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Sound can be very jealous. Last week’s rehearsal made that pretty clear. However another emotion was having a stronger chokehold on him recently.
Sound is incredibly scared.
Scared to confront his feelings, being found out, and most of all Win being mad at him because of it. Win is mad at him most of the time but Sound doesn’t mind it (that much). It’s how they interact, how both of them spend quality time together. And as long as Win is talking to, or yelling at him, Sound is at least a little bit happy. However the thought of Win’s face changing from anger to disgust is what he’s scared of. Scared of Win not wanting anything to do with Sound because of … you know.
He takes a deep breath and turns his attention to the snack packages left behind from yesterday’s band practice. Cleaning the room helps a little with his unwanted thought spiral, and soon enough the others come in to start their practice for the school play.
The girls come in holding hands, looking happy and at ease. His band mates however portray every other emotion except happiness on their face. Phat, oh poor Phat, stares at their intertwined fingers and puffs out his bottom lip. The guy couldn’t get a girlfriend even if he would ask out every girl in school. He’s just too desperate and the girls don’t like desperate guys. Or at least Sound thinks they don’t like it.
He really hopes that he himself doesn’t look too desperate in front of Win.
Sound has picked up the habit of literally looking the other way as a last resort. Because he can’t trust his face that could so easily betray him and make him look like the most desperate looking puppy on the planet in front of Win. One might think that being an actor with years worth of experience would come with a foolproof pokerface. At least that’s what Sound thought and hoped for, until his body kept betraying him mercilessly.
During their first theatre practice he couldn’t handle it and had to turn his head as far away from Win as possible, to not look at him, smell him, or further touch him. Being tied together didn’t leave Sound with much freedom of movement, but he did his best to keep his head, arms, and legs away from Win’s body. Well, at least he tried his best, because Win kept moving, stumbling, and most importantly turning his face back over his shoulder when he was talking to him. So turning away his eyes it was. His last resort.
A fight on the floor of the music club, a trip to the toilet ,and a practice round later, he has gotten somewhat used to their new proximity and he wasn’t THAT panicky abut it anymore.
— — —
Their second practice earlier this week went by without that many fights.. Win was too occupied sulking because of the girls. Puffing his checks and pushing out his bottom lip. Every time Win gets discouraged, scared, or plain frustrated, Sound has to admit that he looked … cute.
After an hour of practice the others went down to get some food for everyone from a nearby food stall. This left Sound and Win alone once again.
Win was staring into the room, crossing his arms in front of him.
“Ai’ Win, just fucking stop it! It’s annoying.” Win turned to look at him. “What?”
“Stop sulking about her. You look like a fish.” Sound furrowed his brows and puffed his checks imitating Win.
This earned him a shove. “Your dad looks like a fish!”
“Well, you’re actually not wrong. Anyways, there are many fish in the sea. It just happens that some of them are gay. Doesn’t mean that you don’t have a shot with anyone.
Win went back to crossing his arms in front of him and staring into the room. “Easy for you to say Mr. Chick-magnet.“
Sound would rather be a rooster-magnet at the moment, but ok.
“Have you actually seen a girl flirt with me or approach me?”
“Well no, but I have seen how the girls look at you an talk about you. You probably get asked for you line ID like 10 times a day.”
Sound rolls his eyes. “Oh really? Have you seen me flirt with any of the girls?”
Win turns his head back to Sound and furrows his brows.
“The answer is no, dumbass. Even if I would want any girl to approach me, they wouldn’t because everyone sees me as this untouchable unreachable star who is above it all.”
“Boohoo how sad. But you still could have them all. You can just any pick a girl, ask her out, and she will say yes.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“Why the hell not?”
Sound didn’t say something for a while. “You wouldn’t understand”
“Are you calling me dumb, dumbass?” Win shouted and turned his head back to Sound again.
“Well you know what, yes! I’m calling you dumb Ai’Win”
“Ai’Sat!”
Win tried to hit Sound with his arms, which just resulted in him just flailing his arms around not able to reach Sound properly, while turning them both around in a continuous spin. Sound on the other hand had more freedom of movement and used it to his advantage, hitting Win’s head and giving his ears a quick pull.
It was a sight to behold and Sound had to let out a little laugh. Shaking his head a little he kept smiling, evading Wins attempts at hitting him and gave him a flick to the back of his head
“What the hell! Are you laughing at?” Win whined.
“You! Just stop it already. If we keep spinning like this we’ll have a second round on the floor. You want that?”
“Do you, jackass?”
“You’re a Jackass. Now stop it already. I promise I won’t hit you back.”
Sound reached his hands under Win’s arms i front of him for Win to see and turned his palms up and down. “See? I’m unarmed!”
