Private but not Secret
The Democratic Will of Four Hundred Thousand Trolls
**[INTERNAL SLACK: DMD_DIGITAL_PROD]** **Channel: #sanctuary-wildcard-log** *Today at 03:14 AM*
> **staff_nong_may:** @here uh. is someone looking at the Google Sheets sync for the wildcard poll? > **staff_golf:** It’s 3 AM May why are you awake > **staff_nong_may:** Because the spreadsheet just crashed the browser tab. > **producer_aoft:** How many submissions do we have? We capped it at 48 hours. > **staff_nong_may:** Over 420,000 unique IP entries. > **staff_golf:** Did someone bot Nunew again? Or is it Poppy? > **staff_nong_may:** …Neither. > **staff_nong_may:** Look at the pie chart. > > *[Image Attachment: Pie chart displaying 64.8% in solid crimson labeled ‘JJ Radchapon’, followed by 12% ‘Poppy’, 8% ‘Mark Siwat’, and 15.2% ‘Other’]* > > **staff_golf:** … > **producer_aoft:** Is this a joke? Radchapon is the script consultant for the game missions. He signed on as crew. > **staff_nong_may:** Well, the internet didn't read his contract. Someone made a TikTok explaining that if Net is stuck in a house for two weeks, JJ legally has to be locked in there with him so Net doesn't cause property damage. It has 1.8 million views. > **producer_aoft:** …Call marketing. Do not tell either of them yet.
***
The conference room on the fifth floor of the Domundi headquarters smelled of dry-erase markers, stale iced Americanos, and impending disaster.
Seated along the mahogany table were the confirmed housemates: Tommy, Jimmy, Tutor, Yim, and Net. Net was slouched comfortably in an ergonomic swivel chair near the front, spinning a metal pen across his knuckles with the fluid grace of someone who had practiced vanity in front of three dozen mirrors.
Two seats down, strictly in his capacity as lead scenario writer and narrative consultant, sat JJ. He was wearing an oversized beige cardigan, round wire-rimmed glasses, and a scowl of pure administrative exhaustion. His MacBook was open, flanked by three highlighters and a color-coded production binder.
"If we do the scavenger hunt on day four," JJ was muttering under his breath, typing rapidly, "we need to secure the courtyard before noon, otherwise the sun angle will wash out the west terrace cameras..."
A silver pen tapped the side of his laptop screen. *Clack.*
JJ didn't look up. "Net, if you touch this monitor, I will snap that Montblanc in half."
"You bought me this pen for our third anniversary," Net whispered back smoothly, leaning an elbow on the table and tilting his head. "You wouldn't dare."
"Try me. It’ll become two Montblancs. A gift for each of your hands."
"So generous," Net murmured, his lips curving into that effortless, dangerous little smirk. He reached out with two fingers, nudging JJ’s iced latte half an inch to the left. Then half an inch to the right.
JJ slapped his hand away with the flat of a script page. "Stop fidgeting. Be professional. We’re in a production meeting."
"I am being professional. I'm actively supervising the writing team."
"You are actively testing the limits of Thai homicide law."
Across the table, Tutor leaned back, whispering behind his notebook to Yim, "Five minutes. They've been in the room for five minutes."
"I give it until day two of the house before JJ drowns him in the pool," Yim whispered back fondly.
At the head of the table, P'Aoft cleared his throat, clapping his hands together twice to command the room. Beside him, the digital marketing manager plugged an HDMI cable into the central projector, illuminating the wall with the official key visual of *DMD The Sanctuary*.
"Alright, boys," Aoft began, leaning against the podium with a suspiciously serene expression. "We’ve finalized room assignments, task outlines, and camera schedules for the fourteen-day sequester. But as you all know, our social media team ran an open wildcard poll over the last forty-eight hours to select the thirteenth resident."
Net leaned back, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "Let me guess. It’s Poppy. He probably bought three thousand SIM cards just to vote for himself."
"Or Jimmy," Tommy offered. "Jimmy has that cult following on TikTok that mobilizes like an army."
"Actually," Aoft said, tapping the remote. The screen flickered. "The public took the prompt very seriously. We received over four hundred thousand write-in submissions."
JJ kept typing, his eyes glued to his outline for the Day 2 Cooking Challenge. "Whatever actor you picked, please make sure they don't have a citrus allergy. The sponsor challenge involves oranges."
"Well, that shouldn't be a problem," Aoft said. "Because the thirteenth cast member isn't an actor."
JJ stopped typing.
Net raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious for the first time all morning. "An influencer?"
"No," Aoft smiled. "Radchapon."
JJ immediately looked up from his keyboard, his shoulders tightening into defensive posture. "I didn't do anything! He was the one touching my coffee cup, P'Aoft, you saw him—"
"JJ," Aoft interrupted gently.
