Hyungwon is ready to die. He thought he knew what it was like to live a Hellish existence before, but he's certain that this is worse. This isn't even life anymore. He is already dead, just waiting for his body to join the corpse of his soul. Before, he was suffering from the abuse, but he had Jooheon. And for a while, he had Mi-Yeon. Even when his world was entirely dark and hopeless, he still had those two stars.

But he no longer has either one of them. And without any stars to break up the night sky, all he sees is darkness.

Every load of laundry Hyungwon does includes a little ammonia.

School is over now, which means Hyungwon is home all the time. He isn't permitted to have a job, and Hyungwon knows that this is just another layer of manipulation, that Father needs Hyungwon to rely on him wholly and completely.

He misses Mi-Yeon. After the accident – that is how he has compartmentalized the events that transpired that horrible night – he put the drawing she'd colored for him in her room because he couldn't bear to look at it each day. But he moved her night light into his room because he needed something to break up the dark.

Hyungwon asks himself why he can't pull off Operation Disappear now. Mi-Yeon is gone; there's no one left for him here. What's stopping him from getting on a bus or a train and never looking back?

He squeezes his eyes shut at the thought.

After Mi-Yeon died, he didn't know where Father and Mother took her body. He had known that they couldn't take her anywhere that would result in the authorities or adoption agency being alerted. But if they didn't report her dead, then the adoption agency would check in at some point in the future to find her missing, which would raise questions.

The answer came a few days later in the news.

Tragic Loss: Little Girl Playing by Train Tracks

And Hyungwon knew. Knew that the girl was Mi-Yeon, that Mother and Father had probably dumped her body on the tracks and solved all their problems.

A tragic accident, most called it.

Hyungwon knows better, but he can't tell anyone the truth.

He thinks of running away, but he's scared, scared that they'll just find another replacement. But more than that, he realizes that there's no point anymore. Running away from something also means that you're running towards something else. But Hyungwon has nothing to aim for. Everything his peers want at this point in their lives – college, work, love – seems mythical and irrational to him. He can't understand normalcy because he has no frame of reference. He doesn't want anything for himself besides an end to what he has known.

And Hyungwon thinks that he'll write the ending to his own story, but then it happens.

A miracle, his first one.

--

Father falls ill. Not horribly so; he complains of a headache and what feels like a cold. By the third day, however, he is bedridden. Mother tends to him while Hyungwon prays each day that Father will die.

But God doesn't give him his wish, not directly. Father isn't improving, but he isn't getting worse either.

But then Mother, who cares about Father in a way that Hyungwon will never understand, tells Hyungwon that they're taking Father to the hospital. She gets Father in the car and sits in the back with him. She doesn't look up as Hyungwon slowly slips into the driver's seat, his hands sliding over the wheel. He turns the key in the ignition, and the motor catches. He starts driving.

She's humming something, and Hyungwon knows it is a melody for Father and not for him because he doesn't think Mother has ever loved him.

Hyungwon is driving without really processing; the hospital is a ways away, and they have to take a country road to get there. There's no other traffic in sight. And Hyungwon knows that they will arrive at the hospital and Father will be cured, and then they'll all go back home and everything will continue as usual. A happy ending from the outside.

But then Hyungwon remembers something Jooheon once told him – We could have all died. Jooheon had gotten into a small car crash, and nobody had been hurt. It just makes you think, you know?

And it does make Hyungwon think.

It makes Hyungwon think that this is the only chance he's ever had to be in control of himself, the only chance he's had to be in control of Father too. And he knows that if they go to the hospital and Father recovers, then Hyungwon will never have this chance again.

Within fifteen minutes of having been in the car, Hyungwon makes the decision to kill his parents. It's not a hard decision to make. Hyungwon has endless justifications for the death of his father, a reason for every day he's been alive ever since he got that fucking bicycle. And he can still hear Mother telling him they can't take Mi-Yeon to the hospital. And to use ammonia when he washes the bedsheets.

Hyungwon can justify it a little too by telling himself that killing them will make the world a better place, and this is undoubtedly true, but he finds that the altruism is passed over for these small details instead. That he really doesn't care about the world altogether that much but that there are memories skimming across his mind instead that provide all the justification he needs.

Father doesn't accept his excuse. He texts Hyungwon that he'll make sure he won't be able to go to school for a week if he doesn't send the pictures.

Father tells him that no one will believe him, that everyone will think he's dirty and worthless and unclean.

Hyungwon is fucking around with Jooheon now, isn't he? He thinks he doesn't need Father anymore?

Use ammonia when you wash the bedsheets to get the blood out.

Father says he isn't mad at Hyungwon, but Hyungwon will have to do something special for him in return.

It's okay with Father because Father cares about Hyungwon, but he doesn't like being naked when Father takes photos because Hyungwon doesn't know who's going to see those photos.

Father says that this is a special game – a secret game that they can't tell anyone else about - and they have to play.

That's our secret, okay?

A bicycle for my good little boy.

Hyungwon's okay if he dies in the crash too. He figures if he can just kill at least two of the people in the car, everything will be better. Either he'll be dead, or they will. This is his happy ending. As happy as it can get.

And so Hyungwon waits a little longer. He wants to remember something good because even though he's made his peace with whatever happens, he's still a little afraid. He tries to think of one untainted memory in his tainted mind, one pure moment that isn't ruined by what has been done to him.

He pictures Jooheon's family when they invited him to stay for dinner. Jooheon's mother, father, brothers. A family, a real one, not like the family that Father and Mother masqueraded as. A family that loved Jooheon, not with their bodies, but with their words and with their hearts.

Hyungwon thinks of Mi-Yeon one last time. Dropping her crayon because she's excited to see him. Throwing tea parties and asking him to pour the nonexistent tea into the cups of stuffed animals and dolls. Telling him that she'll finish the coloring so he can hang it up in his room.

And for the first time in his whole entire life, Hyungwon thinks how blessed he has been. He has never truly appreciated it before, but Jooheon and Mi-Yeon truly were his stars. Every happiness he's had is from them. He used to think that the horrible darkness in his life threatened to overwhelm the two tiny stars, but now he realizes that the stars never would have shone without the darkness in the first place. And no matter what happens, he is grateful to have been able to watch those two stars shine.

Hyungwon thinks about all of these things, and then there comes a moment when he knows it's time. He looks up in the mirror, and he sees Father staring back at him.

"Did you know that you're going to die?" Hyungwon asks. It's wrong of him to want to see that flash of panic and fear in Father's eyes, panic and fear that Hyungwon knows well, but he does it anyway because he's the spawn of a monster and he hasn't turned out much differently. These are the last moments of his life if he's lucky, and he wants Father to know that for once, he is not in control.

And he sees the panic in Father's eyes, but it doesn't give him any joy. As he meets Father's eyes in the mirror, he sees Father for the first time as weak. Frail. Human. Lying in the backseat of the car, his skin ashen and his breathing labored, Father is just a man.

But Hyungwon knows that what he sees is a lie. Monsters can take any form.

Hyungwon thinks he hears someone say something – probably Mother – but then he's wrenching the wheel as far as it'll go and flattening the gas pedal against the floor.

His next thought is accompanied by the shattering of glass and screaming of metal.

Operation Disappear is a go.