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Gun
doesn’t exactly know when he fell in love with Tinn.
It wasn’t a fast kind of love. A ‘love at first sight’ type, or some of those things he’s seen in rom-coms, the ones his mother loves to watch on TV and that Gun himself watches when there’s nothing else. There weren’t flying bugs in his stomach, he didn’t feel like the world around him stopped for a second. He didn’t look Tinn in the eye and started reciting love poems in his head.
Rather, it was the opposite—Gun looked at Tinn and felt rage. He saw Tinn and felt like showing that idiot just how capable he was; show him that he was much more than Tinn thought, that the music club weren’t a bunch of losers, that they could do big things for the school. He wanted to defend his honor and his friends’, and the school council was another obstacle in that task. The less he saw Tinn, the better.
But of course, things never go according to plan. Because for one reason or another, Tinn wouldn’t stop getting in his way.
At first, Gun chalked it up to a mere coincidence.
Then, he assumed the worst. Assumed condescension instead of kindness on Tinn and the council’s part. The music club had always been the outcasts of the school, the problematic, loud kids no one wanted to be friends with. Why would things change from one day to another? Why would the president, who had always been so loudly harsh on them, show them compassion all of a sudden?
But the coincidence theory lasted for about as long as a snowman under the summer sun.
Because Gun might be an idiot, but not one that’s not a little witty. Gun knows more than he lets on, he just thinks with his heart rather than his head most of the time. Lets his emotions do the thinking instead of his logical brain.
That’s why he rummaged through his mind looking for excuses. Reasons, pretexts, alibis, whatever you call it. Anything that could explain why Tinn had turned into some type of guardian angel for the music club in the past months—anything that wasn’t the obvious.
Because he’s in love with you.
Gun doesn’t know when he fully realized his own feelings. How it was that they mutated and turned into what they are today.
He called it ‘gratitude’ at first. Tinn might have been a tyrant president (and a real bad one at that) at the beginning, but he had done a lot of good things for him—for them. No one could deny that. It was impossible not to feel, at least, some appreciation for a guy like that. A mutation not too different from attachment, at least. Perhaps, even, he could consider Tinn his friend.
What was the point of no return, exactly? When Tinn helped him study for his exams? When Sound temporarily took over Chinzhilla’s leadership and Tinn offered him a spot in the student council? When the whole student council café thing happened? Gun wouldn’t know.
All he knows for sure is the results: he fell in love with Tinn.
It was a patient type of love. An incredibly patient one, supportive and comforting.
Loving Tinn is like having his mother’s shaved ice after a bad day at school; the crisp of the pork on the club’s grill; the notes he plucks from his guitar when he scrapes the strings. Loving Tinn is knowing that they can take things slow, no rush.
It was a slow journey, very slow. Step by step, slowly but surely. Tinn never pressured him, always let Gun set the pace—he had been waiting for two years, the months until the Hot Wave finals must have gone by relatively smoothly.
And, although a part of Gun felt cruel (very, very, very cruel) stopping him before he could take the step, Tinn never complained. Never rolled his eyes and kissed him anyway. Never got fed up, or bored, or realized that all the time he had spent pining for Gun had been for nothing.
Instead, he brought him food and tea. Fed him. Wrote songs for him and sung to him at the beach, under the moonlight. Got over his stage fright and stepped on stage with Gun to help him.
Tinn’s love is selfless and warm and endearing. A little too dreamy sometimes, a bit too overwhelming, but unhurried and gentle.
Tinn is all that’s right in the world.
“Ai’Gun?”
Looking at him is like staring directly into the sun.
“Gun?”
Gun would go blind for him.
“Gun!”
“Huh?!”
And Gun thinks he might go blind for real when Tinn smiles—his eyes hooded and his bunny teeth and his cheeks pink.
He thanks whoever is up there that Tinn is the one holding the spoon, because Gun’s hands would have failed him, no doubt. And then he would have dropped the spoon and he would’ve gotten ice cream all over his uniform and he would’ve made a fool out of himself in front of Tinn.
In front of his boyfriend.
“Say ‘ah’!”
