Chapter Text
Kaveh considered himself to be moderately likeable. Which meant, in the long run, he was probably a lot more likeable than your average guy with an engineering degree. Not that engineers were all bad - Kaveh had, of course, done group projects with, studied with, and even been friends with a great many of them back in university. But small, twenty-something engineering students eventually turn into forty-something engineers who hate their wives and kids and work overtime to avoid taking responsibility in their personal lives. They become great beasts of knowledge and intellect, with no small amount of pride and almost no humility.
Kaveh could almost imagine it happening to him - his hairline receding, his interests narrowing, talking about last night’s football game in the break room and teeing up for golf on Saturday mornings.
He shivered. May Kusanali strike me down , he vowed, shaking the image from his mind.
Everyone talked about making a difference in college, but they all showed their true colors once they had their diploma in hand. Accept the highest-paying job, shrink yourself down to fit inside the cubicle you’re given, and keep your head up just enough for a promotion - that was what was expected of him.
So, he had. He’d shrunk himself down to fit into the cubicle, until they eventually gave him an office. He referenced the design standards of the company and implemented them exactly as written. He paid the bills - barely, between the student debt and the credit cards and personal loans - but he did. Kaveh didn’t let that kill his spirit. He would not be taken hostage by the monotony of corporate business.
Yes, Kaveh was still likeable, and he prided himself on this.
Which is why it was so surprising, even to him, when the argument happened.
Kaveh frowned into his wine and downed it, slamming the empty glass down onto the table with a deep groan. “I’m so getting fired.”
Tighnari hummed across the table from him, taking small gentle sips of locally-produced IPA. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“He’s probably talking with HR right now,” Kaveh moaned. “I can see it already. An invite to a nine AM meeting with my boss and HR, and by nine-fifteen I’m being escorted out of the building.”
“Would you like another one, sweetheart?”
He glanced up at the bartender of the night - an older, flamboyant man, who always wore Hawaiian shirts and smelled of cigarettes. Kaveh nodded gratefully and thrust his empty glass out. “Please,” he begged.
Once his wine glass was out of the way, Kaveh leaned forward onto his arms, closing his eyes and ignoring the sticky texture of the table beneath him. His company polo shirt was surely going to come out of the night stained - but perhaps it didn’t matter anymore, now that he was almost certainly out of a job.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Kaveh glanced out of a crack in his arms to glare at Cyno as he slid into the booth next to Tighnari.
“He yelled at some big-shot at work today,” Tighnari replied. He pecked a kiss on Cyno’s cheek. “How was your day, love?”
Cyno smiled, and put his arm out around Tighnari’s shoulders. “Better now that I’m with you.”
Kaveh buried his face back into his arms. “Do you have no sympathy for me?” His voice was muffled by the table, and his arms. He didn’t care.
“We can’t hear you, Kaveh,” Tighnari said kindly. “Look, your wine’s back.”
Kaveh shot up, grabbing at the newly-filled glass like it was the antidote to a poison he’d ingested, and took a grateful sip. “He wasn’t just any big shot. I got into a fight with the CEO.”
“The police weren’t called, as far as I know,” Cyno said with a shrug. “So it couldn’t have been that big of a fight.”
“Not everything turns into physical violence, Mr, Police Chief.” Kaveh rolled his eyes. “I just got a little… defensive over my design.”
“Tell us from the beginning,” Tighnari suggested, and Kaveh sighed.
It had started with Mehrak.
It would probably be better to say it started when Kaveh began designing Mehrak. A small, helpful, robot assistant, different from your typical AI model. He’d been working with the lead programming engineer for months , coming up with the idea, and spent the time he wasn’t doing that designing the way the little robot would move and articulate across a work surface.
Prototypes, 3D printed models, late nights of watching the damn thing run itself off of the desk… Kaveh’s head spun with the thought of it all.
It was an assistant for the working world. A small, rectangular-shaped case - that conveniently opened, to hold various tools of your chosen trade - with a digital display on the front, and four wheels to move about independently. Kaveh had meticulously included a tiny suspension system, so the robot could traverse easily over any cords or pencils left in its way. It was compatible with the latest operating systems, and could manage your schedule, create reservations, send an email, or even just push a file across the desk so it was within reach. And best of all, it did it with a tiny, electronic smile on its face.
That was what Kaveh was most proud of; the idea that Mehrak would have a silent, expressive personality. You didn’t need - you didn’t even want - your robot to talk back to you, these days. Alexa and Siri’s cold delivery of lines typically only reminded you that they were robots, after all. No, instead, a small, silent creature that smiled and frowned and moved about your desk - that would surely be endearing to even the most cold-hearted corporate slave.
