Sitting in the middle of his bed with his knees drawn up to his chest, Sehun tries to get a sense for who he...the 'other' Sehun was. Despite the weight of fear in his chest at the uncertainty of knowing the stranger, he can't ignore the nawing desire to know something, to understand. This is his life and three years of it are missing. So it makes sense to want to get them back in someway, but he can't help the apprehension building in his chest. Somehow afraid of what he'll find.

In the three years that he has lost Sehun's life has changed dramatically. He has graduated from middle-school and completed his first year of high school. His step-brother, Kris, has graduated high school and entered pre-law through the local college - he'll will be moving out on his own, if things go well. Sehun's mother, a nurse, now works ridiculous hours in emergency, leaving Kris in charge of his younger step-brother.

All of this is new to Sehun. He doesn't know anything about his own life anymore. Does he still have the same group of friends? Do he and his bestfriend, Kai, even attended the same high school? What is he studying? Is he doing ok at school or is he flunking? Is he a good student or a dilinquent? The hair and the piercing in his right ear - that he never noticed before - are a strong indication of the latter?

Alone in his room, in his heart, Sehun knows who he is, but outside in the wide world he doesn't know who he is to others. The stranger, the 'other' Sehun, hijacked his life for three years. To the rest of the world the person that Sehun knows, or at least believes, he is is not the Sehun they know. And it scares him to think about facing that; facing what the stranger has made him.

Tugging anxiously at his hair, Sehun takes it all in, from the high school uniform hanging on the back of the door, to the band posters on the wall and the computer on his desk - which he can't access because he doesn't know the password. All of it feels wrong. Sehun has never liked rock music, or even heard of half of the bands in 'his' CD collection. The photo on the shelf above his desk of him with his classmates at 'his' junior high graduation is not Sehun. The smiling face with the cresent eyes that the photo captures is not Sehun's. He has no memory of that day, because the memory is not his. It's the stranger's. All of it is. Sehun is a stranger in his own life.

There's a knock at the door and after a moment with no response from Sehun the door opens. "Hey," Kris pokes his head in the door. "How 're you feelin'?"

"A stranger has been living my life for the past three years. How d'you think I feel?" Sehun replies sardonically. For a second Kris' expression darkens as he closes the door behind himself and takes a seat on the edge of the bed next to Sehun.

"I know we haven't always been close." He starts, staring down at the agressive red and black design of the stranger's bed spread. "But, you know, after the accident, when you didn't even remember who me and mum were...I thought we'd lost you. Now I know I'm not the world's greatest brother and you probably think I'm an most days," Sehun his eyebrow and shoots his brother a disbelieving look. This is not the Kris he remembered. The Kris he knew didn't do deep and meaningfuls. The whole thing just unsettles Sehun.

"Kri-"

"but," Kris continues, ignoring Sehun. "that 'stranger' you keep talking about, sure some things were different," He glances around the room. "in fact, a lot of things...but that's not the point. He was still my brother. He was still you, on the inside, just different packaging."

"Is this supposed to make me feel better, because all this D and M is creeping me out."

Kris punches Sehun in the arm with that awkward, embarassed laugh of his that puts Sehun in mind of a baying goat. "Yes, you . I'm trying to say that 'both' of you are my brother regardless..." He trails off.

"Regardless of what?"

"Everything." Kris answers cryptically with a non-commital shrug as he stands up. "Just wanted you to know that."

Before Sehun can force Kris to clarify himself his step-brother is out the door. What the hell was that about? Sehun wonders to him self flopping back on his bed. As he stares up at the ceiling, studying the poster above him - a mid-shot of a vocalist with a shock of blonde hair in an ed shirt, showing off the tattoos crawling across his chest, and pants ripped and torn within an inch of their life screaming in apparent agony into the microphone in his hand - Sehun wonders what it is about it that had been appealling to his 'other' self. Is it perhaps what he aspired to be?

During his search for the journal Doctor Zhang had alluded to Sehun had discovered - in the back of his wardrobe behind a collection of concert t-shirts - a well-loved electric green and black bass guitar, stickers of skulls littering the body, a red pick with a pentagram printed on it tucked into the strings on the neck. It was a beautiful instrument and Sehun couldn't resist the urge to run his fingers over the strings that welled up in him. As his finger tips traced over the coils Sehun had felt a sudden tingle in his veins and pulled his hand back as though he'd been burnt, his pulse quickening. It had been a strange feeling, hot and aggressive like the burn of hours of relentless playing, tinged with a thrill of adrenaline that did weird things to Sehun's stomach, almost like it was suddenly weightless.

