In Lines Of Love ~ Kimchay

56. Happy fucking valentines ( pt17 )

Looking outside the window of moving car, Kim Khimhant Theerapanyakul sat in silence Yet, his mind echoing with ghosts of a past he could never rewrite and he needed to come clean innfront of the boy he just fought for.

While regret wasn’t new to him, it had nested in his bones for as long as he could remember.

He regretted many things. So many times.

He regretted not being able to save his mother when she coughed up blood and smiled through the pain, whispering reassurances while dying on the cold floor of their estate. He was seven.

He regretted being powerless when his oldest brother was kidnapped before his eyes at eleven how his screams were met with silence, how his Father told him, "This is what being a Theerapanyakul means. Pain is inheritance"

He regretted nodding silently when handed a gun at fourteen, his hands trembling, lips bloodless. He shot a man that day. His first kill. His father called him "a natural" Kim threw up for hours afterward.

There were layers buried in him scars wrapped in cold exterior, wounds stitched with music.

WIK. That name had been his lifeboat. The only thing his father could never steal from him. Music had saved him when bullets and knives became his language.

It helped him disappear from the monstrous shadow of his last name. It made him feel human.

But even that wave dragged him back sometimes.

Because he was always called "home", for one last job, one last kill, one last promise of freedom that never came.

And Korn… Korn was a goddamn gambler with sons for chips. He never treated Kim like a son.

Maybe he did with Kinn, or Tankhun....but for Kim? He was the asset, the one born to endure, to eliminate.

Kim’s stomach turned every time Korn referred to himself as his "father"

He was never that.

So when his so-called father started favouring a boy...Porsche, street-bred bodyguard Kinn brought home, Kim’s instincts flared. Suspicious, he dug into Porsche Pachara Kittisawasd’s life, determined to protect his brother....it struck him as odd. He’d learned never to trust unexpected kindness in the Theerapanyakul house.

But while investigating, he didn’t expect to find Chay.

Chay....the boy with sunshine in his voice, who blinked at him with innocence

The boy who called him "P’Kim" like it meant something.

Chay wasn’t supposed to matter. Yet, within days, he found himself watching those soft glances, those stuttering smiles, and Kim… he cracked.

He’d told himself it was all manipulation...a lie, he repeated so often he almost believed it.

But truth was...he used Chay. He used the boy’s love to feel humane emotions he buried long ago also a selfish move. And in return, he destroyed the only soul that had ever looked at him without fear.

He turned Chay’s light into ashes.

And when things got too real, when his own heart begged him to stay, he had to ran because Korn started to get suspicious.

Then he came back. Broken and angry. He barged into that bar ready to control the damage, only to realize he was the damage.

And Chay...God, his Chay...was already shattered. The video… the one he had left for him. It broke both in ways nothing ever had.

Then came the day Chay agreed to marry someone else. That day, Kim died again.

He remembered watching the announcement like it was a public execution.