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chapitre7 · 2 months

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Oasis

แฟนผมเป็นประธานนักเรียน | My School President fanfiction

Tinn Tinnaphob Jirawatthanakul/Gun Guntaphon Wongwitthaya

3.7k words

on learning how to live without fear of loss

Read on AO3

“...n. Gun. Are you listening?”

Gun focuses back on his kitchen, his soggy instant noodles, and his boyfriend on the phone.

“Yeah. Of course. You—”

He hears a sigh from the other side of the line.

“Have you slept well since you got back? Are you eating well?”

He slouches on his chair. He can absolutely take care of himself.

“I can take care of myself, Tinn,” he says as much.

“I know you can,” says Tinn, his voice softer, a lot less like a doctor and more like the man he’s in love with.

Not that Gun minds doctor Tinnaphob. He loves him too. But he’s tired, and finally back home after a full month of promotions and concerts and public appearances, and his boyfriend is several miles away and he can’t be with him.

“I just don’t want you to sulk,” Tinn continues, as Gun slurps up some of his noodles. They’re not that bad.

“I’m not sulking. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be upset that I can’t attend my boyfriend’s first conference.”

“They’re grossly overrated, you know,” Tinn says, and from the breathy sound of his voice, Gun can tell that he just lied down on his hotel bed. He probably has a great view from his window. Gun can see a few skinny stray cats from his bedroom window sometimes, and they even look up at him when he makes sounds at them.

“I know I’m too stupid for them—”

“Gun—”

“—but I wouldn’t even make a sound in the audience! They’d let me in.”

“Gun, you’re not stupid. It’s just not your area, and that’s okay. You can sing flawlessly in at least four different languages.”

Gun pushes his bowl of soggy noodles away to lean both his elbows on the table and hide his face in his arms, as if it would help him with Tinn on the other side of the line.

“Yeah, but I don’t speak them. It’s just for the songs.”

“Baby,” Tinn says, and it’s unfair, because Gun is upset and he’s self-deprecating and Tinn’s voice is so sweet and he’s several cities away. “We can figure something out next time, okay? Don’t worry too much about it.”

“Okay,” Gun says, trying to sound like he’s not a seventeen-year-old anymore. And he’s not. He hasn’t been for some time now. It’s just...

“Will you tell me what’s really bothering you now?”

He really does wonder if Tinn can read his mind sometimes. Probably not. Would have made their dating in high school a bit different. Not too much, but a bit. Tinn still gets flustered when Gun professes his love for him, just like that day in the hospital, that many years ago, when he first told him he wanted to sing a song just for him. What would he have said if he could read all of Gun’s thoughts for him?

“I just want to be there for your accomplishments, that’s all,” he says, and Tinn is silent for a beat, and maybe he spoke too quietly, he does that sometimes, so he’s ready to rephrase it into something a bit... less when Tinn is speaking again.

“You are. Gun, you are there for me. You take care of me so much better than you take care of yourself that it honestly drives me a little crazy sometimes. But I’m really so— Gun, I don’t know if I’d have gotten here without you.”

Gun’s voice is muffled when he speaks next, as he tries to hide away further. “I do take care of myself.”

“You do,” Tinn says, voice crystal clear and kind, like the finest, perfect note of a tuned piano. “But I take better care of you just as you take better care of me, not because we owe each other but because it makes us happy to do so, hmm?”

Gun hums back, because it’s true. Tinn would have probably asked for takeout if they were both too tired to cook. Gun should have done that, damn it.

He wants Tinn back already, but he’s not selfish enough to say it.

“Do you ever get this upset when I can’t attend your concerts?”

He does get upset. But Tinn makes it to every concert he can, and by the time Gun sees him in the audience, he’s already forgotten those where Tinn had been absent.

“No,” he says, and means it.

“Do you feel I don’t support you enough? Be honest—”

“Tinn.”

“Gun.”

“I’d never feel that way. You know that, right?”

Tinn has to know. He has to. After all these years, all the times Tinn stayed up with him when he was scared about his future, anxious about failing, or just too damn wired about tomorrow to sleep and Tinn just listened, held him, looked over Gun’s papers and lyrics as if they were just important as all of Tinn’s books, how could Gun ever ask him to do more? He was already just quite...

Was everything too much to say?

“I know,” Tinn says, and he sighs again, and Gun feels the distance gets to him just as much. But Tinn knows, and it feels criminal that Gun can’t hold him about it. “So why would you feel that way about yourself?”

Gun hits his head against the table, and regrets it, because Tinn probably heard it.

“Because I’m dumb.”

“Gun. We have talked about this.”

“Okay, so I am sulking.”

He’s also pouting, and he almost wants to switch to a video call so he can throw it at Tinn.

“Is that just it though? You’re allowed to sulk, even if I’m not happy you’re doing it alone, but—”

“See? Now we’re both suffering from unimaginable unfairness.”

He huffs a laughter, and hears Tinn let out a chuckle from his side. The line goes quiet. There’s no sound coming from Gun’s closed windows, no music in the background, and Tinn’s breathing is quiet. Gun closes his eyes, his cheek against the table, and tries to imagine he’s lying on Tinn’s chest, so he can feel him breathe, more soothing than any lullaby.

“You should go to bed. You know mom doesn’t like it when you drive when you’re tired.”

Gun has to agree, picking himself up from the table and bringing his bowl to the sink.

“Yeah, okay.”

“I love you.”

Gun stops by the sink, turning the faucet off. He smiles at the unremarkable window in his kitchen, form which he can see only darkness at this hour.

“Sing me a song before you go.”

He hears a noise from Tinn’s side. It’s not exactly a snort or a giggle, but a very distinct noise Tinn makes when he’s embarrassed. It’s one of Gun’s favorite sounds in the world, but he just loves Tinn’s singing more. He loves those precious moments when Tinn trusts him with his voice.

“Okay. For my number one fan.”

Gun tries not to make any noise as he washes his dishes. Tinn is still singing by the time he’s in bed, calm and not quite as sulky, and his head finally quiet.

***

He’s at the sink when his mom asks, “So when are you going to spill it?”

“Huh?”

He doesn’t think he’s been planning on spill anything. His mom rolls her eyes at him, and he didn’t think he had done anything wrong just yet, he got there just two days ago?

“Whatever it is that’s bothering you so bad that I could see it the moment you walked through that door.”

Gun pouts, turning to look at the bowls in the sink, his hands still covered in dish soap.

He doesn’t want to lie, but putting his feelings into words has always been difficult for him, no matter how many songs he’s written in his career. It’s easier to sing his feelings out, to carry on for a few minutes, hit the high notes and then let them fade out. There’s hardly a follow up to that.

Gun’s not scared of talking about his feelings. The people he opens up to would never hurt him.

It’s the words themselves that struggle to form, heavy in his system like he can’t digest them.

Tinn has definitely noticed, but he’s been kind. Mostly because Gun hasn’t spent much time alone with him since he came back from his conference and joined Gun at the shop.

Gun looks over his shoulder, and sees Tinn at the register, putting his phone away and smiling when a customer arrives. He’s probably still tired, but too stubborn to rest while Gun is helping out at the shop. Gun has been counting the minutes until he snaps and kicks Tinn upstairs to lie the fuck down.

He turns his face back down at the sink, and says, “I talked about dad in a recent interview.”

He’s not looking at his mom but he can hear her coming closer, until he can see her in his peripheral vision. He keeps his eyes down.

“It was a good memory. I liked talking about him. It’s just...”

His mom doesn’t touch him or place an arm around his shoulders or hug him. She leans her hip against the sink and crosses her arms and looks closely at his face, even though he’s still looking away. If Tinn sees her touch him, he’ll know. He’ll be worried. Gun isn’t crying. He’s not even sad. He finds himself smiling, actually, just at the mention of his dad. But it fades away, dims like sunlight behind a curtain.

“I spend so much time away from Tinn and you and my friends now. Is it okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay, dear? You’re doing what you love, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he answers easily. “Yeah, but...”

“We understand, you know. We’re happy for you, and proud. Tinn sends me everything he can, I couldn’t possibly miss it.”

“It’s not that,” he says, and finally looks at her.

He used to have to look up to meet her eyes. Now there are pretty wrinkles at the corner of her eyes when she looks up at him, her favorite shade of lipstick still on her lips.

“What is it then?”

He turns on the faucet, and starts rinsing the bowls. Over the sound of the running water, he says, “I’m scared that any moment might be the last time I talk or see you.”

His mom doesn’t say anything. He keeps up with his mechanical task, pretending there are no tears in his eyes. When the last of the bowls and spoons are put away, his mom turns the faucet off. She touches his cheeks and wipes the tears before they fall, and then she brings her hands up to brush his hair, as if he’s still a disheveled teenager.

“You must have missed us very much.”

He nods, drying his hands on his apron and trying really hard to keep eye contact.

“You know, not many people have a home to come back to.”

Her eyes are on him, but she’s seeing something else. He can tell how long she spends there, looking past him and remembering him as well. He feels bad for it, but she doesn’t cry as much anymore. She doesn’t cry now.

“You need to go out there, and live out your career, eat well, sleep well when you can.” She unties his apron and pulls it over his head, patting down his clothes to get of any wrinkles. “And at the end of the day, or the week, or the month, you pick the safest way home, where we’ll be waiting for you.” She places her hands on his neck, the weight of them more comforting than any blanket. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes. Don’t ever rush it. Take your time. You don’t ever need to rush anything, dear.”

Tinn has definitely seen them by now. Gun tries not to move or give anything away. Even if Tinn will be able to tell. He can always tell.

“Don’t ever keep your fears to yourself, okay? Talk to Tinn. They’ll grow too big if you keep them to yourself for too long. And...”

She pats him on the cheek.

“You can’t always think about the end like that. If you think about the end all the time, you won’t get to live the middle, and wouldn’t that be terribly lonely?”

He chews on his lower lip, and finally looks down. His mom messes up the hair that she had just brushed into place moments ago.

“Take Tinn upstairs, he’s yawned more in the past hour than I’ve ever seen him do since I met him. Order some food, take a nap. I’ll close up soon.”

Gun nods at her, giving her a hug. She pats his back, her hand soothingly moving up and down, then moves back and shoos him away. Gun can’t help but chuckle.

He walks to Tinn and hopes his eyes aren’t too red. Either way, he doesn’t make a lot of eye contact before he’s saying, “And you’re done here,” moving to untie Tinn’s apron.

“But—”

“Boss orders, come on.”

He takes Tinn upstairs by the hand, assuming the lead. Once in his room — their room, every time they stay over — he tells Tinn to shower first, nodding along to his complaints, but nonetheless pushing him out of the room with clean clothes in his hands.

His room hasn’t changed much since he moved out. There are old clothes that still fit him somehow, as well as worn-out shoes that he should really put away. The bed is new, and bigger. The family portraits are still in the same place they have ever been, not a speck of dust on them. His old guitar sleeps in its case in the corner, and he makes a mental note to check which strings need to be replaced. Even though he hasn’t taken it to his new place, he doesn’t neglect it. There are too many memories in it. Bad times, good times. One song on a certain birthday, many years ago now.

Gun only notices he’s given his own clothes to Tinn when he walks back into the room. He puts his phone down and beckons Tinn over so he can dry his hair for him. He can see Tinn’s shoulders rising and falling as he sighs, not out of weariness, but like a cat, comfortable and pleased, right before it falls asleep.

“Mom said we should rest a bit. She’ll call us when dinner’s ready.”

Tinn hums before he says, “I’ll wait until you’ve done showering.”

Tinn’s habit of waiting for him even when he’s exhausted always fills Gun with both endearment and exasperation. He throws the towel to the side and wraps his arms around Tinn’s middle from behind, hugging him tightly. Tinn lets out a little oof just to be dramatic, but he places his hands over Gun’s and keeps them there.

Gun sits there, with his world in his arms, and his mind is in complete silence. He just touches his forehead to Tinn’s shoulder, closes his eyes and breathes in. Time doesn’t seem to be running out. It’s a standstill, and he doesn’t have to move or rush or be anything or be anywhere. He’s here. Tinn is here. Mom is here. Sound sent him a message in their groupchat earlier, and slowly, the orange afternoon will fade into a purple dusk.

Gun breathes. Tinn smells like lemons and clean clothes. He’s wearing his clothes. He’ll fall asleep in Gun’s arms if Gun doesn’t get up to shower, but then, just then, Gun keeps holding him.

Letting go of Tinn still sends a wave of uneasiness through him, but he’s spent a long time away from Tinn. And he needs sleep. Maybe if he wakes up by Tinn’s side later, he’ll feel content enough to remember that it’s not going to end. Not like this. Or any time soon.

“Wait,” Tinn says when he gets up from the bed, and Gun blinks as Tinn gently pulls him back to the bed.

Tinn gets up and walks to his suitcase. His clothes and possessions are always neatly organized, so it doesn’t take long until he’s found what he’s looking for.

At first, Gun is confused at the sheet of paper. It’s obviously from one of Tinn’s notepads, the ones Gun has constantly tried to get Tinn to retire because he could just use his tablet, for God’s sakes, but Tinn insists on using because he prefers writing by hand. And Gun, who writes all of his song lyrics in a notebook he keeps with himself at all times, can only roll his eyes at him.

He thinks it might be notes from Tinn’s conference, but once he starts reading, it’s clear they have nothing to do with medicine. It’s…

“I couldn’t sleep the first night,” Tinn says, “so I just… well…”

“Tinn,” Gun starts, then stops. He puts the sheet down and looks at Tinn, who’s fidgeting in a way Gun hasn’t seen in a long time. “Baby,” Gun starts again, touching Tinn’s wrist and gently pulling him to sit down by his side. “Did you write a song?”

“It’s for you,” Tinn says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world to admit. Gun stares. “I mean, I can’t really compose on my own, and I didn’t have a guitar with me, and it’s meant for you to sing, so I thought you could—”

“Tinn,” Gun repeats, and Tinn stops, looks at his eyes. “You wrote me a song?”

Tinn smiles, finally. A small, timid thing. Gun wants to cry and kiss him and hit him and kiss him and cry some more, all at once.

“Do you like it?”

Gun forces himself to look down at the sheet again. Tinn’s handwriting is a bit messier now, after years in med school, but he must have rewritten it until it was presentable for him. He looks at the words, at every meaning interwoven in them, about staying with him wherever they are, being his home, his comfort, his safe harbor. Despite everything and everyone and even after everything and everyone. I will always be…

Gun throws himself at Tinn, and they both fall over on the bed. He’s saying “I love it” and “I love you” in such quick succession and with such emotion but he’s not worried about Tinn understanding him because he will. He does. Everything, all the things Gun doesn’t say, even if Tinn doesn’t know completely, every worry and thought that crosses his mind, Tinn is there, keeping them all in a safe net. Keeping him safe. Until he can pick himself up again.

Gun clings to him until his breathing stabilizes again, and then Tinn is softly saying, “You should shower,” and he goes, because he doesn’t want to waste a minute more.

There’s already a melody in his head as he showers, as he gets dressed, as he climbs in bed with Tinn. Maybe by the time he wakes up again, the song will be fully formed, and Gun will be able to present it, however imperfect it may be, to his biggest loves, on the stage in his mom’s shop that means so much to them all.

“Gun,” Tinn says, voice heavy with sleep. Gum hums back, to signalize that he’s listening. “I can handle the shop tomorrow, you should go out with your mom.”

Without opening his eyes, Gun says, “If I can convince her to go out. But why do you say that?”

“It’s been some time since you came over. You should spend some time together. Don’t worry about anything else.”

Gun can feel Tinn’s chest moving up and down with his calm breathing as they hold each other close. His hand on Gun’s back is still lulling him to sleep with soothing motions. His leg over Gun’s is a welcome weight, one Gun misses to the point of ache when they’re apart.

Tinn shuts down all of Gun’s worries just by being himself. Didn’t he know? He should know. He should.

“We should all go out together,” he says.

To live in the middle, instead of the end.

“Do you think she’d like that?”

Gun snuggles impossibly closer, his nose brushing against Tinn’s neck.

“I do.”

One of them falls asleep first. Which one, it’s impossible to tell. Limbs, breathing, hearts — they’re all tangled together as one.

As for their tomorrows, only Gun would know. As long as he let them come, one after another, after another, after another, never once too scared to say, “I love you. Take care.”

As long as they share the same sky, his feet would bring him back to the ones he loves.

***

ต่อให้วันที่ฟ้าไม่เป็นใจ ต่อให้วันที่ลมหนาวเท่าไร

Even when the day the sky is not happy, no matter how cold the day is

ต่อให้เธอต้องเจอเรื่องร้ายๆ สักแค่ไหน

No matter how bad things have happened to you

ขอแค่เธอหันมา และไม่ว่าเนิ่นนานเท่าไร

I just want you to turn around, and no matter how long it be

และไม่ว่าเธอไม่มีใคร

And when you don't have anyone

จะมีฉันที่คอยดูแลเป็นที่พักใจ

You have me who'll take care of you as a place to stay

I will always be your Oasis

Patrickananda – Oasis

#My School President #oneyearofmsp #TinnGun #tinn tinnaphob #gun guntaphon #GeminiFourth #post-end

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chapitre7 · 3 months

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eye of the beholder

แฟนผมเป็นประธานนักเรียน | My School President fanfiction

Tinn Tinnaphob Jirawatthanakul/Gun Guntaphon Wongwitthaya

8k words

Rated M for sexual content

Crossdressing Tinn

An ode to queerness, beauty, freedom, truth and first love

For @silverquillsideas ❤ Happy birthday, beloved

Read on AO3

Gun thinks he misheard at first. Suddenly everything around him is too loud, both the sound coming from the speakers around the massive hall and the sound coming from those surrounding him. It’s Tinn that grounds him to the present; his hands on Gun’s neck and his lips covering his face with kisses.

He can only hear Tinn’s giggles because they share no space between them. He sees the joy reflected on Tinn’s face, radiant and honest and full of admiration and love. There’s no one Gun can read better than him, and among all the people that Gun has known and loved all these years, there’s no one whose thoughts and feelings are as transparent to him as Tinn’s. He feels like a winner for that smile alone, for the pride that Tinn so easily carries for him. He loves him so much. But he can only look at Tinn for a few beats, before his bandmates are pushing him off his seat and towards the stage.

“Um,” Gun starts at the microphone, but for the first time in many years, he’s at a loss for words. There are so many people he knows in the audience, and so many other people that he has only heard of, but doesn’t know personally. All the other artists in the category are also there, looking at him, waiting for his speech.

