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Chay, presently, hates his life.
Everything has been going wrong as of late; he threw away his university admission’s letter, his new headphones had blue dye all over them, and now he's stuck in a mermaid costume.
He shifts uncomfortably where he sits, legs outstretched, crossing his arms over his chest.
This stupid fucking costume barely covers his top half; a purple shell bikini two sizes too loose that does nothing to hide his chest, and covers way too much in his bottom half; a piece of long green fabric that binds his legs together in a fish tail.
Tankhun looms over him, a smug smile on his lips as he kicks his feet up, trying to nudge Porchay’s arms away from his chest.
“You're ruining the look with that grumpy face of yours. And let me see that top,” Tankhun scoffs, as if he had the right to be upset about it. Chay's the one suffering from this cruel, unorthodox torture method, not him.
If anything, it just proves that all the Theerapanyakul men are the same ー Entitled-Ass-Motherfuckers.
“Pol, bring me a proper fish to keep our little mermaid comfortable. Something big, yellow and blue like that one from Ariel! And Arm! Bring me a talking lobster!” Khun orders with a shrill cry, before suddenly bursting into a maniacal fit of giggles.
A look of shared confusion flashes over the guards faces. They dignify their charge's words with a laughter so forced it sounds painful, but then Khun abruptly stops laughing. When only the sound of their faux merriment remains, Pol quickly stops, clearing his throat.
“I mean it. Get back soon or I'll turn you into his fish and his lobster!”
“Y-Yes Khun!” The poor guards shoot him a sympathetic glance before they scurry away, leaving Chay to deal with Khun alone.
Chay swallows.
“Now, where was I… Stop looking so grumpy! Mermaids are supposed to look happy and sing!” Khun complains loudly, his shoe coming back to kick Chay’s hands away.
Chay keeps his hands over himself, stubborn.
“Khun Nu, please, if there's anything else I could do to make it up to youー”
“What if I put you in a maid costume! You could go around the compound dusting the tables and the shelves, oh yes! Change of plans, let me message Arm… Where's my phone! It should be here somewhere!”
Khun flounders about (ironic, because he's not the one trapped at the edge of the fucking pool). The colour in Chay’s face drains.
The chances of being seen by a certain Theerapanyakul fluttering around the compound in a maid costume is exponentially higher than being trapped at the pool. This experience is mortifying, but the thought that it can be worse stirs Chay into action.
He moves his hands away, tugging the shells in place as much as he can.
“I-I’ll let you see the full outfit Khun Nu. Please, not a maid costumeー”
“You look absolutely stunning, little Kittisiwat! More stunning than your brother could ever be! He was such a pain, much more than you, but some things remain the sameー You both end up in mermaid costumes!”
Chay has to pause for a second to process the words because what the fuck? Porsche has been subject to this, and he never warned Chay? Once this humiliating ritual is over, he's marching straight to Porsche’s office, important meetings be damned. He needs an explanation for whatever Khun meant.
“You're forgetting to smile, little Kittisiwat. And sing! Ohhh, I know what to make you sing; sing one of my Nong’s songs! You know Wik? There's no way you won't! He's such a talented boy, he got it alllll from me!”
Somewhere, Chay wonders where it all went wrong. He knew his luck was too good to be true when Wik showed up at his doorstep months ago, but he thought the rejection was retribution enough. In a sick twist of fate, he's now being forced to sing a song by his not-ex-boyfriend-but-more-than-friends-betraying-Scumbag, in a mermaid costume.
All because of a dumb decision involving said Scumbag.
Chay cranes his head, double checking both doors that lead to the hallways to ensure no one is entering at this exact moment.
“W-Which song, Khun Nu? I'm sure Wik has many,” Chay asks, if only to draw time out a little longer, delaying his inevitable doom.
“Hmm, let me see…” Tankhun swipes through his phone with a single finger, eyes as close to the screen as possible, brows scrunched in scrutiny.
“Complicated? No…. Stranger? It doesn't suit the mood… Oh, Nong came out with a new song called ‘Why don't you stay’, you should sing that one! I'll have Arm film you and we can put it on the media! Good for Kimmy! He needs an online presence!”
Chay freezes up immediately.
“T-That song has been released?” Chay asks carefully, swallowing the lump threatening to form up his throat.
A sickly feeling forms his chest and spreads throughout his body, his stomach twisting into knots at the thought that Kim has publicized the one thing he never wanted anyone to know aboutー them. He thinks he might cry.
He'd been such a fool for ever believing in Kim, and now every word is a crushing reminder of his stupid naivety. One that he will now have to relive with every play on the radio.
“Yes! Where have your ears been this whole time? Let me turn it on right now!”
“Don't!” Chay quickly blurts, “I mean, you don't have to! Surely it doesn't fit the mood. What about 'Comedy'? Or 'Fade'? E-Even 'Hide' would be more fitting…”
Even thinking about Wik’s older songs drives the knife of betrayal deeper in his heart. His eyes grow wet, and he stops himself from listing any more to prevent his heart from breaking further.
