Chapter Text
Overhead the sky is the undiluted blue of a clear day, the ocean’s brighter echo above land. Only a few wisps of white cloud haven’t been burned off by the sun and they drift lazily, like birds floating on the wind.
Kim stands behind the crossing, glancing up at the overhead vista. He can’t help but feel like the weather is mocking them with its warmth and vivid skies.
He has the distinct feeling that the men they’re dealing with have an ace up their sleeve and they’re walking into the situation underprepared. It’s like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
But he chose to do this for a reason and he wouldn’t switch places with anyone even if they offered.
He hasn’t seen Kinn this happy in years; Porsche is clearly good for him and if Kim doing this keeps the two of them out of danger then all the better. Though if asked, he’d deny ever experiencing such sentimentality.
His reasons for wanting to hand over the briefcase aren’t entirely altruistic, though. He knows he’s a better hand-to-hand fighter than Kinn, and, he suspects, Porsche, so he has the best chance of stopping whoever comes for the money. He’s also far better at slipping through crowds unnoticed, so it’ll be easier for him to tail them.
But most of all, Kim wants the chance to lay his fists into whoever is responsible for kidnapping Chay and Tankhun. They deserve to be bloodied and beaten for what they’ve done and the person collecting the briefcase seems like a good starting point.
Kim’s eyes move from the sky to one of the smaller buildings surrounding the crossroads. On the roof, he can make out the figure of Arm. His rifle is well concealed, so Kim can’t see it from this angle and it shouldn’t give them away immediately.
Glancing to adjacent rooftops, he sees Pol, Pete, and a number of other bodyguards. They’re hidden well enough that, had he not known where to look, he would have struggled to find them.
While Kinn had been gathering the ransom money, Kim, Porsche, and everyone else spent the early hours of the morning reviewing the layout of the crossroads and blueprints of the surrounding buildings, working out where to place bodyguards.
Kim knows Kinn and Porsche are on the roof of the building behind him, both of them refusing to stay at the compound. Big and several other marksmen are on the ground with him, hidden out of sight in case something goes wrong.
They’re also there to back him up when he apprehends the kidnapper, but Kim doesn’t think he’ll need any help.
He looks across to a clock on the side of a shining skyscraper. It reads 8:55am.
“Kinn,” he says quietly into his earpiece, careful not to draw the attention of any passers by.
“Kim,” Kinn answers immediately, “what is it?”
“Do you see them?” Porsche chimes in, reminding Kim that they’re on an open comms network and all the bodyguards can hear him.
“Not yet,” Kim says, an edge to his tone. “Everything looks normal down here, but they could be anywhere.
“Stay alert,” Kinn says and Kim rolls his eyes. His body is alight with pre-fight energy, thrumming at the frequency of a hummingbird’s wings. As if he could possibly be anything but alert.
“Kinn,” Kim says again, voice cold and calm. “If anything happens, don’t jeopardise their safety.”
He doesn’t need to explain who they are. Both Kinn and Porsche already know.
“Kim,” Kinn says, an unexpected edge to his voice. “Do you suspect foul play?”
“There aren’t any signs of it yet but something feels off.”
Kim is leaning against a wall next to the entrance of a bank, opposite the crossing. He’s been watching the scene for a few minutes, tracking the people striding around him as they head to work.
This is exactly what he’d expect for the time of day (though Kim’s sure he looks entirely out of place in his casual jeans and leather jacket), but something still feels odd.
Maybe it’s just what they’re here to do, but the briefcase containing the money is a lead weight in his right hand and the burner phone sits uncomfortably in his pocket, reminding him that they’re at someone else’s mercy.
Kim’s learned to trust his instincts over the years, as they’ve become more and more honed. So he looks for the people in the crowds around him that don’t seem to have any destination in mind.
Those who are lingering.
The only people he can really pinpoint are a woman with a pram, standing still as she pulls what looks like a baby bottle out of her bag, and a man in a dark blue suit, smoking and looking at his phone. Everyone else he examines is in motion.
But Kim can taste discord on the air, even if it’s not coming from those two. Nobody else seems to sense it, though.
“Be careful,” Kinn’s voice chimes in his ear, a cluster of minor chords.
