may 2011

He couldn’t believe it. It had been hours, that had seemed so many he’d stopped counting after a while, and he was still waiting to wake up from that nightmare; he knew it, it had to be that way: he would wake up confused as he’d never been before in his life and somebody (probably Youngbae) would make a good joke as he groggily walked into their kitchen in desperate search of a coffee and answers, and everything would be fine.

Everything would be fine because it had to be; he was tired and he didn’t want to witness everything crumbling right in front of his feet, not when he’d started to think he’d found a place where he really belonged. Maybe it was selfish, but he just wanted everything to go back as it had been just the day before, when none of them had any idea of what would happen, when they had nothing but bright sunlight in front of them.
 
He could still remember his disbelief, his total denial of something like that being possible, and it was extremely strange; it was like seeing a movie, not reliving his own memory. He knew he had been there but he couldn’t quite feel it. Because he felt empty, he felt completely numb, and maybe it was because he’d lost the ability to feel anything, or maybe because he was so fragile he could break into a million pieces if somebody touched him.

He sighed for the umpteenth time, trying to even his breathing, trying to keep his voice steady, as he once again called out, softly and yet desperately.
 
“Daesung?” he waited for a moment, holding his breath, trying to pick up even the smallest of sounds, the ghost of an answer, but everything stayed perfectly still, perfectly quiet. It was terrifying, to be buried so deeply into pure silence, pure nothingness. “Please, answer me…” he sounded miserable and, for once, he didn’t give a damn about that. He was. He didn’t know what to do, he was scared something was going to happen and that he wouldn’t be able to prevent it; he just wanted to hear his voice, to know that he was okay. But who was he kidding.

Of course, he wasn’t okay, nobody would’ve. That was so unfair. It was so ing unfair. What had Daesung ever done to deserve this? He spent all his time trying to make sure everyone around him was happy, and, in exchange, he got nothing but bad things. He knew perfectly that he would never forgive himself, and it wasn’t even his ing fault; but, yeah, sure, people would totally see it that way. Yeah, sure, people weren’t going to attack him for nothing, without even knowing what had really happened, because, that was just what people did.

Damn, he didn’t even know himself what exactly had happened, it was all sudden, fast, unexpected. Everything was going perfectly okay, and, now… But fact was, that Daesung wouldn’t hurt anybody, and he knew that, if people would’ve started spreading lies about him, it would’ve been difficult to just shut his mouth and pretend that wasn’t happening.
 
He’d walked into their living room that morning (he didn’t even know if it was that morning; it could’ve been a week before for all he knew) and had found Jiyong and Youngbae sitting on the couch, the first had his face buried in his hands, and the second had his arm around the leader, seemingly trying to calm him down. Seungri was nowhere to be seen. At first, he hadn’t thought about it too much, he’d thought he was probably worried for something about the group, music or some other thing.

He’d asked what was going on, as he’d normally do; only in that moment his dongsaengs had seemed to notice his presence, and Jiyong had looked at him with a strange look in his eyes, he’d seen just how tired he was, how hopeless he’d seemed and in that moment, he’d suddenly felt uneasy, and he’d know that the answer was going to break him into pieces (maybe because he’d seen Jiyong so sullen only a couple of times before and it had never been something good).
 
“Daesung’s gotten into a car accident.” it had taken a couple of seconds for the words to sink in, a moment for the meaning to reach him, through his leader’s soft and almost inaudible voice, and Seunghyun had felt like he was having a déjà vu and maybe he even hoped he was still sleeping and this wasn’t happening again.

He faintly remembered stuttering out a confused ‘what?’ and nothing else, unable to get the words out of his throat. Jiyong had tried to quickly but kindly inform him of what he knew to have happened and he’d just listened, accepting as he could what he was being told. It had happened in the first hours of the morning, and everything was extremely messy. No, Daesung wasn’t hurt; not physically, at least. A man had died and the police wasn’t sure if it was Daesung’s fault or not.

Seunghyun could feel the world breaking into pieces right under his feet, could almost see it. He couldn’t believe something like that had happened to Daesung. Nobody deserved it, but he, least than everybody else. He only deserved happiness.
 
