Chapter Text
Through his bedroom window, Chay had enjoyed the honey-soft warmth of the sun as it set. It had been a beautiful day, with glass-clear skies and a light breeze, no clouds in sight.
So he’s a little surprised when, just after 10pm, rain starts hammering on his window, demanding his attention. He gets up from his desk, where he’s been working on an assignment and crosses his spacious room to gaze outside.
The clouds overhead make the sky look even darker than usual, blotting out any possible glint of stars and giving the Bangkok skyline an ominous, roiling feel. The rain is a midnight inkspill, gliding down Chay’s window in morse code dots and dashes.
He’s just thinking how ambient it all looks when a flash of lightning cracks open the night sky.
Chay stumbles back from his window.
There are a few beats of silence, where he stands motionless, frozen, hoping that perhaps he imagined it. Perhaps it was a light from one of the skyscrapers in the distance.
Then a far off rumble of thunder cuts through the quiet and Chay’s breath stutters. He backs away from the window further, heart starting to pound.
Not imagined, then.
Chay has been afraid of storms for as long as he can remember. His first memory of experiencing one was hiding under the kitchen table, eyes scrunched shut, trying to blot out the violent cascade of the thunder with his hands over his ears while he waited for Porsche to come and find him.
He’d been in the kitchen when it started and he thought the house was falling down, the noise was so loud.
Knowing that, if there was an earthquake, he was supposed to get under a door frame or table, he had thrown himself under the kitchen table and waited for the ceiling to collapse.
It didn’t, of course. Instead, the storm continued to rage around the house and Chay was too scared to move from his crouched position and run to his room.
When Porsche found him, he’d bundled Chay into a hug and held him so tightly that Chay had felt instantly safe. After that, whenever a storm hit, he’d run and climb into Porsche’s bed and Porsche would hold him close, humming soothing melodies into his hair.
But things are different now he lives at the compound. Porsche sleeps with Kinn on the floor above, so Chay can’t just go and climb into his bed any more.
It's Porsche and Kinn's bed; Chay turning up unannounced and flinging himself in between them would be weird. Really weird.
He likes P’Kinn now that he knows him a little better and sees how happy he makes Porsche, but they’re definitely not close enough for him to hug his brother while Kinn is right there in the same bed. Nope. Too weird.
Chay also isn’t sure that P’Tankhun would appreciate a late-night visitor who just wants to be cuddled, even though the older man has been incredibly kind and welcoming to Chay, inviting him on more than one occasion to watch K-dramas with him.
Then…there’s P’Kim. Kim has been spending a lot more time at the tower since the minor family attack, but Chay absolutely isn't going to confide in him about this. No way.
He's still mad at P’Kim for the way he toyed with his feelings and used him for information. Chay isn’t speaking to him other than the occasional greeting and that’s not going to change just because there’s a storm brewing outside.
Though…he has noticed the way Kim sometimes looks at him when he thinks Chay isn’t paying attention. He looks at Chay with something akin to regret.
They pass each other in corridors, within touching distance but thousands of miles apart, birds migrating to different continents.
Chay makes a point to not say anything more than a stony hello, frost creeping up the edges of his words, but he usually catches Kim’s eye, mainly so he can scowl him.
And once or twice, P’Kim has looked…hurt. It’s strange really, when Chay’s the one who had his heart broken. He should be the one hurting; he still is, in fact.
Everything he thought he’d had with Kim, all their shared moments writing music and getting to know each other were built on a lie.
After sending the video two and a half months ago, Kim has made a grand total of two attempts to speak to Chay. The first was when he was coming into the foyer of the compound as Chay was leaving. It was an accidental meeting and one that neither of them was prepared for.
Kim had said Chay’s name so softly that the breeze coming through the main entrance doors had swept it up and whisked it away into the afternoon sun. But Chay had still heard and his head snapped up.
Their eyes met across the marble flooring and Kim looked completely impassive. That’s when Chay knew he couldn’t do this. Not there and then.
