Chapter Text
The cafe is quiet.
Warm-toned wood. A couple tiny plants on the windowsill.
A faint hum of music that doesn’t intrude.
It smells like cinnamon and honey and the kind of afternoon that asks nothing of you.
Pond sits near the back, two mugs on the table.
One untouched.
Phuwin’s, of course. He’s off at the counter, trying to charm the barista into letting him take a third free cookie.
Pond shakes his head fondly. Watches him from a distance.
And that’s when he hears it.
“Hi.”
A voice. Familiar. Gentle. Tired.
He turns.
And sees her. Phuwin ex...
She’s dressed in soft beige. Hair tucked behind her ears. No makeup. No bitterness in her eyes.
Just… a strange kind of peace.
“May I?” she asks, motioning to the chair across from him.
Pond hesitates — then nods once.
She sits.
No tension.
No fake smiles.
Just two people sitting in the soft aftermath of someone else’s storm.
“It’s been a while,” she says, wrapping her hands around the extra cup of tea the barista had brought by mistake.
“Yeah,” Pond replies. “It has.”
A pause.
“You look well,” she offers, and she means it.
“So do you.”
They sit like that for a moment.
The hum of the café rises around them.
A child laughs somewhere. A door opens and closes.
Pond looks toward the counter.
Phuwin’s still there, fumbling with napkins. Completely unaware.
And then she says it.
So softly. So suddenly. Like it’s not an accusation — just a thought that finally found air.
“How does it feel… to be loved by Phuwin Tangsakyuen, Pond?”
The question lands like thunder wrapped in silk.
Not violent.
Just undeniable.
Pond’s throat tightens. His fingers curl slightly around the edge of the table.
She doesn’t stop there.
Her voice stays calm.
Like this is something she rehearsed for herself.
Not for him.
“He smiled with me,” she says, eyes distant. “But it was never that smile. The one you always got.”
“I used to wonder what it felt like... to be the ache he couldn’t live without. The reason the stars settled in his eyes.”
“I watched you both from the outside for so long. Pretending not to see it. Hoping it would go away.”
Her fingers tighten slightly around the tea cup.
Then:
“But I think I always knew. I was just borrowing someone else’s place in his heart.”
She looks up at him now — finally.
“He was never mine, Pond. He was always yours.”
Pond says nothing for a long time.
His chest aches — not from guilt.
But from the rawness of truth spoken aloud.
She doesn’t wait for him to respond.
She stands, pushing the chair in gently.
“I’m glad you’re the one who got to keep him.”
A small smile.
“Tell him I said hi.”
And then she walks away.
Phuwin returns a few seconds later, holding a cookie in his mouth and two napkins in one hand.
“What’d I miss?”
Pond doesn’t answer.
Just looks up, eyes soft and shining.
And then — very suddenly — reaches out and pulls Phuwin’s hand across the table.
Phuwin startles a little but lets him.
“What?” he asks again, quieter this time.
Pond traces circles into his wrist.
“Do you love me?” he whispers.
Phuwin’s eyes soften.
“Always.”
“Even if I drool in my sleep?"
“Especially then”, Phuwin answered gently, his voice full of love.
They laugh — just a little.
Pond squeezes his hand.
“Then let’s go home.”
Phuwin tilts his head.
“Already?”
“Yeah,” Pond says, eyes never leaving his.
“Because I want to fall asleep beside the boy who loved me even when I didn’t see it.”
They walk out hand in hand.
The city moves around them — louder than the café, brighter than their corner of peace.
But inside?
Everything is still.
Because Pond finally knows what it feels like — not to wonder.
Not to ache in silence.
But to be seen.
Chosen.
Kept.
And loved by Phuwin Tangsakyuen.
They walk a while before speaking again.
Not out of awkwardness.
Just… letting the silence sit with them.
Like an old friend.
The world buzzes by — neon signs, conversations, a motorbike zooming past.
But all Pond hears is the soft echo of her voice in his head:
“He was never mine, Pond. He was always yours.”
It rings — not like triumph.
But like truth.
Phuwin swings their joined hands between them.
“You’re quiet again.”
“Thinking,” Pond murmurs.
“About?”
“Her.”
Phuwin stops walking.
Turns toward him.
“She talked to you?”
“Yeah.”
“What did she say?”
Pond looks at him for a long second.
Then reaches up — brushes a strand of hair from Phuwin’s face, lets his fingers linger at his cheek.
“She let go.”
“Of… me?”
“Of everything. You. Us. Herself.”
Pond swallows.
“She saw what we wouldn’t let ourselves see.”
Phuwin’s jaw tightens, guilt rising in his chest like smoke.
But Pond doesn’t let it settle.
He closes the gap between them, forehead resting against Phuwin’s.
“It doesn’t make us villains, you know.”
“Then what does it make us?”
“Two people who took too long. But never stopped loving.”
