Nodding, Leo pulled the door open and left, hoping he wouldn't be too late and that all he would find would be Ravi's body (or worse, nothing at all) in the house he shared with Hongbin. Barely keeping to the speed limit, his heart was in his throat as he drove out to the remote part of the city where Hongbin's house was, untouched by the growth that seemed to spill out into other areas, leaving this part forgotten by time. His car door slamming closed as he ran up to the door, Leo worried he was going to have to hammer on it to get Hongbin to let him in, but to his surprise, the door was slightly ajar, an ominous sign if ever he saw one.

"Hongbin?" he called out, his voice shaking slightly. "Ravi? Where are you guys..."

"Is something wrong, Leo?" Hongbin asked, appearing suddenly at the door to the kitchen at the other end of the hallway, making Leo grab at his chest in alarm. He smirked at Leo's expression. "You look like you've seen a ghost..."

"Don't scare me like that, Binnie," Leo growled at him, shaking his head. "You're being a brat. Where's Ravi? He came over earlier but I sent him home..." He looked around, but everything seemed spotless, as it always was. "He said you guys had argued again..."

Hongbin's expression hardened. "We did," he replied coldly. "But I don't know why he has to keep involving you in our problems. It's not something you can do anything about. No offense, hyung, but it's none of your business." He stayed where he was as Leo approached, watching the older man with wary interest. "What are you looking for?"

"Where's Ravi?" Leo asked, nearly face to face with Hongbin now. Normally, Hongbin would have backed away, but now... "I know he doesn't have work today because we're both off. And you're acting weirdly, too, even given that you've had a fight with him. Has something else happened? Are your parents here?"

"Why would you be asking about them so suddenly?" Hongbin asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. "They have nothing to do with me, I have nothing to do with them, it suits us all just fine. There's nothing wrong, I told you that already. Go home, hyung. There's nothing more you can do here, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't mess around in my affairs..."

"Ravi isn't yours, Hongbin," Leo said as gently as he could, watching Hongbin's reaction. "And neither was Hakyeon." If he was expecting an explosive reaction, he certainly got one, as Hongbin's eyes went wide and his mouth opened and closed, his face going red with rage. "You had no right to do what you did to him..."

"And you have no right to speak that name to me, ever!" Hongbin exploded, his voice louder than Leo had ever heard him in all the time he'd known him. "You know nothing about me, and have no right to criticise or lecture me about what I can or cannot do in my own home!"

As Hongbin's anger rose, the lights began to flicker and the doors and cupboards all began to open and close of their own accord, but Leo was too tired to be afraid of Hongbin now. He just wanted Ravi back, safe and sound. And Hongbin couldn't hurt Hakyeon or Jaehwan where they were now.

"You still shouldn't have killed him, or your friend Jaehwan," Leo continued softly, standing his ground as Hongbin glared at him, his eyes growing wilder with each word. "They didn't deserve to die, and neither did you..."

"Oh but you're wrong, Leo," Hongbin replied, his voice deadly quiet. He began to walk towards Leo, making the young man walk backwards to get away from him, wary of what he'd do. "I did deserve to die. I killed them, and I'm going to kill you too, because you know more than you should. But I won't kill Ravi. I'm going to keep him here with me, forever..."

Blinking in horror, Leo held onto the bannister of the stairs as he reached it to keep himself upright as he stared at Hongbin, unable to believe what he was hearing. "What have you done, Hongbin? Where is he? Let him go, Binnie, please..." He shook his head, feeling the chill as Hongbin approached him. "He loves you. You don't need to keep him locked up to keep him with you. He'd do it anyway..."

"No, he won't," Hongbin said almost sadly, drawing level with Leo and looking him in the eyes. "He'll leave me like Hakyeon did. Like Jaehwan would have done if I'd given him enough time. Like my parents did. But not now... I won't let him. He'll stay with me forever."

