Roommates - Not in Bangkok anymore [completed]

Chapter 46 - Epilogue

Tin's POV

This day turned out to be a first on a lot of things.

Tin sat at a round table in a Chinese restaurant in London, with his family and with Can, and both his parents were laughing at Can's stories about how he had tried to get his sister to learn to play football, and how they had ended up breaking the living room window in the process. He had never seen his parents so relaxed, wearing casual, non-designer clothes, eating at an ordinary restaurant... acting like normal human beings.

After his father had apologised to Tin in the morning and Tul had finally stopped sobbing, Mr. Yaxley and McNeil had interrogated Tul on his connections to the conspiracy against their school. At first, Tul had tried to wriggle himself out of it, too, claiming that he had only joined forces with his stepfather because their goals aligned – but Mr. Yaxley had been an award-winning investigative journalist before he became editor and McNeil wasn't the kind of person who you could lie to, so eventually the truth had come out:

Tul had made a deal with his mother's new family that they would help him get out of Thailand and bring him to England, if he managed to lay his hands on the Medthanan inheritance and bring it with him.

Their father had been shocked, of course, but since he felt guilty for failing to protect him, he was willing to give his son another chance.

Even though Tin still had no love lost for his brother, he couldn't hate him anymore – he was too pathetic.

He could almost – but only almost – feel sorry for him.

In any case, when the Yaxleys had asked him whether he wanted them to press charges against Tul on his behalf, Tin had declined.

His priority had always been for the attacks to stop, more than for revenge or punishment – and seeing how many people had apparently messed up his brother's life in the past, he didn't feel the need to add to it.

This didn't mean he would ever love or trust him again – it just meant he valued peace over revenge. If he hit Tul now, he would just beat up someone who was already knocked-out on the floor, and true sportsmen like Can wouldn't approve of that.

It had brought a lot of peace of mind to Tin to hear that Mr. Yaxley had told Tul that they would let him off the hook if he didn't interfere with things in England again, and McNeil had basically said the same to him as Lucinda had to Tin the other day: if he abused their trust, they would go after him, no further warning.

Afterwards, his parents had taken Tul to their hotel, to give him a chance to rest and set a few things right. They had also invited Tin and Can to stay with them in London until Sunday, and they had organized another room for them at the hotel.

It could be an advantage being in the business his family was in – since the hotel was a partner chain of one of the Medthanan's resorts, getting one of the nicest rooms in the entire building at a moment's notice was no trouble for Tin's father at all.

Tin had planned to take Can shopping for clothes in the afternoon, so he wouldn't have to wear the school uniform to every formal event they might have to attend now that even his family approved, but Can had resisted.

Finally, Tin had talked Can into agreeing, if Tin managed to convince his family to eat with them at an ordinary restaurant, in ordinary clothes – and that was how they had ended up here.

While they were eating, Tin's gaze suddenly got stuck on the TV running in the background behind his parents. A news program showed the biggest story of the day – the uncovering of an illegal anti-democratic organisation that involved the highest levels of business and politics.