Chapter Text

Chapter One: Familiar Wounds

The restaurant was loud in the way only Bangkok on a Friday night could be. Cutlery clinked against ceramic plates, laughter rose and fell in drunken crescendos, and the faint hum of traffic beyond the glass windows merged with the sharp, rhythmic beat of whatever pop song the speakers decided to play tonight. Becky leaned back in her chair, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she laughed along with Nam, who had just recounted some ridiculous story about rehearsal. The table was crowded with familiar faces—friends from different projects, industry acquaintances who had over time become more like family.

For once, it felt easy. Normal.

And then she looked up.

Her eyes scanned past the waiter carrying a tray of cocktails, past the neon sign reflecting off the mirror near the bar, and landed on a corner table not far from the window. She blinked once, thinking maybe she’d imagined it, but no—there she was.

Freen.

Her hair was swept to one side, glinting under the soft yellow glow of the hanging lamp. She looked almost unreal, effortlessly magnetic even when she wasn’t trying. And she wasn’t alone. Sitting across from her was Gorn, leaning in with an ease that suggested comfort, maybe something more. Their body language was easy, warm, intimate in a way that could be innocent, or could be something entirely different.

Becky’s laughter caught in her throat, the sound dissolving into silence as her stomach clenched. She froze mid-smile, the warmth in her chest snuffed out like someone had doused her with cold water.

Nam nudged her with an elbow. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Becky managed, too quickly. She forced her lips into a smile, but her pulse had already begun to race, hammering at her ribs. Her hand, as if with a will of its own, slid beneath the table and reached for her phone.

She typed a quick message. Where are you? Haven’t seen you in forever.

The moment she pressed send, her gaze flicked back to that corner table. She shouldn’t have looked.

Because she saw it—Freen’s phone lighting up on the table beside her glass of water. She saw Freen glance at it, thumb hovering for the briefest second… and then, deliberately, she set it back down, screen still glowing, unread.

It was nothing, maybe. A coincidence. Maybe she was in the middle of talking. Maybe she planned to reply in a minute.

But the sight of it—her ignoring it so casually—stabbed through Becky’s chest with surgical precision.

Her breath caught. For a moment it felt like her body didn’t know what to do with itself. Her fingers trembled where they rested against her thigh. She looked down at her untouched drink, the condensation dripping slowly down the glass, and it was all she could do not to let the sting in her eyes turn into something worse.

“Becks?” Nam’s voice was soft now, cautious.

Becky swallowed hard, forcing another smile. “It’s nothing,” she lied again. “Just tired.”

But she wasn’t tired. She was unraveling.

She excused herself a few minutes later, murmuring something about needing fresh air. The chatter of her friends blurred into the background as she pushed through the door, the blast of humid night air hitting her skin. Outside, Bangkok was alive as always—motorbikes darting between cars, vendors selling skewers from their carts, neon signs buzzing faintly in the heat.

She pressed her back against the brick wall of the restaurant and closed her eyes.

It was happening again.

She didn’t know if Freen and Gorn were just catching up, if this was something harmless, if it was nothing but two colleagues sharing dinner. But she knew how it felt. The uncertainty, the sharp edge of jealousy she didn’t want to admit to, the gnawing ache in her chest that screamed something was slipping out of her grasp again.

She’d lived this before.

Not long ago, she’d stood in this exact shadow, watching Freen slip away without even realizing she was doing it. Back then it had been Seng, and the wound had cut even deeper because Becky hadn’t seen it coming.

Freen had never lied. That was the bitter truth of it. Freen had told her everything—about Seng, about the blackmail, about the way the video might come out. She had been honest in the way only Freen could be, laying bare the ugly reality and trusting Becky to stand beside her.

And Becky had. Out loud, to Freen’s face, she had smiled through the pain and said, I’ll support you. Always.

But inside… inside she had shattered.

Because before all of that, before Seng, before the video, she had let herself believe in something dangerous. She had let herself believe that the way Freen touched her arm when the aircon was too cold, the way Freen laughed with her until dawn, the way Freen’s eyes lingered a beat too long—it was special. It was theirs.

She hadn’t understood then that in Thailand, in this industry, there was a word for it. Fan service. A smile, a flirt, a playful touch—it was all part of the game.

Back in London, in the West, things like that weren’t staged. If someone leaned close, whispered a joke, held your hand—it meant something. And Becky, new to the business, new to Thailand, had been naïve enough to think Freen’s warmth was hers to keep.

She could still remember the night Freen had told her about Seng. How she had sat there, lips pressed into a line, nodding like it was fine, like she was fine. And how afterward, alone, she had buried her face into her pillow and screamed silently into the fabric until her throat ached.

But she had survived it. She had moved on—or at least she had told herself she had.

And now… now, standing outside this restaurant, she felt the old wound throb again like it had never fully healed.

Her phone buzzed in her hand, snapping her out of the spiral. She glanced at the screen: Nam.

Of course.

She answered quickly. “Hey.”

“Where did you go?” Nam asked. The background noise of the restaurant filtered through faintly. “You disappeared.”

“Outside.” Becky tried to sound casual, but her voice cracked slightly. “Needed air.”

There was a pause. Then, softly: “You saw, didn’t you?”

Becky closed her eyes. Trust Nam to know. Nam always knew.

“I don’t even know what I saw,” Becky admitted, her words tumbling out faster than she meant. “She’s with Gorn. And I—God, Nam, it feels like… like before. Like Seng. Like I’m about to lose her again and I don’t even know if I have the right to feel this way.”

Nam was quiet for a moment. “You’re overthinking. Maybe it’s just dinner. You know how she is—she’s friendly with everyone.”

“I know,” Becky whispered. “That’s the problem. She’s friendly with everyone. And I was stupid enough to think it meant something more, once.”