Desperate for an anchor, Gun searches the crowd until he finds Tinn. He’s smiling broadly, his beautiful teeth in full view, unlike the shy smiles so characteristic of him that Gun can see even with his eyes closed. The one dangling earring he’s wearing catches the stage lights in the single gem that balances at the end of the thin, gold chain that tickles down to his neck. His hair is tousled to the side unlike his usual style, and he fits right in with the artists in the room, charming and expensive. He’s mouthing something that seems like “Speak,” but Gun can only look at him, trophy in hand.

Gun thinks he might do something embarrassing like cry. Sound has an arm around his shoulders before that emotion is realized, and he’s lightly pushing Gun aside to talk into the mic and start their thank you speech.

Gun gazes back into the audience, his eyes naturally falling back on Tinn, as if magnetized.

He tries to think of who he wants to thank, of how to put his whole trajectory into just a few precious seconds without forgetting a single thing, but his whole mind is an ecstatic blank.

***

Singing had always been a passion, yes. Inherited, like the best of passions, the type that lasts longer than a teenage dream. Passion enough to make him ditch university when he started getting more gigs, and enough to last several changes in the lineup of his band. “I’m sorry, Gun,” so many of his friends had said before leaving to pursue more regular, tangible dreams. Some of them didn’t even apologize, but those weren’t his friends. Sound stayed, though. Despite his dreams being bigger than the stage Gun could provide him, Sound stayed.

And that’s how, on one night that had everything to go wrong, Gun met Tinn. Because Tinn wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for Sound, and Tinn wouldn’t have gone to Gun if Gun wasn’t a massive fucking idiot.

Who trips over their own equipment? Who sprains their ankle on the way down a stage?

Sound had already been drilling him about how little sleep he got every night, and the incident would make him no kinder. If he somehow had broken his neck on that fall, Sound would probably have looked for a way to resuscitate him just so he could kill him again. Gun was doing his best, but between anxiety, fatigue, too much caffeine and post-performance buzz, it was only a matter of time before something stupid happened. And like a self-fulfilling prophecy, it did. But then there was also —

In the middle of his embarrassing incident and cries, there was Tinn running up to him, all nerdy glasses and ironed clothes with angular patterns, saying, “Let me see, I’m a doctor.”

Sound had helped Gun sit down on the steps down the side of the stage and stood hovering around like an overbearing mother. Gun didn’t know where the rest of the band was, but given the bad mood they were in all evening, he wouldn’t be surprised if they had left altogether. Tinn was probably the first person Gun ever saw Sound look relieved upon seeing.

Tinn removed Gun’s right shoe delicately, and then his sock. His hands were cold but kind, moving Gun’s foot from one side to the other. He looked up when Gun made a pained sound, and that’s when Gun took a proper look at him. He didn’t think Tinn fit very well in that bar. He seemed too... neat for it.

“It doesn’t appear to be broken, but it’d be better to take an x-ray,” Tinn said then.

“But what if it’s broken?” Sound said, hand on Tinn’s shoulder. “It could be broken, right?”

“Nothing’s broken, I can stand just fi— ah!”

It’s interesting how memory works. More than the first touch between them — Tinn’s grip on his arms, keeping him from falling ungracefully back down — what comes to Gun every time he thinks about that moment is Tinn’s scent. Something floral, fresh but not extravagant, that Gun had never smelled before. The girlfriends he had had before had always smelled too sweet, and his bandmates all smelled identical, possibly the same brand of cologne.

Caught between pain and a boy who smelled really good, Gun’s mind was white noise. He looked up at Tinn but Tinn was looking at Sound.

“Help me take him to my car,” Tinn said, and Gun frowned, protested, but Sound sounded remarkably like Gun’s mother when he was nervous, so it was a battle lost before it even began.

Minutes into a car ride with Tinn, Gun said, “I’m sorry.”

“Hmm? What for?” Tinn asked him, while slowing down to a stop at a red light.

“For ruining your night. It’s still early but instead of enjoying your Friday night, you have to take the band’s stupid singer to the hospital.”

Tinn gave him a pretty smile and shook his head.

“I was only there for your band anyway. Sound invited me, I’m— Oh I’m sorry, I never introduced myself, did I?” He grimaced, and Gun couldn’t look away from all of Tinn’s little expressions that he could catch with the city night lights. “My name’s Tinn. I’m a friend of Sound’s.”

“Sound has friends?” Gun quipped, partly genuinely impressed and partly to see if it would make Tinn laugh. It did.

“I’m the only one, I’m afraid.”

“Sound has a doctor friend.”

“We go back to a time when I hadn’t made such big life decisions and he was a little cuter.”

“Must be before I met him then.”

They both laughed at that, the car shifting back into gear as the light turned green. Gun’s phone rang with the ringtone he set just for Sound, as if he could hear them. He picked it up and sent Sound short replies, quickly ending the call, and then muted his phone. He didn’t want to get stuck in a back-and-forth with Sound and get himself motionsick, but mostly, he wanted to focus on Tinn.

“I’m Gun,” he said after putting his phone down on his lap.

Tinn smiled before he said, “I know,” and Gun didn’t know why it made him feel shy. Gun was the leader and singer of the band Tinn had come to watch, and Tinn was friends with Sound, so it was only natural that he’d know who Gun was. Plus, Gun had been singing for many years at that point, so he had already met people who recognized him before. He could look at so many different people every day and not see them, but he was seen. Perhaps he even meant something to them, which was something he dreamed of.

But something about the way Tinn said it — confident and a little proud — made Gun pause. He wouldn’t really be able to put into words why.

Gun’s mother always said he was perpetually stuck at five years old when he got sick, and injured Gun wasn’t much different. He would have preferred to cling to Tinn as they entered the hospital so he could smell his perfume again — a normal thing to do to a guy you just met — but Tinn got him a wheelchair. Maybe Gun did pout about it, or maybe something else showed on his face as the wheelchair gave him an unpleasant, queasy feeling, because Tinn crouched beside him and said, “Don’t worry. I won’t be your doctor but I’ll stay here, okay?”

The LED streetlights cast Tinn in much clearer light than the neon lights at the bar and the partial darkness inside his car. Now that he didn’t have to move, that he was being so kindly gazed at, he could look at Tinn. At his dark hair styled away from his face save for a few strands falling near his left eye; the beauty mark under said eye; the touch of pink dusted high on his cheeks; and the sheer gloss over his lips when he smiled at Gun.

Why the fuck did Sound never introduce Tinn before?

***

“Ow, fuck, stop pinching me, Gun!”

Sound deserved it, even if he did help Gun into his apartment after Tinn dropped him off, and even after he helped Gun shower and dress back up. He rolled his eyes when Gun still glared at him from the comfortable bundle he made under his bed covers.

“Look, Gun, Tinn is— It’s annoying, okay!”

“What is? He is?” Gun frowned, having seen exactly zero things annoying about Tinn.

“No— well, yes, he can be, I just mean—” He huffed and Gun raised a perfectly skeptical eyebrow at him. “Look, Tinn was very quiet in middle school, and then in high school it was like— everyone wanted to talk to him, to whisper about him and get his attention. They’d leave him letters in his notebooks and backpack.”

“So you’re saying he’s too hot.”

“I’m saying he doesn’t like it,” Sound said, rummaging through Gun’s wardrobe for worn-out pieces he could wear. “Having all that attention, I mean. He ran for school president so it’d look good on his curriculum and he had girls following him home. And guys.”

“Oh.”

Gun liked attention, but he wouldn’t like anyone following him home.

“Yeah. So he doesn’t get out much. I’m taking this, by the way.”

“So how did you get him to come to the bar tonight?”

Gun picked at his cuticles on his left hand, curious as to why the question made Sound pause.

“He asked to come,” he said. He held Gun’s gaze for a few seconds before finally leaving with a, “I’m going to shower, good night.”

***

It turned out that Tinn, who didn’t like attention but wanted to watch Gun’s band play, was not so bad at texting. A few exchanged messages with Gun asking about his condition and then offering to accompany him to the hospital for another check-up turned into whole conversations, which led Gun to see him again.

“I can’t believe you just want me for my body,” Gun joked out when Tinn inspected his ankle himself, even though Gun had told him he was feeling much better and didn’t need another trip to the hospital.

Tinn’s response was a much more amused smile than Gun had expected, but Tinn couldn’t maintain eye contact without blushing.

“It was the music, at first, but I didn’t think you’d fall for me so easily.”

Gun could never really anticipate Tinn’s responses, it seemed. Sound had led him to believe that Tinn was just a shy nerd, but he was the one who initiated contact and kept it going. By all means his flirting was silly, but still Gun couldn’t help letting out a startled laugh, louder than he had anticipated, and it, coupled with Tinn kneeling before him in a simple neighborhood café, rendered them more than a few stares. He paid it absolutely no mind when he had Tinn at ease around him. Perhaps because he hadn’t met anyone new in a while, or perhaps because Tinn was so naturally charming, but he found that Tinn was a company that he wanted to keep.

He also wanted to kiss him senseless.

“Why didn’t you tell me Tinn was so cute?” he’d ask Sound.

“Don’t say that shit to me,” Sound would reply, making sure to increase the volume in his headphones, loud enough for Gun to hear, which could not be healthy but Gun valued his life enough not to comment on it.

And Gun did know Sound since he graduated high school and formed his first fraught band. Though Sound still had odd acting jobs during the day, he still met Gun for band practice during most of his evenings and he took every opportunity seriously. He wasn’t afraid of talking Gun out of slumps, because their drive to carry on, despite their difficulties, matched like letters in a scrabble board. Years passed, Sound stayed, they knew the code to each other’s homes, and still it took so long for Gun to meet Tinn.

Not that he blamed Sound for being as reserved as he was. Sound had plenty of colleagues, all with his modeling, acting and singing careers, but he didn’t have many friends. If Gun himself was a reference for Sound’s friendships, then they would be steadfast and loyal to him and Sound to them. Of all people Gun knew, who’d lie to please him or simply take him for an idiot, Sound was the one no-nonsense bastard he trusted above all. However, the longer he spent with Tinn, the more Gun wished he had met him sooner.

Midnight walks with him weren’t boring or awkward, but rather occupied with the serene sound of footsteps and unimportant questions such as, “Did you have a pet as a child?” or “What’s your favorite childhood memory?” or even “What place would you like to visit?” They would walk side by side, shoulders brushing occasionally, fingers drawing close to each other like magnets eager to find their opposite. Gun would talk about obscure Japanese bands, Tinn would talk about dishes he wanted to try, and though they both needed to rest before long days, neither wanted to admit the night had to end.

Did kisses before Tinn taste as sweet? Gun remembered liking a girl in the student council back in high school, and he remembered writing music about her, of the way she could make a rainy day sunny when she walked into the room, of the lighter color in the tips of her hair, and the freckles that looked hand-painted on her cheeks. He more or less remembered his first kiss, because he was nervous, afraid of going at it wrong and becoming a joke in someone’s story.

And yet, the story of his first kiss with Tinn was a funny one.

Tinn had been sick at the time. A yearly cold, he had said, looking every bit like a soaked dog, miserable and sad and with eyes that begged you to pick him up. “Leave, Gun,” he told Gun from his sullen spot on the couch when Gun entered his apartment.

“You know how I am with authority, Tinn,” Gun said, taking the containers of food he had brought to the kitchen to arrange them in Tinn’s perfectly matching kitchenware.

“I’m serious, Gun.” Tinn’s voice from the living room barely carried over. “You know you can’t get sick.”

“You know my mom used to be annoyed at how I never got sick?” Gun said as he walked back into the living room, and Tinn looked at him every bit like he was an idiot. Gun was immune to it. “No, I mean, like, she would get sick and have to stay in bed and I’d man the shop and wouldn’t even get a runny nose. I’d wake her up to give her her meds and she’d call me a butt.”

Tinn cracked a laugh at that, which instantly turned into a coughing fit. Gun rushed to get him some water, which he took, looking deflated and flushed and extraordinarily adorable.

That was precisely why Gun leaned in to peck him on the cheek. Tinn, for his part, sick and probably not even especially aware of his surroundings, turned to talk to him, and the kiss landed on his lips instead, just like in a scene from a drama. Gun was surprised and Tinn was a little scandalized, trying to lean back from him and actually making whiny sounds in his throat, which was honestly a bit too much, so the only thing Gun could do was cup his face with both hands and lean for a kiss he actually meant.

It was brief and unromantic. Tinn’s face was hotter than usual, not in the pleasant way, and he was supposed to lean into it, which he wasn’t keen on, but still — still his lips were plush and soft against Gun’s, moving ever so tentatively as if it were a first kiss. Gun didn’t know if it was Tinn’s first kiss, and he wasn’t going to ask Tinn, because he didn’t want to know and it didn’t matter. He could ask him later if he had dated anyone before, or kissed, or slept with anyone, but those were faraway thoughts to Gun. There were only Tinn’s warm hands resting on his chest, his hair tickling Gun’s cheek, and his sticky, sweet lips.

When Gun broke the kiss, he licked his lips and touched them with the tip of his fingers. Tinn seemed to flush darker.

“M-My lips were chapped, I just—”

“Strawberry?”

Gun gave him a quick peck again and Tinn did a little jump in his seat. Gun wanted to eat him.

“I like it,” he said. Before Gun could kiss him without warning again, Tinn pushed him away and picked up his bowl of Tom Kha Gai, mumbling something unflattering about the guy he had just kissed.

But despite how much of an idiot Gun was that night, despite the nasty cold he got afterwards, despite Tinn’s whining about how their first kiss was supposed to be different and under the stars or something equally sappy and planned down to the phase of the moon, he always seemed to wear the strawberry lip-gloss after that. Like his perfume, Gun found himself developing a strong preference for it. He liked how it matched Tinn’s words and gestures, so caring and sweet. The scent of gardenias, as he learned was the predominant fragrance of his perfume, soothed Gun’s insomniac nights, filled his lungs as Tinn leaned over him, his strawberry lips leaving trails down his neck and chest, before Gun demanded to taste them again.

All the intricacies of Tinn delighted Gun. His straight posture and pristine white coat; the tilt of his head when he was noting something down. If Gun stayed out of town for a few days, he liked visiting Tinn at his clinic upon his return, completely unannounced, just to see his benevolent doctor smile turn into the Tinn smile that Gun liked to see directed at him, pretty like a star on a summer night.

No one seemed to notice but Gun, why was that? Gun could recognize Tinn from the back just by the way he walked, elegant and poised but not aloof, not putting on airs. There was the way he would have to bend to hold Gun, and the look in his eyes when Gun looked at him from above, from his stage, the two of them pretending there was only them under the stage lights; or when Tinn was on his knees, between Gun’s legs in the living room of his blue apartment, the lamp casting shadows on his red cheeks, his red lips. No pretense in his eyes, in his fingers that closed around Gun’s wrists and brought them down to kiss his pulse there, leaving heart-shaped lipstick marks there.

Tall and reliable, timid and shy, eager and passionate, all so easily given. Was Tinn just like this, terribly and achingly open, or was Gun just so damn lucky?

***

Gun was standing in front of his mirror, eye pencils and powder puffs on the bed close to him, wondering if he should attempt a rocker look for his next performance, when Tinn walked in.

“Dinner’s ready,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. Gun’s chest filled with countless emotions upon catching Tinn gaze in the reflection. Years of sharing dorms with people he could barely call acquaintance or sleeping by himself, and now his moments between events were graced with homemade food again. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking about being a rock star,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows, just to make Tinn laugh.

“You’re already a rock star though?”

“I’m thinking of early 00’s rock star,” he said, waving an eye pencil at Tinn, and Tinn hummed.

“Let’s see,” he said, moving towards Gun, sitting on the bed and motioning for Gun to sit with him.

Gun had noticed light make-up on Tinn before. Not just the healthy red of his lips, but a hint of brown eye shadow when they went out, his well-defined eyebrows and the thin outline of his eyes. Tinn’s hand held the pencil like a fine surgical instrument, firm and precise, with just the right amount of pressure. Gun liked his breath fanning on his face, and opening his eyes to Tinn’s focused expression. He was ruined for any future make-up artist. He should just snatch Tinn away and take him on every tour, his patients be damned.

“Where did you learn this?” Gun asked, his hands comfortable on Tinn’s knees.

“My mother taught me,” he said.

Gun hummed and closed his eyes, feeling like a flower basking under the sun of Tinn’s attention.

“What else did you learn from her?”

He felt Tinn’s huff on his face, and it made him smile.

“How to debate,” he said, and Gun grinned.

“Is that so? Why do you always lose arguments against me then?”

Like when he said he wanted to see Tinn, and Tinn would apologize, tell him he couldn’t make it, but he showed up late anyway.

“You have very strong arguments.”

“Can I call my old class president so you can tell him that? It’ll be just a minute—”

Tinn tapped him gently on the shoulder and Gun opened his eyes to see him giggle and shake his head. He wanted to kiss Tinn then, but he was reaching for the lip tint, and Gun held off.

“My mom should get along well with you,” he said. Gun looked at him in a way that seemed to amuse him. “It’s true. She’s strict but she loves authenticity. I... There were some things in high school that made her really sensitive to lies.”

Gun’s grip on the fabric of Tinn’s pants tightened slightly, and he scooched closer.

“You’re... wholly you, though,” Tinn finished, hesitant, as if unsure his words truly conveyed everything he was thinking.

It was funny. That was the one thing Gun would always think about Tinn.

For his gig, he did wear eyeliner, and Tinn’s red lip tint, and a red jacket tied around his waist. His sleeveless shirt showed off his arms, and there was glitter in his hair and rings on his fingers. Tinn was there, looking up at him in a way that reminisced of their first meeting, but Gun was more aware now. He could see the awe in Tinn’s eyes, the slight parting of his lips, and Gun would sing the bridge on one knee, looking straight at him. The whole concert house sang along to his song, and that should thrill him, but it was Tinn, legs crossed, eyes barely blinking, that gave him energy to sing himself almost hoarse.

“Tinn used to get bullied,” was a confession Sound made not many days later, after one too many of Gun’s inquiries. “I told you he got too much attention.”

“What? Wasn’t he—”

“He never told his mom.” Sound wouldn’t look him in the eye, but he could see the anger set in his jaw. “And it was never physically violent, not too many people knew about it, it was just... Mean.”

Mean.

Tinn would squirm when Gun touched his sides while they kissed, so Gun would do it all the time. He would break into giggles, and Gun would kiss his neck and cling to him as he tickled him more and Tinn would laugh and say his name breathlessly. He preferred to make love to him face to face, so he wouldn’t miss the way Tinn looked at him, open and direct and a bit unbelieving, his hand firmly gripped in Gun’s, mouth opening but he was never loud. When they finished, he liked to lay still for a bit, still connected, his breath in sync with Gun’s, and his hands, tired and awed, traced the lines of Gun’s face, the fast beating of his pulse on his neck, before he pulled Gun down for a new kiss, one that lingered, like a blessing and a promise and grace, all at once.

