Logan didn't respond to Virgil's message until midnight. The latter had been sitting in his bedroom, staring up at the ceiling blankly and imagining how different things would be if Orm had just left him alone.

He wouldn't be in this mess now.

Maybe, in another life, the two of them would've been friends.

That's when his phone rang.

He sat up, already knowing who it was.

Virgil answered the phone.

"Hello?" Idly, he wondered how Logan had gotten his number.

"What is there to talk about?" Logan's voice came from his phone speaker. He was speaking in hushed tones, likely due to the time of night it was. "I know what you did, Virgil."

Virgil swallowed heavily. "...is your dad in the room?"

Logan's dad was a police detective, a pretty famous one around town, since his son went to the local high school. If he caught wind of anything that Virgil was going to say, it would be over. Everyone would know what happened, Roman would know what happened.

He couldn't have that.

Logan hummed knowingly, as if he had expected that question. "No, he's not."

Virgil, like Logan, had been anticipating that response. "Are you lying?"

Logan huffed. "I'm not doing this with you, Pryder. This metaphorical song and dance. I don't even know why I bothered calling, when I already knew you were going to be like this."

"Like what?" Virgil furrowed his brow. "Cautious? I'm not going to talk with you unless I can be sure that you're alone." But alone wasn't enough, was it? Not in the 21st century, where phone calls could easily be recorded. "Well, actually..."

"What?" Logan questioned flatly.

"I want to talk to you in person." Virgil said, but already knew what the response would be as soon as he opened his mouth. He wasn't surprised when Logan scoffed at that.

"You must think I'm a fool." Was the response he was given. "No, Virgil. I don't think I will. I'm smart enough to see the trap you're attempting to guide me into. In the morning, when I wake up, I'm going to ask my father to look into your connection to Janus—"

"No!" Virgil quickly cut in, gripping the phone like it was a lifeline. "Please, Logan. Just let me explain. You want to know the truth, right? I'm trying to give you that, honest!" He pursed his lips, choosing his next words very carefully. "Don't you think you owe it to Janus to at least know the truth?"

He heard a sharp inhale from Logan. "You—"

"The police won't be able to give you the information I can tell you." He barreled on before the other could think too deeply about his words. "No one but me can. I know you want the full picture, Lo. That's how you've always been, eager to know everything you possibly can." He took a deep breath. "I'm not asking you to fully trust me, just to hear me out."

There was silence on the other end, and Virgil thought that he'd blown it for a moment. Logan would hang up and the police would be at his door the following day. That's when the other spoke up.

"...fine." He grit out. "We'll meet up at the old playground in 3 hours. You get ten minutes, but I'm not hearing out anything you have to say after. Got it?"

Virgil blinked, stunned, before quickly nodding (though he knew Logan couldn't see it). "Yes! Thank you, Logan!" He couldn't believe that had worked. "I'll see you then."

Logan hummed, before hanging up.

Virgil couldn't help but smile. This was it. He was given a chance to explain himself, and how Roman made him feel. He hadn't been able to talk about what happened with anyone.

He had to make this count.

—

Virgil rehearsed what he wanted to say dozens of times before he left his house. This was his one chance. Logan was smart, he was certain that he could make the nerd see reason.

During the drive over, he went over his speech in his head until it was all he could think about. The radio was turned off, only his thoughts and the ghost that sat in the front passenger seat that he refused to look at to keep him company.

As he pulled up to the playground, a shot of nervousness raced up his spine, as well as something that resembled dread. He gripped the strings of his black hoodie anxiously, wondering for a moment if this was a good idea as he pulled the hood over his head.

Then he pictured Roman, and that was enough to get him out of the car.

He was careful to avoid the cameras of the nearby shops. While Logan had his number, Virgil wasn't sure if it was saved. Keeping who he was a secret was an element of precaution, but one he felt safer having as opposed to not.

He stood nearby the playground, waiting with his hands in his pockets. It didn't take long for Logan to arrive, punctual as ever. He was actually a few minutes early, Virgil only beating him there in his excitement.

Logan frowned when he saw him. "Hello, Pryder."

Virgil offered what he hoped was a friendly smile. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me." He told him earnestly. "I really appreciate it."

The glasses-clad teen's face scrunched up at that, something uncomfortable invading his body language. "Ten minutes." Was all he said, before nodding at him.

