Chapter Text
Grief had a way of distorting time. For Kinn, the days blurred together, endless meetings and responsibilities that no longer seemed to matter. His body moved, his voice spoke, but his mind was elsewhere. Always elsewhere.
Every moment was haunted by him.
Porsche’s laugh. His almond eyes, sharp and playful. The sound of his moans. The way the moonlight clung to his skin.
The memory had become an obsession.
He asked Arm to find out everything — how it had happened, why it had been so sudden. The answer came a week later, and it shattered him all over again.
Porsche had been sick. Cancer. Diagnosed weeks before that charity event, told he didn’t have long.
And still, he had smiled. He had lived. He had chosen to burn brightly until the very end.
Kinn couldn’t breathe when he heard it. The cruel irony of it — that Porsche had walked into his life on borrowed time, had given him one night of heaven knowing it could never last.
⸻
He arranged to meet Jom in a quiet café. Jom looked older than Kinn remembered, weighed down by grief, but his voice was calm as he spoke.
“He’d been sick for a while,” Jom explained, stirring his coffee though he didn’t drink. “When the doctors told him… when he knew he was going to die, he made a choice. He said he wanted to live every moment happily. With Chay, with Tem, with me. With anyone he loved.”
Jom’s lips quirked faintly, sadness in the smile. “It’s strange, I guess, that he spent a whole night with a stranger. But knowing Porsche… I think he really liked you. Maybe he saw something in you worth his time.”
The words hit harder than any bullet ever had. Kinn swallowed, his throat raw. He really liked you. The thought ached like a wound.
He thanked Jom quietly, unable to say more. When he left the café, the world felt emptier than ever.
⸻
Arm dug deeper into Porsche’s past. Both parents gone when he was twelve. He’d worked, struggled, sacrificed for his younger brother. Porchay — nineteen now. Brilliant, talented, studying at the top music academy in the country. Porsche had worked nights and bled himself dry just to keep his brother’s dream alive.
Now he was gone. And Chay was alone.
Kinn couldn’t accept it. Porsche would never have rested easy knowing his little brother was left to struggle.
So Kinn acted. Quietly. He had Arm find Chay’s bank account, and he transferred a sum large enough to cover years of tuition, living expenses, more. Enough to ease the boy’s burden, to honor Porsche’s devotion.
It was the least he could do for the man who had given him the one thing he’d never had — freedom.
Days later, Kinn found the courage to visit the cemetery.
It was a warm morning, the air heavy with the scent of grass and incense. He found the grave easily, the headstone new, the soil still dark. A vase of wilted flowers sat at its base. Kinn knelt, his expensive suit gathering dust, and gently removed the old stems.
In their place, he set down a fresh bouquet of orchids — the ones Jom had told him Porsche loved most.
For a long time, he stood in silence. Then he sank to his knees, his hand resting lightly on the cool stone.
“Porsche,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “That night… it changed me. More than you’ll ever know. For the first time, I felt free. I felt alive. You gave me something I didn’t think I’d ever have — happiness.”
His throat tightened. He closed his eyes, letting the grief wash through him.
“I promise you this,” he continued softly. “I’ll live the way you did. I’ll stop wasting time. I’ll hold on to every minute, every person that matters. I’ll take care of Chay if he ever needs me. And I’ll never forget you.”
He bent his head, pressing his lips to the stone as if sealing the vow.
“I loved you,” he whispered. “If that’s even possible, in one night. I loved you. And I always will.”
The sun climbed higher, painting the sky gold. Kinn stayed there, head bowed, until the warmth dried his tears.
And when he finally rose, something in him had shifted. He walked back to his car not as the man he had been, but as someone changed forever — by one night, by one kiss, by a precious moment that had ended too soon