Chapter Text
Arthit got in a state of nervousness everytime he had to collaborate with Siam Polymer. And on more than one occasion he had to deal directly with the CEO, more than anyone else from Ocean had done. It was almost like an unspoken agreement among their departments. They weren’t exactly doing any favours to Arthit, and his wild imagination.
To his credit, he managed to mostly separate business from his personal life, at least in his head. He was able to mentally push aside the fact that he was dealing with his boyfriend’s father (in-laws, his brain unhelpfully supplied) while he talked and closed deals with them.
And it was just bonus points that Mr. Sutthiluk seemed to really like the intelligent and polite boy. He even occasionally asked about his son and his time at the university, and Arthit gave him carefully worded answers. He supposed the father would rather hear tales of how good of a junior Kongpob was than how good of a lover he was.
Kongpob laughed when he heard about all this; of course he did. It was amusing to him that his dad and boyfriend talked about him behind his back, and he too was unable to resist a couple of ‘meeting the in-laws’ jokes. Arthit, with a sarcastic eye-roll, placed a sex-ban for a whole month. Kongpob just laughed harder.
“Oh P’…don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“You really think-”
“P’, can you resist me? Like really, really resist me?” Kongpob cocked his head and leaned in, getting right into Arthit’s blushing face.
“You really shouldn’t make promises you won’t be able to fulfil.”
Arthit pushed his smug-ass lover away and ran into the shower.
What Kong said was true, Arthit really couldn’t resist Kongpob, or rather didn’t want to, evident by how he barely even protested nowadays when the latter willfully invaded his shower space. He knew the reason; Kongpob was so busy, his final year study load had grown exponentially, along with his thesis preparation which ate up at all his time. So the limited time they did get to spend together often went in rolling together naked on the bed.
Arthit missed his boyfriend a lot, especially everytime they had to separate after an amazing weekend. Arthit, on his part would do the best he could in being stoic. Kongpob wasn’t fooled though, not by a long shot, he knew how much his P’ tended to hide his pain behind a mask of either a poker face or by rambling about everything and nothing under the sky.
Whether it was about scoring well for a test by studying hard, or going and spending time with his friends, or like the latest one, spending time with parents will be good for Kongpob so he should definitely go home.
And so he had gone.
Arthit stared at the jumbled mess of numbers in the computer screen in front of him, having to randomly fight the tears wanting to roll down his face, which was ridiculous. It wasn’t like Kongpob had gone across the seven seas or something, he had only gone to his parents house, which was just outside the city. Still his heart wouldn’t listen to reason.
He realized it would be a whole month this weekend since he last saw his boyfriend, and that too was bust because Kongpob’s family ‘couldn’t even remember what he looked like anymore’. More importantly, both of his sisters were visiting that same weekend. There was no way he was going to let Kongpob miss this rare occasion.
Arthit shook his head, then closed his computer. His work was done for the day. However there was still time before he could leave. He could leave if he wanted to right now, but didn’t want to. He was already not looking forward to spending a whole weekend thinking about what he could be doing within the four walls of his flat had he not pushed Kongpob away towards his family.
He was interrupted by Earth dumping a bunch of documents next to his arm.
“Arthit are you done with your work? I could use a helping hand if possible.”
“Sure…” He grabbed at the opportunity, hoping for a good enough distraction from his sad musings.
Soon he found himself tagging along with his senior to a somewhat far away location, a company with whom she had been negotiating contracts for a while now. Not knowing much about this particular project, he mostly stayed on the sidelines, handing over documents while Earth spoke to the respective people in charge.
From what he could gather, the two parties weren’t completely in agreement about the details, there was some not-so-polite debate between P’Earth and Khun Nawin about the quotations and- well Arthit wasn’t really paying too much attention. He just followed his senior like a lamb when she left, who was muttering something about wanting to seal the deal before the weekend started, so production could begin first thing on Monday.
“...So are you Ok with it?”
“H-Huh?”
He realized he had zoned out through their conversation. He had been staring out the car window at the passing countryside scenery, wondering about the dark, gloomy clouds above their heads and how even the weather gods had decided to mimic the state of Arthit’s mind. He didn’t want to set foot into his empty apartment without his boyfriend’’s presence, and almost contemplated calling Bright to see if he could crash at his room after a drinking binge at his bar. Yep, it was one of those nights.
“Are you even listening to me Arthit? Where’s your mind at?”
“Sorry P’, you were saying?”
“You don’t have to come, you already look tired today. I’ll go there on my own.”
“No it’s Ok, I can come with you.”
“Are you sure?” she looked a little hesitant. “I’m sorry I’m dragging you into this, just that I want to finish this fast before I go home, my por is not faring too well and I have to-”
“P’…don’t worry, we’ll finalize something before tonight. It will all be fine.”
She nodded, then focused her attention back to driving. Arthit briefly wondered where he had agreed to tag along with Earth, then decided against asking, returning to zoning out of the window. He stared at the now returning city-scapes zooming past them, thinking about what Kongpob would be doing at that time and if he was enjoying his long awaited family reunion. He slowly dozed off to the gentle pitter-pattering of the raindrops against the roof of the moving car.
Ironically Kongpob was not enjoying his family reunion at that exact given moment. No, he was ecstatic about meeting everyone, but he wasn’t ready for the incessant amounts of teasing and questioning he had to inevitably endure just by the nature of both of his siblings being under the same roof at the same time as him.
“...See I still can’t believe he has grown so big, completing his final year at uni.”
“I know! I still somehow imagine Kong’s face as the same five-year-old who would cry because he couldn’t pick up the wet clothes on his own!”
“P’ that was one time. Why do you always keep fixating on that story?”
“It wasn’t one time, and because that was one of the first memories of yours of which I clicked a photograph. Before that none of them would allow me to even hold a camera, let alone click photos. I think it should be here somewhere…”
“Is that why you compensate now by posting 100 selfies a day on your instagram?”
“Haha very funny Linnn…and it’s not 100 a day! More like 10…”
Kik opened the third large photo album on top of the already piled up two large albums and about a dozen smaller ones. It was a reminisce-the-past session going on among them. So far they had covered two whole albums worth of photos of the four of them of the time before Kongpob was born.
“Here! See even at that time you were a neat freak kiddo!”
“I was and still am much better than some people who still have trouble differentiating detergent from fabric softener.”
Lin chuckled. “He got you there.”
“It was a genuine misunderstanding! Our clothes were mostly washed by our maids, how was I to know fabric softener wasn’t the one that cleans the clothes!?”
Kongpob laughed, still holding the photo that started the discussion, slightly shaky but clearly showing a weepy kid next to an overturned bucket of wet laundry. He took out his mobile, wanting to capture that photo and send it to his boyfriend. He imagined P’Arthit would be entertained by it, given as much as he constantly asked to see childhood pics of Kongpob at every opportunity.
Suddenly all three of their phones chimed simultaneously, making them look at one another, then laugh again. They knew even before looking that it was either or both of their parents messaging on their common family LINE group.
Lower the noise kids, it’s echoing till the office
“Kids…” Lin said to particularly no one, before her phone started ringing. She stepped to the side to attend it. For a second they thought it was their father, but it was Lin’s husband and daughter video calling to talk to her.
“Apparently we are still in kindergarten, not job holding people running our own lives.” Kik rolled her eyes.
“Office? I didn’t even know por was home already!” Kongpob said, peering in the general direction of the home office.