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pairing: kangin/eeteuk for the most part but everyone is involved somehow
rating/genre: pg-ish. angst, angst, and more angst.
dedication: abcdepiklove for giving me the prompt of "so, how about some leeteuk losing his memory and he slowly doesn't remember any of the members. reason for prompt is because his memory is pretty fail sometimes. "marry me? marry u? what is it?" please to work in some kangteuk? *~*"
summary: "when i forget everyone- everything," eeteuk pauses, his grip tightening on the metal bar beneath his hands. he tries to keep his composure as he flips his hair out of his eyes. "will i still be able to see?"
the few people i've had read this over say that they can't find anything wrong with it so if you find something, it's their fault >>;
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"when i forget everyone- everything," eeteuk pauses, his grip tightening on the metal bar beneath his hands. he tries to keep his composure as he flips his hair out of his eyes. "will i still be able to see?"
he can't remember what the doctor told him moments before.
they don't know that this isn't acting, they just laugh when eeteuk asks for the third time that day what day of the week it is. he laughs, too, because he figures that forgetting his own song name must be a sign of old age. he really does feel so old these days after all. they're all smiles in the van on the way home. eeteuk counts twelve heads including his own, telling the driver that they're good to go. the whole van roars in laughter as sungmin sits up from kyuhyun's lap which he was using as a makeshift pillow.
"you forgot me, hyung?"
who is he?
"sungmin," he puts a hand on the younger man's back once he works out the kinks and jogs his memory, just in time for them to arrive home. "you're sungmin."
shiwon smiles and helps eeteuk find the spoons, pulling open the drawer without thinking about it. it's when eeteuk grabs onto his wrist with apprehension that he pays attention to the matter, delicate fingers telling shiwon that it's not okay. "can you tell me- can you tell me what i was looking for?" his breath hitches and he looks away as his fingers deftly play with shiwon's watch. "have i had anything to eat today, shiwon," he asks with a twinge of hope in his voice, remaining strong even though he doesn't know what is making him feel so stupid all the time- so clumsy and careless.
"hyung, i'll help you," he sighs with a gentle smile, pulling eeteuk into his arms. "you look really tired, we can make sandwiches together, okay?"
shiwon later regrets not paying attention while he (never) had the chance to fix something.
kangin keeps his eyes closed when the light peeks through the blinds and wishes that he can go one more day- just one more day without eeteuk looking at him and asking him who he is. it's something his heart still hasn't prepared for.
"our- um, super junior- album, it's coming out soon- ...soon," he says, then looks to eunhyuk. "what day is it, for everyone else?"
"feburary 10th, the most important day of this year-," he manages before kangin smacks him on the back of the head.
"mm, the 10th of feburary," eeteuk breaks deep inside where no one else can see and wrings his hands together.
they wait for him to say something else, but he doesn't.
"yeah, so mark your calendars because this is going to be the best album yet!" kangin saves him while slapping his hand against eunhyuk's back.
they wait for eeteuk to do the closing, but he just stares at his feet aimlessly. kangin and eunhyuk decide to take it upon themselves with confusion on their faces.
"hyung, come on," eunhyuk says gently, pulling at eeteuk's elbow and leading him out of the room.
no one laughs this time.
when the glass shatters, no one makes a move to help him. nor do they flinch when tears spill and make his pretty eyelashes stick to his cheeks as he huddles against the door frame with mumbles of apologies spilling from his lips. they all walk right through him and heechul just glares and kibum says that he's such a waste. kangin is there when he wakes up, chest heaving as his heart pounds in his ears.
"please tell me i'm still eeteuk- please tell me, kangin," he begs, eyes wide and fragile fingers trying to claw their way past the cloth that keeps him from touching kangin's skin- from touching something that's still real.
"you're eeteuk. it's not going to change, hyung."
a long pause.
"what's wrong, teukie-yah?"
"i can't remember," he manages while struggling with himself so that he doesn't cry. he won't cry.
