The next morning, Inn awoke with a crick in his neck, another annoying human quirk. He glanced across the hospital room to see Lion, awake and chewing anxiously on his lip.

“How is she?” Inn asked, his voice a dry croak.

“Stable,” Lion replied, his knee bouncing up and down in a jittery manner. “The doctor keeps checking on her. It was a bad asthma attack and she might have mild pneumonia and a chest infection...” Lion trailed off.

“I see,” Inn replied, sitting up and stretching out his arms. The light was filtering through the window but his alarm for school hadn’t gone off so it couldn’t be seven yet.

“Hey Inn,” Lion looked over to him. “I wanted to say thank you. If it had just been me, there’s no way I would have been able to carry Granny downstairs. Plus, this place is hideously expensive and…” Lion trailed off but he looked upset. “I just, I’m really grateful and I’m sorry if that didn’t come across last night.”

“That’s okay,” Inn replied, finding he really meant it. Lion looked worryingly tired, great dark circles under his eyes and sore patches on his mouth where he had been gnawing on his lip.

“She’s all I have,” Lion whispered quietly. The only other sounds in the room were the rhythmic beeping of the various monitoring machines.

“The doctor said she will be okay?” Inn asked, his chest felt laced with an unrecognised emotion. He tried to catalogue it but couldn’t recall ever having experienced it before. He felt tense and tight as if he wanted the situation to be over. Lion looked so distressed and Inn felt frustrated that he couldn’t fix it immediately.

Inn tried not to imagine what his father Tosokan might think of this anomaly. Inn was wasting so much precious time with this feeble boy and his sick grandmother.

“I will take a cab home and get our school uniform,” Inn stood up abruptly, the chemical bleach smell around the room was making him feel slightly nauseous.

“I want to stay with Granny,” Lion frowned. “I’ll miss a day, I don’t care about the detention. But you should go Inn, you’ve got kickboxing practice today right?”

Inn paused and stared at Lion for a moment, part of him wanted to just stay with the other boy at the hospital. However, Inn also knew his true mission in this world was becoming clogged with confusing thoughts and perhaps some time away would do him good. Plus, without Lion as his constant shadow at school, Inn could perhaps hunt around for a potentially pure heart sacrifice.

“Here,” Inn said, walking forwards to give Lion a handful of baht. “So you can buy yourself breakfast and lunch.”

“Sure,” Lion smiled tiredly, “this hospital has loads of restaurants.”

Inn eyed him suspiciously for a moment, considering whether or not it was likely that Lion would leave his grandmother’s side even for a moment. In the end, however, Inn’s phone alarm started screeching in his pocket and broke his train of thought.

Inn sighed as he swiped to silence the electronic device, “I will be back this evening,” Inn stated. “Then we can go home together.”

“Sure,” Lion smiled again, although it looked even less genuine this time. Inn decided not to push the matter, he could force Lion to go sleep in a real bed later that night. Instead, he left the hospital via the escalators and hailed the nearest bright pink cab to take him back home.

+++

“Is she okay?” Bluebell asked worriedly. The small girl had accosted Inn on their way out from music class, demanding to know where Lion was. Inn had explained about Granny and expressed surprise that the teachers weren’t more sympathetic as to Lion’s reasons for skipping school.

“That’s Thai school for you,” Bluebell shrugged, “must be different in Russia huh?”

Inn huffed and walked to join the lunchtime queue. The idea of having to wait in a line for his food had seemed hideously insulting at first but Inn had grown used to it. Plus, Lion and Bluebell always used the opportunity to start wildly enthusiastic conversations about television programs Inn didn’t understand.

“Granny has had chest problems for ages,” Bluebell murmured as she took her plate of khai jiao from the lunch server and drenched it in fish sauce and chillies.

Inn squeezed lime over his rice as they sat down on a far picnic table. The seats and table themselves were made of rough concrete and there was a trail of ants weaving an undulating line across the slabs beneath them.

“They’ve always struggled to pay for medical treatment though. You say they’re at Bumrungrad Hospital?”

“My family are paying,” Inn replied, deciding it wasn’t really a lie, “to show their gratitude for me being able to stay with Lion and his grandmother.”

“Oh,” Bluebell beamed, “that’s so nice of your family. Do you get on really well with your parents?”

Inn frowned as he thought of his father Tosokan, his great white tusked teeth jutting up against his blue demonic face, his headdress concealing the horror of his nineteen other faces, each as terrible and furious as the last, dripping with the viscera of his enemies.

He tried to think of his mother Nang Monto, her once ethereal beauty ravaged by her time in Longka, her bitterness and ambition hewn through the bloodied sheen in her now demonic eyes.

“I like my space,” Inn concluded, shovelling a spoonful of food into his mouth.

“I get that,” Bluebell nodded sagely. “Well look, I want to come with you after school to visit Granny if that’s okay? We could share a cab.”

Inn shifted on his seat uncomfortably, he hadn’t spent any time with Bluebell alone before without Lion, or anyone really. The closest he got were his awkward sitting sessions with Kay at ballet class.

“I guess so,” Inn nodded. He supposed he didn’t find the other girl too aggravating and her company could probably be tolerated for a while. “But I have Muay Thai club after school for an hour.”

