SOUTHBESIDETHESKY, Chapter 13: We Are The Team!
I hardly slept last night because I kept thinking about what Phii Hill said all night. Now I’m sitting blankly on a chair with an empty mind. Being used to sleeping little has made me quite accustomed to this state; it feels like my brain is functioning several times slower. The morning is pleasantly clear. It’s not too hot. I didn’t forget to take a picture of the sky like I always do. The paper Phii Fah wrote yesterday, I’ve stuck it up for daily inspiration. If I encounter something bad, I can remind myself that it’s nothing.
I’ve decided to tell my friends the whole truth; it’s about time. I think I’m ready for it too. Otherwise, they’ll keep wondering. There have been many incidents where I’ve avoided Phii Fah, and I bet Ter and North have noticed.
Last night, our art club group was chatting on LINE. I decided to tell Dao too. I’ve been getting closer to Daotok; he’s someone who’s hard to get along with. In reality, Dao is quite playful and kind, but he told me about being betrayed by school friends and an ex, making him hesitant to trust anyone. However, Daotok trusts us and shares everything.
When I first learned about Dao’s story, it made me realize everyone has their own unique struggles. When Dao was left alone, it must not have been easy, but he got through it. Even Ter has had his share of bad experiences, like misunderstanding Phii Hill and fighting at home.
In the end, everything got better.
I thought I was doing better after meeting everyone, but deep down, family issues still haunt me, like a knot that keeps hurting and consuming me. I hope, as Ter said, that by speaking out, though they might not be able to help, at least they won’t leave.
As for what Phii Hill said yesterday about thanking Khun Phii Fah, I really don’t understand what he meant. Someone like Phii Hill doesn’t forget things; he must have said it intentionally to make me think about it, or maybe it’s a hint. Why would I need to thank Khun Phii Fah? What’s going on?
I’ve been pondering these questions all night until I got tired of thinking. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. I peeked and saw Ter and North standing outside.
“Hey,” I greeted, “What are you carrying so much?”
“Sweets, from Phii Jo’s mom. She sent too much, so we’re sharing,” North said, placing the bags full of treats on the table.
“Oh, really, thanks,” I said happily before checking what kind of sweets they were, “And Dao?”
“He’ll be here soon, he’s still on the second bus,” Ter replied, coming over to look in the bags with me. North flopped onto the bed.
“Oh, you greedy bastards!”
“Then you’re not eating, huh?” Ter said.
“Eat up,” North said, scanning the room, “Sit in a circle, so we can eat snacks together.” “On the floor?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
The three of us moved the snacks to the center of the room and sat in a circle, chatting casually until Daotok arrived. Now, the four of us sat in a circle, chatting so much we forgot why we came here in the first place.
“Okay, what’s the purpose of our gathering today?” North asked.
“My issue.”
“Yeah, your issue,” North said, still chewing on some snacks, “If you don’t want us to interfere so much, just say so.”
“Hold on. It doesn’t mean that,” I said with a slight laugh, “I mean, it’s about my issue.”
“Yeah, I know it’s about your issue. We won’t interfere, you jerk.” “Why are you getting so mad?” I laughed because of North’s exaggerated, angry demeanor, “Let’s talk about my issue, how should
I explain this?”
“Go ahead.”
“Is it that simple?” I raised my eyebrows to ask.
“Yeah, come on, I’m waiting to hear it.”
“You’re so impatient, North,” Ter said, “It’s probably hard to explain.”
“So what?” North asked, “Is it a secret?” “Secret,” I nodded.
“How secret?”
“How good are you at keeping secrets, North?”
“Ugh, I really don’t want to be involved in this,” North said casually, “You know, even the President trusts me to remember the nuclear codes.”
“Really that much?” I asked, widening my eyes at him.
“Yeah, I’m super good at keeping secrets.”
“For real?” Ter asked, making a face of disbelief.
“Yeah, I’ve kept one friend’s secret about liking another friend for a whole year now, man.”
Is that considered good at keeping secrets?
“Hmm, well…actually, I don’t want you to tell anyone else,” I started speaking seriously, “It’s quite a secret, a real secret. Don’t tell anyone, especially not the doctors.”
“…”
Everyone began to frown seriously, except for North, who still had that innocent look. “North.”
“Hmm, what?”
“Agreed?”
“Yeah, do you think I’m the type to blab?”
“Completely.”
“Very funny, Phoon. I know when to be serious,” North said, pouting in annoyance.
“Okay, it might not be…something you think is a big deal, but it’s my whole life up to now, my life before I met you guys. I just ask that you don’t hate me for this,” I said, clasping both hands together. My hands were turning cold because of the silence in the room and the growing tension, making me hear my own heartbeat.
