The End of Lovesickness

9: How Love Survives When All Else Is Lost 2

"To the last night of freedom before we return to the front lines!" Tadd lifted his beer high in the air , dropping half of hit in his lap. 

Pun smiled and lifted his as well. Unlike Tadd, he'd been nursing his beer for hours. The mood was so high that nobody seemed to notice that he wasn't drinking. Nor did they notice that his mood couldn't match their own. 

Pun had spent the entire day making phone calls to old friends. He was sure that somebody had to have been in contact with Noh since he came home. One or two admitted to seeing him but nobody knew much about where he'd been or what happened to him while he was gone. Noh, it seems, had been able to fool everybody with his smiling face. 

"Pun, are you leaving already?"

"I have some things I need to do before class." Pun said his goodbyes and began making his way home. 

He's been debating with himself all day about whether or not he should use his family's contacts to dig a little deeper. Although his family and Noh's family didn't move in the same circles there was always a point of overlap. Somebody who knew somebody. Wasn't that how they met in the first place. His father had a lot of political and diplomatic friends. His mother knew the wives of most of the important people in the country. 

The only thing that held him back was his reluctance to upset his mother. Pun and his mother had been at a stale mate for years. Neither one of them admitted or accused the other. Both of them knew that what Pun had with Noh was not normal but neither of them had the courage to confront it.  If Pun started digging around, they wouldn't 't be able to pretend anymore. 

As he walked home he remembered the day he stood in front of his father, refusing to say the name of the person he was dating. He remembered the guilt and the fear in Noh's face. He remembered how his own heart raced. He had never been so afraid, or so sure of himself. Where had that boy gone?

Pun passed by a congee shop where rowdy students were trying to get food to help sober up. In the crowd of mewling students he spotted a familiar face. 

"Om!"

The tall, tanned man turned to look at Pun and smiled for a second before turning his attention back to another boy dancing on a table. Pun crossed the street to say hello just as the drunk party-goer fell off of the table top and landed on top of Om.

"Shit, this mother fucker is heavy," Om cried out, falling to the ground.

"Noh?" Pun couldn't help but smile as the red faced man looked more like the boy red faced boy he'd loved so dearly.

"Hey,Pun! Everybody its Pun!" Noh yelled, his legs flailing as he struggled to greet the newcomer.

"Get off of me. You smell like shit," Om cursed, pushing Noh to the ground. 

"What are you doing here?" Pun helped Om up off of the floor.

"I just came to visit this guy before I leave. how have you been? Do you also go to XXX?"

"Yeah, I wish I'd known you were in town. We should have gone for a drink," Pun said, ignoring Noh's struggle to get on his feet. 

"Maybe next time. Hey, does Noh know that youre a student here?"

"He just found out a few days ago. Why?"

"Nothing," Om frowned and shook his head. 

"That's not like you. The way I remember it, you never knew how to keep quiet about anything," Pun laughed. 

"Yeah, well, we all grow up. And some things," Om looked down at Noh who had finally managed to pull himself into a sitting position. "Some things shouldn't be said."