Lawli: See, I told you there would be an epilogue! I bet you didn't believe that it would be out so quickly... Not that I blame you, I am just about the slowest updater in the world.

Anyways. This is my attempt at a sort-of, could-be happy ending. After the way things went last chapter, the remaining boys needed one.

Everything in life happens for a reason.

Sometimes, it's hard to really tell what that reason is at first. Sometimes, it seems unfair, or cruel, or unbearable. Sometimes you think that there is no reason it all, that things just happen – whether you're a good person or a bad person, whether you think you deserve it or not. And you think, maybe they happen to test your faith, to make you stronger... maybe they happen just to break you.

For a long while after Ryou's death, I believed strongly in the latter. Because certainly nothing good came after that. I didn't feel stronger; I didn't feel some restored sense of faith in God or in anyone else.

I didn't feel... anything.

Ryou's funeral was held on a rainy afternoon, the mood reminiscent of that night in the alleyway. It filled me with bitterness, and I couldn't watch as they lowered the casket into the damp earth. I left.

Shortly afterwards, I received a message by mail from Malik. It was short, and I didn't really get anything out of it other than another ounce of heartache. He didn't tell me where he was going, or how long he would be gone – if he was ever even planning on returning, if he ever even wanted to see me again. Simply the letter read, I am returning to where it began.

I didn't know where it began, or even what 'it' was.

Aside from the letter, he made no other attempts to contact me. After trying and failing to reach him via cell phone several times, I made no other attempts to contact him in return.

Life went on, I suppose.

I spoke at the trial against Alexander Tetsuo. It was the least I could do, for Ryou and Malik both. He was charged with pre-meditated murder and sent to jail, though I'm sure with all of his money he managed to somehow make bail or at the very least shorten his sentence.

I tried to move on in my love life, dating a few people but never finding someone I could even consider settling down with. No-one could compare to Malik. No-one could compare to Ryou, whom I'm still not sure what my feelings for were – if it was an odd experience of love-at-first sight or something more trivial than that. But if it was something more trivial, I don't think I'd use him as a pillar for other potential lovers to stand up against.

Whenever it would rain – and in England, it rained frequently – I would visit his gravesite. Because I know Malik wouldn't want it to be neglected, I know he would always want for there to be fresh flowers and a prayer said for his sake.

Things remained this way for a while.

Eventually I did manage to find a steady boyfriend. A handsome one, with pale skin, blonde hair, and dark brown eyes that I often found myself lost in. He's kind, soft-spoken but feisty when he wants to be. Gentle in bed, but not without his kinks.

He makes me happy, sometimes. He makes me forget how much I've lost, where I could have been, who I could have been with, sometimes.

But most of the time when I'm with him, especially when I'm with him in bed, I picture someone else's face in place of his own. And I finally know what Malik had been going through, whenever we made love and he wanted to be making love to Ryou instead of me. It makes me feel guilty, it makes me hate myself, the fact that I'm doing that same thing to another person even though I know how much it hurts to be on the receiving end of that.

"Garrett, do you really love me?" he asks occasionally, and I can see in his mocha eyes that he knows. He knows.

We've been engaged for two years now.

"Of course I do," I always answer, and he accepts the lie, and we both go on with the charade of a relationship knowing fully well that it is truly nothing more than that.

Despite the good times, it was unfulfilling for both us. But we stuck with it anyways, stuck together. Because he didn't expect he could get any better, and neither did I. There was no-one else who would stay with me while knowing fully well it was not them I was in love with, and he lacked the self-esteem to find someone who might actually love him in return.

Life went on.

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On early April morning, there was a knock on his door.

Garrett, still not fully awake, got up from the kitchen table after glancing in his fiancé's direction and finding the other man engrossed in the newspaper. Coffee cup still in hand, he sluggishly made his way to the door, bare feet making soft pitter-patter sounds that echoed through the hallway.

Upon opening the front door, Garrett was greeted with a ghost from the past. A handsome ghost, with dark skin and bleach-blonde hair, with lavender eyes that seemed far too old for a person too young – as if they had seen too much.

The coffee cup crashed to the floor, shattering.

The two stared at each other, wordless. Malik shifted uncomfortably in the doorway, about to meet Garrett's eyes and then deciding otherwise and reverting them to the ground.

After a full minute of silence – and someone calling Garrett's name, which Garrett himself didn't even respond to – Garrett stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

"Hi," he greeted softly.

And the fact that he was actually speaking to him must have restored a small bit of Malik's courage, for the Egyptian raised his head, allowing their eyes to finally lock. "Hi," Malik answered.

"I was wondering if you'd ever come back."

A tiny smile twitched at the corners of Malik's lips, one that Garrett found himself mirroring. "I'm surprised I actually came back. But..." his voice trailed off, but Garrett didn't need for him to finish. He understood the words left unspoken.

I missed you.

"You want to go somewhere?"

Garrett was surprised by the question. Nervously, he looked back at the house he shared with his fiancé, who was probably still reading the newspaper, unaware of just who was standing outside the door.

It didn't take him very long to answer.

"Yes."

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Everything in life happens for a reason.

Sometimes, it's hard to really tell what that reason is at first.

Sometimes things seem too good to be true. Sometimes you think you don't deserve it –those good things - because of the awful things you've done, the people you've hurt.

And you think, maybe they happen to pull you back from the edge, to remind you that even when you think all is lost, it's not.

Sometimes they happen to save you.

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Things aren't working out.

-- Garrett.

THE END