Chapter Text
She laughs again — soft, kind — and Phuwin smiles. Or at least, he tries to. The sound should fill something in him. It should feel like warmth. Like ease. But instead, it echoes in the hollowness inside him like a stone dropped into an empty room.
Her hand finds his under the café table. He doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t tighten his grip either.
He just lets her hold it.
And for the hundredth time, he wonders why this doesn’t feel like love.
They’ve been together for almost eight months. She’s thoughtful, sweet, impossibly patient. She listens. She remembers things. She brings him homemade granola bars with little sticky notes that say “Don’t forget to eat 🧡”. She tells him he’s beautiful when he’s tired. She kisses his forehead when he gets overwhelmed.
And still — still — there’s that one quiet truth curling under his ribs like a blade:
She’s not him.
He wishes she was.
God, he really wishes she was.
It’s not like he planned to fall into this relationship. It just… happened. Or more truthfully, he let it happen. Because standing too close to someone else was easier than standing next to the one person who made him feel everything.
Pond.
His best friend. His person. The one he never meant to love like this.
———
He still remembers the day it all shifted. Two years ago. A stupid rehearsal for a stupid fanmeet. Pond had tossed him a water bottle, grinning too wide. Phuwin had caught it, rolled his eyes, made some sarcastic comment.
And then Pond laughed.
Really laughed — head tilted back, eyes crinkled, mouth wide open.
Phuwin had looked at him and everything in his chest had gone terrifyingly still.
That laugh, that goddamn laugh. It had been the moment. The exact second he knew he was ruined.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Pond had teased, elbowing him.
“Like what?” Phuwin had mumbled, heart sprinting.
“Like I’m your entire universe.”
He’d laughed like it was a joke.
It wasn’t.
———
Now Phuwin sits beside a woman who loves him and tries so hard and still — he can’t stop thinking about a boy with midnight eyes and a grin that wrecked his sense of gravity.
He doesn’t speak of it. Not to her. Not to anyone.
But in the quiet moments — like now — it spills out in ways he can’t stop.
She stirs her coffee. He watches the swirl of cream and thinks of Pond's ridiculous late-night milk tea obsession.
She hums a song under her breath — soft, off-key — and all he hears is Pond singing badly in the car, air-drumming on the dash.
Even now, sitting in this cafe, holding someone else's hand — it’s Pond he sees across from him in his mind. Pond who makes his fingers twitch like he’s forgetting how to be still. Pond whose voice lingers in every silence.
He wonders if this is what guilt is supposed to feel like — this constant ache, this quiet drowning.
———
That night, she falls asleep in his arms.
She’s curled into his chest, peaceful, trusting, unguarded. He stares at the ceiling.
The moonlight slides across her face, pale and perfect.
But Phuwin’s mind is elsewhere — adrift in old memories and things he never said.
———
A poolside.
Pond wet and laughing, pushing his soaked hair back.
“You’re always looking at me like that,” Pond had whispered once.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re scared of what you feel", Pond whispered again...
He was.
He still is.
She shifts against him in her sleep and murmurs something he can’t quite hear. Her fingers curl around his wrist.
He closes his eyes and pretends — just for a moment — that the skin pressed against his is familiar. That it smells like Pond’s shampoo. That it’s Pond’s voice he hears, muttering in half-sleep, warm and real beside him.
It’s not.
Sometimes he thinks maybe this is punishment. For being too afraid. For choosing silence over honesty. For trying to unlove someone whose name was stitched into every beat of his heart.
“It’s not fair,” she’d said once, weeks ago, during a quiet moment.
“What?” he asked.
“Loving someone who’s only half with you.”
He had smiled. Said nothing.
But his throat had closed.
Because she was right.
She always knew.
———
Phuwin slips out of bed quietly. He pads barefoot to the living room.
He sits on the couch in the dark, staring at the cold floor, phone in hand. No new messages.
The last one from Pond was a week ago. A meme. A dumb sticker. No words.
They haven’t spoken properly in weeks.
Pond had stopped trying.
And Phuwin… had let him.
Because pretending it didn’t hurt was easier than confessing why it did.
He scrolls through their old chat.
Videos. Pictures. Laughter in typed form.
A blurry photo from two years ago — Pond asleep on his shoulder in the van, mouth slightly open, hair a mess.
Phuwin had captioned it: “Disgusting. But mine.”
Back then, it had been a joke.
Now, it feels like a confession he didn’t know he was making.
He thumbs over the image. Swallows the lump in his throat.
Outside, the city sleeps.
Inside, Phuwin breaks silently for the love he never spoke —
the one he buried so deep that even Pond stopped digging.
His girlfriend stirs in the next room, murmurs his name in sleep.
Phuwin closes the chat. Locks the phone. Presses his palms to his face.
