Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Pran had always believed that he and Pat were two parallel lines allowed to compete side by side but never to interact, never to intersect.

It was a fact he had come to accept early on, a quiet truth embedded in the foundation of his life. Pat existed on his own path, reckless and radiant, while Pran followed his, carefully measured, carefully controlled.

So when Pat had become a part of his life again after three years, Pran hadn’t expected anything good to come out of it.

And yet, ironically, they had been parallel once more both in the same position but on opposite sides. But that hadn’t stopped Pat from taking his life by storm on a calm rooftop, shattering the illusion of distance between them. He had proven that they could intersect, that they could be intertwined, inseparable not by their parents, not by their friends, not even by dating separately.

For four years, they had fooled the world together. And in those four years, Pran had started to believe that maybe, just maybe, he could have forever with Pat.

But it was a tale as old as time one Pran should never have forgotten.

Nothing good ever came from him being near Pat.

And this time, it hadn’t been their parents, their friends, or even society pulling them apart. This time, it had been the universe itself at work, ensuring that their paths diverged once again.

So Pran had made a choice.

He took himself out of the equation. No loose ends. No strings attached. He had ensured that Napat Jindapat would hate even the mention of his name.

That was then.

This is now.

As the car pulled up to the hotel, Pran exhaled slowly, fingers tightening around the strap of his bag. The towering structure of glass and steel loomed above him, casting sharp reflections in the evening light. It was an architectural marvel clean, efficient, precise.

Exactly the kind of thing he should be focusing on.

But his mind was elsewhere, stuck in a past that refused to be left behind.

He didn’t know what had changed in the past three years. Didn’t know how much of Pat remained the same and how much had been irrevocably altered.

More importantly, he didn’t know what Pat would do when he saw him here.

Pran wasn’t naïve. Surely, Pat had known that he was the lead architect for this project. He knew they would be working together.

And yet, he had still accepted it.

That meant something.

Didn’t it?

Beside him, Dew remained quiet, watching him with careful, knowing eyes. Pran could feel the weight of his stare, the unspoken concern that sat between them. He didn’t acknowledge it. He couldn’t afford to let anything crack through the composure he had carefully built over the years.

Because soon, he’d be standing in front of the one person he had spent three years staying away from.

And he wasn’t sure if he would survive it.

Pran stepped out of the car, adjusting his posture to mask the slight unsteadiness in his movements. The long flight, the late nights, the exhaustion pressing against his ribs it was all manageable. He had learned how to handle it.

Still, the moment he straightened, a faint wave of dizziness swept through him. It was brief, gone almost as quickly as it had come, but Dew noticed.

“You okay?” Dew asked quietly, stepping closer.

Pran nodded, already moving toward the entrance. “Fine.”

Dew didn’t look convinced. “You should’ve slept on the plane.”

“I did.” It wasn’t a lie. He had slept. Just not well.

Dew sighed but didn’t push. “Just don’t overdo it today, alright?”

A faint smile tugged at Pran’s lips. “I didn’t know you were my mother.”

“I’m worse.” Dew’s tone was light, but the concern in his eyes lingered. “And you don’t listen to either of us.”

Pran huffed out a quiet laugh but didn’t argue. Instead, he pushed open the glass doors, stepping inside.

Because there were bigger things to deal with tonight.

 ***

The air-conditioning droned softly, a steady hum filling the sleek, glass-walled room. Outside, the afternoon light slanted in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting sharp, geometric shadows against the polished wood of the conference table. The space was pristine, impersonal a picture of order and control.

It should have made it easier to breathe.

But all Pran could hear was the erratic thumping of his heart.

He had been early. He always was. It gave him time to settle, to center himself. But today, it did the opposite. He sat stiffly in his chair, fingers drumming absently against the surface of his tablet, the restlessness in his body betraying the calm expression he had practiced for weeks.

Pat should be here by now.

They were both supposed to be here before the client.

Pran told himself it didn’t matter. That it was just another meeting. Just another project.

But no matter how hard he tried, his mind couldn’t let go of the anticipation curling inside his ribs like a vice, tightening with every passing second.

How would Pat react?

Would he be surprised? Would he be angry? Indifferent?

Would he look at Pran the way he used to, like he was the most inevitable thing in the world?

Or worse, would he look at him like a stranger?

A soft chime broke the silence. The door swung open.

And suddenly, he was there.

Pat.

Walking in beside Korn, effortless as always, as if he owned the space around him. He wasn’t dressed like he used to be in college, all casual ease and mismatched colors. His navy-blue button-down was crisp, the sleeves rolled up just enough to reveal the strong lines of his forearms. His hair was shorter, more controlled. He looked older, sharper like a man who had long since figured out his place in the world.

Pran, for the first time in years, felt like he had lost his.

Pat’s eyes flickered over him, just for a second. A brief, passing glance. Nothing more.

He didn’t freeze. He didn’t hesitate.

He didn’t care.

Something inside Pran twisted, sharp and cutting, but he forced himself to keep still, to keep breathing.

Korn, on the other hand, did react. His expression darkened, tension flickering in his eyes as he looked between them. But before he could say anything, the door opened again.

The client had arrived.

Conversations shifted. Formalities took over.

And just like that, Pran and Pat became nothing more than two professionals, sitting at opposite ends of a table, pretending they had never been anything else.

The conference room was cold. Or maybe it was just Pran.

He had rehearsed this moment in his head a hundred times. What it would be like to sit across from Pat again after three years. What it would feel like to meet his eyes, to hear his voice to watch him move in a space where Pran no longer belonged.

But now that it was happening, he wished he had prepared more.

The meeting had barely started, but the air was already thick with silence. Not the comfortable kind they used to share, the kind where words were unnecessary because they already understood each other. No, this silence was weighted, pressing against his ribs, tightening around his throat.

Pran kept his focus on the client, nodding when necessary, answering when expected. He had perfected the art of composure over the years, trained himself to exist in rooms without being seen. But right now, sitting across from Pat, he felt exposed.

Beside him, Dew spoke with ease, explaining their architectural concepts with the confidence of someone who had nothing to prove. His voice was smooth, controlled, steady. Unlike Pran’s.

Across the table, Pat sat stiffly, shoulders squared, hands clasped over his notepad. He was listening, but his expression was unreadable. He hadn’t spared Pran a glance since walking in, hadn’t acknowledged him in any way.

It shouldn’t have stung.

But it did.

The client, an older man in his late fifties, exuded the kind of authority that came with wealth and experience. He leaned back slightly in his chair, a thoughtful expression settling over his face.

“Pran,” he greeted, a rare warmth in his tone. “It’s good to see you again.”

Pran forced a polite smile, dipping his head slightly. “You as well, sir.”

The man’s lips quirked in approval before his attention shifted to Pat.

“I assume you’ve been briefed on the project,” he said, his voice calm but firm. “But let me make one thing clear this is not just another house. This is for my son, for his family, for the life he’s about to build. Every inch of this home needs to mean something.”

Pat nodded, his posture straight, professional. He had always been good at slipping into whatever role was required of him. His expression was composed, his demeanor unaffected.

Pran hated how effortless it was for him.

The client continued, “That’s why I didn’t think twice when choosing who I wanted to design it.” A pause. A deliberate glance at Pran. “He is my ultimate choice. I could trust no one else with something this important.”

And for the first time since walking into the room, Pat finally looked at him.

It was brief. A flicker of dark eyes, barely a second, barely anything at all but Pran felt it like a punch to the gut.

Then, just as quickly, Pat looked away.

“The project is a high-end renovation,” the man explained, flipping through his notes. “We want innovative yet sustainable designs, something modern, but with a timeless appeal. It’s an ambitious scope, which is why we’re bringing in the best minds.”

Pran nodded, straightening slightly in his chair. His hands didn’t shake. His voice remained even.

He had rehearsed this.

“The primary architectural concept aligns with a minimalist yet practical approach,” he said, clicking to the first slide on the screen. “Dew will share the details.”

A simple statement. Detached. Professional.

But everything changed the moment he said that name.

Pat’s fingers, which had been tapping idly against the table, stilled.

A pause. A sharp inhale.

Then, realization dawned.

Pran had introduced Dew by his designation. An assistant. A mere consultant. But then 

“Dew,” Pran said again, turning toward him.

***

Pat’s breath caught.

That name.

Dew.

The man Pran had left him for. The man Pran had chosen.

Pat’s grip on his pen tightened, his knuckles turning white. His pulse pounded in his ears, drowning out whatever Dew was saying.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

Pran had moved on.

And this was proof.

Dew spoke with an ease that made Pat’s stomach turn.

His voice was smooth, confident, effortlessly commanding the room. As he detailed their architectural vision, his hands moved fluidly, gesturing toward the designs with practiced grace. The client nodded along, clearly impressed. Even Korn, usually critical of anyone outside their own team, listened with reluctant approval.

Pat barely heard any of it.

His mind was too busy looping one devastating thought over and over:

Dew is still here.

It wasn’t just that Pran had chosen him once.

He had kept choosing him.

Even now, even here, Dew sat beside him, still so deeply intertwined in Pran’s life. Not as a passing phase. Not as a mistake. As something permanent.

The bitterness in Pat’s throat burned.

He wanted to ignore it. Wanted to be unaffected. But every stolen glance, every seamless interaction between them, made it impossible. Pran barely spoke throughout the meeting, but when he did, it was always in sync with Dew’s thoughts, as if they had long since perfected the art of understanding each other without words.

And when Dew turned to Pran with a quiet, teasing remark something too low for Pat to catch Pran’s lips quirked.

A smile.

A real one.

It was small, fleeting, but Pat saw it. He felt it like a slap.

The meeting droned on, conversations shifting like white noise. Pran nodded when necessary, his expression unreadable, while Dew remained unshakable, answering each question with smooth certainty.

Pat sat through it, numb.

This was what Pran had thrown everything away for. Their late-night whispers, their reckless dreams, their endless, stupid love.

He had traded Pat for something steadier. Something safer.

Maybe even something better.

By the time the meeting ended, the air was thick with things left unsaid.

The client gathered his documents, offered polite handshakes, and left the room with a final nod of approval.

The door clicked shut.

Silence followed.

The kind that pressed against the walls, thick and suffocating, curling around them like an unseen force.

Pran reached for his bag, intending to stand, to move to do anything but sit in this unbearable quiet. But before he could, a hand landed gently on his shoulder. A casual touch. A quiet reassurance.

Dew.

It wasn’t deliberate. It wasn’t anything significant. But Pat felt it like a fist to the gut.

His breath stilled as he watched Dew gather Pran’s things, movements smooth, practiced, too natural. Like this was routine. Like this was normal.

And that’s when it hit him.

Dew wasn’t just some passing figure in Pran’s life.

He was part of it.

Intricately woven into Pran’s world in a way that Pat no longer was.

Something inside him twisted, sharp and aching.

Across the table, Korn, who had been quietly observing the entire exchange, broke the silence with a friendly grin, oblivious to the way Pat was barely holding himself together.

“So, Dew, huh?” Korn leaned back, arms crossed. “What’s your background?”

Dew smiled, unfazed. “I’m a neurosurgeon. Took a break to focus on writing. Architecture has always fascinated me, so I’m here to assist Pran on this project and, in the process, work on my book.”

Pat nearly choked.

A neurosurgeon.

Perfect. Brilliant. Accomplished Dew the man Pran had chosen.

Korn let out a low whistle. “Damn. A doctor and a writer? Now that’s talent.”

Dew chuckled, humble. “It’s just a passion project.”

Korn, completely unaware of the way Pat was drowning in silence, asked, “What kind of book?”

Dew hummed thoughtfully, tapping his fingers against the table. “A mix of things. A little philosophy, a little personal experience. I’d like it to be something meaningful.”

Pat could hardly breathe.

Pran had really moved on.

His chest felt tight, unbearably so. His fingers twitched at his sides, restless, desperate to do something, anything, but all he could do was sit there, suffocating under the weight of reality.

He wasn’t wanted here.

He wasn’t needed here.

He stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor with a sharp, grating sound. No one stopped him. No one called his name.

The door shut behind him with a finality that echoed deep inside his bones.

Outside, the corridor stretched empty. The city lights flickered through the tall glass windows, casting long shadows against the floor.

Pat stopped, pressing a hand against the cool glass.

For the first time in years, he felt truly, devastatingly lost.

Pran wasn’t his anymore.

 ***

The door swung shut behind Pat with a quiet click, but to Pran, the sound may as well have been a gunshot.

For a moment, he stayed rooted to the spot, fingers tightening around the edge of his tablet as if grounding himself. The meeting room behind him buzzed faintly with the muffled sounds of Dew and Korn exchanging final words, but the rest of the world felt oddly silent.

Pat had walked out. Not stormed, not stomped, not made some dramatic exit just walked out, stiff and distant, like Pran’s presence in the room hadn’t mattered at all.

The thought settled like lead in his stomach.

He exhaled slowly, willing his pulse to steady before his feet moved on their own.

Outside, the corridor stretched long and quiet, bathed in the cool glow of city lights filtering through floor-to-ceiling windows. The view should have been breathtaking the skyline glittering against the darkened sky but Pran barely noticed.

Because at the far end of the hallway, standing with one hand braced against the glass, was Pat.

His shoulders were taut, his head slightly bowed, his reflection faint against the windowpane. There was something about the way he stood too still, too rigid that made Pran’s chest constrict.

Pat had never been one for silence. Even in the rare moments he wasn’t talking, there had always been something alive in him, something buzzing beneath the surface. A restless energy that filled every space he walked into.

Now, that energy was gone.

Pran swallowed against the lump rising in his throat.

“Pat,” he said, voice softer than he intended. “Wait.”

The words barely left his lips before regret curled in his stomach. It sounded weak. Hesitant. Like he wasn’t sure if he had the right to say them.

Maybe he didn’t.

Pat didn’t move at first. For a brief, painful moment, Pran thought he wouldn’t. That he would ignore him entirely and keep walking, keep pretending that Pran no longer existed.

Then, with the slow drag of a breath, Pat turned.

Pran had braced himself for a lot of things anger, resentment, maybe even a forced, polite smile but not this.

Not the empty, unreadable look in Pat’s eyes.

It wasn’t indifference, not exactly. It was something worse. Something detached, something cold.

Like Pran was nothing more than a passing face in a crowd.

He forced himself to hold Pat’s gaze. “I… it’s been a while, right?” His voice wavered slightly before he steadied it. “How have you been?”

A humorless chuckle slipped past Pat’s lips, low and sharp. “Pran,” he said, tilting his head slightly. “Who do you think we are?”

Pran blinked. “What?”

Pat let out a slow exhale, shaking his head. “Friends?”

The word was laced with something bitter, something close to amusement but far from warmth.

Pran opened his mouth, then closed it.

Pat’s jaw tightened, his gaze darkening. “I don’t think so.”

A pause. Heavy. Suffocating.

“We’re exes,” Pat continued, his voice even but firm, like he was stating a simple fact. “Exes who, by some twist of fate, are being forced to be project partners.” His lips pressed into a thin line, eyes flickering with something unreadable. “Let’s just tolerate each other at work. That should be enough. We don’t have to be best friends here.”

The words sliced through the air like a clean cut, precise and deliberate.

Pran’s fingers curled around his tablet.

He had expected anger prepared for it, even. Some part of him had thought Pat would yell, demand explanations, throw years of resentment at his feet and make him pick up the pieces.

But this?

This version of Pat the one who spoke with practiced ease, the one who looked right through him as if they had never meant anything at all this was worse.

Pat had always been fire. Blazing, reckless, impossible to ignore. Even in their worst moments, there had always been heat fury, frustration, but never this chilling absence of emotion.

Now, he was something else entirely.

Something distant. Something untouchable.

And maybe that was Pran’s fault.

His throat tightened. He wanted to say something. To argue, to push, to 

But before he could find the words, Pat was already turning away.

No hesitation. No second glance.

The sharp echo of his footsteps faded down the hallway, swallowed by the quiet hum of the building.

Pran stood there, staring at the spot where he had been.

Feeling the cold settle in his bones.

For the first time, he wondered 

Maybe he wasn’t the only one who had changed.

Chapter Text

The office was as it always was-cluttered desks, the low hum of a dozen conversations, the soft tapping of keys and the occasional ping of a message. It was a place where the daily grind went on without interruption, where lives intersected briefly but never in ways that mattered. Or at least, that’s what Pat had told himself. That’s what he had hoped. But then, like an unexpected storm after weeks of calm, he walked through the door.

Pran.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t known this day might come. Pat had prepared himself for it, in his own way. He had buried the memories, shoved them down deep where he thought they could no longer reach him. Four years of silence. Four years of unanswered questions, of phone calls that had gone ignored, of a love he thought was gone, forgotten. Four years of telling himself that he was fine, that he could move on. But here Pran was, standing in the doorway, his presence as unmistakable as the beat of a familiar song. And with him-Dew.

Pat didn’t need to look up. He had memorized the sound of Pran’s footsteps. It was a rhythm he knew better than his own heartbeat-the subtle echo of a pair of shoes against polished floors. But this time, the sound was joined by another set, lighter, less assured. Dew. It was impossible to ignore the change, the shift in the air that carried with it the weight of what had been lost. Dew, who had once been a stranger to him, now a permanent part of Pran’s world, a replacement, maybe, or a reminder of what Pat could never have.

Pran moved as he always did-effortless, confident, like he owned the space around him. His posture was impeccable, each step purposeful, exuding a calm, almost cold, composure. And then there was Dew, trailing a step behind, an obvious contrast to Pran’s poise. His shoulders were tense, his eyes scanning the room with a nervous energy that didn’t quite fit with the otherwise composed scene. There was an unease about him, like someone who had wandered into a room they were never meant to be in. But it was Pran’s presence that commanded attention, drawing the eye, anchoring the room. Dew was just a shadow in the background, a lingering figure in the wake of someone far more important.

Pat’s grip tightened on the pen in his hand, and he could feel the pulse in his wrist, quickening with each passing second. He hadn’t realized how tightly he had been holding it until the sharp sting of the pressure made his fingers ache. His throat tightened as if to choke off the air itself. He shouldn’t care. He had no reason to care. It had been four years, after all, but still-still, the sight of them together was enough to dredge up the ghosts he had worked so hard to bury. Dew, standing beside Pran, was like an unbearable reminder of what Pat had lost. And yet, it was Pran himself who lingered at the center of it all, the one who had walked away.

The hum of the office seemed to swell around him, but Pat was distant from it, as if the world was muffled by the tightness in his chest. He felt a shift, a low murmur from across the room-Wai, perhaps, muttering something under his breath-but it was Korn’s voice that cut through the noise, unmistakable and sharp.

"Should’ve known better than to think time would change things," Korn’s voice was smooth, but there was an edge beneath it, a quiet, simmering fury that Pat knew all too well. Korn wasn’t loud. He didn’t need to be. His words were like a well-aimed dart, meant to pierce, to provoke. And it was clear-Wai had filled him in. Korn knew exactly who Dew was now.

Pat didn’t look at Korn. He didn’t need to. The words, though subtle, carried the weight of something deeper, something more personal. Korn’s resentment wasn’t for Dew. No, it was Pran who bore the brunt of it. Korn wasn’t angry at Dew for being there, for being the one who had replaced Pat. He was angry at Pran-the one who had left, the one who had disappeared without so much as a second thought. It was always going to be Pran. Korn’s bitterness was rooted in that, not in anything Dew could have done.

Dew, too, sensed the undertone of Korn’s words, the slight shift in the air, and he stiffened visibly. His gaze flicked to Korn, sharp and defensive, but he said nothing. It wasn’t as if he didn’t hear it; it was simply that he knew better than to engage. Korn’s anger wasn’t for him, after all. And Dew, despite his unease, was the lesser player in this tense reunion. Korn wasn’t directing his venom at Dew. Dew was just the consequence of a decision that had come long before he had ever stepped into the picture.

Pran, for his part, seemed entirely unaffected by Korn’s words. There was no flicker of anger, no hint of guilt, nothing. He was unmoved, as if this-this interaction, this tension-was something he had long ago prepared for. It wasn’t anger that showed on Pran’s face, nor was it sorrow or even shame. It was resignation. Quiet, cold resignation. And that, in its own way, made it worse. Far worse.

He didn’t say anything. He simply reached out and placed a hand gently on Dew’s arm, a subtle, guiding gesture that moved them both forward. Without a word, they passed by Korn’s desk, the space between them stretching with every second. Dew, still slightly out of place, offered a polite nod, but his eyes never lingered on Korn, never lingered on anyone. His attention was fully on Pran, as it always had been.

Pat’s eyes followed them, even though he told himself not to. His gaze was drawn to the way they moved together, how natural it seemed, how easily Pran led and how Dew followed. There was something there, something subtle but noticeable. Pran wasn’t as unaffected as he wanted to seem. His shoulders were tight, his movements just slightly off, as though he was carrying the weight of something much heavier than what was visible on the surface. Pat noticed it in a way no one else could, in a way that made the knot in his stomach twist tighter.

Pran had always been the one to mask his feelings, to hide what was truly beneath. But now, as he walked past Pat, his posture spoke volumes. Pat could see it-the tension, the unease, the cracks in the calm façade. It wasn’t easy for Pran, not anymore.

Pat forced himself to look away, but even as he did, his heart seemed to beat louder, filling his chest with a pain he had tried so hard to outrun. He wanted to tell himself that none of it mattered, that he had moved on, that this was just another part of the job, of life. But the truth was, he hadn’t moved on. Not really. Not from Pran. And not from the ache that still burned quietly beneath the surface.

-

It wasn’t long before their paths crossed again.

A project review. Routine. Simple. Nothing out of the ordinary. But the moment Pran sat across from him, Pat felt the air shift-felt the walls he had spent years building around himself start to crumble.

Pran looked the same. His hair was still perfectly combed, his gaze sharp as he flipped through the documents on the table. There was that calm composure he always wore like armor. But now, it felt different. Colder. Distant. He wasn’t the same person who had once been his world. That warmth, the easy connection they shared, was gone. And in its place was something hollow, something that left Pat feeling as if he was staring at a stranger.

