Chapter Text
William has never in his life walked away from something that was clearly a bad idea.
This is how he ends up, on a perfectly normal Saturday afternoon crouched behind a grocery store display of instant noodles. Watching a stranger be mean to a mango.
Not like aggressively mean. Just the guy is standing in the produce section holding a mango up to the light with the focused disapproval of someone grading a final exam.
He turns it.
Frowns.
Sets it back.
Picks up another one.
Frowns harder.
He's wearing a slightly oversized linen shirt with the sleeves pushed up and he has the kind of face that William's brain immediately files under problem and My next problem specifically.
William watches him reject four mangoes in a row.
Then because William has never once in twenty-two years made a good decision. He picks up a mango from the pile and walks over.
"This one," William says, holding it out.
The stranger looks at him. Then at the mango. "I don't know you."
"I know. This one though."
A pause.
The stranger takes it. Examines it with the same focused disapproval. Something in his face shifts slightly reluctant, like a judge who doesn't want to award full marks but has to.
"How did you know?" he asks.
"You're checking the wrong things," William says. "You keep looking at the color. You should be smelling it."
The stranger looks at him for a long moment. "That's it? That's your advice?"
"And also stop being so mean to them. They can feel judgment."
"Mangoes cannot feel judgment."
"You don't know that."
The stranger stares at him. He has very steady eyes, the kind that make you feel like you're being processed and filed somewhere. William finds this extremely attractive, which is his own problem and no one else's.
"Thank you," the stranger says finally, in the tone of someone who was raised with manners and is using them against his will.
"William," William says, sticking out his hand.
Another pause. "Est."
"P'Est?" William tries.
Est looks at him. "You don't know how old I am."
"You have the energy of a Phi."
Est puts the mango in his basket. "Goodbye, William."
William watches him walk away toward the vegetable section. He stands there for a moment in the produce aisle, holding nothing, having given away his mango.
He takes out his phone and texts his best friend Nut:
I just met someone.
Nut replies:
Where are you?
William:
grocery store.
I met this absolutely gorgeous man
he was mean to mangoes
Nut replies:
william i'm begging you to get a hobby
The odds of running into Est again are not good. Bangkok is enormous. William lives in a not so busy area. The grocery store is one of forty in a five kilometer radius.
William goes back the following Saturday.
And the one after that.
On the third Saturday, Est is there, examining papayas with the same quiet aggression and William walks directly up to him and says, "You're doing it again."
Est turns. He looks at William the way you look at whether unsurprised, slightly resigned. "You haunt this produce section."
"I live nearby," William says. "Do you need help with the papayas too ? or."
"I don't need help."
"You're frowning at it."
"I frown when I concentrate."
"That's a lot of frowning for a fruit purchase."
Est sets the papaya down and turns to face him fully, which is somehow more alarming than the frowning. "Are you going to be here every Saturday?"
William considers lying. He's not good at it. "Probably."
Something moves across Est's face. Not quite a smile but in the neighborhood. "Fine," he says, turning back to the display. "The papaya. What am I looking for?"
William feels something in his chest do a small, unauthorized celebration. He picks up a papaya. "Okay. So. Press it gently here--"
"I know how to touch a papaya."
"Then why were you frowning at it?"
"Because," Est says with great dignity, "I wanted a second opinion."
William looks at him. Est looks back. Neither of them says anything for a moment.
"P'Est," William says.
"What?"
"You're really bad at asking for help."
Est takes the papaya out of William's hand and puts it in his basket. "Goodbye, William."
"Same time next week?"
Est is already walking away. He doesn't say no.
William takes that as a yes.
It becomes a thing.
Not a scheduled thing. Or an acknowledged thing. Just William is at the grocery store on Saturday afternoons and Est is at the grocery store at the same time. Somehow they always end up in the produce section at the same time arguing about fruit selection methodology.
Est has opinions. Loud ones for someone who delivers them so quietly. He thinks William's approach to grocery shopping is "chaotic and structurally unsound."
William thinks Est's approach is "the behavior of someone who needs to relax."
"You don't have a list," Est says one Saturday, watching William drop things into his basket based on what looks interesting.
"I have a general direction."
"That's not a list."
"It's a vibe-based list."
Est looks at him the way you look at a sentence that doesn't parse. "A vibe?"
"Yeah. Like, today my vibe is... " William looks around " something spicy. And also I want something orange."
"Those are not grocery categories."
"And yet I'm going to leave here with a complete meal."
"You're going to leave here with sriracha and a tangerine."
William points at him. "See, you get it."
Est makes a sound that is trying very hard not to be a laugh. William has been cataloguing these the almost-laughs, the mouth that presses flat when something is funny and Est doesn't want to give him the satisfaction. He has a whole collection now.
