Archive of Our Own

The air that blows through the entrance door is neither warm enough nor cool enough to pull Gemini away from the task at hand—foaming creamer. He looks at the watch around his wrist which tells him it’s 9:47pm. The date below on the small digital screen reads 31/12/2025. Maybe if he ignores whoever has just walked in, thirteen minutes before the cafe closes, they’ll just leave. Maybe. Hopefully.

He plops the cream onto the matcha in front of him, probably not as gently as he should have—evident in the way that some of the thick foam seeps into the green drink instead of floating on top like a little cloud of vanilla bliss. He shrugs, It all goes down the same hole, they'll survive. It’s the last pick up order of the day, he really couldn’t care less at this point. 

Pahn had only added matcha to the cafe’s menu recently, due to its rise in popularity. A niche fad, Gemini told himself as he’d unloaded the shipment boxes into the kitchen half a year ago. He doesn’t care for matcha — he’s never really been a fan of anything green. He’d opened a tin, peering at the emerald coloured powder, the scent of grass hitting his senses so hard he swore he could feel a sudden burst of hay fever coming over him. He’d screwed the lid back on, dumping it into the box with a bored expression. 

“Who even likes this stuff anyway?” 

A rhetorical question, spoken out into the empty room, no need for an answer, no-one to receive it from anyway. So, of course, of course, Gemini answers it himself. Because there is only one person he’s ever known that likes green. 

Green salads and green vegetables. Green trees they’d used to climb. Green Hulk bandaids they’d carry around with them to place on Gemini’s wounds when he’d inevitably fall from the branches. 

The juniper walls of their bedroom where they had both laid under fern coloured blankets on a soft bed, watching scary movies (on the lowest possible volume so as to not wake their mother). But Gemini would always end up muffling a scream into the other’s neck when he’d hide from the scary, gooey-green monsters on the screen. There would always be a hand on his face, shielding his peripherals when they knew something frightening was coming that Gemini couldn’t handle.

And they would always ask “Gem, you don’t like scary movies. Why do you keep watching them with me?” and Gemini would always just smile back, never brave enough to admit I’d do anything for you. 

They had liked green football pitches too, loved the green CAPTAIN armband they’d worn with pride. Gemini’s heart was made of jade, unbreakable—he’d thought—as he watched them fly around that pitch. Unbreakable, like the eye contact they would share each and every time they scored a goal. Them—on the pitch, Gemini—just a bystander to the glory.

Glory that was never his to have, never his to lose. But he did lose it. Because the green monsters on the screen were never the ones he should have been scared of. It was always the monster inside of him that would ruin him him in the end.

Gemini doesn’t care for the rules of science. Specifically the ones that say time is a firm structure, that it’s linear. It can’t be, not when he’s spent at least ten minutes looking at the small hands on his wrist watch sitting in the same position. He sighs, annoyed, he can feel anxiety bubbling under his skin like fireworks, can feel anticipation fizzing on his tongue like popping candy. 

The minute hand moves, finally. Just one, small step further around the analog watch. One minute closer to the end of the school day. There is only one hour and eight minutes left between him and his summer break before his final year of school. And after school comes university. Freedom. 

The minute hand moves again. 

One hour and seven minutes left between him and six weeks of freedom with Fourth. 

He scans the room quickly, pinpointing Mr. Boonmee’s location—the other side of the room, towering over Mewnich’s desk, chastising her for using blue ink instead of black—before he looks back down to his desk. From under his Advanced English Language text book, he pulls out the book he actually wants. His sketch book—brimming with pencil lines, all winding and leading back to each other, creating art on each page. 

The library that sits on the dark side of the moon, the astronaut’s broad back hunched in disbelief as he finds it there in the shadows. The next page showcasing the highest peaks of The Lost City of Atlantis coming into view as the pirate king steers his Brigantine through the thrashing ocean waves. His face is covered by his wind tousled locks, but Gemini knows his eyes shine with greed. Turn over for two tiny boys looking up at a forest-coloured bedroom, standing hand in hand. Everything they’d ever known in that small room is now massive and menacing after they’d been shrunken down by a magic spell they’d accidentally cast from an old book they’d found in the library. A library on the moon, Gemini likes to think.

The sketch book is filled with art, each line scarred with charcoal devotion. Every drawing told a story—drawn by Gemini—but every story had been told to Gemini by Fourth.  

More hours than he could count on a hundred pairs of hands, Gemini begged time to be anything but structured, to just s l o w  d o w n, to halt. To let him spend forever curled up under Fourth’s fern blankets, listening to him tell his tales. It was his favourite place, his favourite pastime. 

Because Fourth was so beautiful when he told his stories. The way his eyes were like the sky is on New Years Eve, fireworks glittering against onyx as they scanned the page he read from; or the way his body almost seemed to defy gravity as he jumped from his desk and to the floor, just to bounce onto the bed next to Gemini as he acted out his secret agent escape tactics. 

Fourth was beautiful when his hair fanned out around him where he laid on his bedroom floor, bleeding out in the middle of the battle field, eyes full of tears. His punctured chest heaved as he reached out his hand, begging for the prince he was trying to protect to “Leave! Forget about me, my Highness. Save yourself, that’s all that matters to me now.” 

Gemini remembers that that was one of the few times he’d joined in with Fourth’s antics, washing away his shy streak and giving into the dormant puppet strings Fourth had attached to him years ago. He’d dropped to his knees, one hand holding onto Fourth’s outstretched one, his other covering the gaping wound on his knight’s chest. 

“I’ll never leave. I’ll never forget you, Sir. Nattalot. I lov–”

“–Nattalot?” Fourth’s bursting laugh shoots through him. 

“Yeah… like… like Sir. Lancelot." Gemini whispered, pushing up onto his feet. He’d aimed for the bed when he’d turned, hiding the bright red shyness that swept across his skin, contrasting with the green of the room. But he hadn’t made it, not even a step before his knight laced his shaking fingers around the prince’s bare ankle. Gemini looked over his shoulder, eyes wide.

“I know… I– I know I asked you to leave, to forget me but–” the knight coughs, choking on his wound, the prince fell once again to his knees. He’ll always fall for Fourth. “Please, be it my dying wish, stay with me, my prince.”

Their hands intertwined once more. There was no wound on the prince’s chest, but it ached there nonetheless. He smiled, “I’ll stay. I’ll always stay if you ask me to.”

“Again, Norawit?” 

The stern voice drags Gemini from his memories. He slams the book shut, reaching down to shove it into his backpack haphazardly. The zip of his bag catches on his wrist watch, pinching his skin.

“Third strike, you’re out.” Gemini looks up at Mr. Boonmee, eyes shining with a plea he knows is useless, “Hand it over.”

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s just… I finished all my work! I was just looking through it before the bell rings.” His words fall out of his mouth and over each other. His teacher raises an eyebrow before grabbing the discarded text book from Gemini’s desk. He sits quietly, looking up at his teacher, ignoring the kick the back of his chair receives, ignores the sneers and hushed giggles that follow the thud. Boonmee doesn’t even address it, simply placing the text book back down onto Gemini’s desk.

“The sketchbook. Now.” He states, hand held out.

“What? No, sir, look!” He points at the pages, “It’s all finished.”

The teacher’s jaw tightens, Gemini cowers into his seat. “Did you miss a year of school, Norawit?” Laughter erupts around the room, this time unhidden, its brass and unapologetic. Boonmee lets it happen. 

Gemini feels so small, so tiny. Like the boy from Fourth’s story. Tiny and helpless, and everything around him is massive and scary. Boonmee points to the top of his page, at the date.  

Friday 22nd June, 2017.

Shit. 

He reaches for his eraser, ready to quickly fix the date. 2018. Only, of course, of course, it’s written in ink. Blue. He sucks in a breath, daring, through clouding lashes, to look up at the teacher. His hand is still held out, waiting. Gemini leans over again, reaching into his bag and pulling out his sketchbook. Reluctantly, miserably, he hands it over. Boonmee takes it, flicking through, spending a few, agonisingly long moments to study the pages. 

“You’re very talented, Gemini. I’ll give you that.” Is all he says as he turns the pages. “But this effort should be put into your studies. I heard you’re failing every class except for mine and Art with Mr. Wong.” 

Gemini’s heart pounds in his chest, begging any divine being to intervene, to not let the teacher skip to the furthest back pages. But of course, of course, he’s ignored once again. He’s crimson when he hears a slight intake of astonished breath from above, he feels eyes shifting from his pages to his burning face.

“Are these drawings of… Nattawat? From Class A?” The room falls still, silent. 

Fourth’s profile, constellations reflecting off his astronaut helmet.

