Chapter Text
After almost twenty minutes of effort, chewing on the end of his pencil the entire time, lips so very pink, Kang slides over his worksheet. Normally Sailom could do this level of math in his head while carrying on a separate conversation, it’s that easy, but he has to force himself to concentrate enough to grade. He actually marks one question as incorrect and then needs to go back and recalculate, realizing Kang had been right all along. At the end, once he finally gets himself together, he scores Kang a respectable 18/20.
“Nicely done,” Sailom tells him. He clears his throat after, hearing the hoarseness in his voice.
Kang preens, looking at him with bright eyes. “What’s next? English?”
Whenever Kang does his English homework, he has a habit of mouthing all the words to himself. Normally, Sailom finds it cute. Right now, though, if Sailom has to watch Kang’s lips move for another minute longer, he honestly might have to walk out of the room. Without meaning to, Sailom realizes that he’s reached up and is tugging at the collar of his shirt, fanning air down his front.
At his silence, Kang’s face starts to fall. “No? Chemistry then?”
Even though he shouldn’t be, Sailom can’t help feeling charmed by Kang’s sheer hatred for Chemistry. It’s the only subject he’s had to keep his goals for Kang at just barely above failing. Once Sailom made his peace that he wouldn’t ask Kang to strive any higher, he found himself enjoying the way Kang’s forehead always creases when he tries to prepare himself for any science work.
They’ve been going almost three hours. The sun has just barely started to set. Sailom wouldn’t be wrong to give him a break. And as much as the idea of what he wants to ask is making him shy, he knows how Kang is going to be respond. If Kang wasn’t excited about this, Sailom would genuinely worry he’d fallen sick.
“You did so well,” Sailom begins. He finds himself falling into the voice he would use if explaining a lesson. Instantly he has Kang’s undivided attention. “I think you deserve a reward.”
“Yeah?” Kang asks. A beautiful smile spreads across his face — Sailom’s favorite kind, all white teeth and youthful joy.
They’ve played this game a few times, always with the same prize — a kiss to the cheek — although Sailom has been working closer to the corner of Kang’s mouth as the days go by. Kang leans forward in anticipation, turning his head to allow Sailom better access.
“Did I tell you Saifah is working the late shift?” Sailom asks instead of closing the gap between them.
Kang blinks, confused. One of his hands falls to the table as if he’s holding himself in place. “No?”
“He won’t be home until tomorrow morning,” Sailom says pointedly.
Kang glances down at their papers, brow creasing, like he’s worried Sailom will suggest some special test.
“We’re all alone tonight,” Sailom says, emphasizing every word.
That’s when it finally clicks.
“Oh!” Kang says. His eyes drop to Sailom’s mouth. “Oh,” he repeats, more faintly.
“Let’s go to my room,” Sailom tells him.
Outside of those quick cheek kisses, they haven’t kissed since that night in Korat. Not like this — one of Kang’s hands on his cheek, the other carding through Sailom’s hair. It feels like something getting set right, steadying him, even as he increasingly feels like he’s being lit on fire. Every time their lips press, each time their tongues meet, they’re burning away the dried out husks of the hurt and pain of last month.
They needed this Sailom realizes — they needed to be reminded exactly how special that night had been to them before everything went to hell.
He can’t get Kang’s clothes off fast enough. Kang isn’t being particularly helpful, either — his arms keep getting in the way. He makes this low, whining sound every time Sailom separates them to pull fabric away. But Sailom wins for sheer persistence. He strips away both their shirts, then tugs down Kang’s shorts, before he returns to kissing Kang.
One of Kang’s hands goes to his ribs, flexing there, as if he wants to keep going down but isn’t sure of his welcome. The other drops to his favorite spot against the curve of Sailom’s neck. The feeling of his fingers just barely pressing against Sailom’s throat mends the last vestiges of something Sailom hadn’t even realized still was broken.
