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Early on, when they started officially dating, Peem had warned Phum that being with him meant being with his friends too, no exceptions.
At the time, Phum hadn’t thought much of it—he was already friends with Tan way before he and Peem ever met, and since then, he’s gotten to know Q, Pun, and Chain well enough to call them friends. He likes their energy and the chaos they bring to every situation, so having them as friends feels more like a bonus to his relationship with Peem, not a stipulation.
It doesn’t take too long, though, for him to realize why exactly Peem felt the need to warn him.
“We, my friends,” Pun exclaims one day, “are playing matchmaker!”
He’s here at the engineering faculty cafeteria for some reason, alone, and that in and of itself should have been enough to set off alarms in Phum’s head. But to be honest, his sense of reason isn’t exactly working the best right now. He’s still getting over a cold, he just got out of a pop quiz in one of his physics classes that he’s sure he failed, and he’s bummed that Peem couldn’t join him for lunch today because of a last-minute assignment he has to finish.
So, when Pun storms up to their lunch table and start shouting, he figures he can entertain his ramblings and see where this goes.
“Didn’t Chain ban you from playing cupid?” he asks between bites of chicken and rice. Pun just grins maniacally at him.
“He strongly suggested I stop,” he corrects. “But Chain’s not here right now.”
“There goes half your reasoning skills,” Beer quips.
“And all of your impulse control,” Phum adds.
“You guys!” Mick shouts, surprisingly not staring at his phone for once. “Don’t be mean, listen to what my comrade Pun has to say!”
“That’s right, comrade Mick!” Pun claps Mick on the shoulder in a gesture of true brotherly comradery before continuing. “I am an incredible cupid, and the world deserves to benefit from my awesome skills!”
“If you’re so good, why do we need to help?” Beer asks, and Phum grunts in agreement. Pun just clicks his tongue and wags his finger at them.
“My dear friends, dost cupid not need his plethora of love arrows in order to fulfil his sacred, amorous duty? How can I take on such a vital, god-given responsibility without an army of minions present to do my bidding and help carry out my plans?”
“So are we arrows or minions? Make up your mind,” Phum grumbles, and is promptly ignored.
“Why us?” Beer asks instead. “Don’t you usually ask your other friends first? Or Chain?”
“Chain can’t know, duh.”
“Yeah, duh,” Mick pitches in. “Keep up, dude.”
“I— okay, sure whatever. But what about your friends, can’t they help you?”
“Tan’s too busy making goo-goo eyes at Fang to be useful,” Pun continues, “and Fang says he doesn’t want to help, so Tan definitely won’t. And no one in Fine Arts can know.”
“Why not?” Pun grins wide, his expression unhinged, and Phum wonders what the hell he’s getting himself into.
“We’re getting Fai a girlfriend!”
-
Phum’s not super close with Fai, not usually spending a ton of time with Peem’s Fine Arts friends besides Q and Toey, but it doesn’t take long for him to get hooked on Pun’s plan.
He’s gotten to know Fai a bit from the many times he’s visited Peem’s faculty, though, not to mention the few instances he’s joined in on the Fine Arts crew’s drinking nights at Ueai’s bar. That means he’s heard one too many times how tired she is of everyone being in love around her, how she wishes she was dating, and the like. Now, Phum knows she was mostly joking when she said that, but he’s also gotten to see just how many people seem to admire her when she’s not looking. Peem’s even said he’s seen people actively hit on her before, only for her to either not notice or shut them down immediately.
But, he quickly learns, there is one person who may just yet be able to capture Fai’s heart— Pailin, from Political Science.
Pailin is one of Pun’s faculty friends, he explains, who met Fai a year back when through pure coincidence. The Fine Arts kids had an assignment to get into groups and draw on one, huge canvas together—some sort of practice in artistic fluidity and collaboration, or whatever. Peem and Q had joined up with Fai to make a group, and they’d planned to lug their giant canvas to the park, but needed some extra hands to help carry supplies.
By then, Pun had already somewhat known Fai as a friend of Peem and Q’s, so when the two of them texted their friend group chat asking if anyone was available, Pun had easily offered to help them out. Granted, he’d mainly been doing so because he wanted to escape the study group he was in, where he had been cramming for an upcoming exam for his International Affairs class.