“Oh!” Bluebell’s face lit up. “Lion mentioned you had been recruited, that’s so cool. May I come and watch?”

“If you want,” Inn shrugged, his tongue was burning from a large chunk of chilli and he had forgotten to get a drink with his meal.

“I’ll go buy us both some butterfly pea iced tea,” Bluebell laughed as she noticed Inn’s obvious attempts to not swallow his own expanding tongue. The other girl hopped up and ran off to join the queue again.

Inn stared after her, Bluebell was certainly kind and attentive. What truly qualified a heart as pure? If purity was awarded for simply not committing great bloodied massacres of the honourable Pavilion Army forces, then everyone in this room, bar Inn, would be a candidate.

“You look deep in thought,”

Inn jumped as Nin sat down on the seat next to him. “Sorry,” she giggled, “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just saw you sitting alone and figured I’d say hi.”

“Hi,” Inn repeated before feeling stupid. He shook his head as Nin laughed again, although not unkindly.

“Where is Lion today?” she asked, taking a sip from her drink which was bright green and smelled like cantaloupe.

“Hospital,” Inn replied, his tongue was still burning and he wondered when Bluebell would be returning with tea.

“Oh no!” Nin’s expression turned into one of seemingly genuine concern. “What happened to him?”

“He’s fine,” Inn dismissed. “It’s his grandmother, she has a bad chest infection.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that,” Nin fidgeted with her straw. “You know my father is a respiratory consultant at Bangkok International…I don’t know, I mean I’m sure you already have a good consultant.”

“What’s a consultant?” Inn asked, feeling confused.

“Oh, it’s like a doctor who specialises in that area,” Nin explained, putting her drink down and folding her hands together on her lap. “I just, I mean I’m not sure where Lion’s grandmother is right now…” Nin trailed off looking awkward, her cheeks were blushing slightly.

“Bumrumgrad Hospital,” Inn replied.

“Oh!” Nin’s eyes widened in surprise. “That’s, that’s great – she’ll be really well looked after there. I thought…never mind.”

Inn stared at the other girl, she seemed embarrassed. He realised that Nin must have been aware of Lion’s financial difficulties.

“I am paying,” Inn explained as Nin’s mouth dropped open.

“Wow, that’s so nice of you P’Inn. Also I’m sorry I was rude, I wasn’t trying to be…” Nin let out a frustrated sound and rubbed at her face, “I apologise, I get flustered easily and tend to say the wrong thing. I honestly just wanted to say if you needed a consultant’s advice I could ask my father. Bumrumgrad is really close to BIH as well.”

“Thank you, Nin,” Inn reached out to gently pat the pretty girl’s shoulder, he had seen other boys do it to girls and it always seemed to be well received.

“Oh,” Nin replied, flushing with a pleased smile. “It’s not a problem, really. I mean just think of it as a thank you for coming shopping with me on Friday.”

“Yes,” Inn nodded, though he couldn’t understand why someone would need recompense for going shopping. Shopping was amazing; the plethora of choice and variety of stores that Inn could browse and choose anything he wanted from, it was exhilarating. He knew Lion didn’t enjoy it as much though. When in a mall, the smaller boy preferred to sit in a café and people watch instead.

“Hello Nin,” Bluebell smiled, looking a little curious, as she came to sit back down and handed Inn a drink that was sweeter than anything Lion had made him try so far. Inn grimaced as he attempted to wash the spice from his throat with it.

“Hello Bluebell,” Nin replied looking up from her phone, “sorry I was just messaging my dad about Lion’s grandmother.”

“Oh?” Bluebell frowned, taking a great slurp of her own drink.

“He’s a respiratory consultant,” Nin added with an attractive smile. “I thought maybe he could help. He’s happy to meet me at the hospital later if that’s okay, just to check over Granny’s records and talk to the consultants there, he knows a few of them.”

“That’s very kind of you Nin, thank you,” Bluebell nodded thoughtfully. “I didn’t realise you were so close to Lion.”

“Oh,” Nin flushed pink, “I mean, I’m not really. Of course I’ve known you both since we were all children from ballet though.”

“Yeah, guess so,” Bluebell shrugged, throwing some wrapped buns on the table. “I got four of these so you can have one too Nin. I was just going to save a couple for later during Inn’s Muay Thai practice.”

“You have boxing today?” Nin asked excitedly, raising her eyebrows at Inn. “I’ll come watch! If that’s okay of course?”

Inn couldn’t really understand why all these small females were offering to come watch him fight but he figured it was fine. They could all catch a cab together after practice, plus if there were three of them perhaps Inn would be less expected to make small talk.

Both Nin and Bluebell seemed chatty enough. Inn suppressed a small scoff as he realised Bluebell was already leaning across the table to show Nin some text messages from a boy she liked.

“I mean the sticker is a Shiba Inu farting, what do you think he means by that?” Bluebell was whining as Nin studied the phone with a serious face. Inn rolled his eyes and fired up the Line app on his own cell, there were no messages from Lion so he quickly typed one reminding the other boy to get lunch.

A few moments later Lion sent back a selfie of him holding a packet of fries next to a terrifying statue of a man with a red nose, hair and mouth and yellow dungarees doing the wai pose. Inn wondered if there were other mythical demons he had not heard of?