Catch me (when I fall)

SarawaTine Chronicles Part: 4

4.

Tine likes to have an order. All his skin-care products are lined in rows in their bathroom cabinet. While Wat takes studying on the floor, he happily monopolises the study table. It shows in the stacked towers of his books, the orderly shelves and the multi-coloured sticky notes. His clothes are arranged in piles, each pile assembled for a particular day. That way, he can maintain his chic image. Wat complains about it until they both reach a willing compromise and it is this:Tine sticks to his style without subjecting Wat to it and vice-versa. They even shake hands on it, as playfully petty as they are. 

Somehow, by some act of divinity, they keep at it. For about a month. It starts at the very beginning of a mid-term week, as most unfortunate things usually do. Tine comes home on Monday evening to his boyfriend spread over, limbs akimbo, upon their bed-mattress. His many theory papers and gaping textbooks surround him like a halo. 

'An angel,' Tine decides, 'but a very messy angel indeed.'

He expresses this same mix of fond irritation with a pointed kick at the bed's foot-end. It's somewhat effective in that Sarawat turns around from his hunched contemplation so quickly Tine fears he'll get whiplash. He doesn't, thankfully. Instead, a smile blooms upon his handsome countenance and he proceeds to flip over onto his back. Tine cringes inwardly as some unlucky papers crunch under Wat's weight. 

"Look what I found," Wat says, his face evening out, save for the squint of his eyes. Tine doesn't really know where this is going but he decides to humour the idiot. 

He resignedly questions back- "what?"

"The sun," replies the idiot and then he gives Tine a pointed once-over. Tine has to valiantly bite the inside of his cheek to keep a bashful smile from peeking out. He succeeds, kind of.  Wat's cringe-worthy compliment has one upside though-Tine completely forgets about scolding him. 

On Tuesday, Tine wakes up shockingly late and rushes to uni, only to be assaulted by two pop- tests and an unnecessarily long lecture. In the afternoon, he sits at the usual table with Wat and the crackheads. It lightens up his mood enough that he feels emboldened to tackle the upcoming presentation after lunch. 

Then the presentation flops because there is no presentation at all. In his haste, he'd grabbed the nearest pen-drive he could find and it so happens to be Sarawat's. He wonders how on earth such a mix-up could have ever occurred unless... 

'How dare that Saraleo mess with my things! I'm going to skin him alive!' Tine thinks. It is this vengeance that powers him in living through the rest of the day. When he stalks towards his waiting boyfriend at the last bell with a list of choice curses on the tip of his tongue. Distantly, he notices Man and Boss slinking away while Wat remains unaware. 

"Saraleo!" he growls and is rewarded with a wide-eyed look. The rest of his sentence is arrested in the tip of his tongue however, because Sarawat almost thrusts a cup of Blue Hawai into his face. Almost exactly when Tine recovers from nearly losing his own nose to a drink, Wat starts babbling. Something about hearing what happened after lunch from Fong. Something else about how he has no idea how his pen-drive landed up on Tine's table. Tine remains impressively impassive through it all. Consequently, Wat resorts to apologetically blinking up at Tine through his lashes. 

'What a picture of pure innocence,' thinks Tine derisively. He tells Sarawat the same. The receiver of this snarky comment responds by pouting and continues on with this deplorable act until they reach their apartment. Tine holds on to his anger for about an hour or so. 

After that, he's quick to forgive his boyfriend because and only because he's afraid Wat's face will be stuck in a pout if he keeps it up any longer.

Wednesday is equally torturous in that it's uneventful. Which means that Tine has to slog through back-to-back classes with no motivation in life whatsoever. He gets a small surprise from the monotony during lunch but it's not the nice kind. He returns to the group's familiar food stall table with two steaming plates of rice only to find it empty save for his three-membered gang. Ohm informs him that Man came by with a post-it for him before flopping back onto the table. 

Two more songs to practice. Sorry Nuisance, I can't come, it reads. That's it; that's the final straw. Even when a half-dead Phuk falls on what was supposed to be Wat's plate, stuffing it in like no tomorrow, Tine says nothing. For heaven's sake, he doesn't even have enough energy left to talk.

Thursday follows a similar pattern with two beautifully long hours of cheer practice added in the mix and then finally, finally Friday arrives. He wakes up to a series of metallic clanks and cold sheets. It takes a whole ten minutes before his brain comes online which is ominous in itself. Then, it takes him two more minutes to place exactly what he's hearing. It's Sarawat in the kitchen. 

'Wait... Wat's in the kitchen?!'he thinks and no sooner has this disturbing realisation been dumped on him than he flies down the stairs. What greets him is certainly a sight, to say the least. The counter is carpeted almost, with almost every kitchen utensil one can think of. There's a wooden spatula, a hand whisk, different sizes of spoons... you name it you got it. The further he steps into the kitchen, the more catastrophic it looks. 

There's a chopping board with a knife splayed across it and there's some sort of fruit juice trailing down from it to create a pool on their kitchen floor. Tine eyes the knife for a long second, contemplating. Then he settles for a less violent approach by asking, "Wat, what is this?" 

If there's one thing Tine's grateful for in this situation , it's that Wat isn't as easily excited as Tine is when people creep up on him. So he doesn't even flinch from where he's poised over a bowl at the adjacent counter-top. He just calmly turns around with one raised eyebrow like it should be obvious. It's not and Tine relays as much by raising his own brows back at him. 

"Nuisance, I'm making mango smoothies for the both of us. Obviously," he says and its punctuated by a side-step along with a flourish towards two bowls of diced mangoes and their grinder, no longer hidden. 

"You were going to make smoothies in a blender?" Tine deadpans and it's enough to get his boyfriend into a frenzy. He grabs a spoon and starts frantically scraping out the condensed milk he's already poured into it. Tine is left wondering- not for the first time- how a person so musically- inclined can be such a fool in the kitchen.

On Friday, Tine draws up a plan with his zombie-friends to visit their favourite club in the evening because at this point, he just wants to drink till he can't think. He sends a message to his boyfriend because they always have their stay-in-Fridays and Tine won't ever cancel them unless Wat agrees. Unexpectedly, the message is put on read until the second-last period and even then, he only gets a short sure. Tine's to caught up in his excited anticipation though, so he doesn't give it a second thought. 

He arrives back at their dorm much, much later than he wants but his mood will not be thwarted. He's going to have a bash tonight anyways. This happy little thought induces a spring in his step as he bounds up the stairs to their loft. This happy little thought is completely trashed when he sees Wat, propped up on their bed. 

Sarawat is hunched over his laptop, his mouth is parted in that way it gets when he's too absorbed in something. The are music sheets in his left hand and a pencil in his other. Most importantly though, he's wearing the same pin-striped dress shirt that Tine had thought of wearing to the bar. Tine is not happy.