Pun had immediately used the opportunity to flee from the study group and, even more impressively, lure his friends out of studying too so they could come help. It was a bit over the top, all seven of them turning up to the Fine Arts building just to help carry some extra paints and brushes, but Q and Peem just laughed and accepted the help easily.
Pailin, who’d been in the study group and tagged along, had quickly latched onto Fai as the only other girl in the group, and the two had quickly hit it off as friends. The whole affair had only lasted maybe 30 minutes, at most, yet by the end of it, it had seemed like Fai and Pailin had been friends for years. They’d exchanged numbers before going their separate ways, and that had seemed to be the end of it: a pleasant, incidental friendship between two unlikely souls.
Fast forward a year, and Pun’s recently found out the truth—that Pailin fell for Fai, hard, the very first time they met.
It’s just the kind of cheesy meet-cute that has Phum’s bleeding heart growing warm and fuzzy, not that he’ll ever admit it out loud. He’s sure it probably shows through his actions, though, through the slightly too-eager way he agrees to help Pun out, through his soft smiles when he meets Pailin and watches her blush at the very mention of Fai, through the ease with which he flaunts his credit card to buy all the things they need for their plan.
Oh right, the plan.
It’s remarkably convoluted, but Phum supposes it wouldn’t be one of Pun’s schemes if it wasn’t. Turns out, a few months back, Fai had been wistfully telling Pailin all about how she wished she had gone to her senior prom, how she’d been asked out by a couple people but had rejected them in favor of staying home and doing her own thing. It’s one of those cheesy high school memories she’d missed, and as university went on and she grew older, she couldn’t help but look back and regret not going before.
Naturally, Pun decided to set up an entire prom just for Pailin and Fai.
It’s the perfect grand gesture, he claims, to make Fai totally swoon and fall in love. After all, Pailin’s apparently been trying (and failing) to subtly flirt with her for the past six months now, and it’s all entirely gone over her head. So much so that she had turned to her friends for encouragement, not realizing what chaos she was about the unleash the second she confided in Pun.
Phum almost wants to be amazed at just how much Pun is able to make happen with just a little time and a lot of dedication. He’s apparently already found and reserved a room for it in the Fine Arts building itself, recruited his other Political Science friends to help with decorating, and even made a cute little prom banner to hang up over the door.
All that’s left now, is the music… which, for some inexplicably reason, involves Phum, Beer, Mick, and a whole bunch of makeup.
“Hold still,” Pailin snaps when Mick flinches away from her giant pressed powder brush aimed at his cheeks. “I’m trying to mattify your face, not turn you into a ghost.”
“You’re just making up words now.”
“Shhh!”
“I miss when you were quiet,” Phum bemoans, resisting the urge to tousle his perfectly styled hair.
When they’d first met Pailin last week, she’d been shy and bashful, a sweet girl who was just surprised and a bit overwhelmed at the idea of not just her friends, but also total strangers helping her with her crush. Over the course of the week, though, between all the plotting and planning, she’s slowly opened up to them more and more. That openness didn’t come without its drawbacks, though, and Phum shivers when he thinks of the murder in Pailin’s eyes when he accidentally rubbed his eyes and smudged his eyeliner a few minutes ago.
“Why do we even have to do all this anyway?” Beer whines, looking to Pun, who’s watching the whole scene with way too much pride in his expression. “I thought you just wanted us to play some songs.”
“Exactly!” Pun chirps. “We’re counting on you for a great performance!”
“But why the makeup?”
“Because boybands wear makeup, and you’re covering idol songs, duh?”
“And why did you make us learn idol songs?”
“Because Fai likes idols,” Pailin says, as though it’s the most normal thing ever.
“Exactly,” Pun adds, “Just think of this as your debut!”
“I’m a drummer, not an idol,” Beer says.
“But Fai likes idols—stay still!” Pailin says, clicking her tongue when Mick moves his head again. “Look, you guys learned the choreo, you learned the songs, you’ll be fine.”
“But we’re not idols! We’re not even close!”
“I can’t sing or dance,” Phum adds.
