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16:48
The warm carpet beneath his back almost seemed to breathe with him, as if it had absorbed the slow heat of the day and was now giving it back in gentle waves against his skin. He could feel the soft texture along his spine, his feet resting against the edge of the bed as if that gesture — so small — were the only anchor keeping his body from floating.
The late-afternoon sun crossed the open window, gilding the air like dust suspended in a luminous aquarium. The warmth was already mellow, unhurried, almost shy, as if it were asking permission to stay a little longer.
Above him, hanging from the ceiling, the small mobiles made of shells and tiny metal pieces, light as breath, knocked softly against one another whenever the wind dared to cross the room.
The sound was delicate, nearly imperceptible, a succession of fragile notes that blended with the rustle of leaves outside and the birdsong that insisted on visiting the balcony. On the turntable, music older than him drifted gently, filling the space without taking it over, like a memory that wasn’t sure it wanted to be remembered.
He turned the page of the book slowly, as if he didn’t want to break the living rhythm of everything around him. The paper brushed lightly between his fingers, and JJ breathed a little deeper. Each verse he read seemed to carry the damp weight of an old thought, something that had never quite been named, but had always been there, lying in wait, murmuring just enough to let him feel it, but never loudly enough for him to understand.
He had started thinking more about it.
About that feeling.
It was the feeling of standing before something that came too slowly to be noticed and too quickly to be avoided. Something that asked for space inside him without asking permission, without him being able to stop himself from saying yes.
The room, the wind, the sound of the mobiles, the birds, the light. Everything seemed to be part of the same invisible gesture, as if the universe were stretching a thin membrane, preparing him for something he didn’t yet know had already begun.
The phone rang beside him for the second time.
The sound cut through the air gently, but enough to shift the whole world inside him, making JJ turn his head with the lazy rhythm of someone who still hadn’t decided whether it was worth interrupting a moment that felt perfect to do something so ordinary. He blinked a few times, just enough for the blurred words on the screen to become readable without him needing to get up. And then he saw it. The name on the screen. Simple, obvious, and yet still a soft punch to the stomach.
P’Net calling.
The screen went dark for a minute, then lit up again on the display as if calling for him in a low but insistent voice, opening a quick fissure in the memory of that night in the karaoke room.
He still remembered the way Net had walked in, almost out of breath because he was late. The way he had apologised, the effort he’d made not to show what he truly felt when he saw him cross the doorway as if he were afraid of something.
Sometimes, JJ wondered whether all of it had been a strange dream, born from a place he thought he’d already moved away from. But it wasn’t a dream. Not when the name was right there, shining like a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, pulling him closer. Towards a safe shore.
And there, lying on the floor, with the sun almost dying behind the curtains and the mobiles chiming a soft note that seemed to agree with something he wasn’t ready to admit, JJ felt that suspended feeling again — the one he had no idea how to hold onto — moving quietly, as if it were taking a step inside him.
He brought the phone to his ear.
And on the other side, for a whole minute, no words came.
There was only an unusual silence, a silence full of things. Full of life, full of noise, full of fragments of a world JJ wasn’t seeing at that moment. He could hear Net’s breathing. He could hear a dull sound, like something being pushed. Then footsteps, the distant drag of a door, voices blending with the echo of some room, a brief laugh that might have come from someone near Net or from someone who had simply crossed his life in that instant.
JJ kept the phone steady, his arm relaxed against the floor, but he felt something inside his chest slowly grow, a curiosity. He didn’t know why, but it was almost as if Net were right there beside him, just trying to find the right breath.
“Phi?” JJ called, softly.
Net’s breathing changed on the other end.
“I just called to…” he began, then stopped as if straightening his own posture. Or giving up. “I called to see if you’d already eaten”.
JJ blinked slowly until his body caught up with the surprise.
The sentence landed in the room with a strange delicacy, as if it had travelled too long a distance to exist like that, small and unassuming. JJ stared at the ceiling for a moment, letting the mild late-afternoon warmth touch the side of his face before any reply slipped out.
And then he laughed.
A short, soft laugh.
He pulled the still-open book to his chest, as if he needed some kind of anchor before actually answering the question:
“Not yet”, he admitted, closing his eyes with a smile. “I’m going out for dinner with P’Maam. She wants Japanese food tonight”.
On the other end, Net made a low sound, almost an inaudible nod, and the conversation slid naturally from there, as if neither of them needed to think much to keep hold of the thread that had already been stretched between them long before that night at the karaoke.
They talked about small things, the kind that fill the space without tightening it too much. JJ mentioned the event some fans were organising for that weekend, the song he still didn’t know whether he’d sing, and Net talked about the hectic afternoon at DMD TV, about a commercial audition that had gone better than he’d expected, about the strange feeling of being far too busy and, still, with his mind somewhere else.
