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Kawi knew he was stubborn. His father and countless friends and classmates had told him that his whole life. In the past, his stubbornness had made him insufferable to the people around him. His rigidity was caused by the anxiety that always simmered just below the surface. It left Kawi with a perpetual adrenaline high, one mistake away from blowing up on anyone in sight.
That stubbornness made him push away Max. It made him refuse to give up on Pearmai despite his failed attempts and escalating mistakes.
When that mysterious old uncle showed up with his time travel magic, it forced him to see the consequences of his poor decision-making, bullheadedness, and fear.
Since then, he wised up and forced himself to consider other people’s points of view. He was learning to pick his battles and defer to someone else if they knew more than him about a topic. Pearmai, of course, and Max – if he was persistent enough.
While Kawi liked to think that it was his own journey of personal growth that got him to where he was, he knew that much of the credit went to Pisaeng. His influence helped whittle down Kawi’s sharp edges. Well, his influence and his devastating sad puppy dog eyes.
It was awful. (Kawi loved it.)
1. Showering Together
one week into dating
*
Seeing the time travel from the other side was fascinating. After the future Pisaeng made the decision to return to his time, they’d had one good day at the theme park. At the end of the day, they went back to Kawi's dorm. Pisaeng kissed him with a fierce desperation, likely worried that he'd never kiss his own Kawi again. Then Kawi stepped away and watched Pisaeng turn the magic box. From Kawi’s perspective, Pisaeng held it in his hands. The ball lit up and the tinkling music played like a normal, unmagical toy. Pisaeng looked at the crystal ball and his eyes widened for a moment. Then the music stopped, Pisaeng blinked, and it was like it never happened.
He frowned at the trinket in his hands, clearly not understanding how it got there. Kawi solved the problem by taking it from him and setting it back on the desk.
“Sorry, did you say something?” Pisaeng asked with a confused frown.
Kawi’s heart clenched and his eyes stung. He didn’t know if it was out of relief for having his Pisaeng back or sadness for losing the future version of him. In the end, it didn’t matter, because Kawi’s response would have been the same either way.
He surged forward and up on his toes to kiss Pisaeng, who made a startled sound against Kawi’s lips and melted into him.
As they fumbled through their first time together that night, Kawi found himself so glad that he got to experience this with his Pisaeng instead of the older one who must have done it countless times over the decade he'd been with his Kawi. Here and now, they were both virgins, both inexperienced and nervous and joyful, and that made it so much better.
They held hands, Pisaeng on top of him and sliding their dicks together in a wet and uncoordinated rhythm that lit up every nerve in Kawi’s body. Kawi wrapped his free arm around Pisaeng’s broad shoulders and pulled him closer to press sloppy, open-mouthed kisses on every bit of skin he could reach.
They came one after the other in the sweaty space between their bodies, and then Pisaeng rolled off of him and onto the other side of the bed.
They gulped in heavy breaths and Kawi grinned up at the ceiling. “Wow,” he said.
“Yeah,” Pisaeng agreed.
Kawi glanced down to pull the blanket over him, and that’s when he saw the congealing come streaking his chest.
He blanched. “I’m disgusting. I have to take a shower.” He stumbled out of the bed, and when he turned around, Pisaeng was on his side with his elbow on the mattress and his head resting on his hand watching Kawi.
Kawi realized that he was completely naked and squeaked, grabbing a pillow and covering himself. “Stop looking!” he demanded.
Pisaeng just smiled and said, “You’re so cute.”
“I’m naked!” Kawi shouted.
Pisaeng gave him a long once-over that made him clutch the pillow tighter. “Mmm, I know.”
“So close your eyes!”
He edged his way around the bed, careful to keep the pillow protecting him. Pisaeng’s body shifted to follow Kawi’s movements like a paperclip drawn to a magnet.
“We just had sex,” Pisaeng answered.
Kawi’s face burned, and he covered it with his hands, realizing too late that he had to drop the pillow to do so. He dove down to retrieve it and shuffled backwards towards the bathroom.
Pisaeng chuckled, and his gaze was so fond that Kawi felt his blush get impossibly brighter.
“You know, I’m dirty too,” Pisaeng said.
Kawi narrowed his eyes, already guessing what Pisaeng was going to say. Even knowing for certain that he and Pisaeng end up together didn’t make Kawi any less shy in the here and now.
“Maybe I should join you,” Pisaeng predictably continued with a flirty wiggle of his eyebrows.
“No, pervert!” Kawi shouted. “Stay there!”
He jumped into the bathroom and slammed the door. Then after a moment, he opened it, tossed the pillow into the hallway, and slammed it shut again.
three weeks into dating
*
Kawi knew he wasn’t an expert on gay sex – or any sex, actually. But he had no idea he was so uninformed about his own body and the way it could feel pleasure.