"If your parents left you, who... how...?" Leo wondered, hoping to buy some time so he could reason with Hongbin, and maybe get him to tell him where Ravi was. Maybe he could get Ravi out on his own or something. Or get out and tell the police where to find him, if nothing else. He couldn't just let Ravi die here. "What happened after Jaehwan died?" He was careful not to use words that blamed Hongbin, even though they both knew Hongbin had killed him.

Hongbin's lips twisted. "My parents somehow realised I'd killed them," he said, his voice bitter. "I don't know if it was something I said or did, or if it was something they'd said before I killed them, or what, but..." He sighed, looking away for a moment. "All I know is that a few days later... I died too. Then I heard my mother crying as my father cursed my existence while burying my body in the garden... Then they disappeared and I never saw them again."

"But because this house was mine, they could never get rid of it without my permission, so it's just been left to rot..." Hongbin laughed hollowly. "So it wasn't hard to call newspapers and rental agencies and pretend to be my father in order to find someone to keep me company and keep up the house, as long as they respected my boundaries. It was just hard to find someone who would, until Ravi..."

He waved a hand. "And you know the rest of it, since you came with him." Hongbin looked thoughtful. "I can't say I really regret it, but at the same time, you've always been a bit troublesome. Too smart for your own good, and too ready to take Ravi's side over mine. I can't have that, Leo."

"Ravi is my friend, Hongbin," Leo said, shaking his head. "What else would you have me do? I thought you were my friend too, and I am sorry for all this, but it's not my fault any of it happened. I don't know why you're like this, and I don't think you know either, but..." He sighed softly. "Hakyeon doesn't blame you, you know. He's forgiven you for what you did. He said he had a lot of time to think about it, and he knows you're hurting and he doesn't want that..."

"Hakyeon doesn't know what it's like to be stuck here," Hongbin replied, shaking his head angrily. "To be left behind by everyone, cursed constantly for what I am, or for what I can't be..." He looked on the verge of tears, and Leo felt sorry for him. "To want what I can't ever have..."

"He's stuck where he is too, Hongbin," Leo reminded him gently, reaching out before he remembered that he couldn't touch Hongbin, withdrawing his hand with a sigh. "So is Jaehwan. They're both trapped where they are, the same as you're trapped here. And neither of them can move on because they're hurting the same as you are. Maybe for different reasons, but..."

"Did you ever think about Ravi?" he added softly, looking down at his feet. "How Ravi is going to feel knowing he's in love with someone who is dead? He won't ever be able to hold you, to have you hold him, do all those things lovers do with each other. It's tearing him apart enough as it is, Hongbin. He loves you and wants to be with you and he can't, even though he wants desperately to be."

"If only it were as straightforward as a 'simple' case of agoraphobia," Leo sighed, shaking his head. "Then we could find someone to help, but this..." It made him want to cry, and as he looked over at Hongbin, it startled him when he saw the other man crying silently. "I honestly want to help you, even though you've done these things, Hongbin. But I don't know what to do. I don't want to do anything that would hurt Ravi..."

"There is no help for me," Hongbin murmured through his tears, turning away from Leo. His desolate expression broke the older man's heart. "There's nothing anyone can do, is there? I'm dead..." His voice was choked. "Come..."

A bit bemused by Hongbin's sudden change of heart, Leo warily followed him through the house and down into the basement, where he'd never been before. It was darker than the rest of the house, with only one meagre bulb to illuminate the darkness, but he could see a sectioned-off corner of the basement with what looked like a steel-built cage, a bit rusty from age, a bed with worn blankets on it behind the bars. Ravi lay on the bed, his eyes closed, though he opened them as Hongbin and Leo approached, sitting up with confusion and fear on his face.

"Hyung?" he asked, going to grip the bars and looking from Hongbin to Leo as Hongbin stopped the older man about halfway into the room. "What's going on? What am I doing here, and... what are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to get you away from here," Leo replied before Hongbin made a gesture that stopped him. Turning to stare at him, Leo suddenly realised his mistake. He hadn't seen, until it was too late, that there was another cage around the one Ravi was in, and now he was imprisoned too. "Hongbin! Let me out!"

