Archive of Our Own

With his headphones on, he couldn't hear the shouting. He couldn't even hear if anybody was shouting. He didn't know and he didn't care. Kim turned the music up anyway. Rubbed his hands over his jeans--there was blood under his fingernails. He made a face and rubbed harder. He didn't want any part of that asshole on him. He wondered if anybody would notice if he left to shower.

There was motion behind him, somebody briefly blocking the light, then a soft bump as Porsche sat down next to him. Kim considered for a moment, then stopped the song and took off his headphones.

"You okay?" Porsche asked.

"Fine."

Porsche nodded toward the door to Papa's study. It was partly open, and through it they could both hear the tense voices. His father, calm. Kinn, significantly less calm. Khun's voice was oddly hard to read, because he wasn't making a lot of noise, wasn't shouting or shrill. That, for some reason, unsettled Kim more than anything else. He thought it might be useful to know which of them were angry at him, but it seemed like a lot of effort to find out.

"Why aren't you in there?" Porsche asked.

"My father," said Kim, dry as bone dust, "told me to wait while they discuss the 'problem' that I have caused."

"Right. The problem. Did you really shoot that guy in the dick?"

"He deserved it," Kim said.

 "So I've heard. Man, what a way to go. He's dead, by the way. The team we sent out confirmed it."

"Great."

"So now you're just... waiting."

"That's what my father told me to do."

Porsche raised his eyebrows. "And?"

Kim glared at him. "And what?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Kim said. But, without really meaning to, he added, "I want a shower. I want to go home."

He wanted his own shower. His own apartment, which was quiet and empty and didn't have any family members in it. His own locks on the door and his own bed for the night. Kim hadn't even noticed when he stopped thinking about the family home as home, but it had happened some time ago, and once his mind made the switch he never went back. He had a home, one he had chosen for himself, and it wasn't here.

"So go," Porsche said.

Kim looked toward the open study door again.

"You'll be home before they even notice. I'll just tell them you slipped away while I wasn't looking. Your dad will believe it." Porsche grinned, almost proudly. "He already thinks I'm enough of an idiot to let that happen."

Kim considered it for half a second, then stood up.

"I'll get someone to take you," Porsche said, already pulling out his phone. "You're too out of it to drive yourself."

That was bullshit, Kim was perfectly fine, but he knew Porsche would be weird about this, so he didn't argue.

He did stop at the door, though, to toss a quick, "Thanks," over his shoulder.

True to his word, Porsche did have one of the bodyguards waiting downstairs, somebody Kim vaguely recognized but didn't know well. Porsche and Kinn had moved a lot of people around in the aftermath of the attack. It was just one guard, not a whole interfering team, for which Kim was grateful. The man didn't say a single word to him besides his name as he opened the car door. Kim slumped in the back seat and put his headphones back on. It wasn't that late, only about nine-thirty, and Friday night traffic was still heavy through the city, so he had time to listen to the song three and a half times before they were pulling up in front of his apartment building.

A couple of minutes later he was in his apartment, shedding his dirty clothes and throwing himself into the shower. He scrubbed Chun's blood from his hands, scrubbed the smell of smoke from his hair, scrubbed the lingering greasy feel of adrenaline-fueled sweat from his body. When he finally felt clean again, he got out and dried off, dressed in pajama pants and a soft t-shirt and socks, and glanced at his phone. Only a few texts, all from Porsche, the first asking him to confirm he'd gotten home okay, the next few telling him to ignore calls and texts from Kinn until morning.

Kim replied with a simple ok.

He retraced his steps back through the apartment, picking up his dirty clothes and the gun he'd left with them. After spending the majority of his life with servants and bodyguards and nannies and tutors seeing to his every need, it had taken some getting used to, all the mundane little tasks that came with living on his own. But he had eventually realized that he liked it. He didn't want people coming in to his place, messing with his things, whatever the reason. He might not like the chores--housework fucking sucked--but he liked knowing that he could shape his space into what he wanted it to be. That he was the only one who could.

But even in his own home, he couldn't seem to settle tonight, and he wasn't sure why. He sat down on the sofa, brought up the song again, set it to play through the speakers.

Porchay had sent him the song yesterday morning; it had been waiting in his messages when he woke up. His first thought had been a giddy, disbelieving holy shit he's texting me again, but that had been quickly replaced by the shellshocked realization that Porchay had sent a video file. Kim had watched two seconds before he had to pause it and have a quiet freak-out in his bed. He wanted to pull the covers over his head or scream into his pillow or something. He'd kicked the mattress and rolled over several times before curling onto his side, phone inches from his face, and getting the nerve to hit play again.

The video wasn't anything fancy. Just Porchay sitting cross-legged in the corner of a room, a wall behind him and a window overlooking the night skyline to his side. Guitar in hand, and Kim had to pause the video again when he recognized it as the guitar he had given to Porchay. He might have made some undignified squeaking noises but without witnesses nobody would ever know.

And the song.

The song was upbeat but also angry. Heartfelt but jaded. So charming, but with sharp edges. Rough in places but also extremely clever--more clever than Kim would have expected, and he felt like a piece of shit just thinking that, but it made him wonder if Porchay had been holding back before, had been feeling too shy or too awkward or too pressured to write the kind of music he really wanted to write, or if this was something new, something he'd been trying recently. Kim didn't know, and he wanted to ask, wanted to tell him that it was good, really good. The kind of good that made him want to tease apart every lyric and every chord to dig down to the bones, to play with, experiment with, the way they had a few times with other songs, for hours in the studio that flew by so easily, in the days before Kim had ruined everything.

He hadn't replied to Porchay's message yet.

All he'd done was listen to the song over and over again, every chance he got, over the past two days. He'd been summoned by his father. Sat down across a chess board he refused to touch. Agreed to his father's bullshit, because there wasn't really another option. Papa wanted a deal, and it wasn't the sort of thing Kinn could be seen lowering himself to do, and he didn't think Porsche was up to the task. So that left Kim, who Papa had been summoning more and more lately, every time acting like he was offering Kim a chance to contribute. Like it was a gift.

