"That was fucked up," Jooheon said once they were outside the room. His voice was softer than normal, and he was shaking. He didn't know what to do with his hands.
Changkyun didn't say anything. There was no response that could adequately represent how he felt. He didn't even know how he felt. His mind was numb, resounding only with the weighted echoes of guilt.
"There wasn't any other way," he said after a moment. It felt like someone else was saying the words. His lips were as numb as his mind. He wasn't sure how they'd know which sounds to make.
"He didn't want that," Minhyuk said quietly. "He resisted. You forced him to swallow the pills. He didn't have a choice."
"You saw how he was getting," Changkyun defended. "Remember what happened to Kihyun? It just escalated until they had to inject him with something."
"Yeah, but we're not the institute," Minhyuk said. He was watching Changkyun with disappointed eyes. "We're never supposed to do that to each other." He clenched his fists.
Changkyun realized the disappointment in Minhyuk's eyes was directed equally at himself for not stepping in.
"I know," Changkyun whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.
When he was a boy and he'd first come to know of the monsters' existence, he'd close his eyes really tightly to make it all go away.
But he wasn't a boy anymore.
He opened his eyes to find the same apartment around him, concerned and quiet friends looking to him, to Jooheon, to the bedroom door.
"We won't do it again," Changkyun said. Not only because it felt so wrong, but because he didn't think he could ever force himself to hold someone's mouth open again. He could still feel the outline of the cup in his hand. "But we can't take care of him," he added. "We need to help him, and the only way we can do that is to finish this thing first. Maybe Hyungwon will stop having the dreams then."
"What are we supposed to do, just politely ask Dr. Irving out to lunch and file a formal complaint?" Wonho asked, his lip curling at the thought.
"I've got a better idea," Jooheon said, his eyes dark. "We grab him, strangle him, strip him down and bind his wrists and ankles with bags of rocks before dumping him in a lake that nobody will ever search."
They were all quiet.
They were all trying to find reasons to reject Jooheon's idea.
They were all failing.
"No," Changkyun said after a long (too-long) pause. "We can't do that. It's wrong."
"You want to talk about what's wrong?" Jooheon asked with a choked laugh. "That man killed Kihyun exactly that way. And maybe he didn't kill Hyungwon, but Hyungwon has seen it, has lived and died through it. Who's to say that if we hadn't kept looking, we wouldn't have found another body of another boy, weighed down by rocks? And another? And another?" The pain in his eyes solidified into blood lust. "He's a bad man, Changkyun. And nobody's going to do anything about him, unless we do."
"We don't kill people," Changkyun insisted firmly, leveling his gaze with Jooheon's. "We'll find another way."
Jooheon was quiet, his eyes warring with Changkyun's before he raised his chin. "Let's take a small break, yeah?"
Changkyun exhaled sharply before nodding and heading to the kitchen. He went to get a glass of water to calm his nerves when he thought back to Hyungwon, and he rested his shaking hand on the counter top instead.
He'd just woken up from an extremely graphic and realistic dream about sinking underwater, and you tried to get him to drink water? You idiot.
"It's not your fault," Minhyuk said, having followed him into the kitchen, and Changkyun turned, his eyes focusing on Jooheon and Wonho's figures beyond the door frame before dropping down to Minhyuk. "You would never mean to hurt Hyungwon. We all know that."
Changkyun closed his eyes, shaking his head before sighing and opening them. "But I did hurt him. Did you see the look in his eyes? That panic?" Changkyun clenched his jaw. "That look was because of me. Not Irving, not Kihyun. Me."
"Hyungwon knows you wouldn't hurt him either." Minhyuk took a step closer, laying a hand on Changkyun's shoulder. "He hasn't been himself lately, we all know that. And it hasn't been easy on you, trying to take care of him. You're doing a great job, Changkyun. There's no one I would trust with him more."
"That's not always enough."
"But sometimes it is."
Wonho entered the kitchen, looking first to Changkyun, then Minhyuk, then back to Changkyun as though he'd realized that he'd interrupted something. "I...just wanted to let you know that Jooheon and I are going to head out for a bit." He paused. "Do you guys want us to pick up anything while we're out? Food? Or...anything?"
"No," Changkyun said, shaking his head. He didn't think he could stomach anything just yet.
"Ice cream?" Minhyuk asked hopefully.
Wonho smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I'll try to grab some," he said before he left the kitchen. The door shut a few moments later.
Later, Changkyun would ask himself if he'd known what was going to happen, and then he'd ask himself if he should have stopped it.
