A Book Called Desire

XVI. Defining Us (7)

Nao often decides on impulse.

Whether the decision is good or bad for him, it's a matter of later. If it's good, ok. If it's bad, he can always change the verdict to go his way.

That's how his mind always works and that is how it is when he throws his clothes into the suitcase carelessly. Then his brother, Atsuhiro, walks into his room. "Going somewhere?" he asks. Nao only spares him a glance before he answers it with a hum. "Let me guess. Thailand?"

Nao stops for two seconds before he resumes. "That's none of your business!"

"So now, it's none of my business," Atsuhiro laughs. There's a sense of tragic comedy in his laughter. "But when it was my relationship with Vegas on the line, you meddled until it got too muddy to be resolved."

"You and Vegas didn't belong with each other," he calmly states.

"You think you and Macau do?" his brother shouts. "He has a boyfriend and you are straight, Nao! You are more impossible than me and Vegas!"

"I don't pursue him for a relationship!" Nao shouts back.

"Oh, for revenge, then? Whose revenge? Mine? I don't need it. He and I are fine as we are right now. Quit lying to yourself!"

"I'm not gay!"

"Then what the hell are you going to Thailand for? Do you want to be on Father's radar? If I know, do you think he doesn't?"

Nao decides not to listen and keeps throwing his things into the suitcase. Until words from Atsuka still him.

"You'll drag him with you. An innocent boy. I heard Vegas sheltered him too much so he practically doesn't know anything about the black business side of his family. Do you think a boy like that can survive Father when Vegas can't?"

After that Atsuhiko leaves the room. When the door closes, he hears the sound of glass being smashed to pieces.

***

It's been five days and Porchay hasn't woken up yet. The older brothers are having a heated debate about the method that can be used to make him wake up. Macau forces his feet to move.

There is a secluded small area near where the nurses' station that you can hide in or just breathe in fresh air as you open the small window there. He used to go there when Vegas needed to be 'fixed'.

He, too, is worried for Chay. But because of his age and position in both family and Porchay's life, he doesn't have a lot of say in it. The one who can really pull the plug is Porsche and the one who can really interfere with it is Kimhan.

Kim was threatening to kill anyone who dared to inject anything into his beloved and anyone in the room knows it's not a bluff. After all, Kim hasn't left Porchay's side since minute one.

He wonders if Kai ever feels he can kill someone for Mac. Kai isn't shy from guns and knives, he knows that much. And he joked about all the bodies he had hidden in the closet, but that didn't sound like a joke, so he probably had killed before.

But that's for work, not for personal reasons.

Vegas said killing for business doesn't need emotion. You just aim for the death spots and be done with it. But personal killing hits different and can be overwhelming sometimes. Mac had asked if his hia ever did personal killing before. The answer came in a nod only and a small sad smile.

Just the other day, they discussed who would get the final say in Porchay before what happened in the room today. Vegas said, "Kim of course. Porsche doesn't stand a chance against him. All Kitisawasds are emotional creatures. At a crisis, they can't be trusted. Even Kinn knows that and Kinn also doesn't stand a chance against Kim when he already made his mind up."