Chapter 23 : GREATEST DAY

Finally, the soccer tournament has arrived. You think that all those practices were tiring? The real day was even worse. I didn’t get to sleep last night since I was so busy with the uniforms,taking care of the instruments and a bunch of other things. I took a nap around 2 in the morning,but then Om kicked me and woke me up at exactly 2:25 am because there was a problem with a horn.

What in the holy hell? I fixed this piece of crap just the other day. Maybe it is time to buy a new one.

Basically, I’ve only had 25 minutes worth of sleep before I needed to drag my exhausted and barely

functioning body to Suphachalasai Stadium, even before the roosters are awake.

The morning sun was shining at us with no mercy,several of the underclassmen marching band

members had fainted. I had to rush and grab the first aid kit that we fortunately brought along with

us. So I ended up holding a walkie-talkie in one hand and the first aid kit in the other. Nevertheless, I constantly needed to fix some of the instruments that broke down. Occasionally, when we were in

dire need of something, I had to ask some of the underclassmen who were free to run to Siam and

buy them. It has been a chaotic day so far.  “Yo! Don’t faint! Don’t faint!” Here we go again. I quickly turn and catch nong Ae, the clarinet player,

whose face is completely void of any blood. I grab a wet towel and dab his pale face. Not only I need to make sure these guys stay alive, I also need to keep an ear out and reply to the messages from the walkie-talkie every now and then. I’m getting

pretty dizzy myself.

“Bank to Noh. Is the band ready?” I flinch when I hear my name from the headphones. I hastily reply back.

“Noh replying to Bank. We’re ready.”

“Then please get into position.” Here goes nothing.

Fighting. I pat the band members on the back to get their attention so they would get up before I try to reach Film via the walkie-talkie. He seems to have disappeared on us.

“Noh to Film. Please get into your position. I’m about to send the band over.” “Film replying to Noh. Yes. I am on my way.” I bet he was checking out the girls here. I shake my head before I walk over to lead the underclassmen to where they’re supposed to be. But then, I hear

a voice calling out my name from the walkie-talkie. “Earn to Noh. Don’t forget that we made plans,okay?” Eh, this bastard. Where the heck did he

come from? I stare at the walkie-talkie with a puzzled look before I reply.“Noh replying to Earn. Yeah, just lemme finish up first.”

The walkie-talkie goes silent momentarily before somebody else says something. “Please don’t play

around with the walkie-talkie.” I couldn’t help but let out a laughter. The underclassmen nearby turn

to look at me with confusion in their faces.

Heh, that was Phun’s voice.

***

The marching band begins to walk into the stadium, which means that my job here is done and I no longer need to stick around (because Film

and Om are already taking care of the rest). My new job, however, is rushing to the area under the stands and check the monitors to see whether everything is going smoothly or not and report to Film.

I half walk and half run to under the stands area. I notice different staff members from various departments, such as the cheer team, the technical

team, and the design team all wearing the jumpsuit and busily working away. I wave at Mark, who is part of the design team. He has an anxious look on his face as he tries to make changes to the stands layout. He still has the time to wave back

at me. (Seriously?) Nearby, I see Mo, who is working in the technical department today, having a seemingly stressful discussion with the welfare members. There are some sort of blueprints in their hands. Everyone seems to be very occupied. I search around for a monitor that would be able to help me. I didn’t need to idle for too long when a 10th grader waves me over. “This one, p’!” I smile and run over to have a seat next to him. I watch as the band and the troops march inside the stadium. To be honest, I’m not exactly paying attention to the monitor since I’m too busy talking

to Paeng about PangYa . (Film and Om can never find out about this.)

