Archive of Our Own

The school gates are louder than usual today. Voices layered over voices, the scrape of shoes against concrete, laughter filling the cool morning air. It’s Valentine’s Day, and of course Teetee remembers. He can already see the sticker sheets being peeled and pressed into uniforms all around him. 

Almost everyone has their sheets out. Hearts in red, pink, gold, some barely bigger than a thumbprint, some wide enough to cover a knuckle. He’s not exempt. One sticker is already pinched between two fingers while the rest stay tucked in the front pocket of his backpack. He shifts the strap on his shoulder.

Up ahead, past the school gate, a teacher stands in the shade of the overhang in her pressed uniform, clipboard in hand, watching the stream of students filter in. Khru Nok notices him coming before he even holds the sticker out. She tilts her clipboard toward him without a word, the corner of her mouth already pulling up. There are three hearts on it already, a red one and two pink ones, slightly crooked. Teetee adds his carefully, smoothing it down with his thumb until the edges sit flat.

“Good morning, Khru Nok.” He presses his palms together and dips his head. 

“Morning.” Her eyes are already moving, a quick sweep from his collar to his shoes to see if everything is in order. “Thank you for the sticker, Teetee,” she adds warmly.

Teetee only nods, shifts his bag strap, and joins the stream of students heading inside.

It doesn’t take long before he’s stopped. A small crowd forms around him the way it always does. Some he recognizes from clubs, friends he’d made throughout the year, and a few shy ones he’s never spoken to but who clearly know him. Everyone knows Teetee is one of the popular kids, which sometimes still puzzles even Teetee himself.

He loves making friends and helping people, so he finds himself involved in a lot, activities, performances, school events, which means he ends up knowing almost everyone and everyone ends up knowing him. It all happened pretty quickly. Now he’s in his last year of high school and more people, even new students, seem to gravitate toward him.

He hates to admit it because he doesn’t want to sound full of himself, but he’s used to it. Used to being surrounded, to being greeted by almost everyone in the hall, and even to the occasional love confession. People know he always turns them down. What they don’t know is why.

He has been crushing on someone.

At first it really was just disinterest in dating. But a little over a year ago, he started noticing someone.

Por Suppakarn. A member of the student council, as it turned out. Teetee first noticed him during one of his less dignified moments, trying to sneak a late assignment onto his math teacher’s desk without getting caught. Por had been sent to that same room to collect papers and walked in on the whole thing.

He looked up at Teetee through thick glasses, button nose, and the cutest doe eyes he’s ever seen.

“Give that to me. I’ll help you this one time.”

His palm was already out, waiting. Teetee, struck quiet for once in his life, handed it over. Their fingers brushed in the exchange. Por slid it into the middle of the stack of everyone else’s homework and left without another word. Teetee could only stand there tripping over his own thank you to an empty doorway.

For the first time, someone made his heart race wildly in his chest. And after that, Por seemed to be everywhere. Like now that their paths had crossed once, the universe kept finding reasons to cross them again.

That was how it started.

“Wait wait wait!“ Teetee stops them with a hand. He taps his chest, where tiny stickers have been pressed along the shape of a large heart. The inside is empty. That part, Teetee has already decided, belongs to someone specific. “Anywhere else is fine, but not here, okay?”

He doesn’t make it five steps before someone else swoops in with a sticker. Then another. Then a girl from his art club who tries to stick one on the very tip of his nose.

Every few meters Teetee has to stop, one hand raised, the other pointing directly at the empty center of the heart on his chest. “Not in here,” he tells each person. 

“What’s in the middle supposed to be for?” Beam, his childhood friend, asks, pressing small yellow hearts carefully along the curve of his outline without touching the center.

Teetee slowly places a hand over his chest, eyes going distant like he’s about to deliver the final line of a dramatic lakorn. “Some things,” he says softly, “are simply meant to remain a mystery.”

Beam doesn’t even look up from the sticker he’s pressing down. “You’re so annoying.”

Teetee nods solemnly and continues walking.

💟

Five minutes before the bell rings, Teetee shoulders through the door of his classroom. North spots him first. That’s all it takes, because where North’s eyes go, Wave’s follow, and suddenly Teetee has approximately zero seconds of peace left in his morning.

