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The sun was way too committed to its job that day.
Pok squinted up at the glaring sky, already regretting the hoodie he’d thrown on out of sheer panic. “Act normal,” his sister had said. “Just be chill.” Except he hadn’t felt chill since stepping foot onto the campus. The whole university buzzed with people and colors and announcements echoing from crackling speakers. Booths stretched out across the main quad like a pop-up festival - every club had something to shout about. Free snacks, sign-up sheets, shouting third-years in mascot costumes. It was chaotic, and hot, and very, very college.
He was just there for orientation - still a high schooler for a few more weeks - but somehow being surrounded by all these actual university students made him feel like a 12-year-old in cosplay. Pok adjusted his messenger bag and attempted to walk like he belonged here, whatever that meant.
He nearly walked straight past the booth.
It was quiet - not yelling for attention like the theater club or handing out bubble tea like the marketing majors. Just a folding table draped in a plain black banner with clean white letters: Visual Media Society.
There were two guys behind the booth, one standing and chatting with a friend, the other slouched on a plastic chair with an iced coffee sweating beside his elbow.
Pok saw him and -
Oh.
Oh.
His feet stopped walking without asking for permission.
He didn’t recognize the face - he would've remembered if he had. The guy was wearing a faded graphic tee, black with cracked print, something that looked like a 2000s band logo, the white button down he had presumably worn on top as part of the student uniform discarded on the table inside the booth. He had wired headphones looped around his neck, one arm draped casually over the back of the chair like he owned it. Not doing anything special. Not even looking at Pok.
Still. Pok stood there, blinked once, and immediately had to glance away because something in his chest had just short-circuited.
When did people start looking like that?
He snuck another look, trying to be subtle - and failed, obviously. The guy had this kind of lazy good-looking thing going on, the kind where he didn't seem to know or care that he was hot, which just made it worse. His hair was slightly pushed back, as if he had run his fingers through it a few too many times, and his nose had that sharp tilt that made Pok feel like he was suddenly very aware of his own breathing.
Why is he looking like that in broad daylight?
Pok took a shaky breath and approached the booth, pretending to examine the flyers like he hadn't just had an entire existential moment.
“Hey,” he said. Tried to say. It came out more like a cracked whisper. He cleared his throat and repeated, “Hey. What’s this club about?”
The guy looked up at him slowly. Not unfriendly. Just slow, like he hadn’t expected to be spoken to and wasn’t in a rush to care either way. He tilted his head slightly and looked at Pok the way someone might look at a puzzle they weren’t planning to solve. Then he got up from the chair, gesturing the two other guys at the booth to stay seated.
“Media,” he said, stepping up to Pok. Voice even, low, lightly scratchy. “Cameras. Short films. Video editing. That kind of thing.”
Pok blinked. “Oh. Cool.”
He realized too late he was just standing there, not reading anything, not writing his name, not even pretending to be interested. The guy didn’t say anything. Just sipped his coffee and watched him like he could see the exact number of brain cells misfiring in Pok’s head.
Trying again, Pok reached for the sign-up sheet. “Do I have to, like, know how to edit stuff already?”
The guy raised an eyebrow. “Are you a freshman?”
“Uh… no. Not yet. I’m still in high school.”
A pause. Something flickered in the guy’s eyes - not surprise, exactly. Just confirmation.
Pok wasn’t sure if that was better.
He nodded towards the sign taped to the other side of the booth. “You can scan the QR code if you want info. But you can’t join until you’re officially enrolled.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah. That makes sense.”
Silence stretched between them, not quite awkward - not to the club guy, anyway. He seemed completely at peace with it, like silence was his default setting. Pok felt like a mosquito trying to look dignified on a glass table.
He looked down at the table, pretended to read one of the posters, and had the sudden horrifying thought: Did I put on deodorant this morning?
“You like cameras?” The guy asked suddenly.
Pok blinked up. “Huh?”
“Just wondering.” The guy shrugged one shoulder. “Since you looked interested.”
