--this chapter resumes the present tense!--

Hyungwon doesn't remember leaving his therapist's office, doesn't even remember what he's said and what secrets he's kept. None of that matters to him right now.

Hyungwon is running down the streets. He distantly hears a horn blare, but he doesn't slow until his feet find themselves on a familiar porch. Hyungwon takes several breaths and raises his hand to knock when the door swings open on its own and two small faces peer out at him.

Minjae and Minjun are taller than he remembers, and Hyungwon realizes that he hasn't seen them in a year at least. He just stares at them for a moment, happy that they're alive and that the graves had never been real.

"Hyungwon?" Minjae – Hyungwon is pretty sure of this – asks, tilting his head, and Minjun tilts his head the opposite way.

"Jooheon can't play. He isn't home," Minjun says.

"Oh," Hyungwon says, because this wasn't a possibility that he considered on his desperate dash over here. He feels stupid now because why the hell would Jooheon just be sitting in his room waiting for Hyungwon to come running back. Hyungwon is a fool. "Sorry...I'll just..."

He doesn't know what he'll just do, and he doesn't have to figure it out because Jooheon's mother comes to the door, the twins stepping behind her but still watching Hyungwon with unveiled curiosity.

"Hyungwon, is that you?" she asks, and Hyungwon takes half a step back because he's scared now that she knows, that she knows how defiled he is and how she's disgusted that she ever let him into her home and that the boys were right there and- "Hyungwon," she says again, taking a step through the doorway, and Hyungwon almost falls as he scrambles back.

"I'm sorry," he says, pulse racing. He doesn't even know what day, what month it is. Jooheon probably went off to college. "I shouldn't have come. I'm sorry-"

"Hyungwon, sweetie, come inside," Jooheon's mom says, concerned, and she holds open the door for him.

He hesitates before stepping inside gingerly as though he doesn't want to set his weight down in the house, as though he's scared that his presence will be rejected if he steps too heavily.

She leads him into the kitchen and shoves a cup into his hand – it's hot; probably tea or hot chocolate. He barely notices it. She tells him to just wait here for a second and she'll be right back.

Hyungwon is looking around the room. The memory of dinner with Jooheon's family is overwhelming, amplified by the fact that it's only recently been returned to him. He feels so at odds with the peaceful, bright environment. He doesn't belong. He shouldn't have come.

He stills as he hears Jooheon's mother speaking softly in the other room, and he sees a phone pressed to her ear. He's standing before he realizes he's even moved, and the tea – he knows this now – has spilled on the table. He's afraid because he doesn't know who she's calling, but none of the options seem good.

He's out of the house in just a few seconds, running past Minjae and Minjun, who stare at him in confusion before yelling goodbye.

--

He's been sitting on the bench for probably a few hours now. Dusk is just setting in, and he remembers with a sharp tug in his chest those first few camping trips when they'd just watched the stars, and that had been enough for both of them.

He only notices Jooheon sitting beside him when he feels the slight vibration across the bench, and he looks over and stares. He stretches out one hand and almost touches Jooheon's elbow before he pulls back. If this Jooheon isn't real, then he doesn't want to know.

"Hyungwon," Jooheon says, and his voice holds so much emotion in just that one word. Regret, pain, sympathy. He doesn't try to touch Hyungwon, but he doesn't move away, just sits close and lets Hyungwon decide if he wants to close the distance.

Hyungwon doesn't. So much has happened and he doesn't know what to tell Jooheon about any of it. He can't speak of the abuse. He won't. But about Mi-Yeon's death? About the crash – an accident that wasn't an accident? He has so many secrets now and he doesn't know how many he can hold before they start bleeding out of him.

"My mom called," Jooheon says, looking out across the field where their classmates would play as they just watched from afar. "She said you stopped by. I drove straight here. I'm sorry it took me so long."

"I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking," Hyungwon says. He can't look at Jooheon. He remembers being so angry with him on the last day they spoke, swearing at him and destroying their friendship before walking away. He doesn't know why he thought he should run to Jooheon. But Jooheon is the only star left in his sky, even if it's a little dimmed and out of focus, and it's all Hyungwon has as a guide.

"I called," Jooheon says abruptly. "After- after we stopped talking. I was upset for a few months – with myself, for breaking my promise to you, and...if I'm being honest...I was upset with you, too, for not accepting help – but I realized that I probably just made things harder for you and I'm so fucking sorry about that, Hyungwon, really," he says, and he's in tears but Hyungwon still can't look over at him, can't comfort him with a touch.

And Jooheon is right. He did make things worse for Hyungwon. But that's in the past now, and Hyungwon is ready to forgive him, he thinks. He can't forget, but he can forgive.

"And then I heard about the accident," Jooheon says, his voice soft. Hyungwon doesn't correct him, doesn't tell him that it wasn't an accident at all. He thinks that this is a secret that he should keep. "And I got scared, so scared that...that you'd die, and that the last words we shared were in anger. But I heard you survived, and that's when I tried calling. I wanted to apologize and be friends again, if you'd let me. But...I never heard from you. And I didn't know where you lived..." He's never heard from Hyungwon because Hyungwon has never seen the calls. Father broke his phone on the night Mi-Yeon was killed, and he got a new one with a different number. Jooheon has never been to his house – not the real Jooheon, anyway – so all this time, Hyungwon has thought himself to be abandoned.