The following weeks were eye-opening for him. His first big revelation was how much he loved giving blow jobs. It seemed so intimidating when he watched women do it in porn. Pisaeng wasn’t huge like the guys in those videos, but he wasn’t small either.
It took two weeks and Pisaeng doing it for Kawi three times before he got up the nerve to return the favor.
“I want to try,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Pisaeng asked. “You don’t have to.” His words said one thing, but his body said another. His breath quickened and his hips gave a little, aborted hitch, like they were trying to get closer to Kawi.
“Yes,” Kawi said, steeling his resolve.
He wrapped his hand around the base and glared at it like it was the final boss in a video game.
“Ok.” He froze, just staring at his one-eyed nemesis. “Ok,” he repeated.
“Kawi – “ Pisaeng tried again, laughter in his voice, and that was enough to get him moving.
“Shut up,” he said.
He leaned down and tentatively used his tongue to lick beneath the head. It was surprisingly smooth and tasted a bit salty, but otherwise pretty neutral. That wasn’t the good part, though. The good part was the long, agonized groan from Pisaeng, like Kawi had shot him in the stomach instead of touched his dick.
Emboldened, Kawi went lower down the shaft and traced a line up with the tip of his tongue until he reached the slit.
“Oh fuuu…” Pisaeng moaned.
When Kawi glanced at him, Pisaeng’s face was flushed and his eyes blown wide, watching Kawi with ravenous attention. When their eyes met, Kawi deliberately pressed a soft kiss to the head. Pisaeng’s mouth dropped open soundlessly. Those basketball-toned arms wobbled beneath him and then gave out. He fell flat onto the mattress, and his hands curled into the sheets.
“You’re going to kill me,” he said.
Kawi was sure he looked even more stupid when Pisaeng did this to him – especially the first time when he’d come in less than thirty seconds. Still, the power he got from making Pisaeng so weak with just a couple touches went straight up to his head.
That’s when he realized that Pisaeng’s cock wasn’t the enemy. It was his teammate, and they were both working together to make Pisaeng feel good.
Game on, Kawi thought and got to work.
And nipples!
Did everyone already know that men’s nipples could be sensitive too? Because Kawi’s were. They really, really, really were, a fact that Kawi and Pisaeng both learned the second time they’d had sex.
And by learned, Kawi meant that Pisaeng experimentally rubbed his thumbs over them, and Kawi’s whole body snapped up as if he was a character in a drama getting shocked with a defibrillator.
Since then, as soon as Kawi’s shirt came off, Pisaeng had his hands or his mouth on them, pinching and sucking and petting until they were stiff and puffy and Kawi was completely out of his mind.
Other highlights of personal discovery included: Pisaeng biting at the inside of his thighs as he kept a vice grip on Pisaeng's head to hold him in place. Pisaeng scratching the short hairs on the back of his neck in a way that sent a cascade of shivers all the way down to his toes. Pisaeng dotting feather light kisses along his hip bones and making his cock sticky with pre-come.
Sex was…wow. Kawi couldn’t even remember why he had been so afraid of it.
three months into dating
*
They didn’t fuck right away. Neither of them was ready to take that step too quickly. It wasn’t until a few months into their relationship that they finally did it. Kawi researched on his own, and he bet that Pisaeng did too, though neither of them mentioned it to the other.
Getting fucked looked…well. The men in the videos appeared to enjoy it, but Kawi couldn’t figure out why. Informative websites explained that some men liked it and some didn’t. Kawi hoped he would be in the first category but secretly thought that he’d end up in the second.
Talking to Max about it had been just as horrifying for Kawi as he had expected. It had been bad enough when, after he and Pisaeng had their awkward and amazing first time, Max had taken one look at Kawi and smirked around the straw in his iced coffee.
“Shut up,” Kawi grumbled.
“Not as terrible as you thought, huh?”
“We’re not talking about this,” he said.
So slinking back to a wholly unsurprised Max was a lesson in humility that Kawi could have lived without.
“Oh, now we’re talking about it?” Max asked. He was sorting a new batch of pride pins to hand out on campus.
His advice, after he stopped making fun of Kawi, was mostly assuring him that the world wouldn’t end and Pisaeng wouldn’t leave him if he didn’t like doing it. Max was perfectly comfortable discussing things like tops and bottoms and using dildoes and fingers for preparation. Kawi handled the whole conversation with dignity and maturity, in his humble opinion. Once Max mentioned tongues in places, though, he practically catapulted out of the room in his haste to get away.
All of which was to say that when the time came, Kawi was as prepared as he could have been, given the circumstances. They were laying side by side in Kawi’s bed, and Pisaeng was playing with Kawi’s fingers.
“Are you ready?” Pisaeng asked.
Kawi took a deep breath and nodded before rolling over onto his stomach.
Pisaeng made a startled noise beside him, and Kawi turned to him, concerned.