People were mean. To Tinn?

Tinn with messy hair and Gun’s red satin shirt on him, lipstick smeared on his lips and cheeks and neck, sleepy but not asleep, hands in Gun’s hair as Gun bit a new bruise on his collarbone and his hand moved down to fully awaken him and continue the dance from the night before. Tinn, who looked at him like he could see all of him and wanted him more for it, as if he could reach into him and pull from Gun a lifetime of longing finally fulfilled, as if Gun didn’t understand the meaning of the songs he sang until he talked to Tinn that first night in his car. “I’m a friend of Sound’s.” He had been so close and Gun had never seen him and now Gun didn’t want to look away again.

How could they be mean to him?

Gun didn’t have to ask anything of Tinn. Just like in their early conversations, where they could talk about anything to chase the loneliness away, Gun didn’t have to gather the courage to tell Tinn his worries about recording his first album, or how he missed his mother after going months without seeing her. Tinn could see his tells as clear as day. In return, he tried to take care of Tinn as much as he could. Carrying him to bed when he fell asleep in the living room, reading. Cooking for him, because he so often forgot. Singing to him as he dried his hair, or as he called from two towns over and Tinn had to stay home.

Mean for what? None of the answers he could easily think of could justify it. He knew exactly how teenagers were, he remembered them well. Because he was too smart, too soft-spoken, non-confrontational? Because he was the principal’s son and the school president? For completely arbitrary reasons, for petty reasons, just because?

It was an unremarkable day when he came home and saw Tinn preparing dinner in a dress. It hadn’t been any harder than any other day, and the sun hadn’t set completely, not a cloud in the sky. The skirt was long and pleated, unpatterned, and the cuffs were white, carefully pulled up as to not get in the way of his cooking. The color was just like many of his shirts, a familiar lavender.

Seeing the color pulled Gun from any pause he might have felt. It was Tinn. It was just Tinn, the man he had been living with and whom he had known for so long now. They had shared more than one anniversary. His hair was still the length Gun enjoyed — not too long that it looked unkempt, but long enough that Gun could run his hands through it. Artist-like. When Gun circled his arms around Tinn’s middle and breathed in, he smelled the familiar gardenias, and nothing had changed. Nothing except his heart, falling in love again at being trusted with something new.

“You stink,” Tinn said, but didn’t make any movement to pull away from Gun’s grasp.

“You smell good,” Gun said, knowing Tinn would roll his eyes at him.

“You should shower.”

“Hmm. Five more minutes.”

“Did that ever work with your mom?”

“Yes.”

And it worked with Tinn too.

After dinner, there was no rush to the bedroom. They walked in, hand in hand, and laid in bed, facing each other. Gun let his hand touch the collar of the dress, sharp and long and elegant, down the buttons at the front, and then rested his hand on Tinn’s waist.

“They didn’t like me,” Tinn said, because he knew. He barely saw him talking to Sound, but he knew they talked all the time. “They didn’t like what they saw, but I don’t know what it was.”

“They were fucking stupid.”

“There was a teacher who didn’t like me either.”

He pulled Tinn closer, grip firm. Tinn smoothed a thumb over his frown.

“He didn’t do anything to me.”

“But also didn’t do what he should have done.”

Protect you. Shield you. Support you, when you needed.

“Sound was there. We knew each other for a long time. It wasn’t so bad.”

There was always a reason why Gun liked Sound even though his bandmates kept getting in conflict with him. Perhaps he also saw something that others couldn’t see.

Tinn turned shy, hid his face on his pillow.

“I... had a crush.”

Gun frowned.

“On your teacher?”

He shook his head.

“Someone from a different school.”

Gun tried to tickle him, but Tinn protected his sides. His long skirt spilled on the bed, showing off his legs, and Gun reigned his hands. Tonight, he just wanted to know Tinn. Know what he had missed this whole time.

“Who was it? Was it a girl your mom didn’t approve of? Was it a delinquent boy? Who...”

Tinn turned to look at him again and Gun stopped. He tried to remember which high school Tinn went to, and he recalled... The international school his own school would compete against. The principal had been a beautiful woman with long hair, but Gun couldn’t remember her face. Boys in blue pants and red ties. His music club performed to them during cultural fairs, and he would face them whenever he helped in sports events.

“Tinn,” Gun said, voice weak, unbelieving, “that was over ten years ago.”

Tinn’s hand played with the collar of Gun’s shirt, and for the first time, he was incapable of holding eye contact.

“The music... It didn’t make everything better, but... There was so much honest joy in it, that it made me want to feel it, too.”

Gun understood why Sound seemed so reluctant to allow Tinn to meet new people, and especially himself then. There was in Tinn a desire to be good that surpassed the bad that had been done to him. Or perhaps, now that Gun knew him better, it was in spite of it. When Gun sang, when he looked straight at Tinn, Tinn looked back at him like he was a guiding light. Gun wasn’t, couldn’t believe he was such a thing with all his failures and rejections through the years, but for a few minutes, all those years ago, he meant something to Tinn. Something that carried over, that stuck to his character, that resonated within him. He had always seen Tinn as someone similar to him, incapable of being anything but authentic, and maybe Tinn had seen that, too. Maybe he had drawn from Gun’s love for music that wish to inspire, to be there for others. And if Gun sang for an audience that looked at him the way Tinn did, then who inspired who first, really?

How much could have been dispelled that first night, if they had not been compatible? When Tinn picked him up when he fell, when he looked at Gun out the corner of his eyes in his car, carrying in his lingering gaze a number of words unspoken that Gun felt compelled to hear? Gun was not good at flirting. By every account, Tinn was out of his league. Sound couldn’t have known that it would work. Gun didn’t have a record of keeping relationships, of fighting for them. He didn’t know what he wanted out of them, just some form of — peace. Of delight, like his mother spoke of his father. Something that felt like he didn’t have reinvent himself for, just to please them.

Something like hugging Tinn in the kitchen, eyes closed, listening as he hummed a song Gun didn’t know yet. Tinn helping him with his make-up, unhurried, soft brushes and softer touches. And waking up to his lavender dress, the fabric cool and light as water against Gun as they tangled together, Tinn’s hair on his pillow.

***

Standing on that stage, with a trophy in his hand, his bandmates by his side, all of the words of thanks that Gun can think of are for Tinn, clapping for him from the audience, his earring shining like a tiny fallen star. Gun wears the other earring, matching him. When Sound finishes his speech, Gun takes the microphone, and he says, “Thank you everyone who believed in me when I was just a kid singing at school fairs. Thank you for what you saw in me then, that helped me get here today.”

Gun sees a screen with his face, his smile big and eyes so small, and he laughs when he sees the red lipstick stains on his nose and cheek. It’s too late to wipe them away, so Gun only shakes his head, and waves at Tinn. His band is led off the stage and towards a different spot for pictures and more speeches. He catches sight of Tinn in a dimly lit corner, but it’ll be hours before he can touch him again. They’re winners now. It’s the happiest Gun has ever seen Sound, and the others look happy enough that they might want to stay for a few more years.

When he has time to check his phone, he sees notifications not just from his mother, but also from his old school friends. His first little band of misfits, the ones who believed in him the most. He can’t cry. Not right now.

The night carries on in bright flashes and indistinctive chatter. Gun stays for the after-party, buzzing with an energy that feels a little manic. Every once in a while, he’ll look around to find Tinn, to ground himself. So he knows that at the end of this night, he’ll still be the same man with a home to go back to. Not just Gun, the frontman, but the same Gun that Tinn once met. The one who got grumpy and unsociable when he got writer’s block and couldn’t write a good song. Whom Tinn called “difficult” when he was sick and refused to rest.

“Are you proud of me?” he asks Tinn on the ride home, tipsy, unable to look out the car window without getting sick. He keeps his head on Tinn’s shoulder, Tinn’s arm secure around his waist, and he can only see blurry details of Tinn — the red of his lips, his long bangs framing his face, so close, too close but at the same time, not enough.

“I’m proud of you,” Tinn says, kissing his forehead, and Gun will not cry, not yet, even though he can’t name a single feeling he’s experiencing right now. “I’m always proud of you, Gun.”

“Even when I get mad at you for not replying to my texts?”

“Hmmm.”

“Even when I forget to do the laundry?”

“A little less then.”

Gun whines but he’s also laughing into Tinn’s neck, where he kisses Tinn, just because he can. Tinn tries to argue, to push him back a little, saying something about “Not in the car,” but Gun doesn’t care about his surroundings or the time or anything at all at that moment. The car jolts, running over some irregularity on the road, and Gun clings to Tinn. Always his safe port. He breathes in and out, through his mouth, and Tinn’s perfume fills him. City lights flash outside, a reminder of the night and the outside world, but Gun thinks only about Tinn’s skin, soft underneath his touch, underneath his lips. How long has it been since he kissed Tinn? Hours.

It’s so long still until they’re climbing the steps to their home — a home that is technically only Tinn’s but that has Gun’s shit everywhere. His favorite guitar, the clothes he’s been wearing since college, shampoo from a brand that’s sponsoring them, alongside Tinn’s things. Gun’s boots are in the same wardrobe Tinn keeps his dresses, some of which Gun bought himself, because now, he sees Tinn in everything beautiful. Not high heels, no, Tinn doesn’t like those, but discreet rings with a single gem; dangling earrings like the ones they wore that night, that suit Tinn’s hair nicely; and red lipstick, with all different kinds of finish, none of which Gun understood until he applied them to Tinn himself and ran his thumb over his lips.

Gun pins Tinn against their front door as soon as they’re inside, asking, “What do you want?”

Tinn’s breath leaves in a surprised huff. Gun can see him clearer now that they’ve stopped moving, the entrance light shining above them until the timing goes off and they’re left in the dark. Still, Gun sees him, and he brushes Tinn’s hair away from his face. He leans closer, lips close to Tinn’s ear.

“Should we find another house to live in? Open a new clinic for you?”

He kisses a trail down Tinn’s neck, his hands pulling Tinn’s shirt from inside his pants and going underneath, fulfilling his desire to feel the skin there. Tinn’s arms circle his neck, fingers tangling with his hair, making Gun latch onto his skin, right where his shoulder meets his neck, lips and teeth and tongue and a pressure that steals Tinn’s breath.

“Come to Milan with me next month,” he says, and he feels more than hears Tinn say his name. “Tinn.”

He takes a step back and the light goes on again. Tinn’s pupils are blown wide, and his eyes are round and dark and seeing only him. Good.

“I want to give you everything,” Gun says.

“You’re drunk,” Tinn says, and his smile is a little weak, a little uncertain.

Gun shakes his head, not because it’s a lie, but because it’s not the whole truth. He wants to say it. He’s wanted to say it for a long time.

He steps closer again. Nose to nose, lips millimeters apart. Tinn leans down to touch his forehead to Gun’s and Gun smiles at that.

“I want you to be there for me, and I want to be there for you,” he says as the light goes out. “Whatever you need, would you tell me what it is?”

All this to say, I want you to tell me all about you. All this to say, I want to know your dreams. All this to say, talk to me about anything and everything. All this to say—

Tinn’s kiss falls on him like an unexpected downpour. It’s not usual for him, who’s timid, always setting the pace when they make out. Maybe he’s drunk on whatever it is that takes the inhibitions out of Gun tonight, that makes them stumble on the way to the bedroom, tripping over discarded clothes. They’re giggling and kissing and falling askew on the bed. Gun should be holding his weight away from Tinn as he falls on him but they’re not graceful tonight. Tinn has lost his jacket but Gun kept his white shirt on, though fully unbuttoned, because he liked the way the silk felt to the touch. They’ll probably find lipstick on it in the morning, but it would be far from the first time it’s happened. Gun’s not even embarrassed to bring Tinn’s clothes to the cleaners anymore.

He finally stops kissing Tinn long enough to pull himself up, hands on either side of Tinn’s head, to look at him. Hair mussed, lipstick smeared, eyes shining and dark. His hands lay on the bed, just beside Gun’s, palm up and waiting. Open. Trusting.

Tinn once told him that he decided to become a plastic surgeon not to take up expensive jobs for celebrities, but to help those who wanted to feel better about themselves. He always chose every job very carefully, working together with the patient for a healthy mindset, and he said there was a special type of joy about looking in the mirror and liking the person you saw there.

Gun was so proud of him. He wished he could go back and meet Tinn in high school, to hold his hand, and call his name there. He wanted to give him happier memories on his own stage. He wanted Tinn to see how Gun saw him, inside and out.

“You’re so beautiful,” is all he can say.

He sees Tinn’s eyes water before Tinn pulls him back down to kiss him again. That’s when he lets himself cry, and laugh, and touch Tinn all he wants. His mind is still hazy, and Tinn is overwhelmed, so it’s far from being their best night. But Tinn keeps his legs wrapped around him, and Gun takes them both in hand, trying so bad not to fall into Tinn, wanting to make him feel good. He whispers nothings that are everything, and he hopes Tinn believes them all, because even if he’s a little drunk on alcohol and very drunk on happiness, he means it when he says, “You’re good, you’re so good, you’re perfect, I love you.” The sleeves of Tinn’s shirt feel like being touched by seafoam, and the bed dips as he thrusts. Tinn hands on his back feel like dragging him down and down, falling into his kiss until they’re both struggling to breathe.

When they climax, one following the other, Gun falls heavy into Tinn, and Tinn catches him. It’s like coming back to the shore after the tide has receded. Finding the way back home, after swimming in the dark sea. But it’s only the night, giving way to the morning, and kisses that have regained their calm as dawn approaches.

***

Gun wakes hours later, with the sun already high in the sky. He can tell Tinn cleaned him up, but there’s still too much of the party the night before in him, so he takes a shower before he looks for Tinn.

He finds him in the living room, his tablet in his hands, and silver glasses on his face. His skirt is a deep navy, and Gun knows he has a tie that matches it perfectly. He can see his own marks on Tinn’s neck, imperfections on the otherwise smooth skin that Tinn makes no attempt to hide with a scarf or a high collar. The button-up he wears has the first few buttons undone, showing the marks off. It’s just the two of them, after all. Just like he can be messy and forgetful and capricious sometimes, Tinn can also show his flaws, his temper, bare it all. When they disagreed or had fights over banal things, Gun could never be mad at him for more than a couple of hours.

Gun looks at those marks, at the column of Tinn’s neck, all of it calling for him like a mirror of Gun, of their mutual desire. But he also looks at Tinn’s eyes and sees him squinting at the screen despite his glasses. He’s still sleepy, even though he’s usually the one who wakes up early between the two of them. He tries to suppress a yawn, and Gun doesn’t even know if he’s making a sound or not for how endeared he feels. Intimacy felt really fucking good bathed in sunlight.

“Milan is on the fifteenth, right?” Tinn asks, taking his teacup from the coffee table.

“Yeah,” Gun answers, walking towards him. Tinn frowns.

“Do you think they can get me a seat in your flight? I don’t think— Gun, I’m still talking!”

But Gun only gives him more sniff kisses that evolve into pecks that evolve into him sitting on Tinn’s lap, arms around Tinn’s neck.

“Are you really coming?”

“Hmm,” Tinn acquiesces, setting the tablet aside on the couch in favor of holding Gun back. “That’s what you— I mean.” He gives Gun a smile that makes him look younger, full of light. “That’s what I want.”

How could anyone be mean to him, ever? All Gun can see is a beautiful boy, putting himself in Gun’s hands.

“You two are so gross, I’m never staying in the same room as the two of you ever again,” Sound had said once when they went out on a double date, Sound’s boyfriend laughing silently, and what Gun heard was, “You’re perfect for each other.”

He takes Tinn’s glasses off, folds them and places them on Tinn’s tablet.

“Okay,” he says, cupping Tinn’s face, void of any make-up but flushed and radiant all the same. It’s the sun, shining on the couch from the open window. But Gun hopes he can be that light, too. “Although I’ll probably have to hide you or they’ll think you’re a celebrity.”

“Aren’t I?” Tinn asks, tilting his head to the side and adopting a contemplating expression. “I am your boyfriend, after all. Isn’t that a kind of celebrity?”

Gun hums, nodding.

“I should dress you up and show you off,” he says, but freezes, thinking well about what he just said. His eyes must show his sudden panic, because Tinn is patting the back of his head and kissing him before he’s saying,

“Okay. Speak well of me, will you?”

It gives him pause for a few beats. He looks between Tinn’s eyes, as if expecting him to take it back, but he doesn’t. Gun has wanted to talk about him publicly for so long, but he didn’t know the right timing. He didn’t know where, in the long time he had been dating Tinn, their feelings had finally aligned perfectly. He’s admired and loved Tinn for some time now. Was it enough, for all the years Tinn had liked him before he was even in Tinn’s life? Would Sound hate him for exposing Tinn, who kept so much of himself to just a few select people, of which Gun has been so lucky to be included in?

But the night before, with Tinn’s gaze on him as he finally felt at the top of his world, Tinn’s earring clipped on his own ear – a part of Tinn always with him – he understood what it was like to speak of someone like they’re the world, just like his mom would do for his dad. It came out of him every time he thanked those that supported him, his eyes on every camera but his heart set on Tinn. Did it reach him?

Gun looks at Tinn until his vision gets blurry and Tinn’s smile fades, replaced with concern. Tinn asks, “Are you okay?”, but Gun only hugs him, hiding his face on his neck. He breathes in the scent of gardenias, and with the sun and Tinn’s warmth covering him, he doesn’t think about Milan, he thinks only,

“Mom is going to love you.”

Perhaps it’s time to plan a different trip.

#My School President #TinnGun #gun guntaphon #tinn tinnaphob #GeminiFourth #Alternate Universe: Different First Meeting

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chapitre7 · 4 months

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I am open to writing prompts 💙 I cannot promise I'll write them, but I can promise to do the best of my abilities.

Ratings G to M.

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chapitre7 · 4 months

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a light in your tune

แฟนผมเป็นประธานนักเรียน | My School President fanfiction

Tinn Tinnaphob Jirawatthanakul/Gun Guntaphon Wongwitthaya

7k words

Gun crushes on a cute guy who's bad at dates. Gun pretends he does not have a crush on cute guy who's bad at dates. Romcom ensues.

Read on AO3

If you asked Gun why he did it, he would splutter and stammer and blush and probably fake out a phone call to flee. If you asked Por why he thought Gun did it, Por would happily tell you, “I don’t think Gun thought anything at all!”, which is both 1) true and 2) a regular occurance, and it’d make Gun splutter and yell again.

The fact is, Gun did it, and it changed everything.

