C h a p t e r  2 5

"… I know that he was there when they did it. He- he was there, I'm sure."

"Do you remember more details about him? Did he do something apart from only hurting you with his words?"

Donghae's gaze dropped. He deliberated for some time before slowly shaking his head. "I don’t know… I'm sorry."

Mrs. Jung smiled at him. "You don’t have to be sorry, it's okay. Let's just continue with the next name, maybe you remember more about him."

The brunet nodded hesitantly and his eyes found the small voice recorder standing on the table after a while; he felt intimidated and ashamed by it at the same time. Donghae knew that Detective Song would most likely be the only one to hear what it recorded and thought about how this was better than having him here instead. He simply didn’t trust him enough to have him this close when he talked about this stuff, one person was already more than enough.

Mrs. Jung finished writing a short note on the block lying on top of her crossed legs and took a look at the next name. The silent ticking of the clock behind her was the only noise audible as she waited for Donghae to at least try to relax a bit.

"Park Hyunwoo", she eventually said with a soft voice and immediately raised her eyes to catch his reaction.

Donghae sighed, eyes darting nervously around without finding a fixed point. The other's face appeared in his head for a moment, he remembered his voice, some of the words he had said – he knew he was one of the 'bad guys', one who had hurt him. But all the other names on Mrs. Jung's list were too, every single one of them. Connecting them with what exactly each one had done to him during those two years was incredibly hard; it was like a gigantic puzzle.   
They already had parts that matched, had been able to connect things that Donghae was sure about had happened this way because he could remember some parts of his past better now and with Mrs. Jung's help he had reported them to Detective Song. He didn’t know what they did with the information they got, if they would hunt for those guys or not. The things they had done to him were awful in combination with the things all the others had done, but seeing them all individually it didn’t always look like that anymore. They wouldn’t arrest them for saying mean things to him or for insulting him because that simply wasn’t a crime. But he knew about the incidents and some of them simply had to get arrested for what they had done to him. All he had to do was to connect their faces to the incidents and he wasn’t allowed to make mistakes. Because maybe – if he wouldn’t be able to connect the missing parts correctly – they wouldn’t get punished at all and they would call him a liar or even worse. And that was what he was afraid of the most.

"He was the one who almost strangled me to make me stop crying", he eventually said after what felt like minutes and without looking up. Mrs. Jung seemed concerned.

"You mean after they… well-"

"After they'd shoved and kicked me along the hallway in the middle of the night until I couldn’t get up anymore. I… think it was last winter."

Mrs. Jung coughed slightly and nodded. "Do you think he did that because he wanted to hurt you even more or is there another reason?"

Donghae kept his gaze lowered and his voice was weak as he spoke. "I think he simply wanted to make me stop crying so he and the others wouldn’t get caught. We were in a side corridor and there was someone walking by – I guess what he did was the easiest way to make me shut up. He seemed really nervous, I don’t think that he wanted to kill me, but… in that moment I thought he was going to."

She nodded sympathetically and wrote down another note. "Is there something else he did?"

"No, he… he never did something like this before and I can't remember something else about him. I think he just wanted to prove himself."

"Do you remember how many people where there that night?"

"A few… Five maybe."

"Can you tell me their names?"

Donghae shook his head rather quickly. "It was really dark, I couldn’t see their faces. But… S-Sunghoon was there. I know that because… h-he was the one who kicked me first."

She nodded once more and again scribbled something down, her eyes flickering over to the other occasionally without him noticing it.

Donghae hated the fact that he couldn’t answer all of her questions, that there still were so many things he couldn't remember. There was only one person he could remember everything about: Chong Sunghoon. He was the one responsible, the one who had started everything. And he was the only one they could actually arrest because he dealt in drugs, even if everything else didn’t work. Telling Mrs. Jung about him and all the things he had done to him had taken Donghae more than a week and that week had made him weak; both his body and his mind. Speaking about the others was easier now and he even seemed unaffected sometimes when he did so, but that didn’t tell anything about how he felt inside.

