Archive of Our Own

It was almost four months later, and the ever–present ache in Korn’s heart was slowly going away. He was healing; and it wasn’t an easy task, but he was healing. And maybe he could have even said he was already over it, but the sting, the unexpected and sudden, still hadn’t left him alone. Korn could be okay for days on end, he could be laughing and making jokes without a second thought of a relationship that both felt like it ended too early and too late, but then he would see a specific bottle of wine on a shelf at his favourite store, or pass by their usual place at the park next to his apartment, and there it was again — the piercing feeling of losing something important.

But still, he was coping. He was. Until the one day when he had found his hoodie still buried deep in his closet, and, sobbing with it clutched to his chest, he spontaneously decided it was time for a holiday.

So, there he was, barely two days after his graduation, stepping out of the train in his hometown somewhere in the Chiang Mai province.

Okay, maybe it was an exaggeration to call it a town. It was a village, obviously, and frankly, quite a small one. There wasn’t one person living there that he wouldn’t be able to associate with a big group of relatives, an embarrassing story from their childhood, and at least one rumour that surely wasn’t true, but for some reason everyone believed it was, even after he hadn’t been there in over seven years. One of his own rumours was that he once had stolen a computer screen from his school in a nearby town, which was so obviously false. He wasn’t that stupid, he had stolen a keyboard that he could have easily hidden in his backpack. There wasn’t any special meaning or a tragic story behind it, he was just a stupid kid who got dared by his classmates.

Finally, Korn stood in front of his family home, sweating profusely. It was unbelievably hot that day, and he had spent the past hour walking from the train station in the heat, with nothing to hide under, on top of that dragging his suitcase behind him on the dirt road. Maybe he should have expected not to see asphalt; after all, nothing in that place was ever changing.

Even the house he had spent most of his life in was the same, perhaps a bit more rundown and emptier. He knew that his aunt was sometimes coming there from Chiang Mai, where she lived, to check up on the house and make sure nothing was living, dying or rotting inside, but still, no one has been living there for the past seven years.

Korn sighed heavily at that thought. He had only managed to live in that house alone for a few weeks after his father’s death, before dropping everything and moving to Bangkok. His parents got divorced when he was just a little kid, so he never knew his mother that well. She was with her new husband and two children somewhere in Nonthaburi, living her best life as an architect. He had only seen her a few times ever since the divorce, and none of them were in the past seven years, and it was a miracle if they talked on the phone once every few months for two minutes.

He turned the key, and his hand hovered over the handle for longer than necessary, as if he was still giving himself the time to run away and never turn back again. Gritting his teeth, he shook his head and moved at once, while he still had the courage to do so.

When he finally opened the door, something in him expected to see his dad sitting in his usual place in the kitchen, on the old bamboo chair that had fallen apart at least four times already, yet every time was repaired by his dad and their neighbour, maybe peeling vegetables for dinner, maybe reading a newspaper he bought at the market in Chiang Mai when he went shopping. Of course, that wasn’t the sight that greeted Korn.

The house was as empty as he left it all those years ago, maybe feeling even emptier now that everything was covered in dust and spiderwebs, a musty stench in the air. Something tugged at his heartstrings, an old pain hidden deep inside waking up again. Everywhere he looked, he could almost see the shadows of the past, not visible enough to catch them, but still there, as if taunting him.

He finally closed the door behind him and went around the whole house, opening every window that he could force to move. A few of them must have rusted somewhere along the way, or maybe they were just too old to still be working properly. He made a mental note of every one of them, both to remember what needed to be fixed and which ones not to touch for the time being.

When the house was starting to feel a little alive again, the spiderwebs and the smell mostly gone, Korn’s tee was also laying somewhere in the mess, long forgotten both because of the heat and how uncomfortable it was to have to be fixing it all the time. It was definitely too big for him, and every time he leaned down to pick up something, it would slide to cover his face. Hearing someone shuffling on the other side of the front door, he hadn’t even thought to search for it. He simply dragged his tired feet to open it before even hearing a knock.

Korn’s brain immediately recognised the face, maybe a bit more tired and with some more wrinkles, but still the same.

“I thought I saw someone go inside, but my wife didn’t believe me!” he exclaimed, his accent bringing Korn back in time. He hadn’t heard anyone speak so casually in the northern dialect for years, and it tugged at his heartstrings with an unfamiliar to him type of longing. “My dear, you’re finally back! I wouldn’t recognise you, if I saw you on the street, you’ve grown so tall!”

“Good evening to you too,” Korn said simply, a grin appearing on his face.

It was his old neighbour and his dad’s closest friend. He was the one his dad was working with at the mechanic’s in the nearby town when they were younger, then doing small jobs for everyone who needed a handyman in their village and the outlying ones. Their families celebrated every holiday together since Korn was a child.

“Good evening? Good evening? ” he all but yelled, making Korn squirm a little. He forgot how loud people in the village were compared to those in the city. Maybe the city itself was noisy, but the people of it would always speak in quiet tones, the exact opposite of the villagers he knew. “You come back after, what, ten years, and it’s good evening!, ” he mocked, but the smile on his face was all Korn needed to know that it was well-intended.

“Leave the poor kid alone!” A voice came from somewhere down the road, and judging from the expression of the man in front of him, Korn assumed it was his wife. Sure enough, a middle-aged woman stepped in between them a moment later, a smile on her face making all her wrinkles more visible. “Korn, my dear, it’s really you!” she exclaimed in the same tone as her husband, and Korn couldn’t help but smile wider. “Have you eaten already? Do you want to join us for dinner?”

Korn really wanted to shake his head and say no. He still had so much to do, and it was already getting dark. He needed to go through all of the cabinets in the kitchen to check if there somehow hasn’t still been any old, canned food that his dad liked to eat when he didn’t feel like cooking, and that Korn couldn’t bring himself to eat ever since his dad’s death. He had to hang up the mosquito nets he brought with him from Bangkok, expecting all the old ones to be either torn up or thrown away. He finally needed to find himself a makeshift bed, not sure if his old one would still be intact and if he could still even sleep in it without the old nightmares waking him up.

But seeing their hopeful faces in front of him, he just couldn’t decline. “I would love to,” he said instead. Then, realising something important, he started looking around. “Just let me find something to wear first…”

Finally, having dug out a clean shirt from his suitcase, he found himself following both of his neighbours to their house, and then sitting down at their table, already full of hot food, as if there was someone preparing it when they were both busy talking to Korn. If Korn wasn’t already daydreaming about what all the dishes taste like, he probably could have solved the mystery of hot food on his own, but fortunately for him, it soon solved itself.

Just when Korn was about to dig in, finally feeling the hunger he repressed throughout the whole day, a young man walked into the room, and sat down right in front of Korn.

Korn couldn’t stop himself from staring, but his gaze wasn’t reciprocated.

“Korn, dear, you remember Wai, don’t you?”

Korn did remember Wai, very well even. How could he not?

They used to be best friends, the best ones the world had ever seen. It was always Wai and Korn, Korn and Wai, ever since they were old enough to play with each other. Where one of them went, the other followed, and you could never see one without the other. The entire village knew that they were a pair of inseparable, annoying little troublemakers.

But they haven’t talked to each other for over seven years, and instead of eating, Korn found himself comparing the kid he left behind in the village to the man in front of him. Wai used to be a scrawny child, smaller than Korn, who himself wasn’t too tall, but now he seemed to be his height, maybe even a few centimetres taller. Korn had the feeling he even grew into his face, which was always too serious for his age, but he couldn’t confirm his suspicions when Wai apparently refused to look at him.

“Of course I remember Wai,” he finally answered, and Wai’s name sounded almost foreign to him. He purposefully made his voice a little louder and more dragged out, just as he used to talk like when he was still living there. Over the years his tone changed, he spoke softly and quietly now, matching it to everyone around him, but he hoped that he could bring back their memories to Wai like his simple presence had to Korn.

He didn’t, or if he did, Wai didn’t let it show, busying himself with eating. Korn sighed, not letting his smile drop, and did the same. Just the smell of the food in front of him was enough to make him go back to the past, but the taste was what knocked the breath out of him. He hadn’t eaten something that tasted like home for almost eight long years.

A few hours went by on eating and talking, both about the past and Korn’s life in Bangkok. He already answered all of the questions about his studies (he had just graduated from university), any girlfriends (an awkward no was all he could answer), work (he was to start an internship in September with huge hopes for getting a full-time job after it finished), and how life in the city was ( fine, I guess , he said, not sure what to answer). He finally decided to leave, all the chores he still had to do still on his mind.

“Wai, walk Korn back to his house,” Wai’s father nudged him with his elbow as if joking, but his tone left no room for argument.

And Wai, even though a proper adult for long years already, who perhaps had no reason to soundlessly carry out his parents’ orders, didn’t even consider arguing with his father, and put on his shoes to walk Korn back.

It was awkward, to say the least. The trip between their houses was less than two minutes long, but somehow Korn found himself starting a conversation over ten times, and never receiving an answer.

“Wai,” he said at first. “It was nice,” he said later, not hearing even a noise from Wai. “Did you cook all that?” was next. “What are you doing?” he asked, slowly losing hope. Then it was: “Are you a doctor, like you wanted to?”, “Wait, no, then you wanted to be an architect, didn’t you?”, “Did you go to uni like you always planned?”, “Ah, are you working in town then?”, but none of them received an answer either. “Are you tired?” he then asked, followed by multiple other questions. Finally, it was, “Goodnight!” as Wai walked away without a word, leaving Korn on his doorstep.

Korn found himself lying in his old bed, too tired to think of any other place he could rest his head, Wai’s silence on his mind up until his brain stepped into the dreamy haze right before falling asleep. He woke up before dawn with a scream on his tongue and the image of his lifeless father lying in his bed again.

*

The next few days Korn spent between greeting everyone in the village, meeting his old acquaintances’ kids and spouses, learning who died and who was born, cleaning the house thoroughly, eating dinner with Wai’s family, and finally trying to talk to Wai. Wai was a mystery. It wasn’t that his whole temperament changed, that as he grew up he also grew quieter — when Korn saw him talking to other people, he was still as animated as before, smiling and joking around, but as soon as he turned to Korn, his expression was indifferent again.

Korn laughed it off every time, but Wai’s coldness stayed on his mind for way longer than maybe needed.

It was almost a week after his arrival, when he opened the door to the garage in the backyard for the first time. To be honest, he was only expecting to see the bags with old clothes he put there when he was cleaning the attic after his father’s death, maybe some rubbish and rotting rat corpses, so he wasn’t exactly eager to go inside.

He definitely wasn’t expecting to see his dad’s beloved motorbike.

A gasp escaped his throat as he pulled off the dusted cover. He genuinely thought his aunt would have sold it a long time ago, not left it to stand and rust in the old garage. These few years ago it would have still been of some value, kept in tip-top condition ever since his dad bought it for half of what it was worth from a man in the neighbouring village, who bought himself a car and didn’t need a motorbike anymore. Now it was certainly covered in rust from inside out, and Korn wasn’t even hoping it would start on the first try.

It obviously didn’t. But the sound it made left Korn with some hope and a new motivation to renovate it.

Korn spent the next few days working on the bike, trying to bring it back to its previous condition, or at least something close to it. He didn’t really know much about mechanics, he didn’t even own a car, but ever since he was young, his dad was teaching him how to fix this specific bike, and even after all these years he instinctively knew how to do it. He definitely wasn’t as good as his father, with both mechanic experience and love for the vehicle, but his determination and nostalgia made do too, on top of his neighbour’s readiness to help and advise him, if needed.

“My dear, do you need anything from the town? Wai is going there tomorrow, you can tag along.”

He was eating a dinner with Wai’s mom for the first time in a few days. Having been busy with both cleaning the house and fixing the bike, he started cooking his own meals again. His eating hours got so irregular that when his other neighbour, one of his old classmates, came with an invitation for a dinner, he had barely finished his breakfast after going to sleep at eight in the morning, because he got too caught up in repairing and cleaning fixtures in the bathroom. He couldn’t really wait for Wai’s parents or old acquaintances to make his every meal, and, grieving the taste of their cooking, he put his newly cleaned kitchen to use.

There was also one reason he wasn’t going to sleep at normal hours, even though when he was living in Bangkok he never stayed up too late; when he finally collapsed after the long day, he fell asleep so quickly and deeply that his brain didn’t make up nightmares anymore.

“Actually, yes, I do,” he replied, his northern accent settling comfortably on his tongue like it used to. “I need to buy some parts for the bike, so if Wai doesn’t mind, I’ll gladly go with him,” he added, taking advantage of Wai’s absence at the dinner table. Wai surely minded, but wouldn’t oppose, if his parents told him to take Korn along with him. If he was there, Korn most likely wouldn’t earn a glare in response, but maybe Wai would sigh heavily or roll his eyes when he thought his hair was covering his face enough to make it unnoticeable. “What’s Wai going to the town for? Groceries?” he asked then, a barely visible smile on his face.

Wai’s mom waved her hand, quickly swallowing the food in her mouth. “You know how he is, my dear, he never tells me what he’s up to. I know he wanted to talk to the manufacturer we sell our leaves to about something, so maybe that’s why he’s going? Or maybe to secretly go on a date with some pretty girl from the town?” she added with a teasing smile, and looked at Korn with her eyebrows raised. Shortly, it turned into a softer expression followed by a sigh. “Actually, can I have a question?” She didn’t even wait for an answer, or even a nod from Korn, and continued, “Have you maybe heard of people interested in buying our leaves in your big city?”

Korn’s eyebrows furrowed as he searched his mind for a memory of anyone even mentioning tea in a context different than just drinking it. “No, I don’t think so… Why? Do you want to– I don’t know, expand your business?”

She shook her head quickly. “No, no, don’t worry about it, my dear…” She then picked up a spoon and put even more of her signature pork curry, as if trying to tell him to stuff himself with more food instead of asking more questions. It wasn’t like anything else Korn has ever tasted, even when in deperate attempts at curing his longing for home he went through most of Bangkok’s restaurants that served northern food, and if she really did that to shut him up, she definitely succeeded.

The next day, he was standing in front of his house with the biggest tote bag he owned on his shoulder, waiting for Wai to show up. He was holding tight onto an iced coffee in a reusable bottle with a straw that he’s had for way longer than it was supposed to last, sipping from it slowly. The coffee wasn’t good, honestly, it was way too bitter and had a sour aftertaste, but at least it was waking him up. His tiredness was starting to get the best of him slowly, but the taste combined with the coldness of the drink made him forget about the sleepless night that he just had, and the one before when he had slept only for about three hours before waking up with a scream again.

Wai drove up in an old pickup, but Korn didn’t remember his neighbours having it when he was still living there. He got in, throwing his bag on the floor to rest beside his feet, and threw a quick hey at Wai, not expecting a response anymore. Korn had been in the village for two weeks already, and Wai hadn’t uttered even a word to him. He was lucky to hear Wai sigh in reply to his continuous efforts to make him talk.

