Archive of Our Own

He’s bouncing on whatever surface he’s lying on. His bones are aching and his migraine is palpitating from the back of his eyes. He hears a whimper and turns his head to the side until he realizes it's coming from his own sore throat. Something is not right, he can barely move and the first thing that his senses capture the moment he wakes up is the smell of wet wood. So he opens his eyes, only to see a stripe of light coming from the spaces between planks of wood over him.

It's freezing. He can feel the cold wind entering the room and hitting his wet skin. He bites his lips to try to warm them up and sees his breath over his head, drawn in smoke in front of his eyes. His fingertips are cold when he touches his chest and the rest of his torso. He's shirtless, but he still has his pants on, or whatever the thing he has on is. It feels plastic but it's dry inside, like those surfing suits.

He sits up and frowns the moment he feels the blood rolling down his back. It's dark but there's a spotlight lighting up his body placed in the corner on the table he's been laying on. He looks at his arms and sees them covered up with tattoos, just like some parts of his torso. He has what seems to be a dragon’s body going from his hip, his torso, his right arm and disappearing down his back. He’s bleeding from a little incision on his left side, just where the dragon’s tail hides under his pants. 

He has points connected in the lower part of his arm. It looks like a constellation but Kimhan can’t think of its name. He touches his sides as if he’s searching for something on his skin, something that could tell him anything, something that could explain this situation. But all he sees is black ink and blank spaces in between. He sees a blade under his ribs, near the dragon’s body, and some number that has no meaning to him. 

His breathing starts to accelerate. He starts looking at his surroundings, trying to find an exit. It is only three feet from where he's lying and if he can bear the pain in his back, he can get out of there in five minutes.

He starts moving when he hears steps coming down. He goes back to the table and lays down, trying not to make a sound and closes his eyes. The man enters the room whistling, opens the water tap and lets the water run for a couple of seconds until he walks up to him. It's not until he feels a small blade on his skin next to his hip that he grabs the man's neck and squeezes, making him drop the scalpel on the floor and put his hands over his.

“What are you doing to me?!” He yells and feels the open wound start bleeding.

“I’m trying to help you!” The man answers with a rusting accent, maybe Swedish, he can’t place it for sure.

"Where am I?!" He loses up his grip a bit only to let the man talk.

“You’re in a fishing boat,” he caught the moment he let go, "We found you in the water," he talks slowly, trying to make him understand, "You were shot, see?"

The fisherman points out a little container next to the table. Two smashed bullets covered in blood are on display.

“This was on your hip, under your skin.” He turns to find the man projecting a red light to the wall.

00 -7-17-12-0-14-26

Gemeinschaft Bank

Zurich

“What is your name, son?” He asks, looking right at him.

“I don’t know,” He whispers as he slowly passes out.

*

The crew decided to call him “Namnlös”, which literally means “Nameless”. He’s fine with that, he doesn’t mind having people calling him names or making fun of him, he just wants to remember his own name, have any idea how he ended up bleeding in the middle of the ocean near Marsella. There’s a hole in his mind that can’t fill up. He can do things like help knotting the fishing nets and lifting the barrels of fish no one wants to touch or even make dinner some days for the last two weeks. He can speak and read Swedish fluently, but he can’t remember where or how he learned it. His brain thinks in Thai so he decided that’s his native language. He can read maps and calculate distance only using a compass and feeling the fucking wind but he can’t explain how, he just knows that every single thing that pops up in his mind is accurate. But there’s nothing personal, only data and numbers and muscle memory.

He looks at the mirror a lot. He examines every part of his face trying to recognize anything, but the man standing in front of the glass is as much of a stranger as anyone in that boat. His eyes are a dark brown, his black hair falls all over the oval shape of his face, his brows are thick and his lips are both thin and plump. He touches his cheeks, his neck, the corner of his eyes and everything feels fresh and new – it's terrifying. He's sure there are stories to tell, like the minuscule scars on his right cheekbone and his upper lip, or why his hair is so long. But the only thing he can do is tie it up in a bun and stop asking questions he can't answer. Anton, the man that saved him keeps telling that everything will come back, but nothing is happening and the hole in his mind has created a hole in his chest. He's missing something, he just doesn't know what.

Anton gives him enough money to go to Switzerland when they arrive at the nearest fishing port they can get him to. There's more 'good lucks' than 'goodbyes' and he feels like he’s never been more lost than this moment.

*

His hands are shaking. Not only because he's pretty sure he just broke some ribs from the guy who just tried to steal from him, but mainly because he can't explain what just happened or the way he felt when he did it. One minute he was sleeping on a park bench, his head over the duffel bag that Anton gave him with some clothes and food, and the next thing he felt was a hand under the bag. So he took it, pulled it out, twisted the wrist, broke the arm and pressed one foot over the homeless man's chest until he heard bones breaking. But what scares him the most, the one thing that has his breath hitched in his throat is the sensation that traveled through his veins when he heard the first screams of the poor man. It’s the shot of adrenaline that rushed up and down his body as if someone else’s pain stimulated him.

He's been running since he realized what he did, controlling his breath so people won't notice him, stepping outside the bank waiting for it to open. He only got to Zurich the night before and he hopes this place can give him some answers because even when, apparently, he knows how to breathe, he's running out of air.

Zurich is covered in snow and he lost his only coat when he ran away from the park after hurting that man. He only has a jumper on and his fingers are already freezing so he puts them under his armpits, trying to warm them up and waits only half an hour to step into the bank. He walks to the receptionist and asks to see a secret account. After writing down the sequence of numbers of the account – that he knows like the palm of his hand, since it is the only thing that relates to his past – he waits until two guys in suits take him to the elevator and to the fifth floor.

His heart is starting to beat faster but his body doesn't seem to react to it. His walk is even and he's positive the expression on his face hasn't changed, which is starting to scare him. He feels his pulse in his throat when the staff of the bank asks him to place his right palm over some screen, waiting to confirm his identity, and he lets the air that he was holding in his lungs leave his body when the screen turns green.

He spends the next five minutes sitting in a booth with a red velvet curtain instead of a door, waiting for someone to bring the silver box, open it with a key and then exit the room, closing the curtain to leave him alone with his belongings. He takes a deep breath when he’s finally alone. His hands are trembling and any incident from that morning is long forgotten the moment he opens the box.

There’s a bunch of contact lenses, a watch, some keys, credit cards, USB drives, and a Thai passport. He sits down in the chair next to him and takes the passport and opens it.

‘Kimhan Theerapanyakul’.

His hair in the picture is shorter. But that’s him, that’s his face, the reflection in the mirror he’s been seeing since he woke up in that boat. He whispers his own name, trying it out, rolling it down his tongue and somehow it feels good, but nothing else happens. His mind’s still blank. There’s no other explanation for what it’s happening to him coming from the name printed in front of his eyes.

He’s about to close the box when he sees the unevenness of one of the corners, so then he takes the edges of the plaque and lifts it out. Kim stays still when he finds a bunch of money in different currency, a gun and at least eight different identities with different names but the same face, his face. His brain is running and his hands only take a couple of seconds to catch up.

He takes the red bag in the trash can and puts the cash, the passports, the keys and the address of what it seems to be his house in Paris. Kimhan closes the box and returns it to the man waiting for him outside the red curtain. He gets into the elevator and counts the seconds to the first floor. When the elevator door opens, there’s a steady set of eyes watching every step he takes, so he speeds up, avoiding the people in the front door, sliding behind a couple of guards, walking next to the walls when he hears the police talking to their radios.

Something is happening. They're looking for him and Kim doesn't understand why, so he holds onto his bag and walks down the street to the Embassy of Thailand. His feet go faster as he cuts corners, knowing somehow where to go and how long is going to take him to get there. The policemen are getting closer, five for what Kimhan can count in the reflection of the window wall of the café he just passed by.

Kimhan can hear the men moving behind him, coordinating an ambush, trying to catch him but he shows his passport at the entry of the Embassy when they’re five feet apart from him. The Thai guards stop the policemen at the door and Kim loses himself in the crowd next to the queues to the information stands. He locates the surveillance cameras first, one each corner, four in total. He's looking for a way to the exit the moment he feels the Thai guards start moving but then he hears the strong accent arguing in one of the stands with a bold man looking bored and exasperated by a young guy in front of him. 

He looks slim from a distance. His hair is dark, black and wavy, but what catches Kim’s attention are his eyes. They are big, flaring. The boy’s lips move frantically as he argues with the man in front of him.

He catches pieces of the discussion in Thai. Something about a visa and the lack of money, a job and a place to stay. The argument doesn't last long because the young man is taking his papers and leaving the embassy a minute after. 

Kimhan follows him with his eyes until he leaves the building. Then he feels a hand on his shoulder. He only reacts, taking the hand over his arm and twisting it, working the weight of the guard against him and dropping him to the floor. The other two guards jump to him and Kim punches one of them in the stomach, then slaps his throat with his right hand, making him step back, trying to catch air and giving Kim enough time to kick the other one in the tibia, making the guard drop to his knees, and then hit his jaw with his tight.

Kimhan starts running to the emergency stairs, blocking the door behind him, his blood running too fast through his veins. He can feel the adrenaline in every single bone. But he doesn't stop. He can hear the place is locked down and the soldiers coming to him, so Kim runs upstairs, finding a couple of them, taking the gun pointing at his face and hitting the guard in the forehead with it, dropping the body to his side. He pushes the other two guards downstairs, taking the radio of the unconscious one at his feet.

He keeps going upstairs until he reaches the seventh floor, then opens the emergency door. The people in the hallways start going into the offices and locking themselves in. Kimhan takes the map of the building that’s hanging on the wall and tries to find the only way out without being detected or having to hurt more people. 

His body keeps moving. He feels like he’s just a passenger right now, his brain working non-stop and his hands breaking a padlock with a fire extinguisher as he enters a dark room with a sealed door in front of him. He can’t take a minute to think what is going on or what exactly he’s doing, he just knows.

Kim can't explain it. He doesn't know the reason the Thai guards are after him when they're supposed to protect him. He doesn't know how he can beat them up or how he can hear them two floors beneath him. When the door finally opens, he's standing eight floors above the streets, in an incomplete emergency stair. He's trying to look for another way to get out of the building but the guards are getting closer so he throws the red bag containing everything he owns in the world to the ground and rolls down the stairs, holding onto the bare wall, placing his feet in the thin frame of one of the exterior windows.

He starts moving when he hears the guards closing the door above him. Kim scales down the wall, knowing exactly where to place his hands and feet until he can jump to the ground without hurting himself. The snow splashes up his jeans to his knees but Kim ignores it, even when he feels it melting and getting his legs cold. He turns a corner and stops when he sees the guy from the Embassy looking at his phone, leaning on an orange Renault 4.

Kimhan smiles and his breath gets caught in the back of his throat when he realizes it is the first time he has smiled since he woke up. He clears his throat, gaining the attention of the boy a few steps in front of him. He's looking at Kim and for a second he forgets he has trained soldiers and the Zurich police force chasing him.

There’s something about those inviting brown eyes.

"You're the guy from the embassy, right?" Kim says with a smile, approaching him.

The boy squints as Kimhan gets closer to the other side of the car. He licks his lips and Kim can’t help but follow the movement of his tongue. He looks down to his feet, taking the snow out of his shoes with the bumper of the car.

“Yeah?” He answers and he can hear his voice better. It's high pitched but rusty. Something is bothering Kim in the back of his mind but he can’t quite say what it is. 

He doesn’t have time for this. A local patrol passes behind them and Kimhan steps to the wall next to the car.

“I need you to take me to Paris.” He looks up to find the boy looking at where the patrol was just a second ago.

“Is that for you?” He asks, pointing at the empty space behind them.

“I’ll give you ten thousand pounds if you take me to Paris,” Kimhan says, the young guy lets his mouth open for a couple of seconds before Kim takes a wad of bills from his red bag and throws it to him. “I’ll give you another ten thousand when we get there.”

He looks at the cash and then at Kimhan a couple of times before swallowing, "I don't want any more trouble. I have enough on my own."

"But you need the money," Kim says, establishing a fact with a smirk on his face. "And I need a ride."

*

“…So I tried to talk Ohm out of it, but he was already running full speed to with some stranger’s guitar," His laugh resonates in the car as he keeps his eyes on the road, the radio is playing some pop song in the background and Kim keeps looking through the window, checking the mirror, calculating how long it will take them to get to Paris. "My hia almost killed me when he was called to get me."

He laughs and Kimhan smiles. His name is Porchay and he’s a musician, or at least he’s trying to be one. He likes to cook, drink coconut water and loves his brother very much. He left his home when he was eighteen and has been traveling the world since then. He’s also very talkative and hasn’t shut up since they got into the car, but Kim enjoys it, it makes everything more lightweight.

“I’m gonna turn the volume up,” Chay whispers and Kimhan turns to him.

“Don’t do that. I like talking to you.” He replies, only to find Porchay rolling his eyes.

“I’m doing the talking; you’re just looking at trees.”

