Tawan woke to the soft argument of morning at the edges of the curtains and the heavier, quieter argument of an arm around his waist. Imel was tucked in behind him, breath even, the stillness of someone who sleeps like a decision. Tawan shifted, rolled, ended up nose to nose. Imel's hair had half-escaped its tie in the night; Tawan brushed a strand away without making a show of it.
"I forgot to tell you something," Imel said, voice halfway between sleep and sense.
"That you secretly hate me," Tawan murmured.
"That I'm gone two nights," Imel said, wince landing in the middle of the sentence. "Fah and my brother in-law, Kamon booked a place. I'm meant to go today. I forgot to tell you. I… forgot."
Tawan let his face stay neutral for exactly one beat too long, then raised an eyebrow. "Two nights? Wow. It's fine. I'll just sit here starving and abandoned, like a Victorian orphan."
Imel's whole body did the micro-freeze he does when he thinks he's missed something important. "I can cancel. Or one night. Or none."
"I'm joking," Tawan said, deadpan collapsing into a smile. He nudged the bridge of his foot against Imel's shin. "Go. Swim. Family. Enjoy. Bring me back a rock or whatever people bring back from water."
"It sounded not like a joke," Imel said, still checking the floor for traps.
"That's because I'm good at jokes," Tawan replied, and then, because one reassurance wasn't enough for either of them, he closed the small space and kissed him, unhurried. "It's truly okay. Send me pictures."
Imel's eyes did that smile they do when his mouth is indecisive. "Pictures."
"And the location," Tawan added, mock-serious. "For safety. And stalking."
Imel huffed, kissed his forehead, and rolled out of bed with the quiet of a person who spends a lot of time awake before other people. He dressed in practical black, cut a neat silhouette against the pale room, and checked his bag for keys he already had. At the door he turned back.
"Two nights," he said.
"Two nights," Tawan echoed, like you repeat a number the pharmacist tells you. "Go. Before I set you homework."
Imel nodded and left. The room took a breath and didn't sag.
He drove across town where Ratchaburi grows its houses in straight lines. Fah's place welcomed him with the efficiency she insists on—clean, airy, unpretentious. Before he could ring, the door swung open and a small meteor launched itself at his legs.
"Lung!" Charoen yelled, dinosaur pyjamas swapped for shorts with planets and a shirt with a very serious pocket.
Imel scooped him up, the two-year-old attaching himself like a well-designed accessory. "Heavy," he said, affectionate complaint.
"Strong," Charoen countered, patting Imel's cheek as if checking structural integrity.
"Where's—"
"Kitchen," came Kamon's voice, warm and amused. "Trying to impress my wife before we hit the road."
Imel walked in with the boy on his hip. The kitchen smelt of limes and garlic and something creamy. Kamon stood at the hob in a T-shirt and a grin, moving like a man who knows exactly when the pan is listening.
"What are you doing here," Imel said, deadpan. "This is a respectable home."
"Cooking," Kamon replied, scooping a neat spoonful of mince from the pan into a bowl of something pale and cold. "And rehearsing for praise I will definitely not ask for."
Charoen wriggled. Imel set him down; he trotted to the counter, hands on the edge, eyes big with inherited curiosity.
"Secret for Ma," Kamon told him, lowering his voice like a magician. "Quiet."
Charoen pressed a finger to his lips with exaggerated care. "Shhh."
Imel's mouth twitched. "He takes direction better than most of my staff."
"Pay him in mango," Kamon said. Then his gaze flicked up, paused. He tilted his head, amused. "You fall into a hedge?"
"What," Imel said, genuinely at sea.
"Nothing," Kamon said, entirely too innocent, and went back to stirring. "Just observing the wildlife."
Fah appeared ten seconds later with a suitcase rolling behind her and a duffel slung over her shoulder, makeup finished, hair neat, expression as always: practical affection. She put the bags down, crossed the room, and kissed Kamon, then kissed the top of her son's head, then gave Imel a look that started at neutral and slid into wicked.
"What," Imel said again, which was a mistake.
Fah pointed at his neck, laughing under her breath. "You brought insects home."
Kamon coughed like a man who'd just received divine confirmation. "Ah. So not a hedge."
Imel's ears warmed at a speed he pretended men his age were incapable of. "Are you both—"
"Correct," Fah said, already moving to the pan. "What are you cooking?"
"A masterpiece," Kamon said, handing her a spoon. "Taste and confirm."
She tasted, nodded once. That was her version of fireworks. "Again."
