Here I Lie // ATEEZ ✔

- epilogue -

I wake up the same ceiling every day that I'm actually amusing myself by pretending to be surprised to see a ceiling other than the one back home.

Home? I no longer know if I have a place I could call home. Is it the place that I left five years ago, leaving a family behind that gave up searching for me? Is it the place that I ran to, when it was the first time that I saw him again?

I received the news that Yunho was found dead in his cell, and I didn't know how to react. No, I didn't show any reaction. The detectives even asked me whether I knew he had planned it, or someone else would do that to him. I answered truthfully; I don't know. Of course they would suspect San to be behind it, because the cyanide couldn't have been there in the cell unless it magically appeared. In which, according to them, a ghost could do it. I merely shrugged because again, I don't know why San would do that to Yunho, or why Yunho had asked him to bring in the poisonous substance.

Maybe that was why they sent me to this facility, because they are convinced that I have turned crazy and they figured that I wouldn't hurt anyone anymore. They're right, but I don't know for which one. It's whether they're right about me turning crazy, or they're right about me not being capable to hurt anyone anymore. Maybe they're right about both, but I'm too occupied to think about that.

With both Yunho and San gone, it really looks like I don't have anyone else in this world. My family had disowned me, pretending they never had anyone that goes by my name in their family registry, refusing to have anything to do with a psychopath like me. My parents won't admit that I'm their son, and my sister won't admit that I'm her brother. It makes me wonder whether they were really invested in searching for me when I went missing four years ago, or they simply decided that they would let time roll by as I didn't appear on their doorstep. Gone were my parents who would cry in front of my bedroom door, asking me to return back to my previous self. I guess that was why they decided to leave me be, because I did not return to who I was before.

In the end, it all points back to me. It's all my fault.

I won't deny it, I never did deny it. Nobody cared to ask, nobody cared to find out. I was the reason for San's death, and I have never stopped regretting it ever since then. Even if I lose all my memories, that memory will remain fresh in my mind, until death comes to find me. Even if I can no longer speak to tell the truth, I will retain it deep within my heart, locked away. Besides the three who had lost their tongues, no one knows about the uncovered truth, including San himself. It seems that even the detectives made their own deductions and came to a conclusion on why I said I regretted being friends with them. They did ask the question straight to my face after they had successfully finished the game, but I found that my mouth could no longer speak the words I wanted to. Only gibberish comes out, my brain unable to even process what I was supposed to verbalize.

Did I hate San, for being heartless to do that to him?

No, I never hated him; it wasn't a feeling of hate. I loved him, and everybody else knew that. Even Yunho knew that, as he kept on nagging at how close we were until we couldn't be separated at all. But that was the problem I guess; I spent so much time with him that I started to feel... inferior? Jealousy, dissatisfaction? Was it a little bit of everything rolled into one? The more time I spent with him, the more I realized how perfect he was in every aspect. He was good-looking, smart, polite, likeable.

Even my parents had praised him more than they did to me, making me feel as if I was their adopted son and San was their real one. Everyone would unknowingly compare us that they didn't realize that I, too, had feelings. I tried to feel happy for him, but whenever he wasn't around I would complain and berate myself, thinking why I couldn't be like him. That was the moment I knew that I was a good actor; I managed to fake how I really felt at that moment. I don't even think San himself realized that I had these negative feelings towards him, wishing that I was never friends with him from the start.