Chapter 3

‘You never pay attention to me,’ Khun pouted, crossing his arms in front of him and sinking down into the couch he had only just jumped up from.

Kim held his breath, fighting the sigh, ‘Khun,’ he started, ‘you’re asking, for the third time, if I think some actor will die.’

‘Not some actor!’ Khun jumped up again, and lunged towards Kim, stopping just before him. Kim didn’t move, he’d seen Khun do this so many times, the odd trust he had in his brother to never actually hurt him always held true. ‘The protagonist! Will he die?’

Kim let out his sigh. He glanced over to the body guards in the corner, who were trying appear inconspicuous, but their black suits and white shirts somehow made them stand out even more. Arm and Pol shook their heads frantically at Kim, Arm pointing at Khun.

‘No, the protagonist won’t die.’ Kim conceded.

Khun grinned, and returned, again, to his seat.

Arm and Pol relaxed, a little.

‘I knew it,’ Khun said.

‘Then why did you ask me?’ Kim said absently, ignoring the slight groan coming from the bodyguards.

Khun made his own humph sound at Kim, and twisted his head away from him. ‘What are you here for, anyway? Snooping, as usual?’ He barked at Kim.

‘You can’t snoop in your own house’, Kim said. He’d been searching through an old, ornate dresser in one of the many lounges of the huge family home. Khun had found him, and now refused to leave.

‘This isn’t your house,’ Khun shouted, ‘you’re never here.’

‘I’m here now,’ Kim said. He knew he was baiting Khun, but for the moment, he couldn’t help himself.

Khun humphed again.

Kim ignored him now, and continued going through the drawers, as pointless as he felt it would be. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he knew there was something. The family secrets ran deep.

‘What are you doing here?’ Khun asked him, once he’d finished searching through the final drawer.

‘Just, come to visit you,’ Kim said, and smirked over at Khun.

‘Then sit with me, stop doing what you always do.’ Khun patted the seat next to him.

Kim moved over to the large couch Khun was spread across, and sank down into it. ‘What do I always do?’ He asked Khun.

‘Snoop,’ Khun began, ‘search for things that are none of your business. Poke about, you’re always doing it. What are you looking for?’

‘I’m just,’ Kim glanced over to Arm and Pol, standing by the door, trying to ignore him, ‘looking for secrets.’

Khun laughed, ‘Secrets? You? You could never keep secret,’ Khun said. ‘Do you remember when I sneaked you those extra snacks, and you told Kinn, and he cried at me and then you cried, and I got told off. You can’t keep secrets, why would the house ever give you any?’

Kim smiled, ‘I didn’t tell Kinn, he saw them.’

Khun snorted, ‘anyway, no more secrets for you. If you can’t know who will die, without hints from them,’ he jutted his chin at Arm and Pol, ‘then you can’t figure anything out.’

Arm and Pol looked nervously at Kim, who rolled his eyes away from them. It seemed to him that Khun would never make sense again.

He knew the day Khun meant, it was in his head as a mixture of vague recollection and vivid meaning. He’d been left alone in the house, their father, Korn, out on business again. Korn had been distant, and the house seemed emptier somehow;  something was missing. Kim had memories of people filling this house, but he could never remember their faces. That day, he’d been searching through the kitchen for something to eat, something that would make him feel better, and less alone. There was nothing that he could find. He was four, maybe, five. He was short, tiny, ineffectual. With the memory of a child, Kuhn had appeared, towering over him, and with a huge grin across his face. He was only a few years older, but he had always seemed the perfect big brother to Kim. Khun dangled a plastic bag filled with snacks in front of Kim’s face, before lifting it just out of his reach, then dropping it immediately into Kim’s hands, who’s loneliness was momentarily forgotten.

This all happened before Khun had been taken from them, and changed so cruelly.

Kim went with the bag somewhere, he couldn’t remember where; maybe the tv room, an opulent and purposefully dark place, with deep couches and a huge projection screen across one wall. Kim found it comforting, to be in the dark with only the light from the tv to throw shapes around the room. At some point, Kinn was there, crying. Kim tried to give him the snacks, but he just ran away. Then, their father was there, shouting at Khun, and storming off into the study he kept at the top of the house. Kim couldn’t remember any more, the snacks were as lost to his memories as everything else.

Looking back, that would have been the same time Porsche’s father was killed, and his mother was taken from him. And from Porchay. Had that been where his father raced off to that day? A haunted woman hidden in the attic, kept for her own safety, so Korn had told himself, and them all, once the truth had come out. So much had happened, could there truly be any more?

What a strange choice of memory for Khun to drag up.

They sat quietly for a few moments, until Khun turned to him suddenly, thrusting his phone at Kim’s face, ‘so, with this series,’ he started.

Kim pushed himself back off the couch and walked over to the door. He glanced at Pol and Arm, who could only shrug at him.

‘I’ll visit you later, Khun,' he said, 'we’ll have lunch next time.’

‘But, I need to know, will this one die?’ Khun was still holding up his phone for Kim, a more desperate look on his face.

‘See you, Khun,’ Kim said, without looking back at his brother, and left the room.

Khun shouted after him, ‘we need to know which protagonist will die, don’t we?’

Arm and Pol rushed over to Khun, expecting an explosion they would have to contain, somehow.

But Khun just sat there, staring at the door Kim had just walked through. His face had a pained look, his delicate featured twisted into words he couldn’t form.

Pol and Arm sat either side of him, and Arm picked up the tv remote to flick through channels until they could find something to calm Khun.

Still, Khun sat quietly, watching the door.

Arm put on a random channel, letting the sound and chatter fill the room.

Khun sat back on the couch, and sank down. ‘He needs to know who the protagonist is,’ he said to no one, ‘otherwise, how will he know who died?’

Kim stood just outside the door, listening in to his brother. When he looked into Khun’s eyes, he still saw the brave older brother he had known, before Khun was taken. He sometimes wondered why he still came to this house, and spoke to any of them. This was why, if he could be honest with himself; it was the inability to accept he’d ever lost his brother.