Breath (TulHin)

Chapter 27

Resting place

The hands of the clock reveal that it is almost eleven in the evening when a luxury car enters the villa and parks in the garage, after the young and charming Metthanan has brought Naphawadee home on the other side of Bangkok. The young man gets out of the car smiling and remembering what happened a couple of hours ago. Tul was on a date with Naphawadee and his friends at a famous upscale restaurant. They each arrived on their own, but upon returning, Tul offered Wadee's friends a ride home. Even after the initial refusal of the girl, who seemed a little shy, they accepted and that's why she smiles about it. He realized how much Wadee likes her but also how much the people who are with her like her. Wadee's friends could see it and so could her mother because, when they arrived, Naphawadee's mother came out to welcome them and invite them in. The woman is happy to see her daughter with the young Metthanan. Her honeycolored eyes light up when she thinks that the girl has aristocratic blood that could elevate her status. In Tul's eyes, Naphawadee is no different from the other people around him, but on the other hand, there is something strange about having her around; interacting with her does not make him feel sick or uncomfortable to the point of making him feel nauseous and want to vomit, unlike Wadee's two close friends.

She didn't even notice the way they looked at her.

“Friends seemed happy to see us together, but they would have been happier to be in my place.”

He met many... too many people like that. Tul thinks so. He prefers the smell of earth, grass and flowers in the garden to the expensive perfume girls wear which is so sweet and intense it almost makes him dizzy. Feeling in a better mood now, the young man goes straight to the area of the house where breathing comes naturally to him: it's where Hin is.

Gornhin is sitting on the floor next to the sofa, sleeping soundly. Seeing him like that a smile lifts to Tul’s lips as he approaches carefully and then inhales deeply. The young man can not only smell Hin's clean clothes, but also the fragrance of the talcum powder that the young man usually applies to his body after bathing. Tul doesn't hesitate to kneel next to him then looks at Gornhin that way for a brief moment before placing a hand on his cheek delicately. Those cheeks which are different compared to Naphawadee's because they are not soft or smooth to the touch, but Tul loves to slide the tips of her fingers along the profile of that face she has known for almost twenty years, starting from the black hair, sliding up to the eyebrows and the scar near them, passing through the nose, up to the thin lips.

“Are you so tired just now? Should I look for someone else... who can help me?” Tul whispers in a rather amused voice and not as a reproach. Thinking that if Hin heard this, he would be too embarrassed.

But at the thought of “finding someone else to help him with his work” Tul answers himself and the answer is: No!

He knows that Hin is not smarter than the other people around him, but that makes him better. He's someone who can't even compete academically with Rob, but there's one thing that sets him apart from everyone else the effort he puts into it. Even though everyone at the university sees him as a mere servant always ready to do his bidding, no one denies that he is good at studying and that he is fully capable of carrying out any task that is assigned to him. Tul knows perfectly well that Hin is someone he can trust regardless of the effort the boy puts into everything he does. This is why Tul doesn't want a talented person, because he wants someone like Hin who never rests, who never stops giving his all because he knows that if he stopped, he would never be able to achieve his goals. So now that the exams are over, it's no wonder Hin is exhausted. The young man smiles tenderly, stroking his head for the last time, being very careful not to wake him. The young Metthanan, in the sweetest way possible, brings one arm behind Hin’s back and one under his knees, picking him up to lift him from the floor and place him on the bed.