Joss Wayar is the university's golden boy. Basketball captain. Top student. The man everyone admires and no one questions. With a picture perfect relationship and a future carefully planned by his family, participating in a national documentary about adoption is simply another opportunity to prove he's exactly who the world expects him to be. Gawin Caskey has spent four years blending into the background. While everyone knows Joss's name, few even know his. He prefers quiet afternoons with a guitar, books and songs he'll never let anyone read. Becoming part of a documentary about parenthood was never on his list of ambitions, until his best friend signs him up without permission. When the university announces that participants will be paired by compatibility rather than choice, neither of them expects to hear their names called together. They've shared every lecture for years. Yet they've never truly seen each other. Entrusted with caring for a little boy abandoned before he was old enough to understand the meaning of home, Joss and Gawin quickly discover that raising a child isn't measured by sleepless nights or dirty diapers. It's measured by the quiet promise to stay. As the cameras capture every triumph and every mistake, two strangers begin questioning everything they thought they knew about family, love, and the people society leaves behind. Because blood doesn't make someone a parent. And sometimes... The family you were asked to pretend to be becomes the one you never knew you needed.

Joss moved to New York, the Big Apple of America, in order to seek for better opportunities for himself. But, he never expected to find himself having such a close connection that goes beyond a normal roommate dynamic. He messages back an ad he scrolled upon, and he ends up staying with Gawin-a chill, easygoing guy who might become more than just a roommate. It starts out quite simple. Those late night talks, a quick game session, or just having a quiet dinner together. However, as the months go by, Joss comes to realise that he enjoys his time with Gawin which reveals his feelings growing deeper. What was supposed to be a new life in New York blossoms into something that no one anticipated. A romance between Joss and Gawin. As the lines of being roommates and love blur, Joss struggles with the fear of losing their close companionship. One thing is for sure though, he'd love to stay being roommates with Gawin. How will Joss navigate his feelings for his roommate? Or will the risk of losing their friendship be too much for him to bear? 28/04/2025 @LikaiWrites-2025©

Gawin Caskey is thirty years old, reliable, liked by everyone, and quietly exhausted in a way he can't quite name. He's been in a relationship for five years. They don't fight. They don't struggle. They just exist alongside each other - in the comfortable, hollowed-out way of two people who stopped choosing each other so gradually that neither of them noticed. Until the day Gawin realizes he isn't the only one who stopped. Then comes Joss Way-ar, transferring in from the Chiang Mai branch. Loud, charming, perpetually late, and somehow always exactly where Gawin needs someone to be - without being asked, without making it a thing. Gawin dislikes him immediately. The Space You Left Behind is a slow-burn story about what it means to have been loved, and what it feels like to finally be seen. About the difference between a life that looks fine and a life that actually is. And about finding, in the most unexpected person, not just someone who shows up - but somewhere that finally feels like home. No villains. Just people, and the spaces left behind when things fall apart - and the ones who quietly fill them. *Another story of JossGawin, hope you guys enjoy it ❤️

Joss has spent most of his twenties believing life is simple: work hard, train harder, take care of the people you love, and everything else will eventually fall into place. Gawin knows life isn't that simple. Half Thai, half American, a musician with too many unfinished songs and not enough sleep, Gawin moves through life with a guitar on his back and thoughts he rarely says out loud. They meet at a point where both of them are trying to become the version of themselves they always imagined they'd be. Some people fall in love loudly. and Gawin do it quietly. One coffee. One conversation. One song. One ordinary day at a time.

Every morning at 8:03 a.m., billionaire Joss Blackwell walks into Hazelnut Corner, orders a black coffee, and sits by the window, scrolling through his phone in silence. He never stays more than fifteen minutes. He never talks more than necessary. And yet, for the past year, he's always come back. Barista Gawin Morales never asks questions, never flirts, and never pries. He just serves Joss his drink with a warm smile, adds a quiet "Have a good day," and continues making drinks for others. As their small, calm worlds begin to gently overlap, what starts with a daily cup turns into shared silences, soft confessions, and slow-burning tension that builds like steam in a kettle. Two quiet hearts. One cup at a time.

"They built an empire on blueprints and a home on unspoken bi-panics." Gawin has spent years mastering the art of the "perfect roommate," living in the shadow of Joss's soaring corporate success while hiding a decade-long crush behind a mask of polite distance. However, his quiet devotion is complicated by a deeply rooted internal struggle: a confusing "homophobic crisis" where he mistakes his own paralyzing fear to confront his feelings for a prejudice he doesn't actually hold. Terrified that his intense physical reactions to Joss are a sign of discomfort rather than desire, Gawin overcompensates by building walls of awkwardness and self-doubt. In the sterile luxury of their shared penthouse, Gawin navigates a minefield of accidental touches and lingering looks, convinced that he is protecting their friendship, while Joss remains a silent, steady force waiting for the day his roommate finally realizes that the only thing standing between them is a lie Gawin told himself.