Friends, Romans, Fangirls, lend me your reading! I'm finally back with the next Aftermath installment because, as I've mentioned, I really can't leave this story alone. I have every intention of doing the rest of the members, but you'll have to forgive me if there's like a year in between them because inspiration is a fickle fiend. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy Ravi's pocket of angst and that it'll tide you over until I do whoever strikes my fancy next. Don't forget to drop a comment and/or upvote!

P.S the song I listened to for the duration of writing this entire story and all its suppliments was Calls Me Home, by Shannon LaBrie, and it's absolutely gorgeous. I chose it for no particular reason, but I think the haunting tune captures the feel of my story. Check it out if you're curious!

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He didn’t want to go. He wouldn’t have gone even without Ahjumma’s order not to. He hadn’t told on the others when they sneaked out of school to attend the trial but that was as far as his involvement was going to go. When Hongbin slunk out of class Ravi studiously avoided his accusing glare and stared at the board as the equations written there blurred into meaningless blobs.

When the final bell rang, Ravi plodded out of his classroom with much more reluctance than usual. N wasn’t waiting in the hallway with Ken and Hongbin to decide who was going to stay late to wait for Leo. Hyuk wasn’t bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation of leaving school. Leo wasn’t slinking out of the office doors and smiling slightly at the sight of them waiting. Nothing was the same. Ravi looked away from the door to the office that Leo usually came out of and hoisted his bag higher on his back.

The sigh rose in him like a gust of autumn wind. When it blew out his mouth, a passing teacher on her way out of the building looked at him curiously, as if wondering why a teenaged boy sounded so defeated. He wasn’t about to enlighten her. He sat on the steps outside the school and stared at the street until no more footsteps sounded around him.

He was alone.

Ravi sat there until darkness fell. He didn’t have the urge to take out a book or study or work on a project or a paper. He didn’t want to go home to his too-silent bedroom, especially because there were only three other people sharing it. He didn’t want to see anybody. He didn’t want to talk to anybody. He wondered if the others were back yet. He wondered how Leo was. He hoped he wasn’t scared.

He tried to stop himself from caring.

It didn’t work.

*          *          *

Ken left the home a month later. None of them knew he was auditioning for anything until Ahjumma came into their room with a signed sheet of paper one evening. She handed it to Ken and walked out of the room without even a nod of farewell. Ken seemed to swallow and then continued packing his things as the other three watched him with wooden stares. Then he was gone, whisked away into a Jellyfish Entertainment dorm. He called every so often and always sounded so damn happy it always forced a smile on Ravi’s face for the few minutes they were able to talk. The next time Ravi saw Ken’s face was when his teasers were released.

N left the home the morning after he graduated high school. He’d already overstayed his welcome, as he was supposed to be out by his 18^th birthday. He cheerfully gave Ravi and Hongbin the address of where he’d be staying with a friend until college began. Less cheerfully, he hugged them both tightly and told them to call if they ever needed anything. Then he pulled a new cell phone out of his pocket and snapped a selfie with the two of them, tapping it into his background a second later. He laughed when he examined the deer-in-headlights look on Ravi and Hongbin’s faces, and Ravi thought of the sound whenever he felt lonely for weeks after N left.

Ravi and Hongbin moved into a smaller room so that six of the younger boys could move into theirs. He stood in the doorway next to Hongbin, just staring at the room for a while. In one hand was his backpack. In the other was everything else.

He noticed the hole in the wall next to the window where Leo had smashed his elbow through the first time he’d tried to open the painted-shut frame. There was a scuffmark on the ceiling from when N and Ken had a shoe-throwing contest. His eyes roved over the permanent water damage from a leaky pipe on the roof and the forgotten shelf of toys above the desk. One of them was the Magic Writer toy Ravi had given Leo when they were kids, so that Leo, who hadn’t started speaking to them yet, could communicate. The words “shut up” were still written on it.        

Hongbin nudged his arm and the two of them stood aside for Ahjumma, who was leading the six boys who would make this room theirs. Ravi shouldered his backpack and turned away.