“Alright!” Win shouts and stopped abruptly, making them almost stumble.
Win was back to crossing his arms and audibly huffing. Sound leaned his head to the side to get a better look at him. Win had furrowed his brows once again and was biting off some dead skin off his lips. Sound slowly let his chin rest on Win’s shoulder, careful not to put too much weight on it and alarm Win of it. With much success, because Win seemed so enveloped in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice what Sound was doing. Win’s was looking at the floor, his eyes moved around looking for something. Not something on the floor, but something in his mind. He looked bothered and … sad.
“Win…” Sound said quietly.
“Hmmm?” was all he got back from his as he kept staring and biting at his lip.
“Ai’ Win”
“What?”
“You know what would be funny?”
This pulled Win out of his trance, and he turned his head back to look at Sound.
Leaving Win no time to react to how close their faces are, Sound just grinned and shouted “This!” and jabbed his hands, which were still reached in front of Win, into his Stomach to tickle him.
Win let out a scream of surprise and tried to rip the hands off his body.
If there’s something Sound got out of being a solo guitarist, it is fast fingers so he easily got out of and around Win’s hands. He skittered around Win’s torso trying to find a good spot, and soon enough he had Win giggling, screaming, cussing, and laughing in his arms.
“Stop, stop, stop, enough Ai’Sou-ahaha you dumba-hahaHA”
Sound stopped digging his hands into Wins ribs and instead wrapped his arms around Win, trapping his arms by doing so to ensure that his bandmate couldn’t fight back. Win resisted for a few more moments but eventually his arms came to rest, as did his breathing and what was left of his laughter.
“And? Do you feel better now?”
Win turned back to look at him, seeing Sound with raised eyebrows and a slight smile on his face, and then turned back facing away from him.
“Or do you need another round?” Sound said reaching a few fingers from his grip on Win’s arm to teasingly scratch at Win’s sweatshirt.
“Hell no! Stop it, I surrender! Yes I feel better, now stop it you bastard!” He screeched and let out a few more panicky laughs in anticipation of more tickeling. “Are you happy now?”
And with that Sound removed his arms from Win’s body.
“Yup! And now let’s find the others. They are taking too long and I’m hungry.”
After that Win looked more at ease and even bantered with the girls while they were eating. Phat was still salty. And Sound was actually feeling happy.
During their meal Win and Sound were fighting for the best pieces of meat and kicking each other under the table. But now there was no malicious intent behind it.
— — —
A few days later the Chinzillas were gathering at lunch to discuss their plans for the next round at Hot Wave. Everyone except Sound were already sitting at the desk making a list and eating in between.
Sound approached the table, when he heard a girls voice “P’Sound?” It was one of the ‘popular girls’ a year under him. She stops in front of him and holds out her Phone. “Can I ha-“
“Sorry Nong. If you’re a fan, I’d be happy to take a picture with you and am great full for your support. But -“ he looks down at her phone, clearly seeing the opened Line app. “I can’t give you my Line ID. I hope you understand.” He smiles at her politely and waits for her reaction. She stammers and looks around for her friends for help who were huddling at the table to the left of them. Sound takes a look at the table he was just heading to and saw Win staring at them. Their eyes briefly meet before Win turns his head back to his plate and start shovelling food into his mouth.
“If you please excuse me, I’m on my way to eat lunch with my friends.” And with that he leaves the stunned girl and goes forth with a smile on his face.
“Hey Ai’Sound, what took you so long? Take a seat, we were just discussing the live show” said Gun and patted the seat beside him. Sound sat down right opposite of Win, who kept eating, head down over his plate.
Por tapped lightly on the table to get Sounds attention “Why are you smiling? Did we crack another thousand views on you MV?” He asked with a giddy smile.
Pat elbowed him. “Didn’t you see? Nong Chompoo just asked him for his Line ID! Ai’Sound you are lucky bastard, and an you idiot for not give her you Line. She’s the hottest girl in our school! You could at least helped a brother out and give her my Line ID.”
“Enough” Gun exclaimed and waved his sheet of paper around “back to business” and he went back into planning with Yo and the others. Sound started eating his lunch and listened to what they had to say, not really needing to contribute. Gun seemed to have gotten a grip on his club president position and laid out a great practice schedule for them.
Sound kept eating and when he almost finished his meal he took a big swig of his oishi honey lemon green tee. While doing so he looked at Win who was staring back at him with a puzzled look.
“What?” Sound screw the bottle cap back on.
“Nothing!” Win answered with a higher pitched voice and turned his attention to his phone, scrolling through IG.
The others were still busy planning and daydreaming about HotWave.
