(un)lucky in love

EXCLUSIVE: Al-Haitham to star as lead in Hallmark romance movie alongside small-time actor Kaveh

The star, who has made no comment on his newest role, is joined by Kaveh, who was rumored to have signed onto a project with Al-Haitham in 2020. His debut on the movie scene alongside a renowned figure such as Al-Haitham is sure to turn eyes to his future projects.

Read more…

“Like fuck I am going to read more,” Kaveh says out loud even though he’s currently alone in his apartment.
Five years after a doomed first project, Kaveh and Al-Haitham reunite as co-stars on the set of a romcom.

Notes:

lumink 2: electric boogaloo

this fic spends time in both kaveh and al-haitham’s povs! ink (moonsteps) wrote kaveh’s pov, and luma (luminvies) wrote al-haitham’s pov! pov switches are indicated by a ☾ for kaveh and a ✩ for al-haitham! all of the other scenes were shared ♡

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

☾

EXCLUSIVE: Al-Haitham rumored to star as lead in Hallmark romance movie, making waves with dramatic genre shift alongside small-time actor Kaveh

Ellie S. | Burgeonburg News

Al-Haitham, who has made an impressive name for himself in the brutal movie industry by featuring in hits such as “Tethered” and “Tuesdays,” takes a dramatic detour in an exciting new deviation of his career by indulging in the kind of romcom that has us huddled on the couch on a Friday night with a bottle of wine. The star, who has made no comment on his newest role, is joined by Kaveh, who was rumored to have signed onto a project with Al-Haitham in 2020. His debut on the movie scene alongside a renowned figure such as Al-Haitham is sure to turn eyes to his future projects.

Read more…

“Like fuck I am going to read more,” Kaveh says out loud even though he’s currently alone in his apartment, wearing holes into his carpet by pacing. Then he stops to dial his manager, because if he’s going to have a crisis over Al-Haitham of all people, he sure as hell is not going to have it alone.

Tighnari answers on the second ring.

“Kaveh, it is six o’clock in the mor—”

“You didn’t tell me Al-Haitham is the other lead for this fuckass movie you’re making me do—”

Tighnari hangs up.

Kaveh stares flabbergasted at the coal blackness of his phone screen. Then he dials the number again.

This time, it takes four rings for Tighnari to answer.

When the call finally connects, Kaveh blurts, “Did you just hang up on me?”

“Yes,” comes Tighnari’s voice, grainy through the line. “Okay, I’m awake now. Firstly, never call me before working hours again.”

“Well that’s hurtful.”

“Secondly,” Tighnari continues. Kaveh’s head is beginning to throb. “I didn’t bother telling you he was in the running because there’s no way that Al-Haitham of all people is going to accept this sort of middle-grade script.”

For one, vague moment, Kaveh wonders if it’s possible to strangle someone through the phone.

“So what you’re saying is that Al-Haitham can’t do it, but I can?”

“Yes,” says Tighnari. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” There’s a long pause then, and Kaveh feels his brow tick atop his forehead. “It’s no real secret that the two of you operate in vastly different leagues, and there’s also the fact that this is the first real project you’ve been offered in basically five years, so—”

“Never talk to me again,” says Kaveh, and then he hangs up.

Right. Well.

tighnari

[06:17] you: so basically what you’re saying is there’s like no way for me to get out of this

[06:17] tighnari: well do you want to be an actor

[06:17] you: um

[06:17] you: well

[06:17] you: a little bit i guess

[06:18] tighnari: then yeah there’s no way for you to get out of this

[06:18] you: ok

[06:18] you: but what if i really reallyyy reallyyyyyy don’t want to see al-haitham again

[06:18] tighnari: hmm then maybe there’s a way

[06:18] you: REALLY?

[06:19] tighnari: no

[06:19] you: ok

[06:19] you: wow it is so over for me

[06:19] tighnari: see you at the table read kaveh

𖡎

Al-Haitham CONFIRMED to join cast of Furina’s romantic-comedy film (Un)Lucky In Love, set to premiere March 2025

In a surprise announcement that has already set social media ablaze, acclaimed actor Al-Haitham has been officially confirmed to star in an upcoming romcom slated for release next year. The film will mark the big-screen debut of newcomer Kaveh.

This unexpected pairing is particularly intriguing given the history between the two actors. In 2020, Al-Haitham and Kaveh were set to co-star in a major project that ultimately fell through before its release. Though details of that ill-fated production remain scarce, speculation has long surrounded the reasons behind its cancellation. Now, with (Un)Lucky In Love, the duo will finally share the screen in what promises to be an unforgettable romance.

(Un)Lucky In Love follows a stoic contract lawyer Zayan (played Al-Haitham), who discovers that, thanks to an obscure legal loophole, he has been accidentally married for years to a small-town architect, Reza (played by Kaveh).

The film will also feature a stellar supporting cast, with confirmations from Nilou, Scaramouche, and Layla so far.

COMMENTS

hamhamham: I don’t even care about the movie, I just want the behind-the-scenes tea. Can someone drop the 2020 documentary already

hammerlock: i’m sorry but pairing a SEASONED AWARD WINNING actor with a NEWCOMER in a lead role?? did the casting director just spin a wheel or something??????

hamstrings: i’m calling it right now: kaveh’s acting is going to be completely overshadowed by al-haitham. and it’s going to be PAINFULLY obvious

hamlet3918: who even is kaveh
↳ hamadryases: rt
↳↳ hammerhead: you can’t retweet here?
↳↳↳ hamperfan: here comes the twitter police
↳↳↳↳ honeybakedham: it’s X now, actually

hamburgers: KING. LEGEND. MASTER OF HIS CRAFT. HE’S ABOUT TO SERVE SO FUCKING HARD AS ALWAYS

hamartiology: you guys r just haters. accidental marriage?? strangers to begrudging friends to lovers??? this movie was made for me and me alone
↳ hamshackling: see this is what IM saying like are all of these people srsly not interested in seeing AL-HAITHAM act absolutely PATHETIC over someone on screen

hamamelidaceous: why the hell would Al-Haitham take this role the only romances he does are the ones where the romance is subplot and also who the fuck is Kaveh and what the hell happened in 2020

hamitup: LAWYER AL-HAITHAM can they please put him in glasses or some nerdy shit like that

well actually @particularfield

DID Y’ALL SEE THIS MY MAN AL-HAITHAM IS FILMING ANOTHER MOVIE

[link to news article confirming Al-Haitham’s casting in (Un)Lucky In Love]

15.3k likes, 3.8k retweets, 204 replies

REPLIES:

al-haitham’s right nostril 👃 @harharhaitham
Replying to @particularfield

WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK

593 likes, 39 retweets

shark girl @yihuayijian
Replying to @particularfield

holy shit. al-haitham hallmark romcom galore???

48 likes, 3 retweets

rosie 🌹 @flowahgirl
Replying to @particularfield

I just spontaneously burst into fucking tears oh my god I missed him so bad

3 likes, 4 retweets

timely hailou 🌱🪷 @timelyhailou

GUYS WAIT NILOU IS IN THIS MOVIE TOO? HAILOU SECOND COLLAB?

937 likes, 83 retweets, 4 replies

one longfic too long @wordsandmorewords

who is this kaveh guy? al-haitham doing charity work??

8 likes, 1 retweet

moonfish @wishbaven

“this unexpected pairing is particularly intriguing given the history between the two actors” um so like what the fuck

668 likes, 30 retweets, 5 replies

REPLIES:

sohcahtoa @bitchiloveyou
Replying to @wishbaven

wtf??

9 likes

merely a feeble scholar @readgoods
Replying to @wishbaven

not to be that person but that’s kinda gay

93 likes, 19 retweets

erm… @looksaround

zayan and reza are about to save my life that i didn’t know needed saving

3.1k likes, 983 retweets, 84 replies

✩

The last place that Al-Haitham figured he would meet Kaveh again would be on the set of a Hallmark romcom; firstly because he would never picture himself in a Hallmark movie to begin with, and second because he thought that he was never going to see Kaveh in their lifetime again.

But Kaveh is in front of Al-Haitham—albeit scowling terribly, his arms crossed and tapping his foot impatiently as if just the sight of him is enough to set him off, which it probably is—and they’re working under famed romantic comedy director Furina, so maybe he could stand to expand his imagination a little.

He has a wry feeling that Kaveh won’t entertain him if he tries to even say hello, a sentiment that’s only confirmed when Kaveh stares at him for two seconds longer before peeling his gaze away with all the melodrama demanded of a Hallmark actor and stalking out of the room. Al-Haitham is usually right, anyway.

He hears the quiet of footsteps leading into the room behind him, and says offhandedly, “I don’t foresee that this will be a very productive few months.”

Nilou, coming up beside him and peeking curiously in the direction that Kaveh had peeled off to, looks back to him with the faintest hint of worry not quite smoothed out of her face. “How are you feeling about all of this?” she says. While she doesn’t know the full story—nobody does besides Al-Haitham and Kaveh and whoever Kaveh chose to tell—she knows the most out of the people that Al-Haitham is close to. All there really is to know is that things had not ended well between them, and after five years, closure is a concept far from their grasp.

“I have no feelings about it,” Al-Haitham says, turning away from the exit where Kaveh had disappeared. “This is a job.”

“These things aren’t mutually exclusive,” Nilou says, following him as he trails to the other side of the room to peek outside. There is no small amount of people flurrying by, none of them that Al-Haitham recognizes but seem to be working on the set. If any of them—besides Kaveh and Nilou—are fellow actors starring in (Un)Lucky In Love, then Al-Haitham would have no idea. “It can be a job and you can still be apprehensive about this.”

Al-Haitham likes to think of himself as somebody who is certain in all of his decisions and possessing a vocabulary that doesn’t contain adjectives like “apprehensive.”

“I have no feelings about the job because we haven’t technically started, so there is nothing to form any assumptions upon, and besides,” he says, the words like metal in his mouth, “I do not know Kaveh anymore.”

There’s a brief silence—Al-Haitham feels bad for forcing Nilou into a position where she’s clearly struggling to come up with the right response—and then she says, “I see.” Leaving it at that, she continues in a conspicuous change of topic: “I, for one, am excited to be shooting another movie alongside the illustrious Al-Haitham. Who ever would have thought that he would deign to lower himself to the likes of Hallmark and C-level actors?”

“You’re far from C-level,” Al-Haitham says with a bite of dry sarcasm, “B-level, at least.” Nilou’s eyes close in her laughter, the sound filling the previously cold room with a distinct sense of warmth.

“Why, thank you,” she says, and then, wrapping one small hand around his elbow and gently tugging him in the opposite direction, directs him toward the same door that Kaveh had disappeared through. “We’re going to have to report to the table read soon, though, so you’ll have to put up with this B-level actor for a little bit longer.”

Al-Haitham, who only reports to events early if he has nothing to do or something worthwhile to get out of it, frowns a little while Nilou is turned away. “I do not enjoy making small talk to fill the silence while we wait for the director to arrive.”

“Too bad,” Nilou says determinedly, pulling Al-Haitham with such sudden fervor that he loses his balance enough for her to take him through the door into a larger room where what seems to be most of the cast are milling about, making conversation and introducing themselves to each other. At the sound of their approach, a not insignificant amount of eyes turn to them, and Al-Haitham knows it’s because of his status as a prominent actor, especially considering the movie they’re shooting.

One of them approaches, and for a moment he thinks that she’s going to introduce herself to him, but her eyes alight on Nilou, almost shining. “You’re Nilou, right?” she says, the words almost tripping over themselves with the haste at which they leave her mouth. “I’m Layla. Huge fan of your work—I was surprised enough when I got cast by Furina, and then I saw your name and I—”

She cuts herself off with one hand over her mouth, her skin somehow both paling and flooding pink with embarrassment. “Sorry, I’ve gotten ahead of myself. I don’t even know how I got onto this movie in the first place. It’s like I woke up one day and I had an email informing me that I was chosen and I don’t remember auditioning in the first place.”

“Layla?” Nilou’s eyes drift to the ceiling in thought, nose wrinkling as she chews over the name. “Weren’t you in that indie film…The Stars’ Blessing, right? That one about the astrologist who dreams of what comes to pass.”

Layla gives her a dumbfounded look that could almost be described as starstruck, which makes Nilou giggle. “I remembered it because your acting was very good and also because I thought you were pretty.”

At Layla’s returning glance, Al-Haitham decides that he’s probably meant to give them space, so he detaches himself from Nilou’s side and takes a seat an empty stretch of chairs around the reading table, the front of which is occupied by who he recognizes to be Furina from the audition. When he looks up, the man sitting opposite of him—a little shorter than the typical person and also wearing an obnoxiously large hat—is staring at him with what is an unmistakable aura of hatred in his eyes.

Yikes.

Al-Haitham lets his eyes slip down to the table as if bored.

An annoyed huff sounds from the other side of the table, but still Al-Haitham doesn’t look up. “I auditioned for your part, by the way,” the guy says in a remark that would be conversational if it were not laced with utter disregard. “Didn’t get it, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Al-Haitham agrees, and then he inspects the cuticles of his nails. “And what part are you playing now?”

There’s a silence that Al-Haitham can only interpret as furious—poignant enough that he glances upward if only to see the other’s reaction.

“Steven,” the guy spits out eventually, so bitter the words could burn right through the table between them, and Al-Haitham has to mentally flip through the script that he only skimmed to recall who exactly Steven is.

“Ah,” Al-Haitham intones. “My younger brother.”

The words, simple as they are, are enough to get the other man on his feet—the action undermined by his height—pointing one accusatory finger down his nose. “I looked up your IMDb, Al-Haitham, and I am by many years your elder—”

“It’s a shame that you don’t have the height to show for it.”

“You—”

Furina at the head of the table claps her hands just in time to cut the other man off, Nilou slipping into the seat beside Al-Haitham and giving him an apologetic smile. He can catch the other woman—Layla, if he remembers correctly—sitting beside her as well. When he wasn’t paying attention, the rest of the table had filled. Kaveh is sitting as far from Al-Haitham as he possibly can be, even though it’s a difficult task with how little people are occupying the room. Somehow, he manages to make it feel as though there’s a canyon stretching between them, the gap uncrossable.

“Hmm,” Furina says, eyes narrowed and one hand at her chin. “I can’t have this. I need both of my leads sitting next to each other for the reading at the very least.”

It’s a testament to Kaveh’s acting ability that it doesn’t show outwardly through his expression even though Al-Haitham knows he has to be thinking something unsavory internally. It’s an even greater testament to the fact that five years aren’t enough to scrub the memories he has—a candle, no matter how short it burns, lives only with intensity—and Al-Haitham can feel more than see the faint shadow that appears over Kaveh’s face at the suggestion, darkening imperceptibly as he stands to sit beside him, the chair squeaking horribly as he goes.

“Kaveh,” Kaveh says, sticking his hand out as if they’re meeting for the first time.

“Al-Haitham,” he returns, grasping his cool hand. His touch, as familiar as it was the first time they filmed together, seems to mold around the heat of his skin.

“Wonderful!” Furina claps her hands together, the sound abruptly compelling them to break apart and return to themselves. “I hope you all remember that I’m your director, Furina, and these are our producers, Faruzan and Nahida. This may be a Hallmark production, but it’s going to be the best goddamn Hallmark film to grace the channel, and I hope you are all as committed to the journey as I am. On that note, shall we begin?”

Al-Haitham takes one last glance at Kaveh, shakes out the pages of the script, and begins reading from the top.

☾

“So,” says Tighnari with a wide grin as Kaveh stumbles into the passenger seat of what can only be described as a very, very small car. “First day filming your brand new shiny project, huh. How are you feeling?”

“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” Kaveh deadpans.

To which Tighnari’s grin widens, if that’s even possible. “And how do you feel about that?”

“Is this therapy? Are you my therapist?”

Tighnari sighs. It is a very dramatic sigh. “Can’t you just answer the question like a normal human being?”

“Well,” says Kaveh, and then he pretends to think about it for a solid five seconds before bursting out into his own shit-eating smile. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to a set right now. To film! A movie! That I was actually cast in! As the lead!”

“Me neither,” says Tighnari as he rolls the car’s gear to drive, and immediately, Kaveh frowns.

“Really? That’s it?”

“What?”

“I just think you could be a tad more supportive, is all.”

“This is me being supportive,” says Tighnari. “Anyways, I think the table reading went okay, right? At least from what I could tell.”

Kaveh picks at his sleeves as they turn onto the main road. This early, the streets are practically deserted, save for a few lone cars here and there. For a short moment, Kaveh lets his eyes flutter shut, and he breathes in the air of a morning he has not experienced in almost five entire years. “It was fine, I guess,” he says finally, turning his head to glance at Tighnari’s side profile. “As soon as we finished going through the script, I did the mature thing and got up and interacted with every other person in the vicinity except for Al-Haitham.”

A pause. “And this was the mature thing to do.”

“Yes,” says Kaveh, nodding seriously.

“Kaveh,” says Tighnari exasperatedly, “you’re going to be filming alongside this guy for months now. The least you can do is be civil!”

“This is me being civil!” Kaveh parrots, and then something occurs to him. “Fuck, wait, do you think I should unblock his number?”

The car screeches to a stop. When Kaveh blinks, he finds that they have stopped at a red light.

Tighnari turns to him. “What the hell do you mean, should you unblock his number?”

Kaveh, for one, is a little bit offended. “You don’t have to be so mean about it.”

“No, Kaveh, I don’t think you should unblock his number. I actually think that would be the stupidest thing for you to do, you know, unblocking the number of your future coworker that you have to interact with every single day for the next several months.”

“You think so too, right?”

One of Tighnari’s hands shoots up and hovers in the space between them, his palm directly facing Kaveh’s head. “Stop talking. I don’t want to hear a single word out of you for the rest of this car ride.”

“But Tighnari—”

“Nope! No ifs ands or buts!”

“I just think that—”

“And I just think that, once again, you should stop talking.”

“But you’re being mean—”

“Ah ah ah. What did I just say about the buts?”

Kaveh sticks his tongue out at him. “I’m going to tell the press all about how rude you are to me. Then we’ll see who the last one laughing is.”

“Oh, woe is me,” says Tighnari, and then they turn into the studio.

Kaveh slips out of the car with a scrutinizing twist to his brows, looking up at the building and the grounds with a curious gaze. Tighnari comes to stand next to him, locking the car behind them.

“That was a pretty quick ride,” Kaveh says.

“Really? That’s great. You can walk next time,” says Tighnari, and then he begins to make his way to the front door.

Kaveh checks in pretty quickly, nodding along to every direction that is given to him, skipping happily to his makeup booth and sitting down and smiling his most charming smile to the stylist that sticks her hand out in greeting.

“Hi,” she says as Kaveh returns the handshake.

“Hi,” says Kaveh.

She comes to stand behind him, placing her hands first over both of his shoulders, and then raising them to run her fingers through his hair. “I’m Dehya. Wow, you have really nice hair.”

“I’m Kaveh. And thank you,” says Kaveh. “My maman has really nice hair. I got mine from her.”

“I can imagine,” says Dehya, and then Al-Haitham walks in.

Kaveh’s face morphs into a scowl before he can help it, and then, thinking better of displaying his personal emotions in front of a stranger like this, flattens his expression into a pleasant smile.

“What are you shooting today?” Dehya is asking him as she prepares her little cart full of different colored products. Behind her, Al-Haitham is settling into the chair directly next to Kaveh’s, and another stylist is running over to get started with him. “I always ask whoever I’m working with what their schedules are like for the day, but, you know, feel free to tell me to fuck off if you’d rather just let me do my thing in silence. No hard feelings at all. I get it. It’s early.”

“No, it’s okay. There’s a quick scene showcasing Reza at work,” Kaveh says, “but he doesn’t become a main character until past the seventeen minute point, so, there’s not really anything interactive for me to do today.”

He glances sidelong at Al-Haitham, who is scrolling through something on his phone. Kaveh squints a little to try to figure out what he’s doing, and then he realizes that the motherfucker has installed a privacy screen protector.

So he mentally rolls his eyes and mentally scoffs and mentally throws his middle finger up in his face.

Then he turns back to Dehya, who’s explaining what she’s about to do with his makeup while holding up an array of different sized brushes. Kaveh, for one, is just happy to be here, and he tells her as much.

“Well that makes my job easier,” she says with a laugh. She looks over her shoulder at the woman currently hunched in front of Al-Haitham’s face with a bit of eyeliner. “Oh, wow.”

The woman looks over, and Kaveh is suddenly struck with the sight of one eye the color of the sea and the other the color of golden sand. She laughs. “Was that at me, or at Al-Haitham?”

“Uh,” says Dehya. “Both, I think.”

Al-Haitham opens his eyes. “Hello, Dehya.”

“Hey,” says Dehya, lifting up two fingers to her temple and mock saluting. “I promise, Al-Haitham, you will have to deal with me all up in your face sooner or later. Tomorrow, maybe. Or maybe the day after that, who knows.”

“I look forward to it,” says Al-Haitham.

Kaveh mentally scoffs again, this time with more emphasis. Not that anyone can see or hear him do this, but it’s the principle of things.

“Yes, you should,” says Dehya, focusing her attention back to Kaveh. “Now, Kaveh, let’s get you all dolled up.”

This goes on for the next forty-five minutes, all of which Kaveh spends either staring at his own reflection in the mirror across from him, chatting with Dehya and occasionally the other stylist—Candace, Kaveh quickly is introduced to her as—and very resolutely ignoring Al-Haitham’s general presence next to him. Is this a childish thing to do? Yes. But Kaveh has never exactly been known for his maturity in these sorts of situations, and he hopes that the clear tension between the two of them can be chalked up simply to first day nerves.

He knows that he and Al-Haitham are going to get nowhere in terms of civility until they actually have a face-to-face conversation, but obviously that’s not going to happen right now. It does have to happen eventually, but personally, Kaveh is going to push that particular happenstance off for as long as humanly possible.

So, as soon as his hair and his makeup are perfectly set for the shoot, he hops off his chair, says thank you to Dehya and goodbye to Candace, and makes his way over to the set.

Where he’s immediately ambushed by a flurry of white and blue.

“Kaveh!” says Furina, splaying her hands out in front of her and smiling serenely up at him. If Kaveh is being very honest, she sorts of scares him. A little bit. “How are you? Oh, how dashing you look in Reza’s styling!”

“Thank you, Miss Furina,” says Kaveh, offering her a small smile of his own.

Furina waves a hand out in front of her. “Just Furina is fine, droplet. Actually, I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment?”

Kaveh nods for her to continue.

“Soooo,” she starts, standing up on her tiptoes and rolling around in her spot for a minute. “Ah, here’s what it is. Of course, I know what happened with One Lifetime Too Short through the grapevine, and that’s all fine, naturally. I’m a firm believer of the past being in the past! But I did just want to make sure that there isn’t going to be any funny business on my set.” There’s a pause, before she breaks out into another large smile. “That’s all, really!”

Kaveh blinks at her, something in his chest sinking. “What?”

“You know,” she says, gesturing somewhere behind her, and Kaveh can just barely make out Al-Haitham, who is now standing in between the crew. “I always want my sets to be as homely as possible, with the least amount of drama.” She giggles. “Isn’t that ironic?”

“It’s something,” says Kaveh. His throat is suddenly very, very dry. His mind is still rolling over I know what happened with—

“My point is,” says Furina, suddenly serious, and it’s in this moment that Kaveh realizes exactly what her reputation in this industry means: she’s strong, and she’s dedicated, and she’s confident, and she knows exactly what does and does not make for a good film. But she’s also unabashed in a way Kaveh has not seen from other directors. “At the end of the day, you and Al-Haitham are both actors, and it doesn’t matter what may or may not have happened in your previous projects. I cast you in my movie because I can see Reza in you, and I cast Al-Haitham because I can see Zayan in him. And, well, the two of you do look exceptionally good together, so that’s always a plus! Do you follow?”

“Right,” says Kaveh, because he doesn’t know what else to say. There’s a pit in his stomach, one that is very much shaped with the guilt of ignoring Al-Haitham completely while they were getting ready.

Because Furina is right—they’re actors, and they have to do this because this is their job that they are getting paid for, and Kaveh needs to get over himself with exactly the prowess he devoted himself to when he decided to get over his feelings for Al-Haitham all of those years ago.

This is the first time he’s been cast in a movie of this size, and he’s not going to fuck it up because of Al-Haitham of all people.

“Yes,” Kaveh says again, this time with a brewing sense of confidence that appears out of literally nowhere. “Yes, I totally get you. You won’t have any problems from me, Furina. I promise.”

“Wonderful!” Furina exclaims, clapping her hands. “Well then, I have places to be and things to see, so, I’ll see you in a little bit when it’s time for your scene!”

And then she’s gone, just like that, off in the direction of where Al-Haitham and the others are standing.

Suddenly, someone taps on his shoulder.

“Kaveh!” comes a voice that is vaguely familiar, and Kaveh spins around to find a girl with bright red hair grinning up at him. She tilts her head, her eyes sparkling. “Or should I say…Reza?”

Kaveh smiles. “Nilou,” he says, and then, “It’s so nice to properly meet you, Esther, my best friend in the whole wide world.”

“Likewise, Reza, my best friend in the whole wide world!” Nilou chirps. She slips into the spot by his side, joining in their now-joint surveyal of the set in front of them. “I’m actually not supposed to be on set today, since none of my scenes are being filmed, but Furina was nice enough to let me stop by and take a look at everything. And, well, I also wanted to meet you since so many of our scenes are going to be together!”

“It’s a courtesy of being best friends in the whole wide world,” Kaveh nods, laughing. “I’m a fan of yours. The Sleeping Lotus was my favorite film of 2023.”

“Really?” Her eyes go comically wide. “That’s so sweet of you to say!”

“And uh.” This time, Kaveh’s pause is barely a split second. “Love and Ruin too.”

“The movie I did with Al-Haitham?” She nods enthusiastically. “Wow, it really has been a while since we shot that together. It was my first big feature too! In a way, I kind of have to thank him for my initial success, I suppose. Though I’d never let him hear me say that. And he wouldn’t agree with that sort of praise either.”

Instantly, Kaveh decides that he likes Nilou. He likes her a lot, actually. “I know the two of you are friends, aren’t you?”

Nilou nods. “Yeah, we’ve kept in touch since Love and Ruin press.”

Kaveh tries not to pull a face as he thinks over how to ask this particular question.

Fortunately, Nilou beats him to it. “For the record, Al-Haitham’s never really told me exactly what happened between the two of you. I don’t think he’s told anyone, really, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Oh.” Kaveh releases a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “I wasn’t—”

She laughs, interrupting him. “In any case, you’ve already worked with him once before, so I’m sure that’ll make things a lot easier in the long run, too.”

“I’m not so sure about that one,” says Kaveh, a little strained. He inhales, glancing over to where Furina is sitting on her little director’s chair and talking to Al-Haitham on the set and making nebulous gesticulations with her hands. “But I’m not going to come in the way of filming, so don’t worry about any of that.”

“I wasn’t worried!” says Nilou. “I’m excited to film with both of you! Kaveh, I really think that we’ll be good friends.”

“I think so too,” says Kaveh, tilting his head downward, and it’s at that moment he decides that yes, right after filming is over today, he is going to march up to Al-Haitham and they are going to finally have this goddamn conversation. And they are going to spend the next few months being normal and civil co-stars and everything will be absolutely a-okay.

Surely.

✩

“Al-Haitham!” Furina bounds up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and giving him a beam when he turns around slowly. He’s usually not the type to linger on set long after shooting, preferring to leave as soon as possible if he’s not needed, but filming had dragged on for longer than expected and one of the costume designers had called him over to do a last minute check of an outfit for the following day.

“Furina,” Al-Haitham says cooly, indiscreetly checking the time on his phone.

If she gets the hint, it doesn’t show, her smile not budging one inch. “I just wanted to say that no matter how cliche or as much of a red flag it may be, we really are a family here, and it’s very important to me that we all remain acting as a family. You might get into fights with your brothers and sisters, but at the end of the day, we all love each other, you know?”

“I’m an only child,” Al-Haitham informs her.

“I know,” says Furina. “I could tell. Regardless of whether you have siblings or not, the point is that you’re an actor, and theoretically that means you know how to behave around other people. It’s, like, your whole job. You may be a prized actor, Al-Haitham, and you may think that this production is far below your standards, but I’ll have you know that when you’re on my set, you will think of nothing else but this movie. The hallmark of Hallmark movies, you may say.” She snaps her fingers. “You do it for the love of the game. The love of theatre!”

“What are you getting at,” Al-Haitham says warily.

Furina returns her hands behind her back, clasping them innocently and continuing to give him that gleaming smile. “You may be a celebrated performer, but I have been orchestrating movies for far longer than that, and one thing I know for certain is that you have to fix whatever bad blood you hold with Kaveh. None of that on my set!”

“Did you ask him this too?” says Al-Haitham, not mentioning that Kaveh is the one holding the grudges. “I don’t have any bad blood with him.”

Furina waves a dismissive hand, teetering away from him as she prepares to bound in the other direction with all the enthusiasm of her fickle attention. “As long as it doesn’t reflect on the whole production, I don’t care who pulled whose hair and who instigated what, just make sure I don’t know about it. If you have no problem with him, then find out why he does and fix it. Just don’t let him onto it! That’d make for an awkward few months of filming. Capiche?”

Al-Haitham is silent.

She nods to herself before reaching out to pat him twice on the shoulder, already wandering away toward the exit to inevitably badger somebody else before the set closes up for the day. “Great! I’ll see you tomorrow, Al-Haitham!”

Al-Haitham watches the last wisps of her blue hair disappear through the doorway, tired twice over from filming and from having to navigate the depths of Kaveh’s mood.

Great. That sure is a word for it.

Out in the parking lot just as he’s about to leave, the sun having long set and blank darkness spilling over the horizon (has Al-Haitham already mentioned that he doesn’t typically stay out this long), he’s caught off guard when he nearly runs into Kaveh, who is leaning against the wall just outside the filming site.

Warily, he remains a few steps away. They haven’t spoken at all that day even though they’ve spent hours within close proximity of each other, and unsure of where they stand, he hands the reins to Kaveh, who puts away his phone the moment he approaches as if he’s been waiting for him.

When Kaveh’s mouth opens, Al-Haitham realizes with trepidation that he has been waiting for him.

“Al-Haitham,” says Kaveh, his hands now in his pockets. Then, as if finding them uncomfortable, he quickly takes them out before wrapping them behind his back, a nervous flurry of motion. If it weren’t for that, Al-Haitham wouldn’t have been able to tell that he has any thoughts about interacting with him at all. “It’s been, um… a while.”

“A succinct way of putting it,” Al-Haitham says warily.

Kaveh shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.” His eyes, dark and red, cut through the night haze and alight on Al-Haitham’s face. “Listen, I—I don’t want things to be awkward. Filming takes a while and everything. You know.”

“That’s all right. I’m a good actor.”

At that, Kaveh’s eyes flash, his arms straightening for his hands to ball up at his sides. “Are you implying that I’m not as competent an actor as you? Or that you could just live on pretending that things are ‘fine’ when you know it’ll bleed into the rest of the crew? Typical of you, Al-Haitham, to do whatever is easy and pleases you to the detriment of those around you.”

“And it’s typical of you to assume the worst of me,” Al-Haitham says in return, cocking one eyebrow. He doesn’t want a fight. That’s the last thing he wants out of Kaveh, especially when it’s been this long since they’ve last spoken and he had no way of reaching out in the past. He would also quite like to go home. “You know that’s not what I meant, Kaveh. I’m saying that you don’t have to force yourself to do anything you’re uncomfortable with for the sake of others.”

The fight winces out of Kaveh’s stance, his body slackening. The faint sense of shock on his face makes him look a little lost. Al-Haitham supposes that’s one good thing that’s come from the five years—he’s learned now what gets on Kaveh’s rough side and when to speak plainly, a lesson that would have benefited them all that time ago.

“Force,” Kaveh repeats quietly, his fingers twitching at his side weakly. “That’s not what I meant—I don’t mean to say that I’m forcing myself to do anything—”

“No,” Al-Haitham says wryly, studying him with eyes that glance off his figure as if they can’t hover over his image for too long, like staring into a too-bright light. “Only that the last thing you want is to have to make small talk with me about the weather and the breakfast bar, but you’re stuck with me on this movie for the foreseeable future.”

Kaveh narrows his eyes and folds his arms in behavior that Al-Haitham now recognizes to be defensiveness, but his body untenses almost as quickly as it had tensed. “The mini chocolate croissants they put out in the mornings trick you into thinking they’re homemade, but they’re plainly bought from the supermarket. You would think that your influence would inspire the catering to step up their game.”

Al-Haitham, who has spent his life detesting small talk, feels something traitorously like hope upon hearing about stale pastry and meaningless anecdotes. “It seems that C-grade productions will remain C-grade.”

Kaveh gives a minuscule shrug. “Sorry to bring down your great reputation, Al-Haitham. At least, that’s what all of the fans are saying.”

“It’s not too much trouble,” says Al-Haitham.

Not saying anything in return, Kaveh only squints up at him, the vermillion of his eyes tapering into thin slants of blood-red unreadability, and it takes Al-Haitham a moment to place it before he gets it—Kaveh doesn’t know how to act around an Al-Haitham that’s had five years to grow the way Al-Haitham has only been able to watch the distance grow without reprieve. Then, without any more acknowledgment of their conversation, he peels off the wall and steps away with a mock two-finger salute.

Al-Haitham watches him go—Kaveh settles into the passenger seat of a dark-colored car a few rows away, the driver’s seat occupied by somebody who looks to be Tighnari—at the same time that his driver rolls up before him, tires squeaking against asphalt as it comes to a stop. Kaveh doesn’t glance back once until the back of the car has long disappeared down the road—but when was the last time he walked away from Al-Haitham without leaving him behind for good, the dust shaping his shadow the only memory to be held in remembrance?

Al-Haitham, and only Al-Haitham, holds the answer far back in the deep reserves of his mind.

And so, filming begins.

𖡎

“Lucky” for fans of (Un)Lucky In Love: filming has officially begun for actors Al-Haitham and Kaveh, garnering excitement

The studio behind accredited director Furina released an official statement this morning at 11:02 that filming has commenced. For those keeping track of the timeline, this marks the beginning of a several month process, meaning fans can expect to see the film in theaters in as little as a year.

