He's still being interviewed.

It's hours after we got told the news, and we have arrived in the police station.

And Minho is still being interviewed.

We can see him when we peek through the tiny window the room has. His hands are cuffed together as if they are already sure he's dangerous. His eyes are on the table as a woman speaks to him, but he doesn't reply. He remains silent.

And he looks so broken that I just want to break inside that room and hug him and bring him home instead of here. He just lost... whatever Evie was from him— why the fuck is it expected that he can normally answer questions?

Every time he does open his mouth to speak, he soon closes it again. I think he will start crying if he says more and I don't remember ever seeing Minho cry, meaning that he certainly won't cry in public right now either.

I also heard the woman who called the police and an ambulance. She was also being interviewed. I kind of overheard them. Pretended I needed to go to the bathroom but actually stopped by their door to listen.

She said she heard screams for help and loud sobs. In the crying boy's arms, she said, lay a girl who was barely conscious, blood soaking her clothes. She called an ambulance as fast as she could, then ran over to the duo.

She tried to touch the girl. To check if she was still alive. To see if she could do anything, but the boy refused to let go of the girl. And he sat there, crying and apologizing and moving her hair out of her face until she got taken away from him, into the ambulance.

But the woman heard, as she expected, the doctor say the girl was dead. The boy had tried to run off, still crying, but the police caught him before he even made it off the beach, and then they sent him away. The woman herself got taken to the station in another car.

"Hey," I snap at the woman who also assisted me when Vi was missing that night. "Take him out of that room. He clearly isn't ready to talk. He just watched his... the love of his life die. Do the interview another time."

"Please remain calm an—"

I hate this woman. I hate this freaking place. Why won't they ever listen?

"No," I cut her off. "Take him out of that room before I do it myself. Even if it's just for a minute."

Her face is a bit annoyed as she walks up to the door, speaks to the interviewer inside, and then turns to me. "Five minutes. We just need his memory to be as clear and real as possible."

"Of course. I mean, not like one he loved just died. That's life, isn't it? Clear and real," I answer.

Before she can say anything else, I attack Minho with a hug the second he slumps out of the room.

At first, he doesn't move at all. I wrap my arms tighter around him and I rub his back, but he stays with his head towards the ground.

Then I realize his hands are cuffed, so he can't really hug me. But he does bury his face in my neck, so that's something.

"Hey," I greet below my breath. I'm not sure what else to say, so I just keep hugging him.

"Hi," he mutters, so quietly that I barely hear it.

"Just answer whatever they ask and then you can go home. You got this," I encourage, also speaking quietly.

"I'll start sobbing."

"So start sobbing."

"No, but like—" he takes a breath. His exhale is a choked cry, the same sound Vi made. "Fuck this, man. Why can't anything go well? What did we do that— that made the world so cruel?" Then he begins sniffing, and I soon feel hot, wet tears against my neck.

"I don't know," I reply. "But yeah, fuck this."

First Mr. Keller, then Teresa, the shit with Mr. Leadford and Janson, my grandparents trying to ruin my life, and now my friend's life in pieces just when he glued them all together. Like a card house that falls apart just when you add the last card.

I feel the tears form in my eyes at all those memories, too. And Minho crying against me doesn't make anything any better— other people crying often makes me want to cry, too. So I do that. I cry with him.

"Everything was perfect," Minho hiccups. "We had so many deep talks. She understood me. She listened, even after everything I did to her. She gave me a second chance I didn't even deserve. Why does she get punished? I was so happy. We kissed. We talked after that. I was about to confess like you all told me to, and- but she went to the bathroom first. Then we continued our walk, I was halfway through my story when that stupid thing fell down."

Then he's crying too hard to continue explaining. Curiosity is gnawing at me—what fell down?—but I let him be. Hug him until the officer takes him back to the room, where finally, Minho begins speaking.

I look behind me. Mom, who came with me, and Oliver are comforting Dahlia. Everyone else is at home. I was scared to leave Sage alone but Finn promised he'd keep both her and Aris in the living room with him. Plus, Dad came over to their house.

My mind is racing as I watch Minho speak. Something fell. Was that an accident or not? Did it have to do with the killer? What God are we even at? Ares, wasn't it? The God of war.

But if something fell down, Hephaestus fits better. He's the God of machinery and stuff like that. Did something mechanical fall?

But that would mean someone else got killed before Evie, I just don't know yet. Ares can't be missed.

Funny. Ares and Aris. So alike yet not at all. I cannot imagine Aris fighting. Neither with his fists nor a weapon. So he can't be the killer, right? It doesn't even fit him.

Anyway— Minho walks out of the room followed by the officer who interviewed him. His head is down again, face almost emotionless.

