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I.
Gaipa has always understood grief as a certain weight that you have to carry, some see it as a shadow that follows you throughout your life and you can’t escape from it.
When his mother dies a sudden death, Gaipa feels like a force drags him through the mud and he cannot move. Nothing about it is quiet, it seems full of violence and rage, something he had rarely experienced before.
He cries but he also screams, and when he sits by himself in the blue of his room, he talks and asks his mother how is she doing, is she comfortable, things like that.
But it is true that nothing about grief, not even the most violent kind can stop time from passing.
He still wakes up at 4 am to open the chicken shop, he goes through his long list of things to buy, the text messages from his clients. He cleans the tables and sets up the trays and utensils. He waits for the clients, he smiles at them.
Because time moves fast, even when he feels like he is violently shaken, he can not run. There is nowhere to run anyway.
When Gaipa’s mom passed, there was a period of time where everybody around him was nothing but kind. Jim and Saleng, family and friends of the family. Even the old lady from the bank made the whole process go by in a blink.
After that window of time, things returned to normalcy.
And Gaipa hated feeling so lonely in that normalcy.
Some nights, when is already late and there is nothing else to do but to return home, Gaipa sits in silence and hums a song his mother used to sing all the time, when there was light and color all around.
He leaves then, and walks downtown, still humming the melody. He walks by some building under construction and remembers how right there, a couple of weeks ago, another protest was held, the news didn’t cover it but he hears it from people at the market, all gossip and judgment.
He catches a big banner made of old fabric hanging with “Protect workers. Equal pay for ALL” written in red and black.
There is a faint smell of gasoline in the air, and it comes to Gaipa in the form of a memory; two big and expressive eyes, a nonchalant smile, a slim but strong figure… Yok.
He thinks about Yok often. He used to think about him more, but after he lost his mother, no other thought could occupy his mind.
The relentless Yok… Gaipa wonders if he is doing okay. Maybe he is, burning some other car, far…far away from him. Perhaps he got into a fight. He imagines him running, escaping from someone, his beautiful features against the dark of the night…
Sometimes Gaipa wishes he could see Yok again, but then, he doesn’t really know why. Perhaps he only wants to memorize his face so the act of going back to the memory of him in the future is easier.
He wants to ask Yok about his life and his plans and his mission, but the opportunity is already gone, all Gaipa has is a drawing that Yok made, and even that remains hidden in the back of a drawer in his room, his mother never got to see it. Gaipa was too shy to tell her about Yok, knowing her, she’d worry, so he never told.
Yok was his secret, a fleeting encounter, to the point Gaipa begins to question whether Yok is real.
II
The city feels hollow the moment Yok leaves the garage and there is nothing to do.
It’s been that same way for weeks. Saying goodbye to things in an abrupt way is easy to him. You learn to move on.
But when the farewell is slow, when people simply stop meeting each other, when there is less and less contact, when everybody leaves without announcing it, when there is uncertainty.
It feels like that with the gang.
They meet at times, unplanned, at the garage, but there are no plans for action, there is only silence and Yok understands that silence is the only response to the violence they were submitted to.
Near to death experiences are a different type of scary. Yok doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t know what death feels like but he imagines it would be something that shakes the world.
He doesn’t want his mother to mourn him, he doesn’t want to make her suffer any more. That way, the decision to remain low-key is the most appropriate in this moment of Yok’s life.
He is not fond of silent action but he enjoys the perks of it; calmly sit with his mother in the tiny table by their kitchen, and watch her read her old magazines while he paints, humming a song he made up or maybe he’s heard it in his dreams.
Yok is happy in that tranquility. He wants to sit down and paint.
“What are you painting this time?” His mother signs. Yok smiles and then shows her his notebook.
“A friend from Pattaya” he signs back.
His mother admires the watercolors and how they blend in a beautiful scenery.
“Last time you went to Pattaya for your art. Are you planning to go back and visit your friends?”
Yok sighs and looks at his painting and then at his mom again. He doesn’t have to go to Pattaya, there is no place for him there and, in reality, he doesn’t have anywhere to go. He is living in a weird limbo. Where nothing happens.
It would make no difference whether he went back to Pattaya or stayed home. But he doesn’t say any of that, instead, he just smiles fondly at his mom and nods.
He goes back to his painting and he adds some more blue to the background, Gaipa’s face is looking beautiful so far, Yok put extra detail to his eyes and when he stares at the painting for too long, he can almost see it move.
It is weird. Yok thinks about Gaipa more than he thought he would. There was something in his stability but also in his tender gaze. His real concern contrasting
something that burnt within that Yok found fascinating.
Yok is all or nothing, Gaipa seemed to over contemplate things and yet…
He thought about him often.
He couldn’t stop drawing Gaipa the first week he came back from Pattaya.
It looked like he was in a maniac trance where all Yok did was make sketches of Gaipa. Months later, he still draws his face. The lines are familiar. It feels natural against the paper.
He wants to see him again but he doesn’t know how.
He then thinks about the artists he linked up with in Pattaya and wonders if they are still looking for someone to help them paint that one mural.
