Chapter Text
Book
I didn't want to be here.
That was the first thing I thought when the beat of the music punched through my chest as if my heart had turned into a poorly tuned speaker.
I’m sitting at a sticky table, the kind that has seen too many glasses and too little conversation, in a bar that insists on being a nightclub after ten. The lights flash without permission—blue, purple, an aggressive red that makes me feel like I’m always in the middle of something that hasn't quite started right. The music is too loud. Not "fun" loud. Loud in the sense that my thoughts have to scream to be heard by me.
I should be on my sofa. Right now, specifically, I’d be halfway through a bucket of popcorn, watching a cooking documentary or an anime I’ve already seen three times, wearing that tattered t-shirt Force hates, but which has the exact touch of cotton worn thin by time. Instead, I’m here.
I mechanically swirl the melting ice in my glass, watching the amber whirlpool and feeling the cold seep into my fingertips. You know that moment when you realize your "social battery" isn't just low, but has entered that power-saving mode where the screen goes dark and nothing works right anymore? That’s where I am.
The problem with bars trying to be nightclubs is that they fail at being good at either. It’s too noisy for a real conversation and too cramped to feel relaxed. I look around and see people shouting at each other to be heard, laughing at jokes I’m sure they didn't even fully understand because of the volume. It’s exhausting.
Beside me, Force is the opposite. He’s relaxed, one arm draped over the back of the chair, occupying the space with that confidence that seems to come factory-installed. He talks, he smiles, he glows. And for a second, I catch myself thinking about how easy it must be to be him—as if the world were tailor-made for his comfort. He is the sun, and I feel like just a satellite trying not to be blinded by the brightness.
I rest my chin on the palm of my hand, watching the frantic movement of the lights on the ceiling. My thoughts drift to the image of a steaming plate of pasta, the kind of comfort only real food provides—so different from these dry appetizers scattered across the table that no one seems to want to touch.
Force
The ambient sound of the bar is a chaotic mix of smooth jazz, the clinking of cutlery, and the constant murmur of other people’s conversations. The sound of Maya and Nan’s laughter filled the empty spaces between the beats of the lounge music playing in the background. I was in my element: arm resting on the back of the chair, swirling my glass with one hand while gesturing with the other, keeping the flow of conversation alive.
"Forty minutes?!" I exclaimed, letting out a laugh as I lightly tapped my fist on the table. "Nan, you’re a survivor. I know Maya; she must have tried to open the doors with the power of her mind or started planning her will right then and there."
Maya gave my arm a playful swat, laughing loudly. "Worse, Force! I started listing all the foods I’d never tried and would die without eating. Nan had to promise she’d take me to that expensive Indian restaurant if we made it out alive."
"And she delivered," Nan added, sealing the conversation with a quick kiss on Maya’s cheek.
"Of course, I almost had a panic attack," Maya completed, holding Nan’s hand over the table. The gesture was new, charged with that electricity of someone who just discovered love, and I felt a small spark of satisfaction for them.
The table overflowed with that euphoria of those still telling the "first stories" of their relationship. I kept the rhythm, making jokes, ordering another round, and ensuring the vibe stayed light.
Beside me, Book was strangely silent.
He wasn't the type to stay quiet, but today it felt like a fog was hovering over him. He held his glass with both hands, his long fingers tracing the outline of the condensed glass. He looked at the girls, smiled when they laughed, and nodded at the right moments, but the vibrant glow that usually emanated from him was... dull.
"Bookie? You in there?" Nan asked, tilting her head to try and catch his eye.
He blinked, as if being pulled back to the surface of a deep pool. "Hm? Yeah, sorry. I was just... thinking about how pretty the lighting is here."
A sweet, vague comment—typically Book. But I knew him. That wasn't the look of someone appreciating decor; it was the look of someone processing something they didn't want to share.
"He’s in power-saving mode," I teased, trying to pull him into the conversation in my usual style, but my hand—almost of its own volition—rose and settled on the back of his neck. My fingers squeezed lightly there, a firm touch, a physical reminder that I was right there. "Kasidet spends too much battery being cute all day; at night he goes on stand-by."
He let out a nasal laugh, the first genuine sound I’d heard from him in the last twenty minutes.
