Quite Ground

Chapter 1

~•~

The plane landed via Suvarnabhumi Airport with a soft jolt that ran through Taeyang’s bones.

For a moment, everything was still.

Then the cabin filled with movement—seatbelts clicking open, bags pulled from overhead compartments, quiet conversations rising like a tide. People smiled, stretched, sighed with relief. A family a few rows ahead started laughing about something, the sound light and effortless.

Taeyang stayed seated.

His hands rested in his lap, fingers loosely interlaced. His passport sat on top of his carry-on like it was heavier than it should’ve been. He stared at the small booklet for a second too long, as if it might suddenly change its mind and tell him he wasn’t allowed to come back.

Tae-yang Thanasiri.

The name looked strange printed so neatly, both in Thai and English on his passport.

Like it belonged to someone else. He hadn't seen it in Thai for such a long time.

He finally exhaled and stood when the line began to move.

The aisle was narrow, bodies pressed close, the smell of recycled air mixing with perfume and coffee and travel exhaustion. Taeyang kept his eyes forward. He didn’t want to accidentally meet anyone’s gaze. Didn’t want to invite conversation.

His Korean was good. His Thai was still there too, somewhere under the surface, but he hadn’t used it properly in years, as even his father, though he was Thai, only ever spoke korean as soon as they moved to Korea. So Taeyang didn’t trust the words to come out steady.

As he stepped out of the plane, warm air wrapped around him.

Thailand always greeted people like that.

Not gently—warmly. Boldly. Like it didn’t care what you were used to anymore.

Taeyang paused just for a second at the top of the stairs.

The sky was brighter than the one he’d left behind.

In Korea, the mornings had felt sharp. Clean. Cold in a way that cut through your clothes. Here, even the air felt alive. Thick and heavy with humidity.

He wasn’t sure if the tightness in his chest was nostalgia or something else.

He followed the signs into the airport, passing advertisements in Thai and English. He kept walking, quietly moving with the crowd. Everything felt louder than he remembered, or maybe he’d just gotten used to the different pace of another country.

The immigration line was long.

Taeyang stood in it patiently with his eyes cast down. He watched the floor tiles, passing feet that slowly moved forward.

He tried not to think too hard, because thinking too hard was dangerous.

Thinking too hard meant remembering the last conversation he’d had before leaving.

The sound of his own voice—shaking, scared and so desperate.

The sound of another angry voice.

Taeyang’s fingers tightened around the strap of his backpack until his knuckles turned pale.

He forced himself to loosen his grip.

When the line moved and it was finally his turn, he stepped forward, handing his passport to the officer with both hands, automatically polite. The officer barely glanced at him before scanning it.

Taeyang stood still, heart beating strangely fast.

The officer looked up.

His eyes flicked over Taeyang’s face, his features, his name, then he gave the passport back.

Taeyang accepted it back with a quiet nod.

“Thank you,” he said in Thai, voice soft but clear and barely accented on the words so long unused.

The officer’s eyebrows lifted slightly, like he hadn’t expected it.

Taeyang didn’t wait to see his reaction so he walked away quickly, blending back into the crowd.

Only when he reached the baggage claim did he allow himself to breathe properly.

He stood by the conveyor belt, watching suitcases appear one by one like they were being delivered from another world. People gathered their bags with excitement, relief and impatience.

Taeyang didn’t feel any of those things.

He felt as if he was in a trance.

Like he’d left one life behind but hadn’t fully stepped into the next yet.

His two suitcases, carrying literally everything he owned now, finally appeared. Black, scratched, a small pink luggage tag still hanging from the handles. He grabbed them and pulled them off the belt.

He shoved the suitcases forward and headed out.

The arrival hall was crowded. People holding signs, families hugging and couples laughing. A little boy ran forward screaming “Mom!” as if he hadn’t seen her in years, even though she probably just came back from a weekend trip.

Taeyang slowed unconsciously. As his eyes scanned the crowd. Not because he expected anyone to be there, but because some part of him still remembered what it felt like to be welcomed.

But today, he didn't have that.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he froze.

The vibration felt like a hand grabbing his wrist.

For a second, he couldn’t move but then he forced himself to pull the phone out.

The screen lit up with another notification.

He didn't open it, just turned off the screen and pushed his phone back into his pocket, where it kept vibrating a couple of more times.

He turned away from the crowd, dragging his suitcase toward the exit.

