THE GHOSTS OF THE PAST (I).
Sarawat sat on his bed, one hand rubbing at the short, wet hair at his neck with a fluffy towel while his other hand thumbed lazily through his phone, opening Facebook.
"Tine," Sarawat drawled and flinched slightly when the aforementioned guy popped up right next to him on the bed, back straight and eyes shining expectantly, pale hands folded innocently in his lap.
"Yes?" He asked curiously and shuffled closer, obviously starved for attention. Sarawat's lips curled in amusement at how adorable the other guy was acting and he shook his head fondly. Tine inclined his own head, blinking confusedly at the other but nevertheless waiting patiently for Sarawat to explain the reason for calling him out.
Sarawat swiped one last time over the screen and mutedly thrust his hand out with the cell phone where the Facebook feed was open, trying to pass it over to Tine, who automatically reached out to grasp the device. The phone however, dropped instantly straight through Tine's nonexistent hand, making his fingers dissolve into tendrils of fog before they quickly clustered back together.
The phone bounced on the bed in the silence between them.
Sarawat's eyes widened comically, eyebrows arched. Oh shit. Tine looked so real that he had forgotten all about him being a ghost and it seemed that it had slipped Tine's mind as well.
Tine's forehead wrinkled, an unreadable expression on his face as he stared forlornly at the sleek device peaking out between the folds of the dark sheets. He bit his lower lip and made an aborted movement as if to pick it up but refrained, curling his very real looking fingers into fists instead. Maybe if Tine concentrated hard enough he could gather some force to hold the cell phone for a teeny, tiny moment but then he would probably have to disappear for a while longer to recharge his ghostly battery.
"Uh, sorry." Sarawat scratched at his nape awkwardly. He then threw the wet towel on the bed beside him and picked up the phone with his long fingers, not knowing what to do with his hands now that he held the device. "Let me hold it up for you to see," he decided finally and angled the cell phone in Tine's direction, who shyly slid closer, peaking over Sarawat's shoulder at the sleek screen.
A tickling chill crept along the side of Sarawat's body where Tine hovered close to him. Making Sarawat wonder if that would be as close as he would ever get to feel some sort of presence from Tine, just that one fleeting trace of smooth, cold air. Sarawat felt tempted to reach out and let his hand glide through Tine's afterimage, letting it ripple apart from his intrusive fingers. Sarawat almost shivered at the mere thought of it, of violating Tine's existence so easily like that. It was so strange. How could such things as ghosts exist? Tine looked so very real.
"Oh, is this Facebook?" Tine inquired, bringing Sarawat out of his thoughts. Tine's mood seemed to be lifting slowly after their slight slipup with the phone, now that he had a hunch of where this talk might be heading.
Sarawat raised an eyebrow at the question. Funny, was Facebook known even on the other side?
"Yeah, I haven't been to get any consistent information from your friends yet but there's a lot of pictures of you on their feeds," he explained.
"What's wrong with my account?" Tines asked sulkily as he glanced at Sarawat's side profile, eyes taking a detour to his bow shaped lips before darting back to the screen.
Again.
Tine was unconsciously dropping hints all over the place. Some kind of memories were obviously still hidden inside his mind. It was just a matter of wheedling them out. Maybe there were things out there that could trigger Tine's memory? Something like seeing familiar people or places?
Sarawat shrugged his wide shoulders in reply to Tine's question, almost hitting his chin with the way Tine was hovering by his side. Sarawat froze up instantly, aborting the movement and eyes widening precariously. He felt quite confused, unsure whether he did that to avoid hitting Tine or to avoid sliding his shoulder though Tine's ghostly face. Somehow, it was a little too much and way too soon, even if his thoughts had lingered on this mere minutes ago Sarawat was still not willing to break the illusion of Tine's appearance himself.
"I think it's been deleted," Sarawat said while trying to shake off the slight stroke of confusion from his mind. He then angled the phone a little closer to Tine, steadily scrolling through his friends' feeds, thumbing through the archives of silly pictures, showing them to Tine. Pausing on certain ones with many comments to let Tine read through the jabs and jokes that their group of friends had shared just a year ago. Tine's own comments still on there. Although, both the profile picture and the username had been encrypted, it was still quite obvious whom those exaggerated and upbeat remarks belonged to.
Sarawat suddenly heard a sharp intake of breath close to his ear. He turned his head quickly, glancing quizzically at the ghost and his heart raced instantly at the devastated expression on Tine's face. His fine eyebrows were drawn in harshly, bottom lip trembling dangerously. A pale hand shot up to cover a pink mouth just as his lips parted squarely, revealing a straight set of teeth when a silent sob wracked through Tine's body, sending his shoulders shaking.
It was as if Tine was trying to mute himself, desperate to stop whatever that was happening with body without his consent. Stinging tears welled up at the water line of his eyes as the clear orbs darted to Sarawat's own in pure shock. Help, they seemed to beg. Do something.
Sarawat dropped the phone as if being burned, letting it clatter to the messy floor of his dorm room. He felt completely paralyzed. Tine was falling apart right in front of him and he did not know how to make it better or at least, how to make it stop. Tine blinked then, black eyelashes clumped unevenly from the moist of his unshed tears, breaking their painful gaze.