“What happened to you?” North’s eyes are already on his chest, scanning the constellation of hearts covering his uniform. “You look like a Valentine’s Day bulletin board.”

“Popular as ever, huh?” Wave pats him on the back.

Teetee spins around once, showing off the full spread of stickers. “Thank you for noticing.”

“What’s with that heart shape?” North leans forward, squinting at it. “Did someone do that for you?”

“Did you finally let someone pursue you, Tee?” Wave grins. “Is today the day?”

“No!“ Teetee drops into his seat. “I did that myself. What’s most important is self love, no?”

North turns his face away, shoulders shaking. When he turns back his eyes are watering. “Self love, huh.”

“What? Is there a rule saying I cannot put stickers on my own uniform?”

“So the empty space in the middle is also self love?”

“The empty space in the middle is also self love.”

Wave opens his mouth and Teetee’s finger is already up. Wave shuts it, waits for Teetee to lower his hand, then opens it again. “You’re such a bad liar.”

“I’m not lying!“

“You’re being suspicious.”

He’s still arguing with Wave when the door opens and his eyes slide toward it before he can stop them. Por walks in, handkerchief tucked loosely in his hand, glasses sitting slightly crooked, clearly just back from the bathroom. He finds his seat without looking at anyone.

Teetee looks away quickly before Wave and North can clock the half second too long he’d been staring. 

It still doesn’t feel quite real sometimes. Por, his crush, the student council member he has been quietly losing his mind over for more than a year, is now his classmate.

When Teetee walked in on that first day, looking around the class and found that familiar pair of thick glasses by the window, he almost dropped his bag. He stood in the doorway for so long that North walked into his back. 

He wishes the universe had given him some kind of warning. A sign. Anything, so he could have at least prepared himself mentally. But no one warned him, so here he is. Sitting two rows away from his crush, every single day.

Despite his image, being confident and outgoing, Teetee found himself easily flustered and shy around Por. He still can’t confidently say they’re friends per se, but they’re definitely more than classmates who just happen to share a homeroom teacher. Especially since Teetee is the class president and Por is still part of the student council, so there is always some reason, some announcement or deadline or form that needs passing along, for them to talk.

Although Teetee is very careful about approaching Por in class. Por isn’t a loner and is well-loved by his friends, but a lot of the time he prefers a quieter environment. Teetee would often find him studying, reading, or napping during recess, probably tired from studying until late at night. And the thing about Teetee is that he’s a magnet for people. Wherever he goes, a crowd somehow follows, and the last thing he wants is to descend on Por with North and Wave in tow. But that also means finding any alone time with Por is its own kind of challenge.

Just like now. He can’t exactly walk over to Por unprompted with North and Wave sitting right there, ready to tease him if they ever notice his crush. But then Teetee remembers the budget approval form for the upcoming school event that he needs Por to sign off on as student council representative. It’s a legitimate reason. A good one, even. He’s already standing up before he finishes the thought.

“Hey, where are you going?” North calls out the second Teetee gets up from his seat.

“Asking something important. Stop being nosy, North!“

Por is looking at him when Teetee gets close enough. Not at him exactly, at his uniform, eyes tracing the outline of hearts on his chest before moving up to his face.

“You have a lot of stickers,” Por says.

“It’s been a morning,” Teetee chuckles and hopes his ears aren’t as red as they feel. 

Por hums, and that’s when Teetee notices it. A small pink heart near Por’s collar, a pink one on his sleeve, and a red one just below his school pin. Three total. Teetee’s eyes stay on the pink one near the collar a moment too long before he pulls them away and remembers why he came over here in the first place.

“Um, I’m here to remind you about the budget approval form,” he starts. “For the upcoming event. The student council needs to sign off before Friday.”

“I know.” Por is already reaching into his bag. “I was going to bring it to you today.”

Teetee watches him flip through a neatly organized folder, every paper in its place, and thinks that this is very on brand for Por. Tidy, prepared, always one step ahead. Teetee has always admired that about him.

“Here.” Por holds the form out.

Teetee takes it, and for a brief second their fingers overlap over the edge of the paper. Por’s gaze drifts to the outline of hearts on Teetee’s chest again. 

“What’s the empty space for?”

Shit, Teetee thinks. He hasn’t actually prepared for this. Every excuse he used this morning was made up on the spot for people who would forget about it by lunch. Por is not those people.

