I Feel You Linger In The Air

Special 2 - Yai

Never once in the life of Kanthorn Palatip, or 'Yai', has he wanted something and not gotten it. He is the adopted son of Lady Ueam Duean, the oldest daughter of Gp. Capt. Keerati Palatip (Lek), a descendant of Phraya Nitiphumthamrong, the forefather of the Palatips, a family that has been wealthy since before democratisation.

His biological mother is Ueam Dao Palatip, the youngest of four siblings, the heirs of Gp. Capt. Keerati. His father is an American man who runs a business in Thailand, so his physique and features are a combination of two races. He is well-built, fair-skinned, with curly hair and brown eyes.

'Your son sure is something. He's so stubborn that I don't know what to do with him. When he sets his mind to something, he's unstoppable. He would act calm and not argue, but never listen to anyone! He once heard Lady Ueam Duean complaining to her sister, his biological mother, when they met up.

'Oh, I've given him to you, so he's your son,' replied Ueam Dao, or 'Mother Dao', unfazed

Right.' The lady scowled 'And I'm sure he doesn't take his stubbornness from me.'

Kanthorn smiled at what he had heard. He calls his biological mother 'Mother Dao' and Lady Ueam Duean 'Mother'. It all started when he was born.

Back then, Ueam Dao gave birth to male-female twins, the heredity from his grandmother's side. It was her second pregnancy, so many years after the first. Ueam Dao hadn't expected to conceive again. Both babies had low birth weights. Even the doctor in charge couldn't guarantee they would survive. The infants must be under close medical care, and the doctor couldn't specify the date they could be discharged.

The incident worried the mother greatly. Eaten up by the distress, Ueam Dao sought help from the holiness, mainly relying on medical science, in hopes that the supernatural being would perform a miracle. Ueam Dao decided to ward off bad luck by offering her prayer to give her twins to someone else, a tradition. And so, Lady Ueam Duean, her sister, bound holy threads around the babies' wrists as a gesture of accepting them as her children.

A few weeks later, the infants gradually grew stronger, to their parents' and relatives' delight. When they were healthy enough to be taken home, Lady Ueam Duean told her sister her wish.

Dao, since you've given your children to me to drive off bad luck, let's not make it only a tradition. Would you give one of them to me for real? Thawat can't have a child. Moreover, he seemed to adore his nephew very much."

You also seem to adore him dearly,' her sister said, understandably and sympathetically. Her big sister had been married to a high-ranking army officer for years, but they never had any children. Later on, they found out that Thawat, her husband, was sterile.

'I feel a strong connection with him.' The lady brushed her nephew's cheek with her arm. 'Look at him. He got some Caucasian traits from his grandmother's and father's sides, but only his skin tone. His facial features are sharp and charming. The longer I look, the more similar he is to Uncle Yai. He will be just as handsome when he grows up. I probably don't have a chance to have my own children. If I can treat your child as mine in this life, it will be such a blessing. I won't take the mother's job from you, of course. An adoptive mother is incomparable to a biological mother!

Ueam Dao pondered it. No mother would easily let her child get legally adopted by someone else, even her beloved relatives. The twins were discharged at the same time. The daughter got fatter and bigger by the day, whereas the son wasn't as healthy. He regularly fell sick. The mother's heart couldn't help but feel concerned and think back to her

prayer.

With determination, Ueam Dao finally signed the adoption papers, giving her son to her sister and brother-in- law. It deeply moved Lady Ueam Duean. Her perpetually nonchalant expression of a prideful woman turned into a bright smiley face every time she cradled the baby in her arms. Dao, I will give him all the estate I inherited from Uncle Yai. Now that I have him as my heir, I am relieved. The will and the promise I made to Uncle Yai will, for certain, be carried out successfully. Otherwise, I won't be able to rest in peace.'

Everything went on with satisfaction on both sides. And the 'I won't take the mother's job from you' was basically a lie. The first thing Lady Ueam Duean did as an adoptive mother was to nickname the baby "Yal after her uncle, whom she loved and respected greatly. He was also the baby's grandfather.

The lady raised her adopted son with love and care, fully devoted. Ueam Dao had another daughter to take care of, and her husband was busy with work all day and subsequently came home late. Thus, her sister's involvement in caring for the children during the day was more support than interference.

