Roundabout Way to You

13. Male bestie 2

"Do you know why she is so silent?" Bern nudged Mihit who was walking beside. He wasn't used to seeing his girlfriend so silent.

"How would I know?" Mihit answered.

When Mihit called him, asking him to join them for lunch, he had been very reluctant. He had been avoiding Ayut for days. He himself didn't know why he started running as soon as he saw Ayut's shadow.

Even in the meeting in the morning, Ayut had done an impressive job. Yet things weren't sitting well with him.

He couldn't understand the discomforting feeling he got whenever he saw Ayut. It was so weird that he himself couldn't explain.

He could feel that Ayut had noticed it as well as the latter had kept his distance from him while the four of them were eating in the office.

"Should I ask her?" Bern probed.

"If you are interested in finding the reason, then yes" Mihit replied while scrolling on the phone. He was searching up Ayut's name on his phone. He was curious to know more about Ayut.

"Then, I am going after her" Bern tapped his shoulders. "See you tomorrow."

Mihit only nodded and went his way.

"Boyo!" Bern jogged over to his girlfriend who was walking at a fast pace. "Where are you going so fast?"

"I need to get to the office. I came here for lunch" Boyo replied without pausing. She kept walking. 

She had initially planned on taking a half day off from work and spending it with her boyfriend as she knew that he would be able to do the same. But what happened during the lunch had completely ruined her mood.

Even though her boyfriend didn't say anything out loud, his body language spoke volumes about the way he thought of her best friend. And she realized painfully that whatever Ayut told her was true. This hurt her so much.

She needed some space. She knew that if she was to spend the afternoon with her boyfriend, she might end up screaming at him and they might get into a fight, which might even result in a breakup.

If something like that happened, she knew that Ayut would never forgive himself.

"I will drop you there," Bern offered.

"No need. I have already called for the taxi," She rejected his offer.

He could clearly sense that there was something bothering his girlfriend. "Then, I will take taxi with you."

"What about your car?"

"I can come back to pick it later."

"Whatever you say" Boyo wasn't in a mood to have a conversation.

Her phone rung. She saw that it was one of her colleagues calling. She picked it up quickly "Hello"

She listened to what the caller had to say and replied. "No phi, I am coming back. I~"

Before she could complete her sentence, her phone was snatched by her boyfriend. "Swadee Khrab, Phi. I am Boyo's boyfriend. She won't be coming back today. Bye."

He hung up the phone. He already knew that Boyo came over after taking a half day leave from the studio.

"What the hell was that, Bern?" Boyo glared at her boyfriend. "I was on an official call."

"Wasn't your leave already sanctioned?" He asked.

"That's none of your business!" She found what Bern just did very disrespectful.

"I am sorry that I snatched your phone like that" He apologized sensing that his girlfriend was really upset. "Tell me why you are mad at me?"

"I am not mad at you."

"How can you lie with a straight face, Boyo? You have been giving me the cold shoulder ever since we exited Khun Ayut's office. Do you really think that I can't sense anything?"

Boyo finally stopped on her tracks and turned around to face her boyfriend.

They were already in the parking lot and there were no one around.

"Since you sense that I am mad, why don't you also sense what you did that made me mad at you?" She asked, with her hands on her hips.

"What did I do?" Bern was clueless on what he did. 

"Are you trying to play dump?"

"I really don't know what I did wrong." He answered genuinely.

"You really don't know what you did?" She scoffed. "Then I will tell you what you did. First of all, how many times have I told you about Yut? How many times have I shown you, his photo? My whole condo has more than twenty photos of me with him. Why on earth did you act like you didn't recognize him?"

"I really didn't recognize him" He replied truthfully. He wasn't lying. He has the photo of the 'male bestie' of his girlfriend aka his love rival, engraved on his heart.

The problem was that the Ayut in those photos were way different than the Ayut he met. The Ayut in those photos were either smiling or making funny faces unlike the poker faced Ayut he met in the meeting. He did find Ayut's face familiar, but he really didn't recognize him.

Boyo sneered, not buying Bern's answer at all. "Today, Ayut invited you to have lunch with him only because you are my boyfriend. He wanted to get along with the person I am dating. And you humiliated him in return."

"When did I do that?" Bern was baffled. He had no idea what Boyo was talking about.

"Look, Bern, my best friend might be into men. But he has standards. Standards that are even higher than mine. So, you really don't have to worry about him coming on to you. Get that inside your head." 

Bern instantly understood what Boyo was talking about. "I didn't mean it like that, Boyo. I just heard some rumors and I..." 

"You heard rumors?" Boyo exhaled loudly, trying to calm herself in order to prevent starting an argument. "Do you know how difficult it is for a person to come out as gay, Bern? It is not a onetime process. The same person will have to come out every day, in front of various people in various occasions and I swear it is not an easy deal to do it."

She started straight at her boyfriend. "Even though our country is somewhat accepting towards the homosexual people, our society is not actually that friendly to them. It is a harsh reality. So, every single time Yut had to come out, he had been hurt and bullied by people."

She pointed at herself. "I have witnessed it myself. How people treat him, the way they make a few comments about him in the passing. All those actions might not mean anything to you. It might just be some words coming out of your mouth. But for Yut or any other person who came out of the closet, it is very painful."

Gulping down the raising pain in her heart, she stared at her boyfriend with tears of anger. "I have always supported him to fight back to those people. I don't want him to put up with such comments and actions from the people because of me. Even if the person making those comments is my boyfriend."