As expected, I spot Phun’s back for a short moment. He is wearing the jumpsuit and is working nearby. (He’s working in the technical

department, I just found that out when I saw him wearing the uniform.) However, I’m not really

paying any attention to him since I’m too preoccupied with my discussion with nong Paeng. Well, at least I was until he went quiet. “What is it, p’Phun?” Wah? What the hell? I

instantly turn around to look when I heard nong Paeng’s voice. Phun Phumipat is rudely crouching

down behind me even though he’s still wearing his own set of huge headphones. “Can I sit there? Let’s trade places,” he tells nong Paeng. I really wanted to smack him in the head. Paeng obviously gives up his seat since Phun is abusing his seniority power. Heh heh heh. He still has the nerves to flash a big smile before he takes off his headphone and passes it to the

underclassman, “Take this too. Earn is giving out orders on channel 2.” Where I come from, we call

this shrugging off your own responsibilities to other people.

“Is he gonna be able to do that though?” I whisper a question to Phun. However, he gives me a

relaxed smile before he puts nong Phaeng’s headphones on. Now, he’s listening to channel 11 just like I am. “Of course, don’t underestimate

him.” Phun says as he presses some buttons on the keyboard to change the camera angles in order to get a clearer feed of the marching band, “I know you better anyway.” “Quit running your mouth off…” I tell him off but I can’t help but smile to myself since the feed is clearer now. I’m letting Film know through the

walkie-talkie when I notice any mistakes or problems.

Soon enough, the troops and the last member of the marching band exit the stadium. I let out a huge sigh of relief because everything went

smoothly. Well, aside from Ngoi who played the flute in a wrong key twice. I should kick his ass later.

“ Sighhhhh. “

“So you’re all done for the day, right?” Phun asks me as he switches the monitor back to the cheer stands like before. I don’t know how to answer him since technically, I am finished but I’m kind of also not finished. “I still gotta go see Earn.”

“Right, what did he mean by what he said earlier?” Phun takes the opportunity to ask me. I stretch

before I answer him, “He helped out with my club’s budget problem, remember? He asked me if I could share some of the beverages from the

marching band to the stands since no one helps him with getting anything to drink at all.” I finished and was about to get up to do just as I told Phun but he pulls me back to sit down. “Then you don’t need to go.”

“Why the hell not?” I furrow my brows at Phun who is grinning at the

monitor as the cheer stands spell something obnoxious. However, I feel like Phun is the one being way more obnoxious right now. “Well, I…

already paid him back. And I returned the dog tag too,” he gives me a quick answer before he speaks

into the walkie-talkie. “Monitor to Cheer team. S-30 is incorrect, please take care of that.” “Hold up! We’re not done talking about this yet!” I

pull on his sleeves so that he is unable to keep typing on the keyboard. “Yeah, we are.” Phun

argues as he laughs before going back to adjusting the camera angles.

“What the hell? You returned the money already? The school gave the money for our club already?” “Not yet.” “Then how did you return the money to him?’“Not telling you. Monitor to Cheer team. Check

E-14 please.” This jerk continues to avoid the subject. I wrinkle my nose at him (even though he isn’t looking at me) before I pick my butt up to

walk away. “I still need to go. I already promised him.” And that’s the second time he pulls me back down to the seat. Oh sure, you’re quick when it comes to this stuff. “You know how to handle this

monitor, right?” Phun asks me. I nod, although I don’t entirely understand his point. “Wanna wear the jumpsuit? But now I’m not sure

whether I should nod even though I’m dying to wear one on the inside. I stare at him with my brows furrowed. “Don’t look so confused. I know that you wanna. Follow me. Tle, can you take care of this for a bit? Be right back,” he says as he drags me along with him.

What the hell is he up to?!

***

We stop at where the cheerleaders change their clothes. The area is currently empty because

they’re already on standby at the entrance. I stand here with a puzzled look on my face as I watch him lowering the zipper of his jumpsuit.

“Yo! Yo! Yo! Yo! Yo! Yo! Yo! What the hell are you doing?!” Is he gonna force himself on me right

here?! No way! The floor is too hard! Wait! I mean, I won’t let him!

He ignores my protest and continues to strip from his jumpsuit. I keep my eyes tightly shut because I don’t want to see anything obscene. I can hear the sound of clothes being removed nonstop.

