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Medical school wasn’t hard for Karn. He always had good grades, and at that time, he found it easier to smile, making his teachers and comrades love him somehow. Of course, he couldn’t compare to the ray of sunshine his own student boyfriend was. Chonlatee wasn’t the best in class, nor was he the most popular, but he had, from his young age, already changed significantly the lives of more people, especially Karn’s, than Karn had during his intern days.
Before meeting him, Karn had been in a terrible mental state. Before his thirties, he hadn’t thought he would learn that blood ties didn’t grant him safety and security. He then tried to convince himself that this couldn’t affect him much. He was wrong. He grew up bitter and resentful of his best friend, always being in his shadow, even in his uncle’s hospital. Anger consumed him until he wasn’t recognisable. What he loved more, his hobbies and the sense of pride and satisfaction he got from saving lives, couldn’t make him happy anymore. People called him mean. People called him cold. Karn was most of the time stressed, and he had no one to talk to. His only friend had become the source of his madness. Nevertheless, he realised it wasn’t that bad after talking with Chonlatee.
“Everyone has bad times,” his reassuring voice rang in Karn’s ear. They started dating a few months prior. It had been hard for Karn to open up at first. He and Chonlatee were in a blooming relationship stage, and Karn wouldn’t admit it, but his past embarrassed him. His cute and bubbly boyfriend would run away if he knew what Karn had done. However, when Chonlatee smiled at him, his too-close face bright, Karn was sure Chonlatee would stay. He could feel how genuine he sounded, “Life is a rollercoaster after all. It’s up to you to take the solo rider line or come in with friends. As for me, I prefer going to amusement parks with someone. It’s funnier.” His warm yet fragile hand landed on Karn’s. The doctor felt a wave of comfort and understanding he hadn’t felt in ages. “Also,” Chonlatee continued, “when the ride gets messy or frightening, it’s always better to hold someone’s hand.” In one evening, Chonlatee dissolved years of resentment and a part of Karn’s guilt.
After that, Karn couldn’t hide his past anymore, and Chonlatee was there to help him through it. The doctor was on probation. He had to check with the authorities every week. Fortunately, they made him keep his medical licence so he could still practice, and unexpectedly, his uncle let him stay at his hospital. Sometimes his colleagues were wary of him, and he couldn’t keep his high responsibility job, but he wasn’t as lonely as he thought he would be. Thap, the golden boy of the hospital, forgave him. He reconnected with the true nature of his work and let fame and ambition blind other people. He was content and in love. The consequences of his actions weren’t that bad.
So when the agitation that crept through the mind and body hit him, he wasn’t used to it. His damp hands kept slipping from the wheel gear, and Karn prayed for Chonlatee not to notice it. His calm and composed demeanour couldn’t crumble just before meeting his mother-in-law.
Karn’s temperature was very high. He wanted to put the air conditioning back, but he couldn’t. He cut it some time ago because Chonlatee was shivering. He hoped the ocean’s wind would calm his nerves and refresh him. But as the car was approaching Chonlatee’s mom's house, he knew it would not help him.
Karn was hesitant when Chonlatee told him they were in front of the house. Karn had imagined something more...worn out? The construction seemed solid, tall white walls with a green garden and a stunning view of the sea. The doctor understood right away that only a place like this could create a personality like Chonlatee’s. Karn could have smiled right here and then if it weren’t for his typical nonchalance and his turbulent mind.
When Chonlatee left the car, Karn enjoyed his three seconds of alone time to take a deep breath before following his boyfriend. His legs trembled slightly at first, then they trembled strongly. He was relieved to wear a large pair of pants. “It’s the wind” was what he told Chonlatee when he pointed at his boyfriend’s weird way of walking.
At the door, a little woman welcomed them with a big hug and a bigger voice.
“Ah! You must be the famous doctor I heard about a lot lately.”
“Mae!” castigated Chonlatee without much force.
Chonlatee was close to his only relative, his mom, who raised him alone. When Chonlatee began to spend more time at Karn’s apartment, he would call her a lot, talking about life on campus and whispering about Karn. Of course, she knew about him, but he wasn’t sure what Chonlatee had told his mother about his old mistakes. A part of him wanted her to know it all, without Karn to be the one who told her, and another part wanted her to never know.
“Khun Mae, I’m Karn, nice to meet you. I heard a lot about you, too.” For a moment, Karn felt self-conscious. He could sense his sweaty palms and regretted not having listened to his boyfriend this morning when he tried to make him wear this ugly green sweater. In his light blue shirt, a little too much sweat and it was over.
