2gether Again

Date Night

"She said it was an accident." Tine shrugged, thinking of the day he found his guitar in the music club room, broken beyond repair. It was a horrible day. He had passed out during cheerleading practice and he realized he had left the guitar during music club earlier.

Pear shook her head and said acidly, "Accident my ass."

"How could it have been an accident when the strings were cut evenly?" Earn muttered.

"You both knew?" Sarawat asked the other two members of CTRL+S. They shared a look before sighing simultaneously.

"We didn't want to make a big deal out of it, to be honest." Earn replied. "You were busy with the songwriting contest and, well, Tine..." she trailed off.

Pear nodded at Tine while taking Earn's hand, urging him to continue the story.

"I know you were working on your song. I didn't want to ruin your momentum by telling you the guitar you gave me was broken." Tine finished. "Besides, you never looked for it after and I figured you had forgotten about it."

"I did ask about it," Sarawat said quietly. "Pam told me that you left the guitar behind at your house. That's why I never saw it on campus." And that you didn't care about me at all.

"She was a witch." Pear said, pouting.

"She was right, though," Tine added. "I left it at home. I tried to get it repaired but it was too badly damaged."

Sarawat frowned, running through his memories with Pam and wondering what else she could have lied about. What else did she poison between me and Tine?

"It's best not to dwell on the past, Sarawat." Dim looked grim. "If we can find more evidence about her breaking into your apartment, we can have the restraining order extended. I know you didn't want another extension but if she's been working with Mil..."

The door to the conference room swung open, Air walking in with an expression on her face that meant business. "I want that restraining order extended today." She tossed a USB at Tine who barely caught it with his hands. "I have videos of Pam meeting Mil prior to the break-in and going into your building."

"You've been tailing her?" Tine asked, plugging the USB into a laptop and downloading all the files. There were over fifty videos in total, enough to get an indefinite extension on the restraining order if they wanted. Pam wouldn't be seeing Sarawat or the band for a while.

"Sorry, Sarawat," Air said, not looking very sorry at all, "I know you thought that she was just trying to see you six months ago but I was very suspicious. She knows you and the band. She knew you wouldn't be home when she broke in."

"Thanks, Air." Sarawat wrung his hands. Tine couldn't resist this time and reached over, rubbing one hand over both of Sarawat's soothingly. "Everything's going to be fine."

"It will be," Dim seconded.

---

Dim stayed true to his word and, as per Air's instruction, managed to extend the restraining order for another five years within the day. It had been a month since then and more or less Sarawat and Tine were settling into their relatively new roles as boyfriends.

Boyfriends.

Tine sighed dreamily as he rolled around in bed, refraining from kicking his legs like a schoolgirl. It was date night and the first time Sarawat was going to see Tine's apartment. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and went on Twitter. It had been a while since he posted something on his personal account.

@tine_chic (three sets of cloud emojis and superscript nines)

He dropped it on the bedspread with a grin. After a few minutes he felt it buzz. It was a Sarawat notification.