Chapter Text
I like them sweet but naughty, dimples on their cheeks
I bet you taste like berries
Hella cute in the daylight
All over me after midnight, oh yeah
You got me so hooked on you, oh-oh
“So,” singsongs a familiar voice, just as Night is grabbing some books from his locker. “Are you coming to my game tonight, little nong?”
Night pushes the metallic door closed a little too harshly, already dreading the inevitable encounter, and—there he is, The Menace King himself in person, North Jirawatthanakul. He’s smiling, arms crossed over his chest as he leans over the row of lockers, looking at Night with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.
Oh, he adores bothering Night. He’s having the time of his life right now.
Night cocks his head to the side, “And why would I?”
“Because I’m inviting you,” North says, like it’s obvious. “And I want you to come.”
“Well, I don’t want to go,” Night counters, “I have to study.”
“Oh, come on,” North pouts, eyebrows furrowed into a tiny little scowl, bottom lip jutting out. He does look cute like that, but Night will never admit that out loud; he doesn’t need North exploiting that knowledge once he discovers it. “Exam period starts on November!”
“Exactly.”
North arches both eyebrows. “That’s two weeks from now, nong.”
Night shrugs. He’d retort with something like ‘that’s why you have bad grades’ but he can’t, because North actually has good grades. He’s the whole package, a multitalented, well-known senior—popular, rich, an outstanding athlete, top grades, a brilliant musician and ridiculously handsome. It was annoying, to say the least. He could be ugly, at least. But no, heavens decided to bless North with a stupidly pretty face too, as if an angelic voice and top-notch skills in every single sport to exist weren’t enough.
“Still,” he says, because that’s the only thing he can think of.
“Aw,” North utters, shoulders and face falling. “Are you really not going?”
“Again,” Night says, pointedly, tapping North’s cheek. “Why would I?”
“Dunno,” North says, blinking at the small gesture, eyeing Night’s finger. “…Because you love me and want to make me happy with your presence?”
Night quirks an eyebrow. “Someone is lying to you very badly if you think that.”
North frowns. Night waits for a couple of seconds, but when it seems like North won’t say anything else, he sighs with relief mentally and steps back. He can finally turn around and go—
“Wait,” North says, and reaches out to grab onto Night’s wrist. He then blurts out, maybe as a last desperate resort: “I can take you to dinner later.”
Night narrows his eyes.
“You can’t bribe me with food all the time, Jirawatthanakul,” he accuses, prodding a finger into North’s chest.
Just because of that one time Night accepted to tutor North in exchange of a dinner, it doesn’t mean he’d always give up to North because of food. Besides, in his defense, back then, it helped that North wanted sessions about Physics, and North was a science nerd.
“Oi,” North pouts again, sulking. “Where is the phi there?”
Night snorts. “I won’t ever call you phi, North.”
“Whu—” he blinks dumbly. “And why is that?”
“Because I don’t respect you,” Night smiles.
“Daw,” North utters, taken aback. He doesn’t look offended in the slightest, though, if the laugh that follows is any indication—it’s bubbly and full of mirth, as if Night’s petty insults amused him. “You’re so naughty, nong.”
Maybe it’s the tone which with he says it, or the way his eyes shine playfully, or the genuinely amused grin on his face, but Night’s chest does something weird.
He does not like it.
“Please don’t say that,” he says, maybe a bit tad of panic slipping into his voice.
North quickly catches on that, a slow smirk curling up on his lips.
“Oh hoh?” he teases, stepping closer and closer and closer until he’s cornering Night into the wall. “Nong NightNight doesn’t like dirty talk?”
Night’s back touches the wall behind him, and he looks up at North with a frown. He’s so close, it’s making him uneasy. “Could you step back—?”
“Or maybe you do like it?” North ponders, voice going low, sweet velvet as he places his palm at Night’s head side and leans down to look straight into Night’s eyes. “Is that it? Because I can tell you about all the things I want to do with you, if that’s what you’re into—”
“If—” Night stutters, clearing off his throat when he feels like his voice is going to fail him. He blinks down and then up, unable to look at North for too long at this distance. “If I go to that stupid game, would you ever so kindly fuck off right now?”
“Ohhh?” North’s smirk turns devilish and coquettish, cocking his head back to offer him a cheeky glance. “You’re really sexy when you curse, nong Night. You should do it more often.”
