Chapter Text
Maybe it was Ohm’s fault.
Nanon was his friend. Nanon was his most treasured friend. Nanon was his work partner.
Nanon was his soulmate.
In between all that, Nanon and Ohm also kept all sorts of secrets.
They’d been reckless, dabbling between work and a blooming romance when they should have never blurred the line so messily in the first place. Kissing Nanon as Pat was one thing, but kissing Nanon in the darkness of his bedroom, a trail from his lips to everywhere else and memorizing the way the moonlight casted a shadow on his naked skin was another.
After one too many fights in between hectic schedules and too much time spent together, something as small as an argument over breakfast became the last straw.
Nanon was crying. He’d always been a pretty crier, but Ohm’s heart ached to see the tears track down his face.
“I’m tired of this.”
They let the silence smolder. They were holding their breaths while caged in each other’s embrace. It felt heavy, a crushing weight bigger than anything Ohm has ever faced. His head was buzzing with so many thoughts and yet none of them seemed to form into coherence. Nanon was good at that, kicking his mind into overdrive, squashing his brain until bits and pieces of lingering images from the past, the present and the future melted into one goo.
My mind keeps messing up when it comes to you.
It still rang true months later.
But the time had come. Nanon was finally done with him.
Ohm messed up his chance. Maybe he didn’t show his love enough. Maybe he didn’t know how to love Nanon right. Maybe Nanon needed someone else, someone who could fit him just right, someone who could work out.
But maybe he could just change. He could lessen his stubbornness, become who they want him to be.
“I’m sorry. Can we be friends again?” was what Ohm pleaded at the end of it.
Everyone around him leaves eventually. He was used to that.
But Nanon was his work partner. His most treasured best friend.
Nanon was more than a friend.
Nanon was his soulmate, a self-proclaimed one, someone he’d choose over and over given the chance in every single lifetime.
Nanon was the love of his life.
He didn’t want Nanon to just disappear from it. He was selfishly grasping at anything he could keep.
Ohm was desperate. Even as friends, he would be okay, he would be satisfied, he would no longer want anything else but to just be by his side—
“I don’t think this is going to work out, Ohm.”
“Please,” Ohm begged. It was all he could do. “Let’s be friends again.”
Wordlessly, Nanon pulled his arms off and pushed him out the door. All he had on was Nanon’s matching duck pajamas and their matching yet mismatched orange and blue house slippers and a plain, half-eaten and squashed bread in one hand.
Ohm doesn’t step foot into his condo again until this misty dawn.
*
Maybe it was Nanon’s fault.
When Ohm said the word friend, it meant rejection to him. It meant the end of everything. To him, it was plain as day, an answer as stale as the untoasted bread on his plate.
We can only be friends.
Fuck breakfast. Fuck promises of omelets and domesticity in the kitchen at midnight after a night of lovemaking—no fucking. Fuck the toasts they kept burning because even when the golden morning sunrays streamed into the kitchen, they still couldn’t get enough of each other, their fingers splayed tenderly on one another.
Fuck all the stale breads they kept eating in the car because they needed to rush out in the morning to drown in a sea of fans that kept chanting their names when all Nanon really wanted to admit was a frisky, you’re right. I’m in love with him. Contrary to popular belief, maybe this isn’t a two-way street.
That fight was his last straw. It’d been one thing to argue over going to a social function for once together, but it was another salty rub to a wound Nanon had been tending to hear, stop expecting me to go to these things.
It felt like a stab in the heart. A silly reminder of whatever the fuck situation they put themselves in.
Don’t expect things from me. Don’t expect more than what I’m offering. We’re not together like that.
His mind raced. It was a reach. But that’s what Ohm meant, right? That’s what Ohm really wanted to say to him?
He’d rather be nothing than be friends. He couldn’t be just friends with someone his heart ached for even when he was fingertips away, even when he was wrapped up all over Nanon with a squished piece of bread in hand.
