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It was rather curious. Pagan Min was a symbol, a tyrant to some and a god to others. He seemed omniscient, powerful and everything but a regular man. According to rumor, whole tirades had fallen at the snap of his fingers back in Hong Kong and he only came to Kyrat because he was bored and to quote "an island does have a certain flair, don't you think?".
After several years under his thumb; Kyrat was like his own personal holiday residence, the golden path a feeble bunch and most of Pagan's propaganda was still deeply embedded into the skull of every last child on the island. So, Pagan Min - the hero, the savior, the business man and yet somehow; man of the people. He managed to be corrupt without seeming corrupt, even to the people working with him who knew what they were doing under his reign. He managed to be cruel, to invoke fear and yet admiration.
He was something more spiritual than just a man, he had emerged to more; to a legend and a force comparable to Kalinag but he was very real and not some image of paradise. But he was king, king of Kyrat and he was no ordinary human with emotions and flaws and a miscalculated mind. So no one talked about Yuma around him who knew better. No one talked about Ajay Ghale and no one - not ever - mentioned Lakshmana or her mother. No one dared and that Yuma did, only manifested in her own downfall when it came to Pagan's decision to favour Ajay over her. It may be because Yuma had stopped seeing him as a brand and rather as a person whilst Ajay helped contain his image of a war hero and gave him an enemy to generously save Kyrat from, even though he did not quite manage it.
So it was curious indeed; how much he actually cared in his own eccentric way. Every facet of a plan must be perfectly executed, every word chosen with precision and every weak link eliminated. Most days he stayed out of sight and never was with the same people for more than an hour, to keep a certain mysterious touch to his name.
Right now the man himself sat at the same table he would serve Crab Rangoon at, he’d already planned that and executed various chefs who didn't prepare it sufficiently. Ajay Ghale was his guest of honor after all. His thoughts wandered to imagining his arrival ever so often as he thoughtfully turned his fork in front of his face; carefully examining the meat impaled by it.
“Paul”, he called suddenly his voice casual and cheerful, as usual.
“Yes, King Min?”, the bespoken answered in an equal tone; he was one of the few who could afford not to be incredibly tense at the dinner table with Pagan Min.
Pagan scoffed internally because his American partner still hadn't bothered to learn to pronounce his name correctly. He sighed; after hearing all his monkeys say it so many times it shouldn't be this hard to remember, right?
“How is your daughter? What was her name… Ashley?”
“Yeah she’s fine, thank you, King Min”, he replied, his voice warm and full of love. What a hypocrite, Pagan thought.
He repressed the urge to sigh again; it didn't even matter whether or not her name was Ashley; Paul would have never corrected him. He let the meat disappear into his mouth, chewing lazily. He spotted the chef in the corner and noticed he was sweating like a pig. A smile spread across his face and he just shot him his typically unreadable look. However the meat was fantastic so he didn’t have a reason to punish him; waste of resources and an incredibly good chef.
“Does she still call you during your… meetings?”, he asked, intentionally using the phrase the other man always did.
“Yes, sir”, he almost barked; he was getting defensive already.
Pagan couldn't not let a smirk flash across his face; he was so easy to control.
“Good”, he chuckled, “Maybe one day she can pick up where you left off.”
He could sense Paul’s hand closing around his knife and fork dangerously tightly even though he was back to enjoying his food again. And before he could protest, Pagan raised his voice to the chef this time.
"What's your name monkey?", he asked pointing in the general direction of the man with his fork but studying the meal intently with his gaze as he did so.
Silence followed, an awkward shuffling of feet and clothes, a sound that was presumably the chef being pushed forward. But then before Pagan got his answer, the door burst open loudly and a panting man in uniform sprinted towards the long table he was sitting at.
"My King-", he started shouting.
But Pagan shot him a bored look, making him stop in his tracks.
"What way is that to enter my dining room?", he scolded, "sit down General."
He gestured to the chair to his left; as Paul was seated on his right and the soldier did as he was told in frantic movements, struggling for breath. Yet Pagan was impossibly relaxed, taking a bottle of wine from the table and filling the glass at the General's spot slowly.
"Try the meat monkey, it's fantastic! You know I was about to give my compliments to the chef if you hadn't so rudely interrupted", Pagan spoke with a deep voice that made the General shift uncomfortably in the expensive golden chair.
Pagan let another piece of the filet disappear into his mouth and spoke whilst chewing: "Go on then, make it quick general."
The man in uniform swallowed thickly and started stumbling over his words: "King, I- there's been a m-... I mean, sir, not everything that a-"
"Get to the POINT will you", Pagan shouted now and the room turned dead silent. Beads of sweat ran down the general’s forehead.
"Your shipment, King, we lost it to the golden path", he finally choked out.
Pagan blinked a few times and leaned back against his chair, swallowing the last bit of the food he was eating incidentally.
“I distinctly said to secure the cargo ship number 1701. A simple order, is it not, general?”, the tyrant languidly let the words roll of his tongue.
“Sir, it got out of control-“
“Tut, tut, tut, always that sentence”, he scolded like a father would his child.
The room fell silent for a long second before his arm which was holding the fork snapped forward and buried its sharp spikes into the back of the other man’s hand which was laid out on the table. A scream exploded in the back of the man’s throat, echoing back from the mountains through the open windows. The sound of ripping fabric was almost drowned out by it caused by the metal drilling even into the fancy table cloth.
Pagan got up gracefully, stepping around his and the other’s chair whilst tears started rolling down the general’s cheeks as he struggled to keep from sobbing.
“I am extremely disappointed, my boy”, he spoke smoothly as he continued strolling around the table, “severely disappointed.”
He stopped behind general’s chair and let his hands rest against the man’s shoulders.
“What’s to do about that?”, he asked, seemingly considerate. “You know, I have a whole cage full of monkeys just like you, waiting to tear your head from your shoulders to take your place… right beside their King.”
He paused, sighing into the dead silence of the room. The general’s cries had quieted down to a feeble sniffling and blood was dripping off the table’s edge and onto the complicated, twisting red and white patterns on the carpet.
“The question is… Will they do better?”, he said as if wondering out loud.
Nothing was to be heard but the general’s heavy breath. He winced as Pagan lifted his hands slightly just to bring them down on his shoulders again with a clap.
“Go on, what do you think? Would they do better?”, he repeated slowly, stressing every word of his original question.
“N-no, my King”, he choked out quietly.
“HA!”, Pagan shouted loudly, making the general wince again and the whole room hold its breath. “Such confidence”, he praised patronizingly, his voice still loud enough to fill out the whole room. “I like it”, he commented now casually again.
The general did not yet dare to relax, but Pagan moved to roughly grip the fork and rip it out of the man’s flesh.
“Go. Take back the ship. Every last piece of it”, he ordered and the other man swallowed thickly.
“Sir I’d need-“
“Yes, yes, my boy, take what you need but get it done”, he interrupted in a generous tone as if the situation were completely ordinary, “… or I’ll let the monkeys out of the cage.”
He ended with a chuckle and sat back down, taking another piece of the filet with the fork, blood still dripping from it. He paused just before the food could move past his lips and said as if stating the obvious: “Well, hurry up; I don’t like to be kept waiting.” The edge was taken out of his speech as he singsonged the last word.
As the general picked himself up and scurried out of the room, holding his wounded hand in front of his chest, Pagan pushed the bloody fork into his mouth with relish and noisily licked off the red droplets.
“Now”, he suddenly spoke heavily with his mouth half full into the tense room, “back to my question.”
He pointed back to the chef: “What’s your name, monkey?”