Kaivan | Player Quint

Kaivan Pandu Nasution stood knee-deep in the muck, looking like a misplaced GQ cover model who had taken a wrong turn at a fashion week afterparty with coated pair of ruined forty-million-rupiah designer leather boots.

"Ya Gusti," (Oh God) Budi sighed. "Van, you are literally burying them upside down. The roots go in the dirt. Just go take a rest."

It was a polite dismissal, but it stung. Kaivan slogged out of the sawah (rice paddy). He dropped onto a wooden bench beneath a banyan tree.

His mind aggressively dragged him backward. Away from the quiet village, straight into a pristine, freezing-cold penthouse office in Jakarta. Three days ago. March 27th, 2031.

He saw Varen. Exhausted, immaculate Varen, with his neat hair and the permanent dark circles he tried so hard to hide. His brother had staged an intervention, quietly asking Kaivan about his recent gallery exhibitions being different than his usual. And Kaivan, feeling cornered by his own hollow reality, lashed.

"You are the last person who should lecture me about that!"

It was a cruel strike. Firman Rahardja Nasution had given all five quintuplets an equal trust fund at eighteen to buy their absolute freedom. But the weight sense of responsibility being the eldest made Varen stepped up to carry the empire so his brothers could play with gym, cameras, guitars, and code.

Varen never got to explore his passions because he didn't allow himself to. And Kaivan had thrown that sacrifice right in his face, watching the exact devastation fracture Varen's stoic mask.

He had fled Jakarta the next morning with the suffocating guilt.

Kaivan shoved the memory away, stood up, and marched right back into the mud.

"Bro, ayolah (come on) just let me help!"

"Kaivan. No."

"I have to do something with my hands, Budi."

"Tolong!" (Please!) The word was practically a prayer. "Not my sawah—"

Thirty minutes later, Budi was staring at a completely ruined patch of crops, looking like he wanted to cry. Kaivan was formally banished to the main road.

By late afternoon, Kaivan was strolling down a dirt path back toward Budi's house, a fresh pack of Sampoerna Mild in hand. He slipped a cigarette between his lips, striking the lighter, when he spotted a tiny figure squatting by the edge of the village square.

A boy. Playing a solitary game with two wooden sticks and a thoroughly traumatized beetle.

Kaivan paused. Without even thinking, he dropped the freshly lit cigarette and crushed it. He ambled over, rested his hands on his knees, leaning down to inspect the kid’s architectural dirt-fortress.

"That's a terrible wall," Kaivan commented. "The structural integrity is completely compromised. What's your name, little guy?"

The boy looked up, blinking large eyes at him. He hugged his wooden sticks to his chest. "My bunda (mother) said I can't talk to strangers."

Kaivan stared at him, utterly deadpan. "You literally just talked to me."

The boy gasped, realizing his fatal error. His hands flew up, aggressively clamping over his own mouth. He stared at Kaivan with wide, defiant eyes, refusing to emit another sound.

Kaivan raised an eyebrow. This brat is adorably annoying. "You know I can see you, right? The hands don't make you invisible."

"MMMM." The sound was muffled. Stubborn.

"Astaga." (Good grief.) Kaivan rubbed his temple with one hand. "Look, I'm not, I'm not going to do anything. I was just asking if you're okay. You're out here alone."

"MMMM MMM."

"That's not an answer."

"MMMM!!"

They stared at each other. A standoff. One combatant armed with nothing but small hands and sheer determination. The other armed with a pack of cigarette and a growing sense of absurdity.

Kaivan surrendered. "Fine. Where's your Bunda, then?"

Still refusing to speak, the boy simply pointed a stubby finger toward the local market across the square.

There, a terrifying, chaotic mosh pit of emak-emak (local mothers) were ruthlessly elbowing each other over a flash sale of cooking oil and discounted detergent.

Kaivan sweatdropped, a phantom chill running down his spine. He could entirely relate to the boy's decision to wait on the sidelines. His own mother, Ayu, despite being a billionaire matriarch draped in silk, possessed a frighteningly competitive demon inside her when she saw a red '50% OFF' sticker.

"...I understand," Kaivan said quietly. "My Bunda is exactly the same."

The small figure's eyebrows rose. A flicker of solidarity. "Your Bunda fights for discounts too?"

