Chapter Text
For an entire week after Kim disposed of Chay’s attackers at that bar, he haunts Chay’s every step at the compound, always out of sight. There’s a tightness in his chest, an unpleasant breathlessness that rises and lodges in his throat whenever he thinks of the million ways that Chay could have been killed that afternoon. He doesn’t think he has any trust left in his family’s bodyguards anymore, except for a select few.
He finds Chay’s noise-cancelling headphones in the trash, that week. According to Arm, Chay never buys another one.
The weeks roll on. Every time he catches a fleeting glimpse of Chay, his chest aches, like someone digging in with the metal muzzle of a handgun, merciless.
He wants…
But the distance between them is for Chay’s safety. (But the only reason Chay didn’t drug himself was because Kim was there to stop him. Chay only survived the bar because Kim was right there.)
Big is released by their medical wing two months after he was shot. It’ll take him a while to get back up to peak condition, so Kinn assigns him the relatively safer job of being Wik’s bodyguard. In practice, though, Big follows Kim everywhere, both on duty and off.
It should be entirely out of character for the ruthless young heir that Kim is raised to be, but for all that they barely speak, Kinn still knows all the soft-throated parts of him: it takes only one look at the trace of real pain on Big’s face for Kim to give in and let him sit down in his apartment. The rest of the concessions followed.
He knows that Kinn is worried about how he’s taking the upheaval in their family and whatever Kinn thinks is going on between him and Chay, and that Big is really here to keep an eye on him. Kinn is truly following in their father’s footsteps. At least Kim can believe that his brother means well.
Kinn trusts Big because he all but gave his life for Porsche. Kim trusts Big because the man is terrible at subterfuge, and wears his heart on his sleeve.
Which is how he knows he’s worrying Big even more than usual, when he sleeps only a total of seven hours in as many days. The man’s scowl gets so deep, the wrinkles between his brows can probably hold those tiny blades which can be hidden within clothing seams. Big tries to steer him away from caffeine, but Kim didn’t grow up in the mafia for nothing, and it’s the easiest thing to pour some coffee down his throat in the scant minutes that Big’s attention isn’t on him.
He spends that week holed up in his room, adding to Chay’s song and polishing it into something that can be released. Everything he does to the song feels wrong, until bit by bit, he carves into it and reveals the diamond that Chay’s brilliant mind came up with. Chay’s original lyrics for the chorus don’t match the only lyrics that Kim can come up with for the rest of the song, so selfishly, he changes the chorus as well. By the time he leans back in his chair, satisfied with his work, he’s delirious on sleep deprivation and high on caffeine.
It’s not a pleasant combination.
Big knocks, then comes in with a glass of water. “Khun Kim,” he only says, but Kim can clearly hear the admonishment in his tone. It’s deserved, he supposes; he’s seeing double of Big, two suit-clad figures wavering in his field of vision. It would be as easy as breathing for Big to kill him right now.
The words slip out of his mouth. “Was I wrong?”
Big pauses, then sets the glass on his desk with a careful clink. “Wrong?” the man repeats.
And everything comes pouring out, the honest truth as he had never laid out even to himself in the dark of his own mind:
Him approaching Chay with impure intentions, the way the other boy pulled and pulled until Kim was thoroughly entangled, the handmade guitar pick and that recklessly stolen kiss on a cheek, how he felt safe enough to fall asleep in Chay’s presence, how horribly overwhelming having Chay’s full attention on him felt, like a sunburn.
As well as how it got out of hand – the kidnapping, that afternoon outside his apartment building and him fleeing, the night at the club. The all-consuming fury he felt at Chay doing a 180 and putting himself in danger willingly, taking pills from people who were as good as strangers. The polaroids he found one by one in his apartment, and the way they made him close his eyes with pain. He thinks he might have already found all of them.
Big stands there in silence for a long while after Kim is done spewing words like he’s throwing up. It’s fifty-fifty whether the nausea he’s feeling is from him baring his soul and awaiting judgement, or the week-long hell he’s just put his body through.
“You care for him,” Big says slowly.
Kim nods, miserable and not bothering to hide it.
“Do you love him?”
