“Phîi, do you remember the first day we met….
I had been busy cleaning my room all day. My lease with the old dorm had ended, so I had to move here until I finished high school. Starting over wasn’t all that difficult. This wasn’t the first time. I had moved to live on my own before—after all, I'd spent my whole life at an orphanage. It was just a new place, but the loneliness was always the same.
The kid abandoned by his parents since childhood… that was me.
That afternoon, I slept until evening. When I woke, I went to turn on the light and test my favorite record player by picking out a vinyl and letting it spin. The music played softly against the silence of the late night.
I poured myself a glass of water, humming along as I walked toward the table by my bed, intending to take out a book to read. But the fatigue in my hands after a day of moving made me drop the glass.
And the sound—Crash!—was how we first came to know each other….
Strangely enough, a mirror in the room reflected the image of someone I had never seen before. What was even more strange was that we didn’t even belong to the same world.
That was when I knew… parallel worlds were real!
“We crossed paths through that strange bond….
…until we became a part of each other.”
***
The darkness vanished in an instant as I switched on the light. The sound of Phîi Aksorn’s door opening hadn’t startled me as much as the faint shadow of someone reflected in the mirror. Even blurred, I could sense something was wrong.
“Phîi… is that you? Khrap?” I asked with worry, seeing him sitting with his knees drawn to his chest in the dark. The strained voice that answered only confirmed my fear.
“It’s me.”
So this was just how difficult a thing Phîi Aksorn was going through.
Earlier, he had said he was going home. Knowing something about his relationship with his father, I had only prayed that everything would turn out alright.
But it hadn’t gone the way I hoped…
Hearing the sound of his sobs—broken, uneven—even though we were separated by different worlds, his pain cut straight through to me.
I was so close, watching him… and yet I couldn’t do a thing.
That was when I made up my mind. When I faced hard times, I often turned to movies for comfort. So even if I couldn’t step through the mirror to hold him, I could still play a movie to console him. That was how our strange little romance began.
I set the projector to shine a film across my wall, glad when he didn’t refuse our late-night date. And in this theater, every seat belonged to me alone.
I sat pressed against the edge of the mirror, afraid my body might block his view from the other side. I hardly registered what was happening on the screen. All I cared about was whether Phîi Aksorn would feel even a little less sad.
I wondered if my way would really work…
“Thank you for making me feel better, Songjam.”
But the reply I received after that made me realize it was actually me who was being gently comforted.
“You’re welcome, Phîi Khrap.”
What I didn’t say was that I wanted to do so much more. So much more than this. And if the day ever came when it was possible, I wanted to be the one to wipe away Phîi Aksorn’s tears with my own hands.
***
“Phîi… you were my first—and only—dance partner.”
“Hello.”
Even I couldn’t believe it—how I had ended up greeting the other owner of this room with that simple word. Yet it felt good, waiting for someone. Phîi looked exhausted, said there were things weighing on his mind, and I didn’t want to press him with questions. Still, I was absurdly glad that he chose to keep talking with me.
“There’s a line that keeps circling in my head. It wobbles around and just makes me confused.”
Wobbles around and makes you confused…? I couldn’t help but feel annoyed. How could some ridiculous line dare to shake Phîi like that?
“Is it a line you like, Khrap?” I asked.
“Not exactly that I like it. But it unsettles me.”
“Then write it down, Phîi. You once told me that a writer lets the words stuck in their head spill out onto the page.”
At first I only said it lightly. But as the conversation went on, somehow I became the reason why Phîi Aksorn began to write again.
I couldn’t wait for the day I’d finally get to read the book Phîi Aksorn wrote just for me…
That same day, I managed to coax Phîi out of his brooding. I let him choose the vinyl we would listen to together. The finger I longed so much to touch pointed toward one record. His lips shaped words that sounded sweeter than any music.
“This one, then.”
Alright. That’ll do.
“It’s a song meant for dancing,” I said, seizing the chance. Smiling, I walked over to the record player, set it spinning, and then returned to stand with a little bow before the mirror.
“What?”
“Dance with me—just one song, Khrap.”
God, I couldn’t believe I was actually asking him to dance this way.
The awkwardness of two young men trying to dance was probably the biggest reason we ended up smiling at each other. I wouldn’t claim it was because some tender feeling had started to bloom in one of our hearts.
Not that I really felt that way… right?
“I like this song,” he suddenly said. I couldn’t deny it—I was smiling so wide it nearly split my cheeks. I was happier than I could ever admit.
“I like it too, Phîi Khrap.”
I mean… I like you.
But at least blush with me a little—don’t just keep all those thoughts locked up inside yourself.
“Phîi, you look distracted.”
“I know, Songjam.”
“Is it that troubling phrase that’s still on your mind, Khrap?”
“Partly. Lately, everything just feels strange.”
