Anyone But You [PhayuRain] [Love In The Air]

18: REDISCOVER ME

Something shifted yesterday.

Phayu could feel it. He hardly slept last night as he tried to process the events between them that led up to that feeling

So much happened from the moment he stepped onto that plane till he crawled into the hotel bed that it was hard to believe it had all transpired in less than 12 hours.

But wasn't that how time with Rain always was for him? Immersive and just awash with feelings and sensations. From the moment he met him, his world and his thoughts had been consumed by Rain.

The years he had spent without him were... two dimensional.

It's not that he didn't feel joy, pleasure, or laugh with others. He did.

But there was always a part of him that felt something was missing. A part deep inside of him that was always... waiting.

It hadn't been a conscious choice. And if anyone had asked, he would have in all honesty sworn that he had moved on, filled his life with other things. He hadn't even realized it until he saw Rain again.

That he had been waiting.

Yesterday felt like a huge breakthrough because, finally, he saw the real Rain underneath that polished, sophisticated exterior.

He was still there. The Rain that felt something for him.

He was fighting it, fighting him, but the cracks were starting to form, and he could see little glimmers under the surface. Phayu examined each piece of evidence of that breakthrough as if he were panning for gold.

The real from-the-heart smile Rain gave him after the hotel tour.

Rain remembering his dislike for oysters.

Rain's anger. You have to care about something to get angry, he reassured himself.

Even what happened on the plane. Rain wouldn't have done what he did - been so intimate and then acted as if it meant nothing afterward - if he wasn't still hurt or wanting some payback over what happened so long ago. 

This though Phayu understood. Understood why Rain would use his body in that way with him. Sex had always been their most fluent love language, where they felt the safest and most free to express their emotions. So in a twisted way, it made sense that Rain would use that to express his 'hate' and make him pay.

Rain deserved this opportunity to work through his anger with him. He had not had the chance back then because he had to cut him out of his life so definitively.

He would take whatever Rain dished out if it meant that they could have a second chance.

*

Rain was feeling a bit unmoored.

He had tossed and turned all night, but had managed to calm himself and look poised and confident by the time he met Phayu down in the lobby at 10 AM.

And now they were in the car heading to the house which was the reason for this trip.

So many things had caught him off guard throughout the day.

Was it less than 24 hours ago that he had walked onto that plane with a clear plan of how he wanted to approach this weekend and Phayu?

One: Keep the distance that had been built between them over 8+ years firmly in place.

Two: Toy with his emotions using their sexual connection if he had to.

Three: Make him feel some of the pain of loss that he had inflicted on Rain.