EXTERN
Special 1
[Three years ago]
“Kan… could you go sleep with the first-year instead? I want to sleep with my junior.”
I stood there blinking at the fifth-year senior named Buea, who was looking at me with an imploring expression.
I honestly didn’t understand what a fifth-year student, someone who ought to be ridiculously busy, was even doing at this Moon-and-Star activity camp. Then again, maybe he’d come because he was looking after Tul, the Engineering faculty’s Moon.
“But I…”
I didn’t want to sleep with some random person I didn’t even know.
And an Engineering student, at that.
I had absolutely no desire to get acquainted with him.
“Hehe. Your stuff’s already in that room. I’m off.”
Without even waiting for me to protest, that bastard Senior Buea shut the door and locked it behind him!
So what fucking choice did I have?!
That’s right! I was only a third-year student.
I had no rights! No voice!
Click.
Ssssshhh—
“Oi, Tul! Grab me a towel!”
I glanced towards the bathroom as I walked past but didn’t respond to whoever was shouting from inside.
Well, my name wasn’t Tul.
“…”
“Fucking hell, Tul! Get me a towel!”
I continued ignoring him while sorting through the belongings Senior Buea had dumped onto the bed for me.
And, of course, this room only had one large bed.
Could I be angry at a senior from my own faculty?
Why the hell did I have to share a bed with some complete stranger?!
“Oi, Tuuuuul! Fine, I’m coming out!”
“!?”
Click!
BAM!
Just as I was about to turn around and grab a towel for the first-year from another faculty who’d been screaming for one, it was already too late.
He opened the bathroom door himself.
And there he stood.
Proudly displaying his muscular body.
Completely fucking naked.
With droplets of water still clinging all over him.
“…”
I swear, I’d already studied anatomy in my second year, so I thought I was thoroughly accustomed to seeing naked human bodies.
But seeing someone’s equipment attached to a genuinely living person—
A complete stranger, no less—
FUUUUUUCK!!!
“AAAAAAAHHH!”
That scream wasn’t mine.
It belonged to my first-year Engineering roommate.
The idiot shrieked before launching himself onto the bed, grabbing the duvet to cover his naked body and scrambling backwards until he was pressed against the headboard.
He looked scandalised, as though I’d just sexually assaulted him with my eyes. For fuck’s sake! What the hell was I dealing with?!
“Ridiculous.”
I shook my head resignedly and sat down at the end of the bed, turning my attention to discussing the next activity with someone from the student council. Tomorrow, the university Moons and Stars would be filming a video at Doi Inthanon, so there were still things that needed organising.
Rustle. Rustle.
The mattress dipped beside me.
A clean masculine scent from his soap drifted towards my nose, followed by warm breath brushing against my cheek.
I glanced sideways at the younger guy, who apparently still had no intention whatsoever of putting some clothes on.
He was probably wondering who the hell I was and what I was doing in his room.
“Who’re you?”
Now that I was seeing him up close, the bastard was actually pretty handsome. His slightly shaggy hair reached the base of his neck, and there was the faintest trace of moustache and beard against otherwise smooth, blemish-free skin.
And that nose was so ridiculously sharp it was practically poking me in the cheek.
“I’m Kan. Third-year Medicine. I’m your roommate for the next two nights instead of Tul.”
“Where’d Tul go?”
I shifted away and looked properly at the junior from another faculty. He casually swept his wet hair backwards, revealing sharp, well-defined features. He actually looked incredibly cool.
Completely at odds with whatever the hell performance he’d just put on.
“Probably gone to sleep with his senior. Don’t stick your nose into other people’s business.”
“Mmm.”
He hummed in acknowledgement.
I lowered my head again and continued replying to the group chat. Apparently there was a small problem with the venue, which meant I’d have to go downstairs and sort things out with the hotel staff again.
“Did you see anything just now?”
His mischievous voice and sly grin made me frown as I tried to work out what he meant.
“Oh… you mean the little green caterpillar?”
“!?”
“Sorry. It was so small I thought my roommate was a girl.”
The moment I finished speaking, I stood up and prepared to leave the room.
Why the fuck was I wasting time bickering with this idiot anyway?
WHUMP!
My entire body was suddenly thrown backwards onto the bed before my enormous roommate climbed on top of me.
Heavy!
“I’ll let you look again.”
“Get off me!”
I struggled with everything I had, but the bastard above me barely moved.
You’re only a fucking first-year!
Do you really need to be built like a buffalo?!
And me, a man, being pinned underneath another man like this?!
My dignity as a man was being fucking destroyed!
