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The call arrives on a Saturday morning, and Ma is the one who answers it.
Teh doesn’t even hear their home phone go off. His mind is too full with thoughts of Oh-Aew to properly process anything else; he’s dreaming about their lives together in Bangkok while laying on his bed, thinking of their different universities and the dreams that they still share. His heart swells with emotion every time he remembers his boyfriend's excited face, all the silly plans that they have been making-
He only realizes that something is wrong when he hears his mother’s shattered cry echo in their big, empty house. In a second he’s downstairs, holding her by the shoulder while she’s laying on the floor crying inconsolably, the phone still clutched hard in her hands.
“Ma?! Ma, what’s wrong?! Did you fall down, are you hurt?!” cries Teh, desperately checking her mother’s body for injuries until she grasps him tightly by the wrist.
When he looks at her in the eyes, Teh finds something in there, something that he had seen only once many years before, when she had told him that his father was no longer with them.
Suddenly, Teh feels very, very sick, like his body has already understood what his mind still can’t process.
“H-Hoon…” whispers his mother, between the sobs. “Hoon is... He’s-”
That’s when the realization dawns, and the entire world shatters under Teh’s feet.
***
The funeral is a big affair. Between their friends and the clients of the restaurant, everybody knew and loved Teh’s brother. They all want to pay their respect and make merits, even with a closed coffin, nobody mentions the fact that the bus had been reduced to rubble after the incident, and Hoon’s body had been recognized only because of his ID.
There’s crying, and sobbing, and a thousand people passing in front of him to offer their condolences, but Teh doesn’t see even one of them. He’s just standing in front of the coffin, his eyes fixed on the lines of the wood grain and one of his hands clasped tightly between Oh-Aew’s fingers. There’s not a single thought in his head; just a wall of static, white noise.
The rites seems to go on forever, and Teh tries not to drown under the overpowering smell of flowers and incense. He feels empty inside, like a balloon, and he worries that he might just float up to the ceiling if it wasn’t for Oh-Aew’s hand keeping him to the ground, a small thread of sanity in his suddenly disarranged life.
***
After seven days of consecutive ceremonies, Hoon’s body is finally cremated, and by that time Teh has already made his decision.
“I am not going to Bangkok anymore.” he says to his mother first, then to Oh-Aew; she tries to fight him about it, while he just nods at him with sad but understanding eyes. “Ma needs help with the restaurant.” he adds then, only for Oh-Aew’s ears, and his boyfriend nods again while he grips both of his hands tighter.
“I understand.” he says, and Teh believes him; there’s no bitterness in Oh-Aew’s eyes, only worry and concern, and Teh tries his best to smile even just a bit.
There aren’t many words said after that. Oh-Aew knows that Teh will never leave his mother, not after she has lost one of her two sons, and that the possibility of him going to live in Bangkok after Hoon’s death are very, very slim.
At the same time, Teh knows that he will probably never be an actor. He needs to take care of his Ma first and foremost, since Hoon had brought a lot of income to their household with his job, like their father had done before him as well; now, it’s his turn to step up, and he knows that he must leave his expectations behind.
Both of them are also thinking about their future together, about their newborn relationship. There’s no drift forming yet, no insurmountable distance between their hearts, but something ugly is already growing inside Teh’s chest, even if he hasn’t realized it yet.
***
Later on, in the middle of the night, Teh gets up from his bed and walks up to the two Yongjian's portraits on his wall.
He looks at them for a long, long while, and he tries to find something inside of him that’s not emptiness, but all that he sees is a deep, black abyss. The two pictures are staring at him, almost in a judgemental way, and Teh wishes that they would combust spontaneously and stop making him feel like all of his dreams had just been carved out of his soul.
Instead, Teh gets up on a chair, and he takes the portraits down. He stares at them a bit longer, turning both the frame and the piece of paper in his hands, before shutting them inside one of the drawers of his desk.
He goes back to bed after that, but he still spends the entire night staring at the ceiling, hoping to feel a spark of feeling in his chest.
***
A month after Hoon’s funeral, Oh-Aew leaves for Bangkok.
Teh is aware that maybe he should be more emotional while he’s saying his goodbyes to his boyfriend, but he can’t feel any more sad than what he already is. Oh-Aew is very sweet about it, and he holds him for a long while before kissing him lightly on the lips, uncaring of the fact that his mother and father are standing just a few meters away.
