Chapter Text
"Say, Alhaitham," Kaveh says, swirling the wine in his glass. "You're a graduate of the Haravatat. How would you define love?"
"There are many types of love," Alhaitham replies. "Parents love their children. Lord Kusanali loves Sumeru. You love drinking yourself into a stupor. To which kind do you refer?"
"Romance, Alhaitham," Kaveh says. "What else would I mean?"
"How would I know what you mean without you telling me?"
Kaveh sighs. "Fine, fine," he says, and gulps down a mouthful of wine. "I'll refine the question, just for you. How would you define romantic love?"
"Is there some reason you're asking me this question?" Alhaitham asks. "Typically when someone brings up this topic, it isn't because they need a concept that has been in their vocabulary since childhood explained to them."
"What about either of us is typical?" Kaveh asks. "No. I'm just curious about what happens when I ask you, a person who values precise language, to define an inherently nebulous concept."
"Romantic love is, indeed, a nebulous concept," Alhaitham says. "A type of affection directed at a particular other person. Generally leads to the desire to know that person fully and engage in so-called romantic activities together. Kissing seems to be the most typical differentiating activity. It is also typically, but not always, associated with the desire to have sex with that person."
"Hm," Kaveh says. "Boring." He drinks the entire rest of his glass in one go. "But not unexpected, from you."
"How would you define romantic love, then?" Alhaitham asks.
Kaveh laughs. "I don't think it can be explained in words at all."
"Asking me to do something you're entirely unwilling to even attempt yourself?"
"Fine, fine," Kaveh says, waving a hand. "I suppose it wouldn't do for me to be unfair. Romantic love is a tender feeling in the heart, a desire for the well-being of another, a longing to keep them close. It is, in its purest form, a selfless commitment."
"Incoherent," Alhaitham replies.
"Can't argue with that," Kaveh replies. He lifts his empty glass. "I want a refill."
"You're drunk enough as it is," Alhaitham replies, but he fills Kaveh's glass again anyway.
"Not nearly enough for dealing with you," Kaveh says. "Or with any of the rest of my life. Have I told you, Alhaitham? The Akademiya is sending me out to build wells in the desert. They're not even using a new technique for it. They could put a Kshahrewar freshman in my place and get it done, and for far cheaper than what they're offering me."
"But you're going?"
"Of course I'm going," Kaveh says. "They're paying me, aren't they? How am I going to move out of here if I don't take the jobs I can get?"
---
The first symptom Alhaitham recognizes is a foul taste in his mouth. Rinsing out his mouth or chewing on mint will temporarily alleviate it, but it always comes back within half an hour. He cleans his teeth and gargles with salt water twice daily, and it does not help. He even breaks down enough to visit a dentist, who notes that his breath smells unpleasant but cannot find anything wrong with his mouth, and gently suggests cleaning his teeth more often as if he was not already doing so.
It is a full three months after this that he starts coughing and feeling short of breath. He assumes that he has a cold at first. But it lingers for two weeks, and then a third, without any sign of improvement.
"This is getting ridiculous," Kaveh says one evening. "Go see a doctor, Alhaitham."
"It's not impeding me at all," Alhaitham replies.
"It could be contagious," Kaveh points out. "You'll only end up with more work on your desk if you get your coworkers sick. And Archons know I don't want to catch it. Go see a doctor."
Unfortunately, Kaveh has made a valid point, and so Alhaitham schedules an appointment and submits to examination.
The doctor listens to his breathing and frowns. "You haven't been coughing anything up?"
"No," Alhaitham says.
"There's something obstructing your airways," she says, brows furrowing further. "I'll give you something to loosen it, and we'll see if that clears things up. If the cough isn't gone within a week, come back and see me again."
So that evening, Alhaitham drinks a mug of herbal tea that once he would have said tasted unpleasant, but is not as bad as the lingering taste in his mouth. The cough starts to worsen almost immediately, and two hours later, he locks himself in the bathroom as material finally expels itself from his lungs.
It is very clearly not solely mucus, or even primarily so. It is some kind of solid, but flexible matter in small pieces, coated in fluid tinged with blood. It smells like whatever he has been tasting for months.
He rinses away the fluids with some water.
If he's not mistaken, these are Nilotpala Lotus petals, though most of them have started to decay. One, however, is nearly intact, smooth and pristine as if it had been plucked from a plant minutes ago.
