Ryan opens his blearily. He stares up at the sky, dark with clouds rolling above him. It doesn't look like the typical sky that he would find on the train. It has relatively normal colors. They usually don't sleep in the open sky anyway. They like to find a place to stay indoors, away from the elements.

His head hurts. It's what starts to get Ryan to focus on more than just the sky above him. He shuts his eyes tightly and shakes his head slowly, like he could just shake the migraine out of him. Grass blades rub against his cheeks, scratching and making him feel itchy. His hand squeezes and he realizes that he is still holding someone's hand. He looks over his shoulder to find Min asleep beside him in the grass. His mouth is hanging open and he looks really tired. They've both been really tired lately in the castle.

Ryan shoots to sitting up, ignoring the piercing pain that runs through his head. He looks around, eyes wide. They're not in the castle. They're not even on the train. They're out. Ryan remembers the portal that opened and how they stepped out together and they're free. When Ryan looks over his shoulder, he recognizes Min's childhood home. They're-home.

"Min," he says, letting go of his hand and standing up. His knees are like jelly, so he almost falls over, but he holds himself up. "Min!" He laughs and looks back at his friend. His friend groans but doesn't get up, so Ryan shakes his shoulder. "We're home, man!"

Min's eyes flutter open. He looks at Ryan's bright expression looking down at him. Ryan can tell that the gears are turning in Min's brain. He is trying to figure out what the words that are coming out of Ryan's mouth means. "Mmph?"

Ryan kneels down. He touches Min's shoulder gently with one hand and lets his other hand take Min's. "We're home," he repeats again, softer.

Min stares at Ryan for a moment-longer than Ryan expected him to-before Min sits up. He looks over his shoulder up at the house. His eyes grow wide and he looks at Ryan. It looks like he's expecting Ryan to pull the rug out from under him somehow. But Ryan just smiles.

They get to their feet. Ryan keeps a firm hold on Min's hand while they look at the house. The lights are on. Someone in there is awake waiting for them.

Ryan knocks Min's shoulder and starts walking first. Min is forced to walk with him, being pulled along by his hand. Ryan can't tell if Min wants to run away right now-or maybe he just wants to stay standing still and let whatever is going to happen, happen. But Ryan knows that he needs to see his parents.

When they make it to the front door, Min is the one to knock. He still looks like he's going to faint at any moment. Ryan squeezes his hand and when Min meets his gaze, Ryan gives him a reassuring smile.

Min's father is the one who opens the door. He looks sleepy, but when he sees the boys, his fatigue is wiped away. His hair has grown grayer around the roots and he has new glasses. New wrinkles have embedded themselves around the corners of his mouth and his eyes. "...Min?" he whispers.

"Hi Dad," Min says. He tries to give his father a smile. "Sorry I'm home late, I-"

Min can't finish his sentence because his father's arms are around him. Ryan steps back a bit and leans against the wall of the patio. Min looks panicked and uncertain for a moment, glancing over at Ryan. Ryan tilts his head and gives his father a pointed look. Min seems to get the message and he hugs his father back.

"Where have you been?" Min's father asks. His voice is choked with more emotion than Ryan has ever heard out of Mr. Park. He pulls back and calls for his wife over his shoulder before he looks back at his son. "It's been months."

"It...has?" Min asks softly, his eyes wide.

"Where have you been?" his father repeats quietly.

Ryan sees Mrs. Park come down the stairs and she gasps when she spots who is at the door. She rushes out to join her husband in hugging their son. "Min-Gi!" she cries, hugging him tightly against her chest. "What-where in the world have you-?"

Min's mouth bobs as he hugs his mother back. Tears have entered his eyes and he grips his mother's nightgown as he hugs her. "I...I don't..."

Mr. Park seems to finally notice Ryan on their porch. He crosses his arms. "Has he been with you?" he asks in a tone that Ryan can't quite identify.