Fourth’s smile, proud and wet with sea water, pirate hat askew on his head.

Fourth’s eyes, alight with wonder as he looks down at their tiny, interlinked hands.

Gemini can only beg time to be structured, to not halt, to keep moving, to go quicker. “It’s uncanny. They’re amazing, Gemini. They’re so—” 

“—Gay.” 

The room seethes in cackles when the word is yelled from behind Gemini. He hears the ocean in his ears, feels the currents dragging him down further into his chair until he hits the deepest, darkest corner of the Mariana trench.

The book snaps shut above him. “Bank.” Boonmee’s voice rings out, stealing away the depreciation, replacing it with silence with the stern, disappointed look he gives to his student. “My office after school.”

“But I have football practice, sir! Coach will kill me if I’m late again.”

Through the waves in his eardrums, he hears his teacher tell the student that 'that's not my problem'. Boonmee looks back at Gemini and sighs. Gemini shakes. “You can have this back at the end of the day.”

He looks up quickly, “Sir, please. There's only next period and then it’s summer break. Can’t I just—”

—The bell splits through the air. Time moves forward.

Only one hour between him and Fourth.

He’s out of the classroom like lightning; like electricity lassoing across the sky he wraps and winds around other students, past eyes that watch him, stumbling through the door of the boys bathroom. He slams the door to the cubicle behind him, back hitting it as he slides down. The tears fall just as he does, heavy raindrops down condensation coated windows—down his embarrassment-hot skin. 

He cries into the jeans that clad his knees, the ones he’s pushing his face into, the ones his arms wrap and shake around. He tries to be quiet, tries to breathe, but it hurts. Everything hurts and he’s tired. He doesn’t know how long he sits there. Did time halt? Did it follow its linear path? Did hours pass? Or was it just minutes?  

He gets his answer when the door to the bathroom opens, and the sound of the busy corridor filters in for a few seconds. There’s a knock on the door, quiet and soft. He feels it vibrate through his spine. He looks over his shoulder, down to the small gap under the door and sees shoes—grass stained football boots. 

“Fourth?” His voice is shaky, coated in a deep orange rust. He wipes his face of tears, takes in a dark blue breath as he stands. The lock clicks open, so does the door and he sees that same old yellow football kit. The absence of a green armband makes his throat constrict.

“Sorry to disappoint, princess.” Bank’s voice comes out sharp, jagged rocks against the ocean in his ears, “your knight’s not here to save you this time.”

Gemini’s body freezes, eyes wide and wet as he’s thrown back inside the cubicle.

His bed isn’t as comfortable as Fourth’s. Gemini’s mattress is newer, but it isn’t as soft. His sheets are cleaner, no lingering smell of the secret rose perfume he wears on them, not like how he smells it on Fourth’s green ones for longer than he should. It’s a double, bigger than Fourth’s single, but it feels so small. It’s cold. His body aches. He hadn’t dared to look in his mirror as he’d rushed into his room, couldn’t bear to look at himself, at the mess that had been made. He could feel his heart beat in his lip where it had been punctured, could feel his now-dried tears itching his sensitive skin raw. He could feel Bank’s hands on his throat. Around his wrists.

He curled in on himself, begging time to slip away, for the day to be over. For everything to stop. Halt.

The sun is setting when soft knocks on his locked bedroom door pull him out of a dreamless sleep. He drags his blanket up from where it had slipped onto the floor. He must have been restless as he slept, tossing and turning. His face still itches. He must have been crying. 

The knocks turn frantic, filling the room with noise when all he wants is some God damned peace and quiet. Anger burns through him, his feet on fire as they slam onto the floor, hand blazing as he flicks open the lock. 

“What, mae?!” He yells. But the words absorb into yellow threads. Because there stands Fourth, chest heaving, sweat clinging to his hairline and brows and jaw and his deep-set clavicles. Gemini stills, eyes wide, burning anger shifting into a different heat. Distress and shame and humility. Desire—the cherry on top. 

He slams the door shut, stepping away from it as if something akin to a monster from the horror movies they watch had crawled through his television screen and made its way up the stairs, stalked him right up to his door. And he’d been the one to unlock. The one to let the monster in. His heart is in his throat when the door flies back open, hitting the wall behind it. 

“Gem, what happened to you?!” Fourth’s voice is brittle, fervent, but still delicate in that way it always is when he speaks to Gemini; like the sharp-sweet layer of caramel that had cut Gemini’s tongue last Halloween when he’d bitten into Fourth’s green candy-apple too quickly. 

“Why didn’t you come watch me at practice? Where were you?” The boy steps inside, closing the door behind him. Gemini doesn’t miss the way he peers at the blue bedroom wall to check he hadn’t caused any damage. He strides forward as he waits for an answer, the only reply he gets is Gemini’s retreat. 

“Gemini?” 

He doesn’t look up, can’t bring himself to when all he wants to do is hide, to crawl under his bed or inside the blue walls or into his closet and just hide. Fourth comes closer, walking Gemini back until his thighs hit his newer, cleaner, bigger mattress. When he stumbles, Fourth’s hand is already wrapping around his wrist, keeping him on his feet. Gemini winces, trying to pull away from the touch. It’s not that Fourth is holding him too tight, Fourth would never, but it burns where their skin touches. 

Fourth looks down to where he holds Gemini and sees the stain of purple blossoming there. He pulls his wrist to his eye-line, fingers feather-light now as he inspects, “What happened?” 

Gemini shakes his head, freeing himself when he feels Fourth’s grip loosen. 

“Gemini, don’t lie to me. Friends don’t lie.” His voice quiet and soft, seafoam replacing the crush of waves in Gemini’s ears, “You don’t need to be embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed?” Gemini whispers, heart spiking at the word. 

“Bank told me… at practice after school.”

Gemini shakes, eyes dilating as if he were looking into an abyss, into a black hole he wishes would suck him in and collapse all his bones.

“What did Ba–” the name catches in his throat, drying it out like the first tell-tale signs of a sickness approaching. He feels it everywhere. His split lip and on every inch of his bruised skin, “What did he tell you?” 

“He told me what happened. About you shooting out of class after Boonmee took your sketchbook. He said he saw you fall over into the lockers in the corridor because you were rushing.” 

Now, time chooses to halt. Of course it does. Gemini’s eyes burst at the seams, waves down his siren face. But there is no song, no noise or whimpers, he just cries. Fourth pulls him into a hug that sears, that should weld all of his cracks back together, one that should brighten him into sunlight that slips through stained glass windows. But it doesn’t, not this time. The cracks only deepen. And he doesn’t become sunlit warm. 

"Don't worry, I have—" Gemini shrugs him off, replacing Fourth’s arms with his own. “Sorry, do I smell bad? I ran here straight from pract—”

“—Do you believe him?” Gemini’s voice is small, so broken and tiny that he imagines it’s how the boy that was shrunken down in his best friend’s forest-bedroom story would sound. He looks at Fourth through his tears. He looks at the frown on his face, the face that's always been kind and confident, now sullen and unsure. He looks at Fourth’s hands that clench and flex at his sides. He looks at the CAPTAIN armband sitting snug on his bicep. 

“Tell me what happened then, Gem. I’m not a mind reader.”

“No, you’re not. But you’re my best friend, supposed to be my best friend.”

“Supposed?" Fourth’s voice rises slightly, in pitch and volume. She shakes his head, continuing with this train of thought" That doesn’t mean I can know something if you hide it from me.” Oh, the irony.

“Yeah, it kinda does, Fourth.” Gemini’s voice follows, rising to a shout, “You knew that I failed my chemistry test even when I didn’t tell you. You knew I wanted the Peach figurine you won from the gacha when I won Mario.” He sucks in a breath, eyes trembling as he looks at the frown sitting above Fourth’s, “You knew I wanted to set up a D&D party like we always said we would when we got into upper secondary school. But you chose the football team instead!” 

Fourth steps back, eyes wide and mouth agape. Gemini waits for his response, only to gag at the pathetic trickle of bullshit he receives. “We can still set up the party, Gem!”

“Oh, fuck you, Fourth.”

Fourth sucks in a breath, frown returning to stain his face, “What did you just say?”

Gemini steps forward this time, “I said fuck you. You want to set up the party now? Out of pity?”

“Pity?”

“Yeah, pity. Because we have one year left at school now, Fourth. One! We need to study for exams. Lord fucking knows I need to get my shitty grades up if I want to get into Slipakorn.” 

“Slipakorn?” Fourth shakes his head, looking around the room as though the answers to the questions rushing around his brain will be there, painted on the royal blue walls, “I thought we were going to Chula?”

