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The day has been long for Pa. And it's only lunchtime. This must be some kind of record.
“Ma, Pa, they are perfect together.”
Pa nods at Dissaya, who doesn’t seem at all convinced. Passin, Pran’s father, responds with a small smile - the only recognition she got until now for her hard work.
It has been slightly more than one month since Pran returned from Singapore. He and Pat moved into their new house and decided it was time to come clean about their fake break-up. Not that their parents didn’t already know, but it’s certainly different from knowing and being able to ignore it. Now, they have to acknowledge it. And accept it. It has been a few confusing days at both houses. Anyway, Pa got the pleasant task of bringing the two families together in a too-small car, to which Dissaya lost the unfair and unofficial run for the shotgun seat.
“Pa!”
Pa breathes deeply at the sight of Ink, feeling her heart immediately settle. At least she’s here. She swadee Pran’s parents and her in-laws. The smile on Yui's face is now warmer.
“How are you, Ink? I’m happy that you took the time to come.”
“Of course, Ma. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m really happy we are finally able to be all together. It is great to get the chance to meet Pran's parents.”
Ming rolls his eyes and tries to get the necessary and possible distance from Dissaya. She, for once, smiles.
"Thank you. You’re Ink... Pran told me about you. You went with him to secondary school; I think I remember you from then."
"Do you? I did go to Pran’s house once for a homework project together, but I didn’t expect you to remember me."
"Of course, I do. I remember all of Pran's friends."
"Maybe if you had tracked your son's friends better…" Ming comments in a low tone.
Her eyes jump straight to him.
"I don’t remember you doing a better job."
Yui slaps Ming’s arm before he can shape his mouth to form words that certainly wouldn't help the situation.
"Ter."
He turns his eyes away from her stern look.
"Sorry…"
Ink coughs, grasping the tense ambience.
“I know it may be hard for you. I’m happy that you are making an effort. You’ll see you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“They make each other very happy. You’ll see,” encouraged Pa.
An agreed silence was the best they could give, and it remained untouched all the way to the front gate. Pa rushes to ring the doorbell, not sure if it will ease her misery or bring more misery. The doorbell sounds clearer in the virtual eco surrounding them. Seconds after, the front gate opens to a small garden. They step in and walk to the door of the house, where they are greeted by a clearly sullen Pat.
"You arrived," he recognises, giving way for them to enter.
His mom hugs him, "What's wrong, luk?"
He turns to his father and Pran's parents, closing the door behind them.
"Mae, Por, how are you?" he politely asks to Pran’s parents.
They nod in response and return his swadee.
"Everything fine?" repeats his mother.
But Pat doesn’t have time to answer before Pran peeps over the kitchen to answer for him.
"Everything is fine. We just got a bit late. But you can wait in the living room."
The apron is hiding his spotless and perfectly ironed navy blue shirt. With a smile, he swadee the parents. It’s easy for Pa to understand he’s nervous. So, understanding the same to Dissaya is a walk in the park.
"I'm glad you made the effort to come,” Pran continues.
“«They make each other very happy», you said," whispers Dissaya to the girls before walking past Pat without a second glance to reach to her son, "Oh baby, you seem to be working too much. I'll help you."
Pa and Ink exchange a look, Ink's look more to the panicked side and Pa's to the tired side.
Couldn't they bicker on a different day?
"It's almost done. You are just allowed to come and taste."
His mother passes through him, caressing his cheek on the way to the kitchen.
“Pat, can you control yourself?” the girls hear Pran whisper to Pat on their way to the living room.
That question doesn’t seem to produce the expected result, deepening Pat’s frown even more. Seated on the couch with Ming’s silence and Yui’s and Passin’s awkward exchanges of comments about the safety of the neighbourhood, Ink rolls her eyes, and Pa rubs her forehead.
Yes, this day can get even more tiresome.
The only thing exchanged until now was pleasantries.
Is it enough?
You can eat as much as you want.
Hope everything is to your liking.
It's very tasty.
And silence.
Pran's nervous smile tries again to ask for help from a Pat who isn't answering.
"So, Pran, I didn’t –"
Before Pran can be thankful for Yui's sensibility, Ming breaks his vow of silence.
"Things are going great at work, Pat!" he ignores his wife's disapproving glance at the interruption. "The new client really loves you."