III
The market is vibrant and loud almost every day, with the exception of Thursdays, Gaipa doesn’t know the reason behind that, but ever since he started helping his mother, when he was barely 10, he noticed the change from Wednesday to Thursday and then things going back to normal on friday. Maybe Thursdays were cursed.
His mother died a Thursday morning.
t was quiet and violent, it was the same as time passed. Gaipa knows how to carry the grief now, even though is heavy, he manages. Like all things, like all people do.
That week the protesters have taken over the main streets, and all the other vendors at the market gossip about is the chaos and noise the protesters make on a daily basis. Gaipa remains silent as always but deep down he feels a new born excitement upon hearing what the protesters are doing.
It is a Thursday night and he closes early, around 6 pm; the chicken sells well these days.
He walks back home with empty hands because the lady from the stall next to him took his remaining trays and bags and stored them for him; when Gaipa walks home, she does that little favor for him. Gaipa always smiles at her but can’t shake the feeling that the lady, and most vendors look at him with pity. The poor young man who lost his mother, a beloved member of the community. He doesn’t want to be pitied, he wants to be understood.
The realization sinks in while he walks but his attention is drawn to a sudden noise and the voices of people chanting and screaming.
Gaipa walks closer and finds himself witness of a group of protesters writing on the walls of an abandoned building that looks oddly familiar but is dark out and Gaipa doesn’t think much of it, he might have walked near it before.
There is young people everywhere, they must be students. Gaipa stands there with his arms crossed just observing- there are lights and music and some girls are drawing on banners with the words “Students rights. Stop violence against students”- more people show up in the span of minutes and Gaipa is enthralled.
He keeps looking around but doesn’t move, slightly scared of making the wrong decision.
He then sees five masked people with gallons in their hands and catches their intention before they actually walk to the side of the street and start a fire.
The air smells like gasoline. Gaipa sees the flames of the newborn fire moving in an hypnotic dance, the people keep moving and shouting.
The gasoline smell lingers. He feels like jumping right in the middle of there and start a dance or scream so loud his lungs could bleed. He doesn’t do any of that.
But when he shifts his eyes from the fire and looks straight up, at the other side of the plaza he catches a pair of big and black eyes staring.
And it smells like gasoline again, and fire and he feels nauseous for a second but he doesn’t move, nor does he stop staring. He can’t physically move. Everything around him convulses and he can only stand still.
Yok walks his way, and doesn’t look away either.
His eyes are doing that funny thing where he moves them around Gaipa’s face, just like he did the first night they met. Finally, Yok is standing in front of Gaipa. And he looks the same but so different altogether, his lean figure and big eyes are the same, but his hair is shorter now and if Gaipa isn’t mistaken, he seems to have more tattoos on his arms.
“So…should we stay here tenderly and gaze?” His voice is the same, just like the one in Gaipa’s recollections.
Gaipa laughs, not entirely loud but loud enough to make Yok’s smile falter.
“Aren’t we doing that already?” Gaipa asks, with some laughter in his voice still. Yok’s smiles returns to his face and one of his eyes closes more than the other, like he’s squinting. And Gaipa finds that fascinating, like everything else about Yok.
“It’s been a long time” Yok says once they sat down on the floor, and contemplated their surrounding in silence. Some of the protesters had left but the fires were still lit around the plaza and that light created shadows on both of their faces.
“Yes, almost a year” Gaipa says under his breath, he is a little nervous, a tad bit surprised still. Fascinated, even, by Yok sitting next to him; the warmth of his body is evident where their shoulders and arms touch.
“How is Pattaya? How is the market?”
Gaipa nods, and then shrugs a little “It’s the same as always. Some days are busy some others there is nothing to do”
Yok nods but then sighs and changes the topic, suddenly raising his hand from his lap.
“Look, I was helping those guys and I got a burn, I think is pretty bad”
Gaipa takes a look at the hand, it looks inflamed and red all over. Like fresh meat.
“It looks terrible, Yok. We need to take care of it” his voice is calm but there is an underlying worry that seethes up. Yok notices, and smiles.
IV
The night is long, that is something Yok always knew to be true. You can get lost in it.
This time, walking around a lonely neighborhood in Pattaya, following the steps of a friend who sells chicken and seems to care way too much to Yok’s understanding.
He follows Gaipa to his house, which is big and old fashioned, it looks like it was constructed in different time periods, people living in it while it got reconstructed and more things were added to the built. A Frankenstein house with the interior decoration taste of a grandma.
Gaipa turns all of the lights on revealing more old fashioned furniture and shiny floors; he offers Yok some water and promises to serve him dinner after he takes care of his burn. Yok simply follows him around until they reach the second floor and Gaipa opens a big door that leads to what appears to be his room.
“Sit here, I will bring the Aid kit”
Yok sits calmly on the bed, and ignores the sting of pain coming from the burn, he has dealt with worse. Bullets, for one.
Gaipa comes back quickly, with a bunch of stuff in hand and sets on the carpeted floor, in front of Yok.
“Here, take this pill. It must hurt”
Yok takes the pill and looks at Gaipa with curiosity. Gaipa doesn’t notice as he is taking some cotton swabs, something that looks like a pomade and setting it up next to him.
“Aren’t you afraid of bringing a complete stranger to your house in the middle of the night?”
