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It’s research. Analysis. That’s what he tells himself, at first.
It’s a look into the linguistic practices of ancient peoples and the ways in which they challenged then-prevalent grammatical norms — literally his area of expertise, that’s all.
He’s not actually into poetry, at least not in an emotional way. Not as far as he’s aware.
It’s in the pursuit of knowledge, thank you very much, that Al-Haitham originally picks up a book of ancient poetry, intent on learning something of his predecessors, and perhaps it is a sort of knowledge that he gains: hidden in the page breaks between the stanzas in his hands, he finds himself — stripped bare and read for filth as he’s rarely, if ever, been before.
It’s not in the subject of the prose that Al-Haitham sees himself, but in the text. The points of view. The experience of encountering something bigger and more beautiful than he is, and not quite knowing what to do about it aside from trying to put the feeling into words.
It’s relatable.
Human.
On second thought, maybe he is kind of into poetry.
It’s not often that Al-Haitham is moved by language in a way that is unrelated to the history of the language itself; no, this — the beating of his heart in time with the poets’ rhythm — is new. It isn’t entirely shocking, though. If poetry were to be the thing to light the fire in his soul, then it follows that the spark would be novel at its birth.
He’s not surprised. The awed parting of his lips is not from disbelief at the fact that poetry can be good, but from the sheer force with which a well-crafted Kāmil hits him in the chest, unrelenting and unapologetic in its humanity.
Kaveh, he writes in the margin of the transcription, neatly and with perfect kerning, right next to a phrase that he has read six redundant times.
How fitting — right? — that something capable of bringing Al-Haitham to emotional absolution would remind him so clearly of the only thing, the only person, that ever has before.
Kaveh is written in small characters and in perfect line with the text in four places on this page alone. The name also litters tens of no-longer-empty spaces in the pages that precede it, although maybe litters isn’t the right word. Occupies, perhaps. Populates. Something with a warmer implication.
It isn’t with disdain that Al-Haitham scratches these familiar syllables onto parchment, after all, but with reverence. How has this person, who lived thousands of years ago, perfectly encapsulated the stretch of Kaveh’s lips across his teeth? The sparkle of determination in his eye? How might they — nameless and forgotten in the years that entombed their words in stone — have known him, and known of the way Al-Haitham sees him, too?
No, he thinks. Not that last bit. Not really. These authors may have captured beauty in their words, but they have not captured Kaveh — at least, not the way he is in Al-Haitham’s eyes.
They have captured Kaveh’s essence, but only pieces of it: his love, his light, his luminance, but not his faults. Not his wounds. Not his pain. They have written of people they knew in the ways that Al-Haitham knows Kaveh, and in the ways he wishes he could, but that’s the extent of the truth, here. The words on the page boast of beauty, and Al-Haitham thinks of Kaveh, not the other way around.
Kaveh, believe it or not, insists that Al-Haitham doesn’t know beauty when he sees it. Wouldn’t know beauty if it slapped him across the face. Maybe he’s right; a building is a building, so long as it stands. There is beauty in vernacular, though — art in allegory, creativity in tongue — and that, Al-Haitham knows well.
Beauty takes many forms, Al-Haitham will retort, but Kaveh never listens. That’s just the way it goes.
Similarly, Kaveh claims not to care for language the way Al-Haitham does. He is a visual learner, a practical thinker, and a tactile individual overall. He thinks, works, and emotes with his hands, so it isn’t surprising that words are not his forte.
For all the breath that Kaveh seems to spend dismissing phrase as superfluous, though, Al-Haitham sees language in Kaveh the way that Kaveh sees opportunity in stone.
Kaveh, at his core, is expression and depth. He is imagery. Description. Evocation. Literature. There is a script-life delicacy in the way he moves and elegance in the way he exists — prose in the crease between his eyebrows, assonance in the laugh lines around his lips.
Kaveh is verse and measure come to life. A ballad of a human being, really. He is beauty in the way that Al-Haitham is human: inexplicably yet inarguably so.
Therefore, Al-Haitham comes to realize that Kaveh does not live in these descriptions of blackened eyes and reddened lips, soft skin and quiet steps. Kaveh’s hands are calloused, and his footfalls slap against tile and pavement with conviction. Instead, the phrases that Al-Haitham circles and annotates with his roommate’s name evoke his image in a much less literal sense: the start of a new line mid-sentence to give pause on a word that needs a bit of space, the use of a noun in place of a verb to express the poetic act of being. It’s blasphemy, the way these authors mangle rules of grammar and sentence structure, but it’s blasphemy in the name of worship. Rules broken in the name of respect.
Likewise, Kaveh ventures to challenge the structure of humanity. Of life itself. He lives so powerfully that he crumbles, and yet he continues to stand. Walk. Run. This, too, is blasphemy — blasphemy in the name of love, though for what, Al-Haitham isn’t sure. In the eyes of the gods, Kaveh dares to shine, and he does so without grace or divinity. It must be tiring to burn so bright with mortal flesh, but Kaveh does it, and he does it at the cost of his own happiness, which is… well.
If life is sacred, then, to Al-Haitham, Kaveh is magnificent sacrilege, facing logic down with fervor and coming out the other side with nothing but defiant pride.
