Chapter Text
The song woke In before the sun did.
At first, he thought it was someone’s phone.
Some neighbor, maybe. Someone who had fallen asleep with music still playing. It happened sometimes. Thin walls, tired people, careless alarms. A song leaking from one room into another until it became everybody’s problem.
In kept his eyes closed.
He waited for it to stop.
It did not.
The melody stayed there, soft and stubborn, tucked under the edge of sleep. A few notes. Then a pause. Then the same few notes again, like someone trying to remember where the song was supposed to go.
Piano, maybe.
No. Not exactly.
Something cleaner. Colder. Like a keyboard played in a huge empty room.
In frowned into the pillow.
Beside him, Thap was asleep with one arm over his waist, heavy enough to be annoying and warm enough that In had not moved it away. His breathing was slow against the back of In’s neck. Too steady. Too real.
The song did not belong to the room.
In knew that before he knew anything else.
The melody repeated.
This time, something clicked underneath it.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
In opened his eyes.
The room was still dark.
The song got louder.
Not outside.
Not from the phone.
Not from the street below, where motorcycles usually coughed awake before dawn and somebody’s old gate complained every morning.
It was nowhere.
It was everywhere.
It was inside the quiet.
In pushed himself up too quickly and the whole room gave a sick little tilt.
White light burst behind his eyes.
Stage light.
Not sunlight. Not bedroom lamp. Stage light, bright and hard, burning down from somewhere high above.
A microphone lay on the floor.
Someone shouted, but the voice bent strangely, dragged out by feedback.
A camera strap twisted around a hand.
Metal groaned.
Then the song snapped back to the beginning.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
“In?”
Thap woke like he had been pulled by a wire.
His voice was still rough from sleep, but his hand was already on In’s back, firm and careful. Not grabbing. Not yet.
In tried to answer.
The melody cut through his head again.
He clapped a hand over his right ear.
That was enough.
Thap sat up fully.
“In. What hurts?”
In swallowed.
His throat felt dry, though he had not been awake long enough for that to make sense.
“The song,” he said.
Thap went still for half a breath.
Not frozen.
Listening.
That was the part that still made In’s chest ache sometimes. Thap listened now. He did not always understand. He did not always like it. Most of the time he looked like he wanted to drag the universe into an examination room and demand a proper medical history.
But he listened.
“What song?” Thap asked.
“I don’t know.”
“From outside?”
In shook his head and immediately regretted it. The stage light flashed again. His stomach lurched.
Thap’s hand moved from his back to his shoulder. “Slowly.”
“Not outside.”
“Phone?”
“No.”
“Dream?”
In wanted to say yes.
A dream would be easier.
A dream could be blamed on bad sleep, too much tea, stress, one of those ridiculous supernatural aftershocks that people in his life kept pretending were not supernatural aftershocks until someone ended up bleeding in a hallway.
But the song was still there.
Soft now.
Waiting.
“No,” In whispered. “It’s not a dream.”
Thap’s jaw tightened.
The room was almost black, but In knew his face anyway. Knew the shape of his worry before the light found it. Knew the way Thap’s fear never came out as noise. It became questions. Hands. A glass of water. Two fingers at a pulse point.
“Can you hear me clearly?” Thap asked.
In hesitated.
Thap’s eyes narrowed.
“In.”
“Mostly.”
“That is not clearly.”
In looked away.
The song shifted again, and for one awful second, Thap’s voice dropped out completely. Not gone. Just pushed far away, like In had slipped underwater.
He sucked in a breath.
Thap caught his wrist.
“In. Look at me.”
In tried.
It took too much effort for such a simple thing.
The bedroom came back in pieces. Thap’s face close to his. The blanket half kicked away. The ugly little bedside lamp Thap refused to replace because it was “still functional.” The glass of water on the table. In’s tarot deck beside it, the top card slightly crooked because he had been too tired to put it away properly last night.
Thap followed his gaze.
“No,” he said immediately.
In blinked. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You looked at the deck.”
“That is not a crime.”
“It becomes one at four something in the morning when your hand is shaking.”
In looked down.
His hand was shaking.
He curled his fingers into the bedsheet as if that would hide it.
