IN THE HAZY dusk over the cemetery, a vulture circled. Two days had passed since Junghwan’s death, and Jin hadn’t been able to eat or sleep. He was standing in a black shirt & jeans in the basin of the graveyard, where the whole of Sword & Cross had gathered to pay its respects to Junghwan. As if one unenthusiastic hourlong ceremony were enough. Especially since the campus’s only chapel had been turned into the natatorium, and the ceremony had to be held in the grim swampland of the cemetery.

Since the accident, the school had been on lockdown, and the faculty had been the definition of tight-lipped. Jin had spent the past two days avoiding the stares of the other students, who all eyed him with varying degrees of suspicion. The ones he didn’t know very well seemed to look at him with a faint hint of fear. Others, like Seo-joon and Yoongi, ogled him in a different, much more shameless manner, as if there were something darkly fascinating about his survival. He endured the probing eyes as best he could during class, and was glad at night when Ken dropped by to bring him a steaming mug of ginger tea, or Jimin slipped a dirty Mad Libs under his door.

He was desperate for anything to take his mind off that uneasy, waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop feeling. Because he knew it was coming. In the form of a second visit either from the police, or from the shadows—or both.

That morning, a PA announcement had informed them that the evening’s Social would be canceled out of respect for Junghwan’s passing, and that classes would be dismissed an hour early so the students could have time to change and arrive at the cemetery at three o’clock. As if the whole school weren’t already dressed for a funeral all the time.

Jin had never seen so many people congregating in one place on the campus. Bo young was parked at the center of the group in a calf-length pleated gray skirt and thick, rubber-soled black shoes. A misty-eyed Mr. Bogum and a handkerchief-wielding Mr. Lee stood behind her in mourning clothes. Ms. Kang and Coach Woobin stood in a black-clad cluster with a group of other faculty and administrators Jin had never seen before.

The students were seated in alphabetic rows. At the front, Jin could see Joel Bland, the kid who’d won the swimming race last week, blowing his nose into a dirty handkerchief. Jin was in the nowhere land of K’s, but he could see Taehyung, annoyingly positioned in the J’s right next to Hoseok, two rows ahead. He was dressed impeccably in a fitted black pinstriped blazer, but his head seemed to hang lower than everyone’s around him. Even from the back, Taehyung managed to look devastatingly somber.

Jin thought about the white peonies he’d brought him. Bo young hadn’t let him take the vase with him when he left the infirmary, so Jin had carried the flowers up to his room and gotten pretty inventive, cutting off the top of a plastic water bottle with a pair of manicure scissors.

The blooms were fragrant and soothing, but the message they offered was unclear. Usually when a guy brought you flowers, you didn’t have to second-guess his feelings. But with Taehyung, those kinds of assumptions were always a bad idea. It was so much safer to assume he’d brought them to him because that was what you did when someone went through a trauma.

But still: He’d brought him flowers! If he leaned forward now in his folding chair and looked up at the dorm, through the metal bars on the third window from the left, he could almost make them out.

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” a pay-by-the-hour minister warbled from the front of the crowd. “Till thou return unto the ground. For out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

He was a thin man about seventy, lost in a big black jacket. His beat-up athletic shoes were fraying at the laces; his face was lumpy and sunburned. He spoke into a microphone attached to an old plastic boom

  box that looked like it was from the eighties. The sound that came out was staticky and distorted and hardly carried across the crowd.

Everything about this service was inadequate and completely wrong.

No one was paying Junghwan any respect by being here. The whole memorial seemed more like an attempt to teach the students how unfair life could be. That Junghwan’s body wasn’t even present said so much about the school’s relationship—or utter lack thereof—with the departed boy. None of them had known him; none of them ever would. There was something false about standing here today in this crowd, something made worse by the few people who were crying. It made Jin feel like Junghwan was even more of a stranger to him than he actually had been.

Let Junghwan rest in peace. Let the rest of them just move on.

A white horned owl crooned in the high branch of the oak tree over their heads. Jin knew there was a nest somewhere nearby with a clan of new baby owls. He’d been hearing the mother’s fearful chant each night this week, followed by the frantic beating of the father’s wings on the descent from his nightly hunt.

And then it was over. Jin stood up from his chair, feeling weak with the unfairness of it all. Junghwan had been as innocent as he was guilty, though of what he didn’t know.

As he followed the other students in single file toward the so-called reception, an arm looped around his waist and pulled him back.

Taehyung?

But no, it was Jungkook.