But Pran wasn’t a stranger, and that was what hurt the most. Pat could feel every inch of that unspoken history between them, the weight of it pressing down on him with every passing second.

He tried to remain detached. Professional. He let Korn handle most of the conversation, offering only terse responses when necessary. He kept his focus on the work-he had to. This was business. Nothing more.

But then, it happened.

Their hands brushed.

It was the smallest of touches. Barely a whisper of contact, and yet it reverberated through him. Pat’s heart stuttered in his chest. It was electric-intense, raw, as if that brief moment of connection had reignited something inside him. He should have pulled away. He should have ignored it, kept his distance. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Neither did Pran.

For a split second, the world stood still. It was as though time itself had paused, holding its breath. Their fingers brushed again, an unspoken question hanging in the air between them. And then, too quickly, too abruptly, Pran withdrew his hand. His posture stiffened, his gaze shifting back to the documents in front of him, but the tension in the air was palpable.

"Sorry," Pran muttered, his voice low, barely audible.

The words landed between them like a shot. Pat opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His mind was still reeling from the touch, from the rawness of it-the way it had made him feel alive in a way he hadn’t been in years. He wasn’t ready to face it, wasn’t ready to admit the effect it had on him.

Finally, the words tumbled out of his mouth, sharper than he intended. "Be careful."

His attempt at nonchalance was ruined by the edge in his tone, the bitterness he couldn’t hide. A slight smile tugged at his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. And as much as he wanted to believe he could shrug it off, he couldn’t.

Pran didn’t reply. Instead, his jaw tightened, the muscles in his hand flexing as he gripped the document in front of him. His eyes flickered toward Pat for just a moment, but there was no anger in them, no defensive shield. It was something else-something that cut deeper, that made Pat feel like he was standing on the edge of a cliff.

Pran looked away, his focus returning to the papers, but there was a subtle tremble in his fingers. The façade of control was slipping, and for the briefest of moments, Pat saw it-the raw vulnerability, the desperation behind the calm exterior. Pran was struggling, too.

Pat hated that he noticed. Hated how much he wanted to reach out, to undo everything that had happened between them, to take back all the pain, all the years of silence. But it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. And as Pran sat there, his composure breaking in small, imperceptible ways, Pat felt something inside of him crack open-something he hadn’t even realized was still there.

The knot in his stomach twisted tighter. He could feel the gravity of this moment-their words, their proximity, the shared history pressing down on both of them. He didn’t know what to do with it. Didn’t know if he could ever face it.

-

By the time Pat left the office, his head was a mess, his thoughts tangled in a knot he couldn't seem to loosen. 

He needed air. Space. Something to ground himself before the weight of it all crushed him completely.

That’s how he ended up at Ink and Pa’s apartment.

The door swung open before he could even knock twice, and Ink’s sharp eyes immediately scanned his face. "That bad?"

Pat scoffed, stepping inside as Ink moved aside. "No idea what you’re talking about."

Pa, curled up on the couch with her phone, didn’t even look up. "You were supposed to work together today, weren’t you?"

Pat let out a heavy sigh, dropping onto the couch beside her. "Yep."

Ink and Pa exchanged a look, one of those wordless conversations siblings and best friends tend to have. It made Pat bristle.

"Pat," Pa said, her voice gentler now, but no less firm. "Are you actually okay?"

"Obviously," he muttered, crossing his arms and leaning back.

Ink snorted. "Uh-huh. That’s why you’re here instead of at home pretending you don’t care."

Pat shot him a glare. "I don’t care."

"Right," Ink said, unimpressed. "That’s why your jaw’s been clenched since you walked in."

Pat exhaled sharply, pressing his fingers against his temples. "It’s just… weird, okay? Seeing him again. Having him there. And Dew-"

At the mention of Dew’s name, the words lodged in his throat. His stomach twisted at the memory of them together, standing side by side as if it had always been that way. As if he had never been there at all.

Ink raised an eyebrow. "Dew what?"

Pat shook his head, dismissing it. "Forget it."

Pa studied him for a moment, then sat forward, her gaze unreadable. "You never actually told us what happened that night."

The air shifted.

Pat’s shoulders tensed instinctively, his body recoiling from the memory before his mind could even fully grasp it.

"You don’t have to," Pa added, her voice softer now. "But if you think we’re going to sit here and act like this isn’t eating you alive, you’re wrong."

Pat swallowed, his throat thick with something heavy, something unspoken. His fingers curled into his jeans, his nails pressing into the fabric.

"I’m over it," he said finally, but even he didn’t believe it.

Ink didn’t even blink. "Liar."

A humorless laugh left Pat’s lips, sharp and bitter. "Fine. You want the truth?" He exhaled hard, running a hand through his hair. "The truth is… he left. And I let him go. And when I couldn’t take it anymore, I begged him to come back."

His voice cracked slightly at the last word, and he hated himself for it.

Pa’s expression softened, but she didn’t interrupt. She just let him speak.

Pat let out a shaky breath. "And he hung up ." He forced himself to keep going, even as his chest tightened. "Not only that, he went so far as to ignore all of you just to avoid me. His own mother ended up taking pity on me before he ever did. And I-" He stopped, pressing his knuckles against his mouth for a moment as if the pressure could force the emotions back down. "I don’t understand how so much could change in a month. And he shouldn’t have come back before I could figure it out because-"

His voice wavered, and he blinked up at the ceiling, trying to swallow it down.

" I don’t know what to do, Pa. " His voice was quieter now, raw in a way he rarely allowed it to be. " I’m so lost. I don’t know how to stop feeling like this. "

Silence.

Pa had seen her brother in every stage of his life-loud, reckless, cocky, stubborn-but this? This was the most human he had sounded in months. Because lately, all she had gotten was a workaholic who barely had time to sleep, let alone feel .

"Pat-" she started, but he shook his head before she could continue.

He forced a smirk, but it was empty, hollow. "It’s fine. I’m fine."

Ink didn’t buy it for a second. "You know you don’t have to pretend with us, right?"

Pat closed his eyes for a long moment, letting out a breath. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.

"He still looks at me like he did before."

The room went still. Ink and Pa didn’t move, didn’t speak. They just listened.

"But?" Ink asked, barely above a whisper.

Pat opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling like it held the answers he was searching for.

"But I don’t know if it means anything anymore."

And that?

That was what scared him the most.

Chapter Text

Pran told himself every day that it was better this way. Better for Pat to move on, better for him to find happiness without the shadow of what was coming. He didn’t want to be Pat’s tragedy, the dark cloud hanging over his future, not when there was still so much left for Pat to experience. He knew, deep down, that his time was running out, and that meant Pat had to let go.

It was a cruel thing to wish for, but Pran couldn’t help it. He had seen the way Pat had looked at him the last few weeks, the way his eyes lingered just a little too long, as if there were a question that Pat didn’t want to ask, a question Pran was afraid to answer.

Every moment, Pran reminded himself that Pat couldn’t be dragged down by him. Pat deserved a future—one free from the weight of his illness, free from the inevitability of loss. It was better for Pat to forget about him entirely, to build a life that didn’t revolve around the inevitable grief Pran would leave behind.

But despite his resolve, the smallest things—the things that didn’t make sense anymore—kept slipping through his defenses.

Today, it happened again.

Pat had left the room for a break, and Pran did his best to focus on the report in front of him, pretending that the ache in his chest wasn’t there. He had to push through it. He had to stay distant. But when Pat returned, it wasn’t with a simple gesture of passing by.

Pat had gone out, to a café or some small corner shop, and came back with a drink in his hand. The cup was familiar—iced coffee, just the way Pran liked it. Less sweet, just the right amount of ice, just the right taste that reminded Pran of how things used to be. No words. No teasing. No playful comments like before. Just a quiet offering placed in front of him, as if Pat had been doing this for years.

Pran’s heart twisted. He wanted to pull away. He wanted to say something cold, something that would make this moment, this fleeting hope, disappear. But his hands were already reaching for the cup, already lifting it to his lips, tasting the faint sweetness that still lingered in the bitterness.

There was no smile from Pat. No acknowledgment of the act. Just a simple, quiet offering. Yet, in the stillness of that moment, it spoke volumes.

Pran fought the urge to choke on the words that formed in his throat. Pat didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to be dragged back into the storm of what they used to have, not when Pran was so close to losing everything. The thought of Pat carrying the weight of his death—the grief, the broken pieces—was unbearable.

But as he stared at Pat from across the room, his back turned as he buried himself in work, Pran couldn’t stop the aching, desperate part of him that still wanted to believe. Still wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, Pat hadn’t let go. That despite everything—despite his illness, despite the time that had passed—maybe they could still be the same team they once were.

He swallowed hard, trying to push the thoughts aside. He wasn’t allowed to wish for that. Not when it meant dragging Pat down with him.

The soft clink of Pat’s pen against his notebook brought Pran back to reality. He couldn’t afford this. He couldn’t afford to believe in something that would only end in more pain for both of them. He couldn’t be Pat’s burden.

He couldn’t be Pat's tragedy.

But it didn’t matter how many times he told himself that.

The hope wouldn’t go away.

Pran could feel Wai’s presence before he even heard his voice—something in the air shifted, a tension building like a storm cloud, thick and inevitable. Just outside the building, where the light of the afternoon sun felt strangely cold, Wai stepped into his path. There was no anger in his eyes, no wild accusations, but the hurt was palpable. It hung between them like a weight neither of them could ignore.

“Why now?” Wai’s voice was low but firm, as though it were the only question that mattered, the one that had been gnawing at him ever since Pran returned. His tone was steady, stripped of the sharpness Pran had feared, yet every word held years of frustration—years of silent, unanswered pain.

Pran didn’t look away. He never did. The truth had always been a little too painful to face, but facing it was the only way to survive. He had known this moment would come, had known that this reckoning would be inevitable when he finally came back into their lives. But that didn’t mean he was ready for it.

“I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care,” Pran said slowly, his voice sounding almost foreign to him. It felt like an excuse, but he had to say it. He needed Wai to understand, even if it didn’t fully make sense. “But I couldn’t risk staying. Not in any way.”

Wai’s lips curled into a bitter smile, though it was laced with exhaustion more than malice. “That’s not good enough.” His eyes were no longer burning with anger—those flames had died out a long time ago. What was left was the hollow ache of abandonment, the quiet devastation that could never truly fade. “You left. You vanished. We were your friends—your family.”

The words stung more than Pran had anticipated. He had known it was coming, yet hearing them—hearing Wai voice the raw, unspoken truth—cut deeper than anything else. “I know,” he murmured, his throat tightening. The guilt flooded back, suffocating him, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

“You hurt Pat,” Wai said, as if it were the simplest fact in the world. He didn’t shout, didn’t raise his voice, but Pran could feel the weight of the accusation settle between them.

“I know.” The words were hollow. He’d said them so many times to himself in the silence of his own mind, but saying them out loud felt like another admission of failure.

Wai paused, his chest rising and falling with a heavy breath. The fire in his eyes dimmed, replaced by something Pran hadn’t expected—something closer to weariness. “So why now?” he asked, the question hanging in the air. “Why come back after all this time?”

Pran’s heart raced, and for a moment, he couldn’t find the words. The truth felt too dangerous, too heavy to speak. But something inside him pushed him forward, made him speak even when he wasn’t ready. “Because I didn’t stop caring. I just…” He swallowed hard, fighting the lump in his throat. “I thought if I stayed in his life, he’d never be able to move on.”

Wai stared at him for a long beat, jaw tight, his expression unreadable. And then, finally, he spoke. “You’re an idiot.” There was no venom in his words—only a weariness, as if he had said this all to himself already and was tired of repeating it.

Pran blinked, caught off guard, but Wai only sighed, running a hand through his hair. “But…” He trailed off for a moment, a deep breath escaping him. “I’m tired of being angry.”

There was a long silence, a kind of quiet that felt like a bridge slowly rebuilding itself between them. And then, as if nothing had changed, Wai added, “You still remember how to fold those origami cranes I used to screw up?”

Pran’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile, a small but genuine one. “I never forgot.”

It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was a step toward something. A small, fragile connection that wasn’t about what had happened—but about what could still be.

The office canteen was halfway full, a low hum of chatter rising from scattered groups of coworkers gathered around small tables. The overhead lights flickered with a faint buzz, and the scent of stir-fried garlic and sweet basil clung to the air, clashing with the overly ambitious jasmine-scented air freshener in the corner.

Pran stood at the entrance for a moment, scanning the room, unsure if he should even be here. His stomach twisted—not from hunger, but nerves. Then he spotted them at a table near the far wall.

Ink was already seated, comfortably cross-legged on one of the chairs like it was her living room instead of a professional workspace. Pa sat beside her, unboxing containers and laying them out with a kind of meticulous care that told him the food had been packed with intention. This wasn’t just “lunch.” It was a peace offering.

And Pat—Pat was there too, just a few feet away at the counter by the microwave, spooning curry into bowls, his back to the room.

It took everything in Pran not to stare.

He moved toward them cautiously, unsure if he was supposed to walk away or sit down. Pa looked up first. Her eyes landed on him with all the sharpness he remembered—but none of the hostility. She didn’t smile. Didn’t flinch. Just picked up another pair of chopsticks and added them to the growing pile in the middle of the table.

“Come on,” she said. “We brought too much.”

Ink glanced up then, giving him that same unreadable once-over she’d always been so good at. “So. You’re alive.”

It was barely a greeting, but it was something. It was enough.

“Yeah,” Pran murmured, moving closer.

No one asked him where he’d been. No one demanded apologies. The air was oddly light, considering the weight of the years that hung between them.

Behind them, Pat said nothing. He continued plating food like he hadn’t noticed Pran’s arrival, but Pran saw the way his hand paused, just slightly, when he heard his voice.

He didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. But Pran knew—knew him well enough to see the way his shoulders had stiffened, the way his movements had grown too precise.

They all sat down together, the food filling the center of the table with quiet heat. Ink passed Pran a spoon without looking at him. Pa nudged a bowl his way, her face unreadable but not unkind.

It felt surreal—like stepping into a memory that hadn’t aged a day.

They ate in silence at first, not the kind that suffocated, but the kind that gave space. Pran watched the way Ink and Pa moved together, the way Pat didn’t speak but listened, his head tilted ever so slightly as if keeping track of everything without admitting to it.

Then, as Pran was halfway through his rice, Ink broke the silence.

“Dew, huh?” she said, glancing sideways at him.

Pran froze.

She didn’t wait for a response. “You left for someone you weren’t even sure would be waiting for you.”

“I—” He opened his mouth, but the words tangled and stuck.

Ink finally looked at him fully. “That nearly broke Pat.”

Her voice wasn’t accusatory. It was tired. Honest. The kind of truth that didn’t come from spite, but love.

“I know,” Pran said softly. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” she interrupted gently, “I don’t think you do.”

He looked down at his food, throat tight.

“But maybe,” she continued, not unkindly, “maybe you thought you were doing the right thing. I don’t agree with how you did it. But I get it now.” Her voice softened just enough to blur the edges of her words. “You’ve always thought loving someone meant protecting them. Even if it hurt.”

Across the table, Pa didn’t say anything, but the quiet way she picked up her spoon and kept eating felt like agreement.

Just then, footsteps approached the table.

Dew appeared, a lunchbox in hand, hair still slightly mussed from rushing over. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, setting the box in front of Pran. “Thought you might need this.”

Pran blinked. “You didn’t have to—”

“I know,” Dew said simply, already pulling out a seat beside him. “But I wanted to.”

The table shifted, chairs squeaking as everyone made room. Pat still hadn’t spoken. He’d taken his seat across from Pran a few minutes ago but hadn’t looked directly at him once.

And yet… the curry in Pran’s bowl wasn’t anything to go by.

—

Later that night, the apartment had settled into quiet. The laughter from dinner had faded, and the dishes sat untouched in the sink. Outside, the city hummed as always, distant and indifferent. Inside, the air was heavier, like something unsaid had been lingering too long.

Ink found Pat on the balcony, leaning against the railing, arms folded, gaze fixed on the darkness beyond. She stepped out with him, the sliding door clicking shut behind her.

“He’s not the same, you know,” she said gently.

Pat didn’t look at her. “Neither am I.”

They stood in silence for a few moments, only the hum of traffic filling the space between them. Then Ink shifted, arms crossed loosely as she looked at Pat.

“You told us he fell for someone else,” she said, not accusing, just stating. “That he broke things off and never looked back.”

Pat’s jaw tensed. “Because that’s what happened.”

“Is it?” she asked softly. “Because if that’s the whole truth, then tell me why he looks like he’s holding his breath every time he sees you. Why he can't seem to talk to anyone unless you're in the room. Why he looks like someone who’s still losing you in real time.”

Pat turned to her then, finally. His eyes were tired. "He made his choice."

Ink studied him. “Maybe. But he also made sure you’d survive that choice. I’ve been thinking about it — the way he cut all of us off. At first, I was furious. Still kind of am. But then I wondered… maybe he did it on purpose. So no one would keep reminding you of him. So nothing would keep him in your life, even secondhand. Maybe that was his way of being fair.”

Pat’s lips parted, then closed again.

“If he’d stayed,” she continued, “still in your life, still around your friends, maybe still with you while loving someone else — that would’ve been cruel. But he didn’t do that. He gave you a clean cut. Honest, sharp, final. As much as it could break him, it was... merciful.”

Pat swallowed hard. “Doesn’t feel like mercy.”

“No,” Ink said. “It wouldn’t. Not when you’re the one left behind. But Pat, you’ve always been the one willing to give everything for him. I know you’d have taken him back if he ever changed his mind.”

“I still would,” Pat admitted in a whisper, like it hurt to say out loud. “But it’s not that simple.”

Ink stepped closer. “Then why are you treating him like you hate him? You were softer when he was gone. Kinder. You defended him even then, when we were all mad. So why be so cold now?”

Pat’s voice was quiet, but his eyes were raw. “Because when he was gone, I could lie to myself. I could say he was happy, that he moved on and didn’t look back. I could pretend that I was the one holding on too long. But now he’s here. And I look at him, and I see everything I’ve spent my life loving. Everything I lost.”

Ink waited. Let him speak.

“I’m not punishing him,” Pat finally said. “I’m not even angry anymore. It’s just—” He faltered. Then, “Four years. Four years and I still can’t forget. I spent most of my life chasing him, orbiting him, loving him. And I only got to have him for such a small part of it. How is that fair?”

“It’s not,” Ink said.

“I don’t think a lifetime is enough to unlove him,” Pat said, voice breaking. “He keeps showing up in everything. In who I am. In who I’ve become. And now I have to sit across from him, laugh with him, work with him—pretend I’m okay when I’m not. I thought I could be strong enough. But watching him stand beside someone else and smile like that? It wrecks me.”

Ink reached for his hand. “He didn’t do it to hurt you, Pat. I think... it was love, too. Just his version of it. He couldn’t stop himself from falling for someone else, but he made damn sure he wouldn’t drag you through that pain. He isolated himself. Gave up his friends. Let himself disappear from your life so you could breathe without him.”

Pat blinked, trying to hold back the tears.

“I know you’ve always been the one sacrificing,” she said gently. “But maybe this time... Pran did too.”

A long, aching silence followed. Then Pat whispered, “Did you know... his mom came to see me? When he ghosted everyone. I think she needed someone who missed him as much as she did. All our lives, she hated us being together. But even she couldn’t support the breakup.”

Ink’s eyes softened.

“She comforted me,” Pat said, like he still couldn’t believe it. “She was grieving him in her own way. But she never blamed me. Not once.”

“She probably saw what it did to you.”

Pat’s voice dropped. “I would’ve given anything if it meant he’d be happy. Still would. But I don’t know how to just be his friend, Ink. I don’t know how to stop loving him.”

Ink’s voice was low but steady. “Then maybe you don’t have to. Not right away. But maybe you can let him try. Because he’s trying, Pat. And he’s not asking you to forget everything. Just... to be in his life again. Even if it’s just as a friend.”

Pat stared out into the night, silent. But for the first time in four years, he didn’t turn away.

—

They started laughing again.

Not like before—not in the loud, unrestrained bursts that once filled campus rooftops and echoed through narrow dorm hallways. These laughs were quieter now, more cautious. They curled at the corners of their mouths, shared in half-smiles across the meeting room table.

It wasn’t constant. It wasn’t easy. But it was happening—slowly, like a language they were both relearning after years of silence.

They weren’t what they had been. There was too much history in the room now, too much grief buried beneath the surface. Too many things that had been said—and left unsaid.

But they were becoming something else. Something quieter. Gentler. Less reckless and more real. And somehow, that terrified Pat more than anything else ever had.

Some days, he’d catch Pran looking at him—not just looking, but seeing him—with this quiet, piercing gaze like he was memorizing Pat’s face one feature at a time. Like he was storing it for later. For when he couldn’t look anymore.

Other days, Pat would turn to say something and find Pran already watching him, expression unreadable but eyes soft, distant. He never asked why. And Pran never explained.

They moved around each other with a kind of deliberate ease now, careful not to cross invisible lines. But every once in a while, something would slip—a hand brushing too long when passing files, a joke only the two of them would understand.

Old habits didn’t die. They simply went quiet.

And still, beneath the lightness they were trying to rebuild, there lingered something heavier. Pat noticed it in the way Pran laughed—how it always seemed to hold just a second of delay, like it had to push past something lodged in his chest. There was a shadow in his smile sometimes, a flicker of urgency behind the calm, like he was always chasing something just out of reach.

Pat didn’t know what it was.

But he knew the feeling. Because sometimes he’d wake in the middle of the night with Pran’s voice in his ears, fragments of old conversations resurfacing like ghosts. He’d remember the way Pran had once held his face and said, “You’re my whole damn world, Pat.” And then he’d remember how Pran had walked away from that world anyway.

And yet, here they were again—together, not as lovers, not as strangers, but something in between. Something still unnamed.

Healing, Pat realized, wasn’t a clean, graceful thing. It didn’t arrive like forgiveness. It didn’t bloom like hope. Healing was jagged. It stumbled. It hurt. It was messy and uneven and exhausting.

