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On a mundane Friday afternoon, Layla sent a message to the Sumeru Dorks group chat with a link to an article about a once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower occurring that very night.
An hour after that message, Kaveh found himself squished into the middle backseat of Tighnari's eight passenger van.
"Just follow me!" Dehya yelled from her truck to Cyno. "I got a carriage full of radiant women who need to see stars as radiant as them, so keep up!"
"Oh hush and drive!" Dunyarzad scolded from the passenger seat with a bashful edge. Dehya laughed proudly before speeding off, leaving a cloud of dust behind her.
As instructed, Cyno shifted the van into gear and followed her out of the driveway. Tighnari, the designated front-seat passenger navigater, had the foresight to pull up the GPS map on his phone.
Kaveh sat in the back sandwiched between Alhaitham on his left and Layla on his right.
In the middle row, Sethos held his phone out and scrolled through TikToks while Wanderer and Faruzan leaned in to watch.
"They say it's going to be an insane meteor shower. Maybe even dangerous," Sethos said while scrolling through the comments of a Tiktok with a man waving theatrically at a greenscreen astronomical map behind him. "So many meteors that one might even land on us when we get there."
"I wouldn't worry about that," Layla interjected, "but there will be a parade of planets. So I brought my telescope along."
"You fit that thing in the van?" Faruzan mused.
"It's in Dehya's truck."
Accompanying Dehya and Dunyarzad in the truck was Candace, Nilou, and Lumine all squished into the backseat.
Ahead of the two-car convoy was a three hour roadtrip straight to Lucenua Tree National Park, an arid desert with a vast expanse of dry trees, but well known for it's sky devoid of light pollution. Better yet, it was a new moon that day, so the sky's party would shine even more brightly during the night.
Kaveh checked his watch as it hit ten o'clock. They would reach the park by midnight, right on time for the peak of the shower.
His eyes shifted to the left and onto Alhaitham's phone where he was scrolling through an article with a picture of a strange meteor.
"Are you excited to see the meteor shower?" Kaveh asked.
Alhaitham gave a curt shrug as his thumb swiped up.
"Seems interesting enough."
Kaveh scoffed but opted to look at what Alhaitham was reading instead of probing his unimpressed remark. In turn, Alhaitham silently angled his phone for Kaveh to see better.
"What the hell are you reading?" Kaveh frowned. "A shower of satellites? Cameras? Is this a conspiracy blog?"
"They say it's not actually a meteor shower and it's really Fontaine testing out their new surveillance technology," Alhaitham mused with the edges of a smirk tilting his lips, clearly entertained by the whimsical stories of theorists. Kaveh rolled his eyes.
"Those must be the same people who believe Earth is flat."
"Maybe it is."
"Oh, please, now you're just trying to bait me."
Alhaitham shrugged, but the flash of a grin gave him away. Kaveh scoffed again but shifted in his seat to read along as Alhaitham scrolled through the absurd blog entry.
Halfway into the trip, Alhaitham grew tired of staring at tiny words on a small screen, so he switched to staring at the passing city lights through the window with crossed arms. He drowned out the sound of chatter and music from within the van with his earbuds.
Layla, on contrary, was already fast asleep. How she was sleeping through the loud argument in the middle row was beyond Kaveh. Word of conspiracy theories had spread through the car, and now Sethos and Faruzan were at a stalemate against Wanderer's confession that he didn't believe the sky was real at all.
"You can't be serious," Sethos said in disbelief.
"What? It's not like I'm making it a big deal. I just think our eyesight is too limited to see what it truly looks like."
"You're not taking into account the atmosphere," Faruzan explained. "It's an actual barrier of gases that light has to pass through."
"Well it must look different to animals with different light cones from us."
"No, you're backpedaling! You said you think the sky is some kind of artificial firmament-"
"Yeah! Because of pollution-!"
At that moment, Cyno hit the brakes hard and swerved harshly to the right.
Everyone slid in their seats, held in place only by their seatbelts.
Kaveh suddenly felt an arm press against his torso, pinning him to the seat like a guardrail.
A loud, long honk rang from the van, and Tighnari yelled a few curses while leaning over Cyno to press his middle finger against the driver-side window
"Sorry, everyone," Cyno called out. "BMWs live up to their name. Blind Motor Wackos. Y'know how it is."
