Chapter Text
PART I
My heart is buried in Venice,
hidden beneath all my worries and doubts.
Phayu often dreams of a past life. It isn’t as lavish or as exciting as the life he lives now, but it’s simple, safe, and he’s happy.
There, they’re all happy.
There’s a man he calls ‘Pa’, and one he calls ‘Dad’, but they both love him the same. They love him enough to die for him; to kill for him too. In that life, he has a brother. It isn’t Saifah, the twin he’s known for as long as he can remember, but an older brother, one who’d burn the entire world down for Phayu if he asked him to.
He never asked, but somehow, it feels like that world had burned down around him anyway.
Phayu yearns for this distant life a lot more than he thinks he should, waking up with an empty feeling in his chest every time he realises that it had all just been a dream. Sometimes, those dreams turn into nightmares, and he cries in his sleep, mourning the loss of a family he’s never had, missing people who probably don’t even exist outside his own head.
He doesn’t believe they’re real, not actually, because in every one of those dreams, Phayu can never see their faces or even hear their voices properly. At most, he gets a glimpse of a dimpled smile, large hands reaching out to him, and always, always, there’s someone calling his name, but there, he isn’t Phayu.
No, in that world, in that life, his name is—
“Venice.”
A wave of shock courses through Phayu’s body.
The name is terrifyingly familiar, so familiar that he had almost responded instinctively, just barely stopping his tongue from answering, ‘Yes, Pa?’
Phayu forces himself to swallow the words, feels them burn as they go down his throat like bitter medicine, and he plasters on a shaky smile before he turns to Rain to ask, “Sorry, what was that?”
“Venice,” Rain repeats, so unaware of how much that one word is affecting Phayu, so unaware that it’s taking every fibre of his fucking being to keep himself from trembling at the call of a name that shouldn’t mean anything to him, and—
Rain points at a framed poster that’s hanging up on the wall, the colourful canals of Venice printed on it. “Have you been there, P’Phayu?”
“Oh.”
So that’s what he meant. Of course. What else would it be?
Phayu has to take a moment to bring himself back to reality, to shake off the strange melancholy that just came over him, and eventually, he manages to say, “No, I haven’t been there. But I want to someday. It’s a beautiful city, and the architecture there is something else too, don’t you think?”
“Mm, it’s different from what we see here in Thailand.”
“That’s right,” Phayu agrees. “Have you been there?”
“I wish,” Rain pouts, flopping onto Phayu’s bed like it’s his own. He props his cheek in his palm, looking up at Phayu with a long sigh. “You know, Phi, although I may look like a well-travelled man, in truth, I’ve never even been outside of Bangkok.”
That pulls a loud laugh out of Phayu, and when he lies down next to Rain, their feet clumsily knocking together, any lingering unease that Phayu felt goes away like it had never been there.
He lifts a hand to flick Rain’s forehead. “Stupid boy,” he teases, still grinning. “Who said you look well-travelled, huh?”
“Just… Just… People!” Rain huffs. “Some people! You don’t know them!”
Flustered or annoyed or probably both, a red-faced Rain brushes off Phayu’s hand, telling him, “Anyway, that’s not the point, okay? My point is, I’ve lived my entire life in Bangkok. How fucking boring is that!”
“Rain.”
Phayu fixes a sharp look onto the boy. “How many times must I remind you to speak nicely in front of me, hm? At this point, it’s almost like you’re asking to be punished by Phi.”
By now, Rain is much better at navigating Phayu’s erratic temper, knowing just what to do when he accidentally (or sometimes, purposely) sets off this senior of his. He panics for a second—then he flashes a toothy grin, grabbing Phayu’s trigger-happy hand before he can do anything.
“P’Phayu kruuub,” Rain croons, nuzzling his little face into Phayu’s palm affectionately. “Don’t be mad at Rain, na? I didn’t mean to swear… It just came out! Rain won’t say it like that again, okay?”
Phayu is speechless.
He doesn’t know whether he should be happy or worried that the stubborn-to-death Rain has adapted to this game of theirs so well. On one hand, Phayu is glad that this boy is so good, so sweet, so perfect for him, but he doesn’t like to think about what would happen if Rain ended up in someone else’s hands. He doesn’t like to think about how Rain would act all spoiled and helpless, how he’d whine and wag his tail just like this…
Fuck. Even the thought of it pisses him off. Not like he would ever let it happen, though. Rain may think that he’s running the show here, but little does he know that Phayu has been the one pulling on his strings since the very beginning.
Even now…
“Mmph—?!”
Phayu’s kiss comes and goes too quickly for Rain to properly react to it, leaving him gawking and just slightly breathless.
“Wh–What…” Rain covers his lips defensively, acting like it’s their first time kissing. “P’Phayu! What was that for, huh?”
“Just felt like it,” Phayu answers, rolling over and up to hide his smug face in a random book he grabs off his desk. “And for the record, there’s nothing boring about living in Bangkok your whole life, Rain. So have I, you know?”
