Chapter Text
Two years into their relationship, Thame and Po were the golden couple – perfectly crafted by an idol and the mind behind his creative persona.
Thame had never felt anything like what he felt for Po – a tremendous, steady sense of love, respect and comfort for someone he called home. Po taught him the meaning of love in quiet and gentle ways - like the way he would leave a lamp on in the darkness when Thame came home late, the tupperwares packed thoughtfully with food when he knew Thame would come home skipping meals. The random messages of mundane life updates that always meant I’m thinking of you. The way Po would pull him down to rest his head on Po’s lap, fingers threading gently through his hair while soft melodies hummed under his breath whenever the world outside grew too loud. Their lives had simply folded into each other, naturally, seamlessly.
Po never met anyone like Thame – bright, strong and impossibly certain of himself. Po was never meant for Thame’s world, and yet, he chose to stay beside it. Shaping it. Enhancing it. Quietly, deliberately, without ever stepping into its light. He made the star shine brighter without people knowing.
There was comfort in being invisible to the public eye. He wasn’t too keen about having to measure himself against the impossible standards that came with Thame’s life – every smile, every word, every moment could be interpreted in millions ways until it meant something else entirely.
And still, despite how different their worlds were, they built something that felt real.
Thame, idol of millions, always came back to Po like it was instinct. Back to his arms that felt like rest. Back to a space that smelled faintly of coffee grounds and clean linen. Those nights of quiet, unguarded closeness were the only thing grounding Thame, keeping him from slipping into overdrive from the chaos in the daytime, like an anchor in rushing waters.
Po, who spent most of his life behind the scenes, found a spotlight he didn’t want to hide from. With Thame, he could simply be. Thame never stopped choosing him, never failed to make Po the centre of his world. His love was open, easy, unwavering. And Po never allowed the same doubt and insecurity that occupied most of his adulthood take shape in his life with Thame.
Their relationship has always been effortless. Easy, like the most convincing illusion – one that felt too real to break, too real to fickle. Two years built on small, unspoken assurances, instinctive routines - the kind of love that never demanded dramatics, because it had never given them a reason to question it.
But illusions are still illusions - superficial, fragile, breakable.
When cracks form beneath the surface, they usually are easily dismissable – forming quietly beneath familiarity, beneath routine, beneath beneath the imaginary day-to-days that seemed steady enough to withstand anything. Hairline fractures, subtle enough to go unnoticed – until they aren’t.
And Thame never thought to look for them.
Not even when Mint magnified all of them within a single week of her arrival.
Mint x Mars - upcoming collaboration between the two hottest names in the industry.
Fresh face, bright eyes - Mint arrived like the girl-next-door, a presence easy to accept because she slipped seamlessly into spaces that already existed. She was what you would picture the national sweetheart to be, everything the industry loved - soft in the right places, effortlessly radiant, naturally beautiful – impossible to compete with. There was nothing overtly threatening about her at first glance, not with those doe eyes, easy smiles and gentle voices. Her quiet confidence came from knowing exactly how she was perceived and knowing how to use it without ever looking like she was trying.
When Mint set her eyes on Thame, the charming leader of Mars, she was ready to pull every single play in her book to get him, regardless of the cost, regardless of who it cost.
Work was the easiest starting point. Public. Justifiable. Meetings that made sense on schedules, discussions that stretched a little longer into the quiet of nights, photoshoots that took more time than necessary – more touch, more contact, more chemistry.
And Po was in every single one of them, holding his clipboard and tablet close while he worked through every angle and frame of the partnership. Mint had been attentive then, asking the right questions, nodding at the right moments, her focus placed where it should have been. On the work.
But somewhere along the way, the focus shifted.
Meetings became more frequent. Groups smaller, contained and selective. There were times Po would walk past one of the smaller conference rooms and catch sight of them through the glass – Thame crossing his legs, leaning back to his seat too comfortably, shoulders relaxed in a way he rarely allowed himself at work. Beside him, Mint leaned slightly closer than necessary, her expression engaged, eyes focused and unwavering, like Thame was the only one she could see. There was nothing outrightly wrong about that, nothing that could be pointed out without sounding unreasonable, nothing that crossed a line that could be clearly drawn.
Just proximity. Just comfort. Po convinced himself it was just work. That it was normal. Chemistry needed proximity, collaboration needed comfort.
Still, Po can’t help but notice. He always did.
It always started small – insignificant things that wouldn’t even draw attention, things that could be easily dismissed if he chose to. Thame’s phone buzzed more frequently. Thame never hid anything from Po, but that didn’t always feel like reassurance.
“Hey P Thame, this concept is so good. Should we try it?”
“I have a new idea. Free to talk?”