Kimhan hides his smile in his jumper. Porchay is a breath of fresh air after everything that has happened in the last twelve hours or even the last two weeks. Kim is a good observer, he has noticed. He can see cars behind them in the corner of the mirror that usually would be hard to detect. He can hear steps coming towards him even if they are pretty far apart, and he can tell the weight and even the height of the person by said steps. But when it comes to Chay, apparently, he is just discovering now how observant he can truly be.

For instance, Kim can’t explain how long his lashes are. He can see the shadow on his cheeks when he talks, perfectly curved, almost distracting. He also blushes a lot, especially when Kimhan accidentally touches his hand or when it gets colder inside the car. Porchay also plays with his hair when he's nervous or when he feels Kim’s look on him, which has happened just a couple of times in the three hours they've been on the road. And his voice would tremble in the middle of a story when he tries to remember details that Kim doesn't need. But Chay seems to think they're incredibly important, which initially made Kimhan think for a second that he could be lying, but then Porchay would laugh and something in Kim's brain would just stop, like it's rebooting itself, and instead he would get all dizzy.

There's something about Porchay, about the way he talks, the way he smells and moves that makes Kimhan feel like he knows him from a different lifetime. 

And that frustrates him, because his mind seems to be divided in two placesL one outside the car, trying to find anything out of the ordinary that could mean trouble for him, and the other next to a cheerful boy with rosy cheeks and plump lips.

“So what about you?” Chay asks when Kim lets his hair down only to wrap it in a bun again. He has been waiting for it, for the curiosity to win over manners, for the rightful questions to a complete stranger he agreed to drive to another country. Kimhan knows he has to answer, it's the least he can do.

And Porchay seems to be a curious man, if the way he keeps stealing glances at Kimhan’s tattoos on his arms when he rolled up the sleeves of his jumper can say anything about it. Or how he loses himself a little bit when he sees open roads in the middle of the forest they drove by.

Kim can think of ten excuses to explain his name, a reason to be in Zurich and why he would pay twenty thousand pounds for a ride to Paris. He even has answers if Porchay occurs to ask about the police chasing him. But for some reason, he doesn’t want to lie to Porchay. He wants to trust him. He needs someone to trust in the middle of this shithole he got himself into and Chay seems to be the perfect candidate for the job.

"There's nothing about me," Kim says, looking at his eyes the second Chay turns his face at him, only to hear him snort and return his eyes to the road. "I'm serious. There's nothing about me, because I can't remember a single thing about me or my life before the last two weeks."

He notices how Porchay’s grip on the wheel tightens up. Kimhan wonders if he’s afraid of him now.

“Like… you’ve lost your memory?” Porchay clears his throat. He is scared.

"Yes," Kim answers, looking at the window again.

"That sucks, phi," Chay says and that may be the first time Kimhan laughs since he woke up.

*

“So… Kimhan Theerapanyakul.”

Kim nods after Chay puts down his Thai passport over the table and takes another sip of his hot cocoa. It's been forty minutes since Kimhan started talking and he hasn't stopped since, even when he thought he didn't have much to tell. But Porchay keeps asking questions and Kim keeps finding answers for him like an instinct, like he actually needs to please this guy in front of him.

But it’s not only that. Porchay listens. He really listens to every word that comes out of Kimhan’s mouth, and he seems to care. There’s spaces between words where he even looks concerned for Kim when he shouldn’t, and it’s nice looking into somebody’s eyes and forgetting for a second how shitty your life seems to be, because if you woke up one day in the middle of the ocean without a single memory and suddenly the police and the military of a European country are after you, it doesn’t seem to be a good life.

"It suits you," Porchay says and Kim looks up.

He has some cocoa in his upper lip and that makes Kimhan smile, so he doesn't say anything. Chay eats another fry and leans over the table, closer to Kim, smiling softly. But Kimhan doesn't quite understand what he means, so he leans his head to the side, asking with his eyes for an explanation.

“Your name? I don’t know,” he shrugs, “it suits you.”

Kimhan laughs then. “Which one?”

Chay rolls his eyes, “You know what I mean.”

He lets the air out of his lungs and looks at the big eyes in front of him. For some reason he feels at peace, but not entirely, it’s like something from the back of his mind is always present.

“I have no idea who I am but I can tell you right now fifteen different ways of getting out of here without getting noticed, I located every enter and exit from the moment we sat down, and I can say the only two people in here that could put up a fight are the man eating the pie at the end of the hallway and the waitress that slides the cake.” Kimhan finally says.

Chay’s smile starts to fade away, but not completely.

*

Kimhan wakes up to the sound of knuckles knocking at the window. He opens his eyes but closes them immediately when the light hits him right in the face. It takes him a couple of seconds to get used to the sun over his head when he finally opens the door and receives the coffee that Porchay is handing to him.

"Did I fall asleep?" Kim asks, taking a sip of the drink and giving it a second look when he finally takes it.

Chay nods, looking in front of them, drinking his coffee. Black, from what Kim can smell from where he’s sitting in the seat with his legs spread on the sidewalk next to the place that Porchay parked the car. He can tell what's in his drink, can taste the toasted beans of coffee, the syrup and a bit of cinnamon, but he doesn't know what the drink itself is. He only knows that he likes it, very much.

“What’s this?” Kim asks, looking at his cup.

Porchay clears his throat, taking another sip and avoiding Kim’s eyes.

“It was the special of the day, apparently. I didn’t wanna risk it so I ordered it for you,” he laughs. “You like it?”

"Yes," Kimhan says with a smile, standing up and stretching his arms up to his head. "It may be my favorite now."

"Good," Chay answers with a smile and Kim looks around him.

"So we're in Paris." He lets his hair down. When he feels a headache abate, Kimhan starts massaging his skull as his hair falls on his shoulders. He can feel Chay's eyes in the back of his head seconds after he mumbles a yes.

It's strange, how you can be in a place for the first time but feel like you've been there countless times. Standing in the middle of the street next to a ridiculous small car filled up with belongings next to a noisy young boy, Kim recognizes every corner, every frontage and every driveway of the city, he knows how to get to places. He can even walk from here to his apartment if he wants to. But there are no memories attached, and that makes his chest heavy and Chay's presence on his side, needed.

Kimhan finishes his drink and waits for Porchay to finish his coffee so they can get into the car and start driving. The sun is just starting to rise up–slowly, like it’s waking up with them, letting the caffeine run through their bodies. It  feels a little warm behind the window’s glass as the sunlight kisses their skin gently, almost like asking for permission. That is the moment when Kim turns to Chay, and for a fragment of a second, he turns to look at him too and smiles.

It doesn't feel like the first time, or the last time. It feels like just one of many. Driving down this road, seeing those buildings, hearing Chay singing with the radio under his breath, the cinnamon scent left from the coffee and the way his hair moves with the wind when he finally rolls down the window. He feels like he has done this a million times. And he has a couple of seconds to enjoy it, how tender the presence next to him makes him feel, how his fingertips touch the exterior of the door only to feel the air in between his fingers or how rested he feels after eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

It was something that shouldn't have happened. He can't lay low like that, he can't put his guard down even when he's too tired to function. His body feels used to that kind of activity and life rhythm, so he doesn't really understand how he could have fallen asleep. 

Kimhan feels the sun right over his eyes, finally waking up when he sees the façade of his building. He looks up and immediately finds his apartment window. He doesn't remember the place, but his eyes land on the balcony on the fifth floor so fast, he can only assume it's his place. That's when his senses start to kick in again.

“It’s there.” He says to Porchay, pointing to the gray building with the red door. Chay leans down over the steering wheel to get a better look at the building and starts to drive there and find a spot to park when Kim puts his hand over Porchay’s on the wheel, making him turn his head to him, feeling how Kimhan himself moves the wheel to keep then driving past the building.

"Keep driving," he says, looking at the auto track in front of them, searching for an explanation. "Park in that coffee shop in the corner."

Porchay returns his eyes to the road and nods, parking the car seconds after. Kimhan is still looking behind them, maybe trying to find someone looking for him, getting ready for whatever situation that may present itself. Kim clears his throat when the car finally stops and Chay takes out the keys. They stay there for a couple of seconds, looking everywhere but them and for no reason, Kimhan feels like none of them wants to say goodbye just yet. So when he opens the door and gets out of the car, he hears Porchay doing the same only to be standing up in front of him, with the car between the two of them. 

He looks up to find Chay already looking at him.

“You wanna go in?” Kim finds himself asking, pointing to the building behind them, going against every last bit of rational thought when Porchay smiles so big, something inside Kim’s chest goes back to what feels to be its rightful place. “I can pay you the rest of our deal there and maybe eat some breakfast.”

Kim doesn't really need an answer, based on the way that Chay is smiling and looking at the ground, so he just takes the forgotten red bag in the back of the car and starts walking to the building, Porchay following at his side. People start leaving their homes to get to work, shops start opening, and bicycles pass them dangerously close to the sidewalk, so Kimhan takes Chay's hand instinctively to stop him from crossing the road. Porchay looks up to him and apologizes and even if he doesn't want to–especially because he doesn't want to–Kim lets his hand go.

There's a lot he can't explain since he woke up. He doesn't know the stories behind his tattoos or the scars across his body. He doesn't know the reason why he grew his hair so long or have any notion as to his favorite things. He doesn't have an idea when his birthday is or where he grew up. But there's something about this city, something about Porchay that feels like some sort of a constant. And maybe he shouldn't get so used to him. It's dangerous, and he can't put a complete stranger in danger when he only has been nice to him. It doesn't matter how hard Kimhan wants to keep Chay with him.

Porchay starts talking again to fill the gap. Maybe he was growing uncomfortable from all the staring that Kim was doing when they crossed the street. But he just can't seem to shut his brain down when it comes to those bambi-like eyes, even when he seems to be alert at all times–like both sides in the sidewalk, everyone coming in the corners, the intersections and the cars coming from behind, the people running past them listening music a bit too loud. All that, andChay's cheeks are still blushing as he talks about the place he grew up. Kim hears and sees everything and it all seems to be fine. 

He doesn't like it. It's too perfect, too unreal.

So he puts his hand on Chay's lower back once they get to the building, looking for his keys in the red bag with his free hand, and he's about to open the door when an old lady crosses the hallway next to the stairs, looking at him as a huge smile dawns on her face. She's wearing a floral blouse with white pants and glasses on. For some reason, Kim waves at her and she comes to open the door.

“Dan, dear!” She says, laughing as he makes him lead on to hug her, “It’s been a while since you’ve been here!”

She’s English, and her warmth is just as odd as any reason she would have to be so fond of him. But Kimhan can’t remember her name. He doesn’t know who she is, so he does the only thing that pops in his mind: he lies.

"I've been on a short trip. Work, you know?" Kimhan makes her laugh again, delighted. "This is Porchay." He finally says, stepping aside so the lady can fully see him and get distracted for a second. It works because they start talking, giving him enough time to look at the interior of the building, trying to remember anything.

The stair goes all the way up and there are two elevators at the end of the hallway in front of them. Some mailboxes in the wall next to them step away and a big and fancy chandelier over their heads. Kim looks down at the keys in his hand and sees a little one, small enough for one of those boxes so he walks up there, leaving Porchay behind talking to the lady who doesn't seem to have a problem with that, she actually looks charmed by the Irish man and his noisy laugh that's starting to grow on him.

He looks at the little key with the number 502 on it. He’s assuming it's his apartment number, so he opens the box, finding a couple of bills and some pamphlets. He takes it out and starts to feel around the sides until he gets to the top of the box. 

There is some kind of paper attached to it. Kimhan takes out what seems to be a black envelope with the name Kimhan Theerapanyakul  on the back with golden ink and nothing else. He feels the corners and the texture of the paper. It’s thick, but not heavy, the size of the palm of his hand, but something about it feels wrong.

He returns to Porchay and the woman next to him. They’re laughing about something. The only thing he can do is smile at them.

“Oh, Danny! He’s a keeper!” She says lovingly, and Kimhan needs a second to collect himself and smile before putting his hand around Chay’s waist.

"Mrs. McKinney here is telling me about all the pasta she gives you so you'll stop ordering in," Porchay says next to him, resting on his chest.

“And I’m very grateful for it.” Kim smiles, looking at the elevators for a second. “But we need to take a shower, it’s been a long day.”

“Oh, of course, darling!” she claps, moving aside so they have the hallway free.

"Mrs. McKinney?" Kimhan asks, making her turn to him. "Are there any chances you saw the person who put this in my mailbox?"

She looks at the black envelope in his hand and frowns.

“No, sorry, honey.” She smiles tenderly.

“That’s okay. Thank you so much.”

When Kimhan looks in front of him, Porchay is already waiting for him in the elevator, holding the door open. He presses the bottom with the number five on it once he gets inside and waves to Mr. McKinney, who’s about to go out.

“See you at dinner, boys!” She yells. “At seven! Don’t be late!”

And then the door is closed. Kimhan frowns and turns immediately to Chay, who is looking at his reflection in front of him like this happens every day.

“Dinner?” Kim asks and suddenly, Porchay finds his shoes extremely interesting.

“She thought I was your boyfriend and she talks pretty fast,” he laughs. “My English is not that good, so when I tried to tell her we’re just friends, she invited us to dinner, and then you came.”

