Chapter Text
The first piece Al-Haitham plays over the speakers of his brand-new apartment is a live recording of a flautist.
It’s late at night, dark outside. He’s barely unpacked any of his things—all around him are boxes, some unopened, some with the tape torn through. He hardly has anything but an air mattress. The movers with his furniture are supposed to arrive tomorrow.
He doesn’t know much about this city other than it is different from the last one but similar in its vast emptiness. It’s not physically barren, laden with sky-reaching buildings and the streets crowded with people even at this time of night, but it feels anything but animated inside these four walls.
It was a good idea to set up the speaker system first, Al-Haitham thinks. If he closes his eyes, the familiar sound fills up the room in a way that his belongings never could. The flautist plays as if he is dancing, the tune skipping up and down and through octaves merrily. The composition sounds like a memory. It tastes like seven years under his tongue.
There’s a sixteenth-note run down a scale that Al-Haitham knows under his fingers even though he could not claim to be as familiar with the flute as he is with the oboe, a millisecond pause as the player inhales. He can feel the breath in his own chest. It burns.
The rest of it Al-Haitham knows like something loved, something cherished. If he wanted to, he could sing each passage by heart. He’d been so involved in the creation of this piece that he’s long since memorized each of the chord changes.
But his favorite part isn’t the peak of the chart or any of the runs or the fancy ornaments—it’s the end when the player flubs a note and goes sharp when he tries not to laugh and fails, the sound of his joy much sweeter than any preceding part of the melody. Immortalized on tape and tattooed on the inside of Al-Haitham’s chest.
“Al-Haitham, stop recording,” the player says, laughter still curling on the edges of his word, and through the tape, he can hear his own resounding huff of amusement, and then it cuts off.
Al-Haitham opens his eyes, and his apartment is just as empty as it was before. The memory of it is going to haunt the rest of his night, but in the meantime, he scrolls through his phone and selects some innocuous Vivaldi to fill the space. A safe choice. Compositions that didn’t paint his history red.
The next hour or so he spends mindlessly unpacking his things, inflating the air mattress and digging his blankets out of boxes. The music fades into the background as he sorts through his things and the night grows ever darker.
And then, a knock at the door.
Al-Haitham assumes it must be the landlord—they’d already met prior to him moving his things in, but perhaps there was something extra they wanted to go over, so he thinks nothing of it.
“Coming!” he calls, navigating the maze of packing peanuts and crates. He almost trips over the tipped-over edge of an open box, cursing. Kicking aside more haphazard cardboard, he undoes the latch on the door and lets it swing open, fully expecting to see the bearded face of his landlord only to be met with the vermillion-eyed face of somebody he had given up hope on seeing for the rest of his life.
There’s a long moment of silence. The aching swell of Vivaldi in the background and the rushing in his ears like the ocean waves.
“...Kaveh?”
【┘】
[
The first time that Al-Haitham saw Kaveh was, regrettably, when they were in high school. Regrettable because Al-Haitham was a freshman, gangly and awkward, and Kaveh was a junior, no less gangly and awkward but with the confidence of two years tucked under his belt.
Al-Haitham walked into that high school band room the first time not expecting much—one, because he had swept every other player by a tall margin in his previous band, and two, because nobody played the oboe except for Al-Haitham, apparently.
Nobody played the oboe here, either.
The first flute’s name was Kaveh. Al-Haitham only remembered his name—and no one else’s, not even the director’s—because it was written at the top of all of his sheet music in large, curling letters, as if anybody else was first chair and wasn’t still scribbling in their notes in the margins.
And what business did Al-Haitham have looking at Kaveh’s sheet music? Well, it’s only because—
“It seems that we don’t have enough stands,” the director announced to the band the first day, scratching his head awkwardly. “We lent them to the middle school for their concert, but they never gave them back… You’re all okay with sharing, right?”
And then quickly, the rest of the band split up into pairs, repositioning their stands and adjusting their music, and it just so happened that there were three first flutes and the singular one left out was Kaveh.
Kaveh looked at Al-Haitham, and Al-Haitham looked at Kaveh, and even in all of his oily teenage glory, Al-Haitham realized that he would have known Kaveh’s name imprinted on his tongue even if it wasn’t obnoxiously scrawled all over the stand in front of him. Because he was blonde and he was beautiful and his ruby-red eyes, cutting him to the bone, burned like a brand on Al-Haitham’s skin.
“Kaveh,” he introduced himself, reluctantly scooting his stand over. “We haven’t had an oboe in a while. You are…?”
“Al-Haitham,” he said eagerly. “Kaveh.”
Kaveh tilted his head at him a little, and then he adjusted the stand a little to make it easier for Al-Haitham to read off of it. “Freshman? Or newly transferred? I’m a junior.”
“I’m a freshman,” Al-Haitham said, staring. “You’re first? Are there no other seniors?”
Kaveh winced and then leaned in close, covering his mouth with his hand, and Al-Haitham, irresistible to his gravitational pull, leaned in as well. “No, the other two are seniors. Listen, it doesn’t really mean anything if I was ranked in front of them. Even the teachers make mistakes.”
Al-Haitham glanced at Kaveh’s flute—a professional model Yamaha, from the looks of it—and sincerely doubted it.
“Anyway,” Kaveh said, leaning back, “how long have you been playing? Oboe isn’t quite the conventional instrument.”
“My grandmother left me an oboe, among other things.” Al-Haitham flipped the case over onto his lap and started undoing the clasps. “I was homeschooled for a while, so there wasn’t much else to do.”
“Homeschool,” Kaveh said. “Interesting.” And then he didn’t say anything more, letting Al-Haitham finish setting up his instrument while he busied himself with his own flute.
Al-Haitham let his reed soak as he rifled through his backpack to pull out his music binder. The sound of the rest of the band warming up swelled behind him, a cacophony of disparate sounds and squeaks and shrill sounds. Not the most pleasant melody, but one he’s long grown used to after years in this type of setting.
The first time Al-Haitham heard Kaveh play was in high school. He would never stop after that, sitting in on sessions and wasting time in practice rooms and later, buying records to play through his headphones, but the first time felt like electricity running up and down his spine.
The sound cut through the rest of the din like a knife. It wasn’t much more than a simple arpeggio, the B♭ extended out in distinct vibrato, but for the first time, like a key turning in a lock, Al-Haitham felt something click into place. The abrupt understanding that he had met someone who could understand him.
Suddenly desperate to play, to show Kaveh that Al-Haitham operated along the same wavelength, in the same key, he quickly assembled his instrument and set the reed against his lips.
The first note was smooth, no cracks. Then a little chromatic embellishment, simple, up and down.
Behind Al-Haitham, a clarinet cracked on her note and went horribly sharp. He winced and stopped, dropping his oboe back down to his lap, and when he looked at Kaveh, Kaveh was already looking at him.
