Archive of Our Own

Even though Tine has just married the love of his life, a chill in the air tells him he has done something wrong. Terribly wrong.

He didn't understand why it felt so cold against his pale skin, or why the hairs at the back of his neck stood like needles on a pin cushion. Tine's eyes wander towards the sleeping figure next to him — a beautiful woman, draped in off-white bedsheets, her arms locked around Tine's own. This was a sight that was supposed to please him, a sight that should give him that rush he felt when he first saw her. But why is there such an unsettling feeling in his stomach? Bile climbs up slowly but surely — he feels something sour at the back of his throat. 

And he falls. Black fills his vision, and he suddenly doesn't know how to breathe. Tine clutches his chest as tears prick his eyes.

“Tine?” A warm, soothing voice. A voice that has nothing but love for him. And yet he can't recognize it. Was it an amalgamation of voices? A mixture of those who have loved him over the years? No, the voice was distinctly male. Deep, rich. A voice he has heard over and over again, in his past, present, and future.

Tine wakes.

He tries to catch his breath to no avail, his irises frantically searching his surroundings. A fireplace? A big one at that. A fireplace that you would never see in Thailand unless you were wealthy. Cold marble floors, a breathtaking chandelier, plush green curtains, and walls painted artfully with one cohesive design, each stroke of the brush more beautiful than the other. Where is he?

A piano. Tine squints, his breathing still unstable, and sees a silhouette of a piano. He wants to stand up as an urge to reach for the piano floods his very being, but his legs don't seem to work. He can't move, can't budge, no matter what he does.

“...theatre...” Tine manages to hear amidst his panicked breathing. “...work... shadows of the theatre...”

Tine crawls, dragging himself against the painted floors of this large and decorated room. And when he finally sees two figures, a man sitting by his grand piano, and a humble servant with his head bowed, Tine lets out an excruciating scream. A white-hot pain spreads in every part of his body, a punishment from the heavens seemingly curated just for him. His yells are muted, but every word from the servant boy and the lord is crystal clear in his ears. Tine watches the scene unfold in front of him as he writhes in pain — how the lord looks at the boy with a gleam in his eyes, while the boy is oblivious and only admiring the piano keys. Warm tears flow down his pale cheeks, and he doesn't know why.

“Would you like me to play it for you again?"

“You're not well.”

His beloved wife stares at him with concern. Even as they lay on the bed, white sheets tangled up between the two of them, Tine cannot look her in the eye. An uncomfortable feeling washes over him, the visions of last night playing in his head in a neverending loop. They looked familiar, far too familiar to his liking, and it didn't help that the lord's face was stuck in his subconscious. Every feature, every detail of his countenance was etched into his very being. An unwanted tattoo he had no hope of covering up or erasing. 

Despite everything, despite the ringing in his ears and despite the almost painful concern and disappointment on his wife's face, Tine smiles. He has to, because who will if not him?

“I'm well enough.” Tine chuckles, dipping his head down to bury himself in his beloved's neck. His better half rolls her eyes, and Tine can tell her heart's not in it because she indulges him fully.

Breakfast is a sordid affair. The room service wasn't horrible whatsoever (how could it when they paid at least half a million Baht for this honeymoon?), but whatever he ate tasted of nothing. The food felt like sandpaper on his tongue and it tasted of sawdust. He still ate it, still swallowed, and pretended to act impressed to appease his spouse, but he would most likely be throwing it all up in a few hours or so. For now, he set his worries aside. Breakfast was terrible, but it did not stop him from accepting his eager wife's advances. 

He touches, he whimpers, he teases and he pleasures. Tine shows her a shaky smile, pushing her hair away from her forehead before planting a soft kiss on her damp forehead. Her breaths, warm against his skin, sends shivers down his spine. He continues to show how much he wants this, how much he wants to love her with everything he had before a searing pain begins to spread across the crown of his head.

Tine closes his eyes shut, the concerned murmurs and whispers of his wife falling to deaf ears, and he watches as another scene played out. The world blurs for a moment until he sees those two figures once again. This time, in a flower field. The most beautiful he's ever seen. He looks up, breathing labored as his almost lifeless body sits on the grass. But they — the lord and the servant — walk with a happiness he could never replicate. Not in this life, not in another.