“Um, self love?” he tries, fully aware of how unconvincing he sounds. “I just think it’s cute to decorate it myself, haha.”

Por’s eyebrow goes up and he looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh, lips pressed together. “So many hearts,” he finally says without losing composure. “How much self love do you need?”

Teetee laughs before he can stop it, loud enough that North looks over from his seat. Por looks pleased with himself, and Teetee can’t find it in himself to mind being the reason for it. He stands there grinning like an idiot and decides this is the best Valentine’s Day he’s ever had, and the day has barely started.

He remembers the first time Por laughed at one of his jokes. The way his head tipped back slightly, eyes creasing behind his glasses, and then finding Teetee’s face from below, wide and warm. There is something about Por having to look up at him, doe eyes and all, that does things to Teetee’s ability to function. He has never been more grateful for anything in his life than the growth spurt he hit in tenth grade.

“I have one,” Por suddenly shows Teetee his sticker sheet. “Do you want to exchange? I was going to ask you but—”

“Good morning, sit down please.”

Khru Manop’s voice echoes the room and the moment just ends. Chairs scrape, bags shuffle, and Por closes his folder and turns toward the front. He’s calm as ever, like he hadn’t just said what he said. Teetee has no choice but to walk back to his seat.

If he were a dog, his ears would be flat against his skull.

He sits down and stares at the budget form without reading a single word on it. Por has a sticker sheet he was ready to offer. He also had noticed the empty center, which means he had been looking.

Tucked between two textbook pages in Teetee’s bag is a sticker he’s had since yesterday. Deep red, bigger than anything he gave out this morning, picked out specifically with one person in mind.

He’d sat with it at his desk last night, turning it over in his fingers, thinking about what it would be like to just be brave enough to stick it on Por’s uniform himself and confess his feelings while doing it. He had even thought about writing his own name on it with a marker, so people would know Por is his, which is the most delusional thing his brain has ever come up with. 

He talked himself out of it by midnight. Sure, Por laughs more easily around him these days. He seems more comfortable and less guarded. But being comfortable isn’t the same as being interested. People warm up to friends too. That’s just how it works and Teetee knows this, he does. It’s just harder to remember when Por is looking the way he always looks, which is unfairly cute regardless of the occasion. 

He glances at Por again. He knows better, Teetee tells himself, and forces his eyes back to the front where Khru Manop is already halfway through the morning announcement.

💟

The thing about Teetee, Por has decided, is that he makes school and social life look easy. Not in the performative way, where the crowd around someone feels more like a symbol of status than real friendship. Teetee isn’t like that. Por has watched him long enough to know the difference.

Teetee remembers things. Names, faces, little details most people forget. The canteen auntie’s favorite snack, which somehow always ends with her slipping him extra moo ping when he stops by. He notices when someone starts going quiet in a conversation too, and always steers things before anyone feels left out. Teetee just has a way of making people feel included.

Por sits near the edge of the canteen, absentmindedly pushing the last bit of rice around his tray. Teetee has not seen him yet. Still, Por’s gaze keeps snagging on him without meaning to, finding him in the crowd like it always does. The broad slope of his shoulders and the school uniform so covered in heart stickers it barely looks like one anymore. When Por looks back down, there is barely anything left on his plate.

Por thinks about the first time he really noticed Teetee. Not the homework incident, though that had been the first time their paths crossed. It happened later, a few months into the school year, during a student council meeting that dragged on too long.

Por had been sitting on the floor outside the meeting room with his notes spread across his lap, waiting for the vice president to finish a call, when music drifted out from the practice room farther down the hall. He had not meant to pay attention, much less get up. He still had things to review.

But somehow, he ended up standing outside the door.

Teetee was inside, working through a song he was clearly still learning, stopping every few lines to start over again. Sometimes he muttered to himself when he missed a note, sometimes laughed under his breath before trying again, completely unbothered by sounding less than perfect.

Por had stood there for longer than he meant to before finally pulling himself away and heading back to his spot on the floor. Back on the floor with his notes in front of him, Por found himself thinking, with some annoyance, that maybe everyone at school had a point about Teetee after all.

The guy was ridiculously charming, and Por is not immune to that.

That had been seven months ago.

Seven months is apparently long enough to start noticing things you were never trying to notice in the first place.

