Chapter Text
Bangkok, Thailand.
9:45 p.m.
Joss used to be good at remembering things.
He was good at this game he used to play with his mother: reminiscing. They would sit outside in plastic chairs and stare at the sky until it was dark, reminiscing, digging into everything they had ever done. It is good for you, his mother would say, this way your brain won’t sloth. And she was right, as she often was, and Joss learnt fast how to memorise things — a superpower of his own.
But memory, Joss found out later in his twenties, was a language of its own — a dance and a poem, a story told so many times it started to feel distant, unreal. A gentle tug of longing, an ugly twist of nostalgia. Faces and names blurring into just a story about someone he’d met before then. And as every language that stayed alive, memories kept changing, shaping into something else, something different, something away from certainty.
He still remembered now, four years later, about the first time he saw Gawin Caskey at a friend’s birthday party, flushed and tipsy in a dark corner. Swaying, almost imperceptible, to a song by this band he would tell Joss all about later, when they found each other once again. Joss remembered staring at him for a moment too long, asking a friend in a daze, who is he, who is, just to be dragged by the arm, the distance between him and the stranger diminishing, his friend saying come talk to him, he’s so nice, he’s so—
And Gawin laughed when they got to him, when their friend swallowed him in a hug, white teeth on red lips. Joss waited, watching them with an itch beneath his skin, a desire to unravel a secret he still hadn’t heard of.
Gawin glanced at him over their friend’s shoulder, all flushed and amused, and laughed again, inviting Joss to this little joke, the first thing they would share before finding each other again a few years later.
And Joss thought of nucleosynthesis, then, looking and laughing with Gawin above his friend’s shoulder in a crowded party. He thought of a star exploding right at that moment. Thought of something else being made by stardust, a new element apart from the truth of knowing, something made just for himself, just for Gawin to exist in a place they could met, a place no one else new about. Thought, aching with his inquisitiveness, of being the one to give it a new name.
“Hi,” Joss had said later, when their friend vanished upon being called by someone else, stuck in this unspoken game of staring with someone he had no idea how to call. Joss knew now Gawin was curious, knew Gawin found him handsome and imposing. Joss thought, at the time, the same thing he still thought years later: Gawin was beautiful in a way he’d never thought of a man before. Like he was painted by the hands of a goddess, blessed with a kiss of time, with the touch of a star in every place those little dots adorned his face. Beautiful. Joss said, “I don’t think we’ve met before.”
“I don’t think so,” Gawin answered, his voice so low Joss almost couldn’t understand, their conversation blending with the loud music around them. Joss didn’t remember leaning in, then, but Gawin said he did. Joss believed him. Knew, from what he remembered, he thought of Gawin as a lodestone — didn’t know how to describe his mindless attraction, his curiosity, otherwise. Gawin’s mouth tilted upward when he said, “But I think I know you. 3 will be free, right?”
Joss hummed, knowing he was staring. Confused, above everything, about whatever the hell was happening to him. Hoping to learn a different way to call Him besides Beautiful. He said, “Joss Way-ar. What about you?”
“Gawin,” he’d said, finally losing to Joss on their game, his eyes wandering around, trying to escape now that Joss knew his name. Gawin told him, later, that Joss was too intimidating. That he was confused about whether Joss wanted to befriend him or punch him in the face. “Gawin Caskey.”
“Caskey?” Joss asked, switching to English, a spark of excitement blooming in his heart at having someone to practice his second language with. “Are you mixed?”
“Yeah,” Gawin laughed this soft sound, everything about him so quiet, bathed in mystery. Moonlight child, he was, the coolness of being kissed by the breeze of dusk. And Joss wondered, looking at the soft edges of his face, if anyone had ever died from curiosity before. “Are you—”
And Joss remembered someone calling him, asking him to go over there, a hand on his arm, pulling him away. He remembered a fast apology, a fast goodbye. Remembered never finding Gawin at the party again. Remembered going home that night and staring at his ceiling for a long time, trying to translate his feelings into a different language, into something he could understand. Remembered a laugh, a shake of his head and the loud bang of drums in the streets filling the silence inside his room.
Gawin had always been a mystery to Joss, one he kept trying to solve many, many years later — the tension on his shoulders, the redness of his cheeks; his silence and his screams. And it wasn’t always that Joss understood him, but sometimes they found themselves in translation — a secret language they couldn’t speak with anyone else.