"Come on," William says, already moving toward the noodle aisle. "I'll show you vibe-based shopping. It'll change your life."
"I don't want my life changed by your grocery methodology."
"P'Est."
"What?"
"You're following me."
Est looks down. He is in fact following him, basket and all two steps behind like he got there by accident. He stops immediately. Recalibrates his expression into something more intentional.
"I'm going to the same aisle," Est says.
"For what?"
A pause. "Noodles."
"Vibe-based?"
"Structured," Est says firmly. "I have a recipe."
"Okay but what if instead--"
"William."
"Yeah?"
"Stop talking and walk."
William grins and walks. Est follows, pretending he's not and William decides that this is the best Saturday he's had in a very long time.
The part where it becomes a problem is William's own fault, which is on brand.
It's a Tuesday. William is bored at work he does social media content for a small food brand, which is mostly fun and occasionally requires him to film himself eating things. Which his coworker Hong finds very funny and his coworker Tui finds very annoying.
He's editing a video when he thinks about the mango thing. And then he thinks about Est's almost-laugh in the noodle aisle. And then he thinks with the casual devastation of someone who really should have seen it coming,
oh no, I like him.
He stares at his screen.
He texts Nut:
I have a problem
Nut:
the grocery store guy
William:
how did you know?
Nut:
william you've mentioned him seven times in the past two weeks and you don't notice you're doing it
William:
I don't do that
Nut:
last week you said "mangoes are really underappreciated" completely unprompted in the middle of dinner
William stares at this message for a long time.
William:
okay
Nut:
yeah
William:
so what do I do?
Nut:
talk to him??
William:
I talk to him every Saturday
Nut:
tell him you LIKE him
William looks at this advice. Sits with it. Considers it.
He puts his phone down and goes back to editing. He will think about this later. Later meaning:
not now,
not soon,
and hopefully never.
He thinks about it the following Saturday.
Est is already there when William arrives, standing in front of the tomatoes and he looks up when William approaches and says, "You're late."
William stops. "We don't have a time."
"You're usually here by three."
William stares at him. "You know when I usually get here?"
Est looks at the tomatoes. "I notice things."
"P'Est."
"What?"
"You were waiting for me."
"I was shopping."
"At the tomatoes. You don't cook with tomatoes. You told me they make everything taste the same."
A silence.
Est picks up a tomato. Sets it back down. "Maybe I changed my mind about tomatoes."
"Did you?"
"…No."
William is going to die in this grocery store.
He's going to collapse in the produce section and they're going to find him surrounded by mangoes and it will be entirely Est's fault for existing with that face and those sleeves and the way he waits at the tomatoes at three in the afternoon.
"P'Est," William says.
"If you're about to say something that makes this weird--"
"Can I have your number?"
Est goes quiet. He's still looking at the tomatoes. A very long second passes.
"Why?" Est says.
"So I can text you," William says, very reasonably. "When I find good mangoes."
"You can tell me on Saturdays."
"What if I find one on a Wednesday? That's information you'd want."
Est finally looks at him. He has that processing expression, the one William has come to understand means I am deciding something and I haven't told you what it is yet.
William waits. He's learned to wait with Est which is new for him. He's not usually a waiter.
"You'd text me," Est says slowly, "about mangoes?"
"And papayas. And sometimes noodles. I saw a really good instant noodle ranking online last week that I think you'd have opinions about."
"I don't have opinions about instant noodle rankings."
"You would about this one. They put mama tom yum at number four."
Something shifts in Est's face. There it is. The almost-laugh, threatening to become a real one. "That's incorrect."
"I know."
"It's clearly number two at minimum."
"I know, P'Est, that's why I wanted to tell you..."
"Fine," Est says. He holds out his hand. William pulls out his phone, already unlocked, already open to contacts. Est types his number in. Hands it back.
Their fingers overlap for a second on the phone case.
Est clears his throat. Steps back picks up his basket with the careful composure of someone who was not just standing at the tomatoes for thirty minutes.
"Number four," he says, shaking his head slightly. "Ridiculous."
"I'm going to text you right now so you have my number," William says.
"Okay."
William types:
mama tom yum is being DISRESPECTED
Est's phone buzzes. He glances at it. The almost-laugh wins this time it comes out small and quiet and a little helpless, like it surprised him too.
He looks up. William is already smiling, the kind that's hard to do anything about once it starts.
"Saturday?" William says.
Est looks at him for a moment. Something in his expression has gone softer around the edges, just slightly, just enough.
"Saturday," Est says.
He walks toward the checkout. William watches him go, then looks down at his phone at the contact he's just saved as
P'Est 🥭🩵🤏🏻
And thinks that he is absolutely going to do something embarrassing with this situation very soon.
He cannot wait.