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The door closes with a fragile click, and suddenly Phuwin is awash in the white of the changing room, body tucked away beside that of Pond’s, and suddenly, there’s not enough space in the world to stop the terrible buzz that starts from deep within his guts.
Phuwin turns, wishing cover for something he has likely no control over—his face. The mirrors mock him on all sides, accusing and furious, but Pond’s eyes are similarly lowered, a little flighty. “This is ridiculous.”
Pond shifts his big body, the heat of him so close and tempting, so kind. Phuwin fights the urge to lean close and press them together from head to hips. He curls his hands into fists, the bite of his fingernails a subtle reminder of decorum. Pond’s mouth is almost a pale pink in the glare of the artificial lighting.
“Wasn’t it your idea in the first place?” he asks, side-eyeing him a bit, but looking away before their eyes can properly meet. His hands come up to rest at the hips, the three rings scattered between all ten fingers glimmering and twinkling with each movement.
“My idea,” Phuwin begins, teeth flashing in the mirrors around him, multiplied by the intensity of the watchers and the listeners, “was to trap you in here with Joong. And now look at us.”
Pond grimaces, and it’s because he only makes that face at lemons that Phuwin bursts out laughing.
“Literally why,” he says, in a tone that implies great disservice. “That ship is not even a ship. It’s a dry plank floating on the ocean with a white flag stuck on it.”
“Don’t say that,” Phuwin says, singsong. “Friends can become lovers.”
Pond shoots him an exasperated look, “You are a deluded shipper.”
Phuwin laughs and prods and exhausts his humor at Pond’s expense for a good minute while Pond lets him indulge, as usual. He’s on his phone, fingers flying over the touchscreen, yet nothing is visible from here—not even in the multiple mirrors surrounding them. Eventually, Phuwin slouches back, hands in the pockets of his pants, legs extended and bracketing Pond’s, the tip of his left shoe idly rucking up the loose baggy jeans off Pond’s ankle.
His gaze thickens.
Phuwin is also a shiny body of metal in this changing room, destined to react and react to Pond’s movements: his little body-jiggles, his unsubtle nervous foot-tapping, the loose curl of his mouth that refuses to stay closed for longer than three seconds at a time, and his painfully thoughtful attempts at giving Phuwin some space.
Phuwin ruins that particular labor by stepping closer, a hand sliding almost giddily in the curve of Pond’s waist, mind unthinking but body screaming. He tilts himself slightly in Pond’s personal space, puts his cheek on the sweatshirt-padded swell of Pond’s shoulder, breathing; Pond mirrors the action, and Phuwin feels it as the body touching him gives way to simple, shared comfort. It’s like all the voices in Pond’s mind were silenced at once—and it’s incredible how Phuwin can tell when that happens.
Pond shifts, exhales, the changing room nowhere near large enough to spread the weight of his existence in even portions across time and space and so it’s all dumped on Phuwin, who sways closer, and wants to pant open-mouthed.
The smell of Pond is pleasant, comfortable. Phuwin slowly turns his head atop Pond’s shoulder, pressing himself closer to his side as Pond casually slings an arm around him, and stays there with his temple pressed to Pond’s slightly musky sweatshirt, eyelids drooping as he fixes his gaze on Pond’s phone, and imagines—with no clear purpose or intent—Pond sweating through his clothes while dancing.
“My friends are trying to set me up, I think,” Pond suddenly says, the gravel of his lowered voice sliding behind the squeeze of Phuwin’s lungs. Instinctive, Phuwin shifts closer, gives more of himself to the space between Pond’s broad shoulders and his one hand holding the phone where the groupchat with his friends is sitting open.
It’s almost absurd how it feels to align their shoulders together, Pond’s arms behind him, solid as reality, and his bountiful warmth, hazy as a breathless dream. But Phuwin doesn’t do that just yet, because halfway through, his muscles sort of lock themselves in, and he can’t unglue himself from the texts sitting on top of each other on Pond’s phone-screen, sent three minutes ago.
