Toxic [2gether]

Part 14

Fong snickered and tilted his phone so that Tine would see the screen as well.

"Look at the tags," he said gleefully, that fucker.

"Sarawat's bae? Sarawat's muse?" Tine mouthed mortified, his eyes round and eyebrows arched. Why was he dating a celebrity again, could someone remind him?

"That's not even the final form. Look," his friend urged and scrolled through the comments on twitter, showing Tine the over the top sexualizing quips about Sarawat and his implied boyfriend. Someone had even made an ugly drawing of them naked in thrones of passion. Shit! This was getting out of hand.

"What the fuck!"

Fong laughed at Tine's embarrassed outrage. The netizens were shameless, thirsting for anything related to young and handsome celebrities. Tine reached desperately for his cold beer, gulping it down while smashing Fong's phone face down on the carpet. Enough of that.

The men were sitting on the carpeted floor, squeezed between Tine's couch and the coffee table, several empty beer cans thrown around them and snack bags ripped open, cluttering the tabletop. Fong had shown up at Tine's doorstep, claiming he needed to let off some steam from his work, brandishing a plastic bag full of beer in front of Tine's face.

Tine leaned his head on the cushioned seat behind him, looking at the revolving white ceiling above. He might have had a couple of beers too many.

"Why am I doing this again?" He asked no one in particular.

"Because you like Sarawat," Fong teased. "You looove him."

"Shit," Tine mumbled, rubbing his chest over a black t-shirt. The truth of those words hit him harder than he anticipated, making butterflies flutter in his lower belly. Well, Sarawat was really beautiful, he thought completely smitten. A silly smile splayed slowly on his plump lips.

His friend picked up his phone again, keeping a steady scrolling speed through the tweets with his thumb, quick enough to catch the main point but not slow enough to catch all the trashy details about people's speculations. Tine saw him pause out of the corner of his eyes, the other man suddenly frowning at the screen.

"What?" He asked evenly, his round eyes darting to the motionless man by his side. At this rate it could really be anything, Tine had learned to have low expectations of things written about him by now.

"People are such trash," his friend concluded simply and pocketed his phone quickly without letting Tine see.

"Hey," he shouted and was about to wrestle Fong for the device when his buzzer went off, excited voices talking just right outside the front door. Apparently Ohm and Peuk had decided to crash their two man drinking party.

***

Tine was drunk, he was sooo drunk. He giggled and staggered around his bedroom in the dark, sending something flying to floor from the bedside table, whoops, trying to make his way to the bed. Finally flopping his big body onto its back, bouncing slightly on the mattress, he breathed out harshly. His heart was hammering away in his chest and his cheeks were burning. Tine blinked slowly at the darkness that was revolving around him.

With a huff Tine rolled to his side and pouted into the covers. Those bitches. Writing all those cruel things about him. He sniffed. Ah, this was so degrading. He was a grown man for fuck's sake and still this reduced him to angry tears.

Tine had no experience getting this type of concentrated exposure and as much as he let it bounce off of him, being secure enough in himself, some words still pierced unyieldingly deep. What hurt him the most were the comments of Tine not deserving Sarawat. Was Tine really such a horrible person?