#fluke pusit
“You’re new here, right? I’m from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and a tutor for the freshmen, so I might be able to help you find your way to-”
“I’m not new. This is my second year.”
Phupha stiffened. Well, this is awkward. He was sure the other boy had just been looking around like he was trying to find some specific place.
“Oh, you’re not? Umm, I mean, of course you’re not. I was just-” Phupha knew he was getting more flustered by the minute and that he wasn’t being particularly convincing.
“Trying out a pick-up line?” the other boy asked in a point-blank manner, and Phupha completely missed the teasing tone in his voice. Phupha’s eyes widened, probably as much out of surprise as embarrassment. He wasn’t used to people being so straightforward. With him, at least.
“What?!”Too loud, Phupha, that was way too loud. After getting his volume under control again, Phupha was about to continue defending himself, but the other boy waved his hand dismissively.
“I’m just kidding,“ the other boy said and moved his notebook and drawing tools to his left hand. He reached out his right hand. “I’m Natee, from the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts.”
Phupha looked down at the extended hand and shook it. When they let go, he rubbed his neck, embarrassed by his mistake.
“I’m sorry. I’m usually really good at remembering people that I’ve seen on the campus.”
Natee tilted his head ponderingly.
“If you say so.”
Phupha felt slightly offended, and he didn’t particularly like the feeling. He looked in the direction that Natee was pointing at, and saw the poster of the university ambassadors.
“Oh, you recognized me?” Phupha asked, feeling probably unnecessarily proud.
“What?” Natee asked, dumbfounded by the question. “No, that’s not- I was trying to point at myself.”
Phupha looked at the poster again and noticed the other boy’s picture on the left-hand side of the poster, next to Saifa. The photoshoot had been done as solo photoshoots, after which the ambassadors’ pictures were edited together into one poster, but saying that out loud would have sounded like a pathetic attempt from Phupha to defend himself. After all, he had applied to be a university ambassador based on his grades and to help his chances in getting a scholarship to go study overseas. Connections and social networking wasn’t his strongest suit. But even he realized how embarrassing his mistake was.
“I’m really sorry…”
“No worries. But yeah, I might have you beat on the ‘remembering people from the campus’ thing,” Natee said and offered his notebook to Phupha, who took it and opened it. The pages contained pencil sketches of places and people from around the campus. They were detailed to the point where Phupha could actually even pick out some of his faculty peers and students from other faculties, too.
“These are amazing,” Phupha said, and Natee smiled.
“Thanks.”
Phupha wasn’t sure if the other boy had believed him, because he answered with such a monotone. He looked up from the drawings at Natee, who noticed and followed suit. Natee picked up on the silence and Phupha’s confused expression.
“I mean it, thank you. That’s nice of you to say.”
Phupha smiled slightly. “Yeah, well, they are really good”. He gave the notebook back to Natee, and the other looked at his wristwatch.
“I’m really sorry, but I have to go. My next lecture’s starting soon. It was nice meeting you, Phupha.”
Phupha raised his hand and waved back to Natee, who was waving to him before he turned around and started to walk briskly toward his next class. Phupha turned to go back to his faculty, when something felt off. Wait. He took a look at his school uniform and saw that he was wearing his ambassador name tag. He chuckled and shook his head.
“That’s why he knew my name. Obviously.”