"can't you all see," heechul's tone is harsh and everyone looks down, everyone but eeteuk who sleeps with his head against kangin's chest. "he's forgetting everything- eeteuk never forgets dance steps. eeteuk never forgets how to speak in public. he's not eeteuk anymore."
slience.
"he is eeteuk hyung," donghae mumbles with his eyes still on the floor. "nothing will ever change that."
"he needs to go to the doctor," shindong says gently, completely unsure of himself. "maybe it's just stress."
it isn't stress. the words hang heavy above their heads but no one wants to say them.
"it's not stress," the doctor starts and no one wants to hear anymore.
ryeowook is the first one to break down, crumbling down and fitting into shiwon's strong arms.
"he's going to forget us? he's going to forget this?"
kangin chucks his chair into the center of the room before walking out and slamming the door behind him.
donghae comes up with a very plausible solution to this problem, at least he thinks, as he hands everyone name tags with their names scrawled on them in dark ink. he gives one to eeteuk too, just in case.
"we'll put them on our shirts so we can't forget each other!"
"no one is going to forget me," kangin stands strong as he places his nametag back in donghae's palm. "no one."
heechul sits with him on the floor in the bathroom a few minutes later when he doesn't feel so strong. heechul's fingers are playing with his hair absently and on any other day he would tell kangin to stop being a pussy and get back out there but he looks so tired- like he's given up hope.
"you should take a break."
eeteuk calls kangin's name and kangin can see him trembling.
he needs me, he doesn't need to say as he pushes himself up and walks out of the room, looking back at heechul a final time with his words stuck in his throat, more than you'll ever know.
i do know, heechul would say, but he's left on the floor with his own thoughts. he imagines eeteuk barreling in to kangin and asking him where he is, who these people are, why he's here... heechul knows that kangin will be the last person eeteuk forgets. he doesn't wish that hurt on anyone.
"you're kibum," eeteuk says, pointing at the picture and back to the younger man with a smile that cuts into his cheeks. "one of the youngest."
they can't believe it when they come home to find kibum sitting on the couch with eeteuk- far away from the confines of his computer desk that he hasn't been able to tear himself away from since the news broke.
"kibum made me a book," he tells them before pointing to another picture with writing beside it and kibum tells him about that picture- tells him about donghae and eunhyuk's popsicle battle and how kyuhyun and shiwon gunned them down with super soakers, then managed to clean the mess up before eeteuk got home and had to deal with it.
"some of it got in heechul's hair. he was pretty pissed," kibum grins at eeteuk's high pitched laughter and the majority of the room exchanges glances.
kangin comes in late and finds everyone sprawled around the living room, some laughing themselves into tears and it feels so warm- in the good way, like it used to feel when his mom would let him help cook dinner when he was small.
"oh, you're just in time, we were just talking about you," heechul smirks as kangin comes into the room and eeteuk beams up at him.
"kangin-ah! kibum has a picture of yo..." and kang in can't hear what eeteuk says next. he doesn't care because he's happy and everyone else is happy. he just grins and takes a seat on the floor next to hankyung who wraps his arms around him and rests his head on his shoulder.
"he's better today- hap..happier today."
"youngwoon-ah," eeteuk says against his skin and it startles kangin awake.
"hyung? you-" he kisses him slow and sticky, fingers like spiderwebs against kangin's cheeks. kangin's clammy fingers fit in the notches of eeteuk's spine. he never remembers to eat now, not that it wasn't any different before. this feels like eeteuk- the real eeteuk. the eeteuk with the bad jokes and the high pitched laughs that always hurt his ears before but now he misses the sound. he misses the way eeteuk would hold him like this, without a care in the world and he knows that he should cherish this moment because he might not ever get to have it again. eeteuk's cheeks are hollow but he's laughing and kangin wants to laugh too- but he would rather listen to eeteuk instead.
"i want to go somewhere."
