~~ Flashback~~

It was in the middle of January, 2003. He was at Hyukjae's house again, had just arrived and rang the bell. Hyukjae was seven years old, he himself was nine years old. His mother had brought him to the younger's house.

An excited Hyukjae opened the door widely and laughed at the sight of his best friend. "Come in!" he said with a bright smile and Jungsu immediately followed him. In the hallway he took off his boots and his winter coat and Satori, Hyukjae's mother, took it from his little hands though he claimed that he was already old enough to do it all himself. He was nine years old! Then he followed Hyukjae to the latter's room. They played around for a while until his mother came in to say goodbye to him and that she would pick him up in the evening again. Both boys nodded and continued playing.

After a while Hyukjae said that he had to go to the toilet and left the room. Seconds later, the door was opened again. Jungsu was surprised that his friend was already back and just wanted to tell him that he had to be kidding and could never ever have been to the toilet when he saw that it was instead Kyusung in the doorframe, Kyusung who had been 14 at that time.

"Can you come with me for a moment? I need to talk to you." he said.

Jungsu nodded and followed Hyukjae's brother. In Kyusung's room the elder told him to sit down on the bed and sat down next to him. "Jungsu-ah, what I tell you next is really important, okay? You must not forget it and under no condition tell it Hyukkie, do you understand that?" Jungsu nodded, immediately becoming serious at the other's tone. "I don't even know where to start..." Kyusung hesitated for a moment, then he took a deep breath and started saying words Leeteuk had never forgotten. "I am going to leave you all. And I don't mean that I will move away, I will... I am going to leave this world. Forever. Or, in other words - I am going to kill myself." Jungsu's breath caught in his throat as he heard those words though he couldn't even quite understand them at just nine years. "All of this has become too much for me. You have to know... Jungsu, I will tell you something now that you must never tell anyone, do you understand that?" Jungsu just nodded, still a little shocked from what he had heard before. "Father me." He must have seen in Jungsu's face that he didn't understand what he meant so he added, "He forces me to have with him."

"Is that even possible? I mean, you are both men..." Jungsu asked.

Kyusung laughed sarcastically. "Oh yes, it is possible. And I just hope that you will never have to feel it. It seems to rip you apart..." For a moment, Kyusung trailed off, then he continued, "I tried to fight against him, told him I didn't want this. He kept ignoring me. Instead he has me for... for more than a year now. And I cannot take it anymore. I know that I should go to the police. But you know... I can't."

"Why?" he managed to whisper.

Kyusung shook his head. "It's... it's just impossible. I can't do it. I just want to ask you for a favor." He looked up again for the first time and met Jungsu's wide eyes. "Can you please take care of Hyukkie-ah and Youna-ah? When I am not there for them anymore, I want you to be the one who takes care of them. I don't know if Hyukkie can do it. And I can only hope that father won't do this again. Mother doesn't know anything about this. So please, promise me that you will take care of my brother and my sister, can you do that? Hyukjae really needs you and Youna will need you, too, I guess. Please, just be there for them, okay?"

Jungsu barely managed to nod. All of this was even too much for him.

 

Six days later, Kyusung was found on the bathroom floor of their house, dead.

 

~~Flashback end~~

 

Leeteuk stared at the surface of the table. Silent tears were running over his face. He had quoted Kyusung's words completely. They were just in his heart, in his brain, inreplaceable. But he hadn't finished yet.

"Four years later we found Youna-noona lying on her bed. Dead. She was bleeding. Eunhyuk was devastated, left alone for the second time. One and a half year later, he came to me and told me that his father had made a move on him and he didn't know what to do. And he told me that he was afraid that the same would happen with him as it had happened with Kyu-hyung. Another half year later, he came to me in the middle of the night, crying. He was limping, bleeding. He asked me if I could let him in. He had been under my window. I let him in through the front door and in my room he broke down in my arms, said, that it hurt. That he didn't understand it. That I should make it go away. He was 13 and I was 15. I didn't know what to do but I had to think about Kyusung's words and the feeling that I couldn't do anything to keep his brother alive filled me, I felt useless. I had let Youna die and now I thought I saw Eunhyuk die, too. Do you remember mom's scream when she found us in my bed, blood staining the sheets and the pyjama pants I had given him? She thought I had done something to him. I have protected him, told her that everything was okay, that the blood wasn't from him but that my nose had bled or something. I don't remember what I said about the pants. After that day he came to my place often. Because he felt save when he was with me, he said. Then one day he came to me, patches on his left wrist and said that he was now just like his brother. That he had cut himself. That it had felt wonderful. At least until he had felt the pain. That he had cried. But that it had made him forget about the other pain for a while. He told me those things in my room. Then he lost conciousness.

Since then he started to become more and more fragile. When something happened that stressed him out, when anyone would scream at him, make him cry, he would often cut himself. Because he didn't know how else he could make the pain go away. Because he couldn't tell anyone but me what happened at his home. And he made me promise that I wouldn't tell anyone. So I kept my promise. I was just seconds away from telling you everything when he came to me one day and told me that he had stood up on that one high building in town. He had looked down onto the streets. But couldn't jump. Then he begged me to not tell anyone. You have to understand, he was so fragile, I was afraid he would really jump if I told anyone. Or that he would cut deeper..." He breathed in shakily but still was able to keep his voice from trembling too much.

"You asked why he calls himself Eunhyuk. He does it because his parents call him Hyukjae. His father while he him, his mother while she's drunk. His mother started drinking when Kyusung died. Now she's dead, too. She had a car accident, just like Katara-noona. But Eunhyuk couldn't stand being called Hyukjae anymore because he only had bad memories attached to it so we sat together and at some point we decided on the name Eunhyuk. It still has the 'Hyuk' in it and... well... I don't even know how exactly we came to that name. Some teachers in school still refuse to call him Eunhyuk, though. Others are nice enough to have changed to that name. They don't know what's going on at his home.

Besides everything, he never missed a day at school. Even when he was limping, he went. He only didn't go once. And then he didn't come to school for two days and hadn't even called me. I was worried and deicded to skip school after only half of the first lesson, I think, and went to his house. I knew that his parents might have been there. I was lucky that they weren't. I found him, , tied to his bed. He had thrown up next to his bed. No one had cared enough to even wipe it away. I untied his handcuffs and dragged him out of the house. It had finally become too much for me, I couldn't leave him with those people anymore. We were barely out of the house when I heard his father return. Since then he lives with me."

 

 

(Too Late - asianfanfics.com, a story by Evelyn-Chan.

Chapter 37 - Leeteuk's Version)