Chapter 05: Can't escape.

Khanin hurriedly walked along the university walkway with a steady pace, contrasting the turbulent feeling inside. The young man raised his clenched hand to grip the brim of the cap he wore on his head to hide the chaos. He had not slept all night due to the absurdity he had just learned.

Dad... must have slept little and got confused. As for that doctor, his condition has been heavy since the first time he met him until now. Aggravated, he put on a cost-saving posture to make him feel uncomfortable. He didn't like the guy's face and didn't want to see him. He wanted to get rid of this person far away, but he still couldn't figure out a way.

To be honest, it's confusing. Just the night before, he was an ordinary person leading a normal life. However, after spending the night in jail, Khanin was not only angry with his father, but also with his difficult-to-accept feelings.

He was acting like a rebellious and stubborn child, going against himself. Khanin couldn't focus and couldn't care less about anything, who could do anything about the situation?

Even if you hired someone, there is no way to return to that country!

He would stay here and live his life as the ordinary Khanin, not Khanin Atsawathewathin as someone tried to force him to be. And when he thought about it, there was not much difference from his daily routine.

The young man brought himself to the music practice room at the university. He walked straight to the large black grand piano and intended to calm himself down, as he usually did when he came here to escape from problems. Life was tough.

Thin fingers press down on the keyboard following the remembered pitch levels of the notes. In his mind, he immersed himself in the weight of emotions, letting music help soothe the confusion in his heart, just like he often does when there is something to ponder.

Khanin felt that the world was overwhelming when he thought about things that made him feel stressed during this time. However, he realized that nothing was as heavy as what he was currently facing. The future was difficult to predict, and the winding path ahead made him feel suffocated to the point where he wanted to escape from it for a while.

Tung!

A wandering mind affects the precision of the notes, causing a pause in the middle of the song. When Khanin didn't have enough concentration, the owner of the small body leaned back and closed his eyes slightly to suppress the anger that was boiling inside.

The edges of his soft, pink lips relaxed, as he let go of the instrument in front of him. When the available tools couldn't help, Khanin looked for something new. His slender fingers rummaged through his side bag, searching for something for a moment before pulling out what he needed from inside.

Caramel candy.

One of the helpers that Khanin often carried with him, to ease his mind when he felt uncomfortable or upset. And the person who made him addicted to this candy was none other than his father, Tattanai.

Khanin remembered his childhood, where he once fell and injured his knee badly, causing him great pain and a desire to cry out loud. But what he showed was the opposite. He didn't cry, but instead tried his best to hold back his tears.

Because he wanted to follow his father's teachings, Khanin tried to suppress his pain while leading him towards the house.

"Does it hurt?" A sentence expressing concern, started when Tattanai gently applied ointment to the wound.

"It hurts... a lot."

"Why don't you cry out when it hurts?" Tattanai's dark eyes continued to focus on his injury while softly questioning.

"I am afraid that you won't approve. Father, you taught me to be strong and not weak." Khanin's answer as a child was honest, but it hit the listeners' hearts until they felt choked up.

"Doesn't it hurt enough to make you cry?"

"Yes..." Khanin in his childhood tried to deceive himself with his own strength, so his voice was weak and trembling. He lowered his eyes and pursed his lips, trying to hold back his tears. When his father showed interest and asked for forgiveness, the tears were about to overflow.

"Dad is sorry." Tattanai's voice was mixed with tenderness and guilt. The middle-aged man took a deep breath before gently hugging Khanin onto his lap.

"I shouldn't have taught you like that... I only thought that you had to endure it to succeed because in the future, you'll face things that are ten or a hundred times worse than this... But I forgot that you just my whittle child now... I was wrong. I'm sorry, Nin."

At that time, Tattanai kept apologizing repeatedly, yielding and reaffirming his own teachings once again.

"From now on, if you're in pain or sad and want to cry, just cry. Remember that the bravest thing is to accept the truth, be honest with your own feelings. Crying doesn't mean you're weak or giving up, even if you shed tears, you're still a strong person because crying is a human nature."

"...But every time, I wants you to separate and find the cause of the feelings, to discover what it is. Knowing your own feelings is a good thing, isn't it? Not just sadness, but I means every feeling, happiness, love, sadness, and fear."

'..."

"Don't let anyone know these feelings better than yourself because that could lead to people with bad intentions using these things to harm you my son... Do you understand, Nin?"

"I understand." The little boy said to Tattanai who responded with a relieved chuckle, reaching into his pants pocket and handing over a round, brown candy to Nin.

"I know you want sweets, but I can't let you have too much or your teeth will rot... So you can only have this as a reward for accepting your feelings. Is that okay?" The offer came with a caramel candy placed in Nin's small hand. Khanin raised his head and looked at his father with hidden sadness, still haunted by the pain...

