who else is there to love but you; a khunbaam au
He tastes like Baam has always thought of and more, lips slotting into Baam’s the way he has slotted himself into the space between Baam’s heartbeats, and Baam isn’t sure if he ever wants Khun to pull away.
“Come on, Baam, it’s our graduation. It’s the last time any of us are gonna have time to travel before we settle into jobs and fall victim to the monotony of everyday li-“
A snort crackles through the speaker, and Hatz’s voice rings clear, “Speak for yourself, Isu. Some of us still can’t find jobs-“
A jostle over the phone, then: “-anyway, as I was saying, it’s just one last hurrah before we officially start adulting. Please just say yes, Baam, nearly everyone else has agreed-“
Baam sighs and sets down his pencil. It’s literally the week of finals; every time he rubs his eyes he sees syntax trees tattooed on the inside of his eyelids. How does Isu expect him to make big decisions when his entire brain is clouded with theta roles?
He opens his mouth, about to ask Isu to please just ask him when he gets back to their dorm room because his brain really can’t handle thinking about budgeting and accommodations, but Isu’s sly voice beats him to the punch. “Khun’s coming.”
Baam lets his head drop into his hands and groans.
Damn Shibisu.
-
The first time Baam meets Khun, Baam is splayed out on his stomach on Hatz’s kitchen floor, honey dripping from his hair.
The laughter on his tongue dies out; Isu stops flinging flour at where Hatz is crouched, taking cover.
Baam watches in dismay as the most beautiful man he’s ever seen in his life stands at Hatz’s doorway, mouth pressed into a thin line and eyes as hard as flint. The man’s fingers are still curled around the door handle as he surveys the mess before a clipped, “Hatz.”
He feels Hatz tensing up from where he’s knelt beside Baam, hands braced against the fine dusting of flour on the floor.
“I’ll make sure the kitchen is spotless,” Hatz bites out, tone frosty.
Baam’s eyes meet the man’s through a slow tangle of honey, and he can’t help the shiver that runs down his spine. Even backlit and haloed in the artificial hallway light, he reminds Baam of someone royal, hair pulled away from cheekbones high and regal and bangs barely covering eyes cool as glass.
An eternity stretches before the man breaks eye contact with him and makes out a curt nod, “Make sure you do.”
And then he’s gone, door locking behind him with a neat click.
Isu is the first to break the silence- “Fuck, Hatz, when you called to tell me your new roommate was an ass you didn’t say he was a beautiful one-“
“Shut the fuck up, he’s a royal pain in the ass, that’s why I called you to come over- “
“His eyes, Hatz, did you see them-“
“I hardly feel the need to look into the eyes of someone who pisses me off from day one-“
“You ask me to come over and make cookies for you, but you just neglect to mention how beautiful-“
“You saw for yourself, he’s so fucking pretentious - look, Isu, if you’ve done quite enough salivating over my arse of a roommate, do you mind helping your poor roommate up?”
Isu squeaks and slides through the flour to Baam’s side, “You alright?”
“Yeah,” Baam says. “Yeah, no, I’m alright.”
As Isu helps Baam pick himself off the floor and sends him into the bathroom to rinse out his hair, all Baam can think about is the man’s cool blue eyes and the way the image keeps sending his heart back up his throat.
-
It’s ten in the morning after his last final and Baam barely has time to stuff his duffel in the trunk when Rak calls shotgun.
It sets off a squabble between Hatz and Isu about who should drive and devolves into an argument over whether Rak can navigate (he cannot) and when Isu will even let anyone else drive his precious car (never).
There is a soft huff of amusement from where Khun is leaning on the side of the car, hands fiddling through what looks like a GPS, and Khun looks up at Baam, grinning. “We’ll never set off at this rate.”
“We’ll have to spend the first night back in our dorms and leave tomorrow instead,” Baam returns, biting back a smile. Khun laughs at that, his eyes sparkling through his bangs and curved into crescent moons, and Baam has to tamp down a familiar flare in his chest.
Keep it under control, he tells himself. It’s just a weeklong road trip, after which Khun will move somewhere in the big city for a job at his father’s company and Baam will move back home, despairing over what little job prospects a linguistics major brings. Useless crushes are just that, useless.
He watches as Khun pushes off from the side of the car and tosses the GPS to Isu. “Keyed in a place for lunch,” Khun grins as Isu squawks and fumbles to catch it, “Now you won’t need either of those two idiots up front.”
Hatz splutters indignantly and the rest of them just laugh, scrambling to get into the car so they can finally, finally get on their way and maybe get a decent cup of coffee.
(Rak, much to his disgruntlement, is relegated to the backseat, sandwiched between Khun and Baam.)
-
The second time Baam meets Khun, Baam neither is on the floor nor has any sticky substance in his hair (thankfully).
He knocks on Hatz’s door, ready to deliver Hatz’s notebook from where Hatz left it in Baam and Isu’s dorm room during an earlier study session.
(A ‘study session’, Baam has learnt, is just an excuse for Isu to bother his best friend into coming over to their room so they can talk about everything other than homework. Not that Baam minds, of course - conversations between Hatz and Isu flow like water, stories from their shared childhood spilling out as they try their best to embarrass each other in front of Baam.)
There’s a click as the door unlocks and Baam’s mouth opens, ready to remind Hatz that even though they only live just a few floors above him, it’s best not to leave his Physics notes behind ever again for Isu to doodle senselessly on, but when the door swings open, it’s Blue Eyes.
Oh.
“Looking for Hatz?” The man prompts, after a beat of silence. “He’s in the shower.”
Baam flushes and makes the conscious effort to shut his jaw. He holds Hatz’s notes out to Blue Eyes, “Hatz left this in my room earlier, could I leave this with you please?”
Blue Eyes raises an eyebrow at the dick drawn in Sharpie on Hatz’s notebook cover. He looks back up at Baam.
“It wasn’t me,” Baam blurts, suddenly anxious to inform Blue Eyes that no, he wasn’t the one childish enough to draw dicks onto other people’s notes. “My roommate and Hatz, they’re pretty close, I guess it’s their thing-“
He’s not sure why words are just tumbling out of his mouth, but Blue Eyes just snorts, corner of his mouth turning up in amusement. He takes the notebook from Baam and nods, “I’ll leave it on his desk.”
“Thank you...” Baam trails off, because for the life of him he absolutely cannot remember what Hatz has called his roommate other than ‘The Royal Ass’ and ‘That Fucking Asshole’. Neither of which, Baam is sure, Blue Eyes would like to be called.
“Thank you,” he manages, and turns to hightail it out of there before he embarrasses himself for the third time in a night.
“Hold on,” Blue Eyes says, and he waits until Baam fully turns back around to meet his gaze. “Who should I say left this for him?”
“I’m Baam.” Baam pauses, then tacks on, “From the twenty-fifth floor.”
“Alright, Baam-from-the-twenty-fifth-floor,” Blue Eyes says, and grins. “I’m Khun.”
Khun, Baam repeats all the way back up to his room, Khun. He tucks the name into the pocket of his cheek the way a child savours hard candy - Khun. Khun, Khun, Khun.
(Baam makes it all the way to the lift lobby before he realises that Khun has in fact cracked a dad joke, and when he tells Isu this Isu can’t seem to stop cackling.)
-
They stop for lunch at a cute diner at the edge of the city. The lights are dim and the booth seats are cracked, stuffing leaking out from where legs have over the years worn the leather down, but the food is warm and the coffee is strong and that’s all that matters.
“More coffee?” The sole waiter nudges Isu’s coffee cup with the jug.
Isu nods. Might as well, if he’s going to be driving for the rest of the day.
He takes a sip and leans back. Rak and Khun are arguing over routes, phones opened to Google Maps and fingers jabbing at the highways. Baam is listening intently to the road talk, slowly pulling the pickles out from his sandwich and setting them in a pile on the edge of his plate, ready for Khun to pick at later.
Isu smiles softly to himself as Rak leans over him to holler at Hatz. He’s glad they cobbled together this trip - it seems the perfect way to end four years of living together before they disperse and are only able to meet on weekends, or worse, every couple of months.
He’ll miss them, of course - if there’s one thing the university did right, it was their random roommate pairings freshman year. Isu’s heard horror stories of roommates going out partying and coming back to puke on rugs, but Baam clicked with him on all sorts of levels, from cleanliness to sleep schedules to taste in films, and it was only natural they applied to continue living together all four years.