Ryan glances at Min again. Time didn't stand still when they got on that train. They spent months on the train, and as a result, they spent months missing from home. Well. Min did, anyway.

"I took him on a road trip," Ryan says. "To New York. I had a gig and I wanted him to be there."

"Min-Gi, you let him drag you all the way to New York?" Mrs. Park whispers.

"I insisted," Ryan says, waving his hand. "Min complained the entire time, so I finally brought him home."

Min stares at Ryan, looking confused and uncertain about what exactly to say. Ryan just gives him a thin-lipped smile, silently telling him to keep quiet.

"Ryan," Mr. Park says in a low voice. "I've always respected you. I have enjoyed having you around while you boys grew up. But that is utterly irresponsible. You took him without saying a thing to us! We didn't know where he had gone, if he was dead or alive or-" His face grows red with anger as he sputters for his words. "I don't want you coming here again. Min-Gi has to prepare for college after all that you did. We'll have to tell the police that he hasn't been kidnapped-You're lucky we don't press charges!"

Ryan holds his hands up and takes a few steps back, down the porch steps. "Alright, alright. I've got it. Sorry to cause such trouble." He stuffs his hands into his jacket's sleeves and looks to his friend. "Well, Min, I'll see you ar-" He stops and looks down. "...Goodnight."

Min stares after him when Ryan starts walking down the pavement towards the street. "N...Night, Ryan."

Ryan barely had any money on him. He realized that when had walked out of the suburban neighborhood and finally checked his wallet. There was not enough money to pay for a motel room, which meant that the money would have to go towards a bus fare to get him to his parents' place.

"Wonder if Mark and Tommy are still living at home," Ryan mumbles to himself as he sits at the bus stop. It's cold even though his leather jacket. He pulls it tighter against his thin frame, but he still shivers hard.

He hasn't been home since he left to start his band career. Even when he came back to Cranberry, he went straight to Min's house so he could see him. And now who-knows-how-many-months on the train on top of the year spent traveling the country...well. Ryan doesn't know how that will go over. He just hopes that he'll be let into the house.

Ryan hears the bus approaching. He looks down the street and the headlights blind him as it comes around the corner. He covers his face with his arm and feels a stabbing feeling in his chest. He inhales sharply and fights the panicked feeling in his chest as he pushes down thoughts of the train. When Ryan lowers his arm, the bus has stopped in front of him and opened the doors.

He pays the bus fare and sits down beside the window, staring out it as he bus drives. He's the only one on the bus besides the driver, and bad music plays over the dingy intercom overhead. The question of if he's going to be able to see Min-Gi again crosses his mind, but Ryan shakes his head to eject the thought from his mind. It doesn't matter if Min's parents don't want him around anymore. Ryan can still go to the Dumpty's Diner to see-

"Oh," Ryan mumbles. "He probably lost his job while he was gone for so long." He sighs and closes his eyes. Maybe it will be harder to figure out where Min is going to be. "And he's going to college soon...Maybe he won't even be in town anymore."

Ryan rubs his face, trying to wipe it from his thoughts. It's late and not the time to be wondering about all of this. What he needs is a big meal, a hot shower, and a night's sleep in an actual bed. He can think more clearly in the morning.

Despite having not been home in nearly two years, Ryan knows his way back home from the bus stop without even thinking. His feet carry him down the familiar streets through his neighborhood. He arrives at his childhood home: a relatively small one-story house that doesn't look like it would be big enough to house five growing children, but it still did well enough to hold them all when Ryan was growing up. He recognizes his mother's car in the driveway and their stupid welcome mat on the front porch step. Most lights inside are off except for one window. Ryan squints, swearing it's his own bedroom window where the light is coming from.

He sighs and brings his hand up. He hesitates. Part of him doesn't want to face his family-not after how things went down before he left. But he has no other choice. He doesn't have a van to sleep in anymore. This is the only place he can crash until he can get his bearings back in the morning.

