Morning After

The morning sun bled through the sheer linen curtains of Net Siraphop’s bedroom, casting a warm, unforgiving light across tangled sheets and two discarded council lanyards on the hardwood floor.

JJ Radchapon stared at the ceiling, his pulse hammering against his ribs like a frantic bass drum.

Beside him, Net was still asleep. The vice president looked infuriatingly ethereal—hair tousled over his forehead, sharp jaw softened in rest, one long arm flung loosely over the space JJ had occupied only seconds before. It was a picture of serene domesticity that made JJ’s stomach perform an Olympic-level gymnastic routine.

Memories of the previous night rushed back in vivid, dizzying flashes. The council celebration. The six of them drinking beer and cheap wine on Net’s living room rug. Keng and Latte stumbling out first, bickering over who called the cab; Ohm dragging an exhausted Kim by the collar; Namping waving a sleepy goodbye from the doorway. Then, the sudden, heavy quiet. Just the two of them. Too many drinks, too much whispered laughter, and the invisible, brittle boundary they had spent an entire year maintaining suddenly snapping like dry kindling.

JJ looked down at the sheet bunched around his waist. He looked at Net’s bare shoulder, faintly marked by a flushed bruise.

Oh god, JJ thought, sheer panic flooding his veins. We were drunk. He was just drunk. I ruined everything.

Moving with the stealth of a cat burglar, JJ slid off the mattress. He gathered his rumpled clothes from the floor, winced at the tiny click of the bathroom door, dressed in under thirty seconds, and slipped out of the apartment before Net could even roll over.

When Net woke up twenty minutes later, his hand immediately reached across the mattress, expecting warmth. He found only cold cotton.

Net sat up, blinking against the glare. The apartment was dead silent. On the bedside table sat an empty water glass, but no note, no phone, and distinctly no JJ.

A theatre major possessed many skills, but chief among them was an impeccable sense of timing. Net checked the clock on his wall, processed the neat square of neatly folded spare towels JJ had left behind in the bathroom, and came to an immediate, irritated conclusion.

"Radchapon," Net muttered under his breath, throwing off the duvet with a dramatic scowl. "You coward."

---

The chase began at precisely ten in the morning in the humanities quad.

JJ was walking at a pace that hovered precariously between a power walk and a dead sprint. Clutched to his chest was a thick blue folder containing last week’s budget allocations, serving both as administrative duty and a makeshift shield against the universe. If he kept moving, he reasoned, the world would not collapse. If he pretended last night was simply an anomaly of the space-time continuum, he wouldn't have to face Net's polite, devastating smile explaining that they should just forget it ever happened.

"P'JJ!"

JJ flinched, nearly dropping the folder as Ohm and Kim materialized near the student union lockers. Kim was holding two iced matchas, while Ohm leaned against a pillar with the lazy grace of someone who had slept eight uninterrupted hours.

"Good morning, President," Kim chirped, tilting his head. "You look like you just sprinted a marathon in business casual."

"Fine! I'm completely fine! Just very busy," JJ said in an octave higher than his normal speaking voice. "Lots of presidential things to oversee. Budgets. Signatures. Banners."

Ohm squinted, sipping through his straw. "Why are your ears bright red?"

"The greenhouse effect," JJ blurted out.

Before either of them could dissect that monumental piece of nonsense, the double doors at the end of the corridor swung open.

Net strode in. Even after a night of heavy drinking and an abrupt awakening, the vice president looked immaculate. His white button-down was crisply tucked, his posture commanding, and his dark eyes swept the hall like a hawk locating prey. The moment his gaze locked onto JJ, his jaw set in fierce determination.

"JJ," Net called out. His voice was smooth, projecting effortlessly across the tiled floor with stage-honed clarity. "A word."

JJ’s eyes went wide. "Can’t! Faculty meeting! In five minutes!"

"The faculty meeting is at two!" Net said, closing the distance with long, purposeful strides.

"I’m early! Preparation is key to leadership!" JJ spun on his heel and bolted toward the student lounge.

Ohm and Kim slowly turned their heads, watching the president scurry around the corner, followed closely by a briskly speed-walking vice president.

"Did they have a fight?" Kim asked, taking a sip of his drink.

"No," Ohm said, a slow, wicked grin spreading across his face. "That is not an angry face on Net. That is an 'I am going to catch you and pin you down' face. Come on, we need to find Keng."

Inside the lounge, Keng and Namping were seated at a low table, going over the draft for the upcoming university fair, while Latte was happily demolishing a chocolate croissant.