Tinn stretches out the spoon and Gunn welcomes it into his mouth. He doesn’t like strawberry ice cream (not that he hates it, he just prefers chocolate), but it’s Tinn’s favorite flavor. So, Gun thinks, he can make an exception.
It’s too sweet and he doesn’t like the crunch of the strawberry slices under his teeth. He does like the color though; pink, like Tinn’s cheeks as he watches him savor the ice cream. Still holding the spoon. Blinking very slowly, head tilted like a little puppy, and it’s so adorable that Gun can’t bring himself to care about the sugary aftertaste of strawberries in his throat.
“Tasty?”
And Gun loves Tinn a lot (loves him so much, truly loves him; adores him, even), but not enough to lie. He shakes his head with a playful smile on his lips, and when Tinn opens his mouth (to tell him they can order another ice cream if he doesn’t like this one, Gun guesses), Gun shuts him up with a quick kiss.
“Now it is.”
Tinn is frozen in place. Blinks a lot and doesn’t say a word, and Gun is afraid for a hot second that he might’ve broken him—then he remembers this is Tinn, his Tinn they’re talking about, and that everything Gun does and says is worthy of worship for him. He would probably kiss the ground Gun walks in if he could.
“Whose boyfriend are you? Why are you so cute?!”
Yours.
Tinn is all that’s right in this world and Gun looks at him as such.
Por
didn’t plan to fall in love.
Of course he wanted to, eventually. He never closed the door for love as such—he had always loved cheesy romance novels and watched Titanic (and cried while doing so) more times than it should be considered decent.
Por considers love to be yet another part of life, just like going to school or making friends. He also considers that trying to repress a natural impulse like that is counterproductive at best and unhealthy at worst. That’s why he had no problem voting in favor of abolishing the club’s rule to help Yo out.
So yes, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to call Por a hopeless romantic.
But, just like he believes that trying to suppress love is pointless, so is forcing it. Forcing love, Por believes, is the perfect recipe for an unsatisfying, empty relationship.
Love comes, it always does, and always naturally.
That’s how he’d describe his love for Tiw, too.
Loving Tiw comes to him as naturally as breathing at this point. It’s impossible not to love him, Por thinks.
Tiw slipped into his life slowly and sneakily. His presence had become a constant in Por’s life from the very moment he decided to help Tinn woo Gun—he was always there, fluttering around like a fly on the walls, observing everything.
Por still remembers the first time he talked to Tiw: Chinzhilla had been invited to play at a senior’s bar, shortly after their instruments had been taken away, to get a set of drums. Tinn stepped on stage that night, when Gun’s voice broke; a gesture that took everyone, including Gun himself, by surprise.
After the show, backstage, Tinn and Tiw tried to slip by unnoticed (in an incredibly lame way, Por had to admit), but Gun intercepted them. Then, Por grabbed Tiw by the wrist to leave Tinn and Gun alone and forced him to sit by his side.
The rest, as they say, is history.
They didn’t become best friends overnight. However, Por did begin to notice Tiw much more afterwards.
He stared at Tiw from his desk during class, eagerly waved at him when he came to the music club. Sometimes, he even made up some bullshit excuse just to go to the council room and see Tiw. Wore his best cardigans in hopes (not too big, but well-established somewhere in his mind regardless) of seeing Tiw in the school corridors.
Por realized he was interested in Tiw as more than just a friend when he caught himself imagining how it would feel to hold his hand or go to the aquarium together.
And, like every self-respecting man who has watched too many romantic dramas and believes in the concept of true love, Por decided to act accordingly.
Admittedly, he didn’t plan for Gun to not be able to sing and run off. Or for Win to leave almost immediately afterwards and Sound after him. Or for Yo and Pat to abandon him at the club room, having lost all faith in a future Chinzhilla comeback. Tinn going after Gun to comfort him, he more or less saw it coming. Por himself was going through a bad streak and he wasn’t in the mood for flirting at the time—but Tiw offered to stay at the club with him and eat the grilled pork so it wouldn’t go to waste, and that made Por’s day all the happier.
