High Energy Collision [Completed]

Chapter 42 - Distract Me!

Around lunchtime on the day before their flight to Geneva, Prof. Marsden used her authority as the leader of the research group to send Plan home. He had been stubborn enough to want to follow his usual university schedule until the last minute.

"You need time to pack." The professor had reminded him. "And you need to rest. Long-distance flights are exhausting."

Now, Plan stood in the middle of his room, in front of the shiny new suitcase Tio had bought for him last week, reluctant to start actually putting stuff into it.

He shouldn't have listened to the professor.

Following his normal schedule instead of going home to pack would have made it easier to pretend it wasn't happening, and suppress the queasiness in his gut.

It was all surreal, thinking he would leave Thailand for the first time ever tomorrow, and not just to go to a neighbouring country, but overseas by plane... First Class, on his boyfriend's airline. Or, well, his boyfriend's family's, anyway.

Last time he had packed his bags had been to move out of the pool house. It had not even taken him five minutes to gather everything he owned, and carry it all over into the main house.

Now, he had an entire list of things he needed to pack, from a wardrobe that contained much more clothing items than would fit into that one suitcase. He had been compelled to go on shopping trips with Tio several times during all of last week to get more things people had insisted he would need – things like a warm coat and sturdy boots for winter.

It felt like his mood was constantly swinging between excitement, disbelief, and utter panic in a matter of minutes.

One moment, he was excited that he would finally be able to see another part of the world. Even better, he would be allowed to give a glimpse into the research he had been doing for the last months, and discuss his group's core hypotheses with top physicists from around the world.

He... who had been scribbling thoughts, observations, and calculations into cheap notebooks in the evenings on his own for so many years. Just a boy who had looked at the world around him in wonder, and who had followed free online courses from professors at renowned universities around the world – finally able to meet some of his heroes in the flesh, and ask all the questions he had wanted to ask for a long time, while soaking up the content of their lectures.

But that was just what made him sceptical in the next moment – like it couldn't be real. He had had to swallow and accept a lot of unbelievable things about himself since the reporters had first shown up at his village. The fact that these things were all seen as flattering by the wider public, didn't mean they weren't unsettling.

He still caught himself occasionally thinking that someone would show up, soon, and tell him all of this had been a regrettable misunderstanding, and he should go back to live the life that was meant for him.

Sure, unlike at the start of his time in Bangkok, he didn't actively work under that assumption anymore, on the contrary, he knew he not just wouldn't go back anymore, he couldn't... but... that hadn't taken away all of the diffuse uneasiness about this change of fortunes.

It felt like something was bound to go wrong. Maybe boarder control wouldn't let him leave Thailand, or the airplane wouldn't be able to take off, because someone like him wasn't meant to fly to other continents and speak at high-level conferences.

He was scientist enough to know that these fears weren't based on facts. There was no reason to expect things to go wrong, at least not any more than for anyone else. But sometimes, feelings couldn't be calmed just by rational thoughts.