Archive of Our Own

Ohm maybe did not know Chay as well as he had thought he did.

So Ohm hadn't known who P'Wik was. That was fine. Not that weird. Chay wouldn't have been able to recognise Ohm's favourite artist either, Ohm was sure, though Ohm's inclination towards the niche and away from the pop may have something to contribute there. Maybe it was a bit strange that Ohm hadn't been able to place P'Wik's face or name at all considering how fervently Chay seemed to worship him— a tail? A paw? A fucking cat doll? Chay had to be watching this guy's videos religiously. Ohm had to watch P'Wik be physically nudged back to life. How had Ohm never heard of him before? Was Chay's obsession that well-contained, or was Ohm a terrible friend?

It had been less of a shock— far less of a shock— to hear Chay ask this P'Wik for guitar lessons, somehow. It was almost comforting to know that his bold lack of a filter extended universally, even if it meant Ohm was prepared to walk him back home with an arm wrapped around his shoulders and awkward disappointment thrumming still in the air. Except then, of course, P'Wik called them back, and Ohm wasn't certain that he saw his friend breathe at all as P'Wik inked his name right atop his heart, and it had been a giddy rush at the moment, adrenaline or something like it nipping at their heels in bouts of flurried giggles, but maybe that should have been the first warning sign.

So Ohm probably did not know Chay as well as he'd thought he did.

The break-up was news. Ohm hadn't been aware that Chay was seeing anyone. He said as much.

"It wasn't a break-up," Chay had said, hair newly blue, and that was the end of it. His voice was colder, sharper, than Ohm remembered it ever being. "You gonna find a place to drink or…?"

Ohm smiled tersely. The not-break-up was a bad one, then. He was already sending a text off, trying to ward off an inexplicable looming sense of dread. Chay's eyes were strangely blank.

It wasn't long until they were cushioned into the corner of a booth, the neon lights shimmering blue on Chay's hair, the lack of flannel a shock to the system. Ohm smiled through it. Something told him Chay needed it, needed him to be the strong one, needed him fielding questions for him, needed him to maintain some fragile sense of normality.

"If Porsche finds out, he'll kill me, Chay," Ohm told him teasingly, patting Chay on the back. Chay's shoulders were tense.

The old Chay would have laughed, would have rolled his eyes, would have swatted at Ohm, might have said, Of course not, silly. This Chay did not so much as look at Ohm apart from a quick sideways glance. "Mm," he said, flatly. "Forget about it. I don't want to talk about it." This time, he did look at Ohm, and his eyes were still blank, still cold. Defiant, somehow. Ohm flinched.

"Alright, sorry," Ohm agreed, hastily looking away. This unfamiliar blankness made him shudder, as though he were looking at a complete stranger and not a life-long friend. He pulled on a smile, looked around at everyone. "C'mon, let's get wasted for our friend tonight, yeah? Cheers!"

Chay didn't really like it. That much was clear. He didn't like the taste, probably the sting of it, either, and Ohm considered calling it quits, but Chay had asked for this. He'd wanted to get absolutely shit-faced. Ohm could do that much for him. He cheered him on, wrapped his arm around his back, steadied him when he stumbled, clinked glasses to drink again, cheered, steadied, clinked, drank, cheered, steadied, clinked, drank, and when his mind was swimming and his friends were barely conscious, he reached out blindly and suggested they get themselves home.

He tried. He failed, somehow. They were up, and then they were down, like a stack of cards blown over, and maybe Ohm had overdone it, maybe he was a bit too drunk, because once he collapsed back down, the haze made it difficult to fathom getting up again. Let's go home, he said again, or maybe he thought it, he really wasn't sure anymore, but he was tired, and he'd fulfilled his duty of getting Chay drunk enough that he wouldn't think, he was sure, unless Chay had a monster of tolerance for no goddamn reason, and—

A fucking demon from Hell. That was the only explanation.

A blur of leather, a solid crunch of what might have been bone breaking, a scream, a growl, and then as quick as it had whirled in, it whirled back out again. With Chay.

Ohm was suddenly not nearly as drunk as he had been seconds ago, because he may have not recognised him the first time, but there was no fucking way that he wouldn't recognise him this second time.

"What the fuck," muttered the phi that had gotten them into the club— P'Something, P'Jay, P'OhRight, P'Ray, breathing heavily, and the one beside him was groaning, face cupped in his hands. There might have been blood. Ohm wasn't paying attention, couldn't afford to, because he was lurching away from the group to run after Chay.