The arm across Kaveh's body swiftly retracted before he could properly register it's presence.
"Sorry," Alhaitham muttered before turning his face toward the window and crossing his arms again, cool and bored as if it were akin to a mere sneeze.
The pressure lingered against Kaveh's chest as a strange feeling. Whether it was out of fear or a reflex to protect, Kaveh forced himself not to read too into it.
"And of course Layla slept through that," Sethos noted, shrugging his head toward the sleeping girl in the back still peacefully pressed against the window.
That earned a few chuckles and the playful atmosphere returned to the car just as quickly as it was interrupted.
Kaveh considered giving Layla his jacket to sleep on instead of the cold hard glass, but then realization hit him all at once.
"Shit!" He cursed, looking around his seat to no avail, "I forgot to bring my jacket!"
A chorus of groans echoed from the front.
"Oof, that's rough buddy," Sethos sighed. "The desert is freezing."
"Ugh… I know, I know."
"Just deal with it," Wanderer muttered.
"Cyno has an extra jacket in the back. It won't fit you, but it's better than nothing," Tighnari offered.
"Alright," Kaveh sighed, disappointed in himself.
Kaveh glanced subtly to his left and pouted with jealousy at the sight of Alhaitham's large jacket. Looking up at the sky won't feel as inviting without a cozy jacket to protect him from the sharp cold.
And if things couldn't get worse, half an hour later, his phone died.
"Fuck…" Kaveh muttered under his breath as he tried to turn it back on before it boldly displayed the 0% on the screen. "Stupid battery draining for no fucking reason…"
"You forgot your portable charger too, didn't you?" Alhaitham probed.
"Of course he did," Wanderer pried in. "Just like this dumbass did."
"Hey!" Sethos whined with his phone plugged into Wanderer's charger.
"I'm not good with last minute plans…" Kaveh muttered bitterly.
Alhaitham let out a small sound of agreement. "You aren't."
Annoyed, Kaveh made of show of turning away, opting to face Layla's window for the rest of trip.
Not even a second later, he felt a tap on his left shoulder. He turned back with a prominent frown, only to be met with the extended offering of an earbud.
"If you complain about my music, I'll take it right back."
Kaveh huffed, but accepted the offering. When he slipped the earbud in place, he wasn't sure what to expect, but it still surprised him to hear something he could only describe as ethereal space music.
Alhaitham merely shrugged at his reaction.
"Seemed fitting for the night."
Kaveh made no complaint and relaxed in his seat, shifting subtly back to the left where he let his leg casually lean against Alhaitham's in the cramped space. The both looked out the window as the city grew more and more sparse the further they drove into the desert.
At the last leg of the drive, Cyno lost track of Dehya.
"She drives like a maniac," Cyno grumbled. "No wonder she already has five speeding tickets this year."
Thankfully, Tighnari easily guided Cyno off the freeway and to the park's entrance. By the time they paid the entry fee, it was midnight.
"Holy shit! Shooting star!" Sethos exclaimed, clamoring onto Wanderer to get a better look at the sky.
Wanderer let out an annoyed grunt, but he too was mesmerized by the sight, and allowed Sethos to snuggle up to him.
Kaveh, excited as well, leaned over Alhaitham to get a better view. Little flickers of light dashed through the sky in random spots, almost quicker than his eyes could travel.
He pointed out the trailing lights to Alhaitham as quickly as he could before they disappeared in a flash. Some were brighter, and traveled longer than others. It naturally became a game to find the brightest, longest shooting star.
Gradually, he found himself sinking into Alhaitham's side as they looked out the window, trying to one-up the other's best observation.
Kaveh, distracted by the window's view of the sky, didn't realize they had reached the lookout point until Layla woke up with a startle next to him.
"Huh?" She yawned. "Here already?"
Reflexively, Kaveh pulled away from Alhaitham's side, now acutely aware of how they looked.
Before it could be registered as anything awkward, he joined the others in funneling out of the car and into the cold, fresh air. They stretched their stiff legs and rolled out blankets to lie on while stargazing. Faruzan and Dehya helped Layla set up her telescope. Candace and Nilou leaned against the lookout's railing, and as the name entailed, looked out into the dark expanse of the valley covered by a blanket of stars.