Maybe that’s a little too overdramatic for you, but at one point, there is a rain scene and eyes interlocked and the fluttering of butterflies in his stomach and a beautiful boy that reminds Gun of the sun-tinted days in high school.

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Por says, giggling, and hey, he is right, we are. Before the singing and the rain and the new year, there is:

The restaurant.

Now, there isn’t anything particularly special about the restaurant, other than draining all of Gun’s energies because customers are exhausting and tourists are a particular brand of annoying that test all of Gun’s people skills.

But that does mean that whenever Gun meets a customer that is polite, kind, and flattering, his day is turned around. He remembers that he does in fact love people, and that one day he’ll be a famous musician and he’ll make people happy when he sings and then all the impolite ones won’t be able to affect him anymore because fuck the tourists who complain about the spice level of the dishes, who cares when he has the real public?

Sigh.

Por pats him on the head when he gets that faraway look on his eyes, saying, “There, there,” because he, too, was there when they failed another audition and—

Okay, digression. Back to the real crux of the issue:

When did Gun even get a crush on that guy?

“I do not have a crush on him!” Gun says, voice an octave higher for some reason. Suspicious. “I don’t even know his name!”

Yet we cannot help but squint our eyes at him.

“Didn’t you mention how he always wears a blue tie?” Por asks, index finger tapping his chin.

“So?” Gun shoots back, crossing his arms, not at all defensive.

“So,” Por says, word heavy with implication. “Who even notices what strangers are wearing?”

“First of all, I’m quite observant, thank you very much,” Gun says, index finger raised in the air, yet it is important to point out that he never noticed when Por changed the parting of his hair from left to right early this year. Gun glares, sticking out his middle finger to form the number two. “Second of all, he became a regular, so I just. I don’t know? He seems to like blue, okay, at one point it was hard not to notice.”

“I never noticed it,” Por says as an important addition.

“You don’t even pay attention to the weather forecast before leaving the house.”

“It’s not important! It’s always hot anyway and rain season is already over!”

“Then why do you get annoyed when you’re overdressed for band practice?”

“Because it’s ruining my vibe!”

“Just stop wearing vests, man.”

“You seem to like when glasses wears a vest.”

Gun lets out a sound that is very much like a mouse squeak.

Okay, maybe we should back up a little.

Back to the restaurant and the customers and Gun liking the polite ones.

He likes the ones that tip him with a heavy hand because they’re used to different countries. He likes the one that look him in the eye like he’s an actual person, and the ones that ask him for suggestions and he can see the way they light up when they take the first bite of their dish. Those make his miserable days a little better.

And then there are the dates.

Now, Gun wouldn’t call himself a romantic. That’s Por, and it’s honestly a little irritating because he’ll create whole fics about customers, with background stories and tragic family plots if the shift is chill and he has had too much coffee that day, and a lot of the time Gun tells him to stop shipping people, but mostly he suffers it with a modicum of restraint because it does make Por write some pretty nice lyrics.

Gun still pays attention to those dates, however, wearing his most handsome smile and on his most patient behavior as the lovebirds nervously browse the menu for something mild, as only a tentative first date can be. Gun has never dated anyone, but he is observant when he wants to be, especially when he’s shifted into singer mode, and he tries to fit some of his favorite songs to romantic pairs.

He sees the friends-crossing-the-friendzone-line when the banter is easy and relaxed and the hands keep touching as the pair speaks. There’s the obvious-pining-turned-into-real-date when one side can’t keep their eyes off the other. There are the older couples who share a lifetime of history, knowing each other’s favorite dishes and laughing at inside jokes that Gun would never understand. You can see all kinds of people and how they relate to one another simply by how they make an order and eat their dinner.

So, when glasses guy first showed up, a pretty girl by his side, Gun easily switched into observant mode.

Take that, Por.

He pulled her chair for her, which, yeah, okay, a little old fashioned, but nice. He had a pleasant smile that made the girl smile in return, a little shy, and oh, it was a first date. Maybe a blind date? No, no, if it were a blind date, then they wouldn’t have arrived together. Or maybe they had met up someplace before?

God, sometimes hanging out with Por is like sharing clothes and getting his habits like an annoying rash. Just like in seventh grade.

“Are you ready to order?”

Glasses guy, at this point in time, wasn’t really glasses guy because he was not wearing them. Gun doesn’t know if he was wearing blue that day, either. He made a good impression in different ways, such as when he asked his date, “What would you like? Please feel free to choose anything.”

We love a date that does not care about budget. Yeah, yeah, something, something, dates should split the check, but Gun is a huge supporter of getting free meals out of boys. If the date ends up sucking, at the very least their date won’t have to suffer double the injury by also having to pay for the bill. It makes sense in his head.

Not that glasses guy — or Gun’s guy (“He’s not my guy! What the fuck!”) — presented any indication that he’s a bad date. In fact, from what Gun observed, he seemed to be quite the green flag. He was leaning forward as they waited for the food, clearly interested, engaging in conversation, while his date remained a little stiff, but also a little pink on the cheeks, replying in short sentences. They shared a laugh before Gun arrived with their food, and when he looked up at Gun to thank him, Gun could swear his eyes reflected all the lights in the room.

Por whistles. “You noticed that?”

“Look,” Gun says, palm open in a clear sign that says hold on now, “I just mean he looked friendly! And warm! And very obviously nice to talk to!”

“Sure,” Por says.

Sure, Gun.

Anyway, he was very obviously nice to talk to, and Gun has no idea how that date managed to turn around, because one minute it was going well, the next minute the guy’s smile dropped and he went pale, mouth hanging open, and the girl was shaking her hands then clasping them, and, oh boy, yeah, that was it. It was halfway through their meal too, and they were both too polite to end it there, so they ate the rest of the food in such a state of complete silence that Gun had to visibly wince.

The girl said something — was that a wai? oh God — and then left.

Date boy seemed dejected. Hunched over the table, mouth pulled into a thin line, swirling his drink absentmindedly. The saddest part is that it was not even alcohol, he was just swirling soda around.

Maybe it was the very fact that he was not getting shitfaced in those trying times of rejection that got Gun to move. Or maybe it was the pathetic kicked puppy look on his face. Or maybe Gun just felt highly benevolent on that day.

If you asked Gun the reason, he would not be able to give you a clear answer.

“He has the emotional awareness of a goldfish,” says Pat, and Gun takes offense to that.

As it were, it happened like this: Gun took one look at that dejected man, walked up to him with the menu in hand, offered his brightest smile, and said, “Would you like to have your dessert now?”

The young man blinked a little owlish at him.

“I didn’t order any.”

“Are you sure, khun? We have the best oh aew outside of Phuket.”

He still looked a little lost. But something in Gun must have convinced him, because a few beats later he said, “Okay.”

Now, Gun’s boss would be pretty proud of him for securing another order out of that failed date, but the truth is, Gun wouldn’t even charge the man if he could. Whenever he lost an audition, his mother would make him the sweetest shaved ice to cheer him up, so when he saw that crumbled paper bag of a man, he wanted to give him some sugar.

Maybe the man said something to fuck up his date, but Gun’s gut didn’t agree, so he did what he wanted. And Gun was not known for making choices agreed by the general population (or even his band mates).

So, he did bring the dessert to the man, and also a little extra. He watched from afar as the man ate all of his sweet treat before he noticed the message Gun left on his paper napkin: Don’t give up. It’ll be better next time.

“But I’m the romantic, I’m the embarrassment,” Por says. “You left him a love message—”

“It wasn’t a love message, it was—”

“—And then you bolted to the kitchen before he made eye contact with you!”

“—not for the eye contact! Or any contact! I just wanted to cheer him up a little! He looked really damn sad, Por.”

Like a kicked puppy, as we established. And Gun’s message did have the desired effect. The corner of his lips immediately curled up, his smile a shy, tight-lipped thing. Gun couldn’t see anything else due to the aforementioned bolting, but he did see the smile, and he understood why people wrote about making others happy. It was a great feeling.

Seeing the guy on his second date was less of a great feeling.

Not because Gun was embarrassed or anything (quote, unquote), and the guy was pretty nice and his tip was even nicer, but now his date was a guy. A very good-looking guy with possibly the best hair Gun has ever seen, and it made Gun feel some type of way.

As soon as the pair sat down and Gun didn’t move towards them, Por had so many questions, expressed not with words, not with any proper language, but a secret third way (moving his eyes back and forth between Gun and the pair and widening them each time Gun refused to move). Resigned, Por walked to them himself, friendly and ready to take their order, while Gun pretended his thoughts were leading somewhere coherent.

Of course he didn’t have problem with the other guy. Gun would never be the kind of singer that sang of just one type of love. Especially because, in theory, Gun didn’t have experience with any kind other than platonic and cuddling with Por when it wasn’t too hot. And hey, the girl didn’t work out (maybe his guy snored? Wait, not his guy, fuck), so maybe he’d have better luck with a guy.

They certainly seemed to vibe. From the window in the kitchen, he watched as the pair talked, relaxed and close, feet touching under the table. At one point, guy-with-good-hair grinned wide and appeared to reach forward to pinch the other’s cheek and oh, the other was definitely blushing.

Huh. Now that was new.

But the guy wasn’t smiling, at least not in the same way that he had smiled in his previous date, or the way he smiled when Gun gave him his napkin message. Not that Gun was categorizing his smiles or anything, that seems a little creepy, actually? Maybe? In any case, the guy kept looking around even after Por brought them their meal, a little distracted, and even though he seemed to get along pretty well with this date, guy-with-good-hair still excused himself and left first.

Gun wasn’t an expert on dates in any capacity, but he did have to wonder what green-flag-guy was doing to get ditched so easily.

“Maybe he’s oversharing,” Por suggests. “Maybe he has an overbearing mother and it’s scaring people away.”

“Maybe he has bad breath,” Win quips.

“He doesn’t,” says Gun, who would know.

“You’d know,” says Yo.

“I think we should start band practice,” says Gun, moderately, getting off his chair at a normal speed.

“Pat’s still in the bathroom,” Win says, and Gun groans, sitting back down, looking over their setlist, willing band thoughts over guy thoughts.

“It’s not that bad to have a crush, you know,” says Por in a very amiable, sweet voice. Gun groans again.

Because the third time had been the worst.

It was on the third time he came to the restaurant that Gun saw him in glasses for the first time. He was also wearing a blue vest and white pants, and it was all so pastel and friendly that he looked like he had walked out of a laundry detergent commercial. If Gun touched his vest, he would probably feel it dip softly under his touch. Not that Gun had any touching thoughts. That’s ridiculous.

Especially not with the guy’s date glaring at him in such a way that Gun almost feared for his life.

Almost. He had never backed down from a confrontation in his life.

(Por resented that.)

When he walked to their table, glasses guy did seem to perk up at him. He was all smiles — the small, timid ones that made him look like an emoji — and friendly, asking, “What do you suggest?”, as if he and Gun and his date all miraculously shared the same taste.

Gun was not sure if his date even blinked the whole time he was there to take their order.

“Is it even a date this time?” Por asked, brows furrowed, speaking to Gun from behind a menu.

“I think so?” Gun tried. The angry one kept his arms crossed but glasses guy was leaning forward, trying to appeal to him in some way or another, and Gun was glad to see that he was not so fucking easy that the guy’s eyes only melted his insides. Arms were uncrossed, eyes were rolled, and the man… flicked glasses guy on the forehead? “Is that romantic?”

“When I was in fifth grade, maybe.”

They both tilted their heads, musing over definitions of love.

And there was definitely something there from the way the guy glared at Gun in a very pointed, gratuitous way when he brought them their order. There was also something about how glasses guy kept adding meat to his date’s plate, as if trying to please him. But again, once the dishes were clean, his date stood up and left, and glasses guy remained there, in his pastel blue silence.

“I feel bad for him,” Gun told Por.

“Why though?” Por asked. “I mean, he seems nice, but it’s not the first time we’ve seen bad dates.”

Gun shrugged. Because he kept trying, even after that disastrous first date? Because he seemed nice, always appearing interested in his date when they spoke? Definitely the rather pleasant color scheme of his clothes, if Gun were being honest.

Or maybe, really, it was the way he looked up at Gun when he walked to him. Pretty eyes, looking right at Gun’s.

“Would you like to order dessert, khun?” Gun asked. Since your date has left again.

He smiled, and it looked cuter now that he was wearing his silly round glasses.

“Yes, Khun Gun.”

Gun took a slight step sideways and almost tripped over his own feet.

Wait, wait. The nametag. He was wearing a nametag, of course. Fucking idiot.

Something must have showed on his face, because glasses guy had his hand raised in the air, almost ready to touch him, before awareness hit them and he placed it back on the table, while Gun looked down at his notepad to write the guy’s order.

“I think,” he told Por, after the guy had eaten his dessert and left him a generous tip again, “that he reminds me of someone.”

“Who?” Por asked, holding the menu to his chest.

“I don’t think you know them.”

“Gun, I know everyone you know.”

“Obviously,” Gun said, because it wasn’t a lie. “It’s not like I knew them either.”

“That makes no sense.”

But it did to Gun. Not as a tangible person, but more like… A feeling he had back in high school. Sitting in the back of the class, watching those in front. Those who were smarter than him and would definitely get into their university of choice. Those who tutored others, and spoke well in school assemblies. Gun wouldn’t say he knew any of them well, or that he had like one of them in particular, just… When Gun thought of high school, he remembered his band practices, the school festivals, and his class president who always knew his name and hyped his songs on the school radio.

“You have a very specific taste,” said Por, after Gun expressed those feelings in something less put together.

“Shut up,” Gun fired back eloquently.

But worse than the confusion, worse than paying attention to the guy every time he came back to the restaurant, worse than having a crush for possibly the first time in his life, was how, not even a week later, on an inauspicious Friday night, glasses guy’s angry date showed up at Pat’s garage, where the band practiced, with a guitar on his back.

Gun made an excellent second impression by choking on air.

“Instagram,” the guy said, taking his phone out of his hoodie’s pocket and waving it around, like it was a flyer. “You said you’re looking for a guitarist.”

Por was looking at Gun very attentively. Gun vowed not to make eye contact with him for at least 3 business days.

“Yeah,” he said, pretending to tune his own guitar. “Yeah, sure, let’s see what you got.”

One song later, Gun had to admit that he was infuriatingly good.

“Gun, I think we might actually win an audition like this,” said Yo, awestruck, looking at them as though he was seeing them like a real band for the first time and not like they had been playing together for the past several years. He would definitely be paying for barbecue next Tuesday.

“I’m Sound,” glasses-guy’s-last-date said.

“Holy shit,” said Win meaningfully. Everyone just stared at him.

Apparently, Sound was kind of a big deal online.

Unfortunately for Gun, all he could think of was Sound wiping sauce off glasses guy’s face with his thumb, kicking him under the table, and then calmly listening to whatever glasses guy was rambling about.

Was he the one? Did they meet again after that date? Was glasses guy going to show up one day during band practice to pick Sound up for a date, and then Gun would watch them—

“We’re not dating,” Sound said, and Gun turned towards him so quickly that he’d be feeling that in his neck for the weekend at least.

“What?”

Sound leveled him with a look. Gun was growing wary of the fact that Sound could read his mind.

“I’m not dating Tinn,” Sound continued, putting his guitar away. “You looked like you were curious.”

Out the corner of his eye, he could see that Por’s eyebrows were raised to his hairline. In his head, Gun was already trying to run the math of how long he could go without talking to Por before he came barging into his bathroom so he didn’t have where to run.

“I’m not,” Gun said, fiddling with the strap of his guitar.

“Who’s Tinn?” asked Pat.

“No one, good night,” Gun said, fleeing the scene without even getting Sound’s number to add him to their groupchat, which prompted Por to call him later that very night.

“He said they’re childhood friends,” Por said in a tone that made Gun feel like he was five years old. And also wonder why Por and Sound were talking about glasses guy — Tinn — while he wasn’t there.

“It’s literally not any of my business. Can’t you just send me Sound’s number?” A pause. “Please?”

It’s not like they couldn’t date just because they were childhood friends; Gun had watched plenty of dramas with his mom to know that. And still, it’s not like it was any of his business who Tinn dated or not. He actually wanted Tinn to find a nice date, because he looked nice, and he looked like he was trying. Whenever his mom talked about his father, her face would take on a different kind of glow, and she could talk for hours. Tinn looked like he could talk for hours, too. He seemed to talk plenty in his dates, so Gun was sure that love would look good on him, in his eyes—

His dark, round, sparkly eyes.

Lying in his bed, Gun hit his hand against his forehead, as he would many times after that.

He knew there was nothing wrong with having a crush. Crushes would render many good memories and many a good song and it was only natural, of course, but... Every time he looked at Tinn at the restaurant, he felt like he was intruding. Like he was looking at someone from a completely different world, and by following the curve of his smiles and the way the tip of his hair fell softly against his cheek, he was being inappropriate. Seeing more than he was supposed to see.

And Tinn would raise his eyes and find his, and it would make him panic.

“Gun,” Por says, and he drags the syllable of his name, dejectedly. “You’re killing me.”

“You’re being too harsh on yourself, man,” Pat adds, patting him on his back.

“He’s coming to the gig, isn’t he? So he wants to be around,” Yo says.

“What do you have to lose by asking him out?” Win asks, crossing his arms.

Gun almost drops his water bottle.

“I don’t want to ask him out!”

“You literally do,” Win deadpans.

“Gun, they’re right,” Por says, and Gun knows, and he hates it, and he’s going to murder Por in his sleep for explaining to the others who Tinn was.

He didn’t mean to crush on the guy. He didn’t want to do anything about it. He didn’t mean to ask him to come to their gig. He just…

When Tinn came back for his fourth date, Gun was at the end of his shift, so he didn’t even serve him. He was in the break room, with a single earbud in his ear, singing along to the song he was planning to use to open the gig they managed to land at the end of the month. A song about finding someone in the big wide city, who shows up against all odds and stands beside you. Gun had sung it many times before, ever since high school, but when he sang it that day, it sounded different to his ears.

As if it had changed color.

He stopped singing at that verse, letting the instrumental rush over him. It was raining that night, so there was the melody in one ear, the pouring rain in the other, and sweet eyes filled with stars before his eyelids.

It’s so strange how even the most well-beloved verses can take the shape of a person if you let them.

When he walked through the restaurant on the way out, he did see Tinn there. Sitting at a table alone, squinting at his phone. He must have forgotten his glasses, Gun thought, and smiled despite himself. Was he stood up? Gun didn’t think a guy like Tinn could be stood up. But then again, he didn’t know anything about him. Not his hobbies, not his profession, not anything about his life. And Gun was nobody to him. Just a server without a college degree, trying to make it in an industry that didn’t care about him.

