Chapter Text
It was a nice night out. They were a little far from the city but light pollution still reached and only a few stars were visible. Korn was in his chair again, every muscle in his legs and back groaning in relief. The stiff jacket too, thrown over the bed. He had wheeled himself out on the deck, looking at the garden. He noticed fewer than usual patrolling people were visible on the boundary wall. Maybe they were helping with the party clean up. It had been a huge affair, in more ways than one.
The door opened behind him.
“Noel?” He called, without turning.
“No, uh it’s us,” it was Tankhun’s voice. “We gave Noel a night off. The only duty remaining was to give you nightly medicine so we thought it’d be alright.”
Korn turned his head around to take them in and again turned towards the garden. They walked in and Korn could hear some murmur between Kinn and Kim and then Kinn’s steps, walking to the bedside table to haul the medicine box.
“So who’s doing it?” Korn asked. He could hear a distant owl. He was glad he still had his hearing in old age. Small mercies.
Silence stretched for a beat too long. Kim cleared his throat. “Uh, I know your medicines better, I’ll do it.” There was a snapping noise as Kinn probably opened the case. He had a number of medicines.
Korn laughed a little. He couldn’t believe it, they were actually going to give him medicines.
“I’d rather you put a bullet in my head.”
He turned his chair around to face three extremely shocked men. Tankhun was at farthest wall. Kim who had proclaimed to administer him the meds stood empty handed and it was Kinn who held a bottle in his hand. It didn’t look like any of medicine Korn took on daily basis. Kinn closed his fist around the probable lethal medicine immediately, but the action caught Korn’s eye. He tsked and shook his head.
“You won’t even grant a dignified death to the former king of the city? You’ll really kill your father off with-” his voice turned disgusted “-medical negligence?”
“Father…” Kim whispered. Korn took in each of his sons, daring any of them to shoot him. By the looks of their suits, none of them were even carrying a gun. He looked at Kim again who looked frozen in fear. He looked wrecked. His hand trembled and he shoved it in his pocket. Korn noticed it.
“Weak, all of you so weak. Should I bank my hopes on Tankhun now?” he egged them on.
Tankhun scoffed, “I’d push you down from stairs if we had any. You don’t deserve any dignity.” Korn’s attention snapped to his eldest who was leaning against the far wall with almost casual disinterest. His eyes glimmered.
“We just didn’t want you to suffer,” Kinn said and then slowly opened his fist. His resolve was getting stronger. Good. But not good enough. Not enough. His gentle words just grated extra hard on Korn however. All the anger, all the fury he had been suppressing for so long burst forth in a tidal wave of tsunami.
“I have already been SUFFERING!” Korn slammed his hand on his wheelchair handle and exploded. All three of them flinched. Even Tankhun left his pretense of uncaringness, standing straight.
He had to control the voice. Anger does not befit him. “This morning.” Deep breath. “This morning I find out that Pete’s private jet made an unplanned trip to Italy without him to bring back- oh guess who?- two people who would be very much dead if it were not for my weak sons. I have been suffering with that knowledge the Whole. Day. Knowing that my attacker and his police brother, two huge loose ends, were back in the country; two people who currently pose the greatest threat to us. The whole day I kept thinking, did one of you know? Or was this an ace in the sleeve of the Saengthams? My money was on Kinn. The one who ran away-” Kinn flinched. But Korn was not paying attention. “But I couldn’t guess what the plan was. What were you intending? What did the Saengthams want, bringing them back in the country? And then. The party. There they came, sooner than I thought. None of you were surprised, not even Tankhun? So blatantly paraded in front of me, the evidence of sheer disobedience. Threw it in my face that you people did not intend for me to live tomorrow to do anything about them. Showed me that I was to die.” He let the words settle. In him. Between them. The air was charged with their guilt and Korn’s disappointment.
“I felt angry. But more, I felt sad. If this was how I was to go, by my sons’ hand, I said okay. I have lived long, I have had my share of suffering. I am no stranger to sons killing their father to gain an advantage. A pithy advantage-gaining the Kittisawasd brothers but fine. I guessed I should be happy you guys pretended till the last minute, giving me the illusion of familial love. And now that I came back and calmly awaited my death, how should I even find that my sons are planning for me to die? With fake medicines? You are disgraces, each and every one. I wish I had died in the attack all those years ago. At least Nampheung’s son had the balls to shoot me!” he spat the last sentence.