Porchay breathes out the sentence so he doesn't have to justify himself for getting them into this, at least that's what Kim thinks. And he's about to answer, but before he can, the doors open and Chay leaves the elevator, leaving Kim hanging, carrying his red box and the words halfway out of his mouth. Chay laughs again when he sees Kim like that and once more when the doors are about to close on him.

Kimhan walks to his door with Porchay following behind. He seems afraid. Maybe because he made plans without permission, maybe because they now have to spend more time together after Kim pays the rest of the money. 

Kimhan can’t blame him. Dinner is not a good idea, and he can’t keep dragging Chay everywhere he goes when he has people chasing him. If anything happens to him, Kim couldn’t forgive himself. There's something about this boy, something in his face and the way he keeps looking at him when he thinks Kim is not paying attention, something in how soft his voice gets when he talks to Kim, something that makes him shiver with worry.

Kimhan opens the door. Porchay is about to step in, but Kim puts his hand on his chest and drags him behind his back, just in case. He walks inside the apartment, looking at every side in the hallway and stepping into every room before letting Chay in. 

Seems to be clear. Kim doesn't like this, either, but he decides to stop overthinking things. Everything's been quiet since they left Zurich, though Kimhan feels in his bones that the quiet is not necessarily a good sign.

He leaves the mail on a tea table next to the door, keeping the black envelope in the front pocket of his pants and closing the door behind them. 

When Porchay walks in, his eyes open wide. Kim laughs from the back of his throat and tries to play it off with a cough. He puts his hair in a bun again so it doesn’t all fall in his face.

“Is this all yours?” Porchay asks, gasping. Kim understands the reaction.

The place is too big for just one person. The walls are white except for the main room and the office. The kitchen is large, almost professional-looking; the bathrooms are unnecessarily luxurious and the floor is entirely wood. Porchay walks around the apartment with his mouth open, his eyes catching every single detail, his hands slipping across the walls as he goes by.

Kimhan leans on the door frame when they enter the living room. The balcony is in front of them in the center, with the couches at the right and a big piano at the left. Chay looks at the ceiling, seeing the chandelier hanging over his head, and Kim smiles. He doesn't know if this is all his, he doesn't understand how he could afford to live in a place like this, but again, he doesn't know what he does for a living.

"This is ridiculous," Chay finally says, with his hands on his hips as he walks to the balcony's doors and opens them, letting the morning breeze get into the apartment as he walks out to take a better look and a deep breath.

The view is nice, the sun through the white curtains, the wind making them dance, and Chay’s back as he leans to look down with the sun kissing his cheeks. Even when Paris feels like home, this apartment, this furniture and door seem so strange, so unfamiliar and lonely, but with this boy in the middle of it, it doesn't feel so empty.

“Kim?” Chay is standing in front of him now, waving his hand in front of Kimhan’s face, trying to get his attention.

“Sorry,” he says, smiling and taking his hand in front of his face, only to hold it for a second between his own. “You were saying?”

Porchay laughs. Kim is starting to learn that Porchay can laugh at any chance given. He likes that.

“Can I take a shower?” He asks, looking somewhere behind Kim’s head, avoiding his eyes. Kimhan smiles.

"Of course. I think I saw a bathroom down that hallway, I'll check the bedroom for some fresh clothes." He lets his hand go slowly, and Porchay disappears into one of the doors behind them.

Kimhan sighs, looking at the living room for a few seconds more, trying to find anything that could trigger any kind of memory. But the way everything is laid out, the way it’s decorated, the color of the walls and the furniture–it’s too plain to say anything about him, about the man that used to live in this apartment and ate too much pasta to keep him from eating fast food. There’s nothing. The art on the walls, the bottles of alcohol in a corner with different kinds of glasses that seem barely touched, the vinyl player with no vinyl records near close to being found. It's like breaking into a random house for shelter.

The bedroom is dark. The color of the walls is a light gray, but the curtains are black, keeping the sunlight out. The bed is big, like everything else in this apartment. 

There’s a painting of a dark canvas filled with brown and golden strikes over the bedside. Kimhan stands in front of the bed, in front of the painting, when his head starts buzzing like it’s trying to tell him something, the colors in it oddly familiar–but all he can see is a tide, maybe the reflection of the sun over the waves. Kimhan is almost certain he has seen this somewhere else.

Kim bites his lips, stopping himself from wasting more time. He leaves the red bag on the bed and goes to the walk-in closet and opens the doors. He looks around. It's filled up with shirts, suits, coats and Italian shoes, from what he can see. Kimhan looks in the drawers and takes one pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, a pair of black jeans, a sweater, two pairs of socks and a couple of boxers and leaves it on the bed before going to the office, hearing the water hitting the floor from the bathroom on his way.

The office is also dark. The walls are navy blue, and there's only one big window at the right of the big desk in the side of the room, right in front of the big wall of books. Kim examines every title. There is every kind of book, from mystery novels to biology, mathematics, physics and history books, apart from some tourist guides and dictionaries. 

Kimhan wants to scream. He wants to rip this giant shelf to the floor. He wants to kick that stupid desk and throw the pens at the walls, to break the only lamp on the desk and rip a hole in that ridiculous chair.

But then he remembers the envelope resting in his pants. He sits in the stupid chair and opens the envelope as gently as he can. The interior is the same, black and plaid, nothing that could tell where it comes from. 

Inside there's a small piece of white paper. But when Kim takes it out, there's nothing written on it. He flips the envelope, trying to find anything else, but it's empty. 

Kimhan puts the paper over the desk and touches the corners and surface. He feels some parts of the paper are colder than the others, so he turns on the lamp and puts the piece of paper right in front of the lightbulb.

A phrase in blue ink appears slowly. It’s the train station address and numbers.

A-4381

In the bottom left corner of the paper is a G-5. Kimhan closes his eyes and combs his brain for meaning. It has to be some kind of locker in the train station, but he doesn't have a key or any idea where he could find one.

“Kim!”

The sound of the shower is gone and Porchay’s scream resounds in the apartment. Kimhan leaves the paper and runs to the bathroom only to find Porchay with a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair wet and a gun in his hand.

"Why do you have a gun in your bathroom?!" He sounds frightened and Kim is partially thankful for having this situation to focus his brain on instead of the fact that Chay is wearing nothing but a towel.

He takes the gun from his hands and puts it behind his back on his belt.

"There are clean clothes in the bedroom right there," Kimhan points to the open door and Porchay stands in front of him for a few seconds until he finally walks in that direction.

Kimhan lets the air out of his lungs. He is starting to return to the office when he feels a gloved hand about to touch his shoulder and his lower back, going for the gun. Kim turns around right on time, twisting the man’s arm and kicking the back of his knee to make him fall, but he’s big and strong and he barely trips. He holds onto Kimhan’s arm around his neck and lifts him up the floor to push him back to the wall, leaving him out of breath for a second.

Kimhan uses his elbow to hit the man in the throat and the man lets him go, falling on his knees. Kimhan takes his head between his thighs and turns him around, anchoring him on the floor using his own weight.

“Kim?”

He looks up to find Chay completely dressed looking at both men on the floor, distracting Kimhan enough that the guy punches him in the thigh, freeing himself.

“Chay, run!” Kim yells at him, dodging a foot to his face as he holds on the lower back of the man as he gets up. “Get out of here!”

But Porchay is frozen outside the door, looking at them with an open mouth and his arms at his sides. Kimhan tries to reach the gun on his back but it has fallen somewhere in the floor, when he finally lies eyes on it, the man is about to take it, so Kim slides between his legs and kicks the gun to Chay, buying enough time to punch the man into the living room, away from the hallway.

The man takes Kimhan by his shoulders and throws him at the piano. Kim’s back hits the keys and he hears the muted sound coming from the piano. He gets up before the man’s fist could hit his face and hears the sound again. Kim punches the man in the stomach, the chest and the neck hard enough to make him back off, only to have a chair thrown at him. Kimhan moves to the side and takes one of the gin bottles on his hand and breaks it on the man's head when he's close enough. He starts bleeding and his vision blurs, so Kim hits the man in the face when he blinks, making him walk back.

Kim kicks the man in the chest, but the man takes Kim’s leg on the way down, punching him in the crotch. Kimhan eats the pain and tries to take the man’s arm again but the man is faster, pressing Kim down on the floor, sitting on his chest, making it hard for Kimhan to breathe. 

The man puts his gloved hands on Kim’s neck. His air starts to run out and his vision blurs with tears when he hears a shot over their heads.

"Let him go!" He can hear Porchay screaming behind them, and then a shot near the man's arms.

Kimhan starts punching his arms but he's not moving, Porchay shoots again and this time he hits the man’s arm, making his grip loosen a bit. Kim puts his arm between the space of this man's face and his neck and he pushes him hard enough to make him hit the wall. Then he runs to Chay and takes his face in his hands, trying to find any imperfection, but there's none. His eyes are filled up with tears and his hands are trembling.

He doesn’t have time to ask if he’s okay when he hears the safety being removed behind them and pushes Porchay to the ground, covering him with his body. He takes the gun from the man’s hands and shoots the man where he is hiding behind the sofa. Kim drags him down the piano and stands up enough to keep shooting. The bullets get the piano, making the wood fly everywhere, making it difficult for him to see. He has one hand on Chay’s hand, the other on the gun, and after he takes a moment to look at the room, he ducks down to shoot at the man’s leg and buy enough time to stand up and make for the couches.

“Porchay!” Kimhan yells as he approaches the man the moment he stands up to start shooting again, kicking the gun from his hand to the other side of the room.

Chay looks up when Kim hits the man’s face with his knee, making him trip and fall on his back.

“G-5!” Kimhan screams again. The man takes the band off his hair, making it fall all over his face and the next thing he feels is a fist on his jaw and the taste of the blood in his mouth.

“What?” Chay yells behind him.

Kim takes the man's head and hits it on the floor to disorient him. "The piano! Play G-5! It's the-"

“I know how to play a note!” Porchay screams back, “I’m a musician!”

Kimhan hears the mute sound and turns just in time to see a key jumping from the piano to Chay’s hands. But at that time, the man takes a pocket knife out of his ankle brace and stabs Kimhan right on the thigh.

“Son of a bitch!” He takes the knife out of his thigh and when he tries to return the favor, he throws him off him to the wall and starts making for Porchay.

"Take the key and get the red bag on the bed." Kim runs to the gun near him and shoots at the chandelier, making it fall right at the man's feet, giving enough time for Chay to run to the main room. 

Kimhan chases the man the moment he walks out of the living room and pushes him to the kitchen. His brain is running faster than it ever has, looking at the knives in the shelves, the pan and pots above the stove and his hands go to the closest thing he can get. A plate.

The man starts running to the knives and Kimhan throws plates at him as he goes for the knives as well, meeting in the middle. He uses his legs to make the man lose balance and fall, taking one knife in his hand and putting it to his throat.

“Who are you?!” Kimhan starts to breathe out. “Who sent you?!”

Porchay walks through the door then, holding up a gun, pointing at the man on the floor, his hands shaking and the bag on his shoulder.

“Check his pockets, Chay.”

Porchay swallows loud enough for Kim to hear. He hates himself for making Chay do this, but his own hands are full and this man is not talking, so Porchay does as he said. He searches the pockets and finds two papers. He unfolds the sheets and stands back, trembling, dropping the papers, letting Kim have a look. 

It’s photos of the two of them in the embassy.

"He has my picture," Porchay says, the gun forgotten on the kitchen table. "Those are from inside the embassy," his voice trembles as well. "How does he have our pictures, Kimhan?!"

The man starts laughing, loudly and madly. "You are dead men walking."

He spits blood to Kim's face before pushing him over and running to the living room. When Kimhan catches up, it’s only to see him jump off of the balcony.

*

Kim goes to the main room and looks into the matter, finding another gun and more bullets in the drawers of the tea table next to his bed. He puts the gun in his waistband and runs to the bathroom to wash his face and his neck, taking the shirt off and putting a sweater on and taking a black coat from the cabinet. He takes the black jeans, then he takes Porchay's hand and drags them out of the apartment. 

Kimhan changes clothes in the elevator, then turns to see Chay crying, holding the red bag to his chest. He's biting his lips too hard and Kimhan feels sick.

He approaches him, slowly and Porchay steps back until his back hits the wall. Kim frees his bottom lip with his thumb and sighs.

“You’re hurting yourself,” Kimhan drops the bleeding pants in the ventilation duct.

“Me?! You’re bleeding everywhere!” Porchay screams, looking at his eyes for the first time in the last twenty minutes.

The doors open and the first thing they see is Mrs. McKinney with a hole in her head sitting in the restroom chairs.

"Oh my God," Chay whispers, covering his mouth with his hands.

“Don’t look at her.” Kim takes his arm and starts walking to the door, taking the red bag from his shoulder and slightly pushing Porchay through the crowd formed around the dead body that fell from his balcony.

*

Kimhan is driving this time, because Chay can’t seem to make his hands still. Kimhan can’t blame him, either. It’s all on him. He got too confident and let his guard down because of Porchay’s presence. He let himself go soft, and now this boy has blood between his fingers and images in his mind he should’ve never had. 