“I tried the new concept yesterday. Thanks for the advice.”
Then gradually…
“Look at this silly cat P’Thame”
“I’m grabbing coffee from this viral cafe. One for you too?”
“Where are you now P’Thame?”
Like darkness creeping over the porch during quiet evenings.
Thame would respond easily, fingers moving out of instinct, attention shifting in and out of conversation with Po like it was nothing. Just work. He knew it wasn’t Thame’s fault, he had no reason to doubt how Thame felt about him, about them. But he couldn’t help himself.
“What’s that about?” Po asked absentmindedly, voice almost inaudible as he kept the tone as casual as he could.
Thame glanced up briefly, unfazed. “Just work stuff. Mint has so many ideas.”
No elaboration, no details, just a single statement was enough. Po nodded like it was.
And this, whatever this was, kept happening..
Same pattern, different forms.
Calls that happened during private times.
Conversations that stretched beyond working hours.
Meetings that occurred multiple times in a single day.
“It’s Mint, she wants to talk about the shoot.”
“I’ll be back soon, she wants to schedule in a concept change”
“We are brainstorming some ideas for the launch”
The words settled uncomfortably in Po’s chest. Not sharp enough to cut but not blunt enough to ignore. Po knew Thame didn’t cross any lines but he felt wrong regardless, like their rhythm has gradually shifted into something else entirely. But there was nothing he could push against without feeling like he was making something out of nothing.
And maybe he was.
Thame never hid anything. That was the thing that made it harder to question, harder to confront. Everything was laid out in front of Po, Thame’s phone was always within reach, conversations always within earshot, meetings always in public spaces. There were no secrets when it came to Thame - open and transparent.
So Po asked another time, eyes still on his phone as he scrolled casually, pretending like he wasn’t holding in his breath waiting for Thame’s answer, tone deliberately light.
“Just discussing the launch plans. Nothing much.” Thame answered in the same monotone, relaxed, absentminded manner.
And there was it, the answer.
Po’s heart squeezed at the end of the statement. It was right, casual, but devastating.
Nothing was wrong with their interaction. Po asked, Thame answered, but somewhere between the interaction, something was missing. It wasn’t lies, not avoidance either.
Just…absence.
Po felt the weight growing ever so subtly in him.
Moments between Mint and Thame were becoming harder to ignore every passing day. He would see them together at every instant, every turn of the corner – discussing ideas, trying concepts, Po would find himself catching the tail end of an inside joke only shared between Thame and Mint, watching the way Mint’s hand would brush Thame’s arm for a split second when they laughed - easy, familiar, like it had always been.
The gnawing realization settled in Po – Thame never reacted to it. Never leaned into it, but never pulled away either. He simply accepted it, the way he accepted most things – without reading into it, without questioning the space it occupied, like it was harmless.
And it should have been harmless.
But after the thousandth times Po told himself that, the words began to lose meaning.
“Another call?” Po asked like a silent prayer, praying just once, Thame would ignore it.
“Yes. It wouldn’t take long. Promise!” Thame kissed Po on his cheek before moving to their bedroom to continue.
Po nodded, the motion small, almost imperceptible.
“Okay.” he said, more to himself than to anyone else.
“Okay.”
He didn’t say anything else, didn’t ask anything else either. He didn’t say that it had already been three nights this week during dinner times. He didn’t say that the space beside him on the couch had been empty more often than not, that the quiet they used to share had been replaced with the faint murmur of conversations happening just out of reach.
He didn’t say that he had started noticing the way he would glance at the door more often now, waiting without meaning to, listening for the turn of doorknobs that came later and later each night.
Because nothing had actually changed. Not in any way that could be named as problematic. Not in any way that Thame would recognize as an issue.
So Po kept it all in, and in the space where his words should have been, something else began to take root instead – quiet, deadly, and just sharp enough to make itself known when he least wanted to feel it.
____
The message came late at night that Po didn’t question it at first.
He was dating the leader of the most popular idol group in Thailand, it wasn’t unusual for Thame to grab his jacket halfway through dinner, phone pressed between his shoulder and ear as he murmured something about an urgent meeting, discussion, try-outs, an appearance that wouldn’t take too long. Po had only looked up briefly when it happened, smiling gently with the same quiet understanding.
“Don’t wait up,” Thame added as he moved out the door of their apartment.
Po had hummed in response, not quite agreeing, not quite refusing. He watched as the door shut, Thame’s backview disappearing behind it, and sat there a moment longer than necessary before letting his gaze fall back to the table, the food now looked unbearably stale and bland.
It was normal. Just another work thing. Just another night with Po blanking out into empty spaces alone. But something about the way Thame left lingered in Po’s mind.
