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Korn has never been - normal.
Maybe that’s the wrong way to go about it, she thinks, toying with the wire travelling down from her headphones to her phone tucked away in her pocket. The Gifted class is freeing, yet also constricting as she draws herself together, resisting the urge to slide her headphones on, close her eyes, and settle into her chair. It’s freeing in the way that she knows she can do it, can put her headphones on and Khu Pom will give her a knowing smile, not letting anyone ask about it as she lets her music croon softly in the background, low enough for her to listen to what’s happening in class, loud enough for her to feel at peace. But it’s restricting in the way, that - well. It’s restricting in the way that everything is sometimes, her lungs collapsing into themselves so that she can’t breathe, only being able to feel okay when she scrabbles to put her music on. Being in the Gifted hurts sometimes, because the only time she’s been able to feel okay is when she’s in that space between sleep and consciousness, when the ceiling blurs in front of her eyes and she nods off, blankets pulled up tight against her chin and earphones hooked up to her phone. Now - she’s had that ripped away from her, as well.
Korn inhales, sliding her headphones on. So tell me this is who you are, they tell me I’ve got something more…With a click of the button, her playlist starts murmuring in her ears, and she almost automatically looks up to find Khu Pom’s eyes. He’s in the middle of talking about some Gifted history, stopping to let everyone copy the notes from the projector as he nods, giving her a small smile. It’s - settling. The only thing settling about this place, sometimes. She leans back in the chair, scribbling the same notes into her notepad, catching Claire staring at her when she looks up. Korn’s heart aches just a little bit, seeing her chair so close to Punn’s, his arm draped across the back of hers. She can’t begrudge either of them - Punn is a nice guy, and Claire is… sometimes Korn thinks she’s the only one who knows how lovely Claire truly is. It’s obvious in the way she’s looking at her, worried. Korn snaps her eyes away. Claire’s from a different life - she can’t keep holding onto her like this.
“Korn, dude,” says Ohm, from the other side of the classroom. Korn winces - she likes Ohm, she thinks he’s funny, and he tries his hardest to keep things light and make everyone laugh, but he can be so - cis . She takes her headphones off, raising an eyebrow at him. “We’re talking about the dorms. Did you hear?”
Korn shakes her head, looking at Khu Pom, who has a smile on his face as always. “What about it?” she says, trying to ignore how her voice grates and aches over her vocal cords.
“Khu Pom said that - if we want - we can all move into one dorm together!” says Ohm, eyes lighting up as he shakes Pang by the shoulder, who seems more amused than anything. “It’s just that there’s been an influx of students, and they need the rooms. Pang and Wave and I would be in one, and Punn and Jack and Jo said they’d be in another, so it’s now your choice which room you want to go in!”
It’s like something has struck through her heart. If she had to - if she really had to, it would be with Punn and the twins - but if she wanted to, it wouldn’t be either of them. Korn keeps her eyes off Claire as she sinks lower into her chair, hands gripping headphones as her stomach curdles and she forces out the words, “I’ll think about it.”
Ohm seems satisfied with that, sitting back in his chair as Korn trains her eyes on the grain of the wood, shaking. She doesn’t notice the bell going until everyone is filing out of the room, feet going pitter-patter against the floor as someone brushes against her back, gripping her shoulder. “Are you okay?” asks a voice, and Korn looks up to see Mon, strand of hair fluttering out into her face. Korn can barely catch her breath. Mon is as ethereal as she is kind - but it’s her practice time now, and Korn doesn’t want to hold her up. “You seem off.”
Korn swallows, hating the way it sounds. “I’m okay,” she says, managing a smile. “Go ahead, okay?”
Mon’s eyebrows pull into a small frown, but she doesn’t push, squeezing Korn’s shoulder. “Okay,” she says, still looking after her as she drifts out of the room, walking down in the reaction of the gym. Korn turns back to her desk, putting her headphones on and packing her things away in her bag as hot tears threaten to brim up at the corner of her eyes. But oh, you could be loved… She doesn’t notice Pom casting a shadow over her desk until she looks up, slinging her bag over her shoulder and righting her glasses.
He pulls a chair out from the desk and swivels it around, sitting down, motioning for her to take off her headphones. She complies, perching on the corner of her table. “Hey,” says Pom, in such a soft way that it almost makes Korn cry, “what’s wrong? I’ve been noticing that you haven’t been doing too well lately. Is there anything to talk about?”
Korn shakes her head, trying to breathe. “I’m okay,” she says, but the tears spill out anyway, making her frustrated as she bunches her fists up against her sides. “I’m -- “
Pom’s eyes go wide as she wipes her tears away in frustration. “You’re not okay,” he says softly, reaching out to pat her arm. “What’s wrong?”
Something swells up in Korn, so big she needs to swallow it back down in fear of it bursting out of her. “It’s just - “ she starts, and finds she doesn’t know how to continue, or how to finish. “It’s just… I don’t know, Khu. I don’t know.”