My mind couldn't help but notice the difference in energy at the table. There was the new couple, exuding that sweet, fumbling anxiety, and then there was... us. We didn't need to fumble in the dark. I knew exactly how Book would react to the menu; I knew he’d soon ask for something to snack on because the "hunger" glint was already starting to replace the "enthusiasm" glint in his eyes. He then looked at the appetizer menu with a level of concentration most people reserve for doctoral theses.
"Order the crab cakes with that extra cheese," I said, without needing to look at the paper. "And ask for an extra side of spicy sauce. You’ll complain that it’s hot, but you’ll eat it all anyway."
He looked at me sideways, feigning indignation. "You think you’re so smart, Jiratchapong."
"I don't think. I just have twenty years of accumulated data," I replied, winking at him before taking a sip of my drink. "Book once got stuck in the school elevator," I started, trying to draw him into the conversation naturally. "But he didn't panic. He just sat on the floor and started studying math. When the janitor opened the door, he was mad because he hadn't finished the exercises."
Maya and Nan laughed, waiting for his comeback. But Book just let out a short sigh, his fingers distractedly tracing the rim of the glass.
"Yeah... I was focused that day," he replied, his voice so soft it almost got lost in the noise of the bar. He didn't look at anyone.
I felt a familiar tightening in my chest. The pragmatism in me wanted to fix it right away, but the Force who had known him since he was five knew that Book needed space, even when surrounded by people. However, today’s Force wasn't accepting any of that.
Book
I feel a sudden movement beside me. Force leans in, bringing his face close to mine to overcome the noise of the speaker. His scent—a mix of expensive woody cologne and the warmth of his own skin—invades my space even before his voice does.
"You have that look," he says, too close to my ear. The vibration of his voice is clearer than the music.
"What look?" I murmur, without looking at him, keeping my eyes fixed on the dance floor.
"The look of someone mentally considering proposing to a bucket of fried chicken."
He lets out a low chuckle, that short one he reserves for when he thinks he’s figured me out. I feel his index finger lightly poke my shoulder, a silent invitation for me to snap out of my trance and look at him. It’s his way of saying I’m not alone here, even if I want to be on Mars. "I'm just tired, Force."
"You're bored," he corrects, his voice laced with a fun that borders on petulant. "I know you, Book. If I weren't here, you would have vanished into the shadows twenty minutes ago."
He’s not wrong, and that’s what irritates me most. Even if he is the reason I’m here, he’s also the only reason I haven't gotten up and left yet. It’s not that I hate places like this. I just need to be in the right mood. Today, I’m not. Today my chest is too sensitive, my head too full, my body asking for something simpler.
And I’m not proud of what I intend to do today either.
In fact, if I stop to think for more than five seconds, shame already starts climbing up my neck.
I look at him, then back at the liquid in my glass, and feel a weight in my stomach that has nothing to do with the mix of juice and cheap vodka. What I’m about to do is pathetic. It’s low, it’s dramatic, and I’ll probably hate myself for the rest of the week. But the truth is, in the normal state of things—with the daylight, the sobriety of work, and our "childhood best friends" dynamic—the words I need to say stay stuck somewhere between my throat and my common sense.
With Force, everything is always very solid, very practical. If I speak seriously, he protects me; if I complain, he solves it. But he never stops. He never lets his guard down enough when it’s just the two of us for us to talk about what happens when the noise stops and only that awkward silence remains.
I’m not the kind of person who lies, much less someone who fakes vulnerability. But here, under these lights that distort reality, I feel like this is the only key that opens the door to his armor. I need him to stop being the "pillar" for a moment. I need him to lower his tone and look at me not as someone he needs to take care of, but as someone he can, finally, see.
Completely stupid? I know.
Not a good idea? I know that too.
I know it with that nagging clarity that appears before any bad decision. Pretending someone spiked my drink isn't just childish, it’s dangerous because it looks like something else.
Too dramatic. Out of character. Definitely not something I’d say out loud to anyone afterward.
If I’m "under the influence" of something, I have a poetic license. I can say I love him, I can ask why he looks at me that way, I can cry or laugh for no reason. And tomorrow? Tomorrow I can blame the glass.
Is it cowardice? I know.
But at the same time, it’s the only way out my head could assemble. Because talking to Force about this, for real, requires a kind of courage I never quite learned how to have.
I’ve been trying to talk to him for months. Or I think I am. In practice, I leave everything too implied. A pause that’s a beat too long. A look that lasts half a second more. A sentence that starts and ends in the wrong place. He cares. He protects. He solves. But feeling? Talking about what he feels? He pushes that to "later" with the same discipline he uses to wake up early for training.
