Pim's POV
The morning sun slanted through the classroom windows, painting golden rectangles across rows of half-empty desks. Pim Thasorn tapped her pen against her notebook, pretending to take notes on Professor Somchai's lecture about post-modernist architecture while actually sketching tiny flowers in the margins. Beside her, Anda Walchanon wasn't even pretending—her head rested on folded arms, dark hair spilling across her desk like a silk curtain.
"The integration of traditional Thai elements with contemporary design requires a delicate balance," Professor Somchai droned, clicking to another slide of a building that looked like every other building they'd studied that semester.
Pim nudged Anda's elbow. Her friend didn't stir.
From two rows back, a balled-up piece of paper sailed over their heads and landed perfectly in Anda's hair. Anda jerked upright, blinking in confusion as Kai and Noi dissolved into barely suppressed giggles behind them.
"Miss Walchanon," Professor Somchai said without looking up from his notes, "perhaps you'd like to share your thoughts on the Sathorn Unique Tower?"
Anda smoothed her hair, her composure returning as quickly as it had fled. "The Sathorn Unique Tower stands as a monument to ambition without foresight, Professor. Beautiful in concept, abandoned in execution. Much like your lecture series on brutalism last month."
The classroom erupted in snickers. Professor Somchai's eyebrows climbed toward his receding hairline, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "Your honesty is as refreshing as it is insubordinate, Miss Walchanon. See me after class."
Anda slumped back in her chair with a dramatic sigh, and Pim bit her lip to keep from laughing.
When the lecture finally ended and students began flooding toward the exits, Pim gathered her things slowly, waiting for Anda to finish her "scolding"—which usually consisted of Professor Somchai trying not to smile while Anda promised to be more respectful. Kai and Noi bounded over, both wearing matching grins.
"You're going to get expelled one of these days," Kai said, slinging an arm around Pim's shoulders. Her girlfriend Noi nodded sagely.
"Anda? Never," Pim said. "She's got the faculty wrapped around her little finger."
"Speaking of fingers," Noi wiggled hers mysteriously, "who's hungry? I'm starving and if I have to sit through another hour of Organic Chemistry without food, I'll actually die."
"You say that before every class," Kai pointed out.
"And yet I'm still alive, which proves I've been eating."
Pim laughed as they made their way into the corridor, the familiar chaos of university life swirling around them—students rushing to their next classes, couples stealing kisses in alcoves, someone's phone blaring a pop song they'd all be sick of by next week. These were the rhythms of her days, predictable and comfortable like a favorite song.
Anda caught up with them near the stairwell, looking entirely unrepentant. "He wants me to write a three-page essay on why sleeping in class disrupts the learning environment."
"The horror," Kai deadpanned.
"I know, right? Three pages. Does he not know me at all? I could write ten."
They descended the stairs in a chaotic cluster, their voices echoing off concrete walls covered in layers of posters—club meetings, concerts, protest rallies, someone looking for a lost cat. The campus coffee shop was their destination, as it was most mornings between classes. The small café tucked into the arts building lobby made terrible coffee but excellent mango sticky rice, and more importantly, it was theirs. Their table by the window, their regular orders, their kingdom of inside jokes and shared dreams.
Pim ordered her usual iced latte while Anda got something complicated with extra espresso shots. Kai and Noi both ordered matching green tea frappes, because of course they did. Sometimes Pim wondered what it would be like to be so perfectly in sync with another person, to find someone who matched you so completely that even your coffee orders aligned.
"Earth to Pim," Anda waved a hand in front of her face. "You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?"
"The thing where you go all dreamy and distant. What are you thinking about?"
Pim felt her cheeks warm. "Nothing. Just... wondering when I'll meet someone, I guess."
Noi's eyes lit up with that dangerous gleam that meant she was about to play matchmaker. "Oh! There's this girl in my biochem class, she's super cute and I think she might—"
"No," Pim said firmly. "No more setups. Remember what happened with that girl from the library?"
"How was I supposed to know she collected porcelain dolls?" Noi protested. "That's not something that comes up in casual conversation."
"She had forty-seven of them, Noi. In her dorm room. Their eyes followed me."
Kai snorted into her frappe. "Okay, that one was pretty bad. But Noi's heart was in the right place."
"My heart is always in the right place," Noi said, placing a hand over her chest dramatically. "It's my judgment that's occasionally questionable."
They claimed their usual table, the one with the wobbly leg that Kai always had to wedge folded napkins under. Afternoon light streamed through the windows, and outside, the campus sprawled in its organized chaos—manicured lawns and modern buildings, students on bicycles, someone playing guitar under a tree.
"So what's everyone doing tonight?" Kai asked, pulling out her phone to check their group chat even though they were all sitting right there.
"Library," Pim said. "I have that design project due Friday and I haven't even started the sketches."
"Liar," Anda said. "You've been sketching for weeks. I've seen your notebook."
"Those are just ideas—"
"They're beautiful and you know it. Stop being modest; it's annoying."