Kim doesn’t think he has blinked since they left the building, and he hasn’t said a word, and yet the thing that worries him the most is that Porchay thinks he’s a monster.

“I’m sorry,” Kim whispers without taking his eyes off the road.

Porchay turns to him, then, like he has finally awakened from a very long dream. He looks at him with those dead eyes and Kimhan wonders if he's imagining the excited spark in his eyes instead of the dots of panic in his brown irises. Kim thinks he can see some gold in there. His eyes almost look like the painting above the bed.

"How did he get our pictures?" It's the only thing that Porchay says, returning his eyes to the road. "They were from yesterday, at the embassy." Chay starts whispering, maybe to himself. "How does anyone have access to do that?" He elevates the tone of his voice just to make clear he was talking to Kim.

“Apparently the people that are after me are very dangerous,” he answers slowly, and Porchay snorts. “And being with me has made you a target. I’m so sorry.”

“A target?! Me?!” Chay starts yelling the moment Kim stops the car, parking it in front of the train station, taking the keys with him.

“Give me the key,” he says, extending the palm of his hand to Porchay.  looks at him like he just lost his mind but puts the key in his hand anyway. “Right now, your chances are better with me. Stay in the car, don’t move.”

Kimhan gets out of the car before Porchay can say anything. He walks to the station with his head down, his hair tied up and the collar of his coat up, his hand in the front pocket, feeling the gun in his fingers. He tries to shut himself down, walking faster and faster until he gets to the boxes. 

It shouldn’t be a problem, if only the box A-4381 actually exists. There's only twenty boxes per line and only seven letters of the alphabet. 

He stops himself from pushing the lockers and takes a deep breath as he tries to remember everything about the small piece of paper. Kimhan holds the key in between his fingers and his lips, trying to concentrate and give the note some sense. 

That's when he notices something. There is an inconsistency in the boxes. Not all of them have the lock attached to the little white door of the box–some of them have bolts and padlocks that are usually the ancient ones, every letter on a wheel. So Kim walks up to box number four and fits the key into the padlock and turns it until he hears a click, but it doesn't open. The padlock has a sequence of three numbers in the top where it closes with the metal, so Kimhan moves the numbers until he forms the number 381 and a second click comes and the padlock falls from his hand to the floor.

When Kimhan opens the door, the box is empty, so he does the exact same thing he did with the mailbox earlier, he feels around the walls of the box until he feels something wrapped in tape. 

Kim pulls it out. It's a very small thumb drive. He's about to put it in his pocket when he hears some disturbance behind him. 

It takes him less than one second to get the gun from his back and point at the target, ready to shoot, mind is clear and  jaw tense enough to break his own teeth. He feels his hands ready, and a shiver of excitement runs up and down his spine. He wants to shoot.

A little girl holding a doll stands in front of him. She screams, loudly. 

Kimhan drops the weapon,his breaths accelerating. He takes one step further and the kid starts running, so he takes the gun from the floor before he can drag anymore attention to himself and walks out of there, fast, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Porchay is sitting in the driver seat when Kimhan gets to the car. He has to walk around the car and look for the car keys in his pocket, but his hands are trembling, and that's when it hits him. 

He almost killed a little girl. He pointed the gun at her face like it’s second nature, safety off and his finger ready to fire. 

He can't open the door. He can feel Chay's eyes on his face through the window and even when he opens the door for him, Kim can't move.

“Kimhan?” Chay asks, lowering his voice as he leans over the armrest to get a better look at his face. “Got what you were looking for?”

“I almost killed a kid, Chay,” he says, louder than he should have.

People start to stare.  Porchay takes the sleeve of his coat and physically drags him into the car and closes the door when he sits.Then  Chay takes the keys from his hand and starts the engine. 

They leave the parking lot slowly, trying to pass unnoticed, but there is a turmoil starting to form at the entrance of the station. So Porchay drives off, glancing between Kim and the busy streets of Paris.

"We need to go to a police station," Kim says after a couple of minutes of silence.

“What?” Chay asks, turning left in some corner. 

Kimhan can’t concentrate. All he can see is the girl’s terrified, teary blue eyes looking at him, holding her doll to her chest like some kind of bullet-proof vest and then screaming. 

“Why?”

“I’m gonna turn myself in," Kimhan whispers. His eyes are on the road, but he’s not really seeing anything.

“For what reason exactly?” Porchay sounds oddly calm so Kim turns his head in his direction, feeling the tears drop down his face.

“Did you hear me?! I almost killed a little girl! I heard something behind me and I pulled out my gun! I was so ready to shoot her, I didn’t even need to look at her face!” Kimhan is screaming and now Chay is driving faster, but he’s pretty sure they’re not going to a police station when the view looks awfully familiar. Like the outskirts of the city.

"That doesn't sound like a felony to me," Porchay says again, spinning the steering wheel with one hand, making them both slide to the right. "You say you'll protect me, that I'll only be safe with you." But he sounds weird. Chay is looking at his sides and pressing down the gas pedal and Kim holds onto his seat.

"They will protect you! There are people trying to kill me and it all might be for this stupid drive," Kimhan says, pulling out the USB from his pocket to show it to Chay. Chay glances at it but just goes faster, leaving the city behind them. "I can't put you in any more danger. You just have to explain everything as it happened, but tell them I held you hostage."

“Policeman in Zurich were trying to–”

"Chay," Kimhan says, trying to get his hands on the wheel but Porchay pulls out a gun from the glove compartment from the copilot's side in less than a second and points it right to Kimhan's face. Kim lifts up his hand, slowly sitting back.

“They’ll kill you.” He says without stutter. “I can’t let that happen.”

It’s the last thing that Kimhan hears before Porchay hits him in the head with the back of the gun.

*

Kim wakes up in a gas station with his head resting in the window and no one by his side. He's bleeding from the forehead, but the blood has run dry. 

He tries to touch it, only to find that his hands are tied up to the grab handle over his head with some kind of plastic cable. 

Suddenly, his senses wake up all at once. There's a ringing sound from the back of his head and he has to close his eyes against the lights of the grocery store in front of him. 

Kimhan pulls his hand. The cable doesn't yield. He can't feel the gun on his back or see his red bag anywhere close, so Kim looks up to the window to see his reflection. It's already dark and he has no idea where he is or how far from Paris they are or even if Porchay is still somewhere around.

The gas station is in the middle of nowhere. It has a small grocery store attached to it with window walls and only one man in the cash register. Kimhan locates Porchay inside the grocery store. He can see his wavy black hair going from the drinks to the medical aid section in the store. 

He looks around the car, trying to find anything that would help him release himself. Chay’s stuff is still in the back seat, but Kimhan can't reach anything that could be useful. It's all clothes and blankets and shoes. 

Kim stops for a second when he spots a pair of converse under the blankets. He takes off one of his black boots and uses his feet to grab the converse, then his mouth to take the shoelaces off. He doesn't want to think how he is so flexible, but his body knows what to do when his mind sets on a thing.

Kimhan puts the shoelace inside the plastic handcuff and starts rubbing it with his hand and his mouth. He feels his lips start burning when the plastic breaks off and his hands fall to his sides. He touches his wrists; they are red but barely sore. Kim turns his body to the back seat, trying to find a gun or anything he can use against Porchay but again, there’s nothing helpful.

He opens the glove compartment and finds a lot of papers and under all of it, a pocket knife. Kim looks up to see if Porchay’s still in the store. He is, but he’s already in the register paying for whatever he’s buying. He has to move quickly.

Kimhan takes the pocket knife and gets out of the car slowly, then crawls down to the wall in front of him that divides the gas hoses from the store.

Porchay steps out of the grocery store with four plastic bags in his hands. He's reading what seems to be a hair dye box. He walks to the back of the car and opens the trunk and puts the bags there, but when he walks to Kimhan's seat and doesn't see him there his hand reaches behind his back. 

Kim is there before he can touch his gun. With the knife on his neck, he restrains Porchay's arms from movement, then takes his hand and puts it higher in his back, making Chay whistle. Porchay has his other hand wrapped around Kim's hand, keeping the knife away from his throat.

“Who are you with?” Kimhan whispers in his ear, taking a couple of steps forward, enclosing Porchay between the car and his body.

"I'm with you," Chay says but his voice is choked by Kim's grip and for a second it seems like gives up, resting his head on Kimhan's shoulder and letting his body get loose.

Kim freezes for a second, but it’s enough for Porchay to push his arm with the knife away from him and hit him in the stomach with his elbow. Kimhan steps back coughing, and Chay kicks him in the chest, taking the pocket knife off his hand and throwing it behind him. Kim backs up as Porchay walks closer to him until his back hits the wall and he throws a punch to Porchay's face, and as Chay uses his arms to block Kim’s fists, he doesn't see Kimhan’s knee coming from his left side.

Porchay ducks down and takes Kim's leg with him, making him trip until his ass hits the floor and his back is against the wall. Chay is on top of him then, sitting in his lap with his legs pressing Kim's thighs together and holding his arms next to his face. His breathing is fast and his lips look incredibly red and once again, his eyes remind him of that destroyed painting in the apartment back in Paris.

“I can’t believe it.” Kimhan laughs, moving his leg only to have Porchay applying more pressure on it. “The stories you told, your tears, the way you acted in the apartment. It was all a lie.”

"I had to maintain the act until I could confirm it," Chay says, struggling to keep Kim still.

“Confirm what?” Kimhan blows a lock of hair that fell in front of his eyes.

“You really don’t remember me.” Chay whispers and his voice breaks. It’s not a question, it’s an affirmation, but it’s filled with sorrow and confusion. Kimhan frowns.

He tries to free himself, but Porchay has his muscles locked in some way that keeps him from moving. 

It's funny, seeing him now and not noticing what he missed when they met. ‘Is he after him as well? Was he trying to kill him on their little trip to Paris? Was he always acting?’ This whole situation seems ridiculous because since he woke up, his instincts haven't failed him until now. When he met Porchay he didn't see any red flags or hear an alarm going off in the back of his head like any other dangerous situation. Instead, he felt…relief.

But maybe Porchay is just that good. Maybe Porchay had him fooled from the first second Kimhan laid eyes on him. Maybe the fact that he was so loud at the Embassy was just to catch his attention. Even when he sees the inconsistencies so clearly now, he can’t believe how blind he was by those pretty brown eyes and rosy cheeks.

“Who are you?” Kimhan manages to ask but what he doesn’t expect is seeing a tear drop down Chay’s face and his lips trembling.

“Don’t stare at me like that if you don’t know who I am,” He says.

That’s when he sees it. The vulnerability in his eyes, the slight tremble in his hands, his legs, his whole body, so he gets his face closer to Chay’s and Chay doesn’t stop him, his nose touching his cheek, then his neck until Porchay lets one hand go to touch his hair and Kimhan uses it to push him over and pick him up from the floor and then throw him at the wall. 

But now, Chay is not defending himself. He’s just there, standing in front of Kim.

He looks tired now. His body looks so small for someone with that strength, his face paler than Kim remembers from this morning, now with bags under his eyes and bitten lips. Kimhan gets close enough to cover Porchay’s body with his, to feel his chest touching Chay’s and to get their faces as close as necessary for their noses to touch.

Kimhan knows that they’re supposed to be fighting, but he can’t take his eyes off his lips. There’s something about Porchay that tells him to trust him, even after all that has happened, but he ignores it.

“Give me the USB." He says instead, looking at his eyes. Porchay shakes his head.

Images start to pass in front of eyes like flashes, too quickly to catch up. But he sees Chay's eyes, he sees brown hair and holding hands, he sees white sheets and curtains floating, a bare back with spots distributed around the skin, he sees a pink lips and guitars before feeling the younger one’s knee hitting him right in the crotch and making him fall on Porchay’s arms, his face on his chest as he holds him close and plays with his hair.

 "There's a motel nearby. We can talk there, take a shower and clean your wounds." Porchay's fingers massage his skull after he takes his hair tie like he has done it a million times before.

Kimhan nods because he can’t find his voice.

*

They don’t talk in the car. They don’t talk when they pick up the groceries and the red bag from the trunk or when they register under fake names and take a room with two beds, which they pay for with the cash from Kim’s bag. They don’t talk when they enter the room and Kimhan puts the groceries on the table near the door or when he throws the bag on the bed and Porchay takes his laptop from his backpack along with some fresh clothes.  

The only thing clear is the existence of a truce between them, even when one watches the door of the bathroom when the other showers or sees every single move the other makes when they’re cleaning their wounds. It’s like walking on eggshells, Kimhan decides, but he doesn’t feel like his life is in any more danger inside this motel room than it could be anywhere else outside, so he tells him he’ll take a shower and Porchay nods.

The cold water makes him wake up completely. The weight and ache of the last few days writes itself on his bones. He is sore everywhere and his mind is a loud mess. He can hear Chay at the other side of the door moving around, just as he can hear the drops of water hitting the floor. 

All of this is too much for him to process, and his body is too tired to try to catch up with his mind. So when he finishes washing his hair, he takes the only towel he has near and dries himself up, then puts on a white shirt Porchay handed him before walking into the bathroom.