Outside, the heat hit him again.

It was like walking into a different element entirely. The air shimmered with the smells of gasoline, hot pavement, and humidity. People shouted over each other, taxi drivers calling out destinations, wheels rolling over pavement.

Taeyang stood overwhelmed for a moment, before he reached up and adjusted the strap of the bag on his shoulder.

He could do this.

It was just a ride to Hua Hin.

Just a few hours on the road for a new beginning.

His phone buzzed again, but this time, he didn't even take it out of his pocket and instead he walked toward the bus terminal.

The ride out of the city was quiet at first.

Not because Bangkok was quiet, as Bangkok was never quiet, but because inside the bus, everything felt muffled. Air-conditioning hummed overhead, cold enough to raise goosebumps on Taeyang’s arms. The curtains were half drawn, blocking out the harsh midday light, and the seats smelled faintly of fabric cleaner and old plastic.

Someone a few rows ahead was already asleep, head pressed against the window. A child whispered to his mother. A man behind Taeyang scrolled through his phone with the sound turned up too loud.

Taeyang sat still, his backpack on his lap like a shield, his suitcases shoved into the compartment beneath the bus.

He kept his eyes forward as the buses engine rumbled, and then, with a slow lurch, it began to move.

They crawled through the outer roads first, trapped in traffic for a time that felt endless. Taeyang watched the city pass by through the glass. The concrete, billboards, tangled power lines, endless rows of cars and motorbikes squeezing through gaps that hardly exist.

He didn’t relax until the bus finally reached the highway and its movement smoothed out while the noise changed.

There were less horns and less shouting, instead the roads became a steady sound beneath the tires.

Bangkok began to peel away behind them in layers, as tall buildings became shorter ones.

Shorter ones became long stretches of shops and warehouses.

Then the scenery opened wider.

Fields began to appear, with patches of green and brown, palm trees scattered like someone had dropped them at random. Small houses stood near the road, tin roofs flashing in the sun.

For the first time since landing, Taeyang let himself breathe a little deeper, while the bus kept moving south and with every kilometer, it felt like he was being carried farther away from the life he had run from.

Taeyang leaned his head against the windows cool glass, as Thailand passed by like a memory playing on fast-forward.

He watched it silently and tried to focus on the good things.

The way the sunlight looked here and the way the trees moved in the wind.

The colors, so bright and alive.

But every time he relaxed, something inside him tightened again and his mind kept drifting.

To a hand gripping his arm too hard and a voice that sounded sweet in public but sharp in private.

To the way, he'd started checking his phone constantly, even when it wasn’t buzzing and how he'd learned to keep his emotions quiet and controlled, because anything else would start another round of pain.

Taeyang swallowed back his rising anxiety as his fingers brushed the inside of his wrist unconsciously, rubbing at skin that looked almost normal again.

Nothing too obviously visible, but the bruising had not quite faded yet, but something his body still remembered.

He stared out the window harder, as if he could force the thoughts away.

Hua Hin was the goal.

Hua Hin was quiet and calm. A coastal town where people moved slower, where mornings smelled like salt and coffee instead of subway stations and rain-soaked concrete.

It was where he’d been born.

Where he’d been a kid and where he’d still hoped he belonged to someone.

Hours passed, while the sunlight shifted, the sky opened wider and at least slowly, the air began to change.

Taeyang noticed it before he even saw the sea.

A different smell and the breeze felt lighter through the crack in the window.

His heart beat strangely fast.

The bus entered Hua Hin like it was slipping into a quieter version of the world. The roads were calmer, lined with trees and small shops. Signs in Thai, colorful awnings, cafés with open fronts and plants hanging from their ceilings.

Taeyang’s fingers curled around his bag strap.

He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he let it out.

For him this place felt the same as it did 12 years ago, when he last was here, even though there were obviously some changes.

Some buildings were new. Some streets had changed. But the feeling underneath was familiar.

The bus station in Hua Hin was smaller than Taeyang remembered.

Or maybe he had just gotten bigger.

When he stepped down from the bus with stiff legs, people moved around him with the casual ease of locals, while Tourists stood in clusters, blinking confused like they hadn’t expected Thailand to be this hot.

Taeyang pulled his suitcases down from the storage compartment, the handles rattling as the wheels hit the uneven ground. His backpack felt heavier now and for a moment, he just stood there.

