__

The sunlight peaks from the horizon, and the sky was all kinds of orange, yellow, red and blue. If Jongdae squinted a little, he could see a hint of lilac peeking from the sparse clouds over his head.

He’s been driving around, wasting away his petrol. And when the latter ran out, Jongdae filled it up and drove again, in and out and around the city, as if that would somehow heal his broken heart.

He has reached the point where not even the tears would come out anymore. He just aimlessly drove around, trying to find something within himself. There were often points where he considered driving himself into another driver, or out of the highway, but there was always one thought of another that stopped him from doing so and he would quickly swerve back to the correct road lane.

His phone is on the dashboard, with about 241 miscalls from Baekhyun. The ringtone just floats from one ear through another; everything just seems numb to Jongdae. He just lets it ring and continues to drive.

He doesn’t know where he’s driving.

Maybe he knows.

Maybe just not consciously.

When he decides to stop and hit the brakes, he’s in front of the cemetery. His hands are tense on the steering wheel, staring ahead at the road, as if trying to search for a purpose.

He slowly steps out of his car, locking it with a beep far too loud for his numb ears. He sluggishly drags himself into the garden of the dead, walking past rows and rows of names carved into stone. The sun is out but the temperature doesn’t fail to chill him to the bones, shaking a little as he walked before he approaches the grave of his late wife.

Silently, he got onto his knees and carefully pulled out the weed that constantly grew on his wife’s grave, plucking out every bit of wild greenery that disturbed her resting place. He then smoothed down the dirt and patted the surface, sitting down next to her and pulling up his knees.

He felt like clawing at the ground to dig himself a hole, big enough to occupy a human body before burying himself in to let the maggots eat him alive.

Then he thought of a little child, being lowered into a hole big enough to occupy a tiny boy, burying him to let the maggots eat his innocent body.

Jongdae embraced the gravestone, as if to seek comfort.

“Our little child, Haechan…” he began, his voice barely a croak. He brushed his fingers against the carving of his wife’s name, tracing the dates before his fingers went limp and hit the dirt.

“Maybe it’s karma. Is it karma? I killed my dear friend’s little baby and I lose ours in turn,” Jongdae half-sobbed, the words lisping past his throat.

“I’m so sorry. I failed you. I failed my friend.”

He cried, as if Minhyun’s con condition was somehow his fault. Maybe if he didn’t listen to his friend’s stubborn insistence, he could’ve saved the boy.

Jongdae loved the boy dearly. Perhaps not as much as a father would, and perhaps not as much as Baekhyun would, but he loved him all the same. But somehow, the news of him dying made him feel as if he failed the boy. As if he failed his wife. The tears start to come up and they pool at the corners of his eyes, and his sniffles before he wipes his eyes quickly behind his glasses.

Then he wondered—who decided the fates of humans? How did he, a practical felon, escape with murder, when a boy with a heart of the angels must suffer? Life is terribly unfair and yet, there was nothing he could do. There’s nothing to save. All he could do was wait for the end and hope the pain would go away.

Everything Jongdae did was worthy to send himself to hell.

He could write a list…

Jongdae had married his late wife—not out of love, but as an attempt to somewhat cover up the hole in his heart as he and Baekhyun separated their ways. Don’t misunderstand, however; the girl had been a brilliant and lovely woman, and Jongdae had nothing against her. Though when he and Baekhyun’s relationship crumbled apart, Jongdae felt it was a little too much to cope. So obviously he did the most irrational thing came to mind—he took advantage of the girl that had confessed her liking to him, married her, and pretended that Jongdae liked her more than a mere friend. All of that, just to simply fill the hole in his heart.

Then he outed the information that Baekhyun and Chanyeol were to be married to Baekhyun’s parents when he specifically requested not to, spinning up lies on how terrible and what an Chanyeol was out of jealousy and hatred. Then his parents died of heartbreak and what did Jongdae do? What did Jongdae do when Baekhyun cried, thinking it was his fault? Compromising his own feelings and his and Chanyeol’s relationship? Nothing. He did nothing. In fact, he went so far to embrace Baekhyun in his arms and told him it’ll be okay.

