[no. 4] the analemma drawn by your radiance - sherumayu - 原神 (2024)

Kaveh was all out of ideas and somebody had to take the fall for it, because it most certainly was not his fault.

He would blame Al Haitham, just to be petty, but then… well. That would be that and he wouldn’t even be able to indulge in imagining some outlandish reason for his current lack of inspiration. So his current running theory was that some sort of inspiration-soul-sucking monster had entered the house when he hadn’t been looking. Or perhaps an evil Aranara. Because those tiny plant creatures exist in this strange magical world.

That’s about the only other explanation for his current situation.

Hell, it must have possessed his quill too for all he knew, because whatever haphazard lines were being drawn on the thin paper were decidedly not of his own creation. The examples were littered all around him.

Exhibit A: A house with a disgustingly suburban roof compiled with a strange layout of curved rooms spanning three floors, scrapped to the side and folded into the beginnings of a paper airplane.

Exhibit B: A dynamic conglomeration of apartments spanning out like the roots of the tree that took root in Sumeru City, framed by various vector calculations that were insistently scrubbed and scratched out with a small abused knife and then written over and over again before it was discarded altogether.

Exhibit C: A sketch of a simple birdhouse, so boring that Kaveh didn’t even give much attention to its abandonment, lying lonely on the floor flat and rather wrinkled.

His academically compelling argumentative skills were rusty by now, but Kaveh thought that should be sufficient reason enough to prove his point.

It was almost poetically Sisyphean in nature, how he could try to sketch the forms and push the values of the walls of his new magnum opus, or even just something mundane, up and up until it could touch a false sky, only to watch it fall back down the hill of his creative process again.

At this point, what could he do but tuck the quill behind his ear again, the leftover ink left to stain his hair? He could stare and stare and stare at his blueprint for another hour and not even a drop of inspiration would grace him.

All he wanted to do was jog his famed creativity (worthy of the title of Pir Kavikaus in both of his lives!) in order to be his best self for his commission tomorrow, and he ended up being more drained of ideas than when he started.

Kaveh mumbled a curse.

He suddenly felt the need to pull his hair out, feel every follicle rip out in succession into neat clumps in his hand, and then painstakingly sort out dirty blonde from brown in a line— really, anything else other than the onset of ennui that could only be characterized by an artist’s worst nightmare: art block.

Kaveh almost actually gagged— just thinking about the word put a rancid taste in his mouth. In fact, it was almost reminiscent of the time that his insufferable roommate actually attempted to make Sabz Meat Stew in… a stew form, to say the least.

Suffice to say, the quiche-styled version of the dish that Al Haitham tended towards was far better than he gave it credit for.

Kaveh didn’t entirely know when the hand nursing his headache gave out on him during his internal monologue, the betrayal of his limbs leaving him all but wasted on the desk.

He also didn’t entirely know when the coldness of the desk stopped registering, or when small pieces of charcoal unceremoniously stabbing into his feet only merited a mere, dismissive glance.

I think Al Haitham infected me , Kaveh jokes in his head, and he chuckled miserably at his own plain delivery. He might mooch off Al Haitham’s house (not for lack of trying otherwise), but the gray-haired man certainly lived in his head rent-free.

He couldn’t even talk to Mehrak (or rather, make a series of random trills combined with words in some sort of pseudolanguage) to assuage his inspiration well cut short. Once it was napping comfortably at the side of his desk, it was programmed to not wake up until a later, more acceptable time.

Sometimes he seriously missed his phone to mindlessly scroll on Instagram with.

Well. At least the table against his face felt comfortable.

If only he could feel anything else at this stupidly late hour.

Or at all, really.

Tomorrow, he would have to carefully tie the braid in his hair back together, red clips artfully mussed together. Tomorrow, he would have to lightly dab on cream to conceal the purplish shadows under his eyelids, and a whole other manner of makeup to further fix the gauntness of his face. Tomorrow, he would use his vision to put a little more glamor in his clothes, as he always did, and perhaps practice yet another futile magic trick.

Tomorrow, he would wind himself back into the yarn he wove for the rest of Sumeru, as their beloved Light of Ksharewar.

(God, he hated that title. He wasn’t worthy to be anybody’s beacon, yet paradoxically, that was the only thing he could possibly do to atone. Even if it was in a different universe, where magic and elements that shouldn’t exist hadn’t changed his idiotic decisions.)