Korn was confused in the most sincere way. He would have thought Wai would be happy to reconnect with an old friend, just as Korn himself was. And even if he wasn’t for whatever reason, Wai was always the first person to confront and fight about something he found unpleasant, not give anyone the cold shoulder. Korn would rather take one punch to the face and resolve the issue than keep on trying to have a conversation with no effect. At least he wouldn’t have this piercing feeling somewhere deep inside that time really had passed since he last saw Wai, and he didn’t know him anymore, contrary to what he would like to think.

It was bone–chilling, the feeling that someone you thought knew you the best was suddenly a stranger.

“Where do you need to go?”

Korn almost broke his neck with the speed he turned his head to Wai. “You’re talking to me?” he exclaimed, excitement easily heard in his voice. He wasn’t expecting a reply again, but it came, in the form of an exasperated mhm . A huge grin appeared on Korn’s face. “Besides some regular groceries? The hardware store and somewhere I can buy parts for the motorbike, I don’t know where that could be, though. What are you going to town for?”

Wai didn’t answer anymore, and Korn couldn’t help but feel disappointed, despite being used to his continuous quietness. The rest of the ride was completely silent, not interrupted even by the radio. Korn didn’t know if it was because it wasn’t working, or because Wai liked the silence. If it was all these years ago, he would have been able to tell just from the way Wai’s eyes stared at the road ahead what was his mood and if he should fill the air between them with his rambling or not, but they didn’t betray anything now. Or maybe Korn had just forgotten how to read them.

The car stopped in front of a huge pavilion with Auto parts written on the wall with spray paint. Korn smiled a little, in awe of how easily Wai could find the exact place he needed. He got out, getting the hint easily, but before he closed the door, he heard Wai speak again.

“I’m gonna be back here in about an hour. There’s a hardware store on the other side of the street,” he said matter–of–factly, not even looking at Korn.

“Thanks,” Korn replied quickly, not wanting to waste Wai’s time on his useless monologues, but something inside of him was giddy from excitement. He was definitely on the right path to make Wai talk to him again.

The hour passed fairly quickly, spent between buying everything he needed, finishing his coffee that wasn’t bitter anymore, but too watered down by the melted ice instead, and walking around, simply admiring the town he hadn’t been to in long years. Contrary to the village, it changed a lot, so much he didn’t even know where he was, despite him spending his whole days there for years when he was in school.

Korn greeted the sight of Wai’s car with gratefulness. His shoulder felt like falling off after carrying everything he bought in his tote, only then realising maybe it wasn’t the best idea to take it with him, and he should have got a proper backpack. He dumped everything in the back of the pickup, taking notice that it was still empty. His eyebrows furrowed. He was expecting Wai to have gone to some other shop while Korn was busy with his own shopping, but maybe his business in town was in fact something else than that. He did ask when he got into the car again, but as always, he didn’t get a reply. A voice in the back of Korn’s head suggested that maybe Wai really did go see a girl like his mom joked the day before, but the thought was so uncomfortable that he shook it off immediately. He probably just went to the manufacturer, Korn decided, the idea settling with ease in his brain, contrary to the previous one.

They stopped in front of a market, and it took a minute for Korn to move. Only when he noticed that Wai was already outside of the car, did he realise it was their destination. He almost laughed at himself as he finally followed Wai. He managed to forget that was where they always went grocery shopping when they went to the town from their village, now too used to shopping in malls and supermarkets in Bangkok.

“What are you looking at?” he asked, noticing Wai staring at one stall. He was ignored again, but it started his continuous monologue that wasn’t interrupted by Wai even once. “Oh, do you think these carrots look good? I remember coming here when we were younger, but so much changed, I didn’t recognise it at first,” he kept on talking, filling his bag with groceries in between senteces. “Actually, I haven’t been to a market like this for years, I mostly really go to the convenience store downstairs when I’m at home.” He stopped only to buy some rice, and started talking to Wai again right after. “I haven’t been cooking for myself for quite some time, anyway, so I never needed to buy groceries. I almost forgot how to cook,” he laughed, but then it died somewhere in his throat.

The reason he wasn’t cooking his own meals was because he had someone doing it for him, someone who enjoyed both cooking and spoiling Korn, and the thought of that person wasn’t a pleasant one. He scoffed, not expecting Wai to even notice, but Wai’s stare suddenly landed on him, only for a few seconds, yet there was something in it that made Korn lose his breath for a moment. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said it was worry, but truthfully, it was probably curiosity.

“Anyway, I think I’m gonna make a bigger dinner one day and invite your parents,” he continued, shaking his head, as if it would help him get rid of the memories coming to his mind. “They’ve had me over so many times, I’m starting to feel awkward. You should come too, if you want to…”

Korn kept on talking nonsense for their whole grocery trip, making Wai sigh a few times, and possibly roll his eyes too, but he was always in front of Korn, as if trying to run from him, and Korn couldn’t be sure what his expression was.

“Why do people keep looking at us?” he suddenly asked, as they were going through the parking lot, already on their way back. They had just passed an older woman, who scrutinised them both before quickly walking away, shaking her head, and Korn was sincerely confused. He wasn’t used to being perceived in the streets, and certainly not in that kind of way.

Wai suddenly stopped, turning around to face Korn. His death glare and pursed lips both made Korn shiver a little. “Maybe because you look like an idiot?” Wai said, somehow both annoyed and exasperated.

Korn’s eyebrows furrowed. He looked down to examine his outfit, and he couldn’t tell what was wrong with it. Was there maybe something on his face? Did he have something stuck to his shoe? He immediately checked, looking at himself in the reflection in the car window beside him, then lifting both his feet a little to look for anything there. He glanced back at Wai, not having found anything wrong with the way he looked, confusion surely in his eyes. Only then did he realise what Wai had meant.

It wasn’t that there was something about his outfit per se , it was that he stood out in his usual clothes. Wai was wearing a worn-out shirt with colourful embroidery and simple wide pants with sandals, just as most of the villagers coming to town were. It was subtle to an outsider, but anyone around them could tell he didn’t live anywhere near. Somewhere between his hair tied up in a ponytail, the way he had his t-shirt tucked in, and his almost brand-new sneakers, he looked out of place.

Korn found himself absent-mindedly biting his lower lip, hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Do I really look that stupid?” he finally said, a little embarrassed, and mostly confused.

Wai sighed, rolling his eyes skywards. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll soon be gone again, anyway,” he scoffed, almost turning around to walk to the car, but he stopped himself mid-step. He didn’t look at Korn anymore, but his annoyance could be felt just on the air between them. When he spoke, his voice was on the verge of a yell. “Really, why did you come back here? Just to annoy me with your constant babbling? Can’t you get the hint that I don’t want to talk to you?”

With that, he finally walked away with his bags of groceries in hands, leaving Korn behind.

The ride home was silent, but this time around, Korn knew not to fill it with his constant babbling. He kept on fiddling with his fingers, his eyebrows furrowed without a rest.

He truly didn’t mean to seriously annoy Wai. Fine, okay, he did try to annoy him, but only enough to make him talk again, because Korn could take it from there. He could tell a stupid joke or two, make Wai laugh, and maybe it would be enough for them to have a normal conversation. But when he finally managed to annoy Wai into speaking, he snapped at Korn, leaving no place for joking anymore. And Korn didn’t feel like being shouted at again.

It was a really late evening, somewhere on the edge of the night, when Korn heard a knock on his door. He was in the kitchen in the middle of cooking his dinner, so he simply yelled open!, wishing that whoever was knocking would hear him and go inside. He couldn’t bear to leave his meal alone, he was way too good at burning food even when being next to it.

It took a moment, but he finally heard the door open and someone stepped inside the house. “In the kitchen!” he shouted again, hoping that whoever it was, would know where the kitchen was.

He wasn’t expecting that whoever to be Wai with a plastic bag full of something seemingly heavy in his hand.

Korn almost dropped a whole jar of salt into his soup. His eyebrows furrowed, as he glanced between Wai and his bag. Wai in turn was looking at everything in the kitchen besides Korn.

“You left some of your things in the car,” he said finally, his voice weirdly quiet. Korn had already got used to people talking loudly in the village, Wai’s tone was almost out of place.

But maybe Wai’s entire presence in Korn’s house was out of place.

Korn nodded, swallowing back everything he wanted to say. He was so used to talking a lot to Wai on his own that he almost started asking if Wai liked what he had done with the house during his stay, or reminiscing the times they would sit together in that very kitchen, doing homework, as his father cooked a dinner for them.

“Mhm. Thanks,” he said instead, taking the bag out of Wai’s hand. He put it near the table, and went back to his meal, expecting Wai to leave immediately, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wai still standing in the entrance to the kitchen. Korn finally turned off the gas under the pots, and only then did he turn to face Wai. He mustered up the last bits of courage he had. “Sorry, if my talking annoyed you. I didn’t mean to,” he said finally, before his more rational part stopped him.

Wai shook his head. “I’m sorry too. For snapping at you,” he replied, his tone a bit timid, but surely sincere.

There was a silence between them again. Korn wasn’t sure what to say, not wanting to ruin the atmosphere, but mostly too confused to come up with anything worth saying. He wasn’t expecting Wai to even come to his house, not to mention to hear him apologising. He didn’t remember Wai ever apologising. When they used to argue as kids, it was Korn who made amends first, and only realised Wai was feeling the same because of how long they had known each other and how easily reading Wai’s actions used to come to him.

Korn sighed deeply. “Have you eaten?” he asked, not sure what he wanted the response to be.

“Not yet,” Wai replied, his hand resting somewhere on his neck.

“I just finished cooking. Do you want to stay for dinner?”

It took a moment for him to speak again. “Sure.”

A barely visible smile painted Wai’s face, taking away Korn’s breath for a moment. He hadn’t seen Wai smile at him for over seven years, and the view spread warmth through his body until it reached his heart.

They ate in silence, but it was a different kind than he had been receiving from Wai for all these days. It was comfortable and warm like sun in the middle of spring, not icy cold with Wai’s averted gaze.

Korn walked Wai home later. Somehow, the way there took almost ten minutes, despite their houses being almost next to each other. It was dark everywhere around, except for the bright stars above them. Korn found himself staring at them with awe in his eyes. He hasn’t been able to see this many stars in the sky for years, and ever since he came back to the village, each sight of them left him breathless.

“Korn,” Wai suddenly said sometime during their walk. Korn immediately looked at him, pulling his gaze away from the sky, expecting to meet Wai’s eyes. He didn’t. Wai was still looking straight ahead. “Why did you come back?”

For a moment only did Korn contemplate telling the whole story. “I guess I just missed home too much.” He shrugged, a purposeful grin on his face.

Suddenly Korn realised that, despite Wai being his oldest friend, he didn’t feel like he could talk to Wai about anything like he used to. Him thinking his reason for coming to the village was embarrassing aside, he definitely wasn’t ready to come out to Wai. Not that he genuinely expected Wai would hate him, but the unsaid fear made its home in the back of his mind. Sometimes forgotten, sometimes loud enough to drown his every other thought, but always there. Maybe it was the effect of growing up surrounded by people who expected him to have a wife and two kids by the time he would turn twenty–five, maybe it was his own mind still not used to the idea of who he was, maybe it was the way he looked at the world like it was always out to get him ever since he was sixteen and his life started falling apart.

Wai scoffed, clearly not believing him. Korn didn’t mind. He felt that Wai wouldn’t push for an answer, and that was exactly what Korn had wanted.

A sudden darkness in front of his eyes snapped him out of his thoughts.

It lasted only a few seconds, but apparently it was long enough for him to stumble upon his own feet and falter. He felt Wai’s arm catching his shoulders to stabilise him before he saw his face right in front of his eyes, the darkness receding.

Korn immediately looked away, waiting for Wai to step back. “Thanks,” he snorted uncomfortably, trying to laugh it off, but he saw enough of Wai’s expression to know what was coming next.

“Are you okay?”

He didn’t have to look to know Wai would be furrowing his brows a little, so barely noticeable, that you could only see it happen if you were paying attention, and his eyes would be squinted, maybe lips puckered a bit too. He had seen that expression many times in the weeks before he left.

Korn forced a laugh. “All good. I think I’m just tired, I haven’t slept long this night.” Lie. He hadn’t slept at all.

He felt Wai glance at him, and only when the burning feeling of it went away, did Korn look at him back. Wai was gazing around, clearly not at the surroundings, but searching for something in his mind. Suddenly, his eyes widened.

“Do you still have the nightmares?” His voice was soft when he asked, but carrying genuine curiosity along with worry.

It caught him off guard. He didn’t expect Wai to remember. Korn bit his lip absent-mindedly, thinking of an excuse, but it didn’t come to him, so he settled for a vague truth.

“Not really– I mean, I didn’t anymore, but this house…” he paused, searching for the right words. “I think it brings back too many memories.” A silence fell between them, and Korn let himself cast a quick glance at Wai. “But it’s all good, I’m managing,” he added, trying to make Wai’s worried expression go away.

It didn’t work. Wai stopped, already at his front door, facing Korn, but his eyes everywhere except for his face. “If you ever need a break, you can come over, you know,” he said slowly, as if not sure of his own words. “We still have the guest room.”

Korn’s lips curved up. The mention of the guest room brought back many memories that rested dormant in his mind for all these years he was away.

When they were still kids, they used to play in there when the heat got too much and one of their parents would yell out of the window for them to come back inside. It got to the point where all of Wai’s toys were laying all over the floor in that room, alongside a few of Korn’s that he brought with him and never bothered to take back home.

When they were older, they used to sit in that room some evenings after classes, doing homework and reminiscing the day gone by, as the sun set outside the window. Sometimes they would fall asleep in the orange light, either their backs against each other, or one’s head resting on the other’s shoulder, and they would wake up when the moon was already up to finish their homework in a hurry.

After Korn’s father’s death, though, that room became his hideout when he needed to run away from the ghost hiding in every wall and corner of his house. Some days he didn’t even go home, he woke up in that room and went back to it after school, not caring about the uneaten food that was rotting in his fridge or dust growing roots on the shelves. He was a teenager who suddenly had to become an adult, and sometimes he needed to feel normal again, to have a dinner waiting for him at home when he went back, and someone asking him how his day went. Wai’s parents and their guest room became a replacement for his own dad and home.

Korn nodded in reply, trying to show more of an acknowledgement than agreement.

Probably in the lack of a proper answer from him, Wai turned around and walked towards his door. His palm on the handle already, he suddenly stopped. “Goodnight,” he said, not facing Korn. He wasn’t there anymore to hear Korn’s confused goodnight , going inside immediately afterwards.

Korn didn’t go to sleep when he went back home. He headed first to the kitchen to grab the bag full of motorbike parts that Wai brought him a few hours before, then to the garage.

