Archive of Our Own

It wasn't until almost a month later that Ohm saw Chay again.

Chay hadn't been coming to school, simply stopped one day. Ohm had been getting a lot of questions. People knew better than to try Moon. Ohm started sticking even closer to Moon than before to avoid the questions. He didn't fucking know where Chay was. He wished he did.

His only indication that he was still alive was the semi-regular stream of texts and the occasional call. A family situation, Chay said, and that was all he would say about his absence, though sometimes he would swap out situation for complication.

Moon smiled as she saw Ohm approach. Her roots had started growing out dark over the streaks of platinum blonde she'd had him do. "Chay's not here yet," she offered in lieu of a greeting, as though Ohm couldn't see that. She waved her phone, open on their group chat. "Five minutes, he says."

"Mm," Ohm said. He checked his phone. He'd been checking it somewhat frantically on the way here. It had been a while since either of them had last seen Chay, and he was beginning to get antsy about it. Chay had yet to return to his parents' home, as far as Ohm could tell. He simply did not live there anymore, it seemed. Ohm had no idea where he was. He was trying not to think too much about the bruise about Chay's wrist from when P'Wik had grabbed him. When Ohm looked back up, Moon was studying him with a single raised eyebrow.

"Hm," she said, tilting her head. She reminded him, momentarily, unsettlingly of a hawk, claws out. "Do you know something about Chay's… situation?"

Yes. No. "Nothing more than you," Ohm settled on. It wasn't untrue. Having a strong inkling that P'Wik was— involved, somehow, was not the same as knowing.

Moon did not look like she believed him, but she let it go, maybe because that was the exact moment Chay chose to show up. Moon's eyes slid past Ohm like water to settle on Chay instead. "Hey, stranger," she called out, offering a small wave with three fingers.

Chay's smile was just on the side of forced as he walked towards them, tension in the line of his shoulders, but it seemed thaw as he entered their little circle— or, well, triangle— of proximity. "Hey," he said, holding his arms out for a hug. Ohm didn't hesitate, clasping him tight, maybe too tight, but Chay didn't complain. Moon was slow to follow, but she managed a solid few seconds of holding and being held before she had to pat them on the back to release her. Ohm was trying very hard not to think of the bruise. Chay was back to his usual flannels. Long-sleeved. Ohm bit down on the inside of his cheek. It didn't mean anything. It didn't. Chay cleared his throat. "So, uh, it's been a while."

Moon scoffed. "Yeah. A while. Not like you just disappeared for a month and a half."

Chay laughed awkwardly, picking at one of his sleeves, but not enough to let it ride up to his wrist. Ohm was going to be sick with the uncertainty. "Ahaha, yeah, um." Chay did jazz hands. "I might be coming back to school soon. Maybe."

"Maybe," Moon echoed, not sounding impressed.

"There's a lot to catch up on," Chay said, as though that was an explanation.

"And we'll help you with that," Ohm promised quickly, casting Moon a sideways look. She rolled her eyes.

"Obviously," she agreed. "But if you're coming back, you should do it soon. If you want to, you know, pass the finals." She looked at Chay for a moment, head tilting again. "And… any clue what you're doing after?"

It seemed an almost stupid question to ask. She'd been there, after all, at Ananthamekha University's open house. Granted, she'd run off to the Faculty of Psychology, having wanted to check out their Sports Psychology course, so she hadn't been there for the whole P'Wik debacle, but she'd taken one look at Chay's giddy face and the autograph on his shirt and whistled. Damn, she'd said. P'Wik was actually there? Ohm had wondered why the fuck he had no recollection of the man. Then again, he'd never had the best memory.

She was fishing, Ohm realised. She'd not heard anything about Chay's second interview either, then.

Chay winced, fiddling with his sleeve some more. "Ah… not quite." Chay seemed to take in a fortifying breath. "I… didn't go to the interview."

Moon's eyebrows raised. Ohm should have felt more surprised. He only felt the sinking of a stone, dense and heavy, into the pit of his stomach. "Oh," Ohm managed. "Well." He tried to think of a gentle or kind way to ask.

Moon didn't bother with any such niceties. "Cool. Why?"

Chay shrugged, not meeting either of their eyes. "I guess I just… needed to reorder my priorities. Figure out what I really want."

Moon nodded, took it in a stride, saying, "Good luck, then. Shall we?"

She tilted her head, a clear indication to follow, and Chay and Ohm were drawn easily into her orbit, easily as they always had been. Moon was easy to follow, with her unfailing confidence and the assured way she picked out her path, weaving through crowds like a finely-tipped needle. It wasn't quite that the crowds parted for her; she simply slid through its cracks so seamlessly that it was difficult to shake the illusion.

A good thing, too, that Moon was taking the lead, because Ohm was still stuck on Chay's words; reordering priorities. Ohm remembered what Chay had said about Ananthamekha— that P'Wik was the reason he wanted to apply. Had that changed? Was that what he meant? Or was it music itself? The latter was hard to believe. Ohm couldn't imagine a Chay that wasn't perpetually caught in a melody, whether that be a soft hum or a drum of his fingers or a bounce of his knee.

Moon wanted to drag them to a nearby bookstore, her eyes set on a new release by an author Ohm had never heard of but Chay seemed to recognise, and there was something comforting in the familiar noise of their chatter, the winding cadence of Chay's voice and the even spill of Moon's, even as Ohm was only half-following the conversation.

"Is that medical malpractice or horror?" Chay asked at some point, peering over Moon's shoulder curiously.

"If I'm lucky, both," Moon answered without hesitation.

Ohm turned a book in his palms. It was an English book, and it wasn't translated, so there was no way in hell that he was going to try his hand at it, but the weight of it was nice in his hands, and it had a pretty cover, almost violently colourful. Ohm had always preferred paperbacks to hardbacks. He liked how the cover curled with the pages to mold into the shape of his hands.

Someone tapped on his shoulder. Ohm startled, nearly dropping the book. Moon gave him a vaguely amused look, then spared a glance for the book in his hands. "Didn't know you were into historical fiction."

Ohm smiled sheepishly at her. "Just thought the cover was pretty." Moon rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling, so Ohm was fairly certain it was meant to be fond. "I'm not getting it." He was about to put it back onto the shelf when he paused. "You've read it?"

Moon hummed in the affirmative. "Not in English, though."

Ohm wouldn't have been entirely surprised if she had read it in English. She was good at it, better than not just Chay and Ohm, but the vast majority of their classmates, almost toe-to-toe with Macau Theerapanyakul, though Ohm always suspected Macau had some fancy tutors helping him out. He certainly had the money for it. "What's it about?"

"Ah." Moon looked up as though to search for a summary in the watermarks of the ceiling. "An Italian Duke that kills his wives." Ohm blinked. "It's from one of the wives' perspective. She realises he's going to kill her and tries to escape. " Moon tapped on the book cover. "She survives in the book. She didn't in real life."

"Oh," said Ohm, and he realised his hand was trembling slightly as he put the book back. Moon noticed. There was very little that she didn't. She didn't say anything.

"Are you getting something?" Ohm nearly startled out of his skin again, this time to Chay's voice. "Woah. You okay?"

Ohm laughed it off. He should be asking Chay that. "I'm fine," he promised. "Just… jumpy. Didn't sleep well last night." It wasn't entirely a lie. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "You guys done?"

Moon dangled her little bag in Ohm's face. "Yep, we're good to go. You?"

Ohm nodded. "Lead the way."

Their next stop was more of a novelty than the bookshop had been: a newly opened bubble tea— boba, Moon insisted— place round the corner of their usual haunts, tucked in between a noodle shop and a quaint little place that promised 100% authentic Italian pizza. The claim was somewhat dubious, but their pizza was quite good.

New boba tea place was perhaps not entirely accurate, though it was essentially true; it used to just be a regular café until it got sold off a couple months ago, and the new owners had taken pains to reanimate it as bubblier— ha— than ever, with bright pops of colour that stood out starkly in the otherwise fairly dingy street. They'd kept the previous menu but added to its range, notably of teas but also of desserts and coffee syrups, of all things. Ohm was not ashamed to admit that he was wildly curious to taste the toasted marshmallow syrup. He was sure he could convince the others to come back for some esoteric coffee tasting at some point.

For today, Ohm sat with a clear cup of brown sugar boba, peering at the soft brown of the milk tea, the golden-brown of the sugar running down the sides, the dark mass gathered at the bottom of the cup. He stirred. Chay had opted for the pale green matcha flavour, and he was watching it with part-curiosity, part-apprehension. Moon had no such reservations with her taro milk tea, taking an immediate sip with a considering hum. She seemed pleased.

"I hope this doesn't just taste like grass," Chay commented lightly.

"Isn't that what tea always tastes like?" Moon asked, taking another sip.

Chay threw her an affronted look, but the twinge of a smile at his mouth gave him away. "Excuse you. Tea is leaf, not grass."

"Grass is leaf," Moon stated, as though to book no room for argument. Chay disagreed.

Ohm drank his tea. It was sweet, somewhere between creamy and silken, and when he caught a tapioca pearl, syrup melted onto his tongue. It was chewy. "It's good," Ohm decreed, then raised an eyebrow at Chay. "Well. Mine is."

Chay rolled his eyes good-naturedly, and finally drank his tea. He didn't look displeased. He snuck in another sip. Definitely not displeased. "That's better than I thought it would be."

Moon nudged him. "Certainly better than cheap beer, eh?"

Chay winced, chancing a glance at Ohm. "Ah. You heard about that, huh."

Ohm finished chewing on his tapioca pearls to say, "Hey, I'll have you know it was cheap whisky, thank you very much."

Moon snorted. "Is there really that much of a difference?"

"Yes. Beer is disgusting."

"Honestly, the whisky was, too," Chay admitted wryly, twisting his cup of matcha between his palms. "And it burned."

"I think they all do," Moon said somewhat pensively. Ohm shot her a warning look, and he wasn't looking but he was certain Chay did the same, which she waved off. Moon's head tilted. "Hm," she said, seemingly out of nowhere.

Chay raised an eyebrow. "Something the matter?"

"Not yet," Moon answered, standing up abruptly— so abruptly, in fact, that Ohm nearly startled again, and thrice in a day was surely a record for him. "Come with me?" she said like it was a request, but she was already speeding off, leaving Chay and Ohm to scramble after her.

"Where are we going?" Ohm asked, boba clutched tighter than necessary in both hands. He took another calming sip.

Moon didn't answer, simply leading them into a moderately-sized clothes shop a couple streets over, still sipping leisurely at her drink.

"What are we doing here?" Chay asked curiously. Ohm wondered if they would be let in with their drinks, but nobody stopped them.

"I like their mirrors," Moon said, as though that were an answer. Ohm had never known Moon to be vain— well. Not particularly vain. Not walk-into-a-shop-just-for-the-mirrors vain. "They're so nice and big. See?" She stopped in front of a floor-length mirror, twisting this way and that. Maybe she was that vain. It was difficult to tell with Moon, sometimes.

Chay didn't seem to buy it. "Is that all?"

Moon gave him a sideways glance. "What else would there be?" She seemed to brighten, then shoved her drink into Chay's hands. "Hold this," she ordered, then ran over to a rack of clothes and pulled something out. She returned to the mirror, holding the top— no sleeves, in lavender denim with a series of dark buttons running up the front— and grinned. "It matches the drink, don't you think?"

Chay looked vaguely amused. "It does," he had to admit. It did. "Are you getting it?"

"Hm," Moon seemed to consider, but she was already putting the shirt back. "Later, maybe."

"So long as you remember to actually buy it," Ohm said drily, and Moon made a dismissive flick.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, hanging it up. "Let's go."

She took her drink back from Chay and led them out of the store. "Hey," she said, "mind if we take a trip to the bookshop again?"

Ohm's eyebrows drew together. She was scheming, or. Something of the like. Ohm could feel it in his bones, he just couldn't prove it, so he let her drag them to the bookshop again, where he finally finished his tea, where Moon pointed out books she'd read with a brief summary and review, where Chay picked out a couple more books to buy, and then they were herded back into the clothing shop, and Chay offered to buy Moon the top from earlier, to which Moon raised her eyebrows and laughed.

"Since when do you have the cash to spare?" she asked teasingly.

Chay chewed on the last of tapioca pearls, taking his sweet time, before he said, "I got a part-time job."

"Oh," Moon said, blinking. She looked to Ohm. Ohm was just as bewildered. He knew nothing of a part-time job. He scrutinised Chay. He wondered if he was lying. It unsettled him, that he couldn't tell. "Really? Why didn't you tell us?"

