Trigger warning: mentions of sexual harassment and abuse.

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As the ending credits are rolling, the lights of the cinema hall come alive. I'm the first one to stand up amidst the five of us left.

I run out of the hall. The old woman at the counter glances up at me, a tint of curiosity in her gaze, but I don't have time to acknowledge her. Once I'm out of the entrance gate, I look to both sides, not seeing July anywhere. Panic rises in me, mixed with confusion. Where the hell did he go, and what the hell was up with him? He watched the whole movie with so much concentration, making comments here and there, laughing and wiping his eyes. What could've happened for him to suddenly become like that?

I decide to check the motel, which is placed right next to the cinema hall. Maybe he went inside. Just as I pass the hall, something gets caught in my peripheral vision. I stop in my tracks, then turn. In the darkness of the alley created between the movie theatre and the motel, I see a lone figure sitting. I can recognize that figure anywhere.

"July?" I call, running up to him. He is leaning against the wall of the motel, knees hugged to his chest, face buried in his arms. I've seen him in this position so many times already. He is devastated by something. I crouch down in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder. "July?" I call again. "What happened?"

He raises his head. His eyes are unexpectedly dry, but they are widened to their limits. I feel my throat going dry. God knows what happened this time. I'm not even surprised anymore, just tired.

"What happened? You were fine just a moment ago. Everything was fine . . ."

"Nothing was ever fine," he tells me, his wide eyes now directed to the ground.

"What- what do you mean?"

He shakes his head. "I thought . . . I thought it'd be fine if I never told you. I thought I could erase that memory and just fill up that gap with new, happy memories with you. But I was wrong. It's impossible. The guilt eats me from inside every minute. I keep feeling like I'm betraying you by hiding something like this. It's truly impossible. But- but I don't want you to hate me and-"

"July, July, hold on, hold on." I raise my palms, frowning. "What in the world are you talking about? I don't understand anything! What are you hiding from me? I thought you've told me everything already."

"No . . ."

That's when it suddenly clicks in my mind. I drop my hand from his shoulder. "Are you . . . by any chance, talking about Moon?" I ask in a quiet tone.

He nods slowly.

The night July cried in front of me for the very first time, after I confronted him about the sketch of a woman that he drew. The woman was Moon. He had burst into tears, and he had told me, "I wish she would forgive me."  And a day later, after we came back to normal, he told me, how Moon killed herself just a day after he met her for the last time, and the last words she told him were, "Find me in the moon."

He has never told me what exactly happened between him and Moon.

"About what happened the day before she died?" I inquire.

He nods again, still not meeting my eyes.

This is quite concerning. Something in the movie triggered the memory he tried to bury down. There is only one thing in the movie that could be that triggering. And it's definitely not something good.

It can't be.

No, no, I'm sure it's nothing related to that. That's simply impossible. So I move to his side and sit leaning against the wall, keeping a bit of distance. Clearing my throat, I say, "Then, tell me."

Silence.

"Just tell me, July," I say with gritted teeth. "Before I start assuming things."

"You will hate me so much after you find out," he whispers.

"July," I harden my tone, grabbing the fabric of my pants tightly. "Just . . . spit it out. Everything. There's no point in putting it away anymore." There's only three days left. What does it matter, at this point?

"You're right. I need to tell you." He straightens his legs. I keep mine folded. "This happened on my second year of high school." His voice is slightly shaky.

I take a deep breath, and get ready to hear the worst.

"It had been a few months since Rain ran away and I started to pretend to be him. Which is to say it had been a few months since I was dating Moon. By then, she had already figured out that I'm Hale. Despite that, she kept calling me Rain. Every time I corrected her, she just ignored me. It made me feel mad, but I also knew that it's the consequences of my own doing. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" she kept telling me."

"Well, she wasn't wrong," I blurt out.

A flash of hurt passes across his face. I bite my bottom lip and look at my lap. He replies, "I knew that too. Maybe that's what made me so mad. Mad at myself."

I begin to pray that his anger didn't lead him to do something extremely rash. But from the tone of his voice, it seems like that's exactly what happened.

"Around that time, Moon stopped coming to school for a few weeks," he continues. "No one knew what happened to her, and the teachers didn't say anything either. I didn't know where she lived. And she never saw any of my messages. The weeks passed while I worried. And then, suddenly one day, Moon called me."