That is not to say that Kaveh’s existence isn’t frustrating. It is. It is frustrating much like how sentences beginning with conjunctions are frustrating, much like how phrases that end with prepositions make Al-Haitham want to rip out his hair. It is frustrating in the way that it should be illegal, but, somehow, Kaveh makes it work, and that’s the most frustrating thing of all: if Kaveh were a sentence beginning with ‘and,’ Al-Haitham would allow it.
(This is assuming that said sentence would add something of value, but, to be fair, this is Kaveh in question. Even when his words are gratuitous, Al-Haitham lets him speak.
He counters, of course, but only after Kaveh has said his piece.)
Al-Haitham can’t exactly explain this to Kaveh, though — the fact that he does know beauty, in the curve of Kaveh’s shoulders and the sharp edges of his tongue — so he stays quiet, and allows Kaveh to believe that he is blind.
The words on the page before him seem to juxtapose themselves: they shout from the depths of ancient lungs, rife with passion, and yet they settle contentedly in Al-Haitham’s mind like they belong there. They lounge in dry ink across the fibers of the parchment like rishboland tigers in the afternoon sun, but with intent, daring him to meet their gaze as if they might flash their teeth in the light should he stare for a beat too long.
Kaveh, he writes again, nestled between the edge of the page and a metaphor that he doesn’t fully understand.
It’s not that Kaveh is poetic. Poetic in his bad luck, maybe — in the irony that follows him like a dog nipping at his heels — but not in form.
No, calling Kaveh poetic would be like calling water wet. Water is not saturated with water, it is water, as Kaveh is poetry itself.
It would be profound if it wasn’t obvious.
It might be a confession if it wasn’t fact.
Al-Haitham is aware that his thoughts are damning. It doesn’t bother him. He has known for years that which this comparison attempts to expose. In fact, it’s rather satisfying to find a way to intellectualize this — it’s relieving, almost, to have a means to describe the way he’s felt about Kaveh all this time. Instead of a vague, shapeless tension in his chest, his love is tangible. Corporeal. It takes on a familiar form and presents itself to him, finally, in a way that makes sense:
Kaveh is a form of language, in and of himself. He speaks with his eyes, his arms, and the tight clenching of his fists at his sides, but this is language in its own right. It always has been. He is expressive and verbose, he is consistent, and he is beautiful — for this, but not for this alone.
Al-Haitham blinks slowly at the author’s name, scratched in slanted letters at the bottom of the poem, and turns the page.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
The title of the next piece catches him off-guard.
From what he knows of art — of expression — the goal is not usually attention or praise, but to rid oneself of an itch, buried deep inside the mind. That’s what Kaveh tells him, anyway: it is not a want, but a need. A balm applied to raw skin to keep from scratching it into oblivion.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
A pendulum swings behind wide eyes,
its teeth bared and tightly clenched in agony.
Weird, but okay.
Look at me, I think.
Fall prey to the rhythmic motion of my soul.
Read my words and be taken with them,
taken with me.
Each letter I carve is a prayer, each line an invocation
that one might see me. Love me.
For what purpose is there to art
but to be known?
Al-Haitham snorts, loudly enough to wake the stray cat sleeping in the window behind him, and ignores the tingling sensation at the corner of his lips.
A voice in his head scoffs in tandem, arms draped in white crossing petulantly behind the backs of Al-Haitham’s eyes. Bullshit, the voice says. Art for the sake of attention? Who would waste their time?
I would that someone read this and remember
that it was written, that it was made.
Words do not themselves create, but are created
with a beggar’s hand.
The voice guffaws.
I am selfish, this is true,
but aren’t we all?
Is art not just a means to be heard?
To be loved?
It is a selfish thing to create, after all,
to put yourself forth and say:
Look at me. Look at me. Look a–
Al-Haitham doesn’t finish the poem.
“Art as an act of selfishness,” he mutters, tapping his finger against the book’s spine. That’s… interesting.
It’s insane.
Al-Haitham has to bite his lip to keep from smiling.
What, so you expect me to believe that all art is inherently selfish? the voice asks, and then it scoffs again. What am I, then?
“A pain in the ass,” Al-Haitham mutters.
Says you.
Al-Haitham tamps the voice down, quieting it like he would its owner — guiding it back into the depths of his mind with a gentle hand and a firm gaze — but its point lingers.
If art were inherently selfish, then what would that make Kaveh?
Arrogant? Self-absorbed? It’s laughable, trying to apply descriptors like that to someone so infuriatingly altruistic. If the concept of self sacrifice could be personified and brought to form, it would have blond hair, crimson eyes, and a strong penchant for radial symmetry. Maybe even a dimple in its cheek.
Perhaps humanity has changed in the three thousand-odd years since this poem was written, but Al-Haitham doubts that that’s the case. Evidence suggests otherwise, at least. In fact, technological and economic advancements made in the last few centuries have probably made artists (and humans in general) more selfish, on average, than they’ve been in the past, yet there is a blueprint on the desk in the corner and a tub of clay in the courtyard out back, and the person who left them there is the most selfless person that Al-Haitham has ever met.
Probably the most selfless person that has ever existed, actually, because if one had ever lived and surpassed him, surely Kaveh would have learned from their mistakes.
