Chapter Text
Sea (Chiharu) could no longer feel his legs. The noise roaring behind him didn’t belong to a single gang; it was the noise of the entire city.
The engines of the North, the screams of the South... Red Crowns, White Lotus, Junkyard Dogs, and Neon Ghosts.
They were like a pack of wolves chasing a single prey.
Rounding a corner, Sea dove into the overgrown garden of an old mansion, its rusty iron gates left ajar. This wasn’t a sanctuary; it was a trap.
But he had no other choice.
The moment he entered the garden, he slipped on the muddy grass. Time slowed down. Sea crashed face-first onto the ground.
He tried to scramble up, but by the time he lifted his head, it was too late.
The garden was swarming on all four sides with masked, enraged gang members in colorful jackets. Hundreds of them. There was nowhere to run. The circle tightened.
From the crowd, Pond, the leader of the Junkyard Dogs, lunged forward. His eyes were manic. He raised a metal baseball bat high into the air.
"It's over, little mouse!" Pond roared. "This is the end!"
Sea squeezed his eyes shut and shielded his head with his hands. He waited for the impact. He waited to hear the sound of his own bones snapping.
The metal bat came down, slicing through the air with deadly speed.
But the expected sound of breaking bones never came.
THUD!
A heavy, authoritative sound of impact. A dead stop.
Sea opened his eyes, trembling. Just inches above his head, a hand had caught that deadly bat in mid-air.
A hand clad in black leather.
The owner of the hand didn't even flinch from the force of the blow.
Sea shifted his gaze upward.
Standing before him was someone who had no place amidst this mud, blood, and rain.
He wore an immaculate, razor-sharp black suit.
A silver pin on his lapel.
And on his face, an expression colder than ice.
It was Jimmy Jitaraphol.
In that instant, the breath was knocked out of hundreds of people in the garden. The savage shouts, the engine revs... everything cut off like a knife.
Only the sound of the rain remained.
Pond, the gang leader holding the bat, widened his eyes in disbelief.
He tried to pull back in fear, but Jimmy’s grip on the bat was so powerful that Pond couldn't retrieve his weapon.
Jimmy spoke in a calm voice, almost a whisper, yet it carried to the very ends of the garden.
"In my garden..."
Jimmy twisted his wrist slightly and yanked the metal bat from Pond’s hand as if it were a mere toy.
He tossed the bat aside onto the grass with a look of pure disgust.
"...I do not want noise."
Whispers began to rise from the back of the crowd.
"It's Him..."
"Fall back!"
"Now!"
Even the savage kings of those four great districts, who usually tore each other apart, were trembling now. Because the man standing before them was beyond street rules.
He was the leader of the country's darkest, most dangerous, and most untouchable organization.
Jimmy turned to Sea, still sprawled on the ground. He bent down slowly. He extended his black-gloved hand. Was this a threat, or help?
No one could be sure.
Jimmy looked directly into Sea’s eyes.
"Get up," he said. "Crawling on the ground doesn't suit you."
When Sea took the hand of this man in black, he realized the story had shifted dimensions. The street fight was over. The real war was just beginning.
Jimmy waited, hand extended. Sea clung to it with trembling, mud-caked fingers.
With a single move, Jimmy hoisted him up as if Sea were as light as a feather.
Sea struggled to stand. His knees were knocking together. Without a second thought, Jimmy took off his flawless black jacket and draped it over Sea’s soaked, muddy shoulders.
Then, with a gloved finger, he gently wiped a smudge of blood from Sea’s cheek.
For the hundreds of thugs in the garden, this gesture was more terrifying than any act of violence. Because this was tenderness.
And the tenderness of a man like Jimmy was reserved only for something very special—something that belonged to him.
After placing Sea behind him—in his safe zone—Jimmy slowly turned back to the crowd.
Those four massive gangs... Red Crowns, White Lotus, Junkyard Dogs, Neon Ghosts... They were all petrified.
The men who had been screaming like wild animals just moments ago were now afraid to even breathe.
The sound of rain hitting the ground was as audible as their heartbeats.
Jimmy adjusted his shirt cuffs. His gaze drifted over the leaders, one by one. Whoever that gaze touched, looked away immediately.
Then, into the middle of that deadly silence, Jimmy dropped the bomb. He didn't shout; his voice was calm. But every syllable cracked like a whip in the damp air.
"What do you want from my lover?"
Time stopped.
Mark, the leader of Sawang Phaisarn, nearly dropped his bat. His eyes darted between Sea and Jimmy. His brain refused to process the information.
That loser kid... and the King of the Underworld?
Pond, the Junkyard Dogs leader, swallowed hard. His throat was dry. The color drained from his face as he realized who he had just tried to hit.
He hadn't attacked a "nobody"; he had attacked Jimmy's "everything."
In the back, Sky stood frozen under his umbrella. The mocking smirk was wiped from his lips, replaced by pure shock.
"Fuck..." he whispered to himself. "Did we just sign our death warrants?"
Sea was in shock too. Staring at the back of the man standing before him, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Did that maniac just say lover?
This wasn't a lie told to protect him. This was a truth in Jimmy’s world, and the thing Sea feared most in his own.
Receiving no answer, Jimmy tilted his head slightly. The icy look in his eyes hardened.
"I asked you a question," Jimmy said, his voice dropping an octave, but the threat level rising a thousandfold.
"Why are you trying to tear apart... what is mine?"
No one could answer. Because any answer given would be a reason to die there tonight.
The deathly silence that fell over the garden after Jimmy's "Lover" declaration was broken by a metallic sound.
Mark, the leader of Sawang Phaisarn, stepped forward through gritted teeth. Despite Jimmy’s presence, his pride wouldn't let him stay silent.
