Don't Be Afraid To Ask

*50* Annie

As soon as Khao finished his story, our two companions who had been missing since the morning entered the room: Tutor Koraphat and Zee Pruk.  Only they were missing.  Zee almost immediately took a place on the floor next to NuNu, whom he put his arm around.  We sat wherever we could: on chairs, on the floor, on the bed or even on the windowsill.  The walls were covered with colorful sticky notes on which we wrote the tasks to be performed, password words that were supposed to help and questions we wanted to find answers to.  Our meeting was attended by: Kaownah Kittipat, Khaotung Thanawat, Off Jumpol, Gun Atthapan, Ohm Pawat, Ohm Thitiwat, Zee Pruk, New Chawarin, First Kanaphan, Jimmy Jitaraphol, Saint Suppapong, Mark Sorntast, Daria and myself.  For obvious reasons, we excluded Win Metawin, Bright Vachirawit, Nanon Korapat and Kao Noppakao from the meeting, they were not affected, it was not their problem and they didn't need to know anything.  We were aware that they might be offended if they discovered that we had done something so important without them, but on the other hand, we hoped that they would understand our reasons.  Only Earth Katsamonnat didn't appear.  Our other actors have traveled all over the world, traveling for promotional purposes, appearing at fan meetings, giving dozens of interviews.  Some had other commitments and we couldn't force them to stay with us.

— Human trafficking is serious business, are you sure you want to bring attention to it right now? — Mark turned to Khaotung.  Khao shook his head, but First answered them.

—  Of course we want to raise this topic, all over the world someone goes missing every day.  I managed to save Khaotung, but I don't know if those girls got out too.  I searched for information about them, but found nothing, even though Tung knew their names.  If we don't mention it, it's as if we agreed to it.  I don't even want to think about what would have happened if I hadn't been spying on those people back then.

— Okay, we'll do that too. You think P'Sky is responsible for this?

— Of course!  Or someone from his team. Back then, BL series were just gaining popularity.  Anyway, you should talk to Fourth Nattawat.

— Why Fourth?  What's he got to do with it?  — Daria interjected.  — He's a nice guy, I talked to him for a while, he seems harmless.

— Because it's harmless.  But that is not the point.  Fourth was one of the children from the orphanage who was taken in by wealthy families mainly in Bangkok, he, like many of us, has been given a new identity and has to pretend to be someone he is not every day.  Fortunately, his new family is very friendly and open, I met his new parents, very nice people who always dreamed of having a bunch of children, but couldn't have them.

First's story made a huge impression on me.  I brushed back my hair falling over my forehead, amused to notice that Khaotung happened to do exactly the same thing at the same time.  We looked at each other and smiled at each other.  Both First and Khao looked much better now, they stopped losing weight, their skin was not so pale and the dark circles under Khaotung's eyes disappeared.  First's hand, as if completely without the awareness of its owner, wandered to Tung's knee, sitting cross-legged at the ankles, and searched for a moment before Khao, probably equally automatically, grabbed this hand and intertwined their fingers as if it was the most natural thing under  the sun.  It was obvious that they felt comfortable in this group.  Ohm Pawat lay down on the bed, resting his head on Ohm Thitiwat's stomach as if he always did, and Thitiwat looked thoughtfully ahead and ruffled Pawat's hair with his hand, to which the latter responded with a contented smile.  Before I came to Thailand, I never would have guessed that Pawat and Thitiwat knew each other!  In the meantime, it looked like they were pretty close friends.  While you could say Pawat was a clingy guy to all of us, he spared no one, not even the somewhat introverted doctor Jimmy.

Kaownah's right leg was twitching alarmingly.  Sitting in the other chair next to him NuNew, he noticed this and put his hand on Kaownah's knee to calm him down.  I turned my head to the side to see Zee's reaction, but he was just smiling softly, not looking pissed or jealous.  His expression was more like love for NuNu.