But sometimes, in the middle of it, they would find themselves smiling.

Not because it was easy.

But because it was them .

And that, somehow, still meant everything.

Chapter Text

3 years ago

The beach was calm as the waves gently lapped at the shore, the salty air mixing with the scent of fresh pine from the nearby trees. Uncle Tong’s house, nestled near the coast, felt like a world apart from the city, a peaceful retreat that made time slow down.

Pran had always loved it here. The house was simple, open, filled with light, and the sound of the ocean never ceased. It had been the perfect place to celebrate his graduation, an escape from the stress of his degree, a chance to breathe before the next chapter of his life began.

He sat on the porch, the cool breeze tousling his hair as he sipped on a cold drink, watching the sunset with Pat beside him. The warmth of the moment was still fresh, the laughter from dinner with Uncle Tong and Junior ringing in his ears. It had been a good trip, no, it had been more than that. It had been a chance to reconnect, to remember who they were before the weight of the world had settled on their shoulders.

"How does it feel?" Pat asked, his voice low, almost thoughtful. He was staring out at the horizon, his posture relaxed.

"Feels surreal," Pran replied, his voice catching slightly as he looked down at the graduation gown still tucked inside his bag. It was hard to believe it was all over. "Like I’m just… floating."

Pat chuckled softly. "Yeah, I get that. Feels like everything’s changing, but nothing’s really different."

It was true. Pat had been working for his father for a year now, immersed in the family business, while Pran had been buried in his studies. They were both moving forward, but it felt like they were still standing in the same place, rooted in memories.

They spent the next few days unwinding, enjoying the beach, the simple pleasures of good food and quiet company blissfully unaware what loomed over them.

The first fever came quietly, almost imperceptibly. It was the heat of the day that had made him feel flushed, he thought. But that night, it lingered, a low heat in his skin that made him toss and turn. He didn’t mention it to Pat. There was no need to. It wasn’t anything major, just a sign that maybe the excitement of graduation had finally caught up with him.

But the fevers returned.

It was odd, really. Some days, he felt fine, like nothing was wrong. But then, the fever would hit him again, always at the most inconvenient times, like his body was testing him, pushing him to acknowledge something he couldn’t name. He brushed it off, telling himself it was just exhaustion from all the recent events. No big deal.

Then came the headaches.

They began as dull throbs, like the remnants of a long day, and Pran ignored them at first. But then they grew more intense, more persistent, like someone was slowly driving a nail into his skull. He would clutch his head, trying to ease the pressure, but nothing worked. Still, he didn’t say a word. There was no reason to make a fuss. He was fine. 

And then, the nosebleed.

It came late one evening, as they were sitting on the couch of their shared flat, the golden light of the smiley lamps casting long shadows over their faces. Pran was leaning back against Pat’s chest listening to him talk about something, he wasn’t sure what, when he felt the familiar drip of blood against his lip.

It was sudden, sharp. He grabbed for the tissue on the table, trying to stop it, but the blood kept coming, dark and thick.

"Pran?" Pat’s voice cracked through the air, instantly sharp with concern. "Are you alright?"

"I’m fine," Pran said quickly. He wiped his nose again, his fingers shaking slightly. "Just… a little dry. Nothing serious."

Pat didn’t look convinced. He reached forward, gently taking Pran’s wrist in his hand, his touch light but firm, as if he was trying to steady him, to get a better look at the blood staining his fingers.

"Pran, this isn’t normal," Pat said, his brow furrowed. "You’ve been getting sick more and more. Fever, headaches, now this… You should see a doctor. You’ve been pushing it too much."

Pran opened his mouth to protest, but the words caught in his throat. He didn’t think it was big deal, to him it could have been a viral that kept coming back. But Pat’s eyes were wide, unblinking, filled with concern and a trace of worry that Pran couldn’t ignore.

"I’m fine," Pran repeated, this time with less conviction, his voice trailing off. "Really, it’s nothing. Just... bad timing."

Pat shook his head, still not letting go of his wrist. "It’s not just bad timing. You’re not fine. You need to take this seriously. Let me take you to the doctor. Please."

Pran looked down at their hands, his pulse racing beneath his skin. He could feel the weight of Pat’s concern. He tried to smile, to reassure him, but he knew Pat was right.

"Okay," Pran said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "I’ll go."

Pat’s face softened with relief, though there was still a trace of unease in his eyes. "We’ll make the appointment for tomorrow," he said, squeezing Pran’s wrist before releasing him.

, 

The doctor's office was cold and clinical, the walls white, the air still. Pran sat on the examination table, hands clenched in his lap, heart pounding. Every sound, the soft rustle of paper, the hum of the air conditioner, seemed to amplify the tension in his chest. His mind was racing, and yet, every word that left the doctor’s mouth seemed to slow down in his head, taking on a surreal quality, like this wasn’t happening to him, but to someone else.

The doctor was standing in front of him now, a thick file in his hands, his expression neutral, though his eyes were softer, filled with something Pran couldn’t quite place. Compassion? Pity? He didn’t know. All he could focus on was the tight knot in his stomach, the thudding pulse in his ears.

He told the doctor it was probably stress. Overwork. “You know how it is,” he said, offering a polite smile. The doctor nodded, but her eyes lingered a second too long on the pallor of his skin.

Bloodwork. A physical exam. She asked about migraines, about sleep, about family medical history. Pran lied—minimized, deflected. He did not want to be seen.

“We’ll do some tests, just to be sure,” the doctor said. “A CBC, some markers for infection, and a CT if the headaches persist.”

He nodded, barely listening. His hands trembled as he left, shoving the referral papers into his bag, already planning how he would explain any absence to Pat if he noticed.

A week went by. The bloodwork was mostly normal; only a few inflammatory markers slightly out of range. “It could be viral,” the doctor said over the phone. “Just rest for now. If your headaches get worse, come back.”

He pretended to believe her. For a moment, he let himself hope it was over, that he’d wake up tomorrow and the heaviness would be gone.

But the fever came back. The nosebleeds grew more frequent. One night, standing in the bathroom, he watched a thread of blood drip into the sink and felt a wild, irrational anger: at his own body, at the doctor for not finding anything, at the universe for handing him something that didn’t have a name.

He made a new appointment. This time, he barely slept the night before, haunted by dreams of forgetting something vital.

The general doctor referred him to a neurologist, and Pran spent two hours filling forms in a quiet, over-lit clinic where the air tasted like antiseptic and anxiety.

The neurologist was young, precise. He listened as Pran described the symptoms again—this time, less guarded, more desperate. “I just want to know what’s wrong,” Pran said, and heard the quiver in his own voice.

More tests. An MRI. A lumbar puncture, which left him dizzy for days. The world narrowed to appointments, hospital corridors, white coats and clipped voices.

His phone filled with missed calls from Pat, from Dew, from his mother. “I’m just busy with work,” he texted. “Everything’s fine.”

The neurologist didn’t call—he asked Pran to come in for results. Pran’s heart sank at that, but he made the appointment, taking the afternoon off with a fabricated excuse.

The doctor sat across from him, files spread on the desk, a look in his eyes Pran had come to dread.

“Your MRI shows inflammation. It’s subtle, but combined with your symptoms and the markers from your spinal fluid… I’m concerned about a rare autoimmune process. Something called primary CNS vasculitis. It’s very rare—we see it once in a decade, maybe less.”

The words didn’t quite land. Pran stared at his hands, trying to anchor himself to the world.

“It’s not a tumor. But your immune system is attacking your own blood vessels in your brain. That’s what’s causing the headaches, the fevers, the nosebleeds. It’s progressive, unpredictable. Sometimes it burns out on its own, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Pran asked what everyone asks: “Can it be cured?”

The doctor hesitated, and Pran hated him for it.

“There’s no cure. But we can try to suppress your immune system—to slow it down. There are experimental therapies abroad, in Europe and the US. I can write referrals, help you apply for a trial. Here, we’ll do steroids, then stronger drugs if we have to. But Pran, you need to prepare for the possibility that the disease may progress. You should tell your family. You’ll need support.”

Pran nodded. He did not cry. He took the folder of medical papers, the referral letters, the list of medications and side effects. He made it all the way home before letting himself feel anything at all.

That night, he stood in the dark kitchen, listening to the city, and tried to imagine saying the words to Pat. He couldn’t. He simply could not.

Pran’s thoughts were already spiraling, the weight of the diagnosis pressing down on him. But the last thing he could bring himself to do was tell Pat.

Pat.

The name lingered in his mind like an ache, like a heavy burden. What would he do if Pran told him? What would Pat say? How could he ask him to carry this weight, to watch him deteriorate over time? The thought of Pat, the way he had always been so full of life and laughter, having to endure the inevitable, crushed Pran’s chest.

He wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready to face what was happening to him, let alone tell the person he loved the most.

Later that evening, Pran arrived at his mother’s house, his footsteps slow and heavy, as if he was dragging the weight of the world behind him. He hadn’t called ahead, hadn’t planned on stopping by. His mother was always a comforting presence, but tonight, he wasn’t sure if he could bear the weight of her concern, let alone tell her the truth.

The door opened before he could knock, and his mother stood in the doorway, her face lighting up with that warmth Pran always remembered, but her smile faltered when she saw him.

"You didn’t call ahead, darling," she said, her voice soft but teasing. "I would’ve made your favorites." Her eyes sparkled with the kindness that always made Pran feel like he could tell her anything, but tonight, he didn’t know where to start.

Pran tried to smile, but it felt hollow. He wasn’t sure how to hide the fear creeping up his spine, the gnawing dread that had taken hold of him all day. "I didn’t want to bother you, Mom."

But his mother’s sharp gaze didn’t miss a thing. Her smile faltered again, and she stepped closer, her eyes searching his face. "Something’s wrong," she said, her voice suddenly full of concern, that motherly instinct kicking in. "What happened, Pran? You look… different."

Pran’s heart raced. How could he explain this? How could he tell her something so big, something that would change everything, when he wasn’t ready to face it himself?

"I just came from the doctor," he said, his voice quiet, trembling slightly, as if the words were trying to escape without him. "They found something… something wrong with me."

His mother’s expression shifted, and for a brief moment, she seemed to hold her breath, her hands stiff at her sides. "What do you mean, darling? What’s wrong? What did they say?"

Pran swallowed hard, his throat tight, and finally, he looked at his mother. The silence between them stretched like a chasm, his heart racing as his thoughts spiraled. The room seemed smaller now, the walls closing in, and the weight of the diagnosis crashed over him again. He had no idea how to begin, but he couldn’t keep it hidden. Not from her.

"They said it’s neurological," Pran began, his voice barely above a whisper. "It’s... affecting my nervous system. I don’t know how bad it will get, but... there’s no cure for it. Not here, not anywhere right now."

His mother’s face went pale, and her eyes widened in shock. "Pran..." she whispered, her voice breaking. "What are you saying? You’re telling me there’s no cure for this?"

Pran nodded, unable to look away from her face, the fear and worry written in every line. "The doctor said there are some treatments in other countries. Germany, Switzerland, the United States. But nothing’s certain. It’s all experimental right now. I don’t know what to do."

His mother reached out, her hands trembling slightly as she placed them on his shoulders, pulling him into a tight embrace. "You’re not alone in this, Pran," she said softly, her voice breaking slightly. "We’ll figure this out together. You’ll see. We’ll get through this."

But Pran wasn’t sure how. He wasn’t sure how to get through this, especially without Pat by his side. How could he face this, knowing that if he told him, if he let him in, it would destroy everything? Pat had a life, a future that didn’t need to be haunted by this illness.

For a long time, they stood like that, his mother holding him, trying to offer comfort when all he felt was a crushing sense of dread.

The days after the appointment blurred together, the weight of the doctor’s words still echoing in Pran’s mind. "Incurable." That single word had become an anchor, dragging him deeper into a sea of uncertainty. His parents, ever diligent, didn’t waste any time. They researched, made calls, and scheduled appointments with specialists from across the globe.

But no matter where they went, the answer was always the same. Each doctor, each new face, offered a well-practiced empathy, a clinical certainty, but no solution.

One doctor after another, each with their own version of the same prognosis. "There’s no cure yet," they said, as though it was a phrase that had been worn smooth from constant repetition. "It’s progressive, unpredictable. We can only manage the symptoms for now." They all spoke with the same calm detachment, as though they were discussing a distant possibility, not the very reality Pran was now trapped in.

Each visit weighed heavier on him, each doctor's office more sterile than the last. But there was no time to mourn. His parents, ever hopeful, continued to push forward.

In the meantime, Pran had told Pat they were taking a family vacation. It wasn’t an outright lie, but it wasn’t the full truth either. Pat, ever trusting and understanding, had accepted the excuse without question, believing it to be nothing more than a much-needed break. But the reality was different. Instead of relaxing in a picturesque location, they were flying from country to country, desperately searching for any sign of hope, a cure for something no one seemed to know how to treat.

The deception weighed heavily on Pran’s heart, but he couldn’t bear the thought of telling Pat the truth, not yet. Not when they were still grappling with the beginning of what was sure to be a long and painful journey. The idea of Pat carrying that weight, the knowledge of how quickly Pran’s health was deteriorating, felt unbearable.

Finally, after weeks of consultations, one doctor suggested something different, a clinical trial in Germany, run by Dr. Dew Jirawat, a young neurologist who was leading a research project on neurological disorders. The treatment was still in its early stages, but it was the only glimmer of hope in a world suddenly reduced to shadows.

Dr. Jirawat, who was 7 years older than Pran, was known for his cutting-edge research and his quiet but determined approach to finding innovative solutions for difficult medical cases. His demeanor was calm, focused, and professional, and Pran couldn’t help but feel a sense of cautious optimism when he heard his name. This was their chance, their last real hope.

Pran’s parents took the suggestion seriously. The tickets to Germany were booked the next day. There was no time to lose. It felt like fate had forced their hand, and now, they had to take a leap into the unknown.

They arrived in Germany, and the sterile, impersonal feel of the hospital was no different from what Pran had already come to expect. But something about the precision of the foreign system, the clinical efficiency of it all, made it feel like they were walking into a new world. A world where, perhaps, there was still something worth fighting for.

Dr. Jirawat was a striking figure, with sharp features that belied the warmth in his eyes. His dark hair was neatly styled, and his crisp white coat contrasted against the contemporary, sleek setting of his office. He exuded confidence, tempered with the humility that comes from knowing the fragility of human life. He held an air of maturity, and yet there was a sharpness about him that made Pran feel like he was standing before someone who could change the course of his future.

“Pran,” Dr. Jirawat began after looking over his medical records, his voice calm but firm, “you’re in the right place, but I must be upfront with you. We’re still in the research phase. There is no guarantee that this trial will work, but it's the closest thing we have to progress right now."

Pran nodded, though the reality of it all still seemed too big, too foreign to process. The trial itself was a series of experimental treatments that involved advanced neurological therapy, along with genetic analysis, but no one could promise success. What they could promise was an attempt, a chance to slow the disease down, to give him more time.

And that was all Pran could ask for.

The days that followed were filled with scans, tests, and procedures. There were moments when the clinical nature of it all overwhelmed him, when he felt like just another subject in a long line of research. But in the quiet hours of the night, when his parents would drift into a restless sleep beside him, Pran would allow himself the luxury of imagining what more time could mean.

He could see it: more time with Pat, more time to get things right, to be who he wanted to be. But that vision always felt like something fleeting, something out of reach. It was hard to imagine a future when everything felt so fragile, so uncertain. Still, he couldn’t deny the flicker of hope, the tiny spark that maybe, just maybe, this trial could change things.

One evening, after a long day of tests, Dr. Jirawat pulled Pran and his parents into his office. His expression was unreadable, but Pran noticed the slight shift in his posture as he sat across from them.

“I’ve reviewed your case,” Dr. Jirawat began. “And I believe you’re a candidate for the trial. The treatment could have side effects, some severe. But it’s our best shot at slowing the progression of your condition.”

Pran’s heart skipped a beat. This was it. This was the moment that could determine everything. The trial was still experimental, but the doctor had just told him that there was a chance, however small, that this could work.

Pran looked at his parents. His mother, ever the optimist, was already nodding in agreement. His father, quiet as always, was watching him with concern, but there was no doubt in his eyes. They were all in this together.

“I’ll do it,” Pran said, his voice firm, though the weight of the decision nearly crushed him. He was scared, terrified of what this meant, but it was the only option left. It wasn’t just for him, it was for Pat, too. For the future they had, and the one they might not get.

***

Pran sat beside Pat, the quiet hum of the TV filling the space between them, it has been a week since Pran had been back from his “Family Vacation”. Pat had all but thrown himself on Pran as soon as he entered the apartment burying his face in Pran’s neck telling him how much he missed him and complaining about how Pran forgot about him as soon as he saw blue eyed foreigner. They had talked all throughout the trip but it was hard given the circumstance. 

He had asked Pat to watch this movie with him, a film that would end in tragedy. The protagonist, vibrant and full of life, would meet an untimely death, the kind that made your chest ache just to watch. But for Pran, it wasn’t the death of the character that felt so poignant. It was the idea, what if it was him? What if he was the one to fade away, to be lost to something far beyond his control?

Pat, as always, seemed oblivious to the weight in the room. His eyes were glued to the screen, a soft chuckle escaping him as the character on the screen made an ill-timed joke.

“Typical movie hero,” Pat muttered, shaking his head. “They always get the last laugh, even when they’re about to die.”

Pran couldn’t help but smile a little. It was classic Pat, light-hearted, trying to make the best of everything, even when the world felt uncertain. And yet, Pran couldn’t escape the thought that weighed on him like lead.

“Pat,” he began, his voice soft but steady, “What would you do if it was me? If I was dying... like that character?”

Pat didn’t look at him right away. Instead, he reached for the remote, his thumb moving absently over the buttons. “What do you mean? Dying? Pran, did the movie get to your head,” he replied, trying to laugh it off. 

“I’m serious,” Pran pressed, his tone still casual but his heart racing. “If it was me... if I was the one dying, what would you do?”

Pat paused the movie, finally turning his head toward Pran. His expression was a mix of confusion and discomfort, his brow furrowed slightly as he looked at him. “What kind of question is that, Pran?” He let out a small laugh, though it sounded strained. “Come on, stop making me think about that. You’re fine.”

Pran held his gaze, not giving in. “But what if I wasn’t? What if it was me? What would you do?”

Pat shifted in his seat, the easygoing smile on his face fading as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know, okay?” he said, his voice suddenly small. He let out a shaky laugh, but there was no humor in it this time. “Die with you? I don’t know, Pran. Can we not talk about this? Why are you even making me think about it?”

There was no humor in his voice now. No deflection.

Pat stood up quickly, the air between them thick with unspoken emotion. He paced across the room, running a hand through his hair, clearly struggling to process the weight of the question. “Pran, stop making me think about this. I don’t know what I’d do. I, I can’t even, " He turned away, his voice breaking for the first time. “I can’t lose you. Not like this. Not ever .”

The words hit Pran like a punch to the gut, and for a moment, all he could do was stand there, staring at Pat’s back. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even frustration. It was fear, raw, unfiltered, the kind of fear that came from love too deep, from a bond that couldn’t be easily severed.

Pran sat silently in the living room, the dim light from the lamp casting long shadows across the room. The movie had ended, but the silence between him and Pat lingered. It was a silence that had become all too familiar, yet it felt heavier tonight. Pat stood across from him busying himself with plating dinner, his usual cheerful demeanor replaced by something else, a sense of discomfort, perhaps, or unease.

Pran had carefully set up the scenario, tried to gauge Pat’s reaction, but now, with the words hanging between them, he wasn’t sure what he’d expected. He had asked Pat a question he knew Pat wouldn’t want to answer. A question that, despite everything, was still a part of Pran’s reality.

The moment Pat had walked away, his words trembling with the weight of his emotions, Pran knew.

He had to do this. He had to leave. For Pat. For the love he had for him. Because staying, pretending this could work, wasn’t fair to either of them. And the truth was, Pran knew that whatever future they could have had was slipping away, piece by piece, just like him.

***

The next morning, Pran found himself sitting across from his mother, in their living room, her usual warm presence suddenly feeling like a quiet weight. She looked at him, sensing the storm inside him, but not asking any questions, letting him speak when he was ready.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of silence, Pran spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. "Mom... I need to tell you something."

Dissaya tilted her head, her eyes filled with an understanding that made Pran’s heart ache. She didn’t press him. She simply waited.

“It’s about Pat,” he continued, his hands trembling as he tried to find the right words. “We’ve been... together, this whole time. It wasn’t just some fling, Mom. He’s been my everything.”

Dissaya’s eyes softened, and she nodded slowly, the quiet wisdom in her gaze telling Pran that she already knew. She had always known.

“I know, Pran,” she said gently, her voice a soft comfort in the storm of his emotions. “I’ve known for a while.”

Pran’s heart stuttered in his chest. “You knew?”

Dissaya smiled softly, her gaze never leaving him. “I’m your mother. I see things. But that’s not what matters right now.”

Pran looked away, his chest tight with the weight of his emotions. He couldn’t meet her gaze. “I’m breaking up with him,” he said quickly, as though the words were ripping themselves from him.

Dissaya’s face remained calm, but the sadness in her eyes deepened. “Why, Pran? Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s not fair to him,” Pran said, his voice shaking with the quiet conviction that had been building inside him. “He doesn’t deserve to watch me wither away. He doesn’t deserve to carry this burden. He has his whole life ahead of him, Mom. I can’t ask him to stay with me, knowing that I’m going to drag him down.”

Dissaya didn’t speak for a moment. She simply watched him, her eyes searching, as if looking for something more in his words. Finally, she sighed and reached for his hand, her touch warm but firm.

“You’re wrong, Pran,” she said softly, her voice steady. “You’re thinking that by leaving him, you’re sparing him. But you’re not. You’re taking away his choice. You’re making a decision for him that isn’t yours to make.”

Pran pulled his hand away, shaking his head. “I can’t do this to him. I love him too much to let him watch me fall apart. I don’t want him to see me become someone he can’t recognize. This isn’t something I can share with him.”

