Archive of Our Own

The collar of his shirt was too tight. Pran tugged at it. Undid the first button, redid it six seconds later. He did it again when he reached the temple. Undo and redo. His palms sweated and the hairs behind his ears stood up. Nine years. Paa just died.

Undo. You should have called her more. Redo.

The air smelt of burning herbs. He recognised so little people around him it scared him he messed up the venue but no. It was here because even his mother had come to pay respects earlier. Ming did it when his dad passed so it was the correct thing to do. Even if the doctor advised Dissaya to take care of her hip and not exert herself with her advanced age.

But she came, early, not with Pran. She came and probably acted like the elegant woman she still was even with her slouched back and white hair and trembling hands. She came and paid her respects to the widow, to the parents, to the brother. Like a respectful neighbor, like a widow herself and like a parent. Like a very old friend maybe. Like an ex-mother-in-law perhaps. Like a woman that Pran liked to imagine had made her peace a long time ago.

She came and went and Pran reminded himself of paying a visit once he finished here. He was barely in Bangkok anymore and the news shook him a little. A bit cliché but true nonetheless. Someone dies and you suddenly remember that your mother is not forever.

Undo. He climbed the stairs little by little, to the pace of the queue of people waiting to give condolences to the family. To Paa’s family. Paa was dead. He redid the button, finding the thread that sewed it a little loose already.  

The message from Ink caught him busy. Another cliché. His life was full of them. But he dropped everything because he hadn’t lost yet the last thread of humanity and it was Paa.

Paa as the girl next door, Paa as his life-long friend, Paa as the kid that smelled like chalk and sweets and laughed at his jokes unafraid of their parents. Paa as one of the most important people in his life.

He should have fucking called more.

The queue advanced and soon he saw the family. Ink was painfully pale, and well, with the face of someone who recently lost her wife. Wet, sunken eyes and dry lips. 

Love was a thing, Pran discovered through the years, that could exist and not at the same time. And Ink and Paa’s love was so blatantly different to his, to theirs, easy, unwavering. And so similar at the same time. Thick and dense, life-defining. And life-shattering when gone. Not that he was comparing their situations. Not at all. He understood that he didn’t understand and he was selfishly grateful, too.

The queue moved forward once again and Pran saw Ink’s hand clutched in Pat’s, that stood beside her. Tall, older, grey haired, still handsome and utterly miserable. His already shaken heart started trembling and rattling his ribs like it wanted to break free and run towards Pat. Because no, not even if you married and divorced the man, you can never stop loving Pat Jindapat. And loving means caring, even if you’re ruined and flawed like Pran. 

Undo. If someone was surprised to see him there, no one showed. Probably his hurried flight home was announced by his mother hours prior. Redo. 

He started with the parents when it was his turn. Long gone were the harsh words and cold stares but also long gone where the recipes shared with Yui and the liquors gifted to Ming. 

He greeted them as best as he could and as sincere as someone can be because he was really, truly sorry for their loss. He was answered with stoic gratitude and he knew that was sincere too, and more than what he expected. 

Next was Pat. His ex-husband. He greeted him first because this was about Paa and not about them.

Seemingly, Pat was so lost in his sorrow he didn’t see Pran until he was in front. His already red eyes widened the slightest and filled with tears again. It surely hurts, Pran thought.

He himself felt his tears starting to sting the back of his eyes and the clog in his throat grow when Pat hugged him suddenly, forcefully, desperately. I’m sorry he left out a couple of times, allowing himself to cry too because this was a funeral. Paa’s funeral. And he had been in a numb place since yesterday knowing where he was going but not processing it until now. He cried on Pat’s arms and he should have fucking called more. He should have done so many things. He felt Ink’s arms coming to hug them both and then there were three different kinds of sobs in his ears.

