Archive of Our Own ^beta

Wai's comfortable. More comfortable than he can ever really remember being. There's a warmth beneath him, a strong, solid something holding his weight. He feels relaxed – both grounded and up in the clouds at the same time – and he can barely even register the air entering and leaving his lungs for how light his breaths are coming.

He doesn't remember falling asleep. Well, he remembers the molasses feeling of sleep creeping up on him, taking hold of his legs first, turning them into dead weights dragging him deeper, and he remembers the slowing of his heart, and then... Well, the eventual closing of his eyes and drooping of his head, he presumes. Not that he recalls that part of the process.

But he's comfortable now. No need to rock the boat with trivial things like memory.

"He's asleep," Wai hears, whispered from somewhere to his left. He's glad to be mistaken for a slumbering Wai. Slumbering Wai doesn't have to answer to anyone.

"You should wake him up. It's late."

Pran. That's Pran's voice. Wai would know it anywhere.

"Me? He's your friend."

And that’s Pat. Obviously. They come as a pair these days.

If Wai was more awake, he’d feel indignant about the tone of Pat’s voice. As it is, he’s just starting to regain consciousness, meaning he's now aware enough to clock that the warmth he's lying on is not actually a heated pillow (he's pretty sure Pran doesn't own anything like that) but an actual body (Pran does own one of those – two of them in fact, if you count the puppy constantly attached to his hip).

So if Wai's lying on someone, then, well, there are only two options. It's either Pran, or it's Pat, and Wai knows which he'd prefer. He's fallen asleep in Pran's bed, on Pran's sofa, on Pran's floor, on Pran enough times to feel more than comfortable doing it again (even with the way his stomach always gives a little flutter when he wakes in those positions). That's how they've always been, the two of them – I'll let you sleep here if you let me sleep there when I need it, but let's not speak of it, not really. Wai likes it that way. It's safe.

Right now, the odds of who he’s sleeping on are 50/50, because both Pat and Pran had been sitting to Wai's left at the beginning of the evening. Wai had come over to watch a movie – one that Pran had been pestering Wai about watching together for a while, ever since he’d seen it himself, some kind of old Chinese film with a director whose name Wai couldn’t remember – and Pat had joined them after fifteen minutes, obviously bored without a Pran to entertain him for the night. And even though Wai is sure Pat had been slouched next to Pran on the couch, and Wai himself on Pran’s opposite side, he knows that with his luck (and all the negative karma his temper has racked up over the years), his choice of sleeping partner is likely to be at least 70% in favour of Pat. Dammit.

And now that Wai is thinking about it, like, really thinking about it, he's starting to realise that the body he can feel plastered to his left side doesn't really feel like Pran at all. There's none of his usual give and softness, and come to think of it, the rise and fall of his breath doesn't sound familiar either.

Oh no. Wai is screwed. He's fallen asleep on Pat. He came to hang out with Pran and he's ended up with his face smushed into Pat's huge bicep (what business does his bicep have being that big, anyway? He's just asking for it to be used as a pillow at this point, Wai thinks furiously) and now, Wai notes with mortification, his cheeks have started to burn up.

The logical thing to do in this situation would be to wake up and act like nothing happened. Buddha knows he's done that plenty of times before with Pran, when he’s found himself sleeping on him in an awkwardly intimate position. They're experts at skirting around that type of thing. But with Pat? This is uncharted waters, and every additional second Wai spends pretending to be asleep is another second he spends pressed against Pat.

His spiralling is swiftly interrupted, though, by an exasperated Pran.

"Wai, I know you're awake. Just get up." Pran kicks Wai's shin where his leg is dangling towards the floor. Ugh.

Wai knows he can't argue with Pran, and he doesn't really want to when he's feeling this groggy anyway, so he just groans exaggeratedly and cracks an eye open to stare in the direction of Pran's voice.

"You woke me up, jackass," he lies, ignoring the way Pat fidgets underneath him. Wai still hasn't moved. Maybe if he ignores Pat enough, he'll just stop existing and Wai won't have to deal with any fallout.

“Fall asleep on my couch, get woken up on my terms.” Pran leans down to ruffle Wai’s hair and smile sweetly at him, his stupid little dimple flashing like it knows exactly how it makes Wai feel. “You know the rules.”

Wai swats Pran’s hand away and rolls his eyes, then finally, gingerly sits up, trying not to touch Pat any more than is necessary. His hand had been on Pat’s thigh – talk about awkward – and he’s pretty sure he left a little dried patch of drool on Pat's bare arm, but he’s too scared to look back and confirm. He can’t face Pat right now. He can’t.

He wipes at the crusted corner of his mouth, and tries to simultaneously smooth down his hair and arrange his rumpled yellow T-shirt into something a little more– well. Something a little less I-just-woke-up-from-a-nap-on-the-arm-of-my-best-friend’s-boyfriend, at least. God, he feels pathetic. He can feel Pran watching him with amusement. He doesn’t dare consider whether Pat is looking at him too.

“Best be going then,” Wai mumbles, too quiet. He coughs, and then repeats more firmly, “I’ll get going, then.”

Pran’s gaze softens knowingly, and he rolls his eyes in a way that Wai hopes is fond. Wai rolls his eyes in return, and when his gaze lands back on Pran, Wai sees him glance across at Pat, who Wai is trying desperately to ignore. But Wai obviously (stupidly) can’t seem to help himself, because his eyes follow Pran’s line of sight regardless.

What he sees is this: Pat, still slouched into the corner of the sofa, eyes a little droopy, his tank top skewed sideways around his torso, his shorts riding up on one side (the side Wai’s hand had been on), and an imprint of Wai’s hair and face criss crossed in pinkish marks around his right arm. All this to say, he looks just as ruffled as Wai feels, and Wai realises with a pit in his stomach that that means Pat must have fallen asleep too. Somehow, that makes it worse.

Wai falling asleep on Pat is one thing – an awkward moment they can laugh off as a blip in the grand scheme of things – but the two of them falling asleep together, draped over each other, on Pran’s couch? Wai doesn’t think he’ll ever recover from this. He can’t show Pran his face again – nevermind Pat. What can he even say? Sorry, I didn’t mean for us to sleep togeth– on each other. Your boyfriend is just comfy. And evidently he thinks I am, too.

Wai is so, so screwed.

And so he does the only thing he can think of – he bolts out of there, grabbing his phone and keys off the side table, haphazardly shoving his feet into his worn out shoes, and slamming the door behind him with a casual call of, “See you tomorrow!” directed at Pran. He hurries down the corridor and smashes the button to call the elevator, hopping on one foot with his finger in the back of his shoe, trying to pull it on properly.

That’s where Pran finds him, staring desperately at the bright 6 illuminated in the LED screen above the elevator doors. He plants himself between Wai and that 6.

“You forgot your phone,” Pran says, holding out Wai’s phone.

If that’s his phone, then– “Whose phone is this?” Wai pulls out the one he had shoved in his pocket as he left, and the screen lights up as he does so, to show a photo of some kind of ragged plushie doll, all tucked up in what looks like Pran’s bed, with Pran’s signature smiley lamp – the one Wai got for him – lit up in the background. Wai almost drops the phone in his haste to swap it with the one in Pran’s hand.

A beat passes.

Wai isn’t sure how to continue.

He blinks, and the LED screen above Pran’s head switches to 5.

“Some people thank their friends for this kind of thing, you know,” Pran remarks, gesturing with Pat’s phone in his hand. The elevator pings its arrival behind him.

Wai feels the tension leave his body at Pran’s comment. The familiarity of brushing an awkward situation under the rug instantly relaxes him.

“And when have we ever been ‘some people’?” Wai retorts, shouldering his way past Pran with a smirk and into the elevator. Pran turns as he goes, and puts out a hand to hold the door.

“You missed most of the movie,” he says, sincere. “Come over on the weekend to finish it?”

Wai nods and leans forward to pinch Pran’s cheek.

“Now let me go home, sweetheart. Don’t keep your boy waiting.”

Pran pulls out of Wai’s reach and shakes his head with a smile. The elevator doors begin sliding closed, and the last thing Wai hears is a slightly muffled, “And if you’re that tired, just tell me next time instead of falling asleep on my boyfriend’s shoulder!”

* * *

Wai is starting to learn that most days he's more tired than he lets on – even to himself. He used to think he could cruise through classes, and work, and sports, and extra-curriculars, and socialising, and everything else, on the little sleep his packed schedule allowed him. Gotta make the most of being young, puen, he used to repeat to Pran whenever he expressed any concern. But maybe he's just aged a lot over the last few months, because he can't seem to handle it like he used to.

Every morning he finds himself waking up with eyelids heavier than the last, and every morning he struggles to remind himself exactly why he’s taken on so much. It would be so easy to just quit everything, he thinks.

Still, he trudges on.

By the time the weekend rolls around and he’s wiping down the bar after closing time on Friday night, he’s feeling exhausted and then some. All he can think about is slipping into his cool bed sheets and sleeping for at least twelve hours when he gets back to his dorm. The fantasy of that scenario keeps him going as he finishes up the last of the tasks before locking up, his body moving on autopilot to load glasses into the dishwasher, mop the floor, wipe down the tables, sweep the entrance, lock the wine cellar and the office, jam the back door’s broken handle, double check the lock on the office, hit the lights and leave with an exhale on his lips.