Dissaya’s eyes softened, and she stood up, walking over to him, her presence steadying him as she placed a hand on his shoulder. “If you love him, then you need to tell him the truth. Not just the version you think will protect him. The real truth. He deserves to know.”

Pran closed his eyes, the weight of her words pressing down on him. He wanted to scream, to tell her she didn’t understand. But she did. She understood better than anyone else could.

“I can’t,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “Not yet.”

Dissaya didn’t press him further. She simply wrapped her arms around him in a tight, comforting embrace. “When you’re ready,” she murmured softly, “when you’re truly ready, you’ll tell him. And whatever happens, know that you’re not alone in this, Pran.”

Pran spent the rest of the day lost in his thoughts, the decision weighing on him. He had made up his mind, but something in him still hesitated, a quiet whisper of doubt that refused to go away. The thought of Pat, of the pain he would cause by walking away, tore at him, but deep down, Pran knew that it was the only choice he could make.

The night fell over the city, and Pran sat alone, staring at his phone, the message still unsent. He had to tell Pat the truth. It was the only way forward. But the words, he wasn’t ready. Not yet.

, 

Pat sat on the couch, watching Pran as he paced in front of him. Something had been off since Pran came back from his trip, and Pat knew it. He’d been waiting, hoping that Pran would open up, but the silence between them had stretched long enough that Pat had finally grown anxious. His thoughts were racing, but he wasn’t worried, not really they always led back to each other whatever it was they could probably figure it out.

He knew Pran. He knew the weight of a secret, the way Pran would hold onto things until he couldn’t anymore. But Pat thought whatever this was, it had to be related to Pran’s family. He had been visiting his parents more than usual lately. Something had to be bothering him, and Pat could fix it. He always could.

"Pat," Pran said suddenly, his voice low, like he was bracing for something big. "We need to talk."

"Yeah," Pat replied, his voice gentle, he knew when Pran got like this he needed reassurance. "I know. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me."

Pran stopped pacing, and Pat could see the tightness in his shoulders, the way his fists were clenched by his sides. Something was wrong. Pat could feel it, like the air had shifted, like the world around them was about to change.

“I’ve been noticing you’ve been acting... different since you got back from the trip,” Pat said, his eyes searching Pran’s face for something, anything, that would explain this sudden shift. "I thought it was just your parents. You’ve been going to see them a lot. If that’s what’s bothering you, I can help. You know that, right?"

Pran’s eyes softened for a brief moment, but the weight of whatever he was about to say was already pressing down on him. He took a deep breath and sat down across from Pat, their wrists touching as Pat reached for him, his hands instinctively wanting to ground Pran, to make him feel safe.

But Pran didn’t look safe. He looked... broken.

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” Pran said, his voice faltering, “and I... I don’t think we can be together anymore. It’s not fair to you.”

Pat’s heart skipped a beat. The words didn’t make sense. Not instantly. “What are you talking about?” he asked, standing up now, his hands reaching for Pran’s almost on autopilot. “What do you mean? Why are you saying this?”

“I just think... I am not good for you anymore,” Pran said, his voice strained, the words feeling like they were being pulled from his throat against his will. He tried to keep his tone cold, detached. He didn’t want to show how much it was tearing him apart to say this. “You deserve someone who can be there for you, who can give you everything you need.”

Pat shook his head, confusion and hurt mixing in his eyes. “Pran, I don’t understand. You’re just going through something, right? This isn’t about us. We’re okay. We always have been. This is just... your parents, your family. It’s got to be related to that, doesn’t it?” He tried to reassure Pran, his voice soft, but his heart was beginning to race. He couldn’t understand what was happening.

But Pran couldn’t stop now. He had to do this. He couldn’t keep pretending that they could have a future when everything inside him was breaking.

Pran didn’t say anything at first, just standing there, his hands shaking slightly as he gripped the edge of the table. Pat’s words seemed to hit him harder than expected, like they were unlocking something Pran had been holding inside for far too long.

Pran’s eyes flickered toward him, but his gaze was distant. Finally, with a shaky breath, he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper, “Pat, I... I need to tell you something, and I need you to understand that I’m not doing this to hurt you. It’s just... I can’t keep pretending everything is fine.”

Pat’s chest tightened as he heard the tremor in Pran’s voice. He leaned forward slightly, his heart pounding. “What is it, Pran? What’s going on?”

The words hung in the air between them, each one heavier than the last. Pran slowly sank down onto the couch beside him, his face pale. “ I can’t keep lying to you. I can’t keep pretending that we’re okay when... I’m not.”

Pat’s pulse quickened. “What do you mean? Pran, you’re scaring me.”

Pran swallowed hard, his voice cracking. “I met someone, Pat. Someone on the trip. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t want it. But it happened. I... I fell for him.”

The words hit Pat like a punch to the gut. He stared at Pran, his mouth going dry. “What? You met someone else?” The fear started to bubble inside him, consuming him. “Is that why you’ve been distant? Is that why we barely talked during the trip?”

Pran’s heart clenched, but he couldn’t look away from Pat’s eyes. “Yes. I was trying to ignore it. I thought if I just came home, everything would go back to normal. But it didn’t.”

Pat felt his world tilt. His chest felt tight, like all the air had been sucked out of the room. “D-Did you cheat on me?”

“No, Pat.” Pran’s voice was desperate, almost pleading. He shook his head vehemently. “I never... I would never cheat on you. Never. I couldn’t do that. It was just... friendship at first. We spent time together, we talked, we connected, but that’s all it was. It was only when it was time for me to come back home that I realized how much it hurt to leave him behind.”

Pat’s hands shook as he tried to process what Pran was saying. “But you... you didn’t say anything to me. You just came back and acted like nothing happened. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know how to,” Pran whispered, his voice trembling. “I thought if I deleted his number, if I tried to forget, maybe it would fade. But it didn’t. It only got worse. I couldn’t ignore it. And the more time passed, the more I realized that I couldn’t stay with you anymore. Not when I’m still holding onto someone else.”

Pat’s face fell. His mind couldn’t make sense of the words. “So that’s it, then? You’re breaking up with me for him? Because you’ve fallen for him?”

Pran nodded, his hands trembling. “No, it’s not just about him. It’s not even about Dew, not really. It’s about me. I need to know what this could be, what I could have with him. And I can’t do that when I’m with you. You deserve someone who can love you wholeheartedly, Pat. I can’t offer that anymore.”

Pat’s heart shattered in his chest. This wasn’t what he had expected. This wasn’t what he had feared. He thought maybe it was just something temporary. But now, the truth was here, raw and undeniable. He had been blind to it all, trusting Pran in a way that now felt foolish.

Pran’s voice broke as he looked away, his eyes filled with pain. “You don’t deserve this, Pat. You don’t deserve to be with someone who’s torn like this.”

“Pran,” Pat said, his voice full of concern. “Whatever this is, it’s not the end of us. It’s just... something you’re dealing with. We can get through it. You don’t have to leave me.”

Pat’s hands were still gripping Pran’s wrists, his touch gentle but insistent, like he could hold onto him long enough to make the pain go away. He didn’t want to lose Pran. He couldn’t even imagine a world without him.

Pran looked down, his breath shaky, the weight of what he had to do pressing down on him. He could feel the sincerity in Pat’s touch, the desperation in his voice. He could see the love in Pat’s eyes, the love that had always been there. But this time, it wasn’t enough. Not when Pran knew the truth.

“Pat, I...” Pran’s voice faltered, the words struggling to come out. “You have to understand... if I choose to stay with you, I will never be truly happy. I will always wonder why I didn’t give myself the chance to find out what me and Dew could be.”

Pran shook uncontrollably as he said it, his heart breaking with each word that left his mouth. He looked at Pat, trying to see if there was any way he could take it back, any way to make things easier, but there was none. This was it. It was over.

Pat’s grip tightened on Pran’s wrists, his eyes searching his face, looking for some sign that this was a mistake. But when he looked into Pran’s eyes, all he saw was pain, pure, unfiltered agony. The kind of pain that only love could create. And in that moment, Pat realized something that crushed him: it was his love for Pran that was causing all of this pain. His love had become the thing that was hurting Pran.

Pat sat back, his hands falling limply into his lap. His eyes never left Pran’s face, but his tears had stopped falling. His gaze was empty now, darker than it had ever been before.

“Then leave,” Pat said, his voice steady but cold, devoid of the warmth it had once carried.

 The words cut through Pran like a knife. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What?” he whispered, his voice cracking.

“Leave, Pran. Quick. Leave before I lose the courage to let you go. Leave before I become selfish.”

“Pat-” He began but was cut off by Pat breaking down.

“Leave, Pran,” Pat repeated, his voice breaking as the finality of it all hit him. “Please. Just go. Go before I can’t bear to let you go anymore.” 

Pran stood frozen, the world spinning around him. His chest felt tight, like he couldn’t breathe. His mouth was dry, and his eyes were wide, unable to comprehend what was happening. “Pat... please,” he started, his voice desperate. “I never wanted this. I never wanted to hurt you.”

Pat’s voice cracked, and he bowed his head, his body trembling as the tears finally came, soft sobs escaping his lips. “Please, Pran... please leave.”

Pran’s legs felt like they might give out beneath him. His body shook with the weight of what he was doing. He wanted to reach for Pat, to tell him that none of this was his fault, to tell him that he was sorry. But there were no words. Not anymore.

With one last look at Pat, broken, pleading, lost, Pran turned and walked out the door. 

***

Outside, the cold air hit Pran’s face, but it did nothing to numb the pain in his chest. He leaned against the wall of the hallway, his body trembling. The emptiness inside him felt endless, like there was no escape from the choice he had made.

Pran pulled out his phone with shaking hands and dialed Pa’s number. “Pa,” he said, his voice breaking, “Pat needs you. He... he’s not okay. Please, you need to get here. He can’t be alone right now. Please.”

He could barely finish the sentence before his breath caught in his throat. It wasn’t just Pat who needed help, it was both of them, and Pran wasn’t sure how to fix it. He wasn’t sure if anything would ever be the same again.

Chapter Text

The office hummed with a typical mid-morning rhythm, phones ringing softly, the sound of keyboards clicking, and the quiet murmur of conversations that would fade in and out like the ebb and flow of a tide. Pat, seated at his desk, was absorbed in reviewing a set of revised engineering plans. The client’s visit had been scheduled for this afternoon, but nothing felt out of the ordinary. He’d been through enough meetings to know how to handle anything that came his way. His mind was already moving through the steps of the project, address the engineering issues, updating the designs, and reassuring the client.

He had prepared himself for the usual back-and-forth, some standard pushback, and perhaps the client’s concern over the timeline. A delay in construction, no matter how minor, could always provoke frustration. 

The door swung open.

“The Client’s here,” Wai’s voice was calm, but there was an underlying tension in the air.

Pat straightened up, smoothing his shirt and readying himself for the meeting. He had been anticipating this moment, but the client’s arrival was strangely sudden today. Maybe it was the unforeseen tension from the last project meeting. Regardless, Pat was confident that he could smooth things over. He had to.

The client, exuding an air of authority that only years of wealth and experience could impart, walked through the door with a purposeful stride. 

Pat extended his hand, smiling with practiced professionalism. “Good to see you again, sir,” he said, a hint of warmth to his voice despite the coolness of the situation.

The client nodded but didn’t return the handshake right away. He was already moving toward Pran’s office, his expression focused, lips pressed in a tight line.

Pat’s hand lingered in the air for a second, confusion flickering across his face as the client bypassed him without a word. His heart rate quickened, an odd unease creeping in. This wasn’t what he had expected. Wasn’t it supposed to be a joint meeting? After all, the issue at hand was with the engineering aspect of the project, his department.

The client pushed open Pran’s office door without hesitation. He entered with his assistant following closely behind, leaving Pat standing in the conference room doorway, still holding his hand out, unsure what had just happened.

Pran, ever composed, was at his desk, his usual calm demeanor barely flickering as the client entered. Pat stood frozen, watching through the glass partition between the two rooms. There was no verbal exchange, no acknowledgment that Pat was even present. The client spoke, and Pran nodded, his posture still professional. But Pat could only see the deliberate focus in the client’s eyes as he addressed Pran.

Pat’s mind raced. He was sure the issue at hand had nothing to do with design or architecture, but still, something felt wrong. Why was the client so intent on meeting with Pran instead? Wasn’t this supposed to be his responsibility? His department? Pat hadn’t even been told about any particular issue that would involve Pran at this point. Yet, here the client was, bypassing him entirely.

Pat tried to rationalize it. Perhaps the client simply preferred to speak with Pran directly, given their established rapport. But the more Pat thought about it, the more it nagged at him. This issue wasn’t something Pran should be dealing with. There had been a mistake with the construction, and Pran was not accountable for it.

Pat didn’t intend to linger.

He had made it as far as the end of the hallway, a few steps past the glass wall, when his feet slowed of their own accord. Just long enough to hear the client’s voice echo through the slight crack in Pran’s office door.

“You said they were the only team you’d work with,” the client was saying. “You gave me your word. So I trusted you. I hired them because you insisted.”

A quiet beat.

Pran answered, soft but steady, “I believed in their work. I still do.”

Pat’s jaw clenched.

He didn’t move, not right away. Just stood there as the pieces rearranged themselves into a picture he hadn’t known he was looking at. One where Pran hadn’t just come back into their lives by chance. He had written himself in, from the edges. Choose the terms. Controlled the timing. Left everyone else to stumble through the shock of it.

And he could’ve just said it.

He could’ve knocked on the door, looked them in the eyes, and said, “I missed you.”

Pat would’ve let him in. He knew that now.

Wai might’ve given him shit. Korn would’ve been mad at him for a couple of weeks. Ink might’ve punched him on reflex. But they all would’ve forgiven him. Even Paa.

Because they all understood why he left. Why he thought staying away was the kinder choice.

Even Pat, especially Pat, had waited years, not for explanations, but for the chance to understand. To make it right. To pick up where they left off, quietly, imperfectly, in their own way.

But Pran hadn’t believed in that.

He hadn’t trusted them with the truth.

He’d come in sideways, under layers of professionalism and project plans, slipping himself back into their orbit like it wasn’t personal. Like it wasn’t everything.

And Pat didn’t know if he was being dramatic or oversensitive or selfish, but it hurt. More than he thought it would.

It hurt that Pran didn’t trust them enough to be honest.

Didn’t trust Pat enough to understand.

Didn’t believe that Pat could’ve been happy for him, could’ve opened the door and let him walk back in, no questions asked.

That, more than anything, was what hollowed him out as he walked away from the door.

That Pran came back, not with truth, not with faith, but with strategy.

And maybe that meant he never really came back at all.

***

The door clicked shut behind the client, and silence rushed in like a wave.

Pran stayed seated at his desk, fingers curled slightly over the edge, the warmth of the conversation still echoing in his ears. It was over. The client had left appeased, his trust momentarily stitched back together with calm explanations and promised corrections. But Pran wasn’t relieved.

He was… restless.

There was something about the way Pat had looked at him through the glass earlier. A quiet storm, waiting. And now, 

The office door opened again. Pat stood there, eyes unreadable.

“Come with me,” he said.

No explanation. No heat in his voice. Just gravity.

Pran rose without a word. They walked down the corridor, neither speaking. Their steps fell into rhythm, like they always used to. One-two. One-two.

Elevator. Fourth floor. Rooftop access.

The open sky, wide and endless, felt like a cruel joke. A lifetime of memories flashed before Pran’s eyes, the countless nights they'd shared under stars, whispered secrets carried away by the wind, laughter that had echoed over rooftops. Now, standing here with Pat again, those memories felt tainted, distant, as unreachable as the horizon.

Pat turned around sharply, breaking Pran’s reverie, eyes fierce with barely restrained emotion.

“How did my firm end up on this project, Pran?” Pat demanded, voice tight and shaking.

Pran swallowed hard, his gaze drifting to the floor. The truth felt heavy on his tongue, yet it had been there from the start, waiting for this exact moment. He could no longer run from it.

“I recommended you,” he said softly, unable to meet Pat’s eyes.

Pat laughed bitterly, shaking his head as if confirming a suspicion he’d held for far too long. “Of course you did. That’s exactly what I thought you'd say.”

Pran remained quiet, every word dying unspoken on his lips.

“So it was all you?” Pat stepped forward, voice strained, eyes bright with hurt. “All this time, I thought, I thought someone actually believed in me. That I was finally getting somewhere because I was good enough. And instead, ” He paused, breathing sharply. “Instead, you just orchestrated the whole thing. Like some puppet master, pulling strings again.”

Pran’s silence seemed only to fuel Pat’s frustration, his voice rising with each word. “Did you think we wouldn’t find out? Or did you just not care?”

Pran opened his mouth to speak, to defend himself, but nothing came out. How could he explain? How could he justify the choice he’d made when every word felt hollow?

“Say something!” Pat shouted, his voice echoing harshly against the walls surrounding the rooftop. “Do you have any idea how humiliating this feels? Did you really think you could just slip back into our lives without ever facing us? Without ever giving me, us, the dignity to choose?”

The wind picked up gently, rustling between them, carrying away words neither could say aloud. Pran’s chest ached with every accusation, every painful truth laid bare.

“I’m sorry,” he finally whispered, his voice fragile, carrying barely enough strength to bridge the space between them.

Pat stared, his expression torn between anger and desperation. When he spoke again, it was quiet, almost broken, each word heavy with a weight only years of pain could carry. “That’s all you have to say”

Pran remained silent, feeling impossibly small under Pat’s gaze. The ache was too deep, the chasm too wide. He couldn’t find the words to heal it.

Pat shook his head, eyes glistening with hurt, voice barely audible as he delivered the final blow. “You know what, Pran? You should’ve stayed gone.”

Those words hit Pran like a physical blow, leaving him breathless. Pat turned away sharply, refusing to look back, leaving Pran alone beneath the open sky, a sky that no longer felt familiar or comforting.

Pran stood there, defeated, staring at the place Pat had just been, his words replaying cruelly in his head. His vision blurred, heart twisting painfully as he let out a shaky breath, the truth settling heavy in his chest.

Maybe Pat was right. Maybe coming back had been a mistake after all.

***

Three days.

That’s how long the office had felt strangely hollow. The kind of quiet that settled in slowly, not with a bang, but with the softest of absences. No soft scuff of worn sneakers across the floor, no rustle of sketch paper, no familiar clink of Pran’s thermos being set on his desk like clockwork. It was nothing obvious, just... missing.

Pat had tried not to notice at first.

He buried himself in backlogged reports, the endless site correspondence, even volunteered to do the material run he usually pawned off on their intern. But every time he looked toward the glass wall of Pran’s vacant workspace, something clenched uncomfortably in his chest. It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t regret. It was something quieter. Emptier.

And on the third day, it got to him.

He found Wai in the breakroom, leaning against the counter as the kettle whistled softly behind him. Pat didn’t bother with a greeting.

“Is Pran on leave?” he asked, arms folded stiffly across his chest.

Wai raised an eyebrow, half amused, half unimpressed. “No. He asked to work from home.”

Pat frowned. “Why?”

“Project’s in a decent rhythm,” Wai said with a shrug. “He said he’d only come in when there’s something he needs to physically inspect. Otherwise, he’ll just submit his plans digitally.”

There was a pause, and then Wai turned to face him fully, eyes sharper now. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Pat stiffened. “What?”

“To not see him?” Wai replied, voice calm but firm. “You told him, no, you practically yelled at him, that he should’ve stayed gone. And now he’s giving you what you asked for. Not to eavesdrop but there's no decent place for a smoke in this office of yours”

Pat opened his mouth, closed it again.

Wai crossed his arms. “He’s working. He’s not slacking. But don’t pretend this is a mystery. You blew up at him and expected him to come in smiling the next day?”

“I didn’t, ” Pat faltered. “I didn’t think he’d disappear again.”

“Well,” Wai said, his tone growing colder, “next time you try to break someone down, make sure you know what will come your way because of it. He left four years ago yes, asshole move or so you want to think but he came back trying to find his friends back, whatever that means. And now, he’s gone again. Not because he wants to be. But because maybe this time, you made it clear you didn’t want him here, that none of us do.”

Silence settled between them, thick and unmoving. Pat clenched his jaw.

“You should figure it out,” Wai said, turning back to the kettle. “And get your shit together.”

Pat didn’t respond. He just stood there, hollowed out in the middle of a bustling office where nothing seemed to sound quite right anymore.

It took Pat a whole day and two false starts to ask for the address.

He found Wai in the workshop corner, hunched over a clipboard, red pen poised. Pat approached with a quiet urgency that felt unlike him, like the air itself had softened him at the edges.

“Wai,” he said, voice low. “Can I get Pran’s address?”

Wai didn’t even look up. “Took you long enough.”

No sarcasm. No lecture. Just a simple answer scrawled on a scrap of paper torn from the edge of a blueprint.

The hallway light flickered above him as Pat stood outside the apartment door, fruit basket in hand and heartbeat out of rhythm. He hadn't rehearsed what to say. That never worked with Pran anyway.

He knocked twice. A pause. Then the sound of a chain sliding, and the door opened, just a crack at first.

He was still in his work clothes, creased slacks, sleeves rolled just once, and his eyes flicked briefly past Dew’s shoulder, searching.

Dew blinked. “Um... hey?”

Pat shifted awkwardly, as if unsure whether he should explain his presence or just hand over the fruit and leave. “Hi,” he said. “Is Pran home?”

Dew glanced behind him. “Yeah. He’s working.”

Pat nodded once, lips pressing together. “Could I...?”

Dew stepped aside without waiting for the rest. “Yeah. Go ahead. I’ll leave you two to talk.”

The door clicked softly behind him, and Pat stepped into the stillness of the apartment.

It smelled faintly of lemongrass and printer ink. The late afternoon light spilled in through gauzy curtains, and across the room, Pran sat curled into the corner of the couch, his laptop open, papers scattered like petals around him.

His head lifted at the sound of the door.

The shock on his face wasn’t subtle. His body froze mid-thought, mid-breath. For a moment, he didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He just stared, wide-eyed, startled, as though seeing a ghost that refused to stay buried.

