Only Happy When It Rains

Chapter 1: Prologue

At least it was rainy season.

Can stood in front of the burial mound where his sister's urn had just been taken, holding up a wide, rainbow-coloured umbrella over his shivering body, biting back tears.

The rest of the funeral party had already moved on, but Can still couldn't leave. It couldn't be. It wasn't real. This inconspicuous, grass-covered mound wasn't where his sister was now. His bickering, annoying, bossy little sister couldn't just be gone.

No parents should have to bury their child. And no big brother his little sister.

Not this early.

Not like this.

It had all happened in the span of a few days. Ley complaining about headaches – Can had even made fun of her for it in the beginning – then she was getting weaker, rushed to the hospital. Acute leukaemia, they had told the shocked family, she had been in a coma by the evening and was gone two days later.

There hadn't even been an opportunity for a proper goodbye.

And now... Can stared at the little creeks of water that were forming from the rain and running down from the burial mound onto the path he'd eventually have to walk without slipping.

He had always thought Lemon was the stronger one of the two of them. But maybe that had just been it – strength... her own body turning against her like that, not slowly growing like the usual cancers, no, rapidly and brutally without warning.

Before this, Can had been happy. Carefree... but he now realised it had been due to a large part because of his sister, because she had been a serious child, making their parents proud, taking pressure and expectations off of Can's back.

And now... he was an only child, and everything was resting on his shoulders.

"I won't let you down, I'll make you proud of me, Ley... Lemon," he said softly under his breath, before he allowed the sobs to take hold of him.

*

"Young Master Tin, your father wants to see you in his office."

With barely a nod, Tin acknowledged the servant's message and watched her scurry away from his room as fast as possible.

Good.

It was always a hassle when his family hired new domestic staff and he needed to make sure they understood the rules for his part of the mansion, the two rooms and a bathroom his family had graciously allowed him to lock off for himself. It had been a present for his twenty-first birthday – a silent acknowledgement that he had gained back some of their trust, after the drug scandal that had forced him to return to Thailand three years ago.

Still not enough to allow him to have his own apartment off site, as much as he had begged for it.

He had no idea why Mr Medthanan wanted to see him – but it couldn't be for a good reason. Tin's father never wanted to see him unless he was in some kind of trouble.

While he slowly made his way towards his father's wing of the mansion – he was walking deliberately slowly, his father shouldn't get the impression Tin was desperate to please him in any way – Tin tried to go over his past few weeks in his head.

Had he done anything that might upset his father? Other than refusing to join them for meals when they asked, and keeping his half-brother Tul at as much of a distance as he could get away with; the half-brother who had made sure Tin could never look good in his parents' eyes, no matter what he did. The man singularly motivated to make every waking hour at the mansion a living hell for him, cunningly, unseen by anyone.