— Kim loves his husband. It's the only constant thing in his life. The strength and depth of feeling he has for Chay will never change. If only he could make Chay love himself as much as he loves him —
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Imagine a classic rom-com scene where the main protagonist is in a hurry and with the freshly bought hot Vanilla Latte or Americano they bump right into their future significant other and spill the coffee all over their clothes. Dramatic pause... Then gasp! Followed by a litany of apologies.
That's how Kim met Chay.
Kim was the one with coffee. Chay was the one getting covered in coffee. The difference was that before Kim could even start apologizing Chay ducked his head and ran out of the cafe as if Kim was an immediate danger to him. Kim felt awful for staining the boy's hoodie, he couldn't just let the boy run out without Kim at least buying him a new one or paying for the cleaning.
Kim was so focused on chasing after the boy and apologizing to him that he didn't even linger on the strange fact that it was 36 degrees outside and the boy wore a black hoodie which was also covering his head and with the face mask on his face Kim caught only the glimpse of his bambi eyes before the boy ran out of the cafe.
"Excuse me! Wait wait!" Kim called after the boy. "I just want to apologize and make sure that you are okay."
Kim was already right behind the boy, he reached out and grabbed the hoodie, wanting to stop him, but as he did that, the hoodie fell from the boy's head somehow taking with itself also one side of the face mask the boy was wearing.
Time froze.
Standing in the middle of a hectic street they were looking at each other. One with shame and horror-covered eyes. The other with shock and understanding. It all was making sense now... why the boy was trying to run away.
Kim cleared his throat at let go of the boy's hoodie, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."
The boy immediately covered his face with the face mask again and put the hood back on. "It's fine, no need to be nice. I know I'm ugly."
☆☆☆☆☆
It had been five years since Kim heard those words from Chay for the first time and he despised them just the same. Half of Chay's body including his face was maimed by the devastating fire of a cottage where Chay and his best friend Macau were spending a couple of days of their summer vacation. They were both only 18.
Chay was now 25.
Macau will stay 18 forever.
Chay barely survived the fire. Firefighters found him in his bed, the bed sheets literally baked onto his skin. The surgery lasted 12 hours, followed by another 3 shorter less dangerous ones. The following recovery lasted 8 months. But that was just body. It had been 7 years since the fire and Chay had still the same nightmares of scorching fire, the smell of burned skin, and desperate loud and then less and less loud and then completely quiet screams of his best friend.