Therefore, Al-Haitham comes to a natural conclusion: the author is stupid. That, or extremely misinformed. There’s nothing wrong with wanting good things for oneself, but to imply that art is just a means to an end is… well, frankly, it’s akin to implying that the entire point of life is to die at the end of it.
It’s also personally insulting to Al-Haitham that the medium chosen to preach this bullshit was poetry, of all things. He knows that he referred to poetry itself as blasphemy in the first place, but this…
There’s something about the disrespect for art and language here that rubs Al-Haitham the wrong way. It isn’t even good. If this sorry excuse for writing is how the author chose to go about finding validation, they were clearly barking up the wrong tree.
Al-Haitham skims the rest of it, his eyes catching on words like fame and idolization, and he frowns.
How miserable must this person have been to write for the sake of being recognized? To create for the sake of being liked? Where’s the passion? The love? The je ne sais quoi?
Kaveh would have a field day with this, he thinks.
Actually, that’s a good point. Kaveh would find this appalling, but he’d be masochistically intrigued by it, too.
Kaveh, for all intents and purposes, is not really a masochist, he’s just benevolent to a fault. He is characteristically taken by things that make him angry, and often unable to look away from things that make him upset. He wants to fix, to help, to sympathize, and he’ll do it to his own detriment, even if it drives him absolutely insane.
He gets riled up when he’s like that, too, which is always fun to watch.
Al-Haitham knows that, if Kaveh was aware of this ‘poem’ (heavy on the air quotes), he’d demand to see it, too curious by nature to let something like this go. He’s just like that — equally as analytical as Al-Haitham, despite their differences.
It’s out of respect, then — out of the kindness of his heart — that Al-Haitham scratches a single word (Thoughts?) into the space above the title and leaves the book open on the coffee table where anyone could find it.
He swears.
___________________________________________________________
The house is dark when Al-Haitham returns the following evening, so Kaveh must be out. Disappointing, but not unusual.
Al-Haitham drops his keys into the dish by the door and removes his headphones, letting them rest around his neck as he makes his way through the living room and into the kitchen. He pours a glass of water, eager to settle into the divan and get into a paper on Remurian punctuation (or lack thereof) upon which he’d stumbled earlier, but — as he does so — his eyes are drawn to a book resting on the counter to his left.
His heart jumps inside his chest. He forgot about this.
He can see his own, uniform writing in the top corner of the open page, but it’s violently overshadowed by the essay written below it in that fancy red ink that Kaveh likes. Honestly, there’s more red on the page than there is the black of the poem itself, and — from here, at least — it looks like Kaveh wrote small.
That fucker.
Al-Haitham sets the pitcher down and picks the glass up with the same hand, reaching over to take the book in the other.
He makes his way through the low light of the living room mostly by memory. It’s not particularly late, but it’s winter, so the sun goes down earlier than he’d like it to, and the stained glass windows filter out what little light there still is outside. It doesn’t matter, though. This is familiar terrain.
When Kaveh had first moved in, he’d been too hesitant to make any major changes to the house. It had seemed temporary, then — at least to him — so he’d sat back and made peace with things, albeit with a dirty look thrown at some of Al-Haitham’s furniture choices whenever he passed them.
Then, things started to settle. A routine developed, and Kaveh grew restless. Al-Haitham had thought that maybe redecorating would lift his spirits some, so he made the suggestion, assuming that Kaveh would take that to mean his own space: his bedroom, and the half of the study that houses his desk and model materials.
He didn’t.
Al-Haitham broke his wrist after tripping over a new loveseat the very next day.
It was a sore subject — pun not intended — for about a week, until Kaveh had moved the loveseat into his room without a word about it and started making coffee for them both in the mornings. Al-Haitham still isn’t sure what had changed, what made Kaveh decide that the loveseat was not the hill on which he wanted to die, but neither of them ever brought it up, and the living room stayed structurally the same from that day on.
Sure, there are things on the walls that Al-Haitham didn’t put there and a throw blanket draped over the back of the divan, but he doesn’t mind those. The new covers on the cushions are nicer than the ones he had, anyway.
They’re softer.
The cat is back, lounging in the windowsill that looks out into the courtyard, and Al-Haitham scratches its head absently as he lights the lamp to his left. He’s grown fond of the cat over the last year; Kaveh routinely checks it for fleas and it never actually crosses into the house, so Al-Haitham has no issue with it — her, Kaveh insists, but Al-Haitham doesn’t believe that Kaveh has the appropriate skills to find that out for sure — hanging out here whenever it wants.
They’ve named it Azizam, on paper, but Al-Haitham once read a young adult novel from Fontaine in which the main character called the love interest by a rather unexpected term of endearment, and he finds the pun unusually funny.
“How was your day, mon chat?” he asks quietly.
The cat doesn’t respond.
“Fascinating.”
His glass of water clinks against the clay coaster he keeps on the side table, and red ink stares angrily up at him from the book resting on his knee:
‘Thoughts?’ he asks, like it’s out of innocent curiosity. Really, Al-Haitham? You want to know my thoughts?
Fine. You asked for it. Here’s a thought:
Fuck you.
Al-Haitham feels his lips pull up into a smile.
