"Thank you." Soobin accepts the glass of water with a grateful nod. they sit around in the police lobby, waiting for any news. Hiro had come to them a few seconds ago and asked if they could follow him to the break room.

the three of them sit at the very far back corner of the room around a small rounded table that is tilting slightly to the left. Yeonjun drinks his water eagerly and sets the glass aside.

Hiro puts his elbows on the table and intertwines his fingers together; locking and pulling knacks from his hands. "Our detective, Fuma had detected a suspect on our drive in the woods. The suspect drove into a nearby lake in an attempt to escape." he says and his eyes narrow down. "Jack Harrison, a professor in your college has been missing for over a month now."

"Right," Soobin confirms, not sure where the conversation is going.

"What's interesting is, he is the suspect Fuma had caught tonight. We found a gallon of benzine in his car and traces of blood in his trunk."

Yeonjun blinks twice, comically. He looks at Soobin and Soobin looks at him; baffled. They turn their gaze to Hiro and Soobin shakes his head briefly and rests his hands on the tipping table. "I'm not sure we're following," he says. "Mr. Harrison is dead." he reminds Hiro then tilts his head to the side subtly and scratches the back of his neck. "... No?"

"Him being in the interrogation room, alive and breathing says otherwise." Hiro's face is blank.

Soobin licks his lips and looks down, unknowing just what to say. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. "This is crazy," he mutters.

With tightened lips and tense jaw, Hiro inspects the two of them, looking back and forth between Yeonjun and Soobin before rubbing his mustache with two of his fingers. "Now," he begins. "The blood is currently being tested but we are almost certain it belongs to your friend, Kai Huening. Jack's car even has a tend on its front suggesting he was the one crushing into the black Cadillac. The question that lies here is, what relations did the two have?"

Soobin glances at Yeonjun and the other appears just as conflicted. The gears in his head are moving fast as Hiro watches them stay completely silent.

"Do you know anything?" he asks. "If you do, it's best to tell us."

"There was this recording-" Soobin blurts out and Yeonjun whips his head in his friend's direction; his eyes are speaking for themselves when they tell him to shut the hell up. Soobin shrugs; nudging his chin in the direction of Hiro as to say He's a cop, what do you want me to do?

Hiro's mouth twitches ever so slightly. "A recording?" he parrots.

Soobin nods. "We can give you the tape if you want- ow!" Yeonjun smacks his head. "What?!" he whisper-yells. "There is no point in hiding it anymore, Mr. Harrison is Alive, Hyung." he wriggles his eyebrow and stares at Yeonjun. Hoping he gets the message.

Soobin is right, there is no harm in handing the tape to the police now that they know Mr. Harrison is alive. At first, they thought Kai did in fact kill Jack because of the gunshot but now that Mr. Harrison resurfaced alive, it's entirely false.

They won't be incriminating Kai because there is no crime to be accused of.

Yeonjun's body relaxes in a way that lets Soobin know he finally got that into his head and he turns back to Hiro. "As I was saying... "He inhales. "It's a little difficult to explain what we heard in the recording so we'll hand it over so you can evaluate it yourself."

"Thank you, boys." Hiro pushes his chair back. "I'll send someone to pick up the tape, do you need a ride home?"

Soobin turns to Yeonjun. "Where to?" he asks.

"Beomgyu and Taehyun won't come back home tonight, I think. Let's go to mine for now." he looks up at Hiro. "A ride will be nice, thanks."

Hiro nods his head once and leaves the breakroom.

"I hope this wasn't a mistake." Yeonjun swallows.

Soobin hums. "Me too."

............................

It is quite nearly impossible to ignore the looks he gets as he walks to his biology class. Taehyun ducks his head and picks up his pace. He holds the strap of his bag with his hand, fixing it on his shoulder.

Just one more class and he'll be done for the day and then he'll take his car to the hospital like he did every day of the past week.

On his way to his class, he stops by the cafe and buys something sweet if only to avoid the 5 extra minute he'll have if he gets to the classroom early. Those 5 minutes that used to pass by fast are now something Taehyun avoids like fire.

He's more than happy to miss the newly hot topic around campus.

"One oatmeal cookie for Taehyun."

Taehyun takes the bag and exits the cafe's doors. He wraps his scarf around his neck and looks at the gloomy skies. He begins walking to building B while he's opening the paper bag and breaks his cookie in small piece, snacking on his way.

He chews and looks up from the wet grass to see Soobin jogging towards him and waving. He gives him a smile and waves with the cookie in his hand. "Hey," he says and Soobin slows down and starts walking beside him.

"Give me a bite." Soobin eyes his cookie, he opens his mouth. "Ahhh."

Taehyun rolls his eyes and gives him a chunky piece with almonds. "Are you done for today?"

Soobin nods with a mouthful. "You?

"Bio." Taehyun sighs.

