A/N: Huge thanks to TacitusKadari
for helping me make an important choice with this chapter. I really owe you ❤️.

P.S. Wouldn't recommend reading this chapter in Monospace font.

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J U L Y
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July tries to stop Cedar from reading Dawn's final message, but Cedar is in no state of listening.

Eyes widened to their limits, Cedar clicks on the unread message with a shaky hand. July notices that there are about seven gray chat bubbles in total, some of them being paragraphs. Cedar's eyes move over the words in the speed of a habitual reader, and he takes everything in too quickly, too rapidly for it to dawn in on him in a speed that doesn't crush his soul. And after he is done, he blinks several times, eyes glued to the screen with a look of intense shock. Then he gently puts the phone down, hugs his knees, and starts to shake.

"Cedar, Cedar, listen to me," July pleads, grabbing his arm. But Cedar pulls it away, looking around restlessly, as if trying to make a sense of the world around him, as if he doesn't have any clue about what is going on.

Before the screen turns black, July takes one look at it and reads the messages as quickly as he can.

Saturday, November 17 • 01:03

Texting with Dawn (SMS/MMS)

Cedar, I know you're probably
asleep. but if you see this will
you please come to my room?
I have something to tell you

You were right. There IS
something i'm hiding from
you. have been hiding it for
a long time now. But I'm getting
bad thoughts and I want to see
you right now. I think if you're
here everything will be okay
and I can finally think properly.
I want to tell you everything. I
regret not telling you before. I
made so many mistakes.

please come quickly

Saturday, November 17 • 02:27

Cedar, I'm so sorry. I can't
unsend the messages here.
But I've thought it all through
and I don't think there's any
point of anyyhing anymore.
It's too late. I didn't realize
how late it is. Even my family
is sick of me. If you came here
you would stop me but its no
use because I'm hurting
everyone. I can't keep doing
this

Cedar, I love you so much. I
hope you always remember
that. Perhaps I have even
loved you in a way I shouldn't
have, but these things are out
of my control. There is no one
I have ever loved more than
you. I hope you will forgive me
for being selfish and taking all
the worst deicisins and I hope
you will understand why I did
what I did.

Ive finished reading your
favourite book. I'll hold it to
my heart andnthink that im
holding you. Thank you for
loving me. If there is another
life, I will see you and love
you again.

Goodbye, my Cedar.

The messages disappear. July feels the tiniest fraction of Cedar's pure devastation as he blinks at the black screen reflecting the window, and tears flood his eyes. Cedar was Dawn's last hope, his last attempt at trying to live a little longer. But the hope died in under one and a half hour, during which Dawn must have lulled over every possible outcome of every possible crossroad he could take from thereon, only to find that every path led to the same inevitable destination. Perhaps, if Cedar had seen the message and rushed off to the Ambers' right after, things may have turned out differently. Or at least, that's how Cedar would self-interpret it. And that interpretation, currently, is destroying him to his core.

Oh, how could Dawn do this to him? How could Dawn send these messages despite knowing the effect it would have on Cedar? This is inhuman, a net laid down for a lifetime of regrets. Surely Dawn knew that? Perhaps he did, but his emotional vulnerability overpowered those rationalities. At the last moment of your life, who else would you want to talk to but the one you love the most?

But the one he loved the most, is now in immense pain because of those same words, those sincere words of love and remorse. Because Cedar is trembling all over, head buried into his knees, and July can find no words to comfort him. All he can do is rub the other boy's back and hope that the gesture pierces through the wall of grief and reaches him. Fickle chance. The sun has set in the outer world, purplish sky giving way to indigo, but Cedar's misery is rising back again, spreading nothing but darkness.

July wonders why Dawn didn't just call Cedar and tell him to come over. The ringtone would have woken Cedar up, and he would be up and ready to go in an instant.

But the answer comes to him immediately. There was a certain amount of uncertainty even in the decision of telling Cedar to come over. It's like Dawn knew deep inside that Cedar will tell him what he wants to hear, but not what he should be doing. And hence, by sending phone messages to Cedar despite knowing he doesn't check them and even if he did he was most likely asleep, Dawn was essentially leaving his life to fate. "If Cedar comes, I'll try again. If he doesn't, I won't." Maybe that was his thought process.