After a little while, I feel something thrown on my shoulder. I open one of my eyes to see Phun standing there in a white t-shirt and a pair of boxers. He grins and shakes his head as if he wants to laugh at me. “Let’s trade. Give me your clothes.” Jeez…that’s easy for you to say. You had the jumpsuit on which meant that you were wearing a full outfit underneath. But all I’m wearing is a t-shirt and jeans and nothing else!

“Fuck off. No way, I don’t wanna wear one anymore.”

“But I already took it off. Come on! We shouldn’t leave Tle with a bunch of things to do by himself for too long.”

I hesitate a bit before I point my finger at him. “Then turn around!” How is what I said funny? Why

is he laughing so hard? “What are you being so shy for? We….are both

guys.” I bet he was thinking of something else during that long pause before he says ‘are both

guys.’ This bastard! Sure, I normally give in to people easily, but not this time! I’m still pointing at him, telling him to turn around. He chuckles, “Are you gonna take off every single

piece of clothing or something? Just give me your jeans to wear would be enough. I got my own shirt. You should wear your shirt under the

jumpsuit otherwise you might get itchy, ya know.”

Oh, right. Why am I so stupid? I stare at the jumpsuit with some confusion before I decide to take my jeans off (I still have my own boxers on)

and throw it to Phun. So now we’re wearing clothes that don’t belong to us.

I look at the khaki jumpsuit that I have on, feeling completely elated. Despite the fact that it says ‘techque’ instead of ‘swasdikarn’ that I’ve

dreamed of, I still think this looks insanely cool.

“I’m not giving this back to you,” I threaten him.

“Sure, if you’d be shameless enough to wear it home then go ahead,” he tells me before he leads me out of the changing area.

I head back to the monitors area while smiling to Nheng, who is is looking a bit dumbfounded since

Phun was the one who left but I showed up instead. Heh heh. I can handle this, you know. Overseeing the monitors and stuff, trust me.

I swing my neck a little for some relief before I pick up the headphone that was left on the floor and put them on my head. I press a button and watch as Earn smiles as he gives instructions to some underclassmen. And there he is. Phun is walking with a drink in his hand.

I can’t help but let out a roar of laughter when I see a shocked expression on Earn’s face when he

realizes that Phun is giving him the drink instead of me. He quickly yells through channel 11 of the walkie-talkie about how I tricked him. I can hear Phun’s laughter in the background. I’m finding this

pretty funny myself, (haha) but I refrain from laughing since I would get yelled at. I simply apologize to him before I turn my attention back to monitoring things on the stand for the design team.

Time is passing by pretty quickly. There are a lot of loud commotions breaking out constantly from the game that is going on in the field and also from the stands with different words being spelled throughout the match. Several close goals are

nearly successful which only fuels the atmosphere.

The cheer team on the stands continue to change letters in order to reply to the competitors. Each

alumni are being as loud as the students who are still attending the school. I can’t help but feel the

excitement along with them as I watch the monitor. (I see everything that is going on.) I’ve taken over Phun’s jobs of monitoring the

feeds and taking care of other equipment. There were a lot of problems and I ended up needing to

walk over to the stands and spoke face-to-face with other staff member since there were so many people using the walkie-talkie. Sometimes it was difficult to know who was actually talking. It was simpler just to walk over and speak to them. Every time I showed my face near the stand, Earn would make a sour face at me. Other friends around him

were even laughing at him. Meanwhile, Phun continued being obnoxious with him by feeding

him and forcinh Earn to drink stuff. It seemed like he was trying to take care of Earn but it felt like it

was annoying Earn more than anything else. This eventually turned into a joke for the people working in the stands area. (Haha) I chuckled

along with this relaxed atmosphere that we had going. Even though it was exhausting, having a bunch of friends working together to achieve a

goal like this only inspired me to work even harder.