“Is this right?” he asked.
Pisaeng was slow to nod. “Yeah, it’s right.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that? Do you not want to?” Kawi was ready to curl in on himself and dive under the blankets, possibly forever, when Pisaeng spoke again.
“I do!” he said quickly. “I do, I just thought we would have to talk about, you know, who would be doing what.”
That stopped Kawi. He hadn’t considered doing it from the other side. All of his research was about taking it, not being the one to give. Shifting his perspective on the fly made him start to panic.
“I hadn’t, I mean…” he stuttered. “I imagined you fucking me. Is that…do you not…?
Pisaeng shut his eyes like he was in pain. Kawi thought he’d said something wrong until he opened them and pinned Kawi with a hot look.
“I really want to fuck you,” Pisaeng said, and his voice sounded a whole octave deeper than it usually did. “I just didn’t want to assume.”
“Well now we’ve talked about it,” Kawi said.
“Yes,” Pisaeng agreed.
“So…?”
“So,” Pisaeng agreed again and smoothed one of his hands down Kawi’s back to rest on his ass. “Let me get the lube.”
It took another two times before they figured out what worked best for them. But when they did, Kawi nearly ascended to another plane of existence. He was happy to learn that he was firmly, undeniably, enthusiastically in category one after all.
The thing about showering together was the nudity. Not that Kawi and Pisaeng weren’t naked together plenty once they’d broken the seal on their sex life. But getting naked during sex was one thing. There were…distractions, first of all, and half the time the lights were out.
The thought of getting naked with Pisaeng during non-sex times, doing non-sex things, made Kawi want to crawl out of his skin. He’d just be walking around with parts…flopping. And his skinny chicken legs on full display next to Pisaeng’s muscular ones. No thanks.
That was why every time Pisaeng invited Kawi to shower or asked to join if Kawi was going, he refused.
two weeks into dating
*
Pisaeng went to Kawi’s dorm after playing basketball with his friends. He kicked off his trainers at the door. Before he could move any closer, Kawi tossed him a towel and pointed at the bathroom.
“Take a shower, you stink.”
Pisaeng gave him a mocking salute. “Want to come with?”
Kawi kicked his leg out at him. “Go!”
three weeks into dating
*
Kawi tried to roll out of bed when his alarm went off, but Pisaeng’s arms had a vice-grip around his waist.
“Pisaeng. Pisaeng!” Kawi struggled as Pisaeng tried to pull him closer. “I have an 8:30 class.” He slapped at Pisaeng’s hands and peeled them apart to wiggle free.
“Come back,” Pisaeng grumbled, unleashing the puppy dog eyes at him, made all the more potent by how sleepy and cute he looked.
If Kawi didn’t have a quiz, he might have given in. As it was, he grabbed his phone off of the nightstand and headed to the bathroom to take a shower.
“Wait, I’ll go too,” Pisaeng said.
Kawi snorted but otherwise ignored him.
“It will save time,” he shouted as Kawi shut the door firmly. “It will save water!”
three weeks and two days into dating
*
“No!” Kawi said, trying to close the door on Pisaeng, who had playfully followed Kawi into the bathroom when Kawi decided to jump in the shower before dinner.
“I’ll keep my eyes closed the whole time!” Pisaeng bargained while laughing. “I’ll wash your back!”
Kawi responded by biting the fingers that had curled around the door, closing and locking it when Pisaeng pulled his hand away with a surprised yelp.
“Horn dog!” Kawi shouted.
“You’re just too cute!” Pisaeng shouted back.
three weeks and four days into dating
*
Kawi was ready when Pisaeng poked his head out of the bathroom door while they were getting ready for Pear’s birthday party.
“Want to…”
Kawi chucked a slipper at him.
four months into dating
*
The faculty library was packed with students when Kawi walked in to meet Pisaeng. They had end of semester projects to work on, and groups were gathered at almost every available table. Kawi’s group met yesterday and had another meeting planned for Thursday.
He’d gotten lucky. The professor had paired him with Big and Vita, both of whom were good students. Kawi wasn’t a good student but he also wasn’t a jerk, so he pulled his weight for group projects.
The same couldn’t be said for the partners Pisaeng was stuck with. He was with Benz and Ink, two of their faculty members who could care less about their grades and didn’t think twice about leaving Pisaeng with all the work.
He passed Ink on the way to where Pisaeng said to find him. She was texting on her phone, and Kawi noticed that she didn’t even bring her backpack or a laptop with her.
Pisaeng was alone at a table gathering the papers and books strewn over it. Kawi sat down across from him.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
Pisaeng’s frustrated look spoke for him. His usually styled hair was out of place, and he had dark bags under his eyes.
“Are you feeling alright?” Kawi grabbed the water bottle from the side pocket of his backpack and handed it to him. “Here, drink this.”
