Donghae

                “How many times do I have to tell you?” I tried to smile, but I couldn’t quite make my face muscles move in that way. I was just so tired. I don’t know when it happened, but I had become worn out from all of this. We still had so much left to do, and yet I was beginning to wish that I was never involved. It’s a bad thing to think, I know, but it’s only human. Right?

                He didn’t answer me, but he nodded and looked away instead. The rest of the ride was quiet. I almost thought it was going to end perfectly, until we came across a roadblock. A very large roadblock indeed – and I’m not speaking hypothetically either, I meant it literally. A few cars in front of me I could see a few flashing lights and several of those wooden orange and black road blocking things were set up too. I slowed down and followed the cars because I didn’t know what it could be. I was hoping that it was just a car accident that they had to create a detour from and not something that could be detrimental to us.

                “Are you seeing this, Hyuk?” I asked.

                “Yeah. What do you think it is?” He sounded worried.

                “It had better be a car crash.”

                “Me too, Donghae, me too.”

                We were almost at the scene of the disaster waiting to happen, and that’s when everything became clear to me. It was a police set up and they were stopping every car. My grip tightened around the steering wheel and I clenched my teeth. We were the next car to move up to be checked, and we were definitely going to get caught and sent off to jail for the rest of our lives.

                I rolled to a stop beside an officer in a bright vest. I rolled down the window and leaned out a little bit so I could hear him speak.

                “We’re just doing a routine check for drunk drivers.” The policeman said in his gruff voice. He squinted as he glanced into our car.

                “Isn’t all this a bit too much for an alcohol check?” I asked him, trying to make myself sound normal and composed.

                “Yeah, well, can never be too careful. So, where are you coming from?” The officer looked me up and down and then looked to the passenger’s seat. In that moment, I was so glad that we had decided to take off our jackets before driving. If he had seen the blood…

                “Oh we were just at the park about a kilometer or two down from the University. It’s not that cold today.”

                “I see. Did you have any alcoholic drinks today?”

                “No sir,” I smiled and he nodded. He said I could be on my way. “Have a nice day then.” I said as I drove off.

                I let out a huge sigh of relief. I was almost going to pull over because I was so relieved that nothing happened. It was a miracle that we got through that without anything going wrong.

                “Jeez, I almost threw up back there!” He said to me, and I could feel it in his voice that he was the same as me. It only added to my happiness that he was starting to sound normal again.

                “We’re gonna get through this. You and me.” I held his hand almost the entire way there, worried that he would slip back into despair if I were to let go.