Something about a good match. A blind date. And a pioneer of “Pond’s type”.
“Are they for real?” Phuwin wants to slap himself as soon as the words leave his mouth. He’s never been as grateful to be facing away from Pond as he is right now.
Pond only snorts, and then there’s a push behind Phuwin, Pond’s hand sliding up almost dangerously over his shirt that leaves Phuwin winded—that’s his ticklish spot—before it eventually settles firmly above the lines of polite manners, safely away from any transgressions, on the flat of Phuwin’s belly. When Pond speaks again, Phuwin is horribly hyper-aware of him behind his back, as if his brain picked up on the sensory overload too late. Phuwin wonders a little hysterically if he’s been burned by Pond.
“They’ve been joking about getting me a faen for years but this time they’ve found an accomplice,” Pond answers, calm and composed, and Phuwin inwardly sneers at his own hypersensitive reactions. Pond snorts again, adding, “No way they actually convinced someone to go on a blind date with me.”
Phuwin’s jaw unclenches, and he lets out an unfettered laugh even as his shoes slip on the polished tiled floor of the changing room enough to alert Pond: he tightens his hold around Phuwin, exclaiming in surprise, and Phuwin laughs harder. “You’re joking, right?” Phuwin says, grabbing Pond’s hand that’s around him for balance, and spins around in his hold, hands still held, “You honestly don’t think anyone wouldn’t want to go on a blind date with you?”
Pond’s sudden flutter of eyelashes followed by a demur half-laugh says enough. His hair is unstyled, soft, fluffy, and it’s adding to the picture of endearing charm that embodies Pond no matter what he wears, how he poses, and where he goes. Phuwin suppresses an overtly loud giggle, and places both his palms under Pond’s jaw, at either side of his face, tilting it up until he’s satisfied with the positioning.
“I mean, if they don’t see my pictures and like, know know that it’s me- why would they want to go on a date with me?” Pond’s words are fast, unelaborate and rushed, as if he’s scared of letting their full weight sit in the conversation. Phuwin understands it, but he also hates it.
“Sit down.”
Phuwin waits until the order, the request, is heard. Pond backs away, and realizes that there’s a round ottoman behind his legs. He drops easily, knees spread sufficiently as if in expectation of something that Phuwin wants to give to him just so he’d come to expect it more often, just so it’d become a habit never to be rid of. Pond Naravit would be sitting on a stranger’s bed with his knees wide apart—expecting Phuwin to step in and fill the gap.
Pond looks up at him, face devoid of want or conflict, and Phuwin is almost jealous.
“Tell me about this date of yours,” Phuwin says, because he can’t say the other thing. It’s too ugly to be produced so early in this conversation—too ugly to fit in the charming façade that Phuwin’s about to put up in front of the five versions of Pond and the five versions of Phuwin. Here in this cramped changing room.
Pond’s mouth opens and closes; throat bobbing, harsh white light, dark brown eyes. Sometimes it’s like Pond is all lips. Sometimes he’s all eyes.
“Uh- hardworking, serious, tall—but not taller than I am,” Pond quickly clarifies the last point. Then: “They are not very affectionate. They, uh-“ his ears are bright pink, and something about it screams important, but Phuwin is breathing too calmly to distinguish one kind of urgency from another. He’s a bundle of urgent, important things right now, and he feels like he’ll tip over and smash on the floor if Pond so much as tapped him. “They’re,” Pond scrolls through his phone, seemingly looking for more traits that must’ve been told to him beforehand, and Phuwin wonders just how long this has been going on, “Yes, hold on—yeah. No, that’s it. Hardworking, serious, tall, and not a fan of skinship. That’s all the info I’ve got.”
Phuwin’s hands are still in his pockets, clenched. He lets out a deliberate breath, highly aware of the reflections of himself that stand beside him, that faithfully mimic everything that he does, four times the original action.