“Thanks.” Pisaeng took a long sip and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m fine, just exhausted. I barely got any sleep last night, and now I have to deal with all this.” He gestured at the mess in front of him. Then he gave Kawi a tired grin. “I’m recharged now that you’re here though.”
Kawi rolled his eyes as his heart fluttered. He knew he should find the way Pisaeng spoke to him cheesy, but instead he mostly found it charming.
“Come on, let’s grab some food and go home,” Kawi said.
Food ended up being kebabs from a cart that they ate as they walked back to Kawi’s dorm. Pisaeng barely spoke, only humming agreement as Kawi carried the whole conversation in between (and sometimes during) bites.
The walk to the dorm took about twenty minutes. When they arrived, they both took off their shoes and threw down their bags. Pisaeng stopped in the middle of the room and seemed to just power down. His shoulders slumped. His mouth turned down in a tiny frown.
Kawi watched him for a moment and then made a decision.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he said. Then he stripped his uniform shirt off and tossed it towards the bed.
Pisaeng acknowledged that with a grunt. Kawi stayed motionless at the bathroom door until Pisaeng noticed he hadn’t gone in yet.
“What?” he asked Kawi.
Deliberately, Kawi stepped back and tilted his head at the open doorway. “Are you coming or not?”
He saw the moment that his meaning registered with Pisaeng. His boyfriend straightened up, his eyes brightening, suddenly wide awake.
“Really?” he asked breathlessly.
“Well, if you don’t want –”
Kawi didn’t get to finish the sentence before Pisaeng was shirtless and crowding him against the bathroom wall.
2. Baby
one year into dating
*
Kawi strummed his guitar aimlessly for a moment before scribbling out and tweaking a portion of the song he was working on. He re-balanced the guitar on his lap and started it over again, humming the half-formed lyrics as he played.
Pisaeng’s mother was back overseas for work, and Kawi had spent the whole weekend at Pisaeng’s house. Now it was Sunday night, and they needed to actually get their homework done.
So naturally, Kawi ignored that to mess around with a new song for the band.
Pisaeng returned to the other side of the table where he was typing a paper that wasn’t even due for another week, the weirdo. Between him, Pear, and Max, Kawi had no idea how he ended up with such a motivated group of friends around him. He’d just have to procrastinate enough for all four of them.
“That sounds better,” Pisaeng commented about the chord change Kawi made.
“Mm,” Kawi agreed.
They both kept working, the clacking of Pisaeng’s fingers over the keyboard mingling with Kawi’s guitar. Underneath the table, Pisaeng hooked his bare foot around Kawi’s ankle. Kawi’s head shot up, and Pisaeng looked back at him wearing an innocent expression.
Kawi rolled his eyes and went back to his guitar, but he didn’t move his foot.
A while later, Kawi looked up from his guitar when Pisaeng said something to him.
“What was that? I didn’t hear you,” he replied.
“I asked if you wanted some food, baby,” Pisaeng repeated, with a half-smile that meant he knew exactly what he was doing.
Kawi waved a finger at him in warning. “Don’t call me ‘baby’,” he said.
Pisaeng raised his hands in a placating and obviously fake manner. “Sorry, sorry.”
And though it wasn’t the first, fifth, or even tenth time Kawi pushed back on the pet name, he could privately admit that he gave out some mixed signals on this particular subject.
four months into dating
*
“Ohh, oh fuck,” he moaned as Pisaeng nudged a second finger deep inside of him. They were so long and skilled, and after weeks of diligent practice, Pisaeng knew the perfect angle, speed, and pressure to move them inside of Kawi.
His other hand was wrapped around Kawi’s cock, stroking languidly up and down in a way that made Kawi’s whole body tense.
“Wait, wait,” Kawi gasped as the heat built and the pleasure coiled tighter. “I’m gonna…”
Pisaeng didn’t stop. In fact, he rubbed his thumb along Kawi’s slippery cockhead instead, which was clearly cheating. Kawi kicked his heel into Pisaeng’s back in reprimand with the leg that was draped over Pisaeng’s shoulder.
“What?” He asked, nipping at the inside of Kawi’s thigh.
Kawi twisted the bedsheets in his fists.
“You want to come, baby?” Pisaeng asked.
Kawi’s ears heated up at the endearment and he let out a desperate moan.
Pisaeng punctuated his question by curling his fingers against Kawi’s prostate and massaging it, slow and steady. Pre-come dripped down the tip of Kawi’s cock and mixed with the lube and sweat as Pisaeng kept stroking him.
“Tell me,” Pisaeng said.
Kawi wanted to shout, No, not yet! That’s why I said wait! But his body betrayed him, and instead he nodded frantically, his hands detangling from the sheets and winding themselves into Pisaeng’s hair.