“North.”
North chuckles, “Okay, okay,” he lifts up both hands in the air in a surrender gesture and finally—finally, finally—steps back, making Night take the breath he didn’t know he was holding in. “Yup. I’ll ‘fuck off’ if you go,” he concedes merrily.
“Good,” Night says, annoyed at the fact that North won. “Bye then.”
“Wait, wait, wait—”
Night rolls his eyes. “What now? You said you’d leave me alone.”
“I said that, yes,” North nods a single time, faking solemn with a hand on his chest, “And I keep up my promises—”
“Debatable,” Night interrupts.
North continues, the only sign that he heard Night a shift in his eyes and a tilt of his smile. “—but just one more thing.”
Night looks at him, wary. “…What?”
North looks back at him with doe eyes, which—not a good sign. “A tiny, tiny favor.”
“What?” Night repeats, pointedly.
North presses his lips together, hesitant. “Um. I brought you something—”
Night watches as North pulls up his backpack, unzipping it to take out something.
“Uhh. Do you think you could wear it to the match…?”
Night squints. “Don’t push it, North.”
“Eh?” North looks up, blinking in confusion. Then, seeing Night’s expression, he snickers. “Such a dirty mind, nong!”
Night quirks an eyebrow, inquiring.
“It’s nothing weird, I promise!” North hurries to claim, scrambling his things into his backpack. “Just— This.”
Night blinks. “…Your jacket?”
Surprisingly, North shoots him a shy smile. “Yeah.”
He looks shy. Oh god. Why is he suddenly looking shy? Night doesn’t think he’s ever witnessed that.
“…Why do you want me to wear your jacket to the game?”
“Just,” North shrugs, an attempt to make everything seem casual, but fails terribly as he hides half of his face behind the jacket a second later. “A tradition.”
“I bet it’s something weird,” Night insists.
“It’s not!” North shakes his head. “It’s for good luck only,” he explains. Then, the doe eyes again, combined with a sweet tone to intensify their functionality. “Would you?”
Night is always weak for North’s soft voice. (Another thing he won’t ever say out loud). He yields so stupidly easy.
He grabs the jacket from North’s hands.
“Only if I feel like it,” he grunts.
North grins— happy, boyish, elated. He knows that if Night took it, he’s gonna wear it, no matter how reluctant he fakes to be.
“Good,” North says, and pokes Night’s cheek. “Thank you, ai’Nong.”
Night huffs in lieu of a coherent answer, then turns around to leave. North offers him a salute with two fingers and a vibrant, toothy smile.
“Bye, bye, nong nong!” he waves. “See you at six!”
Night always ends up folding to North. Goddammit.
.
.
At exactly 5:40 PM, Night is walking across Chula’s field to the row of stands from the local’s team. He can feel the myriad of eyes following him as he moves, but either he’s being paranoid or it’s just because P’Sun is with him, and P’Sun is popular as hell. Everyone in campus knows her.
The place is already packed, and Night gets a good seat just by miracle. It’s on the third row, and he can perfectly see the whole field from there. He can also perfectly see when North jogs across the yard to him.
P’Sun elbows him, “Your Prince Charming is coming,” she grins, because she adores teasing Night about North.
Just because of that one time he told her he might have a tiny, little, insignificant crush on North she won’t ever let it go.
“Everyone and their mother has a dumb crush on North,” Night had said back then, rolling his eyes.
“I don’t,” P’Sun had declared, grinning like she just won the lottery.
“What I mean is—” Night had spluttered, frowning, “It’s not that important. It’s just a silly crush.”
“Well,” P’Sun added, arms behind her back as she bounced on her heels. “You forget something very important here.”
“And that is?”
“You see, my dear friend. Anyone can have a crush on North, but North has a crush on you—”
“Hello, nong NightNight!” North calls, leaning over the rails separating the stands from the field to offer Night a dazzling smile, eyes shining. His voice halts Night back to the present, looking down at him from his seat. “What an honor to be graced by your presence!”
“Mmn.”
North is beaming. A complete, devastating ball of sunshine, all starry-eyed and sparkly.
“You came!” he says again, like he can’t believe his eyes.
“Well,” Night says, tilting his head. “An idiot kept pestering me about it all morning, so,” he then shrugs.
