Inside the dessert café, the warm scent of freshly baked waffles and ice cream drifted through the air. But the atmosphere at the table was something else entirely. All three of them sat in silence, not a single word exchanged. Lalin and Anda kept stealing glances at each other, faces tight with unease.
Kunlapat sat quietly, eyes fixed on the untouched dessert in front of her. Inside, she was a mess. Shock, hurt, anger, all of it tangled up together, knotted around one thing: the girl she'd broken up with over two years ago was the same girl her best friend had been seeing.
Anda sensed the tension immediately. She tried to say something, anything, but the words kept slipping away. She kept glancing over at Kunlapat, but her best friend remained completely still, not even lifting her head to meet her eyes.
"Um... Pat," Anda said softly. Nothing.
The silence stretched on. Anda grew more and more uneasy. She didn't know exactly what had happened, but she could feel it, something hidden between these two that she wasn't a part of.
While Anda quietly tried to figure out how to salvage the situation, Lalin sat with both hands clenched tight in her lap beneath the table. She hadn't expected to see Kunlapat again. She definitely hadn't expected to see her like this.
Kunlapat stayed adrift in her own thoughts, forcing herself to breathe slowly, trying to pull herself back to earth, trying to understand what was happening. The little café that should have smelled like sweetness and warmth now felt suffocating, and no one seemed to know how to cut through it.
Finally, someone had to give.
"Oh, I just remembered, I've got a thesis meeting with my group right now... I should head out."
Kunlapat said it casually and turned to smile at Anda, then let her eyes drift over to the girl she used to love. Behind the composed, cutting look was something cracked and raw, carefully buried. She curved her lips into a cool smile and aimed it straight at the girl with red hair sitting across from her.
"It was nice meeting you, Nong Lalin."
***
Splash! The sound cracked through the air as a rush of water broke the surface of the large rooftop pool of the luxury condo. Kunlapat's slender frame cut through the water in a sleek black one-piece swimsuit, plunging toward the bottom. But even the sharp bite of Bangkok's winter-cold water wasn't enough to touch the ache inside her.
A moment later she broke the surface, gasping, one hand sweeping her soaked black hair back against her face.
"Lalin..."
The name slipped out in a murmur. When she thought about what they used to be, it had been something beautiful once, right up until the day the other girl decided, all on her own, that Kunlapat no longer had a place in her life.
She wanted to ask Lalin if she felt like she'd gotten everything she was after. Made it into the industry she'd dreamed of, at the cost of kicking away the person who'd been right there beside her... Was it worth it? Was she happy?
The memory of the first time they'd met surfaced without warning.
Kunlapat had been in her second year of university. She'd gone to a MC casting at a senior's invitation and was sitting there, bored, waiting for the crew to finish setting up the lights, when her gaze snagged on a girl in a high school uniform standing alone in the corner, quietly mouthing lines to herself. Something about it pulled at her. Then Lalin looked up, and their eyes met. And those full lips curved into the faintest smile.
It was the most ordinary smile in the world. And somehow it made Kunlapat's heart pound in a way it never had before.
When it was Lalin's turn, she walked up in front of the camera with total ease, her voice clear and natural, no hesitation at all. Kunlapat watched her through the monitor and felt something stir, genuine admiration, real fascination, for a girl who was still in her last year of high school and already magnetic like that.
After the casting wrapped, they were introduced through mutual seniors. They exchanged contacts, talked for a little over a month, and eventually decided to date, right around the time Lalin was about to start university.
It was a moment in Lalin's life when everything was lifting. Not only was she stepping onto campus for the first time, that same undeniable quality that drew Kunlapat to her had caught the eye of people in the industry too, and she ended up signing with one of the biggest television channels in the country. She wasn't a lead yet, not a name anyone really recognized, but for a girl her age, it was enough to change everything.
And then the love that had seemed so uncomplicated started to come apart.
"P'Pat, think about it from my side. If people found out about us, found out that I'd been in a relationship with a woman... what do you think they'd say?" The words fell from Lalin's lips quietly, and those beautiful eyes that used to look at Kunlapat with so much warmth were now dry, distant, completely hollow. "And then there's my parents. How are they supposed to deal with something like this?"
"Wait, Lalin, I don't understand. You just got into the industry, you're literally still a new actress. Does that really mean we have to end this?" Kunlapat's voice trembled as she fought to hold back the tears pricking hot behind her eyes. "And if your parents were the issue, why didn't you say anything back when we first started talking?"
"Because I didn't think we'd ever get this far."
.
.
I didn't think we'd ever get this far. It sounded like the other person had never even imagined a future with her, had never intended to. For people who were supposed to be in love, those words cut in a way that was almost impossible to absorb. Kunlapat had never thought someone who claimed to love her would be capable of saying something like that out loud. She wanted to cover her ears, to unhear it, to refuse the truth that she had only ever been a temporary detour in someone else's journey.
"That's enough, Lalin. I don't want to talk anymore."
Her voice had shrunk to barely a whisper. Her whole body felt numb, each step an effort. She forced herself to turn and walk away, leaving Lalin standing where she was.
But that wasn't even the worst of it.
Because not long after that fight, Kunlapat found out the truth. Lalin had been seeing someone else behind her back the whole time. And after that, she didn't know anymore which of Lalin's reasons had actually been real.
Was it the industry? The career?
Was it her parents?
Or had she simply wanted out because there was already someone new?
.
.
"How long have you been talking to Jin, Lalin? Why would you do this to me? You said you only loved me."
Kunlapat confronted her, voice fraying, after she'd dug until she had proof of the other person Lalin had been hiding.
"I don't have anything to say, P'Pat."
The answer came back flat and empty, no trace of guilt in the eyes that met hers.
"Since you already know everything... why won't you just let go?"
Those words went in deep.
"Do you like her that much? That woman... is she better to you than I was?"
Kunlapat's voice barely made a sound. Her heart was in pieces, completely shattered, and she knew there was no road left for the two of them. She knew it. And yet she loved the girl standing in front of her so much that she couldn't figure out how to make herself let go, not even knowing what she now knew.
"If I asked you. If I begged you to stay, to stop talking to her... could you do that for me?"
She asked it like that, without a shred of pride left. She lowered herself in a way she never had for anyone. Her whole life, raised as someone's pampered daughter, she had never needed to beg. But for this girl, she was willing to throw every last bit of her dignity on the floor and accept whatever came next, just to keep her.
What she got back was a look of pity.
"I think we're better off ending it here, P'Pat."
And that day, Lalin walked away from her without once looking back. Not even for a single second.
.
.
Don't Talk About the Ex (English version)
by Hojicha