Pisaeng kissed the inside of his knee. “Then do it, baby, ” he said. Kawi’s hips gave another incriminating, stuttering twitch. Pisaeng smirked at him without another word, letting Kawi’s involuntary responses speak for themselves.
“Shut up, shut up,” Kawi groaned mindlessly as he chased his pleasure.
“That’s it,” Pisaeng praised him, speeding up both the hand on his cock and the fingers inside him. “Take what you need, baby.”
Kawi’s mouth dropped open and his eyes squeezed shut as his orgasm crashed into him, and he came all over his stomach and Pisaeng’s hand.
five months into dating
*
“This is so stupid!” Pisaeng shouted, scrubbing his hands through his hair in frustration.
“Pisaeng…” Kawi said carefully.
“We go on dates! We hold hands! Why can’t I do this?” It sounded more like Pisaeng was talking to himself than Kawi.
Max poked his head out of the entrance of the bar to check on them. He made eye contact with Kawi, clearly offering to help, but Kawi gave a little shake of his head. They were out to meet Kwan’s new girlfriend – an engineering student – and some of her girlfriend’s friends. Max, Kawi, Pisaeng, Pear, and Kwan divided up between Max and Pisaeng’s cars to make the 15 minute drive. Things had been fine until they were walking across the parking lot. Pisaeng saw the neon lights of the gay bar as they approached and just stopped. The others went inside first at Kawi’s urging.
Kawi recognized that this was one of the, thankfully rare, times in their relationship when he would have to be the calm and patient voice of reason. It wasn’t a role that suited him, but he could do it when it was necessary. When Pisaeng needed him.
“We don’t have to go in,” he said. “We can go eat somewhere else.”
That made Pisaeng even more upset.
“But why?” he asked. He pointed at the rainbow flags hanging proudly on the windows. “This is where I should be most comfortable! So why does my heart feel like it's going to explode right now?”
Kawi sighed. “I don’t know, Pi.”
“What’s wrong with me?” he asked.
“Hey!” Kawi said sternly. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Coming out was hard for me too, you know.” He nudged Pisaeng’s shoulder with his own and said, “I used a time machine to change the past, and you’re nervous to go into a gay bar. We all deal with stress in different ways.”
Pisaeng snorted and then his lips turned up into a smile, some of the tension leaving him.
“Definitely two comparable reactions,” he replied.
“See?” Kawi said, happy to be the butt of the joke if it made Pisaeng feel better. “No one will be mad at you if you want to leave.”
“I’ll be mad at myself though,” Pisaeng said. He straightened up and grabbed Kawi’s hand, giving it a tight squeeze. He nodded and began to march towards the door.
Just as they got close, though, two men passed them on their way in.
“Excuse us,” one of them said politely.
Pisaeng lost all of his momentum and took three big steps back. This time, Kawi changed tactics. He’d tried giving Pisaeng an out, but Pisaeng clearly thought this was something he had to do.
Kawi tugged on their linked hands, urging him forward. “Come on, Pisaeng, let’s go. Na, na…”
Pisaeng was much stronger than him, so any progress they made was because he allowed it. They shuffled closer a centimeter at a time.
“Pisaeng,” Kawi whined. “It will be closed by the time we get in at this rate.”
The shuffling continued.
Kawi yanked hard, making dramatic grunting noises as he did it. “Pisaaaeng. Let’s go, baby.”
That got a response. Pisaeng tripped over his own feet and almost caused Kawi to fall on his ass in his haste to make up the distance between them.
“What did you call me?” he said.
“I don’t remember.”
“Say it again.”
“No.”
Kawi opened the entrance door, and immediately the music filtered in.
“Baby…” Pisaeng pouted and entered the bar with only a weary look around.
“Don’t call me that,” Kawi responded as Pear waved them over to the table.
“But…!”
ten months into dating
*
Kawi had been dreading this day for weeks. He’d stopped even looking at the date on his phone, because he didn’t want to see it creep closer. Pisaeng had noticed his mood shifting and asked him about it. But Kawi just dodged the question any time it came up, childishly pretending that if he didn’t say it out loud, it wouldn’t be real.
Now because of that, Pisaeng had slept at his own home, assuming that Kawi needed space. Kawi hadn’t needed space, he’d needed his boyfriend to hold him, but he didn’t know how to say it. So he was alone, and it was all his own fault.
He’d given up trying to sleep once the clock past five. If he could, he would have shut the blinds on the slowly rising sun and hid under the covers for the next 24 hours. But it was a Tuesday and the world kept moving. He had three lectures to attend.
His first two were before lunch. Kawi got through them by sitting in the back and pinching his thigh to stay awake and give himself something else to focus on.
It was at lunch that it all went to shit.
If you’d asked Kawi after, he wouldn’t be able to recall what it was that set him off. He just knew that he’d been a powder keg searching for a spark the whole morning. He and Pisaeng sat down in the outdoor canteen for lunch. One second, he had been eating his chicken and rice. The next, he was standing up, red-faced and breathless from screaming, his tray of food knocked over onto the ground, and everyone staring at him.
