The sentence seemed to transform, the words morphing into something dark, into a shadow that blotted out the sun that was filtering through the leaves and dappling onto the table, a shadow that twisted and turned and reached out with its dark tendrils to embrace them, encircling them in a trap from where it was impossible to go back, impossible to escape.

 "W-what?" He managed. 

The younger boy refused to meet his eyes. "You heard what I said, hyung."

Byunghee shook his head in disbelief. "What do you mean? All those years that we spent together, all the things we shared - you just want him to forget? He'll be missing out on so much of his life -"

"Didn't he choose to, though?"

"- what?"

Cheolyong twisted his hands in his lap. "Isn't it that when someone gets amnesia, the things that they forget tend to be experiences that caused them pain ? The doctors said that even though hyung had gotten injured in the crash, he shouldn't have forgotten that much because there wasn't enough damage to make him forget that much, so they had thought that along with the amnesia caused by the concussion, there was also some psychological amnesia caused by emotional trauma tied in as well." He sighed. "People say that the brain blocks out things they don't want to remember."

"But - "

"And after all, I don't think I can blame him very much, hyung. After all ..." Cheolyong sighed and stared at the ground. 

Byunghee stared. "Even so ... even if they come with pain, memories of good things, things that were good - aren't they something you want to keep?" 

"It's because they come with pain that people would want to forget them, hyung." The maknae turned his head to look at him directly, and Byunghee faltered slightly at the look in his eyes. "Better to forget everything, good along with the bad, isn't it?" 

"Cheolyong ..."

Cheolyong played with the hem of his shirt.

"Also, hyung ..." 

Byunghee looked at him cautiously. "Yes?"

"Why are you still defending them?" 

"Why am I still - huh?" Byungheee blinks. Cheolyong continues to stare at him unrelentingly, and his face doesn't change when he says, "You know who I'm talking about, hyung. We weren't just talking about Seungho hyung, when we talked . Were we?"

He can't avoid those eyes any longer. Byunghee sighs, and the all too familiar heaviness in his heart returns. "Okay." 

"Did you forgive them?" 

"Look, Cheolyong - I wish I could say that I did, and that I know what I want to feel, but -" he cuts off, the words thick and heavy and foreign in his throat. "I can't help but to blame them, a little. To be honest. And at the same time, I know that they just did what they thought was going to be better for them. I don't hate them, I never could ... I think." 

The maknae's fingers still, and he doesn't say anything in reply. 

He tries not to, but Seungo still thinks of Byunghee and Cheolyong as strangers. He can't help it - when he sees their faces, something inside him flickers, and he thinks, I'm supposed to know them. But he doesn't, and the images in his memory are faint, transparent, and he's not sure whether they're even real. 

Even so, when they leave, he feels lonely. 

I brush myself off and get up
As much as I suffered, you just watch

He sees a stage, lit bright with colours, on the screen. Five figures. 

Five? 

There's the stinging inside his chest. Like pain, only he doesn't know why. 

Why pain? 

"And you?" 

Did you forgive them? 

Cheolyong bites his lip, and Byunghee recognizes the turmoil crashing inside the younger boy's mind. "Wait, it's okay, you don't need to -" 

"I don't." 

Byunghee trails off into silence, then blinks, startled. "What?" 

"I don't." His voice is wavering and quiet, unsteady, but there's an undertone of resoluteness that Byunghee doesn't know how to feel about. 

Just at the thought of you,
my body shakes
I can’t forgive you
From now on –

He can recognize the feelings bubbling up inside him now. 

He doesn't like them at all. 

Bitterness. Anger. Nostilagia, almost, laced with betrayal and upset and confusion. 

And the whole time, the same question remains in his head. 

Why? 

"It was fine for them," Cheolyong carries on, his shoulders hunched, not meeting Byunghee's eyes. "They left. They didn't have to see what - what we were like afterwards. They didn't have to suffer through all those months of putting on fake smiles and pretending everything was fine." 

"Cheolyong -"

"They didn't have to realize that our home suddenly wasn't our home anymore," the younger boy said vehemently. "They didn't have to know that they caused it. They didn't have to wake up every morning and realize that things were changed, and that none of - none of us really knew what to do anymore. They weren't the ones being abandonned, they -" 

Byunghee started forward anxiously. "Cheolyong, stop. It's okay, don't -"

You pretended not to know and told me to forget it all
I trusted you, you were my friend –
How could you do this to me?

The video was now on a small corner of the screen, still playing, but his attention now was on the comments below. 

Some talked about the performance. Some talked about still being A+, despite the amount of time that had passed. 

Some talked about the way things used to be before. 

Some talked about two members called Joon and Cheondung, who were not members anymore. 

The pain was building, slowly. 

"- don't cry, please." 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N: I'm back again ^_^ 

(If any of you are still sticking with this story, thank you!! I'll do my best to finish it well :))) 

(Honest MBLAQ's MVs and performances and their lyrics are beautiful ;__;)

I do have more or less a plan for the next chapter, which is good. 

See you guys next time ^_^