Chapter Text
Kim rarely experience emotions nowadays and any that makes it to the surface are mostly negative. Anger and rage are frequent but he taught himself how to control his face. He rarely gave anything away now, hence the ‘dead eye stare’ everyone seems to know him by. But with Chay, everything comes overflowing. The warmth and desire, the need to possess, the overwhelming urge to keep him by his side so no one else ever looks at him, let alone touches him. Chay was sacred in a way Kimhan thought world didn’t deserve. All these feelings would boil over and spill off of him in waves whenever Chay was present.
Chay did things to him. Made him feel things he didn't know what to do with. These feelings were foreign to him. He didn't know how to express them. Sometime, somewhere in the back of his mind, buried deep within the catacombs of his memories, he sees them. These feelings, he had felt them before the darkness took over. And now they were resurfacing with vengeance.
Chay. His beautiful, naive, little puppy. Everytime they met, he had look radiant. His smile always blinding as if he didn’t know how not to happy. It was so contagious that Kimhan found his own lips twitching in response and somehow that had always seem to be enough for Chay.
Somewhere along the way Kimhan had become possessive of Porchay, his smiles, his scent, his touch, his laugh, him . Kimhan no longer wanted to exist in a world where porchay didn’t remember him.
All Chay had done was smiled at him the first time they had met, extending his hand toward Kim’s and Kimhan’s axis had tilted and started revolving around the sun that was Porchay Kittaswa.
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Seeing Chay again after so long finally loosen something inside him. He felt lighter, freer. He wanted to run and pull Chay into his arm and never let go. He wanted to put his face in crook of his neck and take a bite. He wanted to imprints himself in Chay. He wanted.
Chay was something he never expected in his life and now he was something Kimhan plans to do everything to keep.
But looking at him from afar, Kim couldn’t make his legs move forward. Chay was seven, few inches shorter than Kim and slightly smaller build thanks to Kim’s recent growth spurt making a appearance. But somehow, hunched over their tiny swing, lifelessly swinging back and forth, he looked even smaller; as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. Chay was seven and he embody the sun. Kim’s sun. It felt wrong to see Chay look like what Kim had felt that fateful day. World felt wrong, as if it had started spinning backwards.
Kimhan knew first hand what depression looked like, felt like. He knew what trauma did to person, especially one that didn’t know how to cope or their surroundings refused to let them. He knows what the end result is like, one just needs to look at Kimhan and they’ll see. A bird in a golden cage with open doors and clipped wings.
Depression and trauma is a sort of pain where you forgot how it feels to be better, to feel good and be okey with the world. It’s like you forget you once had control over your life and now it’s all chaos and you don’t know if better ever existed. No one knew this better than Kimhan.
Despite having access to best kind of treatments money could buy, Kimhan didn’t heal. He just emptied himself out and shut himself off, pushed everything so far down he just became hollowed. Everything just echoed out. Until Chay.
But now, looking at the only person in his life capable of igniting any sort of feelings in him completely buried under pain and hopelessness, staggering sense of helplessness filled Kim, he unconsciously took a step back.
“Khun Kimhan, Master Porchay’s brother is on route, ten minutes out.” Chan’s voice ring out and snapped Kim out of his state. He pushed those feelings down, that helplessness in back of his mind and swallowed down the bile. It burned . Kim relished it and smile.
Maybe this is for the better. Chay was at his most vulnerable stage and Kim could easily convince him, steal him if necessary, then lock him up until they both grow enough that world couldn’t hurt them without their permission, enough for Kim to learn how protect Chay, and Chay to understand why shielding him from the world was necessary evil. Chay will understand… eventually. Yes! That, this could solve everything.
But then there was a big chance Chay would come hate Kim. No, Chay would despise him from taking him away from his only family. He had just lost his parent, he couldn’t lose his brother too. Kimhan would have to be patient. He signs, being courteous was exhausting but he couldn’t afford Porchay’s hate.
