I Want You To Be My Last

Part 43.2 : Keep it real

"What? What do you mean those pictures are staged? And you know this how? Did your P'Mew tell you? And you believed him? Oh my god, I can't be hearing this right." P'Best didn't only sound incredulous, he also looked like it. Gulf winced, wondering if he should have let P'Mew handle this too, then mentally chastising himself for even thinking about it.

"Um, well, kind of." he replied, feeling slightly stupid afterward.

P'Best's answering "Whaaat?!" whined over-dramatically made it doubly worse. Gulf was fucked.

"Well kind of what, Nong? Please, for my sake, just give it to me straight. I know you think you're doing us good by keeping shit to yourself but believe me, you're not. So just tell me. What do you mean by that answer?" P'Best wasn't beating around the bushes, he was looking straight at Gulf through the screen like he knew Gulf was withholding information that would explain all this madness better.

Gulf looked down, away, and sighed. There was no way out of this, was there? Fuck it.

"I don't know how to explain it without freaking you out, Phi." he mumbled, and already, he could feel his face burning, both in shame and in worry. God damn it.

"You're freaking me out enough as it is by not saying anything, Nong. So, please, have mercy on me and just spill it."

Gulf was wincing still as he cleared his throat and prepared to drop the bomb and hoped P'Best (and the rest of his management team) was quick enough to catch it. (Obviously because they weren't going to be able to dodge it nor scurry away to safety because their charge was an idiot, holy fucking hell.)

"I - uh, actually, there is no girlfriend." he muttered, letting the words out without looking at the screen, at P'Best's face or risk losing the nerve.

"Go on." his manager seemed to have developed a personality disorder because right now he sounded so uncharacteristically calm that Gulf couldn't help but look. "I know that's not just it, Kanawut, so go on. Let me hear the rest."

Gulf swallowed noisily, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He lifted his gaze and looked straight into P'Best's eyes as he whispered. "The woman in the picture is me." he admitted, voice unsteady.

The silence that followed was charged and awkward, and Gulf gave himself exactly five seconds to watch P'Best gape at him before he was screwing his eyes shut, anticipating his manager screaming on top of his lungs right after.

Which was exactly what happened, Gulf sitting there taking everything, his manager hissing like a feral cat while screaming about the stupidity and asking him to explain everything on the same breath, wondering and equal-parts hoping P'Mew was here to hold his hand and help him to explain the idiocy he was responsible for anyway.

-

P'Best was pacing. Gulf knew he was pacing, and that only meant one thing. His manager was beyond stressed, agitated. Gulf could only blame himself for this.

"You're going to have to walk me through that again, Nong," P'Best said, like he was trying to be patient. "Because I will have to explain this myself to P'Bermb and you don't want me telling him that, 'Oh, that's fine. It looks like we have nothing to worry about because it turns out his secret boyfriend isn't cheating on him with another girl, because our boy IS the girl. Isn't that wonderful?' No, it isn't, obviously, so talk to me. Explain this to me in detail before I lose my shit and let you explain everything yourself to P'Bermb yourself."

Gulf lifted a hand and roughly wiped his face with it. Oh god, he shouldn't be saying this, but he knew he wouldn't be able to explain it just as well as the bastard who made this happen could.