And it was true — there was somewhere else.
A space that had settled between them after that night.
It wasn’t that anything bad had happened, far from it. In fact, JJ still couldn’t quite believe that Net had said he wanted him as his partner, and he’d pinched himself more times than he cared to admit to prove that none of it had happened, because the truth was that JJ had been ready to give up, and he’d been alright with that. Or he thought he was.
But now there was a space because of that request, because it had been too intimate, too unexpected. Because it made him wonder whether he really was ready to give up, or whether he was just doing what everyone expected after all those years. Especially because when he kept going out with Net, it hadn’t been because he thought he’d end up being invited to be his on-screen partner, but because it was fun and light. It left his mind calm and his heart quiet.
JJ turned his head to the side, letting the carpet mark the skin of his cheek, and stayed there, breathing his own breath and Net’s mixed together through a thin line of sound, he didn’t think he was capable of answering Net’s request, didn’t think he could even if he tried.
“… it was funny”, Net went on, and JJ rolled onto his side on the carpet, letting the book fall almost closed beside him. “But it was amazing”.
They laughed about details small enough for JJ to forget his habitual thoughts about Net’s request, talked about how tired they were feeling, about traffic and even the heat. And then they fell silent again, simply existing in that moment.
It was Net who broke the pause.
“What were you doing when I called?”
JJ opened his eyes slowly, as if coming back to the surface after a dive that had gone on too long: “I was reading...”
“Reading what?” Net asked, and his voice sounded attentive.
He always sounded attentive when he wanted to know something about JJ. Something that maybe other people still didn’t know, as if he needed to gather every possible piece of information that existed about him.
JJ found that intimidating.
It wasn’t bad, but he didn’t know how else to name it, because no one in his entire life had shown that much interest. As steady and reliable as Net was, and sometimes it was intimidating to be under the gaze of someone who cared that much.
He took a fraction of a second before answering.
“Hmm... sad things”, JJ said, with a smile.
There wasn’t even a pause before Net said:
“Read to me”.
JJ opened his mouth, then closed it. He stared at the mobile metres away, swaying against the gentle breeze of what was almost the start of night. He let the air slip from his lips in an embarrassed sigh.
“No!” he said, with a nervous laugh, shaking his head as if Net could really see that simple movement. “Phi… no”.
“Read to me”, Net repeated, quieter now, softer. A request he himself might not have understood fully, but one that JJ felt pass through something delicate inside him. “Pretty please?”
JJ ran a hand over his face, like someone trying to hide a smile that shouldn’t exist. He drew in a deep breath, as if he had to pull the air from very far away. His chest rose slowly, marked by something he wouldn’t dare call courage, but that looked an awful lot like surrender.
“You’re impossible…” he murmured, completely undone.
JJ put the call on speaker and picked up the book again, opening it exactly where he’d stopped reading. He skimmed the poem quickly with his eyes, then pressed his lips together before he could actually read any of the words out loud.
“‘For the Days I Feel Too Much…’” he murmured, reading the title carefully, as if it were some kind of secret. JJ couldn’t see Net, but he could picture him. He could imagine the way he was leaning against a wall, maybe in a bathroom or a corridor wherever he was, and how he was fiddling with the ring he always wore.
He could imagine Net attentive, waiting.
“‘Sometimes I feel like there’s a storm inside me that I didn’t ask for, like my heart is carrying too many feelings all at once, and no one around me even sees it…’” JJ read, softly. He moistened his lips and traced a finger along the page before continuing. “‘I don’t know why I’m sad, maybe there isn’t even a reason, but it’s real. It’s heavy and I can’t just pretend it’s not there…’”
He shifted on the carpet and rested the book in his hands.
Net didn’t say anything. He just stayed there, listening.
“‘I try to be okay, I try to smile, but deep down it feels like my soul is screaming and no one hears it. I feel like I’m ‘too much’ for people. Too emotional, too soft, too deep… like I feel things they don’t understand’”.
JJ glanced at the phone screen, as if checking whether Net was still there with him in that brief moment, then pushed the anxiety away from his heart and filled his lungs with air, laughing as he said:
“‘But this is who I am. I don’t feel a little, I feel everything…’”, he shook his head as he said that word, as if it mattered too much. And it did. It mattered. “‘And maybe that makes life harder, but it also makes my love stronger, my care deeper, my heart more real’”.
JJ heard Net’s breathing on the other end, loud and full of something.
He inhaled deeply as well, then read: “‘So today, I won’t hate myself for being sensitive. I’ll let myself feel. Even if no one gets it, I do. And that’s enough for now...’”
