Hesa remained silent in his room, staring blankly into space. He turned toward the hospital window, watching as the blue sky gradually darkened.
His mind had been a mess all day, trying to process everything that had happened. So many things had happened today, and yet there was still something Hesa couldn't bring himself to accept.
He simply refused to face the reality of it.
Creak...
Hesa turned when the door opened. He thought it was the doctor, but it turned out to be Jaehyuk, who had come to pick him up.
"Sorry I'm a little late picking you up."
Hesa was silent for a moment. It seemed his friend had misunderstood, thinking Hesa was upset because he was late.
"It's okay, Jae. I wasn't in a hurry to go home anyway," Hesa replied with a smile.
"Alright, let's go."
Jaehyuk grabbed his crutches and carefully helped Hesa get off the bed.
After that, they walked out of the room together.
Halfway down the hallway, Hesa suddenly stopped, making Jaehyuk look at him in confusion.
"Why do you keep staring down that hallway?" he asked.
Jaehyuk then noticed the sign attached to the wall and immediately shuddered.
"Hesa... d-did you see a ghost?"
"Jae, can you help me for a moment?" Hesa asked, turning toward him.
Jaehyuk, already terrified, flinched at the sudden request.
"H-Help you with what?"
Hesa didn't answer. He walked into the hallway, with Jaehyuk reluctantly following behind him.
"Bro, this is the hallway leading to the morgue. What are you doing here? Let's go back. You must've taken the wrong way."
"No. I'm actually going to the morgue."
"What the hell are you going there for? Wanna see a spoiler of your future?"
Hesa didn't answer. He kept walking until they finally reached the entrance.
"You wait here if you're scared," Hesa ordered Jaehyuk.
He then entered the room alone, the place many people considered terrifying.
Inside, several bodies were covered with sheets, while others had been placed inside refrigerated compartments.
Hesa walked past each body lying on the morgue tables. He didn't feel the slightest urge to uncover any of them.
Instead, his instincts kept telling him to open one of the refrigerated compartments.
And, of course, Hesa decided to follow his gut.
Without wasting another second, he did exactly that.
Shrrk...
Just as his instincts had told him...
The compartment he opened belonged to the young man with lavender hair.
His hands trembled as he touched the cold cheek of the lifeless body.
His tears immediately began to flow uncontrollably.
"Kala..."
Since Kala had possessed Kayn, it made sense that the person Hesa had always seen was Kayn. Yet there had always been a difference in their personalities—something Hesa could feel whenever he was around them.
Maybe that was why Hesa had also been able to sense Kala's presence all this time.
His heart had shattered when he witnessed what happened outside the ICU earlier.
And now...
He didn't know how many minutes had passed as he cried while holding the young man's lifeless body in his arms.
"Hesa."
Jaehyuk's voice finally snapped him back to reality.
Hesa immediately stood up.
"Sa, let's go home."
"Jae, come here."
"What are you doing now?"
Hesa didn't answer. He grabbed Jaehyuk's hand and placed it against the young man's body.
"He's getting warmer."
"Don't lose your mind, Sa. He's dead. There's no way his body temperature could rise again."
"You touched him earlier too. You must've felt it."
"He's cold. You're just imagining that he's getting warmer because you were hugging him."
"No, Jae. His temperature is changing."
"I don't know how important he was to you for you to end up this devastated, but he's gone. There's no way he can come back."
"Jae..."
"We have to leave before a security guard catches us here."
Jaehyuk finally gave up arguing and dragged his friend away.
~~~~~
Before they knew it, night had fallen.
Hesa sat silently in the living room, staring at a photo on his phone.
"Jihan, Kala, Kayn... Thank you for everything. I'll never forget you."
Slowly, tears began to fall as he stared at the photo.
But he quickly wiped them away when he heard a knock from outside.
He immediately went to open the door.
Click.
"Khan."
The young man smiled and held up the lunch box he had brought.
"Let's have dinner together."
Hesa let him inside, and the two of them sat together in the dining room.
"Jae told me you were already home," Arkha said.
"Yeah. Sorry, I forgot to let you guys know."
"It's okay. What's important is that we know you're home."
Hesa opened the lunch box Arkha had brought.
"Fried rice..."
His voice sounded distant.
"You don't like it?" Arkha asked carefully, noticing the sudden change in his senior's expression.
"N-No, I like it."
Hesa began eating.
"It's just... it reminded me of someone who broke into my apartment a few days ago just to invite me to breakfast."
"He made fried rice with way too much MSG."
"Huh? Who?" Arkha asked. "As far as I know, Jae knows your passcode, so there's no way he'd have to break in."
Hesa let out a bitter laugh.
"No. Forget it."
Arkha nodded and decided not to press any further. The atmosphere had suddenly become uncomfortable.
More precisely...
There was an overwhelming sense of sadness in the room.
"It feels like I missed so many things today," Hesa continued.
"Like what?"
"Maybe I should start with Heeseung dragging me into the past. He wanted to show me that his group was actually killed."
"Wait. So the information we had was wrong?"
"The truth is, they were bullied by other kids."
"I don't know what Jungwon was framed for, but apparently, he was locked inside an underground room. His brothers went there to find him, but the bullies trapped them too."
"They were all tied up and burned because they were considered experimental subjects."
"And the fire spread throughout the entire orphanage."
Arkha clenched his fists in anger.
"I can't believe it was really that tragic."
"According to Heeseung's group, the bullies were actually the real experimental subjects."
"And what I never expected was... They were Kayn's group in the past."
"Damn. That's one hell of a plot twist."
Hesa chuckled at Arkha's reaction.
"There's another plot twist that'll definitely blow your mind."
"What? The connection between us and Kayn is already a huge enough plot twist."
"It'd be an even bigger plot twist if Kala had actually been in a coma all this time."
"Kala? The lavender ghost?"
Hesa immediately laughed when he saw Arkha staring at him in disbelief.
"Wait... You mean that ghost was actually a spirit because he wasn't dead yet?"
Hesa nodded.
"He possessed Kayn. And Kayn pretended that it was Asta, his alter ego."
"What the heck?! My brain seriously can't process this to much of information!"
Arkha held his head in disbelief.
"You don't have to react like that, Khan. He's already gone now, after finishing his mission to help me."
"Oh..."
Arkha suddenly fell silent.
Then he smiled.
"That's okay. It would've been cruel to leave him trapped in a coma forever."
"All he could do was wander around without being able to go anywhere."
Hesa fell silent after hearing Arkha's words.
The two of them continued talking about other things, spending the rest of the night together.