Chapter Text
I couldn’t stay in this room the whole day doing nothing.
I didn’t feel like sleeping more, so I decided to take a shower and go to school to see my friends. I spent too much time with the other Moons and Stars at the competition meetings and almost lost my relationship with my friends at my major and school.
As I am friends with the fairy angel gang at my school, I luckily got a ride with their leader. They always take very good care of me, like I’m their prince or something.
The angel gang actually has a mix of all types of people, not only my fairy angel friends. We all are still trying to blend in our school, and getting to know each other. The gang’s leader is called “Mon”. His real name is Montri, and we somehow became very good friends.
As is already known, my family owns an important automobile spare-parts company. I am the family’s only son and I don’t drive myself anywhere.
“Damn, I thought I would get to see that beautiful Moon around here. Finding you alone is such a shame.” He complains after I get in his car.
Well. From now on, I’ll call him “E' Mon”.
(t.n.: “E” is like “Ai”, but for female. Mon is a effeminate gay, and Yo’s close friend. Both “E” and “Ai” are rude if you’re not close enough to the person! Yo and Mon can call each other that because they’re good friends.)
“Hey, weren’t you the one that said I’m handsome, and pushed me to be the Moon of our major?”
“I know, I know… Then you better prove yourself by taking that Campus Moon title and show me, will you?” He keeps picking on me. “Or… you can give me to your friend, Mr. Mingkwan. Fuuuck ! I wish I could just eat him up!”
“If you really want him, I’ll help you.” It’s my turn to mess with you, you prick Ming!
“I would most probably die if I have him. Do you understand that he ‘s probably the Campus-Moon-to-be?”
“Aw, don’t you think that I’m going to win?” I joke. I know that’s not possible.
“If you can reach the top three, you’re already really good.” E' Mon gives me a look as he keeps picking on me. I laugh easily at his funny act. “I didn’t nominate you because you’re the most handsome; but because you’re the most masculine in our group, and has a pretty face. I don’t really wanna admit that you’re beautiful, but I’ll give it to you this time.”
“Pretty, my ass.”
“Why not? Oval face, sharp eyes with cute, long and curly eyelashes. Also you’re skinny and have a perfect fit body. Yet, you’re prettier than handsome. Why don’t you try auditioning to become a model or an actor, by the way?”
“Shut up and drive. That Benz almost hit your Mirage now.”
“Benz? Is the driver handsome?” Mon tries to look at the guy in the rearview mirror as the Benz keeps on honking at us because of Mon’s bad driving.
“What are you guys doing at school these days I was away?”
“So many things! I have to drag all shanees from your major to work now. No offense."
(t.n.: “shanee” means “gibbon”. Is a gay slang to call women/female. It can be considered rude, depending on how it’s used.)
“None taken.”
E' Mon starts talking again, “we were asked to use only one symbol to represent our major. It 's damn hard! The presentation day is after tomorrow.”
“Have we decided what to use yet?”
“A big tree, hanging everything about biology on its leaves.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“It has to be big . Big like a fucking house.”
“Hm... I’m really sorry that I can’t help you out that much.”
“You’re already doing your job. Just get the Campus Moon title for us.”
I can’t help but feel the pressure already. As we park next to our major’s building, I can see a lot of science freshmen working on a big tree that we’ll use for the parade on the sports competition day.
(t.n.: You’re probably familiar with it, but the first year in thai college is full of activities. The Moon & Star competition is only one of them.)
I was planning to help my friends right away, but E' Mon started a big dramatic-entrance thing that got everyone (people from other majors included) looking right at me.
“So! Everyone! Give it up for our Moon of Science!”
“Gosh! E’ Yo, have you found a Moon husband yet?” Fairy Angel No. 1 (a big, chubby, pale skin friend of mine) yells. I love to poke on his belly. He’s cute and funny, but his bad mouth is killing me as usual.
“E’ Yo, give me a hug. Come here, sweetie.” Fairy Angel No. 2 says and is about to hug me, before E' Mon pushes him away.
“Yeah! Finally something pretty to look at.” Fairy Angel No. 3 winks at me.
These are my major’s four fairy angel friends, and we’re kind of a gang. And clearly, I’m the most masculine out of us. Should I be proud of it?
“Bitches, go back to your work now kha! Why are you smiling kha, shanee ? Are you this happy to see our Moon? Then you lot better not forget to save your money and buy roses for voting him.”
(t.n.: Just like the “khrub” used by men, “kha” is used by women at the end of sentences to be polite. Again, it is common for effeminate gays to use feminine words like that.)
E' Mon really can be a very good campaign manager, just like Jae’ Ging. “E’ Yo, go sit over there. Help them on cutting the paper pieces. And get out of my way: I need to slice some wood.”
