CIVILIAN . SOM, MAKARA

MALE

LOW SEXDRIVE BISEXUAL

FORTY-TWO

SOMETIME IN JANUARY, 1970

KHMER

KHMER
ENGLISH
A TINY BIT OF FRENCH

BELIEVES HIS REAL NAME IS "SANN". HIS NAME WOULD BE "SOM MAKARA" IN CAMBODIA.

THIS IS STAFF EDITABLE ONLY. DON'T TOUCH THIS. WE WILL EDIT PROFILES ACCORDINGLY. IF YOU TRY ANYTHING WE WILL EAT YOU D<

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THIS IS STAFF EDITABLE ONLY. DON'T TOUCH THIS. WE WILL EDIT PROFILES ACCORDINGLY. IF YOU TRY ANYTHING WE WILL EAT YOU D<

THIS IS STAFF EDITABLE ONLY. DON'T TOUCH THIS. WE WILL EDIT PROFILES ACCORDINGLY. IF YOU TRY ANYTHING WE WILL EAT YOU D<

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REITGERTE

DARRIN "MOOSE" MOORE
LUCIEN MARGAUX
MIKHAIL USENKO
KEIJIRO WATANABE
EILIA TIFIEL
ANASTASIA SOKOLOV
YUUDAI FUJIHARA

MEDIUM

MINK FROM DRAMATICAL MURDER

History is important for everyone, but for Makara, it is his everything. Those who know him but do not know his past can only find him mysterious and confusing. Why does he do the things he does? Why does he struggle to sleep? Why doesn't he choose a career, a wife? Why hasn't he settled down to have kids of his own, and why is he so distant from his family?

For most people, their own personal history starts with their birth. It starts with their childhood, with where they were born and raised, and how their parents brought them up. Makara does not remember any of that, and it has never felt important to him. Anything from that time is gone, the effects washed away by the wave of what came after.

For Makara, it begins with the first time. He doesn't remember the specific event--doesn't remember the gun pressed to his head when he was told to shoot the boy in front of him, who refused to cooperate. He doesn't remember the fear he felt, or the horror when he finally did it.

He was five when the Red Khmer came, and he was only six when they came for him. His parents became casualties, and he was to young to even understand what for. He was too young to understand anything beyond that he was needed, that every person, no matter how young or old, was expected to join the uprising, to be useful to Democratic Kampuchea. There was no distinction between a twenty year old man being drafted and a six year old boy being drafted, save that the six year old was easier to keep under control.

He has memories of that time, but he tries not to think about them. Life as a child soldier was brutal, difficult, and often short. All the boys from his village stayed together, and when the war was over only a few remained. Almost nothing from before that time survived. His own birthday is a mystery, filled in later by extended family in the most general of terms. His parents are likewise a mystery, although he's been told that his father was a minor figure in the government, and that was why he died. Any records that might have existed were destroyed on 'year zero', and he's instead had to scrape together what little he could.

In truth, he's not even sure that he is Som Makara. Makara was what they called him in most of his earliest memories, but the rare time he thinks back to it, he's not sure if Makara was him, or if Makara was simply another boy from his village who he was mixed up with. It's something he'll likely never find out the truth of. Any records were destroyed, and his family never met their nephew before the Red Khmer took power.

For Makara, normal life those years was violence. He moved with his unit, officially a part of the Kampuchean Revolutionary Army. For the first few years, the army simply did as the Red Khmer told them. They perpetrated the Cambodian genocide, putting down any of those who could be considered an enemy to the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea. Near the end of 1978, things changed, and Makara found himself with a new enemy--the vietnamese.

Tensions between Vietnam and the Red Khmer had been rising, and the Red Khmer were putting as many soldiers against the border as they could. Makara had lived long enough to become a 'good soldier' in the eyes of the Red Khmer, but that did not spare him from the front lines. He had never been to school, and for him there was nothing but battle after battle. When the Vietnamese invaded, his unit began to fall back to the west, protecting what remained of the government as Vietnam established themselves in the capitol.