“Wow,” Kaveh said, his lips a little parted. “You have really nice tone.”
“I—” Al-Haitham fiddled a little with the bell of the horn. “Thank you.”
Kaveh nodded once, and then he turned back to his stand, flipping through warm-up exercises and scale patterns.
And that’s the last nice thing Kaveh said to Al-Haitham in a long time.
Which is not to say that they hated each other. In fact, upon further reflection, that probably had something to do with both of their inability to compliment each other to their face without wanting to shrivel up on the inside.
A week later in rehearsal, when they finally received their first piece to sight read and have moved on from scales and exercises, there arrived the first problem.
“Excuse me?” Kaveh said, raising his hand. The director, whose name Al-Haitham still didn't know, nodded to him. “One stand isn’t enough to fit both of our parts.”
Al-Haitham, who couldn’t fit all five pages of his chart named something after some random river, waited patiently with his music in his lap. Kaveh’s music was already sitting on their stand.
The director frowned. “Well, as everyone is already sharing, there’s nothing I can do about it unless somebody else relinquishes a stand.”
The room was noticeably devoid of offers of charity to the two. One person even moved their stand away from Kaveh, the squeak of the metal against the linoleum comically loud.
“Fine,” Kaveh grumbled, scooting his papers the tiniest bit to the side. “We can make it work. I guess.”
Al-Haitham didn’t think they could. The apparatus could only hold three sheets of music anyway, even with it hanging off of the edges, and he couldn’t see how they could magically fit both parts side by side.
Sure enough, Kaveh only allowed Al-Haitham just enough space to fit one page. “Hey,” Kaveh said, hand moving reflexively to stop Al-Haitham from doing any more. “I need two pages open, at the very least. I have a run at the bottom of the page; I can’t flip it.”
“So do I,” Al-Haitham said pointedly, gesturing to his own music. “We have the same part there.”
“Hm. Okay.” Kaveh moved Al-Haitham’s second sheet down and put his flute to his lips.
Al-Haitham stared at Kaveh. “I need more space.”
Kaveh put his flute back down, the first trace of irritation showing up in the tick of his eyebrow. “There is no space. You’ll just have to figure it out.”
“There’s a million of you flutes and one of me. No one’s going to notice if you drop out for five seconds to turn the page.”
Kaveh sniffed and turned his chin up. “Bringing down someone older than you isn’t very humble of you. You’re my junior. You should be treating me with more respect. And besides, at least I don’t play the oboe.”
“What is that supposed to mean—”
So on and so forth.
And thus began the most important competition of Al-Haitham’s life—or at least what seemed to be the most important competition of his life at the time. He would always rush to make it to the band room before Kaveh did so he could set his music up, a triumphant show of victory.
Similarly, sometimes Kaveh would be there before Al-Haitham was, a disappointing occurrence. They worked out a sort of unspoken agreement: whoever arrived first had custody of the stand and could distribute the space as they saw fit. Whoever arrived second would have to refine their page-flipping skills and try not to knock elbows with the other as they did so.
Al-Haitham’s rivalry with Kaveh over something that was, admittedly, as stupid as quarreling over a music stand didn’t mean that he lost any respect for his musicianship, however. If anything, it only increased it, watching from the corner of his eye as Kaveh performed yet another seamless page flip without taking his mouth away from his flute.
And so it goes—could unbidden admiration turn into anything else, really? Was Al-Haitham destined for anything else other than to long to become Kaveh’s friend even as his mouth moved on its own volition and drove the two of them even further apart with each day?
Or so Al-Haitham thought. Turns out he wanted to be more than just friends. Because Kaveh was blonde and he was beautiful and because he also turned out to be a fantastic player, which really ticked all of Al-Haitham’s boxes.
There was nothing he could do about it. He assumed that he would grow out of it, anyway, as people his age are bound to do, trying on new people and new interests like clothes at the mall. Besides, aside from being a phenomenal musician, what else did Kaveh have going for him? Excluding his face? Or the sound of his laughter? Al-Haitham found him annoying, right?
As it turns out, the most annoying thing about Kaveh was that there was nothing to be annoyed by. As in he was funny and he was smart and he was just a little bit of a nerd enough to keep Al-Haitham endeared. And that really fucking pissed Al-Haitham off.
Al-Haitham spent the rest of his freshman year quietly pissed off and pining in spite of himself.
At some point, the local middle school eventually returned the stands back to the band room, but Al-Haitham and Kaveh just… never stopped sharing. It wasn’t out of necessity, not then. Al-Haitham did it so he could have an excuse to scoot his chair closer to Kaveh’s. He thought that maybe Kaveh did it because he derived amusement from it—he swore he saw his mouth lift up into a smile a few times, though that could have been the petty win.
Don’t get him wrong. Sharing a stand meant nothing in terms of the condition of their relationship.
They only shared that one class together, but for some reason, Al-Haitham kept seeing Kaveh everywhere, even when he wasn’t looking for him. And only in the most infuriating ways, too. He would walk down the halls and catch a glimpse of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye.
Kaveh always pretended not to see Al-Haitham, so Al-Haitham did the same, even though apparently Kaveh’s third period got switched around so now they passed each other every day by the water fountains. Again, infuriating. It was difficult enough to pretend that he wasn’t there when he started to anticipate seeing him at the same time five days a week outside of rehearsal.
But at least Kaveh never tried to talk to Al-Haitham outside of band when they had to pretend to cooperate for the sake of the ensemble, which was good because Al-Haitham wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle it. It was something about the contrast between the gentle way Kaveh would hold his flute compared to the vicious smile he would send Al-Haitham’s way on the times he got to the stand before he could that made his heartbeat ratchet up at least fifteen beats per minute.
Or at least—Al-Haitham never thought that Kaveh would try to talk to Al-Haitham outside of band. Until he does, that is.
“Hi,” Kaveh said, standing in front of Al-Haitham, where he was sitting with his back against a tree. Al-Haitham squinted up at him and tried to block the sunlight flowing out against the line of his body.
“What are you doing,” Al-Haitham said, off-put by this change of pace. He never would have thought that Kaveh would straight up approach him of his own volition.
Kaveh wrinkled his nose at him. “The least you can do is say hello back?”
“You’re interrupting my reading time. Don’t you have friends to hang out with? Or was I being presumptuous?”
Kaveh threw his hands up in the air and sighed, turning a little to the side. “God. I reach out once because you look lonely, and this is how you treat me? Fine, then. Have fun… reading. You know you look like a band kid right now, right?”
Al-Haitham blinked at him once, his mouth parting a little. Kaveh walked over here because he thought Al-Haitham needed company? Besides the obvious assumption that he’s a friendless loner, it’s almost a little… sweet.
