عَزيزَم
[7:15 PM] You reacted to Maman 💝’s message with ❤️.

[9:03 AM] Unknown: Hello. This is Alchemist Al-Haitham from Universality. Tighnari gave me your number.
[9:04 AM] Unknown: He also told me that your insomniac tendencies are worse when you’re stressed. I set aside a bottle of sleeping draft for you. It’s ready in store for pickup if you want it.
[9:05 AM] Unknown: I’m available during work hours. If you can’t make it to the shop then, knock on the front door and I’ll open it up for you.

Kaveh stares down at his phone. He stares for so long, in fact, that he doesn’t realize that Cyno is standing in the doorway across from him until the man knocks twice on the doorframe.

“Knock, knock,” he says. The beginnings of a smile are already starting to peek at the corners of his mouth.

“Absolutely not,” Kaveh replies without thinking, and then jumps about a foot in the air above the guest bed. “Oh! Sorry! I meant, um —”

Cyno crosses his arms and sticks his nose in the air. “No, it’s fine. You’ve already made your feelings on the matter clear. When it comes to friends, I’m just a phone-y.”

Kaveh can’t help but groan at that. “No, no, no, you know I was just zoning out. What did you want to talk about?”

“Nari and I were planning to leave for the airport in a few minutes to pick up Collei. Did you want to join us?”

He bites his lip. “Well…”

Tighnari appears in the doorway next to him, a crossbody bag already slung over one shoulder. The fennec leans over to press a casual kiss to his husband’s cheek before leaning back to face Kaveh.

“No pressure if you have work to do instead. I’m sure she’d be excited to see you — we already told her that you’re staying with us for a little while, and she was overjoyed to hear it. But I’m sure she can wait until you're both home to catch up with you.”

“She apparently took a course on wine tasting while she was in Mondstadt,” adds Cyno. “I think she brought a bottle or two back for us to try.”

Kaveh hems and haws. “That does sound nice…um, could I join you all for dinner later? I have…something to take care of first, and I wouldn’t want to impose on your time as a family.”

Tighnari rolls his eyes. “I’ve told you a hundred times before, it’s not imposing; you are family. Remember that time Collei put you down as an emergency contact when Cyno was away on business?”

“Well, that was only because —”

“— because service in the reserve is awful, and Cyno had to have his phone on silent during investigations, I know.” Tighnari waves a hand.

“The important thing is, she thinks of you as family too. She’ll have a lot of stories to share with you after a semester away on exchange. If you only have time to join for dinner because you’re busy, that’s fine, but we’d all still love it if you spent the day with us.”

Kaveh’s phone feels like it’s burning a hole in his hand. He glances down at it, then up at Cyno’s hand where he’s dangling his car keys.

“Actually…if you’re driving to the airport, would you mind dropping me off on the way?”

Tighnari raises an eyebrow. His gaze flicks down to Kaveh’s phone in its battered case, up to the dark circles beneath the architect’s eyes, and finally to his husband’s furrowed brow. The two perform one of their complicated “we’ve-known-each-other-for-so-long-we-can-have-whole-conversations-just-by-looking-at-each-other” maneuvers, and then Tighnari nods. Something dangerously close to mirth sparkles in his eyes.

“Let me guess. Are you feeling a little thirsty?”

Kaveh stands and starts picking up his things, tucking away his wallet and keys and slinging them into his jacket pockets. “I don’t need to dignify that with a response.”

In the backseat, he pulls out his phone again and saves the unknown number to his contacts. Then he writes back:

[9:23 AM] Me: ill be there around 10
[9:24 AM] Me: thank you
[9:24 AM] Al-Haitham: See you then.

As soon as Cyno drops him off, Kaveh goes back and forth over whether to stop by a coffee shop and pick up a pair of drinks. Eventually he realizes he’s spent so long considering that it’s already 10:03, and if he gets in line for drinks during the morning rush, it’ll be at least another fifteen minutes before he’ll be able to make it back to the shop.

Steeling himself, he walks towards the shop empty-handed except for Mehrak. The last time Kaveh was here was a few weeks ago, right after their fight. It relieves something in him to see Universality looking the same as ever in the daylight, like his conflict with Al-Haitham hasn’t managed to corrupt its normal appearance.

Without the jarring orange light of the street lamps, the storefront glows green and gold from the stained glass windows. The sunlight passing through makes the whole shop look lit up from the inside like a lantern. Inside, Kaveh can barely make out the silhouette of a tall figure behind the desk.

