A/N - So, guess what, i managed to get a second chapter up after all~~~ Guess my writer's inspiration is flowing today ^^ Or maybe just coz it's super sweet and all. Hmm hmm now that i realize it, this chapter has 4 POVs (well +1) and somehow, its kinda fitting. Anyhoo, hope you enjoy it~
Countdown, 7 chapters!

@wookielove - ^^ I know, i must be in a fluffy mood or something. 

@HanSang - Eh? Which part did you cover??? Haha, whyyyy let the joy flow~~~ Haha and i want to see you doing the Mir move! Hmm and don't worry, i'll make sure Park daddy appears soon!!!

@ainnurdoongie - Haha, come and cry in my lil corner. Apparently i set one up and so far wookielove and ImaVIPbaby (or was it HanSang???) have joined. You can be next! It's a lil corner to cry and hug and eat cake in. Ahh yeah, T4kara seems to be set on marrying another, uh, version (?) of Sanghyun. Apparently i'm mass producing them. Haha and hwaiting! Study hard~ Enjoy this next chapter in between studying~

@cazz_96 - haha, its okay, be psychic!!! Heehee, next chapter here~

@T4kara - Yuuuuup i kinda learned that along the way. Eh? And you're marrying Sanghyunnie? I guess you'll have version 3.0. 

Chapter 59 – Without looking back, they forge forwards

Mir POV

It’s been seven months.

Seven months since we last saw Cheondoong-hyung. Seven months since Seungho-hyung proposed to Dara and the two became engaged. And also seven months since they made the promise to wait for his return before marrying.

We had left the hospital a few weeks later, Joonie-hyung finally being released with the aid of a crutch, and we had managed. We had gone about our normal routines, cooking, cleaning and practice. But there had been a void which at us – the empty second bed at the dorms, the raucous laughter that I remember my hyung giving us so often, his calm presence.

And now, seven months later it was getting to the point of being unmanageable.

“I don’t know how long we can prolong your comeback.” Rain confessed to us in the once small meeting room that somehow didn’t feel so small without my missing hyung filling up the final chair. The chair that someone had laid out even though everyone in the company knew Cheondoong wasn’t there. It was a small sign they still expected him to return.

“What does that mean for us?” Seungho got straight to the point. “We can’t return to stage without Sanghyun. We’d be incomplete.”

Yeah. That was the feeling – incomplete, imperfect, a missing puzzle piece.  

“I know.” Jihoon stared them down. “I know.” And his voice was filled with taut emotion. He too was suffering, his missing son tearing at his heart. “I know, but we have to placate the public.”

“What have the public been told?” Byunghee leaned forwards.

Rain clasped his hands together and looked at him sharply. “We’ve told them that Sanghyun is on medical leave. Other than that, no details have been given.”

And it was the truth – sort of.

“But even the public are getting a little worried. I mean there’s been no tweets, no signs of him at all. To them, it’s like Sanghyun has dropped off the edge of the world.”

And in a way, he had. He had dropped right out of our lives.

“So what are we going to do?” Joon was uncharacteristically quiet. He had been for months. He too was missing his brotherly link. “A comeback would just prove them right that they should worry, so?”

“We’re going to hold a fanmeet.” Rain said simply. “It’ll show the fans that they haven’t been forgotten. You’ll tell them a story – that he’s away for medical leave, it’s not surprising for idols after all, but you’ll tell them that’s we know where he is. That he’s someone out in the country, recovering and will be back soon. Just confirm what they already suspect.”

We all fell silent. Essentially what Jihoonie-hyung was telling us was to tell a lie. It had some threads of truth in it, but a lie nonetheless.

And I didn’t want to lie – not to the fans and not to myself.

But then Rain spoke further. “But to make it up to them, I’ll prepare…a small surprise for them…”

So here we were, a few weeks of preparation later. Ready for our little fanmeet and ready to reassure them that Sanghyun was alright.

