It had been three months since the night of the five-thousand-baht note.
With Decha's help, Santichai had found a rhythm in the hum of sewing machines and the scent of fresh fabric. He liked the math of it—the way numbers always added up, unlike emotions. If he cut a piece of cloth at a certain angle, it fit. It was logical. It was safe.
He had accepted his solitude. To Santichai, his life was a series of closed doors: first his biological parents, then his adoptive ones, and finally Asnee. He decided that the only way to stop the bleeding in his heart was to stop letting people in. He moved through his days in small, deliberate steps, focusing on the road ahead of his old moped rather than the memories behind him.
He was in the kitchen, the familiar scent of jasmine rice filling the small space, when the lock clicked.
The door swung open, and the air in the room seemed to vanish. There stood Asnee.
He didn't look like the man who had walked out three months ago. He looked tired, his eyes shadowed with a regret that Santichai wasn't ready to face. Santichai froze, the wooden spoon still in his hand, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
"Chai," Asnee said, his voice barely a whisper.
Santichai didn't move. He stood frozen in the small kitchen, the wooden spoon still in his hand as the ninety days of hard-won peace shattered. Asnee didn't wait for an invitation; he rushed forward, wrapping his arms around Santichai with a desperate strength.
"Chai, I can't forget you," Asnee sobbed into his neck. "I tried my best, but I can't. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry for breaking up with you."
The walls Santichai had built around his heart crumbled instantly. His own tears began to fall, hot and fast. He reached back, clutching Asnee's shirt as if he were a drowning man. "Asnee... I can't forget you either. I miss you so much."
Asnee pulled back just enough to kiss Santichai's forehead, his eyes wild with a mixture of relief and resolve. "Chai, I can't stay here in this apartment with you. But you can stay with me. Every night I lie on that soft bed in the house my parents provided, and all I think about is you. I think about how hard this sofa bed is, and how much it hurts your injured back. Knowing you're here in this pain, I can't sleep. Please... leave this place with me."
"Asnee, how?" Santichai cried, his voice breaking. "You said it yourself—if you're with me, your parents will cut you off. My income is nothing. I can't support your lifestyle, and I can't pay for your degree. You know that!"
"Just come back with me," Asnee insisted. "I'll find a way."
"Asnee, we broke up. Let it be," Santichai pleaded, though his heart was already betraying him. "I can love you from a distance. I know I'll never be able to give you what your parents can."
At those words, Asnee's desperation turned into a frantic defense. "Then love me from a distance! I love you, and I love my parents. I can't choose! Why can't anyone just take a step back and give me space to breathe? I'm suffocating, Chai! My body goes to class, but my mind is always here."
Asnee dropped to his knees on the linoleum floor, clutching Santichai's waist. "Please come home with me. Do this for me. My feelings for you... they overwhelm me."
Santichai looked down at the man he had loved for seven years. He thought of the exams, the final year of university, and the bright future Asnee had worked so hard for. If he refused, Asnee might fail. If he stayed, Asnee might wither.
Slowly, Santichai lowered himself until he was kneeling on the floor in front of Asnee. He reached out, cupping Asnee's face. He knew he was stepping back into a trap, but he couldn't help himself.
"Asnee," Santichai whispered, his voice thick with the weight of his surrender. "I lost this love game to you. I'll go. I'll change however you want me to change. I'll be whoever you need me to be in the shadows. But please... just promise me one thing. Don't leave me for another person."
Asnee pulled Santichai into a crushingly tight embrace, his voice thick with a conviction that felt like a lifeline. "I promise you, Chai. No matter what happens in the future, I will not leave you for another person. Once I graduate and have a stable job, we'll leave all of this behind. We'll be together, openly. Just wait for me."
But the "wait" began much sooner than Santichai expected.
The next day, Santichai moved into the new apartment. It was beautiful—a spacious two-bedroom with a separate kitchen and a living room that felt like it belonged in a magazine. It was everything Asnee had ever wanted. But as the movers piled Santichai's fifteen boxes into the center of the small second bedroom, the space began to feel less like a home and more like a warehouse.