I can’t believe you managed to ruin my day from the comfort of your own bed. It’s two in the morning, for fuck’s sake. I should be sleeping! How can I, though, when you leave me something like this? I know you’re just trying to piss me off, so I should just leave it alone, but… Ugh! You’re insufferable. I mean — art, purely and invariably for the sake of notoriety? I would laugh if it wasn’t so insulting, but I’ll give the author the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they’ve been led down the wrong path. I don’t know. It doesn’t excuse the tone, though.
See, I can forgive this person for being wrong. A lot of people are wrong about a lot of things — that doesn’t mean they’re not worth your time, though I know you’ll disagree. It’s the manner in which the author states their opinion as fact, e.g. the line:
‘It is a selfish thing to create, after all.’
They say this as if it’s inarguable! I have to admit, I was seething before I got to this line already, but they had phrased their previous opinions as questions, so I let myself believe they were looking to be proven wrong. Willing, at the very least, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. They clearly believe that their opinion is a universal truth. Hah! The absolute audacity.
Art is not inherently selfish, nor is the act of creating it, though it can be. People make art for a lot of reasons, and some of them are selfish, sure. It is not the foundation for art, though, the way joy is. Joy is at the center of it all. That could be the joy one feels in the process of making art, the joy they seek in the response to it, the joy they seek to give others who might stumble upon it — even the desire to push for a happier future by making a statement, political or otherwise. It’s all about positivity. No one makes art to feel worse.
So, if fame is what would bring this person joy, fine. Unfortunate, but fine. My issue lies in their attempt to make that seem common — admirable, even. As if they’ve never met an artist who creates for the sake of something else! I’d hate to meet the crowd this person hangs around with.
Well, hung around with. I just checked the estimated date of creation. Did you translate this? I don’t know of many other specialists in this particular time period.
Anyway! The point is that this person has taken their own misfortune and selfishness and ascribed that to the entire human population, as if everyone in the world has the same motivations for everything. As if everything we do is for personal gain! It’s not like we shit for profit, and while many choose to make art into careers — myself included — that’s not what it’s about, at the end of the day. I’d still be sketching if it brought me nothing in return.
Some things, we do just to survive.
Al-Haitham’s eye twitches.
He’s… confused, to put it lightly. He’d expected a dissertation on the inherent beauty that art reveals about the human race — at minimum, an impassioned dismantling of the author’s opinion and/or worldview — but Kaveh’s response is unexpectedly mild. Yes, there was the cursing at the beginning, but it seems almost like Kaveh is more upset with Al-Haitham for exposing him to the poem than he is with the author for writing it. It almost reads as though Kaveh doesn’t fully disagree.
That’s impossible, though. Kaveh does disagree. Al-Haitham knows this to be true. The idea that art exists to bring fortune is laughably incorrect, and Kaveh knows this better than anyone, yet it’s the tone with which the author posed their philosophy with which Kaveh took issue, not the philosophy itself.
“Art is not inherently selfish,” Al-Haitham mutters, re-reading Kaveh’s words, “though it can be.”
Is he high? Was Kaveh drunk while writing this? There’s a nonzero chance that the answer is yes, but his writing is clean and his grammar is passable, so it’s unlikely. It just doesn’t make sense.
How many times has Kaveh come home with empty pockets, insisting that appreciation — monetary or otherwise — is not what makes him an artist? How much of his soul has he put into his work at the cost of his own health? He’d called the poem insulting, and then had just… let it go.
This is ridiculous. Al-Haitham reaches for his quill.
No, I didn’t translate this. You would know if you had checked the publication date.
He sighs, skimming Kaveh’s annotations once again.
In addition, please reference the dictionary the next time you try to use words you don’t understand. That is not the proper use of the word ‘ascribed’.
You say that art can be selfish. I must be misunderstanding. This seems to go against every argument we’ve ever had on the subject; in fact, I can cite at least seven written statements from you that effectively prove this wrong. Are you not the same Kaveh who ranted for an hour and forty-three minutes last week about the importance of humility when it comes to creation? What is the reason for this sudden change of heart?
He exhales, chewing on the inside of his cheek for a moment before he deems that acceptable and places the book on the cushion, making sure that it’s in clear view of the door.
___________________________________________________________
It’s not a change of heart, we’re talking about objectivity versus subjectivity here.
Today, the book was on the kitchen table when Al-Haitham got home, so — naturally — he dropped everything and immediately sat down to read Kaveh’s response.
Yes, this goes against my own moral and behavioral values, but that’s kind of irrelevant, don’t you think? Just because I disagree with using art purely for selfish reasons doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Humans are inherently selfish, to some degree.
I mean, look at Lord Sangemah Bay. Do you think she was ever interested in the aesthetic value of the Palace of Alcazarzaray beyond the link between that and revenue? There are some people who allow their selfishness to transcend all other aspects of their humanity when it comes to personal motivation, and that’s just the way it is. Competitive economies, et cetera.
Anyway, while not all art is an expression of selfishness — in fact, most art isn’t — my point is that it can be, under specific circumstances. Art is not immune to impurity.
Also, I’ll ascribe your stupid face. How’s that?
Al-Haitham rolls his eyes and drops the book back onto the table. Hilarious.
Childish insults aside, his mind is racing. Kaveh — his Kaveh, the one who falls for scams more often than the average lab rat because his optimism levels are dangerously high — calling humans inherently selfish? That feels overtly incorrect.
