Tine was not into dudes. Seriously, he wasn't. But looking at Sarawat on that dimly stage, the yellow backlights softening his features while his long fingers plucked all the right notes from those strings, making his guitar vibrate with emotion made something inside him turn. His breath stuttered looking at the light bouncing off of Sarawat's carefully styled hair and glistening in the tiny beads of sweat at his temples and on the soft skin of his neck. The veins on the musician's hands strummed along with the guitar strings, as his dark lashes grazed his high cheeks when his eyes lowered to the instrument in his care. A curved smirk stretched across his lips. Tine's dark pupils dilated.
Green shrieked suddenly beside him, grabbing Tine's bicep to hang off on, making him stagger, and fanned himself with the merchandise that they had bought before the concert. And as an afterthought he waved the paper fan with Sarawat's name and picture in Tine's face as well, it was getting rather stuffy in the arena.
Tine was obviously aware that Sarawat had received quite the recognition for his musical talent but deep down he had still not fully realized how big of a following the other man had already mustered. Tine had been in shock when the other had stoically announced that he would pursue a career within the music industry. What happened with just enjoying the things that made him happy? If you love it, set it free and all that jam.
"Has he always been this handsome?" Green screamed in his ear over the fan chant that rolled in waves over the crowd. Yes. Yes, he has always been this handsome, Tine wants to say but swallows it down.
There was no use giving Green any ins, that guy would then never give him a break with his incessant flirting. Tine had realized over time that the pursing of him had mostly been for shits and giggles, but there had been a few memorable occasions when Green had gotten scarily serious and all bets had been suddenly off. Even Dim, Green's long term boyfriend, the poor sap, had been moping around for days and giving Tine the stink eye.
Tine exhaled and inhaled slowly to calm his worried heart, the warm night air expanding his lungs. That made him feel just all the more sticky than he already was and Green's grip on him suddenly felt clammy. He tried to shake off the iron clutch but the other would not budge. Tine panicked for a millisecond, afraid that he would have to live with a bruise in the form of a handprint for the next couple of days. How would he explain that to his friends? They would for sure draw the wrong conclusions and Dim would mope again, showering Tine with snide remarks.
"Hey, man," he said, lowering his head to speak into Green's ear to make sure the other heard him. "Let go of my arm, you're kind of hurting me." The shorter man just squinted at Tine, harrumphing at him.
"What, are you afraid that mister stoic over there will misunderstand?" Tine's round eyes got bigger as he gaped at Green, trying to form coherent word with his plump lips.
"Wha-" Tine spluttered and swung his head around, glancing hastily at the stage where Sarawat had now stood up from his perch on the high chair, as the acoustic song was concluding to an end and scanned the sea of people in front of him. Tine felt Green nudge him in the ribs.
"He's even trying to keep tabs on you in this wild crowd."
Tine pressed his lips harshly together, his fine brows scrunching funnily, trying not to let Green get a rise out of him but was not really able to contain himself in the end.
"Stop spewing nonsense," his voice reached a high note as he tried to speak over the screaming girls chanting Sarawat's name. His hands making fluttering motions that he had no control over. "He doesn't know that we are here." He must have forgotten that we exist at all, Tine added in his head.
They had not been in contact with Sarawat for months and then Green had presented the tickets to Sarawats's concert on Tine's birthday as some sort of ingenious pay back. Tine side eyed Green.
Eyes still searching, Sarawat brought his face close to the microphone stand, his top lip jutting out and slightly grazing the mike.
"Thank you," his low voice reverberated throughout the arena. "The next song is for you," he cast a meaningful glance at his fans, paired off with a lazy smirk and the crowd got wild, jostling Tine and Green in a sudden shove that propelled them forward when hundreds of people simultaneously tried to come closer to the stage.
"Thank you for supporting me through the good and the bad," Sarawat continued and looked down coyly at the instrument in his hands as he carefully started to strum unfamiliar cords on his guitar, his fingers moving sensuously over the strings.
Green squawked, draping himself all over Tine in excitement.
"Is that a new song?" He shouted, jumping up and down with the rising beat.
Tine however remained still among the alive crowd, a beacon of motionlessness. As the intro of the song bloomed into an explosion of devastating vocals and starlit music Tine felt his fingers go numb. He felt betrayed. A pang of unfamiliar feelings hit his chest hard and a breath lodged in his throat. Tine had to leave. Now.
Bowing his head, he ducked and wavered through the crowd until he reached the security barriers. The buff security guy let Tine slip out without sparing him a second glance. Just another fan out of many, having a panic attack from being star struck.
***
Tine was not sure when he fell asleep but it was the notifications that woke him up. He stared blearily at his phone, five missed calls and several messages from messaging aps and social media. He flopped back onto his back and stared at the grainy ceiling, cradling the piece of technology in his hand. Another notification went through and he felt the phone vibrate with a slight buzz. Tine pouted, ignoring it.
Seeing Sarawat had been both gratifying and maddening. He had seemed like a different person since the last time they saw each other, even playing unreleased new songs that no one had heard before, not even Tine. Asshole. Tine huffed and threw himself around on his big bed, burrowing his face into the fluffy pillow. He felt like crying. However chic guys did not cry over ex-friends, it was uncool, so he refrained.
A series of urgent knocks interrupted his sulking session. Tine rose sluggishly from the bed and ripped the door open, already exasperated at having to deal with his friends.
But instead, there he was, Mr. Asshole himself. Tine tried to slam the door in his face but a booted foot stopped him. Sarawat wore a leather jacket and a cap with sunglasses, his lips twisted. He had obviously slunk away from his manager in secret.