Suddenly, Cedar raises his head, and July sees how his face is completely dry. He wasn't crying this whole time. But his eyes are widened to their limits, to the point they're starting to turn red on the edges. The shock is so deep that it isn't subsiding. July feels his heart sink at the sight, and almost wishes he could turn his gaze away from this raw display of pain. But then Cedar says, in a shaky voice, "Oh no, July. What am I gonna do?"

"Huh?" July leans closer, ready to hold him.

Cedar glances at him with a look of utter devastation. "I can't live like this. I can feel myself going insane." He grabs his hair with both hands and squeezes his eyes closed. "I need to go to Dawn right now. Take me to him, please. Or I'll go insane." His words come out calm and quiet, but in a pleading tone. July expected him to scream and thrash and lose his mind, but this is much worse. This is not the calm before the storm, this is the smoky winter fog of grief.

"I . . . " July finds himself at an utter loss of words. Not knowing what else to do, he pulls Cedar close to him and begins to caress his hair. But Cedar begins to groan, as if he's in a nightmare. Maybe the reality has turned into one for him. "Cedar, it will be okay. Everything is okay. I'm right here, aren't I?" He knows the words hold no meaning right now, but there's nothing else he can come up with.

"July, help me, please . . . " he begs, the exhaustion in his voice proving that the life is being sucked out of him. Any will to live that he found in the past days is evaporating over seven messages.

Help him? But how? Restlessness grips July's heart. This is completely out of his power. The only way to fix this would be to turn back time, but that is a common wish no human being has ever achieved. Just like Dawn loved Cedar the most, July too does the same. And yet, it always seems like when it comes to the painful memories of Dawn, every happy memory with July is pushed to the side, and Cedar spirals into anguish. And there's nothing July can do about it.

That's when something suddenly clicks in his mind.

He remembers something that he almost forgot, because when he first found out about it, he had shook his head reluctantly and thought, I wouldn't need this at all. But now he understands. Now he understands the purpose of that power that he thought was unnecessarily handed to him.

Cedar has grabbed his chest. July wonders if he will faint again, just like he did on the first day they met. His poor Cedar. Why does the world loathe a soul so free of malice?

That's why July has to do this.

So he places a hand over Cedar's eyes, while the other is placed on top of his head. Cedar is like a little child clinging to him in fear of the monsters under the bed. Quietly, July whispers, "I'm sorry, Dawn. I really am. But I can't bear to see him like this anymore. He's in so much pain. Let me free him from a little bit of it."

Cedar's hand comes up to July's. He has heard the whispered words. "July, what are you . . ."

"Hush."

July closes his eyes, and focuses. Cedar's trembling body goes still within a matter of seconds. I want to erase Cedar's memory of finding Dawn's message on his phone and reading it. Such a message never came.

July waits for a few more seconds before removing his hand from Cedar's eyes. He finds them closed now—his sweetheart has fallen asleep. A peaceful expression drastically contrasting the one from just a moment ago now rests on his face. But a single drop of tear rolls down the side of his temple, onto July's shoulder. Gently, July lays him down on the pillow, and puts the blanket over him. Then he lies down beside and pats his head. There is a tight knot in July's chest, and a huge lump in his throat. He feels like he has done something terribly wrong, something unforgivable. But he still grabs Cedar's phone, turns it on, then takes Cedar's index finger with his other hand.

With that finger, he deletes Dawn's final messages, forever.

And thus, they both lie quietly, side by side, one in blissful slumber, the other in torment. As the night deepens and the forest grows quieter, the ghost is faced with an abrupt question.

How much of Cedar's pain will be reduced, if in his memories, a ghost named July never existed?

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A U G U S T
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"Do you know, dear Rain, that living is a greater punishment than dying?"

Moon had been right. The words that left her mouth were always twisted, abhorrent, laced with deep hatred towards the world—but perhaps, for the same reason, they carried truth within them. It always awed Rain, how miserable that girl was, to have all these outlooks. But at this point of his life, he knows it best.

"What's got you so lost in thought?" Nova, who he calls as Hui within the walls of this RV, asks in a bored tone. She puts the ointment back into the First-Aid Box and closes the lid.

Rain looks from the tubbed plant sitting by the small RV window to her. She is bathed in the glow of the purple fairy lights hanging from the ceiling. He leans his temple against the wall. His face is still stinging from the hoard of punches that boy threw at him in a fit of much justified rage. "Today, after everything that happened, I can't help but wonder  . . . why you're still here, despite seeing what an object of hatred I have become to people. Or if I go back in time, why you came all the way here with me, and stayed this whole time. Why, after everything I have done, you are still sitting here bandaging my wounds."