“Do you want to know what,” Phuwin says, waiting for Pond’s gaze to slide and fit into his, like key in a lock, before continuing. “I think they’re willing to meet you because you probably sound great. You know—tall, muscular, dance-lover, goofy as hell, and an ardent Gojo fanboy.”
Pond’s eyes crinkle at the corners, bunching up his beauty mark that’s delicately pressed under one fine eyelid, and slides his phone into the pocket of his sweatshirt, “What about ‘handsome’?”
He leans forward, as if to bury his face in Phuwin’s shirt, but stops inches away, knees still spread apart and hands entwined together in his lap. His eyes are radiant, and they soften the bright lights of the changing room to a pastel white, baby pink, warm-lit glow.
Phuwin reaches out and puts a gentle hand on his left shoulder, then pushes, just barely even a motion. There’s little to no intention or strength behind it, but Pond leans back and seems to sort of—open himself up for Phuwin. And Phuwin can’t be expected to resist after that.
They’re both huge for this dainty changing room, and the mirrors are too big, and they both have too many limbs. And yet, somehow, it all seems to come together as soon as Phuwin makes the decision to straddle Pond’s lap: thighs encasing hips, knees pressed against the hard wall Pond’s leaning against, arms coming round to wrap Pond’s shoulders and neck loosely, Pond’s familiar fingers spanning the entire length of Phuwin’s waist in a vertical line, and thumbs pressing into the soft give of flesh through Phuwin’s loose cotton shirt.
There’s something Phuwin wants to say, something yet again urgent and monumental that he’s been building up towards, but as soon as their eyes lock, it’s all gone out the window. Phuwin goes blank; he’s empty, void, an idiot stuffed with straw and husk.
Pond’s eyes hook and sink into his, a question without a question, a skull with its teeth missing, a gapless void. There’s a light teasing, an undeniable knowing in his gentle gaze. “Tired?” he asks.
Again, his voice thrums like the beating heart of a flesh-and-blood mountain. Phuwin thinks about how he can only experience that second heartbeat because he’s practically in Pond’s lap, seconds away from headbutting him or kissing him, and that someone else—a random stranger, no less—is going to experience the same thing and then they wouldn’t want to un-know it, either.
Phuwin shifts in Pond’s lap slightly too hard, and his stomach flutters when Pond’s grip tightens further. Careful.
“Who am I to say if you’re handsome?” Phuwin teases, tugging himself closer, watching the black of Pond’s eyes dilate like pure science. He hovers over him, tightly held and burning up from the inside, and adds, barely more than a gravelly murmur, “Different people have different notions about handsomeness.”
Pond’s eyes are a warm night lit up with snow crystals. “Well, what’s your notion then?” he looks down to Phuwin’s mouth, and it’s so unmistakable that neither of them are left with even an ounce of pretense when Pond’s eyes come up again, “Do you think I’m handsome?”
“And do you think I’m your type?” Phuwin retorts.
The questions strikes at something deep within him, as if a broken radio tower pinging to life, but Phuwin’s too caught up in Pond’s closeness. He’s missed having this—the full sun in his face, not too hot and not too pale, soft and hazy and blinding as ever. All his to bask in. He would purr if he could.
Pond’s breath hitches at the question, shadowed under Phuwin’s body, flustered and shocked. The expression on his face begs to be caged in, to have only one audience, to exist only for Phuwin’s eyes.
“P’Pond,” Phuwin begins, letting his lips curl upwards, thrilling at the slight drop of Pond’s gaze to his mouth—again and again and again. “Khun Nara. Naravit. Pond.”
Pond’s eyes flash up, “What?” He sounds riled. Winded. Phuwin brings up a finger and traces it down the perfect structure of Pond’s jaw and chin, then gets it under and tips his head back.