He didn’t say anything after finishing.
JJ simply stayed lying on the carpet even after closing the book, staring at the lines on the yellowed page as if they were holding him in place. The final sentence seemed to spread through the entire room, as if it had found small gaps between the furniture, between the soft sound of the mobile, between the rustle of the wind brushing the curtain.
He didn’t know exactly what he was feeling, but he knew it was real, a sensation that stretched across his ribs, his neck, the skin pressed against the warm carpet. He breathed in slowly, without hurry, as if trying to settle inside himself the strange stillness that comes right after saying something that’s never been said out loud.
The phone screen lit up in the dimness with a notification, showing the call time running as if it were the only clock that mattered in the world. And JJ realised — not as an epiphany, but as a truth that had been there from the start — that it was rare for someone to stay like that, quiet, listening to everything without interrupting.
It was rare for someone to hear what hurt without trying to fix it.
It was rare for someone to exist in the world with that much patience. That was why his chest tightened again, but not like before. It was a good kind of ache.
Net’s voice finally came, steady and full of life: “I’d choose someone who feels everything all the time a thousand times over someone who feels nothing”.
JJ blinked, staring at his name on the phone screen.
He hadn’t been expecting a response, but now that Net had started talking, he wanted to guess what his words would be. What funny thing he’d say next, what he’d understood from that poem.
“To be honest...” Net laughed, thoughtful. “People who don’t feel things scare me a bit. It’s like nothing really touches them, like they’re always a step removed from everything. From joy, from pain, from love… from anything that makes life worth it. And that feels cruel”.
It wasn’t the answer JJ had been expecting. It wasn’t a playful tone or some kind of comment meant to soften the tension of that poem.
“So, I think people who don’t feel anything seem empty, like the world passes through them without leaving a mark. I don’t like that, I like people who feel everything...” Net said, taking a deep breath. It sounded like a confession. “I like people who let themselves be affected by life. Who cry, who laugh, who break and who put themselves back together”.
JJ clenched his teeth and felt his heart pound.
“Phi...” he whispered, confused. “What are you...”
“What I’m trying to say is that it’s alright to feel everything. I think it’s a beautiful way to live even if some people don’t understand or see what’s underneath...” Net cut in, direct. “And I wish you could see what I see when I look at you, JJ. Because, to me, you were never ‘too much’. You’re deep, you’re alive, you feel the world in a way almost no one has the courage to feel, and that is... beautiful”.
For a moment that felt torn out of time, JJ couldn’t breathe properly. Net’s words settled on him with both delicacy and impact, like something that hadn’t been meant to hit so directly, and yet still sank in deep, without asking permission.
His heart beat far too fast. So fast it hurt.
JJ opened his mouth, not knowing what he should say, not knowing whether he wanted to question it or thank him or simply ask Net to repeat it because it sounded too good to be real. But before any words could take shape, the bedroom door opened with a soft click.
His sister appeared in the doorway, hair tied back and a frustrated expression that melted the instant she saw her brother on the floor, the book in his hand, his face far more vulnerable than he’d meant to show.
“JJ?” she asked, phone in hand. There was an expression halfway between surprise and concern on her face. “I sent you a few messages nong… weren’t we going out for dinner tonight?”
JJ’s body reacted first.
He gasped, a small, contained sound, as if he’d been caught in the middle of a secret. He blinked fast, trying to pull back together the composure Net had just loosened inside him, and with a quick movement, took the call off speaker.
“Phi…” JJ whispered, pressing the phone to his ear, as if he could keep a secret from his sister. “Sorry, I’ll call you later so we can talk about that more, yeah? I’m going to… I’m going out to dinner with my sister”.
He didn’t even wait properly for a reply, just ended the call almost in the same breath, set the phone down on the mattress and closed the book as he stood up quickly. But when he finally lifted his gaze to his sister, something in him gave way, a fine muscle near his brow.
The line of his mouth trembled, and he felt his eyes grow damp. And then he smiled. And it was a smile too small for his face, modest, almost shy, yet still open enough to give everything away.
His eyes truly welled up, held inside that intimate space still echoing with Net’s voice. And when he shook his head at his sister, trying to steady himself, he realised he’d made a decision he’d been running from for long enough to almost forget it.
- ii -
The Domundi meeting room had that unforgiving white lighting that spared nothing, neither trembling hands nor the nervous shine in someone’s eyes. JJ could feel every beam of light as if he were being examined from every possible angle. He was sitting at the end of the long table, the contract open in front of him like a door he wasn’t sure he should step through.