He lit the solitary lightbulb in the room and threw himself into the work.

He was tired, obviously, so tired that, in fact, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep if he tried to. So he did the next best thing - decided to be productive and continue fixing his dad’s motorbike.

There was something cathartic about putting all the parts back into their proper places and seeing how well they fit. It was as if along with the motorbike, there was something else that was getting put together. Maybe not Korn’s whole heart or soul, but perhaps a part of his childhood was being saved in that garage, or perhaps a bit of hope that he lost almost eight years ago was being reborn. He almost felt his father looking over his shoulder, telling him he was doing well, or how to turn a certain part around before putting it in.

He wasn’t sure when or how he fell asleep, or if he fell asleep at all, and didn’t simply pass out, but when he woke up, his neck was hurting, his back was half-slouched between the wall and the motorbike, his mouth and lips were both dry. The sunshine hurting his eyes was telling him that it was at the very least noon already.

There were also someone’s feet right next to him.

Korn’s eyes slowly looked upwards, to finally stare Wai in the face. It was difficult to see his expression with the sun shining right from behind him, but Korn expected it was nothing near happy.

“What the hell are you doing?” Wai finally asked, and somehow in his voice was present a smile, despite its harshness.

Korn rubbed his eyes with the fingers of one hand, running the other through his hair. His hair tie must have fallen off sometime during the night, making his hair fall messily down the sides of his head. He sighed, and slowly stood up.

“Sleeping?” he replied, forcing a smile, that surely came out crooked.

Wai scoffed, rolling his eyes skyward, but his lips curved up a bit. Korn wasn’t sure if Wai was laughing with him or at him, but the sight was pleasant nonetheless.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Wai replied after a moment, his voice somewhere between joking and disbelief. “Don’t you have a bed in that huge house of yours?”

There was a smile on Korn’s face again, but this time a genuine one. “Actually, I have like three of them, but none are as comfortable as this bike.” He gestured to the motorbike beside him, and as he did, he suddenly turned around, realising something.

His eyes were shining as he reached for the keys and put them into the ignition. He paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and turned the key.

The engine started.

Korn turned around to face Wai at once. Wai’s expression was unreadable, but his own face was hurting from the huge grin that painted it. Everything inside him was giddy from excitement, and if he had just a little less inhibitions, he would have thrown himself at Wai to hug him tightly.

“It works!” he exclaimed instead. His hands were going somewhere from his sides to grasp each other, then to run through his hair, slide along his face, before settling on his hips finally. “It works, it works!” he repeated, more to himself, not even looking at Wai anymore.

He spun around to look at the motorbike again. His left hand thoughtlessly slid along the curves of the seat, then joined his right to grab the handlebar. A heavy sigh left his chest, and with it all the tension he had left in his body. Suddenly, everything was alright, and he couldn’t remember the last time he felt like that.

He finally stopped the engine, not wanting to waste fuel on nothing, then turned to Wai again. Wai was smiling too, and even though Korn couldn’t tell the reason, it lit up the room more than the sunshine from the outside.

“Wanna go for a ride?” Korn asked, eyebrows raised.

Wai rolled his eyes, letting his smile drop, but the shadow of it still painted his face. “No,” he replied shortly, then took off the tote bag he had on his shoulder, handing it to Korn. “Breakfast first. Mom told me to bring it to you.”

Korn gazed curiously into the bag to find two plastic boxes with food there. “Thanks a lot.” He then looked up from the bag, eyebrows furrowed, but a playful expression in his eyes. “Does that mean that if I eat breakfast, you will go on a ride with me?”

That earned a scoff from Wai, but an amused one surely, as he nodded immediately after. “Fine, fine, whatever,” he said slowly, but the smile that followed made Korn sure it wasn’t whatever , and he was just as excited to ride the bike.

And maybe at that moment Wai thought of the same memory as Korn, about ten years back. It was summer too, and Korn’s dad was teaching him how to ride the motorbike on his own. Up until that point, when he was the one driving, his dad would sit right behind him, ready to grab the handlebars if needed.

“I think you’re ready,” his dad said after a few days of teaching, standing back with his hands on his hips.

It was all Korn needed. He sat on the seat steadily, his hands comfortable on the handlebars. And he drove off, first into the village, then away from it, diving by the nearby fields, waving at his neighbours picking tea leaves, not even sure if they saw him.

His heart was light like it hasn’t been before. He found himself thinking that he was made for this feeling.

When he was driving back home, somewhere on the way from the fields, he noticed Wai walking along the dirt road. He smiled immediately, pulling over right next to him.

“Wanna go for a ride?” he asked, his eyebrows raising, as if teasing, but more because of his pride and content.

Wai laughed, shaking his head, and his hair, that got too long over the summer, shook alongside it. “Fine, fine…” he replied, feigning disinterest. Korn didn’t believe it for even a moment, and slid off the seat to take out the spare helmet and hand it to Wai.

“Where do you want to go, sir?” Korn asked in a formal tone when they were both sitting on the motorbike.

“Home, sir,” Wai said, replicating Korn’s tone.

They laughed heartily as they drove back home, Wai’s hands comfortably grabbing Korn’s shoulders, as they looked at the sun setting over them in all of the shades of oranges and pinks. And for a few minutes it was as if the world was theirs and theirs only.

Korn drove up to Wai’s house about an hour later, his stomach full of the delicious food Wai brought him, hair still a wet mess after he washed it and didn’t bother blow–drying, wearing a clean sleeveless tee with the most loose pair of pants he found in his still unpacked suitcase. It took only a moment for Wai to come out, as if he was waiting at the front door for him, looking exactly the same as he did when he found Korn sleeping in the garage.

“I need to warn you, though, I have no idea where the helmets went,” Korn said immediately, an embarrassed laugh following his words. “You can still opt out…”

Wai rolled his eyes once again, and Korn found himself thinking if his eyes weren’t hurting from the constant rolling. “I’m already here, aren’t I?” he said, and only because Korn had known him for so many years, he realised it probably meant something along the lines of shut up and let’s go for that drive , and maybe even I trust you, I don’t need that helmet.

“Don’t blame me if I kill you, then,” Korn said, a little jokingly, mostly worried at how quick Wai was to agree.

He wasn’t sure if it was because of Wai’s innate impulsiveness, or if, even after all these years, Wai still trusted him with his life. Suddenly, it was as if a heavy stone fell on his heart. He didn’t want Wai to trust him like that, not really, not now. It put too much pressure on Korn. Especially since he was about to leave in less than two months again, and Wai would stay where he was. There was no need for that amount of trust if he was going to break it again.

The word trust tasted odd on the back of his tongue, being repeated so many times in his mind, as they drove away slowly.

Somehow this drive felt different from all the ones before. He didn’t forget about everything, as he used to, only caring about the road and view in front of him. The real world caught up with him, and he found himself in a spiral of thoughts: does the engine sound weird, is it going to stop, do the brakes work, isn’t the handlebar too loose, is there enough air in the wheels?

Wai’s right hand stayed on his shoulder, but his left pointed to something in front of them. Korn nodded in understanding, finally snapping out of his own head. The engine didn’t sound weird, and the brakes were working, he already checked them a million times before even trying to drive. He needed to trust in his dad’s motorbike and his own work. He would will it into working, if he had to.

Korn drove the curved road up the small hill that didn’t belong to any out of the three nearby villages, and stopped at the top, somewhere between the few trees that were growing there. He stood and stared in awe at the surroundings for a moment. In those years he hadn’t been there, the trees grew taller, and their branches were wide enough to give shadow now. He didn’t even notice Wai walking away to sit on the old bench on the side of the hill.

The wood it was made of seemed already rotten when he was still a teenager, so he didn’t really expect it to still be standing, but as he approached it, he saw it was still steadily supporting Wai’s whole body. Korn sat down too, a bit hesitant, but as soon as he touched the bench, he realised why Wai was so confident in its ability to support him. Even though the wood was old, it was still strong and stiff as if it was newly cut down.

His hand traced the holes on the top of it, careful of splinters, as he stared at the view Wai was looking at already. The sky was clear that day, not a cloud in sight, the sun shining on them and the people in the fields below them. Everything felt so alive in front of Korn, leaving him in awe.

Korn suddenly felt Wai’s stare on him, so he looked to the side too. Their eyes met only for a few seconds before Wai pulled his gaze away, but somehow Korn couldn’t do the same.

There was something so different about Wai than what he was used to. And it wasn’t the sharp light of midday sun, or the wind blowing his hair away from his face. It was something indescribable in words, something only his heart understood and couldn’t translate to speech.

“Why are you staring at me?” Wai asked.

You’re beautiful , was what Korn wanted to say. You’re breathtaking and I don’t know why. If you weren’t you, and I wasn’t me, I would have fallen in love with the way you look right now. But we’re still us, and I have no idea where to place this thought.

“It's nothing,” he said instead, forcing himself to pull his gaze away, but on the blue sky, he could still see the outline of Wai’s body. He let the silence fall between them, and only when he blinked Wai’s view from his eyes, he broke it. “Why didn’t you talk to me at first?” Korn asked, his voice quiet, almost a whisper.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Wai shrugging. “I didn’t want to,” he said simply.

Korn snorted, and leaned back to look up at the sky above them before speaking. “And now you want to?”

Wai was silent for a moment. “I just realised I’ve had enough time of not talking to you.”

Korn’s breath got caught up somewhere between his nose and lungs. He knew Wai surely didn’t mean the two weeks he had been in the village, and Korn couldn’t help but feel the guilt arising in his heart.

“Honestly, why did you come back?” Wai continued, a curiosity in his voice. “I know damn well you didn’t suddenly start missing the village after seven years.”

A sigh, as he looked first at Wai for a second, then back to the view in front of them. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I just felt like coming back, I guess. It’s the last time I’ll have a break this long.”

It wasn’t a complete lie, but also not a complete truth, and he hoped his voice carried enough genuineness for Wai to believe him. Another surge of guilt arose in him. Wai was completely honest with him, but he was walking around him with half–truths and understatements. I’ll tell him everything, if he asks again , he thought, but wasn’t sure if it was a promise, or an empty resolution.

“Then maybe I should ask why you went away at all.” Wai wasn’t looking at Korn as he spoke.

Korn sighed again, but this time he felt he could settle for the truth. Wai already knew that side of his vulnerability, anyway. “It all just got too much. I couldn’t take it anymore, the nightmares, the empty house, the way I would want to go to dad’s room to wake him up as usual, and halfway through the corridor I would remember that he wasn’t there. It was bound to happen sooner or later, anyway. That night I woke up from a nightmare again, and I’ve had enough. I packed some things and just– I just ran.”

“You could have told me,” Wai said, his voice bitter, not even trying to hide it.

It was right then that Korn understood what Wai was feeling and why he didn’t want to talk to him at all. And somehow, through all these years, he had never realised how much he must have hurt Wai by leaving. Too caught up in running from his own misery, he left Wai on his own somewhere behind him.

“I did try to,” he replied quietly, words slowly flowing on their own at the memory of that night almost eight years ago. “I knocked on your window, but I guess it was too late, and you were asleep. And I couldn’t wait another day. I just didn’t think I would be gone for this long. Later on, I thought that I could have left at least a letter to explain everything, but back then I didn’t have the strength to even consider it.”

That December night, Korn was practically in a haze, from the moment he woke up from another nightmare where he found his dad’s dead body laying soundly in his bed, up to when he stood on his aunt’s doorstep in Chiang Mai, with only a backpack with some clothes and all of the money his father left him. He couldn’t think of anything besides the road in front of him and everything he was leaving behind was as if behind a thick layer of fog. Every step was automatic and somehow freeing, going to the station, buying a ticket for the next train, walking through the streets of the city.

“Oh,” Wai said, clearly deep into his own head. “I thought you just… left me? That you didn’t even think of me,” he almost laughed, shaking his head. “My mom was so worried about you,” he added, and Korn couldn’t help but think there was someone else hidden in that sentence.

“I know that, my mom told me,” Korn admitted.

“Your mom?” Wai was clearly confused, and Korn couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t as if Korn was having weekly phone calls with his mother. He wasn’t really speaking to her at all, and they had only seen each other a few times after the divorce.

“Your mom was calling my mom to ask if she had seen me after I left,” Korn started explaining, his memory a little hazy after all the time gone by. “Then, my mom called me, and asked what was happening. I told her I wanted to move to Bangkok, and that I was with my aunt at that moment. She told me,” he paused to snort grimly. “She told me that she was glad I finally left that rotten countryside .” Korn didn’t glance at Wai, too scared to see his reaction to those words. He knew that village was definitely more important to Wai than it was to him. “And she sent me some money to find a place to live and a new school, so I had my aunt get some more of my things from home and I left. Mom would send me money every now and then, so I would have what to buy food with. She paid for uni too, actually. She was so happy I decided to go there, like that had something to do with her.”

Wai stayed silent. Korn understood that, and didn’t speak, either. He simply let himself admire the sky before him, and left Wai to his own thoughts. He probably needed to sort out all the new information, and Korn’s usual babbling wouldn’t help with that.

It was a long time before Wai spoke up again. “Are you happy there?” he simply asked, and Korn knew everything was alright again.

He smiled a little before speaking, and his eyes finally fell on Wai. “It is what it is, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but overall… I’m happy, yeah.”

“Then, it’s all good.” Wai glanced at him only for a moment. He then shook his head a little, and just moved on. “How long are you staying?”

Korn’s grin got bigger. That’s how Wai has always been. As soon as a misunderstanding got explained, he simply put it in the past. He held grudges for a long time, but if he realised there was no need for a grudge in the first place, he just let them go. And for a moment there, Korn felt like he knew Wai again.

“Until September,” Korn replied.

“Then, let’s make the best of it, shall we?”

When they went back home, the sun was setting already. Korn stopped the bike in his backyard, and hid it in the garage, before walking Wai home. There was really no need for any of them to do that, they lived next to each other, but there was some kind of comfort in saying goodbye like that.

“Hey, Wai,” Korn started, pulling Wai’s attention to himself. “I’m sorry that I left you behind without any explanation. I never realised how that must have made you feel.”

That was the last thing Korn felt like he needed to say about that issue before he could move on. Wai apparently didn’t share the sentiment, as he looked over at Korn with confusion in his eyes.

“It’s all good, I told you already,” he replied, elongating every syllable. It’s all good meant thanks for the apology , and I forgive you . Wai wasn’t the type of person to say anything outwardly when it came to serious topics, but all the years Korn spent by his side made him understand Wai’s intentions instinctively.

Korn smiled, a little embarrassed. “Still…”

“Why were you sleeping in the garage?” Wai suddenly changed the topic, and Korn didn’t know which conversation was more uncomfortable for him.