Yok asks, and Gaipa finally looks at him.
“No…” He replies, taking Yok’s hand from his lap.
The burn in yok’s right hand extends from his index finger all the way down to his wrist. The skin, seen under the warm light of gaipa’s room, looks like it melted a bit; soft skin reddened, dead skin adorning the abnormal shape. Gaipa hisses upon the view.
He holds his other hand up in the air, timidly like asking for permission. Yok looks at him and nods.
“So you do this often, bringing strangers into your house?” Gaipa appears alarmed at that, denying with his head quickly. Blushed. Yok thinks he’s cute.
“No! What I meant is… you are not a stranger to me”
He is now cleaning the area around Yok’s burn, delicately, his eyes focused on the task, avoiding Yok’s stare.
“I think no stranger has ever drawn a beautiful portrait of me. That is why”
Yok follows Gaipa’s movements with his eyes, enthralled and a bit moved by his words.
The hurting of his hand is so painless now that Gaipa is touching him so delicately. It reminds him of the time his mom held him after finding out he was shot and kidnaped and he came home exhausted, throwing himself on the floor. Glad to be alive but so…so tired.
“Good. Because I don’t do that for anybody” Yok says lightly, but he means it.
“What are you doing here in Pattaya anyway. I thought you’d never come back”
The way Gaipa speaks is calm but there is something in the way he says the sentence that makes Yok believe that there is hurt. But he can’t be sure. Gaipa applies a cold gel onto the red skin and is careful to move it around, patting the skin with little to no strength, Yok shivers.
“I came back to help some friends with an art project. We are painting a mural. They needed extra hands since it’s huge”
Gaipa hums and finally puts a bandage around Yok’s hand and wrist. He gives him a gentle pat before letting go. He is still on the floor,
“Hmm I see. I thought you ran away from the police again and ended up here for a change”
“Well, actually…” Yok trails off… looks at Gaipa and their eyes meet for a second longer.
“I’m not running away because I sort of quitted…my days taking the streets are over I guess…”
Yok looks at his own hand and smiles softly. “Even today…I happened to join the protest out of sympathy but I ended up hurt like always”
Gaipa remains silent, Yok reads his silence as an invitation. He has been feeling this nostalgic for a while, but he hadn’t had anyone to talk to, not that he even tried, he just kept some things to himself, quietly mourning what his life was.
“You know, I was always on the run. My friends and I,” he says, a bit ashamed, his head down staring at the red skin that the bandage didn’t quite cover.
“I’m not a hero but we did many things that seem heroic in other people’s eyes. I did more than setting a car on fire. Things changed but nothing is definitive. It is not enough, taking the streets…and it got dangerous. I always knew it was. But when I was shot in one of the missions…when I thought I would never see my mother again…that is when I knew it. Life is so short.”
He feels so small suddenly, and it doesn’t help that his hand hurts and is late and he is in a different city in a stranger’s house, downing in his own melancholy.
“I want to live. I have to live to make a change. I think”
Gaipa still remains silent, sitting on the carpeted floor.
And it occurs to Yok then that if he ever doubted the uniqueness of this encounter, of this sort of fated connection with Gaipa, a chicken vendor who saved him not once but twice, then this was it. He never opened up like this with anybody… he didn’t have to try. The words just come up.
And Gaipa looks at him with tender eyes…so so tender. He feels weak. Or strong. Or a mix of both, is the ambivalence what gets to him.
“You are brave Yok. You are the bravest person I have ever met” Yok nods in lieu of saying thank you. What else can he do?
“I mean it. And you know what? I admire you so much. Despite you making this decision…” he stops mid sentence, reconsidering, Yok can only stare.
“No, I admire you for making the decision. You deserve to live” He smiles then, and Yok smiles back, suddenly welcomed with this new warmth that spreads from his bandaged hand to his chest and then his face. It doesn’t help that the light in Gaipa’s room is warm as well and Gaipa is staring at him with eyes so…so serene.
He doesn’t know what to say.
What is it with Gaipa, that makes him feel so…present, so grounded, so hyperaware of his own body and his own reaction. He doesn’t even know him. He barely knows his name.
Gaipa takes in the silence so well, better than Yok can, and stands up from where he is sitting on the floor to finally set next to Yok.
“Thank you for…this” Yok says lifting his hand, he feels clumsy all of a sudden. Stupid in the grand scheme of things.
Gaipa nods and smiles, and in that moment, he catches the way Gaipa’s eyes go down to his lips and then up again.
Yok mirrors the action because it is the easiest thing to do.
Because Gaipa’s been too inviting, with his eyes, but also his lips, a bit dry in the corners, (Yok would know, he has drawn his lips many many times) and the visible stubble that looked from up close, now that Yok is so… close, is so attractive.
The kiss comes right after a moment of silence, with the great surprise of Gaipa taking the back of Yok’s head with one hand and kissing him hard, like he was also waiting for the touch…like he ached for it as much, even more.
Yok kisses him back, quickly sucking on his upper lip, and just like he imagines, Gaipa’s stubble tickles him a little.
Yok smiles into the kiss from how euphoric he is, but soon enough he hisses and breaks the kiss when Gaipa bites on his bottom lip a bit too hard.