He didn’t follow the thought, didn’t want to.
__________________
The bar was louder than Thame expected, but it wasn’t unfamiliar – a place where appearances, celebrations, or work that blurred into something more social occurred regularly. His gaze instinctively searched for the rest of his members when he stepped inside. They were nowhere in sight.
Instead, he found the only familiar figure there. Mint.
Tucked neatly into a booth, settled like she had arrived long ago. When she spotted Thame, her lips curled instantaneously, eyes sparkled and face brightened like Thame brought light to darkness.
“You’re late,” she said, tone teasing. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
Thame paused for a moment, the words not quite aligning with what he had been told, but the confusion didn’t settle long enough to take shape. He smiled instead, easy, polite, slipping into the seat across from her without resistance.
“I thought the others would be here,” he admitted, glancing briefly around again as if they would walk in any given moment.
Mint tilted her head slightly before letting out a small, almost amused breath. “Oh… I guess the memo didn’t get to them.” She shrugged, unbothered, “But it’s okay. I guess it’s easier this way? We can actually talk.”
It made sense.
Thame nodded, accepting the explanation because there was no reason not to. Work often took shape like this, plans changed, people changed, he adapted. He didn’t think to question who had changed them.
The conversation flowed easily after, slipping between work and something lighter without a clear boundary separating the two. Mint had genuinely thoughtful ideas, aligned with Po’s creative direction without missing anything. Thame found himself getting more invested and engaged in their conversation than he had expected, leaning forward slightly as they bounced ideas off each other, letting the noise of the bar fading into something distant as their focus narrowed.
Mint laughed often, soft and bright, the sound cutting cleanly through the music. Each time, she leaned in just a little, like she needed to close the distance to be heard, her hand brushing lightly against his arm in passing, lingering for a second longer than necessary before pulling away. It was fleeting. Easy to miss if no one was looking for it.
Thame didn’t pull back. Not because he chose not to, but because he didn’t notice something amiss in the first place.
So Mint took that as a subtle invite - she shifted closer, arms brushing faintly, shoulder pressing lightly against his. The screen glowed between them. Thame’s attention fixed stubbornly on the content, not the proximity, not the way their heads dipped closer together, not the way the angle of it looked from across the room.
He didn’t see the cameras, didn’t notice the way phones were gathering too close, half-raised, waiting, watching, didn’t catch the minor shift in Mint’s posture when she felt the shift in the surrounding, the smirk at the side of her mouth.
Thame was working.
“I'm really glad it’s just us tonight,” Mint said, hinting something that could have meant more for someone, someone else other than Thame.
Thame hummed lightly, oblivious to the signals. “Yeah… it was easier to talk without too much noise in the room.”
The words overlapped, mismatched in meaning but aligned enough in words.
When they prepared to leave, Mint faltered just slightly in the moment she stood up, enough to draw attention but not enough to cause concern. Her hand came up instinctively, fingers curling lightly around Thame’s arm as she tried to steady herself.
“Sorry,” she murmured, a small, breathy laugh following the word. “I think I stood up too fast.”
“It’s okay. Are you good to head home by yourself?” Thame brushed it off, adjusting his stance to support her without a second thought. His hand involuntarily hovered near her waist for a brief uncertain moment, before settling lightly at her back.
Then it happened.
The flash came sharp and blinding, cutting through the dim light of the bar with sudden intensity one after another. Murmurs intensified – excited, overlapping, the unmistakable sound of recognition spreading.
Thame froze, caught off guard, his grip loosening immediately as he stepped back, confusion plastered across his face. But Mint didn’t step away as quickly. She turned slightly instead, angling herself just enough that the cameras caught her profile, the soft curve of her smile, the way she remained close without needing to reach for him again.
By the time Thame gathered what was actually happening and what it looked like to others, nothing could be done.
“Oops, guess they caught us,” Mint said lightly, like it had been inevitable.
“Yeah, looks like it” Thame coughed as he exhaled a quiet breath, running a hand through his hair. They were idols and it was only normal for people to recognize them, no matter how private they made things to be.
But, he didn’t think to question how, didn’t think to question why.
He just moved forward, like he always did, composed and polite, unaware of the way his ignorance had already begun to take on a life of its own.
________________
Back at the apartment, only a single lamp shone through the stilled darkness.
Po stayed where he was after Thame left for a while longer, seated at the table with his hands loosely wrapped around a cup that had long since gone cold. He didn’t move to clear it, didn’t reach for his phone, didn’t turn on the television to fill the silence. He just sat there, eyes unfocused, listening to nothing in particular.
It won’t take long.
Thame had said it so easily, like he always did. Casual. Assuring. Certain in a way that used to make it feel safe to believe.
