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To Kaveh’s great shock and utter dismay, no one else seemed to know that Al-Haitham had dimples except him.
He realized this at some inconsequential dinner with Tighnari and the General Mahamatra. He’d been invited by Tighnari and pounced on the opportunity to escape the living quarters he shared with Al-Haitham, immediately throwing the door open and dashing like a madman down the path to Avidya Forest. As he traveled, he thought that if he was lucky enough and if he got drunk enough, Tighnari would take pity on him and let him stay in a spare hut overnight so he could avoid Al-Haitham until the next morning.
The dinner conversation progressed as it always did: Collei relaying her progress on her studies (or rather, Tighnari/Cyno urging Collei to speak about it, Collei blushing, more urging, and then Collei finally conceding), Tighnari complaining about hapless travelers eating the wrong mushrooms as they fumbled their way through the forest, Cyno talking about new Genius Invokation TCG cards he’d acquired, and finally Kaveh—after one too many cups of wine—talking about his financial troubles and his roommate troubles and all forms of his life troubles.
Somehow the conversation took a turn towards Al-Haitham’s face. Or rather, his facial expressions—how minuscule they were that they were nearly nonexistent. It was only after years of knowing him that Kaveh could tell the difference between Eyebrow Furrow #1 and Eyebrow Furrow #6. The man never fucking emoted! He didn’t smile more than two degrees into a curvature, which was a shame because the dimples of his youth hardly ever made an appearance.
Cyno paused, his spoon frozen in midair. “Al-Haitham has dimples?”
Kaveh blinked. “Of course, he has dimples.”
“What do you mean: ‘of course?”’ Tighnari raised an eyebrow. “How would we know? He hardly ever smiles—you said so yourself.”
“But—“ Kaveh halted. “How do you not know he has dimples?”
“How do you know he has dimples?”
“Well—” His brain stalled. “I mean—I’ve just seen them before. They’re on his face! He hardly smiles, but that doesn’t mean he never does. I mean—Collei, Collei, did you know he had dimples?”
Collei lifted her head from her plate. Her eyes were wide like she hadn’t expected to be important to the conversation. “I—no, I did not know that. I’m sorry Mister Kaveh.”
“No, no, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” He frowned. Was he truly the only one in the room that knew Al-Haitham had dimples?
“Here’s a question,” said Tighnari. “When was the last time you saw Al-Haitham smile?” He turned to look at the table. “All of you.”
“Last Sunday,” said Kaveh.
“Five years ago,” said Cyno.
“Never,” said Collei.
“What?” Kaveh nearly shot out of his seat. “How?”
“Quoting you again,” said Cyno. “Because he hardly smiles. Except around you, it seems.”
“I only see him smile because I live with him.” Kaveh sighed wearily into his hand. “This is ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous is how you’ve talked about Al-Haitham all the way to sundown.” Tighnari jerked his head towards the window where the darkening sky lay beyond it.
Kaveh paled. “I—uh.” He set down his cup. Perhaps he should end his drinking early tonight. “I’m sorry.”
Tighnari sighed wearily. “Are you well enough to walk home? Or do you perhaps need to stay in a spare hut again?”
“That one, please.” Kaveh buried his face in his hand.
Tighnari hummed. “Are you certain? Because I’m sure if you return home instead, you’ll be able to spend more time around Al-Haitham, thus increasing your chances of seeing his dimples, which I know you desperately want to see since you won’t stop talking about—”
“Tighnari!” Kaveh shrieked and nearly flung his wineglass across the table. “I’ll shut up, I’ll shut up. Just please—”
Cyno raised a hand to hide his smile.
Kaveh turned at him, entirely too drunk to handle all of this teasing. “Don’t laugh at me, Cyno. I just know you’re itching to get me out of this hut so you can take Tighnari to bed—”
Cyno flushed and threw a pita pocket at his head with deadly accuracy.
Collei turned red and Tighnari let out a pointedly loud cough. “Alright, okay, I think we’re all ready to end the night.”
Kaveh shot him a look that he hoped said something along the lines of, Vengeance.
