Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Wouldn't you like to know?”

Jeonghan said it the day he died, a smirk at the corner of his mouth when they stopped at the 7-11 on their way home from school.

At the time Jisoo didn’t wonder too much about it — he was annoyed at Jeonghan for playing with him like that, when Jisoo had only asked where he was going next. He snorted and said he didn't care. There wasn't any reason for Jisoo to think Jeonghan wouldn't tell him, after all. Jeonghan told him everything eventually.

He’d forgotten about it completely by the time they finished their drinks, dumping the cans into the recycling and heading their separate ways to go home.

Jisoo’s dreams take him back there all the time — it was the last time they saw each other. If he’s lucky, he dreams it the way it really happened: Jeonghan’s face unblemished, his skull intact. Those are the best ones, and the rarest.

Jeonghan never did get a chance to tell Jisoo where he was going. Jeonghan can't tell anyone anything, now.

BREAKING: Body Of High School Student Discovered Near Home
2018-01-13 06:08:37

[click to read more…]

Still No Leads In Death Of Male High School Student
2018-01-19 19:11:24

[click to read more…]

Police Urge Students Not To Walk Home Alone After Classmate’s Death Deemed ‘Act Of Random Violence’
2018-03-07 14:58:13

[click to read more…]

Mystery Of High School Student’s Death Remains Unsolved On Six-Month Anniversary
2018-07-13 18:00:00

[click to read more…]

Jisoo would like to know, as it turns out. He really fucking would.

Jisoo heard about it when Seungcheol’s mother disappeared, of course. Everyone did.

They found her car parked at the Han river, but not her body. Scandal on top of scandal. Jisoo’s heard the things people whisper about it. Choi’s Seungcheol’s cursed. It’s either that or he’s some kind of tragic hero, suffering blow after blow.

Seungcheol has made his feelings about Jisoo clear, though, so Jisoo isn’t expecting a kkt message from him at 11P.M. on a Thursday night, asking to meet up.

He isn’t expecting Seungcheol’s request, either, eyes wide and desperate in an exhausted face.

“You have to help me find her,” he insists, both of them sitting across from each other at the 24 hour Paris Baguette that’s nearer to the university than their high school. It took twenty-five minutes to get here, but Jisoo didn’t want to be anywhere close to his own house.

He pauses at Seungcheol’s words, thrown, before —

“I don’t,” he says, flatly.

He really doesn’t.

When the official police report said that a motive couldn’t be found, that it must have been random violence, Jisoo couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe everyone else seemed to believe it. Jisoo’s kept quiet about things his whole life, and he’s good at it, but he couldn’t — he couldn’t keep quiet about that. But when he tried to tell Seungcheol he was met with shock, first, and then rage. Jisoo’s classmates had turned against him in a neat wall soon after, following Seungcheol’s lead.

The last time they interacted Seungcheol was sneering at him from across the classroom a few months ago, staring Jisoo down as his mouth formed the word traitor. Familiar, by that point, but that didn’t mean it didn’t sting.

The last time they spoke before that was at Jeonghan’s wake.

Seungcheol ignores Jisoo at school these days, but his friends still keep it up. His real friends — people Jisoo never knew well. The people Seungcheol hung out with before he and Jeonghan got close. As far as Jisoo can tell, Seungcheol never thought about him as anything more than “Jeonghan’s friend.” Once Jeonghan was gone there wasn’t any reason for Seungcheol to hang around Jisoo anymore. Once Jeonghan was gone Jisoo was totally alone.

It’s fine. Jisoo bleached his hair, started skipping class. Got even better at blending in with the background, picking up secrets and using them when he needed to.

Seungcheol gapes at him now, like he wasn’t expecting that response. Jisoo can barely keep his mouth from twisting in disbelief. What did Seungcheol think? That Jisoo would just drop everything to help him? They aren’t friends.

“I’ll pay you,” Seungcheol says, instead of arguing with him. He must be really serious.

Jisoo holds himself very still.

“How much?” he asks, voice carefully even as he tries to decide how much he’ll do it for. If he’ll do it all. He should just tell Seungcheol to fuck off, probably, but —

But he really doesn’t think Seungcheol is fucking with him. The money can’t hurt, and he is curious. He doesn’t really care either way about Seungcheol’s mom, but Seungcheol was close to Jeonghan — the only one who got as close as Jisoo. Closer, in some ways. Even if Seungcheol doesn’t want to talk about it, he might still be able to give Jisoo something.

“Triple your rate,” Seungcheol says. Jisoo rolls his eyes — he doesn’t have a rate. He just takes what people can give him. It’s not usually about the money. But Seungcheol clearly doesn’t know that, so Jisoo pretends to think about it as he takes out his phone.

He types in the highest number he dares, holding his breath, and turns the screen so Seungcheol can see it.

Seungcheol doesn’t even blink.

“Sure,” he agrees, like it’s nothing. “When you can start?”

Seungcheol says they should just meet at his apartment on Friday. He doesn’t want to go anywhere public, he adds, so Jisoo shrugs and agrees. He doesn’t think it really makes much of a difference — no one’s going to care what two teenagers in the back of a café are talking about. But it’s Seungcheol’s money, not his, so whatever.

He’s never been to Seungcheol’s apartment before. It’s exactly as nice and exactly as lifeless as he expected. The space seems to echo, its minimalist decor the opposite of welcoming.

“Let’s just go in my room,” Seungcheol says, noticing the way Jisoo’s eyes cast all over the room, at its cavernous emptiness. Jisoo nods and follows him.

Seungcheol has a brother, Jisoo knows, but he’s older — Jisoo remembers Jeonghan saying he’d already moved out, that it was usually just Seungcheol and his mom. His dad was too busy to be home much.

Jisoo can feel it as they walk through the apartment. All the loneliness, now that she’s gone — the space feels dead. Jisoo tries not to let himself feel sympathetic about it.

“The police took a lot of things,” Seungcheol says, once they’re safely in his room. It isn’t at all what Jisoo would have expected — it’s much too neat. Someone must come in and clean it for him. “But you can see all my messages with her, and I know all her passwords. I can log into her accounts for you.”

Jisoo tilts his head curiously. Seungcheol flushes and scratches the back of his neck.

“She asked me to answer messages for her sometimes,” he says. “I know most of her passwords.”

“It’ll still be hard without knowing what apps she used,” Jisoo says. “Do you have her phone?”

Seungcheol frowns.

“They took that too,” he says. “I can tell you all the ones I know, though.”

“Sure,” Jisoo agrees, shrugging — it’s as good a start as any. He opens a new document on his phone and gestures for Seungcheol to come closer. “Just type in everything you can think of,” he says as he hands the phone over.

He expects Seungcheol to take it and move back to where he was sitting at his desk, but he just hunches over the screen right there, so close Jisoo can feel his body heat.

Jisoo wonders if it would be weird if he pulled back to get some distance between them— Seungcheol always used to get offended easily. He’d whine every time Jeonghan teased him, laughing and giving it up as soon as Jeonghan gave him any attention. Jisoo always thought it was annoying.

“You’re sure you trust me to sign into these?” Jisoo asks when Seungcheol hands the phone back. Seungcheol’s eyebrows furrow.

“Should I not?”

Jisoo shrugs.

“Your choice.”

“You don’t have to be an asshole about it,” Seungcheol says. Jisoo snorts.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Seungcheol asks, and then, when Jisoo doesn’t respond — “Yah. What’s that face for?”

“I don’t think I’m the asshole, here,” Jisoo says, keeping his voice very even. Seungcheol’s mouth opens in shock, his eyebrows raising towards his hairline. He laughs, like he can’t believe what Jisoo’s saying.

“Yah,” he says, sounding like he’s really getting mad about it. Jisoo blinks at him and doesn’t let himself flinch.

“What?” he asks. What is Seungcheol gonna do, deny it? He and his friends have been treating Jisoo like shit since the new school year started. Jisoo’s been called a freak so many times he barely even registers the words anymore. “Do you want me to do this or not?” he adds for good measure. “I can leave.”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows knit together, too expressive. He presses his mouth together and nods, finally, still looking surly about it.

“Fine,” he says. “And you can sign into whatever you need, if it’ll help. I just want — ”

He wants to find his mom.

Jisoo’s pretty sure they’re not going find her — not alive, at least. At best, they’ll find out the reason she died. Maybe. Jisoo honestly isn’t very optimistic about it.

He could tell Seungcheol that — dig into where he’s softest and hit him where he’s shown vulnerability, but he doesn’t. He’ll wait, he decides. If he needs to use this, he will. If he doesn’t — well. He’ll be a few million won richer, so who cares either way?

When Jisoo lets himself into his apartment that night it’s silent. His mom is working a night shift again. The dishes are piled in the sink. Jisoo washes them silently, then eats his dinner cold directly from the package.

He thinks about working on Seungcheol’s mom’s case before he goes to sleep but he can’t make himself do it. He changes his uniform pants for sweatpants and crawls into bed with his laptop instead, opening the folder he saved so many months ago. All the facts of Jeonghan’s death, all organized as neatly as he could.

Time of death. The location of his body. Everything he did the day he died, but there are gaps — where did Jeonghan go after he left Jisoo at the 7-11? Jisoo’s never figured it out.

The darkness of his bedroom wraps around him, and his laptop slides to the side as Jisoo drifts to sleep.

When his eyes open again he’s somewhere else.

“Do you miss him?” Seungcheol murmurs, hushed in the dark. They’re back in his bedroom. It’s less sterile with the lights turned down like this, the heat of Seungcheol’s body keeping Jisoo warm.

Jisoo’s eyes blink blearily, a little confused, but he doesn’t pull away.

Duh, he tries to murmur, but no sound comes out. It seems crucial that no one finds them in here, but he doesn’t know why. His mind doesn’t let him linger on it, skipping and jumping away, focusing on other things instead.

Seungcheol’s eyes, big and solemn and too-close. Seungcheol’s mouth, open in a pout. Someone should be kissing him, Jisoo thinks, thoughts still clumsy and uncoordinated. Where’s Jeonghan? The two of them are always kissing with Jisoo in the same room, totally unbothered at having an audience.

Jeonghan should be here, he thinks numbly. Where is he? Why is it Jisoo, instead? He isn’t the one Seungcheol should be kissing.

When Seungcheol leans in Jisoo doesn’t stop him.

Where is Jeonghan?

Seungcheol’s mouth opens against his, and Jisoo follows his lead.

Where is Jeonghan?

Jisoo should stop Seungcheol but he doesn’t. He shouldn’t keep going but he does. His hand tangles in Seungcheol’s hair.

Where is Jeonghan?

Seungcheol coughs, suddenly, his lips cold and wet, and pulls back. Jisoo stares in mute horror at the grey of his skin, the sunken circles underneath his eyes. The dripping wet of his hair. Was he at the bottom of the river? Did he finally find his mom?

Where is Jeonghan?

Jisoo closes his eyes, afraid. He doesn’t want to look at Seungcheol anymore. He doesn’t want to be here at all.

Don’t be stupid, Jeonghan says, voice clear as anything. Where else would I go?

When Jisoo’s eyes snap back open he’s back in his own bed. He’s alone.

He doesn’t fall asleep again, but he doesn’t think about Jeonghan again either. He combs through purchase history logs until the darkness outside his window fades into morning light.

On Saturday morning Jisoo heads towards a café instead of working at home, straightening his bedroom and stuffing everything into his backpack before slipping out of his quiet apartment.

On his way to the crosswalk closest to his house he sees a familiar head, squinting first and then —

“Yoon Hyesoo!” Jisoo calls. Hyesoo turns toward the sound, then freezes when she sees him. Jisoo waves, but she doesn’t wave back.

He frowns, confused. He hadn’t been to Jeonghan’s apartment that many times — they’d mostly hung around the park, or Jisoo’s apartment when it got too cold. The arcade or the PC café, sometimes, when they both had enough money — and after he started dating Seungcheol Jeonghan always had enough money.

Still. Jisoo has met Hyesoo enough times that he’s sure she knows who he is. He doesn’t understand the look on her face.

The old Jisoo would have let it go, wouldn’t have cared enough to move closer. He never used to be a curious person.

He walks up to her instead, very aware of the way she stiffens as he approaches. The light is still red.

“Is everything okay?” he asks carefully, once he’s close enough that she can hear him if he speaks normally. Hyesoo bites her lip, won’t look him in the eye. “Did I do something?”

Hyesoo shakes her head, but she still doesn’t want to look at him.

“Are you sure?” Jisoo asks, pressing further even as Hyesoo’s body language doesn’t change. She makes a face when he doesn’t back off, tossing her head back to shake her hair out of the way.

“Oppa said — ” she starts, and then falters. Jisoo leans in, suddenly paying a lot closer attention.

“Jeonghan told you something?”

“Oppa said not to talk to anyone from his school,” she mutters, finally, directing the words down at her shoes. Jisoo wrinkles his nose in confusion.

“You’ve talked to me before,” he points out. “Jeonghan introduced us, remember? He was my friend.”

It feels awful to say it in past tense. He can practically hear the Jeonghan from his dreams — what do you mean, was? His hands tighten on his backpack straps.

Hyesoo shrugs, chewing at her lip. Her mouth is the same shape as Jeonghan’s — Jisoo never noticed before. Her face is rounder, though, her eyes missing his sly gleam.

“Did he tell you that after we met?” Jisoo presses, when Hyesoo still hasn’t responded.

Hyesoo hesitates again, then nods. Jisoo frowns, even more confused.

“When?”

“Right before — ” Hyesoo cuts herself off again, but Jisoo doesn’t push her to finish the sentence. He can fill in the blanks. Right before he died.

“Even me?”

Jisoo’s sure that can’t be true. He can’t think of a reason Jeonghan would want to protect his sister from him. There wasn’t any reason Jeonghan wouldn’t trust him.

Wasn’t he Jeonghan’s best friend?

Hyesoo shrugs again.

“He said anyone,” she mutters, voice hardly more than a whisper. “He was really serious about it.”

“Did anyone try?” Jisoo can’t keep himself from asking. Hyesoo pulls even further into herself.

“Once,” she says. “Choi Seungcheol’s mom tried, but I said I didn’t know her.”

Jisoo freezes.

“Choi Seungcheol’s mom? The one who — ” he tries to cut himself off before he upsets her, but it’s obvious she gets what he means. Hyesoo nods, recovering some of her courage to roll her eyes a little.

Jisoo wants to push even more, wants to press her for things he knows she won’t know — he’s sure Jeonghan didn’t give her any explanation, or if he did it was probably a lie. But he wants to know everything anyway. He wants to know why the hell Seungcheol’s mom was talking to Hyesoo. He wants to know exactly what Jeonghan said to her before he died, and exactly what he looked like as he said it.

He forces himself to smile instead, trying to look as nonthreatening as he can. It’s kind of funny that he has to try, now — it’s not something he ever used to have to worry about before. The girls in his homeroom class all used to call him Gentle Hong Jisoo, breaking out into hysterical giggles whenever he sent a quiet smile their way.

“Thanks for telling me, Hyesoo-yah,” he says, as kindly as he can. “I won’t bother you again, okay?”

Hyesoo nods, but she doesn’t look like she really believes him. Jisoo was going to turn to leave but he pauses instead.

“If you need help you can message me, though,” he says slowly, eyes on the tight line of Hyesoo’s shoulders. “You know that, right? You can always ask me for anything.”

Hyesoo’s eyes flick up to meet his, finally. Jisoo doesn’t try to fake a smile again, lets his face stay neutral instead. The moment stretches out as she watches him, but he doesn’t let himself falter.

“Anything,” he repeats instead. “Even if it’s stupid. Okay?”

Hyesoo doesn’t say anything but she nods tightly, and Jisoo guesses that’s the best he’s going to get.

The light turns green, then. Jisoo leaves her to cross the street alone.

At school on Monday Bae Seungmin trips Jisoo on his way into homeroom and calls him a fag, sneering the word out for everyone to hear. Jisoo catches himself before he falls, stumbling sideways into Im Soojung’s desk and smiling apologetically at her before finding his own seat. Seungcheol doesn’t laugh, already sitting at the back of the classroom with two of his other friends, but he doesn’t say anything either. Doesn’t acknowledge Jisoo at all.

Jisoo doesn’t see him for the rest of the day. He skips math and literature and spends lunch in the courtyard alone, preferring it that way, but after lunch Kwon Soonyoung pulls him aside outside the familiar second floor bathroom before study hall. He nervously explains that he’s lost his phone, that he needs Jisoo to find it for him. He hasn’t seen it since dance practice the day before.

“Maybe I just lost it, but….” Soonyoung trails off, biting his lip. There’s clearly something he doesn’t want to say. Jisoo waits patiently, not in any particular hurry to get to the classroom.

“There are videos on there,” Soonyoung says, finally. He’s fidgeting a little, refusing to meet Jisoo’s eyes. “I don’t want anyone to see them.

“Ah,” Jisoo says delicately, eyebrows raising in understanding. He smiles as warmly as he can at Soonyoung to comfort him. “We’ll find it, don’t worry.”

Soonyoung bites his lip and nods.

Jisoo skips study hall, too, glad for the excuse, faking a migraine for the school nurse. When she sends him to the front office with a pass he explains to the front desk secretary that he’s so sorry, she can’t call his mom, she’s working a 12-hour shift at the hospital. Jisoo can just leave, right?

Jisoo can’t just leave, so he sits in the front office patiently, eyes on the floor and a hand pressed to his forehead to sell it. When she steps out for her smoke break Jisoo slips into the secretary’s desk and downloads the CCTV footage to a USB, slipping it into his pocket and moving back to the other side of the desk before she can get back.

“Are you feeling any better, Jisoo?” she asks, settling back into her desk. Jisoo fakes a brave smile, letting it tremble a little at the edges.

“A little,” he croaks.

She frowns sympathetically and roots around in her desk for a Tylenol. Jisoo accepts it, swallowing it with a little cup from the water dispenser on the other side of the office, and then he leans his head against the wall and waits for the end of the day.

Miraculously recovered from his migraine as soon as the final bell rings, Jisoo shows back up to Seungcheol’s apartment that night just like they planned, armed with his laptop and two empty notebooks.

“Yah,” Seungcheol laughs incredulously when Jisoo pushes a pieces of paper over to him, all his mom’s accounts written neatly at the top. “What is this?”

“Do you have a printer?” Jisoo asks, ignoring him completely. Seungcheol’s brows crinkle together as he thinks about it, then nods.

“In my dad’s office,” he says. “We can use it if we’re really careful.”

“Then open those accounts and print all the history. Purchases, messages, everything,” Jisoo says flatly. “You’ll go through half and I’ll do the rest.”

“Aren’t I paying you to do this for me?” Seungcheol asks, but he takes the laptop when Jisoo pushes it over towards him, browser already open and ready for him to start typing.

