Chapter 3: The Dangerous Suggestion
The grip on Jessica’s wrist loosened as quickly as it had seized. Donghae slumped back into the booth, the sudden aggression draining out of him, leaving only a hollowed-out shame. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t… I’m not like that.”
Jessica slowly pulled her hand back, rubbing her wrist. Her expression was unreadable, a mix of alarm and that deep, unsettling pity. “I know you’re not,” she said softly. “That’s why I didn’t scream the place down.”
He dropped his face into his hands, the heels of his palms pressing into his eyes until he saw stars. “I just don’t know what to do. I’ve tried photos. Videos. I played him our song. I took him to the noodle place where we had our first date. He just… politely humors me. Like I’m a fan showing him a poorly edited compilation. It’s a museum to him. Not a memory.”
The jazz trio took a break, leaving the bar wrapped in a suffocating blanket of murmured conversations and clinking glass. In the quiet, Jessica leaned forward, her voice dropping.
“Look, what you’re describing… it’s like the files are still on the hard drive, but the pathway to open them is gone. Right?” She waited for his pained nod. “My aunt had a stroke. She forgot how to speak French, a language she’d spoken for twenty years. The doctors said sometimes you can’t gently remind the brain. Sometimes you have to… jolt it. Shock the system.”
Donghae lifted his head. The whiskey haze was still there, but a sharp, dangerous point of focus was piercing through. “What kind of shock?”
She glanced around, as if someone might be listening. “There’s a guy. A neurologist. Not mainstream. He runs a private clinic in Cheongdam. He doesn’t believe in gentle recall therapy. He believes in immersive recreation. He overloads the senses—sound, smell, touch, emotion—to try and force a traumatic memory to the surface. The theory is that the brain, under enough simulated stress, might reroute and find the blocked path.”
“Traumatic?” Donghae whispered.
“A car accident. A fall. The amnesia event itself,” Jessica said. Her eyes were serious. “But he’s controversial. It’s experimental. And it’s… intense. It doesn’t always work. And when it does, it’s not a gentle awakening. It’s a flood. It can break people as much as fix them.”
A wild, reckless hope, thin and sharp as a shard of glass, cut through Donghae’s despair. He latched onto it. “What’s his name?”
“Doctor Park. But Donghae, listen to me. This is a last resort. It’s not a magic wand. It’s a sledgehammer.”
“I have no other reso—” he began, but his voice died in his throat.
Over Jessica’s shoulder, through the distorted reflection of the bar’s gilded mirror, he saw him.
Hyukjae stood just inside the entrance, his coat damp from the evening mist, his face pale under the muted chandelier light. He was scanning the room, his expression one of confused, reluctant urgency. He must have asked at the dorm, tracked Donghae’s usual haunts. The sight of him here, now, sent a jolt of pure adrenaline through Donghae’s system.
Then Hyukjae’s eyes found them.
They locked onto Donghae’s face, then flicked to Jessica. To the intimate dimness of their booth. To the way Donghae was leaning forward, his face undoubtedly a mess of tears and desperate hope. Hyukjae’s brows drew together. His jaw tightened.
He started walking toward them.
“Oh god,” Donghae breathed, straightening up too quickly, the blood rushing from his head.
Jessica turned, following his line of sight. “Is that…?”
Before she could finish, Hyukjae was there, standing at the end of their table. He smelled like cold night air and his own familiar shampoo, a scent that punched Donghae in the gut. He didn’t look at Jessica. His gaze was fixed on Donghae, hard and bright with something that looked like anger, but underneath it swam a sea of bewildered hurt.
“You weren’t answering your phone,” Hyukjae said. His voice was flat, controlled.
“I… it’s on silent. I didn’t hear,” Donghae stammered, feeling like a teenager caught in a lie.
Hyukjae’s eyes finally cut to Jessica, a quick, assessing glance. “I see you’re busy.” The words were polite, icy.
“No, it’s not—this is Jessica. She’s just… a friend.” The word felt like ash in his mouth.
Jessica offered a small, polite smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Hi.”
Hyukjae ignored her. He focused back on Donghae. “I got your text. The one you sent before you… came here.” He paused, his lips a thin line. “You said you wanted me to remember one thing. What was it?”
Donghae’s heart hammered against his ribs. This was it. A chance. But the context was all wrong. The bar, the woman, his own drunken dishevelment. “Hyukjae, not here. Can we go outside and—”
“Tell me now.” The command was quiet, absolute. It was the voice Hyukjae used on stage when a move had to be perfect. It left no room for argument.
Donghae looked into the eyes of the man he loved, a stranger wearing his face. He saw no softness there, no opening. Only a defensive, confused wall. The reckless hope he’d felt moments ago curdled into a last, desperate gamble.
He took a shaky breath. “The night of our first concert in Tokyo. It was raining. We were back at the hotel, high on adrenaline, couldn’t sleep. You were at the window, watching the neon signs reflect in the puddles.” Donghae’s voice dropped, the memory playing out in the space between them. “I came up behind you. I put my hand on your back. You turned around and you… you just looked at me. And you said, ‘I’m not scared anymore.’ And I kissed you. And for the first time, you kissed me back like you meant it. Like it was the only thing you ever wanted to do.”
The silence that followed was worse than any rejection. Hyukjae stared at him, his face a careful blank. He processed the words, dissecting them. Then, his gaze drifted past Donghae, to Jessica, who was watching the exchange with held breath. His eyes landed on her hand, still resting near her water glass, the wrist Donghae had grabbed minutes before.
A terrible, clear understanding seemed to click into place in Hyukjae’s mind. His mask of control cracked, revealing a flash of pure, unvarnished contempt.
“So that’s your one thing?” Hyukjae said, his voice dangerously low. “A story about a kiss in the rain? While you’re here, in a dark bar, with her?” He gave a short, brittle laugh. “You know, for a second, I actually felt bad. I thought I was hurting you. I thought maybe… maybe there was a fragment of truth somewhere. But this?” He gestured between Donghae and Jessica, his movement sharp with disgust. “You’re just lonely. And you’re building fantasies to cope. And when I don’t play along, you find someone else to listen to your stories.”
“It’s not like that!” Donghae’s voice broke. “Hyukjae, please. She was just—”
“I don’t care.” Hyukjae took a step back, creating a wall of cold space. “Don’t text me. Don’t follow me. Don’t… don’t look at me with those sad eyes and tell me things that never happened.” He finally looked at Jessica, a stinging, apologetic nod. “Sorry you had to deal with this.”
Then he turned and walked away, his steps quick and sure, weaving through the tables without a backward glance.
Donghae sat frozen, the words “never happened” ringing in his ears like a death knell. He watched Hyukjae’s retreating back, the familiar slope of his shoulders now a symbol of utter exile.
Jessica reached out a hand, her voice gentle. “Donghae…”
He didn’t hear her. All he heard was the shattering of his last, fragile thread of patience. As the door swung shut behind Hyukjae, sealing him out in the neon-lit night, Donghae turned his blurring eyes back to Jessica. The reckless hope was gone, replaced by a cold, clear resolve.
“Give me Doctor Park’s address,” he said, his voice raw but steady.