Severely - FT Island

Narrator's POV

He hated it. That he was found when he wanted to be lost didn't make any sense. It didn't mean anything at all. It was reckless and stupid. Maybe that's even the reason why Min Yu had left. He was reckless and stupid. Donghae was. Sleeping pills didn't do him any good, or bad -- as he had willed it to. But he was alive. And he hated it.

The man stared straight through the window with his arms crossed over his chest. There were occasional ripples of pain by his abdomen, but it wasn't what he needed healing for. The door creaked open. "You're still awake," Siwon commented quite obviously, but the older didn't respond as much as a grunt. He was saving it all for when she, hopefully, comes visit him.

Siwon pulled a stool from the corner and dragged it near the bed. "I already called her, don't worry." He sat down and rubbed his palms together. Disguising his anticipation, Donghae bit down on his tongue harder. "Did she answer?" he asked faintly. Heaving a deep sigh, "She accepted the call, but she never said anything. Min Yu just listened, and I don't know if she'll come or not," Siwon responded.

Donghae clenched his fist. "I'll wait." The other member massaged his temples. "Hyung, don't get your hopes up re--" "I'll wait," he cut him off in midsentence, showing off his confidence that was founded on nothing. There goes the cliche it's-not-you-it's-me excuse, but he didn't hear one, because he knew it wasn't Min Yu. It was all him.

When Eunhyuk had found him about two days ago, Donghae was unconscious on the floor. It took courage for a shaking hand to dial the number for the ambulance, which came a few minutes later to attend to the emergency. The crew of nurses already knew better than to tell the press. It was big news, of course, but it was unprofessional.

But as the rest of Super Junior occupied the seats outside the waiting room, something had to be done. "Yoboseyo?" Min Yu answered hastily. "Did I interrupt you or something?" Siwon's gentlemanly instincts kicked in. "No, it's fine." Why did the two words seem sincere now that it ever was? "What is it?" pressed Min Yu. "If it's about him..."

"It is," Siwon admitted, not without a hint of suspense. Before reacting, Min Yu already sounded disapproving. "Did he even notice I left? I bet not," she started bitterly, and he couldn't bring himself to blame her. "Donghae knows, actually. And that's why I called," Siwon countered. When the girl didn't reply, he continued. "He took sleeping pills and overdid it. He's in the hospital."

"What do you want me to do? Isn't Sun Hye there beside him? If she is, you can hang up now," the person on the other line scoffed indifferently. "She's not here. I don't know where she is, exactly, but I know she disappeared as soon as you did," Siwon explained, trying to be a mediator to patch things up. "He's afraid of losing you so he gives himself a reason to hurt you so that if you leave, he can easily blame himself."

Min Yu smacked her forehead with her palm and closed her eyes tightly shut. "Just don't." She muttered near the receiver. "Just don't try to make bad things seem better." The girl slumped back on her chair and kicked her feet up under the table. Her father's eyes widened at her actions. "Nugu?" he mouthed silently, to which she held her hand up. "Just don't try to make me hate you too." She mumbled once more before hanging up.

Chun Hae set his chopsticks down beside his used plate. "Was it him?" he asked after seeing her reaction. "I don't know, I don't know who you're talking about," Min Yu denied before standing up, leaving her second set of parents -- or was it third?-- clueless. Siwon, on the other line, was left hanging, and he soundly expressed it with a deep breath.

"What happened?" Leeteuk breathlessly walked up to the row of gloomy members by the bench. No one invited him, earning the leader all the nervous glances and undecided shrugs. Heechul, being the sole head of the dorm ever since Leeteuk moved out, was the first to receive the you-do-it glances. He stood up voluntarily, ready to start a debate.

Everyone had their eyes fixed on the 83-liners. "Donghae overdosed on sleeping pills," Heechul started carefully. "Why, what has he been doing lately that he needs that much sleep?" Leeteuk brushed it off like it was no life-and-death matter. "He wanted to die," Heechul stated casually, making the other's eyes widen in wonder. "Or attention, I'm not sure. He's still inside the emergency room."

"Where's Min Yu?" he stated shakily, his sense of peace breached by Heechul's statements. He immediately fumbled for his phone and spoke in a blur. "You didn't tell her about this? What kind of people are...where is she, anyway? I haven't seen her in so long. Oh well, she'll come rushing in after my call...Why don't we all try to contact her? The more, the merrier..."

"Hyung, she left and we have zero idea on where she is," Kyuhyun stated with his arms crossed over his chest. He obviously wasn't enjoying the fuss Leeteuk was making over the matter. "What? I don't understand wha--" "Min Yu left more than a week ago and never showed up. That's why Donghae ended up behind those doors," the maknae continued. "And it's not always 'the more, the merrier'."

--

When Donghae first opened his eyes, there was loud bickering as the members tried calming Leeteuk from his state of fury. And that's how a more severe type of depression hovered over Donghae. He wakes up -- when he didn't want to -- and realized he had another day to live. "Hyung, stop it," Siwon tried holding the leader back from punching the guts out of the other.

