The nurse, a young and pretty lady, came to give Donghae some more tablets and a glass of water. Donghae’s left wrist was sprained and hurt like hell, but other than that he wasn’t seriously hurt. His forehead and cheeks had cuts from the asphalt that were still bleeding and his legs hurt but he could still walk. Not properly and not fast – but he could still walk. His whole body was sore. His hand was wrapped in bandage and so was his forehead; looking like a headband. The nurse had already cleaned up the blood from his upper lip and chin. He’s clothes were dirty and his shirt had some of his own blood on it.

Donghae could guess by himself that what they had done to him was probably just so scare him and not to  seriously injure him. Realizing that didn’t cheer him up though. He told the nurse that he fell down from the stairs in the boys’ dorms and when she didn’t looked totally convinced Eunhyuk was the witness. Before leaving the nurse told them that it was getting late and asked Eunhyuk to stay with him just a little more so Donghae wouldn’t feel alone. Eunhyuk wasn’t in the mood for complaining so, even though he really didn’t like it, he promised to stay, without protesting.

When the nurse left the room became completely quiet, with Donghae sitting on the bed and Eunhyuk sitting on a chair beside it.

“Thanks.” Donghae suddenly said, as he sobbed for one last time and rubbed his eyes. His hands were still shaking, but he had already calmed down by now, even though he still didn’t know exactly what had happened. But he thought that he already knew what he needed to know; Kibum was fine and he himself was safely in the school nurse’s room.

“If you tell anyone I’ll kill you.” Eunhyuk answered back. It was a weird, since he didn’t use his usual voice when saying something mean. It sounded more like he said it as a reflex. 

Donghae laughed a little, when thinking about how ironic all this was. “No one will believe me anyway.”

They stayed silent again, which wasn’t very weird since they really didn’t have anything to talk about. It was just getting more and more awkward for every second that passed. Especially when they started to think about what happened just some minutes ago. Then, Donghae realized that he still didn’t have an explanation to why Eunhyuk was there in the first place. “What are you doing here?” he asked and looked at him. 

“I found you.” Eunhyuk simply replied, looking at his hands. “And your friend.”

Donghae nodded, since he couldn’t think about something more to say. He had already thanked him and he already knew what Eunhyuk was doing there. There wasn’t much more to say. But then a thought crossed Donghae’s mind. A terrifying thought. He looked at Eunhyuk and tried to figure out the answer by himself. It didn’t take a genius to put the jigsaw pieces into place. “Where you there?” he suddenly asked.

The question surprised Eunhyuk even thought he knew he should be prepared for it.  He looked up. When he didn’t answer Donghae continued talking. “It was your friends, right?” he kept looking Eunhyuk in the eyes when speaking. “Where you there?” he asked again. 

Eunhyuk took his time to answer, also looking Donghae in the eyes all the time. “You think I was?”. He didn’t sound offended or worried. He talked as if they were talking about something ordinary – what they would eat for lunch or what time their lesson would start.

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

“Why would I like to beat you up?” 

“I don’t think you did.” 

“Then why are you–”

“But that doesn’t mean that you really wouldn’t.” Donghae said and interrupted the older. “Everyone else, my friends for example, is going to have you in mind as soon as they find out. And they kind of have a reason.” 

“I wouldn’t be here if I was the one who hit you.” 

Donghae wondered why Eunhyuk didn’t lose his patience, like he always did, and said something to make Donghae shut up. His expression was unreadable too. “There were like ten guys there but only three or four of them were hitting me.” he continued. “I don’t think you’re one of those three or four guys, but I’m not sure about the other six, seven guys.”

They kept staring at each other while a tense atmosphere was being spread in the room. Donghae didn’t fear Eunhyuk at all – rather the opposite.

“No.” he finally said, dryly. 

Donghae didn’t believe him, Eunhyuk clearly saw that. Donghae still looked at him, with judging eyes, as if trying to find some sign that told him Eunhyuk was lying. But he didn’t found it. Eunhyuk was either a good liar or he really was telling the truth. Donghae wasn’t sure.