“Including us… right, Phîi?” I stared at his face, only a breath away. If it weren’t for the glass between us, we might have felt each other’s breath.
“That’s the strangest thing of all.” If I guessed right, even Phîi—so composed and capable—was just as flustered as I was when our eyes met and held. The music played beautifully—more beautiful than any I had ever heard before.
I gave him a smile as sweet as I could manage. And every word I said after that was nothing but the truth.
“For me, it’s a strangeness that isn’t bad at all.”
To put it plainly… because it’s with you, Phîi, it becomes something good.
Do you know? Ever since I met you, I haven’t been any good at controlling my feelings…
***
“A Christmas with you, Phîi— is the special gift Santa Claus has given me.”
The song Santa Claus Is Coming to Town followed me along the way as I walked. That day, I was in unusually high spirits, carried by the thought of my Christmas plans. It would be a day that was no longer lonely, not like the ones before.
It’s always like this.
I went into a stationery shop in front of the school, carefully picking out supplies to make a Christmas gift for Phîi Aksorn. All the while, my mind was filled with thoughts of his face.
This was the gift I thought Phîi would like.
But because of school activities, I had to return to my room later than usual. The little time I had left was spent browsing the internet in front of the dorm, looking for instructions on how to make a handmade notebook. After a lot of trial and error, the light brown book finally came together. Alright… this was the very first gift I’d ever made with my own hands.
The moment I glanced at the clock, though, I had to hurry to finish wrapping it—the last step. Christmas was almost over, and Phîi might already be waiting for me.
At 11:09 p.m., I opened my door only to be met with the worried face of the young man inside. When Phîi sighed softly, guilt pricked at me for keeping him waiting.
“Good evening, Khrap. There was an event at school today… I almost didn’t make it.”
But his expression stayed flat as he picked up both plates of spaghetti and started to walk out. Seeing that, I reached out and stopped him at once.
“Wait! …Aren’t we going to celebrate Christmas together first, Khrap?”
“Forget it.”
No. I can’t let him just say forget it—not with this.
“Phîi Khrap…”
His eyes softened, no longer sharp, and I knew he was giving in to my voice.
“Phîi, are you angry because I came late?”
“I’m just glad you’re safe.”
That was when I realized—that really, he was worried about me.
At 11:12 p.m., we discovered that time in our two worlds didn’t quite match. The downside was that it almost caused us to argue. But the upside was that our Christmas was no longer just twenty-four hours. We sat facing the mirror, celebrating together. All I could do was stare longingly at that plate of spaghetti that should have been mine. The tomato sauce looked so hopelessly sad to me right then.
Still, I smiled—because of the gift.
“The real reason I was late… was because I was making your present, Phîi.” I pulled it out of my backpack. He raised his eyebrows at that.
“A present…?”
“A Christmas present, Khrap.”
But that gift was like the spaghetti—it could be offered, yet neither of us had any right to truly claim it.
Even so, I was overjoyed to see Phîi carefully watching as he peeled back the wrapping paper.
“You made this yourself?”
“Yes. You can use it to jot down your novel plots.”
“Thank you.”
And honestly—that was all I ever wanted.
“I’ll hold onto it for now, alright?”
The way our eyes overlapped in that moment made my heart skip a beat. But I was still Songjam—always ready to smile for the words of my Phîi.
The moment our eyes met, the faint sound of reindeer bells drifted from somewhere far away.
“Until the day we meet again….”
I said it, even though the hand holding the book was trembling, struggling to hold back so many feelings—as if I didn’t want to accidentally let them spill out.
If only Phîi knew how badly I wanted to meet the giver of this gift.
That night, he offered to choose the song for our little celebration. No wonder I hung on every note.
His husky, magnetic voice carried so easily into me. Now I understood why Phîi had chosen to share this artist’s song with me.
“I’ve never heard this song before,” I said. Phîi, finishing his glass of juice, turned and smiled.
“Just like I’d never heard the song you played, or seen the movies you showed me. Maybe our worlds really aren’t the same at all. My world has John Lennon—but yours doesn’t.”
I didn’t know who John Lennon was. All I knew was that the cookies-and-cream in my hand tasted like nothing the moment I saw that smile.
“But now, Phîi, you’ve made my world have John Lennon too, Khrap.”
And just like that, my whole world changed forever.
“You can be anything you want for everyone else out there. But with me… you can be everything.”
It felt as though everything I had ever lost had been placed back into my hands. Not emptiness anymore—but someone who accepted me completely. All of me. Even this Songjam who was still finding his way.
…Or even the part of me that was once a weepy child.
“Sometimes I feel like it’s a good thing something so strange happened to us,” I said. Because without it, I might never have met the man smiling back at me through that mirror….
That was the moment I realized: wanting to see someone smile for the rest of my life… It meant he was the one I loved.
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