Do. You. Like Me?”
Chapter 20: Mork
“And that’s it.”
I end my story.
“Huhhhh? What, just like that?”
P'Fueang raises his eyebrows, eyes widened. “He told ya he likes ya, and that’s it?”
I nod slowly. “Yah, what do you expect? He’s a doctor, bro, I’m a Win-driver. You think this is a novel? You think social status doesn’t matter and we can love each other? This is real life, come on.”
“Eh… So how’d ya friggin’ answer him?”
P'Fueang calls for an answer while looking at me intensely.
“Well…”
I can’t decide how to break it to him.
“D’ya friggin' reject him?”
I slowly nod again to his guess.
“And how’d the doc...react to it?”
I tighten my lips. Returning his stare and using the silence to communicate in place of an answer, I hope the look in my eyes will answer his question, because I don’t want to say it out loud.
“Shittt, man! You can’t give up without a happy ending. I was rooting for you so friggin' hard!” He seems utterly disappointed with my story…
At that, I can’t refrain from bursting into laughter.
“No freaking way, P’, I was just pulling your leg. That wasn’t it. I’m not the type to let it end that way, no?”
I wish I could keep going for a bit more before revealing it. His shocked face is so hilarious that I want to see it longer, but I really can’t hold my laugh anymore and have to tell him the truth.
“Oh, you friggin' son of a b…! I’mma kick yer ass.”
It is not just an empty threat, he gets up from the bench and gets ready to kick me.
“Yikes! Calm down, P’, don’t you want to listen some more? Don’t kick me yet.”
“What? You want me to sum up total kicks later?”
I laugh impishly. “Just in case more things make you irritated or envious, you should keep your kicks for when I finish.”
“Spit it out already, you jerk. I’m listening!”
P'Fueang sits back down and waits for me to continue.
“Well...after he told me, I…”
…………
“Mork… I like you.
Do. You. Like Me?”
Then, Tawan stood still, looking at me while I was stunned and dumbfounded. I wasn’t sure if I heard it wrong or if I was dreaming.
“Uh… Wait, doc, you just said you like me? Did you?”
He nodded. “Yep, I said that I like you.”
I blinked repeatedly. Actually, I wanted to pinch myself to check and make sure that it wasn’t a dream.
“Doc, you really like me? B...but...I’m a hired motorcycle driver.”
“Right, I really like you.” Tawan looked like he was frowning at me.
“How many times do you want me to repeat that before you believe me? It’s embarrassing to say it so many times!”
After that, he took one step closer to me.
“I like you, Mork. I don’t know since when, but I like you. Maybe I started liking you since...before I had a fallout with P'Por. I guess I just...didn’t realize it.”
Then, Tawan went quiet…
I saw him taking a deep breath, in and slowly out.
“I don’t know, Mork. I don’t know anything. At first, I didn’t know that I like you. When I figured it out, I didn’t know what I should do, or if I should tell you. I don’t know if you’ll like me back. I don’t know at all.”
“But…”
He paused again, looking at the Hainanese chicken rice he had just accepted from me.
“But if I don’t know and don’t start finding any answer, I will end up not knowing. It’s like I got a hint on a winning lottery number. If I decide to buy a lottery, there’s a chance I’ll just waste my money, and a chance to win a prize. But if I don’t buy it, the winning number will stay in my head only. Now, if that happens to be the actual winning number…”
He gazed at me.
“I will end up regretting and thinking why I didn’t just go ahead and buy it. I could have won. And even though I didn’t win, I would have learned a lesson that the winning hint isn’t reliable, that next time I shouldn’t buy it.”
Tawan’s lips slowly bloomed into a faint smile. “I don’t want to be the one who regrets, and I don’t want to be the one who doesn’t learn any lesson. So I’ve decided I need to stake my everything on it.”
“Uh…” I slowly followed what he said.
“Doc...you want to eat some steak?”
Tawan bursted out laughing.
“Jeez, Mork, nope! To stake in this context means to take a risk, to gamble, silly.”
“You’re taking a risk by…?” I asked.
“By telling you I like you. And now I hold my breath...for your...for your answer.”
Likes me. Likes me. Likes me.
He likes me. He likes me. He likes me.
Tawan likes me. Tawan likes me. Tawan likes me.
My own voice echoed inside my head, mixed with my heart beats that kept racing faster and faster. My ears rang, my body warmed up, my limbs numb, and my breath shortened. I never felt like that before, even when I asked Fern out and she said yes. I didn’t feel like this.
This time, it felt like...someone set off fireworks in my body.
It felt like...the blood in my body wasn’t purely blood, it had happiness mixed in there. The happiness flooded my whole chest and my heart pumped it along to every part of my body (the heart’s function is to send blood around your body, right?)