The officer tells another officer something before she steps over to Dahlia, Minho still at her side. "I'm sorry, but we cannot allow him to go home just yet. Things are too unclear. We're going to need more bystanders to tell us what they saw and the owner of—"

Dahlia starts yelling things in Korean that I do not understand. And even if I did understand, I don't think I would've repeated her words. She is furious.

I think she's saying what we're all thinking; the poor boy just lost someone who was very important to him and he doesn't even get to rest or grieve?

So a few minutes later, Dahlia has somehow convinced them to let Minho go home. All of us get in the car. Minho sits to the left of me, and Oliver on the right of me. The two moms sit in the front.

"Explain," Dahlia says, her tone softer than usual, but still a bit commanding.

"We were walking and things fell down onto her," Minho murmurs.

And that's all. All he says.

"What kind of things fell down on her?" Mom wonders. She reaches a hand out to Minho.

He shrugs. I can tell he isn't sure where to look. He doesn't want to make eye contact with anyone, so he debates whether the ground or outside is better. His eyes now and then switch between the two. "A crane crashed," he mumbles.

A crane?

How did that... a machine like that is enormous! They don't just crash for no reason.

Someone sabotaged the crane, didn't they?

Hephaestus and his machinery.

"The things it was holding fell down or something," Minho mumbles. He's now staring at his hands as he fidgets with them. "A— eh," and he begins sniffing again, "a hammer fell onto her shoulder. She screamed. Fell down to the ground. It broke her bones. And then more and more fell down. I dragged her away, but it was too late. Too many things had hit her. I think it was the brick on her lungs that did it."

I almost wince at the image of a brick falling down from at least hundred fifty feet, straight onto my lungs while I was already lying on the ground. I don't think you can survive that kind of hit.

That hammer must've been the worst pain, too.

"And... and there was another brick, onto her leg." He presses his palms to his eyelids, voice becoming shaky. "And more things fell around us and it hit me too but I didn't care because I just needed to get her safe but I was too late and now she's dead and I don't know what to do anymore because why do they tell me about the sidewalk rule but not about the fact that bricks are falling down onto her side of the path and- and—" and his sobs return.

It's painful to watch. My heart aches just hearing the story and his sobs. And all I can do to help him is wrap a gentle arm around him.

☯︎︎

"My girl," her grandma cries, her hands shaking uncontrollably as she hands me the cup of tea I didn't even ask for. All I came for was to make sure she was okay, which she obviously isn't. And I'm not either. But I'm also not in the same pain as this woman is, so I can't complain.

"My sweet baby," she murmurs. "Oh, my girl," and it continues until the tears are also standing in my eyes.

"I have no idea who you are," she then says, "but thank you. Showing up already means a lot."

I nod, at a loss of words.

"How's the boy? Minho?"

"Eh. Not very well," I say.

Before I left, Minho shot awake from a nightmare. Dahlia didn't want to leave him alone so he chose to sleep on the couch while Finn slept on a big chair and the parents sat in the kitchen, even though it's five AM in the morning right now. I think Minho's nights will be sleepless for the following days, unfortunately.

"Let him know he's always welcome here," she says. With a napkin, she debs her tears away, even though they don't stop coming. "Oh, this must be a dream," she sobs. "My sweet girl was so young. So beautiful. So alive. It can't be true, can it?"

I swallow, hard. I don't know what to say.

"I was supposed to go first," the grandma says. She blows her nose into the napkin. "And then my girl would either live here, peacefully on her own at eighteen, or, if I left earlier, she'd go with a friend. Any friend at all. And she was supposed to get all my pretty belongs..." more sobs. "All the beautiful golden jewelry I kept for her. Safe for her in the little box she painted as a kid. All for my girl."

I can't do this.

And I didn't even know Evie that well. Imagine what it's like for this woman. For Minho. For Sage.

"I'm sorry, kid," she then tells me.

"It's okay," I say.

"I don't want to bother you. It's just very nice someone came around. I mean, the police left after they made sure I was okay. They'd come back in the morning."

"Will you be okay?" I ask. "Can you take care of yourself?"

"Well, it's a little hard to get up the stairs and all I am able to make in the kitchen right now is tea, but I'll survive," the old woman says.

"It's a weird proposal, but there's an extra room in my house. Or you can take my room— that bed is higher. Easier to climb out of. I don't want you to be left alone with a loss like this. I live across Viviette and Minho, with my parents. They're always open to help."

For a while, she hesitates as she lets some more tears fall. Then slowly, she begins nodding. "I think I'd really like that, love."

"Okay," I reply, blinking tears away. "I'll get it all done."