Kim thought he'd contributed pretty well by shooting Chun in the dick rather than making a deal with him, because the man had proclivities that made him a liability and was less trustworthy than a Nigerian prince over email, but apparently his father disagreed.

A soft chime interrupted his thoughts. That was the doorman downstairs. Somebody was here for him, and for a second Kim was so incandescently angry he almost threw his phone across the room. His father couldn't even let him have one fucking hour of peace before calling him back like a dog to heel. That's how it was now. His father said things had to change, everybody had to do their part, but what he meant was that Kim didn't get to pretend to have another life anymore. The time for playing make-believe was over. His freedom had only ever been an illusion anyway.

It would be worse if he ignored the summons, as tempted as he was, so Kim brought up the video of the lobby downstairs to see who'd drawn the short stick and had to haul him back. He still expected to see Big, every time he looked, and it still hurt when it was inevitably somebody else. Kim knew his father's men all hated him. Some of them were worse at hiding it than others.

But it wasn't one of his father's men standing now in the building lobby, shifting uncomfortably under the watchful gaze of the armed doorman.

It was Porchay.

"What," Kim said, out loud, even as he was texting the doorman to let him in.

He jumped to his feet, then looked around wildly. He'd already picked up the blood-stained clothes. There wasn't anything else too incriminatory lying about, like the notebook that he'd meant to be using for lyrics ideas but had somehow ended up filled with doodled hearts instead. Porchay had been here before, when they'd hung out, but he didn't know why he would be here now. Not unless--

Kim felt like he'd been doused in cold water.

There was a knock at the door, and Kim considered not answering. But he could no more bring himself to do that than he'd been able to not listen to the song, so he shuffled over to the door, undid all of the locks, and opened it.

"Hi," Chay said.

"What are you doing here?" Kim asked.

As soon as the question was out, he wanted to punch himself in the face. Chay flinched like he'd been slapped.

"No, I meant--" The first time they'd spoken in almost two months and he was fucking it up before it had even begun. "Did my father send you?"

Chay made a face. "Um, no? Porsche said you might want some company."

"Porsche sent you?"

"He didn't send me," Chay said, looking more confused by the minute. He made a helpless little wave with both hands. "Nobody sent me. He literally just said you might want some company, and I said I was coming over, and... that's it? Do you... do you want me to leave? If he was wrong and you--"

"No! Don't go." Kim stepped back to open the door wider, and promptly stumbled over the boots he left  in the entry hall earlier. He bumped his elbow into the wall and winced, but didn't fall before righting himself and saying, "Um. Come in. Please. Come in."

"Okay, so, he was right. You really are out of it."

"I'm fine," Kim said. He shut and locked the door, then checked all the locks again.

"Uh-huh," Chay said.

"You can sit down. You, uh. Know where to sit."

Chay toes off his shoes and wandered into the living room, looking around like he expected things to have significantly changed. That last time Chay had been in Kim's apartment, he'd been restless and giggly and distracted, and only later had Kim realized it was because he'd been hiding the Polaroids they'd taken the day before. Kim still had all of them. Every single one.

He had been making plans for this moment. Chay right in front of him. No reason for secrets anymore. A chance to talk. He had been writing scripts in his head for weeks. Some of them were very elaborate. All of them were very heartfelt. He could not remember a single fucking thing he was supposed to say.

"I need a drink," Kim said.

He probably shouldn't have been surprised when Chay followed him into the kitchen. He was surprised when Chay immediately grinned and said, "Wait, by drink you mean tea? Are you a grandma?"

Kim tried to glare at him as he filled and turned on the kettle, he really did, but seeing Chay smile was so nice he softened his glare immediately. "So what if I am? It's good for vocal strain. You should try it."

Chay dropped his head into his hands, covering his face with his over-long sleeves. "Ugh, I knew I sounded rough. It was bad in the second verse, wasn't it? I should have recorded it again, but that was already like my fifth try and--"

"No! I wasn't talking about your--"

"Oh, no, you didn't even listen, did you?" Chay's eyes went wide and he waves his hands in front of him. "It's okay! It's really okay!"

"But I--"

"I didn't mean to, like, guilt trip you, I swear, I just thought--"

"I like your song," Kim said quickly. "I like it a lot. And, yeah, you sound a little tired, and it's more noticeable toward the end, but I don't think it would be obvious to anyone, it's just that I know what you sound like when you're not letting your voice rest, and you miss the same chords when you're starting to lose focus, that thing you do with your fingers--you did it at the end of the bridge, right in the changeover to the last verse--but it doesn't matter. It's--it's a good song. Better than good. It's brilliant."

Chay was staring at him, his mouth slightly open. "You, uh, wow. You really did listen to it."

"I've listened to it about a hundred times," Kim said solemnly. He hadn't been keeping count but he didn't think he was lying.

"Oh. That's, um. That's good? I mean, that's why I sent it. Obviously. I wanted you to hear it. Like, you know, just you. I don't think I can do the whole, uh, public social media thing yet."

"About that. That was..." Kim felt his face growing warm. "Kind of an accident? I meant to send it just to you, but I was so nervous that I messed up and posted it. I didn't realize until my phone started going crazy with notifications. And by then I thought it didn't matter. As long as you saw it."

For a long moment there was no sound in the kitchen except the water heating in the kettle. Chay just stared at Kim, stared without say anything, before he turned away and bent his head over. Kim was instantly, frantically worried that Chay was upset, that he'd said the wrong thing--then he noticed Chay's shoulders shaking and heard the pained, unmistakable sound of wheezing.

"You--you--that was an accident?" Chay asked, through gasping laughter. He was bent nearly double, holding on to the edge of the counter for support. "Are you kidding me? My friends at school spent weeks singing to me every time I left the room. Every single time! Even if I was just going to the bathroom! The teachers had to make them stop!"

"I'm... sorry?"