*          *          *

It was the last day of finals and it was raining. Ravi had been thinking about Leo that morning, so when he got off the train home from school, he didn’t sprint through the droplets as he normally would. He slowed his walk to a trudge and felt the drops of water drip from his hair down his back. It wasn’t as unpleasant as he thought it was every time he saw Leo come in from the rain. He thought he could understand the inexplicable look of content on Leo’s face at any rate now.

“Wonshik?”

Ravi had turned his face to point at the sky with his eyes closed. At the sound of his name, he opened his eyes, startled. Of all people, it was that detective, Choi Ilsung, who had paused in the process in unlocking his car as he passed. He stared at him for a moment before continuing on at a faster pace. The detective stepped onto the sidewalk and stopped in front of him.

“Do you want a lift?”

Ravi didn’t look at the pitying face. “No thanks. I’m fine.” He tried to step around him but the man didn’t let him. He held out a hand and indicated his car.

“You’re drenched. I’ll take you home.” Ravi debated getting mad and informing him that he wanted to be in the rain, but then figured there wasn’t any point. He got in the car and Detective Choi pulled away from the curb.

The awkwardness was thick, and neither said a word. Detective Choi tried asking him how he was, but the silence that followed was so absolute he didn’t try again. Neither spoke again until Ravi noticed they were going in the wrong direction. “My house is that way.” He pointed down the street Detective Choi had just passed.

“I know. I’m taking you for a coffee first.”

Ravi blinked, hand halfway to the door handle to throw himself out of the car. “Why?”

Detective Choi appeared nonchalant and didn’t seem to notice Ravi’s tension. “Because you’re soaked to the skin and you’re shivering. The coffee’s on me.”

Ravi closed his mouth and swallowed the lump in his throat that had risen, unbidden. “Okay.”

*          *          *

Ravi left the home a year later and moved into the dorm outside the Police Academy.

He hadn’t meant to break down and cry that rainy day in Starbucks, and if he had, it would never have been in front of anyone, let alone Detective Choi. The same Detective Choi who had come to check on him on moving day and make sure he was all set for classes when they began.

That day had begun the series of events that led him to this room, sitting on this bed, watching his new roommate order his books on his side of the room. And now he was starting fresh, hoping that no one would ask about his family.

How would he ever explain that his “mother” was a boy two years older than he who insisted on being called by a letter of the English alphabet? How would he justify that his “father” never spoke and was currently serving a sentence in prison? After all, they were far more his parents than the ones he’d been given biologically, who had both overdosed when he was two years old.

But that was not something he really wanted to dwell on, not on the first day of his new life. His roommate paused in his book organizing, noticing Ravi looking at him and smiled uncertainly. Neither had really said much since joining each other in the room. Ravi knew his unsmiling observance of the other boy was probably unnerving and made the effort to relax his face a bit. It seemed to work, because the other boy, who, now that he thought about it, looked just as nervous as he, smiled back.

His roommate inclined his head in a small bow. “I’m Kim Jongin.”

Ravi bowed back from his perch on his bed. “I’m Ra—Kim Wonshik.” He flushed at the thought of appearing as if he didn’t know his own name. For the first time, he felt the sudden need to make conversation, make this entire situation feel normal. He’d had his nose in his books for so long it felt strange to speak to someone other than boys he lived with. “I can’t believe the amount of books we need,” he said lamely and gestured to the bookshelf in the process of being organized.

Jongin grinned at him. Ravi got the feeling he was feeling overwhelmed with the amount of expectations being piled on them, and classes hadn’t even started yet. “I know, I’m flat broke after paying for just them.”

They chuckled together and got back to unpacking in a comfortable silence, and Ravi reflected on how liberating it was to laugh again.

*          *          *

Ravi fumbled and dropped the notebook he was writing in at his desk when Jongin dropped what sounded like bowling balls as he came into the room. He put a hand to his chest as he bent to pick it up and found Jongin scowling at the large stack of textbooks he’d just slammed onto his desk. Someone else banged the door open and their friend Taemin came stomping in, looking just as annoyed.

“What’s got you guys in a twist?”

They barely needed the invitation to start ranting.

