Since then, Yongguk cannot get the name Takada Kenta out of his mind.

He knew no Japanese in his personal contacts, and honestly he doesn't know what to think about Kenta. He feels lighter while thinking about the latter, but he cannot remember any times he had spent with him?

It was as if only the feeling was left, and not a tiny bit of their memory was spared.

Maybe Yongguk was suffering from partial memory loss?

But then, even his friends didn't know who Kenta was.

What's with you, really?

"My heart beats faster by the mere thought of his name." Yongguk stared at the ceiling, as he went deep into his thoughts, while his palm lay atop of his chest, still with bandages wrapped around it. Then, he suddenly thought of an idea, and sprang up from his bed, and loudly asked himself, "Did I love this person before?"

He felt his chest ache for quite a short while, so he just stayed still (with eyes shut) for a while, taking deep breaths.

Yongguk started hearing stifled coughs, as the pain diminished, but still felt the need to stay still, as he slowly regains a part of his memory.

"Are you okay?" Kenta asked, with much worry in his tone.

Yongguk took one last deep breath, and slowly opened his eyes, blinking for a few times before realizing the situation he got in.

"I'm.. f-fine." Yongguk replied, trying hard to not cough so hard that it'll worry Kenta, but his expression was painful, and strained.

"You should drink some water." Kenta advised, and went over to the table beside Yongguk's bed, to pour water into a glass. But, as he lifted his arm to hold the pitcher, he just stopped, motionless, speechless.

Yongguk noticed this, but didn't pry on it further, and just grabbed the pitcher himself, and poured into a glass, then drank it in one go.

"I'm going to sleep for a while." Yongguk plainly said, as he pulled his blanket over his body, lied his head on the pillow, and closed his eyes, off into dreamland.

Hence, he did not see Kenta's frustration and despair.

Kenta immediately wiped the tears that streamed down his pale face, trying hard not to make any sound because Yongguk may wake up anytime.

"Oh, I forgot." Kenta muttered under his breath, with a bitter smile, and teary eyes.

"What are you doing?"

Yongguk flickered his eyes open, at the sudden voice. He looked up to whom it came from, and saw his friend, Youngmin.

"Trying to remember someone." Yongguk flatly said in nonchlance. No one knows who Kenta is, anyway.

"Kenta?" Youngmin asked

, as if he knew the person quite well, which took the other man by surprise.

"You know him?" Yongguk asked back, looking at him in the eye.

The black-haired visitor, wearing an outfit of 3 layers, casually nodded, as he sat down on a stool beside the other's bed.

"You've mentioned him a few times, before." Youngmin started, and Yongguk listened attentively. He rekindled Yongguk's word from before to Yongguk himself with much details, as if it just happened, recently. However, none of these were familiar to the Yongguk, but believes his friend, nonetheless.

"I've never met him, though." Youngmin ended, when the other asked if he had met him. The patient's shoulders slumped down for a bit, at his reply.

"How come no one met him? Or even know him?" 

 

Should I go or not?

Yongguk fiddled on the hems of his hospital gown as he asked himself the same question over, and over again, despite his feet already making their own way towards the same room he had went in the last time.

The chilly air enveloped Yongguk's senses, as he smelled the familiar faint fragrance of alcohol.

He stopped in front of one of the six beds in the room. The middle one, against the left wall of the room.

He remembers. The bed used to be his.

"You're Kenta." He asked, aware he's alone in the room. 

"Your real name is Jin Longguo? You're Chinese?!"

"I am." 

"But you speak Korean so well, I never would've thought you're Chinese!" 

"I know." 

Yongguk sat on the unoccupied bed, and somehow he felt like he was back at the past. The past that he does not remember. He slipped off his feet from his footwear, and lied down on the bed, lying on one side of his body, facing the bed nearest to the window. 

He closed his eyes for a while, calmed his senses, and tried to remember more. There's more to this. 

He felt a fluttering tickling sensation as soft fingertips carefully play with his hair. He slowly opened his eyes, and as if on cue, he was back to the past. 

The moment he blinked, he saw a silhouette of a figure of a curly-haired man, against the radiating sunlight from the window.

He recognized it was Kenta, and as he blinked more, he saw the other's features sharper, and clearer than ever. 

Those slight curls covering his forehead, those soft cheeks,  and a few piercings on his ear.

Yongguk now remembered how Kenta looked like, and as he scanned his face longer, he felt his heart beat as if it was racing with a car. 

"Did I wake you up? Your hair looked soft, I'm sorry, hehe." Kenta apologized, and chuckled, as he retrieved his hand, and Yongguk snapped to his senses at the loss of the ticklish feeling. 

He blinked one more time, and there, the image of Kenta vanished into thin air. Yongguk's eyes shook violently as he rose from the bed, and looked around, only to realize that Kenta disappeared with no trace at all.

It was then that his friend, Youngmin's words haunted him, for another time.

"Maybe Kenta isn't real, but is just the result of your desire for comfort, and company. You were quite miserable, back then, Yongguk-ah." 

 

"No. Kenta is real. No. You're wrong. I'm not crazy. " 
Yongguk whispered to himself.