Kim wasn't sorry. He had never been less sorry in his life, because if his stupidity could get Chay to laugh like this, unable to stand upright, wiping tears from his eyes with his hole-filled sleeves, Kim would be stupid every day until he died. He didn't want his apartment to be empty and quiet again. Not if he could have this, even for a little bit. He thought, distantly, that he'd known that already. But until Chay was standing before him he'd been too afraid to think it.

"I can't believe I ever thought you were cool," Chay said. He finally stood upright again, his face red and his smile beautiful. "With your grandma tea and your fuzzy socks and your social media fuck-ups."

Kim looked down at his feet. "My socks are comfortable."

"And fuzzy."

The kettle clicked off. Kim filled the teapot and set out two cups. When he turned back, Chay was still smiling, but more softly now, with a little bit of a question in it.

"Are you really okay?" Chay asked. "Right now, I mean? I don't know exactly what happened, but I know Porsche and your brothers are pretty angry."

That hurt, but Kim figured it was only to be expected. "I messed up something pretty big for them. It was stupid. I could have--"

"Kim." Chay stepped forward and reached out, but he dropped his hand before touching Kim's arm. "They're not angry at you. They're worried about you. They're angry at your father."

Kim felt, for a second, like the floor had tilted underneath him. He hadn't realized that was a possibility. Maybe he should have made more of an effort to eavesdrop back at the house. He didn't know how to feel about it.

"Oh," he said, after a long silence. He made himself look up and meet Chay's eyes. "But you are, aren't you? Angry with me. You have good reason to be."

Chay scratched the back of his head and made a pained face. "Right. Okay. So we're doing this now. Can we at least..." He gestured toward the other room. "Sit down?"

"Yes. Of course. Go on. I'll, um. The tea."

They sat on opposite ends of the sofa, cross-legged and facing each other. Chay sipped the tea experimentally, decided it was too hot and set it aside. He hunched over, twisting his hands together, playing with the ends of his sleeves.

"I don't know if I'm still mad at you," he said.

"Chay, I listened to the song."

"Yeah, well, I wrote that over a few weeks," Chay said. "And it felt good? To get it all out. But, listen, I have so much more context than I did before for your..." He spread his hands wide to indicate, well, all of Kim. "Everything. Why you are the way you are. I've been living with your family. And talking to them. I get it, I mean, not all of it, but, well. There's a lot to get. But... I didn't hear any of that from you. I had to get it from everybody else." Chay took a breath and nodded. "And, okay, yeah. I guess I am still angry about that."

"I'm sorry," Kim said.

"The best time to be honest would have been when I was having, like, one of the worst weeks of my entire life because I'd been kidnapped by some psycho?" Chay's voice went high and shaky at the end, like he was trying to laugh about it but couldn't quite manage it. "Because that really sucked? And you made it worse."

"I'm sorry," Kim said again, more quietly.

"But, I guess, now is a good time too. Will you--will you just tell me the truth? While I'm right here?"

"Yes. Anything."

Chay nodded again, like he wasn't surprised by Kim's answer. "Did you know who I was, that first day we met? I can't quite work out how that--"

"I had no idea," Kim said quickly. "Not that day. I just thought you were--" really cute "--good at trivia." Then he thought, fuck it, he did agree to be truthful. "And really cute."

Chay looked skeptical. "So it was just some wild coincidence?"

"Yes. It was later, when--one of my brother's men, he showed me the stuff he'd found out about Kinn's new bodyguard. The one our father forced him to hire even though he didn't have the usual qualifications. There was a picture of the two of you together. I recognized you."

"And you thought, what? I went to the open house to stalk you while my brother was infiltrating your family?"

"I didn't know," Kim said. "But I thought I should find out."

"Well, for the record, I went to the open house to stalk you because I was a huge obsessed fan, not because of your family. Or mine." Chay looked down self-consciously. "I didn't even know what Porsche was doing at that point. He'd given me some bullshit story that I knew was fake, but I didn't have a chance to ask any questions."

"I know. I realized that pretty quickly."

"You know, that first day we met up at the studio..." Chay hesitated, smiling uncertainly in that way he did when he was gearing himself up to say something. "I knew you didn't want to be there, tutoring some random student. I'm not actually that clueless. I knew you were trying to get me out of there quickly. What I don't get is why you changed your mind. Did you find something on my phone that made you more suspicious?"

Kim hadn't known he'd been quite that unsubtle about the phone thing, but it didn't seem like the time to admit that. "No, it was the opposite. There was nothing suspicious at all. You take a lot of cat pictures."

"Well, yeah, cats are cute. So what was it? If there was nothing interesting, why did you keep it up?"

Kim took a sip of his tea before answering. But even after he swallowed, he couldn't bring himself to say anything. The words were there, beating against the back of his teeth. He couldn't say them. It was stupid. It was so fucking stupid. He wanted to be honest. Chay deserved the truth. Kim had hurt him enough by withholding it.

Chay touched his knee, and Kim started.

"Hey," Chay said. "It's okay. It's not--I already told you I'm not that mad."

He sounded so gentle, but also a little alarmed. Kim didn't even want to imagine what he must look like, to have Chay talking to him like that, like he was some kind of feral animal cornered in an alley.

"It's not--it's not you," Kim said. "It's just--I don't--this isn't--"

"This isn't easy for you, is it?"

Kim gave him a grateful look, and Chay laughed a little.

"I told you, I've been living with your family. And I've totally got a cheat code because my older brother is learning how to read your older brother. And for some reason tells me all about it. Even when I'd kinda rather he didn't."

Kim took another sip of tea. "We all learned pretty young not to... share too much. It's a hard habit to break. I used to be really bad about it. I was a chatterbox as a little kid."

Chay raised his eyebrows. "Really? That's hard to imagine."