Phuwin lets out a shaky breath.
“I still think about the night I almost told you. The night you wore that stupid green hoodie and your ears turned red because I called you cute.”
Pond huffs out a soft laugh.
“You said I looked like a vegetable.”
“A very kissable vegetable.”
They both laugh this time, forehead to forehead.
“If I had said it sooner,” Phuwin whispers, “would it have saved us the pain?”
“Maybe,” Pond murmurs.
Then smiles.
“But we wouldn’t have earned this.”
Phuwin looks confused.
“Earned what?”
Pond presses a hand to his chest.
“This peace. This… knowing.”
“Knowing what?”
“That we stayed. That we found our way back. That we chose each other — not because it was easy, but because it mattered.”
They kiss again.
Not urgently.
Not like the first time.
But like the last puzzle piece finally clicked into place.
------
Back at Pond’s place, the city blurs into the background.
He lets Phuwin unlock the door — a habit now.
One that silently says this is yours too.
Shoes off. Lights dimmed. The hum of nighttime quiet.
They don’t speak much.
Just settle in.
Phuwin disappears into the kitchen and comes back with two mugs of warm milk.
Pond’s favorite — the cinnamon one with too much honey.
“You remember,” he says, accepting it with a sleepy smile.
“I remember everything about you,” Phuwin answers.
They sit on the floor instead of the couch.
Backs to the wall.
Bare feet tangled.
Socks mismatched.
Pond leans his head on Phuwin’s shoulder.
“She asked me how it felt.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
A pause.
“But now I think I have an answer.”
Phuwin looks down, curious.
Pond lifts his gaze, and for a second — there’s no noise, no years between them. Just them.
“It feels like… breathing without fear.”
Phuwin swallows.
“It feels like coming home after a storm.”
“Like every love song finally makes sense.”
“Like the ache turned into belonging.”
“Like peace wears your hoodie.”
They smile at that.
Eventually, the mugs are emptied.
The floor creaks as they move to the bed.
The night folds around them, quiet and sure.
Before sleep pulls them under, Pond whispers:
“I’m not letting go this time.”
Phuwin pulls him closer.
“Then I’ll never leave.”
And this time, he means forever.
The next morning begins in hush.
No alarms.
No calls.
No knock on the door to remind them of the world outside.
Just soft sun threading through half-closed blinds… and the weight of something whole.
Phuwin stirs first.
Not because he wants to.
But because Pond’s breathing has changed — deep, even, soft enough to ground the day.
He shifts slightly and turns on his side.
Pond is there.
His hair a mess. One cheek smushed into the pillow. The line between his brows gone, finally, like the ache that used to live there had finally moved out.
Phuwin watches him for a while — not in a way that asks for anything.
Just memorizing.
Because this is the version of Pond only he gets to see.
He leans in. Gently brushes his lips over Pond’s forehead.
Pond mumbles something incomprehensible and shifts closer, burying his face in Phuwin’s chest like muscle memory.
“You're staring again,” he mumbles.
“You’re breathing again.”
“Should I stop?”
“Never.”
They stay like that for a while — wrapped in a kind of stillness that no longer feels borrowed.
And then Pond lifts his head.
Eyes half-lidded. Voice wrecked with sleep.
“Tell me again.”
“What?”
“How you love me.”
Phuwin smiles.
He doesn’t speak at first.
Just lifts Pond’s hand and kisses each fingertip like a vow.
“I love you in the pauses. In the silences you fill without trying.”
“I love you when you laugh like it costs you nothing.”
“I love you when you fall asleep on the couch and drool on my arm.”
Pond groans, half-laughing, half-burying his face again.
“You’re ruining the mood.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
Then Phuwin’s voice quiets.
He threads their fingers together.
“Mostly, I love you in all the ways I didn’t know I could love anyone.”
Pond’s throat tightens.
He nods against Phuwin’s chest.
“Same.”
———
Later, they move around the apartment like they’ve always lived there.
Pond complains about the lack of proper mugs.
Phuwin teases him about how he rearranged the spices alphabetically.
They share coffee and silence and their playlist that somehow always knows what they’re feeling.
And somewhere between burnt toast and toothpaste kisses, it clicks again:
This isn’t a chapter.
This isn’t a phase.
This is forever — spelled out in tiny, ordinary moments that will keep stacking into a life.
Before they leave for the day — Pond pauses at the door.
Looks back at the room, at Phuwin.
“You coming?”
Phuwin nods, pulling on his jacket.
But before he steps out, he says it again — just because he can now.
“I love you.”
Pond doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t hesitate.
He just smiles, soft and sure.
“I know.”
“But say it back,” Phuwin whines.
“I love you, Phuwin Tangsakyuen.”
And then:
“How does it feel to be loved back, Pond Naravit?”
Phuwin grins as they step outside.
“Like home.”