It's getting late, Eunhyuk notices. From the little window in the bathroom he can see the stars lightyears above, how they seem so insignificant to him. The house has quieted down, the wounds have stopped bleeding and the hand that is now slowly turning into a reddish brown color from drying blood rests on the boy's lap, limp and useless and as tired as he himself is. Eunhyuk has lost count of the times he has cried himself to sleep, but they do not count for the times his mother has done the same. However, they are all done for the same reason.

     The hatred Eunhyuk feels for his father, having being built up for many years, is finally starting to reach the limit and he fists his hand, tries to stop it from shaking but as it doesn't work he draws it back and punches it into the wall with bone-breaking force. He bites back his cries and lets his tears flow, sinks deeper into himself as he waits. Waits for anything, anything to save him from his father. From himself.

     Maybe Eunhyuk falls asleep or he's too exhausted to notice he's awake, either way, he quickly snaps awake when the front door downstairs opens and closes. Soon after light steps are heard from the staircase and Eunhyuk jumps up with hope.

     Sora.

     The steps have quieted down as Sora reached the second floor, and Eunhyuk doesn't waste another second in wondering why she is home already as he rushes out of his escape place and catches his sister by her door.

     "Give me the keys", he breathes and she jumps at the sudden appearance of her brother behind her back.

     "The keys? What keys?" Sora wonders for a moment but realization quickly flashes in her eyes. "I'm not going to loan my precious motorbike, mind you. It's my baby and you know it so be a good boy and--"

     "Please, Sora. This once, just please let me have it-- Even if you don't, I will leave this house and then I'll just have to walk or hitchhike and God knows what kind of ertic lowlife I'll run into and are you going to take the blame then?"

     She glares at him for a blink of an eye before sending the keys in the air with a flick of her finger. Eunhyuk catches the keys and turns away, leaving Sora unable to ask what has happened to his hand as he is already halfway down the stairs. She watches with a worried look as her baby brother steps out of the door and disappears from sight, a black leather jacket carelessly hanging over one shoulder and her helmet in his hand, shining like cat eyes in the night.

The streets in downtown Seoul are far from empty; they are full of people going for work and people coming from there, buses are driving their last shifts and are crowded with exhausted high schoolers and grumpy night shifters. In the midst of these a sleek figure races away from the world he knows and speeds into the life he wishes he had. He passes a car on his right and takes a sharp turn to the left right after in order to avoid crashing into a bus he failed to see.

     Suddenly he's on the wrong lane and cars are approaching him way too fast, lights are blinding bright and tires are screeching, drivers are honking their horns at the young biker boy and Eunhyuk just focuses on staying alive and does his best in trying to avoid contact with the car stream ahead. The bike seems to speed faster and faster and Eunhyuk fights the urge to close his eyes.

     Quicker than he expected he's driving alone on the road. Cars have stopped in red lights some fifty meters in front of him, the endless pack of cars is now a mess of crumpled bumpers and angry yells behind him, but this gives Eunhyuk plenty of space to move back on the right lane. His heart is beating faster than it has in ages. Maybe faster than it ever has, and the redhead finds this newly found feeling... thrilling, just simply good. Adrenaline rushes through his veins, and finally he's feeling alive. Inside the helmet his face breaks into a smile full of teeth and gums, a smile so wide it crinkles his eyes and wrinkles of an old man appear around the corners, and he laughs. 

     "Woohoo! Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, es! Yeah!"

     The wide street is starting to taper into a two-lane road. The Han river gleams in the nightlight as the road curves and turns into a bridge. Eunhyuk pulls up the zipper all the way to his chin. Skyscrapers paint the water blue and yellow. Further away, between two bridges, he sees stars on the blank surface. Dots like the last leaves in a tree in autumn they light up the pitch-black sereneness into a sky of its own. On the other side of the bridge Eunhyuk is driving on the water is pink.

     Pink water. Eunhyuk turns the bike a full 180 degrees and causes more chaos but he doesn't care. 

