Chapter Text
It’s been months that Chay’s been living in this cursed house, that he sees Kim every day, that no one but him knows that he isn’t actually feeling alright and that something happened between the two youngest of the household.
University is killing him, being a first year is a tough job.
It doesn’t help that he has yet to make friends there, that it’s mostly lonely half the time and the other half he is just questioning his life decision. Is uni really that important? Wasn’t he supposed to be in the mafia now? Can’t they just pay for his life expenses now that they’re holding him hostage in a dramatic family?
He sighs as he braces himself to walk to where he knows someone would pick him up. He started getting used to it but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable. Every day he is driven and picked up from university depending on his schedule, at the same exact place. Because at least his brother had the decency to spare him the embarrassment, he didn’t want to feel like a baby.
“Chay, right?” A voice asks and suddenly there is an arm around his shoulder.
“Uh, yes?” He knew who it was. It was Macau, the minor family’s youngest son, Vegas’s brother. It was their first meeting but Tankhun made sure to introduce everyone in the family to him through pictures so he wouldn’t be lost.
“Oh, I thought they forgot to send you the driver today but I guess you’re going back with Kim. See you later!”
Chay doesn’t get what he’s saying. Why would he go back with Kim? And why the fuck is Kim parking his car in front of his university? He doesn’t even attend classes unless they seem to be important to him, so what was he doing there?
He sighs and halts his steps, walking to the other. “What are you doing here?”
“Picking you up.” Kim is being his usual calm self, and Chay hates it. He hates how much the man is still affecting him without needing to do anything.
Why? Chay wanted to ask, but got in without a fight. He was having a tiring day already and fighting Kim was the last thing he wanted on earth.
They’re at a red light, when Kim decides to break the silence between them.
“I can’t have a normal life and neither can you now, but I want to make it right.” Kim reveals before turning his head and looking him right in the eyes.
If this were few weeks ago, Chay would be weak on his knees, agreeing to whatever Kim wanted without feeling the need to understand. But it wasn’t the case.
“What is it that you exactly want to make right?” He’ll play dumb if he has to. Sure Chay was still weak for him but he’d be damned to give in easily.
“Everything that happened between us.” Another unclear answer from Kim, as always, never actually answering the question. What could guarantee Chay that he wasn’t getting played again? He couldn’t easily trust him, not again.
“Nothing happened, Kim. I got played, you got whatever information you wanted, that’s it. Now if you excuse me.” He tries to turn and focus on what’s outside the window but Kim still needs his whole attention.
“I’m sorry, I really am. I know I fucked up but I don’t want you avoiding me and acting as if I don’t exist.”
Hearing Kim apologize doesn’t sound right, and for a second Chay wants to slap himself. He almost wanted to forgive the man, he wanted to understand him and hold him again. He wanted to go back to who they were before. Except it was all fake, they never happened, because Kim didn’t once say the truth.
It was real to me, Chay thinks. He knew he couldn’t avoid Kim for the rest of his life, he was living in his family’s house for God’s sake. Chay felt cornered, driven to the wall between his feelings and reality.
“Sure.” He ends up saying, because really, what other choice does he have? And Chay sees the relieved look on Kim’s face. He doesn’t deserve to be relieved yet can’t help but like the sight better than the angry looking and pissed Kim. “But that doesn’t mean we’re friends, it doesn’t mean we’re anything but two people living in the same household.”
“I’ll take it.”
x
What Chay thought would be a once in a lifetime thing appeared to be a new daily issue and he was going to complain. Because why was his brother standing in front of him, telling him he’d have to ride back and forth to uni with Kim?
“It doesn’t make any sense, why does it have to be him?” He knows he sounds like a kid whining, but he doesn’t want to have to talk to Kim, he doesn’t want to be in a closed place with Kim.
“Is something wrong?” This time it’s a new voice, Kinn, and Chay is tired of everyone meddling in his life.
“Yes!” Chay doesn’t care if he’s crossing the line, the worst that could happen is Kinn pulling out his gun and shooting him which in this situation would be in Chay’s favor. “Isn’t the bodyguard following me everywhere enough? I got a driver too, so I don't see why I need Kim. Or do I have to keep feeling like a lab rat for the rest of my life?”
Kinn is trying to be a good brother, he may never have had the chance to be one to Kim but he sure as hell would do his best for Chay. “I’m sorry, but we can’t just leave you without security. You’re a member of-”
“On God, if you say I'm a member of this family I will scream.”
“Okay, okay.” He shares a look with his boyfriend who clearly wonders what’s happening with his brother. “Bottom line is, you’re important and could be in danger any time, so security has to be there, thus the bodyguard. What I don’t get is Kim getting involved?”
Porsche doesn’t leave room for the question to be answered, before butting in with a question of his own. “Why are you so against it anyway?”
It made no sense to the man. Chay was usually pretty obedient, he knew not to make his life harder and never complained, but the second Kim got involved he went crazy.
“I don’t need a babysitter!”
“Try again.”
“He’s scary!” That’s the first thing coming to Chay’s mind, and while he wasn’t scared of him, he can name at least a bunch of different people being scared at the simple mention of his name.
“Oh, trust me I know.” Kinn finds himself agreeing even though he still doesn’t get why Kim is involved in the conversation. He receives a jab from his boyfriend.
“You’re not helping. Kim was being nice, offering to take care of you, if anything you should thank him.”