So when Nanon had tearfully said, “I’m tired of this,” what he really meant to say was: “I’m tired of feeling like you just want to be friends.”
Ohm never got the chance to read between the lines.
Not until now, anyway, when Nanon’s back in his arms.
*
Maybe it was both of their faults.
They were young and stupid and acted rashly. But one misunderstanding toppled over another until it piled into a burial mount filled with resentment and sadness eventually crafted as yearning looks across the room when the other wasn’t looking.
A heartfelt conversation could've sufficed, but by the time they both realized what really transpired, it was too late.
It was definitely both of their faults.
They were just two idiots unable to look at the bigger picture at the time. They were just two people who were hurting and too in love.
They still are.
Maybe that’s the problem.
Maybe they should just fucking talk.
*
Talking? No.
Instead, here they are squished against the wall, their limbs tangled together like yarn crocheted into an inextricable mess.
Nanon only intended for one kiss. One kiss after the stunt Ohm pulled on him. Kissing Nanon’s cheek was too tender. Too much for what they were now.
Yet when he looks at Ohm after the kiss and tells him spitefully, “Is this what you want?” and Ohm looks like he’s about to crumble in his arms, Nanon caves in.
Nanon kisses him like it’s the end of the world, like this is the only time they’ll ever kiss again: under the pretense of insobriety and mistaken heat of the moment. He kisses Ohm unkindly, rough as he fists the front of his white shirt, his hips digging aggressively against Ohm’s side as he bumps his nose against Ohm’s and grazes his bottom lip with his teeth.
Ohm surrenders into it. Melts into the kiss. Anything is better than nothing. He matches the beat of the way Nanon moves his lips against his own, a well-practiced dance of waltz only they know best to perform.
Nanon shudders into the kiss as Ohm grabs him by the neck, a thumb dipped into his pulse point. When Ohm finds the answer he’s looking for, it’s like a fire has been lit up inside him, burning up any semblance of what Nanon thought was under his control.
Resistance becomes compliance. Ohm doesn’t want to kiss Nanon like it’s the last time—he wants it to be a reminder of what they could have for a lifetime. Ohm deepens the kiss, fingers now tangled in Nanon’s hair. Nanon’s hands fall to his sides to make room to press himself closer until Ohm can feel the warmth of their bodies be contiguous and their breaths fan over their incandescently rosy cheeks.
Little by little, the intensity of their kisses starts dwindling the moment Ohm finds Nanon’s hand and intertwines their fingers. They still match like a perfect other half.
The tune they were initially kissing to has come to an end. They pull away from the kiss in synchrony.
Forehead to forehead, chest to chest. Ohm’s lips tingle as he speaks the words so close to Nanon’s mouth.
“What I want is you, me, this,” Ohm says softly. He leans in for a chaste kiss, but unlike many other times, he watches Nanon’s expression this time. It morphs from a spectrum of softness, vulnerability, and guardedness.
Nanon shakes his head. It feels like they’re still kissing, the ghost of each other’s lips lingering. “I’m not going back to being friends with benefits with you.”
Ohm squeezes his hand. Nanon looks up at him, pupils swallowing his irises whole. He looks terrified and insecure, searching for honesty in Ohm’s eyes.
“I don’t want to be just your friend,” Ohm whispers. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been clearer from the start.”
Lifting their entwined hands together, Nanon leans away and hits Ohm’s chest with it, right where his thundering heart is.
“You’re an idiot,” Nanon says, eyes softening. He lets go of Ohm’s hand and holds him gingerly on the cheek. “But I am too. I’m sorry we lost so much time.”
“Let’s make sure we don’t do that anymore,” is all Ohm says before catching his lips again.
This time, they savor the kiss. Slow and tender, a meaningful kiss that feels like coming home. Ohm has missed the way they give and take from each other, how in-tune they are with knowing what needs to be done. Ohm feels Nanon tremble as he dips his face onto Nanon’s sensitive neck, a hand snaking down to the back of Nanon’s jeans.