     The rail is cold under his hands. He flings the helmet over with a gleam in his eyes and watches it fall with ecstasy drawn all over his face. It lands with a splash and breaks the perfect blackness into a rippling mess of cotton candy pink. He laughs at the sight and takes off his jacket as if in a trance. The hum of the bike behind him, fallen over on the sidewalk, doesn't quite reach his ears when all he hears is the steady, strong thumping of his heart. He wonders what the water must feel like, the pink gleam is more than appealing. He can already feel the adrenaline in his veins and it's taking over, it's all about that feeling--this feeling exactly, it's all about living life when you're alive and feeling it in your fingertips and s and just as one leg is already over the railing--

     "I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

    Eunhyuk stops in his tracks and the trance breaks. Horror takes over his features and he isn't sure why he is so tremendously angry at the man standing behind him.

     "It might still be summer here, but that water down there", the man says and takes a long inhale of his cigarette before dropping the in the water below, "is still rather freezing. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's pretty much night already. And it's pretty cold too. The weather hasn't been that favorable during the last few days either, so I bet that that water, even though I'm no expert in these kinds of things, is, yeah, freezing."

     Eunhyuk turns to glare at the tall intruder after getting his composed mask back on. The man is tall and dressed in a grey Armani suit but manages to  make it look casual. He smokes but when he smiles his teeth and dimples are perfect. Eunhyuk stares with ignorant eyes and wonders why a rich man like him would care to stop someone from jumping off a bridge.

     "Is that your bike over there? Since your helmet is now lying at the bottom of Han I thought I could drive you home. What's your name?" the tall Armani man asks, and Eunhyuk decides that this was a good excuse to climb off the rail without looking like he wants to do so.

     "I don't care."

     Eunhyuk walks to his--Sora's--bike and lifts it up, his hand hurts like hell, Armani man watches with a furrow between his brows and just manages to yell, "You shouldn't do that!" and thinks he heard back a bored "Whatever".

     Pissed off. That's what Eunhyuk is. There's no peacock water or cotton candy swirls anywhere anymore, only the angry roar of  the motorbike and Eunhyuk's heavy breathing in the air. He lifts his hand to sweep away tears from his eyes and curses the intruder into the deepest hole of hell he can think of. Because he almost had it; for a moment he thought he felt that feeling again, for a fraction of a moment he thought he was alive. There was adrenaline in his veins, he could feel his heart beating--hell, he had even laughed, for real. He snorts in frustration and turns the accelerograph. The engine purrs and Eunhyuk zooms away, tells himself that his tears are caused by the wind.

     An hour later the buzz of Seoul is a distant view in the mirrors and wide streets are a memory of racing. Old traditional houses fill the neighborhood somewhere along the outskirts of Seoul or maybe Incheon. A food stall stands at the corner of a small house. Rotten apples lie underneath it. Eunhyuk drives on until he reaches a particularly beautiful hanok. The walls around it are at least seven feet high, the house itself is a mansion. But what catches Eunhyuk's eye is the Honda NSX parked in front of the gates, screaming for attention on the empty street. The redhead carefully drives by it and turns off the bike, puts it to stand nearby.

     The car truly is beautiful. Eunhyuk walks a few rounds around it, measures it with his eyes. The paint is flawless and shiny, the overall look is sporty but not overly so. The black detailing gives an edge.

     "I wonder... These toys must be expensive as hell. The alarm system must be top notch as well..." The quiet neighborhood makes it harder by the second. To drive in a white car instead of a black motorcycle is certainly something that captivates his thoughts and poisons his mind. "It's not that I'd get a car if I asked for one. It's not that the owners of this car couldn't buy a new one. Yes... No one's here, no one knows..."

     Eunhyuk makes up his mind and walks to the front door, but hesitates just as he should try to open the door; break it, wrench it, or do anything it takes for him to steal it. He sees his own reflection on the black window. A boy with sad doe-eyes and full lips. A boy whose character and looks don't match at all. With a growl he spits on the window to wipe away the pained look on his face, and reaches his hand towards the handle. 

     Nothing. He tries to open the door again. Nothing happens. Not that he had expected something to happen in the first place--if you own a car like that, you'd make sure to remember to lock the doors. For a moment he thinks about calling Kibum, who knows how to handle these kinds of situations. But it's two in the morning and Kibum is asleep and so is everyone else, so Eunhyuk grabs the first big, heavy object he sees and catapults it through the driver's side window.

     First there's the crash of breaking glass--a thrill of joy.

     Soon after there's the low thump of the brick landing on the passenger's seat--a smirk.

     And after that the horrid sound of the alarm so loud it might wake up half of the people in the whole neighborhood--panic.

