Chapter Text
As much as Jet hated to admit it, he really liked Charn.
If he were being honest, Jet would have to admit that he quite liked Charn from their first interaction. When he’d heard him defend Khem, he’d been jealous at first – it was hard not to be. After all, Khem was Jet’s only real friend. A thing many people had always found rather unusual. It wasn’t that Jet was unfriendly or that he was antisocial. On the contrary, he had become a rather outgoing, boisterous, if not a bit tightly wound, young man. There were plenty of people who probably considered themselves Jet’s friend. Classmates, club-mates, perhaps even some random people his father had introduced him to once upon a time. The thing was, Jet didn’t view them as friends.
It was rarely anything personal. He was just particular. He had learned to be cautious when it came to letting people close to him, and so, as a general rule, he rarely did. Khem was an exception.
However, Jet realized rather quickly that his jealousy was not as simple as that.
He liked Charn.
Charn was nice.
Charn defended the village’s spiritual practices, he’d stood up for Khem, he’d taken a punch – unnecessarily – for Jet, he’d worried, he’d cared, and most importantly, he had not been afraid to run right into the unknown when someone was on the line.
Jet really, really liked Charn.
Things had settled down just slightly after the majority of the Community Service club boarded the buses to return to Bangkok. They had left with only mild inquiries as to why Khem and Charn were staying behind. No one questioned Jet’s actions. By that point, even Korn and Phu – troublemakers though they had been – recognized that Jet was a part of this village and connected to the spirituality of the place.
Eventually, the buses left, leaving the village mostly untouched by their presence, and things returned to normal once again.
Except it wasn’t quite normal. Jet knew that. He’d made sure of that by bringing Khem to begin with, but it seemed as though whatever spirit or dark karmic energy that had its eyes on Khem had, at least for the moment, backed off and left the people of the village alone.
Days slowly blended together. Paran teaching Charn the basics – Jet was oddly proud at how quickly he grasped things – while Jet focused on keeping his head level and expanding his internal energy. Khem often sat with him, doing what he could to clear his own mind, but rarely was he able to maintain focus.
Jet assumed that had less to do with Khem’s physical stamina and more to do with his karmic energy dragging down his spirit.
Things progressed in the uneasy tranquility.
In the quiet moments, Jet learned that Charn liked to read. That he was studying psychology because he wanted to work with children. That he loved dogs but was mildly terrified of birds. And that he, like Jet, felt an irrational need to protect Khem.
It was a bit odd, but Jet felt like he’d known Charn for a lifetime already.
“You can just admit you like him,” Khem nudged Jet’s arm with his elbow. They were both sitting near one of the only ‘stores’ in the area. It was a small building. Old, stained slats of wood ran perpendicularly, the two windows filled with old, fragile-looking cloudy glass, and, even from their spot, you could hear the rattling hum whenever the old, battered freezer kicked on. They’d spend most of the morning and early afternoon running errands for Grandma Si — spiritual training, Paran had said, but it felt more like manual labor.
They’d stopped to grab something cold, but in the heat, the ice cream bars Jet and Khem had grabbed were already melting steadily down onto their fingers. “I don’t like him.”
Khem let out a soft, clearly annoyed, huff, “I can start dinner earlier – alone, you don’t always need to help me. Plus, you can barely even crack an egg.” He made sure to drown out whatever argument Jet was going to use. Khem had heard them all over the last couple of weeks. “You two can –”
“I said I –”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I’m not being haunted by a centuries old curse.”
“Don’t…” Despite all their work and Paran’s clear, albeit reserved care, they hadn’t made much headway in solving Khem’s problem. Jet tried not to dwell on it.
“I just mean, it’s obviously you like him.”
“No, it’s not!”
“It’s pretty obvious to me, so you should just own up to it.”
“It’s not!”
“What’s not?” Charn had returned with napkins and a bag of hand wipes.
“Melting all over his hands,” Khem easily covered. This made Jet mildly concerned that he might have had conversations with Charn about similar topics. “He claims he’s not making a mess.”