When he finally opens the door, Chay is waiting outside holding two small boxes. He walks in without saying a word and stands in front of the sink.

“So, will you tell me who you are?” Kim asks, seeing Porchay dying his hair in front of the mirror of the bathroom. He sighs.

“We’ve known each other for six years,” he replies, smiling at Kim’s reflection and then he washes his hair again. “We’ve been together for four.”

"Together as-?" Kimhan whispers, more to himself than to Chay.

“Yes.” He finally steps out of the bathroom with a towel on his shoulders, just like Kim.

He's sitting in one of the chairs next to the table with Chay’s laptop close and USB on the top of it. It's the elephant in the room, but neither of them has addressed it yet.

“So, Is Kimhan Theerapanyakul my real name?” He asks and Porchay nods.

His hair is still wet, but it’s not dark anymore. It’s a lighter tone of brown, almost caramel, and it suits him well. Kimhan knows they have to blend in if they want to figure out what’s going on and why people are trying to kill him and for what they heard in the radio earlier, police enforcement is already looking for them.

“We should cut it off.” He finally says, making Chay’s head pop up from behind the red towel.

“Excuse me?” He asks.

“My hair.” He explains slowly, because it seems something hard for Porchay to understand. “It gets in my face and I can’t move properly.”

Porchay laughs then, hard and loud, turning his face red and sitting in the bed when his legs start to give in. It takes him a couple of seconds to put himself together until his eyes lay on Kim.

“Are you serious?” He asks, looking at him like a second head grew up suddenly from his neck.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Kimhan replies with a question.

"You wouldn't normally say that," Chay searches for a pair of scissors in his backpack and walks to the bathroom, waiting for Kimhan to follow him.

And he does, he sits on the edge in the toilet and lets Porchay play with his hair for a ceremonious minute before he starts cutting it off. Like he was saying goodbye.

"Tell me," Kimhan says after a while as he sees his hair falling to the floor. "About us."

It’s not like he doesn’t believe Porchay. He felt something when they met and he has found himself lost in him more times than he can count, but that’s attraction and Porchay is an attractive man, Kim can’t deny that. Maybe it’s Chay crying in the gas station or the way his voice broke when he realized Kimhan doesn’t know who he is, or maybe he is just a really good actor, but Kim needs to hear it.

“It’s complicated,” he sighs.

“I bet it is,” Kimhan shrugs and feels his hands tremble for a second.

“We met six years ago,” Porchay clears his throat and Kim can hear the changes in his voice. He’s not lying. “I was a new recruit in my brother’s unit, I was only eighteen but they started training me right away.” He has a small smile on his face as he remembers his old days, but it slowly fades away. “You were my first assignment.”

Kimhan frowns and his whole body goes stiff. 

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“I was supposed to gain your trust and get information to dismantle your family,” his voice is husky and his hands rest over his shoulders before he scoffs. “But you knew it from the get-go.”

“Did I?” Kimhan doesn’t understand a word he’s saying, but something in Chay’s voice makes his heart warm as if he didn’t just say he was trying to sell off Kim’s family.

“You said you only played along because I was cute, and because I was surely sent to my death for approaching you.” Porchay might not notice, but he’s caressing Kim’s neck, and Kimhan knows he’s doing it to calm himself. “You had a plan on your own. You and your brothers wanted out, so we started working together to take your father down.”

Kimhan wants to laugh, and he would if Porchay’s voice didn’t sound so serious. This all feels like coming from a tacky action book. But then again, his body, how he moves and how he reacts, and the way his mind runs at all times fits perfectly with those books. Kimhan turns his head, only to find Porchay looking at a dead point in the wall in front of them.

“We, uh, fell in love.” He breathes out a nervous laugh. “We had to keep it a secret. Neither our brothers, my agency or your father could find out.” He shakes his head as if he’s trying to center himself, then starts cutting Kim’s hair again. “So we created this system to visit each other, and we only had one rule.” Chay puts the scissors on the sink and washes his hands before touching Kimhan’s new hair. “We wouldn’t miss a meeting. Never. If that’d happen it would be the only sign to end our relationship.” Kimhan turns to him and his hands fall off Kim’s shoulders. “We were supposed to meet in Germany six months ago but you never came. I haven’t heard from you since, until yesterday when your face popped up in both the Most Wanted list for my country and a bid for your head in the underworld.”

“Underworld?” Kim asks. “What does my family do?” He’s afraid to ask, but at this point, he doesn’t think anything could surprise him.

“The Theerapanyakuls are one of the biggest – if not the biggest – criminal families,” Porchay says, avoiding his eyes.

“Like mafia?” Kimhan asks laughing, but Chay doesn’t laugh with him.

“Yeah,” he says, tracing the tattoos on his back. “Like the mafia.”

His touch burns on Kim’s skin, and that alone makes Kim trust everything he just said.

“Seeing you in the Embassy wasn’t a coincidence, I assume?” he asks and Chay shakes his head.

"I was in Zurich for another job. I got the notification the moment you stepped into the bank."

“Why didn’t you go to the bank, then?” Kimhan stands up when the younger one’s hand leaves his back.

Porchay’s eyes follow him until their gazes meet. He has such beautiful eyes, and the mole right under one of them makes him feel all types of ways. He likes it.

“Because I know you better than you know yourself.” He smiles, stealing glances at Kimhan’s lips. “Even when you don’t know who you are.”

Kimhan is the one getting closer now, his own eyes on Porchay’s lips. But when his hand reaches his hips, Chay steps back, getting out of the bathroom and letting Kim hang for a moment until he shakes his head and turns his head to the mirror.

It’s shorter, way shorter. He can see his ears but there’s enough hair on the top to look good. Kimhan wonders if Chay has done this for him before, or if he ever has done this for other men. But how could he? Six years seems like a lifetime to be with someone, to love someone and the fact that someone like Porchay, like them, could’ve put in with everything that comes with that way of life makes him want to know what happened six months ago.

When he goes back to the room, Porchay is sitting in front of the laptop. It’s on and he has the memory drive in his finger, waiting for Kim to sit in the empty chair next to him. So he does. It’s not a normal laptop, it’s heavier and it’s attached to some kind of processor. He takes the USB from Chay's hand and connects it to its port. A black square pops up on the screen, requiring a password.

"It's encrypted," Kimhan says, looking at the time in red numbers counting down from ten.

"Try 1911," Porchay says and he sounds confident enough for Kim to risk it.

It works. But the first thing they see is a video. It's Kimhan in some kind of room, dressed in all black. He has some bruises on his face, his breathing is accelerated, he looks around the room even when it's obviously empty. 

Chay stands up the moment the camera focuses on his face and sees a bit of blood in his lips. He takes some steps back, like the man on the screen is a ghost and not sitting right next to him.

Kim doesn’t recognize the place where the video was taken. But he can see himself, and it feels so bizarre because it’s his face, but the terror on his eyes–it’s something he has never seen before. The Kimhan in the video rubs his hands on his face and sits down in front of a camera, letting his hair down and messing it up to put it behind his ears seconds later. He smiles at the camera, tenderly.

"Angel," Kimhan whispers and his voice sounds so cracked.

Porchay steps back even further and his eyes start to tear up again, putting one hand over his chest where his heart is meant to be and Kimhan feels like an intruder even when it's him who is talking to Chay in the video. When it's him who Porchay is crying for.

“Chay, if you’re seeing this, I’m dead.” He laughs and rests his arms on his thighs, rubbing his hands together, playing with the rings on his fingers.

Chay holds his breath and runs to sit on the chair again, getting his face as close to the screen as he can. Now the Kimhan on the screen has his attention as well.

"I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry." A single tear runs down his cheek and he cleans it up before it could reach his chin. He takes a deep breath and looks into the camera. "You told me to never keep something from you but I did. A few months ago something odd happened. I was sent to Barcelona to deal with some side business of my father’s. It all went well but when I was returning home, something didn’t feel right, I felt watched."

He laughs again, but the look in his eyes is dead. Kimhan can see the regret in them.

“I thought I was being followed by some Spanish group or even the people I just made a deal with, but no, it was father’s men.”

"No," Porchay whispers, making Kim take his eyes off the screen to look at him.

"When I confronted him he denied everything–" Kim smiles, looking at the floor. "Of course he did." He said under his breath at the same time Chay says it out loud but he doesn't flinch, like he's used to that kind of thing, like he’s been prepared for something like this to happen. "A couple of weeks later, another of his men tried to jump me. I took him down but he had some pictures with him."

There’s that smile again. The one he saw in Porchay when he realized Kimhan didn’t know who he was. And he saw the thing in his eyes. The pain of losing, of knowing there was nothing he could’ve done to prevent the situation or revert a result. The Kimhan in the video had no chance.

“It was you,” he cries. “And it wasn’t just pictures of your face. It was you that day in a coffee shop, outside your apartment in Bangkok, getting in a car, getting in a plane. Pictures of us through your window.” His voice breaks and Kimhan turns to look at Porchay.

He’s not crying anymore, the color of his face is gone and his eyes look empty but he’s not scared. He’s mad. His hands are over the time in a fist and his knuckles are white. He wasn’t to touch him, he wants to unwrap his hands and take them into his but he knows he can’t.

“He has me grabbed by the balls, baby. So I had to let you go until this was fixed.”

"Fucking idiot," Porchay mumbles under his breath and now Kim is scared.

“But I couldn’t. Something went down in Venice when I tried to flee. He’s after me and I don’t think this ends with me, so you have to run, Chay, because he knows who you are and what you do. You know he’s not going to stop.” And this is when he breaks, his body shakes and he mumbles words. Chay gets up from his chair . “All I have on him is here,” he says after he calms himself. “You have to get this to your brother and the English intelligence, this has to end once and for all. Contact Kinn and Tankhun. They’ll help you if you show them this video. I didn’t wanna involve more people. But I won’t let him touch you.”

He goes quiet for a few minutes until steps start to resound in the background. Kimhan looks at what seems to be a door and stands up. "My only regret is not marrying you, you know?"

And then it stops. The screen goes off as if the computer turns itself off but documents and photographs start to pop up all over the screen and it's a lot. Tons and tons of information and Porchay takes the chair and throws it to the wall, making Kimhan stand up slowly.

“Chay?” He says, slowly.

“I hate you!” He screams from the top of his lungs. His face is red and he’s crying again and Kim doesn’t know what to do. “Always making decisions for me. That is not how this works!”

He's beating Kimhan's chest with his fists now, and Kim holds him and takes it until Chay gets tired, until he only has the energy to cry on his shoulder and his breathing slows down, until his knees are too weak to keep him standing for himself and when Kim looks down to see if he's okay, Porchay kisses him. It's rough and messy and ravenous, but Kimhan kisses him back and holds him tight.

Kim puts his hands on his waist and Chay takes his face with both hands, holding it a bit too hard, making him feel his fingertips imprinted in the back of his neck. Kimhan can taste his tears on his lips, he can feel his heartbeat in his own chest. It all tastes like pain. So when Porchay starts to unbutton his shirt, he lets him. His hands are trembling as he tries to open button by button, Kimhan feels his hot breath panting on his naked skin as the shirt loosens up showing his bare chest.

Porchay holds his breath when the shirt falls to the floor. Kimhan can feel the cold air run up and down his back, giving him goosebumps all over his body. He looks at Chay then, and the weight of his gaze makes his skin blaze. He’s looking at the tattoos, following the dragon’s body with his eyes so intensely, Kimhan can feel it on his skin. Porchay bites his lips and lets out a whimper that fills up the silence in the room, his hand slowly rises until his finger touches the blade under his ribs and Kim flinches.

Chay takes a step closer, whispering to himself words Kimhan doesn’t reach to hear as his hand travels through every bit of ink in Kim’s skin as if he can draw them himself with his eyes closed. His lips perch on his neck and his breathing tickles him. He doesn’t say a word but by the way his body reacts to every single move he’s making, Kimhan can’t really tell if this is doing him any good.

He tries to push Kim then, but his caressing touches lose tenderness and his fingertips dive into his waist and his chest, trying to rip off the skin when his teeth sink on the skin of his neck. He feels Chay’s whimper rumble on his body when his hands start to take off the black jeans Kimhan has on, so he helps him, he holds his hand on one of his while he uses the other to unbutton his jeans and peels them off his legs. 

Porchay is shaking. He can’t bring himself to look up. But his hands are all over Kim again, as if not touching him could actually kill him.

He only has his briefs on when Chay looks up. His eyes are as red as his ears and nose. He looks gorgeous. Kim places his hand on the back of his neck and raises his brows, asking a million questions before looking at the t-shirt  and the sweatpants he’s wearing. Porchay nods frantically as he holds his hands. He’s letting out a bunch of noises Kim doesn’t know if he has heard before. He feels the despair then in the way Chay asks him to rush when he starts to take off his clothes.

But he can’t. The room has fallen dark, but Porchay’s golden skin seems to shine the moment Kim takes the shirt off his head. He’s thin, maybe too thin, because Kimhan can feel his bones when his hands touch his chest, his ribs, his hips.

“Kim–” he begs, crying.

“Wait,” he whispers back.