Pom blinks at her, and his eyes turn softer. “Oh,” he exhales, reaching his arms out. “Come here.”
So Korn steps into his arms, letting herself be hugged in such a loving, parental way that nobody ever has apart from her uncle, when she came out to him when she was six and already too old for her small body. He had held her in his arms like she was just a child again, rocking her back and forth to sleep. Pom pats her back as she squeezes her eyes shut. “It’s all going to be okay,” he says softly, almost as if he’s soothing a child. “It’s all going to be okay.”
Korn pulls back, wiping the tears away from her eyes. “I don’t - “ she says, swallowing. “I don’t want to room with Ohm. Or with Punn.”
Pom hums, procuring a tissue from the pocket of his trousers, handing it out to her. She dabs at her tears. “That’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to.”
“No, I mean…” starts Korn, her hands clenching into little fists again. “I mean, I want to room with the girls. With Mon. Or with Claire, or with Namtaan.”
When she gathers the courage to look up, Pom nods, hand on his chin. “With the girls?” he repeats, as if he’s thinking about it. “We can try and arrange that - but you’d have to tell them, at least. Not the boys, if you don’t want to - I’ll cover for you.”
Korn looks back up at him, her breath caught in the moment. “You’d - let me do that?” she asks, her voice cracking as she says it, reverberating through her body in an echo she doesn’t like. “Really?”
“If that’s what you want, we can figure something out, yeah?” says Pom, patting her shoulder. “Take your time - at your own pace. I’ve got your back.”
Korn swallows, yet again, holding the strap of her backpack close to herself. “Thanks, Khu,” she says. Her heart aches at the idea of just thinking about waking up next to the girls, Mon humming as Korn helps her tie her hair back in the mornings, Namtaan’s eyes kind as they cook instant ramen together, Claire pretending like she doesn’t care about any of it, but smiling as she comes back to the dorm in the evenings anyway. Almost immediately - a stab of guilt pierces through her gut for even thinking about it. Fantasies like these aren’t made for girls like her. “I’ll think about it. Can I room alone till then?”
“Whatever you want,” says Pom, and Korn believes him.
“Korn!” yells Ohm, beckoning her towards their table. “Join us over here!”
Korn freezes with the lunch tray in her hand, turning back to him. Normally, she tends to eat either alone or with Mon whenever she decides to come to the cafeteria, who doesn’t have any particular connections to anyone in the class except Namtaan, who she talks with often. Looking around and with nobody to save her, she clears his throat and is about to say she’ll eat alone, her headphones in as she listens to the music that will help her get through her day.
However, before she can get a single word out, Mon’s head pops out from behind Pang with a wide grin on her face, and Korn’s heart stutters immediately. “Come on!” she says, waving her down. “I got you some green tea already!”
Korn has found, recently, that she can’t refuse Mon. They’ve only been friends for a couple of weeks - properly, anyway - with Mon joining her at lunch and dragging her to practice every now and again, but in that short time, her heart has grown to beat faster around her. Korn’s hands clench around the tray and she swivels around to the table. They shuffle up to make space for her, leaving out a small space between Mon and Pang for her to sit down. Mon passes her the green tea with a smile. “Hi,” manages Korn quietly, putting her tray down. “How’s it going?”
“I’m fine - I hope it’s okay that I decided to eat with the others as well today,” she says, her mouth curling up in one of those shy smiles that Korn rarely gets to witness, but that make her heart melt in her weak chest.
“Of course it’s fine,” says Korn, turning away to busy herself with her food before she looks for too long, in the wrong way. Because even if Mon liked girls - she wouldn’t like girls like her .
Korn intends to spend the rest of her lunch wallowing in her own sadness and finishing up her lunch, listening to everyone around her talk and joke around, as well as pointedly ignore Claire’s worried glances across the table from where she’s sitting next to Punn. But because these are her classmates, and they never know when to leave well enough alone, Pang nudges her from her left and says, “So, what are you always listening to?”
Korn blinks at him. “Music,” she replies. Mon snorts under her breath.
“I got that,” says Pang patiently, “I just wanted to know what you listen to all the time, you know?”
Korn shrugs, poking around her rice. Suddenly, she doesn’t feel so hungry anymore. It’s not like Pang is asking anything wrong - it’s just that she sometimes knows she can’t put together the words she wants to in her voice. “I just listen to music I like. It’s mostly - English music. Although sometimes I listen to P’Bird, because I feel like everyone does.”
Pang’s eyes light up. “P’Bird!” he says, patting Wave’s shoulder sitting next to him. “Wave, you listen to P’Bird too, right?”
“Yeah,” says Wave, looking up from his food. He’s changed a lot over the course of just a few weeks, coming out of his shell and growing closer to Pang. There’s one advantage to physically not being able to sleep, Korn has noticed, and it’s that she’s started noticing things out of pure boredom so she can mull over them at night when she listens to her music in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling. In this case - it’s the way Wave’s eyes linger on Pang whenever he’s in the room, or the way Pang’s voice softens whenever he talks to Wave, or how Wave’s cheeks go red whenever Ohm teases him about anything related to Pang. Korn blinks back into the situation at hand when Wave leans closer and continues, “What’s your favourite song by him?”
