Jongho insisted that Yunho should stay at his house for one night. Yunho thought it was ridiculous, that he was being treated like a child, but Jongho's stern and unyielding tone was not something he wanted to contend with, so he eventually complied.
Yunho turned to his back on the unfamiliar bed and stared at the ceiling. His eyes had gotten used to the darkness since he switched off the lights - which was a long time ago, or at least felt like a long time ago - and everything looked grayish-blue without light saturating them.
There was barely any furniture in the unused guest room. Other than the creaky bed frame and the dusty mattress he was on, there was a bedside cabinet to his right with a digital clock set on top. On the other side was a floor lamp, its long body supported by a flat disc at the bottom and a light blue shade shielding the light bulb at the top. If Yunho squinted, he could still make out the dark figures across the room - a stumpy armchair, a three-legged table, and a rolled-up carpet.
The room was so quiet Yunho could hear his every intake of breath. So he jolted when the door clicked open and a long rectangular beam of light leaked through the gap.
Yunho shuffled and sat up, the noise almost like the scratchy white noise from a radio in the silence.
"You're still awake?" Jongho whispered, padding towards the bed. The door swung slowly shut behind him, but the lock didn't quite click and a thin ray of light still made it through.
The stimulation from the brightness stung Yunho's eyes, which was already groggy from his attempts at sleep. He ignored the rhetorical question and asked, "Why did you come?"
"Because I knew you wouldn't be able to sleep," replied Jongho. He presented a cup of warm water Yunho had not noticed before, which Yunho took gratefully.
Yunho occupied himself with the drink to avoid conversation. He didn't feel like talking about it.
After the hospital visit, he had lounged in Jongho's living room, trying to kill time until it was time to sleep so he could wake up the next day and finally do what he had meant to do weeks ago.
Wariness followed him all day like a suit of rigid armor as he anticipated and feared the things San would tell him. He would make San say everything even if San didn't want to. He was tired of secrets, even though knowledge could sometimes be scarier.
The liquid soothed Yunho's dry throat and warmed his chest and lung areas. He felt more comfortable now, the fatigue seeping into his body. Earlier today he still believed that his wariness would tire him out eventually, but now he realized it was the opposite - wariness warded off weariness. So his eyes were tired, his muscles were limp, but his mind was wide awake.
"Just relax," said Jongho. "You're just talking to him, right? And I'll be there."
"Yes," Yunho replied. The word came out slow and his eyelids were threatening to fall. "But what if-"
"Stop thinking so much. It's good that you're looking for the answer. You're not doing anything wrong. You said it yourself. You're helping him." Towards the end, there was a strain in Jongho's voice, especially on the last word as he tried to avoid saying Mingi's name.
Yunho noticed it under the reassuring tone. He pretended he didn't, but he felt the sarcasm and the artificial nature. Jongho thought he already knew the answer - that Mingi was just the average manic criminal - and wanted Yunho to face that truth.
The tiny glow from the door gave a lighter shade to Jongho's pupils. They looked gray, like the rest of the room.
"I'm getting tired," said Yunho tersely, putting the empty cup on the bedside table.
Slightly taken aback, Jongho took the cup and lingered awkwardly before leaving.
The silence returned, so thick and heavy it even drowned out the thoughts in Yunho's mind. By some miracle, he drifted into unconsciousness.
When he woke up again, he was startled into opening his eyes. He shot up into a sitting position, grabbing fistfuls of sheets with his sweaty palms. It wasn't a nightmare, but the image that forced itself into his mind made all the blood rush up to his head and sent his nerves tingling in alarm.
It was more a memory, rather than a dream. Yunho saw Mingi, the way he was when Yunho left him by the fountain to get to the hospital with Jongho.
Mingi's brown eyes were darkened with sorrow and distress, their corners drooped downwards as if weighed down by those emotions. His bottom lip was sucked in the way it would when you bit your inner lip. He stared longingly at the taxi that carried Yunho and Jongho away, his hair disheveled from the wind and dotted with white from the snow.