(Sure, not long after, Por fell down the stairs and broke his leg.
He couldn’t help but think, however, that it was all worth it —from the closed road that forced them to walk to the temple to the heated argument with his friends halfway—, simply because Tiwson had helped prepare a giant feast in the middle of the beach just for him.
That, Por hadn’t seen it in any romantic drama. It was way better than one.)
Loving Tiw comes to him naturally. It brings easy smiles to his face and makes Por want him close all the time.
“Hey, look!” Por cries out maybe too enthusiastically. His cheeks hurt from smiling so much, but he doesn't plan to stop soon either. “This fish looks like you!”
And he presses his index finger to the glass of the fish tank in front of them.
Tiw looks at him, always does. His eyes look for him in the crowd and watch all his gestures so very closely. The blue and pink lights of the aquarium cast colorful halos in his face, highlight the attractive curve of his nose and the dark curls falling on his face.
Por knows because his eyes, too, always look for Tiw.
“That’s... a black clownfish.”
“Aha,” Por nods. The little fish just keeps swimming in his tank, oblivious to the joke being made at his expense, “a cute clownfish for the cutest clown!”
Tiw buries his face in the crook of his neck and muffles his laugh there. It tickles where Por’s knitted pink sweater leaves the skin of his collarbone exposed.
“You’re so mean!”
Por kisses the crown of his head. Tiw’s curls tickle his nose. And Por believes that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to describe his love for Tiw as a warm belly laugh. A tickling sensation down his sides, the scent of citrus of his hair, the warmth of his body against Por’s.
“Can I make that up to you with ice cream?” Por asks with that innocent note to his voice. “I’ll feed you.”
And Tiw looks at him with those eyes. So black, so big and so bright.
“You promise?”
And Por stretches out his pinky. He doesn’t have much to offer Tiwson, but he’s willing to make a thousand promises and make them all come true just to make him happy.
“Promised.”
He’s willing to offer Tiw a lifetime of promises and the entire galaxy if that’s what he wants.
Yo
fell in love when he shouldn’t have.
Of course he knew it was wrong—or well, not bad per se, but it did go against the club’s rule. The number one rule. The only rule.
What was wrong, and Yo himself acknowledges it, was lying to Nook.
He told one white lie that progressively snowballed into a whole web of lies worthy of a TV drama. Multiple chapters long. Multiple seasons long. That drama wouldn’t be a romantic one to begin with. Because normally, liars like Yo are the antagonists in those types of series.
The only thing he said that wasn’t a lie (besides his name, obviously) was that he loved her.
Earning her forgiveness was no easy task. And Yo got that. He wouldn’t have forgiven himself either; not for using Tinn’s photos, and not for lying more than he spoke. To this day, he still believes the slap Nook gave him at the aquarium was much too soft.
Nook’s love is lenient and accepting. Perhaps too much. But it’s also sharp and no-nonsense. Nook says what she thinks and feels when she thinks and feels it. Doesn’t sugarcoat her words; if she thinks you screwed up, she will let you know—Yo knows because he’s gone through it.
That why he loves her so much, he concludes.
He was interested in her looks, at first. Nook is gorgeous, with her little brown braids and her bunny-like smile and her big eyes, so brown and full of life. With her long skirts down to her ankles and her crop tops, and her hands delicate, so small and perfectly manicured. Sometimes, Yo is scared to touch her, thinking he might break her like the porcelain doll she resembles.
But Nook is made of very sturdy porcelain. Tempered with steel. She breaks a bit, just a little bit, but quickly pulls herself back together. She’s tough, she’s courageous, she’s not afraid to take matters into her own hands.
And Yo didn’t realize how much he needed someone like that in his life until he met her. Someone who’s not afraid of pushing him to do things he normally wouldn’t dare to, of giving him a piece of their mind when he fucks up, who supports him (and gives him brownies) when he needs it. Someone who slaps some sense into him. Literally and figuratively.
He likes the way Nook’s hand looks so small in his own. It reminds him of when they made that pinky promise in her garden—after he had managed to convince his friends to learn how to dance, and shortly before her lunatic brother kicked them out.