And whispers the truth aloud for the first time:
“I love you, Pond.”
It’s quiet. Raw. Just a breath.
No one hears it.
But it changes everything.
He holds her hand at dinner and thinks of Pond.
Not intentionally. Not cruelly.
It’s just—there. Like muscle memory. Like breath.
She’s talking about a café she found downtown, eyes lit up, brushing her thumb over his like it’s the most natural thing. And Phuwin smiles, the corners of his mouth lifting almost convincingly.
But the laugh he gives her in return feels like it belongs to someone else.
He isn’t unhappy.
That’s what he tells himself most days. And it’s not a lie, exactly.
She’s kind. She listens. She shows up with warm drinks and reassurances. She knows how he likes his eggs, how he takes his coffee, when he needs space and when he needs to be pulled from it.
But the truth sits underneath it all, unspoken but impossible to ignore.
She’s not him.
She’ll never be him.
Phuwin doesn't remember when pretending started feeling easier than confronting the ache. Maybe it was the first time she kissed him and he didn’t feel a spark. Maybe it was when she introduced him to her parents and all he could think about was how Pond once joked he'd never survive meeting Phuwin’s mother.
Or maybe it was before all of that—back when Pond fell asleep on his shoulder during a van ride and Phuwin spent the next week trying to figure out why that stupid, simple moment made him feel like the earth shifted.
The worst part?
He tried. God, he tried.
He tried to love her the way she deserved. Tried to fall into a rhythm, build a life, create something that looked enough like happiness.
But it always felt like tracing love from memory. Like performing something he’d only ever seen Pond do—without knowing how it felt.
There are moments. Little things.
Like when they’re watching a movie and she reaches for his hand, and all he can think of is Pond shouting spoilers from the kitchen during their last horror binge.
Or when she hugs him goodbye at the airport and he swallows the taste of something missing—like the warmth of Pond’s hoodie he once stole and forgot to return.
Like how the red of Pond’s ears used to mean everything, and the way his name sounded in Phuwin’s mouth was nothing like saying anyone else's.
He wakes up sometimes with Pond’s laugh echoing in his dreams. Not loudly. Just enough to break him.
———
He remembers once months ago—she leaned into his shoulder, resting quietly after a long day, and whispered:
“You always feel just a little bit… gone. Even when you’re here.”
And he couldn’t answer her.
Because she was right.
Tonight, they sit together on the couch. Her head on his chest. A drama playing in the background. His arms around her.
She falls asleep like that—content, safe, trusting.
He stares at the ceiling.
His phone lights up on the table.
A message.
From Pond.
Just a dumb cat video.
No words.
But Phuwin’s breath catches anyway.
He doesn’t open it. Just looks at it. Feels his chest tighten like it always does.
Pond used to text him every day.
Sometimes just a meme. Sometimes a quote. Sometimes a blurry photo of their food with “look familiar?” typed underneath, like it meant more than it should.
Lately, the messages have gotten rare.
Shorter.
Colder.
It’s not that they fought.
It’s just… somewhere between “how’s work?” and “you free tonight?” they lost something.
Phuwin let it happen.
Because he didn’t know how to fix what he was too scared to admit existed.
He gets up. Pads softly to the kitchen. Grabs a glass of water and stares out the window.
City lights glow like distant stars. The room is too quiet.
He thinks of that night two years ago. The one that could’ve changed everything.
They’d been tipsy. Just the two of them in Pond’s apartment.
A night off. Nowhere to be. Laughter spilling like wine across the floor.
A stupid game—Truth or Dare turned confessional.
“You ever been in love?” Pond asked, grinning.
Phuwin shrugged. “Maybe.”
“With someone you weren’t supposed to love?” he teased, eyes sharp beneath the softness.
Phuwin didn’t answer.
Pond didn’t push. Just smiled. Looked at him like he already knew.
They’d sat there, quiet, the distance between them suddenly electric.
And for one breathless moment, Phuwin thought it would happen. Thought Pond would lean in. That he’d let himself lean back.
He didn’t.
The moment passed.
And with it, the future he’s still not sure he deserves.
———
She shifts in the other room. Calls his name in her sleep.
He doesn’t move.
Because all he can hear is Pond’s voice in his head from that night, whispering:
“It’s always been you, hasn’t it?”
And Phuwin had laughed.
Laughed so he didn’t cry.
He walks back into the bedroom. Watches her sleep.
Guilt coils low in his stomach.
She’s good. She’s real. She’s trying.
But she’ll never be the one who makes his pulse stumble just by walking into a room.
She’ll never be the reason he forgot how to breathe.
She’ll never be Pond.
He picks up his phone again and went outside. Stares at the message.
Then, without thinking, opens the photo album. Scrolls.
Stops at a favorite.