The muscles on Kim’s face contract uncontrollably. He doesn’t have an answer to that question.
He doesn’t know what love is, he thinks. His brothers love him, and he loves them back, maybe. He loved his mother, but her memory is a mere willow wisp in his mind, just scraps of a floating summer dress and a voice of soft honey.
He doesn’t know.
Big backs off and starts saying something else. Smart guy; this is why Kim likes him. “You care for him, and you want him to be safe. Are you sure pushing and keeping him away is the best way to do that?”
Or maybe he doesn’t like the man that much. Yes, Kim did start this conversation by questioning himself and his choices, but he hates hearing it laid out so plainly. Big has never veiled his words with niceties.
He wakes up the next afternoon, head feeling like someone is taking a dagger to it. Multiple daggers, in fact. He thinks he keens, or makes some sort of noise, because Big enters his bedroom quietly with water and painkillers. After that, Kim slips back into an agitated sleep.
When he wakes up again, it’s another day later. His stomach is growling sharply, and when he all but staggers outside, Big already has a sandwich and a glass of juice prepared, like the perceptive saviour that he is.
His body recovers fully in a few days’ time, but his embarrassment doesn’t. Big can obviously tell, and lets Kim thrash him into the sparring mat in the name of training the man back to peak efficiency. The familiar scent of lingering sweat permanently soaked into the exercise room is as calming as it has always been, so all is well, after that.
And – he doesn’t let himself think it through, knowing that he’ll just chicken out – he films himself singing Chay’s song, and dedicates it to the other boy. Chay has managed to block all of his socials, so he makes a dummy account and sends a friend request through. Big side-eyes him all the way through Kim staring intently at his phone while waiting for the chirp of a notification, and he just scowls back at the man.
He sends the video immediately after Chay accepts his request. The message is marked as read, but Chay doesn’t reply, even though Kim has his eyes glued to his phone the rest of that day.
When he checks again the moment he wakes up the next day, Chay has this account blocked as well.
Ah.
He records the song properly, names it Just You, and uploads it on Wik’s Youtube, unofficially. Maybe this way Chay can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, though he doesn’t think anything he posts would be able to reach him anyway, with how diligently the other boy has detached himself from Kim’s online presence.
A mere minute after the song is uploaded, his phone starts ringing nonstop. It can only be P’Mia, and for a second Kim feels bad about how horrible of an artist he is to manage. But, he does pay her enough to cover all the trouble he brings her and more, and by now he counts her as something like a friend. At the very least, she has refused all contact with his father’s spies that have reached out to her, among all the other people digging for information on Wik, and in Kim’s books that’s worth more than a well-made knife that fits perfectly in his palm.
The phone keeps ringing and ringing. Big keeps glancing over at him, until Kim sighs. He doesn’t want to explain himself to P’Mia, but she does deserve an explanation, so he gestures for Big to take the phone, and simply tells him to answer P’Mia’s questions as best as he can.
Big’s eyes go wide, but he does as Kim says, holding Kim’s phone gingerly like it’s an armed bomb.
“Hello, this is Wik’s new bodyguard,” Big says into the phone, then winces as P’Mia starts speaking, which is a rather gentle term for what she’s doing. Kim can hear her sharp voice from all the way across the sofa.
“It’s about a boy,” Big cuts into P’Mia’s rant, then looks shocked at his own daring reveal. He flicks a look at Kim, but he just waves at the man to continue.
“No, it’s nothing you have to worry about, they’re… not in a relationship. The boy is not likely to use this against Wik, either, and we’ll catch and stop it in time if he tries.”
Kim feels his own face twist. Everything Big is saying is true, yet it still feels like a knife stabbed into his gut. Maybe he should be worried about how much Big is letting slip about his family’s resources, but he can’t bring himself to focus on that.
It’s nothing P’Mia has to worry about, indeed. Chay has plucked himself cleanly out of Kim’s life. Kim could force an encounter at the family compound, but he wouldn’t. Not in front of his father, who would immediately use Chay as leverage against Kim, and likely hurt Chay in the process.
