The bell for the end of lunch assembly hadn't even finished ringing before Krit was already out the door, his bag slung over one shoulder like he was escaping a burning building.
"If we don't get to the photocopy shop in the next three minutes, the line will be longer than the queue for a concert ticket," Krit said, his long legs eating up the concrete stairs of the building. "And I am not spending my twenty-minute break watching the seniors print out fifty-page thesis papers on the digestive system of earthworms."
"Why do you even need a photocopy?" Mali asked, struggling to keep up as her heavy canvas bag banged rhythmically against her thigh. "The history exam isn't until next Friday."
"Who said anything about history?" Krit turned a corner, his sneakers squeaking sharply on the polished terrazzo. "The guy from the convenience store across the street gave me a leaked copy of the answer key for the math PACE diagnostic test. But it's written on the back of a receipt for soy milk, and if I lose it, my dad is going to ground me until the turn of the century."
"That's academic dishonesty," Mali said, though she didn't slow down.
"That's survival, Mali," Krit corrected. "Phuwin, move your feet! You're drifting again!"
Phuwin was walking exactly three paces behind them, his head completely tilted back as he stared at the ceiling fans spinning lazily above. His uniform shirt was still slightly wrinkled from being stuffed into his backpack the night before, and his eyes had that distant, dreamy look that usually meant he was either writing a song in his head or about to say something entirely unhinged.
"Do you think," Phuwin said, his voice echoing off the concrete walls, "that if you unblock someone on a Friday, it carries a different psychological weight than if you unblock them on a Tuesday?"
Mali stopped dead in her tracks right in the middle of the crowded corridor. A group of seventh-graders had to aggressively swerve around her to avoid a collision.
"Phuwin," Mali turned, her face a mask of pure, exhausted disbelief. "Tell me you didn't."
"I didn't!" Phuwin's hands flew up in self-defense, his fingers splayed out. "I haven't touched the button! I'm just asking a theoretical question. For science. For the narrative."
"There is no science here," Krit said, looping back and grabbing Phuwin by the back of his uniform collar, dragging him forward like a stray puppy. "And the narrative is that you are banned from the digital world until further notice. We discussed this over the sour cream chips, remember? The phone stays in my bag."
"But it's a Friday," Phuwin whined, his heels dragging against the floor as Krit pulled him along. "Friday night is when people check their requests. If I unblock him now, he'll see the little notification bubble right when he's sitting at home with nothing to do. It's the ultimate power move."
"It's the ultimate loser move," Krit said cheerfully, releasing his collar as they finally reached the small, dark alcove where the heavy-duty copy machine lived. The room smelled intensely of hot paper and ozone. "Mali, give me five baht. The machine only takes coins today."
"Why do I have to pay for your soy-milk receipt?" Mali grumbled, but she was already digging through her small canvas pencil case for change.
"Because if I pass math, I can keep driving the Honda Wave, which means you don't have to walk home in the rain," Krit said, flashing a quick wink as he snatched the coins from her palm. He turned to the elderly lady running the machine. "Auntie, just one copy, please. Make it look like a regular homework sheet so Sanan doesn't get suspicious."
Phuwin leaned his shoulder against the metal doorframe of the copy shop, watching the green light of the machine pass back and forth, casting a sickly, alien glow across Krit's face.
"If I don't unblock him," Phuwin said quietly to the doorframe, "then he wins."
Mali sighed, leaning next to him, her shoulder bumping his. "Phuwin. Nobody is winning. It's not a football match."
"It feels like one," Phuwin muttered, his thumb instinctively twitching against his thigh, searching for a screen that wasn't there. "Every time I look at my hands, I feel like I'm missing a limb. I keep thinking, 'Oh, I should send him a picture of that weird dog by the gate,' or 'He'd think Krit's wet hair was funny.' And then I remember I can't. And it feels like I'm holding my breath under water."
He looked at Mali, his large eyes turning small and tight at the corners.
"I don't want to text him," Phuwin whispered, his voice dropping below the loud, rhythmic clunk-shhh-clunk of the copy machine. "I swear I don't. I just want him to know that I'm capable of removing the restriction. I want him to see that I'm not angry anymore. Because if I'm angry, it means I still care."
Mali looked down at her own shoes. For all her good advice, she knew exactly what that specific, suffocating itch felt like—the urge to press a button just to prove to someone who didn't care that you were completely, totally fine.
Before she could say anything, Krit stepped back from the counter, waving a slightly warm, crisp piece of paper in the air like a trophy.
"Behold," Krit said, his voice booming through the tiny alcove. "The key to my future. Auntie, you're a saint."
He tucked the paper deep into his shorts pocket, then turned his full attention to Phuwin. The smirk on Krit's face didn't fade, but his eyes grew sharp, tracking the way Phuwin's shoulders were hunched forward.
"Give me your hand," Krit said, holding out his palm.
Phuwin blinked. "Why?"
"Just give it to me."
Phuwin slowly extended his right hand. Krit grabbed it by the wrist, lifted it up, and then—with the speed of a martial artist—slapped a heavy, metallic object into Phuwin's palm, forcing his fingers closed around it.
Phuwin looked down. It was Krit's keychain—a ridiculous, oversized plastic figure of a cartoon frog with a cracked eye that he'd won at a temple fair three years ago.
"What is this?" Phuwin asked, lifting the heavy green plastic.
"That's your new phone," Krit said, leaning his hands on his hips. "Every time you feel the psychological urge to perform a tactical unblock on a Friday, I want you to aggressively click the frog's stomach. It makes a squeaking sound if you press it hard enough."
Phuwin stared at the frog. "Krit. This is garbage."
"This is a high-grade emotional substitute," Krit corrected, already walking back toward the main courtyard, his uniform shirt flapping behind him. "Come on. If we're late for social studies, the teacher will make us stand outside the room, and the mosquito situation on the balcony is currently out of control."
Mali chuckled, hooking her arm through Phuwin's wet sleeve and pulling him along. "He's right about the mosquitoes. They're the size of small birds today."
Phuwin looked at the cracked plastic frog in his hand. He gave the stomach a small, tentative squeeze. It gave a pathetic, high-pitched squeak that sounded remarkably like a dying mouse.
He let out a short, sudden laugh—the loud, ridiculous kind that always made people look at him in the corridors.
"See?" Krit yelled back over his shoulder without stopping. "Premium service! You're welcome, ghost boy!"
Phuwin tucked the frog deep into his pocket, his fingers curling around the cold plastic instead of a glass screen. The heavy purple sky outside the corridor window was still there, but as they ran toward the social studies block, the sound of the mouse-squeak kept echoing in his pocket, loud enough to drown out the silence.