The studio has not released any more information, but readers can anticipate photos and behind-the-scenes clips to surface in the coming weeks.

COMMENTS

hamantasch: i genuinely cannot imagine al-haitham in a romcom but hey that’s what the movie is for right? to do all the fictionalizing for me?
↳ hamster: oh ok so its NOT a common experience to make up fictional scenarios that may or may not include al-haitham before you fall asleep. got it
↳↳ hamamelis: oh don’t even worry it is

hamate: I have never been jealous of a MAN before

hamada: what is this corny ass title hello

hammered: Has anybody discovered who Kaveh is yet? Does anybody at least know what he looks like?
↳ hammerless: whoever it is, I heavily doubt he will outdo Al-Haitham in the looks department, so I don’t think we should be wondering about that
↳ hammers: nope, nobody knows

hamartomas: i can already TASTE all the tiktok edits that are going to come out of this movie and this fine ass man in a ROMANCE MOVIE
↳ hammocks: taste???
↳↳ hampered: TASTE??????

hampshirenew: wait i think i know this kaveh guy, doesn’t he have a chinchilla ?

Pop Base @PopBase

An exclusive look into the set of “(Un)Lucky In Love” starring Al-Haitham and directed by Furina.

[four pictures: one shot of Al-Haitham walking down a scenic street, back to the camera; Kaveh dressed in a peacoat and a large scarf, eyes closed as a makeup artist dusts his cheeks with a puffy brush; Al-Haitham and Nilou breaking character in front of the camera, Nilou caught in laughter; behind the scenes setup of prop designers touching up an isolated room in a house]

72.5k likes, 31.7k retweets, 1.8k replies

REPLIES:

KING al-haitham 👑 @haithsters
Replying to @PopBase

just clutched my hand over my chest AL-HAITHAM

2.4k likes, 491 retweets, 3 replies

cassie @strayham
Replying to @PopBase

if the streets are correct and that second photo is the elusive kaveh then oh my lord that man is beautiful

4.1k likes, 1.7k retweets, 28 replies

goofy gooners yeah @justalad
Replying to @PopBase

All the girlies are switching from being jealous of Kaveh to being jealous of Al-Haitham

2.6k likes, 792 retweets, 14 replies

not tighnari @tighnari1229
Replying to @PopBase

jeez. who are these people?

7 likes

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @PopBase

IS THAT MY QUEEN NILOU OH MY GOD NILOUUUU NILOUSLKDJFLSKDJF THAT IS MY GIRLFRIEND

49 likes, 2 replies

i love U kaeya @cavalrycaptain
Replying to @PopBase

Can someone leak photos of Al-Haitham and Kaveh next to each other??? For science

50 likes

wonwon cross @04linerz
Replying to @PopBase

al-haitham and nilou r SOOO CUTE TOGETHER literally the duo ever

3.8k likes, 1.2k retweets, 20 replies

jungdeundan 🍊 @dianxia
Replying to @PopBase

this kaveh dude in that big ass scarf is lowkey giving wife rn

492 likes, 23 retweets, 3 replies

ren @ikkerun
Replying to @PopBase

does anybody know if jingyuan is starring in this movie?

5 likes, 1 reply

raven 🪴 @matsuwuhana
Replying to @ikkerun and @PopBase

he is literally not in this

1 like, 1 reply

ren @ikkerun
Replying to @matsuwuhana and @PopBase

what about gible?

1 like, 1 reply

raven 🪴 @matsuwuhana
Replying to @ikkerun and @PopBase

who???

1 like

☾

“Seriously? Are you two actually serious right now?”

Tighnari and Cyno look between themselves.

“We breathed,” says Tighnari.

“Well, stop breathing,” says Kaveh.

Cyno sniffs. “I thought of a joke that works with this conversation,” he says. “Do you guys want to hear it?”

“No,” says Kaveh.

“No,” says Tighnari.

“Why did the lung go to therapy?” says Cyno. A long pause. “To clear the air.”

“I can’t believe you’re still Al-Haitham’s manager,” says Kaveh, peering at him with a large amount of judgement. “And I also can’t believe the two of you have been besties this entire time, for five years. Is this what betrayal tastes like? Cold, hard betrayal. You would really do this to me. Me? After everything I’ve done for you, Tighnari?”

“Can you relax,” says Tighnari. “You don’t even have any beef with Cyno.”

“Well,” Kaveh starts, then stops. He looks at Cyno, who is staring back up at him with a blank look on his face. “Well. I don’t have beef with people. I don’t like how you’re referring to my very real and complicated and valid feelings about this whole sitchy witchy as such.”

Cyno turns to Tighnari. “Did he just say sitchy witchy?”

“I think so,” says Tighnari.

“Can you guys stop gossiping about me when I’m right here?”

“Shouldn’t you be, like,” Tighnari makes a vague gesture with his hands, “I don’t know, going over your lines or something? You spent all of an hour last night texting me complaining about how you have to film this intimate scene today with Al-Haitham.”

Kaveh’s face immediately switches to a scowl. “Did you seriously just expose me in front of Al-Haitham’s manager?”

“It’s fine,” says Cyno. “I won’t tell him.”

“Thank you,” Kaveh nods. Then he turns back to Tighnari. “As my friend, you are morally obligated to listen to my hour-long rants about the things that are happening in my life.”

“I miss when I was just your manager,” says Tighnari with a particularly punchy sigh.

Kaveh decides then that he’s done with whatever this is. So he turns on his heel and marches over to the entrance of the studio, and if Tighnari and Cyno decide to follow him, he does not know and he does not care.

Wow. Anyways.

Kaveh, for one, thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to be freaking out over this small, minute thing that is currently happening in his life. Namely that, thus far, every scene he’s had to film is one that is either with Nilou or Layla or Nilou and Layla. None of them have been with Al-Haitham, and truly, he had been taking that reality severely for granted. He will never repeat such a mistake ever again in his life. Truly, he would give anything to be back in that time period of his life (see: two days ago).

But, anyways, he can do this. He’s got this in the fucking bag. He is nothing if not a professional actor, and he can absolutely sell this whole being in love with Al-Haitham’s onscreen character thing.

After all, he’s literally been in love with Al-Haitham offscreen before! So like. Yeah.

But he digresses.

“You okay?” Candace asks him as she’s dusting powder on his face. “You look a little red. And I don’t think it’s the blush I just used on you.”

“Oh,” says Kaveh. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“If you say so,” says Candace.

“Kaveh!” says Dehya, rolling her cart over to his other side. She winks at Candace, who rolls her eyes with a smile in response. “So? Are you shooting anything super fun today?”

“Well, Reza and Zayan are meeting in the story today,” says Kaveh with all the professionalism in the world. Because that’s who he is. In fact, most people would say that Professionalism is Kaveh’s middle name. “And they’re going to get up to some shenanigans. So that’s going to be super fun.”

“Oh, that’s so exciting,” Candace gushes, closing the palette in her hands with a faint click. “Their dynamic is so interesting to me.”

Their dynamic sort of makes Kaveh want to kill himself, actually, but whatever.

Once he’s ready, he trudges over to the set with a thousand rocks in his legs, and when he gets there, he finds Al-Haitham standing by the camera crew, his script in his hands, his gaze set directly on Kaveh.

“Kaveh,” he greets.

“Kill me,” Kaveh responds.

Al-Haitham blinks at him.

“Well,” says Kaveh. “Are you ready for this? Because I personally am so incredibly ready for this.”

“Do you want to go over the scene before we start?” Al-Haitham asks him, raising the little booklet just a bit higher in front of him.

“Do you think I’m not prepared?” Kaveh shoots back, his eyes narrowing.

“That is literally not what I said.”

“Okay,” says Kaveh.

“Here we are!” comes Furina’s voice, and then Furina herself, all in a flourish of blue and the enthusiasm of someone who is definitely more prepared than Kaveh is, actually, now that he really thinks about it.

But well, sue him. He is totally allowed to be appropriately miffed about this! There is absolutely no way Al-Haitham is going to be cordial about any of this, especially in between takes. When they shot together five years ago, it was exactly this way too before they somehow became friends. Kaveh would say his lines with just the right amount of emotion, because you know, he knows how to do his job, and then Al-Haitham would call for cut and nitpick every single little detail about how he went about walking from point A to point B to point Whatever. Fucking hell.

“Are the two of you ready?” Furina chirps, effectively ending Kaveh’s little monologue in his head. He realizes then that he is glaring at Al-Haitham, and instantly, he thinks back to the conversation he had with Furina on the first day.

It’s fine. He can do this. He can be normal.

“Okay,” says Furina, somehow already back in her director’s chair as Kaveh shakes himself out and takes a deep breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Al-Haitham’s shoulders drop and his eyes darken—a tell tale sign that he is getting into character. “I need Reza to get into position. Zayan, curl your fingers into fists.”

And so Kaveh gets into position, and Al-Haitham curls his fingers into fists.

Professionalism. Professionalism. Professionalism. Professionalism. Professionalism—

“ACTION!”

“So you’re telling me,” says Kaveh, taking a step forward, and then another step, and then another, “that you, and I, are married?”

“Yeah,” says Al-Haitham. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Kaveh walks up to him, clasping his hands behind his back and leaning down until his head is in line with Al-Haitham’s chest. Then he looks up, meeting Al-Haitham’s eyes, and he squints at him, tilting his head. “Yeah, no. Definitely not. We can’t be married, you’re clearly not my type.”

Al-Haitham’s eyebrow ticks.

Kaveh straightens and says with a grin. “Zayan, was it? Well, Zayan, thanks for stopping by. If you’re ever in need of a new house, feel free to call my number.”

“You don’t have a business card, or something?”

“Oh.” Kaveh frowns. “No. I should probably get on that, I guess.”

Al-Haitham sighs. He reaches into his coat’s front pocket and pulls out a small index card with two fingers. “Here’s mine. Save my number, and text me when you can.”

Kaveh takes the card, running his thumb over the thin lettering. “This is a really weird of asking someone out, you know.”

“I’m not asking you out,” says Al-Haitham, turning on his heel. He walks over to the door, and right before he reaches for the knob, he looks back over his shoulder and says, “You’re not my type.”

“CUT!”

As Kaveh reels in the aftermath of, well, whatever the fuck all of that was, Furina is bounding off of her chair and running up to them, her eyes wide on her face and practically sparkling under the low light.

“That was brilliant!” Furina is exclaiming, nodding approvingly at the both of them as Al-Haitham ducks back into their bubble. “I have to admit, I was a tad worried about how this was going to go. Just a droplet, I promise! But clearly Dori was not lying about the chemistry the two of you obviously have together!”

“Um,” says Kaveh.

“Thank you, Furina,” says Al-Haitham.

“We literally just talked in this scene,” says Kaveh. “We didn’t even touch each other.”

“And it was enough,” says Furina with a firm nod. “Oh, trust me when I say that it was more than enough. Plus, there will be plenty of time for the two of you to touch each other later! Now, let’s get ready for our next scene, shall we?”

Kaveh is not even going to think about the implication of what was just said out loud in this room.

As he gets into position for the next scene: Zayan and Reza running into each other in the middle of the town’s holiday market, he catches Al-Haitham’s eye from where he’s standing just a few feet away. Immediately, Kaveh feels gooseflesh rise on his skin, but he ignores all of that, instead raising a delicate eyebrow in his direction.

Al-Haitham mirrors his expression. Then he says, “Don’t forget your lines,” and it is so insanely reminiscent of five years ago that for a moment, Kaveh is struck completely still.

He shakes it off just in time for action, and then with just the right amount of force, he picks up the pen prop from the little cart next to them, and he holds it up to the side of Al-Haitham’s face.

“You said you’re a lawyer, right?” he drawls, then clicks the pen’s nib out, grinning and floating it over to the tip of Al-Haitham’s nose. “I’d imagine you need to use these sorts of things a lot with that kind of job.”

Al-Haitham does not look impressed. “A pen, you mean?”

“Yeah,” Kaveh nods.

“You don’t use pens in your work?”

“I’m just teasing you!” says Kaveh, and then he clicks the pen closed and drops it back onto the cart. As he makes way over to where the next cart is, he is acutely aware of Al-Haitham’s character behind him, slipping the previous stall’s owner a bill and discreetly picking up that same pen. “Zayan, look over here, they’re selling so many cute hair clips!”

He selects the one he’s supposed to: one that’s pink and purple with a pattern of the moon and stars, and when he whips around, Al-Haitham is right where he’s supposed to be, waiting for Kaveh to reach up and attach it into the front ends of his hair.

It’s a romantic moment. It’s the first romantic moment of the entire movie. Kaveh avoids Al-Haitham’s eyes as he runs his fingers through his silver hair, pressing the clip open and closing it just over his eyes.

They look at each other, exactly how they’re supposed to, and as the camera zooms impossibly closer, Kaveh and Al-Haitham hold their positions. Like this, they’re so much closer—closer than they’ve been in five entire years, and Kaveh knows for a fact he can make out every speckle of gold in Al-Haitham’s eyes if he really tries hard enough. He won’t, and he doesn’t, but it’s a close thing.

An extra whizzes by just in time for Kaveh to very unceremoniously trip against Al-Haitham’s chest, his hands flying out and latching onto Al-Haitham’s shoulders as Al-Haitham’s entire body jolts and his arms come to wrap securely around Kaveh’s waist.

And this might just be it for Kaveh, actually. This might be what finally does him in. This might be what kills him.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t die, because once again, he is a Professional. A Professional adept at Professionalism. He looks up into Al-Haitham’s eyes and pretends to lose himself in them, his fingers digging into Al-Haitham’s shoulders just a touch harder than they have to, his eyelids fluttering with every blink he takes. Al-Haitham’s lips part, and his own eyes widen, and they stare at each other like that for what feels like forty years, and then finally, finally, Furina is yelling “Cut!” and they’re scrambling off of each other.

Kaveh coughs. Then he coughs again. Then he coughs a third time.

“Is something caught in your throat?” says Al-Haitham coolly.

Kaveh spins around and lands a glare on him. “Shut up.”

“Is that a yes?”

Oh, the urge to kick him. But then Al-Haitham would probably say something stupid, like Kaveh, stop touching me with your foot. And there is literally nothing in this world that Kaveh wants to hear less than that.

And then Furina announces that she wants another take of their romantic gaze-off, so Kaveh and Al-Haitham have to spend another twenty minutes half-hugging and staring into each other’s faces. It’s fine, because once again, Professionalism. But with every new take, Al-Haitham manages to say one extra thing to piss him off, and Kaveh manages to learn another way to control his emotions.

Tighnari is laughing at him at the end of it all.

“Are we seriously going to do this right now?” says Kaveh as Dehya is yanking at a knot in his hair. “Seriously? Seriously?”

“Sorry, I just.” Tighnari takes another break to guffaw. Kaveh pulls a face of disgust. “I haven’t seen you and Al-Haitham that close and cozy in years. And the way you immediately, like, sprang away from each other as soon as you could.”

“Well as I should,” Kaveh huffs. “You try being that close and comfy or whatever the hell you said with Al-Haitham. Of all of the people in the world.”

At this, Tighnari’s expression morphs into one of sympathy.

“Thank you,” says Kaveh, slapping his palms together. “Thank you. Finally!”

“Oh my god,” says Dehya, “do you and Al-Haitham not like each other, Kaveh?”

“I feel like I shouldn’t be talking about this here,” Kaveh mutters.

Dehya grins. “Nah, it’s fine. It’s just the three of us, and don’t worry, I’m not going to sell your personal information to the press.”

Tighnari peers at her.

She laughs and puts her hands up.

Tighnari leans back and nods. “She’s telling the truth.”

Kaveh scoffs. “What, are you a lie detector now, or something?”

“Clearly my job takes on many titles,” says Tighnari, punctuated with an eye roll. “For example, not only am I just your manager, I also unfortunately have to be your friend.”

“You do not get paid for being my friend. You do that out of the goodness of your heart!”

Tighnari sighs and shakes his head. “Do you know how much goodness my heart has been sucked dry of thanks to you?”

“All right,” says Kaveh. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I want to talk to literally anyone else.”

The door opens, and Al-Haitham enters the room.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” says Kaveh.

Al-Haitham does not so much as flinch. “Hello to you too, Kaveh. Hello, Dehya. Tighnari.”

Tighnari frowns. “Why do Kaveh and Dehya get hellos, and I just get Tighnari?”

“Where’s Cyno?” Kaveh asks Al-Haitham. “I like him better than you.”

“Cyno is getting the car,” says Al-Haitham primly.

“Hmm,” says Kaveh.

“How was filming?” Dehya asks. “Do you want me to brush your hair too?”

“I’m all right,” says Al-Haitham, “I’m just waiting for my manager. And filming was normal.”

Kaveh resists the urge to seethe. Professionalism, his mind is chanting. Not that he has any obligation to be professional right now, but really, it’s good practice for when they’re forced together on set.

“Kaveh,” Tighnari says, as if suddenly remembering something, “I was going to tell you, but you should probably post some shots from the set on your social media. It’s good for publicity.”

“Oh,” says Kaveh. “Wow, you actually sound like my manager right now.”

“Because unfortunately that’s what I am,” says Tighnari. “Also, Cyno and I were talking about it earlier.”

“Ah, right, along with your chit-chat about what it’s like to betray a friend who trusted you. Of course.”

Dehya laughs. Tighnari rolls his eyes. Al-Haitham is scrolling through his phone.

Kaveh glares at him, but Al-Haitham does not so much as look up. “Fine,” Kaveh says. “I’ll find some pictures to post. But forget it if you think I’m going to post a picture with him.” He points his thumb at Al-Haitham.

This does make Al-Haitham look up, and he raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” says Kaveh. “Take that.”

“So much for being courteous on set,” says Al-Haitham, and then he goes back to his phone.

“Aha,” says Kaveh. “Well, the thing is, we’re not on set right now. So.”

“Of course,” Al-Haitham nods. “A necessary clarification.”

“Anyways,” Tighnari pipes up, “you guys do that. I’ll watch along from the sidelines. Sounds good? Sounds good. Now, this is enough of this for today. We adjourn tomorrow.”

“Are you the lawyer, or am I?” says Al-Haitham.

Tighnari ignores him. Kaveh bites back his sigh.

Tomorrow. Okay. Whatever.

𖡎

katy ☀️ cw: the first frost @sangyifans

#kavehtwt is this a thing yet

419 likes, 100 retweets, 31 replies

REPLIES:

violet @kavehhs
Replying to @sangyifans

REPORTING FOR DUTY #kavehtwt

4 likes

xiaoding xinxin 3rd collab @yzzxtruther
Replying to @sangyifans

like yes i am literally right here #kavehtwt

1 like

Bruno @flowerkavehs
Replying to @sangyifans

um real ones were actually already here as soon as the popbase pics dropped but um YEAH! #kavehtwt #kavehtwt #kavehtwt #kavehtwt #kavehtwt #kavehtwt

1 like

dazai is SO BACK @bungouham

Is anybody else’s HAM crown tilting ever so slightly after finding out what Kaveh looks like???

30 likes, 318 retweets, 62 replies

REPLIES:

Emma @entxt
Replying to @bungouham

No? Obviously not? It’s disgraceful that you’d feel that? You are not entering the pearly gates of HAM heaven. Have fun in Haitham Hell!

3 likes

🍎 XIA YIZHOU 🍎 @gegefucker
Replying to @bungouham

well no but like i’m not judging you in the slightest

2 likes

just a girl @kavehswife

as someone who’s never followed actors before this kaveh thing happened, why are al-haitham’s fans called HAM? does anyone know? #HAMtwt

43 likes, 12 retweets, 8 replies

REPLIES:

Hammie! @CEO_OF_HAM
Replying to @kavehswife

Well, we were HAMSTERS first, but then Al-Haitham went live once and looked visibly off put by us spamming HAMSTERS in the chat, so we decided to rename ourselves to HAM instead!

31 likes, 2 replies

just a girl @kavehswife
Replying to @CEO_OF_HAM

and your best choice was HAM?

3 likes, 20 retweets, 1 reply

Hammie! @CEO_OF_HAM
Replying to @kavehswife

Yes.

3 likes

steve (not minecraft) @kaaaaaveh

soo… if al-haitham has HAM, and nilou has her lotuses, and layla has starships, what does kaveh have? #kavehtwt

92 likes, 302 retweets, 63 replies

REPLIES:

Layla’s Wife @starshipsinthesky
Replying to @kaaaaaveh

Uh… chill. Kaveh is not nearly relevant enough to have his own fandom name yet

2 likes, 93 retweets, 30 replies

donghualian s3 when @emingsruoye
Replying to @starshipsinthesky and @kaaaaaveh

This reply has been deleted by Twitter for foul language.

40 likes

chronic yapper @euclidean

WAIT GUYS #kavehtwt I THINK I JUST STRUCK GOLD @kaveh_actor I THINK THIS IS KAVEH’S TWT ACCOUNT

4.2k likes, 1k retweets, 412 replies

kaveh ツ @kaveh_actor

filming has begun!!! x_x

[two pictures: a 0.5x shot of Kaveh in a giant jacket, holding up a cup of hot cocoa in front of a green screen and a construction set; a selfie with Nilou, their foreheads bumping together, eyes crinkled with their smiles]

93k likes, 19.3k retweets, 421 replies

REPLIES:

jungwonism @4thgenleader
Replying to @kaveh_actor

OH MY GOODNESS

329 likes, 2 retweets

what do i do with all these hams @hamnation
Replying to @kaveh_actor

wait omg is this kaveh?? like THE kaveh?? like the guy who’s doing a romcom with al-haitham???

329 likes, 2 retweets

2 girls and 1 iud @unluckysinlove
Replying to @hamnation and @kaveh_actor

THE VERY ONE

12 likes

wrizzley @meropides
Replying to @kaveh_actor

wait he’s so pookie…

32 likes

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @kaveh_actor

OH MY OGOD NILOUIUUIIUUUU MY WIFE LOOKS SO GOODOFKDSJHFD SHE’S SOO PRETTYYYY NILOU I LOVE YOUOUOUIU

43 likes, 8 retweets, 1 reply

luma 🌟 @luminvies
Replying to @moonsteps and @kaveh_actor

can u be like normal

2 likes, 1 reply

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @luminvies and @kaveh_actor

i am literally the most normal it gets

1 like

ren @ikkerun
Replying to @kaveh_actor

um i don’t see jingyuan?

1 like, 1 reply

raven 🪴 @matsuwuhana
Replying to @ikkerun and @kaveh_actor

dude who even are you

1 like

raven 🪴 @matsuwuhana
Replying to @kaveh_actor

no al-haitham pictures?

9 likes, 1 reply

ren @ikkerun
Replying to @matsuwuhana and @kaveh_actor

? and you were hating on ME?

1 like, 1 reply

raven 🪴 @matsuwuhana
Replying to @ikkerun and @kaveh_actor

AL-HAITHAM IS ACTUALLY IN THE MOVIE?

2 likes

nilou 𑁍 ✓ @niloufar
Replying to @kaveh_actor

we look so cute!!! (´,,•ω•,,)♡

18k likes, 4.3k retweets, 172 replies

kaveh ツ @kaveh_actor
Replying to @niloufar

yes we DOOO

12k likes, 1.3k retweets, 83 replies

lemon @riverkois
Replying to @kaveh_actor

i feel sick

4 likes, 1 retweet

isha 🦶🏽 @xieliantoes
Replying to @kaveh_actor

i’m sorry but like THE FACE CARD? wdym this guy’s never been on the big screen before??

438 likes, 138 retweets, 9 replies

nilou 𑁍 ✓ @niloufar

lucky lucky in love!

[three pictures: a shot of Nilou standing between Al-Haitham and Kaveh, smiling with her thumbs up, as Kaveh holds a half-heart up to her cheek on her left side and Al-Haitham staring directly at the camera, expressionless, on her right side; a shot of Nilou and Layla holding their hands up, a string of matching jewels decorating their wrists; a shot of the camera, showcasing a snapshot of a scene with Al-Haitham standing by a glowing fire]

319k likes, 104k retweets, 15k replies

REPLIES:

Al-Haitham ✓ @al_haitham
Replying to @niloufar

Are you even allowed to post that last picture?

85k likes, 10k retweets, 947 replies

nilou 𑁍 ✓ @niloufar
Replying to @al_haitham

uhh.. i think so?! !!! 〣( ºΔº )〣

44k likes, 3.2k retweets, 103 replies

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @niloufar

OHHH MY GOD WIFE POSTED

69 likes

sprout 🌱 @bringingglory19
Replying to @niloufar

SOMEONE EDIT AL-HAITHAM AND KAVEH STANDING NEXT TO EACH OTHER I NEED TO SEE SOMETHING

93 likes, 12 retweets, 3 replies

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @bringingglory19 and @niloufar

ARE U TRYING TO REMOVE MY WIFE NILOU?

20 likes, 2 replies

sprout 🌱 @bringingglory19
Replying to @moonsteps and @niloufar

listen ok it’s for the yaoi

93 likes, 12 retweets, 3 replies

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @bringingglory19 and @niloufar

ok yeah fair enough

23 likes

rysa @rysarium
Replying to @bringingglory19 and @niloufar

HERE YOU GO

[one picture: an edited version of the first image, Kaveh and Al-Haitham standing together, Kaveh’s half-heart now colliding with Al-Haitham’s shoulder]

429 likes, 281 retweets, 83 replies

sprout 🌱 @bringingglory19
Replying to @rysarium and @niloufar

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

20 likes

lemon @riverkois
Replying to @rysarium and @bringingglory19 and @niloufar

I FEEL SICK

4 likes

layla ✧‿✧ ✓ @sleepinglayla
Replying to @niloufar

you posted that pic we took?!?! wahhh

58k likes, 8k retweets, 173 replies

nilou 𑁍 ✓ @niloufar
Replying to @sleepinglayla

you made us such pretty matching bracelets! how could i not? (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

63k likes, 12k retweets, 199 replies

kaveh ツ @kaveh_actor
Replying to @niloufar

ESTHER MY BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!

30k likes, 10k retweets, 200 replies

nilou 𑁍 ✓ @niloufar
Replying to @kaveh_actor

REZA MY BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!

73k likes, 32k retweets, 251 replies

WOMEN ❤️ @girlsandmoregirls
Replying to @kaveh_actor and @niloufar

WTF THIS IS SO CUTE?????????

2.1k likes, 194 retweets, 19 replies

Al-Haitham ✓ @al_haitham

(Un)Lucky In Love

[one picture: Al-Haitham sitting on a couch in the corner of the set, a book in his lap, his eyes closed]

569k likes, 294k retweets, 48k replies

REPLIES:

Al-Haitham ✓ @al_haitham
Replying to @al_haitham

10 minutes later

[one picture: Al-Haitham in the exact same position on the couch, Kaveh is crouched next to him, trying to push him off]

739k likes, 428k retweets, 99k replies

alHAMtham @haithamhouse
Replying to @al_haitham

WHY IS THIS THE FIRST OFFICIAL PICTURE OF AL-HAITHAM AND KAVEH TOGETHER WE GET

32k likes, 13k retweets, 392 replies

luma 🌟 @luminvies
Replying to @al_haitham

what the fuck is this

12k likes, 4k retweets, 32 replies

zayan & reza SOON! @luckieinlove
Replying to @al_haitham

the first haikaveh picture. from AL-HAITHAM?????

2k likes, 43 retweets, 3 replies

kaveh ツ @kaveh_actor
Replying to @al_haitham

dude

294k likes, 98k retweets, 28k replies

scaramouche ✓ @kunikuzushi
Replying to @al_haitham

can someone report this guy

103k likes, 43k retweets, 3k replies

Miko :D @scarathams
Replying to @kunikuzushi and @al_haitham

hahahaha i love the way scaramouche always jokes around with al-haitham.. they’re such good friends!!!

332 likes, 40 replies

scaramouche ✓ @kunikuzushi
Replying to @scarathams and @al_haitham

i’m not joking and we are not friends

10k likes, 832 retweets, 200 replies

Leaked pics from unlucky in love set???

[several pictures: shots of Kaveh and Nilou filming a scene, the two of them laughing in the middle of an outdoor set; shots of Scaramouche talking to Al-Haitham, his expression heated; shots of a scene between Kaveh and Al-Haitham, Al-Haitham standing straight and peering down at Kaveh, Kaveh with his head tilted, leaning down, and staring up at Al-Haitham with narrowed eyes]

COMMENTS

hamsocns: holy fucking shit????

hamsteries: Oh shit someone’s getting fired

hamamelidaceous: AL-HAITHAM IS SO TALLLLLLLLLL

hamamelidoxylon: wait kaveh and al-haitham look so cute together
↳ hamartia: THEY LOOK SOOO CUTE TOGETHER

hamal: does this Kaveh guy want to get married
↳ hamartia: every morning i wake up log onto the internet and pray that kaveh isn’t taken

hambles: does anyone else hardcore ship Al-Haitham and Nilou?! 😀
↳ hambo: that is a gay man and a lesbian
↳↳ hambie: All right let’s not speculate on their sexualities when nothing is confirmed.
↳↳↳ hamarambe: aren’t u literally “speculating” they’re straight then???
↳ hamham: MEEE i’ve LOVED them together since love & ruin like their chemistry was off the fucking charts guys
↳↳ hammie: exactly like you’re blind if you don’t see it
↳ hamsterdam: proud member of hailou nation right here!
↳ hambrose: no? if anything shouldn’t you be shipping al-haitham with kaveh?
↳↳ hamburg: why would anyone ship THE al-haitham with a nobody lmaooo

hamsotired: oh so it’s. it’s a ROMANCE romance

hamsleepy: I didn’t know Scaramouche is in this movie??
↳ hameepysleepy: He’s playing Steven, Zayan’s little brother!
↳↳ hamsleepyeepy: WAIT LMAOOO THAT’S SO FUNNY FURINA IS A GENIUS

𝓼𝓬𝓸𝓸𝓬𝓱𝓲𝓮: SCARAMOOCHIE I LOVE YOU SCARAMOOCH MOOCH

lendmeaham: The costumes look fucking magnificent. Al-Haitham looks incredibly good in that red sweater.
↳ christmasham: my husband…
↳↳ hamazing: he literally doesn’t know u
↳↳↳ hamtastic: and he knows YOU?
↳↳↳↳ hamsome: well yeah we’re literally holding hands rn
↳↳↳↳↳ hamname: how can u be holding hands when we’re literally on a date rn?
↳↳↳↳↳↳ hamble: You lot are mentally ill.

hambassador: Guys i still can’t believe my Al-Haitham is going to probably kiss someone on screen for the first time ever
↳ hambroline: now hold AWNnnnn..i didn’t even think abt that
↳ hamazon: OH SHIT

✩

Kaveh

[20:03] you: Hello Kaveh

[20:03] Kaveh: why do you text so formally

[20:03] you: I text the same way I did five years ago

[20:03] Kaveh: i wouldn’t remember because i blocked you

[20:04] you: What?

[20:04] Kaveh: i mean what’s up

[20:04] you: Ok

[20:05] you: Do you want to get coffee before the shoot on Tuesday? There’s a decent enough coffee shop a few blocks away

[20:06] Kaveh: oh

[20:06] Kaveh: sorry i have to feed my um

[20:07] Kaveh: chinchilla

[20:07] Kaveh: okay stop with your typing bubble i’m being serious

[20:07] you: What?

[20:07] Kaveh: do you want to come over and meet my chinchilla?

[20:08] Kaveh: her name is mehrak

[20:08] you: I don’t think I’ve gotten a rabies vaccine

[20:08] Kaveh: al-haitham she doesn’t have fucking rabies

[20:08] Kaveh: okay i’m going to drop the pin to my apartment, maybe we can get coffee after

Kaveh started sharing their location with you.

Al-Haitham doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but a large part of him hadn’t anticipated that Kaveh actually owned a chinchilla.

Kaveh does, though. For the record. He owns a chinchilla, and her name is indeed Mehrak, and she looks vaguely like a rat.

“Your rat has rather large ears,” Al-Haitham notes, standing four feet away from the cage in which she is sitting in, and Kaveh predictably bristles.

“She is NOT a rat,” Kaveh says heatedly, rushing to the iron bars of her enclosure as if cradling her within his arms, glaring at Al-Haitham above the length of it. He looks ridiculous. “She is my DAUGHTER and she is the most LOVABLE creature to grace the undeserving air of Teyvat. Only a monster like you would mistake her for vermin and insinuate that she has rabies.”

“I think you’re the one making unfair comparisons,” says Al-Haitham, “if you’re assuming that every rat is to be considered vermin. They have their own saving qualities as well.”

“We’re not even talking about rats,” Kaveh says.

“Well,” says Al-Haitham, and he leaves it at that.

Kaveh redoubles his scowl so that Al-Haitham gets the full picture of his wrath. “If Mehrak doesn’t accept you as a visitor to our home, then I can’t do anything about that. Just so you know, I can’t associate with anybody that Mehrak doesn’t approve of.”

“You associated with me for a while before your ra—Mehrak came into the picture.”

“And then I stopped doing that,” Kaveh says pointedly. “You’re not getting out of this. It’s like a whole thing. Come on, Al-Haitham, step closer and let her feel out your vibe. Yes, like that, one step closer—Al-Haitham, are you—are you scared of Mehrak?”

“That would be ridiculous,” Al-Haitham says, now five feet away from her cage.

“You are ridiculous,” Kaveh groans, rolling his eyes in one furious motion, and then he stomps over to grab Al-Haitham by the wrist in searing touch, forcefully dragging him closer to the chinchilla and proffering their hands together toward the animal through a hatch at the top as if presenting an offering to a deity.

Mehrak looks skyward, sniffing Al-Haitham’s fingers in a long, tense moment, and then she chirps.

“You passed,” Kaveh says. When he lets go of Al-Haitham’s hands, their fingers knock against each other the way feet collide under tables, a kind of tender embarrassment turned outward and in open air.

“You say that as if it’s a feat to take pride in,” says Al-Haitham. They’re standing closer together than they have since that day during filming, except this time there’s no character available to escape into. Only himself and Kaveh, whose presence takes up so much space that Al-Haitham can feel it nudge at the point where his rib cage comes into a peak.

“You know, Mehrak is a very particular chinchilla,” Kaveh says, reaching into the enclosure to take her out as he pets her. “It’s pretty exclusive, actually, to be chosen by her. There was a dark time in my life where Parisa briefly met Mehrak, who hated her.”