“Do we look like the type to hate you?” Ter asked, “Right, Dao?” “We don’t hate cats, even if they scratch our faces,” Daotok said, which made me smile involuntarily, “You can scratch, just take us for shots afterward.”
“Alright, I’ll start…”
And then I began telling the whole story to the three of them, everything, from when I was a kid, the story about Phii Fah, Fan, my family issues, the punishments I’ve endured, everything. It took nearly half an hour to tell. Ter listened with a tense look, Dao too, while North seemed more angry than anything.
“Damn.”
“North, calm down.”
“What’s with your dad?”
“North…” Ter warned, knowing North was hot-headed. I understood well; it was really frustrating, indeed.
“It’s fine,” I spoke up, “I’m a bit angry too.”
“Sigh, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, really,” North sighed.
“It’s okay, North, you can speak. Go ahead.”
“Uh, I just wanted to say not everyone is suited to be a parent.” “Hmm,” I nodded slightly, looking down at my tightly clasped hands, “But he’s already my father.” “Sigh, you’re amazing, Phoon,” North said.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you’re incredibly strong, you know that?”
“Really?”
“Yes, thanks for getting through it,” Ter said, getting up to kneel, spreading his arms wide, “Come here for a hug.”
“…Ter.”
I called out softly to the person in front of me, tears I didn’t know where they came from slowly dripped down. I slowly went in to hug Ter, resting my face on his shoulder.
“Hic…hic, sob…”
“You crybaby,” North said, before gently patting my back in a comforting manner.
“There, there, kitty,” Daotok also came in for a gentle hug. I reached out my other arm to hug Dao as well.
“…Thank you, guys.”
After crying and hugging them, I went to the bathroom to wash my face, then came out to find the troublesome bunch messing with my desk.
“What are you doing?”
“Is this your sister Fan?”
“Hmm, why?”
“I thought you were a fan of this artist and this was your idol, that’s why there are so many photos,” North said, already sitting comfortably in my chair, “This way, you must miss your brother a lot.”
“Well, yeah,” I said softly, slumping down on the bed.
“How about putting up a photo of me? So you can miss me too.”
“…Probably not a good idea.”
“North is trying to insert himself into your nostalgia, Phoon,” Ter said, coming to sit next to me. Meanwhile, Dao stood beside North, scanning the table with his eyes. “Does the cat write letters every day?”
“Yes.”
“Wow, if it were me, I’d be so lazy.”
“I thought you’d like drawing and writing,” I said.
“That’s work,” Daotok said, “I like doing work.”
“No work, no money, people need to eat and spend, right, Dao?” North said, pulling out his wallet, searching for something, then placing a student ID photo on the table, “Do you have scissors?”
“North, what are you doing?”
“Pasting my photo, of course.”
“You’re sticking up a student ID photo?”
“Yeah, I don’t have any other photos. Here, scissors,” North rummaged through my drawer without asking, cutting out his photo from the blue background, “Glue?”
“Do I have to read while looking at your photo, seriously?” I asked, frowning. He’s even cutting it out; he must really mean it. “Here’s the glue.” Found glue too. Shouldn’t have put used stuff in the drawer. “Do you want photos of Ter and Dao too?”
“No, thanks.”
“Why?” Ter shot back quickly, “Why do you have a photo of North but not of me?”
“…”
“I won’t accept this, Phoon, I won’t, I’m upset, right, Dao?” “Hmm, why are you doing this, cat? You don’t love your friends equally,” Dao said, frowning seriously, just like Ter who was pretending to be pouty beside me.
What’s this all about…
“Phoon loves me. Don’t you know that?” North said, shrugging slightly, sticking his photo he just cut out with glue, “The loser has to take care of themselves, okay?”
“What’s ‘okay’ in your house?”
“Hey, Ter, you’re so harsh,” North said, laughing out loud.
“What do you want, Phoon? Choose me, Dao, or North.” “Why do we have to take sides?” I asked.
“Choose, there’s North. No need for me.”
“Now it’s getting out of hand,” I said, laughing, “What is this? Can’t
I choose both sides?”
“Phoon, you two-timer,” Ter stood up and pointed at me, “Didn’t you say we’d love each other forever?”
“Oh, so you broke up with me to be with Phoon, huh?” North chimed in, remembering that these two had just broken up, “How could you do this, Ter?” “You’re old news, get out.”
“I’m hurt, Phoon, come here.”
“What?”
“You stole Ter from me.”
“Hold on.”
“Let’s talk like men.”
“…Sigh, Dao, stop them, please,” I turned to Daotok for help when I saw that Ter and North weren’t going to back down. Initially, they were fighting over me, but now they were arguing about breaking up. However, Daotok just stood there, trying not to laugh while recording a video.