By the time Ohm found Chay, he only caught the indecipherable echo of a snarl bit into the air, the slam of a door, and Chay was crying. No, that wasn't quite the right word. Chay was sobbing, sinking back against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest, shoulders heaving with each swathe of air pulled in and dragged out of his lungs.

God, what the fuck.

Ohm hesitated, one arm half-outstretched. He wasn't sure if Chay had noticed him. What the fuck was that? he wanted to ask. Are you okay? Am I hallucinating? Was that fucking P'Wik? Ohm didn't know what to say. Moon would have known what to say. She always knew what to do, and when she didn't, she had the brazenness to bulldoze past anyways. But Moon wasn't here right now. Ohm was.

"Chay," he called out, quietly, and Chay's head snapped up. His eyes were red and wet and they weren't blank anymore, but Ohm wasn't certain if this was any better, this awful alloy of devastation and anger. "Chay," Ohm said again, approaching. He felt like he was approaching a wild animal. Chay curled away from him like one. It was a wonder he didn't bare his teeth. His eyes fell on Chay's hands. He had grasped one wrist tightly in a palm that looked more like a shackle.

Ohm crouched down, slowly, lowering himself to the ground, level with Chay. He'd never seen Chay like this before. Chay looked at him warily, sniffing. Ohm silently held a hand out. Chay did not move. Ohm pursed his lips, then sighed. He reached forwards, slowly, deliberately, keeping his movements obvious, so Chay could move away, push him away, the moment he felt like it. Chay did not move. Ohm gently tugged Chay's palm away from the wrist, and his hand fell away like snakeskin. Ohm breathed in sharply.

The fingerprints did not match the length of Chay's.

Ohm was— fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck— what would Moon do? Breathe, he thought. Calm down. Moon would be calm. Her expression wouldn't even flicker. She'd always been the calm one, preternaturally so. Ohm needed to figure out the facts.

Here was what Ohm knew:

1. His friend, Chay, met his idol, P'Wik, at an open house a few months ago.

2. Chay asked said idol to become his guitar tutor.

3. After an initial polite refusal, P'Wik called him up to rescind the refusal. Chay's idol become his guitar tutor.

4. Ohm actually hadn't heard much about all of that afterwards. Chay had kept tight-lipped.

5. Earlier today, Chay had asked to change up his look and go out for a drink or more to forget a heartbreak.

6. Ohm just realised he hadn't asked about the interview.

7. P'Wik had crashed their drink-party like a rabid dog from Hell.

8. Ohm hadn't been sober enough to truly know what had happened back there, but he was fairly certain P'Wik had broken that one phi's nose.

9. The way P'Wik had dragged Chay here had been far from gentle, evidently.

Ohm was not feeling any better. Those were P'Wik's marks on Chay's wrist, he was certain. What had been happening when P'Wik barged in? P'Ray had pulled Chay back down, he was half-sure. It had toppled them all down. P'Ray had been sitting very close to Chay. Ohm wasn't sure why. He'd been saying something. Ohm hadn't been paying attention, too confused, too drunk. And then P'Wik was there, eyes blazing, snarling, nothing like any of the countless videos Ohm had made himself watch after that open house. Ohm wouldn't have been entirely shocked if P'Wik had pulled a gun out.

There was a connection there. The too-close phi, the brunt of P'Wik's ire. The way P'Wik had dragged Chay away. Chay hadn't called him P'Wik. It had been another name, but it had definitely been P'Wik, or someone wearing his face.

The too-close phi. P'Wik. Chay. A heartbreak. A not-breakup. God, Ohm had to be misconstruing this. P'Wik hauling Chay away from P'Ray. P'Wik yelling. Chay crying. Ohm wasn't misconstruing this, was he?

Ohm had been silent too long, he knew, had been staring at the marks too long, he knew, but he felt dread crawl through him, sickening. Had Chay…? No. Chay wouldn't— he would know better than to date his idol, or— or something. Ohm didn't want to think of the alternatives. He thought of how P'Wik had frozen on-stage, that first day at the open house, how he had to be elbowed back to life. He thought of P'Wik calling them back. He thought of P'Wik steadying his pen on Chay's shirt, how he wrote his name above Chay's heart. A heartbreak, a not-breakup. Chay had been so cagey about their tutoring sessions. There were fingerprints about Chay's wrist, so close to his pulse-point. Shit.

