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Baku didn’t think of himself as a cruel person. He could be violent when the situation called for it but he never intentionally chose to be hurtful. But now Gotak was suffering and Baku was the cause. It felt like Baku was always the cause behind Gotak’s suffering.
He walks into the clinic and almost immediately spots Gotak standing in the waiting area with Gayool. Gotak hadn’t gone to school for a couple of days, laying low with a bad case of toothache and receiving treatment at the dentist's clinic. He had been strangely reluctant to share details with Baku and refused to speak to him because “it hurt to talk”. Baku had finally tracked him down to the clinic after pestering Gotak’s mother.
Gotak looks at him now with a resigned expression on his face. The mix of affection and exasperation on it doesn’t miss Baku’s attention.
“Ya, Gotak-a! Didn’t I always tell you not to have so many of those sticky toffees?” Baku says loudly, striding up to him. He spares a cursory nod for Gayool, trying to tamp down on his irritation that Gotak chose to bring him rather than Baku. He doesn’t want to inspect those feelings now.
“You shouldn’t have come Baku,” Gotak says with a sigh. Everything about him looks so soft now, as though his edges have been worn down. His hair, his slightly swollen face, his tired eyes. He looks fragile.
Baku can never resist draping an arm over Gotak and especially not now, when he looks so … when he looks like he needs to be protected.
“Why?” he teases, “You trying to avoid me?” he grins, even as his arm tightens around Gotak’s shoulders. He knows he is skirting close to dangerous territory. He knows why Gotak looks at him with so much meaning in those crescent eyes but doesn’t reply.
He suddenly realises that their faces are so close together that he can only focus on individual features – Gotak’s eyes, his nose, his mouth. He has pulled Gotak so close to his chest he is almost hugging him. His arm feels heavy where it rests on Gotak.
He becomes aware of Gayool looking at them.
“Baku”, Gotak begins, but Baku can’t bear to hear what he might say. Because he doesn’t know how to answer Gotak.
“Probably hurts to talk right now, right,” he says instead, as he loosens his hold and steps back. He gets the medicines Gotak is waiting for and then asks Gayool take him home. The hurt on Gotak’s face is more than he can bear.
What is this strange push and pull he is trapped in, Baku thinks to himself. It reminds him of waves on the seashore – sweeping close to the shore and then pulling away. But taking away a bit of the shore with each retreat. Just like he is eroding Gotak every time he comes close to him but doesn’t give him what he wants. He hates that he is the reason why Gotak is unhappy. Has been unhappy for a while now. But Baku is also unable to love him the way he wants to be loved. And he is too selfish to stay away from his best friend.
Baku knows Gotak loves him. Not as a friend but as something more. He suspected it almost a year back when Gotak had gone half-crazy searching for him at Daesung Motors. Now he knows for sure. It’s not that hard to guess because Gotak is not really trying to hide it anymore. And Gotak knows that Baku probably knows. Sometimes they lock eyes and Baku can barely look away.
But Baku continues to deflect. He knows he likes girls. He’s sure about that – his body has proven to him over and over how attracted he is to girls. And he has never really thought of boys like that. But then, Gotak is different from everyone else. He is Baku’s closest friend – except that ‘friend’ feels like an inadequate word for what he is to Baku. He is the keeper of Baku’s secrets, an extension of his own self in many ways, someone who knows Baku better than himself sometimes. But is that love? Is that the kind of love that Gotak feels for him? Baku is too afraid to contemplate the possibilities – about who he is, about what it might mean and about everything that could go wrong.
Putting some distance between them seems to be the obvious answer. Not hanging around together too much. Except that it never seems to work. Baku tried it but it was hard to even understand what ‘too much’ even meant when it came to his friendship with Gotak. When he tried pulling even further away, it felt like he was rejecting Gotak and destroying their friendship anyway. Gotak seemed to shrink into himself whenever Baku pulled stunts like that. And Baku hated to see him like a shadow of himself.
And when Gotak tries to maintain some distance, no doubt aware by now his feelings are unreciprocated, Baku himself sabotages it. Like how being away from Gotak for two days, not seeing him or hearing his voice had driven him crazy enough to track down the dentist’s clinic through Gotak’s mother. So he continues to run away from and run back to Gotak, just like the tides that sweep the seashore – always pulling, always retreating and always coming back.
One evening, Gotak comes to Baku Fried Chicken when Baku is manning the restaurant, because his Appa is away. Baku can see on his face that he is going to talk about IT. In many ways, Gotak has always been a lot braver than him.
“Baku-yah”, Gotak says softly. “I have to tell you something.”
Baku’s hands turn clammy. He thinks desperately about how he can avoid this conversation. He wishes he could go back in time to when things were uncomplicated and all he had to worry about was the Union.
But in the end, he says nothing because delaying this will do nothing except hurt Gotak more. So he stands there is the empty restaurant, in his BFC apron, heart thumping in his chest looking at Gotak.
“I like you Baku. I… I love you”, Gotak says in a rush, as if he can’t hold the words in any longer. “Not just as a friend. But as a boy.”
Baku feels himself turn hot and cold all over. There is a strange rushing noise in his ears as if he can hear the very blood pumping through his veins. His tongue feels glued to the roof of his mouth.