He was winded by the end. He didn’t mean to get angry again. It was getting harder to control his emotion in the old age. The plan of him calmly laying down his offsprings’ betrayal was shot but it was effective still. The guilt from before was evaporating from their faces, anger slowly colouring in. Kim was frozen still, nerves turning him into a stone. But then he gritted his teeth and spoke up.
“They can never be safe as long as you live. Porsche or Porchay. You know this so clearly. We’re just doing this for them. Can you look us in the eye and say you will not go after them? Their transgressions are either old or very minor. If you can just forgive them, maybe-”
Korn’s mouth turned into a flat line. His youngest was offering him a chance. So kind of him. Strange that it was from him that Korn expected the final blow. Korn remembered at one point he had been ecstatic to give the controls of the business in Kim’s hands, when Kinn left. He had so many expectations from his youngest- the smartest and the bloodthirstiest. But he had been wrong. Kim was now offering him kindness. A chance to live.
Korn had to scoff. They didn’t get it.
There was no getting out alive.
“Oh but how will you forgive me?” his voice was soft again. Good. Good. This was the most crucial part. “You see, I had the whole day to think. And I have decided that enough is enough. Clearly I cannot rely on my sons to kill anyone easily. So I thought I’d take matters into my own hands. I’d make it a little easier for you to kill me. I may not live to see tomorrow’s sunrise. But neither will they be. All three of them.” Korn said very meaningfully, looking at all three. The door opened to Noel holding Arm in front of him, gun to his temple. Noel pushed Arm in and went to stand beside Korn.
Tankhun took an involuntary step ahead. “Arm!” He looked at Korn with a burning hatred in his eyes. Better.
“I apologise, I could only arrange Arm to say goodbye to Tankhun before dying.” Tone still soft. No emotion. “You two,” he looked at Kinn and Kim. “You might want to run if you want to catch the last light in Kittisawasd brothers’ eyes before they die.”
Neither of them stayed to hear the last words being spoken. Kim hesitated a bit, looking at Tankhun but Tankhun yelled at both of them. “GO!!!” They ran like the devil was on their tail.
There was only now Tankhun, Noel, Arm, and Korn in the room. Korn stared at his eldest and then at his secretary who had ‘supposedly’ left. It was wretched, to see fear and hatred on Tankhun’s face. Korn hadn’t meant to be alive for this part. This was all planned to be revealed after he was already cold. But his sons were softer than him and he was still alive. Tankhun took a step towards them. Noel’s hand tightened around the gun. “Khun,” Arm whispered. Tankhun’s eyes closed in brief pain.
The next second was bit of blur as a loud gunshot went off. Korn instinctively shrank away, but turned around to face the scene anyways. Arm was crouching, holding one hand on his face and delivering a strong hook to Noel’s midsection. Tankhun came rushing in but he needn’t have. Arm had already had Noel on the ground; gun clattered away and Noel’s hand under Arm’s boot. Drops of blood trickled from Arm’s forehead on Noel’s limp body. Tankhun immediately picked up the gun, shot Noel in chest and trained the gun on Korn. In one swift move. No hesitation. After all that happened, it would be Tankhun then.
Finally.
Korn had wheeled his chair back a foot from the mess. A thick pool of blood was slowly spreading from under Noel. He looked in the eyes of his oldest son. If he strained his memory a little, he could almost remember the puffy red face of the newborn Tankhun, placed in his hand by the midwife. It was the single most happiest moment of Korn’s life till then. His first son. His supposed heir.
Tankhun’s arm was not shaking. He pulled a long handkerchief from one of his indeterminate pockets and handed it to Arm without looking. Korn flicked his gaze down to see Arm’s forehead was bleeding profusely but in most probability, shallowly. Forehead wounds always bleed the most.
“You do know that Noel is like, one of the most incompetent people we have here, right?” Tankhun’s voice sounded casual but without his usual flair and intonation. If nothing else, all of Korn’s sons were smart.
Korn smiled. “And yet I tasked him to hold captive and shoot one of our most experienced and trained man. Strange, isn’t it? Almost makes you rage, doesn’t it?”
Tankhun walked closer, gun not lowering an inch. It was almost touching Korn’s forehead. He could feel the heat from the recently shot nozzle.
“Should I assume, Porsche and Chay are similarly safe?”