“That’s because most beings don’t like Parisa,” Al-Haitham rightfully points out.

Kaveh scrunches his nose, nodding in agreement. “You’re right. It’s the vibes.”

“I am usually right.”

“Um, no, because you were wrong just now.”

“You are the one in the wrong.”

“Mehrak, relieve me of this villain,” Kaveh half-shouts, thrusting her before him once again as if she’ll change her mind, but she just twitches her nose and squeaks once more. Kaveh brings her back into his chest, looking vaguely disappointed. “Well, you passed twice. Congratulations. I guess. You really should be more honored than you currently seem to be. You’re in the presence of a celebrity, you know.”

Al-Haitham squints at him. “I know One Lifetime Too Short was predicted to be a blockbuster, but it never actually went through, Kaveh. I’m sorry to say that nobody knows who you are.”

“I’m not the celebrity,” Kaveh says in a tone that suggests he thinks Al-Haitham is dull. “Mehrak is the celebrity.”

“Um,” Al-Haitham says in such a way that it comes out as a question.

Kaveh digs his phone out of his pocket. Al-Haitham watches as he switches Instagram accounts, landing on one with a profile picture of a chinchilla that looks like Mehrak (every chinchilla looks the same to him, granted that he does not encounter chinchillas very often), and then his jaw drops when he sees the profile.

“I,” he starts, momentarily flabbergasted. “Seven hundred thousand Instagram followers?”

𖡎

Pop Base @PopBase

Breaking News: Al-Haitham, star of upcoming “(Un)Lucky In Love” reveals that Instagram famous chinchilla Mehrak belongs to his co-star, Kaveh.

[screenshot of Al-Haitham’s story post of Mehrak cradled within Kaveh’s cupped hands; the caption reads, “Today I met @mehrakofficial and discovered that she has more accolades than her owner.”]

49.3k likes, 7.1k retweets, 391 replies

REPLIES:

ENHA AT COACHELLA @ enhapop
Replying to @PopBase

ERRRRR UR TELLING ME THAT FURINA MANAGED TO GET MEHRAK’S OWNER ONTO HER SET

2.5k likes, 591 retweets, 4 replies

my background is shaq @gummybears
Replying to @PopBase

i just found out that i follow kaveh’s chinchilla on instagram through pop base the same way i found out about the election through destiel tumblr

6.2k likes, 1.8k retweets, 13 replies

fan (5’0) @3in1shampoo
Replying to @PopBase

“al-haitham’s kaveh” is anybody else feeling yaoiful on this fine evening…

582 likes, 41 retweets, 2 replies

Castorice pls come home @phaigays
Replying to @3in1shampoo and @PopBase

Fangirls are so weird…

3 likes

SAW CLORIVIA @NaCl
Replying to @PopBase

kaveh’s hands are so nice i kinda 💔💔💔 want him to hold mine 💔💔💔

2.3k likes, 581 retweets, 5 replies

polin szn 🐝 @colinspen
Replying to @PopBase

An underappreciated quality of Al-Haitham’s is the level of sass imbued in his words, bro does not gaf

1k likes, 294 retweets, 1 reply

ren @ikkerun
Replying to @PopBase

mehrak? why did kaveh not name his chinchilla after gible?

1 like

professional ink hater @phdinhate
Replying to @PopBase

okaYYYYYYY WHY ARE WE IGNORING THAT AL-HAITHAM AND KAVEH APPARENTLY HANG OUT

2.4k likes, 1.1k retweets, 49 replies

dan dan the cabbage man @nubiswhisker
Replying to @phdinhate and @PopBase

maybe they’re besties??!??!!

48 likes, 2 retweets, 1 reply

soup store @broccolicheddar
Replying to @phdinhate and @PopBase

u fujoshis r so fucking weird istg they’re real people.

2 like, 5 replies

dyno @woober
Replying to @PopBase

awww al-haitham follows mehrak on instagram now that’s so cute :(

48 likes, 1 retweet

kaveh ツ @kaveh_actor
Replying to @PopBase

oh my god!!!! my chinchilla made it onto pop base!!!!

27.3k likes, 4.1k retweets, 51 replies

Al-Haitham ✓ @al_haitham
Replying to @kaveh_actor and @PopBase

Your chinchilla has seven hundred thousand followers on Instagram and you are more concerned with Pop Base?

25.8k likes, 3.5k retweets, 42 replies

kaveh ツ @kaveh_actor
Replying to @al_haitham and @PopBase

yes

26.5k likes, 1.8k retweets, 15 replies

uilhallmark ✓ on Instagram
♫ Not My Fault • Reneé Rapp, Megan Thee Stallion

[reel of (Un)Lucky In Love cast lip syncing to the song; Kaveh emphatically mouths the line: “What? It’s not my fault you’re, like, in love with me or something!” to an apathetic Al-Haitham staring down at him before the camera flips as the song progresses, panning to various interactions between Al-Haitham, Kaveh, Nilou, Layla, and Scaramouche before ending with Al-Haitham haughtily mouthing, “You’re, like, in love with me,” to a fuming Kaveh]

Liked by kaveh_actor, nilou_u, al_haitham, and 793.5K others

uilhallmark wait, who is in love with who???

COMMENTS:

al_haitham: Definitely not me.
↳ kaveh_actor: ummmmm well it’s not me either?
nilou_u: i’m in love with this whole cast!! (๑ > ᴗ < ๑)°ᡣ𐭩 . ° . !!
scaramouche: i did not consent to being in this video
tighnari1229: i think it’s @al_haitham and @kaveh_actor but i could be wrong
↳ al_haitham: You’re wrong.
↳ kaveh_actor: no comment
cy_yes: You’re like in like with me or something.
blLuv69: THE WaY hE LOOKS AT HiM?
emmasdilemmas: jesus fawk al-haitham’s bedroom eyes in the beginning
rdiohead: Wait hello I’m behind Al-Haitham is in a what
sk_3948: name?
tybeyonce: RENEE RAPPPP
fkeitflowers: i hated hallmark until al-haitham decided he liked hallmark
38_0.0: kaveh just one chance
gisellester: I’m rooting for Al-Haitham and Nilou 🥲
winterstale: now whose idea was this
↳ karinaluv: and how did they get scaramouche to participate lol
ningningchilling: this is going to be so trash. i am going to be so seated

kaveh ツ @kaveh_actor

do you think he’s in love with me?!?!

[embed: @uilhallmark reel on Instagram]

63k likes, 20k retweets, 900 replies

REPLIES:

Al-Haitham ✓ @al_haitham
Replying to @kaveh_actor

Doesn’t seem like something I’d be.

32k likes, 11k retweets, 493 replies

kaveh ツ @kaveh_actor
Replying to @al_haitham

???

17k likes, 5k retweets, 103 replies

Al-Haitham ✓ on Instagram
♫ Brazil • Declan McKenna

[reel of Al-Haitham and Kaveh standing next to each other on set; Kaveh looks away and mouths along to an old movie’s audio: “You look pretty.” Al-Haitham looks back at him and says: “What did you say?” Kaveh jumps a little, then says: “Uh, I said you look shitty! Good night, Denise!” and pretends to walk away. Al-Haitham pulls him back, and the two grin at each other as the song starts playing]

Liked by kaveh_actor, nilou_u, dehyahaha, and 1.4M others

al_haitham Kaveh forced me to do this with him

COMMENTS:

kaveh_actor: and yet YOU’RE the one who posted it so
↳ tighnari1229: as if you’re not gonna immediately repost this on ur twt account
↳↳ kaveh_actor: dude
scaramouche: this is so fucking dumb
nilou_u: you guys are so cute!!
rubyred25: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK
ilysomatcha: ok so does anyone else wanna die
johi_hoji: AL-HAITHAM AND KAVEH??!!?!?!?!?!
haimster: holy shit i suddenly got SO excited for this movie

kaveh ツ @kaveh_actor

do you think he finds me pretty?!?!

[embed: @al_haitham reel on Instagram]

183k likes, 83k retweets, 4.3k replies

REPLIES:

Al-Haitham ✓ @al_haitham
Replying to @kaveh_actor

I don’t see it

93k likes, 20k retweets, 849 replies

kaveh ツ @kaveh_actor
Replying to @al_haitham

??????????????????????????

39k likes, 12k retweets, 180 replies

lina from liyue @morathecat
Replying to @kaveh_actor

listen here kaveh. very few people wouldn’t find you pretty

13.2k likes, 5.6k retweets, 31 replies

✩

Kaveh sighs impatiently, his breath fluttering against Al-Haitham’s cheek where he stands flush to his body. It’s the seventeenth take of the same scene at the very tail end of the filming day, both of their nerves ratcheting upwards every time Furina yells CUT!

“Again?” Kaveh mutters under his breath as they break apart again and the set is redone again, Candance darting out from the shadows to touch up his makeup and a couple of other people rearranging the fake snow scattered about. “I think I have a headache.”

“As is the life of an actor,” Al-Haitham says.

Kaveh shoots him a dirty look, though he can tell most of the frustration is toward the late hour and not specifically directed at him. “It’s because I have to be in such close proximity to you, actually. Just for your information.”

“Maybe your head hurts because you haven’t drank any liquids other than coffee all day,” Al-Haitham says, smoothly turning to let Dehya smooth one broad thumb over his eyebrow. Her lips, when they make eye contact, are quirked into a half-smile, no doubt amused at their banter. All of the crew are familiar with how they act at this point. “To which you cannot blame anybody but yourself.”

Kaveh squeezes his eyes shut, touching his forehead briefly as if receiving a vision. “No… I think…” His eyes open abruptly, alighting on his form. “Nope. It’s definitely just because of you.”

“You’re giving me a lot of importance, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says as they resettle on the other side of the street, one they’re meant to cross under the eyes of the camera and huddle together underneath the overhang from the snow. There’s always something, whether Furina thinks they’re running strangely or one of them is making an unpleasant expression or the snow isn’t falling the right way, and somehow they’ve spent far too long on a simplistic scene than any scene of its quality should possibly take.

“I’ll have you know that I place very little emphasis on the things you say, Al-Haitham.” Furina fixes them with a look; they immediately stiffen, getting into place, and then Al-Haitham angles his body closer to Kaveh so that he looks more open, almost hovering over the other’s body.

Al-Haitham’s mouth twitches. “Mehrak would be disappointed to hear that. Since she likes me so much.”

If it takes Kaveh off guard, it doesn’t show outwardly, but the laugh he lets out as he tugs Al-Haitham across the street by the hand sounds a little more genuine, ringing forward like a bell, and when he pulls Al-Haitham into his body as they turn toward each other, the intimate curve of his smile reminds Al-Haitham of how he used to look at him when they were filming One Lifetime Too Short.

That is, for certain, an unwelcome memory. He blinks it away as easily as the magic of the scene falls away the moment Furina finally approves of the shot, the two of them separating as quickly as awkward, prepubescent teenagers do in the wake of intimacy.

“You could not be more awkward,” Tighnari says judgmentally as they retreat back onto the side of the cameras—whether it’s too Al-Haitham or Kaveh, he’s not sure, but either way it’s not a compliment. “I’m struggling to see the chemistry that Furina saw in you two. Maybe I need to get glasses.”

“I’m a perfectly fine actor,” Kaveh sniffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “More than fine, actually.”

“Yeah, when you’re being Reza,” Tighnari says pointedly.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“That was snow painful to watch,” Cyno monotones behind Al-Haitham, and when he turns with his forehead scrunched at the poor joke, he’s met with a fistfull of fake snow, powder sprinkling over his shirt.

Al-Haitham blinks. “Cyno,” he says with no inflection, the threat present in that singular word.

“Al-Haitham,” replies Cyno pleasantly.

“No assaulting my actor!” Dehya cries in outrage, hurrying over with a washcloth and her makeup brush poised at the ready. Al-Haitham has to stop himself from instinctively flinching away.

“Leave it,” Furina says buoyantly, skipping up behind them with her hands tucked behind her back. “We’re done for the day. Free from the torture! You’re welcome, droplets.”

Dehya shrugs, immediately retreating. “Sorry, Al-Haitham. If we’re not on the clock, then it’s not my problem what happens to you.”

“Thanks,” Al-Haitham says.

Cyno says, “You’re welcome.”

Al-Haitham frowns at him. “Not you.”

“You look better when you have your face all obscured,” Kaveh informs him, laughter following at the ends of his words. “This is a really flattering look for you, Al-Haitham.” Despite his words, he reaches out, the movement almost seeming to come naturally, thumb resting against his cheekbone to wipe away the powdery remnants of fake snow—Al-Haitham’s lips part slightly in response, Kaveh so near—

And then they immediately separate as soon as they realize, five feet miraculously coming into existence between them. Kaveh has one hand on his neck. Al-Haitham finds the ceiling incredibly interesting all of a sudden—who was involved in the placement of the ceiling beams? Is that really structurally sound?

“Children, the both of you,” Tighnari says, but he sounds so fond, and this time Al-Haitham knows he’s not the only one remembering One Lifetime Too Short, especially when Tighnari hooks both Al-Haitham and Kaveh around the shoulders with his arms, tugging them off the set. “I think we deserve to go out. We’re all just girls. How does the diner on the corner sound?”

“Not with this guy,” Kaveh and Al-Haitham say simultaneously, whipping their heads around to glare at each other.

“Ah, yes,” Tighnari sighs, “this guy, he will definitely be suffering. As in me. I’m already suffering, just so you know.”

“Tighnari, half the population is a girl,” Cyno says, materializing behind them as if he’s their shadow, and when Tighnari and Kaveh sigh in tandem, the familiar sound of their exasperation fusing together in the late night air, it feels as though the five years that passed had been nothing at all.

Today, the coffee came out weak, the clouds are sluicing a misty gray rain over the entire crew, and Al-Haitham has to film his first scene with Scaramouche.

Al-Haitham knows that it’s part of the job, and he’s filmed with plenty of people that he’s not a fan of, but it’s different when his partner in the scene exudes so much tangible dislike of him that half of the crew is resigned to an afternoon of reshooting scenes before it’s even begun. It’s not even afternoon yet. It’s six am.

That possibly makes it worse.

“I just don’t see why I have to be the younger brother,” Scaramouche complains, his hands on his hips. Without the oversized hat, he looks even more like a middle schooler, and it’s really not doing anything for his argument. “If anything, Al-Haitham should be the younger one. Is he not many years my junior? It’d make it so much more believable. He acts like it too, like a brat. It shouldn’t be that hard to change a small detail in the script.”

“I’m the brat?” Al-Haitham asks, one eyebrow steadily rising as it disappears into his bangs. They’re standing on set, right by the couch of the “family room.” Scaramouche, who is meant to be sitting on the couch, is supposed to jump to his feet and rush over to embrace Al-Haitham when he unexpectedly walks through the door—it’s not ideal for either Al-Haitham or Scaramouche, but that’s why Al-Haitham gets paid the big bucks, right?

“Yes,” Scaramouche says pointedly. “I cannot handle your behavior any longer, but as we are coworkers, I will just have to deal with it.”

On the contrary, Al-Haitham has no idea what Scaramouche is referencing since he makes a point out of staying out of his way, but that’s fine, he guesses. “My behavior.”

Before his very eyes, Scaramouche actually starts shaking. “You,” he hisses, his voice wavering in anger, “keep touching my lunch.”

Huh. This is the first that Al-Haitham has heard of anybody’s lunch being touched, not to mention Scaramouche, but if anybody deserved it, it would definitely be Scaramouche. “Hm,” he says.

Scaramouche points a finger in his face and whips to the side, eyes wildly searching for somebody to complain to. Al-Haitham watches with barely restrained amusement as every crew member ducks their eyes. “See! He just admitted to the crime! The lunch violator! I’ve been assaulted! And so has my bento box!”

“Why don’t we just begin,” Furina says, her head tilted onto her fist as she looks at them sideways, bored. “Al-Haitham, go behind the door. Scaramouche, sit your tiny butt down on the couch. The younger brother role is non negotiable.”

Scaramouche, even as he grumbles, knows he has no authority when it comes to the director of the entire movie, so he sits. And Al-Haitham, even though his grumbling is internal, goes behind the door because his pay is on the line and he has his own reasons as to why he wants to stay on the project.

“All set,” Furina calls. “Three, two, one—ACTION!”

When the clapperboard slams shut, Al-Haitham opens the door, tilting his head through the opening tentatively. “Hello?” he says, the camera following his movements. On the couch, Scaramouche shoots his head up, expression falling into one of disbelief when he sees him.

“Zayan?” he says, shock soaking through his words, and then, faltering in his movements in supposed surprise, he gets to his feet and reaches for a hug. Just as he’s about to embrace Al-Haitham, a full body flinch goes through his frame the same way cats violently spasm when they’re about to vomit. “Oh god,” he says, disgust taking the place of the disbelief, and Al-Haitham smoothly takes a large step backward at the same time Furina sighs, yelling for the scene to be cut.

“I don’t know how I’m meant to do this,” Scaramouche says, side-eying Al-Haitham with thinly veiled disgust. Thin may be an overstatement. “Do we think that the hug is entirely necessary?”

“Are you sure you’re the esteemed actor you think you are?” Al-Haitham asks him.

Furina rubs at her temples. “If you had any issues, you should have brought it up either when you first received the script, or during the table read, or any time before we began filming the scene. Not that I would have listened, mind you! But maybe that would have been more topical.”

“If it’s an issue with the actor, then the script can be left alone,” Al-Haitham says to her.

“There is no issue with the actor,” says Scaramouche. “The only issue I have is with you.”

Al-Haitham raises one eyebrow. “Nobody else has had an issue with me, so I think that means it’s time to do some inner reflection.”

“This is blatant Kaveh erasure,” Tighnari calls from the sidelines.

“Kaveh erasure? He just wanted to get the word out,” says Cyno.

“What?” Tighnari says.

“Scaramouche, can you at least do your job and act as if you like Al-Haitham enough to hug him?” Furina asks, looking visibly bored.

“I don’t think I can,” says Scaramouche.

“I wouldn’t want to either,” Kaveh says, materializing out of nowhere.

“Where did you even come from?” Al-Haitham asks him. Kaveh just makes a face back.

“If even your co-star can’t stand shooting a scene with you, then how do you imagine the rest of the cast feels?” Scaramouche says accusingly, pointing one finger in Al-Haitham’s face.

Al-Haitham stares cooly down the length of his arm to make eye contact with Scaramouche. Like this, the difference in their height is much more pronounced. “I imagine that the only two people who find issue with filming with me seem to be outliers. You should ask Nilou how she feels about shooting with me.”

“Don’t bring me into this, Al-Haitham,” says Nilou, who has also materialized out of nowhere.

“Nilou, you should speak your truth,” Kaveh tells her, Al-Haitham nodding beside him.

“Are we going to be able to get a good scene at all, or should I get a stunt double to hug Al-Haitham?” Furina snaps.

Al-Haitham turns solemnly toward her; he doesn’t want to be touched by Scaramouche as much as Scaramouche is unwilling to touch him. “I think that may be the best course of action.”

“Oh my god,” Furina mutters, burying her face in her hands. “Okay. Everyone set? Three, two, one, fucking action.”

“Did you mean to post this on main?” Al-Haitham overhears Kaveh saying, tilting his phone screen toward Scaramouche. At the gesture, Scaramouche only wrinkles his nose and gives a perfunctory nod before turning back to his bag, packing everything away to leave for the day.

“Yes. Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” Kaveh says, and then he walks past Al-Haitham’s side of the room, giving him a bemused sort of look as he exits. Five seconds later, Al-Haitham gets a text: check scara’s insta story lol.

Al-Haitham checks. It’s a selfie of Scaramouche frowning, his face mostly hidden in the corner to make room for a bolded caption that only reads i don’t like al-haitham. Period at the end of the sentence and everything.

Al-Haitham pockets his phone, looks over to where Scaramouche is glowering at him across the room, and decides that even if he hadn’t been touching his lunch in the past, he might as well start now.

“We’re doing the ferris wheel scene today, boys!” Furina trills, hopping onto her director’s chair with a beam. It’s an unnecessary announcement since the set for today is located in a field set up with festive tents and the like, extras swarming around the fair to replicate real life. She seems almost overly excited today as if she knows exactly what’s coming for them.

By them, Al-Haitham is referring to Al-Haitham and Kaveh because who else would be subject to what could only be ultimately defined as torture?

The “ferris wheel scene” is a nice way of reducing the only kiss of the movie into a few short words: the moment that Reza takes Zayan to a local high school festival where they’re terrifically out of place—the true small town experience—and when the passenger car holding them pauses at the top for plot convenience, they stare into each other’s eyes over the sunset before finally kissing.

Furina claps. “Let’s get to it. We have a lot of filming ahead of us.”

“Um,” Kaveh says, looking moderately alarmed. “Right. Okay, yes. The ferris wheel scene. Yes.”

“You’ve always been so eloquent, Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham.

Kaveh turns on his heel to face Al-Haitham, anger in his eyes. “And you’ve always been an asshole, but I didn’t bring it up because I’m a normal person.”

“Actually, you say that quite often,” Al-Haitham says.

“You do,” Tighnari says, shaking his head apologetically.

“What are you even doing here?” Kaveh says to him, throwing his arms out to his sides.

“Normal people don’t usually have to characterize themselves as normal,” Cyno says.

“Thank you, Cyno,” Al-Haitham says.

“I never thought I’d hear the words ‘thank you, Cyno,’ in my life,” marvels Tighnari. He turns to Kaveh, an expression of wonder on his face. “And all it took was you.”

“We have a scene to shoot, folks!” Furina shouts, her hands curled around her mouth. There’s barely hidden glee in her smirk even as Al-Haitham feels a deep coil of dread in his stomach; above all, Furina has always prized a good show, and she’s made it abundantly obvious that she’s aware something happened between Al-Haitham and Kaveh in the past even if she doesn’t know what it was. In addition to shooting a good movie, she’s no doubt getting her own amusement out of fucking with Al-Haitham and Kaveh.

Al-Haitham and Kaveh relocate closer to the bottom of the ferris wheel, where Kaveh is supposed to take Al-Haitham—the grumpy, begrudging lawyer reluctant to participate in anything he considers too childish—by the hand and drag him onto the attraction.

“What would happen if they made Hallmark movies without kiss scenes,” Kaveh says absentmindedly, staring into the horizon with blank eyes. “It’d be a revolution of some kind. I think that would be ahead of our time. I think we should do it.”

Al-Haitham has known that Kaveh doesn’t want to kiss him, but he doesn’t have to say it.

“All set!” Furina yells, and Kaveh shakes out of his stupor, Al-Haitham readying himself as well. “Three, two, one—ACTION!”

“Zayan, it’ll be fun!” Kaveh wheedles, eyes turning pleading as he swivels to him and links his hands together to beg him. “Like being a kid again! Didn’t we both go to this high school, anyway? We just missed each other. It’ll be like what we would have if we met back then.”

“Fun is a word for it,” Al-Haitham says, but he lets Kaveh pull him along, still immersed in the personas of Reza and Zayan. When they disappear into the line, the camera pulls up, panning over the crowd, and Furina cuts the scene.

They leave the line again, and Furina regards them coolly, “All right,” she says, clasping her hands together. “You two are going to ride the ferris wheel for the most authentic experience, and then you know what to do when you get to the top.”

“Suddenly I am afraid of heights,” Kaveh says, his throat bobbing as he stares up to the ride. Al-Haitham would almost believe him if he hadn’t once gone skydiving with Kaveh in the past, before everything fell between his fingers, gone.

“No, you aren’t,” Al-Haitham says before he can stop himself, arms folded. He turns to Furina. “He isn’t.”

“That solves itself, then,” says Furina, gesturing for them to step into the carriage. “You boys have fun up there!”

Grumbling, Kaveh takes the first step into the car and Al-Haitham follows, the cameraman sitting across from them. They’re silent as the ferris wheel goes through its rotation and halts abruptly at the top, swinging slightly as the sun melts into oranges and pinks dying over the pale blue evening.

Swallowing, Kaveh leans across the carriage to point past Al-Haitham’s shoulder. “Look, there, at the way that the sun melts like butter. You can’t see that in the big city, Zayan. You might have your faults with this town, but you can’t fault that.”

The sigh that escapes Al-Haitham’s lips next whistles sweetly when it leaves. “I suppose you’re right.” He turns, and then comprehending how close Kaveh is to him, their faces nearly close enough for their noses to touch, lets his eyes open wide. “You…”

“Zayan,” Kaveh whispers, his eyes darting side to side, taking in every emotion that Al-Haitham lets dart across his face: the apprehension, the puddling sense of desire, the regret that he’d ever left in the first place.

“Reza,” Al-Haitham responds quietly, the name wanting to shift into another name entirely on its own. “I can admit that this place has its charms.” His eyes drop to Kaveh’s lips before resurfacing. “More than I would have expected when I returned. Somehow, it makes me think that I shouldn’t have left in the first place. Or at least given this town—and myself—a second chance.”

“There’s a lot that you left behind.” Kaveh’s throat bobs. “I’m still stuck in the same place, but I’m discovering new ways to move around it without having to leave. I think you can do the same. You can’t solve the world’s problems by making it big away from the people who loved you first and with only your name as company. I believe in you, Zayan. In us.”

“Us?” Al-Haitham asks as if he’s only just letting himself believe in the word again.

“Us,” Kaveh repeats firmly, and then, his hands soft as a question, he cradles Al-Haitham’s face in both of his hands, thumbs swiping over his cheek gently, before leaning into the kiss slowly enough for Al-Haitham to push him away.

Kaveh’s lips are soft—the first thing Al-Haitham registers—and they feel the way he knows they would have all those years back if they ever got over their pride, the second thing he realizes, even though they never did.

This isn’t their first kiss; that had been during the shooting of One Lifetime Too Short, but this feels distinct the way a deep breath feels different after holding your head underwater for too long, the pressure wrapped around his throat bursting upon contact, everything contradictorily novel in the damp wake of their history. It’s funny how it had taken five years to make loving Kaveh feel new again.

After a moment, Al-Haitham pulls away, the spring of Kaveh’s breath passing his cheek only barely, and they blink at each other for a long moment, the camera forgotten before them. “I believe in us, too,” Al-Haitham says, “Reza.” He has to swallow around Kaveh’s name to get the rest of the sentence out. It’s stupid, this naive kind of hope. To think that something as trivial as a Hallmark movie even worked against Al-Haitham in the end.

“I’m glad,” Kaveh says, smiling so that the lines carve deep wrinkles into his cheeks, the valleys of joy, and then he leans his forehead against Al-Haitham’s as their breaths amalgamate into one between them and the ferris wheel rotates back to the ground.

Unsteady on his feet by the time they stumble off the ride, feeling as though the time spent in the sky had made its way into the wobble in his knees, Al-Haitham stands beside Tighnari while Kaveh disappears to busy himself with shooting the subsequent scenes with Nilou. Reza and Esther are supposed to discuss what just happened while Zayan is rethinking his life in a porta potty.

Instead, Al-Haitham is sort of rethinking his life next to Tighnari, which is similar to being inside a porta potty in the sense that he’s in the company of a piece of shit.

“That looked pretty passionate,” Tighnari comments, his hands folded primly behind his back. “I was watching through the camera.”

Al-Haitham massages his forehead to rid himself of the tension, a rare show of weakness. Tighnari brings it out of him. “That’s an odd thing to admit.”

Tighnari makes a dismissive noise. “As if millions of people aren’t going to be watching that exact same kiss in a few months time. Chew on that, Al-Haitham. Millions of people are going to be voyeur to your relationship with Kaveh. Kinda kinky, if you think about it.”

“That’s what happens when you’re an actor and you’re cast in a romcom, yes,” Al-Haitham says. “I’m used to the attention.”

“You poor big celebrity,” Tighnari says with mock sympathy. “But they’ve never looked at you through the explicit lens of a romance movie. You know they’re going to scrutinize the hell out of your every move with him.”

Tighnari is, unfortunately, correct—Al-Haitham hates when this happens. He follows his gaze to where Kaveh is sitting on a park bench with Nilou, throwing his hands about under the eyes of a camera.

“You should do something about—ah, you know what, nevermind. I was going to say something snarky, but I stopped myself. You’re welcome,” says Tighnari, looking unmistakably proud of himself.

Shaking his head, Al-Haitham walks away without preamble, leaving the other behind and somehow making his way over to where Kaveh and Nilou stand, now done with the scene. Nilou meets his gaze, her eyes going wide, and then she abruptly swivels and pretends to fuss with her outfit, giving them as much privacy as they can steal on a set filled with cameras.

“Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, a wavering note of uncertainty at the tail end of the word telling Al-Haitham all he needs to know—that Kaveh is just as affected as he is by the kiss. But he steps away when Al-Haitham hovers closer, a movement so small he might not have even been aware of it, but Al-Haitham is. His fingers curl, digging crescent moons into his skin.

“Good thing you came over!” Kaveh continues, his voice a little high. “I think we’re—” He glances over at Furina. “—filming the scene between Reza and Zayan where they talk about the divorce papers soon before the sun sets, or else we’re going to have to come back tomorrow.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple making a stark appearance.

Kaveh is nervous, Al-Haitham realizes with a little bit of reserved wonder. In a strange, unfamiliar way.

Al-Haitham nods, folding his arms over his chest. “That would make sense. She’ll probably get upset if we waste anymore time standing around like this.”

And yet neither of them make a move, not daring to step away.

“Okay,” Kaveh says eventually, pulling the word slowly through his lips. His eyelids flutter, quiet when they blink. “I see her coming behind you. We’ve got about twenty-five seconds before Candace and Dehya descend upon us with their powders.”

“Here, I’ll do half their job for them,” Al-Haitham says, and then he reaches out to bridge the distance between them, tucking a disheveled strand of Kaveh’s bangs behind his ear, the side of his cheek soft against his fingers.

Kaveh stares up at him, tense—unwilling, Al-Haitham has long realized, to reconcile what he remembers in the lingering five years of resentment with the people they are now—and then he steps away fluidly, drifting past him to meet with Dehya, but when Al-Haitham turns, Kaveh is cradling the side of his face that Al-Haitham had touched like a secret.

“You never change, Al-Haitham,” Nilou says suddenly, turning Al-Haitham’s head again, but the smile on her face says it all. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Just something to be aware of, and to be careful with. Though I would think you two are being a little more careless these days. Again, not necessarily a bad thing.”

“Nilou,” Al-Haitham sighs, shaking his head in the wind, and she just lets out a bright laugh, hooking her arm through his elbow.

“Come on,” she tells him. “You have some divorce papers to rip up.”

And so filming goes on, and on, and on, until—

“Kaveh, do you know which one of these is Scaramouche’s?” Al-Haitham says, squinting critically at the spread of catering boxes set up on the dining tables in the car corner of the filming area. Luckily for him, they’re all individually packaged today. All he needs is a way to ensure that a specific box gets to Scaramouche.

Kaveh looks to him with an expression of concern. “Why do you need to know? I thought you don’t like the guy because he doesn’t like you.”

“I wouldn’t have liked him even if he liked me,” Al-Haitham says solemnly. “It’s very complicated and you wouldn’t get it, Kaveh. Anyway, I just need to know which one is his.”

“Are you up to something?” Kaveh asks because apparently he’s gotten a lot better at reading Al-Haitham over the past few months, especially now that they’re technically on their last day of filming—a momentous occasion if not for the fact that the cast is going to continue to be put together for the extensive press tour planned ahead of them. Still, it’s undeniably special, especially because Al-Haitham has his part to play in pushing along Scaramouche’s self-fulfilled prophecy.

“No,” Al-Haitham says, several small bottles of food coloring in his right pocket, the leftmost one hiding a canister of clear vinegar.

Kaveh stares at him for a little while longer before eventually shrugging, evidently deciding that he doesn’t care enough. “I heard that Scaramouche actually requested a separate lunch today because it’s some kind of risotto with baby shrimp and he has a complex about mothers so being reminded that anything is a child of any mother is a problem for him. So whichever one has no baby shrimp in it.”

“Thank you,” Al-Haitham says, opening a marked box on the end and sprinkling green and red food coloring into the food to create an unpleasant shade of brown. “I appreciate it, Kaveh.”

“You’re only ever so sincere when good things come to an end,” Kaveh says sarcastically, watching him dot the whole thing with vinegar before carefully placing the lid back on the container. “Should you be doing that?”

“It’s the last day of filming,” Al-Haitham says flippantly. “It doesn’t matter if he gets sick after tonight.”

When Al-Haitham turns, Kaveh has an odd glimmer in his eye, a wry twist to his mouth. “You know, filming this movie with you wasn’t as much of a torture show as I thought it would be.”

“I’m honored,” Al-Haitham says. He repockets the tampering devices, standing still as Kaveh looks on.

“You should be. Here.” Quickly, Kaveh takes two plastic cups from the catering table and fills them from a bottle of sparkling apple cider sitting to the side, proffering one of them to Al-Haitham and then raising his in a toast. Al-Haitham obliges, meeting Kaveh halfway to engage in a dull plastic meeting of cups. “A toast to making it out alive.”

“To surviving,” Al-Haitham says, tilting his head back as he closes his eyes so that the last thing he sees is the happy curve of Kaveh’s lips over the rim of his cup.

𖡎

kaveh_actor ✓ on Instagram

[six photos: a solo shot of Kaveh on the red carpet; Kaveh and Al-Haitham posing together on the red carpet, their hands interlocked; a selfie of Nilou and Layla with Kaveh standing behind them, his chin resting on the spot where their heads connect; a faraway shot of Al-Haitham on his phone with Scaramouche next to him, glaring; a shot of the whole cast on the red carpet; a selfie of Kaveh and Al-Haitham in the car, Kaveh laughing openly while Al-Haitham glances sidelong at him with a faint smile]

Liked by nilou_u, al_haitham, tighnari1229, and 1M others

kaveh_actor premiere night!!! thank you all for being such a huge part of such a wild journey ❤︎❤︎❤︎ see u soon!!!!!!!!