And Hatz, despite his deep loathing of Khun during their first month rooming together, quickly warmed up to him too; they were both quiet and studious, were complete night owls and were quite alright with Isu coming to blabber their ears off every once in a while.
(Hatz also strenuously denies this, but after The Physics Lab Incident halfway through the first semester freshman year, Isu is pretty sure Hatz would follow Khun to the ends of the earth and back. And Hatz’s loyalty is hard-earned; he would know.)
Rak was a lucky happenstance in their second year, a constantly sexiled sophomore from across the hallway who more often than not ended up sleeping on their couch. When Isu found out Rak could make a mean beef stew, well? Isu adopted him into their little family straight away.
“What do you guys think?” Khun turns to his left, spearing a pickle off of Baam’s plate. Baam hums his approval and Isu shrugs. He hasn’t really been listening, but he trusts that Khun’s come up with a good route. If anything was weird, Rak and Baam would have pointed it out anyway.
“Doesn’t matter to me where we go,” Hatz says around a full mouth of fries, “As long as we make it to the hotel tonight.”
“Alright then,” Isu says, brushing crumbs off his shirt, “Where has the Great Rak and Khun planned to bring us next?”
“The Museum of Turtles.”
Rak is grinning so broadly Isu can’t help himself - he laughs.
-
The third time Baam meets Khun, it’s for dinner with Hatz and Isu.
They’re crowded around a table heavy with pizza Hatz must have grabbed on the way back from class. It’s somewhat towards the middle of their first semester - Khun and Hatz must be getting pretty close if Hatz has invited him to eat with them. So much for Hatz’s obstinate declaration that he’d never be friends with someone “that stuck-up”.
“-completely winded because as I said, I fell on my fucking back, and the crazy girl goes, “Oh my god, you’re looking up my skirt!” Like, I’m the one you knocked over literally half a second ago and you’re accusing me of looking at your ugly ass?! How fucking ridiculous is that?” Hatz waves his slice of pizza in the air, pepperoni somehow clinging to the cheese by sheer force of will.
Baam winces in sympathy. He’s not sure what he would have done in Hatz’s place. Maybe die.
“Then Khun - bless Khun - leans over from his bench and says- oh man, I think you better tell this part-“
Khun huffs and wipes his mouth. He sets his half-eaten slice back down, eyes sparkling with mirth, and continues, “So I’m quietly working on this stupid Physics lab sheet when I hear this idiot fall flat on his ass behind me and when I turn around to laugh at him-“
There’s something that resembles a protest from Hatz but it’s covered by Isu’s guffaw.
“-his lab partner looks like she’s about to scream bloody murder to the whole class so I lean over and - see, ordinarily I’d just laugh at Hatz and turn back but this was the girl who looks down on Hatz because she saw that his textbook was second-hand, and more importantly, she insulted my earrings once-“
“Your earrings! How dare she!” Isu is cackling even louder.
“Right?” Khun smirks, and Baam thinks his heart skips a beat, “Anyway, I lean over and I go, “Oh, sweetheart, you’ve fallen again,” and Hatz is on the floor looking at me like I’m some kind of fool instead of his damn roommate trying to get him out of trouble, so I have to tack on, “Sorry, my boyfriend is such a klutz, he’s always bumping into things. And don’t worry about him looking anywhere at you, he’s not interested.” The look on both their faces, priceless-“
“Boyfriend!” Isu howls, pounding the table, “Straight-as-an-arrow Hatz! Boyfriend!”
Hatz grins, “Whatever, you idiot, you missed the best part - then Khun says to her, “Not that there’s much to see anyway!” Oh man, her face must have been some seven shades of purple-” This sets all of them off and as their laughter dies down Baam is pretty sure if he laughs anymore his cheeks might just split in half.
But through his bangs he sees Khun looking, looking at him, and he instantly flushes. He reaches for another slice of pizza, just for his hands to have something to do, but he brushes against something cool and sees Khun retracting his own hand. Khun gestures for him to go ahead, eyes fixed on him.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, then as an afterthought, “Thanks.”
Khun’s smile is absolutely blinding.
-
Baam hums happily, flicking through photos from the museum exhibit. They were nearly kicked out for being completely obnoxious, yes, but he got the absolute best photos and he knows Isu has more.
“We’re nearly there,” Rak says from where he’s finally wrangled shotgun. Sure enough, Isu turns into the gravel driveway of a small hotel.
Hatz is the first to tumble out of the car, stretching and nearly knocking Baam in the face. It’s been quite a ride from the museum to the hotel, including a boisterous karaoke session, and Baam can’t wait to check in and dump their stuff so they can grab dinner.
“Bad news, y’all,” Isu says, not even ten minutes later. “They have two rooms, but they’re all big beds instead of those individual ones. Hatz and I can take one - we shared beds during sleepovers - but two of y’all have to take a bed and someone has to take the cot.”
Rak, of course, lays claim on the cot instantly. “I kick in my sleep,” he points out, and everyone groans. He does.
Baam nods, but realises with a sinking feeling-
“That leaves Baam with Khun, then,” Isu says, satisfied. He shoots Baam a barely-veiled triumphant look as he hands him a key card and Baam can’t help but flush. This is a terrible, terrible idea, and Isu is a terrible, terrible friend.
He nearly groans in despair when they finally head to the rooms - even with the bed taking up most of the space, it looks barely big enough for two.
Khun clears his throat.
“I can take the floor,” Baam blurts. He doesn’t want to make Khun uncomfortable. With his luck, there’d be some sort of accident in the night and... he’d rather just take the floor and nap in the car tomorrow.
Khun glances sharply at him. “Don’t be silly, you’re going to ache all over tomorrow. We’ll just, you know, set boundaries.”
Baam thinks about the photo Isu once took of him starfishing all over his own bed and clinging to his pillow like a lifeline. Boundaries. “Um,” he says. “Um.”
“Fantastic.” Khun says, already dropping his duffel on one side of the bed.
Fantastic.
--
Khun eventually loses track of the number of times he meets Baam. It seems like he’s always there whenever Isu comes downstairs to go bother Hatz, or whenever Hatz pulls them all outside for dinner.
(Not that Khun minds, of course - Baam is... interesting. Khun refuses to explore why.)
He ends up seeing Baam outside of the dorm too, sometimes waving to each other across the street between classes. It’s not until Hatz pulls all their schedules together to find a time to go cake-shopping for Isu’s birthday that Khun realises they share a lunch time most days.
Baam volunteers to get the cake the day before Isu’s birthday, since Hatz has classes until late. Which doesn’t quite make sense to Khun, since they agreed on hiding the cake from Isu in Hatz’s and Khun’s room anyway, so he makes an executive decision to join him.
He leans against the wall, picking at his nails, until he hears shuffling from inside the classroom. A few minutes later, Baam emerges from his Phonology class, scarf tucked messily around his neck.
He raises his hand in a half-wave, and waits for Baam to make his way over.
“Heard from Hatz you’re going to pick Isu’s cake out and thought I’d come with,” Khun says in lieu of greeting, and Baam beams at him.
“Great! We can put it in your fridge right after.”
“Exactly why I came,” Khun returns easily, but it seems like the wrong thing to say - the light in Baam’s eyes shutters a little, but before Khun can think about what he said, Baam’s hitched his backpack a little higher and takes the lead out of the linguistics building, waving goodbye at the security guard.
Huh.
He scrambles to catch up, long legs bringing him back up to speed with Baam easily. “I’m thinking chocolate?”
“Isu only ever eats chocolate cake,” Baam informs him, and flashes him a smile. “The only time I ever get to eat a full slice is when I get strawberry or some other fruit flavour.”
“Strawberry? Good taste,” Khun offers, and Baam’s beam returns.
If Khun waits by the exit of Baam’s phonology class the next week just to see that beam again, well, that’s nobody’s business but his own.
-
Time melts into months, and Khun and Baam’s weekly lunches melt into nearly daily lunches.
Sometimes Khun stops by the linguistics building to wait for Baam to end class; sometimes Baam finds himself waiting outside their agreed-upon dining hall before Khun shows up, waving goodbye to one friend or another.
Khun’s relatively popular, Baam thinks, until Khun corrects him one day with a, “No, it’s just that business majors have to network a lot. I expect we’ll either end up being employed by each other or buying up each other’s businesses ten years down the road.” He laughs at the mildly terrified look on Baam’s face.
