You Know, I've Always Loved You

'good morning, sunshine'

Tine's phone buzzed next to his head, vibrating his pillow to an extent that he couldn't bear to roll over and just ignore it. He slowly opened his eyes to the dark room around him. It wasn't entirely unfamiliar, but it wasn't a room he was used to waking up in. The shades were almost fully drawn shut, causing only the smallest slices of light to squeeze through. As his eyes adjusted to his surroundings, he began to notice the posters on the wall and the shelves packed with various records, neither of which were his own belongings, but whose were they? Whose room was he in?

He looked more closely at the posters, recognizing the printed characters as various names of thai bands. He wasn't familiar with their music, but he knew someone who was, Sarawat. He began to think of the first time he had visited the guitar player's room, having done so only so he could take Sarawat's old guitar off his hands since Tine needed one for practice. He had ended up staying there longer than he intended, possibly a few hours, but he couldn't remember. Those hours he spent in Sarawat's room went by so quickly, but he wouldn't have even dared to admit that to the singer because it would have just gone to his head. Tine imagined that if Sarawat knew, that he would have made a comment about Tine's making their fake relationship more serious than it actually was. From then on he knew he could never let Sarawat know that he really enjoyed getting to learn more about him and his favorite artists or even hearing him play his guitar and sing just for him.

As his memories of that evening began to fade off, he realized that he was once again in that room, Sarawat's room. The posters he noticed earlier were in fact the ones in the room that night so long ago. He remembered looking at them a lot then too, eventually staring at every corner of the room as the guitarist seemingly took forever to tune his backup guitar to the point where Tine could take it and leave.

Tine did have to admit that other than glancing around the room throughout that evening, he had watched Sarawat quite a bit too. At that time, Tine and Sarawat did not know each other that well. By the time Sarawat had dragged Tine to his room, they had only spoken a few times, and Tine had somehow convinced the former to act as his fake boyfriend to drive off some crazed stalker who was out to be Tine's boyfriend himself. Regardless, he wouldn't have called himself Sarawat's friend, and yet he spent several hours lounging in the man's room noticing every nook and cranny in the room as well as the singer himself. As Sarawat tuned the guitar, Tine took time to watch the former's face. His concentration on the task at hand sat heavily on his face, pulling his brows together and narrowing his large brown eyes, carefully watching his fingers as they plucked the strings and twisted the nobs to hit the right pitch. Tine thought for a second that he could understand why basically every girl in every faculty of his university was obsessed with him. In this moment, he witnessed Sarawat's usually stern demeanor melt away as his adoration of music flowed out, bringing a sense of calm and happiness across his face instead of his usual apathetic look.

Before Tine could fully get lost in the visuals in front of him, Sarawat's eyes shifted over to meet his. Upon noticing Sarawat's attention was now on him, Tine quickly looked away.

"What are you looking at?" inquired Sarawat.

"N-nothing", Tine stumbled over his words as if he were a student who was just caught cheating. He couldn't have Sarawat knowing that he was looking at him. He would surely have been made fun of.

Sarawat looked at him for a few more seconds, and then shook his head. His attention went back to the guitar, but his mind was still on Tine. For a second he swore, he felt Tine's gaze upon him. It had felt warm, and it overwhelmed him. If he was going to be honest, the fact that he was even able to convince Tine to come to his room was beyond his comprehension. He had agreed to be his fake boyfriend because he thought it would give him the opportunity to get to know him better, and deep down that's what Sarawat really wanted. He had admired Tine from afar for years, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that he finally came face to face with him and even learned his name, and to his surprise, Tine wanted him too. Unfortunately, it was only in a superficial way, but he was glad nonetheless to have this opportunity to spend time with Tine. And if he was right that he had caught Tine looking at him, he was overjoyed. To be so close to the man he liked was driving him crazy, but he was trying his best to keep it under wraps. He knew Tine only wanted to use him to rid of Green, so he couldn't get his hopes up by getting close to him like this, but the thought that Tine was actually looking at him warmed his heart. He chuckled to himself.