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Toh hated the picture he had taken of Nuea on sports day. Who was he kidding; he loved it at the beginning. It had gotten him recognition but with everyone praising Nuea’s beauty, Toh felt like he the artist was not appreciated. As if any picture Mr Perfect was in turned out to be an artwork. His teachers did recognise his impeccable timing and eye for detail, yet it was not enough, especially when he had people praising Nuea for the photo which was on display for everyone to see. Nuea seemed to have it all, the looks, the body, the money, the friends and the girl. He could have been Hollywood’s ‘IT Boy’ the once authors preferred to write about when creating the perfect ‘Male Lead’, he was a ten out of ten. So why did he rub Toh the wrong way?
It didn’t help that despite being in different faculties that had nothing to do with each other, he was always running into Nuea and his group of friends.
The fact Nuea was good to everyone and helped wherever he could did not phase Toh. He felt like Nuea was the type to help people when everyone was looking and cause chaos when nobody was around. Okay maybe that was not true, he agreed to himself, but no one was that nice unless they had skeletons in they closet or a body in they back yard. Toh smiled at himself at that thought.
“Why are you smiling like a lunatic?” Som asked as she placed her tray of food on the table.
“Busted.’ Toh thought and muttered nothing as he dug into his food.
Daisy squealed making Toh, Jao and Som stop walking. Nuea and his friends were walking in their direction. Toh sighed, another reason he hated that picture was his friends thought he had a thing for Nuea and no matter how much he tried denying it, it just made him seem like he was protesting too much and led to his friends finding Nuea in the crowd for Toh. God, bless Jao, only he would reprimand Som and Daisy for attracting attention to the group.
When Toh and his friends saw the senior Thep, they bowed, greeting and giggling, as the senior informed Toh that a friend wanted Toh’s photography skills for a birthday party. He was glad to take the job that was until he mentioned that Nuea was the person who wanted Toh to take pictures of his little sister's party. His smile dropped as he knew that he would be picked on by his friends after this. “P’Thep, I don’t think I can, my schedule is full at the moment.” he tried playing it cool as he held on to Thep and even smiled.
“That’s a pity, he liked your picture, the one you took for the ‘magic is love’ event.”
“His free!” Daisy and Som screamed at the same time. “He will do it.” Thep seemed to accept Daisy and Som’s answer as Toh did not dispute his sudden availability.
Picking up Prao, was fascinating, Toh got to see first-hand how Nuea was with his ‘girlfriend’ and to be fair was quite impressed. Prao had forgotten to put on her fake eyelashes and ordered Nuea to turn the car around, which he did with no complaints. Adding another thing that rubbed Toh the wrong way about Nuea. There is a reason movies have the to nice character as the killer at the end of the movie. It's a trope that has stood the test of time. There was no such thing as a functional nice person.
It wasn’t until he started hanging out with Nuea, that he realised that Nuea, was not the definition of ‘too nice’. It was Toh who had come up with his own conclusions for Nuea that had created a bias opinion of Nuea. Not wanting to look at the problem at hand but rather manifesting a character of what he thought Nuea was meant to be.
Only then did he realise what had bothered him with the picture. He had an eye for detail but only now could he truly accept the words his friend Jao had said ‘As if it was taken by someone who was in love with Nuea.” he had dismissed him at the time claiming to be an artist and that he just had perfect timing. But now admitting to himself that he could have feelings for Nuea brought a sudden pain to his chest. He was not the only one who had fallen for Nuea’s attitude and good looks. There were about a thousand boys and girls who wished Nuea could look at them, and talk to them.
The realisation of his feelings for Nuea also came at the worst time, when he just overheard Nuea and his friend, Tor, talking about Nuea’s boy, Van Gogh. Nuea was possessive over this Van Gogh.
Toh’s friends knew just how to take care of him, planning a trip to get away from all the drama and as true friends, they never told Toh ‘told you so’ when he finally admitted to having a crush on Nuea. Just hugging him and crying together.
Toh, couldn’t fully grasp how he had ended up going to Samed, with Nuea and his friends. When it was a trip to get away from said person, or why Near insisted on spending time with him and not ‘his boy’. Those two words left a bitter taste in his mouth, which he did not want to fully accept was jealous. He promised himself that he would enjoy being around Nuea as much as possible and when the time to let him go he would do so.
Yet Toh was again brought by Nuea, to attend a voluntary camp. The kisses shared by him were not enough for him to forget that Nuea was not his. And all they were doing was practising for the potential other. Only there was already a problem for Toh, as he kissed Nuea, he was already kissing Red, but when Nuea was kissing him, Nuea still wanted to be with Van Gogh. So when Nuea asked about Red, Toh, couldn’t let his guard down. He had more to lose if Nuea knew that Red and him were the same person. He merely responded “Can I not tell you about this,”
Finding out that Van Gogh was him lifted a heavy load of his chest that he hadn’t realised that he had when he shouted “I like you too, P’Nuea.”