“We’re both band kids,” Al-Haitham pointed out. “And I will have fun, thank you.”
“I’m a kid in band, not a band kid,” Kaveh protested. “There’s a difference, trust me.”
Al-Haitham thought back to Kaveh’s professional Yamaha flute and the entire folder’s worth of classical etudes in his backpack and shakes his head a little. “You’re a band kid.”
“And you’re an unfilial little freshman.” Kaveh crossed his arms over his chest. “Sorry for looking out for you, I guess. Should’ve known that your loneliness was on purpose instead of you not having friends. Though I guess the latter would also be perfectly plausible.”
“Yeah, okay,” Al-Haitham said, looking back down to his book. “See you in fifth.”
“See you,” Kaveh said, except it sounded a little off and strained, but when Al-Haitham looked up again, Kaveh was already walking away.
And that was that. Al-Haitham went back to his book but found that he couldn’t focus on any of the words, finding that while he stared at the pages all he could think about was the way the sun had illuminated Kaveh from behind like something beautiful.
Al-Haitham got to the stand before Kaveh did that day, smugly placing his two sheets of music down. When Kaveh arrived, breathing a little heavily and drawing up short to his chair with an annoyed expression on his face, Al-Haitham turned to him. “Hello.”
Kaveh’s eyebrows furrowed. He looked confused. Al-Haitham was confused too; this was new for them. This whole greeting thing. He hadn’t meant to say it, really.
“Hi?” Kaveh said slowly, the word drawn out. It was more of a question than a greeting.
Al-Haitham didn’t know where to go from there; this was where the helpful social conventions ended. He also hadn’t meant to even say anything to Kaveh. It just happened.
“Alright,” Kaveh said, taking off his backpack and dropping down into his seat when Al-Haitham took too long to respond. “Nice.”
“Mhm.” And then neither of them said anything more.
And that was where their (reluctant) camaraderie started. If it could even be called that. It was more as if they could now tolerate each other in very small doses, and those doses lasted approximately the length of one school period.
At the very least, it loosened something up between them, because now Kaveh took no qualms in voicing his displeasure with their stand arrangement instead of merely resorting to brute violence (read: pointedly and harshly jutting his elbow into Al-Haitham’s space, even though it meant he had to reach in absurd angles).
For example:
“Can you let me have two pages for this one piece?” Kaveh whispered harshly as the director had the trumpets run through their feature. “It’s the solo. I can’t just stop playing.”
“Special, aren’t you,” Al-Haitham said back. “Impressive. However, as the singular oboe, couldn’t you argue that I’m playing solo all of the time? Your argument has been disqualified.”
“Who the fuck even says things like that?” Kaveh said. “I shouldn’t expect anything more from an oboist.”
“You literally play the flute.”
“What.”
“Anyway,” Al-Haitham said, “I guess you can. For this one piece. And only for the first half.”
“How generous,” Kaveh said mockingly, pointedly pushing Al-Haitham’s music to the side to set up his own. “Oh joy. Can’t wait to enjoy my thirty seconds of freedom.”
“Just get here sooner,” Al-Haitham said disinterestedly, and before Kaveh could inevitably refute with something cutting, the director called everyone back to attention to begin at the top.
It wasn’t meant to be a dare, but when Al-Haitham shows up the next day, Kaveh is there already, standing and waiting for him with his arms crossed. “Gotcha,” he said triumphantly the moment Al-Haitham walked through the doors. “You’ve grown complacent.”
Oh. Kaveh wasn’t normal. Not by a long shot. Unfortunately, Al-Haitham was just as competitive and twice as petty, though he didn’t let it show often.
And neither of them mentioned the fact that the band now had enough stands to immediately remedy their problem, but—perhaps it wouldn’t be Al-Haitham and Kaveh if they didn’t take every available chance to antagonize each other. And so they remained stand partners, even though it caused more trouble than it was worth.
Things commenced from then on as normal—Kaveh ignored Al-Haitham in the halls, Al-Haitham ignored Kaveh in the halls, they never once more spoke at lunch, and they kept their interactions to the band room. That is, until the Honor Band Incident.
It’s less of an incident, which implies that it is somewhat out of the ordinary than it is an annual, expected occurrence. Every year, the band association in their region would host region-wide audition-based honor bands. And even though Al-Haitham was new to the high school level, meaning he would go up against players with up to three years more experience than he had, he was fairly confident that he would get in.
The audition process was fairly unremarkable. To cut a long story short: he got in. And so did Kaveh.
The only issue was this: Al-Haitham does not have a ride readily available, and given that this band is more prestigious, it’s held much farther than he’s used to. He’s used to walking to school and around the city. But as most of his family had either passed away or lived too far away, the issue of transportation became a real one. For some reason, the school where the band held rehearsals was a notable distance away from the nearest bus stop, and Al-Haitham wasn’t interested in subjecting his poor instrument to the heat and natural conditions on that walk.
He told all of this to the director, who had no solutions for him other than for him to kindly withdraw from the program if transportation was really going to be that prominent of an issue.
“Wait,” Kaveh said from behind Al-Haitham, evidently having eavesdropped the entire time. “You’re just… not going to go because you don’t have a ride?”
“It’s not as if I have any other options,” Al-Haitham said, shrugging. Oh well. It would have been nice to play with some other musicians who are actually good at what they do. No offense to his fellow high schoolers, it’s just that—well, they were average students. He couldn’t ask much of them.
And there was also the Kaveh factor. Kaveh was in the honor band, and so Al-Haitham wanted to be in it a little more than he already did.
The Kaveh factor stood right in front of him and put his hand to his chin as if contemplating deeply, frowning a little. And then—
“If you’re really in need,” he said, looking as if speaking the words was taking something grave out of him, “then I can give you rides. To rehearsal.”
Al-Haitham stared at Kaveh, unable to tell if he was being serious or not. Kaveh stared back. The director clapped their hands, making them both turn.
“Great! I see that it’s been solved then.”
And that was it. Somehow, with Kaveh not quite offering and Al-Haitham not quite accepting, he got himself a way to rehearsal.
“Well,” Kaveh said, “I’m going to need your address. And your phone number, I suppose.” He dug his phone out of his pocket and handed it over to Al-Haitham, who numbly input his number and texted himself the address. “Great.” Kaveh looked as if he thought it was anything but great.
Al-Haitham couldn’t tell what it was, either. Some kind of self-induced and masochistic purgatory, probably. It would be easier if he turned around and asked his director to take him off of the list of musicians for the honor band.
He didn’t. Kaveh picked Al-Haitham up from his house two Saturdays later.
kaveh
im here
Me
ok
kaveh
:/
Al-Haitham shoved his phone back into his pocket and grabbed his things, stomach twisting with something uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Sure enough, Kaveh was waiting outside, leaning against the passenger side of the car as if they were in some terrible romantic comedy.
