As he patted his face dry, he stared at himself in the mirror. There were bags underneath his eyes from the lack of sleep from the past couple of days, and he could even see a few grey hairs in his overgrown spikes. He groaned and rolled his eyes at the discovery, yet bitterly mused that Julia had caused it all and decided on redying his hair red later.

Despite the distractions, he was reluctant to go back into the living room. He could, however, already faintly smell mint from the kitchen mingling in with the perfumey soap aroma in the bathroom, and he slung his towel back around his neck before shutting off the lights and exitting.

He shuffled slowly back to Julia's room to get a clean shirt, feeling somewhat better. However, he still had a heavy weight on his shoulders. He flipped on the light to her room, entered, then headed over to his duffle bag in the corner. Taking his time, Hwoarang dug through until he found a short sleeve plaid flannel shirt and threw it on, not bothering to button it yet. He then straightened up and headed towards the door.

As always, he stopped at the mirror.

This time, though, he studied each picture carefully, as if trying to find some kind of key to what Julia had said. He found himself idling wondering exactly what was he supposed to believe in as he looked over each picture of Jin and himself. Hwoarang chuckled maliciously as he noted that Jin seemed to have so much more presence than he in every photo. He loved the irony; Jin had always been obsessed with death, a subtly morbid, sick fuck who yet was more vibrant because of his fascination with mortality.

And now here that sick fuck was, immortalized in a pink and lacey shrine in some girl's bedroom.

Hwoarang's grin grew, and he glanced down at the a the top of the dresser. Something caught his eye, however, and he blinked and looked back down. He frowned.

He had never bothered to notice what Julia kept on there. Of course, at the surface, it looked like any other young girl's dresser, covered in trinkets and neat little baskets. At one side, a mirrored tray sat, covered with bottles of perfume, yet he spied a prescription medication bottle. He gingerly picked it up.

It was still half full, and the issue date was well over a year old. His frown deepened as he read label. Valium. He figured that she must had had problems sleeping after the murder, and he shrugged it off. Carefully, he set the bottle back down.

Admist the bottles and baskets was an old cigar box. He recognized it, mostly since Julia had carried it around like it was a bible when they were teenagers. A dog-eared corner of some kind of paper stuck out from it, which he had never seen the box like that; it had always been kept closed neatly.

The smell of mint was getting stronger, and Hwoarang clicked the roof of his mouth with his tongue as he stared down at the little cardboard box. It was so tempting to open it, yet he felt like he was violating part of what was left of his friendship with Julia already. He glanced over at the door and stretched, getting ready to leave. Yet, he looked back at the box and cringed.

"Aw, fuck me," he mumbled as he picked it up and flipped over the lid.

He blinked and picked up the photo that was lying in there.

It was of Jin no less, but the photo had been carved into with some kind of utensil, and the emulsion had been scratched away in some places. The photo, he recalled, had used to be on the mirror. It was the one of him shirtless, yet now horns had been scratched on to his forehead and wings protruded from his back. There were a few little drawings around him of archaic symbols and some writing, which he couldn't translate. Jin's face was also scribbled out and where his eyes would had been, the paper had been punctured completely through.

Hwoarang bit his bottom lip then gently set the photo on the dresser. There was one other item in the box, which he also recognized. It was the gold chain that Julia always wore with the weird Aztec coin charm and the ring that Jin had given her on it.