He fed her another spoon, then passed one to the child, blew on it, and supervised the tiny verdict. Charoen approved with both eyebrows. "Lung," he declared, pointing at the spoon like an officer. "Lung eat."
"I can leave," Imel said soberly, watching the three of them form a closed loop of competence and affection. "You look comfortable enough."
Kamon ladled a spoonful for him, and Imel accepted it with the judgemental air of a café owner. "Acceptable," he said, which in their language meant: good enough to make me reconsider my hiring policies.
"I'll check my schedule," Kamon replied, dry. "I'm booked for adoring my wife, but we can negotiate."
They packed efficiently: food into containers, containers into a cooler, cooler into the boot; bags like a game of Tetris none of them were willing to lose. Kamon locked up. Fah did the mental inventory without performing it aloud. Charoen carried his bear like a member of the security team.
On the road to Kanchanaburi[1], the sky went full linen blue. Charoen narrated trucks; Kamon sang badly to make him laugh; Fah texted the Airbnb host to say they'd be on time and meant it; Imel answered one message about a delivery at Roenfé with a single syllable that meant he would deal with it later.
Back at the residence, Tawan had decided to practice competence. He propped the phone against a jar, FaceTimed Aye, and set a pan to heat while he waited for judgement.
"Look at you," Aye said when he appeared, hair damp, sleeves rolled. "Domestic god."
"It's a performance piece," Tawan said. "Khao soi[2] tutorial, please."
"Mm-hm," Aye said, eyes taking him in like he was a painting he'd been commissioned to restore. "You're glowing."
"I'm near a window," Tawan replied, keeping his face resolutely straight.
"Sure," Aye said, infuriatingly gentle. "Onions in. Low heat. Don't burn. I can smell your panic."
"I'm fine," Tawan said and then nearly sliced a lime with disrespect.
The door code bleeped. The only person who uses it without ceremony is Saint. He breezed in like a small weather system.
"Are you hiding?" Saint called. "I know what you two did last night!"
Tawan's ears turned the exact red of a warning sign. On the screen, Aye clapped like a delighted aunt.
"No way," Aye said. "Even through a phone I can feel the heat."
"Saint," Tawan muttered, half-murderous, half-embarrassed. "I promised to tell you—"
Saint swung into the kitchen, took one long, theatrical look, and raised an eyebrow. "You did."
Aye's laughter was the sound of a man who'd been promoted without applying. "Are you going to respond, any day now?"
Saint covered his mouth, mouthed sorry with no intention of being it. Tawan gave him the "it's fine, you menace" headshake and waved him closer to the phone.
"P'Aye," Tawan said, resigned fondness in his voice, "this is Saint."
Saint put his palms together and bowed. "Sawasdee krub."
Aye smiled, sat up straighter. "Sawasdee, Khun Saint."
"Please," Saint said, flapping his hand. "No honourifics. Doesn't fit my brand. Just Saint."
"Saint it is," Aye said. He studied him with a craftsman's interest. "You're loud."
"I contain multitudes," Saint said cheerfully. "What are we teaching Sunshine to cook?"
"Khao soi," Aye said. "Because he needs to expand beyond noodles he didn't make."
Tawan scoffed. "I'm not as bad as him," he said, indicating Saint with a spoon.
"Barely," Saint said. "Let me taste."
Tawan handed him a spoon. Saint's eyes widened; he clapped for Aye. "Phi, are you secretly a cooking instructor? He's done okay."
"Okay?" Tawan demanded, affronted. "This is transcendent."
"'Okay' in my dialect means 'don't fumble this gift'," Saint said, going in for another bite.
Aye chuckled. "Tell me when you're both free to go out and eat food this good without making it."
"Me too?" Saint asked, pointing to himself with childlike glee.
"Saint too," Aye said. His eyes went briefly glassy, but only in the way men who are happy hide it with humour. "He'll look after you when I can't."
Tawan nudged Saint with his elbow. "Once you meet him, he'll never let you go. He might kidnap you."
"It's my way of bonding," Saint agreed. He leaned into the camera with finger hearts. "P'Aye, I think I love you."
"I thought I was your favourite," Tawan said, scandalised for effect.
"You were," Saint said. "Now there's competition."
They laughed until Aye had to go rescue a delivery from a neighbour who thought all parcels belong to her. He signed off with a promise to set a date. Saint and Tawan ate at the little table in the living room, knees bumping under wood.
"Was he… good?" Saint asked, somewhere between gossip and pastoral care.
Tawan put his cutlery down, considered being coy, abandoned it. "Heavenly," he said. "I think I ascended."
Saint slapped both thighs in a silent scream, then slumped suddenly, frown folding his forehead. "Now I'm jealous."