“You got everything you need?” he asked, opening the door for Al-Haitham to duck in.
Al-Haitham confirmed, halting just between the curb and the car to rifle through the things in his hands again. When he looked up at Kaveh again, one hand on the top of the door and vermillion eyes inscrutable, he sucked it up and got into the car.
In the few seconds that it took Kaveh to walk around the front of the car, Al-Haitham took in a deep breath and buried whatever qualms he had about spending extended time in a small space with somebody that he has tense, to say the least, relations with.
Kaveh’s car looked… exactly the way he would have expected from somebody like Kaveh. Hanging from the rearview mirror was a small treble clef keychain, a subtle nod to his musical background. On the dashboard, there sat a small lion plush, barely big enough to fit in the palm of his hand. It scowled at Al-Haitham. Other than that, it was all clean and neat, no trash on the floor or crumbs on the seats.
Kaveh got into the car and very deliberately didn’t look at Al-Haitham, setting his hands on the wheel. And then they left.
Neither of them said anything for five awkward minutes until Al-Haitham said, “Have you even been driving long enough to have other people in your car?”
Kaveh exhaled an annoyed huff, but at least it was a sound that Al-Haitham was used to. He could almost convince himself that Kaveh was grateful for the dig so that they could return to the dynamic they were used to. “Does it matter? Do you want to walk all the way to rehearsal?”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Al-Haitham muttered mutinously, looking to his right to watch the scenery flash by, but he didn’t say anything more on the matter. He probably didn’t want to know, anyway. “So what part did you get in for?”
“Oh.” Kaveh flexed his fingers against the wheel. Al-Haitham had only ever seen them in the context of music, seeing his hands resting gently across his flute, and it had never occurred to him how pretty Kaveh’s hands were. It was a devastating realization. “First.” He coughed. “What about you?”
“First. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you.”
Kaveh squeaked and looked at him for a second. “Thank you? Same to you?”
Al-Haitham wasn’t sure if that quite classified as a compliment and whether that broke their long streak of pointedly ignoring each other’s music capabilities in favor of bickering over a music stand. “Thanks.”
Kaveh fiddled with the radio with one hand. “Do you want to listen to music? What is it that you’re constantly streaming through those headphones of yours? I bet you’re the type to always listen to the things you play. Or the classical station on the radio along with the average eighty-year-old.”
“Don’t accuse me of the same thing you’re probably guilty of. Nothing you say can convince me that you’re anything less than a nerd. Band kid.”
Kaveh shot him a dirty look. “Band kid. We’re both going to the same place.”
“Eyes on the road, Grandpa,” Al-Haitham said in response.
“Says the eighty-year-old who listens to the classical station on the radio,” Kaveh retorted, but he listened anyway, looking straight ahead for the rest of the drive. And it was not nearly as awkward as Al-Haitham had originally figured it to be, nor was it as terrible. Which was fine.
Al-Haitham wasn’t too used to being driven around by friends, or at least someone friend-adjacent, someone vaguely friend shaped at the very least, but this wasn’t terrible. It was nice, if he was being honest, the sound of the classical station straining through the sound of the wind because Kaveh kept insisting that Al-Haitham was eighty and the unhindered sense of freedom.
And it kept being nice, even when Al-Haitham tried not to look at Kaveh too much in fear that Kaveh would somehow telepathically know, his heart struck by the sight of him with his lips split open in a smile and the wind through the cracked window teasing his hair.
Al-Haitham and Kaveh didn’t have to share a stand at rehearsal, at least.
“Hey,” Kaveh said when they got back into his car to drive back. “I forgot to bring my music binder. Can you carry my sheet music until we get back? I don’t want loose sheets everywhere.”
Al-Haitham accepted the papers and stuck them into his own folder for later.
“Thanks. So? How was it?”
“I heard you crack that note in the fifteenth measure in the last play-through,” Al-Haitham said immediately.
“Jesus Christ,” Kaveh said. Al-Haitham watched delightedly as his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “How observant of you. Thank you, Al-Haitham. I didn’t notice.”
“You’re welcome,” Al-Haitham said, just to piss him off. “Glad to be of help.”
“Whatever happened to respect,” Kaveh lamented. Al-Haitham smiled to himself, small, down to his lap so that Kaveh couldn't see from his peripheral vision. “Ugh. You know, the other guys weren’t as good as I thought they’d be. Not to brag or anything, but I can’t wait until I’m out of here and moving on to greater things, greater players. There’s this school of music that I’ve had my eye on for a couple of years.”
Al-Haitham tilted his head back. “I think I would’ve chosen a few different pieces for the band. Or if I were the arranger, I would’ve changed some of the lines a little bit.”
“Oh? Do you compose or write?”
“When the software doesn’t feel like crashing.” Al-Haitham looked to the side, a little nervous. He wondered if Kaveh would ask if he could hear it. If he wanted him to ask or if he’d rather he’d not.
Kaveh brightened up. “You do? I’ve been trying my hand at it, too, but I can’t say anything about whether it’s absolute shit or not. I can’t tell.”
Al-Haitham would bet anything that it’s nothing short of amazing, but it wasn’t as if he was about to tell Kaveh that. The words would usually light some sort of competitive fire in him, too, the longing to see one of Kaveh’s pieces for himself so he could compare it to his own and judge it from there, but hearing that Kaveh wrote music only makes him feel illuminated from the inside out. As if he’d give anything to hear a part of Kaveh’s heart written out in eighths and sixteenths.
“It probably is,” Al-Haitham said for lack of any other words. “Shit, that is.”
“You’re a little shit,” Kaveh said immediately. “You haven’t even heard anything.”
Yes, but I can imagine, Al-Haitham almost said. But he didn’t, because when he did imagine it, all he could hear in his mind was a swelling crescendo and a wash of crimson red.
So he let it go instead.
The next Monday, Kaveh approached Al-Haitham for the first time in the halls right before fifth. “You have my music, right?” Kaveh said, reaching over and plucking one earbud out of Al-Haitham’s ears before he could swat his hands away. “I forgot to ask for it back after I dropped you off.”
“Get your hands away from me,” Al-Haitham said irritatedly. Kaveh rolled his eyes but dropped his hands. “And yes. I have it. Though maybe I should just toss it in the trash.”
Kaveh’s mouth dropped open. “You wouldn’t,” he said, but he asked the question with just enough uncertainty that it made Al-Haitham feel like grinning.
“Would I?”
Kaveh dug his elbow into Al-Haitham’s side meanly, the tip of it sharp and pointy. “You won’t. Hey, have you always come from that building? I feel like I haven’t seen you walk this way before.”