Sound took his phone out and softly kicked Win’s foot to get his attention which earned him an immediate kick back by.
“Calm the hell down, I just wanted to ask you something, damn!”
“What is it?”
Sound slides his phone to Win and took a breath. “Ai’Win? Can I have the name of your Spotify account?”
“Huh?” To Sound’s surprise Win kept his voice down and didn’t shout like he usually did..
“Well, for future songs I wanted to know how to best integrate your rapping.” He looked at Win’s face recovering from whatever emotion was placed on it a second ago.
“So I want to know what artist and songs you like to understand your style a bit more.”
“Erm, yeah sure… I have a few public playlists i curated a while ago.” He took Sound’s phone, typed in his Spotify username, and slid it back across to him.
“Great! I’ll listen to them on my way home. Are there any artists that are your absolute favourites and I should be checking out?”
“Hell yeah, man!” WIn grabbed Sounds phone again and continued to enthusiastically show Sound his favourite Rappers.
“You have to listen to ‘YOUNGOHMM’ of course, he got a new album out. ‘MILLI’ as well. And oh don’t forget ‘Rap Against Dictatorship’. An absolute must! For some calmer vibes, go listen to ‘AUTTA’. Oh I know what you’ll love! There’s this band doing Rap AND Metal, they’re called ‘Bomb at Track’ and are right up your alley! But my absolute favourite is ‘TangBadVoice’. You HAVE to listen to him! That dude is spitting fire! He does more than just Rap. Also he’s a walking ball of sunshine and is hella creative with what he’s doing. He even does cute illustrations of capybaras. Capybaras!!” Win went on to open up IG on Sound’s phone and showed him the aforementioned Capybara illustrations, smiling brightly at Sound, who is smiling and nodding back at him.
“Cute”
— — —
The next day the Chinzillas started their practice regiment for their fist live show at Hot Wave. Everyone was tuning their instruments when Win got the attention of the others.
“Hey guys, my bass sounds a bit weird.” Por looks up from his Keyboard “How so?”
“I don’t know, just dull.” And he kept strumming the strings to demonstrate.
“I know what’s wrong with it” said Sound from across the room, still tuning his guitar and not even looking in Win’s direction.
Win huffed “Since when are you a Bass expert, huh? Think you know everything? I can get it to work!” And turned the tuning pegs even tighter.
Sound looked back at Win. “How long ago have you changed the strings?”
“Changed?” Win looks down at them. “The strings?” Gun interjects.
“Yes the strings. How long ago?”
Sound put down his guitar and went to the others and grabbed the body of the bass hanging from Win’s torso to examine the strings.
“How should I know? And I’m sure they don’t need to be changes. They’re thick as hell and not like guitar strings. They’re absolutely ok, look!”
Sound looked up at Win displeased with the strings he examined. “Bass strings will sound fucking dull after a while. Either you have to clean them, which is a hassle, or change them. Gun, are there any replacements strings laying around somewhere?”
Gun looks around “ehhh I think the seniors have always put spare parts over there into that locker” and points to it.
“Ok guys, I’ll deal with this myself. Keep tuning and prepare for the practice. Win, you come with me.” And so Sound pulled Win with him at the strap of the Bass.
“Ouch, stop it! I’ll follow you dickhead!”
Sound signalled him to sit on the couch and then went rummaging around in the locker until he triumphantly presented some packaged bass things and pliers.
He sat down, took Win’s bass to rest on both of their laps and they got to work removing the old strings.
“Hold this” he gave Win one part of the String and started with the process of changing them, explaining Win what he was doing in every step. When the new strings were on, Win gave them a pluck.
“The bass will sound a little weird at the beginning with the new Strings on. But you’ll break them in soon enough. Good that we’re changing them now, or the bass would sound awful at HotWave.”
Win nods, stops, and turns to look at Sound. “How the hell do you know so much about bass guitars?”
Sound sighs. “The easy answer is that of course I know every instrument because I am a great artist.”
Win scoffed.
“But to be honest, I have a soft spot for the bass.” Sound looked down at it and touched the thick strings. “The beat created by the bass, and the drums for that matter, is the most important part of a song. More important than some fancy chord progressions on the guitar. A band without a bass, is a band without a soul. At least in my opinion.” He lifts his head to look back at Win.
“I actually played the bass for many years. You could say I fell in love with it. But I had to stop and put all my energy into mastering the guitar to become successful as a solo artist.” Sound was silent for a moment “I miss it sometimes”
Win stayed silent.
“So yeah that’s basically why I know so much about it. And you should too! You’re the bassist of the band for fuck’s sake!” Sound shoved the bass from his lap fully into Win’s and stood up. “Let’s go already, the others are waiting”
“Ai’Sound.”
