Original: CEO ft Enice
Kanin quickly walked on the university path, trying to maintain composure despite feeling unsettled. The young man raised his clenched hand to grip the brim of his cap, attempting to hide the chaos underneath. He had not slept all night due to the shocking revelation he had just learned.
Dad... probably didn't get much sleep and got mixed up. As for the doctor, his condition has been serious since their first meeting until now. Annoyed, he adopted a cost-saving stance to make the doctor uncomfortable. He didn't like the guy's face and didn't want to see him. He wished he could send this person far away, but he still couldn't figure out how.
Honestly, it's confusing. Just the night before, he was living a normal life. However, after spending the night in jail, Kanin was not only angry with his father but also struggling with hard-to-accept feelings.
He was behaving like a rebellious and stubborn child, going against himself. Kanin couldn't focus and didn't care much about anything. Who could do anything about the situation?
Even if you hired someone, there's no way to return to that country!
He decided to stay here and live life as the ordinary Khanin, not the Khanin Atsawathewathin someone tried to force him to be. When he thought about it, there wasn't much difference from his daily routine.
The young man made his way to the music practice room at the university. He walked straight to the large black grand piano, intending to calm himself down as he usually did when he came here to escape from problems. Life was tough.
His slender fingers pressed down on the keyboard, following the remembered pitch levels of the notes. In his mind, he immersed himself in the weight of emotions, letting music help soothe the confusion in his heart, just as he often did when there was something to ponder.
Kanin found the world overwhelming when he thought about the stress during this time. However, he realized that nothing was as heavy as what he was currently facing. The future was difficult to predict, and the winding path ahead made him feel suffocated to the point where he wanted to escape for a while.
Tung!
A wandering mind affected the precision of the notes, causing a pause in the middle of the song. When Khanin lacked concentration, he leaned back, closing his eyes slightly to suppress the boiling anger.
The edges of his soft, pink lips relaxed as he let go of the instrument. When the usual tools couldn't help, Kanin looked for something new. His slender fingers rummaged through his side bag, searching for a moment before pulling out what he needed,
Caramel candy.
One of Kanin's go-to comforts was a helper he often carried with him, caramel candy, to ease his mind when he felt uncomfortable or upset. The person who introduced him to this candy addiction was none other than his father, Tattanai.
Kanin reminisced about his childhood, where he once fell and badly injured his knee, causing him great pain and a strong urge to cry out loud. However, what he showed was the opposite. He didn't cry but instead tried his best to hold his tears.
Because he wanted to follow his father's teachings, Khanin tried to suppress his pain as he led himself towards the house.
"Does it hurt?" A sentence expressing concern, initiated when Tattanai gently applied ointment to the wound.
"It hurts... a lot."
"Why don't you cry out when it hurts?" Tattanai's dark eyes continued to focus on his injury while softly questioning.
"I am afraid that you won't approve. Father, you taught me to be strong and not weak," Khanin's childhood response was honest, hitting the listeners' hearts until they felt choked up.
"Doesn't it hurt enough to make you cry?"
"Yes..." Young Kanin tried to deceive himself with his own strength, so his voice was weak and trembling. He lowered his eyes and pursed his lips, attempting to hold back his tears. When his father showed interest and asked for forgiveness, the tears were on the verge of overflowing.
"Dad is sorry." Tattanai's voice carried a mix of tenderness and guilt. The middle-aged man took a deep breath before gently hugging Khanin onto his lap.
"I shouldn't have taught you like that... I only thought that you had to endure it to succeed because in the future, you'll face things that are ten or a hundred times worse than this... But I forgot that you're just my little child now... I was wrong. I'm sorry, Nin."
At that time, Tattanai kept apologizing repeatedly, acknowledging and reevaluating his own teachings once again.
"From now on, if you're in pain or sad and want to cry, just cry. Remember that the bravest thing is to accept the truth, be honest with your own feelings. Crying doesn't mean you're weak or giving up; even if you shed tears, you're still a strong person because crying is a human nature."
"...But every time, I want you to separate and find the cause of the feelings, to discover what it is. Knowing your own feelings is a good thing, isn't it? Not just sadness, but I mean every feeling—happiness, love, sadness, and fear."
"..."
"Don't let anyone know these feelings better than yourself because that could lead to people with bad intentions using these things to harm you, my son... Do you understand, Nin?"
"I understand," the little boy said to Tattanai, who responded with a relieved chuckle, reaching into his pants pocket and handing over a round, brown candy to Nin.
"I know you want sweets, but I can't let you have too much or your teeth will rot... So you can only have this as a reward for accepting your feelings. Is that okay?" The offer came with a caramel candy placed in Nin's small hand.