Po desperately held that thought to anchor him, hoping to let it settle somewhere steady in his chest. It wasn’t unusual. It had happened before. It would happen again. Tonight wasn’t any different.
He didn’t check the time. He didn’t check anything. Not until a buzz pulled his concentration.
It wasn’t from Thame. It was a notification from social media.
The disappointment crept in but disappeared before it could settle.
He’s busy. Working.
Po stared at the lit screen for a second longer than necessary, fingers stilled mid-movement. Something in his chest squeezed just slightly, not enough to hurt, just enough to cripple.
He tapped it anyway. Three photos.
Two figures. Blurred. Close.
Too close.
The first photo was arguable, could have been interpreted innocently if one tried to, wanted to. Thame seated beside Mint, both leaned towards a shared screen. It could be work, was definitely work…
The second…
Po’s breath caught, sharp and sudden, the air stalled somewhere in his lungs as his fingers tightened unconsciously around the phone.
Mint was closer this time, much closer. Her body angled towards Thame in a way that left no doubt to anyone at the absence of space between them entirely. Her shoulder rested against his, her head tilted just enough that it looked like she was speaking directly into him, not to him. His jacket was draped over her frame, a forgotten gentlemanly gesture when Mint said she was cold in the bar earlier. Now the image of them both stood soft….intimate.
Yes, Thame wasn’t leaning in. But he wasn’t pulling away either. He was just… there. Comfortable. Present. Unaware.
The third photo made Po’s stomach drop. They were standing, her hand curled gently around his forearm, her body tilted into Thame’s space like she belonged there. His hand hovered at her back, close enough to contact, close enough to imply something more.
The room around Po closed in, walls pressing closer without moving, the air thickening in a way that made it difficult for air to move in and out of him. Po locked his phone, he knew nothing was as bad as it seemed, Thame was nothing like that, he wouldn’t have done anything close to what these pictures suggested. His fingers loosened their grip and let the device slip slightly off his hand…like letting the increasing weight of the phone, the photos, his chest, his heart slip away.
The knot in his chest tightened further, not abrupt, not sharp, just… heavy. Like something had settled there without asking, something that didn’t belong but refused to leave. It wasn’t anger, not betrayal.
Something quieter, something far worse.
It won’t take long.
Thame’s voice rang in his ears. The thought of Thame stepping foot out their apartment in hurried footsteps and eager demeanour surfaced again. But it was weaker now, thinner, like it had been worn down by time.
Hours later, the door opened quietly.
Thame stepped in with the same careful ease he always does during late night returns. His movements would instinctively soften, his actions muted as if he was afraid of disturbing the silence of someone resting at home.
“Hey,” Thame said softly, voice low, gentle in the quiet of the apartment as he saw Po still seated on the couch. “You’re still up.” he said gently as he moved towards Po on the couch,
Po blinked at him. For just a split second, something flickered across Po’s expression, pressed against the back of his eyes like a sting – but he held it back, letting his face smoothed out into something neutral, something unreadable.
“Yeah,” Po replied, just as soft. “I was waiting for you.”
Thame smiled at that, feeling the warm and familiar feeling like it was certain, like Po would always be waiting. He leaned in, taking in Po’s familiar scent of clean linen and planted a brief kiss to his hair.
“Sorry, it took longer than I thought,” he apologized, voice warm, but not enough to carry weight.
“It’s alright,” Po said.
And he meant it. Or at least, he didn’t know how to say that it wasn’t.
They settled back in bed to rest for the night without much else said, muscle memory taking over where words didn’t, quiet and practiced as they settled into something that should have felt familiar.
In bed, Thame reached for Po instinctively like he always did. His arm slid easily around Po’s waist to pull him close against his chest and fitted against him like it had always been the most natural place to be. His breath was warm against the back of Po’s neck, steady, unguarded, already beginning to slow as exhaustion pulled at him from all sides.
“Goodnight, P’Po”, Thame whispered at the side of Po’s ear as his lips pressed on a small spot of Po’s shoulder for a kiss.
Po didn’t reply, fearing that his voice would break at his words. He laid still for a moment. Then, slowly, gradually, a movement so faint to be noticed - Po shifted. Not far enough to break contact completely. Not enough to draw attention. Just enough to create space so his heart could breathe.
Thame didn’t move or stir, his hold remained loose, unmoving. His breathing evened out as sleep took him quickly and easily.
Po stayed awake. Eyes open in the dark, fixed on a corner on the ceiling. The distance between them now small enough to ignore, big enough to sting. For the first time in a long time, his home, the one person he always leaned on, always counted on, didn’t feel like home.