“If you see it when it’s fully awake, you won’t say that anymore.”
“I’m not looking! Get ooooooff!”
I fought even harder.
For fuck’s sake!
I’d actually styled my hair today, you bastard!!!
The duvet wrapped around the massive first-year began slipping down, barely managing to cover his V-shaped waist.
Don’t you fucking dare!
Sure, we were both men, but I wasn’t into guys!
“You have to look first! Come see it when it’s fully awake!”
“NOOOOOOO!”
Waaaaah!
Someone save meeeee!
CLICK!!!
“What are you two doing?”
I immediately planted my foot against the lunatic on top of me and shoved hard enough to send him rolling off the bed.
Then I scrambled straight towards the door.
This kid really was fucking insane. Did I seriously have to share a bed with someone like this?!
“Tul!”
The horny bastard shouted his friend’s name, the very friend who had just saved my life from being forced to witness something that would’ve scarred my eyes forever.
“P’Meen asked me to bring the iPad back. P’Kan left it on the table.”
Tul’s P’Meen was none other than Senior Buea from my faculty. Thank fuck Tul had shown up when he did.
“Just leave it in the room for me. I’m going.”
The moment I finished speaking, I hurried out.
I was changing rooms!
If there weren’t any rooms left, I’d pitch a fucking tent outside the hotel and sleep there!
“P’Kan, what happened? Why’s your hair such a mess?”
Ink, a first-year Star from some faculty or another, approached and asked while I was still fuming and trying to figure out how the hell I was going to survive the next two nights.
“Got into a fight with a dog.”
I gave her a casual answer, making the pretty girl frown even harder.
I wasn’t trying to brag, but apparently my face had been good enough to win me the university Moon title two years ago. So it wasn’t unusual for girls to come and talk to me.
“Awoooooooooo~”
I turned towards the sound of the dog. Only to discover a ridiculously handsome weirdo standing there, tall as hell, waggling his eyebrows at me in the most irritating way possible.
“I’ll see you later.”
I said goodbye to the young Star, intending to escape the lunatic, but he quickly grabbed my arm.
“Waaaaait.”
“Let go!”
I was seriously starting to get angry with this kid.
Annoying. Ridiculous.
If he were my junior in Medicine, he’d have been disciplined ages ago.
“Come on, don’t be angry. I was only joking earlier.”
“I’m not your fucking playmate.”
“Hey, hey! Isn’t that Per and P’Kan?”
“Are they fighting?”
“Fighting over Ink? Oh my God! They’re both so handsome!”
“I want someone to fight over me!”
I glanced towards Ink, who’d been dragged into the gossip. She looked just as awkward as I felt.
“Let’s talk somewhere else.”
Grab!
Without waiting for the tall bastard to say anything else, I dragged him downstairs to the meeting room that would be used for the university Moons and Stars’ recreational activities.
“Ooh, ooh! A man’s dragging me away. I’m so shy.”
I rolled my eyes, shoved him against the meeting-room wall and planted my hands on my hips before looking up at him.
He was still standing there with that smug smile.
Seriously, what kind of person could get yelled at and remain completely unaffected?
But I had to control my temper. I needed to maintain the dignified image of a future doctor.
“What do you want?”
“You’re really cute, P’.”
Cute?
Cute?!
No man had ever called me cute before!
Wasn’t that basically an insult to my masculinity?!
But no.
Stay calm.
Breathe in deeply…
Breathe out deeply…
“I’m changing roommates—”
I turned away, intending to go and do my job before the first-year Moons and Stars arrived for the activities.
“Nooooo. I wanna sleep with yooooou.”
At this point, I was fairly certain the volcano sitting on top of my head was about to erupt. I had never met anyone this fucking irritating in my entire life.
“You little—”
“Kan~ Per~”
Before I could turn around and unleash hell on the disrespectful brat, P’Nut, the student council president, came walking over with a cheerful smile.
“P’Nut.”
“Perfect, you’re already together. Per, take loads of photos of the activities for me, okay? Focus on the Moons and Stars from every faculty… Oh! At the end, we’re showing the university Moon video from last year. Make sure you get a photo of Flint’s shocked face.”
“P’Flint is here too?”
P’Flint, a fifth-year, was practically the demon of the Faculty of Medicine.
He was ridiculously difficult to find. Even though he’d once held the title of University Moon, hardly anyone ever seemed to see him. He was mysterious as a ghost.
“That’s right. Make sure you actually manage to photograph him, Per.”
Another reason P’Flint seemed like a ghost was that getting a decent photo of him was nearly impossible.
