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The sky is washing away into this pretty, rosy hue that Por loves.
His Por loves pink. He is so pink, too—in his sweet innocence, his youthful happiness, his captivating beauty. The flush on his cheeks as the cool autumn air hits his face, tickling the tip of his nose and drying his heart-shaped lips. Por becomes a sneezing mess as soon as the colder weather arrives (not that it’s ever truly cold in Thailand); it makes Tiw think of a little, fluffy kitten—Por wrapped up in his favorite blanket, snuggling by his side and oh, so small. The color of his face is this pinkish, reddish, rich tone that puts all the flowers of their garden to shame.
Por was the one with the idea. “Why have such a big garden if we aren’t going to fill it with flowers?” He had asked one day, and Tiw found no reason to argue.
They went to the nearest store that same afternoon and spent the whole weekend setting up their little flower garden. Gardenias, forget-me-nots, the classical roses. Por doesn’t have a favorite, takes care of all of them equally. He just has so much love to give.
They are slightly biased towards their little orange tree though. Under which they are snuggling right now, even though it’s cold outside and it would be arguably better to share body heat under the sheets. Por made hot chocolate, filling the mugs with marshmallows like he loves, and Tiw brought out the blankets. Just to watch the sun set, because it’s pretty. Por has chocolaty stains on his lips and a sweet taste on the roof of his mouth when Tiw kisses him. Just because he can. Just because he loves this man so, so, so, so much it’s scary.
“It’s starting to get dark earlier.” Por speaks. It might sound like a random fact he drops for the sake of making conversation—Tiw knows it’s not.
The hidden meaning behind those words is kind of frightening. Like a cold, bony hand on his shoulder, something inevitable. The anxiety and the anticipation are already starting to gnaw at Tiw’s gut.
Por cuddles up impossibly closer to him. The weight of his head on Tiw’s shoulder is a gentle, easy sort of comfort. It comes as easily as it can go away, but this never happens—Por doesn’t leave, no matter how tough things may get.
Tiw sometimes feels like he’s holding Por back. From finding something better than this, someone better than him. Someone not so broken, with way less baggage—but then, Por traps him in the sweet prison of his arms, peppers kisses all over Tiw’s face and down to the scar of his neck. Calls him ‘lovely’, ‘angel’, ‘sweetheart’. And suddenly, it’s worth enduring the bad winter months just to experience more of this.
Winter is always harder, but having Por by his side makes the burden a little lighter.
Some days are harder than others, but Por knows for a fact that the last months of the year are the worst.
They enjoy walking around, childishly stepping on puddles and hearing the crack of orange and brown leaves under their shoes. Sometimes they take them home: paint them in vibrant colors, stick them to the pages of a scrapbook they keep in the living room.
Their whole life is in there, in the shape of movie tickets, dried flowers, pictures Tiw took with his favorite Polaroid (the one Tinn and Kajorn got him for his birthday). Sentences written with colorful pencils and silly drawings of random stuff on the margins: lions and chinchillas (Por loves them; he is still trying to convince Tiw to get one as a pet, and he might succeed soon), simple four-petal flowers. Poems, bits and pieces of new love songs Por is working on.
My love holds a galaxy in his eyes and the warmth of a thousand suns, Por wrote once (Tiw thought it was a little silly, because his hands are always cold, and he always shoves them under Por’s shirt to startle him). Lover of mine, know that all will be alright, was next (It’s Tiw’s favorite in its simplicity—sometimes, all he craves is straightforward comfort). Tiw’s contributions are easy to spot because of how non-flowery they are in comparison.
Tiw loves going through it when the shortage of sunlight is starting to take its toll. Just to focus on something that isn’t the darkness outside and dawning on his own heart. On the pages full with light and love and everything that’s good in the world.
Por knows what it means when he comes home to find Tiw curled up on the couch. Knees to his chest, blanket over his lap, tracing the shape of a leaf or drawing a new star or a heart in an empty corner.