Chay shrugged. "It's nothing much. Really, it's just paid housework."

"Well," Moon mirrored his shrug. "Spend your hard-earned money on yourself."

Chay waved her off. "Spending on my friends is spending on myself. Trust me, I can afford to." He turned to Ohm. "Do you want anything?"

Ohm managed to stutter out a No, thanks, I'm good, or something approximate, before Chay swiped the shirt from the rack and took it to the till. "Okay," Ohm said when he was gone. "That was weird, right?"

"Interesting," Moon agreed, or maybe she countered. "What kind of housework is he doing to say things like that? Trust me, I can afford to?"

"First paycheck, maybe?" Ohm offered, not fully believing it. He was trying very hard not to think of how Chay might have suddenly come across a larger wallet. He was trying very, very hard not to think of strange men in suits, and even harder not to think of familiar ones in leather.

Moon hummed in a way that made it clear she didn't believe it either, then smiled and thanked Chay when he came bearing the shirt in a plastic bag.

"No problem," Chay promised, handing it off to her.

Moon's next stop was the boba place, again, but this time she ordered a strawberry cheesecake and settled happily with it for a bit. Ohm dithered for a bit, then caved and got a coffee with the toasted marshmallow syrup. It was sweeter than the boba, and thicker.

Ohm eyed Moon. "Where are you taking us next?"

Moon smiled sweet as frosting. "Back to the bookshop."

Chay cocked his head. "Popular with you today," he commented lightly, but didn't protest.

Bookshop. Clothes store. Bookshop again. Boba place. Clothes store. Boba place. Bookshop. Clothes store. Bookshop. Clothes store.

On their— how many times had it been? Four? Five?— next trip to the boba place, Moon got a plate of nachos that she shared with Ohm and Chay.

"So," Chay began, crossing his arms on top of the table, leaning in. "You know I adore you, Moon, but is there a reason why we've been to this café five separate times today?"

Moon mirrored his pose. "Depends," she said, voice low, almost a whisper, and she was looking from Ohm to Chay with narrowed eyes, as though one of them were hiding a secret from her and she couldn't quite decide which one. "Is there a reason someone should be following us around all day?"

Ohm tensed, eyes darting around the room. He hadn't noticed any men in suits, though he supposed successful stalking couldn't be that obvious. A worse thought struck him. What if P'Wik was here? Ohm didn't dare turn around to look. He didn't want to risk being caught noticing.

"Huh," said Moon, and she was honed in on Chay now, and Ohm followed her gaze, to the rigidness that had taken ahold of Chay, the clasp of his palms on the table, the freeze of his smile. "There were three of them, but one of them's been suspiciously missing since I made eye-contact in a mirror. The other two are still shadowing us." She loomed even closer. "Is there a reason why one of them has rising pop sensation written all over him?"

Oh, fuck. P'Wik was here.

Ohm did not know what his reaction was, but he must have had one, because Moon was on him like she'd scented blood, her eyes cutting to him so rapidly Ohm felt sick. "Huh," she said again. "You know about this, too?"

Ohm grimaced. "Ah… not. Really. No."

Moon didn't look like she believed him. She shifted her attention back to Chay nevertheless. "Well, Chay? You know I don't like strange men following me about."

Moon had been stalked, once. Ohm only ever met the guy with his jaw wired shut. Ohm had known better than to ask if he could still walk. But something told Ohm this— these people— they weren't the kind of thing even Moon could go up against. Should go up against. He did not know how to communicate that. He ate a nacho instead.

Chay's hands tightened. "No, Moon, it's—" he fidgeted, grasping at straws— "the. The guys. Not— not him. They're just my hia's friends. Hia's been very protective lately."

Moon's laugh was not unkind, but it wasn't kind, either. "P'Porsche's friends have changed a lot since I last met them," she noted drily, not looking away from Chay. She did not look convinced, not in the least. Ohm definitely was not.

"He's… made quite a few new ones," Chay said carefully.

Moon raised a dubious eyebrow but did not labour the point. "And the popstar?"

Chay's jaw flexed. Ohm held his breath. "You know P'Ki— P'Wik was my guitar tutor," Chay said, drumming his fingers on the table. Knee bouncing.

"Sorry," Moon deadpanned. "Guitar tutor to stalker is not a pipeline I'm familiar with."

Chay swallowed. He was staring at his hands. They drummed a frantic, anxious tune. "It's… complicated." He did not argue the stalking point. Ohm could feel his heart burn with the intensity of its beats. P'Wik was stalking Chay. Stalking. Chay was being stalked by P'Wik. His fucking idol. It sounded like a terrible, terrible YA romance novel plot. Ex-idol, Ohm considered, thinking of the tattered cobwebs of the fairy-lights in Chay's room. Or— he thought of the club, of lights too bright, of the crunch of bone, of snarled out words— his ex, full stop?

Moon made a little inviting gesture with her palms. "Enlighten me."

"I…" Chay made a hopeless little move with his fingers, let them fall flat and dead on the table. "It's complicated."

Moon turned the full brunt of her attention— fuck, this felt suddenly like an interrogation— on Ohm. "You seemed like you knew something."

"I don't," Ohm said immediately, and when Moon only cast him a sceptical look, he said it again, with emphasis. "I don't." Moon's sceptical look did not abate. Ohm glanced helpless at Chay, who made a vague spinning motion with his hand, and Ohm sighed. "The night we went to the club, he… showed up." A generous way of describing the events. "I don't know why."

"P'Ray tried to give me something," Chay said. "He didn't like that. Or. I don't know."

"Something?" Ohm echoed, turning on Chay with furrowed brows.

Chay made another vague gesture. "Drugs. Something. He just called it the good stuff."

"Drugs?" Ohm echoed in a hiss, because he was a cave now, apparently, or Chay's old home, a huge empty space that simply echoed back what was spoken at it. Oh, Ohm thought. Oh. The anger made. Slightly more sense. Even if it was definitely still over-the-top. Maybe they weren't weird exes. It still didn't explain the guy in the suit. Maybe they were weird exes. Or. Something. P'Wik was stalking Chay. Fuck.

Moon held a palm up to restore peace. Somehow, it worked. "So what you're tell me is, he's, what, a little guardian angel of a stalker?"

Ohm thought of leather and bones and teeth bared like a rabid dog and scoffed. "There was nothing angelic about him."

Chay, if anything, looked mildly disturbed. More than mildly. "I don't know. I don't know what he's doing."

"Okay," Moon nodded, and her voice dropped even quieter, and Ohm had to lean half-across the table to catch her words. "How about we find out?"

Ohm's head snapped towards Moon with break-neck speed. He probably pulled something. He didn't care. "No," he said, and it was too loud, he knew. He cleared his throat. Lowered his voice down to the whisper they'd adopted for normal. "Moon, no, this guy, he's—" insane. Ohm clamped his jaw shut on the word. There wasn't a better descriptor for it, but saying it out loud would make it too real.

"Ohm," Chay said, and his palm was on Ohm's forearm.

"No," Ohm said again, but he managed not to raise his voice. "Chay, no. I was there. We're not playing games with that"— maniac—"with him."

Chay's stare was steady, unfaltering, but Ohm could hear the forced calm of his breaths, the artificially even spaces between, could feel the tensing of his fingers. "Ohm," he said again. "It's not… it's a test, really, more than a game."

"Show me your wrist," Ohm demanded and, from the corner of his eye, saw Moon's eyebrows furrow across the table.

Chay's face clouded with confusion for a good few seconds before it cleared up again with realisation. "Oh," he said, and he did roll the sleeve up enough to bare his unmarked wrist, but he followed it up with, "That healed in, like, a day. Hours, even. It wasn't— it wasn't anything, really, he just—" Chay shrugged, and he was back to hopeless little hand gestures— "I don't think he meant to do that. He was just— angry."

"Chay," Moon interrupted, her frown having only deepened. "I really hope you know just how many red flags that just threw up." Moon pursed her lips. She ate a nacho. "Maybe Ohm's right. Maybe we shouldn't."

"No," and this time it was Chay who said it, quiet but fierce enough that it might as well have been a yell. "It was hardly even a bruise. He just gripped my wrist too hard when— taking me away. That's it. He's never hurt me— like that. Physically." Moon did not, thank fuck, look inclined to change her mind. Chay let out a frustrated breath. "I can't just— I can't let him control my whole life," Chay added and Moon shifted. Ohm groaned.

"Chay, he's unhinged. He broke someone's nose that night. P'Ray is pissed, but he's too terrified to do anything. Do you know how hard it is to scare P'Ray? His dad's a cop."

Chay's laugh almost made the threshold for a scoff. It certainly was bitter enough. "I don't think cops are an issue for P'Kim."

"Chay, that's a terrifying thing to say about a guy who is actively stalking you."

"Kim?" said Moon, ever the attentive one. "Is that his name? Off-stage?"

Chay pressed his lips together. "Yes."

Moon was studying Chay again, with that razor edge to her gaze that sent a cold chill across Ohm. "You must be close, then. Or you had been."

Chay didn't wince, but it was a near thing. "Ah… not really."

"Has he done anything else?"

Chay's hesitation was long enough to turn his eventual, "No," into a well-resounding Yes. Moon caught onto the lie, of course, held it between her teeth, but did not bite down to break it.

"And you're sure you want to do this?"

"What—" Ohm sat up straighter. "No. No. I thought we established why we're absolutely not doing this."

"Yes," Chay said, completely ignoring Ohm, the only goddamn voice of reason, apparently. "I can't live like this," he said, turning to Ohm, eyes wide and soft and, ah, those were his puppy-dog eyes. "Ohm. I can't do this anymore."

Ohm closed his eyes against the assault. It was too late. Chay looked miserable. Ohm breathed in. Tried to say, Go to the goddamn police then, but then he remembered what Chay had said about cops and he let out the breath in a defeated exhale. He tried, one last, futile time. "Chay, are you— are you sure this is"—safe—"a good idea?"

"No," Chay admitted. "But I want to do it anyways."

Moon clapped her hands like a decision. "Okay," she said. "Let's go to a club."

Ohm stared at Moon, disbelieving. He shared a glance with Chay. Hesitation had finally truly made itself known on his features.

"Moon," Ohm said, cautiously, trying his very best to turn his voice so it didn't tumble out like a patronising parent. "Are you… sure that's a good idea?"

Moon met his eyes. She let a smile curl her lips. "Aw, what, so you get to take him out drinking but I can't?" Her voice was significantly louder. Normal volume, really, but audible to anyone who cared to listen in. "Possessive much? You're invited, too, you know."

"Moon," he said again, hoping she would cut her dense act short and fucking answer him.

She made a short, abortive gesture with her fingers. "I'll be fine. I have self-restraint." It was Ohm's turn to look unconvinced. Chay was doing the same, no doubt, because her eyes flicked between them before she tossed her hands up in frustration. "I mean it. I'll keep myself occupied. This isn't for me."

Chay sighed, holding both hands up to his face, pressed together, so he could rest his forehead on his thumbs. "Okay. Fine. Fine. But I'm choosing the club."

Whatever Ohm had been expecting, it was not this.

This was not the likes of the shady little thing P'Ray had smuggled them into, had claimed to own, not the worn down walls with peeling paint and pink and blue melding into a purple too harshly bright against the dark of the night, not the underpaid bouncers half-heartedly glancing over IDs that Ohm was used to, not the echo of crackling music burning through the ground and walls not thick enough to hold it in. This was fucking fancy.

This was walls the colour of dark velvet, lined crimson, fucking weapon checks, a deafening but smooth boom of music that greeted them like a gust of wind as Chay led them in deep, the ceiling a void caged in by streams of glowing red light that caught in snatches on the floor below, the bar an island settled in the middle with a clockwork of pristinely uniformed bartenders working tirelessly, the only place truly lit with enough of a glow— unintrusively rosy— to make out more than just the outlines of someone's face. The bar top was black— obsidian, Ohm's mind provided helpfully, dumbly— and smooth, so very smooth, and cold, when Ohm put his hands, gingerly on it. It wasn't entirely black, Ohm realised. There were minuscule winks of red— or perhaps silver turned red in the burn of the overhead lights— that glittered across. Ohm had never thought a bar top could be elegant before.

"Khun—" the bartender visibly bit down on their next word, bit and chewed and swallowed it. They started again. "Khun luk kha," they greeted. "Can I get you anything?"

Chay flashed a dazzling smile at the bartender. "Just a soda, please."

"Chay, that's—" Moon huffed, shaking her head, but it was fond. "That's unnecessary. You can get an actual drink. I suggested this, remember?"

