Lee Jongdae was born in the countryside, to a Chinese father who was a fisherman, and a Korean mother, who was a farmer.  At that time, he was the youngest of the three until Sunyoung came along a year later.  Jongdae was a happy, healthy kid; his laughter and eye smiles were enough to melt his family members’ hearts whenever they saw him.  As he grew up, his gentle nature and innocent charm made him quite a sight to everyone’s eyes.  Wufan, the second oldest brother, came up with a Chinese nickname for him, Chen.  He thought the Chinese name suited him the most because it was close to Cheng, meaning orange, a sweet fruit.  Eventually the nickname became something popular among the family and friends to call him by.  Wufan was almost disappointed that his nickname for Jongdae became popular, because it was intended for Wufan himself to use alone.  However, he made a compromise with himself by coming up with Chen-chen, and he would only use it when it is just the two of them.  Jongdae was kind to his family and friends, always giving them endless cheers of support and love.  He was pretty cute, with a prominent jaw line, small eyes, and high cheekbones that made you really want to pinch his cheeks in an affectionate way.

When he turned 10 years old, there was an unfortunate incident that led to his blindness.  Wufan felt responsible for the incident; he swore to never leave him alone again.  Jongdae was climbing a tree under the supervision of his brother, Wufan.  Minseok, the eldest hyung had been out with their father, fishing out at sea.  Their mother was taking care of Sunyoung inside the house.  Wufan was sitting down on the porch bench, keeping a close eye on Jongdae out in the grove, near the harvest fields.  Jongdae had always liked to climb, and it was hard to stop the little ball of energy. 

That day, the sky appeared to be a cloudy haze. Wufan had a feeling it was going to rain soon, but he ignored it and kept his watch on his younger brother.  Hearing Jongdae squeal with delight at his own success of climbing higher, it was music to Wufan’s ears.  He feels that Jongdae knew what he was putting himself into; the boy was always cautious of himself, testing out the strength of the branches each day and knowing which branches were off-limits to climb.  Despite that feeling, Wufan still kept his eye on him.  Wufan watched as Jongdae finally reached the limit of the tree’s strength and held tight to the strong trunk, looking down at his gege with a smile on his face.

Jongdae giggled and shouted out to Wufan, “GEGE! LOOK AT ME!! I’M ON TOP OF THE WORLD~~!!!”

Wufan could not prevent his smile from appearing as he saw his younger brother squirming on the thick limb adjacent to the trunk, laughing with excitement, legs swinging.  Despite the cloudy day, Jongdae was like the sun to him.

Then the rain fell and thunder boomed loudly.

Before he knew it, there was a flash of lightning and Jongdae fell through the tree.  Wufan caught him, though his brother was heavily injured. His mother called the ambulance, and Jongdae, with his family, transported to the nearby hospital.  Waiting for the news was torture for the mother and her children.  The father and the eldest son rejoined the family shortly after Jongdae was taken to the examination room.  After many hours had passed, the doctors finally came out and told them the good news and then the bad news.  The good news was that he was incredibly alive with some injuries that would take time to heal, but the bad news was that his eyesight has severely deteriorated due to his extreme collisions with the tree branches as he fell.  His left eye was permanently damaged and his right eye was showing signs of blindness, so there was no hope for anything to be done to return any sight or improve his vision.

Wufan felt so guilty that day, and the feeling did not ease even after Jongdae was released from the hospital a few weeks later.  Wufan had distanced himself from him because he was reminded of the pain, and of what he had seen that day.  He thought Jongdae would never forgive him for not taking care of him.  It was quite the opposite; Jongdae had continued his attempts to get closer to his hyung.  In his world of darkness with the familiarity of the life Jongdae had before he became blind and the unknown he was about to face in his blind state, Wufan’s hands and voice were the only sources of comfort for Jongdae to trust in.  He got along with his family really well, but they did not provide the comfort and the shelter like Wufan did. 

One day, Minseok had enough of Wufan and snapped at him, “Snap the hell out of your misery, because Jongdae had it worse than you.  Is he being miserable? No, at least, not all the time.  He keeps asking for you, Wufan-ah… He is still waiting for you to come back to him.  You listen to me now, and you listen good