“Chula?” Gemini snorts. He rolls his eyes, finger coming to jab into Fourth’s still heaving chest. How is he still tired from practice? “Chula is your dream, Fourth.”

“What?”

“What? You thought I’d just follow you there like some lost fucking puppy? Like I don’t have my own dreams.” 

“Chula is our dream. It has an amazing arts programme. I thought that was our plan? I thought we’d dorm together. I thought I’d write and you’d paint and then we’d graduate and set up our own studio? I thought we were a team.” Fourth’s eyes burn into Gemini’s. His hands flex at his side. “What happened to that?!”

“You can’t be fucking serious right now.”

“I am serious. Really fucking serious.” 

“You happened!” Gemini screams, throat aching from the ghost of hands around it and the sadness ripping through him from the inside out. His voice rings around the room, smacking into every drawing covered wall, every charchol stained surface, every art book and pencil case and paint pot that litters the space; it slams back into his ears as he cries. He sucks in a deep breath, stepping away from Fourth, out of his space and into his own independent, isolated place—one that isn’t next to Fourth. One that hasn’t been next to Fourth for a long time.

“You changed, Natt.” The nickname sends goosebumps down Fourth’s spine. “When was the last time we hung out and talked about dragons or pirate ships or time travel or… or just anything that isn't a goal you scored, or something hilarious one of the boys said in the locker room after practice. Or the latest girl that asked you out?”

Gemini can’t help but be pulled into Fourth’s space, like the moon orbits the sun. Like the moon pulls at ocean waves. He steps forward. “When was the last time you wrote something.”

It’s a question, but it’s spoken like a demand. A test. 

“I write, Gemini.”

“You do?"

Fourth doesn't nod, doesn't shake his head, doesn't do anything except stare at the boy in front of him, eye cloudy and angry. Anger that Gemini can decide is for him, or if it's for Fourth himself. He swallows, but he keeps his gaze locked with Fourth's.

"So you write, but you don’t tell me now? You don’t read your stories to me anymore?” Gemini wonders for a second how he’s still alive, how he hasn’t died of dehydration as his tears turn from waves to waterfalls, “Chula. The dorm. Our studio. I wanted all of that with you, Fourth. Because the truth is, I am a pathetic, lost puppy with or without you. I would have gone wherever you wanted. No questions asked. Because I would do anything for you.” 

“Gemini—”

“—I would have followed you anywhere. But you didn’t need me to. You didn’t need me like I needed you. You found new friends, you found other things that made you happy. You grew up and got cool and hot and popular and I just stayed the same. I stayed stuck in my sketch books and your story books and I just…” 

His teeth bite into his already bust lip, and he winces at the pain—lets out a small, sad sound. One that triggers Fourth into action. He’s in front of Gemini in a second, trembling hand raising, coming up to pull Gemini’s lip free with his thumb, making a home where he holds his jaw. “Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself.”

And Gemini can’t help it, as much as he begs himself—in that second that feels like hours—to not look into Fourth’s eyes. But he does, because he’s a fool. And Fourth is his gold.

Gemini’s heart is jade—green with jealousy, cracked with abandon. 

Fourth’s eyes are red-rimmed, lashes clumping with blinked-back tears. Gemini looks into them, the flicker of starlight that wraps around the guilt that sits in there, the quiet, sad confirmation that everything Gemini is saying is true. It splits the precious green gem he hides behind his ribcage into two. 

His hand comes up to wrap around Fourth’s, and he wants to stay there, in this moment, beside the sadness and the heartbreak and the impending end that's been stalking forward for months, maybe years, he wants time to be non-linear, to halt. Slowly, he removes Fourth’s touch from his face, placing it back down next to his side. “I just want you to be happy, Fourth. And I want to be happy, too. But I can’t be happy following you around like a lost puppy, getting my ass beaten for even mentioning your name, for looking at you for too long. I can’t bring all this shit to University with me.”

“Gem, what are you talking about? What are you saying right now?” Fourth’s voice is tiny as he interlocks their fingers.

“I didn’t fall over today. You know I didn’t. I know you know I didn’t.”

“I—”

“—You’re going to get into Chula. You’re smart and talented and you run across that pitch like starlight, Fourth.” He whispers, giving into himself for one last, greedy moment as he squeezes the other boy’s hand that rests in his, before he pulls away. “I know you’re applying for the sports science programme.”

Fourth shakes his head, moving forward. Gemini’s thighs are back to pushing against his mattress, “I don’t… I’m not…”

“Don’t lie to me. Friends don’t lie.” Fourth’s earlier words echo back into his ears like nails scraping down a chalk board. “Bank tells me things too, you know. He told me months ago you’d changed your application.” 

“Fucking asshole…” Fourth mumbles, nails digging crescent moons into his sweating palms. 

And Gemini scoffs, “That’s where you draw the line, huh? Him telling me something you should’ve admitted yourself?” 

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I should have told you. I should’ve…” Fourth looks around the room again, but still, no answers are painted on the walls. “Gem, I’ve never liked Bank, I’ve always been on your side. I always will be. I promise. It’s just... he's the vice captain so I have to put up with him—” 

“—Ah, yeah, right.” Gemini laughs, tastes salt and anger on his tongue as he pushes past Fourth, hands thrown into the air in fake surrender, “Of course! Stupid me. He’s the vice. He’s part of your team.” His grabs the door handle, staring into the wood grain, mapping out the patterns, letting them fill in the spaces of his aching brain. He opens the door wide. The cool air from the corridor seeps over his body—it does nothing, nothing, to extinguish the heat burning under his skin, across his wet eyelines, in his jaded heart. 

He turns, stepping aside to make a clear path for the other boy to leave. He’s going to leave me. He’s really going to leave me. I need to rip the bandaid off and make him leave me, quickly.

His eyes meet Fourth’s. From over here, he looks small, just as he’d done when they were kids, when they were free and inseparable and when they were astronauts and adventurers and pirates and tiny. When Gemini was Fourth’s prince, and Fourth was Gemini’s knight in shining armour. 

He swallows down the bile in his throat, sending it back down to where it usually sits, around his sick heart. “Theres your answer, Fourth. You have your team.” He whispers, “You don’t need me on your side anymore.” 

The summer sun had done nothing to soothe his growing-pained body, nothing to soothe the ache in the jade. His back aches from the weeks spent hunched over his canvas. His hands are calloused from the burn of wooden brush handles in his fingertips. Now there's always paint under his nails, no matter how many times he washes his hands, no matter how dry they get from the pumps and pumps and pumps of soap in his palm. He couldn’t get clean, couldn’t get rid of that dirty part of himself. Permanently tainted. 

He looks at the unopened bottle of green aloe vera gel sitting on his drawers, the one his mother had bought for him, assuming he’d be playing outside the whole summer—exploring far away worlds in tree branches, exploring city ruins lost to the rising oceans as he built sand castles and moats on the beach. Exploring human anatomy as he sat in the bleachers, watching the ways bodies look as they chased a white ball across green grass—starlight flying across fields. 

There was not enough aloe vera in the world that could soothe the burn breaching his body. 

There’s a knock at his door, soft and cautious as it had been the entire summer break.

“You okay, mae?” He calls out, waiting for his mother to enter his room. He doesn’t look up when she does come in, eyes hyper-focused on highlighting the silver of armour on the canvas. 

“Just bringing your laundry up, you left it in the washing machine.”

“Sorry, mae, I forgot to take it out earlier.”

He hears her opening his closet. He does look up then, “Mae, you don’t need to do that. I’ll sort it out. Sorry.” 

“It’s fine, sweetheart. I know you’ve been busy.” She walks over to where he sits, hands coming to sit on his tense shoulders, “This is coming along beautifully.” 

Gemini sits back, the back of his head coming to rest on his mother’s stomach, “Yeah?”

“Of course. They always do.” She drops a kiss onto his crown, “When are you going to paint the face, though? Don’t you usually start with that?”

Gemini shrugs, but his shoulders stay tense, “I might just add a helmet. I don’t know what this knight looks like.” 

She hums, squeezing her son’s shoulders before turning away, walking to the door, “You’d better decide soon, sweetie. Summer break is over tomorrow. You need to start getting ready to submit your portfolio to Chula.”

The door makes a soft click as it closes. In the familiar solitude, Gemini allows a tear to fall. 

His last year at high school was peacefully dull. He keeps to himself as he always has, locked up in the art studio. He doesn’t make new friends. How can you in your final year of school when everyone has already been in their groups for years?  

Some things change, though. The calluses on his fingers disappear as he opts to wear painting gloves. There's no more paint under his nails—now that he conceals them away, free of dirt. 