But it was still today, and Kaveh didn’t quite feel like anything today. So he wouldn’t be anything.

Perhaps if he thought about being nothing hard enough, he would dissolve into a few million light motes and float away with the first few beams of sunlight through his window.

He wondered if Al Haitham would even notice. No, wait, damn that man’s perceptiveness, but he’d be even more damned if the gray-haired man even bothered to take his nose out of whatever new manuscript he had managed to get his hands on this time. He shuddered to think of what would happen if Al Haitham ever got his hands on a Kindle Fire or something.

“Kaveh.”

Speak of the devil.

He could almost visualize how the other man was looking at him behind his eyelids. Maybe Al Haitham was leaning on the doorframe with his arms crossed and his head slightly tilted, a pose that would look relaxed and perhaps even flirty on anybody else, but just ended up being commandeering and cold on him. Or maybe he was adjusting his headphones, preparing to tune out any complaints from Kaveh’s side.

“Kaveh, get up.”

Either way, he could almost feel sharp, angular turquoise eyes, boring through Kaveh’s prone back with pi— never pity, no, only probably disdain. How did his eyes get that way, anyways? Sunlight could fizzle into piercing moonlight through those stained glass eyes, the stabs of light raising the hairs on Kaveh’s neck and bloodying his face into a light pink in some sort of cruel massacre of his emotions. That had to be some sort of condition. No one could have that kind of thing back in his world.

Either way, it was a weirdly specific hallucination to have at this time.

“ Kaveh. ”

Never mind, Kaveh was beginning to think this might be the real Al Haitham, and not the one that loved to frequent his dreams.

“Mrmph.”

The indiscernible sound that escaped his lips was accompanied by an almost limbless lift of his head as he attempted to look back at his very tangible roommate, but alas, to no avail.

He was aptly greeted with a bout of silence for his pathetic attempt at a response (in his defense, the desk was becoming more comfortable by the minute). It actually stretched on for so long that he was almost sure that Al Haitham had simply left— it’s happened before.

In that unending quiet, Kaveh idly wondered what it would be like if he picked up their age-old argument again, but with more vitriol than he would ever truly mean.

What if he spewed out rot and rash until he crossed so many lines that even Al Haitham couldn’t calculate a favorable solution for… whatever their relationship was? Would Al Haitham finally kick him out? Or even better, would those twin swords of emerald shimmer their way into existence and cut through—?

He heard the clink of some vessel or the other beside his head, putting an end to whatever blundering train of thoughts were whirling through his head. Fluttering his eyes open just a smidge, he turned his head begrudgingly towards the sound. The light of a lamp right next to his face immediately made Kaveh wince, groaning as he smushed his face against the desk again.

Al Haitham sighed in that typical dry tenor of his, as if a thousand years worth of sand could blow through his breath and bury the architect beside him in disappointment.

“Kaveh, get up. I know for a fact that the only thing close to maintaining your Circadian rhythm that you have done today was eating your way through all the baklava that Tighnari sent me.”

The exasperation combined with genuine confusion in his voice made Kaveh’s lips perk up at the edges, albeit much more tiredly. Whenever he heard that tone, he felt like teasing Al Haitham, as if nothing had changed since he had first met him — a breath of fresh air after being alone in a new world for so long.

“You mean the ones that Cyno sent you.”

“Seriously?”

“What? They’re two different people. And it was sent by the matra .”

“You act like there truly is a distinction to be made between those two when it comes to sending gifts. Besides, it was delivered to our house from the Avidya Forest.”

“Then it could be from Collei.”

“And Collei happens to be under the primary care of Tighnari. Also, the note attached was notably written in Tighnari’s handwriting.”

Kaveh was going to lose this one— an opportune time for a well-placed, irrelevant jab.

“I’m joking. Seriously now, you never fail to string together a rebuttal to a joke like you’re reciting a passage from the encyclopedia. I personally think a career as the next Sir— Akasha would suit you far more than your little stint as Acting Grand Sag—“

Kaveh was cut off by a light slap to the upside of his head, if it could even be classified as that. Perhaps more like a forceful pat, which was quite strange coming from a man as well-built and verbally vicious as Al Haitham.