He walked out and stood by the porch, waiting for the rain to subside. Patrons walked past him, running towards their cars, and Por left him on read, probably too busy eating dinner to reply to Gun.

The pattering of the raindrops against the roof of the restaurant, coupled with the sound of the cars on the road before him, kept him from noticing the footsteps that approached and stopped by his side.

“Did you get stood up too?”

He turned sharply to the side, coming face to face with Tinn.

Was he always that tall, or did he grow taller in the short couple of months since their first meeting?

“Ah,” Gun said after a few seconds of staring into Tinn’s eyes, “no, actually, my roommate is already home. I’m trying to decide if I should call a taxi or make a run for the bus stop.”

Tinn hummed, and Gun’s eyes strayed from his control, falling from Tinn’s eyes, down to his mouth, and then to his neck. He was wearing a light blue button-up that day, but with the first four or five buttons undone. It was a physical effort to look away.

“I’d offer you a ride but,” he paused, laughing, showing off beautiful pearly teeth. “I’m not confident enough to drive in the rain without my glasses.”

To think that even Tinn had things he didn’t feel confident about.

“Guess we both lost our chance at free rides tonight then,” Gun said, a lopsided smile playful on his lips.

“Oh, God, no,” Tinn said, making a face. “Kajorn has road rage, I’d rather run to the bus stop too.”

They chuckled together, and turned back towards the rain. The city was just a blur, making it seem as if only them and the restaurant were tangible and real.

“Are you a singer?”

Something in his expression when he faced Tinn again must have made him shy, because Tinn quickly shook his hands, palm up, before clasping them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude, I swear I was just looking for the bathroom, but I heard you... singing, earlier.”

Gun had been a singer for many years already, but he could feel his neck and ears flushing at Tinn’s admission. As if Tinn could have read his emotions, transparent like glass, from the way he sang. Por always said that he was bad at lying, and that he could tell what Gun was feeling by the way he sang each song. But even if Tinn heard him, there was no way he could know who the one person among the million others in the rain-soaked city was.

“Yeah,” Gun said eventually, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He kept his eyes in the rain, but he could see Tinn visibly exhale beside him. Again, like it was impossible to stop it, a smile tugged at his lips. “My band is performing at Rendezvous on New Year’s.”

Before his brain could catch up, his mouth said,

“Do you want to come?”

He kept his hands inside his pockets as he turned to look at Tinn. For every purpose, it was a casual invitation, speaking nothing of the thudding of his heart against his ribcage. And if Tinn thought anything of it, the only thing he showed was a momentary surprise, a slight widening of his eyes. The seconds in which they looked at each other seemed to stretch, and the space between them seemed to shorten. It felt like, if Gun tilted his head slightly upwards, he could feel Tinn’s breath against his lips. The rain receded, but still echoed its pitter-patter like calm, static noise.

Someone bumped into Gun’s shoulder as they left the restaurant and ran, and just like that, the ticking of seconds resumed.

“Yeah,” Tinn said, just as Gun regained his posture after almost tripping into the curb. His smile was a pretty thing, pleased and shy all at once. “I’ll be there.”

Warmth took over Gun’s chest, and that was all he could take that night.

He nodded and started to sprint into the rain, but stopped when Tinn called for him to wait.

“I’m Tinn, by the way!” he said.

Gun felt really proud of himself.

“I know!” he answered, waved, and turned to run, the song in his earbud resuming, surrounding the night in melody.

***

And this is now: bar Rendezvous, New Year’s Eve. After the exposé about his feelings before the show, his bandmates didn’t exactly call Gun out about Tinn, but they didn’t not say anything. “You haven’t stop shaking your leg in the past half hour, you know that, right?” said Por, and “Do you have stage fright tonight?” asked Pat with a frown, and “If you don’t stop pacing around, I’m going to break your legs,” promised Sound.

Gun isn’t nervous. He isn’t. He can sing perfectly fine, they had rehearsed despite everyone’s schedule; not even Yo cancelled a single time. It’s fine, it’s all fine. A crush — and he will give you that, okay, maybe it is a crush by the way something unfurls in his stomach when he thinks about the way Tinn looked at him — won’t impact his performance. Nothing can possibly beat singing on stage with both his parents in the audience when he was in third grade, and if he survived that, he can survive a beautiful boy in the audience of a warm-lit bar.

But he sees Tinn in the audience as he’s adjusting his mic, and he goes deaf for a second. Just like the night outside the restaurant, even if there is no rain now, the rest of the world is just static. He’s wearing his glasses tonight, and his jacket is a beautiful forest green. Gun is once again thrown back to memories of high school, of their P.E. uniforms, of big crowds and loud laughter during sports events. The smell of chlorine from the school pools, the taste of lemon soda in his mouth.

Gun doesn’t really understand why Tinn brings him back to when he was seventeen, but one thing is certain: every day was so bright and alive when he was seventeen. Maybe Tinn is just like that — a tilt in the axis of his world, a pocket time machine. There is no other time to feel as intensely as one does when they’re seventeen.

He wants to know him. To talk to him. To sing to him.

And then Gun notices the man beside Tinn. The handsome curls of his hair and his cat-like smile.

If his guitar hadn’t been securely strapped around him, he might have dropped it.

“Ready?” Por asks him, and he must have seen something in Gun’s face, because he frowns and asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Gun says, without much conviction. He looks at Por, blinks, and says more firmly, “Yeah, of course. Let’s do this.”

Pat times the one-two-three with his drumsticks, and the rest is as easy as breathing.

Tinn spends the entire time with his eyes on him. Good-Hair talks to him a couple of times, but mostly he smiles at the band too, moving his head to the rhythm. It’s still a couple of hours until the countdown, and Gun sings with abandon. They take a few requests from the patrons, and Tinn sings along. When Gun sings his own songs, the light glows pink in Tinn’s glasses and he closes his eyes, Gun’s lyrics falling over him like rain.

About half an hour before midnight, the band takes a short break. For a brief moment, Gun wonders if Sound will walk up to Tinn, but he walks away with Win. The rest of his friends scatter, taking their bathroom break or drinking break or simply doing anything other than walking up to their crush, sitting beside their stool at the bar, and ordering carbonated water.

“You’re incredible,” says Tinn, loud and clear and close to his ear, and Gun tries to convince himself he does not shiver. “I can’t believe I had never heard of you guys before.”

“Do you hang out at bars often?” Gun asks. Tinn’s mouth opens and closes without a word and Gun can’t help laughing at him. “That’s what I thought. What about your...”

Gun lets his sentence hang there when he notices Good-Hair is nowhere to be seen. Tinn glances behind him in slight confusion, before it dawns on him. His thought processes are so transparent, Gun wants to scream at him to stop being cute.

“Tiw’s enjoying it greatly. He seems to have a particular interest in your keyboardist.”

Gun blinks at Tinn. Tinn points at somewhere over Gun’s shoulder, and it takes him a moment before he sees them — Por holding a water bottle and talking animatedly to Good-Hair, the latter bending slightly to Por’s height, listening attentively. It’s only when he hears Tinn giggle that he notices his jaw had dropped.

“Por’s super shy, I don’t think he’s taken so quickly to someone before,” Gun says, sipping his drink.

“Tiw is very good with people. It was always difficult to study with him; the entire grade came to ask him to tutor them. There were so many people at one point that he had to use the gym once.”

Gun laughs, looks at Tinn as he rests his elbow on the bar counter and rests his chin on his palm. Gun rests his arms on the counter as well, sustaining Tinn’s gaze.

“What about you?” Tinn asks.

“What about me?” Gun shoots back.

“Do you come here often?”

Gun’s both surprised and delighted, another laughter bubbling out of him.

“Was that a pick up line?” he asks, brows furrowed but an unstoppable grin on his lips.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Tinn says, and the pink on his cheeks doesn’t seem to come from the lighting. “Do you want it to be?”

Gun shakes his head and the drink in his glass.

“You’re ridiculous. This is why your dates don’t work out, you know?”

And he didn’t mean to mention it, he really didn’t, but now it’s out and he’s looking at Tinn, and Tinn is looking away. Gun could take it back. He could make an excuse and walk away, but the distant look in Tinn’s eyes isn’t scary. He seems to think about something before he looks at Gun again, and there it is. The look Gun hasn’t been able to stop thinking about.

Tinn looks at him like he’s the only person in the room, and the one who shines the brightest.

“The first date was something my mother asked of me, and as pleasant as it was at first, it would never work out because the girl already had a girlfriend. Do you know why I kept coming back, Gun?”

Gun couldn’t answer, his whole being taken by anticipation.

Tinn leans in, head tilted slightly to the side. Gun finds that he likes having to look up to look at Tinn, unlike all the other times at the restaurant when Tinn looked up at him.

“It was for you. I wanted to see you.”

It stirs something inside of Gun. Maybe he’s blushing, maybe he’s blinking, but he can’t look straight at Tinn anymore. He licks his lips, bites them, finishes his drink, and then his friends are calling him, waving him back to the stage. Gun gives them a thumbs up, before he turns to Tinn again.

Tinn’s smiling. Pretty and friendly and inviting in baby blue.

“See you next year, Tinn,” Gun says, flashing him a grin. Tinn’s eyes become crescent moons when his smile widens.

Gun’s the one who does the countdown. And when he shouts, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”, he and Tinn can’t look away from each other.

***

“I don’t want to go,” Tinn whines, dragging every word, clinging to Gun’s middle. Gun pats Tinn’s clasped hands on his stomach and Tinn’s cheek as he hooks his chin over Gun’s shoulder.

“Tinn, it’s fine if you can’t go tonight,” Gun says, and Tinn drags him along with his ridiculous movements as he sways from one side to the other.

“I want to be there,” he says. “It’s our anniversary. I’ll ditch my shift if I have to.”

“You’re doing no such thing,” Gun says, making eye contact with Tinn through the mirror. Tinn tries to hide his face in Gun’s neck, but Gun sighs and turns around in his arms to face him.

“Tinn,” he says, but Tinn interrupts him.

“We’ve been apart for too long. I can’t remember the last time I heard you sing that wasn’t through my earbuds.”

“Last night, in the shower?” Gun asks, cocking an eyebrow. Tinn frowns, as it is a matter of great importance.

“Doesn’t count, you weren’t even on key. Gun,” he continues his whining before Gun can hit him for that comment.

“Tinn. We can always plan something for Valentine’s Day, if you want,” Gun says, hands resting on Tinn’s neck.

“But it’s our anniversary,” Tinn says, and he’s honest to God pouting, Gun is dating the world’s most overgrown fifteen-year-old. “I was looking forward to it.”

His antics are playful but his eyes are always honest. He’s so sad, and Gun is once again faced with the fact that Tinn likes him so damn much. He wants to kiss him, give in and spend the entire day inside the house with him, doing everything and nothing.

But his mom has raised him better than that and he will not give in to his boyfriend’s clingy impulses.

That doesn’t mean he can’t try and make him feel better.

“Today isn’t our anniversary,” Gun says, and Tinn’s frown deepens somehow.

“Yes, it is.”

Gun pretends to try and remember, eyes glancing up.

“I gave you the napkin back in... October? The 20th, I believe.”

Tinn’s whole face changes, lighting up like a Christmas tree.

“You’re counting our anniversary as the day we met?”

Gun rises on his tiptoes, pecks Tinn on his silly, pretty lips.

“It can be if we want to,” he says, thumbs brushing against Tinn’s flushed cheeks. “Or it can be the day you heard me sing for the first time. We can celebrate anytime we want. We can celebrate whenever you get home, no matter how late it gets, and then in the morning again.” He backs away from Tinn’s space as an idea hits him. “Oh, do you want to have a brunch date? At the new place that just opened.”

Tinn doesn’t answer. He pulls Gun against him, arms around his middle, nose nestling in the space between Gun’s neck and shoulder which he claimed for himself.

“I do. I want to have all the dates with you,” he says, just to make Gun tremble again, like a teenager in love for the first time. (It is his first, and it as wonderful as the songs say.) “I don’t want to leave you at all. Let’s ditch work today.”

Gun is already dressed though. And the sun that filters through the window is warm, and the birds are chirping, and although Gun loves to be in Tinn’s arms, he does want to go through his day, see all the vivid colors of the last day of the year where he had Tinn and Tinn had him. A winter day that was like a summer day.

Gun whispers, “See you next year, doctor Tinnaphob,” kisses Tinn’s temple, and then backs away and runs before Tinn can react.

He giggles throughout his day, because he’s lovesick and disgusting and annoying and a nuisance like all his friends say he is.

Sound, in his most benevolent, shakes his head at him almost fondly during practice. Gun can only hope that it means Tinn’s oldest friend approves of him for a long time.

Ten minutes before countdown that night, the door to the Rendezvous opens and Tinn walks in, panting and beaming and beautiful. He’s forgotten his glasses again, like an idiot.

Gun kisses him while everyone shouts, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” A long kiss, lips parting and coming together again and again. Kissing had never been as good as when Tinn kissed him for the first time, under a lamppost on a sweet night in January. Gun keeps track of that anniversary, too, and of so many other memories, until he has so many firsts to keep track of that it all blurs together as a life shared with Tinn.

He kisses Tinn until he gets tired of it and then some more, until his friends start playing the first song of the year on stage, and their kiss breaks with a soft pop. Gun grins, the happiest he is on the first day of the year, backs away from Tinn, the person who gives meaning to all of his songs, tall and giddy and in love with him, and then, Gun sings.

#My School President #TinnGun #gun guntaphon #tinn tinnaphob #GeminiFourth #Alternate Universe

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chapitre7 · 4 months

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satellite

แฟนผมเป็นประธานนักเรียน | My School President fanfiction

Tinn Tinnaphob Jirawatthanakul/Gun Guntaphon Wongwitthaya

1.9k words

Our Skyy 2-verse

Read on AO3

It’s the last night. After months of separation, of chat messages sent and read in opposite times of the day, of seeing Tinn only through the screen of his cellphone, it’s the last night.

Tinn glows. He’s always shone to Gun, but tonight, he’s a shooting star. He prances from one side of the stage to the other, calling for the audience’s cheers, and they call back to him. Even from where Gun stands, close and to the side of the stage, he can notice the words in the crowd. Who is this and how did I never hear about him before?

Because he’s new. Because he’s finally living his dream, doing the opening act for artists he admires. Because for this moment, while the sun sets and shines its golden light on him, he is the moment. He doesn’t have many songs to call his own, but his guitar sings with him, calling forth the roar of the crowd, hands rising up in the air, cresting like waves in the sea.

Tinn’s high school band mates are there, scattered in front of the stage. Gun had come late, sweating and nervous, and barely secured a place from where he could see Tinn himself, and not his projection on the screens. For the first song, Tinn doesn’t see him, and he sings with a lazy smile on his face, shiny pink lips close to the microphone.

And then he sees Gun.

When the song ends and the beat of a ballad starts, his eyes zero on Gun. Gun feels every word on his skin, goosebumps running over him. Although he’s on the stage, Tinn’s eyes are the same as when he sings on their bedroom floor, shirt unbuttoned and lyrics imperfect, ensnaring Gun’s attention. There are no books or studying that matter then, no concept of hour or tomorrow. As Tinn’s audience, there is only the music, and lyrics that speak to the beating of his heart.

So many people in that audience, but Tinn’s eyes never stray from his.

What does it mean to have a dream fulfilled?

After Tinn finishes his performance and exits the stage, it doesn’t take long for him to come to Gun, to reach him halfway backstage. Instantly, Tinn’s arms are around his shoulders, pulling him flush against him, and his breath is on Gun’s neck, and he’s saying “You’re here.”

Gun says, “Of course I’m here,” with a confidence he doesn’t feel, and then, “Sorry I’m late.”

Tinn is shaking his head, his hold never faltering, and Gun can feel him sway and tremble. It’s excitement and nerves and everything good (and a few bad), Gun knows, and he soothes a hand against Tinn’s back, but he’s unmoored himself. On stage, some other artist is chatting up to the audience and making them scream, but he can only hear Tinn’s breath, loud against his ear, his chest expanding against Gun’s own.

Ever since their first hug, when all of his feelings tumbled out of him and Tinn welcomed them, as awkward and nervous and uncertain as they were, Tinn always hugs him like this — like a lifeline. And every time, Gun holds back, fingers speaking wordless comfort against his back, until Tinn’s hold relents and there’s space for a breath between them again.

In one of their many heart-to-hearts, late into nights where they studied too much and worked too much but were too drunk in the intimacy of being alone together to sleep, Tinn confessed he had liked Gun for a long time.

“I don’t know how long,” he had said, and Gun didn’t believe him, but Tinn never lied out of malice, only to downplay himself.

When Tinn hugged him like that, cheek rubbing against his, the tip of his nose cold against his neck, Gun faltered, felt the ground unsteady under his feet. Not because he didn’t love Tinn, but just — there was so much of Tinn’s love, he didn’t know what to do with it. He wanted to hold all of it in his hands, do it justice, pour all of it into a cup and fill himself with it.

He closes his eyes. Tinn, himself, and the whole site vibrate to different beats. He to Tinn’s heart, and everyone else to the band that plays on stage. But as long as Tinn holds him, he lives nowhere else. Tinn breathes, in and out. It mustn’t take more than a few seconds before he opens his eyes again.

He comes out of the hug like a man breaking through the surface of the sea. Suddenly he sees the others: Tinn’s friends – their friends – approaching, greeting him, congratulating Tinn. Tinn is handed water by someone, his manager, maybe, Gun isn’t really paying attention, because Tinn only surrenders the hug enough to take the already uncapped bottle, an arm still around his shoulders while chatting with the others.

Gun is led away from the backstage and back into the VIP section of the festival. He barely registers anything more than the indistinct, loud blur of conversations, Tinn’s solid presence against him, and the colors of the twilight in the backdrop of the stage.

He’s more than a little sleep deprived, and the song playing in the back of his perception has a captivating beat. He knows it’s not a favorite artist of Tinn’s because Tinn doesn’t spare more than a few glances towards the stage, preferring to shout over the music to talk to his friends. Gun looks at their faces, smiles at them. Por and Tiw also hang off each other, and the grin Por gives him is conspiratory. Sound points his phone at them, asks them to say hello to Winny who’s on screen, sad that he couldn’t make it, and even Kajorn waves his arms around to greet him. Yo, his girlfriend and Pat actually turn towards the stage, mouths moving along to the lyrics, enjoying the concert.

“Are you tired?” Tinn asks next to his ear, breath hot and eyes warm, round and shining. “Do you want to leave?”

And even though he is, well. Between his residency and Tinn’s budding career, he hasn’t seen Tinn in so fucking long. Here he is, fancy jacket and perfect hair, smooth skin with makeup that will last all night. Some things are just more important than sleep.