The bracelet on his wrist slipped as he ran his hands over his jeans-covered knees, his palms slightly damp. He tried to hide the anxiety, but it was pointless, because his heart was pounding so loudly it felt as if it filled his entire throat.
It was an exclusive contract. Five years.
Five.
He blinked slowly, because he truly thought that after the auditions, the interviews, the care the company had shown, they would offer one year. Maybe two, if they were taking a bigger gamble. Not five. Not something the company only offered to actors who had already proven they were profitable. Not to someone like him, who was still trying to reaffirm that he even had a place in all of this.
He lifted his eyes to the faces around the table.
P’Lin, P’Aof, the lawyer, the casting director, an assistant typing something far too quickly. It might not have looked like it, but to him it was a lot of people. And he already knew some of them. From events, lives, backstage, and meetings that had never placed him this close to such a huge decision. But here it felt as if he were facing enlarged versions of each person. It was far too intimidating, far too real to pretend it wasn’t.
He opened his mouth, trying to form anything that sounded like a question or a thank you, or a desperate plea for clarification, but he couldn’t get a single word out.
P’Lin noticed, of course. Net always said she noticed everything.
She tilted her head slightly, as if trying to make the air less heavy, and smiled. It was a calm, welcoming smile, one that seemed designed for moments like this.
“Nong, you can ask anything you like” she said softly. “Or say whatever’s on your mind. It’s alright”.
JJ nodded, trying to organise a thought, but the gesture came with visible hesitation. He picked at his thumb’s cuticle, then laced his fingers together as if they needed to hold on to something. And then P’Aof, seated a few chairs ahead, leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table with gentle seriousness.
“I know it looks intimidating”, he began, direct, but without any irritation. “And normally… yes, we offer one- or two-year contracts to new actors. Especially when they come from other companies or are still building their names…”
JJ lifted his gaze, his lashes trembling.
“But…” P’Aof continued. “We’ve had some issues over the past few years. Losses, cast changes, situations that left us vulnerable. And a longer contract…” he took a deep breath. “Helps prevent that from happening again. It guarantees stability for you, for the company and, most importantly, for whoever will be working alongside you”.
There was a pause, and it felt extremely important, because it was the perfect amount of time for JJ to think of Net. And of James. Of course he had researched what had made them break the contract that tied them together as a pair, especially as a profitable duo with a solid, loyal fanbase who would do anything for them.
JJ had read speculative posts longer than two pages, watched videos and patiently sat through Net crying on a live, talking about James’s decision to step away from the series and break their contract to focus on his music career, and how proud he was and how he would always support him. And he had seen James’s video too, crying for the same reason.
“Nong Net is one of our longest-standing actors...” P’Aof said, pulling JJ’s attention back. “We’ve trusted him from the very beginning, especially when it came to not forcing him to move forward with someone who made him uncomfortable, or whom he didn’t make feel comfortable, because we believe our job is to make sure everyone is alright”.
JJ nodded.
He knew. He might not be ridiculously famous like Net or the other DMD TV actors, but he had friends from his trainee days. Everyone who had contact with the company was always full of praise, and JJ doubted Net would drag him into anything bad.
“Nong Net built his career with responsibility, but above all, with his heart. But he went through difficult moments to reach the place he’s in now...”, P’Aof sighed, as if it were hard to admit. Almost as if he felt responsible. “DMD TV is a big family, and families look after each other, Nong JJ”, he said, smiling. “This contract is as much about keeping Nong Net safe from new problems as it is about making sure you’re alright in the middle of all this. That you have time, structure and freedom to grow here, without fear”.
JJ felt the air catch against his ribs.
It was as if the words had been chosen with surgical precision to hit exactly where he hid his deepest worries.
“And what if it doesn’t work?” JJ asked, finally finding his voice. He looked straight at P’Aof, open and vulnerable, the kind of look that only exists when someone truly fears hurting or being hurt again. “If even after signing, things don’t turn out the way you’re imagining? And this contract ends up harming both of us?”
The lawyer opened his mouth, ready to recite clauses, terms and guarantees. But P’Aof raised a hand, asking for silence. He didn’t want legalities in that moment. He wanted the truth.
“If it doesn’t work with Nong Net, we’ll sort it out”, P’Aof said without hesitation. “We won’t abandon you. Nor pressure you to stay in something that doesn’t work. I know five years is a long time, but this contract isn’t a trap, it’s protection. For you and for him”.
JJ met his gaze. There was a certain curiosity behind his fear.
P’Aof smiled, light, like someone holding honesty in an open hand, and then said: “I, personally, guarantee that to you, Nong”.
JJ lowered his gaze to the contract once more.