His brown eyes searched his and seemed to pick up his disappointment, which only made him feel worse. He bit his lip to keep from dissolving into a sob. Seeing Jungkook shouldn’t make him cry—he was just so emotionally drained, teetering on the brink of a collapse. He bit so hard he tasted blood, then wiped his mouth on his hand.

“Hey,” Jungkook said, smoothing the back of his hair. He winced. He still had a bump back there from where he’d hit his head on the steps. “Do you want to go somewhere and talk?”

They’d been walking with the others across the grass toward the reception under the shade of one of the oak trees. A cluster of chairs had been set up practically one on top of the other. A nearby folding card table was strewn with stacks of stale-looking cookies, pulled from their generic boxes but still sitting in their inner plastic shells. A cheap plastic punch bowl had been filled with syrupy red liquid and had attracted several flies, the way a corpse might do. It was such a pathetic reception, few of the other students even bothered with it. Jin spotted Ken in a black suit, shaking hands with the minister. Taehyung was looking away from them all, whispering something to Hoseok.

When Jin turned back to Jungkook, his finger dragged lightly across his collarbone, then lingered in the hollow of his neck. He inhaled and felt goose bumps rise on his skin.

“If you don’t like the necklace,” he said, leaning into him, “I can get you something else.”

His lips were so close to brushing his neck that Jin pressed a hand to his shoulder and stepped back.

“I do like it,” he said, thinking of the box lying on his desk. It had ended up right next to Taehyung’s flowers, and he’d spent half the night before looking back and forth between them, weighing the gifts and the intentions behind them. Jungkook was so much clearer, easier to figure out. Like he was algebra and Taehyung was calculus. And he had always loved calculus, the way it sometimes took an hour to figure out a single proof.

“I think the necklace is great,” he told Jungkook. “I just haven’t had a chance to wear it yet.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, pursing his lips. “I shouldn’t press you.”

His dark hair was slicked back and showed more of his face than usual. It made him look older, more mature. And the way he looked at him was so intense, his big brown eyes probing into him, like he approved of everything he held inside.

“Mr. Bogum kept saying to give you space these last couple of days. I know he’s right, you’ve been through so much. But you should know how much I thought about you. All the time. I wanted to see you.”

He his cheek with the back of his hand and Jin felt tears welling up. He had been through so much. And he felt terrible that here he was, about to cry, not over Junghwan—whose death did matter, and should have mattered more—but for selfish reasons. Because the past two days brought back too much past pain about Yi Jung and his life before Sword & Cross, things he thought he’d dealt with and could never explain, not to anyone. More shadows to push away.

It was like Jungkook sensed this, or at least part of this, because he folded him into his arms, pressed his head against his strong, broad chest, and rocked him from side to side.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

And maybe he didn’t have to explain anything to him. It was like the more deranged he felt inside, the more available Jungkook became. What if it was enough just to stand here in the arms of someone who cared about him, to let his simple affection steady him for a little while?

It felt so good just to be held.

Jin didn’t know how to pull away from Jungkook. He had always been so nice. And he did like him, and yet, for reasons that made him feel guilty, he was kind of beginning to annoy him. He was so perfect, and helpful, and exactly what he should have needed right now. It was just … he wasn’t Taehyung.

An angel food cupcake appeared over his shoulder. Jin recognized the manicured hand holding it. “There’s punch over there that needs drinking,” Hoseok said, handing Jungkook a cupcake, too. He glared at its frosted top. “You okay?” Hoseok asked Jin. 

Jin nodded. For the first time, Hoseok had popped up exactly when Jin wanted saving. They smiled at each other and Jin raised his cupcake in thanks. He took a small, sweet bite.

“Punch sounds great,” Jungkook said through gritted teeth. “Why don’t you go get us a few glasses, Hoseok?”

Hosoek rolled his eyes at Jin. “Do a man one favor and he’ll start treating you like a slave.”

Jin laughed. Jungkook was a little out of line, but it was obvious to Jin what he was trying to do.

“I’ll go get the drinks,” Jin said, ready for a breath of air. He headed for the card table and the punch bowl. He was skimming a fly from the surface of the punch when someone whispered in his ear.

“You want to get out of here?”

Jin turned around, ready to invent some excuse for Jungkook that no, he couldn’t duck out—not now, and not with him. But it wasn’t Jungkook who reached out and touched the base of his wrist with his thumb.

It was Taehyung.

He melted a little. His Wednesday phone slot was in ten minutes and he desperately wanted to hear Sandeul’s voice, or his parents’ voices. To talk about something going on outside these wrought iron gates, other than the bleakness of his last two days.

