New Normal

I was shocked when my girlfriend suddenly dumped me.

I know I have been busy with my work had to take care of newbies. So I couldn’t spear much time for her recently.

But I thought she understood me.

I was devastated.

I was having trouble sleeping every night since the day my EX (now) girlfriend dumped me. Every time I tried to sleep, the words she had thrown at me for the last time would come back and break my heart in pierces my heart like thousand needles, making me feel as if I should deserve to die.

I shouldn’t exist.

I spent every day feeling like that, and I became insomnia.

More I feel pressure on sleeping, my eyes are fully awake.

When I closed my eyes, I did not feel sleepy. The night was quiet and heavy, and all I could do was lying on my bed, waiting for the morning to come.

Even when finally morning comes, I am so gloomy.

She’s gone.

I am a useless person.

Nobody needs me.

I am getting difficulty paying attention, focusing on tasks, or remembering.

I am so exhausted.

That’s why I screwed up so badly at work.

I made a series of terrible mistakes at work, and everyone around me gave me the cold shoulder.

I am useless.

I could hear people whispering about me remarks me as a useless man. And I’m getting more and more stuck.

I want to run away from somewhere; even if I quit my job, I don’t know if any other companies would hire someone like me. If I lose my job, there is no way to live.

Should I go back to my mother’s home?

I can’t.

I don’t want her to worry about me.

I have no place to go.

“I guess I’ll just have to die.”

I muttered.

“P’Arthit. I will make you feel better.”

“Eh?”

It was N’Kongbop from University.

Kongpob is the son of a large plastics company president, but he’s a guy who got a job at this small company where I was hired 2 years earlier.

I am admin that Kong is a strange kid since he was in school. Back then, he was a popular guy but never had a girlfriend. Instead, he always follows me around no matter how much I treated him coldly.

My friend said it was because Kong liked me, but I didn’t believe them.

Because I like girls.

P’Arthit. I will make you feel better and set you free from suffering.

When Kongbop said, I couldn’t see his face.

I didn’t want him to think I am a loser, and I wanted to disappear if he looked at me with pity.

But he wasn’t.

The way he smiled at me did not make me feel pity or anxiety, but something different...anticipation.

Anticipation?

“You don’t have to suffer anymore.”

I couldn’t resist it.

I had fallen for his trick.

I knew the kind of person who would whisper such sweet nothings to someone in the depths of misery...

“Good morning, P’Arthit.”

“...Uh..morning.”

It’s a Saturday morning, and I’m sitting at the kitchen table while N’Kongbop from the same work is making cafe au let ( with lots of sugar).

I glanced at my gorgeous breakfast, the western style: toast, scrambled eggs, sausages, mashed potatoes, and a simple salad.

If it were just me, I would have ended up with just toast and coffee or no breakfast anyway. I’d rather sleep until noon.

I sipped a café au lait that was the perfect temperature for my taste.

ーIt’s so perfect.

“Do you like it?”

Kongbop smiled at me.

“Uh-uh.”

I sipped it again.

N’Kongbop’s facial expression and tone of voice at the office are very cold. He has no friends in the office and never talks about his private life, probably because he was so traumatized by how he was chased by women in University.

But when he’s in my room, he’s very different. He always has a faint smile on his face, and his eyes seem calm behind his black-rimmed glasses. Even his tone of voice is more friendly, and he takes care of me very well, like...like a lover.

He acts like we’re lovers.

To be honest, I’ve never taken such good care of my ex-girlfriend. She never once woke up before me to prepare breakfast for me, not even once.

-Maybe we didn’t really like each other that much.

Looking at N’Kongbop on Saturday morning, I realized that what I used to think was’ Sweet time’ with my (EX) girlfriend, and I was the sweet time at all.

Moreover, N’Kongbop and I are not dating, not lovers.

We are just Phee- Nong from University and working for the same company.

That’s all!

N’Kongbop comes to stay in my room on Friday night and leaves on Saturday morning. During this time, we eat dinner and drink together, but nothing special.

It’s ALMOST the same as when my OTHER friends come over to stay.

-for me...

However, N’Kongbop needs to stay overnight at my house.

It has an important meaning for him.

“P’Arthit. Thank you again for last night. It was very delicious, Kharp.”

“Oh, yeah? T.. that’s good. I mean..**cough, cough, I don’t know anything about it.”

I could feel my cheeks are getting hot.

“You were really, really sexiy in my dream, P’Arthit.”

Before I knew it, he was whispering to my ear.

“Heeeeyyyy! You are too close! I told you not to talk about it! I don’t want to know any part of me that I don’t know! ”

I glared at him with teary eyes.

SHIT! How come my tears come out so easily!

“But you were ...”

Kongbop was looking at me with enraptured eyes.

“Sh..shut up!!! Stop talking! Do not look at me like that! ”

When I stopped him, he looked so sad, like a dog drops its tail in disappointment.

He never shows such a pouting face even when his boss yelled at him in front of other people on purpose, make him humiliate.

Is this something that makes him more depressed- me stopping our conversation than about your boss’s humiliation at work?

" Listen, I don’t care that you’re a dream eater.”

“Ahh, P’Arthit? I am not just a dream eater. I am incubus.”