Ryan shuts his eyes tightly, taking a deep breath. He brings his knuckles down on the door, letting his knock echo loudly inside the house. It's hard to hear anything through the door. He shifts his guitar case into his other hand, listening hard for any sign that his knock was heard at all in the house.

The door opens before Ryan can hear any footsteps. He stares face-to-face with his little brother Mark. Mark is two years younger than him, but he's grown taller since Ryan has been gone, and now instead of being roughly Ryan's height, he is taller than him by an inch and a half. His hair is still a little unruly with a couple cowlicks sticking up from his forehead.

"Ryan," Mark says. "Hey. Hey!" He laughs and throws his arms around his brother's shoulders. The guitar case slips from Ryan's fingers, clattering on the ground. He hugs his brother back, closing his eyes. "Whoa hey, you're crushing me."

"Sorry," Ryan mumbles, but he doesn't loosen his hug. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you too." Mark laughs and awkwardly pats Ryan's back. Ryan doesn't want to let go, but he gets the message and pulls back anyway. "How's the touring life been?"

Ryan shrugs a bit. He bends down and picks up his case. "Oh. You know. It's been fine and all." He glances up at his brother. "Are Mom and Dad home?"

Mark's gentle smile is wiped from his face. He glances over his shoulder and then back at Ryan. "Let's go to my room, okay?"

Mark leads Ryan inside. Ryan looks around, his heart beating a little louder in his ears. The hallways are dark, but he can still see the gleam of glass on the walls from the picture frames. The house was always incredibly loud, except for when it was nighttime. Night was the only time that the house was not full of shouting children or loud phone calls or blaring televisions. Ryan could never stand the silence growing up, always preferring the loudness of the day. But right now, he thinks that he appreciates the silence more.

When they get down the hall, Mark brings Ryan into a too-familiar room.

"Isn't this my room?" Ryan asks. It doesn't look like his room. After all, he never had those posters or that bedspread or the books that take up the shelf he never owned. But this was the room he spent his years growing up in.

"When you moved out, Dad let me have my own room instead of sharing it with Tommy," Mark explains. He sits down on the twin bed shoved up into the corner of the room. "Tommy took over Mary's room when she moved out too. Mom uses Tommy's old room as her studio now."

Ryan nods slowly. "And my stuff?"

"In boxes."

Mark gestures for Ryan to sit down. Ryan sits in the desk chair instead of choosing to sit beside Mark on the bed. Ryan asks, "So they didn't just get rid of it?"

"No. It's in storage for whenever you were going to come back to get it."

Ryan's eyebrows raise. "And I'd be allowed back home?"

Mark takes a deep breath. "Ryan...You know Mom and Dad love you, right?"

Ryan looks away and shifts uncomfortably in the office chair. "You need better taste in posters," he says, trying to change the subject.

"It doesn't change that they love you."

His stomach twists and Ryan sighs. "It definitely felt like it changed something when I left, Mark."

Mark nods and looks down at the bedspread. Ryan watches him trace the patterns out of the corner of his eye. Mark purses his lips, looking like he's trying to carefully choose what he wants to say. Ryan doesn't give him a chance and instead cuts in, "I had girlfriends while I was on the road."

Mark's eyes light up. "Oh. Oh! Good! That's great, Ryan." He smiles encouragingly. "Mom and Dad will be really happy to hear that."

Ryan's skin feels itchy all of a sudden and he rubs his arms through his jacket. "I meant to-to come visit sooner. I'm sorry I didn't."

"It's okay." Mark keeps trying to catch Ryan's eye and Ryan looks anywhere but him. "I'm just glad you came home now. I really did miss you." Mark leans forward on the bed. "Tell me about how traveling was! Did you get to do anything cool? How were the shows? And the girls?" Mark laughs. He's trying so hard to keep things light; Ryan can tell how much he's trying. But Ryan just feels more and more sick. It feels like his time traveling around Canada was a distant memory. It was only his time on the train with Min that seems to take up his memory. Ryan couldn't conjure any memory of his old solo shows if he wanted to.

