call out my name [2gether]

CH 35 ✨

The last thing he remembered was being with Tine at the beach, the rippling, blue waves lapping at the coastline. Tine had been smiling, cheeks dimpling endearingly but then he was... crying in a dark room? Sarawat frowned, chest heaving up and down. What.

When the worst of the equilibrium finally passed, Sarawat raised his head slowly, cautiously taking in his surroundings from under his auburn bangs. He was in a private hospital room – again – a bed not too far way from where he was sitting in a visitor's chair. This particular scene felt eerily familiar. Shy light filtered trough the hospital window, bathing the tranquil room in a soft haze that did not match Sarawat's stormy insides. Confusion raged inside of his mind, drowning his sense of rationality. Was this heaven or hell?

Sarawat staggered abruptly to his feet, determined to find out what the hell was going on. His insides twisted, something slithering inside of him as he approached the hospital bed precariously, heart in his throat. How many times would he have to do this? He braced his hands on the cold, steel railing going around the elevated bed that shielded the person laying in there from view. And Sarawat made himself look down, craning his neck with icy dread pooling in his lower belly. Please not again.

A strange sense of relief mixed with guilt flooded through him when he found Phukong dozing with a half open mouth on the lumpy bed. One side of his face was all scratched up, some kind of glistening gel smeared over the superficial wounds, one leg was in a thick cast and laying atop the blankets. Sarawat blinked. All the air left him with a whoosh as he slumped over relieved, head hanging low while he clung to the railing for dear life, knuckles going white.

This particular type of bed.

His brother's broken leg.

Sarawat had already seen this scene exactly one year ago when Phukong had gotten into that idiotic motorcycle accident that almost took Tine's life, rendering him comatose.

A piercing pain stabbed at his heart at the mere thought of Tine. Being together with Tine felt noting but a beautiful, wishful dream at this rate. Sarawat raised one hand, long fingers curling against his t-shirt just over his heart. So was this a dream then? Or was he inside a memory? Had he become a ghost, stuck on replaying the crucial moments of his life until he completely lost himself to the universe?

Brows furrowed, Sarawat's looked down blankly, gaze stalling on his other hand where a simple leather bracelet circled his wrist, half of a guitar plectrum dangling from it like a pendant. His eyes grew instantly in size, heart racing with fragile hope. Why would he have the bracelet right now, surely this had to mean something? Or, he deflated straight away, he was really just a ghost now, making up his own appearance however it suited him. But that did not seem right. He felt a nagging feeling at the back of his mind, desperately trying to tell him something. He had to look at the bigger picture here.

Fuck! Sarawat was going crazy, breaths starting to get erratic, almost panicked. He had to calm down and think. Off the record, he had never wanted a smoke this badly as right this instant.

He patted absently the pocket of his stonewashed jeans while he wracked his brain desperately, trying to recall all the reports he had read about the motorcycle accident, both the real and the forged ones. Tine and Phukong had been taken to the same hospital at the time of the accident, even if his mother did pull on some strings to get the site of the accident rigged in the reports so that the blame would not fall on his brother, there was still one main hospital in the city where all inner city emergencies were routed to per standard procedure.

Then it meant that-

Sarawat did not even finish that thought as he dashed out of the private unit, throwing the door open and staggering out into the bleached hall. Even if he was already expecting it, he was still shocked to find his mother's slim back huddling further down the hall, speaking into the phone in hushed whispers. A chill ran down his back, his jaw tightening. This woman.