I think that if I say I’m not okay, he’ll stop. He’ll look at me with that serious expression, his brow slightly furrowed, as if the world just demanded his total attention. If I say someone messed with my drink, he’ll get me out of here without a second thought. He’ll take me somewhere quiet. Safe. And in that forced space, maybe I can speak.
It’s ugly to think like this. I fucking know it. I’m using his protective instinct as a lever. And that’s heavy.
But it’s also true that I’m not lying completely. I really am not okay. I’m just exaggerating the reason to justify what I feel. It’s as if I need an excuse big enough to allow my emotions to exist without seeming inconvenient.
Maybe it’s cowardice. Maybe it’s desperation. I know exactly how Force is going to react. It’s not a guess. It’s almost an anticipated memory.
He’ll lean in first. Stand in front of me, as if his body could block the entire bar. He’ll ask my name even though he knows what it is, just to check if my voice responds right. He’ll put his hand on my wrist, feigning casualness, counting beats with a precision he never admits to having. He’ll ask what I drank. Who I was with. If I’m nauseous. If my head hurts.
Then comes the obvious part.
“Do you want to go to the hospital?”
“Do you want me to call someone?”
“Can you stand up?”
And I’ll say I don’t know. I’ll let my voice be weaker than it needs to be. I’ll let the fear show where it’s already been living for a long time.
What he won't say out loud, but will understand in the same second, is the part that really matters. If this gets out, it’s over.
It doesn't matter if it was true or not. It doesn't matter if it was a mistake, a confusion, a poorly told rumor. For the fans, for the press, for the entire industry, Book under the influence of drugs becomes an impossible headline to erase. It becomes disappointment. It becomes theory. It becomes morality thrown on the table as if it were everyone’s business. Any crack becomes a scandal.
Force knows this. Maybe better than I do.
That’s why he’ll act fast. Not just out of care for me, but out of strategy. He’ll think of the cell phones around us, the eyes watching too closely, who might be filming without us noticing. He’ll calculate exits, angles, excuses. He’ll get me out of here as if he’s saving two things at once: me and everything we’ve built.
And that is exactly what I want. Not the scandal. Never that. I want the silence that comes after.
I want the closed car, the sound of the door slamming, the world becoming distant. I want the moment when he’ll finally take a deep breath and say something like: “Now you’re going to explain to me what’s happening.” Not as my fixed partner, or as a colleague. As Force. My Force. The boy who has known me since before any camera, script, or fan club existed.
I know I’m putting him in an impossible position. Forcing a gravity that perhaps didn't need to be so dramatic. But I also know that if I don’t do this, the conversation never comes. We’re too good at pretending everything is fine. Too good at protecting the image, the duo, each other’s comfort.
Today, I woke up willing to break that silent agreement.
Force
I keep smiling at Maya and Nan, my mouth moving on autopilot, delivering the jokes they expect from me, but my brain is somewhere else. My brain is two centimeters to my left, trying to decipher the Morse code that is Book’s silence.
Something is wrong. I feel it in the texture of the air between us.
Lately, Book has become a riddle that I, even with twenty years of experience, am failing to solve. He’s always been my balance—the soft glow to my intensity—but now it feels like he’s lowered the voltage on purpose. He’s physically here, his shoulder still brushing mine, but his soul seems to be taking steps back, hiding in a place I can't reach.
He’s too quiet.
And the worst part isn't the silence; it’s the quality of that silence.
It’s not that comfortable silence from when we studied together and just each other’s presence was enough. It’s a dense, heavy silence, as if he’s holding back words too heavy to be spoken in a jazz bar.
I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he traces the rim of the glass. He used to be the first to laugh at my teasing, the first to hit my arm when I crossed the line, the first to shine when the subject was food or future plans. Now, he looks at Maya and Nan’s obvious happiness with an expression I can't identify. Is it longing? Is it doubt? Is it... fear?
I pride myself on being his protector. I’m the guy who notices before anyone else if he’s hungry, if his shoe is hurting, or if he’s uncomfortable with a reporter’s question. But how do I protect him from something he doesn't want to show me? I feel a prickle of irritation—not at him, but at the fact that I can't read what he’s feeling. I pride myself on being the "Kasidet expert." I know he prefers the left side of the bed, that he hates the smell of cilantro, and that he purses his lips that specific way when he’s trying not to cry during a movie.