"I told you, Leo," Hongbin said quietly, reappearing outside the room he'd trapped Leo in, the steel door clanging shut and locking behind him before Leo could get to it to stop it. "There's nothing anyone can do, and now you're here too. You can keep Ravi happy for me for a while until you die, and then he's mine..."

"Leo?" Ravi looked at him quizzically, shaking his head in bemusement. "What is he talking about. What's going on?" Had Hongbin just... He bit his lip, drawing blood that he wiped away with the back of his hand. It wasn't possible, was it? Hongbin couldn't be...? "Please..."

"You saw, didn't you?" Leo sighed, going to sit on the floor as close to Ravi as he could get. "Hongbin is dead. He always has been, it seems. The whole agoraphobia/touch-phobia thing was just a cover..." He ignored the way Hongbin watched Ravi, his eyes sad and yet hungry at the same time. "He's also a murderer. He killed two innocent people, at least two that I know of, before his parents killed him to stop him from hurting anyone else."

Looking at Hongbin, Ravi's expression was devastated. "Hongbin?" He grabbed tighter at the bars, this time to hold himself up, unable to believe what he was seeing and hearing. "What... you didn't do this, please tell me he's lying. Please... Hongbin."

Hongbin sat next to the locked entrance to the room, his back to the wall, staring at the opposite wall as Ravi spoke. With every word the other man said, his shoulders jerked as though he was being struck until he was hunched over, his head in his hands.

"I'm sorry, Ravi," he said, his voice muffled and sounding far away. "I had to. Hakyeon was going to leave me, and Jaehwan would have called the police eventually. He's not stupid." He realised what he'd said, then shook his head. "He wasn't. He would have done. I know... knew him. He might have been my friend, but he was a good man and would have turned me in..."

"But instead, my parents me and killed me." Hongbin gave a short, mirthless laugh. "So much for parental love, huh? They didn't turn me in. They killed me, just like I killed them, and then left me and this place to rot..." Grief and pain twisted his handsome features. "They never loved or wanted me in the first place, though. I was always a burden to them, and they never let me forget it. Why do you think there are these cages here? It's where I lived when I was alive, even though this is, or was, my house..."

Suddenly on his feet with a speed that startled both Leo and Ravi, Hongbin glared at them, his face now twisted with rage. "This was my house, and they locked me up in it as often as they could get away with it," he almost shouted at them as Ravi shrank back in horror. "Because I couldn't be controlled, they said. I wouldn't do what they wanted me to do. I wouldn't stop seeing Hakyeon. Or any of my other friends."

"And then they killed me. But then I found you, or you found me..." He was suddenly calm again, but both Leo and Ravi were still shocked and horrified by his violent mood swings and tried to keep as far away from him as they could under the circumstances. "And now I'm going to keep you here forever so you won't leave me too."

Hongbin smiled sadly. "Leo can keep you company for a while until he dies..." he added, "though I have no idea how long that will be. I have no interest in keeping him alive. I just couldn't kill him where it would be noticed..."

He ignored the sounds that were starting to be audible above their heads, like they didn't matter to him. And maybe they didn't. Nobody knew they were there, after all. Footsteps and shouts of Leo's and Ravi's names, along with his own finally caught Hongbin's attention, and his expression darkened.

"Who dares to come into my house without my permission?" Hongbin snarled, disappearing to deal with the interlopers, much to Ravi and Leo's relief. At least now he was gone and they could breathe.

Slumping to the ground, Ravi covered his face with his hands, his body shaking. "I don't understand," he said finally, his voice shaking with emotion. "How did I not know? There are things now that tell me I should have realised it sooner, but..." He leaned back against the bed, his knees drawn up against his chest. "I can't help it, but I still love him, Leo. What he must have gone through, the pain and loneliness that drove him to do the things he did."