“I’m not making a mess.” Jet pushed his hand out and lifted it up slightly to check his hands. They appeared clean, “See!”
Khem laughed quietly, catching several sugary drips before they reached his fingers, “Not find anything you wanted, Charn?” The ice cream in the old freezer had been mostly iced over. The sharp scent of freezer burn wafted from the corners. Neither Jet nor Khem had minded much, but Charn had remained cautious.
“Here,” Jet didn’t wait for a response, sensing the negative before it arrived, and offered his slowly melting bar. It was mostly intact, save for a few small bits around the side. “You can have mine if you want. The cold kinda bothers my teeth.” He was genuinely offering, though he didn’t expect Charn to take it.
“Are you sure?”
Jet nodded, flashing a slight smile and handed over the ice cream bar.
It was nice. The three of them being together felt safe and comfortable. Even under the circumstances. It was like they fit, each notching into the other without any sharp edges.
After they’d finished their ice cream, they started back towards Paran’s. It wasn’t late, but the sky was already dusted with orange and red, making the path dance like fire through the trees.
Jet loved this time of day. When he was little, back when he could still see Ake and Thong, he’d run full speed down the path and shout for them just as he exited into the clearing. He didn’t need to shout. They were ghosts even then; they knew he was coming, but it felt natural to call out for his friends.
Even after he’d lost that sight, blocked thanks to his parents’ request, Jet still found joy walking down the path and watching the sun filter through the trees. Even if it had taken time for that enjoyment to come back.
“Your family really doesn’t practice any religion?” Khem had turned enough to see Charn’s face. They’d been walking in a small triangular shape, with Khem just out in front. “At all?”
Humming gently, Charn nodded, “My grandfather, Dad’s father, was a monk for a time towards the end of his life. But no, not really. They probably both think I’ve gone insane, actually. I’m surprised they haven’t shown up to drag me back to Bangkok.”
“My dad joined the monkhood after my mom died.” Khem looked towards Jet as if opening the door. He’d been doing this a lot. Trying to give Jet openings to share with Charn. Khem had a plan, and it was obvious.
It was also equally parts embarrassing and nerve-racking somehow.
“My parents didn’t think too much of it until after I was born,” Jet offered, scowling at Khem lightly, who simply smiled broadly in return.
“Why? Were you ill and they felt the need to pray?” Charn asked. His tone was level, but his eyes betrayed concern.
Jet ran his hand across the back of his neck awkwardly, “No…I made friends with the spirits that serve Master Paran, mostly, but any spirits really. I used to talk to them all the time and well... My school teacher told my parents I was antisocial and needed more support…” he paused again, “Anyway, I started studying under Paran shortly afterwards. He closed my sight.”
“You’ve been a disciple for a long time then,” Charn seemed curious.
“I guess so. My sister’s had some training too. Though not with Master Paran, he only takes male disciples.”
Their conversation progressed naturally. Each offering bits and pieces of their childhood and adolescence.
Jet learned that Charn’s parents were well-established business people in Bangkok and that he’d grown up in a suburb of the city. That he used to beg his parents for a dog, but because of his mother’s allergy, he’d never been able to get one. How, when he’d been accepted into the psychology department at university, they’d been disappointed.
They had just entered the clearing when Jet first noticed something was wrong.
The breeze had shifted, pulling at their backs, the forest around them had suddenly quieted, and he felt an uncomfortable feeling creep down the back of his neck.
The house came into view. Paran’s alter glowed slightly from the second floor; a lighthouse in the growing darkness. But even that suddenly felt all too far away.
“Let’s hurry.” Jet managed to mutter, feeling his throat constrict almost painfully. Khem gave him a look, as did Charn, but neither argued. He’d thought, for a brief, naive moment, that he was simply being paranoid. That Khem talking about his childhood and the loss of his mother had made Jet uneasy in his shared empathy.
‘You will not save him.’
Jet stopped abruptly. Beads of sweat started to grow on his forehead.
“Jet?” Charn had turned. Both he and Khem were just outside of the barrier that had thus far kept the worst of the spirits at bay.