“Uh,” says Korn, running through the list of all of his songs in her head. “I have to think about it, really.”
“I have a cassette with some of his greatest hits,” says Wave, and before Korn can think Who even has cassettes anymore? , she realises he’s probably trying to be nice. “I can give it to you sometime, if you want to borrow it.”
“That’s - “ Korn swallows. It doesn’t feel right. Accepting this kindness, when they barely even know who she is. “Thanks, Wave.”
Wave smiles at her, before turning back to his food and busying himself with the rest of the conversation at the table. With a sinking heart, Korn turns back to her own tray, staring at the rice until it bores into her mind. It’s not that they’re excluding her, it’s the fact that they’re trying to take her in that hurts . Maybe she could deal with the exclusion, with people always keeping her an arm’s length away - but the inclusion means that they like her, but not her - because they don’t know her .
Korn grips onto her tray, exhaling - when Mon nudges her side. “You okay?”she asks, eyebrows knitting together into a frown. “You don’t seem like you’re doing well.”
She manages a smile, even if she’s sure it doesn’t reach her eyes as she pushes her glasses up. “Yeah, I’m alright,” she replies.
Mon continues frowning as her eyes flicker to her plate of untouched food. Korn shifts away from the table. “Do you want to come to the gym with me today?” she blurts, reaching out to tap a finger on her hand. The place she touches her grows warm - Korn almost pulls away. “I think it’d help you - whatever you’re going through.”
Korn looks at her - and in her own fashion, thinks about saying no, thinks about isolating herself, closing herself off from everyone to stay back in her room and listen to the same music over and over again, finding herself in the same beats she’s listened to a thousand times, enough to be engraved in the way her own heart thumps against her chest. She thinks about it and says, “Yeah, okay.”
Mon’s face lights up with a smile so contagious that Korn can’t help smiling back at her.
There’s something about Mon when her hair is slicked back into a loose ponytail, boxing gloves on as her feet go one-two, standing in front of the punching bag. Korn knows that she liked to spend time in the gym before her potential awakened, but there’s - something different about her, now. Her eyes are razor sharp, her technique is all hard angles and positioned to precision, the heavy rise and fall of her chest almost captivating. Korn tears her eyes away from her - it’s not her place to look. She doesn’t have the permission to look.
“Hey,” says Mon, waving a hand over. Korn blinks up from where she’s sitting on the bleachers, marvelling at how her training falls away so easily, eyes bunching up in little crescent moons and her smile lighting up her face. “You wanna come down here?”
Korn takes her headphones off, tucking them into her backpack as she sticks her hands in her pockets, walking down the bleachers as Mon takes her boxing gloves off to take a quick swig of water. “Do you need me to do something?” asks Korn quietly, registering everyone else in the gym. They’re not alone - everyone else from Mon’s club is also here, the familiar hum of the people around him calming him down.
“Hold the punching bag,” she says, moving around the bag to place her hands on Korn’s. Her breath hitches as Mon shifts them to a better place, keeping the bag in place. She shoots her a smile and Korn doesn’t know how she manages to stay standing, clutching onto the bag. “I just have to practice a little bit - do you want to do something around the gym?”
Korn shakes her head, eyeing her backpack on the bleachers. “No, it’s okay,” she says, planting her feet down firmly. “I’m good with just helping you out.”
Mon nods in return, settling back into the razor-sharp persona as she starts landing punches against the bag, her breath quickening with every hit. One-two, one-two, the bag’s chains rattle from the ceiling as Korn holds it in place, her feet slipping out of position as she rushes to settle back in. The steady beat against the punching bag, the slick sound of sneakers squeaking against the floor, the heavy breaths in tune to her heartbeat - Korn finds it similar to the music she listens to when the world chokes in on her. It keeps to the thrum of her veins, rhythmic enough for her to shudder with every punch Mon throws against the bag, every bounce of someone flying against the ring in the back, every hiss of the bag against the chains keeping it up - she feels her heart slow down. Beat steadier. One - Mon hits right. Two - Mon hits left. One - Korn’s breath catches in her chest. Two - she breathes out.
She loses track of how much time she’s been clutching the bag against the force of Mon’s punches until her hands go numb and her feet stick to the floor and Mon waves a hand, stepping back to brush the sweat off of her forehead, saying, “Okay, that’s good enough.”
Korn steps back, letting the bag drift from her grip. “Are you done for today?” she asks, swallowing as Mon dabs at the sweat on her head. Korn knows that Khu Pom had spent days in the lab with some of the other chemistry teachers trying to come up with a counteractive measure to what her sweat causes - and after many all-nighters, he’d managed to figure something out. Korn knows, because Mon has to inject herself with it every morning - and complains about it every now and then.
Mon blinks at her, putting the towel away. “Yeah, think so,” she says, taking a swig of water. Korn manages not to focus on the line of her throat as she does so. “Why, what’s up?”