"You said you wanted slow," Tawan replied, mild as water.
"I know," Saint said, stirring air with his spoon. "Sometimes I think if we do it, he'll—" He cut himself off with a hopeless shrug. "Vanish."
"You and Imel are alarmingly similar in the clichés you pick up," Tawan said, letting the sentence land without accusation. "If he didn't want you, you'd feel it like a draft. He hasn't pushed. He hasn't sulked. He's asked once, then listened. That's not vanishing. That's staying."
Saint nodded, chewing his lip. "Okay."
"Also," Tawan added, "if he only wanted one thing, we'd all know. I'd tell you. Loudly."
Saint snorted. "Yes, sir."
A burst of notifications rattled Tawan's phone: six photos and a message. He opened them. Three were of Charoen, a tiny monarch by a big window; two were the family, Fah elegant without effort, Kamon smug with justification, Imel taller than he remembers beside them, all easy lines and clean light; one was the pool at a house that could fit a small community.
Saint leaned in. "He actually sent pictures. Oh my God—never thought Imel would have a son."
"They're identical," Tawan said, grinning despite himself.
Saint pointed at Kamon. "Who's the tall one?"
"Her husband," Tawan said automatically, then zoomed the rings to prove it.
Saint laughed. "You're a dangerous observer."
The message popped up under the photos: go to the lobby.
"My guess is flowers or a ransom note," Saint said as they headed out. "Or a crate of coffee."
Korn was at reception, arms folded, expression like a man too amused to hide it.
"He couldn't be more obvious," Korn said.
"More obvious about what," they said together.
"This way," Korn added, making them follow because he's a performer when he believes in a prop.
On the counter sat three boxes in blue, white and red stripes, Roenfé stamped in black at the centre. Next to them: a paper bag with the same logo, heavy with the comfort of food.
Saint clapped, theatrically disgusted. "Cute. Yuck. I love it."
Tawan picked up the note tucked under string and read aloud: Food for two nights, because you're a bad cook. Pastries you like in the boxes. Be kind to the microwave.
He took a photo of the boxes, another of Saint caught mid-eye-roll opening one, and sent both to Imel with a single heart. He was not going to be more lyrical than that.
"Take one," he told Saint. "There are three."
"Your man might have me escorted out," Saint said, but he took the box anyway.
Korn took a pastry with the confidence of an accomplice. "Are you two telepathic now?"
"Don't be jealous," Saint said, patting his shoulder. "Get more friends."
"Get out of my lobby," Korn replied, smiling despite himself.
They rode up together, Saint holding his contraband like a new plant he wasn't sure how to water. At Tawan's door they split.
"You going back to yours or Danuphob's," Tawan asked, and Saint rolled his eyes because he does not understand why full names are Tawan's kink.
"Has a ring to it," Tawan said, which was the whole answer.
Saint knocked on Dan's door with his box tucked under an arm. Dan opened in glasses and soft clothes, hair pushed back like work had been arguing with it.
"Imel's?" Dan asked, clocking the box.
"Apparently his love language is pastry logistics," Saint said, stepping in. "He's on a staycation, not a hunger strike."
Dan put the box on the table, shut his laptop, and tipped his chin at the sofa. "Lie here."
Saint lay down, head in Dan's lap because he was done pretending not to want exactly that. Dan's fingers traced idle circles into his thigh like they were signing his name there.
"You said there was a thing with paperwork," Saint prompted, eyes soft with mischief and nerves. "Ask me."
Dan inhaled, braced, and let the words come out less elegantly than he'd drafted. "I get… distant. Sometimes. And too much, other times. I don't want that to get in our way. I want to try every day not to make you hold things I should have set down. I want to be beside you. I want to be next to you. I want all the versions of you—loud, petty, flirty, brilliant, hungry—and I want to offer you all the versions of me without pretending I'm easier than I am. I want to be your boyfriend."
Saint got up as if moved by a pulley, walked behind the sofa, hid very badly, and started crying like a person who'd been holding his breath for two chapters.
Dan stood, panic rising in layers. "Do you not want to? It's okay. We don't have to. Not now. Not ever. Did I—did I say it wrong?"
Saint dropped his hands, eyes pink, mouth a smile that had forgotten how to behave. "Why are you apologising?" he sniffed, laughing at himself and wiping his face with theatrical despair. "You're my boyfriend now."
Dan's shoulders relaxed with a visible release; he cupped Saint's face with careful hands. "I'm going to kiss you. That's it."
