Chapter Text
They never stay.
It's a lesson Porchay learned early. That people tend to leave. Not always because they want to, but they leave. And sometimes they never come back.
His parents never came back, but it didn't even feel like they left, at first. It felt like they just disappeared completely. One day here, gone the next. It didn't feel like a conscious decision - something that happened after careful planning. So at first, it didn't hurt. Porsche always told him that his parents would have been around if they could. That they would have stayed with them if they could. And that worked for a while. It kept him sane - kept him moving forward.
Until he slowly started to see a pattern. That people always leave.
His parents weren't the first. Or the last. His best friend in the fourth grade, Time, left because Dome in sixth grade was much cooler, and hung out at the skatepark. It was fine though, because Porchay eventually met new friends, and he knows that Time still has a metal wire in his arm from landing wrong while trying to impress the older guys at the park. There have been other friends over the years, too, that suddenly stopped talking to him. Suddenly their last day of hanging out together came without Porchay knowing and suddenly he found himself alone, again and again.
It was fine though because people come and go.
Until his uncle left, too, and that hurt more. His uncle was everything. He was the one to spend hours teaching Porchay to ride his bike, he was there for every graduation that his parents were unable to attend, and most importantly - he was supposed to be permanent. Genetically designed to never leave. He knows Porsche didn't give him an opportunity to stay, and he gets it. He does. His uncle didn't care enough to stop himself from gambling away all their money, and that's a betrayal Porchay thinks he might never get over. His brother surely won't. So he understands why his Uncle was forced to leave.
It's how he mattered so little to someone who pretended to care so much, that still leaves a gaping wound in his chest.
Even his brother left. Sneaked out during the night, carefully making sure he didn't know. He came back, eventually, and Porchay believes him when Porsche says he left to keep him safe. But that doesn't really help when he had to spend months alone in their big, empty house, taking care of himself for the first time, knowing that his brother wasn't telling him the whole truth about where he was going. He knew something wasn't adding up. He didn't sleep much while he was away.
So people leave him. That's nothing new. He's used to it, and it's fine. Really.
But now Kim has left him too. The one person he really wished would stay. The one person not obligated to be there, but that he desperately wanted to keep by his side. And Porchay gets it. He truly does. He understands now that there is one common denominator.
Himself.
Looking back, it's so clear.
He understands Kim. He gets it. He was just too much. His brother told him once that his heart was his biggest strength, and Porchay believed him. Of course, he did because his brother never lied. Until he did, and Porchay suddenly realized that not only would his brother do anything to keep him happy and safe - but he also, sometimes, would do that in ways that just ended up hurting him even more. So who's to say Porsche didn't lie when he told him to never let go of the heart on his sleeve? And maybe - just maybe - his heart wasn't his biggest strength, but his biggest weakness. One that left him naive and hopeful. One that opened him to never-ending disappointment and pain.
So when Kim left - after the tears had dried, and his heart had tried to glue itself back together while watching dramas with Tankhun over a shared bag of popcorn - he felt it.
He felt how, subconsciously, his heart had hardened.
He still felt a tug of excitement in his stomach whenever Kim entered the room. An ever-present strum of emotion at just the slightest view of the other man, who had suddenly begun spending more time at the hotel even if Tankhun had told him that he was usually never around. He felt the yearning, and he felt the need to see those pink lips stretched around a smile directed at him.
But he also felt nervousness. A sticky, nauseating kind, that spread even faster than the excitement. One that had him looking away as soon as Kim's head turned his way. One that had him turning back, just fast enough to see the back of his head move away from him.
It was like his heart still felt the same but finally managed to lie when Kim had sat him down and tried to explain. Explain how he was scared by the depth of Porchay's emotions, and scared by the heart he had worn so proudly on his sleeve. It felt easy, then, to just shrug it off - smile and pretend like his heart didn't break with a disappointed I told you so - and fake confidence as he replied with a short, "don't worry, I get it."
Because he did get it then. He was just too much.
At the time, he even managed to raise his hand in a comforting gesture, patting Kim's shoulder in an effort to lessen the pain he could see etched on the normally delicate features of the other man. Comforting him, as if it wasn't his own heart that was breaking apart, scattered in pieces all over the marble floors.
He hated it, hated how his own worst fear was being confirmed right in front of him. And so something in him turned even colder. Until he couldn't really see too much of himself left. Gone was the naive little boy from before, and left was someone he struggled to recognize. Someone he didn't think he could be. Someone less open, less affectionate.
He's not even sure if anyone can tell the difference, but he, himself, does. He feels it in the way his heart knows now, that people leave. It's no longer a question - an inkling, a small idea that is beginning to blossom - it's a fact. He's not enough for anyone to stay. So what's the point in trying?