Chay waved her off. "I think dessert wines and, like, piña coladas are going to be my limit. Wasn't exactly a fan last time."

"Yeah, 'cause that was cheap whiskey."

"I was doing the best I could, okay?" Ohm said mildly in his defence. The bartender turned towards him with a polite bow of their head and a khun luk kha, letting Moon and Chay argue their fill. "Another soda, please."

"Ohm, not you, too."

"Just let us do this," Chay said. It sounded less like a request than Ohm suspected Chay was aiming for. "Won't be able to focus if I'm too worried about being a bad friend."

The bartender looked between them. "Three sodas?"

Moon sighed in defeat. "Three sodas," she confirmed and the bartender set to work, putting down three chilled bottles of soda before them.

"And will you be needing a booth?" the bartender asked.

Ohm frowned. Looked out at the floor. It was dense enough, dark enough, that he probably wouldn't have been able to tell if there were tables scattered about, but he could have sworn there weren't any.

Chay shook his head. "No, thank you," he replied, the bartender nodding and moving on to the next customers, just as Moon hopped herself up onto a stool to crane her neck over the writhing mass of the crowd.

Moon's eyes widened. "Chay, where the fuck is this?"

Chay laughed softly, and Ohm followed Moon, boosting himself up high enough to look over the crowd and— oh. There were booths sectioned off from the main floor. The main floor in and of itself was a giant fucking python of people, limbs and heads and tails melding into a slithering, shining mass slathered sanguine, and Ohm was getting dizzy just looking at it. There were small hollows in the walls, visible only for the darkened corners they led out into, and though the spritzes of green above probably meant they led out into emergency exits, Ohm could bet that was not what most of them were being used for.

"Only hia-approved place in town," Chay answered with a shrug.

"Is this his fancy new job?" Ohm asked.

Chay's mouth did a complicated twist. One corner bundled up like a wry smile. "Not tonight."

Whether that supposed to mean multiple jobs, or no shifts tonight, Ohm didn't get a chance to ask Chay to elaborate, because before he could, a complete stranger walked up to them, leaning his elbows conspiratorially on the bar top.

"Hey," said the stranger, a passing polite glance and nod to Ohm and Moon before he settled more soundly on Chay, smiling wider with a tilt of his head. "I'm Mike."

Chay gave him an amused once-over, bringing the lip of his soda bottle to his mouth. He let the name hang between them. Mike showed no signs of deflation by the delay. "Hello, P'Mike," Chay greeted after a pause. "I'm Chay."

Mike's smile, if possible, widened. He was good-looking enough, Ohm supposed, clean, sharp lines, a softening about the swell of his cheeks, his ears dotted with what Ohm was almost certain was silver bathed red, clad in a dark jacket of— ah. Leather. Ohm shifted uncomfortably. "N'Chay. Can I buy you a drink?"

"Ah," Chay turned to Moon and Ohm, his expression caught between that initial amusement and a reluctant reluctance. "Well. I'm not sure if—"

"Chay," Moon interrupted, looking at him semi-seriously, a smile on her face. "Have fun. Seriously. Please." Chay opened his mouth to say something, but Moon shook her head. "No. Get a drink with a cute boy. Dance."

Leather misgivings aside, Ohm added, "We'll be there to nurse your hangover. Enjoy your night, would you?" I'll keep an eye on Moon, he didn't have to say.

Chay sighed, but he was smiling. "Fine. Okay."

"Drink with a cute boy?" Mike asked, managing to sound sweet rather than conceited. "Please, N'Chay?"

Ohm lost track of them soon after. To Mike's credit, he had stayed by them, at the bar, for a sizeable amount of time. He'd eyed their uniform sodas silently until curiosity evidently overtook him, and, casually enough, he'd asked, Easing yourselves into the night? Chay had chuckled awkwardly. Not quite. Moon doesn't drink, which wasn't entirely a lie, but it was enough to make Mike's eyebrows rise. Strange place to come, then. Moon had laughed, waving him off. It's Chay's big night. Couldn't stay inside for this. Our boy's freshly freed from an asshole boyfriend. Cheers to break-ups. Ohm and Chay had choked simultaneously, but Mike had taken it in a stride. Is that how it is? I don't mind being a rebound, he'd said, and Chay had spluttered something unintelligible, but the awkwardness had passed, and they'd moved on to easier topics, until Mike had convinced Chay to drift off with him into the maw of the dance floor, and Ohm had settled back beside Moon.

Moon's focus was tight on a particular point in the middle of the floor, following the curve of its path with rapt attention, and Ohm didn't need to ask to know she was somehow still keeping track of Chay and Mike.

"P'Wik's got a liking for leather," Ohm mentioned conversationally. "Does it count as a type if they're the ones approaching him?"

"P'Wik's got an obsession with leather," Moon corrected drily. "And wasn't Chay the one to approach P'Wik? Call it a strange coincidence, maybe."

"Well, P'Wik did call him," Ohm reasoned. "Speaking of. You seen him tonight?"

"Mm," Moon said, and Ohm's head whipped to her. He shouldn't have been surprised, and yet. He could feel his blood pressure rising in real time. "He's got as close an eye on Chay as I do. Closer, even."

Ohm would ask where he was, but then he was fairly certain he would have a heart attack and die and that would completely ruin the night, so he just nodded instead. Fine, fine. That was fine. Cool. Okay.

Ohm was saved from further spiralling by a girl sidling up to Moon. "Hey. Are you two together?"

Ohm was so surprised by the question he almost laughed out loud. Moon was not so restrained, letting a grin split her mouth, a small huff of laughter bursting through.

"No," Ohm reassured once it seemed clear Moon was just going to leave the poor girl on the precipice.

"That's good," said the girl with a smile. She turned back to Moon. "Hi. I'm Lalin."

"Moon."

Lalin leaned forwards. She was pretty, dangling earrings and a gauzy cropped shirt that Ohm thought was blue— it was hard to tell, really, in the glare of the lights— draped over her like a cloud. "P'Moon. Mind if I steal you away?"

"I'd love to be stolen, babe," Moon said, "but I'm afraid I'm the sensible friend tonight."

Lalin pouted slightly, but, admirably, maybe, didn't give up. "Just one drink, then?"

Moon's smile froze, and Ohm watched the way her eyes flicked to Ohm before they settled back, an apology written in them. Ohm suspected the regret wasn't for Lalin.

Moon had only ever gotten drunk, truly drunk, once. It had been the day after her fifteenth birthday.

She'd asked Ohm and Chay to keep watch. They'd obliged. They'd ended up having to wrench her off some guy in an alley, her knuckles bloodied with blood that was not her own. Her skin had only just been raw, not even split. She'd been silent, calm and unresisting, when Ohm and Chay had pulled her off, each holding onto one arm. Chay's place, they'd agreed tacitly. P'Porsche had a late shift, and those tended to run later than was on paper.

I know that was wrong. I'd just wanted to know what it was like, Moon had said, by explanation, though Ohm suspected it had come more as a reaction to the naked horror on his face than any real need to defend or explain herself.

Well, Chay had said with a wry grin, and Ohm still had no clue if he'd truly been less affected than Ohm or if he was simply better at hiding it, the catcalling asshole kinda had it coming.

Moon had looked him in the eye, and Ohm remembered thinking that he'd never seen Moon so at peace, so settled within herself. That's not why I did it, Moon had said, easily. Not really. Ohm would have left it there. Ohm would have let the silence between them speak louder than any words they could have said. Chay had always been braver than Ohm.

Okay. Explain it to me, then.

Moon had shrugged, leaning back against the couch with a sigh. I wanted to feel. And right now, I'm just so… free. They had waited her out. They knew it had to come from her, knew that otherwise she would push back snarling, claws out. I can't do that again, Moon said finally. Guess drinking's a no for me.

Here, now, Ohm was sure Moon would have agreed to the drink had Ohm not been there. "I'm driving," Moon lied, and she glanced back out at the dance floor and— "Oh, shit. Fuck."

Moon grabbed Ohm by the elbow, leaving poor Lalin at the bar to stare after them with a startled noise, and she was weaving through the crowd at record speed, Ohm stumbling over his own feet and those of some other people's to keep up, a clumsiness not aided by the frantic panic that he could feel bubbling in his chest, choking off his airways. He knew what this rush meant.

Moon barrelled them through one of the little hollows in the wall, her blunt nails digging into his poor arm, and Ohm, distinctly, heard a faint, "What the fuck is your problem?"

The hollow wasn't as dark as Ohm had thought it would be. Tiny streams of rosy light ran down the edge of where the walls met the floor, until they rounded the corner and the lights burst upwards like a meteor shower. Ohm would appreciate it more if he weren't just about face-to-face with a seething P'Wik.

Moon came to a halt so suddenly Ohm crashed into her. She steadied them both, eyes not moving from the scene before them. Chay was breathing hard, face flushed, and Ohm was genuinely having trouble figuring out if it was because of the, well, you know, whatever, with Mike or the yelling he'd apparently been doing at P'Wik just moments before. Mike, for his part, was huddled in a corner. He did not look as though he'd sat down of his own volition. He looked rather like he'd been thrown there, really, and his eyes were now wide, alternating between Chay and P'Wik at a speed that shouldn't be humanly possible.

P'Wik's jaw was doing something complicated before he set it grimly. "Chay," he said, and he sounded almost calm, hoarse as his voice was. His fists clenched. Almost calm. "Let's just— Let me take you home."

Chay blinked. Blinked again. Once more, for emphasis. "No?" he said finally, incredulity turning his outrage singing up in tone. "No," he said, again, more decisively, viciously. He thrust a hand out towards poor P'Mike on the ground and demanded, "I mean, what the hell? What are you even doing?"

P'Wik took a deep, deep breath. "Chay," he started again, but Chay cut him off with a vehemently frustrated noise.

"No," Chay said again, hissing the word like a curse. "You don't get to do this, P'Kim. You left me. You don't get to do this."

P'Wik's jaw was doing something again. Even Ohm could see the way he swallowed, the way he shifted. He closed his eyes. He breathed in again. "That's not what this is about." Chay looked, pointedly, over at Mike. P'Wik, with his eyes still closed, did not notice— except Ohm realised then that his eyes weren't closed, only halfway there. Deliberate ignorance, then. "You came here without a single guard. And then—" P'Wik gestured widely, vaguely, with one arm, and his burst open, bright with— something. Mania, Ohm's mind supplied. Wait.

Guard?

Chay looked up as if to wish for patience on the false meteor shower. He inhaled deeply. He glanced at Moon and Ohm briefly, his mouth tightening at the corners. He turned back to P'Wik, face stony. "Khun Khimhant," he said, and Ohm watched, with morbid fascination, as P'Wik stiffened, his fingers hands twitching at his sides, his throat working, eyes widening. "I cleared tonight with P'Kinn. Your family owns this club. My entire route for the night is pre-planned. My way back home is one of your family's drivers in one of your family's cars. I have a fucking tracker on me. What else do you even want from me?"

Ohm was doing a lot of blinking. He was trying to do a lot of processing. He was failing at that a lot. He wondered if it was possible to become drunk by proximity, because this felt a hell of a lot like that. Or high. This felt a shit-ton like a hallucination. A tracker. P'Wik's club. Guards? A fucking tracker.

"Come home," P'Wik said again, and Ohm had to wonder if he was imagining it, the thin reed of desperation leaking through that made it sound closer to a plea than a command. He hadn't taken Chay's wrist hostage again, from what Ohm could tell. He looked like he wanted to.

"Fine," Chay said, and P'Wik's surprise was evidently too much for him to cover up instantaneously, his jaw dropping slightly, but he recovered quickly, straightening his back, throwing the surprise behind a look of steady confidence, as though he'd known all along that Chay would cave. "But not with you." Ohm had to look away before he did something stupid like start to feel sorry for P'Wik. Who had a tracker on Chay. Whose family owned this club. Chay had probably lied before, about this being hia-approved. Ohm wondered where the fuck Chay's hia even was. The Kittisawat house was empty. "Send someone else. Anyone else. I don't care. Just not you."

Chay might as well have punched P'Wik. For a moment, with the tautness of his shoulders, the complete and utter stillness of his every goddamn muscle, Ohm thought it was going to get violent. Thought it was going to get ugly, broken bones and leather and snarls and Chay dragged out by the wrist with bruising force. P'Wik opened his mouth. "Fine," he echoed, too sharply, and his jaw slammed shut too tightly, and he spun too dizzyingly before he wrenched open the emergency door— the actual purpose of the little hollow— and stalked out into the night.