He pauses. I fiddle with my fingers on my lap, growing increasingly nervous. What is the climax of this story? I'm scared to find out.

"It was almost evening. Before I could ask her anything about where she's been, she told me to come meet her. She named a cafe near our school. So I did as she said. When I saw her, she was wearing a full-sleeved shirt and jeans. It was odd, because it was one of the hottest days of summer, and she was clearly uncomfortable too. I couldn't figure it out."

This sounds too similar to Dawn. In the last few months, he too wore long sleeves every time he came to visit me. I had asked him about it a few times, but he only said that he looks better with long sleeves, that it's his fashion. How could I ever know? I believed him to be the only person in this world who would never lie to me. And yet, it turns out, no one has ever lied to me as much as he did.

July says, "She was quite normal when we talked. I asked her where she's been, and she kept giving vague answers. She had this way of talking. I can't really explain. Something seemed very off. Regardless, I was glad to know that she's fine. But then, all of a sudden, she asked me if . . . if we should go to a motel."

I slowly turn my head to him. But he has his face turned to the opposite side. I can't see what expression he has on.

"I asked her why, and she told me, isn't it obvious? She wants to sleep with me. I was very shocked. She dated Rain for such a long time, and Rain always slept with the people he dated. But not Moon. So I assumed she isn't into these things. So when she told me that, I became a little too happy. I started to think, maybe she is finally seeing me as Hale, as someone different from Rain. Thinking back to it now, the happiness must have come more from the fact that I managed to defeat Rain in something, than being able to take a step forward with someone I liked. I was so overcome with that sense of triumph, I didn't even think how odd the whole situation is. Her disappearing for weeks without trace, coming back all of a sudden, and asking me to sleep with her. I was completely blind."

He pauses again. This time, the pause is too long. But the story is heading in exactly the direction I feared. And I can't be patient anymore. So I urge, "And then?"

"And then . . . we did go. We found a motel nearby. We were still underage, but because we looked old enough, there was no complication. I . . . I don't know. It's-" July lets out a sigh. It's clear that he doesn't want to go into the "details".

"What happened then?"

"Nothing happened, is the bottom line."

"Huh?"

He takes a moment to compose himself. "Nothing happened. She told me she wants to do it with her clothes on. I didn't mind. Just as we were about to start, she suddenly said- she said she can't. She told me to stop. She . . . she said, "I can't do it, Rain." She called me Rain again. She sounded so frightened. But it's like none of that registered in my mind. All I could hear was the word Rain. And it was like a wire snapped inside my head, and I got so terribly mad-"

"No," I say, feeling my eyes widen. I put my hand over my mouth. "No, no, no, no . . . you didn't. Oh God, no." I subconsciously move further away from him, breathing heavily.

"Cedar, no, listen to me." His voice is pleading. "It's not what you think. Just listen to me. Please."

Gulping, I look back to him. Yeah, I should listen to him first. It's impossible.

When he's sure that I'm listening, he looks away again as he says, "I promise you that I didn't do anything like that. But . . . b-but, I almost did. I kind of- I just . . . when she was about to get up, I forced her down the bed, and she screamed, and she looked so scared that I immediately pulled away. But she was breathing heavily and- maybe she was having a panic attack, I don't know. But she looked at me like I was some kind of monster. And yeah, I truly am. Because- because the next day, she jumped from a bridge. And before she did, she had gone to the police."

"About you?"

"No." He shakes his head. "About the people who had been sexually harassing her continuously since she was a kid."

My jaw drops.

"There were so many people. Their driver. Security guard. A subordinate of her father. Her private tutor. It's like all of them had ganged up on her and used her as a toy. She was incredibly pretty, almost ethereal. Is that why she had to suffer through that? I don't know. Though her father was a very influential man, he barely looked at her. And she couldn't tell anyone about these, because they kept throwing all kinds of threats at her. They were blackmailing her with her photos. And there was simply nothing she could do. The reason why she didn't come to school for so long was because someone went too far and- and she had to get an abortion done."

"Oh my God." I put my palms against my temple and squeeze my eyes shut, my stomach twisting up in knots. I can't listen to this anymore. I really can't listen to this anymore.

