Chapter Text
Part I
Alan was drunk. He hadn’t meant to be—he was usually very good at holding his liquor—but some things you just weren’t meant to go through sober and attending the wedding of an ex was apparently one of them. He’d started the evening off with a shot to settle his nerves and it had all been downhill from there.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy for Wen, but seeing him at the front of a church smiling as he made promises of forever brought back memories Alan had tried very hard to bury. So, in what he could only describe as a fit of deep depression, he stole a bottle of wine from the bar and snuck away to drink it.
He ended up sprawled on the grass in the back corner of the spacious gardens where the reception was being held and although the sounds from the party drifted out to him, it was far enough away that he felt like he was alone. Or at least he did until a man rounded the corner, spotted him, and stopped in his tracks.
Alan was drunk enough that he had to squint to bring the man into focus. Only then did he recognize Gaipa. He tried to sit up straighter in an effort to maintain what was left of his dignity in front of a client, but he immediately slunk back down again. He didn’t have the energy—or the sobriety—for professionalism tonight. He took another swig from the wine bottle instead.
“Khun Alan,” Gaipa greeted. “Are you hiding, too?”
“My ex just married the hottest man I’ve ever seen in my life,” Alan grumbled. “Of course I’m hiding.”
Gaipa chuckled and then, to Alan’s surprise, took a seat on the ground next to him. “Mind if I join you?”
Alan made a barely intelligible noise of consent and Gaipa smiled at him softly before turning his attention towards the sky. Alan tried to follow his gaze, but looking upwards made him feel dizzy, so he settled for staring at Gaipa instead. The moonlight shining off of his skin made him look like a statue: beautiful and stoic. Alan wanted to admire him.
“What are you hiding for?” Alan asked after almost a minute of silence. “I thought you were part of their happy little chicken cult.”
“Chicken cult?” Gaipa laughed.
Alan waved him off. “You know what I mean.”
Gaipa just stared at him, that ever-present kindness in his eyes. There was something else there this time, though. A darkness that Alan often saw reflected in his own. Gaipa looked away.
“I might have spent a good decade of my life in love with one of the grooms,” he said forlornly. “I guess I’m just mourning what could have been. But it’s fine. It’s totally fine. Would you mind if I had a sip of that?”
Alan passed over the wine bottle and Gaipa took several large gulps before lowering it with a wince. “I don’t actually like wine,” he said in explanation. That didn’t surprise Alan. Gaipa was young and uncomplicated. He was also very, very pretty.
“It’s his loss, you know,” Alan said, taking the wine bottle back from him. “Unfortunately, your precious Uncle Jim has horrible taste in men.”
A slight blush rose to Gaipa’s cheeks. Alan wasn’t sure if it was because of the words or the wine.
“It’s their loss,” Gaipa corrected. “Wen was an idiot for leaving you. If only they could see us now…”
“Drunk and pining?” Alan asked.
“No.” Gaipa laughed. “Together. Trash talking them at their own wedding. You know, I bet between the two of us, we know all of their dirty little secrets. We’re a force to be reckoned with. They should fear us.”
“Oh, if they saw us together, they would hate it,” Alan said. “Can you imagine? Just an ever-constant reminder of their past mistakes.”
It was a nice thought. And not just because Alan wanted Wen to see that he still had options. It was nice because it was Gaipa and sitting here with him was the least lonely Alan had felt in months.
The two of them looked at each other as the words and the alcohol settled between them and Alan could tell they were thinking the exact same thing. He wasn’t sure which of them moved first, but the next thing he knew, they were kissing.
Gaipa’s lips tasted like sweet red wine and revenge.
When Alan finally pulled away, his heart was racing, inundated with feelings he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Gaipa didn’t run. He just sat there, his mouth open in surprise.
“I don’t think it’ll work unless they can actually see us,” Gaipa said, but Alan’s desires had suddenly changed. This moment wasn’t for Wen anymore. It was for him. So he leaned in, tangled his fingers in Gaipa’s hair, and kissed him again until the wedding became nothing more than background noise.