Korn sighed. Soft. Weak. He had tried his best, but they had chosen the weakness, again and again. What did it say about Korn who allowed the weakness in his sons? “If they manage to be. I do not know. I do not want to live to see the outcome either way.”
Tankhun’s face distorted in hard grimace. “You’re so heartless, it’s almost making me want to keep you alive. Maybe shoot you just right where you’d be paralysed. Unable to talk but see everything. Stuck to your bed, spending every night wishing you do not wake up the next morning. But you will. How about that huh? And we’ll all live right next to you. Lead our happy lives that you, despite your best efforts, could not ruin. How. About. That?” Tankhun pronounced the last words slowly, poking Korn in forehead with the gun with each of them.
For the first time in many many years, Korn felt a twinge of fear. True, genuine fear. He had used the term a lot of times- fate worse than death. He knew how to inflict it. He had inflicted it. But it was the first time anyone had ever effectively threatened him with it. Tankhun looked viciously pleased, parsing the inner thoughts reflected on Korn’s face. And then the mad grin faded.
“I am not you, however. I am going to like, 100%, shoot you right now.” Tankhun cocked his head. “Gasp that sigh of relief, go ahead.”
Bastard. Strange to say that to his own son. Korn stubbornly held his breath in, choking himself a little, instead of letting it go. Oh well, he was going to die anyways. Tankhun shook his head as if he knew what Korn was doing.
“For what its worth,” Tankhun said, his voice softer than Korn had ever heard before. It reminded him of 11 year Tankhun, solemnly promising him to look after his brothers, after their mother had just died. “I think I’ll cry over you one day. In distant future.”
The shock of such tender confession left that gasp through his unwilling mouth and in the next moment, everything went dark as Tankhun pulled the trigger.
…
If by some miracle, they survived and Korn wasn’t dead yet, Chay was going to put a bullet in that man’s head himself. No sooner than the moment they reached inside the gate of their home, 5-10 men sprang up from inside their house and started shooting at them. They were still in the car, which was thankfully bulletproof, courtesy of Vegas. But the gate shut with a resounding thud behind them, probably locked from one of the men inside, and staying in the car and giving a chance to the men to surround them wasn’t a good idea either.
Chay, being relatively slender of the two, snaked to the back of the car and yanked open the cover over the leg space of the backseat. Two guns and two spare clips of magazines were stuck to the hidden compartment. Standard place to hide the guns, Chay knew and Porsche also didn’t seem terribly surprised as Chay handed one of each to him. Porsche and Chay looked at each other, bullets still sounding off of the ominously crunching windshield glass and came to a silent consensus.
The men did not have yet the time to flank them, idiotically focusing on getting the bullets through the creaking front windowshield glass. Chay and Porsche counted to three and both jumped out of their respective sides, rolling away behind closest available cover. The concentrated gunfire got divided and scattered in its aim. Porsche found an garden ornament and Chay their concrete bench to hide behind.
The fight got slightly more even as both of the brothers could shoot from their own sides, definitely better markesmen than the people shooting at them. They definitely took down two people.
One of the shooters tried to be a little clever and broke off from his group to flank Chay, given more available space on his side than Porsche’s, whose dry concrete fountain was right next to the garden hedge. As Chay tried to flush himself against the bench, his hand chanced upon an age old beer bottle behind the leg of the bench and without hesitating, he threw in perfect arc at the flanking guy.
It hit him and he stumbled back. The next shot by Chay took him out. Inspired, Chay took off his heavy boots. He now had two things to throw. Porsche too, found decorative stones at the bottom of the hedge. He threw them to his best approximation, his aim better than Porchay’s but besides a loud ‘ouch’, it didn’t achieve much else. It was kinda funny though, in a morbid kind of way. Chay laughed a little hysterically as he paused to reload his solitary magazine in his empty gun, hands shaking only a little.
All the fight, all the running, all the lies and all the scheming. Only to end up shot dead in the garden of his childhood home, in socks. He glanced at Porsche who was shooting more recklessly than him; and if Chay counted correctly, down to his last 4 bullets. Their mother was going to lose her sons again.
