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Rain makes it back into Phayu’s bedroom before the tears start. He doesn’t know why he’s crying; Phayu has an incredible voice, and it was a nice song with lyrics that make Rain’s heart flutter like a fledgling bird flapping its wings in preparation to leave the nest, and Phayu looked like that as he was singing, all handsome and pretty and sparkly-eyed in a way Rain kind of can’t believe anyone would look at him with.
But his cheeks are streaked with wetness, and his throat is tight. Rain has to fight the need to sob out loud, because he already knows Phayu well enough to know that if Phayu hears even a tiny little cough out of him that’s not normal, the man will be up here in two seconds to demand that Rain take medicine for a sore throat. Or shove a lozenge down it.
Better than a suppository, Rain’s inner voice quips, and that at least makes him laugh through the crying jag, clapping his hands over his mouth so that Phayu doesn’t hear that, either.
But Phayu has ultrasonic hearing, and/or a sixth sense when it comes to Rain, or just wanted to come into his own bedroom in his own house because before the tears are dried and the giggles die away completely, Phayu is in the doorway looking alarmed as he takes in Rain.
“Rain? What happened?” Even in his care, Phayu doesn’t realize he can be a little intimidating, and it makes Rain wave his hands in the air and shake his head.
“N-nothing, P’Phayu! I just choked on some spit, I think. I’m okay now though!”
It’ll take at least a few more weeks before Rain learns how to wrap Phayu around his finger in a way that makes the man seem less fearful and more sexy to Rain when he cocks an eyebrow and crosses his arms.
“Rain.”
The single syllable of his name has never sounded so threatening, or so alluring. Rain fidgets, tilting himself back on his heels as he scrunches the hem of his shirt up in his fingers.
“I’m okay, really, P’Phayu…”
“Rain.”
This time the name is a little softer, and Rain doesn’t know if it’s because his eyes are watering again or because he’s biting his lip so hard it’s about to bleed. Phayu drops his arms and comes to stand in front of Rain, curling his hands over Rain’s clenched ones.
“I won’t ever be mad at you for telling me the truth, Rain,” Phayu says, his long fingers fanning across the backs of Rain’s hands in time with his words. “Just tell me why you’re crying, okay?”
Rain sniffs, and flicks his eyes up to Phayu’s. They’re so large and expressive, and so totally focused on Rain that he has to drop his gaze again. That same feeling comes over him, the one that caught up to him after he came upstairs with the lingering echo of Phayu’s song ringing in his head.
“I… I actually don’t know, P’Phayu,” Rain answers honestly. Phayu’s fingers slow for a moment, but then keep moving across Rain’s skin, encouraging him to keep going. Rain takes a shaky breath and does.
“I liked you singing to me.” Rain whispers it as though it’s a confession and as he peers up through his bangs at Phayu’s face, he can see the older man’s smile begin to stretch across it. That feeling — that fluttering, too-much, almost panicky thing — rises up quickly in Rain’s stomach again and he gasps quietly as his throat tightens again.
Phayu is so smart, and it’s not just book smarts, though he has like a million times more than Rain and Sig and Por put together. A thousand times more if Ple is added. He’s observant. Shrewd, as Sky has said. And Rain has learned that when Phayu’s smile tilts the way it does now, a little broader and with Phayu’s gums showing a bit — how are even his gums handsome? Rain wonders distractedly — it’s because Phayu’s figured something out that he can’t get in any book.
Because it’s something he’s learned just by looking at Rain.
“I overwhelmed you, didn’t I?” Phayu asks, and even if he’s smiling about it, his tone is serious. And it hits Rain: that is exactly how he feels.
“But it doesn’t feel bad, exactly,” Rain says, nodding. “It’s just… a lot, if that makes sense?”
Phayu turns Rain’s hands over in his hands, untangling them from the grip Rain still has on his shirt before bringing each wrist to his mouth, left then right, to kiss Rain.
“It makes perfect sense. Thank you for being honest, good boy. Do you want me to stop doing things like that? Singing?”
The thought of never hearing Phayu sing again fills Rain with a different sort of anxiety, the bad kind, and he shakes his head rapidly. “No no, never stop. Please don’t stop? Even if I get overwhelmed?”
Phayu pulls Rain into a hug, pressing kisses from his temple down to his cheek and then down to his jaw and… oh. Oh.
Yeah. Maybe there will be tears, but Rain might just actually like being overwhelmed.
“Tell you what,” Phayu whispers in Rain’s ear, and like they do every time Phayu whispers to him, Rain’s eyelids flutter closed and his knees get a little weak.
“What?” Rain says the word like it’s dripping out of his mouth letter by letter, and Phayu chuckles.
“I’ll keep making you overwhelmed, as long as you don’t run away. As long as you let me take care of you after. Want me to show you what I mean?”
”Yes.”
Rain doesn’t realize Phayu’s walking him backwards towards the bed with nothing but his mouth on Rain’s neck, but Rain does know he doesn’t just like being overwhelmed by Phayu.
He loves it.