Kanin raised his head and looked at his father with hidden sadness, still haunted by the pain.
"Father knows that you want to eat sweets, but I cannot let my little Nin eat too much because his teeth will hurt. Therefore, Nin can only eat this when it is a reward for himself. Is it good when the child can accept his own feelings like that?" The proposal came with a small candy placed in his small hand. Kanin looked up at his father with sadness still lingering as the pain from the wound continued to affect him.
"Uh."
"Do you still want to sing?"
The response to this question is a pause. Kanin still held back, even though tears were about to fall.
"If you want to sing, go ahead, good kid."
Memories of the past, even if time has passed. Kanin still remembers. He looked at the brown candy in his hand and weighed it in his heart for a moment before realizing that he could not reward himself this time. Finally, he chose to put the candy back where it was.
"Hey, hiding here without telling me? Don't you know I've been looking for you everywhere?" The call from a close friend drew Kanin out of his reverie. Paul walked in, while the other party stepped closer before raising his eyebrows slightly when surveying the face of his small friend.
"It's been a while, right?"
"I called your name three times. Is there something wrong?" Paul greeted him, and Kanin was confident that it was not because of his facial expressions, as this close friend knew his personality and behavior better than others.
"Just a little."
"Just a little? But your face doesn't say that."
"I have something to think about."
"... "
"What are you thinking? Life is short, don't stress, just relax, take deep breaths and let it out slowly. My mom taught me to do yoga every day to help reduce stress." Paul was good at lifting people's moods, but his friend's advice didn't seem to have a positive effect on the listener.
Can one really avoid stress?"
"We can't avoid it, but we can reduce it. That's what I can help with." Paul smiled charmingly and whispered softly, even though there was no one else in the room. "Samanta invited us to a party tonight at 2 a.m. They're going to pre-drink together, but I already made plans with Alex at the flat. Will you come with us?"
"Samanta? The film kids?" Kanin asked to clarify.
Samanta's friends were the same ones he used to play music with during the time they were still using TikTok. They played short cover songs on the channel to promote themselves. Kanin played the keyboard and sometimes rapped with them. That gang was a geeky music group, and they had fun together, but lately, he had distanced himself. This was because he had to practice his sword skills more often according to his father's orders...
Yeah, with Samanta, Charly, and others. Come on, Nin, you haven't hung out with us for a long time," said Paul, shrugging and standing taller than Kanin.
"I..."
"Don't refuse just yet. After class, I'll ask again."
Kanin chuckled softly at his friend's quick wit, shrugging as Paul led him out of the music practice room. He wasn't sure how he felt at the moment. One thing was certain: he didn't want to talk to his father, see his face, or take any phone calls. But every time he chose to attend a party...
Tattanai would usually wait until morning, or alternatively, call him every two hours...
The small figure quietly released a breath, intending to let go of the matter and temporarily put all his frustration aside. However, it seemed fate... or karma would not let it go as he had planned.
"Nin... Is that the guy from the club who used to look after you?" Paul's sentence was like a chain that violently yanked the smaller man's ankle. Kanin stopped, his mind searching for a way to escape, but it seemed his movements were too slow. Someone had already turned to look at them.
The two pairs of eyes met, sharp as a hawk's. The unfamiliar face that he had encountered too often lately stood not too close, nor too far away, leaning against a railing with an expression that revealed no emotions other than calm and composed, like a carved statue every time.
"Don't mind him, just keep walking." Kanin turned back to Paul, gripping the bag that hung from his left shoulder tightly. The young man didn't hesitate or stop walking. As soon as he regained his composure, the royal-blooded individual brushed off all distracting thoughts and focused on leading his close friend to perform their student duties, without intending to look back at that person ever again.
Kanin spent nearly three hours in class that day. He paid more attention to the professor's lecture than ever before, even more so than Emma, the girl sitting at the front, or even Paul, who usually paid attention because of the subject but spent most of the class talking about party plans with the Samantha group.
One could say that Kanin's left ear was for entertainment, while his right ear was filled with academic knowledge. However, the young man didn't feel annoyed; he willingly listened to everything, mainly because... he was trying to find something else to overshadow the disturbing thoughts in his mind.
"So, what's the plan for tonight?" The golden-haired young man asked with a smirk, revealing his fangs as soon as the professor walked away. Paul moved closer, bumping shoulders and raising an eyebrow with enthusiasm.
"Well, I don't want to go home anyway." Kanin shrugged as he put his iPad in his bag, not wanting to go home and face his father, along with that annoying doctor. He hoped they wouldn't be too persistent in waiting for him. Hadn't they been in class all day?