Baam tells Khun about the calculus class he’s been forced to take for his math requirement, and Khun gripes about having to take a Physics class to fulfill his science requirements even though he’s a business major. Conversation flows easier than Baam expects, and the more he talks to Khun the smoother it flows.
He learns about how Khun is a business major because he’s expected to take over the family business. He learns about how Khun is interested in a Computer Science minor because he’s convinced the future of the world lies in tech, and Khun learns how Baam might be taking a Psychology minor because he just wants to learn more about the people around him.
Baam learns how Khun talks with his hands, long fingers swirling and jabbing as he maunders around his point. He learns how Khun’s laughs runs from derisive chuckles to laughter as bright as moonlight on icicles. He learns how Khun would rather carry around a hair tie than have to go to the barber’s every two months, and Khun learns, after an incident where his hair tie snaps and he can’t lean forward without getting hair in his soup, that Baam has taken to carrying a spare one around for him.
Baam learns how Khun takes his iced coffee with milk but no sugar, and Khun learns about how Baam’s favourite boba order is lychee green tea. Baam learns about the way Khun doesn’t really believe in dating for fun, not since he watched his sister run away from home with a boy and come back, badly bruised and begging to be loved again as though her family would have ever given up on her the same way that boy did. And Khun learns Baam is a hopeless romantic, and laughs at the way Baam flushes while admitting he believes in love at first sight.
They talk and talk, and as November melts away and Khun introduces Baam to someone as his best friend, Baam grins and feels as though he’s known Khun all his life.
(“It seems as though,” Isu remarks to Hatz one day, “instead of Khun-and-Hatz and Isu-and-Baam, we’ve become Isu-and-Hatz and Khun-and-Baam.”
Hatz throws a pen at his head. “We’ve always been Hatz-and-Isu, you fool. Ever since I saved you on the playground-“
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you swapped the order of our names, you bitch!“)
-
They’re settling in for the night, Hatz and Isu on the bed and Rak on the fold-out cot.
Rak is tapping away on his phone, setting his multitude of alarms for the next morning, but Hatz doesn’t bother. He’s sure Isu will shake him awake somehow.
He wrestles a good amount of blanket away from Isu’s octopus grasp, and gets ready to close his eyes when Isu suddenly says, “We really need an intervention.”
Hatz frowns. Did he take too much blanket?
“About Khun and Baam.”
Oh. Isu kicks all the covers off in his sleep anyway.
“Khun prides himself on how perceptive he is,” Isu is saying, “But it’s really stupid how he hasn’t cottoned on about Baam.”
Rak bursts out laughing. “We’ve has this conversation before, yes.”
“It’s so slow burn it feels like one of those frog-in-hot-water kind of stories, you know? One of them makes a move, but the other thinks it’s just bros being bros, one of them slips up but the other blames it on fucking Mercury in retrograde or whatever-“
Hatz snorts, “Pretty sure neither of them believe in astrology-“
“Point is, they practically orbit around each other and everyone, everyone, sees that but them. I mean, have you seen the way Baam picks food he doesn’t like off of his meals and Khun just straight up swipes it off of his plate, no questions? Who does that? Every time I swipe food from Rak he threatens to kill me-“
“It’s because you swipe the food I like, you stupid turtle-“
“Anyway, I pointed it out to Baam once and you know what he said? You know what he said?” Isu rubs his hand across his face. “He blinked and said he didn’t even notice! He doesn’t even remember when they started doing it! Khun does the exact same thing and you know how he hates people touching his food! I tried picking carrots off of Khun’s plate last month because I know he always sets his carrots aside and he fucking hit me so hard with his fork I bruised!”
Hatz hears the slight whine in Isu’s voice and finds himself suddenly unable to hold bubbles of laughter in. It’s ridiculous, it really is, four years of Khun being the absolute softest for Baam and Baam not noticing, and he hears Rak’s low rumble of laughter from Isu’s other side.
“The worst thing,” Isu says over their laughter, “is that you know Khun’s the type of person to not do anything if it might put his friendships in danger. Bet you he thinks Baam doesn’t like him like that.” That sobers them up pretty quickly.
“And you know what the absolute kicker is?” Isu’s voice is quieter now, as Hatz’s and Rak’s laughter die down. “Baam won’t do anything about it because - and I know this for a fact - the fool thinks the same.”
Rak groans and rolls over. “We really need to do something before everyone moves home, huh.”
“Damn right we do.”
(They don’t manage to figure out any sort of concrete plan before Rak drops asleep, but Hatz and Isu agree in the vaguest sort of way that Something Must Be Done, Even If We Don’t Know What.)
-
When their very first set of finals are over, Isu insists on dragging everyone out for drinks.
They find themselves in a small, dimly-lit pub a short walk away from their dorm, teeming with college students temporarily freed from the shackles and chains of higher education. It’s loud and it feels like there are too many people than there should be on a snowy weekday night, but Isu snags them a table and leaves them there to guard it while he goes to grab their first round.
Khun leans across the table, “How were your finals?”
“Glad they’re over,” Hatz says, unwinding his scarf. “I never want to see a physics formula again. How were yours?”
Khun shrugs. “Same about that physics requirement, I suppose. But we’re taking statistics together next semester, right?”
Baam looks up. “Which professor? I’m taking statistics too.” He’d like to take a class with friends, he thinks, and a small flame blooms in his chest at the thought. Friends.
Cheesy as it is, he’s glad he’s come out of his freshman semester with a group of friends to call his own.
“-Yoo, I think,” Hatz is saying, “The Monday and Wednesday morning one.”
“Neat,” Baam grins. “The three of us can study together then?”
“I leave to get drinks and you’re already plotting to take a class without me?” Isu plops a tray down on their table, sounding more amused than affronted.
“You’re the engineering major,” Hatz points out, but Isu waves him away.
“Enough school talk,” Isu says, and raises an eyebrow. “Let’s talk about more fun things.”
Isu’s idea of fun things, apparently, includes a list of get-to-know-you questions, and he grills each and every one of them as if he’s about to have a final on the details of his friends’ lives.
“-past relationships in three words, go.”
Hatz winces, “She… wanted… fencer?“ Isu groans at Hatz’s poor summary, then gestures for Baam.
“Um,” Baam says. “She… wanted better.” Not technically true, he thinks, but that’s as clean as he can get to describing Rachel without prying open a can of worms he had trouble closing in the first place.
Isu pats his hand in sympathy, “One of those, huh? One of my exes dumped me because he had his sights on something higher too. I’ll go for the other one then… his gay experiment.”
Hatz hisses at that, and drains the rest of his beer. “Deserved every last punch I gave him.”
Isu laughs, light and hollow and carefully wiped of emotion, and the sound, emptier than the thud of Hatz’s glass on the table, rings in Baam’s ears. He’s glad Hatz was there to dole out the hits all those years ago, because tipsy on three whole glasses of beers, he’s ready to go out and start a new fight himself.
Isu gestures for Khun’s turn, but Khun’s eyes are on Baam. His gaze has a sort of scrutinising air, as though he’s trying to figure something out, and Baam feels his scowl disappear and a tremble run under his skin.
“I don’t believe in dating,” Khun says, after a measure of silence, and Baam’s heart gives a soft thud from where it has sunk somewhere near the floor.
He isn’t sure why he’s disappointed; he’s known about it ever since Khun told him about his sister, of course, and he’s not even sure what he’s hoping for - they’re great friends and it’s already more than Baam could ask for. Khun is kind and smart and pays attention to the people around him and he has a sort of determined dedication that Baam has never quite figured out how to instil in himself. And even if Khun was up for dating, Baam thinks, he’d be too many leagues above Baam; just in the time they’ve been sat down, there have been countless looks thrown at their table, soft giggles about the boy with the messy blue ponytail and eyes like sapphires, quiet and not-so-quiet whispers daring each other to go up and talk to him.
None of them have, though. It’s just something about the way Khun’s eyes have never wandered from their table that has kept everyone away.
“-couldn’t press charges against him,” Khun is saying. The napkin between his fingers has been torn to shreds, and Baam wants nothing more than to be able to curl his hand around Khun’s in comfort without the tug in his heart begging for more.
He keeps his hands to himself.
“Well, I thought I was the most miserable story, but fuck,” Isu says, and stands up. “I’m going to get another round.”
He comes back with a tray full of soju bottles, and they end up drinking all the way through Isu’s list of silly questions.