“Well, I just thought - maybe we could study for the exam on Monday together, and go to the cafeteria after,” says Korn, rubbing the back of her neck nervously. “I mean - I suck at Thai, so I could use your help.”
Mon’s face brightens up into a smile, like she’s been waiting for Korn to ask her. “Of course we can,” she says, leaning forward. “On one condition.”
“Hm?” says Korn, distracted as Mon swings her gym bag around her shoulder and they step up into the bleachers to retrieve her own backpack. She pulls her headphones out and hangs them around her neck, a comforting weight. “What is it?”
Mon shrugs as she waves goodbye to the rest of her friends, the hum of the gym slowly trailing out as they move out of it, the doors crashing shut behind them. “You have to show me your music, okay?” she says, and Korn whips around to her. She seems to realise, and continues, “Only if you want to - but I want to listen to what you like, too.”
Korn’s heart stutters in his chest as she reaches a hand out around her headphones. “Maybe someday,” she says, and waits for Mon’s smile to fade, for her to draw herself back.
Mon doesn’t. Instead, she says, “Take your time,” and smiles back at her. “Now - let’s just try and focus on getting past next week’s exam.”
Korn looks at her - and smiles. Mon is kind, she realises. Mon is kind in the way that she always has an eye out for everyone, in the way that even when she complains about having to inject herself with the substance that Khu Pom had made every morning, she always attaches a disclaimer after it about how she’s grateful that it even exists in the first place, in the way that she doesn’t pressure Wave to talk after a few hours of sitting together at the table, or how she nudges Claire to knock off being mean to Namtaan sometimes, or how she’s always, always sweet around Korn, like she knows.
Korn looks up at her - and her heart beats just a little faster, seeing the wisps of Mon’s hair come untucked from her ponytail, the flex of her arms as she swings the bag over her back, the residual hint of her smile. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s just focus on that.”
“Hey, Khu,” says Korn, swinging her backpack over the chair. Khu Pom has these meetings he does every week with everyone, to check in with the development of their potentials and their general life - Korn knows that Claire thinks it’s annoying sometimes, but she finds it sweet. Khu Pom cares about his students - it’s evident in the way that he’d held Korn as she’d broken down, or how he tirelessly listens to everyone about everything, or how he runs the Gifted Program with a kind hand. She looks at him now - he must be tired after teaching all day and listening to Ohm and Pang before her, but it doesn’t show. As Khu Pom clears his papers off his desk, Korn takes her headphones off, letting the reassuring weight of them rest around her neck. I just wanna live like the ones before…
“Hi, how are you?” he replies, sitting down and curling his hands together. Korn shifts in her chair, her headphones brushing against the back.
“Trying my best,” she replies, deflating against the chair. “Being honest, Khu… not sleeping sucks, sometimes.”
Khu Pom’s eyebrows knit together. “I’m working on the pill,” he says, mouth flattening out into a frown. “It’s proving more difficult than the counteractive measure we produced for Mon - but it’ll be done, okay? So that you can sleep once in a while at least.”
Korn manages a smile. “It’s okay, Khu. You’re a teacher, not a miracle worker.”
“I didn’t study neuroscience for nothing,” says Khu Pom, leaning back in his chair. “How are things going otherwise? Have you thought about moving into the girls’ dorm?”
She sighs, drawing back into the chair. It would be a lie to say she hasn’t thought about it, a lie to say that she doesn’t think about it every night whenever she hears the girls laugh a room down. Korn would give anything - anything , for everyone to perceive her as a girl without her having to say anything. She’d give anything to get rid of the guilt that coats her every action, making even the thoughts of rooming with a girl, being close to a girl, being a girl - choking. Her guilt suffocates her sometimes.
“I’ve thought about it,” she says slowly, and then looks up at Khu Pom. He already seems to be reaching out to her. For some inexplicable reason, she thinks he’ll understand. “But, Khu - I can’t. Not yet. It… I feel too guilty.”
There’s a flash of recognition in Khu Pom’s eyes before he says firmly, “You have nothing to be guilty about. Take your time - not everyone has to know immediately. But that’s your space, too, Nobody can take it from you.”
Korn blinks, her throat choking up. “I know,” she manages, even though she doesn’t, and the only person who’s ever said that to her is her uncle. She’s suddenly a child again, too old for her body already, overspilling at the edges, not fitting in the cracks. “I… Khu Pom - how do you know ?”
Khu Pom fishes out his wallet from his pocket and places it on the table. He clears his throat and says, “You can’t tell the others what I’m telling you now, because they’ll be insufferable if you do - but I felt a similar kind of guilt when I was your age.”
“What do you mean?” asks Korn, her head snapping up. Khu Pom can’t be… he isn’t -
“I felt guilty about being in the boys’ room,” says Khu Pom, souring as is if he’d tasted something bad. “Back then, before I was in the Gifted, I roomed with a couple of boys from my year. During the Gifted, it was just me and someone else. And it’s not like I’d ever looked or said anything - but the entire time, I felt terrible about never telling anybody who I really was - even though I didn’t owe them anything.”