“Wait a minute. Why would I do that? Pass me that saw right now. I’ll chop them.” I graduated from a highschool for men. I’m not weak nor sissy. I can handle this. “Let me be useful.”
I do help on cutting the wood, and I’m silently happy that people are not isolating me like I feared. They’re pretty friendly and welcoming. They understand that I was gone because of the competition meetings, and make sure to cheer me up and talk to me. Girls ask me about the Moons, while boys ask me about the Stars from other schools.
At some point, my phone rings.
“Let me take it for you.” Fairy Angel No. 1 tries to shove his hand and fish my phone into my pocket. That’s just too much into my personal space, and I manage to bend away from him very fast.
“No, no, no. Thank you. Hold this, please.” I give him the hammer.
The caller surprises me (the second time that day). I’ve already saved his phone number on my phone earlier, and the lockscreen proudly announces “P'Pha ❤”.
(Go ahead. You can boo or gag. I don’t care.)
I walk away from my friends a little before answering the call.
“Hello.”
“What are you doing? Did you leave the room at all?”
“Hrr?”
“Don’t come down yet. I’m on my way to pick you up.”
“Pick me up?”
“For lunch.”
“Don’t you have class? P'Pha,” I look at my watch. He should still be in class by now.
“I do, but I need to talk to you. (Medical student Phana! How dare you?)” I can hear someone talking loudly on the background of P'Pha’s end of the line.
“I didn’t do anything khrub, Auntie. (Using the phone during the lecture! And what did you just call me?) Fuck!” P'Pha swears to himself. “ Yo, I have to hang up now. I’ll pick you up for lunch, okay? (Give me your phone right now, Mr. Phana.) Miss, I was recording your lecture while listening to it. I didn’t use my phone at all khrub. Arjarn Kallaya—”
And he hung up.
I started laughing hard at that. He was acting like a kid! He 's adorable.
Right now it’s a little past 11:00 AM. We'll have lunch at 12:30 PM, so I keep on working with my friends as they chat, gossip and tease each other.
I feel really bubbly. In a matter of friendship, I feel like this was the right major choice for me. I can’t say much about the academic part of it yet, but I kinda feel anxious about calculus already.
My phone rings again. Fairy Angel No. 1 tries to get my phone again, but this time he totally aims the other thing I have in my pants instead of the phone. I’m pretty sure it’s intentional.
“Such a hot guy,” He shrugs before walking away.
Ai’ Ming is the one calling now.
"What 's up?”
“Fuck, Yo! Where are you now?”
“At school.”
“Got it. I’m on my way to pick you up.”
“What?”
But he had already hung up on me. What the fuck is going on? Why does he want to pick me up? Where to?
He’s damn fast, and soon I see his car parking next to my building. He’s outstandingly tall, and I can see him from afar. I wave at him as I keep on working with the people from my major.
“Goooooosh!”
“My husband! My husband! My husband kha!”
“Shut up! That’s my husband!”
Well. You can guess who’s screaming. Ai’ Ming seems pretty freaked out as he runs to hide behind me.
“Fuck, Yo! What is this all about?” He looks at me, alarm written all over his face and tone.
“Long story short, I guess you are their type.” I shrug.
“Ming, I’m voting for you na.” E' Mon greets him as he gently touches Ai’ Ming.
Ai’ Ming forces a smile and avoids being touched again. I feel like guffawing. It’s good to see him scared for a change. Hahaha.
“I’m voting for you too. And much more than E' Mon.” No. 2 adjusts his posture as he says.
“Stop calling me that!”
“Ming, are you still single? Can I be your girlfriend?” Chubby No. 1 offers right after Ai’ Ming manages to avoid the other two angels.
As they are not just verbally fighting over him, but also trying to grab him all over, I really can see my friend panicking.
“Yo… Let’s go, please. I beg you.” He’s almost crying as he whines. I can feel it. Hahaha.
“Oh, come on. Give them some fan service, will you?”
“Not funny at all, dude. Get me outta here, now.” He shuts his eyes and weakly smiles at the fairy angels fighting over him.
“Hey, Mon. I’ll be right back, okay?”
E' Mon doesn’t listen to me at all, as he keeps on fighting the other angels to “own” Ai’ Ming. I keep on laughing until Ai’ Ming grabs my backpack and pushes me away from there.
“Remember me to never come here again unless it is strictly necessary.” He wipes his face with his hand as he enters his car, right after swinging my backpack in the backseat of his car. I make myself comfortable in the passenger seat as I keep laughing.
“Where are you taking me?” He smirks. “Spit it out.”
“Med school.”
Uh-oh. This is a high adrenaline word for me.
“What the fuck are we doing there?” I ask.
“Seeing KitKat.”
What the fuck is a “KitKat”? I keep on wondering about it as I follow Ai' Ming around the Med School, but as we arrive to a specific classroom, I understand it right away. His “KitKat” is P'Kit.