Sethos went to go find a bush to pee in despite Wanderer's insistence that the bathroom was only a few meters away.
Tighnari handed Kaveh Cyno's extra jacket. A thin cover that did nothing for the cold, but it beat the sharp nip on his bare skin.
Tighnari settled onto a blanket next to Cyno and pulled out an assortment of snacks from a large totebag.
Alhaitham had already made himself comfortable on the other blanket, lying flat on his back with crossed hands resting on his abdomen.
"You look like you should be in a coffin," Kaveh commented, standing by his head and leaning down to face him.
"You're blocking my view."
"Isn't this view better?"
"No."
Kaveh hmphed and muttered a few choice words before settling onto the blanket next to Alhaitham. He left a reasonable amount of space between them and simply stared at the sky with his arms crossed to warm himself.
It was a beautiful sight, a sight sadly rare to him because of the lights in Sumeru City. Kaveh absentmindedly wondered if something could be done to reduce the amount of light pollution, his brain already drifting to possibly ideas and hypothetical designs. But the cold was painfully distracting.
With the freezing ground, lack of movement, and faint breeze, he began to shiver uncomfortably. His teeth chattered, and he couldn't help the restless whine that followed.
"What is it?" Alhaitham asked. Kaveh couldn't tell if he was annoyed, bored, or just plain unreadable.
"I'm cold," Kaveh simply muttered with a pout.
"That's obvious."
Kaveh made an unamused grunt and shimmied away from him.
A thin blanket was suddenly tossed onto him, and he looked up to see Dehya peering down at him.
"Sorry," she shrugged, "That's all I got. My ladies take first priority."
Kaveh looked over to see the girls happily wrapped in various thick blankets. They each took turns looking through Layla's telescope.
"That's okay. Thank you." Kaveh wrapped it around himself, but it barely made a difference in his shivering. He just resolved to tough it out for the long haul without even his phone to distract himself.
After releasing another reflexive sigh drawn out by a shiver, he heard shuffling next to him.
Before he could turn to look, an arm wrapped around him and pulled him into an embrace.
Alhaitham wrapped the opening of his jacket around Kaveh until he was enveloped in the jacket's soft lining and pressed against Alhaitham's warm body.
He became as stiff as the ground they lied on, but he wasn't shivering anymore.
"Oh, look," Kaveh said far too quickly, immediately filling the static, charged air with words. "A big one."
He let one hand slip out to point, and Alhaitham followed it to a fading line of light.
"Hm," Alhaitham acknowledged while holding the jacket firmly closed around Kaveh.
Without acknowledging their current state, they watched the sky while Kaveh pointed.
Eventually, Kaveh let out a puff of hot air onto his exposed hand to warm it up. Alhaitham simply grabbed it and warmed it up against his own without a word.
Kaveh's mind fell blank of any casual words to fill the air with.
"Aww, Kaveh and Alhaitham are cuddling," Wanderer teased while eating a snack.
Kaveh froze and said nothing, as if being silent would prove his nonchalance. However, Alhaitham sat up, seperating himself from him.
Kaveh felt his heart sink at the loss, and he tried not to think of why.
"I need to go to the bathroom," Alhaitham said bluntly, standing up and brushing himself off.
"There's a bush over there," Sethos pointed.
"No."
"I'll go with you," Kaveh said while standing up as well. "I need to go too."
Alhaitham gave a curt nod before heading toward the dark path. He turned his phone's flashlight on and Kaveh followed closely.
When they reached the unassuming brick shed, Kaveh noticed a truck pull up along the dirt road, parking nearby with the engine still idling. The dark tint made it impossible to see inside.
"Creepy," Kaveh muttered, half-joking, but when he looked at Alhaitham, he was also staring at it.
"You go first," Alhaitham muttered while he stood right next to the door. Kaveh raised his eyebrow.
"Hurry up."
"Jeez, Alright, alright. Don't peek."
Alhaitham let out a perfunctory puff of air from his nose.
When Kaveh finished, Alhaitham took his turn.
"Stay here," Alhaitham pointed directly in front of the door. "Scream if something happens."
"How considerate of you."
