Jonghyun’s POV

“I’ll walk you home,” Minho said as he moved away from the wall.

Raising my eyebrows at him, I asked, “Excuse me?”

He gave me a lazy glance. “I said I’ll walk Key home.”

“Why should you walk her home?” I demanded impulsively.

I don’t know why I was feeling threatened when he offered to walk Key home. I mean, what could happen when two people of opposite genders are walking together in the dead of the night?

…

Okay. That’s it. If my mind is conjuring up those kinds of images, Minho is definitely not going to be seeing Key home. I won’t allow it.

Minho looked at me like he was talking to a retard. “It’s very late into the night already. Don’t you think it’s prudent that a girl such as herself walk home with a company?”

Right. He has a point. A totally different point from mine, mind you because I meant him to be the danger but his was a point all the same.

“I’ll walk her home,” I offered and immediately regretted saying it. They were both looking at me with weird faces.

“I fail to see how you and I are any different as far as a simple company for a walk is concerned,” Minho said.

“I- I need a walk so…um…yeah. This looks like a good opportunity,” I stammered out a stupid excuse for a lie. If only I can stop fidgeting, Minho might not be able to decipher what I’m thinking although I bet he has seen through my bluff by now judging from his arched eyebrow and a one-sided smirk.

“Um…I really don’t mind walking home by myself, you know,” Key said in the awkward silence.

We both turned to look at her and chorused a strong “No!”

Key flinched in surprise. “Seriously, guys! It’s not like I’m weak or anything! I’m a gu- I’m pretty boyish okay?”

Was it just my imagination or did Minho’s smirk became more pronounced? Hmm. Either way, I’m not going to allow her to walk home alone and I’m not letting anyone besides myself to walk her home. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know the reason for this myself. I have zero idea why I feel so protective over this girl. Can this be what they call the brotherly act? It has got to be that since she’s sort of the first girl friend I have. Get it? You do know that I’m not talking about the girlfriend girlfriend but as in a normal girl friend with a space between the two words right?

“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re still a gir-.”

I didn’t have the chance to finish my sentence when I was ambushed with a sudden hug.

“Thanks for the sweater. I love it. Really. But I think I’ll have to soak it for a week first. And maybe pour my entire bottle of perfume over it. Hmm. Well, thanks for not dying. I think,” she said in one breath while her arms were still wrapped around my waist.

Then, she broke the hug, waved a goodbye at Minho and disappeared out of my room in a flash. I couldn’t even recover from the shock on time to stop her. I only had time to snap at Minho for not stopping her in my place.

Minho looked at me conveying the thought ‘Does it looks like I’m your dog?’ , gave me a half hearted goodnight wish and left as well. My heart was still beating like crazy by the time I went to bed. Jeez, Jonghyun! It’s not like this is the first time you have ever been hugged by a girl!

Anyway, shouldn't I be the one thanking them for saving my life? Seriously. This world is retarded.

I'm standing just outside the boundaries of the school grounds. I will be okay. I will make it through today. Kibum is watching over me like Minho said he would and although that thought shot an arrow through my heart, it also gave me strength to finally put a foot into the school compound at the same time. I held in my breath as I waited for the imaginary alarm to howl in the silent air and for the watch dogs to come chasing after me, barking their heads off. None of those happened. Everything was calm and normal. Obviously. Breathing a sigh of relief, I straightened up and began to walk quickly into the school building before any of the disciplinary board members could spot me. I prayed hard to whoever that's listening to please let me sneak safely into the detention room. Please not let the teachers see me. I so do not want to have to deal with all the nagging and preaching so early in the morning.

I wasn't exactly looking where I was heading so I wasn't surprised that I ran smack into someone.

"Oh my god! Are you alright?" I asked frantically, my hands hovering in front of the fragile looking girly boy. Hey, no offence but he does seem like he could faint at any moment. 

Taemin’s POV

I couldn’t stand by and do nothing, anymore. I have to speak with the evil mastermind. I have to know what he is up to. That is the only way I can protect Key from whatever idea he has in mind. I pulled the cap lower to better cover my face as I walked into the school grounds dotted with students lounging around here and there. My eyes scanned the area as thoroughly as I can while I sped walked without giving myself away. Seriously, though. Where could he be? I can’t be searching into the schools looking like this because someone is bound to recognize me sooner or later. I’ll give myself one more minute and if I don’t see him, I’ll just have to come back another day because-

“Ouch!” I bumped into something solid and stepped back to regain my balance from the impact.