“I already talked to my parents, and they told me that I can come back once every three weeks by plane.” he says again, like Teh hadn’t heard the exact same words many times already. “So, I am sure that we will see each other a lot.”
Numbly, Teh nods, but his mind feels too heavy to properly process how the distance between them will probably feel like; he’s so used to have Oh-Aew around everyday, to spend entire afternoons at the beach or at the temple, that he has forgotten how he had coped in their previously ten years of separation.
He knows that it will hurt, but he already wakes up every morning and cries while looking at his brother’s empty bed, so he guesses that he cannot go much lower than that.
A part of his mind, however, the one that has held onto Oh-Aew like a lifeline during the last month, is already screaming out in pain; deep down he wants Oh-Aew next to him, he wants to sink his teeth in his heart and drag him down into his hole of desperation, to have at least one thing to keep him warm and safe. He wants to just know why he can’t have at least something good in his life, why he must lose Oh-Aew not to the recklessness of a drunk truck driver, but the gaping maws of a city full of smog and unknowns.
However, Teh knows that Oh-Aew needs to go, so he nods and smiles as best as he could, and he stops only when he sees Oh-Aew’s car disappear behind the corner.
***
The months start to pass, and Teh slowly establishes a routine.
He gets up everyday very early, and goes to the market to buy vegetables and meat for his mother. He then comes back home, spends some time with Oh-Aew on the phone if the other doesn’t have any classes, and then he gets ready to help his mother serve their customers at the restaurant. He keeps on going until the evening service is over, then he spends more time on the phone with Oh-Aew, and that’s the only thing that manages to make him fall asleep with a smile.
After a while, to Oh-Aew’s request, Teh also signs up to a minor Bangkok university that also offers online courses. He chooses a bachelor program in Chinese language, because he wants to spend as little time as possible studying, and his mother tears up visibly when he tells her about his choice. His professors are all very understanding of his situation, and they ask him to come over only a couple of times for bureaucratic matters, but to Teh it only feels like he’s cheating them, even if he can’t quite explain why.
Regardless, he swallows his feelings and attends all of his courses, even if he’s aware that there’s no real purpose to them. He’s not happy, he’s just surviving day by day. The only thing that brings him a bit of joy is the time that he can spend talking to Oh-Aew everyday, and he feels so blessed by the fact that his boyfriend is very strict about not giving their private time away for anything else, like they had promised to each other when they were only friends.
“Weren’t you supposed to go drinking out with your friends tonight?” asks Teh one evening, after he has picked up an unexpected video call from Oh-Aew, but his boyfriend just shrugs his shoulders with nonchalance.
“Nah. We haven’t talked a lot this week, so I want to spend more time with you.” replies Oh-Aew while he’s rubbing his hair dry after taking a shower, and Teh feels a very rare bubble of warmth growing into his chest, making him feel like a normal human being again for just a short while.
Most of the time, however, Teh can’t help but space out while he scrolls through Oh-Aew’s Instagram feed. His boyfriend is posting lots of photos with friends that Teh doesn’t know, in a city where he’s barely ever been before, and the sense of disconnection between his everyday life and what he sees on his phone’s screen becomes more and more pronounced as time goes by. He’s ashamed to admit it, but he hates looking at most of those pictures, because he cannot help but think about how it would feel to also be there, to live the life that he had chased for so long, instead of being stuck in a limbo with no other options.
Also, Oh-Aew is always smiling in his photos. Teh stares at him, rubs his thumb on the pixelated lines of his face, and tries not to feel too bitter about it.
***
After the long monsoon season, the wind starts to get more cold, and Teh is pleased to realize that he’s not missing Oh-Aew as much as before.
The fact that his boyfriend has kept his word and is popping into town every three weeks like clockwork surely helps, and Teh cherishes their time together. He is glad to hear about everything and anything that Oh-Aew has to say about his time in Bangkok, and he also treasures all the little trinkets that his boyfriend has managed to bring back, but they usually end up spending most of their time on the beach, rolling around in the sand like puppies before washing off in the ocean and kiss between the waves whenever the mood strikes them. Sometimes their friends join them, when one or two of them are back in Phuket at the same time as Oh-Aew, and Teh wonders if they all keep on accepting their invitations just to tease them whenever they see them making sweet eyes at each other.