Tighnari did not respond to the look. In fact, he stood up and yanked Kaveh out of his seat by the collar before making the move to shove him out of the hut as Cyno got up and started quietly pick up the plates.
And so, Kaveh retired in the spare hut and spent the rest of the night rolling around in his blankets as he tried not to think of the coming morning, and of the return to Al-Haitham’s house.
The first time Al-Haitham’s dimples had revealed themselves to Kaveh, it had been during the Akademiya. They’d first met in the House of Daena after a spat over a book they both wanted to borrow at the same time. Al-Haitham had said something along the lines of no one in Kshahrewar having touched it for weeks, so why shouldn’t he be allowed claim over it? And Kaveh had shot back that Al-Haitham didn’t have any classes relating to the book’s topic, so why couldn’t he give it up to someone actually in the proper darshan?
In the weeks following, their arguments continued with the steady pace and promise of a river flowing downhill. And somewhere in between, Kaveh realized that, unfortunately, he enjoyed their conversations. Al-Haitham had a mind and worldview so entirely unlike his own that speaking to him felt like downloading from the Akasha while swallowing three knives at the same time—both extremely invigorating and entirely unpleasant.
They once again found themselves in the House of Daena, the common place of congregation for all the stressed Akademiya students. Kaveh didn’t remember how their conversation had meandered to where it did, but he made a comment about how he would rather choose to believe in the good of others rather than “protect” himself by living behind a shield.
He remembered waiting for a scathing remark, but all Al-Haitham said was, “I would call your idealism naive if anyone other than you were saying this, Senior.”
Kaveh had nearly spat something back immediately, but then he processed the words. They weren’t entirely negative. And if he were to pick apart the meaning, if he were to take Al-Haitham’s words with the context of the man he knew now, he wondered—
“Huh?” Kaveh blinked. He turned the words over in his mind again. “I—thank you? I think?”
Al-Haitham smiled, the corners of his mouth curling up. Kaveh almost choked on his spit on the spot because he’d never seen Al-Haitham smile before, but then the smile climbed higher and higher until two twin dents appeared on his cheeks like someone had pressed their fingers into his face.
The smile, unfortunately, dropped, taking the dimples with it. Al-Haitham narrowed his eyes. “What.”
Kaveh felt light-headed, now saddled with the knowledge that Al-Haitham had dimples— two symmetrical dimples like he was some charming youth instead of a prickly, arrogant, junior Akademiya student. To think, they’d been hiding in plain sight all this time.
Kaveh composed himself and smiled. “Nothing, just—” He reached out and tapped Al-Haitham on the cheek, right where his dimple would be. “Didn’t know you had these.”
Al-Haitham jerked back, lifting a hand to cover his face.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to make you feel shy.” Kaveh couldn’t help himself. He stood and approached. “Come on, let me see them again.”
“I’m not shy,” Al-Haitham bit out, turning a delightful shade of pink. “You’re being irritating.”
“You’ll have to forgive me.” Kaveh smiled, partially because he couldn’t help it, and partially because he hoped Al-Haitham would mirror him so the dimples would make a reappearance. “I’m an artist, as you know. Cute things will catch my eye and won’t let go.”
Al-Haitham did not smile at him again, instead fixing him with a scowl. Kaveh laughed then, and laughed harder when Al-Haitham kicked him under the table. Someone nearby shushed him because of all the noise he was making and he managed to shut up long enough to reach a hand out and grasp Al-Haitham’s wrists.
“What are you doing?”
I will see those dimples again, Kaveh thought. Mark my words.
The next opportunity to ask about Al-Haitham’s dimples came at one of Nilou’s performances in the Grand Bazaar. After she finished dancing and Kaveh finished applauding her profusely, she climbed off the stage where they both spotted Dehya at the other side, making her way through the crowd.
“Hey, Kaveh! Nilou!” Dehya's eyes lit when she saw them looking. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Dehya!” Nilou charged forward and threw her arms around her.
Dehya caught her, laughing. “Beautiful performance again, as always.”
Nilou flushed and pulled back, grin pinching the corners of her eyes. “Thank you.”
Dehya turned to Kaveh. “And how have you been? Still in crippling debt?”
Kaveh winced. “Yes, but, I’ve got a few commissions lined up.”