He almost chickens out then and there. It’s stupid: this is Al-Haitham’s business, so of course the man is sitting there. That’s why he invited Kaveh to come in the first place, and it’s why Kaveh agreed to come.

Just…he’s not sure if he’s ready to see the alchemist again. Except that — shit, damn, son of a fuck, he totally forgot. Anyone seated behind the counter of Universality has a clear view of foot traffic all the way down Treasures Street.

Kaveh checks his watch. 10:05 am. Technically on time, as he only said “around 10”, but Al-Haitham will definitely be expecting him. If he’s close enough to recognize the storekeeper’s figure through the window, he’s also definitely close enough to be seen turning tail and sprinting back towards the street to beg Cyno and Tighnari to come back for him. It’s too late to turn around now.

Just like before, the door doesn’t make a sound when he pushes it open. Business is booming today: Kaveh counts one, two, three, four, five different clusters of customers around the room, some solo shoppers, others grouped into bands of friends or partners talking in low tones around the perimeter of the store.

Of course, behind the counter, Al-Haitham is waiting for him. His head jerks up as soon as the door opens, like he’d been waiting for it, and his eyes go wide when they land on Kaveh. Contrary to his expectations, the alchemist seems surprised to see him — he wasn’t sure if Kaveh was really going to come, he realizes with a lurch in his stomach.

Kaveh takes the opportunity to weave his way across the floor and towards the counter. The smell of coffee grows stronger as he approaches, until he finally catches sight of the source: two Kshahrewar alumni mugs, filled to the brim with coffee. They’re so hot that steam still shimmers above the surface.

“Hi,” he says, and then stops.

“Hello,” says Al-Haitham.

He nudges over one of the mugs.

Kaveh doesn’t know what to say next, so he leans over to take a deep inhale. Just like before, the scent is deep and complex, but softened at the edges with cream and sugar. When he looks up again Al-Haitham is watching him.

“Thank you.”

The alchemist inclines his head and reaches for his own mug. They both sip in silence — Kaveh because he’s savoring the coffee and he doesn’t know what to say; Al-Haitham simply seems content to drink — until a customer comes up to the counter with a purchase.

As soon as the customer walks off, Al-Haitham disappears under the counter, and Kaveh briefly considers making a run for the door just to escape the situation. He agreed to come almost on a whim, and now that he’s here and having to look the other man in the eye again, he’s starting to regret it. What the hell is he supposed to say? He owes the potion seller an apology, certainly, but that’s — he’s — The words crumple up and die before he can even consider how to string them together.

He thinks too long and misses his window. Al-Haitham stands back up a moment later holding a concoction in a familiar shade of light blue, which he offers across the counter to Kaveh.

“Here. The sleeping draft. It’s a slightly different formulation than before just in case you started to build a tolerance for any of the ingredients, but the dosage should be the same. The instructions are on the label again if you need a reminder.”

Kaveh’s fingers brush over Al-Haitham’s when he takes the potion. Polygons of light flicker across the countertop, reflecting off the crystal bottle; Al-Haitham picked out another exceptionally beautiful vessel.

He shoves his hand into his pocket for his wallet to pay, but the alchemist is already waving him off.

“No need. Consider it a favor for a friend. I was getting rid of some ingredients that were about to expire anyways.”

“Oh.”

Sourness curls at the edges of his mouth. He’s struck by the memory of Al-Haitham, shaking with frustration in the dim light of the storeroom, getting closer and closer until Kaveh thought he could almost feel the other man’s breath. Let me do this for you.

This is the first time they’ve seen each other since the alchemist admitted he had feelings for him, Kaveh realizes. The caffeine in the coffee feels like it kicks in instantly at the thought.

He downs the rest of his drink in one go — might as well seal the deal if he’s already going to feel anxious — so he doesn’t say something stupid. Al-Haitham watches him warily, like he’s concerned Kaveh is going to leap across the counter and shove a handful of mora into the cash register like an auntie determined to pay the bill no matter what. When Kaveh puts the mug down without making a move to hop the table, his shoulders relax minutely.

“I still feel like I owe you,” he mumbles, and leans forward on his elbows until he can’t see Al-Haitham’s face anymore. He hears the scrape of the chair on the ground and puts up a hand.

“An apology. Not. Money.”

