KK wandered through the outskirts of town, the weight of a plastic bag containing two bottles of wine clinking against his leg. He stood by a high railing, staring down at the tangled bushes growing in the dirt below. He was a shell of a man. Ohm hadn't just left; he had performed a surgical extraction of KK's entire existence—draining twelve million baht from the resort account and over two million from KK's personal savings.
He was drowning in debt, hunted by creditors, and standing at the absolute rock bottom. He was drunk, but the alcohol couldn't numb the sharp edges of his reality.
"Let your ugly, fat body die there and fertilize those bushes," he choked out, a dark, hysterical chuckle bubbling in his throat.
He climbed over the railing and tumbled into the brush. Hidden from the street, KK sat in the dirt, the 9mm pistol heavy in his left hand. He drank directly from the bottle, needing to be more than drunk—he needed to be gone. He thought of his shattered life: his house sold, his resort bankrupt, and his phone—which he eventually threw against a rock until it splintered into pieces—screaming with the demands of people who only wanted what was left of his flesh.
He raised the cold muzzle of the gun and pressed it firmly against his left temple.
"Dear Grandfather," he murmured, his voice shaking. "If you still want this fat, ugly grandson in this world... please give me a sign."
He waited. He listened. But the universe only offered the indifferent roar of tires on the pavement and the distant, mechanical hum of a city that didn't know he existed.
"Very good," he whispered, a tear trailing down his chin. "I deserve to be in hell with all the other ugly devils."
He leaned his head back against the cold concrete of the support wall, took one last deep breath, and began to squeeze the trigger.
Suddenly, a drop of water hit his face. It wasn't the rain—not yet. The droplet ran down his cheek and touched the corner of his mouth. He tasted it. It was faint, warm, and bitter with salt.
KK opened his eyes. Above him, leaning over the railing where he had stood moments before, was the silhouette of a man. He heard the sound of rapid, shallow breathing—the sound of someone hyperventilating in agony. Then, the silence of the night was broken by the soft, broken whimper of a young man sobbing as if his heart had already been torn out.
KK stayed perfectly still in the shadows of the bushes, the heavy 9mm still pressed against his temple. Above him, the stranger wasn't just crying; he was chanting a desperate mantra of survival.
"Santichai Kittibun... you have to be strong... this is not going to kill you... you understand?" the voice whispered, cracking with every breath. "You are strong... you are strong..."
KK watched, frozen, as the silhouette above him counted all the way to fifty, a rhythmic attempt to ground a shattering mind. He saw the man, Santichai, wipe his tears just as the sound of running footsteps approached.
"Chai, are you alright?" another man—Decha—asked, breathless.
"I'm fine..." Santichai lied, but the lie broke almost immediately. He collapsed into Decha's arms, his sobbing now loud and raw. "Frank, it hurts so much... why is he dating another woman? Am I not good enough?"
KK listened as Santichai poured out a decade of agony—of being a secret, a mannequin, a human being treated like an object. "I gave him everything... is my love for him that cheap?"
As Decha led the broken young man away, the silence returned to the bushes, but the atmosphere had shifted. KK's left hand slowly fell. The gun slipped from his temple and hit the dirt with a dull thud.
He had thought his own love was cheap—a business transaction for a villa and a store. But tonight, he had heard the voice of a man named Santichai Kittibun, whose love had been treated as something even more worthless.
A hysterical, jagged laugh tore from KK's throat. He leaned back into the thorns of the bushes, his eyes wide. "So, it turns out," he muttered to the dark sky, "that beyond the sea, there still lies another sea."
The realization was a bitter medicine. He wasn't the only "weirdo" or "ugly devil" suffering in the dark.
He forced himself to stand, his legs heavy with alcohol and exhaustion. He retrieved the shattered pieces of his phone and tucked the pistol into his coat pocket. He climbed back over the railing, his movements robotic. He didn't remember crossing the busy street or the walk to the hotel, but the instinct for self-preservation had finally flickered back to life.
He checked into a room, the world spinning as the liquor finally took full control. The last thing he saw was the cold tile of the bathroom floor before he dragged himself to the bed, stripped away the rain-soaked clothes of his old life, and fell into a black, dreamless sleep.
The hotel room was silent until the phone's shrill ring pierced the heavy fog of KK's unconsciousness. He reached out with a leaden arm, his voice a ghost of itself. "Who?"
"Hinata... where are you?" His mother's voice was a jagged edge of terror. "Please don't be stupid. Don't let your grandfather's words cloud your judgment. Ma is coming, stay on the line!"
"I took it," KK whispered, the weight of the gun in his pocket suddenly feeling like a mountain. "Ma, I'm sorry..."
A wave of nausea hit him. He dropped the phone, the clatter echoing his mother's frantic screams, and stumbled into the bathroom.
Outside, the world was moving with violent speed. Mrs. Cole arrived like a force of nature, her guards clearing a path through the lobby. She didn't care about "hotel policies" or key cards; she saw only the face of her son. With a final threat that could have leveled mountains, she snatched the key card and sprinted for the elevator.
Standing outside Room 308, her heart was a drum of dread. The silence from within was terrifying. She pushed past her guards, her hands trembling but her resolve absolute. "I'll take the lead. He's my son."
She burst into the room to find it empty, the air smelling of stale wine. The bathroom door was the only thing left. She turned the handle and found him—naked, vulnerable, and slumped against the cold porcelain of the toilet.
"Hinata!" she screamed, dropping to the floor to cradle his head.
KK's eyes fluttered open. "Ma..."
"My poor baby. Your mother is here," she sobbed, pulling him into her chest. "Don't be afraid. If your sky falls, your mother will hold up that sky to keep it from collapsing on you."
"I'm a weirdo," KK choked out, the poison of his grandfather's words still coursing through him. "I'll never make you proud."
"You are my perfect son," she whispered, her tears falling onto his brow. "You are the best son a mother could ever ask for. You may fall today, Hinata, but you will get up. You will take every negative thing they've said and put it under your feet. My son is smart. My son is strong. This time, I will stand beside you every step of the way." She kissed his forehead. "My sweet, beautiful boy, this time, mother I will not fail you again."
In that cold hotel bathroom, the cycle of rejection was broken. KK collapsed into her arms, finally letting the fear out in a torrent of sobs. He had been a "transaction" to Ohm and a "disappointment" to his grandfather, but in his mother's arms, he was simply Hinata—a perfect, beloved son.