     For a moment he just stands there; the ear-splitting noise is paralyzing and he doesn't know what to do, so he kicks it.

     "Shut up. Shut the up!"

     Lights go on in the hanok behind him, and Eunhyuk sees a person in the window.

     ""

    He throws himself inside the car and tries to switch the alarm off. He scrambles and panic starts to rise, the front door in the house opens.

     "Hey, what are you-- Hey! Hey, boy! That's my car! What-- Hey!"

     "... Oh ing hell no..." Eunhyuk jumps out of the car just in time to see a man running down the stairs from his front door and sprints through the yard. 

     Hey, boy! Stop right there!"

     Eunhyuk on the other hand sprints to his bike and sparks it to life in the nick of time. The man is left running behind and breathing in smoke of burned rubber. But Eunhyuk, still in panic of the fear of getting caught, is speeding through the streets. Houses flash by, all of them dark and silent, but Eunhyuk doesn't slow down. He takes a left here, a right turn after and a second one right after that, a left again-- and then he knows where he is: the rotten apple food stall is right round that corner, for sure it is, and after that it's just straight, straight, straight until the road turns into a highway and takes him home. He takes the last curve and there it is, the stall on his left.

     But there is also a lorry in the middle of the street, and an old man with a crate of apples, and Eunhyuk is driving way too fast. He pulls the breaks and turns the bike over. It keeps sliding, and the last thing Eunhyuk sees are apples falling from the sky, like leaves in a autumn tree.

     It surely is dark this night, Eunhyuk notices. The stars are clear above him, so far away, yet so close that he thinks he could grab one if he reached high enough. 

     The material below him is far too uncomfortable to be his bed though. And he's lying in a puddle. Where is he? When had it started to rain?

     He tries to get up but shrieks in pain before he can do anything. His hand--his right hand--looks terribly unfamiliar. The wrist is twisted and--

     And it all comes back to him; the bathroom, the razor blade. The anger he felt and the punch he threw, Sora and the bike. Armani guy, traffic... Car, and-- Apples. 

     With willpower he sits up straight. There are apples scattered all over the street, and Eunhyuk can't breathe. He tries to get up; his side hurts like hell, and if his hand wasn't broken before, it surely is now. The puddle he had lain in is red. The food stall is still in the corner, the lorry stands still on the street. His bike lays a good ten meters from him, but the grandpa is nowhere to be seen. The apples roll in the wind.

     Eunhyuk's breathing gets heavier by every step he takes closer to the bike, because by every step he finds more of the old man. He's lying under the motorcycle, unmoving, in a similar puddle as Eunhyuk's. On this trip he has felt more alive than ever before, happier and more thrilled than ever... And now he's feeling so terrified he's not sure how he can even stand up straight. But there he is, staring into grandpa's face. Soft features, gentle eyes and lips.

     "Oh my God... No, no no, no no no no.. Hey. Yah, ahjussi!" Eunhyuk's face is washed down by tears. He bites his quivering lip, runs his good hand through his hair, breathes out a breath of fear.

     "Wake up. Wake up! You're not dead! Wake up! Wake. Up!"

     And then he breaks down. He sits on the ground and cries, pokes the man in the cheek. "Please... Wake up! Wake up...!" 

     He's still holding on to the crate.

     The bike is heavy but after a few tries, Eunhyuk manages to heave it up. He takes one last look at the man and dries his nose on his sleeve, turns the bike gases away.

He gets home during the small hours. The house is pitch black and soundless apart from his father's snoring, which is enough to rise a feeling of hate in Eunhyuk. He makes his way to the kitchen, opens cupboards after cupboards in a search of...

     "Painkillers, painkillers..." he mumbles as he goes through them quickly but carefully. However, he is not able to find any pills in the kitchen, and he is starting to become desperate. The pain is changing into unbearable agony, and the guilt in his  heart is weighing him down more than anything.

     "Pills, where are the ing pills!? Aish!"

     The medicine cabin. Of course. Eunhyuk rushes upstairs, zooms into the bathroom he has come to know so well. There it is, above the toilet seat, white and green. Eunhyuk lets out a relieved sigh of irony.

     The cabin is full of medicine; panadol, aspirin, paracetamol, nurofen, imodium, tylenol, as well as bandages and band-aids, and-- 

     "Sora's... Prescription painkillers?" Eunhyuk grabs the small yellowish container and scans the content. The container is about half full with small white tablets.