"Why is he still here? Is he looking at you? Does he have business with you?" Kanin's guess was completely off. The unfamiliar man had been waiting in the same spot for three full hours. He didn't know if the other party had left and come back, but such behavior was quite annoying.
"No, there's nothing." The short man furrowed his brow and quickly denied it, feeling a slight headache. That doctor was truly insane and persistent...
"Why did that doctor come after you then... or maybe he likes you?" The close friend with golden hair made a thoughtful expression, analyzing the situation before widening his eyes and giving a comment that nearly made the listener choke.
At first, Kanin was going to deny it, but Paul's words made him think of something. He didn't want others to know about the secret and absurd story, so diverting his friend's attention seemed like the best thing to do at the moment.
"Yes..."
"What do you mean, yes?"
"I mean that man, he likes me." Kanin gave a small, uncontrollable smile. The haughty, well-dressed man with an air of upper-class surrounding him, being accused of being a stalker, was quite amusing.
"I knew it! I sensed it from the beginning. My intuition is good, isn't it?" Paul looked excited, while Kanin just shrugged again. He grabbed his friend's bag strap and forcefully pulled him to start walking together.
"Let's go." Kanin desperately wanted to leave, but he could only think about it when someone he didn't want to approach blocked his way, forcing the slim man to stop abruptly. The young man intended to act indifferent, but his friend's sharp tongue turned the situation upside down.
"Hey, you..." Paul spoke in a serious tone, tilting his head and giving the person a scrutinizing look, like a detective sizing up a suspect in a movie. It was bold and dramatic, more suited for a sword-fighting club than a casual conversation.
"..."
"My friend said you like him a lot, almost to the point of madness. You couldn't stand to see him go, so you followed him all the way here." Kanin's eyes widened, feeling like he was about to choke on air. It wasn't what he expected from Paul starting the conversation.
"Paul!" The person who had just regained consciousness turned around abruptly, intending to scold his friend, but someone didn't care to listen at all.
"Even if you like my friend, following him like this is an invasion of privacy. This is against the law. We can report you, you know." The blonde young man continued to play the role of a guardian without any shortcomings, but Kanin didn't feel any satisfaction at all because Paul, his dear friend, had already destroyed his carefully crafted lie.
He was trying to deceive him into losing interest and use his words to talk to others instead. Just let it end!
"..."
"Did you hear that? Liking him is one thing, but following him like this..."
"Lying is not a good thing." The deep, heavy voice spoke. Kanin raised his face, using a calm and unshaken approach in response to the words of the person in front of him. Although he could guess that the other party could probably predict the entire plan, they still turned to criticize each other in a language that a third party like Paul wouldn't understand.
"What is he saying?"
"It's my native language, Ema... But don't worry, let's just go."
"Won't you talk to me at all... Young-Prince?" The nickname echoed in Kanin's ears intensely. His body froze, and his chest throbbed uncontrollably. Even though he knew his close friend beside him wouldn't understand the true meaning.
"Don't call me that."
"Oh, can't I speak English?"
"I apologize for being rude to you." Paul's complaint got attention. Someone responded by switching to American-style English for communication.
"Okay, I won't hold it against you, but don't bother my friend anymore. I'm warning you, I won't let you flirt with my friend easily. If you want to like him, you'll have to go through me first." Kanin pressed his thin lips together, secretly looking at his close friend's pointing finger with a bossy attitude, and couldn't help but feel overwhelmed.
Just stop it. It's too much.
"Did you say that on purpose?"
"No"
"Yep! Don't bother my friend anymore. We're heading to a party. Time for you to go."
"Come on, we don't want Samantha getting mad if we're late," the person waiting for the right moment to join the conversation said casually. Kanin, not wanting to appear angry in front of Paul, used a teasing tone to divert his golden-haired friend's attention from the stranger instead of scolding directly. It's really frustrating to want to scold but not being able to do so.
His eyes with double lids squinted as he gazed at someone much taller. Kanin accused him of trying to show dominance over an older person with his look, as if saying "stay out of it." However, the other person didn't cooperate at all.
"Can I join you?"
"What?" Paul's face showed disbelief, but before he could say anything, Kanin firmly declined.
"No!"
"Why not? Your friend mentioned that to hit on you, one must go through him first. How can I pass that test if I don't know either of you, right?"
The tall person smirked, giving a sly, cunning look.
This made Kanin's blonde-haired close friend chuckle softly.
"Hey... this guy doesn't give up."
"I'm Charan, nice to meet you."
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TBC