"That is really me," he whispered brokenly with a hitch, barely audible behind the hand that was clamped hard over his mouth, anchoring him to this world. "I didn't think that any of this would make any sense, but that's really me in those pictures." One lonesome tear slid out of the corner of Tine' eye, rolling down the slope of his flushed cheek. Tine wiped furiously at it with the back of his hand, releasing his hold on his mouth that was now all puffy and wrecked, lips quivering. His ghost breaths were coming out uneven, chest heaving up and down violently.
Sarawat swallowed harshly, feeling inappropriate and misplaced for being a random spectator of such a private moment. How did one console a ghost? It was not like he could say that everything would be all right. It would not, not in this case.
"Hey, Tine," Sarawat tried, his hands fluttering around the perimeter of Tine's shaking frame. He looked so pitiful, all hunched in on himself. Fucking hell, Sarawat would give anything right this moment just to be able hug him or pet him on the head, anything really, as long as he could give Time some sort of comfort. Sarawat was not particularly good at verbally handling emotional situations, especially not ones as strange as this one, so physical comfort was all he could think of to give. But even that was not possible now. Shit. This situation was driving him mad.
"At least I looked happy," Tine hiccupped, looking back up at Sarawat with glassy eyes. A watery smile quivered on his lips as his form was getting fuzzy around the edges. He was slowly fading out into nothingness. Sarawat panicked and surged across the bed to catch him but the ghost had already disappeared, only leaving a trail of crisp air behind, coolly caressing Sarawat's heated skin.
-----
Sarawat was tapping his pen impatiently against his notebook, completely missing what the professor was speaking about. His thoughts kept straying to Tine as he turned his head to stare out the window of the classroom. The ghost was worrying him, since he had once again disappeared. All this waiting was starting to get agonizing for Sarawat who was impatient to find out whether seeing those pictures on Facebook had helped to bring Tine's memory back or not.
There seemed to be a pattern though. Whenever Tine got too emotional he seemed to lose control over himself. Subsequently, as much as Sarawat impatiently wanted to get to the bottom of this, surely Tine was impatient too, it seemed that they could not keep shocking Tine with information. It would take ages for them to find out anything if Tine kept bleeping out of existence like this. Then how the heck should Sarawat break any news to Tine when he did not even know what the rigger was? Shit.
Besides, there were no guaranties that Tine would even come back once he disappeared to wherever ghosts went when they felt sad. Maybe finding out his name and seeing those pictures had been satisfactory enough that the ghost had already moved on. Ah, this was aggravating. Would Tine even get a chance to say goodbye to Sarawat? An unreasonable worry tickled down his back. Could Tine disappear forever just like that? Had he already disappeared? Sarawat's heart fluttered worriedly at the mere thought of it. They still had so much to find out, Tine could not have left already.
Hold up. Wait.
Since when had he been so hung up on someone? Sarawat cringed mentally at his own strange behavior. It was a rare occasion for him to actually be worried about someone. No one had interested him this much before. But was it not only rational to want to make sure that everything went well for Tine? Yes, Sarawat concluded, he just wanted to help a lost, sad soul find its way back from the bottom of his compassionate heart and nothing more.
Sarawat suddenly dropped his pen from in between his long fingers, letting it roll over his desk as he remembered something. His desk mate breathed out in relief when the annoying tapping finally stopped, afraid to actually call Sarawat out on it. The guy had a certain type of gloomy aura that unsettled people, making them hesitant to approach him, least of all speaking to him.
Blind to the world around him Sarawat fussed around in his seat. Instagram! Sarawat had completely forgotten about Tine's Instagram account with all this sudden drama. Well, he should not waste any more time, huh? He shimmied the phone out from his jeans pocket, not really making a thing of hiding it from the rest of the class and opened up his brand new account. Sarawat swore under his breath when he saw the nickname that Boss had picked out for him.
Saraleo glared at him from the screen. That piece of shit! Sarawat's lips twisted into a smirk. Nonetheless, well played. Sarawat would have to come up with a stinging payback once he had the time to think about something, or someone else besides the ghost.
A little slowly but surely Sarawat finally navigated his way around to Tine's account. Why were people so obsessed with these apps?
However, when Sarawat saw the content on Tine's account he instantly understood what could make people so addicted. The beautiful things on the tiny grid of Tine's life made his heart instantly flutter with a bittersweet longing of opportunities lost, like an elusive memory of a soft summer evening.
The feed was full of breathtaking minimalistic pictures both in muted and bright colors, as if taking shape straight out from someone's soul. Was this how Tine saw the world? Delicately and lovingly, pictures that spoke both of happiness and sadness at the same time, of longing. This was the way that Sarawat strived for his music to sound like. While here Tine was, already capturing it in his minimalistic snaps.
How had this precious human being been so close without their paths crossing even once? Sarawat was almost furious with himself for not noticing Tine while he had still been alive. Maybe then they could have been something great alongside each other instead of like now, being alone together.
Something painful tugged at Sarawat's heart as he blinked his eyes rapidly, battling the sudden storm of emotions engulfing his heart. There was nothing he could do now. Tine was already a ghost, a lost soul. The feeling of powerlessness was too overwhelming and he surged up from his seat, hurriedly leaving the classroom. The professor tried to call him back inside but the door had already slammed shut, muffling all intrusive sounds.
Sarawat had to get away. He needed time to think and process that he had already lost someone who was not even his to begin with.
Note:
The credit for the beautiful pictures above goes to BTS' V, check out his pictures under "Vante" on Twitter. Also, the last line in this chapter "I've lost somebody who wasn't even mine" is a pretty popular quote, though I am not sure who the original author might be but the rightful credit goes to them.