Yai and his twin sister, Thanya, spent their childhood in Thailand. When they turned eight, their father decided to move back to the US for business reasons.

"I will send them to Thailand every summer to be with you.'

That was the promise her sister made to save her from the devastation. The twins visited Thailand every six months. The lady herself also flew regularly between Thailand and the US. A few years later, the lady permanently moved to the US to be with her sister. She was heartbroken because her husband had a mistress the age of their child and even openly took her to social functions. The lady bought a house a few blocks away from her sister. Having received her love and care since her youth, her adopted son eventually moved in with her.

The older you get, the more you resemble your elder grandfather. People in the past would have said he was reincarnated in your body: Kanthorn or Yai often got this remark from his relatives. He admitted he resembled Judge Kritsada or, as his mother called him, Uncle Yai. He looked like him more than Gp. Capt. Keerati, his paternal grandfather. Regardless, he knew their differences.

Uncle Yai was known for his calmness and resolution, both in his character and appearance. Under his composure, his chest was constantly troubled by some sort of emotion. It was a feeling of something missing from his life, which made no sense. What could a person who had everything have missed?

The feeling was overwhelming to the point of torment. It pushed him to search for what he thought was what he wanted that would fill the peculiar emptiness in his heart. He studied hard and also played hard. He drove cars like a storm and played sports like an energised maniac, especially basketball and surfing. He would spend all day hunting for big waves in the sea and soaring above them. Those resulted in both positive and negative ways. 

He was an honour student and college athlete, but he occasionally worried the lady about some of the things he did. Kanthorn consoled her by graduating with honours. Those things were his family's pride, yet it wasn't his answer.

He had no clue what he wanted.

His love life was no different. Kanthorn had been in many relationships, but having lovers was not the same as loving someone. He treated his lovers well, trying to open his heart and hoping love would eventually bloom. It was all a waste of time. Liking differed from loving. It was as though his heart wouldn't allow him to fall in love.

At last, he stopped. He didn't want to hurt anyone anymore. Pretending to love someone was worse than breaking their hearts. If his heart wouldn't fall for anyone, he had to let it be.

After graduation, he poured his attention into his family's hotel business. It eased some of the restlessness in his heart, but not all of it. Sometimes, when he was alone and had time with himself, his heart would yearn for something he had no idea what it was. One day, he chatted with Lady Ueam Duean in the living room. It had been two months since they departed for Thailand after years.

Lady Ueam Duean, in old age, was still as slim as she was when young, her white hair tied up in a bun. Her eyes behind those glasses were still keen and stern, which made people who weren't close to her nervous. That day, they talked about renovating the ancient houses in Chiang Mai, where Kanthorn used to visit from time to time when he was a kid.

'Why this architect?' Kanthorn asked with a smile. He found it amusing that the lady insisted they hire the architect from this company, even though there were companies in Chiang Mai ready to take on this job. His adoptive mother acted like a fan supporting her favourite artist. ‘I have my own reason.'

The lady replied briefly, but it was enough to pique his interest. He picked up the magazine and flipped through the pages. The renovation of the old Thai house in Khlong San was gorgeous and very creative, but it wasn't extraordinary enough to make his mother so determined.

But when Kanthorn flicked his gaze to the two architects in charge of the renovation, he was stunned. Something bloomed in his chest, a speck of tiny blazing fireball. It grew bigger and fanned its flames brightly in another moment.

One of the architects was a man in his mid-twenties. He was tall and slender, his face flawless. He looked like a half-Chinese man, judging from his skin tone and the upward slants of his eyelids. He wasn't strikingly handsome. His appearance was rather cute and clean, but it locked Kanthorn's eyes and shook his feelings violently. His chest was swarmed with a wave of emotions. This time was different from before. It felt like he had found something he had been waiting for.

The lady looked at her adopted son in contemplation for a while, then she said. I have something to tell you, and something I want you to do for me if I can't take care of it myself.'

What the lady told him stemmed from their worry about their trip to Thailand in the next two months. Although the lady was healthy, given her age, it was difficult for her to travel, as her bones had become weak and brittle over time. The ten-hour trip on a plane could cause her to be ailing. If that was the case, Kanthorn had to go to Chiang Mai to accomplish the lady's task in her stead. He had to deliver a key to someone.