They learn that Hatz would name his hypothetical bunny General McHoppers, and that Khun would rather fight a duck-sized horse than a horse-sized duck. Baam can’t remember if they decided on hot dogs being tacos or sandwiches on their way out of the pub, but somewhere along the way his gloves have been fumbled onto his hands and his beanie jammed onto his head.
Isu has his arm around Hatz, talking a mile a minute about how the flat earth theory could theoretically be true while Hatz is struggling to support his weight. Baam could laugh at the way Isu’s stumbling, but come to think of it, he isn’t so sure about the structural integrity of his own legs.
He feels an arm slide around his waist and a laugh, low and breathy in his ear. He shivers at the sound and the way it feels so achingly close he could just turn and- he decides to blame it on the wind chill.
“You’re a lightweight,” Khun accuses. There’s a ribbon of a laugh in his voice and Baam mutters out a stubborn, “I’m not,” that goes unheeded.
“So when are you coming back?” Khun asks, voice light and conversational. “We can probably do something together before winter break is over and the next semester starts.”
Baam squints at him, as though it will make Khun’s voice amplify through the cotton wool of his brain. “Mm not leaving for break,” he says carefully. “Staying here.”
Maybe taking phonology was a good idea, Baam thinks. Makes his enunciation clearer and all that. Maybe Khun will stop thinking he’s drunk and unhand him.
Khun just snorts, and if anything, his hold on Baam gets tighter. His voice is tinged with amusement as he leans closer, lips brushing Baam’s ear. “You are drunk,” Khun informs him, “and you’re saying all your thoughts out loud.”
Baam flushes and immediately clams up. That’s enough thinking and thoughts for tonight, he decides, and is rewarded with a silver peal of Khun’s laughter.
-
Khun tosses and turns.
There’s no reason why he can’t sleep - the curtains are drawn and Baam’s breathing is even and quiet. He can only imagine the storm coming from Rak just next door.
Khun groans quietly. This is the worst time for his insomnia to act up - they’re planning to go to an amusement park tomorrow and damn if he’s going to be tired through all the fun.
He gropes blindly about until he finds his phone. Isu and Baam sent photos from the museum earlier; he might as well use this time to go through them and save them.
He thumbs through them quickly. Most of them are shots of Rak staring open-mouthed at the exhibits, but there are some silly shots of them looking absolutely ridiculous.
There’s a mirror shot with all of them crouching in front of four huge turtle shells, with Rak standing in the middle, cackling his head off about them finally being “turtles”. Isu’s holding the phone and yelling at them to stop squirming and to please align themselves so they all show up at the correct angle in the mirror or god so help me, my arms are gonna fucking fall off. The photo is slightly blurry with his efforts and Khun can almost hear Hatz’s helpless giggles ringing through the photo.
His thumb stills.
Picture-Baam’s arm is half-raised, fingers coming up to brush away his bangs, and picture-Khun’s arm is slung over his shoulders. PIcture-Baam’s eyes are crinkled up, mid-laugh, smile bright and golden as sunflowers and not quite as radiant as Khun knows it is in real life, but radiant all the same.
And picture-Khun is looking at him, smile soft and head slightly bowed, eyes brimming an emotion Khun does not yet know how to describe.
His thumb swipes to save the photo before he realises it, and there is a flash of an idea about setting it as his wallpaper before he is distracted by a sleepy snuffle. By the light of his phone he sees Baam spread out on his side of the bed, face-down on his pillow.
Khun frowns. There’s no way that’s good for respiration.
He reaches over and gently tugs on the pillow, enough so that Baam has to shifts his head to accommodate for the change but not enough that it wakes him up. He waits until Baam resettles, head tilted and eyelashes brushing his cheek. His mouth is slightly open, lips soft and parted, and Khun is dimly aware of the urge to brush Baam’s hair away from where it is falling across his face.
Beautiful.
The word springs, unbidden, to his mind and he freezes.
Baam. Baam, with the biggest heart of anyone he knows. Baam, with his thoughtful smile and easy laugh and the quiet way in which he lights up the room.
Baam, with the way he finishes Khun’s sentences and laughs at all of Khun’s stupid puns, with the way he understands Khun without either of them having to exchange a word, with the way his loyalty to his friends is fierce and burns with the heat of a thousand suns. Baam, with the way he fits, just right, into Khun’s side, like two hands made to hold.
Baam, with all his kindness and his constancy and his optimism and all of his warmth.
Baam, his best friend.
Khun breathes out shakily, puts his phone down, knots his fingers together, and wills himself to go to sleep.
--
Baam yanks his chair out from his desk. He’s sopping wet and his bangs keep dripping in his eyes and his goddamn bag is soaked and he feels that awful discomfort of clothes sticking to his skin and really, all he wants to do is take a warm shower and curl into his bed and forget this day ever happened.
“Your mood,” Isu remarks from his bed, “seems to be absolutely foul.”
“You think?” Baam snarls.
Isu blinks, then shuts his laptop. “Wanna talk about it?”
Got caught in the rain, he wants to say. Got called out in class to answer a question about the reading I didn’t do. Got leered at by some creep on the street. But everything is stuck on the top of his tongue, dwarfed by a bigger truth threatening to slip out.
Got stood up for lunch by Khun again.
“Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here to listen,” Isu says, voice soft and gaze even softer.
Just like that, Baam feels the angry knot in his chest loosen, gently unwound by the unquestioning kindness in Isu’s voice. He lets his backpack tumble to his chair, then sinks, wet clothes and all, onto the floor.
He opens his mouth, intending to apologise for snapping at Isu, but all that slips out is a sob.
Immediately Isu is on his knees, hugging him tight and cradling Baam’s head. Baam tries to bat him off, tries to say through a nose full of snot, I’m getting your clothes drenched with rainwater, but Isu just swipes Baam’s bangs away from his forehead and hugs him again.
“Go take a warm shower,” Isu says, “I’ll make tea, and you can tell me what happened.”
Baam nods, and Isu herds him off the floor and into their bathroom.
He tries to get his shit together in the shower, and emerges ten minutes later, red-eyed and sniffly-nosed, to Isu’s promised cup of tea. It takes five minutes for him to gloss through the shit-show that was class, then another five for him to meander around the topic of Khun.
Isu leans back, finally. “You were meant to meet Khun for lunch, but he stood you up and you’re upset because it’s the second time this week he’s done it without warning.”
“I mean... yes, but now that you put it like that, it sounds like such a stupid reason to be upset, I sound so stupidly clingy-“ Baam falters.
“Do you know why he didn’t show up?”
Baam looks down at the chip in his mug. It fits the shape of his fingernail exactly, almost as if he could have, at one point, dug his fingernails in so deep he chipped the mug himself.
“Yeah,” Baam says at last, “He was meeting his partner for their marketing project.”
“The marketing genius? The one he’s been nattering on about for the past two weeks?”
Baam swallows the bitter taste in his mouth that really has no reason to be there. There’s an uncomfortable knot in his throat, and he sighs. “The first time, I waited twenty minutes before I called and he picked up and apologised for losing track of time because he was talking to her. Which is fine, you know, we all do it.”
“And this time?”
“Called a couple times but he didn’t even pick up the phone. And it was raining, so I thought he might have been trying to wait out the rain and lost battery or something, or maybe something important popped up, so I ran through the rain to the business building to look for him, but he was just standing in the lobby of the building talking to his project partner and laughing with her and-“ Suddenly there’s a lump in his throat that he can’t speak around, and he falls silent.
It’s so stupid, he thinks. He’s acting like a spoilt child, crying because he doesn’t have someone’s undivided attention. It’s so, so stupid that he thought he had a monopoly on Khun’s time, that he thought he was so important that-
“It sounds,” Isu says carefully, “like you’re upset that he didn’t respect your time, and that he temporarily held time with his project partner in higher regard than time with you. Combined with the rest of your day, it’s understandable that it’d be a last straw.” He’s squinting at Baam, as though he doesn’t expect to be right, as though he expects there to be something more but can’t quite put his finger on what it is.
Baam nods at him anyway, but there’s an unsavoury, wiggling feeling at the bottom of his stomach that laughs at that.
