Almost brothers

1. Mae

Kinn's POV

I adored my mother. Period. Whenever people used to compliment that I look like her, I used to feel elated. My mother was gorgeous, to say in the least.

When Khun Noo was being groomed to take over the Theerapanyakul's business by our father, me and my mother used to spend our time in the gardens, me playing the guitar to accompany my mother's singing. She had a beautiful voice and maybe that's what inspired me to take up music.

Maybe I'll become a guitarist. Maybe I'll -

But all that changed when I was seven years old.  Me and Mae were in the back yard as usual ,when she started vomitting out of the blue and feeling sick. I was frightened thinking she got poisoned. Our business was thriving and that attracted a lot of powerful enemies But thankfully she wasn't. Cause nine months later, I found myself being the middle child.

My younger brother was an absolute menace, even as an infant. He would only stop crying when he was in Mae's or Khun Noo's arms. Me and dad were considered as his mortal enemies. He would puke and shit on us, kick us when we used to pick him. Mae was completely busy with him and I found myself all alone.

My parents thought it would be a good idea to name him, maybe they assumed we would bond better after. And I thought it would a great idea to name him Kim, a Thai variation of the name Khian, meaning 'King of terror.'

In our culture, we always believed that names were the personification of us, so they were taken very seriously. True to his name, he did became synonymous with terror in the later years of his life.

So yes, for the next few years he monopolised all of Mae's time, leaving me to fend for myself. At those times, playing guitar became my only solance.

The usual thoughts of a middle child swam through me, "no one loves me", "I don't know what to do with my life." "I'm useless"

Maybe it was true, Daddy liked Thankhun, reading people was a huge deal in mafia, it can used to control them later on, came naturally to Khun Noo. He was shrewd and had a photographic memory and daddy thought he would take Theerapanyakun name even higher.

And Mae adored her littlest of son's. He became her singing companion, our backyard was filled with soulful music. Kim resembled our mother more and more, he was pretty and delicate-bone just like her, while my eyebrows started becoming bushier and my face became more angular. Now I resembled my fearsome grandfather while Kim became the prettiest of the Theerapanyakul's kids.

Kim still acted cold towards me and made me wonder what the hell did I do to him to deserve that kind of treatment. He would ignore me on a good day and be rude on the worst of the days.

I know that my precious Mae, bless her soul,wasn't at fault. I started my middle school and became busy. I know she was lonely in the mansion, a songbird trapped in a guilded cage and Kim was her perfect outlet to the world, they had the same thoughts and passions. Daddy did love her, his love meant that his wife was the most precious of diamonds which should be polished and locked in a sturdy vault, lest others might steal her away from him. She was a perfect wife to him, she adored him in private and supported him in the public but it was Kim who brought her liveliest side out. I watched the mother-son duo from my balcony, smile painted their similar looking cheeckbones.

Maybe that was when I realized that I was jealous.

Maybe Mae knew how I felt. Maybe she-

Some days, when I used to come home from school, Mae had a few cookies and a tall glass of milk ready for me. We used to chat and eat and then she used to help me with my homework. No private tutors could make me understand the subject like she did. She tried to make up for our lost time. And it did work well.

Looking back, those were some of my happiest of days...me and Mae against the world, no scary dad's and annoying brothers.

Until she was killed.