His sight is bombarded with flowers. And love. Of course, with love.

“You like it here?” The lord's words echo true in his ears. Tine can't control the surge of unexplainable emotions that scatter within his body, from his scalp to the tips of his toes. And yet, even with the excruciating pain punishing him from skin to bone, he hears the joy. He hears the love that drips from the lord's words as if the lord has not truly lived until this very moment.

The servant smiles, bright and genuine. “O-Of course I do, my lord!" That stutter. It's so — why is it so similar — “I've never seen this much color in my life!”

“Then would you like to take a couple of flowers home, my love?”

I would.

Tine screams.

And when he awakes, he recognizes the ceiling. The walls, that awful scent of alcohol, and freshly plucked flowers. Tine tries to raise his hand.

Hospital. His mind supplies. “Fuck.”

“Right. To think that those are your first words after being unconscious for two days.”

Tine startles at the voice. He turns his head, his muscles aching from lack of movement, and widens his peach-blossom eyes when it meets with his. His, Sarawat's.

There it is, again. That godawful ache in his chest. It only gets worse when the corners of his best friend's lips turn to that smile. That smile that he—

“Where is she?” Tine croaks out. He doesn't notice how Sarawat's face falls, just a smidge. “My wife.”

Sarawat sighs. “You didn't have to clarify, I know you were talking about your wife. And to answer, she's at work. Your brother told me, you know, that she gets like that when she's stressed. She works until she forgets.”

Tine is racked with guilt when Sarawat barely finishes speaking. His beloved... is exactly as he says. Always working when she feels hopeless. How bad off was Tine that she would need to do that?

“Before you spiral,” Sarawat's voice cracks slightly. “Nothing happened. At least, nothing too bad. The doctor thinks it's from stress, you passing out. What have you been doing at work? Is your boss—”

“Need I remind you that my boss is my wife?” Tine jokes lightly. It's true, after all. His wife was an accomplished lawyer but leading a law firm suited her best. “And being a paralegal means stress, anyway. Some attorneys still think we're lesser beings and there's not much I can do about that. Not everyone gets to be as...”

Lucky as you, doing what you love? Pursuing your passions? He could never say that to Sarawat. Before his success, he was barely living day to day. Graduating with flying colors from a fancy conservatory didn't guarantee success, he learned that the hard way. To provide for himself, Sarawat helped his mother with her small business and even if Sarawat loved his mother unconditionally, he wasn't the best at business. It didn't help that Sarawat just disliked customer service and he certainly had to do it a whole lot.

It was still true, however. That he got lucky. There were downsides to his line of work, but he loved the piano. He loved music. Tine has never loved law.

Sarawat can only stare at him. Tine doesn't know what to call his expression. 

It terrifies him that he can see the lord in his best friend's face. It terrifies him that all he can see right now is love and nothing else. What did this mean? What did any of this mean?

“You don't have to worry,” says Tine gently. He does his best to ignore the beating of his heart. “You don't have to worry at all.”

Sarawat shakes his head. “I don't mind worrying. Since it's you.”

They chat until Sarawat deems it time to leave. He's a busy man, touring Thailand because finally, this country has finally seen him for what he is. He says his goodbyes and hugs Tine tight as if this is the last time he'll ever see him, and the warmth lingers. The sun falls outside his window. Blue skies now purple and red.

When he leaves, Tine sits by himself in suffocating silence. He pointedly ignores the flowers on the bedside table. They look exactly like the ones in his visions, except for one flower.

Peonies, and a single pink camellia.

The next vision isn't as painful as the other two. Mostly because Tine is asleep, comfortable in his hospital bed. But it doesn't make it any less unpleasant. It doesn't make it any less real.

“This could mean death for you.” An aged woman with a strict countenance tells him in a straightforward tone. Her uniform and the way she carried herself with both grace and an air of servitude gave Tine an idea of who she was — the head maid. “It does mean death for you.”

The servant, face gaunt and so unlike the blushing appearance he had whenever he was with the lord, swallows a lump in his throat. “I am aware, Madame.”

