A/N: So chapter 42 has been updated. I changed a scene and added a couple more. The word count is 4k+ now, so...it should read like a whole new chapter.

I've edited this one too. And the only explanation I have is that...well *laughs*


03:00 am

02:47 a.m. reads the clock when Tyson comes fully awake in the middle of the night.

It's expected. He did sleep pretty much all day. He's naked except for the sheets draped over his hip. He doesn't remember doing that last night. Must have been Kai.

Kai's sleeping beside him. He can hear his soft breathing. He doesn't snore, which is a strange and fascinating thing to Tyson, because he snores and more than half his dorm snore too.

How is he so fucking perfect all the time? he wonders as he gets up soundlessly from the bed and hunts for his underwear. He's feeling around the floor blindly in the dark when his hand happens upon a fabric. It's a shirt. He continues his search unfazed, and pulls on the first thing he finds with two large holes in it. They are shorts, thankfully. But they don't feel like his. Fucking hell. Is he wearing Kai's underwear? That's not hygienic. He makes a break for the bathroom as quietly as possible so as not to wake Kai, who is a notoriously light sleeper.

Hell, if he wasn't worried he'd wake him, Tyson would have kissed his sleeping face three times over already.

There is an eerie silence in the bathroom when he enters the space. Huh. Fuck.

Tyson goes back for his phone and airpods. He is extra careful not to make any noise. He slips into the room and back out like a pro.

When he returns with his device, he turns on the tap to fill the tub, because he wants to take a long refreshing bath. He doesn't want a repeat of what happened yesterday. Sleeping with his gunk still on him. It's a nasty feeling when you wake up and find yourself crusty.

While the tub fills, Tyson discards the shorts (which are, yep, Kai's), changes into a clean robe and plugs in his airpods, unlocking his phone. He has a slew of texts waiting to be opened from his friends, but he zeroes in on the one from Hilary. She hasn't contacted him since their video call in Roppongo and he hasn't thought much of it because his mind has been...preoccupied, to say the least. He clicks open her message and its a link. To a Taylor Swift song. It is ten minutes long. And was sent thirty minutes ago. That's it.

Just a song link.

He navigates to the audio she sent and finds out its a new version of her long time favourite track from Taylor. And his too by extension.

He presses play and smiles as the guitar kicks in.

All Too Well. Brings back memories. He sets his phone aside on the counter and examines his own face in the mirror. He looks good. And he thinks to himself, 'Oh hey! I look good for someone who just woke up at 2 am!'

He does however have a trickle of hair along his upper lip. Like god had decided to sprinkle some gifts of puberty on him overnight. Gee, how kind.

He's almost a man.

Tyson lathers the bottom of his face with shaving cream. Damn, Taylor, hit those notes! This is good. He wants to sing aloud. He doesn't want to disturb Kai however, so he mouths along to the lyrics. For some reason, he's always liked sad songs. Hilary's a whole Swiftie, and even though he doesn't share her love for the singer, he does get it. He loves some of her sadder songs too.

"'Cause there we are again in the middle of the night'" he mouths to his reflection, holding his razor in hand. "'We're dancing 'round the kitchen in the refrigerator light.'" He's dramatic with it. "'Down the stairs, I was there. I remember it all too well...'"

He brings the razor to his cheek, ready to start shaving, when he realizes the chorus hasn't ended yet. Gotta sing it through. "And there we are again when nobody had to know. You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath. Sacred prayer and we'd swear. To remember it all too...well...'" His eyes crinkle as he silently hits the high note. Oh god, he misses his best friend. They would have so much fun singing this together. He can't wait to get back to her tomorrow.

And tell her the truth, supplies his head. And break her heart.

Wow. Wow. He didn't need to be reminded of that right now. He begins shaving. Five minutes go by and he doesn't even notice. Taylor's belting note after note, the choir joins and it's so sad and beautiful at the same time, he's lost in it.

'Wind in my hair, you were there

You remember it all

Down the stairs, you were there

You remember it all

It was rare, I was there

I remember it all too-' As the music dies down, he thinks he hears hard thumping on the door. He pries his airpods out of his ears and that's when he hears it.

"Tyson! Open the damn door before I break it!"

