Chapter Text
The problem with being the drummer is that nobody ever looks at you.
And Tee has made peace with this.
While their lead guitarist Thomas poses at the front of the stage and their bassist Tutor grooves in his platform boots, Tee sits behind his kit in the back, keeping time, holding everything together.
The one people rarely notice.
Until Por came. And suddenly Tee needed his attention for everything.
Their new singer arrived three weeks ago after their old frontman—Tle—quit to "find himself" somewhere or whatever. Well, Tee is pretty sure the only reason Tle left was to find more time to be with his baker boyfriend. Second? Third? Whatever his name was.
The team was pretty sure they were fucked when he left, but thank heavens Thomas knew someone to fill the space. Some kid he mentioned was his junior during high school.
What was odd was the words Thomas had said the day before he brought that mysterious singer into the music room.
Tee remembered the sentence word for word.
"Tee, don't be weird around him. He's really your type."
Tee had scoffed and folded his arms. My type? Tch. My type is too angelic to even exist—
Then Por came in. And he was exactly Tee's type.
Por walked into their cramped practice space with fair skin, paint-stained fingers, shy smiles, and a small wave to everyone in the room. That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was his voice.
"Hi, I'm Por."
Boom, boom, boom.
And his voice when he sings. Por had a voice that made Tee drop a stick mid-fill.
Now Tee can't seem to concentrate. Ever. At all.
"Hey, Phi." Tee appears beside Por after their first rehearsal, leaning against the wall with his sticks tucked behind his ear. "I gotta ask—do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again? Maybe in slow motion this time?"
Por blinks. "Huh?"
"I can also do it while spinning a stick. Really show off the wrists." He demonstrates with a flourish that nearly takes out a mic stand.
Thomas groans from across the room. "Tee. It's been one practice."
"Yeah, and I've been holding back for a whole two hours. I deserve a medal. Maybe two medals."
Por decides this man is utterly ridiculous and turns back to his lyric sheets.
Tee leans on the nearest stand and props his cheek on his knuckles. "God. What are you. It's genuinely unfair to look that good while reading."
Por looked up, frowning.
"Ignore him," Thomas grabbed Por by the shoulder and guided him away like a man escorting someone away from a fender bender. Por sneaked one last glance back, and Tee clutched his chest and pretended to faint against the wall, fully committed, sliding down three inches.
"You're really embarrassing, you know that?" Tutor laughed.
"I know." Tee stared at the ceiling with great dignity. "But that's my only hope."
Deeply still in love — ROLE MODEL playing..
"You know," Tee says during their Thursday session, rolling over on his drum throne like a man with a business proposal. "I heard you like sleeping. We should try it together sometime. I make an excellent big spoon. Or little spoon. I'm versatile."
Por's pen freezes mid-word. He looks up very slowly. "Excuse you?"
"I'm just saying. Sleep is important. Health is important. Spooning is scientifically proven to improve REM cycles—"
"You did not just use sleep science to hit on me."
"I did." Tee grins, completely unrepentant. "Is it working?"
"No."
"Counterpoint: your cheeks are pink."
"That's called anger."
"Tomato, tomahto." He spins a stick between his fingers. "So is that a 'not yet' or a 'ask me again after you've heard me play more sick fills'?"
Tutor throws a guitar pick at his head. "Tee! That's not how you flirt respectfully, oh my god, we talked about this yesterday."
"You were helping him hit on my friend?!" Thomas yelled from the connected room, eyes wide with the specific betrayal of a man whose plan is actively backfiring.
"First of all," Tee holds up a finger. "I'm being respectful. I'm asking about sleeping. Very wholesome activity."
Thomas pressed his forehead to the glass. "You're a menace."
"I prefer 'charmingly persistent.'" Tee rolls backward toward his kit. "But I'll accept menace, because that made Por smile."
Por shook his head. Smiling.
It continues.
"Are you a snare drum? Because my heart skips a beat every time I see you."
"Did you just come out of the oven? Because you're hot and I want s'more."
"Is your name WiFi? Because I'm feeling a connection—YOU SMILED! YOU SMILED!"
Por covered his face. "God, you're so shameless."
It's week six when everything shifts.
They're packing up after a particularly good rehearsal when Tee rolls over, as always, with that stupidly charming smile.
"Hey Pip, are u a microphone? Because I can't stop wanting to—”
"Okay." Por holds up a hand. "Here's the deal. You nail the bridge section tomorrow—perfectly—and I'll let you buy me coffee."
Tee's sticks clatter to the floor.
"I—what?"
"You heard me. But it has to be perfect. And you have to promise to use at least one more terrible pickup line."
Tee scrambles for his sticks. "Oh, I've got DOZENS. I've been workshopping them. There's a whole spreadsheet—“
"Of course there is."
“I can even tell you a hundred!”
“Please don’t—“
But Tee is already grinning, twirling his sticks, practically vibrating with joy.
"I'm gonna nail that bridge so hard. I'm gonna nail it like—“
"Tee."
"Right. Keeping it cool. Very cool. Extremely chill."
He's not chill at all. He crashes into his cymbal stand backing away.
"Tomorrow. Coffee. I'll bring my A-game. And my B-game. My whole alphabet of game."
Por watches him trip over a cable on his way out, still beaming. "Idiot." He smiled.
The second last song ends.
Thomas and Tutor immediately start re-tuning. Background noise, cable adjustments, the usual in-between-song chaos. Tee is still sitting at his kit, just slightly out of breath, spinning one stick absently between his fingers.