“Why are we letting him do this if you think it’s a trap?” Porsche demands quietly.
Because I’m expendable, Kim thinks without malice. He’s known it since the day he moved out of the main family compound and his father didn’t send more than a handful of bodyguards to hunt him down and force him to return.
“We don’t have a choice,” Kinn mutters, reluctant to have a heated discussion overheard by everyone on the comm line. “You heard what they said would happen if one of us didn’t show up.”
“I know, I know. I just wish we had a way of getting a step ahead of them.”
I could get ahead of them, if you gave me enough time, Kim thinks irritably. But that’s something they don’t have. Time.
Kinn was barely able to get all the money together before the deadline and they only just managed to make it to the meeting point with enough time to get everyone into position. Whoever these people are, they know how to operate in the margins and how to do it well.
Kim looks at the clock again. 8:58am.
“I’m getting in position,” he says quietly into the comm. “I’ll let you know as soon as I identify the person making the collection. The tracker is still on me if anything goes wrong.”
With that, he turns the volume of the earpiece down slightly and pushes off from the wall. The clock reads 8:59 as he joins the large group of people gathering at the crossing, waiting for the walk sign to turn green.
Kim feels a sense of calm descend over him like a second skin. He sinks into this heightened state of awareness every time a mission begins, like his body is channeling a predator’s reflexes to maximize his fighting capabilities.
Right as the clock strikes 9am, the pedestrian light turns green. Kim begins walking, one figure in a sea of people streaming outwards like an ink spill.
Then, the burner phone starts ringing.
Kim draws it out of his pocket and looks at it in distaste. He’d expected this on some level, otherwise why make them take the phone at all?
He hits the answer button a little too aggressively, knowing whose voice he’s going to hear on the other end of the line.
“I’m on the crossing,” he says, by way of a greeting.
“No hello? You really are as devoid of niceties as they say, Kimhan Theerapanyakul.”
The man says Kim’s name in the way Kim imagines a viper would. A venomous hiss right before it sinks its fangs into him.
“You asked for a Theerapanyakul. You’ve got one,” he replies without emotion.
“Very clever. You found a way around my stipulation without breaking it. Next time I’ll have to be more specific.”
“Mmm,” Kim says, only half listening as he scans his surroundings, looking for the person who’s going to collect the briefcase. He’s almost at the halfway point, crowd thinning rapidly around him, when he spots them.
A man is heading directly towards him with singular intent. He’s wearing a grey coat, despite the warm weather, and a cap is pulled down over his eyes, hiding most of his face from any security cameras. Or anyone else who might be trying to identify him.
Kim pulls the phone away from his ear so that the man on the other end won’t be able to hear him. “Kinn,” he says into his earpiece, “my twelve o’clock. Grey coat, black baseball cap. It’s him.”
Kim hears the quiet tenor of several bodyguards responding to that and he thinks Kinn asks him if the man is armed, but he’d already tuning them out.
He brings the phone back up to his ear and asks, no hesitation, “What happens if I don’t hand this briefcase over?”
The man in the cap is only a few meters from him now and closing in fast.
The voice at the other end hums sardonically.
“You tell me. Do you think I’m bluffing about sending your brother back to you piece by piece?”
“No,” Kim says firmly, “I don’t.”
With that he holds out the briefcase parallel to his body, a clear invitation to the approaching stranger.
The man reaches him and their eyes lock. Kim feels his nerve endings light up like a circuit board, ready for the call of violence.
But the man’s hand closes over the handle and Kim lets go, air rushing through his empty fingertips.
Their gazes stay fused together for a second longer, neither wanting to look away first in case the other tries something violent. But then their bodies pass each other and the moment is broken, briefcase transferred, static dissipated.
Kim walks another five paces and then turns, swiftly doubling back. As he returns to the halfway point of the crossing, he readies himself to vanish into the surge of people crossing in the other direction as he tails the man.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” The voice at the other end of the phone taunts him.
Kim realises with little surprise that, wherever the man is, he can see everything unfolding. He knows he’s being baited, so simply says, “You have what you want,” and then brings the phone away from his ear to end the call.
“But I’ve brought you a gift,” the voice says, loudly enough for him to hear even though he’s holding the phone out in front of him. He brings it swiftly back to his ear.