Sometimes he feels unworthy of her. Thinks that Nook should’ve slapped him again, yelled at him to never come near her again. She didn’t, because aside from gutsy, Nook is merciful, and she believes in second chances.
Everyone’s been saying that Yo looks much happier since Nook is in his life.
Yo has noticed it, from the way she looks at him to the way she smiles at him; how she’s smiling right now, because Yo is a terribly bad baker, and instead of getting mad cause Yo has left her countertop all dirty with egg (let it be known that separating the yolks is much harder than it looks like), she laughs. She laughs because Yo has flour all over his hair and the apron. She laughs when, to no one’s surprise, that yellowish, lumpy dough Yo has prepared doesn’t yield good results—the cookies are too hard and taste like nothing at all. It’s like chewing chalk.
She still laughs when she stands on her tiptoes to kiss him on the nose and tells him not to throw in the towel. They still have a lot of time to learn. And Yo laughs, because it’s true; they have a lot of time.
For now, however, they’ll have to go to Gun’s mom’s milk bar to get some decent dessert.
Win
had fallen in love before. None of them turned out well.
He was five years old when he first fell in love. With a girl who frequented the same park his mom took him to all the time. She shared a popsicle with him and it was love at first sight. He screamed it at the top of his lungs, because he was a kid with no sense of self-restraint. She giggled and said she loved him too.
Two days later, his ‘girlfriend’ moved cities and he never saw her again.
Win was eight years old when he asked his mom to teach him to prepare chocolates. He wanted to give a Valentine’s day present to a classmate he really liked, and not only did his mother teach him, she also bought a cute heart-shaped box for them and helped Win write a little note to go with the chocolates.
That same Valentine’s day, she gave him a good luck kiss on the forehead and told him everything would be alright. Win thought it would when he left the box on his classmate’s desk—he had woken up earlier than usual to get to school before anyone else explicitly to do that.
At the end of the day, the girl gave him back the box and told him she was sorry, but that he wasn’t her type. She hadn’t eaten a single chocolate. Win threw them into the trash when he got home, not understanding why his mom had lied to him.
Win realized he was also into guys when he met Gun. With his eyes shiny with dreams and hopes for the future and that charming, boyish smile. He never told him, of course; Win had wised up big-time by that point. Had begun to build walls around him and conceal his feelings as best as he could. His technique could use some polish, but he managed.
The final wake-up slap wasn’t so much a slap, but a beat-down.
He got his first boyfriend at age fifteen.
Win doesn’t even remember his name by now. All he remembers is that he was quite a bit older, serious and not affectionate at all; the closest to affection he ever showed was the shitty sex.
Win also remembers he didn’t want to do any of that, remembers not feeling ready but also so scared of being dumped. So, he offered to do things he normally wouldn’t.
Gave the guy a handjob in his car and the only thing the bastard said after he came was “There’s tissues in the glove box.” Almost choked trying to suck him off with zero practice and gagging when he swallowed. Let the asshole take him to a hotel after dinner one night, too.
What a shitty fucking place to lose his virginity.
The red lights, the silk sheets, the glasses and champagne bottle on the table, the mirror on the ceiling, the hot tub. It all made his stomach twist, made him break into a cold sweat. Win wanted to run away as soon as he got in—but he was supposed to be grown-up, and fifteen year old guys don’t walk away or want to hug their mom because they’re scared.
So, he stayed. And what had to happen, happened.
It hurt. It hurt like a bitch. He felt like he was suffocating in the hot water of the tub despite (thankfully) never being pushed into it head-first. The guy did choke him a little though, just enough to get him light-headed but not pass out. He dropped a “You’re beautiful” that almost made Win smile through gritted teeth. Not that he believed it completely, but it was a nice fantasy to have.
The next morning, he took Win home.
Later that same day, he broke up with him.
None of the twenty texts Win sent him received an answer. And, when Win called him, he only said two bare-bones sentences before hanging up and blocking his number.
“I don’t want to see you anymore” He said. And then, when Win managed to ask why, he added, “I just don’t wanna do this anymore, Win. Stop calling me.”
