Chapter Text
It all happened way too fast.
As soon as the words left Niki’s mouth, Jungwon had a small pocket knife aimed at Sunoo’s throat. He threatened Sunoo’s life with each time anyone stepped closer. His hand was shaking, both in fear and anger.
Then he started laughing, amused by the situation before him. He was amused seeing how shocked they all looked. Was it this hard to figure out? I mean, he didn’t make it blatantly obvious but it wasn’t a huge mystery either. All the signs always pointed to him somehow. Did Sunghoon really believe the strawberry jam story? Idiot.
“Oh come on.” He spoke bitterly, feeling Sunoo shake below him. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out.” His eyes fell to Jake. “I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out, Jakey. Though, you were stupid enough to rule me out without knowing anything about me. Come on guys, I’m the only without a solid alibi, did you really not even suspect me for a second?”
“Well maybe they were too busy worrying about your other victims and me, asshat.”
Niki spoke bitterly despite his voice shaking. He had almost completely forgotten about Jungwon’s threat towards Sunoo and if he hadn’t he probably wouldn’t have told, even after everything he knew. Jake had already figured it out, he could’ve at least waited until Sunoo was out of arms length.
Jungwon scoffed, his grip tightening around Sunoo. Sunoo was crying, fearing he would turn out like Dohyun and have to forget all the people he loved. He didn’t want to die yet, he had so much he wanted to see and do. He couldn’t let it end like this.
“J-Jungwon-ah, you were supposed to be my best friend. I helped you when you cried about no one being there for you!” He shouted as tears pooled from his eyes. He felt betrayed by his own friend, a pain that hurts ten times worse than any stab wound ever could. “We were all there for you, all of us.”
Jungwon scoffed. “Yeah? Tell me how, hyung.”
“I stayed at the detectives office in case you would’ve been nervous when you came out.” Jay spoke softly, tears staining his cheeks. “I walked you back to your dorm that evening, and I told you it would all be okay. I didn’t believe you did it because you were the closest to Dohyun, I couldn’t see you ever doing anything to hurt him.”
“I bandaged your bleeding hands.” Sunghoon’s voice cracked as he held Jake behind him, willing to throw himself onto Jungwon’s knife before he let him hurt Jake. “And I let you talk me out of skating for the season, because I believed you were trying to help me. Did you ever really care about me? My dream?”
His voice was bitter and broken, not wanting to believe he gave up the season per Jungwon’s request. How could he have been so naïve?
“Even after you accused me a million times,” Heeseung’s voice was more put together than the others—almost as if he knew this whole time that Jungwon did it. He didn’t sound shocked at all. “I never once believed it was you because I wasn’t one to throw around accusations. And even after I looked deeper into it, you never crossed my mind. I tried keeping your name cleared.”
Jungwon’s grip began to falter, but the knife remained by Sunoo’s throat. He had never really thought about all his friends did to protect his name; all while he turned around and accused every single one of them and tried killing Niki to keep his identity a secret.
“I trusted you.” Jake’s voice was the quietest. “And you in turn killed my mother.”
“She was a child molester—“
“Shut the fuck up!” Jake screamed, his voice alerting Jayee outside of the room. She stood in the door, seeing the situation unfold. Sunoo had a knife pressed to his neck, so it wasn’t wise to step in just yet. She looked at her team, telling them to wait for her signal.
“S-Shut the fuck up.” Jake sobbed, barely standing. “It’s not your secret to tell, so shut up. It wasn’t Dohyun’s either, but he told it to protect someone we love.” He pointed at Heeseung. “He did a much better job at protecting his friends than you ever had. And he’s fucking dead, Jungwon. He died because you took it upon yourself to kill him for us. You’re dead to me, and you’re dead to all of us.”
He almost dropped the knife in his hand, barely holding onto Sunoo at this point as well. He didn’t realize how much he had hurt his friends, he had only ever considered them ungrateful while this entire time he had been hurting all this time. Sure killing their friend started that, but while they tried hiding his name he only made it worse for them.
“And I almost lost my life because of you.” Niki spat, despite his crying. “Even after I didn’t utter not a word to make them suspect you. See, even now they’re surprised! You almost killed me twice when I hadn’t said anything to make them begin to suspect you. And even now, you have a nice to your supposed best friend’s throat. You’ve lost it, Jungwon. You are not the same person we befriended. He died along with Dohyun.”
The knife was dropped and Sunoo took this as his cue to run away. He hid behind Heeseung, clinging onto him for dear life.
Jungwon knew he wasn’t a good person from the start of this all. Minyoung died just for fun, and he killed people to “protect” the people he loved when he really only hurt them more. Why didn’t he listen before? Why did he ignore their pleading for so long? Why did he let them suffer for so long when he started all this? That was the true way he should’ve protected them, they were right.
Jayee made her way in as soon as she seen Sunoo away from Jungwon. Her and her team put Jungwon in handcuffs and lead him out, wishing Niki a speedy recovery and giving Heeseung the number for a counselor in case any of them needed to talk to someone.
“Hyung,” Sunoo spoke softly, now sat on the edge of his boyfriend’s hospital bed. He sniffled. “Did you know it was Jungwon too?”
“Only since yesterday.” Heeseung looked up to look at Jake, seeing him hidden behind Sunghoon as the boy tried to comfort him. “I told Jake about the most solid piece of evidence I had and he sort of connected the dots. If I had known it would’ve threatened your life, I would’ve protected you better.”
Niki sniffled, grabbing Sunoo’s hand. “That one was my fault, sunshine. I’ve known it was Jungwon since the day Dohyun died, but I never told because he told me he would hurt you. I just wanted to protect you. I’m so sorry.”
Sunoo hugged his boyfriend as gently as he could, not wanting to hurt him. “Don’t blame yourself, Nik. You did it to protect me. You’re a much better protector than Jungwon.”
———
Jungwon was given two life sentences in jail, fifteen years for all four lives taken plus another ten for attempted murder of both Sunoo and Niki; twice.
While the group grew old together, Jungwon sat in a jail cell and wasted his life away wishing he could restart.
Dohyun was given a proper service, everyone in the school attending as well as Dohyun’s family. He was mourned properly.
His soul carried on into a healthy baby boy named Kang Haneul, given birth to by a sick and dying woman. He was put into an adoption center at just the age of six months old after the mother’s family couldn’t take care of him anymore.
He was adopted by a couple at the age of six years old, that couple being twenty four year olds Niki and Sunoo. The couple had no clue that the boy they’d now call their son was once their friend who had been murdered all those years ago.
Jay and Heeseung married at the age of twenty five after being together for seven years. They adopted a beautiful baby girl name Lee Nara, and a young boy named Kim Ilsung.
Jake and Sunghoon married at twenty three. Sunghoon went on to win multiple olympic gold metals alongside Jake and their daughter Kang Nina.
They were all happy living their lives, safe and protected in their own homes with their families.
They were finally free.