I felt as if the happiness wasn’t only in my chest.
But it spilled over from the chest, flooding through every part of me.
Tawan still stood in front of me, waiting for my reply.
He was really there. I became sure it wasn’t a dream.
Tawan already did his part, and it was my turn to do my part.
“Doctor.”
I carefully arranged the sentences in my head and tried to focus while breathing in and out slowly.
“Buying a lottery might be called taking a risk, and going to a casino is also taking a risk. But Tawan, telling me you like me…” I shook my head only gently so as not to break our eye contact. I didn’t want to waste my time by taking my eyes off his face even for one second.
“It’s not taking a risk. It’s called giving me a chance.”
“Do you know, doc, that before I met you, I was just Mork, a nobody, an ordinary guy who was content with what he had. I thought it was the life I should live, waking up to drive the mototaxi and going home in the evening. When I grow old, I might go back to Chumphon and open a small shop selling whatever, and live like that until my last day.”
In hindsight, it’s laughable. I really thought like that.
After ending the relationship with Fern, I never thought about a girlfriend or about starting a family. I plainly wanted to survive day by day and earn just enough money to live decently as an old man, to go back to Chumphon without being a burden to mom. And if I have more money, I hope I can take care of Khai. And that’s it. I never considered doing anything else besides driving a motorcycle taxi… I was satisfied with my job.
“But once I knew you, doc, I started to feel...dissatisfied.”
Tawan furrowed his brows, puzzled. “You’re dissatisfied? With what?”
I nodded. “Yah, doc, I am. I’m dissatisfied with myself, with who I am. Just that. I’m no longer satisfied with my original future plan. You made me feel like I should do something with my life, not simply living it in the comfort zone. You made me realize, doc.”
“What did you realize, Mork?”
He asked.
“I realized I was like a rocket, a rocket without fuel, even. It’s been left lying around somewhere on the ground, staring up at the sky thinking the sky is so beautiful. Yet, I kept telling myself the sky wasn’t my place.”
I recalled the day Tawan told me
to quit saying I am nothing but a mototaxi driver. He told me to say I am still a mototaxi driver right now. I thought about the day we rode the Metro train together and he nudged me with his elbow when I said a guy like me could only drive a motorcycle.
“But after I knew you, I realized I can go up into the sky. It can be my place, too. And I will get there. Doc, you’re like my rocket fuel. You made me…”
When he said he likes me, he took a step closer, and now I took another step towards him. Our distance gradually decreased during this conversation.
“You made me want to be a better person.”
I slowly reached over to hold his hand…
At first, I could sense that Tawan jumped slightly. Maybe he didn’t expect me to hold his hand, but he didn’t try to pull it away. He let me hold onto his hand, and that encouraged me enough to say the next thing.
“Doctor… I like you, too. For a long time now. I don’t know since when, either. But… You know, I think I started liking you first.” I couldn’t help boasting proudly. Well, that’s really how I felt. I was sure I started liking him before he started liking me.
“It was the small things in each day, each of them steadily made me fall for you… At first, I was surprised with myself for liking a man. But doc, when I thought about you, it felt so wonderful that all of the weird feelings and doubts flew away from my head.”
I gripped his hand more firmly and felt his hand squeezing back as well.
“Doc, have you ever paid for something in installments?”
“Huh…? What? Sorry, I can’t quite follow you. What about it?” Tawan raised his eyebrows high.
I chuckled. “It’s alright. Tell me, have you bought something and paid in installments?”
He nodded in a reply. “Yep, like my cellphone. My salary isn’t much.”
I smiled. “I did too, my motorcycle and cellphone both. When we buy something with an installment payment plan, we receive the goods first, and we promise the seller that we’ll keep paying until we pay off the whole amount, with an interest rate.”
Tawan nodded in agreement.
“Right… And what about it? I’m confused, Mork.”
“I really like you, doctor. I know I’m not the man who deserves you yet. But one day, I will deserve you. I can do it, I’m sure, and I will start immediately. Please wait for me, doc. But for now…”
I pulled his hand and pressed it against my chest, hoping he could feel my heart beat through the touch.
“Can you be my boyfriend first, doc?”
I felt like someone lit firecrackers inside my head.
Everything in front of me seemed to dazzle, my ears ringing deafeningly.
“I’m asking you to become my boyfriend first. I promise I’ll do everything to improve myself and be a fitting person for you. I promise you, like the installment contract. Please be my boyfriend now. I don’t want to wait any longer. I don’t want to waste the time we could have spent together anymore. And I don’t want anyone else to get close to you… I…”
I mustered all my courage.
And used every bit of it to say the closing statement.
I pulled his hand up.
