Chapter Text
❄
When Keng woke up that morning, he wasn’t prepared for what was coming.
The house felt lonely, empty, and sad. Around him, everything was cold; it wasn’t the season for anything other than putting on the thickest coat he could find and walking around the house wearing it, since his new home had no heating. Even so, the cold air seeped into his bones, leaving him with a constant chill.
It was mid-November, and he still hadn’t gotten used to the new mattress —though it wasn’t really necessary, since on nights when he couldn’t fall asleep he would spend the time reading or writing—, the wooden floor that creaked with every step, the echo of silence when he closed the door after a day out, the view of the house across the street —whose owner he had discovered was deaf, which explained why the television was always on full volume—, and the stairs he had to climb to reach his bedroom on the second floor.
It was hard to adjust when you had been in a new city for less than a month and didn’t know anyone except the lady on the corner from whom you bought bread, and your eighty-year-old neighbor who spent his days watching television at maximum volume.
But that was better than thinking about the last two years. It was better to face that loneliness and move on than to feel trapped in a hamster wheel that had been so hard to escape.
It was very cold. And his heart felt frozen too.
At this time of day, his mother would be leaving breakfast on the table, and he would serve himself as much as he could before running off because he was late for university. His sister would still be asleep, since her program started an hour later.
Today wasn’t one of those days. His parents and sister were still in Phayao, continuing their everyday lives while he began a new routine 217 kilometers away, in Chiang Mai.
So there he was, in front of Chiang Mai University, made of beautiful white and cream concrete. A large university sign stood to his left, the same color as the building, with golden letters in Thai and English.
The university was very beautiful; it had wide open spaces that gave a sense of freedom and allowed one to enjoy nature amid so many demands and hours of weekly study.
People came and went: some on bicycles, others in cars, some walking, but all dressed in their white and gold uniforms. It was barely 7:30, but classes would start in half an hour, and Keng had to go to Administration first to get his schedule, since he had started a week later than planned.
As he began to move toward the building, a boy not much taller than him ran past, almost colliding with him and brushing shoulders. He dropped some papers, which he quickly picked up.
“Sorry, man. Ow. My girlfriend’s going to kill me.”
And he ran off into the building.
❄
The administration office was almost empty at that hour, all the students were rushing to their classes. There was no one at the desk in front, so Keng assumed that the person in charge arrived a little late.
It was a room not much bigger than the dining room in his house. The white walls highlighted the large wooden cabinet with glass doors that displayed several trophies, all perfectly aligned. In front of him hung the university flag, and around it, framed photographs of the faculty from each year covered every wall.
Despite its simplicity, those four walls seemed to hold a long history and a warmth that could only be found in a few places.
Keng stayed too long admiring the room and didn’t notice a boy standing in front of him, waiting silently and looking ahead.
“Hi” he decided to be friendly on his first day and stepped closer.
The boy in front of him jumped slightly and turned around quickly.
“Hi…” he replied to Keng, with a somewhat uncertain tone.
Keng said nothing for a second; his gaze continued to roam the walls full of pictures, stopping at a photo of a smiling woman with several young students beside her. He didn’t know what else to say to start a conversation with someone he didn’t know at all.
But the boy didn’t seem to mind.
“Do you know when someone will be here?” Keng asked. He felt his palms sweating inside the jacket he was wearing. “My classes start in half an hour, and I need my full schedule.”
“Mrs. Green said she’d be back in five minutes,” the boy replied. “Are you new here?”
Keng licked his lips and, before answering, decided to study him more closely. The boy beside him smiled kindly, but his eyes remained a little wider than usual, as if something about Keng had surprised him.
Everyone always told him he was too handsome not to make someone pause for a moment to admire him.
Keng nodded.
“Yes… it’s actually my first day. I’m in the Education program.”
“Education?” the boy repeated. He looked at him for a second, thoughtful. “Yeah, you do look like a teacher…”
“Thanks?”
The door on the left, which had remained closed until that moment, suddenly swung open, and a tall, slim woman appeared. She wore white linen pants, a loose black shirt to match, and black heels.
The woman seemed surprised for a second upon seeing them, but quickly composed herself.
“Oh! Hello!” she said, entering the room and sitting at her desk. She began typing on her computer. “Good morning. Do you need something?”
Keng kept his attention on her and leaned against the edge of the desk.
“Good morning. My name is Keng Harit. It’s my first day. Professor Zee said I would be picking up my class schedule.”
“Of course. Let me see…” She typed a few times on the keyboard and clicked a few buttons while frowning. “No… No, aha! Oh, no… Ah, yes, this one.”
She printed a sheet of paper, took it from the printer to her left, and handed it to Keng.
“Here you go.”
“Thank you very much,” Keng replied with a polite smile.
He was putting the paper in his bag when he noticed something. He looked to his left, then to his right, but there was no trace of the boy who had been with him in the room moments ago.
“Did something happen?” he heard Miss Green’s voice at his back.
Keng looked at her for a second. He hadn’t heard the door open. The boy was simply gone.