And now, inside a car on an empty road, Joss could understand over the loudness of their silence that Gawin was trying to break up with him.
Joss had no idea when things went down, but he knew it happened. Knew he’d lost Gawin between a fight and a silent weekend. Could hear, still, the words Gawin threw at him, all teeth and spite, the sting and the venom of a bite — poisoned truths that were hard to unabsorb. And Joss told him things, too—things he’d held for too long, rotten by the mind's trick of memory and regret.
He wondered then, shrouded by paroxysm, if Gawin was thinking about him as an open wound.
“It’ll rain soon,” Joss stated, his voice violently cutting the weight of their silence. “Should we—”
“What are we planning on telling our friends?” Gawin cut him off, and Joss finally risked a look at him. Found crossed arms and feet over the seat. He didn’t spare Joss a glance, eyes still on the road, every corner of his body locking Joss out from him.
Joss found himself huffing a little laugh at how deeply hurtful it was, going back to when they knew nothing about each other and had to find a way around their walls to work together as a pair in a TV series they had no idea how would turn out. Joss wished, tired of their end, to go back home and make himself a cup of coffee. Wished to be anywhere else but locked inside a car with the person he loved shattering his heart with bare hands. Wished to arrive once and for all, so he could breathe something other than Gawin’s absence.
“I don’t know, Gawin,” he heard himself say. Couldn’t remember when he decided to respond. On the radio, Joss heard the beginning of the song that played when they first met. Thought, bitter with it, of the irony of being serenated during his rise and his fall. Said, even though he knew the answer, “Are we breaking up? Are you breaking up with me?”
“Shouldn’t we?” Gawin turned, and his eyes had a lick of anger, a hue of fire. Joss had to turn around to avoid his defensiveness, his own anger from rising in response. “We’re not— this isn’t working, Joss, and we keep hurting each other, we keep—”
“It’s our friends’ wedding,” Joss said, swallowing his rage, his sorrow. Tasting the ashes of them down his throat. He said, “Let’s not— not now.”
“Later, huh?” Gawin let out a dry laugh, turning his face to Joss, his cheek squished against the seat. And how unfair it was, Joss thought, devastated by the sight, that Gawin was just as beautiful now, breaking his heart, as he was when Joss first saw him years ago. Older now, gentled by the hands of time, sharper with his tongue. The owner of Joss’s devotion, still. He said, “When is it ever later with you, Way-ar?”
Joss laughed again and found out he was angry now — at himself for everything he regretted. At Gawin, for the cuts he kept leaving behind every time he spoke. At the sound of the rain finally falling and still not being loud enough to overcome the loudness of his mind now that he’d heard the words he’d been fearing since they left the house in the morning.
“Don’t do this,” Joss murmured, hurt beyond repair. Avoiding looking at Gawin when he couldn’t raise his hand to touch his face, to press on that place between his eyebrows that drew closer when he frowned. He said, “Let’s— we can pretend to be happy. We can be lovers for three more days. It’s our friends’ wedding, Gawin, we can’t—"
“We can’t pretend to—”
“Please, please, just—” Joss heaved, suffocated by their conversation, by the closed windows of his car, by the rain surrounding them on a dark road. He sighed slowly, organised his thoughts and his feelings into something easier, a hand pressed on a bleeding cut. Said, “Please. Three days and then—then we can… we can. Three days.”
Joss felt Gawin’s stare for a long moment, silence towering over them once again. He wouldn’t beg Gawin to stay, couldn’t bring himself to. Gawin was an adult, and Joss knew some things were bound to change over time. Knew now, there was a limit to the line they drew together. And he would respect that, he would give Gawin the space he needed to archive his wants. Joss could never put himself above Gawin’s wants.
“Okay,” Gawin said minutes later, his voice rough with something Joss couldn’t unravel. Gawin turned and looked at the road again, his body slumping on the car seat, hollow and sad. Weary, at last. Said again, “Okay.”
—
When Joss first met Lisa, she was single and whiny about the hardships of being a lesbian in Bangkok, drunk from too much peach beer, all hand on her cheek and heavy sighs and dramatics. She was one of Gawin’s longest friends — his best friend, as she told Joss, claiming she had to chase him around school, I tell you, to make him talk to me. And Gawin tsked and rolled his eyes in this fond way Joss never noticed before, saying that he thought she was a psycho, following me around everywhere. Joss watched, in awe, a version of Gawin he hadn’t had access to before — carefree and sincere and talkative, so chatty that Joss spent most of the night just listening, touching with soft hands the aperture Gawin was giving him.