This sends the mature woman into a frenzy. A fire begins to blaze in her green eyes, her gaze burning straight through the servant's shaking figure. “If you are so aware, why are you going along with this nonsense!? Do you not realize that this affair of yours could cause the downfall of the family!?”

The servant trembles.

“I took you in, boy, for service. I took you in because you were polite, with a rare appearance among common folk and manners better than your peers. Did I expect too much? Did I get my hopes up?” The woman roars with eyebrows knit closely. “Boy, stop this, I beg of you. You know that this will not end well. There are eyes, boy, eyes everywhere. They will know of your sins, the lord's sins.”

“My lord has done no wrong!” The servant exclaims, furious. The person he respected the most was the head maid, only second to the lord he loved. He could not believe that he had talked to her like that. But it was inevitable, the lord has done no wrong. In fact, he did everything right. He cared for him when everyone else around him didn't want to. Couldn't want to, no matter how much they tried. Who would love someone like him?

“The moment he began to desire you marks the beginning of his sins.” The head maid says, simple and curt. “He was brought up to become the man of the house, and yet he lays a hand on his servant? If that is not a sin, then what is, pray to tell?”

The servant begins to weep. He cannot, he cannot... “What can I do, Madame? If I l-let go, if we let go of each other, what do I have left? Who am I without him, Madame?”

Madame considers.

“Yourself. You are yourself, without the lord.”

When he is discharged from the hospital, his wife does her very best to take care of her. For reasons unknown, Tine is still bedridden. But his condition wasn't as bad as before. The doctor specifically told them that what Tine needed was rest. For reasons obvious, Tine didn't listen to all the medical parts of the explanation, but he understood that something (unidentified, so much so that it boggled the doctors in the hospital) was putting some sort of strain on his body and mind. He would need to be under observation, but the conclusion was that it could be done at home. 

“I'm terrified, you know?” His wife tells him one day as she feeds him porridge. Only soft foods for my soft boy. She whispered to him the day after he got discharged. “I know that I promised that I would be with you, in sickness and in health, but seeing you like this...”

She chokes back a sob. Tine blames himself for it. If it weren't for those visions, those stupid visions—

“If you want to leave—” 

His wife interrupts him swiftly. “I won't. Even if — even if our marriage doesn't survive, I still — you're still one of my best friends. How could I leave you like this, Tine?”

Even if our marriage doesn't survive.

“Hey,” Tine smiles. “You're neat.”

She laughs at that. She hasn't laughed in a long time, Tine thinks to himself. “You're neat, too. But you would be neater if you got better.”

He'll get better. He will.

But he doesn't. And because he doesn't get better, his wife gets worse. He looks at her pale body on the hospital bed and thinks about how it came to this. 

“She hasn't been eating,” One of the lawyers under her care whispers. “Mr. Teepakorn, I'm sorry. We should have — we should have been better. The firm decided that we wanted to take responsibility for her because you're — you're just as sick as her, but...”

The little lawyer weeps. Tine wishes that his wheelchair would consume him whole. Before things escalate, before Tine says the wrong thing before he does something irreversible — the door to the room swings open, and Tine feels his heart tighten at the sight of Sarawat.

Peonies. A single pink camellia. A field. A piano. A tune.

He looks panicked, and if it weren't for the horrible circumstances they were in, Tine would have laughed. He didn't know his bestest friend could make that face, and they'd been friends for more than half of their lives. 

“Oh,” Sarawat's face falls when he sees Tine's beloved on the bed. “Tine, I...”

“It's not your fault,” Tine says, smiling. “This is on me.”

“Never.”

Sarawat is beautiful, even under the lights of this no-good hospital room. Tine can't find him beautiful. He shouldn't.

A pink camellia.

“You're not well,” Tine tells his beloved once she comes to.

She simply smiles. “I'm well enough.”

A tune.

Tine spends his birthday quietly and solemnly. His wife is outside the country for a job that requires her to be present at all times, because it's tricky and intricate and even if she was leading lawyers, she was still the best attorney in the firm. Tine admires that about her — how her talent and drive never diminish nor fade, even if she has reached unreachable heights. 

