The biggest question that popped up was, quite naturally, what the hell to do with a dead body.
The question was asked outside of Hyungwon's ears. Changkyun had helped transport him to Jooheon's room, where he'd helped lay the tall boy down and cover him with blankets. Hyungwon had reached up toward his neck several times, and Changkyun had resorted to holding his hands down. It broke something in him, watching his friend struggle against his grip, but Changkyun couldn't risk Hyungwon hurting himself. After a while, he'd been forced to wrap a tight sheet over Hyungwon's upper body, tucking in the edges so Hyungwon couldn't move his arms.
But he didn't have another option. He couldn't trust Hyungwon with himself, and he couldn't stay to watch over him.
Changkyun shut the door to Jooheon's room, closing it softly in the unlikely hopes that Hyungwon had exhausted himself into sleep, before joining the others in the living room.
Jooheon looked up at Changkyun, who shook his head, and Jooheon clenched his jaw, his eyes darkening as he scanned the group.
"So," Jooheon said, his body tense. He was seated closest to his room, a barrier between Hyungwon and Shownu, who was seated on the opposite side of the room. "What do we do with him?"
They'd left Kihyun's body, wrapped with a black sheet they'd brought with, in the back of the car.
"We can't go to the police now," Minhyuk said, biting his nails and staring down at the ground. His nail began bleeding. He didn't notice. Changkyun moved to him and gently pried his hand away from his mouth. "They'll think we killed him."
"Or at the very least, they're going to question why we went and found his body, a body that we couldn't have possibly known the location of if we hadn't played a part in his death," Wonho said, his voice soft. He hadn't said much either recently. Changkyun thought it was because he'd realized that he'd been wrong to ignore Hyungwon the whole time.
"We've screwed ourselves over," Jooheon agreed reluctantly, clenching his jaw and leaning forward. "So how do we get out of this?"
"Can't we just bury him?" Minhyuk asked, raising his hand once more, but Changkyun pulled it down, holding it in his lap. "Let's put him in the ground and forget about all of this. Nobody has to know." His eyes were bright, desperate. "We found him, right? We did our part. That's enough. We're done now, right? We can go home?"
Home. An empty word and distinct pain for each of them.
"Kihyun can't go home," Jooheon said, his voice distinctly angry. His fists were clenched, the knuckles turning white. "Somebody did that to him. That someone is still out there."
"But is that our problem?" Minhyuk asked, his right leg jerking up and down, his hands jittery. "We got them out. They're safe. We're safe. Kihyun's dead, so he doesn't matter anymore."
"But what if this person, whoever they are, kills someone else?" Jooheon asked. He didn't want to be the one to ask the question, but nobody else was stepping up.
Minhyuk shrugged, biting his lip. His eyes seemed large and unfocused. "So what?" he asked, his voice sounding hollow in the small apartment. When he felt their eyes on him, he twitched, his eyes narrowing defensively. "I don't care about anyone in that institution. They're nothing to me. Everything I have is here or in my house. So a few boys turn up in a lake. How is that any different from what's going on in the world anyway? People are always dying. And like you guys said, if they're only picking kids who have no one left, what's the harm in that? Maybe it's better for them that way, you know? A quick end to a miserable existence."
Jooheon stared at Minhyuk. "That could have been Hyungwon. It could have been any of us, Minhyuk."
Minhyuk gave no reaction. "But it wasn't. Kihyun was one of us. I get that. But we found him. Problem solved. This- from here on out, this is someone else's problem. We don't owe anyone anything."
Jooheon stared at him, his eyes narrowed. He wanted to yell at Minhyuk, but he couldn't, because they'd all had the same thought at one point or another.
It was Changkyun who spoke up next. "I know you're scared, Minhyuk," he said softly, staring down at Minhyuk's hand trapped within his own, his finger still bleeding. "But Kihyun was scared too, and if we don't stop this person, some other kid is going to experience that too, some kid who has people who love him, friends if he's lucky, his dad, his mom."
Minhyuk's eyes teared up at the thought of his own mother, a women who was near impossible to love, and yet he did anyway.
"How do you think Kihyun's mom is going to feel when she finds out that her son is dead?" Changkyun continued. "How do you think another mom might feel, knowing that her child was murdered and abandoned? How many moms have to go through that, Minhyuk? How will they feel knowing that we had to chance to do something about it and we didn't?"
Minhyuk's soft hiccs filled the room as he tried to restrain the flow of tears from his eyes.
"So we see this through to the end," Jooheon concluded, not without sympathy in his eyes, but somebody needed to step up as leader. He didn't trust Shownu, so he was out. Wonho has been wishy-washy about the whole thing. Minhyuk has never really learned to handle his condition, which rendered him unstable. And Changkyun was strong and capable, but he didn't really aspire to anything more than keeping Hyungwon safe.
So Jooheon stepped up. "I think we need to bury Kihyun."
They all nodded to themselves.
"And then we need to find the son of a bitch that murdered our friend."
