Jongin calls in sick for several days in a row. He never actually gets sick, so his sick days have just been sitting there unused. The prospect of going back to his office, where there are still articles and photographs related to Kyungsoo’s case tacked up all over his wall – not to mention photographs of him and Sunyoung – is enough to drive him crazy.

So he sits at home. He doesn’t shower or get dressed. He eats only when he can’t stand it anymore, and he barely sleeps. He sits on the sofa in the living room, flipping through channels on the television without actually watching anything.

It’s been this way for a few days when Jongdae calls him. He almost doesn’t answer his phone. All of his friends have been calling him non-stop, checking to make sure he’s okay. While he appreciates their concern, he just wants to be alone to wallow in his self pity. He can’t imagine how his life could get any worse at the moment.

But, since it’s his brother, he answers. “What?” he demands glumly.

“Little bro,” Jongdae says, and the pleading note in his voice tells Jongin that his hyung isn’t calling to try to cheer him up. “I need a favor.”

Jongin sighs. “What is it?”

“I’ve got visitation with the kids this afternoon,” Jongdae explains. “At first the lawyer was supposed to bring them over, but now Yoonah is going to do it. I can’t let her see where I’m living now. She’ll think so badly of me.”

“A sharehouse isn’t anything to be ashamed of, hyung,” Jongin points out. “Especially not since you’re in the middle of a divorce.”

“Still,” Jongdae presses. “Can we have the visitation at your house?”

Jongin shrugs. “Why not? The place is a mess though.”

“I figured,” Jongdae admits. “I’ll come over early to clean up a bit. See you in an hour.”

Jongdae arrives roughly an hour later, and he is immediately taken aback by how untidy the usually immaculate apartment is. “Wow. You weren’t kidding.”

Jongin shrugs. It had always been Sunyoung who had kept the house neat and tidy; now he just doesn’t give a .

At Jongdae’s insistence, Jongin makes it into the shower. When he gets out, dressing in clean clothes for the first time in days, his brother has tidied the apartment enough to pass Yoonah’s inspection. Just in time, too, as the doorbell rings while Jongin is buttoning up his clean shirt.

He hears the front door being opened and then the bright and cheerful shouts of his niece and nephew, happy to see their father again. Although Jongdae had never quite kept up to Yoonah’s expectations, he is a damn good father and his children adore him. Jongin hears Yoonah and Jongdae exchanging polite greetings, but their voices are low enough that he can’t hear what they’re saying.

Deciding to save his brother from what would otherwise be an awkward afternoon, Jongin goes out to make small talk with his sister-in-law. He finds Jongdae in the floor, already playing with the children, while Yoonah sits on the sofa.

“Hi Yoonah,” he goes to greet her, giving her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Her haughty expression softens immediately, and she pulls Jongin down to sit on the sofa beside her. “How are you holding up?” she asks.

Jongin shrugs. “As well as can be expected, I guess.”

“You poor thing.” She takes his hand and pats it comfortingly. “It was such a shock to all of us when Sunyoung left. We all thought you guys were so perfect together.”

Jongin nods with a sigh. Of course she is talking about Sunyoung; she doesn’t know about Kyungsoo. “Sometimes people just don’t work out.”

“Yeah, I understand that,” she mutters, looking at Jongdae, but her expression is more sad than anything.

Jongin gets to his feet. “How about I go make everybody some tea?” he suggests. “Chanmi? Chansik? Why don’t you come help me?”

The children cheer wildly; they love their uncle Jongin, after all. So Jongin scoops one up in each arm and heads into the kitchen, giving his brother and sister-in-law some time to talk in private.

“Mommy said Auntie Sunyoung left you,” Chansik, who is six already, announces as Jongin fills the kettle with water and puts it on the stove to boil.

Jongin feels a pang somewhere where his heart should be if it hadn’t already broken into a million pieces. “O-oh, she did? Well, that’s true, little buddy. Auntie Sunyoung had to go away for a while.”

“Will she be back?” Chanmi, who is two, asks innocently.

Jongin forces a little smile. “No, sweetie, I don’t think she will. She and Uncle Jongin won’t be together anymore.”

“I think that’s what’s going to happen to Mommy and Daddy,” Chansik says sadly. “They’re always fighting, and now Daddy doesn’t live with us anymore.” He looks up at Jongin with big, watery eyes. “Do you think Daddy will go away like Auntie Sunyoung?”

Jongin pulls both children in for a big bear hug. “Oh, no. Don’t you worry about that. Your daddy will always be there for you. Even if your mommy and daddy aren’t together anymore, they’ll both still be there for you.”

Chansik clings to Jongin. “I don’t want them to go away,” he sobs. “I want Daddy to come live with us again. I miss him a lot.”

“He misses you too,” Jongin assures his nephew.

The kettle whistles soon after, so Jongin gets down mismatched teacups from the cupboard and pours three cups of tea. He lets Chansik carry the bowl of sugar and Chanmi carry the paper napkins as they go back into the living room.

Jongdae has moved out of the floor and is sitting next to Yoonah on the couch. They stop talking when Jongin and the children come in, but they don’t scoot apart, and Jongdae’s hand is resting familiarly on Yoonah’s knee.

“O-oh, tea,” Yoonah says, sounding flustered. “Thanks, Jongin.”

Jongin hands both his brother and his sister-in-law some tea, then takes his own cup and quietly excuses himself. He’d thought that he’d needed to rescue his brother from an otherwise awkward encounter, but Jongdae and Yoonah seem to be doing okay on their own. Some family time might do them both some good.