And he’s left alone. No more torment, no more chair kicks or snide remarks thrown his way. It’s like the world outside the art studio forgets him. He doesn’t go to the football pitch. He doesn’t have hands on his throat or in his hair. His lip stays plump and unsplit. He doesn’t see green grass or yellow jerseys or pretty brown freckles. He doesn’t see starlight. He doesn’t see Fourth. 

His portfolio is shown at the school’s graduation exhibition. He chooses three pieces. The Apricot Sun and an Indigo Sea — the orange star sets behind dark, soft waves, its debarking rays glittering across the water. The sky is cloudless and empty. The moon peaks past the same horizon the sun loses itself in.

Clair De Lune and the Sunshine — A nursery from the perspective of a baby. The banisters of the crib are shown, like a small cage. A lullaby mobile sits high in the peripherals. A dream catcher hangs in front of the window, the morning sun filters through it, making everything light. Except for the shadow settling on the closet that the first-time mother rifles through, picking out a tiny, pretty outfit for the small being she had brought into the world. 

The third piece, the largest piece, is of a black hole. The darkness is in the centre of the painting, deep and empty and an incomprehensible amount of miles wide. And around it, across space and time, stars litter the cotton canvas. Some just born, burning bright, some falling victim to the inevitable super-nova experience of life—death. All of them, every last one, being sucked into The End. 

It’s a dull, same-as-always sunday morning when he receives his acceptance letter into Slipakorn University. 

He looks at the little digital screen on his wrist. 9:49pm. Eleven small minutes until closing. He realises then that he’s still holding the matcha he’d made a couple of minutes ago. He grimaces. He stares at the green, and he’s a bystander again. A liar. Because Gemini doesn’t hate green. He never did. He loved it. He loves it so much it makes him feel sick.

He looks around the cafe. The late arrival is still there, back towards the counter, shoulders broad and set in a tense, still line. He squints at the man—hair blond and buzzcut. Gemini shrugs, peering at the screen in front of him. The matcha order was scheduled to be picked up at 9:50pm, the last slot on the ordering app before the store closes. There’s still a minute… I’ll give them a chance. 

He turns to the kitchen, making a start in the closing clean-up. He’s pretty good at keeping the cafe tidy throughout the day, so there isn’t much to do. He fills the sink with soapy water, rinsing the cups and cutlery before loading the dishwasher. The matcha stays on the side. He wipes the surfaces. There’s a puddle of water around the cup now as condensation slips down the plastic.

He steps around the counter, making his way over the tables to clean loose bits of trash that customers had so kindly not thrown away. In his peripherals, he sees the blond man turn slightly, almost as if to avoid being caught in Gemini’s eyeline. A small bite of anxiety nips at his spine. It’s dark outside now. The street is pretty empty. His phone battery is on its last legs. 

He sucks in a breath. It’s fine. I’ll just ask him to leave if he’s not going to order. I’m strong now. Well, stronger than I was. He stands straighter, shoulders broadening. Ballet classes are way tougher than they seem. I've gotten stronger. He takes a cautious step over to the other side of the cafe. The blond shifts away again. Gemini looks at his wrist. 9:58pm.

Fuck this.

“Excuse me, sir?” 

Gemini sees the man flinch, hands flexing at his sides. 

The hours of Pliés, of Pirouettes, and Attitudes—all the strength he’d built up slips out of him. It’s as if he doesn’t spend an hour every night on the treadmill at the gym the way his legs shake as he steps closer. 

“Sir, we’re closed now. You… You need to leave.” He tries to keep his voice level, solid, but it cracks on the last word. 

The man doesn’t turn, but Gemini knows he hears him in the way his shoulders bristle, the way his hands flex again. And when he speaks, it’s small, sweet, like a ripened green apple.

“I’m… here for my…”

Gemini blinks, craning his neck slightly to try and catch a glimpse at the man with the honeysuckle voice. He looks at his wrist. 9:59pm.

“Did you by chance order a matcha?”

The man nods. Gemini sighs with relief. 

“It’s been ready for a while, it’s at the counter.” He walks over there, feels a spike of something like adrenaline shoot down his spine when he hears footsteps following behind him. He looks at the pick up screen, reading the order and customer details. 

“Here.” He taps the screen, ticking it off as collected. “One Matcha for Natt.”

The watch on his wrist gives a small buzz, signalling time has reached the hour. Time that halts frozen. Because Gemini looks up, and he sees them. Guilty eyes wrapped in starlight. Brown freckles like constellations on pale skin. Plump lips set in a soft smile. 

He sees him.

“Fourth?” 

“Hi, Gem.” 

Gemini realises, there, three hours away from the new year, three seconds away from the collapse of his own world, that time is an absolute. It doesn’t slow down or speed up for anyone. It is linear, it is structured, it doesn’t halt. It moves around things that are frozen, things that have had all their senses and words and thoughts pulled out of them. It isn’t time that plays tricks, it was never time. It was always him—it was always Fourth. 

Because in the five years that have passed since his heart turned into a black hole, in the hours that have passed since his world fell off it’s axis at the sound of his name in Fourth’s voice, not even a minute has passed. He knows it because when he peeks down at his watch, it’s still 10:00pm.

Gemini is still the same, a lost puppy dog. Still the boy with the heart made of jade. He’s the Gemini that is now, and he is the Gemini that has always existed because of Fourth Nattawat. Time doesn’t halt for anyone.

He swallows, his throat running so dry that he actually thinks, laughing to himself, that he would even drink the matcha in his hand to water the walls of his throat. He feels the ice melting against his palm. Feels his wide eyes settle back to their usual, shy, soft selves. He smiles, polite and professional. 

“Sorry. This is… Here's your drink.” 

Fourth doesn’t take it. He stares back at Gemini, and Gemini—he feels all of the eighty-five stars that make up his name burst into a super-nova, fall into the black hole in his chest. 

“How have you been, Gem?”

Heat licks at his insides, through his veins, coming up to settle as a flush of red in his cheeks. “Me? Ah, yeah, I’ve been…”

Good? Great? Miserable? Lonely? Longing for you. Hating you. Missing you so much I thought I was going to die. So angry I nearly lost myself. Still so in love with you it’s hard to breathe sometimes.

“I’ve been busy.”

Fourth smiles again. His hands flex at his sides. ”Yeah. No, of course you’ve been busy. I saw Mae Ning last week. She said you work here part time as well.”

A wave of embarrassment shreds through him. Why would his mother not tell him she’d seen Fourth? Why would she tell him where he works? Did she tell him about his other job? His real job? Why did the universe make them meet before it brought Fourth back to him first?

“Yeah, I do, sometimes. My friend owns the cafe, she asks me to cover when she needs it. She’s got a date tonight, you know, with it being New Years Eve. And I had nothing to do so I said yeah. A little extra money can’t hurt, right?”

Gemini’s words are waterfalls.

“It’s not exactly the life of luxury working as an junior Conservator, you know? That's my real job. This is just part time, did I mention?"

Fourth nods, wide eyed.

"I mean, I know the senior Conservators make a good salary, but I only graduated a few months ago, so what do you expect from me, Fourth? I can’t exactly be at the top straight away. At least I found a job after graduating, you know? It's nothing amazing but it's mine. Okay? Fuck, like, what do you want from me? Why are you here?” 

Silence pulls around them like the curtain that falls at the end of a stage play. Gemini pales and burns in tandem. What the fuck was that. What the actual fuck am I saying.

His throat is dry again. His eyes are not. He feels tears filling his waterline, feels them burning his skin even before they fall, sweeping over his burning cheeks like they’ll evaporate. He pulls his hot gaze away from the one that looks at him. The ice in the cup is completely melted. 

“Sorry. Jesus, sorry, Fourth. I don’t know what that was.” He sucks in a breath, shaky and hot, “I’ll make you a new drink.”

“No.” A soft hand falls onto his wrist. Another takes the cup from his tight grip, placing it back down on the counter. Fourth pulls his sleeves down over his hands, wiping Gemini’s condensation and sweat soaked ones with the fabric. Gemini watches the slow movements, watches the threads change from Juniper to Sage.

“That jumper, it’s the same colour as your bedroom walls.”

Fourth’s movements stop. He looks up into Gemini’s eyes, a crinkle of a wide smile in his own. His bare hands pop out of his damp sleeves, cupping Gemini’s now dry ones. “Trust you, Mr. BA Fine Arts, to know the exact colour of my childhood bedroom walls.” 

Gemini’s blush burns deeper. He bites his bottom lip. Time swims past him as if he were nothing more than a rock on a river bed, pink coral in the sea. “I just… I just remember. I spent enough time there, you know?” 

Fourth laughs, and its starlight, just as Gemini remembered it be. “Yeah, you did.” 