The peace was shattered when JJ burst through the door, his hair wild and his chest heaving. Without a word of greeting, he ducked behind the sofa where Latte was sitting, crouching low like an overgrown toddler playing hide-and-seek.

"Uh," Latte paused, a flake of pastry stuck to his lip. "P'JJ? Are you hiding from the loan sharks, or is this a new team-building exercise?"

"Don't look at me," JJ hissed, pressing his forehead against the fabric of the sofa. "If anyone asks, I was never here. I moved to Canada."

Namping lowered his highlighter, looking thoroughly bewildered. "P'JJ, your shoes are sticking out."

The door flew open again. Net stepped inside, completely composed except for the slight flush high on his cheekbones. He didn't even glance around the room; his eyes went straight to the pair of expensive leather loafers poking out from behind the velvet armchair.

"Latte," Net said evenly.

"Yes, Vice President?"

"Slide to your left, please."

"Wait, Net, let's talk about the budget!" JJ squeaked from the floor, scrambling backward on his hands and knees.

"I am not here to talk about the budget, Radchapon," Net said, stepping around the armchair with the calculated grace of a stage villain. "We are going to talk about why my bed was empty at seven-thirty this morning."

Keng choked on his iced tea.

Namping’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, his highlighter dropping directly onto his clean notes. Latte merely leaned back, eyes darting between the two with utter delight.

"Oh," Latte whispered. "Oh, the plot thickens."

"Nothing! Nothing was empty!" JJ scrambled to his feet, holding the blue folder out like a crucifix warding off a vampire. "I had an early appointment with my conscience! Excuse me!"

Before Net could reach out to grab his sleeve, JJ feinted to the left, dodged past Keng's chair, and burst through the lounge's side exit leading out to the central courtyard.

"JJ!" Net groaned, losing his theatrical composure for a fraction of a second as he took off in pursuit.

Keng wiped his chin with the back of his hand, coughing lightly. "Did he just say... his bed?"

"Pay up," Namping said suddenly, turning to Keng with a bright, terrifying smile. "I told you it would happen before midterms. Fifty baht."

"Wait for me!" Latte scrambled out of his seat, abandoning the rest of his croissant. "I'm not missing the final act of this drama!"

Outside, the chase reached peak absurdity. JJ took the steps of the main library two at a time, weaving through groups of unsuspecting freshmen who parted like the Red Sea. He was agile, but Net had the advantage of longer legs and pure, unadulterated theatre-major stamina.

"Stop running!" Net shouted from half a flight behind him. "You’re making a scene!"

"You're the one chasing me!" JJ yelled back over his shoulder, breathless. "Who chases their council president across campus like an escaped convict?!"

"Who sleeps with their vice president and sneaks out like a criminal?!"

Several studying students near the entrance looked up from their laptops in stunned silence. JJ let out a strangled noise of sheer mortification, veering sharply to the right and ducking into the administration wing. He sprinted down the familiar, quiet corridor that led to the student council archive room—a small, windowless office used for storing old banners, audio equipment, and ten years of untouched paper records.

JJ threw the door open, darted inside, and tried to slam it shut behind him, but Net’s hand shoved against the wood with surprising force.

The door yielded. Net slipped inside, turned the lock with a definitive, metallic click, and leaned his back against it, effectively blocking the only exit.

The room was dim, illuminated only by the thin slats of sunlight cutting through the air conditioning vent. The faint scent of paper, dust, and lemon cleaning spray hung in the air, overlaid instantly by the sound of their ragged breathing.

JJ backed up until the edge of a heavy wooden filing cabinet pressed against his hips. He held his blue folder against his chest like armor, staring wide-eyed at Net.

"You're insane," JJ breathed, trying and failing to sound authoritative. "You have completely abandoned all professional decorum."

"Professional decorum went out the window the second you kissed me against my kitchen counter last night," Net countered, his voice dropping into that low, resonant register that always commanded an entire auditorium. He took two slow steps forward. "Why did you run, JJ?"

The silly, teasing defense mechanisms that JJ had worn all morning began to crack. He looked down at the floor, his grip on the folder tightening until his knuckles turned white.

"Because we were drunk," JJ whispered, the lightheartedness completely stripped from his tone, leaving behind a raw, painful vulnerability. "Because you were drunk, Net. And we have to work together every day. We’re the president and the vice president. We keep this council together. If... if you woke up and realized you made a mistake with a friend, it would ruin everything. I just wanted to save us both the humiliation."

Net stared at him. The tension in Net's shoulders slowly dissolved, replaced by an expression of pure, exasperated disbelief.