It's not too bad for the most part. He is still surrounded by people he loves. Even Mil was here, chatting amicably with Tine's friends and colleagues while his fingers are firmly locked with Phukong's. It's even better when Sarawat finally arrives, sweaty but still as charming as the day they met. He greets Tine's guests politely and it almost amuses Tine when he hears how prickly Sarawat sounds. Did a musician get under his skin, this time? Was spending time in Singapore worse than usual? Tine uses his wheelchair to approach his best friend and kicks him lightly from behind. Startled, Sarawat turns around. But his face softens at the sight of Tine.

He doesn't want to think about how he feels. Tine is afraid of what he may discover. And he couldn't afford any discoveries when he dreams of a life lived by a stranger every single night. When he sees a servant boy happier than he will ever be, despite the world pointing their fingers at them. 

“You're here,” Tine says.

Sarawat scoffs. “Of course. You think I'd skip?”

“Maybe,” Tine teases. “You missed your recitals at the conservatory all the time.”

“People change.” comes Sarawat's reply. His thick brows furrow at their bickering, but Tine can't help but laugh. He missed this. He missed the easy conversations between the two of them. 

People may change, but the love he had for Sarawat will stay the same. He knew this already, and he slept every single day comfortable with that thought. But the fear lingers — even if the love stays the same, will the feelings follow? What if he starts to see him differently? What if he betrays—

“You're pale.” Sarawat stops his train of thought. His fingers fiddle with the wheelchair's handles and Tine smiles. “But you always are these days. Did you drink?”

“No,” Tine snorts. “I've got all these little lawyers following after me. They always stare whenever I approach the punch.”

“They spiked it?” Sarawat raised a brow.

He can only laugh at that. “Your friends are here. Man spiked the punch immediately after he arrived. Boss watched, so I guess he's complicit?”

“Oh, for God's sake.” Sarawat groans. He approaches Man and Boss, who are definitely intoxicated over the aforementioned spiked punch and drunkenly listens to Sarawat berating them. Tine gazes at them from afar, with a gentle smile playing on his lips. That's Sarawat, alright.  Sarawat, who thinks of him more than himself. Sarawat, who cares so intensely that it's overwhelming. Sarawat, who loves, fierce and unsubtle and strong, and Tine stands to take it all. He takes Sarawat's nervous thinking, his overwhelming care, and his fierce love and swallows it all without a single thought.

He takes it all for granted, he knows. Tine is undeserving of everything given to him, provided to him, by his best friend. Since the dawn of their friendship, he has given Sarawat nothing but pain. Hardship. Trouble. How would he ever repay him for this? 

And that's when he realizes.

“Huh,” Tine mutters.

Sarawat loves him. Loves him like that.

And Tine doesn't know if he can love him in return.

The last vision comes, and Tine quickly realizes that this is the last time he will ever see the piano. That old-fashioned piano centered in an equally old-fashioned, ostentatious room. He can tell that strangers are staring right at them, at the lord and the servant, but the two men cannot care for their watchful eyes. Instead, the lord sits on the small chair in front of the piano and plays.

“This is,” the servant boy gulps. “Romance Des-dur. By Jean Sibelius, sir.”

The lord nods, his smile dripping with sorrow. He continues to play, nimble fingers flying across the instrument with no difficulty in sight and a romantic tune unfitting the tragedy that's about to come anytime soon. They would take them, hunt them down. Their beautiful sins have reached the public and now they want justice to be served on a silver platter. They want to see the disgusting men punished for their crimes against God, against nature. But was it so wrong to love differently? Was it wrong to go against the expectations of the world? Was it so wrong to be their true, authentic selves?

Since this world hates them so, loathes them for what they are, perhaps they will find another world to live in. A world where love had no boundaries. A world where their love would be embraced and not shunned.

The lord plays the last notes of the piece and smiles.

“I love you. I hope you know that.”

The servant can only weep.

When the lord and the servant disappear from his thoughts, Tine turns on the radio.

“Good evening, listeners, and thank you for tuning in! To wrap up the night, how about some Elgar?”