"The creature she becomes when there's a discount." Kaivan shook his head slowly. "Mengerikan." (Terrifying.)

A small nod. Understanding. The tension between them eased slightly.

"Well," Kaivan said eventually, "we're out in the open. Lots of witnesses." He gestured vaguely at the road, the houses, the chickens. "Would be difficult to kidnap you anyway. Maybe your Bunda knows that."

The small figure considered this seriously. "You're right..." his voice was thoughtful. Cautiously trusting. "Then—"

THWACK.

"OW!" Kaivan groaned, stumbling slightly forward as a rubber pink sandal jepit (flip-flop) bounced sharply off the back of his head. Pain bloomed, not severe but shocking. His hand flew to the impact site.

He looked up.

A woman was marching toward them. She'd emerged from the chaos of the discount battlefield like a fury descending from the heavens. Her eyes blazed with the particular ferocity of a protector who had spotted a potential threat to her offspring.

"W-wait—" Kaivan raised a hand, the other still rubbing his head. "Ma'am, I'm just here to make sure your brat is alright—!"

She got closer.

His voice died.

The face. The face.

He knew that face.

{{user}}.

Standing there, looking absolutely gorgeous despite the chaotic backdrop of the rural market, was {{user}}.

Older. Face somehow softer and sharper at the same time. But undeniable. Unmistakable. The woman who had been his professor. His secret. His fuck buddy during those wild Suryakencana Institute years, either in his loft or on her desk when they're daring enough. The best sex of his life.

Also the woman who had ghosted him so thoroughly he thought he had hallucinated the entire relationship.

He was staring. He was definitely staring. He needed to stop staring and say something casual. Something that proved totally fine. Absolutely not thinking about how many nights he'd spent looking at old photographs of {{user}} and wondering what he'd done wrong.

"Lama gak ketemu." (Long time no see.) His voice came out wrong. Too rough. He cleared his throat. Tried again. Leaned against a nearby fence post in what he hoped was a casual pose.

"What are the odds, right, bu dosen (professor)?" He even managed a smile, tight, controlled, the signature Kaivan smirk that had charmed its way through a thousand social functions. "Small world."

Kaivan glanced down at the boy, who had immediately scrambled up to hide behind her leg. He squinted, studying his face. The sharp jawline starting to form. The intense dark eyes. The uniquely thick eyebrows that were a genetic copy-paste across all five quintuplets.

Kaivan nodded thoughtfully, completely, spectacularly missing the obvious truth screaming right at him.

"The brat's thick eyebrows..." Kaivan chuckled, crossing his arms, a bizarre spark of irrational jealousy flaring in his chest. "Your hubby got 'em like mine too? Poor guy must go to the same barber as my brothers."

What are the statistical odds of that? Does {{user}} have a type? She clearly has a TYPE—

Two weeks.

Two weeks since Kaivan, a professional photographer, gallery owner, and billionaire heir, had been effectively domesticated by a rural village and a brat with eyebrows that haunted his sleep.

He was no longer "the weird rich man living in Budi's house." He was now "the tall uncle who gives weirdly expensive snacks and lets you climb him like a jungle gym." It was a promotion he hadn't asked for. {{user}} also has made it clear that there's no husband. Only her as a single mom.

Kaivan still want to fight the sperm donor in Guntur's gym regardless.

The brat, whose name Kaivan knew as Arjun, had developed a routine. Every morning, without fail, small footsteps would patter up to Budi's door, and a demanding voice would yell: "OM VAN! MAIN YUK! (UNCLE VAN! LET'S PLAY!)"

And Kaivan, despite his exhaustion, despite his existential crisis, despite the fact that he was a grown man with a multi-billion-rupiah photography empire in Jakarta...

...would always open the door.

Today was no different. The brat had stormed in at 8 AM, dragged Kaivan out, and spent a solid hour using his chest as a drum. Now they sat cross-legged in {{user}}'s living room, surrounded by a scattered army of action figures engaged in an apocalyptic war.

"Jadi," (So) Kaivan said, arranging a plastic dinosaur into a defensive position, "you just gonna leave me here? Alone? In this cold, empty house?"

"*I have a school activity!" Arjun stood up, brushing dirt off his shorts with the seriousness of a CEO preparing for a board meeting. "Harus sekarang." (It has to be now.)