“I have,” Al-Haitham said, skirting away a little from Kaveh’s touch. Where he had touched him burns sweetly, just a little. “You’re just self-absorbed, I think.”
“I literally cannot win with you,” Kaveh said out loud wonderingly. Al-Haitham grinned to himself, just a little, and ducked his chin down before the other could see.
As nice as this was, admittedly, it would be best for Al-Haitham if he didn’t spend extended time with Kaveh. For obvious reasons. For reasons such as accidentally letting his guard slip. He sped up a little, hoping that Kaveh would maybe fall behind, but he kept pace easily. Kaveh was just a little taller than Al-Haitham, and it showed.
When Al-Haitham looked back at Kaveh, he was staring ahead with a concentrated look on his face. A sense of determination, of purpose. Al-Haitham followed his gaze to the band room and squinted.
“Are you only walking with me to make sure I don’t get the stand before you do?”
“I am not,” Kaveh said, walking a little bit faster.
He was lying. Al-Haitham measured the last few paces before the band room door, and deciding that it was more than worth the cost of his dignity, darted forward to close the space in an almost-run before Kaveh could reach it.
“Hey!” Kaveh said, leaping forward, but not before Al-Haitham had already smugly made it through the doors and into the room, their unofficially designated finishing line.
“Excited to be here, boys?” the director said wryly. “Glad to see it.”
And faced away from Kaveh, hands held innocently behind his back, Al-Haitham let his victorious smile leave his lips and spread all the way across his cheeks.
The next day, Kaveh met Al-Haitham in the halls again on their way to fifth, and maybe it was because he wanted to beat Al-Haitham at his own game, but he secretly hoped that it was because he wanted to walk with him, too.
It happened again. And again. And again. Until Al-Haitham stopped treating it as a surprise and took it as a given.
“Are you sure you’re not lonely?” Kaveh said skeptically.
Al-Haitham looked up from his book. There was Kaveh again, standing over him with his hands on his hips, interrupting his designated reading time. “I’m sure.”
“Really,” Kaveh said, moving now so that the sun unintentionally hit Al-Haitham full force in the eyes. He settled next to him and dropped down so that he was also sitting against the tree, head leaned back and eyes closed. “Because every time I pass by here you look so sad and alone, and then I feel bad even though I know it's your own doing. Ugh. You’re a loser, you know that right?”
“Thanks,” said Al-Haitham.
“And I offered,” Kaveh continued on without prompting, now gesturing with his hands, “but you said no, even though you should honestly treat my company as a gift. It’d do you more good to talk to more people.”
“You sound like a parent. Don’t come to me complaining that I look like a loner to make yourself feel as if you’re doing some great deed by coming and talking to me.”
“But aren’t I?” Kaveh said, peeling one eye open to look at Al-Haitham from the side. “I don’t really see anyone else doing the same.”
“Because most people don’t disturb strangers at peace.”
“I’m not a stranger,” Kaveh said, “I’m you’re, ah… stand partner! Unwillingly, of course. That makes it sound a little more amicable than it actually is.”
“Have you gotten your fill of charity?”
“Just say you have bad taste and want me to go away,” Kaveh sniffed, leaning back onto his hands and hopping up to his feet. “Fine, I guess. Nice to get confirmation that you’re actually a loser. Here’s an apple.”
Confused, Al-Haitham took the fruit thrown to him and held it between his fingers. “I don’t need this.”
“Neither do I. See you.”
And then he was gone.
Al-Haitham somehow got accustomed to this overwhelming influx of Kaveh in his life, which was strange because they were not even quite friends. But there was Kaveh, in his fifth period and passing him in the halls and staring at him meaningfully during lunch and walking with him to band. The oddest part of it all was the whole carpooling to honor band rehearsal situation, because then Kaveh knew where he lived and what his house looked like and yet they had never once had a civil conversation.
It was a peculiar contradiction, to be sure. Al-Haitham simultaneously knew too much and nothing about Kaveh at the same time, like what air freshener he kept in his car and what brand of oil he liked to use on his flute and that he hated calculus, or at least that he liked complaining about it during band, but he knew nothing about his motivations or why he loved music or what he wanted to do in the future. None of the important things, at least. None of the things that could bring him closer.
The thing was—Kaveh’s entire thing about Al-Haitham not having friends to hang out with at lunch was partially true. Because he had never really bothered, and since he was homeschooled for a portion of his life anyway, he had missed out on some of the formative friend group-making years.
It didn’t bother him, and it bothered him even less when Kaveh would needle him about it. He’d reach out to other people if he wanted to. He’d be able to make friends. Probably. It was just that he preferred having that time to himself during a hectic day, which nicely coincided with his lack of desire for social interaction.
So Al-Haitham wasn’t really sure what he was and was not supposed to know. What designated someone as a friend versus an acquaintance versus a classmate. Neither did he know where Kaveh fell into those categories, even though he had the feeling that Kaveh would transcend all of those neat little boxes if Al-Haitham was given the chance to get to really know him.
But Al-Haitham was probably thinking about it too much. A little too much for somebody who only wanted to be Kaveh’s friend, for sure. And that was the one thing Al-Haitham knew—that was how those high school crushes were supposed to work, right? At least he got that one down.
There were only a few rehearsals, given that it was an honor band, so there was only so much time that Al-Haitham had to spend in near proximity to Kaveh. He’d gotten used to it sometime around the second time he picked him up; the flash of golden hair when he looked through the window, the smell of Kaveh’s cologne when he moved to check his blind spots, the now familiar rumble of his car engine as they got going.
But what he wasn’t used to was concert attire. Something Al-Haitham hadn’t really considered particularly devastating before there was Kaveh.
Concert season—at least for the school band—was later in the spring. For the honor band, they only had one performance, usually out in some known concert hall before the school concert season even started.
Al-Haitham was ready for the performance. What he wasn’t ready for was Kaveh in concert black, his long legs in fitted pants and a dark button down. He’d even pinned his hair up a little differently than normal, more intricate than his usual style.
The smell of his cologne seemed so much stronger all of a sudden when Al-Haitham drew up to the car. He was fidgeting with his sleeves, looking down when he approached, and Al-Haitham felt his mouth go a little dry.
“Great,” Kaveh said when he saw Al-Haitham. “You concert ready?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Wonderful.”
“Are you?” Al-Haitham returned the question to Kaveh once they had both slid into the car.
Kaveh grinned. “For the concert? Of course.” He was always like that—wore that quiet confidence like a glove, slid it on as one did with sunglasses. He was never boastful, of course, because he was Kaveh, but he knew his own capabilities, and he knew that everyone around him was also aware. And that was enough, without having to say it outright.
By the time they walked out onto the stage, the concert hall was already filled with patrons, all dressed in formal attire. It wasn’t the biggest audience Al-Haitham had ever played for, but it was a considerable amount of people.
