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“Thanks for the ride,” Nanon says, absentmindedly petting Ohm’s hair in appreciation, as he moves to open the car door.
Ohm pokes his head out of his car window before Nanon makes his way inside his condo. “Is that all the thanks I get?” His ridiculously big, teasing eyes gleam in the moonlight and his tongue lolls out a little, like his body cannot contain his glee. A picture perfect giant puppy. Nanon bites back a smile.
Ohm has been awfully giddy since they confirmed the news with P’Aof today. Awfully Pat-like.
Nanon doesn’t want to go inside yet, but he doesn’t exactly want to invite Ohm in, either. They exist in this limbo between friendship and something. Something more or something less depends on the day, and both are dangerous territories, but this limbo—this limbo is safe.
Clearly, Ohm doesn't want their time together to end just yet, either, given his inane question, and Nanon is nothing if not humorous.
He decides he will play along.
Nanon rests his arm on the hood of Ohm’s car and leans down to fix his gaze on him.
“What do you want?”
Ohm looks so innocent, staring up at him like this. Nanon revels in it.
(He remembers a memory from a lifetime ago, the two of them in a bed by the sea, salt in the air, and Ohm curling into his side, so freakin' cute and small.)
“Don’t you owe me an omelette?” Ohm's cheekiness snaps him back to reality.
A dimple on Nanon’s chin surfaces as he mock contemplates. “Sorry, my cooking services are closed now.”
“Are there any other services you offer?”
Nanon bursts into laughter, shaking his head at Ohm. “Asshole.”
Ohm’s eyes crinkle, joining Nanon in on the joke. Ohm is happy they can still joke like this.
As their laughter dies down, words linger at the tip of Nanon’s tongue. He taps his fingers lightly against the hood of the car, filling the silence. They haven’t been alone like this for a while, purposefully or not. He doesn’t want to ruin it by saying the wrong thing.
Ohm beats him to it.
“So,” Ohm starts, and Nanon holds his breath. He already anticipates this veering outside the safety of their limbo.
“You realise you’re going to have to pretend to be in love with me again?” Ohm has a cheeky grin in place, eyes sparkling at the opportunity for more banter.
Nanon exhales.
Ohm fucking Pawat and his tendency to crash them both face first into dangerous fucking territory is going to be the death of him.
What, like it’s hard? Nanon thinks. Like you are not frustratingly easy to love? As if I don’t already love you? As if I haven’t wished that I could stop? He doesn’t say any of that. Instead, what leaves his mouth is, “You know I enjoy a challenge,” with a nonchalant shrug, and it’s too forced. Not playful enough. A wall.
Overcompensation.
And if it wasn’t Ohm, Nanon wouldn’t have even noticed. Ohm, who he had memorised every facial expression of, had intentionally categorised each microscopic feature and mannerism deep into the folds of his brain. It was homework, at first. His duty as Pran to know Pat. But homework evolved into fascination, and—I like his smile. 5000 baht. I like his hairline. I like how it’s shaped like a heart. I like his eyes. I can’t choose. I like them all. Even I don’t know why—if it were anyone else, Nanon wouldn’t have registered the split second where Ohm’s grin falls and his giddiness falters, where his breath hitches and doubt takes over. But it’s Ohm. And he's Nanon. So he does.
“Of course,” Ohm muses, schooling a smile onto his face with ease. Nanon detests it. “Why else would you have agreed to it?”
Ohm doesn't wait for Nanon to respond and chuckles to himself, but it comes out sounding more like a scoff. He puts his car into ignition, ready to backtrack. Backtrack away from the conversation and out of the driveway. Nanon takes the hint. He backs away from the car window, letting Ohm put it back up again, a tangible shield now between them.
Ohm nods his head towards Nanon’s direction without making eye contact before he leaves, so uncharacteristically solemn.
The driveway has never felt emptier.
Nanon doesn't look at Ohm anymore.
I love Nanon's eyes. There’s always something in his eyes. His eyes can’t lie.
Nanon doesn't look at Ohm anymore, and Ohm doesn't want him to look, anyway.
Because what if he looks, and I see nothing? What if he looks, and I realise he feels nothing for me?
“You don’t look at me anymore,” Ohm grumbles into his pillow.
What? “What?”
They are back in another shared hotel room in another foreign city after another fan-meeting. They had gone off on separate ways again after their show, needing their own routines of relaxation, but Ohm had returned far less sober than he was when had gone.