Por knows, for example, that Teetee will stop whatever he is doing if someone asks for help, even if he complains about it first. He knows Teetee laughs at his own bad jokes before anyone else has the chance to, that he often trips over absolutely nothing..

None of that is the problem.

The problem is the way Teetee looks at him sometimes.

Still, there are things Por cannot stop thinking about.

Like the time he looked up halfway through presenting in class and caught Teetee staring at him, chin in his hand, smiling a little when their eyes met. Or how Teetee listens when Por talks. Sometimes Por gets so aware of it that he loses his place halfway through a sentence and has to stop to remember what he was even saying.

There was also that time Por mentioned, once, in passing, that he had skipped breakfast because he overslept, only for Teetee to hand him bread the next morning without saying much about it.

None of those moments mean much on their own. At least, that is what Por tells himself. Teetee is thoughtful with everyone. It would be ridiculous to think Por somehow gets a different version of him. Still, Por cannot shake the thought off of him.

If Por is being honest with himself, he and Teetee do not make a lot of sense together.

Teetee likes people. Or maybe people just like him. Either way, he never seems to be alone for long. Someone is always calling him over, saving him a seat, dragging him into conversations he somehow slips into without effort. 

Por has never been like that.

He likes smaller groups and quiet places. Most days, he is perfectly happy staying busy with work nobody notices, making sure things get done and leaving before anyone has reason to pay too much attention to him.

Sometimes Por catches himself wondering what exactly Teetee even likes about being around him. They are different in many ways, and every time the thought goes nowhere, Por finds himself feeling worse.

Because what if Teetee is only being nice? What if this is just Teetee being Teetee again, generous with his attention, easy with his affection, making Por feel special without meaning to?

Por tries not to sit with thoughts like that for too long.

Por finishes the last of his rice, picks up his tray, and tries to stop himself from going in circles. His hand brushes against the rolled-up sticker sheet in his pocket, a small reminder that the day is not over yet. He had planned to find a moment to trade stickers with Teetee today, and the morning had almost given him one before Khru Manop interrupted. Lunch is still long, even if Teetee will probably spend most of it surrounded by people. Maybe there will be another opening. Por tries not to let himself feel too hopeful, but he is not quite ready to give up on the idea either.

After stacking his tray, he turns toward the exit and goes to find Khru Wanchai, who said she needed help with something.

💟

Teetee makes it exactly halfway through lunch before giving up.

The rice is fine, the curry is fine, everything is perfectly fine. He just cannot sit here knowing that somewhere in this school, Por is doing something and their conversation from this morning is still sitting there unfinished.

“Why aren’t you eating?” Wave asks eventually.

“I’m full already.”

“Really?” North finally looks up from unsuccessfully trying to cut through a piece of tough beef with his spoon. “You usually eat like you haven’t seen food in three days.”

“I don’t know,” Teetee mutters, slumping forward against the worn canteen table. “Maybe I ate too much breakfast.”

“Weird,” Wave says, though he sounds more curious than concerned.

Teetee pokes at his rice for another ten seconds before straightening up. “Actually, I just remembered I have to do something.”

North glances up again, shrugs, and waves his spoon vaguely in the air. “Go.”

That is all the permission Teetee needs.

He drops off his tray, throws a quick goodbye over his shoulder, and heads back into the canteen corridor. His hand finds his pocket without thinking, fingers brushing the sticker sheet he’d rolled up and slipped in before leaving for lunch—just in case.

Well, now is as good a time as any. Por cannot have gone far. Lunch is still long, and there is no way Teetee is letting their conversation die halfway through when he has perfectly good time to find him.

He makes it maybe ten steps before someone calls out, “Phi Tee!“

A girl from the year below is already halfway to him, holographic heart sticker peeled and ready. “Can I put one here?”

“Sure, but not inside the—”

“I know, I know. Not inside the heart,” she says immediately, like she has been briefed by someone. She carefully sticks it onto his shoulder instead, grins at him, and disappears back into the crowd before he can say much else.

Teetee barely gets moving again before two boys from the music club appear at his side.

“Tee!“ one of them says. “We’ve been looking for you all morning.”

“I’ve been very findable,” Teetee says, pausing while one of them presses a sticker onto his collar. He hands them stickers in return from the extras he had brought that morning, pats both of them on the shoulder, and keeps walking.