Pisaeng had looked stunned, his eyes wide and confused, but Kawi didn’t care.
He’d left Pisaeng with a final, “Fuck off!” and raced back to his dorm.
That’s where he was now, sitting in the dark on his bed. He hadn’t taken off his shoes or his backpack. His father’s framed photo was on his lap, gripped tightly in his hands.
He knew it was unfair to be angry at Pisaeng for not remembering. He was the only one who had this date engraved into his heart. If he’d just said something, Pisaeng would have dropped everything. Kawi knew that.
He traced the familiar features of his father’s face and his eyes pricked with tears. He would have been ashamed of Kawi’s behavior today. Exactly one year gone, and Kawi was still finding new ways to disappoint him.
Kawi ignored the incessant buzzing of his phone as Pisaeng tried to contact him, but something still eased in his chest when he heard the tentative knocking on his door some time later.
“Kawi?” Pisaeng’s muffled voice filtered in from the hallway. “Are you there?”
Kawi clutched his father’s picture harder and remained quiet. Pisaeng had his spare keycard, and sure enough, Kawi heard the clicking of the lock disengaging, and then Pisaeng entered.
“Kawi, what the…”
He froze when he saw Kawi, his eyes cataloging everything. Kawi could see the moment he put it all together. The fight visibly drained out of him, and his face twisted with pain and guilt.
“Baby…” he whispered, and Kawi finally broke.
His shoulders heaved as he let out the sob that had been building all day. The next followed, and the next, until he could hardly breath between them. Pisaeng was there in an instant, gently taking his father’s picture and placing it on the bed. He wrapped Kawi in a tight hug. Kawi clung to him, winding his arms around his waist and burying his face in Pisaeng’s white school shirt.
“It’s the one year anniversary,” Pisaeng said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t remember.”
Kawi wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but he settled for shaking his head and crawling into Pisaeng’s lap.
Once his crying calmed down, Pisaeng asked him, “Do you want to go make merit?”
Kawi pulled back and wiped his face on his sleeve. “Tomorrow,” he said.
“Want me to go with?”
Kawi nodded.
“Okay, baby,” Pisaeng answered, kissing the top of Kawi’s head.
Kawi sighed, his body relaxing for the first time in days. All of a sudden, he was exhausted. His eyes and body both felt too heavy to hold up anymore.
“Alright, hang on,” Pisaeng said. He stripped the backpack from Kawi’s shoulders and took off both Kawi’s shoes and his own. “Shirt next.” He removed the tie and undid the buttons, and Kawi shook it off of his arms and tossed it on the floor. When Kawi was down to his boxers and undershirt, Pisaeng took care of his own clothes.
“Can I move your dad’s picture?” Pisaeng asked, indicating the framed photo still lying on the top of the bedsheets.
“Yeah,” Kawi consented. “Hang it back up.”
Kawi was already half asleep when Pisaeng crawled into the bed behind him and fit his body against Kawi’s.
Kawi put his hands on Pisaeng’s forearms and urged him closer until he was a comforting weight across Kawi’s back.
Pisaeng kissed the top of Kawi’s head. “Go to sleep, baby. We’ll get some dinner when you wake up.”
“Mm,” Kawi mumbled as his eyes drifted shut. “Like when you call me baby.”
Pisaeng’s breath tickled the back of his neck as he let out a soundless chuckle. “I know.”
3. Marriage
ten years into dating
*
When James and Pear announced their engagement, it was like a weight dropped off of Kawi’s shoulders. After all his meddling, and after all these years, Pear would get her happy ending. Finally he could put all of that behind him and fully focus on the future.
“We’re going to wait until James finishes his thesis,” Pear told Kawi and Pisaeng at dinner. “Probably not for a year or two.”
The couple had been together for almost four years. They met in a shared post-grad class. Pear had never looked happier in the decade that Kawi had known her.
James was soft spoken and kind and clearly adored Pear. Everyone thought they made a great match.
“Congratulations, Pear,” Kawi said. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Thank you,” she said. Then she took a sip of her mimosa and said, “It will be you two next!”
Kawi shook his head vehemently. “No way. I’m never getting married.”
Pear looked over at Pisaeng, who just shrugged. “We’ll see,” he answered.
Kawi hit his shoulder. “Hey, what do you mean, ‘we’ll see’?” he demanded.
“It doesn’t have to be now,” Pisaeng said.
“It won’t be ever.”
“Okay,” Pisaeng said in his most infuriating tone of voice.
“Pisaeng…”
“What? I’m agreeing with you!”
“No you’re not!” Kawi argued. “You think I don’t know what all of your okays mean by now? That’s the okay you use when you’re humoring me because you think you’re right.”