Kim lives his life listlessly in the following months. P’Mia must have gotten ahold of Big’s number; they’re conspiring together to get him to Wik’s work and events on time and well-dressed. Big has somehow picked up the secrets of how to cover Kim’s dark eye circles with concealer, and how to make his hair look desirably ruffled instead of just-got-dragged-out-of-bed-by-my-manager-and-bodyguard messy with only a few swipes of his fingers and some hair gel. Kim admires the man’s sheer competence and adaptability.
He doubts Chay is listening to anything he puts out anymore, but he tries again, half-hearted. The song is called Stranger, its lyrics a plea and a fantasy wrapped in one. When he releases it, he tells his fans that he was inspired by a play that he watched recently, but P’Mia looks at him with knowing in her eyes.
A year passes. On the anniversary of the day he rejected Chay outside his apartment building, he gets blindingly drunk and takes his favourite dagger to his head, scaring Big so badly that the man tackles him to the floor, knocking the dagger out of his hand.
Still, Kim insists on chopping his hair off, and Big manages to coax him into letting the man do it with a pair of scissors. He wakes up the next morning with a terrible hangover headache, but his head feels light in a way that it hasn’t in more than a decade.
It still doesn’t do anything about the weight in his chest, suffocating.
P’Mia nearly has a heart attack when she gets him on video call, and sends an actual hairstylist to him. His fans take to his new hairstyle well enough, though many of them lament the loss of his longer hair. P’Mia approves, though, saying that it’s good to change up his style now and then, especially with his growing popularity.
All of the songs he’s been writing and releasing are angst-filled and exceedingly obvious to those in the know, but that doesn’t prove to be any sort of obstacle to Wik’s image as a youthful heartthrob. He’s being invited onto more and more shows, including a hugely popular performance variety in China.
He spends those three months so constantly exhausted – flying between China and home, making connections in the Chinese entertainment industry, and learning so many new things – that it nearly takes his mind off of Chay. Nearly.
He wants, until he doesn’t know what it is to live without that yawning chasm of emptiness in him.
It’s a triumph for him and his team, when they finally confirm all the details of his Asia tour. This has been his dream since he knew he wanted to escape his family – to be so successfully in the public eye that he could hold a whole tour and stay away from home for so long, be Wik, charming and carefree and soft, for so long.
It is of no import that the second tour stop is Hong Kong, where Chay is currently studying.
Still, Arm texts him a week before the tour starts. Khun Porchay has bought a ticket.
That knowledge thrums down his spine, but he doesn’t dare to get his hopes up. Chay may decide not to come, in the end.
He arrives in Hong Kong on a bleary Sunday, the sun shining weakly through the fog. The air smells like still water in an indescribable way.
There’s a small group of fans waiting for him outside the airport. They don’t contain Chay’s face, of course.
The cars taking him and his team to their hotel wade through Hong Kong’s traffic, the normally harshly flashing vehicle lights becoming all muted reds and yellows in the fog. When he gets out of the car, he can barely see the tops of the surrounding buildings.
He has a busy day, filled with rehearsals and other preparations. Despite the exhaustion weighing down his bones, at night he asks his team for a small break to tour this bit of Hong Kong. He waves off every bodyguard except for Big, and P’Mia gives him a look, but hands him a purse full of Hong Kong cash and coins.
Hong Kong’s streets have a buzzing hum to them that feels almost like Bangkok, but here, he feels hemmed in by the many concrete and brick walls lining the pavements he walks on, holding the soil and greenery at bay.
He’s just idly wandering, not even aiming to buy some street food, when he spots it – a huge tree that towers over the street, its roots snaking down a brick wall, spider-webbing through all the cracks and crevices. The tree’s canopy looms over a solitary phone booth, an undisturbed oasis that passer-bys weave around for.
On a whim, he walks up to the lonely structure, creaks the door open, and slips inside. The plastic walls close in tight around his body; the buttons on the payphone are worn and silvered. One by one, he inserts all the coins he has with him, and dials a number that isn’t saved in his contacts, but that he has memorised.
The phone rings, and rings.
A click.
“Hello?” It’s said in English, the person’s voice staticky through the payphone. Kim hasn’t heard this voice in two years.
If he closes his eyes and focuses, he can hear the coarse sounds of breathing through the phone.
In, and out. In, and out.
