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“So, wait.. what? You’re telling me that you’re..?” Arthit trails off as he watches Kongpob shift nervously beside their door. He had bolted towards it as soon as the awkward phone call had finished and was hovering, eyes unsure, holding the handle as though contemplating a quick retreat.
“I’m famous.” His friend says bluntly, hunching in on himself and pulling the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands, something Arthit has observed him do in the past when he feels overwhelmed. “I told you already like.. five times?”
“Yeah but..” Arthit steps forwards and grabs at the cord of Kongpob’s top then tugs on it, making Kong lift his head to look up at him.
“But what? I’ve explained and yet you seem unable to comprehend it?”
“So.. You’re famous because in Thailand you were an actor and a singer and an endorser?”
“Yeah. That’s about it. Oh, and I sort of did concerts with choreography and things and...” There’s a long pause and Arthit raises his eyebrows, waiting to see what else Kongpob is going to tell him, “Okay, and fan meetings all across Asia.”
Arthit swallows hard and then looks at his best friend again. “Are you sure?”
Kongpob’s eyes flash, but there’s an amused quality to his next words, “Umm.. yeah? Pretty certain! I mean, before we met, before I moved out here, that was my world, yeah.”
“But.. I mean, but.. you’re gorgeous and everything and you have a lovely voice when we do karaoke and you’re good in Drama class, but.. like.. how famous?” Arthit drops the cord and steps away, mind reeling at his friend’s confession, “ I mean.. Are we talking about a lot of followers on IG or something?”
“Oh..” Kongpob hesitates and then his eyes flash and he lifts his head defiantly as he steps towards Arthit, “ Fine.. I knew you’d want to.. I mean.. okay. Yeah, I’m definitely internet famous. I think I have about.. Three million followers?”
“Three million?!” Arthit knows he must look ridiculous, jaw hanging open as he stares at Kongpob, but he can’t help it.
“Yeah.” Kongpob takes another small step towards Arthit, nodding, “I mean.. I’ve been in the business for a long time, so it’s just.. accumulated followers.”
“Three million accumulated followers?! Whoa! I need a seat.” Arthit flops onto his bed and pulls one of his many stuffed animals into his arms, rubbing it against his cheek as though the dog toy can help him comprehend what his friend is telling him, “Okay, three million, right. Well then.. I suppose I..” he shakes his head, “Right. Famous.. So what show were you on then? I want to see it! And which other famous people do you know? And who’s actually nice and who’s actually a bitch? Come on! It’s time to gossip and I demand to know!”
Kongpob grimaces and drops beside him, bed bouncing a little and pushing them closer together, “This is why I didn’t tell you, Arthit! I knew you’d want all the sordid details..”
Arthit barks a short, sharp laugh, “Sordid? We are definitely coming back to that.. But, no, Kongpob, you know why you didn’t tell me.”
He gives his friend a hard glance, then turns back to the toy in his hands, manipulating it’s poseable legs to make it look like it’s walking up Kongpob’s arm, “You didn’t tell me, Kong, because you were trying to keep it secret. Yet here we are, six weeks into our friendship and halfway through the first term of uni and you’ve already been found out! You think no-one else is going to figure it out too?”
“It’s only cos you’re half-Thai, Arthit! That’s the only reason you know about me,” Kongpob grabs a dragon toy and snuggles into it, “Why do you have so many stuffed animals anyway?” He gives Arthit a look that he can’t quite comprehend and he files it away to think about later, “Besides,” Kongpob continues, “It was your bloody cousin that dropped me in it for sure! Before that, you would never have known!”
“Don’t go blaming Mek, it’s you who should have told me simply because I’m half-Thai! I mean, come on, like you imagined I’d never find out?! We were literally made roommates because of our nationality! Of course, eventually, someone in the Thai side of my life was going to drop you in it!”
Kongpob groans again and leans back so he’s lying lengthways on the bed, plopping his legs over Arthit’s lap and wiggling them, “Yeah, well all my fears were actually about some fangirl or fanboy chasing after me and turning up here and outing me, actually! Not my roommate’s cousin vaguely recognising me from 6000 miles away over a dodgy FaceTime connection!”