In response, Pisaeng leaned over and kissed Kawi’s cheek. “You’re so cute,” he said.
Kawi sputtered as Pear giggled.
twelve years into dating
*
It was no surprise that Pear’s wedding ceremony re-ignited Pisaeng’s marriage fervor.
“If we were to get married – which we’re not,” Pisaeng assured him in the car as they drove home from the reception.
“Definitely not,” Kawi said.
“Right, but if we were, what month would you want it in?”
Kawi thought for a moment. “We’d have to speak to a monk. But January or February? Definitely when there’s not as much rain. Your birthday is in January, so it might be nice to do it around there. But our anniversary is in March.”
“Mm,” Pisaeng said. “Do you think the band would perform?”
“Of course they would,” Kawi said.
“And you’d want it at a hotel?”
“Somewhere with a nice view – and that would let Lulu come,” Kawi added, referring to their three-year-old labrador. “In fact, for all I care, it could just be me, you, and Lulu.” He paused and narrowed his eyes at Pisaeng’s interested expression. “Not that we’re getting married.”
“I know. But hypothetically,” Pisaeng said.
“Hypothetically.”
thirteen years into dating
*
The crowd celebrating on the lawn was jubilant. All around Kawi there were pride flags waving in the air, people cheering, screaming, crying. Pisaeng held his hand through it all, a stable presence at his side.
The crowd’s noise grew to a fever pitch, and Kawi saw Max walking up the stairs and onto the stage. Kawi yelled as loudly as he could. Pisaeng joined him, their voices melting into the rest of the madness.
Max reached the podium. He tapped the mic and cleared his throat.
“Hello,” he began.
That only incited more cheers. Before Max could say another word, a chant started in the crowd.
“Pride for all! All for pride! Pride for all! All for pride!”
Instead of getting annoyed by the interruption, Max stepped back and laughed and then joined in on it himself. Finally the chanting tapered off, and Max began to speak.
“You know, for years I’ve stood in front of microphones like this one and promised that if we worked hard and stayed strong, that this day would come. Now that it has, I’ll let you all in on a secret: I had no idea if Thailand would ever get here.”
A swell of fondness and pride came over Kawi as he watched his best friend hold the crowd in the palm of his hand.
“What I did know – what I do know – is that win or lose, our community would become more powerful because of the fight. We are brave and resilient, and we refuse to go back to hiding in the dark! We refuse to be treated like our lives don’t matter! We refuse to apologize for being who we are! Never again!”
“Never!” Pisaeng shouted. Kawi looked up at him and smiled.
“And what we proved today is that when we all push together, we can move mountains.”
Max wiped a hand over his eyes.
“I won’t take up too much of your time, because I know you all want to go back to celebrating. I just wanted to say thank you for all that you’ve done. For your long hours, donations, art, phone calls, protesting, everything. You’ve all inspired me, and without you, this could never have happened. Anyway, enjoy yourselves today! Eat, drink – get married!”
The crowd erupted as Max waved and hopped down the stairs off the stage.
“What do you say?” Pisaeng asked, his voice nearly a yell to be heard over the cacophony. “Are you going to follow his advice?”
“Sure,” Kawi said. “Let’s get some food.”
“Then get married?”
Kawi dragged him by the hand through the mass of revelers and didn’t bother to respond.
fourteen years into dating
*
Getting old was strange. It was a rare occasion nowadays when their group could find time together. Pear and James were juggling a new baby with both of their careers. Max was off traveling around Asia continuing his advocacy and helping local gay organizations. Kwan and her girlfriend, Manaow, just bought a house together that was almost an hour outside of Bangkok. Pisaeng got promoted at work, and Kawi was always rushing to meet some deadline. Since writing and producing a handful of hits for different artists, he was kept constantly busy.
In short, they were adults. It was exhausting, but Kawi never stopped being thankful for the second (and third and fourth) chance the universe gave him to make things right and get them there.
Despite their chaotic schedules, though, Kwan made it very clear that she expected everyone to be at her birthday celebration. She chose a private room at a karaoke bar, which meant that Kawi’s ears had been assaulted by Pear, Kwan, and Manaow belting out k-pop girl group songs for two hours as they got progressively more drunk.
James was telling the guys a funny story about a fight between two first-year students in a course he taught, when the room went blessedly, momentarily silent at the end of a song. The girls had long since stopped expecting applause from their audience and just went straight into the next one.
The club provided gaudy accessories, so each woman had a feather boa wrapped around her neck, and Kwan’s birthday tiara was halfway falling off of her head.
Max had never been a clingy drunk in all of the time Kawi had known him, but now he had his weight resting fully into the wide chest of his new boyfriend. Phaya, a firefighter Max met at the Pride parade a few months back, had his arm wrapped protectively around Max’s chest as he sipped whisky and laughed along to James’ story.