It was the truth, and suddenly Kim was thinking about a day he hadn't thought about in years. Hadn't wanted to think about in years. He and his mother had been over at his uncle's place--a normal house then, much less ostentatious than what the minor family eventually moved into--because his mother and aunt were good friends. While they chatted in the kitchen, Kim had been directed to go play with his cousin. Vegas was almost three older than him, an impressive nearly-nine to Kim's just-turned-six, and sometimes he would refuse to play with Kim because he didn't want to be stuck with the baby. But that day Vegas was eager to show off his prized possession: he had a new pet. And not a fish, but a proper pet, a round little hedgehog that waddled around its enclosure while they fed it mealworms and cheered every time it swallowed one. Kim was deeply jealous of his cousin and already thinking of ways to ask his parents for a hedgehog when Mom came into the room, grabbed him by the arm, and said, "We have to go."

She didn't explain why as they hurried out after barely saying goodbye, didn't explain why on the drive home, didn't explain why when they arrived to find his father's men swarming out of the house, guns in hand and radios crackling. Nobody explained anything, just sent Kim to his room, where he dug out his crayons and drew pictures of hedgehogs until somebody finally fetched him and brought him to his father. Kinn and Mom were already there. Kim was frightened when he saw they had both been crying. Finally, Papa explained that Tankhun hadn't come home from drama club after school, and he needed to ask Kim some questions. He wanted to know everybody Kim had talked to lately. Everybody at school. Everybody at his music teacher's. Every adult and every child. Papa asked and asked and asked, but none of Kim's answers were right. Papa grew angry, and Kim started crying, and finally Mom told Kinn to take his brother back upstairs. As they were leaving, Kim heard Papa say, "He never shuts up. He would foolishly trust anybody," and Mom replied, "He's six," and Kim knew then that he'd done something terrible, something so wrong that it had made his father furious, it had made his mom and brother cry, and nobody would tell him why Khun hadn't come home.

Chay's hand was still on his knee. "What are you thinking about?"

Kim shook his head. "No. I mean..." He was trying to be better about this. "I'll tell you later, if you want, but it's not--it's a distraction. Old memories. I want to be honest with you. I am being honest with you. I promise. I didn't promise before but--but I do."

"Okay," Chay said.

"I just need you to know that, because I think..." Kim took another sip of tea. "At the time, I told myself I needed to keep meeting with you and looking into your family because there was obviously something going on. But it was just an excuse. One I made up for myself. Not even a very good one."

"So what was the real reason?" Chay asked.

"I liked your song. And I was lonely. And you were good company." Kim made himself look up and meet Chay's eyes. He needed Chay to hear this part. Needed him to understand. Even if it ended with Chay unable to forgive him, walking out of here with nothing fixed, he needed him to know. It had taken Kim entirely too long to figure it out for himself. "And the more time I spent with you, the more I liked you. I knew it was unfair to you. I kept telling myself I would stop, but you..."

"I was kinda pushy," Chay said.

"I wanted you to be pushy. I wanted you to convince me."

"That part wasn't a lie?" Chay said, very quietly.

"No. No. It was never a lie."

"Then why--"

"Because I panicked. Because I'm a coward. Because you were--" His voice caught, but he wasn't going to stop. He wasn't following any of his scripts, he probably wasn't even making sense, but he was not going to let himself stop. "You were in danger and I couldn't protect you and I--I didn't know what to do except try to keep you away. So it couldn't happen again. I'm not any different from the men who took you. Except that I'm usually better at it than they are. But I wasn't that day. I let them take you. I couldn't stop them."

Chay leaned sideways into the sofa cushion and drew one leg up. "And you think that makes you no different from them?"

"I killed a man today," Kim said.

Chay said, "I know. Porsche told me."

"There was no real reason for it. My father sent me to make a deal with him, but I didn't like him, so I killed him. Not quickly, either. It took a long time for him to bleed out. He was in pain. And it will probably get a lot of other people killed. It will make a lot of powerful men angry."

Chay was looking at him steadily. Not flinching, not blinking, but Kim couldn't read his expression at all. He didn't like that. Chay was normally an open book, so easy to read that being with him felt like being able to breathe.

"I get that's why your father is upset," Chay said, "but is that why you're upset?"

I'm not upset, Kim thought, but for some reason the words wouldn't come.

"No," he said instead. "He was a piece of shit. Even by the standards of people my family does business with, he was absolute scum. I don't feel bad about killing him. But I--"

The words caught in his throat. It was there, suddenly, the thing that had been keeping him on edge all night, ever since he'd left Chun bleeding out on a cement floor. Ever since he had told his father what happened. He had seen a flicker of something in Papa's eyes, something that looked a lot like satisfaction. Or victory. Kim hadn't been letting himself think about it, but now, in the safety of his own home, in the company of the only safe person he knew, it crystallized into a thought he could not escape.

"I think my father set me up," Kim said. "I don't know what he wanted. I don't know what he thought would happen. But I know he didn't tell me--he didn't tell me anything. He said it was straightforward. He said he needed me because Kinn couldn't do it, and I assumed--I thought Kinn knew. But Kinn had no idea Papa was sending me. I think he was--he almost seemed happy that I'd done something that would make Kinn's life so much harder. That will put him in danger. And Papa didn't tell me it would be a deal--like that."

"Like what?"

Kim shook his head. "No. That's not--it's not important. I could have gotten out of it. I had options. I just didn't care. I wanted to kill him."

"But it's upset you."

"That piece of shit is dead. And I--"

"You don't have to tell me," Chay said. He was speaking so calmly, in a way that wasn't normal for him. But Kim realized, finally, that he was mimicking what Porsche did when he was being careful with someone. He was less practiced about it, but it was working. It made Kim want to lean into it, to let Chay go on, to breathe. "But can I guess? Because I heard a little bit of what Porsche and your brothers were angry about. And I know--I know you think this is all new and terrifying to me, and a lot of it really is, but I did also spend basically my entire life expecting enforcers to bust through the door because our uncle had made another stupid decision and pissed off the wrong people again. And there was this one time, it was just the two of us at home, and some guys came in. There was the usual threats and everything, then one of them said--he said something like, we'll give you a discount if you let us borrow the kid."

Kim looked up sharply.

