Melted: A MaxTul AU story

Chapter Thirty-Five: Deeper Understandings

When Max shut the door behind him, he immediately sat down on the end of the bed. Unbelievably, he felt calm. His mind was working quickly, trying to process what had just happened, but he felt incredibly calm. This characteristic of his—to respond to crisis with a very calm and focused mind—was one of the (many) reasons that Kuhn Bagnet thought he would be an excellent candidate for the NIA.

It wasn't that he was not affected by what happened, but he felt a sense of relief and gratitude that seemed to release some of the tension that had been building about his feelings for Tul. Tul cared about him. Tul wanted him. If he could, Tul would choose him. It was all so incredible and so wonderful. His anger at himself for breaking his rule and falling for a straight man could be put aside. He didn't have to fight his feelings anymore. He could allow himself to love Tul as much as he wanted.

Obviously for Max, loving Tul meant something different than it might mean to most at this point. For Max, this meant that his focus, his thoughts, his aid were not something he needed to contain or control. He might not be able to be with Tul, but he could think about and fantasize about Tul all he wanted without feeling like a creeper. He didn't have to completely withdraw from Tul like he had planned—at least not yet—because his feelings and concern wouldn't be seen as offensive to Tul.

He recognized that his unwillingness to go any further than this might be a burden to Tul. However, he hoped that once Tul understood that he really needed to focus on other things, he would get used to it, and they could still be friends. He'd miss that if it were lost.

Tul had fallen for him. Tul Pakorn. Him. He had known that their friendship had developed rapidly and grew deeply in ways that had surprised him, but he believed that their situation had done that. People who go through stressful and challenging times together often become close more quickly than people do during ordinary circumstances. But the idea that Tul would return the romantic feelings that he had for him was a complete surprise.

Max laid back on the bed and thought about his interactions with Tul from the beginning. Thinking about Tul's behavior towards him with the idea that Tul was falling for him, that Tul was attracted to him made everything much more like the kinds of dramas that Uncle Pongpat watched or those stories that Chalida read online about her favorite actors. They actually had a meet-cute that Chalida always talked about, and he wondered if that was why she had grinned at him so much the night of her going away party. After Tul had left their table, she had asked Max how they had met. He remembered now how she had clapped and said "perfect" while Itty had laughed and told her to calm down.

Max remembered immediately being attracted to Tul, but now he wondered if Tul had felt the same way then. Was that why he had been so worried about his injury? Max laughed again. He had thought Tul was worried about a lawsuit. Was that why he had followed him to the park? Or why he had showed him the way to Plustor's offices? Is that why he had bought him those clothes?

He thought about the clothes again. They really were the nicest and the most comfortable items of clothing he had ever worn. Before, he had planned never to wear them again because it was too painful and awkward, but now he could see himself wearing and feeling comforted because it was a love gift. He could wear them in the future when he was alone, when Tul was with someone else, and when he needed comfort or courage because it was a concrete testimony to true care.

He knew that other people wouldn't understand this. Both Itty and Pongpat would be shaking him right now, telling him to go fight for his man. Ironically, it was the women in his life—Kuhn Bagnet, Tantӓ Clara, and even Chalida who would understand.

As much as she liked romance, Chalida would get mad reading her stories when the characters would be in the middle of some crisis but still couldn't keep their hands off each other. She'd say, "I like good sex scenes as much as the next person, but I'm telling you Max, if I was hiding out from assassins or trapped in a tunnel, the last thing I'd be thinking about would be sex!" And Kuhn Bagnet would always repeat to him a line from an American movie: "You need to do what you have to do to do what you want to do." As she told him and he knew, people got hurt or sometimes died when distracted from the mission.