“Hm, you know, if architecture doesn’t work out, you could always become a merc,” she teased.
“Ha, good one, Dehya.” Kaveh rotated his wrists, still feeling the ache from drawing yesterday. “But I don’t think my wrists—or arms, for that matter—are made for that kind of work.”
She punched him lightly on the arm as a joke, but he still had to bite back a wince. “That’s quitter talk. If you actually lifted your claymore instead of having your toolbox thing do it for you, you could make enough Mora to get a new place.”
Oh, what he wouldn’t do for a new place—
A thought struck him. “Dehya, may I ask you something?”
She nodded. “Shoot.”
“Did you know Al-Haitham has dimples?”
Dehya blinked. “What?”
That was a no, then. Kaveh turned to Nilou. “Did you know?”
“Uh…”
“Where is this coming from?” Dehya tilted her head.
“Oh, I was just curious.” Kaveh paused. “Actually, I had dinner with Cyno and Tighnari the other night and the topic was brought up.”
“ ‘The topic was brought up,’ ” Dehya mused. “I wonder by whom.”
Kaveh chose to ignore her. “Turns out, no one in that household knew Al-Haitham had dimples. So I thought to ask you two.” Kaveh glanced between them. “Since, um, both of you are acquainted with him from the Grand Sage god-creating incident.”
They glanced at each other.
“No, I didn’t know,” said Nilou.
“Me neither,” said Dehya.
“How?” Kaveh burst.
“I’ve just never seen him smile enough to see the dimples,” said Dehya. “How do you know he has them?”
“Because I’ve seen them!” Kaveh wanted to scream. “How have none of you ever seen him smile before?”
A beat of silence fell over them.
Nilou shot him a glance and something sparkled in her eye.
“Kaveh,” she began softly. “Have you considered maybe that no one knows he has dimples other than you because he only smiles around you?”
“That—” His face warmed. “That’s ridiculous—sorry, Nilou. But, that doesn’t sound right. At least, not in the way your tone is implying.” Kaveh fidgeted, itching to draw or doodle or tinker or anything to get his mind off the situation and onto his hands. “I mean, he does smile when he gets the upper hand in our arguments, or when he’s laughing at my misfortune, or when he’s poking at my ‘flawed ideals,’ but—”
“Hm.” Dehya raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t—!” Kaveh pulled his voice in. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“I’m not looking at you in any special way,” said Dehya. “At least no more special than how Al-Haitham smiles at you.”
His face flamed. “I am leaving.” He turned to go, but his manners took over and he turned around to mutter, “Wonderful performance, Nilou,” and, through gritted teeth, “It was nice seeing you again, Dehya,” before dashing out of the bazaar, leaving Dehya and Nilou to their laughter.
Kaveh made good on his word to see Al-Haitham’s dimples again. When he wasn’t pulling all-nighters to finish floorplans or maquettes, he poured every spare ounce of attention onto Al-Haitham in an attempt to pull a smile out of him.
Kaveh doted on him, cooed at him, made it his life mission to draw those dimples out again. However, no matter his teasing, Al-Haitham would not smile at him—at least not all the times Kaveh tried to make it happen on purpose. But he would still catch the curve of a smile disappearing, the ghost of a dimple lingering when Kaveh would “lose” an argument (or what Al-Haitham would consider a loss), when he sputtered at some snide comment Al-Haitham would make, or really anything involving Kaveh fumbling with his words and an indignant reaction.
In the House of Daena, Kaveh tried a new tactic.
“You know,” said Kaveh, resting his cheek in his hand as he looked at Al-Haitham across the table. “You could catch a lot of eyes with those dimples.”
Al-Haitham tilted his head. “Even yours?”
He sounded so unamused, it took a moment for Kaveh to register the actual words he was saying. He blinked, then, inexplicably, flushed. “What—where do you get the right to say stuff like that?”
“Get the right?” Al-Haitham smiled wider and Kaveh had to grip the table. “The right to speak my mind? I believe it’s an inherent one, as dictated by the sages. But if you have an issue with that, you could take it up with them, Senior.”