“Kim offered to take care of Chay?” Kinn was looking at his boyfriend as if he grew another head. There was no way his brother would do that without gaining something, but he failed to see the catch.
Chay was a cute and clueless kid, what use would he be of to Kim?
“Don’t butt in!” Porsche warns him, he was trying to convince his brother that Kim wasn’t the devil and didn’t need Kinn scaring him. “Plus I think Kim looks familiar, I don't know where I saw him before but I'm sure I did.”
Chay lets out a dying sound and Porsche is really concerned now.
And that’s how it’s decided, Kim would wait for him outside and drive him to uni. Except every day he’d be waiting in his fancy car and on the same occasion getting the attention of everyone on campus. Some questioned who it was, others questioned who he was to Kim, and Chay was praying to God to just let the earth swallow him.
The days pass by and next thing he knows, he’s excited to leave the amphitheater and run to Kim who is waiting for him outside this time and most students are standing around him, not knowing whether to approach him yet still wanting to admire him.
“God, look at his car!” He hears someone say.
Kim was good looking, there was no denying to that. He was the best looking person Chay ever laid eyes on, but the simple fact that other people may have a chance with him did not sit right with Chay who hurried to stand in front of the man.
He opens the car door for him and Chay can’t help but feel pampered. The Mafia prince pampering him to get in his favor, who thought?
“Get in already!” Chay scolds him the second he sits. He knew he had no right to be jealous and should probably not even be allowed to raise his voice at the man, but fight him. His feelings were still very much present, and Kim looking like that was absolutely not helping.
“Can you not bring this car next time?” Chay lets out after a while.
“Hmm? Why?”
“I just don’t like it.” He mumbles, fully knowing that he was lying. He just hated how everyone gushed over both Kim and his car.
Kim takes one glance at him and smiles. “Sure.”
The car he pulls up with next is one that Chay doesn’t recognize, like at all. He didn’t have much knowledge about cars anyways, yet how shiny and pretty it was made it look particular.
All Chay knew was that this was a new car, not realizing its price or the fact that it was a limited edition and only the very rich could get it. It wasn’t his car nor his money, so he didn’t care.
But apparently everyone around him did.
“Do you actually see this?”
“Why is this kid always getting picked up by him?”
“He’s rich rich.”
“I don’t think i’ve seen his face yet but damn.”
In a sea full of nonsense being spit about him and Kim, Chay’s ears focus on the closest one that went straight to his ear.
“Should I talk to him?”
“I don’t think he’d talk to you.” Chay finds himself saying, and shit shit shit, he was supposed to only think it and not say it out loud.
“Excuse me?”
Well, fuck it. Kim said he’d protect him, worst case scenario is this one hitting Chay and Kim avenging him. “You’re excused. Now if you’d just move a little bit, I'm trying to reach my boyfriend.”
He did not mean to say that. Kim was not his boyfriend.
“No way he’d date you!” The student looks him up and down and Chay is offended for a second.
His self esteem may not be up in the sky but he knows he’s decent looking, so this dude looking at him as if he were less than an insect was bruising his ego. He huffs and walks past him to the other man and damn.
Now was not the moment for Kim to look so perfect, with his perfect car, perfect sunglasses resting on his perfect long hair. And why was he smiling? He shouldn’t be allowed to smile in front of other people, what if people start fainting from how bright it is?
“I think you’re the one about to faint, my friend.”
Macau.
His -newly made- friend had an amazing timing of finding himself whenever he was close to embarrassing himself in public and saving him from the humiliation.
“Uh-oh, his smile is not so bright now that I'm standing with you.”
“You’re a horrible human being.” Is all Chay says before making it past Macau too.
“Worse than Kim?” The other young man shouts after him.
Chay could only turn around and stick his tongue out at him, before finally reaching Kim and oh-
“Easy there. Excited to see me?” Kim says as he steadies him between his arms. He takes a look at Macau who was now throwing his middle finger up at him before riding with his own driver. “Didn’t know you were so close to Macau.”
“You never asked.” And Kim hums in response, patting his head.
Kim is all small gestures, a pat on the head here, a little smile there and Chay’s heart is slowly opening to him again, not that it ever closed its door to him. It doesn’t stop there, Kim starts buying him gifts. A new pair of sunglasses, a new laptop, a new jacket that reminded him of Chay… and the change is apparent to people around him.
Somewhere in between, a rumor stating that he’s got a rich and young sugar daddy spreads around him.
“So, tell us. How did you land such a young sugar daddy?” One of the students asks Chay as he’s about to leave.
“What?”
“Tell him we’re going to drink tonight. He can drive us.” A second one appears and links arms with him. Chay is pretty sure he’s never even seen his face before.
“You’d help a friend out, right?” The first one adds.
Few months ago, Chay would probably feel overwhelmed and wouldn’t even be able to answer. But now… he was part of the mafia, and if that wouldn’t let him at least have a tiny little bit of confidence then it would be useless.
He frees himself from the one linking arms with him and looks them both up and down. “What friends? I’ve never talked to any of you people before right this moment. And that is not my sugar daddy.”
Ew. The mere idea of having Kim as a sugar daddy was… surprisingly not disgusting, only unsettling in a way.
“I told you he’d be a difficult one.”
“This type is always so greedy, never wanting to share anything with other people.”
Chay doesn’t recognize the newcomers commenting on the issue, when someone stands behind him, backing him up.
“What’s the commotion about?” And Chay almost wants to kiss Macau for his timing. He at least has a free pass now to leave these shitty people.