But this new silence? It wasn't in my data. This new distance irritates and scares me at the same time. I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until that spontaneous spark returns, or until he pours out whatever weight is making him so withdrawn.
But instead, I just squeeze his knee under the table.
Book
I live with the fan edits on TikTok—the slow-motion videos that analyze every time his eyes soften when he looks at me, or how his hand always finds the curve of my waist at events. Sometimes I want to laugh. Sometimes I want to throw my phone out the window and pretend I never read anything.
Because they see it from the outside. I am on the inside. And from the inside, it’s much more confusing.
What I feel doesn't fit well into the words people use. It’s not just friendship, but it’s also never been declared as anything else. It’s too much intimacy to be simple and too much care to be reckless. It’s growing up alongside someone until you no longer know where habit ends and affection begins.
And the cruelest part is this: I don’t even know if Force likes men.
In Thailand, we don’t usually put labels like that. Not like in other places. Things are more fluid, more implicit, more lived than named. No one sits down to make a grand declaration about who they are or who they love. You simply exist. Love. Work. Move on.
Except I... I’d like to know.
I’d like to know how he thinks, what he feels when he’s alone, what goes through his head when a handsome guy crosses his path. I’d like to know if he’s ever allowed himself to imagine something different from the script the world expects of him. If he feels this same quiet tension when our knees touch under the table.
Sometimes I wonder if he doesn't speak because he doesn't want to. Other times, I’m afraid he doesn't speak because he’s never thought about it. Because to him, I’m just me. The usual friend. The scene partner. The constant.
And maybe that’s what scares me most. The possibility that everything I feel is one-sided. That the fans are seeing poetry where there’s only habit. That I’m trying to decipher a feeling that, for him, never needed to exist.
Still, there are moments when he looks at me as if he wants to say something and doesn't know where to start. Moments when his care exceeds what’s necessary. When the touch lasts a second beyond what’s safe. When the silence gets too heavy to be just comfortable.
It’s in those moments that I think: it can't be just in my head.
I don’t want a label. I don’t want to force anyone to fit into a word. I just wanted the details. The subtext. The truth spoken low, without an audience, without a camera, without fans analyzing every breath.
I wanted to know where I stand when I’m with Force. If it’s firm ground or if I’m dancing on the edge of something that will never happen.
And maybe that’s why today I need to pretend I’m falling, just to see if he catches me in a different way. I don’t want to destroy our friendship. That is the fear that comes before all others.
Force
Watching Maya and Nan is like looking into a mirror that reflects something I still don’t have the courage to name. They are in that phase where touch is a discovery, a constant startle. With us, touch is a habit, an extension of our own bodies. And maybe that’s what scares me. We’ve become so comfortable in our "safety" that I don’t know if he realizes my care isn't just that of a childhood friend.
A childhood friend wouldn't feel this tightening in the pit of their stomach just because the other is too quiet. A childhood friend wouldn't map every change in their breathing as if it were a matter of life or death. He looks at me, and for a second, time seems to dilate. It’s that moment where the "joker" in me loses his voice and all that’s left is the man who would do anything to ensure he never feels alone, even in the middle of a crowd. I want to decipher the mystery in his eyes, but I’m afraid that if I look too deep, I’ll end up revealing the mystery I keep in mine.
Sometimes, I wonder what my life would be like if there weren't the constant noise of Book in it. If I close my eyes, I can trace the timeline: the skinny boy in the schoolyard, the teenager who shared headphones with me, the man who now shares the weight of cameras and fame by my side. It’s such an absolute continuity that it’s almost frightening.
Having Book in my life is like having a fixed cardinal point. No matter how chaotic the industry becomes, or how much my training and work schedule demands of me, he is the place I always return to. He is the pragmatism missing in my intensity; he is the sweetness that softens my hardest edges.
I watch his profile under the amber light of the bar. Even in this introspective state, there is something in his presence that anchors me. It’s a sense of completeness that requires no effort. I don’t need to "perform" Force Jiratchapong when I’m with him. With Book, I can just be the Force who complains about being tired, who makes lame jokes, and who feels an almost biological need to ensure he is well and safe.
It’s good. It’s more than good, actually. It’s vital.