“Sorry” Gaipa says taking Yok’s face with his hand and looking at his lips with terror on his eyes. Yok thinks it’s equally as funny as it is hot.
“Don’t apologize. Keep doing it” His shameless self is back. To be vulnerable and then come back from it…
Gaipa apologizes one more time though, with his voice thin before kissing him again, less messy, languidly, basking in the slow cadence, a little bit wet, letting Yok use his tongue, sucking it purposefully.
And it would have been easier, if they just kissed and Yok decided to leave for the night, like he always did.
But he was half-hard underneath his clothes and Gaipa’s hands keep touching his waist and going down to his hips, with slow but purposeful caresses. He didn’t know Gaipa was that horny, or that he wanted him like this.
He didn’t even know that he himself wanted Gaipa like this.
So he gives in.
He barely knows him but he imagined he’d be more reserved, less frantic about his movements, more collected. And he is, in a way, his hands never too risky or too slow, it was almost as if he had been imagining this for a while, and damn maybe he was, Yok doesn’t ask him, he surrenders to the touch instead, exposing his neck allowing Gaipa to kiss him there, urging him to leave a mark. Red skin, a muted color now that the light is dim.
Yok moans when he feels Gaipa’s body pressed against his, but then trapped between their bodies, his bandaged hand hurts and he breaks the contact. Gaipa looks at him, eyes black and lips red from the kisses…it is a nice view, Yok wants to paint him.
“My hand..” He manages, and feels stupid for a moment, having to stop beautiful Gaipa from kissing him. But Gaipa is sweet and never asks questions, not about this anyway, and smiles.
“Don’t move your hand. I will take care of it” he says, to Yok’s surprise once again, kisses the hand softly and then, like it is nothing, he guides Yok far into the bed and makes him sit and rest his head against the headboard.
“Are you sure you don’t bring strangers into your house often” Yok jokes.
“I don’t” Gaipa says getting closer to Yok, sitting next to him, one hand beginning to feel Yok’s arm, tracing his tattoos. “Do you break into markets at night and pounce on chicken sellers?”
It would have been funny if Gaipa’s face wasn’t so close to his and if he weren’t hard already, if he weren’t aching for some touch. Yok chuckles, more in desperation than anything.
“I was hiding, you happened to be there” he says the first thing he comes up with, which is also the truth.
Gaipa is finally nice to him and simply hums at the same time he brings his hand to Yok’s thigh.
The jeans Yok is wearing are old and the fabric is already stretchy, Gaipa lets his hand wander while he kisses his neck softly. The kisses don’t stop and Yok sighs at the feeling of soft lips leaving a wet trail down his neck and exposed shoulder and clavicles, the skin his gray tank top didn’t cover.
Gaipa finally reaches Yok’s crotch and with clumsy hands he unbuckles his jeans.
Just a few moments before, Gaipa’s hands were tender and patient when holding yok’s injured hand. They were soft and delicate tracing patterns all around Yok’s arms. Now they are equally as careful making its way underneath Yok’s boxers.
Yok lifts his hips trying to slid of his clothes, and he manages to do so, in a messy series of movements.
“You are hard” Gaipa breaks the silence with a voice that is simply acknowledging the fact, not rejoicing in it nor provoking. And Yok finds it almost amusing.
“Well, yes. Your hand’s around my dick” his voice cracks when he feels Gaipa stroke him ever so slowly.
“You are wet too, so wet already ” he says quietly, next to Yok’s ear. His hand smears with pre-cum, making room for a wet and messy handjob, just like Yok likes it. He feels himself shaking a bit, and his dick must have twitched on Gaipa’s hands.
Yok closes his eyes and simply hums.
Because Gaipa’s hand is warm and tight around him. Of course he is wet.
“So wet and so beautiful” Gaipa repeats, like a chant.
And Yok lets himself go, his hips moving, searching the friction out of Gaipa’s slow but warm hand.
“Shhh it’s fine. Don’t move too much. Your hand”
And it’s then when Yok stops squirming and allows the friction to come at him instead. Gaipa’s movement around his dick are still somewhat careful but firm. And his hand slides smoothly, going up and down…
Yok comes a minute after, unceremoniously; Gaipa repeating “So beautiful”, and holding him through it, while he shakes and lets out a strangled moan.
It feels so good, the warmth of Gaipa’s body pressed against him, it’s been a while since he had that release, that pleasure and care given to him at the same time.
The post orgasm clarity makes Yok wonder what’s so beautiful about him that has Gaipa repeating the words like a prayer. It weirds him out but not enough to leave.
When he opens his eyes, he sees Gaipa holding his hand up, just a bit to not make a mess off the sheets, and when he looks him in the eye there is something so intricately beautiful.
He can’t put it into words. But he is invaded with an enormous desire to paint Gaipa. To draw the red of his bruised lips and the shadow of his ever growing stubble, even the glint of that cum in his calloused fingers, dripping all over his hand.
“Shit” he says out loud.
V
Gaipa wakes up to the view of Yok standing by the open window, smoking.
Last night Gaipa had cleaned him, and his hand, and then proceded to arrange the room for Yok while he ate some noodles Gaipa had left in his fridge.