Then someone else stops him.

And someone else after that.

By the time Teetee reaches the end of the first corridor, he has somehow collected eight new stickers, given away six, agreed to a photo he is pretty sure he never actually agreed to, and answered questions about the suspiciously empty center of his heart outline sticker at least three times with three completely different excuses.

None of them are true.

He leans briefly against the corner wall and scans the hallway ahead.

No Por.

Pushing himself back upright, Teetee heads for the next corridor, walking fast enough to look busy in the vague hope people will leave him alone. It does not entirely work. At some point, someone sticks a sticker onto the back of his uniform mid-stride and disappears before he even sees who did it.

He is halfway through debating whether Por might be in the student council room when he turns into the library corridor and nearly stops short.

Por.

Right in the middle of the hallway, chin tucked down behind a stack of textbooks tall enough to be concerning. Even from here, Teetee can see the pile beginning to tilt.

He starts moving before he even thinks about it.

💟

The books are significantly more than Por had been expecting.

When Khru Wanchai said a few, Por had pictured maybe five or six. What she had apparently meant was two towering stacks of returned textbooks that, together, come up to his chin.

He shifts them around in his arms until he finds an arrangement that feels unlikely to collapse, tucks his chin over the top, and starts down the hallway at a careful pace.

He makes it past the basketball court. Past the display case full of last year’s sports trophies. He is almost in the corridor leading to the library when one of the books shifts near the bottom of the stack.

The books start tipping left.

“Hey, hey, hey—”

Suddenly, Teetee is there, one hand braces the side of the stack while the other catches the slipping edge, already adjusting the weight before Por has fully caught up to what is happening.

“That was close,” Teetee says, laughing once under his breath.

Por blinks at him over the top of the books.

“Where are these going?”

“The library.”

“I’ll help.”

Teetee does not really wait for an answer. One moment the books are all in Por’s arms, and the next half of them are gone, redistributed into Teetee’s hold while he casually falls into step beside him.

They walk for a bit without saying anything, adjusting their grip on the books every so often as people pass around them. The silence is not awkward, exactly, but Por finds himself wanting to fill it.

“You got stopped a lot again,” he says after a moment.

He had seen it earlier, before the textbook situation. Teetee caught between little groups in the corridor, halfway through conversations while stickers kept multiplying across his sleeves faster than he could get away from them.

“I was actually looking for you,” Teetee says.

Por glances over. He had not expected that.

Teetee keeps his eyes ahead, balancing the books against his hip as they turn the corner. “I wanted to finish what we were talking about this morning. Before class.”

Half the school had been trying to get Teetee’s attention at lunch, but apparently, the person Teetee had been looking for was Por.

“Me too,” Por says, before the silence stretches too long.

Teetee does not say anything right away, but a few steps later Por notices the tips of his ears have gone pink.

💟

The library in the middle of lunch is the quietest place in the school. The librarian is on her lunch break, the returns desk sits unattended. The room smells faintly of old paper and dust. Most of the tables sit empty at this hour, chairs left askew by students who had stopped in between classes before drifting toward lunch.

Years of restless hands have left the wooden surfaces scratched and worn, small doodles carved near the edges if someone looks closely enough. Tall shelves break the room into narrow aisles, their faded labels beginning to curl beneath signs laminated long ago. Near the entrance, a bulletin board sits slightly crooked, crowded with announcements nobody has remembered to take down. 

They set the books down beside the return desk in two uneven stacks. Por slid the top few into place, squaring the corners against the wood so they would be easier to shelve later. Beside him, Teetee lowered the rest with a soft thud and stayed there, leaning one hip against the edge of the desk instead of stepping away.

Por adjusts the last textbook into place and finally looks at the current condition of Teetee’s uniform. He knows it’s even more ridiculous up close. Tiny hearts in every color traced the outline of a larger heart on the chest, packed close along the edges while the center remained empty.

Por's gaze lingers there for a moment before moving up to his face. 

“Your uniform’s almost full,” Por says, brushing a bit of dust from his fingertips. “Will there still be room for mine?” 

Teetee's fingers tighten against the edge of the desk behind him. His shoulders lift with a shaky breath. For a second he just stares, caught completely off guard. His eyes drop to the heart outlined across his chest, then he lifts a hand to place two fingers against the hollow center.