Part II
Alan had known that watching Wen marry someone else would very likely rip open the stitches in his still-mending heart. He had expected it. What he hadn’t expected was for it to piece itself back together again so quickly. He had Gaipa to thank for that.
A starlit sky. A drunken kiss. A single perfect moment he would never forget.
Now, two weeks later, the press of Gaipa’s lips against his still haunted him. Those few minutes spent in each other’s presence had been the happiest Alan had felt in years—even as his whole world crumbled down around him. So he went looking for a ghost.
The market was bustling and although Alan wasn’t quite sure where to go, it took him less than a minute to find Gaipa. It was as if there was an invisible string tying their hearts together; he walked straight to him.
“I’ll be with you in just a—” Gaipa started, but then he looked up and his eyes widened in shock. “Khun Alan. Hi.”
It was the first time Alan had seen him since the night of the wedding and he would be lying if he said he hadn’t been worried the attraction he had felt then had only been manufactured by a combination of the circumstances and copious amounts of alcohol. But standing in front of Gaipa now, he knew that wasn’t true because although Gaipa was only wearing a T-shirt and shorts, although he had rubber boots pulled up to his knees, although his face and his hair were sticky with sweat, he was still beautiful.
His was an understated beauty—soft and innocent. He was smooth lines where Wen was jagged edges. He wasn’t anywhere close to Alan’s type.
And yet, he was perfect.
“You’re here for chicken?” Gaipa asked.
Alan shook his head to clear it and then looked down at the cuts of meat on display in front of him. He had no need for chicken and he didn’t want to make Gaipa work unnecessarily, so instead he took a deep breath, looked Gaipa right in the eyes, and said, “Actually, I’m here to ask you to dinner.”
Gaipa blinked twice as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “Dinner? You mean like a date?”
“Yes,” Alan agreed. “Like a date.”
Gaipa raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, wow. I’ve never been asked on a date before.”
The words should have scared Alan away. Gaipa was young—perhaps too young, too inexperienced—but instead of cowering, he found the revelation evocative. It triggered a protective instinct inside of him that had long been dormant because Wen had never wanted nor needed it. It felt good to rouse it again.
“Is that a yes?” Alan asked.
Gaipa smiled, soft and shy. “Yes. I would love that. Thank you.”
Alan had originally planned to schedule something for the upcoming weekend, but he found that he was too excited to wait. His heart was pounding in his chest and the thought of leaving with no promise to see Gaipa again made him uneasy. “What about tonight?” he asked. “I can pick you up.” He knew he sounded overeager, but he didn’t care. He was. And he was tired of hiding his true self behind a socially acceptable facade. This was who he was. This was the him he wanted Gaipa to know. Gaipa’s smile never wavered.
“I…yes. Yeah. Sure. Tonight.”
“Okay then,” Alan said, suddenly giddy. They probably looked like idiots standing there flirting over raw chicken, but Alan didn’t care. His stomach was full of butterflies. “I’ll give you my phone number just in case—”
“Oh, don’t worry. I already have it.” Gaipa seemed to realize his mistake a second too late because as Alan watched, his cheeks lit aflame, burning the same color they had on the night of the wedding. It was almost like Alan was back in that garden again, the moon and stars shining high above him, the taste of Gaipa on his tongue. “I, um, got it from Wen. I’ve been trying to work up the courage to text you.”
“Why didn’t you?” Alan asked. He wanted to step closer and close the distance between them, but the stall was in the way, so instead he reached out and placed his hand on top of Gaipa’s. Gaipa stared down at where their skin touched and his blush darkened.
“I don’t know,” he said, glancing up demurely to meet Alan’s gaze. “I guess I just figured that if Wen was your type, I wouldn’t be.”
“I dated Wen for five years and yet I never felt even a fraction for him what I felt on the night you kissed me. It feels a bit like destiny, doesn’t it? That I had to date him to meet you. Maybe we deserve a happy ending, too.”
Gaipa smiled, his eyes shining with promise, and for the first time in years, Alan's heart felt whole again.