"Nothing happened," Chay said quickly. "And before you ask, I have no idea who they were or what happened to them. Our uncle was--he wasn't a good man. I've always known that. He often made our lives so much harder than they had to be. But that night he was--I'd never seen him angry like that, when he kicked those guys out. He did so many selfish things, but he had lines he wouldn't even approach."

"My father doesn't have those lines," Kim said. "I used to think he did. I thought... I thought we were different. The rest of the world was one thing, but family was something else. But we're no different. He'll do anything. Even to us."

"Yeah," Chay said. "He will."

"You barely know him."

"Kim. Your father is... I know he's your father." Chay took a breath to steady himself. "But he's the reason I've never known my parents. I don't have any memories of them, only things that Porsche has told me. Your father's the reason my father is dead and my brother has nightmares about watching it happen. He's the reason Porsche never got to have a childhood and is now in danger every hour of every day. He kept my mother locked up in your house for sixteen years." His voice was shaking now, shaking like he wanted to shout and wanted to cry. "All that time we could have been with her, even if she never gets better, and he kept her away from us, and I don't know if we'll ever get her back."

His voice cracked on the last word. Kim hurriedly set his tea aside and surged across the sofa to draw Chay into a tight hug. Chay's arms came around him immediately, clinging tight as he pressed his face into Kim's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Kim said. "I'm so sorry. My family--"

"It's not your family," Chay said. His breath was warm on Kim's neck, his voice rough with tears. "Stop saying that. It's your father. You and your brothers aren't him."

"We're all a lot like him, sometimes."

"You're all a lot different from him. He's been awful to you too."

He said it so simply, so quietly, like they weren't words that shook Kim with all the power of an earthquake. Nobody said that about Korn Theerapanyakul. What they said was that he was a good father. So patient. So caring. He didn't force his damaged eldest son to take on any responsibilities. He was so accepting of his gay heir. Of his youngest son's musical daydreams. Never forget that for Korn Theerpanyakul, family came first. He was a good father.

That's what people said.

Papa had been making sure that was all they said for as long as Kim could remember.

"I didn't know about your mother," Kim said. His eyes were stinging and his throat ached. "I swear. I was trying to dig up stuff about my father and your family, but I swear I never learned about her. I wouldn't have--I don't know what I would have done, but I wouldn't have done nothing. I swear."

Chay pulled back a little to look Kim in the face. "I... I never even considered that. I didn't think you knew." His expression changed a little, softened in a way that felt like an assault on Kim's heart. He shifted one of his hands and wiped his thumb across Kim's cheek. "I never thought that about you."

Kim brought his hands up quickly and scrubbed them over his face. "I'm not crying."

"No?" Chay laughed. It was shaky and damp, but it was a laugh. "Is it raining?"

"I don't cry."

"Maybe it's suddenly very spicy in here?"

"Chay."

"Oh! You should have said. You must have something in your eye. In both eyes."

Kim groaned and buried his face in his hands, and a second later Chay was hauling him back into a hug. It was awkward and uncomfortable, leaning toward each other across the couch, but Kim wrapped his arms around Chay's middle and buried his face in the warm curve of his neck and it felt so good, it felt so right, he didn't ever want to move.

They sat that way for a long time, both making the other's shirt damp with tears, until Chay rubbed a hand up and down Kim's back and said, "I've decided. I'm not mad at you anymore. But I still have some questions."

"You can't ask questions. I have something in my eyes."

"You don't need your eyes to talk, dumbass. What did you find out? All that time you were suspecting my brother of being way, way sneakier than he could ever be in, like, a million years. And snooping through my phone. What did you find out about my family?"

"And your house, I snooped there too," Kim said without thinking.

"Um."

Kim realized his mistake immediately. He tried to pull away, but Chay wouldn't let him.

"Right. That's why you came over that first time. You know, you didn't need to bribe me with a really expensive guitar? I would have let you in anyway."

In this position, Kim was speaking more or less into Chay's collarbone, but he found it hard to care. "We need to talk about your self-defense."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Porsche has been teaching me since I was like five. It's always been boring and it will always be boring." Chay shook him a little. "Don't change the subject. You sent me away that day so you could look around my house."

"Mm."

"I'm guessing locked doors don't stop sneaky little spies like you."

"Ah. Not so much."

"So you went into my room."

Kim couldn't help it; he laughed. "This is agonizing. Do you want to do interrogations for my family? Because I think you could do interrogations for my family. Yes! Stop tormenting me. I went into your room and saw your--your--"

"Idol wall?"

"I was going to say cult shrine."

Chay cracked up, and Kim had to sit back for that, had to see Chay laughing at him. There were still tears on Chay's cheeks, and his eyes were still red, but his smile made Kim want to bite his own hand to keep from screaming with joy.

"Fair," said Chay. "I was very proud of that cult shrine. But the point is--"

"We don't need to discuss the point."

"The point is, after you saw that, you sat down and looked me right in the face and asked, like a fucking weirdo, whether I had a crush on anyone."

"You can't prove that," Kim said.

"And you told me to write a song about it."

"I deny everything."

"I cannot believe I ever thought you were cool," Chay said, laughing. "You are the opposite of cool. You are anti-cool. You are a black hole that sucks all the cool out of the room."

"You don't need to be mean," Kim said, grinning recklessly.

"I like you better this way."

And that--that was like Chay had reached into his chest and grabbed his heart and squeezed. For a second Kim couldn't breathe.

Chay nodded, as though coming to a decision. "Yeah. I like you better this way."

They sat there for a minute or two, just smiling at each other like idiots, and Kim had to say something, had to do something, because otherwise he was going to do something really unwise, like tackle Chay back on the couch and kiss him breathless and demand that he never, ever leave. He couldn't ruin this again--no, not again. It wasn't like before. It was better. Chay wasn't seeing an illusion now when he looked at Kim. He wasn't seeing a mosaic of half-truths and assumptions that Kim had never been very good at maintaining anyway, at least not without the help of a very well-paid PR team. There was still so much they could learn about each other--and they would, they fucking would--but they were starting now from a place of honesty.