“Ah.”

Kaveh feels hyper-aware of the scene around them: the squeak and tap of customers’ shoes on the ground, cars and bikes and conversations on the road outside the store, the familiar laconic scent of the sleeping draft still clutched in his hand.

“Could we have this conversation somewhere else? I don’t want to disturb your customers.”

Al-Haitham checks the time and then the state of the room. “I’ll be free in less than two hours for my lunch break. If you don’t mind waiting until then, we can talk wherever you want.”

A client drifts towards the counter with two bottles in hand and a question already halfway formed. Kaveh excuses himself, ready to make himself scarce somewhere else on Treasures Street until noon.

But before he can step back, Al-Haitham has already cleared their mugs aside to reveal the architect’s usual spot by his side. The second chair is still there, he realizes with an ache. Al-Haitham never moved it.

“You can work on grading here,” Al-Haitham says, already flipping through the pages of his ledger with one hand. “It’s the end of the semester, right? With two courses this semester, you must be busy.”

Damn it. He is busy. And he’s never been good at getting work done where he sleeps, and Tighnari and Cyno’s house is lush and green and wonderful but Kaveh’s felt too awkward to spread out beyond the guest room and its chest of drawers he’s been using as a makeshift desk.

In two hours at Universality, he could totally knock out…well, maybe reviewing half of the class’s final projects is ambitious, but he can at least look over the ones his TAs flagged as concerning. He’s being seduced. Seduced and ensnared with productivity.

“Slap me if I spend more than ten minutes on any one of these,” he tells Al-Haitham grimly, sliding behind the counter and reaching for his laptop inside Mehrak. “Tell me it’s an introductory course and I don’t need to be providing them professional-level critique. No matter how far off base their approach is or how clearly they reached for AkashaGPT for the concept.”

“I’m not going to slap you, but judging by how long you’ve been making that face, it’s been more than ten minutes,” Al-Haitham informs him an indeterminate amount of time later.

Kaveh almost doesn’t hear him over how loudly he’s squinting at his laptop monitor. The inner workings of the undergraduate mind have only grown more inscrutable since he graduated from being one.

“It’s an introductory course and you don’t need to be providing them professional-level critique,” Al-Haitham implores.

Kaveh scowls and scrolls to the next paragraph, which is equally as unintelligible as the last. Didn’t he cover all this in the lecture? “Says who? An introductory course means that it’s only more important for them to receive detailed formative feedback.”

“Says you, as of two hours ago,” retorts the alchemist. “Also, it’s time for lunch.”

Kaveh sits up at that. Surely it can’t have been that long already?

In fact, the shop is nearly empty now, and the light streaming in through the windows has shifted to a warm gold. As if on cue, Kaveh’s stomach grumbles.

“Shit, sorry. I guess I got carried away. Um, I can get out of your hair quickly so I don’t take up your whole lunch break.”

It’s a little distressing, actually, just how easy it was to fall back into old habits. At this point, he’s spent so much time working by Al-Haitham’s side behind the counter that the time hardly seemed to pass at all. Fuck, he really doesn’t want to give this up.

He shuts his laptop and glances towards the main floor, where a customer or two is still milling around, and then to the closed door to the storeroom. “Can we move to the back, then?”

Al-Haitham flips up a sign on the counter that says Working hours resume at 1pm.

“After you.”

It’s Kaveh who turns the handle on the door and Kaveh who flicks on the lamp at the little cafe table exactly where they fought the last time they were both seated here. For all intents and purposes, he should be in charge of the situation as he pulls out a chair across from the potion seller, but every movement feels like it’s draining the very last of his self-control.

“So,” he begins. Al-Haitham seats himself and looks on expectantly.

“So?”

“I’m…”

He trails off. The table is so small that their knees almost touch, which means the other man can absolutely feel how much his leg is jiggling up and down with nervous energy.

“You’re…?”

There’s definitely a hint of humor in his voice this time. Kaveh tries to recall what he thought about in the car on the drive here. It was important, surely; that’s why he came here in the first place, despite his anxiety. It must have been important and serious.

Then why does he feel the overwhelming urge to laugh?

He only lasts a moment or two of eye contact with the alchemist before he cracks. The laugh that springs free from his chest is surprisingly genuine — he expected it to sound hysterical, a sound that would make it clear to everyone in a mile radius that Kshahrewar’s finest was finally one match short of a light.