Phun continued to volunteer to be Earn’s personal caretaker for the duration of the event. However, he

still had some time to check up on me every now and then too. Every time he came to see me, he brought along a drink and some snacks with him. I couldn’t help but wonder if he forced someone to go out and buy them from Siam because I very

much doubted that they were handing out breads from Bread Papa’s, a delicious bakery from

Paragon, to the stand members. (If they were, then Earn might’ve spent way too much money on that.) I shook my head at his coyness since he denied ever buying them for me no matter how many time I asked him. He insisted that these

came from the stands. He must’ve thought I was so naive. Anyhow, I didn’t bother arguing with

him. The breads were yummy.

Aside from all the drinks and all the breads, Phun constantly kept asking me how I was doing or whether I was getting tired. He even asked if I

wanted to trade our outfits back but I was too lazy to do it. So I pretty much told him that I was doing okay every time he asked me. Finally, the sky has turned dark and a screaming roar erupted in the stadium. Our team made a goal against the

opponent’s team. They were able to keep the score at 1-0 for the rest of the match. The numbers were brightly lit on the scoreboard as

proofs for our long awaited victory!

All of my friends and I took off the headphones and jumped around in celebration. We ran around and

caused chaos in the area under the stands before we rushed over to party with the rest of the students on the soccer field. We sang our lungs

out, be it the cheer songs and our school anthem, while we grouped up and held everybody by their necks and shoulders. It was so exciting that I couldn’t put into words. All my fatigues went away the moment I witnessed what our combined efforts

had accomplished. I saw a lot of my friends with tears rolling down their cheeks. I even noticed Phun Phumipat’s face with traces of tears that were recently wiped away.

Master Buncha told us to get together and yell out a cheer. We held one another over the shoulders and let out loud rumbles. I promised myself that I would never forget this greatest day.

***

After the game ended, the students from each school are still hanging out inside the stadium for a long while to congratulate a job well done to everyone. (Not to mention that we won) Truthfully, I still would’ve enjoyed this moment whether we

win or lose because I got a chance to meet so many new friends. I said my goodbyes to a group of new friends who were sitting on the stands just

now. (They wear black shorts, hehe.) They all came over to congratulate us after the match ended. Talk about having the spirits of an athlete

and being such a good sport. No matter who won or lost, we formed new friendships from this tournament. No shorts colors or a school fence could get between us. ^___^ While I was speaking with an alumnus who ran over to congratulate me, (Hey, I’m not even a

soccer player. Why do they keep congratulating me anyway?) I hear an awfully familiar voice

interrupting the conversation coming from behind me.

“Noh! It took me forever to find you!” Ah! I don’t even need to turn around to know who this is. I begin to wonder of Yuri secretly installed a GPRS on me or something. How did she even find me in the middle of this massive crowd of people? -_-”

“Gee, Noh. When did you get such a cute girlfriend? Anyway, I’ll see you later. I’m made plans to visit to the school next week,” p’Mote the

alumnus gave me a playful smile and cut our conversation short. So now what do I do? I don’t have any other choice other than to return a smile and wave goodbye. “See you around, p’.” ^^;;;;

Now that p’Mote is leaving, it’s time to deal with this tiny woman standing next to me. “You were

looking for me? Is there something you wanted to tell me?”

“Of course, but I didn’t know that you’re on the stand team staff!” I knew she would notice because

Yuri knows that I work with the marching band (whose lack of uniform includes a shirt and a pair

of jeans) and that I don’t actually work at the stands. I wasn’t supposed to be wearing this overly large jumpsuit at all. Even though I knew

that the question would come up, I still feel weird having to answer Yuri’s question.

“It’s Phun’s. We traded.” Yuri gives me a wide grin which sends shivers down my spine.

Did I say something wrong?!

Her adorable smile lasts for a short moment before she clings onto my arm. “Let’s go have dinner.”

Here we go again. I glance at her pale face which is giving me a pleading expression. I suddenly feel

very apprehensive about this.

What now? I stare at Yuri’s face as I listen to my friends begin to make plans to go celebrate tonight.