They disentangled eventually and all the words he had prepared in the plane died on his tongue. The she’s resting now, the she will be watching for you, the she will always live in our hearts. All that fucking bullshit flew out when he came to see Ink’s and Pat’s faces, distorted and painful, tears running and gathering at their pores. What a fucking asshole you are, Pran. He hugged them once again before going to finish with the rituals. He came face to face with the coffin and Paa’s photo. Pretty and smiling with her crinkles telling everyone that she was a happy woman because she laughed a lot. 

Pran cried again, reminded of the girl that he saved once from drowning and how she always maintained that bit of heroic admiration towards him. His little sister, in all the meanings less blood. I’m sorry, he muttered between teardrops, I can against a river but not against a sarcoma. 

He left after a bit, torn and raw like it had been ages he didn’t feel. He went to his old childhood home, where his mother still lived all alone. No matter how much Pran insisted on her moving to a comfiest place, if not even the annoying neighbors could make her leave decades ago, age wouldn’t either. Pran understood deep down, she had all her memories here, all of dad’s belongings just where he left them.

He didn’t have a single thing from Pat. Not a lost flip flop, not an old phone charger. Nothing because Pran left the country again.

Maybe Pat sold their apartment with everything inside for new people to cook in Pran's pans and nap on their sofa. The sage green one. No, it has to be sage green, Pat. Not emerald, no, no, it’s not the same. You don’t understand. I’m not sulking, Pat, no, stop! We’re in public! I don’t care. I’m not smiling. Shut up. Look, that one's perfect.

Pran cooked for him and Dissaya and he listened to her criticism about the sauce. She asked about his job, about his colleagues, about if there was someone. Good, nice and no. And then, with a sigh, she asked about the funeral and the family next door. So young, she was the nicest of them, she said, and Pran didn’t have it in him to disagree because it was true like the moon above their roof.

His mother went to sleep early and he cleaned behind them, pouring himself a bit of liquor and checking his laptop for updates on the project he and his team were working on. He felt his flesh melt on the chair, his bones aching and telling him his age. He downed the whiskey and let the sadness embrace and envelope him softly. Taking place under his breastbone and pierce slowly, tortuously, in a way he was more than familiar with but had learned to delay at convenience.

It creeped through his blood vessels, taking hold of his every muscle. He stored the bottle back because he was 51 and mature enough to deal with his feelings without alcohol. Cynical but true, he knew. He knew that tomorrow he would go on and that he would still be sad, sad enough to pity himself but not sad enough to not be able to go on. He hated himself sometimes, just because he was alive and breathing and the world didn’t end and it was all too sad, so, so sad but he kept going anyway.

Pran of next morning would go on, but Pran of that night was able to stop and feel it.

The question was an awful one and the answer ridiculously clear.

Dissaya.

Dissaya would cry a lot.

Wai would come, no matter what, maybe he would bring his wife and their not that little anymore daughter. She called him uncle when she was just a bundle of joy with his dad's eyes and energy, but then life happened and distance grew and what once was endless calls became birthday wishes and Christmas greetings through messages. But he would come and he would cry because he’s always been a sensitive one.

Maybe the rest of his college days friends too. Korn, that still checked on him from time to time, and Ink.

She would come and also cry because for the most of their lives they had been family and Ink was the most loyal person he ever met.

And of course Pat. Pat would come and would cry for him again and it would be the last heartbreak Pran would gift him.

And isn’t it the worst someone could do? The most selfish, disgusting thing? Asking himself what would happen if he died the night someone he loved was being buried? 

The sadness was an old friend that almost always came with guilt in hand and Pran was just about to take the bottle back out when the doorbell rang. And what a sight for sore eyes, talking of old friends that came with sadness and guilt.

Pat walked through his gate until he stood in front of him, smelling of cigarettes. Pran would ask what he's doing here, but he knew. The same reason he was still at home and not on his way to the hotel room he had reserved.

An offer for a drink was the first words he said without crying to Pat in nearly a decade. Pat accepted and downed it like he was still twenty-two. Pran poured another for both and sat on his parents’ couch with his ex-husband. The irony didn’t escape either of them and Pat was the first to chuckle dryly.

“That was fucking terrible.” He said, taking a gulp of whiskey.

