Just By Chance

8. We Meet Again

"Nope. Pad thai for me, please."

"Extra chicken and extra peanuts, right?"

"Chai, khrap."

"Coming right up." She smiled and walked to the back of the stall, to get started. Beam took a look in her stall and saw all the slips of paper of the orders before his. For her to work alone, she sure knew how to serve the food rather quickly.

While he waited, he went over to the stall selling flavored milks. His favorite milk to get was the iced coffee milk with a shot of chocolate syrup. He didn't know what they did to make the milk taste so good, but coffee and chocolate was always a good combo. It didn't take long for him to receive his milk. Once he did, he quickly paid and headed back over to the other stall to wait for his pad thai.

As he sipped his milk, he looked over to see the auntie packaging a tray of food. Thinking it was his, he stepped forward.

"Pad thai?" She called out. Beam raised his hand and stepped forward at the same moment someone else called out, "right here."

The auntie looked from Beam to the voice.

"Oh, Nong, this one is his." She said, handing the food to the other person. Beam turned around to see the kid from the bathroom, the engineering nominee, Forth. And immediately something invisible took hold of Beam's stomach and he started to feel nervous. Did Forth remember his embarrassing incident at the Moon and Star gathering? He hoped not.

"Oh, it's you." Forth said, looking at Beam. "Beam, right?"

"I'm sorry, Nong. But you have to order something else. I'm out of ingredients for Pad Thai. This Nong ordered the last of it."

Beam looked at the lady then over at Forth who was looking a bit surprised.

"Ohh, um...I'll just..." He trailed off. He didn't really know what he was going to say. He would be lying if he didn't say he wasn't disappointed. He had already had his taste buds set on pad thai. He didn't want anything else.

"Here." Forth said, thrusting his bag of food out to Beam.

"What are you doing?" Beam looked surprised.

"Take it."

Beam slowly took the bag.

"I can eat something else." He nodded his head at the bag. "Extra noodles. You should eat it. You're too skinny anyway." He took a quick sip of his drink (a coffee milk) and with that, he turned and walked away.

Beam stared in awe at Forth's back. He still didn't even know the kid and he gave him his food!

"Well then, in that case..." The auntie smiled and reached to take the bag out of Beam's hand. She walked back into the stall and Beam saw her scoop more chicken onto the tray and sprinkle an extra scoop of peanuts over the top. She came back and handed the bag back to Beam.

"Now it's just the way you like it."

Beam took the bag. "Kapkun khrap."

She nodded then returned to finish making the rest of her orders. Beam turned around to try and find Forth again, but he was nowhere in sight. After a few minutes of scanning the canteen he finally decided to just go back to the table with Kit and Phana. When he got there, Kit was already on his third bowl of tiny 3 Baht noodles.

Beam sat down and Phana watched him as he opened the tray.

"Shiaa!" They both cried out in unison.

"Were you that hungry, Ai'Beam?"

Kit looked up from his noodles. "I know you like extra chicken in your pad thai, but that's practically three servings, Beam!"

Beam quickly shook his head. "I didn't order this! Well, I did...but not this. The guy before me let me have his order."

"He just gave it to you?" Phana asked, confused.

"Auntie ran out of ingredients after making his order so I couldn't get mine. He heard so he gave me his instead."

"No wonder she ran out of ingredients. Look at the amount of food on that plate!" Kit exclaimed.

Beam looked around again, trying to see if he could find him.

"Who was it that gave it to you?" Phana asked.

As soon as he asked, Beam's eyes landed on him again. He was at the back of the canteen talking with his engineering seniors, with the loudest one being P'Toy.

When Beam didn't answer him, Phana turned to follow his gaze.

"Mmm, engineering. Was it Forth?"

Beam nodded, not taking his eyes off of him. Forth was talking, still looking as stern as ever until one of the seniors said something and he cracked a smile. It was such a cute smile. Beam had only met him twice but for some reason he didn't seem like the kind of person that smiled very often. So Beam continued to stare. And as if Beam had called his name, Forth looked up and eye contact was made. The butterflies immediately took flight inside Beam and he quickly gripped his stomach. They both sat staring at each other and as awkward as Beam felt, he could not tear his eyes away. It was as if something was holding on to him at the moment. It felt like an eternity before Forth finally looked away and their trance was broken. Beam sighed. Whether it was a sigh of relief or disappointment, he wasn't really sure.

What's happening. Beam thought to himself.