“NO! Incubus sounds so wrong! Let’s call you Tapir!”

I tried to erase the sexual parts.

“...Tapir..I am not that ugly.”

Knogbop complained.

“Shut up, I don’t care! My point is you’re in my dreams and eating my dreams. And I don’t care because I don’t remember anything about it. So don’t talk to me about what you’re doing in my dreams. I don’t want to hear about myself sleeping with a man!”

I said it quickly as possible by ignoring slightly aching my heart.

“Ohhh, P’Arthit. You are not sleeping any man but me~.”

Kongbop pouts.

“Kongbop!”

I shout.

-I am a heterosexual!!

Kongbop said he is a dream demon.

A demon that sneaks into human dreams and has sex with them. In the West, it was indeed called an incubus. It sucks up human semen during sex for their meal.

He is only a half-demon and living everyday life like us; there is no difference from humans.

Doubt!

Semen is not for food!!

Anyway, when Kongbop first told me about it, I thought he gone crazy. Even I was insomnia, sucked my life, and hard to guess straight, what Knogbop said to me was insane.

What the point of telling me such a lie?

I didn’t have the energy to get angry at the stupid story of N’Kongbop, who is usually serious.

In his eyes, I must have looked like a person in a very bad state of mind, or else he wouldn’t have been able to tell me such an outlandish story.

However, he has already known that I won’t believe him. so he asked for one shot.

“P’Arthit, I know you haven’t been sleeping well, have you? I heard that you are suffering from insomnia. I’ll make sure you get a good night’s sleep.”

He pushed up his glasses with smirking and make me believe good sleep was guaranteed.

At that time, I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to be free from the feeling that my head and body were turning to mud. I wanted to let go of anxiety, sorrow, fear, and everything else and sleep in peace.

I was even willing to die for that.

So I agreed.

I didn’t care if it was a lie or not anymore.

I was tired.

I lay down, sensed the sweet aroma, and talked with him for a while.

Then he asked me to close my eyes and felt his palm on my eyelids.

That’s all I remember.

The next thing I knew, it was morning.

I woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed and fine for the first time in months.

There was some unknown sweet aching left in my core.

I don’t know what it is, but I felt so good and soothed my feelings.

When I walked to the kitchen, Kongbop was making breakfast, smiling, and I felt like I was allowed to be in the present world and be alive.

Kongbop was more calming than my (EX) girlfriend and smiling a lot. I felt like I was able to fix the pain of my broken heart.

“How come I feel so alive?”

When I asked him, he gave me an answer that I couldn’t believe.

“I fucked you enough to forget about that woman.”

“What?”

My mouth fell open.

“I tasted every inch of your body inside out in your dream. You were so delicious as I thought. I made you cum over and over again that relesed your stress and forget all about the woman.”

Since then, Kong, who has stayed in my place, spread butter and jam on a piece of bread and handed it to me with a smile.

Damn, this is not fair.

I can’t yell at him!

Stupid!

I wanted to grab him by the collar and punch him, but He made breakfast for me!!

I don’t know what the right thing to do.

So I can only accept the toast with a disgusted look on my face.

Kongbop’s toast is just sweet enough for my taste.

It’s so good!

The scrambled eggs were fluffy, melty, and delicious, too.

The food tasted great when it was made by someone else, but it tasted even better because I knew Kongbop took the time and effort to make it just how I like it.

-At the workplace, he is quiet and hardly talks to anyone, even me, but the morning after he stays over, he acts like a real boyfriend.

-Am I taste that good to him?

I wondered.

N’Kongbop was staring at me with a piece of toast in his hand.

“What?”

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.

" I jsut thought your lips looked delicious.”

N’Kongbop said happily and moved his face closer.

“Halt! Don’t try to kiss me.”

I glared at him. But my heart beating so fast, and I could feel my ears are getting hotter.

“What are you talking about, P’Arthit? I would never do that. I don’t touch other people except in my dreams, and I have no interest in sex or skinship in real life. I’m incubus, remember?

“What?”

-What a jerk! You ...... play with my body in your dreams! But you don’t want me?

I gritted my teeth. I don’t know why I’m so upset.

“It’s natural for me and make sense.”

Kongbop bites his toast.

-What the hell?

I was getting more and more annoyed. N’Kongbop has been following me wherever I go since I was in university, the first time we met but doesn’t want to kiss me?

As I recalled my memory, I realized that he has always avoided being touched by someone. Back then, I thought he must be a fastidious snobbish person sometimes.

“Wait, don’t tell me...Are you a virgin by any chance?”

I gasped.

Kongbop looked at me rather annoyingly and sighed.

“Yes, of course. Having physical sex is inefficient, unhygienic, and tiring. It’s easier, tastier, and simpler to have sex in a dream. What’s the point of having physical sex if it’s so tedious and time-consuming?”

“What are you?”

I got annoyed because it’s not that Kongbop is a virgin, but the fact that he denies the meaning of sex.

He gazed at me coldly, pushing up his glasses scoffed.

“A half incubus?”

“Fuck you!”

I looked at Kongbop angrily, completely forgetting I yelled earlier that I don’t want to imagine ME sleeping with a man.