Food became scarce, and child soldiers became only more valuable, able to survive on less food than an adult. He was pressed into work endlessly, planting mines to protect the Red Khmer's camp on the border to Thailand. What combat he saw then was few and far between, and things once more began to settle down.

In 1984, the camp Makara was living in was overrun by Vietnamese forces. The majority of the camp were killed, but a portion were captured--rounded up and escorted to camps to be checked through. Makara himself was only fourteen, and he looked far younger--scrawny from years of starvation. One of the heads of the camp guessed him to be eleven, and along with the other child soldiers, they made attempts to return them to whatever families they might still have had.

It was difficult though. Neither Makara nor the other boys could really remember a time before the conflict. For the most part they were illiterate, and they remembered only bits and pieces of their names. One by one, they were returned to whatever family could be found, and Makara was no different. Family was found for him, his fathers sister who had fled into Vietnam when the Red Khmer had first began to take power. They'd returned when the Vietnamese invaded as part of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, and had ended up living in the badly damaged capitol when Makara was finally returned to them.

They were strangers to him, and he was a stranger to them. They'd never met him before the war broke out, an unfortunate side effect of living on the far side of Cambodia from where he had lived. They knew nothing of each other, and Makara himself was already fourteen, but still almost completely illiterate. He'd never been to school, and even at the young age was plagued by nightmares. His uncle made the mistake of trying to enroll him in school, but his aunt was quick to pull him out when the trouble started. He was simply too far behind for the already troubled school system to have any chance of helping him, and instead he was taught by his aunt, who did her best to try and catch him up. It was a daunting and nearly impossible task, and so was adjusting to civilian life. There seemed little chance that Makara would ever become normal, and any childhood he might have had was long gone. He slept badly, waking in the night and moving to stare out the windows of the little house they lived in. He reacted badly to the sound of Vietnamese being spoken, either with violence or by withdrawing. It became more and more obvious that Cambodia could never be a real home for him, and as more and more Cambodians left the country, Makara's family joined them.

When Makara arrived in the United States, the man handling their case believed he was eleven. He was fifteen at the time, but he was underweight, and his growth was badly stunted. His family was unable to even give a proper birthday, and while it was noted down as the first of January, a note was made that it was only a guess. Any records that might have included his birthday were long since destroyed, and any information about his early childhood had simply become another victim of the genocide.

Makara and his family were moved into the Pueblo Del Rio housing project in southern LA, along with plenty of other Cambodian refugees. The area was known for crime and gangs already, and with the influx of refugees, it only became more so. It seemed almost a foregone conclusion that Makara would fall in with one, but his aunt wouldn't have it. She made it entirely clear that if he so much as thought of joining a gang, he would be right out on his ass. She wasn't going to stand for it, and with that in mind he did his best to stay away from them.

At sixteen, Makara had a daunting task before him. He spoke almost no English, and struggled even with Khmer. Even though those could be taught, his social problems seemed more obvious and pressing. He spoke little and refused to interact with other children. He was distant even from his cousins, who should have been like siblings to him. While other children struggled to fit into the new environment, Makara didn't even try. He remained withdrawn and quiet, learning what he was taught and going through the motions that were expected from him.

He was twenty-two when he 'graduated' from high school, having never attended a real day of school in his life. He'd been home schooled the entire time, either by his aunt or by an older refugee who had been in America longer than his family, and he felt strangely conflicted over the whole thing. Certainly he was thankful that he could read at all, but it felt painful to be so behind. He felt bitter and struggled with it, and found himself growing jealous when he saw those who were clearly in a better position than he was, but who were wasting things--whether time, money, or the advantages they'd been born with.

While his jealousy improved, it never quite went away, even years later. He was twenty-three when he managed to get his first job, menial shelving work at a grocery store not far from home. He still couldn't drive, and the ability to walk to work was a necessity. He stayed well away from customers, keeping to himself and working hard, happy for the opportunity, no matter how bad it was. Working for minimum wage into his mid-twenties was hardly what most people would consider a 'good opportunity', but for Makara it was. It meant he had money, and that there would always be food. Even if they hadn't truly starved since their arrival in America, it was an ever present concern for the family, and Makara soon began contributing part of his salary to supplement his aunts and uncles.