Then Por walks toward him. Tee sits up straighter. Opens his mouth. "So. Phi Por. Are you a bridge section? Because I just nailed you perfectly and I—"
Por leans in and kisses his cheek.
Tee stops existing for approximately four seconds.
Por steps back with that same infuriating calm. "Don't bring me coffee after this. It's night."
"..." Tee stares at him. His mouth is still open from the unfinished pickup line. "...oh.” He sulks. Actually sulks. Bottom lip and everything.
Por looks at him for a long moment. Then sighs, like he cannot believe his own life. "Idiot." His voice is quieter now.
"I'm asking you out for dinner."
The stick falls out of Tee's hand again.
"I—" Tee points at himself. Then at Por. Then back at himself. "You. Me. Dinner. That's—that's a date. Are you asking me on a date?"
"Do you want me to ask someone else?"
"NO." He shoots up from the throne so fast the whole kit rattles. "No no no, I'm going, I'm absolutely going, I've been workshopping dinner conversation topics for weeks—"
"Of course you have." Por grinned. “Tee."
"Yeah?"
Por tilts his head slightly. That quiet smile again. The one that started all of this. "I’ll be looking forward to our date tonight.” And walks back to the front of the stage.
Tee sits back down. Not a single thought in his head. And a few feet away, Tutor was already capturing his face to use as a meme sticker in their group chat.
The dinner situation starts falling apart approximately forty-five minutes before it begins.
Tee is standing in front of his mirror in his third outfit, holding his phone with a notes app open that has seventeen restaurants listed, color-coded, with pros and cons for each one, and a small column labeled "ambiance score."
He stares at it. Changes his shirt again.
He picks Por up at 7:15, five minutes late. Por is waiting outside in something simple and put up. Yet Tee forgets how to walk for a second.
"You're late," Por says.
"You look—" Tee stops. "Hi."
Por's mouth twitches. "Hi."
They start walking. And this is where it falls apart.
"So I was thinking," Tee begins, very casually, "there's this place on Silom— Oh, we could also just— but also there's another option—"
"Tee."
"—seventeen options, actually—"
Por stops walking. "Show me."
Tee shows him. Por scrolls through it in silence. Past the ambiance scores. Past the footnote about raw fish. He hands the phone back without a word and they keep walking.
Tee pulls up Google Maps. Zooms in. Zooms out. Walks them half a block one direction, stops, reconsider. Walk them back. Por follows quietly with his hands in his pockets, saying nothing and staring at Tee with admiration.
They end up stopped on a random stretch of sidewalk going absolutely nowhere, a motorcycle passing, someone's music bleeding out of a window above them, and Tee standing there holding a useless color-coded list and the full weight of having completely overthought himself into the ground.
"Okay." Tee exhales. "I'm sorry."
Por looks at him.
"I wanted it to be—" he gestures vaguely at nothing. "I'm not sure what would be perfect and I just— we've been walking for twenty minutes and we haven't eaten and I'm being so dumb, I'm sorry."
Por is quiet for a moment. Then he reaches out and takes Tee's hand. Tee looks down. Looks up.
"The person I'm with," Por says simply, "is what makes the date perfect, Tee."
Tee's entire chest caves in a little.
Por tilts his head down the street. The sound has been there the whole time—music, crowd noise, the warm smell of frying things drifting over from two blocks down. "Night market?"
Tee looks at him. At their hands. At Por's face in the evening light. He nods. Slowly. Like a very overwhelmed puppy.
Por smiles and starts walking.
"Let's go, boyfriend."
Tee stops moving entirely. "WHAT DID YOU CALL ME."
A woman nearby glances over. Por does not slow down.
"Say it again, please, one more time—Por—please—"
Por glances back over his shoulder. Leans it in just slightly. "Boy." A beat. "Friend."
Tee makes a sound that isn't quite a word.
"You're ridiculous." Por is already laughing, the real kind, eyes crinkling, and he tightens his grip on Tee's hand and just pulls. "Let's go, I'm hungry."
Tee stumbles after him, grinning so wide it hurts. Still being pulled. Completely fine with it.
The night market swallows them up—warm light, crowd noise—and Tee's personality comes back approximately thirty seconds in, which is honestly impressive recovery time.
"Okay but what do you want to eat first because I have opinions—"
"You always have opinions."
"That's because I'm thoughtful, Por, I'm a thoughtful person—"
Por stops at the first stall that smells good and orders for both of them without consulting the list, or Tee, or anyone. Tee watches him do this with the widest grin.
They eat standing up, shoulders close, Por occasionally pointing at something else he wants to try and Tee immediately going to get it like his legs just decided that's their job now.
At some point the crowd shifts and they end up on a quieter stretch near the edge, leaning against a railing with the noise behind them and the sky above, and Tee is mid-sentence about something that doesn't matter when he looks over and just—
Wow..
Por is watching him. Not the food, not the crowd. Him.
"You need to stop looking at me like that," Tee says.
"Shut up." Por looks back out at the market. The smallest smile. "Just keep talking, where were you?”
"Is this the part where I say something terrible and you laugh at me?"
Por considers this. "Probably."
"Okay." Tee straightens up. Clears his throat with great ceremony. "Por. Are you a night market? Because I could wander around in you for hours and still want more—"
Por laughs. Properly. Head tilting back, the crinkle at his eyes. “That was your worst one yet, oh god.”
Tee watches him and thinks: yeah. this is it. this is exactly it.
"Idiot," Por says warmly, and bumps his shoulder.
Tee bumps back. Stays there.
Neither of them moves away.