Chapter Text
Joong suddenly jerked awake.
The first thing he saw as he opened his eyes was the color white. A lot of white and a lot of light.
Weird, his bedroom wasn't white.
He took a deep breath, almost as if he hadn't breathed for months. He could feel his hearth pound way too fast in his chest.
His eyesight was unusually blurred. Yes, he had been wearing glasses for years, but he didn't usually see that bad. He only needed to wear them when he wanted to read.
Not to mention the headache he had. Maybe it was because of all the light, or whatever else, but he felt dazed as he had never felt before.
He closed back his eyes right away.
What was happening?
And also why was his brain so foggy? He couldn't even form a proper thought, let alone remember what had happened before he fell asleep.
Or figure out where he was. Seriously, where the hell was he? That definitely was not his bedroom.
He tried once again to open his eyes and get up. Except that he couldn't get up at all. As much as he tried, the only thing he'd managed to do was moving his neck.
It was as if he was completely out of energy.
A wave of panic was starting to set in, until he noticed a dark figure in the corner of the room. It kinda looked familiar?
«Holy shit.»
Hearing that voice was like receiving a slap in the face.
It was the thing that suddenly brought him back to reality.
It was his sister's. She was standing there completely still, with puffy and teary eyes, while covering her mouth with her hand.
Every single memory immediately flooded Joong's mind and all he could do was go still, horrified.
The last thing he saw was his crying sister running up to him, before everything went back to black.
•
The new year had just started a couple of weeks before and, honestly, Dunk didn't feel it was gonna be that great.
Him, Dunk Natachai, known for always being optimistic and looking for the positive side in everything.
But how could he, after what happened the year before?
More that four months had passed, but the time still hadn't healed anything. Now it was only easier to live with it, just because there was no other option. The only thing he could do was slowly getting used to it.
Something he had only recently learned how to do, because during the first couple of months after the accident he had lived miserably.
It was one of the last days of august when Joong went in a coma. It took weeks for Dunk to fully process the whole thing. Many mornings after waking up he would check his phone to see if Joong had sent him some dumb text as he usually did, just to then being hit by the realization. At times while we was scrolling through the instagram reels and saw something funny, he would sent it to him without even thinking about it.
He simply could not face the thought that Joong wouldn't have been in his life anymore, for god knew how long.
Him and Dunk only met two years before, but that didn't mean their friendship was any less solid and important than older ones.
Something clicked between the two of them, they had a kind of mutual understanding that would normally be hard to find even with your closest friends.
And if at the beginning it looked like Joong was the one in need of Dunk, as the time passed Dunk too was becoming codependent on him. They would randomly invite themselves over at their houses and spend the evening watching movies or doing dumb shit, shoot together for hours, go shopping as a break from everything else, talk about every single thing that came to their mind and being able to vent to each other whenever the burden of being a celebrity was starting to be too much.
Having Joong as his partner and more importantly as his best friend meant having someone on your side that always understands you, even when others can't. And the thought of that was comforting.
When he ended up in the hospital their latest series Hidden Agenda was still coming out, the accident happened right the day before a new episode would come out. They decided to postpone it to the week after, as a form of respect towards Joong. Even if it had came out that day, who would've really seen it? Fans were all worked up by the news and kept making posts to show support to Joong's family and friends, not to mention the endless questions they asked everywhere eager to know more about the situation. And Dunk, he surely wouldn't have watched it either, simply because he couldn't bring himself to. From that day onwards he hadn't watched any of the new episodes. He would make vague comments on twitter every once in a while, not to let the fans suspect about it.
Not only that one episode was postponed, all of their incoming fanmeetings were.
Dunk thought he could've just gone anyways even if that meant being alone, in order not to disappoint all the fans that bought the ticket, but then thinking about it twice it would've only made him feel worse.
He ended up taking a break.
From GMMTV, from work in general. And he had felt rather guilty about it, but that was a break he really needed. He couldn't just shoot stuff without Joong, while he was in an hospital bed fighting between life and death. Also, even if he wanted, he had too much going on in his head to be able to find the concentration acting required.
