Melted: A MaxTul AU story

Sixty: The Other One

Metinee Pakorn could not recall the last time she felt such complete fury. She did not like confusion and mixed signals and everything has been topsy turvy for a while now. She began the day worried that Tul would not be able to pull off his presentation because there was no way he would be able to produce enough samples in time. She has disliked Tul since he showed up in her house years ago, that thin boy with Apasiri's face who seemed to beguile everyone in his path. However, here she was put in the position of routing for him against her own son because his recent success had brought such good favor to Channarong.

She believed that Plustor probably had something to do with the disappearing samples, but even when she asked him directly, he denied it, and this time her people didn't have enough time to find anything out themselves. She had always been able to find out what Plustor was up to in time to if not stop at least redirect the damage, but she was not able to that this time.

She had even risked talking to Channarong about her concerns, but he didn't believe that Plustor had anything to do with it. He knew that Plustor disliked Tul and felt a rivalry with him, but her naïve husband didn't think that Plustor would risk stealing within the company and ruining the company's reputation to keep Tul from succeeding. Metinee had sighed, realizing that her husband didn't really know their son at all and that this was her doing. In the end, Channarong had been disappointed in her for having so little faith in their son.

Then, ironically, the mysterious appearance of not just enough samples for the presentation but enough to represent all the sample types did not improve her day. Having both Sinjai Hongtai and Michelle Bagnet on the opposite side of the table from her and she in the position of supplicant in her own company had put her in a foul mood. She should have been in a position of power, which is why she always liked having such meetings on her turf, but neither Sinjai nor Michelle seemed to care and treated Shilapath as if it were a necessary annoyance in their way to help Tul. It didn't get any better when Sinjai raised the issue directly that she had tried to raise with her own husband: Plustor's role in the theft.

It made her think about, not for the first time that day, what Sinjai Hongtai had said earlier when Metinee had commented on her hugging Tul. She had acted like it was natural and that she hugged "only people I feel close to or people whom I believe weren't given enough nurturing and care when they were young." Metinee knew exactly what Sinjai was implying—that Metinee had not given Tul enough affection. So what? He wasn't her son. And how did this world become one in which Sinjai Hongtai who had no children of her own was making Metinee feel like a negligent mother?

This memory along with the other insults and slights that had happened to her this morning were chasing each other in her mind and had been raising her inner temperature for a while. It had taken all of her personal upbringing, professional training, and her years of practice not to grab Sinjai Hongtai by the hair across the table; however, part of her knew that her restraint came not just from her breeding but because there were too many truths that had come out of that woman's mouth.

Metinee wasn't just angry because she felt attacked but because she didn't have a way to really counter them. Sinjai Hongtai was correct that the situation looked bad if the Board had taken hold of it. She was upset that her husband hadn't told her, but she could guess why; he probably didn't want her to worry. And since he had no idea of Plustor's involvement, he wouldn't realize the real danger they were in. Over the years, she had done her best to keep Plustor's most egregious problems away from her husband. Glancing at her son now, Metinee wondered whether that had been wise.

Metinee had taken over the education of Plustor to groom him to be an asset to Channarong. Plustor had always seemed too soft to her, needing emotional support in ways that she found a problem in a future heir to the Pakorn empire. It was one of the things that had so worried her when she had come upon him and Tul doing homework together that day. She had seen how excited Plustor was and how happy he had been to get the help from Tul. It wasn't just about the homework but the fact that as gregarious as he was, Plustor really didn't have that many friends at school. He was a skinny, awkward, and anxious kid, easily taken advantage of because he wanted to be liked so much.