Korn looks up at him, as if she’s seeing him for the first time. He isn’t… she thinks. “Khu,” she says, hands wrapped tight around the chair. She tries to blink away the tears forming at the corner of her eyes, threatening to spill over. “You’re like me, aren’t you?”
Khu Pom smiles, and it’s so effortlessly gentle that a tear does slip from her eye, but she wipes it away immediately, her shoulders almost collapsing into themselves. “I’m enough like you to understand just a little bit of what you’re going through,” he says softly. “ I don’t - I can’t know the amount of pain you’re going through. The thing I can tell you - from personal experience - is that it gets better. One day, you’ll learn that you deserve to take up space in the world. You deserve to be in the room with the girls just as much as they do.”
The headphones lay safe around her neck, giving her what she needs to ground herself, bring herself back to where she is - in the chair, in Khu Pom’s office - everything is okay. She swallows, her voice grating against who she’s meant to be. “Thanks, Khu,” she manages, looking up at him.
Pom regards her for a second, and then beckons her over. Korn shuffles the chair over to where he’s sitting, level with his wallet. “Look at this and don’t tell the others,” says Khu Pom, putting a finger to his lips with one his hand as he unflaps his wallet with the other. He taps at a picture. “This is my husband.”
Korn leans over to get a better look. She’s not surprised, anymore - a lot of it fits. Khu Pom has always been careful about gendering things in class, always kept his personal life quiet even when he’d been asked about the little things - like if he was married, if he had children of his own. It’s a simple picture, just of Khu Pom and his husband at what seems to be a small get-together, smiling widely at the camera, but as she peers at the photo, the eyes and hair of the man start becoming familiar. She frowns up at her teacher. “Do I know him?” she asks, as he puts the wallet back onto the table. The more she looks at the photo, the more it seems - comfortable. Homey. Loving, all throughout just a second of capture. Maybe one day she could have that, she thinks, and immediately stamps it back down.
“You might,” says Khu Pom, his voice edged with something else as he flips the wallet back closed. It’s fondness. “He’s an astronaut. Been in the news a couple of times.”
Korn snaps her fingers, recognition taking over. “Right!” she says, turning to him. “P’Chanon Taweepong, right?” she says, and Khu Pom smiles at her.
“Right,” he says, tucking the wallet back into his pocket. “That’s my Non.”
Korn sits back in her chair. She remembers reading about Chanon Taweepong in the news, seeing him wave at the cameras before take-off as one of the first Thai astronauts to work with NASA and fly to the ISS. He’d seemed friendly, charming, cutting down his answers to the bare bones, easy to understand, and always shying away with a laugh whenever asked about if anybody was waiting for him back home. She knows why, now. “I never knew he liked men,” she says quietly. Her eyes flicker up to Khu Pom, who softens.
He reaches out to pat Korn’s shoulder. “There are so many of us out there, at every corner and every path you take,” he says, as Korn fiddles with her headphones. “You’re never the only one. You’re never alone, right?”
Korn swallows, and for once - her heart stops shaking. “Thanks, Khu,” she says, and then turns to the clock. “Don’t you have something else to be doing now?”
Khu Pom shakes his head. “If you want to talk more - I’m here for you.”
“That’s okay,” she says, getting up and swinging her backpack over her shoulder. She shucks her headphones back onto her head, and looks out to Khu Pom, who’s pulling out his papers again. She sees him work into the late hours, sometimes - she wonders if that has anything to do with the times P’Chanon may or may not be at home. “Khu Pom?”
He looks up at her, pen curled in his closed fist. “Yeah?”
“Thank you,” says Korn.
Khu Pom’s mouth lifts up into a smile. “Always,” he replies.
Korn turns on her heel, shutting the door closed carefully behind her. The music in her ears starts playing as she sticks her hands into her pockets and slinks her way back to the dorms, heart light for the first time in ages.
Oh, they said “you’ll never be alone again…”
“How’s studying going?” asks Mon, knocking on the door. “I brought food.”
Korn sighs, internally rejoicing as Mon places the plastic bag of rice on the table, right next to her notes. She pushes calculus away and nudges out the other chair with her foot for Mon to sit down in. “I hate calculus,” she mutters under her breath, rubbing at her eyes. She hasn’t slept in so long. “It’s not like it’s difficult - there’s just so much bullshit to remember and I don’t want to remember all of it.”
When she looks back up at Mon, she sees her wearing a fond smile. “Come on, it’s just one exam,” she says, patting her head. “You’ll get through it.”
Korn hums in response - content enough to be here with Mon in this moment, as she unpacks the plastic bag for both of them, fingers curling around the spoons inside. Ever since she’d spoken with Khu Pom, and then with her uncle again, late nights spent on the balcony as he had never asked about why she can’t sleep - had only been her refuge - she’s been trying to let go. It’s not perfect, and Korn spends a lot of her time getting choked up over things she can’t control, but she’s been trying to bury the guilt, at least. It’s been going okay for the last couple of months, she thinks, looking at Mon happily munching on some rice, poring over Korn’s maths notes. She’s gotten closer with Mon - let herself get closer. Claire doesn’t sneak her little furtive and worried glances much anymore, and Namtaan always keeps her in the swing of things. It’s not like anyone knows - the thought of it still sends a chill up Korn’s spine.