He knows now, that Kim will never award him the same emotions, and that knowledge makes it easier. It's easy because there are fewer nerves - less awkwardness - now that he knows he never stood a chance. It's easier to ignore the looks, and the softness Kim sometimes reserved just for him. It's easy to pretend like he doesn't feel warmth spread through his veins every time their shoulders touch or whenever Kim laughs at a joke tries to make, now that he knows it was all a lie - just a means for Kim to get close to him in order to try and solve his parents' murder.
It's easy.
Except it isn't.
Not when he's alone, and can't help but feel suffocated by the large bedroom he now sleeps in. It feels sterile in the way only a room that is cleaned twice a day can feel. Wrong, because it doesn't feel like home. It feels so far from his old room where clutter was allowed to be clutter and where he felt comfortable hanging pictures on the wall and keeping personal mementos out on every available surface.
It's hard when all he can think about is the way Kim has moved back home and stays only a few doors down from his room. So close, yet so far. So tangible but so hard to reach. It's worse when his traitorous mind takes him back to the morning when he woke up in Kim's arms, sticky with sweat from being held closely by a warm body, soft breath tickling the top of his head. When all he could feel was encompassing admiration for the older man, and at how he had stayed.
It had made his heart flutter so intently, that he couldn't help but let the words spill out when Kim asked. He couldn't help but say more than even his own heart was ready to when Kim looked at him with sleepy eyes and a cute double chin from moving his head to give him his full attention.
Until the words were out, and Kim looked away. And Porchay really was stupid for not putting the pieces together. But he was in love, and at the time, his heart was unable to keep the words inside. Too full to keep the string of words inside.
But he sticks to it now, the coldness in his heart - because he gets it. He stays alone in his big, naked room because he understands. He realizes, now, how much pressure his feelings always put on other people. How much his inability to control himself affects other people. How trapped Kim must have felt when he decided to tell him about his feelings.
It's harder whenever he hangs with his bother. Porsche used to be the person he could talk to about anything, but now he's just too happy, and Porchay hates how angry it makes him. Hates how his blood boils whenever he sees the two of them close and how protective his brother is over the older man. How they never seem to stray far away from each other, seeming so in tune with each other, without really trying. Porsche deserves to be happy, he really does. The jury's still out on Kinn, but after slowly getting over how he's the reason they are both now in danger, Porchay must admit he seems like a decent guy. He can tell that Kinn loves his brother, and never even wished for this life himself, but it doesn't help. Not at all when their happiness is just another blow to Porchay's already bleeding heart. He doesn't think it can handle much more.
But once again, he stays quiet.
Before, he might have told Porsche. Told him how he felt, and how every sweet moment his brother spends with his boyfriend is like a stab to his heart. Yet another chip to his withering soul. Instead, he stays away. Keeps himself away from the couple, only being with his brother when he knows Kinn is way, gone - doing whatever a mafia boss does on the daily.
He can't tell Porsche how he feels. Can't allow his emotions to affect the people around him again. So instead he stays in his cold, too big room, and writes.
When he first picked up his guitar, WIK was his inspiration. Porchay might be cold enough now to be able to turn off his feelings whenever the other man is around, physically, but it's worse when he's a pixelated version on a screen. The same pixelated version that always made him smile, and provided him with infinite inspiration. It somehow becomes worse to forget when he sees the version of him that always seemed so much like his old self. Open, honest.
Porchay will never disclose how many times he's rewatched all of WIK's videos over the last few weeks. It's a secret for only him to know.
But if there's one thing this whole experience has given him, it's endless words sewn into sentences that fill his notebook. Page after page of anger, frustration, and hopelessness. There are a few pages of hope in there too but they were written months ago, when WIK became just Kim, and his world was a concentrated mix of laughter, admiration and the need to impress. When he was asked to write a love song, and wrote four, and when his fingers bled from strumming the rough, unfamiliar strings of a new guitar.
It's kind of sad when he thinks about it. How one person can change your entire view of yourself. But Kim was never just another person, was he? He was inspiration and motivation and everything in between. He was the realization that while his friends were talking about cute girls, Porchay had strong arms, a sharp nose, and a handsome face replaying in his mind when he fell asleep.
He thinks about it sometimes. How much easier his life would have been if never answered that question and the education fair. If he never built up enough confidence to answer the stupid question even when someone had gotten it correct. Or maybe it was when his friend encouraged him to talk to him afterward. Maybe that's when he got truly hooked. When Kim signed his shirt and gave him a smile so understated that Porchay didn't know what to do with himself. He thinks that might be what really grabbed him.
The kindness Kim showed when they met up was just the last nail in the coffin.
Knowing that all of it was just a carefully laid plan, was and is the toughest pill to swallow. Porchay knows he would have fallen anyways - was probably half in love with the other man already - but the knowledge that he was just a piece on a complicated board of chess is the worst. It hurts in a way that feels so foreign from before. Porchay has known disappointment, he knows how it feels when people leave.
It's knowing that for Kim, staying was never really an option in the first place that cuts the deepest.