Chapter IV:

The Bond of Brothers

05:48 KST

The morning was bright and blazing as the sun rose in a hurry, seemingly trying to make up for setting so early the evening before, emerging out of the horizon and sending what was left of the moon packing. The birds sang, which is to say that they chirped, tweeted and warbled incessantly. Everything was peaceful and calm—but not long enough for the nine sleeping idols.

 “No!”

A scream suddenly roared through the walls of the Super Junior dorm, shaking the structure with its alarming noise. Nine pair of eyes flew open upon the shocking outburst. Nine pairs of legs then scrambled hurriedly out of their respective rooms and ran towards the source of the scream.

“What’s happening?” Kangin yanked the door of Donghae’s room, opening it wide as he stepped inside while the other guys were edging in; concern and confusion written all over their faces.

Upon entering, a perfectly normal room loomed before them and it instantly withered the anxiety away from their expressions. Yet the relief was short-lived as their gazes fell at the farthest corner of the dim lit room.

Hidden under the shadowed part of the room was a man—most probably the reason why they all awoke with panic ringing against their ears—and he was shaking furiously; his back reclined against the foothold of the bed, hugging both of his knees as he was seated on the floor with head buried on to the skin of his forearms.

For a second, they absurdly thought it was a ghost, haunting them right after the crack of dawn, but then the light leaking through the drapes of the windows revealed that the man was no apparition.

“Donghae?” Hyukjae was the first to speak out of their momentary bewilderment. He walked past the other guys and came to the side of his best friend, crouching and asked, “What’s wrong, fish?” He tried to reach for the guy but Donghae flinched. 

“Hey, it’s me, man,” he added in a gentle voice, “its Eunhyuk.”

Donghae raised his head, slowly turning his face on them and Eunhyuk willed himself to remain calm after noticing the cut on his lower lip and some barely visible patchwork of bruises on his face.

“What happened?” he asked once again.

A glint of uncertainty flickered in the latter’s sunken eyes. He was internally battling if he’d say the truth, but ended up lying. “Nothing, Hyuk—I’m fine,” Donghae assured, his face twisted and strained as he tried to calm down but the continuous shaking of his body betrayed him.

“Hyung, how can you say you’re fine? You look terrible.” A voice reverberated behind them.

“Henry is right.” Another voice seconded. It was Kangin, crossing his arms over his chest as he surveyed the state of the man. “You look stressed out, Hae.” He raised an eyebrow. “Did you even bat a single eyelash last night?”

“It was just a nightmare, hyung.” Donghae mummed, trying to hide the turmoil in his face by glancing away, “Nothing much.”

Eunhyuk, being the closest to the guy—literally and figuratively—felt his uneasiness. He knew there was something direly wrong with his best friend but he wouldn’t admit it.

Why?

With a long and loud sigh, Eunhyuk tore his gaze from Donghae and straightened then turned towards the others, casting them a reassuring look. “Guys, leave this to me,” he said. The other men shot him a hesitant look, but eventually nodded in apprehension and left, slowly closing the door behind them.

After a couple of seconds, Eunhyuk came in front of Donghae, crossing his arms as he assessed him with a hard stare.

“Now, speak up, man.”

But the latter kept silent.

“Donghae, come on, talk.” he whispered impatiently, and bent down to level their eyes, but Donghae kept avoiding his stare.

“Dude, seriously, what’s wrong with you?” he insisted once again.

“Nothing,” the other guy mumbled almost inaudible.  

Eunhyuk squinted past the guy; his lips pressed into a thin line as he swallowed the urge to shake him out of this drama and tried to keep up with the stubbornness of his best friend.

There’s something wrong, and he knew it. He just have to push the guy and convince him to admit whatever the cause of his torment was, so with a grumbling groan, he said, “You left us at the club last night without saying any freaking word about where you were, and when we came home, I didn’t saw you in your room. Then now, you go screaming like a frightened girl in a very ungodly hour, scaring the out of everyone then tell us that it was nothing? Oh, come on, dude.” and breathed, “This is so not you, Donghae.”