“So, in summary, it’s a love triangle. At first, North and Ter were dating, then Ter broke up with North over some chocolate issue, and then Ter started liking Phoon, but Phoon chose North instead,”
Daotok explained, “It’s up to Phoon now to choose.”
“I don’t want to choose either.”
“Life requires choices.”
“Then choose Dao.”
“Ohhh,” North dragged out the sound, “In that case, me and Ter will get back together.”
“Fine, but you can’t steal my chocolate again.”
“For the sake of the younger brother, I can do it.”
“So, you guys are back together now? You just broke up yesterday,” I said with a sigh. North is nonsensical, Ter usually goes along with it, and so does Daotok.
“Hey, Phoon, can I print something?”
“Sure, why?”
“I need to print something,” North’s words made me get up to see.
“Why do you want to print a Naruto picture?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“I want to put my face on it.” North printed the picture, cut out just Naruto’s body, and then pasted his own face from the student ID photo onto it, “I’ve pasted it.” “No, no, damn it.”
“I’ve already pasted it.”
“…Fck.”
Now, on the wall next to my desk, there’s an image of North as Naruto.
What the fck…
Seriously, fck.
The point is, I have to sit at this desk every day to study, looking at North’s Naruto face every single day.
Damn…
“Fcking hilarious,” Ter said, laughing out loud, “And his head is bigger than the body, your photo is too large, man.” “Why does it have to be Naruto?” I asked.
“I want to be Hokage.”
Hmm…protect the village too, Lord Hokage.
“Ter, are you in?”
“Sure.”
Ask me first; it’s my wall…
And then Ter became Chubby Maruko, because the torso part of the picture was a bit small, sticking beside North, who was Naruto.
Maruko-chan…isn’t your face stranger than usual?
“Dao, are you interested?”
“Yeah, why not.”
Sigh…can’t stop them anymore, do whatever you want.
And then Daotok became Shin-chan, with North using the image of Shin-chan with his pants down.
“Why does it have to be Shin-chan?”
“We like Shin-chan.”
“Okay.”
“Phoon, are you in?”
“No.”
“What do you like? How about a cat?”
“No.”
“How about Jiji, the cat from ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’? It’s cute, right?” Daotok suggested.
“Too cute,” North said, “When we talk about cats, which one comes to mind?”
“Doraemon,” Ter said.
“Yeah, yeah, the chubby one is good.”
“North,” I called his name in a low voice, but it seemed too late. He started printing out a picture of Doraemon, intentionally scaling it down a bit so he could paste my face onto it, and I became Doraemon, with an even bigger head, still a cat, but now a 21stcentury robot cat.
At first, the wall had nice, dreamy pictures, but now it’s just full of cartoon characters, and they’re all terrible. Sorry, Fan, your picture has to be next to these ones.
“Come on, when you’re feeling down while studying, seeing these will definitely de-stress you,” North said.
“It’ll stress me out even more. Look at your faces, these student ID photos, damn it.”
“Your face is so puffy, North,” Ter said after staring at North’s student ID photo.
“Too much light, man, your eyes look cross-eyed.”
“How can my eyes be cross-eyed? I was looking straight at the camera,” Ter said, “But Dao’s photo turned out nice.” Daotok gave a shy, small smile at the compliment.
Then we all sat back in a circle like before. North suggested we play poker. I remembered we played last time too, when Dao read my fortune and commented on my love life. I had completely forgotten about that.
“Want to read fortunes?” North suggested. He’s very into fortunetelling, believes in it wholeheartedly, even admitting to being quite superstitious.
“Can’t do it today,” Dao said.
“Why?”
“It’s closed…like, can’t do it.”
“Oh,” we nodded in understanding, “Hey, Dao.”
“What?”
“Since you’re good at reading fortunes…do you have any special senses?”
My question made Ter and North look at each other, and Daotok went silent. “If I said I did?”
“Then I’d like to ask…”
“Phoon,” North called my name with a trembling voice. He’s the type of guy who’s not scared of anything in the world, except for ghosts, which scare the wits out of him.
“We don’t have any.”
“…”
“Really, I have no sense for this.”
I sighed without knowing why; Daotok gave a small smile before we went back to playing cards.
“By the way, what about the gift you mentioned?” North suddenly remembered, “The one for someone named Ren, have you kept it?”
“Kept it.”
“Want to see it.”
“Sure.” I got up from the card circle and went to fetch four boxes, placing them in the middle of the room. Everyone immediately turned their attention to them.
“Who’s this Ren?” North asked while examining the box, opening it to look inside.
“You really think it’s your mom, don’t you?” Ter asked, also opening another box.
“Hmm, I wish it was.”
“So, Ren is you?”
“I don’t know.”
“It might be a name your mom gave you before your dad changed it to Typhoon,” North suggested.