It was around that point that Makara got his first date. To him, the entire concept seemed absurd, and distinctly american. Even so, he tried it--he asked one of the few girls who worked in the stock department of the grocery store if she wanted to go out. The date was almost physically painful it was so awkward, and it went without saying there wasn't a second. He did try for the occasional date every so often, well aware that an arranged marriage--common and expected for any young Cambodians--would likely never happen. His aunt and uncle had raised the issue once, and Makara had simply shot it down, unwilling to commit to a life with someone who had seen all the horrible things he'd participate in.

Makara was still living at home near the end of 1995 when someone in the housing complex end up with a copy of The Killing Fields on VHS. At that point, only one of the Cambodian families had a VHS player, and any time a big movie came out, they'd invite other families over to watch. Makara himself had watched two or three movies when invited, but this time was different. No one had ever made a movie about Cambodia before--not one that anyone in the complex knew about--and the fact that it had won awards for showing what had happened seemed bizarre and breathtaking.

So every family in the complex crammed themselves into the single room to watch. At the time, Makara saw only bits and pieces, but he'd seen enough. Years later he'd go back and watch the whole thing from start to finish. EVen then--even with only bits and pieces--it was enough. Makara had never been taught about his own country's history. He'd learns bits and pieces from living it, but he'd never been taught it. To see it all, all the backstory and what had happened before he could remember had a deep effect on him.

It mattered to him in a way that he struggled to explain. It mattered that people knew what had happened, what had been done, and he found himself caring about his own history for the first time in his life. He'd always ignored it, pretending it hadn't happened, trying to push it away even as it kept him up at night with horrid memories of not only what had happened to him, but also what he'd done to others. Those were the worst. It was easy to push away the thoughts of crimes done to him, the death of his parents and the near starvation. It was less easy to push away the thoughts of things he'd done--the people he'd killed as a child. Telling himself that he'd had to, that he'd have died if he hadn't wasn't enough to push away the guilt.

So he wrote. He dwelled on what had happened and began to write in messy chicken scratch in a notebook he'd bought with his money. One notebook turned into two, and then three, as he slowly worked backwards. Recent events were easier to write about, easier to think about, and the farther back he went, the worst things got, and the hazier his memory was. It was at that point that he began to doubt himself. Was he even Som Makara? Some of his earliest memories didn't use that name, but called him something else entirely--Sann. In those memories, Makara was someone else, and it became a point of self doubt and conflict within himself. Was that something else he'd imagined? Was Makara really him, or was he someone else?

He would never find out. Any records were long gone, anyone who could have possibly recognized him long dead. It was nothing to him but idle speculation, pointless. Even so, he tried to keep on it, certain that if he could find himself, he might be at peace.

It was all cut short when Haing Somnang Ngor was killed. In the relatively small and closely connected Cambodian community, the news rocked them. The fact that he was killed so soon after making the Killing fields--himself a survivor of what had happened--and the fact that he was killed by other Cambodians only added to Makara's feeling of betrayal. He put aside his writing when the murder was announced, and he buried it in boxes when the suspects were arrested, never to be looked at again. Where he had come from no longer mattered.

It was not long after the death of Haing Ngor that Makara was mugged for the first time. He was an obvious target, small and underweight, living in an area known for its violence and gang activity. If anything, it was more of a shock that he hadn't been mugged previously, and it caught him off guard when the two young thugs shoved a gun to his ribs and demanded he turn over his cash.

Makara had grown up watching threats be made, and he knew that those who would make them in Cambodia were making them only as a pretense. In the labour camps, if one of the Red Khmer demanded you turn an object over to them, they did so only so that your blood wouldn't get on it.