The next morning didn’t come with clarity, not for Po at least. The light just shifted indifferently, transforming but without really changing, like the night before hadn’t altered something between them that refused to settle back into place even in the daylight. Everything was the same, their bed, their room, their apartment, their shared blanket…Thame too. Even the air carried the same quiet. Even the space between them, at a glance, hadn’t changed enough to be noticed.
Thame woke first. He always did, years of idol training ingrained in his body. For a second, he stayed still, eyes half-lidded as he adjusted to the light, his arm still draped loosely across where Po lay beside him. The warmth of Po in his arms felt familiar, reassuring in the way it always had been.
He tightened his hold slightly, a small instinctive motion, pulling Po closer without fully waking. But Po just didn’t lean in the way he used to, didn’t soften into it, didn’t fit the way he always had. It was just a subtle shift in tension, something that could have been explained away by sleep, by exhaustion, or by nothing at all.
Po didn’t pull away. He didn’t push back. He just… wasn’t the same.
Something in Thame paused.A flicker. Quick. Unformed. He blinked, the awareness passing through him so swift he didn’t try to hold onto it. He simply leaned in, pressed his face briefly into the back of Po’s head, letting the familiarity of it override the thought before it could settle into something heavier.
“I’ll be late tonight,” he said as he sat up, voice still hoarse with sleep, casual in a way that assumed the conversation didn’t need more. “New concept that Mint thought of. We need to lock that down.”
Po didn’t respond immediately.
He lay there for a second longer, mind whirling with chaos, before turning his head slightly, just enough to look at Thame.
“What’s it about?” he asked, the words sounding repulsively repetitive now to Po.
Thame reached for his phone, already focusing attention on the notifications as he responded, not noticing the desperate curiosity Po let out. “Just refining some concepts. The chat with Mint yesterday helped, so we’re working on that today.”
A beat passed. Thame felt it.
He glanced up, briefly, catching the way Po was looking at him, soft and gentle.
Po held his gaze for a moment longer, like he was searching for something in the answer that wasn’t there.
Thame’s fingers paused over his screen for half a second.
“Shouldn’t take too long,” he added, almost as an afterthought. It sounded like reassurance.
Po nodded.
“Okay,” he said quietly.
And that was it.
—--
On Thame’s phone, the photos appeared, post after post as they spread faster than he would have expected. He scrolled through them with a slight furrow in his brows, not alarmed, just… registering. The narrative built itself effortlessly.
By the time Thame saw it, it had already become something larger than the moment it captured, spun in thousands of ways that were far from what actually happened.
The comments were relentless in speculations
[Gosh did anyone see the hand on her back?]
[Told y’all they were dating]
[THEY LOOK PERFECT TOGETHER]
[Are we disturbing something? The photos feel so….private]
Even still, he didn’t react the way Po thought he might. There was no panic. No urgency. No immediate attempt to explain.
No truths to say.
Thame just… looked at the photos. And scrolled. When he paused briefly on one of the images, the one where they were seated close, shoulders touching, Mint’s head tilted slightly toward him then.
“We look nice,” he said. The words slipped out before he thought to weigh them – absentmindedly, casual, almost reflexive.
The moment they landed, something in the room shifted.
Po froze.
A beat passed.
“What?” Po asked, voice softened to a whisper, held together by restraint.
Thame glanced at Po, expression unchanged - neutral and calm.
“The photos,” he clarified, tilting his phone slightly in Po’s direction, as if sufficient to clear Po’s confusion. “They’re not bad. It’ll probably help with the promotion.”
Po glanced at the screen, eyes fixated at the same image that unsettled him just the night before, focusing on the way it had been angled, cropped, sharpened into something that felt nothing like what he had believed and yet everything like what it suggested.
“That’s what you think?” Po asked.
It wasn’t confrontational. It wasn’t critical.
Just…stifled.
Thame frowned slightly, confused by the tone.
"I mean… yeah? They said it may help with the launch, the attention. Not the best way, but it’s not an issue I guess.” he added, lighter this time.
Not an issue.
Po nodded slowly as he looked away, his movement slow, measured and controlled.
He didn’t ask why Thame hadn’t said anything about being caught on photos, didn’t ask why Mint was the only one seen there, didn’t ask what happened in the photos, why it looked the way it did, why it felt the way it did…
Po didn’t ask why something so small had managed to press so heavily against his chest but left no ripple in Thame’s.
He knew it was because Thame didn’t think of it. He didn’t see it.
And if Thame didn’t see it, how could Po ask him to explain something that didn’t happen the same way for both of them?
So like a broken record, he said, “Okay”.
This was it.
It was never Mint, not her constant presence, not the night before or not even the photos.