It’s not raining when he steps outside but the air feels heavy with humidity. He sticks his hands in his pockets and speedwalks towards his dorm, brain fog as thick (and as surprisingly peaceful) as the air around him.

When he’s barely a stone’s throw from his building, he remembers he hasn’t checked his phone since before his shift started. He isn’t really expecting any messages – it’s not like anyone checks in on him regularly – but as soon as the thought is in his mind, he can’t let go of it without peeking. Just in case.

[por.pran, 21:08]: Bring snacks tomorrow.

Wai stares at the message from Pran for at least a full minute before his brain kicks into motion. Oh, yeah. The movie. Typical Pran, to send a reminder without really sending a reminder. Wai smiles down at his phone, and the movement of the muscles in his face feels foreign for how long he hasn’t put them into action. Typical Pran, to make him smile without intending it. And typical Wai, to be pulled into Pran’s orbit, despite his bone deep exhaustion.

[waiyak0rn, 01:44]: at your service, puen

Moments before Wai slips into his cool bed sheets with a sigh, he makes sure to set an alarm for the following morning. His twelve hours of beauty sleep can wait.

* * *

Wai’s comfortable. More comfortable than he’s ever– no, that’s not right. He sticks an arm out and only feels a blessedly cool, empty bed. His own bed.

And that would be the sound of his alarm going off.

He fumbles to snooze it, and goes through the motions of his morning routine on autopilot once again – most things are done on autopilot these days – and is out of the door before he can think twice, eye bags in tow. He can’t remember the last time they weren’t hanging off him like a malevolent spirit.

When he arrives at Pran’s dorm, ice cream that he picked up along the way in hand, Pat lets him in with a smile. Wai slips off his shoes and tries not to think about what happened the last time he was here.

The movie passes by relatively uneventfully. Wai feels far more tired this time than he did at the beginning of the week, but he’s also far more determined to stay awake. And he manages it, mostly, only succumbing to the weight of his eyelids for a few seconds at a time before he forces them open again with a gritting of his teeth. He eats ice cream in heaped spoonfuls, the resulting brain freeze numbing the tiredness he feels. And it’s only once that his head drops onto Pran’s shoulder, just for a split second, but he jolts awake and upright before Pran can react, and resolutely refuses to look away from the TV even as he feels Pran’s eyes assessing him.

All in all, Wai thinks of it as a success. He even manages to follow the movie’s plot, for the most part, and doesn’t feel entirely lost when Pran starts rambling about the set design and symbolism, post-credit roll. He places a hand over the warm one Pran has resting on Wai’s knee as he rambles, and zones out, happy.

He might not be getting his beauty sleep, but who needs that when you have a best friend, a boy you love, eager to share his passion with you?

* * *

Monday morning arrives, as unwelcome as ever.

Wai drags himself to the library, trying to make the most of the time freed up by their cancelled classes to work on the plans for his third year Design Project. Pran had messaged the Arch3 group chat to inform their cohort of the timetable change early this morning, passing on the note from their Professor, and then messaged the Arch3Musketeers ft. Mae Pran group chat separately:

[por.pran, 06:56]: I’m staying home.

[safe.ty, 07:15]: hell yeah let’s sleep

[por.pran, 07:16]: To work on my model for Professor Khom’s class.

[safe.ty, 07:16]: zzzzzzzzz

[loui555, 07:33]: aw Pran, can’t you come to campus? I need help with mineee

[por.pran, 07:40]: We can talk about it at lunch.

[waiyak0rn, 08:02]: gonna be in lib all morning @loui555 if you’re around

Wai didn’t get a response from Louis, so he assumes the poor guy fell back asleep after he realised he wouldn’t be getting any help from Pran this morning. So here Wai is, alone except for his stupid, dead-weight eye bags, staring down the barrel of the three textbooks he just lugged out of the Architecture section of the library. He can’t wait to get started.

* * *

Coffee. He wants coffee. No – he can smell coffee.

Wai peels his eyes open, not without a lot of effort, and finds himself face to face with an iced coffee, condensation pooling at its base where it sits next to the open textbook he’s using as a pillow.

He groans, eyes falling shut again, neck protesting in pain as he heaves himself up, stretching his arms behind his back until he feels a satisfying pop. When he reopens his eyes, he realises he’s not alone.

Pat, of all people, is sitting sideways in the unoccupied seat next to him, messenger bag still slung across his body, as if he’s ready to bolt out of there at any moment. Wai freezes for a second, unsure. He and Pat don’t usually spend any time together without anyone else around.

“S’for you,” says Pat, motioning towards the drink on the desk.

“Oh,” says Wai, eloquently, and then a beat later, “thanks.” He picks it up and takes a sip. It’s refreshing. “You didn’t have to.”

Pat smiles, like he’s got a secret tucked into his back pocket.

“Let’s get out of here, yeah? You look like you could use a break.” Pat stands, and only then does Wai realise he’s holding a drink of his own. And only then does Wai also spot the clock on the wall behind Pat’s head, and only then does it finally click that it’s now well into the afternoon, which means he’s already missed at least one class, and probably half of another, and no-one came to find him for lunch, and–

Pat must see the panic in his eyes, because he claps a hand down on Wai’s shoulder and says, “Hey, don’t worry,” and Wai is really beginning to notice how piercing his eyes are, “Pran’s taking notes for you. And I’m under strict instructions to take you straight home. No afternoon classes.”

The words don’t quite compute themselves in Wai’s brain.

“Take me… home?” he repeats dumbly.

There’s that secret-keeping smile again. Pat’s eyes crinkle slightly at the corners. Wai never really noticed that before.

“Yes, puen. Pack up.” He claps Wai on the shoulder twice more and then straightens up, slurping on his drink way too loudly for library etiquette. Wai winces but doesn’t comment. Pran would have scolded Pat if he was here, Wai thinks.

Wai puts his things away on autopilot. He doesn’t even know how far he got on his project – he can’t remember falling asleep and the papers strewn around him don’t seem to be making any sense to his sleep-addled, Pat-muddled brain. But he supposes Pran wanted this for him – to go home and get some rest – so he shoves the guilt gnawing at his gut down, way down, as he shoves his papers into his bag, and sucks it up. He can spend 20 minutes in a car with Pat if it means making Pran happy, his own pride at being told what to do be damned.

(He knows, really, that if Pran had come to the library himself to take Wai home, there’s no way he would have agreed to it – but with Pat as the middleman, Wai doesn’t really know how to put up a fight. Not anymore, at least.

He’s just too damn tired.)

* * *

Wai has never been in the passenger seat of Pat’s car. The backseat, sure, a million times – with Pran up front and Pat driving – but the passenger seat is new territory. As they pull out of the parking space, Pat switches the radio on low, the music barely a hum drifting through the cool, comfortable air of the car.

Wai hugs his bag on his lap and watches the city go by as they pick up speed, people of all ages going about their days, cars of all colours passing by and countless motorbikes weaving their way through them, the sun beating down onto scorched tarmac and worn faces.

It hasn’t rained in a long time. Wai misses it; glaring sunlight and blazing heat is never quite as rejuvenating as a downpour. He can feel the outline of his umbrella pressing against his legs through the bottom of his flimsy bag. It’s always in there, even when the rainy season has long since passed, in a perfect illustration of what Wai’s mother would dub his stupidly wishful thinking.

Maybe he just wants to be closer to the rain, to that feeling of freshness. Or closer to the idea of it, at least. Maybe it would help him wake up.

* * *

When Wai opens his eyes, something’s changed. He remembers being in Pat’s car, remembers thinking about the rain, and remembers people watching – but now it’s dark, and he’s in a bed.

It’s not his own.

And it’s not Pran’s either.

As his eyes adjust to the low light in the room, he makes out the shape of a plushie tucked under the covers next to him – the same one he saw on the lockscreen of Pat’s phone.

Oh. This is Pat’s bed.

Wai feels frozen in place. He’s not sure what he’s allowed to do, and it doesn’t help that he has no idea what time it is, or how exactly he got here (although it doesn’t really take a genius to guess what might have occurred). Seriously, what is it with him and falling asleep around Pat? And not just light sleep, either. Both times it’s happened, Wai has woken feeling like he’s been conked out for years, with his body cosplaying as a sack of bricks and his mind completely unawares, not even a wisp of a dream swirling around in there.

At least this time he feels somewhat well rested.

He strains his ears, trying to listen out for the sounds of someone else being around, but he can’t seem to see anyone – he’s definitely alone in the bed, save for that plushie – or hear anyone, either. He really doesn’t know whether that’s good or bad, and he can’t tell what he’d prefer. As it stands, his muscles feel coiled tight in anticipation of… something. He can’t move.

After a few minutes, he still feels stupidly on edge, even though he’s almost 100% certain now that no one else (Pat included) is around. He just can't quite stop his mind from racing about the whole thing – not just about waking up here in Pat's bed (fully dressed, thankfully, although he's sure he had socks on this morning, which now seem to not be on his feet anymore), but also about Pat being nice to him, reaching out and showing him care even after the embarrassing incident of last week's movie night.

Wai doesn't understand.

He still feels mortified when he thinks about his hand on Pat's thigh as they slept, and about how Pran probably saw it and yet didn't say a word, nor even attempt to move them into a more appropriate position, apparently. Isn't Pat feeling equally embarrassed about that night? He did fall asleep too, after all. Or at least that's what Wai had assumed. Now he's doubting his memory of those moments before he had legged it away from the scene – maybe Pat hadn't slept at all, and he'd just been indulging Wai the whole time, allowing himself to be manipulated into a human mattress, pillow and cuddle buddy all in one.