Pok opened his mouth, shut it again, then nodded - way too quickly. “Yeah. I mean. I like watching videos. And filming stuff. And, like, film. In general. Sometimes. And also, like… uh… TikTok.”
The guy gave a small, polite smile. Pok felt himself disintegrate.
“Right,” he said. “Well, you can follow our page. Or come back next semester.”
It was the nicest possible way of saying you can go now.
Pok forced a grin, nodded, and took a step back from the booth. “Yeah, sure. I will. Cool. Thanks.”
He turned and walked away at a perfectly normal pace. Normal. Not fast. Just walking like a completely regular person whose skin wasn’t currently combusting.
He made it around the corner, behind the giant Student Council booth display, and leaned against a tree like he’d just escaped an interrogation.
Then he smiled.
He didn’t even mean to - it just happened.
He had no idea who that guy was, what year he was in, or if he even remembered Pok’s face five minutes after he left. But there’d been something about the way he looked at him. Not impressed. Not charmed. Just curious, maybe a little bored. Like he was watching Pok and not quite sure what to make of him.
Which was fine.
Pok could be hard to categorize. He liked that about himself.
And anyway - he was gonna be a student here in a few months.
He’d have time to figure it out.
The media club room smelled like dust and screen wipes.
Pok stood in the doorway gripping his tote bag, pretending he wasn’t immediately scanning the room for one person. It was his first club meeting as an actual university student - name officially on the roll, orientation period survived, almost used to university-freshman-life.
And there he was.
The guy from the club booth.
Same slouch, same slightly pushed back, slightly messy hair - though today wearing a white shirt and dark jeans. He was crouched over a tripod setup, adjusting something on a DSLR, completely absorbed. The light from the open windows cut across his cheekbone at an angle that should’ve been illegal.
Pok looked down at his outfit. Black pants. Brown belt. White button up, one button undone. He’d changed his pants three times that morning, not that he was thinking about why.
“Hey,” came a voice beside him - one of the club seniors, smiling brightly, clipboard in hand. “New member?”
Pok jumped a little. “Yeah! Pok. First year. Political Science major.”
She scanned the list and checked him off. “Cool. You’ll be in the general media team unless you’re applying for the editorial board later.”
“Oh. Yeah, general’s fine.” He hadn’t even read the form that far.
“You can sit anywhere. We’re doing intros in a few.”
Pok nodded, then hesitated. “Uh - do we… like, work with the camera team often?”
She glanced across the room. “You mean Jeng’s group?”
She said his name like it was obvious, like Pok should’ve known already.
He tried to sound casual. “Yeah. That team.”
She gave a light laugh. “He mostly does video stuff. You’ll probably see him around.”
Pok didn’t even bother hiding the grin that tugged at his mouth. “Cool. Awesome.”
He found a seat near the back. Not too far, but close enough that he could pretend to be interested in the projector while still keeping Jeng in his peripheral vision.
The meeting was fine. Standard intros, club mission, project breakdowns. Half the members looked half-asleep. Jeng only spoke once, when they introduced the equipment team leads. He raised a hand without standing up, offered a flat “Jeng,” and went back to adjusting something on his laptop.
Pok kept his eyes on the PowerPoint. Mostly.
By the end of the meeting, people were dispersing, grabbing free snacks from the plastic bin near the door. Pok took a pack of seaweed snacks and lingered. Jeng was still there, packing up cables.
He waited until Jeng straightened up.
“Hey,” Pok said, stepping closer. “I think we met before.”
Jeng glanced up, squinting slightly.
“At the club fair?” Pok added. “A while ago. I asked about the club but I was still in high school.”
A beat. Then Jeng nodded once. “Right. Hoodie kid.”
Pok blinked. “Hoodie kid?”
“You were wearing a hoodie. It was hot.”
Pok could feel his ears turning red. “Yeah, I… yeah. That sounds like me.”
Jeng gave a half-smile and slipped his phone into his pocket. “Didn’t think you’d actually join.”
“Why not?” Pok asked, lightly defensive.