“Um, hello?” The person tries again. Kim doesn’t speak; he doesn’t dare. Then, there’s muttering that Kim can’t quite manage to make out, and another click.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The plastic is damp with humidity under his fingers when he leaves the phone booth and re-enters the world. The air is heavy, clogged with something like grief, and he coughs like he’s trying to cry.
The final soundcheck goes off without a hitch, and when Kim starts the show he manages to sink fully into the meditatively thought-free experience of being Wik, bright and glowing. The crowd cheers and screams as the flashing lights pound in time with the drums, and all of it buoys him up into the sweet adrenaline high of performing on stage.
This is what he loves – the too-quick hammer beat of his heart; the visual chaos of multi-coloured lights piercing through his eyelids; and the absolute exertion of singing his lungs out, as pitch-perfect as expelling nicotine in one single breath, pure.
So now I take my car on these silent drives / Because I hear our songs and it makes me cry / These lonely days keep passing by / Try to live without your smile / Even if it took a while / I'm almost over you
Lies and truths, tangled together. He always means all of his lyrics, though, even if the person he’s singing them for might never hear them.
You're in my bones / Under my skin / I found the note in the pocket that you left it in
And that’s when he sees him.
The moving spotlight alights on a painfully familiar face in the pit, right in front of Kim, and in an instant he feels like he’s doused awake by icy water. The mix in his in-ears sharpens into a whining silence, leaving only the uncompromising ticking of the click track.
Then the spotlight sweeps past, and the music comes thundering back into his ears.
He allows himself fraction-second glances at Chay for every line that he manages to get through and perform. Chay has a new haircut that flatters him extremely, gentle curls a riot atop his head, and even hidden among the crowd Kim can tell he’s grown and filled out handsomely.
The shadows emphasise Chay’s cheekbones, his jawline, the hollow of his throat. He doesn’t film Kim, nor does he sing along or scream, simply standing still, eyes on Kim. The dark smudges of his eyelashes against his cheeks are steady.
Kim’s hands are trembling a little when he goes offstage for his first costume change. He’s not sure what he says, exactly, but he thinks he manages to tell Big to intercept Chay when he leaves, because Big nods and heads off.
Then he goes back onstage and tries his best to make it through the rest of the show, a little manic and entirely wide-eyed, fraying at the edges.
He has absolutely no idea what jokes he makes during the interaction segments, hoping that habit carries him through, that he doesn’t say anything damning in any way. He does whatever his fans tell him to do, and distantly he thinks P’Mia must be proud of him. Wik’s smile stretches his face and it aches, but it stays in place.
He slips Just You in right before Yellow Leaf, when it’s just him and his guitar, so that he doesn’t catch his band off guard. The Hong Kong liaison for his label and the stadium representative will be pissed that he didn’t adhere to the approved setlist, and might even run over the 11pm stadium hand-off time. He might burn some bridges tonight, but for once he’s willing to risk his career. He wants Chay to see him. Kim, not Wik.
It’s a costly gamble. Kim sees the moment Chay leaves, and something echoes so sharply in the cavern of his ribcage that it feels like it’s tearing.
He doesn’t know how he sings the rest of the songs, wetness glittering in his vision.
P’Mia shoots him a scathing look when he next gets offstage to change for the encore, but she takes his hand and squeezes firmly. “Calm down, Wik. Big called to say your boy is waiting for you.”
Oxygen comes rushing back into his lungs, dizzying. He nods at P’Mia, immensely grateful, and steps back onstage to finish his show.
He’s now doubly glad he didn’t let P’Mia talk him into doing one-on-one meetings with his fans. He makes the stadium hand-off with time to spare, walking slightly faster than he should through the send-off session.
The car ride is spent practising what to say when he meets Chay again for the first time in nearly two years. I’m sorry. How are you? He even practises his breathing, over and over again. But when he steps out of the car, Chay is right there, large brown eyes glinting under the streetlights. Kim feels dazed, tendrils of smoke curling around a surreal wish. All the words leave his brain, and his lungs stop working.
So of course, he makes a fool of himself. Chay is as tolerating as he used to be, though; as patient and accepting as the sea, and his attention is still overwhelming, entirely terrifying. Kim can’t stop himself from bursting into tears, shamefully out of control.