‘I think I’ll come at you one by one and make him squirm.’
“Keep moving…”
“Jet?”
“Go.” He had never spoken to Khem that way, but something was turning uncomfortably in his gut. No spirit should be able to get close to them. His amulet had been gifted by Paran years ago and maintained its protection over him even now. Charn’s newer one did the same. And Khem -
‘Let me show him the pain he causes others.’
The voice sounded like it came from inside his head. It was harsh and furious. Jet was just about to speak again, when suddenly a horrifying sharpness tore through his skull. Like a cleaver slicing through the middle of his brain and splitting it in half. The pain started deep in his head, but quickly ran down through his limbs and into his chest. It clamped down on his lungs, preventing him from breathing, and pierced into his heart so forcefully he could feel the organ skip.
The world around him -- the fading sun, the bright green trees, Charn harshly forcing Khem behind the spiritual barricade -- dissipated into a black, cold void. A tearing noise accompanied the horrid pain, and the sensation of something being ripped from his body overtook him.
.•*•.•*•.
Khem hadn’t noticed anything was wrong. He hadn’t sensed anything at all. In fact, he’d been happy and calm in a way that felt like a distant memory as of late. He had wonderful friends who’d already sacrificed for his safety. People who were fighting to help save him from something formidable and unseen.
He’d been marveling at the way Jet appeared to sputter uncontrollably whenever the topic of Charn was brought up. Finding endless joy in the potential for his friends’ happiness. Khem had never seen Jet so flustered. It was kinda beautiful.
Since they’d met, Jet had been nothing but protective and supportive. He’d never blamed Khem or feared him. He was never scared of the spirits seeking to kill Khem - rather, Jet acted like that was normal. That it was normal to have a person marked for death stay overnight after night so that nothing would happen. That it was normal to stop your friends from jumping off banisters or walking into traffic. Jet was unfazed by the spirits, the curse, all of it.
He’d been the only person, except for Khem’s parents, who acted in such a way, and Khem couldn’t express just how thankful he was to have someone like Jet by his side for this long.
It wasn’t that Khem hadn’t seen Jet’s carefree spirit. He knew that his friend was joyful and light. Yet, watching Jet’s shy glow whenever Charn spoke, watching how Jet would try and overcompensate to cover his clear delight, that was something Khem wanted to cherish.
“Jet!” Charn’s voice pierced through Khem’s delirium.
They’d been steps away from the barrier Paran had in place. Steps away from relative safety.
Jet didn’t make a sound. He stood frozen for a moment. Then the color drained from his face the way soap was sucked down a drain.
“Jet?”
“Don’t—“
“Charn, something is wrong! Let me go!” Khem attempted to reach out to Jet. Tried to grab him and pull him to safety, but Charn had been quicker. He wrapped his arms around Khem’s torso and yanked him forcefully beyond the barrier.
That’s when Jet made a sound. An inhuman sound. A sound caught somewhere between worlds. His skin was now ashen, nearly grey, his eyes bulging in agony — tears streaming down his cheeks and disappearing into his neckline.
Charn dropped Khem onto the ground, letting him crumble to his knees, “Jet!?”
The sound stopped, and Jet fell.
Before Khem could process what was happening, Charn bolted. He reached Jet and grabbed a fistful of his shirt, dragging him to where Khem still sat.
“Jet!?” Charn started shaking him vigorously, “Jet!?”
Khem watched in horror as Charn lowered his head down beside Jet’s ashen face, placing his ear just above his lax mouth and staring down towards Jet’s feet.
Minutes later, or seconds, or hours — Khem couldn’t tell — Charn jerked up and frantically ran his fingers down the side of Jet’s throat.
“What’s happened?”
“He doesn’t have a pulse…” Charn wasn’t answering Paran, who’d just arrived at the base of the stairs behind them, but rather muttering to himself. “He doesn’t…”
To his absolute horror, Khem watched as Charn carefully tilted Jet’s head back, plugged his nose, and gave him a breath. He watched as Jet’s abdomen artificially inflated. He watched as Charn, shaky but determined, found the apex of Jet’s sternum and began CPR.