It’s the two of them. On the floor after a long shoot.
Pond’s half-asleep, head in Phuwin’s lap, mouth open.
Phuwin’s looking down at him—caught mid-laugh.
He didn’t realize back then what his face looked like.
But now, all he sees is the truth:
He looked in love.
So deeply in love, it’s embarrassing.
So obvious, it hurts.
The door creaks softly. She’s awake.
“Hey,” she whispers, voice thick with sleep. “Everything okay?”
Phuwin nods too quickly. Puts his phone down.
“Yeah. Couldn’t sleep.”
She doesn’t question it. Just reaches for him like she always does.
And he lets her.
Because he’s a coward.
Because the truth would break her.
Because loving someone else in silence is one thing.
But being the reason someone else loves you with both hands while you give them only half?
That’s unforgivable.
She presses her face into his chest.
Phuwin closes his eyes.
And this time, when the truth comes back — it doesn’t whisper.
It roars.
“I love you, Pond.”
Not just in memory. Not just in secret.
But now. Still. Always.
He just doesn’t know if it’s already too late.
-----
There was a time Pond took care of him when he got sick.
Nothing serious — just a mild fever and a stubborn cough. But Phuwin had been exhausted from a packed schedule, and the cold hit harder than expected. He’d come home late, dizzy, barely standing, and hadn’t told anyone.
Except Pond.
He hadn’t even needed to.
Pond had known from a single text — a “home now” that was too short, too blunt.
He showed up twenty minutes later. No warning. Just walked in like he always did.
“You sound like shit,” he’d said.
“You look worse,” Phuwin had mumbled back.
Pond didn’t respond. Just took off his jacket, wrapped him in a blanket, and sat on the floor beside the bed, feeding him warm soup he hadn’t remembered asking for.
———
That night, Phuwin drifted in and out of sleep to the sound of Pond’s voice reading a script aloud — something he needed to memorize for his own shoot, but refused to leave for.
When Phuwin opened his eyes sometime around 3 a.m., he found Pond asleep, head resting on the side of the mattress, hand still loosely holding his.
And it hit him then.
Not like a crash. Not like a thunderclap.
But softly. Like a quiet surrender.
This is what love feels like.
It wasn’t big or loud or cinematic.
It was warm soup and cold hands and a boy who never needed to be asked.
He scrolls back now to that week in their chat history.
Photos of medicine Pond dropped off later. A dumb selfie of him in a mask with the caption “your personal nurse. 5 stars only.”
Phuwin’s chest tightens.
He wants to type something. Anything.
But what do you say to the boy who once made you feel loved in silence, when all you gave in return was fear?
He types:
“Do you still keep that grey hoodie?”
Then deletes it.
Types again:
“I miss you.”
Deletes that too.
He stares at the blinking cursor, and finally puts the phone down.
Because it’s not fair to send those words now.
Not when he’s still in someone else’s bed.
Not when Pond already gave up waiting for the day they’d mean something.
The world outside stays dark. Inside, time slows.
His girlfriend shifts again. A sigh escapes her lips.
She’s good.
She’s enough for someone. She deserves to be loved fully. Freely. Without ghosts.
But not by him.
Not when every touch feels like betrayal.
Not when he can’t even look at her without thinking of someone else’s smile.
He walks back to the living room and sits on the couch again.
This time, he doesn’t cry. He’s past that. Or maybe beneath it.
He just closes his eyes and thinks of Pond.
Of every time they brushed hands and laughed too hard.
Of the way Pond would lean in to whisper something completely stupid and how Phuwin would lean in too — like it meant more.
Of how his name had always sounded different in Pond’s mouth. Softer. Like a secret.
A car passes outside. Light flickers against the windowpane.
Phuwin opens his mouth. Whispers again:
“I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t know if it’s for Pond.
For her.
For himself.
Maybe it’s for all of them.
Maybe it’s just a word that comes out because nothing else will.
In the silence, his own voice sounds foreign.
Like someone else’s grief.
He wonders if he’ll ever be brave enough to say it out loud — to Pond, face to face.
To tell him the truth.
That it’s always been him.
That it was never even close with anyone else.
But tonight, the words stay tucked inside his chest, heavy and waiting.
And somewhere in the city, Phuwin’s best friend is probably curled up under too many blankets, eyes on a screen, laughing at something he won’t share anymore.
And Phuwin isn’t there.
Because he made sure of that.
He goes back to bed.
She reaches for him again in her sleep.
This time, he gently lifts her hand and sets it down beside her.
Then turns over.
Facing the wall.
Facing the weight.
Facing himself.
And in the dark, he lets himself say it one last time — barely a breath, not even a prayer:
“Pond…”
Just his name.
Like it means something.
Because it always did.
Because it still does.