Chapter Text
The silence was the loudest sound Ray had ever known and his worst enemy. It wasn’t the quiet of peace, but the suffocating hush of an empty, opulent mansion. Each click of his expensive shoes on the polished marble floor echoed a hollow beat, magnifying the cavernous space between him and a world that felt perpetually out of reach. He ran a hand over the cool, smooth surface of a grand piano, its lid indefinitely closed, a mausoleum for forgotten melodies and memories. The first of many forsaken activities, lessons and hobbies curated to mold him into the perfect heir.
He is twenty four, a business major at one of Bangkok’s most prestigious universities, the heir to a fortune that felt more like a cage than a comfort. On paper, he has everything: looks, intellect, connections. But beneath the polished veneer, a parasitic whisper gnawed at his core. Unlovable. A burden. Broken. Everyone leaves.
His mother’s words, slurred and venomous, still burned and echoed: "You ruined my life. You should never have been born." They were the last words she’d ever truly said to him, before the bottle claimed her entirely. Her alcoholism was a result, according to her, from giving birth to him and ruining her acting career. His father, a formidable titan of industry, had simply replaced her with an icy wall of indifference and absenteeism, punctuated only by criticisms that flayed his already fragile self-worth. It wasn´t much different from when she was alive but even if he never said it, he blamed him for her death. No matter how hard he worked, how hard he tried to mold himself into the perfect heir, it was never enough.
Ray walked past portraits of ancestors he didn't know, faces frozen in expressions of stiff pride. He saw none of himself in them, nor did he want to. He only saw the ghosts that followed him, clinging to his shadow, whispering the same dreaded truth. He was alone, and inherently broken and unlovable. And no matter how many fleeting connections he forged, no matter how bright his smile, the hollow dark void would always remain, a gaping wound he couldn't stitch shut. Of course on the outside he wore a facade perfected over years of trial and error. No one knew the truth that was hidden.
Tonight, he needed an escape. A distraction. Something to drown out the echo of self loathing. He knew he would end up meeting his friends at Yolo´s but he never expected to meet him.