COMMENTS:

al_haitham: 🔥
nilou_u: ╰(*´︶`*)╯
nilou_u: i love you reza my best friend in the whole wide world :(
tighnari1229: wow
cy_yes: Why was the red carpet always so worried? It was constantly being walked all over.
danwilds: KAVEH I LOVE YOU KAVEH I LOVE YOU
zaza_love: ARE U FUCKING SERIOISUISHDFKDSHFJH
fishi.ishie: i want to die does anyone else want to die
taj.the.tiger: haikaveh
mattb: no thank YOU!!! KAVEH
clamsteps: what is scaramouche even doing
renee.walker: CONGRATULATIONS KAVEHHH ♥️♥️♥️

al_haitham ✓ on Instagram

[five photos: Kaveh and Al-Haitham posing together on the red carpet, their arms linked together, Kaveh’s head tilted in Al-Haitham’s direction; a shot of the whole cast on the red carpet; a selfie of Al-Haitham sitting with a deadpan expression, Dehya standing behind him, grinning as she runs a roller brush through Al-Haitham’s hair; a 0.5x shot of Scaramouche from above, making him look even shorter than he already is; a shot of Kaveh and Al-Haitham’s shoulders pressed together, Kaveh’s laughing face just barely out of shot, Al-Haitham’s small smile visible at the top]

Liked by kaveh_actor, nilou_u, furina.de.fontaine, and 1.2M others

al_haitham Thank you.

COMMENTS:

kaveh_actor: omg u posted the cute one…
cy_yes: Why did the red carpet always feel left out? It was tired of being walked over.
nilou_u: another one down another one down!!!
nilou_u: third hailou collab when 🥺
scaramouche: dude what the fuck is your problem
josteneil: AL-HAITHAM
allison_reynolds: wait u guys look sooo cute tgt in the first shot
hthmluv: can we get married al-haitham pleaseeee pleasepleplapsleplaeapelapslae
nickyhemmick: CONGRATULATIONS GUYS!!!!!!!
aaronandrew: i’m so proud of u haitham 🥺
sproutling_: AL-HAITHAM W THE MAKEUP ARTIST AWWW
kday: THE SCARAMOUCHE SLANDER LMAOOOO

UNLUCKY IN LOVE TODAY @eggcloudramen

DOES ANYONE HAVE A LINK TO THE RED CARPET LIVESTREAM

5 likes, 3 retweets, 2 replies

REPLIES:

UIL UIL UIL @heesgirl
Replying to @eggcloudramen

YES HERE

[link to Burgeonberg News on YouTube]

2 likes, 10 retweets

Burgeonberg News on YouTube Live

❚❚ LIVE ❚❚

[a short woman appears on camera, a thick microphone in her hand, a wide smile on her face]

Ellie: Reporting to you live from the red carpet premiere of ‘(Un)Lucky In Love’! The cast has just finished arriving and are taking photos together. In just a few minutes now, we’ll get to talk to our very own Reza!

[slight bustling, Ellie takes a few steps back as a new figure appears. Screaming erupts around them, and then Kaveh walks into frame, grinning and waving out at the crowd]

Kaveh: Hello!

Ellie: Kaveh! It’s so nice to meet you, I’m Ellie with Burgeonberg News. How are you today?

Kaveh: Oh, I am so good. I don’t think I’ve ever been better, actually. This is all so insane!

Ellie: This is your first red carpet, right?

[Kaveh nods enthusiastically]

Kaveh: It is! I never imagined all of this would be so exciting! Well, I guess I did, but actually being in the middle of it all is something else, you know? I was just telling Al-Haitham about it on the way here, though he didn’t really share my sentiments. But also he’s just like that. You’re going to talk to him too, I assume? Right?

Ellie: Yes, we will! Speaking of Al-Haitham, I must ask, how is it, acting alongside him?

Kaveh: Well, we’ve known each other a long time, so I do think that’s helped a lot in this whole process. He’s great, really, super experienced in ways that I am most definitely not. So he helped me a lot. We helped each other, I think.

Al-Haitham: Speaking about me when I’m not there?

[Al-Haitham suddenly walks into frame, looking at Kaveh with a raised eyebrow. Kaveh squints at him, unimpressed]

Kaveh: Um, I was clearly only saying good things! Right, Ellie? Ellie here can vouch for me.

[Ellie, startled, looks between them and laughs]

Ellie: Yes, yes, he was! Only good things.

Al-Haitham: Did he pay you to say that?

[Kaveh scowls, turning and swatting Al-Haitham’s shoulder]

Kaveh: Seriously? Can’t you be normal?

Al-Haitham: This is me being normal.

[Kaveh looks to the camera]

Kaveh: Wow. See, everyone? This is the type of person your favorite actor really is. This is why you should always think twice before becoming a fan of somebody. You never know what sinister personality truly lies beneath the surface.

Al-Haitham: And I’m the not normal one?

Kaveh: You—

Nilou: Guys!

[a flurry of red appears in the frame. Nilou slings her arm around Al-Haitham’s waist, and she grins, throwing up a peace sign at the camera]

Kaveh: Nilou!

Nilou: Is this Burgeonberg News?

Ellie: Yes, yes it is! It’s so nice to meet you, Nilou. How are you doing today?

Nilou: Oh my gosh! It’s so nice to meet you too, and I’m doing fabulously! How are you? I’m so excited for the world to see the film we’ve come up with! It’s mostly these two, though, I won’t lie.

[Nilou laughs and points between Kaveh and Al-Haitham with her index finger]

Al-Haitham: Don’t be modest.

Nilou: This isn’t me being modest! It’s the truth!

[Kaveh pouts, reaching over to squeeze Nilou’s free hand]

Kaveh: Where would Reza be without his best friend in the whole wide world?

[Nilou laughs openly, squeezing his hand back]

Nilou: The exact same place that Esther would be!

[Ellie puts her hand against her heart. She turns to Nilou and Al-Haitham]

Ellie: Al-Haitham, Nilou, it’s your second premiere together.

Al-Haitham: That’s right.

Ellie: How are you feeling? I know the two of you are good friends.

[Al-Haitham turns to look down at Nilou]

Al-Haitham: Are we?

[Nilou rolls her eyes]

Nilou: Here, I’ll give an actual answer. Honestly, it’s wonderful to work with people you already know you work well with. Al-Haitham and I are close friends, and I wouldn’t have been able to do this without him and the rest of the cast! I know it’s a running joke, the whole Reza and Esther best friends in the whole wide world thing, but it does truly feel that way between Kaveh and I too. We’ve all become so close in such a short amount of time, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. The cast and crew all genuinely feel like family, and there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s going to be this way for a long, long time.

Ellie: That’s literally the cutest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

[Nilou laughs, tilting her chin up to the sky. Kaveh and Al-Haitham look at her fondly]

Ellie: And Al-Haitham, Kaveh, any final words for the thousands of people watching live right now?

Al-Haitham: It’s a good film. I had fun. Hopefully, it’ll be fun for you too.

Kaveh: Wow, that is a crazy way of saying that.

Al-Haitham: How else am I supposed to say it?

Kaveh: Here, watch and learn.

[Kaveh clears his throat and looks to the camera, flashing a wink]

Kaveh: Thank you all so, so, so much for all of your love and your support over the past year. I know I just made it sound like I’m saying this for show, but I truly am being genuine when I say that none of this would have been possible without you. We all had such a blast filming this together, and I think it shows in the film too! So, if or when you decide to watch ‘(Un)Lucky In Love’, I hope that you come to love it as much as I and the others have come to love it.

Ellie: That’s so sweet. Thank you guys so much.

[Kaveh, Al-Haitham, and Nilou say their goodbyes. Upon closer look, Al-Haitham and Kaveh are still bickering as they walk further down the carpet, and Nilou is still happily smiling]

forza ferrari @sixsempreteen

does anyone else wanna like fucking die

[clip: Kaveh swatting Al-Haitham’s shoulder during the interview]

7.3k likes, 726 retweets, 92 replies

moo @scaramoomoo

kusanali took mercy on me and made my only flaw being a scaramouche fan bc why the fuck is he like this

[clip: Scaramouche scowling at the paparazzi as his photos are being taken, his expression turning even more absurd as Al-Haitham walks up behind him and flicks his shoulder. Then Scaramouche flips him off]

293 likes, 22 retweets, 7 replies

REPLIES:

scram. @scaraster
Replying to @scaramoomoo

Well idk this seems more on Al-Haitham

4 likes, 1 reply

stagy @sockitup
Replying to @scaraster and @scaramoomoo

? Al-Haitham isn’t the one who flipped someone off on the red carpet

2 likes, 1 reply

scram. @scaraster
Replying to @ and @scaramoomoo

Al-Haitham touched Scaramouche’s shoulder out of nowhere???

1 like

alhaithamilton @44inluv
Replying to @scaramoomoo

tbf i’d also flip off al-haitham and i’m literally a HAM

57 likes, 4 retweets

AUS23 (1:1) @inleclerb

ok actually fuck all of u guys. nobody told me about how deeply homoerotic these two are

[quote retweeting a clip of Kaveh laughing as Al-Haitham’s arm loops around his waist, the two of them posing for the camera in front of them]

12k likes, 2k retweets, 120 replies

REPLIES:

i miss my small son @kavinci
Replying to @inleclerb

you JUST noticed this??

40 likes, 3 retweets

luma @iambatman
Replying to @inleclerb

idk why but i suddenly remembered that these 2 literally have alr filmed smth together.. did everyone just collectively forget about that??

38 likes, 4 retweets, 1 reply

SAW AESPAAA @magpeyes
Replying to @iambatman and @inleclerb

wait really?????

3 likes, 1 reply

serena ! @matchaboutyou
Replying to @magpeyes and @inleclerb

YES it was a thing when casting was announced and in the red carpet interview kaveh like casually mentioned they’ve known eo for a long time so

2 likes

eliza ❣️ t-2 days til UIL @shortnsweetner

can all of u guys shut up for 2 seconds and just like process that in 2 days we can all finally watch this fucking MOVIE

39 likes, 3 retweets, 2 replies

REPLIES:

oikage truther @kagaloney
Replying to @shortnsweetner

pls i’ve been trying to find ppl to talk abt this to for 30 yrs now but all anyone is concerned abt is the rpf between al-haitham and kaveh

4 likes

repping 81 @piastrami
Replying to @shortnsweetner

I’VE ALR BOUGHT TICKETS FOR ALL OF MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY IT’S A NATIONAL HOLIDAY

3 likes

sk8 comeback it’s never over @hojiflower
Replying to @shortnsweetner

i want to kill myself i’m so excited

1 reply

flowering with exit wounds @pistachioatmeal
Replying to @hojiflower and @shortnsweetner

this is a little concerning?

1 like, 1 reply

sk8 comeback it’s never over @hojflower
Replying to @pistachioatmeal and @shortnsweetner

oh dw it’s just how i show emotion

1 like, 1 reply

flowering with exit wounds @pistachioatmeal
Replying @hojiflower and @shortnsweetner

? by saying that you’re going to kill yourself?

1 like, 1 reply

sk8 comeback it’s never over @hojiflower
Replying to @pistachioatmeal and @shortnsweetner

yeah. keep up

1 like

MY FAITHFUL STEED… @porgegrussell

can anybody else taste the edits that are going to come out of (un)lucky in love…

1.2k likes, 148 retweets, 8 replies

REPLIES:

het het yaoi emails walking home @sharon_death
Replying to @porgegrussell

taste??????????

94 likes

just minding my own business… @16_cherie

Omfg who designed Nilou’s dress it’s absolutely beautiful

8 likes

bark @yesimadog

al-haitham in that suit augshdglksdhg i just drooled i’m no better than a dog

2.4k likes, 692 retweets, 14 replies

☾

The sky is a blend of pink and purple when they finally exit the venue, the cold spring air hitting Kaveh’s red-smudged cheeks as he tilts his chin up toward the sky and exhales shakily.

His first movie premiere. Done and over with. He can barely believe he made it through in one piece. Actually, he still can’t believe any of this even happened, really, all the way from being offered this role to walking a red carpet and smiling for an audience of thousands and thousands of people. He contemplates on this for a while, the absurdity of the role he is playing in this world right now, and he decides that instead of thinking about it for any longer, he’d much rather just get really, really drunk.

So, to celebrate, the cast go to Moongrass.

“Ah,” Kaveh says through his twenty-somethingth sip of whatever concoction Tighnari ordered for him, “alcohol.”

“Alcohol,” Tighnari agrees from his seat next to him. “That is indeed the liquid you are drinking right now.”

Kaveh’s entire face scrunches despite himself. He leans closer, in Tighnari’s direction, and ends up eye-level with his cheekbone. “Are you drunk?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking yourself that?” Tighnari says, and then he reaches up and jabs his index finger against Kaveh’s forehead, effectively sending him practically flying in the opposite direction.

The opposite direction, which of course just happens to be Al-Haitham’s chest.

Kaveh freezes as his shoulders make contact with Al-Haitham. He frowns, then tilts his head upward, squinting against the flush lighting of the restaurant and just barely making out the silver outline of his face. “Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”

“You didn’t know?” Al-Haitham murmurs.

“Well,” says Kaveh, “I think I did. I’m not sure.”

“How much have you even drank?”

“I don’t know. Stop asking me questions.”

“It can’t be a lot,” Al-Haitham continues, and then he squints at him, and Kaveh’s gaze is nothing but a blur against the golden glow overhead. “You haven’t exploded yet.”

Around them, the crew are chattering away to their hearts’ content, plates and forks and spoons clinking together, and yet all Kaveh feels is the sudden bucket of cold water that dumps over his head. He freezes against Al-Haitham before he can help himself, before he can still and look literally anywhere else and stand up and get the hell out of there—and through all of this, Al-Haitham is still staring down at him with the same blank expression on his face.

“What?” Kaveh says, so quiet he can barely hear himself.

Al-Haitham’s lips part, as if his own words are just now catching up to him. “Kaveh—”

Kaveh shoots up. His entire body feels numb. He can’t stop replaying you haven’t exploded yet in his mind, because really, there’s only one thing Al-Haitham can be referring to right now.

Kaveh thinks he feels a bit sick. He whips his head back over his shoulder, and his eyes meet Al-Haitham’s.

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham tries again, and for a split second, Kaveh decides to hear him out. He decides to say nothing, just stares directly at him and prays the quickening beat of his heart isn’t evident on the acid skew of his face.

But Al-Haitham says nothing. He just stares back, the O of his mouth opening and closing like the flat hinge of a door. And Kaveh…Kaveh—

“Are you serious?” Kaveh says. He knows his face is flushed. He can feel it. “Al-Haitham, say it again if you’re serious. Did I explode on you before? When I was drunk? Say it again, Al-Haitham. Say it again if you—”

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham interrupts, reaching forward, the tips of his fingers grazing Kaveh’s upper arm. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

“Do I?” Kaveh shoots back, his voice higher now, and, god, people are starting to look over. He can already feel Tighnari’s hard eyes on the side of his face, and a few seats away, Furina has stopped talking to the cameraman and is now tilting her head in their direction. He needs to stop. He needs to calm down. He remembers this one breathing trick he learned, one where you inhale for one, two, three—

God, fuck that. Kaveh stands up.

The chair’s legs screech harshly against the floor, and now Kaveh is towering over Al-Haitham. “I told you to say it again, Al-Haitham. Use that mouth of yours and listen to me for once in your goddamn life.”

His jaw feels tight. Al-Haitham is looking up at him with his lips pressed together, and from this angle, the teal of his eyes almost appears to be shining. The entire table has fallen silent, dozens of eyes staring at them now, and it just makes Kaveh feel sicker. Because this is not what was supposed to happen. They were doing better. They were doing so much better. They could have gotten through this night and plenty others if Kaveh was just able to deal with his stupid fucking temper.

“I—” His breath catches in his throat. Red, hot shame splashes over him, and then Al-Haitham is standing up to his feet and grabbing Kaveh’s wrist and pulling him toward the exit.

“We’ll leave first,” he says to the others, almost as an afterthought, and the next thing Kaveh knows, the cold air of the night is hitting his face and he’s being pulled into a secluded alley behind the restaurant.

This is the situation Kaveh has somehow found himself in: Al-Haitham, crowding over him with narrow eyes and a pursed mouth. Kaveh’s back is against the brick wall of the restaurant, and like this, moonlight falls in slices over the faint gray of Al-Haitham’s bangs. His eyes gleam with it.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Al-Haitham?”

“I’m doing what I should have done before filming for this movie even started,” Al-Haitham says, and Kaveh inhales sharply. “Here, you wanted me to say it again, didn’t you? I can do that, Kaveh, because the last time I saw you and alcohol together, it didn’t exactly end pleasantly for either of us, did it?”

Kaveh bristles. “Shut up—”

“It didn’t,” says Al-Haitham, and whatever Kaveh was about to say promptly dies right there in his throat. “It didn’t end well. You left.”

“You have no right to blame me for leaving,” says Kaveh immediately, “Dori got me blacklisted for five years.”

It’s the first time he’s said those words out loud. Of course it would end up being like this, in front of Al-Haitham. Of course he would somehow go through months of filming with the one person he thought he’d never see again outside of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of posters and ads he’s had to walk right past over the last five years of his life. Everywhere he went, there Al-Haitham would be, in the corner of a check out screen, on the wrapping of a product at the supermarket, on a giant billboard overhead in the middle of the city.

And Kaveh dealt with it. Kaveh dealt with it because he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do. He dealt with it because he wasn’t going to let stupid Dori and stupid One Lifetime Too Short and his stupid, stupid feelings for Al-Haitham get in the way of his life. He couldn’t do that. He refused to do that. He couldn’t have the career he wanted, and he couldn’t have the person he wanted, and he just had to deal with that until he couldn’t.

And he did. He did. He went to auditions and drank down bottles and bottles of wine after continuous rejections, until one casting director took pity on him and told him plainly that no director was going to cast him after what happened to One Lifetime Too Short. That Dori had put in word after word about how unreliable he was, how quick he was to ruin months and months of hard work just to make a selfish, violent point to his co-star. The same co-star that is currently standing in front of him right now, his eyes downcast, his shoulders slumped on both sides.

“I know,” says Al-Haitham, and his voice breaks with it. “I know she did. I was there when it happened.”

“It’s not fair,” says Kaveh. It’s pouring over him, now, and the memories from five years ago burn his skin down to his bones. “It’s not fair. It wasn’t fair. I wasn’t the only one who—and you—” He cuts himself off, shakes his head left to right.

“Even so,” says Al-Haitham.

“Even so what, Al-Haitham?” Kaveh exclaims, throwing his hands up into the air, searing his eyes into Al-Haitham’s slightly furrowed brows. “I know I fucked up. I fucked up but it wasn’t—I just—what did you even expect me to do in that sort of situation?”

“You could have talked to me.”

Kaveh scoffs, and it burns against his throat. “Well, I did try, didn’t I?”

Al-Haitham bristles at this. Kaveh catches it at the edge of his periphery. “That wasn’t talking.”

“Yeah,” says Kaveh, “you’re right. It wasn’t. That’s what everyone else said too, didn’t they? After the video got leaked.”

Quiet. A quiet that stretches over even the bustling sounds from the main street. Quiet that practically emanates from Al-Haitham and sinks its bloody little fangs into Kaveh’s skin.

Oh, so they’re really going to talk about it. They’re talking about it right now, right here, of all places. Of all times.

“I had to leave,” Kaveh says, his voice raising now, and with how he straightens up, they are suddenly impossibly closer. “You could never understand what happened to me, what that did to me. I had to leave, Al-Haitham, because One Lifetime Too Short was dead, and my reputation was dead, and we were dead. We couldn’t have stayed friends. You’re an idiot if you think we could have stayed friends in that situation.”

“I’m an idiot,” Al-Haitham echoes humorlessly. “You could have defended yourself.”

“And what would I have said?” Kaveh spits. “What? That my father was dead and my mother sprung a spontaneous fucking wedding invitation on me out of nowhere? That I took it out on my liver and you? How would that have looked? That would have made it worse. That would have made it infinitely worse, and you know it.”

“I don’t think I know anything,” says Al-Haitham, and he looks so hurt so suddenly that Kaveh thinks it might spear him into two. And that’s—that’s not how it’s supposed to be. That’s never been how it’s supposed to be, not for the last five years, not for everything before and everything now. Kaveh is the one that’s hung up. Kaveh is the one who can’t forget. Kaveh is the one who hurt everyone and then himself, and everyone else could move on. Everyone else was supposed to move on, most of all Al-Haitham.

Al-Haitham was supposed to be the first one to move on.

But Kaveh isn’t stupid. This isn’t the face of a man who has moved on from whatever ridiculous friendship the two of them had.

“I…” Kaveh cuts himself off. “I can’t talk to you about this.”

He moves to walk away, but then there’s a tight weight around his arm. He doesn’t have to turn around to know what it is.

“Are you serious?” Al-Haitham is saying, but it’s all ringing in Kaveh’s ears now. “Are you seriously leaving again?”

“I’m not leaving,” says Kaveh, jerking his hand away, holding it close against his heart. “I just don’t want to talk to you anymore about this.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” says Al-Haitham, “isn’t there?”

“Shut up,” says Kaveh, and then he trips away, and then he’s gone.

𖡎

feet also like ink @inklikesfeet

WHAT IS HAPPENING

183 likes, 20 retweets

apemantus @inchidentz_

my entire tl is the same fucking picture what the hell is going on

508 likes, 70 retweets, 3 replies

REPLIES:

honk honk BITCH @tohruhondadealership
Replying to @inchidentz_

????????? i just woke up can someone please explain

3 likes

in hkvh hell. @colapintobean
Replying to @inchidentz_

I have the picture! I can send it through DMs if anyone wants it?

2 likes, 30 replies

dynobot @barneythedino
Replying to @colapintobean and @inchidentz_

check dms

1 like

roasted toasted flambeed @cookadapizza
Replying to @colapintobean and @inchidentz_

check dms plz

1 like

darkrisepilled @willofmany
Replying to @colapintobean and @inchidentz_

Check dms

1 like

i need to lock in @first_princeliest
Replying to @colapintobean and @inchidentz_

i opened my dms for this can u check ur dms thanks

pink crying beaver @emiloopy

Here you all go. A real HAM never gatekeeps

[one photo: a blurry shot of Al-Haitham and Kaveh in an alleyway behind a popular restaurant. Al-Haitham is reaching for Kaveh, who appears to be saying something to him in anger. They both look visibly distressed and mad at each other]

30.2k likes, 13k retweets, 412 replies

REPLIES:

james more like gaymes @stclairestofthemall
Replying to @emiloopy

oh my fucking god

293 likes

portrait of an alcoholic @kingfisher
Replying to @emiloopy

WHAT IS GOING AWNNNNNNN

30 likes

badussy @gojobadussy
Replying to @emiloopy

is that al-haitham and kaveh??????????

28 likes, 4 replies

like a g6 @eric_reprid
Replying to @dksjh and @emiloopy

YES. AND THEY’RE CLEARLY ARGUING

4 likes

shana LOVES charles @easteregg
Replying to @emiloopy

u guys r so gullible. this is clearly some press thing to bring attention to the movie. i mean it literally JUST released

83 likes, 8 replies

they see me rolling @co_co_nutmall
Replying to @easteregg and @emiloopy

here comes the party pooper

3 likes

party rockin’ @LMFAO
Replying to @easteregg and @emiloopy

ngl i think so too.. the timing is just a bit off

1 like

hkvh one helluva drug @lunarlost

ok real talk haikaveh-heads… are you guys all thinking what i’m thinking?

103 likes, 4 replies

REPLIES:

yaoipilled :( @hamsterdam
Replying to @lunarlost

REAL HAIKAVEH HEADS KNOW THAT THERE LITERALLY HAS TO BE MORE TO THIS HAVE U ALL FORGOTTEN ABOUT THEIR HISTORY

40 likes, 4 retweets, 1 reply

bed. idc. @fiwb_fr
Replying to @hamsterdam and @lunarlost

i’ve seen so many ppl talking about their “history” and absolutely ZERO explanations for what that history actually is

21 likes, 1 reply

dtf (dintaifung) @dynobot
Replying to @fiwb_fr and @hamsterdam and @lunarlost

Wait… people don’t know?

3 likes, 1 reply

bed. idc. @fiwb_fr
Replying to @dynobot and @hamsterdam and @lunarlost

know WHAT???????

Ritwik @biostatslab

ok like it’s not that deep but also it kind of is that deep but my oomf is like currently writing up a whole post about this kaveh and al-haitham thing so stay tuned for that i guess

521 likes, 329 retweets, 84 replies

REPLIES:

this couch is so comfy @ilovecouches
Replying to @biostatslab

POST THE LINK WHEN IT’S UP

399 likes, 20 retweets, 1 reply

Ritwik @biostatslab
Replying to @ilovecouches

it just went up!! here!!!

[link to r/Celebs on Reddit]

1.8k likes, 1k retweets, 40 replies

r/Celebs

u/dynobot | 17hr

Breaking down Al-Haitham and Kaveh’s relationship, stars of Furina’s (Un)Lucky In Love

So we’ve all seen the photo. Yes. THE photo. And if you haven’t, I’m going to attach the photo now:

[photo of Al-Haitham with his arm outstretched toward Kaveh, who is leaning away from him with his hand clutched to his chest, mouth open around words as they both look audibly upset]

As expected, this has caused quite a stir in the online community, especially for those who are previously Al-Haitham fans (hello, HAMs!) and those who are new fans of the UIL movie, which recently reached theaters and is soon to head to streaming services. I, in particular, am driven by morbid curiosity, and I wanted to know just what these two could be fighting about. I did a bit of a deep dive, and what I discovered is that the filming of UIL wasn’t the first time Al-Haitham and Kaveh have met. Nope. It wasn’t even the first time they’ve filmed together.

Five years ago, Al-Haitham and Kaveh were both cast as the leads of a movie that was predicted to be a blockbuster. It had a lot of momentum going, even though I couldn’t find the name of the director (I believe they are being protected by big names within the industry), and the only thing I could find out about the film is its title: One Lifetime Too Short.

So we set the scene: Al-Haitham, who made his debut into the industry two years before OLTS and was considered a rising star and a desirable face but nowhere near his current clout, and Kaveh, who starred in a few minor films here and there as side characters. Apparently, they had just as much chemistry five years ago as they do now, according to reports from leaked clips from the movie. I found a few posts about scenes and filming, but it seems as though all photos and videos have been purged from the Internet somehow. All that remains are the words around the film.

It looks like Al-Haitham and Kaveh were extremely close; there’s an old screenshot of Al-Haitham’s Instagram story, which is a selfie of the two of them together with their cheeks pressed together. According to the dates, this was taken during filming. There were also a few posts of the cast behind the scenes on both Al-Haitham and Kaveh’s accounts that have since been deleted, but I found archives on some really, really old fan accounts.

[screenshot of Kaveh’s Instagram; the post is of Al-Haitham staring blankly at the camera, a paper cup in his hands; the caption reads, “they never tell you how much coffee you need in this movie star business” and has less than one thousand likes]

There are also a few paparazzi photos of Al-Haitham and Kaveh entering Al-Haitham’s property in Port Ormos, which he sold shortly after filming for OLTS is thought to have concluded.

We’ve established that Al-Haitham and Kaveh were VERY close—or at least they were five years ago. It’s not uncommon to see co-stars bond over roles, even to the extent of these two. Apparently, (and this will get some LOLs) there was a small minority who shipped the two together just from the behind-the-scenes footage alone, which speaks to the intimacy of their friendship. Keep in mind this was a very small minority, but one nonetheless.

OLTS obviously never made it to the screens, and it was never released. However, we do know that they completed the film in its entirety, according to an Instagram story that Al-Haitham posted in honor of wrapping up shooting. So what happened? How come we never got OLTS? Why is the entire business so hushed? For what reason have we never seen a glimpse of Kaveh in Al-Haitham’s personal life in the past five years, and why haven’t they given any hint that they had history at all since they began UIL?

…Do you guys remember that one video that began circulating five years ago of two men arguing in a bar? Two reputable actors? The blond one grabs the silver-haired one by the shoulders and violently shakes him in the middle of an argument? With his words slurred and a considerable amount of alcohol on his tab?

Yep. That was Al-Haitham and Kaveh.

I forgot that was Al-Haitham, too. Especially since Al-Haitham rose to real stardom after the video had already collected dust, and nobody knew who Kaveh was in the first place—until now.

For those who are curious, here is the link to the video taken of their bar fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvFZjo5PgG0

I’m not going to rehash the entire video since you all can watch it for yourselves, but for those who skipped it or aren’t that invested only need to know that they fought terribly, and Kaveh was visibly wasted. Unsurprisingly, after the video was dropped and it circulated multiple news channels as well as most of the big social media platforms, Kaveh fell out of the public consciousness entirely. Like, not a word.

We can only assume that at least played a part in why OLTS got canceled, even though it was an incredible loss of revenue and time. Al-Haitham never spoke of the event, and to this day, we don’t know the rest of the cast or crew. Kaveh never appeared in another major film, or any film at all. I searched the Internet to find another reappearance, but everything was either inconclusive or fell through.

I did find out that they unfollowed each other on every social media platform because one of their shippers made a tweet about it. On the surface, it seems as though that fight was the end of their friendship, not just OLTS. And after five years, we still know little to nothing about it, but at least now we have a movie with them, even if that also seemed to end in a fight.

But what do I know? The photograph was only released yesterday, and they still have press to do—this time, Al-Haitham and Kaveh may not have a choice about making up. We can only hope that it won’t be another five years before we get another stellar production from these two, because let’s face it—they’ve got amazing chemistry on the screen and are close behind the scenes.

↑ 74.8k ↓

COMMENTS:

u/1644forza | 17hr

Wow, if this is true, then that’s an insane turn of events. I’ve been following Al-Haitham for six years now, and I faintly recall that he was shooting a big movie that ended up being a dud. I might just be making up the memory but I think I remember that Al-Haitham called his co-star at the time his best friend??

↑ 12.5k ↓

u/sleeperbuild | 16hr

we got mainstream doomed yaoi celebrities before gta6

↑ 5k ↓

u/lostcities837 | 16hr

One Lifetime Too Short…. Am I the only one who thinks this sounds like it was another romance film?? For it to happen twice is a little suspicious but it might just be me

↑ 4.1k ↓

u/deathbringer | 15hr

I gotta say, it doesn’t speak well to their working relationship if they’ve had massive conflicts twice. I don’t want to be the guy to point it out, especially when they both have so many young female fans, but it had to be said

↑ 1.9k ↓

u/queenglory482 | 15hr

wait wait wait. so they had a big project together??? and called each other best friends?? and posted all the time on instagram??? and if this movie WAS a romance then they kissed?? and then had a big fight that went viral and ruined kaveh and made it so they could never truly put it behind them?? and now five years later they’re cast together… in a romance movie… where they kiss… and post each other on instagram… and have a big fight that goes viral… aren’t we supposed to learn from history guys 😕 history says the gays never win

↑ 6.3k ↓

u/olivester | 16hr

this is MY queer representation in pop culture

↑ 4.8k ↓

u/snails3pace | 16hr

May I add that there was a period of time that was approximately after filming for OLTS wrapped up and the video went viral that fans speculated Al-Haitham went through a breakup or heartache of some kind because he always looked sad in interviews? There were quite a few rumors going around that somebody had broken his heart

↑ 3.6k ↓

u/fucktrojans | 16hr

How the hell did we never hear anything about OLTS?????????

↑ 5.3k ↓

u/sikenist | 17hr

ur so right… they haven’t started press yet. i’m so excited to see how this plays out. i’m personally very excited for the tiktok edits to come out i can already hear abba’s ‘winner takes it all’ in my head

↑ 9.4k ↓

☾

tighnari

[06:30] tighnari: wake up

[06:30] tighnari: or don’t

[06:31] tighnari: honestly maybe it’s better if you don’t

[06:35] tighnari: ok but like real talk kaveh you need to wake up

[06:40] tighnari: ok if you’re not up in the next 5 mins i’m calling you

[06:44] you: good morning

[06:44] tighnari: oh

[06:44] tighnari: good morning

[06:45] you: um

[06:45] you: ugh i feel like shit

[06:45] you: why did you let me drink that much

[06:45] you: wait

[06:45] you: i have over 400 notifications

[06:45] you: omg tighnari am i famous?!?!?!??!

[06:46] tighnari: well

[06:46] tighnari: kind of

[06:47] tighnari: look at this

[06:47] tighnari: [link to r/Celebs on Reddit]

[06:50] tighnari: honestly the bright side of all of this is that this happened AFTER unlucky in love released

[06:50] tighnari: though honestly furina is a much better person than dori ever was

[06:50] tighnari: so maybe it would have been ok either way?

[07:02] tighnari: kaveh?

[07:05] tighnari: are you still there?

[07:15] tighnari: kaveh?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!

al-haitham

[07:02] you: [link to r/Celebs on Reddit]

[07:02] you: al-haitham what the fuck is this

[07:02] you: there’s a fucking

[07:02] you: i can’t even

[07:02] you: are you seriously asleep

[07:02] you: NOW?????????

[07:03] you: THERE’S A WHOLE REDDIT POST ABOUT US

[07:03] you: oh my god

[07:03] you: i’m going to kill myself

[07:04] you: no

[07:04] you: i’m going to kill YOU

[07:04] you: and then i’m going to kill myself

[07:05] you: this literally cannot be happening again

[07:05] you: how did they even fucking find half of this shit

[07:05] you: this is

[07:05] you: ARE YOU SERIOUSLY FUCKNGING ASLEEP RIGHT NOW

[07:07] al-haitham: What?

[07:07] al-haitham: Calm down

[07:07] you: you did not just tell me to fuckign CALM DOWN

[07:07] you: IN THIS SITUATION???????

[07:07] you: this is ur fault

[07:07] you: why did you drag me out of the restaurant

[07:08] you: my hands are shaking

[07:09] you: no they

[07:09] you: they linked the fucinking video al-haitham

[07:09] you: oh y god oh my god ohhh my god

[07:10] you: i thought the video was lost

[07:10] you: what the fuck

[07:10] you: how the fuck are we supposed to do press

[07:10] you: how the fuck am EYE supposed to do press

[07:11] al-haitham: There’s nothing we can do about it at this point

[07:11] al-haitham: Are you really surprised that this happened?

[07:11] you: shut the fuck up

[07:11] you: ok literally don’t talk to me

[07:11] you: i am going to go and die now

[07:13] you: what if they ask us about it during one of these fuckass interviews

[07:20] al-haitham: Don’t say anything and leave it to me

[07:21] you: you are the absolute least reassuring person i know

[07:21] al-haitham: Ok

As Tighnari and Cyno hand over the general guidelines for their very first post-premiere interview, Kaveh busies himself with contemplating about forty different ways of killing himself.