“Only good things, I guess!” She had this very particular way of smiling. Chonlatee must have inherited it from her. Karn wanted to reciprocate it. He failed. A too-long silence fell. If Karn had still been a kid, he would have fled right away. He was a distinguished man and couldn’t leave his boyfriend embarrassed in front of his family. So he stayed. A little too straight, but at least he stayed. He didn’t dare to move until Chonlatee’s mom invited them inside.
At the table, the two men sat while Khun Mae was in the kitchen. Chonlatee was eager to tell a lot of his childhood memories. Karn tried focusing on them. All of his boyfriend's life was bathed in joy and liveliness. A total contrast to Karn’s one. Sometimes, Karn thought about their differences too much. It made him afraid of being a nuisance to his boyfriend. In moments like this, he repeated the saying “opposites are attracted”. Today, tho, he thought a lot more about the other saying, “birds of a feather, flock together,” and he wasn’t like Chonlatee at all. His mother-in-law would saw it. She must have seen it the minute Karn greeted her. He was too robotic. He needed to appear more spontaneous.
“P’Karn? Are you alright?” asked Chonlatee with too much concern for Karn's liking.
“Obviously, I am.”
“There is something wrong with your, huh?” It looked like Chonlatee was afraid to say it too harshly. Damn it! Did Karn really forget to wipe his face correctly this morning, or worse, was his face shiny due to his very active sweat glands? Karn was fast at holding a spoon to his face to see it by himself.
“No huh, it’s your,” he pointed at his own mouth, looking quite troubled “, lips. Your mouth’s left corner is twitching.”
Well, it seemed Karn was stuck in a shameful position. His mind wanted to appear amicable, but his body did not let him. Sometimes, even with all the will in the world, it was impossible to stop being oneself. Old habits die hard, and the habit was looking apathetic. Karn often wondered how he did not make the children at work cry by his sheer presence.
“I see.” He then tried to distract himself with a glass of water, which his boyfriend kindly offered him. While drinking, he noticed how his left cheekbone hurt. He contracted it, but involuntarily redirected the issue elsewhere. Now his left eye was twitching. Chonlatee, with worried eyebrows, took his glass away. On it, two handprints drawn with sweat were visible.
“Please, tell me you are not having a stroke.”
“I am not; the symptoms don’t match,” they were matching, but Karn knew better, “It might be the heat.”
“I’ll put the air conditioning higher!” Chonlatee, ever so sweet, stood abruptly but was rapidly stopped by a wet hand on his wrist.
“Don’t…”
“But, you will feel better.”
“No. Don’t go away.”
Karn could have cried right now. He felt like a kid again. If he wasn’t too preoccupied by how his underarm was feeling wet, he would have hit himself in the head to regain some sense. The current situation made Chonlatee worry even more. He could see how distressed Karn was. He sat down, made Karn face him and touched with two fingers Karn’s neck, taking his pulse.
“Is it not too fast? Let me compare.”
Chonlatee brought his finger to his neck and started counting. Without even realising, Karn did the same. It was way too fast! How could a calm doctor like him, having faced countless life-or-death scenarios, end up with the cardiac rhythm of a rabbit under caffeine? Oh no, his ears began to ring.
Karn could only hear Chonlatee calling out for him before he noticed Khun Mae at the table. He tried to regain his composure, not letting his mind wander. He needed to be extra concentrated. He needed to make a good first impression.
“If making delicious dishes was a crime, I would be in jail right now!”
It was all it took for Karn to stand up. He ran through the door like a madman, his hands in front of him because, for some reason, his eyes would not function properly before being hit by the warm air of the sea. Wobbly and definitely too stressed, he just fainted here, between the door and the garden. He thought he heard faintly Khun Mae tell his son to call his doctor boyfriend before hearing him answer with a high-pitched “mae!”. And then everything went black.
Comfortably lying on a soft mattress, Karn noticed how his feet were almost dangling from it. The room smelled like fresh laundry and something akin to the best smell in the world, according to him, Chonlatee. As soon as he felt his limbs again and had found enough strength to open his eyes, he was met with an all-wood furniture bedroom. Cute drawings and posters hung everywhere. Soft teddy bear themed bed sheets grazing his skin.
He was at Chonlatee’s mom. So this room would be his. Alone in here, he was confident enough to smile. Everything about his boyfriend made him giddy. He hated that, but couldn’t stop. It was all too natural to coo at Chonlatee’s every action. It made him laugh how life made him, a cold doctor who almost went to jail, cross paths with the softest and most innocent-looking boy. Chonlatee’s bedroom screamed home, and Karn was happy to indulge in every house arrangement his boyfriend requested. He really made Karn’s devoid of life apartment a real home again. A lukewarm, very enjoyable feeling spread into his chest. With the temperature contrast of his sweaty, feverish skin, he shivered. He felt quite naked until he noticed his shirt was wide open.