And that’s how he’d presented it to Alhaitham.
Alhaitham Valans, CEO, and stone-cold bastard , had shot it down before Kaveh even finished his presentation.
“It’s a waste of company time and resources to give it personality . The college-educated customer is looking for something useful, not something that smiles back.”
Kaveh had sputtered, mid-sentence, thrown off by the interruption of his slideshow. “Mr. Valans, —”
“Call me Alhaitham.” The CEO crossed his arms over his chest, frowning empirically down the conference table at him. He was laughably young, for a CEO - and arrogant, too. He’d been with the company only three months, long after Kaveh’s initial design proposal had been approved. Kaveh hadn’t seen much of him before now - had only caught glimpses of his silver-grey hair that made Kaveh wonder how much it cost to upkeep.
“Alhaitham,” Kaveh amended. He tapped his finger nervously against the metal of his laptop. “If you'll allow me to finish my presentation, I’ve included a fair bit of market research indicating that our consumers are looking for more diversity in the marketplace.”
“Diversity, sure. But this?” Alhaitham scoffed. “Our consumer base will see this as little more than a child’s toy marketed as a desk ornament.”
Faruzan - Kaveh’s boss - cleared her throat. “Alhaitham, sir - you understand, of course, that Azar had already approved and sent this product ahead for final design work. A lot of company resources have already gone into this project.”
“Azar isn’t here anymore,” Alhaitham said flatly.
“It’s not a child’s toy,” Kaveh blurted out. He wasn’t even sure why he said it. “It’s cute, sure, but it’s genuinely helpful, too. Perhaps if you just took the prototype for a while - let it help you with your daily tasks.”
“If it’s helpful , then it can be designed that way without wasting money on making it cute .” Alhaitham stared at the little prototype with disdain. Kaveh covered the little Mehrak’s face with his hand to shield it from the man.
“Making it cute is what makes it interesting! Without that, we’ll be designing the next line of ugly AI boxes that are little more than glorified speakers.”
“You’re falling into a sunk cost fallacy. Just because we’ve spent time on this project, that doesn’t mean it isn’t appropriate to go back and do it right. ”
“We? We? I’ve spent time on this project, thank you very much! You’re just the rich asshole who walked in here three months ago!”
Kaveh had realized, suddenly, he was standing, leaning over the table, calling his boss’s boss an asshole . His face reddened in shame at the memory.
“You said that?” Tighnari asked. Kaveh’s mind sprinted back to the present. “You actually called him a rich asshole?”
Kaveh nodded, burying his face in his hands. “You see now why I’m definitely out of a job. Maybe I shouldn’t even bother going in tomorrow.”
“What happened after that, though?” Cyno asked. He was nursing a beer at this point, leaning back into the red leather of the booth. “He didn’t immediately fire you, at least.”
Kaveh shook his head. “He told me to make a new presentation next week on an ‘improved’ design.”
Tighnari raised his eyebrows. “…and you agreed, and went back to work, right?”
Kaveh looked down at the table.
“Right, Kaveh?”
Kaveh shook his head at last. “I may have… cussed him out for being an ignorant, know-it-all nepo baby and then stormed out of the building and came straight here. At two in the afternoon.”
Tighnari gasped, snatching the wine glass out of Kaveh’s hand. “Kaveh! How many of these have you had?”
Kaveh was, admittedly, rather drunk, and beginning to feel it.
“You could say he’s really winey right now,” Cyno said, straight faced. Kaveh groaned again, trying to grab the wine glass back from Tighnari, who held it aloft. “Get it? Because wine - ”
“We get it.” Tighnari flagged down the bartender and handed him the glass quickly. “We’ll close out our tabs, please.”
“Just shoot me, Cyno,” Kaveh pleaded. “You have your gun on you, don’t you? Put me out of my misery right now.”
“Sorry, bud,” Cyno said, shaking his head. “I really don’t want to go through another psych eval.”
Kaveh pouted, paid his tab, and let Tighnari drive him home.
There was no email inviting him to a meeting at nine, or any other time, when Kaveh finally stumbled into work the next day. So, Kaveh sat at his desk, staring down at the Mehrak prototype, waiting for the inevitable. He found himself getting frustrated; impatient, even - if they were going to fire him, they could have at least processed the paperwork quickly.
He waited until eleven before he marched into his boss’s office.
“Am I getting fired?”
Faruzan glanced up at him from around her computer monitors. “What? No.”
Kaveh closed the door behind him and sat on the chair across from her desk. “Shouldn’t I be? I.. left, yesterday, for one thing.”