It did not.
Thap sighed through his nose, not angry. Frightened, maybe. Trying not to be.
“What did you see?”
The question landed carefully.
Not what do you think you saw.
Not are you sure.
Not maybe it was just a nightmare.
What did you see?
In pressed the heel of his palm against his right ear. The ringing there had sharpened into a thin needle.
“A stage.”
Thap’s hand on his wrist became firmer.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“People?”
“Maybe.” In swallowed. “There was a camera on the floor. A microphone. Lights. Someone was reaching for something.”
“Blood?”
“No.”
“Injury?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did someone fall?”
“I don’t know.”
“In.”
“I don’t know,” In snapped.
The words came out too sharp.
Thap did not flinch, which somehow made In feel worse.
In rubbed both hands over his face. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I shouted.”
“You’re scared.”
“I’m not—”
Thap only looked at him.
In shut his mouth.
Fine. He was scared.
He hated being scared in bed. It felt unfair. Beds were supposed to be stupid places. Warm places. Places where Thap stole blanket and denied it. Places where In could pretend his body was just a body and not some thin door the future kept kicking open.
The song pulsed once behind his ear.
In flinched.
Thap noticed, of course. Thap noticed everything when it came to In’s body, even things In wanted to keep from himself.
“Headache?” Thap asked.
“Behind my eyes.”
“Nausea?”
“A little.”
“Dizziness?”
“Yes.”
“Ringing?”
“Right ear.”
Thap reached for the lamp and switched it on.
The room filled with weak yellow light.
In blinked hard. For a second, the lamp looked like a stage light. Small and ugly and harmless, but his body did not care. His shoulders went tight.
Thap lowered the brightness.
“Better?”
In nodded.
“Words.”
“Yes. Better.”
Thap reached for the water and passed it to him. “Small sip.”
In obeyed.
His fingers knocked softly against the glass.
Thap pretended not to notice. That was kind of him. Or maybe not kind. Maybe practical. Thap was practical even when he was terrified.
The water tasted normal.
That helped.
A little.
In took another sip before Thap could tell him to, just to be annoying.
Thap’s mouth twitched.
Good. That helped more.
For almost a full minute, neither of them said anything. Thap sat close enough that their knees touched under the blanket. In held the glass in both hands and breathed around the song, which had become quieter now. Not gone.
Never gone when it mattered.
Just waiting behind everything.
Then Thap reached past him and picked up the tarot deck.
In stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
“I am making a bad decision under supervision.”
“You hate when I read after visions.”
“I hate when you read alone after visions.” Thap placed the deck in In’s lap, but did not let go of it yet. “There is a difference.”
In looked at the cards, then at him.
Thap looked tired. His hair was sticking up on one side. There was a pillow mark on his cheek. He looked too human to be this steady.
Something in In softened, and because he was tired and frightened and his ear hurt, it came out as a weak joke.
“Doctor, are you enabling me?”
“I am preventing you from lying awake until breakfast imagining worse things.”
“That is very romantic.”
“I can also take the cards away.”
“No, no. Romance is alive.”
Thap gave him the deck.
In tried to shuffle.
The cards slid badly in his hands.
He stopped. Took a breath. Tried again.
Paper whispered against paper.
Usually that sound soothed him. Tonight it scraped. Not loudly. Not painfully. Just wrong. Too close to the rhythm under the song.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
His fingers slipped.
A card fell onto the blanket face-up.
The Moon.
In stared.
The room seemed to shrink around the card.
Thap did not ask if he was sure. He did not say coincidence. He did not say anything for a moment.
Then, quietly, “Meaning?”
In’s throat tightened.
“The hidden thing,” he said. “Confusion. Illusion. People looking at one thing while the real danger is somewhere else.”
Thap’s eyes moved from the card to In’s face.
“And?”
In almost lied.
It would be easier to say that was all. To put the card down. To drink more water. To let Thap believe they could sleep again after this.
But the song was still there, and it had teeth now.
In drew another card.
The Tower.
His breath stopped.
The song slammed loud enough that the glass in his hand slipped.
Thap caught it before it spilled.
“In.”