July is crying now. "And so she went to the police with all the evidence. Then she killed herself, so that all those threats don't apply anymore. It was- it was . . . I was the trigger of it. I was the trigger of her death. I basically killed her. Emotionally. She wanted to do it because she wanted to trust me. As a reliable male figure in her life. Someone she could confide in. But I . . ." He vigorously shakes his head, then covers his face with his palms. "How could I ever think that I'm deserving of anything good in life, when I did something like this?"

I keep staring at him, my mind disheveled. I cannot think properly. But everything makes sense now. Why the movie made him act this way. Because towards the end of the movie, it was revealed that Charlie was sexually harassed by his aunt when he was a kid. And it makes sense why July is always so harsh on himself. Him saying "I've never wanted to hurt her. How come I've ended up doing something so terrible?"  that night. Him saying, "Everyone I love, I just kill them" and "You don't know what I did" back when I suddenly couldn't touch him anymore.  I also remember how he said a dream of his came true. So he was talking about the dream he told me, the dream where Moon was being touched by a stranger while he did nothing.

Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember how two years back, there was a lot of discussion in the media about rape and the safety of women in our country. Maybe there were some protests too. It caused the government to declare death sentence to all rapists. But many people were against it, saying how that is not a solution, how those monsters don't deserve the comfort of a fast death. So that's why Moon has a Wikipedia page about her suicide.

I remember, Dawn had tried to talk to me about it. But perhaps I had my own things to worry about. Perhaps I didn't care. After all, the matter did not concern me.

Truly despicable of me, but what's new about that?

I let out a loud exhale. My head is hurting. July is sobbing quietly beside me. No, I need to calm down. I need to arrange my thoughts properly, and decide where I stand. The longer my silence stretches, the further he will break.

So I look out the alley to the small portion of the main road that is visible from here. The sky peeks through from behind the trees on the other side of the street. It is now several shades lighter than when we entered the movie theater. Dawn is crawling into the world. With every footstep, it spreads light, implicating the start of a new day, a new beginning.

Dawn. The wish that my Dawn made, as he crawled out of my world forever, was a new beginning too. Not only for me, but also for the person crying beside me right now. Through this wish, I slowly reorganized my life in a way that does not depend on him every second. On the other hand, through this wish, July slowly washed away his regrets and unfulfillments one by one, living the life he couldn't live for 19 years within mere 40 days.

And now, comes his final regret, his final grief: the one mistake that changed his own life, and ended someone else's.

Mistake. Was it a mistake? No matter how I look at it, it can't be anything but. It started off as something consensual. But then, she suddenly told him to stop. His months of pent-up frustrations got triggered. He pushed her down. She screamed. He pulled away. She left.

I can picture the scene perfectly. It's like the climax of a movie. The peak is reached, and then, everything goes downhill from thereon. The director says CUT! as soon as she exits the room. Hale, who was sitting in a daze on the bed, breaks character and smiles. He gets off the bed, and he says, "Good work, everyone."

But this is not a movie. This is real life. A real woman's body, that was violated, again and again, by virtually almost every man around her. What is so difficult to comprehend for me that it feels like a movie, was the reality suffered by someone else.

That is a scary thought.

But that person is gone now. She has left the room. The one who stays in the room still, is the actor. Hale Castleton starring as Rain Castleton. But now it's not Hale Castleton, it's July. Cedar's July.

I turn my face back to him.

"After she said no . . . you didn't touch her forcibly right?" I ask, just to confirm.

He shakes his head. "I didn't. Thank God I didn't."

"Thank God indeed."

"But what difference did it make? It was still the deal-breaker for her. It still drove her to kill herself. She was already at the edge. I just gave her the push."

I hug my knees tighter. "Maybe she had already taken the decision by then." That's how it was with Dawn.

"No no, you don't get it. I have killed her, Cedar."

"No you haven't," I tell him, with a voice carrying both softness and firmness. "Those people, those devils who did such disgusting things to her, they are the ones who killed her. By the time she slept with you, she was already dead. And she made sure that they got rightfully punished too. Moon was a strong person, for being able to live so long in hell. And she fought till the end, and in a way, she won."

"But I deserve punishment too, Cedar. I was a devil too. Because she trusted me, and I couldn't keep that trust. That's what's killing me. That she died thinking that I'm just like one of those men."