How can Kaveh believe that humanity is selfish when he has spent his whole life in his own mind? He is the dictionary definition of a romantic, choosing to see positivity and potential in literally everything and everyone he comes across; shouldn’t he be the first to write off any doubt of innate morality, considering the fact that he holds kindness and honesty above all else?
The fantasy world in which Kaveh seems to live cannot possibly account for greed.
Although…
Al-Haitham frowns, tapping his index finger on the back of the book cover. Perhaps he’s seeking answers in the wrong place.
Thinking logically, idealism doesn’t have to come from a place of complete delusion, though it often does. It can coexist with life, in theory, if it stems from desire instead of denial.
The world looks different from different points of view.
Again, Al-Haitham’s mind drifts to water — Teyvat is covered in the stuff, and, technically, it’s all the same. Two hydrogen molecules attach to one oxygen and call it a day. That’s reality.
From there, one can consider the existence of salt water as a diversion from the norm. Another compound is added to the fray, and the function of the matter changes drastically, at least from a human perspective. It becomes unusable in a lot of ways: non-potable, ineffective for medical and hygienic purposes, and fruitless when it comes to watering crops, but it’s still water, despite it all.
It’s still reality.
Al-Haitham thinks that his reality must be glacial; runoff from the source, untainted and clear to the extreme, but objectively rare. Water at its most basic, but not its only form.
Is it possible for hope to exist, then — benign — like molecules of salt in Kaveh’s sea?
He tongues at the back of his teeth and starts to write before he can think better of it.
Clarify something for me, if you will.
Let’s assume that people are as contradictory as you make them out to be. You claim that selfishness is an inherent part of being human, and yet you insist that people are good by nature, too. Before you refute this, I urge you to remember our conversation at the market last week in which you claimed that the vendor who tried to scam us out of half our budget was, and I quote, ‘probably just trying to make ends meet.’
You see the best in people, even when it clearly isn’t there, and yet you are of the opinion that selfishness is innate to humanity?
How do those two ideas coexist?
Al-Haitham can speculate all he wants, but, at the end of the day, he would like a concrete answer. He feels like he’s losing his mind.
On the topic, I’d actually like to present you as counter-evidence to your point: you are destructively selfless. I have said this before, and I will say it again — your habitual need to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of others is indicative of a complete lack of self-interest, and it is pervasive in your life to the point that I have never seen you prioritize your own needs without intervention from a third party.
Are you not human, then? Should I be contacting Amurta specialists to identify a breakout species?
He huffs softly. Honestly, that’s probably not far off.
Though it’s intended as a joke in this case, Al-Haitham often wonders if the exemplary standout of a particular group can still be considered a member of that group. Are all the pastries in a bakery of the same quality as that of the ones in the window? If there is one paper in a stack of A’s that is far and above the rest in caliber, shouldn’t it be given a grade of its own?
Kaveh is a person, yes, but sometimes, Al-Haitham thinks he deserves his own category of personhood. One that doesn’t restrict him to standards he easily exceeds.
For a moment, Al-Haitham considers writing something else — outlining his thought process, to some extent, concerning optimism and its place in life — but decides against it in the end. He’ll let Kaveh speak for himself.
It’s truth that he seeks, anyway, not validation. It’s the pursuit of understanding that fuels him. This is but one more piece of Kaveh that Al-Haitham has stumbled across, and, like a new word discovered in a lost language, its meaning will come largely from context, not just from definition.
It’s all part of the process; when it comes to Kaveh, Al-Haitham will settle for nothing but fluency, and the best way to learn is from the expert himself.
So he waits.
___________________________________________________________
He waits for twenty hours, to be exact.
Al-Haitham almost expects Kaveh to be home tonight, considering the fact that he has an early meeting in the morning. He normally doesn’t take new clients over breakfast, but he mentioned that this was a special case — something about being at the build site when the light comes through the trees in a specific way, something else about where the windows should go. Kaveh’s eyeliner was smudged when he was explaining it, so Al-Haitham was only half-paying attention.
Regardless, Kaveh isn’t here.
He’d know if he was; there would be a half-eaten block of cheese on the counter and a dirty knife in the sink. There would be clattering coming from Kaveh’s room and a warm glow coming from under the door, maybe a note pinned to the canvas by the entryway that says they’re almost out of sugar (they are).
Instead, Al-Haitham finds the poetry book shoved partially under the dish where they keep their keys.
He stares at it for a moment, his eyes caught on the little red arrow in the bottom corner of the page. It seems that Kaveh had deemed the space left insufficient and moved onto the following one, which Al-Haitham should have anticipated, if he’s honest. When it comes to intellectual debates — ah, discussions — neither of them are particularly concise.
It comes from an innate urge to entertain — not to entertain in the sense that they’re playing things up for enjoyment, but to entertain in the sense that they both allow for habits and arguments they wouldn’t tolerate from anyone else.
Entertain meaning to consider, not to amuse.
Well, maybe it is for amusement, actually, when Al-Haitham considers the joy he finds in bickering, but it doesn’t matter. The point is that this exchange was never going to fit on one page.
Al-Haitham drops his key into the dish and grabs the book with his now-free hand, heading towards his usual spot. It’s later than he usually gets home; he’d stopped to chat with Cyno on the way, and the time had gotten away from him a bit.