“Well,” Arthit says grumpily, hand automatically finding the sore muscle in Kongpob’s lower leg and kneading at it, “Now you’ve been outed,” he squeezes at a particularly hard knot Kong had formed during football earlier, and feels the moment when his friend tenses at Arthit’s repetition of his choice of the word ‘outed’, “..there’s a lot of things you are going to have to share.”
“Yeah..” Kongpob says warily, pulling his legs back and sitting up, cross-legged, “I know. But.. I just didn’t know how to tell you if I’m honest.”
“Oh?” Arthit follows him and they both end up pressed along the length of each other, leaning their shoulders against each other, backs to the headboard of his single bed. They are snuggling the stuffed animals that his little sister had insisted Arthit bring with him to protect him in the dark since she wouldn’t be able to look after him anymore once he left home.
“Yeah. Do you actually know how intimidating you are Arthit? You’re just about the cleverest guy in our year group. I seriously have trouble keeping up with you and your enormous brain at times!”
Arthit frowns fiercely and then reaches out to wrap an arm around Kongpob’s neck, dragging him into a gentle headlock that Kong protests against, trying to buck Arthit off with his shoulders and then resorting to running his fingers along his ribs where he knows he’s incredibly ticklish!
“Uncle, uncle!” Arthit cries out as Kongpob’s fingers find the spaces between his ribs where it makes him shiver the most.
They flop back on the bed, Arthit’s arm still loose around Kong’s shoulders where it stays as they catch their breath.
“Is it weird?” Arthit asks into the non-existent space between them, “Being famous?”
“Umm.. I guess? I mean, I’m nineteen and I grew up on screen basically. I was a baby when my parents took me to an audition to be in a Thai soap opera. And then, they asked me to keep playing the role as I got older, giving me small lines to say at first, and then my own storylines until I turned fourteen.”
Arthit looks over at him, taking in the way Kongpob’s eyes have a far-off look and he seems to be lost in his memories.
He leans over and cups Kong’s shoulder and squeezes lightly, “And what happened when you were fourteen?”
“Oh.. yeah, well I was scouted for a different show - one about a group of friends with superpowers - and it really took off. It was an instant hit and teenagers across the country loved it.. so, yeah. I was even more famous then and it wasn’t just old ladies trying to pinch my cheeks in the street and telling me how sweet I was.. It was hordes of teenagers chasing me through the mall and me needing a bodyguard just to go to school!”
“Oh.” Arthit says in a small voice, natural instincts taking over as he pulls Kongpob closer to him, wishing he could have protected him from the hordes of screaming fans back then.
Arthit knows what’s been happening to him over the past six weeks. He’s aware that his feelings for Kongpob are less than platonic and he had been planning to bring it up at some point, since he doesn’t like living a lie.
But it’s hard when you’ve developed such a close connection with someone and you feel completely at ease with them in a way you never have with anyone else in your life before and you don’t want to ruin that by telling them how you feel..
..and now, that person has just dropped the bomb that they are an actual, walking, talking, 3 million followers on IG, real life, Freaking Famous Person!
Arthit was going to confess his interest to Kongpob, a college student and his roommate. Not to Kongpob, his roommate and a famous celebrity!
Anyway, he feels so protective of Kongpob that he hates hearing him talk about being stalked so casually. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that!” He says, in earnest.
Kongpob gives him a grateful look then drops his head onto Arthit’s shoulder (And Arthit feels both a rush of pleasure at that action as well as a feeling of deceit that his friend doesn’t know how much he enjoys their physical closeness). “Thanks, you don’t even know how grateful I am to have met you, Arthit. You are such a genuinely wonderful man and I love our friendship so much.”
And Arthit feels dread creep up his spine, quickly followed by regret!
Two days later, they are curled up on Arthit’s bed, Kongpob’s head on his shoulder, Arthit’s arm casually looped around him. For the past hour, they have been watching one of the shows that Kongpob is most famous for and Arthit has been demonstrating his rusty Thai language skills by predicting what he thinks will happen next.