Their palms touch. Fourth’s eyes are wide and bright, Gemini’s are wet and they want. 

“You sure you don’t want me to remake your drink?”

Fourth shakes his head, his smile a little smaller now, “I didn’t really want it anyway.”

Gemini cocks his head to the side, like a confused puppy, and Fourth thinks it's the cutest thing he's seen in the past five years, “Why did you order it then? Do you not like matcha either?”

“No, no, I love matcha, it’s really good from here,” Fourth giggles, “I just… I needed an excuse to come here and see you. I couldn’t just… waltz in, you know? So, the drink was just an excuse.” 

The cogs in Gemini’s brain spin, his brows furrow in response, “You like matcha?”

Fourth nods.

"And you like the matcha from here?" 

“Yeah. It’s great,” Fourth’s cheeks match the shade of Gemini’s own shy-hot ones now. “I might have… come here every day since your mum said you worked here, part time, trying to see you.”

Gemini’s world was already off its axis, now it free falls. “You’ve been… waiting for me?”

Fourth sucks in a breath, slow and steady. He leans forward, ever so slightly, bringing the moon into his orbit, “Yeah. I’ve been waiting, Gem. For a long time.”

“I don’t unders—”

The cafe door swings open. A pair of girls teeter in, eyes going wide when they spot the boys’ interlocked hands. Gemini pulls away from Fourth’s hold like he’s been burnt.

“Sorry, we’re just… I mean– the cafe is closed now. We’ll be open again on the 3rd of Jan.” The girls nod, speechless, looking at each other quickly before slipping back out of the door.

It’s quiet, eerily so. There isn’t enough oxygen suddenly, as if the girls had dragged it out of the cafe with them, and Gemini feels his chest start to concave. He looks down at the hands that had just held his. He wants them back in his own. He wants to feel them on him. He wants them to be his. To belong to him. But he can’t want. Not again. 

“Like I said, we’re closed now.” He pushes his hands onto the cool metal of the counter that separates him from Fourth. “Thanks for stopping by. It was nice to see you, Fourth.” 

“Gem,” Fourth’s hand is back on his wrist, soft and steady, “Please.”

“Please what?” His voice is chipped, a fragment of jewel separated from jade. 

“I just…” Fourth’s eyes dart around the room, searching the walls, “I missed you.”

“Fourth. I can’t do this right now.”

“I know. I swear I know. It’s me. Everything is my fault and I hurt you and I lost you and I know it’s all my fault.” Fourth's voice is frantic. Gemini looks into Fourth's eyes, and all he can see is truth. Real, unadulterated, unquestionable truth. “I know it, so deeply that it’s killing me. I’ve felt it for the past five years. Even before that, when we were kids, I felt you slipping away and I was scared and I didn’t know what to do so I just hid and I didn’t catch you when you fell away from me, or when you fell apart. I let it happen. And I’m so, so sorry.” 

His fingers lace with Gemini’s, thumb brushing crescent moon shapes along his index finger. 

“It’s not an excuse, I won’t blame me being a fucking idiot on my age or on time. But I just… It kills me to think I hurt you. I’m not saying this to lift a weight off my shoulders or to rid myself of the guilt I feel. It's got nothing to do with me. I deserve it. And, if you hate me, I understand. I hate me too. If you never want to see me again, I’ll never come back here, I promise. I’ll find somewhere else to get my grass drink from.”

Gemini can’t help the small, watery laugh that bubbles out of him. The sound reverberates around Fourth’s mind, soothing him like aloe vera does for sunburns. 

“You deserved an apology. You deserve everything, the world. And I’m just… I know nothing I say can fix what I’ve done, the time I’ve wasted. I…”

Gemini’s lip trembles beneath the bunny teeth he pushes into it. His eyes are stained glass, the wrath of rain pelting at his panes, begging to seek solace there. 

“I’m so fucking sorry, Nora.” 

The coffee machine behind him hums. The light in the back corner of the cafe flickers. The watch on his wrist vibrates—the alarm he sets for 15 minutes after his shift finishes. The alarm that tells him Don’t subject yourself to over-time. Know your worth. Go be happy and free. 

Gemini’s hands leave Fourth’s, coming to sit by his sides. He stares down at the counter. At the ghost of his hand print there in the silver. At the small puddle of condensation pooling around the plastic take-out cup. He turns slowly, flicking the coffee machine off, then the dishwasher. He pulls the plug from the sink and lets the water and bubbles flow down the drain. He stacks the ceramic mugs on the shelves. He feels pleading eyes boring into his skull the entire time. 

He walks around the counter, flicking off the lights by the entrance way. The cafe keys are pulled from his pocket, the cool weight of them real and grounding in his palm. He looks over his shoulder, over to the counter in the now dark room where Fourth shifts from foot to foot sheepishly. He smiles.

“Are you staying here tonight? Or are you going to drive me home?”

The car rolls down the tarmac, motorbikes zip past their sides. The bridge over Chao Phraya is heavy with traffic, unsurprisingly. Tourists stand on the walkways, taking pictures of the massive buildings on either side of the water, of the lights that twinkled on each of the river’s ripples. The moon is high in the sky, wisps and flurries of clouds keeping it company. Bangkok had never looked so beautiful, Gemini thinks. 

The radio buzzed softly, MGMT filling the car with a light fog of calm. Fourth hummed along, singing along to the few english words he knew. Gemini understood it all, understood the story of Me and Michael.

Fourth had both hands on the steering wheel, checking his mirrors religiously. “I’m surprised you’re such a safe driver.” Gemini chuckled.

Fourth didn’t look at him, checking over his shoulder before pulling into the parallel lane, “I’m not, usually.” 

The blush is back in Gemini’s cheeks. But really, did it ever leave?

“I’m surprised you don’t have a license." 

Gemini frowns, “Really?”

A smile breaks across Fourth’s face, “No. Not really.” The neon lights of Bangkok illuminate every crease, every lash, every speck of starlight in his eyes, “I always imagined it’d be me driving and you being the passenger princess.”

"Prince." Gemini rolls his eyes, but the hands in his lap squeeze together a little tighter, holding in the glee that threatens to burst out of him like a super-nova, “You thought about driving me around?”

Fourth does chance a look over at Gemini then, scanning his smile and blush and eyes that hold a whole other world inside of them, one he doesn’t know yet, one he wants to write stories about. 

“Of course I did. I thought about it when I took my driving lessons. Thought about it on my first drive after I passed my test. I thought about it when I was stuck in traffic on the way to Uni.” Fourth smiles as his eyes go back to the road, “I thought about picking you up from uni, driving us back to our dorm. I thought about dropping you off to see your friends whenever you needed a lift anywhere. I thought about you when I decided to get a bigger car.”

So much. Too much. Everything. 

Gemini pushes the buzz inside his brain from Fourth’s words aside, “A bigger car? Why?”

“Hmm?” Fourth quickly looks over, only for a second, but Gemini sees it again—that unwavering truth. “Because I know you don’t like small spaces. I remember that time we played hide-and-seek and I couldn’t find you for ages, and you were trapped in your closet for like… an hour? I remember how much you cried when I finally found you."

Fourth chuckles as he recalls the memory, the way little Gemini had clung to him when he'd pulled him out of the confined space, the way he'd melted into his hold. "Why didn't you just come out?”

Gemini swallows, eyes not daring to look up from the road, "Come out? Of the closet?"

"Yeah."

"I mean, I thought it was pretty obvious—"

"—If you knew you were scared of small spaces, then why didn't you just come out?"

Their words overlap, intertwine, like opposite ends of two magnets. Gemini speaks before Fourth can ask him to repeat himself.

"Because thats not how you play hide-and-seek, Fourth. I didn't want to ruin the game for you." I'd do anything for you.

Fourth sighs, shaking his head with that green apple wrapped in caramel smile he reserved for Gemini when they were kids. His hand drops onto the thighs in the passenger seat, and his heart swells when Gemini places a hand on top of it. “I mean it. I thought about you all the time.” 

“Okay, I get it, Mr. BA Liberal Arts.” Gemini giggles, and it’s sweeter than the condensed milk and mango scented air freshener that dangles from the rearview mirror. 

Fourth hums, reluctantly bringing his hand to sit back on the steering wheel, “It was hard without you, you know. Hard to do anything, really. But especially to write.” The familiar view of Gemini’s apartment building comes into view. “I felt so empty. I didn’t see a point in any of it if I didn’t have you to sit and listen to my stories.” 

The moon shines through the car-roof window. The air around them burns as if the sun was sitting at its midday home in the sky. Gemini looks up at his apartment on the fourth floor, looks at the dark sitting behind the window. He remembers exactly how he’d left it that morning—meticulously tidy, everything where it should be. His laundry was put away. The dishes were clean and stacked next to the sink. His bed was made, two pillows stacked on top of each other on the double mattress. He remembers it—the same as it is everyday before he leaves for work—clean, white-walled, lonely.