This,
The silence. The way nothing was given thought, nothing was answered, nothing was held with the weight it deserved…that Po deserved.
Po felt something inside him shift quietly, almost imperceptible. Because nothing was broken, not really. But Po was slipping in a way that everything no longer settled the way it once did. And once things were out of place, nothing knew how to make its way back.
__________________________
After that, changes were small, so small they didn't arrive in moments but slipped in like breath you forgot you were holding. So subtle they could have been missed if no one was looking closely.
And Thame…wasn’t. Blinded by the sheer confidence of their comfort - the same one that blurred the edges between intentions and instinct, between cherishing and expecting.
So Po held himself back, just a little. He stopped asking... stopped expecting.
He never did announce anything. No clear before, no obvious after. Just a slow, almost invisible shift, like his favorite plants growing – you never see it happen, but one day, you see new leaves but can’t remember when they began.
Where Po would have let conversations linger before and waited for more, now he simply let them end where Thame left them.
It was safer. Short. Clean. Uncomplicated.
No more waiting at the table with food set aside. No more waiting at night with the lights on. No more messages asking if he had eaten, if he was resting, if he needed anything before coming home. The habits didn’t disappear all at once. They faded, gradually, like something being worn down by repetition until it no longer held the same shape.
[What time will you be back?]
[Late.]
[Okay.]
[Have you eaten?]
[Yes.]
[Good.]
Simple. Efficient.
But there were moments Thame found himself lingering for a second after answering, like he was expecting something more to follow. Another question. A comment. Something. But nothing came. He told himself nothing changed.
At night, the difference was even smaller, almost like it didn’t exist.
It was subtle, the kind of withdrawal that wasn’t loud enough to be noticed. Where his hand would have found Thame’s instinctively, now it stayed resting at his side, occupied, unmoving. Where his body would have leaned into Thame, now it stayed still, unless Thame closed the distance himself, arm sliding around Po’s waist like second nature.
But even then, Po didn’t lean in the same way. He didn’t pull away.
He just….didn’t meet him halfway. The grounding feeling that Thame used to give him now felt muted, disoriented, like a feeling that something kept falling through.
There were evenings when Thame opened the door to a silent room, lights already dimmed. Po settled into bed without waiting. He would pause mid-movement sometimes, just for a split second, like he was trying to place something that felt slightly off, something just out of reach of understanding.
“You didn’t wait?” he asked once, voice softer than usual.
Po shifted slightly under the covers, not seeking warmth, not closing the distance.
“I was tired,” he murmured. That was all.
Thame nodded, more to himself than anything, like he always did, without the need to press.
It made sense. It was that he didn’t care, but he didn’t see nor feel the changes.
Because nothing broke. It should have been enough.
Still, as Thame slipped into bed into the same space countless nights over and reached for Po to pull him close, something in his chest tightened briefly when Po didn’t respond the way he expected.
Not rejection. Just… absence.
Thame frowned slightly into the dark, the expression fleeting, gone as quickly as it came. He adjusted his hold instead, settling in, letting his body fall into the familiarity of it.
The feeling faded. Or maybe he just stopped keeping tabs on it. Either way, it wasn’t enough for him to act on it. Not enough to question, not enough to ask either. Just enough to sit somewhere quiet, unformed, like a thought he would only recognize much later – when it was already too late to catch.
_____
The distance didn’t arrive all at once. It didn’t come with a fight, or a moment sharp enough to draw a line between before and after. It simply built itself in the spaces where things used to be, settled quietly, threading itself through their days in ways that were easy to overlook if no one stopped to look too closely. And Thame didn’t. Not really. Not enough.
Po learned how to make do with distance, with questions that stopped being asked, with answers that stopped being expected and with a quiet that no longer felt shared, but isolated.
He filled his time differently. Stayed later at the studio even when he didn’t need to. Took meetings he would have postponed before. Let conversations stretch just long enough that when he got home, the apartment was already dim, already quiet, already waiting for him in a way that didn’t expect anything more.
They still spoke. They still existed in the same space. But somewhere along the way, the shape of it changed – deformed.
—---
The day Po got sick, Thame didn’t know.
It wasn’t dramatic. Not the kind of illness that forced itself into attention. Just a fever that burned high and relentless, a sore weight in his limbs that made getting out of bed laborious. He called the office in the morning, shifted his schedule, handed over his work, did all his duties. The world adjusted around him easily enough.
Thame’s world didn’t.
Po stayed home because he was too weak to go anywhere. The apartment’s silence stretched too wide when there was nothing to fill it. He was wrapped in a blanket that never seemed warm enough, his phone resting beside him on the couch where he lay half-curled into himself, his thoughts drifting to nowhere in particular, nowhere he could allow without falling apart in his solitary.