“I just– fell asleep while I was working on the bike, I guess,” he replied, but still wasn’t sure what exactly happened the night before.

Wai looked at him, raising one eyebrow. “And why were you working on the bike so late at night?”

It was then, when Korn finally realised Wai was making fun of him. His shoulders immediately slouched, tension leaving them. He wasn’t in the mood for explaining his sleepless nights, and joking around with Wai was definitely a better alternative.

“Because I’m not a little kid and I don’t go to sleep at nine?” he replied, matching his tone to Wai’s. His elbow nudged Wai’s side, making him theatrically stumble. Korn laughed silently in turn.

At that moment it was as if nothing had changed throughout all these years, and they were both fifteen, walking back from school, giggling stupidly at each other. Korn’s backpack would be on his right shoulder, hitting his legs with the straps with his every step. Wai’s would be put properly on both of his shoulders, and he would make fun of Korn’s slouched posture from trying to keep the backpack on. They would talk about their classmates and teachers, exchanging gossip and reminding each other about the upcoming tests. Then, they would separate at Wai’s house, that was first on the way, and Korn would continue to his own, meeting his dad on the porch or in the backyard.

But unfortunately, Korn was right. He wasn’t a little kid anymore, and nothing was the same, no matter how much he wished for it to be.

*

After that day, Korn and Wai became unseparable once again. When Wai went to the fields to pick up bags with tea leaves, Korn was in the passenger seat of his pickup. When Wai drove to the town to sell them, Korn tagged along, even if just to annoy Wai with his stupid jokes. When Korn got invited for dinner by one of his father’s old friends, Wai got the same invitation by extension. When Korn needed to buy groceries, Wai was the first to sit on his motorbike, ready to go with him.

It was Wai and Korn, Korn and Wai all over again, as both of them ignored the years they had spent apart. They didn’t have enough time to get to know each other all over again, so they pretended neither of them changed. And only sometimes did Korn get surprised when he saw Wai eating things he used to hate, or saying words he wouldn’t have said before.

Korn didn’t even notice when his every waking hour was starting to get occupied with thoughts about Wai, and what Wai was doing, and what Wai was saying, and what to say to Wai, and how to make Wai laugh in that way where his eyes got smaller and his head was thrown backwards. He slowly found himself stopping thinking about someone else who wasn’t leaving his mind before. There weren’t many things that brought back memories of his ex in the village. Only sometimes, when Wai helped him put his hair in a ponytail when his own hands were covered in motor oil, or when Korn cooked prawns in that specific way, or when he cut his finger and there was no one to put a band-aid on it, did he feel that sharp sting in his heart, reminding him of the reason he came back to the village in the first place.

Usually, though, Wai would say or do something that snapped him out of his thoughts immediately, letting the memories stay forgotten once again. And even if he didn’t say it out loud, he was grateful for Wai’s presence next to him.

It took them a few days to rediscover their favourite spot from middle school, but when they finally did, they divided their free moments between it and the hill.

It wasn’t anything spectacular. There was a deep ditch on the far end of the village, and a small bridge over it in one spot. The bridge was truthfully only two wooden planks cemented into the sides of the ditch, no railing, nothing to stabilise it from under. But as it had lasted over fifteen years now with people walking over it every day, they weren’t even remotely scared to sit on it.

The night had already fallen, and as always, Korn was looking at the stars, Wai’s gaze on him long forgotten. He was already used to feeling Wai look at him, but when he would try to meet his eyes, Wai would look away, so he just stopped trying. Instead, after Wai's eyes fell away from him, he satisfied himself with admiring the way Wai’s hair was falling onto his forehead, and the curve of his nose when he looked at his profile, and how his lower lip always looked puckered as if he was ready to pout. His mind had already familiarised itself with the novel realisation of his heart, and he finally could admit to himself that Wai did indeed look breathtaking, especially in moments like that, so peaceful and silent. He wanted to take a thousand pictures of him, then hang them up in an art gallery, so he could keep this view unblurred in his memory forever.

This time, too, he looked at Wai, and Wai looked away, but he kept on staring, something in him not wanting to pull away in fear of missing a new expression on Wai’s face.

A few moments later, Wai let his eyes fall to Korn again with a small smile on his lips, and held his gaze, as if carefully examining Korn’s face. Against himself, Korn felt his cheeks getting redder. He hoped it wasn’t visible in the darkness of the night.

“Really, why did you go back?” Wai asked, his stare burning holes in Korn’s eyes. “This is the last time I’ll ask.”

Korn sighed, but this time didn’t rake his brain for another excuse. He remembered what he thought to himself the last time, and realised it truly had been a promise. “I got dumped,” he said, trying to hide away the vulnerability that must have been audible in his voice. “I needed to rethink everything, I guess. Wherever I went, something brought back memories, and it wasn’t good for me. Here it’s different. My heart can finally catch a break.”

“Oh.” That was all Wai said, his still gaze not falling away from Korn. He stared in silence, his eyes wandering between Korn’s forehead, cheeks, and finally lips, just to go back to his eyes. “Have you been together for a long time?” he asked finally.

It was Korn who looked away, still feeling Wai’s eyes on him. The conversation brought back memories he didn’t want to remember at that moment. Their first date. The day he finally confessed. The first and last time he fell asleep in his arms. The last kiss that didn’t betray the inevitable end. The first and last I love you’ s. And the break–up, obviously, the freshest of the memories.

“Almost two years. We’ve been friends since we started uni,” he replied after a long while.

“I’m sorry.” Wai’s voice was careful, as if Korn was made from porcelain and anything harsh would make him fall apart. And maybe right there and then, he was right. “It must be hard to lose both a friend and a lover at once.”

Korn nodded, but a sour smile fought its way onto his face. It was hard, imaginably hard. He kept on catching himself thinking that he needed to tell him something when they next would see each other, just to remember that it wouldn’t happen. Other times, he was about to grab his phone and text him, asking to buy something to eat on his way to Korn’s house, before he realised how far both physically and metaphorically from each other they were.

His head shook involuntarily, as if he was trying to shake the thoughts away with it. “I knew it was coming for a long time, so why am I this hurt?” he said, perhaps more to himself than Wai.

It was obvious they weren’t working out for at least a few weeks before they broke up. They barely spent any time together, and when they did, they suddenly stopped having topics to bring up. Korn was doing his Master’s degree, while he was already working. Maybe their differences were starting to catch up with them. It wasn’t easy to find a common ground anymore. Even before the break-up was brought up, Korn had known it would sooner or later be over. The only difference in the date of it would be if they would have already started hating each other before it happened.

Wai scoffed, surprising Korn a little. “You know what they say, the easiest way to get over a broken heart is to fall in love with someone else,” he said, somewhere between seriousness, teasing and one more thing Korn couldn’t recognise.

“Yeah, I don’t see myself falling for anyone right now,” Korn replied, a playful tone, despite the humourless topic of their conversation. “I don’t think I know anyone who would want to be a rebound for a heartbroken idiot.”

Wai seemed to be deep in thought, but when he spoke, it didn’t sound thought out at all. “You know, actually–” he stopped himself, however, maybe to ponder on his words more, maybe to avoid saying them at all.

“Actually what?” Korn asked, his curiosity awakened.

“Nothing.” Wai shook his head. “I mean, there are still a lot of single girls our age in the village and the town, not that many people moved away. I’m sure at least one of them would like you.”

Korn laughed silently, then abruptly stopped. “Yeah,” he only said, looking around as if he was searching for something. “The problem is, I wouldn’t like her back,” he added quickly, before his confidence had the chance to leave. He wasn’t ready to say it, but he suddenly realised that he would never be, that he would find an excuse one way or another every time.

“Why?” It was Wai’s turn to be confused, and Korn couldn’t blame him.

He took a deep breath, as if steadying himself in the thought he was about to voice. “I’m gay,” he said, the words flowing out of his throat with a surprising ease.

“Oh,” Wai said again, and Korn was almost getting worried. But before he could think of damage control, Wai spoke up again, this time his voice firm. “ Oh . I mean, there are quite a lot of boys too, you know.” He ended his sentence with a smile.

Korn grinned back, suddenly more comfortable in both that place and his own skin. He leaned back on his hands, one of them landing dangerously close to Wai’s. “Yeah, and how many of them would happen to be gay too?” he snorted, shaking his head, but his heart was settling in that secure feeling. Wai was fine with him being gay. He needn’t have worried so much.

“Well, I know one.”

That was not the answer Korn was expecting.

He sat up straight again. “Really? Who?” he started asking without a second thought, his whole body giddy from excitement.

Wai’s hand rested on his neck and a heavy sigh escaped his mouth, but he looked at Korn again. “Me,” he said, but it sounded more like a question than an answer.

Korn needed a moment to process that information, but as soon as his brain registered Wai and gay in the same place, he let out a snort, that soon turned into a huge grin. His eyes weren’t on Wai, but he could feel Wai’s burning gaze on him.

“Why are you laughing?”

“It’s nothing.” He shook his head. “It’s just kind of funny that both of us ended up gay. Actually, I remember my dad always saying that the two of us would be the first of the boys our age in the village to have wives. He would have been so disappointed to hear that we want husbands.”

Wai stiffened a bit. “It’s gonna be eight years soon, isn’t it?” His voice was soft again, and this time Korn didn’t think it was needed. It was as if Wai thought Korn to still be that little boy he knew all those years ago.

But Korn wasn’t. “In October, yeah,” he replied steadily, not letting his tone betray anything that would make Wai pity him. It had been almost eight years, he could deal with his dad’s death.

Maybe only sometimes he still thought about coming back home to a freshly cooked meal, his dad standing on the porch, waving at him from the moment he saw him walking along the road with Wai. Or he saw something when shopping that made him think that his dad would like it, only to remember his dad couldn’t like anything anymore, his smile dropping a little. Maybe living in that old house made the memories a little more vivid — his dad sitting on the couch in the living room and reading a newspaper, standing in the kitchen and cooking Korn’s favourite meals, that he still couldn’t bring himself to eat after all this time, trimming his moustache with dull scissors in the bathroom and yelling at Korn to bring him the stone knife sharpener from the kitchen. And maybe he still hasn’t stepped his foot into his dad’s bedroom since the October day eight years ago when he walked in to wake his dad up, just to discover he was already gone.

A few tears appeared in his eyes, but he quickly blinked them away. He wasn’t going to cry over this anymore. He had shed enough tears when his dad was still alive, and he was begging him to go to the doctor when his health started to deteriorate, then to start chemotherapy when he got diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. But he didn’t listen to the second of his cries. Korn watched his dad slowly dying for months before it finally happened. He mourned him when he was still alive. Somehow, it still hurt like he was being torn apart. Maybe it was always like this with pain; even if he knew it was coming, he couldn’t avoid it.

Korn leaned back again, feeling the need to sniff, but not wanting to seem like he was on the verge of tears. He forced himself to smile them away.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked Wai, clearly signalling the topic change.

Wai must have understood his intentions. “Nothing at all, why?”

“I wanna go to the Sea.”

The Sea wasn’t a sea. It wasn’t even a lake, more of a pond, really. Its every side was covered in bushes, extending into water canes inside it. There was only a small space right beside it on one side where one could sit comfortably, not having branches digging into their face. And it was where Korn used to sit with Wai on their free days, having run from their chores and school work, laughing like they always did, or talking about their problems, or simply sitting in silence, something about the Sea calming them down.

They called it the Sea for one simple reason. There wasn’t a beach in Chiang Mai, and both of them wanted to go to the seaside so badly, they invented one. They promised each other that they would go on a trip to the ocean one day, but Korn wasn’t sure if Wai remembered it.

They sat next to each other in their usual place, but somehow it felt smaller, and Korn couldn’t decide if they had just grown taller, or the dried out bushes got even wider.

Korn breathed in deeply. “Ah, the smell of the salty air is as strong as always,” he joked, stretching his back. The smell was far from salty, it was musty and stale, but somehow it wasn’t unpleasant.

Wai snorted in reply.

Korn’s hand slid through the grass on his side as he yawned. He hadn’t slept for long that night, first unable to fall asleep, the conversation with Wai still on his mind, then woken up by a nightmare again. He didn’t even try to fall asleep again, instead he went to fix the last of the windows that wouldn’t open at first. Before Wai knocked on his door, like he did every day, the window was working again, he took a shower, ate breakfast and drank his morning coffee. He even put his hair up in a ponytail for the first time in a few days. Somehow, he started liking the way his hair felt not styled, loosely falling down the sides of his head. It definitely didn’t have anything to do with the way Wai sometimes sighed in exasperation and took off the hair tie from Korn’s wrist to put his hair up, maybe annoyed with it blowing in his face when they would ride the motorbike, maybe noticing how it would keep falling onto Korn’s face when he was working on something. “Just cut it short,” Wai would say. “Nope,” Korn would answer, grinning stupidly at Wai’s scoff.

“I haven’t been here in a long time either,” Wai said, breaking the lengthy silence between them. “Have you finally been to the actual beach?”

Korn smiled softly, only glancing at Wai for a second. “Obviously not. I promised we would go there together, didn’t I?”

Wai’s head shook, and Korn, sitting a bit behind him, couldn’t see what his expression was.

“It never felt right to go to the beach without you, even after so many years,” Korn continued, his voice quieter this time and heart beating faster, as if he was sharing his biggest secrets.

Wai looked at him, but his face was unreadable. He stared carefully, surely taking notice of Korn’s every face muscle moving, his every blink and taken breath. And somehow Korn didn’t feel awkward under his gaze, he didn’t feel the urgent need to run far away. It was natural, the way Wai seemed to know his every thought and feeling under his skin with just this attentive gaze. He let himself be known, and met Wai’s eyes for a few moments. And when they looked away, it wasn’t as if they were fleeing.

Korn’s mind involuntarily went back to the day before and his conversation with Wai over the ditch. He still could recall it word by word, and replaying it for what felt like the thousandth time, he suddenly realised something.

He sat up straight, his legs crossed. “Wait, you don’t know any other gay men?” he asked, not even thinking if Wai understood the context, or how his question would sound. “Have you never kissed boys? You’ve never been in a relationship?”

“Whoa, there, stop the train,” Wai laughed, probably mostly at Korn’s confused expression, not his questions. “Yes, I’ve been in a relationship, dumbass, I’ve literally been in one in high school.”

Korn looked away, biting his lower lip. Wai indeed was in a relationship in high school. He dated this girl from another school in town, her name started with a P, but he couldn’t be sure what followed after so many years. They broke up after around three weeks, and he never saw her again, so he completely forgot about her existence, not to mention her relationship with Wai.

“I’ve dated a few girls after you left, before I realised I was gay,” Wai added, and his tone resonated with laughter. He definitely was having more fun than Korn, who was now regretting opening his mouth at all. “And yes, I’ve kissed a boy. One, actually,” he admitted, now embarrassed too.