"I swear, if he told you I altered his monologue from the pilot draft, he’s lying, I only trimmed three lines for pacing—"
"JJ," Aoft repeated, louder this time, his grin widening into something distinctly menacing. "I’m not scolding you."
"Then why are you saying my name like that?"
The marketing director hit the spacebar. The projector screen flashed bright red, displaying a massive, verified metrics report, followed by a bold, gold-embossed graphic.
**[THE 13TH HOUSEMATE: BY POPULAR DEMAND]** **JJ RADCHAPON PHORNPINIT** *Final Vote Tally: 272,409 votes (64.8%)*
The conference room went dead silent.
JJ stared at the wall. The little blink of his cursor on his laptop screen continued: *tap, tap, tap.*
Net slowly lowered his arms. His mouth opened slightly, his sharp, observant eyes scanning the graphic once, twice, and then darting straight to the side of JJ’s face.
"Wait," Tommy choked out from across the table. "Wait, what?"
"Is this a joke?" JJ said. His voice was remarkably steady, but the pitch was approximately half an octave higher than usual. "P'Aoft. I wrote the scavenger hunt. I am literally the crew."
"You *were* the crew," Aoft corrected happily. "Then the fans found out the write-in box had no restrictions. And apparently, the internet decided that watching Net Siraphop survive in isolation wasn't enough. They want him under round-the-clock literary supervision."
"The company prioritizes organic social engagement," the marketing manager added, nodding with crisp corporate pride. "The trending tag `#PutJJInTheHouse` trended number one in five countries yesterday. It would be financial malpractice *not* to cast you."
JJ sat frozen. His brain appeared to be performing a complete factory reset behind his round spectacles.
Beside him, Net’s shoulders began to tremble.
It started as a suppressed hitch in his chest. Then a wheeze. Then, completely unable to contain himself, Net threw his head back and burst into the most unhinged, delighted laughter the fifth floor had heard all year.
"No," JJ whispered, horror dawning over him. "No, absolutely not."
"Oh, this is poetic," Net gasped between wheezes, tears of genuine mirth forming at the corners of his eyes. He slapped the table, nearly knocking over the very iced coffee he’d been tormenting earlier. "This is divine justice. The universe is magnificent."
JJ slowly turned his head. The glare he leveled at Net could have melted titanium.
Without a single word, JJ grabbed his three-ring production binder—all two hundred pages of laminated paper—and brought it down squarely across Net’s bicep with a loud, resounding *thud*.
"Ow!" Net laughed harder, curling inward to protect his ribs. "What did I do?!"
"This is your fault!" JJ hissed, whacking him again with the edge of the folder. "You! You and your stupid Twitter replies! You antagonized them!"
"How is it my fault that the public loves you?!" Net wheezed, grabbing JJ’s wrists to hold him off, though he wasn't using even half his strength. "You're a national treasure, Radchapon! The people have spoken! Democracy works!"
"I have a book revision due in October!" JJ shouted, struggling against Net's grip while Tutor and Yim practically fell off their chairs laughing across the table. "I am a serious novelist! I don't wear microphones on a lanyard! I don't do morning wake-up stretches on camera!"
"Congratulations, P'JJ!" Tommy yelled cheerfully over the noise. "Can you write an alliance for us into the script before you give up your laptop?"
"I am not packing a bag," JJ announced, violently wrenching his hands free from Net's grasp and slamming his laptop shut. "I am walking out this door, I am going to my apartment, and I am locking the deadbolt."
"You can't," Net choked out, wiping tears from his cheeks, his face flushed with delight. "I have the other key."
JJ froze, shot Net a venomous look that promised unspeakable violence in private, scooped up his computer, and marched out of the conference room without looking back. The heavy door clicked shut behind him.
The room remained in stitches for another full minute.
"Well," Aoft sighed, wiping his brow. "That went better than expected."
"He's going to stage a mutiny on day three," Net said, though the fond, utterly besotted warmth in his voice was completely unmistakable to anyone who bothered to listen. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his shoulder where the binder had struck him. "He's not actually going to bail, though. He's too responsible. He won't let production collapse."
"Speaking of which," the marketing manager said, rushing over to Net with an iPad. "Net, please tell me you have a photo of him. We need to post the official announcement graphic within the hour, but his author agency only has high-res portraits from his literary festival last year, and they're all locked behind licensing fees."
Net blinked. "A photo?"
"A solo picture. Something recent. We literally can't find him, he’s probably in the stairwell having an existential crisis."
A slow, profoundly wicked smile spread across Net’s face. It was the exact expression that made television directors immediately cast him as charming antagonists.
"A photo," Net murmured, reaching into his pocket and unlocking his phone. "You know… it just so happens I have one."
