before i start, i feel the need to say that the ending is supposed to be open-ended. were they in purgatory? was it all suho's imagination? lay's? did they really exist in a mansion and get killed by The Voice? idk...

but there are some things that i want to expain, namely the countdown. each number is a "deceit", mainly a secret/misunderstanding revealed between two characters. whenever that happens, the number goes down. whenever a character reveals everything related to him, he disappears.

the exception is suho.......i had planned for him to disappear but i actually forgot to get rid of him as planned, so i changed him into a prison guard and let him live to the end lmao

and because i always went so long between writing, i forgot some other things too. or got rid of them. such as, i had wanted tao and lay to have a 1 night stand...but that didn't happen either >u< (although that would've been interesting)

now..each countdown:

18. kaisoo

kai is kyungsoo's boytoy/whatever and abused by him. it was revealed through the conversations and flasback/memories

17. subaek

mentioned briefly that suho ran baekhyun over

16. kaixing

the fact that lay couldn't save kai plagued him and he always felt regret. in ch 2, lay promised to save kai and in the dream, promised to kill kyungsoo. 

and then kyungsoo said "If he had heard you say that ("if I can't protect him, I'll avenge him"), maybe he would've died in peace. But too bad now he'll only come back as an angry ghost."

but in reality, kai had already come back as an angry ghost and now "died" in peace. 

15. sooxing

in lay's dream, lay killed kyungsoo. 

suho later said that lay didn't check if kyungsoo died. it could've been something lay needed closure for (making sure he had really killed soo)

14. baekyeol

baekhyun was still alive after getting run over when chanyeol saw him. but later he died (which was erased from him memory since he's "alive" now)

13. chenxing

chen existed to throw some doubt onto lay's character and also show that his dreams might actually be memories (albeit a bit exaggerated)

12. baekxing

in ch 4, he thought baekhyun's "an , always bullying the weaker ones"

and ch 7: "He sees Baekhyun, kicking him and pinching him in places no one would see"

and ch 10 when suho mentioned he joined groups of street kids and lay thought of baekhyun, hunger and abuse

i wanted lay to have been in one of those street gangs and baekhyun was always mistreating the newbie

11. chanlay

ch 9: Chanyeol disappeared later. Lay might have noticed and thought it was for the best of things

suho also explained that chanyeol was part of the "gang" but lay let him disappear. so he disappeared from the mansion without anyone really realizing and it was all good

10. taohun

ch 5: sehun remembered that tao left him without any explanation and he was so sad

then he learned the truth (tao was forced to leave etc) and there was finally closure in the relationship

9. taolay

but tao had to finish things with lay first before he could disappear

at first, he hated lay and since he moved away, was able to see all the newspaper headlines and stuff. so he thought that lay had something to do with sehun's later demise and hated lay. then he decided in the mansion that he had wronged lay and found closure by apologizing

(although tao was actually correct and lay is an )

8. ing

the relationship was innocent at first, but then lay decided to use sehun to take revenge

7. xiuhan

they had a dating-but-not-really relationship

6. xiulay

#brosforlife

but xiumin sacrificed himself to let lay live. it was always a regret and lay wasn't able to find closure for that

5. layhan

they were good friends before, but lay started to become jealous of luhan, even though he felt that he was being irrational too. 

luhan was well-liked by everyone (as shown by how lay always felt "other") and he was "stealing" xiumin from him.. luhan was also the one who always went against lay and warned him and stuff. it was out of genuine concern, but ofc lay took it the wrong way (or he didn't want to admit he was right)

lay didn't do anything to luhan before, because of his relationship with xiumin, but after xiumin died/disappeared, lay decided it was time to get rid of luhan

4. krishan

kris had a crush on luhan, but luhan was too into xiumin. 

kris encouraged luhan to revolt/rebel/whatever, but luhan was too loyal/stupid

3. fanxing

after luhan died, kris couldn't stand it anymore. he turned himself in and tipped the police off on lay. so lay ended up getting arrested

2. lay

the countdown for lay was finally remembering what had happened in his life

1. suho

this fic was inspired by

• 48 hours: them waking up in 1 house and a random voice/game
• vladimir nabokov's novels (esp pale fire): his writing purposely never makes sense lol
• gangnam blues: the poor ppl gang/mafia/business relationship and a bunch of ppl getting killed and stuf

writing this because i'm procrastinating for final exams. not really sure what to put because nobody commentsssssssss

please let me know? /kisseus/