Pim stuck her tongue out, and Anda mirrored the gesture with the unselfconscious ease of someone who'd known her since they were both awkward freshmen trying to navigate university life. Three years later, and Pim still couldn't imagine these days without Anda's particular brand of chaos, or Kai and Noi's coupled sweetness that somehow never felt exclusive.
"I actually can't tonight," Anda said, scrolling through her own phone. "I promised P'Ploy I'd have dinner with her. She's been working herself to death at the gallery and I barely see her anymore."
"How is your sister?" Noi asked. "Still single and breaking hearts across Bangkok?"
Anda's expression softened the way it always did when she talked about Ploy. "She's... managing. I think. She doesn't talk about it much, but I know she's still not over her ex. It's been two years and she still gets this look sometimes, like she's somewhere else entirely."
"That's rough," Kai said quietly.
"Yeah." Anda's fingers drummed against her coffee cup. "I just wish she'd let herself be happy again, you know? She deserves it."
Pim understood that kind of loyalty, that protective love for the people who mattered most. She felt it for the three people sitting at this table with her, these friends who'd become her chosen family. The thought of any of them hurting made her chest ache.
"Well, if you're having dinner with P'Ploy, you should bring her those coconut cookies from that bakery she likes," Pim suggested. "The one near Siam."
Anda's face brightened. "That's perfect! I'll stop by after my last class." She glanced at her phone again, checking the time. "Which reminds me, I should probably head to the library myself. I have a paper on sustainable urban development that's not going to write itself, unfortunately."
"I thought you already finished that," Kai said.
"I did. Then I read it and hated it, so now I'm starting over."
"Perfectionist," Noi sang under her breath.
"Guilty." Anda stood, draining the last of her coffee. "Anyone want to come with? I'll probably be there for a few hours."
Pim shook her head. "I have Professor Lin's seminar in twenty minutes. But text me later about dinner with your sister?"
"Will do." Anda leaned down to press a quick kiss to the top of Pim's head, the casual affection that marked all their interactions. "Don't let Noi set you up with anyone weird while I'm gone."
"I make no promises," Noi called as Anda headed for the door.
They watched her go, her figure disappearing into the flow of students in the corridor. Pim felt that familiar tug of fondness, mixed with something she couldn't quite name. Anda had a way of filling up space, of making everything feel more vibrant just by being present. The café seemed dimmer without her, the conversation a little less bright.
"She's going to kill herself one of these days," Kai said, but there was affection in her voice. "Running around campus like she has to save the world before graduation."
"That's just Anda," Pim said. "She doesn't know how to do anything halfway."
Professor Lin's seminar passed in a blur of discussion about form and function, beauty and practicality. Pim contributed when called upon but her mind kept wandering to her design project, to the sketches Anda had seen and praised. Sometimes she wondered if she was good enough for this, if her dreams of becoming an architect were just that—dreams. But then she'd remember why she started drawing buildings in the first place: the desire to create spaces where people could feel safe, happy, home.
After class, she texted the group chat:
Pim:Survived Lin's seminar. Heading home to work on sketches. You guys want to get breakfast tomorrow before class?
Kai:Always
Noi: If by breakfast you mean I watch you all eat while I complain about being awake
Pim: So yes?
Noi: Obviously yes
She waited for Anda's response, but her phone stayed silent. Probably already deep in the library with her headphones on, lost in her own world of research and revision. Pim smiled to herself and started the walk back to her apartment, the late afternoon sun warm on her shoulders.
The city hummed around her—motorbikes weaving through traffic, street vendors calling out their wares, the perpetual construction that seemed to be Bangkok's natural state. She loved this city, its contradictions and its energy, the way old temples sat next to glass towers, the way tradition and modernity tangled together like vines.
Her phone buzzed.
Anda:Sorry! Just saw this. Definitely breakfast. I'll bring those coconut cookies if there are any left after P'Ploy and I demolish them
Pim:Save me one at least
Anda:No promises
Pim laughed and tucked her phone away, cutting through the small park near her building. Students sprawled on the grass studying, a group of kids kicked a soccer ball, someone practiced tai chi in the shade of a banyan tree. Ordinary moments, unremarkable in their everydayness.
She didn't know yet how precious they were.
Didn't know that by this time tomorrow, everything would be different.
That the comfortable rhythms of her life were about to shatter like glass.
That in a few short hours, Anda would be lying in a hospital bed, suspended between consciousness and oblivion, and Pim's world would narrow to the beep of monitors and the antiseptic smell of fear.
For now, she climbed the stairs to her apartment, humming a song she'd heard in the café, thinking about design projects and breakfast plans and all the beautiful, mundane details of a life that still felt infinite.
She unlocked her door, dropped her bag, and settled at her desk to sketch.
Outside, the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold and rose.
And somewhere across the city, Anda Walchanon gathered her things, said goodbye to the library, and headed out into the early evening—toward dinner, toward coconut cookies, toward a moment that would change everything.
The universe held its breath.
And Pim, unknowing, drew her buildings with careful hands, creating spaces for a future she couldn't see coming.