[Discontinued] Peril of Choices and Falling

Just Give Me A Reason

Our friendship was never established on the basis of compatibility.

Most young children want the same things.

We were all each other had ever known,

so it seemed right to hold on.

But it was a broken thing,

a long time before either of us bothered to notice. 

AUGUST 2019

Another country, another fan meet, wash and repeat. Don't get him wrong, he loves the fans and will never not want to meet any of them. He's only human though, and it just gets tiring sometimes. Thankfully, he's now done filming so there's more breathing room in his schedule. For the first time in quite a while, he can just enjoy being outside of Thailand, experiencing another culture, meeting new people – and spending time with his P' without other distractions.

'Using work as an excuse' - he knows that it's a running joke among the fandom. It's something they used to play up during the early days when the management drilled it into their heads that they have to act sweeter than honey in front of the fans. It became a game of sorts, trying to outdo each other in terms of servicing the fans. More often than not, he wins easily except when it comes to staring games – his P'Singto is the undisputed champion in that, with his patented smoldering look. Just fun and games until eventually it all came instinctively to them, shamelessly flirting onstage and treating everyone else like air.

For them, it's all second nature and natural as breathing – or at least it was, until recently. Lately, he's been noticing a divide – a distance he can't seem to bridge, no matter how far he tries to reach out. It's not very obvious, and if it were anyone else but his P', he probably wouldn't even notice. After knowing each other for 6 years though, 4 of which they've been intimately working in close quarters, he's pretty familiar with the other's habits. Like how his eyes glaze over whenever he's lost in his own head, how his smile gets a little bit fixed when he's forced in extremely extroverted environments, or how he tilts his head to the side when he gets confused about anything and everything.

It's the little things that tell him something is definitely not right in the world. When he leans his head in the crook of his neck, there's an imperceptible stiffening in the other's shoulders, as if his P' is fighting off the urge to shrug him away. When he grabs a hold of his hand, the appendage reflexively twitches before going slack, no longer grasping back. When he hugs the other, his body goes rigid for a millisecond before becoming completely limp like a lifeless doll, his only consolation an awkward pat in the back. All the little things that shouldn't even matter but still stab at his heart and make him want to cry.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he sighed and slumped down on the couch beside Singto, mildly surprised when the other man didn't inch away from him. Then again, he's probably too busy on his phone to notice the thigh resting against his. He was about to take a subtle peek to check what new game is occupying the other's attention when Tae gave the signal that they're about to go live on IG. He quickly got up, run over to the mirror and checked if his face looks blotchy. Satisfied that he resembles a human being, he went back to the couch only to stop short upon seeing the other man laying on his stomach, taking over the whole space while speaking to the live stream that already started upon his absence. 

He had two options here – he can either be the bigger person and call his P's attention, or he can be the baby that they all thought of him as and get his attention instead. It took about half a second for him to decide before he went plopping down on top of the sprawled man, bouncing up and down for good measure. Singto made half-hearted protests about how heavy he was and flailed around a bit before ignoring the weight resting on top of him. Since he's not being actively pushed away, he decides to take that as a win and moved even closer, softly touching the other's waist in an unspoken apology for being too rough.