"Do you really want to know? What I found out?"

Chay blinked. "Oh! Yes. If you want to tell me."

"Come here." Kim grabbed Chay's hand and hauled him off the sofa. "Are you ready for a crash course in the workings of organized crime? It's exceedingly boring."

"Whatever. I've played at least thirty hours of Yakuza 6. Bring it on." He led Kim drag him across the room. "But won't somebody be angry that you're telling me? Nobody seems to want me to know anything."

"So? Can't you keep a secret?" But Kim noticed the worried look on Chay's face and turned to him. "I tried keeping you in the dark. Your brother tried it too. It didn't keep you safe. You were still in danger."

"I never thanked you," Chay said. "For saving me. Both times."

"You don't--"

"All three times, I guess, if you count going all aggro in the club."

"You don't have to thank me."

"What if I want to?"

Kim turned to face him fully and took both of his hands. "You don't have to thank me. I will always protect you, if I can."

"Next time make sure I'm conscious and paying attention. I want to see it in person."

Hand. Around his heart. And squeezing. Kim didn't know if he was going to survive this night. He really didn't care. He had to make himself let go and turn away.

"So this," he began.

"Is the funniest fucking thing I've ever seen," Chay finished.

"It was gift!"

"From who?"

"Who do you think?"

Chay gazed up at the giant portrait on the wall, lips pressed together as he tried not to laugh. "I'm going to ask Khun for gift ideas every time I want to get you something."

"Please don't."

"He'll be very helpful."

"That's what I'm afraid of. He adores you."

Chay looked pleased. "I like him too."

"I'm glad," Kim said. And he was, in more ways than he knew how to explain. Chay and Khun becoming close might mean he had a lot of insufferable teasing in his future, but it also meant they would have each other. They both deserved another person to love them. "Anyway, this ridiculous thing serves its purpose."

He swept the portrait aside to reveal what was behind it.

Chay blinked. "You have... a serial killer board."

"It's not--" Kim stopped, tilted his head to the side. "Maybe it's similar to a serial killer board. But I needed to keep track of it somehow."

"Keep track of what?"

Kim sighed. "That's the problem. I don't know."

Chay leaned his shoulder against Kim's and took his hand. "Maybe start at the beginning?"

With what Kim considered to be a truly valiant effort, considering that at least fifty percent of his focus was on how nice it felt to be casually hold hands with Chay in his living room, he tried to explain.

"As soon as our father started stepping back and having Kinn take over more and more of the business, some... strange things started happening," he said. "People knew about meetings and shipments and communications they weren't supposed to know about. Some small players started getting big ideas. Obviously a lot of it was to be expected. Anytime a new leader moves in, people see it as an opportunity to shake things up. But it became obviously pretty quickly that some of it had to be coming from somebody on the inside."

"That's why you suspected Porsche," Chay said.

"It started before him, but the timing of him coming on and there being so much trouble right away was... unusual." Kim shook his head. "I really was not expecting that to lead where it did. But now I'm thinking maybe that was all a distraction. I spent so much time chasing the fact that my father falsified the report of your parents' deaths that I overlooked how much of what was going on had nothing to do with your family. See, look."

Kim stepped forward to point at a few pictures and notes on the board.

"These are the things I'm sure happened because of our uncle and cousin. And I assumed for a long time that was all of it. Our uncle has always wanted our father's position, and Vegas has always hated Kinn in a way that goes way beyond disturbing, so they were the obvious suspects. And when one of the bodyguards was revealed to be spying for them, it proved it. But these things." He pointed again. "This was a deal with a Hong Kong syndicate that got messed up, and Papa blamed our uncle for it. It didn't benefit the minor family in anyway. And this was this whole clusterfuck with these Canadians--it was a mess, but again, it didn't benefit Uncle Gun or Vegas, and it didn't hurt Kinn's standing either, even though it put all of them in danger. And there were a few other things like that. It's a pattern that doesn't make sense."

"Hmm, okay," Chay said. "I'm not sure I follow all of that--and I'm not sure I actually believe Canada has a mafia--but what you're saying is that you don't think your uncle and cousin were responsible for all of the trouble."

"That's right," Kim said. "Like the mess today. The one I was supposed to fix but made worse. My uncle is dead, and Vegas is in the hospital and specifically told Kinn not to handle it the way my father tried to handle it, so it wasn't them. Something else is going on, but we didn't see it before because we blamed everything on the minor family."

"Have you talked to your brothers about this?" Chay asked.

"Not yet," Kim admitted. "I wasn't sure if... bringing it all into the open would help Kinn. He would want to talk to our father about it, and I don't know..."

"What?"

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Kim said. "Because some of these things could have happened because our father wanted them to."

"Like today."

"Like today. But not only today. There are times when Kinn has been in serious danger and I don't know..."

Chay squeezed his hand.

"Papa wants Kinn to take over. I'm sure of that. I just don't know if that's all he wants." Kim made a frustrated sound. "And talking to him is no good, because he'll just sit there and nod and play chess and he already knows everything and already has plans for everything and nothing we do affects him."

"Well, that's what he wants you to think," Chay said.

Kim looked at him in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"That's kind of your dad's whole deal, isn't it? Acting like he already knows everything and pretending nothing can ever surprise him."

"I don't think he's pretending," Kim said.

Chay snorted. "Oh, please. It's all different versions of the strawberry thing."

"Um. What's the strawberry thing?"

"It was a couple of weeks ago. Your dad invited me to have breakfast with him, and it was this, I don't know, strawberry crepe thing. So I told him I was allergic to strawberries and had to pass."

"And...?" Kim said. "I don't understand what this has to do with anything."

"And he just nodded, you know the way he does, and said, ah, yes, it's in your medical file, like he was psychically reading my medical file at that moment."

"He almost certainly does have a medical file on you," Kim said.