Jisoo shrugs, not caring much about how Seungcheol feels about it.

“It’ll go faster if we do it together,” he says. “You can answer my questions.”

“Whatever.” Seungcheol’s a little distracted trying to navigate a particularly difficult online shopping portal website, frowning as he searches for the login link. Jisoo gestures towards the upper right corner of the screen and Seungcheol scowls harder, clicking on it a little too aggressively.

“Great.” Jisoo makes the effort to smile at him, big and fake even though Seungcheol isn’t even looking at him to notice.

“Your friends have been working overtime these days,” Jisoo says absentmindedly as he watches Seungcheol copy and paste yet another purchase list to print. Seungcheol stiffens.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what it’s supposed to mean,” Jisoo says flatly, nudging Seungcheol’s hand out of the way when he takes too long to open Excel. “I changed my mind, I’ll do this.”

Seungcheol lets out an irritated breath but doesn’t try to stop Jisoo, letting himself be pushed to the side so Jisoo can take over.

“I can’t stop them,” he says, finally, which is so pathetic Jisoo almost doesn’t want to bother with a response.

“Of course you can,” he says despite himself, apparently wanting to prove Seungcheol wrong more than he wants to let it die. “You started it, didn’t you?”

“You started it,” Seungcheol protests, and Jisoo snorts in open disbelief.

“By doing what?”

“You wouldn’t — ” Seungcheol cuts himself off, rubbing a hand across his mouth.

“I wouldn’t what,” Jisoo presses.

“You wouldn’t let it go,” Seungcheol says. His voice is stretched tight, about to snap.

Jisoo lets out a humourless laugh.

“You think Jeonghan would want me to let it go? You really think some random man followed him home and killed him? You really think there wasn’t any evidence at all?”

Seungcheol takes a sharp breath at Jisoo’s words, pushing himself away from the table, but he doesn’t stand all the way up. He just breathes like that for a moment, visibly trying to hold himself together.

“I can’t talk about this,” he says, finally, like a coward.

But Jisoo must be a coward, too, because he doesn’t bring it up again.

“Hi, hyung!”

Seungkwan greets Jisoo on his way to school the same way he always does, falling into step neatly beside him.

“Did you do your homework last night?” Seungkwan asks the same way he does, and Jisoo snorts the same way he always does. Seungkwan huffs out a little breath. “Hyung,” he says impatiently. “You gotta do it.”

Boo Seungkwan transferred from Jeju at the beginning of the school year. When Jisoo met him he was crouched on the floor of the second floor boys’ bathroom, his face blotchy and red as he frantically tried to scrub tteokbokki out of the inside of his backpack — someone had dumped it in there at lunch, Jisoo found out later. Some type of hazing, or maybe Seungkwan just said the wrong thing to the wrong person.

Jisoo could have just left him there — it wasn’t really his business. Maybe Seungkwan wanted to be alone with his shame. Jisoo didn’t know. But just then a group of boys he recognized stumbled into the bathroom, amusement lighting up their faces as they took in the sight of Seungkwan still squatting on the floor, clearly close to tears, and Jisoo’s decision was made for him.

“Isn’t your math teacher looking for you, Donghwan?”

Jisoo watched his flinch through the bathroom mirror — everyone knew Lee Donghwan was too close to Hyeri ssaem, and that was only a matter of time before it went too far. Jisoo was desperate enough that he’d do it, and he could tell the boys knew.

For a moment he thought they were going to push back anyway, was about to resign himself to a fight he absolutely couldn’t win, but then one of them scoffed instead.

“Whatever. You freaks aren’t worth it.”

There was a time when being called a freak was the worst thing Jisoo could think of, but he was long past caring by then. Jeonghan would have laughed, Jisoo reminded himself, and so he made himself laugh too.

He was shaking as the boys left the bathroom but Seungkwan didn’t seem to notice, backpack forgotten as he stared up at Jisoo instead.

“Come on,” Jisoo said. “Let’s just leave. You can clean that at home.”

Seungkwan blinked up at him, stunned.

“How…?”

“I’ll write us a pass, it’s fine,” he said, reaching out a hand to pull Seungkwan up. “No one ever tries to stop me.”

He was right — no one said anything as they left. Seungkwan was high-strung and anxious about it, and Jisoo didn’t bother telling him that the way he looked over his shoulder every thirty seconds only made him more suspicious. It didn’t make a difference, he told himself. It wasn’t like they were ever going to speak again.

Or so he thought.

Whatever happened that day, Seungkwan clearly managed to rise above it — he has plenty of friends now. Everyone in the music club loves him. There’s no reason for him to keep waiting to walk with Jisoo to school every morning, and yet. Every day at 8:30 there he is, huffing about something or other as Jisoo falls into step next to him. Jisoo doesn’t have the heart to tell him to give it up.

Seungkwan never even met Jeonghan. Rumours aside, he only knows Jisoo as the hyung who helped him off the bathroom floor. Even if he nags too much, being around him is a relief. Jisoo’s too selfish to try to push him away.

“I’ll be fine,” he says now, smiling down at Seungkwan’s pouting face. “Don’t worry about me, alright?”

He makes the effort to go to most of his classes that day — out of respect for Seungkwan’s concern, or maybe because he just wants a distraction. Seungcheol doesn’t speak to him. Seungmin doesn’t either, but that doesn’t mean much — he could have just gotten tired of it, or maybe he’s saving something really fucked up for later. Jisoo isn’t willing to give Seungcheol any credit yet.

Still. He’s back at Seungcheol’s place that night. At first he’d been surprised when Seungcheol agreed, at the way Seungcheol seems to be clearing his schedule for him, but it’s not really for Jisoo, he knows. It’s for Seungcheol’s mom. Of course Seungcheol is willing to clear his schedule for her.

They’re still working on the account logs, highlighting anything that seems weird or hard to explain. Not for the first time, Jisoo hopes when he dies it’s from something totally normal. The idea of someone going through his entire life like this makes him feel like he’s breaking out in hives.

“Anything?” he asks absently, flipping to the next page of the kkt group chat with her charity club friends.

Seungcheol frowns and shakes his head, focused intently on the page in front of him — he’s doing online shopping orders, which Jisoo’s pretty sure is a dead end, but at least it’s keeping him busy.

If Jisoo’s being honest, he’s pretty sure it’s all going to be a dead end. If she was doing something weird she was probably using a different phone — he doesn’t think she’d do anything suspicious on an account that her teenage son had access to.

But people slip up all the time. They get careless and make stupid mistakes, and if Seungcheol’s mom made any they’re going to find them.

The group chat log ends and Jisoo moves to the next one, but before he can start highlighting he’s startled by the slam of the front door. He looks over at Seungcheol, surprised, only to find Seungcheol looking just as shocked.

“Choi Seungcheol!”

Seungcheol’s father’s voice carries through the apartment, echoing through all the empty space. Jisoo doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Seungcheol flinches before he straightens in his seat, reaching to gather all the papers they’d been looking at and roughly neatening them into a single stack. Jisoo makes an irritated noise of protest when Seungcheol takes the paper he’d been checking right out of his hand and adds it to the stack.

“Put it away,” Seungcheol says bluntly, voice a little hoarse, ignoring Jisoo’s expression completely. Jisoo’s too confused to do much but obey, sliding the papers into a clear file and reaching for his backpack.

The way Seungcheol moves closer when his father enters the room is confusing, too, angling himself like he’s trying to look broader, like he’s trying to shield Jisoo from view.

The move is so automatic that Jisoo wonders if he even knows he’s doing it.

“Choi Seungcheol,” his father says again, closer. Now that Jisoo can see him he’s a big man, imposing — strong eyebrows, a set jaw. Jisoo wonders if that’ll be Seungcheol some day. “Is someone here?”

“It’s just a friend from school,” Seungcheol calls back without turning around. Jisoo holds himself still, feeling caught.

There’s a pause, and then his father nods.

“I’ll be in my office,” he says. Jisoo carefully doesn’t let himself stare as he walks by, ignoring Jisoo completely and slamming the office door behind him.

When Jisoo turns back to Seungcheol his hands are shaking, gripping the edge of the table too tightly. For a moment Jisoo only stares at him, not sure what he’s supposed to do. He isn’t even really sure what just happened.

Is he supposed to ask if Seungcheol’s okay? Jisoo doesn’t bother — he knows, somehow, that the answer is no.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

Seungcheol’s eyes dart up to meet his, finally, confusion clear on his face. “We could go get coffee,” Jisoo offers weakly, aware of how stupid he sounds as he says it. Seungcheol pauses and then nods, but the movement is weird — a little too slow, like he’s forcing himself to do it right. The way he’s holding his entire body is weird, now that Jisoo’s letting himself look.

Jisoo tears his eyes away so he won’t have to see it anymore. He hesitates, then closes the laptop and shoves it into his backpack alongside the clear folder before he stands up, pushing his chair back into the table.

“Then let’s leave.”

There’s a café a few blocks down, clearly meant for an entirely different clientele — the décor is all floral, ivory offset by pastel pink. Seungcheol doesn’t seem to notice, or to care. He buys the drinks just like he always does, and when he comes to the table with the tray for a moment they’re both silent.

Jisoo should probably change the subject, but the curiosity building inside him is too strong to ignore.

“Was it like that with your dad when Jeonghan visited, too?”

Did you protect Jeonghan like that, too?

For a moment Jisoo wonders if Seungcheol’s going to deny it, or throw a fit the way he did back when they first argued after Jeonghan’s death, but his mouth pulls tight into a grimace instead.

“I didn’t want him to know,” he says, which isn’t really an answer. There’s an unspoken but hanging at the end of the sentence. Jisoo waits for him to finish it.

“It was hard to miss,” Seungcheol says flatly. Jisoo stares at him, not sure what that’s supposed to mean, and Seungcheol twists at the waist to gesture at his back. “He could see everything,” he adds. “When we fucked.”

Jisoo flushes at how coarsely he says it, then freezes as the rest of it sets in. He didn’t think — he wasn’t — that wasn’t what he meant. He swallows down a wave of nausea at the realization that whatever Seungcheol’s father did left marks.

“What about your mom?” he forces himself to ask, lips numb as he speaks. Seungcheol frowns.

“She’d never do that,” he says immediately, looking upset at the very idea. “Of course she wouldn’t.”

Jisoo doesn’t know how to talk about this properly. Is he supposed to be sympathetic? Is he supposed to promise to tell someone — an adult? Someone who will help? He doesn’t know. He does know he needs to know more, though, so he keeps pressing.

“No,” he says, instead of trying to find kind words. “Did your dad do anything to your mom? Like he does to you.”

Seungcheol flinches. He swallows once, twice, throat working.

“Yeah,” he says, words scraping through a hoarse throat. “I tried to protect her, but — yeah. He did.”

Jisoo nods.

“Did she tell anyone?”

Seungcheol shakes his head, jaw set with — something. Jisoo can’t tell.

“No,” he says, looking away. “She told me it had to be a secret.”

“I didn’t tell anyone, either,” he adds. “Jeonghan was the only person who knew.”

Jisoo nods, turning that over in his head. So many secrets — Seungcheol and his mom, Seungcheol and his dad. Seungcheol and Jeonghan.

“Sorry,” he says absently after a moment, the words too late to be worth much.

“Whatever,” Seungcheol scoffs, clearly uncomfortable. Jisoo pauses, chewing at his bottom lip.

“You should have told me from the start,” he says, finally. Seungcheol’s brows furrow together — he already looks offended.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

It’s a bad idea, probably — he knows Seungcheol pretty well. Knows when he gets mad he snaps. Still, Jisoo keeps going.

“It’s a motive,” he says carefully, eyes on Seungcheol’s face, watching for his reaction. Seungcheol stiffens, mouth gaping open and then snapping closed.

“A motive for what,” he says, voice very hoarse.

“You know what.”

Seungcheol inhales sharply and looks away, pushing back a little. He doesn’t stand up, though, just sits like that — hands gripping the edge of the table, forearms flexing with the effort. Jisoo watches him warily.

“Do you think that’s what happened,” he says, finally. It doesn’t really sound like a question.

“I think it’s likely,” Jisoo says evenly, hedging around the real truth. He doesn’t just think it’s likely — he’s almost sure of it. He waits for Seungcheol to blow up for real, to stand all the way up and walk out.

But Seungcheol doesn’t. He lets out the breath he was holding instead, then takes in another one. Jisoo keeps his eyes fixed on the clench of his hands, watching them relax bit-by-bit.

“I didn’t want it to be true,” Seungcheol says, finally. Jisoo winces.

“I know,” he says quietly.

Seungcheol nods and says nothing, still looking away.

“Will you be okay when you go back?” Jisoo asks, keeping his voice pitched low.

“I’ll be fine.”

Jisoo raises a skeptical eyebrow, not sure he really believes that. Seungcheol glances at him just in time to catch it and rolls his eyes.

“What? Are you gonna try and protect me?”

Jisoo breathes out a laugh. Seungcheol’s not wrong — it’s not like he could really do much.

“There are still a lot of chat logs to get through,” he says instead, because he doesn’t have anything else to offer. There’s nothing else for him to do. He can’t protect Seungcheol, just like he couldn’t protect Jeonghan. All he can do is this. “We can stay here a little longer.”

Seungcheol looks away for a moment, throat working, before he nods tightly.

“Sure,” he agrees, accepting the papers when Jisoo sets them on the table between them, uncapping the highlighter when Jisoo slides it his way. “Let’s just do this for a while.”

Jisoo uses the stolen CCTV footage to find Kwon Soonyoung’s missing phone — wedged neatly behind a foam mat in the gymnasium — and returns it before lunch, catching him as everyone leaves the classroom. Jisoo waits until everyone else has filed out before he comes in to give the phone back to him.

Soonyoung looks like he’s going to cry.

“You’re a lifesaver,” he says in a rush, relief stark on his face. “I promise I’ll be really careful from now on, okay? My friend’s good with computers, he said he’d help me back it up and everything if I found it.”

“Okay,” Jisoo says, smiling a little. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Sorry I couldn’t pay you more,” Soonyoung continues. “If you ever need anything, just let me know and I’ll do it for you, I promise.”

“You don’t have to,” Jisoo says.

“I do,” Soonyoung insists, and Jisoo shrugs and smiles. He waits for Soonyoung to turn and leave, but his demeanour changes instead, shifting into something more determined.

“I just wanted to say — Jeonghan-hyung was always really kind to me,” Soonyoung says, and Jisoo fights a flinch at the mention of his name. “I know other people….” Soonyoung trails off, a focused expression on his face like he’s thinking very hard about what to say next. “I don’t think what they say is right,” is what he settles on, voice bolstered by renewed determination. “I think Jeonghan-hyung would appreciate that you still care about him so much.”

It’s hard to shock Jisoo these days, but Soonyoung’s managed it with his obvious sincerity. For a long moment Jisoo honestly can’t come up with anything in response.

“It’s okay,” Soonyoung rushes to fill the silence. “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to tell you, that’s all.”

“Thanks,” Jisoo manages, finally, but Soonyoung shakes his head.

“I’m the one who’s thanking you, remember?” he says, holding up the recovered phone with a sheepish smile. “I’ll be more careful in the future, I promise.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Soonyoung looks around them quickly, and when he’s sure no one can see them from the hallway he darts forward to plant a kiss on Jisoo’s cheek. Jisoo laughs, startled.

“Can you get home okay?” he asks, feeling weirdly protective all of a sudden even though Soonyoung’s only a year younger than him. He can get himself home just fine, probably. “Is someone waiting for you?”

“Yeah,” Soonyoung says, a shy smile still on his face. “There’s someone waiting,” he adds, gesturing through the glass door. Jisoo follows where he’s pointing and finds Jeon Wonwoo standing outside on the school grounds, phone in hand, watching something on the screen with a totally neutral expression. He seems completely oblivious to the world around him. “He’s the one who’s good with computers,” Soonyoung says, voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “He’s gonna help me tonight.”

“Ah,” Jisoo says, smiling at Soonyoung’s visible embarrassment. He’s pretty sure he can read between the lines. “Well. You two have fun together, then.”

Soonyoung reaches out to slap Jisoo’s arm, blushing. It’s overly familiar — they barely know each other — and Jisoo smiles at that too. Cute.

“Thanks again, hyung,” Soonyoung says on the way out the door. Jisoo nods and smiles as he watches him leave.

“I’ll take care of you,” Seungcheol murmurs in his dream that night, eyelids heavy. His hand comes up to stroke Jisoo’s hair, then his temple, fingers trailing down the side of his face.

Jisoo nods mutely. They’re both dressed, but only barely — Seungcheol’s down to a shirt and boxers, Jisoo shirtless but still in his jeans. The room is overly warm, humid with sweat. When Seungcheol leans down for a kiss Jisoo opens his mouth and lets him.

Seungcheol mouths down the length of his throat and Jisoo gulps in a breath, overheated and overwhelmed. His eyes flutter closed, then back open. They’re in Seungcheol’s bedroom — there’s a mirror over his dresser, right across from the bed.

Seungcheol’s hand reaches for the button on Jisoo’s jeans.

Jisoo turns to look at his own reflection. Jeonghan’s face stares back.

When Jisoo wakes up he checks his scalp for blood.

“Have you been sleeping?” Seungkwan asks over lunch the next day, squinting to get a better look at Jisoo’s face. Jisoo tries to wave off his concern, but Seungkwan’s frown only gets deeper. “You look like shit,” he says bluntly, and Jisoo breathes out a surprised laugh.

“Thanks,” he says, voice dry.

Seungkwan shrugs, pausing to take a bite of his japchae.

“Oh, I almost forgot — one of my friends in the music club has something for you,” he says once he’s finished chewing, perking up a little, and Jisoo wrinkles his nose — what would any of Seungkwan’s friends want to do with Jisoo? “Lee Seokmin? Do you know him?” Seungkwan adds, and Jisoo’s stomach lurches.

Lee Seokmin was friends with Jeonghan — his noona used to babysit Jeonghan’s younger sister, or something like that. Jisoo isn’t sure, but he remembers the way Seokmin always hung all over Jeonghan any time he got the chance. Jeonghan always laughed and let him.

“Oh,” Jisoo says, clearing his throat and faking a smile. “Yeah, sure. Just give me his kkt, I’ll message him.”

“Okay,” Seungkwan says slowly. He looks a little suspicious, but that’s pretty much his default expression — especially when it comes to Jisoo. It’s like he knows there are things Jisoo isn’t telling him. He doesn’t ask any more questions over lunch, at least, just shrugs and tucks back into his japchae.

Lee Seokmin is hard to pin down when Joshua messages him, hedging around what he means instead of giving a straight answer, but after some convincing he agrees to meet outside a PC café a few blocks from the school on Thursday night.