“I don’t trust you.” Donghae said honestly, without trying to offend or insult the other. “But I will believe you in this”. Eunhyuk didn’t answer, but just silently let Donghae continue talking. “But if you’re lying I’ll never forgive you”. Eunhyuk still didn’t say anything. He didn’t even nod or anything. He just stared at Donghae; looking like he was thinking about something very deeply. “I’m sorry if I offended you.” 

When realizing that Donghae was done talking Eunhyuk got up from his seat. “I’ve got some things to do.” he said before leaving – not turning to look at Donghae or waiting for Donghae to reply. Donghae followed him with his eyes all the time, till Eunhyuk got out of the door and was completely out of sight and broke the promise he had made to the nurse. 

~~~

It was late, past midnight, and Donghae couldn’t sleep. He was tired but he didn’t dare to close his eyes. It was too quiet and Donghae was the only one there. Donghae had never been afraid of the dark before, but now he was terrified. He imagined that someone was there, hiding, and waiting for him to fall asleep. His heart started to beat faster in fear and he started to sweat. If someone really was there he was totally helpless; he was hurt and alone and he didn’t even have his cell phone there. His chest started to hurt when thinking about it and he had troubles breathing.

Then he tried to tell himself over and over again that of course no one was there, it was just his imagination. That didn’t help at all. He was still scared, to the point where he couldn’t take it anymore and cried. He didn’t sleep at all that night, but just waited for the sun to go up; shaking, crying and praying. He felt like a baby, defenseless and small.

It wasn’t till the sun got up that he could finally breathe out in relief. The nurse came to give him some more tablets for the pain and asked politely questions, if he was feeling better and if he slept well. Donghae smiled and told her that yes, he was feeling better and yes, he slept well. She didn’t take notice of Donghae’s red eyes and bags under them since she was too busy.

Just before the nurse left they heard steps outside in the corridor. Normally you never heard when people were walking through the corridors since the walls were pretty thick, but this person was running will all his might. The running person was Kibum, and he almost slammed the door open. He stopped in the doorway to get his breath back, with one hand over his fast pumping heart. 

“Please don’t run here.” the nurse said to him when he passed her and walked over to the bed Donghae was lying in and landed on the chair that was still standing there beside the bed. Kibum didn’t even turn to look at her and he didn’t answer, even though he had heard her. She frowned a little at his rudeness, before leaving.

“I’m so sorry for not being here yesterday.” was the first thing he said. “I’m so sorry. How are you?”

“Don’t be silly.” Donghae said and smiled a little. “And I’m fine. At least better than yesterday.”

“I wanted to be here but the nurse told me to go back to my dorm because it was so late and you needed to rest. I said I wanted to stay here but she was nagging and all. I’m sorry.”

Donghae stretched his right arm, the only arm he could use right now, to hit Kibum lightly on the head, to tell him that it was stupid of him to apologize.

“Did you sleep anything at all?” Kibum suddenly asked, when seeing Donghae’s zombie-look that was not because of what happened yesterday. 

Donghae nodded. “But only a little.” he added when he saw that Kibum didn’t believe him. “But it’s fine.” 

“It really doesn’t matter, at least you’re okay.” Kibum said.

Donghae was about to say the same thing when he remembered that terrifying feeling he got yesterday when he first woke up. Just the thought of it made him shiver. “, you scared the heck out of me.” he said and grabbed Kibum’s hand. His hand was very cold, so Donghae grabbed it hard to make it warm. Kibum didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Oh, God.” he sighed when thinking about it. “It was horrible, I thought you were dead or something”. He raised his head and looked at Kibum, who was totally unharmed. “But they didn’t touch you.” he said to himself in a hesitant voice; he found it hard to believe. “Did they do anything to you?”

Kibum shook his head. “They were just holding me,” he pulled his hand away from Donghae’s and rolled up his sleeves to show Donghae his bruised wrists. “really hard. But no, they didn’t hit me.”

Donghae was glad that they didn’t hurt Kibum, but he couldn’t exactly cheer since he got even more scared for his own sake. Their target had been only Donghae.

“It was Heechul hyung.” Kibum suddenly said. “And Kangin hyung and their ing lapdogs.” 

He didn’t have to say that – Donghae was smart enough to figure that out himself. But what he didn’t know was how Eunhyuk got in the picture.

“How did we get here?” 

“Eunhyuk hyung saw us. When they left you fainted. I tried to help you up and suddenly he was just passing by and helped me.” 

Donghae just nodded and tried to imagine what that would look like. He had a feeling that Kibum and Eunhyuk couldn’t stand each other.

“What a coincidence, huh?” Kibum said, and chuckled sarcastically.

“He said he wasn’t there.” 

“Of course he would say that he wasn’t there. Why would he have told you the truth?” 

“Why would he have helped us?” Kibum couldn’t argue back to that. But that didn’t mean that he believed it. “I’m not going to call the police.” Donghae said, knowing that Kibum would eventually bring it up.

