Chapter Text
Bangkok at night pulsed like an overplayed electronic track.
Neon lights bled down the streets, painting the crowds in flickers of colour.
Cocktail glasses clinked and laughter tangled with the scent of cologne, cigarettes, and the low thrum of music spilling from a rooftop twenty-five floors above.
The party itself was bathed in a soft amber glow, as if dipped in salted egg yolk light, thick and lazy as the jazz crawling over conversations.
Joss Wayar — nearly six foot three, sleeves rolled up, gin tonic in hand — leaned against the balcony railing, gaze drifting idly over the city below.
This should have been a familiar scene:
Friends, colleagues, and faces from the industry gather to celebrate Force Jiratchapong’s twenty-eighth birthday.
Joss arrived early, as always.
Force liked to call him "the guy who never gets lonely" — because Joss could blend anywhere, find friends in every corner, and pull smiles from strangers with little more than a wink.
He entered through the main doors, scanning the crowd in a sweep of half-formed recognition.
Hugs. Toasts. Laughter that blurred too easily into the next.
Force, the man of the hour, grinned widely with Book by his side, introducing a “very sweet but a bit shy” friend to a group of newcomers.
Joss didn’t pay much attention.
Until he caught a glimpse of something tucked away at the edge of the room.
A moss-green sofa, half-swallowed by shadow, where a boy sat quietly — untouched by the noise, the lights, the swirl of bodies.
He was curled into the corner of the seat, one hand wrapped around a glass of red wine, the other resting loosely atop his phone.
A silver cat-shaped keychain swung gently with the rhythm of his absent-minded taps.
The boy wasn’t hiding.
He wasn’t lonely.
He just seemed... at home in the quiet.
Joss stood there, unmoving.
For a moment, the music blurred into a low hum.
The laughter faded.
The lights dimmed to a soft haze.
All he could see was the way the floor lamp painted the boy’s glass of wine in shades of molten gold — a still frame captured on faded Kodak film.
That boy was Gawin.
Light slipped across his profile: brown hair falling loosely over his forehead, skin kissed pale under the lamplight, eyes half-lost in the city glittering beyond the balcony like fireflies trapped in glass.
He didn’t talk much.
Didn’t laugh out loud.
Didn’t try to impress anyone beyond murmuring a few words to Book.
Maybe that was why Joss couldn’t look away all night.
Gawin wasn’t like anyone Joss had ever met.
He felt like he belonged to a slower world — one made of soft mornings and silent songs, of quiet places where everything was tender enough to bruise at a touch.
After the party, Joss slid into the backseat of a cab but didn’t tell the driver to start.
Instead, he pulled out his phone, scrolled to Force’s Instagram, and found the group photo from earlier.
There they were — all teeth and champagne under the lazy gold lights.
Gawin stood at the far right, wine glass in hand, gaze turned slightly away from the camera.
Joss screenshot it.
The image blurred at the edges, and the silver cat charm on Gawin’s phone caught a tiny shard of light.
That night, after making it home, Joss typed “Gawin” into Instagram’s search bar.
Scrolled through five endless rows of strangers.
Until he found it.
A profile with a sleeping orange cat as its avatar: @nori.thecat.
Strangely enough, it wasn’t a forgotten account.
It was alive. Updated almost daily.
Each post is a small, ordinary glimpse:
A paw.
A curled tail.
A slice of someone’s hand scratching between soft ears.
Joss scrolled through the photos — thumb pausing, lingering.
In one video, Gawin’s voice slipped through the screen — singing softly as he played the piano.
His voice was low, a little raw, but impossibly warm.
It found its way into some quiet place inside Joss that he didn’t even realize had been waiting.
From that night on, Joss found himself stepping quietly into Gawin’s world.
A month later, Joss finally stumbled upon Gawin’s official account.
@gawin.caskey —
More followers, but barely a handful of posts.
Film photographs with muted colours.
Short, almost cryptic captions — usually a lyric, a half-thought.
Joss scrolled through every single one.
Mist-blurred streets.
Rain-dripped windows.
A cup of tea was forgotten on a wooden table.
A black-and-white shot of Gawin’s neck, caught in slanted afternoon light.
The caption read:
“Those who speak little often carry entire universes behind their eyes.”
Soft.
Unpolished.
Impossible to predict.
The more he saw, the more it terrified him — how easily his heart was slipping away.
Gawin wasn’t a star.
Not yet.
A few indie songs passed quietly from hand to hand.
A minor role in an obscure web drama.
But none of that explained why Joss felt so shaken.
So certain.
He was a stranger at a birthday party.
A no-name actor.
Someone who had no reason to walk into Gawin’s life —
Except that somewhere along the way, his heart had already crossed the threshold.
Follow.
The first post was a coffee cup by a rain-speckled window.
The second:
An orange cat sprawled on a mattress, captioned:
"Day off. No disturbances allowed."
The third:
A vintage film camera next to a half-eaten strawberry tart.
Joss scrolled.
And scrolled.
Every photo felt like falling through a quiet life —
Unhurried.
Unstaged.
Honest.
He didn’t even notice how deeply he was breathing, how slowly he was blinking —
as if Gawin’s world was softening something inside him he hadn’t known needed softening.
By the time he looked up, hours had passed.
He didn’t know why he stayed so long.
He only knew:
It had been a very, very long time since someone had made him this curious.
That night, Joss sat on his balcony with a glass of wine.
The city was breathing below him, a low, steady sigh.
No moon. Just the faint scent of lavender from the candle flickering near his feet.
His laptop played a song he didn’t recognize.
A boy’s voice — rough around the edges, but warm as a hand offered in the dark:
"The morning isn’t rainy,
Just a little wind.
Sitting by the tea cup... remembering someone without a name."
He blinked at the track name.
"A Morning Without Rain – Gawin."
A voice like that didn’t need fame.
It only needed a heart willing to stop for a few beats — to listen.
Buzzed from the wine, Joss opened Instagram.
Found Gawin’s account.
Tapped into the message box.
Typed:
"I think 'A Morning Without Rain' is the most beautiful song I've ever heard."
Sent it.
Realized what he had done.
Panicked.
Too late.
The message was already seen.
A tiny red heart bloomed beside it.
Gawin had liked it.