“What?”
“On your right. The white van.” The man’s tone is filled with self-congratulatory mirth and Kim wants to slice it right off his tongue with a knife.
He knows he should ignore the voice. Knows he should continue after their best lead. But something in him – instinct, intuition, or a thread of fate, he doesn’t know which – makes him turn around.
Across the wide street, a van is idling by the curb on the edge of an intersecting junction. The sliding door is wide open and there, gagged and looking fearful in the grip of another man is–
“Chay,” Kim breathes.
It’s really him.
Kim has spent almost every waking minute of the last twelve hours thinking about what he’d do when he saw Chay again. How he’d react. What he’d say. And now Chay is right there, across the street from him.
His arms are tied behind his back and he looks roughed up, which makes Kim want to shoot the men responsible, but he’s here.
“Chay?! Did he say Chay?” Porsche interrupts his thoughts, half-yelling through the earpiece.
“Kim, what’s going on?” Kinn asks, but Kim barely registers their voices over the roaring in his ears.
Chay is so close that Kim feels like he could reach out and touch him, fingers ghosting over a cheekbone.
Memories rise up through him and he can almost feel the ghost of Chay’s head against his chest all those months ago. Almost smell the scent of Chay’s strawberry shampoo when he hugged Kim in the studio. Almost feel the phantom tug of the younger man’s fingers on his sleeve outside his apartment.
The full weight of the last few months they’ve spent together and apart comes crashing down on Kim, heavier than if the sky had caved and Atlas himself had asked Kim to take his place.
Regret, anguish, and heartache flit through him quicker than the burning sparks of a log fire, crackling to life and then winking out.
And, as though Chay can sense the weight of Kim’s stare, he looks over.
Their gazes meet and Chay goes still, eyes widening. Time seems to slow down around them as they look at each other.
They’re planets, a breath away from colliding. If they move, they’ll level everything around them.
Kim thinks he might say Chay’s name again, his lips created solely to shape the curve of each letter. But he can’t be sure. Adrenaline and shock are colliding through him in a maelstrom of fractured feelings, dulling his heightened state of awareness.
He scans Chay again and registers the knife being held at his neck. Anger surges through him and time speeds up.
“Let him go,” he spits into the phone.
“I take it you like your present?” The voice asks smugly.
“Your quarrel is with the family. He’s got nothing to do with this,” Kim says through gritted teeth. He’s holding the phone so hard that he can feel the old plastic groan under his grip.
“Doesn’t he? If Porsche Kittisawasd is part of the Theerapanyakul family now, then that makes his brother a Theerapanyakul brat too. Blood or not.”
Kim can see Chay trying to yell something to him around the gag, struggling against the man holding him, despite how precariously close the knife is to his neck. Kim feels his fury ignite into something black and charred and dangerous.
He reaches for the back of his waistband where his gun sits. If the man holding Chay hostage wasn’t using him as a shield, Kim would shoot him in the head from here without blinking.
Chay is still trying to yell something to Kim and attempting to wriggle free of his captor’s hands. Kim wants nothing more than to fold him into his arms and take him away from here. He wants to whisper, stay still, I’m coming for you, and let the wind carry it to Chay.
“I’d recommend not using that,” the man says, all traces of humour evaporating from his voice. “I warned you what would happen if you tried to kill any of my men.”
Kim lets his hand drop away from his waistband instantly, an attempt at a peace offering. He feels something in the plastic give as his fingers tighten further around the phone.
“In fact,” the man’s voice has taken on an edge, “I recall saying that an ambush would end badly for your brother and Porchay. And yet I can see your men stationed on rooftops around here.”
Shit, Kim thinks, but outwardly he says, “Just a precaution. In case you tried anything.”
“Regardless, you still broke our terms. So now someone has to pay for that.”
Kim knows without asking who the man means.
Porchay.
He’s going to hurt Chay.
“No,” Kim snaps, voice suddenly desperate. For once, he doesn’t strategise or try to calculate his next move. He simply lets instinct guide him as he leaves the crossing, breaking into a run, and heading straight for Chay.
Kinn and Porsche’s voices are loud in his ear, despite the low volume of the earpiece, demanding to know where he’s going.