I should’ve known that things wouldn’t go as planned.

Seungho POV

Our A+ cheered so loudly when we walked onto the stage I think that we were all deafened momentarily. But it made me grin. I had missed them.

“Hey everyone!” I waved and they all cheered even louder. They were a kind of balm to my sore heart, just like Dara’s loving kiss was. They made the darkness seep away slightly. “How are we doing today?”

***

Around an hour and half later into the fanmeet we had done introductions, aegyo poses and sung some of our hit songs. The fans went crazy. It was basically a success. Especially when we started playing games. But even then, it was painfully obvious who we were missing.

Sanghyun may have never been as mischievous as Mir, as loud as Joon, as attention-grabbing as Byunghee or as commanding as me, but he always had this presence which had completed the five of us. We together had been mblaq and without him, we felt disjointed. Like a missing limb, it showed in our dances, in our songs and in our spirits.

And then, came the Q&A session that we had dreaded.

Because of course, the first question was:

“Where is Cheondoong-oppa?”

And we all bit our lips and tried not to meet their gazes, but the A+ stared at us, willing us to speak and I knew we owed it to them. We had a duty to tell them for they too cared for him.

So I swallowed hard and looked up, taking the mike in one shaking hand and spoke. “You’ve heard the reports, right?” I questioned them, not wanting to say something too incriminating and wanting to assess the situation before diving straight in.

“We’ve heard, Seungho-oppa.” The girl who had asked the question had straight black hair and a heart-shaped face. But that drew me in the most was her eyes – the imploring black eyes that begged for me to tell the truth. Not some lie, not some fictional story. The goddam truth. “We’ve heard he’s away for medical leave, but is that the truth?”

I remembered Jihoon’s words – tell them the story, placate them – but then all of a sudden I couldn’t. Not after looking into her eyes. So serious and so caring. I couldn’t lie to them.

So I told them the truth. “It’s the partial truth.” I said and heard Byunghee in a deep breath and spin around to stare at me. This wasn’t part of the plan.

“Which part?” she prodded me further.

“The medical part. Sanghyun really is sick and recovering.”

“And which part is the lie.”

“That he’s coming back soon.” I whispered in a hoarse voice, feeling like it didn’t belong to me. I could feel the stares of all the fans riveted on me. “Because the truth is, we don’t know. We don’t know.”

Another fan stood up and took a spare mike. “Oppa, please tell us what happened.”

I blinked, feeling a sob hitch in my throat and I had to take a moment to stop and collect myself. Then I turned to the second fan. “What happened is that Sanghyun saved me. He saved us all.” My voice was hollow, it was empty without Sanghyun next to me – but at the same time it was gaining a sort of power by telling this story, by bringing Sanghyun to life.

“He saved you?” the fan tilted her head. “How?”

I stopped then and wondered just how far I would go. Just how much I would tell them. To tell them everything would hurt Sanghyun. It wasn’t that he wanted to hide everything, but some things were better kept within a small circle of friends. Then again, he had saved us all. He may have chosen the wrong methods, but his intentions were the same as always – for us. And he deserved to be recognized for that.

“You see,” I began, the words finding their own path without me leading them. “There was once a boy who held too many secrets in a small glass box…”

“What sort of story is this, oppa?” the fan was clearly confused. I smiled secretively.

“This,” I continued in a stronger, clearer voice. “This is a story about one boy who set out to try and protect those close to him, but ended up harming more than helping and discovering the heavy costs of secrets. It is a story of pain, loss, love and possibly happiness when least expected.”

I leaned forwards and so did the fans in one fluid movement. We were one body, one being.

“This,” I whispered, feeling like I was opening my heart and exposing the contents I had protected for so long. It felt good. “This is the story of a boy named Park Sanghyun.”

Joon POV

The whole story took half an hour.