“You have a good singing voice,” Pun rebuts, shrugging when Phum stares at him perplexedly. “Peem sent us a video of you singing at karaoke so he could brag about his ‘talented boyfriend,’ or whatever. Not as good a singer as me, but you’re passable, I guess.”
Phum curses inwardly as he recalls the exact date Pun was referring to. After finding out that Phum had never been to karaoke before, Peem took it upon himself to “take Phum’s karaoke virginity,” whatever the fuck that meant. Honestly, it’d been fun, letting loose for once and singing maybe one too many sappy love songs just to watch Peem blush. Somehow, though, he never noticed Peem recording him, not even once. Traitor.
“And Mick likes dancing,” Pun adds, “so it’s fine, isn’t it?”
“Again, I am a drummer,” Beer emphasizes.
“Yeah, and?”
“Yeah, aren’t all musicians the same?” Pailin chirps, and Phum groans.
Dear god, there’s two of them.
“I get why you guys are nervous, though,” Pun says, clapping Phum on the shoulder and shaking his head in faux-comfort. Or maybe he’s being genuine, Phum can never really tell with him. “Without my melodious singing voice to carry you, it’ll be hard to pull off a show-stopping performance.”
“So hard,” Beer deadpans, voice drier than his eyes after holding them open for a minute straight while Pailin applied mascara on him.
Pun pauses at that, though, suddenly deep in thought.
“You know… maybe you guys are right.” Oh? Is that a glimmer of reason Phum sees in his eyes? Is there a chance— “I’m so busy with overseeing everything, but maybe I should step in and sing with you guys. I mean, there are so many songs, how are you gonna manage without me—”
“Hey, hey, hey, let’s not go that far!” Phum interrupts, making manic eye contact with Beer, who thankfully picks up the message quick. “We don’t wanna, uh, take away from your important duties.”
“Yeah, exactly, what are we gonna do without your… supervising everything? The whole thing will fall apart!”
“You can’t let that happen, not after all this hard work! Right, Mick?”
“H-huh? Uh, yeah!” Mick agrees, clueless, nodding his head the best he can without irritating Pailin further.
“And you know what? I suddenly feel super confident and not even a little nervous about this performance,” Phum adds. “So, you don’t have to worry, we got this.”
“You guys…” Pun says, awestruck and eyes shining with emotion. He brings a hand to his heart, touched, and nods resolutely. “You’re right, we’ve come too far to let anything go wrong now! We can do this!”
Phum and Beer share a long, exasperated look, but fortunately, Pun doesn’t seem to notice.
“Alright, guys, showtime in five, get ready!”
Just like that, Pun’s flying out the room, no doubt rushing to lure Fai here. Sighing, Phum lugs himself out of his chair begrudgingly, mentally apologizing to Fai for the travesty she’s about to witness. Considering both their musical inexperience and the fact that they’ve had a whopping total of four days to learn their choreos, he’s sure they’re about to commit musical crimes previously unbeknownst to mankind.
But hey, anything in service of love, right?
Despite the insanity of the situation, Phum can help but smile fondly as he gets into position next to Mick and Beer at the back of the room, watching Pailin fuss with her hair and her uniform as she stares at the door. Surrounding her, Pun’s Political Science friends take their positions as well. One person’s in a corner, messing with a couple stolen—ahem, borrowed stage lights from the theatre department, that are now pointed up towards a disco ball on the ceiling to create the perfect, pink-hued dance lighting. Two people are on camera duty, one stationed near the front door and one at the side to capture multiple angles of Pailin’s confession. Two others are poised and armed with party poppers and confetti balloons, ready to rain down upon the new couple at a moment’s notice.
It really is the perfect, personal prom, and even if it is incredibly ridiculous, Phum can’t deny the warm fuzzy feelings in his chest at the thought. His pondering’s cut off, though, by the muffled sounds of voices outside, and they hardly have a couple seconds to get ready before the door is slamming open, revealing Pun, Fai and—
Oh god.
Oh no.
Is that… Peem?
Phum tries to look away but he’s too late, their eyes meeting within seconds of Pun throwing the door open. He immediately feels his face blazing as mortification fills his very bones. Why on earth is he here? Pun had explicitly made sure to keep Peem, Q, and Toey in the dark about this whole plan, just in case they get tempted to spill the beans to Fai preemptively. And sure, they’re doing this whole thing in the Fine Arts building, but that still doesn’t explain why the hell Peem is here right now—
“Okay, places everyone!”
