The Car Crash Club • Monsta X

xli.

Hyungwon returns to school on Monday with Father's promise that he won't touch Mi-Yeon – for now – and new marks on his body. Hyungwon keeps his head down in the hallways; he knows it's illogical of him to think this way, but he feels that someone might be able to look at him and know exactly what he is and what he's done.

He spends twice as long in the bathroom now, just washing his hands over and over.

Jooheon meets him on the bench as usual, and he tells Hyungwon what he missed – Jooheon had gotten into a car accident with Minjae and Minjun in the car; everyone was okay, but "We could have all died," Jooheon says, trying to smile but biting at his lip. "It just makes you think, you know? How lucky we are."

Hyungwon doesn't feel lucky.

Jooheon starts back on the topic of Operation Disappear, and he's rambling about how much a train ticket to a town an hour north of them costs when Hyungwon interrupts him.

"I'm not going."

Jooheon looks over at him, his lips immediately melting into a frown. "What? Hyungwon, you have to go. If you won't tell someone and you won't get help, then you need to get out of whatever situation it is that you're in."

"I can't leave," Hyungwon repeats. He can't run away with a six-year-old child. He has no money, no papers to verify his existence, let alone hers. They would just report her missing, and his freedom would slip away once more. His eyes prick with unshed tears as he gazes out at the horizon with calm resignation. He knows now that the horizon will always be forever out of reach for him and how silly it was of him to think otherwise.

"We had a deal," Jooheon says, standing up, and Hyungwon knows that Jooheon is angry with him. "We had a deal," he says again, his jaw clenched and his hands in fists by his side, and Hyungwon knows that it's not really anger, it's sadness and helplessness and all the other ugly emotions masked by the easiest one to display. "I didn't tell anyone that something's wrong, and you were supposed to let me help you in some other way."

"And you have," Hyungwon says quietly. He feels...free. Not free, not really, but he isn't lost anymore. He knows where he's going today, and tomorrow, and on his eighteen birthday, and every day after. He's going home, to Father, and Mi-Yeon will be safe. This is the only direction he has left anymore. No buses, no trains, no tickets to faraway places that offer the dimmest possibility of happiness. Just home. He can't smile about it, not yet because the pain is still too raw, but there's no hope left to be forced out of him. He has nothing to hold on to, and it's a weight off of him. "You've helped me, Jooheon. Really. Just by being here every day."

Jooheon looks like he's about to cry, and Hyungwon wishes, not for the first time, that he never dragged Jooheon into his life, that Jooheon had never seen him on the bench that one time. That Hyungwon hadn't gone to his house, that they hadn't become friends. Because Hyungwon knows better than anyone how it feels to be absolutely helpless, and he doesn't want Jooheon to have to feel that way, not on his behalf. "I haven't done anything," Jooheon whispers, his voice rough. His fingers clench and unclench as though they need to hold something in order to keep him grounded, but Hyungwon doesn't offer his own hands up. Father will be upset with him, and he can't risk upsetting Father and putting Mi-Yeon at risk.

"You have," Hyungwon says again, wanting Jooheon to understand this simple fact. "I don't know if I could have made it here without you."

And Jooheon is crying because the thought of Hyungwon's death causes him pain for reasons Hyungwon can't understand.

--updated 08/11/20, part 3/3--