He says only one word, throws it out like something of a shout; it’s the only word he knows right now.
“Chay!”
Chay is his sun, his polar north. He’s the only person Kim wants to orbit and the only thing that matters as he picks up speed, adrenaline spiking.
He’s rapidly closing in on the van, but he can see the men inside aren’t moving to stop him.
Why aren’t they shooting at him? Do they think he’s not armed?
It’s almost like they know he’s not going to make it to the van.
Right as Kim considers this, he hears a screech of tires. He turns, momentum slowing, to see a car heading straight for him. People scream and scatter like marbles spilling over a cold floor.
Kim has less than three seconds to decide what to do.
This was clearly a planned attack. Likely by the same men who have Chay and Tankhun. It would explain why none of them seemed phased by him going after them.
If he moves out of the way, the car will likely just drive off. But so will the van, which means he’ll lose any chance of following it or finding out where Chay and Tankhun are being kept.
But…if he lets them do what they want to do, they might take him with them. Then he can get Chay and Khun out from the inside.
With an exhale that seems to last an eternity, Kim looks the masked driver in the eyes and lets the car hit him.
He twists half a step at the last second so that it doesn’t plough into him head on, instead clipping him at an angle, dampening the blow.
But it still hits him in the lower ribs with enough force to knock all the air out of his lungs and send him flying. For a second he’s airborne, hurtling backwards as everything rushes by in a blur of colour and motion. Then, as it always does, gravity kicks in.
Kim crashes to the ground with enough force to shatter a block of concrete. He rolls to a stop, body shooting off starbursts of pain down his ribs and across his temple.
His right shoulder takes the brunt of the impact and he can tell immediately that something is either broken or displaced from the way a white hot ache seems to radiate outward from the core of the joint.
He tries to breathe and finds that the air only makes it half way into his lungs before pain lances down his ribs. He starts coughing, which ramps up the agony in his chest and his vision swims for a few heartbeats, making the blue sky overhead look like a watercolour running off a canvas.
As the ringing in Kim’s ears begins to fade, he can vaguely hear Porsche swearing and Kinn yelling his name.
Kinn sounds…concerned? That can’t be right.
He must have hit the ground harder than he thought.
A couple are crouching down next to Kim, asking him if he’s alright. He doesn’t answer in case he accidentally says, do I fucking look alright to you?
Other people in the background are running, yelling and panicking. From the voices he can make out, it sounds like people think this is some sort of terror attack.
But one voice reaches him above the rest. Someone is screaming his name and, as muffled as it sounds, he’d know that pitch and cadence anywhere.
Kim rolls onto his side, towards the sound, and immediately regrets it as pain spikes down his arm. But it fades into the background when he sees Chay.
Chay is yelling for him and trying to throw himself out of the van door. It’s taking two men to hold him back even though his arms are still restrained.
Chay is…trying to get to him. And he sounds terrified.
Kim attempts to push himself up, to go to Chay, but none of his limbs are cooperating and the pain from before comes shooting back to the forefront of his nerves, loud and unimpressed. He collapses back to the tarmac with a short huff of air.
He can hear Kinn frantically telling the bodyguards to move in and protect him when he realises with a start that he doesn’t know where the car is.
Did it drive off?
He’s just wondering if his plan failed spectacularly when men surround him. They shove the people trying to help him back and pick him up roughly. Kim’s vision almost whites out when the movement jostles his shoulder and he thinks he might cry out in pain.
When he comes back to himself, he’s being dragged hurriedly towards the car. His instinct is to rip free of the arms holding him and start fighting back, but he forces the impulse down with all his willpower. This is what he wanted.
Now he just has to bank on them taking him to the same place as Chay and his brother. Or, if they don’t, he should at least be able to get himself free and find out where they are from one of the men currently hauling him along.
He’s thrown into the backseat of the car and he groans as the movement sends an arc of fire through his ribs. Two men get into the front and one slides in beside Kim, banging the door shut behind him.
Kim turns to try and get a look at his face, but something cracks him across the head with such quick force that he slams into the opposite door.
He feels himself slide down onto the cushioned seat, vision growing dark. As the car speeds away, the last thing he hears is Kinn shouting his name, before the earpiece is ripped from his ear and he passes out.