The bus pulled away behind him with a low groan, leaving him on the curb with his luggage and the sudden, terrifying awareness that he was really here.

Hua Hin.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored it yet again and looked around.

A few taxis waited near the station, some of them official, some of them not. A man called out in Thai, asking where he was going. Another tried English.

Taeyang swallowed and forced himself to step forward and gave the address of his destination to one of the drivers. The man nodded immediately, gesturing toward his car.

“Okay. Let's go.”

Taeyang followed, dragging his suitcases behind himself. The driver opened the trunk without a word, grabbed one of the suitcases while Taeyang lifted the other with both hands, muscles straining from exhaustion as he lifter it into the trunk.

When he slid into the backseat, the door shut with a solid thud.

The taxi was old but clean enough. The seats were cracked leather, the air smelled faintly of jasmine from a plastic charm hanging on the rearview mirror. The driver glanced at him in the mirror before he got the taxi moving.

Every time the taxi slowed, or stopped at a light, his pulse spiked with the irrational fear that someone would open the door and drag him out.

That fear didn’t leave, even when he told himself it was ridiculous.

The taxi turned onto a quieter street closer to the coast. Then the driver slowed and eventually stopped at the curb. He caught glimpses of the ocean between buildings.

“Here,” he said, pointing.

Taeyang’s breath caught. He caught glimpses of the ocean between buildings.

The café stood there like it had never changed. Warm light behind the windows, a chalkboard sign outside, plants hanging near the doorway. The same bell above the entrance.

Like time hadn’t touched it.

Taeyang stared for a moment longer, his hands trembled slightly as he reached for the door handle.

He paid the driver quickly, voice barely above a whisper when he thanked him.

Then he stepped out onto the sidewalk, unloading his belongings and finally, after more then 9 hours of traveling from Seoul to Hua Hin, Taeyang stood in front of the doors of his aunt's cafe.

His reflection stared back at him faintly in the glass of the door.

He looked tired and thin and like someone who had run too far and still didn’t feel safe.

His fingers tightened around the suitcase handles.

Then he pushed the door open.

The bell chimed.

And Taeyang stepped inside.

The bell above the door chimed softly.

It wasn’t loud, not with the café so quiet. Only a few customers sat scattered around the room. Two tourists by the window with iced drinks, an older Thai man reading something on his phone, and a woman in the corner eating slowly like she had nowhere else to be.

Taeyang stood just inside the doorway, a suitcase in both hands and his backpack digging into his shoulder. For a moment, he didn’t move.

It felt unreal.

The café looked almost the same as he remembered it. The chairs and tables where new, as were the colors of the walls and the lights a little brighter, but the feeling was familiar in a way that made his chest tighten.

Behind the counter, his aunt Kim Sunhee was wiping down cups. Her hair was tied back neatly, her apron dusted with flour like she’d been baking all morning. She wasn’t looking at the door yet.

A young man, that could only be his cousin Nava was there too, leaning against the espresso machine with his phone in his hand, humming quietly to himself.

Taeyang swallowed hard, but his throat felt dry.

“Auntie…” he said, voice soft.

Sunhee froze.

The cup in her hand stopped moving. The cloth went still against the glass. Slowly, like she didn’t trust her own ears, she lifted her head.

Her eyes landed on him and at first, her face didn’t change.

Her expression was blank, stunned, as if her brain couldn’t connect what she was seeing to something real.

Then her lips parted, while her breath caught so sharply it sounded like it hurt.

For one second, she didn’t move at all.

Then the cloth slipped from her fingers and dropped onto the counter.

“Wan…?” she whispered.

Taeyang didn’t answer right away. He couldn’t. The sound of his name in her voice hit him somewhere deep, somewhere he’d kept closed for years.

Sunhee stepped out from behind the counter.

One step.

Then another.

Her eyes widened like she was afraid he would vanish if she blinked too hard.

“Wan?” she said again, louder now, disbelief trembling through the word. “Taeyang?”

Taeyang nodded once.

And that was all it took.

Sunhee’s face crumpled immediately. Her hand flew to her mouth, like she was trying to stop a sound from escaping, but her eyes filled instantly, tears spilling before she could even pretend to be composed.

“Oh my god,” she breathed.

Then she moved.

Fast.

She crossed the café in seconds, apron swinging, hands shaking. Taeyang barely had time to brace himself before she grabbed him.

