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Thursday morning begins with Team sending Manaow fifteen angry cartoon frog stamps on the LINE group chat from Win’s dorm room.
In return, she sends back a loud audio message calling him an insensitive jerk.
Pharm tells them both in text to relax.
Team writes, ‘She outed me and Hia Win! Did you see the Facebook post?????’
Pharm writes, ‘Manaow didn’t post it, though?’
Team says, “Ha!” out loud and has to erase two hasty typos before he can send his next message. ‘She’s always on that stupid page. She must’ve sent them the photos.’
Manaow’s next audio message has campus background noise, and she was clearly jogging as she recorded it. “I don’t even ship you two! I just know you’re dating. There’s no fun in that! And I’ll have you know I’m very scrupulous about consent! I wouldn’t post anything without asking you!”
Team writes, ‘Bullshit! You posted photos of me and him at a swim meet two months ago!’
She writes back, ‘That was before P’Win asked me to stop,’ accompanied by an animated bunny stamp giving a wink and a peace sign.
Team sends sixteen angry cartoon frog stamps.
He chucks his phone at the mattress and, thanks to the puddle of blankets dampening the impact, it doesn’t bounce more than a few centimeters to the side. He flops back into the place where he woke up and tries to calm his mind and heart by making miserable noises into the pillow.
If he grabs Win’s pillow and buries his face in it, that’s between him and the fish.
He doesn’t dare text Win. The post is only fifteen minutes old, and there’s a good chance Win will find out from someone he encounters on his way to class. Something like, “Hey, Win, you and the swimming club kid, huh?” with a salacious smirk or a tongue pressed obscenely against the inside of a cheek.
And Win won’t care. Win will laugh it off, because Win is fine with people knowing. He’s had years to relax into who he is and adjust to how society sees and judges him. If he were dating a guy more like him, he’d be happily holding hands in public and being the degree of clingy he is with Team in private. He’ll be fine. He’s not the one on the verge of dropping out, leaving Bangkok, and moving back to the mountains.
It’s Team with the hang-up because Team only knows how to be Team, full stop. Not Team the Homosexual or Team the Sexually Experienced or Team the Boyfriend. He’s just…Team. He doesn’t want to be complicated. He doesn’t want to be watched or studied or fangirled over.
He doesn’t want people to look at him and think about what he’s doing with Win whenever they’re alone. To think back on every time they were seen together and say, “Ohh, I see.”
He has class at ten, but he decides not to go. He can hear doors opening and closing in the hallway and he’d rather take his chances climbing out the window than run into any one of the other residents right now. They’ll all have seen the post by now.
When he finally dares to pick up his phone, there are messages from others, but he ignores them all and goes directly to his group chat with Pharm and Manaow.
They’ve been sending messages for the past hour.
Pharm: ‘Team, do you need someone right now?’
Also Pharm: ‘P’Dean says he can call P’Win and tell him to go back.’
Manaow: ‘I think he’s pouting.’
Also Manaow: ‘Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeam’
Pharm: ‘Team, I know it’s not fair, and you should have been the one to decide when or if you wanted it public.’
Manaow: ‘Oh.’
Also Manaow: ‘Team, I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it like that.’
And finally, Manaow from five minutes ago: ‘Team, I’m writing this under the desk in class so you’d better write back and tell us you’re okay.’
Team sends a hissing cat stamp and tosses his phone away again.
He stews in a miasma of frustration, helplessness, anger, embarrassment, and shame until he realizes Win will be back soon. If Team had followed his own schedule, he’d be in class now, so he didn’t think to account for where Win would be. Just the thought of seeing Win right now is an even split between pleasant and nauseating.
It takes ten more minutes of spiraling, but Team finally pushes himself out of Win’s bed and looks around for his clothes. He finds them not on the floor where he left them last night but rather draped over the back of Win’s desk chair. He yanks them on, shoves his feet into his sneakers, and takes a long, steadying breath before he opens the door.
