100 Days Without You (COMPLETED)

3. Singto

Singto

"Gun? Hey Gun? Come on man, you've gotta wake up, this thing's been playing it's tune for like an hour now!"

"Not an hour." Singto groans, rolling over to silence his alarm.

"What even is that song?" Joshua asks from across the room where they've shifted his bed to give them a semblance of privacy. The dorm room isn't tiny, but it's certainly not spacious either and for a second Singto feels a wave of homesickness wash through him as he thinks of his flat and all the things he had to leave behind.

"Just a song." Singto grunts, reaching out for his glass of water and sitting himself up, trying to push down the curls of unease in his stomach. Six AM is far too early to be getting ready for class now he's a grown-ass adult, but he forces himself up and over to the bathroom anyway, grabbing his toiletries bag on the way.

"Well, I don't understand it," Josh calls out as Singto pulls out his toothbrush, and there's a smile in his voice acknowledging the first few days of their friendship when he had pestered Singto to speak to him in Thai, "But I like it!"

Singto sees his own smile in the mirror and lets it spread across his face. He loves waking up to Krist's voice. It just feels right. Even if they're in the longest silent fight they've ever had; it makes him feel good to still hear him every day.

Five minutes later, Josh yells that he needs the bathroom so he heads over to get dressed, but has his phone thrust at him as he does.

"It's ringing." Josh says and Singto's heart misses a beat at the possibility..

But it's just Mathilde from his course reminding him that he's late.

He loops a scarf around his neck and shouts a goodbye. And then he runs.

"Here." He says, thrusting an iced coffee at his friend as he arrives in front of the lecture theatre, still a little out of breath.

"Must you insist on iced, G? You know it's Fall, right? I know you don't have this season in Thailand, but for flames sake, iced coffee in fall? Nobody does that."

But Singto sees her smile as she takes a sip and he doesn't bother defending his choice for what feels like the hundredth time, he still finds her reaction kind of cute.

"I bet the barista loves you?" She asks as she nudges him into a seat in the front row and continues to grumble. "Feels absolutely thrilled to have to throw ice around when it's freezing outside..but oh no, I bet the barista is completely in lurve with you, aren't they?"

He sometimes feels like he's met a kindred spirit in Mathilde. They'd met on the first day of class, both seated in the very back, and had bonded over the fact that he couldn't see (he'd forgotten his glasses somewhere as usual) and she couldn't hear properly (there was some kind of issue with her hearing aid.) They'd quickly agreed that they needed to be at the front and then Mathilde had insisted that he get up at some ungodly hour to make sure they always were.

Their morning routine now included coffee (iced when he bought it, hot when she did) and a chance to look through each other's work before the rest of their lecture piled in. It was kind of nice, Singto had decided. Good to have someone who was always waiting for him, always wanted him to be around and had immediately forced her way into his life with no expectations (except coffee and the early start at least.)

"So you didn't understand it either?" She interrupted, grabbing his notes and leafing through them, "Finally, something that the great and mighty Gun doesn't know!"

He laughs, glad to be teased but still feels a ping of regret that he can't just tell her why he knows all of this stuff. Why the language of this course comes so easily for him, why the blocking and lighting cues are so obvious, why everything they're learning truly makes sense to him. Why he's kind of an expert.

But if he told her, then they'd have to unpick everything. She'd want to watch his entire back catalogue, listen to every song, watch the fan videos on YouTube. And she'd want to talk about Krist. He's known her less than two months, but he knows her well enough that he knows all of these things. Because Mathilde is a fan girl through and through. Not one of the scary ones.. just a very enthusiastic and methodical one.

Their first week as acquaintances, she'd talked him through the entirety of the first season of Shadowhunters, explaining her every thought in minute detail. And then, she'd dragged him to her house (she still lived with her parents - " So much cheaper!") and made him watch the first four episodes back to back, with little more than a toilet break.

It had been an experience. One he had now repeated several times and which was becoming a highlight of his life here. He's missed having his friend make him watch a box set with him, after all.

("Come on Phi! We are not starting the series until they've released at least half of it. I don't want to wait for what comes next!"

"And that's your biggest problem, isn't it Nong? You can't stand be patient about anything."

"Well no.. but I think you secretly love that about me, means I"m just so much more passionate about things, especially when I get my way..")

Singto blinks and refocuses on Mathilde who is still checking his notes, his neat, English handwriting looking a little foreign still. But he'd taken all those lessons for a reason and he wasn't going to let himself, or Tutor Mae down after all that hard work.

"I guess, we just have to ask?"

"I guess! You sound so much more American now, Gun! Although I do kind of miss hearing you use that formal English!"

"Well my roommate's kind of beating it out of me, one word at a time!" Singto grins and then they prepare for class as the rest of their group trickles in.

After, Mathilde insists on the library. She's quite adamant that if they go straight away, it won't feel like hard work. Just an extension of the lecture they've just had.

"Come on, let's get it done!" She laughs, linking their arms and dragging him across the quad.

Almost two hours later, he's kind of had it. They've chased reference after reference and keep getting stuck in the technical terminology which Singto absolutely has to check the meaning of in Thai to make sure he's not talking some kind of nonsense. But finally, they've got a book in mind and he's heading back from the stacks after liberating it.

"Got it," he calls out, brandishing it towards Mathilde as he drops into his chair and shuffles his papers.

"Who's Krist?" She asks and Singto's heart skips a beat, whole body frozen.

But Mathilde's passing him his phone, so he has to snap himself out of the rush of feelings he's experiencing. "You've missed like five calls?"

The question hangs between them and Singto chooses to ignore it, glancing down to confirm it's now six missed calls before he shoves it into his pocket and buries himself back into his study.

And although she gives him a fierce look, he won't say.

He just can't face this right now.