“I guess I will,” she replies, causing Mon to look up. “Notes look good?”
“Perfect,” says Mon, pointing at the margins. “I like your doodles.”
Korn’s cheeks heat up as she points at them, and she snatches her notebook back. They’re silly little things, ideas of what to shoot next when she has the time. Her camera and her music - sometimes they’re all that get her through the next week, the next month. “Thanks,” she mumbles, checking her phone for the time. As she does, she notices the music app on the corner of her screen, and then looks back at Mon - who’s humming to herself and scribbling in two stick figures boxing on a spare piece of paper. Something so big bubbles up in her chest that she can’t name it, put it to any kind of words. Korn swallows. “Hey. You wanna listen to music?”
Mon turns to her, the scratching of the pencil against the paper stopping. “Really?” she says, and when Korn nods, her heart in her throat, she continues with, “Yes! Maybe we could - well, you could put on a song, then I could put on a song, and we can just listen.”
Korn nods again, barely trusting her voice. “Sure,” she says, gesturing at the desk. “I need a break anyway.”
Mon pushes aside her notes as Korn hooks her phone up to the small loudspeakers she has on her desk - for when she can keep her door shut firmly and needs to play quiet music over them. Her breath evens out as she hits play, and the low croon of the song drifts between them. It’s like they’re trapped in this one moment, both of them with each other and nobody else apart from the music. Korn’s heart seems louder than it should be.
“I like the guitar,” says Mon, her head nodding to the beat. “He has a nice voice.”
“You think so?” asks Korn, straightening up in her chair. It’s been a long time since someone has taken interest in anything she likes, apart from when Claire when they were children and lived opposite each other - when everything was still tinted with rose.
Mon shrugs, smiling. “Well, you have good taste.”
Korn leans back in her chair, letting the music float through her body as it shudders throughout it. There’s something about the crack in his voice that gets to her - slips in through the cracks of her body and says hello to her pounding heart, calming it down enough to say hello back. She watches Mon out of the corner of her eye as her eyelids flutter, her arms flexing against her body as she hoists herself up in the chair. “I guess so,” she says, and Mon smiles.
Does it get easier? Yeah… it gets easier.
It happens when Korn least expects it.
She’s always planned it out - the words she’s going to say, the way she’s going to say them, the explanations she’s going to give, the thousand times of practice and practice and practice in front of the mirror that results in some kind of frustration at never being able to get the words out. Getting the words out, and the split second of silence that follows before a reaction. Getting the words out, and a door shut in her face. Getting the words out, and a quiet hug with too many tears. She’s always planned it out, thought about every possible scenario, thought about every angle and how she could take it further with every response.
Maybe it’s fitting, then, how it turned out in the end.
“Bro, do you have a pencil?” asks Pang, nudging her. When she looks up, heart tightening and sighing internally, Pang looks back at her sheepishly. “Ohm forgot his - you know how he is.”
Korn hands him one of her spare pencils, ignoring the beginning of his sentence. “He needs to learn how to control his potential,” she says, and Pang shrugs. Ohm shoots her a thumbs up from where he’s sitting on the opposite side of the room and Korn already makes her peace with never having her pencil returned to her, ever. She understands, now, why Khu Pom was so freaked out about Ohm losing his wallet.
“Thanks, dude,” says Ohm, cupping his hands around his mouth. Korn nods at him and then swiftly pushes down the rising annoyance in her gut, watching as the same expression passes over Khu Pom’s face for a split second before he’s wearing his smile again.
She turns back to what she’s doing, scribbling down notes from the video Khu Pom has just started playing. It’s about sociology - how the repeated words of others in a specific environment can take a positive or a negative effect on a person and why, and Korn has to snort at the relation. Before long, because none of them can leave her alone, she feels a kick on her chair from behind.
“Hey, man,” whispers Jack in a low voice. “You wanna get lunch later? Or are you off with Mon?”
“The second,” hisses Korn back. She loves the twins, she really does, but they can be oblivious sometimes. Not as much as Pang - who’s somehow managed to miss every look Wave gives him - but oblivious enough. “We can get lunch tomorrow, okay?”
“Looking forward to it,” says Jo, and there it is - she can’t resent them anymore. The twins have always been sweet, always looking out for her whenever she sits alone and drifting away from the group to keep her company. Maybe it’s because even within their large friend group, they’ve formed units that just mesh better together.
“Pay attention in the back,” calls out Khu Pom, no real bite in his voice. “It only goes for another two minutes.”