“I don’t know. I don’t know where to find evidence or information,” I said, frustrated. There was only the name Ren written on it. What should I do with this?
“If you sent it to the wrong person, that would be funny.” “Yeah, what if we sent it to the wrong person?” I nodded in agreement with North.
“If it really is your mom, what will you do?” North asked, making me pause. That’s right…if it really is my mom, what would I do next?
“Would you meet her?”
“I don’t know, but I want to, I want to ask everything, but another part of me is scared, I don’t know.”
“Go for it.”
“…”
North’s words made me turn to look at him.
“Just go meet him, at least you’ll meet.”
“Hmm.”
“This is…” Daotok’s voice made us all turn to look. Dao picked up a robot model from a box, “This robot is a limited edition.” “Really?” I asked, eyes wide with disbelief, crawling over to Dao. “Yeah, produced only in the year 2008, just at the beginning of the year.”
“Wow…” I looked at it, stunned, “So, it’s really rare then.” “Yeah, I’ve seen people looking for it. Only a few were made.” “Is that true?” Ter raised his eyebrows to ask.
“It’s true. I’ve been collecting things like this since I was a kid; I wanted one too,” Dao said, his eyes sparkling as he looked at the robot in his hand, probably really fond of it.
“Where was it produced?” I asked.
“Japan.”
“Then we have a little clue, right?” North said, “This gift was sent in 2008, it might have been sent from Japan, but there are several possibilities.”
Yes…as North said, there are many possibilities. The person who sent it could be in Japan and sent it from there, or it could be a tourist who bought it in Japan.
“I think it might be a Japanese person.” “Why?” I turned to ask Dao. “Foreigners probably wouldn’t know about it much, since there were so few of them, and at that time, the company wasn’t very well-known either. Only Japanese people would go and buy it.”
“So, that means the percentage of it being bought by a Japanese person is higher, right?” “Yes, that’s what I think.”
“But there’s still a chance they might have asked someone else to buy it.”
“Hmm, that’s true.”
“But at least, these items were probably sent from Japan to Thailand,” Daotok said, “Models like these break easily, they wouldn’t ship them frequently. Just once from Japan to Thailand would be enough.”
“Oh,” I nodded in understanding.
“If we can find out who sent models from Japan to Thailand in 2008, we might find the sender,” North said, “But how would we do that?”
“That’s the question.”
“Would there only be one person sending models?” Ter asked.
“Yeah, that’s the point.”
And then the four of us sat pondering for a while. In the end, we couldn’t figure out how to trace the sender. With just a little information from Daotok, we had to put the boxes back where they were.
We continued talking about my situation while still playing cards, discussing family matters that all three of them said were hard to swallow because he’s still my father. And about Phii Fah… “So, you like Phii Fah, right?” North asked. I nodded slightly, embarrassed when asked so directly; it made me feel quite shy. “Coincidentally, you are friends with Phii Hill and Phii Jo too,”
Daotok said, “It must be fate.” “Too coincidental,” I said.
“And what are you going to do? Is it good to continue like this?” Ter asked.
“It’s not good, it’s driving me crazy.”
“Hmm. We’ve noticed it too, Ter told me he felt something odd between you and Phii Fah,” North said.
“Do you think Phii Fah will be angry?”
“I don’t know, but he did contact me yesterday,” I said.
“And you, North, if someone told you that you’re annoying?”
“Fuck, if I’m annoying, they can get lost.”
“You need to calm down, man,” I said, laughing a little, “You guys are dating friends of Phii Fah, and my dad is even more suspicious of me.”
“Being suspicious for nothing.”
“Probably afraid I’ll approach Phii Fah.”
“Then just go approach him.”
“No way,” I shook my head gently at North, “If my dad finds out, he might really make me change schools, and he always accuses me of being a liar.”
“…”
“I don’t want to be what he accuses me of. I once lied to Phii Fah, and I’ve felt guilty about it until now.”
“Yeah, so what should you do?” North said, sounding exasperated, “I don’t know how to advise you. If someone asks me how to handle liking someone secretly, I’d just say go for it.”
“You’re the charge-forward type,” Ter told North, “There must be a way. You want to talk to Phii Fah, right?”
“Yeah, just want to talk, just a normal conversation. I just want to know how he’s doing.”
“It’s not that hard,” Daotok said in a calm tone.
“How?”
“You promised not to bother Tonfah, right?”
“Hmm.”
“Then you don’t have to let Tonfah know it’s you.”
“How?” North furrowed his brows, looking puzzled, “Have Phoon wear a mask to talk to Phii Fah?”
“North, you dimwit,” Ter said, “So what’s your plan, Dao?”
“Write a letter. Don’t you like writing letters?” Oh…right.
Write a letter…