HYSM

Five

Mew was seventeen when he realised. That moment of a Sun edging over the horizon of a still ocean, its kaleidoscopic rays casting out across the mirrored surface to light up the dark world around. Enlightenment.

The Traipi family had spent several weeks in Koh Samui - holidaying with extended family at a friend's resort - and on returning there was something unmistakably different about fifteen year old Gulf. A diffidence, a confidence - no, a cockiness. It was unsettling.

"What happened to you Kanawut, did you fall in love down at the beach?", the elder boy had teased, digging him in the ribs with a sharp elbow.

But...

"So what if I did? It's none of your business", Gulf retorted, nose in air as he turned his back and walked away.

And Mew's heart had sunk.

Yes, that was the moment. Enlightenment.

So he watched from afar as the younger's holiday romance played out tragically before his eyes. The late night, whispered video calls down in the garden, coy giggles and 'kid teungs' exchanged - Mew listening through the open window of his bedroom, head resting back against the wall in the pooling moonlight.

The inevitable cooling of teenage passions as Summer flames gave way to fresh rain and new beginnings - a first awkward break up conversation for adolescent Gulf.

And then a string of deadening, sequential blows to Mew's heart:

Mint - first hand holder as Gulf's prom date
Ploy - owner of Gulf's virginity
Boonsri - title of Gulf's first girlfriend
Som - recipient of Gulf's first love

The last one hurt the most. Seeing them together at family events - resting heads upon one another's shoulders, slipping away to share stolen kisses in the kitchen whilst the 'adults' were distracted with talk of politics and fish market prices.

But by the time they all entered their second year of university, the bruise to Mew's heart had become so familiar, that it was really just an accepted part of himself. Of his pining soul. Like an irrepressible, dusty street dog with a limp, he learnt to live with the impediment. To thrive, to fight harder for his own survival.

Because Mew, ironically, had the reputation of being somewhat of a 'playboy'. And it was valid - at least on a physical plain.

He romanced the girl next door (literally). The Japanese foreign exchange student, his parents' cleaner, even his algebra tutor. Alongside a string of nameless female conquests, there were nameless men too - the blessed, dangerous anonymity of smoky night clubs.

Sometimes he would lie in bed - oblivious, naked partner on the messy sheets beside him in post coital bliss - and wonder how long he had truly loved Gulf Kanawut.

Since the day his younger self had first embarked on that journey of self awareness those years back, he had come to understand the self-destructive pattern of his own behaviour. The teasing, the arguing, the provocations, the fighting: The role of the arrogant wind-up clown and perpetual irritant. A pest. A whining mosquito.

It was, simply, that it was better to be hated than invisible.

Mew knew that he would never call Gulf his own, just as he also knew instinctively that he would always be by Gulf's side. He had been since the day he was born.

Wasn't it him, after all, who had slipped daily revision notes under Gulf's locker door in the weeks before his Khon Kaen University entrance exam? Him that pulled out his award winning impression of Phor Alex, to telephone the school office and request an authorised absence the day the younger man had jumped a bus, carefree with his comrades, to skip an important school ceremony in favour of the mall's ice cream parlour and video game arcades? Him that distracted Gulf with a petty prank to prevent him rounding the corner into the gymnasium to see his date, Mint, kissing another, thus forever besmirching glorious memories of his prom night?

Even that precious, rare text book from just yesterday returned miraculously to its library shelf once the one who sought it had had it dangled in front of his nose as a reminder of the urgent assignment that he had not yet started work on.

Indeed, Mew chuckled to himself, Gulf could be considered to lead a blessed life - every mishap prevented, every problem diverted, every path surface smoothed.

But it was all him.

//

As Mew straightened up from the fence, stretching arms with the yawn of a bedraggled lion, achy and tired from the previous night's exertions - both the late hour he had slept at, and the piggyback he had given to a drunk and awkwardly comatose Gulf, the culprits - he settled on a warm shower to ease weary muscles.

The water was soothing indeed. Lulling, softening, the slow melting of a solid wax candle, relaxing Mew's mind to the pliant point at which those thoughts he had been consciously unthinking, found a crack in the neurological gate to surge powerfully through as unstoppable floodwater...

First wave.

Gulf's eyes watching him on the dance floor. His expression...different?

Second wave.

Hands clutching the back of his neck forcefully as the younger man pulled him in towards his lips.

Third wave.

Those lips...touching his own.

Fourth wave.

The intense conflict that tore his own heart in two as he pulled away dutifully - his Nong was drunk, too drunk to know, he knew.

Fifth wave.

But then, that look again in Gulf's eyes. What was it...?

Six-

-Just then, as the white water, wild horse crest of a galloping sixth wave threatened to break, Mew's mental soliloquy was interrupted by a knock at the front door below. The parcel delivery his mother was expecting - she had warned him as she left for the family business that morning.

"Wait a minute, krub", Mew called down, turning off the shower and reaching for the nearest towel - rubbing it quickly against his wet hair to leave it comically spiked, before winding the damp fabric about his waist to form a makeshift sarong.

"Coming!", he shouted, unlocking the bathroom door to hurtle down the staircase.

And he swung open the door to find Gulf on the step - bruised, bloodshot eyed, and staring open-mouthed at the naked chest before him.