Heechul, on one corner of the spacious room, had his back against the area where the two walls meet. His gaze shifted from Leeteuk to Donghae, alternating to and fro. They all were starting to hate each other, because someone did wrong, and no one tolerated anything less than right. It was just logical for a father to react that way.

But Siwon's grip on Leeteuk's right arm went too loose that it flailed wildly in the air, swinging near Donghae's face. And the room was filled with heavy tension more so when Sungmin noticed a hint of blood near the patient's lip. The leader stopped throwing a fit and put up defenses. "I didn't hit him," he stated, and was confirmed as crimson liquid began dripping down the other's chin.

Everyone held their breaths but the eldest had slightly better common sense. "Call the doctor," Leeteuk muttered silently. "Quick." Ryeowook stumbled out the door and rushed to the lobby where nurses immediately attended to his frantic call for help. After a doctor gave her a knowing nod while holding a syringe in one hand, a dutiful nurse lodged the needle deep within the veins of Donghae's arm.

"No," Donghae pleaded softly and weakly as his eyes started to blink slowly. "Please. I have to stay awake. I HAVE to." He continued with a tight grasp on Leeteuk's hand. His grip began to loosen as each second ticks by. "Just sleep. It'll do you good," the man in a white lab coat fixed the stethoscope by his neck. "But Min Yu will come. I have to stay awake..." Donghae stared intensely into his hyung's eyes before the medicine took effect.

With all the resistance gone unconsciously, the doctor held onto the man's jaw and propped it gently open with his gloved hand. His eyebrows furrowing for a mere second in deep scrutiny, he grunted to himself as an affirmation to his assumptions. When the doctor backed off, the nurses dabbed the patient's face clean of the blood.

Leeteuk rubbed the grogginess from his eyes with a sigh. He was now, thankfully, back to his normal self -- the safe, not-violent Super Junior leader. "So how is he now?" he stared at the peacefully sleeping figure on the bed. The tranquilizer finally kicked in and knocked Donghae out. "Well," the doctor glanced at his patient. "His tongue needs a few stitches. Apparently, he had been biting his tongue so hard to stay awake."

The other closed his eyes while fighting the urge to shake his head. "What about the pills? Doesn't it affect him now?" he interrogated further. "It wasn't that many. But we managed to force it out of him before he could possibly fall into a deep sleep," the professional nodded to himself convincingly. Since he looked like he knew what he was talking about, Leeteuk just laid a hand on the other's shoulder. "Thank you."

When the doctor finally walked through the door, Leeteuk fumbled for his phone yet again but with a different purpose. "Yeobo," he greeted when Min Jae answered his call. "How is he? Is Donghae fine? What happened to him? And where's Min Yu?" the woman babbled continually. "He's fine. Sleeping, actually. Can you...can you drop by here? And bring Min Young with you," he requested.

Min Yu's POV

"Look at this," he gestured towards a row of classic novels. Last time I checked, I didn't sign up to be a babysitter. "Whoa~" His jaw hung wide open as he gave the shelf an awed up-and-down look. "I don't care!" I hissed angrily and perhaps a bit too loudly, earning me a silencing look from people focused on dog-eared books. "You're not helping me," I muttered faintly before strolling to the other side.

Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Anne of Green Gables, Hamlet...I was utterly lost. The man -- or the boy -- from the other side dug books out of the shelf. "Pst," Donghae called out, to which I ignored and walked sideways to another shelf. He was being persistent on trying to catch my attention. "Ya, Min Yu!"

Pretending not to hear anything, I advanced to a different literary section of the bookstore and weaved my fingers through the spines of various hardbound books. There was a muffled shuffling of feet as Donghae went to the opposite side and continued his business. "Ya," his face immediately popped up from a free space on the shelf, startling me a little.

Annoyed that he had caught me off guard as he always does, I harshly shoved a stack of books to hide his face. Maybe a little too harshly as a sharp edge hit his forehead. The expression on his face was priceless that I just had to let out a chuckle. And Donghae had heard it, making a smile spread across his face. Noticing it, my reaction turned cold. "Don't make me laugh. I'm mad at you."

I could hear him scurrying behind me, his arms fitting around my waist like parentheses enclosing me in between. "Eh~ someone gets mad so easily," said Donghae against my hair, making my heart drop further down my feet. "You'll get tired of it soon that you won't want to talk to me anymore," I let out a snort. "Park Min Yu." He spun me around to face him. “Property of Lee Donghae's only." His thumb probed my cheek. "All rights reserved." He pressed his lips abruptly on mine.

Okay, I had gone overboard on that one. My breathing became mere gasps as grief appeared as a lump in my throat. My eyes stung from another episode of crying at reruns of black and white memories. And what made me feel worse was the probability that he might not have gone looking for me at all, that he just didn't notice I left, that I wasn't of any importance anymore.

"Don't you I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about me, young lady." The voice came out of nowhere and in came Chun Hae to the picture. It wasn't a pretty sight from his balcony, but it was the closest thing next to stargazing. I tried fixing my composure a bit, though he had already caught me. "What's wrong?" he asked soothingly. But before I could open my mouth to say anything, he already cut me off.