It was like the strings that had kept Chay upright snapped with a sudden start, the frayed threads giving way so Chay had no choice but to collapse down with the thud of the door. Chay was shaking. Ohm was moving, faster than he could think, to put his arm around Chay's shoulders, but Chay didn't lean into him, breathing quick and shallow through his knees. Chay closed his eyes, cleared his throat shakily. "I'm sorry," he said, and his voice wobbled. He cleared his throat again. "P'Mike. I should've… I should've let you go when he told you to."

"Hey, hey, no," Mike said, jolted back to life. He hesitated, then crawled forwards, putting a slow hand on Chay's shoulder. "Might have a bruised hip for a bit, but I'm fine. That looked… really scary. Intense." He laughed awkwardly. "So, um. Was that, uh… P'Wik?"

Chay winced into his knees. "Ah. Um. Yes."

"Oh," Mike said, and his voice had gone higher. He tried for a smile. It only sort of worked, too lopsided, too tremulous. "Well. Never meet your idols, I guess. I really thought he'd pull out a gun and shoot me for a sec there."

I know the feeling, Ohm didn't say.

"P'Kim doesn't like to carry a gun," Chay mumbled, as if on autopilot. Ohm froze, shared a more-than-mildly horrified look with Mike, before he looked back at Moon. She had her eyes narrowed on Chay.

"Chay," she said without fanfare. "Mind explaining any of that?"

"Oh, you know," Chay freed one hand from around his knees to make a vague rolling gesture. "Complicated."

Mike cleared his throat to ask, "Is that… is he your ex, then?"

"No," Chay answered, immediate, then shrugged helplessly. "Yes. No. It's… complicated," he finished weakly.

"Then uncomplicate it, Chay," and this was from Moon. "Because what I'm hearing is that this guy has been stalking you for over two months, has directly and violently interfered with your life at least twice that we— that I know of, has a fucking security detail and tracker on you, we're in his goddamn club, you're being toted about by his people, you just said he doesn't like to carry a gun like it's a, what, a fucking necklace— Chay, this is worrying."

Chay lifted his head to give her a bland smile. "Since when do you worry, Moon?"

Ohm felt every fucking one of his muscles still, as though cast suddenly and entirely in cement. He did not look at Moon. He stared at Chay. Chay closed his eyes, the regret evidently setting in immediate and deep.

"Well," said Moon tightly.

"I'm sorry," Chay muttered. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. I just…" He breathed in a few times. Moon said nothing. "The security detail and trackers aren't him. I mean— he has access, I'm sure, but they're not—"

Ohm had to wonder if Chay had any idea how much worse every word that was coming out of his mouth was painting the picture. "Who, then?" he made himself ask.

"Hia," Chay replied and Moon's scoff was instantaneous.

"Please, Chay," she said, and it wasn't gentle. "Nobody's buying that bullshit. Your hia's a fucking bartender. I've met your hia. I know him."

Chay's mouth was twitching. Ohm, with a sinking sense of clarity, recognised it. His throat spasming, jaw clenching, breaths coming too quick. It was that goddamn day at the club all over again, just fancier, and with Moon.

"Not anymore," Chay managed to say, and it sounded like a promise. "I don't think I know him anymore. I—" Chay was crying. Tears spilling over, words losing themselves in a soft rhythm of hiccups, and he was still trying to talk through it, blubbering unintelligibly, and at least it wasn't that awful fucking laughter from that day. Mike shuffled closer, arm crossing Ohm's as he held Chay, a strange coat of arms trying to hold Chay together. Ohm had forgotten Mike was there.

"Chay," Moon said at last, and she'd pinched the bridge of her nose between her index finger and thumb. "Stop. Stop. Okay. Right." She did not look at their little huddle on the floor, staring off to the side, eyes on the wall. Chay stopped trying to speak. He kept crying. "Let's just… let's just get you home before—"

"Chay doesn't live at home anymore," Ohm blurted out. Three heads turned towards him. Ohm wanted to cringe away.

"Khun Porchay."

Chay's teary eyes snapped from Ohm to the new arrival. Strange man. Sharp suit. Hair gelled back. The glasses were new, as far as Ohm could remember. New man, same sum total. "P'Arm," Chay said, and the wobble in his voice gave way to surprise. "You're… but P'Khun?"

"Khun Kim does not call often. Khun Nu was willing enough," said the strange man in a suit named Arm. He hesitated at the sight before him. Ohm was sure they certainly made for an interesting composition: Ohm, Chay and Mike melded together on the ground, Moon standing vigil over them, Chay tear-stained. P'Arm sucked in a breath— a fortifying one, Ohm thought— and, with a carefully neutral face and voice, said, "Khun Kinn could override Khun Kim's orders to bring you back, if you spoke to—"

"No," Chay interrupted, already moving to disentangle himself, wiping away the most obvious evidence of his tears. The redness would not leave so easily. "No, it's— it's fine. I'll go."

"Chay," Moon said, stepping in closer, barring Chay's path. "Where are you going?"

Chay shot the strange man a helpless look but shook his head when the man started forwards. Ohm was not liking this.

Ohm tightened his jaw. Breathed in. "You don't live with him, do you?" When Chay stared blankly, Ohm prompted, "P'Wik?"

Chay stared. Blinked. Stared. And then, unexpectedly, he snorted. "God, no. No. That's— no. I… live with hia."

Moon looked pointedly at the strange man. "Right. And who's this Khun Kinn?"

The strange man's facial expression did not, for better or worse, shift from its careful neutrality.

Chay winced. "That's… hia's, ah." He looked at the strange man again.

"Fiancé?" the strange man offered like an appetiser to choose. It smelled of a lie.

Chay's eyebrows shot up, an expression of shock that looked so genuine that Ohm was almost inclined to believe it. "There's been a proposal? Since when?"

"I think it's just been assumed, khun. What with the. Um. Ring."

Chay sighed. He wiped at the tear tracks on his face again. "Right. Okay. He's hia's fiancé."

"You have to know this just keeps getting more and more ridiculous," Moon told him, and Ohm had to admit he agreed. "P'Porsche. Engaged."

"I don't know what to tell you, Moon." Chay sighed. Visibly made a decision. "I'll… I'll come back to school next week. Okay? I'll talk to you later."

"Chay."

"P'Mike," Chay continued, turning to the man in question, ignoring Moon. She pursed her lips tight. "I'm… really, really sorry."

Mike looked as confused as he did concerned. "Hey, no, I told you. It's okay. Just…" Mike eyed the strange man. "Are you… are you sure you're… safe?"

Chay smiled. It looked contorted, painful. "Let's go, P'Arm. I'm really sorry again."

And then Chay was leaving, herded away by the strange man, and Moon and Ohm were looking at each other, and Ohm was absolutely certain that he knew just about nothing about Chay anymore.

Chay had come back to school.

Which was good. Great, even, despite the fuck-ton he had to catch up on, but that wasn't the main concern on Ohm's mind. No, Ohm was far more preoccupied by the fact that Chay had come back to school with Macau Theerapanyakul.

"Okay," Moon said, when she saw them. "So. What the fuck?"

"Hello," said Macau politely enough, especially considering Moon's lack of greeting. And choice of words. He did not smile as he said it. He was not looking at Moon, or Ohm, or even Chay. He was looking down at his phone. Chay nudged him. He sighed and looked up. "Charmed."

"Hello," Ohm replied for courtesy's sake, although he was very much on board with Moon's line of questioning. Because what the fuck?

"No, seriously," Moon said. "What the fuck?"

"We're friends," Chay said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Macau made a half-hearted peace sign.

"Since when?"

"Ah," Chay twirled a hand in the air a few times, spinning a story nobody got to hear because he wouldn't fucking say anything. "You know."

"We assuredly do not," Moon informed him then paused and turned to Ohm. "Wait. Do you?"

"No," Ohm assured her.

"Just checking. Since, you know, you didn't tell me about our dear Chay's housing situation."

Chay's smile did not falter, but he turned the full force of it on Ohm. "Oh. Yeah. How did you know about that?"

In the bright of daylight, Ohm found that he was having trouble framing his actions that night as not breaking in, and so he smiled back and said, "Let's not talk about that."

"Ohm," Chay said, as though he had any place to talk.

"I broke into your house the night we went to the club."

"Ohm," Moon said, as though she had any place to talk. Chay blinked at Ohm wordlessly. "I thought petty crime was my thing. I swear, I take my eyes off you two for two fucking seconds."

"Weren't we working on petty crime not being your thing?" Chay said mournfully, and then followed it up immediately with a firm, "Not a word," to Macau, who was, for reasons unknown, grinning entirely too wide.

They never did find out how Macau and Chay got to be friends. Chay had become strangely skilled in the art of dodging questions and changing subjects and laughing things away. Ohm did not like it. There was more to the P'Wik thing, more to the P'Porsche being engaged thing, more to the relocation thing, so much more, there had to be, Ohm was sure of it, but Chay had gotten so tight-lipped. It was strange, to have Chay so closed off. Chay was the open one, of the three of them, the honest one, though maybe that wasn't true. Maybe it hadn't been true for longer than Ohm had known to wonder. Chay took to the locked doors with an ease that spoke to practised finesse.

Ohm didn't want to think about it. He wondered if that was what had gotten them to this point.

Classes went normal, somehow, the combined forces of Moon and Macau steering away the worst of the questioning from their classmates. Their teachers seemed to know better than to ask about Chay's long absence. Macau managed, through some unknown and incomprehensible force, or maybe just because of Chay, to fit with them, slot into the spaces Ohm hadn't realised existed.

So school was going normal. It was going alright. Fine, even. Normal, alright, fine, until, of course, classes were letting out for the day and Ohm saw the fucking Maserati.

"Is that a fucking Maserati?" Ohm said out loud. He might have been hallucinating. It had been a rough few weeks.

"Oh," Chay said, then turned to Macau. "Macau. Macau. Macau."

"I see it, I see it," Macau hissed back, and he was looking around, his eyes darting like the tiny flitting insects Ohm could never crush between his fingers. "I don't see… I think he might have replaced our, ah—" Macau shot Moon and Ohm a look— "usual."

"Chay," Moon groaned. "Tell me this isn't what I think it is." When Chay said nothing, Moon continued, "Tell me fucking P'Wik hasn't followed you to school."

"I'm going to kill myself," was Chay's morose response. It might as well have been a confirmation. Ohm eyed Macau. He did not seem surprised. So he knew about the P'Wik situation.

And oddly enough, Macau looked thoughtful. "I think that worked for hia and P'Pete."

Ohm decided very quickly that he did not want to know. He glanced at Moon. Moon glanced at him. Ohm gave her a bewildered look, and she offered a helpless shrug for his troubles.

"Macau," Chay was saying, the name veering off into a whine. "I say this with love. Please never compare me to your hia again. I've been to his old room. And, also, you know, first impressions."

"Okay, fair," Macau agreed. He tilted his head. "Maybe if we make a run for it."

"He has a sports car."

"So we run in front of the car. He didn't do all of that—" Macau waved a hand in a gesture that encapsulated nothing at all— "to run you over in broad daylight."

Chay spun on his heel and walked back towards the school building.

"Chay, no, I want to go home, Chay—"

"I'm not getting in a car with him."

"Chay."

"I'm with Chay on this one," Moon remarked, watching Chay stalk away. "I don't want him in the same car as his stalker."

Macau grimaced. "P'Kim won't hurt Chay." Ohm looked at him sharply. Macau's mode of address was far more familiar than he would have expected. P'Kim, not P'Wik.

"You know him," Ohm said, and it came out as an accusation, which suited Ohm just fine. Macau had begun walking after Chay, and Ohm had to jog to catch up. He heard Moon sigh behind them as she followed.

Macau grimaced again. His phone began to ring. He ignored it. "Well. Um. He's, ah… family."

Oh, for fuck's sake. It was like Chay was fucking swarmed with P'Wik's life. Moon's eyebrows raised. "You're related to P'Wik? How does nobody know this?"

"We're not close," Macau offered. "We… it's complicated."

"So Chay keeps saying," Moon noted coldly.

If Macau noticed the coldness, he was not bothered by it. He shrugged. His phone kept ringing. Chay had stopped a few steps away from them, and he turned as suddenly as the first time. He held a hand out, with a frown that Ohm could only describe as furious. It was an ill-fitting expression on his face, too severe, though his eyes were shining. Chay was the type to cry when he got mad. Macau, wordlessly, handed over the phone.

"Khun Khimhant," Chay snapped as he picked up the call. Macau's eyebrows rose so far they may as well have disappeared into his hairline. "I thought I'd made it clear I wasn't going anywhere with you."

