My Moon, Chapter 1 pg 5
My Moon, Chapter 1 pg 5
“I know exactly who I should open my heart to... and who I shouldn’t,” Klai said, shifting his gaze from Merk to Thot. He felt it was time to clear things up with everyone. “And stop trying to force your friend on me, Thot. You should know by now that doing this only makes our relationship worse.”
“I’m not forcing Merk on you, Klai. Don’t misunderstand me,” Thot replied.
“Not forcing? Then why did you invite Merk without telling Klai? You all know he doesn’t want to see him,” Mai interjected.
“Can you stop stirring things up, Mai?” Thot shot back.
“Me, stirring things up?” Mai retorted.
“What’s with the fighting again?” New, who had just returned to the table, asked.
“Your friends are about to kill each other. Why are you only showing up now, New?” someone said.
“You’re sitting right here at the table—why don’t you stop them? I’m tired of playing peacemaker,” New replied.
Klai sat silently, his eyes scanning each friend one by one. He was furious to the point of breaking, realizing none of them felt even slightly guilty. Thot kept lying, scrambling for excuses to dodge responsibility. Though Klai disliked conflict, he wouldn’t let anyone deceive or take advantage of him anymore.
“New, Klai is misunderstanding me.”
“…”
“Klai thinks we deliberately invited him to run into Merk from the start.”
He’s not misunderstanding… it’s exactly what he thinks.
They’re just stalling, trying to come up with excuses.
“Klai… that’s not it. We genuinely invited you to chill and drink after exams, like we said. At the time, we hadn’t even invited Merk. But then Merk overheard that Panli was performing at this bar… so we switched from the original place to this one.”
“…”
“And…” New glanced at Thot before continuing, “Thot said Merk really wanted to see you, but you’ve been avoiding him. So Merk asked to come along, and me and Thot just…”
“So, in the end, you all planned for me to meet Merk anyway…”
“…”
“If you’d been honest from the start about Merk coming, I wouldn’t feel this hurt.”
“Klai…” Mai gently touched his arm, sensing he could no longer bottle up his pain.
“I thought you all would change, but no…”
“…”
“With the project stuff, I could still forgive you. But this… I really can’t take it.”
“Klai, you’re blowing this out of proportion. We…”
“Thot, I’m not misunderstanding anything,” Klai said, staring directly at Thot, who, for the first time, avoided his gaze. “After we finish the presentations for the last two subjects, let’s go our separate ways.”
“Klai… we can’t let something this small ruin our friendship,” New said.
“You’re the one ruining the friendship, New, not Klai,” Mai snapped.
“Mai, can you not make things worse?”
“I’m the problem here… I’ll leave.”
Klai turned to look at Merk, the person he’d always avoided. From now on, though, he wouldn’t run anymore. Instead… “Merk, you stay here. This place is yours. Everyone here cares more about your feelings than mine. So… I’ll go.”
He would walk away…
Walk away to a place that was truly his.
“Klai, we’re sorry. Sorry for not thinking it through,” New stammered, apologizing.
“Klai… can we go back?”
Klai nodded at Mai before turning to face the others, who looked worried. “The two remaining group projects we have to do together… we’ll get them done. No one needs to worry that we’ll abandon you. We can separate personal issues from work. But we ask that everyone takes full responsibility for their own parts.”
“Klai… can’t you forgive us just one more time? I told you, I didn’t mean to invite Merk in the first place,” New said.
“But after you invited Merk, did you ever think to tell us he was coming? Or did you intend for us to find out like this?”
“…”
“If I hadn’t brought this up, would everyone have just let it slide like nothing happened?” Klai pressed his lips tightly before continuing, “My feelings probably aren’t as important as what everyone else wants… am I right?”
“…”
His friends avoided his gaze, and Klai took it as a clear answer. He wasn’t demanding that they prioritize his feelings, but he just wanted them to consider each other’s feelings a little. Klai understood that in the real world, everyone puts their own feelings first.
But he believed everyone should realize that making themselves happy shouldn’t come at someone else’s expense. When we’re happy, someone else might be suffering.
Taking advantage of someone brings happiness to one person.
Being taken advantage of causes suffering to another.
Klai knew that in reality, it’s hard to avoid such situations. No matter how much you try to steer clear, you’ll eventually face it yourself. And when you do, you should take it as a lesson.
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