If it wasn’t Khun, you wouldn’t have minded as much, it taunts him. If it was Hatz, you’d have just brushed it off as his scatterbrain and just waited out the rain. But it was something about seeing Khun with that girl that made you so upset you had to run home in the rain, wasn’t it? I think you’re-
“You’re jealous,” Isu says, slight incredulity colouring his tone as he arrives as the same conclusion. He rocks back in his chair slightly, and repeats, “My god, you’re jealous.”
Baam chokes. He briefly considers denying Isu’s scarily accurate mind-reading, but his head is so, so heavy, and there’s a tiny bloom of relief now that the nasty knot in his throat has finally been given a name.
He lets his head hit the table, and his question comes out more like a smothered whine. “How do I make it stop?”
He feels Isu’s fingers tap along the table as he works out the answer to Baam’s question.
“You’re acting like you’ve just got your heart broken,” Isu says, after a while. “I think that should tell you something.”
“I’m not in love with him,” Baam says, protest dulled and muffled. “I’m not.”
Isu remains silent.
“I’m not,” Baam insists. “He’s my best friend.”
He waits for the familiar bloom of pride he gets whenever Khun introduces him to someone as his best friend, but the words ‘best friend’ no longer taste like they used to.
“He’s my best friend,” he says again. As the words leave his mouth, Baam no longer quite knows who it is that he’s insisting to.
(Khun knocks on his door that night to apologise. Baam takes a deep breath and they both ignore his red eyes and pretend nothing ever happened.)
-
Baam shifts. It’s warm under the blanket and really, if someone could turn that fucking alarm off and let him sleep a couple more minutes, it’d be great.
There’s a slight shift behind him, and a small whine comes from the crook of his neck.
Baam freezes, suddenly more awake. There’s a heavy, warm sort of weight around his waist and a cool press against his calves. He doesn’t dare open his eyes to see what they might be.
This can’t be happening, he tells himself, then nearly laughs aloud. Of course it’s a dream, Baam thinks. His unconscious must have lifted something out of all the things he’s never allowed himself to consider, much less daydream about, and stuffed them all into a dream-
Lips brush the back of his neck and Baam’s mind stops working.
He’s sure his heart is thumping loud enough to wake Khun up, but Khun just mumbles against his neck again, whispers of a breath making Baam’s hair stand on end. “The alarm-“
He feels Khun still. Stars burn and burst and civilisations rise and fall in the spaces between Baam’s heartbeats. He can almost hear the cogs in Khun’s brain turning, and he’s so busy trying to keep his heart still and his breathing even that he thinks he imagines the barest press of lips on the back of his neck before Khun pulls away.
He nearly whimpers at the loss of contact, but Khun has already shut off the infernal alarm and is shaking him awake, hand warm against his shoulder.
Khun’s voice is rough with sleep and something else as he tells Baam to get up and get dressed for breakfast. Baam tries not to think about it.
-
Isu is convinced Baam just needs to go out more and meet people that don’t live with him and are not Khun.
Baam disagrees.
He doesn’t understand why Isu is squeezed onto his bed next to him, flicking through Tinder and showing him faces that frankly, look nothing close to Khun’s. “I’m not interested in dating anyone,” Baam mutters for the fourth time.
“You’re not interested in dating anyone that isn’t Khun,” Isu corrects. He swipes left a couple times, then frowns. “How about this one?”
Baam groans, and shoves him lightly. “Get off my bed, Isu, your bed is literally three feet away.”
“You can’t see faces on this screen from three feet away-“
“I don’t want to-“
“Listen, Baam, you want to get over Khun? Go on some dates. Seven billion people on this earth and you think that blue shrimp is The One?”
“I don’t think he’s anything, he’s just my best friend-“ Baam falters under Isu’s withering look. He has to admit that even to himself, his repeated denials have sounded particularly pathetic as of late.
“You’re not fooling anyone,” Isu says finally, setting his phone down. “I’ve seen the way you look at him, and frankly? It reminds me of the way I used to look at Hatz.”
Baam’s eyes widen. “Hatz?! But-“
Isu waves him away. “Briefly thought I fancied him way back in ninth grade. Had a whole dramatic little crisis about pining after my straight best friend too, it was a nightmare for my mum.”
“And then what happened?” Baam’s voice is smaller than he intends.
Isu snorts, tipping his head back and letting it hit the wall, “Then I went on a date with someone else and realised that I was an absolute fool and Hatz wasn’t all that great, that’s what happened. My mum’s theory is that since there wasn’t anyone else in the picture, my brain went for the only one who would show me affection. Which was really stupid, because something in me already knew that even if Hatz and I were soulmates, we’re in no way relationship material, you know? It just took me a little nudge to better figure out what I wanted in a relationship and realise that Hatz wasn’t it.” He chances a look at Baam, and exhales a shaky laugh, looking back up at the ceiling. “Don’t tell him, though, don’t want to get his ego to get more inflated than it already is.”
Baam looks up at him. He sees how Isu’s biting his lip and avoiding his gaze, and he sees how Isu’s sharing a part of himself that he’s never told anyone, how Isu’s just really and sincerely trying to help. “I’d never.”
And so he agrees. He agrees to let Isu set him up on dates and he agrees to sit down and figure out what it is he wants. Because it can’t be - and it shouldn’t be - Khun. It can’t be Khun and his smart quips and his messy bangs and the way he smiles at Baam like Baam’s the only thing in his world and the way that makes Baam’s heart skip a beat every time.
(Khun catches him, one day, stumbling out the dorm, running late to a date with some girl named Endorsi? Androssi? “Where you headed? Wanna get dinner?”
“Maybe later,” Baam mumbles, distracted and looking at everywhere else but Khun, “I’m late to a… to a date.”
Then he slips away, like sand between Khun’s fingers, and Khun tells himself for the rest of the day that the hollow feeling in his chest is because his professor only gave him an A- on that marketing project that he and Yuri slaved away over.)
-
“If I have to go on another rollercoaster, I’m going to throw up,” Isu warns the group. He’s bent over heaving, hands on his knees, and his glare just makes Hatz laugh even harder.
Khun chuckles and takes pity on him. “You all go on ahead, I’ll take this one and get us snacks. We’ll meet you at the exit of the next coaster.”
It takes all of two seconds for Hatz and Rak to cheer and haul Baam off to the next one.
“You didn’t want to get on another one too, huh?” Isu whispers conspiratorially, bumping his shoulder against Khun’s.
Khun snorts, “I can handle a couple more-“
“Liar!” Isu sings, and winds his arm around Khun’s shoulders. Khun bats him off, laughing, and they head over to the nearest concession stand.
Isu orders them hotdogs, but the churros in the display case catches Khun’s eye. A vague memory of Baam mentioning churros flashes in Khun’s mind and he makes a quick decision.
“And a churro,” Khun tacks on, then fishes out his wallet.
Isu eyes him. “Hungry?”
Khun shakes his head. “Baam likes churros, he hasn’t had them in a while.”
Isu just looks at him strangely, then turns to collect their orders from the operator.
Khun frowns. Should he have gotten all of them churros? Hatz doesn’t like sugary things, though-
As they walk back, foil-wrapped hotdogs and churro in hand, he hears Isu whistle quietly. He bumps his hip against Khun’s, and nods over to their right. “Look at that guy.”
Khun glances up, trying to keep the mini hotdog-churro mountain in his hand from toppling. The guy in question has short silver hair barely covered by a backwards cap and eyes red as a snake’s. The flimsy white tank top he has on leaves little to the imagination, and from the way he looks positively sculpted, Khun can see why Isu singled him out.
“Right Baam’s type, isn’t he?” Isu says, and Khun nearly drops the churro.
“Baam-“ he splutters, trying to salvage the churro from where it’s clamped in the turn of his wrist. “Baam’s type?”
“Yeah. You think he’s Baam’s type?”
“I don’t know, he’s only ever dated girls-“
“You’re his best friend and you never once asked? Also, he’s only had one girlfriend, but I set him up with all genders-“
“You set him up?!”
“For the whole of freshman spring, you fool, did you never catch on?”
“He’s never mentioned it-“
“That’s because he wasn’t interested in any of them, and I tried my best, mind you-“
“And that’s Baam’s type?” Khun twists slightly to look back at the man.
Isu bites his lip, grinning, and Khun has a strange feeling Isu’s just making it up in his head.
“He isn’t, is he?” Khun says, and ignores the way his heart lifts slightly.
“You’ll just have to ask,” Isu sings, and Khun groans.
Before he can think too much about why he even wants to find out in the first place, they see a brown blur barrelling towards them, and Khun has to take a step back to avoid being ran over by Rak.