Macau looked at Moon and Ohm with wide eyes. Ohm wasn't sure how to decipher his expression.

"I don't care," Chay was saying into the phone, viciously. "Send someone else." Whatever response he got made him roll his eyes. "Guess I'll just walk back to the compound, then." Chay closed his eyes, grit his teeth. "Look, I don't care that I'm being ridiculous. I care that you're only deciding to stay when I'm asking you to leave." Chay looked upwards, blinking rapidly. "Send someone else." He wrenched the phone from his ear and jabbed at the screen, presumably cutting the line.

He took several deep breaths before he returned the phone to Macau, who was watching him with something close to awe. "Dude," Macau said, dead serious. "That was awesome." Macau took the phone and shoved it unceremoniously in his pocket, his round eyes still bright with hero worship. "I've never seen anyone talk to P'Kim like that. Anyone else and he'd—" Macau broke off, sparing a look for Moon and Ohm. "He would not tolerate it," Macau finished somewhat lamely and Ohm did not need the worry spiral the vague sentence sent him down. What the fuck did that mean? Why did Macau keep stopping like that? Why was Chay hanging out with his stalker's relative?

Chay gave Macau a weak smile, then turned to Moon and Ohm. "Hey, you guys don't need to wait on us. We've got an actual ride coming up soon."

Moon looked between Chay and Macau. "Wait. Do you two live together?"

"No," Macau replied with a wrinkled nose. "But close."

"Okay," said Ohm, nodding. He took a deep breath. He was being brave. He could ask his childhood best friend questions about his frankly questionable life decisions, if they were decisions at all. He could do that. "And why are you living that close to your stalker's relative?"

Macau snorted. "It does sound bad when you put it like that. But the stalking and the living situation are unrelated. Sort of," he added thoughtfully.

"You're not helping," Chay informed him, which was true, because what did he mean, sort of? Chay turned to Ohm. "Hia's engaged to Macau's cousin."

Moon's mouth opened and nothing came out. Ohm felt his eyes widen.

"The cousin is P'Kim's older brother," Macau supplied with a shit-eating grin. Chay gave him a warning look, though Ohm had no clue what Macau was being warned against. Macau seemed to have no trouble understanding Chay, because his grin only widened.

"Wait," Moon cut in. "So. Wait. Chay. I thought you said P'Wik was an ex."

Chay winced. "Not exactly," he tried to say, but Macau, with entirely too much amusement, spoke over him, "The brothers have a type." Promptly, Chay buried his face in his hands with mumbled threats of petty violence.

A shrill ring broke through Macau's gleeful posturing, startling him. "Ah," he said. "Looks like our ride's here."

Chay was slow to rise, and even slower to uncover his face. "See you tomorrow," he said when he finally found it within himself to lift his face long enough to speak.

"I'll hold you to that," Moon called out as he left. She sighed, leaned into Ohm. "I swear, every time I get an answer, I understand even less what's going on."

"Yeah," Ohm agreed. "Can't get any weirder than this, I think."

Ohm had spoken too soon, perhaps.

Oh, he realised. So it can get weirder.

After a six-month hiatus, P'Wik was posting again.

That wasn't the issue. People were loving it. Ohm, the poor bastard who had listened to a P'Wik song or five in the aftermath of Ananathamekha University's open house, had the news all over his socials. It was like he couldn't escape it.

Granted, he wasn't trying very hard.

"This is a breakup song," he hissed over the phone, on speaker, at Moon.

"I hear you," Moon said, the soft, crooning melody of the goddamn song trickling in faintly from her side. Ohm had no place to talk. It was playing on his side of the call, too.

"He's literally never done this before," Ohm stressed. "Never. Moon, this is about Chay. Moon."

"Yep."

"He does cheesy love songs, for fuck's sake. And songs about cats. You know? Every time we kiss I swear I could fly."

Moon snorted. "I think it's Every time we sing when we're on a highway—"

"Generic pop! That's what he does! What the fuck is this?"

Moon was quiet. The song played. "God, this is depressing," she said. The song ended. On autopilot, Ohm pressed replay. "I'm adding Macau to the call."

"What?"

"Hey," Macau's voice sounded through after a short beep. "Oh," he said, understanding colouring his tone. "This is about the song."

"Songs, plural," Ohm corrected him, because P'Wik, after a six-month hiatus, had posted an entire album's worth of songs.

"Mm," Macau allowed with all the patience of a gracious old grandfather. "But you're listening to Human."

did you hear it beat, pulsing // to your tune

"It's objectively the most depressing," Moon said, and from anyone else, it might have been defensive.

your palms, they gathered gristle, blood // and something sweeter

"And kinda disturbing," Ohm added. "It's not P'Wik's usual style."

as you held it like it meant // something to you

Macau snorted. "No," he agreed. "But it is P'Kim's style."

but now you're gone

"So are you and Chay actually aware of how concerning it is when you say things like that?" Moon asked conversationally.

there's only silence // only stillness.

"Eh," was Macau's response, and Ohm could practically hear the shrug

I don't think I'm human without you.

"Yikes," Macau commented lightly. "We should probably talk to Chay about this."

"You haven't already?" Ohm asked, somewhat surprised. "Don't you guys live, like, right next to each other?"

"Yeah, but, well," Macau cleared his throat awkwardly. "Y'know. It's not easy to ask about. Can't just go, hey, so did you notice your popstar not-ex-boyfriend-slash-stalker singing about you online?"

"Yes, you can," Moon argued.

won't you come back?

Ohm startled, looked down at his phone. He'd looked away long enough for auto-play to trawl away from Human into another song, the first song, arguably the most normal of the bunch.

one more night, hold me close again // one more time, make me yours again

"Is that Be Mine?" Macau said, not really asking because he knew damn well that it was Be Mine.

won't you come back? // all this time, yours is all I've been

"Y'know," Macau said thoughtfully, "it's an awful lot more unsettling to hear this from my cousin and realise he actually means it this time."

so won't you just be mine again?

"Hey, Macau," Moon said after a few seconds of listening to the song. "What happened there? With Chay and P'Wik?"

"Ah," was Macau's response, and that was it for long enough that Ohm considered prompting him for a real answer. "Well. I… don't actually know."

"Bullshit," Ohm argued. "Bullshit. You're P'Wik's cousin. You live next to Chay. You see more of him than we do now." The last sentence was bitter enough that he surprised himself. Ohm breathed in, quietly. He hadn't quite realised how much it hurt to admit that Chay was pulling away from them, that he had been for the past few months, that things were changing and it had been the three of them, Moon and Chay and Ohm, for so long and now Chay was drifting away to somewhere neither Moon nor Ohm could follow and it hurt.

If Macau picked up on it, he didn't comment. Ohm could be grateful for that, at least. "I know. But Chay, he doesn't like to talk about it. All I really know is that the Theerapanyakul men have been falling like fucking dominoes these past few months. It's been weird." Macau paused. The song was still playing. "Well. I also know Chay doesn't think P'Kim loves him. Or even likes him."

"You sound like you disagree," Moon noted.

Macau snorted. "I have eyes."

"He's got a weird way of showing it then," Ohm remarked drily. "You know. Considering the stalking."

"He's a Theerapanyakul," Macau said as though that answered anything at all. "You can take the— ah, never mind. My point is, they're all weird. He's probably been the least weird, actually."

"You're a Theerapanyakul," Ohm pointed out.

"Not like they are," Macau replied. "I mean, I'm… hia's always been protective over me."

Macau had a true talent, a skill, for making every sentence that came out of his mouth sound unbearably ominous.

"And who's they?" Moon asked, because she was still the braver of the two of them.

Macau made a vague sound. "My cousins. My hia. Look, that's not important. What I'm saying is— I know P'Kim's kind. I grew up around them. Whatever Chay's mad about, I don't doubt that he's got every right to be. More than. But P'Kim does care about him. I don't doubt that, either."

Ohm let out a heavy breath. He had a headache blooming at his temples. "Macau," he said seriously. "He's stalking Chay. That's not— love, care, whatever. Moon, back me up."

"Yeah," Moon agreed. "Stalking's just invasion, especially with how he's doing it. You can't call that love. Obsession, at best."

"I'm not saying you're wrong. But there's, ah, things you don't know about. From what I can tell, the stalking's… reactive to something else. It's complicated," Macau insisted, like a parrot. They sat in silence— as silent as it could get with Ohm's phone playing the goddamn P'Wik songs— for a while. The song changed. "Hey," Macau said, forced cheerfulness abundant. "It's Relic."

hold it in my hands, I can't let it go

"Macau," Ohm said, breaking their fragile impasse. "You keep telling us it's complicated. You and Chay, both. But you won't tell us anything else, anything of— of substance."

feel the edges cutting into my skin // tear-drop perfect, drown me within

"I can't," Macau said, and there was something resigned, something frustrated, in the way he said it. "There's just… a lot going on. And even without that, I don't actually know half— more than half, probably— of the situation."

our names engraved, it's in my soul

Moon sighed. "Okay. We're getting Chay to talk."

fit it in the space between my ribs // replace this rotting thing of mine // with the relic of yours.

"Hey," Moon said later that week one fine evening, the four of them— because Macau had simply become one of them somehow— crowded around a table that was just barely big enough in her living room, notes scattered, the fan humming a steady tune to which Chay's finger's seemed to keep beat on the table. "So, Chay, did you notice your popstar not-ex-boyfriend-slash-stalker singing about you online?"

Macau, who'd been in the process of vigorously downing a glass of water quickly and deftly switched to vigorously choking on said glass of water. Ohm was far too used to Moon to really muster up true surprise.

Chay's fingers abruptly stilled. He gave Moon a long look. "I thought this was about helping me catch up with schoolwork."

"It is," Moon agreed, stretching her arms above her head. Ohm suppressed the urge to wince when he heard something crack. "But we're taking a break right now."

Chay sighed. There was no arguing with Moon, they all knew that. "I've been on a social media detox ever since he posted the first song," he admitted. He hesitated. Tapped on his knee a few times. "They're not about me, I don't think. I mean, Be Mine seemed like his usual. Love songs are, like, basically his thing. Highway. Shape of You. I Secretly Like You."

Ohm, Moon and Macau shared a glance. Something complicated happened in the minute juts of their chins and the swivels of their eyes and the half-baked flicks of their fingers, and somehow it resolved on it falling onto Ohm to ask, carefully, "Chay, have you… listened to Be Mine?"

Chay eyed him warily. "I don't like how that question sounds."

"So that's a no," Moon determined, already reaching out to grab at her abandoned phone. She'd had to toss it away after she kept getting distracted for the first fifteen minutes of their study session. "Maybe you should." Her eyes flicked up to Chay.

Chay looked frozen. A cornered little animal, caught between fight and flight, his back straighter than Ohm ever recalled it being, the stillness unnatural on his frame. Quickly, shallowly, so much so that Ohm might have missed it had he blinked at the wrong moment, Chay nodded once.

The opening notes of Be Mine swam through the air, soft and slow and low, and then P'Wik began to sing, and Chay hadn't moved a single fucking muscle. Ohm wasn't sure if he was blinking. One more night, hold me close again, sang P'Wik, and Chay gripped the table so tight the skin over his knuckles faded to bone-white. All this time, yours is all I've been, and Chay looked ready to flip the table and burn the house to the ground. His eyes were shining bright. It struck Ohm how fucking unfair it was, that P'Wik was the one singing about heartbreak and loss as though it weren't Chay who was always left gasping through his tears after each of their interactions that Ohm had seen, while the most P'Wik ever did was yell and stomp away. So won't you just be mine again? As though P'Wik had any goddamn right.

"Give me that," Chay demanded when the song ended, and Moon handed the phone over without a fight. It was during the few seconds it took for the swap that Relic started playing. Tear-drop perfect, and Chay's breathing had lost its even rhythm. Our names engraved, and Chay held the phone so tightly Ohm worried it would crack. Replace this rotting thing of mine with the relic of yours.

By the time Human had started playing, Chay was openly crying. Macau frowned, opened his mouth, but Moon put a silencing hand on his shoulder.

Chay wiped at his eyes, breathed in, breathed out. He jabbed at the screen. The closing notes of Human came to an abrupt and clumsy end. He gave Moon her phone back and bent sideways to rummage through his backpack, coming up victorious with his own phone in hand. It was a few short jabs and swipes to get it unlocked, and then he was stabbing furiously at the screen with his index finger, before he settled the phone against his ear, other arm banded across his torso like he would have crossed his arms had both arms been free. His knee bounced.

Ohm didn't know how many rings it took, but it was only a few seconds before whoever was on the other side picked up.