“You can bet.” Pran said, a bitter giggle creeping up his throat. "You remember what my mom said?"

"That what kind of man can't hold his spice." Both chuckled again and Pran gifted himself the sight of Pat's smile. 

It wasn't that bad in the end, that Christmas.

They were married for two years already by then, a beautiful ceremony with everyone that loved them present, parents included in a silent truce that went undiscussed but worked good enough for everyone. It was that what pushed them to spend Christmas Eve with Pran's parents, thinking it would be nice, it would be a first of many, many more.

They sat on the couch stiff and nervous like scolded teenagers even when they were reaching thirty. The night was cold and uncomfortable for everyone and Dissaya cooked with spices even when she was told not to. It didn’t sit well with Pran, who grabbed Pat’s hand and walked out the door. 

Pat joked after about how hard the couch was and how they should buy a softer, bigger one for themselves for when their friends gathered. Green, Pran concluded. It has to be green because the tiles of the kitchen are also green. Pat agreed and kissed him. Whatever you wish, he said, and then drove to Ink’s where she and Paa made space for two hungry men at their little table. 

Pran’s face fell and so did Pat’s, surely reaching the same memory.

“She was the best sister a fool like me could ask for.” Pat said after a bit, glass close to his lips and moist eyes lost somewhere in front.

She was, Pran wanted to say because Paa insisted enough on him calling her sister, so he got it but at the same he didn’t —he couldn’t, so he kept quiet, just being there.

It was enough once, just being there. They never tried to console each other with sweet nothings —the company, the hand in theirs, the skin in theirs, was enough solace. Maybe that was the problem back then. Pran wished it was enough for Pat now, but also that if he wanted something else, he took it. Pran would give it gladly.

Age had the habit of eroding even the most stubborn of surfaces, and Pran's pride wasn't better.

They kept quiet while Pat regained his labored breath. Pran saw how he wiped his eyes and siped from the glass. It was oddly delightful, the easiness of the silence even after nine years and everything in between.

Pat asked about Dissaya, her health and her hip that gave her trouble since even before they split. 

“Refuses to go somewhere without stairs. You know how she is. She loves this house too much.”

Pat smiled, Pran never wanted to see he was a carbon copy of his mother. He remembered the unique green tiles that once made Pran fall in love with their kitchen and stop the apartment hunting immediately. He wouldn’t live anywhere else. Until he lived anywhere but there.

“She came this morning.”

“Did it surprise you?” Pran asked with a tilt on his voice. 

“No.” Pat answered seriously. “You did, though.”

Pran turned so fast his neck complained. Pat was still looking ahead. “You can’t be serious.”

Pat just shrugged and drank again. 

“Pat!”

“It’s been so long, Pran. You can’t blame me for doubting.”

“It’s Paa.” He exclaimed, trying to keep calm. 

“Yeah.” Pat sighed. “It’s Paa.” 

And that was it.

Pran felt it on his bones, the thing behind, the accusation lingering that Pat was too good of a person to blurt out loud and slap Pran with. It’s Paa and she’s been ill for two years and you knew and you weren’t here.

Pran wished again, this time for Pat to scream and blame him or something from that category of misery. Maybe that way his guilt wouldn’t feel so empty, so useless. If it helped Pat to cope, at least it would have some purpose besides making Pran a pathetic man.

But instead, just because Pat was Pat and Paa was Paa and the Jindapat children seemed to have the life mission of being everything their dad wasn’t: “She hated that we weren’t together.” 

“I know.” Pran answered, finishing his glass and deciding that that was enough alcohol. His heart was beating too fast, his mind too muddy. “She threatened to burn me alive.”

It made Pat cackle, the crinkles around his eyes tracing down to his cheekbone dimple that Pran loved so much to kiss.

“She was convinced you broke my heart.” Pat said a little wistful, a little sad, a little amused.

“Kinda did.” Pran chirped more to himself than to Pat.

“Excuse you? I broke your heart.”