And when the kiss escalates into a passionate one, they turn what used to be embers and light them into a blazing wildfire.
*
It’s the sound of loud clapping that disorients the two of them.
It’s Ohm whose instinct kicks in first. He sees the curl of Nanon’s eyebrows, so characteristically like the last few times they had kissed when shooting as Pat and Pran and was intentionally interrupted, except this time, it’s real annoyance that splays out on Nanon’s wonderfully cute features. His nose is flared and he’s glaring. Luckily not at Ohm this time.
Just at the edge of the entrance of the hallway, several heads pop in: Tay, Mark, Perth, Chimon and Leng. They look like Christmas arrived early and they all reek of beer. From the looks of Leng’s drenched shirt, it looks like it’d been spilled beer in particular.
“Pay up,” Leng says loudly through the music. He’s smirking towards them. Perth grumbles over his shoulder and hands him a wad of a few thousand bahts. “See? Isn’t it lucky I accidentally spilled beer all over me?”
Chimon’s face crumples. “Ugh. It feels like catching my parents having sex.”
Ohm and Nanon look at them, perplex turning into realization, and before Ohm can say anything, Leng turns to Nanon with a peace sign and a charming smile.
Nanon hisses defensively. “We weren’t—”
Leng cuts him off. “Sorry P’Nanon, but I think you owe me a follow back after,”—he gestures wildly between Ohm and Nanon—“this.”
It’s so funny, looking at Nanon’s bewilderment as he continues to stare at Leng as if he’s grown another head. “You repla—you know what? Never mind.”
Leng blinks innocently at him. “I’ll grow on you eventually, phi.”
Nanon turns incredulously at Ohm. “What are you teaching him?”
“I don’t know. He’s your fan. Not mine.” Ohm bursts out in an uncontrollable laugh. “His words, not mine!”
Nanon glares at their friends before shoving Ohm’s back in front of him, pretending the burn on his cheeks are from the red neon lights overcasting them as he disrupts the sea of giggling heads barricading the hall to beeline far, far away from them.
When Ohm turns over Nanon’s shoulder, Leng is wiggling his eyebrows knowingly at him.
Up the rank, Ohm mouths with a drunken wink, and watches as Leng suffers a noogie from Perth in the hallway as his Nong Rak #1 whines for his money back.
*
Five minutes after the deafening hollers from their stupid friends and the impatient walk out of the bar, they find themselves sitting on the sidewalk outside in silence, pretending that an arm’s reach distance now can cancel out their mussed-up hair and bruises forming on their skins.
Ohm pretends to fan himself with his palm because of the mugginess of the night and not the obvious rosy bloom on his cheeks. Next to him, Nanon stretches his legs out onto the asphalt, wide and open despite feeling small.
Finally, Nanon says, “Do you want to talk more over breakfast?” He chews on his obviously swollen upper lip. “At my new place.”
A corner of Ohm’s lips tugs upwards. Even he could tell the damage done on his bottom lip. Nanon takes one good look at him, then down to the art he created. A chin dimple pops up in smug satisfaction, followed by two more on his cheeks.
Ohm misses that expression. Nanon misses how easy it is to slip a smile in his presence.
Ohm lets out a heartfelt chuckle that Nanon mirrors right back.
Slowly, Ohm reaches his hand out. Nanon stills, face frozen into a picturesque smile Ohm’s been missing for months, then pushes the top of his head towards Ohm’s palm. Ohm pets his hair, soft and fond, then slides it down until he’s cradling Nanon’s cheek in his hand.
Nanon closes his eyes, nuzzling against his touch as Ohm rubs a thumb over his skin. When Nanon opens his eyes, the expression on Ohm’s face already speaks a thousand words he’s failed to hear the last few months. Nanon holds his palm over Ohm’s.
This time, Ohm makes sure the reassuring words come.
“Yeah, I won’t burn the toasts this time around.”