Yours And Yours Alone Forever

At the age of ten, Arthur relocated to Bangkok. Though his mother referred to it as a fresh start, he knew otherwise. She could no longer bear the recollections of his father. Once cozy, their former home has become oppressive, every room a reminder of their loss. The walls still resonated with fights that had replaced laughing, with nights spent sobbing rather than conversing. In the end, his mother loaded their belongings into suitcases and carried him to a city that never slept.

Bangkok was nothing like the calm town they had left behind. Loud and lively, it was a metropolis pulsing with vitality. The streets were packed with cars, motorcyclists zipped through tight spaces, and the aroma of sizzling street food permeated the surroundings. Above the alleyways, neon lights flashed; sellers yelled over one another, attempting to sell their wares.

At first, Arthur despised it. The unending cacophony, the continual motion, and the reality he had to begin again, new school, new apartment, and new life.

Then he met Nick.

Nick lived next door in the same apartment building. Their building was old, with crumbling walls and a hallway light that flickered more than it worked. Arthur was unloading a package of books in their little living room when a loud knock surprised him. His mother answered the door, displaying a youngster of his age holding a partially deflated soccer ball under one arm.

“I saw you moving in,” Nick replied, smirking. “Want to play?

Arthur hesitated. He wasn’t adept at making friends, and he certainly wasn’t in the mood. But there was something about Nick, his effortless confidence, the way he bounced the ball against his knee without effort, that made it impossible to say no.

From that moment on, they were inseparable.

Nick was fearless. He drew Arthur into all sorts of adventures—running through the tight alleys, climbing over fences they certainly shouldn’t have, and sneaking into markets just to see how many free food samples they could obtain before being shooed away.

Bangkok slowly became their playground. Afternoons were spent meandering through the congested streets, pausing at food vendors to eat whatever smelled the finest. They raced each other up the footbridges over traffic-jammed roadways. One time, Arthur got lost coming back from school, and just as panic set in, Nick appeared out of nowhere.

“Dude, you’re hopeless,” Nick teased, wrapping his arm around his shoulders. “Good thing I know my way around.”

They had their spots—places that belonged alone to them. A tiny comic book shop, situated between two buildings, where they’d sit on the floor paging through manga; a noodle store where the owner, an old woman with a harsh tongue, would let them eat first and pay later; and, most significantly, the rooftop of their apartment building.

The rooftop wasn’t much, simply a flat, uneven surface with a few plastic chairs left behind by prior occupants, but to them, it was everything. It was where they went when they needed to breathe, to escape the pandemonium below.

One night, lying side by side on the rooftop, Nick pointed up at the sky. “I’m going to own a skyscraper one day,” he vowed. “And you’re going to fill it with your art.”

Arthur chuckled, but deep down, he believed it. Nick had a knack for making anything seem conceivable.

School was another adventure. Arthur was the quiet one, the youngster who sat in the back and completed his job without any fuss. Nick, on the other hand, was impossible to ignore. He was the type of student professors reprimanded but secretly liked, the one who talked his way out of trouble with a grin.

Nick was also highly competitive. Whether it was soccer, math tests, or who could eat the spiciest som tam (papaya salad), he always wanted to win. Arthur soon understood that there was no such thing as a “friendly” challenge with Nick.

At school, they became a trio when they met Pim. Pim was sharp-tongued, fiercely independent, and the only one who could put Nick in his place. She had an older brother who maintained a street food stand, and she often assisted him after school, turning grilled pork skewers like an expert.

“The problem with you two,” Pim observed one day, observing as Arthur and Nick battled about who was faster, “is that you think life is a competition.”

Nick smirked. “Isn’t it?

Pim rolled her eyes. “You're exhausting.”

Despite her irritation, she persisted with them. The three of them spent weekends in shopping malls, not buying anything but trying all the free samples in the food court. They did group study sessions that typically ended with Nick and Pim squabbling while Arthur performed the job.