Eunhyuk POV

It's hard for me to hate someone who looks more pathetic than I feel.

I gazed at Sungmin, who was sitting on the farthest side of the hospital waiting room, his head leaning up against the wall; his lifeless eyes open, but unseeing.  His hands were relaxed at his sides, the warmth having left them hours ago.  He was unmoving.  Quiet.  Dead.

I was all too willing to tear my eyes away from the sight of his painful listlessness.  Simply knowing how much he was hurting inside made my own heart want to bury itself in the depths of my soul.  All I could do was watch and wait; wait for when the agonizing silence would end and the missing knowledge of Kyuhyun's condition would finally rise to the surface of the tension that had made itself our permanent companion.

"Eunhyuk, you should go back to your hospital room.  They need to re-apply your bandages or else they'll get infected."  Ryeowook's worried voice broke through my thoughts.

I turned my head slowly to look at him.  It took me a second to register what he was saying.  I was still in a state of shock.  All my mind could wrap around were the deafening crashes, the roars of an engine, the screams that had surrounded me, and the dark nothingness that followed the sickening pain that met my skull.  I was still stuck in that car; helpless; defenseless; on the brink of death.  Ignoring Ryeowook's advice, I closed my eyes and buried my head in my hands, as though doing so would also help bury the memory of the accident.

You don't have it nearly as bad as Leeteuk and Kyuhyun.  You're lucky you escaped with only minor cuts and bruises. You're not about to die.

I forced that thought down.  Kyuhyun was not about to die.  He owed it to Super Junior, to Sungmin, and to himself to keep on living.  I couldn't imagine a world without our maknae.  It was dark; empty; pointless.  Against my wished, I knew that I blamed Sungmin for everything that transpired between Donghae and myself.  If he had just stayed with Donghae, maybe then my heart wouldn't have ended up so cold and shriveled and lonely.  But no.  Kyuhyun snatched Sungmin away, leaving Donghae,  longing for the love he once had.  And me,  longing for the love I knew I would never get as long as Donghae's life remained centered around Kyuhyun's newfound lover.

Donghae now sat next to Sungmin, whispering words of - I hoped - comfort and reassurance.  The change in him was unexpected.  After I had left that motel room, I had vowed to never give a care about Donghae and the choices of his heart again.  I had been so sure.  But now, I couldn't relax.  I couldn't place my finger on why Donghae was suddenly the man I had fallen in love with so long ago, and not the bitter person he had become in the course of the past week.  He was...different.

The past three days had been spent in utter silence, waiting for news of Kyuhyun.  As far as we knew, he was still in a comatose state.  Waiting was torture, though I knew it had to be the worst for Sungmin.  With every passing second of each day, I could see the light leaving his once warm, happy eyes.  I could see all life draining out at the cracks that continued to appear along the delicate contours of his fragile heart.  I could see, through his eyes, the world losing its color; the depressing darkness increasingly taking over.

"Excuse me, but which one of you is the guardian of Cho Kyuhyun?"  The gruff, bored voice of a male nurse stepped through the doors of the waiting room.

The scraping of chairs met my ears as I turned to see Siwon, Heechul, Shindong, Yesung, and Ryeowook stand up at once, their faces etched with identical masks of anticipation, anxiety, and concern.  Sungmin and I remained seated.  I didn't want to get my hopes up, only to have them crushed again.  Sungmin, however, was simply deaf  to the goings-on of the world outside his own thoughts.  My heart stuttered as I saw that Donghae had also risen.  Since when did he give a about Kyuhyun?

"I am."  Six worried, tired voices rang out simultaneously.  The nurse didn't seem to know how to handle the situation, so he simply turned to Siwon and addressed him specifically.

"Kyuhyun is now conscious," the nurse stated, his words followed by sharp gasps that escaped the lips of all the members.  "However, I can only allow you to visit him in pairs.  He is still mute from the shock of the accident and has suffered numerous internal injuries, but he is able to comprehend everything we tell him.  We don't want to overwhelm him, just in case of a minor brain trauma."

"What do you mean by a minor brain trauma?" I asked, my voice low.  I sounded stiff, as though I hadn't spoken in weeks.

"Well," the nurse said, turning to look down at where I resided on a cushioned chair, "various things could occur as a result of the accident.  Memory loss is the most likely candidate, but some other side effects could simply be short term."