So he reacted badly. He didn't treat the threat as a 'turn it over or we'll shoot', but instead as a 'turn it over and we'll shoot'. There was nothing about him physically that indicated he'd know how to fight. He was small and underweight, short even by the standards of southeast asians. There was one thing that he had above and beyond the average person, and that was the capacity to inflict pain and violence on other human beings. Most people had never killed a person, didn't know what it was like, and would balk even when inflicting pain on others. Makara did not. He didn't knock the gun away and run for it as many would have, but instead reacted in the most violent and brutal way possible to stop the threat.

So he broke the man's wrist. He simply grabbed it and wrenched it hard. Human instinct told him to stop when he felt the man's bone and muscle crack, and Makara just kept on going, wrenching the suddenly screaming teen to the ground as his wrist shattered. Just as so many people were unable to really process violence against others, they were just as unable to process violence against themselves. The second teen in the duo had gone from being a confident braggart to being unable to even understand what had happened in the matter of a few seconds.

Makara didn't pause, and he kneed the teen hard enough to knock the wind out of him and leave him curled on the ground. It was only with both of his opponents were down that he considered what to do. He'd killed them before, and if he killed them right then, no one would question it. It would just be another in the long list of murders connected to gang violence.

But he was repulsed by the idea of doing it again--going back to murder, to caring nothing for human lives. Even if he'd fallen far from the buddhist ideal and could hardly be counted as a staunch believer, there were still the flickers of it inside him, and he let it control him that moment. So he bent down, grabbing the one that was still wheezing for breath, and told him that if he came after him, he would regret it, and so would anyone he cared about.

Makara knew the power of a threat. He left them behind, and never heard another word of it. He knew it was possible that it could backfire--that they could rally their gang and go after him--but they never did. Perhaps they were smart enough to realize that someone with the capacity for violence that Makara had shown was better not messed with. Perhaps they feared Makara was himself part of a gang. It didn't matter anyway--Makara felt disgusted by what had happened, and did his best not to think about how close he'd come to regressing.

He was twenty-eight, having become a key holder at the grocery store, when his manager called him into the office for a sit down chat. Makara was nervous, worried that something had gone wrong, but his manager simply laughed at him and smacked him on the back before sitting down and explaining that there was nowhere for Makara's job to go. He was already at the top of the ladder he had access to, and the meager (but no longer minimum) wage he was given couldn't reasonably going up. More importantly, the manager explained, he had a friend who needed to hire someone, and Makara fit the bill. The pay was better, the benefits were better, and the manager explained that he liked Makara enough to prefer him at a better job than slaving away with no recognition.

Makara had mixed feelings about his manager looking out for him, having never thought much of the man, but he was grateful when he finally got the interview. The job was simple--the building was large but the rent was cheap, and the owner simply didn't have the money to hire a full security team. Instead, he wanted a single person to basically do the job. It meant being on call 24/7, but it also meant that the owner would be willing to provide accommodations in the form of a half-converted living space in the back of said building. There were a few offices, a bunch of radio stations, and none of the tenants were expected to draw much trouble or attention. It would be a slow and lazy job, but the sort of thing that would take a lot of dedication.

For Makara, it was perfect. It gave him his own living space to live in, to claim as his own. It let him move his stuff out of his parents house, setting it up in the two room 'apartment' that was suddenly his own. He was given a pager that eventually became a cellphone, and a list of tasks and duties. He'd oversee the whole building, the maintenance and repairs. He wasn't expected to do most repairs himself, but he was responsible for making sure they were done. A janitor would come in once a week to give the building a general clean, but it became Makara's job to make sure things were clean otherwise. If someone spilled, he either had to clean it up or make sure it was cleaned up. He had plenty of duties, and he went with them as much as gusto as possible. The new job seemed like his one great chance.

And it was, in many ways. Makara settled into his new job, rarely visiting his family, still living in one of the worst parts of south LA. He dated intermittently, but each relationship failed to get anywhere. He was nearly impossible to date, unwilling to talk about himself or any of his history before he was twenty or so. He was quiet and withdrawn, still living out the effect of his childhood. He suffered from frequent nightmares, and aside from the single point where he'd tried hard to accept what had happened, he remained largely in denial, refusing to talk about it. For the most part, few people seemed to know of his history, and he preferred to keep it that way.