“Oh my god! Are you alright?” said a concerned voice with a pair of arms stretched in my direction, as if ready to catch me should I fall.

I wanted to pull my cap lower and probably do a voice change in order to protect my disguise but once I saw the person in front of me, all thoughts flew out the window. There was no point in lying anymore. He had seen my face. All of it.

I silently cursed whoever’s up there for creating this man to be shorter than I am.

“I see you’re still alive,” I said brusquely as I thought, “sad for me because I so want you dead”.

He looked at me with wide eyes and dropped his arms. “Do you know me?”

I snorted. “Are you kidding? Of course I know you. And you know me, Kim Jonghyun.”

He blinked in what I see as mocked surprise. “Um…but I honestly haven’t seen you before. Do you, by any chance, have an elder sibling in this school that knows me?”

My fists clenched on its own accord. “Listen here, Kim Jonghyun. I’m only about two years younger than you are and I was a student here myself. So stop playing these games because you obviously recognized me that time you almost punched me to death.”

His eyes widened further, his jaw dropping open. “You must have the wrong person. I honestly haven’t seen you before let alone punch you,” he said, aghast.

I sighed in exasperation. God, why didn’t anybody tell me he was such a good actor? But I really can’t be dealing with this right now. I have better things to do than to waste my effort and risk my life with him. “I don’t have time for you right now. Just tell me where Choi Minho is so I can get the hell out of here and away from you.”

“Minho? You know him too?”

I would have screamed if I could. “Are you-”

“Aaaaaaahhhhh,” someone had screamed in my place.

Kim Jonghyun looked over my shoulders at the person. “Oh, Onew. Good timing. Do you know this- Hey! Where are you taking him?”

Shouldn’t I be the one to ask him that since I was the one being pulled away by the back of my collar? “Hey! Let go! What are you doing?” I shouted, flailing my arms.

My attempt to break free was useless. You could tell just by looking at our built. His strength was far greater than mine in comparison and nothing I did had any effect on him. So I gave up and just remained still as he towed me through the school like a rag doll. Okay, to tell you the truth, I was actually pretty scared. Who am I kidding, anyway? I have walked into the school I hated most, came face to face with the guy I despised more than anyone else and now, I was suddenly dragged around by a person I clearly do not know. Obviously, I would be afraid. I’m still a kid, after all.

In any case, the good news is that he had finally released me back to my own able two feet while the bad news is that he had locked us in an empty classroom. I gulped involuntarily. Will he be trying anything funny? Will I be able to escape by breaking a window?

He was heaving heavily like a pissed off bull as he rushed at me and I would have screamed if I hadn’t freeze up watching him charge at me. He makes me think I should carry a red cloth around in the future. “What did you say to him? Does he know? Does he?”

Okay. Coming here was a big mistake. Period. I didn’t get the person I want to meet. I met the person I most wanted to avoid. And now, this? Seriously. How was I to know what it is that I should and shouldn’t say?

 “I- I- I didn’t say anything,” I stammered. 

“Does he know you? Is there any hint that he recognizes you?” he asked in panic.

I frowned. “What do you mean? Of course he knows…” I stopped mid sentence as the earlier conversation played back inside my eyes and I remembered Kim Jonghyun’s shock and confusion through it all. The facial expressions and confused questions were all suddenly familiar to me. That was when I realised that I had been through that with Key umma. “Did he lose his memory too?”

The boy stopped heaving. “You know another person with amnesia?”

I wanted to slap myself when he pointed out my mistake to me. That’s what you get for being an underage trying to meddle with complicated elder people’s issues. “No. It’s just- I had it before. A long time ago. From an operation. They split open my head. I’m cured now,” I spouted the lie in a rush.

“Oh,” he blinked. I’m pretty sure I don’t understand what I had said too. “So he really doesn’t know who you are, right? You didn’t tell him your name, did you?” he asked and I was glad for me that he had calmed down a notch. He seemed a lot less scary but at the same time, a lot dumber. I just only realised that he had slightly tripped over his own foot when he was rushing at me earlier.