Then, after the taxi disappeared into the distance, Mingi turned around and walked back to the spot where the mirrors fell and broke, picking up every piece he could. He did everything slowly, as if every movement took incredible effort.
Right before the image faded, Yunho caught a single drop of tear fall from Mingi's downturned face, catching a sliver of sunlight and twinkling before it reached the ground.
Yunho, wide awake now, slid off the bed and trod to the window. It was only when he noticed the blurred yellow glow from the streetlights that he realized there were also tears in his eyes. Clumsily he wiped them away and turned to consult the clock.
It was dawn, so he knew he wasn't going back to sleep. He looked out again and as if on cue, the streetlights flickered off and the first sign of twilight lightened the sky.
Jongho was going to wake up soon, and Yunho needed to clear his mind before that, so he put on a coat and walked out, forgetting completely about the raging snowstorm. He anticipated it; even saw it coming when he was talking to Mingi this afternoon with snow falling all around them, but he wasn't prepared for it.
His fingers turned into popsicles in an instant even though they were stuffed deep inside his pockets. There were still feeling in them though, unlike his nose and ears that now felt detached from his face completely.
Inches of snow crunched under his boots, the sound merely a murmur amidst the howling winds. Freezing coldness took over every inch of his body and he knew he shouldn't be out here, but it was the only thing that could distract him from the guilt sitting in his heart.
Guilt from the pain he saw in his dream, on Mingi's face; from breaking the new mirror before he even accepted it as a gift; from leaving Mingi alone in the middle of a conversation; from avoiding the truth for so long even though he knew there was something wrong.
The cold numbed his feelings and dulled his senses. The effect wouldn't last long, but at least Jongho wouldn't notice anything if he returned now.
He had wandered to a neighboring block in the same estate and was trying to orient himself among the sheets of snowflakes obscuring his vision and the white veils that grew too dense to see through the farther he tried to look.
Occupied by the task, he almost missed the gray figure standing a distance away. He assumed the person was a stranger and was about to ignore it when he caught a flash of blue between clumps of falling snow.
The sight froze Yunho on the spot. The man turned around as if he could sense Yunho's presence. There was no mistaking now; it was Mingi.
Everything was a meaningless blur until Mingi started trudging through the snow towards Yunho. The twilight strengthened and the storm abated suddenly, giving clarity to all of Mingi's features. He was hunched and there were deep lines under his eyes. Yunho saw the same brown pupils in his dream, only they look even darker, and pierced through the storm with something other than pain. Something Yunho took as anger.
The guilt came back without warning, like the storm that picked up again and was sending flurries of snow fluttering violently in between the two.
Overwhelmed with emotion, Yunho lost his voice. He didn't know what to say, if he should say anything. Should he apologize? Tell Mingi about his plans to find San? Suggest Mingi to come along and fix this together?
Yunho's heart was pounding, but he could just feel the small vibrations against his rib cage with all the stimuli triggering his nerves.
Mingi was within arm distance now. He looked upset, with a frown on his face.
Yunho prepared himself for anything. The wind rumbled in his ears and the freezing air formed goosebumps all over his skin.
Instincts took over and he felt the pressing need to say something first. To show that he was sorry. "Mingi-"
The word was barely out of his mouth when Mingi lunged at him and grabbed the lapels of his coat roughly, the impact knocking the air out of him.
Yunho widened his eyes in shock. He saw something flicker across Mingi's eyes, but it was just a flash and he didn't quite catch it because a snowflake floated close to his eyes and he had to blink it away.
All Yunho could hear now was the rushing blood in his ears. Fear made his mind go blank.
He knew what it was now. It was unrelenting malice he saw.
By the time his reflexes kicked in, by the time he realized it was technically still nighttime and he should've been more careful, it was too late.
Mingi pulled something out from his pocket. It flashed under the twilight.
Yunho swung his gaze from Mingi's face to the knife, its blade now pointed at his throat.