Faruzan shrugged, typing rapidly on her keyboard. “You do unpaid overtime all the time. I’m not concerned about a few hours.”
Kaveh shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “And... Alhaitham?”
“Isn’t your boss.” Faruzan shrugged. “He’s not even my boss, directly. So far, he’s been very hands-off, as far as personnel goes. I think you just surprised him, more than anything.”
“I cussed him out,” Kaveh objected. “I.. called him an asshole.”
“Do you want to get fired, Kaveh? Is that what this is about?” Faruzan gave him a long, hard look.
Kaveh shook his head. “No! No, I’ll just... see myself out, then.”
“Fix the proposal,” Faruzan suggested. “Make Mehrak less cute, and Alhaitham will get off your case.”
Kaveh stood, nodded his head a few times, and returned to his office. The Mehrak prototype on his desk beeped at him in greeting, its retro-style neon green display morphing for a moment into a wide cartoon smile.
That afternoon, when a meeting invite labelled “Better Proposal - Mehrak AI” appeared on his calendar for the next week, Kaveh could only sigh and accept defeat. The truth was, he’d be suffering a fate worse than getting fired - Alhaitham was going to force him to kill his own beloved creation. Kaveh imagined himself as Abraham, bringing beloved Mehrak-as-Isaac up the mountain and under the knife. Could he follow through on Alhaitham’s cruel command?
Except, gross , because that compared Alhaitham to God, which was disgusting. And anyways, Kaveh hadn’t ever been religious, not even when his mother had dragged him to church as a child.
Kaveh was not one to follow blindly. No, he decided at last, he would not go down without a fight. And Alhaitham, with his stupid sharp jawline and piercing blue eyes (not that Kaveh had noticed) could go and fuck himself. If he wanted a dull, balding, agreeable engineer, then Kaveh wasn’t the right man for the job in the first place.
Kaveh smiled down at the Mehrak prototype and powered it off. It was time for a software update.
—
This time, the meeting was in Alhaitham’s office , and Faruzan was not invited.
Kaveh had never even been up to the floor the CEO’s office was on - he actually had to stop and consult Faruzan on the way to ask for directions.
Alhaitham’s door was shut when Kaveh got to it, and Kaveh was technically early, so he knocked politely and waited. Or, really, it wasn’t polite, he sort of just banged on the door. Kaveh hadn’t prepared a slide deck and so didn’t have his laptop with him, just the updated Mehrak prototype and a bad attitude.
Kaveh waited until two minutes had passed before he knocked again, banging his fist against the wood of the door with more force than it probably needed.
“It’s solid wood,” a voice said behind him. “Not hollow. So you won’t be able to break it down that easily.”
Kaveh startled, stepping back from the door and turning himself towards the voice. Alhaitham, looking rather pleased with himself, smiled innocently at him, holding up a set of keys.
“That was quite an athletic jump,” he said dryly, pushing past Kaveh to unlock the door. “Were you ever a cheerleader? Or perhaps a gymnast?”
“No!” Kaveh denied, probably too quickly, because Alhaitham paused before opening the door, turning to him with an eyebrow raised. Even if he had been - and, for the record, it had nothing to do with jumping when snuck up on - even if he had been, it would have only been because his friend begged him to do it, because they needed someone sturdy to catch the fliers.
Kaveh schooled his features, waiting for the moment to pass. He stared blankly at Alhaitham for a long minute.
Finally, the moment broke, and Kaveh silently released the breath he’d been holding as Alhaitham opened the door, waving Kaveh inside. It closed behind them with a soft click.
Alhaitham had what was potentially the most hideous office that Kaveh had ever seen. The walls were stark white, and the desk had a giant mess of wires hanging tangled just below its surface. There were three giant monitors - one of them was turned vertical, and the other two were shoved to either side of it.
Worst of all, worse than the vertical monitor - which Kaveh found nearly offensive - was a giant orange rug, positioned haphazardly underneath the desk at an angle. Some kind of abstract pattern repeated on it, with green specks tossed throughout. It reminded Kaveh of a moldy orange, forgotten in the bottom of a backpack.
Kaveh sat in the chair opposite the desk, little Mehrak cradled in his lap, while Alhaitham sat down his bag and settled into his desk. He took off his suit jacket and threw it to the side, revealing a tight-fitting black turtleneck underneath. It hugged Alhaitham’s chest uncomfortably - that is, it was uncomfortable for Kaveh, who felt that clothes should leave a little more to the imagination.
“Are you… just getting here now?” Kaveh asked incredulously, consciously redirecting his gaze down to the ugly rug. It was currently three in the afternoon. Kaveh himself had been at work since nearly seven that morning.