He needed time.
His break lasted until the end of November.
When he was starting to actually deal with what happened and face the fact that quitting it all was not the solution.
Dunk went back to work with a clearer mind. He was definitely doing better, and he would soothe the occasional sadness by often visiting Joong's mom and siblings. He was seeing them more then than throughout the whole two years he had known Joong for.
During his free time he had also started to walk his dog outside, something he found brought him inner peace. Before, his sister would usually do it since he was too busy.
Another thing he'd started doing was going to the beach and read, surrounded by peace and quiet, completely undisturbed. It was one of his favorite things to do lately.
You could say that he was slowly starting to get out of that difficult period of his life. And some things were also changing.
Yup. One of the newest things? Dunk found himself a boyfriend.
Yes BOYfriend. And it had been as surprising to him just as much as it had been to others.
Dunk's sexuality? At that point he didn't even know anymore. Many people assumed he must've been gay since he acted in BLs, others instead seemed to be so sure he was straight and never stopped asking him if he had got himself a girlfriend yet.
To be honest, Dunk had grown up believing he was straight. He hadn't had much experience when it came to girls, but still he'd never really felt attracted to a boy. Then the opportunity of entering GMMTV came up. Dunk went to the castings pretty nonchalant, he'd always been a chill and open minded guy, he didn't really mind playing a gay role. It surely was something new and different, but he had never felt uncomfortable with it in any way. In fact, the whole thing actually made him give it some thought.
He was liking working with Joong, and the dynamic between the two of them in their daily life (between fan service and genuine strong friendship) was giving him a new point of view on what a romantic relationship could be. Even if he pictured himself being in a couple with another man he honestly didn't mind. Maybe he wasn't attracted to a specific gender, even if he'd always assumed otherwise because of the very much heteronormative society.
Not that he liked Joong. I mean yeah, he'd asked himself that question at a certain point, but the prospective of a romantic relationship between the two of them almost seemed uncomfortable. Actually, impossible. Even if there had been the slightest spark of something that could've evolved into an actual thing, a relationship of that kind in the entertainment industry was doomed not to last and to only bring drama and negative attention.
Also, mind you, Joong was surely not gay, so Dunk
dismissed the thought pretty fast, before he could even actually think about it.
In the end though he actually ended up with a boy. Tam.
He met him at the beach. Dunk's phone had died and he needed to text his mother to tell her he would've come home a bit late. He'd asked to the person closest to him if they could let him borrow their phone to make an important call, and that person was Tam. After the call, he saw the book Dunk held in his hands and started making conversation, since it just so happened to be written by his favorite author.
It had been a surprisingly nice exchange, apparently both of them were book enthusiasts and ended up talking for more than an hour. In the end they also exchanged their instagrams.
Dunk didn't really know what he was doing, he'd never really flirted with a boy before and he was afraid he was later going to realize it was not his cup of tea, but he knew that in that moment it was feeling right and that was enough.
After that day, they started seeing each other quite often. At the beach, and later in other places too.
It was Tam who shoot his shot first, texting Dunk in his DMs. As the time passed they got to know each other better and feel pretty comfortable with each other.
Their fist kiss happed after two weeks they first met, and in that precise moment Dunk concluded that that was the right thing for him. Yes, he was really attracted to a man, so he needed to stop with all the doubts. He for sure was not straight. At the same time though, he was the kind of person who doesn't like putting labels on things until being a hundred percent sure, so he just didn't want to find a name for it just yet. He guessed the closest thing was probably pan.
The first thing he did was telling his family. It felt like getting a huge burden off his chest. He never for a single second thought they would've reacted negatively, but it still was pretty big news to tell. And they had definitely been supportive, after that it had been way easier to tell others.
And "others" stands for his closest friends, because they were the only ones he wanted to let know for the time being.
As soon as Dunk told Pond, he started teasing him all day long. "My friend finally got himself a boyfriendd", "you really rizzed up someone with classic literature". Jokes aside, though, Pond also reiterated that Dunk had all his support and that he was glad to see him happy.