Instead, to his shock, all he feels is overwhelming relief as Al-Haitham starts to laugh too, full-bodied and surprisingly loud, his shoulders and chest rolling into motion.

“I,” he gasps out in between giggles. “I had something to say! I mean it!”

Al-Haitham snorts, but it’s too happy to sound mean. “You always have something to say.”

“Hey! I’m being serious!”

“As am I.”

“You start then, if you’re so confident in what you want to say!”

“Who says I have something to say? You’re the one who insisted on talking.”

But Al-Haitham gets quiet after that. The pressure in the room no longer feels oppressive, but Kaveh has no idea of what to expect next.

“Some of what you said that night was true; you’re right that I’m not your keeper, Kaveh. But I stand by everything that I said. If you’ve come to me looking for an apology, you’re not going to get one.”

“Great, because I was going to say the same thing.”

Kaveh folds his arms.

“I guess we’re both a pair of unapologetic assholes then. Maybe we deserve each other.”

It’s the first time he’s ever alluded to the two of them, well, together in any meaningful way. He’s tempted to qualify the comment as soon as it falls out, but swallows back the impulse.

“I, um. I probably do owe you at least somewhat of an apology for lashing out like that, though. Sure, I was under stress, but…it wasn’t fair to you for me to take it out on you. You were…trying to look out for me. Even if it didn’t feel that way. And trying to talk to you about it is like…”

“Like…?”

He exhales. “I feel like I’m throwing myself off a cliff. And I have no idea if I have a parachute that’s going to activate, or if I’m just going to die when I hit the ground.”

“What a high-stakes metaphor,” the alchemist comments, but his face softens. “It’s no wonder you’re so nervous about such a simple act if that’s how you visualize it.”

Kaveh throws his hands in the air. “See, and that’s exactly what I’m talking about! I just — you drive me crazy, you know that? From the first time I met you, I can’t get in a damn sentence without you saying something to set me off. But for some reason, I just —”

He squeezes his eyes shut, like by some childlike logic it’ll make him unable to be seen.

“I missed it when you weren’t pissing me off once a week. After we fought, I didn’t want to think that I’d never see you again.”

When he opens his eyes, Al-Haitham’s eyes are fixed on his face. They glint in the low light like a cat’s.

“Neither did I. I’m glad you came back.”

Kaveh swallows. “Me too.”

Feeling suddenly brave, he reaches over the table and takes Al-Haitham’s palm in his. It’s warm — the alchemist tends to run hot, he’s noticed — and gratifyingly sweaty to the touch. Cute.

“So what now?”

Al-Haitham looks at the clock. “Now? We eat lunch.”

“We?”

“Yes. I have extra leftovers. I usually cook at the beginning of the week, but yesterday I got a headache and ordered takeout. There should be enough for you to share, if you like.”

“And after that?”

“Well, I’ll have to reopen the counter after lunch, but you’re welcome to stay. As long as you like.”

The alchemist’s voice drops in pitch with all the subtlety of a Haravatat in a china shop. It seems he still hasn’t gotten over Kaveh’s refusal to stay with him. Talk about stubborn! They haven’t even gone on a real date yet. Kaveh may be an appreciator of the finer things in life, but he tries not to put out this early unless there’s a really special occasion.

“Even if I pay you rent?” Kaveh challenges, and Al-Haitham’s hand tenses in his. “What’s that for? You didn’t really think I was going to just roll over and go along with exactly whatever you propose, did you?”

Grudgingly, Al-Haitham says, “No, you’re much too high-maintenance for that,” and his consternated face is so funny that Kaveh has to lean over and press a kiss to his cheek.

“By the way, this isn’t over, no matter how much I want it to be,” Kaveh informs him, after the alchemist has returned from orbiting Earth or wherever he went after Kaveh’s lips contacted the skin of his face.

“I promised Nilou I’d be honest about my feelings if I did give this a try, and…I’m still pissed at you, so don’t think you’re off the hook just yet. I just decided that I’d rather feel angry with you where I can see you at the same time. That way I don’t have to imagine what your face looks like when I tell you to shut up.”

Al-Haitham looks too residually dazed to attempt a cutting remark. “That seems like it’d only make you angrier.”

“Yes, it’s a self-sustaining system. Very efficient.”

Kaveh’s stomach takes the opportunity to remind them of the lunch hour. He releases Al-Haitham’s hand as he gets up just to rejoin their fingers as they move away from the table.