“That’s enough of your procrastination. Eat. I made some chai.”

“Urgh. Fine, you absolute brute.”

And at that, Kaveh finally rose from the dead, feeling every bone in his body crack in a rattling symphony, to the point that even he was disturbed by it.

Without even really thinking about it, he grabbed the handle of the mug of tea and all but threw it down his throat, sighing contentedly at the feeling of masala sliding down to his stomach.

Then, his nose awoke to the wonderful smell of fermented rice.

He blearily blinked at the sight of four neatly organized idlis in a steaming row, paired with a bowl of… hold on.

“Al Haitham,” he started, placatingly evening his tone like he was approaching a wild animal and not an accomplished man. The other man stared back with an eyebrow raised and his arms crossed, though the way his capelet folded around his arms unfortunately diminished the intimidating effect by making him look like a large, frumpy bird.

“Don’t get me wrong, I…. I sincerely appreciate your surprising thoughtfulness. I’m actually quite shocked, just so you know.”

Al Haitham stared at him with scorn as he paused for dramatic effect.

“But did you just give me idli with rasam?”

The scribe opened his mouth, plausibly to give a scathing remark, only to close it abruptly as he looked at the bowl with Kaveh.

“Too light and watery, as well as a distinct lack of texture or starchy vegetables,” he assessed in true Akademiya fashion, “Hm. That is indeed rasam.”

Another pause, almost more dramatic than Kaveh’s own. Kaveh sincerely prepared for a roundabout conversation where he would eventually forget what had just transpired until lat-

“sh*t,” Al Haitham said plainly instead, as if he was commenting on the weather.

Kaveh lost his barely maintained composure at that, throwing his head back as he shook with tumultuous laughter.

“No way. No way. What?! You actually gave me rasam with idli! I’m calling the corps! That’s sacrilegious. That is quite literally sacrilegi— you’re trying to kill me! You are actually trying to kill me with the most disgusting flavor profile I can currently think of!”

“Please, as if you haven’t made worse mistakes.”

“But rasam? You can’t get— hahaha — you can’t get much worse than that!”

“Well, the cookbook said it was fine. Surely it encompasses more knowledge of cooking than we both possess.”

“Oh my god, don’t cite that wretched thing. Don’t even start with me. That book is the single worst thing you’ve got from the market since that stupid wood carving! Every single Sumerian worth their salt knows substituting rasam powder for sambar powder is a bad idea. Every damn one. I am this close, this close, to finding whoever wrote that myself and teaching him a good lesson, so for the love of your Lesser Lord—“

“Speaking of salt, what about the time you put it in my tea?”

“That was one time—“

“That one time was quite enough for me to lose faith in humanity itself.”

“Oh, quit being a crybaby. Besides, didn’t I make you a new cup of tea and gave you my homemade khari? My, I didn’t know my junior could be this ungrateful.”

“Ungrateful? Me?”

Kaveh abruptly closed his mouth upon feeling the pierce of the daggers thrown from Al Haitham’s eyes.

“Okay, okay, I’ll drop the topic just for y— pfft.“

Ah, but he couldn’t help it— the crestfallen glare on his roommate’s face could honestly rival stray puppies. Sue him.

With the pretense of controlling his laughter, Kaveh took a long look at the younger man. Other than a residual tic in his right eyebrow from his embarrassment, Al Haitham looked as composed as always— at first. A second glance revealed the slightly off kilter capelet and a few stray hairs out of place, yet with nary a wrinkle on those unfairly Adonis-like features.

Then a simple realization hit Kaveh.

Al Haitham always refused to give him any sort of liquid that could “excite Kaveh to the point of everyone’s lost sleep,” and would only make chai in what ever ungodly hour he deemed “morning.”

So it’s “morning,” then.

Wait… it’s “morning”!?

“So what time did you say it was again, Al Haitham?” Kaveh said nonchalantly.

“I didn’t. It’s 3:32 AM,” the answer came abruptly.

Kaveh all but blanched.

“What.”

The blonde didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Actually, he might’ve screamed if it wasn’t for the ghastly early hour.

“Why didn’t you go to sleep, you bastard?!” Kaveh whisper-yelled, half the traces of sleepiness in his body gone with shock, and he was only given an exhale through Al Haitham’s disturbingly aquiline nose in response.