"it's two in the morning," his mouth says but his eyes tell a different story.
you'll forget me.
i know, i'm sorry.
he finds himself out by the han river with eeteuk, huddled under a blanket and sharing cup ramen. eeteuk grins as the steam heats up his face and blushes when kangin calls him his angel like he used to.
"this will probably ruin the mood and shit but-..."
"i know, youngwoon-ah. my memory is going away."
"i don't want you to forget me, teukie-yah."
"i won't live for very long once i forget you."
"me either."
they leave it at that and revisit the moments that made them most happy until the sun comes up. eeteuk falls asleep on kangin's back as he walks back toward the hostel, soft breaths against the side of his neck as he holds onto him tightly.
kangin can only hope that eeteuk will say his name like that just one more time. he doesn't think he needs anything other than that.
eeteuk sits on his bed and lets tears hit the pretty pages of smiling faces and words that swirl around his head, going in one ear and out the other. he wants to rip it apart, page by page, wants to smudge the ink with his fingers and make it as blurry as all of this is in his mind but he just holds onto it tighter because this book used to make him so happy. it made those boys on the pages so happy. he makes out kangin's face on one of the pages and decides that he should know this person. it dawns on him that he does know this person and he loves this person and his name is kangin- youngwoon.
his nose is bleeding but he's happy.
it's been six months since they heard the news and eeteuk doesn't know what kyuhyun looks like- much less who he is. he thinks ryeowook is sungmin and sungmin is someone that he sees less often because he isn't strong enough to look in the eyes of someone he loves that doesn't know who he is. shiwon, he thinks, is a nice boy who comes over every now and then to see heechul, who he only knows as the boy who helps him brush his hair, and han..- han? han?...
yehsung has a pretty voice that he uses to sing him to sleep when kangin isn't there to save him from confusion and that's all he knows about yehsung. shindong is nice to him and takes him to get ice cream but he doesn't know his name. donghae resents hyukjae because eeteuk still knows him, still remembers bits and pieces of him but every time donghae tells him his name, eeteuk can't place him for anything. kibum, eeteuk remembers, mostly because kibum still reads to him from a book about a group called super junior that seemed like so much fun- they all looked so happy and sometimes he can see himself among the pages, smiling and laughing with people who feel so real.
he's most happy, however, when kangin comes to visit him in the room that doesn't feel any different from his old room (he just knows that kangin isn't allowed to sleep with him in his bed now). sometimes he gathers up the strength to run and hug him tightly, other days he just smiles meekly at the familiar face- his favorite face.
sometimes, kangin wonders how eeteuk remembers him at all- how could he remember a face that has changed so much in such a short period of time? he just puts on his best smile but it kills him on the inside because he knows that he only has so much time before eeteuk doesn't even know who he looks at when he sees himself in the mirror.
kangin doesn't know why he sneaks in that night or how he manages to make it past security, but he does know that he doesn't want to go another night without sleeping by eeteuk's side.
when he opens the door to the room, the bed is empty but eeteuk is standing at the window with a blanket pulled around his slight frame.
"teukie-yah," he doesn't think such a voice came from himself- so needy and desperate. eeteuk looks at him and kangin thinks for a second that he doesn't know who he is- that eeteuk is gone and he's not coming back.
"youngwoon-ah?"
"want to come with me," kangin whispers as eeteuk comes closer, "please, please come with me?" eeteuk's fingers are freezing when they touch the skin of his jaw but he doesn't flinch.
"i'll still be able to see, right?" he tightens his grip on the metal bar and kangin finally looks up at him from hands that won't stop shaking.
"yeah, you'll be able to see, hyung."
"then i won't forget you," eeteuk says with as much courage as he can muster. his knuckles whiten. "no matter what, i won't forget you."
"you can't be so sure," kangin is bitter as he stands up and settles one of his heavy hands over eeteuk's own.