He’d gotten distracted.
Such is the burden of the bonds he’s made in the recent past, though it’s not so much a burden as a change; he’s managed to rid himself of the isolation that used to sit heavily on his shoulders, but he’s acquired social responsibilities to take its place. They’re more plentiful, but lighter. A net-positive trade.
He lights the lamp and sits down, draping his cloak over the side of the divan. The cat isn’t here today. Al-Haitham’s fingers still itch for the windowsill.
Instead, he plays with the corner of the page, pulling it away from the one below with his middle finger and then letting it fall back into place. He re-reads what he’d written yesterday and fights a smile at the last line, picturing the look that must have crossed Kaveh’s face when he’d read it earlier today: eyes slanted in frustration, his brows furrowed, possibly a dusting of pink across his cheeks. Al-Haitham wonders if Kaveh mutters insults to himself when Al-Haitham isn’t around, or if it’s only when he’s there to hear them. He’d like to think it’s the former.
He flips the page, finally, and blinks down at what looks like Akademiya-grade black ink smudged across the top third of the following one, effectively redacting whatever had been written underneath it. He can’t even make out the indentation in the parchment where Kaveh’s quill had pressed particularly hard. Whatever Kaveh had written here, he had made sure Al-Haitham would never read it.
Interest piqued, Al-Haitham’s eyes flick down to what’s legible below the edge of the black.
You don’t know me as well as you seem to think you do.
Al-Haitham inhales sharply, taken aback by the tone.
I can be selfish, at times. More than that. I act selfishly every day,
putting my own desires above
making decisions that I shouldn’t make. In fact, I’d argue that I have been more selfish than average as of late, and I
No. I don’t owe you an explanation. Just know that your so-called ‘evidence’ is invalid, as selflessness and empathy are not the same thing. I can give what I can to others, even go out of my way to do so, and still be selfish at the same time — a love for the people I come across in life does not detract from the love I show myself.
People are complex, Al-Haitham, not contradictory. That’s where you’re wrong.
Myself aside, and to answer your other question, selfishness and kindness
can
coexist. People do good things when they are able, and they don’t when they are not. It’s a matter of the situations
we find ourselves in
in which we find ourselves (fuck you, I only fixed it because I know you’d point it out).
That vendor, for example, has never been unkind to us before. His prices are usually fair. Something must have happened for him to try to scam us like that — people do things they don’t want to do when forced into difficult situations.
Well, most people do. I know that going against your immediate desires isn’t part of your whole… thing.
I may see the best in people, but I see it in the context of their circumstances, which you have conveniently forgotten to take into account. Good people are capable of bad things and vice versa. Yes, I can say that humans are inherently selfish with confidence because I have seen it.
I have lived it.
I live it now.
Selfishness is not always a bad thing, either. I think that’s important to remember. Unless, of course, you’re Al-Haitham, in which case the idea of a grey area is inconceivable, and things can only exist when they are explicitly black-and-white.
Al-Haitham lets his eyes shut in an effort to calm himself, not eager to read into Kaveh’s tendency to lash out when he feels like he’s being cornered.
(He isn’t being cornered, but Al-Haitham knows his roommate well enough to recognize when his defensive side comes out.)
This is normal. This is fine.
He lets the insult pass through him like a cold breeze, shivers, and opens his eyes again.
You don’t know me as well as you seem to think you do.
Bullshit. Al-Haitham does know Kaveh, better than he’s willing to admit aloud, but he can’t write that for fear of it being read for what it is. Call him a coward, but it’s preservation, both of himself and of their… whatever they are.
I am not unfamiliar with the idea of a grey area, Kaveh. If I’m at fault for making baseless accusations, then you are just as guilty, and that’s without taking your lazy attempt at defamation into consideration.
My unwillingness to participate in my own misery is not something of which to be ashamed.
He stops, considering his next words carefully as the ink threatens to drip onto the parchment below.
I’m afraid that I still don’t understand.
You call yourself selfish, and yet you said yourself that you disagree with the broad generalizations in this poem, or at least the presence of them. How is this possible? It almost seems as though
Al-Haitham takes a breath, dipping back into the ink to give himself time to organize his thoughts.
It almost seems as though your initial distaste for the author’s view was not born from disagreement, but from– what, guilt? Do you really see yourself that way?
I will be the first to admit that selfishness is evolutionarily advantageous, but to read a declaration of belief that selfishness is inherent to our existences as human beings — particularly from you , of all people — is shocking at best.
You’re starting to sound like me.
___________________________________________________________
Don’t tell me you agree with the author, Al-Haitham.
That’s all it says.
Al-Haitham flips to the next page, and then the one after that, but there’s nothing more.
Kaveh is only this stringent with his words when he’s truly upset or afraid, and — considering the fact that there’s no reason for the latter to be true — Al-Haitham assumes that it’s the former.
This is worse than the essay.
Worse still is the fact that it’s not even grounded in anything — it’s a baseless accusation, and Kaveh must know it. Al-Haitham doesn’t agree with the author, and he’s basically said as much. This is, in essence, a prod to the ribs. A kick to the shins meant to alight the spark of argument in Al-Haitham so that he’ll match Kaveh in his anger, giving him a reason to bite as hard as he’d like. Kaveh is self-sabotaging in an attempt to justify the bitter taste in his mouth, but Al-Haitham isn’t sure why.