He looks over at Fourth. Fourth, who isn’t looking at him. Fourth, who sits with his hands still on the steering wheel, seat belt still on, the keys still in the ignition. 

The watch around his wrist vibrates, signalling that time has reached the hour.

“Do you want to come up? I have a frozen pizza and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in the fridge.”  

“You’re late.” Gemini’s face is flushed from his shower, hair still a little damp—obviously only towel-dried.

“You said to give you fifteen minutes.” Fourth replies.

“That was seventeen minutes ago.” Gemini smirks, head cocked to the side, “I’m only so good at waiting around, Fourth.” He steps to the side, opening the door wide, creating a clear path for the other boy to enter. “Make yourself at home.” 

Fourth takes off his shoes, lining them up neatly next to Gemini’s. He looks down at the pairs, heart fuller now in this small, insignificant moment than it had been even once over the past five years. 

The room is bathed in warm, marmalade coloured light. It washes across the white walls and pristine surfaces from an array of lamps around the kitchen-coming-living room-come-bed room. The studio is small. There's a small sofa, an even smaller dining table with just a single chair pushed underneath it. The kitchen is in the corner. The whole room smells of lavender—from the incense Gemini had started to burn—and of rose, from the perfume Gemini always wore.

There isn’t much of a view out of the windows that look out to the east, just the car park below and the empty sky above. But somehow, it’s stunning. Fourth can’t see the moon, it’s sitting in the west somewhere, but he can see the way its light glazes each cotton candy cloud, making them silver. That same light sits like an extra blanket on the bed pushed against the glass.

“You just gonna stand in the doorway or—?” Gemini is at the fridge, pulling out the wine. Fourth stumbles inside, whispering a sorry.

“You didn’t have to rush your shower, Gem.”

“I didn’t rush, I just…” Gemini shuts the fridge, but his eyes stay looking at it’s white doors, cheeks pinker now than when he’d hopped out of the shower minutes ago, “It felt a little strange to shower with someone in the next room. I’ve never really had any guests come over before.” 

“Never?” Fourth’s voice is quiet as he asks.

Gemini’s hands shake a little as he pours the wine, “Not… not never. Just very, very rarely.”

Their gazes meet for a moment too long, Gemini’s throat constricts. Fourth looks away first. He peers around the room—looking at anything that isn’t that shy, honest look in Gemini’s iris. He can't help but notice how unlike Gemini's childhood bedroom his adult home is. There is no art on the walls. No sketchbooks on the sides. There are no paint pots or brushes or canvases. 

He feels sad. Unsettled. So, his steps are cautious as he walks deeper into the apartment. His review of the room lingers to the side wall, gaze drifting over to the desk that’s joined to the massive book case. And his eyes set alight. 

“A vinyl player!” His feet carry him with that same-old excited quickness he’d always had. Gemini’s heart somersaults as he looks over at Fourth from where he’s sat himself down on the sofa. Fourth flicks through a basket holding his 12 inch records. “Can we play something?”

“Pick out anything you want. Not sure if I’ll have anything you like, though. I don’t know what music you’re into.” 

The words hang heavy in the air, like how moss sits on a stagnant river—one that used to flow and lap at its riverbanks. They both feel it. Gemini stares at Fourth’s back. Fourth feels eyes burning into his skin. He hides the shiver down his spine, masking it by moving his body to pull out a record. Jeff Buckley — Grace.

The opening notes of the album glide through the air like kites and paper planes. 

“Grace? I haven’t listened to this one in a while.”

“It was in my Spotify wrapped this year.” Before he can contemplate how he and Gemini have been reduced to small talk when they used to spend hours at a time building stories and worlds together, he peers over his shoulder for a distraction.

Gemini is sprawled on the sofa, knees bent, thighs pressed, feet snug under a cushion. His head rest languid in his hand as he leans an elbow on the sofa's arm rest. He sips from his glass, and Fourth's eyes follow the Sauvignon Blanc as it slips down his throat. He swallows. “What's your favourite? On the album?"

Gemini cocks his head to the side, the same as he had done earlier on the cafe, the same as when he'd opened the door to let Fourth into the apartment— and Fourth almost melt out across the floor boards below him. Gemini hums, bunny teeth sinking into his lip as he thinks.

"It's Lilac Wine, right?” 

Gemini stills, eyes wide, “There is no way you could know that.” Fourth lets out a chuckle, turning back to avoid Gemini’s eyes, hiding the blush on his cheeks. “How did you know that?”

He shrugs his shoulders again, “I didn’t know, not really. It’s just that… I always think of you when I hear that song.” 

He turns slowly, readying himself for Gemini’s reaction, anticipation and anxiety a heady intoxication in his blood. Even shocked, speechless, Gemini is beautiful. Wide eyes and plush lips sitting agape. Fourth watches as the other boy tries to get his words out. And when he does, they're quiet, quilted in a shy glaze, “Why do you think about me? It’s such a sad song.”

Fourth blinks, words dancing on his tongue, words with no rhythm, words that move to no tempo. "The first time I heard it I felt… Haunted.” He smirks, rolling his eyes, “I know it sounds pretentious, I mean, it is a little bit. But it’s the only way I can describe it. It’s sad, and he yearns so badly. He misses his lover.”

Gemini’s smile is small, palpable and unambiguously sombre.

“And, I didn’t even know you could make wine from lilacs. It felt like something I’d write in a story. A greedy king that steals all the beautiful lilac trees for himself so only he can be the one to taste the floral wine.” Fourth pulls a sword from the sheath around his waist, silver armour heavy on his body as he jumps into a fighting stance, “But then, a brave knight sneaks into the kingdom to steal the wine, only to find a secret prince locked away in the tallest tower, more beautiful, more sweet than any wine could ever be.”

Gemini’s eyes crinkle as he laughs, cheeks aching from where he can’t hold back the smile that spreads like wildfire across his face, “Let me guess, the knight gets his prince, they get the wine, and they live happily ever after?”

Fourth shakes his head, “The knight doesn’t get his prince. Or the wine.”

“What?” Gemini’s smile falters, just as Fourth’s does. He takes another sip of wine, slower this time, smaller this time, “Why not?”

Fourth leans back, hands planting on the mahogany desk behind him, “There's no prince. There’s no king, and there was definitely no knight."

The room sits upright, just as Gemini does from the sofa cushions, leaning in to listen to Fourth’s story. Breathes held, the smell of lavender soaking into walls and skin. 

"There was only a drunk fool that went delirious on the lilac wine he drank to cope with the mourning of the love he lost.” Fourth chokes back the thorny vines that wrap around his throat. “But don’t feel too sorry for him. It’s intoxicated hedonism in its truest form. That fool did it to himself.”

He spins on his feet when he can no longer bear to look at the melancholy slipping into all of Gemini’s features. Now, in front of him, instead of sipped wine and sad eyes, there shelves, ones that are stacked with literature.

H.G.Wells’ War of the Worlds. Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World. Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.

Fourth scoffs, looking over his shoulder to where Gemini sits, curled back up on the sofa. “Twilight? Really?”

Gemini shrugs, “What can I say. I like a little gothic, vampire romance now and again.” 

He rolls his eyes, amused smile sweet as he looks back to the shelves. They’re brimming with stories of other worlds, worlds which aren’t this one. Ones that have always existed in his and Gemini’s childhood. He looks at them now with his adult eyes. The books are like little time capsules, he feels the memories of sitting under sheets with the boy behind him—reading the pages together—as his fingertips brush over the worn out covers. Fourth was always a faster reader than Gemini, but he’d never turn a page until Gemini was finished. He’d always wait for Gemini. 

At the end of one of the shelves is an empty space. Fourth frowns. “What goes here?” He asks quietly. He hears footsteps padding along the floorboards behind him until Gemini’s warmth saturates his side. Their shoulders brush. Gemini places a hand down in the empty space, fingers splayed, as if feeling for something that should be there, but isn’t. Something that should have always been there.

“This is… Well… this is for stories that haven’t been written yet, I guess.” Gemini’s voice is so small, it’s shaky and sweet. And for a moment that lasts for minutes, Fourth can’t help but think back to a Halloween memory from a lost lifetime. One of candy apples and tummy aches from eating too many sweets. One of watching scary movies under bedsheets, of a face pushed into his neck. “I’m saving this space for someone special. I guess I’ve been waiting around for them... waiting for them to finally tell me their stories.”

