C h a p t e r  2 4

Even though he still had his doubts, Eunhyuk kept his promise. He took Donghae to the police station, helped him to complain to the police – but they hadn't been able to do all of this without the help of Mrs. Jung as Donghae's psychotherapist. She was indispensable for making Donghae's words convincing and the reason for that might sound really strange, yet it was nothing but the truth.

Donghae simply couldn’t remember neither the names of his former comrades, nor their faces.

They had tried to make him at least remember their names so many times, but no matter what they did: the only result were severe headaches for Donghae, nothing else. Mrs. Jung had been the only one not being surprised by that, she said it was a common reaction by Donghae's brain to handle the trauma he had experienced; it blocked those parts out to protect him. Donghae indeed had said he saw the other soldiers in his dreams, but their faces had always been a blur. He only saw single parts of them if any, their eyes maybe or their mouths. But he couldn’t connect those parts with each other, couldn’t make a full face out of them and giving them a name was nearly impossible.

Bringing these memories back was achievable however because Mrs. Jung knew another way, but it was also dangerous. She couldn’t tell yet how Donghae's reaction would look like once he remembered everything, but it was possible that there were memories coming back that had been blocked out for a reason because they were so much crueler than the ones he could remember. All in all this could throw him back in his healing process if they weren’t careful enough. That was the reason why Mrs. Jung did her best to prepare Donghae by meeting him more often and spending more time with talking to him. Because there was one big step he had to take – and they all didn’t really want him to take it.

It was possible that he would be able to recall the faces of his former comrades by showing him pictures of them and those pictures including their names were stored at one particular place: the military base that had been his home for the past two years. They had to go there because they had to try it, that was something they couldn’t avoid. Donghae knew this and even though he acted like it was okay with him, he couldn’t hide the fact that he was scared, that he would give everything he had to avoid going back again.

He most likely didn’t even notice it, but Donghae started to fall back into old patterns already. He often skipped meals as the day of visiting the base came closer, talked less and a smile on his lips also was something rare to be seen. When Eunhyuk asked him about it, Donghae would always make him stop with a wave of his hand, telling him that he was just nervous and that it would get better once this was over. But Eunhyuk knew him and he couldn’t be fooled that easily. Yet this was something that had to happen, Donghae simply had to do this so he could put all of this behind him. Once they had their names, Donghae wouldn’t have to go back to the base ever again. One more time, just one single time and it would be over, that was what they all hoped for.

***

"We're there."

Donghae's eyes fluttered open, but he kept his gaze lowered and stared at the back of the driver's seat.    
At first Eunhyuk had thought the other had fallen asleep as he had closed his eyes soon after they had left Seoul and that wouldn’t have surprised him because he knew how tired Donghae was. But it hadn't took him long to figure out that the younger had only pretended to be asleep to keep him and Junghoon from talking to him and he really could understand that. Everything Donghae had heard these past days were comforting words and he surely couldn’t stand hearing them anymore. They all were worrying for him and that was something he absolutely didn’t want them to do, but with his behavior he unconsciously gave them every reason to do so.

"Donghae", Eunhyuk whispered, eyes focused on the other like they had been during almost the whole ride. "Are you okay?"

The brunet blinked as his tired eyes slowly travelled through the inside of the car, clearly avoiding looking outside. "Yeah", he just mumbled and didn’t even try to prove this statement with a smile or anything else that was convincing. With agitated movements he unbuckled his seatbelt, didn’t react to the gazes Junghoon and especially Eunhyuk sent him, opened the door and got out of the car.

They had been driving for some hours and because Eunhyuk hadn't paid much attention to their surroundings during the ride, he had no idea where they were. All he knew was that they were somewhere in the southeast and that Donghae had been based further away from him than he had imagined. Raising his eyes to the younger, he noticed that he still kept his gaze on the ground and Eunhyuk didn’t dare to talk to him again because his own way of distracting himself seemed to work well so far.