Ai' Ming tells me he wants to see P'Kit studying, and that I can see P'Pha in the classroom too. So it's a Win-Win situation.
It’s not that I’m not curious to see P'Pha in the classroom, but wait a damn minute. Why the fuck are we looking for P'Kit?
Does he really have a crush on P'Kit, after all?
“Over there.” We walk past a bg lecturing room. “Here they are.”
“Where?”
He 's fast. As if this is not his first time doing it. I look inside the room and see P'Beam first. P'Kit is sitting on the other side and jotting something down, looking focused. But, the guy between them keeps on playing with his phone! Ai’ P'Pha. He’s not even paying attention to the lecture.
At the podium by the slide projection, I see P'Pha’s Professor Auntie. She looks kind for a professor. HIgh-pitch voiced, but very intelligent. She looks like the type to complain until someone gets deaf when she gets mad, though.
Ai' Ming smirks before typing something on his phone.
I can see P'Kit checking his phone and getting mad right away. He raises his head and starts looking around angrily, but Ai' Ming pushes my head to duck with him, laughing delightedly.
What the fuck is he playing here? Hide and seek?
“What did you text him?”
He hands me his phone.
| Moong Ming: You look so cute when you’re in class.
| Moong Ming: But with that serious face, you look like an old man.
Is he flirting or is he being a douchebag? I look curiously at my friend as I wonder. Right at that moment, the class is dismissed and the doors are wide open.
Fuck!
The medicine sophomores start getting out of the lecture room, since the class ended. They’re talking about the lecture, walking slowly.
Me and Ai' Ming, on the other hand, run away from there very fast.
We stop at the front of the building, breathing heavily and trying to catch our breaths. I sit down for a bit as I try to cool down. I don’t want P'Pha to know that I came here to peek him at class. It’s silly.
“What the fuck are we doing here?” I feel like we’re kids, like we’re in a puppy love kind of thing.
“I already told you. Brought you to see P'Pha.”
“And you’re here to see P'Kit.” I snap at him. “Ming, what on earth are you doing? Do you like P'Kit?”
Ai' Ming smiles happily. “Does he pass?”
“Pass?”
“KitKat.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If I want to date someone, I need your approval first. Remember?”
Oh, come on! Your feelings got you doing this kind of thing already, why do you care about that?
“When did this start?” No need to answer that. I’m more interested in his feelings and when it happened. It’s finally my turn to pick on him.
“When I was trying to look for P'Pha with you, P'Kit always managed to get my eye. I always saw him first.” He said, smiling. “He’s not my type. Short and rude, ready to jump into a fight all the damn time. Even you are more my type than him.” Wait, what… “Beside that, I love to see him getting mad. It 's fun. Now that I think of it, I’m kinda weird.”
I nod.
“There they are.” Ming points the three of them walking down the corridor. They don’t look like med students. Not really. If someone told me that they were from engineering, comm arts or architecture, I would have believed it right away. As to prove me right, right now they are untucking their shirts from their pants and loosening their ties. Quite a badass gang for med school, you can say.
P'Pha has his cold face on, as usual. It’s my first time seeing him getting out of class, sheets still in hand while the others look at their cellphones. He’s walking behind P'Kit and P'Beam, who are discussing something.
I look at P'Pha for a bit and catch him looking at his watch right before running off like he’s going somewhere. That was weird… Why did he run?
I look at my own watch, which proudly shows 12:30 PM… Well, now I know why.
Fuck! He’s on his way to pick me up at the dorm building.
I don’t have time to call him or let him know that I’m at his school building right now. Ai' Ming speeds up his car, but not enough. We see the white Audy already parked when we arrive.
“I have to go.” I grab my backpack and start getting out.
“You owe me some update on the situation, friend!” Ming protests.
“Of course I do.”
“Tonight.”
“Freaking nosy.”
“Shit are happening in my bestie’s life. Gotta keep updated.” Says the smartass. “Hurry up. Don’t keep him waiting or he’ll get mad.”
"Thanks…"
I wave at him and turn around. He’s standing right there.
He’s still catching his breath, but he’s more concerned in knowing who gave me a ride.
“Come here.” He says. I’m also trying to even my breath as I had to run earlier. “Who was that?”
He sounds annoyed. I feel myself wince a little.
“Yo… I’m asking you.”
“Ai' Ming khrub.” I turn to try and keep him from going away, but he’s already driven out. Shit.
“Where did you go?”
Should I tell him?
“Yo…”
“Khrub?”
“Where did you go?”
Fuck! He’s really annoyed. I gotta tell him. “Med school.”
“What?” P'Pha looks shocked. “What were you doing there?”
“Ai' Ming wanted to see P'Kit. And he took me with him, so I could see you too.” I duck my head low, avoiding his gaze.