“Not a competition.” Pran said, trying to stop the nonsense he knew was coming. 

Pat broke Pran’s heart when he didn’t understand the lyrics of their song, when he bullied Wai, when he fell for Ink, when he kissed him on the rooftop. When he said he wouldn’t follow Pran outside the country. 

Pran broke Pat’s when he left for boarding school, when he refused to call him friend, when he walked out of the rooftop, when he asked him to go back to secrecy. When he said he was leaving with or without him.

So they were even. It didn’t matter.

“So, how’s it going?” Pat asked after a beat, looking at him in the eyes for the first time since he entered his home. It didn’t sound bitter. Not at all, not fully.

Your career. Your true love.

“Good.” Pran looked back.

Hollow. Pointless. 

He gazed Pat up and down while Pat reciprocated. He wanted to discern if under the broken man who just lost his little sister was a content one. He lost muscle and tan and his cheeks were a bit hollowed. Pran mourned the bready ones he liked to squish when they were young. 

Pat looked him back, scrutinized him just as intensely and Pran was sure Pat could see his agony. He should, at least. Pran’s natural state was being in love with him and Pat knew. So he should see through the black clothes and the tired eyes, through the red tipsiness of Pran's cheeks and the trembling of his hand that played with the collar of his shirt, still too tight. Undo it, he thought, but aborted the mission once he remembered why he couldn’t.

Under his sweaty black shirt, silver warmed by the skin of his chest and the heartbeat underneath. Constant and dull. Silver dangling hidden in a chain.

Pran pitied himself, hated himself, mocked himself. He had turned the whole wheel, didn’t he? The whole three thousand and sixty degrees. 

It was secret first, and he paid for it. Then it wasn’t and he paid again, but it was worth it. It wasn’t a secret and everyone had to cope with it or disappear. Those were the new rules, their own rules. And it worked so fucking good. Pran was the king of the world. 

And now it was a secret again. His love.

It had been a secret before, painful almost always, but pure and shining and blinding. Beautiful just as the beautiful things are. But never like now, an embarrassing, crude secret that he didn’t want Pat to see. 

Widowers wore their wedding ring in their chest as a reminder of their gone beloved. Not divorcees. Not someone who signed it with his own hands and fingers and completely rational mind in full capacities. With a pretentious ink fountain the lawyer handed him that didn’t work that good for the price it sure had, because the tip bent and the ink splotched on the white. And Pran cursed, and the lawyer cursed, and Pat probably would have cursed too if they didn’t agree to come sign it at different times. 

He was handed a new copy of the arrangement and a ballpoint pen and a little wet Pran cried, and a still little but not that much Pran, clad in a Christmas outfit, also cried. And a Pran with an all-boys high school uniform cried so much it deafened him a little. His hand trembled and fuck.

Pran in architecture red cried the hardest of them all. No, no. Pran, 27, pristine white tuxedo. That one cried the hardest. It was so loud he was sure even the secretary on the desk outside the door could hear it. He wondered if he was the first one to sweat like this before signing. He was sure he wasn't. Everyone thinks it will be forever. He so thought it would. It was them and where did all go wrong and how could it go wrong and why they let it go wrong.

The cries were maddening and almost made him reconsider. He thought it would be forever and he was wrong, but he also thought Pat was the love of his life and that was a fundamental law of the universe.

That thought almost made the pen drop from his bitten nails. Forty-two and with a biting nail habit. And divorced and alone. He could already hear his mom, the I told you and the why did you cause so much trouble to begin with and the look at you and the I’m already old I’m not going to be here forever, take care of yourself.

He signed in a quick movement. No countdown and no bullshit. You had everything we wanted, they say. But the Prans could cry however they liked. He had cried and screamed enough for himself the past months. Or had it been years? He couldn't really point to when it began to fall apart.

He still couldn’t, nine years forward and without Paa. Curled in this fucking uncomfortable couch that reminded him of Pat, in this house that reminded him of Pat, in this city that reminded him of Pat like everything else in this world because he was insane and dying alive. With Pat just at arm’s length, unconsolable, desperate and something more, always something more —because if Pran’s natural state was being in love with Pat, Pat’s was always meeting him halfways. 