"Are you saying he might not have any recollection of any of us?"  Siwon's gaze flickered ever-so-slightly to where Sungmin was still sitting motionless; lifeless.

"Yes."

All of the members, including myself, exchanged panicked looks of shock.  Memory loss was only ever what we saw in movies or read about in books.  It had never occurred to any of us that it was actually real.  That it could happen to one of us.

"Donghae, try to get Sungmin to snap out of it while Eunhyuk and I go and visit Kyuhyun," Siwon beckoned me forward.  I got up hesitantly, eyeing my elder warily.  If Kyuhyun had lost most of his memory, I didn't want to be there to find out. 

As much as I thought it was his fault that my love for Donghae had continually gone unrequited, I still loved our maknae, and didn't want to deal with the possibility that he might not even remember me.  I clasped Siwon's strong hand in my own as we followed the nurse out of the waiting room and into the deserted hallway.  I could hear our footsteps reverberate off the walls, but could barely feel my own legs moving me forward.  It was all I could do to take another step without falling flat on my face.  I was shaking uncontrollably as Siwon wrapped his arms around me, calming the anxiety that flooded my body.

"It's going to be okay," I heard Siwon whisper in my ear.  "His memory is going to be perfectly fine." 

As much as I wanted to believe him, I could hear the doubt that seeped out from behind his words.  He was scared, too;  scared that all those precious memories of Super Junior would be emptied from Kyuhyun's mind.  I clung tighter to Siwon as we entered Kyuhyun's hospital room.  I was losing my mind, the panic completely taking over me.  No.  I had changed my mind.  I wanted out.  I didn't want to be there for when Kyuhyun would look into my face without a hint of recognition.  I didn't want to be a stranger to yet another person as well as Donghae.

"Please refrain from speaking to loudly," the nurse said as he parted the curtain that surrounded Kyuhyun's bed.  "I'm guessing you don't want to worsen his condition."

I shook my head slowly as Kyuhyun was revealed.  Tears immediately sprung to my eyes as I looked down at the thin, broken figure that rested on the bed.  Kyuhyun's chest seemed like it had collapsed in on itself.  His arms were limp and unmoving.  My eyes, against my better judgment, moved up to gaze at his face.  My heart turned to ice as my eyes met his warm, chocolate brown irises.

"Oh, God," I choked out, my right hand flying up to cover my mouth.  Siwon was in too much shock to reprimand me to taking the Lord's name in vain.

Kyuhyun was, quite literally, the living dead.  Tubes wrapped around his head and neck, encasing him in a tangle of clear plastic.  The bags under his eyes were awful, the translucent blue reaching down to where his cheekbone threatened to rip through the taught, waxy sin of his cheek.  His lips were chapped and torn, a thick piece of plastic having been forced into his mouth.  Sweat covered his face, which was contorted into an expression of outright agony.  My vision blurred as the steady flow of tears that escaped my eyes increased in intensity.  I couldn't handle seeing him like this.  It was too much.

I fell onto my knees at the side of his bed, leaving Siwon to pray in silence for the safety of our maknae.  My hand wrapped around Kyuhyun's, keeping myself from dropping it at the unexpected coolness and roughness of its dead skin.  I buried my face in the bed sheets and let loose a torrent of sobs and moans.  The sadness and frustration at the world wouldn't leave me.  They refused to let me be, merely making the cries that ripped through my throat more painful.  I didn't know how much longer I could endure the painstaking silence that surrounded Kyuhyun's responsiveness.

I lifted my head to see Kyuhyun's looking down at me.  I braced myself for the moment when confusion would cloud his glazed eyes and he would shake his head, not knowing who I was and alarmed that a complete stranger was crying at his bedside.  Warmth and relief ran through every nerve in my body as blissful recognition filled Kyuhyun's soft eyes.

"K-Kyuhyun, you know w-who I am, right-t?"

Ever-so-slightly, Kyuhyun's head moved up and down, trying to hide how much pain that simple movement caused him.  I smiled through the tears.  He remembered me.  He knew who I was.  His memory was still intact.

"Kyu, do you know who I am?"  Siwon's voice came from above my head.  He leaned over me to gaze hopefully into Kyuhyun's lifeless, but eternally beautiful face.  his words were followed by another infinitesimal nod of his head.  The tension that had slithered its way into the atmosphere dissipated, leaving as Siwon and I exhaled in utter relief and exhaustion.