They spend the rest of the two minutes in relative silence as the annoyance works up its way in Korn’s chest. She wishes she could just tell them and be done with it. Khu Pom knows anyway, and she has a sneaking suspicion that Wave does, too, for whatever reason. Maybe he’d scrolled through her browsing history or hacked into her laptop, but he hasn't grouped her in with the boys for a couple of months. As the film comes to an end, a couple of them raise their hands to talk about it. Korn likes being in the Gifted only for this sometimes - how they open discussions and she can just listen, never pressured to take part if she doesn’t want to.
“I think while it’s fairly obvious that words have an effect on people, I never thought about the external validation aspect of it and how some people need that internal validation more in order to get themselves going - which I think is interesting, because it’s not based on science,” says Punn, nodding at Ohm to go next.
As they do, Korn slips her headphones on, queueing the song she’s been listening to on repeat lately. Khu Pom offers her a small smile, motioning for her to turn the volume low, to listen to the discussion still. She shoots him a thumbs up back, leaning back in the chair as a sense of calm washes over her. Between the music and the words of her classmates around her, she follows the beat of her heart as the burning desire rises back up inside of her, chokes her up. She’s spent months with the people here. She’s spent months getting to know them, listening to Wave’s P’Bird cassettes and cheering Namtaan and Punn on along with the others at their olympiads. She’s spent months getting her relationship with Claire back to a place where they still don’t talk, not that much, but Claire seems less worried. She’s spent months with them as they drag her along for things, noticing that she tends to isolate herself and taking her under their wing, even if the guilt she holds keeps her from fully allowing herself to be anyone. Korn swallows.
I’m only here for a minute… “I think it’s important for people to feel comfortable enough to communicate their worries when something’s hurting them.” I got love for you, even if you were doubting me… “It sucks, really. That we’re so affected by our surroundings that we keep ourselves closed off - because we can’t trust ourselves, and we can’t trust others. The guilt of communication, sometimes, sucks.” That’s all I want… “Seriously, though. All we can do is be kind to people.” I ain’t scared of living.
Korn takes tucks one ear of the headphone behind her ear, fully knowing how stupid it looks, and raises her hand. Khu Pom blinks in surprise, but just points to her. “Yeah?”
“I guess what we have to remember is that it’s not only negative words that take an effect on people,” she says, swallowing. Her hands curl into almost-fists. “It’s also positive words. I think even one person consistently saying something kind in someone’s environment can be enough to cancel out everything that they were told in a negative light, maybe just for that moment. But it’s still enough.”
Pom regards her and says kindly, “Do you have an example?”
Korn inhales. The low tunes of the song float through to her ears. What are we breathing for if we ain’t living? “Sure,” she says, fiddling with the line of her headphones. She exhales. “When I told my parents I was a girl, I guess they didn’t take it well. But my uncle did, and he took me in, and his consistent kind words managed to erase some of the things my parents had told me. That’s why you see such a difference in statistics, too. Supportive parents always have healthier children.”
Korn looks up. She knows there’s pride written in corners of Khu Pom’s soft smile, but she can barely bring herself to look at the others, shrinking back into herself. A moment passes - a terribly long heartbeat as she watches all of her life fly past her.
But the moment is over when Claire speaks. Claire, who had only known Korn suddenly moving out of her parents’ house and nothing else, and had never pressed. “I knew your uncle was a good man,” she says, nodding as if she’s made a decision. Korn smiles at her, and for a moment - she smiles back. Just like the Medfai Korn had known from when they were younger.
“We have a spare bunk free in the dorm,” says Namtaan from across the classroom, and Korn’s heart overflows. She thinks Khu Pom could be tearing up, with the amount of blinking he’s been doing in the past minute. “Join us whenever you want to!”
Korn ducks her head. “I will.”
Pang pats her shoulder, grinning. “Glad your uncle reacted well,” he says. When Korn looks back, she sees Wave nod with recognition, and say nothing else.
Ohm pouts. “I need to expand my joke topics, I see,” he says, and Korn has to hide a snicker with a cough. It’s just like Ohm, really, to be diffusing the situation with humour.
When Korn looks back at Mon, heart in her throat as she waits for her reaction, she sees a soft smile on her face, the likes of which Korn hasn’t seen before. Mon reaches out to nudge her shoulder gently. “Proud of you,” she says. “I know what that song means, now.”
“My interpretation at least,” says Korn, smiling back. Her heart is free - only if it’s in this room.
“Girls!” says Khu Pom, and Korn’s heart hurts with the lightness of it, how her face immediately eases into a smile when he says it. Nobody says anything or does a double take. “Quieten down for the next short video, yeah?”
The class hums in response as Korn takes her headphones off, finally okay enough to let herself bask in this happiness, if only for a moment.
“Last night in your own dorm,” says Mon, curled up on Korn’s single bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m going to annoy the rest of you from tomorrow by never being able to sleep and moving around at night,” says Korn dryly, flicking the light off on the desk. She’d scored a good grade on the calculus exam - but that doesn’t mean homework lets her be.
Mon shrugs. “You’re not going to annoy us,” she says, and then rethinks. “Maybe you’ll annoy Claire once in a while, but I’m sure she’s used to it.”