Phuwin lunges, pressing a quick kiss to Pond’s mouth. It makes Pond close his eyes for a long second, hands squeezing Phuwin’s waist. It makes Phuwin want to take in the entirety of Pond’s relaxed face, so he leans away.
Pond’s forehead wrinkles as if the movement displeases him, fingers catching on the belt hooks of Phuwin’s trousers to halt him going any further, eyes fluttering open. Phuwin doesn’t have to check the mirrors to know that he’s smiling, lopsided, hopelessly fond. “Do you even want to go on this date?”
At that, Pond’s warm gaze flickers with brief anxiety, and Phuwin hikes himself closer in his lap on instinct. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
Spikes grow under Phuwin’s flesh at the desperate, almost-confessional undertone in Pond’s voice, like he’s scared of letting yet another weight claim ownership of their conversation. Swallowing, he lowers himself, back bending to fit himself in the crook of Pond’s neck, warm and wrapped in his heady cologne. He brings his arms close around Pond’s shoulders, caging him in against the changing room wall, on a single ottoman, bright lights and subtle air-conditioning vacuuming them in.
Pond’s large hand comes up to the small of his back, first light then demanding—pressing—and Phuwin doesn’t know who between them needs this more, so he closes all the gaps, and breathes. Their heartbeats synchronize briefly, then go out of tune again. Pond’s sure, steady breaths next to his ear slowly give way to absent humming. Phuwin’s eyes are wide open, stuck on the reflection of them in the mirror to the left: his long body curled up around Pond’s, where even pressed under Phuwin, he is big.
Then, Phuwin notices with a start that Pond’s stopped humming, and that his head’s turned the other way.
Towards the other mirror, Phuwin’s hind brain suggests, because surely, surely, only the stupider, more callous part of his mind can come up with such outrageous inputs. Bullshit conclusions. Some sort of vague, weird fantasy. Phuwin snuggles harder into the hug, as if to silence that odd thought.
But a few seconds pass and his curiosity takes him by the throat. Pond’s hand has slid down to his hips, where a single thumb is brushing back and forth over the left hipbone where Phuwin’s shirt rides up. Phuwin quells a single line of heat that arrows through his gut, turning his face to the right, resting as he was in the safety net of Pond’s neck.
Pond’s indeed looking into the mirror.
He pinpoints the exact second Pond’s stare gains awareness, as if snapping out of a daze, and their eyes meet, reflection to reality. The thumb halts for a beat before resuming its light caress on Phuwin’s exposed skin.
Phuwin swallows again, an army of frogs in his throat. Pond looks—pleased. Satisfied in a way that feels like he should keep that open expression behind a privacy curtain. Enthralled in a way that burns under Phuwin’s skin, the tip of his ears going pink, making him suddenly fight the urge to hide himself from Pond, which is an impossible thought.
It’s a little easier to breathe when Pond graces him with a smile; a stream of water in a burning desert. “Can we ask them to let us out now do you think?”
Phuwin comes away from his very comfortable resting place with a laugh, his nose knocking softly up against Pond’s cheekbones, slipping into the warm folds of his smile. “We should give them something to see.”
Because Phuwin is metal, reacting and reacting to Pond’s attention, his wants, his closeness. He’s melded to the ore of him, clinging to his density. There are memories in him of Pond’s ragged pants pressed into his mouth, and Pond’s hands sliding up his bare thigh—multiplying and possessing every crevice of Phuwin’s thought: awake or asleep.
Pond’s head lolls back, thumping to a stop against the wall behind him, mouth loose and gracious with a perpetual smile. On Pond’s face, happiness is the most beautiful natural wonder. Smiles are always just a touch away from reality, radiant and gratifying.
Phuwin tilts his head to a side, just so, and lets his own lips melt. Pond’s face breaks out into a grin, starry eyes a deep brown. Phuwin’s chest vibrates with giddy relief, pushing out everything else; there’s no room for any other emotion but this complete fulfilment.
