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Phuwin crossed his arms and leaned back into the vague vibrations of a crowd surging behind his back.
A group of friends walked by with audible laughter and half-drunken noises, but soon they were gone and only the contained chaos of the little restaurant remained. Phuwin wondered once again where the hell Joong had taken them to—surely there were less crowded places to be, considering. His eyes wandered with reckless habit as they always did, and landed squarely on Pond. Considering, Phuwin thought, we are who we are.
A small shake of the table nudged him out of his blatant staring; Phuwin blinked, chin jerking in the direction of his half-empty water bottle, arms tight around his chest. Pond was existing beside him as if he had a sun in his soul, impossibly big and warm and bright, and Phuwin was distracted without even trying to focus on something—anything—else. Too used to indulging himself with Pond, too comfortable and content where he was to do much about it.
Even now, not looking directly at Pond, he catalogued each press of Pond’s shoe against his under the table, each brush of hand against hand just brief enough to be innocent, and each sudden change in the tempo of Pond’s voice when he turned to speak as if to Phuwin. Except he withdrew at the last second, spoke to Joong instead—Joong, who was sat right across from Phuwin, making little pointed movements with his knee that he thought were subtle.
But Phuwin saw right through it.
“P’Pond had a blast with the ice-cream,” Santa chirped in with a grin, seemingly continuing a conversation Phuwin wasn’t following.
Phuwin’s fingers, trapped and secured close to his body, twitched. He couldn’t help it: his head tilted up to catch a glimpse of Pond’s expression, surprising irritation bubbling over him when he found Pond smiling big and wide. So bright. And none of it directed at Phuwin.
The table jerked again, just a little bit, and Phuwin broke away from Pond’s blinding side-profile. The nauseating irritation smoothened into a sharp flick of anger, then melted and ebbed away into nothing. Phuwin stared at Joong over the table, deadpan.
Joong moved his eyes on him, lips pink, eyebrows flying up in mischief; plenty smug, plenty shrewd. Under the lights of the crowded restaurant they had chosen to spend their evening at, Joong looked almost as if he’d stepped out of a commercial photoshoot for lip products and shampoo. God, Phuwin hated being around him sometimes.
Their table had a circular top that wasn’t firmly attached to its base, so it moved every time one of them thumped it too hard or bumped their knee under it. Joong—because who else could—had turned it into a weapon of psychological warfare on Phuwin. Phuwin didn’t need the goddamn surveillance, thank you.
The next second Santa’s voice was bellowing Pond’s name again, so Phuwin finally uncrossed his arms, fished out his phone from his pants, and unlocked the screen. He had a schedule to catch up on and a fandom to stalk. The creature in his chest growled with entitlement.
“P’Pond,” —Phuwin sometimes didn’t like the way Santa said ‘P’Pond’— “what are you doing after this? Going home, right?” And sometimes, he didn’t like the way Santa said anything at all.
Phuwin resisted. His thumb hovered over a string of notifications with dull enthusiasm, the creature in his chest frothed, gnashing its jaws together. Under the table, two set of movements battled for his immediate attention, the first being Joong’s knee poking teasingly into the underside of the table, and the second being Pond’s thigh fully pressed against his.
Awfully, just like that, with that small, insignificant touch, Phuwin’s heart slowed. The creature in his chest growled again, but for a different reason.
Joong didn’t stand a chance. Phuwin was immediately lost in the warmth of Pond’s closeness, and the rest of it seemed nonsense. He leaned heavier against his chair, spread his legs farther apart, inhaled with the giddy curl of pleasure in his belly, already full though he hadn’t yet eaten.
Pond answered Santa with equal excitement, as if they were two school buddies thrilled about the next field trip. Phuwin, despite his best efforts, snorted quietly to himself, continued to scroll, head down and body lax. For a few harmonious seconds, he didn’t mind anything so much—the waiter came and took their orders, so he ordered for Pond as he often did, and Aou asked about his fanevent which he was happy to answer to.
“You came straight from dropping your mom and sister off?” Aou asked, eyes shining with admiration.
Phuwin laughed. “It’s no big deal. I thought I’d keep you guys company for a while.”
A sudden silence fell over the entire table, Pond’s little wiggle next to Phuwin clearly a response to it, like he was nervous. Phuwin looked over at him, trying for his most reassuring eyes even though he wasn’t sure what had set it off. And then, Joong said, “You came for us, huh?”