Pat stood quietly at the edge of the room, the fruit basket hanging at his side like a ridiculous prop. “Hey.”

No response. Just silence. Pran blinked once, twice. His mouth opened, then closed again. The rhythm of the day had cracked at the seams.

“Mind if I sit?” Pat asked gently, gesturing to the chair beside the coffee table.

A slow, hesitant nod.

Pat lowered himself into the chair. He placed the basket down between them, then let his hands fall to his knees. The tension was quiet but thick, like fog, like dust that never quite settles.

“I didn’t mean it,” Pat said finally, voice quieter than usual. “On the rooftop. I, I was just mad. Not about what you did. But that you didn’t trust us.”

Pran’s lips pressed together. His eyes flickered downward, toward his hands, which had unconsciously curled around the fabric of a throw pillow on his lap.

“Why didn’t you?” Pat asked. The question wasn’t accusatory. It was almost too soft, like it had been sanded down by all the days he’d spent thinking it.

Pran swallowed. He looked up, and in that moment, he looked older than he had weeks ago. Like the months had collapsed on him all at once. “I didn’t know how,” he said, voice raw. “How to face you. Any of you. I left like that and I knew it hurt. I told myself it was the right thing, but when it came time to come back… it didn’t feel like I had the right anymore.”

He exhaled, long and slow. “I’ve been lonely,” he admitted, the words fragile, careful. “More than I thought I would be. I missed all of you. I just… didn’t know how to come back and not ruin whatever you’d built after I left.”

Pat stared at him. Not angry. Just full of things he didn’t know where to place.

That silence came back again, but this time it felt gentler, like a familiar coat taken off and laid beside them.

“How is everyone?” Pran asked after a while, voice barely above a whisper.

Pat leaned back against the cushion. “Wai’s still with the no marriage program. Ink and Paa are engaged. Korn’s somehow gotten even louder, still watching Barbie movies when no one’s looking.”

Pran huffed a small laugh. “Not like you weren’t watching them with him.”

Pat looked affronted. “Hey. Those movies have an actual plot.”

That earned him a proper laugh, short and soft, but real. Dimples broke across Pran’s cheeks like sunshine. Pat’s chest ached.

“And the fruit basket?” Pran asked, glancing down.

“What about it?”

Pran gave him a teasing look. “Is that your new apology method? Going soft in your old age?”

Pat rolled his eyes. “You looked like you needed vitamin C. And I figured you’d mock me either way.”

“I did.”

“Exactly.”

They sat like that for a while, quiet, but not uncomfortable, laughs lingering on their face in the form of smiles. The kind of silence that was built on shared air, on long nights past, on rooftop memories and half-spoken promises.

A chime rang through the apartment. The front door.

“That’s the food,” Pran murmured, standing. Dew emerged from the hallway, nodding at Pat before heading to receive the delivery.

Pat stood too, brushing his palms on his jeans.

“I should go,” he said.

Pran hesitated. There was a pause, and then, softly, he asked, “Stay for dinner?”

Pat offered a smile, rueful. “I promised my parents I’d eat with them tonight. Maybe next time?”

Pran nodded. “I’ll walk you out.”

They walked together down the hall, quiet again, but not the same silence as before. Something had shifted. Something unspoken but known.

At the door, Pat turned. “Come back to the office?”

Pran hesitated. Then, “Yeah. I will.”

Pat stepped into the hallway, but he lingered just a moment longer, looking back.

“I’m glad you came back,” he said.

Pran didn’t answer, just smiled, small and crooked, but full of something soft.

The elevator arrived with a muted chime. Pat stepped inside and turned as the doors began to close. Pran raised a hand, waved.

Pat waved back.

The doors shut.

And as the elevator descended, Pat leaned his head against the wall, closing his eyes for a moment, a smile still present on his lips.

There was no saving him.

Chapter Text

3 years ago

The café was barely half full, most of the customers scattered and silent, nursing cups as if the act itself could keep the morning at bay. Light crept in through tall windows, casting slices of gold across the little table where Pran sat, his hands wrapped tight around a cup gone cold long ago. The weariness in his face was bone-deep, a colorless fatigue that dulled his eyes, made his whole body seem smaller, folded in on itself. He looked like someone who hadn’t slept, but also like someone who had forgotten why sleep mattered in the first place.

Wai found him easily. He moved through the sleepy quiet with his usual restless energy, but even that was tempered, the edges dulled. He slid into the seat across from Pran and tried for a smile, but it only reached halfway, faltering before it could become real.

“You look like you haven’t slept. You want to tell me what happened last night?”

Pran’s gaze stayed low, pinned to the table or maybe to his own hands. He breathed in, held it for a moment, then let it go in a way that sounded almost rehearsed. Like this was just another part he had to play.

“I told Pat I met someone. That I need to figure out what that means. That I can’t stay with him while I’m... while I’m still unsure.”

The words came out flat. Not defensive, not even sorrowful. Just the tired, mechanical sound of someone narrating a disaster as if it were a traffic update. Wai stared at him, not quite able to believe what he was hearing.

“That’s it? That’s your story? After everything? You want me to believe that after four years together, you just—what? Fell for someone else on a family vacation?”

Pran’s jaw tightened, the smallest tic betraying something underneath the surface, but his hands were still, cupped around the mug like he needed something to anchor him here.

“It’s what happened,” he said. For just a moment, there was something brittle in his voice, like he might break, but it was gone as soon as Wai tried to see it.

Wai scoffed, louder this time, frustration rising. “You expect me to buy that? After everything you did for each other—everything you went through just to be together? This isn’t you, Pran. You don’t just run. You don’t just leave.”

Pran’s face was all stone, features carved into stillness. The light behind his eyes had faded. Wai saw it and hated it, hated how much it looked like Pran had already left, even though he was still sitting here.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Pran said. “You don’t have to. It’s just... how it is.”

He stared into his coffee like he was waiting for it to tell him how to feel, or maybe to swallow him whole. Silence filled the space between them, heavy and close, until Wai couldn’t stand it.

“What do you want me to do, Pran? Tell me what I’m supposed to do now. Because Pat’s at home, breaking. He thinks he did something wrong. He thinks he failed you. You really want to leave him with that?”

Pran didn’t answer right away. The only thing moving was the slight tightening of his jaw, the careful way he breathed. Then he pushed the cup away as if it was suddenly too much to hold.

“I can’t talk about it. You don’t have to understand. Just accept it. Please.”

Wai stared at him for a long moment, hope and frustration warring in his eyes. Then his voice softened, almost pleading.

“Pran, we’ve known each other too fucking long for this. This isn’t you. I know how you look when you’re lying. Like now. Just—fuck, man. Just tell me. Did Pat do something? Did you? Did you fight about Germany? Because if you want me to talk sense into Pat, I will. Or if you need me to punch him, hell, I’ll do it.”

A laugh broke out of Pran, but it was thin, more a crack in the mask than a real sound. His hands trembled slightly as he shook his head.

“No, Wai. Don’t blame him. This was my choice. I need to leave. I can’t be here anymore.”

Wai leaned back, hands clenched on the table, his frustration turning sharp. “And Pat? You just going to leave him broken? You think he’ll just get over this?”

Pran flinched, shoulders pulling in tighter, but his voice was still hollow.

“He will. You all will. That’s how life works, Wai.”

Wai’s anger snapped. He slammed his palm against the table, sharp enough that a few people glanced over. He didn’t care.

“Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t sit there and act like this is normal. Like you didn’t spend four years making us all believe you were it for each other. Like you weren’t the fucking standard. You fake a breakup for your parents, spend years sneaking around just to be together, and this is what breaks you? Nah. Try again. If you want to break up, fine, but at least own it. At least tell me the truth, Pran. I’m your friend. I’m not stupid.”

For a second, Pran almost looked like he might say something real. There was a flicker of pain in his eyes, then he looked away, the mask slipping back into place.

“I’m leaving for Germany. Don’t tell Pat. I don’t want him to know. He’ll try to stop me, and I can’t—I don’t want to be stopped. I’m asking you, Wai. Please.”

That please sat heavy between them, the one soft thing left in Pran’s voice. For just a moment, Wai’s anger softened, but it didn’t go away.

“You want me to take care of him? No. Do it yourself, asshole. If you cared at all, you’d stay and fix it.”

Pran closed his eyes, fighting something back. When he spoke, his voice was so low Wai almost missed it.

“I’m sorry, Wai. I can’t.”

Wai shook his head, voice shaking with anger and heartbreak tangled up together.

“You’re not sorry. You’re just gone, aren’t you? Well, I hope you find whatever the hell you’re looking for in Germany. Because you’re leaving a fucking mess behind.”

Pran stood, his whole body trembling, but his face stayed blank. He didn’t look at Wai.

“Take care of him, please. Just—just this once. For me.”

His hands shook under the table, out of sight. He took one last breath before he spoke again.

“Tell him it was me. Not him. Never him.”

Wai’s gaze was hard and hurting.

“He’s never gonna believe you stopped loving him, Pran. Not in this lifetime.”

Pran’s shoulders slumped. His voice was almost a whisper.

“I have to go. Please, Wai.”

Wai let out a long breath, a curse hidden somewhere in it. He didn’t look up.

Pran turned and left, shoulders hunched, head bowed, every step heavy as stone. The bell above the door rang out, sharp and clear, and Wai just sat there, drained, furious, aching, and most of all, lost for both of them. He watched the door close behind his friend and let himself feel every raw edge of love, disappointment, and the sadness that nothing he could do would change what was already broken.

—

Late afternoon slumped against the apartment windows and the light looked washed out, as if the day had been rung out to dry and forgotten. Everything inside felt tired. On the table the coffee had been abandoned long enough to grow a skin on top, no one brave or foolish enough to throw it away. Pa perched on the arm of the couch, knees knocking like a metronome that wouldn’t keep time, her fingers digging half-moon shapes into a faded throw pillow she must have held all night. 

Ink didn’t speak, didn’t move, just kept her camera strap wound tight around her wrist, the leather biting into her skin, a silent tourniquet. Korn’s steps traced the same line in the rug over and over again, mumbling his own mantra under his breath, counting out keys and phone and wallet like the right combination of objects might open the door to another world where all this hadn’t happened.

When the lock turned the whole room seemed to freeze. Wai came in, heavy with the kind of tired that comes from not sleeping and not hoping either, his eyes already a warning. Pat was standing up before Wai could even close the door, so full of hope it was painful to see, that bright reckless kind of hope that always gets you hurt.

“What did he say?” Pat’s words tumbled out all at once, urgent and cracked. “Tell me it’s nothing. Tell me he was just—mad. That he’ll come home and we’ll—”

Wai closed the door soft. He just stood there for a second, shoulders slumped. It was like he couldn’t decide who to look at or what to say first, so he looked at Pat the way someone stares at a coming storm, knowing it’s going to break and knowing there’s no way to stop it.

“Sit, Pat.”

Pat didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. “No. Just tell me.”

Wai swallowed, the words sour in his mouth. “He’s leaving.”

Pat blinked, a strange little laugh escaping. “Leaving… where? His mom’s? A week? I’ll go get him—”

“Abroad.” Wai’s voice was flat, careful, every word heavy. “He said he’s going to Germany.”

The air went thin. Pa stopped moving. Korn’s steps faltered. Ink’s fingers flexed and turned white around the strap. The room was as still as a waiting room, holding its breath, the quiet almost ringing in everyone’s ears.

Pat’s laugh sounded wrong now, hollow and sharp and nothing like hope. “For work? A project? He would’ve told me. He tells me everything.”

Wai looked at Pat for a long time. Something in his face went hard and sad at once. He shook his head. “He’s not coming, Pat.”

For a second nobody moved. It was like the world had gone blurry, just for a breath.

“No, you’re wrong,” Pat said, his voice breaking and low. “No, you didn’t—did you even try? You said you would—fuck, Wai, you’re his best friend, he listens to you! Tell me you made him see reason, tell me—”

Wai’s eyes were shining, tired and red. “Pat—he’s leaving. He said it himself. He’s… he’s going after Dew.”

A sound ripped out of Pat, something you don’t hear from a person more than once in your life. His knees gave out and Pa caught him, arms wrapping tight. Pat’s whole body shook, dignity gone, hands clawing at his sister’s shirt as if she was the only thing keeping him from disappearing.

“He’s what?” Pat choked out, eyes wide and wild. “You let him go? You just—let him go, Wai?”

Wai shook his head, voice like a fist unclenching. “I didn’t have a choice. He didn’t want you to know. He knew you’d try to stop him.”

Pat’s hands balled up in Pa’s shirt. “And you listened to him?” His voice tore up, higher and higher. “You listened? He’s lying, Wai! He has to be. He wouldn’t—he can’t. I know him, he’s just… scared or something, right? This isn’t real. Tell me this isn’t real, Wai, please—please, just tell me—”

Nobody moved. Korn stared at the floor, jaw locked. Ink pressed her hand to her mouth, silent tears on her cheeks. Even Pa was crying now, holding Pat like she’d never let him go.

Pat ripped himself out of Pa’s grip, staggered to Wai, and grabbed the front of his shirt. Desperation turned his voice raw. “You didn’t try hard enough. You always said you’d look out for us—so why are you standing here, telling me to let him go?”

Wai grabbed Pat’s shoulders, holding him upright, his own hands shaking. “Pat, he’s gone. He’s not coming back tonight. He asked me not to tell you because you’d chase him, and he couldn’t handle being stopped. He’s already gone, Pat. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Pat fell forward into Wai, face pressed to his chest, sobbing so hard it looked like it might break him in half. His words came out between gulps of air, desperate and shattered.

“He promised. He promised we’d always… always fight for each other. Why is he running from me? Why won’t he let me fight? Why does everyone just let him go?”

Wai stroked his hair, eyes closing. The others were drawn close, caught in the pull of Pat’s grief, as if his pain could crack the walls and bring them all down together.

“You’re allowed to hate me,” Wai whispered, voice so low it barely reached Pat’s ears. “But I couldn’t lie to you. Not about this.”

Pat’s voice was gone now, just a hoarse whimper. “I don’t want to hate you. I just… I want him. I want him back, Wai. Please. I’ll do anything. I’ll… I’ll go after him. I don’t care. I can’t—”

Wai’s grip tightened. “If you go now, you’ll never forgive yourself for the mess you’ll make. He’s already left, Pat. He may be here but he’s already gone.”

Pat sobbed into Wai’s shirt, his body wracked with it, like nothing was left but the sound of goodbye over and over. He used to think he could survive anything as long as Pran was with him. Now it felt like he might not survive at all.

No one spoke. The light faded from the windows and the apartment filled with cold. They all stayed close, trying to hold Pat together, trying not to fall apart themselves, waiting for the morning to come and hoping it would hurt less than the night

—

One Month Later – Germany, hospital room, late night

The hour is late and the world is silent, except for the beeping monitors and the low hum of fluorescent lights. Germany is a long, grey ache outside the window. Inside, Pran is a thin shadow on a hospital bed, a ghost half-finished, sweat and fever tangled in his hair, eyes sunken and restless. The drugs make time move in jolts, everything sharp, then dull again, and nothing feels quite real. He barely sleeps, only drifts and wakes and drifts again, caught between now and memories and the pain that never really goes away.

His phone vibrates, sudden and angry against the metal tray. It shocks him. He jumps. For a moment he thinks he is dreaming, but then he sees the light, the name, that tiny scrap of home burning through the fog. Wai’s name. His chest tightens with something he cannot name. He answers because he can’t not answer.

But it is not Wai. The voice is rough, thinned out, a single thread pulled tight, already broken at the edges.

“Hello?” Pat’s voice, scared, trying so hard to hold itself together, but Pran can hear it breaking, can feel the shatter like it’s happening inside his own bones.

Something claws up Pran’s throat, sharp and alive, panic or love or grief. He forces his voice out, makes it gentle even though nothing inside him is gentle anymore.

“Pat…”

He squeezes his eyes shut, the white hospital lights painting bruises under his lids. The name comes out soft, softer than he means, an apology that is a prayer that is a wound that never healed.

Pat laughs, a sound like glass dropped from a great height, shards everywhere, dangerous. “Did you find him?”

The question cuts. Pran tastes blood in his mouth, but it is old, older than this month, older than even the first goodbye. His hand closes around the blanket, his voice barely working. “Yeah,” he says, and it is the biggest lie he has ever told. “I found him.”

The silence is long enough to feel like a whole season, a whole year. Pat’s next laugh is even worse, and Pran wants to reach through the line, wants to hold him, wants to fix everything.

“Lucky guy. Must be something, huh? Do you love him?”

Pran’s hand is a claw now, wrapped up in the sheet, holding on so he does not float away. “Does it matter?”

“It matters,” Pat says, voice rising and breaking. “Yeah. Because I still love you, Pran. It hasn’t changed. Not a fucking bit. So—so I was thinking. If that’s what it takes, if you need him, maybe... I can share. We can—just, don’t make me live without you. I can’t—”

Pran’s breath comes ragged. His whole body is shaking, his heart too big and too small all at once. “Pat, you can’t. You and I both know you can’t.”

But Pat is Pat, stubborn as the sun, unmovable, fighting even when it hurts. “I could,” Pat says, fierce and hurting. “I’d rather have a piece of you than nothing. I’d take anything. I’d take scraps, Pran. I’d—God, I’d—please, just let me—”

Pran’s tears come hot and fast. He tries to swallow them, but they spill over. “That’s not the kind of love you deserve.”

Pat is losing the battle with his own voice, all the strength leaking out. “The only other option is to live without you and—I’m not doing it, Pran. I’m not. I can’t. Don’t ask me to.”

Pran presses his fist against his mouth, as if he can hold in the secret, hold in the truth. He is trembling so hard the bed shakes. “I love you, Pat,” Pran whispers, his voice nothing but a raw nerve. “That hasn’t changed. But you don’t deserve the love I can give you now. I’m not—I’m not whole. I’m not going to be. You deserve better. Please—”

Pat’s voice cracks like a bone breaking. “Don’t say that. Don’t—don’t do that to me. Just come home. Just come home, Pran, please—”

Pran tries to breathe, tries to keep the room steady, but everything is spinning, the pain in his head getting worse, the ache in his chest turning into something wild. “That’s not what love is, Pat. You know it’s not.”

“Don’t fucking tell me what love is,” Pat spits, but his voice is small, lost, broken all the way through, and Pran hears it, every crack, every plea. “I only know it feels like this—like my skin’s turned inside out. I can’t sleep in my own bed anymore. I sit and stare at the wall and wonder when you’ll call. I wake up and you’re everywhere—your toothbrush, your old shirts, the songs you put on my playlists. It doesn’t stop. It never stops. I’m stuck, Pran. I’m stuck where you left me.”

Pran’s tears are silent now, sliding down his face, hot as shame, as grief. He cannot speak. The words are drowning in his mouth.

Pat’s voice gets smaller, softer, fragile like old paper. “Did you ever think about me, even once? In Germany, in those cities, did you ever look at someone and think of me?”

He wants to scream. Every minute, every goddamn minute. Every morning, every night. Every street in every city looks like Pat if he squints hard enough. But all he says, voice cracked and useless, is, “I think about you every day.”

There is a pause so long Pran wonders if the line is dead, if the world has ended. But then Pat speaks, and it hurts more than anything.

“I’d come,” Pat says, his voice a whisper, broken and true. “If you called, I’d come. I’d run. Just say the word.”

Pran’s heart is clawing out of his chest, wild and hungry, wanting to say yes, just yes, please yes. “Don’t, Pat. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t do that to me.”

Pat asks, soft and broken, “Is he worth it? This new guy—Dew. Is he worth everything you left behind?”

Pran’s lips tremble, words fighting their way out. “No one is worth what I left behind,” he whispers, and his voice shatters.

Pat is crying now, you can hear it, can feel it, all the way across the world. “Then come home.”

“I can’t,” Pran whispers, so quietly it almost gets lost. “I can’t.”

The silence that follows is heavy enough to suffocate.

Pat says, softer than a secret, “I don’t know how to love anyone else. I can’t. You ruined me, Pran. You ruined me for anyone else.”

Pran is choking on his own breath, the pain squeezing every inch of his body. I ruined myself too, he thinks, but he can’t say it. The words are rocks in his throat.

“I love you,” Pran says, barely holding it together. “I love you, Pat. I always have. But the love I can give you now isn’t the love you deserve. You deserve everything, and I—” His voice falls apart. “I have nothing left.”

“Then let me decide what I deserve,” Pat pleads, so desperate it hurts to hear. “Let me decide, just once. I’ll take care of you, I’ll do anything, just—”

“Pat, I—” Pran tries, tries to find something to give, some truth that isn’t poison. “If I could live a hundred lives, I’d find you in every single one. I have to tell you som—”

But then the pain comes sharp, electric, a warm wetness beneath his nose, metallic and real and final. He touches his lip, sees the red, fresh and blooming.

No. Not now. Please, not yet.

Pat’s voice is a distant echo, frantic and scared. “Pran? Are you there?”

Pran tries to answer but his mouth is full of blood and fear. His breath is slipping away. “Pat—I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I—”

His fingers fumble the phone. He ends the call because it is the only thing he can do, because Pat cannot hear this. The phone drops to the sheets, his hands shaking, vision blurred, blood soaking into the collar of his hospital gown, spreading like a stain that will not wash out. His heart is a trapped bird.

Not yet, not yet, please, it’s too soon, it’s too soon.

The world folds and falls away, and Pat’s voice is the last thing he hears, still reaching, still hoping, still breaking, lost somewhere on the other side of the world, the call cut short by blood and fate and everything neither of them could ever control.

Chapter Text

The office hummed as it always did in the mornings, keyboards tapping, the faint crackle of plastic rulers dragged across paper, Wai’s low voice muttering to himself as he marked revisions. It was a rhythm Pran had struggled to fit in from the start.

He paused only a second at the door before stepping in. No one was startled. Wai glanced up, offered the barest nod of acknowledgment, then bent back over his sketches. Korn was half-buried in a call, pen scratching figures in the margin of an engineering log. Nothing shifted. Nothing bristled.