Pat doesn't reply and keeps his eyes glued to his plate, playing with the two halves of a half-boiled egg.
"Good that she's a beautiful woman and you're a nice-looking guy, right?" his hand fell heavily over Pat's shoulder in a playful way, while he laughed.
Every eye on the table, except Pat's, falls on him instantly.
"Are you trying to suggest something, Ming?" Dissaya’s voice sounded impossibly rough for her low tone.
“Mae, it--”
"I'm just saying there shouldn't be any reason for my son to look so down when he just completed a big deal for our company."
"Pran and I are fighting," responded Pat with a blank voice.
Pran giggles nervously.
"Everything is fine. We are not fighting."
At last, Pat's eyes rise from his plate with a sarcastic grin and a fake sweet voice, "Yes. We are not fighting. Look at us soo happy!"
Only missing the opening bell, two parallel discussions start, with Ming and Dissaya on one ring, and Pat and Pran on another, with whispered throwbacks. Yui and Passin look helpless at their spouses while they exchange insults about the capacity of the other's kid to make their own kid happy. But one of the kids in question doesn't seem to be paying any attention to the olders' combat, while the other tries to divide his attention between calming his mother and responding to his boyfriend without raising his voice.
Ink's baffled expression almost cracks Pa up. Pa wishes she could fulminate Pat for arranging such a mess with his sulking humour. She shouldn't be wasting her brain cells on this; there's a project she needs to deliver in less than one week, and the manager she ended up with is no help. That's the state of her karma nowadays. And looking at the state of this lunch, she will have to postpone the afternoon movie session with Ink.
No can do! She needs her loving time. Decidedly, she takes upon herself the task of ringing the final bell of this match. But before she could get up, Pran did. The sound of his chopsticks being pressed hard on the table, his chair interjecting when it falls on the ground, and his loud voice. Not like a scream, but loud.
“What's wrong with you? It’s stupid to be so angry about a window!”
Pat imitates Pran's movements. Chopsticks, chair, tone. However, his chair stubbornly manages to balance itself so as not to fall.
“No. What’s stupid is that I don’t know that my boyfriend of six years feels cold at home."
"Oh my gosh!" Pran's chest was breathing up and down, exploding with the frustration expiring out, "I don't feel cold! You are always hot, so I open the window for you. You stay happy. I don't mind wearing a shirt. It even saves us energy!"
"What is this about?" Ink asks in a hushed tone, the funny expression still there.
Pa can only shrug.
"You do mind. And Jay knows about it. Thank the lords for him, or else, I would stay ignorant my whole life."
"That's ridiculous, Pat! So I complained to a friend a little bit. What's the big deal? And you even like the sweatshirts I wear at home."
Ink lowers her head to Pa, trying to keep her tone low, "Are they fighting about an actual window?"
This reminded Pa of that time a couple was fighting out loud at a café where they were having a date. Now, it was much less entertaining than then.
"Ridiculous?" Pat's eyes widen, "I tell you what's ridiculous! Ridiculous is your boyfriend of six years living under the impression that you are too shy to walk around the house without your shirt on," Pran rolled his eyes in response, "Ridiculous is a man, who only knows you for one year, knowing more about the temperature at what you like to keep your house than the man who has been living with you for the last years.”
“What does that mat--”
“Oh, please!" he raised his hand to stop Pran from talking, "I have more. Ridiculous is your boyfriend not knowing how stressed you were about work. Ridiculous is your coworker knowing more about your problems than your actual boyfriend. God damned, ridiculous is your coworker knowing more about the problems of our relationship than I do!”
Pran squints his eyes, looking away for the second needed to realise what Pat is saying.
“Wha-? Pat, it’s not like that. You were busy.”
Pat raises his volume, “Didn’t I ask how your work was going? Didn’t I ask how you were?”
Startled, Dissaya makes a move to get up but is stopped by her husband.
“You did, but you were not even really there. You were just asking. Not truly looking. Maybe if you were, you would have seen I wasn’t okay.”
A fake laugh, “So, I must be with full attention to you all the goddamned time. I must always doubt every time you say you are okay. I must always recheck. I can never be relaxed knowing you are not lying, or if there is something, you will let me know.”
Pran sighs, noticing the chair on the ground and picking it up, “I guess I could have said something. But I also didn’t want to bother you with these small things. You were so busy...”