Jongdae abandoned Baekhyun after that, heavy with guilt, but did he ever say sorry? Jongdae refused to talk to him, ignoring his phone calls. And all these years Baekhyun thought that they simply drifted away—like most adult friends do—when in fact, Jongdae actively avoided him. In fact, Jongdae hated him so much with a passion for his decision to marry Chanyeol that Jongdae simply flat-out decided that the best thing to do was abandon their friendship.

But his hatred that time towards Baekhyun was incomparable to his hatred for Chanyeol.

So when the news leaked that they both divorced, Jongdae of course, did what he thought was best. He set the Corporation’s building on fire with the intent to kill Chanyeol inside it, at the very top floor—when, in fact, Chanyeol was away at another building, and Baekhyun had actually ventured inside the building to seek Chanyeol and had hoped for them to reconcile.

Jongdae started the fire… and still, after all these years, Baekhyun believed Chanyeol had been the one to start the fire.

Jongdae could never forget his friend’s face as he held his little baby in his hands, burnt and scorched to the heavens, whispering to himself that his baby was going to survive.

Jongdae had actually abandoned all contact with Baekhyun months prior.

And yet, the first person that came to Baekhyun’s mind—the first person he went to when all hope had seemed lost—Jongdae. He went to Jongdae, because in Baekhyun’s mind, the former was the only person he could seek comfort from all the cruelty in the world.

Baekhyun remembers him as a dear friend.

Jongdae remembers himself as a coward, a murderer, and a liar.

Yet he continues, to this day, to act like he hadn’t been at fault. Acting like he would always be by Baekhyun’s side.

Would Baekhyun be heartbroken if Jongdae told him that he’d been the one that murdered his parents? The one that murdered his baby? The one that ruined his life?

Jongdae sniffled and looked at the gravestone.

Thinking back now… it made sense why his late wife took her life.

She found out. She found out that the man she loved didn’t love him back since the beginning. She found out that he didn’t want to be a father at all. She found out that he set a building on fire and killed an innocent child.

Who wouldn’t be heartbroken?

Hence why Jongdae never told Baekhyun—he didn’t want the same thing to happen. Jongdae loved Baekhyun a great deal. Losing Baekhyun was losing the world.

But it comes at the costly price of ruining the entirety of Baekhyun’s life. By not telling him, Baekhyun lived all these years believing that Chanyeol had always been the culprit of his first son’s death. Believing that Chanyeol was the reason why his parents died of heartbreak. Worse still, believing that Jongdae is his dear friend who would always be by his side, no matter what…

If he were to put himself next to Chanyeol, the latter’s guilt was nothing compared to Jongdae’s.

The bespectacled man looks up at the horizon that began to turn blue.

Is it… perhaps… time to come clean?

__

In the end, he simply came back home.

Jongdae shuffled through his house, the sun finally escaping the horizon line—but the sunlight that filtered through his window just seemed bleak.

He quietly sets Minhyun’s bag against the wall. Then he sat in front of his computer for a very long time, staring at his thesis that he had meant to finish this week.

His phone buzzed once more, the sound echoing throughout the house. He meekly looks through his blurry lenses at the screen.

It’s Chanyeol, ringing him for the first time in his existence.

Jongdae could already hear Chanyeol’s voice—what he would say, blasting through the phone. It’s your fault. You could’ve saved him. Then the voice twisted into the nightmares of his mind and Chanyeol’s imaginary voice began to say: you failed everyone. You killed him. You are the death of all good things.

What more could he do? Jongdae felt like he deserved these words. And he simply could not disrespect Chanyeol’s wish if the latter wanted to murder him in cold blood—he deserved it.

With hands that did not shake (it had trembled so much that it had become stiff), Jongdae accepted the call and pressed the device to his ear. Before he could hear the other man’s voice on the line, he breathed out shakily and murmured.

“I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. There was too many things to apologize. I’m sorry I ruined your life. I’m sorry I caused you so much misery. I’m sorry for the death of your son. I’m sorry—

But the extension, the words he’d like to add after that, the