Teh can’t say that he is happy, but he’s content, at least for the moment. His mother is smiling more lately, and working at the restaurant makes him tired enough to not have the energy to spend entire days thinking about his brother or his shattered future. Even if all of Teh’s friends went off to follow their dreams, and Phuket feels hollow without them, Teh still has Oh-Aew to hold on, with his stack of plane tickets and their Line chat full of heart stickers.
That’s why, when his boyfriend calls him with a troubled voice, Teh feels the ground shake under his feet again.
“One of my professors has a… proposal for me.” says Oh-Aew, his tone so low that Teh almost doesn’t catch his words.
“Uh...? What do you mean?” he asks, ignoring the way his stomach is already crunching in response to his boyfriend’s voice.
“He… He says that I’m very talented, and he’s impressed with my level of Chinese.” starts to explain Oh-Aew, and suddenly the words are rushing out of him, like a dam that has finally cracked. “He’s also in contact with another professor, in Taipei, who’s searching for some students willing to do an exchange program. They are going to put up a theater production too, and it’s a huge opportunity, because a lot of producers will come around-”
“How long?” interrupts him Teh, even if the words don’t want to leave his mouth and his voice is shaking.
“...Teh.” breathes out Oh-Aew, with a tone full of overwhelming sadness.
“How long, Oh?” continues Teh, ignoring the earthquake of his fingers and the long pause on the other end of the phone line.
“Six months. With-” stutters in the end Oh-Aew, his voice hoarse. “With the possibility of an extension. To a year.”
Six months.
Six months, maybe a year, with Oh-Aew living in another country.
Six months of Teh not seeing him every other weekend, of not being able to hold him close and smell his coconut shampoo. Six months that could become a longer period of no marked dates on his calendar, of empty phone calls and text messages, of staring at Oh-Aew’s social media feed and wondering if he’s happier far away from him, if he should let go of him forever and let him be free.
It’s not a long time, Teh realizes in the rational part of his brain. A lot of couples have survived far worse than that. Even his brother, with his japanese girlfriend, had managed to make it work somehow, but he doesn’t want to think of Hoon now, because it hurts, it hurts, why did he left him in his mess, why did he had to die in such a stupid way-
Distantly, Teh realizes that he’s sobbing, and that Oh-Aew is calling out his name. His brain feels like it’s being submerged in cold, cold water, and he can’t see anything past the tears that are falling from his eyes.
“Teh, Teh, please, talk to me.” begs Oh-Aew, his tone saturated with panic, but Teh doesn’t know how to explain how much it hurts; he feels like he’s being torn apart limb by limb, like there’s a cruel divinity above his head who’s stripping him of everything that he holds dear just to watch him scream in pain, feeding off his desperation like a leech.
“O-Oh…” he mutters at last, biting on his lips so hard that he can taste the tang of blood.
“Teh, Teh, I’m sorry, ok? I don’t have to go, I can stay here, just-”
“W-we are s-s-separated by s-some di-distance, and I t-tried, o-ok?” cries Teh on the phone, with a broken voice, not even hearing the words of comfort that his boyfriend is trying to give him, because he knows that Oh-Aew has to go. “I t-tried, I am t-trying so h-hard, b-but… But n-now, it feels like d-destiny is b-between us, and I... I have to g-give up, don’t I?” he sobs, not fully aware of what he’s saying, if he’s making any sense or not.
“...Teh.” says Oh-Aew, his voice a mere whisper, and Teh falls apart.
“J-just… Go.” he mutters, and then he hangs up.
As soon as his cellphone is on the floor, Teh goes down with it as well. He screams at the carpet, beats his fists on the pavement, and grips his hair until he can feel them pull out from the skin. He feels raw, open, and for once he doesn’t care if his mother will hear him, he doesn’t care about waking her up.
Hoon is not here to tell him to shut up anyway.
He cries and cries, and doesn’t hear the constant buzzing of the phone next to him or his mother’s urgent knocking on the door. He keeps on crying until he falls asleep on the carpet, his eyes rimmed red and his face covered in snot, and for once he doesn’t dream of anything at all.
***
The day after his meltdown on the phone, at an unholy hour in the morning, somebody starts to bang on the restaurant’s metal shutters.
Teh wakes up, startled, and he slowly gets up from the carpet where he’s been lying for the whole night. He makes his way downstairs, rubbing his eyes full of crusts and dried tears until he can blink normally, and then he opens the metal door.