“You said your favorite artist is here?” Gun says, tilting his chin up. “Introduce him to me.”

Of course knew Gun who it was. He knew the lyrics and melody by heart, not because he listened to the songs often, but because Tinn would sing them all the time. But to see Tinn grin so wide, to feel his arm pull Gun impossibly closer and lead him towards the stage, was an entirely different experience from home.

Gun gazes at the pink glow of the stage lights on Tinn’s face, at his laugh when the others play with him. When Gun turns to reply to Tiw or Kajorn, he does it so over his shoulder and Tinn’s arm, still secure around him. In the end, his gaze, like a magnet, always returns to Tinn.

The band finishes its act, and he can feel Tinn vibrate. All of their friends start hollering, and the crowd starts chanting the artist’s name. Gun is awake then, posture straight in anticipation for the main attraction. There are cellphones everywhere at the ready, most pointed at the stage, but Gun has noticed for some time now, some pointing in their direction. He doesn’t know what to do with it, and Tinn only has eyes for the stage, so he lets them. He waits, his hand in Tinn’s hand.

The artist arrives with a guitar riff. Tinn jumps in the air, and Gun jumps with him. The audience is a live organism that moves in unison. The artist introduces himself, says a few words, and the audience waits. He nods to his band, and just like that, it begins.

For some reason, Tinn turns to Gun then. Gun can’t be sure if his eyes shine because of tears or because his eyes are just like that, carrying both Altair and Vega. He leans forward, touching his forehead to Gun’s, and breathes in when Gun breathes out.

Gun feels jittery again. Like, maybe, Tinn’s arms around him are the only thing keeping him standing.

If you had asked him in his last year of high school where he saw himself in ten years, he would say married to Tinn. If you had asked him again, firmly this time, he would have faltered. A doctor, perhaps. Doing some good in the world. His mom would be proud, and she would say his dad would have been proud of him, too. And maybe, if he were lucky, Tinn would be by his side.

When Tinn took him in his arms for the first time, Gun had hoped. When Tinn started soaring high in his own dreams, Gun had feared. He had feared that he would become once again just a satellite to orbit Tinn, until one day he became obsolete. What use were good deeds for, with no one to share them over breakfast? Hours turned into days turned into weeks – so many hours without Tinn.

Now, Tinn’s hand grasps his shirt, and his arm never leaves him. He keeps looking between the stage and Gun, lips singing along, his white teeth showing in his beautiful smile. Gun screams when the audience screams, pretending his middle doesn’t tremble. One song ends and another begins, and Tinn moves in rhythm, swaying Gun with him.

Everyone knows this song, this melody, this ballad. Tinn closes his eyes. Gun sees everything, thinks back to all of his fears. Tinn holds on to him so tightly, holds him up. He loves Gun so much, Gun knows. What does it mean to have a dream fulfilled? This moment is his dream. He takes his phone out to capture it, to record Tinn at his happiest, his head on Tinn’s shoulder, and he turns to look at Tinn, and Tinn kisses him.

His love for music had died once, when his dad died. When he fell in love with Tinn, with the sweetness of his voice and his jumba, it was like music had come alive again. Gun couldn’t sing anymore, he couldn’t join Tinn’s band and support him there, but to love Tinn was to live and love music.

There, with Tinn’s favorite song surrounding them, music loved them back. A song can play over and over and over again and you never tired of it. Tinn’s lips moved against him in a known pace, practice made perfect after so many years, like Gun’s favorite song. It eased his fears. His hands in Tinn’s hair were sure, and his feet stood strong. The song spoke of always, of withstanding the end of the world together.

So much time spent apart, Gun had forgotten that Tinn had always been the answer. He was always both the calm in his heart and the cause for it to beat so fast, that he wished Tinn would consume him, kiss him and hold him and touch him until he could no longer think or breathe.

They kiss the song away. They part and stay in proximity — the star and his satellite. There are people screaming in their direction, Gun can vaguely tell out of the corner of his eyes, but Tinn raises a hand to his chin, keeps him from looking away.

“Let them look,” Tinn says. “I’m not letting you go.”

Gun lets out a breathless laugh. A new song starts, but Tinn doesn’t look at the stage. He keeps his arms around Gun’s waist, and Gun’s arms circle his neck, and they dance like they’re teenagers on prom night. Tinn sings along, twirls Gun around, makes him laugh.

The night is only music to them. Pink lights, drunk joy.

Love overflows.

#My School President #TinnGun #tinn x gun #gun guntaphon #tinn tinnaphob #Alternate Universe: Our Skyy 2

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chapitre7 · 5 months

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I am open to writing prompts 💙 I cannot promise I'll write them, but I can promise to do the best of my abilities.

Ratings G to M.

#geminifourth #tinngun #northnight #heartliming #author speaks

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chapitre7 · 5 months

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Chapters: 7/7 Words: 9575 Fandom: Thai Actor RPF Rating: T Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul/Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak Characters: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul, Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak, Lord Jumu Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Singer!Gemini, Not Famous!Fourth, Catsitting, Falling in Love, Pining, 5+1 Things

“Maybe he’s a little traumatized,” Fourth says, standing up from the couch and leaving Satang to his own fate. Jumu accepts his petting like a drop of water in the desert — that is, by flopping on his side and blinking adoringly at Fourth. Maybe Fourth really is his favorite, but Fourth can’t even steal him now that he’s adopted Munmuang, who slapped Jumu in the face just a few minutes ago. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll protect you.”

#geminifourth #thai actor rpf #alternate universe: famous/not famous #fourth nattawat #gemini norawit #5+1 fic

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chapitre7 · 5 months

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Chapters: 1/1 Words: 2748 Fandom: Thai Actor RPF Rating: M Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul/Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak Characters: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul, Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Modern Prince!Fourth, Bodyguard!Gemini, Romance, poetic prose, Hurt/Comfort, Aged-Up Character(s), Implied Sexual Content, Implied Infidelity (between other characters)

He’s moving the moment he sees the knife. He’s had training for this. For years. His body has been made a weapon, a shield. Whenever his trainers noticed his stamina, his dedication, they worked him until he ached to the bone. The body remembered, his hands — maybe too well. Sometimes, he was afraid of not being able to hold anything gently anymore. Not an animal. Not a child. Not himself, whenever he got hurt. Instinct.

Bodyguard Gemini protects Prince Fourth from an attack. All the days of recovery allow his mind to rest. They allow him to reach the love that had always been there, but filed away.

#geminifourth #fourth nattawat #gemini norawit #thai actor rpf #alternate universe: royalty #modern royalty

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chapitre7 · 5 months

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Chapters: 6/7 Words: 8110 Fandom: Thai Actor RPF Rating: T Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul/Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak Characters: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul, Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak, Lord Jumu Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Singer!Gemini, Not Famous!Fourth, Catsitting, Falling in Love, Pining, 5+1 Things

He’s never liked someone before. In dramas, it’s always so different. Like it happens either at once or after overcoming several difficulties. Love seems so justified in them; love because someone is too good, or too kind, or because they stayed side by side for a long time. In love songs, it’s such an all-encompassing thing. For Gemini, it’s simple.

#geminifourth #thai actor rpf #alternate universe: famous/not famous #fourth nattawat #gemini norawit #5+1 fic

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chapitre7 · 5 months

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Chapters: 5/7 Words: 5940 Fandom: Thai Actor RPF Rating: T Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul/Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak Characters: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul, Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak, Lord Jumu Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Singer!Gemini, Not Famous!Fourth, Catsitting, Falling in Love, Pining, 5+1 Things

“I’m sorry.” “What?” “It’s my fault, I’m sorry. I’ll understand if you don’t want me to look after him anymore.”

#geminifourth #thai actor rpf #alternate universe: famous/not famous #gemini norawit #fourth nattawat #5+1 fic

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chapitre7 · 5 months

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Chapters: 4/7 Words: 3990 Fandom: Thai Actor RPF Rating: T Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul/Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak Characters: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul, Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak, Lord Jumu Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Singer!Gemini, Not Famous!Fourth, Catsitting, Falling in Love, Pining, 5+1 Things

What would Gemini look like if he were in love?

#geminifourth #thai actor rpf #alternate universe: famous/not famous #gemini norawit #fourth nattawat #5+1 fic

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chapitre7 · 5 months

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Chapters: 3/7 Words: 3056 Fandom: Thai Actor RPF Rating: T Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul/Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak Characters: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul, Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak, Lord Jumu Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Singer!Gemini, Not Famous!Fourth, Catsitting, Falling in Love, Pining, 5+1 Things

“Why would I go to karaoke with you and embarrass myself?” he asked. One of their mutual friends laid an arm across his shoulders and said, “Don’t worry. We only pick the songs outside of his range for him.”

#geminifourth #thai actor rpf #alternate universe: famous/not famous #fourth nattawat #gemini norawit #5+1 fic

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chapitre7 · 5 months

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Chapters: 2/7 Words: 1993 Fandom: Thai Actor RPF Rating: T Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul/Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak Characters: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul, Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak, Lord Jumu Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Singer!Gemini, Not Famous!Fourth, Catsitting, Falling in Love, Pining, 5+1 Things

With Jumu in his cat bed — a rare occurrence in and of itself — and with Gemini now several miles away, Fourth finds himself watching those tiktoks again. Gemini is a good dancer, clearly set apart from his friends and colleagues. He’s told Fourth that he’s been learning how to dance for many years, since he’s wanted to be an artist from a very young age. To achieve his dreams and still have so much fun with it – to Fourth, Gemini is admirable.

#geminifourth #thai actor rpf #alternate universe: famous/not famous #fourth nattawat #gemini norawit #5+1 fic

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chapitre7 · 5 months

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Chapters: 1/7 Words: 973 Fandom: Thai Actor RPF Rating: T Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul/Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak Characters: Fourth Nattawat Jirochtikul, Gemini Norawit Titicharoenrak, Lord Jumu Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Singer!Gemini, Not Famous!Fourth, Catsitting, Falling in Love, Pining, 5+1 Things

5 times Fourth kisses a cat instead of the object of his affections and one time he's kissed in return.

#GeminiFourth #Thai Actor RPF #Alternate Universe: Famous/Not Famous #Fourt Nattawat #Gemini Norawit #5+1 fic

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chapitre7 · 6 months

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I want to look at the stars with you for another 10.000 days

Midnight Series: Moonlight Chicken พระจันทร์มันไก่ | Moonlight Chicken (TV) fanfiction

HeartLiMing

2k words

For @remapped-soul

Read on AO3

How are you? Are you sleeping? Are you eating? Is it very hard?

Heart’s mom always asks the same questions whenever she calls, hands clasped together after she’s done. Sitting back in his couch, Heart can predict the signs before she even finishes them. His father lets her speak, an arm around her shoulders, his eyes following Heart’s replies. Heart doesn’t mind the flow of their conversation, and he doesn’t think his father is uninterested. Sometimes, his father will wire him money and tell him to buy a book he had mentioned he wanted, or tell him to buy something for dinner when Heart mentions studying late into the night.

His father is always polite to Li Ming when he sees him, while Heart’s mom says Li Ming is too skinny and has dark circles under his eyes and is he taking care of himself, are they taking advantage of him at work, are they treating him well?

Heart understands his father a little more as he learns to live with Li Ming.

He has categorized his smiles — genuine to Heart’s mother, strained when he gets home, tired but warm in the morning. He can tell by the curve of his spine when something is bothering him, and Heart pokes at him until Li Ming speaks. When he wakes up before Li Ming, when he has the privilege to watch Li Ming rise, the pale sunrise on his face, the light reflecting in his eyes, Heart follows every movement he makes. The tilt of his chin, his fingers closing around the blanket, the shadows cast by his eyelashes on his cheek. His lips say good morning and Heart’s lips form the same words, and it still makes Li Ming smile wide, showing all the cherished creases on his face.

Every day settles on him like the warm sun, routine falling into place with ease. Every day, Heart knows a little more. Knows when Li Ming needs to vent his frustrations or excitedly share something new he learned at work. Knows when Li Ming needs to be left alone, eyes still looking for the bartending job he wants but does not yet have. Another day ends, another day begins.

How is Heart doing?

Heart can attend classes again, have his own groups again. Now he has people on his phone who post a really absurd amount of stickers and talk shit about their professors just like everyone else. He can eat ice cream when it’s chilly and do his homework outside while brown leaves fall from their branches. He takes pictures of stray cats and sends them to Li Ming – even though he knows they can’t keep a pet at their current housing – like a shared secret. Sometimes Li Ming says they could sneak it in through the back door. Maybe just to see Heart laugh, but Heart would not put it past him. Not when Li Ming gets a certain glint in his eyes.

America is colder, but not always. When he can walk with Li Ming, his hand in Li Ming’s hand, it’s different. To walk with Li Ming in daylight, to discover everything with him, is different. He watches Li Ming speak with others with increasing confidence, lips shaping words Heart learned once, but that are harder to recognize now. He doesn’t get lost with Li Ming. They walk and walk and walk, until the streetlights are on and their legs are sore, and Heart doesn’t get tired of it. Maybe he will, someday. Heart doesn’t think about that. There is so much he wants to see, and so much Li Ming wants to share. With his hand in Heart’s hand, careful so Heart can follow.

When Heart finishes all of his homework and the night is long and Li Ming is not yet back, Heart grabs his phone and dreams of endless places to see with Li Ming. He wants to travel to see the cherry blossoms in Japan, to roam through the streets of Hong Kong at night, see the color of Indonesian waters. What is Canada like during autumn? What are the lavender fields like in France? Heart dreams of the days he first left his room with Li Ming, seemingly so long ago now, and the exhilaration he can’t help but seek again and again and again.

But when he talks to Li Ming about it, there’s a straight line in his lips. He looks at the pictures Heart shows him and he agrees that it all looks beautiful, but there is no enthusiasm in him. Heart doesn’t look for a promise, for a solid plan. When he shows his phone to Li Ming and looks at him, Heart is only thinking of the following year. And the one after that. To be with him, to stay with him.

Perhaps his flaw is that he has become too comfortable. That he believes they understand each other perfectly, but forgets Li Ming can’t read his thoughts. When Heart keeps talking about traveling, when he pulls Li Ming to look when he tries to turn away, he doesn’t expect Li Ming to explode.

“I don’t know when we can leave! I don’t know, Heart!”

His mouth moves as he signs, and then he aborts another phrase, something that Heart thinks he knows, thinks he understands, from all that Li Ming has shared with him.

“I can do it for you,” Heart tells him, because he can. Eventually, Heart believes anything will be possible. “For us. You don’t have to provide for me.”

You’re not my caretaker, he thinks, but doesn’t externalize. He’s thankful he doesn’t. The fight leaving Li Ming in heavy breaths is enough, as are the hard steps that Heart feels but can’t hear as Li Ming walks away and leaves, the dinner forgotten on the stove.

Heart can’t sleep without Li Ming.

Or he can, but he doesn’t want to. His body aches, his eyes sting, but he doesn’t allow himself to sleep. He doesn’t want to fall asleep and miss Li Ming coming back. He wants to stand by the front door, but he doesn’t. He paces around their bedroom, sits on the bed and hugs his knees to his chest. He looks at the lamp on his bedside table until the glare draws shadows on his retinas.

Before Li Ming, he didn’t want much. He wanted to breathe, and to walk, and to extend his arms beyond the walls of a home that didn’t feel like a home. With Li Ming, he wants so much. Every second is precious, a moment he can’t miss. He wants to graduate fast, and start working, and feel like he can stand on his own for the first time. In a paradoxical way, he never wants the current days to end; he, sitting by Li Ming’s side in the living room, both of them immersed in their own studies, until Heart drops his head on Li Ming’s shoulder, feeling the vibration of his English practice, until the words morph into humor, until Li Ming is nudging him and poking him and he’s giggling and they’re wrestling on the floor, and every worry seems as small as a speckle of dust when compared to Li Ming’s smile.

Heart wants everything. The future, every city across the globe, every minute and every second of the present with Li Ming. He wants Li Ming. How long has he been gone, will he come back now?

Heart only realizes he’s crying when he looks up at the figure of Li Ming by the door and he can’t properly see his face or his expression, his vision blurred by dark spots and tears. He stays where he is, raises his hands before he lets them drop to his lap and then he raises them again. He wants to reach for Li Ming and wipe his own tears because this is his fault, and he’s saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” until Li Ming stops his hands and embraces him.

Li Ming isn’t crying. After a few minutes of crying all over his shirt, Heart feels embarrassed, but he still keeps his arms around Li Ming, and his head on Li Ming’s shoulder. He’s playing with the hem of Li Ming’s shirt and wondering if he’s too selfish when Li Ming pushes him back and they finally look at each other. Li Ming looks exhausted.

“Did you eat?” Heart asks, and Li Ming can only give him an unconvincing half-smile. Heart makes to stand but Li Ming grabs his wrist and pulls him back to bed.

“Tomorrow,” is his response, and Heart frowns but doesn’t fight him.

Li Ming stands and starts changing, and in the warm pool of the lamp light, Heart thinks about how different he already looks from when they first met. Li Ming had always carried himself with a firmness in his step that Heart admired. Like he knew his place in the world. Heart knows it’s not exactly like that, now that he doesn’t worship Li Ming so much. Now that they have shared so many secrets, now that they share a life. But his shoulders seem broader now. Maybe not too much, but it’s noticeable to Heart. A small touch of time in their story.

Li Ming turns back to him. He’s tired but sincere, and Heart is filled with longing. He does open his arms to Li Ming then, calls for him without words, so he can finally lie down with an armful of Li Ming and surrender. What was it like to fall asleep without Li Ming’s scent, his weight against him? Heart doesn’t want to remember.

Are they sleeping? Are they eating? Are they well?

It’s colder in America. There are still places where Heart feels a tinge of helplessness if he goes alone, because people look at him and his language like he’s not someone who belongs there. There are days he sleeps slouched over the coffee table in the living room and wakes up with a headache when Li Ming has to get him to go to bed. And having to leave for classes and leave Li Ming asleep, peaceful and warm and beautiful, is a battle Heart has to fight too often.

But Heart loves his days. He loves his friends with whom he shares notes, stories from home, and movies every Thursday after class. He loves the overly sweet hot beverages the coffee shops serve once October comes. He loves it when children walk by his group of friends and wave and stare at the way they sign. And at the end of the day, at the start and end of it all, in every plan of his future—

The first snowflake Heart ever notices melts against Li Ming’s cheek.

“Ah,” he sees Li Ming say, his mouth opening in delight. Then he turns to Heart and signs, “the first snow.”