Kibum raised his eyebrows. He told himself that he had misheard what Donghae had said. “What?” 

“I won’t call the police. And you won’t either.”

The younger frowned, not understanding at all what Donghae was saying. Was he out of his mind?

“I don’t want people to know what happened.”

“They almost killed you!”

“No, they didn’t.” 

“Yes, they–”

Donghae hurried to place his fingers over Kibum’s lips to stop him from talking. “Just listen.” he said. Kibum looked both angry and disappointed, which he also was, but nodded and stayed quiet. “It will only make things worse. They didn’t want to hurt me, but just scare me. Now, they’ll leave me alone. I don’t want to involve more people and most of all; I don’t want my family to know”. Kibum didn’t look convinced at all. He shook his head, to show that Donghae’s arguments weren’t enough. “Please.” Donghae said. “Don’t tell anyone. They’ll send me back home. You of all people know how hard I’ve worked to be able to be here. If my family finds out they won’t care about anything and just make sure that I return to Mokpo”. Kibum was still not convinced, but his expression softened a little. “What am I supposed to do in Mokpo? You know why I’m here.”  

Kibum was still not agreeing but he gave in. He nodded slowly, still hesitating.

“Promise me.” 

He kept nodding and bit his bottom lip to prevent him from taking back what he just promised. Donghae grabbed his hand again, the same hand he was previously holding. It wasn’t so cold anymore.

Donghae asked Kibum to lend him his phone. Luckily for him, Donghae was good in remembering numbers and a couple of tries and guesses he managed to call Siwon.

“Donghae?!” Siwon almost screamed, before Donghae could even say ‘hello’ and he had to pull the phone away from his ear to protect it.

“How did you know?” 

“Do you know how worried I’ve been? I’ve called you like a million times, till I saw that your phone was lying here. Why didn’t you bring it with you? You could have borrowed someone’s phone and at least have texted me. Where are you? Why didn’t you bring your damn phone?!”

Donghae got speechless. Both because he had never heard Siwon being so worried and angry before and because he didn’t expect to hear that this early in the morning. He heard Siwon take a breath, probably to keep screaming. “I’m in the nurse’s room.” he said fast, before Siwon could say something more. Siwon got silent, probably since he didn't expect Donghae to say something like that. “I fell down from the stairs. I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”

“Wh-what? How are you?” Siwon’s voice immediately changed and he didn’t sound angry at all anymore. “When did it happen?”

“Yesterday. When–” Donghae noticed that Kibum wasn’t looking at him, but at another direction. Kibum didn’t like it when Donghae lied. “–Kibum and I were returning from our walk. But I’m fine. I’m sorry I made you worry about me.” 

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Siwon hung up before Donghae could say something more and Donghae could imagine how Siwon was running, just as Kibum was, to get there. 

Siwon didn’t come alone, Ryeowook was also there. The younger, short boy brought some snacks with him and told Donghae to get well soon. Donghae got surprised since he didn’t know Ryeowook very well but he almost pinched the younger’s cheek for being so cute. When Ryeowook asked what had happened and Donghae told him about the stairs he looked suspiciously at his hyung. But he didn’t say anything about it and just nodded. He and Kibum stayed there only some minutes more, before they left since neither of them had eaten breakfast yet. They promised to return as soon as possible.

When both males left, Siwon walked over to sit on the edge of Donghae’s bed. He silently inspected Donghae carefully before sighing. “You didn’t fall down from the stairs, did you?” he asked. 

Donghae cleared his throat. “Yes, I did.”

“I’m not stupid, Donghae.” 

He looked Donghae straight in the eyes. “It was them, right? Eunhyuk and–”

“No. I talked to him.” Donghae interrupted him with.

“When?”

“Yesterday. He was the one that found me and Kibum.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He wasn’t there.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yes.”

Siwon sighed again, only this time angrier. He drew his hand through his short, black hair. “Are you thinking with your head?” he almost screamed, this time sounding more upset then worried. “How can you be so naive?”

“I’m not naive.” 

“How can you even try to defend him? Are you aware of what happened to you?!”  

“Please, I don’t want to talk about it. They already succeeded in what they wanted. They wanted to scare me and I am. I am scared to death. So please, just leave it”. Siwon went silent. He closed his eyes to calm himself down and nodded. “I know you’re not saying this because you want to bother me.” Donghae said. “I know you care and all, but I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”  Siwon raised himself to put a supporting hand on Donghae’s shoulder. He sighed, for the third time. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Donghae smiled a little, as a though crossed his mind; something Siwon had told him the first day he arrived, when Donghae had no idea what kind of people Eunhyuk and his friends were. “That blanket and hot chocolate would be perfect now.” he said.

Siwon didn’t understand the meaning of it till he also remembered the first day. He chuckled silently.