"Father knows that his you wants to eat sweets, but I cannot let my little Nin eat too much because his teeth will hurt. Therefore, Nin can only eat this when it is a reward for himself. Is it good when the child can accept his own feelings like that?" The proposal came with a small candy placed in his small hand. Khanin looked up at his father with sadness still lurking as the pain from the wound continued to function.

"Uh."

"Do you still want to sing?" The answer to this question is a pause. Khanin still held back, even though tears were about to fall.

"If you want to sing, go ahead, good kid."

Memories of the past, even if time has passed. Khanin still remembers. He looked at the brown candy in his hand and weighed it in his heart for a moment before realizing that he could not reward himself this time. Finally, he chose to put the candy back where it was.

"Hey, hiding here without telling me? Don't you know I've been looking for you everywhere?" The call from a close friend drew Khanin out of his reverie. Paul walked in, while the other party stepped closer before raising his eyebrows slightly when surveying the face of his small friend.

"It's been a while, right?"

"I called your name three times. Is there something wrong?" Paul greeted him, and Khanin was confident that it was not because of his facial expressions, as this close friend knew his personality and behavior better than others.

"Just a little."

"Just a little? But your face doesn't say that."

"I have something to think about."

"What are you thinking? Life is short, don't stress, just relax, take deep breaths and let it out slowly. My mom taught me to do yoga every day to help reduce stress." Paul was good at lifting people's moods, but his friend's advice didn't seem to have a positive effect on the listener.

"Can one really avoid stress?"

"We can't avoid it, but we can reduce it. That's what I can help with." Paul smiled charmingly and whispered softly, even though there was no one else in the room. "Samanta invited us to a party tonight at 2 a.m. They're going to pre-drink together, but I already made plans with Alex at the flat. Will you come with us?"

"Samanta? The film kids?" Khanin asked to clarify.

Samanta's friends were the same ones he used to play music with during the time they were still using tiktok. They played short cover songs on

The channel to promote themselves. Khanin played the keyboard and sometimes rapped with them. That gang was a geeky music group and they had fun together, but lately he had distanced himself. This was because he had to practice his sword skills more often according to his father's orders...

"Yeah, the Samanta and Charly and others. Come on, Nin, you haven't hung out with us for a long time." Paul said, shrugging his shoulders and standing up, taller than the smaller person.

"I..."

"Don't refuse just yet. After the class is over, I'll ask again."

Khanin chuckled softly at his close friend's quick wit, shrugging as the larger friend led him out of the music practice room. He wasn't sure how he felt at the moment. One thing was certain: he didn't want to talk to his father, see his face, or take any phone calls. But every time he chose to attend a party...

Tattanai would usually wait until morning, or alternatively, call him every two hours...

The owner of the small body quietly withdrew his breath, intending to let go of the matter and temporarily put all his frustration aside. However, it seemed fate... or karma would not let it go as he had planned.

"Nin... Is that the guy from the club who used to look after you?" Paul's sentence was like a chain that violently yanked the smaller man's ankle. Khanin stopped, his mind searching for a way to escape, but it seemed his movements were too slow. Someone had already turned to look at them.

The two pairs of eyes met, sharp as a hawk's. The unfamiliar face that he had encountered too often lately stood not too close, nor too far away, leaning against a railing with an expression that revealed no emotions other than calm and composed, like a carved statue every time.

"Don't mind him, just keep walking." Khanin turned back to Paul, gripping the bag that hung from his left shoulder tightly. The young man didn't hesitate or stop walking. As soon as he regained his composure, the royal-blooded individual brushed off all distracting thoughts and focused on leading his close friend to perform their student duties, without intending to look back at that person ever again.

Khanin spent nearly three hours in class that day. He paid more attention to the professor's lecture than ever before, even more so than Emma, the girl sitting at the front, or even Paul, who usually paid attention because of the subject but spent most of the class talking about party plans with the Samantha group.

One could say that Khanin's left ear was for entertainment, while his right ear was filled with academic knowledge. However, the young man didn't feel annoyed; he willingly listened to everything, mainly because... he was trying to find something else to overshadow the disturbing thoughts in his mind.

"So, what's the plan for tonight?" The golden-haired young man asked with a smirk, revealing his fangs as soon as the professor walked away. Paul moved closer, bumping shoulders and raising an eyebrow with enthusiasm.

"Well, I don't want to go home anyway." Khanin shrugged as he put his iPad in his bag, not wanting to go home and face his father, along with that annoying doctor. He hoped they wouldn't be too persistent in waiting for him. Hadn't they been in class all day?

