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Porchay Pichaya Kittisawat wakes up to a sun that is too bright through curtains that are too thin in a bed that is too familiar.
This is a dream, he tells himself, because there is no other explanation. He has been living at the Theerapanyakul compound for four months now, has barely left his room, which means that there is no good reason for which he should be waking up in his old bed at his old house. He hasn't come here in a long time.
His phone is ringing with an alarm, he realises belatedly. He stares up at the ceiling. It is a familiar fading white, nothing like the pristine sterility of his room at the compound. He wonders if his alarm is blaring in real life, too, if this is simply reality blurring into the nostalgic fragments of his dream. His dream feels strangely solid.
He sighs when the phone continues to ring. Eventually, he reaches out for it blindly, fumbles with it a few times until he gives up and brings it close enough that he can see the screen to cancel the alarm. He goes back to sleep.
Porchay Pichaya Kittisawat wakes up to a sun that is too bright through curtains that are too thin in a bed that is too familiar.
This is a dream, he tells himself again, because there is no other explanation, because his phone is ringing with the same alarm again. He cancels the alarm, but lingers long enough that his gaze catches on the date.
He blinks. He blinks again. It's cruel, he thinks, downright cruel of his mind to deliver him back here, back now, of all times. It's been six months— to the day, he notes— since Chay lived this day. It has been six months since Chay met Wik at the open house. It has been six months since the date his dreamed-up phone screen wants him to believe it is.
Chay puts the phone down and goes back to sleep.
Porchay Pichaya Kittisawat wakes up to a sun that is too bright through curtains that are too thin in a bed that is too familiar.
This is a dream, but it is strangely repetitive, strangely persistent. He reaches for his phone and cancels the alarm. The date on the screen belongs to six months ago. Chay sighs and looks up at his fading white ceiling. He wonders when he will wake up. He wonders if he will end up here, the dismal morning of the 30th of April, again if he simply closes his eyes again.
Chay is feeling lucid, which is odd for his dreams; he's never been a lucid dreamer, never had any sort of control in his dreams before. Dreams reflect reality, and that's all there ever has been to it. Chay sits up. He swings his legs over the side of his bed. He considers the floor.
He wonders if his mind has re-constructed the shrine. He knows he shouldn't wonder. He does anyways.
This is a dream, he thinks to himself and pushes himself away from the bed to peer around the corner.
There it is, in its perfect and gutting glory, pictures positioned exactly as they had been before Chay had torn them down, the fairy lights still up and twinkling, Wik's face staring back at him from a dozen angles. Kim's face staring back at him from a dozen angles.
Fuck it, Chay thinks. Fuck him.
This is a dream, and so Chay is bolder than he had been in real life, ripping the photos right down the middle, crushing them between his palms. He drops the mug into the trashcan. It cracks audibly, splintering through Kim's face. He is vicious with the fairy-lights, and he notices that wire peaks through the insulation after a particularly hard yank. It doesn't matter. It all goes into the bin.
Chay feels like he should feel satisfied. He's not. He is listless, energy bubbling within him that he does not know how to burn. He could go back to bed. He wants to wake up.
Chay makes himself breakfast slowly, taking his time. He does not make rice and eggs.
It is later, as he is eating, that a call blares through his phone. He wonders how much of this day he will stumble through before he wakes up.
"Hey," Chay answers the phone, mouth still half-full.
"Where are you?" Ohm sounds incredulous. Chay thinks it's how he would have reacted in real-life, too.
Chay sighs. "Oh, you know."
"Chay, the open house."
"I know." Chay peers into his bowl of instant noodles. He has the strangest compulsion to place a square of cheese over it. He's spent too much time at the compound, evidently.
"You're late."
"Sure."
Ohm is quiet for a bit, before he speaks again. His voice is softer now. Chay feels uncomfortable. "Hey, are you okay? You sound… down."
"Mm," Chay agrees absently. He supposes it's true. His hia has yet to bring it up, but Chay can feel the soft frowns he has earned over the months whenever he does see him. It isn't often. Hia is giving him space, as far as Chay can tell, because he has dragged Chay headfirst into this world and he knows it. Or so Chay assumes. Sometimes, Chay wonders if it was inevitable, what with their mother being an apparent honorary Theerapanyakul.
Ohm is quiet again. "Okay," he says. "Do you want me to come over?"
Chay can't help the small smile that surfaces. Ohm is so good to him, even in his dreams. These past few months, it has felt like he doesn't deserve it, if he ever did. "No, it's okay. You go on."