“Um,” says Tighnari, pulling a cautious face. “I don’t think it’ll be a big deal. This one. The whole…thing. Hasn’t marinated yet. In the public.”

“Do you two want to roleplay the interview before it starts?” Cyno asks kindly.

“No,” says Kaveh.

“No,” says Al-Haitham.

“Hm,” says Cyno.

“Okay,” Kaveh announces suddenly, clapping his hands together. “It’s fine. It’s literally fine. Everything is okay, and nothing is wrong, and we are going to absolutely kill this interview. It’s so fine.” He turns to Al-Haitham. “We just need to pretend that people aren’t currently scrutinizing our every little move. Oh, god. Kusanali fucking above.”

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham calmly, “stop hitting me.”

“What? Oh.” Kaveh retracts his hand from where he had been subconsciously swatting Al-Haitham’s shoulder.

Cyno looks upon him sympathetically. “Are you sure about the roleplaying?”

“Yes, Cyno, I’m sure I don’t want to roleplay with you right now.”

“All right,” says Cyno. “If you’re absolutely sure.”

The interviewer is a young Inazuman woman with ash blonde hair and bright green eyes that Kaveh thinks might just be able to stare right into his soul. She introduces herself as Kirara, and when the cameras start rolling, she breaks out into a wide grin.

“Hello!”

“Hi,” says Kaveh with a smile that he prays does not look as forced as it feels.

“Hello,” says Al-Haitham with absolutely zero emotion.

Yeah, okay. What a great start to this.

They go through the preliminary stuff, a lot of the movie was amazing, and I’m such a big fan, and congratulations on your premiere, and through it all, Kaveh thinks he might have been doused over with a stiffening potion because he cannot for the life of him find it in himself to move more than exactly two muscles the entire time.

Next to him, Al-Haitham looks calm, composed as always.

“Al-Haitham,” Kirara says, shifting slightly to better face him. “This is the first purely romantic film you’ve done. Was there something that compelled you to take on this particular script?”

Al-Haitham glances sidelong at Kaveh for half of a second, and then he looks back at Kirara. “Furina is an excellent director, and I wanted to try something different from what I usually do.”

“And how was it, working with Kaveh?”

There’s a slight pause this time. Kaveh feels every millisecond of it sink into his gut.

“It was exactly how it always is, filming a movie,” Al-Haitham says finally. “Kaveh is my co-star.”

Kaveh blinks at him, because seriously? All of that earlier, and this is the answer he decides to give to a question that could very well be taken in the wrong way? Seriously?

Kaveh attempts to get this across to Al-Haitham through a very intense stare, but Al-Haitham is not even looking at him anymore, so it is fruitless.

Then Kirara says, “Kaveh, this is your first major role.”

Kaveh swivels his head back, straightening up. “Yes, it is!” he says, nodding enthusiastically and willing every drop of awkwardness off of himself.

“You mentioned on the red carpet that you and Al-Haitham have known each other for a long time,” says Kirara, and immediately, all the blood drains from Kaveh’s face. “What was it like, working alongside a friend of yours? Did it make filming more fun?” She cuts off to laugh. “Did it make it infinitely worse? You can be honest, don’t worry!”

“Uh,” says Kaveh. Fuck. He can feel Al-Haitham’s eyes on his side profile. “Well…it’s true that we’ve known each other for a while, and I do think that overall it…helped.”

Devi Kusanali save him. What the fuck? Why the hell would he say it like that?

Kirara is looking curiously between them.

Al-Haitham clears his throat.

Kaveh needs to sink six feet underground.

They’re asked a few more questions regarding filming and the reception of the movie, and by the end of it, Kaveh feels so drained he doesn’t have any perception of how any of that went.

“Are you serious?” he starts as soon as he and Al-Haitham are alone backstage, turning on his heel and facing him directly. “What was that earlier? What did you mean, it’s exactly how it always is filming a movie? That was literally the worst possible way you could have answered that question!”

“It’s exactly how I usually answer that question,” says Al-Haitham, frowning.

Kaveh resists the urge to throw his hands up into the air. “Nothing about our situation is usual, Al-Haitham! Don’t you know how the internet is?”

“No,” says Al-Haitham.

“They’re going to pick apart literally every second of everything we said!”

“You didn’t do much better,” says Al-Haitham then, and instantly, Kaveh bristles. “And you know that.”

They stare at each other. Kaveh wonders if he is being punished right now, or tested, or something. He can’t stop thinking about the post. He can’t stop thinking about every little thing he could have done differently. He can’t stop thinking about the video, the video he hasn’t seen in five years, the video that marked the end of his career and the end of the only friendship in his life he’s ever truly been scared of losing. He can’t stop thinking about Al-Haitham’s face in the alleyway, how there’s proof of that too now, how at the end of it all, him cutting Al-Haitham off amounted to absolutely nothing.

Because they’re right where they started all over again. A finished movie, a press that digs and digs and digs until all they can find is skin and blood, and a relationship broken past the point of being simply fragile.

What would have happened, if Kaveh had told Al-Haitham straight to his face all those years ago, in the corner of that tavern, that he was in love with him? That the real reason he couldn’t talk to him anymore was because there was no way in hell he was going to let his stupid feelings and his stupid self come in the way of the career Al-Haitham was absolutely shaping up to have?

That at the time, Kaveh didn’t even want to continue acting? That his mother’s letter had left him in a messy pile of bones and a broken, broken heart beyond repair? How all he could think about was the fact that he was being abandoned again by the one person who was supposed to stay by his side no matter what? That sooner or later, Al-Haitham would leave him too, and before he could have the chance to, Kaveh would bolt first?

It wasn’t self-sacrificial. It was the most selfish thing Kaveh ever did. He couldn’t push his feelings onto Al-Haitham. Not him.

“Fine,” says Kaveh. His voice is hoarse. His heart is pounding against his ribs. “Whatever. It’s not like we can do anything about it now.”

“Fine,” Al-Haitham echoes, and for now, that is that.

𖡎

[FULL CLIP] Komaniya interview with (Un)Lucky In Love cast Al-Haitham and Kaveh

COMMENTS

hamford: Al-Haitham is so handsome…….

hammore: i like how we’re all just pretending like we didn’t hyper analyze literally everything from That One Picture
↳ hammerheadshark: also That One Post. y’all know what i’m talking about
↳↳ hamsterwheel: oh my god I KNOW RIGHT

hamsterball: Why r they so awk…
↳ hamstercage: check this out [link to r/Celebs on Reddit]
↳↳ hamsterdish: oh. Oh.
↳↳ hamsterdie: yooooo wtf?? why tf did kaveh jump my boy al-haitham like that???? wtf

hampressed: i like the question @ kaveh about how he would react to finding out he’s been unknowingly married to a stuck up lawyer for the past two years like his answer was so funny
↳ hamate: yeah this is what i like about komaniya their interview questions are always so fun for the cast
↳ hamphony: FR the way he was like “honestly i would check myself into the hospital” I LOVEEE HIM

hamber: bro why do they look at each other like that

hamclock: Are they together in real life?
↳ hambers: no
↳ hamlockin: we don’t know
↳ hamsad: can y’all stop being so invasive it’s weird
↳ hampered: they’re obviously together
↳↳ hamineedtostudy: they were literally seen arguing like a week ago?
↳↳↳ hamming: lover’s spat
↳↳↳↳ sirhammington: dude. seek help
↳ sirhammingtonjr: idk but i hope so

hamsandwich: Where is Nilou :(

hamstrami: Love from Liyue!!!!!!!!
↳ hampersand: No way!!! I’m from Liyue too

hamdsome: AL-HAITHAM IS SSOOOOOO PRETTY LIKE HE’S SOOOOO PRETTY

hammie: honestly if i was al-haitham i would also be down bad as fuck bc look at that face

hammah: wait so. I read the post but I’m still confused. they shot a movie together 5 years ago but that movie never came out?? why??
↳ hamesucken: nobody really knows anything for sure but it’s 99% because of something that happened between al-haitham and kaveh
↳ hamwith: because kaveh is a violent asshole
↳↳ hamford: it was years ago, grow up
↳↳ hamliving: i'm 17 and AFRAID of kaveh

hamilt: call me old fashioned but i was raised to serve my wife al-haitham. i clean the dishes and cook him food. i do whatever he says because he is my wife and he makes the rules around the house. he owns me. i am his property. if he ever cheats on me its because i was lacking.

doomedchuuyaoi: yeah idk about y’all but all i’m getting from this is doomed yaoi

✩

“We’re playing with puppies today!” Nilou says delightedly into the room, panning her hands in a wide circle as she beams at the camera. “This has to be, by far, the highlight of my career so far.”

“It wasn’t even filming with me?” Kaveh asks her teasingly, leaning over to wink at her. He’s seated on her left, Layla on her other side. Next to Kaveh sits Al-Haitham, who was unfortunately then stuck with Scaramouche. Of all people.

“Filming with you was fun,” Nilou says thoughtfully, “but you’re certainly no puppy.”

Layla puts a hand by her mouth as if telling a secret. “Don’t listen to her, Kaveh, I think you’re a doll.”

“I think you’re okay,” scoffs Scaramouche, “but anybody looks like a saint next to Al-Haitham.”

Everybody turns to Al-Haitham as if expecting him to add to the bit next, even the camera swiveling to focus on him, so he says, “I think you’re only tolerable once you’ve had an adequate amount of coffee.” A beat, and then he turns his deadpan stare to look straight at the camera. “Aren’t there supposed to be dogs?”

This is where he knows Buzzfeed will use their editing to effortlessly transition to the next clip—slap a title that reads The (Un)Lucky In Love Cast Plays With Puppies, maybe, but for now the cameraman sits back to take in the whole group again as a door opens somewhere in the back and the faint sound of barking grows more immediate.

“Nilou was right. This has to be one of the best perks of becoming a celebrity,” Kaveh mutters beside him, and then the puppies hit.

They’re like the waves of the ocean, coming and coming, running up with open mouths and wagging tails. Feeling their hot breath, Al-Haitham wrinkles his nose unconsciously before he realizes and hopes the camera didn’t pick up on it.

Nilou coos, her and Layla each picking up a dog and holding them in the air Simba style while Kaveh lets four climb onto his lap at once, laughing as he falls over backward and becomes overrun. Beside Al-Haitham, all of the dogs steer clear of Scaramouche as if he smells bad or, more realistically, as if they know he only brings bad vibes. In Al-Haitham, however, they are ridiculously and overly curious.

“Hm,” says Al-Haitham, flinching when one climbs onto his knee. “Hello.”

“I can’t believe I never realized you’re, like, weird with animals,” Kaveh says to him. “I thought the Mehrak thing was just because she’s a chinchilla, but these are dogs.”

“They’re very wet,” Al-Haitham says, staring at the dog currently holding a staring contest with him. “Though it is odd that you didn’t realize after so many years of knowing me.”

He feels more than sees Kaveh wincing at the remark, growing colder as he physically twists to lunge for another puppy. Air yawns through the distance that suddenly opens between them.

“I guess I didn’t know you at all,” Kaveh says quietly, the remark no doubt lost between them and the camera, but Al-Haitham looks up on instinct anyway. There’s no indication that anybody else has overheard. He looks away.

“As much fun as I’m having playing with these little guys,” Nilou says, looking up and laughing, “we have another thing to shoot after this, so maybe we should get started with the questions?”

“How are you guys feeling after the months of filming have come to an end?”

“Honestly, I think it’s a bit of a different experience for me compared to everybody else,” Kaveh says, staring into the camera even as he scratches the belly of a puppy rolled over on its back between his crossed legs, hands busy even as he thinks. “Because, of course, I’ve never been casted on a big role or much of a role at all, so this was all incredibly new to me. And now that it’s over, I know that I’m going to miss it, especially since I’m going to be able to look back at this manifestation of all our hard work in ten, twenty years and think back to this time. It’s definitely a lot different when you have a way to rewatch everything. I know I’m going to miss it a lot.”

The rest of the cast is nodding along as he speaks, especially at the last sentence. Even Scaramouche, who avoids looking at Al-Haitham as he nods.

“Me too,” Layla jumps in, smiling sheepishly. “I’ve played a few roles before this, but this was my first big one, you know? Each of my times on set have been special to me, but I just feel like I have a connection with these guys that’s different. Even if I spent half the time with them out of my mind with sleep deprivation.”

“Oh, but you act so well when you’ve only had two hours of sleep,” Nilou says teasingly, swatting her on the shoulder. Layla giggles, then breaks into laughter when a puppy jumps into her lap and paws at her face.

“Were you surprised when you got cast into the movie? How did it feel once you found out the rest of the cast?”

“I’ll answer this one,” Scaramouche says, looking grumpy that all of the dogs still seem to be inching away from him. “I decided to audition on a whim because I’ve never been a part of a Hallmark production before and wanted to go for something new, and then I ended up getting a role. I did think that I would be the, ahem, older brother, though. So that was a surprise for me.” He shoots a look at the rest of the cast. “I didn’t know who else was chosen, but I might have changed my mind about taking the job if I knew Al-Haitham was one of the leads.”

“I should have reconsidered when I saw your name on the casting list,” Al-Haitham says, running one careful finger down the back of the dog sitting right before him.

Kaveh makes a full-body movement beside him, the sound of his shoes squeaking against the floor shrill when he twists to look at him. “You knew the cast before you took the role?”

Fuck. Shit. Fucking shit. Al-Haitham shrugs, affecting nonchalance. “You didn’t?”

Before Kaveh can say anything in response, Nilou jumps in, dumping one of the many puppies in her lap into Kaveh’s arms. “I’m always a little surprised when I get picked out of the many other talented actresses for a role,” she says with a bit of a laugh. “I was mostly just excited, though, because Al-Haitham told me he was trying out for the film as well and since he’s so good at his job, I knew we’d have a good shot at getting to film together again.”

“I was going out of my mind when I met Nilou,” Layla adds shyly. “I’m… a bit of a fan.”

“Oh!” Nilou gasps, turning to beam at her. “Funny story! I recognized Layla from an old shoot she did a while back, a bit of a lesser known one, so it was fun for both of us to get to know each other and talk about that. I’ll be lucky if I ever get to film with her again. Layla’s a special one for sure.”

“Do you guys feel as though you identify with your characters?”

“I don’t,” Scaramouche says, folding his arms over his chest and staring deadpan into the camera. “It should be taken as a testament to my career that I was able to act as if I have even an iota of care for Al-Haitham.”

“A dedicated hater,” Kaveh jokes, his voice a little distracted.

“You should have been there when they had to film the reunion scene and Scaramouche tried to get Furina to rewrite the script,” Nilou says.

“I still think she should have heard me out,” Scaramouche snaps, and then his defensive expression falls when a singular puppy trots over to him curiously, the first of the entire session to approach him. Then, as they all watch, it raises one tiny, quivering leg and starts peeing on his shoe.

He screams piercingly, rocketing to his feet and running out of view of the camera, which trails after him half-heartedly. Nilou and Layla burst into laughter; Al-Haitham looks down at the puppy sitting between his legs in abject terror.

“Al-Haitham, it’s not a monster,” Kaveh says, hardly trying to stifle the amusement in his voice, but he reaches over and plucks it out of his lap to carry it toward him. “They just haven’t been potty trained yet. Look, I saved you.”

“My hero,” Al-Haitham says, expressionless, and Kaveh scoffs, punching him lightly on the shoulder. As upset as he had briefly seemed to be earlier, he doesn’t let it show now. Not that it means anything. Kaveh is an actor for a reason; they are on camera, after all.

“Scaramouche,” Nilou is calling, her attempts at seriousness collapsing as she struggles not to laugh. “Scaramouche, come back. They’re cleaning it up. We have to finish the video, Scaramouche, please.”

Five minutes later, when they’re all seated once more, the last question comes with a sinking sense of dread pooling in Al-Haitham’s gut.

“Al-Haitham and Kaveh, if you were Zayan and Reza, would you get together?”

Kaveh lets out a short bark of surprised laughter, startling forward, and then he turns to Al-Haitham, who twists his head to see what is no doubt alarm in his eyes.

“I know it’s romantic to want to root for a happy ending, but that’s not always realistic,” Al-Haitham begins, and he can feel Kaveh tense beside him. “Although I can admit that Zayan, with his experience in law and after being so—disconnected from the parts of his life that have fallen away with time, needed the breath of fresh air that is Reza. I feel as though I understand that aspect of his character very well, and I think that Kaveh understands Reza more than anybody else who could have been cast for the role.”

“You know, one thing that Zayan and Reza have going for them is that they’re not coworkers,” Kaveh jumps in teasingly, the smile on his face familiar enough to Al-Haitham that he can recognize it for the artifice. “I don’t know if even a love story like theirs could survive if they’re commuting back and forth together, dealing with the same cranky boss together—not to imply that Furina was ever anything of the sort!—and returning to each other, if you know what I mean.”

“If I were Zayan, I hope that I would have quit law after opening one book on the LSAT,” Al-Haitham deadpans, letting the predictable laughter of the room wash over any of the receding hurt lingering after Kaveh essentially said that they would never have made it out, even in another reality, even in another universe.

He’s right. Al-Haitham and Kaveh would have doomed Zayan and Reza if it became any more real than it was, and they’re just lucky that the production survived unscathed the way One Lifetime Too Short did not. That they did not destroy (Un)Lucky In Love just by touching it.

“A big, big thank you to Buzzfeed for inviting us to this lovely video with all of these lovely puppies,” Nilou is saying when Al-Haitham refocuses, the rest of the cast looking to her as she speaks. She scratches one of the many dogs in her lap behind the ears. “I can only hope that the next film I’m in does well enough that I’ll get to come back here. One day.”

“Me too,” Layla says, nodding fiercely.

“I think I’ll pass,” Scaramouche says, wrinkling his nose.

“I hate to agree with Scaramouche on principle,” says Al-Haitham, and he leaves it at that.

“I think I had the time of my life,” Kaveh chimes in, but Al-Haitham can figure out how to hear the lie in his voice even when nobody else can, and once the camera stops rolling and the rest of the lights outside of the studio flicker on, a long sigh escapes his body.

Al-Haitham stands abruptly, stepping back a couple of paces to put the distance they couldn’t afford to show in front of the thousands of viewers who are sure to watch the video between them once again, a thin sort of space that fractured between them after the night at the bar.

“Let’s go,” Nilou says, folding one small hand in his elbow, and he lets her lead the rest of them out of the studio, where they finally shake out the remaining formality in the back hallway. Scaramouche immediately stalks away from the rest of them, disappearing to nowhere, but Nilou turns to Kaveh, her expression softening. “How’s it going?”

“How’s what going?” Kaveh asks, affecting a nervous laugh as his eyes dart to the side. “I’ve been doing all the, um. Same things. You guys are.”

“I just wanted to let you know that we’re here to talk if you ever need anything,” Nilou says softly, stepping closer and placing one hand on his arm. At first, Kaveh stiffens, and then he melts into the embrace, letting his head fall forward onto her shoulder with a sigh. Nilou moves to cradle his head; Al-Haitham watches from the other side of the hallway and wonders what he could have done to compel Kaveh to trust him like that anymore.

It’s a ridiculous thought to have. Al-Haitham isn’t usually so foolish, but Kaveh has always had the ability to get under his skin, even if it doesn’t outwardly show. Of course Kaveh doesn’t trust him anymore. They haven’t had the privilege of faith for five years.

“I know we haven’t known each other for very long either, but I’m always willing to listen,” Layla offers with a tentative smile. “Well, when I’m awake, that is.”

Kaveh laughs softly into Nilou’s shoulders, his fingers flexing at his sides. Al-Haitham knows that Kaveh was never very good with vulnerability, always channeling his problems into other issues like his drinking, but that was five years ago. There’s still a chance to surprise him yet.

“Thanks guys,” Kaveh says, lifting himself up again. There’s a small smile on his face—small, but present nonetheless. Even when his eyes cut to Al-Haitham, whether it’s on purpose or not, it doesn’t waver. “I mean, I’m sure it’s kind of obvious that a thing like that is really invasive. Like, they really dug deep. And, I don’t know, they also implicated Al-Haitham.” He does a half-shrug. “I’m more than the parts of my life that involved him and that stupid fucking video. No offense, Al-Haitham.”

“No, I know,” Al-Haitham says, looking at him coolly. “I’ve always known that you would have been better off without my name attached to yours.” Even as the words formulate, he feels the points of them stick like ice at the base of his throat, sharpening upon contact. He’s often wondered how much blame he carries for the stalling of Kaveh’s career because of the inherent association between the two and the leaked video—he doesn’t want to know how often Kaveh has thought the same thing over the years.

The shock on Kaveh’s face looks genuine, and as he stares at Al-Haitham, it feels as though the sand trickling through the hourglass on when he’ll interrogate Al-Haitham about the cast list is falling into glass again. Then he shakes his head.

“Don’t be stupid, Al-Haitham. (Un)Lucky In Love wouldn’t have achieved half the success it did without you as a lead.”

“It would be wrong to make hasty assumptions, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says, and the longer that they hold eye contact, the more that he feels the other’s molten vermillion gaze sink into his until everything he sees is tinged red, dyed with the color of Kaveh. “The film has Furina’s name. Nilou and Scaramouche, too. You played a not-insignificant role by being an unknown name, believe it or not.”

“You’re so mysterious, Kaveh,” Nilou says solemnly. She brushes a nonexistent piece of dust off his shoulder. “He’s saying that it adds to your allure.”

“You guys are so right,” says Kaveh. “I am mysterious and cool, and the fact that nobody actually knows what was going on just makes me more mysterious and sexy.”

“Yes!” Nilou says, her face scrunched in fierce concentration.

Al-Haitham says, “Whatever you say,” while picking at his fingernails.

“That’s as much hyping up you’re going to get from Al-Haitham,” Nilou says, still determined. “Kaveh, you’re a strong person, but you’re made stronger by the fact that you have us behind you, so don’t you ever forget that or take it for granted, okay?”

“I won’t,” Kaveh says, and the smile on his face is audible in his voice now. “I promise.”

Their peace doesn’t last long because of course it doesn’t. Peace does not exist in the vocabulary associated with Al-Haitham and Kaveh.

They split from the group while leaving; Scaramouche leaving on his own because he’s a hater, Nilou and Layla together since they planned a date night (the plans they had afterward were for their reservation), and that left Al-Haitham and Kaveh together. Leaving from the back, Al-Haitham had assumed that they wouldn’t catch any attention, but when they round the corner, he can begin to hear the distinct sound of a gathered crowd.

“Is that what I think that is?” Kaveh asks quietly, looking up at Al-Haitham from the side.

“I hope not,” Al-Haitham says grimly. He steps in front of Kaveh, stepping around the corner to see a small gathering of reporters with small microphones and cameras that immediately begin flashing when they catch sight of him, the popping making him inwardly wince after years of undergoing the spotlight.

“You never think about shit like this when you dream of making it big,” Kaveh mutters to himself, a sentiment that Al-Haitham only hears because Kaveh has inched closer to him, almost pressed against his back.

“Al-Haitham!” A reporter dashes over, the rest of them following like geese in a line, microphones held out eagerly. “Oh, and Kaveh, too! Do you have time for a question?”

Their car, which isn’t set to arrive for another five minutes at least, has given them more than enough time for a question. Unfortunately for them.

“Actually,” Al-Haitham begins curtly, intending to stop them before they can continue, but then Kaveh places one soft hand on his arm and looks at him meaningfully. He’s probably right—Al-Haitham is supposed to behave better in front of the media before people start to begin calling him rude for brushing them off, but he finds that he doesn’t have the patience necessary to build a good reputation.

“Sure!” Kaveh says brightly, stepping out. Al-Haitham stifles a sigh. It’s too late. Now he’s going to have to field questions as well, and they just got out of an interview.

“I’m sure that you’ve seen the Reddit thread,” a woman says, thrusting her microphone forward. Al-Haitham looks sidelong at Kaveh, noting how his pleasant expression doesn’t change, not a single wince or shift in his eyebrows. “What do you have to respond to that? Can you confirm or deny any of the events listed?”

Kaveh laughs, leaning forward with a sparkle in his eye. It comes naturally to him, the charisma. That’s how he was able to garner so many fans from the time filming was announced to the release of the movie, many of whom have stepped up in support of him after the Reddit thread broke out. “Well, I can say that Al-Haitham and I did know each other before we were cast in (Un)Lucky In Love. It definitely makes filming different when you know your co-star beforehand!”

“Is this you confirming that you were the one violently attacking Al-Haitham in the video that was released five years ago?” the woman says intently.

Kaveh swallows, his lips parting, and Al-Haitham steps forward. “If he were to say yes, then he would have to endure your claim that he was ‘violent.’ It is very easy to misconstrue reality when it is clipped and shared to social media.”

“I can speak for myself,” Kaveh whispers into his ear, so quiet that Al-Haitham has to tip his head to hear the words. “I don’t want you to have to—”

“I’d like to cut all the rumors about Kaveh at the root,” Al-Haitham says, and beside him, Kaveh’s lips smooth into a thin line, his annoyance a blunt weapon in its passivity.

“Do you mean to say that it wasn’t Kaveh in the video?”

“It was,” Kaveh says crisply, his chin held high. “That doesn’t mean that the video spans the entire story, nor does it mean that anybody is entitled to knowing the context. Do I regret that night? Anybody would. But—”

“Would you say that you and Al-Haitham have a history of conflict?” another reporter asks, moving closer, and Kaveh falters in the middle of his sentence.

“I—”

“You don’t think that your fans deserve an explanation for your behavior?”

“Was the recent photo that broke out taken during a similar fight?”

“Would you say that you and Al-Haitham used to consider each other best friends?”

“Who else was on the cast of One Lifetime Too Short?”

“Did you really think that you could bury your past while reaping the rewards of your current success?”

The reporter who asked the last question—a burly man with greasy hair and an overeager reach carrying a bulky camera—lunges toward Kaveh, who had been shrinking into Al-Haitham’s side as the questions shot at them, and Al-Haitham acts on instinct, throwing his arm up between the two and stepping forward with a hard glare. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees their car pull up, so with his other arm he grabs Kaveh by the elbow and pulls him out of the fray. “We have somewhere to be.”

They tumble into the backseat, Kaveh slamming the door shut as soon as he’s able to, and as their driver steps on the gas the moment they’re situated, the only sound to be heard is the ragged noise of their breathing, Kaveh’s louder than Al-Haitham’s.

Al-Haitham chances a look over at Kaveh after a moment or so passes, who just looks tired, forehead wrinkled.

“I meant it when I said that I don’t want you speaking for me, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says eventually. “I haven’t been given the opportunity to tell my story for any of these five years, and if all of the shit has to be stirred up again, then I might as well be the one to speak about it. I don’t need you to do it for me.”

Al-Haitham, who has always known that Kaveh doesn’t need him, crosses one leg over the other in the incessant need to do something. “I know. I just wasn’t sure if you were comfortable in that situation. I have more experience with the… nosier reporters.”

“I guess.” Kaveh is looking out the window, his face hidden. “But just so you know, in the future that’s how I want to handle it. Head on. Though I really hope they stop asking us about One Lifetime Too Short. That movie was never aired for a reason.”

After that, Kaveh stops speaking for the rest of their car ride, so Al-Haitham is silent too, taking the time to reorganize his thoughts and unspool his worries about the press and try to forget that the only question that visibly affected Kaveh was the one about whether he and Al-Haitham were truly best friends.

𖡎

miso hungry @pacthais

all right i give up. i’m embracing degeneracy. what the fuck is this

[video: Kaveh and Al-Haitham being ambushed outside the studio where they did the puppy interview; Al-Haitham has his hand out, glaring at the camera as he blocks Kaveh from someone lunging at him]

13.2k likes, 4k retweets, 192 replies

REPLIES:

pompompurin @lucie_librae
Replying to @pacthais

AND YOU ALL CALLED ME FUCKING CRAZY

123 likes, 4 retweets

SLUT @pochaaaaco
Replying to @pacthais

ohhh al-haitham look angrier at me ohhhhhh

329 likes, 52 retweets

marie! @kavanthem
Replying to @pacthais

wow if i was that person who tried to jump kaveh i would simply kill myself

29 likes, 1 reply

kill me @boreboreboris
Replying to @fkdhs and @pacthais

ok but they also got al-haitham to look at them like that… you win some you lose some

2 likes

they called me coho bitch i’m shakespeare @haikannibas

haikaveh. that’s it that’s the tweet

400 likes, 39 retweets

BOOM shakalala @themapples

honestly i am not a big shipper in general but these 2 just make it so fucking hard

[clip of Komaniya interview: Al-Haitham gazing sidelong at Kaveh as Kaveh answers the interviewer’s question]

619 likes, 99 retweets, 40 replies

REPLIES:

choco albonbon @keepurselfsafe
Replying to @themapples

like is he fucking crazy. like does he live to make us all fucking suffer. why the hell is he looking at him like that what the fuck is wrong with him

40 likes

It’s so over @keepingmyselfsafe
Replying to @themapples

no bc same…

4 likes

I want shrooms @chanterelle
Replying to @themapples

I actually have a degree in psychology and I do clinical research about human emotions and I just want to say that the emotion that Al-Haitham has when he is looking at Kaveh is pure LOVE

32 likes, 4 retweets

we ball @sleepyeepies
Replying to @themapples

honestly al-haitham i get it. i get it

ollie c: @olivenjames

hey so i never knew that i need kaveh with puppies in my life but now that i have it i don’t want to let it go

[screenshot of Kaveh laughing as a pupping licks his cheek, one eye closed]

4.3k likes, 1.6k retweets, 8 replies

ink 🌙 @moonsteps

hey guys so luma @luminvies and i are fucking crazy and we wrote a 158k haikaveh fic (it was supposed to be 30k i don’t know how this happened)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/54458653/chapters/137961526

938 likes, 393 retweets, 83 replies

REPLIES:

luma 🌟 @luminvies
Replying to @moonsteps

i never thought it was gonna be 30k btw

291 likes, 21 retweets, 3 replies

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @luminvies

L + ratio + Wordle 1,345 2/6

⬛🟩🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

32 likes, 1 reply

luma 🌟 @luminvies
Replying to @moonsteps

bed. idc

12 likes, 1 reply

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @luminvies

You are a minor who knows nothing about the world. You are the ugly one here. I can make YOU shut up but I suggest you one thing. You don’t want to deal with a devil like me.

4 likes, 1 reply

luma 🌟 @luminvies
Replying to @moonsteps

You are a pathetic excuse for a human being. A vile creature, covered in filth, writhing around in a slimy swamp. And every time you open that disgusting, disease infested mouth of yours, it's like a flood. A massive, disgusting flood, of pure stupidity. A torrent of ignorance and worthlessness. A tsunami of putridness, crashing upon the shores of my psyche, a storm you could never comprehend.

2 likes

AkaSharon @writerbot
Replying to @moonsteps and @luminvies

It’s actually really problematic to write fanfiction about real people. You both should seriously rethink what you’re doing with your lives.

2 replies

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @writerbot and @luminvies

shut the fuck up sharon

15 likes

luma 🌟 @luminvies
Replying to @writerbot and @moonsteps

shut the fuck up sharon

12 likes

Ellen @so_okay39

Okay. I just came out from my screening of (Un)Lucky In Love. I have so many thoughts. Why did I cry. That was so heartwarming and sweet, a 10/10 movie from me.

52 likes, 2 retweets

diddle @meepmerp

ok did anyone else die

[clip: Zayan and Reza on the ferris wheel, sharing their first kiss]

73 likes, 19 retweets, 3 replies

REPLIES:

doodle @merpmeep
Replying to @meepmerp

i was literally holding my breath during this entire scene

4 likes

freeway @1204_3
Replying to @meepmerp

I DID. I DIED.

romaine @iceberglettuce
Replying to @meepmerp

yeah i’m ngl this is the scene that convinced me to open my gdocs (girl who is 4k words into a zaza fic)

5 likes, 1 reply

little rat @foulbeast
Replying to @iceberglettuce and @meepmerp

ZAZA?

2 likes, 1 reply

romaine @iceberglettuce
Replying to @foulbeast and @meepmerp

ZAyan and reZA

1 like

high off that za @alfredoism

who came up with zaza as their ship name i just want to talk

4 likes

salmon salad @ackerwoman

wait al-haitham is mildly afraid of animals why is that so cute 😭😭

89 likes, 4 replies

I want boba @deeznuts

Is there a discussion anywhere for UIL?

20 likes, 1 reply

REPLIES:

69 w ur mom @burntends39
Replying to @deeznuts

here!

[link to r/Movies on Reddit]

4 likes, 7 retweets

r/Movies

u/RegalQueen | 1d

OFFICIAL DISCUSSION: (Un)Lucky In Love [SPOILERS]

If you’ve seen the film, please rate it at this poll.

If you haven’t seen the film but would like to see the results of the poll, click here.

RANKINGS

Click here to see the rankings of 2025 films.

Click here to see the rankings of every poll done.

Summary:
Zayan, a contract lawyer, discovers that, thanks to an obscure legal loophole, he has been accidentally married for years to a small-town architect, Reza.

Director:
Furina de Fontaine

Cast:

Al-Haitham as Zayan
Kaveh as Reza
Nilou as Esther
Layla as Zara
Scaramouche as Steven

Rotten Tomatoes: 90%

Metacritic: 85

VOD: Theaters

↑ 15.4k ↓

COMMENTS:

u/antiEthical58 | 1d

Al-Haitham as Zayan was perfect casting. That man was born to play a repressed attorney who accidentally marries the love of his life and then spends two hours pretending he’s not in love.

↑ 2.1k ↓

u/BLFUJO | 1d

Gay. Gay. Homosexual. Gay?

↑ 3.4k ↓

u/redwhiteblue | 1d

Okay but WHY was this actually one of the best rom coms I’ve seen in years? The tension, the banter, the long stolen gazes?? Perfection.

↑ 1.3k ↓

u/mamacita | 1d

Zayan spending the entire movie trying to annul the marriage while Reza is just like, ‘hmm, no❤️’ was absolutely hilarious.

↑ 4.3k ↓

u/bongohead | 1d

The scene where Zayan finally breaks down and admits he never actually wanted the annulment? CINEMA. Al-Haitham’s acting went absolutely crazy there, like I was sitting there with my mouth open.