Alhaitham shrugged. “This is my first meeting of the day.”
“So you just - what, you just sit at home until you have a meeting?”
“It’s called working from home, Kaveh.” Alhaitham crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Now, did you fix your robot design or not?”
Kaveh took the Mehrak prototype and turned it on, placing it silently on Alhaitham’s desk. It made no noise, and Mehrak’s charming smile was no more. In fact, the entire retro display panel had been ripped off - Kaveh’s heart still dropped at the sight - and replaced with a new one, with a single still image of Alhaitham’s face floating right in the center.
He was rather proud of the idea. He’d taken the picture straight from Alhaitham’s Linkedin profile.
“You asked me to remove its personality, and make sure it wasn’t cute,” Kaveh said. “So I did.”
Alhaitham’s lip twitched. He stared down at the Mehrak prototype, then glared up at Kaveh, eyes narrowing.
“Kaveh -”
“I know,” Kaveh interrupted, standing up. “I’m fired.”
“Sit down,” Alhaitham ordered. To his own great mortification, Kaveh did so immediately, thighs hitting the chair at an alarming speed. His breath caught in his chest, and he held it there, pinned tightly underneath Alhaitham’s stare.
This was not going according to Kaveh’s plan. He’d thought it all over, considered every detail. Drop off poor, mutilated Mehrak, storm out of the office before Alhaitham could murder him, and then never return. He had even already packed up his desk. There was a seat at Lambad’s Tavern with his name on it waiting for him.
“You’ve worked here for five years.” Alhaitham sounded only a fraction as angry as Kaveh expected him to be.
It wasn’t a question, but Kaveh nodded.
“You worked your way from Junior to Senior Design Engineer,” Alhaitham continued. His eyebrows raised questioningly. “You don’t have a single negative yearly review. Certainly, there were people who disagreed with you along the way.”
“Well, um,” Kaveh cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yes.”
Alhaitham’s fingers tapped against Mehrak’s head. Kaveh resisted the urge to reach out and snatch it out of his grasp.
“Why, then,” Alhaitham wondered, “Would you choose now, of all times, to throw a fit about a disagreement?”
“I didn’t - I’m not throwing a fit .” Kaveh didn’t know why he was still sitting here. He should stand up, walk his way out of Alhaitham’s office, and free himself from this horrible man’s employ.
“Aren’t you?” Alhaitham turned Mehrak’s display back towards Kaveh, pushing it forward just slightly. “You wouldn’t call this a fit?”
“I would call it creative brilliance,” Kaveh said, reaching quickly to cradle Mehrak in his hands. “Except for the display, of course. It was much better before you ordered me to ruin it.”
Alhaitham leaned forward, just slightly, and Kaveh found himself leaning back in his chair, pulling Mehrak with him. Alhaitham relentlessly studied him, scanning his face like it held a complex math equation. He found himself struck with the realization that he’d probably just pissed off a very powerful man, and Kaveh had rent to pay next month.
Kaveh hadn’t thought this through. Perhaps it was time to swallow his pride, just a bit, no matter how much it hurt.
Shrink yourself down, Kaveh.
“I… put a lot into this project.” Kaveh looked down, gritting his teeth. “I admit I got a little… carried away. I... apologize.”
“Hmm.” Alhaitham’s face hardened into something farther from curiosity and closer to anger. “Is that all?”
“ Yes .” Frustration leeched back into his voice despite his efforts to suppress it. Kaveh placed the Mehrak prototype back onto Alhaitham’s desk, pushing it away from himself before he accidentally crushed it in his clenched fists.
Alhaitham reached forward and pushed Mehrak back towards him. “Fix it,” he said with finality, and turned from Kaveh, as if dismissing him.
“What?”
Alhaitham glared at him out of the corner of his eye. “The prototype, Kaveh . Fix it. I’m expecting a better version - without my face on it - next week.”
Kaveh picked up Mehrak slowly, standing as he did. “I’m - I’m not being fired?”
Alhaitham looked back at him at last. Something close to a smile graced his lips. “You’re not fired. Do you want to argue some more, or would you let me get back to work now?”
Kaveh said nothing, retreating from the desk. He exited the office, closing the door behind him. He made it all the way back down to his office, in fact, before reality hit him.
“What just happened?” he asked Mehrak.
Mehrak had been silenced by his own master’s hands. He said nothing.
Kaveh didn’t sleep well that night or the next, and by Friday he was nearly falling asleep at his desk. He closed his eyes between meetings and haunted the coffee machine until his hands shook from the caffeine.