The pages seemed thicker now, too full of future, of implications, of possible paths. He twisted his lips, felt his heart beating at a rhythm he didn’t fully recognise. It was fear, yes, but it was also something else. Something that felt like choice.
P’Aof gestured to the lawyer.
“Let’s do this…” the director said, with that posture he used when he was about to rearrange the world so it would fit more gently around someone. “Add a special termination clause for Nong JJ”, he looked at the lawyer seriously. “One that allows him to end the contract after one year, without penalty, if he feels the partnership with the company isn’t working or if the project isn’t bringing him any real development”.
The lawyer’s eyes widened slightly, surprised. That wasn’t common, and maybe it wasn’t the most plausible option after what had happened with Net, but he still noted it down and gave a subtle gesture in response.
JJ felt a light shock cut through his chest.
That was a kind of freedom he hadn’t expected to find.
P’Aof leaned back in his chair and smiled at him again:
“While they adjust the contract, take some time to think it all through properly, no rush. Think about what this contract could mean for you, about what you want to build...” he folded his hands. “To be completely honest, I’m not offering you this just because of Net”.
“Then why?”
“Because your screen test was brilliant, Nong!” he said, laughing, and everyone agreed. P’Lin scrunched her nose, murmuring that it was true. JJ bit his lip, pleased to hear it. “You’ve got everything you need to be a great actor, and you’re a great singer. You just need structure and time”.
He paused, the silence heavy with honesty.
“And…” his voice softened. “You and Nong Net have built something very solid over these months you’ve been in contact, even without planning to be screen partners. It’s clear you genuinely like each other”.
JJ blinked, and lifted an eyebrow.
He hadn’t expected them to know much about his friendship with Net.
“And even if one day you decide to end the partnership…” P’Aof shrugged, as if it were nothing. As if mentioning a contract ending mattered little compared to everything else that existed. “I still believe you belong to our Domundi family”.
And there, in the middle of that overly bright room, with papers that weighed like fate and eyes that watched him with care and hope, JJ felt something inside him give way. Not from pressure, but from recognition.
As if he were, finally, in the right place.
As if he were finally being seen for who he was.
- iii -
“Why haven’t you reactivated your socials?”
JJ shrugged, twirling the pasta around his fork.
“Habit. I deleted everything before the ordination”, he explained, not taking his eyes off the food. “When I came back, I didn’t miss it. I reckon I like living a bit hidden from the world...” he scrunched his nose, still laughing.
After everything he’d been through, the way things had unfolded and how low he’d been feeling before going to the monastery, he still couldn’t see a reason to go back to social media. All his friends and the people who mattered knew how to find him.
And even if he still went to fan events, still agreed to appearances and even to singing, he didn’t want to return unless he had a good reason, because part of him still thought about giving everything up.
“What’s funny is...” he murmured, like he’d just noticed something oddly surreal. “I’m seeing someone whose fans would track down my address if they found out my surname”.
Net coughed, choking on his drink.
They’d never really talked about that, not properly. Partly because when they first truly met, JJ had said he didn’t intend to accept Net’s proposal even if he tried really hard, because there was nothing left, he felt he could do in entertainment. And partly because Net had been scared of talking about it and asking too much of JJ because of it.
But he’d crossed that line now, he’d said out loud that he wanted JJ to be his new partner and had been trying to show his reasons ever since, even if it was proving to be hard work.
“I won’t let that happen”.
“Good!” JJ replied, picking up his wine glass. “Because if I ever end up disappearing, it’ll be entirely your fucking fault, Khun Manithikhun”.
Net couldn’t hold back his laughter.
It had been a while since they’d last gone out to dinner, mostly because Net’s schedule had been packed with events and JJ had decided to attend every fan meet his fans had organised that month. But being together was fun, genuinely good.
JJ watched him laugh to the point that his shoulders shook, wearing a small, satisfied smile, like he’d scored a point without even trying.
For a few moments, they just moved their food around, savouring the silence, but when JJ spoke again, the conversation slid into different territory before either of them could stop it.
“You work out every day, don’t you?” he asked, cutting a piece of meat with almost religious precision. JJ loved eating. “Anyone can tell from your back muscles. Every time you take your jacket off, I think, ‘of course he’s got lead-actor shoulders’”.
Net stared at his plate, quietly.
“You’ve noticed my… back muscles?”
JJ took a small sip of wine, theatrically.
“I’ve noticed a lot of things. Professionally, of course”.
Net finally nodded, poking at his own plate.
“Of course...” he smiled without showing his teeth. “Professionally”.
“Totally!” JJ repeated, quite serious about it. “I used to be a trainee, you know? I studied movement, anatomy. The aesthetics of presence on screen… I know these things, Phi”.