Jeng shrugged. “Didn’t seem like your thing.”
“I’m full of surprises.”
That made Jeng look at him properly - just for a second, like he was deciding whether to laugh or not.
“I’m Pok,” Pok said quickly. “By the way.”
“Jeng.”
“I know.”
They stood there, Pok with his seaweed chips unopened, Jeng with one hand still loosely gripping a camera case strap. It didn’t really feel awkward, just open-ended.
“You need help with that?” Pok asked, nodding at the equipment.
Jeng hesitated. “You know how to coil these cables?”
“...No.”
“Then no.”
Pok grinned. “Fair.”
Over the next two weeks, Pok made a habit of showing up early to every club meeting and staying just a little too long after. He offered to help with things he didn’t understand. He made excuses to pass by the media room even on non-club days. He volunteered for a project that involved background research just because Jeng was doing the filming.
He didn’t try to flirt. He wasn’t suicidal.
But he smiled more around Jeng. Got up a few minutes early to fix his hair. Stood a little taller. Learned the names of the cameras. Learned how to actually coil cables.
The thing was, Jeng didn’t seem to mind.
He wasn’t overly friendly, didn’t suddenly light up when Pok entered a room. But he started greeting him - not with a smile, but a quiet “Hi” that felt more real than anything loud. He answered Pok’s questions without impatience. Once, he even offered him a bottle of water when Pok got a coughing fit unpacking a box of dusty films.
And Pok noticed things too.
How Jeng had the kind of aura that made people hush without being told to. How he was always scribbling something on his phone - storyboards maybe, or notes. How he listened with his full attention when you actually had something to say.
But it wasn’t until a late Tuesday afternoon that Pok caught him looking.
The room was mostly empty. The meeting had just ended, the people were gone. Pok was packing up a tripod, probably slower than necessary.
He looked up - and Jeng was watching him. Just for a second. Head tilted slightly. Something unreadable in his face.
Pok blinked. “What?”
Jeng looked away smoothly, like he hadn’t been caught. “Nothing.”
“You were staring.”
“You look different.”
Pok’s heart did something stupid. “Good different?”
Jeng didn’t answer. Just smirked faintly and slung his bag over his shoulder.
And Pok stood there, holding the tripod, watching Jeng walk out like the air wasn’t a little thinner in the room now.
The café near campus was the kind that had too many plants and not enough power outlets. Jeng only came here when the studio coffee machine broke - which it had, again. He stood near the register, waiting for his name to be called, mentally rehearsing an editing timeline in his head when something tugged at the corner of his vision.
He turned - casually, not even sure what caught his eye.
Then stopped.
Did a double take, looked again, looked closer.
There - by the window, one leg tucked under the other, a laptop open in front of him, phone face-down on a thick stack of notes - was Pok.
He wasn’t expecting to see Pok.
Let alone that version of Pok.
He was sitting by the window in a loose green knit sweater, sleeves pushed up, no uniform today. His hair was messier than usual, falling slightly over his eyes. His brow was furrowed as he typed, mouth slightly parted in focus. The light outside hit his face at an angle, softening the sharp lines of his jaw, bringing out the edges of his cheekbones.
Jeng blinked.
His name was called, and he almost didn’t hear it.
He walked over with his coffee, still glancing. Pok hadn’t noticed him yet - was biting the inside of his cheek now, pausing to scribble something in the margin of a textbook.
He looked… different.
Not just the new haircut. Not just the sweater.
Something in his posture. Something in the way he seemed to fit into this space like it was his natural habitat. Jeng hesitated for a split second, then walked over.
“You always study this hard, or is it for show?”
Pok startled, looking up so fast his glasses nearly slid off. Then his eyes widened. “Oh. Hey.”
Jeng raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t know you came here.”
“Didn’t know you came here,” Pok said, recovering quickly, closing his laptop halfway.
Jeng smiled into his sip of coffee. “The studio’s machine broke.”
“Oh.”