Tine closes his eyes and sees a boy, clumsily writing a letter on the surface of scrapped paper. His handwriting is almost unreadable, as the lord had only taught him to write recently, and it will continue to be unreadable. Because tomorrow, he will die. Punished accordingly for his crimes. 

My lord,

It is not you who deserves to die, it is I.

I am aware of your power. I am aware of the influence that you carry and how your standing grants you immunity. But we are all human, we are all vulnerable no matter how hard we try. The head maid once told me that to live is to make up for weaknesses and fail miserably. That is why I will embrace mine. My sins, my shortcomings, all of it. My lord, if you are pathetic, then what am I?

You say you love me, but I find it hard to accept. How could someone love me, a vulgar commoner who defies the law of nature? I know music not because I am cultured, but because I hid behind the shadows of a theatre so glamorous that I stood out, so I hid. But you, my lord, you accepted me. You took in the vulgar me, you listened to my stories, and you let me hear music in a way that could never be replicated by any musician. In this era or otherwise.

You showed me that life was worth living, that there was color amidst all the grays that clouded my vision. That I could live without feeling as if I am but a stain in your untouchable, unreachable perfection. Rather than a mistake, you embraced me as a part of your life when I was convinced that I would never belong. And now that I will never see you, I am afraid that my soul will not belong anywhere else. My lord, your warmth was my only home. I do not care for Heaven or Hell because my body and mind belong to you, only you. And if my soul cannot be with you, then let it be. I will wander the sands of time until our reunion.

I can already hear you blaming yourself, my lord. But despite my upcoming death, I want you to know that I do not resent you. The months I spent with you were the happiest I've been in my entire life. But those moments were too good to be true. And now, I will be punished for indulging in love I was undeserving of. So do not weep for me, do not cry for me, my lord, for this is my fate.

My sins are great, I know, but I hope that God will take pity on me. Until the blade falls and severs me from my body, I will do nothing but pray that we will be together in the next life. Perhaps, a world that does not shun us exists. I will pray that if we are reborn, it is in that world we can love each other freely. 

Yours, forever and always.

He doesn't dream anymore.

Those visions of another life lived have long dissipated, crumbled into dust, and stuffed into an urn shoved at the back of his mind. Tine doesn't want to think about those useless dreams anymore, with all their cruelty and tragedy and heartbreak. No, he had to be grounded in reality and pay attention to what is real, to what is there and waiting for him at home with a cup of tea and a smile warmer than any drink on a cold night.

Tine's wife arrives from her taxing job overseas a few days after the visions stop. She looks happy to see him, positively beaming when he sees Tine up and about and finally not stuck in his wheelchair, but — but there's something wrong. Tine would know, he has loved this woman with all his heart, having every expression on her face tattooed into his faulty head. She is happy, she really is, but there is something else. Like she has something cruel to say stuck at the tip of her tongue.

“Tine,” She whispers, all soft and careful, holding his face with her calloused hands. “You're better.”

“Am I neater, now?”

She hugs him so tight that Tine can barely breathe.

And it goes on. Life. Tine wakes up every day to cook her breakfast, porridge topped with her favorite meat floss she buys every month from Yaowarat Road, coffee with two sugars, and a kiss on the cheek from Tine. He drives her to work even though she protests all the time (“What if you pass out?” “I won't!”), but Tine knows that she's missed this. Their simple, domestic routine that Tine looks forward to every single day. The two of them are okay now, with no hospital beds to keep them apart, and they make up for all the missed opportunities with their late nights and far too early mornings doing whatever.

But there is something that lingers. Something unkind, sinister, terrible.

And it happens, one morning. She eats her porridge, drinks her coffee, but the smile she smiles every morning is not there.  Tine knows that she will tell him something he won't like.

“Tine.” His wife says. 

Tine pretends. He pretends to be oblivious because it's the only way he will come out of this unscathed. “Yes, dear?”

“This isn't working.”

Her voice does not crack.

She must have thought about this scene happening over and over for months. And Tine — well, he doesn't know what to say. He never does. The people in his life who know how to respond, to speak, are his wife and—

Sarawat. 

He would know what to say.

“It isn't,” Tine meant for that to come out as a question. But it felt like a surrender. Acceptance. “Since when?”