He had other projects to work on, besides Mehrak, and he did so gladly, not wanting to consider what he was going to do when it came time for the next meeting with Alhaitham. He knew, deep down, he should really just do as Alhaitham ordered; knew it wasn’t worth risking his job over for the third time.
Mehrak was different, though. His very first passion project; his first proposal to the board of directors. Azar, the previous CEO, had been absent that day, luckily - he had always given Kaveh the creeps - and Kaveh was given approval to go ahead with the project. By the time Azar did catch wind of it, Kaveh was too invested to let him shoot it down, and Azar had far too many concerns to worry himself about a desk robot.
He supposed, in hindsight, that if someone had rejected the project in the early stages, Kaveh would have gone back to the way he’d always been - doing the bare minimum to receive praise, pushing papers in the right direction, and leaving work at the office where it belonged.
This project was just - well, Kaveh cared about Mehrak. He’d spent hours modelling him out in CAD software. He’d doodled him in the margins of his notebooks. He had begun to feel some of his passion he’d abandoned when he’d started this job work its way back into his heart.
He hadn’t even realized how much he cared until Alhaitham ruined it.
“Have you ever talked with the new CEO?” Kaveh asked his coworker, over an instant ramen cup. “Alhaitham?”
Aaron shrugged. He was closer to Kaveh’s age than the rest of the senior design engineers - probably in his early thirties. “I saw him in the elevator once. He had on those giant headphones, so I didn’t say anything.”
Kaveh had found through gossip and rumours that almost nobody had spoken with Alhaitham. He sat in meetings in silence; he wore noise-cancelling headphones wherever he went outside of meetings. “Consider yourself lucky,” Kaveh grumbled.
“That’s right, you had a meeting with him last week, didn’t you?” Aaron laughed. “Is he that bad?”
“He shot down Mehrak,” Kaveh admitted. He did not admit what he had said in response.
Aaron shook his head in amazement. “He must have really hated it to speak up. Or you’re just special. You might be the first one here to have heard his voice.”
Kaveh doubted that was true, but he smiled politely anyway and nodded. “How are the kids?”
Aaron had three, and they were boring, and Kaveh didn’t care about them. But it was better than talking about Alhaitham.
Kaveh finished his lunch and went back to his office, careful not to make eye contact with anyone that would want to start a conversation about weekend plans or spring break with the kids or any other mind-numbing topic.
He felt slightly energized from the food, at least, and was almost looking forward to finishing the report he’d been working on before lunch.
Akademiya Holdings was a broad business, which reached its hands into many different sectors. Data management was actually the company’s main stream of income, though it also offered various technologies and services in addition to it. Historically, the board of directors had also been notorious for being figures of political interest; a senator, a former judge - various family members of government officials.
That had all changed once the news broke that Azar had been stealing money from his business partner, Nahida. Azar was arrested shortly afterwards, in a very public display, and almost the entire board of directors had gone down with him for illicit activities - most of them, much worse than theft.
The company suffered after that, with both its good reputation and the majority of its personnel missing. Employees from every sector had quit in the aftermath. Kaveh had stayed.
Then, out of nowhere, Alhaitham bought out Azar’s half of the business, and installed himself as new CEO. The rumor was that he was an old friend of Nahida’s that had reluctantly involved himself to bail her out.
Kaveh had been searching for any information he could on the man all week, but he’d found nearly nothing. Alhaitham had no social media, only a LinkedIn page that had no prior employment listed. Searching his name elicited no news articles, aside from those detailing the company’s change in hands. Nobody in the office knew him; and those that had spoken with him insisted it had been brief, and not of note.
Kaveh shook himself out of his thoughts and turned to enter his office. He stopped dead in his tracks.
Alhaitham was sitting at his desk.
He didn't even notice Kaveh, at first. The headphones Kaveh had been hearing so much about - which were green and gold and unique , he noticed, probably custom - were perched on his head and he held a book in his hands, staring down intently at it.
Kaveh cleared his throat. Alhaitham didn’t move.
He felt an overwhelming urge to scream, which Kaveh pushed down quickly. Instead, he walked up to the desk and gave it a good, hard kick.
“Ah,” Alhaitham said, touching a button on his headphones. He didn’t take them off. “You’re back.”
“I’m back,” Kaveh agreed. “What are you doing here?”
Alhaitham leaned back in the chair - Kaveh’s chair - and closed his book, setting it aside. “I was just checking in on your progress.”
He gestured over to little Mehrak, who was sitting rather pathetically in the corner of Kaveh’s desk. The screen had been ripped off once again, but nothing had replaced it quite yet; instead, wires and internal components peeked out from where it should have been. “Doesn’t seem like you’ve made it very far.”
