Chapter Text
There's a stranger waving on the side of the road.
Kim’s been taught from an early age to not help strangers out.
It was more likely for a stranger to mean harm than well, to take advantage of Kim and his generosity. To sink their fangs in where he is most vulnerable. No, in fact the general rule of thumb for dealing with a stranger is to stay alert, assess and when the time comes- eliminate.
The engine of his Audi A8 purrs as Kim peels away from Bangkok. The headlights tailing him have finally faded into the distance, taking some of the urgency away with them. Clouds loom overhead, dark gray with the imminent promise of rainfall.
It might mean Kim will have to pull over for the night.
The figure shows up in the corner of his vision two miles into the offbeat path. Kim feels sweat bead over his forehead.
The figure is waving its arms, possibly in an attempt to flag down a ride. Kim slows his car down and pulls his gun out from its custom holder under the dashboard.
The headlights put the person in sharp focus. Kim stares.
It’s a boy, somewhere around Kim’s age but probably younger. He’s wearing an old, faded hoodie and a pair of jeans that come a couple of inches short from his ankles. Kim can’t make out any weapons from this angle, only an -ugly, large- guitar case and a comically overstuffed backpack.
Kim loads his weapon up- a trusty Sig Sauer p238 that he carries on himself always. It may not be his father’s men, but it’s better to keep his guard up.
Alert, assess, eliminate.
The boy, noticing that Kim has stopped, practically bounces towards the driver’s window. Kim opens the window by an inch, then two. The tinted windows mean that the boy doesn’t see the mouth of his gun pointed at his head.
“Khun!” The boy’s voice is lilting, melodious, “Khun could you please give me a lift to the bus stop? I need to visit my grandmother in Phuket!”
Kim snorts to himself, if the boy wanted to go to Phuket, why would he be standing in the middle of nowhere begging for rides?
Kim starts to roll the window back up when the boy does something extremely foolish and jams his fingers through the window.
“Khun, please,” he says, voice cracking a little.
For a moment his face is angled in the direction of the headlight beam, allowing Kim to see his features more clearly. Later, when someone- Tankhun, Kinn, Big- will ask him why he allowed the boy inside his car, he’ll shrug and at most say that he was too tired to truly think it through.
But as of now, he sees the way the hitchhiker’s eyes glitter in the dark and thinks that saying no was never going to be a choice in the first place.
The door on the passenger side swings open as the stranger climbs in- guitar case and everything into the front seat. He crams the guitar and the backpack in the space meant for legroom. His actual legs are clutched to his chest, mud getting on Kim’s car seat. Kim watches in amazement as he manages to actually fasten his seatbelt through all of that.
“Thank you so much,” he gushes, offering a wai in Kim’s direction before freezing.
The boy gapes at him, mouth falling open. His lips glisten in the dim light, he’s probably just licked them. Kim waits, hand still clutching the gun, just out of sight. His eyes, large and sparkly -remind Kim of a deer.
“I’m sorry,” he begins, “but are you Wik by any chance?”
Oh. A fan.
Kim hadn’t predicted this at all. This is awkward. He clears his throat and starts driving, keeping his eyes on the road. He’d deliberately taken the least used, most abandoned path he could get without falling into some of his family’s hunting territory. There were potholes and stretches of irregular ground but it was manageable.
“I’m sorry if I offended you P’,” the boy continues, apologizing again, “it’s just that you look a lot like Wik-“
Kim had never been a good conversationalist outside of semi-scripted interviews and events. He always thought it was a waste of air, to keep talking when there is nothing to say.
“-and well I love his music and personally I would take it as a compliment to be compared to him-“
“What’s your name?” He asks, cutting off the boy’s never-ending worship of Wik.
“My na-name? I’m Talay,” the boy stutters, clearly not expecting the question.
There’s an audible change in his voice, a hesitation that wasn’t there before. Kim is about ninety percent sure the boy was lying. He vows to himself to look for the boy’s tells when they’re at a place with better lighting. All that Kim can do now was find out whether his lies were a direct threat to Kim’s self or not. It’s smart to not share one's name with a stranger. Still, he can’t help but poke at it a bit more.
“Talay, like the sea,” he murmurs, “it’s a nice name- I wonder if it’s real,”
“Thank you,” the boy chirps, not responding to the second half of Kim’s sentence.
They drive in silence for the better part of an hour after that. Kim tries to not be hyper aware of the sounds of another person breathing in the car.