Phum wants nothing more but to run out of here right this second, but Pun’s shout snaps him back to reality. He hardly has even a second to linger in his embarrassment before Fai is rushing forward, confusion and amusement and wonder in her eyes all at once.
“Pailin?” she asks, eyes flittering around every inch of the room rapidly. “What is all this?”
“Fai,” Pailin says, gasps, seemingly lost for words the second the door opened.
But it’s okay—Pun predicted this, and Phum watches as he rushes across the room to grab the cue cards he prepared ahead of time. He raises them quickly, waving frantically to catch Pailin’s attention, and Phum can see the tension release from her body the second she sees them.
“You remember what you told me a few months ago, when your little sister was getting ready for her prom?” she asks, reaching forward with shaky hands to grab Fai’s. Fai allows it, expression still befuddled but intrigued as she nods. “You… you said you regretted never going to your high school prom, that you always wanted to have a magical prom experience, and I… I wanted to give you that.”
“Pai…?”
Emboldened, Pailin brought Fai’s hands up her chest.
“I like you!” she half-shouts, and catcalls and cheers fill the room. “I’ve liked you for a while and, and… I wanna be the person you try everything with. Will… will you go out with me?”
More cheers sound throughout the room, and even Phum can’t help but join in on the liveliness. Across the room, he sees Peem looking amused but fond at the scene before him, and Phum barely resists the urge to cross the room and hug his boyfriend immediately. Instead, he turns his attention back to Pailin and Fai, whose expression has slowly morphed from quizzical and mystified to endeared and maybe a touch flustered.
“You really went all out, huh?” she says, a light flush on her cheeks as she takes everything in.
“Do you like it?” Pailin asks, painfully sincere. “Is it everything you imagined?”
Fai opens her mouth to respond, closed it, then sighs.
“I don’t know,” she says, a playful glint in her eyes. “Why don’t you dance with me first, and we’ll find out?”
More cheers, and Phum is suddenly hit with the brutal reminder of why exactly he’s here.
Fuck.
“Hit it!” Pun shouts.
Someone—Phum doesn’t see who—is already rushing over to the phone in the corner of the room, with a playlist of backtracks already queued up.
As the first notes of the first song start to play, Phum looks over helplessly to Peem, who’s already got his phone camera primed and ready.
Traitor.
-
When’s all said and done, their semi-impromptu musical endeavor doesn’t go too horrendously.
Mick can only kind of hold a tune, Beer has two left feet, and Phum’s internally rolling around in his own shame, so they’re honestly just a mess. Still, Pailin and Fai don’t seem to mind as they stare at each other and dance together like there’s no one else in the room, in the world, besides each other. They don’t even flinch when their friends pop confetti balloons and party poppers over their heads, too lost in each other’s eyes to care. Honestly, he, Mick, and Beer shouldn’t have even bothered with the dancing, seeing as the main couple of the hour doesn’t seem to give a shit what it is they’re doing.
Just like that, they share a sweet, emotional slow dance together… and then another… and then another.
By the time all’s said and done, Phum feels half-dead on his feet. The sight of Pailin and Fai giggling together and holding hands as they walk out of the room still warms his heart, sure, but only barely. Luckily, Pun’s Political Science friends handle taking down the decorations and tidying the room, leaving Phum, Beer, and Mick to collapse in exhaustion the second the new couple leaves. Peem and Pun’s nowhere to be seen, either, but Phum can hardly muster the energy in himself to care much right now.
Eventually, though, people start to clear out, and Phum waves with a tired hand as Mick and Beer make their exit as well. Still a bit too exhausted to move, he grabs his phone and stares at it for a minute. Maybe he should call Peem, see what he’s up to and ask if he wants to go home together? But that means he’ll have to explain what the heck just happened, and he’s not sure he has the energy to deal with that just yet… Or maybe he should call Pun, see where he disappeared to? He never came back to collect his stuff, maybe he forgot—
Phum’s snapped out of his reverie by the quiet thud of the door opening, and he snaps his head to the side to see none other than Peem standing in the threshold.