"even if i tried to forget you, i wouldn't. it's stupid, but you're a part of me. i'll forget myself before i forget you."
pairing: kangin/eeteuk for the most part but everyone is involved somehow
rating/genre: pg-ish. angst, angst, and more angst.
dedication: abcdepiklove for giving me the prompt of "so, how about some leeteuk losing his memory and he slowly doesn't remember any of the members. reason for prompt is because his memory is pretty fail sometimes. "marry me? marry u? what is it?" please to work in some kangteuk? *~*"
summary: "when i forget everyone- everything," eeteuk pauses, his grip tightening on the metal bar beneath his hands. he tries to keep his composure as he flips his hair out of his eyes. "will i still be able to see?"
the few people i've had read this over say that they can't find anything wrong with it so if you find something, it's their fault >>;
brushstrokes faded
"when i forget everyone- everything," eeteuk pauses, his grip tightening on the metal bar beneath his hands. he tries to keep his composure as he flips his hair out of his eyes. "will i still be able to see?"
he can't remember what the doctor told him moments before.
they don't know that this isn't acting, they just laugh when eeteuk asks for the third time that day what day of the week it is. he laughs, too, because he figures that forgetting his own song name must be a sign of old age. he really does feel so old these days after all. they're all smiles in the van on the way home. eeteuk counts twelve heads including his own, telling the driver that they're good to go. the whole van roars in laughter as sungmin sits up from kyuhyun's lap which he was using as a makeshift pillow.
"you forgot me, hyung?"
who is he?
"sungmin," he puts a hand on the younger man's back once he works out the kinks and jogs his memory, just in time for them to arrive home. "you're sungmin."
shiwon smiles and helps eeteuk find the spoons, pulling open the drawer without thinking about it. it's when eeteuk grabs onto his wrist with apprehension that he pays attention to the matter, delicate fingers telling shiwon that it's not okay. "can you tell me- can you tell me what i was looking for?" his breath hitches and he looks away as his fingers deftly play with shiwon's watch. "have i had anything to eat today, shiwon," he asks with a twinge of hope in his voice, remaining strong even though he doesn't know what is making him feel so stupid all the time- so clumsy and careless.
"hyung, i'll help you," he sighs with a gentle smile, pulling eeteuk into his arms. "you look really tired, we can make sandwiches together, okay?"
shiwon later regrets not paying attention while he (never) had the chance to fix something.
kangin keeps his eyes closed when the light peeks through the blinds and wishes that he can go one more day- just one more day without eeteuk looking at him and asking him who he is. it's something his heart still hasn't prepared for.
"our- um, super junior- album, it's coming out soon- ...soon," he says, then looks to eunhyuk. "what day is it, for everyone else?"
"feburary 10th, the most important day of this year-," he manages before kangin smacks him on the back of the head.
"mm, the 10th of feburary," eeteuk breaks deep inside where no one else can see and wrings his hands together.
they wait for him to say something else, but he doesn't.
"yeah, so mark your calendars because this is going to be the best album yet!" kangin saves him while slapping his hand against eunhyuk's back.
they wait for eeteuk to do the closing, but he just stares at his feet aimlessly. kangin and eunhyuk decide to take it upon themselves with confusion on their faces.
"hyung, come on," eunhyuk says gently, pulling at eeteuk's elbow and leading him out of the room.
no one laughs this time.
when the glass shatters, no one makes a move to help him. nor do they flinch when tears spill and make his pretty eyelashes stick to his cheeks as he huddles against the door frame with mumbles of apologies spilling from his lips. they all walk right through him and heechul just glares and kibum says that he's such a waste. kangin is there when he wakes up, chest heaving as his heart pounds in his ears.
"please tell me i'm still eeteuk- please tell me, kangin," he begs, eyes wide and fragile fingers trying to claw their way past the cloth that keeps him from touching kangin's skin- from touching something that's still real.
"you're eeteuk. it's not going to change, hyung."
a long pause.
"what's wrong, teukie-yah?"
"i can't remember," he manages while struggling with himself so that he doesn't cry. he won't cry.
