Doubt Your Intentions

Chapter 1

Notes: This takes place after the end of season 1 of the show and does not use any content from the books or spoilers for season 2. (I'm unclear on the timeline of season 1 as compared with the school year at a Thai university, so my timing might be totally off here. Roll with it.)

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Forth sighed and reminded himself again that he'd never really had  Yo, so it was utterly ridiculous to feel like he'd lost him. What a tough guy he was, mooning (ha!) over a kid who'd apparently been in love with Phana for years.

He flipped his pen in the air and caught it, idly repeating the action until a hand snatched it out of the air.

"Well, aren't you pathetic?" Beam asked, tossing him the pen.

Even though that matched his own thoughts, Forth glared at him on principle of the thing. "What?"

"Thinking about Yo again?"

It wasn't worth the energy to refute it, so Forth just dropped his pen on the table and eyed the med student. "What are you doing over here anyway?"

Beam shrugged, dropping into the seat next to him at the table. "Came to check up on you."

After a pause, Forth asked, carefully, "Why?"

Beam shrugged again. "Just because I'm a player doesn't mean I don't know that other people get deep feelings. My friends are too busy with their boyfriends to think about you. I figured somebody should."

Forth was honestly floored. His engineering friends had mostly teased him about Yo and none of them seemed to think he was even capable of deep emotion. "Didn't know you were going out for psychiatry," he finally managed.

"Nah," Beam said with a snort. "Too much time with Pha over the years. I know the signs of heartbreak."

"It's not..." Forth stopped, unsure what he was even trying to say.

"Whatever. Do you want to hang out or not?"

To his own surprise, Forth found the answer was yes. "Grab some dinner?"

"Sure."

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It didn't exactly become a routine, but sometimes Beam wandered over to Engineering with Ming or Forth dropped by Beam's favorite dinner place and they would hang out. Nothing earth-shattering, just talking about movies they'd seen, the antics of their friends, or sadistic professors who were trying to kill their students with reading.

Over one such dinner, the words just came out of Forth's mouth. "Is it dumb that I still want to see Yo?" Forth couldn't believe he'd actually said it aloud. Beam shot him a sharp look and Forth shook his head. "Not like that." Hell, even if he thought he had a chance to break them up, he wouldn't do that. "It's just that I...like him. Y'know, as a person, not a sex toy."

Was that a flinch? Forth started to say something else, but before he could change the subject, Beam had grabbed his hand and was tugging on it. "What?"

"C'mon," Beam said, standing. "Let's go. They're studying in the library."

"Whoa, hang on, do you want your buddy to punch me? 'Cause that's what's gonna happen if I show up anywhere near Yo."

"Nah." Beam grinned at him. "We'll just tell them that we're fucking."

Forth stared at him. "Huh?"