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Sometimes, when he can’t sleep, when the nightmares and memories become too much for him, Thup goes out to the backyard and stares up at the sky.
There aren’t any stars to see, the city's light pollution masking them under false starlight of it’s own, but Thup feels comfort in just knowing they’re out there. He has a vague memory of looking up at the stars through the branches of a tree, a warm, safe presence next to him, and he likes to think he used to do this with his mom. Before.
Now, he mostly comes out by himself, leaving Singha to sleep soundly in his absence. Not that Singha would make fun of him or anything for this habit of his, not at all. Singha would understand, Thup knows he would. He has his own ways of coping with the things he’s been through, but they involve less stargazing and more fast motorbikes.
No, Thup comes by himself because he likes to. He relies on Singha so much—less so, now that the ghosts are gone, but still—and this is something he can do alone, without clinging to Singha for safety.
A plane blinks overhead, and Thup imagines it’s a shooting star, falling through outer space at speeds Thup can’t even comprehend. Not knowing where it’s going to land, but going on the journey nonetheless, leaving a trail of light in its wake.
Thup used to feel like that. Life was something that happened around him as he fell through it, separate and alone and… other. He grew up with no stability, unless you counted the ever present ghost of his mother, which he hadn’t, at the time. Then he’d found Singha—or, Singha had found him—and he wasn’t falling alone anymore. He was caught in the orbit of another, for the first time in his life, and Singha’s gravity had taken hold of him. He had gotten stuck in it, and now he’s so used to it he can’t imagine ever living without it. Without the magnetic pull that’s ever-present, drawing him to Singha like a moth to the bright light of the sun.
Singha.
Thup smiles at the thought of the man asleep upstairs. Where would he be without him? Dead, most likely. Dead and buried beneath the earth, never to see the stars again. Thup shudders at he thought. He likes to think he’d be reincarnated, at the very least. Perhaps, if such a thing exists, he’d be reincarnated as a star, just one of billions in the sky, blinking away, watching over the earth below. It wouldn’t be such a bad existence, he thinks, watching the plane disappear from his line of sight. The calm quiet of space, the knowledge that people were looking for you, even if you were hidden from their view. Perhaps Singha would look up and see him, just like he always had. Always did.
“Thup?”
Singha’s voice startles Thup out of his existential reverie, making him yelp. “P’Singha! You scared me. What are you doing up?”
Singha pads over to him and lays down on the grass. He doesn’t question what Thup is doing on the ground, just says, “I woke up thirsty and you weren’t there. Is it okay if I keep you company?”
“Of course.”
Singha takes Thup’s hand in his, twining their fingers together, and they lie there together, silent except for the sounds of their breathing.
“There’s a whole galaxy up there,” Singha murmurs eventually. “Hidden from sight, but always there. Constant.”
Thup hums, choosing not to say what he’s thinking: That he feels Singha’s love in the same way. He can’t see it, but it’s there, in his heart. A constant, right next to the love of his mother. The two people in the world who love Thup more than anything. A galaxy of two, just for him. He squeezes Singha’s hand, endlessly grateful to him for catching him as he fell.