Win wanted to grab all his feelings, shove them into a metal box and then throw it into the sea.
But, since that clearly wasn’t an option, what Win did was the second best thing: shut his feelings under lock and key in some secluded corner of his mind and hide the key who-knows-where. Maybe he swallowed it, maybe it did end in the bottom of the sea.
In any case, Sound ended up finding it, wherever it was. Sound Saran. The cocky guitarist that came with his delusions of grandeur and looking over everyone’s shoulder.
They hated each other’s guts. Everyone knew they hated each other’s guts. Win didn’t believe in that ‘love and hate, they’re so close’ bullshit. But, apparently, Sound was about to destroy his standards as well as his patience.
Sound fell first. Win fell harder. Though, if someone asked them, they’d fight over who did what.
Their love is like playing tug-of-war—sometimes they clash. Sometimes they grip the rope so tightly their palms get rope-burns. And sometimes they see each other as the enemy. However, at the end of the day, when the game is over, they look at each other and hug it out. Because they are friends and that’s nothing more than a game.
Win feels openly vulnerable for the first time in two years in front of Sound. He falls in love for the first time in two years, because Sound might be a nasty bastard, but he also has good things. Lots of good things. So many Win doesn’t have enough fingers to count them.
Sound is handsome in a way that’s borderline ridiculous. No wonder he’s an actor. He’s also very skilled at playing guitar. He’s a natural at driving Win up a wall, but he also supports him unconditionally—the rap battle is testament to that.
How Sound provoked him on purpose to get Win going. How he held Win’s hand despite not having to do so, because Win was no winner (as if saying “I’m here”). How Sound hugged him afterwards. So gentle, as if Win was something fragile, as if he could break with one wrong move. Win didn’t cry, but he was pretty damn close.
And that’s the thing with Sound. He’s cruel and ruthless with his insults, but still handles Win with care. Treasures him like he treasures his guitar.
He looks him in the eye with that dimpled smile Win loves so much. Steals cheek kisses during practice. Sings him love songs and writes new ones himself when he feels what he already has isn’t enough to express everything he feels for Win. He practically lives in Win’s house at this point (because his own place is empty more often than not, with his parents walking extensive shifts, and Sound doesn’t like being lonely). Win’s family adores him.
Sound didn’t look disappointed when Win told him he was not a virgin. He didn’t care about what came before, but about the here and now—and Win did cry that night.
Sound did look disappointed... or rather furious when Win told him how it had gone down. Not angry with Win, never with Win, but with his asshole of an ex.
He told Sound because he feels comfortable with him. Because Sound may be insensitive, but never with serious topics like this. Because he hugged Win when he finished telling his story and let him cry in his shoulder. Sound’s hands running up and down his back were the best tranquilizer.
“I’m sorry.”
Sound didn’t have to apologize (that wasn’t his fault, after all), yet he still did. And that’s when Win realized how much he had needed that: some comforting words, an affectionate gesture.
“I know I can’t make that go away,” Sound stroked at his cheekbone. The tenderness of it almost made Win cry again, “but I promise I’ll love you so much you’ll forget all about that jackass.”
“You already do, asshole.” Win’s voice had no malice behind it. It was still raw from all the crying, and the smile he tried to put on his face was more of a grimace. “Stop trying to play it cool.”
“I’m always cool,” Sound smiled (dimples, adorable, all that’s right in the world), pinching Win’s wet cheek, “that’s why you love me.”
Win wanted to say so many things. ‘Thank you’ and ‘You’re the worst’ and ‘That’s not the only reason I love you’. Instead, what he said was...
“Yeah, I do.”
Loving Sound Saran is accepting his annoying sides and his good sides and viceversa. It’s being able to show him his impurities without fearing the stares of disgust and immediate rejection that might follow. Because there is no such risk with Sound and he knows.
It’s the tug-of-war game Win will keep playing happily for the rest of his life.
Sound
was used to being the object of other people’s affection. However, he had no luck finding the object of his own affection.