Al-Haitham was still smiling. His dimples were still showing, staring at Kaveh like a pair of depthless eyes. He had the strongest urge to press both of his index fingers into them until they touched Al-Haitham’s teeth through the skin, but he held back.
“...that’s not fair,” Kaveh managed to bite out.
“What’s not fair?’
“Put those away.”
This was somehow the longest Kaveh had ever managed to make Al-Haitham hold a smile, and now that he was faced with it, he could barely handle it.
“I can’t put them away, they’re part of my face.” Al-Haitham raised his eyebrows. “I thought you wanted to see them.”
“You’re not allowed to use them in an argument with me.”
“‘Use them?’” Al-Haitham huffed, amused. “Are we arguing?”
“You tell me.”
Al-Haitham pursed his lips, the smile finally disappearing. Kaveh found that he could finally breathe again.
“I just asked a question,” Al-Haitham finally said. “Suppose I’m only looking for one pair of eyes. Have I caught them?”
“I mean, I’m looking at you right now, aren’t I?” His face heated to an embarrassing temperature.
Al-Haitham’s expression did not change, but the silence between them became slightly more pleasant, and Kaveh didn’t know if he felt brave enough to discern how or why.
Kaveh had one more idea on who to ask about this Al-Haitham-dimple situation: the Traveler and Paimon. Surely the two of them knew about his dimples, surely they had seen them before because they were the first friends Al-Haitham had made in over a decade that he actually brought to his house. Surely they must have seen it while they were foiling the plans of Sumeru’s corrupt leaders and overthrowing the government.
He had no idea where they were in Teyvat, but thankfully, the issue resolved itself quickly because they reappeared in Sumeru City a week later to do their various adventurer helping-people errands.
He ran into them at Lambad’s Tavern while drinking away his sorrows after his most recent failure of a commission. He bought them some drinks (peach juice and rose water) and sprung the question on them without preamble.
“Did you two know Al-Haitham has dimples?”
The Traveler and Paimon glanced at each other for a long moment. He watched them look at each other, then off into the distance, then back at each other, furrowing their eyebrows like they were digging into the depths of the earth to find an answer.
Frustration welled up inside him. “It should not take this long to think about it,” he mumbled before his brain could catch his mouth.
They startled. “Does he?” The Traveler asked.
Paimon tapped her chin. “Oh, yeah, Paimon thinks he does!”
Relief crashed over him. Thank the gods, he thought, because he wasn’t the only one that knew Al-Haitham had dimples! Of course, it didn’t mean anything weird! He wasn’t the only one who knew whether or not Al-Haitham had a basic facial feature. “Oh, wonderful, because no one else seemed to know, and they kept saying—”
But then Paimon said, “Paimon thinks Paimon saw him smile once when he was talking to you, and Paimon remembers thinking, ‘Wow, he has dimples! Paimon didn’t expect him to have them, but Paimon thinks they look nice!’”
“Oh yeah,” said the Traveler. “I remember that.”
“What?” Kaveh tried not to sound so crestfallen, but it was difficult not to when he was already three wine cups deep.
The Traveler looked over and scrunched her eyebrows, confused. “Why do you sound disappointed?”
“I’m not disappointed!” Kaveh tried to sit up and slammed his knee into the underside of the table.
“Kaveh!” The Traveler lurched forward as groaned into his palm.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Too fucking drunk for this. He was entirely too drunk for this.
“Are you sure?” She furrowed her eyebrows.
“Yes, yes, thank you for your help. Sorry for bothering you.” He could barely focus with his mind torn entirely in two between the pain in his knee.
“If you’re sure…”
“You can go.” Leave me to my misery.
He saw them glance at him one more time before retreating out of the tavern, leaving him to his thoughts.
Oh, Archons. What was he to do?
Truthfully, Kaveh thought he’d lost the right to see Al-Haitham’s dimples after their fight. Or at least, he thought he’d never see them again because why would Al-Haitham smile at him now with how little he already did? So when they reconnected and moved in together, he was pleasantly surprised to see them again—and certainly not an embarrassing amount of relieved. He drank up the sight in gulps in case they fucked up again and never spoke to each other again, in case each smile was the last. But they kept coming. And Kaveh refused to think more of it.