Ohm is reluctant, but he acquiesces eventually. Chay puts the phone down. The rest of the day stretches out before him.
The sun crawls down the sky languidly. The light softens, and then gives away. Chay has not woken up. He doesn't understand it. His dreams have never seemed particularly long, but maybe that's just how they seem while asleep and lucid. Chay goes to bed. There is dread lurking in the pit of his stomach.
Porchay Pichaya Kittisawat wakes up to a sun that is too bright through curtains that are too thin in a bed that is too familiar.
He cancels the alarm. He checks the date. This is a dream, he tells himself, but it's starting to feel like a lie. The shrine is back up again, as though he had never touched it.
He lingers at the shrine. He feels half-mad. He has lived this day, in whatever capacity, too many times. He wonders.
Chay eats breakfast. He indulges in the desire to place a square of cheese over his noodles. He doesn't feel quite real as he makes his way to Ananthamekha University, which is fitting, he thinks, because this is a dream. He meets Ohm near the entrance, who smiles at him.
"Right on time like always," Ohm comments, and Chay manages a smile back. They buzz around the university, from faculty to faculty, until Chay sucks it up and forces his feet towards the music faculty.
Chay recognises the student at the front. P'Pran. He was the one to give Chay Kim's address, the one to point him in Kim's direction when Kim disappeared for too long. Chay wishes he hadn't yearned so embarrassingly loudly for Kim's attention. He should have known it was never his to have.
P'Pran makes his introductions. He is loud and expressive and grinning, and Chay feels nauseous. He knows what's coming. He wishes he didn't. He wishes, bizarrely, that he were that naive little idiot that had bumbled his way up to the open house six months ago.
"P'Wik!" yells P'Pran with a flourish, and the crowd erupts. Chay forces himself to clap along.
Kim is breathtaking. The soft sweep of his hair, the smile that parts his lips, the brightness of his eyes as he looks out into the crowd. Chay knows where he keeps the jacket when he's at home, neatly aligned with his others. Chay knows that his hair falls about his face in loose waves when he does not style it, does not pull it back. Chay knows that he cuts his hair just short enough that his bangs don't fly into his eyes when he curls over his guitar. Chay knows the feel of his hands stroking a drowsy rhythm up and down his arm, his back, thumb rubbing soothing circles into him as he lays on his chest, ear to his heartbeat.
"Who's that?" Ohm whispers, leaning in.
Chay swallows down acid. "Just some singer. He's popular online."
Ohm nods. Chay does not feel the disbelief that he had the first time around, the near outrage on P'Wik's behalf. Chay feels relieved. He is glad, gladder than he has ever been in his life, that Ohm is not a Wik fan.
Chay simply claps along to the song, does not sing the lyrics. He could recite all of Wik's songs in his sleep. He wonders if singing this song now, in this dream, would be equivalent. Kim says his piece, about dreams, about loving things so much it's worth losing all else. Chay's lungs aren't functioning. He breathes shallowly and through his mouth.
Chay does not put his hand up when P'Pran begins with the trivia quiz. Chay stays perfectly silent when the third girl proudly gives her incomplete answer. Chay does not so much as look at Kim. Chay walks away with Ohm. He says, "I'm not sure if this is the uni for me."
Ohm shrugs. "Well, there's other places with music faculties. Wanna look up some more open house dates?"
"Sure."
It's nice to pretend, even if only for one dreamed day, that Chay hadn't lived a certain six months. His chest aches with something hollow.
Porchay Pichaya Kittisawat wakes up to a sun that is too bright through curtains that are too thin in a bed that is too familiar.
He cancels the alarm, checks the date, and sighs. He checks the shrine. He doesn't tell himself this is a dream. He has a sinking feeling he knows what to do.
He eats breakfast. He meets Ohm at the entrance to Ananthamekha University. He wanders around with him until they end up at the music faculty. He listens to P'Pran's mini-speech, claps along when he announces, with that same flourish, "P'Wik!"
Kim looks the same as last time. Breath-taking. A mirage. Chay knows better than to fall for it now.
"Who's that?" Ohm whispers, leaning in.
"A singer. Popular online," Chay answers, swallowing down acid. He failed to inject the enthusiasm he thinks he should for this new experiment. "Haven't you heard of him?" he makes himself continue. "He's really good."
"Oh," says Ohm, then shrugs. "Never heard of him."
Chay lets the song wash over them, claps along, sings the lyrics the way he could in his sleep. He listens to Kim talk about dreams. He dutifully raises his hand at the first and second questions, knowing he wouldn't be picked. Ohm pats his back in misplaced comfort. He raises his hand for the third question, and lets the girl get through her incomplete answer.