He jumps, startled by the sudden intensity of it. He goes to open the door, wiping his face, bewildered. When he pulls it in, he sees Kai. Whose eyes are bloodshot and wild. Sweat beaded on his naked chest. He pushes the wood out the way, walking in, and Tyson backs a few steps in reflex.

Scared


The cloying metallic smell pierces his senses as soon as the door opens.

The floor is wet.

The tub is overflowing.

There's a blade in the sink.

Its edge slick with blood.

Blood smeared on the ceramic. Blood on the floor. Smudged like someone slipped on it.

A girl is in the tub.

She's convulsing in the pink water.

Her skin pale as chalk. The whites of her eyes showing as they roll to the back of her head. The last of her life leaving her.

"Save me" he hears her say, but her lips aren't moving. "Save me"

Her skin has a sick cool smoothness to it when he touches the back of her neck to lift her head out of the water.

There's a clock ticking down somewhere.

"Where is she?" a woman whispers. The words echo off the walls. "Where is she?"

Kai pats her thin paper-white cheek calling her name. Trying to wake her.

"What happened to he-?" The woman's voice drowns out, replaced by a soft prolonged ring. It increases with each thrum of the clock.

The clock ticks under his skin.

She is utterly still in his hands. Her mouth hanging open. Expression frozen in a state of despair. Ropey black hair sticks to her forehead.

"It's not your fault," Yuriy whispers. "She was going to do it anyway." The heat of his words touches his ear. "It's not your fault."

Kai attempts to lift the girl out of the water. She is heavier in death than she was in life. He fits an arm under her knobby knees.

The thudding is in his chest. It's his heart. Beating frantically. Erroneously. Ramming around in his ribcage like a crazed clown head.

Her hand tumbles to the side as he raises her. The wrist slashed. The blunt blade worked hard to gnaw through veins and ligaments. Her arm hits the edge of the tub with a teeth-gritting sound of bone hitting enamel.

Kai's eyes fly open in alarm.

His skin's too hot. His throat's parched. There's a ringing in his head. The clock is wreaking havoc inside his body. A bomb about to go off.

He sits up and reaches for the bedside table. There's a soft sound. Like water splashing onto marble floors. A tub overflowing.

From somewhere inside the suite.

Kai switches the lamp on. Looks over his shoulder. The bed beside him is empty.

Water continues to flow. Unobstructed. It's washing things away. Washing them out of his life.

He strides out of the room. Down the hallway. The lights blink on as he crosses to the bathroom. Where the sounds are coming from. Where Tyson probably should be.

The door is locked when he tries the handle. Too much privacy for someone taking a bath at night while everyone else is asleep. He bangs on the wood, his fist balled.

There is no answer.

The blood in his body thumps in his veins. Counting down every second that passes by him like a giant internal timepiece.

He knocks harder. The sound of the raps fading in the rush of the pouring water on the other side of the door.

No answer.

"Tyson!" he calls, his throat screaming against the dryness. "Open the door!" He bangs thrice over.

And receives no positive response. The darkness attempts to swallow him once. He shakes it off. He tries the handle again.

It's futile.

"Tyson, open the damn door before I break it!" he shouts and he thinks he hears a clear clatter.

Then footsteps.

He lowers his hand and takes a step back.

When the door opens, Tyson's standing there. In his robe. Eyes wide. The tub overflowing behind him.


His heart is beating hard.

"Kai, what's going on?" he asks, worried by the paleness of Kai's face. He gasps when he seizes his arms and checks them. Smoothing his thumbs over his wrists like he's making sure the skin there is still intact. Tyson's tongue grows heavy in his mouth as unexplained fear creeps into him.

What's going on? he wants to ask again, but his mind's going numb. Kai brings a gentle hand to Tyson's face and softly pulls down the skin beneath his left eye. Their gazes meet. His breath hits him for the first time since he walked in. Tyson breathes.

Kai pulls away. He sees him blink his eyes and take a subtle breath.

"What were you doing?" he asks, his voice composed.

"I was-" Tyson turns, and notices with a start that he'd left the tap running. Shit. He goes to shut it. "I was shaving while listening to music," he explains, and his brain takes a minute to form the words properly. "I left the tap on to fill the tub so I could take a bath after, but I forgot." His voice sounds strange to his own ears. The bathroom is too quiet.

Tyson sees Kai looking at the sink. The razor. And close his eyes briefly.