Korn almost laughed. They were both grown adults, getting shy over kissing and relationships. That thought actually made him a bit more confident, and he finally looked back at Wai, who was looking straight ahead at the sea. Korn scooted a little forward to sit right beside Wai, and stare at his face directly, a strange curiosity arising in his heart. Wai didn’t reciprocate his gaze, but he spoke up again.

“It was a party during the summer after we graduated from high school, someone invited me to tag along. There was this guy there, I didn’t know him before. He was definitely older, maybe a year, or two. We talked a little, drank together, then we ended up making out in the bathroom. I never saw him again. I actually don’t even know his name.”

Both Korn’s eyes and mouth widened in something between a surprise and amusement. The Wai he knew wasn’t the type to do things like this. He was hot-headed and impulsive, but not spontaneous. But maybe he didn’t know this side of Wai so well, after all, they have never really discussed love-related topics when they were teens.

“I didn’t know you had it in you,” he finally said, his tone resembling the one when he would congratulate his friends on getting girlfriends, but it somehow felt awkward on his tongue.

Wai rolled his eyes, but his lips kept a smile on. “Maybe you don’t know me that well…” he replied, and somehow Korn’s face heated up from Wai’s tone, teasingly flirty. “Why are you asking about it? You wanted to offer to be my first boy kiss?”

Korn was successfully shut up. He immediately looked away, not even pretending to look at the Sea, his eyes somewhere to the side. He couldn’t be imagining things. Wai was flirting with him. Wai was flirting with him, and he had no idea what to do.

Not that the idea of flirting with Wai was unpleasant. But it was unexpected, and it made him almost unbelievably shy

Wai’s gaze was burning holes in his head, but he refused to turn to face him.

“You’re talking nonsense,” he muttered, probably making Wai even more happy to tease him, but as always, he wasn’t thinking before speaking.

An exaggerated sigh left Wai’s lungs. “So you don’t want to kiss me?” he asked, surely enjoying making fun of Korn. There was something in the shape of a pout audible in his voice, and Korn couldn’t help but look to confirm it.

Wai’s whole face was as if lit up with a thousand stars. There was indeed a pout on his lips, but a fake one, his eyes shining with joy. Meeting Korn’s eyes, he let his lips form a huge smile, that soon turned to laughter.

Korn really tried to hold back, but Wai’s excitement was too contagious, and soon he found himself grinning along, his embarrassment and burning cheeks long forgotten. He leaned back to lie down in the long grass, his arm, the one farther from Wai, splayed to the side on the ground.

Wai first looked over his shoulder to give him a confused glance, but followed his suit immediately after, turning to lie on his side, facing Korn with a softened gaze. Korn moved too, resting his head on his arm. Wai was done joking, Korn could see that, and his heart fluttered with anticipation. He didn’t let himself wonder what Wai was going to say, too scared to be disappointed.

But Wai didn’t say anything. He simply looked, and looked, without a rest, like he couldn’t stop.

Korn wished he knew what Wai’s gaze meant.

They stayed in silence until it started getting dark, simply enjoying each other's presence and exchanging short glances. The sun was setting in bright pastels, reminiscent of the warm July day. It was already hidden behind the tall trees west from the Sea, when Wai slowly sat up, crossing his legs.

He sighed deeply. “Actually, I was kind of serious.”

It took a moment for Korn to understand what Wai had meant, and when he did, he couldn’t utter a word from the questions born in his mind.

“About kissing,” Wai said, as if it needed any clarification.

Korn was still looking at the sky, biting the inside of his cheek absent-mindedly. He couldn’t find it in himself to even take a glance at Wai, not to mention saying anything. His mind was spinning down the spiral of what if s and maybe s, but all his heart was telling him was, kissing Wai doesn’t sound half bad.

It sounded way better than that.

Korn heard Wai moving and automatically looked at him. He didn’t need to.

Wai swiftly climbed on top of him, his hands somewhere on the sides of Korn’s head, knees somewhere around his hips. “Do you want to?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

It dawned on Korn that he wasn’t the only one whose heart was beating faster at that moment. His hands were trembling with the sudden need to place them on Wai’s waist or his neck to pull him closer, and just kiss him right there and then, damned be the consequences. But with the last bits of consciousness, he forced them to stay in place. He only allowed his gaze to wander around Wai’s face, admire the way his eyes glistened with anticipation, his lips that naturally puckered a little, his barely frowning eyebrows.

But in fact, he didn’t want Wai to kiss him. He didn’t want to deal with the consequences. Whatever they were doing up to this point, he could laugh off and move on. But kissing was different. They would need to acknowledge whatever feelings they were starting to have, and he didn’t need that. He didn’t want Wai to like him, not even a little. He would only break his heart, not even sure himself, if he was still in love with his ex, or if the feeling left in him was simply a shadow of what it used to be, and then on top of it all leaving only in a little over a month, with no way to stay.

“I shouldn’t,” he only said, hoping Wai would understand what was clouding his mind.

Wai shook his head a little, a flat smile appearing on his lips. “But do you want to?” He glanced briefly at Korn’s lips, before returning to his eyes again.

“Very much,” he whispered, out of breath, as if he had just run a marathon.

Korn didn’t know when or how his hands found their way onto Wai’s neck and face, or his head moved up, meeting Wai’s in the middle. All he knew was the way their lips were moving against each other, and how their breaths tangled between their cheeks, leaving hot shadows where their lips left wet marks; and how Wai’s hand grabbed his and pulled it to the ground, interlacing their fingers, as they continued kissing without a break, like they were scared to stop. As if the other would disappear like a dream if they opened their eyes.

The ride back home was almost the same as it always was. Maybe Wai was snuggled a little closer to Korn’s back, or his arms held Korn’s waist instead of his shoulders, and his chin rested somewhere between Korn’s shoulder and back, making their helmets, that they borrowed from Wai’s father, bump against each other when the motorbike shook on old dirt roads that led home.

Korn pulled over in his backyard, as he always did. Wai climbed off, then Korn followed him, as if everything was the same as it used to. But the memories of Wai’s lips colliding with his own, of Wai’s little smile after he finally pulled away, of Wai’s head resting on his chest and his whole body spread on top of Korn’s, of Wai’s waist that Korn’s hands hugged to bring him closer, as if he was terrified Wai would run away, of the smell of Wai’s shampoo as Korn kissed the top of his head, they made everything feel brand new, like everything they were doing afterwards was something they had never done before.

Wai handed him the helmet to put it away in the garage, as usual. But this time he followed Korn when he dragged the motorbike inside, making the feeling of novelty shout inside Korn’s heart.

“Should we talk about it?” Korn asked, not looking at Wai. Not that he would see much between the darkness of the night that fell around them as they laid beside the Sea, and the light he didn’t turn on while he was going inside the garage.

He didn’t expect Wai’s hand to grab his wrist and carefully turn him around. That same hand then moved to grab Korn’s, slowly interlacing their fingers. Wai’s palm was so warm against Korn’s ice-cold that he almost felt the heat spreading through his whole body.

“No,” Wai said simply, not bothering to put his answer in pretty words. He must have known they wouldn’t be of any comfort to Korn. “Let’s just have what we have, who cares about anything else?”

Korn bit his lip shortly, his head shaking once. “I’ll be gone in a month again,” he said, as if it was meant to discourage Wai.

“And a week,” Wai added. His smile lit up a little the darkness of the garage.

“A month and a week, then.” Korn felt the need to roll his eyes, and suddenly he understood Wai a little better. “My point still stands.”

Wai moved a little closer to him, not close enough to mistake it for anything other than what it was on the surface, but close enough to make Korn see his face clearly. His eyes were shining, and somehow Korn felt as if they were brighter than all of the stars in the night sky.

“Mine does too,” Wai said. “It is what it is, we have a month, so what? The end is going to come anyway, and we already blew the beginning, so why not let ourselves enjoy the middle?”

Korn finally smiled, his face settling in the familiar places, so different from the serious expression he tried to wear when he started this conversation. Maybe Wai was right. Maybe he should think only about the present for the first time in years, and damn whatever was going to come in the future.

“It is what it is…” he repeated, nodding slightly, but enough for Wai to catch. “Are you sure?”

“Not at all. That’s what makes it so fun.”

Korn shook his head. “You’re an idiot,” he said simply. He didn’t need to make his agreement more clear, it was enough for Wai to understand. “Let’s just go.”

They walked around Korn’s house to the dirt road connecting it to Wai’s house, and subconsciously slowed down. Korn glanced at Wai shortly, just to see Wai already looking at him. Two smiles, a little shy, were shared in the darkness, not lit up even by the stars that were hidden behind the clouds that night, but it felt as if there was a spotlight on them.

Korn held out a hand, meaning for Wai to grab it, but before it managed to happen, he spoke up, tone hushed as if he was sharing a secret.  “Can we?” Can we hold hands? , was what he was meaning to say, but it sounded too infantile even in his head, so he left it unsaid, hoping Wai would understand the meaning between his words once again.

Wai pushed his tongue against his cheek as a grin fought its way onto his face. Without a bit of hesitation, he grabbed Korn’s hand, and waved them around a little as if they were kids going to school. “Isn’t this what we’re doing now?” he asked, looking pointedly at their joint hands that were now hanging loosely between them.

“I mean-” Korn paused to snort, as if only now did he realise what Wai actually said. “I mean, is it okay if we do it here. Someone could see…” And I wouldn’t be the one who had to deal with the consequences later on.

“It’s two in the morning.” Wai squeezed Korn’s hand tighter. “I don’t think anyone around here is still awake.”

A shrug, then a quizzical look towards Korn, but before he could question it, Wai leaned in and kissed his cheek quickly. Korn was shocked only for a moment. Not letting Wai savour his reaction for even a minute, he tugged at their hands to make Wai fall a bit towards him, and pecked the corner of his mouth.

He smiled and raised one eyebrow, but Wai was looking away, swallowing heavily. Korn’s grin grew even bigger. “I guess you’re right,” he said, feigning a casual tone, not to let his true emotions shine through. His legs were wobbling, his head so light he felt like fainting, and everything else inside was as if made of gelatine.

His heart was beating hard even after he went back home and fell asleep. And for the first time in weeks, he didn’t wake up from a nightmare.

*

When Korn looked back on that month later on, he could simply think that it was beautiful.

It was hidden smiles and stolen kisses, holding hands under tables, not to let Wai’s parents see, and making out in all the remote places they used to occupy as kids. It was the freedom of not worrying about the future, and the spontaneity of acting like their time wasn’t running out. And it was Wai, it was all Wai.

“How did you feel when you first saw me after I came back?” Korn asked one day.

They were driving to the town, Wai’s pickup full of bags with tea leaves. It wasn’t the first time Korn tagged along to do this, so he already knew the process by heart. Drive to the buyer’s office, find someone to assist them, drive to the nearby warehouse, weigh the bags, firm the contract, get the money, and go back home.

Wai rolled his eyes, but his left hand didn’t stop holding Korn’s over the gear stick. “Mostly, I just thought, what the fuck? ,” he spoke slowly, perhaps trying to recall that evening. “I think I was just really confused, maybe a bit annoyed at how casual you were, sitting in my house, eating the food I made, talking to my parents, like no time has passed.” A pause as he looked around at the crossroads and turned right. “Also, I thought your ponytail was ridiculous.”

Korn gasped theatrically. “How dare you?” He jerked his hand from Wai’s grasp and looked to the window, his lips pursing to hide his smile.

He heard Wai snort before feeling his hand on the top of his head, patting it softly. Not able to fight the grin anymore, he let it shine, and turned back to look at Wai. Wai’s lips were a straight line, but the way it made his cheeks puff left Korn with the feeling that he was smiling too.

“I’m sorry,” Wai said, his tone high and elongated, as if he was trying to sound cute. “Now I think it’s adorable.” He patted Korn’s head once more, before bringing his hand to the steering wheel.

“ Adorable ,” Korn scoffed. “I’m a grown man, how can I even be adorable?”

Wai shook his head a bit, and Korn was sure that if he wasn’t driving, he would have rolled his eyes. “Fine, if that’s how you want it.” His voice was a little distant. Korn couldn’t help but feel he was actually deeply considering something, despite the seemingly teasing intention. “You’re not adorable, you’re hot, how does that sound?”

Korn was glad not to have anything in his mouth, because surely he would have choked to death. “I think I prefer adorable now, thanks,” he said, trying to keep up, but his voice was so strained that Wai glanced at him, quickly taking in his widened eyes and pursed lips.

“Maybe you’re right, you’re definitely adorable.” Wai laughed silently, reaching out for Korn’s hand. Korn let him, easily finding the way his fingers felt the most comfortable in Wai’s grasp.

It was the first time he felt the tug in his stomach that left him light–headed and scared to search for its meaning.

He was standing to the side, watching Wai talk with the buyer with mild interest, mostly letting himself admire Wai’s profile as he exasperatedly pointed out some mistakes in the contract, when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder.

“You, young man!” A stranger came from behind him, looking at him with confusion, and stood right in the place where he obstructed Korn’s view of Wai. Korn didn’t know his name, but he recognised him as one of the employees of the manufacturer. “Where are you from?”

“Bangkok,” Korn said without thinking, only a moment later realising the man meant which village they came from, not where Korn was living personally. “I mean, I came with him.” He pointed to Wai, hoping it would fix his mistake. He barely stopped himself from frowning at his own stupidity.

The man only looked at him for a moment, his eyes slowly widening, then walked quickly to the other man, the one Wai was still talking to, his loose Hawaiian shirt fluttering behind him.

Both Korn and Wai looked with puzzled expressions as the two men stood to the side, whispering in sharp voices, their arms constantly waving around, before they turned to Wai again.

“Whatever you say, young man, just put it in the contract,” the not-Hawaiian-shirt man said, handing the file to Wai.

Korn didn’t know what that sentence exactly meant, but Wai’s satisfied smile in response to it surely made his heart skip a beat.

They were walking around the market, taking advantage of the fact that they were already in town to buy groceries. Wai’s hands were in his pockets, Korn carried the bags with some of the food they bought in one of his, the other resting on the strap of his tote. It felt almost unnatural not to be holding Wai’s hand, his fingers already so used to interlacing with Wai’s.

“Actually, what did you tell that guy?” Wai asked, looking for the specific type of rice he wanted in one of the stands.

It took Korn a moment to realise what he had meant. “Nothing really, why?” He furrowed his brows, his eyes looking around as if searching for the memory. “He asked me where I was from, and I didn’t understand at first that he meant the village, so I told him that I’m from Bangkok.”

“ Oh ,” Wai simply said like it explained everything. He laughed silently, moving onto the next stand, his head shaking. “I don’t think you heard about it, but there were some rumours that some people from Bangkok wanted to buy our tea leaves, to steal business from the Chiang Mai people, or whatever. Total bullshit, if you ask me.” Wai paused to buy some beans, and handed the bag to Korn, before continuing. “I guess they thought you were one of them,” he pondered. “Well, thanks for that anyway, they agreed to the changes in the contract I was trying to convince them to.” A big smile formed on his lips.