Was it pity? Had Pat cottoned on to Wai's feelings about Pran? Did he just feel bad for Wai, who was obviously insanely sleep deprived? Had Pran told him to indulge Wai's clingy behaviour, to give himself a reprieve from it? Did that mean Pran was finally getting sick of Wai?

Wai's mind is running circles around him, throwing up stupid theory after stupid theory to explain the situation, but nothing seems to stick. And in the midst of his mental tossing and turning, he slides a hand under the pillow he’s lying on, and is met with the cool material of his phone. He pulls it out, and sees two messages previewed on his lockscreen, underneath the current time of 20:22.

[patlnwza55+, 19:17]: have 2 go help paa with sth, u can eat the leftovers on the counter if u wake up HANGRY!!!

[patlnwza55+, 19:18]: it’s pran’s cooking ;)

[por.pran, 20:20]: Call me when you’re home. We can go over today’s notes.

Wai doesn’t eat at Pat’s place, but he does take the box of laab with him when he leaves. He’s never one to refuse Pran’s cooking.

* * *

It becomes a routine. Well, kind of.

It’s just that – Pat is a person who is extremely difficult to say no to, once you’ve started saying yes to him. Or even after you’ve said yes to him only one time. Or even before you’ve ever really said yes at all. He’s persistent, and he’s insistent, and worst of all, he’s so painfully, honestly genuine about it, that no matter what Wai tries in order to dispel Pat’s attention on him… it just doesn’t work.

Wai’s exhaustion is meeting its match in Pat’s determination to exterminate it.

It goes like this: Wai, at first falling asleep in public places, like that time in the library – drifting off during class, napping between his design workshop and rugby practice on Wednesday afternoons, resting his eyes at the coffee shop while he waits for his order to be called out – and Pat, somehow catching him in the act every time.

Pat, sending him a text with a single random emoji so the vibration of his phone jolts him awake again in class.

Pat, handing him a travel blanket and pillow to use in his Wednesday naps.

Pat, bringing him his usual iced coffee before he even has time to consider going to the cafe himself.

And it continues: Wai, catching a ride home from rugby with Pat (to Wai’s own place, now that Pat knows the address by heart, because of course he does). Pat, dropping into one of Wai and Pran’s stupidly long video calls on a day where they’ve already been around each other on campus for a stupidly long time, leaning down behind Pran to drop a kiss on his head, and then say, “Hey, you should sleep soon,” to Wai. To Wai. Not to Pran, his boyfriend, who must have been awake for an equally lengthy amount of time, and who is hanging around on this call for no good reason (they ran out of things to talk about hours ago). Pran hums thoughtfully in response, as if agreeing with Pat. Wai doesn’t know what to make of it – of any of it.

The first time Pat drops by Wai’s place without warning, it’s a Friday night, and Wai isn’t home. He never is on Fridays – they’re the one shift he has at the bar that never changes, week by week – and Pran knows this. But Pat doesn’t. So when Wai arrives at his dorm several hours after midnight to see a note stuck to his door, he’s a little confused, to say the least.

I left food for you in the fridge. Eat well and then sleep. Sweet dreams. - P

The note confuses him. On the one hand, if someone with the initial P has been into his apartment, the most obvious candidate would be Pran. The security know him, after all, because he’s been here more than enough times, and they would let him in. (Wai knows this for a fact, because there was a time a few months back that he got super sick with a fever that came out of nowhere and hit him like a freight train, and Pran made the security at Wai’s building open up Wai’s door so that he could take care of him with home-cooked food and endless sponge baths. Those were arguably the longest five days of Wai’s life.) But regardless of the logistics of getting into his apartment, the words of the note itself are what don’t make sense to Wai. They’re too… direct. Pran is never quite so forthcoming with his care. That’s something that Wai took a long time to come to terms with, that Pran would never quite make clear how much he cares about Wai (and Wai knows he cares, the fever episode is more than enough proof) in the same way that Wai always does for Pran.

As soon as Wai steps inside his flat, he knows immediately that his instinct was right, and that his unknown visitor was not Pran. Pran would have tidied things up out of habit. But Wai’s guitar is still propped against the side of his desk, and its case is still lying crumpled on the floor nearby, exactly where he left it when he last played guitar about three weeks ago.

There’s a feeling bubbling up in Wai’s stomach, something he doesn’t quite know how to interpret, as his brain jumps to the most obvious conclusion about who the mystery P is. What with how Pat’s been treating him recently… No, surely not. The thought of Pat being in Wai’s space, of him being forward and charming enough to get the security guard to let him into the building, should set off alarm bells in Wai’s head. Instead, all he feels is this ridiculous, fluttering warmth spreading throughout his body as he stands like an idiot in the middle of his dorm room.

The feeling grows when Wai checks his fridge, the post-it note still attached to his ring finger, and sees four boxes, each stuffed to the brim with different foods. Altogether, it would be enough to feed a family; there’s no way Wai can eat it all in one sitting. He can’t stop the smile from tugging at his lips.

He must be crazy, Wai thinks, staring at the food in disbelief.

I must be crazy, he thinks, fingers reaching up to touch the smile that’s taken up permanent residence on his face.

Later, after he’s washed himself up and then eaten one whole box of food – he started with the pad kaprao, obviously – he shoots Pran, who was presumably the chef to Pat’s delivery boy, a text.

[waiyak0rn, 02:34]: food was delicious, as usual

He knows Pran is usually asleep at this time, and so he assumes Pat will be as well, which means he doesn’t feel that self-conscious when he spends a good 10 minutes typing, deleting, and re-typing various iterations on a ‘thank you’ message to Pat. But he can’t fight the voice in his head telling him that everything was Pran’s idea, and that it’s stupid to thank Pat for something he did on Pran’s behalf, so he ends up chucking his phone onto the sofa with a huff and heading to bed without saying a word.

In the morning, after he revives his battery-less phone with some charging as he makes breakfast, he sees that he’d received a message moments after he’d gone to bed.

[patlnwza55+, 02:46]: you’re welcome <33

And another, not long before he woke up.

[por.pran, 09:09]: It wasn’t me who made it ):)

* * *

Wai devours Pat’s cooking the way he only ever does with Pran’s, usually. And a few days later, after several failed attempts to return the clean tupperware boxes to Pat on campus, Wai heads over to Pat’s dorm with the boxes, an iced tea that he picked up on the way out of impulse, and a tickling nervousness in his belly.

It feels odd, reaching Pran’s door and then turning the opposite way to knock on Pat’s instead. He makes a conscious effort not to turn back around and look at Pran’s door, but as the seconds stretch into minutes and there seems to be no one coming to answer his knocks, he wonders why he decided to do this on a Tuesday evening, without sending any kind of heads up beforehand. He must be stupid. He didn’t even text Pran, which would have made sense – he could just as easily leave the boxes at Pran's rather than return them directly to Pat. But he supposes he just feels… somewhat indebted to Pat. He still hasn't said thank you yet, and the you're welcome text from Friday night taunts him every time he opens LINE, his phone burning a hole in his pocket alongside the post-it that Wai tucked into his wallet, next to some other older ones from Pran.

As the minutes stretch into more minutes, he feels ever-stupider about this escapade. His right hand is frozen from gripping the iced tea, and he's starting to regret ever coming here. It's just as he's on the cusp of making up his mind – this was a stupid idea and I'm leaving, I can give these stupid boxes to Pran tomorrow – and turning on his heel in the direction of the elevator, that he hears the sound of something achingly familiar coming his way.

His chest constricts and he feels a ridiculous need to hide, eyes darting around for an escape route but finding none. Instead, they land on this: Pran, head thrown back in laughter, playfully shoving Pat around the corner as they enter the corridor, and Pat playfully stumbling and clutching his arm (the one Pran made contact with) as if in pain, which only makes Pran smile harder as he purses his lips together tightly. He never was very good at hiding a smile.

Wai aches with something indescribable – he's burning both hot and cold – as Pat stumbles back into Pran's side and links their arms so that they're marching down the corridor together.

That's when they spot Wai.

Pran's tight-lipped smile breaks out into a grin across his face, and Wai can't make out the dimple denting Pran's cheek from here but he knows it's there. Pat waves exaggeratedly, his free arm making a huge arc over his head as if they're 100m apart rather than 10.

Wai's hands are full so he can't really wave back, but he awkwardly raises the iced tea in greeting. And then because he's utterly brainless, obviously, he shakes it like he's waving it, which causes a portion of the liquid to slosh out and over his hand, dripping uncomfortably down his arm. He winces. Smooth.

He lowers his hand gingerly, then brings it back up to try and lick away some of the damage. He feels like an idiot.

Pat and Pran reach him in the meantime, and both of them immediately reach out to empty his hands of their possessions – Pran taking the bag of empty tupperwares, and Pat grabbing the slightly sticky, no-longer-quite-so-iced tea. Pat takes a sip, and then they start talking at the same time.

"Mmmm, so tasty!"

"Did you text?"

Pran shoots a glare at Pat, who smiles sheepishly from behind his straw, and lets Pran continue.

"I didn't know you were coming over."

Wai shifts awkwardly now that his hands are empty, holding his right one away from his body at an odd angle to contain the stickiness.