Of all the people that he expected to find on the other side, Oh-Aew was certainly not one of them. At first, Teh remembers that it’s a Wednesday, and that Oh-Aew is not supposed to be there until Friday, and then the conversation of the night before falls again on his shoulder, heavier than the weight of the whole world.
“...W-What are you doing here?” he asks eventually, looking into Oh-Aew’s desperate gaze.
“I came to see you.” replies softly his boyfriend, with a strained smile, and Teh’s brain tries its best to process the situation.
“B-But the university, your lessons-?”
“I have to be back after the weekend, and I asked my friends to take notes for me.” reassures him Oh-Aew, before his gaze becomes even more heavy. “I… I couldn’t do this on the phone.”
“Ah.” replies Teh, and his heart stops.
The unfrozen, cynical part of his brain is getting ready for what he’s coming, and he unconsciously takes a deep breath; he knows what Oh-Aew will say, because deep down he also knows that Oh-Aew was never meant to be with somebody like him. His boyfriend is strong, resilient, and confident: he could get so, so far without Teh bringing him down, tying him to a far away town that seems to shrink more and more as the years go by.
The breakup is going to hurt, but Teh knows that Oh-Aew will be better off without him-
Before he can finish that thought, however, Teh feels someone grab him by the shirt.
A second later, his chest is being squeezed by Oh-Aew in a bone-shattering hug, and his mind stutters.
“...Oh?” he calls him after a moment, wondering what exactly is going on; he also wants to raise his hands, because he’s desperate to touch Oh-Aew and hold him again, but he doesn’t have the courage to move.
“Teh.” calls Oh-Aew, and his voice is pure steel, full of immovable force and unshattered confidence. “Teh, I love you.”
It’s that confession, in the end, the last straw that breaks Teh completely. He starts to sob, in the middle of the street, and suddenly he’s missing not only his guts, but also the strength to hold up his body; his boyfriend, however, doesn’t even hesitate, and he passes both of his arms around his back to support his weight better, carefully arranging their limbs until they are perfectly slotted against each other.
Teh cries, and cries, so loud that he thinks he might wake up the whole neighbor. He remembers Hoon once again, his harsh admonishment when Teh had started to sob loudly that night on the balcony, and the memory comes like a knife, making him weep even harder.
He misses his brother. He misses him so, so much, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.
“We will make it work, Teh.” says Oh-Aew, together with a million other encouraging things, and his voice is soft enough to penetrate inside Teh’s body, settling like a fresh bandage on his bleeding heart.
***
They spend the rest of Oh-Aew’s unplanned vacation in Teh’s room, even when Teh insists that Oh-Aew has to go and see his parents.
“They don’t even know I’m here.” confesses Oh-Aew, with a playful smile, his naked body covered only by the thin cotton sheet of Teh’s bed. “Also, I came here for you.”
Teh tries his best to be displeased, but it’s difficult to pretend when Oh-Aew is lying next to him, his skin still flush from their previous lovemaking and his hair sprawled on top of his pillow. He’s almost scared by how alive he feels just by having Oh-Aew next to him, of how his gentle reassurances and steady words have made hope bloom again in his whiltering soul, and he feels the need to kiss his sweaty skin all over again.
“Well, you certainly did come a couple of times already-” he teases instead, and Oh-Aew slaps him on the arm in retaliation.
“Pervert.” he chastises, even if his body is moving closer already, and Teh laughs at how discordant his words and actions are. “Glad to see that you are already feeling better.” comments then his boyfriend with a smile, and Teh grows a bit more rigid at his words; the tension melts, however, when Oh-Aew hugs him gently, and the smell of his skin makes Teh feel calm and excited at the same time.
They lay in silence for a minute, wrapped in each other, and Teh feels his usual bone-deep desperation slowly creeping in, dreading the moment in which they will have to separate once again. However, Oh-Aew’s words and conviction from the night before have settled over him like a warm blanket, and he turns them again in his head until they become a piece of crystal clear memory, something that can keep him going when the night becomes too dark.
Almost as if sensing his shift in thoughts, Oh-Aew tightens the grip on his torso, and Teh sighs before placing his nose on the top of his hair and smell his coconut-scented shampoo. He knows that this moment of peace is not ever-lasting, but he’s also tired of letting Oh-Aew always be the brave one between the two of them. He needs to start to believe in what he knows, in the truth has always been in front of his eyes.
Oh-Aew belongs to him, and he belongs to Oh-Aew. As long as they stand united, nothing will ever bring them apart.