↑ 1.3k ↓

u/ShinDigDug | 1d

esther my girl thank u for being the mvps to end all mvps. the way she just stirred the pot at every opportunity possible? like she knew EXACTLY what she was doing!!!!!!!!!

↑ 2.4k ↓

u/aPerson | 1d

yeah i love nilou so much. she always has so much fun in every role she’s in, and you can absolutely tell. esther and zara were so cute here i love women

↑ 1.4k ↓

u/feettastic | 1d

Zayan: We need to get this marriage annulled immediately.
Reza: bakes him a pie
Zayan: …Okay, maybe not immediately.

↑ 3.7k ↓

u/shallow948waters | 1d

I’d never heard of Kaveh before this movie and was skeptical of his debut alongside such renowned names. I owe him and Furina an apology; Kaveh, I was not familiar with your game.

↑ 5.7k ↓

u/urmom | 1d

Scaramouche’s character really sat Zayan down and said, “You’re in love, dumbass.” And it was single-handedly the most productive conversation of the entire movie.

↑ 3.9k ↓

☾

Since One Lifetime Too Short never came to fruition, the only pre-release interviews Kaveh and Al-Haitham did together never aired to the public, and press never got far enough to where they would have to do anything especially interesting.

But this is Furina.

So Kaveh isn’t extremely surprised when Tighnari sends him an email about how the (Un)Lucky In Love cast is booked for filming inside a giant haunted house.

“This is so exciting!” Nilou says, rubbing her hands together as she boards the van and slips into the seat across from Kaveh and next to Layla. “I’ve never done something like this before for a press tour!”

“Are people seriously interested in this shit,” Scaramouche deadpans from the back of the car.

“Furina is capitalizing on all of the discussion around her movie,” Al-Haitham says from where he is, unfortunately, sitting next to Kaveh. He turns a page of the book in his lap and continues, “These types of things bring us physically closer together, and as such, discussion will only increase after the video is released.”

“Blah blah blah blah blah,” Scaramouche mocks. “Please make sure to stay far away from me during filming.”

“Noted,” says Al-Haitham.

“Actually,” says Kaveh, lips twisting. His eyebrows furrow as he chases a memory. “I did do a video with Parisa where we built furniture together, but well.”

“Well,” Al-Haitham agrees.

“Parisa?” Layla asks, blinking at them. “Who is that?”

If Kaveh were a lesser person, he would laugh at that, and by the look of the sudden quirk of Al-Haitham’s eyebrows, he definitely is internally.

“Parisa was our co-star on the movie Al-Haitham and I did together a few years ago,” Kaveh says, forcing his eyes away from him, meeting Layla’s. “She was the second lead. My character’s second lead.”

“She had no skills to explain her self-entitlement,” says Al-Haitham, turning to another page. “Though I suppose her role in One Lifetime Too Short did not require her to do very much actual acting, considering her real-life personality.”

Kaveh swats him. “You’re such an asshole.”

Al-Haitham raises a singular eyebrow. “Are you disagreeing with me?”

“Well,” says Kaveh slowly. “No.” He shudders then. “In any case, I haven’t heard a word about her in the news for the past five years, so. Clearly she hasn’t been faring any better than I have in securing any established film roles.”

“You’ve been doing better,” says Al-Haitham. “You’re here right now, and she has completely disappeared from the scene because, once again, she has neither the acting skills nor the cooperative skills to secure a major role ever again.”

“That’s…true,” Kaveh blinks.

That’s a nice thing for Al-Haitham to say to him. Because Kaveh is who he is, he is going to completely ignore it for now.

The group chats a bit more as Cyno pulls the van into the studio’s parking lot, and as they’re being briefed on the haunted house exposition by one of the staff members, Kaveh chances a glance over at Al-Haitham.

He can’t stop himself from thinking back to the ambush outside the Buzzfeed studio a few days ago, when Al-Haitham had swooped in like some sort of makeshift knight in shining armor and shielded Kaveh from the crowd. He knows Al-Haitham has had to deal with plenty of mobs like that before, considering his fame and everything, but it was new to Kaveh, and he had no idea how to handle it when it was happening.

The premise of this video is that the five of them are going to be put into different spots in the giant building, and they have to find each other and find the exit together as a group. It’s dark, and mysterious, and there are plenty of jumpscares located all throughout the house. Kaveh listens to the staff member with furrowed eyebrows and nods along, acutely aware of the dozens of cameras currently facing them. He’s not very worried about this—he’s never been one to get particularly jumpy during horror films, and he’s confident enough in his ability to locate his friends.

He just hopes that Al-Haitham is the last person he finds. Not the first.

Of course, Al-Haitham is the first person Kaveh finds.

“Ugh,” he says out loud as he enters one of the rooms, holding up the singular lamp he’s been given and shining its light straight onto Al-Haitham’s expressionless face. “It’s you.”

The cameraman currently filming Al-Haitham’s face laughs, and Kaveh shoots him an appreciative smile.

“You took longer to find me than I thought you would,” says Al-Haitham, dragging Kaveh’s attention back to him. “Tch tch tch.”

“Did you just tch at me?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Okay,” says Kaveh, and then he reaches down and grabs Al-Haitham’s hand. “We don’t have time for you to be annoying. Let’s find the others and get out of here.”

They start down the hallway, and this is when Kaveh comes to the very belated realization that he and Al-Haitham are currently holding hands.

He comes to an abrupt halt.

Al-Haitham, who is trailing a little behind him, stops too. “What?”

“Why are you holding my hand,” says Kaveh.

Al-Haitham stares at him. “Are you serious.”

“Yes?” says Kaveh. His voice is a little more high-pitched than normal. “Why wouldn’t I be serious when I am so clearly being taken advantage of right now?”

“You know there’s been a camera on us this entire time,” says Al-Haitham, “so your claim can easily be disproven.”

Kaveh’s grip, instead of loosening, tightens. “Whatever,” he mutters, and then someone in a white mask screams and jumps at them.

Kaveh flinches. Al-Haitham turns slowly to look at the ghost.

The “ghost” screams again.

“Okay,” Kaveh says, using his free hand to rub his temple. “We heard you the first time.”

Al-Haitham says very seriously: “You should find Scaramouche and do that to him.”

The ghost is silent for several seconds. Then its shoulders drop, and it turns around to leave the room.

“Wow,” says Kaveh in the aftermath, “we are the worst people to do a haunted house challenge with. Don’t you think so?”

“You could always pretend like you’re scared,” Al-Haitham suggests, tugging on Kaveh’s hand, leading the both of them further through the house. Kaveh’s eyes drop to where their fingers are intertwined, and he expertly shifts his gaze and clears his throat.

“Well, that wouldn’t be very authentic, would it?” he says.

They continue on, their two designated cameramen trailing behind them. Al-Haitham has still not, for some reason, let go of Kaveh’s fuckass hand, and Kaveh cannot for the life of him figure out what it is that’s going through his head right now.

Here are his options:

A: Al-Haitham is putting on a show for the camera.

B: Al-Haitham is scared of the haunted house.

C: Al-Haitham just wants to hold his hand.

D: Al-Haitham thinks it is convenient to hold hands in order to navigate through the house.

…Yeah. D it is.

He’s about to speak these thoughts into verbal existence when, all of a sudden, the two of them round a corner and Kaveh slams front-first into a head of red hair.

A head of red hair that screams out in shock and pushes him backward.

Right against Al-Haitham’s chest.

Al-Haitham catches him, because of course he does, and now they’re staring at each other. Kaveh blinks up at Al-Haitham, and Al-Haitham stares down at him unflinchingly.

“Oh my god,” Nilou is fretting from behind them, “I am so sorry, Kaveh, I just freaked out and I didn’t know it was you because I’ve been jumpscared at literally every other corner I turn in this place—”

“It’s, um, fine,” says Kaveh as Al-Haitham’s grip tightens around the back of his shoulders. Kaveh stills, his eyes narrowing on his face. “What, are we filming right now or something? Let go of me.”

Al-Haitham does. He helps Kaveh back to his feet, his movements much too gentle, and something in Kaveh’s chest stutters uncontrollably as he realizes that Al-Haitham has finally let go of his hand.

“We are, technically,” says Al-Haitham shortly. He’s not looking at Kaveh anymore, his gaze shifted elsewhere, and at this angle, beneath the dim lights, the tips of his ears could almost be mistaken for the color red.

Kaveh shakes his head, and then he shakes it again. The pounding of his heart has not ceased, and now when he glances sidelong at Al-Haitham, it actually just increases, so. That’s great. That’s really, really great. What the actual fuck?

Okay. Kaveh is not going to think about it. That is what he is going to do right now. He is just not going to think about it.

Kaveh is very much thinking about it.

It is just not possible, actually. It is just not possible for him to still be hung up on Al-Haitham. Of all people.

They’re standing in a cluster outside the house, recounting the experience to the cameras in front of them. Kaveh’s fingers flex in the pocket of his jacket, the phantom touch of Al-Haitham’s hand sticking its obnoxious existence onto him like a leech.

He survived months of filming alongside him. He survived kissing him again. Hell, he survived five years with nothing but Tighnari’s forwarded rejection emails and Al-Haitham’s stupid face plastered all over the stupid fucking place. He survived sitting down on his stupid couch and turning on the stupid TV and watching each and every one of Al-Haitham’s stupid movies the minute they were released.

His streak cannot be lost by a stupid haunted house.

“Good work today, everyone!” Nilou is saying once the cameras turn off, clapping her hands and grinning around at the group.

Scaramouche scoffs and stalks off, Al-Haitham gives her a once-over before nodding and doing the same thing, Layla smiles at her and squeezes her hand, and Kaveh says, “How much more of this press tour thing do we even have to do?”

“Well,” says Tighnari promptly out of nowhere, “there's a couple more interviews, some are standard, some you have to do with Al-Haitham.”

“Kusanali above,” Kaveh mutters. “Should I kill myself?”

“Maybe don’t do that,” says Tighnari. He walks over and pats his shoulder twice. “Emphasis on the maybe.”

Kaveh sticks his tongue out at him. “Rude. Rude! Has anyone ever told you that you’re rude, Tighnari?”

“Yes,” says Tighnari. “You do. Frequently.”

“Damn right I do,” says Kaveh, and then he drops his head and moves to follow in the direction of the parking lot where Al-Haitham is standing—looking at him, waiting for him.

Is it in this moment that Kaveh comes to a few pretty important realizations: one, Al-Haitham should go and fuck himself. Two, five years has changed everything but Al-Haitham. Three, five years has changed everything but Al-Haitham and the cruel burn of Kaveh’s heart.

✩

“Just so you know, the questions are probably going to be terrible and invasive and you’re going to want to die, but you don’t have a choice because the PR team already booked this video and we can’t back out,” Tighnari says cheerfully, clapping his hands together with undue delight. “Good luck!”

“Thanks, Tighnari,” Kaveh says dryly. “I’m so excited.”

“I am also egg-cited to watch this trainwreck,” Cyno says, holding a plastic Tupperware of egg salad. He takes a bite, chews. Kaveh gives him a stink eye.

“Thanks for the support, Cyno,” he says, “and can you put that away? It smells.”

“No,” says Cyno.

“It’s okay,” Al-Haitham says determinedly. “I have a high tolerance.”

“I think the point is not to drink that much,” Tighnari says, “but I might be wrong.”

“You’re probably wrong,” says Al-Haitham.

Tighnari shrugs. “You know what, you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t make a fool of yourself because then we have to clean up the mess. Al-Haitham, have your fun dabbling in alcoholism as long as you don’t answer any questions about who you don’t like or anything criticizing the industry. Questions about Scaramouche are off the table. Don’t answer them.”

“You’re not my manager,” Al-Haitham tells him.

“Please don’t do it,” Cyno says around a bite of his food. “If you have it within you to be a good egg.”

“I need a drink,” Kaveh sighs.

“No, you don’t,” Tighnari calls bemusedly as they disappear into the set. “You really, really don’t.”

“Please introduce yourselves.”

“I’m Kaveh!” Kaveh says cheerfully against the stark white background, waving toward the camera.

“Al-Haitham,” says Al-Haitham.

They’re shooting yet another video for the press tour, this time a “Truth or Drink” interview for YouTube. He’s never been the biggest fan of all the extracurricular activities that come along with being a movie star, but at least this one comes with alcohol, and at least Scaramouche wasn’t invited. This time, he’ll keep his snide comments about alcohol to himself.

“We are the leads from the film (Un)Lucky In Love, and we’re here to play truth or drink. And I’ll have you all know that I never lie.” Kaveh places his hand over his heart, looking solemnly toward the audience.

“You’ll be drinking a lot, then,” the interviewer jokes from off the screen, and Kaveh laughs.

“That’s the hope. So, we just have these cards that we take turns flipping over and answering? And this great bottle of alcohol.” Kaveh pats the oversized bottle sitting between them with a fond hand, both of them accompanied by their individual shot glasses.

“Yes. And if it goes according to plan, those questions will be very uncomfortable.”

“Fantastic,” says Al-Haitham dryly. “Kaveh, do you want to go first?”

“Absolutely not,” Kaveh replies, enthusiastically picking the card on the top of the pile. “This one’s for you. Ah. Al-Haitham, what was the worst part about filming with me?”

Damn. Al-Haitham’s hand twitches for the bottle, even though he’d internally bet with himself that he wasn’t going to be the first to drink. “I would say that the worst part is that in the beginning, we weren’t as close as we were while filming our first movie. It was strange to be in such close proximity to you when everything was different.”

Kaveh’s expression drops, though it’s not necessarily in anger as it so much is in surprise. Whatever answer he’d been expecting from Al-Haitham, it evidently hadn’t been that. “I agree,” he says after a moment. “It definitely was weird at times when, like, the catering service would give you your morning coffee but I knew that you took it differently, I guess. Small things like that. Though I’d say the worst part about filming with you is that you never let the long hours show as if hard work doesn’t tire you at all, and it was annoying as shit when everyone was exhausted and you were just standing there like some kind of statue.”

“I apologize for my superiority,” Al-Haitham says.

“You’re a piece of shit.”

“It’s not even your turn to be honest yet,” Al-Haitham says, startling a laughter out of Kaveh that throws his head back. “I haven’t even asked the question yet.”

“Sure,” Kaveh says, his eyes glittering in mirth as he gestures toward the pile of cards. “Go ahead, then.”

Al-Haitham plucks the next slip of paper, holding it between his fingers as he takes in the question. “Did you ever wish that somebody else was cast in my role?”

“That’s unfair,” Kaveh says, breaking into a smile. “I feel like a lot of people think this a variable amount of times. Sometimes I wished you were Jonathan Bailey. You ever think about that?” He laughs. “But in all seriousness, I never genuinely wanted to act with anybody else. You made a pretty good Zayan. I guess. If I have to be honest.”

“That is the point of the game,” Al-Haitham says wryly as Kaveh grumbles and picks up the next question.

“Who is your best friend on set?” Kaveh reads.

“Nilou,” says Al-Haitham immediately.

Kaveh nods. “Nilou.”

“What made you choose this movie?” Al-Haitham reads off the next card, neatly setting it to the side as he watches Kaveh think.

He goes through a few moments of contemplation, tapping his fingernails against the counter, and then he rouses himself with a bit of an embarrassed laugh. “It was one of the only movies I could get,” Kaveh admits, shrugging. “I didn’t have a lot of options, and I was lucky that this was an option at all. Or unlucky, you could say. What about you, Al-Haitham? Why’d you choose this movie?” Especially because you knew the cast beforehand, his eyes seem to say, boring into his, all biting ruby and insatiable curiosity.

This isn’t a question that Al-Haitham particularly wants to answer, especially not in front of an entire filming crew and in a video that’s going to be broadcast for millions to see, but he doesn’t have much of a choice if he doesn’t want to drink for a seemingly innocuous question. “I wanted to film with the cast again.”

After a moment, Kaveh makes a small motion, his head doing an inquisitive shake. “That’s it? You’re not going to elaborate?”

“All they asked for was the truth, not elaboration,” Al-Haitham argues, and then he rolls his eyes, small enough that only Kaveh can see. He lowers his voice. “You can ask me again when we’re not on camera.”

Staring for a little while longer, Kaveh lets the issue go and picks up the next card. “What was the scene you regretted the most?”

Silently, Al-Haitham reaches for the bottle and pours a neat shot, tossing his head back along with the bitter tang burning its way down his throat. When his head levels again, his eyes immediately finding Kaveh’s. The other looks at him, confused, the kind that borders on hurt at the rejection—there’s no other word to explain it than that.

“Al-Haitham—”

“Were you ever jealous of me?” Al-Haitham asks from the next card, regretting the way the abrupt question cuts Kaveh off as soon as it comes out, especially after reading it aloud.

Kaveh stiffens, and for a moment, Al-Haitham thinks that he’s going to drink, but that would have been as much of a confirmation as him saying yes.

“Yes,” says Kaveh dully. “I mean, it probably just comes with the job, especially when the movie was first announced and nobody knew who I was. It’s a lot of power, in a way. And honestly…” He laughs, breaking the tense atmosphere. “This is a little shallow, but it did feel a little weird that everybody was so shocked that you would pick up a Hallmark film because it’s considered to be—I don’t know, not super esteemed?—and this was the only role I could get. I think a lot of people would be a little bit envious when they’re shooting with Al-Haitham.”

“I didn’t know you thought of me like that, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says.

“You’re an asshole, has anybody ever told you that?”

“Yes,” Al-Haitham replies, bemused, “you.”

Kaveh rolls his eyes. “Well, I think you need to hear it. Okay, next. What was something the fans got wrong?”

Al-Haitham pauses. “I’m not sure what this means.”

The interviewer says, “Anything about the relationships between the cast members? Scenes that were misconstrued, social media posts, rumors, headcanons?”

“Ah.” Al-Haitham nods. “The fans were excited about Scaramouche and I being on the same set, but I think that it’s been made abundantly clear that there was nothing to create any hype about.”

“It was a nightmare to sit through the scenes they had together,” Kaveh says, groaning as he buries his head in his hands for theatrical effect. “You wouldn’t believe some of the hoops Furina had to jump through to get them to get along. It was like baiting a dog to take pills.”

“That’s a good description of Scaramouche’s bitter existence,” says Al-Haitham as he nods.

“There was nothing that the fans got wrong on social media?” the interviewer says, and Al-Haitham and Kaveh immediately cut their gazes to each other, no doubt thinking the same thing: of the Reddit thread.

“Well, I’ll drink to that!” Kaveh says, pouring out a shot. Al-Haitham nudges his glass forward as well, so Kaveh obliges, and they air-toast to each other before knocking it back.

Al-Haitham picks up the next card. Dread sinks into his stomach the moment he reads the words, but he has no choice in the matter, at least when he’s on camera. “Is there a way to drink so I don’t have to ask the question?” he asks, letting his hand go limp.

“No,” the interviewer says, almost smug in their refusal.

Al-Haitham sighs; Kaveh looks at him inquisitively. “Did you enjoy the kiss scene?”

Immediately, Kaveh’s face goes pale as it drains of color, and Al-Haitham instinctively knows that he doesn’t want to hear what he has to say, even if it’s a yes, especially not if it’s a no. Because it had meant more to Al-Haitham than it was supposed to—and god, if that wasn’t so like Kaveh to make everything so difficult for Al-Haitham, muddy the waters. The only thing easy about Kaveh was being in love with him. That, at least, came naturally, but only in a world where there was nowhere for that sentiment to go, whistling out the open window.

It’s almost a relief that Kaveh takes a shot for the question, his fingers trembling just slightly along the glass, imperceptible enough that it won’t be picked up on camera but it’s plainly visible to Al-Haitham. Kaveh avoids his eyes when he swallows around the alcohol. The fans can take it many ways—that Kaveh liked it but doesn’t want to admit it, that he hated it and wants to spare Al-Haitham’s feelings, but inside, Al-Haitham knows the truth. That the kiss scene complicated everything invariably for them and there’s no other way to go about it.

“If Kaveh won’t answer, will you, Al-Haitham?” the interviewer asks, and Al-Haitham sighs before cleanly taking a shot without a word. He knows that it’s their job to complicate things, but he wishes more than ever that their marketing team hadn’t booked this goddamn video in the first place.

“Well, then,” Kaveh says, clapping his hands once in the stark silence. “Onto the next!” He picks up the next card. “Would you shoot this movie again, if given the chance?”

A question he can answer. “Yes.” He folds his arms over his chest, looking toward the camera. “I never pick up a movie that I think I’ll regret. It would be a waste of time otherwise.”

“You should work on your bluntness,” Kaveh tells him. “It’s a flaw of yours.”

“I shouldn’t begin on your flaws, Kaveh.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m all right, thank you.”

“You—”

“Who did you hate the most on set?” Al-Haitham says, reading from the next card, and Kaveh winces, his face screwing up.

“That just feels mean,” he says, and then takes a shot.

“And you, Al-Haitham?” asks the interviewer.

“My manager would probably appreciate it if I didn’t answer,” says Al-Haitham, so he takes a shot as well.

“I probably should have drank more water before this,” Kaveh says, touching his hands lightly to his forehead. “It’s a little too late now, though.” He picks up the next card, then lets out a deep breath hissed through his teeth. “Goddamn it. Al-Haitham, it wants to know if you would film One Lifetime Too Short again. Did you guys realize that the movie we just filmed is called (Un)Lucky In Love? You guys are a little behind.”

“Archons,” Al-Haitham says, and then he takes a shot. Kaveh watches him, his gaze inscrutable. “Last question. Kaveh, do you agree with the general consensus that we have good chemistry together?”

“You know, a lot of things go into this so-called ‘chemistry,’ and that can’t be easily summarized with a simple yes or no,” Kaveh says, his words now slightly slurred at the number of shots he’s taken, and the grin he tosses to the camera is distinctly smeared. “Cheers, guys. These questions suck.”

He takes the last shot.

They’re standing outside of the filming building, leaning against the brick exterior as they wait for their cars when Kaveh says, “I’d say I need a drink, but we just took like, five, so I’d say I need a cigarette, but I don’t smoke.”

Al-Haitham says, “Kaveh, I feel like it’s my responsibility to make sure that you get home.”

Kaveh squints at him. Then his shoulders drop, and he says, “Yeah, okay, whatever.”

So they end up in the same car back to Kaveh’s apartment, the silence more meditative than it is awkward. They pull up outside of Kaveh’s building, Kaveh following after Al-Haitham, but when he stumbles on his way out the door, Al-Haitham instinctively reaches out, his arm falling around Kaveh’s waist.

Kaveh flinches, but surprisingly doesn’t push him away, so Al-Haitham lets his hand rest there as the warmth seeps under his skin. “I’m not even that drunk,” he complains. “Get your hands off of me.”

“You’re not pushing me away,” Al-Haitham points out. Kaveh leans into him, even, his next sigh rustling against Al-Haitham’s cheek. It’s probably not smart to say something like that, either. He should’ve just let Kaveh be. It’s almost provocative. He’s also not sober.

Kaveh grumbles, but there’s a part of him touching Al-Haitham the entire way up to his unit, even as he lightly rests one hand on Al-Haitham’s elbow as they walk up the stairs.

“Mehrak!” Kaveh coos the moment they step inside, hurriedly shaking off his shoes to dart over to her cage. Al-Haitham takes his time to unlace his shoes, even though it takes significantly more time and attention to detail than it normally does. “Mehrak, say hello to Al-Haitham.”

“Chinchillas can’t speak,” says Al-Haitham. Silently, Kaveh shakes his head before thrusting her in his direction, forcing him to awkwardly cradle her in his hands when he dumps her furry body onto him. He stares into her beady eyes reluctantly—he doesn’t have much choice in the matter, considering that he’s a little afraid that she’ll dart up his shirt if he takes his eyes off of her.

“She’s so cute. My little baby daughter precious girl,” Kaveh says, and then he promptly falls backward, sprawling onto the floor and spreading his arms and legs with a sigh. His shirt rises just enough to reveal a sliver of his torso; Al-Haitham cuts his eyes away as soon as he latches onto it. When he looks back, Mehrak is staring at him knowingly.

Awkwardly, Al-Haitham tries to dump the chinchilla on Kaveh, but she doesn’t let go of his arm so he rolls with it, sitting down as well. “I hope that the next gig we film will not be nearly as exhausting.”

“You have to think of it positively, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh says, sluggishly making incomprehensible signs with his hands. “We got free alcohol out of it. The only cost was a horrifying amount of intimacy. Not that you even shared that much. Al-Haitham, you drank too much.”

“You drank just as much as I did.”

“Yeah, but you answered less questions,” Kaveh says, his voice going high in a whine. “One of my shots was in solidarity. You just straight up refused.” He’s staring straight at Al-Haitham, who can’t get himself to say anything. “You said you would tell me the answer to one of them when we were off camera. We’re off camera now.”

Al-Haitham has never been a coward, but maybe the alcohol is making him fearful. He just shakes his head once, closing his eyes briefly. “Ask me another time, Kaveh,” he says, his voice so low it almost comes out as a whisper. “Not now.”

“I feel like I’m always asking too much out of you,” Kaveh admits. His eyes don’t stray from Al-Haitham’s, even dark as they are from the alcohol. “More than you’re ever willing to give me.” It’s the drink that’s compelling him to say these things. Al-Haitham finds himself wanting to stop him before he can go too far for his own good, wonders how it would feel to shut Kaveh up by placing his hand over his lips—but that’s probably the alcohol talking, too.

“You underestimate me, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham says. “I’d give you anything. But I… You’re not drunk enough to forget this tomorrow, are you?”

Kaveh slowly pushes himself up into sitting, inching closer. “I almost wish I was if that meant you would be more honest with me. God, Al-Haitham, is it selfish to say that I almost wish you drank even more if it meant you would tell me what you’re thinking?”

That would make everything better and vastly more terrible at once. Al-Haitham swallows, his eyes tracking Kaveh’s every movement. His mouth parts as he tries to figure out the words to speak; he wonders if he’s imagining it when Kaveh’s eyes drop to his mouth briefly. “Please ask me again another time, Kaveh.”

“Is that a promise?” Kaveh’s breath ghosts over Al-Haitham’s lips, twice as intimate as the time they spent on the ferris wheel. Al-Haitham wants—he wants to—

Kaveh falls away, the movement as sudden as the infinite closeness had appeared. He looks away. “I’ll take you up on that later, I guess.”

As if sensing the change in mood, Mehrak breaks from Al-Haitham’s arms and scampers over to Kaveh, startling a laugh out of him that cracks the tension in half before it calcifies the room. “You’re so good,” he says to her, fondness coloring his voice. “I love you so much.” Al-Haitham twitches as violently as if Kaveh had been speaking to him, but luckily, Kaveh doesn’t notice.

What Kaveh does do, however, is pull out his phone, switching over to his camera and pressing record. Mehrak acts accordingly to the attention, probably having been trained for her hundreds of thousands of followers, and she paws at the air toward Kaveh, eliciting another laugh. Kaveh stretches his fingers to her, which she nuzzles into. “Hi! Oh my god, hello! I want to eat you! Cutesy darling baby pumpkin cupcake sugar angel sweetie pie—”

“Is that a real sentence that just came out of your mouth?” Al-Haitham asks sarcastically, cutting off Kaveh’s monologue, and the other stops recording just to give him a dirty look, a sigh passing out of his mouth.

“You don’t get it because you don’t know what real love is,” Kaveh says grumpily, and then he puts the video on Instagram before getting to his feet and motioning for Al-Haitham to follow him to the couch. “It’s dark out. Do you mind if I order a pizza? I don’t feel like cooking, and if we’re being entirely honest here, I eat out most of the time anyway.”

Al-Haitham, taken aback from the implicit invitation to stay even longer, is shocked into obediently trailing after him and taking a seat. “That’s fine. Though in the future, you should cut down on your dependency on take out.”

“Blah blah blah,” Kaveh says, rolling his eyes and throwing his phone to the side to pick up the television remote and put on a reality show that immediately makes Al-Haitham’s eyes glaze over. “Pizza ordered. Should be here in twenty. Al-Haitham, do you want to watch anything else?”

“I don’t care,” Al-Haitham says, meaning that he doesn’t care whatever Kaveh wants to do as long as it means that he can test the limits of their fragile relationship and stay for every minute that Kaveh grants him.

Kaveh sniffs. “I’d normally consider that rude, but I’ll let it slide just this time. Hey, Al-Haitham, you can’t fall asleep before the pizza has even been delivered. Oh my god, are you a sleepy drunk?”

“I won’t,” Al-Haitham lies, his eyes sliding closed even before the last word leaves his mouth. “I’m only resting my eyes.”

“Uh huh,” Kaveh says disbelievingly. Al-Haitham can’t gather it in him to give him a look. “I totally believe you, Al-Haitham.”

Silence. Then, with a sigh, Kaveh’s weight beside Al-Haitham lifts, only for a blanket to drift over Al-Haitham’s lap as Kaveh resettles, the cushion shifting under his body. “Goodnight, I guess,” Kaveh whispers, and that’s the last thing Al-Haitham hears, lost among the chatter of the television in the background.

𖡎

🐾 @petsworld

my personal favorite genre of pet owner is when they’re drunk and really affectionate

[clip of Kaveh’s Instagram post of him gushing over Mehrak while inebriated]

149.2k likes, 52.3k retweets, 2.1 replies

REPLIES:

sariah @longisland
Replying to @petsworld

i get him this is my favorite chinchilla on the whole entire internet

13.4k likes, 1.5k retweets, 31 replies

lucie @luckyi_nluv
Replying to @petsworld

is this my man KAVEHHHHH

6.8k likes, 49 retweets, 19 replies

pizza zaza @margherita
Replying to @petsworld

Anyone else scroll that one subreddit of cats with lipstick marks on their faces….

4.1k likes, 1.3k retweets, 5 replies

need vodka @sohungry
Replying to @petsworld

kaveh has to be one of the best pet owners on the internet and u cant convince me otherwise 🥹

5.2k likes, 1.6k retweets, 29 replies

crave death @sisyphusboulder
Replying to @petsworld

and if i said i want kaveh to talk to me like that

592 likes, 49 retweets, 2 replies

ink 🌙 @moonsteps

ok so like is it just me or did u guys also hear al-haitham’s voice at the end. am i fucking crazy. am i insane

482 likes, 24 retweets, 3 replies

REPLIES:

luma 🌟 @luminvies
Replying to @moonsteps

firstly, yes

214 likes, 1 reply

luma 🌟 @luminvies
Replying to @moonsteps and @luminvies

secondly, THATS AL-HAITHAMS FUCKIING VOICE/????????????

361 likes, 3 retweets, 1 reply

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @luminvies and @moonsteps

OKAY I KNEW I WASNT CRAZY. WHAT THE FUCK

204 likes, 1 reply

sprout 🌱 @bringingglory19
Replying to @moonsteps and @luminvies

YAY YIPPEE YAOI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

419 likes, 13 retweets, 2 replies

apollo’s glory @patroculi

nah bro al-haitham appearing in kaveh’s video is on the next level i can’t make excuses for them anymore

15.2k likes, 3.6k retweets, 59 replies

REPLIES:

on and on @sequentialism
Replying to @patroculi

I fear the narrative writes itself

4.6k likes, 1.3k retweets, 6 replies

🫦 @abracadabra
Replying to @patroculi

they called me crazy for speaking the truth. they called me crazy. is this how they felt at the salem witch trials when they were strung up just for being girls

5.2k likes, 2.5k retweets, 41 replies

shawn @mendes
Replying to @abracadabra and @patroculi

HELLOOOOOO

2.9k likes, 48 retweets, 4 replies

luna SAW AESPA LIVE ❣️ @aesapphic
Replying to @patroculi

“next level” AESPA MENTION???

[GIF of Karina slapping Winter during the Next Level stage]

3.1k likes, 1.6k retweets, 14 replies

minho endgame @miramars
Replying to @aesapphic and @patroculi

What?

1.6k likes, 36 retweets, 8 replies

in le clerc we all fam @scootercharles

wait ok so we know that al-haitham hangs out at kaveh’s place??? is this not just like the reddit thread??

591 likes, 284 retweets, 14 replies

💦 @haiking

*NEW THREADFIC*

‘al-haitham’ kaveh mewls blinking his teary eyes at the other ‘i need ur help taking care of mehrak. ur the only one who can help her’
‘i’m busy’ alhaitham growl looking angry
‘my cat needs help too’ kaveh winks
‘u have a cat?’ al-haitham asks surprised

[1 / ?]

2.1k likes, 1.5k retweets, 21 replies

‘kawa @grandking

Did kaveh delete the video ???

4 likes

murai @navyfullstop

we figured out that al-haitham was staying at kaveh’s place from a 15 second clip and overnight the post gets taken down smh i know kaveh’s pr team is working hard… TOO hard some may say

5.9k likes, 2.5k retweets, 39 replies

☾

Kaveh wakes up with a pounding headache, a crick in his neck, and a heavy arm slung over his waist.

His body twists, eyelids falling open and closed against the slices of sunlight pouring in through the uncovered living room windows, and then his head falls sideway only to come directly in front of—

“Al-Haitham?” Kaveh mutters, and then he blinks again, and again, until suddenly the memories from last night come crashing in. The truth or drink interview, sinking shots upon shots under, Al-Haitham’s hand on his waist, Al-Haitham in his apartment, Al-Haitham sitting next to him on his couch, Al-Haitham, drunk and wasted and inebriated and sloshed, closing his eyes and falling into slumber against Kaveh’s poor, innocent shoulder.

Kaveh stiffens.

Okay, it’s fine. Kaveh knows that, if anything, it’s mostly his fault for letting Al-Haitham sleep over in the first place. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but Al-Haitham was drunk, and Kaveh was drunk, and Kaveh knows that if they ended up in Al-Haitham’s apartment last night, there’s no way Al-Haitham would have allowed Kaveh to go home by himself in that state. So, really, isn’t Kaveh just returning that hypothetical favor right now? It doesn’t have to be so deep!

Just then, Al-Haitham stirs in his sleep, and his grip around Kaveh tightens. Kaveh inhales sharply as he’s tumbled back down onto the couch, his head turned toward Al-Haitham, his lips pressed tightly together and his eyes wide on his face.

Fuck. Fuck. Seriously? Seriously?

Kaveh takes a breath. Okay. It’s just Al-Haitham. Gingerly, he plucks Al-Haitham’s index finger away from where it is currently digging into Kaveh’s stomach, and he raises it up until it is eye-level.

