(Hi 🥺✨️ I hope your day is or was great 💗✨️ love you)
Kim was able to observe Porchay for hours in his bed. He had one conclusion: this boy was really looking like an angel. His unconscious state was giving him the quietness of the silenced. His closed eyes made him look peaceful, as if he was just sleeping at night, as he should, as Kim should but he couldn't stop staring.
Porchay's face was bruised but his cheeks soft, his nose tiny, his jaw sharp and round at the same time, his eyelashes huge. He always loved them and now that he could witness how dark and long they were, even from his chair, he wanted to touch them, to play with them. And he focused his eyes on everything but his lips because even after some bleeding, they looked immaculate, exactly the type of trip to heaven Kim wanted to taste.
And between all of those thoughts, coming one by one, the most important was his chest, going up and down, his breath getting back a steady rhythm and the words of the doc he asked to come here because he knew that he could count on his honesty to keep his mouth shut after some money in his pocket.
Porchay would be fine. He had some extreme bruises which would probably make him scream in pain for some days. Nothing was broken, everything could just go back to normal after some time. He knew here the way those people did, hurting hard but not deadly so their target couldn't escape, couldn't just die on them but would fear them.
He felt anger reaching its highest level. Each minute looking at Porchay was boiling his darkest instinct, even if a part of him was restraining himself. He was only Kim, maybe Wik but not Kimhan, not even an ounce of him was Kimhan for Porchay.
He began to feel his eyes closing, his head bending by little movement more and more. He could walk to the sofa and begin his night already late in the morning but something was keeping him here. Something was just making him stay around. He didn't feel that Porchay could disappear but he still had that ghost above him, that emotion eating his stomach alive, the one which got him to be involved with someone else, the one not letting him walk away.
He ended up sleeping against that chair in a very uncomfortable position. For some hours, some hours before the sun would bring its light. Kim opened his eyes, tired, Porchay was still sleeping. He couldn't stop his worries and walked closer, putting his fingers on his throat. Heartbeat. He was alive.
-‐
Some more hours ran and Kim began to come back to his own reality. Sipping on his coffee, it appeared way too late in his mind : he could have just left Porchay in front of the hospital. Porsche would have known. Kinn would have take care of the situation and he would have been free from doing anything he needed. He had a bitter laugh. He thought that he had been clever but he just acted recklessy. He just took a decision desguising more than just his own investigation. He hated this. Another way would have been to just put him back in the house after. He had been unconscious for some more hours after being taken care of, it could have work.
Instead, he sat down and looked at him. For hours. He just stared and thinking about it he liked it. Kim observed his coffee. It was dark. As dark as he should have been, and yet he felt dissociating from his dark brown drink. Something way less bitter, to not say sweeter, was throbbing in his stomach. Kim gulped down his cup. He tried to be filled with it, hoping to forget about the tenderness he mostly surrendered to.
Two heavy eyes crossed his own pupils. Kim was facing the chamber from the kitchen counter. He had woken up and Kim had no idea what substance was finally taking the advantage when a painful whine could be heard.
--
Porchay was feeling out of earth but not really on any other planet when he opened his eyes. The blurriness stayed some more before he could picture Kim at some distance.
He sent the text.
He was somewhere he couldn't recognize.
Kim was in front of him.
Porchay didn't know what his reaction was made of, ashamed? Grateful? He just automatically wanted to move but an atrocious pain made him scream, or at least it felt too loud for him, in that quiet apartment. His brain had momentarily forgotten about his wounds, and the after result of him resting was for the moving to feel unbearable. He immediately leaned more on the bed.
"Don't move, Chay. You will be hurt for quite some time." He turned around to put his cup away but truly took a deep breath. He had no idea how to act. There was Kimhan looking at that board, Kimhan composing and then there was Kim thinking about Porchay and smiling, Kim being at Porchay's house and melting.
"P'Kim...I am so so sorry...I..." Even just talking was bringing pain to his whole body.
"Don't be. When you need help you better ask for it." He said, walking with a fake confidence.
"I don't know...how to repay you..."
"You don't need to Chay."
Chay Chay Chay. He only repeated it and his mouth felt less tense, the boy was at the same time stressing and soothing him.
"I need to ! Hospital costs a lot..." Porchay pouted. The boy had seen the bandage, he came up with the most logical answer. Kim wasn't formed for, it wasn't him. Any human would have just lead him to a place to help him heal him. Even if he had no memory at all, he could only guess this.
Kim didn't mention any hospital. He couldn't lie on his own skills, he didn't want to reveal about his personal mafia business, even just talking about the doctor would be a danger. He knew how talking more could lead to opening more doors, the one needed to stay closed. He couldn't also let Porchay think that he needed to repay anything. He would need to talk about it to Porsche and the outcome wouldn't look great.
"It didn't...don't worry..." He said, sitting at the side of his own bed. Porchay looked divine. He had the aura of a hurt kitten being rescued, staring at the one who helped him with so much stars sparkling in his pupils. And those bruises were not ruining his face, they were carving art, like an old statue broken by time. Kim blinked strongly, he didn't feel himself being drown in that view. Keeping his eternal quiet expression, he still caressed Porchay's hair, for five seconds, five unforgettable ones.