Girls looked at him with longing. So did some boys, but the majority of them shot him death glares. Things didn’t get any better when Sound got his first acting role. In fact, the whole thing ended with Sound having to transfer schools after a particularly nasty incident in which things got physical.
Dates like Valentine’s Day, Christmas and his birthday meant receiving gifts and love confessions left and right. Sound rejected them all as nicely as he could—because he had become more callous and direct overtime (or that’s the impression he wanted to give; deep down, Sound knew he was still the same scared little boy he used to be), but he wasn’t about to be an asshole to those poor girls who had done nothing wrong. They had simply fallen in love with a guy who didn’t feel the same way.
It didn’t take long before Sound found out why he never reciprocated the feelings of any of those girls: he wasn’t into them like that. As in, didn't like girls romantically. Figures.
Then again, he had never reciprocated the feelings of either of those two boys who confessed to him in tenth grade.
And then... well, then Win.
Sound is acutely aware of when he first fell in love with Win. It was raining and very humid outside, and they were both sweaty after hours of playing badminton at the school’s gym. Win didn’t bring an umbrella and sneaked under Sound’s, which he begrudgingly accepted—and boy, is Sound glad he did. Because Win looked at him with those eyes (god, those eyes; they have to be the prettiest Sound has seen in his life), hugged him from behind, and Sound suddenly understood everything romance films said. About heartbeats picking up and sweating palms and becoming too aware of the heat in your own face and how all you can smell, see, feel is the other person.
Perhaps because he had only experienced love through films, Sound didn’t know how to act.
Should he confess? Ignore it until the feelings faded away on their own? Resign as Chinzhilla’s solo guitarist and transfer schools again with no explanation and move to some hidden village in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest? It all sounded right, and at the same time, none of those options seemed like the correct one.
So, he took the stupid way out: blurted it all out to Gun, foolishly believing his friend knew it all and hoping Gun would give him some useful advice. He didn’t. Not at first, anyway. Instead, he abandoned him at the beach and left Sound to wallow in his own feelings.
Win’s love is not sweet or puppy-like. It’s tough and steady. And Sound then realized that the reason he never reciprocated anyone’s feelings before was because they didn’t offer him what he was looking for.
Some people have since then asked him how he knows Win loves him. Maybe because they can’t make sense of the situation just yet.
Sound thinks they’re simply stupid and don’t know Win like he does.
They’ve shouted hurtful things at each other in the past. Horrible things. They still do sometimes, when playful jokes cross the line and escalate into full-blown fights, or when they’re mad and scream their lungs out without thinking. Like that one time they went to redeem their wishes.
They scream, say the worst things possible, leave each other alone for some time. They hug. They cry, bawl their eyes out. They apologize in every way they can and talk. About what just happened, about what they can do to make things better, about what to order for dinner.
They love each other.
Win is scared. Because he’s been hurt before and doesn’t want that to happen again. Maybe he’s a little embarrassed of Sound seeing him like that. Vulnerable, powerless, unlike his everyday self who’s loud and hot-headed.
Sound knows. He also knows he can handle every shade of Win. Knows he only keeps falling further in love with Win when he shows him those sides. Because Win lets Sound see parts of himself that have been broken and mended a thousand times over and anyone would think are ugly.
But not Sound.
Win looks at him disapprovingly when he comes home and sees Sound covered in ink. His pen decided it would be great to explode while he was writing (a love song, of course; it’s basically all he writes since he met Win), and the pages of his notebook are not the only victim.
What a day to be wearing all white.
“Welcome home?”
Sound smiles like an idiot when Win rolls his eyes. He doesn’t look remorseful or even remotely guilty, and Win is in charge of the laundry anyway.
“You’re a freaking mess,” Sound smiles a little wider. Win just can’t get mad at him, even if he wants to. Because Sound is his pumpkin and this isn’t even his fault to begin with—besides, he’s too cute, “let’s get you washed up.”
“I can do that on my own.”
“I’m your hand, remember?”
Sound wants to get annoyed. It’s only his old wrist injury acting up, nothing serious. He’s not dying. And yet, Win insists on taking care of him.
