The flashing lights on the cars seemed unreal to him as someone helped him sit down on the back of an ambulance and covered him with a blanket. In a haze he could see Suho and Chanyeol sitting on each side of Baekhyun, all of them crying, shaking, despairing…
But there was nothing in him now.
Nothing at all.
He saw everything as through glass, unsure of whether he was the observer or the exhibition.
At some point, people had dragged him away from a dead body, ignoring his screaming protests and since then the world had been out of his reach. He couldn’t remember anything from before that point and the following events seemed incoherent and confusing, and above all, unimportant. All he knew was that he was sitting down with a blanket around his shoulders right now and that someone was trying to wash the blood spray off his face. The water got into his eyes, but he hardly noticed. Slowly, he slipped out of the whole situation again, the glass thickening.

When a week later he finally began answering questions put to him, Tao felt as if a bubble was bursting around him and the real world came seeping back in. And with that came the memories and with those came the tears.
They soon evolved into nightmares and screams and a physical knot of pain in his stomach that nothing could soothe.
Even with the others occasionally trying to comfort and calm him, he felt alone in a whole new way that they would never be able to comprehend and he often found himself wishing that Lay had taken him with him to the grave. The only time he stopped crying was when he went to sleep and it only lasted until the nightmares kicked in, replaying every scene from the train over and over again until he awoke screaming and with fresh tears running down his cheeks.
No one knew how to move on from where they were stranded. The company soon realised that no threat nor promise of reward could get the remaining eight boys to do anything and they left them to themselves.
Minseok locked him and Jongdae up in a room and stayed there for days, living off whatever the others occasionally brought them, in an attempt to get Jongdae clean. Tao could hear through the door when he passed how Jongdae screamed and fought and begged Minseok to let him out, but in the end, the door remained closed. He didn’t walk past too often, though. Mostly he stayed in his own horribly lonely room, waiting for something to happen, something that could get him to function again. Anything to make him forget his situation or make him accept it. He just wanted to live again, because this state of pure grief definetely wasn’t life.
In the end, his new life started with a clarification. It arrived one morning in the form of sergeant Yolkov knocking at his door. The astonishment he felt seeing him was the first positive feeling he had felt in weeks.

“What are you doing here?,” he blurted out, his red-rimmed eyes wide in surprise.

Yolkov shrugged and avoided looking Tao in the eyes.

“I suppose I’m the last person you want to see right now,” he mumbled uncomfortably. “But I thought ought to tell you something.”

He looked around as if to see if they were alone and Tao asked him to come inside and closed the door. The room was a complete mess, but Yolkov didn’t seem to notice.

“What is it then?,” Tao urged.

“It’s about Kris’ post-mortem.” Tao felt the cold starting to spread as he thought of Kris, but somehow it was better than actual pain. “You know how the official papers stated that all four of them died of their bullet wounds, well… it’s not exactly true.”

“What are you saying?”

Yolkov drew a sigh and looked as if he tried to find a milder way to put what he was about to say, but gave up.

“When Lay shot him he was already dead.”
“What?!”

“He did not die of the gunshot,” Yolkov said, emphasising his articulation. “He suffocated. I checked everything we took from the compartment again. Obviously there was a lot of blood on the sheets from the wound, but I believe one of the pillows was used to smother him with before he was shot.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, Tao found his mind working rapidly to try and find sense in what he heard.

“So you’re saying someone suffocated him with a pillow and then he was shot? Why would someone shoot a person who’s already dead? Lay confessed to killing him for God’s sake!”
“Which is precisely why I haven’t included any of this in the official report. But Tao, try to think about it. When you saw Kris, what was the first thing you assumed?”

“I don’t know, that he was dead?,” Tao said with a hint of dryness.

“And why was that?”

“Because he had a bullet wound in his head! Why am I even answering this?” He began to feel annoyed. Yolkov, however, seemed to think that Tao’s answers had been correct.

“You assumed he was dead because he had been shot through the head. Exactly. That is what anyone would think. And I think that is exactly the reason for doing it. Lay shot Kris knowing he was already dead because he wanted to cover up for the one who actually did it.”

“But who…” He quickly stopped himself. The answer was staring him in the face and he could tell by the look on Yolkov’s face that he knew as well. “And you’re not going to tell anyone?”

“Why should I?” A smile spread on the sergeant’s lips. “I’m retiring soon, I don’t see why I should begin to trouble my colleagues with a case everyone considers closed. There’s no point in dragging him into this now, it was a one-off. I don’t think there’s any chance he’ll do something like it again.”

It was as if those words tightened up the knot that had hurt inside him and finally he felt how his lungs expanded as he took his first real breath since he went on board the train.

“Thank you.”
“Tell me though, is he doing all right? Are both of them?”

Tao nodded, unable to keep from smiling as he thought of them.

“They’re coping fine. Baekhyun haven’t had a hysteria attack since we came back to Korea. I don’t think anyone ever expected him to change this much, he’s so devoted to Chanyeol now…”
“Good. Hopefully he’s able to take better care of Baekhyun now that Kris is gone.”
“I think he is.”

When Yolkov left later that afternoon, after having talked with Tao for several hours, Tao could tell that this would be his last day locked inside his room. He needed to get out and cope with the world again, no matter how lonely he felt. He clung to the panda as he lay in his bed, trying to fall asleep.
No, he thought with a sleepy smile, somehow everything was going to be okay.

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Author's note: To those of you who actually made it this far: thank you, I am forever grateful! And I will never do anything like this again, oh my god.