"A good one?" the manager asked eagerly. "Sleek? Mysterious?"
"Oh, it's brilliant," Net said, scrolling through his private camera roll with surgical precision. Past the hundreds of candid pictures of JJ sleeping with his mouth open against Net’s shoulder; past the blurry videos of JJ singing off-key to indie rock while cooking soup; straight to a folder labeled *Official/Do Not Delete*.
"Here," Net said, AirDropping a file to the iPad. "Use this. It's from his British Council symposium visa application."
The marketing manager stared at the screen. "Net… this is literally a passport headshot. He looks like he’s about to be questioned by international intelligence."
"It's high resolution," Net said smoothly, standing up and dusting off his slacks. "And he spent twenty minutes agonizing over how flat his hair was. It's perfect. Post it."
***
Forty minutes later, JJ was sitting in a corner booth of the café across the street from the Domundi building, nursing a hot chamomile tea and drafting an email to his literary agent titled: *Force Majeure Clauses and Reality Television.*
His phone vibrated against the table.
Then it vibrated again. And again. And again, until the haptic motor sounded like a continuous angry wasp.
JJ frowned, setting his mug down, and opened Twitter.
**[OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT]** *@DomundiTV: The votes are in. The public has spoken.* *Welcoming our 13th resident to DMD The Sanctuary: Acclaimed Author & Creator, JJ Radchapon!* *Prepare for the ultimate clash of minds and missions.* *#DMDTheSanctuary #JJRadchapon #NetJJ*
Attached to the tweet was the graphic.
There, emblazoned against the sleek neon-and-slate background of the show’s promotional template, was JJ.
He was staring dead into the camera with the soul-crushing intensity of a Victorian ghost. His collar was buttoned all the way to his throat. His hair was parted with absolute mathematical symmetry. He looked intensely, severely unamused—like a stern academic about to fail an entire lecture hall for breathing incorrectly.
JJ stared at the screen. The quote tweets were ticking upward by the thousands every ten seconds.
> **@bookish_thai:** WAIT THAT’S THE PHOTO?! 😭😭😭 > **@sirasnack:** WHY DOES HE LOOK LIKE HE’S POSING FOR A MUGSHOT AT AN ELITE BOARDING SCHOOL LMAOOOO > **@velvetnet:** JJ is gonna explode. He looks so mad already and the show hasn't even started. > **@dailybl:** The contrast between Net's smoldering runway photo and JJ's government-issued ID photo is SENDING ME.
Hands trembling with pure, unadulterated outrage, JJ tapped the quote tweet button.
> **@JJ_Radchapon:** How did you get access to that? That photo is on an encrypted thumb drive in my desk drawer.
Not even thirty seconds passed before the notification badge lit up.
> **@netsiraphop:** The drawer wasn’t locked, babe. > **@netsiraphop:** *P’JJ, I meant. Autocorrect. You look very handsome and scholarly.
The internet completely lost its mind.
> **@phornpinit_daily:** "BABE" ?????? HELLO??? > **@netspout:** THE IMMEDIATE CORRECTION TO P'JJ I AM HYPERVENTILATING > **@bldomestic:** Net is a menace I swear to god he wants JJ to murder him on live television. > **@writersblock:** "The drawer wasn't locked" WHY ARE YOU IN HIS DRAWERS SIR??? > **@charlie_pop:** Engagement KING + WRITER CHAOS. This reality show is going to break the servers on day one.
JJ’s thumb hovered over his screen. He could hear the faint ring of the café door opening across the room, followed by the quiet murmur of the afternoon crowd.
He didn't need to look up to know who it was. The heavy, familiar footstep; the faint scent of cedarwood and bergamot cologne; the low chuckle that always preceded trouble.
A shadow fell over the booth. Net slid into the bench opposite him, looking utterly unrepentant, his chin propped in his hands and his eyes dancing with quiet, private warmth.
"You're a dead man," JJ said softly, without looking up from his phone. "I'm going to poison your morning protein shakes."
"You wouldn't," Net replied, his voice dropping into that gentle, low register that never made it onto public livestreams. He reached across the table, his long fingers casually brushing against JJ’s knuckles, steady and warm. "You'd miss me too much. Who else is going to keep your feet warm when the villa AC is turned down to eighteen degrees?"
JJ looked up, meeting Net’s gaze. The absurdity of it all—the four hundred thousand votes, the ridiculous passport photo, the fourteen days of cameras waiting to dissect their every movement—suddenly settled into the quiet reality of the man sitting in front of him. Five years of shared silence, now about to be broadcast to half the world.
JJ let out a long, defeated exhale, his fingers relaxing just enough to let Net’s hand cover his own under the shadow of the table.
"You're sleeping on the floor," JJ muttered.
Net smiled, slow and triumphant. "We both know that's a lie."