#tags: kongart week 2020

[unpopular-bishop]

outsider pov

“I already have someone’s gear in my care.”

-

Khaofang isn’t bitter.

Sure, she’s liked Kongpob since she first saw him, and sure, she’s been trying to gather the courage to confess for months, and sure, her feelings are hurt and her pride is hurt and she is sad. But she isn’t bitter, and she’ll get over it. She liked Kongpob, but she wasn’t in love or anything. Maybe she could have been, given a few more months, but Kongpob had been blunt but kind in his let down. Hadn’t given her even a hint of hope to hold on to.

And she can appreciate and respect that. If she can’t be with him, then at the very least, she wants him to be happy. If he’s already taking care of someone’s gear, and he seems so serious about the responsibility, well...that must mean something. Must mean he loves the person he cares about very much. Is happy with them. She very much wants him to be happy.

So she isn’t bitter.

...

She is, on the other hand, curious as hell. Who in the world could have snatched up someone as kind and patient and smart and sort of perfect as her Phi?

Standing on the beach and watching Kongpob walk away, Khaofang imagines that whoever she is, she’s got to be about as perfect as Kongpob.

She imagines someone beautiful, but in a plain sort of way. Someone who doesn’t draw stares, but who has a presence and a nice smile. Someone who likes to be doted on. She can tell that Kongpob likes to do things for the people he cares about. He’s observant and always there with a kind word or advice when any of his juniors need it. Even his punishments tend to be kind and he always explains why he’s handing out exercise or essays. And he smiles a lot, so the person who’s gear he’s taking care of must smile a lot, too. Maybe she’s funny? Khaofang hopes so. Or maybe she doesn’t smile enough, so Kongpob makes up for it. Maybe instead of funny, she’s overly serious or stoic.

Khaofang pictures a blank, person-shaped image in her head and slowly molds it into what she thinks is the perfect person for Kongpob. She’s pretty in a quiet sort of way, and has a serious face that is cute when she smiles. She’s got a good personality, Khaofang decides; maybe not as kind as Kongpob but definitely similar to him. She has a gear, so she must be smart like Kongpob, too, and tough enough to have gotten through the previous years of SOTUS hazing, which Khaofang has heard were much more rigorous. Was she in Kongpob’s year? Or older?

Khaofang thinks she would have noticed someone hanging around her Phi after all this time, so she decides that his girlfriend must be older - a year or two at least. And she must like to be doted on, but also makes sure to take care of Kongpob in turn, for him to care about her so dearly. He hadn’t even hesitated to reject her, and she was a catch!

She follows her Phi slowly, trying to both soothe her own hurt and imagine the kind of person she lost out to without even realizing they exist. She wants to meet her, if possible. Wants to know if she’s really as perfect as Khaofang thinks, hopes, she is. Wants to see if maybe, just maybe, Khaofang might have a chance in the future.

-

She doesn’t quite know how it happens, but she and Kratai end up sitting with the seniors later that night. She and Kongpob are sitting on opposite sides and ends of the table. She can’t help that she wishes she were closer to him, even after the rejection. Kongpob just has an aura of calm warmth, a kindness that makes her feel happy and relaxed but energized all at once.

She hopes that the person who he has given his gear to feels that, too. Hopes that she feels it even more, even! She better appreciate what and who she has or Khaofang will swoop in!

Khaofang sneaks a glance toward Kongpob and takes a second to appreciate how nice he looks. She’s used to seeing him so serious and put together. His hair is usually slicked back and his engineering shirt gives him the air of an intimidating senior, and he always stands so straight and stiff when he’s around his juniors.

Here, though, he looks soft. His hair is ungelled and he’s wearing a billowy white shirt that softens his face and sort of brings out a sweetness that she’s never quite noticed before. Plus the cut of the collar is low enough that she feels her face flush before she cuts her eyes away. It isn’t fair to her, or to him, to keep looking. Especially after she’s been so rejected just an hour ago - and she’ll stop.

Just one more night, and she’ll stop.

She glances again.

Kongpob is sitting with a graduated senior she’s spotted around a few times but has never really spoken to. She’d say Kongpob was sitting between this Phi and M, except there’s a pointed space between Kongpob and M that just doesn’t exist between her Phi and his Phi. The senior has an arm slung across Kongpob’s shoulders in a casual sort of touch that she’s never seen anyone have with him before. Kongpob has never been unfriendly, but there is often a distance, a wall, that he keeps up between himself and other people around him. M is exempt, in a way, but she can’t remember a time that even he has been so casually close to Kongpob before. She might not have noticed except that she is watching tonight, drinking him in so that she will have this night to remember until she’s truly ready to let go.