“I said—” Ohm pauses to hiccup. He is so drunk. “—You don’t look at me anymore.”
“Ai’Ohm,” Nanon hushes. “Why did you drink so much?”
“Ai’Non,” Ohm whines. “Why won’t you look at me?”
“Let’s just sleep.” Please.
“I dare you,” Ohm taunts with a yawn. “I dare you to look at me.”
"We aren't Pat and Pran anymore."
“I shouldn’t have to be in character just to get along with you.”
@nanon_korapat ● 13h
"Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”
reposted from @the_goodfilms
"Happy New Year."
“Sometimes, I wish you would just punch me,” Ohm confesses, parked in the driveway of Nanon’s condo. It’s the only place they find themselves alone together anymore. “Yell at me,” Ohm presses. “Anything but this. I would rather you hate me, than just put up with me.”
“You must hate me, right?” Ohm tries so hard not to let his voice waver. He fails. “Especially after—”
“I don’t hate you, Ohm,” Nanon cuts in, resigned. He’s tired. They’re both so, so tired.
They stew in silence for a moment, before Nanon wordlessly leaves and slams the car door shut.
Is there a place, Ohm wonders, looking at Nanon’s retreating figure in the driveway, where someone loves you both before and after they learn who you are?
The driveway does not answer.
“Remember when I promised you that I would protect you from anything that hurts you?”
“We promised each other.”
“I never thought that I would have to protect you from myself.”
“Is that what you’re calling this?”
“I’m just giving you an out.”
“What happens if I take it?”
“Can we kiss as Pat and Pran?”
Meung turned into Ter turned into Khun.
Was it the merit? Was it the shoes? Was it them always giving but never listening?
You gave me the merit to offer together so we could be friends even in the next life, and I offered it alone. I gave you shoes and you took them to walk out of my life freely, never paying me a baht in return. We’re even.
An endless cycle of empty promises and broken commitments.
My fingers still itch to touch you. I still turn on impulse to whisper dirty jokes in your ear. I still linger behind in case you do not have a ride home.
They exist in a series of paradoxes: love and hate, partner and co-worker, friend and unfriend.
I still understand your sense of humour when no one else does. I still know how to lose to you in rock paper scissors. I still mirror your motions.
They do not spend time together. They barely talk. They are incompatible. And yet an ineffable force ties them together.
I still feel the pull of you.
The only heaven they know is a driveway.
I still forget we are no longer friends.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” Ohm asks, with a quirk of his eyebrow.
They have been rehearsing for the LOL Fan Fest for hours. Ohm has always been more prone to sweat than Nanon, so Nanon used his own shirt to wipe off the excess sweat on Ohm’s neck. He hadn't even realised he had done it. It was an impulse. Ohm’s skin has always glistened in a way Nanon could not help but touch.
“You always look so… surprised… whenever I take care of you.”
(It’s almost cute. The way Ohm blushes a little. How flustered he gets.)
Silence.
“…I don’t do it enough, do I?”
More silence.
Fuck it. “I don’t want you to look so surprised.”
“I don’t want you to force yourself to care about me.”
“Ohm.”
“Nanon.”
Fuck.
He hasn’t seen him in what feels like months. They no longer have a reason to. But somehow the sun set and Nanon wound up in Ohm’s car, and now they’re parked in Nanon’s driveway pretending not to listen to each other breathe over the deafening sound of the cicadas buzzing, and the Bangkok air has never felt thicker.
"So—"
“Would you prefer a lifetime where we never meet, or a lifetime where we kill each other?”
Oh. "Oh."
"Forget it—"
“Aren’t we already in that lifetime?”
“So you would prefer to never meet me.”
“Wrong. I would prefer you kill me, again and again.”
“Until what?”
“Until we get it right.”
The hum of the cicadas echoes in the silence.
“I guess we really are in that lifetime.”
“Maybe we were meant to ruin each other," he says, taking a swig of his bottle. Alcohol and strobe lights disguise their combined fears and hesitations. "Maybe we were always going to love each other the worst. Maybe there is a lesson in all of this.”
“Haven’t seen you bring your car around in a while.”
“I prefer bikes these days.”
Right. “No windows.”
“No barriers,” Ohm corrects. “Just… me and the wind.”
“You look good.” I miss you. “Happy.”
“You too.” I miss you too.
Ohm clears his throat. “How are you getting home?”
“Was going to order a Grab, but—”
“You could ask me.”
“I could ask you.”