“Nervous?” Kaveh said as they navigated through the maze of chairs to get to the front.
Al-Haitham glanced back. “No.”
“You could do with a bit more healthy fear, probably,” Kaveh said, which made Al-Haitham begin to scowl, and then he said, “But that’s good for you. You don’t really need to be nervous.”
And then he was gone into the crowd of flutes and Al-Haitham took his seat on the edge of the stage. Was that a compliment, technically? That Kaveh was sure enough in Al-Haitham’s skills that he didn’t believe he should be worried about his performance?
Just as Kaveh predicted, the concert goes smoothly on Al-Haitham’s end. He assumed it was the same for Kaveh—if he was confident in his own abilities, then he was even more confident about Kaveh’s—and his smile as they swept off of the stage was telling enough.
Kaveh was in a good mood when they got into his car to leave if the humming under his breath was any indication. It was one of the central motifs from their third piece, a concurring percussion line. Al-Haitham itched to go home and write music, burning alive from that sight up on the stage and the faint whiff of Kaveh’s cologne when he turned his head.
“Do you want to go get fast food before we go home?” Kaveh said, turning to Al-Haitham with a smile on his face, and all of Al-Haitham’s plans went out the window.
And that’s how they ended up eating burgers at eleven pm in Kaveh’s car. It was dark, and it was silent, but it was nice, Al-Haitham supposed. It wasn’t the awkward kind of silence where he watched the other person hunt around to start a conversation.
There was something about it—the smell of fried food, the smear of ketchup at the edge of Kaveh’s lips, the juxtaposition of the takeout bag and their formal concert attire. Late at night, the moon hung high above them and shone through the windshield. Something about it was so intrinsically high school that Al-Haitham, who had never cared much for making these his best years, wanted to stay out later and later until the sun had begun to rise.
“What time do you have to get home?” Kaveh asked eventually, checking the dashboard. “It’s getting kind of late.”
“I don’t have a curfew,” Al-Haitham said.
Kaveh threw his trash into the paper bag and offered it to Al-Haitham. “Oh. You have chill parents.”
“I don’t, actually,” Al-Haitham said. “They died when I was little.”
Kaveh froze, and Al-Haitham prepared himself for the same song and dance, the oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, that must have been hard, wasn’t it?
“Actually,” Kaveh said, smiling at him wryly, “my dad passed when I was little, too. Not quite the same. My mother is still around, she’s just gallivanting around Fontaine right now, having fun.”
So Kaveh still had new things to show him, apparently.
Al-Haitham nodded. “My grandmother is at a nursing home, so I have the house to myself, technically speaking. So it doesn’t matter if we’re late. She’s the reason I started playing the oboe, actually. But I think I mentioned that.”
Kaveh nodded. “You did. I didn’t say it before, but I play the flute because of my dad. I wanted to be just like him. I still do. He wasn’t very famous, you know, he only played in local taverns when they had open mic nights, but he was my idol nevertheless. I never imagined that there’d be a bigger stage than that dingy old bar.”
“You’ve already outgrown bars and you’re only a teenager still,” Al-Haitham said.
Kaveh laughed, throwing his head back a little. “You’re right, aren’t you? Well, I suppose that doesn’t change much. I still want to be just like him, but maybe… something bigger. So I can take on the fame he always dreamed of.”
“That’s admirable,” Al-Haitham said.
Kaveh tilted his head toward him. “And you? Why do you play?”
Al-Haitham was startled. No one had ever asked him that before. He’d hardly considered the question, as it is, just knowing inherently that it was what he did. “I think,” he said eventually, “that I’ve always liked languages, and music is just another form of spoken words.”
“Aw,” Kaveh said. “That’s sweet. Noble.” And even though it sounded ironic, he said them as if he truly believed it, in the sincerest form.
“Not noble.” Al-Haitham looked to the side at Kaveh. “I do it because I want to. That is nothing but selfish.”
Unexpectedly, that made Kaveh laugh for some reason, shoulders shaking. “That’s very Al-Haitham of you to say,” he said.
And what a curious thing. That Kaveh knew him enough to distinguish his passing words into Al-Haitham-like and un-Al-Haitham-like. That even though they were not quite friends and no longer quite enemies, he could still make him laugh, even when he wasn’t intending to.
“Is it? For what it’s worth, your motivation is very Kaveh of you.”
Kaveh’s laugh fades out, the remnants of amusement still on his lips. “Glad we’re on the same page, then,” he hummed, and then he sighed, balling up the paper bag and tossing it into the backseat. “I suppose we should head home, then. It’s late, even for me.”
“Grandpa's bedtime.”
“I’m not even much older than you.”
“If you say so.”
And thus ended their carpool drives and long hours of rehearsal shared together.
Nothing else changed, however. Kaveh coming up and making excuses to walk with Al-Haitham from fourth to fifth-period band, Kaveh stopping by Al-Haitham’s tree at lunch to make a few pointed remarks before leaving, Kaveh trying his best to fight over the shared space on their stand.
Until preparation for concert season set upon them in early spring, and then suddenly it was as if bickering over music stands was the least of their worries. At least in front of the band director, who would have sooner kicked them out of the band room over listening to their arguing in the front row.
“This is sad,” Kaveh announced, stopping in the middle of the walkway in the bus to stare down at Al-Haitham critically.
“You’re blocking the way,” Al-Haitham said pointedly. “Move on.”
“Why are you sitting alone?” Kaveh said as if he didn’t hear Al-Haitham speak. “Do you not have friends?”
“I do.” Al-Haitham crossed his arms and stared at Kaveh mutinously. “They’re just not in band. You should really move on. You’re creating congestion.”
“And leave you sitting alone? You think me crueler than I am, Al-Haitham.” And then Kaveh dropped down into the seat beside Al-Haitham, and in the cramped bus seats, his knee just barely brushed Al-Haitham’s knee.
His heart skipped a beat before resuming as normal. “God,” he said, “if it’s so difficult for you, I give you permission to sit elsewhere.”
Kaveh frowned. “I’m being nice. Shut up.”
“You’re the one creating this commotion over me sitting alone, which I was perfectly fine with.”
“There’s no way,” Kaveh said, his nose wrinkling. He reached over and ripped Al-Haitham’s book out of his hands, which was possibly even worse than making a public spectacle over his lonerism in front of the entire bus. “You brought this to a concert? You’re more of a loser than I thought.”
“Does this classify as bullying?” Al-Haitham wondered out loud, his eyes going to the ceiling. Maybe if he counted to ten he’d be able to control himself enough not to throw himself over Kaveh and get his book back. “If I reported you, would you get moved down to second chair?”