And that, Pran realized, was the welcome.

He walked to his desk, setting his satchel down with more care than he meant to. The last time he had been here, the air had felt brittle, charged with the kind of tension that made every movement echo. Now, it was just… work. Phones rang, someone laughed faintly in the far corridor, Wai’s pencil scratched. He was folded back into the background without ceremony, and strangely, that loosened the tightness in his chest more than any grand gesture could have.

“Morning.”

Pat’s voice cut through, even but not cold. When Pran lifted his head, Pat was leaning back in his chair, one hand on the rolled plans in front of him, eyes fixed on Pran. There was no sharpness there. Just something steady.

Pran inclined his head. “Morning.”

The word felt softer than he’d intended, but it was enough.

Pat didn’t push, didn’t add anything else. He just turned back to his notes, but Pran caught the flicker of something in his expression, relief.

By the time the sun tilted high enough to burn against the office windows, concentration had thinned. Pencils clicked, chairs groaned across the floor, and the stale smell of reheated coffee no longer held anyone steady.

Wai pushed back from his desk, stretching long and slow, keys jangling in his hand. “Noodle shop,” he announced, not so much an invitation as a command.

Korn was on his feet before the sentence had finished. “If I don’t eat in the next ten minutes, they’ll find me face down in a pile of concrete reports.”

Pat slid his chair back with less urgency. His eyes, though, flicked across the room, past the scattered rolls of blueprints, past Wai’s slouched shoulders, landing where Pran sat with his head bowed over a sketch.

“You coming?” Pat asked. The words were casual, but deliberate. A small weight was placed on the table, waiting to see if Pran would pick it up.

Pran’s pencil hovered a second too long before setting down. He looked up, and the air between them tightened like a drawn string. Declining would be easy. Excuses lay everywhere, ready at hand. But Pat’s gaze stayed fixed, patient and certain, the way he had looked across windows once, and Pran as history has caved.

“Alright,” Pran said. His voice was even, but his fingers curled faintly as he gathered his things.

The four of them walked down the street together. Wai talked, half-grumbling about revisions, half-selling his brilliance. Korn countered with stories of collapsing timelines and bickering contractors. Their voices rose and fell like tidewater, filling the silence that threatened to close in around the two men walking at the rear. Pat didn’t speak, but his stride was matched to Pran’s, step for step, an echo he didn’t try to disguise.

The noodle shop was small, steam-blurred windows and tables packed too close, nothing like the outdoor cart near their campus but still comforting. The air smelled of garlic fried until golden, broth simmered deep and salty, chili oil that clung sharp at the back of the throat. They squeezed into a booth, Wai and Korn on one side, Pat and Pran opposite.

Bowls clattered down before them. Steam curled upward, a curtain against the silence.

Conversation limped forward. Wai asked Pran a question about a detail on a site plan; Pran answered briefly, the words clipped. Korn complained about deliveries running late. Pat muttered something about the broth being thinner than last time. Each remark fell into the space and then died, leaving the silence to stretch, taut and glaring.

It was Korn who cracked the silence. He leaned back, slurping the last of his broth, and said with a perfectly serious face, “This feels like a blind date gone wrong. One where nobody’s hot enough to make the awkwardness worth it.”

Wai choked on his tea. “Christ, Korn.”

Pat barked a laugh before he could stop himself, shaking his head. Even Pran’s mouth twitched, the faintest smile slipping through. The tension eased, not gone, but thinned. And Pran could only hope it stay that way.

The lunches became a kind of a routine after tha. Maybe they always had been, Wai deciding when everyone was hungry, Korn tagging along only to complain, Pat slipping into the center of it like he belonged, but now, Pran found himself pulled into their orbit again. At first awkwardly, then inevitably. Like tides obeying a moon.

In the office, the shift was quieter.

“Are you seriously adjusting the kerning on that?” Pat asked one morning, leaning against Pran’s desk as if it were his natural perch.

Pran didn’t look up. “If you’d like your signage to look illiterate, by all means, ignore me.”

Pat made a show of squinting. “Looks fine to me.”

“That’s because your handwriting resembles worms crawling out of mud.”

“Now you are just being childish” Pat huffed clearly the pouting, and Pran only smirked in response.

Across the room, Wai muttered, “God save us, it’s happening again.” Korn snorted into his coffee.

By the end of that week, the teasing had spilled past the walls of the office.They crammed into a noodle stall, steam curling around them, the air rich with garlic and chili.

Pran reached for the jar automatically, spooning crimson flakes into his broth.

“Still trying to burn holes in your stomach,” Pat remarked, smirk sharp as ever.

Pran didn’t bother answering. He simply added another spoonful, stirred, and took a slow, deliberate bite.

Pat leaned forward. “Bet you can’t do three more.”

“Bet you can’t do one.”

The table erupted, Wai groaning, Korn egging them on like a referee. Pat, foolishly, dipped his spoon into the chili and swallowed. His face flushed crimson instantly.

“Water,” he croaked, flailing and grabbing for his glass. Ace completely red, tongue out.

Pran slid it toward him with deliberate slowness. “Weak.”

The laughter was merciless, Wai pounding the table, Korn wheezing into his napkin. Pat glared, eyes watering.

“You’re evil,” he rasped.

“You started it,” Pran said calmly, finishing his broth without so much as a sniffle.

And for a moment, the years between them blurred.

The pattern held sometimes dew will drop by he preferred not to, something about intermittent fasting that none of them really got except Pran. No one ever spoke about it aloud but everyone understood it would happen. They never scheduled, never planned, but somehow found themselves walking out together, slipping back into a rhythm that felt almost natural.

Sometimes Ink and Paa joined as too if they could spare time.

They would crowd around two pushed-together tables, noise spilling into the restaurant. Ink slouched in her seat, smirking at both of them.

“God, it’s like high school all over again,” she said, pointing between Pran and Pat. “You two bicker, and the rest of us suffer.”

“Some things never change,” Pat muttered, stabbing at his rice.

“Except back then,” Ink added sweetly, “you had a crush on me. Remember that?”

Pat choked. 

Even Paa, usually the quiet one in these lunches, grinned. Her gaze lingered on Pran for a beat too long, soft, conflicted, remembering something older than any of them. He pretended not to notice, focusing on his food.

The table buzzed with stories, laughter, old names from high school halls and university corridors. For once, Pran didn’t feel like an outsider peering in. For once, he let himself laugh without swallowing it down.

By the third week, the lunches had solidified into ritual. No one called it that, but Pran felt it in the way Wai automatically grabbed the corner table, in the way Korn always demanded extra limes, in the way Pat nudged his chopsticks into Pran’s bowl as if it were a right, not a request.

It was during one of those meals that the world tilted.

“Shift your chair,” Wai barked at Korn, who had elbowed him too hard reaching for condiments.

“Stop sprawling like you own the place,” Korn shot back.

Pran rolled his eyes. “Still at each other’s throats, I see.”

“Actually,” Wai said casually, “we own a bar together.”

Pran froze, spoon halfway to his mouth. “…You what?”

“A bar,” Korn repeated, smug. “Best one in the city. He handles the books, I handle the beer.”

“Wow no one would believe me if I ever told them about your first year adventures. You two hated each other.”

“We still do, and besides we made peace for our friends,” Wai said dryly.

Pran could only sit there, startled. 

Later, walking back to the office, the laughter lingered around him like warmth. But underneath it was the weight he couldn’t shake.

He had laughed, yes. Teased, competed, even let himself feel the rush of belonging again. But each smile felt like borrowed time. A fragile reprieve.

Because the truth lay beneath the surface: he had left them once. He had broken them once.
And no amount of chili bets or old jokes could erase that.

Not yet.

The office was unusually quiet that afternoon, the kind of lull that came after a client storm but before the next crisis brewed. Papers rustled, keyboards clicked, the steady whir of the printer filled the corners.

Pran sat hunched over a drawing board, pencil tapping against the margin. The structural grid wasn’t lining up with the electrical schematics, and no matter how many times he traced the measurements, the lines refused to cooperate.

Pat dropped into the chair beside him without asking. He leaned over, the scent of coffee clinging to him, eyes scanning the same stubborn lines.

“You shifted the axis too far east,” Pat murmured.

“No,” Pran countered automatically, “your beam dimensions are off. If I adjust to you, the ventilation collapses.”

“Ventilation can reroute.”

“Not with the duct clearance you gave it.”

They spoke over each other, sentences folding into sentences, their voices rising and falling like two hands playing the same piano. Without pausing, Pat flipped the sheet sideways, Pran slid the scale ruler across, their hands nearly colliding.

“—if we move the main duct half a meter—”

“—then I can tighten the span load here—”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly.”

The word hung there, both of them realizing they had spoken it in the same breath. Neither looked up, too absorbed in the problem, in the old rhythm that fit too easily.

Across the room, Wai leaned back in his chair, eyebrows raised. Korn caught his eye, smirking.

At the table, Pat reached for the pencil just as Pran did, their fingers brushing. Neither pulled back.

“Give me that.”

“You’ll ruin the line.”

“You think too much.”

“You don’t think enough.”

It was the old script, so familiar it barely needed rehearsal. Their eyes met for a fraction too long before Pran cleared his throat and looked back at the page, pretending nothing had happened.

But the spark was there, caught in the air between them, humming quiet as electricity under skin.

Wai sighed. “This office is doomed.”

Korn grinned. “Or blessed. Depends how you look at it.”

—

The office was subdued, the kind of day when half the staff had trickled out early for site checks and errands. Light slanted in through the blinds, laying pale stripes across the desks. The hum of the air-conditioning was louder than the murmur of keys.

Pat sat at his station, eyes on the structural report spread across his screen, but his focus kept snagging. It wasn’t the numbers. It was something else. A pull, like a thread tugging at the back of his neck.

He knew that feeling. He’d known it in classrooms, in studios, in the quiet of library corners, the unmistakable weight of being looked at. Not just anyone’s gaze, but Pran’s.

Carefully, he lifted his head. Across the glass partition, Pran was bent over a sketch, pen scratching steady lines, profile calm and impassive. Not looking at him at all.

Pat frowned, pushed the thought away, returned to the report. A minute later, the tug was back, sharper this time. He glanced up again. Same scene. Pran working, unbothered, not even aware.

Except Pat knew. He knew the heat of those eyes, the way it prickled against his skin, the way it made his pulse trip over itself. He’d been watched like this before, years ago, when everything between them was still delicate and new.

On impulse, he shifted his phone slightly on the desk, angling the black screen until it reflected the space behind him.

And there it was.

Pran’s gaze, steady, fixed on him, softened in a way Pat couldn’t name, as if staring at him wasn’t a choice but a necessity.

Pat swallowed hard, dragging a hand across his mouth. His chest was too tight, his breath unsteady, something raw and dangerous stirring under his ribs. His heart was pounding so loud he was afraid the whole room could hear it.

It wasn’t anger that he felt. It wasn’t relief. It was something far more treacherous: hope.

And it rattled him to the core.

—

The apartment was soft with lamplight, the city a blurred glow beyond the balcony. Pran sat at the dining table, laptop open, half a dozen sheets of tracing paper scattered around like snow. His sleeves were pushed to his elbows, a pencil tucked behind one ear. There was something restless in the way he worked, a rhythm that hadn’t been there in years.

Dew watched from the kitchen doorway, arms folded loosely, expression unreadable.

He’d grown used to a different Pran: the calm one, the steady one, who woke early to take his pills and who liked his tea just so. The Pran who smiled softly at hospital children, who drew for them in waiting rooms, who faced every scan and setback with quiet resilience. That Pran was strong, stronger than most, but muted. Like sunlight behind glass.

This version? The one he’d been seeing over the last few weeks, quick, sharp, alive in a way that startled him, was something else entirely.

“Long day?” Dew asked gently.

Pran didn’t look up. “Long, but good.” He was smiling faintly as he sketched, a small, satisfied curve of lips.

Dew moved closer, resting his hip against the edge of the table. “You’ve been… different lately.”

“Different?”

“Yeah.” Dew’s voice was low, careful. “At work. Around them. You’re louder. Sharper. You laugh more. You argue.” He hesitated, searching for the right words. “I’ve never seen you this alive. I didn’t know this version of you existed.”

The pencil paused mid-line. Pran’s shoulders stilled. For a moment, he didn’t answer. Then he leaned back, the smallest of smiles tugging at his mouth, not joyful, but soft, wistful.

“You never got to meet the real Pran,” he said finally. “He was a real pain in the ass”

Dew frowned slightly, not out of offense but sorrow. “I don’t think that’s true. I’ve known you at your strongest.”

Pran shook his head. “Strong isn’t the same as being alive.”

The words hung in the air, weightless and devastating. Dew reached out, clapping a hand on his shoulder

 grounding him. “Then maybe it’s good he’s coming back.”

Pran looked at him, eyes shadowed with something unreadable, gratitude, maybe, or quiet defeat. “Maybe,” he said. But his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Outside, the sound of traffic softened to a lull. Inside, the lamp flickered once before steadying.

Dew stayed there beside him as Pran turned back to his sketches, the lines precise but his expression distant, like a man reliving a life he already knew he wouldn’t get to keep..

—

It was supposed to be a celebration.

The project had finally passed client review for the initial key stage, and after weeks of long nights and caffeine-fueled panic, Wai declared the team deserved a proper dinner. Not just takeout or beer at the office, a real dinner.

So they crowded into a long wooden table at a restaurant by the river, the kind with warm lights strung overhead and the scent of lemongrass and grilled fish drifting through the air. The city glowed outside the windows, scattered gold across dark water.

Pat sat near the end of the table, his jacket draped over the chair, sleeves rolled. Across from him, Pran was talking to Dew, the flicker of candlelight catching in his hair. The low light softened his face, turned his smile into something dangerously familiar.

Wai raised his glass. “To teamwork,” he said, voice loud enough to carry. “To sleepless nights, impossible deadlines, and to surviving Pran’s perfectionism.”

Laughter broke around the table, warm and easy. Even Pran laughed, rolling his eyes as Korn called out, “And Pat’s temper!”

“Hey,” Pat protested.

“Don’t pretend it’s not legendary,” Wai said, smirking over his drink.

“Legendary is what got us this far in the project and mind you its far from finished,” Pat defended.

“Whatever the tough part is over” Wai shrugged.

The laughter grew louder, bubbling over into overlapping voices. Pran was smiling again, the kind of open, easy smile Pat hadn’t seen since he came back.

The food came out in waves, platters of basil chicken, steaming curries, a mountain of fried rice that smelled like victory. Conversation hummed everywhere at once. Korn was loudly reenacting their client’s tantrum from last week, Wai heckled him from across the table, and Pran tried unsuccessfully to keep his laughter quiet.

Pat sat across Pran, pretending to focus on Wai’s rant about budgeting, but every few seconds his gaze drifted, toward the way Pran’s hand brushed his glass, the way his eyes caught the light, all of it like reliving a memory and perhaps he was.

Then, suddenly, a soft cough.

Pran set his spoon down, covering his mouth, clearing his throat. The laughter died down for a second as he reached for his water, but his glass was empty.

Before anyone could move, both Dew and Pat reached for the bottle.

Their hands met in the middle.

It was only a second, a flash, a brush of skin, but it felt longer. Dew’s fingers wrapped around the bottle just as Pat’s did, their eyes flicking up, meeting for a single, sharp moment.

Pat’s hand fell away first. Quietly. Without a word.

“Thanks,” Pran murmured, taking the glass, his voice still hoarse. He didn’t look at either of them.

The conversation around the table stumbled back into motion, forced, a little thinner than before. Dew turned to check if Pran was okay; Pat stared down at his plate, jaw tight. Wai said something about dessert. And Korn, Korn noticed.

He didn’t say anything then, but his eyes followed Pat the rest of the night.

—

The meeting room was half-dark, only the late afternoon light seeping through the blinds. The hum of the air conditioner filled the silence. Pat sat at the end of the table, the conference phone still glowing from a finished call.

He was finalizing all the key changes discussed. The call had gone fine, another round of logistics, no real disasters, but his mind had been somewhere else the entire time.

The door creaked open.

Korn stepped in, holding a stack of papers he clearly wasn’t reading. He closed the door behind him with his foot and leaned against the table, crossing his arms.

Pat didn’t look up. “You’re staring.”

Korn raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”

Pat sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just say it. Whatever you came here to say.”

Korn waited a beat, long enough to make it sting. Then he said, “Nothing. Just that Sheena was complaining about her landlord earlier.”

Pat frowned. “And?”

“And Pran offered her his flat,” Korn said. “Said he only had it on a temporary lease, six months, but if things kept going well with the project, he’d probably be leaving sooner.”

That got Pat’s attention. He looked up sharply. “What’s your point?”

“He’s going to leave, Pat. You know that, right?” Korn said softly.

Pat stared at him, eyes narrowing. “How are you so sure?”

Korn let out a disbelieving laugh. “What, you think he’s going to dump his boyfriend and stay here?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Pat said quickly, voice rising just enough to betray him. He paused, struggling with the next words. “And I don’t think he loves Dew. Not like that. He respects him, sure. Looks up to him. Cares, maybe. But love? No.”

Korn rubbed his temples, voice dropping. “You’re doing this again. Reading ghosts. You can’t live on what he used to feel.”

“It’s not just that.” Pat’s tone softened, uncertain now. “He seems… off. Weaker, sometimes. Disoriented. I don’t know, maybe it’s nothing, but I can’t be the only one who sees it. Something is definitely wrong”

Korn looked up, puzzled. “You’re imagining things.”

“I’m not.” Pat’s fingers drummed against the table. “He’ll zone out mid-sentence. Drop things. Lose his balance. I asked if he was getting enough sleep, and he brushed it off. But it’s there.”

Korn sighed, leaning back in his chair. “You’re just seeing what you want to see. He’s fine.”

Pat gave a humorless laugh. “You really think that?”

“Yes,” Korn said firmly. 

Pat’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Silence filled the space between them, thick as fog.

After a moment, Korn spoke again, quieter this time. “Bottom line, he’s leaving. You know it. I know it. And if you keep holding onto whatever hope you’ve got left, it’s going to crush you.”

Pat’s eyes flickered, the edge of anger giving way to something raw. “Of course he’s leaving. You’ve all made sure of that, haven’t you? Always keeping him at arm’s length. Acting like he doesn’t belong here anymore.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” Pat’s voice cracked. “He comes back after three years, and everyone treats him like a visitor. You all smile, laugh, pretend things are normal, but you don’t let him in. You don’t even try.”

Korn’s jaw tightened, but his voice stayed even. “He ghosted us, Pat. For three years. You think people can just pick up where they left off?” He paused, exhaling slowly. “We were all hurt. Every single one of us. But that doesn’t mean we stopped caring.”

Pat looked up, startled by the softness in his tone.

Korn leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “He’s not just your story, Pat. He’s ours too. We all lost him, and now he’s back like nothing happened — smiling, working, pretending everything’s fine. You think that’s easy to watch?”

Pat said nothing, jaw clenched.

“If he wants to be let in again,” Korn went on quietly, “he’ll have to earn it. That’s how trust works. You don’t get to vanish for years and walk back in like the world waited for you.”

Pat’s throat worked, words caught somewhere between anger and grief. “You think I don’t know that?” he muttered.

Korn studied him for a long moment. “Yeah. I think you do. You just don’t want to accept it because none of us are sure if he will make that effort or just leave like the last time”

The silence after that was heavy, almost cruel. It sat between them like the kind of truth that hurts because it’s fair.

Chapter Text

3 years ago

The keys scraped in the lock, a weary sound, small and familiar, and the echo drifted through rooms that had grown too large for just one woman. Dissaya stepped inside, her movements measured, careful, as if noise might shatter something delicate in the air. She placed her purse down with quiet reverence, like setting an offering at a shrine.

There was no one to wake.

Her husband was still with Pran but someone had to keep the business running. Her son, her only son, was far from this house, far from her reach, watched over by strangers in white coats and hushed corridors. Only the muted fall of her footsteps accompanied her down the hallway, each one swallowed by silence.

She pressed the heel of her palm to her eyes. The scent of the hospital still clung to her, antiseptic, metallic, a sterile whisper that reminded her of prayers left unanswered. It had been four months since Pran had closed his eyes and never opened them again. Four months of sitting beside a still body, tracing the shape of a boy who now resembled memory more than flesh. Four months of waiting for breath to hitch, for fingers to twitch, for something, anything, to break the stasis. Hope, once warm and alive, now flickered like a cruel joke.

She found herself in Pran’s room and that's when she saw him.

Pat.

He was sitting on the curb just beyond her gate, hunched over, elbows propped on knees, a silhouette carved from sorrow. He looked like someone who had not moved in hours, like he had been poured there and hardened in the shape of waiting.

Dissaya stopped. She hadn’t expected him. And part of her, the tired and hurting part, knew she should turn away. But another part, the one that still longed for the sound of her son’s laughter hushed by the boundaries she herself created thinking she was protecting him, found herself reaching for the latch.

Her voice, when it came, was softer than she intended. “Pat.”

He looked up, startled, his eyes red-rimmed and raw in the low light. There was a vulnerability in his face that she hadn’t seen ever, and something older than his age, carved by nights of grief. 

“Come inside,” she said with such surety that Pat will comply like this was something they did all the time.

She opened the gate, and he rose slowly, shoulders tight, his movements tentative, as though unsure whether he was allowed to cross this threshold anymore.

They didn’t speak again until they sat together in the lounge.

The room was immaculate, untouched, curated to hold back chaos, and yet it felt lifeless. Pat’s eyes moved around the space but never once settled on her. They paused instead on framed photographs, the quiet piano in the corner, the stretch of mantle where Pran’s awards stood proudly along with hers. 

Silence wrapped around them, not quite hostile, but fragile, the kind that breaks if you move too fast.

Finally, Pat spoke. His voice was low, brittle at the edges. “Did you… did you go visit Pran last week?”

She nodded, fingers curling in her lap. “Yes.”

He lowered his gaze. “How is he?”