He had planned to sleep in his mother’s room but when he came back from the bathroom and saw Yok already sleeping, he didn’t mind staying for a bit and that time turned into all night.
Now they were both together and there was something in the silence between the two, that made Gaipa want to run.
“Morning” Yok says throwing the cigarette through the window and turning his body towards Gaipa.
“Morning” he says back. “Did you sleep well?” He asks quickly, filling in the silence.
He is glad Yok is still standing there, despite not knowing what to say. Part of him expected him to run away, to disappear like the mirage that he was.
“I did” he smiles and looks around. “Thank you” he says, and he lifts his bandaged hand, like he is forever grateful for it, for the gesture, for the care. He stands in front of Gaipa, the last words leaving his mouth softly, and then turns to the side, looking for his jeans across the room.
Gaipa represses a smile and stands up.
There are many things he wants to say but he settles up with admiring Yok’s silhouette moving around his room. It occurs to him that it is the first time someone had walked into his house and not asked questions. Ever since his mother died all people did was ask questions. And he had no strength to answer them.
So Yok’s ignorance calms him down.
VI
The walk to the market feels strangely and not so strangely like a farewell.
Maybe is the way Yok walks, nonchalantly with his baggy clothes and the swaying of his messenger bag as an added touch.
Gaipa feels his hands tremble in his pockets but he can’t be sure of it. He isn’t looking. And he isn’t talking, just walking. And Yok isn’t doing anything but walk, either. And when they approach the street that inevitably leads to the market, two blocks away, Gaipa stops.
Afraid that if they keep walking and reach the market, Yok will disappear in the sea of people.
“Hey”
Yok also stops.
“I don’t know what’s happening but, will I see you again?”
His voice is as normal as it can be, nothing about the sound of it betrays him. Yok stares at him for a long instant. Uncertainty is worse than straight up denial. But Gaipa braces himself for it.
There are things happening around them, in the street. The barking of a dog, far away from them. The cars that pass by, in the rush of the morning, and the voices of people walking on the side walk across the street.
Despite all of that, there is only Yok in front of him, leaning in closer, both hands finding its way to Gaipa’s shoulders. Like keeping him in place.
Yok towers over him, is the second time he thinks about it.
The first one was when they met, in that ambushing; Yok’s body behind him in the dark. Now is the morning. And there’s nothing but light.
“Gaipa…Gaipa” his voice is raspy but playful. “You can’t get rid of me! I will come to find you”
And his smile is more blinding that all the light reflected on the clear pavement beneath their feet. Yok leans in more, and whispers into Gaipa’s ear. “Promise”
He then walks away, at a normal pace, but slow enough for Gaipa to get out of the trance and look at him go.
Yok turns around before crossing the street, he raises his bandaged hand and almost yells, at the distance “Thanks for giving me a hand”, and winks, that much Gaipa can still see.
He doesn’t realize it until he makes it to the market and the old ladies point it out, but his ears are red and there’s the ghost of a repressed chuckle that wants to come out.
It takes him a while to come back from that sort of trance and when he does, he realizes, with a heavy heart that despite Yok’s promise, things are back to square one.
VII
Third time is a charm.
Gaipa thinks of Yok as someone who’s as real as he is not. His voice is real, his hand and eyes are real, his rawness and recklessness are real, but then he runs and fades away and never stays.
He is as ephemeral as a dream and yet…
Both times Yok was the one running after him, one by accident the second one…who knows, but Gaipa had only been a passive character sitting in his silence and grief, waiting for Yok, even if he didn’t think of it, and Yok came around and left.
He didn’t take ownership of his intense feelings for Yok, he did nothing but to get swayed by Yok’s charms and his words…, even taking Yok and holding him while he pleasured him was a consequence of his fleeting devotion but there was nothing tangible there, nor words.
And that was the problem all along, in his life, in his everything, his inability to run.
He tells that to his mother, that day when he visits her.
He always goes for an early morning visit, he figures pretty quickly that is emptier then, and he has a hard time not shedding some tears so he prioritizes the solace he can craft for himself in the mornings.
“I met someone” he says after cleaning the dust that the big picture collected in the course of a week. He puts some new flowers in the vase that adorns the niche where her ashes lie. Is all pretty and gold.
“Mom, he is crazy. So crazy that I never told you about him, until now” The cadence of his words and his mannerism are like an emulation of the gossip-talks with his mom at the market, the familiarity of it, the confidentiality, the love.
“I met him when you were around. He had sneaked into the shop and ambushed me. But he didn’t have ill intention, he was very charming” He splashes with water the new flowers and rearranges the vase, until everything is perfect.
“He is not from here…he is an artist”
Gaipa looks at his mother’s picture, if he stares hard enough he can swear she smiles ever so slightly.
“I want to know him better. He makes me feel so…boundless. Mom, should I run after him?”
His voice is a bit louder, not trapped in a whisper like before. But there is not a response, of course there isn’t.
The columbarium is empty until that point; Gaipa gives his mom a last goodbye and rearranges the flowers one more time. He is about to leave and as he passes through the main hall. A family enters and walks by him, a little girl hand in hand with her mother begins to whistle a song that Gaipa knows from memory. The song his mother used to sing all day.