He taps the space lightly through the fabric.

“I leave this open on purpose,” he says. “I save it for you.”

Por looks at the empty space, then back at Teetee in surprise. “So it’s not self love?”

“Well.” Teetee lets out a nervous laugh and glances away immediately, like he regrets being asked and is relieved by it at the same time. His hand finds the back of his neck, fingers rubbing there once before falling away. “It can be.” 

Por’s already adorable eyes just go even wider and Teetee feels his heart rate picking up.

“Okay. This is embarrassing. I kind of…“ He pushes his hair back, just to have something to do with his hands. “I kind of did it so you could fill it.”

“Teetee.”

“I know it’s a lot and you probably weren’t expecting—”

“Teetee.”

He finally stops.

“Did you just confess?”

The color rises up Teetee’s face fast. He exhales slowly. “Yeah,” he says. “I think I did. I’ve liked you for a really long time. More than a year, actually.” His eyes drop briefly before he makes himself look at Por again. “And I know you might not feel the same way and that’s completely fine. I just wanted you to know. And I wanted the empty space to be yours, if you wanted it.” He swallows. “That’s all.”

Por is already reaching into his pocket.

He unrolls the sticker sheet carefully and smooths it flat against his palm. He peels the deep red and slightly rounded heart sticker slowly. Then he steps closer and presses it carefully into the hollow center of the outline, smoothing it down with his thumb, taking his time making sure the edges sit flat against the fabric.

“I really like you too, Tee,” he admits. “I guess you’re just more thoughtful than me.”

Teetee’s fingers come up and touch the sticker now sitting in the center of his heart outline, pressing lightly against it. “Por…“ He feels breathless. “You like me back?”

Por nods shyly. “I just said that.”

“Wait, hold on— what?” Teetee presses both hands to his own face, voice coming out muffled. “Por, you like me back?”

“Yes, Tee.”

When Teetee drops his hands from his face, he can feel how sore his cheeks already are from smiling. He bounces on his feet, restless with it, not quite knowing what to do with himself.

“Can I hug you?” he asks, already with his arms open. “Is that okay?”

“Sure.” Por smiles so wide his eyes crinkle shut.

Teetee reaches for him carefully, arms coming around Por's shoulders slow enough not to startle him. Por leans in, just slightly, hands curling into the back of Teetee's uniform. He is warm, and up close Teetee catches the faint scent of his shampoo. 

They stay like that for a while longer, smiles refusing to fade. Neither seems particularly eager to be the first to step away, and when they finally do, it’s only by a few inches.

Teetee barely registers the movement before Por tips onto his toes and warm lips brush the curve of his cheek. 

It's over before Teetee fully processes what just happened. He stands very still. The warmth of it stays long after Por has already pulled back, and for a second Teetee can't locate a single coherent thought.

“Thank you,” Por says, warmth threading through his voice. “For the very sweet confession.”

The words seem to arrive several seconds before Teetee’s ability to process them. He remains rooted to the spot, staring at Por with an expression that is rapidly losing any connection to coherent thought.

A laugh escapes Por when Teetee slowly lifts a hand to his face. His fingertips come to rest against the spot Por had kissed, as if checking whether it had actually happened.

“And for saving such a special place for my sticker.”

Teetee continues to stare with his mouth agape.

“Tee?” Por waves a hand in front of his face. “Teetee.”

That finally earns Por a blink.

Por’s laughter grows. “Did I break you?”

“I need,” he says, holding up one finger, “a moment.”

“Take your time.”

Por watches him try and fail to hide his amusement. Whatever composure Teetee usually carries around so effortlessly appears to have abandoned him completely.

At last, Teetee lowers his hand. “You kissed my cheek.”

“I did, Tee.”

His brow furrows slightly. “Just making sure I didn’t imagine that.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Por’s mouth. “You didn’t.”

Teetee seems to weigh that answer for a moment as though searching for any sign that this is some elaborate joke. Apparently finding none, he exhales and slips a hand into his pants pocket.

“I have a sticker for you too.”

The sticker emerges between Teetee’s fingers, and Por notices it immediately. The deep red stands out against any of the stickers already scattered across their uniforms.

“That’s a cute sticker.”

A faint flush creeps onto Teetee’s face.