He did, steady, deep, not asking for more than he'd named. Saint leaned into it like into a pillow he intended to keep. When they parted, Dan brushed a thumb across his cheekbone and then, because he is himself, over his mouth.
"I need to finish a little bit," he said, nodding at the laptop. "Stay?"
Saint stretched out again, legs across Dan's lap. "I'll allow it."
Dan worked for an hour more, touching Saint's shin sometimes like a man checking a pulse he knows is fine. When he closed the laptop, he watched Saint sleep for a minute with the concentration he gives to floor plans. Saint woke to the sensation of being admired.
"Were you watching me," he asked, amused and shy.
"Obviously," Dan said, kissing the side of his neck. "Hungry?"
Saint opened the Roenfé box and held it out. "Your life expectancy will drop if you don't share," he warned.
They ate sticky pastries, crumbs in the soft of the sofa. Dan licked sugar off his thumb and tried to pretend he hadn't done a drama. Saint pretended not to notice and then absolutely noticed.
"Tell me things," Dan said suddenly. "Everything. I know your work, your birthday, your name. I want the rest."
"You'll be here a while," Saint said, but he didn't say no. "Ask."
Dan did, quick-fire, as if memorising was a love sport. Name, birthday, hometown, first favourite songs, current obsession, flower, pet he can't have, colours, ice creams he should not eat, places he wants to see, the shape of a dream home he refuses to describe until the right pen is in his hand. Saint answered, flippant when he wanted to hide, precise when he didn't. When Dan asked, "Dream boyfriend?" Saint stared and then dismantled him neatly: December, tiger year, glasses, Phetchaburi, tall, two tattoos, interior designer, a face I will one day draw too well to look at.
"You can't see the tattoos unless I'm unclothed," Dan said, scandalised and delighted.
"Are you always clothed?" Saint deadpanned.
They laughed until the room decided laughter had done its job for the day. Dan pulled him closer by the ankle, then by the waist, then by the neck, and kissed him again, brief and sure. "Goodnight, boyfriend."
Saint rolled his eyes because staying alive demands balance. "Goodnight."
In Kanchanaburi, the Airbnb was the kind of house people post online to make strangers say "we should go". Four bedrooms, white walls that managed not to feel like a hospital, a pool that looked like it had been dropped there by a careful god. Charoen stood at the glass doors in awe, pressed both palms to the view, and declared it "big water". Kamon carried bags to the right rooms with the smugness of a man who'd found the perfect listing. Fah opened cupboards and approved of the organisation with a single nod. Imel sent one photo of the pool with the child's reflection holding up the sky.
Cute, Tawan texted back before he could get self-conscious about being soft.
Me or my nephew, came the reply.
Both, Tawan sent, and put the phone down because his own smile was making him nervous.
Evening moved over everything with its usual competence. Korn did his rounds and pretended not to enjoy being the one who knew about the pastry drop. The river took whatever the day had been given and filed it under "continued". In the quiet of the residence, Tawan stacked the Roenfé containers in his fridge like small, edible promises and ate one of the pastries standing up, reading the logo on the bag as if it were part of a private alphabet.
He messaged a single photo back: the box on his counter, his hand in frame, thumb up, and a heart. Imel's typing bubble came and went, then returned: Sleep well when you do. I'll send you the rock.
Tawan set the phone screen down so it faced the table and felt that pleasant, frightening ease that comes when the room knows both the names you would have given it. He rinsed his bowl, left the kitchen in better shape than he'd found it, and let the night do what it's best at: hold what the day brought in without trying to solve it.
[1] Kanchanaburi is a province in western Thailand, about 2–3 hours’ drive from Ratchaburi depending on traffic. It’s known for: Rivers, waterfalls, and mountains. Nature resorts and riverside villas. And historically, the Bridge over the River KwaiIt’s a very common weekend getaway spot for families and couples who want something peaceful, green, and slightly removed from city life — which is exactly why Fah and Kamon would book it.
[2] Khao soi is a Northern Thai curry noodle dish, most commonly associated with Chiang Mai and surrounding regions. It typically consists of: Egg noodles in a rich, mildly spicy coconut curry broth, topped with crispy fried noodles. Usually served with chicken or beef. Eaten with lime, pickled mustard greens, shallots, and chilli oil on the side. The flavour is creamy, savoury, and gently spiced rather than aggressively hot. In the story, khao soi matters because: It’s a comfort dish — something you cook slowly and thoughtfully. It’s not “quick food,” which mirrors Tawan choosing presence over avoidance. Aye teaching Tawan how to make it is an act of care, not instruction. It’s also a subtle nod to domestic intimacy: learning someone else’s food means learning how they rest.