"I know," Leo said quietly, just as shaken as Ravi was, but also confused by the voices above their heads that were getting louder. He could hear Hongbin shouting, the sounds of his violent temper echoing through the house. "It doesn't excuse what he did, but I can still understand, at least a little, of why..."

"But nothing will ever change the fact that Hongbin is still dead," he added softly, wishing the bars between them would vanish so he could hug his friend as Ravi began to cry quietly. "There's nothing either of us can do about that." He looked up as someone appeared at the entrance to the room, his expression wary in case it was Hongbin, but it wasn't. It was someone in the uniform of a police force he didn't recognise, and he got to his feet, gently nudging Ravi's foot between the bars for him to do the same. "Get up, Ravi. Someone's come to help..."

Even with the help of the police, it still took a while before they could get the doors to the cages opened, the combination of the rusty locks and the thickness of the steel bars hindering their efforts at freeing the young men. But eventually they were freed, and after taking statements, Leo was allowed to go home, taking Ravi with him. Ravi didn't want to stay in that house on his own any longer, not that Leo could blame him. Where Hongbin had gone, they had no idea, but there was no guarantee he'd stay gone and neither of them wanted to take any chances.

His eyes red and swollen from crying, Ravi lay on Leo's futon with Leo laying beside him, staring at the ceiling blankly. "How did they know where we were?" he asked, unable to wrap his mind around that concept. All the police were able to tell them was that they'd been acting on an anonymous tip-off, but who would have known? The house had been in a remote area, and nobody else could have known what was going on. It just wasn't possible.

"That would be because we told them," Hakyeon said cheerfully, grinning as Ravi gave a startled yelp, sitting up and looking around wildly. Jaehwan appeared beside him, smirking and waving at them both, though he left the speaking to Hakyeon. "You," he continued, gesturing at Ravi, "left your phone here, so we used it to call them. It made things so much easier, though it was hard to work out how to turn it on..."

Jaehwan made a funny face at Ravi's expression, laughing outright at Leo's glare. "Oh come on," he grinned, draping himself over Hakyeon's shoulders and sticking his tongue out. "You guys make the funniest faces. You should see yourselves..." He shrugged as Leo continued to glare at him. "But anyway, it wasn't hard to get them to listen when we told them what was going on. I'm not sure why, but it seems there had been some weird going on there even before you moved in with Hongbin..."

"They just couldn't do anything because there was no evidence," Hakyeon sighed softly. "Hongbin was always too smart for his own good, and made sure of it. Until now." He glanced at Ravi and made tutting noises of dismay at his expression. "I'm sorry," he said, looking apologetic. "I know it must hurt to hear about things he's done, but he wasn't always a bad person. He just had bad things happen to him that made him..." He sighed again and gestured helplessly. "Like that."

"But I hope now that they'll have found his body..." Hakyeon trailed off, looking suspiciously like he was going to cry, and Jaehwan twisted around to put his arms around him consolingly. "I hope he'll find peace. Proper peace..."

They were interrupted by Leo's phone ringing, and he answered it almost absently, startled to find it was the police again. He was even more startled by the news, his eyes going to Ravi, and then to Hakyeon and Jaehwan, and then back to Ravi again as the caller continued to speak. Finally closing the call, he sat back, his expression blank as he tried to process what he'd been told.

"They found his body," he said tonelessly, looking over at Ravi as the other man gave a cry of pain and huddled in on himself at the news. "And they're waiting for you to tell them what to do, since apparently his sister died some time ago, and his nephew wants nothing to do with any of it." He sighed softly. "And it seems Hongbin..." Leo took a deep breath, then let it out shakily. "He left a will. Leaving almost everything to Ravi. The house and everything in it, and most of the money..."

Ravi stared at him in shock. "He what?" Blinking at him, he shook his head. "Is that even legal?" His hands shook as he tried to hold his knees to his chest, everything just a bit too much for him to handle. "Can a ghost even make a will after the fact?"