On the same night, Lisa fell in love with a girl they met on a food truck. She became frantic as soon as she saw her, dragging Joss and Gawin by the arm, saying they have to try this, it looks delicious, doesn’t it look—. Not long after, she ditched them to talk to her girl, shooed them with a hand gesture, with a promise to call you later, I promise, I will call you later.
She never did, and they never really heard the story of them until the invitation came on summer, just a few months later.
“She’s joking,” Gawin said, convicted, a frown betraying his certainty while looking at the invitation, at the L&L on the paper. “She’ll call, eventually.”
And Joss huffed a sound, kissed his frown away, said, “Sure, love,” and laughed again when Gawin’s frown deepened, when Gawin got up to make coffee for himself only.
When Lisa called, she had an apology on the tip of her tongue, a reason to have vanished for months and a reason for letting them know she was getting married through an invitation they got in the mail.
“No, no, listen to me, just listen—” she said to an angry Gawin, to a laughing Joss. Said, “—I had to be dramatic, Gawin, you know me, I know you know me—” frantic as always, just as funny as Joss remembered from months before. And there was another laugh on her side of the line, a woman telling her to breathe, to let Gawin speak, her voice gentle and working like medicine on Lisa. She said, “I’m sorry, my love, I just— I fell in love. Are you happy for me?”
“Yes,” Gawin grumbled, sulky and cute, and Joss rested a palm on the back of his neck, pressed his thumb below his ear. Gawin melted just a little, his frown easing slightly. He said, “I want to know about your fiancée, though.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lisa said, and Joss knew she was grinning in a way all fools in love did. In a way Joss was doing right now, looking at Gawin with his head resting on his own arm, staring, searching for every mole on Gawin’s neck, on his cheeks. When Gawin found his eyes, he scrunched his nose in that way Joss loved to see, held Joss by the wrist to kiss each of his fingers. Lisa said, unbeknownst to the softness of Gawin’s lips on the back of Joss’s hand, with a sigh and a hum, “Her name is Lua.”
And their love story was as crazy as Joss would expect from Lisa. They went out on a few dates and kept on seeing each other. At one point, Lisa asked why Lua even left her house if she was always around, so Lua moved in with her. Later, they adopted a stray cat. Later, Lua started working as a bartender to buy Lisa a ring, just six months after they started living together. Then, instead of asking Lisa to be her girlfriend, Lua asked her to be her wife, because we’re already living together and have a child, so why not. Lisa said yes.
Joss chuckled. Said, “Jesus,” and laughed harder when Gawin smacked his arm, when Gawin started laughing with him. Said, “Fuck it, why not, dude, why the fuck not?”
And Lisa said, “Right?! Right?!” in a rush, desperately trying to prove her point. Said, “We’re all dying soon, man. We’re stuck with capitalism and terrible politics, and the world is heating up more and more every day. I should get married, damn it, I should get married tomorrow!”
“Slow down, darling,” Lua said to her, closer to the speaker now, as if she was sitting right by Lisa’s side. And her voice had a raspy note to it, something dragged and slow, calming in a way that clashed directly with Lisa’s louder tone, with her faster pace and fast thoughts. She said, “I promise to make your friend very happy, Joss and Gawin,” and Lisa groaned a little sound, the smack of lips making Gawin tsk and murmur something about the honeymoon phase. Lua said with a huff of a laugh, with a smile shrouding her every world, “I love her, I really do. I can’t believe how lucky I am.”
And that, at last, made Gawin’s shoulders finally drop.
They became close friends after. Lua was half-Brazilian, all long legs and blonde braided hair that made her dark skin glow. She was a very talented painter, knew about every topic Joss or Gawin came up with, and she grounded Lisa in a way Gawin had never seen before, as he’d told Joss one night, lying beside him on their bed. Gawin liked them together, so Joss liked them together too.
The wedding was supposed to happen in October, but something went wrong with the decoration team, then with the cake, and they had to change it to December. Long enough to change everything.
