| Three

The successfully suppressed confusion hit Eunhyuk full force as he woke up alone the next morning. Donghae was nowhere in sight and the other side of the bed felt cold and untouched. Eunhyuk knew that the younger had been there the previous night; they had fallen asleep just like they always did when none of them had late schedules, cuddling arm in arm. Speaking about schedules: was that the reason why Donghae wasn’t with him? Eunhyuk thought about it, but the younger hadn't told him about early appointments he'd have alone, not even for the drama he was filming. Had he forgotten to tell him about it? He surely had; normally he would always remind him the night before.

Eunhyuk sat up and rubbed both of his hands over his face to get rid of the tiredness that was still so demanding that he wanted to continue sleeping for the next couple of hours. A small side glance towards his alarm clock however made him furrow his brows. It was around nine in the morning and no one had been coming to wake him up. Hadn't Leeteuk told them yesterday that they had to get up early again for their schedules?

Wait a minute – Donghae was part of those schedules just like him. So where was he?

Eunhyuk freed himself from the blanket and was just about to stand up as he noticed something strange. He was wearing those clothes again, the grey sweat pants and the loose black shirt. Those were the clothes he had been wearing in this weird dream the night before so why was he-

His eyes widened the same moment his heart skipped a beat. Was he dreaming again? This couldn’t be, right? He had never been able to continue one of his dreams after waking up, not even as he had tried to. So this right here could impossibly be the same weird dream he had had the night before. No, it couldn’t be, it couldn’t.

He got up from the bed and quickly walked over to the door to pull it open without the slightest bit of hesitation. The dorm was so unusually quiet again and that fact made his heart hammer against his ribcage with a force he hadn't known before. A shiver ran down his spine.    
The redhead entered the living room, looked around for the other members and froze to the spot when he saw Sungmin sitting in the kitchen. The elder had his face buried in his hands and it didn’t seem like he had noticed the other's presence yet.

"Hyung", Eunhyuk breathed out and approached him with careful but still fast steps. He prayed to God that the elder would look at him and smile and that the reason for him sitting there like this was that he was tired and nothing else. And Sungmin indeed was tired, that was the first thing he noticed as the other let his hands sink down – but there was also this emotion glued to his face that almost made Eunhyuk's heart stop. Sorrow. It was just like back then and even this awful faked smile crept up Sungmin's face as he saw the way the younger looked at him.

"Hyukjae, good morning. How are you?"

Sungmin's voice was silent and hoarse and no matter how much he tried to hide how he was feeling, he simply couldn’t. He looked like he was about to fall from his chair due to extreme exhaustion the next second. It was like he had spent the whole night awake.

"What's wrong?" Eunhyuk asked, ignoring the elder's question completely. His voice started shaking without him wanting to. "Why are you like this?"

Sungmin forced himself to another smile and looked down for a couple of seconds before returning the younger's questioning gaze. "I'm just… really tired", he whispered.

"Why?" No matter how inappropriate it was; Eunhyuk wouldn’t let them hush him again. If he was trapped here again, he at least wanted to know what was going on.

A heavy sigh escaped Sungmin's lips and he suddenly avoided looking at him. "It was really hard for me to fall asleep last night", he eventually whispered, his voice getting lower with every word.

"Why?" Eunhyuk asked again, his voice filled with despair. Sungmin let out another sigh and blinked his eyes a couple of times.

"Do you want to eat something?"

Eunhyuk shook his head even though the other couldn’t see it. "No, please just answer my question."

"You really should, you haven’t eaten since-"

"Hyung", Eunhyuk interrupted him; his eyes started watering because this situation was already too much for him to handle. "Tell me what's wrong, I beg you."

Sungmin rubbed his eyes before he looked at the table again, biting his lip. "Please don’t do this to me", he breathed out after what felt like minutes. "You know what happened, please don’t make this even harder for all of us."

Eunhyuk shook his head. "No, I really don’t know-"

"Hyukjae, please listen to him."

The redhead jumped and quickly turned around to see Siwon standing behind him. The other looked just as tired as Sungmin, his eyes were reddened and his voice croaking. Had he been there the whole time or had Eunhyuk just been too occupied with Sungmin that he hadn't heard him entering the dorm?

"Siwon, please." Eunhyuk grabbed both of the other's arms and tried to lock gazes with him, but Siwon avoided looking at him just like Sungmin did. "You have to tell me what's going on."