Kaveh sniffed. “It’s a work in progress,” he deflected. “You could have sent an email.”
Alhaitham smirked. “Maybe I wanted to see how the other half lived. Your chair is awful , by the way.”
Anger welled up inside of Kaveh quickly enough to flood.
“ You - the other half - ?“ Kaveh stopped himself, and took a deep breath. Don’t risk your job, Kaveh. “Maybe you should buy me a new one, then. Call it a charitable donation.”
“Maybe I will.” He made it sound like a threat, somehow, and Kaveh bristled at it.
“Just - get out of my office,” Kaveh snapped.
“I own the building,” Alhaitham said. “So technically, this is my office.”
Kaveh glowered. “I have work to get done, as you so kindly pointed out. If you’re not going to leave you could at least give me my desk back.”
Alhaitham stood, grabbing his book. He walked silently around the desk, then sat himself in the small chair Kaveh kept by the door for visitors. Kaveh stared at him in disbelief.
“You -” Kaveh pointed at Alhaitham accusingly. “You are infuriating .”
Alhaitham didn’t even look at him. He merely opened his book and began reading again. Kaveh crossed his arms, waiting for Alhaitham to respond, or leave . He did neither.
Seething, Kaveh took his seat at his desk. He stared at Alhaitham some more, but the man seemed engrossed in his book, and either didn’t notice Kaveh or took too much pleasure in ignoring him to look up. Experimentally, Kaveh flipped him off.
“You have work to do, Kaveh.” Alhaitham turned the page of his book, cool as ever.
Kaveh dropped his middle finger, startled, and resigned himself to working with the CEO looking over his shoulder. Did he really think Kaveh was so childish he wouldn’t get his own work done without supervision? Kaveh was a senior engineer - not some intern prone to slacking off. Plus, if anyone was slacking off, surely it was Alhaitham - who rarely showed up in person for work and was currently reading a book in Kaveh’s office.
Throwing his laptop open, he clicked back into his report and tried to concentrate. To be honest, it was… difficult. Alhaitham was sitting right there , and - well, Kaveh would be blind not to notice the way his hair hung just so over his forehead, or the way his slender fingers tapped idly against his thigh. It was the first good look Kaveh had gotten of Alhaitham, truly - every other time, Alhaitham had been staring back, boring into Kaveh’s soul.
Anyone in Kaveh’s position - man or woman, straight or otherwise - would have to admit that Alhaitham was gorgeous. Without the presence of Alhaitham’s signature glare, Kaveh had space to appreciate the blue-green of his eyes, and the little ring of amber around his pupils that made his gaze so intense. Alhaitham was wearing a suit jacket, but Kaveh could imagine the turtleneck underneath - had seen it only a few days before - and the rows of defined muscles Alhaitham had hidden away. He was relaxed; effortless, lounging in a way that made even what Kaveh knew was an uncomfortable chair look elegant. Like this, Kaveh could almost forget how much he hated him. Almost.
An hour passed without Kaveh noticing - between his report and the CEO sitting in his office, he didn’t have attention to spare for the time.
A young woman came to his door, after a while. “Excuse me, have you seen Mr. Valans? I heard from Miss Faruzan he’d passed by here a while ago.”
Alhaitham was just hidden out of her view, with his seat being pressed up against the wall. Kaveh gestured vaguely towards him. “You’ve found him.”
Alhaitham had yet to notice - the noise-cancelling feature on his headphones must have been active. The woman stepped just inside the office, finding Alhaitham quickly and tapping him on the shoulder.
Alhaitham tapped a button on his headphones and looked up. “What is it, Juliet?”
Alhaitham didn’t sound particularly mad, but the woman seemed nervous anyways. She glanced between Alhaitham and Kaveh quickly. “You’re late for a meeting, sir.”
“Am I?” Alhaitham didn’t sound surprised at all. He glanced at a golden watch on his wrist - which Kaveh figured probably cost more than a year of his rent - and feigned shock. “Oh, is that the time?”
Juliet nodded anxiously. “Yes, sir.”
“Guess I’d better get to that meeting, then.” Alhaitham stood, casting an unreadable look at Kaveh. Kaveh felt himself freeze, as he always did under Alhaitham’s stare. Alhaitham - inexplicably - lingered. Nothing was said, but Kaveh felt the weight of the moment like it was a heavy blanket settling over his shoulders.
Alhaitham turned, freeing Kaveh at last, and he let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. They left without another word to him. Kaveh sat and watched Alhaitham until he was completely out of sight.
What was the point of all of that? Was Alhaitham trying to intimidate Kaveh into doing what he asked, or avoiding his responsibilities? Or, perhaps, doing a bit of both?