White light. Metal. A rig above a stage. Someone laughing one second too long. A black monitor. A camera dropped hard enough that the lens cracked. A hand reaching—too late, too late, too late—
“In, breathe.”
In folded forward with both hands clamped over his ears.
The Tower fell in his head without landing.
That was the worst part.
Not the fall.
The waiting.
The moment before impact, stretched until it became a place he was trapped inside.
Thap’s hand pressed between his shoulder blades.
Firm.
Present.
“In. Three things in this room.”
In shook his head once, small and desperate.
The song screamed.
“Three things,” Thap repeated. His voice did not rise. “Start with anything.”
In forced his eyes open.
Everything blurred.
“Lamp,” he choked.
“Good. Two.”
“Water.”
“Yes. One more.”
The melody twisted. His right ear popped painfully.
“In.”
His fingers found Thap’s sleeve and gripped it.
“You.”
Thap went quiet.
Only for a second.
Then his hand slid to the back of In’s neck and held him there, thumb pressed into the soft place below his ear.
“Good,” Thap said, and his voice was lower now. Rougher. “Again. What hurts?”
“My ear.”
“Which one?”
“Right.”
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Clearly?”
In closed his eyes.
Thap waited him out.
“Not really.”
“Better than before?”
“A little.”
“Any chest pain?”
“No.”
“Can you breathe?”
In almost said obviously, but Thap looked like one wrong joke might break something in him.
So In nodded. “Yes.”
“No more cards.”
This time, In did not argue.
He wanted to.
The want was there, stupid and familiar. A little hook under his ribs. Draw again. Ask again. Push until the future gave more than broken light and unfinished sound.
But his hands were trembling so badly the deck clicked against itself.
Thap took it from him.
In let him.
The song faded slowly after that.
Not gone.
Just far enough away that In could hear the room again.
The dull hum of the air conditioner. The soft creak of the mattress when Thap shifted. A motorcycle passing outside. Someone dragging something across a floor above them, because apparently even prophecy respected no quiet hours.
Normal sounds.
None of them became music.
Thap checked him anyway.
Of course he did.
Pupils first, with the small penlight from the bedside drawer. Then pulse. Then temperature. Then blood pressure because Thap was the kind of person who owned a blood pressure monitor at home and acted like that was not slightly ridiculous.
In sat against the pillows and endured it.
For about eight minutes.
Then he said, “You know some boyfriends just hug.”
Thap wrapped the cuff around his arm. “Some boyfriends wake up hearing tomorrow.”
“Very small sample size.”
“Hold still.”
“I am holding still.”
“You are making a face.”
“My face is not medically relevant.”
“It becomes relevant when it tells me you are about to lie.”
In clicked his tongue, but there was no bite in it.
Thap pumped the cuff.
In watched his face while he worked.
This was what Thap did when he was frightened. He made the world smaller. Pulse. Temperature. Pressure. Water. Food. Symptoms. Questions with answerable edges. He could not treat prophecy. He hated that. In knew he hated it.
But he could treat dizziness.
He could sit close enough that In’s knee touched his.
He could take the cards away when In’s hands shook.
Sometimes love was not dramatic. Sometimes it was a man with sleep hair frowning at a blood pressure reading like he could intimidate it into behaving.
The thought made In’s eyes burn.
He looked away quickly.
Too late.
Thap saw.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“In.”
“It’s nothing.”
Thap removed the cuff, slower than necessary. “Do you want me to ask again as your doctor or as your boyfriend?”
In rubbed his thumb over the edge of the blanket.
“I hate that it still scares me,” he said.
Thap’s face changed.
Not much. It rarely did. But something softened around his eyes.
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“Because I should be used to it.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” Thap put the monitor aside. “Being used to pain is not the same as not being hurt.”
In let out a small, humorless laugh. “That sounded like a line from a hospital poster.”
“I can make it uglier if you want.”
“Please don’t.”
“You were shaking. Your hearing was distorted. You had a visual episode strong enough to make you lose balance. That is not nothing just because it has happened before.”
In stared at him.
“Well,” he said after a moment, voice weak, “that was uglier.”
Thap looked pleased with himself.
Only a little.