She isn’t good with names, and only knows Bright’s because he so loudly introduced himself earlier, but he and Prem seem close to the senior next to Kongpob.

“Arthit!” Bright says loud enough to catch her attention, and that must be his name because he perks up. She’s caught up in how happy Kongpob looks, relaxed in a way she hadn’t imagined he could look, and that’s why she notices the way he leans into Arthit’s space just a little. Kongpob’s shoulders are lax and he can’t seem to keep his eyes off Arthit’s face, memorizing it not unlike how she’s memorizing his. “Where the hell have you been? Why did you disappear!? You went to be with Kongpob, didn’t you?” he sings a silly song but she’s distracted by he and Prem beginning to bicker about Prem doing the gear ceremony alone.

“Ai’Arthit kept calling me! He even took a cab to meet me at my bar. Look how much he wanted to come.”

She doesn’t know why that statement gets a reaction but Arthit pulls such an innocent face that even she can tell that something is up, and Kongpob starts to smile again, a slow and sweet sort of look that makes her heart ache for some reason.

“You’re talking too much.” Arthit says pointedly and Prem buts in with more teasing. They get Arthit spluttering but Khaufang can’t help but watch how happy Kongpob looks - like a cat who’s tasted the cream. He’s still leaning in to Arthit. Something is beginning to wiggle at the back of Khaufang’s mind, but she just doesn’t know what it is. Something feels like it’s close to clicking into place but hasn’t just yet.

She’s still thinking about it when Bright demands pictures, and she smiles automatically even as her mind churns to make sense of the information in front of her. She can taste the answer she’s coming closer and closer to, but she can’t recognize the flavor of it yet.

Kongpob looks like he’s bracing himself and she tunes back into the conversation in time to hear Prem demand, “Ai’Arthit! Your eyes were on Kongpob!”

“What!? No!”

She sees Kongpob’s cheeks start to go red and he lifts a hand to his face, covering his pleased, wide grin. She’s never seen him smile like that before.

“He mistook N’Kongpob’s eyes for the camera!” Bright accuses with a flourish of the phone and Khaufang watches as the whole table of Kongpob’s closest friends and seniors all ooooh loudly in teasing, implicating noises.

“I wanted to show my side profile!” Arthit tries to deny, but he’s blushing, just a bit, and Kongpob looks - happy. So happy.

Khaofang takes a deep, deep drink of her water and wishes it were something stronger.

All of the pieces click.

-

She sits on the bus with Kratai asleep against her shoulder and watches the world blur by as she thinks.

Arthit is not at all like she imagined Kongpob’s sweetheart to be. He’s a man, for one, but she’s a modern girl in modern times and that doesn’t bother her.

He’s handsome, at least - not the understated beauty she’s been imagining but he looked - soft, at dinner. Like there were hard edges to him that the beach had washed smooth for a time. But he wasn’t funny like Bright, but nor was he especially stoic. And Kongpob didn’t crack jokes to make him laugh, or dote on him especially. If she hadn’t been watching, if their friends hadn’t given them up, she would have more than likely written the night away as two close friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while.

She couldn’t write away the look on Kongpob’s face, though, as he watched Arthit like he might disappear at any moment. He hadn’t torn his gaze from Arthit the entire time, like Arthit had drawn him into orbit without even realizing. In the rare instances that Kongpob had looked away, Arthit had found him with his eyes and smiled in a way that made her feel like she hadn’t been supposed to see it.

No, she decides and lets Kratai tangle their hands together and settle more comfortably on her shoulder, Arthit isn’t really anything at all like she thought her love rival would be.

But the way Kongpob had looked at him, the way he’s practically glowed every time they’d been poked at or Arthit had leaned closer to him, was enough to show her that the most important thing was true - Kongpob was happy. He was taking care of Arthit’s gear and Arthit was probably taking care of his in return.

She’d lost long before she’d even known that she should start racing, but she still finds herself smiling at the memory of that shy, pleased grin on Kongpob’s face when Bright at teased them after the photo.

She isn’t bitter about this loss at all.

But, she thinks firmly to herself, Arthit better watch out, and take care of that gear with his whole heart. Otherwise, she’ll still be here, and she’ll make him regret it!