“What a persuasive person,” North tells him, very serious.
“Rather annoying, I’d say,” Night retorts, scrunching up his nose.
North’s grin doesn’t waver.
“So,” he leans back. “The offer for dinner is still on. If you want.”
A couple of girls sitting at the first-row start gushing. It’s obvious they were fangirling since North came up. It’s obvious half of the stands is fangirling or fanboying over North right now.
North ignores them in favor of shooting Night a coquettish smile. “You can pick the place.”
“You shouldn’t say that,” Night points out. “What if I pick a really pricey place just to annoy you?”
“Oh,” North runs a hand through his long-ish hair. “But I’d give you all my money, sweetheart.”
Night blinks. He can feel his ears growing hot.
Here’s the thing. Night is just human, and very, very gay, and North is annoying, yes, but he’s also terribly, deadly, overwhelmingly hot. And in his soccer uniform? Even worse. It was extremely lethal. There are just too many flirty smiles Night can go through before starting to lose control of himself.
He doesn’t want to get flustered in front of him—and especially if there’s witnesses around—but being called sweetheart in North’s silky voice was definitely not helping.
Needless to say, it’s not the first time North has called him that. He was very fond of pet names, especially when it came to Night. However, it was the first time he did it wearing that.
Not good for Night’s sanity, if you ask him.
“Is that one of your usual pick-up lines?” Night asks, ignoring the way his heart jumps.
“Nope,” North clicks his tongue and smirks. “Just for you, babe.”
Night has to bite down on his cheek to keep himself from smiling.
“You like pet names.”
“You smile when I call you those,” North grins, very aware of Night’s internal turmoil, the jerk.
“It’s because you look dumber than usual,” Night quips right back.
North throws his head back to laugh. He’s so earth-shattering beautiful it should be illegal.
“You can say that all you want, but I see that you like it, nong,” he singsongs.
“Whatever makes you sleep at night.”
“You help me sleep at night, little nong,” he goes on, very committed to his role to make Night a mess. “I’m always having sweet dreams about you—”
“Oi, North,” one of his teammates yells from the other side, “Stop flirting, we need to warm up!”
North stops to look over his shoulder, “Coming!”
Then, he turns around and starts walking backwards, index and middle finger pointing at his eyes and then at Night, gesturing between them as he adds, like a challenge, “Keep your eyes on me, nong Night.”
Well.
It’d be hard to look anywhere else.
.
A couple of minutes later, and just before the game starts, Night is hyper-aware of the thousands of looks he’s been given the past ten minutes.
“Okay,” he fidgets on his seat. “Maybe I’m being self-conscious or something, but—” he scratches his cheek. “Do you also feel like people keep looking at me?”
“Oh,” P’Sun tilts her head. “That’s probably just because you’re wearing North’s jacket.”
“Well,” Night blinks, “It’s sort of weird that I’m wearing it, but I bet I’m not the only one who he’s given his jacket to.”
It sort of stings, somewhere, to think about it, but Night is not ready to dissect what that pain actually means.
“Actually, you’re the first one, if I recall correctly.” P’Sun says, mulling it over, and then smiles softly as she scans Night’s face, probably distinctively aware of the stupid relief washing over him.
Being the first one (and only) person North has offered his jacket to shouldn’t make him happy, and it obviously shouldn’t make him feel remarkably special, but—
“It’s a tradition,” P’Sun says, “So soccer players are really possessive of their jackets.”
Night frowns, wary. “Yes, North talked about a tradition, but he didn’t really explain it. What about it?”
P’Sun’s smile twists, and the amusement on her eyes are a bad, bad sign. “Oh? Didn’t you know?”
Night presses his lips together.
P’Sun chuckles. “You see, they—”
When she’s done explaining, Night screams the highest ‘HUH?!’ that can be heard up in the moon.
“Ai’North!”
He wasn’t particularly calling him, but North—incredibly attentive to Night’s voice, freezes on the spot and barely dodges a ball aimed at his face.
Night sees as he gestures to his friend with his hand to ‘wait just a second—’ and then turns around to jog to him again.
He’s delighted to have Night’s attention, beaming all over as he leans over the rails again.
“You called me, my love?”
Night points an accusatory finger at him.
“You sneaky cheater!” he hisses.