***
The worst period, when Oh-Aew goes abroad, is the first two months after his departure.
It's not only the knowledge that Oh-Aew is thousands of kilometers away from him that makes Teh go crazy, but his incredibly busy schedule also takes a long time to adjust to. Teh is used to spending long evenings on the phone talking to Oh-Aew, but now it's difficult to even get a five minute call every single day, because his boyfriend is constantly dividing his time between his study and the theater rehearsals. There’s also no more visits, because Oh-Aew’s parents might own a resort but that doesn’t mean that they are made of money, and Teh simply doesn’t have enough savings to buy a plane ticket for Taiwan.
Oh-Aew, however, is really trying his best to keep a steady line of contact: he sends messages whenever he can, together with an enormous amount of selfies and photos of Taipei, and Teh ends up kissing every single one of them just because he's alone in his room and nobody can judge him. He can feel the warmth of Oh-Aew’s love in their correspondences, even with all of those kilometers between the two of them, and it’s enough to make him sleep a bit easier, to encourage his body to get up from his bed each day.
Slowly, Teh starts to get used to their new schedule, and he takes pleasure in every little thing. His heart swells every time Oh-Aew tells him about all the compliments that he gets for his level of Chinese, and he's surprised to notice that there's not a single spec of envy in him anymore, only pride. Some days, the pain that he gets by looking at Oh-Aew’s social media pictures is almost overwhelming, brought along by the chains of self-doubt that Teh is dragging around at every waking hour, but he knows he needs to fight the monster inside his own mind, and so he does his best to just keep his head straight and be happy for him.
I saw this on Facebook, and it might be useful for you.
writes Oh-Aew one evening, his message followed by a link to an online guide to self-help while having depressive thoughts, and Teh contemplates it for a while before clicking on it. Soon enough, he’s read the whole thing and he’s moved to a different article, this time on how to cope with grief, and he shares what he’s read with Oh-Aew the next day with a carefully light tone, even if he’s scared by how the things that he has read have managed to touch him deep inside; his boyfriend doesn’t say much, but he smiles and encourages him to maybe expand his search to other websites, and Teh feels a bit of weight slipping further down from his shoulders.
It’s a rough road, the one that he’s walked on so far, but Oh-Aew has made it clear that he’s there for him on every step of it. All that Teh can do is reciprocate and try his best to heal, even in the moments when it feels like an unreachable achievement.
***
Five months and ten days after Oh-Aew’s departure for Taipei, Teh’s mother makes him sit on a table at the restaurant during their afternoon break, and says something that makes Teh’s stomach drop.
“I want you to go and live in Bangkok.” she announces, looking probably more stern than Teh has ever seen her before, with her interlaced hands and straight spine, but the words still make him blink in astonishment.
“...What?” Teh eventually manages to reply, and his tone becomes harsher without him even realizing. “Ma, what are you saying? You know that’s not possible.” he bites out, trying his best not to let his bitterness overcome him. “How can you stay here, alone? Who’s gonna help you with the restaurant, with the house-”
“I got a proposal.” she suddenly interrupts him, her eyes suddenly fixed on the table between them. “From your boyfriend’s parents.” she continues, and her words make Teh even more speechless, and he wonders if that morning he has somehow managed to wake himself up in a parallel universe.
At the beginning of his new romantic relationship, Teh’s mother had struggled a bit to accept the reality that Teh was dating another man, especially after Hoon died. She started to come around the concept only when she realized that Teh was at his happiest self when he was talking to Oh-Aew, and the fact that the other had always been very polite and kind when visiting certainly won him more than a couple of points; at heart, she was just a too loving mother to treat any child who came in through her doors with coldness, and so she and Oh-Aew warmed up to each other quite naturally over the course of his many visits, bonding over topics like his studies and life in the big city while she kept on feeding him his favourite hokkien noodles.
In the end, Teh and his mother achieved a sort of peace, in which she would sometimes ask him how Oh-Aew was doing in Bangkok and he would reply with a smile, but their conversations never went deeper than that. Now, Teh feels shocked by the fact that not only she has started to talk to his boyfriend’s parents without him knowing, but also making some sort of obscure planning with them as well.
“...What?” he asks after a long pause, unable to pick one of the many questions that are swirling like crazy in his head, but before he can formulate further his mother looks up at him with determination in her eyes.