It was way past eleven when they arrived, and Joss was still trying to swallow around the lump in his throat. Gawin was still acting like he hated his presence, hated how they had to do this for longer than he wanted. And Joss wanted to scream and rub his skin raw to avoid the resentment growing inside his heart, the rage, the regret. They weren’t… they were never like this. They didn’t hate each other, they couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
Joss talked to the receptionist and got the keys to their room, stepped into the lift in silence. And Joss knew they would have to share the room, knew they would sleep on the same bed, and it shouldn’t feel so uncomfortable now when they’ve been doing it for so long — long before they even got together, when they were still learning how to step into each other’s worlds, when they had to share hotel rooms. But Gawin wasn’t looking at him — didn’t look when he stepped out of the shower, hair wet and towel hanging low on his hips. Didn’t look when Joss laid on the bed, when darkness swallowed their faces.
But Joss was looking. Was he ever not?
Gawin called to him like he always did: bewitched whisper of the moon, a siren call from the deepest of sea. Joss gravitated in his orbit, allured, defenceless. Gawin’s silhouette engraved in Joss’s memory like a second skin—the dip of his waist, the tilt of his hips. The dimples on the small of his back.
Joss sighed, tired, and laid on his back. Rubbed his eyes, aching with something deeper than the heaviness on his bones. He said to the darkness, trying to reach for Gawin in the flecks of light, “Are you asleep?”
The room was silent for a beat, then another. Joss opened his eyes, wondered when he fucked things up so badly, then turned his face to Gawin — found a pair of eyes like highway signs already shining for him. Saw Gawin put a hand under his cheek to rest his face on, and felt the need to reach out and touch him like a hand around his throat. Gawin said to him, “I don’t want to pretend,” very softly, a whispered secret shared in the night. Said, “We never— we don’t pretend.”
Joss closed him eyes again, hummed a broken thing. Said, “I don’t want to pretend either,” and swallowed once, twice, trying to get rid of the taste of his sorrow on his tongue. Said, “I don’t know how to do this, Gawin.”
“Mm,” Gawin murmured and didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, “You’ve been trying, though. You’ve been… out of reach.”
“I haven’t—” Joss rubbed his eyes again, the sting of his irritated skin doing nothing against his desire to just stop all of this. Everything felt too unfair, too charged against him. But Gawin was right, and Joss had no idea how to deal with it. He’d been stranded on the shoreline of his despair, trying to fix things on his own, and now… “I’m sorry, I just— I needed time,” he said, and it wasn’t entirely the truth. Wasn’t a lie, either. Said, “You, too.”
Gawin didn’t say anything. He reached out instead, traced the bridge of Joss’s nose, the shape of his lips. Softly, always so gentle with his love, with his affection. He said, “We’ll break up in three days,” and slid his finger to Joss’s cheekbone, to the place his dimple pressed on his cheek. He touched Joss like he knew every place he loved to trace by memory, like he could see Joss’s face in the dark, with his eyes closed. He said, “I don’t want to pretend,” and his anger had vanished into an innocuous thing, the shame of blowing a candle and watching the smoke dissipate in the air. Sad, at last. Surrendered. Said, “Can’t you just— can’t you love me until then?”
Joss only noticed he was crying when the first tear fell on the pillow under his head. He closed his eyes and took a long moment to compose himself, to say, “Mm,” wetly and sad, shattered by Gawin’s thumb under his eye, on the wetness of his grief. He said, “Yeah,” and touched the hand Gawin had on his face, pulled him closer with a hand on his hip. Dragged his mouth against Gawin’s cheek, his eyes. Felt the kiss of Gawin’s tears like a cut on his lips. He said, “My G,” and kissed his temple, his forehead. Rested it against his own, touched the tip of their noses in a soft caress. Said, “I love you. I won’t— I will never not love you.”
Gawin nodded, sobbed. Held Joss’s hand against his chest, above his heart. He said with his lips on Joss’s cheek, “Okay,” and nodded again, hid his face on Joss’s neck. Said, “Okay.”
Joss wondered, burying his face on Gawin’s hair, drowning in the scent of vanilla and the remains of himself, if he would remember this moment years later, just like it happened. Wondered if memory would shape itself and colour the way he loved Gawin now a deep shade of blue, a stain of greige. Begged to the goddess of timing to let him keep just this one exactly as it was.
He was half asleep when Gawin sighed on his jaw, when he kissed the skin below his ear. When he said, soft and secretive, “I’ll never not love you, too.”