Finding Tine Teepakorn

Chapter 9: Best part of me is always you

"Who the hell is Max? And why didn't you show up at the store?"

Tine's POV

When Max left, I just sat there on the sofa, with his words still reverberating in my ears — "What happens when you gain back all memories and realise you sabotaged years of sacrifice for nothing? What happens when the people that mattered to you end up getting hurt because of you?",

I knew old Tine loved Sarawat, he loved him very much. Who was I even kidding? There was never a world or a time when I wouldn't love Sarawat. He was Sarawat, after all. There was never anyone else in my life, and there would never be.

But yet, old Tine had gone to great lengths to keep Sarawat away from his life. The cash, the extra car, the laptop in the locker, and whatever the hell training Max had given old Tine — it was all for one single purpose. Something which was way more important to old Tine than Sarawat himself.

I was hoping Max would tell me the reason behind it soon, but till then, I had to find out as much information about old Tine as possible to survive in his world, to survive in his office. Old Tine got into an accident while going from his office to the Story Cafe, and he was apparently getting into a fake engagement with his boss's daughter. Whatever this was, it was related to Old Tine's work. And that's where I needed to focus on.

I went back to the kitchen to take open the locker again and take out Old Tine's laptop. But that's when I saw the note again that Sarawat had left for me.

Take the medicine in case your head hurts, which I know it will. So, just take the medicine after eating your breakfast. I wanted to keep some food out for you because I know you are too lazy to make breakfast in the morning, but turns out your kitchen is completely empty and your fridge only has water and beer. (Seriously?)

I have ordered some groceries for you. They will be delivered in the morning. Make that porridge which I taught you in college, though I am not sure if you would even remember it now. Or order something, I dont know. Just don't skip your meals anymore.

PS - Nice house but may be its time you change your passcode.

PPS - Meet me at the store at 10pm tonight. Let's have an actual dinner and talk.

"I love you Wat, but I don't even know if I should even keep meeting you, at least not until I figure out this mess that Old Tine got into. I don't want to risk hurting you, ever."

I sighed, took out the laptop, and spent most of the day watching Old Tine's courtroom videos and reading up his case files. It wouldn't be that difficult getting his mannerisms down, he was still me, of course. But there was a bitterness in Old Tine's voice that I just couldn't get figure out. He sounded mean. He sounded angry. He sounded like he would kill the person in front of him if he didn't get what he wanted.

There was a folder that I stumbled upon 'MM' which had the most files and documents. It was something about a telecom merger.

"Miller Merger — Where have I heard that before? Right, it was First who told me about it. Old Tine had a meeting about the Miller merger on the day of the accident."

I went through all the legal documents one at a time for hours, but there was nothing out of the ordinary in there too. It just seemed like a standard merger between two telecom companies — one Thai and one Russian.

So, I decided to move on to the other folder 'O'. The folder, to my surprise, was filled with pictures of Ohm. Some of the pictures, I remembered taking with him. Some, I didn't. There was a picture with me, Ohm, and Fong where we were wearing matching ID cards of Limpatiyakorn and Associates — which probably was from the internship we were supposed to do together.