As his thirties turned into his forties, his family began to try and visit more often, pressing him on the simple fact that he wasn't married. He had no children, and almost all of his cousins already did. He was rapidly discovering that he was uncomfortable around small children at all, and was making every excuse to avoid them. The past year, he hasn't seen his family even a single time, and he finds that it's a relief to him. There's no doubt or worry when they aren't around, and he finds himself more comfortable in general when it's less likely someone might associate him with his past.

TL;DR edition:

• Makara was five when the Red Khmer invaded Cambodia, and six when he became a child soldier.
• Life under the regime was brutal, and he remembers little of his early life.
• Makara fought the Vietnamese when they invaded, abandoning the capitol with the Red Khmer.
• Starvation was a simple fact of life for him, leaving him small and stunted.
• He was 14 when the Vietnamese finally overran his camp, capturing him and returning him to his family.
• His uncle and aunt survived the war, and he was returned to them, even if they'd never met before the war.
• With the war over, his family left for America. He could barely write in Khmer, let alone English, and was home schooled.
• They moved into the Pueblo Del Rio housing district, but Makara managed to stay away from gangs.
• He graduated at 22, socially isolated and behind in almost every way.
• He started out working in the back of a grocery store, and began to try and be more social then he was.
• He watched the Killing Fields and deal with what had happened for the first time in his life. He wrote down his experiences in journals.
• When Haing Ngor was killed, he gave up on his writing, putting it away and refusing to think on it any more.
• He was mugged, and broke the wrist of one of the teens mugging him. He reacted badly to it, but wasn't bothered again.
• He was twenty-eight when his boss of the grocery store suggested a new profession for him, and he ended up as the building manager.
• He moved into the back of the station, and rarely sees his family. They're putting pressure on him to start a family, but Makara is against the idea.

Makara works as a building manager, but he does so in a particularly vague and unusual way. Building managers are normally professionals with degrees, who manage multiple buildings and never get there hands dirty. Makara is far more hands on. He runs only a single building, and he's responsible for almost everything that happens inside. A water pipe breaks? He either needs to fix it himself, or make sure it gets fixed. Someone dumped food on the floor? He needs to clean it up. He doesn't handle the standard weekly cleaning, but he does handle almost everything else. He's the main keyholder for all the offices, and if anyone needs an extra key made, they have to go for him. In general he doesn't deal directly with those who work in the building, but he does on occasion wander out. The fact that he lives in the building and is on call 24/7 means it's the sort of job that never stops, and if someone gets locked out of their office at 3AM, he has to drag himself out of bed to solve the issue.

The apartment where Makara lives can only be called an apartment if you squint at it. It's really a renovated office in the back of the building where he works, and from the outside most people would simply assume it was another office, as opposed to anything out of the ordinary. There's even a number stuck on the door, just like any other office.

There's also technically a second door, but it no longer opens, having been covered over on the far side when the office was renovated. The whole thing looked horribly slapped together when Makara first moved in, but he's been there long enough that it feels like home for him. For someone who was raised middle class, the place is lacking terribly, but for Makara, raised in a housing project known for crime and being in a state of disrepair, it's absolutely great.

The apartment is two main rooms. The first one is a living area with a kitchenette in the corner. There's a couch to one side with a small TV in front of it on a table. There's a bookshelf that has relatively few books but a whole lot of random trinkets against one wall, and the far corner from the entrance features a little kitchen. Makara isn't much of a chef, if he could be counted as one at all, but the kitchen has some counter space for a rice cooker, some cutlery and tableware, and then a little stove that was clearly intended more for a camping trailer then for a proper kitchen.

One wall features a decent sized window that Makara tends to leave open for the light. The second room his his bedroom, and it also features a window, although he tends to keep that closed. The bedroom is the same size as his main living area, and features a large box spring mattress on a wooden platform. There's a desk in one corner that Makara once wrote at, but in the present he really only uses it as a charge station for his phone. A large portion of his bedroom, closest to the window, is empty space, with the only furniture on that side being a dresser pressed up against one wall where he keeps his clothing.