In an instant, Phuwin’s head snapped to Joong, all accumulated gentleness and concern draining out of his eye-sockets. There was an awkward pause.
“So, anyway,” Aou said, “I was thinking we could all go check out this place later, and Phuwin can come with us if he wants.”
Phuwin tilted his head, polite, “Thank you, phi, but no. I’ll leave you guys after this.”
They made various noises in agreement, but they didn’t try to convince him otherwise. Phuwin didn’t need them to—they knew that he’d have come uninvited if he’d wanted. Heart thudding somewhere between his throat and his jaw, Phuwin looked up again at Pond, found him already looking back with those beautiful glasses still perched on his nose.
They were silver-framed glasses, bracketing Pond’s picturesque eyes and accentuating his bone structure. Phuwin’s grip was weak on his phone but he pressed on, extending the eye-contact for a second longer before Joong bumped the table with his knee for the hundredth fucking time, making him jump.
“Can’t help it,” Joong’s hands went up. He grinned, “You’re drooling in broad daylight.”
Phuwin almost leapt across the table at him, “Shut up.” He cleared his throat, trying to ignore the soft laughter around him, and said, “I’ll leave now, I think. I need to be home early today.”
They waved him off with cheers and reminders to drive safely. Phuwin went to the condo which sat conveniently in the city, closer to both his and Pond’s usual routes—it’d come to mean ‘home’, too. He made himself comfortable, called his parents to let them know where he’d be staying for the night, and he had no particular expectations, but Phuwin began waiting.
He made the bed, sorted out his socials, checked in with his manager about his upcoming schedules, and in between that unacknowledged waiting and not waiting, Phuwin didn’t notice when his (un)expected visitor walked in.
The bedroom door had been left wide open so there were no noises of homecoming. Phuwin’s back straightened, a shift in the air, and his head turned to the side in the direction of the door. A raw smile cracked open his face, the ooze of it climbing up his eyes and under his shirt.
“Pond.” Impatiently, he slid off the bed, crossing the distance within heartbeats, and stopped just in front of the man, a lick of shyness suddenly sneaking up on him, “I thought you’d let me give you a ride.”
Pond’s dark eyes were warm pools of the night, devoid of the silver-rimmed glasses but somehow even more beautiful—maybe it was the closeness. “It’s alright. I really thought you were going home.” He was soft. A little bit knowing.
“Right.” There was a beat. Phuwin laughed, short and tickled, “Sorry, my bad. I think you enjoyed the tuktuk ride, though.”
“Mhm.” Pond moved closer, “I’m absolutely beat.” He ducked into the open crook of Phuwin’s neck and shoulder as Phuwin’s laughter rang out again, harder, then breathier, wrapping his arms around Phuwin’s waist and pulling him deeper into his arms. “I miss my puppy.” The words were mumbled, pressed into Phuwin’s shoulder.
After a second of awkward eagerness, Phuwin rested a hand on Pond’s back. He felt nothing but leather, but somehow it still lingered like a skin-to-skin contact at the bottom of his stomach. “Do you want to facetime?” He received a muffled no, which he took to mean that Pond didn’t want to wake anyone up at this hour, “Then why didn’t you just go home, hm?”
Pond shifted, smushing a side of his cheek into Phuwin’s shoulder, like he thought he was small enough to fit in there and look up at Phuwin forever, “Wanted to see you.”
“You said that you’d thought I’d gone home,” Phuwin whispered. His heart was beating, audible, and he was scared-happy-scared that Pond could hear it.
“I know.” Pond’s breath ghosted under his jaw, down the line of his throat, the whole of his left warmed impossibly by Pond’s weight and presence there, anchoring him, “I was hoping you hadn’t.”
Phuwin’s ribs felt tender enough to crush under a thumb, and then reinforced enough to crush his soft insides. He was soaring and falling, the back of Pond’s leather jacket tucked into his fist as he tried to capture the strength he didn’t feel in his knees anymore, like Pond’s words had obliterated him.
“Thank you,” Phuwin breathed.
He received a playful peck to the jut of his jaw in response, Pond’s giggles triggering his before they both pulled away, but then reached for each other again and again and again.