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ลำดับตอนที่ #7 : Chapter 5 : Follow The Invisible Moon
Invisible Moon
Chapter 5
Follow The Invisible Moon
"To follow the star, use a compass and a map,
but to follow the Invisible Moon, use nothing."
#WINisWIND
For normal people, it would seem almost impossible if you wanted to catch a glimpse of the Invisible Moon.
Many fans wanted to see P'In so badly but couldn't, as P'In would always hide himself. While I wasn't a UNISTAR fan, and wasn't a P'In fan either, I was somehow a fading person who was able to see P'In.
Nevertheless, I still couldn't stop wondering.
I dreamt of becoming a popular person. I imagined I would be so proud and happy. Wherever I went, I would always get attention. However, P'In was a celebrity. He had everything a person like me could only desire, but his behaviour was like myself in the past.
P'In was really strange.
I secretly followed P'In and kept a distance, until P'In stopped under a stairway of the overpass near my university. There was an old man wearing dirty clothes sleeping under an old blanket.
"Good morning." P'In greeted and sat with him without showing any disgust or fear on his face.
"Oh, you're here again today?"
"For you." P'In said shortly, handing a meal box to that old man.
"Thank you." The old man took it.
"I'm troubling you again. You don't have to bring it to me every day, I don't want to bother you too much, young man."
"It's okay." P'In said while opening another meal box and ate together with the old man.
"Thank you so much, you are very good at cooking."
P'In and the old man were eating together, I wondered whether he was an acquaintance of P'In.
Naturally, looking at someone eating made me hungry as well, so I took out some deep-fried bananas to eat along.
"The rainy season is coming, you could get sick. May I help you find a room?" P'In asked.
"It's okay." The old man replied. "I don't want to trouble you. I'm waiting for my son to take me home. My family has a lot of debt and he is afraid that the usurer will come for us, so it's not safe to stay at home. He asked me to leave temporarily. My son promised that he will take me back home after paying all the debt."
The old man's face looked so lively when he was talking about his son.
"If I moved to other places," the old man continued. "I'm afraid my son can't find me. It's fine, young man, I can still wait here."
P'In listened quietly while eating.
I didn't understand why my tears came out when I heard the old man's story. Even though I was just a fading person, I still read a lot of books and news. Since I didn't have many friends, the books I read became my friends. I knew this sort of thing often happened in Thailand, especially among poor families without access to sufficient education.
In the case of this old man, if his son was indeed good, how could he let his father suffer like this? If he was really afraid that the usurer would harm his father, he should find a better shelter instead of letting his father stay homeless like this. Wouldn't this be more dangerous than the usurer?
It was obvious that his son had already abandoned his father. I doubt whether he had a real debt. But even if he could repay the debt in whole, I'm sure he would never take his father back home.
This father's mentality made me feel depressed. He was willing to suffer just to satisfy his own son. Whatever his son said, this father always trusted without a doubt. Even if the father had to become homeless like a beggar, he still believed that his son would come back to bring him home.
This was the love of a father. I'm not sure whether his son would realise it, but at least, there was someone who did — P'In, this celebrity Moon.
If I was in P'In's shoes, I wouldn't dare be involved with the homeless, because I'd be afraid. It's hard to know if they would harm us or not. But P'In also gave him food.
Oh right, I remembered that I saw a post on twitter that said the user saw a person giving food to the homeless near my university.
I tried to find that tweet on my phone. It was posted last week, which meant this old man had been waiting for his son for over a week and P'In kept bringing food for him. I wondered whether P'In knew that this old man had already been abandoned but chose to say nothing.
On one hand, I really couldn't understand why P'In just let him wait hopelessly. On the other hand, I knew that hope was like the heart of our lives, without hope — there's no point in living.
If P'In told him the truth, this old man would be disheartened. So P'In probably just didn't say anything but still looked after him as much as he could, despite the fact that he was neither a relative nor a friend.
When P'In finished eating, he took the wallet and gave some money to the old man — 60 baht.
"I'll be busy in the evening, please take it to buy food."
"Thank you, young man, I could live without difficulty because of you. You're always helping me."
The old man accepted the money with gratitude.
"I promise, when my son comes, I'll surely repay you."
The old man still had hope.