The first impression most people get of Makara is not about what he is, but what he isn't. Makara is, simply put, short. He stands at five foot two, stunted from a childhood filled with starvation. He's only a sliver over the average Cambodian female height, and he's short compared even to the already short average Cambodian male. The malnutrition and stunting also affected his physical size, and despite eating fairly well recently, Makara remains thin for his height. Even at his unhealthiest, he can barely push normal weight, let alone actually get fat. He doesn't count his calories, but he does keep rough track of what vitamins he's had in the past week, worried that he'll miss some if he doesn't keep track. He takes supplements on occasion, worried about his health and well aware he's already nutritionally compromised.

Makara's hair is black and thin, and he wears it just past his shoulders. His hair has a tendency to stick together in a manner akin to dreadlocks. His eyes seem to vary between light brown and green depending on the light, suggesting mixed ancestry somewhere up his family tree, as opposed to being pure Khmer.

Makara's skin is relatively pale for someone of his ancestry, but it's since tanned over from so much time out in the sun. The majority of his family--especially those born in America--are even lighter skinned than he is. He doesn't look terribly out of place when put beside his aunts and uncles, but compared to his youngest cousins, who have never had to work in the hot sun, he looks several degrees darker.

Makara's eyes tend to be down the vast majority of the time, and it's rare that he looks someone in the eye. His shoulders look perpetually hunched due to malnutrition, but it's not a true part of his body language. Most of the way he walks and talks are not conscious choices or even a true part of who he is, but instead traits that were beaten into him as a child. He doesn't keep his eyes down out of an actual fear of conflict, but instead keeps them down because the habit was beaten into him. In the camps, in the life of a child soldier, you didn't look at people. You either learned not to, or you died.

Makara is also a very, very quiet person, not just in speech but in movement as well. Most people never have a real need to sneak around, and so they never learn to be silent. Makara did need to be quiet, and he learned to move silently. He knows how to shift his weight to minimize noise, and how to pass silently through thick woods. It's the sort of thing that has almost no use in his current life, but ends up coming out anyway. It's a common occurrence for him to sneak up on someone without trying, only to startle them by speaking suddenly.

If anyone asked about what Makara was like to those who knew him, the answer would be more or less universal. Most people would have to think on it, slowly considering, and then most would announce that he's 'quiet'. It's an apt word for him, and entirely too accurate. Makara is a very quiet and withdrawn person. He's both physically quiet in his movements, along with speaking relatively little. If he speaks, you can be sure that he's probably trying to talk about something, and smalltalk is rare with him. If he does try and make small talk, it generally means he's interested in you for one reason or another, or has a favor to ask and is trying to be as polite as possible. He does care about trying to be polite, used to the distinct social idea of 'face'. How you appear matters, and he does his best not to embarrass anyone by asking favors too early in a relationship.

Most people wouldn't realize that Makara's present quiet state is actually an improvement. For most of his teen years, Makara would frequently go for days, if not weeks without saying a single word. He'd nod or shake his head if questions were asked of him, but his family life was never one that asked deep or involved questions. Since he never attended school properly, his opportunities for socialization were few and far between. It was only when he began working--when talking became a requirement--that Makara began to be slowly peeled out of the shell he'd crawled into as a child. He's still a far cry from social, but to anyone who was around him in his teen years, the improvement is obvious and impossible to deny.

A habit from his childhood is how quickly and easily he responds to authority. Those with horrible backgrounds will sometimes rebel, to question any and all authority, but Makara simply accepts it. He's spent his whole life following other people's orders, and he doubts he'll ever get over it. His first instinct is to follow orders, not to think about what he's doing. It's a trait that saved his life countless times in Cambodia, and while it's never saved his life in America, it's certainly won him the attention and appreciation of his managers and bosses. What employer doesn't want an employee that'll follow orders without asking questions? Most wouldn't consider it a good thing, but Makara certainly does, and he doesn't see an issue with it.