“I told Mae to close your shirt!”
Chonlatee was at the door, holding a basin and a white cloth. He closed it with his very clever hip (Karn could testify) and settled right next to Karn on the bed.
“How are you feeling?” He didn’t wait for Karn to respond before he was already wiping his boyfriend’s forehead.
“You collapsed on your way to the garden. We brought you here…” He averted his gaze “Well, Mae brought you here. You know, she is a very strong woman. Anyway. Your head fell on the grass, so you don’t have a wound. I thought that maybe it wasn’t that severe. But you are the professional here: You tell me what I have to do. We can go to the hospital in our family car, it’s not so far away.”
“I’m sorry.”
Panicked, Chonlatee surged forward to grab his boyfriend's shoulders. Looking intensely at him, the rim of his eyes began to redden
“What? Are you still feeling ill? What should we do? Please don’t faint again!”
“I’m sorry for ruining the lunch, the meeting, and for…embarrassing you in front of your mom.”
“You could never embarrass me. Look at you.” Both of them dropped their head and saw how dishevelled Karn looked. Open wet shirt, with spots of what seemed to be grass and dirt. Karn wouldn’t even imagine how messy his hair must have looked.
“I swear!” The grip on his shoulders tightened “You are a resilient, smart and kind person. I admire you, and I feel proud when I get to call you my boyfriend.”
“Kind?”
“I am the one who should be embarrassed…I’m sorry for the joke my mom made; she didn’t know.”
“No, it’s me. I guess I was feeling…” He ended his sentence in a whisper. No, in a breath.
“Feeling what?”
“You know, I felt very…”
“Huh? I don’t understand. Are you having trouble breathing?”
Karn thought Chonlatee’s concern was cute, but at that moment, he was focusing more on vocalising his emotions. “A long life's work for someone like you”, said the therapist he had to see to avoid jail. Karn wanted to kill his medical counterpart on the spot when he heard him, but he guessed he wasn’t particularly talented at the all-murder-thing. He was just slightly impulsive with egotistical tendencies.
“Stressed.”
“Me? Well, I am always a bit stressed, I guess?”
“No, not you, me. I was stressed. To, you know, meet her.”
“Mae?”
Chonlatee’s eyes took the shape of little crescent moons, his skin slightly crinkling at the end of them, and his round cheeks were colored pink. For Karn, this face belonged to an aquarelle painting. How could anyone not feel at ease with a boy like him?
“What are you talking about? All the things she knows about you are because I told her. I could never say something bad about you.”
“I have to live up to my reputation. Also, she might not like the real me. How I talk or how I move. If she knew how I used to…act, she would not want his son to be around me.”
“You can’t disappoint her. All she sees is how you treat me. How happy you make me feel. She used to see me dreaming about what I thought my ideal lover was. She saw how sad it made me feel. How he treated me. And now, it’s you who makes me the happiest. The past is in the past. Also, my mom works at the port; she meets criminals every day, and she doesn’t mind a crime or two. One time, she said to Pang and me that you can evaluate if you have lived your life to the fullest by how much time you spend in jail or at the police station.”
“You were never arrested.”
“Sometimes I think I am the one she should be disappointed at.”
“Any parents would be proud to have a son like you.” Karn resisted patting his head.
“Same as you. I am proud to bring you home. She always respects my choice.”
Karn thought about Tonhon. How Chonlatee’s mother had always accepted his son’s obsession with him. The way she let his son go live with him despite not having seen him for years. How she still accepted Tonhon after he made her son cry for days. It was true that Karn had tried to kill people. Yes, mistakes happened, but he was sure, and he could swear on his own head that he would never hurt Chonlatee. Never make him cry, cheat on him, or belittle him. Chonlatee was right. How could his mother-in-law not accept him?
Chonlatee let his hands slide along Karn’s arms. The gesture was grounding. Karn’s boyfriend might be small, but his presence was a sweet, warm and a heavy sun in every person who met him. That’s what Karn was sure of. He would certainly never let Chonlatee know, but he could still try to think about murder less to show him the positive effect he had on Karn.
They held each other’s hands when Chonlatee’s mother came. She smiled sweetly at Karn and threw a teasing look at her son.
“If you feel better, both of you still need to try my new recipe.”
“With pleasure.” Answered the doctor. Talking was not as hard as before. The two men stood. As Karn was walking, he began to close his shirt.
“Don’t put your shirt on.” Screamed Chonlatee’s mom from outside the room.
“Mae!”
“I was talking about the stains. Let him wear a t-shirt of yours while we clean his shirt.”
She still ended her sentence with teasing giggles. For sure, Chonlatee and his mom had a lot in common, and maybe liking Karn could be one of them.