“Huh?” North blinks dumbly. Then, he shakes his head and lifts both of his hands to put them in the middle of his chest, all in his King of Drama mood, “I haven’t cheat on you, nong. I would never!”
“You—” Night huffs. “I mean this!”
Night pulls at the neck of the varsity jacket pointedly. North seems to catch on quickly.
“You’re not fair,” Night frowns. “You didn’t tell me only the players’ lovers wore their jackets. That’s why everyone has been looking at me weird!”
North has the audacity to laugh. He’s the most unserious person ever.
“Asshole,” Night grumbles. “You knew about it. That’s why you gave it to me!”
North stops laughing, but his perpetual trademark grin is still plastered all over his face, meeting his shiny eyes and the crinkle on his nose.
“Wait, wait, wait—” he says, a hint of a chuckle bubbling on his throat, “It’s not just their lovers! It’s also their crushes or just someone important to them. It brings them good luck,” he licks his lips. “I wouldn’t have given it to you if you weren’t my lucky charm, nong nong.”
Night gulps, unable to quip back with anything remotely intelligent at North’s last statement. He feels a bit dizzy.
“But, to be honest,” North tilts his head, holding his chin as his eyes dart all over Night’s form. “I’m thinking it was a mistake giving it to you.”
Oh.
Night keeps silent, purposely avoiding to think about the way his stomach drops and the hurt prickling at his chest.
“It’s just—” North rests his chin on the palm of his hand, lips curling up slowly into a flirty smile. It throws Night off for a moment. “You look so damn good in that and way too distracting. I don’t think I can concentrate on the game while you’re wearing my clothes and with you looking so cute in them right in the stands—”
Night gapes, like a moron, speechless and unable to form any coherent response.
What the hell.
Not unusual, but North really has no shame at all, saying this in front of half of Chula sitting around him—
“Blergh,” P’Sun fakes throwing-up at his side. “I’m still here, North!”
“Hello, P’Sun,” North says, bubbly, the first time in the night he acknowledges Night’s companion. “Do I need to remind you I had to witness multiple disgustingly sweet moments between you and P’Ongsa and also accompany both of you during a whole excruciating year of pining? You both made my high school years insufferable and very traumatic for me, so I won’t shut up, thank you.”
P’Sun cackles, unfazed. “Drama king!”
North sticks out his tongue, like a kid, and then in a smooth shift, hits Night with a coquettish wink.
“You really do look amazing in my clothes, nong Night,” he says, shooting Night the most insane, drop-dead gorgeous smile Night has ever seen in his entire life. Oh god. He’s such a menace. The things Night has to endure. “You should wear them more often.”
He can feel his cheeks blazing hot, which only seems to bright North up.
“Shut up,” Night mumbles.
North’s grin is feral and boyish. “So mean to your phi!”
“You deserve more than that, jerk,” Night grunts, trying to hide in the collar of the jacket to avoid curious eyes.
It doesn’t work.
“Look,” North says, and this time his teasing tone drops. “I know I tricked you into wearing it, and I’m sorry,” he puts his hands together, “But please don’t take it off.”
Night breathes. He’s being genuine, and Night has never been very good at saying no to him, honestly.
Gahh. Stupid pretty boy.
“Okay…” he finally concedes.
North’s smile is absolutely breathtaking.
“North!”
North blinks at his coach’s call.
“Well,” he says. “I’d love to stand here and watch you all night, nong, but I gotta go.”
“Mmn.”
North beams. “I expect a very sweet reward from my jacket caretaker when I win.”
Night shows him the middle finger before he goes.
.
Night doesn’t take the jacket off, as asked.
In his defense, it gets cold pretty easy in the evening, and the jacket is snuggly—cozy and deliciously warm and soft. It’s oversized on him—a bit loose on the shoulders and waist, and Night basically melts between the fabric.
(It also smells like North—sweet and woody, like lavender detergent and sandalwood perfume. Rich and bratty like North, but also stupidly addictive and surprisingly comforting.
Night kind of wants to drown in it, with how much he adores North’s usual smell—not that he’d ever admit it out loud either.)
.
At the end, the only thing North gets when he wins is a flip on his forehead from Night.
North’s grin doesn’t waver one bit, though. And, well, if the reason of that is because Night also takes on that offer to dinner and doesn’t take his jacket off during the whole night—
Well. That’s between them both (and P’Sun).