- CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN -

In his cottony mind at that moment, HyukJae couldn’t weight the hazard of drunk-driving. All he knew was to get home as soon as possible and search for his hidden set of alcoholic drinks that he stashed away not too long ago. Traffic was light that day – as if he’d knew about it, all he saw was blurred lines of rainbow coloured surrounding – and God forbid he runs into any other vehicles or innocent pedestrians. That was another offence and he didn’t need another problem other than the ones he already had in hand. Shaking his head, he pressed on the accelerator of his hyung’s silver Golf Cabriolet.

From the 16 minutes drive, HyukJae finally reached his high-rise apartment building as he parked carelessly at the underground parking lot, almost scratching a blue Peugeot 206 and a family’s Fiat Panda. It was rather illogical, indeed, that he didn’t run into anyone, break any laws or crossed path with patrol cars, but none of those thoughts were clogging up his mind. All he could think of at that moment was Lee DongHae. He staggered into the elevator and pressed blindly for the 8^th floor.

He felt like a handicap, tracing his fingers over the protruding Braille numberings instead of actually seeing what he was pressing. Hyukjae laughed at himself, feeling stupider than stupid. No one besides him entered the elevator and when the elevator door revealed the 8^th floor, another stagger-walking-leg against leg-fretting moment, he reached his front door and waved over the key since he didn’t feel like pressing the wrong numbers and ending up with security all over him. Right at the moment he stepped in, HyukJae tripped and fell, face first on his carpeted floor.

At first, they were just plain, silent sniffles, and then the tears started flowing. After that, the stifled weeping, and finally the Paldang Dam broke. HyukJae bawled his eyes out, calling out DongHae’s name like a chant, wishing he would appear right before his eyes and cuddle with him at that moment. But no, there was no DongHae. Instead, HyukJae was just companied with the stellar 4-wall confinement of his own penthouse and the sorrowful echoes of his wailing. Then, he remembered his motive of coming home; he needed more alcohol.

All on his four, HyukJae crawled his way toward the pristine white kitchen and headed for the cabinet right under the sink. It was a secret stash HeeChul hyung and the late JunSu hid away from him, but a classified stash – as HeeChul hyung likes to call it – that he knew about months before JunSu’s death. The green glass bottles and cans of beers stood out and HyukJae’s fogged up mind thought that they were calling his name. His eyes narrowed at the innocent bottles and cans of alcohol and suddenly burst into fit of giggles while pulling them all out.

One by one, he emptied the green ones, and one by one he popped open the canned ones. HyukJae seriously lost count when he finally felt that his bladder was giving out the red alert. Between messed up steps, hiccups and trying to figure out the way, he found his way to the toilet and did his bladder justice. He actually downed more than he could and felt the bile rose at the back of his throat. Before he could even flush, HyukJae was already on his knees, all the contents from before exiting his stomach into the dirtied toilet bowl.

Sweats trickled on his forehead as he raked his fingers through his messed up, flat hair. He picked himself up with the help of the large countertop and gasped when his blurred vision saw how disoriented he was from the reflection of the large mirror. Cursing under his breath, HyukJae pushed the tap open and cold water rushed out. Cursing once again, he splashed the water onto his face twice and grabbed the nearest facial towel. Unknowingly, his legs malfunctioned and he slumped down onto the floor. Confused, dazed and tired, he fainted.

There were no voices that time around when he was awake to a terrible, terrible headache. But he was comfortably lying on his own silver-dye duvet bed, engulfed in his own smell of vanilla scented house with his own set of anchovy-printed PJs. His eyes fluttered open and Hyukjae saw the back of a figure. Calculating from the size, in his throbbing head, it was his hyung with another person who didn’t appear to be as tall as HanGeng that time around. Groaning in pain, he pushed himself up on his elbows.

“Chullie hyung,” his voice croaked at the first attempt.

He tried clearing his throat while ignoring the burning pain going on in his head.

“Hyuk-ah, you’ve been out for quite a while and I got worried. You weren’t answering your phone and when I came over, you were lying on the floor. Let’s not talk about the mess you’ve created, I’ll save that for another time,” the elder said and revealed the other person in the room.

It was their friend-slash-doctor; JoonMyeon. The young doctor stood up and gave HyukJae an angelic smile.

HyukJae would reply the smile if he could, but he felt as if all his emotions are going downhill and just managed a small grumble.

“Hey, HyukJae hyung. I’m back, after a while. How does your head feel? I had those painkillers ready for you. We need to talk, hyung,” he said, his tone a little more serious than friendly; absolute ‘Doctor Kim’ mode, not the ‘Friendly, Protective, Fluffy Suho’ mode.

HyukJae dreaded it when the younger uses that tone on him. It was the same tone the boy used when he started practicing privately; in which HyukJae thought that he was way too young for the job.

“Here, take this. Plus, strawberry milk for you,” HeeChul hyung added with a small wink while handing out the glass of milk and painkillers to his dongsaeng.

HyukJae gulped the white shaded pills and downed the rest of the sweet dairy with content.

“Alright, out with it, doctor,” he mumbled as he tried to reposition himself on the bed and sat up.

“You know that you took more than an average amount of alcohol 2 nights ago,” HyukJae gasped at the info with HeeChul hyung interjecting, “exactly, imagine how scared I was?!”

“Moving on, you’ve been keeping yourself clean for about 2 years since this last happened and I’m very proud of you. But, every time something like this happens, you can’t straight away result to alcohol. The itching and craving would start all over again and you’ll go back to your old self. I don’t want that to happen to you, hyung. So, it’s either you try it out on your own first or we’ll have to result in sending you to a friend’s place far away from here for you to recover,” JoonMyeon’s authoritative tone went down a notch and was replaced by a friend’s care.

Yes, indeed this happened as well some time ago. HyukJae could still remember, although they say that memories stay memories, but it was playing on his mind, repeatedly even while he was drinking that night. He had never been out for long. It only took him up to a day to recover and to repeat what he did last night. But, maybe because he stopped for a while that it cost his body to react to such way. He sighed and nodded, looking up at the two males in the room with him.

Suddenly, a third, familiar yet small voice flowed into the room, “Hyukkie?”

A/N:

Hi there, everyone! Happy EunHae Sunday! Or Saturday or Monday or whichever day it is to all of you beautiful people. I'm unusually chirpy today and I don't know why. Maybe it's because I fianlly got back on track with DMH or just because I had a filling meal. Hehe. Sorry ^^ Thank you so much for those who commented, I'm so happy I didn't get any negative ones n_n I'll reply to you a.s.a.p

I'd like to thank and welcome 257471 for subbing. What do those numbers stand for, really? Just being a busy body ahjumma. Don't mind me. And thank you, thank you shabang and eunhae_gf for upvoting this story. Hugs to all of you!

Plus, I'm so sorry if my drunk-driving scene sound illogical. I've never been drunk and I haven't got my license yet, so yeah. I really wouldn't know. Am currently working on PRS, a new fic, centered on BaekYeol (shamelessly promoting myself cause I can) so do check it out of you guys have the time to do so. I won't leave DMH of course, am currently checking the chapter after this. Teehee XD Laters!

Yours 'till mineral waters,

El :)