"Asnee, do you have any extra hangers?" Santichai asked, reaching for a stack of shirts he had carefully folded.
Asnee looked up from his phone, his expression shifting from a smile to a frown. "What do you need hangers for?"
"I'm going to hang up my clothes," Santichai said simply.
"Chai, you can't hang your clothes in the closet," Asnee said, his voice dropping as if the walls themselves were listening. "What if my parents suddenly decide to show up? They have a key."
Santichai felt a cold prickle of disappointment. He looked at the empty, mahogany-lined closet and then back at his worn boxes. "Then where do you want me to put them?"
Asnee offered a quick, charming smile—the kind that usually made Santichai forgive anything. "Keep them in the boxes. A year will go by very quickly, I promise."
"You want me to live out of boxes for a year?" Santichai's voice was small, filled with a dawning realization.
"Yes. I just don't want my parents to know we're back together yet," Asnee said, his eyes already drifting back to his phone.
Santichai stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by his belongings. He suddenly felt like a ghost haunting his own life. He looked at Asnee's profile and asked, the words heavy with dread, "Asnee... are you hiding something from me?"
"No," Asnee said instantly. But his phone chirped before he could say more. "Ma... where are you?"
He listened for a few moments, his posture straightening into that of the "perfect son" he played for the Siriporn family. "Okay. I'll come down right now. You don't have to come up."
He hung up and turned to Santichai, his face full of practiced apology. "I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you—I made an appointment with my mother for dinner. I'll buy you something to eat on my way back, okay?"
As the door clicked shut behind Asnee, Santichai sat down on one of the cardboard boxes. He looked at the door, then at the empty closet. He was "home," but for the first time in his life, he realized that being hidden was lonelier than being abandoned.
The nine years of secrecy had been a slow erosion of Santichai's spirit. He had accepted the boxes, the hidden clothes, and the empty dinner table because Asnee had become "nicer." But kindness without honesty is just a different form of cruelty.
When Santichai returned from his three-day promotion trip, he didn't find the man who had promised to leave the city with him. He found a tomb of beer cans, rubbish, and the ultimate betrayal.
"We were high school classmates," Santichai had said.
Those five words were the sharpest blade he could have used. By denying their nine-year history in front of that woman, Santichai was finally agreeing to the "secrecy" Asnee wanted, but in a way that signaled the end. He walked out of the apartment not as a lover, but as a ghost who had finally realized he was dead.
The taxi ride to the lake was silent. Santichai sat on the bench, watching the birds catch the wind. He could taste the lake odor—a mix of sweetness and decay. It was bitter, but not as bitter as the realization that he had changed everything about himself for a man who wouldn't even change his behavior for a single night.
Decha found him there. Decha, the ever-loyal friend, caught between two lives.
"Ai Nee asked me to track you down," Decha sighed, handing him a bottle of water. "He's worried you'll hurt yourself. He says he's kneeling at home, waiting. He says he won't stop until you come back."
"He won't continue kneeling," Santichai said flatly. He knew Asnee better than Asnee knew himself. Asnee's repentance was always a performance—intense, but short-lived.
"He told me what happened," Decha said, trying to soften the blow. "He said he was too drunk. He wasn't sure what happened."
Santichai looked at his friend. "Frank... is there anything else you know but won't tell me? If you think you'd betray him by speaking, just nod or shake your head."
The air between them grew heavy. Santichai took a breath. "Is Asnee dating that woman?"
Decha didn't speak. He looked away, a long, heavy sigh escaping his lips. Then, slowly, he nodded.
The wall Santichai had built to protect his heart didn't shatter; it simply dissolved. The tears fell, carving wet, salty paths down his cheeks.
"If tears leave a trail," Decha whispered, pulling Santichai against his shoulder, "you're going to have millions of trails all over your face. Cry if you want to, Chai."
And for the first time in nine years, Santichai didn't try to be "reliable." He didn't try to be "strong." He simply sobbed into his friend's shoulder, mourning the ten years he had spent building a home in a man who was already living somewhere else.