Net rested a hand on the table, narrowing his eyes.
“You’ve just made that up”,
“Of course!” JJ admitted, finally smiling. He looked back at Net and added: “But still, you must work out a lot”.
Net shook his head, not understanding where the conversation was going: “Not as much as I should”, Net replied anyway, ‘cause he always gave JJ what he wanted without questioning it, even though he wanted to know why the conversation had suddenly taken such a strange turn. “But enough not to embarrass myself when a scene calls for me to take my shirt off”.
JJ looked at him.
“Fair enough...”, he murmured, taking another piece of meat before actually continuing. “It must be intimidating... having to do that sort of scene, where you have to take your shirt off or whatever...”
“Nong JJ!” Net finally stopped him, taking a deep breath. He wasn’t scolding him, he just wanted to understand what was really bothering him, since they’d agreed they were okay. “What is it?”
He tightened his fingers around the cutlery and looked at Net for a moment that lasted a bit too long before finally relaxing and setting them down beside the plate. He let his breath out slowly, like rushing things would be dangerous, like he needed a bit of extra time.
“What about P’James?”
The question stayed there, between the two of them, as if it carried a weight of its own. It wasn’t aggressive, it wasn’t jealous, it wasn’t an accusation. It was simply true. And because it was far too true, it hit Net in a place he wasn’t used to being touched. For a moment, the sound around the table seemed to fade, as if the entire restaurant had taken a step back so that the conversation could exist fully, uninterrupted.
Net rested his elbows on the table, feeling the air change, not in a heavy way, but in a careful one, as if they were both about to cross a line you only cross with someone you trust.
He breathed in slowly, settling the question inside himself before answering it: “What do you want to know about James, JJ?” his voice came out low, steady. There was no irritation, only precision. He genuinely wanted to understand what lay behind the question, wanted to know how far JJ needed to go.
JJ moistened his lips, dropping his gaze to the tablecloth as if trying to put everything in order before it slipped out.
“I…” his breath came out almost shaky. “I don’t know P’James, not personally. I’ve only seen him once or twice, at events…”
He said it all in a single breath, as if stopping halfway might turn into a confession bigger than the words themselves. Net simply watched him for a moment, then tilted his head slightly.
“Does that matter now?” he asked, without harshness. “Nong James chose another path. I just want to understand what you actually need”.
There was a brief silence, but a dense one. The silence of someone thinking carefully, with fear, with honesty. JJ clenched his hands in his lap, pretending not to notice how his fingers were trembling now. Then he lifted his eyes.
“I don’t get it…” his voice came out lower than it should have. “I don’t get how you can want me to be your partner”.
He took a while to react.
Not because he didn’t have an answer, but because that question carried too much weight to be thrown back casually. He leaned back in his chair with care, as if his own body needed time to keep pace with what was taking shape inside him.
His shoulders relaxed a little, but his jaw stayed firm, tense in a very specific place that JJ had already learned to recognise when Net was holding more than he was saying. His gaze didn’t waver for a second. It stayed fixed on JJ with an almost heavy focus, as if he were reading not only the words that had been spoken, but everything that came with them: the fear, the insecurity, the silent comparison, the feeling of not being enough.
Net took a deep, slow breath, letting the air move in and out like someone needing to steady something before speaking. He ran his tongue over his lips, a small, automatic gesture, then closed his eyes for a moment too short to be escape, long enough to be choice. When he opened them again, there was a clear decision there: he wasn’t going to soften it, he wasn’t going to sidestep it.
“Some things end because it’s inevitable, Jay”, Net said, slowly, as if choosing every word so he wouldn’t lie. “And they end because they reach the limit of what we can hold. Because carrying on starts to demand a kind of strength that eats away at everything from the inside. And at some point, insisting hurts more than stopping”.
JJ and Net had always had deep conversations, always spent hours going back and forth over things that mattered, but they had never talked, properly, about James and everything that had happened.
Never about the silence that remained, the empty space.
JJ could hear every detail of that gap between them: the distant sounds of the room, his own heart beating faster than it should, Net’s breathing now more contained, as if he were walking across ground he knew far too well.
He kept his eyes on him, even though he wanted to look away, even with his throat tight. There was something solemn in that moment, as if they both knew they were crossing a point that had never been named out loud. Net tilted his head slightly, not in weariness, but in recognition, like someone accepting an old truth that still hurt to touch.
“And when everything happened, even in the parts where I got it wrong, I felt like I hadn’t done enough. Like I hadn’t tried hard enough or given my best. And dealing with that weight was hard, it made me feel like a bad person, selfish… even cruel”.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that!” he said, serious, almost sharp. “It’s not fair, Phi. Not to you, and not to him. You’re not to blame for any of this”.