Virgil took a deep breath. This was it. What he'd been practicing for. "Janus...he wasn't who you thought he was." He began, fists clenching and unclenching restlessly. Logan scoffed at that, but said nothing, so Virgil continued. "He was callous, selfish, and genuinely one of the worst people I've ever met." He looked at the mulch covered ground. "I won't beat around the bush, and just tell you what you came out here to know."

He looked Logan in the eyes, steeling himself. "Yes, I killed him."

Logan's eyes clouded over at that, a full body shudder running through him. There were many emotions that could be picked up from his expression; rage, sorrow, a sick sense of confirmation, but it was subtle in a way that you couldn't pinpoint any specific feeling, leaving his face mostly unreadable.

Virgil continued, not wanting to lose his attention. "You have to understand, Logan, I didn't want to. He forced my hand." He shook his head. "He wouldn't have stopped with me, I had to snip it in the bud early, you get it, right?" He stepped closer, and counted it as a triumph when Logan didn't back away. "I-I'm not a monster, Logan. I did it for love."

"For love?" Logan echoed flatly, though his eyes didn't move to meet his gaze.

"F-For Roman!" Virgil smiled nervously. "Orm, he never wanted me to be happy. He relished in my misery, prolonged it the only way he knew how. The second Roman entered my life, he did everything in his power to take him away from me. And it almost worked, and I couldn't just stand back and watch everything be taken away from me again." He shoved his hands in his pockets, frowning. "You know about my dad, right?"

Logan didn't say anything.

"He, um," Virgil pursed his lips, glanced away. "He was taken from me by my mother. She killed him." He spat. "She took my happiness, my reason to keep living away, in only a few days. Janus was going to do the same thing. Don't you see? If I hadn't removed him, if he took Roman from me..." The thought hurt him, he didn't even want to entertain the thought of his lover being ripped from his life.

"If Janus had won, what reason would I have had to keep living?"

He could picture it. The unending pain that would've enveloped him, he wouldn't even be able to get out of bed. He'd let himself rot from the inside out, until one day, maybe, he would just give up and quietly slip away into the nothingness in his chest. Finally give Susan a story she could spin about the school's heartthrob, Virgil Pryder, a boy who would've died as he lived, drowned in his own misery. A tragic tale of loneliness and heartache.

A fitting end, no?

Virgil looked back at Logan. "It was him or me."

Logan didn't speak for a few moments, gaze still unfocused as he processed Virgil's words. Virgil shifted his weight anxiously, eagerly awaiting his response. He hoped Logan understood. Maybe they could be friends! Logan never seemed to be attracted to him, more so indifferent. In one year, could he finally have made 2 friends?

Logan hummed, brow furrowing as he finally met Virgil's gaze. "There's something you seem to be confused about." He muttered. "You've painted Janus as some sort of villain, even though he only ever exhibited this 'callous, selfish' behavior when he was with you." He crossed his arms. "I've always known of your little...rivalry. How could I not? The school paper often does segments on it, though I have no possible clue as to why." He narrowed his eyes. "And in those papers, they polarize him just as you are doing right now."

Virgil frowned. "I don't understand."

"Do you really think the situation was so black and white?" Logan tilted his head, something sharp in his expression. "That it was either lose Roman or kill Janus?" The words were shockingly neutral for the fire that was beginning to simmer behind his glasses. "Virgil, you don't get to play the victim in this situation."

Virgil's face twisted up. "That—"

"No." Logan quickly cut him off. "You've said your piece, it's my turn now."

He took a step forward, his voice low and tight, like a string drawn taut. "You seem to be under the laughable delusion that this little confession of yours somehow paints you in a sympathetic light. That by baring your trauma, you can retroactively justify a premeditated act of violence. But you're not the hero of this narrative, Virgil."

Virgil flinched at the sudden shift in tone.

"You're not a tragic figure, nor are you some misunderstood romantic martyr," Logan continued, eyes sharp and voice rising with every word. "You're a coward hiding behind grief, cloaking your selfishness in the language of love. You speak of 'removing' Janus like he was an obstacle in your path, not a human being with thoughts, feelings, and a life of his own. You claim you did it for Roman, but really, you did it for yourself. To preserve the fantasy you'd built around him, as if he were some prize to be won, not a person with his own agency."

Virgil opened his mouth, but Logan didn't let him speak.