"Family dinner this Friday," Chay said, curtly, rapidly. "Be there." As quick as the call had started, Chay ended it with a deep breath. His phone began to ring again. Chay declined. A few more taps on his screen and he slid it back into the depths of his backpack.

"Was that…?" Macau ventured, and at Chay's short nod, he whistled. "Damn, Chay."

"If he actually wants to talk, he can do it to my face. Not… whatever this is," Chay said, and they all politely ignored the slight shake of his voice.

"Sounds fair," Moon agreed. "Now. Take like five hundred steps back and please explain what the fuck is going on?"

"P'Kim doesn't like to go to family dinners."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

Chay sighed. He looked at the ceiling. "You already know how we met."

"I don't," Macau interjected.

"University open house," Moon offered. "Chay got him to autograph his shirt."

"Well," Ohm said. "Chay asked P'Wik to be his guitar tutor. P'Wik signed his shirt instead."

Macau blinked. "Just? Out of nowhere? Tutor me, P'Wik?"

"No," Chay said, hands on his red cheeks. "I… there was a trivia quiz event. I got an answer right. They'd ran out of signed shirts. He asked me what I wanted instead."

"Bold, Chay, bold. Might as well have just said, you."

"Oh my god, shut up. A few days later, he called me and offered to be my tutor."

"He called you?" Macau interrupted again. "When did he get your number?"

Ohm froze. He'd never thought to wonder, to ask, but Macau was right, of course. Where the hell had P'Wik gotten Chay's number from?

Chay opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it. Closed. "So," he said, stilted. "You see."

Macau buried his face in his palms. "You didn't question it."

"I didn't."

Moon sighed. "Okay, so that's a flag we should've noticed right away."

"It— whatever." Chay's knee bounced. He spoke slowly. "The thing is, P'Kim's very… ah, protective over his family." Chay glared when Macau snorted. "From a distance, fine. And just his brothers. But protective. And, uh, hia had met P'Kinn— that's P'Kim's older brother— in Yok's bar around that time. P'Kinn has had an… ah, not great history with. Men. Before." Chay paused to look meaningfully at Macau. "As your hia knows very well."

Macau winced. "That was a bad time for everyone."

Moon and Ohm shared a look. There was a history there, though Ohm had the feeling it wasn't one he would be privy to now, if ever.

"Anyways, P'Kim found out about that and got suspicious. He started tutoring me to find out more about hia. Except, you know, he didn't tell me that." Chay ran his hands down his face. "In all fairness, I ignored so many signs. That first tutoring session, he just told me to try writing a song about my brother then asked to borrow my phone for a call. I hadn't even told him I had a brother. When I asked, he said he'd seen hia on my phone, but I don't know when that would have happened, so—" Chay cut himself off with a frustrated noise.

Ohm had his fingers pressing steadily into his temples. "So you're telling me that, instead of asking like a normal fucking person, he was making you write songs and snooping through your phone?"

"And my house," Chay added, muffled against his palms. "He just showed up to my house one day. Gave me a guitar, pretended at tutoring for a bit, then sent me to get food from that noodle place nearby. He probably snooped around while I was gone."

"All this because your brother was dating his?" Moon clarified, dry. She had her arms crossed.

Chay made a noise that sounded somewhat like a confirmation. "Kind of. They weren't… dating yet. But. Yeah. Basically."

"Okay," Ohm muttered. "Because that's what you do when your brother starts dating someone. Befriend their younger sibling and look through their phone and house. Chay, what the hell. Are you sure you should be seeing this guy on Friday?"

"And how did this turn into you guys dating?" Moon asked.

"We weren't really—" Chay gave up. Started again. "It just kind of happened. We started just hanging out after tutoring sessions. Studio. Coffee. Art café, once. We watched the new Spiderman movie together. But we weren't dating. He'd ghost me for ages, sometimes, and then I'd go find him, and then we'd pretend he hadn't ghosted me. He once asked me to write a love song for him as homework."

Macau laughed, a short burst of it that seemed to surprise even himself. "What? He just went, hey, write me a love song? Super duper necessary for your interview, I promise?"

Chay grimaced. "Not… quite. It was the day he came over to my house, after I came back with the noodles. He wanted me to write a love song. Asked me if I liked anyone, to describe them." Chay cleared his throat. "And. Well. He asked me to write a love song for them. I can promise you he knew. I wasn't subtle. And then he ghosted me."

"Chay," Moon said wearily. "I'm being so serious. Why didn't you dropkick him?"

Macau laughed again, but Ohm was inclined to agree. P'Wik was sounding more and more kickable by the minute, if only Ohm were confident in his ability to land one. Moon stood a far better chance.

Chay shrugged helplessly. "I liked him. I don't know. It was nice, having his attention, whenever I did. God, that sounds bad."

"It does," Ohm agreed.

"After I passed the first interview, I… ah. I told him I liked him."

Ohm sighed. He knew where this was going, probably the day Chay had come to him with a newfound desire for blue hair and alcohol.

"And he, ah, kissed me on the cheek, and we ended up going out? Then he stayed over for the night, so, I thought, like anyone would, that he liked me back—"

Ohm frowned. Ah. Right, the club incident had happened after the second interview, the one Chay hadn't ever talked about.

"Okay, pause," Macau demanded, both hands held out as though to physically stopped Chay's words. "What do you mean he stayed over for the night?"

Chay flushed bright and immediate. "We only slept. We didn't—"

"He slept with you?"

"Not like that—"

"No, I mean— Khimhant Theerapanyakul was asleep in your presence? At your place? The old one?"

"You're making this weirder than I think it needs to be," Moon said, though there was the beginning of a frown forming between her eyebrows.

"No, I'm not," Macau promised. "You don't know him. He's paranoia incarnate."

"Maybe he pretended to be asleep, Macau, I don't know—"

"For how long?"

Chay looked suddenly deeply uncertain. "The whole night? I mean, he was— we were—snuggling, I guess—"

"You snuggled Khimhant Theerapanyakul?"

"You keep saying his name weird," Ohm noted with some discomfort.

"It's Kim! He's worse than my hia!"

"Okay, that's just not true," Chay argued. "P'Vegas is… well, P'Vegas. I've heard the stories."

"Chay," Macau said seriously. "You've seen the footage. Hia couldn't have done that, not—" Macau glanced at Moon, then at Ohm, and sighed. "Not like that. I mean, he didn't even have a—" Macau broke off again, throwing his hands up.

"He doesn't like them," Chay answered immediately, and there was something so very familiar about the way he said it. Ohm looked at Moon. She'd definitely caught it, eyes narrowed.

"Ever wonder why?"

Chay pressed his lips together. He did not have a response for that, whatever that meant. Ohm had lost the thread of conversation.

Ohm sighed. "Okay. Back up again. P'Wik— Kim stayed over. Then what?"

Chay opened his mouth. Seemed to reconsider. Tried again. "I. Ah. I met Macau's hia."

Macau's eyebrows rose so high they blended with his hairline. "Shit. Like, the very next day?"

"Like, first thing in the morning," Chay grumbled, crossing his arms. "Well. Second thing in the morning. First, I made P'Kim breakfast. And then he was going to just leave without saying bye or eating. He left a fucking post-it note on the table."

"You need to kill this man with rocks," Moon informed Chay. "But rewind. You met Macau's hia, how?"

Chay made a vague motion with his hand. "He, ah, just showed up." Macau snorted. "Runs in the family, I guess."

"And why did Macau's hia know where you live?"

Chay started. Stopped. "He didn't. Kind of. He was looking for my hia. They used to be friends back then."

Moon stared. Ohm stared. Ohm felt his eyebrows rising steadily and slowly. "Used to?" he echoed.

"They had a big fight," Macau supplied. He looked at the ceiling, considering. "More than one big fight. It's a bit awkward now, since hia is dating P'Porsche's best friend."

Ohm felt his eyebrow twitch. "What? Who? P'Jom?"

Chay laughed, sounding so much brighter, so much lighter, than he had in a very long time. "God, no. No, this is a, um, new friend. You've not met him."

"P'Porsche has been making a lot of new friends," Moon noted, with an airiness so fake Ohm could have choked on it.

"He's a social butterfly," Chay offered, either not noticing or ignoring the falsity. Ignoring, in all likelihood.

"Okay," Ohm said, if only to diffuse the rising tension he could practically feel oozing from Moon. "So Macau's hia comes looking for your hia. Kim tries to leave… wait, when?"

"I went to get the door for P'Vegas," Chay said.

Moon frowned. "And he was going to sneak out while you were at the door? Was he going to climb out a fucking window?"

"He would," Macau cackled entirely too gleefully.

Chay shrugged, gestured towards Macau. "Honestly, yeah, he probably would. But, um." Chay steepled his fingers. He looked at his hands. His thumbs tapped against each other once, twice. "Basically. Uh. P'Vegas found out about us. And he wanted to know if I knew about hia and P'Kinn. I did not."

"At all?" asked Moon, the undercurrent of surprise cutting into doubt.

Chay grimaced. "Hia's been… busy, lately. We've not really had much of a chance to catch up."

"You and P'Porsche haven't had a chance to catch up?" Ohm said incredulously. Ohm was struggling to wrap his head around the concept. P'Porsche and Chay had always been the kind of close that made Ohm wish, so very fervently, that he'd had an older brother, a younger one, a sibling of any kind.

Chay made a gesture that almost passed for a shrug but died halfway through. "Things have been rough. They were… worse, back then."

"Okay," Moon accepted more readily than Ohm was willing to. "So this P'Vegas comes up, tells you about your brother's love life, and then…?"

Chay floundered. There was no other real word for it, nothing else that quite encapsulated the sheer floundering quality that followed. Chay floundered, mouth opening and closing in a series of false starts, and then Chay, disastrously, settled on, "And then P'Kim ended it."

Moon, graciously, waited a beat. Ohm waited a beat longer. And then, overlapping, they said, "What?"

"Just like that?" Moon demanded.

Chay was still recovering from his wince at their shared volume. "Well," he started, then stopped. He appeared to chew on his words for a bit. "Not quite. P'Vegas wanted to keep looking for hia. He'd been gone since the day before, apparently. I'd not seen hia in a while so I wanted to join. P'Kim didn't like that."

"So he broke up with you?"

"Ah, no. That came later. I left with P'Vegas. P'Kim didn't. We found hia eventually, and I ended up meeting P'Kinn and P'Khun— that's P'Kim and P'Kinn's older brother." Chay shifted in his seat. "I went looking for P'Kim after that to ask if he'd known I was hia's brother. That was when he ended it." At Moon's raised eyebrows, Chay sighed. "He said that was the only reason he agreed to tutor me, and when I asked if… if he'd ever. Liked me. He apologised and left."

"You didn't say like, did you?" Ohm asked gently.

Chay looked away. He pursed his lips. "That's… not important."

"And also not the end," Macau added.

Ohm frowned. "Guessing the, uh, incident at the club happened after this."

Macau tilted his head.

"Chay tried to get drunk and high at a club and P'Wi— Kim did not like it," Moon told him.

"That's generous," Ohm scoffed. "I'm still pretty sure he broke someone's nose. And also bruised Chay's wrist."

"I did not get bruised," Chay protested. "They were just marks."

"Chay."

"Wait," Moon said, looking at Macau. "If you don't know about the club thing—"

"Which happened twice, by the way," Ohm interjected.

"—then what do you mean, that wasn't the end?"

Macau opened his mouth, and then closed it. "So."

"P'Kim sent me a song," Chay said quickly. "In the. Aftermath. After all of that."

Moon's eyes snapped to Chay. "As in, a song he hasn't released?"

"He better not have," Chay grumbled, and pawed through his bag for a bit, before coming up victorious with his phone dangling between his fingers again. "Give me a second," Chay requested, tapping and swiping and tapping until he had found what he wanted and slid the phone onto the centre of the table.

It was a video, unedited, just over two minutes long, just the clean strums of an acoustic guitar and the notes of an incredibly recognisable voice, and an even more recognisable face, and a song Ohm hadn't heard before. It was soft, a lilting rhythm that picked up as it drew on, and so, so very clearly a plea.

And that was before P'Wik— or Kim, was this just Kim?— sang, eyes softly landing on the viewer, Why don't you stay? Ohm felt, suddenly, like an intruder, like this was something he wasn't meant to be seeing, wasn't meant to be hearing. Kim closed his eyes for the next line, I would be okay, and kept them downturned as he sang, Let me have you by my side so you just stay.