It wasn’t a gentle hug. It was the hug of crushing desperation, full of years that had been missing. She wrapped her arms around him like she was afraid someone might take him away again, before she fully could understand that he was really right in front of her.

Taeyang stiffened instinctively.

His body reacted before his mind could catch up.

But Sunhee didn’t tighten her grip in a way that hurt. She held him like warmth. Like safety. Like home.

Taeyang’s shoulders slowly loosened.

His fingers hesitated, then he raised his arms and hugged her back.

Sunhee made a broken sound, halfway between a laugh and a sob.

“You’re here,” she whispered into his hair. “You really came back to me.”

Taeyang closed his eyes.

“I’m here,” he said quietly.

Sunhee pulled back just enough to look at his face. Her hands immediately moved to his cheeks, holding him like she needed to make sure he was real, as she stared at him like she was memorizing him again.

“You’re so thin,” she said, voice shaking. “Why are you so thin? Are you okay?”

Taeyang forced a small smile.

“I’m okay,” he said quickly.

Sunhee’s eyes narrowed and THAT expression hadn’t changed in twelve years.

“You always say that you’re okay,” she muttered, but she didn’t push. Not yet.

Instead she wiped at her own face angrily, as if the tears offended her.

Then she kissed his forehead.

Hard.

Like a stamp of ownership.

“Sit,” she ordered immediately. “You sit down. I will make you food.”

“Auntie—” Taeyang started.

“No arguing,” Sunhee snapped, but her voice was trembling too much to be truly harsh. “You came all the way here and you think I let you stand like a tourist and not feed you? Sit.”

Taeyang nodded automatically and let his suitcase rest by the wall.

Only then did Nava finally speak.

Because Nava had been standing completely frozen the entire time, staring at Taeyang like his brain had stopped functioning.

His mouth was slightly open, as his eyes were wide.

“...P’ ?” he said cautiously.

Taeyang looked up.

“Nava,” he said.

Nava blinked once, then blinked again.

He took one slow step forward, as if approaching a wild animal that might run away.

“You’re… real?” Nava asked.

Taeyang let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh.

“I think so.”

Nava stared at him for another half second.

Then suddenly his face cracked into something bright and overwhelmed.

“Oh my god,” he burst out, voice rising. “Oh my god, you’re here!”

He lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Taeyang without warning.

Taeyang stiffened again, more out of surprise than fear this time, and then relaxed into the embrace of his cousin and childhood best friend.

Nava held on like he’d decided letting go was illegal.

“You left,” Nava said into his shoulder, voice muffled. “You just disappeared!”

Taeyang swallowed.

“I know,” he said quietly.

Nava pulled back, still gripping his arms like he needed proof that he wasn’t dreaming.

“You’re taller,” Nava announced, eyes scanning him. “You got taller.”

Taeyang blinked.

“Nava, I’m twenty-four,” he said.

Nava frowned, offended.

“So? People can still get taller.”

Sunhee sniffed loudly, wiping her cheeks again.

“He didn’t get taller,” she said. “You just stayed small.”

“Mom!”

Sunhee pointed at Taeyang again, eyes fierce despite the tears.

“Sit,” she repeated. “I’ll make you your favourite food. I know you are hungry. I don’t care what you say.”

“Okay,” he said softly and a tentative smile creeped into his face.

Sunhee’s face softened instantly, like she’d been waiting for that one word for twelve years.

“Good,” she said firmly. “Good boy.”

Taeyang flinched at the words, not because they were wrong, but because they were gentle and he hadn’t been treated gently in a long time.

Nava slid into the chair across from him immediately, leaning forward with restless curiosity like he might explode if he didn’t ask everything at once.

“So,” he said, eyes wide. “Why are you here?”

Taeyang’s hands rested on the table.

His fingers curled slightly against the wood.

He looked down for a moment, then forced himself to lift his gaze again.

“I wanted to surprise you,” he said quietly.

Sunhee paused in the middle of walking toward the kitchen.

Her eyes softened again.

Then she nodded once, like she accepted it completely.

“Okay,” she said simply. “Then surprise me by eating properly.”

Nava stared at Taeyang like he didn’t fully believe the answer.

But he didn’t argue.

Not yet.

Taeyang sat there in the quiet café, surrounded by warm light and familiar voices, while Sunhee disappeared into the kitchen and Nava kept staring at him like he was a miracle.