“Is there something you wanted to tell me?” Jisoo asks when Seokmin shows up, a beanie pulled down over his hair and a nervous frown on his face.

“No,” Seokmin says immediately. “I mean,” he adds, when Jisoo rolls his eyes in response. “Yes, but — ”

He’s so twitchy it’s almost enough to give Jisoo secondhand anxiety.

“Does your T-money card have enough on it?” Jisoo asks suddenly. Seokmin wrinkles his brow, confused at the subject change, but he nods in response. “Great,” Jisoo says, reaching to grab his elbow and guide him to the bus stop. “Let’s go for a ride. We can talk there.”

Seokmin follows along easily enough, but he pulls back once they actually get to the stop, still looking confused.

“You think the bus is a good place to talk?”

“Sure,” Jisoo says, craning his head to see if there’s one coming. “No one will know who we are, right?”

“I guess,” Seokmin says.

A bus pulls up before he can say anything more, and he reluctantly boards it behind Jisoo, following him to the seats at the very back.

“You wanted to tell me something, right?” Jisoo asks quietly once they’re seated, looking out the window instead of making eye contact.

“Yeah,” Seokmin agrees, nerves still clear in his voice. “Well, no. I want to give you something.”

That gets Jisoo’s attention. He looks over at Seokmin, finally, searching his expression.

“Here,” Seokmin says, reaching into his pocket and fumbling out a tiny USB, a little cartoon rabbit waving merrily at the end of it. Seokmin waits for Jisoo to hold out a hand and then transfers it to him, his hands warm and sweaty as he presses it squarely into Jisoo’s palm.

“What is this?” Jisoo asks, confused.

“It’s from Jeonghan,” Seokmin admits, voice very small. The back of Jisoo’s neck prickles.

“Excuse me?”

“He gave it to me and told me not to open it,” Seokmin says, eyes wide and urgent. Jisoo wrinkles his nose skeptically, trying to ignore the way his heart is starting to speed up in his chest, panicked and uneven.

“So you just … didn’t?”

“He said not to,” Seokmin repeats seriously, like that answers the question. “He said it was a secret.”

Jisoo’s got to hand it to him — he did a pretty fucking good job keeping that secret. The police talked to everyone who knew Jeonghan, so they had to have talked to Seokmin, too. Jisoo wouldn’t have pegged Lee Seokmin as the type who could lie to a cop.

“Why are you telling me this now?” Jisoo asks as he pockets the USB.

“I didn’t think….” Seokmin trails off, chewing desperately at his lower lip. “I didn’t know who I was supposed to tell,” he says, finally. “Jeonghan said it had to be a secret, but — ”

But Jeonghan’s gone, now.

“You didn’t give it to the cops,” Jisoo says. It’s not a question, but Seokmin nods anyway.

“They were so mean.” He frowns seriously as he says it, and Jisoo has to fight the urge to laugh. He almost can’t believe Seokmin withheld evidence because the police were mean, but looking at the offended expression Seokmin’s still wearing, even now — it makes sense, even if it’s ridiculous. “I didn’t trust them.”

“But you trust me?”

“Jeonghan loved you,” Seokmin shrugs. Jisoo’s breath catches at how plainly he says it, like it’s totally obvious. Like it doesn’t need any explanation.

“Thanks,” Jisoo says weakly. He glances back out the window — he thinks there’s a stop coming up. “You know how to get back from here, right?” he asks. Seokmin nods, clearly not following.

“Great,” Jisoo says, and he stands and squeezes past Seokmin’s knees to let himself into the aisle. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“What?” Seokmin laughs in disbelief, looking around the mostly-empty bus.

Jisoo should be kinder, probably. Seokmin was kind to him. But his mind is already working ahead, trying to figure out what Jeonghan could possibly have given Seokmin. He can’t sit next to Seokmin any longer and pretend he’s thinking about anything else.

“You’ll be fine,” Jisoo says, not really sure which one of them he’s talking to. “You’ll be okay.”

He leaves Seokmin there, stepping off the bus and turning around to walk back towards home. Seokmin doesn’t follow.

Back in his bedroom Jisoo’s fingers shake as he plugs the USB into his computer, waiting for it to load. He looks at the little rabbit’s cheery face and feels a wave of grief overwhelm him, almost too much to bear. He wonders if Jeonghan bought it for himself, then makes himself stop wondering.

Weirdly, the drive isn’t password protected — Jeonghan must have really trusted Seokmin with it. Jisoo squints at the folder when it opens, clicking the only file to view it.

It’s a chat log, just like the ones he and Seungcheol have been going through for Seungcheol’s mom. It takes Jisoo a moment of skimming through the replies to understand what he’s looking at, what Jeonghan was saying. He was using a pseudonym, but it’s obviously him — Jisoo would recognize his typing style anywhere. Jisoo scrolls back to the top to start reading again, a sick feeling building in his gut as he reads the messages Jeonghan sent.

if i do it, will that be enough?
2017-12-17 00:14:47

do you think it’ll work?
2017-12-19 03:39:20

i got the video
2018-01-09 02:28:11

“What the fuck did you do, Jeonghan-ah,” Jisoo whispers, staring at his laptop screen in horror.

“Baby?”

His mom’s voice startles him and Jisoo slams the computer closed, panic rising in his throat. He doesn’t want to look at that anymore. He doesn’t want to know about it. He doesn’t even want it in his house.

He stands up in a daze, pushing his chair back into his desk before he opens his bedroom door to go into the kitchen.

“Hi,” he forces out, coming to lean against the counter and watching as his mom starts to unpack the groceries she’d picked up on her way home. “How was work?”

Does he sound normal? Does his voice sound weird? Jisoo honestly can’t tell. When his mom looks up from the fridge he smiles at her, but it feels like the shape of his face is all wrong.

“Work was work,” his mom sighs, plastering on her own smile in response. “Over now, so it’s good.”

“Good,” Jisoo echoes. “I’m glad you’re home,” he adds. He knows she’s tired.

“Me too,” she says, coming closer to pat his cheek, her hand lingering for a moment.

“Are you okay?” she asks, peering closer at Jisoo’s expression. “You look stressed.”

“I’m fine,” Jisoo lies, forcing it out as smoothly as he can. “Just homework, that’s all.”

“You kids work too hard.”

Jisoo hums in acknowledgment. She pulls back, still looking a little worried. Jisoo wishes he had a better way to reassure her.

The last bag wasn’t groceries but takeout, and when she starts to pull out the containers Jisoo edges behind her to get dishes from the cabinet above the sink, setting them on the counter next to her.

His mom ruffles his hair absently to thank him, wincing a little at the brittle texture.

It’s funny — when Jeonghan was alive Jisoo would never have had hair like this. Jeonghan used to tease him about it all the time. Jeonghan and Seungcheol cycled through garish hair cycles as they pleased, bleaching each other’s hair in the bathroom sink and laughing when the dye got fucking everywhere. Technically they weren’t supposed to, but who was going to say anything to Choi Seungcheol?

Even so, Jisoo would only watch on from the doorway, smiling. He never joined in. The most exciting style they could get him to try was dark brown.

Jisoo’s hair falls out every time he showers, now, damaged from all the times he bleached it to get it so light, but he doesn’t care. He’d been too scared, before — he didn’t want to stand out, didn’t want to ruin his image. Didn’t want to do anything that would embarrass his mom. Now he wishes he’d done it earlier.

He wishes they'd done it together.

Dinner is quiet the way it always is, the two of them sat on the floor in front of the silent TV with the tiny table between them. Jisoo eats everything his mom puts in front of him and doesn’t ask for more. When she’s finished he clears the plates for both of them.

“I’m going to go to bed,” he says quietly from the kitchen. She looks up from where she’s moved to the couch, the TV switched to the nightly news.

“Alright, baby,” she says around a yawn. “Sweet dreams.”

Jisoo’s mouth twists. Not likely.

He wishes her good night anyway, coming forward to let her drop a kiss on his forehead before he retreats to his bedroom.

He’s too afraid to re-open his computer, lying down on his bed and staring up at the ceiling instead, a strange combination of exhausted and wired.

Would Seungcheol pick up if Jisoo called right now? Would he come if Jisoo asked? What will he say when Jisoo tells him what he’s found? Will he believe him?

Seungcheol always used to be the kind of guy who made Jisoo nervous. Jisoo didn’t like his temper, or the way he showed everything he was feeling all the time — taking it out on everyone around him and making it everyone else’s problem. It made Jisoo uncomfortable how unpredictable he could be.

Jeonghan had said the same thing, once. It was pretty funny of him, considering they were all over each other barely two weeks later, Jisoo their constant unwilling chaperone as they shoved their tongues down each other’s throats every chance they got.

Jisoo doesn’t know if he feels differently about Seungcheol now or not. He doesn’t know if Seungcheol has changed or not. Can he trust Seungcheol with this? Can Jisoo trust anyone?

He hasn’t been to church since Jeonghan died but he wants to pray, suddenly.

He knows Jeonghan did most of the things his youth pastor warned them about — lied, cheated, stole. Had premarital sex. Got in a fight, once. Jisoo always used to tell himself it was okay — Jeonghan had lots of time. He could live right when he got older, and make up for it all then. God forgives, right? It’s never too late.

But it was too late, suddenly, and the realization that they might all be judged by who they were right then was sobering. Jeonghan could have been good, he just didn’t have enough time. Couldn’t God understand? Jisoo tried to ask one of the youth group leaders, keeping his question as vague as possible, but it was obvious she knew who he was talking about, and her answer had only made him feel worse. He didn’t go back after that.

What do I do? Jisoo thinks now, as his eyes drift closed, wondering if the youth group was leader was right, if God really gave up on Jeonghan. Maybe he’s given up on all of them: Jeonghan and Jisoo and Seungcheol, too.

What am I supposed to do?

In his dream they’re outside the 7-11. It’s just the two of them, just like that day, and Jeonghan’s hair is brown — the same way it was when he died. He’d grown it out until it was long and pretty, tucked neatly behind one ear. Jisoo would never have dared, but all the girls at school giggled and blushed every time Jeonghan walked past them. They said it made him look like an idol.

“You’re so stupid sometimes,” Jeonghan says, playing with the cap from his Sprite bottle, a teasing little smile on his face. “You never see what’s in front of you, do you?”

What’s that supposed to mean? Jisoo wants to ask, but his mouth won’t move. He isn’t sure he’s really even there at all. Nothing in his dreams ever makes sense.

“I know what I’m doing,” Jeonghan says, an easy smile on his face. He looks so alive. “I have it all figured it out, okay? I’m going to fix it.”

Even through the haze of the dream Jisoo can tell that isn’t right.

You don’t, he wants to say. You have to let me help you.

“Ah, Seungcheol-ah,” Jeonghan says. Jisoo twists to look behind him, confused, but there’s no one there. There’s no one anywhere at all — they’re alone, just the two of them. “Don’t look so worried.”

Jeonghan drops the bottle cap onto the table and leans forward to flick right between Jisoo’s eyebrows. Jisoo tries to swat him away, his movements muddy and slow.

Be careful, he tries, but those words won’t come out either, his tongue stuck firmly to the roof his mouth. Jeonghan leans back, and now that he’s out of the way Jisoo can see his own reflection in the glass pane of the storefront.

He stares at Seungcheol’s face in horror, eyes wide and shocked.

“What’s that look for?” Jeonghan laughs.

When Jisoo tears his gaze back over to Jeonghan he’s bleeding, the whole side of his face covered in it. Jisoo can see where his skull is caved in, the bone giving way to fragile tissue underneath.

He wakes up in a cold sweat. Barely makes it to the bathroom before he’s retching into the toilet, stomach clenching as he spits out bile.

Afterward he leans miserably against the bathroom wall and hopes he didn’t wake up his mom, the leftover shakes running through him worsened by the chill of the tile floor seeping through his pants. He doesn’t know how long he sits like that, the minutes blurring together in a muddy slide. He stands, finally, and rinses his mouth at the sink, covering his own eyes so he won’t have to see his reflection in the mirror.

When he stumbles back to his room he picks up his phone immediately, not even trying to get back into bed.

are you awake, he sends Seungcheol.

It’s 3 A.M, but Seungcheol’s response is almost immediate.

ya

meet me outside your apt in 20 min, Jisoo sends, not even waiting for Seungcheol’s response before he throws a sweatshirt over the plain shirt he’d been sleeping in. He hops awkwardly as he tries to get a pair of socks onto his feet, but doesn’t bother changing out of his sweatpants. His computer goes into his backpack, backpack onto his shoulder, and then he’s ready to go.

Jisoo is as silent as possible as he slips first out of his bedroom, then the apartment. It’s too late for the bus so he walks towards Seungcheol’s apartment building, pace quick despite his exhaustion, not letting himself think about what’s going to happen when he gets there.

He isn’t sure whether it actually takes him twenty minutes or not — time is still slipping by too quickly for him to track it. Either way, Seungcheol’s waiting for him when he gets to the imposing gate that leads to his complex.

“Hey,” he says, eyes darting up and down as he takes in Jisoo’s appearance. Jisoo doesn’t want to know what he looks like. He’s pretty sure this is the worst he’s ever let himself look in public — clammy and greasy, hair sticking out at odd angles. He didn’t even brush his teeth before he left. He can still taste bile at the back of his throat.

“I have to show you something,” he says, forcing his thoughts aside to get straight to the point. It’s three in the morning — there’s no point wasting time on niceties.

“Okay,” Seungcheol says slowly, yawning and rubbing at his eye too vigorously, careless of the red mark it leaves on his face afterward. “Do you wanna go up?”

He nods towards the buildings behind him, stretching impossibly high into the night sky.

“No,” Jisoo says immediately. He can’t tell Seungcheol this in his own house. “We should go somewhere else.”

Seungcheol stares at him for a moment, like he’s trying to tell whether or not Jisoo is serious.

“Fine,” he says after a long moment, coming closer instead of stepping back. “Let’s go, then.”

The Paris Baguette they went to that first night is another twenty minute walk. Seungcheol waves Jisoo towards a table in the corner, heading to the counter to buy them both drinks. He doesn’t bother asking Jisoo what he wants.

“What do you need to show me?” he asks once he’s come back with two iced coffees, setting both on the table and collapsing into the chair across from Jisoo.

Jisoo hesitates, then takes a deep breath and turns his laptop so Seungcheol can see it. He doesn’t say anything as Seungcheol reads, watching the expression on his face shift from confusion towards horror.

“What the fuck is this,” Seungcheol says slowly.

“Lee Seokmin gave it to me,” Jisoo says. He has to clear his throat before he keeps going. “I don’t know who he was talking to, but — ”

He can’t finish the sentence.

“The last one was the day before he died,” Seungcheol says. His voice is hoarse, scraped raw. He won’t look Jisoo in the eye.

“Yeah,” Jisoo says uselessly.

“Do you think this is the person who — ” Seungcheol starts, and Jisoo nods.

“Maybe,” he says, the sick feeling crawling back into his stomach. He wonders if he’ll throw up again. “Or it was the person — the person he was talking to. About the videos.”

Seungcheol’s face goes white at that, lips pressing together. Jisoo wants to apologize, but he doesn’t even know what he would be apologizing for — for Jeonghan? What would that solve? They can’t even really tell what it is, exactly, he did. There’s no way to tell why he did any of it.

Jisoo makes himself stop thinking. It’ll all still be here tomorrow, he tells himself. It’ll still be here when his body doesn’t still have tremors running through it. When the fluorescent café lights aren’t making his temples throb.

“We’ll — ” he starts, running one hand down his face. “We’ll figure it out. Just like with your mom.”

Jisoo realizes as he says it that he shouldn’t have lumped them together like that — they still don’t know for sure Seungcheol’s mom is dead, even if privately Jisoo’s feeling pretty certain. He waits for Seungcheol to call him on it, to lash out, but Seungcheol doesn’t say anything at all. His jaw is clenched so tightly it looks like it hurts.

“Okay,” he grates out, finally. He casts a glance around the shitty, tired Paris Baguette, eyes settling on the old woman sitting near the front door — its only other patron — for a moment before he turns back to Jisoo. “We should get out of here.”

Jisoo hesitates. He does want to leave, but only until he thinks about the silence of his dark bedroom, the chill of the bathroom floor. His mom calling him baby, her voice full of concern.

“Come back with me,” Seungcheol urges. “Just for tonight.”

Jisoo doesn’t want to be in Seungcheol’s cold apartment either, ugly secrets hiding in all its open spaces. He nods anyway.

Seungcheol presses too closely to Jisoo on the walk back, warmth bleeding through the sleeves of his hoodie. Jisoo stays neutral — not pressing into it, not pulling away. By the time they make it to Seungcheol’s building he’s so tired he stumbles walking into the elevator, feet catching on nothing and sending him spilling inside. Seungcheol reaches out to steady him, automatic like a reflex. Jisoo doesn’t pull away from that either.

It almost feels like one of his dreams, all his words snatched out of him. He tries not to look at the mirrored walls, leaning against the wall and watching the numbers change on the display over the door instead. His eyes are so dry they’re stinging.

He’s still silent as he follows Seungcheol into the apartment, feeling more like a ghost than a person as he toes off his shoes and creeps down the hallway, letting Seungcheol lead them into his bedroom.

“Do you need to borrow something?” Seungcheol asks once they’re inside, nodding towards his dresser. Jisoo shakes his head.

It’s weird, he thinks. It should be weird. But he can’t sleep out on the couch — even if he wanted to Seungcheol wouldn’t let him, not when his dad could walk in any time. It doesn’t matter, Jisoo thinks, sitting on the edge of Seungcheol’s bed and watching Seungcheol disappear into the bathroom. He’s too tired for it to matter.

He doesn’t remember lying down but he must, because by the time Seungcheol comes back Jisoo’s horizontal, slumped face-first into one of the neat pillows at the top of his bed. Someone’s definitely doing his laundry for him, Jisoo thinks blearily, after a particularly deep inhale.

“Hey,” Seungcheol’s voice comes from somewhere above him. Jisoo grunts into the pillow and doesn’t move. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

Jisoo’s mouth still tastes like shit and he should probably wash his face. He can’t find the energy to move. He doesn’t know why he’s so tired. He’s usually not like this.

There’s a pause, and then —

“Alright,” Seungcheol says. His voice is deeper than usual, gravelly and exhausted.

The light switches off, and then the mattress dips as Seungcheol crawls in on the other side. It’s a comically big bed, and Seungcheol scoots closer than he needs to. Jisoo wonders if this how he slept with Jeonghan. If he had the energy he’d ask, maybe. Dig the knife in deeper, hurt both of them with it.

He doesn’t. He drifts off to sleep instead, somehow.