She snorts, rather dismissively.

But Rain pushes on. "I wonder if it's because you have nowhere else to go. Or because you pity me. Or because you don't want to be alone. Or something like that."

She doesn't reply for a long time. She does that quite often. Back when they had first started talking, Rain thought that it must be because she was busy translating her thougts from Korean to English in her head, given how it's been only a few years since she came here. And whenever he would tell her his flirty jokes, she would take extra time to reply, and he would assume it's because she felt flustered.

But it's none of that. She simply puts a lot of thought into every word she speaks. She is someone who deeply understands the weight words can carry.

In the end, she says, "Gajae-neun ge pyeoni-ra."

Must be a Korean saying. She quotes them often, and he is used to it by now. Her father was a schoolteacher back in Seoul, and his subject was Korean literature. Naturally, she learned these from him. Rain likes it when she quotes them. So he smiles and asks, "Meaning?"

She throws the patches of cotton into the dustbin. "The crayfish sides with the crab."

She gets up from the chair and lies down on the bed, his gaze following her. "Does that mean something along the lines of . . . birds of same feather flock together?" This was like a little game of theirs. Hui would throw a word or a proverb, and Rain would try to explain it, or connect it with one existing in English.

"Bingo," she says.

He bites the inside of his lip. "Are you comparing yourself with me? Don't. Hwiyoung, you are so much better than me."

"It doesn't matter. At this point."

But it does, to him. In these three years, he hasn't loved anyone else, nor has he wanted to be loved by anyone else. But he is well-aware that love is the last thing he deserves in this lifetime, and hence he was ready to leave it all behind. And yet, at the last moment, she followed him, saying, "Take me with you, I want to be free."

Now, after all this time that they've been together, Rain still doesn't know whether there is an ounce of love for him in her heart. She has never concealed her distaste towards his actions, and she will constantly remind him of it too. But some nights they will make love and she will cry, and he wouldn't know what to say to comfort her. A strange, undefinable bond exists between them, tying them together with a rope amidst the bridge of life. And not knowing how she feels about this bizarre situation, always leaves him in a state of unrest.

"Come to bed," she says, breaking him out of his thoughts. She is lying on her back, eyes closed."We need to go to work tomorrow. You need rest."

Wordlessly, he goes and lies down beside her, like always. The bed is too small for two people, they're always packed too close together. When she found out the whole truth of everything he had done to Hale, he thought that she would never want to come this close to him again. But while her attitude towards him changed to a great extent after that, this aspect didn't. The warmth of another person's body is a privilege no one wants to give up.

She opens her eyes and turns her face sideways, meeting his. She observes something for a while before saying, "Umm, he really made sure you look nothing like Hale anymore."

"I didn't think he had it in him," Rain jokes.

"Me neither. But that's how rage works." She turns back to the ceiling. "And he, uh, had his eyes closed while doing it. Hale must've meant a lot to him."

He puts his hand under the pillow, eyes on her jawline. "I have no doubts Hale was in love with him. He has everything Hale would appreciate in a person."

She was silent for a moment, before saying, "If you had been a better brother, maybe Hale could have met him someday."

The words stab him in the chest, but he knows he deserves them. He doesn't say anything in response, so she turns sideways, her back facing him now. He stares unblinkingly at it for a long time, his mind blanked out to paper whiteness.

And then, he says, "I meant what I said earlier. You are so much better than me, Hui."

No reply.

"And you deserve so much better than me too. If one day, you find a good person with whom you can stay in happiness and comfort, then I will truly be happy for you, Hui."

He hears a sigh from her. She mutters something under her breath in Korean, and from the manner of speaking, he knows it's a series of swears.

In English, she only says, "Go to sleep."

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8 April, 2022

How have you all been? Sorry for my inactivity. Personally, it's been a long time since I have been able to enjoy any peace of mind, and perhaps that's also affecting my creative processes. I've been writing a lot less frequently these days, which is also contributing to my mental unrest. I sincerely hope things are better in your side.

I noticed that the number of reads in the last chapter are significantly higher than the previous three. Since the four chapters were published within short intervals of time, I hope this doesn't mean that a lot of people skipped those three chapters accidentally. I already found one person who did that. If that's the case, I would suggest to go read chapters 38, 39, and 40 when you have time.

Thank you so much for sticking around. See you soon.

— love, Poma