P'In just stood up and kept walking without saying a word. I wondered whether there was any way to help this old man. I had read and knew that there were some nonprofit foundations that could help with cases like these. But it would be better to wait and see first, because P'In might have already thought about this.
After that, I saw P'In carrying the other plastic bag and heading to the riverfront. He went into a small temple there. I followed.
Woof! Woof! Woof!
I paused for a moment, because as soon as P'In walked in, the dogs, almost ten of them, were running towards him. They ran, jumped and wagged their tails joyfully. They were all stray dogs. Just a few seconds ago, their eyes looked depressed, but the moment they saw P'In, all of them became cheerful, as if seeing their owner.
In Thailand, stray dogs or cats could be found in many places, especially at the temples. There were many irresponsible animal owners in my country, yet the authorities weren't able to solve this issue. So the temples — some people considered Thai temples as the almshouses for poor people and animals — had no choice but to look after these abandoned animals.
Right now, the dogs were barking very loudly.
"Shhh..." P'In raised his finger to his mouth, making the dogs quiet.
"Sit." P'In ordered gently. Surprisingly, every dog seemed to understand him. They all sat down and stopped barking.
Apparently, the bag that P'In had been carrying contained dog food. P'In pulled it out and fed each dog. The dogs seemed very hungry, so they quickly devoured the food.
After P'In fed all the dogs, he paused for a moment and counted the number of dogs. Then, P'In looked around, searching for something.
"White." P'In walked to a corner wall, a white and dirty dog was walking towards P'In.
The white dog seemed to be quite old, couldn't smell or see clearly, as it bumped into other dogs and was hissed at.
"White, come here." P'In called gently, the dog followed his voice.
P'In put the dog food on his hand and fed it. The dog came to eat slowly.
While feeding it, P'In used his other hand to pat the dog softly, and then he was smiling.
P'In...smiled...
I was stunned. I didn't know how to express my feelings — like my heart was pounding.
His smile was full of kindness and purity, I had never seen anyone who could smile as warmly as this.
It made me feel...impressed with P'In.
This was bad. Why couldn't my heart stop shaking? I needed to get a hold of myself.
After P'In finished feeding, he moved to a pagoda. There were many donation boxes there — mostly for temple maintenance, novice monk education, sick monk, water and electricity fee, dog food — P'In inserted money in each box.
Aside from feeding dogs, P'In also helped the temple. Why was he so kind?
After that, P'In walked out to the riverfront, and I continued to follow him.
An old woman was selling fish bread there. It wasn't very crowded here. There were only those who were waiting for the ferry, and this riverfront wasn't that popular, so there were only a few people.
"Hi, Little In, are you here to feed the fish?" The old woman greeted him.
"Sawaddee[1] Krub[2]." P'In raised his hand to pay respect[3]. The old woman raised her hand in response as well.
"Pay respect to the monk[4], recently I could sell a lot because of you. There are not many people feeding fish here. But I didn't know where else to go, I can't walk that far."
P'In didn't reply, he just said "Ten packs of bread please."
"Isn't it too much, Little In? I'm glad that you want to help me, but I'm worried you won't have enough money."
"It's okay, I'll be going to work in the evening." P'In said while he paid the old woman one hundred baht. So each pack was ten baht — quite cheap.
"I see, they're taking good care of you. I'm so glad to hear that, thank you, Little In, bless you."
After buying them, P'In carried the bread packs toward the riverside. He took one and put the rest on the ground. He slowly tore the bread into small pieces and threw them into the river.
"Oh!" I exclaimed. There were a lot of fish here and they looked very hungry. The bread was just thrown in a second ago and many catfish swarmed to eat — almost scrambling with each other.
So many fish! No wonder why P'In bought ten packs.
I could only stand and look until P'In spoke without turning to me.
"Nothing to do? Come help."
Huh? I raised my eyebrows and looked around — no one else here, only me and P'In. Most people were waiting for the boat at the port.
Was P'In talking to me? Or was he just talking to himself? I wondered as I kept looking for somebody else.
"I've seen you since giving alms." He said while still feeding the fish.
Seen...since...giving...alms.
The word 'giving alms' startled me.
Was it really me?
Don't tell me — he was actually talking to me?
No way, I was such a fading person, how could he see me? P'In didn't even look at me, so when did he notice that?
