Caught in Possession

Kintsugi

It was three days later - just after midnight - as a tempestuous, icy wind buffeted forlorn, leafless trees outside the window, that Gulf, sitting cross-legged on the guest bedroom floor unpacking his worldly possessions from suitcases, realised it...

That he knew close to absolutely nothing about the man he was technically - temporarily at least - now living with.

He and Mew had barely been apart across the stretch of those three days.

First, collecting his bags gratefully from Kaownah - he having packed away the few items that a reluctant, unsettled Gulf had gotten around to unloading in their shared apartment to date. A sharp raise of Kaow's eyebrow at the wholly unexpected sight of Mew Suppasit at his housemate's side to assist, but far too discreet a friend to externalise thoughts there and then.

Next, travelling to and from Gulf's training sessions together each day, the elder still offering no explanation as to why he was attending, but the younger acknowledging privately that contrary to his presence being oppressive, it felt somehow more supportive, perhaps a little protective, and certainly warm - the warmth of someone being there. Being there for him.

And earlier that evening, shopping in the local supermarket for supplies for that impoverished, bereft refrigerator, inevitable domestic arguments breaking out: Dried or fresh chillis? Red or white wine? The brand of teabags - that dispute almost spiralling into fisticuffs, so passionately had each corner fought.

With each day that passed, Gulf began to build a sense of what made Mew happy - what coaxed emotive eyes into twinkling crescents and banished into the shadows whichever demons tormented his mind in every other moment.

If only for brief seconds at least.

Because if Gulf's aura was one of red rage, Mew's was blue melancholia. Thus any natural joy or hint of a smile between the two, already purest, most precious gold for the broken soul. As if they were objects of Kintsugi, golden joinery, that Japanese art form in which broken pottery is repaired with gold lacquer. Breakage and restoration as part of the history of an object - or, a man - as opposed to something to disguise or hide away.

Mew's 'gold'?: He loved to swim lengths in the cool depths of the apartment complex's luxurious, spot lit, basement pool - steady, rhythmical underwater breathing patterns soothing the elder's soul in much the same way that football 'freed' Gulf's.

He relished eating home cooked Thai food - fortuitously a skill that the younger man had long honed grace of being torn from home at such an early age - his mother patiently reciting recipes and cookery techniques down the phone to her hapless, then-seventeen year old son. At twenty one he cooked almost as artfully as his excellent Mae.

But also, Gulf began to suspect, Mew took particular pleasure in seeing Gulf himself happy: Carefree, sailing down the breakfast cereal aisle with his feet perched on the rear metal ledge of a supermarket trolley. Bent double in fits of giggles on a video call with his mother and sister, Bow's uncanny impression of Aunty Hom's terrifyingly irregular snoring the catalyst. Leaping jubilantly up into the air, controller raised aloft in victory hand, following triumph in an especially epic PlayStation battle.

On each occasion, Gulf had caught Mew - just a fleeting, transient moment - with a certain look, a serenity to his eyes, as his face crinkled into a golden, Kintsugi smile.

Yet, these self-garnered observations aside, Gulf reflected that he really knew nothing factual. He needed to take a course, stat: Mew Suppasit 101...

Looking back, metaphorical magnifying glass in hand, he impatiently analysed their exchanges over recent days. Raking in growing frustration. Gulf had talked and talked - more than a self-proclaimed introvert should, more than he ever usually would. And Mew listened, and questioned, and prompted - attentive to every topic, to every word.