After Shownu left without warning, Changkyun moved into Wonho and Hyungwon's room. At first, Hyungwon was resistant to the idea of anyone else taking the bed that had belonged to Kihyun, but he began to feel guilty knowing that Changkyun was alone every night.

"So listen," Wonho said, pulling Changkyun aside before they got to their room. "Hyungwon gets panic attacks in the middle of the night, and if one of us doesn't snap him out of it, he'll just sit there until morning."

Changkyun stared at Wonho. "Isn't there a way to stop them from happening?"

Wonho shook his head. "I don't know why they happen. But it's almost every night. I think it's part of the reason he was admitted here in the first place."

Changkyun's eyes flashed with interest. He couldn't deny his curiosity. "What are they about?"

"I don't...I don't know," Wonho admitted rather reluctantly. "He hasn't told me. But I think he can't breathe in them, because he wakes up in a panic and starts swallowing too much air at once and starts coughing sometimes."

"Well, look," Changkyun said, fiddling with his fingers. He didn't like bad news in general, but he hated delivering it.

But was it bad news?

It was good news, wasn't it? Good for him?

"I'll help as much as I can but my mom is going to be picking me up soon," Changkyun continued. He looked down. "She finally broke up with that guy and she said that she could take me home now, as long as I passed two evaluations, and I failed the first one but I passed this one so I just need one more and then, and then..."

"And then Hyungwon will be alone," Wonho said, looking down as well. "I'm...leaving soon. Next time my mom comes."

The two lapsed into a guilty silence while their selfish want to leave ate away at them.

"He'll be okay," Wonho said eventually, and the silence returned, worse this time, because they'd both acknowledged that they wanted to leave, and they didn't want to change that, not even for Hyungwon.

"Yeah," Changkyun mumbled, but for some reason, he felt like shit just saying it. He'd been telling himself for weeks that Hyungwon wasn't his problem, but now it had become tangible, somehow.

He would leave, and Hyungwon would become someone else's problem. Or just his own problem. All by himself.

"Yeah," Changkyun repeated, the image of Hyungwon lying on a bed, the adjacent two mattresses stripped down and barren burned into his mind.

And so Wonho and Changkyun came to a restless agreement of sorts, and time passed in agitated ticks.

***

"And so they called and told me I could visit," Minhyuk rambled on with clear excitement, smiling at the figure on the other side of the glass.

"That's great," Hyungwon said, and he meant it. There were things about Minhyuk that put him a bit on edge, like when Minhyuk started spiraling a bit out of control, becoming almost obsessively positive or dwelling exclusively in his own mind, but Hyungwon had missed their easy, unquestioned friendship. Minhyuk had never put him through an initiation like the others had, treating him as an outsider until he'd shown that he'd belonged. Minhyuk had just accepted him from square one.

And now, how things had reversed.

"How's your mom?" Hyungwon asked, and Minhyuk bit his lip before grinning. Hyungwon knew that meant that Minhyuk would lie, but he decided not to call the other on it.

"She's doing great! She's almost out of rehab," Minhyuk said, prattling on about how hard it had been to convince her to enroll but how effective it had been. Hyungwon, meanwhile, wondered if she'd ever enrolled in the first place.

"That's good," Hyungwon said. He could lie, too. It made other people happy, didn't it? So it was okay, wasn't it?

They chatted about less serious things, things neither of them had to lie about, for another twenty minutes. Minhyuk reminded Hyungwon with a collection of anecdotes about why high school was horrible, and Hyungwon pretended to be jealous that at least that had metal silverware in the cafeteria.

Their time drew to an end, and Hyungwon couldn't help but ask the question that had been buzzing around the back of his mind since he'd seen Minhyuk. "So is Kihyun coming next week? To see me, I mean?"

Minhyuk hesitated, and Hyungwon felt his stomach drop slightly before he made up excuses.

"No, never mind, I'm sorry, I don't know why I assumed...that he'd..." Hyungwon broke off. He was too disappointed. This newfound sadness - that wasn't something he could lie about or feign as nonexistent. It hurt him that Kihyun wouldn't be coming. Minhyuk didn't have to say; Hyungwon had read it in his pause, in his eyes, in the way he leaned back slightly in his chair. But all Hyungwon could wonder was why? Had nobody called Kihyun? Or had they called and he'd said no? Why wouldn't he want to see Hyungwon? Did he not care about Hyungwon?

Was that a lie, too?

"Actually, um, this isn't about Kihyun, but about Wonho," Minhyuk said, playing with the end of his sleeves and not meeting Hyungwon's eyes.

The phone felt too light in his hands, like it might fall at any second. "What about Wonho?"

"You'll probably be seeing him next week," Minhyuk said, his voice falsely cheery.

Another lie. "Of course I'll see him next week, I see him everyday," Hyungwon said, frowning, his mind still preoccupied with all the why's behind why Kihyun wouldn't want to see him.

"Well, no, that's..." Minhyuk paused, his voice growing more serious before he tried to force it back into some form of levity. "He wanted me to tell you goodbye."

"Why would he say goodbye?" Hyungwon mumbled, but his mind still wasn't fully processing what Minhyuk was saying. Kihyun...

There was something else about Kihyun, something I couldn't remember, what was it? Kihyun...

"He's gone, Hyungwon," Minhyuk said. "While we were talking, Wonho left."