“I was going to write my name on it last night,” he admits. “Then I realized that might be too much.”

“Why don’t you do it now?”

“What?”

“Write your name on it, Tee.”

“Now?”

“Do you have a pen?”

The question earns Teetee’s immediate attention. He pats at his pockets, then checks his pocket again. A faint crease appears between his brows.

“I usually do.” After another unsuccessful search, he lets out a quiet sigh. “Apparently not today.”

Por laughs and glances around the table. A pen lies abandoned near the edge, half-hidden beneath a stack of papers.

“What about that one?”

Teetee follows his gaze. “That definitely belongs to the librarian.”

“Then let’s borrow it for thirty seconds.”

The corner of Teetee’s mouth twitches despite himself. He reaches across the table and retrieves the pen. With the sticker balanced against his palm, he uncaps it. “Come here.”

“What?”

“You said I should write my name on it.”

“I did.”

Rather than answering, Teetee reaches forward and presses the sticker into place just above Por’s heart. His hand remains there as he smooths it flat, fingertips brushing over the red surface a few times, chasing away wrinkles that no longer exist. Only when he’s satisfied does he pull his hand back.

“Hold still.”

Por huffs out laugh. “Wasn’t planning on doing cartwheels anyway.”

The comment earns him a faintly aggrieved look. Teetee’s mouth immediately pulls into a small pout.

“You’re making fun of me.”

“A little.” Por has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing again.

Teetee braces one hand lightly against Por’s chest and lowers the pen to the sticker. His intention is to write his name as quickly as possible and be done with it.

Instead, he finds himself paying absurd attention to every stroke. The pen moves slowly across the red surface. Teetee is painfully aware of the warmth beneath his palm, of Por standing close.

It’s only his name. He’s written it thousands of times before—on homework, worksheets, permission slips, forms. For some reason, none of those previous occasions felt remotely comparable to writing it across a sticker sitting directly over Por’s heart. His palm has gone slightly clammy around the pen, and he has to resist the urge to wipe it against his uniform before the ink smudges.

“There.”

Por drops his gaze immediately. When he looks back up his expression is so openly pleased that Teetee feels warmth rush straight into his ears. The red sticker stands out clearly against the white fabric of his uniform.

“I like it.”

Before Teetee can think of a response, the bell rings. The sharp sound cuts cleanly through the library, echoing between the shelves and reminding them both that lunch is over.

“Um, we should probably go back to class.”

Por says it while absently fidgeting with the rolled-up sticker sheet still in his hand, smoothing and re-rolling the edge between his fingers instead of looking directly at Teetee.

“We definitely should.”

Neither of them wants to be the first one to move, even though they both know they should. Eventually, their gazes drift toward the door at almost the exact same moment.

In the end, Teetee is the one who steps forward first. Por follows without thinking, falling into step beside him.

Outside, students are already hurrying back toward their classrooms. A group of juniors rushes past carrying half-finished drinks from the canteen. Someone farther down the corridor breaks into a jog after spotting a teacher turning the corner.

Teetee and Por are in no particular hurry. 

“So.” Teetee waits until they’ve reached the end of the library corridor before speaking again. “Are we dating now?”

Por nearly misses the turn. “That’s your first question?”

“It’s an important question.”

“Yes, Tee.”

His grin spreads so quickly that Por has to fight the urge to smile right back.

“So,” Teetee says after a moment, clearly unable to stop himself from planning ahead already. “Do you want to get something after school? There’s that new noodle place near the park.”

“Like a date?”

“Well. I mean...” Teetee’s gaze darts briefly toward a classroom window before coming back. “Since we’re apparently dating now.” 

“Okay.”

The relief that moves through Teetee is embarrassingly obvious even to himself. 

“What time does your club end?” Por asks as they continue down the corridor.

“Four-thirty.”

“I finish student council work at four.”

Teetee does the math immediately. “Will it be okay if you wait thirty minutes?”

“I think I can survive thirty minutes.”

“Yay!“ This time, Teetee doesn’t even attempt to hide his excitement. The grin that spreads across his face is immediate and completely unfiltered.

When they reach the main corridor the crowd thickens. Teetee notices it almost immediately. There are eyes drifting toward his chest first, catching on the red sticker now filling the center of his outline, then sliding over to Por. To the sticker above Por's heart and the name written across it. 