He thinks the dreams will come again but they don’t, and when he wakes up the sun is up — he’s slept through the night. It takes Jisoo a long disoriented moment to remember why he isn’t in his own bed. He presses a hand to his face like a test — feeling his own nose, then his jaw. When he gets to the swell of his cheekbone under his eye he presses down until it aches.

It’s another moment before a soft snort next to him reminds Jisoo that he didn’t fall asleep alone. He looks over to see Seungcheol’s eyes blinking open, bleary and confused.

“What — ” he croaks out, cut off by his own yawn.

“I don’t know,” Jisoo says, startled that the words come out at all. He must really be awake. Seungcheol snorts out a tired laugh.

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.” Jisoo smiles halfheartedly, shrugging a little. Seungcheol doesn’t look away.

Is he trying to find Jeonghan in Jisoo’s face?

Jisoo doesn’t mind, if he is. He’s looking for Jeonghan everywhere, too.

When Seungcheol moves closer it feels inevitable, like Jisoo’s slipping back into one of his dreams. He should be worried, he thinks, but he welcomes it instead. Seungcheol doesn’t kiss the way Jisoo thought he would — he’s more hesitant, mouth opening against Jisoo’s like a question. His hand is smaller than Jisoo’s, but it’s strong enough to hold his jaw in place.

Jisoo lets his eyes drift closed, pulling Seungcheol over him. Seungcheol’s breath is terrible but it’s fine — so is his. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Jisoo sags under Seungcheol’s weight, letting himself be pressed down into the sheets underneath. He doesn’t want to think about this. He doesn’t want to think about anything at all.

He’s kissed people before but never like this. He’s never known the people he kissed so well. Not the way he knows Seungcheol — too much and not enough, all at once. Jisoo never knows what Seungcheol will do next, but he always understands why he does it.

Seungcheol’s hand drifts towards the waistband of Jisoo’s pants. He shivers, slides a hand up Seungcheol’s shirt in response. Seungcheol stiffens when Jisoo’s hand traces the ridges on his back, faint but unmistakeable. Jisoo’s thoughts turn to Jeonghan again, pulled like a magnet.

Did Jeonghan do this, too?

Jisoo hopes so. He gentles his touch instead of pulling back, and Seungcheol relaxes little by little.

“You used to be so skinny,” he murmurs against Jisoo’s mouth, one hand coming up to squeeze his bicep. “You and Jeonghan both. You’re stronger now.”

Jisoo shrugs and laughs a little, turning his head to the side. He doesn’t want to explain that he started working out because he was afraid of Seungcheol and his friends. Not when Seungcheol’s running one hand along his waist, grasping at Jisoo’s hip.

Seungcheol presses his mouth to the hinge of Jisoo’s jaw, breathing hard. Jisoo doesn’t try to push him away.

His eyes cast over Seungcheol’s bedroom, hazy and distracted. It’s not like it was in his dream. Jisoo takes in the stupid overpriced figurines on Seungcheol’s dresser, the single photo of Seungcheol and Jeonghan still taped to his mirror. Jisoo wonders if Jeonghan put it there himself.

Seungcheol has one hand in his boxers now. Jisoo inhales sharply, one leg hitching up to make more room. Seungcheol’s hand is warm but sure. Jisoo tries not to make a sound. He’s still not looking at Seungcheol. He’s looking at —

He’s looking at —

“Wait,” he gasps out, and Seungcheol freezes. “Wait,” Jisoo says again, voice cracked and unsteady. He pushes Seungcheol’s hand away, uncaring of the protesting sound Seungcheol makes in return.

“What’s that,” Jisoo pants out as he tries to rearrange his boxers as gracefully as he can, free hand gesturing towards the biggest figurine on the dresser. Seungcheol follows the movement, letting out an almost hysterical laugh.

“What’s what? What are you talking about?”

“What’s that,” Jisoo says, still pointing, watching as — there. A red light blinks in its eye.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Seungcheol says. “Do you want to stop? Just say what you mean.”

“Are you filming this?”

Seungcheol freezes.

“What?” he laughs. Jisoo doesn’t want to hear it.

“Are you filming this,” he repeats, pushing himself off the bed and towards the dresser. He grabs the figuring and drops it back on the bed in front of Seungcheol. Seungcheol watches him do it, eyebrows still furrowed together.

“What the fuck,” he laughs. Jisoo doesn’t laugh back, just drops onto the bed and reaches for the figurine.

“Who gave you this,” he says, turning it over to find it open at the bottom, hollow inside. Jisoo reaches his fingers in, pressing them to the sides until he finds — there. Something taped inside. He picks at the tape, frustrated at the lack of leverage.

“I bought it myself,” Seungcheol says. “Why — ”

He cuts himself off when the camera drops from the inside, landing on the rumpled sheets between them.

“Did you buy that yourself, too?” Jisoo asks. He can feel the hysteria building inside him, knows he needs to control it but he can’t. “Did you — were you lying about everything? Were you the one Jeonghan was going to meet?”

“What the fuck,” Seungcheol says, and he sounds angry now. He reaches for the camera but Jisoo snatches it first, holding it tightly in his palm and breathing out a panicked laugh.

“Were you going to do the same thing to me?” he asks, unable to stop the way the words spill out of him.

“You think I’d do that?” Seungcheol says, voice raising. “What the fuck are you trying to say? Do you think I — ”

He can’t finish the sentence, so Jisoo does it for him.

“Did you?”

Seungcheol freezes, his entire face gone white.

“How could you say that,” he forces out. “How could you — what the fuck do you know, huh? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Jisoo doesn’t back down.

“You told me to stop,” he says shakily, camera still clutched tightly in one fist. “When I said the police were wrong. You told me I had to just drop it.”

“Yeah, because I was — because I was fucking sad!” Seungcheol’s voice rises into a shout. He catches himself immediately, eyes darting towards the door before he turns back, lowering his volume but not his intensity. “You wouldn’t stop fucking talking. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, but you wouldn’t leave it alone. It wasn’t because — ”

Jisoo wants to believe him, but —

“How do I know that?” he laughs, the sound empty and aching. “How can I trust you?”

For a moment Seungcheol only gapes at him, mouth dropped open.

“Because I’m trusting you,” he says, finally. “I asked for your help, didn’t I?”

Jisoo pauses at that. He takes a deep breath, trying to force himself calm, to really think about it. Lets the hysteria start to drain out of him a little.

Why would Seungcheol ask him? Kids at school ask Jisoo for favours these days, sure, ever since he helped Lee Jihoon get his clarinet back in June. But Seungcheol’s got money. He could have asked anyone. He could have gone online or hired a professional, but he chose Jisoo instead.

“Who did this, then?” Jisoo asks, shifting tactics. He gestures at the empty figurine in front of him.

Seungcheol stares down at it for a moment, eyebrows knit together tightly. His mouth gapes open as he thinks, his eyes blinking closed for the briefest of moments. Jisoo watches his lashes flutter against his cheeks before he opens them again, an agonized expression on his face.

“My dad,” he starts, finally, voice scraping out reluctantly. “My dad has CCTV in his office. I think the living room, too.”

Jisoo stares at him.

“You think — ”

Seungcheol laughs, and it’s the ugliest sound Jisoo’s ever heard.

“Do you have any better ideas?” he asks, turning up to meet Jisoo’s gaze. The expression on his face hurts to look at. “Between him or me, who do you trust?”

Jisoo thinks of Seungcheol’s father, his imposing presence and harsh voice. He thinks of the ridges on Seungcheol’s back. There’s a lump of knotted scar tissue on his right bicep — Jisoo can see it clearly, now that the lights are on.

You, Jisoo thinks, despite himself. He doesn’t say the words out loud, but he thinks maybe Seungcheol can see it on his face.

“We have to find the videos, then.”

Bile rises in Jisoo’s throat as he says it, but he squares his shoulders anyway.

“We can’t — ” Seungcheol looks away again, running one hand through his hair. It only makes his bedhead worse. His face is still handsome underneath, and Jisoo hates that he notices.

“We have to,” Jisoo repeats. “You loved Jeonghan, don’t you? You love him.”

“Of course I love him,” Seungcheol snaps, eyes sharp and wounded. “You think I don’t? I dream about him every night.”

Well. At least Jisoo isn’t the only one.

“Then you have to do this for him,” Jisoo says, and it takes everything in him to keep his voice even. “We both have to.”

Seungcheol stares at him for a long time, gaze heavy.

“Fine,” he says, sounding exhausted. “But we can’t do it here.”

Jisoo lets Seungcheol into the tiny apartment he shares with his mom quietly, very aware of the stark difference from the way Seungcheol lives. But Seungcheol doesn’t say anything negative, just looks around the space with mild interest.

“Your mom isn’t home?”

Jisoo shakes his head.

“She’s working.”

He leads Seungcheol to the living room floor — his bedroom feels too close, even after what they did last night. Maybe because of what they did last night.

He drops his backpack down and starts to root through it, the motions familiar by now. Laptop, out. Folder, out. Highlighter — ugh. Jisoo winces when he pulls out his pencil bag and finds it empty, the zipper gaping open. He stretches a hand down to the bottom of his backpack to search for the pencil bag’s emptied contents, frowning in confusion when his hand touches a crumpled paper next to one of his pens.

Jisoo pulls the paper out and smoothes it straight.

It’s one of the chat log printouts — it must have slipped out of the folder and gotten crushed at the bottom of Jisoo’s bag. For a moment Jisoo just stares at it, confused, trying to process what he’s looking at. They didn’t print Jeonghan’s chat logs, so how did it —

“Seungcheol,” he says slowly. Seungcheol grunts but doesn’t look over, already starting up Jisoo’s laptop. “Seungcheol,” Jisoo says again, louder.

There are only three messages in the chat. Jisoo turns the paper to show it to Seungcheol and waits for his reaction.

Seungcheol clearly doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to be looking at — his eyebrows furrow together and he squints to get a better look, shaking his head a little when he still can’t figure it out.

“The username,” Jisoo says, shaking the paper a little for emphasis. Seungcheol only shakes his head again, still confused.

“It’s Jeonghan. So…?”

“This isn’t the chat Seokmin gave us,” Jisoo says. “It’s the one we printed. Your mom’s chat.”

The colour drains from Seungcheol’s face.

“She must have been the person Jeonghan was talking to,” Jisoo continues, nauseated at the way the pieces are starting to fit together. “Maybe the videos they mention, they weren’t — they weren’t with someone else. They were with you. The ones from the CCTV.”

Seungcheol looks even worse than Jisoo feels, like he might actually be sick.

“He mentioned another video,” Seungcheol says numbly. Jisoo swallows back bile.

“Yeah,” he croaks out.

“Do you think it was with — ” Seungcheol can’t finish the sentence. Jisoo doesn’t make him try.

“Yeah,” he says again.

Seungcheol runs one hand over his mouth, inhaling sharply through his nose.

“Jesus christ.”

“I think your mom was going to use the video of Jeonghan and your dad for evidence,” Jisoo forces himself to say. “But it didn’t work. Either she chickened out or he got caught.”

Seungcheol blinks at Jisoo, letting the knowledge of it settle. The force of his gaze is hard to meet head-on, but Jisoo doesn’t look away.

“Do you think my dad still has the videos,” he says, the words barely even a question.

“Maybe,” Jisoo says, trying to think it through. Would Seungcheol’s dad keep them? If he did, where would they be? But, no —

That’s not what Jeonghan said, in the chat. He said he’d get the video.

“Jeonghan had copies,” Jisoo says slowly.

Seungcheol stills. His eyes widen for a shocked moment, then his expression dims as he really thinks about it.

“The police would have found them,” he tries. Jisoo scoffs.

“The police barely did anything,” he counters. “They gave up, I know they did.”

“You think my dad…?”

Jisoo nods slowly, thinking about it. It makes sense — if they asked Seungcheol if he saw Jeonghan at his house that night, maybe they already knew Jeonghan was there. Maybe that was where they stopped, instead of trying to push an accusation against Seungcheol’s dad.

Seungcheol looks sick.

“Jesus christ,” he mutters. “What a fucking mess.”

Jisoo snorts his agreement.

“Yeah,” he agrees uselessly, still trying to think through it. Where could the videos have ended up? Did Jeonghan hide them? Did Seungcheol’s mom find them first?

Did —

“Seungcheol,” Jisoo says suddenly, a thought occurring to him. “I ran into Hyesoo the other day.”

Seungcheol blinks, clearly not following.

“And?” he asks, eyebrows raising with the question.

“She said Jeonghan told her not to talk to anyone he knew,” Jisoo says slowly, putting the pieces together even as he speaks. “She told me your mom visited her — after.”

Seungcheol stares at him.

“Why would my mom visit Hyesoo?”

“I didn’t know,” Jisoo says. “I thought it was kinda weird then, but now — ”

He gestures at the chat log, still wrinkled even though they tried to rub it straight.

“Your mom was looking for the videos,” he says flatly. “She thought Hyesoo had them. But Hyesoo told her she didn’t know anything and she didn’t want to talk to her.”

“So Hyesoo lied?” There’s a crease between Seungcheol’s eyebrows as he tries to puzzle it out. Jisoo shrugs helplessly. He doesn’t know for sure. He doesn’t know anything for sure.

“Maybe she didn’t lie,” he says. “But maybe she does have them. Maybe Jeonghan hid them with her.”

“How the fuck are we going to find them, then?” Seungcheol laughs as he says it, a harsh exhale. “If she doesn’t even know what they are, how are we supposed to figure it out? How do we even get her to talk to us?”

“I talked to her before,” Jisoo says, barely managing lukewarm optimism. “I can try again.”

Seungcheol sighs.

“Might as well try,” he says.

“Okay,” Jisoo says, taking a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll go to Hyesoo, and you can — can you go home? Could you check your dad’s office?”

“He’ll see me on the CCTV,” Seungcheol points out with a nervous frown.

“Not right away,” Jisoo counters. “If we find it first it won’t matter.”

It’s risky — Jisoo can tell from the look on his face Seungcheol knows it’s a bad idea. He nods anyway.

“Alright,” he says finally. “You go check with Hyesoo. I’ll go home.”

Jisoo thinks about sending a message first, but he’s too scared Hyesoo will refuse. He shows up at her apartment instead. Jeonghan’s apartment, Jisoo’s mind supplies, even as he does his best to avoid the thought. It isn’t Jeonghan’s apartment anymore.

He holds his breath as he knocks on the door, lip caught between his teeth. He doesn’t know if he wants anyone to answer or not. If someone comes it’ll be Hyesoo, he knows — their mother works long hours, just like his. Jisoo and Jeonghan always had that in common, but at least Jeonghan had Hyesoo to keep him company. When Jisoo’s mom left him for work he was all alone.

Sure enough, when the door opens it’s Hyesoo on the other side, already in her uniform. She’s wearing one of Jeonghan’s old sweatshirts over it, Jisoo realizes, and for a moment all he can do is stare.

“Hey,” he croaks out, finally. Hyesoo eyes him warily from where she’s still leaning against the door, both hands on the knob like she might swing it shut at a moment’s notice.

“Why are you here?”

“Can I talk to you?” Jisoo says, too stressed to try to sugarcoat it. “It’s important.”

Hyesoo bites her lip like she wants to say no, eyes darting over Jisoo’s shoulder to check the hallway behind him.

“Please,” Jisoo whispers, and Hyesoo finally nods. She still looks uncomfortable, but she steps back to let Jisoo in. The wave of relief he feels does nothing to help his nerves, palms still clammy with sweat.

The inside of the apartment is a mess — clothes draped on the couch, dirty dishes piled in the sink. It’s clear no one’s taken out the recycling for weeks. Even so, Jisoo has to stand in the entryway for a moment, overwhelmed. Mess or no, he can still picture Jeonghan sitting on that couch, slumped down and scrolling through his phone.

“What,” Hyesoo snaps, clearly mistaking his motives for judgment. Jisoo blinks, shakes his head to clear it.

“Sorry,” he says. “I got — I was distracted. I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” Hyesoo says slowly. “So…?”

Jisoo takes a deep breath, letting it out on an awkward laugh. He knows what he has to say, but he doesn’t know how to start it.

“You said Jeonghan told you not to talk to anybody,” he starts, finally, wincing at the way Hyesoo flinches, hurt. She wraps her arms around her waist and scowls. “Did he, um,” Jisoo hesitates, tongue darting out to wet his lower lip. “Did he give you anything?”

Hyesoo frowns.

“No,” she says. “Not — not then.”

It’s nothing he wasn’t expecting, but Jisoo still sags a little at that, the futility of it overwhelming him for a moment. How is he supposed to find it in this apartment? It’s a mess. He has no idea where Jeonghan would have put it.

Well. No. It had to be with Hyesoo, right? He wouldn’t have left it in his own room.

“Did you clean out Jeonghan’s room?” Jisoo asks, just to be sure.

“A little,” Hyesoo says, dull and defensive. She’s holding herself so tightly. “Mom’s been really busy, so — ”

Jisoo nods politely and lets it go. He’s seen the rest of the apartment — he can put it together.

“Is there anything in your room Jeonghan gave you before? Something important to you?” he tries.

“Why are you asking me this?” Hyesoo says instead of answering, brow furrowed together like it hurts. Jisoo feels the familiar urge to smooth it over, to smile at her and tell her it’s fine, to do the polite thing and leave. He ignores it.

“It’s really important,” he says instead. “Jeonghan was hiding something. I think that’s why — ”

Hyesoo’s breath catches.

“What does that mean?”

Jisoo hesitates, not sure how much he should say.

“I think someone wanted what he was hiding,” he says carefully. “It’s really important to find it, so I can find that person.”

Hyesoo makes a tiny hurt sound, hunched over herself like she’s in pain.

“The police said it was random,” she says, voice aimed at her own feet. “They said it was just some crazy person.”

Jisoo hesitates, and then —

“Do you really believe that?” he asks quietly. “You don’t think the CCTV would have caught it, if it was just some random freak?”

“You’re scaring me,” Hyesoo says, eyes rimmed red when she brings her head up. Jisoo meets her gaze head-on and doesn’t flinch.

“I’m sorry,” he says evenly, meaning it.

“Then leave,” Hyesoo whispers plaintively, but she doesn’t make any moves to force him out.

“Help me first,” Jisoo counters. “Help me look through your room and I’ll leave.”

For a moment neither of them budge, a silent stand-off, and then Hyesoo rocks back onto her heels. One hand comes up to push her hair out of her face, the sleeve of Jeonghan’s hoodie so long Jisoo can only see her fingertips.

“You really think it’ll help him?”

Jisoo nods silently.

Hyesoo heaves out a sigh, closing her eyes for a moment before she turns to walk down the hallway. She pauses when Jisoo doesn’t follow immediately.

“Are you gonna come or not?”

She sounds so tired. Jisoo doesn’t make her ask twice.