He touches anywhere his eyes lay on and he gets a response every time. Porchay shivers and squeals and squirms as if he has never been touched before. It’s intoxicating and Kimhan thinks he will lose his mind.

“How is this body so strong?” He asks himself, but Chay doesn’t seem to be able to wait any longer, because he takes Kim’s face in his hands and kisses him once again.

Kimhan closes his eyes, swallowing pleads and sobs and whispers as his hands push Chay’s sweatpants down, taking the underwear on the way too. Porchay freezes when he feels the air touch his skin and Kim hesitates for a second before letting his hands wander on Chay’s hot skin. He presses the palm of his hand on Porchay’s back, firm and rough as he goes down, covering his waist and his hips before perching on his ass.

Porchay sighs slowly before holding Kimhan close to his chest, their bodies crashing together hard enough to make them both lose balance. Kim steps back until the inside of his knees touches the bed and he lets himself fall with Porchay on top of him.

“Chay,” he says, his hand trying to reach his face the moment he hears him cry again.

“Shut up,” he replies, pushing his hand before it could reach him.

He can hear the need and the desperation in his voice when he places both of his hands on Kim’s chest and tries to sit on his thighs, just below his briefs, and Kimhan has to dive further into the bed to make them both fit and when his head hits the bed frame, he looks back at Porchay, beautiful and hurt Chay, with his puffy eyes and wet cheeks, biting his lips as his nails press down on Kimhan’s shoulders.

“We shouldn’t do this,” Kim says, his hands resting on his hips, trying not to look down even when every fiber of his body is screaming to take Chay right there and then.

“I need it!” Porchay wails before taking a couple of breaths and looking down at Kimhan. His eyes are dark and Kim doesn’t think he has it on him to put up a fight. “I need you,” he whispers into the night.

He goes down and Kim meets him halfway, his arms wrap around his waist as their lips press together. Porchay bites the delicate skin and Kimhan smiles, opening his mouth to let Chay in, his hands are all over him, digging, scraping and marking. Kim lets his hands do the same, until he reaches Porchay’s bare ass and sinks his fingers below the swell, grabbing his cheeks with both hands. Porchay moans in his mouth and something inside him seems to be about to explode, he feels it grow in his chest and he’s not sure if his skin could retain it. 

“Kimhan,” Chay calls when he pulls apart to breathe. “Kim,” he cries. 

Chay’s lips are still on his skin, just above Kim’s chin when he starts kissing down his jawline and his neck. Kim feels himself twitch inside his underwear and Porchay feels it on his stomach.

“How could you have left me like that?” He asks, but Kimhan knows he doesn’t expect an answer, not when he’s dropping butterflies kisses on his shoulders and biting his clavicles.

“Chay,” he sighs when Porchay starts licking his way to Kim’s nipples and when he gets there, he stops to blow on them.

Kim grabs his hair and makes him look up, only to find teary eyes and a parted lips. He’s gone, somewhere where his partner is holding him in his arms, somewhere they’re not running for their lives and an impostor is not holding the body of the man he loves hostage. 

“Stay still,” he orders, and Kim drops his head on the pillow, his hands falling on his sides.

He licks the tattoos, one by one, after biting and licking and pressing Kim’s nipples. The weight of Chay’s body rubbing against his clothed length has him curling his tiptoes like a helpless teenager. One of his hands is grabbing Chay’s ass,  the other holding his head where he’s kissing his waistline. Porchay takes the hand off his eyes and looks up to see the complete mess that Kimhan is under his touch.

“Phi,” he calls, making Kim look down at him.

The next thing Kimhan sees are his fingers disappearing into Chay’s mouth and the unholy noises he starts to make as he licks them one by one.

Kimhan could die right at this moment and he doesn’t think he would care that much.

Porchay has three fingers on his mouth when he pulls Kim’s length out of his briefs and Kimhan swears under his breath. He tries to control himself, but the moment a drop of spit rolls down Chay’s chin, he can’t help but thrust in his hand. Porchay’s strokes are steady and firm, he can feel the calluses on his fingers and softness of his palm when he plays with his tip and spreads the pre-come to the rest of his length.

His fingers leave the warmth of his mouth with a pop and Porchay stands on his knees to guide Kim to his hole. The moment of his hand on Kimhan’s length is fast but the way he lets himself sink into the finger is slow. 

“Oh,” he sighs when the finger penetrates him entirely.

Kim closes his eyes and lets his head fall heavily to the pillow when he feels all the air in his lungs being sucked out of him. It’s tight and warm, way too tight for them to do anything. His head starts to spin around and Porchay’s breathing accelerates by the second.

“It’s been so long,” he cries, “it’s been so fucking long, P’Kim.”

Kimhan wants to punch himself in the face, or the Kimhan in the video to be exact. He understands the need to protect the boy he has in his arms, the boy trying to bounce up and down on top of him as he moans the name he’s learned to be his. 

His hand trembles holding Kimhan’s length and he tries to take it off but Porchay cries harder when he does, so he lets him be, he uses his free hand to caress Chay’s thigh and grabs his waist to give him something to hold on to. He takes a deep breath before taking out Kim’s fingers and putting two inside.

“Fuck,” he shrills and Kimhan bites his lips and the grip on both his length and his fingers grow tighter.

Porchay goes down once more when he’s comfortable enough to move, and after that, he bounces up and down until the tears roll down his face and only silent moans leave his mouth. Kimhan feels the buildup down his stomach, his chest is burning and his hands feel like falling apart when Porchay adds a third finger and they both come at the same time.

Chay falls onto Kim’s chest like a piece of paper, he gives him a second to recover, his free hand massaging his back and his waist before pulling his fingers out, hearing the whine coming from his lips. He doesn’t want to move and Kimhan doesn’t want him to, so he tries to take up his briefs without disturbing him and cleans them both.

Kimhan holds him tight when he starts crying again in his sleep. He kisses his lips and his closed eyes when he hears the soft whispers of ‘love you’ over Kim's lips. They stay like that, naked and crying until the room starts to get cold again and they both fall asleep.

*

When Kimhan opens his eyes it’s daytime and Porchay is already dressed up, putting their things back in his backpack. There's some kind of breakfast on the table, coffee and what seems to be orange juice, bananas, and some toast. Kim rubs his eyes and stretches in the bed before sitting down and looking at the back of Chay's head.

“Do we have time for breakfast?” Kim yawns.

"No, we don't." Porchay reaches the remote control and turns the tv in the top of the corner on. The first thing that appears on the screen is their faces in a Spanish news channel. "We're famous now. Get dressed, we need to leave."

Kimhan catches the pants that Chay throws at him and puts them on as quickly as he can. He picks up the shirt from the floor and takes the black bag that Porchay hands him as he puts the boots on. He checks the interior of the bag and finds the contents of the red one. Kim zips it back and makes no questions about the red bag, just takes his coat from the rack and leans on the table to eat a piece of toast in three bites and take a cup of coffee when they leave the room.

“Are you for real?” Porchay says walking to the back of the motel.

“I’m hungry.”

There’s something that changes in his face when he hears him say that, something in his eyes flinches and his hands almost drop what he’s holding. He shakes his head, and starts walking in front of Kimhan.

Kim walks to a gray sedan and forces the door to let Porchay in, but he has already opened the driver’s side door and gotten the vehicle going. Kimhan snorts and sits in the passenger seat, taking a sip of his coffee as Porchay starts driving full speed. There's no one in the streets or the road. Maybe it's too early, or maybe the town is small enough to be shut down for two fugitives.

Whatever the reason, it doesn't really matter. The town disappears out the rearview as Kim tries to finish his coffee without spilling it on his shirt. Porchay keeps one hand on the wheel and uses the other to take a burner phone from the pocket of his pants. He marks a number without even seeing the screen on the phone and calls, putting it on speaker. It only rings twice before someone picks it up.

There's silence on the other side of the call. Chay sighs loudly before talking.

“Hia.” They’re approaching another city and Porchay lowers the speed.

“Chay?!” The voice coming from the speaker is deep and heavy. “For fuck’s sake. What is going on? What is your face everywhere? Are you and Kim okay?”

Kimhan turns his eyes to the phone, wondering if this person knows him too when Porchay told him before no one did. But it's been six years. How do you hide the fact that you ended up involving yourself with your target from your brother? He understands.

“We’re fine but I need your help, hia. Off the book. You’re the only person I trust.” Porchay sounds methodic and completely calm. This is his element and now Kimhan realizes it’s his too.

The line goes quiet for a second, then all that sounds in the car is a sigh. “Anything you need,” the man on the other side of the line sighs. “You know that.”

“How do we know he’s not tracing this call?” The words came out of his mouth before Kimhan could even notice, Porchay turned to him but the look on his face changed immediately, maybe remembering that Kim doesn’t remember this person.

“Oh, there you are,” Chay’s brother says. “You don’t trust me to secure a line to talk to my brother the moment I hear his voice, but you know enough to use five different algorithms to get in touch with me only to ask me for what kind of ring would Chay like? To then, what? Disappear without leaving any trace? That’s what I call fucking cold feet.”

“Not now, hia,” Chay sighs again, biting his lips and looking at the road in front of him. He didn’t know that and Kimhan should keep his mouth shut. “We’re in trouble.”

“Right,” he answers. “What is it that you need, again?”

"I need the location of the Theerapanyakul brothers," Chay says, getting off of the road somewhere down the mountains. Kimhan doesn't ask.

 “You literally have Kimhan next to you,” the brother replies after a few seconds of silence. “Who better than him to know?”

“He doesn’t remember.” The car starts to jump up the second they get into the rocky ground, Kim holds onto the door handle and Chay speeds up until he sees another entrance to the road. They need a new car.

“What do you mean he doesn’t remember?” He sounds genuinely confused and Porchay opens his mouth to explain but Kim beats him to it.

"Two weeks ago I woke up in a Swedish fishing boat in the middle of the ocean with two bullets in my back and not a single memory of who I am," Kimhan says monotonously, like he has rehearsed it before in front of a mirror. Maybe he has.

“Does that mean–?” he says, softly.

"He doesn't know who I am," Porchay replies, quickly as he enters the city in front of them.

Barcelona.

Kimhan frowns and looks at Porchay so fast he’s surprised his neck didn’t break. He tries to make sense of what’s going on. The Kimhan of the video said that Barcelona is where everything started to go wrong. Why are they here?

"Chay…" 

His brother sounds hurt like he's trying to reach Porchay through the phone. Kim understands.

“Not now,” He says behind his teeth. “Just get me the locations.”

“I’m gonna secure a line and I’ll text you the coordinates.” He hangs up.

Porchay drives for a while, until he decides to leave the car somewhere near a high school. They take their stuff off the seats and start walking down the streets. It's the middle of January and there's no snow in the streets. Chay is walking by his side but he keeps looking at his phone or the sidewalk or even the stores as they pass them.

Something hurts in the middle of Kim’s chest. It only increases when he sees Chay so close and so far away at the same time. The Porchay next to him it’s nothing like the Chay he held in his arms the night before, trembling and sweaty with a broken heart. This Chay is decided and unbreakable, his steps strong walking down a city he seems to know like the back of his hand. But he’s still just as beautiful with the almost non-existent rays of sunshine in his new hair and the moles on his skin that Kim loves already.

"Don't do that," Kimhan says, but Porchay keeps walking as he didn't even say a word. "I know this hurts you." Now Chay stops in the middle of the street and Kim catches up. "I know I'm not him, but you need to stop pushing me away, Porchay. You need to tell me what we're doing so I can protect us."

“Protect us,” he laughs, but there’s something behind that laugh. A memory.

"You love me." Kim looks into Chay's eyes but Chay keeps avoiding his, so Kim takes his chin and turns Chay’s face to his. "And I know I love you because every time I see you, Chay, something warms up in the middle of my chest and my hands itch to touch you. Since the first time I saw you in that embassy."

Porchay laughs again, he bites his lips, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t brush Kim off or interrupt him and when Kimhan leans in to kiss him, he lets him.

"What are we doing here?" Kimhan asks when their faces are close enough to see their breaths mix up in front of their faces.

“We’re going to find your father, and we’re handing him to England,” Chay smiles, slowly reaching for his hand until they start walking again, interlocking their fingers.

They’re about to cross the street when the burner phone in Porchay's pocket vibrates and he takes it out. He opens the messages and stares at him longer than necessary and then, he frowns.

“Everything okay?” Kim asks.

“They’re here.” It’s all that Chay says and when Kimhan opens his mouth to ask what does he mean by ‘they’ or what is he talking about, Porchay turns to him. “Kinn and Tankhun. Your brothers are here in Barcelona.”

They cross the street then and Chay throws his phone in the garbage truck that passes next to them.

*

They steal another car to avoid the security cameras in the streets. Chay is driving, and that seems to be the only constant since the moment Kimhan woke up: Porchay with his eyes on the road and Kim looking through the window. They’re quiet, but this time is different. The silence is not asphyxiating. Rather, it’s comfortable, and when their hands touch by accident, Porchay doesn’t clear his throat and Kimhan doesn’t look away.