Drops of water hit the windshield, solitary droplets at first which smooth out to a steady downpour after a minute or so. Kim turns the wipers on, wishing desperately that he had the luxury of turning his phone on for navigation. Unfortunately, his father had feelers everywhere, and it was probably for the best if Kim burns his phone in a trash fire the next chance he gets.
“What’s your name?” Talay asks, desperate to fill up the silence somehow, “don’t tell me it’s actually Wik, I mean if it is it’s a perfectly respectable name but you don’t actually look like your name is Wik,”
Kim doesn’t reply for a solid moment, humming and ignoring the question to see what Talay would do. He knows that he can be intimidating without his fan-friendly smile and that the best way to get someone to spill their beans is to say nothing in return.
Talay almost predictably, babbles on.
“Unless it’s foreign, but there’s nothing online that mentions you being foreign. Again, I’m just guessing and I may be making a fool of myself. My- my grandma always tells me that I’m too ready to make a fool of myself in order to make friends.
I think it’s always best to be open and friendly whenever you can, kindness is rare in our world-“
“Mike,” Kim lies, only to catch the way the boy lights up from the corner of his eye, “you can call me Mike,”
“P’Mike,” Talay acknowledges before letting out a low whistle, “it sure is pouring buckets, huh,”
Kim grunts, turning his steering wheel to follow the curvature of the road.
“It’s a shame that my phone’s all out of battery, otherwise I would love to help you out with the directions, passenger princess duties you know?”
“A passenger what now?” Kim feels his voice pitch up from incredulousness as he turns to face Talay.
Talay is happy to explain, giggling a little as he talks. Kim learns that it’s basically a person who doesn’t drive, but helps the driver by offering to look up directions, feed them snacks and keep them entertained by selecting the music. He’s also called a dinosaur for not being up to date on the five different memes that Talay mentions mid-explanation.
“That’s just a friend, you’re describing a friend,” Kim complains.
“Well, you’re helping me and I’m entertaining you with my personality- I’d say that makes us friends,”
Kim sighs. Might as well indulge him.
“Sing a song for me then,” he requests, “fulfill your friend-duties,”
Talay’s laugh on its own is musical, but then he shakes his head and starts to sing.
“Time passes by,
Rain comes and goes,
I know it very well but with you I don't know,”
Talay sings with the experience of someone who’s definitely been part of some highschool band or received rudimentary music lessons. He’s not straying too far away from his speaking range but Kim suppresses a shiver as his voice turns richer, honeyed.
It stands out even more due to the backing track being the soft hum of the car’s engine and the steady pitter-patter of raindrops.
“If you will be gone too,
If you are just stopping by,”
Kim turns his head fully for a moment, watching the way Talay grins through his little performance, his teeth practically shining through his mouth. He’s sitting in the least comfortable position imaginable, gangly limbs all collected and folded up on the car seat, the large guitar case and his belongings offering little by way of legroom.
He looks so happy, Kim thinks, too happy. He wonders that if he picks at the corner of that grin with his fingernails and peels back, what will be lying underneath. He turns his thoughts back to the road.
“All I know is tomorrow doesn't matter,
Because when there's me and you, and the pouring rain,
Oh suddenly the rainy day is warmer than the summer,”
His voice is louder than it was when he started, slightly echoing off of the confined four walls. A solid tenor, Kim notes, with practice he’ll be able to open up his upper register pretty well.
“You’re good,” he says blandly, “have you thought about going into music?”
“I’m hoping to bag a spot for myself in the music program at Ananthamekha,” Talay offers, and Kim feels his neck complain at how quickly he turns his head.
“You’re in highschool?”
Talay shakes his head, hair bouncing along.
“I just graduated P’!”
Kim hums in response.
They drive for another long stretch without exchanging a single word. Kim sneaks careful glances every ten minutes or so. Talay’s as still as a statue, and Kim would think he’s asleep if it weren’t for how his eyes stayed wide open.
The documents he stole from his father’s study lie scattered incriminatingly in the backseat. He needs to make copies of them as soon as he finds a cyber-café with a scanner and a copy machine. This little stunt of his had taken months of planning and severing a lot of ties. Maybe permanently. He doesn’t even know where he’s running off to, and if he’ll ever be allowed back.
“P’Mike?”
“Mmh?”
