"Have you found what you're looking for yet?" Youngjae asks without looking up from his mess of notes and textbooks. Daehyun turns to him startled, one of Youngjae's textbooks slipping very nearly onto his foot. He likes to leaf through the material, the psychology books his friend's been studying forever. He wants to be a criminal psychologist, maybe profiler or some kind of analyst, he's also thrown around correctional psychology as a thought as well. They're interesting, simple enough to understand, and, most importantly, keeps him distracted. It takes him a second to realize Youngjae means the book that he's been pawing through for a while. He must have given him the impression that he was looking for something after flipping through it so often for half an hour.

"Uh, yeah," Daehyun picks a random passage about bias, "I'd make a horrible psychologist, I'm too opinionated and biased." he says with a crooked grin, a pull of his lips to the left. Youngjae snorts and goes back to his scribbling, his head hung in such a way over a book his glasses threaten to slip right off his face. Satisfied he diverted his attention, Daehyun sets down the book and meanders into the kitchen. When it's not books, it's food that keeps Daehyun distracted and occupied. Just as he peels open a banana Youngjae speaks up.

"Has she shown up yet?"

Daehyun tenses, swallowing down the mush of banana in his mouth hard. So, he does know. He wonders if he should ever tell Youngjae about how he feels, how he worries about a promise broken. At the same time, he doesn't know how to. Several scenarios flash through his mind, calculated approaches to answering this question.

He chooses the only one he cares to follow through.

"Who is she? I know she's important to me but, who is she?" Daehyun shoots right back, fruit left on the counter when he reenters the little living room. Youngjae looks up from his various notes and books, his glasses resting on the tip of his nose. He can see the equally calculated thoughts in his sharp eyes, the light brown uncharacteristically hard and, almost, intimidating, cold. Daehyun doesn't react to it, in fact, he's unaffected by it. He's dealt with much worse, from where or with what he's unsure but, those experiences are nothing compared to this. It does help that he took the time to retrain control over the emotion on his face, his expressions virtually stone unless he feels the need to show any animation.

Youngjae shuts his textbook, his eyes softening, and takes off his haphazard glasses altogether.

"It's better you didn't know. She's gone, she died in the accident. I'm sorry, Dae." he says, voice soft.

Daehyun's expression crumbles. His mask of indifference shattered into a million pieces. He doesn't say anything, he just lets himself stammer incoherently, unsure what to do or say. Youngjae just watches him with a pained expression, sympathetic and apologetic. Silent, Daehyun mumbles an early goodnight and mechanically makes his way to his room.

As soon as the door shuts behind him Daehyun glares at it.

Youngjae lied to him.

As good a liar as Youngjae may think he is he has a giveaway. It's slight, nearly unnoticeable but, it's the brief clench of his jaw, the slightest of tightening that betrays him every time. Daehyun doesn't know where he learned to watch for it but, he's been doing it since he got out of the hospital, almost as if he doesn't fully trust Youngjae. He's come to ignore those instincts, deciding that it's better to just peacefully coexist with his best friend than get into some stupid argument that he can never win without his memory. That doesn't stop them from lingering and, as they've proven just now, being useful.

Daehyun commends himself for exercising expression control beforehand as he paces his room; mind a flurry of thoughts and curses. As he thinks he's struck by how readily Youngjae lied to him about her. Without so much as a pause he spit out that she was dead. And what was that look in his eye earlier? That hard, premeditated cold look in his usually warm, friendly eyes—where had that come from? Has he always been that way? Is he actually holding out on him, keeping the vital parts of his memory to himself to leave Daehyun floundering through the little bits and pieces of has left, including pieces of himself?

There may be a reason he distrusts him after all.

But, what bothers him most about this is that Youngjae told him she was dead. The girl he's been waiting month upon months for, dead. Why would he tell him this? What does he have to gain from convincing him that she's gone? Or is this another part of his memory he's holding over him, neglecting to tell him about in order to keep him as far in the dark and from the truth as he can. Maybe he's afraid of what she'll tell him, what she'll remind him, reteach him. Could it be that she holds more answers than Youngjae? Could he be keeping her away to keep his memory damaged and ultimately hide whatever it is Youngjae doesn't want him to know?

Daehyun hasn't been this suspicious of anything, let alone his best friend (could that be a rouse as well?), that he can consciously recall. Why is he thinking so deeply into this? Why can't he just accept Youngjae's words with the trust of a best friend and move on? He just can't, not matter how stupid it may be, not when Youngjae lied about something so important to him. That still doesn't merit how far he's read into this, how borderline resentful he is of one lie from his best friend. Who knows, maybe he was lying for his own sake. Maybe Youngjae, with not ill intentions, was trying to keep him from an even uglier truth.

Somewhere deep in the back of his mind he knows that's not true. Youngjae's lied before and he still hasn't forgiven him for it. Sometime in the three years he's lost, he feels the betrayal, the traitorous actions of his best friend that's festered a dark place in his heart, an anger ingrained into his very being.

Daehyun fears how violent he feels at times, how cold he can be, how callously dead his emotions can become. The person he was resurfaces at the slightest sign of confrontation, deceit, or even annoyance. He wonders if maybe it is better if he doesn't know who he was, if he just lives life as if those three years never happened, which to him they haven't anyway.

He knows he can't. Try as he may, he'll just resent himself for letting his life slip away. Those three years were significant, are significant. Daehyun just needs to find out why.

To do so he needs to find her now more than ever.