This story was so bizarre that Kanthorn and the lady couldn't pinpoint the explanation. Judge Kritsada, his elder grandfather, made a will requiring his heir to deliver a key to a close relative of Mr Ravit Pitayanan on a specific date. How could his grandfather know the name of this architect if the architect had passed away before he was born?

It amazed Lady Ueam Duean as well. She had been looking for this person until she found someone with this full name for real, but he had no connection with her family. Uncle Yai passed on his fortune and numerous properties to her. However, Uncle Yai specifically noted that she couldn't sell the place in Chiang Mai and had to keep some things there. From then on, Kanthorn started to see the scenes...

They weren't the scenes playing in the air or his dreams. Those sights showed themselves in his head. At first, they were faint and dim, like he was dreaming while awake. They flashed in his mind one by one and evaporated like smoke.

As time passed, those scenes got more vivid and appeared in his consciousness more often. They narrated the breathtaking stories of him and the other man, whom he clearly remembered as the architect he saw in the magazine. Kanthorn was extremely confused. He wasn't sure if it was all in his imagination. 

As time went by, those stories got clearer in his mind, as though they had been in him all along and waiting for the day to surface. He wasn't in the audience. He was in the story, experiencing everything with his eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and heart. He felt his existence in the past lifetimes. He had lived those lives with a man he deeply loved, to the point of waiting to reunite with him in all lifetimes. Poh-Jom...

The words uttered from his mouth clung to his tongue, the fragrance of Lantoms, the wind on the road lined with rubber trees, the sweet scent of that person's hair and cheeks, and tears in the moonlight. Even the sting of his wounds oozing blood in the rain stuck to his skin. The rumbling thunder and his pledge. I will love only Poh-Jom in all lifetimes...

What he saw wasn't his imagination. It had lain dormant in his subconscious until it was awake in his consciousness. If the spirit of a human never disappeared from the world, it must have travelled through time, recording everything, and now dwelt in his body.

Kanthorn no longer hesitated. Reincarnation used to sound like nonsense to him, but not anymore. It had been proved with the will of his grandfather, in other words, him from a hundred years ago. He decided to go to Thailand immediately, two days earlier than the original departure date. He was too impatient to wait. Kanthorn asked Lady Ueam Duean to permit him to hand over the key himself. The lady neither rejected nor demanded a reason. She would follow him in two days with his twin sister. 

Kanthorn or 'Yai showed up at the hospital in Chiang Mai the day after the architect in charge of renovating his ancient houses drove his car into the Ping River last night. Ravit Pitayanan, or Jom, as the foremen and builders called him, wasn't fully conscious. He slipped in and out of consciousness. When he was awake, it lasted only briefly, as if he would rather sleep than wake up. It felt like his long-lost dearest had returned to his grip. Kanthorn offered to pay the medical bills and the accident-related damages. The company that the architect worked for didn't have to take responsibility. When an officer in the hospital asked about his relation to the patient, he firmly answered that he was his client and lover.

After the physical examination, the patient was moved to a single room to recover. The second Kanthorn stepped into the recovery room and saw the man on the bed, his limbs went weak. His heart softened like it was about to melt.

The sleeping man on the bed looked terribly broken. Not his body, but on the inside. He slightly pressed his lips together before loosening them, his eyelids shifting like he was dreaming. Kanthorn wanted to pull him into his embrace and shower his face with kisses in longingness, but he just sat next to the bed and touched the man's arm gently, afraid he would vaporise in the air if the touch were a bit too strong.

The immense love and longing surged in this chest. He slid his hand to the man's palm on his side and held it to share his warmth. The raging storm that had swirled in his chest for years finally calmed, becoming the breeze that brought pleasant coolness to his heart. It was pleasing and serene as though this was where his heart belonged. His heart had never allowed him to fall for anyone because he loved this man...

Kanthorn ran his fingers gently over the misty gemstone that was once his. He observed the flawless, fair face with eyes stubbornly shut. He wanted the man to open his eyes and know he was right here. He wanted to tell him how much he loved and missed him. He wanted to ask if he felt the same. He leaned down and left a soft kiss on the man's hand before whispering.

"Wake up, Poh-Jom. I've come to you."