“Who…who are you?”

Donghae feels his throat tighten as those words relentlessly echo in his mind. Looking to his side at the sleeping figure on the bed, everything comes back to him and threatens to kill his heart with so much pain. He wants to cry his chest out and even for a short while be freed of all the emotions burning within him, but he hears the sheets rustle and knows his body will not let him be anywhere else other than in that whitewashed room.

“H-hyung…” a sleepy voice calls.

“No. No, it’s…just me,” says Donghae in an equally gentle tone. He gets up from his seat to make eye contact with the other and, just as he had predicted, his heartbeat quickens at the sight. There lying on the bed, closely resembling the would-be male version of Sleeping Beauty, is Eunhyuk.

Of course, Sleeping Beauty had not woken up with bandages around the top of her head.

“Ah, it’s you,” says Eunhyuk with a small grin. “Donghae, isn’t it?” Donghae nods in answer which makes Eunhyuk’s smile widen. “How does it feel like having a name that means, ‘East Sea’?”

You’ve asked this before. “It’s okay,” replies Donghae with a shrug. “I can’t think of any other name that would suit me, anyway,”

“True,” says Eunhyuk. “You look a lot like a ‘Donghae’ to me,”

You’ve said that before, too.“Oh, hey, do you want to eat breakfast now?”

“Yes, please,” Eunhyuk watches Donghae as he goes to the kitchen-like part of the room to prepare the meal. Eunhyuk s for the bed remote and presses the button that raises the upper part of his body until he is sitting up at an angle. Donghae places a bed table right above Eunhyuk’s thighs and sits down next to it. Eunhyuk’s eyes widen the moment he sees the food. “Strawberries!” he says excitedly, grabbing one from the glass bowl on the table. He eats it whole and lets out a sound of satisfaction when the sweetness hits his taste buds. “It’s so sweet! Did Leeteuk-hyung bring them for me?”

Donghae shakes his head. “I brought them for you. My mom went crazy when she saw them at the market; she instantly had them delivered to my house and told me they were for you,”

“…Your mom knows me?” asks Eunhyuk while he nibbles on another strawberry.

More than you know.“Yeah, she does, and when she found out about the, uh, accident, she called to ask me which hospital you were rushed to,” I couldn’t talk, not through the tears and the guilt and the confusion, but she understood and let me take it all in first. Of course, how I was able to take everything at that time is still a mystery to me until now.

“I’d really like to talk to her and thank her for being so concerned,” says Eunhyuk. He looks down at his left arm which had been put in a cast. “Does she know about my condition?”

Donghae pauses to take a deep breath. The most difficult subject is being brought up, and he had not prepared himself to talk about it, especially not to Eunhyuk.

“She talked to the doctor right away after seeing you,” he begins. “She was, to say the least, devastated, and also…” She slapped me on the face and demanded why I had let things happen. I could’ve answered but I didn’t because defending myself would’ve been useless. What happened had happened, and my explanations would make nothing better. “She was the one who comforted your mom the most, aside from your dad. They’re good friends, our parents,”

Eunhyuk nods. He looks up at Donghae and his smile fades. “I’m sorry, Donghae,”

Donghae returns Eunhyuk’s gaze. “For what?”

“For forgetting you,”

~

“Why me? WHY ONLY ME?”

“No one knows, Donghae,” says Leeteuk. He puts both hands on either of Donghae’s shoulders. “Now just calm down. We’re still in a hospital, remember?”

“I don’t ing care!” shouts Donghae, freeing himself from Leeteuk’s gentle grasp. “Out of all people, out of the twelve members, then Henry and Zhou Mi, out of everyone he’s ever known in his life, why did he have to forget me?” The gravity of things hits him like a brick wall and he can barely breathe under the weight. He collapses on a chair and buries his face in his hands, sobbing.

Leeteuk, Shindong, and Yesung are at a loss for what to do. They had come to the hospital in hopes of seeing Eunhyuk, and though they had accomplished that part, they had not expected Donghae to be in an even worse state than he had been weeks ago while waiting for Eunhyuk to wake up. It may be true that everyone had rejoiced when Eunhyuk had first opened his eyes, but the words that had come out of his mouth after seeing Donghae had dissolved the cheerful spirit.

“You should know the reason why,” Heechul suddenly joins the conversation, a freshly-opened can of soda in his hand. Donghae looks at him with a frown. “It would make sense, actually, to say that you’re the only one he forgot because you were the last thing on his mind before the car crash,” Heechul stops in front of Donghae and kneels before him so their eyes are almost at the same level. “You two were arguing, weren’t you?”

“Heechul, that’s not your— ,”

“It is my business. It’s all of our business and you know it, hyung,” says Heechul without taking his eyes off of Donghae’s. “So, Donghae, I’m making nothing but assumptions here. Care to share some of your non-fiction with us?”

Donghae wipes his tears with the back of his hand and looks anywhere but at his fellow members. The memories are so fresh in his mind that he can hear Eunhyuk’s footsteps from that night in his ears…

~

One doorbell ring. Then two. Then a voice loudly saying his name once.

“What is it?” Donghae asks in irritation. He unlocks the front door of his apartment and flings it open only to be pushed roughly back inside. “Hey you—!”

“WHAT IS THIS?” Eunhyuk inquires, throwing a newspaper at Donghae’s face. He slams the door shut behind him. “You lied to me!”