Korn was thoroughly confused, but his lips curved up too, seeing Wai’s expression.

They finally separated at Korn’s house, promising each other to meet up later.

He went inside, smiling to himself at the bare memory of the day spent with Wai. His bags with groceries got put in the kitchen, not on the table that was so wobbly he was scared to place anything else than a plate on it, but somewhere on the floor, left there until he was going to put them in their proper places. Instead, he went to the bathroom on the other side of the house to take a shower, and only then did he come back to his bags.

It was unbelievably hot that day, not a cloud in the sky, and the old house obviously didn’t have air conditioning, so he stayed in just his pants, already feeling like he was sweating buckets, as he automatically cooked lunch and made himself a coffee, as he usually did, not paying attention to anything he was doing.

There was one thing on his mind that wouldn’t leave him alone.

He suddenly realised he hadn’t thought about his ex for a long time, not even fleetingly. And it was perplexing. Before he had come to the village, there wasn’t a day when something didn’t remind Korn of him, even if it was the most mundane thing. When he was brushing his teeth, he would find himself thinking about how they used to do it together in the morning after Korn stayed the night, but now his only thought would be what he was going to do with Wai that day. When he was eating breakfast, he would imagine him sitting on the other side of the table like they used to, but now there wasn’t anything specific on Korn’s mind, maybe sometimes he would wonder if Wai would like the dish he was eating. Even when he was going to sleep, he would think about falling asleep together after their weekly dates, cuddled with each other like it was supposed to be the last time, yet now he would wander between the memories of the day spent with Wai, and how Wai’s rough hands felt when he was holding them, and how Wai’s lips would leave marks on his neck, not harsh enough to be for everyone to see when they were already going home, but visible for Wai only when they were sitting in one of their secret places.

He almost dropped the plate that was in his hands.

Maybe Wai was right that evening over the ditch when he said the easiest way to get over a broken heart would be to give it to someone new. Korn wasn’t sure if its faster beating was caused by the excitement or fear of the realisation.

Later in the evening, Korn was dragging Wai by his hand into his room. It was almost eight years since Wai was there, and the exhilaration of this moment was felt even in the air. Korn’s realisation was long forgotten, but the tug in his stomach when he looked at Wai’s starry eyes in the dim light of the corridor stayed constant.

Korn’s hands stopped on the door handle, as he longingly looked at the closed door right next to it, like he always did when he was going to his room. He wasn’t sure Wai even noticed his pause, and if he did, did he realise the reason behind it, so he simply opened the door of his bedroom.

It wasn’t anything special, and it barely changed since Wai’s last visit. Korn only changed the curtains, the old ones eaten by moths during his absence. The squeaky bed was standing right where it used to, the wooden walls were still in the dark shade of green they painted them during one winter break in middle school, his desk was still covered by papers, but instead of school work there were instructions from the parts he bought to repair both the house and the motorbike, some receipts and the files he brought with him from Bangkok to review before going to work. But somehow in its every corner there was a shadow of nostalgia and heartbreak, and standing there with Wai, Korn realised that it wasn’t just him who could feel it.

“This is so weird, isn’t it?” Wai whispered, letting go of Korn’s hand. “It’s like going back in time. Except it’s also somehow so much different.”

Korn’s heart skipped a beat as Wai brought his arms around his waist and hugged him from behind, but he didn’t pay it any mind, too used to the feeling. “Yeah.” He nodded, then rested his head against Wai’s that was laying on his shoulder. “I constantly feel so weird in this room, even after so many days I’ve spent here.” He put one of his hands on top of Wai’s and interlaced their fingers loosely. “It’s just a reminder of everything that happened those years ago.”

Wai sighed, and turned his head a little to leave a simple kiss on Korn’s jaw. “Let’s make some new memories here then, shall we?” he muttered, still against Korn’s neck.

“Honestly,” Korn said, turning around to look at Wai with his eyebrows furrowed. “How does this come so naturally to you? Don’t get me wrong, but I still can’t get used to this whole thing.”

Wai took a step to the back, his head tilted as his eyes moved around Korn’s face with puzzlement. “Stop thinking,” he finally said. His eyebrows furrowed in that way where it was barely noticeable, and he squinted a little, as his warm hands found their way to cup Korn’s face. “Just do whatever you want. Don’t think about anything else.”

His eyes finally met Korn’s, and there were so many emotions in them, Korn almost got dizzy. He didn’t think anyone would ever look at him like that, as if he was the only person in the world, as if he was the only one who mattered. There were no sounds that would be able to squeeze through his throat, so tight with the wave of feelings Wai’s stare shared with him.

“What do you want to do right now?” Wai asked in a hushed tone, like he recognised the way the air between them got heavier and warmer.

Korn’s reply didn’t come in the shape of words.

Later, not sure if minutes or hours, they laid in Korn’s old bed, Wai’s head resting on Korn’s chest, their clothes ruffled and wrinkled. A few top buttons of Korn’s floral shirt were undone, showing countless marks left by Wai underneath his collarbones, in places they wouldn’t be visible if he had his clothes properly on, as if they were saying they were only for Wai to see in moments like that. Wai’s hair was a mess from the many times Korn’s hands slid through it, trying to bring him even closer, even if their teeth were already grazing against each other.

Wai was still breathing heavily when he spoke. “Can I stay here tonight?” His voice was barely a whisper.

Korn’s mind circled around the question before he finally answered. “If you don’t mind getting woken up in the middle of the night, then sure,” he said, settling for a bit of a joking tone, even if he involuntarily went back to the memory of his reoccurring nightmare. It wasn’t happening every night anymore, and when it was, he didn’t wake up as terrified as he used to, but it still wasn’t pleasant, and he needed a long moment to collect himself.

“See, you’re doing this again.” Wai pushed himself up and rested on his elbows right beside Korn, looking at him with something in the vicinity of exasperation. “You’re thinking too much.” He stayed silent for a moment, and Korn wasn’t sure if it was already his turn to speak. “Let’s try again. Can I stay the night?”

Korn smiled, turning to the side, so he could see Wai better. “Sure,” he replied this time.

And so Wai stayed, sleeping right beside Korn, not cuddled up to him anymore, but simply next to him, their bodies barely touching. When Korn woke up from a nightmare, he was there to comfort him, and help him ease back to sleep.

But Korn didn’t fall asleep. His head was spinning, not sure what was happening, and there was no way of calming it down.

Because the nightmare changed. It was Wai’s body he found laying in that bed this time.

It hasn’t repeated, but every time Korn would glance towards the door of his dad’s bedroom, his mind would produce two interlacing images, both the real and the imaginary, until he managed to busy it with something else.

Busying his mind wasn’t in fact the toughest task. It was enough to have Wai beside him, and everything else easily went away.

They were sitting in silence on the slope of the hill, Wai looking to the fields, Korn at the sky. It was cloudy that day, for the first time in what felt like forever, so he was searching for shapes in the clouds, but his mind was going from place to place.

It was the middle of August, and he only had two weeks before he would have to go back to Bangkok. He truly tried not to think about it, but the awareness stayed somewhere in the back of his mind despite his best efforts.

“Wai,” he called impulsively, waiting for Wai to look at him.

And as soon as Wai did, Korn threw himself into his embrace, collapsing them to the ground. He laid there on top of Wai, with Wai’s arms tightly around him, breathing in Wai’s scent, something between perfume and soap, feeling Wai leave two long kisses on the top of his head.

“What’s up?” Wai finally asked, but his voice didn’t betray any emotions.

Korn’s was just the opposite. “I don’t want to go back.” He breathed in heavily, his chest shaking. “I really don’t want to. I want to stay like this forever.”

Wai snorted, but this time didn’t mention Korn’s thinking about the future. Maybe he managed to sense it wasn’t the best moment for it. “Look at me,” he only said.

Korn lifted his head up, his neck straining, so he shifted to rest some of his body weight on one of his arms. His eyes stared deeply into Wai’s, but he couldn’t read anything new in them. Somehow, Wai’s stare at him was never changing, when he laughed and frowned, when he kissed him and pushed him away, his eyes were saying the same thing.

And it was terrifying. Korn’s more rational part shook with just the possibility of what it might have meant. He shouldn’t want Wai to feel like that, it would only bring one more broken heart at the wake of September; but the other part of him, the one that didn’t want to listen to facts and arguments, was buzzing with the thrill of reciprocation, and he couldn’t control it at that time and in that place, staring at one of Wai’s rare smiles, the one that was only for him.

“It’s okay,” Wai continued. “I want to follow you all the way to Bangkok, too.” Something in his face shifted, only for a moment, but enough for Korn to catch it. “But I have to stay with my parents, I have to help them, because they don’t have anyone else. And you have to go, you have your job and friends, and your whole life there, and I wouldn’t ever make you stay.”

Even if Wai was speaking to him in a soft tone, as if he was explaining something to a child, Korn didn’t mind. He needed to hear it from Wai, at least once, so he could tell himself that he just got rejected and get over it, instead of trying to come up with ways to lengthen the summer.

“I know,” he replied, scrunching his face. His eyes were dangerously burning. “If only I could make the summer go on forever…” He snorted at his own words. A never–ending summer sounded like a dream, because it was one. “But it is what it is, isn’t it?”

Korn leaned down to leave a kiss on Wai’s forehead. When he pulled away, there was a single tear running down Wai’s temple, and he finally understood what the shift in Wai’s expression a moment earlier had meant. He smiled sweetly, as if the sight wasn’t enough to make him want to fight the whole world, if it gave him even the possibility that Wai would never cry again, and left another kiss somewhere beside Wai’s eye. This time, Wai’s face was softer as he leaned back, and only then did he realise how tense it was before. Korn surely wasn’t the only one struggling with the inevitable goodbye.

“Don’t cry,” he had to whisper. “You’re breaking my heart.”

Wai shook his head. “I’m not crying,” he replied, and his lips formed something between a pout and a smile.

Korn looked for another lengthy moment, taking in the way Wai’s face looked in the dim sunlight, before laying his head back on Wai’s chest. “Fine, you’re not,” Korn admitted, his voice telling clearly that he was just saying that to move on. His hand moved down Wai’s arm, landing on top of his palm. They didn’t hold hands, they just let them lie on top of each other. “Actually, if you could go back in time, would you still have kissed me at the Sea that day?” he spoke without thinking as soon as the thought bloomed in his mind.

“No,” Wai replied immediately. “I would have kissed you the moment I saw you after you got here. I wouldn’t have wasted so much time.” His hand found its way onto Korn head. He took off Korn’s hair tie and tangled his fingers into his hair. “But if you’re asking if I still would have wanted to have you like this, then my answer is yes . I’d do it all again without hesitation.”

Korn’s breath came out shaky. “I would too.” There was something else trying to find a way out of his chest and onto his tongue, but he didn’t let it, not even sure if it wouldn’t be a lie.

And so they laid together, Korn finally rolling over to land beside Wai, staring at the clouds above them, but something else on their minds. Korn knew what Wai was thinking about, because the same was on his mind. It was the way his heart beat faster when they were close, and the way his mind was clouded when they kissed; it was the fear of both letting go and holding on; it was the hole in the shape of the other that would be left with the beginning of September; it was how they both weren’t even sure what it was, or was it there anything at all, but didn’t want to let go of it, despite the circumstances.

Korn’s phone rang for the first time in over a month.

He still carried it with him everywhere, more being used to the feeling of it in his pocket than out of actual necessity, but no one really called him. The last time it was Pat, simply asking if he was okay, and when he was going back. But it wasn’t Pat this time. The name on the screen made him sit up, his head heavy, as his finger hovered over the green icon.

“Hello?” His voice was hoarse, and he wasn’t sure if it was the product of the situation, or just the effect of staying in silence with Wai.

“ Hey, umm, I hope I’m not bothering you… ”

Wai must have sensed his mood, because he sat up too, looking at him with a certain kind of worry, the one when he wanted to show him his concern, not hide it in squinted eyes. Korn shook his head, not sure if to tell Wai he was fine, or that he was going to explain later.

“No, it’s fine. Is something wrong?” he asked, weighing both his words and tone carefully. The lack of the northern accent felt foreign on his tongue, and only now did he realise how much he got used to it.

“ No, no, it’s just— I was cleaning my apartment and I found some of your things. I went to give them back, but you’re not home… ”

Korn took a deep breath, but to his surprise, it was a calm one. “Yeah, I— I won’t be home until September.” He paused, and cast a quick glance at Wai before continuing. “You can leave them with Pat, if you have time— or you know, just throw them out.”

“ Oh, September— I’ll call Pat, then, and if he’s not free I’ll just wait till you get back. ”

“Thanks a lot.” Korn didn’t know what else to say, and the silence on the other side of the line told him he wasn’t alone in this feeling.

“ Mhm… Hope you’re having fun on your holidays. Where did you go? ”

“Chiang Mai.”

“Chiang Mai? You mean… ”

“Yeah. Home.”

Out of the corner of his eye Korn saw Wai lie down again, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at him properly. Instead, he leaned a little to the back, his free hand landing somewhere close to Wai’s.

“ Wow. I didn’t think you’d ever go back there. ”

Despite everything, Korn snorted. There was a certain familiarity in their conversation, even if the awkwardness of it made his toes curl. “I guess it was finally the time to do it.”

“ Did you meet that friend of yours? Is he still living there? ”

Korn didn’t expect him to remember Wai. He had only mentioned him once in those seven years, that time in their second year of uni when he and his friends got too drunk on the homemade whiskey Pat got from his uncle. That night they all said something they regretted in the morning. Korn, for one, talked about Wai. A lot. He talked about how they used to play together as kids in the middle of the road between their houses, he talked about them going to and back from school every day together, he talked about the sleepless nights they spent on imagining their future that never came. That was the only time he admitted he still missed Wai from time to time.

“Yeah, I did,” he said, and this time turned his head to look at Wai. “He’s with me right now, actually.”

Wai’s head shot towards Korn, understandable confusion in his eyes, but Korn simply smiled at him, raising his eyebrows a bit.

“ Oh, he is! I’m hanging up, then, have fun— ”

“Wait,” Korn interrupted, suddenly understanding the comfort his heart settled in the moment Wai was mentioned. “Actually— Can we hang out when I go back?”

What made Korn finally realise, what the longing in his heart had meant, wasn’t the discomfort he felt at the memories of his past relationship, but the wave of ease that overcome him the second they started talking like they used to for years. It was love, but not of the romantic kind. He was missing his friend.

It was as if a heavy stone lifted from Korn’s heart. He finally could think of his name without breaking down.

