“P’Fong!” Chirat whined loudly, ”P’Fong! Why didn’t you tell us!”
“What did I say? You’ll know eventually.” P’Fong said smugly.

= = =

.

P’Fong took on a class action lawsuit, which made his and Chirat’s workload went over the top. The boss asked P’Tine and Sam to share some workload, so all four of them buried in work all day. It took a toll on all of them, especially the mentors. P’Fong radiated dangerous aura. P’Tine had been down recently, now it was like his brightness was turned down like a phone screen.

But something was different today. First of all, P’Tine got everyone coffee, which didn’t happen every day. Second of all, he was humming. Humming! Sam couldn’t tell what song it was, but it was familiar.

“P’Tine, did something good happen today?” Chirat raised his head and asked. He and Sam was studying previous cases on the sofa in P’Tine’s office.

“Uh-huh, now that you asked, Chirat, I’ll tell you.” P’Tine said with a big smile. ”My boyfriend is coming back to Thailand today.”

“Oh? He went traveling? Business trip? Where did he go?” Chirat asked more questions.

“Business trip. He went a lot of places this time. We talked on phone everyday, but we always fell asleep during the call. It’s been exhausting recently, for both of us.” P’Tine pouted. He sat behind his desk and logged into the computer. ”So I’m leaving early today, and make a big dinner to celebrate him finishing the trip. I even pre-ordered a cake.”

“Leaving early sounds nice.” Chirat sighed longingly.

“Did I hear someone is leaving early?” P’Fong walked in with a murderous face, the thunder from the dark cloud over his head was audible.

“I am!” P’Tine said cheerfully.

“How dare you!” P’Fong yelled with mock anger, waving his hands in the air, ”Does this cold office have no warmth of friendship? As a dear friend of mine, how could you leave me alone on the battlefield!”

Chirat pointed at himself, ”You’ve got me, P.”

P’Fong just sighed heavily and sat down beside Chirat.

“If you leave early today, you’ll have to work tomorrow even though it’s Saturday. We’ve got a lot of work to do,” said P’Fong.

“So be it. You can’t stop me from leaving early today, Fong.” P’Tine said with determination. And then he switched topic, talking about what dishes he was going to cook tonight. Sam turned his attention back to his reading materials and tuned the chatter of two mentors out.

“So P’Tine’s got a boyfriend?” Chirat whispered to Sam.

“Yeah. A fiancée,” said Sam.

“What is he like?”

“No idea, I’ve never met him,” Sam shrugged.

“Ctrl-S will come back today?” P’Fong asked out of the blue. Hearing his favorite band, Sam turned his attention to their conversation.

“They will land on Bangkok at 3pm today.” Sam answered.

“Are you going to greet them at the airport? Is that why you’re leaving early?” asked P’Fong. He looked at Sam, and then P’Tine.

“I’m not leaving early. I’m not that into Ctrl-S, just a little bit.” Sam said hastily.

“P’Tine is leaving early because of his boyfriend, nothing to do with Ctrl-S.” Chirat told his mentor who didn’t catch their earlier conversation.

P’Fong looked at Chirat and Sam, and gave them a very warm smile. Sam felt a chill as if there was something unsaid in that smile, but Chirat kept reading unbothered.

“Their manager will send a car,” said P’Tine like he didn’t hear their conversation at all. ”Alright! Let’s get some work done! And go home early!” He said enthusiastically.

= = =

Unfortunately, a client asked for help in emergency, and P’Tine had to go to the police station. Which was why Sam was standing in a fancy bakery, waiting for the clerk to get P’Tine’s pre-order cake.

“I’m so sorry, Sam. But you’re the only one I can count on!” P’Tine said while putting on his jacket in hurry, ”I’ll send you’re the address of the bakery. Put the cake in the communal office fridge, and I’ll get it after I finish my business in the police station.”

“I got it P! You can trust me with your cake!”

Sam took out his phone, scrolling down twitter while the clerk get the cake. Ctrl-S had arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport, Sam knew because his sister retweeted some photos of the members at the airport. He liked some photos of Earn. Sarawat wore sun glasses, looking annoyed.