~~~

Donghae didn’t go to class and stayed in his room for a whole week. The reason for why he stayed home wasn’t that he was feeling bad physically. The reason was because Donghae couldn’t sleep. The nurse asked him to stay there yet another night but Donghae refused. The night had traumatized him and he never, ever wanted to go back there. All he wanted was to just return to his room. At least there he wasn’t alone.

That didn’t help though. Donghae still had troubles sleeping and when he finally managed to fall asleep he woke up three hours later – sweating, breathing fast and being on the edge of crying. They were haunting him in his dreams, masked boys, hurting him, till Donghae woke up. After that he didn’t dare to sleep again and ended up with yet another sleepless night.

That’s how the days passed. In daylight everything went fine; his friends came to visit him and brought him food while Siwon helped him study to catch up with the class. The nights, on the other hand, were terrible. Some nights he slept for two hours, other nights for three and if he was very lucky he slept for four hours. But no matter how many hours he slept, he always ended up waking up because of a nightmare. Some nights he cried, some nights he didn’t. But he never woke Siwon up because he didn’t want to bother him and every time Siwon asked how he had slept he always answered “fine, and you?”. He never explained why he suddenly was so tired all the time, why his eyes were red when he woke up and why he had dark circles under his eyes.

Donghae decided to return a Thursday. He had succeeded in sleeping four hours and decided that it was enough – he couldn’t stay in his room forever. He and Siwon did like they always did; ate breakfast in their room before getting ready and walk over to the main building. 

Their first class was Korean, with the teacher Donghae first met when he arrived, the one who gave Siwon permission to leave the classroom and help the new student. He was nice and Donghae liked him. “I heard about your accident.” the man said, when he saw Donghae entering the classroom and Donghae could hear curious people whisper ‘what accident?’. “Get well soon”. Donghae nodded, bowed and thanked him before walking over to his seat. 

When all students arrived and were about to open their books the teacher stopped them and said that he had something to tell them. “Before we start today’s lesson I have something to tell you”. Some students raised one eyebrow while others did what Donghae and Siwon did; look at each other with a questioning look and shrug their shoulders. No one understood what their teacher was talking about. “We’ll go on a trip tomorrow” their teacher continued. “to a forest where we will study trees.”

“What?” some students in unison. 

“You heard me.”

The students started to moan and complain, some silently cursing their teacher for being so spontaneous. The teacher ignored it completely and continued talking.

“We'll travle by bus. You’ll sleep in a tent and–”

“WHAT?!” this time the whole class, except for Donghae, said.