The question hit like a blade beneath the ribs. She closed her eyes briefly, willing her throat to loosen. She wanted to tell him everything, how she sat beside Pran and smoothed back his hair, how she whispered his name like a litany, how every machine’s beep became a lullaby she had learned to live by. But she couldn’t. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she had promised. And because she didn’t know how to speak those truths without crumbling.

“He’s… okay,” she said eventually. “He just won’t talk to me.”

A version of the truth, reshaped to fit the silence.

A single tear slid down her cheek, unnoticed until it reached the corner of her mouth.

“I think he hates me,” she whispered. “For what I did. For what I did to both of you.”

Pat’s head moved slowly, the shake quiet but certain. And when he looked at her, there was a flicker of the boy she remembered.

“He doesn’t,” he said. “Pran could never hate you. He loves you too much.”

She met his gaze, eyes searching, voice trembling. “And do you?”

The moment stretched thin, hanging between them like thread.

“No,” Pat said softly. “I don’t.”

Time slipped by. The clock ticked steadily in the background. Outside the window, dusk spread its fingers across the sky, and inside, the walls of the house seemed to close in with every passing breath.

Dissaya exhaled slowly. “I know saying this makes me a hypocrite, but… I don’t support the breakup. I can’t. I don’t think it was right.”

Pat blinked, his expression unreadable. For a second, she thought she saw surprise, then suspicion, and then something else, softer. Something like hope.

“Why?” he asked. “Do you not like Dew?”

The name caught her off guard. “How… how do you know about Dew?”

Pat looked away. “Pran told me. He said he met someone. That’s why he left.”

She frowned, the weight of too many lies pressing in from all sides. “Dew is responsible. He’s kind. I trust him to take care of Pran. But that’s not the point. Pran shouldn’t have left you. Not for him. Not for anyone.”

The silence that followed was different, not empty, but filled with too many things they couldn’t say.

When Pat finally spoke again, his voice was quieter.

“Don’t make the same mistake. Don’t try to choose for him. Let him decide. Support him. That’s what he wanted. That’s what would make him happy. Maybe… maybe he’d talk to you then.”

She nodded, a quiet, resigned smile touching her lips. “I hope so, Pat. I really do.”

They sat there as dusk deepened into evening, two people bound not by blood but by love for the same boy. The house felt emptier than it had when she walked in. She wasn’t sure whether that was because Pat was here, or because she knew he would soon be gone again.

After a while, her voice returned, thinner than before. “Would you… would you visit sometimes? I know it’s strange, but I miss him. This house, it’s too quiet without Pran.”

Pat hesitated. She saw it in his face, the flicker of something old and aching. For years, he had wanted to be invited in. Now that he was, it almost felt like irony.

But he nodded. “Yes. I’ll come by.”

He didn’t know why he agreed. Only that something about being here, surrounded by the echoes of a boy and the life they once shared, made everything else hurt just a little less.

The house only grew quieter.

Every time Pat visited, Dissaya found herself wondering if it would be the last. Still, she prepared for him with small, practiced rituals, tea steeped just long enough, fruit sliced thinly and arranged neatly, cushions fluffed on the sofa where he always sat. He never stayed long, and when he spoke, it was never about the things that truly mattered. He talked about the weather, about work, about nothing.

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, he would ask about Pran. Always gently. Always like he was afraid the sound of the name might tear something open.

And each time, Dissaya gave him the same answer.

“He’s doing fine.”

“He’s busy.”

“He still doesn’t talk to me.”

Lies. Rehearsed and quiet. Worn soft from use. A mother’s penance, perhaps, or a mother’s prayer.

But there was comfort in Pat’s presence. Something about him filled a space she had forgotten how to name. She missed her son. Not just the boy who played Mozart too loud or argued with her about politics at the dinner table, but the boy who used to smile without permission, who snuck kisses behind doors she had once tried to keep closed. She missed the music. The laughter. Even the soft creak of floorboards in the early hours, when two boys who thought themselves invisible tiptoed past her rules.

Now, she was the only one who knew where Pran really was.

Lying still in a hospital bed. Between sleep and waking. Between here and gone. Machines breathed for him. Charts whispered the prognosis. And the boy she once scolded for staying out too late had become a prayer caught in limbo, too fragile to speak aloud.

He was thinner now. Paler. Changed.

And then, one early evening, Pat came to her again. Not with words on his tongue, but something settled deep in his posture. Something final.

He stood at her door, fingers turning his keys over and over in his hand like a rosary.

“Khun… I wanted to tell you in person. I’m getting engaged.”

He didn’t say to whom. He didn’t need to. Dissaya could see it in the way his shoulders pulled in, not proud but braced.

This wasn’t love. It was survival.

She blinked once, twice, then managed a smile, small, tremulous.

“You have my blessing, Pat,” she said softly. “Whoever they are… I hope they’re kind.”

He nodded, eyes cast downward. “I won’t be able to visit as much. I just wanted to say… thank you. For letting me come.”

She reached out, touched his arm, a gesture that lingered. It wasn’t apology. It wasn’t approval. It was something warmer. Sadder.

“Thank you,” she said. “For loving him. For being here. Even now.”

Pat said nothing. There was nothing left to say.

When he turned and walked out the door, the silence that followed didn’t feel like the kind that waits to be filled. It felt like the kind that marks an ending.

And when the door closed behind him, it sounded, to her, like the end of a life.

—

The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and wilting lilies, a sterile sweetness that had long since lost any comfort. Machines whispered around her, their voices low and indifferent, counting out heartbeats and breaths like the ticking of a slow, implacable clock.

Dissaya had become fluent in their language.

She heard hope in the subtle change of rhythm, despair in a monotone. It was a vocabulary written in numbers and pulses, in the shifting green lines on softly glowing monitors.

She sat at her son’s bedside, as she had for months, knitting time together in quiet stretches between nurses' checks and medication schedules. A book lay across her lap, untouched. She wasn’t reading. Instead, she traced the shape of Pran’s hand with her thumb, gently mapping the bones and tendons beneath skin that felt thinner now, almost translucent.

And then, a twitch.

So small she nearly missed it. A subtle tightening of the knuckles, as if reaching for something deep within a dream.

Her book slipped from her lap and thudded softly against the floor.

“Pran?” Her voice broke too loud against the hush. She leaned in, heart stumbling into her throat. “Sweetheart, can you hear me?”

There was nothing, for a moment. Then fluttering. Eyelids that blinked once, slowly, heavy with weight. His mouth moved. No words, just the scrape of air against dryness.

She fumbled for the nurse’s call button, her fingers trembling. The rhythm of her own breathing was too fast now, too loud.

The nurse arrived quickly, calm and practiced. She checked reflexes and asked soft, rehearsed questions. Dissaya sat frozen beside them, watching every flicker of light return to her son’s eyes. His gaze drifted, unfocused. He was awake, barely, and his world still seemed more fog than shape.

“He’s waking up,” the nurse said gently. “We’ll keep things slow and quiet. Just speak softly to him and let him reorient. He’ll be very weak. Probably confused. But this is good.”

Dissaya nodded, not trusting her voice.

She leaned forward, brushing his hair from his forehead with a tenderness she hadn’t dared show in months. “I’m here, darling,” she whispered. “You’ve been very sick. But you’re safe now. Just rest, okay?”

His brow furrowed faintly. “Where...?”

“You’re in the hospital,” she said. “You’ve been sleeping for a while. But you’re awake now. That’s what matters.”

His eyes fluttered closed again, lost to the weight of exhaustion. The nurse adjusted the IV and checked his oxygen. Soft reassurances filled the space between the blips of machines.

The next day passed in a blur of specialists. The neurologist, the speech therapist, the physical therapist. All cautious, all quietly amazed. They coaxed movement from him, asked him to squeeze fingers, wiggle toes, name the year. His voice was a rasp, barely more than breath. He tired quickly, eyes drifting shut after a few questions.

The world had become raw and unfamiliar. Achingly slow.

Muscles had forgotten how to hold him. He couldn’t sit upright without help. His meals were thickened liquids, careful spoonfuls given with watchful eyes, every swallow a risk. His memory was mostly intact, but time had folded strangely. Days had slipped through his fingers like sand. Weeks. Months.

Two days after waking, he began asking about home. About Pat.

“Where’s Pat?” he rasped. “Has he... has he called?”

The question pierced her. Still, she smiled, smoothing his hair back with a practiced tenderness. “You should rest, sweetheart. You have so many people who care about you.”

But his gaze held hers, fever-bright and searching. “Can you call him?” His hand lifted weakly toward the bedside table, a flutter of intent. “Please. I want to tell him everything.”

She hesitated. The nurse stood quietly in the doorway.

“Not yet,” she said softly. “When you’re stronger. When you’re ready to talk more. To see people.”

He closed his eyes, but the tension didn’t leave his face. Even when sleep claimed him again, the question lingered. And when he woke, it returned. Always the same.

Always Pat.

She dodged him for weeks, steering his attention toward therapy, toward progress. She told herself it was for his recovery. That the body had to heal before the heart could risk breaking again.

It was nearly three weeks before she gave him the truth.

She sat beside him on the bed, held his hand, and spoke as carefully as if each word might tilt his heart toward fracture.

“Pat’s engaged now, Pran.”

For a long moment, there was only silence. She began to wonder if he had heard her at all.

Then a faint, tired smile. Paper-thin, like it had been pressed too long between the pages of grief.

“So my plan worked,” he whispered. His voice cracked, but he held her gaze. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

His heart monitor ticked a little faster, but his breathing stayed even. He closed his eyes again, not to sleep, but to keep her from seeing the grief that blurred the edges of his vision.

6 months later

The bar wasn’t loud. It was alive.

Laughter spilled like warm liquid between tables. The soft thrum of jazz floated just beneath it, tangled with the delicate clink of ice against glass. It was the kind of place where solitude looked normal under low amber light, where no one asked why you drank alone, only whether you needed another.

Pran sat at the counter, sleeves rolled neatly to the elbow, a short glass resting in his hand. The liquid inside was clear. From across the room, it could have passed for vodka. Up close, it was only tonic and lime.

He wasn’t drinking. He just wanted to hold something that looked like a life that hadn’t fallen apart.

His fingers idly traced circles on the side of the glass, watching condensation slide down the smooth surface. The reflection in the counter was his, but unfamiliar. It had been six months since his discharge. Six months of sterile lights, of cautious victories. He had returned to drafting rooms and quiet apartments. To days filled with tasks and nights filled with a silence that echoed too loudly.

His body worked again, mostly. But there were mornings his hands trembled. Not in great, shaking waves, but in small, persistent quivers that made him feel like a guest inside his own skin.

He didn’t notice Dew until a shadow stretched beside him across the counter.

“Drinking is contraindicated for your condition,” came a low voice, calm and familiar. The Thai was soft around the edges, softened by years abroad.

Pran turned his head, slow and without surprise. Dew stood just to his right. His coat was folded neatly over one arm, sleeves rolled in that same precise way that always looked intentional. He looked like he had stepped out of a hospital or an office and forgotten to go home.

“I’m not drinking,” Pran said quietly. His tone was light, but there was something behind it. A flicker of mischief, maybe. Or defense.

“It’s tonic.”

Dew raised an eyebrow. “You expect me to believe that?”

Pran tipped the glass toward the light. Bubbles danced near the rim, catching gold from the bar lamps. “You can smell it if you want. I’m a terrible liar.”

Dew regarded him for a beat, then something in his face eased. The cool neutrality he wore like armor slipped a little, and something warmer moved behind his eyes.

“Most of my patients wouldn’t bother lying. They’d drink, apologize later, and call it rebellion from death.”

Pran’s gaze flicked toward him. “I already did my rebelling,” he said softly. “Didn’t end well.”

Dew didn’t reply immediately. He slid onto the barstool beside him, resting the coat on his lap. The bartender gave him a nod but didn’t approach. For a few moments, they sat in comfortable silence, surrounded by the low hum of the room.

Then, in Thai, the words quiet and oddly intimate, Dew said, “You’re good with the kids.”

Pran blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

“At the hospital,” Dew clarified. “You stayed after procedures. You helped the younger ones when they got frustrated. That wasn’t required.”

Pran shrugged, eyes back on his glass. “They were scared. So was I. It helped.”

Dew studied him for a moment longer. “It’s rare, you know. People who get through that kind of trial and still reach for others.”

There was something different in his tone. Not the measured cadence of a doctor, but something closer to wonder. Pran shifted in his seat, restless. The faintest flicker of irritation crossed his face.

“Do you spend all your working hours watching me?” he asked, his voice clipped, the question too sharp to be mistaken for anything else. “Should I be charging you for the entertainment?”

Dew’s mouth curved just slightly. “Occupational hazard,” he said. “Besides, you’re not exactly inconspicuous.”

Pran turned to look at him, unimpressed. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning,” Dew said, facing him fully now, “you pretend to be just another patient passing through. But you’re not. You’re the one who keeps me late because the children refuse to let me leave until you promise to come back next week.”

Pran gave a small huff of laughter and shook his head. “I suppose I should apologize for that.”

“Don’t.” Dew’s voice was quiet again. “I don’t mind.”

Silence gathered between them, but this time it was softer. Around them the bar hummed with a low, easy rhythm—the clink of glass, the low laughter from a nearby table, the mellow roll of music that blurred conversation into background. Dew’s gaze lingered on the shape of Pran’s hand tracing the rim of his glass. The amber light caught the side of his face and made his expression unreadable.

Then Dew spoke, almost absently. “You know, if you weren’t my patient, I probably would have hit on you by now.”

Pran’s head came up sharply. “What?”

Dew shrugged, the movement unhurried. “You’re interesting. And stubborn. And far too careful with people you pretend not to care about. It’s a frustrating combination.” He paused, his mouth tilting faintly. “So you should recover quickly and stop being my patient. Then I’ll have no excuse not to.”

Pran stared at him, eyes cool, voice steady. “You shouldn’t say things like that. It’s unprofessional.”

Dew didn’t look away. “You asked if I spend my hours staring at you. Consider this my answer.”

Pran let out a slow breath and looked down at the glass again, this was almost ironic. For a long while neither of them spoke. When he did, his voice was quieter. “Why?” he asked. “Why are you interested in me at all?”

For the first time, Dew seemed unprepared. His expression shifted as if he were deciding how much to reveal. He turned his glass slowly, a circle of condensation spreading beneath it.

“My mother is Thai,” he said at last. “She never stopped missing home, even after decades here. She talked about Bangkok like it was a person—stubborn, chaotic, impossible not to love. I grew up with her stories, but I never really understood them.”

He paused, then looked up at Pran. “Not until you.”

Pran didn’t move. The sound of conversation around them felt distant.

“I’m an only child,” Dew continued. “Born here, raised here. Switzerland is familiar, safe, predictable. But it isn’t always kind. When you grow up half of two places, you learn what it means to belong nowhere.”

He gave a small, self-conscious smile. “Maybe that’s why I noticed you. Because you walk into a room like you know exactly what that feels like too.”

The words hung in the air between them, quiet but unyielding. Pran’s throat tightened. He didn’t respond, but his stillness was its own kind of answer.

Dew gestured faintly toward the noise and warm light around them. “Places like this help. All this sound, all this life. It makes the loneliness easier to bear.”

They sat in silence again. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it carried the weight of things neither of them were ready to name. The kind of silence that felt like standing on a threshold, aware that something on the other side had already begun to change.

After a long moment, Dew spoke again, his voice gentler. “If nothing else, we could be friends.”

Pran’s eyes met his, steady but unreadable. “You’re my doctor.”

Dew smiled at that, slow and quiet. “For now.”

And that was how it began. Not with declarations, not even with intention, but with the smallest shift in air. Something unspoken passed between them, something that would neither fade nor fully take shape. Around them, the bar continued to hum, alive with the comfort of strangers. Yet beneath the ordinary noise of clinking glasses and low conversation, something in both of them had already started to move.

—

The house smelled faintly of lemongrass and detergent, the familiar scent of Sunday cleaning. Pat stepped inside, loosening his tie, the weight of the day clinging to his shoulders. The kitchen light glowed low and warm. His mother stood by the sink, rinsing vegetables with a care that spoke of waiting.

“You’re late,” she said without turning. Her voice held no reproach, only quiet concern.

“The site meeting ran long,” Pat answered. He took a seat at the table and rubbed the crease between his brows. “We’re expanding the residential section. Dad wants numbers by Monday.”

She hummed softly, still rinsing. The sound was thoughtful, distracted. After a moment she shut off the faucet and dried her hands, leaning against the counter. Her gaze found him with the kind of patience that saw through explanations.

“Are you happy, Pat?”

The question landed lightly but seemed to echo all the same. He blinked, caught off guard, and his first answer faltered before it formed.

“Of course,” he said finally. “Work’s good. Dad’s pleased. Punch is…” He hesitated, then finished quietly. “She’s a nice girl.”

His mother tilted her head slightly. “That’s not what I asked.”

He looked away, the words catching somewhere behind his ribs. The clock ticked above the refrigerator, marking time too loudly.

“I’m doing everything I’m supposed to,” he said after a long pause. “Isn’t that what matters?”

She came closer, resting her hands lightly on the chair across from him. “It matters,” she said gently. “But it isn’t the same thing as being happy. You used to be the sun in this house, Pat. You filled the weekends with noise and laughter. Now it feels like we live under clouds.”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Her words brushed against a truth he had long stopped touching. His life had become a list of obligations, each one checked off with precision but no joy. The boy who had once lived with fire in his chest felt like a story he had outgrown and buried somewhere he couldn’t return to.

“I’m fine, Mae,” he said quietly.

The silence that followed was not empty. It was understanding, unspoken and tender. She didn’t press. She didn’t need to. It was the kind of silence that carried everything they both already knew.

After a moment she reached out and smoothed his hair, the gesture light and familiar. “Get some rest,” she said softly. “You look tired.”

Pat nodded and rose from the table. As he walked toward the stairs, he could feel her gaze still on him, steady and sad. For a moment, he thought about turning back, about saying something real, about asking what she remembered of him before everything became quiet.

But he didn’t.

The stillness held, patient and knowing, as the house settled around them again.

—

The months that followed that night at the bar unfolded without spectacle. They unfolded quietly, one after the other, not in bold declarations but in the hushed manner of winter turning to spring. There were no sudden blooms. Only small, deliberate shifts. A softening of the air. A warmth that lingered a little longer each afternoon.

Pran kept returning to the hospital. Twice a week, sometimes more, always arriving on time. The treatments remained brutal, the aftermath still drained him, but they were no longer foreign. They had become another rhythm his body knew how to follow.

During those hours tethered to IV lines and whispering machines, he began to draw again.

At first, the sketches were idle distractions. Scribbles in the margins of a leaflet. Loose, unfocused lines drifting in the corner of a page. But slowly, the drawings took shape. Rooftops softened by twilight. The curve of a shoulder against morning light. A pair of hands resting on a railing. Sometimes the lines spilled out with a kind of urgency, restless and messy. Other times they were rendered so delicately it seemed as though he were trying to preserve something the mind alone could not keep.

Whenever footsteps approached, he would close the sketchbook quickly. Not with fear, but with the instinct of someone guarding a quiet truth. One hand rested on the cover like a seal.

Dew noticed. Of course he did. He noticed everything. But he never asked about the drawings. He checked the monitors, adjusted the settings, and left Pran to his silence. Even that silence had changed. It no longer felt like a wall. It was softer now. Like a room they both happened to inhabit.

After a while, Dew began offering coffee.

At first, Pran refused, polite and distant in the way he was with everyone. But one afternoon, when the air still smelled faintly of thawing snow and the clouds moved like they had somewhere to be, he said yes. It became a quiet ritual. After each session, they crossed the street together and sat in the small café across from the hospital. Dew always ordered a dark, bitter espresso. Pran asked for Iced tea less sweet, though he rarely touched it.

Sometimes they spoke. Often they did not.

When they did talk, the words came mostly from Dew. He told quiet stories, fragments of childhood winters in Zurich, summers in Chiang Mai, a mother who held onto her homeland with both hands, a father who believed discipline was the only real form of love. He spoke of mountain trails, of long train rides through forests, of how his mother’s Thai accent thickened when she was angry. The stories were simple, but they held weight. They dropped gently into the space between them like small stones settling into water.

Pran listened more than he replied. His responses were spare, a soft hum, a glance, a slow nod, but now and then, something slipped out. He spoke of Bangkok rain and how it smelled against sun-warmed pavement. Of how music changed when heard through a closed door. Of the way metal scraped against tile and made his teeth ache. His stories came in fragments, never full and never forced, but always enough to suggest a deeper shape beneath the surface.

It was during those same months that Dew began to join him in the children’s cancer ward.

At first, he lingered by the door, arms crossed, watching as Pran built block towers or read fairy tales in that low, careful voice he used when he forgot he was being watched. But slowly, Dew moved into the room. He knelt beside half-finished puzzles. He tied laces. He offered new crayons when the old ones broke. The children adored him, just as they adored anyone who knelt at their level and listened. But it was Pran they waited for. Pran they clung to. They tugged on his sleeves and begged him for just one more story, one more tower, one more minute before he had to leave.

Dew watched the way the room changed when Pran walked in, how the colors felt brighter, how the air felt fuller. He noticed how Pran stayed, long after his sessions ended, long after the nurses told him he could go. He stayed until the children were settled. Until the stories were done.

Sometimes Dew walked him out of the hospital afterward.

At first, it happened by chance. They left at the same time, turned down the same street, crossed at the same light. But then it became habit. They walked quietly, side by side, as the city shifted around them. Dew pointed out bakeries he liked. Shops tucked between buildings. Streets that looked different in different seasons. Pran never followed him inside. Never lingered at the storefronts. But he never asked Dew to stop either.

Far away, in another city thick with heat and high-rises, Pat’s life kept moving. Or perhaps it would be more honest to say it was pulled along, like a body caught in a current too strong to resist.

He was everything his father had once dreamed for him to be. Sharp. Efficient. Tireless. The kind of man who closed deals with a handshake and calculated risk with frightening precision. The firm was growing, reaching beyond its borders, and Pat stood at the center of it all, golden and untouchable.