But get out of here? With Taehyung? He found himself nodding.

Jungkook was going to hate him if he saw him leave, and he would see. He would be watching him. He could almost feel his brown eyes on the back of his head. But of course he had to go. He slipped his hand inside Taehyung’s. “Please.”

All the other times they’d touched, either it had been an accident, or one of them had jerked away—usually Taehyung—before the bolt of warmth Jin always felt could evolve into a rising crescendo of heat. Not this time. Jin looked down at Taehyung’s hand, holding fast to his, and his whole body wanted more. More of the heat, more of the tingling, more of Taehyung. It was almost— not quite—as good as he’d felt in his dream. He could hardly feel his feet moving below him, just the flow of his touch taking over.

It was as if he only blinked, and they had ascended to the gates of the cemetery. Below them, far away, the rest of the memorial service wobbled out of focus as the two of them left it all behind.

Taehyung stopped suddenly and, without warning, dropped his hand. He shivered, cold again.

“You and Jungkook,” he said, letting the words hang in the air like a question. “You spend a lot of time together?”

“Sounds like you’re not very fond of that idea,” he said, feeling instantly stupid for playing coy. He’d only wanted to for sounding a little jealous, but his face and his tone were so serious.

“He’s not—” Taehyung started to say. He watched a red-tailed hawk land in an oak tree over their heads. “He’s not good enough for you.”

Jin had heard people say that line a thousand times before. It was what everyone always said. Not good enough. But when the words passed Taehyung’s lips, they sounded important, even somehow true and relevant, not vague and dismissive the way the phrase had always sounded to him in the past.

“Well, then,” he said in a quiet voice, “who is?”

Taehyung put his hands on his hips. He laughed to himself for a long time. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “That’s a terrific question.”

Not exactly the answer Jin was looking for. “It’s not like it’s that hard,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets because he wanted to reach out to him. “To be good enough for me.”

Taehyung’s eyes looked like they were falling, all the violet that had been in them a moment before turned a deep, dark gray. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

He rubbed his forehead, and when he did, his hair flipped back for just a second. Long enough. Jin saw the scab on his forehead. It was healing, but Jin could tell that it was new.

“What happened to your forehead?” he asked, reaching for him.

“I don’t know,” he snapped, pushing his hand away, hard enough that he stumbled back. “I don’t know where it came from.”

He seemed more unsettled by it than Jin was, which surprised him. It was just a small scrape.

Footsteps on the gravel behind them. Both of them spun around.

“I told you, I haven’t seen him,” Yoongi was saying, shrugging off Jungkook’s hand as they ascended the graveyard’s hill.

“Let’s go,” Taehyung said, sensing everything he felt— he was almost certain that he could—even before he shot him a nervous look.

He knew where they were going as soon as he began to follow him. Behind the church-gymnasium and into the woods. Just like he’d expected his jump rope posture before he ever saw him working out. Just like he’d known about that cut before he saw it.

They walked at just the same pace, with steps just the same length. Their feet hit the grass at the same time, every time, until they reached the forest.

“If you come to a place more than once with the same person,” Taehyung said, almost to himself, “I guess it isn’t yours alone anymore.”

Jin smiled, honored as he realized what Taehyung was saying: that he’d never been to the lake before with anyone else. Only him.

As they trekked through the woods, he felt the coolness of the shade beneath the trees. It smelled the same as ever, as most coastal Georgian forests did: an oaky mulch scent that Jin used to associate with the shadows, but that he now connected to Taehyung. He shouldn’t feel safe anywhere after what had just happened to Junghwan, but next to Taehyung, Jin felt like he was breathing easy for the first time in days.

He had to believe he was bringing him back here because of the way he’d skipped out on him so suddenly the last time. Like they needed a second try to get it right. What had started out feeling like their first kind of almost-date had turned into Jin feeling pitifully stood up. Taehyung must have known that and felt bad about his stormy exit.

They reached the magnolia tree that marked the lookout point on the lake. The sun left a golden trail on the water as it edged over the forest to the west. Everything looked so different in the evening. The whole world seemed to glow.

Taehyung leaned up against the tree and watched him watch the water. He moved to stand beside him under the waxy leaves and the flowers, which should have been dead and gone by this time of year, but looked as pure and fresh as spring blooms. Jin breathed in the musky scent, and felt closer to Taehyung than he had any reason to—and loved that the feeling seemed to come from out of nowhere.

“We’re not exactly dressed for a swim this time,” he said, pointing at Jin’s black outfit.

