Chapter Text
Mrs. Jirawatthanakul had been very insistent.
“I know that I can’t keep you from... doing... anything you want to do while you’re both at university –”
“Mom!”
“– don’t interrupt me, Tinnaphob. And I don’t really care, dear, as long as you’re both safe and happy, of course,” she added, warmly. Tinn’s ears were pink, and Gun had to stifle a giggle. “But still, I won’t allow you to live together for the first year.” She looked at both of the boys with a sigh. “It’s about studying, really. I want you both to have a space apart from each other so that you can focus on working hard for your classes. The first year of university is so important for your academic record, Tinn! I don’t want your grades to suffer, okay? Yours either, Gun, dear.”
Gun understood her intention, and despite her reservations at times, she was a really great mom and a woman whose respect, once Gun had earned it, was worth its weight in gold.
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed quickly. “I think it’s a good idea. I have no argument.”
Besides, she didn’t forbid them from making copies of each other’s room keys.
~
It’s 11:43 pm on a Thursday night, and Gun was at the music studio longer than he planned, but surely Tinn won’t mind if he just stops by for minute, right?
Gun doesn’t even text him, because he wants this visit to be a surprise. He finished writing the lyrics to a brand new song a few hours ago, and in a fit of inspiration, he now has all but the bridge and last chorus finished and playable enough to show Tinn. Gun hurries across campus in the evening air, eager to serenade his boyfriend, clutching the same notebook from their final year of high school – the one that only ever contains love songs. Gun’s heart skips a beat, remembering how Tinn had ‘blessed’ it months ago, right around when they first started dating.
He arrives at the dorm, bouncing on his heels waiting for the elevator. He pads swiftly down the hall. Room 643. He’s practically buzzing.
Gun slips Tinn’s copied key into the lock quietly (it’s late, and Gun doesn’t want to bother the neighbors). He opens the door already grinning.
“Tinn? Ai’Tinn...?”
There’s only the soft yellow lamplight of Tinn’s desk to illuminate the little dorm room, swaddling the space in a cozy intimate glow. Tinn is asleep, his head resting on his bent arm, his chest gently rising and falling, drooling just a little onto the corner of his open, thick anatomy textbook. Splayed out around him on the desk are a beat-up notebook with most of a page filled with his tidy handwriting, a few pens in different colors, and a nearly-empty water bottle. He must have changed after his last lab that afternoon, because he’s wearing a worn-out t-shirt and sweatpants, with indoor slippers on his bare feet. His other arm hangs off the desk, the highlighter he must have been using for notes dropped and forgotten on the floor.
Gun’s heart melts into a puddle at the sight of him.
Gun closes the door behind himself, as quietly as he can, and removes his shoes. He takes his guitar off his back, and sets it down against the door, placing the notebook and his bag beside it. He wanders over carefully, noting the freshly-pressed white shirt Tinn has already prepared for tomorrow’s classes hanging on his closet door.
Tinn doesn’t stir as Gun nears him, and Gun’s smile widens even more with overwhelming fondness for the sleepy future doctor who is also his boyfriend. Gun looks up at the whiteboard where Tinn has written out, in neat handwriting, his weekly schedule – there it is. Friday morning, Anatomy 114, Lecture – Chapter 6. Then Gun checks the textbook Tinn’s heavy head is currently using as a pillow – open to chapter 8. Reading ahead, as usual. Gun shakes his head affectionately at his boyfriend’s studiousness. Even better, there’s no urgent assignment, and so no reason to truly wake him.
Gun gets to put him to bed.
Grinning all the while, Gun removes Tinn’s slippers, and slowly turns the desk chair to face him, making sure Tinn’s head stays pillowed on his arm (which has to be going numb by now, Gun would bet). He crouches down, and allows himself just a moment to sweep Tinn’s bangs away from his closed eyes. Then Gun lifts Tinn’s other arm over his shoulder, hooks his hands around Tinn’s chest, and lifts his boyfriend’s body weight against himself. Tinn’s head drops against Gun’s chest, and he stirs.
“Gun...?”
“Shhshshh. Let’s get you to bed.”
“Mmm.” (Tinn must be very tired indeed, not to even try to protest about ‘getting ahead by one more chapter’, or some other wonderfully studious nonsense that Gun hasn’t been able to disabuse him of yet.)
Tinn’s arms wrap around Gun, and he lets his boyfriend drag him toward the narrow bed. Tinn’s a little too heavy for Gun to entirely lift, but Tinn is drowsily shuffling in the right direction, while still letting Gun bear most of his weight. Gun turns them so the back of Tinn’s knees hit the bed frame, and Gun cradles Tinn’s head as he drops Tinn’s body gratefully down onto the mattress. Gun ends up sort of laying down too, pulled by the gravity of Tinn’s tired body and his hugging arms onto the dorm bed.
Gun reaches to grab the pillow and move it under Tinn’s head, and then cover him with the blanket, but Tinn immediately tightens his grip on Gun, snuggling cozily into the soft embrace of his bed, dragging Gun down almost on top of him.
“Tinn,” Gun chuckles, as Tinn hugs him even tighter.
“Stay,” mumbles Tinn, sleepily.
Gun lifts his head enough to stare at Tinn’s long eyelashes, and see the deep, contented sigh that Tinn breathes out as he relaxes and stretches his legs out on the bed.
“I love you,” whispers Gun, and kisses him on the forehead. Tinn makes a soft happy noise, and nestles in even closer.
I can show him the song in the morning, thinks Gun, smiling and closing his eyes.