"Oh, probably, and I'm sure he wanted me to know that in some creepy menacing way. But I'm not allergic to strawberries." Chay laughed at the look on Kim's face. "I just said that because I'd already eaten. I lied about the allergy. It's completely made up. But your dad responded like it was something he already knew, rather than admit that it was new information."

Kim stared at Chay. "You made it up. You lied to him."

"Well, yeah? I don't really like western breakfasts any--"

Kim grabbed Chay's face in both hands and kissed him.

Chay made a surprised little sound, but he didn't pull away. He leaned into it and it was--oh, they had only barely talked about this, Kim knew Chay had never dated anyone seriously before, but obviously he had kissed somebody before, and he was not shy about it. He brought one hand up to the back of Kim's neck, another to Kim's waist, and he kissed like he'd been wanting it just as much as Kim, for just as long, like there was nothing else in the world he wanted to be doing.

When they parted, Chay laughed breathlessly. "Is that all I had to do all along to get you to kiss me? Lie to your dad?"

Kim leaned his forehead against Chay's. "I always want to kiss you. But, yeah, yeah, that also really works for me."

Kim wanted to hear Chay laugh like that every day for the rest of his life. "You're so weird," Chay said, and he kissed him again, and again. When he spoke again, his voice was little more than a whisper. "I like you. The real you. So much better than who I thought you were."

Kim curled his fingers into Chay's hair and squeezed his eyes shut. "I love you. I'm sorry I was too afraid to say it before. You deserved to hear it."

"I listened to your song." Chay smiled; Kim could feel it where their lips were just touching. "About a hundred times."

"It's all true. Every word."

"I'm glad it isn't about the secret girlfriend your management won't let you be with."

Kim wrapped his arms around Chay and laughed helplessly into his shoulder. Chay hugged him back, squeezing so tight. Kim's heart was racing and he thought Chay's was too and he felt brilliant, he felt electric, he felt like an entire fucking sun was glowing inside him and every single thing he did risked letting it out.

"I like this," Chay said. "Can I stay here tonight?"

Before Kim could answer, Chay made a ridiculous sound--an embarrassed squeak--and pulled away. He waved his hands frantically in front of him, whipping his overly long sleeves back and forth.

"I meant--I didn't mean--I'm not saying--wait, I mean, I'm not not saying--I do want--but not--argh!"

With a strangled cry, Chay dropped into a crouch and tugged his sweatshirt up so that it was covering his face.

Kim looked down at him, laughing. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that?"

"Please kill me now," Chay said, his voice muffled by the shirt.

"I can't do that. I just got you back."

Chay tugged his shirt down and looked up at Kim. His hair was mussed and his face was red and his eyes were shining, and he was somehow both the most ridiculous and the most beautiful thing Kim had ever seen. "Are you going to just say things like that? Is that how it is now?"

"Yes. Get used to it." Kim held out his hands to help him up. "You can stay here tonight."

"Good." Chay rose to his feet and didn't let go of his hands. "Um, you know, your family's home is... really creepy? That's not why I want to stay here!" he added quickly. "But, uh, it doesn't hurt. Wait, you don't have cameras everywhere too, do you?"

"Fuck no," Kim said. "I hate the cameras everywhere."

"There's always somebody watching! Even if I'm just getting a glass of water!"

"The only surveillance here is outside. I'll show you tomorrow, if you want."

"Shit, that reminds me, I should probably tell Porsche I'm okay." Chay drew his phone out of his pocket and winced at the screen. "Uh, sure. He left me home alone for months without a single word of explanation, and now he's worried? He's so annoying." He typed up a reply, sent it, and tossed the phone aside. "Um, so there's something else?"

Kim felt an icy stab of panic. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Chay grabbed his hands again and gave them both a shake. "Stop that, you freak. I just mean--um, okay, I meant to say this earlier, like I meant to say this first, but then--wow, look at your face, you are freaking out."

"I'm not," Kim said weakly.

"Kim! I just want to say that I miss making music with you."

Kim stared.

Chay smiled at him. "I missed you and I missed hanging out and--and everything, but I also miss playing together. That's all."

And Kim, of course, had no choice but to kiss him again.

Chay fell asleep quickly, sprawled on his back in borrowed pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, his curly hair falling over his face in a way that had Kim's fingers itching to run his hands through it. Kim was tired as well, so tired, but he couldn't get his mind to settle. He rose from the bed carefully and crept out of the room.

They had talked a lot more. Kim had agreed, reluctantly, to talk to his brothers about his father. Chay had bullied Kim into sharing the new song he was working on. They had made out on the sofa until they were both panting and flushed, but they hadn't taken it any farther, because there was something delicious about the anticipation too, about knowing that this was the beginning and they had all the time in the world. They had finally gone to bed when Chay kept drifting off mid-sentence while claiming not to be sleepy. And now Chay was wearing Kim's clothes, and he was sleeping in his bed, and he would be there in the morning.

Normally when Kim couldn't sleep he would play the piano, or listen to music, or read, but none of that seemed right. He went out to the balcony for a cigarette, but even that did nothing to settle him. He didn't know what was wrong. It had been a shitty day, but a good night. A fucking fantastic night. Everything broken between him and Chay was healing now, all the lies uncovered, all the misunderstandings cleared up. He had cracked himself open and let Chay look inside and Chay had smiled and said, I like you better this way. It was impossible. It was perfect.

He should be happy. He was happy. But he also felt slightly nauseated, a little unsteady, like he was going to vibrate out of his skin.

Kim didn't know what was wrong with him and he fucking hated it.

He sat down on the balcony and looked at his phone. It was almost three a.m. Stupid time to be awake. Stupid time to be sitting alone on a cold chair when there was a warm, soft, clingy Chay in his bed, drooling all over his pillow.

There were a few more messages since he'd last looked several hours ago. A couple from Kinn, stilted even in text form, asking if he was all right. A few weeks ago he wouldn't have offered even that--because Kim wouldn't have offered anything in return. The thawing between them was slow, but it felt real. It felt like something might change. He tried not to think too much about it, and mostly failed. He was glad Kinn wasn't mad at him.