Gemini feels the heat in his body drain. The words settle into the silence—floating on it, drowning in it. His fingers flex, instinctually, almost as if he can reach out and pull the words back in, shove them down inside of himself. He looks at Fourth, at the unreadable expression across his face. Something between sadness and regret. Something like grief. 

You said too much. You made it so obvious. Fuck, he knows. He knows. He knows. He—

“—That person…" Fourth swallows, "They don’t know how lucky they are to have someone like you waiting for them.”

The silent air sets alight, burning like the tip of the lavender incense behind them does, hot and serene and dripping with heady florals. “They don’t know?” Gemini whispers.

Fourth smiles, “Being loved like that, it’s like a dream. But being loved like that by you? It’s a fairytale.” Gemini’s eyes brim with something age-old, ancient and re-awoken. Fourth sees it come back to life in his iris. “Your love has always been beautiful, Gemini. Too beautiful.” 

He leans into Gemini's space, occupying his unsteady breathes and unravelling thoughts, "That person is so lucky, Gemini." Fourth raises his hand, fingers returning back to their home on Gemini’s jaw, thumb brushing across his bottom lip, pulling it free from the bunny teeth that sink into it. “Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself.” 

Tears pool in Gemini’s eyes, oceanic waterfalls. He sucks in a breath, one that begs—for an astronaut, for an adventurer, for a knight in shining armour—for someone to save him. He begs for Fourth. “It does hurt. It hurts.” 

Fourth looks back and forth between Gemini’s eyes, the tips of his fingers threading into the soft hair that sits at the base of his nape. 

“But I don’t wanna hurt anymore.” Gemini breathes, watery and choked, “Make me not hurt, Fourth.”

Teeth and fingers are replaced by the soft press of lips. Rose petals and freshly cut grass. Black holes collapse, super-novas explode. Stars are born. 

Gemini gasps into the kisses Fourth pushes onto his mouth, again and again, reserved and with reverence. Fourth tastes the salt and the sweetness. Everything falls into place, time slips away—so do the wasted years—until it’s just them. 

Fourth’s hands are on Gemini, everywhere. On his cheeks—brushing away tears. On his neck—feather-light and un-bruising his skin. They’re on his waist and wrapping around his thighs. Their mouths don’t break away as Fourth lifts the other boy, sitting him on the desk, spine pressing into the books.

Their mouths don't break away when Gemini wraps his arms around Fourth’s shoulders and his thighs around his hips. When his own hips move against Fourth's.

Gemini moans when hands slip under his shirt, when nails scrap against his skin, when fingertips brush over the coasts and coves of his rib cage, mapping him out like a newly discovered world. His head tips back, eyes watery, vision blurring at Fourth's open-mouthed kisses that paint his throat. 

“Are you okay, Nora?” He whispers, and Gemini feels the words hum against his skin. He nods, fingers lacing into Fourth’s short hair, pulling him in as close as he can. “Gem, need your words, baby.” 

He can’t help the way his body tremors, can’t help the sound of want that trickles past his swollen lips because of Fourth’s voice. He nods again when hands cup his cherub cheeks, but his eyes dart away from the ones that burn into his.

“Nodding isn’t using your words, Gemini.” Fourth’s voice isn’t stern, not by a mile. But his words are heavy, weighted with warmth and a need to know that this is okay, that this is what they both want. Because he knows, even now as he holds the boy he’s loved and lost and found again, Fourth knows that this could have been avoided if he was just braver. If he’d been a knight in shining armour. He knows that Gemini’s heart wouldn’t have been broken if he’d just kept him close, wrapped around him like he is now.

Gemini dares to look up, through his lashes and his longing, at where Fourth looks back at him. But he doesn’t see eyes that burn like he’d expected. There's guilt in them again, sadness wrapped up in dying stars. 

“Are… you okay, Natt?” He asks, voice hushed and wavering. Fourth can’t bring himself to be anything but a hypocrite when he nods at the question. Gemini’s hands leave the shoulders he’d been holding like a lifeline, coming up to cup Fourth’s face. “I need your words too, Fourth.”

Fourth’s voice fractures, his fingers tightening in Gemini’s hair, “I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you. Especially you like this.”

He looks down at Gemini’s glittering eyes, his kiss-swollen, cherry-red lips. At his heaving chest—the one that beholds the heart he broke. He looks at Gemini, the boy that had held him tight during storms when they were kids, that hadn’t laughed at him for crying into his chest as thunder and lightning sliced through that air for hours. 

The boy that had carried him in his arms from one side of town to the other when he’d been tripped over by older kids at the arcade. 

The boy that waited on the sidelines every day after school under the scorching sun, watching him play football even though Fourth knew Gemini didn’t like sports. 

Fourth looks into Gemini. “I don't deserve you.” 

“That’s not true.” Gemini whispers against his mouth, pushing his words into his skin like a promise, “I want you. I always wanted you. And when I couldn’t have you the way I wanted you, I got angry. And I blamed you. I was jealous of your new friends, of the attention you got.” 

Gemini shakes his head. “I was selfish, Fourth. I always was when it came to you. I was scared when I wasn’t the only person in your orbit anymore. I pushed you away, and you let me go. We were both fools. This is our fault.”

Fourth whimpers, lips trembling until Gemini’s are on his again to steady them. “I shouldn’t have let you go, Gemini. I should have kept you close. You were always my number one. You were always my everything.” 

“I don’t like the use of the past tense here, Natt.” Gemini chuckles. And Fourth’s heart is a ready-lit firework at the sound. 

“You always were and always will be everything to me, Gemini. I’m sorry I made you feel like you were anything but my everything.”

“And I’m sorry that I didn’t want you to bloom. I’m sorry I wanted to keep you in our shaded little corner of the world. That’s not where you belonged. I told you, Fourth, you’re starlight. You needed to shine.” 

“I’m sorry it took me so long to come back. I was pathetic. I was so scared that you hated me... I didn’t know how to approach you because I knew it was my fault—”

Gemini pokes his chest, an eyebrow raised. Fourth lets out a watery laugh.

“—I thought it was all my fault. So I avoided you even though all I wanted was for you to come back to me. To stay with me. But time kept slipping away and then school was over and I never saw you on campus at Chula so I guessed you really did decide to go to Slipakorn and… I lost you.”

In the corner of the room, the last of lavender burns out, wrapping around their words and their tears and their years of yearning. It all dissipates, and what's left is just them, in each other's arms. In their brave new world. 

“I told you, I’d always stay with you if you asked me to, Sir. Nattalot.”

Fourth can’t help but bellow a laugh, arms strong and grounding around Gemini’s waist, face pushing into his neck, breathing in the bloom of summer roses. 

The sigh that leaves Gemini’s chest is one of relief, of love—lost and found again. He leans back, planting a kiss, soft as magnolia petals, onto Fourth’s lips. And Fourth kisses back, slowly, deeply, wordlessly encapsulating him in an all-consuming apology. 

“This is our fault,” Gemini repeats quietly as their foreheads press together, “we made this mess together, Fourth. And we’ll fix together.”

Fourth’s laugh is wet when it slips past his lips, salty with tears and rosy with Gemini’s tongue. “Yeah, together.”

The watch around his wrist vibrates as it signals that time has reached the hour.

The fireworks in their hearts explode, as do the ones in the sky as the world shifts into the new year. Into a new beginning.

His once dull, sterile clean, lonely room bursts into colour and light. Drenched in blues and yellows and greens. He can barely hear the celebratory explosions behind his windows. Can’t hear much over the sound of his own heart beating in his ears, over Lilac Wine playing softly beside him. He can’t hear anything over the little moans that crash like waves past Fourth’s lips and down his own throat.

His legs part wider, pulling Fourth in closer, letting him make home there. And Fourth does, wrapping himself up in Gemini, in his beauty and his soft sounds and his plush lips. Gemini’s breath hitches when Fourth’s hands grab at his thighs, scooping him up from the desk, walking him over to the bed where he’s placed down with delicacy. The mattress dips below him when Fourth climbs over him—his bed has never felt so soft, never felt so warm.

Fourth leans back, looking into Gemini’s blown out eyes, asking with his own, if Gemini is okay. And Gemini replies conformations with the whimpers of eros that he lets out, with the way he pulls Fourth back down to lay their bodies flush. 

“Can I take this off?” His palm is hot and heavy as it splays across Gemini's chest, the other tugs lightly at the hem of his t-shirt.

Gemini nods, and then remembers, words. “Yes, please. Take yours off, too. Take everything off.” 

Their clothes fall away into a pile on the floor. And then it's just them, bare and bared under white sheets. Skin and limbs and heaving chests and broken hearts reuniting and mending in tandem. Fourth’s lips litter Gemini's writhing body with opened-mouthed kisses, birthing pink and purple constellations across his skies and skin. 