•
About an hour later, Team sneaks out of the dorm building in sunglasses and a hat, buys noodles from a nearby vendor, and dashes back to his room with his head down. He’s sure he heard whispers as he cleared the lobby directly into the elevator, but he didn’t identify anything specific, so he leans against the wall and makes a pathetic noise at the injustice of this horrible day.
When the elevator doors open on the ninth floor, he yelps at the formidable sight of Manaow in her school uniform, arms folded and scowl severe. He gives it a second’s thought, then starts stabbing the button for Win’s floor instead.
She says, “Oh no,” and seizes his arm, yanking him into the hall and, more horrifically, into a hug.
He’s got the plastic bag holding his lunch looped around his wrist, and he tries to hold it away from his body while she clings to him like a limpet. He squawks as she squeezes his neck like she’s trying to kill him.
“I’m sorry, Team!” she yells in his ear.
“Woman, let go!”
“I just thought you were shy!”
“Who’s shy? You’re breaking my neck!”
With a huff, she releases him, but up close he can see red lining her eyes.
With a show of looking creeped out, he asks, “Were you crying over me?”
She punches his arm. “Who would cry for a mushroom-headed dumbass like you?”
Slowly, he smirks at her, and she smiles through wet eyes, punctuating her sentiment with one more slap on his arm where she just punched him.
Fences mended, they sit on his dorm room bed and talk about her upcoming date with Pruk. She takes all the shrimp from his container one by one, picking them up shamelessly between her manicured nails and popping them into her mouth. The one time he tries to reclaim one, she bites his hand.
Finally, after a short length of silence, she says, “You’re never shy about sex when it’s anyone else, so I just thought you were shy around P’Win. I didn’t know you were still closeted.” She’s braver than he is, holding eye contact with a serious frown. “Are you okay?”
Team grabs onto his body-length pillow and holds it in a stranglehold, chin propped on top. “I’m not shy,” he says. “I’m just…new to this stuff.”
“The gay stuff,” she says, nodding. Then she pauses. “Not gay? Sort of gay?”
“Only gay,” Team says. “It wasn’t something I ever thought about before I started here, but it makes more sense the longer….” I’m with him.
He eyes his phone on the bed next to his thigh. He’s still avoiding it—avoiding Win. It’s nearly three and it’s nearly certain Win is in the room above. Or studying somewhere on campus. Or out with his friends. Team hasn’t checked a single message from him all day, and he doesn’t know if he wants to or not. His world still feels sideways.
Manaow grips onto Team’s biceps, stares vehemently into his eyes, and tells him very solemnly, “If anyone says anything stupid to you, I’ll beat them with a chair.”
He hides a smile and says, “P’Pruk would enjoy seeing that.”
“Ladies do what ladies must,” she says. “Let me do your makeup.”
He groans and pushes her hands off his arms. “Get out,” he says.
“It’ll make you feel better!”
“It’ll make you feel better.”
“Same thing!”
•
After she leaves, Team only has about an hour to brood before Pharm announces by text that he’s coming over with dinner and dessert for both of them.
This time, Team actually frees up his table so Pharm can set everything out as properly as he can with a very limited surface area. He’s made them egg drop soup with khao niaow ma muang. Team eyes the mango with longing, but as usual, everything Pharm’s cooked vies vigorously for his affection.
The difference between his two best friends shines in times like this. Manaow is more like him, more comfortable in the noise and rough edges of blunt honesty. She kept him from getting too deep into his head. Pharm lives closer to the realm of the rational, and being around him makes the ground feel more stable under his feet.
As Team sips the silken ribbons of egg from the broth, Pharm says, “Do you know P’Win’s been trying to contact you?”
Team raises his eyes guiltily.
Pharm quirks a sad smile. “Well, he has. I heard him tell P’Dean over the phone that he’s worried, but he doesn’t want to upset you, so he’s keeping his distance.” He dips his spoon into the broth and swirls it. Team watches a tiny vortex open up and marvels at how his own stomach feels like it’s doing the same.
“That’s stupid,” Team says, but even he sounds unconvinced.
Naturally, Pharm doesn’t give him any quarter. “I think he’s reacting based on past experience,” he says with his eyebrows raised.
