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That is meant to be alone.
It makes sense. He’s been alone for as long as he can remember, after all. It’s an isolation that has grown up his sides like moss, burrowing a space into his ribcage right next to his heart. It’s the most familiar thing in the world - himself, and nothing else. He doesn’t get anything else.
It’s an old trade secret: don’t have anything to lose, and you’ll fight like it too. And more than anything else, the thing That cares the most about is his own survival. If being alone leaves a curling ache in his limbs like starvation for something he cannot name, then that’s - it doesn’t matter. He is - he has to be - willing to do whatever survival takes, and if that includes building a protective shield around himself that protects him and leaves him all alone then it’s what he will do.
And he does. Or he tries to. But little things always seem to manage to make their way through the cracks That tries so hard to patch up, like terrifying wires directly connected to his heart. One wrong move and he might explode.
When he first moves into the apartment Tan sets up for him, he finds an old bike, abandoned and covered in mud. It’s tipped over on its side in the middle of the forest trail, and That nearly trips over it. He leans down to check it - the key is still in the ignition, but the engine shows no sign of life. The paint is cracked and peeling, clearly old. It looks - pathetic, just lying there on the ground.
That can’t bring himself to leave it there.
So he drags it home and wonders if he’s gone insane and repairs the bike and cleans it thoroughly and opens up the engine to figure out the problem and replaces the broken part and starts it up and decides he’s definitely gone insane.
A few weeks later, That finds a useless box of left behind computer parts.
A few weeks after that, there’s a dog - puppy, really - huddled under a porch, shivering. That complains to no one in particular about the fact that the dog should be taking care of itself, it’s natural selection, god, it’s just sitting there useless it’s going to starve to death and before he fully realizes it he ends up at the vet. He leaves the dog there and gets the hell out before they try to make him pay for anything.
A few weeks after that, it’s a broken record player. Who even uses records anymore?
A few weeks after that -
No, not quite.
His next big thing is not a few weeks, but a few months later. In his habit of picking up stray things, That picks up something that is not really a something but a someone - who is daft and useless and easy to fool and completely unnecessary to have around.
Sorn is determined not to leave, however. So he stays. Not physically, but he might as well be, for how much time he spends following That around like a lost puppy.
Sorn is determined to make a space for himself. So he does. It’s a little bit unknowingly and a little bit on purpose, but there becomes a Sorn shaped space in That’s life so quickly it’s dizzying. And it leaves him feeling a little bit lost, because -
The way Sorn makes a space for himself is by being himself, and this is enough to make That, who is demented, fall for him.
But it’s stupid and useless and ridiculous because he is made for being alone, he should be alone, he cannot have anything to lose because he will lose it eventually and perhaps the issue is just that -
He isn’t made for this.
That isn’t made for gentleness.
He’s made for bruised knuckles and heaving breaths and bloody bones. He’s jagged and unwieldy and too hard to comfort. His insides are made of rust and long forgotten corners of the forest and the blazing sun, and he has nothing to offer except fragile wishes and cold midnight wind and callused hands and a hunger for any scrap of affection he is offered.
He’s not - That isn’t made for love.
That’s not made for the way Sorn smiles at him, wide and uncaring and so precious it feels like too much to see it without warning.
He can’t deal with the way Sorn loves him, unabashed and shy and genuine. He’s not - he can’t.
That doesn’t know how to live with it.