“Oh good, you’re still here,” Peem says in lieu of a greeting, shutting the door behind him easily and walking over to him. He has a small plastic bag in his hands, and Phum wants to ask what’s in it, but his tongue betrays him before his brain can catch up.
“How come you’re here?” he asks, pouting a little when Peem stops just out of reach from him.
“Pun was acting weird,” he explains with a shrug, as though that explains everything. Maybe it does. “So, I tagged along to see what he was up to. You never told me you got roped into one of his schemes.”
“He told us not to tell you.” Peem snorts and rolls his eyes. “He was worried you, Q, or Toey would spill the beans. I was just being a good friend.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Peem barely looks at him as he pulls out the contents of the plastic bag—some makeup remover, hair clips, and cotton pads— and sets them neatly on the table next to them. Phum just frowns and reaches out to him, making grabby hands until Peem relents and steps close enough for him to wrap both arms around his waist. He tries to lean his head back so as to not get makeup all over his clothes, but he winces when he already sees a faint smudge of pink brushed onto the waistband of his khakis. Clearly, he didn’t pull back quick enough, but thankfully these are Peem’s work pants, so they’ve gotten plenty of paint on them before. A little bit of foundation and blush is nothing.
“What were you thinking, listening to Pun?” Peem continues chastising. Despite the edge in his voice, his hands are gentle as they push Phum’s hair out of his face and clip his bangs back. “Did you learn nothing from the volunteer camp?”
“You were the one who got coerced into the volunteer camp, not me,” Phum corrects lightly. “I just tagged along because I wanted to spend time with you.”
“You still joined. It still counts.”
“Okay, and? I mean, I’d say the volunteer camp was a success. Q and Toey got closer, you fell even more madly in love with me—”
“Who fell for who—”
“—and Pun got to live his cupid fantasy. Wins all around.”
“Except for the part where you almost had a mental breakdown because Kluen was maybe flirting with me.”
Phum grits his teeth. This is an argument they’ve had maybe one too many times—whether or not what Kluen was doing by joining the volunteer camp and sticking to Peem could be called flirting. Peem, unsurprisingly, doesn’t think so. After having this conversation several times, he’s finally acquiesced and accepted that, yes, Kluen came to the camp because he already liked him and wanted to get to know him. Still, though, staunchly refutes the idea that Kluen was actively flirting with him at the camp. He was just being friendly, Peem would claim, but Peem was an idiot who didn’t see the heart-eyes in Kluen’s eyes every time they talked about class assignments or whatever the fuck—
Well, anyway.
Taking a deep breath, Phum resists the urge to fall down that black hole of an argument against, instead focusing his efforts on being clingy to his boyfriend. Keyword, his boyfriend, and not anybody else’s, so suck it Kluen—
“C’mon,” Peem says, pulling Phum out of his thoughts as he tugs at the arms wrapped tightly around his center. “Let go, I can’t clean your face like this.”
He technically could, Phum thinks, seeing as he still has full reign of his arms, and Phum’s pulled his face back just enough to be totally accessible to Peem’s hands even as his own arms are locked around his waist. But Phum sees the light flush on Peem’s face, knows the surprising shyness he can feel when they’re so close like this in public, even if it’s just the two of them.
It’s a good thing Phum’s happy to be shameless enough for the two of them.
“Let’s try this then,” he says, and that’s the only warning he gives before his hands are trailing down to the back of Peem’s thighs and tugging, hard.
Peem yelps as he half-falls into Phum’s lap, and he’s barely able to catch himself in time, his hands shooting out to hold the back of Phum’s chair and keep him from falling chest-first into Phum’s face. As Peem tries to stabilize himself, Phum uses that brief moment of chaos to adjust him even further, hands tugging and slipping around Peem’s legs until he’s seated perfectly on Phum’s lap, his legs hanging off the chair on either side of Phum’s hips.
“There,” Phum says victoriously as Peem glares down at him. He squeezes Peem’s thighs slightly too high for it to be entirely innocent, but before Peem can snap at him, he continues. “Now you can clean me without an issue."