It made In want to kiss him and also throw a pillow at him.
He settled for leaning sideways until his shoulder touched Thap’s chest.
Thap’s arm came around him immediately.
No hesitation.
In closed his eyes.
The song stayed far away, but the shape of it remained. He could feel it like a bruise. A few notes. A stage. A camera. The Moon. The Tower.
Somewhere, something had already started.
He hated knowing that.
He hated more that a part of him was already listening for the next note.
“You need sleep,” Thap murmured.
“I just woke up.”
“You woke up badly.”
“That’s not a real medical term.”
“It is now.”
In smiled into his shirt.
For a few minutes, they stayed like that.
The sky outside began to lighten by degrees. Blue first, then the thin gray that made everything look unfinished. Thap did not let him get up until In could answer questions without delay and drink half a glass of water without grimacing.
Then he made breakfast.
Made was a generous word.
Thap put toast on a plate, boiled eggs with the serious expression of someone handling surgical equipment, and brewed tea so strong it looked personally offended.
In sat at the kitchen counter with The Moon and The Tower still on the table beside him.
He had tried to put them away.
He really had.
His fingers kept stopping above them.
Not touching.
Just hovering there like an idiot.
Thap noticed while pretending to butter toast.
“Leave them,” he said.
In looked up. “What?”
“If you put them away now, you’ll take them out again when I’m not looking.”
“That is a hurtful assumption.”
“That is pattern recognition.”
In made a face at him.
Thap slid the plate over.
“Eat.”
“I am not hungry.”
“I did not ask.”
“This relationship has become very authoritarian.”
“You can file a complaint after two bites.”
In took one bite.
Thap stared.
In took a second, more aggressively.
“Happy?”
“Moderately.”
“You are impossible.”
“You chose me.”
“I was under supernatural stress.”
“You pursued me before the supernatural stress.”
“I gave professional warnings.”
“You appeared in my life with tarot cards and large eyes.”
“My eyes are normal size.”
Thap gave him a look.
In almost laughed.
Almost.
It caught halfway because the ringing in his ear pulsed again.
He set the toast down.
Thap’s expression sharpened.
“In?”
“It’s okay.”
“Is it?”
“It’s just ringing.”
“Just,” Thap repeated flatly.
In looked at the cards.
The Moon stared back, calm and unhelpful.
The Tower looked worse in morning light.
“What if I’m supposed to go there?” In asked.
Thap stopped moving.
The kettle clicked behind him. A tiny, domestic sound. Too loud suddenly.
“There,” Thap said.
“I don’t know where.”
“That makes the sentence worse, not better.”
In rubbed his thumb over a crumb on the counter. “If I heard it, there has to be a reason.”
“There can be a reason without you walking straight into it.”
“How do we know that?”
“We don’t. That is why we make rules first.”
In looked up.
Thap leaned both hands on the counter. His face had gone doctor-calm again, but the fear underneath it was not hidden from In. Not really.
“Food,” Thap said. “Water. Rest. No readings alone. No forcing yourself through hearing problems. No pretending ‘a little dizzy’ means fine. If sound triggers this, we control the sound. If you cannot hear me clearly, we stop.”
“That’s a lot.”
“It can be more.”
“You sound like you already made a form.”
“Do not tempt me.”
In should have been annoyed.
He was, a little.
But under that was something else. Something warmer and more embarrassing.
Thap was not telling him to ignore the song. He was not telling him to stay home and be quiet and let danger happen somewhere else. He was building rails around the edge of the cliff because he knew In would walk toward it anyway if someone might be standing below.
In hated how much he needed that.
His phone rang at 8:17 a.m.
The sound cut through the kitchen so suddenly that In jumped.
Thap’s hand twitched toward him before he stopped himself.
They both looked at the phone.
Unknown number.
It buzzed again, shuffling slightly against the counter.
Thap did not say don’t answer.
He looked like he wanted to.
In picked it up before either of them could turn it into an argument.
“Hello?”
For a second there was only background noise.
A room, maybe. Not a quiet one. People talking far away. A muffled laugh. Something being rolled across the floor. Equipment, perhaps.
Then a man’s voice came through, gentle and careful.
