The sweltering afternoon heat had sapped the energy from the orphanage, making every movement feel like a struggle.
Jate watched the courtyard through the window, his eyes narrowed against the glare. His focus was on the others. Thanom. Mali. Peach. Art. And... Phun.
Whenever Phun was nearby, Jate felt a magnetic current that pulled him closer. It was usually followed by a spike of affection, and then a traitorous, intrusive thought would arrive, unbidden and annoying: He's so damn cute.
As soon as the word 'cute' popped up, he tried to dismiss it. His feelings for Art had been a problem he could at least define, a pining for something he couldn't have. But this thing with Phun? He had no idea what to do with the way Phun made him feel. It made Jate want to put down his guard. The prospect of being led by his feelings instead of his mind felt almost as scary as his father coming back.
Thanom and Art were sitting on the kitchen steps. A metal bowl sat between them.
Clink. Clink.
They were shelling peas. Their movements were synchronized—Thanom cracked the pod with a flick of his thumb that made the seam snap, Art swept the peas into the bowl. Thanom murmured something. A faint, secret smile touched Art's lips.
Unobserved by anyone. Except Jate, of course.
He couldn't help but notice things, like the way their knees brushed together.
A familiar icy shard formed in his chest. He was close enough to feel warm, but he still harbored a longing to get closer. Right now, Jate was stuck behind a barricade of his own making that he didn't know how to dismantle.
"Jate?"
A staff member stood in the doorway. "Director Phichit wants to see you."
The walk to the office was short. The hallway smelled of floor wax.
It was dim inside. The blinds were drawn against the sun. Director Phichit was staring at a cheap plastic pen on her desk as if it were the most interesting object in the world.
Jate sat down and waited. His body was completely paralyzed, and his hands were turning to mist. He hid them in his pockets, feeling the molecules of his skin evaporating, wanting to seep through the floorboards and disperse. Sweat was soaking through his shirt. This was the exact spot where he was almost sent away for good. He refused to return to that cage, back to a stranger who didn't even see him.
"Jate," she began hesitantly. "There has been an accident. On the highway to Lampang." She took a shallow breath, finally looking at him. "It was your father. He did not survive."
The words remained floating in the air.
Jate sat still and waited for the script to unfold. He waited for grief. Shock. Sadness. Pain.
Nothing came.
Instead, his hands returned, and he was filled with a powerful wave of relief.
Jate didn't waste a single thought on the man who had died. All that mattered was the finality of it. He didn't have to leave, at least until he turned eighteen. He didn't have to go anywhere.
There was no mourning. There was only the ability to expand his lungs fully for the first time since his father had last tried to reclaim him. It was the refreshing sensation of an ice cool drink.
"I see," Jate said. His voice was steady.
Director Phichit looked at him, searching for tears. Her expression was a mixture of confusion and pity that he didn't want.
Jate stood up and nodded once—a gesture of dismissal—and walked out.
He went to the roof. It was the only place vast enough to hold the strange, confusing feelings inside him. He hung by the wall, staring at the distant mountains. The world felt flat. A problem had resolved itself without his participation, and now he was left with the silence.
The door creaked open. They had somehow found out. Probably Peach, Jate thought, but he didn't really care how they knew.
Thanom appeared first and didn't try to fill the air with empty reassurances or questions; instead, he just pressed a snack into Jate's hand. Then he sat down, his back against the concrete wall—a stoic presence.
Art appeared soon after and moved into the space behind him, his presence grounding and reassuring. "We're here for you."
Peach drifted in next, with Mali trailing behind her. She walked to the edge of the roof, looking out at the haze.
"I didn't see it coming," Peach whispered. She reached out, her fingers plucking at the echo she couldn't see. "It was behind the fuzz. And then... snip. The line was cut." Her voice was resigned with a subtle undercurrent of agitation.
Mali walked up to him and slipped her small hand into Jate's. She held on tight. The humidity made her skin stick to his, but the pressure of her hand kept him from drifting away.
Then, a movement on his other side.
Phun.
No words were necessary. Phun watched him, then reached out and took Jate's free hand.
He enclosed Jate's cold fingers within his own warm palm.
The touch sent a staggering surge of emotion through Jate's body.
Jate turned his head slowly, looking at each of them in turn. On one side, the sister who had given him a home and claimed him as 'ours'. On the other, the boy who grounded him with his tranquil presence.
To be held like this, firmly tethered to the world by two people who actually wanted him to be there, created an amazing feeling he had been starving for. Mali's grip was a claim—you are ours—but Phun's was different. His thumb brushed over Jate's knuckles in a slow, steady rhythm. It was a touch that said, I see the silence in you. I'm with you.
Jate felt a crack form in the careful walls he'd built. He let out a shuddering exhale that sounded dangerously like a sob.
Tears started forming behind his eyes.
The void that his father left behind was filled by these people. This strange, tangled family holding him in the dusk was a more concrete truth than the man who had died on the highway. The man who had called himself Jate's 'father.'
⁕ ⁕ ⁕
Later that week, the heatwave broke records.
The nights didn't cool down. The concrete of the dormitory radiated heat like an oven. It was impossible to sleep.
They ended up on the roof again, lying in a restless circle.
Jate looked at their uncomfortable forms and made a decision. He let his essence drift outward, and cool fog began to swirl around them. It was a gentle, rolling cloud that smelled of rain and cold stone. It settled over the group, dropping the temperature significantly.
One by one, they relaxed into the cooling embrace. Mali giggled softly, reaching up to touch the swirling mist. Thanom let out a long sigh of relief, his shoulder finally relaxing against Art's. Jate held the mist steady. His power, usually a means to escape, felt... good. It felt like an embrace.
Peach leaned her head back, watching the way the mist slowly encompassed her family.
Phun, who had been lying quietly beside Jate, turned his head on the warm concrete, a look of pure, unguarded wonder on his face. He watched the rose tinted mist swirl around Jate's hands, his expression soft in the dim light.
"It's beautiful," Phun whispered. "...like ink in water. It feels so… peaceful."
No one had ever called Jate's power beautiful before.
Phun shifted closer, reaching out a tentative hand. He almost touched Jate, but instead traced what looked at first glance like delicate, swirling patterns in the thin layer of condensation the mist left on the rooftop floor.
Upon closer inspection, Jate noticed that it was actually a series of tiny people, hands held in a joyous chain, that had been sketched into the ghost remnants of his power. Phun had turned the act of disappearing into a canvas for creation.
He looked up at Jate through thick lashes, his smile small and genuine. "Thanks," Phun whispered, and Jate's heart skipped a beat.
In the comfortable silence that followed, Peach leaned back against the parapet. "This is one of the good memories," she murmured, with eyes closed and voice steady. "Even when everything gets hard later… even when we're scattered—this night will stay perfect. The night Jate held us all at once." The certainty of her words settled into their bones, alongside the cooling mist.
Then Mali said, "Are we inside Jate right now?"
⁕ ⁕ ⁕
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