Kimhan might not experience human emotions the same way others do but, Chay, Chay he knew. He loved the outside and his sun kissed skin was proof enough. Separating him from the only thing that made him feel safe, even though he would be safest with Kim, and obsessing about him like some sociopath would make Chay not only hate but fear him too. Kimhan really couldn’t have that.
He had wondered what it was about Chay that made him like this. Obsessive. Possessive. This tiny human that won’t know what danger was even if he stood in front of him with big bold letter. Opposite of him in every way.
Was it the way he looked at him with no expectations, no judgements, no pity? The way his mom once use to look at him……
When she realized Kimhan was broken, all he had found in her eyes were pity and regrets. Kimhan couldn’t stand it, couldn’t bear her tainted feelings that once had come so unconditionally. Now all she did was constantly try to fix him, like some broken wing of a bird she could somehow put back together if she tried enough. She was relentless in her effort to put him back together, hoping, praying he would heal and be whole. She didn’t realize his wings were completely clipped, that his very soul was broken. And sometime broken things can’t always get fixed so they are best left alone.
But Chay, Chay had embraced him just the way he is. Chay had done what his mom couldn’t do. He didn’t try to fix him, he just listen, learned, and accepted Kimhan. Chay with his ever forgiving nature, his unrelenting lightness and love that radiated off of him whenever he looked at Kim was blinding and Kim never wanted to see again. Darkness never bothered him anyways.
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Kimhan walks toward the house. Waves Chan off when he tries he follow him in. Chan is reluctant to let him go off in unknown territory by himself but his protest dies a bitter dead in his mouth when Kim looks at him. No one dares to argue.
“Stay out of sight”
“Yes Khun Kimhan”
Kim put his hand on the gate and pull off the latch, it makes a ominous creaking sound, Kim tenses. He grips the gate tighter and holds his breath as the wind brushed past. His eyes never leaves Chay’s hunched figure. He takes a moment, exhales then pushes the gate inward, inviting himself him. The creaking of the gate is even louder this time.
Chay looks up. Startle and confuse. His glistening eyes wide and fearful.
For one dreadful second he looks at Kim like he’s some stranger, then recognition sets. But that one second was enough for Kim to almost, almost lose it. Porchay can’t forget him. Ever. He’s not allowed and now he’ll make sure of it.
He almost wants to go back to his previous plan and take Chay away. Where Kim is all he’ll ever know, ever need. It make Kimhan giddy just thinking about it but he puts it out of his mind. No! He can’t keep Porchay lock up like some house pet no matter how tempting it is. Stop it Kimhan!
Then there is that smile that Kimhan had missed, he hadn’t realized just how much until now. He never wants Porchay to stop smiling but it’s gone as soon it comes, replaced by something broken, twisted pain.
The light that always seems to shin in Porchay’s eyes is no longer there, instead it’s replace by anguish and despair. With fear. He looks defeated. A seven year old should not look defeated. Chay, his puppy, should never look defeated. Yet here they were.
“Puppy” Kim calls out softly, walking toward him like a human moving toward a skittish kitten.
“How….?” Chay trails off but Kimhan understands.
“You disappeared on me Chay. I gave you time but you didn’t come back.”
“Oh” one syllable word is all Chay seems capable of. He appears exhausted, physically and emotionally drained. Chay didn’t have to explain anything that Kimhan didn’t already knew.
“Come here” and Chay does, as if he’s been waiting just for that.
He falls into Kim’s open arm, buries his face in his neck and settles in. Kim feels it when Chay let goes, his whole body goes lax and there a slight tremor that goes through his whole body and somehow seems to radiate into Kim’s. He pulls Chay in tighter, right where he belongs .
Kimhan cling to Chay just as hard as Chay cling to him.
“I got you” it so very soft that Kimhan think Chay didn’t hear him until Chay chokes out a sob that he had been holding back, God knows for how long. Kimhan didn’t know whether it was from relief or from hopelessness.
Breathless sobs echo off of Chay. He just holds him tighter as if he could fuse them together and take all of Chay’s pain inside him, ridding Chay of all his hurt