“Uh? No, nothing,” he said. A bell rang in the hallway; he had to get to class quickly. “Thanks, have a good day.”
❄
Two classes later, Keng was already exhausted. His first class had been Research Methodology, and he had nearly fallen asleep, but he managed to get through the hour with discreet yawns and a couple of nods. The second was Contemporary Learning Technology, and by then his mind was a little clearer, so his brain was able to retain much of the information his professor was presenting.
It wasn’t that the classes were boring; after all, Keng had chosen this major because it was what interested him most within the plans his parents had for him.
That wasn’t it. It was the fact that for months he had barely slept at night.
His anxiety came and went like a roller coaster, but it was worse when darkness fell; at night was when it peaked the most. He would close his eyes, but could barely keep them shut. Nothing he tried seemed to help him get even an hour of sleep: counting sheep, playing relaxing music, taking herbal remedies to calm himself… he even sprayed his pillow with a relaxation mist.
Sometimes he dreamed, sometimes he didn’t, but when he did, it was always the same memory.
December 2024.
Before his mind could get lost in memories of the past, in the middle of the university hallway on his way to the next class, he felt a shiver run down his spine —and a second later, the bell announcing the start of the next period rang. Students began moving down the hallway, entering their respective classrooms.
He had already glanced at his schedule, so he knew he had to enter through the door on the left, number 127.
When he entered, there was no professor at the front, but people were seated in their respective seats, chatting animatedly among themselves.
Keng entered, smiling at those who made eye contact and greeted him, and after a quick scan of the large room, he chose to sit all the way in the back, where several seats were empty.
He felt better without the unfamiliar presence of someone nearby.
As he took his things out of his bag, he unintentionally overheard a conversation a few seats ahead of him. Some girls were speaking quietly, trying not to draw attention; one of them —the short blonde—, seemed angry, while the other —the tall brunette— had a guilty expression on her face.
“…the other day too,” the blonde complained. “It’s the second time this week.”
The brunette looked more downcast than before. Her shoulders slumped as she began tapping the table with the pencil she was holding.
“I’m sorry. I promised. I want you to understand…”
The blonde sat up straight and looked forward.
“You promised me too. Two weeks ago, you were supposed to go to my birthday, but you didn’t show. And the week before, to go to the café like every Saturday. You didn’t show either.”
“I swear I’m sorry,” the brunette sighed.
“It’s fine, forget it.”
Keng felt like he was intruding on something he shouldn’t be seeing. His eyes were focused on his laptop in front of him, typing meaningless paragraphs in his notes. But he couldn’t stop paying attention.
“No. I’m really sorry.”
It seemed the blonde had reached her limit when she turned abruptly to her friend and exclaimed, angry:
“No. Lately, you don’t tell me anything, you just go out with him, we don’t even walk home together after university anymore. Don’t you realize he’s consuming all of you?”
Keng stopped listening at that moment.
It wasn’t the topic of the conversation itself that triggered something in his brain and replayed a moment from the past in his mind; it was the face of that brunette girl —her face—, exactly like the face of his friend back then.
2022
It was a little cold again. Keng could hear the quiet sounds of a Christmas carol through the large doors of the library. It wasn’t too loud, but it was there, resonating in his head.
There weren’t any big decorations or anything like that, not like it was in the big cities. In his city, Phayao, most —if not all of the population was Buddhist, so holidays like Christmas weren’t a major occasion for celebration in his town. It was more of a season for outdoor festivities, small decorations around the city to attract tourists, festivals, and visits to the temple to make offerings and gratitude ceremonies for the year coming to an end.
Keng checked the wall clock for the fifth time in an hour. The clock read 6:36 p.m., and he had already been waiting for over twenty minutes for his friend to appear through the door.
Through the windows, no light could be seen anymore, only the small glow of street lamps and some decorative lights.
It wasn’t unusual for his friend to be a little late, sometimes he arrived five minutes late, but it was unusual for him to be waiting nearly half an hour, especially without a single text message saying he was on his way.
Keng was a bit paranoid, so he imagined his friend could have been kidnapped on the way to the library and sold on the black market without him knowing.
Before he could even pull his phone out of his bag to call the local police, hurried footsteps and the sound of the door slamming opened echoed through the room.
Keng lifted his eyes from his laptop at the sudden noise just as Pung practically ran into the room.
His heart nearly jumped out of his chest in shock.
“Hi,” Pung said, quickly sitting down beside him at the empty table. Keng noticed that his face looked a bit pale, his hair was messy, and he was breathing heavily.
“Hi…” he replied. “Where were you? I’ve been waiting for half an hour.”
Pung pulled his things out of his backpack while responding quickly.
“Sorry. Chemistry class ran longer than expected. I didn’t realize it was so late.”
Keng sighed. “Couldn’t you have sent me a text or something?”
“My battery died.”
Keng watched him for a moment as he put his jacket on his seat and turned on his laptop. He still sensed something off in his friend’s slightly flustered behavior, but he
didn’t want to probe. Everyone has bad days.
