Beloved Dear, Look At Me For Once | ✔

Chapter Seventeen

With some light foods and beverages in the plastic bags he carried, he quietly opened the door to the ICU.

His father messaged him around the time lunch hours were about to begin that whenever he could make enough time to come to the hospital, be it after work hours ended, that he buys food for at least three people on the way before coming to the hospital.

He couldn't understand why his father asked for more than two people,

Until he entered the room and heard the weeping coming from inside,

"Honey, you know I am not against showing emotions or crying but you've been weeping since we got the news. Please honey, we have to be strong for our son, he will be up and okay in no time I know, so please, don't cry na."

He remembered the voice from a faded memory he couldn't recall,

He stopped when the people in question came into sight, hiding New from him as he missed his father catching his sight,

"How do you expect me to not to cry at a moment like this?" The woman choked out after sniffling as her shaking shrill voice struck in his head, yet the memory was as near as reaching for the stars,

"Look at my son," He heard her swallow and sniffle again, before she ultimately broke down again, covering her mouth as her husband hugged her,

He stood there, behind them, wondering about who they were and if he should step up or not when his father called him,

"What are you doing standing there, Tay? Come in."

And just as he was about to comply, he froze in his place when the couple turned around, shock evident in their wet eyes, the memory finally resurfacing in his head when he met their eyes,

He had a flask of rum in his hand, he had remembered and it had been mere moments after he had tied the knot with him when he had turned back to drinking,

He remembered standing on the sacred temple grounds and opening the flask, about to chug the alcohol down from it when he'd heard the same voices from behind,

"Dear, please don't drink today at least."

It was the same shrill and motherly voice he had heard that day,

"I agree, please son, don't do this and come to the reception."

And he had remembered, pretending as if he didn't see the faces of New's parents at all and walked away like it was nothing.

"What are you doing here?"

The same voice now shaking with anger snapped him out of his trance as he blinked, seeing the woman, his mother in law, stand up,

"Why have you come here? None of us have called you here-"

"Actually I did, Benja, I called him here,"

His mother in law turned to his father then, clenching on the arms of his father in law who held her as if she could lose her patience any moment and cause a ruckus,

"Why P'Luang? Every single one of us knows he doesn't like my son! That all he has given him is pain and nothing else then why did you call him here? Let him do wherever he wants, find a bottle of liquor and stumble into any bar or alley, spend the night in the arms of whoever he wants to but tell him to go away from here."

Luang opened his mouth to defend his son when his calm and polite voice filled the sudden silence,

"All thanks to New," They snapped their heads back at him, as if he fueled the fire of their anger but he didn't let himself get fazed, continuing, "I have stopped smoking and drinking."