“I think I see a set of lights in the distance,”
His tone is flat, even a little sleepy but Kim straightens up immediately.
The lights in question are stationary, implying that they might be from a building or a stall. Kim drives on, watching as the lights get brighter and brighter.
It’s a small two-storeyed building, warm and inviting in the storm. Kim slows his car down.
Travellers’ Inn, it reads in stylised English font.
It’s clearly meant to be a rest-stop for tourists planning to travel via road. There’s no doubt that the place has seen better days, with the walls being stained with streaks of black and grey. The rain doesn't show any signs of stopping, lightning streaking through the sky at periodic intervals. Kim really doesn’t want to stop, but he’s been on the run for hours now, and it’s not just him that he has to think of.
He drives past the inn, causing Talay to cry out in alarm.
“P’Mike! The inn! Aren’t we going to stop for the night?”
Kim nods, pulling the car into park once it’s a safe distance away from the building.
“Do you have an umbrella?” He asks, quickly grabbing his knife and gun.
“I do,”
“Great, just grab that and get out after me,”
“But- but, what about my stuff?”
“It’s safer in the car. You can sleep in your current clothes, right?”
Talay nods. Kim grabs his own umbrella from underneath his car seat and carefully walks out into the rain. He doesn’t turn around to see if Talay is following him, pressing the lock button on his car remote after a minute.
It takes longer than it normally would to walk back up to the inn. Talay stomps behind him, voice somehow audible over the wind. He’s surprisingly upbeat, something that keeps ringing alarm bells in his head. Why is he so peppy?
“P’Mike, do you think they’ll have something hot to drink? Getting caught in the rain will be so bad for your voice! I’ll ask them if they do, can’t have you getting laryngitis and all,”
They reach the doorstep of the inn where a wizened old man is there to take their coats.
“Room for two,” Kim says in English, walking up to the small reception desk squashed in the corner of the ground floor.
The lady at the reception doesn’t meet his eye, hand shaky as she offers a set of keys and informs them about the room service and complimentary water bottles at the room. Kim files it away in his head as odd but doesn’t question it too much.
They climb up two flights of stairs to an empty corridor. There are holes drilled in the wall at even intervals, no doubt meant for installation of CCTV cameras.
Everything about the place was shady, but predictable. It wasn’t unusual for establishments like these to cut costs where they can, and the security of the place suffered in turn.
Talay is silent until they’re inside the room.
“Oh, this is nice,” he comments, patting the bed (singular) with his hands.
Kim rolls his eyes, stepping inside the small bathroom.
A small fluorescent light is placed right above the mirror. His reflection stares back at him. Kim’s got a five o’ clock shadow growing in and the bags under his eyes are starting to bruise purple. He swears he’s got some concealer in the glove compartment, that’ll cover this up nicely. No celebrity is truly a celebrity without a hint of vanity, after all.
Talay is bustling around the room, seemingly fascinated by the pretty cheap and ordinary room. He keeps shouting questions through the bathroom door to Kim.
“P’Mike, will you be okay sharing a bed? Are you sure?”
“P’Mike, do they have toothbrushes in there?”
“P’Mike, do you mind it if I turn the AC down?”
Kim replies to each of these with monosyllabic answers, splashing his face with water. He needs to stay alert.
“P'Mike, did you order room service?”
Shit.
They’ve found him.
He walks out of the bathroom expecting the worst. He can’t shout at Talay to not open any doors nor can he casually reveal that yeah, he’s technically second in line for the biggest mafia empire in Thailand. Turns out, he doesn’t have to.
The room is almost undisturbed, save for the noise of heavy creaking.
Talay is in the process of shifting the wooden set of drawers against the door to the room, face red from exertion. There’s another knock on the door, remarkably pointed. Kim thinks about the girl at the reception.
“Ah, P’Mike!” Talay says, as he finishes blocking the door, “can you grab the bedsheets? We’ll need them to get out of the window,”
There’s a loud bang, then another- the sound of a boot hitting a door.
“P’Mike!” Talay calls, a little frantic, “we don’t have forever!”
Kim sighs and strips the bed, throwing the window open. He’s able to force one corner of the sheets under the heavy wooden bed and he throws the other out. It’ll be a rough landing but it’s better than being killed. He turns to Talay, who is in the process of- setting fire to the room?
“P’Mike go!” He instructs, lighting a match from the complimentary matchbox in the room.
