¦ Twelve

"I'm sorry."

Donghae stopped toweling his hair and swung the wet cloth around his neck. His eyes found the fragile figure of the man sitting on the bed, the man that hadn't spoken a word until that moment even though the brunet's first words of that morning had been meant to calm him down. Because Donghae had kept his promise; he had been there when Eunhyuk had woken up. But that was only what he thought.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Donghae stopped near the wardrobe with his back facing it. "What for?" he asked and watched with growing worry how agitated the other's movements were as he ran a hand through his hair, eyes never leaving the wrinkled bed sheets surrounding him.

"I'm sorry for all the things I've d-done wrong", Eunhyuk mumbled, voice shaky and low. "I didn’t m-mean to make you mad a-and I… I didn’t want this t-to happen..."

"What do you mean, what should've happened?" Donghae silently asked for the elder's behavior didn’t make any sense to him. "There's no need for you to be sorry."

"There is", Eunhyuk whispered, his breathing speeding up as he thought about Ryeowook's words over and over again. "I'm so sorry…"

Donghae breathed a sigh. "Are you going to tell me about what you mean with that?" he inquired and looked at him only for a moment before turning around to search for something to wear. Eunhyuk didn’t answer and the brunet didn’t wait for his response.              
The towel wrapped around his waist and the one around his neck were thrown over a chair as he got dressed; when he turned around as he was almost finished, the redhead was still staring at the sheets. He hadn't even noticed that his boyfriend had been completely right in front of him.

The younger pulled a white shirt over his head and with another sigh he walked over to the bed, threaded his fingers through red hair before he crouched down in front of the other. His gaze was caring and filled with worry; it was exactly the same look he had sent Eunhyuk after the other had woken up with a start and almost apathetic only seconds after himself that morning.

"Hyukjae… I know that something is terribly wrong and I hate to see how much it destroys you. You know that you can always come and talk to me about the things that make you worry, right? I want to help you so please – tell me why you're like this. Tell me what you keep dreaming about."

Eunhyuk slowly lifted his gaze and was met with the sad smile playing around Donghae's lips that was meant to be encouraging; a sight that made his heart ache as soon as he saw it. That's why he dropped his gaze to the hand resting on his knee and to the thumb that kept caressing his skin in an attempt to make him feel better only a second later.

"You wouldn’t understand it", he mumbled and didn’t see how those words made the smile falter and fade, quicker than it had appeared.

"How do you know? Why don’t you let me try to understand it?"

But Eunhyuk only shook his head. He knew that it was wrong to keep secrets, but there was no other way. Donghae mustn’t find out.               
The younger's warm hand left his knee and Eunhyuk wanted to grab it, to make him stay; he almost shivered from the sudden loss of warmth. The expression on Donghae's face was unreadable as he looked down, biting his lip.

"You don’t trust me", he silently stated and slightly nodded to himself like he wanted to emphasize his own words. "But why should you, right? I mean… I've only been your boyfriend for so many years now; trusting me would be weird, wouldn’t it?"

Eunhyuk's wide eyes found the other's, saw the hurt and disappointment in them. He opened his mouth to prove the opposite to him, but somebody else was quicker.

"Donghae! Hurry up! Manager-hyung is already waiting for you outside!"

"Yes, hyung", the brunet called, turning his head towards the door where Leeteuk's voice had sounded from. He stood up, unaware of the panicked expression on Eunhyuk's face as the other noticed that he was about to leave.

"Where are you going?" the redhead quickly asked, voice cracking as fear started rising up inside of him. Donghae grabbed one of his watches from the dresser and put it on without sending him another glance.

"Oh yeah", he scoffed silently. "You most likely forgot it, but I film a drama now and then. Don’t worry, though. I bet it's totally normal to forget something like that. I just told you about it yesterday when you helped me to learn my lines after all."

Eunhyuk's eyes flitted across the floor before he looked back at the other. "I'm- I'm sorry, I just-"

"Don’t waste your breath", Donghae interrupted him and grabbed his keys, hand already resting on the door handle as he put a cap over his damp and messy hair; the make-up noonas would take care of it anyway.

"When will you come home?"

"Don’t know. Probably tonight", he said and pulled the door open. Eunhyuk's stomach dropped.

"C-Can't you stay here?"

Donghae let out a dry and bitter laugh without turning back. "Sure."

And with that he stepped out of the room, slammed the door shut and left Eunhyuk behind who wanted to follow the other, to glue their bodies together so they wouldn’t be apart. Because that was what he had to do, right? He had to make sure that Donghae was fine.

And the longer he sat there, the longer his mind was tortured by all the possibilities of how he could lose Donghae forever – the more he was willing to do.

Everything. Eunhyuk would do everything to make him stay alive.

***

Donghae came back at half past four in the morning.

Eunhyuk had spent his day – it had been one of his rare days off – with sitting around in the dorm like his soul had left his body, completely unable to do anything. Kangin had dragged him out to the gym because he couldn’t stand seeing it anymore, but even almost making his body collapse couldn’t keep his thoughts from racing. He constantly thought about Donghae, couldn’t do anything else. What he wanted to do the most was to call the younger to make sure that he was alright, to visit him at the set so he could see him. But he knew that this would only make things worse and that Donghae would freak out because of it. Eunhyuk wanted to do it though; every second without the younger was unbearable, yet he didn’t go to bed and waited up for him. He wanted to see him, to spend at least a few more minutes with him before he had to go back to where he belonged. And he thought that he had to make it up somehow that he was the cause of Donghae's death. He didn’t know how and he knew that it was impossible. But he wanted to.

Eunhyuk had enough time to think about what was happening and without the younger by his side he understood one thing: he had to tell him about it. Keeping secrets like that made Donghae mad and the redhead didn’t want that. Maybe Donghae really would understand it, at least he hoped so, and once he had said it, it would take a load off his mind. Even if he hesitated to tell him about it: if that was what he needed to do so they wouldn’t start fighting again, then he would do it.

As he heard the front door being opened, the redhead's body unconsciously tensed up. He sat on Donghae's bed even though he knew that the younger most likely would still be annoyed and wanted to be alone. But he couldn’t accept that. Not now.

The door was pushed open a moment later and in the dim shimmer of the bedside lamp he could see Donghae's exhausted and pale face, showing him that the other had absolutely no strength left to argue with him about anything. Donghae's eyes met with his only for a heartbeat; the younger didn’t do much more to acknowledge his presence.

"You should go to bed", was everything he mumbled as he softly closed the door behind him. He rubbed both hands over hi