     "I wonder... How many would be enough?" he snorts.

     And then he pours it all down his throat.

Sora wakes up to a beautiful morning. She takes it all in and yawns and stretches, rolls in her bed for a few minutes. There's not a single cloud in the sky, not one. She gets up with a small smile on her face and opens the curtains, in as much energy as she can during that short moment. She then goes to get her clothes and grabs her phone from the side table. 27 missed calls from Jessica. Sora throws the phone into her laundry basket.

     Even a bun couldn't help Sora's hair from getting tangled into a big crow's nest. She laughs at the sight of herself as she walks past a mirror in the long corridor on her way to the bathroom. Her mother is making coffee downstairs. She smiles at that as well.

     The bathroom door is locked. It's no surprise though; Eunhyuk usually styles his hair into perfection in the mornings, and it is no easy--or quick--procedure.

     "Hyuk!" Sora yells and bangs a fist on the door. "Let me in! Or actually, no, you come out of there! Now!"

     There's no answer. And that is surprising.

      "Hyuk? Are you there?"

     After a while she leaves for breakfast with one last pout and a gentle kick on the door.

     "Sora, where's Hyukkie? He should be here too or he'll be late for school."

     "You haven't seen him today? He's in the bathroom upstairs", Sora answers and pours more coffee to her mother and grabs an egg roll for herself.

     "He is? That's funny, I... I never heard him go there--or even wake up today", her mother answers. Her coffee cup is left hanging mid-air. She started to feel uneasy, and so did Sora.

      "I'll go check on him", Sora says and leaves the table, takes the steps upstairs two at a time.

     "Hyuk? Hyuk! Open the door, you'll be late for school. Mom's worrying!" she demanded but got no answer. "Hyuk, now seriously, open up! Hyuk!"

     Sora is now worried for real. These moments were the highlight of her day; meaningless quarrels with her brother, signs of affection. Now the quarrel is very one-sided. 

     "I'll kick the door open, Hyuk! For real, I will!"

     She waits... And waits.

      "..." she curses, and with a calculated kick the door is flung open.

      "Hyuk, what are you doing-- Hyuk! Hyuk! Oh, God, what have you done?"

     Eunhyuk lies on the floor with his mouth open, drooling and unconscious.

     "Mom. Mom! Call 119! Now!"

 "Can you hear me, Hyukkie? It's mom. Mom's here so everything's fine now. Hyuk? Hyukkie?"

     "I don't think he can hear you yet, ahjumma. He's been in a very deep sleep for hours. It would be better for you to go home and rest, and come back tomorrow."

     The woman glanced at the nurse with a worried look, but the genuine gentle smile on the nurse's face was enough to put her heart at rest. With a small, tired nod she got up and left the room quietly.

     Eunhyuk woke up to the smell of anticeptics and the sight of a white ceiling, and that was enough for him to immediately know where he was. There  was also the annoying beeping of machines. 

     Now he tries to figure out the extent of his injuries without opening his eyes. There's a bandage around his head, and a throbbing pain under his left eye. His right hand is in a cast, and his left side... Well, his left side is wrapped tightly in meters and meters of bandage. From afar he probably resembles a mummy rather precisely.

      Finally he can't take it anymore; he opens his eyes carefully. The lights are too blinding and everything's still too white, but as he glances to the left, he sees a figure by his bed. It's a man for sure; the hair is too long to be manly but too short to be girly, but his figure is strong and stable. He stands there and watches the monitors,  takes notes into his folder with a sad smile on his lips. Eunhyuk just stares, and a silent part of him wishes that the man would turn around and notice that he has woken up.

     In the end his wish is granted.

     "Oh, I see you've woken up... Lee Eunhyuk-ssi", the nurse says as he turns around to adjust the pillows behind his patient's back. "I'm... I'm quite surprised. You've been pretty badly mangled. Tell me if you need more morphine." Eunhyuk watches that sad smile turn into a happily surprised one.

      East Sea. A weird name, that is. East Sea. Donghae.

A/N: Again, sorry for the very late update! School's been crazy lately... :/
I'm also sorry about this chapter :'D It's a bit...boring, messy, and....Eunhyuk-centered. However, since Eunhae has finally met, the good stuff can begin! ^^

Please comment below to let me know what you think, I would really appreciate it~! (^.^)