Third time’s a charm, he thinks again. And he hums in response, the melody floats in the empty air.
–
“Some more red on the right corner, that’s a flower petal Yok” The woman with the bandana says, as she follows Yok’s movements carefully.
Yok had been working on the mural for a week now, it wasn’t his design he was just there for help, he didn’t like to be bossed around but he considered it more like a collective sort of art project and he went along with it, it reminds him of his days at uni, working relentlessly to finish a piece. And the satisfaction of finishing at the right time. To find himself enfolded in the calmness of seeing his paintings all lined up in his room.
There was something calming in the air of Pattaya, not the same sort of calmness that artistic plenitud brought him but knowing he didn’t have to worry too much, that he didn’t have to run, that he could go back to his mother any time. Living in anonymity while he could, as long as he desired. It was close enough.
And then…there was Gaipa, who belonged to Pattaya, and who cared for him…
or maybe he just got too attached after a hand job, who knows.
It wasn’t like there was anything going on at the same time that something definitely was going on, but if there isn’t a word to describe it…is it even real? Yok barely knows what’s real anymore, few things are… death is real, his mother is real, the multiple jobs he had to do to get money to survive, the love he had for people and how ephemeral it was.
Yok paints in red just as instructed and finishes for the day, the flower at the corner of the wall is beginning to bloom. He cleans his hands with a cloth and takes his things before leaving.
The city is surprisingly loud at sunset. Yok is already used to walking down the same route every day, stop by any food stall and keep walking until the sun sets in the horizon and get to his shared artists apartment and sleep soundly.
He can say he’s gotten used to the city, to its vibrancy, the faint but still so present sea breeze.
He makes sure, on most days, to walk around the commercial area, where all the markets and vendors are, just because. He is not seeking, nor seeking to being sought after. Or that is what he tells himself, in an attempt to convince, when he lingers around the pavement and sits around the barely lit street, lazily playing with the loose threads of his messenger bag.
I could run, he thinks, and go back to Bangkok tonight.
Is one of these deflective thoughts he keeps having.
I could take the last bus. I could get a ride from a stranger.
He rarely thinks this much. First thought is the best thought.
So he figures there is something stopping him. He knows who is that.
What he doesn’t know, at least not entirely, is why.
He drags himself through the streets closer to the actual market; something about its different vibrancy at sunset, where the colors melt in reds and blues, the dogs running around and the voices of the vendors and the people reverberating.
The sound guides him, stall after stall. He buys fresh juice and drinks it all in one sip. He keeps walking and telling himself he is not looking for anything, for anybody. He is just looking around, getting something out of all the people walking like in a frenzy.
There is something he liked to do when he was a kid- and he found himself in big crowds, when crossing the streets or taking public transportation; he would poke people in the arms, or the hands, just to look at their reaction; that of pain or surprise or simply disdain when they realized what had happened.
It’s been a while since he’s done it, he changed that little game with that of running through the streets and setting things on fire, until now.
His finger dances around the air, he controls it very well, and occasionally pokes at a random passerby. The market is full and the exit is far away from eyesight, so he takes a detour, still poking around.
There are some red paint spots across his forearm, he wonders briefly if the people around him might mistake it for blood. Probably not, since nobody is looking at him.
That was the thing about anonymity, you could be bleeding and no one would know.
Was that a good thing or a bad thing? He doesn’t know. Depends.
He is nobody in Pattaya and yet he decided to run over there. Poking strangers in a busy market like a madman. Maybe is time to run, he thinks, again, he should get the red spots off his skin, they start to resemble blood more now that the paint is dry.
But then his body clashes with a woman standing still near a food stall and he stumbles but doesn’t fall, not until he stands still and looks up, and there appears to be a halo but its just the bright lights hanging loosely on the ceiling that give such effect to the body of the only person he knows in Pattaya, Gaipa.
“Are you okay?” Gaipa asks while he helps Yok back to his feet. He is and he isn’t, but he is leaning to yes.
“Perfectly fine now” he smiles “You always save me is crazy” he keeps going, Gaipa is still looking at him. He looks cute wearing an apron and those silly rubber boots.
“I thought I would never see you again”
They walk to the back of Gaipa’s shop, the space is limited and there is a sense of privacy because the pilled boxes create a wall, and the light doesn’t quite enter the space, it feels like a deja vu.
“Well, here I am”
“And then tomorrow who knows, right?” Gaipa says back, his tone is rather plain.
“I’m used to run. Going from one place to another…” he feels okay saying that. Gaipa nods in understanding.
He is leaning against the wall and there is a fraction of light illuminating his eyes and mouth. He seems restless, if Yok looks closely he can catch the way his brows furrow.
“Then why do we keep running into each other?”
Yok nods, he knows and doesn’t know the answer.
He walks closer to Gaipa and when he is just some steps away from him he nods again, feeling defenseless.
“Is it so wrong Yok? That I want to know you” Gaipa mutters, more to himself but Yok can hear him clearly at that distance. “I can barely say anything because you run away”
And that is true, Yok can admit. But he is tired of running, Gaipa should know that.