"I don't care if he's yours," Mark said, his voice shaking with rage. He rested his baseball bat on the ground. "That kid has something that belongs to us. He stole what is ours."
The crowd rippled with murmurs of agreement. They were right; this was a matter of theft, and by street law, a thief’s hand was to be broken.
But right at that moment, the trembling "loser," Sea, who had been cowering behind Jimmy unable to breathe, suddenly lifted his head.
There was a wild glint in his eyes that no one had seen before.
"Fuck off!" Sea yelled. His voice cut through the rain, reaching everyone. He screamed until his throat tore. "It's mine! IT BELONGS TO ME!"
Hundreds of gang members looked at each other in shock. Grumbles began to rise.
"What did he say?"
"Did that rat just curse at us?"
"It's easy to bark when you're hiding behind the King..."
Everyone surged forward a step in anger. In that second, they wanted to tear Sea apart. But Jimmy simply turned his head slightly.
A single "try it and see" glance thrown over his shoulder nailed those hundreds of angry men to the spot.
No one dared to dance with Jimmy.
Jimmy turned back to the crowd. He wore a bored, weary expression. He waved his hand in the air as if dealing with an elementary school squabble.
It was a dismissive gesture that said, “Is that all? Do you have any other issues?”
Then, he slowly turned around.
Now, it was just the two of them. Jimmy and Sea.
Jimmy’s cold, pitch-black eyes were on Sea. He wasn't waiting for an explanation; he was demanding an answer.
His gaze slid over Sea’s wet shirt, to the bulge he was clutching against his chest.
Sea felt crushed under Jimmy’s stare. His earlier courage had evaporated. He swallowed in panic. His hands went to his pocket, trembling.
"I..." Sea whispered, his voice lost in the rain. "I just..."
With shaking fingers, he pulled the object out.
An old-fashioned pocket watch with a silver chain and cracked glass.
Sea held the watch in both palms as if it were the most fragile thing in the world. He extended it towards Jimmy but didn't hand it over; he just showed it.
"This is mine," Sea said again, but this time his voice was not a shout, but a plea. "The only thing left from my father. Not theirs... Mine."
Jimmy looked at the cracked watch, and then into Sea’s fearful but determined eyes. In that moment, he understood.
This boy wasn't a thief; he was an heir.
Jimmy reached out with his gloved hand, closing it over Sea’s fingers and the watch. He whispered. "It is safe now."
Jimmy took the cracked watch and slowly placed it into his own shirt pocket, right over his heart.
Then he spread his arms wide, tilted his head back slightly, and let the rain hit his face.
With that icy smile on his lips, he whispered, but his voice echoed in everyone's mind: "What was yours... is now mine."
There was a moment of silence. The 4 Big Gangs... Pond, Mark, Sky, Nani, and their men... They didn't know what to do.
The man before them was an underworld legend. But that watch... That watch contained something they were willing to die for.
The silence was shattered by the scream of a crazed member of the Junkyard Dogs. "KILL HIM!"
The madman began to run toward Jimmy with a chain in his hand. He was a pin pulled from a grenade.
With that first step, hundreds of gang members roared and surged forward simultaneously.
AND CHAOS ERUPTED.
But Jimmy didn't even flinch. He didn't even blink.
Because out of the darkness, they emerged.
Jimmy’s Army.
Hundreds of Men in Black Suits formed a wall in front of Jimmy from the shadows. These weren't street thugs; they were trained professionals who fought like killing machines.
The moment the gangs hit this black wall, they shattered. The sound of breaking bones drowned out the rain.
As the apocalypse broke out behind him, Jimmy slowly turned on his heels. He didn't look back once at the bloody war, the screams, or the cracking skulls.
In his world, there was only one focal point: Sea.
Sea was backing away, trembling. His eyes were filled with terror. The man in front of him was a thousand times more dangerous than the gangs chasing him. Sea knew this.
Whenever he tried to run from him, he found himself in a deeper pit, right in Jimmy’s lap.
Sea took another step back. "Don't come closer..." he whispered, his voice barely audible. "Let me go."
The calm mask on Jimmy’s face fell, replaced by pure, uncontrolled rage. Sea’s attempt to flee was the final drop that overflowed his patience.
Jimmy lunged with the speed of a predator.
His gloved hand clamped hard onto the back of Sea’s neck, gripping the roots of his hair.
"Ah!" Sea groaned in pain. Jimmy’s fingers were squeezing as if to pierce the flesh. It hurt, but Jimmy didn't care.
The tenderness he had shown in front of everyone was gone. This was exactly who Jimmy was.
He could love you one second, but that didn't mean he would love you the next. He was the kind of psychopath whose next move no one could predict.
Jimmy yanked Sea toward him by the scruff of his neck, bringing their faces close. His breath hit Sea’s face.
"Let you go?" Jimmy hissed through his teeth. His eyes were locked onto Sea’s terrified ones.
"I will never let you go, Ocean. Get that into that stupid head of yours that threw you in front of these jackals..."
Ocean... That was the nickname Jimmy had given Sea.
He never used the name everyone else did. Sea was special to him, and his name had to be special too.
In the background, someone went flying, glass shattered, sirens grew closer, but Jimmy was focused solely on Sea, as if they were in a vacuum.
Jimmy began to drag Sea like an object, gripping him by the nape.
"...Your leash is in my hands. Where I go, you go."
Sea struggled, slipped, stumbled, but he couldn't escape Jimmy’s iron grip.
Jimmy dragged him forcibly, painfully, out of that hell, out of that bloody battlefield, and toward his own dark world, toward his black car.
Sea realized it then.
He could escape the gangs. He could escape the police.
But there was no escape from Jimmy. This wasn't love; it was a life sentence.