Heart doesn’t think Li Ming should lie with his head on Heart’s lap on a public bench, but Li Ming doesn’t seem to care.

“Wet,” Heart signs, and smiles when Li Ming chuckles.

“I know, I know. We’ll go in a second.”

Li Ming looks at the slowly falling snow and then at Heart. His red beanie almost matches his flushed cheeks perfectly. Heart places a hand on Li Ming’s chest. He wants to take Li Ming ice skating at the place his friends told him to go. He wants to go on a Christmas date with him with the city’s multicolored lights twinkling overhead, illuminating the night. And when the new year comes, he wants to tell Li Ming about all the new years he wants to see with him. Anywhere he wants to be.

Li Ming waves a hand in front of his eyes and he focuses back on the boy lying on his lap. The boy at the end of his scented road.

“I’m hungry,” Li Ming signs, and Heart laughs. It’s the way he says he doesn’t want to cook tonight.

“Let’s go home,” Heart replies. Still they don’t move. Not for a few beats, while the snow falls in thin swirls around them.

Tomorrow, Heart will tell him that he loves him.

Tonight, he loves him so much he cannot say anything.

#Moonlight Chicken #HeartLiMing #GeminiFourth #Post-End

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chapitre7 · 7 months

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strawberries and cigarettes

23.5 องศาที่โลกเอียง | 23.5 (TV 2023) fanfiction

NorthNight

Rated M for mild violence and referenced child abuse

5k words

Read on AO3

The hours between sundown and sunrise can appear to last days. They exist in a kind of darkness that operates by its own rules. When you stare at that kind of darkness, you can feel time slow down. When you listen to music, it lingers in the air like dust. You can stretch your body and feel taller, longer, beyond the edges of yourself. You can dream with your eyes open, lying awake in nightmares of your own making. You breathe, listening to your own heartbeat. Only a minute has passed, perhaps two. You turn, and submerge into a different song. The notes play against your closed eyelids; the lyrics course through your veins. A song lasts a lifetime. Only four minutes pass. You turn the music off and wait in the silence. Somewhere, there is always a clock ticking away the time. There is no light coming through the window. It feels as though light will never come again.

For Night, his teenage years are not so different from the dark hour of early morning. There is a kind of abandon that is promised on the horizon of adulthood, but there is no guide to achieve it. He waits for his mother every day until the lights go out, and she always seems to come when his body has given up the fight. Every morning he discovers he’s slept through her arrival, even though it feels as though he waited the whole time. He never wakes her up before he leaves for school. He doesn’t know what kind of questions he would begin to ask anymore.

Words, words. He takes all the notes, and he remembers them, but they don’t hold any value. A girl sitting by his side giggles at poems, and he wishes he could see what she sees. Beyond the words, giving them meaning beyond what the book says it means. He looks outside the window, at the overcast morning. When they had to read a book last year, Ongsa would say, “sometimes blue is just blue.” Night understood how blue could be many things. But didn’t someone once say the moon could speak for love? He wishes the words could carry something for him, as well.

The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?

He carries this: pulls and shoves in a dirty alley. How come they always picked him for this? He’s not that different from anybody else. His height is average, as are his looks. But still, the kicks. The sneers. A couple of the boys hold him back while another opens his bag and throws the contents on the ground. They take the little money he has and beat him up for it. At school, the next day, they’ll approach him and mess up his hair as though they’re friends. No one says anything. He has no one to tell. In the future, soon, he won’t have to endure it anymore. In the future, he’ll be an adult, and he’ll be able to leave.

Where?

How?

What for?

The days pass by like seconds on a clock. The weather seldom changes. How long as it been since it last rained? When Night is pushed against a pile of garbage, a cat screeches and runs away. It’s fully black, but its fur still catches the light, showing off a sleek shine. He’s never had a pet. Would it run from him if he approached? He’s on the ground, mouth full of filth, so he cannot approach it. He tries to protect his stomach from the kicks but he bites his tongue and feels the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He thinks if the cat would be around tomorrow, could he try again?

He thinks, he thinks. Tomorrow is the future and the future will come. How do you make the dawn approach faster?

There is a voice calling out from the light at the end of the alley. Night can’t make out the words being said against the ringing in his ears, but the boys harassing him don’t seem to like it. Night watches as they turn to the owner of the voice, intimidating, but they take a step back when the person moves. He’s carrying a baseball bat. A red baseball bat. The boys take a step back, synchronized like the hands of a clock as it marks the passage of an hour.

From then, time shifts again. Bodies moving too fast, in flashes of beatings and screaming. Night carries himself up, to sit against the wall, as the figure with the bat is pushed down to the ground. Subdued, but not defeated. Night knows he cannot be defeated easily. Night recognizes that laugh when the boy lands perfect hits, when his kick makes one of Night’s assailants shout and curse. Night knows who has that kind of fun. Who would wield a red baseball bat with the confidence that no consequence would ever come to him.

When the bullies flee, Night is left with his questions. He’s moved schools for months now, but there North stands. On his neck is a silver chain that once belonged to someone else. In his home, wherever he lived, there was a hoodie that once belonged to Night. He decided it was nice, and he asked Night for it. It had never been a request. North never requested anything. Night’s hoodie, snacks for lunch, answers to tests. He took and took. But he never made Night bleed.

There is blood at the corner of North’s mouth. He takes a step closer to Night, and Night flinches, tries to back away. North has never made Night bleed, but North breaks the laws of stillness. Night had moved schools. Night had moved away. When you move, things are supposed to change. But still, even after all that, Night’s mother never talked to him, never showed up. And there North is, red baseball bat in hand. He had never hurt Night before. There was a first to everything.

North tilts his head, amusement playing on his lips. “Get up,” he says, and for a moment, Night just stays where he is. North arches an eyebrow, but doesn’t move either. He waits until Night picks himself up, using the wall to support himself. Night doubles in pain before he reaches his full height, and he sees North’s feet move, but he doesn’t touch Night. Time is slow, seconds passing by like drops falling from a broken faucet. Time is liquid on the shadows that play against North’s face.

“Why did you help me?”

Night can’t bring himself to look away from North’s eyes. He never could. If he did, he didn’t know what kind of trap would be set for him. The slow hunt of a predator, or the quick attack of a viper.

North’s lips stretch into a grin.

“Who says I helped you?”

The bat that North had kept to his side rises. Night flinches when he catches the glimpse of it out the corner of his eyes, and presses harder against the wall. There is nowhere to escape. There is nowhere that doesn’t hurt.

He’s not hit. He opens his eyes to see North tap the bat against his own shoulder.

“I didn’t like them. I had a score to settle.” He tilts his head to the other side, never taking his eyes from Night’s. “I was bored. So many reasons, none to do with you.”

Night can feel himself grit his teeth, but he tries mask it up, pressing his lips tight together. He looks down at their feet. His shoes are dirty and old. North’s shoes are also dirty but they’re new. There’s still a shine to them, and the soles are high, no sign of being worn down like Night’s. His feet probably don’t hurt after wandering around the whole day. Does North ever hurt? Picking up fights, chasing bruises day after day? Does he struggle to breathe after being kicked down, or does he feel like drowning in the air?

North shifts. Whatever he means to do — to touch Night, to push him, to hit him — is cut short as Night pushes him away and stumbles out of the alley. North doesn’t give chase. The only thing that follows Night home is the sound of distant thunder.

Waiting for his mother to come home, with the lights out, Night thinks about North. He thinks about the swing of the bat on the bodies of his bullies. He pictures the grin he thinks he saw on North then. Whenever North picked on him at his old school, there was always a look of self-satisfaction on his face. The cat that calculates his next move on the mouse. The eyes that reflect in the dark. Somewhere in North’s house, there is Night’s hoodie. A piece of Night in the puzzle of North.

With North in his thoughts, Night stands up from the floor, picks up a picture frame and throws it to the ground. The glass shatters and scatters across the floor. He’s never liked looking at old pictures anyway. A vase in his mother’s living room is next. Then Night moves to the kitchen and throws a glass against the wall, then another. The crystalline sound of destruction fills the air, and then, silence. The sound of breathing. His own, labored and loud. The tears that emerge aren’t of sadness. Night doesn’t truly know what they mean. He wipes them away, and sits on the floor again, next to the broken glass. He stays there, and after a while, he falls asleep. When he wakes up, everything is the same, and he has to clean the mess himself. He doesn’t think he understands North more.

North doesn’t leave his mind. He doesn’t leave him alone.

He’s there when Night enters a stationery store. He’s there when Night tries to study in the public library, away from school, away from the boys that glare at him and would use any excuse to beat him up (but haven’t tried again yet). He’s there when Night stays out and the sun begins to set and the streetlights start lighting up in harmony. Night sees him out the corner of his eye. North comes up to him and steals one of his pens when he’s studying. He passes Night by on the street with the red baseball poking out of his bag, looks back and winks before walking away. Sometimes he has a crowd of boys with him, but mostly, Night sees him alone. Like a duplicate of Night’s own shadow.

He’s like an itch that Night can’t get rid of. His presence isn’t oppressing like when they were at the same school, hovering over his desk, asking for something or other. But he’s persistent and it’s worse, because Night understands bullying. He understands being played with. But he doesn’t understand... whatever this is. Dreaming about North’s silhouette and wanting him to come closer, his hands drenched in red. North keeping his new bullies away for what? Exclusivity? There’s a bruise at the corner of his mouth and it’s red and ugly and Night wants to press against it, watch North wince. It’s all a dream, a dream. North’s lips are pretty, not chapped at all. Night touches the bruise and the lips and North opens his mouth and Night’s thumb touches his tongue. It’s a dream. There’s nothing to read between Night’s lines.

The stifling hot days remain. The season should have mellowed down into cooler evenings, but not yet. Summer lingers, clouds his mind. His school days go by in a blur. No one wants to talk to him. He misses Ongsa, who would fill his silences with her chatter. What has she been up to? He forgot to reply to her text and then it felt wrong to reply days after. Staying in touch is complicated. Night hasn’t been thinking well lately. Too hot. Too many dreams.

He sees him. North. For the first time in memory, it seems that he’s noticed North before North has noticed him. He’s alone, bag thrown over his shoulder, earbuds in his ears. Night follows him. Is it wrong? After all that has happened between them?

The late afternoon hour tinges the sky with orange. Night starts to question if he’ll know his way back home after walking for so long. He has enough battery to pull up the GPS if needed. He continues to follow. The streetlights come on like fireflies. Sweat trickles down his back, and his head is starting to hurt. He wants to know North’s destination.

Abruptly, North climbs and jumps over the wall to a building that looks abandoned. Night watches him from around the corner, waits. While the sun is out, time is quick to pass, so spying doesn’t take long. Soon, he’s moving over, climbing over that same wall, and landing on the other side. No one on the street seems to pay him any attention, so he waits until the beating of his heart isn’t deafening against his ears, and then, he moves.

It doesn’t take much to discover where North is — all he has to do is follow the sounds of destruction. Night flinches at first, walks with cautious steps towards the noise.

It is just what it seemed to be from a distance. North swinging his bat at objects, at furniture. He smashes toys, the wood of an old wardrobe. He peels the dusty sheets off a bed and rips it with his hands and throws it to the side. It once had been a child’s room. Night can still see stickers on the ceiling that would glow green in the dark. Now, North shatters the old lamp by the bedside table to pieces, and Night watches.

Sweat drips from North’s chin, makes his hair stick to his face. His fringe is too long now, and when they studied together, Night would see teachers nag him about it. He brushes it away from his eyes, and Night takes in his flushed cheeks, the slight parting of his lips as he pants.

How long does Night stay there, watching the spectacle? There is no artificial light in the room, just the afternoon glow coming from the window. The orange sunset is draped on North’s face when he looks at Night.

Night cannot move. He cannot look away. He’ll remember that red baseball bat always, and those eyes. Unflinching, unrepentant, looking straight at him. That has always been the problem with North. It’s not just his looks or his confident demeanor that pull you in. It’s his eyes, calling for your gaze.

North moves towards Night. As he walks closer, a million things go through Night’s head. What would happen if he ran. What would happen if they were caught. What would happen if he touched the curled tips of North’s damp hair. He cannot do anything; he cannot move or tame his frantic heart. He watches North approach, almost as if it were one of his dreams, where he’s pulled from one moment to the next without a thought of his own.

It more or less happens like that. A blink, and North is taking his hand. Another blink, and they’re running through the corridors of the old house. There is less light now, but Night can still see the dust in the air, the old-fashioned wallpaper on the wall, the red baseball bat and North. North. He places the baseball bat in Night’s hand and covers Night’s hand with his own. Like a teacher, he stands behind Night and guides him to make a dent on the wall. There are so many porcelain trinkets, who owns so much shit? North breathes against Night’s ear and they move as one. If anything is valuable, they make it so it isn’t anymore. Around and around they move and the bat comes swinging down. Is North’s breathing loud or is it Night’s, now moving in perfect sync with him? A whole glass cabinet is reduced to a million pieces on the floor. Night has to jump away so he doesn’t hurt himself on them.

Night laughs. He looks over his hands which are scratched but fine. Fine. He feels fine. He laughs and doubles on his middle and he laughs and he feels good. His body that still aches feels good and he takes a deep breath in the dusty air and he giggles and looks behind him.

He looks behind and there is North, several feet away. How...

How long has it been just him with the bat in hand?

North approaches, firm steps, long strides. There is no smirk on him, no ghost of a smile. He’s pulling at Night’s arm, nothing violent, it’s almost — soft, if he were capable of such. A firm and hot touch on Night’s forearm, a gentle pull, the dim light catching in his eyes and his lips parted and mirthless, Night’s still holding the bat but he wants to let go and—

There is a noise outside.

A car horn, lights flashing through the window. It startles them into movement. The touch North had on Night turns into a grip on his wrist and he’s pulling, running out of whatever room they found themselves in and into the corridor where the windows faced the opposite side. They rush, crouched, trying be quiet, but Night can’t help himself, he giggles. North slows down, doesn’t stop, looks over his shoulder and shushes Night, and it only makes him giggle more. North pulls his wrist and Night pulls back, and there, in the corridor, the young moon, high in the early evening sky, smiles down at them as they pull and push against each other, trying and failing to suppress their laughter.

What is that amuses them, what is it that bubbles in Night’s chest? Night has sacrificed so much of his sleep trying to understand his placement in the world, his future, the broken glass of his family portrait. North. What North wanted, what North saw. There had never been any answers, or at least none that stuck, none that satisfied him. Every thought went on and on, down endless roads, around torturous corners, until Night was too tired to pursue them anymore. Now, there is no thought. There is this: North taking the bat from his hand and shoving it aside, his hands pushing against Night’s shoulder, tickling down Night’s side and making him laugh. There is Night, hitting North, not with any real force, but just to push back, to fight, not a real fight, nothing as real as the hold he keeps on North’s arm as he tickles him, because he wants North there. Since when did he want North? In what form? This form. Bodies falling over, North’s breath on his cheek, North’s giggles playing in his ears like his favorite song.

Like this: North’s lips touching his own, making his breath stutter. Still, Night smiles. As if that, too, is their inside joke. Something only they will ever understand.

Later, he will find dirt on his back, and North’s fingertips on the white of his uniform shirt. Later, after showering, after there is no more light outside, when time is liquid and has submerged him in insomnia again, he will lick his lips and miss North, North, North. Is it wrong to want a person so much? Is it even wrong to want? Night has wanted so much for so many years but it’s been like wandering in a maze, just longing for the exit. He wants North like he’s his compass. No, not quite, just — maybe North is the maze. North is the heart that beats fast in his chest as he finds the thrill in the game.

Later. There’ll be much to think later. For now, they kiss unhurriedly. Night has no experience to speak of. He holds on to North, to his shirt, to drag this moment on. North has a hand on his neck, a finger on his jawline, accompanying the motions of their kiss. His hair tickles Night’s face and he smells of sweat when they part, briefly, to breathe, before they’re pulled back into each other. All the outside world is gone, there is only the wet sounds of their kiss in that forgotten place. He can hear his name in North’s voice; he can taste it. He wants to hear it again. He can’t speak, lest the moment ends. How do you capture a moment?

You can’t. Night doesn’t recall how or when they stop. A blink, the moment is gone, and he’s jumping over the wall again, back into the street. The world exists and North walks with him until he doesn’t. Lying on his bed later, the world doesn’t seem so suffocating anymore, but it’s silent. Night keeps a hand on his chest, following the rhythm of his breathing, and he falls asleep like that. Hand over his heart.

When he wakes up, he has a message on his phone from an unknown number.

You forgot something.

There’s laughter in the text, and the picture of a hand holding a button. A button from his uniform shirt. When did he even lose it?

North stops following him, because they meet face to face. For reasons Night cannot comprehend, North hangs out around him even when he’s quiet and studying. He picks up books from the library seemingly at random and flips through them while Night glances at him from one of the tables. After, Night buys them both ice cream and they stay together until dark. Night watches North when he smokes, the shape of his mouth as he exhales, but Night never tries to smoke himself. It’s not friendship. It’s not not something.

It’s not always like that. North still has a group of loud boys who wear the same uniform as him and who linger around him like dirt, but Night can see North’s head turn in his direction even when he’s in their company. North still messages him when the hours are late and long.

North asks him,

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

And Night surprises them both with honesty.

“Somewhere that is not here.”

North doesn’t make fun of him. He simply asks, “Studying or working?”

Night answers all of his questions. Sometimes, North calls him and talks and talks and Night just listens. He seems agitated. He asks Night if he ever picked a clock apart. Night never thought of such thing, but North seems to enjoy picking things apart and then putting them back together. He says that all the mechanisms of a clock serve a purpose and they work in perfect harmony, and that nothing that they teach him at school comes close to that type of satisfaction. He wonders if university would be better. Night asks him if there is something he wants to study. North hums and tells him that he doesn’t know. There is a loud sound in the background of his call and it makes Night afraid. He tries to keep the conversation going, and it’s surprisingly easy when North is willing to talk. When he’s talking to North, the night seems disappointingly short.

On his graduation day, he and North find a new abandoned apartment building to break into. North holds his hand this time, holds him as he jumps over the fence and he wipes the dirt off Night’s clothes. He has a lollipop in his mouth and he grins through it as he swings his bat around, destroying memories that people left behind. Before he passes the bat to Night, he slips his lollipop into Night’s mouth. It tastes sweet. So sweet.

When they sit on the ground, surrounded by broken things, tasting artificial strawberry and cigarettes on their tongues, North says,

“I’m moving out tomorrow.”

Raising his eyes from where he was just staring right ahead, Night finds North already looking at him.

“Do you want to come with me?”

There is eternity in a second. In the ba-dump, ba-dump of his heart.