That’s why Por lights a rod of his favorite orange inciense, makes green tea for them both and cuddles up close to him. A kiss to Tiw’s cheek (now tanned and chubbier, where the cheekbones used to stick out like sore thumbs and the skin was a sickly white color) and he looks Tiw in the eye.
There is no need for words when Tiw’s eyes say it all. He says I thought about doing it again. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I feel disgusted with myself. I want to get better, but it never seems to end.
And that’s okay. Por understands him. Por loves him, ugly scars, nasty thoughts, winter blues and all.
Tiw cries sometimes when that happens. Because it’s like all his progress has been for nothing and he’s reverting back to old habits. Like one day he might just wake up alone in his old place again, not speaking and not doing anything but remembering—his dead parents, the blood, the gaping wound on his neck that burns and bleeds but doesn’t quite kill.
Por reassures him that it’s not the case. That his parents would want him to move on, that they would be happy seeing him now. Points at where Tiw’s heart is, compliments the bravery Tiw is filled with to the brim.
My love’s presence, Por writes then, lingers in the air like the scent of oranges. The expanse of his body tells the story of bravery of a thousand suns.
“That’s so silly! How is the sun brave, hm?”
“Hey, it takes a lot of bravery to radiate all that heat!”
Tiw adores this man.
The knives in their house are under lock and key.
Por decided it would be better safe than sorry. Just because the danger is not as prominent as it once was doesn’t mean it fully went away. Tiw knows it’s for the best, too—P’Mina did tell him to avoid potential triggers at all cost during this time of the year, after all.
It all started when Por was away on tour with Chinzhilla.
It was the beginning of November, and he was extremely reluctant to leave Tiw alone until Tinn and Kajorn reassured him they would keep an eye on him; and they did, staying the night whenever they could and eating all together pretty much everyday. Even so, Por still called every night just to make sure; it made things a little better, but after the comforting voice by his ear was gone, that’s when it got bad.
The four walls of the room became suffocating and the bed was much too big for Tiw alone. Por’s side was so cold; the pillow still held traces of Por’s favorite almond milk shampoo—it became the regular after a few months of them living together, but before that, Tiw never had enough time to get attached to any of the scents Por used. “I just can’t find one that feels like me, you know?” Por always complained with a pout. An adorable one that Tiw couldn’t help but kiss away.
But those were just remnants that couldn’t replace the actual, warm body that always slept next to him. Tiw could hug the pillow to sleep but it didn’t feel the same, no matter how much he tried.
Sometimes, he wanted to ask Por to just stay on the phone while he slept, but never worked up the courage to ask. It would be selfish, depriving Por of sleep just so he could have his own—even if the alternative was sleepless nights or a plague of nightmares. Those are still present some days, even when Por is there; the difference is the company, the having someone to care for him and calm him down.
It was December 1st when Chinzhilla’s tour finished and Por came back home. Tiw jumped him the second he came through the door, legs around Por waist, clinging to him like a koala.
When Por laughs, it’s like he’s singing. A little songbird, Tiw jokingly called him on occasion—and Por surprisingly liked it enough for it to become a casual term of endearment. And Por laughed then, at what he called ‘an ambush’. Tiw preferred ‘fit of affection’. His affection for this man knows no bounds.
Por listened, even though he must have been exhausted from his trip and wanted nothing but to sleep until next week. He listened as Tiw went on about the dreadful nights he spent on his own, when Kajorn and Tinn couldn’t stay overnight. Let Tiw’s head rest on his lap and played with his hair, biting back the urge to say something when Tiw confessed that he thought about doing that again.
They both cried a lot that night. Shared a lot of salty, wet kisses under the blankets and Por apologized profusely for leaving him alone—and then Tiw apologized, because Por couldn’t just ditch his job to take care of him all the time; Tiw is an adult, supposedly able to handle himself. He can’t just depend on his boyfriend for that. P’Mina agreed, and usually, Tiw could manage.
But winter is harsh and unforgiving like that, and with the cold and the lack of sunlight come the nasty thoughts that he wouldn’t normally have anymore.