Him and Tam started getting along since the very first time they met. Although Tam only met Dunk's family once, he was hanging out with his circle of friends pretty often. It was something that made Dunk happy. Spending time with the people he loved the most together with the person he liked.
Only one person was missing, to whom Dunk was dying to tell everything. But he couldn't.
He was honestly amongst the few whose reaction mattered the most to him, and every single day he wondered what it could've been. A positive one? Surprised? Or maybe he wouldn't even care that much.
Even though Dunk liked to think Joong would've been happy for him. He didn't even want to imagine any other kind of reaction.
He had told him so many times, in his mind. He kept imagining conversations with him because it killed him that he couldn't actually talk to him anymore.
After the accident, every single day he would wake up hoping to receive a text from Joong's family that said he woke up. Every day, as soon as he turned his phone on, he was hoping for it.
But after four months he'd started hoping a bit less.
«Is everything okay?»
«Uh?» His thoughts were interrupted by Tam's voice, seated next to him in his car. «Yeah, I'm just a bit sleepy.»
«You just seemed to be out of it.»
«I'm okay, really.» Dunk shook his head, sighing. «I was just thinking about how busy this year is gonna be. All the travels abroad for all those endless meetings, the hours I'm gonna have to spend working on my clothing line, plus all the projects I was supposed to shoot for but need to be changed» Because Joong was also originally in them, but he obviously now couldn't. «Oh and also, god, all the interviews.»
Dunk's least favorite thing. It was hours and hours of questions, all pretty much the same. Every time he would come home exhausted.
The problem wasn't even the interview itself actually, but the fact that Dunk now had to either give them alone or paired with another random actor. And that was like having salt being poured in his wounds, reminding him that he didn't have someone constantly beside him anymore.
Not to mention the sympathy he could see in the eyes of the people around him. They would obviously never mention Joong, but still treat Dunk as if he was made of glass. With a "I'm sorry" written on their face. As if he was the poor thing left all alone.
Tam took Dunk's hand in his. «Hey, you can't already be this discouraged from the very beginning, not you» He looked at Dunk in a way that immediately reassured him. «You're one of the most ambitious and capable people I know. Not only you'll manage to do everything, you'll nail it.»
At those words Dunk let out a scoff. «Eyes on the road, man.» He didn't leave his hand though, he squeezed it more.
Tam smiled too.
He'd just picked up Dunk from the GMMTV building. The two of them worked pretty close and whenever they finished at about the same time they would go out to eat something or just hang around.
It was afternoon at the moment, they would've probably gone for a walk somewhere and have an ice cream. Finding places where people didn't recognize Dunk was always a problem, but at least they had had found one. It was a spot not too far away and it was basically always empty. The only alternative in order not to be caught by people was to go to Tim's place, but Dunk didn't feel like bothering his family, and most of all he couldn't bear being indoors all the time.
Dunk's phone suddenly vibrated.
It did again.
And again.
It vibrated another time.
Another one.
Tam turned to him with a raised eyebrow. «Sometimes I forget you're famous.»
Dunk picked up his phone, frowning. Him being famous had got nothing to do with all those notifications, he'd turned them off on every social media. The only ones he'd left on were the ones from his family and a couple of other important people.
As soon as the display lit up, Dunk went completely still.
They were texts from Joong's sister.
His heart skipped a beat, even before reading what they said.
Dunk, calm down, don't give yourself false hope, you're just gonna get disappointed.
He typed in the password, while his heart rate was reaching the speed of light.
[Sare]:
(17:03) DUNK
(17:03) DUNK
(17:03) DUNK
(17:03) Joong just woke up
Dunk took the deepest breath he'd ever taken.
He read the message once again because he didn't believe it.
(17:04) They're checking on him now, to see how he's doing
Dunk brought his hands to his face, he needed a moment. He closed his eyes and kept taking breaths.
He wasn't imaging it, right?
«Jesus Christ Dunk, are you okay?»