Detective Song, a rather young police officer responsible for Donghae's case, already waited for them near the entrance of the base. He had searched the brunet's file, had talked with Mrs. Jung for hours when Donghae hadn't been able to answer his questions anymore and surely would have given him more time to get used to the thought of visiting the base if he had asked him to. The detective was very understand and ambitious young man and had promised them to give his best to solve this case, even though it wouldn’t be easy.

His watchful eyes noticed quite quickly that Donghae didn’t lift his gaze for one second, not as they met, not as they entered the base, not during their walk to one of the offices and most of all not as the door to one of them opened to reveal their contact person. The brunet kept himself away from Eunhyuk, didn’t touch him at all – and that was what made the latter worry all the more. Because this was how he had been acting back then when they both had been discharged; Donghae was avoiding him again and yes, Eunhyuk knew that he did it because they were at a place where they shouldn’t show what they felt for each other and also the place where he had been made to believe that his love for the other was the reason why he had been treated so badly. Eunhyuk knew all of this, yet he almost couldn’t stand it. Everything Donghae did, his whole development during the last couple of days – it was like he was going backwards, if not completely going into the wrong direction.

Colonel Kang was an intimidating and tall man with strict eyes, not a friend of many words and clearly not amused about their presence. It wasn’t easy to say if he was like this all the time or if it was because of the serious accusations against the base that he also played a part in. But as he looked at Donghae shortly before they entered his office, his eyes told many things – and supporting the brunet in any form wasn’t part of it.

"So, Detective Song", he said as the latter and Donghae sat opposite of him while Eunhyuk and Junghoon stood in the background. He nodded towards a thick folder filled with papers lying on the table. "I still don’t know how you want to do this, but these are all soldiers that were stationed at the same time as Lee Donghae. I hope you don’t have any other appointments today."

"Oh, you shouldn’t worry about me", the detective simply said and grabbed the folder to open it. He looked at the small picture on the right side of the first paper, looked at the name right next to it and eventually placed the folder on the table, right in front of Donghae. "Lee-ssi", he said, sending him a small smile. "Is there something we need to know about this young man?"

It took a moment, but then Donghae's eyes flickered to the photo. He only looked at it for a bunch of seconds before he shook his head and let his gaze drop to look at his lap again.

"Okay." Detective Song nodded and turned over. "What's with him?"

Donghae lifted his gaze again and this time he stared at the picture, frowning and deep in thought. He recognized the man, this was for sure. But was he one of the culprits?

"I know him", he mumbled after a while, not able to tear his eyes away from the picture. His body tensed up with every word he spoke. "He was… He was there when… When they…"

"You don’t have to tell me what he did yet", Detective Song interrupted with a soft tone. "Just tell me if we have to put him on the list. We'll talk about everything else later in private." He sent Colonel Kang a quick glance who returned it, clearly annoyed. "So I guess he's one of them?"

Donghae nodded his head and the Detective pulled the paper out of the folder and put it next to it, creating a small pile of papers as time went by.               
They spent a few hours in the office and even though Donghae tried his best to stay calm, his body showed how he was put under enormous stress. The more people he recognized, the more his body started to shake, his voice became nothing more than a faint whisper until he completely lost it and his breathing was loud and erratic. This was something everyone present noticed and Detective Song reassured him that there were only a few papers left and that it would be over soon. Yet it wasn’t soon enough.

The Detective turned the page once again before he looked at Donghae. The brunet's unfocussed gaze found the picture – and he lost it. His mouth dropped open and his eyes widened as his trembling fingers dug into the skin of his arm, scratching it without even noticing.

"Do you remember him as well?" Detective Song asked, eyes filled with worry. "Is he one of the guys that assaulted you?" But Donghae wasn’t able to give him an answer or even another reaction than being visibly scared to no end.

His breath hitched and his fingernails left red angry marks on his skin as he couldn’t stop scratching it. Eunhyuk quickly walked up to him and grabbed his wrist to pull his hand away, so it wouldn’t start bleeding. He noticed how the younger couldn’t control his breathing anymore and feeling how cold the other's skin felt, he knew that they couldn’t continue this any longer. His eyes darted to look at the picture and to the name beside it that suddenly triggered such a heavy