“What happened?” Paran asked again, more urgently, kneeling beside Jet’s limp body.
Charn sputtered out something indiscernible, putting all his focus into chest compressions. Even so, Khem could see the sheer desperation bleed into every action.
Jet’s body pulsed with each one of Charn’s compressions. His chest dipping in unnaturally over and over.
“Khem, what happened?” Paran tried again, clearly frustrated at the silence, “Charn?”
“I don’t know… I thought… maybe I heard something,” he muttered breathlessly as he continued the rhythmic motions, “I don’t…”
Paran placed a hand against Jet’s tacky forehead and brought his necklace to his mouth with his other hand. Slowly blowing air onto Jet’s hairline.
Time drug on, and all Khem could do was watch. This was his fault, wasn’t it? Whatever had just happened, it happened because Jet was Khem’s friend. It happened because he was close to Khem.
Jet was healthy. Healthy and boisterous and full of life and spirit and -
“He has a pulse…” Paran’s voice was clipped, his hand was gently pushing into Jet’s neck, “His spirit's gone. She must have torn it out of him.”
Charn crumbled, half clinging to Jet’s limp arm as he twisted away, dry heaving and sobbing. The hand that clung to Jet’s arm was shaking.
“Jet…” Khem watched for a sign that Jet might spring up, alive and well. Safe. But instead, he lay limp. Stomach slowly rising and falling. Dirt gathering by his shoulders. Skin pale.
“Where —“ Charn started, but his voice was shaking so badly he couldn’t continue. He shifted slowly to face Jet and the others. He was almost as pale as Jet. “Where did she take him?”
“She didn’t.” Paran stood, turned to the side, and addressed the two small spirit children — they looked almost as distraught as Khem felt, “Go to the village and get Uncle Chai to come here. Then check the places you and Jet most frequently played when he was a child.”
“But she —“
“Don’t underestimate him,” Paran quickly cut off Khem’s certain spiral, “Jet is not weak. He’s not careless. I doubt she managed to keep hold of him.”
“Can’t,” Charn swallowed hard, and Khem noticed just how red his eyes had become, tears still collecting in the corners, “we call him back like we did Prae?”
“He’s not lost.” Paran knelt back down and placed his fingers on Jet’s neck again. “He’s hiding.”
.•*•.•*•.
Charn felt oddly numb. The adrenaline that had thankfully forced him to move, to grab Jet, to do CPR, faded quickly into a black numbness that wrapped itself around his body like water. His body was shaking; that was the only thing Charn was able to register. Everything had happened so fast. He felt ill — he could see the images of Jet’s lifeless body crumbling just in front of them. The reality of it fought to break through the endless haze. “Hiding?”
“Yes. Let’s get him inside.”
“Wait!” Charn held out his free hand to stop Paran from picking up Jet, “his ribs…they…I cracked some…be —“
“I’ll be careful,” gently, Paran slid his hands under Jet’s upper back and knees, lifting him with minimal effort.
Charn, whose hand had yet to let go of Jet’s forearm, found himself standing alongside them. Dizzy and mildly nauseated, but less numb than he’d been a moment ago. “Khem?”
Khem’s eyes still stared at the spot of disrupted dirt where Jet had been dragged.
“Khem, we need to get him inside.” Charn tried again, unwilling to fully release Jet’s arm, using his free hand to help Khem up.
Stiffly, Khem accepted the help and clumsily followed behind them.
Paran was careful; he’d waited until Khem was standing before starting towards the stairs. “She was foolish to target him.”
The altar was still alight, mosquitoes already flickered in and out of sight around the lit candles, and the first glimpses of shadows started to appear along the walls.
With trembling, reluctant hands, Charn released his hold and quickly pulled out the futon, which had been folded and tucked into the corner. It was clean, save for the lizard that quickly ran after it was exposed, and he pulled one of the folded blankets out to lie on top.