“What would you say if I asked you to marry me again?” Pat asked, cutting through the tense silence.

“I would say yes.” Pat watched as Pran’s left eye released a crystalline tear just in the middle of his lashes, just as he always did, crying like those actors on the dramas. It was a talent that never failed to make his heart churn. “But you won’t ask.”

“Neither will you.” Pat said through an unstable voice that told nothing that Pran didn’t know already. None of them would ask, none of them asked for nine years, even more. Before. When it could be fixed. Somewhere in the road they lost the ability to ask the right questions.

“It was useless.” Pat cried, like a dam crumbling down. “I did nothing here, nothing.” He hunched forward, elbows resting on his knees and face hidden in his hands. 

“It wasn’t. You were right.” Pran tried to hold back, tried to be the strong one. “If you had followed me you wouldn't have been able to look after Paa—”

“She died either way!” Pat snapped, startling Pran. “She hated me here, she hated that her illness justified me!” 

Pran reached for his shoulder, which made Pat flinch, but he kept his hand there. Pat needed to know that Pran didn’t resent him. Not at all, not completely, not anymore.

“When she was diagnosed… I tried so hard to be there for her, to make it worth everything. She caught up instantly. She was always like that, right?” Pat choked with tears. “Always knew where I was going before I even started to think about walking.”

“You were her brother." Pran choked, "She loved you the most.” 

Pat broke at that, shaking furiously with ugly sobs scraping his lungs. Pran scooted closer, wrapping a shy arm behind his back.

“I know.” Pat croaked after. Paa’s love was always teasing and as hard as it was endless. She treated him like an idiot because he was. Since the day he was born. And he was lucky enough that no more than a year passed before he got his guardian angel. 

She refused Pat’s care every day after the prognosis, angry once she understood that Pran didn’t break his heart. Well, not completely by himself.

Go find him, Ink has his new address, she would say between chemo drippers. Go find him, I have her and the kids. Go find him, I will leave and you’ll be alone. Go find him, I’m worried for you. Go find him, Pat, he must be hurting—

“It was useless.” Pran whispered like an echo, breaking through Pat’s scrambled memories. “I did nothing over there.”

“That’s not true.” Pat said, wiping his tears. He heard a lot about Pran’s work even without wanting to. It was good work, Junior always talked about the new eco-camps built by Pran’s company. It changed things.

“Whatever you think I did, it was other people in my name. I only sat back and signed a bunch of plans and contracts.”

“It’s good either way.” Pat needed at least one of them to feel they made the right choice.

“Could’ve been done without me. I should’ve at least come back once I heard the diagnosis.”

And well, Pat shut up because that bit was true.

Nine years gave for a lot. A lot of thinking, a lot of reflecting. A lot of understanding after the storm has passed. And Pat understood, the same way Pran must have. But as much as Pat understood, the fact remained —not a single visit to Paa.

Pran had always been a coward and that was his flaw. And Pat always loved him that way, thought it didn’t matter as long as he was there to take Pran’s hand and make them both jump together. 

Make him sign-up for the Christmas concert, make him build a bus stop with their bare hands, make him enter a bet both of them had already lost, make him leave everything behind for a sunset by the sea when the truth of their families pierced through them.

That was their thing, but Pran was a coward and Pat failed his part the last time.

Failed to see that Pran was drowning again, that his dad died, that his relationship with his mom never fully recovered. That his job fucking sucked and that he wasn’t alright. Pat failed and it cost him years to see it, too focused on the feeling of being the victim, the abandoned one, to realize Pran wasn’t escaping but trying to survive himself. And that he had the chance to be the one to take Pran's hand and jump for once and he didn’t take it.

He stood on safe ground, familiar, solid, safe ground. My family is here, Pran. And the company. No, no. I don’t want to sell it, it’s my whole dad's life's work. A change? What do you want to change? No, I don’t need it and you don’t, either. Our life is here. 