Normally, it’s to relieve stress or anxiety. To get his anger out in a safe space, instead of blowing up at a client or taking it out on an unsuspecting nobody.
Al-Haitham is tough, unrestrained, and familiar, so Kaveh doesn’t feel guilty about poking the metaphorical bear.
Now, though, Kaveh’s anger does indeed seem to stem from Al-Haitham himself, and Al-Haitham doesn’t quite know what to do with that. The last time Kaveh had initiated an argument based on a real difference in moral standing, it had not ended well.
Al-Haitham likes to think that they’ve both grown from that, but the erratic beating of his heart begs to differ.
I do not agree with this idiot. That much should be clear.
He huffs, feeling his jaw clench a bit harder with every stroke of his quill.
I, unlike you, do not see selfishness in you in any sense of the word. You are the epitome of misguided altruism, as I’ve already stated, so — if you exist — your thesis can’t possibly be true.
That being said, the insinuation that I might take kinship with an opinion stated this sloppily is insulting. Bad poetry is bad poetry, no matter how divisive or inspiring the subject may be.
___________________________________________________________
Al-Haitham doesn’t even bother sitting down before he opens the book to the dog-eared page, this time.
There is no such thing as bad art. If one creates as an expression of themselves, then it is valid.
He huffs.
What if it’s an expression of a jackass?
___________________________________________________________
Still art.
___________________________________________________________
I reject that.
___________________________________________________________
Al-Haitham’s bedroom door swings open, the handle hitting the wall with a loud crack.
“You can’t just reject something you disagree with,” Kaveh blurts out, his silhouette large and confident in the doorway.
Al-Haitham sets his book down on the bedside table. “If I disagree, then it isn’t true.”
Kaveh groans, stomping into the room until his features gain distinction in the lamplight. “You aren’t omniscient,” he sighs, tossing the poetry book onto the bed by Al-Haitham’s thighs.
“Am I not?”
“You’re the worst.”
Al-Haitham bites at the inside of his cheek. “I never said I was omniscient.”
“So what gives you the right to reject an outright fact?”
“I’m not all-knowing,” Al-Haitham clarifies, “but I’m uniquely knowledgeable on the subjects I have studied.”
Kaveh scoffs. “And, what, you’ve studied art in depth, then? Tell me — why have we never discussed this before? Surely our shared love of artistic expression should have come up in conversation at some point.”
Al-Haitham’s eyebrow twitches at the saccharine lack of authenticity in Kaveh’s words. “You’ve never asked.”
“You–” Kaveh starts, clenching his fists by his hips. “Ugh! Whatever. Your infuriating tendencies aren’t new to me.”
“Is there something else you want with me, then?” Al-Haitham asks. “I’ve already turned in for the night.”
Kaveh frowns, fidgeting with the fingers of his right hand. “Actually, yes,” he says, though he seems unsure. “It– well, it has to do with that book.”
He gestures to it where it still lays lamely on the bed.
“I flipped through it a bit.”
“And?”
“I wanted to see if– I was curious, I mean, about the rest of the featured works.”
Al-Haitham blinks, waiting.
“I’m not sure exactly how to ask this,” Kaveh says, averting his eyes, “but I noticed that you had… Um, that my name was written in the margins.”
Al-Haitham feels his eyes grow wide, and Kaveh smiles hesitantly.
“Quite a lot, actually.”
“It’s not what you–”
“I don’t–”
They both stop, stuttering over the words being held behind the curl of their tongues.
Al-Haitham had never intended for Kaveh to see his annotations aside from the one meant for him, but he hadn’t exactly tried to hide them from him, either. In fact, the mere possibility of Kaveh seeing his name scrawled in the margins of the other poems never crossed Al-Haitham’s mind.
Now, though, his vision goes red and his fingers ache to rip the pages from their spine.
“What did you–” Kaveh starts again, then seems to re-think his approach. “Were they… questions? Thoughts you wanted my opinion on?”
“On which I–”
“–wanted my opinion, yes.”
Al-Haitham swallows around the thickness in his throat. “Not exactly.”
“What, then?”
There’s no point in lying. There never is. “They were lines that reminded me of you, in one way or another.”
Kaveh blinks. “Some of them were pretty.”
Al-Haitham doesn’t respond.
“I don’t understand.”
“There isn’t much to understand,” Al-Haitham admits. “Some of it was syntax, most of it metaphor. Things like the color red and the month of May.”
“One of the lines was quite romantic,” Kaveh says hesitantly.
Al-Haitham winces. “Which one?”
Kaveh glances down at the book on top of Al-Haitham’s sheets, then over to the window, then back at Al-Haitham. “Most of them, actually.”
Ah. Realistically, there are two ways this can go: one, Al-Haitham parses through every line next to which he wrote Kaveh’s name and comes up with a non-damning explanation for the connection, or, two, he just lets this play out as it will.
The former sounds like a lot of effort, and — as scary as the latter may be — the idea of risking it all for an attempt at maintaining things the way they are isn’t exactly appealing.
After all, there’s no guarantee that Kaveh will believe him.
“Take that how you wish.”
