Heechul was alive.

Somewhere. Ryeowook knew it had to be true now after what Henry had told them earlier in school. The body that was found at his old house didn’t belong to Heechul. It was someone that looked like Heechul but it wasn’t Heechul. Ryeowook released an uneven breath. The thought of Heechul still alive made Ryeowook uneasy. Ryeowook and Donghae believed that Heechul was alive. Sungmin and Henry on the other hand were unsure. Just because the body wasn’t Heechul didn’t mean that Heechul was still alive. The trio however kept what they knew to themselves, not wanting to give Henry any kind of false hope.

Ryeowook hadn’t realized that he had been distracted until he felt fingers pinching his cheeks. Ryeowook frowned and gave his boyfriend a dirty look.

“Why do you look so distracted?” Kyuhyun questioned, soft fingers running through Ryeowook’s hair.

Ryeowook shook his head, refusing to reply Kyuhyun as he turned around to pretend that he was interested in the movie that they had been watching for the past thirty minutes. They were cuddled up in Kyuhyun’s bedroom, watching a movie but how could he even pay attention to anything else other than the mess his life was in at the moment. When Ryeowook released another tired sigh, Kyuhyun made a displeased face and then lowered the volume on the flat-screen television. He moved around so that he was facing Ryeowook, studying him carefully.

“Alright, spill it.” Kyuhyun insisted, folding his arms over his chest. “What’s bothering you?”

“Okay…” Ryeowook swallowed and then quickly thought of something else, something other than the news of Heechul’s fake death that was bothering him.

“I… Um… I was just… Curious.” Ryeowook stammered. “You… Uh… Earlier… In school… I… I was just… Curious... Why did you stop the soccer boys from bullying Eunhyuk?”

Kyuhyun raised his brows, looking surprised that Ryeowook asked such a question. “You wanted Eunhyuk to get bullied by them?”

“No!” Ryeowook quickly shook his head. “It’s just… I… It’s just… I didn’t realize you were friends with Eunhyuk.”

“I’m not.”

“So why did you do it?”

“Because bullying isn’t right.” Kyuhyun answered, shrugging his shoulders. “And no one in school is brave enough to stand up to the soccer team.”

“Except you.” Ryeowook pointed out. “Why?”

“Heechul and I helped them get onto the team. We told them that it’s just as easy taking them off as getting them on the team.”

“How?”

“We hacked into the school system.” Kyuhyun reflected, “Some of them didn’t make it through the try-outs and so we hacked into the school system and got them in. Once their names were in the system, they became a part of the team.”

“That’s cheating, isn’t it?” Ryeowook asked and continued when Kyuhyun nodded. “So, why did you help them?”

Kyuhyun visibly tensed. Ryeowook could see it but he pretended that he was oblivious to Kyuhyun’s sudden change in posture.

“I… Ah… Well.. What’s important now is that they’re not on the soccer team anymore.” Kyuhyun said, “And I won’t do any more hacking.”

“Did you know them before they asked you to help them?” Ryeowook probed, unsatisfied with the replies Kyuhyun was giving him.

“No. But they knew Heechul.” Kyuhyun then sighed. “Look… Heechul… Heechul was popular. The boys probably wanted Heechul’s attention or something.”

“They’re not gay.” Ryeowook snapped.

Kyuhyun eyed Ryeowook, taken back by Ryeowook’s sudden behaviour. “Wookie… What’s going on?”

Ryeowook took a deep breath. He was losing it, snapping at Kyuhyun for no reason. Kyuhyun was probably telling the truth and Ryeowook was just overwhelmed with all the things going on. Ryeowook’s attention was suddenly distracted by the flashing lights from the tv and Ryeowook glanced at it, gasping as he did so.

“Turn it up!” Ryeowook ordered Kyuhyun who grabbed the remote and increased the volume.

“He was stabbed in his abdomen and then dumped into the Sapphire Lake. His body was found floating by a woman who was walking her dog in the morning earlier today at 7.20am. The murder weapon is suspected to have been a sharp weapon and the police are still searching for more evidences…”

“Oh my god,” Kyuhyun whispered.

Ryeowook tensed. “Do… Do you know him?”

“Heechul and I used to hang out at parties with him.” Kyuhyun replied, “But I don’t know him well. Heechul used to hang out with him more.”

“He’s… He’s close with Heechul?”

“I… Yeah.” Kyuhyun admitted.

“Why… Why didn’t you hang out with him?”

Kyuhyun looked away. “I… Uh… We just… Didn’t clicked.”

Ryeowook opened his mouth to ask more questions but was interrupted when he felt his phone vibrating. He quickly pulled it out and noticed that he had a text from an unknown number. Ryeowook swallowed the huge lump in his throat before he pressed onto the text.