He takes the match towards the door, putting it in what looks like a box of tissues. Kim shakes his head and jumps out.
It’s still raining, and the landing is unpleasant and muddy, but he’s fine. Talay lands a beat after him, groaning at the unpleasant feeling of being covered in mud.
They walk past the front of the inn, where Kim can see the bodies of the old man and the receptionist. Kim pauses for a minute to see the face of the woman, mouth open and frozen in terror. He’s seen so many faces exactly like hers. She must’ve known what fate was awaiting her.
Kim turns away.
They don’t have the bare minimum protection that their umbrellas had provided from the storm and the water weighs his clothes down almost instantly. Kim grunts, cursing the weather for a moment.
He pulls his gun out. The walk to the car is long enough that the men will catch up sooner or later.
“P’Mike!” Talay yells in alarm, “they’re coming after us!”
Kim needs to reach the car. The sound of a gunshot rings out in the dark and Kim reflexively turns and shoots back. With how poor the visibility is, it’s a miracle when he hears the sound of the bullet hitting a body and a cry to accompany it.
Talay runs past him as Kim shoots at two more men. He can only see their silhouettes from this distance. A lot of smoke is coming from the inn, the top floor up in flames. It’s mesmerizing, Kim thinks, how brightly it burns in the downpour.
Talay is standing near the car by the time Kim reaches, panting and out of breath. He quickly unlocks the car and yanks himself inside.
The seats will need a proper cleaning after this, maybe even a replacement.
Talay squeezes himself inside in the same manner as he had before.
Kim doesn’t even wait to check if he’s closed the door before slamming his foot on the gas. He watches the speed dial go higher, higher, watching his rear-view mirror as the burning hotel becomes a blip in the scenery, before disappearing from view entirely. Good.
“That was scary,” Talay comments, the way one would about a mildly entertaining horror movie.
Kim snorts.
“Yeah?”
“You shooting the gun? Very gangster-cowboy of you,”
Kim thinks that might be another meme of some sort. He doesn’t question it.
“I hope it was everything you expected,”
“Well, I don’t know, it’s not a regular occurrence that one of my favorite singers turns out to be handy with a gun,”
Kim tenses. He’s clearly probing, fishing for information that Kim can’t provide him with. Not if the boy wants to live. He goes down the relatively safer route.
“One of your favorites, huh? Why not the favorite?”
Talay thankfully plays along.
“Why? Does Khun Wik want his ego to be stroked?” He asks, voice husky and deep.
Kim feels lightheaded from how fast his blood rushes south. What the fuck.
Talay giggles as the silence stretches on, Kim having been forced to think of Kinn’s nose hair to snap out of whatever that was. Vibrissae, they’re called. Subject of Kim’s nightmares.
“You know,” he continues as his laughter dies down, “I was planning to audition with one of your songs for the first round at Ananthamekha,”
Kim makes a noise of interest, tilting his head to indicate Talay to go on.
“I was going to pick something from your title tracks,” he explains, gesticulating as he speaks, causing the water soaked sleeves of his hoodie to drip everywhere, “but I couldn’t stop thinking of Comedy-Tragedy.”
Kim feels his eyebrows nearly meet his hairline. He hadn’t heard a fan mention that song in years.
“I wrote it for my own audition,” he says, half remembering, “you know, the second round of the practical exam,”
“It’s really good,” Talay sounds so earnest as he says that.
No, it’s not, Kim wants to say, it’s just a little too sad and a little too unpolished. It’s a little too Kim instead of Wik. Too reminiscent of the halls of the compound and the violence that’s stained the edges of his life.
“Thank you,” he says instead, “I’d love to hear your version of it one day,”
This leads to Talay humming the main melody of the song, which causes Kim to inevitably join in, humming in unison. The night stretches on, the road endless and the rain a constant.
Ah, I can't stop laughing now,
Kim has rarely ever had to think about anyone but himself. Not on such a personal level. He finds himself wondering where they’ll find another pair of clean clothes, a plate of food, a bed to lie upon.
Ah, you are the best comedian,
The funny thing is, he’s used to going days without each of those. If he thinks about it, it’s not even close to his physical limits. He can manage another two days without food, live in the muddy clothing for another week and sleep standing up if and when needed.
Ah, can't wait for that last punchline,
That’s the dangerous thing about caring. He can survive on less than nothing, but to subject Talay to that?
It’s unacceptable.