I shook my head as a reply to his question and he smiled in satisfaction. “Thank god, Taemin. Thank god.”

I scrunched my forehead. “Wait a minute. You know me?”

“Oh, that’s right. I know you but you don’t know me. Ha-ha. I’m Onew,” he stretched out his hand for a shake and I placed my hand in his out of courtesy. “I heard about you from Minho.”

“Choi Minho?” I asked and he bobbed his head. “Does that mean you know about Key?”

He bobbed his head again. He reminds me so much of the Pororo dolls on my car’s dashboard. But then, his face suddenly turned sad as he lowered himself heavily onto a chair. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

My head whipped at his direction as I blurted,” What?!”

He tilted his head. “You mean you don’t know?”

“What do you mean I don’t know? What am I supposed to not know? That he’s alive and well? I know he is.”

Onew stared at me, dumbstruck. “Back up a minute. He’s alive? Key’s alive? He isn’t dead?”

I folded my arms indignantly. “Of course he isn’t.”

“He’s alive,” Onew’s face went from depressed dark to sunshine bright and then, to a confused kid. “Then, why did he say that to Jonghyun?”

“Who say what to Jonghyun?”

“Never mind that. You know Key’s alive. I want to know how,” his face turned serious, this time and he got up to pace the length of the classroom.

I raised my eyebrow at him. “Why should I tell you?”

 “Because you’ll need the exchange of information from me.” Onew’s smirk was full of confidence. “And we have a common enemy.”

I stared into his eyes thinking if I should take him up on the offer. I was worried that building an alliance with him will only contribute to the depth of my grave. I mean, how can I trust him if he can’t trust himself to walk properly on his own two feet? But then again, I was quite desperate seeing how I was completely in the dark being pushed around by Choi Minho. I could really use another source of information that doesn’t instil fear in me just figuring out what to say and what not to say.

I sighed as I asked, “What do you want to know?”

“Start by answering my previous question. How do you know he’s alive?”

I took a deep breath to calm myself and re-convince myself that I was doing the correct thing. “He’s living with me.”

Onew’s eyes went as round as saucers. “You mean he’s in town right now?”

I nodded.

“Where is he? What is he doing? Why is he here?” the bull impression was back.

“I don’t think you need to know that much except for why he is here.” I said coolly. “You asked earlier if I knew someone else who has had experience with memory loss.”

Onew’s jaw dropped. “Key lost his memory too? But that’s imp- how?”

 I sat myself down first before going into the full story for the second time. “He went through a brain surgery.”

“Brain surgery? Did he knock his head on a wall?”

I rolled my eyes. He’s asking something a five year old would ask. “I’m not quite sure. I only found him after he had completed the surgery and was recuperating in the hospital. I did meet up with his surgeon, though. He told me that Key had a brain tumour that he was not aware of and it was very close to the part of his brain containing all his memories,” I stopped for a brief second. “But I don’t think that’s the reason for his memory loss because the doctor told me something else. He told me that Key was actually brought into the hospital almost bleeding to death along with his two parents. They were involved in a car accident and Key was the only survivor. But actually, Key had a slimmer chance of surviving compared to his mother. His father had passed away in the ambulance. Key was losing so much blood even when all the hands were there suppressing his wounds. When the doctor looked at him, he already knew that Key doesn't stand a chance and the fact that the hospital was running low on blood type B determined his death. The doctor didn’t tell Key that, though. He thought it was best kept away from him.”

"Wait. Then, how is it that he's alive today?"

I almost teared up when I told him the rest of the story. "His mother begged the doctor in an exchange for her son's life. She told him to use her blood for her son to live since she has the same type of blood as Key. She'd rather die than living without the two of them and knowing that Key could have had a beautiful life ahead of him if he were to live. The doctor refused at first because this was againsnt their work ethics but he had to comply in the end. His mother was threatening with a suicide. And so Key lives with his mother's sacrifice."

Onew sat back down on the chair. “His parents are dead? His mother died for him?” he asked in a whisper, a single tear rolling down the corner of his eye. “But what does that has to do with losing his memories?”