Net smiled. It was a small smile, grateful, yielded.
“I know that now, but back then I didn’t…” he filled his lungs with air, tired. “I spent far too long mourning the things I couldn’t foresee or fix, and when P’Aof gave me the choice to move forward with the project, just with another actor…” Net wrinkled his nose. “I was scared of making the same mistakes I’d made before, but that changed”.
He looked at JJ, and this time JJ was looking back at him.
“But when I met you, everything changed…” he admitted, straight up.
The words hit him without warning, not like a revelation, but like a familiar weight that still never failed to be too much when spoken out loud.
JJ felt something inside his chest give a little, as if Net’s steadiness dismantled any preparation, he thought he’d had. It wasn’t a surprise. He already knew. Net made a point of repeating it, but hearing it again, that directly, without hesitation, made the ground feel less stable beneath his feet.
“Even when I told you why I was reaching out, even when I knew my path could be different and harder than the other actors’, you comforted me and made me want to be better, someone who doesn’t blame himself for all the shit that’s happened up to now”.
JJ blinked, completely shaken by the confession.
Net gestured: “And I know I was asking a lot of you from the fucking start, I know it’s scary and that I come with baggage…”, he whispered, full of insecurity. “I know it’s unfair, but I can’t do this with anyone else, JJ. Not after meeting you. I don’t want to”.
JJ looked away, his heart thudding far too loudly in his chest.
“Even so…” he whispered, shaking his head. “I still don’t understand”.
The world seemed to tilt slightly before Net answered.
“Because I started smiling again after I met you!” Net laughed, thinking of what P’Ker had said. When James broke the contract, he’d felt wrecked. Net tried every possible way to stay professional and be alright, but he wasn’t. Not even for a minute.
But then he met JJ.
And JJ was pure sunlight. Even when his heart was hurt, he was still able to smile and be the best version of himself. He made Net want to be the same, wanted to be able to reach people the way JJ did. And it was because of him that everything changed, it was because of him.
“That’s why. You made me smile, Jay. And after feeling miserable, that matters to me. A lot. In a way I didn’t even know mattered, but now it fills my life from every angle, and I think we’re good together”.
The table suddenly felt far too small for everything that had been said.
The air between them seemed to change density, as if that table, that dinner, had turned into a place where too many truths were being laid bare all at once.
Net was far too good with words.
He was far too good at saying things that slipped between the ribs and made space where JJ thought there was only damage. Far too good at believing in him in a way no one ever had before. And because of that, maybe, JJ felt that sharp pinch of desperation. Because the more Net said those things, the more impossible it felt to agree with that vision. The more impossible it felt to accept that he could be enough beside him.
Because, despite everything, despite all the words he wanted to grab hold of with both hands, JJ still believed he wasn’t right, wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t the right choice. And before he could stop it, the thought slipped out through his eyes before it even turned into sound:
“It might not seem like it, but… I’m kidda clingy sometimes”.
“That’s fine. I like that”.
JJ frowned, incredulous: “Phi, I can be really stubborn, and I get moody…”, he fired back. “Sometimes I get melancholic and introspective, I’m too shy and sometimes I let the voices in my head win, even when I know I’m overthinking”.
Net placed his napkin on the table and leaned back in his chair.
He gestured for JJ to go on, and he did.
“I joke about everything, I’m always laughing and at the same time wondering if I should even be like that!” he blurted out. “Sometimes I can be unbearable. I like physical touch, but I hate it when it’s too public…” JJ gestured impatiently, breathless. “I can be immature really easily, and I’m always hungry. Like, always! I love food, I can’t stick to diets, and I don’t like working out”.
Net didn’t say a word.
JJ licked his lips and clenched his teeth.
He slapped the table: “I’m a singer!”
Net nodded with a smile. He understood exactly where that was coming from, because James had left to become who he’d always been, to follow the dreams he’d wanted for so long, and JJ had a very similar path. He also wanted to be good at what he did best, and that meant singing.
“Does any part of you love acting as much as singing?”
The question came softly, without weight, but JJ felt as if someone had switched on a light in a place he guarded more fiercely than he liked to admit. He took a full minute to gather his words, not because he doubted them, not because he needed to think harder, but because he needed Net to understand the scale of it, needed him to see that this wasn’t a small answer.
Not for him.
Not for the dreams he’d hidden inside himself.
“Of course there is…” JJ said, and his voice came out firmer than he expected. “Actually, one thing’s never existed without the other. Singing and acting have always gone hand in hand. It’s like one makes space for the other to breathe”.
