One Week In August

Chapter 5

Yesterday it almost felt like his fingers would finally grasp something solid, as if he'd be able to catch up to the love he misses, the love he craves. He finally admitted it to himself, and allowed himself to recognise that he found a connection with someone that could turn into something greater, allowed himself to entertain the idea of having a relationship with someone, of finding a partner and sharing his life with him. But he was too slow again, too unversed and hesitant to grasp that fleeting, blossoming feeling between them and hold onto it, and instead it slipped through his fingers before he had a chance to catch it.

He goes to the lake one last time and looks across the water towards the rain tree where it all started, hoping against hope that he'll be there. The area is crowded today, every seat is occupied, but not by the person Phupha is searching for. He lets out a deep sigh, lets his shoulders slump, and his head hang low. This is it. The end of their story, that wasn't even a story to begin with.

He sits down on a bench near the bank, and studies the swans on the lake once again, feeling defeated. As a final farewell to this park and his trip, Phupha picks up his camera one last time to capture them. They're particularly close today, circling each other in an intricate ritual and bowing their heads towards the other. Phupha recognises it as a mating dance as he watches them, waiting for the inevitable moment when they will rest their heads against each other in mutual acceptance. When they finally do, he presses the shutter. The resulting image is the perfect, classical image of two bright white swans forming a heart with their necks. It's cliched, but he can't help but admire it on the display of his camera. A part of him envies the simplicity of their courtship, and its plain visual representation. When he looks up again, the swans are swimming in the opposite direction, further and further away from him, until they disappear behind the bridge across the lake.

Finally, he cannot justify prolonging his stay here anymore. Tomorrow, Phupha will leave Chiang Mai, and go back up on the mountain and back into his forest. He will leave the memory of Tian behind and find comfort in the embrace of loneliness once more. It's how it's always been, how it always will be. How his life is supposed to be. How foolish of him to ever entertain the idea that it could be different. Phupha only has the notion that Tian felt it, too, that there was something real between them. He has nothing but the bittersweet memory of their bodies aligned and their eyes never leaving one another to console him. And he has a picture, taken entirely by accident, and another forever showing the sight of his leaving form. Maybe he will grow to accept that it is enough.

And maybe it's for the best, Phupha tries to reason. Once he's back home he can focus on his passion again, and his chosen purpose of preserving nature through his work. He'll be leaving in a few weeks and he still needs to finish his plan for his project on the Tarutao islands. He's been working on this for almost a year now, his aim being to draw attention to the pollution and destruction by tourists plaguing the area. The project is important to him, and he reminds himself that he should focus on that instead. It doesn't do well to dwell on the memory of a boy with a beautiful smile.

But Tian was more than that, wasn't he? Phupha liked him, felt an understanding and connectedness with him he usually could not develop with people that easily. He liked the easy banter they engaged in yesterday, and how simple it was to speak to him. He liked the way Tian was sweet and charming, but there was also something a little mischievous about him, hinting at a hidden side Phupha would've loved to discover. Phupha felt like there was more to him, a depth Tian keeps carefully locked away, reserving it only for a precious few, choosing to cover it up with an easy smile, that infuriatingly arrogant cock of his brow, and his devastatingly charming smirk. But sometimes, when he looked at Phupha, when his smile turned wide and gentle, Phupha saw it, the vulnerability and delicateness hidden away. And there was something between them that felt like similarity, too. Two sides of the same coin, or maybe they were more like magnetic poles - opposite but inevitably drawn to each other? Phupha will never know whether it was the first or the latter. He didn't get to know Tian well enough, despite wanting to, despite being curious and intrigued, and despite a piece of his heart already reserving itself to be placed into Tian's gentle hands.