Team tugs his mouth into a pout and drinks his soup directly from the bowl to avoid seeing Pharm’s expression.
Maybe the worst thing about all of this is Win himself. It’s alarmingly easy to imagine him publicly dating some faceless man—fearlessly touching him, talking intimately to him, cheerfully kissing him. All on a whim, nothing to fight for, everything on offer if he wants it.
Team’s shoulders sink.
He’d give up Win to someone more deserving if he could, but that’s the other problem: no one is ever going to love Win better than him.
He’ll never give up, he just doesn’t know where he’s going.
“What do I do?” he whines when his soup bowl is empty. Without hesitating, he tosses a cube of mango into his mouth next and revels in the sweet, familiar bliss of fresh fruit slathered in coconut sauce.
Pharm asks, “Do you want to be out?”
Team chews more slowly. The urge to say no is there, but he can’t decide if it’s true or just instinctual. It would be nice, maybe, to do in public some of the things he does with Win behind closed doors. It’s more the people watching, talking, whispering, and just focusing on them—that’s what he doesn’t want.
When he explains this haltingly to Pharm, he’s relieved when Pharm nods as if he understands.
“Honestly, sometimes I wished people wouldn’t look at me and P’Dean either,” he says. A warm smile grows at the corner of his mouth. “But it’s been months now, and no one seems to care very much anymore. People have very short attention spans nowadays.”
Team mulls on that as they finish their dessert, and when Pharm starts packing up to go home, he feels fully settled, the shattered jigsaw pieces of his brain replaced where they should be. When Pharm has everything piled back into his backpack, Team says, “Thank you, Pharm,” from where he’s sheepishly leaning against his desk.
Pharm makes a low noise of affection and pulls on Team’s arm until he’s got Team in a much more civilized hug than the one he got earlier from their violent friend.
“You have support whenever you need it,” Pharm says into his shoulder.
Team doesn’t cry, but it’s a near thing, because Pharm gets it. Somehow, by the luck of the universe, the first person Team managed to randomly befriend on his first day of university is someone who understands not only who he is, but the situation he’s been born into.
Buoyed by the swift uptick his day has taken, Team grins and gives Pharm an ever-constricting squeeze until Pharm coughs and slaps his back to make him let go.
•
Win’s playing music inside his room, and Team listens to it outside the door for a long few minutes as one song ends and another begins. Before coming up here, he did exactly what he did last night: showered, brushed his teeth, washed his face, dressed for bed, and grabbed Win’s spare key card off his desk. He’s done it most nights of the week—the only nights he doesn’t, he’s already in Win’s room anyway.
It shouldn’t be a surprise to him that people found out after months and months of dating. Win’s whole floor has seen him here at least once, but Team assumed their shared club activity would cloak his real reason for being here so often.
About thirty minutes ago, a commenter on the Facebook post claimed to be a neighbor who’s regularly kept awake when they have sex, something that would have sent Team into a spaceship if he’d read it this morning. Now, he’s just mortified.
Part of Team wants to leave, just to procrastinate the conversation ahead of him. Win already knows he’s spent the day upset, so he can’t pretend he’s fine the way he wishes he could. Win would call him out on it and lovingly bully him until he talked.
Sighing, Team presses the key card to Win’s lock and listens to the click of the mechanism inside. He pushes the door inward slowly, eyes sweeping the room at a glance to know what he’s in for. The only light source appears to be the fish tank’s blue glow; Win’s desk is clean, his chair empty; there’s a bare foot attached to a clothed leg on the bed, and the rest of Win is blocked by the open bathroom door. The song is some indie Thai song Team doesn’t recognize, but the lyric, Why can’t you trust me more than you trust yourself? feels a little more on the nose than he’d like to hear right now.
So Win is…on his bed listening to ballads in the dark.
That’s an optimistic sign.
Guilt draws Team farther inside, and after he toes off his sandals, he leaves the key card in the pocket of Win’s swim jacket hanging near the door to grab later. The music is loud enough to have drowned out his entrance, it seems, because Win doesn’t open his eyes or move when Team makes it to the side of his bed. Funny to think Team was just here earlier in the day when only a few people knew about them.