Gotak, oddly enough, looks relieved. He looks expectantly at Baku and then tries to school his face to be more neutral. Baku is well-versed in reading Gotak’s face.
Gotak takes a shaky breath and starts again, “I know you probably don’t feel the same way…” A pause, an opportunity. “But I just had to tell you…”
Baku is on the verge of breaking. Gotak’s face has turned pale as if he just realizes he has done something irrevocable to their friendship. Heartache is beginning to cloud his eyes once more. Even now, Baku just wants to hold him in his arms, to tell him it will be okay. He has a mad thought that maybe he should just give Gotak what he wants. Maybe what they both want isn’t very different...
The bell above the restaurant door chimes as a group of laughing students enter. Baku and Gotak look towards them in surprise, both perhaps realizing that the world continues to turn even when you are standing still.
Baku is jolted into action as they call out to him. He doesn’t know if he feels relieved or frustrated. He turns to tell Gotak they will talk about this later. But Gotak is already making his way out the door.
Baku doesn’t contact Gotak again that night. For one thing it’s late by the time he finally has some free time. For another, his head is so jumbled, he doesn’t know what he would say if Gotak wanted to speak to him. Baku thinks maybe he IS a cruel person. What else could one say about a boy who lets a love confession by his closest friend go unanswered?
Gotak doesn’t come to school the next day. He doesn’t reply to Baku’s texts. When Baku finally builds up the courage to call him, he doesn’t answer. Gayool doesn’t seem to know anything either, no matter how much Baku grills him.
“You need to figure your shit out, man”, Gayool says cryptically.
By the third day of Gotak’s absence, Baku is ready to climb the walls. Where is Gotak? Is this the end of their relationship? What if Gotak transfers to a different school and he never sees him again? The thought makes him nauseous. He tries calling Gotak’s mother a couple of times but she doesn’t answer. Baku wonders if she knows what Baku has done to her son. How he has hurt him while acting as his friend.
He decides to bite the bullet and go to Gotak’s home. They have to talk about this. Baku still doesn’t have any answers but he can’t leave Gotak like this.
No one answers the door when Baku knocks and his stomach churns in panic. He’s gone, he’s left you, his mind whispers as he paces around the house. Then he sees a dim light in Gotak’s bedroom.
It’s a simple matter to climb up the low shed roof, wiggle the window latch and climb into the bedroom as he has done so many times before. The room smells slightly stale and the house is eerily silent. Gotak lies on his bed and is facing the wall, his bedclothes twisted around his legs.
“Gotak”, Baku whispers first softly and then a bit more loudly when the other boy doesn’t move. Gotak still lies there lie a rag doll, his hair sticking up and his face buried into a pillow. Cold fingers clutch Baku’s heart as he steps towards the bed. He sits on the edge of the bed and grasps one foot. It is warm to the touch.
Gotak finally stirs and turns towards him, squinting in confusion.
He looks terrible. His face is swollen and his eyes are red-rimmed and barely staying open. Baku moves closer to him and cups his face. His skin is burning with fever.
“Baku”, he sighs in relief, recognizing him. Then, confusingly, “Did you win the match?”
Baku frowns, brushing back Gotak’s damp hair from his sweaty forehead. “Gogo, you have high fever. We need to go to a doctor”.
Gotak just mumbles something and closes his eyes. Baku leaves to poke around in the medicine cabinet for some paracetamol and gets a glass of water. He wonders where Gotak’s mother is, if she knows he is so unwell. She probably doesn’t know. Unlike Baku’s father, Gotak’s mother actually cares about her son.
“C’mon, Gogo, sit up… just take the medicine and you’ll feel much better”, Baku coaxes Gotak as he slides his arms around his torso to lift him up.
“Baku”, Gotak sighs again, lifting up and then wrapping his arms around Baku’s neck tightly.
Baku cannot help return the embrace, pressing the feverish body to his. Finally, for what feels like the first time in many days, Baku feels calm. He buries his face in Gotak’s neck, uncaring of the smell of stale sweat, the damp T-shirt, the hot breath against his skin. He runs one hand through Gotak’s unwashed hair and rubs the other over his back. Gotak has lost so much weight, he can almost count his ribs.
He doesn’t know how long they sit like that, just comforting each other in silence.
Eventually, Baku gets Gotak dressed, carries him on his back to the hospital and calls his mother. She rushes back from her workplace to the hospital, only to find Gotak sleeping peacefully while Baku sits beside him keeping watch.
Gotak recovers soon enough once he gets the right medication. The fever was because of an infection caused by his dental problems. The doctors say his general immunity is weak, perhaps due to stress. His mother says he has not been eating properly.
Baku doesn’t want to leave his side, no matter what Gotak says. He can’t explain it – all he thinks about is Gotak lying sick in bed, almost wasting away after telling Baku he loved him. He cannot follow this trail of thought to any conclusion. All he knows is that he needs to be there with Gotak.
It is morning and Gotak is sitting up in the hospital bed and looking a lot more clear-eyed. There is some colour in his cheeks now, his mother is relieved to see. Of course, that might be because Baku is feeding him porridge. Gotak’s mother knows her son well.
“Baku”, Gotak chides in a tired voice. His eyes betray him, filled with fondness and saying so much more than his words could.
“Just one more spoonful”, Baku coaxes him, with a smile.
They lock eyes and the world falls away.