call out my name [2gether]

CH 30

THE PHANTOM TATTOO.

Sarawat opened the door to his dorm room and blinked confusedly at the sight before him. Phukong was sitting on the unmade bed with his shirt off while Natty was hovering above him like a nervous shadow. The bleak daylight that filtered through the open balcony door cast them in a hazy, eerie glow. Sarawat halted in his tracks with a pinch between his dark brows. The keys jingled in his callused hand as he tried to make sense of the scene before him. Finding Phukong at his place was not particularly surprising since he had been crashing there on and off for these past two weeks already, however, he had not expected to find Natty there as well.

Well, so much for making a quick stop at the dorms before heading off to visit Tine at the hospital, Sarawat mused exasperatedly while combing a tired hand through his hair. He was so fucking done with all of this by now. He just wanted to whisk Tine somewhere far away, leaving all of this behind like a forgotten nightmare.

"You do know that my brother isn't legal, right?" Sarawat drawled instead with a mirthless smirk curling on his lips, eyes glinting as he watched Natty gasp and scramble away from the younger guy, her flashy jewelry sparkling in the soft light as she moved around.

Phukong quickly pulled the shirt over his pale shoulder while Sarawat snickered darkly at the panicked expression on Natty's dolled up face. The woman was dressed up to the nines as usual; glossy heels, a very short skirt and some kind of fluttery off-shoulder top. How she got past the administrator into an all male dorm while looking like that was a standing question still.

"Stupid," Phukong mouthed at his older brother behind Natty's back while buttoning up his shirt with nimble fingers. God knew that this woman was already full of all kind of jitters, especially with the supernatural shit storm that had been brought upon her by these two brothers. Phukong felt as if he had tapped into a new level of madness while hanging around this woman, falling through a rabbit hole into a different dimension. Natty always kept staring unnervingly at something just over Phukong's shoulder each time they met. At times she even reached out one slender hand to that patch of empty space behind him but withdrew it just as quickly as if being burned, complaining with a pout that an evil spirit left black, sooty traces on her fingertips.

Well, Natty was used to her everyday colliding with a strange, paranormal layer of the world, used to seeing things that other people did not, used to avoiding things and finding her way around places that reeked of evil or just plain strange aura. Needless to say but Natty usually chose not to stick her noise into other people's wet business unless specifically asked to. So she red fortunes and helped to match-make couples, writing helpful talismans and just kept herself more on the neutral spectrum of things since everything that went around, came around eventually as well. Karma was unavoidable and so was fate. Both brothers were perfect victims of this, now that fate had finally brought everyone together, connecting all events into an imperfect circle, an Ouroboros.

The woman glared at the guitarist, turning around to face Sarawat more fully where he was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed over his wide chest. Cocky devil, she thought.

"As if I would ever do anything with your brother," Natty muttered, looking down at her sharp, acrylic nails with an indignant humph. Phukong had obviously the wrong gender for her to even get remotely excited about seeing him undressed. Sarawat repressed a light shiver at the sharp claw like things that were attached to her fingers. Why did girls like that shit? Well. Whatever.

"I guess this isn't really a pleasantry visit. Any new information about his tattoo then?" Sarawat asked, fixing his owlish stare on the young woman but inclining his head in the direction of his little brother. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Phukong fidget in his seat, his shoulders shooting up to his ears at mention of the tattoo, as if trying to protect himself from the awful things that might be coming for him soon.