Night exhales through his mouth, much in the manner he’s seen North exhale smoke all this time.

And then, he answers.

***

North is always typing when Night gets home.

The living room is his space, and it’s usually cluttered with paperwork and sketches. Night doesn’t even bother to clean it, both because he’s too tired to do it and because he knows North finds himself somewhere in that mess.

And without falter, every day when he opens the front door, it only takes one, two seconds before,

“Night, come here!”

His feet ache, but Night goes. He tiptoes around North’s mess until he can sit beside North and then he’s pulled closer and North shows him something he extrapolated from class that day. North has clever ideas, and since Night isn’t in university, his head isn’t busy with subjects of his own. His patrons are behind him now, and his payment is secure, so he lets North’s words fill him. Maybe one day, all the interesting theories will be enough to make him pursue a field of his own. For now, Night is content with very little. That there is someone who calls his name when he walks through the front door.

They split the rent, but not evenly. North’s elder sister is the one paying for most things, and Night has ceased feeling guilty about it. There are too many complicated family situations involved in that action and North is not interested in talking about it, so Night let go. North wanted a roommate—

No.

North wanted him there. He had said so. And Night wanted to be somewhere else, so he went.

Now, there are no picture frames of faded memories in the living room. There are a few plants with no flowers in every room. Night had bought just one, once, on a whim, and North had bought the others. There are plates and cups and utensils for two and they’re used every day. The leftovers no longer rot in the fridge.

It’s a life. Night sleeps longer, his body demanding rest. He goes to bed thinking about all the things he has to do the next day, and even plans his weekends. He’s living.

But he doesn’t know if that’s love. He has very little experience of it. Everyone who sees what they share make their own assumptions, but Night does not name it. If he names it, if he brings it to light, is it not susceptible to end? What is love any—

“Night, come here.”

He goes, even if his eyelids are heavy. He stands beside North as he stands by the window. Night follows his gaze at the moon. A perfect full moon, illuminating the sky, cascading moonlight on the city like a veil.

“I heard it’s a blue moon. I thought you’d miss it, but the sky cleared up in the last minute.”

Night turns to North, suddenly awake.

“You. . .”

How did you know I like it? How well do you know me? All the questions must be clear in his face, because North only chuckles.

“You always used to look up at the moon, but you’ve been sleeping early.”

Night looks down, suddenly shy. Even though he’s known North for a while now, even though they’ve been sharing the same space for months now, he’s still not used to someone looking at him. Seeing his details, the cracks where the pieces of him meet.

North is tickling him, and he’s trying to push him away, but he’s never been good at pushing North away.

“Are you surprised?” North says, when Night tries to hide his face on North’s neck.

Don’t look, Night thinks. Don’t look at me.

“Night, did you know?”

North pushes him gently away, but keeps Night in his arms. He nudges Night’s face up so he stops looking away.

“Your eyes have always been loud.”

Night feels his whole face flush.

“What does that mean?”

North grins.

“It means I like your eyes. I’ve liked them ever since I first saw you.”

Night’s fingers close around North’s shirt. He thinks that it’s his own; despite being the wealthier one of the two, North seems to always be wearing something of his.

“Is that why you bullied me?”

Is that why you followed me? Is that why you called me and called me until I couldn’t stop following you? All across the night, all across space, until we’re here, finally here, in this place of our own, under the blue moon?

Night wants to punch him. He wants to hit him, to push him away, because North knows too much, he sees too much. He doesn’t do any of those things. He leans forward instead, when North, still beaming, leans down to kiss the outer corner of his eye. He kisses Night’s cheek next, right where his mole is, and then Night is the one pulling, hand in North’s hair, asking to be kissed where he likes being kissed. North still tastes of nicotine — he’s intoxicatingly sweet. He tastes like a rainy morning, smells like autumn. When did kissing North turn into all of his favorite things? A person shouldn’t be someone’s favorite. A person could leave at any time. Become just a faded silhouette in the endless darkness.

Night kisses North. Step by step, they stumble towards their bedroom. Pieces of them are everywhere. In the wardrobe is a hoodie that was once Night’s, but now smells like North, belonging to them both. Here, the blue moon shines, too. It follows them through the steps of their intimacy, it stays with them until their high comes down and they fall asleep in each other’s arms. In the morning, when Night wakes up, North will still be there. He doesn’t have any early classes, so Night can watch him until his alarm goes off. He can touch him, trace his features with his fingertips. His hands — and North’s hands, too — no longer seek to break. He can be calm. In the early morning, watching North, he can exist. If one of them is awake and the other is asleep, doesn’t time slow down, too?

Is love a kind of understanding?

Slowly, North opens his eyes, and ah. There it is.

Night finds an answer in between North’s lines.

#NorthNight #23.5 the series #23 point 5 #GeminiFourth #alternate universe: canon divergence

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chapitre7 · 11 months

Text

a hundred love songs

แฟนผมเป็นประธานนักเรียน | My School President fanfiction

Tinn Tinnaphob Jirawatthanakul/Gun Guntaphon Wongwitthaya

2.9k words

Our Skyy 2-verse

For @luny0 ❤❤

Lyrics in italic to Gem’s Love Love Love

Read on AO3

I’m offering, This heart is yours for the taking

“Have you ever been in love?”

The question causes Gun to lean back, away from Tinn. He doesn’t remember the question from when he skimmed over the sheet Por gave the two of them. Tinn looks up from the sheet and straight into his eyes, and Gun holds his gaze for a few seconds before looking away. Tinn doesn’t look away. Gun can still feel his gaze, warmer than the summer sun. The sky has been threatening with rain all morning, the cold wind finally blowing the heat wave away. It shouldn’t feel too hot. It does. Gun feels it on his face, down his neck. Just like he did on his birthday in the milk bar owned by Tinn’s mom, seemingly so long ago now.

“I... I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

His hand moves up to push his glasses up, forgetting that he no longer wears them. He lets it fall pathetically back on the table, his shoulders slouching as his feelings create a mess inside him. He listens to the loud beating of his heart in the long seconds that follow. He hears Tinn hum, and wonders what he can say to save face. If he can lie. If he can tell the truth.

What is the truth? He wants to be with Tinn. He wants to know what it’s like to be next to him, to touch him, and be the center of his attention. Is that what love’s like?

“I don’t know either.”

That causes Gun to look up. It’s more a reflex than a conscious decision. The things Tinn does, his silly little antics, the sound of his voice that carries over through the air to Gun’s ears, even when he seems to be so far — they always draw Gun in. Ever since he first heard him sing, Tinn is like the sun that Gun can’t help but face. When Tinn is just walking to class. When he’s listening to some song in his earbuds and mouthing the lyrics and Gun is just passing by. In class, when he’s supposed to be facing forward, but he looks back to see the confusion on Tinn’s face. And even on that afternoon, with the promise of proximity in Por’s questionnaire, even though he’s scared and anxious and in over his head, he looks at Tinn and leans forward despite himself.

“You don’t?”

“Almost every song talks about it,” Tinn says, leaning his cheek against his palm, looking over the sheet as if it contains answers instead of questions, “but it’s not like every song is the same. So I don’t think it’s the same for everyone.

“For example, my mom is always scolding me but I’ve never seen yours scold you.”

The corner of Gun’s lips tilts up.

“That’s because she has no reason to scold me.”

“Every mom has a reason to nag, Gun,” Tinn deadpans, and Gun reigns in a laugh, holding back from teasing Tinn any further. “The point is, everyone has a different way to love. So I don’t know what it’s like to be in love. I just...”

Gun leans even more towards Tinn. The space between them seems too far, the table too long. The sunflower leans further and further forward, fluttering in the wind, wishing to meet the sun. If Gun leaned his head on his arm, he could look up at Tinn without ever getting tired. He doesn’t. He picks at his cuticles and he swallows, looking at Tinn’s eyes and the curve of his eyelashes as he looks over the words on Por’s sheet.

“You just?”

Tinn’s eyes raise from the sheet, lock with his own. Gun doesn’t know what he does; if he widens his eyes, if he blushes, if he breathes. He thinks, there’s no one else I want to be in love with. He wonders if being in love is a little bit like seeing Tinn part his lips in thought and wanting to kiss a smile into him. If it’s the butterflies that dance around in his stomach every time Tinn crosses his mind, like how they say in romance books. Or if it’s wanting to hear him say anything. See him do anything. All the time, even when Gun has his eyes closed.

Tinn averts his eyes back to the sheet and says, “Next question.”

It’s only later, after Tinn asks him if he likes him and Gun flees that Gun thinks to look over the questions again and notices that there was never a question about being in love.

***

I can feel that love is in the air

He doesn’t think Tinn would be waiting for him. Even if they haven’t seen each other in a while, their schedules clashing and crashing and burning with Gun stressing over his assignments, it’s raining too hard. The hottest days will bring about the harshest downpours, and students all across campus try their best to navigate back home as unscathed as they can. Umbrellas fold and break, bags are hugged to the chest instead of being raised over their heads, their studies now too important to trade away for a little shelter. Tinn should be heading straight to his dorm, to try and catch up with some of his assignments since he now loves studying music so much. He’s so diligent now — or perhaps it’s fair to say, he can dedicate himself to what he’s always loved. Tinn’s always been in love with music. He should be—

Tinn has his guitar on his lap, sitting on a bench on a dry spot of the courtyard. His shirt is definitely wet, but not soaked through, which Gun counts as a win. As Gun approaches him, the sound of his footsteps muffled by the incessant raindrops, he tries to pick up the melody that Tinn is playing, but can’t recognize it. Judging by the crease between his eyebrows, Tinn is only starting to recognize it, too.

“You shouldn’t be composing here,” Gun says. Tinn’s head instantly whips up at the sound of his voice, beaming up at Gun.

“I can compose anywhere,” Tinn says, his fingers strumming down the strings in a sweet melody. Gun wonders if his cheeks will ever stop hurting from smiling too much at Tinn, even if he frowns and wants to scold him.

“Tinn, why didn’t you go straight to your dorm? You know I wouldn’t mind.”

“I didn’t want to wait,” Tinn says. “Lemme show you.”

Gun sits down beside him and listens. The song is incomplete, with too many gaps filled by hums, but there are some lyrics already. About love at the end of the day, about company under the moonlight.

“Isn’t it tiring to write so many love songs?”

Tinn writes about other things too. About the father he misses. About childhood and dreams, and recently, he even creates stories in his songs. Tinn’s mind is full of things to sing about, brilliant and hyperactive as it is, but mostly, he sings about love.

Tinn shakes his head.

“I have a lot of time to think about love.”

It stings, and Gun’s smile falters. Tinn holds his hand before Gun’s nervous exhale is even finished.

“I’m—”

“I don’t mean it like that,” Tinn says, calmly enunciating every word. Their fingers lace together, their hearts at their fingertips. “There are just many things I want to say.”

“To me?”

Tinn’s smile is both amused and shy.

“I’m not in love with anyone else, am I?”

He doesn’t say it often. Or maybe Gun should say, they don’t have a lot of opportunities to say it. But if every love song is for him, then every word is a confession Tinn makes. How long has Gun been in love now? Four years? And he still doesn’t have that many words for it. His hands move to cup Tinn’s face, holding everything that’s most precious to him. Tinn just smiles at him, a precious, little smile that endears everyone to him — a golden spot in the gloomy spring rain. Gun leans forward and lays a soft kiss on the corner of that smile, lingering there, to feel Tinn’s face warm up, to feel Tinn’s soft breath tickle his cheek, to feel Tinn’s hands circle his wrists caress him there.

“Are you hungry?” Gun asks, leaning back. Tinn nods. “Do you want me to make dinner?” Tinn nods even more vigorously, and it draws a laugh out of Gun. “Okay, then let me get my car. Wait here,” he adds firmly, knowing that Tinn would just follow him in the rain if he wasn’t firm with him. He wavers when Tinn pouts. “You don’t want your guitar getting wet, do you?”

“It’ll be in the case!”

“Tinn.”

He gets up quickly when Tinn continues to pout, breaking into a run to get to his car. Gun does have an umbrella, but he doesn’t pick it from his bag. He just raises his bag above his head and breaks into a run, so he can get back to Tinn as fast as possible.

***

The thing is, I was hoping it could be you Someone who makes every day feel so brand new

The staff greets him by name as he walks to Tinn’s dressing room. He wants to get home before the night gives way to the day, but Gun does not rush. He greets people and walks through the crowds of them unhurriedly. He already does enough rushing around in his long hospital shifts. Today, he is not doctor Guntaphon Wongwitthaya. When he opens the door and finally sees the love of his life, he might as well be sixteen again, heart beating fast in his chest, face sore from smiling too much.

Even after all these years, Tinn still smiles at him in the same way. The smile of someone who has won a gift that they’ve always wanted. It shines in his eyes, it lights up his face. The difference now, from then, is that Gun can simply cross the space that separates them — the plain rock to his sparkling star — and kiss him. Tinn’s lips are still sticky with lipstick that tastes too sweet, but they fit against Gun’s just right.

Gun pulls a nearby chair and sits in front of Tinn. With practiced ease, he takes a cotton round and make-up remover and proceeds to gently wipe Tinn’s face clean.

“Did you like the new song?” Tinn asks with his eyes closed, leaning forward and soaking up Gun’s ministrations like an affectionate cat. Gun acquiesces, turning Tinn’s face from one side to the other with a touch on his chin.

“It was my favorite,” he says, and Tinn huffs a laugh.

“You say that every time I write a new song,” Tinn says, opening his eyes and parting his lips so Gun can remove his lipstick.

“Because it’s true. I love them all.”

He runs a hand through Tinn’s hair, just to ruin the perfect image it makes. A few strands move out of place, but it’s nothing like Tinn’s naturally fluffy hair. They need to get home and rinse all the products away.

“I know you do,” Tinn says as Gun moves back and takes out his phone to check the time. “But you do have a favorite, don’t you?”

Gun raises his eyes to him. The tone is a little playful, but there’s a a hint of vulnerability in there, too. In the liminal space between night and morning, hours after he sang in a stage to thousands of people, years after they first met, it’s still Gun’s attention that he wants the most.

Tinn reaches out his hand, his finger tracing the bags under Gun’s eyes. The playfulness fades away, giving way to the man who wakes up by Gun’s side, who carries a lifelong promise around his finger.

“You’re tired,” Tinn says, as if he himself isn’t, Gun’s well-being his priority. “Just give me a minute.”

Tinn gets up from his chair to find his manager, and Gun is left with his thoughts in the dressing room. He picks up a regular outfit for Tinn while the choruses of each one of Tinn’s songs play in his head, his lips moving the form the lyrics. When Tinn comes back, Gun helps him take off his expensive, branded jewelry and clothes, couture giving way to soft familiarity.

Tinn is well loved but no one crowds him or makes him feel uncomfortable on the way to Gun’s car. The artist he created with so much care has promised his fans to always work hard to give them the best of himself, but everyone knows how he values his privacy. He never takes off his ring. He always dedicates his albums to his first and only love. He always takes pictures of rainy days and posts something romantic on his social media.

He’s typing up something on his phone and doesn’t pay any mind to Gun when he turns on the radio and music starts playing low in the night. It takes him a few seconds to realize – Gun can see out the corner of his eyes – and the noise he lets out next brings a grin to Gun’s face.

“You asked me which one was my favorite,” Gun says, aiming for nonchalance and failing on purpose.

“Gun,” Tinn says, face hidden behind his hands, “this is too much.”

“It’s adorable!”

“Turn it off, please.”

Gun grins wider.

“No.”

Tinn groans and turns his face towards the window. Gun knows he’s not really sulking from the way he’s squeezing Gun’s free hand. Gun sings along to Tinn’s first song, the one asking for love, the one asking for him. The road is calm at this time of the night, and Tinn’s hand warms his own. He brings Tinn’s hand up to his lips to kiss it in the space above his ring. The music plays all the way to the end and another, more recent ballad of Tinn starts.

“I still don’t know what you saw in me then,” Gun says, letting go of Tinn’s hand to grip the wheel and make a right turn. “I was just the crossword puzzle nerd.”

“I don’t know either,” Tinn says, turning slightly in his seat to look at Gun’s profile. “I just...”

Gun drives and waits. The song coming softly through the speakers reaches its end and another one starts. A piano piece Tinn recorded just for him.

“You just?”

“I talked to you on the first day of high school, and you weren’t exactly polite.”

Gun would wince if he were younger, but time has eased his worries, so he only smiles. He reaches for Tinn’s hand again and they slot together naturally.

“But I saw you smile once and I couldn’t think of anything else. You didn’t smile very often.”

Gun grins. “Ah, my husband is so cute.”

Tinn squeezes Gun’s hand a bit too hard and it makes Gun laugh.

For a while, no one speaks. Their home is close now, and Gun can feel the day finally catching up to him the closer he gets. Tinn seems to drift off, holding Gun’s hand in both of his, so Gun never speeds up, no matter how much he wants the trip to end. He feels like he has time now. So much time. With Tinn surrounding him, grounding him with his touch and his music, Gun feels time stretch far. He’s been with Tinn for so long. He’ll be with him for thrice as long.

Finally, he turns off the engine. He turns to Tinn and Tinn is already looking at him. Eyes sweet as a calm lake, smile tired but happy. Did all the lovers in the world feel love reinvented every time they looked at the object of their affection? Would Gun feel like that for the rest of his life? Tinn has written him hundreds of love songs. Gun writes him just as many, but he only sings to him in the sanctuary of their home.

Like now, in this car. Heart beating fast against Tinn’s fingertips on his neck as Gun closes the gap between them and kisses him. He no longer rememberes if he was the one to kiss Tinn first, all those years ago. He always felt that Tinn beat him to everything, meeting him halfway, even if to him, he felt like he loved Tinn more. For longer. Deeper. In the simplest ways, in the simplest of words.

Have you ever been in love?

He no longer remembers not being in love with Tinn.

It’s uncomfortable to kiss in the car. Tinn’s hair is still sticky and coarse. He tries to pull away but Tinn follows him, gives one, two, three more pecks that makes him smile, and Tinn looks at him in that way. The way that makes him feel like he’s more than just a rock that looks up at his favorite star. Like maybe he’s the sun, and Tinn gravitates around him. Swaying, swaying forward, begging for his attention.

“Tinn,” he says, touching his husband’s cheek. “Let’s go home.”

“I am home,” Tinn says.

He’s lived half of his life by Tinn’s side and he still thinks Tinn will be the death of him someday.

“Do you want me to play Love love love again?”

He hears Tinn’s door opening and laughs into the night.

Help me understand what it feels like to be in love

#my school president #TinnGun #tinn x gun #gun guntaphon #tinn tinnaphob #Alternate Universe: Our Skyy 2

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