“No, those are oooolllldddd! You're a young boy, you can handle a young song, come on! It goes likeー”
“What is going on here?”
At the sound of his voice, Chay stops breathing altogether.
His second worst nightmare is materialising before him, just shy of when he was denied ever being loved.
Kim, in all his dastardly glory, standing by the door to the pool. He even has the audacity to look good, with his leather jacket, side-swept hair and all.
Chay takes in the state of himself by comparison, dressed in a mermaid costume too big for himself, eyes feeling like they're starting to puff up like an allergic reactionー is that snot running down his nose? Chay can't tell, all he can tell is that it's embarrassing and that he needs to get away right now.
He turns towards the pool beside him. Then back towards Kim’s figure. The blob of him in Chay’s now-blurry periphery growing in size, meaning that he's approaching.
He then looks again to the water beside him, an endless shimmer of blue.
The choice is obvious.
Tipping himself sideways, he closes his eyes and crosses his arms across his chest, diving into the pool.
“Porchay!” He hears a frantic yell, before the world goes muffled.
—
The first thing he feels, unfortunately, isn't the welcoming embrace of a dark, empty void. In fact, it's very cold.
Three seconds of peace is all that he's given before the lack of air causes panic to seize his body.
His costume didn't come with breathing modifications, like most costumes. Somehow he also didn't factor in that his legs were bound and that he didn't know how to swim, which should've been the reasoning behind not falling into this pool.
Now he's actually floundering, pretty helplessly at that, arms flapping to propel himself up. The top comes off easily, but he struggles to kick off the bottom part with the fish tail. The racing clock of his depleting oxygen only causes his panic to ramp higher when he isn't able to free himself.
Between trying to get the suit off and reaching the surface, he starts to wonder if this is how he's going to die. Two out of three of the Theerapanyakul brothers, both the cause in direct and indirect ways. He hopes Porsche avenges him and kills everyone in the family. It might be a stretch to murder his own fiancé, but Chay decides that if Kim and Tankhun both had a hand in his death, going for the third one in the equation wouldn't be a stretch.
At least then he'd be able to see Kim in hellー Waitー That can't be what he wants.
Before he can think about it more, something sturdy wraps around his midriff and squeezes tight, pulling him towards the surface of the pool.
Chay holds onto the ‘something sturdy’, which he now identifies as arms, attempting to help propel himself upward with the flapping of his tail.
He didn't know Tankhun could swim. Or maybe Arm and Pol had gotten back while he attempted to drown.
He just doesn't want to think of the worst when things are starting to look up again. He's finally broken the surface and he's choking on air, heaving welty to expel the water from his lungs whenー
“Would you stop trying to kick me? I'm trying to keep you from drowning!”
Kim’s furious tone startles Chay enough that he finally stops wriggling his legs. It doesn't help that he's still coughing though, hacking up a good portion of his lungs.
The anger melds into something of injustice, as if Kim had any right to be angry with him, showing up here the way he did.
Entitled. Ass. Motherfuckers.
“Thisー Ack! Wouldn't have beenー ACK!” He tries to retort, but his body clearly isn’t ready to confront Kim.
Absolutely fair. Apart from coming close to crossing the rainbow bridge, he hasn't thought about what he'd do or say if he actually saw Kim again. All besides slapping him in the face. And so he does exactly that, reaching to backhand the man behind him, who infuriatingly dodges.
“Just keep still!” Kim barks, arms squeezing tighter around Chay.
It takes Chay a few moments to realise that Kim isn't even kicking to the surface anymore, he's simply standing there.
Chay stops moving his pedal-arm altogether, taking a look around him.
The mark of the side of the pool indicates a mocking ‘1.5 metres’, coloured in red. The pool is deep, but shallow enough to stand in.
He looks up to find not only Tankhun staring, but Big by his side with an equally shocked expression.
“Khun Chay, are you alright?” Big, the only half-decent man in the room, asks.
Chay is torn between shrugging him off and bursting into tears, and thankfully he chooses the former.
“Y-Yeah. Just, uhm. I'd like to get out.”
Kim takes it as his cue to scoop Chay into his arms, wading to the edge of the pool to deposit him there. Chay lies flat, trying to catch his breath.
“I'll fetch you a towel, Khun.”
Big leaves.
“Tankhun. What. Is going on here,” Kim growls, a tone that sends shivers down Chay’s spine. It's terrifying even if it isn't directed at him, and it reminds him a lot of how Kim stormed in at the club.
Stop it, he scolds himself. He has no reason to be afraid of Kim, not after everything he's done.
“T-The little Kittisiwat was trying to sneak into your room! I caught him red-handed with a lock-picking kit outside your door! Then I turned him into a mermaid as a present for you!”