"Just wanted to return the boxes," Wai says, nodding to the bag in Pran's hand. He doesn't look at Pat, but he can feel the blinding smile directed his way anyway.

Pran shares a look with Pat that goes over Wai’s head. He feels too out of sorts to decipher it right now.

“How was the food?” asks Pran.

“Alright, I guess.”

“How about the chef?” Pat butts in, winking stupidly when Wai and Pran both turn to him. Wai watches, baffled, as Pran tries to discreetly elbow Pat in the side. Which is to say, not discreetly at all, considering Wai is standing two feet away and looking directly at them both.

Before he can even think about responding to Pat's comment, though, Pran beats him to it.

“He thinks the chef is an idiot and a stalker, I’d say. Sounds about right, too.”

“Yeah, well, the chef is also a nice guy,” Pat sticks his tongue out at Pran, who turns his nose up at the action in a way that Wai can tell is just an imitation of disgust. “A nice guy who’s offering to let this poor man into his apartment to clean up the iced tea on his arm. Come on, puen.”

Wai is still trying to understand exactly what’s going on here – and how he ended up in the middle of this weirdly flirtatious argument – as Pat grabs Wai’s (clean) arm and turns him towards his own door, fishing for his keys in his pocket. Wai instinctively looks back at Pran, who just shrugs, pulling that smug face he always does when he’s playing along with a game that Wai doesn’t quite follow.

When Pat’s finally finished unlocking the door, Pran has also done the same with his own, and is leaning against the door jamb with the room visible behind him, arms folded across his chest. Pat rushes inside his own dorm unawares, kicking his shoes off wildly and throwing his keys across the room to a location Wai can only hope he was aiming for – otherwise they’ll surely never be found. Pat only turns back when he realises that Wai isn’t following him.

Wai looks between Pat and Pran, bewildered. He feels like he’s back in school, forced to pick a partner for an activity, and the two choices he’s presented with are both his best friends. Which is weird, because Pat isn’t his best friend – Pran is. In fact, Pat isn’t really anywhere close to being his best friend, right? He’s just a guy who’s dating Pran, and who has recently, oddly, taken to ensuring Wai gets all the shut-eye he should be getting. Wai doesn’t know what to call someone like that. And he’s not sure he wants to go into either of their dorm rooms right now, to be brutally honest. The corridor is his safe zone. No man’s land.

So, instead of making a move in any direction, he says, “You guys can go back to your–” he waves his hand around vaguely, gesturing between them. He hopes that gets the point across. “Don’t wanna disturb you.”

There’s an awkward silence as Wai stares at the floor by his feet, studying the non-existent patterns in the corridor carpet. He doesn’t move to leave, though. Something is anchoring him to the spot.

“You're not disturbing anything!” Pat calls from inside his room.

Wai looks up at Pran for confirmation. Pran pushes himself off the door frame to stand upright, stepping backwards into his room.

“Just let him clean your arm up and give you a fresh shirt, at least. You know your bus ride home from here is bad enough as it is,” he says softly, quiet enough for Pat not to hear from where he’s rummaging around in his wardrobe, half-drunk iced tea forgotten on the kitchen counter.

Pran closes his door without another word, and after a moment steeling himself, Wai steps over Pat’s threshold, closing the door behind him with a quiet click. It's not as scary as he imagined, and it doesn't feel quite as definitive as he thought it would, either. Pran is only across the hall, after all.

* * *

Becoming Pat’s friend turns out to be… a relatively normal experience. Save for the flashes of feeling Wai gets in his gut when Pat is overly touchy with him the same way he is with his friends in Engineering, and the flashes of feeling he gets in his gut when he sees Pat and Pran in their own world together, and the flashes of feeling he gets when he swears he catches Pran eyeing him and Pat together, of course. Which… adds up to quite a lot of feelings. But Wai’s not keeping count. So it’s fine. It’s fine. He can handle feelings.

The normal parts of their friendship go like this: Pat, calling Wai for advice on whether it would be appropriate to take Pran on a day trip to the same province that holds their boarding school – “I just thought, maybe you guys didn’t go out much. So maybe I could take him around places he didn’t get to see.” “Who says we didn’t go out? Pran and I always snuck away on weekends.” “You did? Where to?” – and Pat, throwing an arm around Wai’s shoulders as they walk, and Pat, bringing food over for Wai on Friday nights when he has his guaranteed late night. And it’s Wai, asking Pat for help with the math-heavy portions of his coursework; Wai, dragging Pat to try the new noodle restaurant by his dorm when Pran is too busy, and Wai, bringing empty tupperware boxes and iced tea to Pat’s dorm on Monday mornings before class.

The not-so-normal parts go like this: Pat, placing a hand on Wai’s thigh in greeting when he plonks himself down in the seat next to Wai, no matter where they are; Pat, forcing Wai into any bed he can find whenever they have a spare moment – “You need all the sleep you can get!” – and Wai, stupidly, stupidly, always going along with it. Pat’s right, after all. He does need all the sleep he can get. And it is helping. (Not that he mentions that to Pat, though.)

But Pat laughs at Wai’s quips in a way that no one else does – not even Pran, who usually only grants him an eye roll, or more often, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it exhalation of air – and Pat texts Wai to ask him about his day, not just single emojis anymore, and he listens to Wai rant about shitty customers at the bar, and he cares. He just genuinely, honestly, cares about Wai, in a way that feels like it’s not just an obligation to him, like it's not just some duty he’s fulfilling for Pran’s sake. It feels like they’re friends.

And Wai, in all honesty, doesn't really know what to do with that, apart from take it at face value.

He tries not to read into it. And he tries not to read into his own feelings about it, either. Tries being the operative word in both cases.

He's only human.

* * *

"Are you trying to steal my best friend?"

Wai shoots upright from where he’d been dozing off, using his bag as a pillow on top of the (slightly grimy) picnic bench. Where there had been blessedly empty space to his right, Korn is now perched with one leg on either side of the bench, positioned so that he's directly facing Wai. It's an interrogation set-up if Wai's ever seen one.

"What?" Wai tries to demand – to meet Korn's sternness head-on – but it comes out a little slurred and sleep-weak.

"Bro, you already have your ownnnn," Korn whines, immediately deflating and swinging his right leg outside of the bench’s confines so that he can rest backwards against the tabletop, elbows crooked behind him. He tips his head up towards the sky, sulky.

Wai doesn't fully know where he stands with Korn, but he supposes that if he's friends with Pat now, then Korn can't be that much of a stretch further.

"Why don't we talk about you stealing my best friend first?" Wai responds, trying for playfulness but wincing internally when it comes out more serious than he intended. He supposes that one hits a little too close to home with the amount of time Wai has spotted Korn and Pran hanging out recently.

Korn raises a stupid eyebrow, glancing at Wai from the corner of his eye.

"What Pran and I get up to is none of your business. Besides, I asked first."

He sounds so snooty that Wai’s hand is already itching to make a fist. But he knows Korn’s right, and he won’t exactly be in Pat or Pran’s good books if he ends up in a boxing match with Korn. Also, now that he’s considering it – maybe he does need someone to talk about the whole… Pat thing. Or is it a Pat and Pran thing? Wai genuinely doesn’t know, in fact he feels a little lightheaded thinking about it too deeply, and it’s not like he could ever talk to Pran about how the Pat thing is making him feel, for obvious reasons. And now he’s making it into a thing – his brain is seriously going to latch onto calling it The Pat Thing now that he’s put the thought out there – and that means there really is something there, even though he’s been trying to ignore it this whole time, because it would be weird, right? He’s already held a candle for Pran this whole time, ever since they shared that stupidly sweet teenage kiss in the middle of the night at boarding school, since before that even, and now he’s feeling confused over Pat, and the two of them are dating each other, so evidently neither of them will ever want Wai in any capacity, so it’s useless to make this into something bigger than it needs to be, really. Wai should just–

“Care to share what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours, asshole? Or are you just gonna make me sit here and suffer through your silence?”

Wai exhales. Maybe voicing his thoughts will dispel them a little. And maybe Korn is as neutral a party as he’s going to find – someone who knows about Pat and Pran’s situation, at least.

“I’m not trying to steal your best friend,” Wai starts. “Not… intentionally, anyway.”

“... O-kaaay,” Korn responds, helpfully. He’s back to staring at the sky. Wai looks away from Korn, gazing out over the empty sports field straight ahead of him. It’ll be easier to talk if he’s not looking at him.

“Has Pat… said anything?” he asks.

“Like what? About how annoying you are?” Korn grins like he’s made the best joke in the world. It’s so stupid. Wai appreciates his attempt to break the weird tension that’s settled over them, but he feels like he’s on another plane right now, so it doesn’t quite land.

“Like about how he’s been spending time with me.” Wai pauses, then changes tack. “What made you think I’m stealing him?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Wai sees Korn shrug. They turn to look at each other at the same time, and the eye contact is blisteringly awkward, but something makes Korn’s lips uptick at the corners. Wai narrows his eyes.

“No reason, really.” Korn holds his hands up in surrender. “Apart from that Pat keeps talking about you. Wai this, Wai that, Pran this, Pran that – it’s never Korn this, Korn that, y’know? A guy feels left out.” He sighs dramatically. “I’m supposed to be his bestie for life. That’s what we agreed on the day we met,” – Wai has so many questions about the lore of their friendship but he’s way too stunned to interrupt – “but now it’s like I’m just his bestie for when Pran and Wai aren’t free, instead.” Korn mimes taking an arrow to the heart and slumps dramatically over the tabletop, eyes closed as in death. Wai can’t even formulate a response.

