The house had been quiet for three months. Not the kind of quiet that happens when everyone's asleep. Not the comfortable quiet of a Sunday afternoon. This was the kind of quiet that suffocated. The kind that made the walls feel like they were closing in. The kind that made five grown men sit in the same living room and still feel completely alone. The diary was still on the coffee table. No one had moved it. No one had the heart to. It had been Y/N's. Their little sister. The youngest. The only girl. The one who made the house loud, who started food fights at dinner, who screamed from upstairs just to ask someone to bring her water, who called them her five knights and meant it. Stage 4 cancer. Ten months of fighting. Five months longer than the doctors gave her. And then, one Tuesday morning in September, she was gone. James hadn't cried at the funeral. He was the oldest. He had to be strong. But he hadn't slept in weeks. He kept waking up at 3 a.m. expecting to hear her footsteps in the hallway. Martin hadn't made a joke in three months. The house was too quiet without her laughing at them. Keonho had stopped swimming. He couldn't stand the water anymore. It reminded him of the days he'd spend at the pool while Y/N sat on the bleachers, yelling at him to go faster. Juhoon had read every book on grief he could find. None of them helped. He still caught himself looking at her empty chair at the dinner table. Sean had read the diary. All of it. Cover to cover. He was the one who found it under her pillow, the night before the funeral. He hadn't told anyone at first. He couldn't. But tonight, they were all here. Sitting in the living room. The diary open on the table. Sean's voice still echoing in their ears from where he'd just read the last page out loud. "This is not a goodbye because I'll always be in your hearts. I love you all!"

No one spoke.

Keonho broke first. A quiet sob. Then Martin looked away, jaw clenched. Juhoon lowered his head. James walked out of the room without a word.

And Sean just stared at the diary.

That was it. The last page. The end of her story.

Or so they thought.

---

Three hours later.

The front door opened.

No knock. No warning. Just the slow creak of the hinges and the sound of footsteps against the hardwood floor.

Sean was still in the living room, alone now. He didn't look up. He thought it was James coming back from his walk. Or Martin getting water. He didn't care.

But the footsteps stopped right in front of him.

And then he heard her voice.

Y/N: "You guys really read my diary? That's kind of embarrassing, not gonna lie."

Sean's blood ran cold.

He looked up.

And there she was.

Standing in the middle of the living room. Wearing that same white tank top and plaid bucket hat from the last photo they ever took together. Looking tired. Thinner. But alive.

Sean: (barely a whisper) "Y/N?"

Y/N: She gave him a small, tired smile. "Hey, Kuya—" She stopped herself, shaking her head with a soft laugh. "Sorry. Force of habit. Hey, Sean."

Sean: "No. No, no, no. You're not— You died. We buried you. I read your—"

Y/N: "I know." Her voice was gentle. "I know what you read. I wrote it. I meant every word." She took a step closer. "But I guess the doctors were wrong. They said ten months.I gave them five."