"Aren't you letting me in?" He asked in monotone and shouldered past the stunned Tine.
"Come on right in," Tine said as an afterthought and pivoted to face the other, feeling rather exposed in just a pair of pajama bottoms, shielding his pectorals. "Let me just put something on," he spluttered when Sarawat was still wearing his sunglasses inside and there was no telling which part of Tine he was looking at. A corner of Sarawat's lips ticked upward a millisecond before it dropped back into a twist.
Tine threw himself into his bedroom and hastily rooted through his closet after a random sweatshirt. He was not trying to find that one jersey that made him look all soft and huggable. Taking his time, he could already feel heavy energy building up in the next room. Tine frowned. What was that guy even doing here?
They had obviously parted on bad terms. Yeah, it sucked. And Tine was conflicted over it. On one side it had been good to get rid of that stoic source of criticism but at the same time his days started to feel empty and uneventful. Still, life went on. They had graduated and now a couple of years later Tine was working at a legal unit of a fairly known corporation while Sarawat was well on his way taking the world by storm with his cool gaze and deep music. He was still following Tine on Instagram with his old account, which perturbed and frustrated his fan base, that was mystified by the connection as there were no recent pictures floating on the deep webs of the net of them two together. Just those few pictures from the Scrubb showcase at their university way back. Besides, that account seemed to be long abandoned even if it did spark some turbulence now and then when a new fan wave managed to snoop it down.
Tine hurried back into the living room, where the other had already made himself at home, sprawling on the grey couch. His jacket and Raybans were thrown on the cushy seat next to him. Tine cleared his throat.
"Do you want something to drink?" He offered and shuffled to the adjacent kitchen, filling up on the water in the plastic tank of the coffee machine and plopping a capsule in the apparatus. "Coffee?" He probed and placed two espresso cups on the counter.
Tine turned around when it remained suspiciously quiet, finding Sarawat looking intensely at him with a dark gaze, his orbs bottomless pools of ink, and his arms crossed over his chest. Tine felt a shiver run down his body, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. Feeling strange he turned hastily back around and fiddled with one espresso cup while placing the other in the coffee machine, his slender fingers grazing the white porcelain. This was awkward as hell.
"Can we start over?" Uttered a low voice behind him. Butterflies erupted instantly in Tine's lower belly.
"W-what?" He turned around violently, his eyes big and slamming his lower back into the kitchen counter, the cup cluttering behind him as he accidentally snagged it with his hand. "What are you talking about?"
Sarawat glanced at Tine across the room from under his lashes, averting his gaze almost instantly. A strong hand rubbed at his neck as he cleared his throat in the eerie morning silence.
"Let's be friends again."
Tine felt a humorless laugh erupt from his mouth, white noise suddenly filling his ears.
"Aren't we already?" He hedged.
Sarawat looked up, his orbs all the more dark and bottomless as he regarded Tine in silence. The coffee machine gurgled behind Tine, starling the pale man slightly. Slowly Sarawat gathered his things and stood up, stalking over where Tine was hunching in on himself as a deer caught in the headlights. Tine's eyes flicked to the other man's healthy thighs flexing under his black jeans before he fixed his gaze on the other's stoic face.
"Give me your phone," Sarawat demanded and reached out his hand, palm up and long fingers spread under Tine's nose. The coffee machine gurgled some more. Tine bit his lip and just looked at the other. Sarawat thrust his hand forward anew, impatient. Tine exhaled, giving up and ducked away from Sarawat, staggering back into his bedroom where he had abandoned the phone between the sheets of his bed.
His hands trembled slightly as he searched, crawling over the covers. What was going on? Why would Sarawat be at his place, trying to make peace? Their last disagreement had been relentless but yet here they were, Sarawat trying to make some kind of amends in his own way.
"Here," Tine said as he stuffed his phone in Sarawat's hand, once back in the kitchen and finding the other still standing in the same spot. What a sight. "I've kept my old number, if you'd ever bothered enough to get in touch," he could not help grumbling.
The other just nodded absently, fully focused on the screen and typed something before handling the shiny price of technology back. Tine raised his brows at Sarawat being smooth with a phone. He unraveled his mouth to say something too but the room suddenly was flooded with an ear-piercing tune. Tine cringed, typical Sarawat to set an obscure melody as his ringtone, most likely from some kind of underground indie band.
Sarawat stuck his hand in a jeans' pocket and frowned at the screen, mouthing swearwords under his breath.
"Tine," he said lowly and looked at the other through his lashes. He lifted his hand but seemed to think better of it and aborted the movement. "I need to go, Tine." He said almost regretfully. Tine huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.
"You always need to go." But then he made shooing motions with his hands in exasperation. When Sarawat remained motionless he slapped his bicep with finality and pushed him back around, propelling him in the direction of the door. "Your manager must be worried. Go. We can talk later."
At this the other guy looked up and nodded, reluctantly shuffling to the entrance while putting on his jacket and the cap, glancing over his now leather clad shoulder at Tine.
"That's a promise, if I've ever heard one," he said with a smirk as he slipped on his shades and strode into the hall outside, shutting the door behind him with a foreboding click.
Tine felt instantly all energy leave his body, going weak in the knees. What the actual fuck. This was the first in however long that Sarawat did not act as a full blown smartass. And most importantly, how did he know where Tine lived? Shit! Which parallel universe had Tine been transported to?
Note:
There are some things hidden throughout the story if you guys wanna join the guessing bandwagon:
1. A hidden BTS reference.
2. A couple of meme references (hint: disguised as feelings). Which memes can you find??
3. A TharnType cameo (hint: it's just Tharn).
~~~~~~
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