Kaveh didn’t know.
He finished up his work for the day before venturing out of his office again, too afraid of rogue CEOs to leave his desk unattended. Alhaitham didn’t show up again, though, and Kaveh almost wondered if the whole thing had been an exhaustion-induced hallucination.
His resolve hardened; he just needed to finish Mehrak, get the little robot out the production door, and then he’d be able to fly under the radar once more. Alhaitham couldn’t kill Kaveh’s creative spirit; he was hardly the first to attempt it.
He put it out of his mind - there was no way he was going to let Alhaitham ruin his weekend, too.
By the time Monday rolled around, Kaveh had nearly forgotten about the CEO entirely. Of course, that lasted about ten minutes into Kaveh’s workday, because as soon as he made it to his office, he noticed that something was missing.
Kaveh had been given a private office one year prior along with the promotion to Senior Design Engineer. He couldn't bear to think of himself wasting away in a cold, emotionless cell of an office, so Kaveh had decorated.
It became sort of a game for him at some point: he’d search through empty offices and abandoned cubicles to find the very best examples of office furniture that the building had to offer to steal them for his own use. He’d taken the desk from the cubicle of an intern that had been let go an hour previous; the chair had been found in an old, unused conference room. Even his filing cabinet had been swapped with one found in the office next door.
The thing Kaveh liked about his chair was that it was red. It was still as ugly as any other office chair - and, as Alhaitham had noted, uncomfortable - but it was the correct color for the rest of his room and it fit so nicely with the dark browns and golds of the desk. Kaveh had spent hours at thrift stores finding wall hangings and desk ornaments in gold and red to tie the entire thing together. He even had a gold vase on his desk filled with faux red roses, perfectly matching the deep red of that old, ratty, awful chair.
Or, they would be matching - if his chair wasn’t missing .
Kaveh gripped his hair and resisted the urge to pull it out. In the place of his beautiful, awful, hard-won chair was a box. A large cardboard box, Kaveh noticed, with Kaveh’s name and office number written hastily across the top in black marker.
With a sinking feeling in his gut, Kaveh pulled out his pocket knife and sliced the box open, gasping with fear as he spotted what lay inside.
The pieces of an unmistakably orange office chair with silver accents peeked back at him through the packaging. Kaveh reached out with trembling hands to pull back the wrapping, and - was that real leather?
Kaveh pulled his hand back quickly, flipping the cardboard of the box closed again. He stood and looked in the hallways and surrounding desks. There was no sign of his chair anywhere.
He marched to Faruzan’s office. “Have you seen my chair?”
“Your chair?” Faruzan asked. “Why would I have seen your chair?”
“It’s red,” Kaveh blurted out. “It’s… it’s my chair. It’s missing and there’s some other chair in its place.”
Faruzan took a sip of her coffee and shrugged, looking bewildered. “I didn’t do anything to your chair, Kaveh. Did you bring it in from home or something? Is the chair in your office now worse than what you had?”
“No, but…” Kaveh shook his head - it was far too early to explain color theory. “Nevermind. Just - let me know if you see a red chair anywhere, okay?”
Kaveh stormed back to his office, throwing open the offending box once more and studying the chair within. It looked oddly familiar, like Kaveh had seen it somewhere before.
Then it dawned on him. He knew exactly who had taken his chair and left this nightmare in its place.
He found Alhaitham in his office.
“ You!” Kaveh accused, pointing his finger at the man. He hadn’t bothered to knock.
Alhaitham crossed his arms and looked up to Kaveh curiously.
“What did you do with my chair?”
Alhaitham frowned. “I replaced it with a nicer one. You asked me to - don’t you recall?”
“I was joking!” Kaveh denied. “Where’s my old one?”
“In the dumpster, I’d imagine,” Alhaitham mused, turning up the very corner of his lip. “The new one is much better. It’s the same one I have.”
Kaveh rolled his eyes. “Of course it is, it matches your god-awful rug.”
That seemed to confuse Alhaitham even further. He glanced down at the offending rug quickly. “What’s wrong with the rug?”
“Listen,” Kaveh said, stepping closer and lowering his voice. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but I need my old chair back. My whole office has gold accents. Maybe I could have made the orange work - god forbid - but I was not planning on mixed metals.”
“Mixed metals?” Alhaitham eyed the silvery arms of his own chair. “You’re… upset because I bought you a chair in the wrong colors?”
“You did it on purpose!” Kaveh pointed his finger again. “You’re trying to ruin my aesthetic!”
“Are you so desperate for a sense of control that you need to dictate every element of your office furniture?” Alhaitham wondered aloud.