"No," he says when she's done, like the respectful boy his hia had raised, "that's not it. There are three songs. In Lost Star, there's a tail of a cat after the hook. In Shape of You, a paw is seen around the intro. And, in I Secretly Like You, there's a cat doll. Does that count?"
His heart is racing. He makes himself smile. He doesn't want to meet Kim's eyes. It feels inevitable.
Kim is staring at him with something like awe, lips parted. Chay feels sick. He hopes it comes off as nervousness, as giddiness. He wonders if Kim knew, then— if Kim knows, now, that he is a Kittisawat. He doesn't see how he wouldn't. Kim stares too long, too intensely. Chay's heart is going to burst out of its cage, land bloody and ugly on the floor, splattering some poor prospective student's uniform on the way down.
P'Pran nudges Kim slightly. Kim's smile is slow, but it looks strangely satisfied. Chay isn't fool enough to think it true, not again, but he feels the old fool in him awaken when Kim brings his hands together in a clap.
"Yes, that's correct!" says P'Pran, grinning widely, and Ohm's arm wraps around Chay tightly, and Chay lets himself be swept up in his friend's excitement. It's blessedly contagious.
He knows that Kim meets his eyes a few times after this. He knows, because he remembers replaying the moment in his mind's eye for weeks after. He remembers the way Kim's gaze had made him burn, the way his heart had raced, the way he had felt, stupidly but shyly, special, being the one to put that smile, that look, on P'Wik's face. Chay keeps his own eyes on Ohm.
Later, he lets Ohm convince him to approach Kim and P'Pran afterwards. He smiles through P'Pran's awkwardness as he explains that he's run out of t-shirts. He bows his head and says he understands and makes to leave.
"You got more than one answer right." Chay hates the way his voice still makes his heart stumble. "Can I give you something else instead?"
No, Chay thinks. I want nothing from you. Leave me alone. Chay affects a giddy chuckle. "Really? Can I?"
He thinks he sees hesitation enter Kim's expression then. He wishes he'd hesitated enough to stay away. Kim never loses his picture-perfect smile. "What do you want?"
Chay clasps his hands together. "I really want to get into this faculty," he says. It makes him cringe to say it again. What the hell had he been thinking? "Can you be my guitar tutor?"
The following silence is no less awkward than it had been the first time. Chay feels himself heat with embarrassment. He's not quite as shameless, quite as hopeful, as he had been, once. He realises now how much easier those qualities used to make his interactions.
"I… I'm sorry," Chay says, and the stutter isn't faked. He turns to leave again.
"What's your name?"
Chay closes his eyes and inhales. As if he didn't— doesn't— already know.
Chay turns around on wooden legs. "It's… Porchay"
He watches Kim, the way he drops his eyes, the sigh, watches him ask for a pen. He can't see any indication that the name is familiar to him. Perhaps it hadn't been, yet. Perhaps he had known he was a Kittisawat and nothing more. Or perhaps Kim was simply an incredible actor. A career change, or addition, would do him no harm.
Chay stumbles back from the pen like it's a gun. Kim is equally skilled in both, he knows by now. Kim doesn't let him escape, his other hand clasping around Chay's shoulder, and Chay feels light-headed. He doesn't want to still feel this way around Kim. He wonders if Kim can feel the thud of his heartbeat through his pen. When Kim's hand wanders to press against Chay's chest, Chay grits his teeth. His lungs are definitely not functioning as they should.
When Kim is done, he looks up with a smile, a smile that Chay could almost believe in. He knows better. Slower than necessary, with intent, Kim clasps Chay's other shoulder. His hand lingers a beat too long as he says, "I hope you get in." It returns again in a pat. Chay tries to muster excitement instead of the tears he can feel burning. He hopes he simply seems overwhelmed.
He feels sick.
He lets Ohm's energy bolster his own, breaking into giggles when Ohm does, but he doesn't look back to wave at Kim. He doesn't think he could take it, another look at Kim, not now. Not ever, maybe, but that was perhaps less realistic.
Porchay Pichaya Kittisawat wakes up to a sun that is too bright through curtains that are too thin in a bed that is too familiar.
No, he thinks, helplessly. No. There are tears now, and they burn as they slide down his face. No, no, no. He's out of ideas, damn it, and this doesn't feel like a dream anymore, and his alarm is so fucking loud, and he reaches for it and cancels it and—
He blinks. He blinks again. He feels another few tears slide free. His chest is simultaneously looser and tighter than it has been mere seconds ago.
It is the 1st of May.