Sehun shifts anxiously in his seat, tugging the beanie he'd borrowed from Kris further down in an unconscious effort to make sure his humiliating 'rainbow' hair is completely hidden. God forbid if someone were to see any pink or blue peaking out from under the black wool. He feels like everyone's eyes are on him as he sits with his mother - who is flipping through a tabloid magazine four months old - in the busy waiting room. He feels like he's under constant scrutiny, like everyone around him knows what he's hiding under his hat.

It takes most of his strength to keep a lid on his agrivation and anxiety as he watches the receptionist behind the counter beating out machine gunfire at the computer. Only a couple of hours ago he'd woken to discover that nearly three years had passsed in his sleep and somehow, someway his hair had turned into kindergartener's paintbox in the mean time. To say that Sehun had taken to whole revelation well would be a blatant lie. He'd spent the first hour after the initial shock locked in the bathroom trying to wake himself from what he'd convienced himself was a really, really ed up nightmare, while his step-brother calmly called their mother. It had taken both her and Kris a good half-hour to talk Sehun out, calmly assuring him that he was not crazy that and that everything would be explained if he went to the 'specialist' with his mother - Kris had to get to class (at college it turned out).

The 'specialist' it turns out is a neurologist, not a psychologist like Sehun had been half expecting. The revelation had been a minor relief in a series of unbelivable and insane relevations. To be honest Sehun still couldn't get his head around the fact that he'd slept for three years. Was it even possible? And if it was why hadn't anyone tried to wake him up? It all sounded like the stuff of poorly thoughout science fiction. But then again people did wake up from comas years later. Maybe he'd been in a coma. But then what about his hair?

Sehun brings his hands to his face and whines pathetically - no doubt drawing the attention of the other patients. It's too much for him to make sense of and a part of him is still holding out that he will wake up soon, though his bruised arm - where he'd pinched it within an inch of his life - is not a promising sign. The dull ache and heat in his skin feel too real to be a dream.

But how could he have gone to slept last night a junior high school and wake up three years in the future - a second year highschooler with rainbow hair with a brother in college and an apparent love of alternate metal, judging from the posters on his wall. From what Sehun could gather he had become someone he doesn't know and doubts he will ever understand.

Rumaging through his room this morning trying to find something to wear had been like going through the room of a stranger. Nothing had been where he'd left it. None of the clothes in the stranger's wardrobe were his. None of them were his style. He felt like an alien in his own life -in his own body even - as he stood staring at the open wardrobe. His favourite shirt - a simple grey-blue fitted t-shirt with rounded collar - was nowhere to be found and all of his straight-cut jeans had been replaced with skinny-cut, stressed denim jeans that looked as though they'd been thrown into a mulcher with tattered holes on the knees and tears around the thighs.

Sehun had pulled out every item of clothing he apparently owned in an effort to find something he could bring himself to wear, but failed to find thing that he didn't cringe at the thought of wearing. In the end he settled for the least tattered pants he could find - a pair of stressed, black skinny jeans tattered holes over the knees, but nowhere else thankfully - a grey, corderiod tank under a studded leather jacket with some band badge on the back that was barely long enough to reach the top of his hips. He feels like a complete tool in the outfit, but it was the best he could find when some of the things he found downright horrified him. (Sehun is still struggling to erase the memory of the black mesh tank top and studded collars he found from his mind. Needless to say he binned them without a second thought.)

Even Sehun's body has turned against him. He's grown. His limbs are longer than they were and feel gangly and unweldly as he shifts in his seat anxiously, legs crossing uncomfortably under his chair. Nothing feels right and it unsettles Sehun. He can't relax and all he wants to do is scream.

Next to him Sehun's mother sense his unease and rests a comforting hand on knee. "It's ok, honey." She murmurs quietly. It does little to ease him, but Sehun folds his hand over his mother's and shoots her a small smile that he hopes looks more genuine than it feels.

"Sehun?" At the call of his name Sehun looks up. A man, presumably his neurologist, is looking down at him with a familiar smile. "How are you?" The doctor asks and then looks to Sehun's mother. "What brings you both today?"

"It's happened." Sehun's mother answers cryptically, giving Sehun's knee a squeeze.

The doctor pauses of a moment. "Oh," Understanding the vague answer he turns his attention back to Sehun and offers his hand. "Zhang Yixing," The neurologist smiles. It's disarmingly genuine and warm. "Nice to meet you, Sehun. Would you like to come into my office?"

Sehun, unsure of how else to answer, shrugs, standing from his seat. His mother moves to follow him, but Doctor Zhang waves her back. For a moment Sehun hesitates, a part of him wanting his mother to follow as he turns back to her. Sensing his uncertainty she gives him a smile and encourages him to follow Doctor Zhang into his office.