“ You - I - no!” Kaveh fumbled for words. “I’m not desperate for anything ! Just - it’s going to look awful! I’ll have to spend ages redecorating to even try to make it work!”
Alhaitham schooled his features into a face that almost resembled sympathy, though Kaveh could tell he was merely mocking him. “I’m sorry. Next time I give you a very generous gift I will ensure that I consult you on the color palette first.”
“Good,” Kaveh spit out, then immediately backpedaled. “Wait, next time -“
“I’m sure you have work to get done, Kaveh,” Alhaitham interrupted. “Why don’t you go somewhere else and do it ?”
Kaveh fumed, turning on his heel to stalk out of Alhaitham’s office and slamming the door behind him. He made it all the way to the quiet of the elevator before he was no longer able to hold in his scream of frustration.
The chair was, unfortunately, insanely comfortable.
It took nearly an hour to assemble, because the damn thing was complicated , but as soon as Kaveh sat on it he realized he wouldn’t be able to give it up. Aches in his back he hadn’t realized he had were relieved instantly upon sitting. It reclined just enough that Kaveh could put his feet up on his desk and stare at the ceiling. It had a headrest that perfectly cradled Kaveh’s head.
Out of curiosity, Kaveh copied down the model number and brand on the box and searched it on the internet. And… oh, great, it cost more than two months of Kaveh’s rent. Kaveh could hardly go and trade it for something less offensive when it was so… nice .
“I hate him so much ,” Kaveh whined, to no one in particular, since Mehrak was still disassembled.
He made sure to repeat the sentiment, though, to Tighnari and Cyno. He drove to their house directly after work - partially to return some TCG cards he’d borrowed from Cyno, but mostly to complain.
“You’ve been talking about this ‘Alhaitham’ of yours a lot,” Cyno noted seriously.
“He’s not mine,” Kaveh objected. He leaned back into the couch, appreciating the gentle greens and blues of Tighnari’s living room. “He just won’t leave me alone.”
“Maybe he’s just bored?” Tighnari suggested.
Kaveh groaned and threw himself dramatically down across the couch, throwing his arms over his face. “He’s a sadist . He’s toying with me until he gets tired of it and fires me for good.”
“Is he at least hot?”
Kaveh lifted his arms just enough to shoot a glare at Tighnari.
“What?” Tighnari raised his hands defensively. “I think it makes a big difference, you know?”
Kaveh sighed, until all the air was out of his lungs. “Yes,” he admitted quietly, at length. “He’s insufferably hot.”
Kaveh’s phone beeped before either of his friends could comment, and he was grateful for the interruption. He pulled it out with a frown, huffing as he read the text message he’d received.
“Just my landlord,” Kaveh explained, looking up again and shoving his phone back in his pocket. “She’s still refusing to fix the stove.”
“The stove?” Cyno asked. “I thought she fixed that two months ago.”
Kaveh ducked his head, hiding his eyes behind his hair. “She said she would fix it then, but she never did. It’s actually a little worse now - the little light saying the heat is on never turns off.”
Kaveh had discovered the issue almost six months ago, in fact, when his cooking began and continued to come out burnt no matter how low he set the burner. Something to do with the heating element was broken, or perhaps the internal thermometer - Kaveh was no expert. Whatever it was, it resulted in every burner on the stovetop continuously heating far past whatever temperature it was set to.
“How have you even been cooking for yourself?” Tighnari asked.
Kaveh shrugged. “The oven still works,” he deflected, though to be honest, he didn’t often use it. “And I have a microwave. And I get takeout, sometimes.”
Tighnari made a noise somewhere in the back of his throat.
“It’s no big deal,” Kaveh assured him, suddenly feeling the weight of his concern crashing onto him. “I could probably fix it myself, if I tried. I’ve just been busy.”
The silence stretched down into the room. Nobody tried to suggest that Kaveh move, at least - they’d had that conversation countless times, and the brunt truth of it was that Kaveh couldn’t afford to move even if he wanted to. He didn’t have the money for a deposit, and rent as cheap as his current agreement was difficult to find, and his credit score was so low that most landlords wouldn’t even consider him. It was exactly because she knew this that his landlord refused to perform any maintenance.
“I guess you and your stove have a heated relationship,” Cyno offered.
It was surprising enough that Kaveh laughed, and Tighnari hit Cyno on the arm in disgust.
“I’d better go home,” Kaveh said, heaving himself up off the couch. “My meeting with Alhaitham is tomorrow morning.”
“Take care of yourself, Kaveh,” Tighnari said. “And let us know if you need anything.”
“I will,” Kaveh lied, and let himself out the front door.