"P'Kim..." Porchay said, his eyes reflecting something that Kim didn't even feel that he just shared with the boy.
"Let-let me look..." He said, his hand not touching but still lining out Porchay's injuries. Some bruises began to change to a darker and more horrible state, but it wasn't a bad sign, it will get better. Kim raised Porchay's t-shirt but his face shown how much this move startled him. He couldn't stop a giggle to come from his mouth, his mind asking to shut it up. He wasn't totally undercover here, it was a part of his real him, his apartment, it felt not natural to react like this, and yet so real.
"Chay...I already saw your chest when you were healed...and we have the same."
"We absolutely don't!" Porchay protested with all of his voice.
"Why are you acting as if you already saw me top less?"
"...P'Kim...I didn't see...but I saw P'Wik on...like...shooting soo..." Porchay said, blushing and not daring looking straight at Kim.
"It doesn't change that we have the same." He answered, back to raise it, just enough to see the war that had happened on his skin, just to want to battle again anger taking the lead, just another moment where he would have wanted to heal him magically in one second. Looking at this, he understood why Porchay whined this way earlier. It wasn't that awful, but it was multiple.
"I am...really not in a good state..."
"No...but it should be alright with some rest." Kim concluded, putting the shirt back and just falling from some steps. What could he do now ? He had no idea.
"Then...when are you driving me back there P'Kim...?" He asked, Kim beginning to silently think. He had no desire to do this. He wasn't sure that those men wouldn't be back, and he couldn't deal with them now. He also had no plan in revealing early what just happened. He didn't want to see any neighbours wondering, asking. If Porchay could stay here for some time he could think of it all. He could manage. And deep inside, he might have wanted to not let him alone take care of himself while not even being able to sit without screaming. He did it so much time after a more than dangerous task.
He had fight way more painful bruises. He just thought that he was made for it. It was his environment, his family, his job, his whole shaped form. Porchay wasn't made for it. In his head, he was just an unlucky boy, who had no money and a loving brother. He was stronger than his soft look, he was bolder, even giving hint of Kim about his emotions. The one he thought having read through his young and thrilled eyes. He didn't look like a lonely soul. Not until Porsche was gone. He wasn't like Kim.
"Or I can walk..." He added, facing that silence. His eyes lowering, his whole existence trying to be as tiny as it could appear.
"No way. You can stay here the time needed."
"I can't!" Porchay protested a weird feeling strangling his throat. It was not just any bed, or any apartment. It was Kim's. He felt like tainting badly the room with his presence. Imposing wasn't in Porchay's habit. He couldn't be too loud or too reckless when their life was this hard everydays.
"Why can't you? And you're already here, you shouldn't have texted if you didn't want any help."
Kim's voice was low and lightly annoyed. Not at Porchay. It was just his mechanism and they didn't have any special relationship for him to control it. He also didn't let complicated thing. He offered to stay. He would. It was as simple as walking, something Porchay couldn't do now, so he better exhange a walk with this bed.
He hated the effect it had on the boy. He looked in deep thoughts. He looked as if sadness had let some bubbles fall from its last drop on him, suddenly, so surprisingly that the veil of regret couldn't be missed.
"I.. am sorry...I shouldn't have texted you..." Porchay mostly whispered. He was looking at his hands, finding them way more interesting than Kim's reaction. It had been such a hard time, he had such trouble to be able to send that text that thinking it was a mistake put him down. He had been a burden. The same way he was for his Hia, even if this one never ever showed any signs of thinking like this.
"You did right." Kim answered, moving strands of his own hair. He wasn't comfortable with what he felt like doing : reassuring. "And I am glad that I can help you." Kim added, looking away. "Life would be less...miserable if help was natural...right?" He asked, not knowing why he said this. He felt as if he had tried to talk about a subject he had never heard of before.
Porchay bit his lips. He felt better but he wouldn't let this pass.
"If I have to stay here...can I do something for you?"
"Doing something?"
"Like...ordering...cleaning..."
"No."
"P'Kim..." Porchay pouted.
He wouldn't let him just try to throw dust away in a place full of important documents, even from miles away, his board hidden shouldn't be approached by him.
"Why would you do this? And in your state?"
"Not now...in some hours... days... P'Kim... you tutor me...you helped me...I just want... need to help you. I can only do this." Porchay was mostly pleading for this, feeling his heart heavy thinking about everything Kim had made for him.
Kim wanted to chuckle. To argue that he didn't do it for free, most of the time spying information was more valuable than the endless money he could put his hands on. But he couldn't say this. He couldn't and he felt trapped for the first time of his life. Trapped inside, himself between what looked the safest and what was bringing tenderness and a soft smile at the corner of his lips. The still unnamed emotion.
"Whatever." He finally said and nodded, seeing Porchay relaxing at the idea that it meant yes.
Kim not feeling like agreeing or denying, a disguised neutrality having his way through his own words.
He was already thinking about what corner he should protect the most.
And the trap just closed on itself.