“Teh.” she announces, with a dead-serious tone. “I am going to close the restaurant. Permanently.”
“Ma!” Teh replies immediately, jumping up from his chair in alarm. “Ma, what are you saying?!” he continues, panic sinking into him as fast as a stone in a lake. Why is his mother saying such things? Is somebody threatening her? Are they in debt, will they be homeless soon, how come he hadn’t seen this coming-
“Let me speak, please.” she tries to placate him, and Teh’s thoughts screech to a halt at her words, but he doesn't sit down on the chair again. “Oh’s parents… They offered me a position as a cook in their resort.” she explains, and her words make Teh shiver. “They are going to pay me very well, I will have my own room, and I can also bring Tuty to live there with me. It’s a great opportunity, for a person of my age, and I couldn’t have asked for a better arrangement.” she adds with confidence, looking in her son’s eyes with a warm gaze, but he still doesn’t know how to process the news.
“B-But, Ma-”
“Teh.” says his mother again, and Teh stills; her smile, he realizes, is warm and free of any doubts, and slowly her son begins to understand.
Teh stays still for a long time, as the idea starts to sink into his mind; his mother, closing the restaurant to go and live inside of Oh-Aew’s parents resort. Him, free to go and live in Bangkok as he had originally planned, to take his life back into his own hands.
It sounds too good to be true, he thinks desperately, but hope is already blooming inside his soul.
“Ma…” Teh whispers in the end, fighting against his tangled tongue. “Are you… Are you sure?” he mutters, because he really can’t think of anything else to say.
“Yes.” his mother replies with confidence, and then her smile dims a bit. “Teh, I thought about this a lot, and I realized that you… You shouldn't throw away your life for me. Your brother…” she continues, pausing for a moment, and when she speaks again her voice is loaded with grief. “Hoon made a lot of sacrifices for us, but he was happy. He got up every morning and went to work with a smile on his face, he even managed to meet his girlfriend on the job, and he had started to make plans for a long-term future. You, however… You’re just suffering here.” she murmurs, and it’s clear for Teh to see how much that admission is hurting her deeply. “You try to always smile for me, but I see it in your eyes. This city, this restaurant… They were never meant for you.”
“Ma…” whispers back Teh, fighting his own emotions, and the tears slip out of his eyes like long strings of pearls filled with relief and bitterness, hope and dread.
He ends up walking over where his mother is seated, dropping with his knees on the floor to put his heavy head against her chest. She curls around him, just like she did when he was a child scared of the booming noise of fireworks, and she lets him cry against her breast until he’s calmed down, until there’s nothing but a floor of warm ashes inside of him.
When they separate, Teh’s face is covered again in tears and snot, and his mother cleans him up with the sleeve of her shirt, uncaring of the wet mess left on her clothes. She then caresses him gently on the head, looking straight into his eyes with an expression full of wonder, and Teh ignores how his chest is aching to the point of not letting him breathe.
“I guess we will be pretty busy from now on.” she comments then, in a light tone, and Teh smiles through the pain, before he starts to properly think about all the things that he has to organize, all the decisions that he has to make now.
“But… If I go to Bangkok, what am I supposed to do?” he wonders out loud, suddenly overwhelmed. “It’s the middle of the university year, and I am still taking my online lesson. Plus, where am I supposed to live? There’s not going to be a free spot in any dormitory by now-”
“Ah, you don’t have to worry about that.” intervenes his mother, with a strange sort of smile on her lips, and Teh feels nauseous all over again.
“Ma, what do you mean?!” he cries, unable to take any more secrecy, and his mother’s smile becomes even wider before she relents.
“All right, all right, no more teasing! Stop looking at me like that!” she laughs, patting him on the arm, and then her smile turns softer. “Thing is… Oh’s parents told me that their son is not going back to live in the university dormitory. Instead, he will transfer to a rented apartment... In just three weeks from today.” she adds then, with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes, and Teh suddenly feels like he’s been hit by a train all over again.
“What?!” he exclaims, and all of a sudden he’s up to his feet again, his mind finally catching up on the hidden meaning of his mother’s words. “Oh is… Oh’s coming back to Thailand?!” he cries, his heart doing somersaults in his chest, before confusion settles in. “But, but I called him yesterday, and he didn’t say anything-”
“Ah, I’m only telling you what I’ve heard from them, all right? It was supposed to be a surprise.” his mother whispers, grabbing one of his hands to hold in both of hers, her eyes soft and warm once again. “They also said that you’re welcome to go and live together, and that they would be happy if you could take care of him.” she continues, and Teh’s astonishment is broken when he sees two tears slip out of her eyes, crossing her cheek down to her blinding smile. “Would that be ok, Teh?” he asks, even if she already knows the answer, like she hadn’t just given her son everything that he had given up a year and a half before.