Then, kissed the back of his hand.
“Please let me take care of you for the rest of your life.”
Tawan’s eyebrows were still raised, his face still full of doubts.
My heart sank for a moment and felt like it was going to stop beating.
Eventually and gradually, his eyebrows relaxed and his puzzled face returned to neutral.
The corners of that small mouth curl into a smile again, and his eyes, looking straight at me, lit up.
His small face slowly nodded…
He stepped forward, closing the distance, and made our bodies touch.
“You had me since you said it wasn’t taking a risk, silly.”
“Does this mean you’re okay with this?” I double checked, just...just to make sure. Well, you know me, I’m dull.
“I’m more than okay with this! How many times must I repeat this, you dullhead.” Tawan laughs, shaking his head.
I let go of his hand and pulled him into a hug. He put his arms around me and hugged back, resting his face against my chest and staying there for a long time. I felt his heart and mine each beating on their own before gradually matching in rhythm as if they’re pulsing as one.
He looks up into my eyes.
“And stop calling me doctor, we’re dating now.”
“Of course...Tawan.” I nodded and called his name for the first time...as a boyfriend.
“Yes, of course...my Tawan.”
…………
“Shit, yea, y’er right.”
P'Fueang nods once he finishes listening.
“I’m right about what?”
I feel strangely alarmed from his tone of voice.
“‘Bout it making me envious and that I shouldn’t kick you too soon.”
With that, he rises from the bench and strides towards me aggressively.
“I should add it all up and kick yer ass super hard at the end. Damn you, what a lucky bastard!”
Readying his kick, P'Fueang lifts a leg so high I’m afraid his pants might split at the crotch seam.
I hop up from my seat to get away from him, putting up my hands to protest. “Yeowww! Nah, P’, stop. Don’t kick me, please. Oh but on second thought, I have nothing to fear.” I let my guard down. “Because even if you kick me and I get injured, I’ll still be fine.”
“What? How?” He puts his leg back down, looking puzzled.
“Because now I have my own doctor. No matter how sick I get, he’ll be taking care of me.”
I grin at P'Fueang cheekily before retreating to my motorcycle, then put on the helmet. He must be tired of my smartmouth, he seems to have given up the idea of kicking me.
“Hey, Mork, but where yer going? Picking up the doctor?”
“Nah, bro.” I shake my head.
“I’ll go enroll in a high vocational course.”
“Eh? Wowww, really?”
I nod.
“Yah, I gotta keep my promise with Tawan. I’ve become his boyfriend, I need to improve myself and be a fitting one. Starting from high voc. cert. and then, I’ll take an exam to enter a continuing program and go for a bachelor degree.”
“Cool, bro. It’s good to have a goal.”
P'Fueang waves for me.
“Good luck...oh wait.” He seems to realize something.
“What about yer driving queue this evening? It’s yer turn, no?”
I give him a wide grin.
“Well, bro, this is one more thing you might want to kick me for. Drive on my queue for me, please!”
I repeatedly salute him with both hands, and without waiting for my beloved big bro’s answer, I shift the gear on my motorcycle and take off to a technical college nearby. I know he will forgive me, I know.
I park in the parking lot of the college…
Before, I was Mork, the mototaxi guy…
I thought it was the life I should live, and I was satisfied with it.
But now, I know it’s not. I’ve discovered I can go further than this.
I used to be like an abandoned rocket, without fuel, without a drive to go anywhere.
Right now, it’s not like that anymore.
I have found my fuel.
I have found my drive.
I have my Tawan, my sun.
And I will ignite my rocket engine.
I will soar into the sky, into outer space.
Heading to...my Tawan.
………...
Two years later…
“Yay, cheers!”
P'Fueang starts a toast.
“Ugh, I can’t anymore, bro.”
I look around at the two empty bottles lying around. Another bottle, half emptied, is sitting in the center of the crowd. Behind P'Fueang’s back, however, two new bottles are hiding in wait. We have hardly gone through half of the drink, I think
? But I’m starting to feel tipsy already. If we keep drinking, I’ll be really drunk.
“Can’t? How come! Yer the star of the party. Ya gotta celebrate shit!”
He doesn’t yield and keeps telling me to finish my next glass.
“Tomorrow I need to go to the orientation. I don’t want to be hungover in the ceremony. It will give a bad impression.”
I try to reason with him while looking to Tawan for help.
“P'Fueang.” Tawan understands my eye signal and takes the glass from my hand. “Tawan will drink this glass on Mork’s behalf.” He lifts the glass to his lips. I snatch it back immediately.
“Nah! Tawan, you can’t drink this shit. You’re easily drunk. If you finish this whole glass, you’ll be super drunk.”
My Ride, I Love You Page 32