Kim's eyes returned to the viewer— to Chay, and Ohm had to look away, staring at the grain of the wooden table instead of the open look in Kim's eyes. He felt vaguely sick. For Porchay, said the man in the video, whom Ohm, as it turned out, did not recognise. He did not know, had never seen, this iteration of Chay's maybe-probably-definitely-weird-stalker-popstar-ex.

There was silence for a long second after the video ended. Ohm could hardly hear anyone breathing.

"Chay," Moon said at last, her tone indecipherable. "Let me murder this guy. Please."

Macau let out a short burst of surprised laughter, but he seemed shaken, eyes not straying from the phone screen. The screen had long gone black.

"He left," Moon said, and now that Ohm was listening for it, he could hear it, the sheer outrage in her voice.

Chay made a helpless flapping of his palms. "I know. I know. He's…" Chay looked away, to the side, and Ohm decided it was not the time to bring the redness of his eyes, wet sheen of them, to attention. "He's impossible," Chay settled on quietly. "I don't get it. I don't understand why… why. It's just. A mess."

"Hey, look," Macau said, putting a gentle hand on Chay's shoulder. Chay did not look at him. "You see him on Friday. You tell him to get his shit together. And then you… do what you think is best, okay?"

"You kick him to the curb," Moon volunteered. "And kick him in general, too. Just kick him."

"My parents are out all Saturday," said Ohm, politely neither acknowledging nor discouraging Moon's calls for violence. "We can regroup at my place if you need to talk afterwards. Okay?"

Chay breathed in deep, not-so-discreetly dabbing at his eyes. "Okay," he agreed.

Ohm had been planning to sleep in some, maybe. Linger in bed till ten, maybe half-ten, or, god forbid, eleven. Saturdays were days for him to lose himself in the warmth of his blanket for inordinate amounts of time until someone asked him if he still wanted breakfast, or if he'd just skip straight to a big lunch. That was what Saturdays were for, and on a day when there wasn't anyone to even pose the brunch question, well, there was nothing stopping him from lazing around even more, was there?

So. Ohm had been wrong.

Ohm was startled awake at ass-o'clock in the morning as his phone screamed up a storm inches away from his face.

"Fuck," Ohm muttered, face buried in his pillow, wanting to start the day on a positive note. "Damn it," he added, blindly slapping around until his fingers caught on the cold, smooth surface of his phone. He turned his head just to the side enough to see as he accepted the call.

"Ohm," warbled Chay's harried voice. "I— Ohm, I know this is. Earlier than you wake up. But please, please, please, can I come over? Please."

Ohm breathed in slowly and resolved to not swear at his friend. "Okay," he agreed blearily. "How… when're you getting here?"

There was a silence just long enough to be awkward. Ohm was too busy stealing a few seconds' worth of shut-eye to really care. "So," Chay said, his voice sounding, if possible, even more awkward than the silence had been, "I'm outside your place right now."

Ohm did swear this time, but he let the pillow swallow the words. It didn't seem to have much of an effect; Chay appeared to hear him all the same, because Ohm heard some guiltily mumbled apologies from the phone. "Give me a minute," Ohm mumbled. "Five."

Ten minutes later, teeth brushed and face splashed with water until he could walk in a semi-straight line without stumbling too much, Ohm was at the door. He stared at Chay. Blinked. He looked up at the sky. The Bangkok sun glared back down at him. He looked back at Chay. The image of him in a big, soft hoodie with the hood pulled up and strings drawn tighter than necessary did not falter. Ohm was hallucinating, maybe. He was probably still half-asleep. Chay fidgeted. Cleared his throat. Ohm remembered to step to the side to let Chay in.

"Look," Ohm said, deciding not to address the hoodie-shaped potential-hallucination. "You know where the tea is. The coffee. Eggs. Whatever you want. Call Moon and Macau over. I'm going to go back to bed. Wake me when they get here."

And Ohm promptly passed back out in his bed.

Ohm had no fucking clue how long it had been when he heard the knocking on his door, but he didn't care. It hadn't been long enough. He said as much into his pillow, garbled.

"I think that means, yes, my dear friends, please come into my room," Moon interpreted completely incorrectly.

Ohm did not look up from his pillow as Moon, Macau and Chay filtered into his room. "I swear to fuck, Chay," he said, just barely audible, "this better be important."

"Sorry," Chay said sheepishly, and Ohm could just about hear the wince in his voice as he spoke. "I just… really needed to leave. Get out of there."

Ohm sighed and turned his head to the side so he could see the little semi-circle— the little triangle, really— that his friends had formed on his room's floor. Chay was still in the hoodie. The hood was still, mystifyingly, up. So that wasn't a hallucination, apparently. Stranger things had happened, Ohm supposed. "Mm," was his final evaluation.

"He's not really awake yet," Moon explained to a somewhat baffled and uncertain Macau. "He's not awake until, like, twelve on weekends. Okay, Chay. Spill."

Chay's immediate response was to shove his face in his palms and let out a garbled series of noises that boldly rivalled Ohm's own sleep-sodden mumbles.

Macau looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. "Does that mean it went… badly? He's just as much of an asshole as ever?"

"We should beat him to death with sticks?" Moon suggested hopefully. Ohm muffled a laugh against his blanket.

"No," Chay said, but he just sounded tired instead of truly dissuasive.

Macau and Moon shared a look. Ohm tried not to fall asleep. "So it went… well?" Macau tried.

"No," Chay said, even more tiredly, with a hint of despair lacing in.

Macau looked like he was halfway ready to strangle Chay. "Okay," he said. "How did it go?" When Chay made no move to answer, just another miserable sound into his palms, he demanded, "Did you talk to him?"

"Yeah," Chay mumbled. "Yeah. I. I talked to him."

"And…?"

Chay mumbled something. Ohm didn't catch it. Moon swayed forwards with a frown on her face that told him that she hadn't either. Macau blinked. Ohm couldn't tell if that meant that he hadn't heard Chay either or if he definitely had. "What?"

Chay breathed in. Breathed out. Then, louder, but no less into his palm, "I slept with him."

Ohm was suddenly very awake. "What?"

Moon seemed genuinely speechless. "So you're back together? After all that bullshit?"

Chay made a high strangled noise. "No."

Moon relaxed. Ohm did not. "Okay," Moon said. "So that was, what, weirdly late break-up sex?"

Chay shifted as though he was about to throw his hands up, but then decided to keep them right over his face. "I don't know. I don't— I guess? Maybe? I thought he just needed to, like, get me out of his system?"

"Chay," Macau said, head held in his hands. "Have you ever met a Theerapanyakul? Seen P'Kinn with P'Porsche? Hia with P'Pete? Hell, P'Khun with his fucking shows? Only place for something to go in a Theerapanyakul's system is further in. Oh my fucking god."

Chay made a long, shrill noise at that. He did not try to argue.

"Wait," Macau said, suddenly looking up, scrutinising Chay. "Does that mean you went to his apartment last night? You sat in a car with him long enough to get to his apartment but not to get a clear answer for, hey, what the fuck are you doing?"

For a few seconds Chay was silent. Then, muffled, he said, "We didn't go to his apartment."

"Chay." Macau looked genuinely aghast, though Ohm wasn't certain why that was the sticking point. The fact that it had happened at all after— after all that bullshit, as Moon had put it, was what was getting to Ohm in a way none of his friends seemed to share.

Moon was the one who now looked like she was trying not to laugh. "Did you make him breakfast again?"

Ohm still couldn't see Chay's expression— his hands had taken to the role of a mask rather seriously and didn't seem to be looking to give it up anytime soon— but he saw the way his shoulders tensed. "Okay," Chay started, slow. "So. I just. Kind of. Left. He wasn't… I mean, he was probably awake, he's a light sleeper, but—"

"You left him at your place?"

"It's technically his childhood home."

Ohm needed a fucking drink. "Remind me why you're living at your weird popstar stalker ex's childhood home?" he requested very calmly.

Chay sighed heavily. "Hia's dating P'Kim's older brother and they live there. I live with hia."

Ohm really, really needed that drink.

Moon frowned. "How big is this childhood home?"

Macau snorted and answered, "Big. Big enough to not be a home." He turned to Chay, something markedly evil glinting in his eyes. "Hey, Chay, so… what's up with the hoodie?"

"God, don't," Chay grumbled.

Macau outright cackled, and Ohm realised, far later than he should have, what the hoodie was for. With the hood pulled up and the strings gathered tight, it rather conveniently hid Chay's neck from view. Ohm needed that drink so fucking bad. He was going to turn into a day-drinker and it was going to be all Chay's fault. "Hia could probably help with makeup, but then you'd have to show him."

"I'm going to kill myself," Chay groaned.

"Nothing so drastic," Moon said. "I can do the makeup."

Ohm frowned. "You only ever wear eyeliner."

"On my face, yeah. I don't get hickies on my face, Ohm."

"Can we. Not talk about this anymore," Chay pleaded.

"What happened to the talking to him in all of this?" Ohm wondered out loud, not really expecting an answer.

Chay let out one last defeated sigh. "He said he was sorry."

The good news was this: they had made it through exams. Chay had decided, apparently, to ignore all his problems by burying himself in the books, which Ohm was mostly happy to indulge in, and neither Moon nor Macau tried to dissuade him from it. They took Macau to get boba once, and when Moon had said, Popstar alert, Chay had replied with, Just ignore him. Macau had snorted and said, Yeah, it's like playing dead. Just sit tight and hope he'll go away. Overall, Kim hadn't made anymore surprise entrances into Chay's life, as far as Ohm was aware. So, yes. There was good news.

The bad news was this: Ohm had no fucking clue where he was.

His mouth was dry, and tasted generally sour but there was an undeniable and odd sweetness lingering at the back of his throat, and his head hurt so fucking bad, and his wrists were chafing against something rough and tight, and the ground was smooth and hard beneath him. Ohm felt like shit.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," someone groaned out loud, and Ohm needed several seconds to place it as Macau. "You've got to be kidding me."

A deep, audible inhale. "What the fuck?" someone else demanded. Moon.

"Oh, hey, you're awake," Macau said with forced cheer. "Congrats. Welcome to your first ever kidnapping."

Ohm's eyes slammed open. He immediately regretted it. The light wasn't strong, but his head hurt so, so fucking bad. He'd never had a hangover this bad. He could feel the way blood pulsed in insistent waves against his temples, straining until he was sure his head would simply pop, burst like a chemistry experiment gone wrong. "Huh?" he managed through the pain.

"I hate chloroform," Macau was saying conversationally, his shoulders moving enough that they substituted the need for hand gestures. "It's the worst. I'd take a tranq any day of the week.

"Stop fucking around, I swear to god," Moon snapped. Her hands were bound behind her back with thick rope in a complicated pattern. Ohm blinked. Ah. So were his own, he guessed. "This isn't funny."

"I mean, it kinda is, though— hey, Chay's waking! Morning, sleepyhead."

Chay made a garbled groan in response that Ohm found he could sympathise perfectly with. "What…?"

"Kidnapped!" Macau said with that same forced cheer. "And hey, what do you know? You're actually awake for it this time!"

That caught Ohm's half-baked attention. "Chay's been kidnapped before?"

"Unfortunately," Chay agreed. He looked as queasy and Ohm felt, which was very, and his eyes were still mostly closed.

Moon took a deep breath in, eyes closed. "Okay. Can I just confirm that this isn't Kim's doing?"

Ohm hadn't thought to consider that. Fuck. He'd counted too many blessings too soon. Of course that fucking creep hadn't left Chay's life alone.

Macau rolled his eyes. "Hell, no. He wouldn't take us, too. He's got plenty of chances to take Chay alone."

Moon and Ohm stared at Macau. Chay opened his eyes to stare at Macau. Chay cleared his throat. "And P'Kim wouldn't kidnap me," he offered weakly. "I think."

"You think?" Ohm echoed.

Macau made a thoughtful noise. "I don't know. I mean, you did just bypass the whole kidnapping phase of the courtship ritual and that's been, like, step one for the other guys."

The look Chay levelled at Macau was suitably bewildered. "What? P'Kinn kidnapped hia?"

That was not the question Ohm had expected.

"It was literally their second meeting," Macau said, deadpan. "Didn't last long. I heard your hia jumped off the boat and into the river." Ohm did not know what to process first. He wasn't entirely certain this wasn't some sort of awful lucid dream. "But anyways, this is definitely not P'Kim. Too many people. There were at least, like, ten of them back there— a bit overkill, if you ask me— and none of them were him. P'Kim likes to do things himself." Macau sent Moon an appraising look. "You got some of them good back there, by the way."

"Clearly not enough," Moon grumbled, and she opened her mouth as though to say more, but whatever she was about to say was swallowed soundly by the clattering of a door slamming open, the noise of which did nothing good for Ohm's pounding head.