The next morning, the house smelled of orange inciense, breakfast in bed and the residue of salt on the pillow. Tiw kissed Por, couldn’t bare to do anything else, and before his heart could explode with all the love he has for this man, their friends barged in for a movie night. Movie day, rather. Por knows Tiw appreciates the company when he’s feeling like this—Tiw could cry. He did cry, and Gun pinched his cheeks and cooed at the adorable scene when Tiw latched to Por’s side and got his shirt wet with tears and drool, murmuring unintelligible nonsense about how much he loves Por.
“Aw, baby! I love you too! So, so, so much.”
A voice that sounded scarily like Pat’s told them to get a room. Por stuck his tongue out at him and told him to mind his business and give his boyfriend some love. Kajorn uttered absolutely no complaints on the matter.
That night, when their friends left, Tiw planted a big kiss on Por’s lips.
Aside from the hideous, reminiscent scarring around his neck, Tiw’s body is covered in many other lacerations. That one is the biggest though, the one that people look at and immediately jump to conclusions. The others are small. Whitish and fading. Mostly small and all horizontal.
Tiw knows that that’s not how people who want to die do that, but he’s always been too much of a coward to fully commit to the idea of dying. He tried once and it didn’t work. He was lucky, or so the doctors said; a mere inch to either side and no amount of help would have been able to save him. Tiw used to curse himself for being so useless that he couldn’t even kill himself right, but not anymore.
Seeing the scars on a bad day still affects him more than he would like though.
He sees the one across the side of his right arm and pulls down the sleeves of his shirt, even though it’s so tiny and barely perceptible unless you look at it under the right lightning. It already took a sheer amount of courage to wear shorts again and leave the scars scattered around his thighs in plain sight—the whole point of cutting there in the first place was so that they would be harder to see.
But Por... Por likes them. Doesn’t like the fact that Tiw hurt himself like that (never that), but what they represent. That Tiw went through something no person should ever have to endure and still made it out.
And, because he knows Tiw is not entirely happy with how they look, he makes it his duty to kiss them all.
“That’s impossible,” Tiw claimed, smiling, so very sure of himself as they both lied in bed the night Por had said that, “there are so many. You wouldn’t be able to find half of them!”
Por is not as bad as Gun, or Win or Sound. He still won’t let a challenge pass him by though. Maybe that’s why Tiw told him that—maybe he just wanted to be Por’s test subject for the night and let the bad, bad thoughts go away.
The look Por gave him made Tiw shudder in anticipation. “Shall we test your theory then?”
And Tiw... honestly, he just let Por do whatever he pleased. If he could, he would tear his heart off his chest and give it to Por to take care of forever.
It would have been scary to let anyone else see him like that; bare and soft and pliant underneath them. But not Por. Never Por.
And, as he trembled under the ghost of warm lips on his skin, just over his hipbone, Tiw couldn’t help but remember that Por isn’t only hearts and pastels and all that is right in the world—Por can also be fierce and overwhelming and almost pushy (but never forceful). Passion so daunting it completely crushes whatever mean things Tiw is telling himself in his head. It crashed over Tiw in waves, quick succession, never letting him fully recover. He lost his breath when Por’s fingers digged into the soft meat of his thigh, his lips finding yet another scar to kiss.
A few many minutes were spent on the scar around Tiw’s neck. Por’s near-fascination with it seems almost unfathomable, even for Tiw himself.
“Don’t you think it looks a little... gross?” Tiw had asked once, after catching Por’s eyes straying down to his neck with those fond eyes again.
But Por is an angel, so of course his answer was, “There’s no universe where I’m not absolutely in love with your body, Tiw. I could never consider you gross.”
Por’s lips outlined the silvery line on his neck. Gentle pecks, like it was still fresh and healing. Like Tiw is something breakable, gorgeous porcelain doll on the shelf that isn’t meant to be played with. He isn’t though, and as a matter of fact, Tiw wants to be played with. For Por to play with him, at least.
And Por did.
