HYSM

Eighteen

The return coach journey from Hua Hin to Bangkok was one of silence once again - but a wholly different kind of silence this time. Gone was the heaviness, the tension, the avoidant glare out of the window and impenetrable physical and emotional distance between the two men. Instead, they were silent as they slept peacefully and contentedly together - Mew's head upon Gulf's shoulder, and Gulf's head resting back on his in turn. Arms linked, hands and fingers interlocked. Joined in every way possible. Belonging.

The mutual exhaustion was a result of rising so early - waking up to stroll down to the beach together just before sunrise...

There they had sat on their throne of white sand - Gulf between Mew's legs and resting back against his chest, the elder man's arms encircling him loosely, lips nuzzling in to kiss at the younger's temples, breathing in the intoxicating, clean, coconut scent of his thick, dark hair.

They gazed on together as that magical moment of nature's miracle played out before their eyes - was there anyone else in the world? - a drive-in cinema of the elements. The pinpoint seconds during which a gloomy, bleak and sullen world was suddenly transformed by rays of shimmering golden ochre and glinting rose quartz as the Sun peeked and winked over the horizon - the ocean a captivating mirror for the lightening, periwinkle blue of the sky above.

It felt to Mew and Gulf as if Mother Nature was spinning a poem of intricate metaphor for them, just them - the ones who had lived in darkness and misunderstanding of themselves and each other, only to experience a brilliant sunrise, that dawning of enlightenment, to illuminate their world in technicolour.

They talked and talked, as they cuddled and held - more words than natural introvert Gulf had been inclined to speak in a long while. Setting their affairs straight - pun, but truth.

It was agreed that they were together, exclusively, but without a label for the time being. Just a period of getting to know one another on this unfamiliar yet beguilingly scenic new plain. As for 'going public'? Friends had already witnessed their kiss at the beach party - had surely sensed the seismic shift in their relations during the days in Hua Hin - but for now it would be a case of 'No comment'. People could think what they wanted to think. They knew they were for each other - soon enough the world would know too. Until that day, the secret would be theirs, just theirs - something to be nurtured and cherished. 'Grow as we go'.

It had been Mew's insistence, in fact. Gulf was fully prepared and primed for battle, ready to go out and publicly claim the elder man as his, to shout about their love - even to his family. But Mew's instinct was to protect...

"This is still so new to you baby, you'd face questions about your sexuality, about your past - everything would be scrutinised and gossiped about - these are things that you, or we, should explore together privately. It's hard enough trying to know yourself without a spotlight lasering into your pupils until you can barely see anything outside of that beam..."

Gulf had nodded, and pulled Mew's arms tighter around his chest. This was, indeed, enough for now. Just him, in the embrace of his man, in the transformative, uprising light of their brave new world.

"Promise me that things won't be different between us when we get back to Bangkok...", Gulf spoke in a quiet voice - the same quiet voice that had asked Mew to keep 'hating' him those weeks earlier, in the garden. Now asking to keep loving - to keep being his.

"Baby, I promise. You know, right? I've always been yours. I won't let go of your hand".

//

It was evening by the time the coach eased to a final, grinding halt in the University car park, dust rising from beneath the burning rubber of tired tyres, fumes ingested by disembarking students, to invoke coughing and spluttering - lungs missing the fresh clarity of seaside air already.

And with hugs, high fives and fist bumps, the class went their separate ways - returned to their family homes or halls of residence with tall tales and bags overflowing with dirty laundry.

So a wistful, low-key goodbye for Mew and Gulf too, as the younger was collected by his smiling mother in the family car. The elder man speeding past on his motorbike with a grinning salute as he weaved through stationary traffic to make his own way home.

But hours later - after reunions with loved ones, a lively, anecdote-filled dinner, a third dose of painkillers to soothe the tenderness to his rear, and a pleasant, muscle unknotting shower - Gulf found himself alone in the gloom of his shadowy room and feeling strangely empty. It was odd to be in that place - so much had changed within him since he last was there. He was an alien in his own world, suddenly incompatible with his former self, he felt, as his eyes surveyed cork board pinned photos of him and Som together, the text book he and Mew had fought over still stacked on his desk with a long overdue library stamp, his bed so cold and unwelcoming now.

Gulf squeezed his eyes shut as he hugged himself tightly across the chest and to the shoulders, swaying gently as he succumbed to indulgent memories of the days just passed. Longing, yearning, aching. The colour of the light, the steady, grounding peace of the waves and tides, a candlelit haven and the warmth of Mew's arms and his oceanic breathing, as they lay together in that bed the last night.

All feeling so far away now, like a parallel world with no known key to its door. Just a memory, out of reach through a keyhole with the click of a finger.

Then just as Gulf's chest was tightening with rising panic - that intense loneliness spreading from his heart out to every bodily extremity - he was jolted back forcibly into the present by the sound of a hard object hitting his window pane.

And again - another time, and a third.

Approaching cautiously, a frown knitting his dark eyebrows, Gulf pulled back the corner of a curtain to look out at the monochrome world.

There below in the Traipi garden, that longed for Romeo's face of crescent eyes and widely smiling lips, communicative pebbles in hand. Exhilarated with the adrenaline of sheer relief, Gulf's breath caught as Mew grasped hold of a creeping vine to shin up the external brick wall until he was directly outside the window - freshly acquired scratch on his cheek, courtesy of sharply stabbing thorns that had failed to halt his ascendance.

Then he was squeezing through the gap in the glass to enter Gulf's bedroom for the first time in many a year - bringing his light, his colour, his warmth - and they were embracing as they laughed into one another's shoulders. Giddy to be together once again.

"I missed you baby. I can't sleep without you" - the elder's tone was hushed, yet his words so loud to Gulf's heart, as he showered chaste kisses over every expanse of his beloved's face.

"Stay with me" - Gulf to Mew.

And he did.

From the hard wooden bench outside of the University Chancellor's office, to Gulf's single bed and faded Chelsea FC duvet cover: 'It was almost as if they couldn't be apart'.

Inseparable - now that they had recognised one another at last. Even if they had always been there from the start.