He ran a hand over his own wrist, a small gesture, full of contained nerves. Then he smiled, as if that was all he could do.
“I’ll always love acting. Always. In the same way, I’ll always love singing. It’s not a choice between one or the other, it never was. They’re different parts of the same drive, the same way of feeling the world. And nothing that happens is going to change that”.
Net listened in silence. It was a silence full of understanding, almost reverent, as if he were receiving a truth too precious to rush. And when he spoke, it was with a calm, deep certainty, almost too sure.
“For me…” Net murmured, tilting his head slightly, as if checking JJ’s reaction, the way the answer might sink into his skin. “That’s pretty enough, Nong”, his voice seemed to settle in the air, unhurried. “I’m fine with that, because it’s enough to know what makes you light up like that. We’ll figure the rest out later”.
Time hung between them.
Truly.
And it filled with meaning, with paths crossing without either of them having a chance to escape, with something that had settled inside them since the very first hi, with JJ bald, eyebrowless, wearing a neck brace, while Net looked his way.
JJ’s breath faltered, a small stumble that gave away everything he wasn’t ready to say. He gripped the fabric of his trousers without noticing. His gaze shifted slightly, as if running from a thought that shouldn’t exist in that moment, but kept forming anyway, clearer with every second.
And then, with a jolt so subtle it almost slipped by unnoticed, JJ realised he was about to say something that would change everything. Whatever it was, it was already alive inside him, asking for space, asking for a name.
And he didn’t know whether Net was ready to hear it. But, far worse, he didn’t know whether he himself was ready to admit it.
“I… Phi…” JJ looked away. “I like people. Different people, because I think love is falling for someone who makes your heart race and makes you smile in the middle of chaos”, he whispered, trembling. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands. “And it doesn’t matter who they are, I just like those who like me back in the same way. Men or women”.
His face flushed all at once, burning with embarrassment and nerves, even though his whole body was shaking as if he’d been exposed to the cold. He let out a humourless laugh, short and desperate, almost a silent plea for that confession not to change anything. And it was exactly in that moment, when JJ thought he’d ruined everything, that Net smiled.
It wasn’t a big smile, nor one of pity.
It was gentle. The kind of gentleness that seemed impossible, but that only Net knew how to offer. JJ released the breath trapped in his lungs without even knowing why, without understanding what it was in his revelation that had made Net smile like that.
Net leaned in a little more, as if he needed to make sure no word was lost along the way, as if this demanded a delicacy his whole body already knew by heart. When he began to speak, his voice wasn’t just soft, it was steady, filled with a clarity that made JJ feel the ground shift beneath him.
“Look at me for a moment…” Net asked, but it wasn’t an order. It was almost a touch. “I need you to understand something you may never have heard said properly in your life”.
JJ pressed his lips together and lifted his eyes.
“Nothing you’ve just said changes absolutely anything. On the contrary, it only makes me see you more clearly. You haven’t become another person in the last five minutes, you haven’t turned into someone else, to me you’re still just you. The same you who complains when you’re tired, who speaks softly when you’re nervous, who goes serious when you’re paying attention, who laughs so loudly when something’s funny that you don’t even notice what it does to the people around you…” he smiled, but it was a smile too full, almost brimming with pride.
Full of something that said, I see you.
And JJ was surprised, because he hadn’t known Net had noticed all of that in those last five minutes, even though he’d always found him attentive, because he always let the worst side of his thoughts win whenever he tried to consider whether someone found him interesting or cared about his habits.
“To me, you’re still the kid who challenges me without even realising it, who makes me want to be better, who looks at me like you’re reading me without any rush at all…” Net whispered, serious. “You’re still the JJ I chose before I even realised I was choosing someone”.
He breathed in deeply, as if opening his whole chest to make room for what came next, because there was too much truth there to be said lightly. And he wasn’t going to weigh his words, not then:
“I’m not here because you like men or women, I’m here because you’re you, JJ. And you’re the one I want by my side because you feel everything so genuinely that sometimes it seems like you’re living two lives at once. Because you’re honest even when you’re scared. Because you try to protect yourself and still manage to find space to care for others…” Net smiled, sincere. “And if you think that changes anything for me, you’re wrong. It doesn’t. It only confirms it. Confirms that I really do want to do this with you, the way you are, in the direction you choose to move forward. And if you ever doubt that, I’ll repeat it as many times as it takes”.
He leaned in a little more, as if afraid JJ might fall backwards under the weight of everything he was feeling: “I want you, JJ. Not the version you think you should show, not the version the world wants to try to mould. I want you. Exactly like this. With all your certainties and all your fears because, to me, you’re the choice. My choice”.