“Now, that guy is going to throw the other guy into the wall and he’s going to bounce off it and hit him in the face.. see! There! I knew it!”
Kongpob lifts his head and gives him a baleful glare, “Arthit! Have you seriously never seen this before? How can you be getting all the storylines right so accurately? Is it really that predictable?”
Arthit laughs, “Remember, I had to learn English when I first moved here. I watched a lot of Superhero things! Besides.. Thai shows do tend to be a bit predictable and they do show like.. half the series in the credits!”
Kongpob tucks himself back against Arthit’s shoulder and nuzzles into his neck, “True.. true.. I suppose I was only fourteen when I made this, so I can be excused for not knowing it was so obviously a rip off of every other superhero show on TV.”
Arthit sucks in a breath as Kongpob’s lips casually touch the skin of his neck as he speaks. Surely, anyone who happened to poke their head into their room right now, would guess that there was something more than friendship between them because of their position on the bed alone.
Friends didn’t generally lie on a bed like this together, did they? At least, not usually two male friends.. He’s wondering if he should bring it up with Kongpob and maybe have a go at confessing something about his hidden feelings at last, when his ‘friend’ interrupts before he can.
“Did you look me up online, Arthit? Wait - actually, I’m almost certain you did, so that’s not my question. My question is.. how much did you find out about me and is there anything you want to ask about what you found?”
Arthit frowns and then slides his arm away from Kongpob’s shoulders and twists so that they are looking at each other, “You think I looked you up online?”
“Well..” Kongpob swallows hard, “Didn’t you?”
Arthit turns his frown into a cheeky little smile and Kongpob’s face lights up, “Yeah, I guess I did!”
They share a look and then Arthit asks, feeling a bit shy, “So, you’ve been in a lot of shows. Is there one you particularly love?”
Kongpob smiles and reaches out for Arthit’s arm again, pulling it back towards his shoulder and nuzzling into him, “Is this okay?”
Arthit nods, unable to speak aloud. His fingers automatically stroke against Kongpob’s firm bicep and he wonders if this is going to be one of those ‘significant university moments’ that his mother had talked about extensively before she had dropped him off in his new dorm. Feeling Kongpob’s warm breath against his neck once more, he thinks, perhaps, it is.
“Wel, Arthit. I suppose I’m proud of all of them, but yes, there’s one I really loved making. It was ‘My Life Partner’. I know I was only a small part of that production, but it’s the one I felt the proudest to be involved with because I was part of something that was made to educate and to show that love knows no gender, no sexuality, no age, no race, no time. I loved being part of it and I learnt so much from the older actors who were involved too.”
He pulls away from Arthit and pushes himself into a more seated position and then looks him straight in the eye, “Do you know the series I mean?”
Arthit nods firmly, “The one about love through time? The one where you played the younger version of the main character and you were in love with your best friend and they faced all those challenges and problems, yet they overcame them? That one?”
“Yeah,” Kongpob’s breath sounds a little ragged, “And they were gay?”
To Arthit, it sounds a bit like a confession, like Kongpob is telling him another one of those ‘significant things’. But he has to be sure - he doesn’t want to assume, even if his friend is so comfortable with their physical intimacy, is so happy to share his thoughts with Arthit and even if Kongpob seems like he’s saying something.
Arthit needs to check.
So he takes a deep breath of his own and steels himself to speak, “Umm.. Kongpob.. we’ve talked a lot about secrets the past few days haven’t we? And, well.. there’s something.. I need to tell you something that maybe you already know.. or think you know..”
Kongpob cocks his head and then slides to sit next to Arthit, loosely linking their hands, something that they’ve done since that first night when Arthit was so home-sick he had practically flooded his pillow and Kongpob had taken it upon himself to tell him terrible jokes until 3am, many in Thai which had distracted Arthit as he had worked out the punchlines, Kongpob holding his hand the whole time.
“I thought our six-week friendship was quite.. well.. deep, actually. Besides you not telling me you’re famous, I thought we’d been pretty honest with each other? But finding out your biggest secret, well, it makes me want to share my own.” A shiver runs through Arthit as he speaks, thoughts of his concealed feelings running through his mind and making him pray that he’s not going to regret his next words.