It’s not how they usually do it, but it worked out so well regardless; their bodies have always fit together so naturally. Like they were meant to be together from the start of time. Soulmates. Por’s lips never strayed too far from the neck.
Por has written about things like this, Tiw knows. He isn’t stupid. He is nosey though, so of course he took a peek at Por’s notebook. The one where he writes all his lyrics. Descriptions of the agonizing need to feel his lover closer; the scent of oranges, the shine of hazy eyes, hands on dark curls. Comparing bodies to temples, the curves of scars to art on the walls. To see someone on their knees for something other than praying. Nothing short of worship.
His face was cradled and peppered in kisses as soon as they were done, and Por took the best care of him.
“It’s only fair!” Por said. “You always do it for me, Tiw. I can’t imagine it’s very pleasant to clean bodily fluids when all you want to do is sleep.”
Tiw didn’t complain any further, just let Por clean and run them a bath. It is only fair, he supposes.
In the bath, dipped to the chest in hot water, with Por sitting behind him, arms wrapped around Tiw’s waist, he pressed one final kiss to the scar on his neck.
Tiw is sure he’ll never love someone as much as he does Por.
Winter is the worst, but that doesn’t mean the warm months can’t be just as bad. Ignoring the fact that Thailand is warm all year long, of course.
August 12th is, arguably, the worst day. December 5th is a great contender, but that aligns with the idea Tiw now has in his head that winter equals bad, bad, bad things and even worse, self-destructive thoughts.
“Hey, lovely.” Por always greets him with that or a similarly sweet pet name when this happens. Tiw finds it hard to even get out of bed on those days—mostly August 12th though, because Tiw was always more of a mama’s boy. The gentle words and gentler hand running through Tiw’s hair are soothing. “How are you feeling?”
It’s not an easy question to answer. His feelings are a mess of knots inside his chest and it makes it all the more confusing to tell what Tiw actually feels. The grief he thought was long gone kicks the door and comes back swinging full-force, stays with him the whole day, and making it go away is a sometimes fast, sometimes slow process. A pang of jealousy, perhaps, when he sees other people taking advantage of the date to celebrate; jealousy even of his own friends, and that makes Tiw feel so horrible, like the worst person to ever walk the Earth even if he doesn’t speak those feelings aloud.
In the end, just because he doesn’t know how to answer, Tiw settles for a half-truth. “I’m breathing. I’m fine. I...”
Por thankfully interrupts him before he can finish.
“It’s mother’s day.”
He knows. Por also knows, which is why he asked how he was feeling. It’s the same every year, and Tiw should be used to this right now, but isn’t. P’Mina did say the process is different for everyone, but Tiw wishes he could just... accept it. Just be normal. Just live with it. Make peace with the fact that his parents are dead, that he saw them die, and it took him two years to seek proper help; who knows how much longer it would’ve gone on if Por had never showed up that one New Year’s day at his house. Thinking about that scares him.
It’s a tough day to get through. Every year, without a fail.
Sometimes, Tiw finds himself feeling jealous of Por. He has told him, unable to deal with the guilt that came with it any longer—and Por, the goddamn angel that he is, never once judged him as he spoke. As he talked about how Por had a mom to love and who loved him back and that he could hug (because Por doesn’t have a father either, he recalls; it still horrifies him to think of a little nine-year-old Por finding his dad’s corpse dangling from the ceiling).
Por never judged him, even though Tiw felt like he deserved it.
“What kind of boyfriend am I if I can’t be happy your Mae is still around?”
“It’s not like you want her dead, do you?” Por said. As if it was that simple. As if Tiw hadn’t just dropped a bomb on him and he still refused to see anything wrong with it. “Has it ever occurred to you that you’re allowed to feel the way you feel? What happened to you wasn’t fair, Tiw. You can’t stop yourself from feeling things, even if you think they are objectively bad.”
“They are!”
“Yeah, maybe.” Por conceded, but then kept going. “But life isn’t all cotton candy and rainbows, is it? Forcing yourself to be happy when you’re not won’t do you any good. You gotta learn to let yourself feel everything, even the bad things.”