Inside Sehun doesn't feel any less uneasy as Doctor Zhang gestures to a sofa and arm chair to the left of his desk, by a welcoming bay window. Unsure exactly where the doctor wants him to sit, Sehun takes a seat on the end of the sofa closest to the door as the neurologist sits in the armchair opposite.

"So," Zhang says as sits back in the chair, letting the word hang for a moment before continuing. "What have you been told? How much has been explained to you?"

Sehun wrings his hands in his lap, strangely self-conscious around the doctor. Somehow he feels as though the man across from him knows more about him than he is comfortable with a stranger knowing. "Nothing."

"It's ok, Sehun." Zhang assures, as though he understands Sehun's reluctance to talk to him. "You may not remember, but we've known each other for quite a while now. I've been working with you since your accident. To be -"

"Accident?" Sehun asks somewhat distressed at the thought of what could have happened to him.

Doctor Zhang takes a moment to consider how best to explain things before leaning forward and looking Sehun square in the eye. "Yes, from what I understand you were hit by a car on your way home from school."

The revelation knocks the wind from Sehun and he feels a sudden tightness in his chest as Doctor Zhang continues. "as a result, you suffered severe memory loss. So severe, in fact, that I doubted your memories would come back."

Zhang watches Sehun closely as he gives the young man a chance to come to terms what he's being told. The doctor understands that it's a heavy thing to be told that you'd been in a horrific accident and lost three years of your life.

Sehun for his part is thankful for opportunity to take everything in. He doesn't know what he had been expecting he'd be told, but some small corner of him, deep down knew. One of his hands unconsciously moved to a scar on his thigh that'd he'd noticed this morning. A scar that cut a jagged line down his leg to his knee. Some part of him knew was from the accident.

"Do you have any questions?" Zhang asks tentatively as he continues to watch Sehun. The scrutiny makes Sehun uncomfortable, like he's a basket case under observation.

"Why...Why can't I remember any of it?"

"Memory is a very complex thing." The neurologist explains. "You did sustain some brain damage after the accident that prevented you from retrieving your past memories. Though you were still capable of creating new memories. So despite some initial problems, for the past three years you have been able live a relatively normal life - albeit without your past memories - and no doubt a live much different from the life you would have if you did have those memories."

"What do you mean?"

"Sehun, when I met you you had no memory of who you were or who your family were. Your entire sense of self was gone. Over the past three years you've had to rediscover everything about yourself from what your family and friends have told you and the things you've experienced since the accident. No doubt you may have already noticed a few things about yourself and your life that aren't 'you'." Zhang says, eyeing the black beanie that Sehun has pulled down past his ears.

"Yeah." Sehun agrees, sheepishly, unconsciously tugging down on the beanie. "You could say that. But why can't I remember the new memories?"

Zhang rests his chin in his hand and thinks for a moment. "My guess is that whatever changes have allowed you to remember the memories you lost are preventing you from accessing your newer memories. It's likely that they are still there, but just stored away in a place you can no longer reach. Maybe one day they will come back too."

"And if they do? What happens then, does the 'new' me take over?" Sehun asks, unsure that he wants that to happen. Sure it's horrible to have lost three years of his life, but if what Doctor Zhang is telling him is true and that for the last three years he has been a different Sehun, one that dyes his hair all the colours of the rainbow and listens to bands Sehun never even knew existed, he's not sure he wants those years back.

"I can't say." Doctor Zhang muses. "I guess that will be up to you, if you want to reconcile the 'old' you with the 'new' you."

Sehun scoffs. He doubts 'old' Sehun and 'new' Sehun would get along all that well if their taste in music is anything to go by. "So that's it then? I just go back to my life, flounder about and hope that maybe my memories come back?"

"No, not necessarily."Zhang says lifting his head from his hand. "During my early sessions with you I suggested you keep a journal, in the event you had further problems with your memory. Last time I saw you you told me that you were still keeping it. Maybe when you get home you can look for it. No doubt it will tell you more about the 'other' you than I can."

There's some thing about the eagerness behind Zhang's suggestion and the way he doesn't meet Sehun's eye that makes Sehun uneasy, like there's something the doctor is not telling him. Something that's probably in the journal he's supposedly kept for the past three years. A part of him wants to asks what the doctor is not telling him, but a bigger part of him, a part of him that is afraid of what the doctor's answer will be bites on his tongue and he leaves it at that. Does he really want to know the 'other' him? Does he really want to understand the stranger that controlled his body and his life for the past three years? The stranger that dyed his hair and filled his wardrobe with ridiculous clothes. The fear and anxiety stirring in his chest says no.