Hyesoo’s room is even messier than the living room, dishes and half-finished snacks on every exposed surface. There are papers all over her desk and on the floor around it, her bed covered with clothes. The entire room smells stale. Hyesoo’s face is impassive as Jisoo takes in the chaos, letting out a long breath.

“Do you have any ideas?”

Hyesoo shrugs one shoulder.

“Oppa didn’t really give me presents,” she says. “I don’t know where he would have hidden it.”

If Jisoo looks past the mess he can see all the staples of an ordinary teenage girl’s room underneath — framed photographs, candles, little bowls for jewelry. There’s a stuffed rabbit on the bed, its face stitched into a permanent impassive smile. Jisoo has to tear his gaze away.

“Check behind all the picture frames first, I guess,” he says, meeting Hyesoo’s eyes instead.

Hyesoo rolls her eyes.

“You’re gonna make me late for school.”

She does as he asks, though, nudging papers out of the way to get at the first frame on her desk and ignoring the way more sheets slip to join the pile on the floor.

“Do you care?” Jisoo asks.

“No one does,” Hyesoo says with a shrug, setting the first frame down and reaching for the second. “They let me do whatever if I tell them it was because I felt sad.”

Jisoo laughs awkwardly in response, finally stepping past her and moving towards the table by her bed.

“Is it okay if I look too?” he asks before he touches anything, looking up to check for her permission. “I won’t touch anything weird.”

“Whatever,” Hyesoo shrugs absently, feeling around the edges of the bulletin board above her desk. “What am I even looking for, exactly?”

“A USB, I think,” Jisoo says, stacking a bowl onto a plate and setting both of them on the floor. “The first one was a rabbit.”

Hyesoo hums in acknowledgment.

“I guess it could be a hard drive,” Jisoo adds, turning over the frame by her bed and trying not to look too closely at the baby photo of the two of them inside it. There’s no space to hide anything so he sets it back upright, careful to tilt it away from where he’s standing. “I don’t know. Maybe a phone.”

“Wow,” Hyesoo says. She’s rooting through a desk drawer now. “You’re really convincing me right now.”

“Sorry,” Jisoo says, a little distracted as he picks up a figurine of a ballerina. It’s porcelain, and there’s no way to get inside it without breaking it. He gives it a shake anyway just to check — nothing.

They keep going like that for ten minutes, then fifteen, then twenty, finding nothing as the time passes. Jisoo stacks the dishes as he finds them, puts the trash in a pile. He figure it’s the least he can do.

“Oppa, I really think there’s nothing,” Hyesoo says finally, standing up from where she was checking the bottom drawer of her dresser.

Jisoo’s phone makes a sound in his pocket before he can say anything in response, the kkt message tone breaking the silence between them. He grimaces and fishes it out.

did u find anything? Seungcheol’s sent. Jisoo sighs, wavering between optimism and honesty as he decides what to respond. Hyesoo comes up next to him while he’s still deciding, craning her neck to peer at his phone screen before he can move it away.

“Is that Seungcheol-oppa?” she asks, and Jisoo freezes.

“You guys were close?”

“Duh,” Hyesoo says, sounding exasperated. “He was oppa’s boyfriend.”

Jisoo coughs.

“You knew about that?”

Hyesoo frowns, pulling back.

“Oppa told me stuff, you know,” she says, the chill from earlier already starting to creep back into her demeanour. “He was — I’m his sister.”

Jisoo winces.

“I know that,” he tries to assure her, but she doesn’t look convinced. “I just didn’t know Jeonghan brought Seungcheol home, that’s all.”

“Well, he did,” Hyesoo says. “He was really nice. He gave me that rabbit.”

She nods towards the stuffed rabbit on the bed. Jisoo looks at it again, glance catching on the carrot stitched to its hand.

“Seungcheol gave it to you?”

“Kind of,” Hyesoo says, shifting a little, leaning against the dresser behind her. “When he took us to the carnival he won it for Jeonghan-oppa, but then oppa said I could have it instead.”

“Can I — ?”

Jisoo doesn’t wait for her answer, reaching to pick the rabbit up off the bed. Hyesoo watches him do it, clearly skeptical.

“I think I would know if there was a hard drive in there,” she says dryly. Jisoo ignores her, squeezing where the rabbit’s paw meets the carrot, feeling until —

There.

“Do you have an exacto knife?” Jisoo asks, squinting closer at the uneven stitching on the carrot, badly tied off using a different colour thread. Hyesoo stares.

“Are you serious?”

“There’s something in here,” Jisoo explains impatiently. “I need a knife.”

Hyesoo hesitates, and then —

“Hang on — ” she moves over to her desk, digging out a pouch from of the drawers and rustling through it until she finds what she’s looking for and then handing it to Jisoo in a closed palm.

Jisoo cuts the USB out from the carrot using Hyesoo’s manicure scissors, Hyesoo watching in disbelief as he pulls it out. For a moment both of them just stare at it, dumbfounded — it’s smaller than the one Seokmin had, plain and nondescript. Easy to miss.

“Do you think that’s…?”

“Yeah,” Jisoo answers hoarsely. He looks up at her, suddenly overwhelmed. “Thank you,” he says, trying to sound as sincere as he can. It’s — he checks his phone — almost 11. They’re both supposed to be in school.

“What’s on it?

Jisoo stiffens, eyes darting away.

“It’s — you don’t want to see it,” he says, and Hyesoo lets out an irritated breath.

“You can tell me,” she insists. “Didn’t I help you find it?”

“You did,” Jisoo says, placating. “But this is — it’s really bad, okay? Jeonghan wouldn’t want you to see it.”

Hyesoo fixes him with a flat stare, arms crossing in front of her.

“How would you know that?”

Jisoo flinches, letting out a careful breath.

“Someone took — videos, okay? Without telling him,” he says, finally, hoping she doesn’t ask him to give any more details. “He didn’t tell me either.”

“Videos? Like a hidden camera?” Hyesoo’s voice raises in alarm. “You have to delete them,” she says immediately, eyes on the USB still loosely clutched in Jisoo’s hand like she’s thinking of making a grab for it. Jisoo’s fingers tighten around it like a reflex.

“Hyesoo-yah,” he says, as gently as he can. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Of course you can,” she snaps as she moves closer, her hands closing around Jisoo’s fist. He’s stronger, though, his hands so much bigger than hers. She grunts in frustration, trying to peel his fingers back.

“If we get rid of this we can’t prove anything,” Jisoo says steadily, still holding his fist tight. “The person who did it will get away with it.”

Hyesoo pauses, grip slackening, tension draining out of her. Her hair is in her face again. She peers up at Jisoo through overlong bangs.

“Do you know who did it?” she asks, voice hardly more than a whisper. Jisoo nods, a barely noticeable twitch.

Hyesoo steps back, face smoothing out like something’s taken her over. She stares at him with a blank expression on her face.

“Can you make them pay for it?” she asks, a vacant tone creeping into her voice. Jisoo doesn’t like it.

He nods again.

“I can try,” he promises quietly. “But — Hyesoo-yah. It won’t change anything, you know that right? He’ll still be gone.”

“I know that,” Hyesoo snaps, some colour coming back to her face. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want — ”

“It’s okay,” Jisoo says, soothing her. “It’s okay. I want that too.”

Hyesoo nods towards Jisoo’s clenched fist.

“Then do it,” she says, her chin jutting out. She sounds a little more like herself again, and Jisoo breathes out a sigh of relief, even as his whole body trembles with exhausted nerves.

“I will.”

He says it like a promise. Hyesoo nods.

As Jisoo slips the USB into his pocket he takes one last look around the room, grimacing at the state of it. He should have tried harder, he thinks. He should have checked if she was okay. Jeonghan wouldn’t want his sister to live like this.

“Hyesoo-yah,” Jisoo says, making a decision. He moves to pick up one of the stacks of dishes he left by the door. “Let’s clean up a little before I go, okay? I’ll help.”

“You don’t have to,” Hyesoo says, a defensive note to her voice. Jisoo shrugs and doesn’t stop what he’s doing, easing the door open with his foot. Hyesoo sighs in irritation, but she hurries to grab another stack and follows him out anyway.

“You did me a favour,” Jisoo points out as he sets the plates on the counter, craning his neck to look for a way to turn on the sink without disrupting the careful balance of dishes inside it. “Now I’ll do one for you. Where are the gloves?”

It takes over an hour to get through the dishes. Hyesoo stands next to Jisoo the whole time and keeps him company, drying as he washes and silently putting them away. Neither of them say much of anything.

He takes the recycling out with him when he leaves.

i got it

Jisoo sent the message before he started on the dishes with Hyesoo. He checks on his way home and Seungcheol still hasn’t sent anything in response.

But when Jisoo gets back into the building Seungcheol’s standing outside the door to his apartment, body strung tight with tension. One hand taps nervously against his thigh. His eyes are on the floor.

“You didn’t respond to my message,” Jisoo calls as he makes his way closer, but Seungcheol doesn’t say anything in response. “…Seungcheol?”

“I didn’t see it,” Seungcheol croaks, and then he finally looks up.

Jisoo’s breath catches at the redness around his eye, startling and unmistakeable. It’s already starting to swell.

“Let’s go inside,” he says quietly, pushing past Seungcheol to unlock the apartment door, holding it open behind him for Seungcheol to follow. Seungcheol goes straight into the living room but Jisoo doesn’t join him, heading to the kitchen to root in the freezer for an ice pack.

They don’t have one, of course. He settles for digging up a half-finished bag of frozen dumplings, old enough that they’re almost definitely freezer burned.

“Here,” he says, tossing to to Seungcheol when he makes his way back into the living room. Seungcheol startles but catches it, pressing it to his eye automatically.

“Thanks,” he says after a too-long moment. There’s an empty look in his eyes Jisoo hasn’t seen before, like he isn’t quite sure where he is. Jisoo doesn’t know how to remind him.

“What happened?” he asks quietly.

Seungcheol shrugs, a resigned expression on his face.

“He came home early,” he says dully. He won’t look Jisoo in the eye as he speaks. “He was mad I wasn’t in school.”

Jisoo sits very still, perched on the edge of the couch.

“Could he tell what you were doing?” Jisoo can feel his pulse in his throat, fear rising up like bile.

Seungcheol shakes his head.

“I was still in my room,” he says. “He didn’t need a fucking reason anyway. He never does.”

Jisoo nods, tongue caught in his mouth, unable to find the right words.

“Jeonghan was fucking stupid,” Seungcheol continues, the words tumbling out of him like all he needed was an opening. “Thinking my mom would ever go through with it. She used to promise me all the fucking time that she’d do something, that she’d do it for me. That I wouldn’t have to live like that. But she was never gonna do shit. Jeonghan should have known better.”

Jisoo winces, but Seungcheol isn’t finished.

“We got in a fight about it once, did he ever tell you?”

Jisoo shakes his head mutely. Jeonghan never really told Jisoo when he and Seungcheol were having problems. If he complained about Seungcheol it was always lighthearted. The kind of complaints that weren’t really complaints at all.

“He wouldn’t stop bugging me about it, after he found out,” Seungcheol admits. “He couldn’t understand why I got so upset every time he said shit about my dad. Finally I lost my temper, and I said — ”

He takes a deep breath, eyes casting to the side like he’s afraid someone’s going to come in and hear him. Jisoo doesn’t call him on it, waiting patiently for him to finish.

“I said what do you know?” Seungcheol says, voice so quiet it’s almost a whisper, his head still turned to the side.

Jisoo inhales sharply — it’s a shitty thing to have said. Jeonghan’s dad died when he was seven.

“What did he do?”

Seungcheol laughs, empty and hollow.

“He didn’t talk to me for a week,” he says. “I thought I’d fucked it up for real. But then he showed up one night and told me he loved me, and that if I ever said anything like that to him again he’d kill me himself.”

Jisoo snorts. That sounds like Jeonghan.

“He didn’t bring it up again after that,” Seungcheol adds. “I thought he’d given it up. I didn’t think….”

Jisoo can’t blame him. He wouldn’t have thought Jeonghan would do something like this either.

“Do you think your mom was the one who told your dad?”

“Maybe,” Seungcheol says, a bitter edge to his voice. “Maybe she never had to. Maybe he figured it out on his own.”

Jisoo closes his eyes for a moment. It’s only one in the afternoon — they both skipped school for this. Jeonghan’s USB is burning a hole in his pocket. He’s too afraid to look at it.

“Do you wanna get lunch?” he asks instead. Seungcheol makes a funny choked noise, like he got halfway to a laugh but couldn’t quite follow through.

“Sure,” he says, a note of disbelief in his voice.

“Come on, then,” Jisoo says, pushing himself up from the couch.

“You can’t just order delivery?” Seungcheol complains weakly, but he shifts and stands too, setting the sweaty dumpling bag on the coffee table. Jisoo sighs and picks it up, moving to the kitchen to throw it away.

“Delivery’s too expensive,” he says when he’s done, following Seungcheol to the door. Both of them stumble into their shoes. Seungcheol snorts when Jisoo wobbles in the dark, grabbing his arm for balance.

“You good?” he asks quietly. Jisoo rolls his eyes, doesn’t bother with a response.

They eat lunch at the kimbap chain down the block from Jisoo’s apartment, Seungcheol inhaling a plate of over-fried tonkatsu while Jisoo pokes listlessly at his watery ramen.

“Eat,” Seungcheol says halfway through his meal, finally noticing Jisoo’s interest. He pokes at Jisoo’s bicep. Jisoo doesn’t flinch. “You gained all that muscle, you gotta keep it.”

Jisoo doesn’t think ramen’s going to do much for that, but he picks up his chopsticks anyway. It’s easier than fighting about it.

After lunch Jisoo walks the wrong way when they leave the restaurant, guiding them further from his apartment. Seungcheol doesn’t comment, like maybe he can tell what Jisoo’s doing. He doesn’t want to go back, either, Jisoo thinks. He doesn’t want to have to deal with this any more than Jisoo does.

There’s a park a few blocks down and Jisoo takes them towards it without making a conscious decision. Neither of them say anything as they follow the path slowly. They walk past groups of older women doing their daily exercises, young people walking their dogs. A couple with a baby stroller, the baby’s tiny hat tied neatly under its round chin.

Everyone they pass seems so normal.

“We should go back,” he says quietly, when it’s been over an hour and they’re still walking. Seungcheol grunts in acknowledgment, but doesn’t say anything more. When Jisoo turns around he follows.

His apartment is dark and quiet compared to the park. Jisoo had thought the silence in Seungcheol’s home was so oppressive, he remembers. He hadn’t realized he was living the same way.

Jisoo’s heart pounds when he plugs the USB into the computer, his fingers shaking so badly he can barely hold them in place on the keyboard. He watches as the notification pops up at the bottom of the screen, clicks it to open it. Seungcheol presses in closer next to him, leaning forward as though pulled.

The drive has a single folder in it, the name a random string of letters. A window pops up when Jisoo clicks it, prompting him to enter a password.

“Shit,” he mutters.

“Do you know what it could be?”

Jisoo shrugs helplessly.

“Someone’s birthday?” he tries, wincing at Seungcheol’s immediate scoff.

Seungcheol’s right, probably — he doesn’t think Jeonghan would do anything so obvious. He tries Seungcheol’s birthday anyway, and then his own. An error message comes up for both.

“What’s Hyesoo’s birthday?”

Seungcheol nudges Jisoo out of the way to type it in, then another one when Hyesoo’s doesn’t work either.

“His mom,” he explains. Both of them lean back against the couch, sighing in sync.

“What the fuck are we gonna do now?” Seungcheol asks, eyes still trained on the screen in front of him. “It could be anything.”

Jisoo takes a deep breath, trying to focus. Did he know any of Jeonghan’s other passwords? He can’t even remember now, the knowledge already slipping away from him. It hasn’t even been a full year.

“What day did you go to the carnival?” he asks. Seungcheol turns to look at him, looking confused. “With Hyesoo,” Jisoo clarifies. “When you won the rabbit.”

Seungcheol breathes out a laugh, rubbing one hand along his jaw.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Last summer, I think. Maybe August.”

Jisoo rolls his eyes and reaches for Seungcheol’s phone, holding it out for Seungcheol to unlock it.

“What are you doing?” Seungcheol’s voice is wary, but he holds his thumb down obediently. Jisoo opens Seungcheol’s Instagram immediately, scrolling through to look for it.

“Finding the date,” he says impatiently. It’s Seungcheol’s old private account, so Jeonghan is everywhere — Seungcheol stopped updating it after he died. Jisoo tries not to linger on any of the photos, but it’s almost impossible. Jeonghan turned away from the camera, only his hair and the shell of his ear visible. Jeonghan grilling meat, his cheeks flushed pink. Jeonghan waving from the middle of a field, grinning so hard his nose is all scrunched up with it. Jeonghan with his headphones on, studying.

The picture of him is so unassuming Jisoo almost scrolls right past it, distracted and overwhelmed, but something familiar catches his eye and he stops. For a moment all he can do is stare down at the screen, eyes caught on the lines of his own face. In the picture Jeonghan is grinning at him, one hand on the grass in between them like he was reaching for Jisoo’s face. Only part of Jisoo’s face is visible but he’s smiling back — it’s clear from the edge of his mouth, the corner of his eye.

Jisoo remembers the day — they were playing soccer in the park, he’s pretty sure. Jeonghan made him promise to buy ice cream when he lost. Jisoo hadn’t realized Seungcheol took a picture of them.

“You posted this?” Jisoo tilts the screen so Seungcheol can see and Seungcheol flushes a little when he gets a good look at the screen, coughing to cover his discomfort.

“It was a nice picture” is all he says.

Jisoo hums quietly and keeps looking.

But the carnival date doesn’t work either, and neither does his anniversary with Seungcheol. Neither of them remembered the day they started dating, Seungcheol swore, but he remembered the day they met.

They try Jeonghan’s chat pseud, then his nickname for his little sister. All his nicknames for Seungcheol. All his Maple Story pseuds. Jeonghan would never pick a favourite for anything, but they try the songs they remember him listening to. The cartoon character Seungcheol used to say looked like him. The only movie Seungcheol could ever get him to see in theatres.

It’s past eight o’clock by the time Jisoo sits up and stretches, his body aching from the way he’s been hunched over the screen.

“I can look up how to get into it without a password,” he offers. Seungcheol’s nose scrunches skeptically.

“You think it’s possible?”

“Better than doing this forever,” Jisoo points out, gesturing at the computer screen in front of them. He’ll have to get the power cord from his room soon — his laptop is at 11%.

“True,” Seungcheol says around a yawn.

“We can go in my room if you want,” Jisoo says quietly. “You can rest.”

“I’ll order dinner,” Seungcheol says instead. “I’ll pay,” he adds, before Jisoo can complain about the cost. Jisoo smiles a little despite himself.