—that is why I will embrace mine my sins my shortcomings all of it—

She closes her eyes and grips the coffee cup that Tine got for her birthday two years ago tightly. “I don't think it was ever meant to work.”

“You,” Tine's voice quivers. “You can't say that. It was going well, it was working—”

Tine holds it in. The tears, the anger, the anguish.

“We promised,” he says, weak and pathetic like the servant boy. “We promised to be together.”

“I met someone.”

The silence is suffocating. Tine feels that all too familiar pain spreading slowly throughout his head. But the pain is now a comfort, a friend. He knows that if he lets it happen he will see a boy happier than him. Met with tragedy, yes, but content and loved unconditionally. 

There is a fire in his wife's eyes that he has never seen. An expression he has yet to memorize. But he thinks he will never get the chance to get used to it because this is the beginning of the end.

“Tine,” she says with care. She is careful. Always has been. Why hadn't he asked her why she was so careful? Always tiptoeing around him, never wanting to raise her voice or to disappoint or to step out of line — “Loving him is easy.”

“Am I hard to love, then?” Tine asks.

She shakes her head. “No, of course not. But — but you make it hard. Sometimes. It feels like I have to be a certain way around you. It feels as if you're going to crumble, to break at the littlest things, and I — I need someone strong. You always say I'm strong, don't you? But — but I'm sick of it, being strong. I want to depend on someone this time around and I don't — that won't be possible if I stay with you. But him?”

—I don't mind worrying since it's you—

“Loving him is so easy, it—” her voice trembles ever so sightly, “it doesn't feel like a goddamn chore, alright? I — you understand, do you?”

Tine smiles at her. Bright, true, real.

“I do,” He nods. “And I'm sorry, dear.”

When their divorce is finalized on a rainy day, Tine does not dream of the lord and the servant. He closes his eyes and remembers.

“Oh, for crying out loud.” Sarawat stares at him, exasperated. “You're not allowed to sneak in here! Our dorm lady is going to kill us if you – Tine!”

Tine laughs silently and shuts the singular, square window in Sarawat's terrible dorm. It's more of a prison cell rather than a dorm, to be honest, but for the past two years, Tine has considered it home. Or, a home away from home. Not because of the shitty, creaky bed,  the white walls that have been painted over a million times, or the cobwebs on the ceiling, but because his favorite person lives here. Sarawat Guntithanon with his stupidly talented self. 

“I brought snacks,” Tine hands him a green plastic bag filled to the brim with goodies. “You owe me five Baht.”

Sarawat narrows his eyes. “I'm not eating.”

Tine opens a bag of shrimp-flavored chips. Salty, a bit sweet, definitely spicy — the perfect snack for depressed college students trying to make something out of themselves. “Suit yourself, then.”

Sarawat sighs deeply, the sound low and deep, before collapsing on his creaky bed. The two of them lay side by side staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling. Tine would never admit it because Sarawat would absolutely make fun of him for it, but sneaking into his best friend's dorm and being with each other like this was his favorite time of the day. The weight of expectations and the sinister looming of the future is left behind at the door, and all that is left is him and Sarawat. Not the struggling law student, not the insomniac pianist, just them. 

“I don't wanna go to the recital tomorrow,” Sarawat confesses. Tine does his best not to laugh because Sarawat never wants to go to recitals anyway. Why is he telling him this now?

Tine allows himself to snort at his best friend's words. “What are you playing?”

“Fuckin' Beethoven, again.” Just talking about Beethoven makes Sarawat stand up and groan into his hands. “I — it's so stupid that I have to play the pieces of dead composers just so I can pass my classes and prove to Mom and Dad that they're not wasting their money on my tuition.”

Tine raises an elegant brow. “But you love playing the pieces of dead composers, don't you?”

“I do,” Sarawat replies. “I really do, but there's this nagging voice at the back of my head that wants to be the best. The very best, you know? And to top it all off, I'm playing Hammerklavier—”

Tine sighs. “So you did this to yourself.”

“I did this to myself, yes.” comes his best friend's resigned reply. Seriously, Hammerklavier?