The darkness of the forest was creepy, and maybe another day he would be scared out of his wits, especially with an ominous truck nearby, but with Alhaitham accompanying him, the shadows were merely that. Shadows of dry trees.
When Alhaitham exited the bathroom, the truck door opened. Without a word, he immediately stood in front of Kaveh, reaching behind him to tuck Kaveh into his shadow.
But then a small child in a marshmallow jacket hopped out of the passenger seat, straight out of her mother's lap. The woman followed her with hurried steps. The little girl ran toward the bathroom with a strained run, clearly waiting for her turn in the warmth of the car.
Alhaitham stepped aside and let out a warm chuckle that seeped into Kaveh's soul.
"C'mon, let's head back." Alhaitham gestured for Kaveh to follow with the hint of a smile briefly illuminated by his phone's flashlight.
On the walk back, Kaveh let out an audible shiver as a breeze brushed him. In return, Alhaitham let out an inconvenienced, dramatized sigh before slipping off his jacket. He turned around and wrapped it around Kaveh before turning back and continuing his walk without a word.
The lingering heat of Alhaitham's body remained in the fabric and it sent a way of electricity along Kaveh's skin. He slipped his arms into the sleeves and stayed close to Alhaitham until they returned to their spot on the blanket.
Everyone's attention was on Candace, who was telling a story about how the sky is actually a blanket that covers a vast sea of light, and a god blessed the beings on Earth by poking holes in the blanket to let the light shine through.
While the story went on, Alhaitham silently slid into Kaveh's embrace and stole back the warmth of his jacket. Kaveh returned the gesture by wrapping the jacket around him as well.
The two of them stayed like that, huddled together, looking at the sky, and listening to Candace's stories.
Kaveh, as sly as a fox, sneakily stole Alhaitham's phone from his pocket and opened the camera app to take some photos of the sky since his own phone was dead, but he was met with the password screen. He let out a defeated sigh before a hand came up to type in the sequence of numbers.
"I'll remember that," Kaveh teased. "You'll have to change it."
Alhaitham merely grunted before settling his arm back around Kaveh and shifting into a more comfortable position, though some may describe it as snuggling up to him. Kaveh tried to pay no mind to it, treating their current situation as something fragile and fleeting if called out.
At some point, while Kaveh was recording a falling meteor, Alhaitham's breathing evened out and Kaveh looked down to see him sound asleep, an amusing sight without his permanent scowl. Kaveh couldn't help but brush the hair out of his face to steal a better look. Maybe he should've taken a photo, but he simply put the phone down and slipped his arms around him to steal more warmth.
He almost joined him too, slowly drifting off in the warmth of their shared body heat, but then Tighnari declared it was time to head back home.
They swiftly packed up their things, following Tighnari's strict guidance to leave no trace of themselves behind.
Kaveh began to take off Alhaitham's jacket, but Alhaitham shook his head while yawning.
"It's fine. We're going in the car anyway," he said while shaking off the edges of a shiver.
Once again, Dehya instructed Cyno to just follow her out, and left a cloud of dust in her wake.
Kaveh checked his watch and it was two in the morning.
Alhaitham let out another yawn.
"It's way passed your bedtime, isn't it?"
"We started the trip passed my bedtime."
"What a geezer," Wanderer interjected, but then Alhaitham's yawn infected him with perfect timing.
"Look who's talking," Sethos said before he caught it too.
Layla fell asleep before she could even finish her yawn.
"Don't go falling asleep behind the wheel now." Tighnari snapped his finger in front of a yawning Cyno.
"I'm just stretching my face," Cyno joked while shaking his head to jolt himself awake.
"Sure," Tighnari said before yawning himself.
Somehow, Kaveh caught the yawn last.
In response, Alhaitham shifted to the right and tapped on his shoulder.
"If you want to sleep, go ahead," he whispered, probably so that Wanderer didn't overhear and make a weird comment.
Kaveh wasn't dreadfully sleepy, but he took the offer anyway, leaning against his side and adjusting into a comfortable position. Alhaitham lifted his arm and wrapped it around Kaveh's shoulders, replacing the sharp edge of his shoulder bone with the soft surface of his chest for Kaveh to lean on.
Kaveh sighed comfortably. The car was dark, and everyone was too tired to pay them any mind.