Kongpob is quiet and for a moment the stillness of the room makes him feel like he’s all alone. He looks, side eyed, at his friend and then takes another calming breath, “Kongpob, I’m gay and..”
Kongpob tightens his grip on Arthit’s fingers and looks up at him, trying to stay sane as his eyes roam his friend’s beautiful face from his chocolatey eyes to his soft, pink lips, “And?” Kongpob knows he’s hoping that the rest of the sentence is something about Arthit having an instant and undying attraction to him and that he’s desperate for Kongpob to take him out on a date or something of that ilk. He closes his eyes and waits, anticipation flooding his body.
“And..” Arthit continues, then buries his head in Kongpob’s shoulder and breathes heavily, “I’m.. kind of scared to say it. I don’t want to ruin something, I don’t want to lose something important to me. I don’t want to lose you!”
The last words are muffled and into Kongpob’s arm, but he hears them anyway and he understands that Arthit’s already been brave and it’s his turn now.
“I’ve told you a whole lot more than most people know about me, Arthit.” Kongpob admits, “Our late night conversations alone have been more.. well, more honest than I’ve been able to be in forever.. but there’s a big thing that I want you to know too. It’s something I have always had to keep to myself just because I was famous.”
Arthit gulps and wonders, and lets himself hope as he remembers the past six weeks in a new, rather more promising way.
All the times that they’ve sat like this together while watching a movie; the times when they’ve stumbled in drunk and collapsed on one bed or another and woken up wrapped up in each other’s arms and neither of them has cared nor moved; the times they stayed up until 4am just talking about their thoughts and feelings and their lives. It’s incredible that he’s only known Kongpob for six weeks, because it feels like at least six years or perhaps.. almost the whole of his life.
There are things that Kongpob knows now that Arthit wouldn’t have dreamed of sharing with his friends back home.
Kongpob knows that he’s adopted, knows that Arthit’s father abandoned him when his mother died, knows about his little sister and his best friends at home and how disconnected Arthit has always felt from them. He knows that Arthit only found out about his mother’s family in Bangkok by chance and that since he did, he has made a huge effort to get to know his aunt and his uncle and to make friends with his cousins.
Kongpob knows things about him that he’s never told a soul, yet he still feels unable to be honest with his friend about his true feelings and he feels utterly terrible about it. But it feels like today might be the right day to let it all out.
Arthit gulps again, aware that Kongpob is waiting for him to speak, expression turning guarded, “It’s fine, Kongpob. I trust you and I hope that by now, all of my terrible practical jokes aside, you can trust me too.”
Kongpob’s lips quirk and then he does that whole face smile that he’s so good at and Arthit wonders how he had no inkling that Kongpob was famous before tonight - no-one’s ‘everything’ is quite so perfect! Even the most attractive people he’d known in high school hadn’t been this good looking. Kongpob had been projecting ‘I am a star’, right from the beginning and it’s Arthit who didn’t pick up on it.
“Well, I mean.. your jokes have been terrible at times! The pepper in the tea thing was pretty awful, Arthit, but being Thai and used to spice, it didn’t really bother me as much as it scandalised the English lot who were shocked you had dared to ruin their perfect cuppa!” He smiles, perhaps less wide but with more affection, “And yes, I trust you, Arthit. I wouldn’t have spent the past six weeks with you feeling comfortable to do this..” he nods down at their still-joined hands and Arthit hums in response.
“So,” Kongpob shivers as he thinks over what he’s about to do, “Can I tell you my biggest secret?”
“You mean it’s not the three million instagram followers?” Arthit tries to lighten the mood as he squeezes Kong’s hand tighter and nods again, but then seems to change his mind as he lets go and leaps to his feet and Kongpob’s heart drops into his socks.
“No-No!” Arthit is quick to respond when he sees how dejected Kongpob looks, “That’s not what I meant! I was just going to.. kill the lights, I thought it might make it easier.. to confess.. if it was dark?”