When he’d found his voice again, somehow, maybe because he’d needed to know, he’d shakily asked Jiyong where the younger was and the answer had shocked him more than anything.

‘Here’.

That was the only word he’d said, and in that moment, he could hear something snap inside of him; he’d turned around and had rushed for the short distance that separated him from Daesung’s room. He hadn’t even known what he was doing, the only thing he’d wanted in that moment was pound against his door until he could see with his own eyes that he was doing fine, that he was at least alive; just as he’d reached it, he’d felt someone grabbing his arm and holding him back, and, even if he’d tried to free himself, it hadn’t worked.

He’d glared back at Youngbae, who was looking at him with gentle yet grave eyes, telling him that they’d already tried to reach him, but he wouldn’t answer, and there was no need to scare him more than he already was; he’d snarled at him something he couldn’t remember, even if he’d realised that he was perfectly right and he didn’t want to make matters worse, and had gotten back to his own room, sitting against the door.

He’d kept looking in front of himself for a long time, and had realised that he couldn’t feel anything at all, probably because he didn’t want to, because it was better that way.
 
He’d gotten out of the room after hours, and had found that everything was perfectly silent, and that it was dark outside; he’d asked himself how it was possible that the others were just sleeping in a similar situation, how they could pretend that nothing had happened at all, when it was obvious that it wasn’t something which could be ignored.

And there he was, sitting on the cold floor in front of Daesung’s room, his legs pressed up against his chest, desperately trying to reach him, unable to do anything except helplessly wait. He didn’t even dare to open any social media, knowing that the news had probably already spread and that misinformation was overly common around their industry, he didn’t want to see what they were saying about him; he didn’t even know what was going to happen now, he was unsure if things were even going to go back as they’d been. Maybe it didn’t even matter; what mattered was the now, what was happening right in that moment, what mattered was that Daesung was suffering and he couldn’t even try to comfort him.
 
“Listen… you don’t have to come out, just…” a sudden terrifying thought crossed his mind, and it stayed there, wouldn’t leave him alone; he felt a lump forming in his throat and he painfully swallowed nothing, trying to form a coherent phrase. “Give me a sign. I just need to know that you’re-” he didn’t even know what to say; he couldn’t say ‘okay’, because he knew perfectly he wasn’t, and he would’ve sounded mockingly, somehow; he couldn’t say ‘alive’, it was too harsh and he would’ve sounded stupid. He shook his head and tried to found the right words to tell him, slowly, carefully.

“I need to know you won’t try to do anything drastic- I know it sounds ridiculous, right now, maybe a bit hypocritical, but everything will be fine. We’re here, all of us; we’ll always be here for you.” he tried to stop himself, but knew there was no point, anymore; maybe it was better that way, to allow himself to say everything he wanted to say, everything that felt important and right in that situation. He closed his eyes and continued, trying to remember how Daesung looked the last time he’d seen him. “We need you, alright? We can’t be complete without you, could never keep going on without you; I just want you to realise how much you mean to us, to me…” it sounded extremely corny, but he didn’t give a damn about it, it was what felt right.
 
He almost jumped on his feet when he felt a sound that resembled a soft knocking near his ear; he stared at the door, everything going completely silent and for a moment he thought he’d imagined it. But he hadn’t; the sound repeated itself, just as gentle as it had been the first time. He couldn’t believe that had actually worked; he found himself sighing in relief, because now he at least knew that his dongsaeng was still breathing and maybe that also meant he didn’t want to do anything stupid, or at least he hoped so.

In that exact second, all the emotions that he hadn’t been able to feel before rained on him all of sudden, leaving him completely floored and breathless; it was a hurricane of sadness, mixed with anger and other feelings he couldn’t identify. Tears started to stream down his cheeks and he did nothing to stop them, let them slip down messily, silently, knowing that it was selfish for him to cry. His hands were shaking like crazy when he put them against the cold material of the door, as he whispered:
 
“It’s going to be okay. I promise.”