As a last form of indulgence, in a moment that most likely would never happen again, Kaveh slipped the jacket off of himself and laid it across the both of them. He wrapped his arms around Alhaitham's torso and settled back against the side of his chest.
The position allowed him the privilege of hearing Alhaitham's steady breathing, and his even steadier heartbeat. Calm and rhythmic, he leaned into it further.
Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him, but he swore it beat just a little faster.
Kaveh discovered quickly that it was actually a lullaby disguised as a heartbeat, because at some point his eyes had closed and were startled open by the feeling of someone poking his ribcage.
"Get off," Alhaitham grunted with a sleepy voice. "We're at Tighnari's place."
Kaveh sighed and unwillingly peeled himself off Alhaitham. He checked the time without a second thought, and it was already five in the morning.
"Wait… I didn't bring my car," Kaveh mumbled, still half-asleep, but awake enough to remember he was picked up by the van.
"I know," Alhaitham yawned, stretching to wake himself up. "I'm taking you home."
Alhaitham guided him to his car, even opening the door for him and closing it when he settled into his seat.
The windows were frosted over by the night's chill, so they sat in silence as Alhaitham let the defroster clear the glass.
"Did you have fun?" Kaveh asked sleepily, cozy from the heat of the car.
"I did," Alhaitham answered while adjusting the air vents to point at Kaveh. Pleasant warm air hit his cold face.
"What was your favorite part?"
"Seeing the stars." Alhaitham flipped the key and started the engine. "You can't see them here in the city."
"Yeah…" Kaveh agreed. "Is that all?"
"I guess spending time with friends was fun." He placed his arm against the back of Kaveh's seat while he maneuvered his way out of his spot between two closely parked cars. Kaveh felt the pressure of his arm against the seat's back and felt ashamed how easy it was to lean into the touch despite the barrier. Alhaitham moved the wheel with easy, swift precision. Without a rearview camera, Kaveh had no clue how he managed it, but something about the confidence stirred something inside him.
"And spending time with you," Alhaitham added after a long delay.
"And me?
Alhaitham nodded.
"Why am I separated from friends?"
Alhaitham shrugged as he turned a corner.
"Are we not friends?"
"I didn't say that."
Kaveh huffed petulantly before turning to look out the window. "Im too tired to deal with your semantics."
Alhaitham chuckled.
The car ride fell into a comfortable silence. Kaveh didn't mind the absence of music from the radio. So early in the morning, with the fog still visible, it felt strangely intimate being the only ones on the road.
To Kaveh's dismay, they reached his apartment sooner than he wanted. Without any real reason besides a childish desire to stay in the moment, he pretended to be asleep while the car idled. Alhaitham gently brushed the hair out of his face.
"Hey," Alhaitham whispered, nudging him gently. "Wake up, we're here."
Kaveh feigned the flutter in his eyes with a pouty groan. A hand brushed his hair down, tousled from rubbing against the headrest. His seatbelt was unbuckled for him and Alhaitham whispered, "Go get some rest," as he helped slip the jacket bundled in Kaveh's hands back onto his body.
Kaveh made a noise of complaint as he surrendered and exited the car, protected from the chill by the jacket.
When he closed the door, Alhaitham immediately rolled down the window.
"We should do this again sometime," Alhaitham called out.
"Stargazing?" Kaveh pondered with a sleepy yawn. "Hm, maybe next month for the lunar eclipse-"
"And cuddling."
"Mm, yeah, that'd be nice too- Wait, what?"
"Let's do it again sometime."
Before Kaveh could formulate a proper answer admist his baffled reaction, Alhaitham rolled up the window and sped off.
Kaveh watched the car beeline down the road until it rounded a corner. The sound of the engine faded to a serene quiet only accompanied by the chirp of crickets.
In the morning chill, he could still smell Alhaitham's lingering scent and finally realized with full clarity that he was still wearing Alhaitham's jacket.
Grounded to his front doorstep by sheer bewilderment, he looked up at the sky where only a few bright stars managed to show themselves through the veil.
Kaveh hadn't made a wish on a shooting star that night, the thought evaded him until now, yet somehow, the stars seemed to sense something in him that he wasn't even privy to himself. They granted a wish he didn't realize he wanted to make.