Seungho told them mostly everything. He told them of how Sanghyun held a secret and how he tried to protect us all, how we had our moments of tension and conflict but how it had always ended with our worry for Sanghyun getting the better of us and then he told them of how in the end Sanghyun had tried to face it all on his own. He told them everything and then he told them of that phone call at the very end – our last connection to Sanghyun.

What he didn’t tell them was about Ji-eun and Ji-yun, of Bang Hyo Jin and of Dara. He didn’t delve into the stories of other people. He only told the fans how the last few months had simply hardened our brotherly bond as the five members of mblaq and of how at the very end, we had all made a pact and a promise – to wait for Sanghyun to return.

“And therefore,” Seungho finished. “We hope you too will all share our promise and believe in Sanghyun.”

The fans were in tears sufficed to say. And that was just the tip of it. Some of them were downright bawling, heads in hands and bodies shaking. Now that I reflect on it, we had gone through a lot in the last few months. We had grown up, discovered secrets that we never knew existed and yet always decided to come back to each other.

Perhaps secrets had their costs, but at the same time they were like treasure boxes. You could fight your way through rows of monsters, scour jungles and forests and caves and exhaust all your strength finding that box, but it was only after it was open that you would reap the rewards.

And sometimes it would be a trap box, unleashing fire or poison arrows or essentially causing a 1 hit K.O. But other times you would unearth treasures beyond your belief – dragons’ gold, the cross of the Knight’s Templar, a pirate’s buried stash. Sometimes it would be worth it, all the blood and sweat and tears. Sometimes, just sometimes, you would find that treasure.

And we had.

It wasn’t money, it wasn’t jewels. It was quite simply a bond that would last for eternity. That would weather storm and fire because now we knew everything we could about each other. We knew our darkest secrets, our pet peeves, our every moves. We knew each other so much better now and for that I could say confidently that even in fifty years’ time when we were old and married and with kids, we would still be together.

G.O POV

And then, just as Seungho finished his tale and the tears poured out and even the four of us were sniffling, Jihoon’s ‘little surprise’ played.

Soft, sleek beats filled the air. And then-

-and then it was his voice.

“That day you left me, when you said you hated me so much, I pretended nothing was wrong, that breaking up wasn’t painful. I was going to leave you with a smile. But what lingered in my mouth were the words, ‘come back’.”

And tears filled my eyes and streamed down my face. None of us could second-guess it was Sanghyun singing. It was the song he had recorded so long ago: Don’t go. But now we all knew – us and the fans – we all knew the reason behind his chosen lyrics. The bitterness, the sorrow, the heartfelt emotion. I hadn’t known back then, but I was a better man now.

“Don’t go, don’t leave me. I’m not used to each day without you. I keep falling without you; I’m like a tree without roots.

 So therefore, I thought as I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me.

“Come back.”

We all mouthed the words along with him, freely smiling and crying simultaneously. Sanghyun had wanted his love to come and now we wanted him back. It had to be the closest all of us were in sync with each other and it was beautiful. It really felt like we were one big family, both Mblaq and the A+. And I loved it.

It made me think of Hyo Jin, sitting in her white hospital bed and staring at the wide, wide world outside. And I decided that after this I would go visit her and tell her everything about the world and maybe, just maybe I’d convince her of its beauty. And then, maybe one day I would take her hand and together we would step outside.

Ji-eun POV

I walked into the room, savoring the silence and inhaling the crisp countryside air. It was amazing being here, like just by standing here it felt like you were healing already.

I crossed over to the bed in the middle of the room, the curtains blowing back against the breeze and the sun shone down on his face – warming him.

“Hey baby.” I whispered, sitting down and taking his hand.

And then his eyes opened. 

A/N - Aaaaannd yes, yes, yes! Doongie returns in the next chapter. Get ready coz he's going to take action!

As for the photo, i'm 100% sure someone made it...but i just found it on tumblr and it was so fitting i had to stick it in. Credits to whoever made this masterpiece~!