“Yes. You guys take everything for granted”. Donghae couldn’t agree more. “A nice bed, a bathtub – no. You’ll sleep in a tent for three nights. It’s time for you to learn a real lesson.”

“By staring at trees and sleeping in a freaking tent?!” a guy from the back row asked. 

“Exactly.” the teacher answered, with the same sarcasm as the student asking used. “Now, we’ll go through this papers together.” he held up a bunch of papers, that were previously lying on his desk in front of him, so everyone could see it. “Here are all instructions; rules, information about the assignment, what you must bring and so on”. He distributed four papers to each student and they started to complain again; one after another.

“So you really are serious? For real?” a guy, sitting behind Eunhyuk, said when the teacher left his papers on his desk.

“We’ll sleep in a tent?” another one added.

“I am very serious.” the teacher casually responded.

“Is it really a good idea?” a third one asked. “We’re from SM, you know.” 

“Yeah, does the principal even know about this?” 

“Don’t you think –” 

The last student didn’t have time to finish her sentence before the teacher interrupted them. He was starting to get irritated. “I don’t care if you’re from SM or not.” he said honestly. “And yes, he knows. You’ll leave tomorrow, Friday, and return next week’s Monday.”

The class didn’t stop complaining for that but instead started to complain even more and louder since they realized that they couldn’t escape from this at all.

“Let him do it.” Eunhyuk suddenly said – he didn’t have to scream to make the whole class hear him – and pointed at Donghae with his head, since the effort of doing it with his hand wasn’t worth it. “He’s probably used to it.” 

The class started to laugh and Donghae didn’t even mind to care or even sigh. He had learned by now how to become immune against Eunhyuk’s comments.

“Enough!” their teacher screamed – losing the small amount of patience that he had left. He turned to glare at Eunhyuk. “How old are you, Hyukjae ssi?” he asked. Eunhyuk didn’t answer, since the teacher already knew how old he was. He was just making fun of him and Eunhyuk did not like it. “Answer me.” the teacher demanded.

“Seventeen.” Eunhyuk answered with a glare.

This time Donghae was the one that wanted to laugh. The whole class was tensely following everything that was going on; teacher versus Eunhyuk. Donghae, on the other hand, had to bite his bottom lip to not laugh out loud.

“Then act like it.” the man finished with. 

Donghae was the only one finding this hilarious. Not even Siwon laughed but just looked at him in a bothered way and tried to tell him to stop it, without using words. Eunhyuk didn’t fail to notice that Donghae was quietly laughing at him. So when the teacher turned around Eunhyuk ripped of a part of his paper and crumpled it up. Then he threw it at Donghae’s direction and it hit his head. He succeeded in getting Donghae’s attention and when Donghae turned around to see where that piece of paper came from Eunhyuk clearly mouthed “ you”. Donghae didn’t stop for that, quiet the reverse – he found if even more amusing. He smirked at him which made Eunhyuk even more angry, before casually turning around – completely enjoying this moment.  

When distributing all papers their teacher walked over to his on his desk. He adjusted his glasses before speaking. “Since I know it can be very noisy on the bus” he looked at the corner where Eunhyuk and his friends were sitting. “I’ve decided who you will sit with. The person sitting beside you will also be the person you’ll share a tent with. Look at the second paper, there’s the list of who you’ll be paired up with.” 

After some seconds they whole class burst out laughing. Everyone except from Eunhyuk and Donghae, since they knew everyone was laughing at them. They both looked exactly the same; terrified. Siwon wasn’t laughing either, since he was feeling so, so sorry for his friend.

There, on the list, was 'Lee Donghae – Lee Hyukjae’ clearly written.

“No way...” Eunhyuk whispered, his eyes being huge and he was reading that sentence over and over again. He did not want to believe it. Sungmin, sitting beside him, had already started to shed tears from laughing so hard. He couldn’t even breathe and tried to cover his mouth to muffle his laughter, but failed.

Donghae looked pleadingly at Siwon, begging for mercy. But Siwon couldn’t give him that, so instead he just put a cheerfully hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Oh God...” Donghae whispered. This was nothing he was looking forward to.

Posted on: 15th August, 2011. Monday.