Lunch Dates

Part 13

Chimon immediately called Ohm's attention after their morning practice was done that Saturday morning. They were both in the locker room and Nanon was taking a shower so he took the opportunity to talk to Ohm privately.

"Have you been on Twitter last night?" Chimon asked.

"No Chi, I was too tired. I fell asleep early."

"Ugh, that means you haven't seen it."

"Seen what?" Ohm was suddenly curious.

"This," said Chimon while showing Ohm his phone.

There was a hashtag on Twitter: #OhmMa. When Ohm clicked on it, he saw many tweets about him and Emma with what seemed to be a picture of her kissing him on the cheeks. Even Emma retweeted the original post from some fan with a heart emoji.

"Shit," Ohm muttered.

He remembered exactly how Nanon reacted yesterday when he saw everything. When Ohm got inside the bus and sat beside him, Nanon just smiled as if nothing happened. Ohm tried to initiate a conversation but he was only giving him one-word answers so he just gave up and stayed quiet the entire trip back to their school. They haven't talked since then.

"Actually, Nanon saw what happened yesterday. He saw Emma approach me, give me a gift then kiss me on the cheek and leave. But we haven't talked about it."

"Oh," Chimon said thinking about what to say next.

"There's nothing to it though. I don't know her. I don't have any of her contacts. We're not even friends on social media."

"Hey, no need to explain to me, dude. But I suggest you two talk about it. That's it," Chimon said tapping him on the shoulder. "I'll go ahead then, I have some errands to do today."

"Thanks, Chi. See you this afternoon."

Ohm waited for Nanon to finish showering and get dressed. He then led him to their usual spot at the park behind the gym. New and Jane had no classes that day so it was just the two of them.

They have barely sat down when Ohm started the conversation.

"Non, can we talk about what happened yesterday?"

Nanon avoided his eyes but eventually agreed. "Ok."

"I know you saw what happened between me and Emma. You might have probably seen the tweets too."

Nanon smiled. "I thought about it last night. I admit I felt jealous when I saw her kiss you and everything. But reading the tweets and considering your fans, your family, and your future, I figured you will be better off with her than with me."

"Non-"

"It's not too late to go back to your normal life, Ohm. With Emma, or any girl for that matter, you'll have a normal life. No rumors, no whispers behind your back, no judgment from your family. Everything will be easy."

Nanon paused to wipe his tears but still continued.

"It's bad enough that I have to go through this life and face discrimination and judgmental eyes every day. I don't want to drag you into this difficult life I'm living, Ohm. I promise, I might be crying now but I'm strong. I can deal with this. I will continue to support you no matter what. You'll never lose me. So go and try to go back to how things were before we started doing crazy things. I'm serious Ohm. Forget our messy situation and try dating Emma. Your friendship is more than enough for me."

Ohm didn't respond, he just hugged Nanon tightly.

"Ohm, people might see us," Nanon gently warned him.