They move quickly, delicately. His iris are the shape of stars, mirroring the ones he sees popping behind his eyelids as Fourth gently opens him up. Fourth swallows his own name as it passes Gemini’s lips. He drinks it down, savouring its taste that he never knew it had—lilacs and apple blossom. 

Gemini’s whimpers are covered by fireworks past the curtained window when Fourth slowly, carefully slips into him. Every inch Gemini takes comes with a question. Are you okay? Are you hurting? Shall I keep going? Does it feel good? Are you still with me? Do you want more? Can you take it all? Every question is met with a breathless answer, each one a wanton whimper of Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes Yes.

Fourth doesn’t move until Gemini tells him to. He waits, of course he waits, for the boy below him to adjust, kissing his lips and cheeks and neck; his jaw and his wet lashes and the tip of his chin. Gemini sighs, lashes fluttering and eyes rolling back when he tells Fourth to move; when Fourth obeys. 

“You’re so beautiful, Nora.” Fourth whispers against his ear, taking the lobe between his lips and sucks. His hips move slow, deep, dedicated to finding that bundle of bliss hiding inside of Gemini.

And Gemini all but wails when it’s found, thighs shaking where they dig into Fourth’s hips.

“Look so beautiful. Sound so beautiful.” Fourth sinks his teeth into Gemini’s shoulder, only hard enough to leave the ghost of indentations there, “Keep being loud for me, baby. I love those pretty noises you make.” 

So he does. He whimpers with every slam of Fourth’s hips, every touch of fingertips on his over-heated skin, every press of Fourth’s mouth on his own. The blanket falls away from their bodies and onto the floor, Gemini can’t find it in himself to pull it back up. He lets himself be seen. 

“So good, Natt,” he whines, nails leaving red lines down his back, “Everything… Everything I thought you'd—fuck—Fourth, please, please.”

Fourth leans back on his elbows. There's sweat at his hairline, mouth swollen and eyes dilated as if he were staring into the abyss, “You thought about this?” He pants, slowing his movements for a moment.

Gemini can’t help but roll his eyes, even as he feels Fourth throb inside of him, “Of course I thought of this. Always thought of you.”

Fourth feels Gemini’s heart thumping against where their chests are pressed. It’s like a thousand jade coloured butterflies, fluttering around the bones of his ribcage—a kaleidoscope of iridescence and beauty. 

“Gemini, please,” he whines, hips bucking forward. He pushes their mouths together as his resolve starts to falter. And it’s almost as if Gemini can feel it breaking, taste it falling apart, because he speaks again, in between kisses and gasps.

“Harder, Fourth. I’m not—yes, fuck—I’m not gonna break.” 

Fourth moves, really moves. His arms wrap around Gemini’s waist, lifting him up so their stomachs are pressed together, leaving only Gemini’s shoulders on the mattress. Gemini’s body follows willingly, arching in the arms that hold him, head thrown back as he screams Fourth’s name. 

"You're so beautiful."

His eyes swell with tears. He’s never felt like this, never dreamed he would ever, could ever, feel this good. It’s like there's a fever scorching through him, like fire spreading across his skin—flames following the oil-spill of pleasure that Fourth maps across his body with his mouth. 

"Missed you all the time."

And then, he’s in half, back flat against the mattress and legs wrapped around shoulders. “Made for me, Nora. All mine. All of you, you're mine.” Fourth whimpers into his ear, hands tight on his waist and in his hair. 

“Always yours, Natt.” 

Fourth chokes, body tightening like a bow—Gemini the archer, pulling on his strings. Fourth’s mouth is on his, tongue tasting the popping candy that fizzles there. “I love you so much.”

Gemini’s hand cascades through his own hair, reaching back to meet where Fourth’s hand is tangled in his locks. Their fingers intertwine, mouths melting together. 

“I love you, too.” 

“I can’t find my other sock.” Fourth giggles as he flings the fallen blanket onto the bed, over Gemini’s spent body. He hums, in confirmation, in condolence, in indifference. He can’t think about anything but how he feels like he's floating. There’s a gentle hum under his skin, a quiet content that he doesn’t think he’s ever felt before. He feels so good. He feels sedated and completed and full. So full.

He'd be lying if he said his body didn't ache. Turns out six months of ballet classes does help with flexibility and strength—what it doesn’t help with is taking five years worth of of pent-up desire in the form of twenty minutes of life-changing sex.

“There it is.” He hears Fourth murmur. What follows is the sound of scraping. Gemini frowns. That’s not what a sock sounds like… 

He sits up, only to realise it’s too late. 

Fourth’s lost sock slides off the canvas as he pulls it from under his bed. Gemini’s eyes are wide, Fourth’s squinted as they roam the canvas he holds. He looks over it, over to where Gemini’s bare body sits tense on the mattress. 

“You look like a deer caught in headlights.” He breathes, trying to shift the palpable tension that sizzles like electricity around them. 

“Don’t look at it, Fourth.”

He’s caught off guard by the sadness in Gemini’s voice. His hands flex around the canvas edges. “Why? It’s beautiful, Gem.”

“It’s not.” He shakes his head, face hot with the remnants of euphoria and the beginning of self-destruction. “It’s… I painted it years ago. It’s old. It’s shit and it’s creepy.”

“Creepy?” Fourth hums, cocking an eyebrow as he looks back down at the canvas, “I don’t think I look that bad.”

Gemini slides from the bed, onto the floor next to Fourth, trying his best to pry Fourth’s hands from the canvas. But, as he’d just learnt, Fourth is much, much, stronger than he is. 

“Gemini. This is me, right?” He whispers as he gently pulls the canvas away.

“No.” Gemini’s voice is stern as he slumps back, knees biting into the wooden floor boards. 

Fourth’s heart fractures at the word, at the absolute of it. He looks back to canvas, at the face painted there. At the button nose and the dark freckles and the blazing mouth set in the midsts of a battle cry. 

“It’s Sir. Nattalot, obviously.” 

Fourth lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. He looks over to Gemini, Gemini—who’s holding back a smirk behind bunny teeth. He leans the canvas against the side of the bed, joining Gemini to sit back and look at the art. A black stallion carrying a knight in shining armour on the battle field. In the distance there's a castle, surrounded by a moat. The grass around the knight is green and bloodstained. The moons light has just begun to seep into the sky.

“It’s amazing, Gemini. Jesus, you’re so talented. How do you make it look so… real?” He’s almost breathless as he speaks, eyes stuck on where his own face is like a photograph on the cotton. 

Gemini avoids the compliment, he’s never been good at digesting them. “It took me over a year to paint. I started on the first day of the summer break... our final year. I didn’t finish it until after we graduated.”

“But, you hated me during our final year. Why would you paint me?”

Gemini shudders, not at the chill biting at his naked body—it’s embarrassment that seeps into his skin. “You were always my inspiration. Every painting was about you, for you.” He looks at Fourth through his lashes, at the wonder swimming in his iris', “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have painted you without permission. Even if we were best friends, it’s creepy—”

“—I have your sketchbook.”

Gemini goes rigid, eyes wide as the stares at the boy next to him. He shakes his head slowly, brain and body stuck between fight or flight. He doesn’t have time to decide, either way. Fourth’s hand falls softly onto Gemini’s thigh, fingers splayed, grounding.

“The last day of school. You didn’t collect it from Mr. Boonmee’s office. He gave it to me as I was heading to football practice, he said ‘he assumed we were close because of the drawings of me inside of the book’."

Gemini sighs, hands coming to rub his burning hot face.

"Our final year of school... I had it in my back pack every day. I wanted to give back to you. I wanted to approach you but... You know...”

“Fucking christ—” 

“—I never looked at those pages, though, Gem. I only looked at the ones I’d seen before.” Fourth’s voice is small, and when Gemini peaks through his fingers at him, a water-colour wash of pink sits high on his cheeks. And that God damned, unwavering truth is in his eyes, “You never showed me. So I never looked.” 

Gemini’s hands fall slowly, down to wrap around Fourth’s. He’s so in love. He’s so desperately, achingly in love and he has no idea how he’s survived this long without Fourth. His knight. His everything. 

“Thank you, Natt.”

“For not looking? It’s fine. I didn’t—”

“—No. No, not just that.” He leans in slowly, brushing his lips softly against Fourth’s. He sighs into it, mind going fuzzy around the edges when a small moan catches in Fourth’s throat. He pulls away before he loses himself in it. “Thank you for coming back to me.” 

Fourth’s smile is blinding, blazing hot like the epitome of the sun—the epitome of all he is. “Always.”

Gemini returns the smile, in love. Devoted. “Always.”