There was a pause. Pok tapped his fingers lightly against his notebook, and Jeng noticed how much more comfortable he seemed now. Still a little jumpy. But he held eye contact longer. Sat taller. There was a confidence underneath the nerves, like someone learning their own edges.
Jeng nodded at the textbook. “Midterms?”
“Sort of.” Pok leaned back a little. “It’s for debate prep, actually.”
Jeng blinked. “You’re in debate?”
Pok laughed, seemed a little shy. “You seem surprised.”
“You just don’t seem like the type.”
Pok tilted his head. “What type do I seem like, then?”
Jeng hesitated. His gaze flicked briefly down - shoes, cuffed pants, sweater collar hanging down a little low, smooth skin showing a small mole at the base of his throat near his collarbone - then back up. He didn’t answer the question.
Pok smirked. “Exactly.”
Another pause. A small breeze from the nearby fan ruffled a few of Pok’s papers.
“So what’s the topic?” Jeng asked.
Pok opened his mouth, paused, then said, “Whether Thailand should lower the voting age to sixteen.”
Jeng’s expression shifted, just slightly. “What side are you arguing?”
“For.”
“And you agree?”
Pok shrugged. “I think if they can be affected by government policy, they should have some say in it. Teenagers aren’t as clueless as people make them out to be.”
Jeng looked at him for a long moment. Not smiling, just… considering.
“What?” Pok asked. “I still have to do research on it and everything…”
“Nothing,” Jeng said. “You’re just better at arguing than I expected.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“I meant that as a compliment.”
Pok leaned his cheek against his hand, hiding half a grin. “That’s your problem, P'Jeng. Your compliments sound like evaluations.”
“You’d rather I said you looked cute?”
Pok choked on air, gripped the pen he was holding tight.
Jeng blinked, almost surprised by himself.
Pok recovered slowly. “You can’t just say stuff like that.”
“Sure I can.”
“No, you can’t. That’s cheating. That’s like- that’s- You’re not even blushing-”
“You are.”
Jeng reached across the table and tugged the pen gently out of Pok’s hand. Their fingers brushed - briefly - but it was enough to shut Pok up mid-sentence.
Jeng twirled the pen once between his fingers. “You talk a lot when you panic.”
Pok looked at him, face half-covered by the curl of his own sweater sleeve. “You stole my pen.”
“You were abusing it.”
Jeng didn’t answer right away. Jeng twirled the pen, then looked at it like it had suddenly become an important object.
The bell above the door jingled as someone else walked in, and the noise of the café swept back in - the blender, the cashier, the group of girls laughing near the back. But the little bubble around them held.
Jeng dropped the pen on the table again. His iced latte was sweating condensation.
Pok groaned and covered his face with both hands. “I literally just started feeling cool.”
“You’re not doing too badly,” Jeng said. His tone was even, but his lips curved just slightly at the corners. “You cut your hair.”
“Yeah. You noticed?”
Jeng gave him a look that said obviously.
Pok dropped his hands, looking up again. His eyes were bright now, flushed but fighting a smile. Jeng noticed the way his hand rested near his laptop - pinky brushing the edge of the table, not moving.
Without quite meaning to, Jeng reached for a napkin from the holder - and his fingers brushed against Pok’s.
Pok went still. Just for a breath.
Jeng didn’t pull back immediately. He looked down at their hands. Not fully touching, not intertwined, just the faint press of skin. It lasted maybe half a second. Maybe more.
Then Pok shifted back slightly, clearing his throat.
“So…” he started, voice softer, “I actually wanted to tell you something.”
Jeng raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“I think I’m going to step back from the club.” Pok rubbed the back of his neck. “Debate stuff’s getting intense, and I kind of need to keep my grades up. And I don’t really want to half ass either thing.”
Jeng nodded slowly. “Makes sense.”
“You’re not mad?”
“It’s not a cult, Pok. People come and go.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t want you to think I joined just for-” He stopped. Then added, “-just to hang around.”
Jeng looked at him for a moment, then said, “I did think that.”