Donghae scans the newspaper page and spots his name in a headline along with a certain female singer’s name and the term, ‘engaged.’ There is a short article below it and a paparazzi photo of a woman drinking wine and right next to it a blurry, zoomed in photo of her right hand bearing a shiny ring, the same one Donghae had shopped for two weeks prior.

“You chose her over me,” says Eunhyuk with a tone of pure disgust. “Do you even love her?”

Donghae puts the newspaper down. “I’ll learn to,”

“BULL!” shouts Eunhyuk. “You’re so full of crap, do you know that? How can you possibly—?” He stops mid-sentence as he recalls something Donghae had said in the past. He blinks back the tears and swallows painfully.

It couldn’t be.

“Is this…about having…your own children?”

Donghae does not answer. Instead, his overflowing tears speak for him.

The inside of Eunhyuk’s chest bursts. He knows that when Donghae cries while he’s being questioned, his answer is a big, fat yes. His entire world crumbles—had he not given the relationship his all? Had he not done everything to keep things intact? Had he not risked so much just for this one person?

“Had I not been enough for you?” he asks out loud before immediately running out of the place without looking back. No, you fool, you’ve never been enough. Tough luck you only realized that now. He gets to his car after a quick elevator ride and stays on the driver’s seat without doing anything for a few minutes. The relationship that had lasted for more than seven years is gone just like that. He wants it all to be a nightmare, something that he will wake up from at any moment, but he knows it’s reality when he feels his eyes stinging followed by warm droplets falling down his cheeks.

Nearly three hours later, Donghae receives the worst phone call of his life.

~

“It’s better this way,” concludes Heechul when Donghae finishes the story.

“What’re you talking about?” asks Yesung. “How is this better?”

“Donghae’s already suffering too much!” says Shindong angrily. “Nothing’s good about this situation!”

“Exactly why this is how things should be,” explains Heechul without batting an eyelash. “If Eunhyuk were to recall any of his memories of Donghae, he will be hurt, too, especially if he remembers why he’s here in the first place,”

“Well it can’t be helped,” says Leeteuk. “The doctor said that we can’t force Eunhyuk to get his memories back. He might not be able to recover in time if his mind becomes strained from trying. If he does remember, though…” He looks over at Donghae with a sad expression on his face. “None of us except Donghae should explain things to him,”

~

Donghae watches the others go in silence. When he can no longer see them, he goes back inside the room. Eunhyuk is opening some gifts he had received from the members and a number of fans (as much as the members could carry with them). He sits down on the small sofa present in the spacious room and contentedly watches Eunhyuk open presents like a child would on Christmas Eve.

“This is the shirt I wanted from that store!” says Eunhyuk with a gummy smile. “Sungmin-hyung is really awesome! Too bad he couldn’t come today, though,”

“He told that he’ll come around tomorrow afternoon,” says Donghae. “I’m sure he has an even better present for you then,”

“I’d rather see him. That would be better than any present he decides to give me,”

Donghae stands up and fetches himself a glass of water from the refrigerator. He settles back down on his seat when he hears a familiar sound. Looking at Eunhyuk once more, he sees him crying.

“H-Hyukkie?”

“I-I…I don’t know why…but I…this…” Eunhyuk cries to the point that he can’t speak properly anymore. Donghae goes to him and lets him cry on his chest. In a matter of seconds Eunhyuk’s body is racked with sobs. At first, Donghae cannot fathom what had upset Eunhyuk so greatly. Then, he spots one of the fans’ gifts: a hanging mobile composed of only three things that had been made with felt: an anchovy, a heart, and a clownfish.

Heechul had been right about Eunhyuk getting hurt. However, Donghae does not want to screw up for the second time, not if the consequence is as big as the one shaking in his arms. Things will get even messier, he knows, as time goes by, but he will not leave Eunhyuk again, not ever. He does the only thing he can at that moment: he embraces Eunhyuk tighter.

~

Eunhyuk tries to open his eyes but they feel heavy. He hears muffled voices around him. At last his eyelids give way to light and though he is blinded in the beginning, he adjusts to it and sees familiar faces. Why almost all of them are near tears he can’t tell, but his heart swells when he sees his dear leader Leeteuk and the other members behind him.

“Teukie-hyung,” greets Eunhyuk weakly. “And everyone, you’re here…Ah, but what—?”

“You were in an accident, Hyuk,” answers Leeteuk as though he could not wait to say it. “A terrible one,”

“Was I…drunk?”

Leeteuk nods solemnly. “But they got to you soon enough. You know, Donghae’s been watching you since you arrived here,”

“Wh—?”

“Hyukjae! Hyukjae! Are you AWAKE?” A baby-faced, brown-haired boy impatiently gets between Leeteuk and Sungmin who had been closest to Eunhyuk’s bed. He looks down at Eunhyuk and, when their eyes meet, his cheeks become tinted with a light pink color and his smile turns to that of pure fondness. “You are awake,”

“Eunhyuk, stop gawking and say something!” says Heechul, playfully hitting Eunhyuk on his free arm. “If not, we’re all going to die of mushiness here!” The members laugh.

Eunhyuk looks from Leeteuk and Heechul to the newcomer. His brain aches for a moment but he ignores it. Then, he asks the first question that comes to mind.

“Who…who are you?”