He checked it more than he meant to. Not consistently, not relentlessly.
Just… enough. Enough to notice the absence of anything and everything – a message, a call. Something. Nothing came.
By the morning of the second day, the fever had dipped just enough that the ache became more noticeable than the heat. His body felt lighter, but not better. The exhaustion lingered, settling deeper instead of lifting.
His phone buzzed once.
Po’s breath caught instinctively, fingers reaching for it before the thought could fully form.
It wasn’t Thame.
It was a notification. A tagged post of Thame.
He stared at it for a second before tapping it open, not because he wanted to, but because something in him had already decided he needed to know.
The image loaded quickly. Too quickly.
Po’s breath caught.
Thame stood under studio lights, the set built around him in soft pastels and curated warmth. Mint stood beside him, close – closer than usual, closer than how they stood in the beginning. Her hand rested lightly on his arm, smiles plastered across both beautiful faces, angled toward the camera, toward the audience that would consume this without question.
[Late night shoot with the best partner. Couldn’t have done this without you!]
Po read the caption once. Then again. Then he locked his phone.
He didn’t scroll, didn’t check the comments, didn’t react at all, not outright at least. He didn’t reach for anything.
There wasn’t a need to.
The room drew in around him, not in walls or inches, but in feeling. The kind that pressed close without touching. The kind that made space feel occupied and filled to the brim.
The air stilled. Wrong. Heavy, like it had forgotten how to flow in its natural space.
Like every breath left Po feeling more breathless than the previous, like it had to be pulled through something thick, something unseen but stubborn against his lungs. Nothing had changed. And yet everything sat differently, like the room no longer knew how to hold him the way it used to.
Po leaned back against the couch slowly carefully, like he was trying not to disturb something fragile stirring inside himself. His hand came up, pressing briefly against his forehead, not from the fever this time, but from something else. Something heavier.
Two days.
He had been here for two days.
But Thame hadn’t noticed the absence, the silence, even the break in rhythm that had once been so instinctive between them that even the smallest change would have drawn attention.
Po closed his eyes.
And for a moment, he just let himself sit in it, not moving away. He let everything stay, press in, quiet and unhurried.
It wasn’t the image. Not the caption. Those were just surfaces.
It was what sat beneath them. The realization that didn’t come like a blow. There were no sharp edges, no sudden fracture for it to hit. It just seeped in. Settled slowly and certainly. Like something that had been building quietly finally finding its shape.
Final.
—---
When Thame came home that night, the apartment was dark. The hallway light was off. That was the first thing he noticed. It wasn’t a conscious thought, not something he paused on, just a flicker of awareness that passed through him as he reached for the light switch instinctively, returning sight to the dark space in a way that felt almost too late.
“Po?” he called, voice low, casual.
Silent.
He moved further in, setting his things down, his gaze sweeping the apartment in quick, practiced glances through every corner of his home he knew by heart. Everything looked the same. Nothing out of place. Nothing disturbed. Nothing missing.
And yet—
He didn’t realise he’d stopped breathing until his chest tightened around it.
Something felt… off. Threaded through the space like a note just slightly off-key, soft enough to miss if you weren’t listening for it, but impossible to unhear once you did. He couldn’t place it. It wasn't visible or tangible but his gut was reacting to something that emptied it before his mind could understand.
He walked toward the bedroom, pushing the door open gently.
Empty.
Bed untouched, neatly made. Laundry folded. Books kept.
Thame frowned slightly, letting his expression pull at his features before he could smooth it away. He reached for his phone, thumb hovering over Po’s name for a second until he saw it.
A piece of paper caught his eye the moment he stepped into the bedroom, though nothing about it should have stood out the way it did. It wasn’t placed dramatically, wasn’t crumpled or hastily left behind. It sat there with a quiet kind of intention on the bedside table, folded neatly, almost carefully, as if someone had given it a million thoughts before placing it down.
And that was worse.
It wasn’t hidden. It wasn’t tucked away where it might be missed.
It was left where it would be found. Where it had been meant to be found.
Something in his chest tightened, sharp and sudden, the first real break in the calm he had been carrying with him all night. Thame slowed without meaning to, shuffling his steps as his chest squirmed tightly, like a warning going off deep inside him. For a moment, he didn’t reach for it, as if pure inaction could change the situation. He just stood there, staring at it as if giving himself time might change what it was, might make it something smaller, something that didn’t feel like it carried weight.
But the longer he stood there, the heavier it felt. The more he couldn’t breathe. His fingers hesitated for a fraction of a second before picking it up.
He unfolded it carefully, like it was something fragile that might break under the wrong touch even though it was only paper, only ink. The paper was light. Too light. It didn’t carry the weight it should have, didn’t feel like something that could hold anything important.