Chay said that the coordinates were just about outside the city, and he's been driving for almost twenty minutes, so Kim figures they can't be that far away. He closes his eyes and feels the cold of the glass when his forehead leans on the window. He hears Chay's fingers tap the wheel when he takes a turn and he can feel Chay’s eyes checking on him every five minutes, like Chay can attack him and escape any second. He doesn't have his gun; Porchay doesn't trust him enough yet, which is funny because Kimhan is relying entirely on him on the basis of a video apart from the fact that he's been lying since the second they met. And even if they're more comfortable with each other now, having already made peace with the idea that they're doing this together, whatever that's on Porchay's mind because any plan Kimhan had flew out the window when Chay pointed a gun at his face. But he has to trust him, right? He's supposed to be in love with him, he's supposed to be loved by the man that's driving on his side proclaiming doing all this only to protect him and keep him alive.

Kimhan wonders how it feels to be loved by Porchay. How does it feel to love him? He opens his eyes then and looks at him. His profile is on display and the sun is right up above them, making the silhouette of Chay’s face shine. He has moles carefully placed in his face and neck, and his eyelashes are so long he can even count them one by one if he feels like it. He’s gorgeous and Kim feels defenseless around him. Porchay can literally break his arm in one movement and the only thought on Kimhan’s mind would be how lovely that little mark in his chin looks.

‘Can those feelings stay? When you can't remember anything else, can you love someone so much that it stays in your brain and appears like muscle memory?’ Kim surely hopes so because even when he doesn't know Porchay or remember anything related to him or to them, even when he can't trust anything that he said before Paris or anything he did, Kimhan knows he loves him. He may not love the man he is right now, but he loves the man he has known for more than six years and by the way he looks right now, so focused on just one thing when he hits the pedal, is that he wants to solve this mess. 

Porchay checks the mirror to make sure no one is following them. Kim himself has forgotten about the fact his life is in danger. He knows he doesn't need to trust him for Chay to protect him and for the warmness in his own chest makes sense. He feels safe with Chay, so he reaches for Chay’s hand and Chay jumps up a bit when Kimhan interweaves their fingers.

Kim smiles, turning his head to the window and in a fragment of a second, his eyes catch the side of a building. Eight floors, red brick color, and a large rooftop. The numb sound in the back of his mind comes again. He has to close his eyes because now the light is hurting him and he lets Chay's hand go to apply pressure on his forehead. Images flash in front of his closed eyes again, it's nighttime and he's running from the top of that building, someone is chasing him and he can see the street under his feet when he jumps from one roof to the other in front of him. His hands are holding something and the next thing he sees is a motorcycle perfectly waiting for him, a voice in his ear talking to him, but he can't hear it. He sees a man in a gray suit and the sound slowly fades away, taking the images with it.

“Are you okay?” Porchay whispers, picking his face up with his finger to examine it.

Kim nods. “Just a headache.”

Chay doesn't believe him, but he doesn't push him either. Chay stares at his face for a few more seconds before parking in front of a very old green building, he hands Kim his gun and checks his load before opening the door of the car.

“Stay sharp,” he says, then he disappears to go to the small door that seems to be falling in pieces. 

“You said they’re my brothers?” Kimhan says, suddenly nervous.

"The only people you call family," Chay answers without looking at him, standing against the wall next to the door.

"Shouldn't I be running away from my family instead of running towards them?" Kimhan asks, leaning on the opposite wall next to the door.

“Not them,” he says, certain. “You would die for them and they would die for you.”

Porchay opens the door and slightly kicks it to show the entire room in front of them. There's no one else in plain sight. Kim enters first with his gun up in front of his face like it's second nature and Chay follows him right behind. They check every room on the first floor and Kimhan is about to go upstairs when Chay stops him, pulling the sleeve of his coat. 

Kim looks at him and frowns. Porchay points to the giant bookshelf on the right side of the room.

It goes from floor to ceiling, and it’s filled up with old books covered in dust except for one that looks brand new in the fifth shelf. They walk up there with their guns at the side of their faces. Kimhan looks at the book; it’s a biography of Margaret Thatcher, but it’s upside down, her face facing the ceiling, so Kimhan puts it back to its place.

They hear a click coming from behind the bookshelf and it divides in half, opening in front of them like elevator’s doors. A small screen appears.

"Put your hand there," Chay says, pointing at the black screen with his gun.

“Why my hand?” Kimhan whispers again but he does anyway after the look that Porchay gives him.

A green shiny light scans the palm of his hand and his name appears on the screen and under it four blank spaces. Kim turns to Chay and he's pretty sure his mouth is open but Porchay's expression hasn't changed at all.

"Try 1911," he says next to him and Kim does. The door opens.

“What with that number?” He puts the gun up again.

"It's the day we met," Porchay says, entering first this time.

Inside, the place looks like any normal apartment, but way more updated than the exteriors. There are no windows, but the space is wide and the walls are white to make the room brighter. There is a big sofa in the middle and the space is divided by a wall. A section for the food with a microwave and a fridge, some sleeping bags and three advanced computers in the last corner with giant processors. 

The doors close behind them and Kim's brain starts running. He looks at his sides and misses someone jumping on him.

Kimhan tries to shake him off, but then he has a hand around his neck and his own gun behind his head. He takes the hand and the gun with both hands and spreads them out, throwing his gun at the end of the room and turns the man’s arm and takes him by the collar of his shirt. He’s about to throw a fist to his face when Porchay screams.

“Kim, stop!” 

He does.

His breathing is going fast and his vision stopped seeing red the moment he heard Chay's voice. The man in front of him is slim, taller than Porchay; he doesn’t look like it but he’s strong and agile, his clothes flashy and his hair a dark shade of red. He stands out undoubtedly, but he appeared without making a sound.

“Kimmy?” The man whispers, and now he is hugging him, squeezing him. “Oh, god, you’re alive.” 

Then he starts to cry.

Kim turns to look at Chay. He's standing next to another man. This man is also  taller than Porchay and Kim can see the silhouette of his biceps through his white shirt. He’s bulky, his skin is paler than Chay’s, and he has small eyes but his eyebrows are thick, the expression on his face is indecipherable. His black hair is perfectly styled but he’s looking at Kim softly, tenderly even. 

Porchay checks on Kim again before giving all of his attention to the man next to him. They start walking to the computers and the man types a code and the screens light up, showing security cameras in one screen, maps in other, and some personal records in the third, Kimhan 's personal record to be precise.

“What the fuck is going on, Kim?” Says the man when he finally lets go of him.

The other man approaches them then and places his hand on his shoulder and squeezes it hard. Kimhan can see the tears forming in his eyes. These men love him, and they’ve been worried for him. Kim has a family and people who care for them. He looks up to the ceiling and closes his eyes for a second.

"The one that hugged you is Tankhun," Chay explains. "The one next to you is Kinn.”

The brothers look at him as if he has lost his mind, but when they return their eyes to Kimhan and see him nodding, they take a step back.

“What is he talking about?” Tankhun asks. “Why is he introducing us to you?”

Kim opens his mouth to try to explain the situation, but something keeps him from talking. Maybe it’s the inquiring eyes or the lump in his throat. 

“He was attacked,” Chay says. “Shot and thrown in the sea, a fishing boat found him and he woke up with no memory.”

“Shot?” Kinn asks, he can see and hear the rage forming in him.

“No memories?” Tankhun mumbles, “so you don’t remember us?”

“I’m sorry,” Kim finally says, biting his lips when Tankhun lets a whimper out. Kinn caresses his back and takes his eyes off their younger brother.

“How’s that possible?! How can you forget us?” Tankhun starts to get closer to Kim but Kinn stops him.

“Khun,” he says and that's all it takes to make Tankhun look smaller and younger than he actually is.

“Who did this to you?” Kinn asks and a shiver runs down his spine.

“Father,” he finally says, without a doubt in his voice.

“What?” Tankhun asks.

“Here’s all you need to know,” Chay says behind them, plugging the USB drive into the computers.

*

“So he found out.” Kinn takes out his phone from the pockets of his pants and as soon as the video ends, he starts making calls. Tankhun keeps crying.

He can hear Kinn’s conversations on the phone. He’s checking to see if he still has people on his side or if they’re on their own. Kim can’t tell much from the expressions on his face but he can sense he’s worried, even scared.

“I don’t think he knows about you,” Kim finally says, “if he did, we wouldn’t be here.”

Kinn hangs up and turns to his brothers. “He’s right,” he sighs. “He said you were on a special mission, that’s why we couldn’t contact you.” He laughs. “Why didn’t I question it?!”

“It’s not your fault, phi,” Kim says, trying to ease the mood so they can think how to solve this.

“He called him phi!” Tankhun screams and then he cries even harder. 

Kimhan turns to look at Porchay, who is biting his lips to keep from laughing. He looks so young and relieved right now, as if his brother took the weight of the world off his shoulders and he can finally breathe. 

Kim smiles. That’s good, smiles look good on Chay.

“Khun, shut up.” Kinn starts pacing around the room, his eyes never leaving Kim’s. “What did you brother say?”

He’s asking Porchay and he’s already checking his phone as if he knew Kinn would turn to him.

“He’s setting up a meeting with English intelligence,” he says. “They want the head, so he’s making a deal to give you witness protection.”

Kinn laughs before walking to his brother and placing his hands on both of their shoulders.

“We don’t need that, we will fight our way out.”

“Dad is in England,” Tankhun finally says when he calms down. “The Nesson deal, he’s there for three days.”

"We need to get to London," Porchay says as he lifts up his phone one more time.

They all nod.

*

"Explain to me how we're gonna do this again? Because I don't like it one bit" Chay says in his ear. Kim tries to bite down his smile.

He enters the English headquarters of the agency. Kim walks in as if he owns the place, he has his shades on and pats the arm of the security guard at the entrance after he searches him. Porsche – he learns it to be the name of Porchay’s brother – is waiting for him inside, his eyes cold and face stoic, but he can see the resemblance in the shapes of their eyes. He looks so much like Chay it makes his heart relax.

"This is the only way we can get father’s attention and uncontrollable rage all at once," Kinn whispers into the coms.

“He will not think straight. He’ll make a mistake.” 

They hear Tankhun sing the words through their earpieces. 

"This better work or I'll–" Porchay starts groaning but it's stopped by Tankhun’s voice.

"You'll kill us both, yeah you already said that ten thousand times,”  he snarks, but Kim can hear the smile in his voice. He’s been squealing since they admitted to being in a relationship that according to his older brother, he always suspected. “Calm down, Chay. We have his back. We always have."

Something in Kim shivers inside. He trusts them, he trusts those words and the people who said them. He can’t explain how or why, he can’t even remember their faces, but he felt the heaviness of their gazes when he walked into the room, the tenderness of rough hands when they touched his shoulders and his face. It felt familiar. In the end, his instincts weren't wrong about Porchay, so maybe he’s not wrong about them. 

“Welcome, Mr. Theerapanyakul,” Porsche greets him as soon as he steps inside. “We have a team ready for you.”

The oldest Kittisawasd guides him to the elevator and waits for the doors to open before commanding two people to accompany him. He’s talking through his own earpiece, moving men and leading an operation Kimhan has no idea about, and even when that bothers him, he sticks to his plan. The two men stand in front of him and press a button in the panel that requires them to show their identification.

Kim looks at them, studying their every move, getting ready for whatever is to come. But for the first time since woke up, he’s not ready. 

The lights go out.The elevator stops moving. Kimhan stretches his arms but a dull hit impacts the back of his head and he loses balance. They cover his head with a black hood and a needle breaks into the skin of his neck before he loses consciousness. 

*

He wakes up in a moving car. His head is still covered and hands are carefully tied behind his back, just like his feet. His body slides from one side of the vehicle to the other, not hitting another body on his sides. He’s alone, at least in this row of seats, he can’t hear anything behind him, so maybe it’s just him and the driver. 

The car stops abruptly and he falls on his knees, hitting his head on the back of the front seats when he hears the door opening and then, commotion.

Someone pulls him out of the car. Kimhan pretends to be unconscious a little longer. They drag him, his feet sliding in the dirt as they move him to what it seems to be somewhere remote. His head is hurting and he feels the warmth of the blood sliding down his neck to his back. He wants to cough, but he holds it in.

“Kim?” Chay’s voice reaches him through the earpiece. 

Kimhan smiles, he feels like he can finally breathe.

“Can you hear me?” The young agent tries again the moment Kim is finally seated. 

The hood is removed from his head and the spotlight hits him right in the face, making him flinch and move to the side.

“Glad to know you’re awake,” a deep voice says in front of him, and Kimhan drops the act, slowly turning his body where the sound comes from and opening his eyes.

“Oh, god, you’re okay,” Porchay lets out a relieved sigh on the other side of the line. 

“That’s father’s voice,” Kinn’s voice resonates in his ear before Kim looks up.

“Father,” Kim says mockingly as a smirk appears on his face. He feels the blood accumulating in his mouth.

“Well,” the man in front of him says. “You truly are my son.”