There was something off about Sarawat. Sam scrolled back at Sarawat’s photo. Aside from the sun glasses, there was something not the same about him. Was it his beanie? Sam might’ve seen it before. But all beanies looked alike, right?

“Sir, your order is ready!” The bakery clerk said with big smile. Sam put his phone away.

“Please confirm before I wrap it up. This is an 8-inch earl grey cake, with custom-made decorations.”

The clerk showed him the cake. There was decoration of a simple solar system on it, some orbs on elliptic orbit.

“It’s beautiful.” Sam praised, ”May I take a picture?”

“Of course.” After he took the picture, the clerk wrapped the cake with perfect skill.

= = =

Sam choked on his coffee.

He must’ve been losing his mind. Or gone mental. Or stuck in a dream. That was it, he must’ve been dreaming.

Sam was chewing his toast and drinking coffee while browsing on his phone. Today was Saturday, he planned to have a slow breakfast before anyone came to the firm. He stay at the public space instead of P’Tine’s office. He checked the news, and then scrolled down Instagram. It was all mundane stuff, boring even, until he saw Sarawat’s Instagram post last night.

Sarawat posted a photo of a cake, with decorations of solar system on it.

The caption read:

You revolve around me, I revolve around you

With the filter, the colors looked a little bit different, but Sam was 100% sure that was the very same cake he picked up yesterday.

Realization caught him off guard.

When Chirat came into the office with his breakfast in hand, he saw his un-responding rookie mate.

“Sam? Sam?” Chirat called his name, but Sam was grabbing his phone tightly, mouth opened, his toast forgotten in the other hand.

“SAM!” Chirat yelled. Sam gasped and returned to earth, staring at him with a surprised face.

“What happened? What’s with the face?” Chirat frowned.

“Look at this.” Sam showed him his phone. Chirat moved closer to look.

“Sarawat’s instagram. A cake. What about it?”

“Now look at this.” Sam showed the photo he took yesterday.

“Your photo. A cake.”

“THE VERY SAME CAKE!” Sam screamed. ”This was the cake I picked up for P’Tine yesterday!”

“Wait a minute,” Chirat grabbed Sam’s phone and looked closely.

“They’re exactly the same!” Sam grabbed Chirat’s arm.

“They looked alike…”

“The decoration was custom-made. Look closely!”

“But didn’t P’Tine say the cake was for his fiancée? Which means…”

Sam watched as Chirat widened his eyes and came to the same conclusion.

“Sarawat of Ctrl-S is P’Tine’s fiancee?” Chirat screamed. ”Shia‼”

They stared at each other in disbelief.

“I should’ve known. How could it take me so much time to connect the dots!” Sam whined. ”I must look like an idiot to P’Tine.”

“Sarawat is P’Fong’s client, but he always visits P’Tine.” Chirat recalled the clues.

“I guessed they simply had lunch together and enjoyed the company, not some mysterious power lunch .”

“P’Tine’s fiancée flew back to Bangkok the same day as Ctrl-S.”

“…I guessed when P’Fong asked about going to the airport, he was asking P’Tine, not me.” Sam buried his face in his hands. ”aaarrrrghhhh.”

The office was in silence of epiphany. Chirat came around first, eyes shining.

“Do you think they’ll invite you to their wedding? It would be so cool!” said Chirat in excitement.

“Wedding? Wait, do you think Sarawat would make us sign a NDA?” said Sam, ”Maybe the whole firm already signed the NDA without us knowing?”

“You mean would P’Fong make us sign the NDA! Isn’t P’Fong Sarawat’s lawyer?”

They discussed excitedly, breakfast completely forgotten.

P’Tine walked in. He looked like he didn’t get enough sleep, but his smile was warm as usual. P’Fong walked in behind him with a cup of coffee in his hand.

“Good morning. You two are so early.” P’Tine greeted Sam and Chirat, walking towards his office. Sam stood up in a sudden.

“P’Tine! Your beanie!” Sam stared at P’Tine. ”THAT beanie! I knew I saw it before!”

P’Tine touched his beanie in bewilderment.