"Don't wanna help, it's alright." P'In said, then picked another bread pack and continued feeding.
"Oh, I'll help!"
I realised that I've been stalking P'In for so long. If he asked for help but I still ignored him, that would be impolite.
Then, I went to P'In and helped him feed.
When I was standing near him, I could see P'In up close. P'In looked so much better in real life compared to his photos. Plus, with his mysterious persona, somebody might mistake him as the riverside angel.
"Do you usually do this?" I asked.
Including giving alms to the monk, offering food to the homeless, feeding stray dogs, donating for a temple, helping old people and also feeding fish.
"Not really." He said, and tried to throw the bread further away, so the fish wouldn't be scrambling.
P'In had a deep voice, but it sounded very soft and smooth. It was a pity that he didn't seem to be a talkative person. Why did he have to be born with such a handsome voice?!
But more surprisingly, P'In was talking to me!
This person is a UNISTAR member, The Moon of the country!
"Oh I see. It must be tiring if you do charity like this often." I nodded, not surprised that he couldn't do it every day.
"No. People hardly help." P'In argued in a monotone.
Huh? I blinked my eyes.
Wait, he thought I asked about no one helping him instead of about the charity?
"What about your fans?" I thought of the group of young women who participated in giving alms.
"There are so many people, you could call them to help."
"No one followed." He said. Still feeding.
What? I scratched my head and the bread crumb was spread on my hair.
Because P'In didn't want them to see, right?
"If they could see you, they would follow."
My words made P'In glance at me calmly.
While being stared, I just realised —
"No, I'm not a stalker." I said immediately, afraid that he might misunderstand. What excuse should I give?
Oh yeah, I remembered.
"Well, I'd like to ask for your signature."
I picked up the senior signature book that I received during the first day of orientation. Luckily, I brought it here.
"Well, it's not easy to meet you and you are my senior. Please sign for me."
I pretended to ask, even if I felt like it was too bold.
P'In just looked at it, then put the bread packs on top of the book that I was trying to hand to him.
"Almost done." He said.
"Huh?" I was confused.
"Oh. You mean that if I help you feed all these, you will sign for me, right?"
I said this so clearly but P'In didn't answer. He didn't take my book either.
So I decided to be quiet, but it didn't last long. I wanted to talk because it had been a long time since there was someone that I could talk to. In the past, either I wouldn't get any chance to talk, or I was forgotten.
"P'In krub." I asked. "Why did you become the University Moon and a UNISTAR member if you liked to be alone?"
I knew that P'In was listening, but he was quiet for a long time until he pointed out a myna bird perching on a bridge nearby.
"Look, the bird."
I looked. It was just a common myna — black-brown feather with some white streaks, its yellow beak stood out.
Why did he want me to look at the bird? It was just a common bird.
Then, I intended to ask P'In, but it turned out that —
"Wait, P'In?" I gasped. Dropping all the bread into the river, causing the fish to crazily scramble to eat.
Well, P'In was gone! He was just here a few seconds ago.
He suddenly said "look, the bird" and then disappeared. What was that?!
Aside from hiding, he was also able to teleport?
I sighed and fed the last pack of bread.
What about my signature book? He would sign it for me, right? Oh no, he didn't answer either.
I sighed again, threw the bread for the fish and looked at the myna, exhaustedly
'Look, the bird?' Suddenly, a thought flashed in my head. I think I understood what P'In implied. Even though it was just a short sentence without any specific meaning.
Why was P'In the Moon, but invisible?
As you could see, the little bird could fly anywhere, without caring about anyone.
Invisibility was like freedom.
☽------------☽
Footnote
[1] Sawaddee means 'Hello' in the Thai language. It's a very common way to greet people in Thai culture.
[2] Krub is a way of showing respect to the interlocutor in Thai culture. Normally, "krub" is used by Thai males at the end of a sentence.
[3] Raising a hand to pay respect, in Thai, it's called 'Whai', a very common way to greet people politely and respectfully in Thai culture. Normally, when younger people 'Whai' (raising a hand to pay respect) to an elder, the elder would raise a hand as a response to show that the elder received their respect.
[4] Pay respect to the monk, some older people in Thailand would say that after receiving 'Whai' from younger people, it's like giving a blessing.
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