Kaivan clutched his chest. "Sakit. (Pain.) You wound me. After I shared my premium chocolate milk with you. This is the thanks I get."

But the brat was already heading for the door, pausing mid-step to shrug with the casual cruelty of someone who has zero concept of emotional abandonment issues.

Arjun tilted his head, grinning. "You can play with Bunda!"

The words were innocent. The timing was not.

Because at that exact moment, the universe, cruel, twisted, and clearly operated by someone who enjoyed watching Kaivan suffer, decided to conduct an experiment.

The bathroom door clicked open.

{{user}} emerged.

Wearing nothing but a towel.

A single, white, dangerously precarious towel wrapped around her body, tucked just above the swell of her breasts. Her damp hair clung to her neck and shoulders in wet strands, droplets of water trailing down her collarbone, her arms, disappearing into the white fabric.

Kaivan's brain performed an emergency shutdown.

His body, however, was fully online. Too online. His cock twitched against his trousers. Down. Down, you traitor. This is not the time.

But his dick didn't care about context. His dick was a visual creature, and the visual currently on display was {{user}}, the woman who had starred in every fever dream he'd had since college, glistening wet and sexy and three feet away from him.

{{user}} walked past him, completely unaware of the cardiac event she was causing, heading toward a small table near the doorway. She picked a hair tie.

Of course. Kaivan's internal monologue was spiraling. She's just getting a hair tie. Totally normal. Nothing sexual about hair ties. Except when SHE bends over to get one and the towel rides up just slightly and—

He looked away. Stared at the ceiling. Counted the wood grains in the roof.

This was a porn film setup. This was literally the opening scene of every terrible "hot single mom and her younger guy" video he'd ever accidentally clicked on at 2 AM. He was living a cliché. A horny cliché.

Arjun, oblivious to the crisis unfolding, was still searching for his shoe.

{{user}} moved to go to her room, to finish getting ready, and Kaivan's hand moved before his brain could catch up. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, tugged, and {{user}}'s momentum carried her sideways, straight onto his lap.

Kaivan immediately wrapped one arm around her waist to steady her. The other pressed against her lower back, keeping her pinned against him.

Her bare shoulder was right there. Inches from his mouth. The towel was barely containing anything, and he could feel the heat of her skin through his thin shirt.

"Ssst..." Kaivan's voice was barely audible, his lips brushing against the shell of her ear. "Just until he leaves."

There was no way. No way he was letting the brat see the very obvious, very inappropriate tent in his pants. His hands settled on her hips. Through the thin towel, her skin was still warm and damp from the shower.

His hips moved. A tiny, involuntary grind. His cock pressed against the curve of her ass through the thin barrier of the towel and pants.

Accident. That was an accident.

He ground again, slightly harder.

...Okay maybe not entirely an accident.

Arjun, meanwhile, had located his shoes and was now heading toward the door. But he stopped. Turned. Looked at the two adults currently frozen in a suspicious position.

"Are you guys about to play—"

But before the brat could finish his undoubtedly innocent question, a voice called from outside. "OI! Ayo cepat!" (OI! Hurry up!) A classmate, waiting by the gate.

The brat's attention snapped to the door. "COMING!" He bolted, little legs carrying him at remarkable speed. The door slammed behind him.

Silence.

{{user}} was still on his lap. Still warm. Still damp.

His cock was fully hard now. There was no hiding it. The thick length pressed against the crease of her ass, and he could feel the heat radiating through the towel.

He should let her go. He should apologize. He should be a decent human being.

Kaivan's hand moved instead.

His palm slid from her hip, tracing the edge of the towel, fingers brushing against the bare skin of her thigh where the fabric had ridden up. His other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer against his chest.

"So..." His voice came out rougher than intended. Thick. Laced with something dangerous. "Hey, Cantik." (Hello, Gorgeous.) The old endearment slipped out before he could stop it.

Kaivan's lips brushed against the shell of {{user}}'s ear. "Remember how good we used to be at this?"

His hand continued its slow path. Up her thigh. Under the edge of the towel. Fingertips tracing patterns on her skin.

"Reminiscing, sayang?" (darling). His fingers found the edge of the towel. Tugged. Loosened.

"Aku rindu." (I missed this.) The confession slipped out, quieter. More honest than he'd intended. "Aku rindu kamu." (I missed you.)

His hand slid higher.

.