Kawi met Max’s eyes and shot him a knowing look, but Max appeared unconcerned, sticking his tongue out at Kawi and pointedly wiggling tighter into Phaya’s embrace.
Pear walked unsteadily up to Kawi, who sat at the end of the couch. She had kicked off her heels after song number two, so she was barefoot and somehow acquired a pair of comically large sunglasses.
“Kawi,” she said in the serious tone of the very drunk. “It’s your turn to sing.”
“No way,” Kawi said.
“Aren’t you a professional or something?” Phaya asked. “Max says you’re good!”
“Not anymore. I write music for other people now,” he explained.
“Still sings in the shower though,” Pisaeng said.
“Who doesn’t sing in the shower?” Kawi shot back.
“Come onnn, Kawi! Sing!” Pear demanded.
“Sing, sing!” Kwan shouted.
“Sing, sing,” Pisaeng teased more quietly beside him. Kawi glared at him.
A microphone was thrust in his hand, and he sighed.
“If I sing one, then Pisaeng has to sing one too,” he said. He wasn’t going to be the only person forced into it.
Pisaeng shrugged at him with a smirk. “Deal.”
Kawi made a show of grumbling as he got up and deliberately picked the most ridiculous song on the list to belt out as offkey as possible. His friends whooped and egged him on, until suddenly it was four songs later, Kwan’s tiara was perched on his head, and the girls were acting as his backup dancers as he butchered a rap song.
When the song ended, Kawi detached himself from the group and returned to his seat. Pisaeng handed him a glass of water and he gulped it down to soothe his parched throat.
Kwan yelled, “One more song! One more song!”
“Leave me alone!” Kawi yelled back. “I’m not drunk like you are. Besides, it’s Pisaeng’s turn.” He gestured grandly to the front. “Well?”
Pisaeng was an annoyingly good sport about taking the stage. He scrolled through the list of songs for a while before deciding. Pear handed him a microphone and he took it, clearing his throat.
Kawi was ready to heckle, but then the first notes of the song played and he froze. It was a ballad called Because Of You — a huge hit debut that came out over a decade ago from an artist who became a household name. Kawi knew the melody immediately, which was no surprise since he wrote it.
Max took care of the heckling for him, though, loudly fake booing when he recognized the song.
Kawi may have written it for that other artist, but every line, every note, was dedicated to Pisaeng. Hearing his warm, unpolished voice sing the words that Kawi had written about him made something inside Kawi bloom like a flower in the sun. Pisaeng’s version sounded ten times – a hundred times – better than the original.
Pisaeng locked eyes with Kawi, not needing the lyrics on the screen, and sang Kawi’s heart back to him.
The last chords of the song faded away, and the others cheered.
When it quieted down, Kawi continued staring at Pisaeng’s handsome face. After all these years, it was still Kawi’s favorite thing to look at.
He nodded to himself.
“Let’s get married,” he said.
Pear gasped and, less flatteringly, Max snorted at Kawi’s quiet declaration.
“Was that all it took?” Pisaeng asked. He hopped off of the stage, his grin widening with each step.
“No. Yes. I don’t know. Marry me,” Kawi said, suddenly more sure of this than he’d ever been of anything.
In the silence, Phaya whispered to Max, “Is it going to be like this every time we hang out with your friends?”
Pisaeng hadn’t yet given Kawi an answer, but Kawi found he wasn’t nervous at all, even when Pisaeng walked past him to the back of the room where they’d hung their coats. He reached into one of the pockets and pulled something out. He tossed it to Kawi. It was a ring box.
“Oh my god,” Pear gasped. It was all background static to Kawi.
He gaped in shock. “How did you know?” he demanded. “I didn’t even know until I said it.”
He opened up the small, velvet box and saw a simple gold band nestled inside.
“I didn’t know,” Pisaeng answered. His smile was so wide now, his eyes two dark crescents.
Kawi squinted at him in confusion. “You didn’t…what? Do you mean you’ve just been carrying this around with you?”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
“A few years,” Pisaeng replied.
Kawi’s heart battered against his chest and he took a shuddering breath.
“You’re insane,” he said. “Well, what are you waiting for? Put it on me.”
Despite how calm he seemed, Pisaeng’s hands shook as he removed the ring from the box and slid it onto Kawi’s finger.
Kawi admired it until Kwan shouted, “Oh my god, kiss him already!”
She had her phone trained on them, and it looked like there were tears in her eyes.
“You heard the birthday girl,” Pisaeng said as their lips met.
Kawi’s hands twisted into Pisaeng’s shirt, holding on tightly.
When they finally broke apart, Pear said, “Now you two have to have some kids to play with Fah.”
Kawi recoiled at the thought of being a father. He was still afraid to hold Pear’s daughter, and Fah was almost a year old.
“No way. Never,” he declared.
“We’ll see,” Pisaeng replied.