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On the bus ride back to Bangkok, Nueng can’t fall asleep.
The pressure and fear and guilt builds in his chest and feels like it’s slowly strangling him, not letting him breathe. He - made the right decision. Nueng knows he did. This was the best option. It just - hurt.
Pressing his forehead to the window of the bus, Nueng squeezes his eyes shut. The vibration of the bus travels through his body, violent and at the same time almost imperceptible. It’s so strange.
He can’t seem to cry, unable to relieve the stress building behind his eyes because this was his choice, and he has no right to feel upset over it. None at all, when Palm will probably wake up soon to a cold bed and an empty room and nothing except a slightly smudged goodbye letter and a bracelet.
The bracelet… Nueng misses it. So much. The weight around his wrist had already become familiar, and he -
He made this choice. He can’t turn back now.
He won’t.
Nueng will get through this. For Palm’s sake, if not for anything else.
(He misses a stop, because of course he does. He’s never done this before, and this time he doesn’t have Palm by his side, helpful and bright and gently teasing and just. Palm.
He arrives at the empty mansion at 3 in the morning. He feels exhausted.)
—
Nueng’s room feels off.
It’s cold, devoid of the traces of comfort that used to be there. The smell of his mother’s perfume doesn’t linger in the air. There is no note on his table, courtesy of his dad. Palm -
(Palm, blinking at his room owlishly through the door when he’d come up to deliver something. Palm, asking about it later in a gentle, careful voice on the beach - ‘Have you always had your own room? Why are the walls the color they are? Have you ever wanted to paint it something else?’. Palm -)
The room does not feel like Nueng’s room.
Still. It is. He’s lived in it for 15 years. And he’s exhausted. So.
Nueng turns the lights off, climbs under the covers and tries to sleep. He has a phone, now - the spare one he kept in his room - which has music on it. But it doesn’t help. What Nueng needs to fall asleep is the warmth of a familiar boy next to him, his heartbeat steady under Nueng’s hand, and the recognizable scent that feels like safety and promise and heat and -
Nueng throws the covers off. He wants to scream. He can’t - he can’t do this. Not right now. He has to find Palm. Or - something of Palm, some touch of comfort and recognition, just - something. He picks up his phone, intending to use it as a light to go - somewhere, when -
There’s a notification. Nueng does not know why there would be a notification.
Curiously, he swipes down.
There’s a text message. From an unknown number.
Normally, Nueng would have immediately deleted it, blocked the number - he’s the heir to a multi million baht fortune, people find new and inventive ways to harass him. But the room is strangely unfamiliar and it’s eerily silent and the a heaviness has settled over his head and he's just... he's tired.
Unknown Number
> Khun Nueng? It’s Palm
—
It’s not Palm.
Of course it’s not Palm. Nueng knows that.
There’s no way Palm is anywhere near a phone right now, and this isn’t his style - if he really had found Nueng’s phone number, he would’ve called and left voice messages in that familiar, swooping tone of his. He would’ve apologized first, because he was just that much of a deeply, stupidly kind person, and then he would’ve asked why Nueng left. He would’ve asked him to come back.
Nueng - would’ve.
But this isn’t Palm. He knows this, because this isn’t his style, but more importantly, Nueng’s number can only be found through paying a hacker to retrieve it, and there is no way in hell Palm would do that.
At least this much, Nueng knows.
So. It’s not Palm.
And yet.
‘It’s Palm’, the text message reads. It feels like a lifeline.
It’s not Palm, but Nueng still replies anyway, because… it is. Even if it’s a fake, he just - Nueng just wants to live a little bit longer in this fantasy where Palm would come chase after him even though Nueng is nothing but a bad omen cursing everything in his life, and Nueng would let him back in because he’d be strong enough to protect Palm this time, and they could be happy together.
Just. One more moment.
Even if it’s fake. Even if this is all he gets.
Nueng K.
> How did you get my number?