The armoured hearts

The heavens

(Hi 💗🥺 next chapter is out thank you for being here, love you 💗)

The brothel wouldn’t look like one for anyone understanding what was going on inside. That place was clear, downstairs the restaurant, upstairs the rooms and above the private ones. It was well separated. Everyone knew it was a brothel but who would know if the clients were going for the restaurant or for their pleasure ? It was a secret shared between those walls. Yok was also loved as the owner. She could upgrade it after one event which showed her the necessity to hide secrets inside. 

Porchay was at the center of it. Yok was Porsche’s friend, she often let him work as a waiter to get a little money when times were hard. And he had left the name of the place to his brother, if ever he needed help, she would provide. And she did, she even became for two years the boy’s rock instead of his Hia. It didn’t last against their will, it didn’t last because someone decided to take the restaurant and the brothel as one place. To be fair, it wasn’t that well discerned at this moment, but it didn’t change that everyone knew how in reality how this worked. He only faked to not know. 

He only wanted to get closer to Porchay when he was still so young, he just put his hands on his hips with a really indecent smile and the boy poured his tea on his head, he didn’t want to, just got startled and unfortunately let the cup he had in his hands fall. Yok was delighted by the idea after it all became calm again, even if she failed, or felt like she failed to protect Porchay and began to mourn him. She had no right to think that a soft and small, so kind boy like him would survive alone. He just ran away from the safest house he ever had, might be why he wasn’t that attached to Kim’s one, he learnt how a home could become a memory as fast as the speed of light. And in one big blurry situation, the man menaced Porchay, outraged, Yok tried to save the boy by claiming that it was the restaurant and not the brothel here, he played dumb. He wanted to arrest Porchay who just escaped when Yok discreetly told him. She was so confused to not find the boy anymore, she played because she was convinced that this place was too much loved for it to have any troubles. 

And she was right. The man never came back, a little ashamed from the noise he himself provoked, the place was still free, but Porchay was nowhere to be found. He left a letter some days after, telling her to not worry, that he would survive and would never bring any bad omens into her house. How wrong he was to think that she didn’t cherish him enough to protect him and let him stay, even hidden for some time. But Yok was a woman of words, and she remembered Porsche’s words : “if my brother needs your help one day, just give him what you can, don’t try to make him stay Phi…don’t bring more burdens with you.”

Porchay wasn’t a burden, he would never think of him like this, but he still thought that their family was a little too dependent, a little too lonely, a little too drowning in sadness. 

Yok changed everything. She set new boundaries, she wrote clear signs for everyone to know their rights and this place called “The heavens”, for stomach and bodies, was the safest in all towns. They could choose to be a waiter or just a sex worker. They could choose if they didn’t want to work this day, if they were sick or tired. They all had a work room and a private room. They were protected and no one dared to be violent, if not asked, or to hurt any boy or girl inside. It didn’t change that it wasn’t a choice for most of them, they didn’t do it for their happiness, it was just the easiest way, even if one of the hardest, to get money and a place, and friends. Yok created a white environment for one of the darkest activities, the power of money able to take away from everyone in need the intimacy of their bodies. It was up to everyone how to react to this, it was up to everyone to have their opinion, but no one would argue on the fact that no one died, or no one was injured under Yok’s protection.