The silence on the other end stretched, heavy. Finally, Nam sighed. “Do you want me to find out? I can ask.”

Becky hesitated. The logical part of her screamed yes, demand answers, protect yourself. But the other part—the softer, aching part—was terrified. What if the answer hurt more than the silence?

“No,” she said at last, forcing steadiness into her voice. “Don’t. I’ll be fine.”

But she wasn’t fine.

When she slipped back into the restaurant, sliding into her seat as though nothing had happened, her smile felt brittle. Her friends were laughing, the food had arrived, and the table buzzed with the same energy as before. But Becky couldn’t taste the food. Couldn’t join the jokes.

Because across the room, Freen laughed at something Gorn said, her hand covering her mouth in that familiar way.

And Becky’s chest ached so badly she thought she might shatter right there at the table.

It felt like watching history repeat itself.

And this time, she wasn’t sure if she’d survive it.

Later, when the night was over and Becky finally slipped away from the noise and chatter, she sat in the back of the car with her forehead pressed lightly against the window. Bangkok’s skyline blurred past—neon signs smeared into streaks of color, the headlights of motorbikes flashing like fireflies. The city felt too alive, too loud, like it didn’t care about the hole in her chest.

She unlocked her phone out of habit. The message to Freen still sat there, unanswered. The little “seen” mark mocking her.

Becky let out a shaky breath and set the phone face-down on her thigh. She couldn’t look at it anymore.

It was supposed to be different now. That was the thought she couldn’t shake. After everything, after the mess with Seng, after the video, after the hate and the heartbreak and the long months of trying to piece themselves back together—they had gotten better. Slowly, awkwardly, but better.

Or so she’d thought.

Now she wasn’t sure if she had been healing, or just naïve enough to think she was.

The memories came uninvited, sharp as glass.

The night Freen had told her about Seng was still etched into her mind. They had been sitting cross-legged on Becky’s sofa, a half-eaten bowl of noodles abandoned on the coffee table. Freen had looked nervous, like her hands didn’t know where to go, her eyes darting everywhere but Becky’s face. And then she’d said it. Plain. Simple. Honest.

I’ve been seeing Seng.

Becky remembered the way her chest had gone hollow, like every bone had been scooped out of her. She had smiled anyway, nodded, said something supportive that sounded brave. And when Freen had looked at her with relief in her eyes, Becky had wanted to scream. Because the truth was she had already given her heart away to Freen, long before Seng ever touched it.

And then the video came out.

The world turned against Freen in an instant—headlines screaming betrayal, fans calling her a liar. She lost the boy she had been with, lost the faith of people she had spent years trying to win over. It was ugly, brutal, relentless. And Becky had been right there, caught in the crossfire. Everyone thought she’d been played for a fool, that she’d been strung along. And maybe she had been.

But she hadn’t left.

She couldn’t. Because for the first time, Freen had needed her in a way that wasn’t about fan service, wasn’t about careers or ships or cameras. She had needed her to be the phi now. And Becky had stepped into the role, swallowing down her own heartbreak so she could hold Freen’s hand, make her laugh, remind her that the world outside their walls didn’t matter for a little while.

She had almost fallen apart then. Nights of staring at her ceiling, asking herself if she could keep doing this. If loving someone who didn’t love her back was worth breaking herself over. But every time she thought about leaving, she remembered the sound of Freen’s laugh when she managed to coax it out of her in the middle of the storm, the way her shoulders dropped when Becky told some stupid joke only she found funny.

That had kept her there.

But that time was over.

Freen didn’t need her like that anymore. That was the difference.

Now Freen was on magazine covers, walking red carpets, flying to New York to stand on the steps of the freaking Met Gala. She had clawed her way back from scandal and heartbreak and had come out the other side untouchable. A star in her own right.

And Becky—Becky had convinced herself that was enough. That even if she wasn’t the one Freen leaned on, wasn’t the one she came home to, wasn’t the one she loved—being her work partner, her friend, was still worth something.

But tonight… tonight had cracked that fragile illusion.

Because it was one thing to imagine Freen giving her heart away again. A concept. A possibility. Something distant enough that Becky could make peace with it.

It was another thing entirely to sit in a restaurant and watch her laugh across the table at someone else, to watch her glance at Becky’s name lighting up her phone and choose to put it down, to choose someone else in real time.

That had sent a pain shooting through Becky’s body so fierce she thought she might physically collapse.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, furious at herself for crying in the back of a car like some teenager. She was older now. Stronger. She should have known better.

And yet.

She thought about all the times she had told herself she could handle this. That she could redefine Freen in her life as just her co-star, her friend. That she could be okay with whatever scraps of love Freen chose to give.

But the truth was simple, cruel. She couldn’t.

She couldn’t put herself through this again.

Because it wasn’t just a heartbreak. It wasn’t just unrequited love. It was like standing on the side of the road and watching the same car crash happen over and over, knowing she could step back, look away, walk in the other direction—and choosing not to.

And if she kept doing that, one day it would kill her.

By the time she got home, the decision had already begun to solidify in her chest, heavy and immovable.

She would finish 4 Elements . She would finish Cranium . She would smile in interviews, hold Freen’s hand on red carpets if that was what the world wanted to see. She would play her part.

And then she was done.

Her partnership with Freen would end there.

Not because she didn’t love her. God, she did—so much it ached, so much it burned. But because she finally understood that loving her like this was killing her, piece by piece.

And no career, no ship, no friendship was worth that kind of slow death.

She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the silent phone on her nightstand, and whispered into the empty room, “I can’t do this anymore.”

The words didn’t make the ache go away. They didn’t make her heart hurt less. But they were the closest thing to a promise she had left to give herself.