“Well, if you’re paying,” he concedes.

Seungcheol asks Jisoo what he wants and he shrugs, not really caring what Seungcheol picks. Whatever he eats he knows he won’t enjoy it — he’s too tense to feel hungry. He always gets like this when he’s stressed.

“Chicken it is,” Seungcheol says quietly, focusing on the screen as he orders. Jisoo snorts as he stands up.

“I’m going to get the power cord,” he says. Seungcheol waves a hand at him without looking up.

In his room he reaches under the desk to unplug the cord from the wall, fingers stretching to get the angle right. He needs to vacuum, he realizes with a wince. Grime sticks to his free hand where he’s braced it on the ground.

The plug pulls free, finally. Jisoo sits back, careful to keep his head clear of the desk, but on his way back up his eye catches on something and he pauses.

Jisoo’s never liked clutter but he used to let Jeonghan leave notes in his room sometimes — he always felt weirdly guilty about throwing them out, even when Jeonghan was still alive. Jisoo stares at the one he taped up after Jeonghan died. It’s a cheerful rabbit, with a bunch of random numbers underneath it. When Jeonghan gave it to him Jisoo asked what it meant, but Jeonghan just said it was a secret code. Jeonghan loved fucking with him like that. He was always sending Jisoo indecipherable messages at odd hours of the night and trying to get Jisoo to decode them, as though there was some kind of higher meaning to his bored keysmashing.

Jisoo pulls the note off the wall, fingers trembling.

“Try this,” he says when he makes it back to the living room, shoving the paper at Seungcheol, untangling the power cord as Seungcheol stares at it.

“What is it?”

Jisoo shrugs, plugging the cord into the wall and coming to sit down next to him.

“He gave it to me,” he says. “He said it was a secret code.”

Seungcheol stares at him for a moment, eyes wide and nervous, before he sets the paper next to the keyboard and starts to type, carefully checking each number.

The error message doesn’t come.

Both of them watch as the folder opens instead, rows of neat video files displayed, but before Jisoo can get a good look at them Seungcheol slams the screen down, breathing hard.

Jisoo freezes.

“We need to see them,” he says quietly.

“I don’t — ” Seungcheol starts, voice hoarse, but he can’t seem to make himself finish.

Jisoo pauses, and then carefully slides the computer closer to himself, opening it where Seungcheol can’t see the screen. When it lights up again he guides the cursor to the bottom right corner to bring the volume all the way down.

“I’ll do it,” he says. “I’ll just check one, to see.”

Seungcheol stares at him.

“You shouldn’t have to,” he croaks out. All Jisoo can do is laugh.

“Who else?”

Seungcheol looks like he wants to fight him on it but he stops himself, mouth pressed together as he nods.

Jisoo’s heart slams in his chest as he opens the video, dread pulling his stomach down. He watches, breath caught, as the Jeonghan in the video crawls on top of Seungcheol. Their mouths connect like they’re drawn together, like they can’t stop it. It’s nothing like when Seungcheol and Jisoo kissed — it’s messier, a push and pull between them. It’s hard to tell from the angle, but Jisoo thinks they’re both still laughing. He watches as Jeonghan runs his hands up Seungcheol’s shirt to help him pull it off, then hits pause.

“It’s you,” he says.

“Check if there are any with — ” Seungcheol pauses, and Jisoo’s stomach lurches as he gets what he means. He takes a deep breath and nods, forcing himself to look carefully at the thumbnails. Some of them are darker so he can’t know for sure, but it looks like they’re all in Seungcheol’s familiar bedroom. All except —

Jisoo clicks on the very last one, gut clenching when it opens to Seungcheol’s dad’s office instead. He can see the back of Jeonghan’s head, his familiar long hair. Jisoo hits pause before anything can happen, throat working.

“He’s here too,” he forces out, swallowing to keep the bile down.

Seungcheol’s hands clench into fists as he takes deep breaths, clearly fighting to keep calm. Jisoo doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t think there’s anything to say.

“What do we do with it,” Seungcheol whispers. “Do we have to — ?”

Jisoo pauses, trying to force his thoughts straight.

“What do you want?” he asks slowly. “Do you want to try to get him arrested?”

Seungcheol lets out a surprised laugh.

“You really think that’s possible?”

Jisoo honestly doesn’t know. They have the chat logs, but what good would they do? All they prove is extortion. They’d just end up dragging Jeonghan and Seungcheol’s mom through the mud.

“We could post the video,” he offers. “Just the one with your dad.”

Seungcheol shakes his head immediately.

“I don’t want people to see him like that,” he says.

Jisoo takes another deep breath. Seungcheol’s right — how could they ever send that to anyone? Even if they sent it to the police it could still leak. Everyone would see it. Hyesoo might see it.

“I could watch it with headphones,” he says carefully. “I’ll see if we can — if we can just post part of it. So you can’t tell it’s him.”

Seungcheol doesn’t look convinced.

“You think that’ll work?”

“Maybe,” Jisoo says. “Maybe we don’t even need the police. If it looks bad enough we can just post it publicly, try to tank his reputation.”

Seungcheol snorts.

“He’d find some way to get out of it,” he says, voice tired. “He always does. He gets away with everything. He’d just make someone else look bad instead.”

“It would be hard to get away with this,” Jisoo points out. Seungcheol shrugs, not looking particularly convinced.

“Maybe you’re right,” he says, sighing like he’s given up. “Maybe that’s all we have.”

A sharp knock at the door startles both of them, Jisoo whirling to stare at it with wide eyes. A stab of hysterical fear slices through him — is Seungcheol’s dad here? Did he follow him?

There’s another knock, more impatient this time, and Seungcheol breathes out a laugh next to him.

“Oh my god,” he says, pushing himself upright. Jisoo watches him mutely, too stunned to speak. “It’s the fucking chicken.”

Jisoo lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, gripping the edge of the coffee table as he tries to calm himself down.

“That was embarrassing,” he says when Seungcheol comes back, clearing off the coffee table to make room for the food. Seungcheol snorts in agreement, settling down next to Jisoo and reaching to open the bag.

Jisoo still isn’t hungry but he eats what Seungcheol offers him anyway, chewing so slowly he keeps forgetting there’s food in still in his mouth.

“Where was your dad on the day Jeonghan died?” he asks halfway through his second piece of chicken. Seungcheol freezes.

“I don’t know,” he admits, setting his own piece down. He lets out a humourless laugh. “I don’t even know where I was,” he admits. “I can barely remember.”

Jisoo makes a sound of agreement. His memory of that day isn’t good, either. He knows he said goodbye to Jeonghan at the 7-11, but after that it’s harder to tell. He thinks he went home, but maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just went straight to the study café. It all runs together in a sick blur when he thinks about it. He barely even remembers his mom telling him what happened.

“The police kept asking me if I’d seen him that day,” Seungcheol says, slow like he’s trying to picture it in his head. “It was like they didn’t believe me. But I only saw him at school. He was supposed to come over later but he never did.”

Jisoo frowns.

“Were you home the whole night?”

Seungcheol pauses to think about it, then shakes his head.

“I had basketball practice after school.”

“Maybe Jeonghan did come over,” Jisoo says. “Maybe he just left before you got home. Or maybe — ”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but it’s obvious Seungcheol gets what he means. His mouth is dropped open, throat working as he swallows.

“You think — at my house?”

Seungcheol’s voice comes out a cracked whisper. Jisoo bites his lip. He doesn’t want it to be true, but —

“Maybe,” he says quietly. “But it would be hard to, like — ” Jisoo swallows hard, trying to force himself to say it. “It would be hard to move the body,” he finishes, voice trailing off weakly at the end. “Maybe your dad followed him out.”

“Jesus christ,” Seungcheol whispers. Jisoo breathes out slowly.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “If we can find out what your dad was doing….”

Seungcheol raises a skeptical eyebrow.

“How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

Jisoo has no fucking idea. He doesn’t know anything about Seungcheol’s dad.

“Does he have, like … a secretary?” he asks, trying to think it through.

Seungcheol pauses, then nods.

“We could try to ask her for his calendar,” Jisoo offers. Seungcheol’s mouth twists immediately, face pinching into a grimace.

“How am I supposed to ask her for that? It would be too weird. I’ve never even talked to her before.”

“Never?”

Seungcheol shakes his head.

“My mom always did stuff like that.”

His mom —

Jisoo straightens, an idea starting to form.

“Did your parents share their calendars?”

Seungcheol blinks for a moment and then shrugs.

“I mean, I don’t — maybe?”

“Call your dad’s secretary and ask. Say now that your mom’s gone you need to access it in her place.”

“Yah,” Seungcheol laughs nervously. “I can’t — you think that’ll work?”

Jisoo shrugs.

“It’s worth a try,” he points out. “Better than doing nothing.”

“I guess,” Seungcheol agrees, a hesitant expression on his face. Jisoo looks pointedly down at his phone and his eyes widen. “You mean right now?”

“No point waiting.”

Seungcheol laughs again, an edge of panic creeping into his voice.

“I can’t — I can’t lie for shit,” he admits. “I’m no good on the phone.”

“Just write down what you need to say beforehand,” Jisoo says. “I’ll help. As long as you say it like a normal person she won’t think you’re lying, I promise.”

Like a normal person, Seungcheol mouths to himself, not seeming at all convinced.

“She’s not gonna think you’re lying unless you give her a reason to think you’re lying,” Jisoo says firmly. “Focus on the facts. Your mom is gone. You need to access her accounts because now you’re the only one home.”

“She’ll buy that?”

“Don’t give her a reason not to, and she will. If she says no don’t push it, just act like you didn’t know. You don’t want her to be suspicious.”

“Okay,” Seungcheol says, taking a bracing breath. “Okay.” He glances over at Jisoo. “Do you mind…?”

“What,” Jisoo says blankly, not getting what he means. Seungcheol makes a shooing motion with his hand. “Oh,” he says, already pushing himself to a stand. “You’ll be okay by yourself?”

Seungcheol nods. He doesn’t look particularly okay, but Jisoo figures all he can do is trust him.

Jisoo retreats back to his bedroom and closes the door, trying not to listen for Seungcheol’s half of the conversation on the other side. He lies on his bed instead, staring up at his familiar ceiling and very deliberately thinking about nothing.

A sudden knock at the door startles him — he must have been dozing off, he realizes with some surprise. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to.

“You’re done already?”

Seungcheol nods, phone clutched in one hand and Jisoo’s laptop in the other. He lets himself into the bedroom, dropping down on the edge of the bed. Jisoo closes the door behind him and squats down to sit on the floor.

“Did you get it?”

“Yeah,” Seungcheol says, a little hoarse. “She was really nice about it. I think she must be new or something, I don’t know. She asked me if I needed help with anything else.”

“What did you say?” Jisoo asks absently, taking the phone when Seungcheol hands it to him. Seungcheol already signed into the calendar. Jisoo skims back to January.

“It’s not like there’s anything she can help me with,” Seungcheol says, with an ugly little laugh. Jisoo pauses to look up at him.

“Fair,” he says, finally, turning back to the screen. Almost, almost —

There.

January 13th.

Jisoo squints at the calendar. It’s booked solid, the meetings all overlapping one another other, so it’s not clear which ones he actually attended.

But there was only one meeting from 8 to 9:30 P.M. Jisoo’s fingers tremble as he taps to open it — a conference call, no meeting place specified.

“I think he could have done it,” he says slowly, looking back up at Seungcheol’s stricken face. “I think he had time.”

“What are we supposed to do now,” Seungcheol asks weakly — always looking to Jisoo for answers, as though Jisoo has any idea at all.

“I think we should check your dad’s office,” Jisoo decides. “Tomorrow.”

Seungcheol gapes at him like he’s finally lost it for real. Maybe he has.

“What about tonight, then?”

Jisoo shrugs, looking around the living room.

“We have to clean up this chicken, I guess,” he says. Seungcheol ordered too much — not a surprise. Jisoo wonders if his mom will want any when she gets home, or if he should just throw it out.

“Then you can sleep here,” he offers, looking at the chicken and not at Seungcheol. He doesn’t want Seungcheol to go back to his apartment alone. They can do it tomorrow, together.

“You have room?”

Jisoo shrugs again.

“You can take the bed,” he says. “I’m not tired.”

Seungcheol raises a skeptical eyebrow in response, obviously not buying it. “I won’t be able to sleep,” Jisoo amends, but it doesn’t get Seungcheol off his back — he just looks even more concerned, now. Jisoo doesn’t want that either.

“It’s not a big deal,” he insists. “It happens all the time.”

Seungcheol’s still frowning when he lets Jisoo lead them into his room after they clean up the chicken — Jisoo put what was left in the fridge for his mom; Seungcheol grumbled in annoyance when Jisoo made him flatten the other box.

Jisoo hesitates once they’re inside. He doesn’t have anything to offer Seungcheol to change into — nothing he has will fit Seungcheol properly, he’s pretty sure, and when he says as much Seungcheol laughs in agreement.

“It’s fine,” he says, easing to lie down on Jisoo’s bed. It looks even smaller with him in it. Jisoo has a desk but he sits on the floor instead, his back against the bed. Seungcheol makes a questioning sound when Jisoo drags his backpack closer, pulling his laptop out in a familiar motion.

“I gotta look at the videos,” he says quietly. “Like we said.”

“You don’t — ” Seungcheol starts, but Jisoo doesn’t let him finish.

“Of course I do,” he says. Who else is going to do it? Seungcheol? It’s obvious he’d never be able to. It has to be Jisoo.

Seungcheol pauses like maybe he wants to push further. Jisoo can hear his breathing behind him, but he doesn’t turn around to see his face.

“Okay” is all Seungcheol manages, his voice quiet and hoarse. “Thank you.”

Jisoo shrugs.

“It’s whatever,” he says quietly. “Just sleep, okay? I’ll figure it out.”

“Wake me up when you need me,” Seungcheol responds, voice firm like an order.

Jisoo doesn’t.

He waits until Seungcheol’s breathing evens behind him before he plugs in his earphones. His heartbeat is so loud that he almost can’t make out the audio when he presses play.

Jisoo watches it all the way through once, and then again to see if he missed anything, and then he sets the computer carefully down on the ground and slips out and into the bathroom.

He presses his face to the tiled wall next to the toilet for a long time, waiting to see if he’s going to be sick. He isn’t, he decides after a few moments have passed and nothing has come up. It’s still hard to make himself move.

Jisoo loses track of time like that, drifting off until he’s startled out of his daze by the bathroom door creaking open. He moves to sit up, heart pounding in his throat, and opens his mouth to make an excuse for his mom, only to find —

Seungcheol, his hair a mess, eyes puffy with sleep as he squints from the bathroom light.

“What are you doing?” he mumbles sleepily. “Are you okay?”

There’s nothing funny, but the corner of Jisoo’s mouth lifts in an echo of a smile. He doesn’t know what else to do.

Seungcheol squints down at him, clearly still barely awake.

“Come on,” he says finally as he reaches for Jisoo’s arm, pulling him up and guiding him out of the bathroom. Jisoo doesn’t do much to help him, but he doesn’t resist either. Seungcheol’s stronger than him — it’s easy for Jisoo to let Seungcheol lead him back to his tiny bedroom and sit him down on his tiny bed.

“Do you need water?”

Jisoo shakes his head immediately, then pauses to think about it and nods instead. Seungcheol rolls his eyes, a tiny smile pulling at his mouth — just for the barest moment, and then it’s gone.

“Wait here,” he says, as though there’s anywhere Jisoo would go.

Seungcheol watches Jisoo drink the entire glass of water when he brings it back, his expression heavy and serious. Jisoo wants to look away but he can’t.

“You sleep on the bed,” Seungcheol says quietly, taking the glass and setting it on the table beside the bed. “I’ll stay up.”

“You don’t have to,” Jisoo tries, like he isn’t already moving to lie down. Seungcheol waits until his head hits the pillow before he slides down to sit on the floor, where Jisoo had been before. He doesn’t touch the laptop, still pushed carelessly to the side.

“What are you gonna do if we solve it for real?” Seungcheol whispers into the dark.

Jisoo breathes out a tired sigh.

“Nothing,” he says, voice flat. Seungcheol makes a disappointed sound, like he was hoping Jisoo would give him more than that.

“I think I’m failing all my classes,” Jisoo says quietly. “I probably won’t be able to graduate.”

It’s the first time he’s said it out loud, even if he’s known it for weeks now. When Jeonghan died Jisoo stopped doing everything — the study café, and the shitty once-a-week math academy he used to go to. The expensive English academy his mom had been paying for since Jisoo was in middle school, where he used to win the speaking contest every semester.

“Shit,” Seungcheol murmurs. Jisoo laughs in agreement.

“Yeah.”

It’s weird — Seungcheol can’t do anything to help, but Jisoo still feels a little better now that he’s said it. “My mom said maybe I can go stay with my aunt in America and try to finish school there instead. I’d have to repeat a year, but. I think it would be okay.”

“Cool,” Seungcheol says, but it’s hard for Jisoo to read his tone. He can’t tell if he means it or not.

“What about you?” he asks, belatedly realizing he has no idea what Seungcheol’s supposed to do if their plan works. Jisoo hadn’t thought about it, but if Seungcheol’s dad gets arrested what is he supposed to do? If he can’t go back to his house, where is he going to live?

Seungcheol exhales once, almost a laugh but not quite.

“I don’t know,” he confesses. “My mom’s family is in Daegu, maybe … I don’t know.”

Jisoo wrinkles his nose, glad the uncertainty on his own expression is hidden by the dark — he doesn’t have any advice for Seungcheol, or any reassurance that it will be okay. He doesn’t have anything to offer.

“Maybe we’ll both leave, then,” he says. “Maybe it’ll be good for us.”

“Maybe.” Seungcheol’s response is very quiet.

Jisoo’s sure he won’t be able to fall asleep like that — it’s hard for him to sleep at all these days, and he’s still so anxious he feels sick with it.

But somehow he manages, lulled by the sound of Seungcheol breathing, the sound of his fingers tapping against the screen as he plays some stupid game on his phone.

Jisoo sleeps, and he doesn’t dream.

“We should go to school first,” Jisoo says sleepily the next morning. When he woke up Seungcheol was conked out on the floor next to him, curled up on his side with his sweatshirt stuffed under his head and neck.

Seungcheol grimaces, then nods. The skin around his eye is still puffy and red.

“Is anyone gonna notice….” Jisoo gestures towards his own face until Seungcheol gets it.

He only huffs out a humourless laugh, clearly unconcerned.

“No,” he says flatly. “If anyone asks I’ll just say it’s from basketball.”

It’s obviously something he’s used to doing, so Jisoo only presses his lips together and nods.

When he finally wakes up enough to stumble out from his bedroom, Seungcheol lurking behind him like a shadow, Jisoo’s surprised to find his mom standing in the kitchen staring at him. She’s already wearing her scrubs, one hand reaching into the container of cold friend chicken.