Sound turns back to look at Win. “What?”
Win looked up at him. “Thanks.”
Sound nods and goes back to the group, suppressing a smile. Win followed him a moment later.
The Band practiced for hours and even went without their usual dinner to make some more time for practice and just snacked in between songs. After they were informed by the guard that it’s time to lock down the school, the Chinzillas went home, tired but incredibly happy with their progress.
— — —
That was last evening. And now Sound is picking up snack packages from the floor and tries to suppress a yawn as he throws them into the trash. Cleaning helped a bit with his thoughts wandering back to what has happened the last few days.
Soon enough the room was clean and the others were coming in. The girls happily hand in hand, Pat sad and sulking, and Win looked mostly just tired. Sound wondered if he stayed up some more last night after the late practice to break in the strings on his bass.
“Oh, hi Sound!” The girls greeted him and set down their bags on the other side of the room. Sound gave them a little smile and wave. Pat joined him and crossed his arms “Ai’ Sound you get more attention fron them and they are gay. What the hell do you have that I don’t?” he whines
“Respect for women.” Sound sighs.
“Also I don’t have the need to flirt with them. And neither should you. Now stop whining and tie us together so that we can start to rehearse”
Phat leaves him and Win to get the piece of fabric, still murmuring under his breath.
Sound can feel Win’s eyes on him so he turns his head and finds Win looking at him questioning and otherwise untypically quiet.
“What are you looking at? Aren’t you already over the girl? Please don’t mope around and focus on the rehearsal.“ Sound stops speaking to yawn “Let’s get it over with so we can get our grade tomorrow and focus only on Hot Wave.”
“Hey! I’m not moping around, jackass.” Win takes a step closer to Sound.
“Guys, are you ready?” The others approached them with their scripts and fabric in hand.
“Yes.” Win takes a big breath and shakes his hands “Let’s get this over with”
Once again they’re being tied together and they all start rehearsing the school play.
During practice, every time Win fucks up a line and gets frustrated, Sound pats him on the back and says “You got this buddy”. And when it gets really bad, Sound gets him to snap out of it by scratching his fingers at Win’s waist, which only they know is a threat for another round of a tickle fight. Win is quick to swat away Sound’s hands and gets back into the Scene.
They have already made good progress with the rehearsal but there are still some scenes left to go through.
After a while the girls put down their scripts. “Guys is it ok if we’re doing a bathroom break? We’ll be right back!” The guys nodded and the girls went out of the room.
“Ai’Win do you need to go to the toilet?” asked Sound mockingly.
Win scoffed and held his head up high. “No. I went before practice.”
“Good boy, well done!” This earned him an elbow kick by Win.
Sound just laughs and pokes him in the side. Win uses his hands to defend himself but has to retrieve of them to hold in front of his mouth to cover his yawn.
A few seconds later Sound answers with a yawn of his own. “Ai’Win stop yawning!” Another yawn.
Meanwhile Phat made the best of the short break and is laying passed out on the couch.
“Practice went very late yesterday” Win circles his shoulders and stretches his neck in an attempt to wake him up a little. Unsuccessful.
Another yawn.
“Hmm it got pretty late” Sound answers, his eyelids and head getting heavy.
Win’s voice is quiet as he speaks “And I didn’t get much sleep last night”
“Yeah me neither” Slowly, very slowly, Sound’s chin made contact with Win’s shoulder and he yawns once again.
Win tuns his head slowly to face his band mate. “Ai’Sound?”
“What?” he mumbles.
Win sees that Sound has already closed his eyes and is in the progress of settling his head more comfortable against Win’s neck.
Win takes a deep breath “Nothing” and keeps looking at Sound’s face.
His facial muscles are relaxed. There is no bite to it, no frown, and no worry. The only thing there is a hint of a smile.
Win smiles to himself and lets out another yawn before resting his head against Sound’s, careful not to put too much weight on it and disturb the dozing off Sound.
Despite the tickling sensation of Sound’s breath against Win’s neck, he soon drifts off as well.
Minutes have past and the girls are returning to the room, stopping in their tracks.
Before them they see Win and Sound eyes closed drifting in and out of sleep. Still tied together their bodies lean into each other to get better balance, and Sound’s has his arms wrapped around Win’s waist. Sound nestled against Win’s neck and Win gently leaning against Sound’s. A tired smile is showing on both of their faces.
Four turns to her girlfriend grinning and whispering “Honey, you owe me 500 baht. I told you, my queer-dar is never wrong”
“Fine you won. But I’ll bet another 500 that they will get together in less than a month. What do you say?” Four takes her girlfriend’s hand. “Deal. I say… less than a week” and they shake their hands.