“I was having a few hard days at work. So what? You won’t ever tell me about your problems if I don’t try to rip that information out of you?”
“I just don’t…”
Pran’s eyes lower to the ground, and Pat seems to be fighting himself not to get closer to him. Still, his voice comes softer.
“This is always happening, and it's exhausting to always look deeper. What if I truly get busy, Pran? What if my parents get sick, and I must take care of them? What if something happens to you during that time? What if something happens to us? Will you not talk to me about it? Will you turn to somebody else instead of me and leave me in the dark about it? What if we get busy at the same time? Like when we have a baby or something. Will we stop talking to each other about what is worrying us? We have to be—”
Pran’s whole body goes tense.
He asks in an almost inaudible tone, “What?”
So inaudible that Pat doesn’t notice and continues his ranting, “trust each other even—”
“WHAT?!”
Pran shouts, startling everyone, including Pat.
With a frown, he shouts back, “WHAT?”
“What did you say?”
“What?”
"What did you say?"
"What did I say when?"
“When we have a baby?”
“Well, yes. That seems to be pretty stressful. Remember Pink and her twins? She was dead. It sure isn't rainbows and unicorns all the time. We’ll be tired and busy. What if something happens meanwhile?”
Pran still looks at him with a clueless expression, his eyes batting several times.
“A baby?”
Pat pauses for a second before answering, “What is happening with this conversation, Pran? Do you not know the meaning of the word «baby»? What do you mean? We’ve talked about being parents before.”
Pran laughs in an unhumorous way and shakes his head firmly.
“No. You said you wanted to be a father, and sometimes you say that some baby on the street looks cute.”
Pat frowns, “You don’t want to be a father or what?”
“Well, it doesn’t matter if I want it or not, does it?”
It seems like the cluelessness has rubbed off on Pat permanently.
"How come it doesn’t?”
“I’m a man.”
That doesn’t seem to ease his expression, “Oh, good!" his voice theatrically moulded with surprise, "Thank you for the notice. Nice to make your acquaintance, Khun Parakul. I’m a man too.”
Pran rolls his eyes, a hellish trait Pat hates.
“But there’s a difference between us, isn’t there? You are pan. I’m gay.”
“So?”
“So you can have kids, and I can’t.”
For a moment, silence was left in the air between them.
"I can. Wha–? I--… But…" Pat halts and takes his sight away from Pran as if looking for the hidden answer amongst the furniture chosen by Pran, “Wait. Wha--? Pran… Tell me you don't mean what I think you do.”
“Pat, I can’t give you kids.”
“I know how it works!" Pat raises his volume again, stepping away from Pran, "I can’t give you either. So, every time I talked about being a father, what did you think was going to happen?”
Pran shrugged. Not in a dismissive way. But in a logical one. Like a shrug accompanied by a deep breath, both accept what is undoubtedly inevitable.
"Eventually, you can fall in love with a girl. When you find a proper girl... When you are ready to have kids, you'll eventually... Move on."
Pat's eyes widen more than before, redness filling them. Impulsively, he walks to Pran and grabs him almost violently. But he lets him go faster than it takes for Pran's parents to reach him. Pran looks at them with rounded eyes as if just noticing they were there. He jumps in place, returning his attention to Pat when Pat punches the fruit bowl, making it shatter on the other side of the kitchen counter.
“Pat!” Yui screams.
Pat turns around, a few angry tears rolling down, like the mangoes and small lychees on the floor. Unlike the fruits, he brushes the tears, saving them from the decision of continuing down his neck or falling to the ground at the curve of his jaw.
“So, when it’s time, I’ll break up with you so I can have a new family with some girl," he laughs, but it only sounds like pain. "Pran, go to therapy, please. Go to a fucking psychologist. You need help. Fucking mental! The fuck are you saying?”
“Stop cursing!”
“For what, Pran? To look good in front of people? Nice and perfect? For what? For. What. How incompetent I am when, after six years, my boyfriend thinks I’m going to break up with him when I’m done playing houses. How ridiculous is it that my boyfriend doesn’t know I’m serious about him when we just bought a fucking house together?
Pran seems to have reached his limit. He releases himself from his parents' hold, almost as if he is throwing their hands away.
“SO WHAT’S THE PLAN, NAPAT? What are you planning on doing, hein? Surprise!" he points to them both, "We are both male. WE CAN’T REPRODUCE!”
