Everywhere With You

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Chapter 3: The Quiet Ways We Stay

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"Some people leave your life... but they never stop caring about it."
Bangkok woke beneath a sky painted in shades of gray. It wasn't raining. Not yet. But the air carried the quiet promise that it soon would.
Boom opened his eyes before his alarm had the chance to ring. For a few moments, he remained still.
His body felt heavier than usual, his throat burned, and a faint chill ran down his spine. Slowly, he sat up.
"Great..." he murmured with a tired smile. "Of all days... it had to be today."
His schedule rested neatly on the table beside his bed: a morning interview, a photoshoot after lunch, and a meeting before the day was over. Too much work to allow himself the luxury of staying home.
By the time he finished his first meeting, the rain was pouring heavily over the city. "Boom, are you feeling okay?" his manager asked the moment they stepped into the dressing room at the studio.
He nodded immediately. "I just didn't sleep very well." She watched him for a moment. She knew him far too well to not recognize the difference between being tired... and pretending everything was fine. "If you get worse, we'll cancel the photoshoot," she warned with concern. Boom shook his head with a gentle smile. "No need. It's just a cold."
Stepping out toward the main entrance for a brief moment, Boom watched the heavy curtain of rain falling on the street. He took a step out into the rain; his hair was soaked within seconds, but he didn't seem to mind at all.
And then... a memory found him without warning. Years ago...
It had been raining then, too. Boom had just left the rehearsal building and hadn't even taken three steps before someone gently caught his arm.
"Where do you think you're going?" Smart asked, holding an umbrella over both of them.* "Home," Boom replied.* "In weather like this?"* "It's just rain."* Smart let out a quiet laugh. "And tomorrow it'll be a fever."* "You're exaggerating," Boom pouted dramatically.* "I'm being careful," Smart corrected with a smile.* They started walking slowly, sharing the same umbrella. A gust of wind blew a few drops onto Boom's hair. Without thinking, Smart reached up and, with the kind of tenderness that came naturally to him, gently brushed a damp strand of hair behind Boom's ear. "There."* "Happy now?" Boom asked with an amused smile.* "Very."* Neither of them said another word. They didn't need to. The sound of the rain filled every silence between them, and somehow, that, too, was a conversation.
Boom returned to the present with a slight chill. He took a slow breath and walked back into the studio. The lights came alive. Boom smiled at the camera as he always did, but between one shot and the next, his cough grew harder to ignore.
On the other side of Bangkok... Smart had just finished a meeting. As he gathered a few documents from the table, he overheard a conversation between two people in the hallway. "Did you hear about Boom?" one voice asked. "Yeah. They say he's doing today's photoshoot with quite a fever."
Smart slowly lifted his eyes. He didn't say a word. He simply waited until the voices faded into the distance. A minute later, he unlocked his phone and typed a short message. It took less than ten seconds. He slipped the phone into his pocket, picked up his car keys, and quietly walked out to arrange the package.
The photoshoot ended much later than expected. Boom returned to his dressing room completely exhausted. A small paper bag rested on the table. He frowned. "What's this?" His manager looked up. "I'm not sure. Someone dropped it off at reception a while ago. They said it was for you." Boom carefully opened the bag. Inside was a thermometer, fever medicine, throat lozenges, honey, a stainless steel thermos that was still warm... and a small box of butter cookies. At the bottom of the bag, he found a plain white envelope without a signature. Inside, there was only one sentence: "Don't forget to eat before taking the medicine."
Boom stopped breathing for a brief moment. His fingers trembled ever so slightly. It was such a simple sentence, but every single time he had gotten sick in the past, he had heard those exact same words from Smart.
He looked at the note, then at the thermos, and finally at the butter cookies. A faint smile appeared on his face.
"Do you know who sent it?" his manager asked curiously. "No..." He paused. "But... I think I know the only person who would've remembered to bring the butter cookies too."
His manager didn't ask another question. She simply nodded, understanding that some answers belonged only to the heart of the person who carried them.
That same night, Smart stood by the window of his apartment, watching the rain fall with a warm cup of coffee in his hands.
A faint smile crossed his face, and he shook his head ever so slightly.
"You probably went out without an umbrella again..." he whispered to himself.
He hadn't received any messages on his phone, but he wasn't expecting one either. It was enough for him to know that the medicine and cookies had arrived in time.
Smart turned off the living room light and, just before walking into his bedroom, looked at the rain one last time.
Because he was never one for grand speeches or loud promises. His way of loving was always like this: in invisible actions, in caring from a distance, and in remembering every tiny detail.
And sometimes... love finds quiet ways to stay, even when it no longer knows how to come back.
End of Chapter Three