“How could I? I’m surprised that your incessant noise hasn’t become widely known across Teyvat at this point, forget the feeble scholar that unfortunately sleeps in the room next to yours.”

“You—!”

He’s got to stop say— heh, feeble scholar, my ass!

Besides that gratingly bold-faced lie, the headset Kaveh could say from experience were noise-canceling still lay snugly on Al Haitham’s ears. It was a discrepancy in an otherwise (but he would never admit it) airtight excuse. He made it a point in their daily arguments to inform Kaveh that he sometimes wore those godforsaken things to bed for this very reason.

Oh, and archons forbid that he forget to mention that the man was quite literally clinically deaf.

His long, pointed, yet silent glance at the mechanism had Al Haitham narrowing his eyes.

The scribe muttered something inaudible at Kaveh’s gesture, and though he strained his ears, Kaveh could only make out something along the lines of “of course he would.”

Was he finally being complimented indirectly on his perceptiveness? But even a child could tell something wasn’t right here.

Kaveh moved his eyes from the headphones to meet Al Haitham’s sharp ones, only to get entangled in a nonverbal stand-off, a headlock of two minds so attuned in their intellect and yet wholly different in their approach to it all the same.

Al Haitham broke eye contact first, completely false to form. He truly was full of surprises today.

Then he made an about turn as if he was going to leave the room altogether— maybe he was going to get some sleep like Kaveh hypocritically suggested.

“I’ll get the chutney powder.”

Well. At least he wasn’t leaving him to deal with the sacrilegious combination of idli and rasam.

“You come back here and answer the question right now!”

“I don’t answer to anyone, much less you.”

Kaveh put a light affronted look on his face, though he had to admit the throwaway comment stung way more than it should have.

Of course. Why do I deserve to get anything from Al Haitham? Or anyone?

He chuckled lightly to himself, something strange sticking to his throat for a moment. Swallowing it down, he put his hand on his chin and sent a throwaway glance at the retreating figure.

“പോയി പണി നോക്ക് !” he called, switching from common Sumerian to his father’s native dialect from both worlds [1]. He still held on to the time-worn hope that maybe this time, Al Haitham would suddenly lose his proficiency in 52 languages (17 of which are dead and thus are not spoken anymore, as has been pounded into his head with a verbal sledgehammer at this point), and be none the wiser of what he said.

“நான் உன்னை அங்கே பார்க்கிறேன்,”Al Haitham threw the reply back in his own dialect, faster than the wind could bring stories [2]. Though his understanding of languages was downright laughable compared to the Haravatat alumnus, he knew that tone of voice well enough— yet another battle lost.

How did he even hear that anyway? I didn’t even say it that loud,Kaveh harrumphed. Must’ve turned those on to the maximum.

He was, of course, referring to Al Haitham’s hearing aids slash headset. It was Kaveh’s fault that it was over attuned to the environment after all. Although he was sure that even if he didn’t figure out what Al Haitham’s impromptu creation was for all those years ago and took it upon himself to add his own hijinks, the man would’ve figured it out on his own.

He might be nothing more than a leech on Al Haitham’s back, a strange curio in his home, but even parasites deserve privacy. And he stuck himself in circ*mstances where he would never be out of earshot.

Damn that man. It’s totally not my fault.

As Kaveh pouted to himself, Al Haitham opened the door again with an easy gait, a faint whirlwind of spices in the air following him. He placed down the jar of powder next to the still fresh idli, a small silver spoon still in his hand.

For a brief moment, as Kaveh looked up at the Scribe, he could imagine him poring over his food like a housewife at a plate-laden dining table, over-serving portions of every dish for him. Maybe Al Haitham would carefully take a heaping spoon of chutney powder and place it on the plate, a hand tenderly brushing Kaveh’s shoulder as he brought the oil to mix it with.

Though, Kaveh offhandedly thought, with the sheer amount of housework I’m doing, I’d be more suited to the role instead. A housewife, indeed, and a neglected one at that.

“If you’re going to continue staring like that, I suppose you wouldn’t mind if I took your idli instead, right?” Al Haitham said, placing his hand on the rim of the plate.

“Huh?! No, it’s mine now, no takesy backsies!” Kaveh snapped (what the hell was that, was he a child?), shaking out of what must have been the 3rd stupor he had fallen into these last 30 minutes alone. Al Haitham seemed to be having the same train of thought as him, slowly taking his hand off the plate in a strange amalgamation of confusion and disgust.