Then the distance between them dies with a soft whimper, and their lips meet in a flourish of mirthful pecks once, twice—insistent touches dissolving into slower, more somber ones.
No words are exchanged. Pond’s fingers simply card through his hair at the back, the easy touch tightening somewhere deep in Phuwin’s groin, as Pond keeps him still, and breathes. Then his mouth opens, warm, welcoming. Phuwin can’t help but slip his tongue in, and is pulled in closer for that until their foreheads are pressing together. Someone hisses, Pond’s bottom lip is plump between Phuwin’s teeth, and then warm hands are pushing under Phuwin’s jaw and moving him to a better, easier position. Phuwin moans, small and devastated, when their lips align properly, and Pond’s mouth makes a wet, slick noise as it moves over his.
Heat clouds him rapidly, time drags through slow as molasses, and the changing room fills with the soft, relentless sounds of kissing. It’s getting a little harder to keep his frantic madness from seeping into the kiss, but Phuwin doesn’t want to accidently overdo it and create problems that they definitely would have to solve in a stifling changing room.
His thighs tighten on either side of Pond at the thought, harsh exhales slipping as their lips separate, and Pond’s tongue swipes at his bottom lip once before gently opening him up again—and Phuwin is once more thoroughly lost in a madness of his own making.
“Is it—” a soft, wet smack, “locked?”
Phuwin’s eyes blink open, and he accidently looks into one of the seemingly endless number of mirrors in this cramped changing room: his face flushed, lips kiss-bitten, eyes lidded like some kind of a drunkard. And on Pond’s lap, no less, who doesn’t look much better.
His gaze follows Phuwin’s until they’re both staring at each other through the mirror. Again.
When Phuwin finally utters out a reply, his voice is wrecked like he’s been screaming. “What’s locked?”
In the mirror, Pond’s eyes drop to his lap, hidden entirely out of view by Phuwin’s thigh which is slung past Pond’s hip. Phuwin has a sudden, vivid image of sitting naked on top of Pond—right in front of the mirror. He almost tumbles to the floor.
“The door,” Pond says, slow like he’s relearning how to speak. “Is it locked?”
Phuwin desperately does not want to be having sexual revelations in the fucking changing room where their friends trapped them as a high-school level joke. Whatever else he is, Phuwin is not strong when it comes to Pond: he’s never stood a chance. He doesn’t stand one now.
By some grand mercy, Pond’s question is answered as the knob turns, Joong’s unmistakable giggle accompanying it like a sudden death toll, and Phuwin’s heart jumps so hard, it almost flies out of his throat.
He tears his gaze away from the cursed mirror, meeting Pond’s eyes, and quickly climbs off him, though he doesn’t bother to make himself look presentable. He does want Joong to suffer, after all.
“Are you guys planning to live here or some-“ Joong stops, abrupt.
Phuwin smirks at him, and the mirrors surrounding them reflect the picture that he makes: swollen lips, slightly mussed hair, hands nonchalantly in his pockets despite the obvious tension in the air. Then Joong’s wide eyes flick to Pond, who, bless him, honest to god blushes.
Phuwin gives a casual jerk of his chin in Joong’s direction, “The others still out there?”
“I’m just gonna—” Pond starts to say, doesn’t finish the sentence, then gets up and squeezes past Joong. Phuwin follows close behind, delighting at Joong’s obvious mental gymnastics behind dumbstruck eyes, keeping all his attention on the broad of Pond’s back, mind inevitably sliding back to Pond’s blind date.
“Hey,” Phuwin curls a warm hand around Pond’s bicep, “don’t overthink it, okay?”
Pond glances at him, smiling. “Thank you.”
“Can I post these photos later?” Joong’s voice drifts up to them, just at Phuwin’s shoulder.
Without turning around, Phuwin answers: “No.” Pond snorts, and Joong flings a well-meaning joke about gatekeeping, and then their little group comes together to play more dumb games. Phuwin is a house on fire.