If P’Kim wasn’t feeling even a fraction of the kind of dented, shattered hurt that Chay was, he couldn’t speak to him. He couldn’t break down again and watch Kim stand there dispassionately while he wept in front of his brother and an audience of bodyguards.
So he had sheared their gaze and continued out of the foyer after Porsche, Arm, and several others, not looking back.
The second time Kim tried to speak to him was when Chay had been standing on the terrace of Kinn and Porsche’s suite. He’d received a particularly good grade on one of his university assignments (98%, he’d nailed it), so Porsche said he’d take Chay out for dinner as a congratulatory treat.
Chay was leaning against the railing, enjoying the sun-drenched view across Bangkok as he waited for Porsche to change. He’d felt a presence behind him, like someone had displaced the air, and he’d turned around.
“Hia, are you–”
He’d stopped, smile sliding right off his face, because it wasn’t Porsche. It was Kim.
“Oh. Hello P’Kim,” Chay had said, tone glacial.
“Chay.”
Again, Kim said his name in a hushed voice, but this time it didn’t blow away on the wind. There was more substance to it and it carried to Chay, divulging all the melancholy in Kim’s tone directly into Chay’s heart.
“What do you want?” Chay asked, fighting to keep his own tone hostile.
Everything was a struggle around Kim these days. Talking to him was a struggle, sometimes even just looking at him was a struggle because it brought up diaphanous memories of happier times. But staying mad at him was a struggle too.
Kim had just stared at him, as though he wasn’t going to say anything, but then he’d swallowed audibly and summoned words.
“I wanted to–”
“Chay are you rea–” Porsche had broken off as he’d come strolling round the corner and onto the terrace.
He must have sensed, from the way Kim and Chay were facing off, and the charged hostility in the air (mainly coming from Chay, if he’s honest), that something was going on.
“Did I interrupt something?” Porsche had asked.
“No,” Chay said firmly. “I think P’Kim was here to see P’Kinn. And I’m ready to go, so let’s go.”
He had walked back into Kinn and Porsche’s suite without another word to Kim, breezing past him like it didn’t still send an ache through his chest to be in such close proximity to him.
Since then, Kim hasn’t tried to speak to Chay again and Chay can’t help but wonder what he was going to say before Porsche had interrupted him.
I wanted to…what?
A flash of lightning brings him back to the present and he jerks further away from the window, feeling his heart begin to pound in time with the stuttering beats of thunder coming closer.
The storm is picking up.
It’s fine. This is fine. He can’t seek out someone to wait it out with, but that’s happened before when Porsche has been at work.
Chay has a game plan for these sorts of situations now. He crosses to the long windows and draws the curtains as tight as they’ll go.
There’s a button that’s meant to automatically close them, but it’s not fast enough for him, especially not when he sees a zigzagging fork of lightning right before he presses the two centre folds together.
Even once they’re shut, flashes light up the small section of floor underneath them, making it look like the electricity is trying to reach inside and burn his toes.
The thunder comes again and Chay shudders, grabbing his big headphones. They’re still a little streaked from where his hair dye leached the colour out of them several months ago. His hair is back to brown now, but they still carry the remnants of those weeks when he was test-driving the dark blue.
Chay climbs into his big queen-size bed and gets under the covers, drawing them right up to his head and scrolling through his most relaxing playlist.
He puts on a soothing ballad to try and drown out the sound of the storm, but the thunder announces itself directly overhead with a guttural boom.
It's so loud that it seems to rattle the air around his window panes, trying to shake them loose of their frames and force its way in. Chay feels his whole body begin to tremble under his quilt.
He knows it’s a fear response and he wishes he could turn it off, but his muscles aren’t listening to him. He’s becoming his own small electrical storm, arms sparking and legs juddering in response to what’s happening outside.
He tries putting on some rock and turning up the volume until he’s sure the bodyguards on the floor below must be able to hear it, but even that isn't a match for the sky.
The storm is gathering pace now, like a pitcher winding up to take a throw.
Lightning bursts into the room every fifteen seconds, still finding routes inside despite the closed curtains. Thunder rolls through the clouds above the tower like a whale trying to cut through a wave and crush its prey.