He attributed his completely explainable actions to sleep deprivation and hunger.

As he finished one idli, that strange emotion Kaveh had kept downtrodden from his previous daydream suddenly swelled up again with a fervor, forcing words out of his throat.

“This is really good, ماه من,” he said around the last bite of food in his mouth, “thank you” [3].

He swallowed contentedly, then proceeded to choke on his own words.

What. WHAT. I did not just say that. I DID NOT.

Surely his words were muffled enough by his choice to open his mouth while eating? Surely? Or maybe Al Haitham really had forgotten his education this time and become entirely illiterate? What if his native language from his original world no longer had a parallel in Teyvat?

Denial was a sweet drug.

Kaveh clamped his mouth shut almost immediately, his eyes unimaginably wide as he resisted the urge to self-destruct. There was yet another tense silence, one where he could only hear the shuffling and the characteristic clink of a Vision against fabric. The architect could practically feel the weight of Al Haitham simply observing him with his classic neutral expression— probably readying himself to verbally shoot Kaveh down.

That was a mistake, that was a mistake, that was a mista—

“Hm. I have a series of thesis defenses to record until the evening, so I likely will not be home for a while. Take your key this time if you’re going to go out. Or fulfill your starving artist aesthetic by sleeping on the street, I don’t really care.”

He ignored it!

Kaveh let out an inaudible sigh of relief and nodded in response, barely even registering the words that Al Haitham said. He could almost hear that fabled holy choir of angels preaching salvation. Pushing his newfound luck, he turned around in his chair to face his junior, only to find him facing away from him.

Even with the limited light that the lamp beside him provided, he could peek at the skin of the other man’s neck flushed dark. Having known Al Haitham for long enough, Kaveh knew most of his tells. Unlike himself, who admittedly would somehow look like a bonafide tomato, despite being a brown man, by the time any argument was done, Al Haitham would rarely truly rise to the bait, with his anger suppressed into his body most of the time. The minute he started fidgeting with those headphone cords, Kaveh was done for.

So he just had to be a little bit more careful with this, and maybe, just maybe, he could end the conversation on a good note.

Maybe I should just agree again? He probably didn’t see me nod.

“Whatever you say, Your Highness.”

That’s not weird, righ— okay, he’s fidgeting with his headset, that was definitely weird. I don’t think I can do this right now!

Kaveh closed his eyes, almost shedding a singular tear. He could almost see the spirits of his ancestors beckoning to him… no, hold on, were they exchanging Mora? Spirit Mora? Did they really bet on when he would die? Also, when did his ancestors get their hands on currency from a different world? He cursed his mind for intruding on his theatrics with the image, and turned to his last resort.

Om Shri Mahakusaladhamma, I prostrate myself to thee. If Al Haitham is going to kill me because I literally just called him a cute nickname usually reserved for lovers, please ensure that it is at the very least quick and painless. And preferably that Mehrak, my beloved, survives the onslaught. And also that someone feeds the cat near Madame Nuba’s house. Oh, and Madame Nuba herself. Both of them would get very lonely and hungry without me, and we can’t have that. Wait, I forgot about the lectures. My debt! I can’t let someone else fix that for me posthumously, ‘cause even I think that’s rude. You know what, Lord Kusanali, can you do me a solid and not let me die instead? I’d rather just figure this out by myself.

(Somewhere else in Sumeru City, a tiny god dressed in white and floral greens blinked rapidly at the near indecipherable prayer that flew through her head. Then she started giggling so uncontrollably that she almost rolled off her favorite stargazing spot and off a cliff.)

With nothing to lose, Kaveh cleared his throat and patted his pants free of loose quill strands, “Anyways, I’m going to sleep. Gotta get to that commission with Setaria bright and early and all. Er. Um. Oh yeah, I won’t ‘forget’ my key, although we all know you like to take both of them with you every damn time you leave just to spite me.”

At that, Al Haitham forewent his anger to simply side-eye him.

Yes, yes, let your absolute disappointment in me consume your memory. I didn’t say anything strange at all.

“You and I know that I don’t.”

“Yes, you do! How else would it get stuck onto your key every time when you don’t even have a keychain?”