There’s a series of concerning noises as Rain scrambles off the bed to chase after Phayu, squeaking out, “Really?! You too? I don’t believe that! You’ve seriously never been anywhere else?”
Phayu’s immediate answer should be yes. It should, yet when he thinks about it, what comes to mind isn’t the streets of Bangkok, with its city sounds and flashing lights. Instead, he sees a small village by the beach, with faded laughter ringing in the breeze as he’s being rocked to sleep in someone’s warm embrace, surrounded by the smell of smoke and spice that brings him an indescribable sense of comfort.
“That…”
Venice.
Do you like it here?
This will be our new home, son.
Pa and Dad hope you can live happily here.
“P’Phayu?”
“Huh?”
Rain smiles at him, though the look in his eyes is slightly confused. “You started saying something just now, then you suddenly stopped,” he tells Phayu. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, uh, sorry, I…” Phayu blinks, blinks again, until that blurry vision melts away and he’s left with that same hollow feeling he gets after he wakes from a dream. “I thought I remembered something, but it’s probably not what I think it is.”
All that does is confuse poor Rain even more, his head tilting to the side as he tries to make sense of Phayu’s words, but Phayu puts a stop to it with a hand on his cheek, saying, “Don’t worry about it, kid. I’m just tired and my brain is coming up with all sorts of nonsense right now.”
“Are you sure? You seemed a bit—”
“It’s nothing, really,” Phayu insists, rubbing a gentle thumb over the growing crease between Rain’s eyebrows. “Now, stop frowning, hm? My Rain won’t be cute anymore if he keeps making such an ugly face.”
That riles Rain up enough for him to abandon his curiosity and start swatting his arms at Phayu again, stuttering out, “Wh–Wh–Who’s your Rain, huh?! So what if you think I’m not cute? Who wants to be cute for you anyway, you– you ugly P’Phayu!”
Phayu isn’t offended in the slightest, catching Rain’s thin wrists between a single hand, held just tight enough to feel the boy’s pulse race against his own. Rain struggles, but all it takes is for Phayu to tug once, and Rain is letting himself be pulled in closer, closer, closer; heartbeat rising, rising, rising.
It’s exhilarating. It’s everything Phayu has ever wanted.
“Here,” Phayu says, leaning down to brush his smiling lips against the soft curve of Rain’s ear. “This is the Rain that’s cutest to me.”
He doesn’t give Rain a chance to respond, though from the looks of it, all Phayu would get right now is the sight of him turning red from head to toe. Now, that would certainly be a delight to watch, but it’s late and they both have early mornings tomorrow.
Ignoring the building heat in his gut, Phayu reluctantly drags Rain back to his bed, the silly boy still too dazed by his teasing to even realise what’s happening until he’s tucked neatly under the covers and wrapped tight in Phayu’s arms.
“Hey!”
Rain wiggles around to face Phayu, cheeks puffed out like an adorable, angry hamster. “I didn’t say I would sleep here tonight, Phi!”
Phayu fakes a yawn, pressing his eyes shut. “It’s fine, Rain. It’s way too late to go home now, and you have to be up early for your class too, don’t you? I’ll wake you, so just go to bed.”
“But—”
“Rain krub,” Phayu pleads lazily, but his tone is definite; demanding. “Sleep, please. You can be mad at me tomorrow. I’ll even let you curse at me once, if you want to.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Oh…”
Still, Rain doesn’t argue with Phayu anymore. It takes a minute, but like always, Rain gives in, slipping his arms around Phayu’s waist and snuggling as close to him as possible.
“I’m only staying here because I don’t want to be late again,” Rain mumbles into Phayu’s chest, restless fingers pinching and pulling at the stretchy fabric of his sleep shirt. “It’s not because I like sleeping with you or anything, got it?”
“Got it.”
“And I’m really gonna be mad at you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“So, you better not forget to wake me up too.”
“I won’t, good boy.”
Rain goes quiet then, running out of things to complain about, no doubt, and his naughty hands have stopped toying with Phayu’s clothes too, laying still against his back, but just when Phayu thinks he’s fallen asleep, he hears Rain say:
“Sweet dreams na, P’Phayu.”
Phayu isn’t actually sleepy. In fact, there’s a part of him that’s almost afraid to go to sleep, afraid to fall into the depths of that strange, wonderful life again, just in case it becomes a little harder to wake himself from it this time; just in case he finds that he doesn’t want to wake up from it at all.
But when he thinks about Rain, about his cute bedhead in the morning and the grumpy face he makes when he begs Phayu to let him sleep in for just five, ten—no, fifteen more minutes, Phayu feels like he’d do anything to wake up to that again, even if it means letting go of a world where everything feels right.
With Rain by his side, Phayu would rather be here.
So he holds Rain closer, holds him like an anchor that’ll keep Phayu from going adrift, and he tells him, “Sweet dreams, Rain.”