“I’m helping you,” Kaveh said pointedly, holding the book over his head. Al-Haitham cursed the very minimal height he had over him. “You can’t report me for that.”
“Watch me,” Al-Haitham said, and then the bus rumbled into life and the director stepped onto the bus, turning to address all of them and send them off to the venue.
The concert was nondescript. The ride home was less so.
The first festival of the season was one later at night—they usually ranged from being hosted during the school day to nighttime commitments. As expected, about half of the band fell asleep on the drive back, and the other half resorted to low whispers to talk to their friends across the way.
Al-Haitham was, unfortunately, awake. The bus was too dark for him to read any of the words in his book, so he closed that. His right arm had fallen asleep, anyway. Kaveh’s head was very heavy on Al-Haitham’s shoulder.
So that was his predicament. Half an hour left of the drive home, and Kaveh had fallen asleep onto Al-Haitham approximately five minutes after they peeled out of the parking lot. He was dangerously close to drooling onto his concert wear. Al-Haitham wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be disgusted or honored.
Maybe he could have avoided this if he insisted on keeping the seat to himself in the first place and not listening to the stupid voice in his head that thought that maybe it would be nice to sit next to Kaveh on the drive, especially since he was the one offering. Maybe he should have brandished his book in Kaveh’s face until he got the hint. Maybe he should have actually reported Kaveh and gotten him demoted to second chair, and then he would conveniently solve his stand issue as well.
Those were past-Al-Haitham’s mistakes. Al-Haitham was paying for them now.
Kaveh’s head slipped a little, and Al-Haitham’s shoulder went even stiffer, trying to prevent him from falling any further down. This was why his arm was asleep—what do you do, anyway, when someone falls asleep on you without warning?
Usually, Al-Haitham would shake him off right away. If it were anyone else but Kaveh. And that was the real issue. This was Kaveh, who probably didn’t get enough sleep anyway, if his stories were to be believed, and probably needed the extra rest. This was Kaveh, who was nice enough to bother Al-Haitham almost every day because he was concerned that he wasn’t getting enough social interaction, even though he didn’t particularly like him. This was Kaveh, who may not like Al-Haitham all that much, but whom Al-Haitham likes more than the normal amount. More than the platonic amount.
A long-winded way to explain why he hadn’t yet shaken Kaveh off of his shoulder. He’d do it if the chances of him drooling onto his clothes grew more dire, though.
It was a very tense drive home.
Luckily for Al-Haitham, Kaveh didn’t drool. Unluckily for Al-Haitham, when the bus slowed to a stop and everybody started waking up as the overhead lights started to flicker on, Kaveh seemed utterly horrified to have fallen asleep on Al-Haitham.
“What the fuck?” he spluttered, jumping up and moving as far as the tiny seat would allow him to. He winced, holding his neck, which must hurt from the awkward angle. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Ah.
Al-Haitham opened his mouth, closed it, and then shrugged his shoulders.
Kaveh stared back at him, his cheeks burning. He must have been embarrassed for falling asleep on him, which is understandable. It isn’t the easiest conversation to wake up to.
“Everyone is leaving,” Al-Haitham said, pointing to the empty front of the bus, and Kaveh startled into attention, scrambling to get his things and then rushing out of the row.
Al-Haitham followed suit, his right shoulder feeling unusually cold.
Somehow not learning from anything that had happened at the concert before, Kaveh then took the seat next to Al-Haitham’s for every following bus ride. The falling asleep was a sporadic thing. They didn’t go to many festivals in the first place, but for every other bus ride back or so, Kaveh would fall asleep. Even during the afternoon rides, which made Al-Haitham a little worried about his sleep schedule.
And for some reason, Kaveh was unable to fall asleep on his right side, or with his head straight back against the seat, and would always fall right back onto Al-Haitham’s side without fail. And every time, without fail, Al-Haitham would feel his cheeks go dark and his heartbeat pick up a couple beats per minute.
The last concert of the season, sometime in late May, was also held at night. By the time everyone trudged out of the bus and waited in front of the band room to store away their instruments, tired and grumpy and groggy, it was after the time they usually got to go home.
“Oh shit,” Kaveh whispered, shivering in the cold night air. He hopped from foot to foot, and when he exhaled, it exited in a cloud in front of him. “I left my backpack in the practice room.”
“Why in the practice room?” Al-Haitham asked him, looking at him from the side of his eye.
“I was camping out there because—oh, it doesn’t matter. Do you think it’s still unlocked? Did the director lock them already?”
“You might as well try.”
The director unlocked the door, and everybody flooded into the warm room, heading straight for their lockers.
“Hurry up, everyone,” the director called out. “It’s getting late, and I’m sure we’d all like to go home.”
Al-Haitham waited behind the crowd, having long figured out that it wasn’t worth it to elbow his way into the mass of people. By the time he had put away his belongings, he checked the time on his phone and grimaced. He didn’t particularly like walking alone at night, especially given that he was only a teenage boy, but some things had to be done. He’d have to trust the streetlights to guide the way home.
He saw Kaveh dithering in the corner, alternating between checking his phone and looking up. When he saw Al-Haitham, he frowned and gestured for him to come over.
“What,” Al-Haitham said annoyedly. “I want to go home. I still have to walk.”
Kaveh gave him an affronted look. “Walk? When I have a perfectly good car? Al-Haitham, what if you get kidnapped—that’s not the point. I’ve been waiting for the pit kids to move their instruments out of the way. They’re blocking the practice room, and it’s pissing me off.”
“They’ll be done soon, right,” Al-Haitham said, looking at the pit members hauling their instruments around and wondering what he was even still doing here. “And I don’t need a ride home.”
“Yes you do,” Kaveh said impatiently. “It’ll be faster for you, anyway, I don’t know why you’re complaining. Oh good, they’re gone. Come with me, then, since I’ll be taking you home.”
So Al-Haitham followed Kaveh there.
“There’s so much shit in here,” Kaveh grumbled, kicking boxes to the side to get to his backpack. “They’ve got to get a storage room instead of shoving everything here. And the entire drum set is just over the top.”
“Will you hurry it up?” Al-Haitham asked.
“Shut up, or I won’t give you a ride home.”
“I didn’t ask for a ride in the first place—”
“Have a good night, kids!” the director called out, presumably out the exit. Everyone else must have left. There’s the jingling of keys and heavy footsteps around the room.
“Quick, turn off the lights!” Kaveh hissed, and then he did it anyway, diving back over to where Al-Haitham was and flipping them off deftly. He put his hands on Al-Haitham’s shoulders and pushed him down so they were crouching near the floor among all the boxes.
“What are you doing,” Al-Haitham said, or at least he tried to say it before Kaveh shoved his palm over Al-Haitham’s mouth, effectively silencing him. Al-Haitham’s eyes went wide, but he wasn’t sure if Kaveh was able to see that in the dark.