Until now, until the dinner with Tighnari, and now he had to fucking think about why no one else knew about his dimples.
He charged into the house, still a bit unsteady on his feet and still feeling the three cups of wine sloshing around in him, when he kicked down the door to find Al-Haitham sitting on the couch.
“You may live here,” he said, not looking up from his book. “But the house is still in my name, and I’d rather you not kick that so hard.”
Kaveh swallowed all his words about how he had designed the door and knew the materials that made it and how much force it could withstand and how he hadn’t actually kicked it at its weakest part, and spat out a, “You!”
Al-Haitham finally looked up. “Me?”
“How does no one know you have dimples?”
Al-Haitham took the question in stride without a blink. “Why are you asking me instead of them?”
“I did ask them.” Kaveh kicked the door shut behind him. “Just—the dimples are on your face. They are right there, how am I the only one that knows?”
“How am I supposed to know the affairs of other people? If they didn’t know, they didn’t know.”
Kaveh stomped over and dropped heavily onto the couch, leaning against the arm opposite of Al-Haitham. “But how? Even Tighnari and Cyno have known you for years, but how am I the only one that’s ever seen you smile?”
There was a beat of silence, loud enough that he could hear his own breaths thundering through his chest.
“You’re a smart man, Kaveh.” Al-Haitham closed his book and set it down on the table. “Surely you can figure it out.”
His heartbeat pounded in his head. He was still breathing heavily, still trying to catch his breath from the trek back to the house. “Huh?”
The corner of his mouth tugged up. “Hm. Maybe we should wait a bit longer for this conversation.”
“No!” Kaveh lunged forward. “No, no, no, what conversation? Why are we waiting?” He grasped Al-Haitham’s arm and ignored the way his heart stumbled when Al-Haitham didn’t immediately pull away.
“Look at the state you’re in.” Kaveh knew he was entirely too drunk because he swore Al-Haitham almost sounded fond. “I’m sure you don’t have a coherent thought in your head right now.”
“I’m coherent!” His hands climbed up until they rested on Al-Haitham’s shoulder. Kaveh pressed forward until they were eye level. “I can think. What conversation, Al-Haitham? Why are we waiting when it’s already been years?”
Al-Haitham’s mouth tugged into a full blown smile and his dimples appeared on his face like the sunrise over the horizon. “So you are aware.”
And maybe because he was drunk enough that he couldn’t bother to reel his fingers in, and maybe because he’d been missing Al-Haitham for years even though they lived in the same house, but Kaveh finally allowed himself an indulgence: both hands rising around Al-Haitham’s face and poking his fingers into the valleys of his dimples, pressing in until he touched teeth.
“Kaveh.” He could feel Al-Haitham’s teeth shifting beneath his fingers.
“I missed these when we fought,” said Kaveh. “I thought I’d never see these again.”
“Already disproven,” said Al-Haitham, voice distorting from Kaveh’s fingers. “You’ve seen them multiple times already.”
“I missed them.”
Al-Haitham huffed a laugh. Kaveh felt the puff of air on his face. “You could have told me earlier.”
“I couldn’t.” Kaveh shook his head. “I’m telling you now.”
“What, exactly, are you telling me, Kaveh?”
I missed your dimples. I missed your smile. I missed y—
“I missed them.” Kaveh lifted his thumbs and pinched the skin of Al-Haitham’s face between his fingers.
“Did you?” Had Al-Haitham’s face moved closer? Kaveh suddenly found Al-Haitham’s fringe underneath his fingers, and then he could see both of Al-Haitham’s eyes, both of them staring wide and deep into his face. They were so green and strangely colored but his pupils were so wide and deep like the dimples on his face.
“Yes,” said Kaveh.
“Well.” A hand pressed against his lower back. “Let me fix that then, Senior.”
Al-Haitham’s mouth was softer than a flower petal, and warmer than one, too. Kaveh pressed his hands up until his palms fully cupped Al-Haitham’s face, holding his dimples in his hands. As Al-Haitham moved forward, pressing Kaveh down into the couch, he could feel the ghost of them against his palms—the space of air like the years between them finally filling with skin.