Unexpected Hearts

The Pain

     Sarawat loved Tine. It was a simple and innate fact that was so completely embedded into his being that it could very well have been a permanent and unbreakable personality characteristic that he was born with and didn't pinpoint until he saw Tine for the first time. Almost as though it had laid dormant in Sarawat until he saw Tine and the trait was instantly awakened and was as natural as the act of breathing was for him.

     Tine did not love Sarawat, a fact that was breaking Sarawat into pieces. It was like having his heart carved out right from his chest while he's completely lucid to feel every carve the blade made into his raw, painfully beating heart.

     The pain started when he first realized Tine would never reciprocate feelings for him stronger than friendship. It had been a dull, manageable ache because Sarawat had dared to hope that with time and effort, maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to get Tine to see him. That hope died when his clueless Tine unwittingly raised his hopes by showing that he cared for his wellbeing and then followed his concern up by telling him he intended to pursue Pear, the cute little med student that had caught Tine's eye.

     And of course, Tine cared. It was one of the magical qualities that made Tine so special. He was inherently happy, kind, open, and accepting. He was sunshine and springtime. Sarawat had taken the time to get into Tine's inner circle and Tine had gotten close to Sarawat and genuinely cared about him. It just wasn't the way Sarawat so desperately needed Tine to care about him.

     In Tine's defense, he was utterly clueless to Sarawat's true feelings and if he'd had any idea, he would have never been so cruel as to have told Sarawat in such a careless manner that he intended to pursue the medical student. Because Sarawat knew he mattered to Tine, but he also knew Tine only saw him as a friend. Tine had never even given an errant thought to seeing Sarawat as anything other than a friend, nor had he ever given it a thought that Sarawat may consider Tine as anything more than a friend, so while it was Tine that had plunged the dagger into Sarawat's heart with unerring precision, it had been done with the utmost innocence and without an ounce of malicious intent.

     Sarawat's pain wasn't Tine's fault. It was the universe's fault for letting Sarawat's heart fall for a man who could never love him back. But then again, maybe the universe wasn't really at fault, because Sarawat wasn't sure if it was even possible to know Tine and not completely love him. He was the morning dew, the sunbeams and the rainbows that the Earth granted human beings the privilege to experience.

     When Tine confessed his intention to pursue another, he had unknowingly plunged a dagger into Sarawat's soul. Sarawat had reacted almost immediately, desperately, possessively, and tried to forcefully remove that dagger by crashing his lips into the unsuspecting lips of Tine and trying to claim some ownership of Tine's heart by telling him he's reserved and not allowed to pursue anyone. When Sarawat looked up to see Tine's shocked expression, it left Sarawat without a doubt that he could never compete with the cute little med student that had caught his beloved Tine's eye.

     To save some face, and whatever shred of amicable feeling Tine might have for him after Sarawat's definite crossing of personal space boundaries, Sarawat pretended to pass out from drunkenness, a ploy he could use to cover up his misplaced kiss in the morning when Tine accosted him for his actions. Tine had no idea that Sarawat had only one beer and was completely lucid, so why not use it to salvage whatever tentative strands of friendly feelings Tine may still have left for him in the morning?

     That was the plan but when Sarawat had woken the following morning before Tine, he knew he couldn't face the rejection that waited for him and he fled with a written excuse of early engagements, whereas in reality, he went back to his room and let the pain slice straight through his core, allowing himself to succumb completely to the pain that was beautifully mutilating him from the inside out.

     Sarawat did not know how long he laid there, or what time of day or even what day it was anymore. He had a vague awareness of the many notifications and phone calls that had come from his phone, but it was like they had been in some sub reality that no longer included him. He just ignored the outside world, wishing for nothing more than to revel in the pain that Tine had unwittingly gifted him with. Sarawat wanted to fully appreciate anything Tine gave him, even if it was only pain. It was still beautiful in that the heart of his universe gave it to him, and anything was better than apathy from the center of his universal axis.

     Sarawat embraced the waves, letting them lap through him, filling him with their icy cuts. He followed the patterns and marveled at the colors that the pain had been granting. He could feel every slice of his heart with every intake of breath curling into him with tendrils of a musical rhythm written to the beat of Sarawat's broken, bleeding heart. The slow strum of a sad guitar or the mournful vibration of a sad, drawn out tremble from a violin. The rhythm slowly changing from a shaky vibrato and adapting into a harsh beating of a drum. The drum slowly overtook the other sounds of the painful melody with a resounding beat-beat-beat. Just a friend-just a friend-just a friend. Beat-beat-beat.

     The constant beat was beating the despair into his soul like a hammer on a nail and as Sarawat's poor, broken soul seemed to try to embrace the reality the melody became more frantic and the beat-beat-beats kept falling in and out of time, changing tunes and refusing to keep to a melody. The distorted tempo was confusing Sarawat and as he started to focus more and more on the beats; they began to take shape as not a rhythm of pain but an almost ear-splitting racket that was forcing him back to a reality he no longer wanted.

     As though Sarawat was bringing his head through a fog, or coming up for air from the surface after being submerged underwater, he gasped loudly as he took huge intakes of breath. He was rendered confused, not only by the gasp of air he had taken immediately upon resurfacing, but by realizing the erratic beats was someone frantically pounding on his door in a desperate attempt to be heard.

     He groaned in protest, wanting to fall back into his waves of pain. Oblivion was better than having to try and live his life like a normal person. Eventually, he would have to leave his room, go back to classes, interact with his friends, and rejoin the land of the living. But for now, he wanted nothing more than to grieve and had absolutely no intention of opening the door.

     Eventually, Man or Boss or whoever the fuck it was that was attempting to reach him would give up and leave him to die alone in his bed. (dramatic much) The frantic knocking continued, preventing Sarawat from slipping back into his cornucopia of pain and self-pity, and he rolled haphazardly to his other side and grabbed his phone without fully pulling out of the fetal position he was curled in.

     He checked the time and cursed under his breath. No wonder they were trying to break his door down. It had felt like he'd just gotten here, as though it had been both an eternity ago, and also just mere minutes ago, that he had plopped down in his bed to let the waves of pain wash over him. However, he'd spent nearly 72 hours in his underwater torture chamber. Text messages cluttered his phone to capacity and was almost impossible to decipher who had sent what and when, and he had missed 17 missed calls from Boss, 42 missed calls from Man and Sarawat's breath hitched in his throat when he saw 234 missed calls from Tine.