Eyes Wide Open

Chapter Two

Kyuhyun had been gone for a week, and already Hyukjae and I were getting scrutiny from everyone else. They knew we were the closest people to him after Sungmin died, and they questioned us about everything. Where Kyuhyun may be. If Kyuhyun was doing what Sungmin did. If we fell into that same pattern. All throughout the questions that were thrown at us, we stayed silent. Sungmin would have wanted us to. And no opinion is better than that of a perfect person.

"Come, Donghae," Suddenly, Hyukjae was behind me, putting soft pressure on my back with his first two fingers and pushing me forward. "We're going to visit a close friend of ours."

With a nod, I complied to his urgency, taking careful, precise steps. If my footsteps became offbeat, Hyukjae would press a finger to my wrist gently, and I would fix it. For us, there wasn't any time for imperfections, and if we didn't do things that Sungmin would have liked, it obviously wasn't enough. Hyukjae himself was slowly catching up to the perfection that Sungmin had achieved. Meanwhile, I was falling behind; Hyukjae had to correct me all the time, while he was doing absolutely nothing wrong. That was the main difference between my lover and I. He could do so many more things than I could, and I was nearly worth nothing in his eyes while he was everything in mine.

"Kyuhyun awaits," Hyukjae pressed a finger to my wrist once more, and I fell into step with him. As long as I was just like Hyukjae, everything would be okay. "Donghae, don't forget what Sungmin said."

Of course, I knew what he meant. Perfection came at a cost. If you were to be perfect, you had to cut back on a lot of things. People, activities, foods... Anything that tainted the perfection that ran through your veins was immediately to be rid of. If you were to keep those things close to you, it wasn't perfection you were striving for. It was dangerous to go against the perfection rules, especially if they were the most important.

"Does this mean that we may lose Kyuhyun?" I looked at Hyukjae with a quizzical glance. "Are we going to lose him completely?"

Hyukjae ran a finger along my cheek, glaring coldly at me as my face relaxed. "Don't make faces like that, Donghae. It's not good for you. We will not lose Kyuhyun, but we may have to drop all of the others. It's unhealthy for us to be around people like them now, especially since Kyuhyun left."

I nodded briefly, which earned a small smile from Hyukjae. Inside, I cheered silently. I was moving up the ranks in Hyukjae's eyes, and whether or not I would be achieving the perfection that he did would soon be revealed. We were going to visit the one person who understood Sungmin the best, the one person who could walk us through these trials.

We were to see Kyuhyun, despite the fact that he had left us.