Korn picks up a pillow and whacks her arm slightly with it, laughing. Mon ducks to avoid it and then curls up under Korn’s blanket, pulling it towards her and up over her face. Korn’s mouth eases into a smile. Mon is softer at night - something that Korn has only just had the privilege of witnessing - and always dressed in a sweatshirt with the sleeves covering her hands. Her eyes flicker up to the clock, eyes knitting together into a small frown when she takes note of the time. “It’s midnight,” she says quietly, nudging at the lump of blanket that is Mon’s head. “Don’t you want to go back to the dorm and sleep?”
Mon pulls the blanket down to her chin, head covered with the hood, strings pulled up tight. “I have to practice keeping you company during the nights, right? You get lonely.”
Korn blinks at her, swallowing around the lump in her throat. “You can’t stay up with me every night,” she says. “You should go to sleep.”
Mon pouts. “Do you want to get rid of me?” she asks, and Korn laughs.
“Of course I don’t,” she says, sitting up against the headboard. Mon shuffles up next to her, drawing the blanket over her legs. Korn’s heart still picks up faster around Mon, she still has that guilt come up in her whenever she looks at her a certain way, or even thinks about - holding her hand, or going out to the grocery store, or calling her - her girlfriend. “I just - don’t want to be a bother, that’s all.”
“You’re not being a bother,” says Mon, looking up at her. She reaches out, her arm coming up from underneath the blanket, to tuck a stray hair back into place. “I want to stay up with you.”
“Aren’t you tired?” says Korn, the words choking up in her throat. “Look, your eyes are slipping shut.”
Mon blinks her eyes open, shaking her head. “I’m not sleepy,” she says, yawning. She sits up against the headboard, shoulder to shoulder with Korn, reaching out for Korn’s phone and the earphones she keeps on her bedside table. “Come on, let’s listen to music. I want to listen to that song you showed me last time.”
Korn holds out an earbud for her to hook into her ear, pressing her shoulder up against Korn’s as she does so. The place where their bodies connect lights Korn on fire as she tampers the redness in her cheeks down. Mon nods her head to the beat again as Korn lets the familiar tune wash over her. She knows this song inside and out - has set the rhythm of her heart after it. Korn watches the second hand of the clock tick by, the dread that normally eats her up during the hour laying low in her chest.
“I think I understand you better now,” says Mon, gesturing at the phone in Korn’s hand. “I’ve been listening to this song and I - think I get it. Maybe just a little bit.”
And if there is no god, I know the day I die I lived through heaven… The last part of the song starts to float by as Korn looks up at Mon, the breath caught in her chest. “Yeah?” she asks, barely trusting her voice.
Mon looks at her - eyes twinkling. There’s something in there that Korn has never seen directed at her before. That’s all I want… “Yeah,” says Mon, tucking another strand of hair behind Korn’s ear. Korn’s breath catches - and in a moment of bravery, she sets her head down onto Mon’s shoulder, tucking it into the crook of her neck. She stomps the guilt down, pulling the blanket up over her to keep her close to Mon, the beat of her heart finally settling down. “There’s something I need to tell you. I think you already know.”
Korn’s eyes flicker up to Mon. “Say it anyway.”
A hand comes up under the blanket to cautiously curl around Korn’s hip. “I like you, you know,” says Mon, and the words don’t come as a blow. Instead, they fall light like feathers, soothing Korn’s racing pulse. “A lot.”
“I didn’t know,” says Korn honestly. The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you… The guilt disappears just for a second when she manages, “I like you, too.”
Mon beams. “Well, I knew that,” she says, a lighter edge in her voice. “You were very obvious.”
Korn laughs quietly, and supposes it was. “You know we have to talk about this, right?” she says, and the hand on her hip grips just a little bit tighter. “There are so many things we have to figure out.”
“Let’s talk about it when morning comes,” says Mon, and presses a soft kiss into Korn’s hair. Her heart aches with the gentleness of it. “For now, can I call you my girlfriend?”
Korn’s cheeks heat up, and she nods, hiding her face in Mon’s neck. Mon just laughs again, humming the rest of the song - which is when Korn realises she’s been listening to it by herself, too. As Mon continues singing the song, the tune easing into the end, Korn’s mind drifts to how this moment is hazed with gold. How loved she is - how loved she has been, all along, very quietly. Even though she hadn’t told the others about herself immediately, they had still dragged her into things, still made sure she never sat alone, still treated her as a friend. Even though she wasn’t able to say the words out loud at the beginning, they had waited until she had found them.
As she looks at Mon now - she realises how long she has known about Korn. How long she’s waited. How they have so many more things to figure out together, how there are parts of Korn Mon will not be able to see for a very long time, how Mon likes her still - enough to see this through. The clock keeps ticking and Mon keeps singing, showing no signs of sleepiness apart from the little yawns here and there, and Korn’s heart fills.
They have enough time.
You’ll figure that out. I’m not worried about you.