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Chasers have come and gone: chasers of fortune, fame, or love, or most frequently, all three. Orphanages breathe to life under the hands of a giver who is not a giver, some twisted beneficiary whose greed is as simple as the needs of a newborn and yet it speaks a filthy, mature, explicit language of power.
Even with kind intentions comes a warning; step too far away from the protection circle and you might be snatched away by some flying rouge who will keep you like a thing, a possession next to a line of many such possessions. Peach has seen people chase. Often, yes, their intent is rarely to perverse their way into a purchase, but often, the fists of their love are held so tight around their objects of affection that the breath goes out before the hand can hurt. It’s not the chasing that scares, but rather the end of it. When the chasing stops at a victory.
When he holds his camera aloft, steady, and puts his face behind it, Peach can see more than just what’s in frame—he sees what’s going to converge outside it, how this one shot will fit in with the larger background of another. So when he looks at Aran, this is what he sees: a boy. But also: a model, a man, a trophy.
Every dinner reservation that Tawan ruins, every needlessly harsh word he’s hurled at Peach, every unkind stare he’s stomped over others who dared to look at Aran the same way he doesn’t think they’re allowed to, thinks the privilege should belong solely to him, because Tawan is the hand and Aran is the trophy and Peach is watching, now, what it looks like when love chokes. He sees a chaser who will surely only stop at a victory because a failure wouldn’t satisfy him.
To his slight bewilderment, Tawan backs off.
Aran’s eyes are teary and he’s sitting with a glass of vodka so soon after joking to Peach about being unwell that Peach’s heart twists at such a speedy fulfillment of a past prophesized. Both of them know that the breakup had to happen, and it is no coincidence that it can hardly even be termed in such a romantically assured way. “We were not even dating,” Aran says.
No, not dating, Peach thinks to himself. Chasing.
In his limited frame, there’s cues to the outside world. There’s an illusion of a perfect idealistic shot, that gorgeous angle, that one-second head-turn, that magnetic gaze; and, outside it, there’s everything that comes as a consequence of those traits. A beautiful smile, yes, but on a corporate magazine it would be the smile of power, of relaxed luxury, of a false sense of innocence and purity that money can buy again and again and again. The frame might be limited, but Peach is a photographer, and he knows that there’s so much more in a picture but there’s even more beyond it.
In this frame, there’s Aran. But outside it, Tawan. The chasing is perhaps a lovers’ tiff to object over this separation; maybe, the chasing cannot come to a happy conclusion because the distance remains between the hand and the trophy, but then you can’t quantify love. Peach surely shouldn’t.
Tawan chases power, maybe it’s love but it might as well not be if the weak of heart are to be spared such drama. Aran appears still but after all he’s not an object to be loved on, he’s also a man with a heart, and it calls for something that Tawan isn’t even trying to give to him. Aran chases rest in love, to rest with love.
And then there’s Theerakit Kian Lee, CEO and rumored mafia, and he’s never had to chase anything.
He looks as if he looks down upon such a notion, like he was meant to be the trophy and the hand simultaneously. He looks fulfilled, complete, self-reliant in a way that Peach doesn’t want to examine too closely lest he spot something achingly familiar in its tapestry.
For Thee, there’s no chase, no race: he owns the stadium. Perhaps, more likely than Peach thinks, quite literally owns one.
And yet, it’s a mystifying comfort to watch him try to woo Aran, it’s almost a humanizing touch. Peach can’t help but feel satisfied to help him, but then he also goes home and immediately gathers his handpan in his lap, and he doesn’t understand why these two things feel related.
Peach, the one perennially behind the camera, outside the frame, away from drama, isolated in peace. Peach, who does not chase. Anything. He and Thee are similar in this way, and yet they lie on the opposite ends of the spectrum, if one exists.
Lately, though, there might be an … inching. An inkling towards a new direction. Thee has started his advances, and Peach, largely unaffected by whether or not Aran meets Thee in the middle, has turned around from his fixed position, too.
The frame is a closed story. It’s a teasing part of lips that whisper of secrets they won’t tell, gossip they won’t share but maybe someday soon if you’re patient. It holds, for the first time, an unknown beyond its borders that’s never been there before, not for Peach. He strains on the shot but cannot see where these pieces quite fit, almost as if there’s no meaning to them, as if he’s wrong to think that they fit anywhere at all.
In the frame there’s Aran, Tawan, and Thee. All three chase, chase, chase. Peach thinks he knows what he wants to happen next; if he could, he would turn the story into one that was the least painful for Aran. He would make Tawan more reasonable, if he could teach and scold him like he does Thee, but he knows Tawan would never obey even a single word out his mouth even with all the power he doesn’t have. He still has enough power over Peach, and he would use it to thwart him every step of the way. But Peach can’t help the wistfulness that blooms in him that if only he could teach Tawan to spread his palms in prayer, as you do before receiving temple offerings.
Or he would have Tawan give up this chasing altogether, and have Thee in his place instead. Peach is trying to show him how to hold his palms open towards the heaven, not curled in like fists ready to strike or squeeze. Reverently, with respect, to bow before your giver instead—the one who says yes to you, the one who promises to love you back—and hold them without force or fear. To receive love, not take it.
He finds himself surprised to admit, even to himself, that he can feel the possibility of Thee’s warmth as he holds the one most precious to him with care. The warmth of Thee’s imaginary hand lingers longer than any memories of far more intimate and real touches on Peach’s body.
If only.