"A mistake?" Net repeated softly.

He crossed the remaining distance between them, stopping so close that JJ could feel the heat radiating from his chest. With gentle, deliberate care, Net reached out, took the blue folder from JJ’s trembling hands, and set it aside on the cabinet.

"JJ," Net said, lifting one hand to cup the side of JJ’s neck, his thumb resting right over the rapid flutter of his pulse. "Do you honestly think I let just anyone stay at my apartment? Do you think I spend every single meeting finding excuses to sit next to you, or proofreading your speeches three times just so I can listen to you practice, because of professional decorum?"

JJ’s breath hitched. "You... you always do that. You’re attentive to everyone."

"I am polite to everyone," Net corrected firmly, his dark eyes searching JJ’s face with an intensity that made the room feel impossibly small. "I am in love with you."

The archive room seemed to freeze.

"What?" JJ squeaked, barely a breath.

"I’ve been in love with you for six months," Net said, his voice entirely steady now, stripped of all performance. "Last night wasn't an accident. I didn't touch you because of the beer, JJ. I touched you because you finally looked at me like you wanted me to, and I couldn't hold back anymore. If anyone should be terrified that they took advantage of a fragile line, it’s me."

JJ stared at him, his mind short-circuiting as every interaction from the past year suddenly replayed under a completely new light. The warm coffees left on his desk. The quiet, lingering touches at the end of late-night budget reviews. The way Net’s gaze always seemed to anchor him whenever the stress of the council became overwhelming.

"You're... you're not just saying that to be nice?" JJ asked, a faint, ridiculous wobble in his voice.

Net let out a quiet, breathless laugh, leaning in until their foreheads rested together. "I just chased you through three academic buildings and yelled about sleeping with you in front of forty freshmen, Radchapon. Does that look like someone trying to be polite?"

A sudden, helpless smile broke across JJ’s face, breaking the tension entirely. "You really have terrible impulse control for a vice president."

"And you have terrible judgment for a president," Net murmured, his fingers sliding up into the soft hair at the nape of JJ’s neck. "Thinking I would ever regret having you in my bed."

JJ’s heart did another flip, but this time, there was no panic. He reached up, his hands finding the lapels of Net's crisp shirt, bunching the fabric tightly. "I'm sorry I ran. I just... I liked you for so long, I thought I was making it all up in my head."

"You weren't," Net promised softly, tilting his chin up. "Never."

When their lips met, it wasn't the frantic, liquor-fueled desperation of the previous night. It was slow, warm, and entirely intentional. JJ melted against Net’s chest, letting out a soft sigh into the kiss, anchoring himself to the steady beat of Net’s heart. All the careful walls they had built to protect their private feelings finally crumbled, leaving only the sweet, undeniable truth that they had been orbiting each other from the very beginning.

When they finally parted, both a little breathless and flushed, Net kept his arms firmly wound around JJ’s waist.

"So," Net whispered, his eyes gleaming with fond amusement. "Are we going to pretend this never happened, Mr. President?"

"If you ever call me Mr. President in that tone again, I’m vetoing your next theatre budget," JJ warned, though his cheeks were burning red. "And no. We aren't pretending."

"Good," Net smiled, brushing a soft kiss against the tip of JJ’s nose. "Because I'm not chasing you across campus again unless it's to take you out on an official date."

"Deal, boyfriend."

Net’s smile widened, bright and uncharacteristically open.

Satisfied, Net reached behind him and clicked the lock open, swinging the heavy door inward.

Instantly, three bodies tumbled slightly forward into the doorway.

Latte caught himself against the frame, holding his half-eaten pastry. Keng was clutching a fifty-baht note, looking disgruntled, while Namping casually snapped a photo on his phone. Further down the hall, Ohm and Kim were leaning against the lockers, grinning like cheshire cats.

"Oh, look," Latte said brightly, not looking remotely apologetic. "The motion has passed."

JJ buried his face entirely in Net’s shoulder, groaning loudly. "I am stepping down. I am resigning today."

"Don't bother," Keng sighed, pocketing his wallet. "We've been waiting for this since the mid-semester retreat. You two were so loud with your pining it was giving the whole council a migraine."

"Pay up, Ohm!" Kim called out cheerfully from down the hall. "Told you Net would pin him in the archives!"

Net didn't even flinch. Instead, he wrapped a protective arm around JJ's waist, pulling him comfortably against his side, his polished vice-presidential composure slipping back into place with effortless charm.

"Meeting adjourned, everyone," Net announced smoothly, offering the group a radiant, victorious smile. "The president and I have prior engagements."