With an affectionate roll of his eyes, Tine grabs Sarawat from the back and lets him fall onto the mattress once again. There is a hint of a blush on his best friend's face and Tine — Tine wants to laugh if he wasn't so red either. He can feel it, really, the warmth on his cheeks.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Tine whispers. “I think you're going to nail it.”

Sarawat spares him a deadpan look. “Nail the Hammerklavier.”

“Sure, you like doing the impossible.” Tine shrugs. “Like Liszt. You like Liszt, do you? Since you're a psycho.”

Sarawat smiles at that and Tine is startled at the sight. He never does that. Not when he isn't positively radiating with happiness. In the darkness of his cramped dorm room, Sarawat says: “Thank you. I love you, you know?”

Why didn't Tine kiss him, then?

“That's—” Tine hesitates. “Yeah, I love you too.”

He is beautiful. Is he allowed to find him beautiful?

And he remembers that this is not new. The fluttering feelings in his chest and the excruciating pain that comes with being around Sarawat, seeing him and taking his existence wholly and fully, are not new. He buried it somewhere dark and deserted deep in his heart to make space for other people. He told himself that Sarawat had plenty of space already, so why should he need more? But that was the problem. Is the problem. Instead of tucking him away into the depths of his subconscious, he should have let him take over his entire heart.

And yet.

Was it cowardice? Anger? Denial? Was he so terrified of what would happen if he had let himself fall?

Oh, to hell with it. He is always asking questions, Tine. He's always asking questions to himself and never saying them out loud since he was so afraid of being seen, being perceived by those he cherished. What if, by letting them peek into who he truly was, they would leave him to rot? This delusion born out of his insecurity has led him onto this path of self-pity and self-hatred. He has so much compassion to give and yet the thought of being kind to himself sends him into a panic.

To hell with asking questions.

He needs an answer.

Epilogue

There is a standing ovation. It's well deserved, Tine thinks, as he gazes upon his best friend on stage. A single pianist being perceived by hundreds of people and yet he doesn't quiver. He does not tremble nor does he shake, he simply bows and walks off stage with unparalleled grace.

“Thank you.” is the last thing said by his best friend. Eager concert goers swarm towards the exit, having only good words to say about what they witnessed. 

Tine grips the shiny brochure in his hand tightly, his calloused thumb going over Sarawat's name in big, bold letters. It feels as if the brochure is taunting him in a way. Sarawat's frozen figure is spread across the paper, brows furrowed in concentration as he plays an elaborate piece. He's come so far. Was this really the Sarawat he met as a snot-nosed brat? The one he took under his wing since he was looked down on for being from the countryside. And the friendship lasted, bloomed into something beautiful. Something that would go down in history.

He stands outside of the concert hall and watches as the lights turn off one by one. Gone is the elaborate stage and the gentle glow of the hall lights, all there is left is a dark building. Tine is ready to leave, but when he hears the first few notes of Salut D'Amour, he runs. He runs inside the concert hall, sprinting through the twists and turns of the gigantic space, and halts when he sees a figure amidst the darkness.

A piano. A tune.

“Ai'Wat!”

The playing pauses. Sarawat's fingers freeze in place as he raises his head to look at Tine. His eyes widen, while Tine breathes. He inhales, exhales, and slowly approaches the pianist in front of him.

“I...” Tine tries to find his voice. “That's Salut D'Amour.”

Sarawat stares, bemused.

“How do you know this piece?”

Tine smiles, wide and vibrant and true.

“Used to work,” he swallows. “at a theatre.”

Sarawat stands up abruptly. He walks towards Tine, just standing at the edge of the stage. His eyes are frantic, searching.

“Wat — no,” Tine pauses. “My lord.”

The pianist falls to his knees. Tine extends his body, tiptoeing to meet the stunned gaze of his best friend.

“I found you.” Tine whispers.

Sarawat's fingers reach for him. He places his hand on Tine's cheeks, shaky and tentative and unsure. But Tine affirms him by placing his hand above Sarawat's. “You remember.”

“Am I too late, Wat?”

Sarawat laughs, the sound sweet and bright. Peonies, a single pink camellia. A tune. A piano.

“No, you're just on time.”