Crushes Fade, Love Stays

Experiment

"Hey Saifah! What you up to?" asked Tanthai once his call was answered.

"Just prepping to record a song," replied Saifah as he put his guitar to the side. "Why? What's up?"

"Not much. I saw Zon getting dropped off on a bike, and he said it was you. So I wanted to ask what you guys did today?"

A slight frown formed on Saifah's brow. "Why do you care?" He was never fond of his friend's nosiness, but knew if he didn't answer gossip would ensue. "Zon treated me to food to apologise for when I took him home drunk."

"Yeah, sounds like something Zon would do. But you know Saifah, it would be nice if you could keep hanging out with him when you have time," suggested Tanthai. "Zon seemed happy and said it was nice to go out with a friend who didn't make him feel like a third wheel. I assume he was suggesting the rest of us flaunt our relationships and careers too much. So it will be good if you could try to be his friend if you're not already. I'm actually thinking of signing him up to a dating site and seeing if we can finally find him a boyfriend."

Hearing the word 'friend' irritated Saifah, but the last line was enough to make him annoyed. Why was he being told to be Zon's friend? Was he not even being considered as a possible boyfriend? "Thai, don't interfere with other people's business. Zon will just get angry if you do something like that, as would anyone. Just let him live at his own pace. Anyway, did you really call just to ask me to be Zon's friend?"

"Mainly it was to confirm it was you who dropped him off, and find out why," replied Tanthai. "Zon tends to get defensive and lie about things like that."

"Isn't that because you guys always tease him?"

Tanthai laughed. "Yeah, probably. Well I'll let you get back to your music. Come visit the cafe sometime. I'll sneak you a free dessert."

"Please don't. I don't want to be the cause of an argument between you and Japan. Tor told me what happened after you gave him freebies."

Saifah sighed and tossed his phone aside after hanging up. Had Thai called just to ruin his mood? What did he know? Friend? Maybe if he'd heard such words an hour earlier, he might have worried he'd read Zon wrong and he didn't like him in that way. But after coming home, Saifah had opened his YouTube account to be faced with a full page of message notifications from a single username. Words couldn't describe how happy he felt seeing Zon's familiar icon filling his screen. What was the point of a different username when he used the same icon for everything?

Considering how he'd watched and left comments on almost all his videos within the past few days, Saifah knew for certain Zon was attracted to him. No one would show so much interest in just a friend. He'd read and liked all of Zon's amusing comments with a broad smile glued on his face. When he saw the comment scolding him for playing while still injured, it reminded him of the way Zon had looked at the scar on his arm. So Zon had already known about his previous accident when he'd asked about it. Realising this made Saifah feel a little uneasy and exposed as Zon was finding things out about him one sidedly, but he was also happy Zon wanted to know about him in the first place.

Saifah picked up his tablet and looked at the song he'd been planning on playing. He was no longer in the mood to sing it after talking to Tanthai. Opening the list of songs he had the sheet music for, he scrolled until he found one that caught his attention. A sly grin formed on his face as he thought of an fun experiment.

Zon flopped down into his chair before waking up his computer. It had been a long day. He didn't have the energy to try and write tonight. As he was leaving work he'd seen a notification on his phone saying Saifah had uploaded a new video, but his battery had died before he'd had a chance to check it out. So he planned to watch it and then go to bed. He saw a he had high number of notifications when he signed in to his account, and so he clicked on them.