He glares at it, then down the blanket pooling around their thighs.

This is just ridiculous.

“Wake up,” says Kaveh out loud, effectively giving up.

Where would he even go, if he managed to extract himself from this jumble of limbs? Further down the couch? Outside of the apartment, maybe. But that would leave Al-Haitham alone in the apartment with—

“Mehrak!” Kaveh exclaims all of a sudden, jumping up to his feet. Al-Haitham groans, his eyes slowly opening as Kaveh begins to frantically search for his chinchilla. “Mehrak! Oh my god, Al-Haitham, I lost my chinchilla.”

“What,” Al-Haitham mutters, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “Kaveh, come back to sleep.”

“No!” Kaveh says, peeking behind the couch. “Al-Haitham, get up! What if you’re sitting on her? What if—”

“Calm down,” says Al-Haitham, and Kaveh watches as he shifts, looks up, and finds his eyes. “She’s right here.”

“What?”

“Here,” says Al-Haitham again. He lifts the blanket off of him, and sure enough, there is Mehrak, curled up into a tiny ball, sleeping against Al-Haitham’s leg.

Kaveh stops. He stares. “Oh.”

Al-Haitham raises an eyebrow. “Good morning to you too, Kaveh.”

Kaveh’s brain is slowly catching up to him right now, as well as the fact that Al-Haitham is still sitting on his couch, in his apartment, with Mehrak snuggled oh so comfortably against him.

He shakes his head. “Um,” he says into the silence. “Do you, like, want breakfast?”

“Are you cooking?”

“Why do you sound so disbelieving,” Kaveh says, turning on his heel, making his way over to the kitchen. “Come on. Put Mehrak in her cage and help me.”

“Everyone needs to calm down,” says Kaveh as he bursts into Tighnari’s apartment, arms flailing out around him, gaze skirting endlessly around. His eyes land on the couch in the middle of Tighnari’s living room, where the man himself is sitting with—“Cyno?”

“Kaveh,” Cyno nods, looking up from where he’s shuffling a deck of cards. “Isn’t it just a brew-tiful morning?”

Then he points to the two steaming mugs of coffee sitting on the table in front of them.

“Um,” says Kaveh.

Tighnari sighs and rubs his temples. “It’s not any better the second time, you know.”

“I just think you don’t understand the joke,” says Cyno, frowning. “It’s funny if you get it.”

“I do get it, believe it or not,” says Tighnari, and then he turns to Kaveh. “Kaveh, what in the world are you doing here? I thought you’d be passed out cold all morning with how yesterday went.”

“Well, I would have been,” says Kaveh. He starts flailing his arms out again, for emphasis. “But unfortunately for me, the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen happened to me this morning.”

“So I suppose the morning was less brew-tiful for you,” Cyno says solemnly.

“Didn’t Al-Haitham help you home last night?” Tighnari says, less solemnly.

“Yes,” says Kaveh, dropping to his knees, and then down fully onto the floor. “Yes, he did. And he was still there when I woke up. With his arm around me, by the way.”

“You guys slept together?”

“No!” says Kaveh quickly. “I mean, I guess technically?”

Tighnari gapes at him.

“I didn’t have sex with him, if that’s what it is you’re getting at,” Kaveh says, and this just makes Tighnari gape further. “I wouldn’t. That’s not—that’s not, like, something I would do. Guys. Okay. The point is, Al-Haitham stayed over last night, and we fell asleep on the couch together, and I just think this is yet another example of me shooting myself in the foot. You know?”

“I don’t,” says Tighnari as Kaveh settles in on the floor across from him and Cyno. Lovely inventions, really, floors. What would Kaveh do without them.

So he places his palms on the curve of his knees and he looks up very seriously at both Tighnari and Cyno, and then he searches his mind for exactly what it is he’s trying to say right now. He doesn’t know what it is. His mind has been nothing but one big, jumbled mess ever since filming for (Un)Lucky In Love concluded, and honestly, it’s been an even bigger, jumbled mess before that too. He can’t stop thinking about it, he can’t stop thinking about their interview yesterday, when Al-Haitham had looked him in the eyes and asked him if he agrees with the fact that the two of them apparently have good chemistry.

Of course they have good chemistry. They were best friends. That sort of shit doesn’t just disappear overnight, or over five years, for that matter. With enough bullshit and enough alcohol, they could go back to how things were during One Lifetime Too Short filming. Last night was proof of that. You underestimate me, Kaveh. I’d give you anything. Kusanali fucking above.

“I’m going to tell you both something,” Kaveh says out loud before he can stop himself.

Tighnari and Cyno exchange a look with each other, and they straighten up, nodding.

“Um,” says Kaveh. God. “I shouldn’t. Be telling you this. But I can’t do this anymore, to be quite honest. Everyday I wake up and I feel like I’m going to explode, and having to be so close to him every single day and answering questions that would put any normal person on a hitlist on camera is genuinely just starting to fuck with my head a little. You know?”

Tighnari and Cyno are silent as they look at him, and Kaveh sinks his front teeth into his bottom lip in an effort to stop it from shaking.

“We made breakfast together this morning,” he says, like it’s an afterthought when it’s actually anything but. “I woke up with his arm over me, and then I started freaking out because I couldn’t find my chinchilla, and, like, I don’t even want to think about what I would have done if I hadn’t realized I couldn’t see Mehrak right then. I would have stayed like that with him, probably. Until he woke up. I would have taken advantage of him like that.”

“I don’t think Al-Haitham would count that as you taking advantage of him,” says Tighnari slowly.

“I know,” says Kaveh. He closes his eyes, shakes his head. “That makes it worse, because Tighnari, what does that even mean? Why would that not count? It would count to anyone else. Why does Al-Haitham always have to be some fucked up exception to everything in my head?”

He can still taste it, the salt on his own face that night at the tavern, when Al-Haitham had pulled him away from a table full of empty bottles and hoisted him up and told him that he was being an idiot, that his problems couldn’t be solved this way, that he needed to get up and get his act together and take better care of himself. Kaveh will never forget that day for as long as he lives, how everything had hurt and hurt and hurt until the dwindling fire in his chest finally burst forth and ignited his tongue.

“I was in love with him,” says Kaveh, finally, and it feels as if a pile of rocks has lifted off of his shoulders. “Archons. Tighnari, Cyno, I was in love with him. Isn’t that so fucked up? Isn’t that so awful? I was in love with him and I still did that to him. I don’t even deserve to say that I was in love with him, but I was.”

“Kaveh,” says Tighnari, his voice suddenly so much closer. Kaveh opens his eyes and finds that he’s kneeling in front of him, head tilted, eyes kind.

“My maman sent me a wedding invitation,” Kaveh says shakily. He still remembers the feeling of the card in his hands, the gold lettering engraved in the center of the Fontainian design, You’re invited! Faranak weds Henri! “To her own wedding. She was getting remarried, and I…I was just supposed to be happy for her. I was supposed to be happy for her and this Henri guy I had never heard of when all I could do was think about my baba.” He swallows around the ball of guilt scratching the base of his throat and continues, “He always supported my dreams of becoming an actor, you know, and then he died before he could ever even see me on the screen.

“And filming One Lifetime Too Short at the time was an escape from all of that,” Kaveh says, looking down at his hands in his lap. “I didn’t know what my maman was up to in Fontaine, and I didn’t have to know beyond texting her every now and then and receiving her care packages every other month with her address on it. Al-Haitham knew about all of it. Of course he did. He was over at my place so often we were practically living together throughout filming. I’d be stupid not to fall in love with him.

“But we obviously couldn’t be together. It was our first movie together, our first real movie period, and it isn’t like Al-Haitham was in love with me back or anything.” Kaveh scoffs against the burning at the back of his eyes. “I never told him, and we ended our friendship that same night the internet ended my entire fucking career before it even really started. I blocked Al-Haitham everywhere, all the press about that video of our argument suddenly disappeared on a random Tuesday, and I went on to only hearing about his life through the fifty billion ads that are always around Sumeru. I went to watch every movie he put out, and I dealt with my own casting rejections, and now I’m here. Back to square fucking one. Isn’t that so deeply fucked up?”

“Square one?” says Tighnari. “What do you mean?”

“It means I think I’m still in goddamn love with him,” says Kaveh, watching as Tighnari’s eyes widen. “You know, I really—back then, I really thought it was just because of the movie. Shit like that happens, right? It always happens. Actors develop crushes on their co-stars because of all the proximity bullshit and all the love scenes and everything. Plus, Al-Haitham is a really fucking good actor. There’s nobody who could have gotten across the years of pining his One Lifetime Too Short character went through, all of it directed towards my character. There was a big chunk of time when I just thought I was making shit up in my head, getting lost in the moment and the script, but I was wrong. I was wrong and I know it for a fact now because literally nothing has changed and I just really, really need this press tour to end so I can get away from Al-Haitham for two fucking seconds and try to figure out what the hell it is I’m supposed to do now.”

Cyno, who’s been listening patiently this entire time, speaks up thoughtfully, “How do you know that Al-Haitham wasn’t in love with you too?”

And isn’t that just the question of the hour. The question of the last five years, really.

“I just do,” says Kaveh, because all of this is fine, but admitting out loud the hurt of not being chased after is too much for even him. He won’t think about how for several months after that night at the tavern, he spent every other hour glancing over at the front door, hoping for a sign of the person he pushed away all on his own. Because that was a delusion beyond belief. He refuses to think that way ever again. “In any case, I can’t do that to myself again, and I can’t do that to him again either. Whatever it meant to him. Sometimes I wish I never even took on One Lifetime Too Short.”

Tighnari reaches over, puts his hand against Kaveh’s calf. “You don’t mean that,” he says.

“You’re right,” Kaveh says, “I don’t.”

“Maybe you should talk to him,” says Tighnari. “I’m sure he would want to talk to you, Kaveh.”

Cyno nods. “I agree.”

“I don’t know,” says Kaveh, pinching his index finger and his thumb against his forehead. “I’m a lot better now than I was five years ago, but it’s still…it isn’t like I can just tell Al-Haitham that I’m in love with him like that. I’ve already ruined our relationship once before. Now that it’s finally…I just can’t do that again. It’s not his fault he doesn’t reciprocate my feelings, and I’m not about to be some sick fuck that blames him for something he can’t help. So I’m just going to get through the rest of this stupid press tour and then deal with how I’ve somehow roped myself back into some pseudo-friendship with him. If you can even call it that.”

“Of course the two of you are friends,” says Tighnari, frowning.

“You aren’t supposed to fall in love with your friends, Tighnari,” says Kaveh.

“Well,” says Cyno. “I’m not sure if I agree with that one, but.”

“Fine,” Kaveh amends, “I’m not supposed to fall in love with Al-Haitham.”

“I don’t think that’s any better,” says Cyno, “but all right.”

“Thank you,” says Kaveh with a short nod. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to my apartment and wonder why the fuck I just told you both any of that. Speaking of which, neither of you are allowed to even so much as allude to the fact that I was here to Al-Haitham, okay? Let alone the contents of our conversation.”

“I think that was very much implied,” says Tighnari, “but yes, all right.”

Kaveh shoots up to his feet. “Thanks guys,” he says. “That did make me feel…well, an iota better. Probably. I’m not sure yet, we’ll find out soon. In any case, I’m going to go and kill myself now. Bye, then!”

“Don’t do that!” says Tighnari after him, but Kaveh is already halfway out the door, closing it behind him with a click and sinking down to his knees with his head in his hands.

Because there it is. All of it is out in the open now. He’s in love with Al-Haitham. He doesn’t think he’s stopped being in love with Al-Haitham for all of five years. And five years is a long time. It’s a really, really long time.

Kaveh is so fucked.

𖡎

pari9479472 uploaded file: [OLTS.movie]

Kaveh, Al-Haitham, the two of you would be nothing without this movie, and subsequently you would be nothing without me.

eems ?! @buldakboyz

[link to Truth or Drink with Al-Haitham and Kaveh on YouTube]

THE TRUTH OR DRINK INTERVIEW IS OUT FINALLY OH MY GOD

482 likes, 83 retweets

drake’s pubic hair @dingdalong

yo wtf are these questions they’re asking kaveh and al-haitham

[clip: Al-Haitham asking Kaveh if he enjoyed the (Un)Lucky In Love kiss scene]

1.3k likes, 301 retweets, 40 replies

REPLIES:

have a yaoiful day @fujodish
Replying to @dingdalong

just invasive and uncomfortable!!!!

5 likes

cirrus @spyrean
Replying to @dingdalong

i mean they probably agreed to the questions beforehand, right?

3 likes, 1 reply

all hail the grand king @kawakawabread
Replying to @spyrean and @dingdalong

yeah normally i’d agree but i don’t think so

2 likes

ferrari fumble. @lecfosi
Replying to @dingdalong

i’m crying which fujoshi set up this fucking interview

12 likes

Sally @prongebrussell

Why would they ask them about One Lifetime Too Short?!?! On the (Un)Lucky In Love press tour?!?!?!

47 likes, 9 retweets

zaza attorney @lawfulinlove

why did my mans al-haitham look at kaveh like that while he was inebriated… drunk thoughts are sober thoughts you know what they say…

[screenshot from the interview of Al-Haitham gazing at Kaveh, his chin cupped in his hand]

1.6k likes, 581 retweets, 4 replies

millie @donyasidehoe

guys this truth or drink interview be angsty as hell 💔 why did kaveh look so broken the first time al-haitham drank

79 likes, 3 retweets, 9 replies

ohio gozaimasu @penny4luck

me after my exams

[screenshot of Al-Haitham tossing a shot back]

7.5k likes, 3.1k retweets, 3 replies

rysa @rysarium

at some point you stop being eligible to date leo dicaprio and instead you start thinking about yaoi

53.5k likes, 17.3k retweets, 90 replies

zayan’s seat cushion @zazalove

um guys has anyone seen this? is it legit??

[link to movie pirating website]

12 likes, 2 replies

REPLIES:

Reza ily @tiredarchitect
Replying to @zazalove

can someone with less internet safety concerns click the link and tell me what it is

4 likes, 1 reply

zayan’s seat cushion @zazalove
Replying to @tiredarchitect

HELP sorry uh. ok it’s kind of hard to believe but it’s a link to one lifetime too short??? like the haikaveh movie????

2 likes, 1 reply

Reza ily @tiredarchitect
Replying to @zazalove

wait what???????

1 like, 1 reply

Reza ily @tiredarchitect
Replying to @tiredarchitect and @zazalove

yeah fuck internet safety i’m clicking on this link

1 like

freeway leeway @gaysforalhaitham

wait kaveh looks soooo cute when he’s drunk

83 likes, 13 retweets

👩‍❤️‍👩 girl kisser 👩‍❤️‍👩 @kissthegirl

um did anyone else see the random fucking one lifetime too short leak???? why is nobody on my tl talking about this?!?!

193 likes, 39 retweets, 12 replies

REPLIES:

gemma @whataplottwist
Replying to @kissthegirl

literally what r u talking about

4 likes

hearth siblings @arlecchinoisfather
Replying to @kissthegirl

?? what???

2 likes

deeply distressed @crylog
Replying to @kissthegirl

WAIT WHAT. SOMEONE LEAKED ONE LIFETIME TOO SHORT?

3 likes

zhang ruonan hair @wenyifans

i’m so confused the tl is going insane can someone explain what’s going on

22 likes, 1 reply

REPLIES:

bai jingting school uniform @sangyanjiaban
Replying to @wenyifans

someone named “pari9479472” just leaked the movie kaveh and al-haitham did together 5 years ago that was never released to the public. you can find it pretty easily if you search anything related to one lifetime too short or kaveh and al-haitham

39 likes, 18 retweets, 1 reply

zhang ruonan hair @wenyifans
Replying to @sangyanjiaban

WHAT?

12 likes

r/MovieLeaks

u/GeorgianaWatchesTV | 6hr

About One Lifetime Too Short…

I’m sure everyone’s heard by now, but One Lifetime Too Short (yes, THE One Lifetime Too Short) was just leaked in its full post-production form. It has a runtime of just a little over 3 hours, and it stars Al-Haitham, Kaveh, and Parisa in its main roles.

Here is a link if you still haven’t watched it.

We’ve all heard of Al-Haitham and Kaveh—they were just the leads in Furina’s latest production, “(Un)Lucky In Love.” Parisa, however, is a name I’d never heard of before. So I did a bit of digging, and I found that she’s a pretty unpopular actress who has taken a few cameo or supporting roles here and there. None of her films have been big names, however. Mostly, she’s just been an uncredited extra.

But anyways, back to the movie. Since UIL is undoubtedly the Hallmark romcom to end all romcoms, I expected OLTS to follow in a similar vein. Which is to say, I expected it to be lighthearted and fun, since visually that’s what I’m used to after watching Zayan and Reza being silly together in UIL for 90 minutes.

Boy, was I wrong.

OLTS is 3 hours of pure torture. I cried and I laughed and then I cried more. Kaveh and Al-Haitham are both acting masterclasses. They portrayed their characters so well, and the payoff in the final act was duly thanks to the incredible amount of emotion the two of them were able to possess. Parisa is…well, she’s there.

It is a Sangemah Bay film, and you can see her direction all over the cinematography. Dori is also notoriously known to be very, very stingy with her studio and her money, so to whichever crewmember decided to say fuck it and leak OLTS to the public: thank you for taking one for the team, and I hope you’re ready to spend the rest of your life in a prison cell.

↑ 50.2k ↓

COMMENTS:

u/SupposedLove | 6hr

I just finished watching it. I think it’s safe to say all of my doubts about Kaveh as an actor have officially been thrown out the window.

↑ 10.8k ↓

u/busywoman | 6hr

fuck! they should have released this officially somehow! i want to support it!

↑ 7.4k ↓

u/polandsprings1 | 6hr

The original leak was posted by someone named “pari9479472” which is giving mad Parisa vibes.

↑ 8.5k ↓

u/GirlInLuv | 5hr

Yup. Also, the original leak was uploaded with a caption that basically implicates her entirely. My theory is that she probably saw all of the publicity Kaveh is getting for his acting in UIL, and she went on a rampage and leaked OLTS since she’s never been able to land a role that big in five years. She wants her flowers too.

↑ 7.9k ↓

u/handrail009 | 5hr

this is so funny if true because it’s literally having the opposite effect. like everyone is crying over kaveh in olts and everyone is making fun of parisa fkdjhsjkdhf

↑ 7.9k ↓

u/bollywoodfreak | 6hr

what in the shah rukh khan

↑ 3.4k ↓

u/rahulsanjali | 4hr

i haven’t cried this much since i was 6 years old and watching k3g for the first time fr

↑ 1.2k ↓

Katherine @songcovey

I JUST WATCHED ****

5 likes, 2 replies

REPLIES:

jungwon blond era @hairdyez
Replying to @songcovey

what r u censoring????

1 like, 1 reply

peerless cucumber @shenyuan
Replying to @hairdyez and @songcovey

i’ll dm u!!

1 like

kimiya 3rd parent @twolifetim3s

so it turns out that al-haitham and kaveh invented love five years ago

2.4k likes, 951 retweets, 19 replies

REPLIES:

spacewash 🚀 @kaveh_left_ear
Replying to @twolifetim3s

one lifetime too short outsold (un)lucky in love and i’m not afraid to say it

2.1k likes, 682 retweets, 8 replies

acheswan naked sweaty @ballroomdancing

hey guys so. there are tears dripping down my face rn. i just went thru three hours of hell and id gladly do it again btw. i know u all saw that link on the tl. u HAVE to watch it holy fuck i think i was just reborn

1.6k likes, 93 retweets, 4 replies

REPLIES:

beefleaf truther 🍖🍃 @hxsqx
Replying to @ballroomdancing

Wait is it actually that good??

9 likes, 3 replies

driving around town @bumpyroads
Replying to @ballroomdancing

hold on i was planning to watch the movie on tiktok in 84 segments at three am but maybe i’ll set aside the time to watch it all in one go

581 likes, 81 replies, 4 replies

KAVEH ILL SAVE U @theonesavior

DAMN THIS PARISA BITCH IS THE DEVIL INCARNATE

4.1k likes, 2.5k retweets, 52 replies

luma 🌟 @luminvies

i spontaneously started crying thinking about al-haitham with kids

38 likes, 8 retweets, 3 replies

REPLIES:

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @luminvies

i also just started crying thinking about al-haitham with kids

4 likes

in haikaveh hell rn @haithamskaveh

I genuinely cannot fathom being either Al-Haitham or Kaveh and not falling in love with my costar, how did they escape filming unscathed??

5.2k likes, 2.1k retweets, 38 replies

REPLIES:

sunghoon @ontheice
Replying to @haithamskaveh

they didnt

5.4k likes, 2.6k retweets, 41 replies

generally i love ur mom @atthesoupstore
Replying to @haithamskaveh

Why do you think Al-Haitham looks at Kaveh like that in their interviews together bruh

4.8k likes, 1.5k retweets, 18 replies

macphone @iphonemirroring
Replying to @haithamskaveh

ok i think the shippers are onto something

2.5k likes, 481 retweets, 3 replies

mooncovey 4ever @xoxokitties

#HAIKAVEH nation rise up!!!

[edit of Al-Haitham and Kaveh exclusively using clips from One Lifetime Too Short to “The Winner Takes It All” by ABBA]

3.6k likes, 2.1k retweets, 49 replies

NEIL JOSTEN @imafoxyfox

I just know that if OLTS was actually released, then it would have swept all of the award shows

3.1k likes, 1.5k retweets, 84 replies

i like cheese @especiallypepperjack

i genuinely can’t believe that this masterpiece of a film wasn’t released and that it got cut when it was entirely produced and everything… someone was pulling STRINGS to have this covered up and it just makes me wonder what the hell was going on

482 likes, 95 retweets, 17 replies

dragon dick @intourmomyup

kaveh was eating sooo fucking hard in that role i can’t see anyone else pulling that off archons

92 likes

chemical racist @titlegenerator

What were the writers smoking when they came up with one lifetime too short holy shit

1.1k likes, 84 retweets, 3 replies

bagel liker @creamcheese

i just have to say. i cannot believe such an incredible piece of cinematography was hidden for so long and we are just now seeing it

4.2k likes, 1.3k retweets, 48 replies

tian guan ci fu @baiwujinji

imagine the haikaveh press tour footage we could have gotten if olts was real 😭

11.6k likes, 4.9k retweets, 84 replies

REPLIES:

heaven THIS official’s blessing @huachenglefteye
Replying to @baiwujinji

WHY WOULD U SAY THIS TO MEEEEEE

84 likes

this is ink breaking the 4th wall @iDONTlikefeet
Replying to @baiwujinji

omg,,, baby haikaveh,,,

581 likes, 381 retweets, 10 replies

kevin dayz nuts @foxholecourt
Replying to @baiwujinji

Let’s all just kill ourselves

5.1k likes, 1.4k retweets, 2 replies

ren @ikkerun

i just watched all three hours of olts and there’s no jingyuan?

1 like

lumink 2 @electricboogaloo

as much fun as everyone is having with the leaked movie we have to remember that it was never released for a reason and it’s not the lighthearted topic that people are treating it as

3.6k likes, 958 retweets, 31 replies

REPLIES:

guys i’m so hungry @whatsfordinner
Replying to @electricboogaloo

i know, it’s like everyone has forgotten that al-haitham and kaveh are people too.

831 likes, 381 retweets, 8 replies

creamy cloud keyboard @clickclick
Replying to @whatsfordinner and @electricboogaloo

Guys i swear it’s not that deep actually

582 likes, 218 retweets, 9 replies

sprinting to ur mom @everydayeveryhour
Replying to @electricboogaloo

honestly im more concerned about the laws being broken here like-

38 likes

olivia hehe teehee @lovetoremember

oh joy i am so excited to see how the press tour is going to proceed this cast has had their shit rocked left and right 😭 they can’t catch a break fr

8.2k likes, 2.1k retweets, 48 replies

andrew minyard @psugoalkeeper

i hope al-haitham and kaveh’s managers get paid overtime

9.4k likes, 3.6k retweets, 8 replies

☾

tighnari

[09:45] tighnari: have you been on social media at all this morning

[09:45] tighnari: who am i kidding, of course you have

[09:50] tighnari: where are you?

[09:53] tighnari: kaveh?

[09:58] tighnari: are you okay?

cyno

[10:01] cyno: I’m watching OLTS

[10:01] cyno: I really like that one side character who keeps making funny jokes

[10:01] cyno: He’s pretty relatable

tighnari

[10:05] tighnari: ok i’m looking into the leak right now

[10:05] tighnari: it seems to have been put up by someone called “pari9479472”

[10:05] tighnari: sound familiar?

[10:34] tighnari: dori is pretty pissed off

[10:38] tighnari: if it really was parisa, then that’s kind of fucked

[10:38] tighnari: but i also would not be surprised

al-haitham

[10:59] al-haitham: Call me when you see this

tighnari

[11:19] tighnari: i’m trying to get in touch with parisa’s representatives but all of my calls are going to voicemail

[11:21] tighnari: also maybe don’t go on twitter today… the people seem hellbent on flooding the tl with their theories about you and al-haitham

[11:21] tighnari: i’m thinking you perhaps don’t need to be seeing all of that right now

al-haitham

[11:26] you: for what?

[11:26] al-haitham: We should talk

[11:26] you: about what?

[11:27] al-haitham: Kaveh

[11:27] al-haitham: I need to talk to you

[11:27] al-haitham: Can we talk?

[11:27] you: if this is about the olts leak then it’s fine like what are we even supposed to do about it

[11:27] you: we don’t have to talk

[11:34] al-haitham: Are you free right now?

[11:34] al-haitham: I’m on my way to your apartment

✩

Al-Haitham stares down at his phone as his driver whips through the streets, feeling as though the hammering in his head is squeezing the space around his temples until it’s compressed to a sliver of the space he’s been allotted. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening, and yet it’s still happening, his Twitter timeline refreshing on its own just to show him the ceaseless outpour of varied reactions to the leak.

One Lifetime Too Short was meant to be buried in their past—unforgivable and unforgettable as it was, it was never meant to resurface—and the fact that people had been able to dig up information about it at all is making him turn. The fact that Parisa was undoubtedly the one to leak the movie is making his headache worse even when he closes his eyes against the bright snatches of daylight leaking through the tinted windows.

How did she even get a copy of the film? None of the cast were supposed to be able to get their hands on it, and yet—

It doesn’t matter. The movie is out there and there’s no getting it back, and that’s what Al-Haitham uses to calm himself, as contradictory as it sounds. Sometimes the most soothing thing to tell yourself is that there’s no turning back the past, so the best thing to do is to prepare yourself for what’s to come.

But even a man as composed as Al-Haitham is susceptible to memories, and the memory of their messy aftermath is one of the worst on record. Terrible enough that it was best left tied up and neatly thrown away. But god, the memory—

“Kaveh,” Al-Haitham said, standing over Kaveh’s slumped over figure. “This posture is unbecoming of you. It’s bad for your back.”

“Leave me alone, Al-Haitham,” Kaveh said, tense. His voice was gritted. There was a crumpled flash of white in his left fist, the only lettering visible written in swooping gold over cardstock. The table was littered with evidence of the copious amount of alcohol he’s already consumed—and Kaveh was not known for taking his alcohol well. This was how Al-Haitham knew it was bad.

“I can’t do that,” Al-Haitham said, beginning to stack the glasses to clean up the mess. “You shouldn’t have drank this much. We have press to do starting tomorrow.”

“Fucking hell,” Kaveh muttered, venomous. “It’s not that easy for the rest of us mortals. You always make it seem like I’m not allowed to fall apart once in a while. I’m sorry that you always have a handle on your emotions and you could never understand what it’s like to need a drink or two.”

“You sound like an alcoholic,” said Al-Haitham sharply. “And no, you’re not allowed to fall apart. You’re an actor. You’re always on camera. It’s part of the job.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kaveh asked, finally rising only to squint up at Al-Haitham with a glower so intense it’d phase anybody who wasn’t Al-Haitham. “Were you dropped on the head as a child? Do you ever feel any emotions? Any sympathy? Did your mother love you right when you were little?” Something about the last statement made Kaveh stumble because he stopped to recollect himself, swallowing as his fist clenched tighter around the mysterious piece of paper in his hand. “I did not become an actor to trade away being a human, Al-Haitham, even if that part comes easy to you. God, you never had to act all along, did you? You’ve spent your entire life pretending to have real emotions.”

Real emotions. It was ironic that Kaveh said that, considering how Al-Haitham felt about him. Considering the things he and Kaveh had shared with each other over the course of filming, becoming closer and closer until intimate wasn’t an adequate enough term to describe their relationship.

“It seems to me that you have a difficult time keeping a handle on reality.” Al-Haitham continued stacking the glasses and shoving aside sticky napkins and amber residue. “The only issue that you take with my bluntness is that nobody else gives it to you straight. You can’t run to a puddle of alcohol because eventually you’ll hit the bottom of the glass, and the only thing you’ll have to face is your own goddamn reflection.”

Kaveh didn’t respond.

“Pay your tab and let’s leave,” Al-Haitham said, turning to walk away. “Like I said, we have an interview tomorrow morning and—”

He didn’t even turn halfway before Kaveh caught up with him, shooting out of his seat to grab him by the collar and pull him close, anger twisting his scowl and making his eyes go from red to deep, dark blood. “We don’t have an interview tomorrow morning. I’m not going. I’m not sitting next to you any longer and taking all the shit you give me. I can’t do this anymore.” He spoke slowly, every word turning on its foot to twist deeply into Al-Haitham’s torso. “Do you hear me, Al-Haitham? We’re not even friends anymore.”

“Don’t be a fool, Kaveh,” Al-Haitham said, and the next thing he knew, Kaveh was shaking him, once and rough, hard enough that he had to blink and shake off the sudden shock of it. His mouth fell open unconsciously. Ridiculously, instead of feeling the tight grip of Kaveh’s fingers on his collar or the blood rushing to his head, the only pain Al-Haitham felt was the contracting deep in his chest.

“A fool?” Kaveh growled, now so close to Al-Haitham that their noses could touch. It was nothing close to intimate, though. Kaveh was spitting anger, fire leaping from his fingers, and Al-Haitham never had it in him to be the person who could make Kaveh better, only the one who stoked the flames. Gasoline poured straight into the roots until Kaveh burnt up into nothing. “I’m the fool? Al-Haitham, you’re an actual fucking idiot if you think we can make it past this. One Lifetime Too Short was too ambitious from the get-go. You have to face the fact that we weren’t up for the challenge. And I am certainly not going to let all of the mind games get to me. We aren’t friends.”

“Why?” Al-Haitham said. His arms laid limp at his sides; part of him wanted to unpeel Kaveh’s fingers from his collar, even as they trembled, but the other part of him somehow knew that this was the last time Kaveh would ever touch him, and so they stayed. “I don’t understand.”

For some reason, a wave of hurt passed through Kaveh’s eyes, and he stepped back an inch, only slightly. “We can’t. We just can’t.”

Al-Haitham’s eyes shifted to the crumpled piece of cardstock left on the table, the corner of an envelope peeking out of Kaveh’s pocket. “Does this have anything to do with whatever is written on that paper that set you off?”

“I don’t know why you think you know anything,” Kaveh gritted, all teeth.

“You know why I believe that?” Al-Haitham bit out, so abrupt and sharp that Kaveh’s eyes widened and his fingers loosened. “Because I spent all of these months filming beside you, Kaveh, fourteen hour days and nights spent over at your apartment. Memorizing your laugh and your smile and your tears because it was my goddamn job. We were co-stars. I knew almost everything about you, and you knew everything about me, so don’t stand there and lie that I don’t know a thing about you.”

The only thing Al-Haitham never got to tell Kaveh was that he was in love with him.

“We were co-stars,” Kaveh whispered. “It was a job. And now it’s over. We’re not friends anymore.”

The next inhale Al-Haitham took prickled all the way down as if swallowing needles. “If it was just a job, then why does it hurt to hear you say this now?”

The surprise that took over Kaveh’s face was enough to get him to fully release Al-Haitham, stumbling back into the table, which he hit with a solid thud. Al-Haitham passed a hand over his face, looking to the side. “But you’re right. It is over.”

There was only silence, and then Kaveh’s torso turned to pick up the paper lying on the table. He shook it out, then showed it to Al-Haitham, but the creases were severe enough that he could only make out the calligraphy on the front. “My mother’s getting married,” he said dully, “to a man I never even knew about who she met in Fontaine. I just got the invitation.”

“Congrats on your sorrow,” said Al-Haitham, straightening his collar and standing up straight to look down at Kaveh, who seemed to have shrunk in the time since their confrontation began. “But it was never my problem to bear.”

Kaveh’s expression pinched off, and he turned completely, tucking the invitation into his pocket. “Goodbye, Al-Haitham. Tell Dori that I’m off the project. I’m not doing press and I hope to god that movie never premieres. Archons, this is why we can’t be friends. You never seem to understand.”

“I know,” Al-Haitham said, the last words that he said to Kaveh for five years, and he strode off, unaware of the fact that somebody had been silently filming them the entire time.

If there was one thing to be said about the media, it’s that they were relentless.

Of all things to forget, this had to be the worst, and Al-Haitham didn’t even have the excuse of being caught in his emotions to explain why he let somebody film their fight. What was it that he said to Kaveh? You’re an actor. You’re always on camera. It’s part of the job.

It was difficult to forget now that the articles about him and Kaveh were scrolling across his screen, each appearing as fast as the last.

One Lifetime Too Short stars Al-Haitham and Kaveh spotted in physical confrontation inside bar

Emotional or violent: Kaveh’s temper questioned after video of scuffle emerges

A side of Kaveh we have never seen before: was it all an act this entire time?

His vision blurred, feeling lightheaded as if he’d moved too quickly even though he hadn’t moved since the articles broke out. He felt nauseous looking at them, and he wasn’t even the target of the news this time. It was Kaveh.

Kaveh. Al-Haitham couldn’t even imagine what Kaveh must have felt at the moment, but when he pulled up his number, the contact sitting at the top of his recents list, the call went straight to voicemail. He stared at it, disoriented.

His phone began to vibrate a second later, and he connected the call without checking the contact, hope rising in his chest only to fall when the voice on the other end turned out to be Cyno.