He dug his heels and let go, watched Pran jump, not even peeking out to check if he landed safely.

So it was very Pran-like to only call Paa or Ink from time to time. Because he was a coward and probably didn’t want to face Pat. Who was also a coward. The biggest of them all.

“She understood. You were her brother, too, the last thing she would want is for you to feel guilty.” Pat said, standing and sniffing the remnants of his tears.

He looked around the living room while he waited for Pran to stop crying. He didn't need to turn to know, the sound of Pran's barely suppressed sobs was horrifyingly familiar.

The room was exactly as he remembered it. Spotless and full of pictures of Pran as a child, not even one of him as an adult —those were Pat’s. And Dissaya never forgave him totally for the theft, just enough to come to Paa’s funeral, but not enough to cook without spices.

Now there were nine years of photos that belonged to no-one. Pat prayed they belonged to no-one, his blood felt eighteen again for a moment, irrationaly greedy. 

His own photos belonged to someone for some years, another divorcee, with two children already going to uni. It was nice, it was the worst thing to ever happen to him.

She left with a thud on the door, just like Pran, but empty handed. I’m too old to be with someone who doesn’t know what he wants, Pat. Stop making people lose their time, was what she said.

The older daughter still wished him happy holidays every year. Pat taught her to drive and that being bisexual is okay.

It made him regret not being a parent. Above everything else, it made him miss Pran violently.

He turned to face his ex-husband who still had tears gathering in his lashes, but looked up to him doe-eyed, and for a second he looked so, so young. Pat offered a hand. Pran looked at it like it was a mystery. C’mon Pran, jump with me one last time.

“Where?” Pran asked, still not taking it.

“Home.” He said and Pran blinked one, two, three times.

“We can’t.” And no, no, no, please no. Not anymore. Life can’t be just this.

“Not that again.” Pat said, re-offering the hand. 

“I mean we can’t drive.” Pran said, taking the hand in his, warm and worn and big, and standing too. “You just downed three whiskeys and I had four. We need to call a cab.” Pran smiled, deepening dimples that now were perpetually hinted even with all the skincare used for ages.

Those were Pat's life trophies. He'd carved them one smile, one throaty laugh at a time.

The hug was radically different from the one they shared hours before. Pat allowed himself the pleasure of the warmth, the smell —different on the surface, the same nonetheless— the sensation that no-one fitted in his arms like someone a couple of centimeters shorter. 

The ride home was short and Pran's hand squeezed his a bit tighter when he told the driver the address to their old condo. 

Pat wanted to cry, because Pran was back and older and even prettier.

Pat wanted to cry, because Paa was dead and he didn't know how to start to be an only child, at his 51 years of age. He would need to grow accostumed to the grief, the hollowed part of himself that he shared with his sister, and didn't know if he was up to the task.

They had changed the elevator, Pran oddly realized once inside. Not that old thing that threatened to jail them hung mid air anymore. This was new and futuristic. It talked and announced the floors. The front door was the same, pale, unvarnished wood. Still creaked in a way that reminded Pran of nights where he arrived late from his job and tried to muffle it so as not to wake Pat, when he slipped under the covers and left a kiss on a temple, a kiss on a forehead, a kiss on a shoulder. Until the door creaked again on his way out because he didn’t know how to kiss anymore. 

The smell inside punched him in the gut because it meant that Pat still used the same floor cleaner and it screamed melancholy. The furniture was also the same, the sage green couch and the sage green tiles. And all their phantoms dancing through the rooms silently, living with Pat all these years.

The kiss was the same as ever —between then and now, Pran remembered how to— and the tears tasted salty as ever, and none of them dared to say a word. But Pran’s shirt collar was too tight and he tugged at it, and Pat undid the button for him and saw it.

Pran kept his ring in a chain close to his heart, every day, like a widow. Pat kept their things in place, frozen, like a widow.

And still none of them said a word, just jumped again.