HYSM

Four

It was that most acute brand of hangover - the type with which even the slightest physical movement brings searing, stabbing pain to clamp about the skull and a rolling, bubbling nausea in the gut - that Gulf awoke with.

Covering head with pillow to shield himself from the abrasive, rudely invading daylight at his bedroom window, he croaked out a feeble:

"Sis...sis...Grace?"

And soon heard footsteps padding up the stairs, the sunny voice of his elder sister as she entered to survey him in his sorry state.

"Ohooo, still hiding away in here little boy?", she teased, patting the lump of his legs affectionately through the beloved, faded blue of his Chelsea FC duvet.

"Water, Phi", Gulf gasped.

"Okay Nong" - The young woman departing to refill the bedside water bottle in the bathroom as begged, before arriving back to seat herself on the edge of the bed frame, peeling back the pillow shield to hold the spout to his lips.

"Hoy Gulf", she tutted, tongue against the back of her upper teeth as she shook her head side to side in disapproval, "Those bruises look even worse this morning. You might be twenty one and supposedly all grown up, but Mae and Phor are going to ground you for sure after this"

"Bruises?", Gulf mumbled, still foggy with missed hours of sleep and the alcohol that drained punishingly, second by slow second, from his blood stream.

Eyebrows raised in amusement, Grace reached for the phone in her jeans pocket, opening a mirror screen app, to hold it up to her brother's face...

"Shia!", Gulf was struggling up onto his elbows. His reflection: Dusky bruises of purple, greyish yellow upon his swollen left eye and cheekbone. Dried blood staining both nostrils and a split lower lip. He was a ghastly sight - something akin to the gory zombie mask for which he scrabbled at the back of his wardrobe, every Halloween. Even the slight greenish hue to the skin was present and accounted for - courtesy of sickness to his stomach.

Yes, he had truly joined the living dead, he lamented. It was far more dramatic than any of the war wounds from his petty, infantile scraps with Mew across the years.

Wait...Mew...

Something stirred menacingly in the sludge of his memory.

"Mew...", he spoke the name out loud, reaching out a metaphorical hand to feel his way, stumbling clumsily through the dark mysteries of his own mind.

"What about him?", came Grace's voice from across the room, busy - most kindly - gathering blood stained clothes strewn about the cream tiled floor to re-home in the laundry basket that nestled, oft-forgotten, in the corner of the room. "You're so lucky he was there Gulf, imagine how much worse it would have been if you'd been alone when you were attacked".

"He was...there...", fragments were slowly welding together, a gnawing sense of dread suddenly pounding the pit of the young man's stomach.

"Shai, he was there, Gulf" - a hint of exasperated disapproval - "Wow, you really have blanked the whole night, haven't you? It was Mew that brought you home, thankfully. He carried you on his back all the way from Wat Arun, Bangkok Yai - you were both thrown out of a taxi after you threw up all over the seat, and Mew".

The piggyback, the furious cab driver, the retching and vomiting, the taxi ride - it was all flooding back in excruciating reverse order now - Mew's arms guiding him into the rear of the vehicle, Mew's wide eyes - unreadable, confusion, Mew pulling away, Mew's lips, himself kissing Mew's lips.

Himself kissing Mew's lips.

He kissed Mew.

And with a tortured wail of utter self-loathing and horrified embarrassment, Gulf flung his head back down onto his pillow and covered his face with his hands.

"No, no, no, no, no!", he breathed out desperately.

Armageddon? Now would be a good time.

//

Panning out of the window and down into the quiet almost-noon stillness of the rear garden below, swooping across glossy wooden decking, neatly blooming flowerbeds, a tessellation of flag stones, and the road bump of a rusting barbecue frame. Reaching, at last, a four foot mesh metal fence and the black haired young man who leant against it from the other side, elbows resting on the divide and chin cupped between hands as he gazed up - the pose of a Shakespearean character - towards that window of origin.

Should I go to him? Mew asked himself. Already knowing that his answer would be no. Because it had always had to be no. All of these years.