Laughing When You Needed Reassurance
It all started with that damn sweater.
Warich found it tucked into the laundry basket. It was one of Klao's oversized, worn-out gray ones, still carrying the faint scent of his cologne.
He didn't mean to hold it. He just did. Stood in the middle of the hallway, sweater pressed to his face as if he was trying to breathe someone long dead back into existence. He didn't cry, but he felt it.
The ache. The missing. The guilt.
He fell asleep on the couch, exhausted by the silence in the apartment. And he dreamed.
💔
(Six Months Ago)
Klao was pacing by the window, hands shoved into his hoodie pockets. "Do you think we're gonna make it?"
It was out of nowhere. No fight. No tension. Just quiet vulnerability, floating in like a fog. Warich had looked up from his phone, confused. "What?"
Klao hesitated. "Us. You and me."
"Why wouldn't we?"
"I don't know." Klao shrugged. "It took me a while to get over your past with Yotha. You don't really talk about the future. And sometimes it feels like I'm the only one thinking about where this is going."
Warich rolled his eyes back then. "You always overthink everything." He'd laughed and teased Klao, calling him dramatic. What he hadn't done... was answer.
💔
(Present)
Warich woke up with a tightness in his chest and tears running down his face. He'd been crying in his sleep. The living room was dark. His phone screen was lit with notifications, but none from Klao.
That night, he wrote out a message. Not one of those short texts like before. This one was real. Raw.
I know I hurt you. You asked me once if we were going to make it. I didn't answer you then. I thought if I ignored the question, it wouldn't matter. But it did. I'm sorry I made you feel alone when you were still standing right next to me. I miss you.
He didn't send it. He saved it to Drafts.
And then went back to staring at the wall, sweater still folded in his lap like a ghost that refused to leave.