It can’t get in and it can’t do anything to you, Chay tries to tell himself but it’s no good. The noise frightens him.
His music is doing little to help so he takes his headphones off and tries putting his hands over his ears to block out the sound.
He thinks for a second it might be working but then another, louder boom sounds overhead and no, it’s definitely not working, the thunder just psyched him out.
He closes his eyes, trying to slow down his breathing and relax his still-quaking muscles. But the streaks of light that illuminate the room have claws, getting closer with every flash, even behind his closed eyelids. Chay can't help it, he begins to whimper.
This is the loudest storm he’s experienced in years. It feels like it's going to shatter the glass of his windows, sending shards all over him.
It also doesn’t help that his room is ten floors up. He’s far closer to the sky here than he ever was back home with Porsche. It’s not a comforting thought.
Another bout of thunder crashes outside and its echo is such a deep baseline that Chay feels it in his chest. The lamp in his room dims and then brightens as a power surge hits the tower.
Chay only realises he's making small sounds of terror when someone knocks on his door.
Hoping it might be his brother come to check on him, he jumps out of bed and dashes across the room. Nothing would be better right now than one of Porsche’s firm, grounding hugs.
Chay yelps unintentionally when a clap of thunder catches him unprotected several meters from his bed. He quickly swipes away the tears that have sprung into his eyes and runs the rest of the way to the door, throwing it open.
"Hia–"
He stops short. It's not Porsche. It's Kim.
"Oh, P'Kim.” He pauses for a second, thrown by Kim’s presence, before asking, “What do you want?"
He tries to school his expression into one of disinterest and his voice into a bored, flat line, but he can tell from the way Kim's eyebrows lift as he takes in Chay's face that he isn't successful.
"I just wanted to check if you were okay," Kim says slowly, eyes roving over Chay as if looking for injuries. “The storm is pretty bad.”
If Chay didn’t know any better, he’d say Kim looks...worried. There’s a small crease between his brows that he’s not attempting to hide.
Chay realises with a sudden pang that Kim probably heard him trying not to cry. The thought makes him feel strangely stripped bare.
"I'm fine." Chay tries to sound annoyed, but he knows he's still shaking, and another tear is trying to escape from the corner of his eye, so the effect is ruined.
"If that's all..." he moves to close the door on Kim.
"Chay, wait," Kim says softly.
Chay pauses. His heart somersaults in his ribcage at those words and at the strange weight in Kim’s tone. He meets Kim’s gaze, trying to read the meaning there. When he can’t, he says austerely, "I'm busy P'Kim."
"I-" Kim seems to be searching for the right words.
Come on, Chay thinks, fight for this. Fight for me. Talk to me, stop me from closing the door on you.
But Kim doesn't say anything else, he just looks at Chay with a conflicted expression. Chay sighs and begins to shut the door once more.
Then, all the lights in the room and corridor go out.
At the same moment, thunder sounds directly overhead.
Chay can’t help it, he makes a panicked sound and bolts forward, one hand fisting in Kim’s t-shirt, the other grabbing onto whatever’s in front of him in the dark. It feels like Kim’s bicep.
The thunder continues to grumble for a few more seconds before petering out, leaving Chay’s harsh breathing the only sound in the room. Or on the threshold of the room, technically.
“Chay.” Kim says his name like he’s holding an injured bird, and Chay can’t see him in the pitch black of the corridor, but he can feel the warmth from Kim’s chest and arm heating up his hands. It’s…comforting. He desperately doesn’t want it to be, but it is.
“Are you okay?” Kim asks, and there’s a gentle quality to his tone that Chay hasn’t heard since they lay on the sofa together, all those months ago, and Chay said he loved Kim.
Every time they’ve seen each other since Kim left him crying outside of his apartment, Chay has barricaded himself behind a wall of cold words and icy stares.
But now he wonders if, on the balcony, Kim actually wanted to talk to him, wanted to let his own barriers down, but didn’t quite know how. And he didn’t get the chance to figure it out before Porsche arrived.
Chay only realises that he hasn’t responded and is still gripping Kim like a lifeline when Kim says his name again, his question hanging in the air. Sort of like Chay’s heart.