Fury rose in Chay’s chest as he got up and took aim to shoot down 2 more people. Four bullets wasted. There were now two people left. Pretty good odds if they were fighting hand to hand. Pretty terrible odds if they were in a gun fight and one side had better guns and more ammo than you. There was no stand off. There was no time. The two shooters were safely hidden in the house, taking appropriate care to reload their machine fucking guns. They couldn’t be stupid; Chay could see Porsche just itching to run at them and dropkick into next sunday. But they did not have the element of surprise in their favour. All they could hope is to wait for them to come out to shoot at them again and then try their last remaining luck and bullets into saving their skin.
Chay did not want to look at Porsche. He thought he’d cry if he looked at him again. It was all going to be in vain. And Chay hadn’t even finished the song. In the moment of silence before their almost certain death, a tune came unbidden into his head. It flowed so seamlessly that Chay laughed again. There goes the song. Kim would never know.
The shooter guy yelled from inside. “What are you laughing at, y’all are dead now, fuckers!” And came out from behind the wall to start shooting at them again.
As the final act of bravery, Chay raised his gaze to meet Porsche’s who seemed to be looking at him already, as if waiting for him to look back before dying himself. The gunshots were coming closer, the man walking towards them. There was a loud hum growing in the back of his head, as if signalling to him it was time to die. What a way to go, Chay thought and both of them crouched up to take the one final aim-
Chay hadn’t realised the roar was actually coming from outside as it suddenly got too loud and something heavy crashed into the gate of their house, bending it inwards. The big jeep that rammed into the gate and stunned everyone into sudden silence, revved back with a loud growl and again crashed into the gate, this time, fully bursting it open. It came to a shrieking halt right in the middle of the garden. Chay could look in from the side window to see a very familiar and welcome sight. The sharp profile of one Kim Theerapanyakul. One very angry Kim Theerapanyakul.
The dumbass shooters again made the same mistake of raining their machine gun on the bulletproof windshield again- pure waste of bullets- while the occupants got out from the cover of the similarly bulletproof side doors. Chay assumed it was Kinn on the other side because Porsche let out a delighted whoop. Kim shot three times from the side of the door and then looked at Chay. His wild frantic eyes took in every inch of Chay’s appearance.
“I’m not hurt,” Chay answered his unasked question. There was a gap between the cover of the door and where Chay was hiding. But still, Kim, the absolutely reckless death defier he was, ran the distance to Chay and enveloped him in one arm, holding his gun arm free and aimed away. The sudden warmth of his body made Chay feel alive, dispelling the chill he was feeling just seconds ago when the death seemed so imminent. Kim’s hand snaked into Chay’s hair and pulled his face closer to him, touching their foreheads. Chay subconsciously knew Kim was trying not to overwhelm him with feelings but he said fuck it and pressed his lips to Kim’s anyways. It was after weeks they were touching like this again, stolen brief touches at the party notwithstanding. Kim too, pushed his mouth hard against his, sliding his tongue in Chay’s mouth and stealing every breath away. Chay was once again smelling that signature cologne of his and he let it wash all over him. Chay was so engrossed in the feel of Kim’s hot mouth, he didn’t realise it had gotten way too silent around them.
Kim broke away first. “Darling,” he panted. Even in the dark brown eyes, Chay was close enough to see his pupils were blown so wide and his mouth looked so deliciously red, Chay wanted to pull him back again, shooters with big bad guns be damned.
Someone cleared their throat above them and both of them immediately pointed their guns in the vague direction, Kim’s a lot quicker than his.
It was just Kinn and Porsche, standing a few feet away, holding each other. Kinn’s left arm looked streaked with blood. He had definitely skirted a bullet but with Porsche’s happy face, Chay concluded it must not be a serious injury.
Kim too, apparently having a similar thought, lowered his gun and smirked. “Bro, we came so late to the party, how did you still manage to get shot while the rest of us are bullet free?”
“Excuse you, while you were busy sucking Chay’s face, it was me and Porsche firing at them and thus getting all the bullets our way.”
Chay’s face flushed and it flushed even darker with Porsche’s next comment. “Wow, I’m almost impressed how you two managed to make out in middle of a fight. Maybe I’m just old now, I don’t remember being this horny. Were we this horny, Kinn?” he looked at his husband fondly.Kinn laughed as he pulled out his phone and threw it in Chay’s direction. “It’s been way too noisy. Call whatever cops you know and take care of it. Us three are going to make sure there are no more surprises inside.”
