Early in the morning, at some ungodly hour he didn't want to know, Leo woke up to the sound of someone arguing outside.

Neither Ilhoon nor Hyunsik seemed to hear, and they didn't respond with anything more than snores when Leo crept outside.

The voices were coming from the bathroom, and Leo shut the door behind him so no one else would hear and wake up. Inside, the sound was ten times louder but dulled, almost muffled by the steam from the showers. 

It took a moment of just standing at the entrance to recognize who it was: Ken and Ravi, the former yelling at the other with a viciousness Leo had never seen before. Another moment passed before Leo saw the sheet music in Ravi's hand, crumpled up and half-soaking.

"Don't be fing stupid!" Ken said, grabbing at Ravi's hands in vain. "It's your work!"

"It's s ," Ravi said, in a voice that seemed almost broken. He tried to toss it into the running shower, but Ken wrenched his arm back at the last moment.

"What's happening?" Leo asked, voice strangely loud.

Ravi and Ken froze, and Ken turned bright red. "He's being a r ," he said, near tears. "He's trying to destroy his own music."

Leo moved closer and held out his hand, nodding at the sheet music. Ravi hesistated, then shoved it into Leo's hands and sat down, head in his hands.

"You're not the only one who misses him, you know," Ravi said quietly.

"...I know." Leo flipped through the stapled handwritten pages now in his hands. The ink was starting to bleed through, blooming in the wet like light blue violets. "'Memory'?"

"N was supposed to sing it," Ken said, throwing Ravi a dark look. "Then he left, and Ravi's upset."

"Upset's a light term," Ravi muttered.

Leo smoothed the paper out on his knee and read the lyrics to himself.

The tears on my cheeks dried up at some point, as if to show you--my weight which had been so thin became the same as it was with you. Now I don't skip meals, I can fall asleep without shedding tears.

Amazing words for the dyslexic, Leo thought.

"I'm keeping this," he said out loud, folding the paper up carefully. 

Ravi waved a hand at him. "Take it. I don't want to see that f ery ever again."

For days at a time, Hyuk wouldn't leave Leo's side, even squeezing into the pullout couch next to Leo and eventually pushing Ilhoon and Hyunsik into one bed to claim the other. No one, not even Ken, commented on it; it was as if they knew Leo needed that companionship, anyone at all to fill the hole left behind. 

Perhaps, though, Hyuk needed it just as much.

Leo walked into the same conference room he had first spoken to Hyuk in and found the sophomore sitting in the corner under the windows with the curtains drawn, knees pulled up to his chest and the only light in the room being the bluish glow from his phone screen.

"Hi," Hyuk said, feigning cheeriness and falling remarkably flat.

Leo shut the door behind him and pulled out a chair. "You...okay?"

"Yeah." Hyuk glanced up from his phone, the light and shadow hollowing out his cheeks and shading the space under his eyes. "My quote unquote parents tried calling me. Apparently my doctor doesn't think I'm doing too good."

"Why do you...call them your 'quote unquote parents'?"

"I think the original people were replaced with other people, because Capgras Syndrome." Hyuk heaved a sigh. "I just don't trust people, but Capgras` what the big PhD doc said, so now I'm here."

"...don't tell me...you're going home, too."

"F , no." Hyuk's phone light petered out, and he didn't bother trying to turn it back on.

Leo leaned forward in his chair, searching in the sudden dark for Hyuk's face. "Are you really okay?"

"I'm scared," Hyuk said, voice small. "I miss having N around."

"Scared?"

"You know, maybe I do have Capgras. I don't...I can't trust anyone, you know? And N, he helped me a lot." Hyuk's silhouette moved in the corner. "He's gone and now I don't know if I actually can trust anyone like he told me to." There was a wet sniff, and Leo moved closer.

"N used to do this thing when I was anxious," Hyuk went on. "He'd let me sleep on his shoulder, and when I was falling asleep he would draw stuff on my hands."

"Me too." Leo looked down at his own hands, the outlines of which he could barely see in the dark. Remembering the way N would draw circles on his palms.

"Yeah."

There was a long pause. Leo moved off his chair and sat down next to Hyuk. "You can sleep on me if you want."

A weight fell on his shoulder. "Thanks," Hyuk mumbled.

"I can't draw on...your hand, though...I don't know how N did it."

"That's okay." Hyuk sighed. "I'm just a bad replacement for him, aren't I? Always being around like a little s ."

"You're fine." Leo gave a sigh of his own. "You're...you. And N's...special."

"Yeah."

"Ravi made...a song, for you to rap...and N to sing. Before N left."

"Really?"

Leo pulled the folded, wrinkled paper out of his pocket, where it had been since two nights ago.

Hyuk took the paper, and after a minute of silence, he laughed, bitter. "I forgot I can't read music."

"I can...hum it."

"Please."

Three hours away, N sat on his bed, watching the sunset.

There was an unmarked police car parked in his driveway, another in the neighbor's, and he knew that the across-the-street neighbors--one a former Marine, another the current sheriff--had their eyes peeled. The officers basically slept in his house now, three of them at a time, two awake and one sleeping in the guest room in a rotation.

It should have been reassuring to know there were people looking out for him--all for him--but there was something very unsettling about it all, about the newly installed bulletproof windows and fireproof curtains and the locks that his parents made him put on both his bedroom door and the sliding door leading from the staircase to the sleeping areas. Knowing that his biological father was out there somewhere a hundred miles away, swearing to find him and kill him.

N sure was lonely.

As the falling sun began to dip below the treeline, N pulled the shades and went out into the hallway, nearly running into the policeman on duty.

"Hey, kid," Officer Roger said.

N gave him a smile. "Have I ever told you that I think--"

"It's funny my name is Roger because of 'roger that, sir'? Yup. Yesterday and the day before." Roger grinned and popped his gum.

"Now we're talking." 

N plodded by, and Roger seemed to noticed the sudden shift in body language. "Hey, kid, I get that you're under lock and key and all, but...you okay?"

"You're right about the first part." N stopped and looked down the wide staircase, down to where his foster mom was watching a movie with his foster sister.

He had gotten so lucky, he knew. N was only in the foster care system for maybe two weeks before his new parents--former college classmates of his parents--adopted him. They were wealthy enough to be able to afford both a nice house and another adopted child--their daughter was adopted from Haiti, and they sponsored a child in Ukraine--one that would require innumerable doctors visits as well as a special school. If N's father was the evil in the world, the Carletons were the embodiment of good. And yet, he just couldn't get well for them. He couldn't pay them back in any way. And it was impossible that they didn't resent him for that.

"Well, if it makes you feel better, your dad brought home some gelato. I got a spoon of it. Good s ."

"Awesome. I'll get some now, then."

N went down the stairs carefully, avoiding the creaky step at the bottom so that his sister and mother could watch their movie. Some old eighties thing about aliens. 

The cold light of the freezer was soothing, and N watched the mist pool around his bare feet like soft cotton sheets.

N sure was lonely.