Por held him for hours after that. Tiw cried a little. Apologized for things he shouldn’t be apologizing for.
And then, when he was feeling better, Por told him to get ready, that they would be leaving in a few hours. Tiw didn’t understand, and Por didn’t offer any answers when he asked what he was talking about. So, he just obeyed. Got dressed in his fanciest shirt and jeans and couldn’t help but compliment Por’s choice of outfit, how pretty he looked (though he always looks pretty in Tiw’s eyes; beautiful little songbird).
Por took Tiw to his house. What used to be his house, rather. Now, it’s only Por’s mom and his little sister. Little Sunny, who isn’t really little anymore since she just turned eighteen not that long ago. Their mom wasn’t home yet, but the house smelled heavenly, like Por’s home-cooked meals.
It all clicked when Sunny thanked Por for sending her the best lemon pie recipe he could find.
“You know, I still think they are kinda gross, but if mom likes it, then so be it. It’s her day, after all!”
He had met Por’s mother before, of course he had. But opportunities to meet weren’t many, with Por constantly touring, recording, filming, and Tiw busy with his own job at the photo studio.
The moment Tiw met her, he immediately knew who had given Por those pretty eyes and that angelic demeanor.
The years don’t seem to pass for this woman (not that she is old by any means, just turned forty-five recently; the crow’s feet around her eyes do nothing to add to her age, only to her sunny demeanor because of how much she smiles—heart-shaped, just like Por’s). She pulled both her kids into a bear hug, and then, Tiw himself. Tiw didn’t really do anything to deserve it, but the excuses died in his throat before they even made it out.
The hug almost made him cry.
“Oh, and don’t be so formal with me anymore, Tiw! You can call me Mae! You are part of our family, after all.”
Tiw did cry after that. Happy tears this time.
Maybe Mother’s day wasn’t so bad.
They go to the temple every year on March the 1st. To ask for luck on the months ahead, they say, but Tiw knows it became tradition because that day marks the end of winter.
Sometimes, things are still bad at the start of spring. Things aren’t always bad in winter, either—it isn’t all black and white, just an amalgamation of grays. But the good days are rarer, and only start becoming more common when the orange tree in their garden blooms again and it’s finally warm enough to take shelter under its shadow to watch the sunset.
Every March the 1st, Por pulls the same little stunt when they are at the temple, kneeling and inciense sticks in hand.
“I, Porawee Sophonpatima...”
Every March the 1st, Tiw laughs at the same old joke like it’s the first time. Por knows it never fails, that’s why he still does it. Home is where my lover’s smile shines brighter, and my happiness is in the tinkling of his laugh. Or so Por had written once. Tiw knows that’s true, because something similar happens to him when Por smiles back.
“Hey, that’s my last name!”
“I know.” Por nods. It would normally end there, but this time, he adds. “Will you give it to me one day?”
It’s the most stupid question Por could have ever asked, and they both know it. I’d marry you with paper rings, just like I’d marry you in golds and silvers. Or so Tiw had written once. Por knows that’s true; that is, presumably, why he’s asking.
“If you would have me...”
“Silly,” Por interrupts him, “there is no universe in which I wouldn’t have you.”
Tiw wants to cry. He wants to kiss Por stupid but they are at the temple, and he guesses that wouldn’t be very polite. Then again, it’s also not very polite for Por to practically be proposing, when Tiw told himself time and time again that he would pop the question first.
But he’ll whine about that later. When it’s just him and Por in the car, driving to Gun’s mom’s café to meet their friends for breakfast. He’ll whine again when they get home and sit under their little orange tree, and Por will probably call him cute and kiss the pout off his face. And then, most likely, Tiw will drop the subject and just cuddle up close to Por. They’ll watch the sunset and enjoy the early-spring air, and then, they’ll fall asleep.
Tomorrow will be a new day. Maybe good, maybe bad. Maybe it would be a mix of both. Tiw can’t know that for sure.
What he does know is that it will be another day of loving his Por. And just spending it together will make everything more than worth it. The good, the bad and everything in between.