"can't you all see," heechul's tone is harsh and everyone looks down, everyone but eeteuk who sleeps with his head against kangin's chest. "he's forgetting everything- eeteuk never forgets dance steps. eeteuk never forgets how to speak in public. he's not eeteuk anymore."
slience.
"he is eeteuk hyung," donghae mumbles with his eyes still on the floor. "nothing will ever change that."
"he needs to go to the doctor," shindong says gently, completely unsure of himself. "maybe it's just stress."
it isn't stress. the words hang heavy above their heads but no one wants to say them.
"it's not stress," the doctor starts and no one wants to hear anymore.
ryeowook is the first one to break down, crumbling down and fitting into shiwon's strong arms.
"he's going to forget us? he's going to forget this?"
kangin chucks his chair into the center of the room before walking out and slamming the door behind him.
donghae comes up with a very plausible solution to this problem, at least he thinks, as he hands everyone name tags with their names scrawled on them in dark ink. he gives one to eeteuk too, just in case.
"we'll put them on our shirts so we can't forget each other!"
"no one is going to forget me," kangin stands strong as he places his nametag back in donghae's palm. "no one."
heechul sits with him on the floor in the bathroom a few minutes later when he doesn't feel so strong. heechul's fingers are playing with his hair absently and on any other day he would tell kangin to stop being a pussy and get back out there but he looks so tired- like he's given up hope.
"you should take a break."
eeteuk calls kangin's name and kangin can see him trembling.
he needs me, he doesn't need to say as he pushes himself up and walks out of the room, looking back at heechul a final time with his words stuck in his throat, more than you'll ever know.
i do know, heechul would say, but he's left on the floor with his own thoughts. he imagines eeteuk barreling in to kangin and asking him where he is, who these people are, why he's here... heechul knows that kangin will be the last person eeteuk forgets. he doesn't wish that hurt on anyone.
"you're kibum," eeteuk says, pointing at the picture and back to the younger man with a smile that cuts into his cheeks. "one of the youngest."
they can't believe it when they come home to find kibum sitting on the couch with eeteuk- far away from the confines of his computer desk that he hasn't been able to tear himself away from since the news broke.
"kibum made me a book," he tells them before pointing to another picture with writing beside it and kibum tells him about that picture- tells him about donghae and eunhyuk's popsicle battle and how kyuhyun and shiwon gunned them down with super soakers, then managed to clean the mess up before eeteuk got home and had to deal with it.
"some of it got in heechul's hair. he was pretty pissed," kibum grins at eeteuk's high pitched laughter and the majority of the room exchanges glances.
kangin comes in late and finds everyone sprawled around the living room, some laughing themselves into tears and it feels so warm- in the good way, like it used to feel when his mom would let him help cook dinner when he was small.
"oh, you're just in time, we were just talking about you," heechul smirks as kangin comes into the room and eeteuk beams up at him.
"kangin-ah! kibum has a picture of yo..." and kang in can't hear what eeteuk says next. he doesn't care because he's happy and everyone else is happy. he just grins and takes a seat on the floor next to hankyung who wraps his arms around him and rests his head on his shoulder.
"he's better today- hap..happier today."
"youngwoon-ah," eeteuk says against his skin and it startles kangin awake.
"hyung? you-" he kisses him slow and sticky, fingers like spiderwebs against kangin's cheeks. kangin's clammy fingers fit in the notches of eeteuk's spine. he never remembers to eat now, not that it wasn't any different before. this feels like eeteuk- the real eeteuk. the eeteuk with the bad jokes and the high pitched laughs that always hurt his ears before but now he misses the sound. he misses the way eeteuk would hold him like this, without a care in the world and he knows that he should cherish this moment because he might not ever get to have it again. eeteuk's cheeks are hollow but he's laughing and kangin wants to laugh too- but he would rather listen to eeteuk instead.
"i want to go somewhere."