“ Sure. ” Pause, a brief one, but enough for Korn’s face to light up with a grin. “ I kinda missed you, Korn. ”

“Yeah.” The lightness of his heart made him laugh a little, not loudly enough to be heard on the other side of the line, but Wai must have noticed, sitting up once again to look at Korn with the other type of worry, the teasing one, reserved for their playful conversations. “I kinda missed you too, Mo.”

Mo was his first friend that he met in university, and the first true one he had since he came to Bangkok. He didn’t have much time to befriend people in high school, especially since he was just a boy from a village in the north who was simultaneously shy, self–conscious and always weirdly sad. Mo was the one who brokehim out of his shell and made him into who he used to be before his father’s death. He was cheerful once again, he was joking with a genuine smile on his face, and only sometimes his mind went back to the village, but as the time went by, he managed to push it deeper into himself until he wasn’t able to feel the thought anymore.

It wasn’t hard to fall in love with Mo. He was putting in effort to know him and supported him in everything, he was effortlessly funny, caring, and oh–so pretty. Korn didn’t even realise when it started, it was so natural. And somehow he was lucky enough to have Mo liking him back.

“Why are you smiling, huh?” Wai asked as soon as Korn finished the call. “Excited to get a date with your ex?”

Korn scoffed, but his grin didn’t falter. He put his head on Wai’s shoulder. “Jealous, aren’t we?” he teased.

Wai pushed him away, somehow delicate in it, and Korn theatrically leaned to the other side, then bounced back, shaking his head to get his hair from his face. But before he settled back in his position, he got pushed to the ground, Wai leaning over him with a smirk on his face.

“What do I have to be jealous of?” he muttered, reaching his hand to push a strand of Korn’s hair away from his eyes. “I’m the one who gets to do this right now.” He leaned in to leave a quick peck on Korn’s lips, but got caught midway by Korn’s palm and brought closer by his neck, to be kissed longer and deeper, their lips interlocking naturally after all this time, finding the most comfortable places with ease.

“You like this, don’t you?” Korn whispered against Wai’s lips the moment they separated.

“Very much.”

Another kiss, then one more, then Korn turning them around and what felt like another million kisses later they were breathing heavily against each other, their foreheads stuck together, eyes closed. Korn’s arms were giving up under his weight, so he pushed himself off Wai to lay beside him. He looked to the sky and took a deep breath through his mouth, the air damp on his tongue.

“It’s gonna rain soon,” he said casually, as if they weren’t just on top of each other making out. “I don’t think we’ll get home in time.”

Wai sighed. “Let’s just stay here, whatever.”

“My bike is gonna get wet…” Korn whined, but stood up without hesitation to move it from the dead–end road leading to the top of the hill, placing it under the widest of the trees. When he went back to Wai, he was already sitting up, his legs crossed, as he observed people in the fields below them hurrying home, or maybe rather to seek shelter in the nearby house belonging to the chief of the village, since singular droplets were already falling from the sky. “Are we really staying here?” he asked in an amused tone.

Wai snorted and reached out his hand to grab Korn’s, pulling him down to sit beside him. “We’re gonna be soaked anyway. Just sit down.”

Korn sighed deeply, but complied, taking off his jacket and folding it to place it in Wai’s lap, then laid his head on it, nesting in it comfortably. Wai’s fingers combed through his hair, and they stayed like that, rain falling on them. It wasn’t like the usual showers in August, quick but intense. It was slow and scarce, and the people in the fields slowly returned to them to continue their work.

“It’s not a date, by the way,” Korn said, his eyes closed, voice a little louder than usual to speak over the noise of rain hitting tree leaves around them.

“And if it was, I still wouldn’t have any right to be jealous, would I?”

Korn opened his eyes to see Wai looking down at him with some kind of melancholy, his lips curved in a mocking smile. “Idiot,” he simply said, as his eyebrows furrowed. He absent–mindedly bit his lip shortly. “You know I don’t like him anymore, don’t you?”

It was the first time he actually said it out loud, but the ease it came to him with felt like a breath of fresh air. Korn didn’t like him anymore. No, Korn didn’t like Mo anymore. He could say his name now, not scared to fall apart at the bare mention of him.

“So?” Wai pushed his tongue against his cheek, pausing for a moment. “That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“You’re so damn stupid,” Korn sighed. “Wai, I—”

Wai’s hand on his mouth stopped him from continuing.

“Don’t say it.” His voice was all but a whisper, yet still was breaking, as his eyes glistened. “Don’t you even dare to say it,” he hissed this time, his jaw so clenched.

Korn scoffed, pushing Wai’s hand away, but complied. “Why?” he asked instead.

It took a moment for Wai to speak again. He just kept on looking at Korn, slowly blinking away the glint in his eyes. “If you say it, I won’t be able to let you go.”

Korn understood. “Okay. I won’t. I promise.”

The words stayed somewhere in his throat, though, threatening to come out every time Wai would look at him with this softness in his eyes, or would come over and they would just be endlessly kissing in almost every corner of his house, or even when Korn was alone, waking up in the morning, taking a shower or dusting the shelves with his dad’s books in the main room of the house.

Or when he was cooking, like right now, standing in his kitchen, one of his hands resting on his hip, the other moving vegetables from a pan to a bowl.

He had finally invited Wai’s parents for dinner, and the whole day he was more or less a nervous wreck, not completely sure why.

Before they finally came, Wai’s dad holding a plate full of grilled pineapple that he put in the kitchen immediately, Korn had managed to burn himself twice, his food once, half of his old pan, and spill water all over the floor. He led his guests to the only table in the house that stood in the kitchen, its one side usually put to the wall, but since there were supposed to be four of them that evening, he dragged it to the middle of the room. He also needed to get his dad’s old bamboo chair as the fourth one, since there were only three at the table.

“Oh, this old thing still stands?” Wai’s dad asked as soon as he saw it. “Do you mind if I sit here? I haven’t seen it in so many years.”

Korn didn’t mind. In fact, he was glad he wasn’t the one to be sitting on it, as he had planned in the beginning. He had barely touched the chair since his dad’s death, too many memories attached to it.

And so they sat down, Korn with his back to the wall with cabinets, Wai’s dad and mom respectively on his right and left, and finally Wai in front of him, shooting him glances over the food. How does it taste? , Korn asked with his eyes, hoping it carried the message. Wai replied with a flat smile and raised eyebrows, nodding quickly.

“Why aren’t you eating, son?” Wai’s dad asked, laughter falling from his chest immediately after. Wai looked down to his plate, but the smile on his lips didn’t fade. “Korn, it’s really amazing.” He turned to Korn next and patted his shoulder. “It tastes just like what your father used to make…”

Korn pursed his lips, forcing a polite smile, but something got caught up in his throat. “Thank you, uncle. I really appreciate it.”

“How did you cook these prawns, my dear?” Wai’s mum interrupted, pulling Korn’s attention to herself. Korn didn’t know if she sensed his reaction to the sole mention of his dad, but was glad for her question regardless.

He cheerfully answered, explaining just the same way Mo taught him years ago. He felt Wai looking at him from time to time, but didn’t reciprocate the gaze, not wanting to seem like he wasn’t paying attention to his conversation.

When they decided it was time to go back, it was several hours later, spent on joking, reminiscing the past, and kicking Wai under the table every time he would look at Korn in the way he should be only when they were alone. Korn stood on his porch, watching Wai’s parents walk away, holding Wai’s hand in a place where, even if his parents turned around, they wouldn’t see it. He had asked Wai to stay for longer, having two things he wanted to say to him.

“Your mom talked to me,” he started when they went back inside, Wai sitting on the couch without hesitation, probably expecting Korn to join him. He didn’t. Instead, he stood to the side, leaning against a bookshelf.

Wai furrowed his brows, looking at Korn with some kind of amusement. “Yeah… I know…” he said slowly.

“No, I mean—” He looked around the room, as if searching for the right words. “I mean, she talked to me about us.”

It was when Korn was cleaning up the table, Wai and his dad went to the garage to check out the motorbike, as Korn suggested sometime during the dinner, since Wai’s dad still hadn’t had a chance to take a proper look at it ever since Korn finished renovating. Wai’s mom stayed, bringing empty plates and bowls to the sink with him, then helping him put them away after he washed them. There was a causal conversation between them, nothing more than a small talk about crops, rain or new local rumours.

“Can I have a question?” he suddenly started, putting away the last clean bowl. “Why didn’t Wai go to uni? I know he was planning to…” Korn was meaning to ask him personally, but could never find a good moment to drop the question.

Wai’s mom sighed, sitting down on the chair Korn sat on earlier. “I’m not too sure either, dear.” Her voice carried a certain kind of heaviness to it. “One day he just told us that he was going to stay with us, because we wouldn’t have anyone to help us in the fields. I couldn’t convince him otherwise.” She shook her head, as if still feeling the same emotions as in the memory. “We could hire someone to help, or sell a part of the field, so we wouldn’t have that much work, but he just wouldn’t listen.”

“And so he stayed…” he said, more to himself. Stupid, stubborn Wai.

“Actually, my dear, I wanted to talk to you about something, too.” Her eyebrows were tight–knit, making her face look unusually sombre and deepening her wrinkles. “You know, I haven’t seen Wai this happy in a long time… And I’m really glad to see him like that, but as his mother, I can’t help but worry. About you both, in fact.”

Korn’s heart dropped as he moved to sit beside her, pulling a chair away from the table, scared that if he continued to stand in place, his legs would give out. There was a knot in his stomach, and he wasn’t sure exactly why.

“You’re like my kid too, Korn. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to replace your mother, but I sometimes feel like I’ve helped raise you—”

“No,” Korn interrupted. “You’re more of a mom to me than she ever was.” There were tears building up in his eyes, but he blinked them away, and only the burning feeling stayed.

She nodded, her lips pursed, but the corners of them curved up. “I hope you will understand me, then. Don’t break his heart, please. I don’t want to see Wai grieve you again when you’re still alive.” She must have noticed Korn was struggling to find a response, because she reached out to place her hand on Korn’s forearm as if for comfort. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m a mother, dear, I know these things without saying. I just don’t want the both of you to hurt.”

Korn’s voice was breaking when he finally spoke. “Too late…” His head shook, and this time he wasn’t able to keep his tears in place. “It’s too late for this.” He finally looked her in the eye, expecting to see pity in them, but there was only understanding and deep worry. It was enough to break the dam kept in his heart, and a flood of various feelings filled him completely. “I’m sorry that I can’t do it,” he whispered, blinking quickly.

Only a nod, then she stood up and walked away, probably to join her husband and son in the backyard, leaving Korn with the need to curl up and hold himself tightly until he would run out of tears. But he didn’t let himself do it. He put on a smile, a crooked one, and wiped his eyes, taking a few shaky breaths until he was able to breathe normally.

“So she knows?” Wai asked first thing after hearing Korn retell the story, a lot less emotionally than he probably should, but he couldn’t let himself get into the same feelings again.

Korn nodded in response. “I’m sorry, I should have said something—”

“It’s okay,” Wai interrupted. “I’m serious, it’s fine.” He stood up, walking up to Korn, and standing right in front of him. His head tilted a little, trying to catch Korn’s eyes. “I mean, I suspected she knew for a long time. She wouldn’t talk to me about it, obviously, but I had a feeling that she knew.”

Korn finally looked up, his whole face feeling numb, and even Wai’s closed–lip smile didn’t make a difference this time.

“What’s on your mind?” Wai asked after a long moment of silence.

“I have something to ask you.” A deep breath that stayed in his lungs, as if the words he wanted to say could escape with it. “I want to go to dad’s room. Can you… stay with me?”

Even the mention of it made him feel sick, but he was somewhere on the edge of realisation that he had never actually dealt with his dad’s death. He just kept on running away until the thought was so far behind that it felt unreal. As if he just moved and left his dad at home, sitting in the bamboo chair, peeling carrots to add to the dinner he was making. Only when he went back did it come to him that his dad wasn’t there, the chair standing unused, but there was still the illusion that maybe he was just behind the door of his bedroom, and would come out one day, smiling and yelling at Korn for being away for so long. And even if it was going to break him, he needed to rid his brain of that thought, so he could finally move on someday, and not have every mention of his father be a fish bone in his throat.

Wai nodded solemnly, taking notice of Korn’s grave expression. “Now? Wouldn’t you want to wait until the morning?”

Korn shook his head, eyes closing for a moment. “Night is better. It was morning when—” When I found him dead. “When—” He bit his lip, urging himself to say the words out loud. How could he deal with his father being dead, when he couldn’t even say it? “When I found him. Dead.” The word echoed in his mind.

And so they stood in front of the door, Korn’s hand on the handle as he braced himself for what was coming. He remembered well how the room looked even after so much time: bare wooden walls, a big window to the backyard, a bed only slightly bigger than Korn’s, two cupboards full of the books that didn’t fit in the bookshelf in the main room, and an old carpet that used to belong to Korn’s great-grandma. He felt Wai’s palm rest on his shoulder, his thumb drawing circles for comfort.

He opened the door.

It was fine for a moment. The air was stale, musty with the smell of mould, but Korn breathed in deeply, his eyes rolling across the walls, and finally falling to the bed. That’s when it finally hit him with the impact of a speeding train.

The image in his brain was fake. There was no body lying in the bed. It was empty, just as it had been for the past seven years.

His mind was clearer than it had been for the past almost two months, but it was his heart that ached. He was gone. He was truly gone, and there was no one hiding behind the door waiting to surprise him. Korn really was all alone.

Korn’s father had been dead for over seven years.

Somehow, he found himself on his knees, his legs completely giving up. He was clutching the front of his shirt absent–mindedly, but his whole body was as if non–existent. There were images in front of his eyes, so dark he could barely recognise them. The dusty kitchen. The vacant bamboo chair. The lonely motorbike. The bed, so empty, and the bookshelves, so full. And it was going to stay like it forever. His dad was dead.

His mind woke up to Wai in front of him, saying something, but he couldn’t process even a word of it. His face was all wet, and he had trouble taking a proper breath. Eyes widened, he put his hand on Wai’s shoulder, gripping it tightly, as if it was helping himself go back to reality.

“He’s really dead,” he whispered, out of breath. “He’s gone.”

It was just as these words gave him some burst of strength. Maybe he was scratching at old wounds to make them bleed again, but this time they would finally be able to heal properly; this time it would only leave a scar.

“Korn?” Wai’s voice was obviously worried, but carried gentleness in some form of understanding.

“I’m okay,” Korn said. And he meant it. “It’s fine.” He stood up, completely overlooking Wai, and coming to the empty bed. He didn’t dare sit on it, but his hand slid across the sheets, unchanged for over seven years, finishing its route on the headboard against a wall, the one with the window. “I just need a moment.”