“That idiot Professor Lee—”

“We were only late twice—”

“Making us write a ten page paper—”

“And punishing us for that—”

“As if we really care about the psychology of serial killers in the 1800s—”

Ravi held in a snicker with difficulty. It was a welcome excuse to forget what had been brought up in class that day. They had been discussing eyewitnesses to murder and some shmoe had raised his hand, hoping to sound smart, Ravi thought. He had asked about “that one case a couple years ago, where that kid stabbed a druggie in front of four other kids and two detectives.” Ravi clenched his fists when he thought of how the teacher had praised him for such a great example of eyewitness testimony. Someone else asked what happened to the kid, and Ravi couldn’t help but speak up.

“He’s in jail.” He had tried to calm his breathing. “It’s where he belongs.” His classmates had seemed startled by his conviction and he could have sworn the teacher had looked sympathetic, but by then he was staring at his notebook and clenching his pen hard enough to break it, willing the world to disappear.

Jongin and Taemin grumbling about a sadistic professor was welcome in his book. Detective Choi had given him the lowdown on the teachers at the academy—the ones who’d been there forever that is. Professor Lee incurred the wrath of every student at the academy since he’d started teaching, and with a school full of aspiring detectives, that was pretty impressive.

Taemin flopped onto Ravi’s bed and groaned into his pillow. Ravi threw his pencil at him.

“I sleep on that, you know. Get your face out of it.” Taemin threw it at him, quickly following it with his pencil. Ravi turned back to the report he was writing, but found he couldn’t concentrate.

“I’m getting some food, want anything?”

“No,” Jongin still sounded irritable as he flipped open one of his textbooks. “Better get this over with.”

Ravi shrugged and stretched before leaving the room. He heard Taemin swear rather impressively at something Jongin said as he closed the door behind him.

As he walked to the cafeteria he lifted his head to the sky, feeling the warmth of the sun on his face. He passed thickets of friends on the greens of the campus, hearing snippets of their conversations before losing them in the threads of other conversations.

“Professor Lee is evil—”

“My Dad said if I don’t get my grades up he’ll—”

“Can you believe how adorable Ken-oppa is?” Ravi paused there, keeping his head down and checking an earlier text from N about his upcoming certification exam. The two girls to his left were bent over a similar phone and squealing at something Ken had said on some show or other. He hid a smirk and wondered how they’d react if they knew Ravi had his number on speed dial.

Just to prove he could, he tapped that very speed dial two minutes later. Ken would get his message when he was available.

*          *          *

“Wonshik, we need these reports verified. And the paperwork for that robbery last week needs to be finished ASAP.” Detective Choi dropped a truly enormous stack of paper on Ravi’s desk. He looked up at his mentor and Detective Choi grinned at the incredulous look on his face. “Hey, you need the internship to graduate, now go and earn your diploma.” He gave a cheery wave as Ravi slumped in his chair. He would swear the only reason they wanted interns was so they didn’t have to do the paperwork themselves.

The hours blurred by as he moved from report to report, occasionally answering the phone and sifting through other stacks of paperwork for any detective who asked. He aimed to please, after all.

When his phone buzzed, he barely registered it. He picked up another report and frowned at it, seeing a discrepancy with a previous one. He dug through his papers to look for it. The phone buzzed again.

Concentration broken, Ravi glanced at the screen before cancelling the call. N probably wanted to chat about something inane and he wasn’t in the mood, nor did he have the time. He focused on the report, trying to find the discrepancy again.

His phone jumped next to his elbow and exasperated, he picked it up. N would keep it up until he answered anyway.

“Hyung, can I call you back? I’m drowning in paperwork.” His finger was halfway to the end button when N answered, sounding like he hadn’t slept in days.

“No, you can’t call back. This is important.” There was something in his tone that Ravi didn’t like. N never sounded anything less than cheerful, and now he could pass for Hongbin when he was in a mood.

He put down his pen and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, what is it?”

Detective Choi poked his head in and gave a disapproving look at the phone. Ravi gave him an apologetic look as N began to sob on the other end. “I’m so sorry to be like this, Ravi-ah. Ken hasn’t answered my text, I think he’s filming, and I needed to tell you guys...”

"Hyung, what’s the matter? What happened?” The hairs on Ravi’s arm were standing up in fright. N had been nothing but strong throughout his life and this sudden vulnerability was unnerving.

“Ravi-ah, I had a call from Ahjumma this morning. It’s Hongbin.”