I lean the back of my head against the wall and look up. The windows of the three-storied motel can be seen from here. "I can't tell you what her opinions about you were when she died. All I can say is that, if I put myself in her shoes, the reason she asked you to sleep with her, was because she wanted to convince herself that not everyone in this world is the same. Just the fact that she chose you to confirm that fact, says a lot about how you treated her. And if I was in her place, I wouldn't let a spur-of-the-moment incident be a dictator of your entire moral character. Maybe she didn't think the same way, maybe she didn't forgive you. But I'm sure you treated her with the kind of respect she wanted to be treated with."

I see him closing his eyes, his brows creased, as though he is basking in the comfort of my words.

I continue, "As for being punished . . . July, haven't you been punished enough already? Looking back at your whole life, wasn't it a punishment in itself? After her death, were you ever happy? Were you ever in peace? You gave yourself that punishment, and the people around you did as well. You've suffered too. You've made a mistake, and you suffered terribly for it. Maybe more than what those disgusting people did."

I put a hand on his shoulder. "No more, July," I whisper softly. "Don't punish yourself anymore. This life that you've been gifted, it's not supposed to be a punishment. It's supposed to be a reward, a second chance at happiness. So let it go. Forgive yourself."

"How- how can I . . ." he stutters, as more tears bubble out of his eyes, "how can I forgive myself, when I don't know if I've been forgiven by her?"

"You can't know that. She's gone, July. The director's said Cut already. If there's anything I've learned from Dawn's death, then it's that there some things we will never know. Some questions that will never be answered. There is nothing we can do about that, except let those questions go and move on with our lives. It's like, when you're watching a movie in a theater, you can't pause, you can't rewind. That's not in your control. So you have to keep watching. You can close your eyes and choose to not watch, block it out, but the movie will keep playing still. Reality will keep stretching. There is no way out of it. That's how it works."

He weakly nods. "I know that too, Cedar. But-"

"No buts." My confidence surprises me. But no matter how I look at it, he is at fault, but he is blaming himself for a lot more than the fault deserves. He would never willingly lay a finger on her against her wish. He would have done much worse than that if he had those intentions.

I wipe his wet cheeks. I've done that a few times before. It almost feels like a privilege, to be so close to someone, to be so intimate, that they would let you wipe the tears off their face with your bare hands.

He blinks at me. He looks so defeated, so vulnerable. How can this man ever do wrong to anyone?

I place my palm against his cheek and make his face fully turn to mine. "There's not much time left, July. For these few days, don't think about anyone else. Apologize to Moon in the afterlife. I'm here, right now, in front of you, with you. Alive. Think about only me. I want to be the only thing in your mind. No one else. Do you understand?"

My face grows warmer and warmer as I say all these embarrassing things, but I firmly hold his gaze, while he holds mine with mild confusion. His lips are trembling, struggling to form words. But before he could say anything, I feel drops of water landing on my nose.

I look up. Thick, gray clouds are visible against the cobalt blue sky. Little raindrops fall on my cheek. I let my hand drop from July's face. "It's raining," I say. "We better go in."

So I stand up first, taking my bag along. I dust off the back of my pants. Then I hold out a hand to July. He has stopped crying now. He stares at my hand for a while, glances at me once, then back at my hand. Finally, he takes it, and I pull him up.

I tell him, "Now get ready to be in a motel with me."

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Hello everyone

I've finally cleared up the last remaining question for this story, "What exactly happened to Moon?" Naturally, I was very careful while writing this chapter, especially because I'm writing from the perspective of a male. I tried my best not to make any mistakes. But I'm still worried I have. So I'll keep revisiting this chapter every once in a while, to see if my more matured self detects anything amiss.

I've thought a lot about how Cedar's reaction to this part of July's past will be. He is emotional, but he is also rational. So I concluded he would use his sense of judgement in this way here. However, I wouldn't say Cedar's perspective entirely reflects my own. But I will keep it to myself.

One of the main takeaways of this chapter is supposed to be what Cedar told July about self-forgiveness in a situation when the person you've committed wrong to is no longer present to forgive you. Those who read December Drizzle might recognize this. There, July taught Shuichi about self-forgiveness. Turns out, he had learned it from Cedar all along.

Thank you for reading. Would love to know your thoughts about this chapter. Take care of yourselves.

— love, Poma