They walk in silence, the wind tugging on their hair. The campus is busy during the start of the second semester; and students acclimating to their new schedules and courses.

"Were you at the hospital last night?" Soobin breaks the silence with a tentative question. He spares a glance at his best friend, trying to see past his attempts to appear fine.

The redhead clears his nose. "Umm- hmm. I was." he stammers and plays with the last piece of cookie in his hand, looking down. He raises his head and gives Soobin a small smile contrasting his sad eyes.

"How is he?"

Taehyun shrugs. "He's still on tranquilizers," he answers seemingly indifferent. "So," he drags the word on. "We don't know yet. Not for sure..."

"Tae."

"Yes?"

Soobin closes his eyes and sighs. "Are you okay?" he kicks a stray rock on the ground. "As in, not losing it."

Taehyun huffs. "Oh, I'm definitely losing it." he says. "Hyung, the last semester had been a disaster." he stops and looks at Soobin. "a true disaster. And not the one I was expecting... "he shakes his head. "I've never thought, that we would deal with... this." he exhales. "And now I'm supposed to start this semester like nothing had happened."

"But we know what happened," Soobin reassures him. "No one is expecting you to feel like we had a normal year."

"Well," Taehyun throws his hands in the air. "It kind of feels like it-"

"Hey!" a yell from behind stops their unprompted heart to heart conversation. Soobin turns around; his eyebrows are knitted together. He's upset to have finally had a breakthrough with Taehyun only to be interrupted by what seems to be one of the jocks on campus.

His mouth tightens. "What?" he says calmly, waiting for the tall, broad jock with buzzed hair and unhealed eyebrow piercing to reach them.

He strides over; looking more at Taehyun than Soobin. He takes off his baseball gloves and tucks them under his armpit. Following him, 2 other jocks show up. "Are you Kai Huening's friends?" he asks.

While Soobin struggles to answer that, Taehyun puffs his chest and looks into the jock's eyes. "Yes," he says proudly.

"I see he had dropped out like we asked."

Taehyun nose flares. "No, he hasn't," he argues. "Kai is just taking a break, he'll come back."

An expression of genuine surprise paints the jock's face to have got an answer to a question he thought he knew the answer for. It disappears and an arrogant expression follows "Oh, no he won't." he sticks his tongue and swipes his piercing on his bottom lip; scoffing. "You know him well, don't you?"

Soobin takes Taehyun's wrist in his hand. "Come on, Tae. Don't entertain this conver-"

"What if I do?" Taehyun tries to stand for his own but his voice comes out weak. "Can't you leave this matter alone?" he asks. "Why are you so invested in Kai? Are your lives too boring you have to dig in someone else's?"

"Tae," Soobin eyes the two other jocks. "Let's go."

"No, I'm not done." Taehyun takes a deep breath. "Kai w-will attend this college whether you like it or not... So," his palms turn sweaty. "Fuck off-"

Soobin drags him away just as the jock swings his fist and misses Taehyun's face. Taehyun stumbles on the grass but doesn't fall over thanks to Soobin's hand steadying him.

The guy goes for a second punch but Soobin already yanks Taehyun's hand and begins running away. "Come on!" he yells to his redheaded friend. "Run!"

Their shoes stump on the wet grass; sprinting to building B. Soobin looks back as he's running, his hair slaps on his forehead. Only 2 of the three jocks follow them.

Soobin busts through the doors to the building and Taehyun follows him. Thankfully there are too many people roaming in the halls for the jocks to do anything even if they catch up to them but Soobin takes no risks and presses the bottom for the elevator.

Panting beside him, Taehyun leans on the wall and catches his breath.

"You had to- "breath. "-Open your mouth... didn't you?"

".... My bad." Taehyun looks at his friend with an apologetic expression. The elevator opens and they walk inside.

Soobin throws him an indecent glare. "Seriously." he flicks Taehyun on the forehead. "What would you do without me?" he presses the button for the second floor.

"Get beaten up?"

"Yeah."

"... Yeah."

.........................

Taehyun gets the following messages in the middle of his class.

Beomgyu: Idk if you're still on campus or not but Kai woke up. I thought I should tell you in case you wanted to stop by.

Beomgyu: He's not talking much..

He shoots up from his seat so fast it drags on the floor loudly and everybody's eyes turn to him; he doesn't care. He picks up his bag, swipes everything on his table to his hands and a few things fall on the floor. He doesn't stop to pick them up and races through the door, ignoring the concerned calls from his professor on his way out.

It's raining out and the sun is already down making it hard to see the ground he runs on to get to the campus parking lot. He slips on the wet asphalt; facepalming into the mud. (not really)

Taehyun groans quietly and gets up; his pants are adorned with wet splotches and he's pretty sure he scraped his knees. He brushes the sting in his knees and walks fast to his car, leaving wet Biology notes on the ground behind.