It is pretty perfect, if Phum does say so himself. Not only does he still get to be clingy like this, but it actually does feel a lot more comfortable than before. In all honesty, his neck had been kinda hurting from craning it back so much just to look at Peem while hugging him. Now, though, his face is close enough that Phum can comfortably sit back in the chair while still loosely wrapping his arms around Peem’s waist and enjoying the sight and feeling of his boyfriend in his lap.
Once again, wins all around.
“You’re awful,” Peem deadpans, but Phum sees the warmth in his eyes, the slight upturn of his lips as he grabs the supplies from the table.
“Awfully in love,” Phum shoots back, and Peem fake-gags in response.
“Keep going like this, and you’ll be worse than Tan one day.” Now isn’t that a scary thought? “Now hold still.”
Phum sits obediently as he watches Peem uncap the makeup remover bottle and wet the cotton pad thoroughly before bringing it to Phum’s face. It’s cold, and Phum can’t resist flinching slightly when he feels the damp chill against his skin, but Peem just uses his free hand to grab his jaw and hold him in place.
“I said hold still.”
They sit quietly like that for a moment, Peem slowly but thoroughly removing every inch of makeup from Phum’s face while Phum stares up at him. He’s so focused like this, yet his hands are gentle. He treats Phum like one of his precious paintings, keeping his touch light but thorough as he swipes the cotton pad over his cheeks, his jaw, his eyes. Like this, Phum feels like one of Peem’s personal art pieces, and he can’t help but smile at the thought.
“What?” Peem asks, his eyes now fixed on Phum’s forehead where a particularly stubborn spot of concealer refuses to come off.
“Nothing.” Phum pauses, then continues. “Missed you.”
He doesn’t care if he sounds cheesy. He’s barely gotten to see Peem this week because of how he’s been swamped with assignments recently, and having him in his arms now feels like the best energizer he could possibly ask for.
Peem stops his actions, eyes flickering down to meet Phum’s eyes, and for a second Phum thinks he’s going to tease him again. Instead, though, his expression softens, and he flashes Phum a small, genuine smile as he brings a hand up to ruffle Phum’s elaborately coiffed hair.
“Missed you too,” he says, closing his eyes and humming contently when Phum leans in to press a soft kiss to his lips. “So wanna tell me what happened?”
Phum does, his tiredness melting away as he explains Pun’s whole plan to help Pailin woo Fai off her feet. Peem, for the most part, just looks amused as he speaks, only rolling his eyes when Phum explains how he, Beer, and Mick got roped into being the live musical talent for Pailin and Fai’s personal prom.
“I should’ve never let you guys meet Pun,” he laments jokingly. “You’ve yet to learn how to say no to him.”
“Like you have?” That earns Phum a pinch on the cheek, making him yelp.
“I’m better at it than you, at least. The guys and I have had years of practice resisting him.”
“The volunteer camp begs to differ.”
“The volunteer camp was an exception.”
“Whatever you say, honey.” Peem huffs, and Phum flinches when lithe fingers flick his forehead suddenly. “Ow!”
“We’re done,” Peem says, chucking the dirty cotton pads onto the table and shuffling back to stand up. Phum’s hands instinctively tighten on his hips, holding him in place before he could think. “Phum?”
“Stay?” he asks, tugging Peem even closer and staring up at him with imploring eyes. Peem scoffs and smiles at him in disbelief, but he doesn’t make any moves to get up again. “Missed you, wanna hold you for a bit.”
“We could just go home.” Something in Phum’s heart flips at the thought, and at Peem not specifying whose house he’s talking about. He knows that Peem likely didn’t mean anything by it, but the word just sounds so good in his voice. Home. “You can hold me there.”
“Mm.” He leans in to nestle his now-clean face in Peem’s chest and closes his eyes, letting the sound of Peem’s rhythmic heartbeat lull him into relaxation. “In a bit. Stay like this for now, please?”
He pairs his words with a tight squeeze, letting his arms entirely envelope Peem’s waist, and he immediately feels Peem relax in his hold. Long fingers slowly reach up to nestle in his hair, and Phum melts under Peem’s touch as he starts scratching his scalp and combing through his long hair.
“Whatever you want, my big baby.”
Peem’s friends are great, but he’d rather have this any day.