That’s exactly why he doesn’t get annoyed.
Because Win is tough, very tough on the outside; but on the inside, he’s soft, so very soft.
He melts when Sound smiles at him when he helps him wash his hands. Laughs when Sound, in a fit of playfulness, splashes him just to tease him. Kisses him on the cheek and tells Sound to change and throw the dirty clothes on the washer while he goes make lunch (because Win has insisted on doing all the chores until Sound’s wrist is feeling better—and because he’s the better cook, too).
Sound clicks his tongue. He was expecting something else. Like Win’s hands all over his body, undressing him himself. “You’re no fun, you know that?”
“Believe me, pumpkin,” And Win kisses him on the lips just because, “once your wrist is all healed, I won’t have any mercy on you.”
Sound can work with that.
Win shows him that he loves him when he cooks Sound’s favorite yakisoba for lunch and feeds it to him. Looks at him with those eyes (still the prettiest ones Sound has ever seen) shiny and swirling with adoration, and asks if the food is hot. When he pushes Sound’s bangs away from his face and reminds him that he has to retouch his roots, that he already bought the dye and that they can do that tonight if he wants.
It’s a simple way of showing love, and Sound is so happy that Win has been his first love.
He’s very certain he’ll be the only one, too.
Pat
was the classic case of someone in love with being in love. With the concept, so to speak. With the pretty sides: the dates, the holding hands, the kissing.
His love for love, it seems, was directly proportional to his lack of luck in it. The chips were down, and all of them were on his friends’ sides, none on his.
Through his life, Pat had been rejected more times than he could remember. Not because he didn’t try, mind you—Pat is the type of person who sees a chance and dives into it head-first, not thinking much about the consequences. Which usually lead to him saying or doing stupid shit (that “Call me daddy, girls” will haunt him for the rest of his life; seriously, what was he thinking about?).
... Actually, he can understand why rejection was so common.
When the last year of high school rolled up, Pat had abandoned all hope. He’d go to university without a girlfriend, like the pathetic human being he was.
Pat would be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous of his friends. He was. A lot. Had cried so much because he felt so lonely, too. In the privacy of his room, of course; he already felt pathetic enough as it was, he wasn’t about to cry in front of the others over nonsense like this. It was nonsense, in the grand scheme of things anyway.
Pat has never been the sharpest tool in the shed. And, as such, there’s a lot of things he doesn’t know. Like solving complex equations, or all the elements of the periodic table...
... Or when exactly he realized he was also into boys.
And not just into any boy, no. He was into one of the most annoying guys he’s ever met. Tall, a school council member, with a personal vendetta against the music club and a very pretty smile.
Oh yes, Pat was in love with Kajorn. The same Kajorn that he hated with all his heart a few weeks ago due to his fucking insistence on shutting down the music club.
It was ridiculous, it was nonsensical, and above everything else, it was Pat’s life. And he wasn’t sure if he should be happy (because love was finally knocking on his door, and it was there to stay apparently) and start getting ready for his wedding, or panic because why, why, oh why did it have to be Kajorn? Of all people in the school, why did it have to be him?
Now, looking at things from an outsider’s perspective, it wasn’t very surprising. Kajorn’s attitude had significantly changed ever since Gun and Tinn revealed their relationship: he had stopped bothering the music club, had started to support them instead of openly opposing them. He had even risked being expelled for punching a teacher who made disgusting comments about his friends. And that’s something that even Pat, who hated his guts, had to admit.
(Which still didn’t fully explain why Pat had gone from seeing Kajorn as the biggest asshole on the planet to wanting to shove his tongue down Kajorn’s throat, but alas.)
Something simply clicked, he supposes, when he saw Kajorn, Tinn and Gun leave the principal’s office. When he took notice of his red knuckles and asked if they hurt. Kajorn smiled, like it was no big deal, and thanked him for his concern.
Maybe it was that smile Kajorn shot him—beautiful, wide, shining with relief and the knowledge that he had done a good deed. It had that boyish charm, sort of naive, and it reached all the way to his eyes.