Some people’s photos came out blurred. Some had the flash ridiculously overexposed. Others turned out too dark. It only made him seem scarier.
“Of courseeee.”
“Oh! Kan, you can be the MC too. I need to speak with the staff about tomorrow’s filming location.”
“Sure.”
That was nothing.
Easy.
I already knew the entire schedule anyway.
“I’m counting on both of you.”
“Yes.”
“Yesssss.”
P’Nut continued on his way, leaving the two of us standing there looking at each other for a moment.
Before I could become irritated by that endlessly cheerful face again—
Rustle.
“Hm?”
I held out my hand.
The junior from another faculty stared at it in confusion before slowly reaching out and shaking mine.
“Let’s work together and make sure everything goes smoothly today.”
“…”
The tall guy raised an eyebrow at me with a smile before tightening his grip around my hand.
Some strange sensation passed between us.
My heart seemed to skip half a beat.
“Okay…”
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
The girls’ delighted screams erupted when P’Flint appeared in an old University Moon competition video from four years earlier.
Meanwhile, the real P’Flint sat sulking at the back of the meeting room, radiating such murderous energy that I could practically see it.
“Hahaha!”
Even I couldn’t stop myself laughing at the usually demonic senior looking so completely out of character.
Click!
I could’ve sworn I heard a camera shutter. But when I looked around, I didn’t see anyone.
Must’ve imagined it.
“Everyone, slowly make your way over to collect your snacks and then head back to your rooms. And you Moons—don’t sneak out and wander around the Stars’ rooms, okay? We’re not looking to add any tiny baby Moons and Stars to the group.”
“Yes, P’!”
“Yes!”
I put the microphone down and went around checking each team one last time.
Everyone was probably exhausted by now. I certainly was.
“Are you going straight back to the room?”
A low, gentle voice came from behind me, making me turn and look up. And seriously, I wasn’t short. The guy in front of me was just absurdly tall.
“Mmm. I’ll head back soon. You can go sleep first.”
“But it’s late. Aren’t you scared walking around alone?”
I wasn’t afraid of ghosts.
Besides, I was a man.
Why would I be afraid of something nobody could even prove existed?
“You look tired. You’ve been wandering around taking photos nonstop.”
“Heh. It’s fun. Especially when there are so many beautiful things to photograph.”
I curled my lip at my roommate’s shameless flirtiness as we started walking back together.
“You must’ve taken loads of pretty girls.”
“Loads of pretty ones, yeah. Not girls, though.”
Hmm?
What the hell did that mean?
Pretty but not girls?
“Come onnn, let me see.”
I reached for the camera in his hands, a camera worth nearly a million baht, but he immediately twisted away from me as though his life depended on it.
“N-No! You can’t! I’m really possessive over these. Don’t look.”
“Oi! What the hell? You took pictures of pretty girls and now you won’t let me see? Stingy bastard.”
“I’m not showing you. The one in here is incredibly beautiful. Really pale. Really cute. So fucking irresistible. Nobody else is allowed to see.”
God, that teasing expression pissed me off.
“Fine! I won’t look.”If he didn’t want me to see, then I wouldn’t fucking look.
Nobody could accuse Doctor Kan of having no manners.
“Good.”
Zzzzzz…
Rustle.
The moment my roommate finally passed out from exhaustion, I quietly climbed down from the bed.
I’d been lying there reading, waiting for this exact opportunity.
I crept over towards the camera he’d left charging.
“Heh! Thought you could keep all the pretty girls to yourself, did you? Big mistake, kid.”
I grinned to myself and shamelessly turned the camera on.
“…”
I glanced back towards the bed.
He was completely unconscious.
Oblivious to everything.
He really was good at photography.
There were pictures of all the Moons and Stars, usually one or two photos of each person.
It wasn’t only the Stars.
“Thought you said you took loads of pretty girls.”
There were barely any.
“!!!”
Then I kept scrolling.
And found photographs of a handsome young man with smooth, pale skin, smiling brightly at everyone while holding a microphone.
Every expression.
Every movement. No matter which direction he turned, the camera had captured him.
A man I had known my entire life.
…Me.
“…”
I stood there staring at a photograph of myself turning towards the camera with a smile.
I wasn’t trying to be narcissistic, but somehow it looked as though I was practically glowing through the picture.
Although maybe that was simply because the kid was genuinely good at photography.
But…
Why the hell was his camera filled with pictures of me?
“For fuck’s sake…”
Don’t tell me…
I’d gained myself another fanboy?