More than just following orders, Makara is a bit of a follower to begin with. He's not good at deciding his own path, picking what to do and where to go. He prefers to let other people decide things. If someone suggests they order pizza for the station, sure, he'll do it. If someone suggests they go on a date, why not. Even his current job was recommended by someone else, and his entire life has largely been tailored by those around him, rather than Makara himself.

Being a follower has a strong connection to a trait that Makara seems to think is almost dead in America. Pride seems to be a social requirement, the idea of individuality reigning supreme. Makara lacks it though. He has no pride. In a near-fight situation, where fists are about to swing if one side won't back down, Makara is always the one to back down. He doesn't see the point in being proud of who he is, and if people think less of him, it simply means they're closer to seeing him as he really is. To Makara, he's one of the most pathetic people on the earth, and while he doesn't go out of his way to show it to people, if they find out then so be it.

Makara doesn't back down from all situations though. In situations where lives are in danger, Makara is quick to act and shows a level of violence that most people only gain from a childhood spent murdering other people. When his life, the lives of innocents, or the lives he cares about are in danger, he's brutally violent. Most people threatened with a gun are afraid. Their first concern is not being shot, not getting hurt. They believe that the person threatening them will not carry through with their threats if only they behave.

Makara does not believe that. He's seen it happen a thousand times over, and he knows that if someone is willing to threaten a human beings life for petty reasons, they're also willing to take a human beings life for petty reasons. For him, saying 'do something or I'll kill you' is indistinguishable from 'do something then I'll kill you'. He reacts badly to it, and his capacity for violence is extreme. While he looks like the first person most criminals would chose to victimize, he's actually one of the last people you want to threaten.

A childhood of starvation and poverty have left Makara with lots of little neurosis. He makes little caches of food, an instinct from a childhood spent hiding any extra food that was found, because any food beyond the average was a crime. Despite the fact that it's his home, and he has enough money for food, he still has little bunches of nonperishables hidden. There's one in the bottom of the dresser he keeps his clothes in, and another one hidden under his couch. He's never had need to use them, but he feels far more comfortable knowing that even if someone were to say, break in and take all of his food, he still wouldn't starve.

Poverty has also left him a miser. No one pinches pennies like the sort of person who didn't have any money until well into their twenties, and Makara is sitting on a substantial nest egg. The vast majority of his paycheck goes into his savings, at least part of which is kept in physical currency, hidden in the wall of his office. The owner of the building would probably be annoyed to find out, but Makara has no intention of ever letting him find out. When he buys things, he tends to buy the cheapest thing possible even though investing in a higher quality product might turn out better, and no matter how many times things break, rip, or crack, he's quick to repair them rather than buying something new and wasting money.

Makara's relationship with his family is a complex one. He's certainly thankful, and he treats his family with respect, but he feels distant and alienated from them. They understand what happened to him, but from the opposite perspective, and to Makara that's worse than not understanding at all. Even though he knows they love him, he still can't push away the idea that they're judging him--that they know the horrible things he did and can't quite forgive him. The fact that it was never spoken of growing up only added to the idea, and in the end Makara felt entirely separate from his family. He still thinks of them as his 'family', but the relationship they have is strained, and most people wouldn't think of it as a family relationship.

Makara is slowly starting to build his own 'family' though. For the moment, his family is small and largely in his own head. His circle of friends is more of a circle of acquaintances. He's trying to expand though, trying to branch out, and he feels fiercely protective of those he does think of as his 'family'. He feels at least partially responsible for the lost of those he cared for as a child, and he does what he can to prevent it from happening again.

Makara has never been to a psychiatrist to have himself diagnosed, but there's not a therapist in the country that would deny him a diagnosis. PTSD at very high levels was and still is extremely common among Cambodian refugees, and Makara is an extreme case even among those. He lost his entire family, and it's made worse by the fact that he had no true support structure when he was finally returned to his family. Even if they're generally accepting, none of them have ever been able to really understand how bad it was. In the genocide, his family were victims, but Makara himself was a perpetrator.