"We can adopt."
“Adoption is not legal for us.”
“Maybe it will be! You don't know. Why can't you ever be optimistic? Maybe when we are both ready, we’ll be able to have kids. And if not, maybe we can go abroad. And if not…" he looks around, halting his eyes on his sister and pointing at her, "That girl is thinking about having five kids. With that many, we can play Sepak Takraw! That’ll give us plenty to do.”
Ink looks at Pa, surprised.
“You want five kids?”
Pa sinks on her chair, her cheeks burning red.
Let's schedule killing Pat for later today.
"Yes, but I didn’t want to scare you."
Ink squishes her cheeks, marking white on her red cheeks, “Cute.”
“Leaving you is not on my to-do list unless death comes, Parakul. Still, I plan on hunting you down next life."
Pran shakes his head.
"Look, Pat, we're still young, but eventually, you’ll want more. More than I can provide.”
“Men, I fell in love with a stupid idiot…" Pat shakes his head, his voice again softer.
But Pran is not on the same page.
“I’m not kidding, Pat. You must go when you feel ready to move on.”
"And who are you to kick me out of my own house? It’s not your decision.”
Pran exhales sharply, “Yes, it is. I have the right to decide. You can’t stay with me if I—"
“No!” Pat's face becomes serious, “You have the right to decide for yourself. You have the right to decide if you tell me your problems, or if you tell them to another person. You have the right to be quiet and not talk to me. But you don’t get to decide if I’ll be a father or not. You don’t get to decide if I want to stay with you for the rest of our miserable lives. And you don’t get to decide if I lo—”
Pran shakes his head, some tears breaking through.
“You aren't conscious of what you are saying. You are way too immature and impulsive. You have to truly think about what you are saying."
Those accusations seem to sting Pat as if it's not the first time he's heard them.
“It’s you the one that doesn’t know what he's saying. Apparently, you have been spending too much time imagining soap operas. I have known what I want for a long time. I want you. For the rest of my life. Maybe you are the one who doesn't know what he truly wants. Maybe you are the one who isn’t sure anymore."
Pran's arms were dropped in defeat on both sides of his body when he responded, in a soft voice, "You know I've been in love with you since we were kids."
With two steps, Pat crosses the distance between them, “Then how can you think something like this?"
"It makes sense," Pat rolls his eyes, throwing his hands in the air in a sign of despair, but Pran cuts him, grabbing his arm "No, listen, Pat. You must listen. It might seem stupid, but there are things you shouldn’t compromise in a relationship because they are too big. Too important to be compromised. Being a parent is one of them. You have a chance. I always knew I hadn’t, so I'm okay with it. But you shouldn’t compromise that objective for me."
"Baby, it will never ever be acceptable enough for you to stay with a man who’s only around until he finds someone better to settle down.”
"No. You--"
"Pran..." Pat prolongs his name in his mouth while grabbing his face, pulling it up so they can look each other in the eyes, "I'm sorry. I talked to you so harshly. This is on me," Pran shakes his head. "You love me, right? I know you do. Are you having doubts?"
Pran’s tenacious tears fill his eyes. He tries hard to contain them, the fire of the discussion diminished.
"Are you?"
"You know I am not."
Pran's voice is lower as a whisper, and Pat smiles.
“So, what the hell is wrong with your boyfriend of six years that he was not able to assure you he loves you?”
Pran presses his lips together, his dimples making an appearance. Pat rushes to cover them with the tips of his fingers.
“You are. I know you lo--. I know you do. But we must be practical sometimes, Pat.”
“Good thing I love you both theoretically and practically.”
“But…”
“There’s no «but» after my «I love you».”
Pran rolls his eyes, the kind of eye roll Pat had learned to appreciate and love, "Disgustingly cheesy. We need to talk about this better."
Pat pouts and shakes his shoulders while he whines, "But I'm hungry!"
“So, how many kids do you want?”
Pran squints his eyes at him while they exchange the parts of their eggs as they always do. Pat gives him the yolks, and Pran gives him the white part.
“Napat.”
“I mean hypothetically and ideally.”
“Can you shut up?”
Maybe Pa’s karma is not the worst. After all, she managed to have her romantic afternoon movie session with Ink but had to postpone killing Pat on Pran’s orders.