~

I opened my eyes lazily. My body felt light and heavy somehow, like I was on nothing but air, but the air was pressing against me and boxing me in.

A man sat next to me, and when I opened my eyes, he turned to face me.

"Jin, it's an honour."

"You almost died, I figured you'd drop the act for at least a few days."

"In my defense, I know you love it."

He gave me a disappointed look, sighing and shaking his head.

When he looked back, he almost seemed, guilty.

He reached out, lightly ruffling my hair.

I didn't know what to say, so I looked around awkwardly.

There were white flowers growing around us, circling around us.

"They're called Lily of the Valley. They're usually an apology gift. They're said to symbolize a return to happiness."

I looked at Jin, eyebrows furrowed.

What did he mean by this?

"I hope you can be happy again, Sin."

I looked down, an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

"Now, we should talk."

"Talk about what, Jin? Are you going to finally tell me why you're speaking to me in dreams?"

He smiled sadly at me, and I felt the urge to pull his hair, just to wipe it off of his perfect face.

He's so goddamn infuriating sometimes.

Most of the time.

"You know I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

He was silent for a moment before speaking.

"Either way, you're not going to hear it from me. That's not what we need to talk about."

"Well, I think that it most definitely is, Jin."

He stared at me, and I laid a hand on my forehead.

"I mean, that's why all of this is happening in the first place. So if you just tell me what happened to you, then you can rest in peace and I can get some peace."

"I had no idea I was so inconvenient to you-"

"That's not what I meant Jin. I've grown attached to you, but I want to help you, so I need to know-"

"You murdered B-Free."

I flinched back as if he had physically struck me.

My chest got tight, and my toes curled in repulsion at the unwanted memory that Jin had not so kindly brought up.

"You killed him, and we need to talk about it."

I gulped, panic rising in my throat. I looked at my hands, terrified to see the blood spreading on them once again.

No matter what I did, they'd never be clean.

Maybe Lady Macbeth and Macbeth's reactions weren't so overdramatic after all. I could wash my hands infinitely and they would never be clean of the blood that I spilled.

"There's not much to say. I killed him. End of the story."

"And you feel guilty."

I glared at Jin with such a fierceness that I scared myself.

"No shit. I fucking killed him, of course I feel fucking guilty. I killed him, he's never going to breathe another breath, never going to say another word, never going to walk another step again, all because of me."

Jin nodded thoughtfully, and I was reminded of a therapist.

"But wasn't your plan to kill him?"

My face scrunched up at the thought.

"Yeah, I guess. But it wasn't going to be like that."

"How was it supposed to be, then?"

I groaned, looking away from him, ashamed of myself.

"I don't know, but not like that. It wasn't supposed to be so messy, it wasn't supposed to be, I don't know, so scary. So bad. So horrible."

"Well murder is a messy thing, it's not going to be pretty."

I wish he would stop using the word murder, it made it feel even worse. It made it seem like he was accusing me, like he thought I was a horrible person.

Oh god, but I am.

"It was supposed to be right. It's supposed to be the right thing to do, I'm not supposed to feel bad about it! Why doesn't it feel right?!"

I felt my eyes burning, and I angrily let the tears fall down my face, feeling like sticky, hot blood, just like what I felt on my hands, god it burned, it was so thick, like it was going to coat me forever in the shame, the guilt of killing him.

"Killing is never going to feel right to you, unless you're a psychopath. And you're crazy, and mildly mislead, and horribly drawn to trouble. But you're not a psychopath."

I rolled my eyes, cradling my knees to my chest.

"You didn't have to kill him then. But you very well could have been killed if you hadn't killed him. Regardless, you did it, you just have to try and accept it."

I didn't feel like he was comforting comforting me really; it felt more like he was patronizing me, or telling me that I was a bad person. As if I had already ruined my chances at heaven, and now I just had to suck it up and live with it.

I looked over at him, aggressively wiping my tears away.

"Do you think I'm a bad person?"

He only smiled at me, patting my head.

"I can't say. Nobody is fully good."

My heart sank, and I hid my head on my knees, holding my breath to keep from sobbing.

"I really do hope you get your happiness."

And then he was gone.