That in itself is the core of his issues. Those around him can sympathize and work past their issues together. There's a shared experience that he lacks. He didn't spend time in the camps and watch his family get murdered--instead, he forced people into the camps and helped murder others. While you might share mutual misery in a quiet discussion, no one will ever discuss the other side of things, and Makara has gone his entire life without ever discussing it.

Makara suffers from bad dreams and flashbacks. Night terrors are a more or less constant thing, and it's rarer that he has a night without one then a night with one. He wakes trembling, soaked in sweat, and then struggles to get back to sleep. He has trouble getting to sleep even at the best of times, and it's left him tired for a large portion of his life. He makes a point of going to bed early, well aware he probably won't sleep for several hours.

He avoids talking about what happened, or even thinking about it. The only exception was the brief time when he forced himself out of his shell, writing it all down in an attempt to redeem himself. When that fell apart, so did any attempt to think about it, and he avoids the topic if at all possible. Thankfully, avoidance is easily when he's away from his family. Most American's have no idea about what happened in Cambodia, and would never even think to ask him about it.

One thing he has difficulty avoiding is children. The station almost never has any running around, but children are an unavoidable part of life when he goes out into the wider world. He's profoundly uncomfortable about the very idea of childhood, and in America, the idea of childhood is hard to escape. Children are told to go and play, and Makara has never been good with it. It reminds him too much of what he was missing, and of how much violence pervaded his earliest memories. He does his best to avoid them if possible, but after a few decades in America, he's become a bit desensitized to it.

One thing he hasn't become desensitized to is the Vietnamese. It's an unfortunate and uncomfortable part of himself that he doesn't think he's ever going to get over. Intellectually, he's aware that he should like the Vietnamese--that they stopped the genocide and liberated him from the horrible situation he was in. Even so, he spent so much time thinking of them as the 'enemy'--being told that they were monsters coming to kill him and every Cambodian--that he's never really gotten over it. Hearing Vietnamese spoken makes him tense and jumpy, his index fingers twitching subconsciously. Seeing a Vietnamese name is enough to make him distrustful and suspicious, and he'll go out of his way to avoid them as much as possible.

He feels distant and withdrawn, and has minimal interest in opening up and sharing his life. Why would he? As far as he's concerned, no one would ever forgive him for the things he's done. He tries to date occasionally, but it never goes anywhere.

The vast majority of Cambodia, both before and after the revolution, are Theravada Buddhist. When the Red Khmer took power, they suppressed all religion, replacing it with a cult like worship of the Angka--the ruling party of the Red Khmer. Makara's childhood exposure to religion was piecemeal and slapped together. It was difficult for the Red Khmer to differentiate between what was buddhist and what was cambodian, and plenty of things bled through. Even in a supposedly atheist society, certain practices remained. The same basic tenets held true, and practices bled through. It was important to greet people, to take your shoes off before entering a temple, and to give gifts when visiting. Don't stab your rice with your chopsticks, and be polite to the monks. It was impossible to distinguish between things, and while certain things were buried under the Red Khmer, it was still expected, and such customs returned in full force the moment they were out. It was easy to return to old habits, to greeting in a pose that was similar to a prayer.

That's not to say that Makara is a devout believer. Much in the same way that many americans could be considered 'cultural christians', Makara is a 'cultural buddhist'. His key formative years were raised without the overarching traditions and festivals that likely would have made him a better believer, and until he was in his thirties he had never given his own beliefs any thought. When he finally got around to considering it, he found it an unpleasant and generally negative line of thought. Buddhism taught the importance of good deeds and not harming others, and his childhood had been nothing but. It was difficult to think about karma when he already knew that what he'd done would doom him to Naraka for a thousand thousand years. No amount of meditation or cleansing would save him from it, and in the end he pushed away the very idea. He still participates in the occasional festival, and still finds himself offering the occasional prayer to the buddhas, and paying a bit of attention to things the Dalai Lama says, even though he's technically the wrong kind of buddhist.