Kaveh blinks down at him, slowly, like he’s trying to make sense of what Al-Haitham has just said. “What does that mean?” he asks.
Al-Haitham leans down to pick up the book, flipping it open to a random page and noting three instances of Kaveh’s name on this one alone. “It means that I am leaving the ball in your court.”
“What ball?”
Al-Haitham sighs. “There is no ball, Kaveh.”
Kaveh reaches up to run both hands through his hair, the webbed skin between his fingers catching on the day’s knots and pulling at his scalp. “Al-Haitham, please. Was your intention romantic or not?”
“There was no intention.”
“But there was thought.”
What is an island without the sea?
Al-Haitham traces the invisible line that holds the letters in place with the pad of his thumb, picturing a lone tree sprouting from the top of his head and the gentle push and pull of Kaveh’s presence against his soul.
“Yes,” Al-Haitham admits, as softly as his throat allows. “There was.”
A silence settles into the space between them, ringing in Al-Haitham’s ears and tugging at the hairs on his arms. He can feel Kaveh’s eyes on him — can sense the way his gaze travels down Al-Haitham’s nose — but he doesn’t look up. He doesn’t dare.
He’s afraid of what he’ll see.
“You’re a coward,” Kaveh mutters, his tone harsh. “Look me in the eye and tell me what that means.”
“I am–”
“A coward,” Kaveh insists, louder this time, and Al-Haitham hears the creak of the floorboards as Kaveh steps forward. “Were you going to tell me? Are you going to tell me?”
Al-Haitham lets out a breath, and then he meets Kaveh’s eye. “Is it cowardly to be satisfied with the way things are?” he asks, and Kaveh narrows his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Is it cowardly to be content?”
“Yes,” Kaveh says again, stepping even closer. “Content is a fool’s happy, Al-Haitham. It is cowardly to deprive yourself of joy in the name of the status quo.”
Al-Haitham rolls his eyes. “It was not for the status quo, but for an amicable home.”
“I don’t want amicable,” Kaveh grits out from behind clenched teeth.
Al-Haitham hears his own breath catch. “Then what do you want?” he asks quietly.
“You,” Kaveh whispers, his voice breaking around the word, “as you are — honest, and unreserved.”
He’s close enough now to reach for Al-Haitham, and he does. He tucks a strand of hair that doesn’t exist behind Al-Haitham’s ear, thumbs at the corner of Al-Haitham’s mouth as if there is something to wipe away.
“Tell me.”
“I love you,” Al-Haitham says without hesitation, this time.
Kaveh lets out a breathy little laugh. “Thank Celestia,” he says, and then his nose is buried in Al-Haitham’s neck.
It’s not what Al-Haitham expected, to be frank. Kaveh’s arms are draped loosely over his shoulders, his hair falling freely down Al-Haitham’s back. He smells like citrus and bergamot and parchment, a little bit.
Like Kaveh.
“Does this mean–”
“Hug me back,” Kaveh mutters, and so Al-Haitham does.
He wraps his arms around Kaveh’s middle and pulls him onto the bed at his side, rolling over so that they both have room to lay without one of them in danger of falling off the edge. Kaveh laughs — a bright, musical thing — and Al-Haitham feels it against his collar bone. He didn’t know how life-changing a warm breath could be.
“You know,” Kaveh says slowly, “I almost confessed to you by accident the other day.”
Al-Haitham blinks, stunned. “When?”
“In the book.”
“Where?”
“That part I redacted — I got defensive, and said some things I shouldn’t have said.”
Al-Haitham pulls his head back a bit, just enough to let his eyes focus on Kaveh’s face. “Say them to me now?” he asks hopefully.
Kaveh sighs, his cheeks reddening as his eyebrows furrow over his nose. “It was– You accused me of not being selfish, so I gave some examples, a few of which centered… you.”
“You’re selfish about me?”
Kaveh swallows audibly, his gaze flickering down over Al-Haitham’s cheek.”Yes,” he whispers. “I indulge with you more than I should.”
“I would argue that you don’t indulge with me enough,” Al-Haitham says, and Kaveh smiles in return.
“I suppose that’ll have to change, then, won’t it?”
“I want to kiss you,” he admits, “but I still don’t know if this situation calls for–”
He’s cut off by a brush of lips against his own.
“I love you too, jerk,” Kaveh says softly. “Are you happy now?”
“Yes,” Al-Haitham replies, and kicks the sheets off to pull Kaveh closer to him still.
A mild thump startles both of them enough to send Kaveh’s elbow into Al-Haitham’s ribs, and Al-Haitham hisses through his teeth at the pain.
“What was that?” Kaveh asks.
“The book, I think. Falling to the floor.”
“We’re keeping it, right?”
Al-Haitham snorts. “I have to return it eventually.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
Kaveh blinks at Al-Haitham, unamused. “It’s our origin story, for one thing–”
“Bullshit. Our origin story begins years ago.”
“–and I’ll be blamed for defacing Akademiya property, for another,” he says. “My name is written in there, like, three hundred times. Kaveh, Kaveh, Kaveh…”
“And other things,” Al-Haitham whispers into the skin of Kaveh’s chest.
Kaveh huffs. “Yes,” he says sarcastically. “That’ll surely help.”
Al-Haitham only smiles and kisses him again.