Ohm looked at the door, somewhat bent and hanging onto hinges that creaked loudly before the door was slammed close again, and realised that he hadn't truly taken stock of where he had found himself. His mouth was still dry, and the strange taste could probably be attributed to the chloroform. His head still hurt. His wrists were chafing against rope, he guessed, the same kind that had his friends' wrists in a chokehold. The ground was smooth wooden panels that had seen cleaner days. The place itself— Ohm wasn't sure what to call it, a hideout? A warehouse? Creepy killer basement made of wood?— was dimly lit, as could be expected from the singular light bulb that hung precariously above them, but enough that the cramped expanse of the room they were in was mostly visible. Nothing special to see beyond dust and cobwebs— shit, Ohm really fucking hoped there weren't any spiders crawling on him— and slowly decaying wood.

"Hello, little Theerapanyakul," said the newcomer, standing tall enough that the light bulb only barely lit the lower half of his face, which was covered in a dark cloth that hung loose over his chin and neck. His only real discernible feature was his eyes as they gleamed out from over the makeshift mask. The newcomer— their kidnapper, Ohm presumed, or maybe realised— crouched down, and Ohm couldn't see his mouth, but he strongly suspected that he wore an unsettling grin across it. His eyes were trained on Macau. "Fancy seeing you here."

Macau blinked. He looked at Chay. Chay looked at Macau. Macau looked back at Eyes, shuffling to meet him face-on, and said, "Me?"

Eyes laughed, but his eyes remained hard and cold. "Yes, you. Of course, you. Who else?" His eyes swept irreverently across Chay, Moon and Ohm, not landing on any of them. "You, little Theerapanyakul."

"My Pa's dead," Macau said blandly. "Mae's been dead far longer. My hia's bedridden. I mean we're not even—" Macau glanced at Moon and Ohm, then rolled his eyes— "we're not even the fucking minor family anymore. We don't have any power. Or did you miss that memo?"

Chay frowned but didn't say anything. Moon was staring rather intensely at Macau. Ohm did not know what to think. Ohm was very, very confused. Ohm was incredibly lost. Ohm had been kidnapped, what the actual fuck.

Eyes loomed closer. "Exactly, kid. Nobody's coming for you. But your precious hia'll want you back, won't he?" Ohm had the feeling that his sick smile had grown. He had no real evidence to prove this, but Ohm had a feeling. "Wonder how much you're worth to him, eh? And your little friends, too, of course." He glanced over at the rest of them again, but his eyes settled heavily on Moon this time. "Though I bet they'll sell well anyways, huh?"

Moon spit at him, catching him impressively accurately in the eye, and he reared back with a hiss, cursing, hand curled in a claw over the eye.

"You're fucking stupid," Macau informed him matter-of-factly. "And also wrong." Macau tilted his head, gaze narrowed on the man. "Well. Nobody's coming for me, sure. But him?" Macau jerked his chin towards Chay and scoffed. "Seriously, nobody ever tell you to do your homework?"

The man was caught between glaring one-eyed at Moon and Macau, his shoulders hunched as though to pounce at one of them when his eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

"Seriously, Porchay," Macau said, leaning back as well as he could in his current position, looking more at Chay than the kidnapper. "I swear people know about you. Khun Porsche's younger brother. Khun Kinn's brother-in-law." Their captor's eyes had shifted to Chay, apprehensive. Chay glared back. Ohm was going to be sick, or faint, or both. "Khun Khimhant's boyfriend."

Chay choked. Eyes' eyebrows had raised, but at that last title, he laughed aloud. As mocking as he sounded, Ohm thought he could detect an undercurrent of relief. "Good one, kid. Almost got me there. But Khimhant? Don't make me—"

Thud.

Something was happening outside. Something loud, something heavy-handed, and Ohm nearly bit through his tongue, tried to breathe to no avail, as the first of what Ohm was so fucking certain was a rapid-fire series of gunshots rang out. Oh, god. Ohm closed his eyes. He was going to faint.

A hurried shuffling noise in front of him made his eyes open in alarm, but it was only Eyes standing up, staring hesitantly at the door, and then there were more of those noises, loud, deafeningly so, each accentuated by a coarse thud, and something— something heavy, something large— was hurled against the wall by the door so hard Ohm was surprised it didn't simply break, and Ohm was feeling nausea climbing up his throat. He swallowed against it. His mouth was bitter. The sweetness had long faded.

"Careful," Macau said, lowly, and when Ohm looked over, he was smiling, a small, smug thing, staring up at Eyes as though Macau were the one standing over him. "Say his name thrice and we'll summon him." Macau's smile sharpened to a shark-slick grin. "Khimhant."

The door burst open.

A blink, and there was that noise again, once, sharp, short, and Ohm's ears were dying, ringing in its aftermath, and Eyes yelled, guttural, as he stumbled, and Ohm had hardly blinked again before the new intruder had turned the gun around and whacked Kidnapper across the face, cutting his yell off with a sharp smack and a grunt. Ohm was not breathing. That was a gun. A real, live gun, and it was in the hands of Kim.

Oh, Ohm thought dumbly. Macau really did summon him.

Ohm hadn't had time to finish that thought before Eyes was being dragged, by the side of his head, Kim's fingers, hooked viciously around it, and slammed into the nearest wall with a sickening noise. Something had broken, Ohm was sure. It was louder, worse, than the sound in the club all those fucking aeons ago, a shattering rather than a simple crunch, and Ohm could smell the iron in earnest now, and it made his stomach roil, and then Kim pulled the man's head back and did it again.

"He'll keep him alive," Macau said, faraway. Ohm barely registered it. "Doubt any of the ones outside still are, and they'll want at least one, if only to tattle. Not sure how he'll talk with his cheekbone smashed in, but you know."

"Macau," Chay said, faintly, "please stop talking."

Chay's voice seemed to freeze time itself, or, at the very least, Kim.

Kim's fingers relaxed enough that Eyes' head slipped past them, and he dropped to the ground with no resistance.

"Chay," Kim said, far too softly for what he had just done. There was still a gun in his hand. Ohm's next blink had Kim crossing over, the broken man behind him completely forgotten, and Kim was crouched in front of Chay, reaching out, all tentative, as though there wasn't still a gun in one of hands, as though the man behind them didn't exist, as though Ohm couldn't see the flecks of blood still damp on his hands.

The gun dropped, and Kim was reaching both hands out, gentle under Chay's chin, as he asked, still with that same incongruous softness, "Are you hurt?"

"A-ha!" Macau exclaimed from behind them. Kim didn't even blink. Ohm wasn't sure he saw Chay blink, either. "Fucking finally," Macau continued, apparently studiously ignoring how Kim's eyes roved across Chay's face, and Ohm wished he could do the same, but this was the Kim from the video, the Kim Ohm had never seen, the Kim that— oh, god, he was a murderer. Chay's weird popstar stalker ex was a murderer. He had a gun.

Macau stood up, shaking out his hands— his freed hands, Ohm realised belatedly— and walked around Kim, giving him a wide berth as he circled over to Ohm, his hands quick and sure on the rope at his wrists.

"Not my first rodeo, of course, but it's been a while," Macau was chattering mindlessly. "Nobody's dared to take me since hia became, well, hia. More trouble than I'm worth, usually." Ohm's wrists came loose. Unthinking, Ohm rubbed at them, wincing at the rawness of his skin, the ache of his shoulders.

Kim let his fingers drop away from Chay's face, as gentle and slow as all his movements towards Chay had been this time. Suddenly, Kim lunged forwards, arms constricting around Chay like a trap, his face tucked into Chay's hair for a few trembling seconds, before he pulled back just as suddenly, hands on Chay's shoulders. Chay hadn't made a sound, eyes wide, shoulders tight, not seeming to breathe. Ohm had to look away.

Macau had moved on to Moon, tugging at the rope until it gave, dissolved into a single line. "You're being weirdly calm," Macau noted to Moon, still ignoring Kim and Chay. He sounded careful. "Is this… something you're used to?"

Moon snorted. "Hell, no. I'm just cool under pressure." Moon twisted around to look at Macau through narrowed eyes. "You, on the other hand. You're used to—"

"Chay!"

Moon stopped talking. She'd recognised the voice, too. Ohm had forgotten about him.

"Chay!" and it was much, much closer, the thundering of footsteps close on its heels.

P'Porsche hurtled through the door seconds later, eyes sweeping a brief round around the room, lingering for the briefest of seconds on the crumpled man, before he landed decisively on Chay. Kim had moved away, a respectable distance between him and Chay, and completely out of the way when P'Porsche fell about Chay, pulling him into a massive bear hug, hand cradling the back of Chay's head.

P'Porsche looked… different. Hair combed neatly away and styled out of his face, in a suit, of all things, the material offensively expensive-looking, and Ohm could have winced when P'Porsche's trouser-clad knees hit the floor. It was almost a relief to see his shirt buttons still forgotten halfway through.

Moon was moving, subtly but definitely, away from P'Porsche and Chay. If Macau noticed, he didn't bring attention to it. Moon moved until she was right next to Ohm, tapping at his hand. Ohm needed no direction to turn his attention to the next man that walked through the doors. He wore opulence like a second skin, hair as neatly styled away as P'Porsche's, his suit jacket as prominently dripping wealth, shirt as unbuttoned, but there was something undeniably settled about him, or perhaps unsettling, or maybe that was just the easy, familiar grip he had on the gun in his hands.

The man stopped, his own attention clearly caught on Kim. "Kim," he greeted, and it sounded innocuous enough, but Ohm could hear the question in it, even as his tone remained even.

"Kinn," Kim replied in kind, his face completely and carefully blank, and oh. So this was the fiancé. Ohm looked back at the fiancé's hand. The fiancé with a gun.

"Thorough job back there," Kinn noted without any particular inflection. He stared at Kim as though to bore a hole right through his face and dig into the soul beneath. Ohm couldn't tell if it was working. "Quick, too."

"Hm," Kim responded. He did not look away, did not back down.

Moon tapped at Ohm's wrist again, and Ohm wasn't sure what she wanted now, but he obliged as she shuffled back, moving slowly back himself.

P'Porsche turned towards them. His eyes widened with recognition. He hadn't realised it was them. "Nong," he said, arms slackening around Chay, and Ohm had no idea which of them he was addressing, or if he was addressing them both, but it didn't matter, because Moon, out of nowhere, flung herself in front of Ohm. Ohm blinked at her back.

"Chay," Moon said, and her voice was hard, cold. "What did you say your brother's fiancé did? As a job?"

Chay shifted uncomfortably. His hands were still tied. Macau tentatively started to undo them, now that he was free of the hugs. "Um. It… never came up."

"Right," Moon agreed, moving further backwards, forcing Ohm along as well. Ohm tried to peek out from over her shoulder. P'Porsche was braced as though to corner a wild animal. "Okay. So what does he do, Chay?"

Chay didn't answer. His eyes darted to P'Porsche. P'Porsche didn't move a muscle.

"Family business."

The answer came from Kinn himself, perfectly at ease, chin held at an angle. He offered Moon a smile. Moon backed away further. "Macau," she demanded. "What the fuck?"

Macau shrugged. The rope around Chay's wrists came loose at last. "I think you've already figured it out."

"No," Moon argued, but she didn't sound like she meant it. "No," she said again, stronger, but it wasn't a refutation. "P'Porsche." The man in question hardly moved, so at odds with the man Ohm had known, in constant motion, sometimes smooth and sometimes less so, a smile creasing the corners of his eyes like a tattoo. The P'Porsche in front of them now had a face blank enough to almost rival Kim's. "I thought you'd married rich like regular rich, not mafia rich."

Ohm couldn't breathe. He had suspected it, at some level, the moment Macau had started listing, and if not then, the moment Kim had dashed in guns ablaze, and if not then, when Kinn had walked through. Ohm had suspected something was afoot, but he hadn't had the guts to put it into words, not the way Moon could. Ohm had never been as brave as Moon.

But they could be wrong. They could still be wrong, the both of them. Ohm could be cowardly and wrong, and Moon could be brave and wrong, and they'd laugh it off and go home and forget about the whole ordeal.

"N'Moon," P'Porsche said, measured. "I know this is… difficult. Let's talk about this somewhere safer, okay?"

Ohm's eyes slid shut. He didn't need them open to know the way Moon's shoulders had slumped, as though in defeat, as though she, too, had been hoping to be wrong.

Fuck. Chay's weird popstar stalker ex was a weird mafia killer popstar stalker ex. What the fuck.