"Did you know you can climb out of here," Chun Hae demonstrated as he spoke. "And stand on the roof?" He stomped his feet a few times on the eaves just to assure me it was safe. "Won't we fall off or break through?" I hesitated. "If we fall from here, then we fall." The man held his arm out as an invitation. Although reluctant, I would never know if I haven't tried, so I did.

There was a cold rush of adrenaline in my veins as the roof felt fluid under my feet, my hand clasped around my father's tightly. "Let's sit here," Chun Hae pointed on the spot near the walls of the neighboring house. The air was cool and I take lungful inhales like each breath was unrepeatable. "Wouldn't the people from below hear us?" I turned to him questioningly. Chun Hae, sprawled lazily beside me, shrugged. "It's my house."

I smiled curtly and hugged my knees close to my chest. "What were you so bothered about that you just had to leave the table?" He had his gaze directed up at the wide horizon hovering above us. Now I know where my curiosity about heavenly bodies came from. "It was Siwon," I stated as a matter-of-factly. "He said Donghae was in the hospital."

The man's hands smacked soundly together. "Well, it's about time," he muttered to himself with a knowing grin. "Daaaaaad~" I whined. Chun Hae had his two hands up in defense. "But this is what I think," he started as he settled more comfortably on his position. "He made you hate him, not because he didn't love you, but because he doesn't want to leave you so you, in turn, would be the one to leave him instead."

"So what do you mean?" I rested my chin on my propped up knee while undecidedly jumping from one star to another and creating my own constellation with my forefinger. "I'm just saying that despite all that had happened, Donghae really loves you," Chun Hae declared like a scientist finding the cure for AIDS. "Yeah right," I scoffed.

"Just saying," he exclaimed in protest. And the silence resumed afterwards. My hesitant self was afraid to say anything to make matters worse. But I let my head fall sideways on my father's shoulder, catching up on the childhood just briefly. I could feel the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed. "Don't you want to even just visit him, see how he's doing?" he suggested.

The night was a dependable friend at the moment with the shadows and darkness and everything. And my throat aches for the tune of my troubles as if it had a mind of its own. But I had a hard time keeping it together when it came out involuntarily, my tears did. It was just plain wishful thinking for me to assume I could ever hate Donghae, but by then it would've hurt much less.

So here's the story: Him. There was this man who asked a lot of questions and interrogated about many things. He attentively listens to the stories I tell him and his eyes widen in interest like they always do. But after a while, he leaves. No, scratch that. It wasn't just for a while. It took him a lifetime to come back, but when he did, things were already different. Things changed.

So he knocks on my door and greets me good morning and smiles so lovingly and we keep the kisses and hugs a secret. But he grew tired of the underground routine and he changed his mind. I, then, knocked on his door and saw somebody else and by then, I knew I wasn't really invited, but I entered anyway. That time, I already knew his promises were of the farthest from anything reliable. People changed.

And I drink and I say yes and I turn things back to normal and he goes away like before. Like a stray cat, I followed wonderingly. Then I cried and I drank and I tied my shoelaces and found him. And now it was the of the shortest of the shortest tragedies ever written, or experienced, that is. I slept when he slept and he slept when I slept and I felt a whole zoo in my stomach, not just butterflies.

But he grows exhausted again and I just felt the need to keep up and I tried assessing for what could have gone wrong. I never did know what happened from his point of view. But he got himself a new keeper and begins telling her words I've heard before. And I still wish we could pick up from where we last left off so I cried against my father's shoulder. Sobbed and whimpered and let the salty tears do all the talking. 1 percent water. Ninety-nine percent feelings.

As much as my knees grew weak and my feet became insistent, I just knew I couldn't. I didn't want to break the wall of seclusion down by my visiting Donghae. Even if that didn't mean I had forgiven him after everything -- but really, what was there to forgive? -- it wouldn't convince me I had chosen a better option, either. It had been a little more than two weeks and it wasn't getting any easier.

In between short gasps while sobbing, I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out. Chun Hae ran his hand up and down my back in comfort and I don't know why it didn't have the same effect as before. Or maybe because there was no pain at all, and that I've inflicted everything upon myself. Yes. That must be it.

Can I beg him, because I'm willing to fall down on my knees and utter a hundred reasons why Donghae should look at me and only me. But that was unfair, especially if he'd rather be with someone else. No. I wasn't that selfish. Perhaps I was silly enough to think that a man who didn't care about anything could care about me. I wasn't really an exception.

"Sometimes you can't let go of what's making you sad because it was the only thing that made you happy," Chun Hae pressed his cheek against my forehead. But no one said I regretted anything. Or maybe I did feel sorry for myself for being this way, for not meeting the standards that I didn't know existed. And it was just like me being the last one to know. Poor me.

His fingers treaded through the locks of my hair. "You cry when he's here and you cry when he's gone," commented Chun Hae. It was a moment all too different from what he had expected. And, like a father blowing on his daughter's fresh wounds and convincing her that the pain won't kill her, Chun Hae succeeded in making the matters more bearable.

-Short update :( very busy with school. (I have swimming competition on Thursday, wish me luck ^^) leave comments! :) ~swimmer/author/fangirl min_neulmi ♥