There is a quiet beauty in the fact that he knows all my versions and decided to stay for all of them. And I, with all my determination and discipline, realize that my greatest achievement was never a role in a series or a buff body at the gym. My greatest achievement was building this territory of mutual trust where he feels safe enough to, sometimes, just fall silent and know that I’ll be there to fill the silence.
Book
Force is the person who stayed when everything changed. Before fame, during fame, despite it. He is the most secure constant I have. Saying the wrong thing, in the wrong tone, at the wrong time, could crack that in half. And some cracks don’t get fixed; you just learn to live with them.
That’s why my plan exists. Not because it’s good. But because it seems safe enough.
If I really were under the influence of something I didn't choose to take, I’d have an out. A perfectly acceptable emotional escape route. If he pulled away, if he said he didn't feel the same, if he set a clear boundary... I could pretend I don’t remember. I could laugh later, minimize it, say I was talking nonsense. Blame the altered state. Save the friendship.
In my head, it makes sense.
It’s not dignified. I know. It’s almost pathetic. But it’s functional. It’s like putting a net under a jump I’d never have the courage to take without some guarantee that I won't shatter on the floor.
I don’t want to corner Force. I don’t want him to feel pressured to reciprocate something just because I’m vulnerable. I just want a space where the truth can escape without permanent consequences. A moment where I can say what I feel without needing to stand by it forever, should the answer not be what I hope.
Maybe that says more about me than about him. When we were kids, the truth is we weren't friends. Not by a long shot.
We shared the same school bus, yes. The same route, the same worn seats, the same impatient driver. But there was an invisible line inside that separated our worlds. I sat further forward, with my small and loyal group. We were quieter, more reserved. Nerds in just the right measure, funny in our own way, laughing low at our own jokes so as not to draw too much attention.
Force stayed in the very back.
He led the noisy kids, the ones who shouted each other's names from one seat to another, the ones who threw paper balls, the ones who already seemed to know how to occupy space. He laughed loud, talked with his hands, seemed too comfortable existing. I pretended I wasn't looking, but I was. Even back then, there was something.
It wasn't a crush, not how I understand it today. It was curiosity mixed with a kind of strange warmth in my chest. A feeling that he belonged to a place I didn't know how to access but wanted to understand. Sometimes, when the bus took a sharp turn, I’d see his profile against the window and feel something I didn't know how to name. I just felt it.
We didn't talk. At most, we’d trade quick glances when the chaos from the back spilled too far onto our side.
Until the day of the gum.
I felt the light tug first, then the muffled giggles. I put my hand to my head and felt that sticky thing, caught in the strands. The world became small and hot with shame. I heard his laugh even before I turned around. Force. Proud of his own crime, as if he’d done something genius. I almost cried with rage while my best friend tried to fix the disaster with ice during recess.
"You know, Kasi," she said, with that precocious wisdom of someone who read romance magazines, "They say that’s how some boys show they like you. They bother you because they don’t know how to get close."
I laughed in her face. I was ten years old, and the logic that "bothering was affection" seemed like the stupidest thing in the world. If he liked me, he’d be nice, I thought at the time. But now, when I feel his hand squeeze my waist with a possessiveness that borders on desperation when someone gets too close to me, that sentence from my friend echoes in my head with a different weight.
As the years went by, we stayed distant. But the distance began to change shape.
It wasn't a leap. There wasn't one clear moment when everything turned into something else. It was more like when you walk the same path every day and, suddenly, you realize it doesn't seem so long anymore. We still occupied different spaces, but those spaces began to touch without making a sound.
On the bus, the seating changed. Sometimes there was no more room in the back and someone would come sit further forward. Sometimes I’d end up moving back a bit, squeezed between backpacks and loud laughter. Force was no longer just the noisy boy. He started being the guy who lent a pen, who stopped a teasing session when someone got uncomfortable, who called me by my name instead of just provoking me. In school, our circles still existed, but they were no longer closed. A friend of his talked to a friend of mine. A group project here, a free period there. We bumped into each other in the hallways and stopped pretending we didn't know each other.
The strange thing is that it wasn't uncomfortable. It was... natural.
As if the space between us had just been a prolonged misunderstanding. Conversation came easy, even when it didn't come deep. Sometimes it was just a silly joke, a complaint about a hard test, a random comment about cafeteria food. But I started to realize that he listened to me. For real. Not just waiting for his turn to speak.