Team is considering the best way to announce his presence when Win lifts an arm and stretches out his fingers toward Team. “C’mere,” he says, low and soft.
Team climbs onto the bed beside him, ears and neck hot. Win’s clearly showered and dressed for bed, but he’s lying on top of the blankets with music on, and Team finds himself unable to stop from asking, “Were you waiting for me, hia?”
Win’s mouth curls into a smile. He opens his eyes as he turns his head, meeting Team’s gaze with open affection. “I wouldn’t say that,” he says. “Just kind of hoped you’d come.”
Emotion Team thought he’d sorted through with Manaow and Pharm roars back to the forefront of his brain, and he ducks his face into Win’s neck before it can show up too clearly in his expression.
Team says, “Hia,” just because he likes to sometimes.
Win hums back.
The ensuing silence is long.
By now, Team is so familiar with Win’s scent, with the warmth and texture of his skin, that he’s more at home here than anywhere.
Safe and seen and sure.
Win’s fingers sift through the hair at the nape of Team’s neck, playing absently.
He doesn’t say anything.
He wouldn’t, though, would he.
And giving him up has never been an option.
On the verge of sleep, Team wrestles his way back. He inhales, exhales, and makes a quiet noise to encourage the pleasant sensations from the neck massage going on. When he lifts his head, Win is already looking at him, and there’s something profoundly complex in his eyes that Team didn’t used to recognize.
He’s always known he doesn’t like it, though.
He says, “I’m okay with it, hia,” and tries his best to look brave.
Win’s eyes dart back and forth between Team’s, that complex thing intensifying. He lifts up onto his elbow and moves his free hand to frame the side of Team’s face. “You don’t have to,” he says. “I don’t need you to do anything you’re not ready for.”
Team says, “It’s kind of too late for that.”
Win shakes his head minutely. “We don’t have to acknowledge it.”
And Win would fight for this, Team knows. He would do whatever Team asked for because it’s what he does. It’s the only way he knows how to love people. Team started to suspect it after a few months of constantly being in Win’s company, but having people like Wan and View around to confirm it mean that Team is way more ahead in the game of making his boyfriend happy than he would have been without them.
“I actually thought of some good points about dating publicly,” Team says. He reaches up, squeezes Win’s hand, and pulls it down to the bed where he can hold it more comfortably. “So, first of all: it probably means people’ll stop flirting with us.”
Win snorts into a laugh, seemingly without meaning to. He interlaces their fingers, pure affection stealing over his face. “I see, and you don’t enjoy when people flirt with you?”
“No,” Team says with a wrinkled nose. “It’s awkward and annoying.”
Win leans close, eyes dark. “Was it annoying when I did it?”
“Very.”
Win laughs in little puffs of breath, leaning back with a sweeter smile. “What other good points do you have?” he asks.
Team says, “We can go to fancy restaurants on dates and you can pay.”
Win slumps onto the bed, face flat on the mattress. He’s laughing, but he’s trying not to show it. He’s still holding Team’s hand, but he uses their clasped fingers to hide his face while he shakes.
“I’m serious!” Team says. “There’s this one place I want to go—it’s on top of a building, and it’s got this French steak thing—”
Win turns his head to look at him, his bright hair fanned out on the dark blanket, his eyes creased at the corners, and there’s nothing but pure, shining adoration there now.
Team swallows. “Anyway, that’s another one.”
Win shakes his hand free of Team’s hand and sinks his fingers deep into Team’s hair, urging him down for a simple kiss that quickly evolves into something far more ardent. This, Team thinks, is a better use of their time and energy than worrying about Facebook posts.
Win breaks the kiss once to whisper, “It doesn’t have to happen all at once. We can still go at your pace.”
And Team, who doesn’t know what his pace is anymore, just says, “Okay, hia,” because for now, right now, all that matters is this: making his boyfriend happier to be with him than without.
Prioritizing that has always been easier than anything else, anyway.