I’m yours, he thinks, splaying his hands against Kang’s strong chest. As Kang kisses him with barely controlled desperation, Sailom completes the thought for the very first time — and you’re mine. They belong together, the wind and the windmill.
He tears his mouth away. “Help me with my shorts.” he urges.
Kang’s eyes fly open. He looks flushed and startled, wanting, but a little scared too.
“What are we doing?” he asks in a soft voice. He means, I thought we were just kissing? Kang has been painstakingly careful about their lines since he last draped a towel around Sailom’s shoulders in a sleezy love motel. Sailom loves him for it, and at the same time wants to erase the fear behind that consideration.
Sailom catches him by the wrist, tugging his hand lower, until it rests against the hem of Sailom’s shorts.
“We’re blowing each other’s minds,” he answers.
**
Some time later, when the first morning light is shining through his curtains, Sailom comes awake suddenly at the sound of voices just outside his bedroom door. He sits upright, heart racing as he remembers punches landing in soft, unprotected areas; about the acute fear of a burning iron inching ever closer to his face. Kang! he thinks.
And then he remembers that Kang is already here — that they’d fallen asleep after they made love, which means Kang spent the night — and the fear turns icy. This time he pictures the way the bruises mottled Kang’s skin after their beating in the bike garage.
“Kang,” he says with terror, twisting to reach across the mattress.
His fingers land on smooth, empty sheets. They’re still warm, some part of his brain catalogues, even as his breaths sharpen.
As he awakens further, he realizes he recognizes one of the voices. It’s Saifah, with his I’m screwing with you voice. The response that follows is unmistakably Kang.
Abruptly the fear takes on a completely new context. Sailom scrambles out of bed and to his feet. He goes to the doors, opening them just enough to be able to see out with one eye.
The first thing he sees is the full expanse of Kang’s bare back. Kang stands clad in only his boxers, with a bottle of lemon tea in his left hand — one of the several dozen he’d insisted on stocking once they started studying here. Facing him, further away from Sailom, Saifah contrasts him with how he’s covered almost from head to toe by his uniform. Kang must have woken thirsty and gone to get a drink in time to bump into him coming back from a shift.
Saifah has his hands on his hips and a faintly disapproving look on a face. Sailom knows him well enough to understand it’s mostly show. He wonders if Kang does, though. With everything that’s happened, the two of them have barely had the chance to interact. Most of what Kang knows about his brother is from Sailom himself.
“What are you doing here?” Saifah asks.
Sailom watches Kang psych himself up — how he takes a breath and stands straighter.
“I studied with Sailom,” Kang says, managing to sound entirely sincere. His legs look almost as naked as the top of him, especially where Sailom can see the strip of paler skin above the line his football shorts normally fall to. At the base of his neck, Sailom can faintly make out the edge of a red mark where he’d spent a minute or two too long teasing Kang.
“It looks like you came for something else from my brother,” Saifah says.
“I came for tutoring,” Kang says. Then, he bravely adds. “Then I stayed.”
“How long are you planning on staying now that you’ve gotten what you want?”
Saifah obviously doesn’t mean for this morning. A pause follows. The muscles in Kang’s shoulder tense, like he’s bracing himself. Sailom cringes. He starts to reach for the doorknob, wondering if he should go out into the hall and put a stop to this.
“The rest of my life,” Kang answers. Despite the hesitation, there isn’t an ounce of doubt in his voice.
That only makes Saifah’s frown deepen. “Be serious.”
“I am!” Kang says. “I would stop spinning without Sailom in my life.”
“Are you always this cheesy?” Saifah asks. He makes a fake retching sound.
“When it comes to your brother, yes.”
Sailom finds himself smiling as he goes back to bed and curls up on his side, pretending to be asleep. Some short time later, he feels Kang ease into bed beside him. Kang tucks himself in close, all that bare skin warm from the air outside. He slides an arm around Sailom’s stomach. Then, he presses the briefest of kisses to the back of Sailom’s head. It doesn’t take long after for Sailom to fall into a real doze.