But Kim stayed where he was, as if he didn’t hear Kinn. Kinn rolled his eyes and didn’t force him, simply walking in the house, picking up a machine gun on the way. Chay was aware and conscious of Kim’s eyes on him as he made multiple calls. One to Atid, one to Khun Som, their commissioner, and one to the police officer he knew from the area who gave him the number of police on night duty and then a call to her. Kim’s face looked a little fond all throughout as Chay dealt with his colleagues.
Cutting the last call, Chay called him out on it. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Can I kiss you again?”
“Your brother got shot in the arm, I think we should take care of that first.”
Kim groaned, “he’ll live.” But he got up from the grass anyways. Porsche yelled ‘all clear’ from inside and then they walked in, carefully side stepping the bodies.
3-4 of them were inside the house, blood and viscera staining the tile and the now shattered window. Chay and Kim dragged them outside to join the rest. When they went in again, they found Kinn and Porsche sucking each other’s faces against the kitchen counter.
Both of them looked at each other and in sync made disgusted noises. Porsche jerked back, as if he had forgotten the rest of the world. It would’ve been sweet if it wasn’t his own brother. Kinn held on to him fast however, a little more blood trickling out of the wound on his arm.
“We uh, were looking for the first aid box,” Porsche wheezed a bit.
“It’s not in the kitchen,” Chay shook his head and went in the living room to retrieve it from under the coffee table. From the last time he was nursing certain someone. He handed it to Kim who had followed him to the room and Kim obligingly walked back in the kitchen to hand it to the other two. He immediately came back with squinted face. At Chay’s questioning face, he explained, “They’re kissing again.”
Chay laughed. “And they were teasing us.”
At ‘us’ Kim’s face melted. “Yeah,” he said quietly. Looking up at him, in his own house, Chay got a sense of deja vu.
“I should rename our house, call it Theerapanyakul Nursing Centre,” Chay said. “This is the third time a Theerapanyakul is getting patched up here.”
Kim smiled at that and sat on the sofa, a little gingerly. Adrenaline of the night wearing off, he again wore that unsure anxious look he had been wearing throughout the party. Chay wanted to wipe that away; he wanted his haughty, bratty Kim back. They had a lot to work on. But he just wanted to ensure Kim that he was willing to work on it. He was about to talk to Kim about it when their brothers reappeared from the kitchen, Kinn with half the shirt off and Porsche with bandage in his hands.
Kinn looked anxious. “Do we- Should we call back home?”
Kim turned his head, “Khun!”
“Yeah, how come you guys came after us? What happened back at home?” Chay asked, suddenly realising the fact. Kim was already pulling out the phone and dialing when a car sounded at the gate.
Everyone suddenly tensed up and all of them, on instinct, pointed their guns at the direction. Kim saw the car however and lowered his gun slightly.
“That’s Khun’s car.”
All of the guns remained pointed until the car came to halt just behind Kim’s jeep in the middle and they saw Arm and Khun both get out of the car, and them only. Tankhun waved from the car. “Are you all alive?”
Kinn ran to hug his brother and check over Arm who seemed to be mouthing ‘he is fine’ as far as Chay could make out. Porsche followed him out too and so did Kim and then so did Chay. There was a lot of moving around going on tonight. Chay was so tired.
“What happened after we left? Is- is Khun Korn-?” Chay asked.
“Dead,” Tankhun answered flatly. Kim blinked. Chay would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been looking at Kim already. Kinn let out an audible breath.
“Is he truly…” he asked in a small voice. Chay felt he was intruding on a family moment but Kim held his hand tightly and Chay pressed it back.
Tankhun looked at Chay and Porsche instead. “He knew. He knew you were in Bangkok, he was tracking Pete’s jet. Which was why he planned for this attack.” He threw a disgusted look at the bodies in the yard. “But he was still surprised you guys showed up at the party. He wasn’t expecting it. Meaning he probably planned to kill you both before the party started. You know now I’m wondering why we didn’t kill him before? He almost got Arm shot!” Tankhun sounded angrier and angrier as he explained and he exploded at the end, throwing both his hands up.
Arm placed a placating hand on Tankhun’s shoulder and Chay looked at him curiously. Tankhun’s bodyguard Arm mostly faded in the background in all the time Chay knew him. But given Tankhun’s reaction, he was something more than Chay originally thought.
“What do you mean he got Arm almost shot, what happened?” Porsche angrily demanded. And then Tankhun said how Korn had been expecting the brothers to kill him and how ready he was for it but not before laying one last tragedy in their lives.