Eunhyuk’s deep, sad sigh brought Donghae’s eyes to finally turn on the other man yet looked away again and said nothing as his mind was clogged with stress and a reeling delirium from the past night’s occurrence. He didn’t know what to do, too shameful to admit and too scared to trust. He opened his mouth, drawing out a voice to say something but nothing came out. It seemed his own throat has run dry from the sheer terror that has been dwelling inside of him for the past several hours. His disgruntled mind couldn’t seem to fathom the appropriate words out.

“Donghae, you can trust me.” Eunhyuk spoke once again, all the hint of impatience dying in his tone.   

 “I’m your best friend, remember?”

Silence.

 “Okay,” the man exhaled in resignation.

Eunhyuk heaved himself upright, turned to the doors and was about to step away.

“If you don’t want to tell me, fine I’ll—”

“I didn’t mean it,” Donghae finally spoke, but whispered it like he was not sure he was even saying it out loud.

Baffled, Eunhyuk pivoted on his heel, turning to look at him and asked what he meant by those words but the other guy failed to give him a sensible answer. Instead, Donghae gripped the back of his skull, hard, and shook his head, babbling words, husky and roughened by agony, words little more than an unintelligible utterance, consonants and vowels and broken syllables all mixed together.

It was as if an internal monologue was running in his mind, an incoherent conversation—argument even—all to himself, and such sight bewildered Eunhyuk even more. Donghae had been the calmest and most collected man he has ever known. He was a guy who knew how to control and segregate his emotions, a master of dressing up his angsts into pretty dresses and made them pretend to be something else for a while. He could be overly sensitive sometimes, yes, but a sappy and dramatic paranoid, no. His best friend was someone never inclined to overthink—that was what Eunhyuk have always thought, but not until today. Because right that very moment, it seemed anxiety has built a home on his shoulders.

This is certainly no drama.

He then rushed in front of Donghae, bent down and clasped his shoulders; his eyes wide with worry. “Lee Donghae, you need to ing tell me what’s wrong, right now!” Eunhyuk’s voice was thick when he insisted and this effectively pulled the words out of Donghae’s throat.

“I didn’t mean it, Hyuk,” he said, eyes on the floor. “I didn’t mean—I swear to God—I didn’t—”

“Snap out of it, man!” Eunhyuk snarled, his patience starting to wear thin as he subtly shook Donghae, “tell me precisely what happened. Stop stammeri—”

“I killed someone!” his best friend’s exploding admittance cut him off his words, and Eunhyuk froze, blinking a hundred times before mumbling a “what?”

“I killed a man.” Donghae repeated in a dropping voice, wide-eyed, genuine guilt written all over his features, but Eunhyuk refused to believe.

“What the hell are you saying?”  He snatched both of his hands back, crossing it against his chest. “This joke is not funny, Fish face.”

Then the man he just called “fish face” laughed, loud and hollow. The echo of a devastated smile lingered on his face as he stopped and stared at the point directly behind Eunhyuk’s head.

“You have no idea how I am wishing all of this is just a joke.” Donghae’s words saturated in bitter humor had caused Eunhyuk to freeze once again, but this time even his ability to think seemed to falter. His mouth fell, jaw unhinged, closed it, hesitating, forced it open again but no trace of words shed.

It took him a moment to find his voice.

 “How did this happen?”  He whispered prying himself to remain calm—or at least pretended to remain calm— because panicking won’t be the best option for behavior as of the moment. 

Donghae grasped every sliver of detail he could recall and spilled it all out for Eunhyuk. His tone was a zigzag of alternating pitches as he narrated how he ended up shooting Minho accidentally.

After a while of letting all the unbelievable details sink in his mind, Eunhyuk then asked, “Did someone see you?”

Donghae shook his head. “It was only the girl; I left them untouched. After throwing the gun away, I went back here. I didn’t know what to do. I was—” Tears then started to trickle down his cheeks, sobs hindering him to