“Hello. Is this Khun Inthu?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Po. I’m sorry for calling suddenly. Baifern gave me your contact. She said you might be open to an interview, but please tell me if this is not a good time.”
Po spoke like someone who knew how to stand at the doorway of a room without pushing it open.
In’s grip on the phone loosened slightly.
“What kind of interview?”
“It’s for a documentary,” Po said. “About music, performance, and the way people connect songs with fate. Sorry, that sounds a little messy when I say it out loud.”
“It sounds like three different projects arguing with each other.”
There was a tiny pause.
Then Po laughed softly. “Yes. That is also accurate.”
Across the counter, Thap mouthed, Who?
In held up one finger.
Po continued, “I’m filming a return-stage documentary for MARS. There’s an unreleased track involved. Fans have been calling it a destiny song even though no one has heard the full version yet. The team suggested adding a small segment with someone who works with fate or belief. I don’t want it to be disrespectful. I don’t want to put you on camera and make it look like a trick.”
MARS.
In knew the name in the way everyone knew famous names without meaning to. Clips on social media. Headlines about concerts. Fans arguing with strangers at three in the morning. Thame’s face on banners. Po’s name attached to a documentary project, then attached to Thame in the kind of comments people pretended were casual.
Thap mouthed again, more impatiently, Who?
In waved him off.
Thap did not appreciate being waved off.
“A documentary,” In said into the phone.
“Yes. Not a variety segment. No scary sound effects. No asking you to predict which member will marry first or something like that.”
Despite himself, In smiled. “Good. I would hang up.”
“I thought so,” Po said, and there was something warm in his voice now. Tired, too. “I’m interested in why people look for signs in music. Why one song can feel like it arrives before you know you need it.”
In’s smile faded.
The pressure behind his right ear pulsed.
Thap noticed.
Of course he did.
He came around the counter without a word.
In put one hand flat on the surface, trying to look casual and failing.
“What song?” In asked.
“The unreleased one?”
“Yes.”
Po hesitated. “I can’t play it for you yet. There are release rules.”
“I understand.”
“The working title keeps changing too. Thame says it’s because everyone has too many feelings and no one has naming discipline.”
Someone called Po’s name in the background.
Po covered the phone badly. Not enough. In heard him say, “One minute.”
Then another voice, farther away, said something about playback.
A sound came through the line.
Only a few notes.
Soft.
Unfinished.
Piano, maybe.
No.
Not exactly.
In stopped breathing.
The kitchen disappeared around the edges.
White stage light burned through his vision.
A microphone lay on the floor.
A camera strap twisted around someone’s hand.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
The melody from before sunrise slipped out of Po’s background noise and entered In’s ear like it had been waiting all morning to be invited.
His fingers went numb around the phone.
“In?” Thap was beside him now. “In, sit down.”
In did not sit.
He could not make his knees understand the instruction.
On the call, Po’s voice changed. “Khun Inthu?”
The melody repeated.
Then cut off abruptly.
Someone in Po’s room said, “Sorry, playback mistake.”
Playback mistake.
The words felt wrong.
Too small.
Too normal.
Too late.
Thap took In’s wrist, not caring anymore about pretending this was just a call.
“In. Can you hear me?”
In nodded once.
It was not entirely true.
He could hear Thap, but he could also hear the song underneath him. The future, humming through a phone speaker from a room he had never entered.
“In,” Thap said, more sharply.
That brought him back a little.
He dragged air into his lungs.
“Po,” he said.
The other end of the line went quiet.
“Yes?”
In looked at the two cards on the table.
The Moon.
The Tower.
His toast sat beside them, one bite taken out of it, stupid and ordinary.
“I think,” In said slowly, because his mouth did not want to work properly and Thap’s fingers were tight around his wrist, “I have already heard your unreleased song.”
Po did not answer.
The background noise continued behind him. People moving. A distant laugh. The soft thud of equipment being set down. The whole world behaving like nothing had happened.
Then Po asked, very quietly, “Where?”
In closed his eyes.
The last note trembled behind his right ear.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
Thap whispered his name then.
Not like a warning.
Like he was trying to keep In from slipping too far ahead without him.