It’s impossible, for Teh, to not break down all over again after that. He goes back into his mother’s embrace, the harsh sobs spilling out of his mouth like he’s also trying to spit out all the pain that he has carried around in silence. He desperately wants to give his deepest thanks to his mother, or to go to Oh-Aew’s resort and kneel down in front of his boyfriend’s parents in pure gratitude, but for now he can’t do anything but cry and hold his mother tight.
When the tears finally slow down again, Teh thinks of Oh-Aew, who’s doing his last rehearsal for his theater play in Taipei that same day, and he knows that he has to give something to him as well.
***
When Teh first sees the apartment complex in Bangkok that Oh-Aew’s parents have given him the address to, he is taken back by how modern it looks. It’s not extremely luxurious, but the building has clearly been renovated recently, and there’s even a small communal garden right next to the entrance, a welcomed slice of greenery in the otherwise grey profile of the city.
He arrives there with a taxi on a rainy afternoon, and he grabs the apartment keys from an old auntie who works as a cleaning lady in the complex. Oh-Aew’s parents have informed her in advance of his arrival, but they must have also clarified exactly who he is, because together with the keys Teh also gets a teasing smile.
“You must be the Young Master’s boyfriend, eh?” she says immediately, her smile widening even more at the confirmation nod that Teh offers in response.
“Seems like I’m famous already.” he replies with a teasing tone, dusting up his actor’s charm, and the auntie shrills in delight. He offers her a proper
wai
before he starts to head towards the elevator, and then laughs under his breath when he catches her whispered comments on his good looks and funny personality.
The apartment is on the tenth floor, and Teh admires the view from the corridor’s windows for a bit before he steps towards the front door. He unlocks it as quietly as he can, because he has no idea if Oh-Aew is back already or not, but he takes in a breath of relief when he notices that there are no shoes at the entrance, only a few carton boxes filled with his boyfriend’s belonging from his old dormitory.
Teh quickly slips off his sneakers and drops his bag on the pristine couch near the balcony, before taking a moment to just stay still in the middle of the room, taking in everything that’s happening to him. He still feels like he’s living in some sort of dream, like somebody could snap his fingers at any moment and he will be awake in his childhood bedroom once more, but his dreams have never been this vivid and full of light.
In a moment of inspiration, Teh goes to his bag and unzips it, taking out the two portraits of Yongjian that he has slipped inside just before he left Phuket. He still doesn’t know why he brought them along, considering that he has no idea on what he wants to do with his studies, but he’s suddenly glad to have them with him nonetheless.
Suddenly, there’s the sound of a key turning in the front door, and Teh quickly puts down the portraits. He heard Oh-Aew’s voice, mumbling in confusion about the shoes that Teh has left at the entrance, and it takes him only two steps to reveal himself to his boyfriend, who looks up from the floor and then freezes like a deer in headlights.
They look at each other for a fraction of second, and then Oh-Aew is letting go of the plastic bags in his hands and throwing himself in Teh’s arms. It’s surprisingly easy to catch him, even when both their breaths get cut off when their chest collide, but Teh just takes it and holds him as tightly as he can. He realizes that Oh-Aew’s hair still smells like coconut, that his waist is definitely slimmer than before, and that he’s also crying loudly against his shoulder, wetting his dress shirt and clawing at his back with his fingers.
“Wha… What-” eventually gasps Oh-Aew, pushing himself back to look at Teh in the eye. “W-Why are you here?! How?!” he cries then, his eyes shiny with tears and his face all scrunched up, and Teh can’t help but laugh at him for a bit.
“Did you really think that Ma and your parents could keep such a big secret?” he asks, delighted despite everything, before taking his boyfriend’s face in his hands and wipe away the tears with his thumbs; in response, Oh-Aew cries even harder, and a moment later he’s hugging Teh again with an even stronger grip.
