TO SHOU WITH LOVE

42 - HEARTBEAT

At the end of the song, the audience shouted “encore” loudly.

Sailub looked at the glowing glowsticks waving below and the excited crowd for a long time without saying a word.

Thanapon saw a faint smile on his face as he looked at the vast music festival grounds, as if he had been lost in some memory.

“Thank you,” Sailub said into the microphone, “Thank you for still remembering me.”

His voice was low, almost completely drowned out by the cheers from below.

After speaking, he stood up, returned the guitar and microphone to the band, and then stepped down from the stage with Thanapon.

Once they were off the stage, they didn’t return to their original positions, too many spectators had crowded there, and neither of them liked noisy environments.

Thanapon noticed that Sailub seemed to be lost in thought, he had been in a somewhat absent-minded state since coming down from the stage.

“What are you thinking about?” Thanapon asked aloud.

“I was thinking…” Sailub snapped out of his reverie, paused for a moment, and then said, “Is there any more beer?”

“No,” Thanapon said, realizing that the beer he had just bought was already finished, he couldn’t tell who had drunk more, him or Sailub. “I’ll go buy some.”

“I’ll wait for you over there,” Sailub pointed ahead.

Thanapon nodded.

On the way to the stall, Thanapon felt his mood improve significantly.

He took a deep breath, the cool breeze mingled with the scent of grass passing through his lungs before he gently exhaled.

There was a sense of long-lost joy.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he felt such pleasure.

Standing in front of the stall, he even seriously considered the taste of beers in different packaging, white for lychee flavor, pink for peach flavor, green for lemon flavor, and burgundy for cherry flavor.

He used to have no patience for this kind of thing, finding it boring, uninteresting, and annoying.

But today, he found it quite interesting.

It felt like he could waste away the whole night, pretending to temporarily escape from the exhausting rush of life.

“Cherry flavor, please,” Thanapon said, “Give me a pack.”

He had actually never tried cherry-flavored beer, but he had just thought of Sailub
wearing a burgundy jacket tonight.

Taking the beer handed to him by the stall owner, Thanapon turned around and looked in the direction he had just come from.

There were too many people, and he didn’t see Sailub for a moment, but he did see two boys not far away kissing each other—eyes closed, kissing as if no one else existed.

Across from the Atsadang Bar was a gay bar.

At midnight, when the bars closed, Thanapon often stood at the door, feeling the breeze and spacing out.

He frequently saw drunken men kissing as if nobody was watching.

Having seen it so many times, he was already accustomed to it, especially since he had always been quite indifferent to things that didn’t concern him.

But today was different because he suddenly thought of Sailub.

The side profile sitting in the car, waiting to be kissed.