His grip tightened.
He read it once. Then again.
Slower. Word by word. Like the meaning might change if he gave it more attention, if he held on to each word long enough to understand something he had missed the first time.
But nothing changed. It stayed exactly as it was.
There wasn’t anger in the words, no blame, no accusations, no explanations to make Thame understand what had gone wrong or why the note took the spot of the one person who belonged in this space. It didn’t demand anything from him.
That was what made it unbearable.
Dear Thame,
Don’t worry about me, I’m okay.
But I think I need some time away. I’m going back home for a bit. A month, maybe.
I didn’t know how to say this without staying…or breaking.
So I’m leaving first.
I’m sorry.
Take care of yourself when I’m gone.
- Po
The words were simple. Straightforward. Easy. But nothing matched what they meant, not a single syllabus carried the weight of what they were doing, of what they were taking with them as they pressed deeper into his chest.
Thame stared at the ink, his eyes moving over the lines again and again, hoping to catch something hidden between them, something unspoken that he could still comprehend if he looked hard enough.
But there was nothing. Just that. And the sound of absence. The quiet finality of it.
The room shifted around him, not in any way that could be seen, but in a way that could be felt immediately, undeniably. The silence didn’t feel the same anymore. It wasn’t just quiet.
It hollowed him out.
Not the kind that came from stillness or rest, but the kind that came from something being removed so completely that the space it left behind couldn’t be ignored. The kind of silence that felt deafening.
His fingers curled around the paper without him realising, crumpling the smooth material as the edges pressed into his palm. The words shifted out of focus no matter how many times he blinked, like his eyes were refusing to hold onto them, like his mind was rejecting what it already understood.
“Po…”
The name left him again, but this time it wasn’t quiet.
It broke.
It cracked at the edges, pulled out of him before he could soften it, before he could control the way it sounded. It sounded too raw and too desperate for a silence that couldn’t grant him answers.
Nothing answered. Of course it didn’t.
Thame took a step back, unsteady in a way that didn’t match the stillness around him. His eyes drifted instinctively, searching without purpose, landing on the bed, on the way it had been made too neatly, too carefully, like it had been left behind instead of simply unused.
He stepped out of the room, the note still clutched in his hand, his gaze darting across the apartment like he might have missed something, like Po might still be there if he just looked properly this time.
Everything was still there. Everything that belonged in this space. The furniture. The light. The quiet. Empty. The absence still sitting there, undeniable, unmoving, like it had always been this way.
And the realization didn’t pass. It couldn’t. The reality of it settled in, not all at once, not in a way that exploded outward, but in a slow, crushing way that pressed inward instead.
It stayed cold, heavy and unavoidable.
He didn’t understand.
That was the worst part.
Not the leaving. Not even the silence.
It was this - This helpless, disorienting realization that he didn’t know when it had gone wrong.
He hadn’t seen this coming.
Didn’t know what he had missed. Not in the way that mattered.
Didn’t know what he should have seen. Not in the way that would have changed anything.
“I—” His voice faltered as he dragged a hand through his hair, fingers shaking now, restless in a way that had nowhere to go. “Why?”
The question fell apart the moment it left him.
There was no answer. The silence held.
And for the first time, it didn’t feel like something he could move through. Now standing there with nothing but a few quiet sentences left behind, he understood something too late, something that settled deeper than regret, heavier than anything he could fix in this moment.
This felt like something that had already moved past him.
Thame swallowed hard, his vision blurring again, this time not from strain, not from trying to focus too long, but from something that gathered without permission, burning faintly at the edges of his eyes before he could stop it.
He looked at the note again. Simple. Flat. Final.
But it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t enough to explain how something that had felt so steady could unravel this quietly.
It wasn’t enough to explain how Po could leave without telling him what was wrong.
It wasn’t enough to explain how he was right beside Po, how he had stood right there every day, and still missed the moment Po started slipping away.
“I didn’t…” he gasped, sounds barely forming, barely holding. “I didn’t know…”
But somewhere deep down - he did.
This hadn’t happened all at once. It hadn’t come out of nowhere. It had been there.
In the questions.
In the pauses.
In the way Po had stayed just a little longer each time, waiting for something Thame paid attention to offer.
And he hadn’t seen it. hadn’t looked long enough to understand it, hadn’t realised these cracks–
Until there was nothing left to ask, nothing left to hold onto…
Thame let out a slow, unsteady breath, his head lowering slightly as the weight of it pressed deeper, heavier, something he couldn’t grasp no matter how hard he tried.
Po hadn’t left suddenly.
He had just…
finally reached the point where staying hurt more than leaving.