“I should’ve known. I noticed that yesterday.” Sam slumped back to his chair. ”My observation is like a Malayan tapir.”

“Notice what?” asked P’Tine.

= = =

“You didn’t know?” P’Tine said in disbelief. ”I thought you found out already.”

“I just found out, like, ten minutes ago.” Sam buried his face in his hands again.

“No way. Sarawat comes here so often…Wasn’t he here on your first day?”

“I…I didn’t know, I thought he was P’Tine’s client…”

“But you knew he wasn’t my client later, and you didn’t say anything. You’re so calm about it I thought you found out from other colleagues. Such as Fong…” P’Tine looked at his best friend.

P’Fong grinned like a cat getting cream.

“P’Fong!” Chirat whined loudly, ”P’Fong! Why didn’t you tell us!”

“What did I say? You’ll know eventually.” P’Fong said smugly. P’Tine laughed.

They buried themselves in work for hours after that. Someone pressed the doorbell around noon. The law firm was locked on weekends, only people with ID cards could enter.

“It’s our lunch,” said P’Tine. He saved the files and closed the laptop.

“Did we order lunch?” Sam asked. Chirat shook his head.

To their surprise, the one showed up at the door with their lunch is no one but Sarawat himself. He didn’t wear his usual baseball cap, looking all messy hair and sleepy face. Sam and Chirat jumped to greet him.

Sarawat put some paper bags on the table. It was fast food from drive thru. ”Should be enough for five people.” He sat down beside P’Tine and leaned on his shoulder. His arm wrapped around Tine’s.

“Sarawat.” P’Fong greeted the guitarist and closed his laptop, too. ”You should be sleeping. You just came back from tour.”

“I miss my pillow,” said Sarawat, nuzzling in P’Tine’s shoulder and closing his eyes.

“Get up, Wat. I can’t eat with you sleeping on me.” P’Tine complained, but didn’t push Sarawat away. In spite of the inconvenience Sarawat caused him, his eyes were tender and loving.

“Never mind.” P’Fong rolled his eyes. ”I’m sorry for making your pillow work on Saturday.”

“It’s alright. I’m here anyway. Tine can’t get rid of me,” said Sarawat.

“Can’t, or won’t?” said P’Fong, narrowing his eyes on the couple. He was used to them being all lovey-dovey at each other since college. Sarawat was always clingy than ever every time he had to leave Tine for the band.

Fong almost felt guilty for asking Tine to work overtime. Almost.

“Do you have to stay here for long?” Sarawat raised his head, resting his chin on Tine’s shoulder.

“I won’t be long, maybe one more hour after lunch. You can wait here,” said P’Tine, eating his lunch with one hand. Sarawat nodded, seemed satisfied with the answer. He let go of Tine’s arm and turned his attention to Sam.

“Sam Wee,” Sarawat searched his bag, and gave Sam a little gift. “Here.”

It was the latest album of Ctrl-S with autograph of every member– except for Earn’s.

“Loot at the back,” said Sarawat.

Sam turned the album over, and he couldn’t help but grinned from ear to ear.  Not only did Earn signed, she even wrote some thankful and blessing words! He had an album signed by Earn now!

“Thank you so much, P’Sarawat!” Sam pressed the album to his chest.

Sarawat shrugged. ”Thank you for taking care of Tine for me.”

“Awwww, Wat made a new friend,” said P’Tine softly. Sarawat glared at him. But the glare showed more fondness than warning. Sam was glad he figured out the true nature of their relationship before witnessing their intimate interactive. He would look like a gasping fish if he didn’t.

“Let’s put some music on. What would you like?” said Tine, reaching for his laptop.

“Have you guys watched the live video Scrubb uploaded last week?” asked Sarawat.

“Nope,” said P’Fong.

“Me neither. We’ve been busy,” said P’Tine.

“Scrubb? Isn’t that band ancient?” asked Chirat.

P’Fong gasped. Sarawat covered P’Tine’s ears swiftly. P’Tine stared at Chirat with astonishment.

“Did I……Did I say something wrong?” said Chirat timidly.

Sam nodded in sympathy. For once, he wasn’t at the receiving end of Sarawat’s death glare.

===THE END===