He decided to let it go. For now.
“Don’t worry. I have my charger in my bag if you want to charge your phone in the meantime. And later we can go grab something to eat if you want.”
“Yeah, that’d be nice.” Pung gave him a genuine smile.
While they went over the assignments they needed to submit in class by Friday, Keng had practically finished everything, since he had used the half hour waiting for Pung to get almost everything done.
He stole a few glances at his friend without him noticing. Pung was too absorbed in his laptop to notice. Keng noticed his friend’s body was slightly tense, his hands typing somewhat rigidly.
Though he seemed to be breathing normally.
“You okay?”
Pung blinked a couple of times and smiled.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s just a little warm in here, don’t you think?”
Keng wasn’t warm. In fact, as the day went on, the temperature was dropping.
“Hey,” he leaned back in his chair as he spoke. “Mom asked if you’d come by this weekend. You haven’t been over in a while, and she says she misses you. We’ll go visit the temple.”
Pung pouted slightly.
“I miss her too.”
“So? Are you coming then?”
“I have an exam next week, but I’ll try to come Saturday. If that’s okay with you.”
“Yeah, of course,” Keng replied happily. “As long as it makes her happy and she can feed you her desserts.”
At that moment, a loud noise came from outside the door. A couple of boys passed by, talking and laughing loudly, glancing into the library where Keng, Pung, and a few others were quietly working.
The boys looked in the direction of Keng and Pung and started laughing even louder.
Keng felt his friend sigh heavily beside him. He turned his head and saw how Pung’s body, which had been relaxed before, tensed again. He wasn’t looking toward the door, but he was clearly conscious about the presence.
The boys soon disappeared, the laughing turning a distant sound in his ear. Keng didn’t want to ask questions at a moment like this, seeing how badly his friend seemed to be feeling, so he decided to change the subject.
“So, chemistry…”
But the uneasy feeling in his stomach stayed with him all the way home, and so did the sad expression on his friend’s face.
He knew there was something Pung wasn’t telling him.
❄
For a brief moment, Keng didn’t know where he was. It was the combined effect of the faint echo of a soft voice to his right blending with the voices of his classmates, the bright lights of the room, and the noise that had suddenly pulled him back to reality.
It took him a few seconds, blinking repeatedly, until his gaze could focus on his hands again, which were trembling slightly. His heart was beating so fast he felt it might
burst out of his chest in front of the entire class.
For the love of God… not again…
He tried to keep his breathing steady, inhaling and exhaling carefully so that his body language wouldn’t reveal that something was wrong.
Wasn’t he supposed to have moved kilometers away from home to get past this crap?
Then he heard that soft voice again beside him:
“Hi, are you okay?”
Keng quickly turned toward the owner of the voice —something he shouldn’t have done so fast in his state, as it gave him a headache and he had to blink rapidly again to control the sudden dizziness.
“Y-yes! No, no, I mean yes. I’m fine.”
The truth was, he felt a little dizzy. He normally dreamed about Pung at night. Some dreams were memories, and others were silly dreams where they simply sat and talked about nonsense.
Keng looked forward again and blinked gently; his classmates were still busy with their own things, paying him no attention whatsoever, and even the girls from before seemed to have let their guard down, chatting animatedly.
The boy waited a second, seeing that Keng was regaining composure, and spoke softly again:
“Do you want me to get you some water? You look a little pale.”
Keng tried to act as calm as possible in response.
“Oh. No, no. I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
“Are you sure?” the boy asked, his gaze remaining on him, though he still didn’t seem entirely convinced when Keng nodded in response. “Alright then…”
“Thanks, uh…”
“Namping,” he replied with a warm smile.
“Namping,” Keng repeated slowly. “Thanks. My name’s Keng.”
The boy smiled, leaning slightly toward him.
“I know.”
“Eh?”
Keng stopped what he was doing; now that he had calmed down and could breathe a little better, he could pay more attention to the boy beside him.
He was a handsome boy. Dark hair, pale skin, a soft and beautiful face, and he smiled gently at Keng.
“This morning,” Namping repeated. Keng looked at him, confused —he didn’t remember what he was asking, but the boy had very pretty eyes.
Namping spoke again, noticing his confused expression: “In the administration office. I was the one with you.”
Keng hesitated for a moment before replying, yes, he remembered the boy, but he hadn’t really noticed him until now.
“Ah, yes! It’s you. You disappeared so quickly, I didn’t see you…”
“Sorry,” he said, in a voice so soft and warm that Keng felt sleepy instantly, “I was in a rush to get to my first class. And it seemed like you needed to talk to Mrs. Green more than I did.”
Keng didn’t know what else to do but nod and thank him quietly. He smiled at the boy beside him, and the boy smiled back, giving him a warm look.
They couldn’t talk more because the professor entered the room at that moment. Until then, Keng had felt as if he were in a bubble that suddenly burst. He quickly glanced at the watch on his wrist; the professor had arrived almost seven minutes late.
They didn’t speak again for the rest of the class, but Keng felt his presence beside him.