Detective Choi was still watching him when he jumped out of his chair and ran down the hall, the phone glued to his ear. “Be right back, sir,” but he couldn’t quite quell the shiver in his voice at the sound of Hongbin’s name accompanying N’s crying. There was nothing else that could have happened and he half wanted to press his finger to the red end button and not have to hear it.

“N-hyung, please don’t say it.”

There was a sound like N was trying to take a deep breath but couldn’t quite manage it. Ravi found himself pacing the bathroom down the hall frantically, hoping desperately that no one would come in. N still hadn’t said anything and Ravi repeated himself. “Don’t say it, hyung. I don’t want to—”

N started crying again. Ravi’s finger inched to the end button again. “He’s gone, Ravi-ah.”

Detective Choi came looking for him ten minutes later and found him sitting against the cold tile of the bathroom, phone lit up on the floor beside him, chin on his knees and glaring at the opposite wall as if it was at fault for the grief he couldn’t express.

*          *          *

“We’ve got a body.” Jongin knocked on the doorframe of Ravi’s office.

“Of course we do.” Ravi stretched and grabbed his backpack of supplies before joining his partner in the hall. “Where are we going?”

“Downtown. Apparently it’s a nasty one.”

"Aren’t they all?”

The two of them arrived at their shared detective car. Ravi gave the hood a fond pat as they climbed in, Jongin starting the engine and backing out of the station parking lot. They chatted about friends and accomplishments during the ride to the grisly crime scene—not acknowledging the worst of the job was one way to stay sane. The two of them shared an apartment with Taemin, and though the three largely shared the same lives, talking about it helped with the grisly aspects of their chosen profession.

But as great as his two friends were, Ravi had never told them about the home or the other boys. He made vague references to friends whenever he went out with one of them, making the other two joke about imaginary friends because they never appeared. He’d gone out to coffee with Ken the previous week, which had been quite strange, as Ken had had to wear a large, plain facemask and hat to keep anyone from screaming, though several people saw right through it. N texted him night and day, keeping him abreast of his practice and informing him that Leo was proud of him for all he had accomplished. Ravi had gripped his phone tightly in his hand at that one, unsure at how he felt. Taemin had asked if he was okay and he’d lied that his crush changed her Facebook status to “in a relationship.” He was still getting flak for that. 

Leo had been out of his life years ago and it had taken a long time for Ravi to get over his anger about it. The way Leo could screw up his life so badly just baffled his mind. He didn’t think he could ever go out to the prison and see him, but he was always lurking in the back of his mind when at the scene of a gory murder or slapping handcuffs onto a suspect.

On the way to their current murder, Jongin let their siren scream down the streets as other cars on the road parted like the sea for them. “I could get drunk on the power of that sound,” he chuckled. Ravi agreed as they parked a block away from the flashing lights indicating, as always, where their job lay.

The crowd parted as they flashed their badges—that would never get old in Ravi’s opinion—and they ducked under the tape surrounding the teenage body lying quietly on the ground, waiting for them to solve the mystery of his demise.

Ravi stopped short as they approached the body. Jongin bumped into him and gave him a what’s your deal look. He went closer apprehensively. The boy looked as if he had been about fifteen. Next to him, Jongin began supervising the team and prattling about identifying the body, next of kin, and cause of death. It was too familiar.

The face seemed somehow too young and innocent to be laying there helplessly, though the very circumstances indicated anything but innocence. His spiky hair, matted with blood, was casually messy, the front strands falling over the blank, staring eyes. Ravi’s eyes travelled down to the, he counted quickly, nine fresh stab wounds in his chest.

He stumbled backwards and leaned against a nearby wall for a moment to collect himself. He’d seen the crime scene photos of what Jiyong had done to Hyuk, the ones that were virtually identical to this one. His finger had traced a line down Hyuk’s face, following the tear tracks that marked the grime covering it.

He stared into the window of a nearby apartment blankly, trying to control the sudden feelings of grief and bewilderment. It took him a moment to realize that the TV in the apartment was broadcasting a familiar face, and that face was looking earnestly straight into the camera.

He couldn’t hear what Ken was saying, but he saw his lips form five names before he had to look away.