Hatz and Baam are slower to head towards them, still talking about the animatronics in their last ride. Isu hands Hatz his hotdog, and Khun is about to tell Baam that hey, the concession stand was selling churros and I remember you mentioned a while ago-
“The animatronics were really cool, Khun, you should have seen it. You would have liked them.” Baam’s eyes are shining, soft muted gold, and Khun finds himself smiling softly back.
“I’ll go with you next time,” Khun promises, and is rewarded with Baam’s breathless beam.
(“Gross,” Hatz mutters, mouth full of mustard. Isu isn’t sure if he’s talking about the way Khun and Baam can’t stop looking at each other or if it’s the obscene amount of mustard he slathered onto Hatz’s hotdog as a joke.)
-
As it turns out, Baam gets along with all the people Isu sets him up with like a house on fire.
Not in the way Isu expects, of course. Baam finds out that Wangnan was forced to do it by his friends too, and they spend an hour commiserating over meddling friends with good intentions before realising they share their sociolinguistics class and move on to commiserating over that too. Ehwa is slightly clumsy with her words, but is completely endearing, and when she admits to Baam that she’s not really looking for a relationship because she’s still hung up over an ex, Baam finds himself equal parts relieved and sympathetic. Urek confesses that his main motive for downloading the app is to convince people to join his school’s flailing LGBTQ club, but it backfires when they realise they attend different colleges. Baam laughs and agrees to attend some of Urek’s club events anyway.
He ends up great friends with all of them, and with the flow and ebb of the semester, ends up spending less time in his dorm than usual.
“Getting popular, huh,” Khun says one day, as Baam taps out a reply to Ehwa that absolutely yes, he‘d love to hear about the new boy she’s been seeing. Baam hums distractedly in response, and sets his phone down when Khun sighs.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time out of the dorm,” Khun tries again.
Baam blinks. “Some of my friends living in different residence halls.”
“You’ve been spending less time with us,” Khun clarifies. Baam wishes he could see Khun’s eyes to figure out what he’s thinking, but Khun’s frowning down at his nails.
“You jealous?” The words slip out of his mouth before he can help it, and he nearly laughs at their irony.
Khun glances sharply at him, full force of a blue stare wiping away Baam’s smile. He’s looking straight at Baam with a seriousness that they’ve never shared in their nearly-two semesters of friendship, and there follows a moment of silence so loud that it echoes in Baam’s ears and with each beat of his heart Baam knows that Isu is wrong, Isu is wrong, Isu is wrong and that there will never be anyone for him but Khun.
Suddenly Khun blinks and he’s pouting, lower lip jutting out in petulance. “So what if I am?”
(When Hatz walks in, he says Baam laughed so loudly he could hear him all the way from the lift.)
-
Rak eyes Baam’s hotdog. He’s long since finished his, but Baam’s been stuck, starry-eyed, on the churro Khun bought for him, and Rak grumbles to himself that if Baam doesn’t get started on that hotdog soon he’ll rip it out of Baam’s hands and inhale it himself.
“Baam? Is that you?”
An unfamiliar man is standing behind them, head cocked to the side and unzipped hoodie barely clinging onto his biceps. Rak winces as Isu grabs his shoulder and whispers, “It’s him!”
Before Rak can ask Isu what he’s talking about, Baam has burst into a smile - “Urek!”
“Baam, baby, I knew it was you!”
Rak blinks. Baby?
He wants to ask Isu about this strange man with silver hair, but everyone’s mouth hangs open as Urek envelopes Baam in a bone-crushing hug and lifts him off the ground.
“Thought I wasn’t going to see you again, not with my club leaving for our trip two days before your finals ended, but I’m so glad to see you, babe-“
Isu issues a faint squeak as Urek plants a loud smack on Baam’s forehead, and clutches Rak’s shoulder even tighter.
Rak turns to Isu. “Explain,” he demands, under his breath.
“I thought he looked familiar when I saw him just now, fuck- I set up him with Baam ages ago, back in freshman spring, I thought nothing came of it since Baam talks about him like he’s just a friend but-“
“But babe?” Rak hisses. Khun isn’t going to like this, he thinks. He’s going to go into one of his infamous sulks and Baam’s going to be the only one who can pull him out of it, and good fucking luck to whoever gets the job of explaining to Baam why Khun was sulking in the first place.
“So you gonna introduce me to your friends, Baam?” The man says, slinging his arm around Baam and smiling genially at everyone. Baam’s smile is so wide it nearly cracks his face in half, and Rak wonders faintly how Khun is faring.
“Everyone, this is Urek, he goes to the college uptown. Urek, these are my best friends Hatz, Isu, Rak and... where’s Khun?”
Rak pauses as everyone turns to look around. He swears Khun was right beside Hatz half a second ago, but there’s absolutely no trace of him now. Half of Rak is relieved that he’s not on the other end of one of Khun’s patented glares, but the other half of him knows Khun well enough that he can smell the Brood building just right round the corner.
He sighs, and gently disentangles Isu’s arm from his. “He mentioned something about needing to run to the washroom, I’ll go see if he’s there.”
Rak waves a friendly goodbye at Urek, and as he walks away to search for a flash of blue hair, he hears a sly, “Oh, Khun? Your Khun?” and Baam’s flustered spluttering.
Ah.
He spots a messy blue flash a little ways down from them, and hurries over before Khun can see him.
“So,” Rak says by way of greeting. He clamps a hand on Khun’s shoulder as Khun turns, blue eyes flashing in surprise, “Our mighty Khun has run away.”
“I’m not running from anything,” Khun mutters, turning away again, “I just... saw this really interesting... thing and came over to look at it.”
“Terribly fascinating, these... uh,” Rak follows Khu’s gaze, “these trash cans.”
“They... they might talk.”
“Talking trash cans.” Rak is unimpressed, and he makes sure to let it into his tone.
He crosses his arms and lets Khun avoid his gaze for a few more seconds. Khun’ll start talking soon, Rak knows - he hates awkwardness, especially when they’re centred around him.
“He’s… he does seem close to Baam, isn’t he?” Khun says, eventually. He still hasn’t taken his eyes off the trash cans, and Rak briefly considers tossing Khun into one.
“I don’t know, you tell me. You’re his best best friend.”
There’s a flash of a wince before Khun’s cool mask is back. “He hasn’t told me anything about that guy.”
Rak waits.
“He’d… he’d tell me if they were dating, wouldn’t he?” Khun’s eyebrows are furrowed. “Why hasn’t he said anything about being someone’s… someone’s babe?”
Khun spits out the last word with so much disgust that Rak nearly laughs. “You’re an idiot,” Rak chooses to say instead.
He waits for Khun to look up before continuing, “You’re an idiot and lest you forget, you're his best friend-“
“Just his best friend-“
“-and what that means is that if he hasn’t told you anything about this guy giving him pet names, it probably isn’t significant enough to him and he hasn’t feel the need to mention it. To you or to any of us. Whoever Urek is, he doesn’t mean anything to Baam other than a friend, and you, of all people, shouldn’t worry that Baam is keeping anything from us. He’s your best friend, Khun. Trust him.”
Khun lowers his head, worrying a fingernail between his teeth. They remain silent for a moment, until Rak finally processes what Khun has said.
“Just his best friend?” Rak tries not to smile too widely. “You looking to be something more, then?”
Khun freezes slightly, then lets out a laugh that is far too cheery. “Course not.”
Rak isn’t as smart or perceptive as Isu is, he knows, but he likes to think that after more than two years of friendship, he can read Khun pretty well too. He kicks lightly at the trash cans, and offers quietly, “I know his friendship is valuable to you - I know all of our friendships are - but I don’t know if you see the way Baam looks at you sometimes. There’s… there’s something different there. There’s something there that Hatz doesn’t have with Isu. And I know you’re afraid of losing him, and you’re afraid taking the chance that one day he might leave you behind but… for what my opinion is worth, I think Baam might be a chance worth taking.”
He watches Khun take one breath, two, three. Khun’s hands are balled up into fists and Rak can see the cogs turning as Khun processes and reprocesses what Rak is presenting to him.
When Khun speaks, his voice is small. “The way Baam looks at me?”
“You’ve been walking around him with your eyes closed, haven’t you - he looks at you the same way you look at him.”
Khun’s mouth opens, as if in denial, and Rak huffs. “He looks at you like if you were to hypothetically be more than best friends with him… he looks at you as if he might like that.”