Korn cracks an eye open to consider Wai’s reaction. Then he reaches out to tap Wai’s jaw closed from where it had fallen open slightly.

Wai coughs awkwardly and says, “Sorry.” As much for his open mouth as for his stealing of Korn’s bestie for life.

A beat passes.

And then Korn laughs. Not just a chuckle, but a full blown bark of bright, unrestrained laughter. He really does fit with Pat, Wai thinks. They’re both so carefree.

Wai doesn’t understand what’s funny.

“You’re cute, Ai’Wai,” says Korn, finally pushing himself up and off the bench. His ponytail flutters in the wind. “You should tell him you like him.”

“Are you insane?” Wai hisses, and then, “No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.” And then, “I never said I liked him – who said anything about liking anyone?” And then, making to stand, “You know what, this conversation is over – I don’t know why I ever thought you could give any actual good, serious advice. I won’t make that mistake again. Thanks for nothing, asshole.”

Korn smiles infuriatingly throughout Wai’s outburst – eyebrows wiggling like it’s their job – and when Wai’s finished, Korn just shrugs (and pulls Pran’s smug little fake frowny face) and then gasps, hand over mouth, eyelashes fluttering. “Oh, did I say ‘tell him you like him’? I meant, tell him you like spending time with him. Gotta let him know you appreciate his friendship, man. I tell him that every day.”

And with that, he twirls out of punching distance (Wai is more than ready to take a swing) and whistles his way back towards the university buildings. Wai’s jaw doesn’t unclench for another hour after that, and he spends the rest of the day stupidly trying to figure out whether Korn was joking or being serious when he insinuated that Pat talks about Wai almost as much as he talks about Pran.

* * *

The following week, Wai takes on too many shifts at the bar. P’Ten, the bar manager, is sick – feverish, apparently – and he personally asks Wai to oversee their nighttime peak hours through to closing, every night, in his absence. Wai agrees, obviously. Because he has a death wish.

On Monday, he misses his usual morning appointment with Pat due to oversleeping. He sends Pat a stream of apologetic texts, and leaves an iced tea at the seat he knows Pat usually sits in for lunch, accompanied by the tupperware boxes and a post-it on which he scrawls the words sorry, puen, and hopes Pat receives it.

On Tuesday, he dozes off so many times throughout the day that he can barely remember what happened in his classes when he gets home, and he feels like a zombie on his feet as he watches the clock over the bar tick down to closing time that night.

Rugby practice rolls around in the late afternoon on Wednesday, and Wai seriously contemplates extending his usual afternoon power nap into a full-blown sleep cycle, rugby be damned. He doesn’t, though. Responsibilities are responsibilities.

When he arrives at the locker room a little late, though, Pat is standing in front of the door with his car keys hooked over his finger, bag hooked over his shoulder, and rugby kit evidently not on his person.

“Not going to practice today?” Wai asks, trying to sidestep Pat and get through the door.

Pat steps directly in front of him.

“Mhm, and neither are you.”

Wai rolls his eyes and shrugs off Pat’s concern. “I’m fine. You can skip practice without using me as an excuse, you know.”

He tries again to sidestep Pat, this time in the other direction.

Pat steps directly in front of him again.

“You’ve never missed one of our Monday mornings until this week.”

“I overslept.” Wai steps back on his heel, crossing his arms over his chest. He feels worn down, worn out, and stupidly angry. He doesn’t have time for this. “It happens. Now let me go to practice.”

“You couldn’t stay awake in class yesterday.”

“Who are you, my mother? My stalker? What part of ‘let me go to practice’ don’t you understand?” Wai can feel his tone hardening and his shoulders tensing, but he can’t stop himself. The barbs of his words are comfortingly familiar.

“I'm someone who cares,” says Pat, softly. He reaches out, and Wai isn’t sure what Pat intends to do with his outstretched hand, but Wai doesn’t wait to find out.

Instead, he grabs the collar of Pat’s engineering shirt, twisting it in his fist to get a good purchase, and growls, “Well, care about someone else. I don’t need it. Now get the fuck out of my way.” Wai shoves Pat backwards against the door behind him, hard, and Pat obviously isn’t expecting it because he goes stumbling through it with a grunt of surprise.

The calamity of the moment snaps Wai out of his adrenaline-fueled anger, and he immediately feels embarrassed of his outburst. Sleep deprivation always brings out the worst in him.

Wai and Pat stare at each other for a few seconds, in a stalemate. Wai knows he should break the silence and apologise for being such a jackass, but the words are stuck in his throat.

“It’s okay to skip sometimes.” Pat’s voice is tentative, soft. “At least this way, you can use me as an excuse.” He’s a better person than Wai.

Wai hangs his head, bangs drooping in front of his eyes. He’s due a haircut but he hasn’t even had time to think of that recently – didn’t clock it until this moment. He feels so stupid.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to his shoes. Pat hears it anyway.

Wai feels Pat’s warm hand on his arm, and his other hand wavering in the air between them before reaching forward to cup Wai’s cheek. Wai doesn’t breathe as Pat tips his head to meet his eyes.

“Let’s just go home, yeah? Before you snap at someone who'll actually take it personally."

"I'm the only one who takes things personally around here," Wai mumbles.

* * *

When they arrive back at Pat’s dorm, Wai toes off his shoes and hangs his bag on the rack by the door. The car journey had been quiet but only a few minutes in total, so despite his bone-deep tiredness, Wai hadn’t fallen asleep. Thankfully.

He's too tired to figure out the etiquette of the situation right now, though, so he stays put, and watches as Pat does a quick sweep around the room, picking up stray items and shoving them on shelves, in drawers, under Paa's bed – out of sight.

Wai is still standing by the door, unsure, even though he’s been in Pat’s room, with Pat, several times before. Finally, Pat speaks.

"You hungry?" he asks.

Wai shakes his head.

"Thirsty?"

Wai contemplates for a second, then shakes his head again. He feels like a child.

Pat shrugs, brushes past Wai to retrieve a can of beer from the fridge, and cracks it open to chug down the first half in a few quick gulps before brushing back past Wai again to flop down on the edge of his mattress. Wai regrets not saying yes to a drink.

“Gonna stand there all afternoon?” asks Pat, not unkindly. When Wai hesitates to move, he pats the space next to him and adds, "Come on. We're not skipping rugby just for you to stand by my door the entire time. I want you to relax before your shift tonight."

So Wai sits, cross legged on the mattress next to Pat, and watches the movement of his throat as he sips his beer, and the way his fingers loosely grip the can. Pat isn’t looking back at him, so Wai doesn’t feel self-conscious about his staring, but he still feels like he shouldn’t really be doing it. That doesn’t stop him.

Pat crushes the empty can against the floor a couple of minutes later, and then scoots backwards on the bed so that his feet are no longer resting on the ground. He props himself up on his elbows, and looks sideways at Wai, considering.

"You gonna sit there and stare at me all afternoon? May as well have stayed standing,” he says with a playful lilt to his voice. Wai feels himself flush all the way to the tips of his ears. He tries not to stutter when he replies.

"Just not sure why I'm here, that's all."

"I told you – to relax. You've been working too much." Pat smiles, eyes creasing slightly at the corners, and a dimple denting the top of his right cheek. Wai feels his chest squeeze at the sight. It’s cute.

Just like Pran’s.

Wai lets his shoulders slump forward in a slouch, and mumbles, "I already had a nap today." He knows that that response won't fly with Pat in the same way it would with Pran, even before it comes out of his mouth, but he can't help being slightly petulant about the whole situation regardless.

"You know that wasn't enough," says Pat, serious. "Besides, you don't have to sleep right now if you don't want to. I know there's only a few hours until your shift starts, but just–" Pat reaches forward to tug on Wai's arm, attempting to make him lie back on the mattress, "lie down with me, okay? Just rest."

Wai sighs, put upon, but scoots backwards in an ungainly imitation of Pat's earlier movement nonetheless. He settles on his back next to Pat, on top of the blanket, both of them staring up at the plain white ceiling, their upper arms brushing.

After a minute or two of silence, Pat asks, "How do you do it?" His voice is barely above a whisper.

"Do what?"

"Everything. You must be so tired but you still do all of it. I don’t think I’d have the strength.”

The confession takes Wai by surprise. He’s always seen Pat through a kind of veil – first, as that asshole from Engineering, then briefly as that asshole from Engineering who got his claws into Pran, then as Pran’s boyfriend – and he’s realising now that those labels allowed him to categorise Pat into a box that he maybe didn’t quite belong in. He saw Pat as someone powerful, strong, and removed from Wai. All things Wai isn’t, and therefore all things that Pran likes. But now that he’s actually gotten to know Pat behind that surficial veil, he’s thinking that he should reconsider those preconceptions.

Because of course Pat would have self-doubts. Of course he wouldn’t see himself as the pillar of strength that his friends and family do. He’s only human, after all. Wai wonders who else gets to see under the veil of Pat as Class President, Best Friend, Good Son. Regardless, he isn’t really sure he has some profound answer for Pat that will speak to Wai’s apparently boundless inner strength.