“And every time I see you it feels…like all the things that have been burdening me disappear. I feel light but also strong. And I feel like I can talk to you, but then you run and I barely know you” the way Gaipa talks is soft still but his eyes are closed, like it hurts to speak and Yok wants to change that look on his face.
“And maybe I got carried away that night at my house. Maybe this is ridiculous and you think I’m weird and obsessed with a stranger. But just let me know and it’s over. So I can move on please, even if I don’t want that at all, Yok”
Yok stands in silence, there are things running through his head but then there is silence and Gaipa in front of him, and he can only jump right into what is there, at that very moment.
He lets out a sigh he didn’t know he was keeping in.
“Don’t move on from me” He begs. Gaipa falters.
“I feel seen, with you. That is why I keep finding you. I always wanted to be seen. And you see me. Even when you don’t know me you see me, Gaipa.”
One hand extends in a careful movement and catches Gaipa’s, caressing the fingers with a tenderness that is new to Yok but he suspects Gaipa likes.
“I want to know you too.” Gaipa squeezes his hand in lieu of a response. Yok beams.
VIII
They don’t run away.
Instead, Gaipa leads Yok to his house.
When they arrive, Gaipa opens the door with some difficulty and Yok helps holding his multiple bags while he struggles; his hand is shaking uncontrollably but he hopes Yok doesn’t mind.
When they make their way in Gaipa turns on the lights and walks straight to the kitchen.
Of the few safe places for Gaipa, besides the market which was, to him, an extension to the kitchen.
It was a transformative place, not literally but because it offered a space to create and transform, the same as an art room.
It was also a place where he could confide in, when his mother taught him how to cook her favorite dishes, and he was so young and tiny that he could barely see the counter and although he tried to reach out for the ingredients in the cabinets, he was denied by his own limits. There his mother would help him and tell him stories of her childhood and how she learned how to cook, and that magic seemed to remain in the kitchen. Even now that she is gone, it seems like the kitchen keeps the essence of her, more than any other room in the house, he thinks.
“Coffee or tea?” Gaipa asks, moving through the space, opening and closing the cabinets.
“Coffee” Yok says after a moment, Gaipa catches him looking around. He nods and turns on the coffee machine without any questions.
“I like your house” Yok begins, in a dreamy tone, “ The decoration is both old fashioned and cute- like old people live here but it’s fun with all the yellow and the big windows…”
“thank you”…. I live by myself” , he sets two mugs on the countertop, in front of Yok.
“I see”,
he drinks from the mug and looks at Yok do the same.
“I mean to say that now I live by myself, but I used to live with my mom. She passed”
He drinks again, avoiding Yok’s stare, but he knows he is staring, he can feel it.
“I’m sorry”
“Don’t be. She was sick and I knew it. It hurts but I’m managing” He says and while it is true, all of it, he doesn’t share about the nights he was wailing with despair or the times he thought he could barely stand still and had to drag himself to bed and cry for hours.
“Do you want to talk about it?” From where he is standing he can see Yok searching for his eyes, it doesn’t take long for him to lock eyes and feel this wave of warmth come to him. He stares into Yok’s eyes but says nothing.
“You know what” Yok’s voice takes him out of his self induced trance.
“What?”
“When I feel sad, when I feel something so strongly and I can’t put it into words, I paint. I don’t have anything with me but paper and charcoal pencils though but..” Yok walks his way to Gaipa.
Gaipa can only stare in silence.
“And I have been wanting to paint you since the last time we met…”
By that moment Yok is already standing next to Gaipa, he playfully rest his body against Gaipa, pushing him ever so lightly. His body is warm, Gaipa notices, his skin is so warm. From this distance Gaipa can see with special clarity how big Yok’s eyes are. He could drown in them and it would be a privilege.
“But I have never drawn or painted before” he tries, weakly. Yok shakes his head.
“That doesn’t matter. There’s always a first time, right? Life is made of those by the way”
*
“You have to observe first. When you understand what you are seeing, you can draw some lines”
Yok is instructing Gaipa. They moved to the main room and are sitting in front each other on the bed, each holds a piece of paper and a charcoal pencil. There is a softness to his voice that is new and then Gaipa can see how much Yok likes to do what he does, there’s also a special light in his eyes that seems to make him even bigger and more radiant. There is beauty all over and Gaipa wants to live in it.
Yok smiles in response to Gaipa’s silence and cluelessness
“Here, I will help you. I will say what I see out loud and then I will draw, ok?” Gaipa nods, curious. Yok moves his body forward and stares.
“Your lips are heart shaped” he goes back to his paper sheet and draws “They are plump so when closed there is a small gap in the middle, Like this” he shows Gaipa the sketch of his own lips. He is surprised by the accuracy, by how much Yok had to pay attention for him to notice such thing. “Your turn”
Gaipa focuses on the task, he moves his body forward and stares; Yok’s features appeared even in his dreams so it’s not hard to imagine how is he going to draw him.
His eyes fall on Yok’s eyes and the mole underneath.
“You have big eyes and” Yok nods, encouragingly. “And they are deep and brown. They… when you look at me I don’t know what to do”
Yok chuckles “ Okay, Okay. The feeling is also important so it’s good.”