"Si...won."  I looked up in shock as those two syllables escaped Kyuhyun's open mouth.  He was supposed to me mute.  I stood up and met Siwon's confused gazed.

"H...Hyuk."  I felt my heart spread its dormant wings in preparation to take flight.  Kyuhyun remembered me.  Our precious maknae remembered his family.

"Eun...hyuk.  K-kiss...me."  I frowned, thinking I hadn't heard correctly.

"I can't kiss you.  That's Sungmin's job," my amused voice made Kyuhyun frown.

"Su-Sung...min?  He...is w-with...Hae."

What?

Siwon's worried voice broke through the ensuing silence, calling for the nurse.  Something was seriously wrong if Kyuhyun thought Sungmin and Hae were together.

"No, Kyuhyun.  You and Sungmin are together."

Kyuhyun's body shook as he laughed, the incredulous sound bubbling up and out of his lips.

"No...we're n-not."

Kyuhyun,  don't you dare tell me you don't remember.  You love Sungmin.  More than anything.

"I-I...don't lo-love...Sung...min."

I felt my smile disappear, only to be replaced my an expression of pained anxiety.

"I...lo-love...you, Hyu-hyuk."

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"...promise, he's simply confused.  the CT scan showed no signs of serious brain injury or internal bleeding. The most likely cause of this is that the loose tissue rubbed too hard against one side of the brain, resulting in swelling and temporary confusion.  This is not memory loss.  The symptoms don't match up at all."

I looked over to see Siwon wringing his hands nervously.  He looked about ready to fall over.  I felt just as shocked as he looked, my mind unable to register the idea that Kyuhyun, somehow, thought I was Sungmin, yet still Eunhyuk;  unable to wrap my mind around the fact that he didn't see me as the real Eunhyuk, but rather the Eunhyuk that he thought possessed the same traits and characteristics and features as Sungmin.  It was ridiculousness.

"You can try and talk to him to see if you're able to trigger any sort of change in his thought process, but we can't let you stay in here for over half an hour."  The doctor left, her apologetic smile leaving us in silence.

"Kyuhyun," Siwon began, "what's the last memory you have before waking up here?"

"I-In...the car.  Af..ter s-sukira."

Siwon and I glanced at each other, our faces identical masks of perplexed expressions.  He still remembered everything, yet was confusing the identities of myself and Sungmin.  It didn't make sense.

"What color is Eunhyuk's hair?" Siwon's inquiry seemed to confuse Kyuhyun.

"Brown.  W-why?"  His shaky, strained voice was full of doubt, as though he were afraid of getting the question wrong.

"Kyuhyun...his hair is blond."

"No...it's n-not.  I-I see...it.  It's b-brown, like..always."

I seemed incapable of moving.  I wanted to run out of the room and turn my back on our injured maknae, but something kept me rooted to the ground.  Something insisted that I be tortured this way.

I sense, rather than saw, Siwon move to the head of Kyuhyun's bed.  An anguished cry escaped his lips as he punched the wall in frustration, the faint thump that echoed along the wall making my ears ring.  the tears that fell from Siwon's eyes were all-too visible, even with his back to me.  The look in Kyuhyun's eyes made me want to break down; give up.  He was clueless as to why Siwon was so frustrated.  He was oblivious to the fact that with every word he uttered, my world seemed to crumble in on itself.

I wasn't worried about me.  I could deal with the fact that Kyuhyun thought I was Sungmin.  what I really feared was Sungmin himself.  I didn't know how Sungmin would react to the knowledge that Kyuhyun thought he was in love with me, the pseudo-Sungmin, and not the real him.  The situation was beyond ridiculous.  I needed to escape from it, but the only way out was facing Kyuhyun's lover.

I blocked everything out and collapsed onto the floor, burying my face in my knees; leaving Kyuhyun to his confusion and Siwon to his frustration.  There was nothing I could do to fix the situation; nothing I was capable of doing that could possibly set Kyuhyun's mind on the right track again.  He had to figure it out himself.  I didn't have the patience and strength to endure it.

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A/N:  Okay, I promise you all that this is not memory loss.  Memory loss is SUPER overrated and most of you would probably murder me if it were.  I don't know what you guize think of this chappie, so drop me a comment, k? ^^  I went to see The Vow last night....so I think that might've inspired this chapter.  But once again, I promise this isn't memory loss.  PROM15E!!!!  Love you all!  Thank you so much to my 115 subscribers! Your love and support will be forever cherished!<3