Khun shuts his mouth. He stays lost in thought for a while, and Rak feels an itch on the back of his neck like someone is watching him. He suddenly remembers the way they have left Baam and Hatz and Isu standing, waiting for them, and curses. “Come on, they’re looking for you. Should I tell them you were jealous that someone called Baam baby or should I tell them you were entranced by talking trash cans?”
Khun flushes and turns to walk away from said trash cans, tossing Rak two fingers.
Rak just cackles.
--
The first snow of sophomore year falls on a Tuesday.
Baam wakes up to a flurry of white outside his window, and as he trudges through the ankle-high slush and the snowflakes that threaten to glue his eyelashes together, he realises he forgot to bring gloves.
Ah, well. He’ll just suffer, then.
His phone buzzes with non-stop texts from Hatz and Isu all throughout his second lecture of the day, and he fumbles to set it on Do Not Disturb when his TA starts glancing over at him.
Best Roommate Ever: snowing!!!! Fencing Champion: snowball fight in the park, 2pm Best Roommate Ever: bring it on bro I’m not scared of you Fencing Champion: yeah, not scared of me keeping my winning streak alive Alligator Overlord: get ready to get SMUSHED, cowards, the Great Rak is coming Khun: good lord, y’all couldn’t wait until classes were over?
Baam bites back a grin, heart oddly warm, and he finds himself unable to sit still for the remainder of the lecture. He ends up counting down the minutes to the end of class, and as soon as it hits 1.45pm he tosses his notes into his bag and his scarf around his neck.
He is the first one out of the building, and nearly blows by the person leaning by the entrance. The person reaches forward and tugs on his backpack, and Baam turns around, startled, only to come face to face with Khun.
“Woah there,” Khun laughs, arms reaching out to steady him. “In a rush?”
Baam grins in response. “Left my gloves at the dorm, thought I’d go grab them before meeting everyone for the snowball fight. Wanna come with?”
Khun raises an eyebrow, and produces Baam’s gloves from his own pocket and holds them up to Baam.
“Absolute hero,” Baam beams, and he tries to tamp down the wonderful sort of warmth curling out from his heart all the way down to his toes. “How’d you know?”
Khun shrugs. “You always forget your gloves. Thought I’d just let myself in and check if you did.”
He hands Baam his gloves, and wait for him to put them on before they begin the cold and slippery trek to the park.
Isu and Hatz are already there, wrapped in beanies and scarves and long winter coats.
“Get ready to get wrecked, losers!” Isu calls out, waving to them.
“Where’s Rak?”
“Rak’s here,” comes Rak’s voice, somewhere near Baam’s feet. He’s lying on his back, limbs spread out and tongue sticking out. “Mm trying to catch snowflakes.”
Baam just laughs, and helps him up. There are already multiple groups spread across the grass, flinging snowballs at each other with peals of laughter carrying in the wind.
“We’re thinking a three versus two game,” Isu offers, now that Rak is back on his feet. “How do we want to split?”
They decide on rock, paper, scissors, and by some feat of magic (“Manipulation,” Hatz insists), Khun emerges on top.
“You get first pick,” Hatz tells him, “but the other side gets the third person.”
Khun twists to look at Baam. “How’s your aim?”
“Terrible,” Baam answers honestly, and Khun grins with far too much delight.
“Great. I want Baam.”
“No cheating,” Hatz warns. “Just the both of you.”
Khun bumps his shoulder against Baam’s and grins at him, eyes sparkling with mischief, “Always been us, hasn’t it?”
And when Baam laughs, full and delighted, Khun swings, hidden snowball hitting Hatz right between the eyes.
(Baam dreams about us sometimes. He dreams of an us, a universe in which Khun is ice and he is fire, and they burn together in an endless firework instead of melting into a tepid puddle.
He dreams of a Khun that hurtles through space and time, and of a Baam that will rip rifts into the fabric of the universe if it means he can follow wherever Khun goes.
He dreams of a Baam that spins illusions out of thin air in a circus for those without a home, and a Khun that tells the future and flips cards and is the flip side of his card, the way people are in the best sort of love stories.
He dreams of a Khun that wraps his hand around Baam’s and tips their foreheads together in soft moonlight, and of a Baam that is brave enough to rest his head against Khun’s heart, finally brave enough to dance with him to the quiet song that is three o’clock.
He dreams of a Baam that charges into battle, cloaked in red, sword drawn and burning with the rage of a thousand souls, and of a Khun that grits his teeth and charges in right behind him.
He tells Isu about the latest of his strange dreams one day, and Isu just laughs.
“Of course he would,” Isu says, picking up his book again. “Khun looks at you as if he’d follow you around anywhere.”)
-
“Come on, eat faster, we’re gonna miss good spots for the fireworks!”
“What good spots?” Khun snorts. “In case you forget, fireworks are in the sky. Anywhere’s a good spot.”
Rak levels Khun a glare, and brandishes a fry in his face. “Not if the only place left is under an awning and all our views are blocked. Remember junior year?”
Everyone groans at the memory and starts eating slightly faster - they waited for the fireworks to signal the end of the pride parade, but when the fireworks started and they finally clambered outside of the coffee shop they were waiting in, all they could see was the red underbelly of an awning that desperately needed a clean.
“So,” Baam says, “Urek asks if we want to meet his club for lunch tomorrow.”
There is instant reaction around the table - Rak drops a fry on the ground and squawks, and Isu chokes on his soda. Hatz has to thump him hard on the back before Isu inhales, red-faced. He flashes a grin at Baam, “Why don’t you ask Khun?”
Khun looks up from where he is staring daggers at the table, and frowns. Why me? He wants to ask, but Baam has already turned to him, eyes hopeful and fingers poised over his keyboard.
He swallows hard. As much as he doesn’t like Urek (Which doesn’t make sense, by the way, a small voice in his head tells him primly. Urek’s been nothing but friendly to you.) he doesn’t want to be the one to deny Baam anything. “If you want to, sure.”
Hatz huffs in annoyance, and Khun shoots him a look. What’s with all his friends today, he wants to demand. First with Isu joking about Baam’s type, then Rak being uncharacteristically insightful about things Khun doesn’t want to think about, and now Hatz? But he sees an opening to get answers, and he goes in for the kill.
He turns to Baam, and slaps on a smirk. “So he’s your type, huh?”
Baam’s mouth hangs open, a faint blush painting his cheeks. “He’s- what- he-” Baam flaps his hands in Khun’s direction. “What made you think that?”
Khun affects a casual shrug. “Looked like you were pretty pleased to see him.”
“He’s a friend from uptown,” Baam says. “Nothing like my type.”
“And what would that be?” Khun says, then makes the mistake of looking into Baam’s eyes. Like honey, he thinks, dazed, the kind that is sweet and sticky and impossible to ever escape once you’ve fallen in.
He nearly misses Baam’s nonchalant answer, delivered as if he’d rehearsed in his mind a thousand times before. “You know, kind, smart, resourceful. Takes the time to get to know me. Same sense of humour. Always knows what to say. Remembers the small details about me, stuff like that.”
There’s a snort from the other end of the table that sounds suspiciously like sounds a lot like Khun, but the tips of Baam’s ears are red as he breaks eye contact with Khun and he’s pouting so fiercely at Isu that Khun’s mind nearly goes blank at how… how cute it is.
But Rak is growling at them about how if they don’t finish eating in five minutes he’s going to head out to see the fireworks without them, and so Khun’s mind shuts up pretty quickly.
(They manage to find a good spot, of course. Not many awnings in amusement parks.)
The first firework to go up is red, and the crowd oohs and aahs as their video cameras capture the peony bursting into a thousand tiny stars. The next one is a yellow brocade, and as the golden stars fade away, Khun can’t help but think that it doesn’t quite match the golden of Baam’s eyes.
Baam.
He turns to his side, shoulder brushing Baam’s, and is stunned to see Baam already looking at him.
Baam blinks rapidly at having been caught, and Khun can see a small flush making its way up his face in the dim light. Khun’s eyes unconsciously trail down, a small part of his mind wondering, wandering-
Khun finds himself leaning in, and his eyes dart back up to Baam’s, suddenly closer than they’ve ever been. They are full of… hesitance, Khun thinks. Hesitance and a quiet sort of yearning and something that resembles hopefulness that makes Khun’s heart flip in a peculiar sort of way.