“He went after what was precious to us!” Tankhun stomped his foot and blinked and sneaked a look at Arm. Arm looked decidedly redder, even in the little light from the house.
“Why are you half dressed, Khun Kinn?” Arm asked Kinn, probably to change the conversation, who still had half his shirt off.
They all suddenly realised they were out standing in the yard and walked inside, carefully stepping over the bodies. Chay messaged ‘A Cleaner’ service guy he knew to come by and get everything cleaned before sunrise but for now they’d have to put up with the bodies.
They all came in the living room and flopped down on the available seating services. Kinn sat on the sofa and Porsche sat beside him and started putting antiseptic on the wound. Chay took the chair and Kim sat on the ground, between Chay’s legs, his head leaned back over Chay’s thighs. He looked up once to make sure Chay was okay with it and Chay answered by running his fingers gently in Kim’s moussed hair. There was only one seat left at the end of sofa and Tankhun flopped down. Arm easily stood behind, taking the bodyguard stance. But then Tankhun shot up and dragged Arm to sit down instead.
Arm spluttered, “Khun-”
“Shut up,” Tankhun said, making him sit and then sat in his lap. Arm looked alarmed but as Tankhun made himself comfortable and besides knowing smiles, no one else reacted otherwise, he relaxed marginally.
Porsche resumed his bandaging work, which honestly took like 3 minutes, the cut was very shallow. But they sat there, six of them, looking at each other, making themselves believe that everyone truly made it out. That they were free. Free to live. Free to love.
Another realisation struck Chay and he quietly groaned. Kim looked up at him, question in the eye.
“Just realised, now I’ll have to go back to work.”
Kim laughed and so did everyone else. “You can just not. Quit your job, I know you’re not too fond of it,” Kim said.
Chay shrugged. “It’s a job. Pays the bills. Now that I don’t have to spend looking for hia, it’s good money too.”
Porsche winced and Chay raised his hand to stop him, “Someone has to remain poor and working among you all to remind what common people live like.”
Arm spoke up, “I’m sure I count as a working person too. I have a pension plan.”
Chay leaned over in his chair to give him a high five, which Arm had to strain a bit, with Tankhun’s weight, to reach.
Tankhun, unhappy at being jostled, got up and paced. “I’m hungry, I barely ate anything at the party, I was soooo nervous. Arm, order something for us.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, given the state of our gate and the doorstep,” Kim said. Chay noticed he said ‘our gate’ and felt 10 different ways about it.
Kinn asked, “What about back home? How did you leave things there?”
“Well the gunshots were silenced but ofcourse the sound still travels. Most of the guards and staff were dismissed anyways and only the core trustworthy people remain. We’ve instructed them not to leave the house and not to speak to anyone about the gunshots,” Tankhun said.
“Shots?” Kinn asked and looked at Arm.
“One to Noel and one to Khun Korn,” Arm replied and looked at Chay. “Can we borrow your cleaners? Noel needs to be disposed of and the room needs to be cleared of the blood.”
They talked of the cold practicalities for a while, everyone finding a little comfort in it. Chay thought it strange how they were a group of people who would rather talk about cleaning blood off the carpets than their feelings. It was a theatre play they were all participating in, where they were not pretending that the Patriarch of the Theerapanyakul family wasn’t just murdered tonight by his own son, after the said Patriarch’s effort to kill Arm and Porsche and Chay.
Well. Those discussions could wait for the light of the day. For now, in the strangely safe cocoon of the dark, they were shielded from the world outside. Chay found some Ramen packets in the pantry and they all just ate that instead of stepping out. Chay told himself he’ll stay awake till the cleaners came but everything that happened caught up with him. The long anxious flight, the agonising minutes spent at the party, the worried drive back home, the fight for their life- getting shot at in their own home and the final elation with Kim and Kinn coming. The ups and downs, mostly the downs but with an exhilarating up, were all too much and Chay fell asleep before he could finish the noodles in his bowl.
…
He woke up feeling incredibly cocooned and small and for some reason, he ached for an invisible pang of loss. The light filtering was too familiar and too odd. The bed just the wrong kind of soft. The smell of the bedsheet musty with the undertones of multitudes of heaving tears he once cried into.
Chay jerked awake. He was in his childhood bed, in his childhood bedroom. It was barely after the sunrise, but the sky was decidedly lighter outside. He threw the sheets aside and hurried out of the room. Once outside, he heard voices from the kitchen. He padded down the stairs to see, to his surprise, Kim and Porsche, seated at the dining table, talking.