“Al-Haitham,” said Cyno. Al-Haitham had never heard him sound so grave in his career, and he’d been representing him since he was first scouted. “I assume that you’ve seen the headlines.”

“Yes,” Al-Haitham said distractedly, putting Cyno on speaker and navigating to his messages. There was a pause while he typed frantically—but every text that he sent to Kaveh wouldn’t go through.

“Al-Haitham,” Cyno said again, and this time his voice was tinged with sorrow. “There’s bad news about Kaveh.”

“I saw,” Al-Haitham replied, still going through his phone. Giving up on his texts with Kaveh, he switched to Instagram only to find that Kaveh’s profile was deactivated.

“There’s more,” Cyno said, “Al-Haitham, Kaveh was blacklisted from the industry.”

Al-Haitham stilled. Everything around him stopped—if he was dizzy before, everything moving at hyperspeed until he felt as if he was going to be sick, then now it was lagging, the seconds tearing at his skin as they passed. “What?”

“Dori’s upset that he pulled out of press after the budget has practically been spent,” Cyno said. “Everything left was saved for the press tour, but she lost millions on the project, and he’s been unreachable since the news broke. Since last night, actually, which is when I assume you two fought. She’s getting her revenge by making sure that nobody else hires him, and it doesn’t help that the media is making it out as if he’s a violent person past his angelic image. She’s spinning it as if he’s the type of person to hit his co-stars and nobody has been able to do anything until it was put online. He’s essentially been canceled.”

“I,” said Al-Haitham. He went to his email next, typing out a message to Kaveh that came back undelivered. “I can get Kaveh to take it back. He has to do One Lifetime Too Short. And the media, we can repair his image if he apologizes and we make a public appearance—”

“Are you even able to reach Kaveh, Al-Haitham?” Cyno said. “Tighnari hasn’t been able to, and he’s his manager. Kaveh blocked him everywhere, and all the rest of his accounts have been taken down or deactivated. Tighnari went to his apartment, but the place is completely vacated. He left all his stuff, so he’s going to camp out a bit and see if Kaveh returns, but he has a feeling that he’s not going to because he took all his documents. Do you know how to get into contact with him?”

Al-Haitham sucked in a breath of air so sharp that it chilled on the way down, turning his insides so cold that it felt as if his blood was slowing. “No,” he said, tasting all of the words as if they were metal. “I don’t.”

There was a minute of silence before Cyno spoke again. “On the bright side, you’re the media’s darling right now. They’re forgiving you for being blunt to reporters and in interviews because they’re speculating that you were abused or something along those lines. The video is quickly gaining traction, and your name is the most searched—”

“It doesn’t even matter.” Al-Haitham cut him off. “I’m not going to celebrate that my reputation is doing well because Kaveh’s is being trampled upon.”

“So what are you going to do?” Cyno asked quietly.

“If Dori won’t budge—and I know she won’t because she’s a money greedy asshole,” Al-Haitham said, “then the only thing that I can do is pay the media for rights to the video and for them to retract all their statements. If we can do that quickly enough, then we can salvage the situation as best as possible.”

“That’s not going to stop Dori from blacklisting Kaveh,” Cyno pointed out.

“But it’ll rid the Internet of the videos and the headlines. That means that there’s still hope for Kaveh in other jobs, or possibly even if he still wants to pursue acting.”

There was a hefty stillness as Cyno went silent on the other end and Al-Haitham stared to the ceiling, willing the world to pick up at the right pace again—not too fast or too slow, but normal, ordinary, the way it was two days ago before Kaveh got the wedding invitation and while he would still smile at Al-Haitham as if he might love him one day in the future.

“Where will you even get the money for that?” Cyno asked eventually.

“Where do you think?” Al-Haitham replied, smiling thinly. “I don’t need Dori’s dirty money anyway. Use all of it to clear the headlines and to delete the video. I’ll make the money back some other way, but Kaveh can’t recover from this any easier than I can.”

“That’s millions of mora,” Cyno said urgently. “Al-Haitham, think about this for more than five minutes and—”

“I don’t want to see a single penny from that project,” Al-Haitham said, and then he cut the call.

☾

If Kaveh tries hard enough, he can somewhat recall the event that was Faranak’s wedding: the drive to the Sumeru airport, walking past the check in lines because he carried nothing with him other than a flimsy backpack, the flight over in all of its sticky, leg cramp-inducing awfulness with nothing to keep him company save for the window he spent the entire time sleeping against. He took the aquabus from the Fontaine airport to the city, and when the tourist couple sitting next to him on the ride started squinting just a little too closely, he tightened his face mask and lowered his face and desperately took breaths to calm the rapid beating of his heart.

He doesn’t remember much of the actual affair, just that his mother was waiting outside for him at the hotel. When she saw him, her eyes brightened, and she walked over to him and enveloped him in the first hug he received from her since before his father died. And then he met Henri, too, and it was clear what was going on: they were in love, and they were about to be married, and Kaveh could not do anything about it even if he wanted to.

He was happy for his mother. He really, truly was.

But he also left as soon as it was over, so. There’s that.

The first thing he did upon his return to Sumeru was unblock Tighnari’s number and then beg him to not say anything to Al-Haitham or the others. It was fine. Tighnari worked for him before he worked for anyone else, and the two of them truly did become friends through the filming of One Lifetime Too Short.

He didn’t learn about his blacklist until three years later, after he finally talked himself back into going for auditions just to be slapped right in the face. And that hurt. That hurt a lot, but there was also nothing he could do about it. So he kept moving, kept trying, kept standing back up again and again.

And then, after two years of failing at securing major roles, Tighnari appeared before him with news that coveted director Furina de Fontaine wanted an audition tape from him for her upcoming Hallmark rom-com. Kaveh remembers the shock that ran through him after receiving the script in his inbox, but apparently Furina had noticed him in one of the small roles he was able to get on a television drama exactly two people watched. And she wanted him in her movie. She didn’t care about what Dori said, clearly, considering she also somehow managed to get Al-Haitham of all people on board. Which, by the way, Kaveh still doesn’t know how she did that—

Just then, there’s a knock on Kaveh’s apartment door.

He peels his eyes forcefully away from his phone screen, where he had been scrolling and scrolling through the dozens of hashtags and trending posts online. The entire region is watching One Lifetime Too Short right now. The entire region is talking about it, tweeting about it, posting about it. And Kaveh can do nothing but sit in his apartment and ignore his piling messages and try fruitlessly to block out the rest of the world.

Another knock, this one more urgent. Kaveh knows who it is. He knows it’s Al-Haitham. He doesn’t want to deal with Al-Haitham right now—or ever, really—but he also knows that Al-Haitham is not going to leave until he sees Kaveh and talks to him about whatever the hell it is he wants to talk to him about. So. There’s that.

So Kaveh gets out of bed, trudges to his front door, and swings it open.

Al-Haitham is standing there, his fist raised, poised and ready to knock once again. Like this, his knuckles are hovering right by Kaveh’s forehead, and when Al-Haitham sees him, they stand like that for a few moments before he brings his hand down and knocks it against Kaveh’s eyebrows.

Kaveh’s eye twitches. “What.”

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham, straightening. “Can I come inside?”

“No,” says Kaveh. “You can’t.”

“Are you sure?” says Al-Haitham. He tilts his head meaningfully out into the hallway, and Kaveh can’t help but grimace. He knows Al-Haitham well enough to know that he will very much be okay with airing out all of their personal business right here and now, where any passerby could listen in on them.

So Kaveh’s jaw tightens, and he says, “Fine,” before moving an inch aside and glaring at Al-Haitham’s side profile as he weasels his way into his living room.

He watches as Al-Haitham looks around for a moment, his eyeline moving from the kitchen to Mehrak in her cage in the corner. When it finally lands back on Kaveh, he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and Kaveh is struck with the realization that Al-Haitham is acting awkward.

“Okay,” says Kaveh, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re here. You’ve successfully interrupted my bed rotting. Tell me what you want and let's get this over with.”

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham again, and, god, he really needs to stop doing that. He needs to stop saying Kaveh’s name and appearing out of nowhere and digging through their past and bringing it forth and plastering it on his face and turning Kaveh into some bloody fool. “Did you watch it?”

“Did I watch it?” Kaveh echoes. “Why the fuck would I watch it, Al-Haitham? Do you think me someone quite prone to self sabotage?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

Every word dies in the back of Kaveh’s throat. “What I want is for you to leave me the hell alone.”

“I did leave you alone,” says Al-Haitham. He takes a step forward, and then another, and with every second Kaveh feels as if someone is reaching into his gut and squeezing it to pulp. “I left you alone for five entire years, and now I’m starting to wonder if that was even the right decision.”

“It’s too late,” Kaveh shoots back immediately, blood rushing to his face and filling the tips of his ears. “Are you—you can’t just fucking say that to me right now, okay? You can’t just go through all of this with me and then show up on my door after all of this time and tell me that you actually might fucking regret the aftermath of what happened to us.”

“You never gave me any room to regret it,” Al-Haitham says immediately. He takes his third step forward, and like this, they’re so close that Kaveh can feel Al-Haitha’s breath fanning across his face. “You disappeared, Kaveh. What was I supposed to do? Leaving is what you wanted, and you did it, so who was I to try and change your mind?”

“You were my best friend!” Kaveh exclaims. “What do you mean, who were you to try and change my mind? You were the only one who had the right to try.”

Al-Haitham lowers his gaze. “Would it have worked?” he asks.

Kaveh stops. “What?”

“Would it have worked?” Al-Haitham asks again, looking up, meeting his eyes. “If I had tried to stop you, would it have worked?”

“I…” Kaveh’s throat snags with how dry it turns, and he’s staring at Al-Haitham as if he’s never seen him before. “I don’t know.”

Al-Haitham’s expression settles into a thin line. Then he says, “Why did you really leave?” and immediately all of the air leaves Kaveh’s lungs.

The teal of his eyes are dark, hard as they burn through the space between them. He’s looking at Kaveh in a way he’s never looked at him before, jaded, guarded, like nothing Kaveh says will affect him. Like he’s spent his entire life building up to this moment, preparing for Kaveh to hit the final blow and exit his life forever.

Kaveh’s eyes fall shut.

Why did you really leave? Because I was in love with you. Because I was scared of losing you. Because my mother’s wedding invitation reminded me that nothing is static, that life is one fucked up train track after the other, that one day everything can stop and vanish completely out of sight.

Al-Haitham’s voice comes again: “Don’t you think I deserve to know?”

“You already know,” Kaveh says softly.

“Really?” says Al-Haitham, and when Kaveh looks at him again, he sees that he’s somehow shifted even closer to him. “Kaveh, do you know why all the press about that video of us in that tavern just suddenly disappeared out of nowhere? Did you really never wonder about that?”

It catches Kaveh off guard. If he’s being honest, he hasn’t thought about it very deeply in all five years. He assumed Dori did something to fend away all the rumors, but now that he’s looking back on it, all press is press, even the bad. And Dori isn’t the type of person who would think about her actors very much, and she especially would not think about them if it meant she had to shell out thousands and thousands of mora to release them from the blight of scandal.

No. Dori wouldn’t do it. And there isn’t any reason for the press to suddenly drop the case like that either. Not unless…

His jaw goes slack. “No.”

Al-Haitham stares at him.

“You didn’t,” Kaveh says. His eyes widen. His breath catches in his throat. “I know you didn’t. You would have told me if you did that.”

“How would I have told you?” says Al-Haitham.

“I—I don’t know,” says Kaveh, shaking his head. “No, that. That doesn’t make any sense. Where the hell would you get that kind of money from? I know your grandmother left you a sum, but it’s not…it wouldn’t be enough to pay them off just like that. Don’t just…don’t just make shit up to prove your point to me or whatever. I thought you were…I thought you were better than that—”

“I used the money from the movie,” Al-Haitham interrupts. “I’m not trying to prove a point to you. I’m just telling you what I did.”

“What the fuck?” Kaveh spits. “Al-Haitham, that’s millions of mora, you can’t just—”

“Funny,” says Al-Haitham. “Cyno said something similar to me at the time.”

“Cyno?” Kaveh’s head is spinning. “Then did Tighnari—”

“No,” says Al-Haitham. “I told Cyno not to tell anyone. Even Tighnari.”

“I…” It doesn’t make any sense. Why the hell would Al-Haitham do that? He had no reason to. He wasn’t the one being implicated in that fucking video, it was all on Kaveh. Al-Haitham isn’t the one who lunged at Kaveh, and Al-Haitham isn’t the one who had to deal with the backlash of everything that came out of it. Al-Haitham had…he had no incentive. He wouldn’t do something like that for Kaveh simply out of the goodness of his heart. He wouldn’t shell out the money he earned from One Lifetime Too Short just to make Kaveh’s life the tiniest bit easier.

“Kaveh, I can practically hear you thinking,” says Al-Haitham suddenly, and it snaps Kaveh out of his thoughts so violently his neck jerks with how he turns back to look at his face.

“Why did you do it?” he asks before he can stop himself. “Al-Haitham, you need to tell me why you did that right now.”

Al-Haitham’s gaze falls from Kaveh’s eyes. “Tell me why you left first.”

Kaveh flinches. “I told you, you already know.”

“We were friends,” says Al-Haitham, and then, “No. We were best friends. I wasn’t under the impression that people who are best friends with each other suddenly stand up and disappear out of nowhere. You could have talked to me. But you didn’t. And I want to know why.”

God, why couldn’t have he been here to just talk about the stupid fucking leak instead? That conversation would have been infinitely easier. That conversation wouldn’t have them so close to each other like this, and it wouldn’t have Kaveh feeling like he’s being backed up against the Great Wall of Liyue. How the hell is he supposed to get out of this? He can’t tell Al-Haitham the real reason. He can’t do that to himself—

“Kaveh, tell me,” says Al-Haitham. “And I’ll tell you why I paid the media off back then.”

They’re so close. They’re so close. If Kaveh just tilts chin a little upward, and he leans just a bit forward, then he’ll—

“I,” he starts, then stops, because Al-Haitham is moving too, towards him. It’s like he’s being pulled by a lever. It’s like he’s the sun and Kaveh is the western sky.

He lifts his hand and his fingers ghost Al-Haitham’s jaw, and immediately, like a switch, something in the air shifts. Al-Haitham’s eyes darken in Kaveh’s periphery, but he can barely see them. He inhales shakily as his grip tightens, and then suddenly, there’s a weight on his backside and he’s being pulled impossibly closer and Al-Haitham is kissing him.

Al-Haitham is kissing him.

Kaveh’s brain malfunctions. He breaks away.

Al-Haitham’s eyes are red. When he sees them, Kaveh sucks in a breath and says, “Oh.”

Al-Haitham’s hands are trembling as they come up to cup around Kaveh’s face, gently framing him. “Kaveh.” He says his name like a prayer. “You kissed me.”

Kaveh opens his mouth to dispute him, to say no, you kissed me first, but it doesn’t matter. Al-Haitham’s grip is still shaky, and he’s looking at Kaveh the same way Kaveh’s been looking at him in his head for all of five years.

“Al-Haitham,” he says suddenly, impulsively, because he just kissed Al-Haitham, and Al-Haitham just kissed him back, he kissed him back— “I left because I was in love with you.”

Al-Haitham freezes.

“I was in love with you,” Kaveh says again, louder this time, firmer this time, “I was in love with you and you didn’t…I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t do that to myself. It was our first movie together, and I didn’t want—you were destined for stardom, Al-Haitham. You know that, don’t you?”

“So were you,” Al-Haitham whispers.

“I wanted to talk to you,” says Kaveh. “I did. I promise I did. I was so drunk that night, and you—I wanted to apologize for it, but the video had just been posted everywhere. The video was—it was crazy. Al-Haitham, it was fucked up. I would have killed you if you defended me and ruined your career for it and I didn’t know what else to do so I just…”

“Left,” Al-Haitham quietly finishes for him. “You just left.”

Kaveh nods. He takes a deep breath. “You didn’t need my name attached to you.”

Al-Haitham lifts Kaveh’s face in his hands. He thumbs under his eyes and says, “I have never, even once, cared about my name or my reputation. The only reason I never chased after you and found you is because I thought you wanted nothing to do with me anymore. That that’s why you left.”

Kaveh’s heart breaks as he thinks of an Al-Haitham five years younger staring at his phone and having every single one of his texts and calls going to a dead end. He shakes his head.

“No,” he murmurs. “That’s not why.”

“Kaveh,” says Al-Haitham and then he bends forward and kisses him right on his open mouth, closes his lips around his and slides his hands down until they’re pressed to the top of his neck. He pulls him closer, and closer, and closer, and when he breaks away, it’s only to say, “I love you. I’ve loved you. I loved you too, back then, and I loved you for all of the years in between.”

Kaveh’s heart is racing against an imaginary clock. “Al-Haitham, I’m sorry—”

Al-Haitham cuts him off by kissing him again. “I never thought that—” Again. “You would feel the same way—” Again. “Kaveh, I took this project for you.”

Kaveh inhales sharply into the next kiss, and as he lingers in it, his mind falters.

He pulls away. “What?”

“I took this project for you,” Al-Haitham repeats. “Cyno didn’t even show me the script for (Un)Lucky In Love at first because he knew there was no way I would want to audition.”

Kaveh swallows.

“It was only after I heard that you were being considered for Reza,” Al-Haitham continues, “that I sent in my tape.”

“Al-Haitham, you’re insane,” says Kaveh. “You’re absolutely batshit crazy.”

“It was a high risk high reward situation,” says Al-Haitham, ignoring him. “I really thought you would pull out once you heard I was going to be cast for Zayan.”

“I did consider it,” says Kaveh, nodding slowly. “Deeply.”

“But you didn’t in the end,” says Al-Haitham quietly.

“No,” says Kaveh. He exhales. “I didn’t. It was…I was blacklisted. Remember? It was the only major role I’d received an offer for in half a decade. I couldn’t just leave it, no matter who my co-star was going to be. I couldn’t do that to my baba.”

“I’m glad,” says Al-Haitham, his voice hoarse. “I’m glad you didn’t pull out.”

“I’m glad I didn’t either,” says Kaveh softly, and as Al-Haitham pulls him in again, he finds that he means it with everything in him.

✩

“So like,” Kaveh begins before cutting himself off and clearing his throat. When Al-Haitham looks over at him, he has an expression on his face that vaguely suggests constipation. “We are, um. Boyfriends, yes?”

“I would certainly hope so,” Al-Haitham says drily. “I wouldn’t do this with just anybody.”

By this he means the fact that they’ve graduated from standing in the middle of Kaveh’s living room to now sitting huddled on his couch, Kaveh wrapped all over Al-Haitham like a kind of koala. He has his arms hooked around Al-Haitham’s torso, his head leaning against his shoulder, and they aren’t doing anything in particular, Al-Haitham only absentmindedly stroking his thumb against Kaveh’s thigh.

It’s as if they’re taking the moment to soak in every moment of physical contact that they’ve missed out on in the past five years, even if Al-Haitham swears that he isn’t a clingy person. Maybe it’s just that there hasn’t been anybody that he’s been willing to attach to besides Kaveh.

He can’t say that much, though, especially when he glances at Kaveh out of the corner of his eye and finds that he’s turned fully tomato red. When Kaveh sees that Al-Haitham’s noticed, he groans and buries his head further into Al-Haitham’s shoulder. His reddening ears betray him.

“You make it sound like something so exclusive when we’re just cuddling,” Kaveh’s muffled voice says. “Does this count as cuddling? You know, I haven’t really been with anybody in quite a bit. I’ve had difficulty, you know, processing things. In general.”

“I couldn’t tell,” says Al-Haitham sarcastically.

“Fuck you,” Kaveh returns immediately. He resurfaces from Al-Haitham’s shoulder, grumpily twisting around so that they’re more comfortably entwined again. “I guess what I mean to say is that I haven’t really done this dating thing in a bit.”

“I’ve never dated,” Al-Haitham says, looking up to the ceiling. When he glances to the side, Kaveh is gaping at him. “What? I’m certain you know this about me.”

“I mean, I guess,” Kaveh says, for some reason flushing again. “That just puts more pressure on me to be a good first everything, and I’ve already fucked that up.”

“Well, yes,” says Al-Haitham, leaving Kaveh spluttering. “We both did. But I came back, didn’t I?”

Kaveh is silent for a moment, and then he laces his fingers through Al-Haitham’s hand. “Yeah. You did. God, I know you don’t care so much for the symbolism of certain rituals and such, but I wish that we could properly go out on a date. Do all the stereotypical things, get a reservation at a nice restaurant, dress up nicer than usual, catch a movie and make out in the back like horny teenagers. But we’d have to worry about being seen by the paparazzi. Fuck, that feels like such a celebrity thing to say, doesn’t it? First world problems, I guess. But a problem nonetheless.”

There’s a restaurant fifteen minutes away by car that Al-Haitham would have liked to take Kaveh to. He knows that Kaveh would love the food, knows exactly what they’d order and which dish Kaveh would like the best, that he would enjoy the dessert but Al-Haitham would like its taste best when kissed off of Kaveh’s lips, how they would both fight over the bill and bicker over that on the way out, hopefully because Al-Haitham had won the scuffle. That they would inevitably be photographed, but they would be good pictures, good lighting, Kaveh’s wide smile and their hands entwined for the entire world to see.

Al-Haitham starts. “Kaveh, are you worried about people knowing about One Lifetime Too Short , or are you more so worried about the media?”

Kaveh tilts his head. “I’d love to finally have the chance to tell my side of the story for good, I guess. It just feels troublesome—I mean, look what Tighnari and Cyno have gone through—”

“That’s their job,” Al-Haitham says, cutting him off. “They’re forced to deal with us because we pay them an exorbitant amount to clean our messes. If you’ll excuse me.”

He stands, and Kaveh watches him with wide eyes, arm slightly lifted in the air. “Al-Haitham?”

“I’ll see you soon,” Al-Haitham says, already stepping away, and then he looks back, letting the corner of his mouth lift. “I promise.”

𖡎

al_haitham ✓ on Instagram

[slide of photos with a large block of text, reading:

“Hello, everybody. I would like to address the rumors around One Lifetime Too Short, Kaveh, and I. While we intended for the project to get swept under the rug, since it has been resurfaced without our consent, that no longer seems to be a possibility. Both Kaveh and I played a part in why the film was never aired. While this remains personal, it had a public impact because of videos that shed Kaveh in a particular light to spark controversy. The videos remain to be misunderstood. Following the clip, strings were pulled behind the scenes that negatively impacted Kaveh’s career, and the film was flushed. It was a decision that does not lie fully on Kaveh’s shoulders, and as such I would appreciate it if further commentary avoids doing so. While I believe that everybody deserves transparency, I must ask that we are allowed to retain some privacy, especially with issues that concern our friends, families, and personal lives. One Lifetime Too Short was a project that we as a crew put our full hearts into, and I regret that it never had the chance to be viewed in theaters. I also regret that it has come to a point where speculation has fallen unfairly to Kaveh, and I would like to reiterate that the blame does not lie on him. In regards to the illegal leak of the movie, the team is seeking legal action against the uploader. Out of respect for the cast, I ask that you cease sharing the film and spreading rumors about what went on behind the scenes, as nobody will truly know the full story. Thank you.”]

Liked by kaveh_actor, nilou_u, tighnari1229, and 2.7M others

al_haitham Thank you for reading.

COMMENTS HAVE BEEN DISABLED

slow it down @shesonly23

DID YOU ALL SEE THAT FUKCING INSTAGRAM POST???????

1.2k likes, 481 retweets, 73 replies

severed at claire’s @hellygf

kaveh: *gets unfairly slandered by fans*
alhaitham: not on my fucking watch

5.8k likes, 3.4k retweets, 38 replies

i hate htis @duanjiaxus

Ohhhh omg al-haitham cooked the fake fans… i truly don’t believe that kaveh is the evil person everyone is trying to make him out to be?? I feel like we can all come to our own conclusions without parroting what we see on reddit

84 likes, 3 retweets

the little lad @berriesandcream

MY THOUGHTS ON HAIKAVEH:
honestly, i believe what al-haitham said in his post. he’s right that we would never have known the full story just from a few seconds of blurry video, even if we can’t deny that kaveh seemed to be violent to al-haitham. but we don’t know +

3.4k likes, 1.2k retweets, 95 replies

REPLIES:

the little lad @berriesandcream
Replying to @berriesandcream

+ what else happened that night. maybe al-haitham said something to provoke kaveh? again, we really don’t know, but it’s not our place as fans to make up stories about what it could have been. the only thing we can do is support both of the actors because they’re going through a lot rn

2.7k likes, 948 retweets, 63 replies

han seojun MY endgame @seokyungs
Replying to @berriesandcream

i completely agree. a real ham will always listen to what al-haitham has to say, especially since he doesn’t always say a lot.

2.5k likes, 492 retweets, 58 replies

ashlyn @75degreethermostat
Replying to @berriesandcream

and i feel so bad that it got to the point that al-haitham felt obligated to make a post addressing it when we all know that the last thing he wants is more attention 🥹our poor baby

1.8k likes, 592 retweets, 41 replies

haitham’s left elbow @onlyonebed

let everyone take this as a lesson in the fact that we can’t fully trust what goes on in the internet!

10.4k likes, 5.2k retweets, 124 replies

foxes #1 @andreilenjoyer

GUYS I SWEARRRR TO FUCKING GOD THAT NONE OF THIS WOULD BE HAPPENING TO SUCH A DRAMATIC DEGREE IF ALHAITHAM ISNT IN LOVE WITH KAVEH

3.5k likes, 1.7k retweets, 69 replies

REPLIES:

in the day time… @immarinette
Replying to @andreilenjoyer

what can we do to get rid of you shippers

301 likes, 158 retweets, 5 replies

I miss Kaveh :( @hkvhist190
Replying to @immarinette and @andreilenjoyer

ummm… nothing?

794 likes, 391 retweets, 9 replies

jangkku come back to me @mubankduo
Replying to @andreilenjoyer

yeah no al-haitham and kaveh have to be in love or i’m eating a frying pan

1.3k likes, 582 retweets, 19 replies

i put eidolons in ur gepard @gepardmagnet

parisa is so cooked

8.3k likes, 3.6k retweets, 48 replies

REPLIES:

minor @corngirl
Replying to @gepardmagnet

roasted, even

5.7k likes, 2.1k retweets, 3 replies

nilou’s wife @ceoofgeo
Replying to @corngirl and @gepardmagnet

sauteed

3.8k likes, 1.2k retweets, 4 replies

what shld i hv for lunch @whatrtheoptions
Replying to @corngirl and @gepardmagnet

flame torched

1.1k likes, 1.1k retweets, 3 replies

hsr wiki @weenieweiner
Replying to @corngirl and @gepardmagnet

flambéed

1.8k likes, 1k retweets, 2 replies

constantly at 1 hp @vorebaseboosted
Replying to @corngirl and @gepardmagnet

pan fried

2.1k likes, 1k retweets, 2 replies

a bird @ravenscanfly
Replying to @corngirl and @gepardmagnet

held under a magnifying glass in direct sunlight at 1pm in the middle of summer

4.1k likes, 1.5k retweets, 3 replies

convo starters dot com @goaltoregret

This shit straight out of a fanfic istg

11.4k likes, 5.2k retweets, 48 replies

luma 🌟 @luminvies

#haikaveh | 11.8k, rated T

sooo i wrote a fic based on al-haitham’s latest instagram post… yeah… imagine the aftermath of al-haitham’s post…

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61882225

593 likes, 293 retweets, 11 replies

REPLIES:

ink 🌙 @moonsteps
Replying to @luminvies

what the fuck is wrong with you

27 likes, 1 reply

luma 🌟 @luminvies
Replying to @moonsteps

homosexual

41 likes

✩

As expected, after the ten minutes that it takes to get from Kaveh’s apartment to Al-Haitham’s place, Al-Haitham hears a vigorous knocking at the door.

The door swings open to reveal Kaveh, looking flushed and fevered and if he’d just ran the entire way here, even though that shouldn’t be possible. There’s no trace of sweat on his brow, but his chest heaves with the force of his breathing.

Al-Haitham leans against the doorframe and kicks one foot over the other. “What brings you here?”

“Don’t even pretend to be obtuse with me right now,” Kaveh says, and for a moment it flits across Al-Haitham’s mind that he almost sounds angry, but that’s before Kaveh reaches out with an impatient sound, grasps Al-Haitham by the face, and kisses him full on the lips.

Al-Haitham has no words, even if he were able to say them. Everything melts between the pressure of their mouths, his whole body going boneless. He can’t foresee a future wherein he gets used to this. Kaveh’s shoe toeing Al-Haitham’s own, the sweet scent of his breath, the small, hitched pant that he lets out when he pulls back to adjust the angle. Al-Haitham sucks against Kaveh’s lip until he thinks he’ll go mad, licks into his mouth before he comes back to himself.

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Kaveh says, leaning back. Everything is red now, not just his cheeks—well, his lips seem to be taking most of the brunt. Al-Haitham can’t help his eyes from drifting down to them. “Hey, my eyes are up here, idiot. Are you listening to me? You’re so fucking stupid and a bastard and utterly ridiculous and I really wonder how you got through media training without absorbing a single lesson because that was stupid, if I haven’t said it enough times, and I love you.” He blinks at the end of it, his breath coming out hot and heavy. “God, I love you. Can you—”

Al-Haitham cuts him off, this time with a kiss. He feels all of the pressure melt out of Kaveh’s body satisfactorily, his spine untensing beneath his broad hands. “Kaveh,” he says, and Kaveh just looks at him with a smile so wide and stretched that it makes him look a little bit like a fool. To his credit, Al-Haitham doesn’t even want to know what he looks like right now either. “Don’t you ever shut up?”

“Can’t you make me?” Kaveh taunts, and Al-Haitham dives back in for another kiss, doing just that.

𖡎

BREAKING: Actors Al-Haitham and Kaveh Confirmed to be Dating

Ellie S. | Burgeonburg News

After months of speculation, former (Un)Lucky In Love co-stars Al-Haitham and Kaveh have officially confirmed that they are dating through viral posts on their personal Instagram accounts.

Rumors about their relationship have been circulating since the press tour for their hit romantic comedy, where their undeniable on-screen chemistry (and off-screen tension) had fans dissecting every glance, interview, and red carpet interaction. However, both actors remained tight-lipped about the true nature of their relationship—until now.

Read more…

COMMENTS

hamful: HOLY FUCKING SHIT

hamsteroo: WHAT THE FUCK???

hammyham: LOVE IS FUCKING REAL GUYS AND AL-HAITHAM AND KAVEH ARE IN IT

hambalm: why did i just audibly tear up reading this oh my god my babies they deserve this so bad they’ve been through so much together and now they finally get to be happy

hampad: Wait what? The shippers were right?
↳ hamshark: always have been…….

hamtiger: ok what i am literally in shock right now

hamstick: OH MY FUCKING GOD THERE’S NO WAY

hamflower: HAIKAVEH IS REALLFSDKHSK HAIKAVEH IS REALLLLLLLL
↳ hamboybo: I FEEL SO FUCKING SICKKKKKK

hamloopy: ohhh the sumeru actor yaoi lore

hamterim: You guys better not be weird about them dating

hamwash: THANK YOU FURINA THANK YOU FURINA THANK YOU FURINA THANK YOU FURINAAAAAAAAAAA

hamberries: ZAZA IS REAL AND FUCKING CANON IN REAL LIFE TOO

hamingo: HAVE Y’ALL SEEN THEIR POSTS I WANT TO DIE THEY’RE SO CUTE

kaveh_actor ✓ on Instagram

[one photo: a selfie of Kaveh and Al-Haitham, Al-Haitham is looking sidelong at Kaveh, Kaveh is grinning and holding up his chinchilla between them, their faces squished together]

Liked by al_haitham, nilou_u, tighnari1229, and 5.3M others

kaveh_actor mehrak has 2 dads now!!!

COMMENTS:

al_haitham: Mehrak is a chinchilla
↳ kaveh_actor: ok and??? she is ur lawful daughter now
nilou_u: (//ω//) CUTIES
tighnari1229: finally
cy_yes: I cannot be chin-CHILL-a about this
soukokokokokoku: WHAT THE FUCK
hamstermind: ohhhhh my goddddd
k__y_s: HAIKAVEH IS CANON???
firstprincess: WHAT
james_st_clair: i’m going to die this is so fucking cute
fuguhikis: I KNEW IT
kempen.will: GAY PEOPLE WON
mmhyumilyyumily: I am clutching my 400k words of haikaveh rpf fanfiction to my chest and screaming at the top of my lungs

al_haitham ✓ on Instagram

[two photos: Kaveh sitting on his couch cuddling with Mehrak on his lap; Kaveh and Al-Haitham on the set of One Lifetime Too Short, Kaveh holding the hand of a little blonde girl standing next to them, Al-Haitham smiling down at her]

Liked by kaveh_actor, nilou_u, cy_yes, and 5.8M others

al_haitham Lucky to be in love

COMMENTS:

kaveh_actor: ur obsessed with me
↳ al_haitham: Unfortunately
nilou_u: awwwwww
cy_yes: I like the pun in the caption
tighnari1229: finally
↳ kaveh_actor: don’t you ever have anything actually nice to say
↳↳ tighnari1229: no
scaramouche: gross
cockalorum: WHAT DO YOU EVEN MEAN
aurnaur: HAIKAVEH IS REAL????
donya_mouse: is that kimiya i am going to kill myself
tifosism: al-haitham? you’re TAKEN? but what abt the promise we made to each other in my head?
ham_downtown: al-haitham and kaveh publicly announcing their relationship over instagram was not on my 2025 bingo card
yourmaternalfigure: AND YOU ALL CALLED ME FUCKING CRAZY. ALL OF YOU CALLED ME CRAZY
shortgirl14: OH MY GOD THEY WERE CHINCHILLA DADS

Notes:

THE END!!! \(^ヮ^)/

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL LUMINK DAY so we met irl for the first time in january and sat down in a restaurant and plotted this together. last year was angst and this year is COMEDY ("comedy")

me (ink): do you want to say anything particular in the end notes
luma: i want to say that
luma: I GUESSED THE WC WHILE U WERE DELUSIONAL AND THOUGHT IT WLD BE SHORT
me: SHUT THE FUCK UP

thank you thank you for reading!! we really hope you enjoyed 🩷💜 (lumink hearts)

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(un)lucky in love

luminvies, moonsteps

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