"it's two in the morning," his mouth says but his eyes tell a different story.
you'll forget me.
i know, i'm sorry.
he finds himself out by the han river with eeteuk, huddled under a blanket and sharing cup ramen. eeteuk grins as the steam heats up his face and blushes when kangin calls him his angel like he used to.
"this will probably ruin the mood and shit but-..."
"i know, youngwoon-ah. my memory is going away."
"i don't want you to forget me, teukie-yah."
"i won't live for very long once i forget you."
"me either."
they leave it at that and revisit the moments that made them most happy until the sun comes up. eeteuk falls asleep on kangin's back as he walks back toward the hostel, soft breaths against the side of his neck as he holds onto him tightly.
kangin can only hope that eeteuk will say his name like that just one more time. he doesn't think he needs anything other than that.
eeteuk sits on his bed and lets tears hit the pretty pages of smiling faces and words that swirl around his head, going in one ear and out the other. he wants to rip it apart, page by page, wants to smudge the ink with his fingers and make it as blurry as all of this is in his mind but he just holds onto it tighter because this book used to make him so happy. it made those boys on the pages so happy. he makes out kangin's face on one of the pages and decides that he should know this person. it dawns on him that he does know this person and he loves this person and his name is kangin- youngwoon.
his nose is bleeding but he's happy.
it's been six months since they heard the news and eeteuk doesn't know what kyuhyun looks like- much less who he is. he thinks ryeowook is sungmin and sungmin is someone that he sees less often because he isn't strong enough to look in the eyes of someone he loves that doesn't know who he is. shiwon, he thinks, is a nice boy who comes over every now and then to see heechul, who he only knows as the boy who helps him brush his hair, and han..- han? han?...
yehsung has a pretty voice that he uses to sing him to sleep when kangin isn't there to save him from confusion and that's all he knows about yehsung. shindong is nice to him and takes him to get ice cream but he doesn't know his name. donghae resents hyukjae because eeteuk still knows him, still remembers bits and pieces of him but every time donghae tells him his name, eeteuk can't place him for anything. kibum, eeteuk remembers, mostly because kibum still reads to him from a book about a group called super junior that seemed like so much fun- they all looked so happy and sometimes he can see himself among the pages, smiling and laughing with people who feel so real.
he's most happy, however, when kangin comes to visit him in the room that doesn't feel any different from his old room (he just knows that kangin isn't allowed to sleep with him in his bed now). sometimes he gathers up the strength to run and hug him tightly, other days he just smiles meekly at the familiar face- his favorite face.
sometimes, kangin wonders how eeteuk remembers him at all- how could he remember a face that has changed so much in such a short period of time? he just puts on his best smile but it kills him on the inside because he knows that he only has so much time before eeteuk doesn't even know who he looks at when he sees himself in the mirror.
kangin doesn't know why he sneaks in that night or how he manages to make it past security, but he does know that he doesn't want to go another night without sleeping by eeteuk's side.
when he opens the door to the room, the bed is empty but eeteuk is standing at the window with a blanket pulled around his slight frame.
"teukie-yah," he doesn't think such a voice came from himself- so needy and desperate. eeteuk looks at him and kangin thinks for a second that he doesn't know who he is- that eeteuk is gone and he's not coming back.
"youngwoon-ah?"
"want to come with me," kangin whispers as eeteuk comes closer, "please, please come with me?" eeteuk's fingers are freezing when they touch the skin of his jaw but he doesn't flinch.
"i'll still be able to see, right?" he tightens his grip on the metal bar and kangin finally looks up at him from hands that won't stop shaking.
"yeah, you'll be able to see, hyung."
"then i won't forget you," eeteuk says with as much courage as he can muster. his knuckles whiten. "no matter what, i won't forget you."
"you can't be so sure," kangin is bitter as he stands up and settles one of his heavy hands over eeteuk's own.
"even if i tried to forget you, i wouldn't. it's stupid, but you're a part of me. i'll forget myself before i forget you."