“Maybe we could just stick our feet in?” Jin said.

Taehyung motioned toward the steep red rock path that led down to the water. They climbed over thick, tawny reeds and lake grass and used the twisted stumps of live oak trees to keep their balance. Here, the shore of the lake turned to pebbles. The water looked so still, he felt he almost could have walked on it.

Jin kicked off his black sneakers and skimmed the lily-padded surface with his toes. The water was cooler than it had been the other day. Taehyung picked a strand of lake grass and started braiding its thick stem.

He looked at Jin. “You ever think about getting out of here—”

“All the time,” he said with a groan, assuming he meant that he did, too. Of course, he wanted to get as far away from Sword & Cross as possible. Anyone would. But he tried at least to keep his mind from whirling out of control, toward fantasies of his and Taehyung plotting an escape.

“No,” Taehyung said, “I mean, have you really considered going somewhere else? Asking your parents for a transfer? It’s just … Sword & Cross doesn’t seem like the best fit for you.”

Jin took a seat on a rock opposite Taehyung and hugged his knees. If he was suggesting that he was a reject among a student body full of rejects, he couldn’t help feeling a little insulted.

He cleared his throat. “I can’t afford the luxury of seriously considering someplace else. Sword & Cross is”—he paused—“pretty much a last-ditch effort for me.”

“Come on,” Taehyung said.

“You wouldn’t know—”

“I would.” He sighed. “There’s always another stop, Jin.”

“That’s very prophetic, Taehyung,” he said. He could feel his voice rising. “But if you’re so interested in getting rid of me, what are we doing? No one asked you to drag me out here with you.”

“No,” he said. “You’re right. I meant that you’re not like people here. There’s got to be a better place for you.”

Jin’s heart was beating quickly, which it usually did around Taehyung. But this was different. This whole scene was making him sweat.

“When I came here,” he said, “I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t tell anyone about my past, or what I’d done to land myself at this place.”

Taehyung dropped his head into his hands. “What I’m talking about has nothing to do with what happened with that guy—”

“You know about him?” Jin’s face crumpled. No. How could Taehyung know? “Whatever Yoongi told you …”

But he knew it was too late. Taehyung had been the one to find him with Jung-hwan. If Yoongi had told him anything about how Jin had also been implicated in another mysterious fiery death, he couldn’t begin to imagine explaining it.

“Listen,” he said, gripping Jin's hands. “What I’m saying, it has nothing to do with that part of your past.”

He found that hard to believe. “Then does it have to do with Junghwan?”

He shook his head. “It has to do with this place. It has to do with things …”

Taehyung’s touch jostled something in his mind. He started thinking about the wild shadows he’d seen that night. The way they’d changed so much since he’d arrived at this school—from a sneaky, unsettling threat to now almost-ubiquitous, full-blown terrors.

He was crazy—that must be what Taehyung sensed about him. Maybe he thought he was pretty, but he knew deep down he was seriously disturbed. That was why he wanted him to leave, so he wouldn’t be tempted to get involved with someone like him. If that was what Taehyung thought, he didn’t know the half of it.

“Maybe it has to do with the weird black shadows I saw the night Jung-hwan died?” he said, hoping to shock him. But as soon as he’d said the words, he knew his intent was not to freak Taehyung out even more … it was to finally tell someone. It wasn’t like he had much more to lose.

“What did you say?” he asked slowly.

“Oh, you know,” he said, shrugging now, trying to downplay what he’d just said. “Once a day or so, I get these visits from these dark things I call the shadows.”

“Don’t be cute,” Taehyung said curtly. And even though his tone stung, he knew he was right. He hated how falsely nonchalant he sounded, when really he was all wound up. But should he tell him? Could he? He was nodding for him to go on. His eyes seemed to reach out and pull the words from inside him.

“It’s gone on for the last twelve years,” he admitted finally, with a deep shudder.

“It used to just be at night, when I was near water or trees, but now …” His hands were shaking. “It’s practically nonstop.”

“What do they do?”

He would have thought he was just humoring him, or trying to get him to go on so he could crack a joke at his expense, except his voice had gone hoarse and his face was drained of color.

“Usually, they start out by hovering right about here.” He reached around to the back of Taehyung’s neck and tickled him to demonstrate. For once, he wasn’t just trying to get physically close to him—this really was the only way he knew how to explain. Especially since the shadows had begun to infringe on his body in such a palpable, physical way.