"Chay," Ohm started, unsteadily, realising belatedly that that was all he had said since finding Chay here. Fuck, he wished Moon were here. What was Ohm supposed to say? Did you date P'Wik? Did you— Ohm couldn't think it. How old was P'Wik? Still in college. Couldn't be that much older, probably. But still. Fuck. Were they still—? The marks on Chay's arm stared up at him. "Are you… are you safe?"

Chay blinked at Ohm. His cheeks were still damp. He was taken aback, Ohm noted, the surprise settling over the devastation and the anger and the— fear?— the rest of it like a blanket. Chay blinked again, and this time his throat spasmed, jaw clenched, and for a moment, Ohm worried he would throw up. Instead, Chay did something worse.

He laughed. It spilled from him easily, manically, like blood, like tears, raw and awful as though it were clawing its way out of his chest, his throat, and he was gasping between it, and he had bowed his head over, and he was laughing, and laughing, and laughing, and his tears were spilling again, and Ohm looked at him with wide eyes. That was not the response of someone who was safe.

"Shit," Ohm cursed to himself, and let his knees hit the floor as he pulled Chay into a hug, tight, feeling every shudder of Chay's breathless, humourless laughter. Chay was shaking. He clawed at Ohm's shirt and hung on, and kept laughing and laughing and laughing until he ran out of air, and even then he kept hiccuping through new bouts. How had Ohm not noticed his friend be driven to the brink like this? How long had Chay been like this? How long had P'Wik been— doing whatever it was he had been doing? Ohm hadn't noticed any new bruises on Chay. He wondered if he simply hadn't been looking hard enough.

That was, of course, when things got somehow, inconceivably, worse.

The door that P'Wik had slammed behind him opened. Ohm tensed, but it wasn't P'Wik that walked in. Ohm had no fucking clue who this was, but he was dressed far too neatly for this setting, impeccable black suit, sharply pressed white shirt, hair combed neatly away from his face, and the only fluidity in his face came from the rippling neon lights of the club. Ohm expected him to pass right by them, not linger by them, two regular boys who had probably just had too much to drink. Ohm had expected him to maybe realise he was in the wrong place and turn back around.

Ohm hadn't been expecting the strange man to come to a stop right before them, bow, and say, "Khun Porchay."

Ohm blinked. He'd heard the strange man wrong. He must have. Khun Porchay? Why the fuck did this strange man even know Chay's name?

Chay sighed into Ohm's shoulder, but did not make any indication of surprise. He also made no attempt to move. His laughs had died down into occasional teary gasps that tore from him like layers of skin.

"Khun Porchay," said the strange man again. He hadn't straightened from that first bow. Ohm was not processing this. Maybe he was still drunk. "I'm to take you home."

"What?" Ohm hadn't fully realised that he'd said that out loud until, well, he had. It bore repeating, Ohm decided. "What?"

Chay just sighed, finally lifting his head from Ohm's shoulder. "Right."

Chay's tone alarmed Ohm. It seemed as though he might actually leave the club with this strange man. Ohm side-eyed Chay. Surely not. "No," Ohm said, loudly. "Not right. Who the hell are you?"

The strange man looked sidelong at Ohm. Ohm glared back. "A friend of Khun Porchay's brother," the man said finally.

Bullshit. Ohm had met Chay's hia. P'Porsche was a goddamn bartender, for fuck's sake, he didn't have fancy friends in suits and hair gel who bowed at Chay and called him khun and—

"It's fine," said Chay, and he was speaking to Ohm. Chay disentangled himself, swiping at his eyes, for all the good that did. "I'm fine. Don't worry."

"What?" Ohm repeated, but Chay was already gone, swallowed by the door, crowded out by a strange man in a suit, as though that was just— just normal for him. That was not one of P'Porsche's friends. Ohm was certain of it.

So here was what Ohm knew:

1. Chay's heart got broken. Not a break-up.

2. P'Wik interfered in the club for no good damn reason.

3. P'Wik's interference was not gentle.

4. Chay did not go with P'Wik.

5. A strange man in a suit called Chay Khun Porchay and took him home. Chay did not protest in the least.

Ohm did not like how this was looking, not one fucking bit. There was something off about this P'Wik business.

Ohm left the club without checking back. He was never getting back into this club, or that phi's good graces, but that was all fine, that was secondary, it didn't even fucking matter.

What mattered was that Ohm needed to know if Chay got home.

Ohm knew the way to Chay's house as well as he knew the path to his own. It was a bit of a trek, and it was dark, but Ohm knew these streets like the back of his hand— better, even. Besides, with a suit like that, there was no goddamn way that the strange man didn't have a car. Chay was getting driven home, Ohm was sure, which meant that Chay should definitely be home by the time that Ohm would reach. Chay would be home and Ohm would pass by and Ohm would shake his head and laugh because he was being silly and this was not what it looked like, at all.

