Melted: One Shots

Three: Baifern/Pimchanok and Max

From Chapter Two in Melted: "Two Questions (Tul)"

But when the scandal with Pimchanok happened and she was out of his life, Tul began to seriously fall apart. He had felt with her that he was finally getting out from under the pall that had been his entire existence—living as a shadow Pakorn, living in a home where there was little warmth and even less acceptance. And then when she went away, he didn't have any goal left. His bright future didn't seem possible with her gone.

However, instead of going back to the rich boy partying of his early undergraduate days, he sank into depression. He had loved her. Part of him loved her still. She and Tor were his best friends in graduate school before she had started him, and she had been his comfort when he had felt alone—not just because he had been in a foreign country but because while he was in America, he had felt abandoned yet again by his father. He knew that the reason why her life (and her family's) had taken a turn for the worse was because of her connection to him. She was smarter, kinder, more talented than he. Why was her love for him the thing that ruined her chances?

What nagged at him, even now, was his powerlessness to do anything about it then. He could do nothing to save or protect her, and he felt like he had repeated the pattern of Pakorn men who could not protect the women they loved. His mother had been chased out of the country by the Pakorns, and so had Pimchanok. What had really broken him down was how Pimchanok had never said one bitter word to him about any of it. Even though she was the one who suffered the most, she had tried to make him feel better.

He had wanted her to yell at him. He had wanted her to be furious that fake pictures of her were all over the web and that, even though they were proved to be false, she had lost most of her advertising accounts (especially all of the ones associated with Shilapath). Pimchanok was a budding actress who had gotten some small parts but had decided to study in the States to improve both her English and her acting. She finished her program at the same time as Tul and had returned to Thailand the same summer he did. She had even been up for a drama series that probably would have made her career when those pictures came out. She not only lost the advertising jobs she had won, but she was replaced by another actress in the drama. When she left Thailand, merely three months after they had returned from the States, that had been the last time he had ever seen her in person.

From Chapter Ninety-Three in Melted: "First and Last Loves"

Baifern smiled in relief. She had worried quite a lot about Tul over the years. She had fallen for him so hard because he was a person who cared so much about the people close to him. She had decided to be the resolute person and leave with a smile because she saw how the whole scenario had broken him down; it wasn't so much because he loved her and would miss her, but because Tul felt so responsible for everything that was happening to her and her family even though she had repeatedly told him it wasn't his fault.

For years, she had wanted to contact him to tell him she was okay, more than okay, actually thriving, especially when she had heard the stories of his drinking and his stint in rehab, but then she had thought maybe the past should remain in the past. She had seen news of him since his return from rehab in some of the Thai outlets, and it had all been good for the most part and this last year the news has been fantastic.

She was happy when she saw that her friend Max was writing a book about his company and shadowing Tul's team. She had worried that Tul would never let anyone but Tor and Prin close to him, which was sad when he had such a capacity for friendship and really wanted family. She knew that he would like Max if he gave him a chance. Max could be his light to the bigger, warmer world if Tul let him. She knew because Max had rescued and helped her in her own darkest time. If anyone was going to bring sunshine back to Tul, it would be Max.