But that means that he’s trapped in his bedroom with his quickly-cooling cup of tea, alone with his thoughts. And his thoughts are not things he wants to be alone with at the moment. He thinks of Sunyoung and how she was way too good for him, how she’d put up with his bull for so long, how she’d taken care of him and kept him safe, how he’d always felt loved when he was with her. But mostly he thinks about Kyungsoo, about what had happened to such a kind-hearted and warm individual. Who could have hurt Kyungsoo? Horrible images of Kyungsoo’s last hours alive play in his mind over and over again, each more gruesome and terrifying than the last. Jongin is so overwhelmed with his grief and anger that he wants to scream.

At some point he hears Chami and Chansik shrieking with laughter, and then everyone goes quiet. Shortly after that, Jongdae lets himself into Jongin’s bedroom, running a hand through his messy hair.

“Well, that went better than expected,” he admits, taking a seat on the edge of the bed beside his brother.

Jongin forces his morose thoughts away from his dead best friend. “Yeah, you guys seemed able to stay civil.”

“Not just civil, actually,” Jongdae admits. “It was actually…fun. I had forgotten what it was like to have fun with Yoonah.”

Jongin forces a small smile. “That’s great, hyung. But what does that mean about the divorce? Are you still sure you want to go through with it?”

“I don’t know,” Jongdae admits with a sigh. “I thought I was one hundred percent ready to go through with it, but now I’m not so sure that I can. We’ve been together for so long, and, even though she’s a nag and we fight a lot, I love her. I don’t know that I can just throw that all away.”

“Well take your time,” Jongin suggests wearily. “You don’t have to make any decisions right away.”

Jongdae looks at him sadly. “What about you? What are you going to do?” He plows on before Jongin can speak. “You can’t just keep skipping work and ignoring everyone who cares about you, you know.”

“I know,” Jongin sighs. “But I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to go on knowing that Kyungsoo is really dead.”

“He’s been gone for over ten years now, Jonginnie,” Jongdae says gently. “Quit beating yourself up over it. It’s not your fault.”

But somehow Jongin feels that it is his fault. Maybe if he hadn’t rejected Kyungsoo, his best friend would still be here, alive. Maybe if he hadn’t slept with Kyungsoo in the first place, things would be different. There are a lot of ifs in the equation, and Jongin feels like he is most definitely responsible for everything that has happened.

Eventually Jongdae bids his brother farewell and lets himself out, and Jongin is alone in his apartment again.

He’s not sure how long he sits on the sofa, the television blaring some nonsense, before the doorbell rings. He jerks himself out of his gloomy musings and glances at the clock on the wall. It’s after midnight by now, well past time for visitors. The doorbell rings again, a little more insistently.

Jongin drags himself off the sofa, feeling the depression in every bone. Somehow he makes it to the door, checking the picture on the security camera panel. It’s Luhan and Sehun, both still dressed from work even though they must have left the precinct hours and hours ago.

With a sigh, he pulls the door open. “What are you guys doing here?” he demands. “It’s late.”

“We tried calling you about a hundred times,” Sehun says accusingly. “You didn’t answer.”

“My phone's in the bedroom,” Jongin says wearily, running his fingers through his hair. “So sue me. Maybe I didn’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Trust me, you want to talk to us,” Luhan assures him.

Jongin isn’t so convinced. “Oh yeah? And why is that?”

Luhan holds up a manila envelope. “Because the ID came back on the John Doe we found in the woods. You know, the one with the broken arm.”

He hadn’t thought it possible, but Jongin’s heart is somewhere in his throat again. “A-and?” His voice is thick and painful.

“His name is Jang Kanghee,” Luhan says, face splitting into a wide grin.

Jongin stares at his friends stupidly.

“Jongin!” Sehun practically shouts. “It’s not Kyungsoo! The body doesn’t belong to Kyungsoo!”

Jongn suddenly feels quite faint. “I-I need to sit down,” he mutters.

His friends lead him back into the house and settle him on the sofa, and then Luhan runs to get some tea from the kitchen.

“I don’t…how did this happen?” Jongin demands incredulously, accepting the tea with shaking hands. “I thought…”

“We all thought,” Luhan assures him. “And we were all wrong. We checked the dental records. Kyungsoo’s parents still didn’t want to release his, but we were able to run the records through the database and we got a match for this Jang kid.”

“And you’re sure it’s not Kyungsoo?” Jongin’s head is a mess. He can’t even think straight right now.

Sehun smirks. “Unless somebody surgically replaced all of Kyungsoo’s teeth, pretty sure there’s no way it can be him.”

Jongin almost feels like throwing up. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel such extreme emotions all in the span of a week.

“H-how?” he demands. “How could it not be Kyungsoo…the broken arm, the time frame, the place where the body was found…everything added up to Kyungsoo.”

Luhan shrugs, sitting beside his friend. “Sometimes what seems the most obvious is the farthest from the truth,” he suggests.

Jongin barks out a laugh. He’s gone through such a range of emotions in the past few days that he doesn’t even know what to feel anymore.

“So what are you going to do?” Luhan asks.

“Find him,” Jongin replies determinedly. “This is like getting a second chance, and I’m sure as hell not going to waste it. I’m definitely going to find out what happened to him. I’m going to find him.”

But then he stops and looks at his friends. “Wait, why are the two of you together so late at night?”

Luhan suddenly turns bright red and stumbles over some nonsensical words – something Jongin has never seen him do before – and Sehun gives him a dead look and says, “None of your damn business. Come on, Luhan. That’s our cue to peace out.” 

It's not Kyungsoo!!

Please guys. He can't be dead this easily. Have a little faith lol

Also, many apologies for my lack of updates. Turns out planning a wedding takes up A LOT of time. But I'm getting married in four months so yay!

Also, my sister made the most perfect little human being in the whole world

I'm so in love with her it's not even funny.