"Why is he still here? He's looking this way too. Strange, does he have business with you?" Khanin's guess was completely off. The unfamiliar man was still waiting in the same spot, for three full hours... He didn't know if the other party had left and come back, but such behavior was quite annoying.

"No, there's nothing." The short man furrowed his brow and quickly denied it, feeling a slight headache.

That doctor was truly insane and persistent...

"Why did that doctor come after you then... or maybe he likes you?" The close friend with golden hair made a thoughtful expression, analyzing the situation before widening his eyes and giving a comment that nearly made the listener choke.

At first, Khanin was going to deny it, but Paul's words made him think of something. He didn't want others to know about the secret and absurd story, so diverting his friend's attention seemed like the best thing to do at the moment.

"Yes..."

"What do you mean, yes?"

"I mean that man, he likes me." Khanin gave a small, uncontrollable smile. The haughty, well-dressed man with an air of upper-class surrounding him, being accused of being a stalker, was quite amusing.

"I knew it! I sensed it from the beginning. My intuition is good, isn't it?" Paul looked excited, while Khanin just shrugged again. He grabbed his friend's bag strap and forcefully pulled him to start walking together.

"Let's go." Khanin desperately wanted to leave, but he could only think about it when someone he didn't want to approach blocked his way, forcing the slim man to stop abruptly. The young man intended to act indifferent, but his friend's sharp tongue turned the situation upside down.

"Hey, you..." Paul used a deep tone to start the conversation, tilting his head slightly and staring at the person with a sweeping, investigative gaze, like a detective assessing a criminal in a movie. It was bold and over-the-top, fitting for someone in the sword-fighting club rather than acting.

"My friend told me that you like him almost to the point of madness. You couldn't bear to see him leave, so you came all the way here to follow him." Khanin's eyes were wide, like those of a goose, feeling as if he was about to choke on air. It wasn't because Paul started the conversation to protect or to drive away someone as he had thought.

"Paul!" The person who had just regained consciousness turned around abruptly, intending to scold his friend, but someone didn't care to listen at all.

"Even if you like my friend, following him like this is an invasion of privacy. This is against the law. We can report you, you know." The blonde young man continued to play the role of a guardian without any shortcomings, but Khanin didn't feel any satisfaction at all because Paul, his dear friend, had already destroyed his carefully crafted lie.

He was trying to deceive him into losing interest and use his words to talk to others instead. Just let it end!

"Did you hear that? You can like him, but following him like this..."

"Lying is not a good thing." The deep, heavy voice spoke. Khanin raised his face, using a calm and unshaken approach in response to the words of the person in front of him. Although he could guess that the other party could probably predict the entire plan, they still turned to criticize each other in a language that a third party like Paul wouldn't understand.

"What is he saying?"

"It's my native language, Ema... But don't worry, let's just go."

"Won't you talk to me at all... Young-Prince?" The nickname reverberated in Khanin's ears intensely. His slender body froze, and the flesh in his left chest was throbbing uncontrollably. Even though he knew in his heart that his close friend beside him wouldn't be able to perceive and understand the true meaning.

"Don't call me that."

"Oh, can't I speak English?"

"I apologize for being rude to you." Paul's complaint got attention. Someone responded to the request by turning to communicate in American-style English.

"Fine... I won't hold it against you, but it's better not to annoy my friend anymore. I'm warning you, I won't let you flirt with my friend easily. If you want to like him, you'll have to go through me first." Khanin pressed his thin lips together, secretly looking at his close friend's fingertip pointing at him with a bossy attitude, and couldn't help but feel overwhelmed.

Just let it end... This is too over-the-top.

"Did you mean that?"

"No."

"Yes! Let's just say you better not bother my friend anymore because we have a party to attend. Now, leave."

"Let's go, Samantha will definitely scold us if we're late." The person waiting for the right moment to join the conversation said smoothly. Khanin didn't want to seem angry in front of Paul, so he tried to use a provocative tone to make his close friend with golden hair lose interest in the stranger instead of scolding someone directly. Of course, wanting to scold but not being able to... it's incredibly

frustrating.

His double-lidded eyes narrowed as he looked at someone much taller than him by several centimeters. Khanin accused him of intentionally asserting dominance over an older person through his gaze, squinting as if to say "don't interfere." However, the other person didn't cooperate at all.

"Can I come along too?"

"What?" Paul made a face as if he couldn't believe his own ears, and before he could say anything, Khanin firmly refused.

"No!"

"Why not? Your friend said that to hit on you, one must pass through him first. How can I pass that test if I don't know any of you, right?"

The tall person smirked, giving a sharp, scheming look.

This made Khanin's close friend with blond haired man chuckle softly.

"Hey... this guy is persistent."

"My name is Charan, nice to meet you."

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