Kongpob feels like he’s run a thousand laps as he tries to calm his breathing, “Oh.. then yes, please.”
The light, trickling through the gap in the curtains - which both of them keep saying they will fix so that the sunlight can’t stream in and wake them up early from their hangovers - bathes the room in a soft glow and it feels intimate and safe.
“So, the thing is. I..”
“Wait..” Arthit scrambles to slide down the bed, head resting on his plump pillow then tugging Kongpob after him so that they are facing each other in the narrow single, “There, better?”
Kongpob is starting to think that he’s never going to get to confess to his friend. But he perseveres, hopeful that Arthit will take it well, “The thing is.. that I’m gay.”
Arthit freezes beside him, eyes widening and mouth dropping open, “Umm.. wha-.. I mean, you are?”
Kongpob nods and gives him a smile that curls his mouth slowly upwards and into his cheeks and then his eyes, “Yes, I’m gay. I said it’s my biggest secret, but actually my family knows and my manager and my best friends. And everyone is comfortable with it and supports me.. so, I mean.. when I was ready, I was always going to come out over here - to you and to everyone else who’s important in my life.”
Arthit’s face unfreezes and starts to lift into the smile that had attracted Kongpob right from the start. The wide smile with the slightly goofy edges that make him seem like he’s a lot younger than he actually is. Kongpob wonders if Arthit is ready to share now, and if he might be ready for something more too..
“Arthit?” He asks gently and reaches out a finger to sweep his fringe out of his eyes just for an excuse to touch him more intimately, “Are you okay? With.. that and everything?”
Arthit’s smile widens and he reaches out to grab the finger in his hair, linking their hands and tugging so that Kongpob is even closer to him in the narrow single bed, “Yes. I’m okay with all of that. I’d be.. well, a hypocrite if I said I wasn’t. Just.. well.. I have to confess too. Okay?”
Kongpob nods, squeezing their joined hands, “Of course, confess away.” He can’t help but smile brightly in anticipation and he isn’t disappointed.
“I’ve been hiding my sexuality for a long time. I’ve known for a while that I’m gay and my mother and sister know too. I never really told anyone at home other than them, but I wanted to tell people here. I wanted to tell you.. it was just.. scary I guess!” He takes another deep breath and lets it out slowly, “Thank you for helping me to confess, today.”
Kongpob softens his smile, easing it into something a little less bright but a little more flirty and a little more interested, “I kind of told you about myself for my own, nefarious reasons, if I’m honest,” he admits and licks his lips, enjoying the way Arthit follows the movement of his tongue.
“Oh?” His roommate breathes out softly, his own smile becoming something a little more interested, too, “Is that right?”
Kongpob nods and then leans in a little closer, so their lips are almost touching, “I’m interested in you, Arthit. Are you interested in me?”
Arthit doesn’t even pretend not to understand, “Yeah. I am.” He says, tongue darting out to moisten his lips.
“Good to know,” Kongpob says, leaning a fraction of an inch closer so their lips brush, “I’m going to kiss you now because six weeks of sexual tension has been killing me!”
Arthit’s hand reaches for Kong’s hip and he tugs him in, tilting his head a little for easier access and then their mouths are brushing firmly, over and over, until they find a rhythm and Arthit opens his lips and the tips of their tongues meet and then they start to kiss in earnest.
It’s ferocious for a while, both of them fighting to dominate the kiss. First, Arthit is on his back, Kongpob hovering over him as they stay connected at the mouths, then Arthit twists them around and pushes Kongpob into the mattress, pressing the length of his body firmly into his roommates.
Arthit pulls back as their erections brush, eyes finding Kong’s, the question clear.
“I feel like we’ve had six weeks of foreplay, Arthit..”
“Yeah.. so…?”
“So, shall we get naked?!” Kongpob’s grin is cheeky and excited with no trace of hesitation and Arthit feels the same, so he nods and smiles and kisses Kongpob until he feels like the nerves are all gone.. and then he reaches out and slides his fingers under the hem of Kongpob’s shirt…
..and it is one of those special moments his mother told him about.
The End.