Chapter Text
The car in front of him brakes unexpectedly. And even despite his reflexes being what they are—always on high alert, always ready to fight to survive—Vegas barely manages to react in time.
Fuck!
There is no significant kickback from the impact, and the airbags, thankfully, don’t go off to break his nose, but there is a telling sound of metal scraping against metal and a light crack as the broken glass of the headlights hits the ground.
Oh well, there goes his brand-new Maserati.
Vegas hits the steering wheel and swears under his breath before stepping out of the car, his expression murderous. After all, it shouldn’t take much to bribe the local traffic police into turning a blind eye, even if he pulls out his gun and shoots the other driver right here and now, in the middle of the highway.
The other driver, though…
The other driver springs out of his car like it’s on fire, but, to Vegas’s complete astonishment, doesn’t try to run. Instead, he dashes to the car, but not the back of it to assess the damage like any normal person would. No, he rushes to the front of it and crouches down, momentarily disappearing from Vegas’s view.
…the hell?
Vegas’s urge to kill falters suddenly, out of surprise, and he freezes along with it for a moment.
If this is some kind of prank his lovely cousins decided to play on him again, he swears to all that’s…
…holy shit!
When, after a long moment, Vegas finally follows the driver, brimming with newfound rage, he’s suddenly forced to a stop again, as if having hit an invisible wall.
He used to think these moments only ever happen in movies. There is no such thing as triumphant melody rising in the background because real life has no cheesy soundtrack. Real life has no sudden rays of sunshine hitting one specific person like a spotlight either. No dramatic close-ups. No slowing down time. No…that.
Vegas blinks, blinks, uselessly opening and closing his mouth—out of breath and out of words—because…
Because what else is there to say if all the curses and threats have suddenly left him at the sight that just opened before him?
The angry What the fuck were you thinking, braking like that? gets stuck in Vegas’s throat.
“Sawasdee khub,” he finds himself saying instead, with an astonished expression of a deer caught in the headlights and a polite wai, even though the guy kneeling on the road before him is clearly at least five years younger than him, barely in his twenties.
“Sawasdee, P’,” the guy—the boy, really—replies, looking just as astonished at Vegas’s greeting, but doesn’t wai back. Because his hands are busy pressing a dirty, shaking kitten to his chest. He’s holding it like it’s the most precious thing in his life, and Vegas suddenly finds it hard to breathe through the tightness in his throat.
It’s like one kitten is holding another. It’s so sweet. It’s adorable. It’s—
“I’m really sorry about your car, P’,” the young man says, interrupting Vegas’s sudden brain rot and carefully rising to his feet with his precious cargo. “Don’t worry, though. I promise I’ll pay for the damage.”
Have you even seen the damage? Vegas wants to laugh at him. From the look of his worn Converse, it’s not hard to conclude that this boy is clearly too poor to off-handedly promise to fix a Maserati. So, yes, Vegas wants to laugh, but…
The boy’s shorts are barely long enough to be seen from under his oversized hoodie. They only cover half of his slender thighs at best, and Vegas finds himself staring at his bare knees scraped raw and bloody by the harsh road surface he was just kneeling on.
“Forget about my car,” he says, feeling hot and dazed and…strange. “I am the one at fault here. I’ll fix your car instead. Or I—” He gives the positively ancient car a quick once-over and corrects himself, “I’d better buy you a new one.”
The young man stares at him for a moment, then laughs.
“Yeah, right. You’re very funny, P’.”
Holding the kitten to his chest with one arm, the boy suddenly winds his other arm around Vegas’s shoulder in an awkward hug.
“Thank you for understanding the situation and not shouting at me. You’re a very good person, P’.”
He lets go before Vegas has even had the chance to feel shaken with the shock of the sudden embrace and…
A very good person.
Is this supposed to be a joke? No one in their right mind would ever call Vegas that.
Vegas stares at the boy in front of him, stunned to the core.
There are these adorable dimples in his cheeks when he smiles, and he looks like a cinnamon roll, so full of his boyish charm, and he’s holding a kitten, and…
Vegas’s mind comes to a truly terrifying conclusion that the boy is…na rak.
Cute.
It’s very strange that the first word that springs to his English-speaking mind before it corrects itself, is in Thai this time. But what’s even stranger, is that the word is in his vocabulary at all, English or Thai. Never once in his life has Vegas Theerapanyakul, the notorious mafia prince, used that word when talking about another human being. Not even about Macau, his own baby brother. Not ever. And now…
This boy is cute-cute-cute and he’s…leaving?!
While Vegas was struggling with his sudden linguistic crisis, the young man brushed past him and opened the back door of his car to carefully put the kitten inside, softly cooing to it all along.
And now, Vegas barely manages to catch the boy’s elbow before he gets back into the driver’s seat.
“Wait!”
Is it him, or did his voice just sound desperate? When did he lose all his cool, man?
The caught boy freezes in Vegas’s grasp and eyes him, warily now.
“Nong, khub. I—” Vegas’s voice, completely unused to the soft timber, almost trembles with the effort of suddenly having to speak politely. As to why exactly he has to do it out of the blue…Vegas is at a complete loss. Perhaps, it’s just his subconscious attempt to appear less threatening? He’s never done it before in his life, so he’s not sure if it even works at all.
“P’ is serious about the car.” Vegas pushes through anyway, replacing his usual vulgar guu with P’ and very deliberately not correcting it to Hia, because that’s what his actual brother calls him. And with this boy… An elder brother is so not what Vegas wants to be to him. Besides, the cute Nong has already called him P’, and now Vegas, for some inexplicable reason, wants to be called that, again and again.
P’Vegas.
Vegas has to clear his throat and lick his suddenly dry lips before hastily promising, “All the damage will be taken care of. If Nong just gives P’ his number, P’—”
“Nevermind, P’.” The boy gives Vegas another blinding smile, but quickly pulls his arm out of his grip. “Nong Kitty is scared. It might be hurt as well. I must take it to a vet as soon as possible. That’s all that matters now.”
“But you’re hurt, too. Let me, at least, take you to a hospital first,” Vegas keeps insisting, not even caring anymore about how desperate he sounds. He’s never done this before—never chased after anyone. Never had to. It’s always been the other way around, so now he feels shell shocked and disoriented. He doesn’t even know why, exactly, but it’s very, very important that this ray of sunshine in a human form stay with him a bit longer.
But the car door snaps shut before his face, and the engine roars.
“Won’t Nong even give P’ his name?” Vegas shouts after the sunshine boy, but the car is already speeding away, leaving him all alone. Again.