Force continued to draw attention effortlessly. I remained quieter. But it no longer seemed incompatible. It seemed complementary, even before we understood it.
There was a day we laughed together for too long over some nonsense, and when the laughter died down, a comfortable silence remained. Not that awkward silence that begs for escape, but one that demands nothing. That marked me more than any big conversation.
Gradually, he stopped being someone I observed from afar and became someone who was there. Present. Close enough for me to notice small details: how he got serious when something really mattered, how he lowered his tone when he spoke to me, how he always seemed attentive to what I felt, even before I said it.
The distance didn't end all at once. It just became irrelevant.
And by the time I realized it, Force was already part of my daily life.
In high school, we finally became friends. Real friends. But in a specific way.
No deep confidences or dramatic promises. No sharing secrets at three in the morning or knowing everything about each other. It was a comfortable, stable kind of friendship that didn't demand constant proof. We sat together without needing to make plans. We talked without needing to fill every gap. We laughed easy, but also knew how to be quiet.
Force was still Jirat. Popular, confident, always surrounded. I was still me. A bit more open than before, but still an observer, still choosing carefully where I placed myself. Even so, it seemed to make sense that he was there. By my side. We studied together sometimes. Or rather, I studied and he stayed there, complaining, asking for explanations, pretending he didn't care as much as he did. In exchange, he dragged me to things I wouldn't have done alone. Games, school events, situations where I’d normally make up an excuse to leave early.
There wasn't too much touch. There wasn't too much talk. And that was enough.
I didn't feel that constant anxiety of wanting more, at least not consciously. Maybe because I didn't yet know what that "more" would be. Maybe because, at the time, just being near him already filled something I didn't even know was empty.
Sometimes, he’d defend me without fanfare when someone crossed the line. Sometimes, I was the one pulling him back when he got too carried away. It was a silent balance, almost automatic.
If someone asked, I’d say without hesitation that we were friends. And I’d be telling the truth.
Force
For a moment, a crack opens in my golden armor.
I catch myself imagining what it would be like if I didn’t have to filter every single gesture. If I could hold Book’s hand across this wooden table—not as “brotherly support,” but with the same electric intention I see in his. If I could lean in and steal his breath without worrying about the cameras, the fans, or the glass structure we built around our “partnership.”
But I closed that door a long time ago.
I remember when we were teenagers, those summers when the air seemed to carry a different weight and every brush of shoulders in the school hallway made me lose my step. I was young, but I was already determined. I realized, with cruel clarity, that what we had was far too valuable to risk. If I took one step toward that flame, I could burn the only bridge that connected me to what I loved most in the world: his presence.
I buried that line of reasoning so deep I thought it had turned into oil. But sometimes, it leaks through the cracks.
It leaks when I catch myself staring at his mouth for too long while he talks about something trivial.
It leaks when I feel an irrational jealousy toward anyone who makes him laugh more easily than I do.
It leaks now, as I watch the transparent happiness of those two girls and feel an echo of something I suffocated years ago.
Book
In college, we drifted apart.
Just like that.
Each of us went in a different direction, with different schedules, different priorities, new people filling spaces that used to feel almost automatic. There was no fight, no dramatic goodbye. Just… life happening.
At first, there were still messages. A “how are you?”, a casual comment about something from school, an inside joke dropped into the conversation to remind us we were still that. But over time, even that became rare. Not from lack of desire, I think. More from lack of alignment.
I was discovering a new world. Trying to reinvent myself, trying to understand who I was away from the old versions of myself.
Force was busy too, in his own way. Always moving, always surrounded, always pushing forward.
And suddenly, weeks turned into months.
I thought about him sometimes. Not in a painful way. More like remembering a place that used to be home. A good memory, but distant. I’d see something funny and think he’d laugh. I’d eat something good and think he’d complain about the amount of protein. Little thoughts that came and went.
The strange thing is, I never felt like we’d fought. I also never felt like we’d ended anything. It was as if our friendship had been put on pause without anyone consciously pressing the button.
Maybe that’s why it was so easy not to talk.
And so strange to realize, years later, that even without contact, he never stopped being part of me.
We grew separately. Changed separately. Lived separately.
But somehow, silently, there was always a thread connecting everything.
In the meantime, I did a lot of things.
Maybe too many.