Ohm reached Chay's home. The gate was ajar.

Maybe he just got home, Ohm thought to himself. There were no lights on in the house. Chay did not leave the gate ajar, ever. He was too careful. Ohm pushed through, let himself onto the path that led into Chay's house. It was a beautiful place in daytime, soft grass rippling in dappled sunlight, the walls gilded creme, the straight lines of the building elegantly striking. By night, the grass was tinted grey-blue, the slant of the roof casting uneven shadows that danced with moonlight, the creme of the walls sapped of life, desaturated. It looked haunted. Ohm shivered. This was stupid. This was Chay's house. Chay's house wasn't haunted. Ohm should have rang the bell.

Too late for that now, Ohm reasoned. He made his way to the sliding door— window, really— and peered in. No sign of life. Still. Ohm hesitated. This wasn't the kind of thing he did. He didn't break and enter his friend's houses.

Was it really and breaking and entering if it was open?

No, no, that was bad logic. Bad reasoning. Ohm shouldn't be here. Ohm… needed to know that Chay was okay. He knocked on the glass. Nothing. Ohm should turn back. Ohm knew he should turn back.

Ohm slid the door open and stepped in. Not a single rustle, not a single noise beyond Ohm's own breathing and thunderously nervous heart. "Chay?" Ohm called out, and the walls echoed the name back to him. Ohm shuddered. Even if Chay and the strange man hadn't gotten a car— incomprehensible as that thought seemed— they should have arrived by now. Ohm had set off a good few minutes after them, was drunker than Chay had been, and he'd been in the house for a fair while now. Ohm went deeper into the house, heart beating— this was wrong, wrong, wrong, he should just call Chay, Chay was probably still on his way— as he made his way up the stairs the way he had a million times before, stopping in front of Chay's room the way he had a million times before. The door was unlocked, the handle turning smoothly in his hand. The door swung open out into the dim room, the windows letting the dregs of moonlight spill inside. It didn't do much by way of illumination.

Ohm didn't need much light, anyways. He sucked in a quick breath. Felt his hand tighten around his phone. Ohm pressed the flat of his tongue to the roof of his mouth and made a decision. He called Chay.

Chay didn't take too long to pick up. "Hi," he said, sounding significantly more tired than he had that afternoon, the edge of rebellion giving way to something quiet and hurt.

"Chay," Ohm greeted, worked his jaw. He breathed out. "Did you get home safe?"

"Oh," Chay said, as though that wasn't the question he was expecting. "Um. Yeah. I'm in my room now. Everything's fine."

Ohm squeezed his eyes shut. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "That's good," he said, standing in Chay's empty room. "Was just worried. I've… never met that friend of your hia's before. He was… a far cry from P'Jom." That was putting it mildly.

"Ah," Chay laughed somewhat nervously— nothing like the deranged peals from earlier, a simple, short huff. "Uh, yeah, hia's been, um, branching out. He's made quite a few… new friends."

"Right," said Ohm.

Chay spoke up again. "Hey, Ohm, I'm… sorry. About earlier. All of it."

Ohm nodded even though Chay couldn't see him. He swallowed. "It's okay. Is there… anything you wanna tell me?"

Chay was silent for a long time. Ohm would have been tempted to check if the line had gone dead if he hadn't been able to hear the soft, arrhythmic sounds of Chay's breathing. Chay sniffled. "Another time, maybe," Chay suggested.

"Okay," Ohm agreed. "Another time."

When Ohm let his hand fall away from his ear, he stared ahead blankly.

Here was what Ohm knew:

1. P'Wik became Chay's guitar tutor a while ago.

2. Chay turned up today with a broken heart, wanting to change his look and get trashed somewhere.

3. P'Wik turned up. P'Wik was not happy. To put it lightly.

4. Chay refused to leave with P'Wik.

5. A man in a suit (claiming, obviously falsely, to be P'Porsche's friend) came to collect Chay instead.

6. Chay said he was home. Chay was not home.

7. Chay had torn his Wik shrine apart.

Ohm stared at the limp fairy-lights, the empty space of wall where the photos used to be, the too-empty desk in the absence of trinkets and merch, the signed shirt discarded on the floor as though Chay had simply hurled it and left it there.

Fuck. There was something very wrong.

And Ohm definitely did not know Chay as well as he had thought he did.