Kim Heechul. Dead.

Kim Youngwoon. Dead.

Kim Ryeowook. Next.

Love, H

***

“His murder weapon…”

Sungmin pressed the bridge of his nose as he stared at his laptop screen. He had an essay to write but surfed through twitter in the midst of writing and came across the news of Kangin’s murder. His body had been found but the murder weapon was missing. H had it, H must have kept it when he or she dumped the body into the lake.

If Sungmin were to put himself in H’s shoes, imagine that he was a psychotic stalker and hated the three of them, then he’d know exactly what H would do with the weapon. H would use that weapon against them, made Sungmin, Ryeowook and Donghae looked like the killer. H could plant the weapon in their backyards, hide it in their rooms or do something shady just like that. Sungmin assumed that that was H’s next plan but he hadn’t received any text from H so for now, Sungmin suspected that he was one step ahead. He hoped so. They needed to be a step ahead of H to solve this.

The only thing that didn’t make sense was… Why Kangin? Because he was a friend of Heechul’s? Was H planning to kill all of Heechul’s friend?

All you killers will pay. One by one. This is only the beginning. 

Sungmin thought of what H had left him when he found Kangin’s body. All you killers will pay… But… Sungmin had never killed anyone. He doubted that Ryeowook and Donghae had too. But Kangin… Could Kangin have murdered someone?

…. We accidentally killed someone. We killed him….

Sungmin’s eyes widened. Heechul accidentally killed someone! From the vlog, he admitted it! And he said, we which meant… Kangin could probably be with him, Kangin was probably with him when they accidentally killed whoever it was. And now… Whoever H was… It looked like H knew the victim, H wanted to get revenge for him. H killed Heechul. Or… H thought he or she did.

But that made no sense as to why Ryeowook, Sungmin and Donghae were involved in the middle of this chaos. Unless… Sungmin bit his lip as he tried to recall the content of Heechul’s vlogs. God, he really wished that the flash-drive wasn’t stolen. He remembered bits of Heechul’s vlog posts but he couldn’t remember all of them.

…. Donghae’s been avoiding me and it ….

…. I crashed the senior’s party and hung out with some seniors, Kangin and Yunho. They’re pretty cool….

… Jessica’s blind. Because of us…

…. He was Chinese and he was so cute….

…. Someone’s been sending me death threats and signing them with H….

…. We accidentally killed someone. We killed him….

“Jessica’s blind because of us,” Sungmin recalled out loud. “We accidentally killed someone.”

Sungmin repeated these two sentences and then snapped his fingers. He got it! For both the incidents, Heechul skipped out on mentioning any names. Jessica was blinded because of Heechul, Ryeowook, Donghae and Sungmin and H knew that secret. But Ryeowook, Donghae and Sungmin never killed anyone. So it had to be Heechul and his other friends. It had to be Heechul, Kangin and Yunho that were the ones that accidentally killed someone. H probably thought that… That the same people that blinded Jessica, killed whoever that had been killed and that was probably why everyone related to Heechul was threatened.

Oh my god.

Sungmin couldn’t believe that he got it. He grabbed the laptop he had tossed off his lap and quickly begun typing names in the search engine. He had to know if Heechul was close to anyone else or if he could find who Heechul, Kangin and Yunho could have killed.

After an hour of researching, Sungmin was ready to give up. His eyes were starting to water from exhaustion and he had dozed off about twice already. Sungmin sighed and pressed onto one last link he had found while typing in Kangin’s full name in the search engine. It looked like a blog post from someone who had went to school with Kangin in the past. The girl was pretty much alive and living in London right now so Sungmin guessed she definitely wasn’t H or had anything to do with their case.

Sungmin scrolled down her pictures of her and her friends and then stopped at a picture when he spotted Kangin in the background. The picture was of her and her friends in cheerleading costumes, posing at the camera. Behind them, they were a few boys who were in soccer jersey.

They went to the same school as Sungmin did and he easy recognized the soccer jersey noticing Donghae in it almost all the time. But that wasn’t what caught Sungmin’s attention. What caught Sungmin’s attention was Kangin. He was in normal attitire talking to two soccer boys. Sungmin squinted his eyes and noticed that one of them was Yunho. Sungmin knew that Yunho used to play sports but never had any clue that Yunho was in the soccer team. Sungmin squinted his eyes at the person next to Yunho and then realization hit him.

Oh my god.

He knew this person as well. In fact, Sungmin knew this person too well. Sungmin’s hands trembled, overwhelmed by the sudden emotions that hit him straight in his heart. Sungmin shoved his laptop away and grabbed a jacket and his car keys.

***

“SOM