“Key’s condition is known as hysterical amnesia. It’s when a person cannot accept a certain traumatising event that triggers the loss of memories. He felt like he was left all alone in this world. Jonghyun had left him. His parents had left him. He doesn’t have anyone else that’s important to him anymore. There’s no one he knows that Jonghyun doesn’t know. There was no one else that he could trust and rely on. The thought drove him crazy from the inside out. And so he made himself forget. He erased all the memories that had caused him anguish. He removed all those that were related to the guy he loved more than anything in this world, his beloved parents and his friends.”

Onew was silent as he digested the information. Then, he said “It was the same thing. Jonghyun went through the same thing.”

“What?”

“Jonghyun has the same type of amnesia. It happened shortly after key had left him. He couldn’t deal with losing Key. He was going nuts. He screams in his sleep every night. He crashes things every minute of the day. He yells at us when there was nothing left to break. His sanity was leaving him more and more every single day until that one day, he did not yell. He did not scream. He did not throw things. He just sat there by the window and stared up at the sky without moving an inch for more than fifteen hours. None of us dared to call him for food or for shower because quite frankly, this was a lot better compared to the other things he would do. And then, when we came back the next day, he was suddenly at the table, eating his breakfast all dressed for school. At first, we thought that he was finally going to let go of Key but when I accidentally brought up a topic that was similar to the bad scenes he used to have with Key, he didn’t show any sign of reaction. It was like he had completely forgotten about them all. Minho couldn’t believe it or rather, he wouldn’t. He tested Jonghyun again and again over the period of a month. It was then that we realised he had forgotten all the bad memories he has had with Key and only retained the good ones.”

“I don’t understand. Are you trying to say that he only forgot about the bad memories because they hurt him?”

Onew nodded. “I think he would have made himself forget everything about Key if he could but the truth is, Key is his life. Losing Key is to lose himself and forgetting Key is to forget himself. Therefore, his mind wouldn’t let him do it. His brain wouldn’t allow him to damage himself to that extend. So it only got rid of all the ones that harm him and left behind the ones that would keep him living through the day be it soulless or emotionless so long as he lives.”

“You make it sound like a B-rated tragic romance drama.”

“It’s up to you whether you choose to believe it or not. All I’m saying is that Key isn’t the only party suffering. Jonghyun is too. That’s why we’re protecting him from recovering his memories. We can’t afford for him to revert back to that state. That’s why I panicked when I saw you talking to him.”

I nodded. “Looks like we’re aiming for the same thing, then. But I don’t think Choi Minho intends to keep him this way for long. I think he’s trying to make Kim Jonghyun remember again.”

“That’s impossible. Minho cares for Jonghyun more than he cares for himself. He wouldn’t hurt Jonghy-,” Onew mouth went slack as his eyes became unfocused. “You know what Minho’s trying to do?”

I shook my head. “I would win a Noble Prize if I know what he’s up to. That’s the reason why I’m here in the first place.”

“I see.”

Suddenly, the school bell rang shrilly in the air and Onew shot up from the chair.

“! ! ! This is the furthest from the Bio lab!” he started jumping up and down before running to the door. “Well, see you next time!” he yelled over his shoulder before sprinting off down the corridor.

I stood up as well. There won’t be a next time. Until I find out Choi Minho’s true intent, I will have to bait Key out of here before it’s too late.

Outside POV

The two of them did not realise that someone had tailed them all along and had been listening in to their every spoken word from the open winddow up until before the bell had rang. 

Author's Note:

Wee~ so here's a part of the mystery solved. What do you think?

Were this in any of your theories? ^^

And who do you think it is at the end? Or rather, who do you want it to be? lol~

xEndlessLoveToSHINee : thanks for the encouragement and many more thanks for loving my work! : )

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d0m1n10n : thanks for commenting like you had promised! I appreciate it!!!  ^_^

kolmilyo : there's jongkey but not much in here...hope u don't mind :P

CHEESECAKETATTOO86 : this chapter doesn't answer all your questions but it does explain some of it right?

aniangel07 : lol~ I'm happy you can like him now as well

princehyeon : haha~ I laughed really hard reading your comment. I hope your keyboard's still in proper working condition after finishing this chapter?

as for the rest of you wonderful readers : keep the comments & criticisms coming!

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