"Kai-" he starts. Concern rising in him again as the fear from earlier fades.

"Have you bathed?" asks Kai, cutting him off.

Tyson shakes his head. "No, I-"

"You can bathe in the morning," he says, holding a hand out for him. "Come on" he beckons him outside.

Why is he talking to him like that? Like he's a child?

He has half a mind to protest, but there's something on Kai's face that stops him short. He collects his phone and airpods from the counter and follows Kai out the bathroom.

He is three steps down the hallway when he hears the lock of the bathroom click behind him.

Kai locked the bathroom.


Why the bathroom can be locked from outside is beyond Tyson, but he has bigger worries at hand here. He takes a moment to himself in the hallway before joining Kai in the bedroom.

He's on the mattress. Sitting and drinking a glass of water. He's pulled on a shirt and colour has returned to his face. He looks like himself. Too much like himself. Like he has his guards down.

Tyson walks in carefully. He hugs the robe tighter around his own body and takes a seat beside Kai on the bed.

He tucks his hands between his knees and observes Kai through the corner of his eyes. What to say? He was beside himself. That was for sure. Something set Kai off to search for Tyson in the middle of the night. He presses his lips together and sucks in a silent breath.

"I had a nightmare," Kai says, saving Tyson from the trouble of asking the question.

Tyson turns to look at him.

"It was a particularly bad one. That's all." He sets the glass on the bedside table and reaches under the bed to draw his suitcase out.

Tyson watches as Kai zips it open. He knew Kai had trouble sleeping. He's seen him awake at odd hours so many times he's almost used to it. What he didn't know however, was that Kai couldn't sleep because of nightmares. That when he lay down at night after an exhausting day of activities, he couldn't relax. He couldn't rest. Tyson gets delirious when he doesn't get six solid hours of sleep every night. Last year, they had an assignment that he forgot to work on till the deadline was only a day away. He'd had to pull two all nighters in a row to finish the project, and on the day he had to turn it in, during the presentation, he couldn't put together a single coherent sentence.

When Kai was making him run errands, he used to call him at fucking three am to get him a book from the library or make coffee for him. The demands were absurd, and Tyson felt restless and lethargic at once the next day due to lack of sleep. While Kai, Kai who seemed to be on his feet almost round the clock, seemed sickeningly and inhumanly competent. Always.

And it pissed him off so much, that he never, not once, even when they started dating, nor when they broke up, stopped to wonder: hey, is he really okay or is it an act?

Tyson's gaze falls on the strip of tablets at the same time Kai moves a neatly folded shirt out of the way. His breath arrests. Kai pops a white tablet out of the strip and puts it in his mouth. Chewing it down.

Tyson's heart aches. His eyes grow wet.

He knocks the suitcase closed and pushes it back under the bed with his leg, reaching for the glass of water again.

Tyson swallows down the lump that had risen in his throat. He wants to hold him. Hug his troubles away.

Kai rubs a hand under his own nose. Sniffing. His gaze is on the floor. Thinking.

"Tyson" he calls his name after a minute, like he's about to ask him something. His head half turns in his direction. He doesn't look at him directly though. "Do you know of anyone named Ileana?"

Tyson freezes. Ileana? She slit her wrists, his mind supplies immediately. She tried to kill herself. He's heard that name and that line so many times it's like an old nursery rhyme to him now. He also knows that she was associated with Kai. As in he was the reason behind her attempted suicide.

Tyson brings his legs together. Shoulders hunching briefly. He turns to look at Kai. He meets his eyes accidentally and it feels like a shock, so he looks away right after. He nods, with his gaze on his lap. "There was a girl. Who went to our uni. Two years ago I think." He takes a breath.

Kai's waiting for him to continue.

"She...dropped out. There was a rumour she tried to-" he stammers, "to kill herself." His voice goes soft at the last two words.

He raises his eyes to meet Kai's. Kai gives him a brief nod, like he's telling him to go on.

Tyson reverts his gaze to his lap and takes a deep inhale. "And that..." He squirms his foot on the rug in nervousness and discomfort. "That...you were involved with her." He gets out. He looks at Kai. "At some point."

Kai's eyes fall away. He turns his head away. Looking down at the floor instead. "She did do it," he says in a quiet voice. "She killed herself."