Paran lowered Jet down, and Charn quickly assisted, cradling his neck and carefully placing a pillow underneath, “Why is he so still? Prae wasn’t still. She had seizures…is…”
“His body has been through more trauma than hers.” He rocked back onto his heels, “I’m going to go look — if I've not returned by the time Uncle Chai arrives, call out for me.”
“My fault.”
Charn’s insides clenched uncomfortably, “No. It’s not —“
“It is…”
“You in the present have no control over what you might have done in the past. And he,” Paran paused, not looking at any of them, “made his own choices as well.”
Silence followed Paran’s hasty exit. It was punctuated by the sound of rough breathing.
“Ice -- Khem, does Master Paran have any ice? And a light towel or cloth?”
Confused, Khem blinked sluggishly towards Charn, “What?”
“For his chest. It’s going to hurt -- his ribs -- I just thought ice might help some…” His eyes were redder now than they had been down below, lashes clumped together behind fogged glasses, “Don’t you think that would be good? For when we find him?”
Khem swallowed painfully and nodded, “Yeah… I’ll go grab some…”
Charn watched Khem get to his feet, then turned his eyes back to Jet. They had a connection that went beyond friendship or their desire to look out for Khem, though he wasn’t sure he could put it into words. He’d felt it during the club meeting, that day Jet suggested they come to the village, and again on the bus. Something had drawn Charn to Jet. Like an invisible thread tying them to one another. It was something he thought about every night as he lay beside Jet on the floor, every morning when he woke up a few minutes earlier than the others, every time they ate together, every time they talked.
It had felt like someone had pulled on that thing tying them together -- pulled on it, making it tug almost painfully -- when Jet first stopped moving in the clearing. The phantom pain jolted as the color drained from his face and spiked as he fell.
And now, Charn felt like the connection was frayed somehow. The string or rope was still there. It still felt like it was tied to the two of them, but now there was a second pull. A weaker tug that felt as though it went out into the forest.
“I couldn’t find a very thin towel, but here is one of his shirts,” Khem reappeared, looking just as distressed as he was when he’d left for the ice. He’d wrapped ice into one of Jet’s worn t-shirts and handed it to Charn, “Should -- we should get him to a hospital… you did CPR…”
“Yes…” The shirt was thin enough that he could feel the cold pierce through it as soon as he had a hold of it, but it didn’t seem to be too cold. A part of Charn wanted to move Jet’s shirt. To lift it up so that he could see the damage he had done, but if he did, Charn was certain he’d throw up again. Instead, he opted for carefully placing the makeshift ice pack onto Jet’s chest, “But I don’t think we should move him until he’s back… all the way back, I mean.”
The sun had fully receded behind the treeline, leaving nothing but the soft glow of candlelight by the time Uncle Chai had climbed the stairs. Paran had returned to the main area. Looking solemnly at the sight before him, a plan clearly simmering just behind his eyes. And Khem had sat, near motionless since retrieving the ice from below, against the wall, lost in dark thoughts.
It was Charn who had remained beside Jet. Every so often, he’d run his hands down to check the pulse, which continued to beat strongly in Jet’s wrist. A constant reminder that there was still light in the newfound darkness. He’d shift the ice around, carefully checking to make sure that the condensation hadn’t dampened Jet’s shirt each time. He’d run the back of his hand every so lightly up against Jet’s neck and cheeks, which had regained much of their color, as if checking for fever.
Uncle Chai asked no questions, turning immediately towards Paran.
“I need you to stay here. With Jet and perhaps Khem,” Khem’s eyes shifted at his name with newfound focus, “Charn needs to come with me.”
“What? But with Prae, her friend --”
“Prae was running,” Paran reiterated, “Jet is hiding.” He hesitated, casting a glance at Khem before landing again on Charn. “The three of you are connected -- but you and Jet hold a… more complex connection than he has with Khem. You know that.”
“I have to help,” Khem muttered, “He’d help me. I have to --”
“We are going to try something with both of you. If that doesn’t work, Charn and I will have to go and find him ourselves. Uncle,” he cut off Khem’s next interruption before it happened, “don’t leave his side.”