Chapter Text
Bangkok.
Same city, same buildings, same streets.
There was a time when Mon didn't know if she would dare come back again. And yet, here she is, looking through the window of her flat at the streets she so feared seeing again.
Mon has to wonder what was she so afraid of. The past is in the past. Seven years have gone by since she left. Time buries everything.
Maybe she thought she would run into Sam. That's a ridiculous thought, really. In a city of millions, what were the chances of an accidental encounter with her ex. It's not exactly like they moved in the same circles either. Truth is, Sam was always out of her reach. It was just her youthful innocence that allowed her to believe that she and a Mhom Luang could ever make it work in the long run.
Now she is back in Bangkok. But it isn't the same one that she left, the one with Sam. Mon knows: She is never going to see Sam again.
Mon feels a pang in her stomach when that thought crosses her mind. She moves away from the window, putting a close to her mental ramblings, and turns towards the kitchen to leave the empty coffee mug she has been holding. The place is full of boxes, so she has to trace a longer path around them to get to her destination.
She and Zo only arrived a few days ago and have just unpacked their most immediate necessities: some clothes, bed sheets, and a few kitchen items. Everything else is still in boxes scattered around the apartment. Today, she promised she would get started with the ones in the living room. They were lucky to find a furnished apartment to rent—at least they are not sleeping on the floor.
Mon puts the mug in the kitchen sink and smiles again at the note on the counter. Her fiancée woke up before her to run some errands, so she left her a message and the coffee already prepared.
As she sits on the couch ready to start unpacking the first box, she sees the framed picture. It shows the both of them, from the night Zo proposed. They look happy and in love, although Mon always felt that there was something missing. As much as she tries, she can't see her smile in the picture reaching her eyes. She isn't fond of it, but Zo insisted on getting it framed. "For posterity," she said.
Mon shakes her head and continues unpacking.
Zo and Mon had been engaged for a year before they moved to Thailand, but for some reason they didn't start planning the wedding right away. Maybe the reason is that, deep inside, they had wanted to wait till they could do it in their home country. So, when Thailand legalized same-sex marriage, it felt like destiny. As they celebrated in the streets with their small community on the streets of London, Zo took a long look at Mon, and Mon knew exactly what she wanted.
That’s how they found themselves packing everything they owned to find new jobs and start a new life in Bangkok. Their wedding was scheduled in a month.
Of course, Mon showed hesitance to coming back. She had never told Zo the full story of what happened with Sam, but over the years she had managed to get a pretty clear picture. It was hard, after all, to keep it from her when she refused to go back home even to visit her parents. She didn't fly back once since she moved to the UK. Still, Zo only knows that she suffered a heartbreak that left her grieving for years until she met her. Mon doesn't see the need to explain any further, it's not like Sam has or will ever have again a place in her life.
A knock on the door takes her out of her musings. She stares at it curiously. Maybe Zo forgot her keys? But she wasn't expecting her for several hours still. Maybe a neighbor?
There is another knock and Mon decides to satisfy her curiosity and open the door, but nothing could have prepared for the person she finds on the other side.
"Can I come in?" Sam says nonchalantly, as if they just met yesterday, and not like it has been 7 years since the last time they saw each other.
Mon could have fainted on the spot when she saw her, but Sam's gall to turn up here and simply say ‘can I come in’ with no preface, no nothing, makes her annoyed enough to stand firm on her legs.
Mon doesn't reply and Sam takes silence as consent as she marches inside the apartment taking in everything inside. Mon imagines her standing in her small and modest flat judging her space, comparing it to her own luxurious life and upbringing. Sam's presence in her apartment makes her feel more self-conscious the longer she spends examining every detail.
She doesn't need this.
"Khun Sam, what are you doing here?" she asks, purposefully curt.
Sam looks back at her now and approaches. Mon’s heart skips a beat. There’s something familiar about her, the woman that she loved, and kissed, and felt in her arms. But there’s also something different. She’s dressed up maturely, and her face has hardened.
"I have heard you are engaged to be married,” she says, and Mon snaps back to reality.
How does she know this, she thinks.
"You heard?"
"I have my sources."
Annoying as ever, Mon thinks, and she knows it'll do no good to press the topic.
"And are you here to give me your best wishes?"
"I'm here to tell you that you can't do it."
"What?" Mon asks in disbelief, but can't stop the barrage of thoughts that flood her mind right that second. She feels her heart beat faster when she imagines she has come to tell her to leave Zo and go back with her. Stupid, stupid heart.
"You can't marry your fiancée…" she starts, "because you're already married. To me."
Mon jaw drops.
"What?" she says again, for lack of a better word.
"Don't you remember? We got married in the second year of university."
Mon shakes her head. "Khun Sam, you realize that marriage wasn't legal."
"It was to us. When we got married, it was real for us. And I will testify that in court if you proceed with the wedding."
"What do you mean 'in court'" Mon eyes her suspiciously.
"I will sue you for bigamy," Sam says simply, as if it is the more logical thing in the world and not completely crazy.
"Khun Sam," Mon says slowly, fingers to her temples trying to keep calm. "Our marriage wasn't legal. Same-sex marriage wasn't even allowed in Thailand back then. You have no case."
"Well, we’ll let a jury decide."
So, Sam is going to drag her through the legal system if she dares marry someone else.
"So this is it? I'm not allowed to get married because you and I once said some vows to each other?" Mon says exasperated.
"You can, if we annul our wedding."
Annul the wedding? What is Sam talking about?
"Sam, we had a symbolic wedding. What do you want? To have a symbolic divorce?"
Sam inhaled deeply, and looked around the apartment as if that was the most interesting thing in the world right now and spoke as if she had just thought about this. "Well, we had four witnesses at our wedding. I suggest we go to them and tell them we no longer want to be married."
Mon looks at Sam like she can't believe her eyes. She has spent years away from here to avoid her, and mere days after she gets back not only does she show up unexpectedly but she tries to blackmail her.
"Our witnesses?"
"Yes, my witnesses were Jim and Tee, and yours were Nop and Yuki."
"I don't even know where they are," Mon was at her wits end. "I haven't spoken to any of them in seven years."
"I know where Jim lives. We can go see her first," Sam says and makes toward the door, as if it's all said and done.
Mon shakes her head in frustration. "No!" she screams after her. "I'm not just going to go around calling on people I haven't spoken to in years because another one of your whims." Mon takes a hold of the door, ready to shut it in Sam's face. "I'm going to get married and I don't need your permission to do it."
Sam seems surprised but she doesn't relent.
"If we don't do this, I will sue you."
Mon looks at her face. Could she really do this? Of course, this is Sam we're talking about. She once roped in a professor to switch one of her project partners to be in the same group with her.
She takes a look around her at the unopened boxes she had promised Zo she would get to this morning. Mon sighs, maybe she could manage to unpack one or two if she made it back early.
"I'll go with you to see Jim, but we're done after that."
Sam gives her that self-satisfied smirk of hers, and in that moment Mon can't believe she used to love it so much, because right now she wished she could rip it out of her face.