Maybe it explains why he threw Jooheon into his fantasy.

Jooheon falls quiet for a moment, and there's a soft sniffle as he tries to hold back some of his emotions. "I'm so sorry, Hyungwon. I knew something was wrong and...I wanted so badly to be able to save you. But I was just a kid then, I didn't know what the hell to do. I failed you."

Hyungwon finally looks over at Jooheon. His eyes are wet too. "Jooheon, you saved me. Twice," he whispers as his eyes flick downward. He moves his hand close to Jooheon's. He doesn't touch him, but he grabs onto the excess fabric of Jooheon's jacket, holding him in the only way he can bear.

And Jooheon wants to give Hyungwon a hug, wants to enfold him in his arms so no one else can hurt him. But Jooheon doesn't touch Hyungwon, because he knows.

He knew it was Hyungwon in the picture that went around their school. He could just tell. But he didn't know at the time that there was anything wrong. He had no way of knowing who had taken the picture or whether Hyungwon consented to it.

But then he saw the text on Hyungwon's phone. He pretended not to. He acted like he was trying to decide what video game they were going to play. And when Hyungwon got up and made up some excuse to go to the bathroom, Jooheon felt sick because he was a coward and he didn't stop Hyungwon, didn't know how to. And Hyungwon came back and saw something else on his phone and started crying. Jooheon wanted Hyungwon to tell him, to trust him. But Hyungwon didn't. He made Jooheon promise not to tell anyone. And that was the hardest thing in the world for Jooheon to accept. Eventually, he couldn't accept it. He told the counselor – not what he suspected specifically but just that something seemed to be wrong – and he hoped that Hyungwon would trust her at least, but everything fell apart. Hyungwon lashed out at him. And then he was absent from school for a while, and Jooheon knew that it was his fault, that he had caused harm to come to Hyungwon.

And then they didn't speak again. Hyungwon avoided him, and Jooheon thought that he just needed to give Hyungwon space and time and that maybe things would turn out okay. But then they graduated, and Jooheon, having heard nothing from Hyungwon, left for college. His mother called him about the crash, and he tried calling Hyungwon. He thought the worst, that Hyungwon had died and Jooheon hadn't done a single thing to help him in his entire life. But his mother told him that Hyungwon had been released from the hospital, so he couldn't be dead. He was just ignoring Jooheon because he was still angry. That was what Jooheon thought, at least.

So all he could do was thank God that Hyungwon was safe from his father now. He felt bad thanking God for someone's death, but he couldn't help himself. The man that had been abusing his friend for he didn't know how long was finally gone, and maybe Hyungwon could be happy now.

He has been on edge all semester, jumping when someone tapped him, too restless to get much sleep because he was hoping that Hyungwon would contact him. And when he got a call from his mother saying that You won't guess who just showed up, he grabbed his keys and started driving.

And now Hyungwon is in front of him, only he's not happy like Jooheon naively thought he would be. But he's talking to Jooheon, at least, and that's a start. He says that Jooheon has saved him twice – he doesn't quite understand how Hyungwon has arrived at that conclusion – and he's pinching the material of Jooheon's jacket between two of his fingers as though it's the world's smallest hug, as though he'll disappear if he lets go.

And so Jooheon reaches out and pinches Hyungwon's jacket in the same way, squeezing as hard as he can even though he knows Hyungwon can't feel it. And for a moment, Jooheon wonders if he's doing this for selfish purposes – if he's merely trying to absolve himself of the guilt he's carried for his inaction, his failure to protect his friend from the horrors he's suffered – but he doesn't have an answer for himself. The guilt isn't a lie, but their friendship isn't either.

Hyungwon bows his head, still holding onto Jooheon's jacket, and silver rivulets spill down his face. For a second, he looks like an angel from a fountain, impossibly sad but impossibly beautiful as well, his eyes closed and his long lashes causing shadows to spill against his cheeks. "We did it," he says as the last of the sun disappears, its warmth spilling over his face one last time and catching on his tears before disappearing. And the moon reigns over the sky now, its pale light much softer than the sun's, but neither of them can do the broken angel on the bench justice. "We did it," he says once more, and he opens his eyes to catch the moon and take in the stars before turning to look at his star. "I've finally disappeared," he whispers, tugging on Jooheon's jacket, and Jooheon's eyes tear up at the memories of bus tickets and forgotten plans.

He doesn't know what part of himself Hyungwon has parted with, and he won't ask. For now, he just gives a single tug back on Hyungwon's jacket, and they stare up and count the stars.

Jooheonpoints out a constellation, and Hyungwon makes up a few constellations of hisown. The night is theirs, and the stars shine for them alone.

--updated 08/17/20, part 5/5--

a/n: I'll be releasing the epilogue next week so stay tuned!