He opens his mouth, but under the bursts of the fireworks and the thunder of his own heartbeat, he finds that for the first time in his life he cannot think of anything to say to his best friend.
He doesn’t know how long they stay like this, encased in all the things Khun doesn’t know how to put into words, a frozen bubble of their own, but all too soon the lights are flickering back on in the park and everyone is cheering for the fireworks display. There is a resigned sort of smile on Baam’s face as he raises his hands to join the applause, and Khun notices too late that Baam never pulled away.
“They were beautiful, weren’t they, Khun!” Hatz is saying, and Khun snaps away, shoulders jolting away from Baam’s and mouth fumbling through a yes, of course, of course.
-
When Khun is five, his sister tells him about her first boyfriend. What kind of person do you want to date in ten years, Khun? Khun thinks about it, and tells her, with all the gravity a five-year-old can muster, someone who eats all my carrots so I don’t have to. His sister bursts out laughing, then hauls him onto her lap. My boyfriend is tall and smart and handsome, she says, tickling his sides. Will you be tall and smart and handsome too? But he’s wriggling around too much to answer, answering shrieks of laughter echoing down the hallway.
When Khun is eight, he comes back from school with a backpack full of chocolates on Valentine’s Day, and when his mother laughs and asks him who he got them all from, he shrugs. Here and there, he tells her, and he hands her the stack of letters he gets along with them for her perusal. You didn’t open any of them, she says, but he has already wandered off. He ends up stuffing some chocolate into his sister’s jacket pocket, and when she disappears that night he wonders if she ever finds them.
When Khun is ten, his sister comes back home, bruised and empty. She sometimes forgets the motions she needs to go through to love herself again, Khun’s mother tells him, so he needs to love her extra until she remembers. He hears - he can still hear - the quiet, trembling way she tries to rebuild herself and when he climbs into her bed to hug her and pepper her forehead with kisses the same way their mum does, he tells her it’s okay to cry, and he tells himself that he will never let someone consume him the way that monster has consumed her, because even at the age of ten Khun has come to learn that sometimes the wounds that hurt the most are the ones that don’t show scars.
When Khun is fourteen, Novick gets a crush for the first time. He tells Khun all about her after school one day, and Khun nods politely in all the right places while trying to solve a rubix cube. How do you know? Khun asks, hands fiddling with his cube. How do you know you like her? Novick flops over onto his bed and sighs. Can’t get her out of my mind, Novick says. I can’t stop wanting to make her smile.
When Khun is seventeen, Dan applies to the same college his partner does. You’ll regret it, Khun and Novick tell him. Think about what college is best for your education, not who’s going to go there, but Dan just laughs. It’s a reach school anyway, he says. He might not make it in. But he’s test-savvy, and he does, and when it comes down to the decision between Khun’s school and theirs, Dan chooses them. Don’t sacrifice your future for someone you might not even remember down the road, it doesn’t make sense, Novick tells him, and tosses a pen at his head. Love isn’t supposed to make sense anyway, Dan grins, and that’s that.
When Khun is eighteen, he comes back to Dan and Novick for the summer with one name on his tongue. He tells them all about Baam and the way Baam’s eyes sparkle when he’s excited and the way he hates pickles and the way he laughs at all the bad jokes everyone else groans at. He talks about Baam until Novick swipes him on the head and laughs. You talk about him so much it’s insane. You in love, bro? And Khun remembers the flames that burned his sister, the way love ate and ate and ate away at her until she had to build herself again, and he bites his tongue and shakes his head, insistent. I’m not.
When Khun is twenty two, alone in a hotel room crowded with his own thoughts at two am while his best friend lingers outside, he calls Dan and Novick. They hear the worry of fingernail between his teeth, and they ask him what’s wrong, Khun, what’s wrong, and joke about how they’ll help him hide the body. He takes a deep breath, and whispers, I think I’m in love with him.
And just like that, the dam breaks.
He tells them about the way he cannot stop thinking about Baam - the way he has never stopped thinking about Baam since the day they met - and the way he’d do anything to make Baam smile. He tells them about the way Baam’s eyes shine a soft, subdued gold when he’s thoughtful and a fierce, flashing gold when he gets worked up, and the way Khun has tried his best but has never quite figured out if it’s the gold of dusk or dawn. He tells them about the way something inside him aches when Baam looks away, the way Khun’s hands itch to hold his every time they touch.
He tells them about the way Baam eats his carrots (Novick laughs) and the way Baam has a stupid sweet tooth that can only be satisfied with copious amounts of chocolate and the way he walked forty blocks once just to find the sort of chocolate Baam likes because he knew that Baam’s beam at the end of it would be worth it. He tells them about the way Baam looked, under the dim light of the fireworks, the way Baam looked at him, hopeful and yearning and sad all at once, and the way Khun wanted nothing more than to kiss him in that moment. He tells them about what Rak said, about the way Baam looks at him, and the way he looks at Baam and how the past few years suddenly clicked and made sense.
He tells them about the way he’s discovered that Baam has dismantled him, piece by piece, and has diffused through him so thoroughly that everywhere he looks, it just echoes Baam, Baam, Baam, and as a tear rolls down his cheek he tells them about the way it doesn’t make sense, because he’s told himself that nobody is supposed to cut through him like this.
Love isn’t supposed to make sense, Dan says. Now go, go and tell him.
-
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” Baam looks up. He watches as Khun emerges from the shadows, hair almost pearlescent in the sharp moonlight. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, and he looks almost nervous waiting for Baam to allow him to sit.
Baam shifts, and he settles down next to where Baam is sitting on the curb, hugging his legs and chin on his knees. The curb is narrow, and Khun is nearly totally pressed up against Baam by the time he’s fully sat down, adopting the same pose Baam is.
Baam swallows. He feels the warmth of Khun’s leg through his own jeans, and the dangerous brush of Khun’s hand on his.
“Nice night.” Khun comments.
Baam hums in response. It is - the stars have all come out in this dark distance between them and the city, and the only things Baam can hear is the song of the cicadas and the low buzz from the neon sign outside the hotel.
“What brings you outside at 3am?”
Everything, Baam thinks. You. Me. What I want us to be but daren’t ask for.
The way I keep replaying that moment under the fireworks in my head. The way that when I close my eyes, I keep seeing the way you looked at me, keep feeling the brush of your shoulder against mine, but knowing it doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me. The way that even if it did, you’d never act on it, and oh, the way I wish you would.
“Too stuffy,” Baam says instead.
“Me too,” Khun says, and his voice is so close, so close to Baam’s ear that he’s sure if he just turns his head a fraction Khun’s lips will be there. “Too many thoughts for one small room, you know?”
Baam swallows again, and stays still.
“Baam,” Khun murmurs. His voice sounds slightly strangled and all sorts of breathless, and it takes everything in Baam not to shiver in response.
“Baam, look at me, please.”
And so Baam does, because he never can resist when it is Khun asking. He turns, and he sees the way the moonlight dances between Khun’s eyelashes, the way it brushes Khun’s cheeks and makes him glow, makes him look so ethereal that it makes Baam’s chest hurt.
He sees the way Khun’s eyes are soft and open and willing Baam to understand, but fierce and determined and brilliant all at once. They shine, and Baam’s breath stutters.
He wants to look away, wants to pry himself away from the trainwreck of a memory he knows he’s going to form, the memory he knows will replay in his mind’s eye over and over again when he lays down to sleep at night.
But Khun is beautiful, and Baam cannot take his eyes off of him.
Beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
And suddenly Khun is leaning over, hand warm on Baam’s jaw, eyes questioning, pleading, and Baam feels himself melt into Khun, carried by the ache of want he has hauling around by himself the past four years.
Khun tastes like iced coffee, like sunlight glinting off of fresh snow. He tastes like the crackle of lightning, like a multitude of city lights, like the sound of snowballs skimming across a frozen pond. He tastes like Baam has always thought of and more, lips slotting into Baam’s the way he has slotted himself into the space between Baam’s heartbeats, and Baam isn’t sure if he ever wants Khun to pull away.
And when they do break apart, it is with the feeling that everything in the world has snapped into place, brighter, clearer, right.
“I’m sorry it’s taken me this long,” Khun murmurs. “But I’m here now, and I don’t think I ever want to leave.”
====
anyway i just graduated and now i miss my friends and i don’t know what to do with my life what’s up with y’all