Or maybe it was after Chinzhilla’s presentation at graduation. Kajorn had been there, cheering for them in the audience even though he still had another year ahead before graduating. And Pat, god knows why, had walked up to him.
In a rather clumsy way, he thanked Kajorn for his support. He got tongue-tied a couple times, felt his palms getting increasingly sweaty and the tips of his ears extremely red. It ended with Pat handing him an official Chinzhilla shirt that ‘no one had taken’ when they made them, claiming he felt sorry seeing it lying there in the bunk bed of the club, all alone with no one to proudly wear it around.
(Completely ignoring it was Kajorn’s exact size. Pat had to go to Tiwson for that, and thankfully, he didn’t ask many questions. Pat’s heart was thankful for that.)
Kajorn is like a little puppy. Pat could almost see a tail wagging behind him when he took the shirt and told him he would treasure it like gold. Or when, later on, as Por and Tiw ignored him in order to take pictures together and Yo abandoned him for Nook, Kajorn surprised him from behind, patting his back (and Pat later discovered one of those little heart stickers on his shoulder and understood so much) to ask if he could get Pat’s autograph. On both, his uniform shirt and the Chinzhilla one.
“You’re not doing this so you can resell it at a higher price when we get famous, are you?” Pat had jokingly asked.
Kajorn laughed with his whole face. Pat’s hand that was holding the pen trembled.
He wrote his name surrounded by a bunch of exclamation marks in the chest of Kajorn’s Chinzhilla shirt. In his uniform, Pat simply signed with “I was wrong about you. I’m sorry.”
He later learned that Kajorn had been in love with him since he first laid eyes on him. That he thought it was ridiculously adorable when he spoke with his Isaan accent or said “Oh?”, and that he loved his passion for playing the drums. That the only reason he wanted the music club to shut down was so he could date Pat, because the stupid rule wouldn’t allow that—so, he thought, the only choice was for Chinzhilla to disband (apparently he didn’t know about the Hot Wave part). And Pat could only laugh, because it was him who constantly asked for disbandment.
It was an insecure sort of love, at first.
During their first weeks together, Pat couldn’t help but think he was taking advantage of Kajorn. He liked feeling loved, and Kajorn offered him just that; so maybe, just maybe, Pat was just conditioning himself. Maybe he was mistaking those feelings of gratitude for what he had done for Gun and Tinn. Mistaking them for something more intense. And he was just using Kajorn to feel better about himself.
Said fear was what prevented him from telling Kajorn he loved him for so long. Meanwhile, Kajorn said it everyday, without a fail.
And perhaps that’s what Pat needed. Those ‘I love you’ that gave him strength and all the confidence he was lacking. Kajorn smiles like that, like only he knows how to, and all is well in the world.
Pat fell in love with love again when he fell for Kajorn’s smile.
Maybe that’s what love is, after all: a smile, an ‘I love you’ from the right person. Someone looking at you like Kajorn is doing now.
Kajorn always wakes up earlier, like clockwork. It’s the weekend and he doesn’t have to, but he still does because he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t get up from the bed though, cause he doesn’t want to risk waking Pat. So he stays and watches. Appreciating, he calls it.
Pat wakes up every Saturday with Kajorn’s eyes on him and a good-morning smile. A forehead kiss, gentle fingers in his hair.
“Morning.” Kajorn’s voice is still rough from sleep.
Pat smiles back, because what else can he do when he is being looked at like that. Like he's hung all the stars and the moon in the sky. “It’s Saturday, weirdo. Sleep a little more.”
Kajorn’s thumb strokes his cheekbone, still smiling. He doesn’t say anything, but Pat knows what he’s thinking.
But I don’t want to stop looking at you.
He snuggles further into Kajorn’s chest, cheek smushed against his shirt, and hopes Kajorn doesn’t see how red he is. At the same time though, he hopes Kajorn does and smiles wider once he realizes.
Pat never really understood what love was; all he knew was that he liked it and that he wanted it for himself.
Right now though, if someone asked him, Pat would say that love is sleeping in till late in Kajorn’s arms on a Saturday morning.