He finally wiped his cheeks with his sleeves. He wasn’t sure when he started crying, but at this point his eyes were already dry, his eyelids stiff with the feeling. Then he moved his hands to the window, first pushing the curtain completely to the side, and trying to open it. It moved after a few attempts, letting in fresh air for the first time in years. And it was as if it came straight to his heart too, lighting it with new hope.

Korn was sitting on the floor, his back against his bed, which Wai was lying down on. Wai’s hand was in Korn’s hair, caressing it with slow movements. They didn’t turn on the lights, and the moon wasn’t bright enough that night, so they were in complete darkness.

“Thanks,” Korn muttered. He was fiddling with his fingers, as if nervous, but in reality his mind couldn’t even focus on one of any unpleasant things, Wai’s palm making them go away with one stroke. “For staying with me.”

“Mhm. It’s nothing.” Wai sighed deeply, but, not sure in what way, Korn could hear a smile in it. “Are you okay?”

Somehow, Korn snorted. “I am. Stop asking.” He turned around, as if to look at Wai, but in the darkness he couldn’t even see the outline of his body. “Are you staying the night?”

Wai sat up, moving closer on instinct until his legs were on each side of Korn, one of his hands resting on Korn’s shoulder, the other lifting his head by his chin. “Obviously,” he simply said, his eyes shining in the darkness.

Korn just stared for a moment, feeling his breath get shorter. “Good.” He slowly moved up towards Wai, making him lie down with Korn over him, hands and knees supporting him from falling. “Good,” he repeated, barely a whisper.

He simply looked at Wai, before leaning down to kiss him, slowly and deeply, and it tasted oh–so sweet on his tongue, as Wai put his hands on his neck, then his cheeks, waist, then somewhere on his back, every time pulling him even closer, as if scared Korn was going to run away. But Korn wasn’t, and he let himself get tugged to Wai’s chest, his own hands taking breaks from holding him up to run through Wai’s hair or cup his cheek briefly, his fingers spreading to Wai’s neck.

Korn didn’t know how long it took them to finally search for breath, but his lips were so swollen they almost felt numb. Still, he smiled as he sat up, staying on Wai’s legs, as Wai pulled himself up too, looking at Korn with his usual expression, the one that took away Korn’s ability to speak and made his heart beat harder. But there was something new in it, something in the shape of longing, and Korn couldn’t help but try to kiss it away.

“Fuck,” Wai muttered against Korn’s lips, separating only for the moment he needed to say it. “I’m gonna miss you so much,” he added when he pulled away again, then went right back, this time more ravenous and harsh, his hands pulling at Korn’s hair to bring him impossibly closer. “So much you can’t even imagine.”

Korn could, in fact, imagine. His heart ached just at the thought, but he was surprised to hear Wai voice it. What he couldn’t imagine was how much Wai must have been feeling at once to let himself say these words out loud, instead of pretending he wasn’t thinking about the future.

Because both of them were. And in the warm August night, five days before Korn’s planned departure, they let themselves mourn the future that wasn’t going to be theirs, lips on lips, hands as if tied together, and a heavy stench of heartbreak in the air.

They were both in Korn’s dad’s bedroom. Korn was oiling the hinges of the window there, Wai simply staying back and watching, leaning against a wall. The room started feeling normal once again, the air fresh, furniture dusted and the door always open. Korn still didn’t dare sit on the bed, he wasn’t even sure if he was ever going to, but maybe that was fine too.

“Why are you doing this, actually?” Wai asked with curiosity. When Korn turned to him, his head was tilted a little, making him look like a puppy, but Korn kept that thought for himself. “I mean, it’s not like anyone is gonna be using this window. Or the others you fixed before, as a matter of fact.”

Korn rested his back against the frame of the open window, the metal parts feeling cold on his bare skin. They had just got to Korn’s home from their place over the ditch, barely making it in time before it started raining, but the air was so wet it made all clothes stick uncomfortably to the skin, so Korn got rid of his shirt, leaving it on the floor in the corridor between his bedroom and the bathroom. Wai didn’t follow his lead, but his hair was clinging to his forehead in thin streaks, letting Korn know he wasn’t the only one feeling the rain even under a roof.

“I don’t know, really,” he replied, not even thinking on the words he was going to say. “I guess there’s just something nice in bringing this house back to how it used to be.” He sighed, raising his eyebrows at the way Wai was staring at him, but didn’t mention it.

“Mom said that you should come for dinner one last time today,” Wai said, only afterwards realising what he had said.

One last time . Korn’s train to Bangkok was in the morning the next day.

They tried their best to ignore the end, yet it still came crashing down, taking their breaths away, as if it was unexpected.

“Actually, I have something for you,” Korn said after the dinner with Wai’s parents when they got back home. No, he corrected himself. They got back to Korn’s home. “Here.” He took out of his pocket a singular key with a worn–out keychain in the vague shape of a dolphin and handed it to Wai.

Wai looked at him quizzically, his head tilted to the side. “What’s this?” he asked, even if the answer was obvious.

“A spare key to the house. Just in case—” he halted before he could say what his mind suggested. “Just in case. You know, things happen.” He pushed the key into Wai’s hand, holding it for a moment longer than it was necessary. “The keychain is one of mines, hope you don’t mind me giving you old things,” he added, raising his eyebrows teasingly, even if there was nothing of the sort of joking in his sentence.

Wai stepped closer, his hands pulling Korn a little by his waist. “Are you saying you want me to come here when you’re gone?” His voice was mocking, but his eyes betrayed genuineness.

“If you want to, sure,” Korn said, replicating Wai’s tone, his arms falling around Wai’s neck.

The unsaid words circled around them, making the atmosphere heavy with anticipation. But neither was going to voice them, scared of the consequences. They knew everything either way, the intentions were hidden in meaningful stares and between sentences, in their interlocked hands and their lips crashing.

“What are we doing tonight?” Wai asked casually, as if this was just another of the usual nights they spent together lately.

“Let’s go to the Sea?” Korn suggested, but his voice in turn couldn’t help but show the building emotions. Maybe it was right to keep them at bay, though, if he wouldn’t, he would surely end up sobbing and screaming his lungs out. He didn’t want their last evening to look like that. He wanted it to be as normal as possible, so perhaps they would forget about what was going to come with the rise of the sun in the morning.

They rode the motorbike there, Wai hugging Korn loosely, as if he wasn’t dreading the thought of letting him go. Korn knew it was fake, the way Wai would keep on holding him in every way possible even after they got off, his shoulder or hand, betrayed that he too didn’t want the morning to come.

But it would come either way, and all they could do was watch the hours go by, as they sat by the Sea, the sky getting lighter and lighter.

Korn had managed to keep away the thought of leaving the village for most of the two months, but that night everything reminded him of the train he was going to get onto at nine. Every time Wai would pull away from yet another kiss, saying more emotions than Wai’s words would ever do, Korn would chase his lips with the thought that it couldn’t have been their last. Every time Wai would change the position of his hands on Korn’s body, he would find himself pondering if it might have been the last time Wai’s hand laid there.

Korn’s breath ran short, but he couldn’t find it in himself to search for air. “Wai,” he muttered between kisses. “Don’t let me go. Keep me here with you. Please.” His voice was almost breaking, and only the hushed tone of it stopped it from happening. “Please…” he repeated.

“Don’t say these things,” Wai replied, and before Korn could continue, he collided his lips with Korn’s again. “If you say it again, I might stop thinking rationally,” he breathed heavily against Korn, barely having pulled away.

He pushed himself away from Korn, leaving him lying on the cold grass, and sat straight. Korn didn’t move from his place, even if his hands, lips and heart longed for Wai’s closeness again.

“Didn’t you tell me to stop thinking?” Korn finally said, his voice bitter, but maybe not at Wai’s hypocrisy, but at the circumstances that forced it in him. “I want to stop thinking right now. Stop me from thinking and—”

“Don’t,” Wai interrupted, practically hissing, and that was how Korn knew he was clenching his jaw to hide something away, but he wasn’t sure what that was. “Stop talking about it.”

“Wai—”

“Please. I don’t want to hear it.”

Korn sighed deeply, but didn’t push. Maybe Wai was right once again. Maybe he shouldn’t say that he was already missing Wai, even when he was still right next to him, or that all he wanted at that moment was to stay like that forever, or that he—

“The stars are bright tonight,” he said instead. “I wish I have studied astronomy sometimes. I don’t even know any constellations.”

“I know one.” Wai lied down, his back to the ground, and pointed his hand somewhere to the right side of the sky. “There’s Virgo somewhere there, my mom showed me once.” He searched for a moment before exclaiming, “Oh, there it is. There’s this kind of a trapezoid, see? The bright star there is one of the corners. And from each corner goes a line out.” He drew the shape of each one, as Korn observed carefully.

“I see,” Korn muttered, then looked at Wai, admiring him for a moment, and the way his eyes shone with excitement, and his lips that were still swollen from Korn kissing them. He then looked back to the sky, looking where Wai was pointing. “I know one constellation now, then.” He smiled, but his brain couldn’t help but register it as another last . The first and last constellation Wai would teach Korn. The last time they would lie in the grass and look at the stars together.

Wai might have had the same thought, his arm dropping to lay across Korn’s chest, hand landing somewhere near his neck. “Is there anything else you want to do?” Before you go , was implied, but never said out loud.

Korn sighed. “A lot of things,” he said, his eyes looking up as if searching for something in his mind. “But nothing I have time for right now.” I want to stay here with you. I want to get to know you all over again, the you that happened while I was gone, and connect it in my brain with the old one. I want to wake up every day to your face and be able to kiss you good morning before going to make us breakfast. I want to hold your hand while we go grocery shopping, and to say what I feel for you any time I want. And I want you. All of you. “What do you want to do?” he asked instead.

Wai didn’t need even a moment to come up with an answer. “Hug you. And stay here just talking for as long as we can.”

And so they did, Wai’s head snuggled between Korn’s arm and chest, holding Korn’s other hand loosely, as they talked about the most mundane things, ignoring the moon going down and the sun rising, like they didn’t prophesise the nearing end.

*

They stood together at the train station, somewhere to the side, away from the other people. The morning was unusually cold, a fog in the air, hiding them away even more. Wai was wearing Korn’s jacket that got pushed into his hands the moment he complained about freezing when they stepped out of Korn’s house ( for the last time ) and went to the garage to put the cover on the motorbike ( for the last time ). He obviously opposed, but Korn needed to insist only once more for him to put it on. The sight of Wai in his jacket made him smile, and he found himself making a mental note not to let it be the last time he smiles at Wai.

Their hands were interlocked tightly, afraid of letting go.

“Say you want me to stay.” Korn wasn’t looking at Wai. He kept on staring right ahead, but somehow all he could see was the blurry image of Wai out of the corner of his eye. “Just say it, once, and I will find a way to do it. I can move back here, I can find a job in Chiang Mai, I can do anything, just— Tell me you want me.” A pause. “To stay,” he added.

Wai didn’t say anything.

Korn scoffed, his shoulders shaking. He should have expected it. Wai wouldn’t say it, obviously he wouldn’t. He told him he was going to miss him once, in the spur of a moment, not to be repeated.

“Be selfish for once,” he continued, his voice quiet from the tension in his throat. “You don’t have to be like this, just say what you have on your mind.”

“Can I kiss you?”

It was different. And maybe not because it was the first time they kissed near other people, as if not scared to be seen anymore, but because of the way their hearts tensed, instead of letting go as always, or the tears that were threatening to start falling any time, instead of the usual smiles. Or the overwhelming wave of feelings crashing down on them. And, somehow, it was the closest they ever came to going to the ocean together.

Korn suddenly realised that wasn’t a last of anything. It was a first . A first goodbye kiss.

Korn’s forehead was against Wai’s, and they were breathing the same air for a moment, realising it was another of the last times. “Wai, I—”

“Don’t you even try to,” Wai whispered, still not moving away from Korn, his eyes closed.

“Let me say it once.” It was Korn who pulled back, not much, but enough to be able to look clearly at Wai, his palms still staying in their places, one on the side of Wai’s neck, the other holding Wai’s hand. “Just once.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled, but it felt empty. There was no intention behind them, only a habit. “I—”

Wai’s lips shut him up.

When they pulled away this time, Korn didn’t try anymore. “You can take the bike for a ride every once in a while, if you want to,” he said instead, his eyes not moving from Wai’s for even a second. “I don’t want it to collect dust again. Maybe I’ll try to find a way to bring it to Bangkok—” He noticed Wai was looking somewhere behind him, and his heart dropped before he even heard the sound.

“The train is coming.”

That’s when it finally came to him. It was the end. There would be no more stolen kisses and hidden smiles, no more sitting in their favourite places and no more holding hands. And no more Wai.

Korn smiled, bitterly, but still did, not wanting to let Wai see the tears in his eyes. It wasn’t a good time for crying. It was better to leave a happier image in Wai’s mind, so he could remember him the way he always was.

“Go,” Wai whispered. “You need to go home,” he added, not getting any reaction from Korn.

Korn’s hands trembled as they slowly fell from Wai. He knew he needed to go, but it wasn’t home that he was going to. Not anymore.

“I don’t want to.” His voice was on the verge of breaking, but he managed to stop it. “But it is what it is, isn’t it?”

Wai was right that afternoon at the Sea over a month before. The end was going to come anyway. And somehow, despite that awareness, it still hurt like hell. It is what it is, Wai said that day. Until it isn’t , Korn wanted to add now.

The train’s whistle sounded, signalling its soon departure.

“Go,” Wai repeated, and in his eyes Korn could see the same tears that his carried.

“I will come back, okay? I’ll be visiting often, I’ll—”

Wai smiled, and despite the circumstances, it was still the most beautiful sight Korn had ever seen. “Don’t. Let me get over you,” he interrupted, as if joking, but his voice didn’t carry the intention with it. “Can you promise me one thing? Forget about it all. Forget about me . Live your life, and don’t think back to this. Please.”

If Korn had the time to do so, he would have punched Wai in the face, and then kissed all of the bruises until they disappeared. But he didn’t, so he simply shook his head, as his feet stepped onto the stairs outside the last carriage. “I won’t. I can’t.”

“Just promise me, please.” Wai’s tone was almost begging, and Korn’s heart couldn’t take it.

He was already at the top of the stairs. “Okay. I promise. But I can’t promise you I will keep it.”

Wai shrugged. “Some promises aren’t meant to be kept.”

The train started moving.

Korn stayed on the stairs until he couldn’t see Wai anymore, then even longer, his tired hands barely holding up his suitcase. Only then did he let the tears flow down from his eyes, and soon his whole chest was shaking with sobs. He left Wai again. It was all over.

Some promises aren’t meant to be kept.

He didn’t promise a lot of things in his life, and he still had troubles keeping them. He promised Wai they would go to the ocean together. He promised he would forget about Wai. And he promised not to say one thing.

“Wai, I…” He shook his head at once, the chill wind as the only witness of this moment.

Maybe that would be the one promise he could keep.