Alhaitham is nearly certain that he would have noticed if he had breathed in something so large even once. Without a doubt, he would have noticed doing so repeatedly.
Whatever is happening, having plant material in his lungs is not doing him any favors. He lets his body expel what it can.
"Do you need help?" Kaveh asks from outside the door. "That sounds painful."
"I'll be fine," Alhaitham wheezes. He has no idea if this is true, but the very last thing that he wants is to have to discuss whatever this is while he can't even draw a full breath. And he wants answers for himself before he has to answer Kaveh's questions.
The following day, Alhaitham returns to the doctor, material that he coughed up carefully wrapped in a handkerchief.
The doctor's face goes pale when she sees it. "I'll need someone with a Vision," she says. "Please wait here."
It is, he is eventually informed, a rare symptom of exposure to the Withering, one only found in those with Visions prior to their exposure. In almost every case, he is told, the only danger the Withering poses someone with a Vision is the initial onslaught of unpleasant energy and aggressive monsters. But in particular circumstances, it is able to gain a foothold and grow.
"What circumstances?" Alhaitham asks.
The doctor sighs. "The belief that one is in unrequited love."
"Is this a joke?"
"Check the Akasha."
It is not a joke. Reality has once again proven itself more ridiculous than anything a mere human could invent.
"What are my options?" Alhaitham asks.
"Remission generally occurs if one confesses their feelings to the individual in question and those feelings are reciprocated," the doctor says. "There is a risk of the severity worsening with confirmation that the emotions are as unrequited as previously believed. Surgical removal of the plant matter is possible, but in addition to the inherent risk of any surgical procedure on the lungs, memories associated with the person in question are degraded, and there is a high rate of recurrence. Medications can delay the progression of symptoms, but not halt them. Doing nothing will eventually result in your death."
This sounds like a fairy tale from Mondstadt or a light novel plot from Inazuma. Alhaitham is still not entirely convinced he believes this, though he does believe that the doctor believes it.
"I would like some time to do my own research and consider my options," Alhaitham says.
"Of course," the doctor replies. "Go ahead."
---
It all seems so ridiculous that Alhaitham almost believes himself the victim of an elaborate prank. He can't imagine who would benefit from this or how, but the alternative is that he's starring in some kind of morality play about being forthcoming with one's emotions.
But he spends hours with the Akasha and three days in the House of Daena researching, and comes to the unfortunate conclusion that he is in exactly the situation that was presented to him. The absurdity does not change the fact that he needs to make a decision. He has time to consider, but long-term inaction is tantamount to death. So he must choose a course of action.
In the imprecise terminology used in the literature, Alhaitham loves Kaveh and believes that Kaveh does not love him back. But this is untrue. They tolerate things in each other that they would not tolerate in anyone else. Alhaitham allows Kaveh to take up what was once his spare bedroom for rent that is far less than the market would demand for the area, to drink far more than half of his wine without charge at all, to clutter their common spaces with decorations when what they really need is another bookshelf or three, to complain that Alhaitham's taste in bookshelves is poor. In turn, Kaveh stays when Alhaitham says that his philosophies are foolish or that he's wasting his time or that there is no point in going through all the trouble of removing clean laundry from the basket and folding it. All of this is a kind of love. There is mutual affection. Their living situation would be untenable if not.
But this is not the kind of love that the literature means. It means romantic love.
Alhaitham had not really thought about romance having a place in his life. All relationships take time and effort to cultivate, but romance, from all indicators, takes even more. He does not think he would make a good partner.
He resents whatever combination of the elements decided without his consent that romance is something he needs.
No. He's making a false assumption, one that something has to come of a... confession. It does not. Things could proceed as they always have, even with more information in the open. It is not guaranteed, but it is a possibility.
None of this is relevant if Kaveh does not love him in the romantic sense, and he has no reason to believe that. Kaveh is open about his likes and dislikes. He is passionate about his feelings. He is a poor liar. If he was in love with anyone at all, Alhaitham would know about it. While in general the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, in this particular case, it is.
Alhaitham sighs. If it is only his own well-being taken into account, then it is worth it to discuss the subject anyway, just to be absolutely certain, before turning to an invasive, potentially life-threatening surgery that may not even work.
