Hearing Park use his given name gave him goosebumps every time, but he did his best to ignore them. Just like Park did Gift.
Park’s stare was intense, even if his facial expression was one of indifference. It sent a shock of awareness through Gift every time their eyes met. “How is your food?”
Once more, Gift smiled politely. “Very good,hia.”
Park preferredhiato Gift using his name. Gift didn’t really know why, other than maybe propriety. Park was not his brother. He was barely even a friend. He could have understood calling himPhi, as he was much older, but Park insisted onhia,sohiait was.
Gift had been essentially brother-zoned.
He sighed inwardly. Park was nothing if not proper. Even though school had ended hours ago, Park was still in his dress pants and white button-down. His only concession had been rolling the sleeves to his elbows, revealing perfectly muscular forearms that made Gift’s mouth water.
Park’s obsession with societal rules made no sense to Gift. Park had grown up in the U.S.—his mother was Thai, but his father was Chinese American. He’d lived in Thailand for high school, but only moved there once he’d become a diplomat like Gift’s parents. That was how they’d met.
But despite Park spending his formative years in America, he was determined they honor their Thai culture—was insistent upon it, really. Park insisted on many things. Proper honorifics. Proper attire. Proper mannerisms. He even made Gift go to the temple once. He fed him Thai dishes almost every night. He insisted they dine togetherevery night.
It was…weird. Especially given how indifferent Park was to Gift’s presence. He’d tried several times to switch up their dynamic. Everybody else in the facility called Park by his given name. But when Gift did it, he just received a hard stare that told him he’d made a mistake. Sometimes, Gift would call Parklung—uncle—just to watch him short circuit. Given their age difference, it was a much more proper title, but Park had been…displeased.
Gift shook the thought away. If he thought about it too much, it just made him teary-eyed, and the last thing he needed was anybody there thinking he was even more immature than they already believed him to be. It wasn’t his fault he’d been gifted with a face that made people instantly adore him and want to take care of him.
Well, people who weren’t related to him, anyway.
Gift fought the urge to look at his phone to check the time. Their food was almost gone, so at least the evening was winding down, but these were the minutes that felt like hours, with a tension building between them like an overfilled balloon Gift was just always waiting to pop.
If nothing else, their nightly interactions were pretty much scripted at this point. Park would ignore him for most of the meal, then ask him the same four questions with the same level of disinterest, confusing Gift on a cellular level.
“How are your grades?”
“Good, hia.”
“Did you call your mother?”
“Yes, hia.”
“Did you eat enough?”
“Yes, hia.”
“Did you finish your homework?”
“Yes, hia.”
He hadn’t thought it was possible that anybody could treat him more like a child than his own parents, but Park somehow managed it, acting as if he were this cute but incompetent moron. He was surprised they let him shop for his clothes in the adult section.
Before this last week, Gift had at least been able to converse in Thai, but now, Park had decided Gift needed to work on his English. Which would have been fine if Gift didn’t already speak perfect English.
Park just didn’t know that.
And Gift refused to tell him.
Instead, he’d smiled and nodded, pretending to stumble his way through a language he’d been speaking since his parents had shipped him off to an international school. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to tell Park—or even his own parents—that he spoke English almost as well as a native, other than maybe pettiness.
If they’d wanted to know something about him, maybe they should have checked up on him when he was in boarding school. Besides, it gave him an advantage when they all chose to talk poorly about him in English—usually, right in front of him, which was surprisingly often. Or had been before he’d been moved to the U.S. and ended up at a school where his closest friends were now training to be assassins.
His life had become a movie and he wasn’t even the main character. He wasn’t even the quirky sidekick or the comic relief. Gift was average in every conceivable way. Average grades. Average intelligence. Average sports prowess. Just…average.
His only real advantage was that the universe had made him rich and just adorable enough to manipulate people into getting what he wanted. Except, he didn’t. Because he had a conscience and that would be mean. And Gift was a lot of things, but he wasn’t mean.
Which was why he suffered through these dinners with Park. He had no way of politely declining. And if he did, Park would have immediately told his parents. Gift stared at Park from under dark lashes as the man brought his spoon to his lips, ignoring Gift once again.