“He can’t know we’re in here,” Kaveh whispered. His hand was still over Al-Haitham’s mouth even though he wouldn’t be able to talk if he wanted to. “He’ll think we’re either causing trouble or sneaking into here to do teenage things or whatever.”
They watched the silhouette of the director walk around the room through the glass door of the room, flipping off lights. Kaveh shifted over to peer more closely at the director’s movements, not realizing that the movement made him lean even closer to Al-Haitham’s face.
Kaveh was so close. Al-Haitham felt his heart speed up, up, up, faster than the third movement of their last piece.
“I think he’s gone,” he said, his voice now at a more normal volume. “But he probably locked the door, so we have to make sure it’s locked when we leave. Maybe we should wait a few minutes.”
Al-Haitham couldn’t say anything with Kaveh’s hand still covering his mouth, but he couldn’t take his eyes off him. Even in the dark, he could make out the minute features of Kaveh’s face, if only because they were so close to each other. If he held on for a second longer, Al-Haitham could count the eyelashes along his eyes. The freckles scattered across his cheeks.
“Oh!” Kaveh said suddenly, realizing that he still had his hand on Al-Haitham’s mouth. “Sorry.” He removed it.
Al-Haitham couldn’t move, regardless. Kaveh’s eyes were on him, now—he could imagine that he was memorizing the features of his face in return.
And in the dark, crouching down among the trash on the practice room floor, long after the school had already been locked, Al-Haitham thought that maybe he had no choice but to fall in love with Kaveh.
“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh whispered, quiet again, and now that they were facing each other he could feel his breath fan over his face. His own breath hitched as if he subconsciously didn’t want to ruin the moment. “Are you—”
Before Al-Haitham could respond, Kaveh took the initiative and moved away, breaking the moment. Al-Haitham blinked and found his eyes unusually dry, his breath hard to catch in his lungs. His heart was thundering as if it would never slow again.
“Sorry,” Kaveh said, standing up and looking to his side and away from Al-Haitham. “I was just taking precautions. The director’s probably gone by now if you want to take me up on that ride.”
“Sure,” Al-Haitham said, standing as well. He was inexplicably disappointed, for some reason. For what he had no idea. What could he have been expecting? What could he have wanted?
Well. That’s not really a question. The real question was why he had even bothered getting his hopes up.
Kaveh rummaged around in the back, shoving stuff aside now without abandon to get to his backpack. Al-Haitham flicked on the lights, and the strong fluorescents made him squint and blink rapidly.
The room was now suddenly suffocating, so Al-Haitham cracked the door open and stood with one foot outside and one in, waiting for Kaveh to retrieve his bag.
“Got it,” Kaveh said triumphantly, finally emerging with his things. Al-Haitham opened the door for him. “Oh, thank you.”
“What teenage stuff were you talking about?” Al-Haitham asked, flipping off the lights and then following Kaveh out to the entrance. The cold air hit them like a shock, coming on all of a sudden. Kaveh shivered. Al-Haitham could make out the goosebumps on his neck.
Kaveh motioned for him to make sure the door was locked before they headed out to the parking lot. “Oh, like sex. Or making out. Practice rooms get a little crazy, especially for band kids.”
Al-Haitham flushed. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Kaveh mimicked. “I mean, it wouldn’t have been true anyway, but I’m sure the director has had to kick out a few too many kids from the practice rooms for doing indecent stuff. I didn’t want him to think badly of me.”
Al-Haitham swallowed. “I get it.”
Kaveh laughed shortly, the sound dying out in the night air as he opened his door and held it there. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have done it, anyway. Not with you.”
Oh.
“Of course not,” Al-Haitham said, and then he ducked into the car, eager to get home now not just because of the chilled air but the realization that he’s been in love with Kaveh all of this time, and Kaveh did not love him back.
Contrary to popular belief, the band’s last performance was not their last festival, but the senior’s graduation ceremony.
Everyone wished that their last performance would be the concert. After all, what could be crueler than forcing tired and exhausted students to keep attending rehearsal even as the rest of their classes dwindled out to nothing but sleeping through the periods?
Playing the same piece for what seemed like hours, apparently.
“Pomp and Circumstance,” Kaveh said, holding the sheet music out in front of him as if he wanted to crumple it into pieces and throw it across the room. “The bane of my existence.”
“Is it really that bad?” Al-Haitham said, scanning the rhythms. It didn’t look too bad, in all honesty.
“It’s not really the piece,” Kaveh said, setting it on the stand with vengeance, “it’s the fact that we have to sit through the entire graduation ceremony while all they do is call names, and for the rest of the ceremony, we play the same piece over and over and over again. Literally, the same thing. No setlist. Just Pomp and Circumstance.”
“Oh,” Al-Haitham said, reassessing his view of the piece. “Ew.”
“The first thing you have said all year that I agree with,” Kaveh declared. “Man, am I glad that this is my last year playing this. Though I guess next year I’ll be the one sitting through the names. Still exciting, though.”
Sometimes Al-Haitham forgot that Kaveh was about to be a senior. About to leave high school.
“You,” Kaveh said, pointing at Al-Haitham, “still have three more of these, though. Have fun.”
“That doesn’t seem to be possible.”
“It’s not,” Kaveh said cheerfully. “Hoorah. Graduation.”
Hoorah graduation, indeed. The ceremony was just as boring as Kaveh had promised. So was playing that piece so many times that Al-Haitham lost count—by the end of the night, the rhythms had been drilled into his head.
For five minutes of it, Al-Haitham had felt somewhat awed seeing the seniors enter the next stage of life, and then it grew old very fast. Al-Haitham was completely over it by the half-hour mark.
“A fine end to this school year,” Kaveh said, staring up at the confetti trickling down through the air. He caught a piece and twiddled it in his fingers. “The graduation ceremony. You can always count on it to be the same every year. Dreadfully boring.”
“Nice,” Al-Haitham said, already not looking forward to the end of next year.
Kaveh laughed, suddenly cheerful. “I would hate to be in your shoes. Two more ceremonies, and you’ll have to go through them both without me—the horror!”
“That’ll make it better, probably,” Al-Haitham said, and Kaveh scoffed and turned up his nose and made a rude gesture in Al-Haitham’s direction. He was lying, of course.
“Well,” Kaveh said eventually, looking back at Al-Haitham through lowered eyes. “This really was the last performance of the year. I’ll see you once summer is over, I guess.”
Oh. Had it really gone that quickly? All of those months collapsed into the blink of an eye?
“I’ll see you,” Al-Haitham said lamely, half-raising his hand in some approximation of a goodbye, and then that was it, and his freshman year of high school was over for good.
]
【┘】
“Al-Haitham.”