Kim’s hands come up to brush Chay’s arms, a ghost of a touch, gliding upwards until he finds the dip of muscle just below Chay’s shoulders.
He keeps his hands there, pressure light but solid, and Kim can’t possibly know it, but to Chay, it feels like he’s holding him together. For a moment, he lets himself imagine leaning into Kim’s touch, letting himself be swept into Kim’s safe embrace.
And then, he steps back and lets go.
“Sorry,” Chay mutters, as the warmth of Kim drops away from his fingertips, like the sun drifting behind a cloud. “I’m fine, I just…”
“You don’t like storms.”
Chay’s head jerks up to where he imagines Kim’s face is in the darkness.
“How did you…know?”
“Lucky guess,” Kim says, and there’s humour in his voice that Chay should find offensive. He wants to find it annoying. But instead he just huffs out a breath.
“Yeah,” Chay says, quietly stubborn, “I don’t like them.”
He goes to cross his arms and realises Kim’s hands are still holding his biceps, the heat of them permeating his skin. His heart leaps over its next beat.
A flicker of lightning illuminates them both for a few seconds and Chay sees the strangely earnest expression on Kim’s face, his eyebrows rising upwards, even as he feels his own body go rigid, bracing for the thunder.
When it comes, he inhales a sharp, involuntary breath and he feels Kim’s hands tighten on him in response.
“Chay, do you…”
Kim trails off, as if stopping himself from finishing the sentence and suddenly Chay can’t do this anymore.
If Kim still won’t find it within himself to give Chay honest words, if he’s still filtering everything he says, then Chay doesn’t want to share his own moment of vulnerability with Kim.
He steps backwards, out of the safe circle of Kim’s arms, the cold rushing into the space where Kim’s palms had been. It feels like letting go.
Maybe I’m finally ready, he thinks, even as his heart rises up in protest.
He’s been clinging to the idea that Kim might apologise to him for so long that it’s become a barely recognisable dream, nestled behind his ribs.
But, like stars, all dreams eventually come true and shine, or they dim and go out.
Chay has realised that, yes, Kim will beat up a group of assailants for him. He’ll take their lives ruthlessly because they threatened his safety. But he won’t fight for Chay in the way that matters. Not in the way he needs.
So, he half turns away from Kim, even as another clap of thunder makes the hairs on his arms stand on end.
“It’s fine, P’Kim,” he says, fighting to keep his pitch even. “I’ll just put on some candles. I can use my phone’s flashlight if I need it.”
He begins to take another step away from Kim when he feels something catch his wrist.
Even in the dark, he’d know Kim’s touch anywhere.
It sends warm sparks skittering up his arm that have nothing to do with the electricity outside. They sink into his skin and heat up his bloodstream, a small legion of fireflies turning his cells to stardust.
He turns partially back towards Kim right as the tower’s emergency generator kicks in and soft gold light glows to life in the hallway, haloing Kim from behind.
Kim’s arm is outstretched and he’s leaning slightly forward. Chay feels like he’s been catapulted back into the past, but their positions are reversed. Instead of him being the one trying to stop Kim from leaving, Kim’s the one stopping Chay from letting go.
There’s an expression on Kim’s face that Chay’s never seen before and he doesn’t quite know how to describe. Kim is looking at Chay like Chay holds the cornerstone to his existence and without it, he’ll blow apart into helixes of dark matter.
For a moment, they just gaze at each other.
Then Kim says quietly, “I was going to ask, do you want some company?”
Chay stares at him dumbfounded before he remembers that the question isn’t rhetorical.
“From you?”
Chay realises his mistake when Kim’s expression, which had been opening like a flower beginning to bloom, shutters.
“You’re right,” Kim says, “that would be…”
He’s back to not finishing his sentences and Chay can feel him start to loosen his grip on Chay’s wrist.
Three consecutive flashes of lightning invade their surroundings and Chay snatches at Kim’s fingers before he can let go.
Screw it, he thinks.
“Good,” he says. “That would be good, actually.”