Kim jerked a little at seeing him already awake. “Oh you’re up. You were so dead on your feet, I thought it’d be impossible to wake you up before noon.”
“How-”
“Porsche and I carried you up.” “Uh-” “It was alright, anyways you once carried me all by yourself when I passed out in your house.”
“Do I want to know?” Porsche asked and while Kim opened his mouth to speak, Chay shook his head. “Nope, no need,” he hastily said, coming close to them and taking a seat.
In midst of the embarrassment, Chay yawned widely and Porsche tutted. “You should sleep more.”
“Yeah I don’t think I can sleep in my bedroom,” Chay shifted in his seat, throwing a glance around.
“Why, good enough to put me there but not for you?” Kim’s voice had a teasing tone but Chay cringed.
“I’ve spent enough nights in this bedroom by myself when hia was gone. I don’t like the reminder,” Chay spoke and saw both of them wince. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said it. But it was true. It had been a while since he had stayed overnight in the house and he mostly associated it now with the time when Porsche was gone, rather than the time he spent with Porsche in the house.
“Did they sort the mess out at your flat?” Porsche asked.
“Kim says no,” Chay said. “It’s still under police tape,” Kim shrugged.
“So you would stay here, right? With me?” Porsche asked a little uncertainly, looking between Kim and Chay. Chay glanced at Kim who was looking at the table like it contained most fascinating of secrets.
“You’re not staying with Kinn?” Chay asked. Porsche snorted. “Kinn doesn’t know where he’s staying.”
At that, Kim looked up. “Why, is he not staying at home?” His tone was a little accusatory and Porsche looked a little taken aback and in a careful voice, like he’s approaching a feral animal, spoke, “Well, that house isn’t exactly home for Kinn-”
“Right, your home is back in Italy. I forgot,” Kim’s voice was light but his hand was clenched and Chay couldn’t resist putting his hand on it. Kim looked at Chay and his fist relaxed fractionally under Chay’s hand.
“Let’s just all agree we have complicated relationships with the concept of home and go from there, yeah? There’s no use in pretending everything is going to be easy and fine now just because Hia and I aren’t in mortal danger. There’s so much to figure out, so many things to build upon. The last ten years… they can’t be undone just like that. But choices were made and we have to live with them.”
Kim was staring at him, there was something hungry and desperate in his gaze. Like he wanted to cling on Chay’s words and lash out at them simultaneously. His face, which was so blank and wiped clean of any emotions before, betrayed the affection he felt for Chay and Chay loved it. Chay tightened his hold. He’ll take it. He’ll take whatever Kim decides to do. He looked back at Kim steadily as well and hoped Kim knew that.
Porsche cleared his throat at side and Chay suddenly broke away his gaze; he’d forgotten his brother was there.
“Right,” Porsche said, looking between them. He looked like he had something to say but he shut his mouth and instead said, “Kinn and Tankhun left to take care of stuff at the house with the cleaners. The cleaners are nice, our house is spotless.” Chay turned back to see that indeed, the front of their house looked like no blood had ever spilled there. Thankfully, most of the glass had survived the rampant shooting, only two panes were broken. The gate was beyond repair but the bullet hole ridden cars were gone.
Porsche continued speaking, “There’s a lot to be done in coming days. We’ll have to announce the passing, arrange for funeral, get the will read etc.”
“I have to figure out if I still have my job,” Chay said. Kim’s hand that was still under his shifted and he upturned it to weave his fingers through Chay’s.
“I called Atid,” Kim said. “You’ll likely get a disciplinary hearing but you’ll be fine. You can go to work tomorrow.”
Chay looked at him gratefully. He wasn’t in all honesty looking forward to going back to deal with his unplanned vacation. He had fairly good relationship with his boss, Khun Som, but he was gone for two weeks. He hadn’t even contacted Atid meanwhile and he missed the old bastard. There were going to be a lot of questions raised. There was a lot to take care of and a lot to hide and a lot to reveal. But he’ll take care of it. Together with Porsche and Kim and the rest of the Theerapanyakuls. He had Kim’s hand in his own and brother was sitting in front of him and his mother would soon be back in the country.
Chay felt at peace, for the first time in forever. And he had a forever of this to look forward to.