P'Pha frowns, looking intrigued.
“Why were you playing on your phone in class?” That question helps. P'Pha seems to accept my explanation, and doesn’t look angry anymore.
"It 's boring.”
“Did professor Auntie punish you?”
“Look…” He shows me his right ear, which is bright red. “I went down there and she pulled my ear in front of everyone. I was more embarrassed than hurt.”
I spurt a laugh at that.
P'Pha looks really embarrassed. “Hey, hey!”
I keep on laughing.
“Stop that. It happened all because of you.”
I stop laughing. “Why?”
“You caused that.”
“What!?”
“You made me want to call you.”
“I did what now?”
“You got me thinking of you the whole day. I missed you.”
There…
There you go.
He didn’t whisper any sweet words in my ear. He said it directly to my face instead. That stunts me and gets me blushing. Even redder than his ear.
“Flirt.” It’s all I can say. “Aren’t you hungry? When does your lunch break end?”
“I’m not flirting with you. I’m saying the truth.” He grabs my backpack and opens the door for me. “What do you want to eat? I’ll take you there.”
“Do we have time to pick anything?”
“Not really. But I wanna make you happy.”
Idiot. Why do you always make my heart sway like that?
“Lets go to that restaurant, then.”
“Which one?”
“Science school cafeteria.”
Usually, since the classes are still to start, there’s not a lot of people around here. But today, since everyone came to work, it’s pretty full. I’m not so sure if taking the Campus Moon here was a good idea anymore. Everyone is looking at him now.
“I’ve never been here before.” P'Pha mutters. “What’s good to eat here?”
“No idea. Never ate here either.” Usually I just get my food at the competition meetings or at the central cafeteria.
“We’ll have to try things first, then.” He looks at a stand in the food court. “One per day, until we try all of them.”
“What’ll you do coming here so often? Hit on science girls?”
He hits my head, “Hit on this Moon only.”
There it is! Again! So straightforward.
I’m so happy right now. I celebrate as I go to find something to drink. A pink milk for me, and a thai chai for him, as I remember he likes it. P'Pha is in another stand, buying his food.
“A lot of people were buying this one.” He explains his choice. I can only look at him as he eats.
This feels like a dream coming true to me. At high school I couldn’t even sit less than fifty meters away from him, but now we’re sitting at the same table. Right in front of me, less than a meter away.
“Won’t you eat anything?” P'Pha asks. “Or do you want me to get you something?”
“Nope, I can get it myself.” I quickly get up from my seat. I’m not about to let him do things for me and having the coke can episode to repeat itself.
I finally chose to eat steamed chicken and rice. When I get back to P'Pha, he’s already halfway done with his own food. Damn, that was quick.
“This is really good. Already know what I’ll eat next time.” His tone is really sincere, and I know he liked the food a lot.
“You sure you can just keep coming here?”
“Of course.”
“Med school is pretty far from here, tho.” I naively say.
“I have a car.”
“Your lunch break is pretty short.”
“Time enough for me.”
“Are you being serious about coming back?” I don’t really believe he’s so invested in coming back like this.
“From now on, everytime you go out in public, you’ll understand.” He’s got a serious face on. “I can feel that the Faculty of Science will keep getting more and more visitors.”
“Don’t joke about it.”
“More guys than girls, for sure. But still.”
“Wait a damn minute.” He’s being jerky again.
“Don’t you agree with me?”
“What are you even talking about? Stop right there and just finish your lunch.” I go back to eating.
He 's staring at me. I can feel it as I eat.
“Hm?”
“Being clumsy again.” He wipes a bit of rice out of the side of my mouth with his hand. “Cute mouth.”
“My dad says I look more like my mom.”
“If you looked like your father, you would have much more of a stern look.”
“Have you seen my father before?”
“Internet.” He looks slightly frightened by my father. “He always gives those interviews saying how much he loves his son.”
“I’m an only child.”
P'Pha finishes his thai chai. He’s acting strange, somehow.
“Where do you wanna go next?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll help my friends here with work.”
“You sure?”
To be fair, today’s scene with Ai' Ming and the Fairy Angels got me slightly freaked out.
Ai' Ming almost got ripped in two. I can only begin to imagine what would happen to P'Pha. There is no way I’ll take him there.
Messing with Ming was enjoyable, but I’ll not put P'Pha on the line like that.
“I forbid you of taking me to the Science building.”
P'Pha seems intrigued. “Forbid?”
“Yes.”
“But I would rather know your friends.”
Oh, you have no idea what you’re asking me right now.
“I said you’re forbidden.”
P'Pha raises my pink milk and puts the straw next to my mouth. “Bossy.”
“That’s nothing.”
P'Pha smiles as I drink my pink milk.
“I can handle it and anything else. Don’t worry.”