“I… don’t know. I guess I just don’t really think about it.” Wai feels Pat turn his head to look at him. He doesn’t turn his own to meet Pat’s gaze, but carries on speaking to the ceiling. “Most of the time it doesn’t really feel real. So it gets kind of easy to ignore the truth of how tired I am and just plod along.” Pat rolls over onto his side to face Wai fully, and places his hand on Wai’s upper arm.

Wai closes his eyes. His ears still feel a shade too pink. “I’m so tired,” he whispers.

“Then rest,” Pat whispers back. “Sleep, if you need to. I’ll wake you for your shift.”

Wai can still make out the sunlight bathing the room from behind his eyelids, but his body’s exhaustion doesn’t seem to care about something as trivial as light levels. He feels comfortable and warm, his limbs like weights pinning him to the bed. He’s surrounded by the comfort of Pat, and he feels safe.

He sleeps.

* * *

When Wai wakes, it’s to the click of the front door closing. For a second, behind his closed eyes, he panics with the assumption that it was the sound of Pat leaving him here, letting him miss his shift at the bar, all for a few more hours of shut-eye. But the thought is dispelled almost as soon as it materialises, because Wai realises he can feel something like hair – Pat’s hair – tickling his face, and some warm breath – Pat’s breath – fanning out over his neck.

He relaxes into it, rubbing his nose into Pat's hair. It's so soft and he smells eerily similar to Pran, with just a hint of something more – something musky and deep, like aniseed. Wai should really peel himself away and check the time, at the very least, but his eyes feel glued shut.

“Wai, I know you’re awake.”

The sound of Pran’s voice breaking the blanket of silence enveloping the room is so jarring that Wai’s eyes immediately burst open, and he gets a crick in his neck trying to wriggle away from Pat, who has fallen asleep alongside him and nuzzled himself into Wai’s neck in the process. Pat remains like a log, unmoving, throughout Wai’s struggle. Wai envies his heavy sleep.

When Wai finally looks over towards the door, he sees Pran leaning against the kitchen counter in his university uniform, with Pat’s plushie held between his chest and his crossed arms.

“What time is it?” Wai asks, because he genuinely wants to know. And because he’s avoiding the elephant in the room.

“Seven thirty,” Pran replies. There’s a slight smile dancing behind his eyes, and Wai can see the small dimple in his chin. He doesn’t know what to think. How would Wai feel if he caught his best friend asleep in his boyfriend’s bed, with his boyfriend? The hypothetical is so far-fetched that he feels ridiculous even considering it. How is this his reality right now?

Wai drags himself out of Pat’s bed, and heads straight to the bathroom without another word to Pran. Best to brush it under the rug, right?

When Wai emerges, Pran is pulling out ingredients from Pat’s cupboards and fridge and laying them out on the counter in an order known only to him, as he always does before he begins cooking. Pat is still asleep, but he’s now curled around the plushie that Pran placed in his arms. Wai can still see the indent of where he slept next to Pat, and the rumpled sheets from where he scrambled away.

“Not enough time to stay for food?” Pran asks, without looking up from his self-imposed task.

“Not unless you can cook a meal instantaneously,” Wai jokes, turning to grab his bag off the hook. “I have to go home and change before my shift.”

Wai can feel Pran’s gaze burning a hole in his back as he uses his finger to pull his shoes on properly at the heel. He’s lying, and Pran knows it – Wai always brings his work clothes to university with him when he has a shift in the evening, and they’re stuffed at the bottom of his bag right now. He doesn’t need to go home at all.

When he turns around, Pran is back to shuffling his ingredients.

“Don’t forget to eat, then,” is all he says.

Wai smiles at Pran's aloof brand of care – he's his mother's son for sure – and leaves without saying anything else.

It’s only when Wai arrives at work early and heads to the bathroom to change, that he finds a chilled bottle of green tea in his bag, with a post-it note that reads Stay for food, next time. – P in Pran’s precise letters.

Wai folds it into his wallet next to the other notes, and gratefully gulps down the tea.

* * *

It's only two more days before P'Ten is back at work, and Wai, in a burst of surprising clarity and foresight, requests the entire weekend off as penance for his nightly (and by extension, daily) suffering during P'Ten's sick spell. P'Ten tells him to take two more days on top of that, and Wai scoffs before he realises he's being serious.

"Take it. You look worse than I did at the peak of my fever."

Wai doesn’t argue.

But he does end up lounging at Pran’s, on what is his first full weekend off in months. It doesn’t feel real.

They’re sitting in comfortable silence right now, because Pran only agreed to have Wai over if they both worked on their presentations for their models for Professor Khom’s class. Pran is at his desk with his sketchbook in his lap and his completed slides open on his monitor – they look perfect from what Wai can see over his shoulder, as usual – and Wai is sitting at the table near the kitchen area, facing Pran’s direction. And rather than doing his own work, Wai has spent most of the last hour glancing up at Pran, watching him sketch mindlessly and obsessively run through his presentation under his breath. Wai’s laptop is taunting him with unbearably empty slides, and his notebook is open to an unbearably empty page, save for the little biro doodles in the corners. Crude renditions of an iced tea, and a boy’s sleeping profile (no-one specific, though, of course). He isn’t quite as exhausted as he had been over the past week, but he is still tired, and his eye bags aren’t going anywhere any time soon, so his brain isn’t quite in gear enough to do work. He only agreed to this because he wanted to be around Pran, really. He just misses his best friend.

So, he watches Pran. And he thinks about how quiet Pran’s dorm is without Pat filling up all the corners with his loud presence. That’s something he never noticed until recently.

As if summoned by Wai’s meandering thoughts, the door bursts open behind Wai and Pat comes bounding in, as loud and space-consuming as ever. Wai flips his notebook over to hide his doodles at the exact moment that Pat shouts “Ai’Wai!” and collides with his chair, throwing his arms around Wai’s neck in an imitation of a hug. He starts rubbing his nose excitedly into Wai’s neck and Wai starts squirming away, trying and failing to pry his way out of Pat’s gargantuan arms.

The tussle only lasts for a few seconds, though, as Pat is bounding away from Wai as fast as he bounded towards him in the first place, with his sights now set on Pran, who’s still focused on his sketchbook. There’s a poorly hidden smile on his face, revealing his chin dimple. Wai scrubs at his own neck to try and rid it of the flush that’s no doubt spread across it in wake of Pat’s touch.

After Pat’s finished harassing Pran with cheek kisses (Wai’s sure that Pat even licked Pran’s ear at one point, which is surely a step too far), and after Wai’s stopped feeling that stupid warmth in his gut that he gets around both Pran and Pat these days (he’s not still feeling it, he swears, even as he wants to smile watching the two of them bicker), Pat takes a second to seriously consider what Pran’s working on. And then he snickers and looks back over to Wai, who’s given up the pretence of work and is now slumped forward, chin propped up on his hand.

“You guys should swap notes sometime,” Pat says, inexplicably, through his giggles. “You’re basically drawing from the same book, anyway.”

Pran looks over at Wai, who shrugs in response, keeping his face as neutral as possible. Pat couldn’t have seen his doodles, right? He’s sure he flipped his notebook over in time. So there’s no way he could have seen Wai’s doodle of Pran… right?

“Why are you back so early?” Pran asks, pushing the topic aside. The question makes Wai realise that Pat is absolutely covered in bruises, all over his arms and legs, though he doesn’t seem bothered at all. He looks even worse than he usually does after a rugby game, and something tells Wai that he doesn’t really want to know what Pat has been up to. Better not to ask.

“The guys wanted to come up here after our pinball game but I didn’t want them to disturb you two, so I told them there’s a burst pipe in my bathroom. Well, then Mo and Chang wanted to come up here to try and ‘lend the plumber a hand’ but I got Korn to distract them with ice cream,” Pat pauses, considering. “I think he’s still buying them cones. Their stomachs are bottomless.”

“Mhmm. And you didn’t bring us any ice cream?” Pran says, raising an eyebrow at Pat. The fact that that’s the part Pran focused on from Pat’s spiel is both fascinating and worrying to Wai. Isn’t he worried about how his boyfriend got all those bruises from playing pinball, of all things?

“I’m sorry, baby,” Pat whines, pouting. Wai doesn’t find it cute. He doesn’t. “I had to leave before they ordered, otherwise we might have started an eating competition like last week. You know how we get.”

Pran just shakes his head and huffs slightly. Wai can tell he’s putting it on, and he can tell that Pat can tell too. But he’s too curious about the whole situation with Pat’s friends – how bad do you have to be at pinball to get bruises all over your legs? – that he can’t help himself from interrupting their weird flirting game to get answers.

“Sorry, hold on. What kind of pinball were you playing to end up like that?” Wai asks, gesturing at Pat’s… everything.

“Human pinball, obviously,” Pat says, like it’s obvious.

Wai thinks about Pat, Korn, Mo and Chang pushing each other into life-sized obstacles in a field somewhere, and– no, he can’t even imagine how the logistics of something like that would work. Wai doesn’t understand how Pran doesn’t think it’s crazy.

“You’re crazy,” says Wai.

“He knows,” says Pran. “I said the same thing.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” says Pat, hitting himself proudly on the chest and then immediately wincing.

Wai wants this conversation to be over. He shouldn’t have asked.

Thankfully, Pat continues, “Anyway, it’s way better than you guys here, pretending to work.” And then, pointing at Wai with narrowed eyes, “Hey! Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“It’s… the middle of the day?” Wai says, unsure.