I traveled, moved cities more than once, met people who seemed incredibly important at first and later turned into vague memories. I fell in love. Truly. The kind of intense love that feels definitive while it lasts. It hurt when it ended, as it always does, but not even that pain stayed long enough to grow roots.
I joined a boyband.
From the outside, it looked like a dream. Long training sessions, choreography, fans screaming names that still sounded strange when they were directed at me. I smiled well, danced well, did everything they expected. It worked.
But it wasn’t what I wanted to do.
I felt that in the breaks, when the light from phone flashes went out and there was only me left. Something was missing. It wasn’t a lack of success or recognition. It was a lack of truth. I was myself the whole time—just amplified, molded, repeated until it lost meaning.
That’s when I realized something.
The best parts of my life had always been the ones where I pretended to be someone else. School plays, acting exercises, games where I became a completely different person for a few minutes. There, I breathed better. There, I felt whole.
And the most frightening—and liberating—part was knowing I was good at it.
Not good in the sense of easy praise. Good in the sense of feeling. Of understanding emotions that weren’t mine and still making them real. Of stepping into a story and making someone believe it.
Acting gave me something nothing else did. A safe place to explore feelings that, as Kasi, I didn’t really know where to put. But as Book, I’d have a space where sensitivity wasn’t weakness—it was a tool.
When that certainty arrived, it didn’t come with noise. It came calmly. Almost too obvious. As if I had always known and was just waiting for the right moment to admit it.
I wanted to be an actor.
When the boyband ended, the manager sat down with me and spoke as if he were doing me a favor.
He said I should stay in the industry. That it would be a waste not to continue.
He listed my strengths with the confidence of someone who had already decided for me. I was good-looking. Talented. Easy to work with. No vices, no trouble. I spoke well in public, knew how to behave, was polite in just the right measure. Charming. Easy to sell.
I listened in silence, nodding like I always did. Part of me even understood. From his point of view, it made sense. I was a good, stable product with no apparent risks—exactly the kind of person the industry likes to keep where things already work.
But as he spoke, I felt that familiar emptiness open up again.
It wasn’t ingratitude. It was misalignment.
I didn’t want to keep being chosen because I was convenient. Because I fit neatly into a box that already existed. I wanted to be chosen for something that didn’t yet have a shape. Something that demanded more from me than the right smile at the right time.
Being good-looking, polite, and charming was never the problem.
The problem was being only that.
I thanked him. Said I’d think about it. I left that conversation with the feeling that I was turning down an easy path in exchange for something too uncertain to explain. And even so, for the first time, I didn’t feel irresponsible.
I felt that if I stayed there, I would slowly disappear. Not on the outside, but on the inside. I’d become a polished version of myself that worked well but didn’t feel anything real.
I didn’t want to be just acceptable.
I wanted to be real.
And I knew that wasn’t going to happen if I kept pretending that place was right for me.
I decided to stop.
Not forever. Just for a while.
I needed silence. A routine without applause, without external expectations, without someone telling me what I should want. For the first time, I chose not to be seen.
I ended up working in what I’d studied in college: chemical engineering. It even sounds strange to say it now, like I’m talking about someone else’s life. I spent a few months there, keeping hours, wearing a badge, solving problems with right answers. It was honest work. Stable. Safe.
And completely wrong for me.
I was good enough. I understood the processes, did the calculations, delivered what was asked. But there was no spark. No fire. I came home tired in a way that wasn’t physical.
It was the exhaustion of someone who spends the entire day far away from themselves.
Force
What irritates me most about my own nature is this security flaw in my system. Me—who prides himself on almost military discipline, who trains every muscle in his body to respond on command—is betrayed by the transparency of a look I swear I’m controlling.
I know what people say out there. I read the comments, watch the slow-motion videos fans edit. They analyze the way I watch him when he isn’t looking, how my expression hardens if someone gets too close to him, or how my smile gains a different voltage when he’s the one making the joke.
“Force’s gaze doesn’t lie,” they say. And that sends a chill down my spine.
I hate the idea of being an open book—and, heavens, I mentally apologize for the awful pun; living with Kasidet for so long gave me this incurable habit of making jokes with his name even in my thoughts. But especially when the most important chapter is the one I try not to read to the end. I should be the master of communication, the guy who leads interviews and manipulates the room’s mood with a professional smile. And I am good at that. With the rest of the world, I’m impenetrable. But with Book… the filter fails.
