The air inside the war room was colder than usual, even though the late Chiang Mai sun had warmed the windows all afternoon.
Jay stood near the window, silent, unmoving, the sunlight slicing across his face like judgment. Jack stood beside him, not touching, but close enough that their shoulders almost met. The picture—that picture—was already waiting for them. Laid out on the table like a corpse at a wake.
It was the first thing Jay saw when they entered. The photo of them kissing. Stained, scorched at the edges, but unmistakable. It looked almost innocent in another life. A captured breath of tenderness. Jack's fingers on Jay's jaw. Jay was leaning in like he wasn't afraid of being seen.
But they had been seen. And now they were here.
Vavaporn and Mr. Charlie sat at opposite ends of the long teak table, the polished wood between them stretching like a line drawn in war.
No one spoke at first.
A ceiling fan rotated slowly above them, too old to hum, too quiet to distract.
Jay's throat was dry, but his voice didn't shake when he finally spoke.
"You've seen it," he said, nodding toward the photo.
Vavaporn's gaze didn't follow the motion. He was staring directly at his son, fingers folded over one another, elbows resting on the table like a man sitting through a trial.
"I've seen many things," he said calmly. "But this? This is the first time I've seen you lie to me without opening your mouth."
Jay felt Jack twitch beside him. He didn't respond right away.
"I'm not lying," Jay said eventually. "Not anymore."
Charlie's voice came next, dry like gravel. "You didn't think to tell us? Either of you?"
"We knew what you'd do," Jack said. His voice was low but steady. "What you'd say."
"And yet here we are." Vavaporn's smile was tight and bitter. "You thought sneaking around behind our backs would make it less of a disgrace?"
"It wasn't about disgrace," Jay said. "It was about survival."
Charlie let out a quiet, humorless laugh and turned to Jack. "Survival? Is that what this is to you? You sleeping with the son of the man who nearly put a bullet in your skull is survival?"
Jack's jaw tensed. "That bullet nearly came from your gun too."
Charlie's face darkened. "Don't twist this, boy. I protected you. I've always protected you."
"No," Jack said, stepping forward. "You've controlled me. Groomed me to hate, to kill, to never ask why. But you never protected me. Not from the monsters. Not from myself. Not even from you."
Charlie didn't answer. He just stared, and for the first time in years, Jack saw something behind that stare: confusion. Not power. Not cruelty. Just… a man looking at his son like he didn't know him anymore.
"You raised me to be a weapon," Jack continued, "and then you're shocked when I find something human inside myself."
Vavaporn snorted softly, his voice quieter now. "Human? You call this human?" He gestured at the photo like it was radioactive.
Jay met his father's eyes. "I call it mine."
The weight of that landed like a thunderclap.
"I didn't choose to love him to spite you," Jay continued, his voice controlled. "I chose him because when the world burned, he was the only one who stayed."
Vavaporn's lip curled slightly. "You think this is love? You think this will save you when they come for your head?"
"No," Jay said. "But I think it's worth dying for."
Charlie exhaled hard, as if the room had suddenly shrunk.
"You boys," he said slowly, "you don't get it. You think this is some Romeo and Juliet fantasy. But this world? This world eats people like you."
"We know," Jack said. "We've lived in it longer than you think."
There was silence then. A deep, cracked silence.
Jay turned his gaze to his father. Vavaporn hadn't moved. He looked at his son like he was trying to unlearn everything he knew about him.
"When I was a child," Jay said quietly, "you told me love was weakness. You said attachments made men soft. And maybe I believed you. For a while. But you were wrong."
"Was I?" Vavaporn asked, his voice oddly soft now. "Then why are you standing there like you're ready to break?"
Jay smiled faintly. "Because I love him. And I'm scared. That's not weakness. That's proof I'm still human."
For a moment, something flickered in Vavaporn's eyes. A memory, maybe. Of his own youth. Of a time before blood had hardened him into marble.
Charlie, meanwhile, had turned away. His eyes fixed on the city beyond the glass. "What happens when the world finds out? When the other families see that picture? When Juhu leaks it to the Koreans, to the press?"
"Then they'll know," Jack said. "That we're not afraid."
"That you're fools," Charlie corrected.
"No," Jack whispered. "That we're free."
And that…that was what made Vavaporn finally stand.
He walked slowly to the table, fingers brushing the edge of the photo. He didn't pick it up. Just looked at it.
"When you were ten," he said to Jay, voice oddly distant, "you brought home a dog with a broken leg. Hid it in the cellar for three days. I didn't find out until it died."
Jay stayed quiet.
"You buried it yourself," Vavaporn went on. "Wouldn't let anyone touch it. Said it was yours to protect."
He looked up.
"I see that same boy now. Only this time, the thing you're trying to protect… can bleed back."
Jay swallowed hard.
"I know," he said. "But I won't bury him."
Silence again.
Then Vavaporn stepped back, folding his hands behind his back.
"I won't bless this," he said finally. "I won't pretend I understand it. I won't stop you, but we will definitely come back to this."
Charlie's head whipped toward him. "Are you insane?"
"No," Vavaporn said. "I'm tired. And I'm not stupid. You saw what Juhu tried to do. He thought this would break them. It didn't. It strengthened them. And now? Now they're sharper. Together."
If we don't want them together, we have to be smarter than this.
What are you so scared of? That your son won't be loved back? Just like your love wasn't reciprocated years ago?
Both heirs looked at each other confused but didn't say anything.
Charlie scoffed but didn't argue.
Jay and Jack exchanged a glance.
It wasn't approval.
It wasn't forgiveness.
But it was something.
Space. A thread of air to breathe.
Jay stepped forward, slowly reaching for the photo. He folded it neatly and slipped it into his pocket.
Not to hide it.
But to carry it.
Like proof.
Like truth.
Like love.
Vavaporn simply told him that they will talk about this again.