The most recent text was from Khun, and it consisted of a string of question marks followed by an unintelligible string of kaomoji. Pretty typical for Khun, who treated texting like a military-grade cypher that everybody else had to decode if they wanted to communicate with him. The text had come through only about twenty minutes ago. Khun was awake too.

Khun was awake too, and that made Kim's throat feel suddenly tight. His heart rate picked up, a surge of adrenaline that came from nowhere, and he felt sick and shaky and too warm. Without even thinking about it, he brought up Khun's number and called.

His brother answered right away. "You're up late, night owl."

There was a question in his voice, but Kim couldn't bring himself to answer. It seemed like too much effort just to breathe.

"Kim?" Khun said softly. So much more softly than he ever spoke in person. "Kim, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm--I'm fine."

"Where's Chay? Is he still there?"

"He's, yeah, he's asleep."

"Did something happen?" Khun asked.

"No. No. We're good. We're--really good. It's--" Kim's voice caught; he cleared his throat. "It's good."

"Hmm." Khun didn't believe him, but Kim could hardly blame him for that. "Good enough that you're calling me at fuck-o'clock in the morning?"

Kim couldn't even remember the last time he'd called one of his brothers. He let them call him, and sometimes he answered, and mostly he didn't. He hadn't even called them after their father's apparent death--a death that Kim had known was bullshit, but he hadn't had any proof, hadn't been able to explain it, and his brothers had seemed to believe it. Still he hadn't called.

It was when Chay had been kidnapped. That was the last time Kim had been the one to call.

"Kim," Khun said. "What is it?"

"Was it my fault?" Kim asked, the words tumbling out before he could stop them.

"Was--"

"Was it my fault when you were kidnapped? I was such a stupid kid, I was always blabbing my mouth to everybody about everything, I was always telling people things that were supposed to be secret, I never knew when to shut up, and Papa said--he said--said I was stupid, said if I kept doing that, if I didn't learn--"

"Kim." Khun's voice was sharp enough to cut him off. "No."

Kim took a shaky breath. "But--"

"No. It wasn't your fault. It had nothing to do with you. If Papa told you that, or let you believe that, he was lying."

Kim's vision had blurred; he scrubbed tears from his eyes. "How can you be sure?"

"Oh, sweetheart, because I was there, remember? I know everything they said. I've never forgotten a word of it. And it had absolutely nothing to do with anything you could have known or said, even if you had run your mouth about every single thing you'd ever heard in your life up to that point. You were a child."

"So were you," Kim said.

There was a brief pause, and when he spoke Khun's voice was forcefully brighter. "Ah, what brought this on? You said it was a good night?"

"It was. It is. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Little brother," Khun said, a little playfully, "when's the last time you had a good cry? A real watched-the-end-of-Moon Lovers-for-the-first-time cry?"

"I'm not crying," Kim lied, sniffling and wiping his sleeve over his face.

"Of course you're not. So how long has it been?"

"Um. A couple of hours?"

Khun laughed. "That's adorable. Did you cry on Chay's shoulder? I bet he has a very nice shoulder to cry on."

"Fuck you. And yes. He does."

"Before that," Khun said. "It doesn't count if it's in the same night."

"What are you, the head of the tribunal of crying?"

"Yes. I am. Answer me. Last time before you wept your feelings all over your boy's shoulders."

"Um. I don't know." But even as he said it, Kim did know. He knew exactly. Could probably even pinpoint the hour, if he tried. "The morning before the first day of Mom's funeral."

We are going to show strength, his father had said, an iron hand on Kim's shoulder. It had been a week since she was killed. He had been convinced he still had blood on him; his skin was raw from scrubbing it clean day after day. Kim could still hear her voice, gurgling and pained, as she tried to speak. He had swallowed and nodded and wiped his tears away, and his father said, Do not display any weakness that will endanger the family.

Even now, years later, he sometimes went to bed hoping for nightmares about that day, hoping that this time he might be able to hear his mother's last words.

"Oh. Oh, baby boy." Khun sounded lost for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was bright and energetic. "I have a plan! This is what we're going to do. I," Khun said, with a dramatic pause, "am going to sing you a lullaby."

Kim let out a startled laugh. "Please don't."

"Hush, hush, hush. Do not argue with your elders. I am going to sing you a lullaby, then you are going to go back in to your sleeping boy, and you are going to cuddle, you are going to snuggle, you are going to nuzzle--"

"I am going to throw myself off this building," Kim said.

"--and drift peacefully to sleep with the memory of my beautiful song in your ears. That is the plan, and you will not deviate. Is that understood?"

Kim found himself smiling in the darkness. "Okay."

Khun cleared his throat and repeated "Mi mi mi mi mi!" with operatic enthusiasm a few times, but when he actually began to sing his voice was soft and gentle. It was an old song, silly and sweet. Kim drew his knees up to his chest and closed his eyes, which did nothing to stop the hot tears from rolling down his cheeks, but he let it happen now. Khun used to do this a lot, when Kim couldn't sleep. It was another thing that had been broken when Khun was kidnapped. When he'd come back, he couldn't even bear to touch anybody, much less let Kim crawl into bed with him. Kim hadn't noticed when that changed, when Khun started hugging and grabbing and clinging to people again, because by that point Kim was the one who always pulled away.

When Khun finished, he said, "Kim? Go in to bed now."

Kim sniffed and nodded. "I will."

"See you tomorrow, okay?"

Not a command. Not a request. Only an invitation. A hope.

Kim nodded again. "Okay."

He stayed outside for a few more minutes after hanging up, but he realized that he didn't actually want to be out there, alone in the dark, anymore. So he went back into his bedroom and crawled into bed. He curled close to Chay's side, as carefully as he could, but still jostled him just enough that Chay murmured a sleepy, "Kim?"

"It's fine," Kim whispered. "Go back to sleep."

"M'kay." Chay rolled onto his side to face Kim and draped an arm over him. "You too."

 Kim tucked his head against Chay's shoulder and closed his eyes.