“Jisoo?” she asks, eyes darting between Jisoo and Seungcheol. “You had a visitor?”

“Oh,” Jisoo manages. He’d forgotten. “Yeah, sorry. I forgot to tell you. We were working on a project together.”

The lie slips out easily, maybe because it isn’t really a lie at all. His mom stares at him for a moment, then nods slowly.

“Okay,” she says, then looks behind him to address Seungcheol. “We don’t have anything for breakfast, sorry sweetheart,” she says. “I’ll leave money on the table, you boys can pick up kimbap on the way to school.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Seungcheol says, voice suddenly more polite than Jisoo’s ever heard it. Jisoo fights the urge to roll his eyes. “Please don’t go to any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble,” she insists, pushing away the chicken. “Jisoo-yah, can I talk to you for a moment?”

Jisoo swallows and nods, leaving a puzzled Seungcheol in the kitchen as his mom leads them into her bedroom and closes the door.

“Are you sure everything’s okay?” she asks once it’s shut, eyes narrowed as she takes in Jisoo’s expression. He straightens and tries to look normal.

“Of course,” he says, keeping his face open and guileless.

“I know he wasn’t very nice to you after Jeonghan died,” his mother presses, voice blunt but kind. Jisoo flinches anyway. He looks away, then back.

“He wasn’t,” he agrees. “But it’s different now.”

Jisoo wonders if Seungcheol will go back to the way he was before, once all of this is over. It’s hard to think that far into the future when Jisoo can barely picture the end of this week. He can’t imagine trying to go back to his normal life after this. He doesn’t even think he has a normal life to go back to.

“If you say so,” his mom says. Jisoo does his best to smile at her, but she still looks worried. Finally she steps around him to open the door again, ushering him back towards the kitchen.

“Everything good?” Seungcheol asks through a mouthful of chicken, eyes wide and a little wary.

“Sure,” Jisoo says. “Do you need to shower before school?”

Seungcheol frowns like he has to consider it, then nods.

“I’ll go first,” Jisoo says. “You take your time with that.”

“Yah,” Seungcheol laughs weakly when Jisoo gestures towards the chicken, a joking whine in his voice Jisoo hasn’t heard in a long time. He reaches for another piece as Jisoo heads towards the bathroom.

Seungkwan sent Jisoo a message the day before when he never showed up to walk to school — hyung!!! where are you :( — and Jisoo finally responds to it after his shower, sitting on the couch and waiting for Seungcheol to finish. It’s already past the time he usually meets Seungkwan — he and Seungcheol are going to miss part of first period, probably.

Jisoo types out a a halfhearted apology, and then a promise — I’ll walk with you tomorrow, Seungkwan-ah~

tomorrow???????????? wtf

Seungkwan’s response is immediate, but before Jisoo can type anything in return Seungcheol comes out of the bathroom dressed, a little frown on his face as he towels his hair.

“You ready to go?” Jisoo asks, locking his phone and pushing himself to stand up.

Seungcheol nods.

Jisoo skips chemistry and math but shows up for literature, smiling pleasantly at his teacher and settling into his seat close to the window. He doesn’t look at where Seungcheol’s sitting in the back of the classroom. He doesn’t hear a single thing the teacher says.

Jisoo skips lunch, too, getting another angry text from Seungkwan for his trouble. He ignores it. Nothing feels real.

He meets up with Seungcheol outside the school after last period, Seungcheol nervously fidgeting with his backpack straps as he waits.

“You ready?” Jisoo asks.

“Sure,” Seungcheol says, forcing a tight smile. His face is very pale.

Seungcheol’s apartment is as quiet as ever when they let themselves in, slipping out of their shoes and dropping their backpacks on the living room floor.

“Where do you want to start?” Seungcheol asks, voice almost a whisper even though there’s no one else in the apartment to hear them.

Jisoo shrugs.

“Bedroom or office?” he offers. Seungcheol grimaces.

“My dad sleeps in the guest bedroom,” he says. “My mom was the only one who used their bedroom.”

That’s —

Jisoo didn’t think of that before.

“Did you look through your mom’s room? After.”

Seungcheol shakes his head, then pauses to think about it.

“A little,” he says. “The police did, though. I don’t think they found anything.”

“We could try,” Jisoo offers. He doesn’t think Seungcheol wants to start with his dad’s office. “When will your dad get home?”

“Not til late,” Seungcheol says. “He never gets home before dinner.”

“Then let’s do that,” Jisoo says. “Your mom’s room first, then the office.”

Seungcheol’s mom’s room is eerie — someone must have cleaned up after the police left and put everything back into its place, but it still feels off. It’s obvious no one has been in there since.

“Where should we look?”

Jisoo thinks back to Hyesoo’s room.

“Picture frames and drawers,” he says, trying to sound like he knows exactly what he’s talking about. “Then the closet, maybe. Did she have her own bathroom?”

Did — past tense. Seungcheol’s eyebrows furrow as he nods, gesturing towards the closed door at the back of the room.

“Maybe you should check there,” Jisoo says. “I’ll start in here.”

Seungcheol nods, and they get to work.

It’s slow going, and weirdly nerve-wracking. He knows it isn’t going to happen but Jisoo keeps waiting for Seungcheol’s dad to slam the door open and ask what they’re doing, to drag Seungcheol out by the arm right in front of him. The tension makes his fingers clumsy. He has to be extra careful not to drop things.

He hears a muffled thump from the bathroom — clearly Seungcheol isn’t being as cautious.

“You good?” Jisoo asks as he reaches for the edges of the painting hung above Seungcheol’s mom’s dresser, raising his voice a little to carry.

“Fine!” Seungcheol calls back immediately, sounding a little frazzled. Jisoo doesn’t go to check on him.

The painting is a dead end. So is the nightstand, and the space under her bed. Jisoo lifts the mattress to be sure but that doesn’t turn anything up, either. He leans against the closet door and sighs, pressing his hands to his face.

“Giving up?”

Jisoo looks up to find Seungcheol lurking in the bathroom doorway in the far corner of the room. He shrugs.

“Did you find anything?”

Seungcheol shakes his head. He doesn’t bother asking Jisoo — Jisoo guesses it’s obvious from the way he’s standing.

“Let’s check the closet, I guess,” he says with a sigh, pushing himself away so he can open the door. Seungcheol crosses the bedroom to follow him in — it’s a walk-in, more than big enough for both of them to fit.

Seungcheol looks at the rows of shoes and neatly organized dresses and lets out a tired breath.

“Maybe we can just start with the boxes,” Jisoo offers, nodding to the boxes stacked on the shelf above the clothes rod, stretching all the way around the tiny room.

Most of the boxes just have more of the same — hats, purses. Nothing useful. There’s one full of photos, and Seungcheol goes quiet as he picks through them. Jisoo doesn’t put it back when they’re finished, leaving it close to the door instead.

“This is useless,” Seungcheol says, finally, pushing another box back with a sigh. Jisoo doesn’t want to agree but he can’t think of anywhere else. It’s been nearly two hours, and he’s lost count of how many coats and purses he’s felt around the linings of, only to come up with absolutely nothing.

“Maybe she had a storage unit somewhere?” Jisoo asks. Seungcheol smiles humourlessly.

“How the hell would we find that?”

It’s a good point — Jisoo has no idea.

“Was your mom home a lot?” he asks. Seungcheol shrugs.

“Kind of.”

“Where did she usually go when she was home? Did she just go to her room?”

Seungcheol shakes his head, forehead creasing as he considers it.

“The living room, mostly” is what he comes up with. “Sometimes she’d lie on the couch and mess around on her phone.”

Jisoo stands up and starts to walk out of the closet. Seungcheol hesitates, then scrambles to follow him, pausing to scoop up the box of pictures before he closes the door behind them.

In the living room Jisoo lies down on the couch, head close to the wall and feet pointing towards the big kitchen.

“Like this?” he asks, and Seungcheol nods. The box is still tucked under his arm.

Jisoo takes a look around, trying to see what Seungcheol’s mom would see — the big flatscreen TV if he turns his head to the side, a single flower in a vase on the stand underneath it. The coffee table halfway between the TV and the couch, decorated with bland photography books and a matching set of coasters. He turns his head back to look at what’s in front of him — the kitchen, white and gleaming. There’s another single flower on the island. Jisoo wonders if Seungcheol’s mother used to choose them, or if the housekeeping staff has always put whatever they wanted in the vase.

Behind the island there’s a modern refrigerator with a knife rack next to it, and a sink that looks like no one has ever used it. There’s something underneath the sink and to the left — Jisoo squints to try and see it properly, sitting up to change his view. A wine fridge, he realizes, rolling his eyes. He looks at it for a moment, trying to find the display, but it doesn’t look like it’s turned on.

“What?” Seungcheol asks, catching the change in his expression. Jisoo stands up instead of responding, moving into the kitchen to get a better look at it.

“Is this unplugged?” he asks, when he holds one hand to the glass and finds it room temperature. Isn’t the point of a wine fridge to keep the wine cold?

Seungcheol frowns from where he’s hovering behind Jisoo, clearly at a loss.

“I’ve never touched it before,” he admits. “I don’t drink wine.”

Fair — Jisoo wouldn’t have expected him to. He guesses there’s only one way to tell, then. When he squats down to get a better look it’s definitely turned off, no sound coming from it. No lights on either. Jisoo opens it and squints inside. It’s full of room temperature wine, dim and hard to see. He fumbles out his phone and turns on the flashlight, shining it to get a better look.

“Is there something in there?”

He can feel Seungcheol leaning in behind him, trying to get a better look. Jisoo takes out the bottles from the lowest shelf carefully, setting them on the kitchen floor, and then reaches out to feel along the bottom, patting until — there. His fingertips scrape along something tucked into the corner, flat and smooth.

A phone, Jisoo sees as he tugs it closer, pulling it out so Seungcheol can see it too. Seungcheol’s breath catches when he realizes what it is.

“Is it hers?”

Seungcheol would be the one to know, not Jisoo, but he doesn’t point that out. It has to be hers — who else would have put it there?

For a moment they both just stare at it, weirdly frozen, and then Jisoo carefully slides it into his back pocket, turning to slide the wine bottles back into the fridge before he shuts the door and stands.

“Now what,” Seungcheol breathes.

“Now we need to find a charger,” Jisoo says. Seungcheol lets out a shaky breath and nods. When he moves towards his bedroom Jisoo follows him.

Jisoo hasn’t been back since they found the camera — everything has been put neatly back in order, as though they were never here at all. The photo of Seungcheol and Jeonghan on the mirror is the only personal touch in the entire room.

“Here,” Seungcheol mutters after a moment, holding out the cord that’s plugged in next to his bed. Jisoo plugs in the phone with shaking hands, watching as it starts to power back on.

“It’ll be a minute,” Jisoo says quietly, when a few seconds have passed and they’re both still staring at the screen.

Seungcheol’s fingers drum nervously against his thighs, one knee bobbing up and down with anxiety. Jisoo wants to reach over and force it still, but before he can do anything the screen lights up in his hand — it’s finished loading. Jisoo looks down at the password prompt and takes a deep breath, turning to Seungcheol.

“Do you know it?”

Seungcheol nods silently, and when he reaches for the phone Jisoo hands it over.

Jisoo watches, breath still trapped in his chest, as Seungcheol enters the password without any hesitation, heart picking up speed in his chest as the screen unlocks smoothly. Jisoo glances over at Seungcheol, curious.

“My birthday,” Seungcheol says hoarsely, clearing his throat. He hands the phone back to Jisoo as he says it, letting go so quickly Jisoo almost drops it.

Jisoo frowns down at the unfamiliar layout for a moment, spending long enough trying to find the photos app long enough that Seungcheol makes a little sound next to him and points to it. Jisoo taps it with a shaking index finger.

There’s only one video saved, the thumbnail too dark and grainy to make out. Jisoo can feel Seungcheol trembling next to him, his whole body strung tight with nerves.

“Do you think that’s…?” Jisoo whispers. Seungcheol shakes his head, eyes wide and frightened.

“I don’t know.”

Seungcheol’s voice sounds like it’s being scraped out of him. Jisoo doesn’t know either. He doesn’t want to know.

They have to know.

Jisoo taps the video to start it, bile already rising in the back of his throat. He swallows hard and doesn’t let himself look away.

The video is hard to make out at first, so dark Jisoo can barely tell what he’s looking at. As he watches the shapes form themselves into something he can understand. Dashcam footage.

Jisoo takes in a sharp breath though his nose as he recognizes the person in front of the car. Jeonghan, walking home. Jeonghan, his hair long and pretty.

Jeonghan, turning around with startled eyes.

“Jeonghan-ah,” Jisoo whispers. His throat is too dry to get anything else out.

Jeonghan can’t hear him, of course. On the screen Seungcheol’s father strides over to confront him, but Jeonghan doesn’t flinch. His chin tilts like a dare.

Run, Jisoo wants to beg, heart in his throat. He wants to scream it but he doesn’t. Wants to stop the video but he doesn’t.

Instead they watch together as the shouting escalates, as Jeonghan finally starts to shrink back.

As Seungcheol’s father silently murders Jeonghan on the tiny phone screen.

Jisoo’s fingers are trembling so much he can barely hold up the phone. Seungcheol’s father gets back in the car, leaving the shape of Jeonghan’s body on the ground. The video stops when the car starts to move, pausing on the final frame, and for a long, stretched out moment neither of them say anything.

Seungcheol’s breathing so loudly next to him. It sounds like it hurts. Jisoo can’t open his mouth to ask if he’s okay — knows if he does he’ll vomit, the nausea swimming in his gut threatening to push its way up. His thoughts trip over each over instead, half-formed.

Jeonghan-ah, did it hurt?

Jeonghan-ah.

Jeonghan-ah. Were you afraid?

Jisoo locks the phone carefully and sets it on the bed next to him, and then he doesn’t move at all. His eyes catch on Seungcheol’s clenched fists, lingering on the sharp white of his knuckles.

He doesn’t know what to do.

The slam of the front door shatters the silence, startling both of them. Jisoo’s heart jackrabbits in his chest when he realizes what it means.

“Choi Seungcheol!”

Seungcheol’s reaction to his father’s voice is immediate — his mouth drops open and the colour drains from his face. He turns to look at Jisoo, eyes wide and pleading. Jisoo has no idea what he’s asking for.

“What do I do,” he whispers urgently. Why are you asking me that? Jisoo thinks vaguely, shaking his head blearily as Seungcheol stares at him.

He doesn’t know what to do.

It’s clear he doesn’t want to but Seungcheol still stands reluctantly, like there’s someone above him pulling a string. Jisoo watches as he makes himself do it, somehow, lurching towards the bedroom door. After a dazed moment he forces himself up to follow him, stumbling behind Seungcheol out into the hallway.

Fear stabs through him at the sight of the Seungcheol’s father, standing outside the kitchen — real and solid and alive. Bigger than either of them. Stronger.

“You called my secretary yesterday?”

Seungcheol’s father gets straight to the point, voice even and face unreadable.

Seungcheol breathes shallowly next to Jisoo and says nothing. Jisoo can feel his own heartbeat in his throat, panicked and too-quick.

He doesn’t know what to do.

Think of something, Jisoo thinks urgently, but what is he supposed to say?

“Sorry,” Seungcheol manages, finally, voice hoarse and strained. There’s no way his father can’t tell something’s wrong, Jisoo realizes, the sinking feeling in his stomach growing even heavier. “I wanted to know your schedule.”

His father’s face betrays nothing. Jisoo’s hands tremble at his sides.

“Why?”

Seungcheol inhales, a ragged little gasp.

“I wanted to know,” he repeats.

“You said that,” his father says evenly. His eyes are fixed so tightly on Seungcheol’s face — it’s like Jisoo isn’t even there. Jisoo wonders what he knows. He wonders if he’d be hitting Seungcheol by now, if they were alone. Jisoo shifts closer almost without meaning to. His fingernails are digging into his palms. He doesn't want to be here. He doesn’t want to see this.

He doesn’t know what to do.

“I wanted to know when you’d be home,” Seungcheol manages, finally. The colour is starting to come back to his face, but it’s all wrong — splotches of red at his cheeks, traveling down the back of his neck. He looks sick.

His father’s glance travels over to Jisoo and Jisoo stiffens, trying to keep his face neutral. He doesn’t know if he should say something or not.

He doesn’t know what to do.

“Alright,” his father says, and somehow his nonchalance is even worse than if he had raised his voice. “We’ll talk about this later. Don’t call my work again.”

“Okay,” Seungcheol whispers, eyes locked somewhere in front of him. He’s looking towards his father but not at his face, Jisoo doesn’t think. Jisoo isn’t sure he’s really looking at anything at all.

His father leaves them in the kitchen and locks his office door behind him. Seungcheol sags as soon as he’s gone, slumping against the wall. He looks completely out of it, eyes wild with fear. Jisoo’s hands are still trembling.

“Let’s go,” he urges quietly, shaking hands grabbing at Seungcheol’s arm, trying to force him to stand up straight. “Come on. Let’s just go.”

Seungcheol doesn’t really help him but he lets Jisoo pull him towards the living room, fear making both of them clumsy as they grab their backpacks and fumble them back on. Seungcheol hesitates, then grabs the photo box too.

“Wait,” Jisoo says, breathless, when Seungcheol starts to move towards the door. He turns back towards Seungcheol’s bedroom instead, heart slamming against his ribcage.

“What are you doing,” Seungcheol hisses.

“You have to put extra clothes in your bag,” Jisoo says, trying to sound more confident than he is. It doesn’t really work — his voice trembles as he speaks. “We’re not gonna come back.”

Seungcheol hesitates then nods, moving to his dresser and then his closet to stuff things into his backpack seemingly at random.

While he’s at it Jisoo leans over the dresser like he’s been possessed. He carefully picks at the tape at the edge of the photo of Seungcheol and Jeonghan until he can unpeel it, forcing his trembling hands to go slowly. He doesn’t want to rip it.

“What — oh,” Seungcheol comes up behind him and falters when he sees what’s in Jisoo’s hand. Jisoo doesn’t say anything in response, just pulls back his phone case to keep the photo safe inside before he turns to face Seungcheol fully.

“Are you ready?” he says, heart already pounding at the thought of walking past Seungcheol’s father’s office again. Seungcheol swallows and nods. Jisoo fights a sudden urge to grab his hand.

They both hold their breath as they walk back to the front door of the apartment — waiting for Seungcheol’s father to come back out, to do something for real. Jisoo can hear his pulse throbbing in his ears, his heart pounding so fast it’s hard to make himself move. He’s never been this scared in his life.