Even the memory of it as Sehun tucks his arms beneath his head makes his stomach feel light. It's not unpleasant, but it's a feeling that Sehun's never really experienced before and he doesn't know what to make of it.

On the side table 'his' phone - an obnoxious flurescent green flip-phone - vibrates, lights flashing on through the plastic cover, towards the edge. For a moment Sehun fights with himself over whether he should open it. It's not his phone, but then again it is.

Rolling over he catches it before it falls of the edge and flips open. A message alert flashes on the screen - the sender coming up as TAO in bold letters. It's a name Sehun doesn't recognise, but the sight of the name stirs something warm in the bottom of his chest, something akin to familiarity, even fondness. Curious Sehun opens the message.

Where were you today?

Sehun has no idea who this Tao is. He can only guess from the message that Tao is a friend from school. Someone he is close enough with that they would notice when he's not at school. He debates whether or not to reply to the message, deciding that it would be rude not to even if he doesn't know the sender. Keeping it simple and sweet he replies with...

Sick.

Seconds later the phone vibrates again.

Need me to come over?

Not good. Sehun's not ready to be dealing with the stranger's friends in person yet so he types a hasty. No. I'm OK.

Seriously?

Yeah, serious.

A few minutes pass before he gets a reply.

Oh, ok then. See you tomorrow?

Even though it is just a text the hopeful note it ends on makes Sehun feel guilty. For all he knows this could be his...no, the stranger's best friend. Maybe, only friend even. So in a moment of weakness Sehun replies...

Yeah, see you tomorrow.

After he clicks the send button, Sehun wants to mentally kick himself. He's just promised to a stranger that he'll be at school tomorrow. He can just imagine the disaster it will be when he gets to school and doesn't know anything or recognise anyone. Staring at the phone in his hand, Sehun curses himself and the twinge of guilt that made him send the text. He can't take it back now. He has to face the stranger's friend, but he doesn't know anything...

Wait. Sehun sits up. He has the stranger's phone, maybe there's something in it that can help him. First Sehun looks at the call and message history. It seems he... the stranger is still in regular contact with Kai and most of Sehun's friends from junior high. That's good. At least there is still something familiar in his new life.

The stranger has a few friends that Sehun doesn't know too, judging by the unfamiliar names in the contact list, including Tao - who Se...the stranger texted everyday apparently. In the phone's photo album Sehun finds numerous selfies of himself...the stranger, both alone and with other people.

As he flicks through them Sehun sees a detailed evolution of the stranger's hair from black that Sehun began with to the rainbow disaster it was now. They confirm his suspicions that the stranger had turned him into a delinquent. Sehun cringes internally at one photo. He looks like a punk hustler - dressed in a faded black band shirt, the collar torn off so the neck line plunges beneath his collar bones, with a black leather vest and studded dog collar round his neck, hair bleached to a smokey orange - one arm slung around the waist of a boy with a bright red faux-hawk in a denim vest covered in sew-on badges and patches, a heavy silver chain hanging around his neck and thick black frames perched on his nose, while a boy - in an oversized t-shirt with shocking blonde hair tied back with a banadana around his head - that Sehun belatedly recognises as Kai, hangs off his left shoulder.

The Kai Sehun knows would be just as horried as he is at the photo. What had they become? Had the stranger turned Kai into this?

In another photo - that appears to have been taken on some bleachers - the 'other'' Sehun, this time with cotton-candy pink hair, has his arm thrown over the shoulder of the red-head from the previous photo. The pair of them are pressed check to cheek pouting agressively at the camera, while a cigarette burns away in the red-head's hand.

Sehun flushes with embarassment as he looks at the photo. He can't...won't believe that the person in the photo is him, as Kris had earlier suggested. Sehun and the stranger are not the same person. These photos are evidence enough of that. Sehun is a good student, a popular well liked student, not the delinquent he's looking at now. He feels the bottom of stomach fall out at the thought of school tomorrow, of facing the embarrassment of his now 'delinquent' reputation.

As he sits there flipping through the photos Sehun can help but dreed tomorrow.