Dissonant Notes in Minor Keys (KimMacau, KimChayMacau) 18+

Chapter One: An Incomplete Melody

Kim is idly picking away at a melody that's been picking at him for as long as he can remember. It was probably a lullaby, because it's something pulled from childhood, faint memories of balmy nights spent at the minor family home, the voice of a woman - his aunt Nassau, most likely - drifting in a soft alto through what everyone called "the kid's hall."

Whatever the song was, he never heard it in its entirety. Macau might still know it, could probably tell him its origin, but it's not a question Kim thinks he'll ever get to ask.

Still, it's been in the back of his mind for years, and in quiet moments, in soft moments, it spills from his fingers and lips, the notes on the keys of his piano and half-remembered words muttered in an incomplete chorus.

"What song is that?" Chay says, gently breaking Kim's concentration. He glances over, takes in Chay's sweet face and curious expression.

"I'm not sure," he answers, then thinks about vulnerability and honesty. "I think my aunt used to sing it."

"Your aunt?" Chay asks in surprise. "Like Vegas and Macau's mom?"

Kim bites back the sarcastic, No, Chay, your mom, the woman my father has been hiding in an attic for over a decade, because that's cruel, and he's vowed to never be cruel to Chay again.

"Yeah. Her name was Nassau."

Chay hums, but doesn't ask anything else, and Kim's fingers continue to slide across the piano keys, faded memories on the edge of his mind beginning to flood with color as he lets his thoughts touch his childhood.

His childhood, Macau's little hands held in his as he toddled along in front of him, somehow still so small even at two years old.

A few years later, Macau, bright-eyed and sweet-faced, starting school at five; months after that, small and exhausted, wiping tears and snot from his face, kneeling before his mother's fresh grave.

Kim was the one who'd found him there, a week after his mother's death, two days after his little cousin had gone missing.

Macau at eight, small and pretty and melancholy, seeking out his cousin Kim when Vegas couldn't be found.

Macau's fingers beneath Kim's, learning comforting notes and easy melodies on the unused grand piano at the minor home.

Macau at eleven, determined and afraid, asking to learn how he could protect himself and the people he cared for, because he learned that Vegas wasn't invincible, that his brother's bones were just as fragile as his own, and someday Macau might need to protect him.

Kim, seventeen, watching sweat roll down his cousin's neck and slide into the divot between his collarbones, and realizing suddenly, sharply, how much he wanted.

Horrified, terrified, of what that meant.

Macau, twelve, calling Kim and being met with voicemail every time. Kim, eighteen, leaving texts on read, trying not to think about Macau hitting puberty, how the last time he'd seen him he had shoulders that didn't fit, a voice cracking into something new, and was almost as tall as Kim.

Kim, nineteen, keeping one eye far too close on Macau, who was growing and filling out, awkward but beautiful. A year until Macau looked almost Kim's age; he'd continued training, continued gaining strength and muscle, and Kim...

...Kim didn't speak to his cousin in any meaningful way in the years after he'd stopped answering calls and texts. He ignored sweet, watery eyes and the long lashes framing them anytime they did meet, but he couldn't stay away entirely, not with the way every muscle in Kim's body felt discordant at the distance, a shrill, restless ache simmering his blood.