His father’s praise came often now, heavy hands on his shoulders, approval spoken across conference tables and in front of clients.

Every weekend, he took Punch out to dinner. He remembered how she liked her noodles. He asked about her students. He sent flowers just because. He attended family dinners and smiled through small talk and carried her bags without being asked. He was the perfect fiancé, the kind every parent dreams of.

But if you looked closely, really looked, you would see the gaps.

The way his smiles never touched his eyes. The way his gestures, polished and kind, felt like echoes of something real rather than the thing itself. Life had become a script. Meetings. Dinners. Engagements. Deliverables. Flowers. The days blurred together, complete and forgettable all at once.

It wasn’t unhappiness. It wasn’t even grief. It was something colder. Something emptier. A quiet erosion. At night, he would sometimes stand by the window of his apartment, watching the city flicker like a lie he no longer believed. And he would wonder, in that stillness, if this was what living was supposed to feel like, watching the world through glass without ever touching it.

Time passed.

In Zurich, the space between Dew and Pran shrank, not in sweeping gestures or spoken admissions, but in small, almost invisible threads. Shared silence. Steeped tea. The quiet turning of pages. They would not have called it friendship. Not yet. But the shape of it had begun to form.

By the time summer crept in, not declared, but merely arriving, as though it had always been there, something had shifted.

One afternoon, Dew stood by the monitors, watching the way Pran’s pencil moved across the page. The lines were steady. Sure. His brow furrowed slightly, his focus complete. He did not speak. He did not notice the way Dew watched him.

For a while, Dew said nothing.

But then he noticed Pran’s hand slowing, the pencil returning again and again to the same curve. A jaw, maybe. Or the edge of a shoulder.

“I’d say art is a form of therapy,” Dew murmured, eyes drifting from the screen to the sketchbook, “but you’d hate that.”

Pran didn’t look up. “I’d say stop reading into things.”

Dew’s mouth tilted at the edge, not quite a smile but close. “Fair enough.”

The pencil moved again, the sound of graphite soft and deliberate. Dew stayed where he was, observing but not intruding, content with the silence between them. Because that was the thing about Pran. He didn’t offer parts of himself when asked. He offered them only when he believed you had earned them.

And Dew, without ever saying it aloud, had already begun to wait.

—

The grocery store smelled faintly of lemongrass and detergent, a mix of ripe fruit and floor polish that clung to the air like habit. Around him, the world moved on autopilot, people pushing carts, scanning shelves, checking items off invisible lists. Pat moved the same way. Basket hooked in one arm, eyes flicking over labels without really reading them. Soy sauce. Eggs. Jasmine rice. All the small, ordinary things a life required to stay convincing.

He turned into the next aisle and stopped.

She was there. Dissaya. Her back to him, holding two bags of rice in her hands, weighing them with the kind of care that pulled something tight in his chest. It was the sort of moment that should have gone unnoticed, another woman choosing groceries, but Pat was reminded of someone with stark familiarity.

For a breath, he considered turning away. Walking back the way he came. Sparing them both whatever came next. But then his voice moved ahead of him, quiet and certain.

“Khun Dissaya.”

She turned, startled, but the surprise melted quickly. Her expression softened, blooming into something warm and familiar, like sunlight after too many gray days.

“Pat,” she said, smiling. “It’s been so long.”

“It has,” he answered, though the words barely touched the truth of what sat between them.

They stood still while the world kept moving. Carts rolled past. Children whined. The barcode scanner at the checkout beeped steadily in the distance. All of it blurred around them.

“Have you...” Pat shifted the basket in his arms, eyes not quite meeting hers. “Do you hear from Pran?”

The change in her was instant. Something lit behind her eyes, a kind of quiet, unguarded joy.

“Yes,” she said, and her voice carried more than the word itself. “Yes, he talks to me now.”

His chest tightened.

“That’s good,” he said. And he meant it. Every word.

“He’s doing well too,” she went on, pride threading through each syllable. “He’s working now. With a firm in Switzerland. As an intern, but it’s a respected firm. It’s a real opportunity. He sounds busy. But happier. More like himself.”

She said it slowly, as though she wanted Pat to hear it fully. As though she thought it might offer him something too. Maybe it did.

Pat nodded, the smile he gave her easy, if not quite effortless.

“That’s... wonderful. I’m glad for him.”

He was. He truly was. But beneath the warmth of the words, something in him curled inward, something small and old and stubborn. It wasn’t jealousy. And it wasn’t anger. It was the ache of a hope he hadn’t realized he’d still been carrying. The faint, foolish belief that maybe Pran’s story might still lead back to him.

Instead, it had traveled across oceans. Into a future where Pat no longer existed.

They parted soon after, the way polite acquaintances do. A soft farewell. A smile that held no promises. Pat finished his list without thinking, hands moving on muscle memory alone.

At the checkout, the cashier asked if he wanted a bag. He nodded. It took a moment before he realized he hadn’t even heard the question.

When he stepped into the light outside, the ache remained. Not sharp. Not unbearable. Just there. A shape carved into him by something that had once filled it.

—

The blinds filtered in late afternoon sun, softening the edges of the procedure room. The machines hummed in their steady rhythm, matching the slow rise and fall of Pran’s breath. He sat curled in the chair, sketchbook open across his knees, pencil moving in practiced lines.

He didn’t look up when the door opened.

Dew wasn’t expected for another thirty minutes. He had charts to finish. Patients to check on. But when he passed the doorway and saw Pran alone, he stepped in anyway.

He didn’t speak. Pran hated being watched while he worked. So Dew stayed near the counter, flipping idly through a chart that wasn’t urgent. Silence filled the room. The kind that didn’t demand attention.

Then the pencil slipped. The sketchbook tipped. A clumsy motion, a misjudged angle, and the whole thing slid from Pran’s lap and hit the floor.

It fell open on impact.

Pages spilled out, fanned like the petals of something just bloomed. Faces, over and over again, drawn with varying degrees of care and detail. Sometimes smiling. Sometimes solemn. Sometimes blurred as though memory had worn away the edges.

Dew crouched instinctively, reaching to pick it up. But Pran was faster. He snatched it from the floor with a force that made Dew freeze.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Dew rose slowly, gaze steady. “Who is he?”

Pran didn’t answer. His hand remained clamped over the closed sketchbook. The air between them felt tight enough to snap.

Dew waited. Not impatiently. Just present.

Finally, Pran exhaled. His shoulders eased, barely, and his voice came quiet.

“His name is Pat.”

Just saying it, that name, seemed to shake something loose. He didn’t look up, but his fingers softened around the sketchbook, as though the act of speaking had unlatched something in his chest.

Dew’s voice gentled.

“Someone you miss?”

Pran opened his mouth. Closed it again. Then shook his head once, not in denial, but in protection. The name was fragile. It had only just been spoken.

“I’ll tell you,” he said. “When I’m ready.”

Dew nodded.

“Then I’ll wait.”

He left not long after. The door clicked shut with a soft finality, blending back into the room’s quiet noise.

Pran sat still. The sketchbook rested on his lap, closed but not hidden. He turned a page. Then another. His thumb brushed over a drawn smile, over the shape of a face he hadn’t seen in years but could never stop seeing.

And when the room settled again into silence, he spoke the name once more. Not for Dew. Not for anyone.

Just for himself.

“Pat. My Pat.”

—

They had been coming to the same restaurant for months. It was a small, tucked-away place between a florist and a tailor, the kind that always smelled faintly of basil and fresh bread. Punch had chosen it. She always did. Pat never objected. He rarely objected to anything these days.

She was already seated when he arrived, smiling at him with the quiet ease of habit. Her hair was pinned back, not a strand out of place. She looked every bit the woman his parents loved. Poised. Gentle. Calm in all the ways they valued most.

He sat down across from her, unfastened his cuffs, and gave her the same practiced smile. It did not reach his eyes, but it was enough to pass.

They ordered what they always ordered. Black Coffee for her. Iced tea for him, less sweet. The waiter moved away, and the silence that followed felt well-worn. They had grown good at silence. It was their most frequent conversation.

Punch was the first to speak. “Your mother called me yesterday.”

Pat looked up. “Oh? What about?”

“She invited me to the charity dinner next week. She said you’d already confirmed for both of us.”

He nodded, picking up his coffee. “I did, sorry was gonna ask you myself.”

Her fingers played with the edge of her napkin. “You always do.”

He frowned, not understanding. “Do what?”

“Plan and ask,” she said, gently. “You’re always thoughtful. Reliable. My parents adore you. Your mother calls me her second daughter.”

He offered a thin smile. “They should.”

She gave a soft laugh, though there was no humor in it. “You don’t get it, do you?”

Pat stayed quiet. His gaze dropped to the swirling surface of his drink, watching the way the spoon stirred circles into the dark.

She leaned forward. Her voice was calm, but her eyes were full of something tender and breaking. “Pat, I fell in love with you.”

The spoon clinked softly against the porcelain.

“I really did,” she said. “I kept thinking, maybe if I tried hard enough, stayed long enough, you’d meet me halfway. But you didn’t. You’re not here with me. You’ve never been.”

He kept his gaze on the table. “I’m here,” he said. “I’ve always been here.”

“No,” she replied. “You’ve been beside me. Not with me.”

The words didn’t sting. They settled instead, quietly devastating in their truth.

He looked at her then, and she saw that same distant calm in his expression. The one that never cracked. It wasn’t peace. It was absence. A vacancy that had never once invited her in.

She reached out, her hand hovering just above his but not quite closing the distance. “You don’t love halfway. I can see that now. When you give your heart, you give all of it. I just mistook your silence for space to build something. I didn’t realize there was no space left at all.”

Pat exhaled, and the breath caught in his chest like it had nowhere to land. She had peeled it all back. The truth, the reason he moved like a man in a life that was not quite his. Every gift, every carefully planned dinner, every soft apology had not been an offering of love. They were the quiet routines of someone trying to mimic something he no longer felt.

“Punch,” he said, and her name felt like the wrong key in the right lock. “You deserve someone who looks at you and sees only you. Not a shadow of someone else.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away before they could fall. “I know. That’s why I’m ending this.”

He nodded. Not out of agreement, but understanding. There was nothing else to say.

She stood slowly, took her purse, and paused for a moment. Then she bent to press a kiss to his temple.

“You’re a good man, Pat,” she said. “Just not mine.”

He didn’t watch her leave. He already knew how she walked away.

The bill came. He paid it without glancing at the numbers. Left the right change. Thanked the waiter. When he stepped outside, the sun still lit the sidewalk, but something about the light felt dull, as if the day had dimmed while he was not looking.

That night, the apartment remained dark. He did not change his clothes. He did not turn on the lights. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall across from him, still dressed in his button-down shirt and loose tie.

The quiet in the room pressed in from all sides.

He thought of the dinners. The phone calls. The carefully arranged pieces of a life that had never quite belonged to him. He thought of Punch and how little of himself he had ever really given her.

And then he thought of a name. One he had not spoken aloud in years.

He whispered it once, low and broken, like a secret escaping into the dark.

“Pran.”

The sound of it hurt. But it also felt like breath after drowning.

—

Time, Pran realized, had a strange way of softening things. Even pain. Even silence.

By the time the first snow began to dust the gardens outside the hospital, the days had blurred into each other. Dew's presence had become something like the chill in the morning air or the faint, mechanical hum of the machines that followed Pran through every session. He was simply there, steady and unintrusive, existing at the edge of corridors and in the rhythm of rituals Pran never intended to share but somehow did anyway.

And without either of them planning it, conversation had begun to grow in the space between procedures.

It started small.

One afternoon, after treatment, while they sat outside beneath a pale winter sky, Pran mentioned Wai and Korn. He didn’t offer their full names or explain the context. He just let the words fall into the space between them, casual and unguarded, like he was speaking of people Dew had already met.

“They used to drive me insane,” he said, the corner of his mouth curving. “One of them still owes me rent money. Not that I’ll ever see it.”

Dew gave him a glance, a subtle tilt of the head. “You miss them.”

Pran didn’t respond. He didn’t have to.

In the following weeks, more names surfaced. Ink. Pa. He said them softly, almost as though conjuring ghosts. He spoke of Pa’s laughter and Ink’s relentless teasing, of the booth they used to crowd into after exams, always past midnight, always too loud. He never mentioned Thailand by name, but every memory came steeped in the scent of summer rain on pavement and the heat that lingered long after the sun had gone.

Dew never asked for more. He just listened, quietly and completely, his thumb tracing the edge of his paper cup when the silence stretched for too long.

By spring, their conversations had outgrown the limits of the appointments. Sometimes Dew would walk him to the tram stop, and other times they lingered by the lake behind the hospital. Neither seemed in a hurry to say goodbye, and the line between patient and doctor blurred gently, like pencil lead smudged between two careful fingers.

And then, one afternoon, something shifted.

It didn’t arrive with intent or warning, only with the quiet certainty that walls, when left standing too long, eventually begin to collapse.

They were sitting on a bench overlooking the lake, the water slowly waking from its winter freeze. Dew had been telling a story about his mother, about the way she used to describe Songkran as if it were some half-remembered dream. He said she cooked khao soi every New Year, even though the ingredients in Switzerland never tasted quite right. He said it made her feel less far away.

Pran listened without speaking, his gaze following the erratic flight of a bird skimming the water’s edge. When he finally spoke, it came quietly, like he was touching a door that had been closed for years.

“There was someone,” he said.

Dew didn’t move, didn’t look at him. He simply waited.

“We were rivals,” Pran went on. “Or we were supposed to be. Our parents set it up that way. Everything was a competition, grades, presentations, who could come out ahead.” He paused, then let out a quiet sound, something caught between a laugh and a sigh. “We were idiots. We didn’t even realize when we stopped caring about winning. We were just looking for reasons to stay close.”

The wind moved gently through the trees. Across the park, a child’s laughter echoed, distant and bright.

“His name was Pat,” Pran said. “He was loud. Honest. Stubborn. He made everything feel bigger than it was. Even the smallest things.”

He stopped for a moment, then continued, not with drama but with the slow unfurling of something long held back. He spoke of Pat in pieces. How his laughter could shift the mood of a room. How they argued over everything but never stayed angry. How love crept in quietly, almost by accident, until it was everywhere, until it became the air between them.

Then the illness came. Then fear. Then the silence.

He spoke about the breakup, the lies, the distance he created on purpose.

“I didn’t want him to watch me die,” he said. His voice trembled, barely more than breath. “So I made him hate me instead.”

Then, softer still, like it cost something to say, he added, “I told him there was someone else. I used your name.”

Dew sat still. The silence between them thickened.

When he spoke, his voice was low and disbelieving. “You what?”

Pran straightened, the edges of defensiveness already sharpening. “It wasn’t about you. I just needed a name. It could’ve been anyone.”

“You used my name to end your relationship?” Dew’s voice was calm, but the hurt threaded through it like steel beneath silk. “Do you even hear yourself?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Do you understand how cruel that was?” Dew’s voice cut through now. “You lied. To him. To your friends. To yourself. You told yourself it was kindness, but it was cowardice.”

Pran’s expression hardened. “You think I didn’t suffer too? I didn’t want to leave. I had no choice. I was dying.”

“And now you’re not,” Dew said. His tone steadied, still holding to the edge of compassion. “You’re still sick, yes. But you are alive. Your disease has stalled. The scans are stable. You are in remission.”

He turned toward him now, eyes holding steady. “But you’re still living like it ended. Like he’s gone. Like you’re gone.”

Pran swallowed. “You don’t understand.”

“I do,” Dew said. “I’ve watched patients survive the worst, only to let guilt swallow them whole. You’ve wrapped your silence in nobility and convinced yourself it’s mercy. But it’s just running.”

Pran’s hands were trembling.

“I told you. I had to leave.”

“You didn’t have to lie.”

Pran’s head snapped toward him. “You think it was easy?”

“Then help me understand,” Dew said, voice rising.

“I’m dying, Dew. Maybe not this year. Maybe not next. But someday. And when that time comes, the treatment will stop working. The inflammation will return. Every breath will hurt. Every step will be calculated.”

His voice cracked. “You’ve seen the files. You know what it means.”

“Yes,” Dew replied gently. “But not yet.”

“That’s what terrifies me,” Pran whispered. “Not yet. It means it’s coming. And when it does, if I go back, if I let him see me, what happens then? He’ll have to watch it. Every second. Hope will die in his hands.”

He paused. His throat felt tight. “I can’t do that to him.”

Rain began to fall lightly against the metal rail behind them. Dew’s voice, when it came again, was softer but held a sharpness beneath.

“And in the meantime? You live as though he never existed? As though none of it mattered?”

Pran flinched.

“This isn’t mercy,” Dew said. “It’s waste. You are wasting time. You are wasting him. And you are wasting yourself.”

Pran’s voice fell to a whisper. “You think I don’t know what I’m losing?”

“I think you’re too afraid of losing it to ever let yourself have it.”

Dew leaned closer, still not touching. “You think disappearing hurt less? That it saved him grief? But it didn’t. You gave him a version of it that never ends.”

“He moved on,” Pran muttered.

“No,” Dew said, voice quiet and absolute. “He survived. That’s not the same.”

The words landed deep. Pran turned his face away, jaw clenched, eyes wet.

“You can’t change what happened,” Dew said, more gently now. “But you can decide what to do with what’s left. You are not terminal, Pran. Not today. You might have years. But you are living like there’s no tomorrow, and in doing that, you’ve stopped living today.”

He placed his hand on the bench between them, just close enough to feel the space. “If you’re afraid of running out of time, then stop throwing it away.”

They sat in stillness, the lake dark beneath a cloudy sky.

When Pran finally spoke, his voice was almost too soft to hear. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s not,” Dew said. “But neither is dying alone.”

Pran didn’t respond.

Dew stood and brushed the rain from his sleeve. “You can’t control how much time you have. But you can decide how you spend it. Maybe it’s time to stop surviving. Maybe it’s time to go home.”

He turned and began walking back toward the hospital.

Pran stayed behind, staring at the water where the city lights shimmered in long, trembling lines. He didn’t cry.

But for the first time, he wanted to.

After that, Dew never spoke of Thailand again.

He didn’t need to. The words had already taken root, growing in the dark spaces between Pran’s thoughts.

You’re wasting time, yours and his.

Pran carried Dew’s words with him, tucked deep in the quiet spaces of his days. They followed him through the hospital corridors, sat with him during procedures, echoed faintly in the children’s playroom where laughter came easier than breath. Dew had started joining him there, quietly slipping into the background during slow afternoons. He helped build pillow forts, turned latex gloves into puppets, and tied shoelaces without needing to be asked. He was gentle with the children, and even gentler with Pran, always knowing when to speak and when to simply sit beside the silence.

But in the still hours that came after, when Pran was alone again, the weight returned. Each passing second became a measure of what Dew had said. Not yet. Still time. Still alive. Still wasting it.

So when the email arrived months later from the argument, he didn’t open it. Not right away.

It came from Phra Phrom Design, the firm where he had been collaborating with. The subject line was deceptively neutral.

Client Request – Personal Communication.

He stared at it for hours. Told himself it could wait. That he would answer later. That it didn’t matter.

The next morning, he was sketching near the window when his phone rang.

“Mr. Siridechawat?”

The voice was smooth, accented with the weight of years spent abroad.

“Yes, speaking.”

“This is Somchai Vannarat. I believe you worked on the Lausanne Residence renderings”

Pran sat straighter. “I did.”

“I thought so,” the man said, pleased. “There was something in the lines. A kind of restraint that still felt intimate. Thai hands shaping a European house. It felt familiar, almost personal.”

Pran didn’t speak for a moment. Praise was easier when it stayed technical, not when it touched something more fragile.

“Thank you, sir,” he managed.

“I’ve been wanting to renovate my family estate. It’s in Bangkok. A full overhaul, inside and out. I need someone who understands both worlds. Someone who can design a house meant to be lived in, not just photographed.”

He paused before continuing.

“I know this isn’t standard procedure, but I’d like you to lead it.”

Pran blinked. “I… sir, I’m still a junior architect. I’m not licensed in Thailand anymore.”

Somchai chuckled softly. “Then we’ll fix that. Your supervisor speaks highly of you. He says you have a rare eye. I want your name on the proposal. My assistant will handle everything, permits, housing, travel arrangements. You’d be supported from the start.”

Pran’s voice was quieter now. “Where did you say the house is?”

“Nonthaburi. My son’s place. It’s been sitting empty for years.”

The name settled into his chest with an eerie weight. He could already see the light against the walls, hear the buzz of late afternoon heat in the trees. The soil there still remembered him.

“I understand it’s a lot,” Somchai said gently. “But think it over. I need someone who will care, not just someone who will complete the work.”

When the call ended, Pran kept the phone in his hand, staring past it, seeing a place he hadn’t let himself imagine in years.

He didn’t tell Dew. Not that day. Not the next. Not until the idea had stopped feeling like something dangerous.

The days moved gently forward. The tremors in his hands slowed. The sky stayed dry and blue. Something began to loosen, like breath held too long.

Then one evening, as they sat at their usual bench by the lake, Dew glanced at him sideways.

“You’ve been quiet,” he said. “Even for you.”

Pran didn’t answer right away. He watched the sun folding itself into the edge of the water. Then he turned.

“There’s a project,” he said. “In Thailand.”

Dew waited.

“A family estate. They want me to lead the redesign. I said I’d think about it.”

Dew’s gaze was steady, open.

“And?”

“I’m still thinking.”

A small smile curved Dew’s mouth, calm and knowing.

“You’ve been thinking for a year.”

That brought a laugh from Pran, a real one, small and startled and full of breath.

He looked away again. “You really think I should go?”

“I think,” Dew said slowly, “that when the world gives you a reason to go home, you should listen.”

Pran didn’t speak. The light around them faded into dusk.

He didn’t answer Dew that night. Or the next.

But three days later, Dew found him at the hospital reception desk, signing medical clearance forms for travel. He didn’t look up when Dew approached, only said softly, “They confirmed the project. It’ll be six months. Maybe longer.”

And just like that, he was going back home.