He looks powerful and fearful, but the wrinkles on his face and the slowness of his steps can’t lie. He’s old. Kimhan doesn’t know what this man is capable of, he doesn’t remember his face or his voice, he doesn’t know how their relationship is or if they even have one. Kim has no idea how to address him or if he should even talk to him. He doesn’t know the limits. But the goosebumps on his arms tell him to be careful, to not let his father fool him because behind that cocky smile he can see the ruthlessness in his eyes. 

Kim looks at the ring on the old man’s finger. It’s pure gold with a shield engraved in it. He has seen the same ring on Kinn’s hand and that makes him wonder where their loyalty really lies. He spits the blood on the ground and grounds himself on the chair.

“Surprised to see me?” He asks, looking around.

They’re in some abandoned warehouse. Kimhan must’ve been unconscious for a couple of hours because the sun’s still reaching through the broken glass of the windows. It’s dim but it’s there. His throat is all dried up and his skin itches everywhere. He’s tired, but he doesn’t let it show. 

Behind his father are three black SUVs with armed men surrounding them. Something in Kimhan tells him he can take them, he only needs to free his hands and feet.

“Not really,” he says, pacing from one side to the other in front of Kim. “It would’ve been a bit disappointing otherwise, I’ve still got a lot to ask.”

“How did you manage to take me from there?” Kimhan asks, even when he doesn’t need an answer.

He knows how he did it. They all know, they just need him to say it, and right now they need him to recognize his connections to different agencies so the English government has a green light to proceed. Just looking at the smug expression on his face, Kim can tell it won’t take long for him to take it out of his father if he distracts him enough to undo the knots of the rope holding his hands together.

“You’re still so naive.” His father laughs, and the next second he’s roughly holding Kim’s chin in his hand, getting him closer to his own face as he spits the words out. “You and that agent thinking you have the world in your hands when you only got to taste a bit of it, thanks to me.”

His laughter sends chills down Kimhan’s spine when they lock eyes. His eyes are black, empty, just a shallow hole of nothingness that seems to absorb him into a void of fear. So he reacts out of rage and frustration, he spits on the face of the man that tried to kill him. 

The slap that comes right after takes his breath away. His skin stings when feels the heated shadow of his father’s palm, and he laughs because that also feels familiar. The laugh dies down after the second slap and Porchay’s face appears in his mind the moment he closes his eyes to take a deep breath. 

He tries to force the rope off of his wrists. It's still too tight for him to move freely. 

He needs to think. He has to get out of here and go back to Chay, but to do so he needs to buy some time. He needs to get his father to talk. 

“So who is it?” Kimhan asks, letting the blood spill from the corner of his mouth until it reaches his father’s hand. “Who is working for you in the English Intelligence Agency?”

He laughs again and walks toward the men near the vehicles.e extends his hand and a gun is placed in it. Kimhan finally loosens up the knots when his father starts approaching him again. He’s calm, his walk is languid, as though she has all the time in the world to kill his own son. And maybe he does. 

Kim wonders if his father also did it himself the last time. Maybe he did, because there’s not an ounce of fear in Kim’s bones anymore.

Kimhan feels the cold tip of the gun on his forehead, his breath hitching in his throat when he feels a cold breeze behind his neck. It’s time. 

“Keep him talking,” Chay whispers in his ear and his voice feels so sweet, almost as if he’s trying to calm him down.

“It’s the last thing I want to know,” Kim says, trying to sound defeated as he rolls up the rope around his knuckles.

“Why? Do you want to know who sold you out?” He says as he releases the safety of his gun, his finger positioned to fire.

“Maybe,” Kimhan shrugs. “Maybe I’ll hunt them down after I kill you.”

His father burst out a laughter and Kimhan uses the opportunity to move his arms from behind his back, one free hand to push his father’s arm out of his face and take the gun from his hand, the other hand still wrapped in the rope to hit him in the face and turn him around to shield his body with father’s, pointing the gun on his head. His father’s men point their guns at them and he hears the old man swear under his breath.

“It’s amusing,” his father mumbles, trying to free himself from the lock Kimhan has him under his arm. “You wouldn’t open your mouth last time, but now you’re incredibly talkative. Are you that confident because I haven’t touched your little agent yet?”

Kimhan learns Porchay has become his weakness, because the moment his father made reference to him, he loses focus. It was just two seconds, but it was enough for him to lose his grip enough for his father to pull a knife out of his suit pocket and stab Kim in the leg. Still, Kim bites down the pain and holds him close,  digging the gun down deeper into his skin.

“Don’t move,” he grumbles, leaning on his right leg to take the weight from the injured one. “And don’t talk about him.”

“He must be one hell of a slut for you to turn on your family,” his father mumbles, running out of air.

“Kim, don’t,” Porchay’s voice stops him from shooting just in time, before he could even realize he was pulling the trigger.

“What did you tell Tankhun when I didn’t come home?” Kim grounds into his ear. “How would you explain this to Kinn?”

“They would understand when they learn about your betrayal.”

So he doesn’t know about them . A wave of stillness washes over him, the frenetic beats of his heart slow down and he closes his eyes to think for a second. They are going to be fine. Even if he doesn’t get his memories back, even if he doesn’t remember his brothers or Chay, he can do this, he can live on as Kimhan Theerapanyakul, whatever that means. He can learn and adapt and fight his way into a life that is supposed to be his, he can make a deal that would allow him to live as the man Porchay loves, because even when his mind can’t remember him, his heart does.

The way he feels about Chay is all consuming. Even when he woke up not even knowing his own name nor recognizing the reflection in the mirror in front of him, his head still turned the moment he heard Chay’s voice and his eyes found Chay immediately at the embassy. That memory is something that is engraved in the back of his mind. It’s not something that just happens, it’s something that you work for and you hope your entire life to have. 

And Kimhan did. He almost died trying to protect it, so it is now his duty to do so. Not only for the past Kim, but for himself, because he doesn’t want to imagine carrying on the rest of a life that doesn’t seem his without Chay and his brothers by his side. 

Maybe he is too naive. Maybe the last weeks have finally caught up with him and he’s too tired to go on. But right now, with his blood rushing to his hands and his heartbeat rumbling in his ears, it feels like a good call.

Just then, flashes of numbers and names appear in the dark void of his mind.

“Nicholson,” he whispers, no meaning attached to the name other than scrabbed papers and the smell of cigarettes.

“You were always the smart one, huh? People like him are so easy to buy, you know that” His father says, out of breath now. “You’re just like me. What a waste.”

Korn–the name jumps on the tip of his tongue–hits Kim in the ribs and turns to take the gun from his hand but he fails when Kimhan lifts up his arm and points it in the middle of his eyes. A second later, he hears the sirens and the warehouse lights up red by the lights outside. 

They’re here. They’re not supposed to be here yet . 

Kim looks around and sees English agents coming out of vehicles and covering when his father’s men start to shoot, they start moving quickly, taking them down one by one after they regroup. Korn takes advantage when Kimhan looks at the scene playing out behind him and starts running off. 

Kimhan starts chasing him down, but his leg is not helping, his suit pants are wet in his own blood and the gun is heavy in his hand. He wants to look back, he wants to see if Porchay and his brother are there in the middle of the gunfire or if they’re safe in hiding, but something deeps down tells him they wouldn’t sit around and wait for things to be done. 

Kimhan points to his father and shoots, hitting him right in the arm. Korn trips and falls to the ground when he steps out of the warehouse from the back door. Kim walks up to him to see him trying to get up, so he kicks him, making him fall again. He turns him around and tries to sit on his legs when Korn pushes him aside, getting on top of him. The gun falls to his feet and Kimhan tries to reach for it, but his father is already punching his face.

He feels the contact of the rings on his skin and a dull pain paralyzes Kim for a second. His father is applying pressure on his injured leg. His head hits the ground every time the fist crashes his jaw and his cheekbones. Kim reaches for Korn’s arms, but he stops when the flashes of voices and faces start to come back. 

He sees them, then. Tankhun and Kinn look a lot younger. He sees a big house and a lot of uniformed men around them. He sees blood and death and fire, and it makes him feel alone and sick. 

He sees a bar late at night, and he can taste the bourbon on his tongue when Porchay first approaches him. He can feel his tongue in their first kiss, see the goosebumps that arise at their first touch. He remembers the early mornings and the late-night-confessions, the promises, the plans and the fights. Porchay crying in his arms and how soft the first ‘I love you’ was, the devastating fear he felt when he saw the pictures. How much hatred he felt when his father captured him in a yacht in Venice.

Only then does he feel his limbs attached to him again, his blood running up to his head. His fist colliding with his father’s face feels different this time. It’s not a survival skill, it’s revenge. Kimhan kicks the gun away before his father could reach for it and gets on top of him.

“You had to finish the job, didn't you?” He spits out, full of rage. “You’re getting old, you didn't even check if I was truly dead.”

He sees red and he can’t stop himself, his hands go numb and his vision is blurry, the noises inside the warehouse are a mere buzz on the back of his head when the only noise he cares about is the one that makes his head hit the ground, just like he was a moment ago.

“That’s enough, you’re going to kill him!” He hears behind him. It’s his brother’s voice.

It takes him a second to realize that Kinn is not talking through the earpiece and that he’s actually standing there, with him.

“Maybe I should,” he says under his breath, his arm still raised.

His father's face is red and swollen. He’s bleeding for every possible cut and scratch, but Kimhan is still not satisfied. This is nothing compared to twenty-eight years worth of pain and self-hatred. Kimhan had no idea that he could wish for something different, for something more until Porchay snuck into his life and showed him what love is. How an indescribable feeling of safety and comfort can be achieved just by being in the same room as that one person, his person. And he hates that his father kept them from that, he only taught them to break and destroy to gain power and money. 

“I remember, Kinn,” he says when his body finally starts to give up. His father is long since unconscious. “I remember it all.”

His brother approaches him. Kinn takes him by the arm and pulls him from their father’s battered body. He hears the rush of footsteps from inside, getting closer and closer. 

Kimhan looks at his hands. They’re swollen and covered in blood that’s not his. He doesn’t need to look behind to recognize Tankhun gasping at the sight of the scene. He doesn’t think he could apologize.

“Don’t look at him,” Kinn says to their older brother.

“No,” he says, and Kimhan doesn’t think he has heard him so hurt before, “I want to.”

The paramedics rush in and surround their father. They start the PCR and the three of them stand there, looking. It only takes them a minute to bring him back, his father gasps for air and Kimhan waits for him to look into his eyes and see the confusion of seeing his brothers beside him.

"And dad," Kimhan says, making the agents stop as he rests on Kinn's shoulder. "As I said in Venice, I'm out."

Tankhun looks away from the man on the ground and looks at his little brother from head to toe. His eyes get teary when he sees the cuts and the dry blood, but when his eyes find the dagger still on his leg, he yells for help and tries to run inside the warehouse when Kimhan stops him, grabbing his arm.

“I need to see Chay.”

*

Porchay is running. Kimhan can see him from where he’s sitting letting a paramedic treat his wound in his head and his leg. 

Even when he’s fast, everything is happening in slow motion. Kim feels like he hasn’t seen him in eight months even when he has been with him for the last few days. So when someone stops him at the door, he laughs, especially when he twists the arm of the one of the agents that touched his shoulder and Porsche has to run to them to stop them from arresting him.

Kimhan stands up, pulling away from the hands that try to clean his wound or bend his knuckles and he walks to Porchay, limping because he can't run. But Chay can, and he does, just like he throws himself into Kimhan's arms and Kim somehow has sufficient energy left to catch him.

“You remember,” he says with teary eyes and trembling hands. “You remember.”

Kim nods and feels his touch in the back of his head before he kisses Chay like they've been kept apart for too long. Because they have. He kisses Chay with hunger and desperation like Porchay did back in the motel, and then he kisses him slowly and tenderly when he feels the tears rolling down his cheeks. He kisses him like he's explaining himself for his decision and apologizing for the consequences, holds the back of his head and kisses him like he's asking for forgiveness for all the pain.

He holds him tight when he feels Porchay cry from the back of his throat and he knows that he's been already forgiven. Kimhan bites his lips because he remembers. His lips, his eyes, his touch, the little secret places that tingle him, the scars in his skin, his secrets, his regrets. He remembers everything, the fights and the mistakes, the calls and the apologies in little notes hidden in his jackets.

Kimhan remembers the deal he was going to take before it all went south. He knows his brothers and him have to give up on their own identities, their home, everything they’ve known and everything their father touched, but they are okay with that. Kim is fine with receiving training and taking part in an agency he doesn’t believe in only if that means he can have a life with Porchay so he can keep to hold him like this: tightly, comfortably, with his head buried in his neck, smelling his scent and filling up his heart.

He knows the man in his arms just as well as Chay knows him, and when they finally let each other go, avoiding the eyes of everyone else in the room, Kim holds his face with both hands and looks into those eyes and knows he would do anything to protect him, to protect them, even making bad and stupid decisions all over again.

And when Chay holds onto him and rests his face on his neck, Kim remembers the fragrance in his head, the shampoo he uses, their place in midtown just a couple of blocks from here where he’s gonna be taking him after they clear him. He even remembers the small place in the back of his mother’s tombstone in the forgotten part of their garden back home where he keeps his engagement ring out of his brothers’ reach.