It’s as if there’s an invisible wire connecting my nervous system to his every movement. If he withdraws, I go on alert. If he smiles, I relax. It’s a chemical, instinctive reaction that happens before my pragmatism can intervene.
Now, here at the bar, I feel Maya watching us. She has that sharp look of someone who has just discovered love and has her senses trained to recognize it elsewhere. I try to focus on the conversation, try to be the “communicative and extroverted” Force, but my body insists on leaning toward him. My attention snaps back to Book’s silence like a magnet snapping north.
I try to disguise it. I take a sip of my whiskey, force a laugh at the elevator story, but I know that if someone took a photo of us right now, the “leak” would be there. In the tension of my jaw, in the way my hand seems to gravitate toward him even when I tell myself to keep it still on the table.
It’s humiliating, in a way. A man so focused, so in control of himself, disarmed by the simple silence of a childhood friend. I want to be the protector, but the truth is that Book is the only person in the world who has the remote control to me. And the worst part isn’t that the fans know it… it’s that I’m starting to suspect I can’t hide it because, deep down, a part of me has given up trying.
Book
The dream of acting hadn’t died.
It was just quiet.
Asleep, like something you store carefully because you don’t yet know how to take proper care of it. Sometimes it showed up out of nowhere. In a commercial on TV. In a movie scene that made me forget the phone in my hand. In a stray thought while I stared out the office window.
I pretended not to see it. Told myself it was too late. That I had already tried other things. That maybe it was more sensible to stay where I was. But the dream never faded. It just waited.
Waited for me to have the courage to admit that this wasn’t the life I wanted to live.
One day, in the middle of an afternoon that was far too ordinary, my phone rang.
It was a friend. One of those calls you almost ignore because you assume it’ll be just another quick conversation, nothing important. I answered without expectation, leaning against the hallway wall, my head still full of numbers and reports.
He didn’t beat around the bush.
He said auditions had opened for a GMM series. That they were looking for new faces. That maybe I should try.
Maybe.
That word echoed after the call ended. Maybe it wouldn’t cost anything. Maybe it was just an audition. Maybe I’d finally stop pretending I was over it.
I hung up and stood there for a while, staring at nothing. I felt something I hadn’t felt in months. A light chill in my stomach. Not fear. Anticipation.
The rational part of me began listing the risks. I had stopped. Chosen another path. I was stable. Starting over meant going back to zero. It meant hearing “no” more times than “yes.” It meant exposing myself again.
But another part—quieter and more honest—had already decided.
Because a dream may fall asleep, but when someone calls it by the right name, it wakes up instantly.
I thought about everything I had tried to be and everything I still hadn’t allowed myself to try. I thought about how I felt when I acted. Alive. Present. Whole.
When I realized it, I was already looking up the audition details.
Maybe I should try, I thought.
Maybe that was exactly what I had been waiting for.
I auditioned for Enchanté without building too many expectations.
Or at least, I tried.
Thai BL was already its own universe back then. It wasn’t just a genre—it was almost a language. Stories about feelings that didn’t need to be shouted, about connections that grew in details, in glances, in the almost. I knew it well. As a viewer, as someone who felt all of it hit a little deeper than it should.
Enchanté was exactly that kind of story. Delicate, romantic, centered on emotions that didn’t come ready-made but were built with care. It wasn’t about shock. It was about recognition. About two people trying to understand what they feel without a manual.
When I walked into the audition room, something aligned.
I didn’t have to force anything. I didn’t have to invent a better version of myself. I just… was. I read the lines as if I already knew where they wanted to go. I understood the rhythm, the silence between one sentence and the next, the weight of what wasn’t said. For the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel like I was trying to prove anything.
After the audition, the team talked among themselves for a few minutes. I stayed there, waiting, with that quiet nervousness that doesn’t quite hurt. When someone finally spoke to me, it was simple, almost casual:
“You’re exactly what we were looking for.”
Hearing that was strange. Not in a way of disbelief, but of fit. As if someone had put into words something I’d felt for years but had never heard from the outside.
I left with the feeling that I had returned to the right place. Not because the role was perfect, but because I was ready. Thai BL didn’t ask me to be someone else. It asked me to feel. And that, I had always known how to do.
That day, I understood the dream hadn’t waited in vain.
But there was something that bothered me afterward.
A doubt that only appeared once the initial euphoria faded.
I hadn’t done a chemistry test with anyone.