“Well? Aren’t you going to show me around?”

“Around the backrooms? You’ve already spent plenty of time here before, haven’t you?”

“I meant your apartment, asshole. Unless you’re retracting your offer now that it’s within the realm of possibility for me to accept it?”

The potion seller squeezes his hand, and together, they move to a door Kaveh’s noticed but never opened before. He’d always assumed it just led to another storage space, but Al-Haitham pulls out a green and gold jeweled key and slides it into the lock with a soft click to reveal a carpeted entryway leading upstairs.

“Not at all. I hope it’s to your exacting expectations.”

Epilogue

[1:45 PM] Tighnari: Earth to Kaveh
[1:45 PM] Tighnari: Do you need a ride back or should we not bother
[1:46 PM] Tighnari: Collei says hi btw
[1:52 PM] Me: oh srry i got really busy maybe tonight around 5?
[1:52 PM] Tighnari: I bet
[1:52 PM] Me: HEY
[1:52 PM] Me: BUSY WITH WORK
[1:52 PM] Me: FUCK YOU
[1:52 PM] Tighnari: It sounds like you don’t need my help with that actually
[1:53 PM] Me: tell collei i miss her and im sorry i cant see her while she’s in town since im moving to universality asap
[1:53 PM] Tighnari: Not helping your case there Kaveh
[1:53 PM] Tighnari: See you at 5. We’ll do family dinner downtown while we’re there
[1:53 PM] You reacted to Tighnari’s message with 👎.

[9:06 AM] Al-Haitham sent 2026-27 Rental Agreement.pdf
[9:06 AM] Al-Haitham: Per our last conversation. Take a look at your earliest convenience and let me know if there is anything you’d like changed.
[9:17 AM] Me: why are you texting me a lease instead of emailing like a normal person
[9:18 AM] Al-Haitham: I don’t have your personal email.
[9:18 AM] Al-Haitham: Your Akademiya email is posted on the Kshahrewar faculty page and your freelance email is on your studio website, but I thought you wouldn’t want this sent to either of them.
[9:19 AM] Me: oh
[9:20 AM] Me: thats surprisingly thoughtful
[9:20 AM] Me: thank you
[9:20 AM] Al-Haitham: You’re welcome.
[11:36 AM] Me: the contract looks good i think
[11:36 AM] Me: im not a legal expert but i doubt you would try and scam me in the lease
[11:36 AM] Me: it probably wouldn’t balance out all the free stuff you give me on the regular anyway
[11:37 AM] Al-Haitham: You’re the one who insisted on rental charges in the first place.
[11:37 AM] Me: yes because i don’t want to feel like i owe you all the time
[11:37 AM] Al-Haitham reacted to your message with ❓.
[11:37 AM] Me: ok you know what i mean
[11:38 AM] Al-Haitham: I don’t. Do you have a move-in date in mind?
[11:41 AM] Me: how about next tuesday? i’ll text you about timing when the date gets closer
[11:41 AM] Al-Haitham: See you then.

[10:08 PM] Me: hey
[10:08 PM] Me: i realized i never thanked you for that conversation we had in the car when you picked me up downtown last month
[10:09 PM] Me: i know tighnari ordered me not to grovel at either of you any more but it meant a lot
[5:37 AM] Cyno 🃏: Of course.
[5:37 AM] Cyno 🃏: Tell Al-Haitham that Collei enjoyed the book he recommended. She said she much preferred it over what her teacher suggested for the class.
[5:38 AM] Cyno 🃏: And bring him over for TCG night next time you come. I never convinced him to play while we were working together but I always suspected he would be a good opponent.
[8:49 AM] Me: wait you were coworkers with al-haitham????
[8:49 AM] Automatic reply from Cyno 🃏: I’m in a hearing right now with my text notifications off. I’ll get back to you when it’s no longer a hearing, but a heard. Get it?
[8:50 AM] Me: HELLO??
[8:50 AM] Automatic reply from Cyno 🃏: Thank you for contacting me while court is in session. I’ll text you back later, but you should know that my humor is never in recess.
[8:50 AM] Me: how many of these do you have set up
[8:50 AM] Me: fuck don’t answer that
[8:51 AM] Automatic reply from Cyno 🃏: Sorry, I’m working a case right now and can’t come to the phone. Don’t worry: despite my work, our texts are a judgment-free zone.