Seungcheol’s father never comes — his door stays firmly shut. But the fear doesn’t lessen as they close the door behind them and slip into the hallway, and Jisoo can feel Seungcheol trembling next to him as the elevator takes them down.

They don’t speak.

They don’t speak on the first floor, or on the sidewalk, or on the overpass that crosses the highway. It’s dark now — the sun went down while they were searching. Jisoo hadn’t noticed.

They don’t speak until Jisoo’s apartment comes into view nearly twenty minutes later, and then —

“He knows,” Seungcheol gasps, visibly struggling to take in air, like it’s finally hitting him for real. “He knows, he’s going to — ”

“Don’t — ” Jisoo tries weakly, but Seungcheol isn’t listening.

“He’s going to kill me,” he finishes.

He’s not, Jisoo wants to reassure him, but he can’t. They both saw the video. Jisoo can’t promise Seungcheol that.

“I won’t let him,” he says instead, which is so stupid it’s almost laughable. But somehow Seungcheol doesn’t call him out on it, nodding wide-eyed instead. Like he’s so desperate for relief he doesn’t even care if it’s true or not.

Jisoo’s never been so grateful for his shitty apartment as when he closes the door behind them and slides the deadbolt. They’re safe here, he thinks. They have to be safe here. Even if neither of them know what will happen when they go back out.

“We have to give it to the police,” Seungcheol says on the couch, but Jisoo shakes his head mutely.

“We have to go to school tomorrow,” he says. “We can send it from there.”

Seungcheol opens his mouth to protest but Jisoo doesn’t let him start.

“We have to go to school,” he insists. “We have to act like everything’s normal, and then — we’ll figure it out from there.”

Seungcheol frowns, that familiar wrinkle between his eyebrows.

“Maybe we should just run away.”

But Jisoo shakes his head at that, too. If they run away they’ll only end up like Seungcheol’s mom, Jisoo’s sure of it. They’ll be proving they found something. They have to stay here and see it through.

In his bedroom Jisoo transfers the video from Seungcheol’s mom’s phone to a new USB as Seungcheol watches over his shoulder, taking anxious breaths right next to Jisoo’s ear. Jisoo doesn’t push him away.

“What about the — ” Seungcheol cuts himself off as the file finishes copying, swallowing hard. “What about the other videos?”

Jisoo’s fingers tighten around the USB and he yanks it out too quickly, his mouth pressing into a thin line.

“We’ll just keep them,” he decides. “If this isn’t enough, then….”

If this isn’t enough, he doesn’t know what will be. Jisoo tucks the USB into his backpack and doesn’t finish the sentence. He wonders if they should hide the other ones, like Jeonghan did. But where would they even put them? Jisoo hesitates for a moment, trying to think. All these secrets hidden everywhere — in Seungcheol’s apartment, and Hyesoo’s bedroom. With Lee Seokmin. Jisoo won’t hide them again, he decides. He gathers them and sets them on his desk instead. If anything happens his mom will be able to find them.

After a moment’s hesitation he scribbles out a note to her too, tucking it under the phone. She won’t see it unless she looks for it, and she won’t look for it unless —

Well.

There’s no point letting himself think about it.

When he’s finished Jisoo crawls back onto the bed, pulling his knees up to his chest and saying nothing. Seungcheol sits next to him, just as silent. Somehow the time passes like that, in lurches and skips.

“Should we sleep?” Seungcheol says, finally. When Jisoo glances at the clock next to his bed it’s barely eleven.

“Sure,” he says tonelessly. He knows he won’t be able to, but if that’s what Seungcheol wants —

Seungcheol moves to stand before Jisoo can finish the thought and Jisoo reaches out a hand to grab his wrist, alarmed. He flushes with embarrassment when Seungcheol looks down at him, clearly surprised.

“Don’t leave,” Jisoo says. He can’t make himself look Seungcheol in the eye as he says it.

“We barely slept last time I was here,” Seungcheol says quietly. “We won’t both fit in your bed. I’ll just sleep on the couch”

Jisoo closes his eyes for a moment, irritated at Seungcheol for making him have to ask. Irritated at himself for being irritated.

But if Seungcheol’s not here Jisoo will see Jeonghan again. He knows exactly what he’ll see in his dreams.

“The couch sucks. Just stay,” he says, eyes still closed. His fingers are clenched too tightly around Seungcheol’s wrist. He can feel the steady thrum of his pulse, warm and alive. “Please.”

There’s a pause, and then —

“Okay,” Seungcheol murmurs.

It’s hard to fit both of them but Jisoo doesn’t let himself think about it, pushing himself back against the wall until there’s enough space for Seungcheol to lie down. One of Seungcheol’s arms stretches above them, the other tucked underneath his chin; Jisoo pulls both of his hands in to his chest.

It feels weirdly intense to be facing each other so closely, a heavy silence stretching in the dark between them. The hand under Seungcheol’s chin drops to the mattress, one of his fingers brushing the back of Jisoo’s hand. Jisoo turns it over, palm up. Seungcheol grabs it and squeezes.

Jisoo squeezes back, hard.

It takes a long time for sleep to come.

“I don’t want to do it,” Seungcheol pleads in the morning, eyes wide and afraid. Jisoo doesn’t want to do it either. His whole body was sore when he woke up, muscles cramped from holding the same position all night. He’s so tired he feels sick with it, groggy and nauseous.

“Just walk to school like normal,” he insists anyway, pushing Seungcheol towards the door. “Message me when you get there.”

“I will,” Seungcheol says, hovering in the entryway for one last moment. Jisoo drags his gaze up to meet Seungcheol’s eyes. “You’ll be fine,” he says, finally. Seungcheol nods and straightens, like maybe that’s all he needed. Jisoo wishes it could be that simple for him, too.

The door slams behind him when he leaves, and Jisoo waits fifteen minutes before he follows Seungcheol out.

He walks towards the school in a daze, wincing when Seungkwan falls into step beside him outside the laundromat just like he does every day — Jisoo had forgotten about Seungkwan entirely. He can’t handle this today. He takes a deep breath and doesn’t acknowledge Seungkwan at all.

“Hyung,” Seungkwan says, a frown on his face as he trots to keep up with Jisoo’s longer strides. Jisoo can’t make himself answer him. “Hyung. Jisoo-hyung. What’s going on? You look terrible.”

“It’s nothing,” Jisoo says flatly, not looking Seungkwan’s way. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“You’re tired every day,” Seungkwan says, not buying it. “Today you look insane.”

Jisoo lets his eyes flutter closed for a moment, taking another breath before he blinks them back open.

“You need to leave me alone,” he says, voice tight, but Seungkwan sets his jaw and doesn’t let up.

“No,” he says stubbornly. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Not until I tell you — ” Jisoo cuts himself off with a laugh, feeling hysterical. He can’t do this right now. He’s about to lose his temper for real, to snap at Seungkwan to leave him, but something dawns on him —

“If I promise to tell you tomorrow, will you do something for me today?”

Seungkwan’s eyebrows knit together, the angry expression on his face not easing up at all.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” Jisoo repeats, eyes glancing around them. Everything looks normal — the same street they always walk along. The same restaurants, the same park at the corner. The 7-11 he sat outside with Jeonghan the day he died.

Wouldn’t you like to know?

Jisoo knows, now. He wishes he didn’t.

“I promise I will,” he says, forcing his gaze back over to Seungkwan. “But this is really important.”

Seungkwan stares at him.

“Okay,” he says, finally. “I’ll do it. But you’d better do it for real tomorrow, do you hear me? I’ll hold you to that, Hong Jisoo.”

If Jisoo and Seungcheol both make it to tomorrow he’ll be so relieved he won’t even care. Telling Seungkwan the truth is such a small price it’s practically insignificant.

He takes a deep breath and reaches a hand into his pocket, sweaty fingers wrapping the USB and holding it tight. He pulls out his phone with his other hand, pretending to check it as he slides the USB into Seungkwan’s pocket in one smooth movement.

“Find Kwon Soonyoung when you get to school,” Jisoo says. “I’ll text you what you need to tell him.”

Seungkwan’s frowning at him like he’s absolutely insane. His hand moves toward his pocket, but Jisoo grabs it before it gets there.

“Don't look at it,” he says firmly. “Wait until I tell you.”

“Hyung,” he says. “What is this? A spy movie?”

“Just do it, okay?” Jisoo ducks his head down as they walk, trying to to look normal. “I said I’d tell you the truth if you did what I asked, right?”

Seungkwan huffs out another breath.

“Fine.”

“Thanks,” Jisoo remembers to say as they come up to the school gates. He pauses before they go in, and Seungkwan slows to a stop to match him. “Seungkwan-ah,” Jisoo says, finally meeting his eyes. “Really. Don’t look at what I gave you, okay? Promise me you won’t.”

“What does any of this mean?” Seungkwan asks, frustration clear in his expression — he looks just shy of throwing a temper tantrum. “Hyung. Why are you being so weird? You’re scaring me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jisoo reassures him, the words hollow in his mouth. “Don’t be scared. Just do what I tell you, and everything will be fine.”

Seungkwan nods, finally, chewing at his lip.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asks, finally.

“Go find Soonyoung first,” Jisoo says. “Do you know where he’ll be? You guys are in music club together, right?”

Seungkwan nods.

“I think so,” he says hesitantly.

“Then go find him right now and tell him to get Jeon Wonwoo,” Jisoo says. “I’ll message you the rest.”

Seungkwan nods again, chin jutting out in determination.

“Okay,” he says one more time. “I won’t let you down.”

Jisoo smiles at him, thin and quick, and watches him walk through the gate. Once Seungkwan’s figure has disappeared entirely, blending in with the crowd of students heading towards the doors, Jisoo takes out his phone — there’s a message from Seungcheol.

Jisoo holds his breath as he types his response, and then he follows Seungkwan into the school.

As he makes his way through the hall a few minutes later Jisoo’s eyes catch on Kim Mingyu, easy to spot as always — he’s got a good six centimetres at least on everyone around him. When their eyes meet Jisoo makes a split-second decision and smiles wide, watching as Mingyu immediately stumbles in shock and looks behind him, like there’s someone else Jisoo might be looking at instead.

“Kim Mingyu,” Jisoo says, dodging a group of first year girls to move closer to him. “You’re class president this year, right?”

Mingyu nods, looking confused.

“Can you do something for me?” Jisoo asks, keeping his face as friendly and pleasant as he can. “Can you keep an eye on Boo Seungkwan today? I heard someone talking outside this morning, like they were planning a prank or something. I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

“A prank?” Mingyu asks, eyebrows knitting together in concern. “Who said that?”

“I don’t know their names,” Jisoo lies smoothly. “I think they were in second year. But you’ll help him, won’t you?”

“Help him how?” Mingyu asks slowly, looking a little lost.

“You just have to make sure he’s okay today, that’s all. I think I saw him going towards the second year classes.”

Mingyu nods.

“I can do that,” he agrees, finally.

“Great,” Jisoo smiles up at him. “Stay with him all day, okay? You’re a really good class leader, Mingyu. I’m sure Seungkwan will be really grateful.”

He’s laying it on a little thick, but it seems to work — Mingyu looks determined, nodding again and clapping one hand on Jisoo’s shoulder before he makes his way towards the staircase that leads towards the second year classrooms.

Jisoo goes to all his classes for once, so dazed with anxiety he can barely process what anyone is saying. His math teacher calls on him three times a row before she gives up, threatening to make him stay after class if he doesn’t start paying attention.

Jisoo doesn’t think he cares.

He meets up with Seungcheol after his last class of the day, Seungcheol meeting him on the third floor stairwell just like Jisoo asked him. Seungcheol looks just as terrible as Jisoo feels. As they make their way towards one of the empty classrooms Seungcheol roots around in his backpack for something, then silently presses it into Jisoo’s hand.

Jisoo looks down to find an energy bar, wrinkling his nose in confusion.

“I don’t need this.”

“You always forget to eat,” Seungcheol says, avoiding Jisoo’s gaze as he shifts his backpack back up onto his shoulder.

Jisoo hesitates for a moment and then nods, closing his fingers around the wrapper. Seungcheol isn’t wrong — he hasn’t really eaten all day. He skipped breakfast, only picked at his lunch.

“Thanks,” he says awkwardly. Seungcheol shrugs.

In the classroom they sit on desks across from each other and wait, a tension strung between them that makes it hard to speak. Jisoo thinks about doing his homework for once, and then realizes he doesn’t even know what was assigned.

“What now?” Seungcheol asks, finally, his eyes heavy and serious.

Jisoo laughs.

“Now we just have to wait, I guess.”

Seungcheol’s laugh is just as humourless.

“I guess,” he agrees.

Jisoo leans his head against the wall and unwraps the energy bar, taking a listless bite.

“Do you still dream about him?” Seungcheol asks, eyes on the floor as he speaks. “Jeonghan. Do you see him in your dreams?”

Jisoo stares at him, mouth gone dry. He forces himself to keep chewing, swallowing painfully before he responds.

“Yeah,” he says, hoarsely. “I do.”

“Do you think they’ll stop now? We figured it out.” Seungcheol looks up as he says it and his eyes are fucking huge, so much misery Jisoo wants to look away.

He doesn’t, but he doesn’t respond either.

“I don’t want them to,” Seungcheol admits before Jisoo can say anything, raw and too-honest.

“Yeah,” Jisoo says again, mouth too dry to force anything else out.

For a moment it’s quiet between them, and then Seungcheol straightens in his seat. “I never — thanks,” he says awkwardly. “For helping me.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” Jisoo says dismissively, taking another bite of the energy bar. “I barely did anything.”

“You did,” Seungcheol counters. “You found a lot. You found — you found everything.”

He didn’t find everything. He could never find everything. There’s still so much Jisoo doesn’t know, that he’ll never get to find out. What was Jeonghan thinking? Why didn’t he tell Jisoo?

But Jisoo thinks he knows what Seungcheol means.

“Why do you think he did it?” Seungcheol asks into the silence, voice impossibly quiet. Jisoo shrugs, still chewing.

“Does it matter?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Seungcheol laughs in disbelief.

“He can’t tell us,” Jisoo points out. “But — ”

Seungcheol leans in, waiting.

“But I think he really loved you,” Jisoo continues, cringing at the sincerity of his own words. “I know how he was, but. I don’t think he would hurt you on purpose.”

“What he did was really fucked up,” Seungcheol whispers, voice hoarse. Jisoo nods slowly. It’s true, but —

“What was happening to you was fucked up, too,” he points out.

Seungcheol’s silent for a long time.

“I don’t think I even care what he did,” he says, finally. “Is that pathetic? I just want him back. It doesn’t matter if he did something really bad. I don’t even care.”

Jisoo presses the heels of his palms into his eye sockets until it hurts, pulls them back and blinks his eyes back open.

“I want him back, too.”

His phone buzzes next to him and Jisoo startles, heart already starting to speed up. He looks down to find Seungkwan’s name on the screen, displaying above the familiar contact picture of him rolling his eyes in disdain. Jisoo takes a deep breath and picks up the call.

“Did you do what I asked?” he asks, his heart pounding in his chest. Seungcheol watches him from across the empty classroom, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Seungkwan says, voice sounding a little shaky. “Hyung, that was — what was that? Why did we have to do that?”

“Did you watch it?” Jisoo’s heart sinks in his chest. “You promised me.”

“I didn’t,” Seungkwan says immediately. “I promise I didn’t. Soonyoung didn’t either, but I think Wonwoo did. He made us turn around.”

Jisoo winces.

“Did he send it to all the places I told you?”

“Yes,” Seungkwan says, sounding impatient. “I said I did what you asked, didn’t I?

“You did,” Jisoo agrees. “Thank you, Seungkwan-ah.”

“Yeah.” There’s a muffled sound over the line, and then — “Did you tell Kim Mingyu to follow me? He showed up and won’t leave.”

Well. No one can say he doesn’t follow directions well, that’s for sure.

“Yeah,” Jisoo laughs awkwardly. “Sorry. I wanted — I want you to be okay. Can you guys stick together, just for today?”

There’s another weird sound, like Seungkwan covered up the line, or maybe he’s just turned away from the phone to talk to the others.

“Just today,” Seungkwan promises, voice coming through clearly again. “And then you’re gonna tell me everything.”

“And then I’m gonna tell you everything,” Jisoo agrees. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Okay,” Seungkwan agrees. He hesitates before ending the call. “Hyung … there’s someone sticking with you, right?”

Jisoo looks at Seungcheol, sat on one of the desks with his feet up on the chair, elbows on his knees and hands folded together. His eyebrows raise in a silent question when he notices Jisoo watching him.

“Don’t worry,” Jisoo says into the phone, not looking away. “There’s someone here with me.”

BREAKING: New Evidence Uncovered Regarding Death Of High School Student, Police Confirm Suspect Has Been Taken Into Custody
2018-10-13 18:20:00

[click to read more…]

BREAKING: Financial Executive ‘A’ Charged With Murder Of High School Student ‘B’
2018-10-15 07:03:17

[click to read more…]

In Jisoo’s dream he’s back outside the 7-11. It’s summer, this time. He’s wearing a t-shirt and basketball shorts, and Jeonghan comes out wearing the same. Jeonghan tosses him the ice cream he bought inside the store and Jisoo reaches out his hands. Jeonghan laughs when Jisoo fumbles it, and Jisoo rolls his eyes in response.

Jeonghan drops into the plastic seat next to Jisoo, the two of them unwrapping their ice creams in silence. Strawberry for Jeonghan, vanilla for Jisoo. Same as always.

“It’s gonna be different now,” Jeonghan says. His feet are planted in front of him as he stares out into the distance — as though there’s anything to see except the trash pile across the street. “You know that, right?”

Jisoo opens his mouth and finds he can speak, for the first time since the dreams started.

“I miss you,” he says, voice barely more than a whisper. “I’ll miss you.”

“Yah,” Jeonghan laughs — his stupid creaky laugh, as weird and ugly as ever. Jisoo will never hear that laugh again, he realizes, suddenly sure of it. This is the last time.

“Come back,” he begs, even though he knows it won’t make any difference. “Don’t leave for real, okay? You have to come back.”

Jeonghan’s laughter fades, a sad smile lingering at the corner of his mouth.

“You’ll be okay,” he says, which isn’t a real response. Typical Jeonghan, twisting around it, unable to say the part that’s really difficult. Jisoo doesn’t blame him. He thinks maybe he finally understands.

Jeonghan doesn’t want to leave, either.

“I won’t forget you,” Jisoo promises — one last comfort, but he isn’t sure which one of them it’s for. “I couldn’t.”

Jeonghan smiles at Jisoo like it’s been shocked out of him, blinding and beautiful, and there’s nothing for Jisoo to do but smile at him in return.

The sun shines down on both of them, warm and too bright, melting their ice cream before they can finish it.

Jisoo waits to wake up.