Gaipa smiles at him, more relaxed and so he goes back to the blank paper sheet and tries to sketch something that must resemble Yok’s features.
It’s a strangely intimate way to know each other, despite Gaipa’s avoidance at first, he finds himself comfortable and suddenly he is smiling at Yok and laughing at his failed attempts to draw. He realizes after a while that his mind is at ease and having something like this to do, next to Yok, is more rewarding than maybe writing his feelings down or running away.
Even more now that he knows Yok will not run away the next morning, that something had shifted, or it began to… he feels it when Yok mischievously drags a finger through Gaipa’s cheek, staining it with the remnants of charcoal, and it’s messy but sweet. He does the same thing extending his arm and touching Yok’s nose, staining it as per purpose.
The game of charcoal and fingers keeps going for a while, until Gaipa realizes Yok’s face is all messy and his is not so different.
He aims at his arm instead; dragging his finger rather lazily from where Yok’s neck meets his shoulder, all the way down to his bicep…he stops when his finger is not leaving a dark trace anymore. Eventually, Yok mirrors him and lifts up his right hand, touching his neck and barely keeping his fingers there, then he goes down until his hand encounters Gaipa’s collarbone. Gaipa looks at the hand and then at Yok, finding that his eyes are so…so deep, but a tint of sleaziness peaks through the surface.
There are little words Gaipa can say at that moment. Something about Yok has always left him with nothing but air escaping, and this perpetual sense of waiting for something. Yok seems to read him, completely, he is always right at deciphering his next move, it was as if they truly were connected in a way that it was difficult to rationalize.
Kissing Yok a previous time had been arousing and a little bit emotional given the circumstances; this time, it was still arousing but it felt safer, there is tenderness in the midst of the voragine.
Yok sets the pace, after the agitation with which he started kissing Gaipa, he slows down and kisses more languidly, letting his tongue slowly getting in the kiss; Gaipa receives him, both his hands are holding onto Yok’s back, hugging him, while Yok sits in between Gaipa’s legs holding his face with both hands, his thumb caressing his cheeks…
The only bad thing about kissing Yok, Gaipa has realized, is how addictive it is, how once he begins he can’t stop.
“It’s not fair” Gaipa says breaking the kiss, he is breathless and his lips are red. Yok looks about the same, as messy, more beautiful. “What?” He then asks, smiling dreamily.
“It’s not fair that you look so good on top of me” Gaipa confesses, throwing all the shame away. Besides he has never once shamed away from complimenting Yok’s beauty.
Yok only smiles and goes back to kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, no words are enough anyway and he has a hard time finding them, especially with Gaipa’s hands going down his back.
-
Outside of that room, of that house, the streets are loud. The people fighting the dogs barking, the cars crashing- for the first time Gaipa didn’t care, all of his attention was on the movements of his fingers tracing up and down the dots that are Yok’s moles, from his face to his neck and his collarbones. If he were selfish enough, he’d name them, his own private constellations.
“That is trite” says Yok. Oh, he was thinking out loud. He does that sometimes.
“Okay Okay, I won’t say it” he defends himself. He stills fear he might scare Yok off, a little of that insecurity remains. Yok laughs softly and it tickles Gaipa’s neck when he speaks, same softness;
“No, it’s fine. Maybe I need to get used to it. Please. Call me beautiful. Call me anything you want” he leaves a kiss on Gaipa’s neck, barely a touch. It is sweet. Gaipa understands.
“Okay”
Eventually, there is enough room for more tenderness and their legs have tangled around, and Yok who previously had his face resting on Gaipa’s chest, is the one hugging Gaipa who seems to fit just right in between his arms. They are not talking, but the silence is not uninvited, it seems necessary.
Yok doesn’t want to fall sleep, he thinks if he does so, he will have to wake up and make decisions and he doesn’t know whether he is ready to make them. Gaipa must be thinking the same. Don’t sleep, Yok sends a telepathic message to Gaipa, even when he’s curled up in his arms. He doesn’t feel like breaking the silence yet.
It seems like his message is delivered, Gaipa looks up at him
“I miss her so much, you know”
Yok caresses his hair in response, comforting. The vulnerability in Gaipa’s voice is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking.
“I miss her and I’ve been feeling so alone. I’m sorry”
“Don’t apologize” Yok takes Gaipa’s hand and carefully plays with his fingers.
“You can talk to me. We were looking for each other for a while, you can confide in me”
Once again, the silence takes over.
Yok knows that Gaipa thinks the same, the way with which his head buries in his chest is enough of an answer for now.
Outside the night sky might be full of stars, neither of them can know it, the window faces a wall and they’re looking at each other anyway. I don’t want to fall sleep, Yok sends the message again.
“There is this song. My mom used to sing it all the time”
Yok looks at him and nods, his eyes are getting heavy, perhaps is already two in the morning, he can’t be sure. Gaipa gets even closer into the embrace, his voice whispers the words, not quite singing, simply reciting:
“Last night, I dreamt about you
Your figure, your arms
Last night I yearned for you. And I haven’t met you yet.
Alone, I healed your wounds from past wars you have fought.
Last night I loved you”
Yok closes his eyes.
In the morning, when they wake up at least one thing would have changed. Neither of them will be alone anymore.