Being in Chay’s arms again is–
He wants to burrow into Chay’s body and make a home, close enough to always feel his heartbeat. He wants to flee as fast as his feet can take him.
He wants, terribly, and yet he cannot have Chay. When will he next see Chay, after this? Another two years later? Even longer?
Kim abandons himself to his despair, and lets Chay coax him into doing whatever he wants. Chay’s hands are gentle when he wipes the makeup off of his face. Once he’s done, his calluses catch against the skin of Kim’s jaw and neck, shiver-inducing.
“P’Kim, look at me. Please?”
He obeys, of course. What else can he do?
“Do you… Why did you sing that song, just now?” Chay’s eyes are dark, and Kim has to fight the urge to duck his head and look away.
“I…” Kim starts, at a loss for words. How does he explain two years of hollow aching, of hopeless dreaming? He’s finally stopped running from himself, yet all he knows now is his suffocating regret, and that he wants Chay by his side, always. “I want you to stay. With me,” he ends up saying.
The words seem so futilely inadequate, spoken aloud.
Chay huffs out an exasperated laugh. “If we’re trying this again, you’re going to have to work on using your words.”
What did Chay just say? “You’ll take me back?” Impossible. Right?
The other boy’s mouth twists into a grimace. “I’m willing to try again, but there’ll be rules, this time. You can’t lie to me anymore, do you understand? If you can’t tell me something, then you say so instead of lying. The moment I find out you lied to me again, this thing between us will be over for good.”
Kim bites the inside of his mouth so hard that blood gushes out, sweet metal flooding his tongue. “Are you… You’re sure.”
Chay nods. “I still lo– I still want you, I’ve always wanted you. But it can’t be like the way it was before.”
Kim takes a deep breath, and holds it until his lungs start to burn. When he breathes out, it’s loud in the watery night air. Suddenly, everything becomes starkly apparent, like a clear reflection on a polished blade, like a lit cigarette burning a hole into the fabric of the black night, smouldering red. “I love you, too.”
Silence, save for the far-off rumble of cars passing by. Chay’s lashes flutter as he blinks rapidly, visibly agitated. “I told you not to lie to me.”
“It’s not a lie,” Kim says, because it really isn’t.
Love is the blooming warmth in his chest when he listens to Chay sing. Love is the fear clouding his senses, thinking that Chay would be better off without him. Love is how he still keeps track of everything about Chay – his favourite dessert place here, the stray cats that he feeds, the clubs he’s joined. Love is how he would do anything for Chay, including giving up being Wik if Chay asked for it, even though he knows Chay never would.
Dimly, he’s aware that all of this sounds distinctly… unhealthy. But when has anyone in his family loved normally? His father wrecked Aunt Nampeung’s life and family, then kept her as a doll in his attic. Kinn carved wounds into Porsche’s soft belly over and over again, and never looked back.
But Kim, he’s willing to learn. He’s willing to become better, to be worthy of Chay. He’ll gladly let Chay have the upper hand, personally give him a knife, hilt-first, to hold over Kim’s throat.
Whatever Chay wants, he’ll give. If the first step is honesty, as fatal and foolish as standing up amid a volley of gunfire, then so be it.
He leans forward and buries his face into Chay’s shoulder, so he doesn’t have to meet Chay’s eyes and lose his words. Against his shirt, smelling of something uniquely Chay, Kim lays himself bare, “I love you. I can’t stop worrying about you. I miss you, so badly. I’ve been asking Arm to give me updates about you this entire time.”
When he looks back up, Chay is rolling his eyes, but the grin on his face spells out his delight. “You’re a menace to my sanity,” he says.
Tentatively, Kim smiles back at him.
They don’t announce their relationship publicly; it’s far too early in Wik’s career for a risky move like that. But Chay changes the lyrics to Stranger, and posts his cover online. Instead of naming it a cover, he names it a reprise.
I know it’s not too late to say / goodbye, there will be many / more nights where I lay by your / side
Come a little closer, baby / There’s no one around, only you and me / It’s not the end of our story / so would you please dance with me / After all we’re no longer / strangers.