"No, you don't get to explain again," he snapped. "Because nothing you say now changes what you did. You made yourself judge, jury, and executioner. You didn't protect Roman. You didn't save anyone. You eradicated someone you didn't understand, because you couldn't control them."

Logan's eyes burned now, rage bleeding through the carefully constructed wall of logic and detachment he always wore. "And for the record? Janus may have been many things—acerbic, arrogant, even manipulative at times—but he didn't deserve to die because you couldn't handle the idea that the world doesn't revolve around your pain."

Virgil took a step back, silent.

"So don't stand there, in front of me, and pretend you're the only one who lost something. You didn't lose Roman. You stole Janus. You took him away from everyone who did love him, because your warped perception of love couldn't coexist with his existence."

Logan's voice dropped into something quieter, but infinitely colder. "You want me to understand? Fine. I understand this: you killed my friend. And no amount of self-pity or poetic rationalizations will ever make that anything but murder."

He took one final look at Virgil, eyes glinting behind his glasses. "You wanted ten minutes. Be grateful I gave them to you."

He turned to leave, but Virgil quickly found his voice again. "Wait—!" He grabbed onto Logan's wrist.

The glasses-clad teen froze, whipping his head back around. "Let go of me!" He snarled, his arm jerking in Virgil's hold.

He couldn't let Logan leave. If he left now, Virgil's entire life would be ruined by the morning. "You don't understand! I need you to understand!" He begged, using his other hand to grab Logan's wrist too.

There was a dark horror in Logan's eyes as he ripped himself out of Virgil's grip. He stumbled back, breathing heavily, and quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out something.

It was a knife.

A pocket knife, to be precise.

Virgil stared at it blankly for a moment. "What's that for, Logan?" He asked flatly. "What? Are you gonna kill me?"

The knife trembled in Logan's hands, but the fiery gaze behind those glasses never wavered. "If those are the measures I have to take to defend myself." He spat.

Defend himself. Logan was the one who needed to defend himself? When Virgil's life was the one that was on the brink of catastrophe? How was that fair? Why was he always painted to be the bad guy in everyone's story?

Fine then. If Logan wouldn't listen to reason, then fine.

Just one more thing in his way.

Virgil narrowed his eyes. "You're smart. You know how people would view that." He hissed. "First Janus' death gets marked as a murder, and then I'm found dead in the park? How do you think that would look?"

Logan frowned. "People will know the truth, Virgil. I'll tell everyone what you did."

Virgil barked out a laugh. "Like they're going to believe you?! The boy who murdered Virgil Pryder?" He sneered. "Come on now, Lo."

"Don't call me that." Logan growled, but faltered—grip loosening on the knife.

That was enough for Virgil.

He pounced, ripping the knife from the other boy's hands and shoving him to the ground. He quickly straddled Logan's torso, keeping the other boy from getting up.

Logan stared up at him with pure terror that sent a thrill down Virgil's spine.

"You've made a terrible mistake." Virgil whispered, before slamming the knife down into Logan's chest. The boy under him choked on a gasp, and Virgil yanked the knife out before he could even scream. "The biggest mistake of your life, you piece of shit!"

He slammed Logan's back into the ground hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.

There was a sharp, wet crack beneath him. Logan screamed, the sound strangled off as Virgil drove his weight down again, knee digging into his ribcage.

Something gave way.

Logan thrashed weakly beneath him, and Virgil reacted without thinking, grabbing his head and slamming it once against the packed earth.

The movement stunned them both.

Virgil wrapped his free hand around Logan's throat, cutting off his air, before digging the knife back into his chest. Then he did again, and again, and again, and again.

He kept going even after Logan fell still and silent.

Virgil finally stopped once his arm was too tired to even lift anymore. He let go of the other boy's throat, and was pleasantly surprised to find that his grip hadn't even left a bruise. He clenched his fists, looking down at his bloody hands.

He glared at the glasses-clad lifeless face in the mulch. "A knife, Logan? Are you fucking kidding me?" He snarled, feeling as hot tears streamed down his face rapidly. "You never planned on hearing me out, did you?" He chuckled dryly. "I can't believe I thought you were different."

He should've known better.

Everyone was the same, except for Roman.

No one else could ever be like Roman.

He stood up on shaky legs, and walked back to his car with Logan's knife in hand.

And all the while, Janus laughed and laughed and laughed.

A/N:

Well, Logan brought the knife 🫠