"Can I take a shower?" Ryan stands up and rubs his arms through his jacket again. "It's been a long day of traveling-it's why I got here so late."

"Oh yeah, of course," Mark says. He tries to joke, "Remember where the bathroom is?"

Ryan nods. "Can I borrow some clothes?" He rubs the back of his neck. "I need to wash mine." He hadn't been able to wash any of the clothes he'd originally brought for the trip after rotating wearing them while he was on the train with Min.

Mark ruffles through his drawers and offers a pair of pajamas to Ryan. Ryan doesn't relax until he's in the bathroom down the hall and has turned on the shower. The sound of the water hitting against the shower floor drowns out the sound of Ryan's heavy breathing as he leans over the sink.

No one knew that he had been gone for months. Of course they didn't know. He was on tour for a year. He talked to his family once every so often, but never for very long. They probably never noticed that he stopped calling for a few months. If he tried to explain about the train, then it would be preposterous. He was never even missing in their eyes. What happened to him didn't matter. All that would matter to his parents is if he got his act together and stopped liking men while he went to find himself on the road.

"God," Ryan mumbles as he takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. He felt so good leaving the train with Min. Now everything weighs on him.

He gets into the shower and closes his eyes. He lets the hot water beat against his chest. He was never one for hot showers, always preferring them cold or lukewarm at best. But the hot water steams and burns against his skin. It's grounding. It hurts even worse when he sticks his face under the water, but he doesn't move away. He was going to enjoy this shower. After several months of minimal chances at cleaning, Ryan wanted to burn off every last germ and speck of dust that clung to his body after his stay on the train.

Brief thoughts attempt to penetrate the hazy wall Ryan has created in the shower. Thoughts about how Kez is doing, if she will patch things up more properly with Morgan. Thoughts about all of the weird things that happened on the train, of his number, of how the door appeared to him outside the art gallery car. Thoughts about Min and how he's doing with his parents probably breathing down his neck, of Min's own experiences on the train. Thoughts wondering if Min is ever going to talk to Ryan again too after everything that has happened.

"I brought him onto that train," Ryan mumbles himself. He pulls his face out from the hot water and pushes the sopping hair out of his face. "We got out of there but-maybe he's glad that we're out. Maybe that's it." Ryan stares at the shower head and sighs, dunking his head back under the hot stream.

Ryan is in the bathroom for nearly an entire hour. He steps out of the shower and dries himself off with a towel as best he can. He is halfway through dressing in his brother's pajamas when he sees the shirt sticking out of his bag. He pulls it out, staring at the Chicken Choice Judy shirt. His thumb and forefinger rub against the soft material. He wishes that it hadn't shrunk. Ryan suddenly wants nothing more than to wear the shirt and feel like a teenager again, for that brief moment before he had to go on stage.

He puts on the pajama top and holds the shirt tightly in his hand. He leaves the bathroom, returning to Mark's room, but Mark has fallen asleep in bed. His leg is sticking out from bed and he isn't even under the sheets. Ryan chuckles softly to himself, shaking his head. He helps carefully move Mark's body fully onto the bed and pulls the sheets over him. Mark gives a garbed snore and rolls over, settling in the bed.

"Sleep well, Marky," Ryan murmurs. He leaves his suitcase and leaves the room. He pauses, glancing at his brother one more time, trying to feel like he's truly at home and just looking after his brother. But everything feels so different now. So Ryan just turns off the light and leaves down the hall.

He gets to the living room and lays down on the couch. He pulls down the throw blanket, putting it over him as best he can without it getting tangled in his legs. The couch throw pillows were always uncomfortable, so he shoves them onto the floor and settles onto the couch cushion itself. His feet tuck back in the cushions as he struggles to fit on the couch. It takes another hour for Ryan to finally fall asleep, feeling like a stranger in his own house.