The other lifted his gaze slowly and looked at him after Eunhyuk shook him slightly. "You want to know what's going on?" he silently asked. Eunhyuk quickly nodded his head. "Sungmin-hyung just wants you to eat something before we… go there."

"Before we go where? Please just talk to me finally!"

Siwon freed himself from the younger's hold and placed both of his hands on his shoulders to push him down to sit on one of the chairs. He had to force him a bit, but Eunhyuk jumped to his feet again as soon as the other's hands left his shoulders. A sob left escaped his lips, simply because he was so overwhelmed, scared and angry. He couldn’t stand the way they avoided talking about what had happened, this ignorance – no matter what the reason behind it was – made him sick.

"I'm sorry!" He was pulled into Siwon's arms before he had the chance to comprehend it and the other held him so close like he had to shield him from all the bad things that happened in the world. "I didn’t mean to make you cry again. Please, I'm so sorry-"

Eunhyuk pushed him away and didn’t even ask himself why Siwon said that he was crying again when he couldn’t remember the last time he had. He walked past him and through the living room; he had to get away from them, just away and out of this room.

"Where are you going?"

It was Sungmin who asked that question; his voice was louder now, panic-stricken even. But Eunhyuk didn’t care, not now.

"The other dorm", he said without turning around. "Maybe they are more willing to tell me what's going on."

A hand was wrapped around his wrist and held him back, he tried to jerk his arm out of the other's hold, but it was too tight.

"Who do you want to talk to?" Siwon asked right behind him. There was something in his voice Eunhyuk had never heard before, but now was not the time to think about it. He his lips and let the tears fall that were welling up in his eyes; tears of anger.

"I don’t know", he muttered, eyes flitting around the floor. "Ryeowook maybe or better Donghae-"

The other's arms were wrapped around him again and this time the hug was even tighter and gave him no chance to push him away. That didn’t hold him back from trying, though.

"Oh my God, no", he heard Siwon whimper and he noticed how his voice cracked. "No, no, no, no… You can't go and ask him."

"Why not?!" Eunhyuk cried out and struggled as much as he could. "Let go of me, I want to talk to them!"

"No", Siwon said again and judging by the way his voice sounded then, he was already crying. "Oh my God, no…"

"What's wrong with you?! I said let me go!" Eunhyuk used all strength he had, but still didn’t manage to loosen the other's hold around him even a tiny bit. "Why don’t you let me talk to them?!"

"Because he isn’t there", Siwon sobbed. "Donghae's… Donghae isn’t here… anymore."

"Then tell me where he is! Is he at our apartment? Or- or is he having schedules? Talk to me, Siwon!"

Siwon shook his head, he could feel it, and the only answer he got was another loud sob. Eunhyuk slowly stopped struggling, it was pointless either way. The other's crying affected him deeply, made him worry more and more and the words Sungmin said next left him dumbfounded.

"That must be the shock", the eldest among them said and it sounded so blank that it sent shivers down Eunhyuk's spine. "That really must be the shock..."

Eunhyuk couldn’t speak another word, couldn’t form another sentence and just stood there with Siwon still hugging him tightly. This was the worst nightmare he had ever had, he was sure about that. And slowly he changed his mind. Maybe he didn’t want to know what was going on; maybe it was better to stay unknowing. Maybe this was the only way to not make all of this even worse.

And so he stood still and kept his mouth shut; he heard some of the other members entering the dorm after some time, heard their hushed and concerned voices. Some of them were crying, that was also something he heard, but he didn’t dare to look up from Siwon's shoulder. There was nothing he hated more than seeing the people cry he cared about the most and being hugged by a sobbing Siwon was already bad enough.

He couldn’t tell how much time had passed as Siwon finally let go of him, tears still on his face. Eunhyuk didn’t say another word, just accepted the clothes Shindong handed him over together with a few pats on his shoulder and headed for the bathroom. He stayed quiet despite seeing what kind of clothes it were and mutely put one the black suit after stepping out of the shower. It didn’t even shock him much when he saw that the other members were also wearing black suits, didn’t ask them why. They were still so careful whenever they interacted with him, but he didn’t react to it at all.   
Because maybe all he had to do was to play along. This was just a nightmare after all, wasn’t it? He would soon wake up and no matter what he or the others did: it wasn’t real. This wasn’t reality. And so he accepted the food that was placed on the kitchen table in front of him, cooked by somebody else instead of Ryeowook this time, but