Recognition moves through the crowd like a ripple. They pause, take a second look, and nudge their friend to see what they see.

Teetee’s posture grows steadily stiffer. He can feel his ears burning. Teetee has performed on stage in front of hundreds of people without breaking a sweat. But this, apparently, is what finally flusters him.

“Don’t look at them,” Teetee mutters from the corner of his mouth, keeping his gaze fixed stubbornly ahead.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m looking at you.”

The color in Teetee's face deepens immediately. Por has terrible timing and absolutely no remorse about it.

“You’re really red right now, you know.”

“Por...” The protest comes out as more of a whine than Teetee intends. “Don’t tease me, please.”

The plea is so earnest that Por immediately loses the battle against his amusement. “Okay, okay. I won’t say anything else.”

Teetee narrows his eyes suspiciously. Somewhere ahead, the classroom door comes into view. Neither of them notices that they’re both smiling.

💟

They slip into the classroom with only a couple of minutes to spare.

The room is already filling up. Someone near the windows is trying to finish lunch before the teacher arrives. A few conversations taper off as students settle into their seats.

Por enters first.

Teetee is too busy trying not to think about the fact that they’re dating now to realize what a terrible idea that is because North notices almost immediately what had happened.

One second he’s flipping through his notebook. The next, his attention catches on Por as he walks down the aisle toward his seat, then drops to the large red sticker sitting above his heart.

The sticker with Teetee’s name written across it.

Wave, sensing North’s sudden shift in attention, glances over from the desk beside him. Teetee watches the exact moment he sees it too. Then both of them turn toward Teetee at the same time.

Teetee doesn’t even need to look up to know what’s happening. The weight of their stares is familiar enough on its own.

“I don’t know what either of you are about to say,” he says, pulling out his notebook instead of looking at either of them, “but the answer is mind your own business.”

The silence that follows is deeply suspicious. Teetee lasts all of three seconds before glancing over. North’s eyebrows are somewhere near his hairline, and Wave has both lips pressed together so tightly they’re nearly gone, his shoulders already starting to shake.

“Tee,” North says.

“No.”

“Tee.”

“North, please.”

North lowers his forehead onto the desk with a muffled groan. The resulting thunk is loud enough that Teetee briefly worries for his brain cells.

“Oh my god,” Wave whispers.

“Stop, Wave.”

“You actually did that?” North lifts his head just enough to point accusingly at him.

“Stop!“

“You wrote your—”

“Wave, not you too.”

“I’ve never seen you this down bad in my entire life.”

Teetee closes his eyes.

For one brief, shining moment, transferring schools feels like a reasonable solution.

Fortunately, before either of them can continue tormenting Teetee, the classroom door opens and Khru Anan strides inside carrying a stack of worksheets beneath one arm. He drops them onto the teacher’s desk with a heavy thud that immediately earns a collective groan from the room.

“Books out, everyone. We’re already behind schedule and I refuse to become even more behind.”

Around them, conversations dissolve into the familiar sounds of students scrambling for textbooks and notebooks. North finally sits upright again, though the look he sends Teetee over his shoulder makes it abundantly clear that this conversation has merely been postponed. Wave doesn’t look much better.

Determined to ignore both of them, Teetee opens his textbook, then his notebook, then checks whether his pen works despite having used it in the last period. He spends an unreasonable amount of time arranging things on his desk, doing absolutely anything to avoid looking toward Por.

As Khru Anan turns to write the lesson title across the board, Teetee’s gaze drifts forward almost on instinct. Por chooses that exact moment to glance over his shoulder. Their eyes meet across the room for only a second, but it’s enough for a small smile to appear at the corner of Por’s mouth before he turns back around.

Teetee immediately forgets whatever chapter they’re supposed to be studying.

Outside the classroom windows, the afternoon sky stretches bright above the school buildings, streaks of white cloud drifting lazily across the blue while sunlight spills over the courtyard below. Teetee lowers his eyes to the page in front of him.

His uniform is covered in stickers from friends, classmates, club members, and people whose names he sometimes struggles to remember. But right in the center of all of them sits a single red heart placed there by Por.

Just thinking about it makes him smile.

He picks up his pen and tries, unsuccessfully, to focus on math.

Undoubtedly, without any competition whatsoever, this is the best Valentine’s Day of his life.