“I’m s-s-sorry…” he wheezes out eventually, as Teh massages his back with small, circular motions. “I wanted to s-surpise you, I d-didn’t mean t-to…”
“I know, I know, it’s all right.” whispers Teh in turn, because at the beginning he had been slightly hurt by all the things that Oh-Aew had kept secret from him, but then he had also understood that there hadn’t been any ill intentions in any of his behaviours. “But, one day I’m going to get back at you, you’ll see.” he whispers in Oh-Aew’s ear, and his boyfriend gives out a wet, shaky laugh before kissing him square on the lips.
Even after six months, Oh-Aew’s mouth is still as soft as Teh remembers it, and it opens up beautifully under him, like a freshly bloomed hibiscus flower.
It would be easy to turn their kiss into a passionate exchange, but Teh really wants to savour it, and so he keeps it as soft and as sweet as he can. He can feel Oh-Aew’s frustration and hunger, the bold movements of his tongue and the sharp line of his teeth, but in the end Teh manages to make him understand that he what he wants is to feel him deeply, to bring their body close and just hold him for a while, and Oh-Aew relents with one last sigh, a surrender that makes Teh shiver from head to toe.
They move silently towards the living room, stumbling on the sofa with little finesse, and Teh’s bag goes crashing down on the floor. They both freeze for a moment at the noise, before laughing it off with their foreheads pressed against one another, and soon they are back to their hugs and kisses, hands roaming from their faces to their waist without pause or hesitation.
Teh doesn’t know how long they spend like that, making small sighs against each other’s mouths while they’re not kissing and laying on top of each other just to feel the weight of their bodies against one another. Time does not matter, because the silent promises that they exchange are all that matters now, together with the few words that manage to slip out of their lips.
“I love you.” murmurs Teh multiple times, right against Oh-Aew’s ear. “I love you, Oh.” he repeats, moving his mouth slowly over his cheeks, nose, eyelids, and neck; he then places one kiss right on top of his boyfriend’s forehead, before drawing back to look at him from a distance, and what he sees takes his breath away.
Even so far away from their home city, Oh-Aew can’t help but see all the colors of a Phuket sunset on Oh-Aew’s cheeks. He also sees the glint of the ocean waves in his eyes, the smooth sands of their favourite beach on his skin, and the rays of a perfect morning in his brilliant smile. He’s marvelous, he’s familiar, and it makes Teh’s heart ache with longing and happiness, because he knows now without a doubt that Oh-Aew really is his one, true home.
***
That night, they make love on the apartment’s bed- their bed, their apartment, and the concept still feels so wild and new. Teh knows it will take some time to adjust his perspective, but as long as he can lay down like this, with his back on the mattress and Oh-Aew’s bare skin pressed against him, nothing seems difficult anymore.
“Thank you.” whispers Teh at one point in the evening, and he feels Oh-Aew shift around to look straight at his face.
“What for?” asks his boyfriend, his voice void of any trace of sleep, and Teh hums.
“For not giving up on me. On us.” he explains, tracing nonsensical patterns on Oh-Aew’s back with the tip of his fingers, just to feel him shiver.
“Then, I should thank you too.” replies Oh-Aew, and Teh frowns at the ceiling.
“What for?” he asks as well, because he can’t help but think about all the things that he didn’t do, all the things that he could have fought for, all the months in which he was just a burden and nothing more.
“You also never gave up.” replies Oh-Aew, and it’s the warmth on his tone, the absolute certainty of his words, that shakes Teh to the core. “You could have let go of me, when I went to Bangkok or when I transferred to Taipei. But, most importantly…” he continues, stopping for a moment to leave a kiss on Teh’s shoulder. “You never gave up on yourself.”
It’s difficult, not to shed some tears after hearing such words, but for once Teh manages to restrain himself. He turns around and puts his face into Oh-Aew’s hair, to breathe in his sweet coconut scent, and he feels Oh-Aew’s smile brush lightly against his chest.
Teh still doesn’t know what he wants to do, if he will continue with his Chinese studies or if he will switch to acting again, like he doesn’t know if his mother and his dog will really be alright, or if he will ever start to think about his brother without feeling an overwhelming sense of sadness. He also doesn’t know if Bangkok will eat him alive, or if one day a terrible event will finally split him and Oh-Aew apart, but Teh doesn’t want to think about any of those things now; he’s laying in a soft bed, next to the man that he loves, with a future that looks bright and promising for once.
Finally, the tempest has come to pass, and Teh can see the sunlight once again, with Oh-Aew right by his side.