Taehyung didn’t flinch, so he continued. “Then sometimes they get really bold,” he said, moving to his knees and placing his hands on his chest. “And they shove right up against me.” Now he was right in his face. His lip quivered and he couldn’t believe he was actually opening up to anyone—let alone Taehyung—about the horrible things he saw. His voice dropped to a whisper and he said, “Recently, they don’t seem satisfied until they’ve”—he swallowed—“taken someone’s life and knocked me flat on my back.”

He gave Taehyung's shoulders the tiniest push, not intending to affect him at all, but the lightest touch of his fingertips was enough to knock Taehyung over.

His fall took him so much by surprise, he accidentally lost his own balance and landed in a tangled heap on top of him. Taehyung was flat on his back, looking at him with wide eyes.

He should not have told him that. Here he was, on top of him, and he’d just divulged his deepest secret, the thing that really defined him as a lunatic.

How could he still want to kiss him so badly at a time like this?

His heart was pounding impossibly fast. Then he realised: He was feeling both of their hearts, racing each other. A kind of desperate conversation, one they couldn’t have with words.

“You really see them?” he whispered.

“Yes,” he whispered, wanting to pick himself up and take it all back. And yet he was unable to move off Taehyung’s chest. He tried to read his thoughts—what any normal person would think about an admission like his. “Let me guess,” he said glumly. “Now you’re certain I need a transfer. To a psychiatric ward.”

He pushed himself out from under him, leaving him lying practically face-first on the rock. His eyes moved up his feet, to his legs,

to his torso, to his face. He was staring up at the forest.

“That’s never happened before,” he said.

Jin got to his feet. It was humiliating, lying there alone. Plus, it was like he hadn’t even heard what he said.

“What’s never happened? Before what?”

He turned to him and cupped his cheeks in his hands. He held his breath. He was so close. His lips were so close to his. Jin gave his thigh a pinch to make sure this time he wasn’t dreaming. He was wide awake.

Then he almost forcibly pulled himself away. He stood before him breathing quickly, his arms stiff at his sides.

“Tell me again what you saw.”

Jin turned away to face the lake. The clear blue water lapped softly at the bank, and he considered diving in. That was what Taehyung had done the last time things had gotten too intense for him. Why couldn’t he do it, too?

“It may surprise you to know this,” he said. “But it’s no thrill for me to sit here and talk about how thoroughly insane I am.” Especially to you.

Taehyung didn’t answer, but he could feel his eyes on him. When he finally got the courage to glance at him, he was giving him a strange, disturbing, mournful look— one in which his eyes turned down at the corners and their particular gray was the saddest thing Jin had ever seen. He felt as if he’d let him down somehow. But this was his awful confession. Why should Taehyung be the one to look so shattered?

He stepped toward him and leaned down until his eyes were gazing directly into his. Jin almost couldn’t take it. But he couldn’t make himself budge, either. Whatever happened to break this trance would have to be up to Taehyung—who was moving closer still, tilting his head toward his and closing his eyes. His lips parted. Jin’s breath caught in his throat.

He closed his eyes, too. He tilted his head toward his, too. He parted his lips, too.

And waited.

The kiss he had been dying for didn’t come. He opened his eyes because nothing had happened, except for the rustling sound of a tree branch. Taehyung was gone. He sighed, crestfallen but not surprised.

What was strange was that he could almost see the path he’d taken back through the forest. As if he were some kind of hunter who could pinpoint the rotation of a leaf and let it lead her back to Taehyung. Except he was nothing of the sort, and the kind of trail that Taehyung left in his wake was somehow bigger, clearer, and at the same time, even more elusive. It was as if a violet glow illuminated his path back through the forest.

Like the violet glow he’d seen during the library fire. He was seeing things. He steadied himself on the rock and looked away for a moment, rubbing his eyes. But when he looked back, it was just the same: In just one plane of his vision—as if he were looking through bifocals with a wild prescription—the live oaks, and the mulch beneath them, and even the songs of the birds in the branches—all of it seemed to wobble out of focus. And it didn’t just wobble, bathed in that faintest purple light, but seemed to emit a barely audible low-pitched hum.

He spun back around, terrified to face it, terrified of what it meant. Something was happening to him, and he could tell no one about it. He tried to focus on the lake, but even it was growing darker and difficult to see.

He was alone. Taehyung had left him. And in his place, this path he didn’t know how—or want—to navigate. When the sun sank behind the mountains and the lake became a charcoal gray, Jin dared another glance back at the forest. He in his breath, not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. It was a forest like any other, no quivering light or violet hum. No sign of Taehyung’s ever having been there at all.