"Donghae-ssi."

He looked up to see Mrs. Jung gaze, focused on his hands. He only then noticed how much they were shaking.

"We can continue", he quickly said. "It's nothing."

"No, I don’t think we should do that", she said, making his eyes widen a bit.

"But we need to hurry, am I right? The more I tell, the faster the police will be able to catch them."

"You also have to think about yourself, Donghae-ssi." She put her notes on the small table standing beside her. "I think it's better to stop here for today, we can continue tomorrow. You won't get the chance to sleep tonight if you tell me more."

Donghae grimaced. "I don’t think it will work either way."

Mrs. Jung sent him a comforting smile. "It will get better with time. You'll see: once the trial is over, everything's going to be better. It will happen slowly, but that doesn’t mean that you have to rush things now. Take your time – that's the most important thing."

The brunet nodded slowly, not satisfied with this decision. He stood up, visibly disorientated for a moment and headed for the door, only to stop as his name was called again.

"I can prescribe you something for the nightmares if you want me to." Mrs. Jung said. "I know they are still lowering the dose of the methadone; if it all becomes too much-"

"I don’t need it", he quickly said, head turned around to send her a smile that was completely faked. "I can do this, but thank you. See you tomorrow."

He bowed his head shortly and left her office, feeling her troubled gaze on his back.     
It wasn’t hard for him to guess that he couldn’t fool anyone with his excuses anymore. It was getting harder every day; with every memory returning to his head, the anxiety inside of him got bigger. He was always uneasy, couldn’t relax at all. They all said it would get better once the trial was over, that was the reason why he wanted it to be over as quickly as possible without even knowing how to do it. He knew he couldn’t stand seeing them in real life again, but it would be the last time, right? He would see them there and if he was lucky he would see how they finally had to pay for everything they had done to him. And after that – well, then he would have the time to relax. He would be able to sleep, he hoped for it. Waking up almost every night, having those flashbacks and this panic always lingering somewhere inside of him – he wanted it to end, once and for all.

Stepping into the hallway, he saw Eunhyuk sitting on one of the plastic chairs, waiting for him like every day since Donghae had been able to convince him that he could talk with Mrs. Jung on his own. Right next to him sat Leeteuk instead of Junghoon this time; the latter was at the SM building and took care of their new managers that soon would be in charge of them.

Donghae quickly walked up to them, but the small smile daring to tug on his lips faded before he could show it as he saw the tired expression on Eunhyuk's face.

"I'm so sorry for waking you up", he said as soon as he reached them, with his eyebrows furrowed and one hand already reaching out for the other's face. It had been another tough night for the both of them and it seemed like Eunhyuk couldn’t get over those things as easily as he had been able to the times before.           
The raven head quickly grabbed the other's hand and put it down while smiling this small smile of his, shaking his head.

"It's not your fault-"

"Maybe we should sleep in separated bedrooms", Donghae interrupted, worry all over his face. "I don’t want you to wake up because of me every night."

"Stop talking nonsense", Eunhyuk mumbled. "I'll stay with you, no matter what."

"But-"

"No." He sounded strict for a moment before his features softened. "It's okay, Donghae. You really shouldn’t worry about me. Isn't Dr. Yoon waiting for you?"

The brunet nodded hesitantly, eyes once again travelling over the tired and nearly exhausted expression shown on the other's face. "Okay", he said, but immediately pushed Eunhyuk down with his hands on both of the other's shoulders as the elder tried to stand up.

"Don’t you want me to come with you?" Eunhyuk asked, a bit surprised. Donghae shook his head.

"I can go on my own. Just stay here, it won't take long."

"Should I go with you?" Leeteuk asked; the brunet let out a negative hum.

"Please stay with Hyukkie. He needs you more than I do."

Eunhyuk sighe