Leo shrugged. "I don't know, but they didn't seem to question it since the nephew wasn't interested in any of it. They said once the enquiries were finished, it's all yours." He swallowed heavily. "And mine." Aware they were all staring at him now, he smiled faintly. "For some reason, he left me a bit of money as well, and I am really confused by it..."

"Especially since he seemed to hate me. Or at least resent me an awful lot," he added thoughtfully. "I don't know why, since my life isn't really much better than his seemed to be." He turned to Hakyeon and Jaehwan. "But what will you do now? Ravi is safe now, thanks to you. And hopefully Hongbin is finally at peace now too, again thanks to you..."

"I think it's more thanks to you guys than to us," Hakyeon replied thoughtfully. "But I understand what you mean." He glanced at Jaehwan. "I don't know, really. I kind of like it here..." He grinned at the expression on Leo's face. "I'm teasing you." Sobering, he shrugged. "I guess it's time for me to move on too. I can't speak for Jaehwannie though. That's up to him."

"Where you go, I go, idiot," Jaehwan murmured fondly, draping himself back over Hakyeon's shoulders with a cheeky smile. "Who else is going to keep you out of trouble?"

"Get me into trouble more likely," Hakyeon said wryly as he tried to pry the other man off him, ignoring the stares he was getting from both men sitting on the futon. After a few minutes of futilely fighting Jaehwan off, Hakyeon turned back to Leo and Ravi with a tired smile. "I guess this is where I say thank you, and it's time for us to go..."

Leo blinked at him. "I didn't do anything," he said, looking bemused and not a little upset at this development. He'd gotten used to them in such a short time, it was going to be hard not seeing them anymore. "Do... you have to leave?" He knew it sounded stupid after he'd tried so hard to persuade them to move on, but he was going to miss them.

"Awww, he's going to miss us, Hakyeonnie," Jaehwan crooned, making Leo frown at him. "Isn't that sweet?" He grinned back at Leo, knowing full well that Leo didn't mean it in the slightest. "We should pop in from time to time, just when he least expects it. Like when he's with a girlfriend or something..."

"Don't even think about it," Leo warned, his eyes narrowing as he rose off the futon, his hands out as though to strangle Jaehwan, the other man grinning and pretending to run away from him as Hakyeon looked on with a fond smile.

While the two played around, Hakyeon went to sit beside Ravi, the other man looking lost and despondent. "I'm sorry," he apologised again, trying not to scare him too much. "Hongbin wasn't a bad person, he really wasn't. I want you to know that. He just... he had problems." He looked down at his hands. "I loved him too, but I couldn't deal with his jealousy. Especially when we weren't officially dating. We couldn't, back then. Neither his parents, nor mine, would allow it, and I was young and stupid..."

Ravi shook his head. "It's not really much different now," he said quietly, not looking at Hakyeon. "We're not much freer to love who we want, though things are changing, little by little. But I love him, and I know he loved me. I do believe that. But I don't understand why people do things like that to others. Hurt them until it warps them like it did to Hongbin."

He shook his head again, looking up as Leo returned to put his arms around him. "But I have a feeling he is gone now, truly gone. At peace now, as you said... and..." Choking on his words, Ravi began to cry again, burying his face in Leo's chest as he sobbed helplessly. "At least I can be happy for that. He isn't hurting anymore."

Hakyeon looked up at Jaehwan and gave a meaningful nod of his head, the other man looking suddenly sober and thoughtful instead of playful as he had mere moments before. "I'm glad he's not hurting anymore either," he said gently, taking Jaehwan's hand. "And now it's our turn to go..." He smiled softly as the two men looked up at them, and with a nod at Jaehwan, they both began to fade away until only Leo and Ravi were left in the room.

Letting Ravi cry himself out, Leo ignored the tears on his own face as he cried for the young men who'd been so cruelly abused by fate. What their lives might have been like if things had turned out differently. It was a moot point now. Putting his arms around Ravi and holding him tightly, Leo bowed his head and closed his eyes.