“I’d advise you to think about how you put away your keys for once. Maybe if you didn’t throw it at the bowl every time you came home, things like this wouldn’t happen. Don’t blame me for your irresponsibility.”

“I do not throw my keys! Only a child would do that!”

“Precisely, I couldn’t have said it better.”

“Hey!”

He’s insulting me again. Maybe I really did manage to save this conversation!

“Well if you want to prove that you don’t act like a child, finish your food. I expect those plates to be washed and put back by the time I get back tomorrow.”

“Gods, I really am a neglected housewife at this point. How could you abuse me so, husband dearest?” The words slipped out with nary a filter for the umpteenth time that night.

And at that, Al Haitham turned red and simply speed walked out of the room without even a “good night.” The sound of his footsteps being more than usual indicated he was not heading to their bedroom, but instead to the living room.

Kaveh didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In his defense, those words would’ve hit their mark in just about any other of their bantering episodes. But now, he just flushed at the absolute betrayal of his body.

Sleeping on the couch instead of the situation they had was probably Al Haitham’s last measure against committing homicide in cold blood.

Never mind, I’m just going to end it all.

Wonderful. Just wonderful. Kaveh was actually having a civil conversation with the man for once. He was going to sew his big fat mouth closed if it went on at this rate.

He groaned, foregoing his urge to face plant into the plate for putting his head in his hands instead, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to remove his fatigue.

As his eyes rolled around in their sockets, the pressure comforting on his dry sclera, Kaveh idly remembered there was chutney powder on his fingers.

He sat there blankly for a moment, his hands falling to his sides in defeat.

Kaveh shed yet another singular, spicy tear.

Then he screamed so loud that he could hear Al Haitham jolting, bumping some lanky limb of his on some equally arbitrary piece of furniture in the other room.

“What in the archons’ everloving fu—“

“There’s chutney powder in my eyes,” Kaveh replied back with all the calmness of a Rishboland Tiger lazing about in the sun, rather than the sleep-deprived, disheveled man he was— who had also quite literally screamed in an impressive sopranino just a moment before.

“Your devolution into a fungus has completed, I see.”

“Your liver is at my mercy, Al Haitham, choose your next words caref— holy sh*t, this hurts, ouch.”

“Have mercy on our neighbors first. My word is nothing compared to a complaint. Besides, you could never get to my liver.”

“But I bet Mehrak could.”

Al Haitham fell silent after that, and while he probably had just turned his noise canceling feature back on, Kaveh liked to think Al Haitham felt genuine fear at the thought of his beautiful baby suitcase.

As he silently sobbed into a shared restroom basin, desperately trying to scrub the remnants of extra spicy powder from his eyes, Kaveh thought of the man that had brought the very food bringing his destruction now.

Kaveh wasn’t capable of holding a grudge of any sort another person. It simply wasn’t in his vocabulary. But Al Haitham was genuinely infuriating, a man that he would never be able to concede to at his full brain power, a polar opposite. He should’ve been his staunch arch-rival, a bitter relationship that could only grow sourer, the only exception.

If he wasn’t the very person housing him despite his absolute failure to pay back rent on time and various other domestic disputes, or if he wasn’t the man who occasionally indulged in joining him in an excursion to the Grand Bazaar and patiently listened to his rambles about the beauty of the wares, or if he wasn’t… well, if he wasn’t Al Haitham, once his best friend and sounding board (perhaps even the closest thing to home in a foreign world), maybe he would’ve been able to hate Al Haitham.

But as Kaveh looked up at the mirror, he could feel and see the light dusting of red on his cheeks that wasn’t a result of the heat from his eyes. There was an upward twist of his lips that should’ve not been there.

Kaveh’s eyes widened impossibly so, an interesting sight considering that the whites of his eyes were nearly just as red as his irises. Something wriggled and fluttered in his stomach at the mere thought of the man next door, the crawling feeling making Kaveh want to retch.

Oh.

Oh no.

Nononono, this can’t be happening.

I’m not in—? No.

Al Haitham was an exception alright— just not the one Kaveh was expecting.

Kaveh was in love with Al Haitham.

Right. Mhm. This is fine.

Kaveh was going to jump off of Devantaka Mountain tomorrow. Or today. Whatever this hour could be called. As soon as possible.