“But you had a whole week of– Prannnnn, how could you make him do work? He hasn’t caught up on sleep yet,” Pat puts so much whine into his voice that Wai thinks he’s going to stomp his foot petulantly any second now. A six-foot tall rugby player shouldn’t be able to shrink himself quite so easily, surely. It’s fascinating. (Not cute, though. Definitely not.) “You know what? I’m calling it right now – no more work for either of you. C’mon. Up up up!” He starts trying to shepherd Wai and Pran out of their seats and towards the bedroom. “Time for bed. Let’s catch some z’s.”

“Pat,” starts Pran, stern, even as he stands. “It’s 4pm. I’m not going to bed.”

“Sure you are! It’s the perfect time for an afternoon nap. You work so hard, baby, c’mon, don’t you deserve a little rest? Or think of your puen at least. He’s barely slept recently, right?” Pat looks to Wai for back-up. Wai seriously doesn’t want to get involved. As much as he wants to sleep… he’s not sure he’ll get any rest in a bed with both Pat and Pran.

Pat rolls his eyes when Wai says nothing, and stops herding the two of them like zoo animals. “Look. I’m tired too, okay? Human pinball is harder than it looks, and I know both of you are sleepy so don’t even try and pretend you’re not, because I can tell, alright? Just… Let yourselves relax. You both need it. I promise it’ll only be a quick nap.”

Once Pran relents, Wai feels unable to hold his ground alone, so the three of them end up exactly where Pat wants them – squashed into Pran’s bed with Pat’s plushie. (“That’s Nong Nao to you,” says Pat when Wai tells him to move his plushie out of Wai’s face.)

Wai feels out of place. He knows that Pat and Pran must have fallen asleep together in this bed countless times, so it’s easy for them, but Wai is the third wheel here. No matter how close his friendship with Pran is, and no matter how close his friendship with Pat gets, that’s all he’ll be. He’ll do well to remember that.

* * *

Sleep doesn’t come easily. In fact, it doesn’t come at all, even in the darkness produced by the heavy curtains of Pran’s bedroom. Wai lies there, curled up and facing Pran to his left, with Pat to Pran’s left, and he lies there, and he… lies there. It’s almost agony.

He can hear Pat snoring lightly and shuffling in his sleep, presumably burrowing into Pran’s side. And he can feel Pran breathing next to him, can see the silhouette of his chest rising and falling. With straining eyes, Wai traces the outline of Pran as far as he can see it in the low light.

“Wai?” The whisper jolts his eyes back to Pran’s face, where his eyes are now open. “I know you’re awake.”

Wai makes a quiet noise of affirmation. Pran doesn’t turn to look at him.

The world feels like it’s stopped turning within these four walls.

“How do you feel?” asks Pran, voice hushed. Pat doesn’t react at all, heavy sleeper as he is.

“Hm?” What kind of question is that? Wai doesn’t know what answer Pran wants to hear; can’t figure out his endgame. “Right now?”

“Yeah, I guess. Right now… Being here. How are you feeling?”

Wai considers the question. On one hand, he’s comfortable – physically. But on the other, he’s tense. Anxious. And he can’t sleep.

“Nervous,” he whispers to Pran’s silhouette. He watches the silhouette blink.

“Nervous?” repeats Pran. “Why?”

“Not sure,” he mumbles, lying. He doesn’t know how to stop skirting around the truth. The alternative is too terrifying.

Pran stays silent for a minute, contemplating Wai’s answer. Wai knows Pran doesn’t believe him. It’s just a question of whether he’ll push hard enough to get to the truth or not. Usually, he doesn’t bother. That’s how they’ve always been.

“Is it because of Pat?”

The question takes Wai by surprise, and he immediately feels guilty. Has Pran noticed something between him and Pat? Wai’s caused enough issues for the two of them to last a lifetime – he doesn’t want to cause more. So he lies, again.

“Pat doesn’t make me feel nervous.”

Pran hums and asks, “How does he make you feel?” He still hasn’t looked away from the ceiling. He’s leading up to something, but Wai can’t understand what.

“What is this, twenty questions?” Wai asks with a breathy laugh. He’s giving Pran a chance to back down.

Pran doesn’t take it.

“I just want to know. You guys are close these days.”

Wai swallows and closes his eyes. He’s not sure he can face this conversation with eyes open. He’s infinitely grateful for the darkness of the room, and the gentle sound of Pat’s snores that make it all feel like a cocoon. Like safety. Like he could come clean.

“He… we’re friends. I feel the same about him as I feel about you, I guess.” It’s the most honest thing Wai’s said in a while.

“Like a best friend?”

Wai isn’t opposed to the idea.

“If that’s what you’d call it, yeah.”

He opens his eyes to look at Pran in the dark again. He can just about make out the slope of his nose, and the fluttering of his eyelashes. After a moment, Pran speaks once more, still whispering. Wai feels as though they’re both too frightened to burst the bubble that has formed around this moment.

“What would you call it?” asks Pran.

The bubble is making it easier and easier to let the truth slip through. Wai’s tongue feels looser with every question that leaves Pran’s lips.

“Yeah, like a best friend,” he says.

Pran is silent for a long time after that. Wai closes his eyes again, tiredness getting the better of him a little, but his brain stays resolutely on, tuned into the sounds of the room and its occupants. His best friends.

The plural feels strange as he rolls it around in his mind, replaying Pran’s questions. He’s never had more than one best friend before. Never really had any best friend until Pran came into his life. He’s desperate not to mess this up now–

“Do you remember…” Pran trails off, uncertainty colouring his voice. Wai re-opens his eyes, cutting his thoughts off. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since they last spoke.

Wai waits for Pran to carry on. He has no idea what the end of the sentence might be, but he knows that his answer is probably ‘yes’, anyway. He always remembers things when they involve Pran.

“Do you remember when we kissed?”

Wai's affirmative hum is almost too quick, but he can’t help it. Obviously I remember, he thinks. I never stopped thinking about it.

His heart feels like it’s in his throat. They haven’t talked about the night they kissed as young, dumb teenagers for years now. Wai always felt like he dreamt it, back then; a perfect, sweet first kiss, two kids fumbling and giggling in the dark, noses bumping under the covers, lips brushing briefly. They were so young, and just barely discovering themselves. None of it felt real.

None of this feels real.

“Remember how you fell asleep afterwards, like almost instantly?” asks Pran.

Wai remembers. That’s partly why it felt so much like a dream.

He releases some air in a laugh, feeling self-conscious that Pran still holds onto that memory of him.

“I remember,” Wai admits.

Wai can see Pran steeling himself, like he’s talking himself into saying what he’s working towards, what he’s always been working towards since they started this conversation in the dark.

“You always do that.” Pran swallows, pausing. “When you’re comfortable.”

“Mhm.” Wai doesn’t have anything to add. He wants to let Pran do the talking.

“When you like someone,” Pran adds.

Wai almost stops breathing.

“Mhm,” he says, again.

“When you, maybe… love them.” The final two words are so quiet that Wai almost misses them. He doesn’t really know what to say in response. He supposes that this is Pran’s way of telling him that he knows about Wai’s feelings, that maybe he’s always known. Part of him feels relieved.

“Mhm,” Wai repeats, once more. Words are too difficult right now. He’s terrified of the end of this conversation, of where Pran is trying to take them.

Just then, Pran turns his head in Wai’s direction, their noses less than a fist’s width apart. Pran’s eyes are bright, and they cut through the dimness. Wai feels pinned in place by that gaze, like a moth in a display case. The rest of Pran’s body follows suit, turning until he’s fully mirroring Wai’s position.

When Pran speaks again, Wai can feel the ghost of his breath on his lips.

“Do you want to try again?” he asks. Wai feels like the words are being spoken directly into his brain. Pran’s voice is so quiet, barely audible, but Wai hears every syllable loud and clear. There’s an echo inside his head that he can’t seem to shake, a lack of understanding that he doesn’t know how to overcome.

“Try what?” Wai whispers. His voice comes out breathy and uneven, barely holding it together even for such short words. He watches – petrified, electrified – as Pran’s eyes flick down to look at his lips. He doesn’t respond to Wai’s question, but Wai can’t stop thinking about how Pran must have felt Wai’s breath on his lips, too. Wai keeps his fist clenched tight underneath the pillow, dull pinpricks of pain radiating out from where his nails are digging into his palm. “I thought this was about Pat.”

Pran meets his eyes again, and Wai is the moth in the case once more.

“It is. It is,” Pran insists, placing a hand on Wai’s elbow. Wai can feel the calluses of his fingertips. A guitarist’s hands. “It’s about Pat, which means it’s also about me.”

Wai doesn’t know how to respond to that, or what to think. Pran is losing him in this conversation, he’s too close for Wai to be able to think straight, and the air feels like syrup around them, like they’re in outer space, a vacuum where there’s no sound left, no oxygen, no nothing. And Wai can’t stop looking at Pran’s lips, where he knows they are, where he can feel the warm breath coming out of them and hitting his own, like Pran is the only source of life in this room, the last vestige of hope, and Wai feels like he hasn’t taken a breath in years and he doesn’t want this moment to end, ever. If he stays awake long enough, if he keeps his tired eyes open, maybe he can make it last for hours and days and months and years – he could stay awake forever if it means being on this precipice with Pran for the rest of his life – but just as Wai is thinking he’d like to bask in this, to bask in the way Pran is making him feel, Pran pushes them both over the edge, sends them barrelling towards– something. With just a simple, “It’s about us.”