But it would be extremely strange of him to bring up the subject of emotions in any sense. If things go as poorly as is likely, it will be a telling piece of evidence. Following that, there will either be a surgery that results in degradation of memory, or Alhaitham will pass away. Kaveh is no fool. He will put together the pieces. And what a heavy burden it would be to bear, knowing something about himself that he could not control was the cause of someone's memory loss, or worse, death. It would be beyond cruel to do that to him.
So it is the surgery. Except that, too, has its problems. If Alhaitham loses memories associated with Kaveh, it would be catastrophic. He would lose much of his time at the Akademiya--and would he lose the knowledge he gained in those moments, too? He would lose the process of gaining his house, because of its tight association with Kaveh. He would lose the majority of his contacts made since graduation because he knows them through Kaveh and hasn't socialized with them without him.
Even if the surgery does not kill him, it has the potential to destroy so much of what he has built. Everything that could even conceivably make a life severed from Kaveh tolerable. He could rebuild from there, he knows. He has done it before.
He does not want to.
Doing nothing is death. It is, effectively, a suicide.
The plant matter will decay further and further as the disease progresses. By the time that he is so ill that he could not conceal the fact that he is coughing up some foul material, it will not be recognizable as flower petals even when cleaned. It would just be some kind of infection that would not clear. The truth of the situation could be concealed. Kaveh would not have to know.
Alhaitham reminds himself again: doing nothing is death. Would he really commit suicide just to avoid placing a weight on Kaveh's shoulders?
The certainty he expects from himself does not come.
He returns to the doctor a few days later.
"What would you like to do?"
"I need more time to decide," Alhaitham says. "I would like to start on the medication as soon as possible."
---
Two weeks later, after dinner, Alhaitham spends fifteen minutes hacking into a handkerchief. He tries to force himself to swallow whatever comes up his throat to remove the need to hide the evidence, but it's becoming more difficult. He coughs until finally, finally, he feels something in his chest come loose, and then his breathing eases.
"That's only getting worse," Kaveh says. He rests the back of his hand against Alhaitham's forehead. "You don't feel like you have a fever, at least, but there's no way you're getting effective treatment. You should see a different doctor."
Alhaitham grimaces as he gulps down a mouthful of flower petals. "I told you, it's a chronic condition, not an infection."
"If the doors aren't closed, I can hear you breathing from an entire room away," Kaveh says. "You're constantly hoarse. You can't go on like this indefinitely." He doesn't know just how right he is.
"Let it go, Kaveh," Alhaitham says.
"It isn't like you to get so ill," Kaveh says.
"You say that as if health is a personality trait," Alhaitham replies.
"Personality has an effect on health," Kaveh points out. "For example, people too stubborn to seek appropriate health care are far more likely to die of an untreated condition."
"That's not subtle. Even for you." Alhaitham sighs, which turns into another fit of coughing. "You're worrying too much."
"At least try to get a decent night's rest," Kaveh says. "You look exhausted."
That much is true. Alhaitham is entirely exhausted, and he's been sleeping poorly because his breathing gets strained if he isn't sitting up. "I'll try," he concedes. He doubts he'll manage it, but he'll try.
Kaveh hesitates for a moment. "Alhaitham," he says. "I know you're not telling me the whole truth. I know you're hiding something."
Of course he can tell. He's the Light of the Kshahrewar, one of the brightest minds of their generation. And he's Kaveh.
"I can't imagine anything you're hiding that could change my opinion of you."
"What a carefully worded statement," Alhaitham says. "Nearly on the level of a first-year Haravatat."
Kaveh's lips twitch into a smile, but it's clear from the eyes that he doesn't mean it. Worse, he doesn't even take the bait. "I've got a project lined up for maintenance work in Pardis Dhyai starting the day after tomorrow," he says. "There's some kind of problem with the drainage pipes. I should probably leave in the morning. Will you choke to death if I leave you alone for a few days?"
"It's not that serious." At least not yet.
"I want a 'yes' or 'no,'" Kaveh presses.
"Not from this," Alhaitham says. "I can't guarantee that I won't accidentally inhale some portion of a meal, or-"
"You are not helping your case," Kaveh says, but this time the smile is real. "I should pack, and you should get some rest. Good night."
"Good night," Alhaitham murmurs, and heads to his room.
Even as he pours himself another dose of medicine, he reminds himself: inaction is death. This is not a cure, and this is not stasis. This indecision is a decision in itself, and that decision is suicide. This course of action will kill him.
He can't understand why that doesn't make it any easier to decide.