Chay immediately turns around, burying his face in the ground. He shouldn't have gotten distracted by the way Kim sounds, instead he should've found a way to shut Tankhun. Now Kim has more ammunition against him.
“I was just practicing, his door happened to be right there,” he mumbles in defence. It isn't convincing anyone and he knows it.
Maybe, if Chay made one more roll, he will end up back in the pool, avoiding this mortifying situation. His plans are unfortunately thwarted when Kim decides to pick him up like a sack of potatoes, hoisting him over his shoulder.
“He's mine. Don't touch him,” Kim says to Tankhun.
Chay wriggles in protest, already starting to feel a rage building within him.
“I'm not something to own, you fucking assー”
“Oh Nong! But he's so fun to play with, don't you think? Isn't that why you like him?” Tankhun cuts.
He feels Kim stop, tensing beneath him. Chay’s thoughts stop, too, wanting to hear Kim’s response.
“No,” Kim replies, softly, as though he's afraid to admit it. Afraid because it's all a lie?
Chay scoffs.
“I wasn't? But that's what you did,” Chay spits, words filled with venom.
“Lookー Iー” Kim starts, but again, Tankhun unhelpfully interjects.
“Nong used to play with his food before he eats! He'd poke them around with his fork and pick at them until they fell apart, then he'd eat them allll!”
“All of us didー You stabbed them so viciously that it would get everywhere, and Kinn ‘beheaded’ the stems and launched them at the guards! We were children, and that's what children do,” Kim replies.
“Not well-adjusted children,” Chay murmurs.
“Do any of us seem to have the capacity to be well-adjusted? In this household?” Kim scoffs. “We grew up this way. We’re all trapped in this fuckery whether we like it or not.”
Chay goes silent.
So does Kim.
His footsteps start to pick up again, leaving the pool, and when Big arrives with a towel, Kim bundles him up.
“Escort him to his room,” Kim says, dusting himself off.
Chay looks down at his fish tail, then at Kim’s sopping attire.
“You don't expect me to hop, do you? Besides, you're already wet.”
Kim looks towards Big’s arm, trapped in a cast.
“... Fine. Big, burn all the outfits in Tankhun’s closet.”
“Yes Khun.”
He hoists Chay back into his arms.
—
“ ‘We're all trapped in this fuckery’, you said,” Chay starts as Kim makes his way down the last hallway.
“And?”
Chay thinks about it for a second. And then a little more.
“You don't want me trapped here, do you?”
Kim stops walking.
Chay feels that same tensing that he did from before, except he can visibly see it nowー the way Kim’s jaw ticks, or the way he subtly shifts his arm around the back of Chay’s knees.
“No,” Kim breathes. Between the two of them, it's like he's finally allowing himself the shred of honesty he never showed in their time before.
It's the same, soft tone of admittance he'd adopted before, and it allows Chay to see his actions in a different light.
Maybe, Chay realises, Kim is scared for Chay. He doesn't want Chay to end up the way he did, not when he thought Chay had a choice otherwise. He was wrong about the latter part, though.
“Even if it weren't for you, I’d be here because of Hia.”
He hears Kim swallow a gulp, and cranes his neck to look.
Kim pointedly looks away.
“I trusted you, P’Kim. I wanted you to stay,” Chay finds himself blinking away tears of his own as he says, “I didn't know you had so many other things to consider to be with me.”
“It's not safe, Chay. I'm a dangerous person in a dangerous place,” Kim warns. His tone sounds more like a plea now that Chay sees where he's coming from. He's telling Chay to leave while he can, to help himself. And yet he can't help but want Chay close.
Chay feels something wet falling against him, drops of water falling from Kim’s damp hair onto his already-wet cheeks.
“I can protect myself. And you can teach me, too,” Chay softly assures, reaching up to brush Kim’s hair away from his eyes. “Besides, I like the danger.”
They're just as wet as Chay’s.
“You don't know what danger is.”
“Then show me… Though preferably not when I'm still stuck in a mermaid costume, but in a hot way and maybe on a bed.”
Kim chuckles, shaking his head, and so does Chay.
For a moment, it feels like the weight in his chest has been lifted. The burning anger still simmers, but the flame is absent and all that's left is its heat. That, he can deal withー drenched from the pool, he already feels like he's cooling off.
“Tell me you want this,” Kim whispers, in a voice so frail. “Tell me you’ll stay.”
“I want to be with you. I'll stay,” Chay loudly declares, his voice strong.
A spark of hope nests within Chay.
Maybe, the next time Chay wants Kim to be honest with him, he wouldn't have to go to such lengths like a lock-pick and a mermaid costume.
Maybe, the next time Chay is by Kim’s side, he'll truly believe that they’re 'trapped in this fuckery’ together.
But now, he lets Kim press their lips together, and for once in a long while he savours the present.