Wai can’t tell whether Pran means the two of them, or if he means himself and Pat, or all three of them, as ‘us’. But he doesn’t care because Pran is tilting his head, eyes open, watching Wai as he gets closer and closer, and Wai can’t think, can’t breathe, doesn’t know how he ended up here, how they ended up here, and his heart is beating a mile a minute, ready to burst out of his chest and run a marathon, and then– Pran is pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips. Gently, chastely, and Wai’s thoughts come to a halt, and his heart stops hammering for a brief second, and then he can’t help himself. He turns his head just a fraction, an acute angle. And that’s all it takes for their lips to touch, head on. They kiss. Wai kisses Pran, and Pran kisses him back, and it’s comfortable, and warm, and Wai likes it so, so much, he loves it so much – he likes Pran and he loves him – and this feels like coming home.

Pran pushed them, shoved them over the cliff’s edge, sent them hurtling on the collision course. But they didn’t crash land.

They’re here, where they’ve always been, at the bottom of the cliff, together.

When they pull apart, Wai doesn’t open his eyes. But he can feel Pran’s hand on his elbow still, his thumb softly brushing back and forth, letting a trail of goosebumps travel up Wai’s arm.

Wai falls asleep soon after.

* * *

When Wai wakes up, he feels much like he did the morning after he and Pran kissed, back when they were sixteen. It only takes him a second, though, before he realises exactly why he woke up, and then the pit in his stomach is gone. Because Pran is shoving his sleep-warm face into Wai’s collarbone as if he’s trying to make a permanent home for himself there, and Wai can’t help the laugh that escapes him as he cracks one eye open.

“Ai’Pran, that tickles,” he says between breathless giggles as Pran keeps worming his way closer, trying to slide his cold hands underneath the fabric of Wai’s sleep-creased T-shirt. Wai feels giddy, in disbelief, but the smile stretching his lips won’t let itself be tamped down. He buries his face in Pran’s hair, basking in the feeling. He has no idea what time it is, and he hates the chill of Pran’s hands on his skin, but he can’t bring himself to push them away.

It’s not long before Pran calms down, his wriggling coming to a stop as he settles, wrapped around Wai like an octopus.

“M’tired,” he slurs, voice muffled in the juncture of Wai’s shoulder. Wai kisses his head in response, and feels Pran’s answering smile against his skin.

In their new tangled position, Wai begins to drift off again, the familiar rhythm of Pran’s breathing lulling him into a light doze that he keeps pulling himself out of to look at Pran.

“What happens now?” he whispers, half-hoping that Pran is asleep and won’t hear. Of course he has no such luck.

“Whatever you want,” Pran mumbles. “I, for one, want to sleep.”

The smile on Wai’s face feels permanent, at this point. He doesn’t think he’ll ever wipe it off.

“Where’s Pat?” he asks, probing for an answer he’s not sure he wants to hear.

“No idea,” says Pran, unbothered. “He’ll be back.”

They both drift in and out of sleep for a while longer, Wai waking himself every so often to whisper a question that Pran will answer, grumpy but unflappable. Wai doesn’t fully understand what changed, but when he asks Pran if he likes Wai, Pran just lightly headbutts Wai’s clavicle and replies, I love you, dumbass. And when he asks what it all means, how this works, how they’ll make it work, Pran shushes him and whispers, You said we’re both your best friends, right? Well, isn’t that enough?

Wai doesn’t really have a response to that, but the certainty in Pran’s tone is comforting enough to settle his doubts for now. Enough so that the next time he starts drifting off, he doesn’t jolt himself awake again.

The doze doesn’t last long, regardless. Five minutes later, both Wai and Pran shout a simultaneous OOF as Pat comes bounding into the bedroom and leaps onto the bed, landing half on top of them both and pushing all the air out of their lungs.

“You can’t cuddle without me!” he exclaims in their ears, and then proceeds to wriggle (so that’s where Pran got that habit from) his way in between the two of them, creating a spot for himself that should not logically be able to fit someone of his size, and then wrapping both of their arms around him. “Mmmm, much better,” he hums contentedly.

Pran presses a kiss to Pat’s cheek, exactly where his dimple usually appears, then settles back down into this newer, more tangled position, where Wai can’t tell which limbs belong to who (nor does he want to, really).

Wai looks at them both, his best friends, and he feels… happy. On an impulse, he risks darting forward and kissing Pat’s cheek, too – the other one – then settles back into the pillow with his eyes closed because he can’t quite face Pat’s reaction head-on. He needn’t have worried, though, because barely a millisecond goes by before Pat is pecking wet kisses all over Wai’s face. Wai doesn’t fight it.

Eventually, the three of them simmer down, and Wai’s smile still won’t leave his face. He doesn’t quite know how to fall asleep when he’s this happy.

“Where did you go?” Pran whispers into Pat’s neck.

“I was just–” Pat cuts himself off and shoots out of bed as fast as he leapt into it, dislodging Wai and Pran from their positions and dragging half the bedsheets with him in his haste to leave the bedroom.

“What have I told you about making food when I’m asleep!” Pran shouts after him, exasperated. And then, to Wai, “Cuddling always distracts him from cooking – every time, without fail.” Pran rolls his eyes, but Wai can see the smile behind them. “I’ll train him properly one day.”

“I’ll help,” promises Wai.

* * *

Truthfully, not much changes. Wai’s still tired, he’s still working too much and too hard – although he did agree to pare back on his shifts during exam season, at Pat’s request – and Pran is still his best friend. The difference is that Pat is his best friend now, too. And maybe that title means more to the three of them than it does to other people, but Wai doesn’t really care. He’s happy.

Wai still goes over to Pran’s for movie nights, although Pat is always present as well these days, and more welcome to join than he used to be. Tonight, Wai is heading over to Pran’s for that very reason, and for the first time since they started doing these, Wai has decided he’s going to take a change of clothes for sleeping in, and some other basic items he usually needs for his nighttime routine. The bag weighs heavy on his shoulder as he steps off the bus a few minutes away from Pat and Pran’s dorm building. He hasn’t told them he’s bringing it.

As the bus drives away, Wai spots Pat on the opposite side of the road, sunglasses hiding his eyes but unable to hide the brilliance of his smile, even from a distance. Pat always waits for him at the bus stop when he knows Wai is coming. Pran says the chivalry will wear off soon enough.

Wai crosses to him, and Pat immediately takes the bag off Wai’s shoulder to put it on his own. The walk is less than 10 minutes, but Wai knows better than to argue. Pat, it seems, also knows better than to ask about the bag, but that doesn’t stop him from linking their arms as they walk.

It'll rain soon, Wai thinks. He's looking forward to it.

When they get to the apartment, Pran has already made a start on a tub of mint ice cream, scooping huge spoonfuls into his mouth while Wai and Pat toe off their shoes. Pat drops Wai's bag down on the table, and Pran raises an eyebrow.

"What's this? Finally pulling your weight in snacks?" Pran asks Wai, playful.

Wai tilts his head as if he's thinking about it, scrunching up his nose a little to show Pran he's wrong.

"Sleep stuff," he says after a moment, aiming for nonchalance. He plops himself down on the sofa next to Pran, hoping the topic will be brushed aside in favour of whatever movie Pat picked out for them this week (it's his turn, if Wai remembers correctly). Wai ignores the look Pat and Pran share, instead choosing to fiddle with the TV remote, and he's thankful when they don't mention any more about it.

A few minutes later, the opening credits of the film are just starting, and Pat joins Pran and Wai on the sofa by squeezing in between the two of them, as if there's a gap for him at all. He lasts all of ten minutes sitting there before he's tipping himself over to lay his head in Pran's lap, making Wai roll his eyes and sigh, put out. But Pat doesn’t even glance at Wai before he’s lifting his feet off the floor and stretching his legs out over Wai’s lap as well. Wai hides a smile in a handful of popcorn and places his other hand on one of Pat’s ankles. It’s warm.

Wai doesn’t fall asleep during the movie, but Pat does, draped across the two of them on Pran’s sofa, even though he picked out what they’re watching himself. Pran catches Wai staring at Pat’s sleeping face a few times, or watching the gentle movement of Pran’s hand in Pat’s hair, and each time it happens they both share a small smile before turning back to the TV.

Later, after Pat has woken up (reluctantly) and they’ve eaten a meal of his making (movie chooser does the cooking – those are the rules), they settle back in front of the TV, this time with Pran in the middle. Pran puts on an episode of some new American show he’s recently started watching that Wai’s never heard of, and Wai sinks deeper into the sofa, bringing his feet up underneath him. Pran watches the movement, and when Wai looks back at him, Pran just turns to the TV again and taps his own shoulder, inviting.

Wai knows better than to say no. He rests his head on Pran, who slinks his arm around Wai’s shoulders to make the position more comfortable. It’s late now, and Wai feels sated after the food and comfortable in the presence of his closest friends. He can feel Pran’s pulse in his ears, and the English being spoken on the TV becomes background noise that his tired brain doesn’t bother to parse.

Wai feels himself drifting off, the molasses feeling of sleep beginning to claim him. He lets it happen, content. Pran can tell him all about the episode when he wakes up again, and they can prepare for bed side by side with Pat, and they can whisper to each other under the covers until the sun rises or sleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows and it’ll be perfect either way.

Wai has the rest of his life to spend with these boys he loves. He can spare a third of that for sleeping alongside them, too.