Pok froze.
Jeng took a sip of coffee. “But it wasn’t a bad reason.”
Pok stared at him.
Jeng gave him a look - unreadable, but warmer than usual. “I mean, it worked. You learned how to coil cables.”
Pok exhaled, shaking his head. “You’re so annoying.”
“And I need to get back to editing footage.” He hiked the strap of his backpack higher on his shoulder. “Continue studying, smart boy.”
Pok made a face but there was a traitorous smile tugging at his lips, a faint pink dusting his cheeks. “Go already.”
Jeng stepped away to leave, then turned back once more.
“Hey,” Jeng said, before he could even really think about what he wanted to say.
Pok looked up, pen between his lips now.
Jeng held his gaze for a moment. “You do look cute. For the record.”
He left before he could think any more about it.
But the image stuck: Pok in that seat by the window, pen between his teeth, sunlight making his hair look a little golden at the ends. The way he didn’t stammer anymore when he talked to him - or at least not as much as he did in the beginning.
When did Pok get hot?
And why did Jeng kind of want to keep looking?
Pok hadn’t planned to run into Jeng.
He really hadn’t.
He’d waited a full week after sending his withdrawal message to the club LINE group. No dramatic goodbye, no long post - just a polite “Hey, I’ve decided to step back, thank you for everything” with a thumbs-up emoji. Clean, quiet, no fuss.
But today, he’d realized he still hadn’t returned the club lanyard. Or the extra battery he’d borrowed. He could’ve dropped it in the supply box outside the door like everyone else.
Instead, he walked inside.
The media room was mostly empty - just one person at a laptop, back to the door, music faintly playing from their phone.
Pok recognized the curve of the shoulders before the song reached the chorus.
Of course it was Jeng.
He took half a step back, reconsidering. But then Jeng glanced up, and the moment was done.
“Oh.” Jeng blinked, pulled one earbud out. “Didn’t think I’d see you again.”
“Just returning this,” Pok said quickly, holding up the battery like a peace offering. “And the lanyard.”
Jeng stood and stretched, his hoodie riding up slightly as he yawned into his shoulder. “You could’ve left it in the box.”
Pok gave a weak smile. “Yeah. I could’ve.”
Jeng watched him for a second, then nodded toward the door. “You free?”
Pok hesitated. “Uh… yeah?”
“Wanna get coffee?”
The walk to the café was quiet, but not awkward. The afternoon heat had died down, and there was a breeze now, strong enough to ruffle Pok’s hair where it had grown back a little. Jeng walked with one hand in his hoodie pocket, the other holding his phone loosely by his side.
They didn’t talk much until they sat down - two iced drinks between them, same window seat as before.
“So,” Jeng said, stirring his straw through the ice. “You were in the club for three months.”
Pok sipped. “Yeah.”
“And somehow you ended up at every event and with every project I was at.”
Pok made a face. “I didn’t plan that.”
“Didn’t you?”
“I mean… not all of them.”
Jeng tilted his head, watching him over the rim of his drink. “You following me, or what?”
Pok laughed - nervous, high - then immediately groaned into his hand. “Can you not say things like that with your whole face?”
“My face?”
“You have this expression like you already know the answer and you’re just waiting for me to implode.”
“I am.”
“See? That.”
Jeng said nothing, but his smirk was criminal.
Pok poked at the melting ice in his drink. “Okay. Fine. I maybe… possibly… had a small crush. At first.”
Jeng raised an eyebrow. “Small?”
Pok refused to look at him. “Okay, big. Like. Giant. Whatever.”
“And when was this?”
Pok looked up, exasperated. “P’Jeng. You know when.”
Jeng didn’t reply - just leaned back slightly, gaze steady. “I don’t.”
Pok sighed. “The club fair.”
Jeng blinked. “Seriously?”
“You were really hot.”
“I was wearing a shitty old t-shirt and only slept two hours.”
“Still.” Pok put his head in his hands. “It was terrible. I hated it.”
Jeng’s laugh was low and genuine.
“You were really rude, too,” Pok mumbled into his hands.
“I wasn’t rude.”
“You told me I couldn’t join the club.”
“You couldn’t. You were in high school.”
“You could’ve said it nicer.”
“I gave you the QR code.”
“That’s not the same as being nice.”
Jeng chuckled again, then leaned forward, arms crossed on the table. “So you joined just to talk to me?”
Pok lifted his head. “I joined because I thought you were interesting. I stayed because… I don’t know. You kept being interesting.”
Jeng’s face went still. Not unreadable - just quiet.
“And then,” Pok added, a little breathless now, “you started being nice to me, and that made everything worse.”
“Worse?”
Pok nodded. “You offered me water. You taught me how to coil cables. You said I looked cute.”
“I did say that.”
Pok paused. “You didn’t mean it, though.”
“I did.”
The words came so simply that Pok almost missed them.
He blinked. “Wait - seriously?”
Jeng shrugged one shoulder. “Why else do you think I remembered the hoodie thing? Or offered you my drink? Or kept saying yes when you asked for help with stuff you already knew how to do?”
“I- I thought you were just being polite.”
“I’m not that polite.”
There was a silence. Pok’s heart was loud in his chest.
“I noticed. New hair, new shirts. You kept changing.”
Pok rolled his eyes. “Yeah, to impress you.”
“Worked.”
Pok glanced at him, caught the smirk playing at the edge of Jeng’s mouth, and felt a strange twist in his chest.
“You’re not making fun of me?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think…” Pok started, then shook his head. “I mean, you’re… you. I just figured you weren’t into guys.”
Jeng looked down at his hands.
“I’m not out,” he said. Not quietly, just plainly.
Pok nodded. “Okay.”
“I’m on the football team,” Jeng added. “They’re not- It’s not a secret. But I don’t… make announcements.”
“Okay.”
Jeng looked back up. “You’re okay with that?”
“Yeah,” Pok said. “I’m not asking you to hold my hand in the cafeteria.”
Jeng huffed. “Good. I don’t like public displays of affection.”
“Liar.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“You literally told me I looked cute in public.”
“I said ‘for the record.’”
“That’s a legal disclaimer, not a confession.”
Jeng was smiling now, just slightly.
Pok picked up his drink, cheeks warm. “So, what now?”
Jeng leaned forward again, elbows on the table. “You free this weekend?”
Pok narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“I was thinking…” Jeng tapped the side of his cup. “You could come over. We could watch something.”
“Like a movie?”
“Yeah.”
“A date?”
“If you want.”
Pok raised an eyebrow. “That’s a little subtle for a date invitation.”
“I just admitted I like you.”
“You admitted it very quietly.”
“I’m subtle.”
“You’re annoying.”
“I know.”
They smiled at each other for a long moment - the kind that felt like a whole conversation by itself. The sunlight had shifted again, glowing low on the table between them. Pok’s straw made a soft squeak against the bottom of his cup.
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll come over.”
Jeng’s smile didn’t change much - just a small lift at the corner - but it was the kind of smile that didn’t need to be big to mean something.
Outside, the sky was beginning to turn pink around the edges. Pok picked at the cardboard sleeve of his cup.
Pok looked thoughtful for a moment.
“So… what changed?” he asked quietly.
Jeng looked at him. “What do you mean?”
Pok nodded toward him. “When did I go from hoodie kid to… this?”
Jeng gave a slow smile - not teasing, not vague. Just soft. “When you stopped panicking every time I looked at you.”
Pok squinted. “That is not accurate. I panicked today.”
“Yeah,” Jeng said, “but you said it anyway. That you like me.”
Pok flushed, but didn’t look away.
Jeng reached across the table, fingertips grazing Pok’s again - like the moment in the café before, but this time slower. Intentional.
“Do you still want to panic,” Jeng asked, “or do you want to kiss me?”
Pok stared at him.
Then he said, voice small, “Option two.”
Jeng smiled a little wider. “Good. Me too.”