The man who stepped into the room stood stupidly for a while, blinking at Sihyeon as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Rajoon finally murmured, “Hyung,” and only then did the man seem to come to, staggering toward them. His pallid face and sickly impression made it look like he might topple at any moment—there was something precarious about him. Who’s that? Sihyeon frowned. Judging by the vibe, the others all knew who he was.“Sihyeon…”Ah. Ominous.“You… like this… you really…”“Heh.”“Alive, and I… really… hng…”In this goddamn world, why are ominous hunches never wrong. Sihyeon looked down, incredulous, at the man who trembled and then finally buried his face in his own knees and burst into loud, heaving sobs. Do I look tragically pitiful or something. Why does everyone cry the moment they see me…? Staring at the man now with a face that was a little fed up, he found it even funnier that the guy managed to say everything he wanted while crying.“From now on I’m doing all the driving, none of you even think about touching the keys. Sob sob sob. I thought you were dead and I was going to die too, I felt like it was my fault, you kept showing up in my dreams, and you took dozens of my car keys without a word, are you out of your mind? I don’t have a car… I only drive your van from the company. I’m so sad I just, sob sob sob…”…?So he was sad because Sihyeon took car keys he didn’t even have…?As Sihyeon watched him with the face one wears at an unidentifiable animal, everyone else looked like they were dying trying not to laugh—turned away or lowered their heads, stifling it. Only Yoo Chan, even now, poured water into a cup in silence; probably planning to hand it over once the crying stopped. Good kid, he thought, drifting. Rajoon, barely suppressing a laugh, supplied, “Sihyeon-hyung, that’s our manager-hyung. When you had the accident, you snatched his car keys and ran out. You left so fast we couldn’t grab you and just stammered, and a few hours later the hospital called and manager-hyung fainted on the spot.”“Our manager-hyung’s really good at his job, but he’s super fragile. Total glass-mental.”Only then could Sihyeon make sense of the situation.He couldn’t bring himself to grab Sihyeon, just buried his face in his knees and cried; with that bloodless face, anyone would find him pitiful. If left alone, he really might cry all day. Sihyeon let out a short sigh. He was past tired of people crying; it made his skin crawl.He clicked his tongue and, without hesitation, reached out.With a delicate hand, he caught the jaw of the man who was just bawling and yanked him close—far too deftly.“Got it. You’re doing all the driving now.”Barely a hand’s span away. The voice he let out sounded a little tired, low but somehow gentle.“So stop crying.”I’m sick of people sobbing. The last bit came out almost coaxing. The manager, face this handsome right in front of him, stared in a daze, open-mouthed, and Sihyeon narrowed his eyes slightly and spoke again.“Answer.”At the stern tone, the manager finally bobbed his head up and down. “Y-yeah, yeah,” he added, a beat late. Sihyeon let go of his jaw without a trace of regret and drew back, satisfied. Not only the manager but the members looked like they were seeing the impossible. Even Yoo Chan’s eyes had gone wide. Now he looks a little young.Feeling fatigue flood him all at once, Sihyeon waved a hand lazily.“Everyone out. I’m tired.”At first it had chafed like ill-fitting clothes, but he seemed to be adapting; except for those drowsy moments in the bathroom mirror, he was getting used to this face. What he couldn’t get used to was the crushing increase in sleep, his eyes dropping at all hours. What have I even done that this body keeps demanding rest. Thinking it was weak to the core, Sihyeon closed his eyes without even looking after the members as they shuffled out of the room.“Wh-who was that? Did I go into the wrong room?”No… the only inhuman face like that is Sihyeon’s. The manager, who had suddenly been thrown into chaos, muttered nonstop with a face like a stew of confusion; but the others were just as rattled, and none of them had the bandwidth to tend to a manager whose mind had flown.They knew he’d changed, but this was strange.That practiced touch, his expression, even his tone—it wasn’t so much amnesia as… right, like he’d become someone else. Other than that face, there was nothing of the old Lee Sihyeon left. He’d been severely shy and avoided anyone touching him to an extreme. A man like that—him touching someone else was unthinkable. In unavoidable situations like choreography, sure, but outside of that he was so intense about it they wondered if he had a touch phobia; it caused frequent spats among the members. Mostly with Kang Euihyun.The face they remembered was always sensitive, shadowed somehow, dark.Nothing but exhaustion.He never told them what wore him down so much, what left him so drained. Like he lived alone in another world; sometimes, when he shut his eyes with that living because he can’t die face, it was frightening. So to the members, Lee Sihyeon was like a finger they resented. Sometimes they hated him, raged at him—but in the end it was their finger, so they couldn’t help but worry.Just like the posts Sihyeon had read, the discord between him and the members had stretched on like thin ice.But when they saw him come back cold as a corpse, they had only one thought.Regret, guilt, self-loathing. The members, who had no immunity to death this close, were deeply shaken by the sudden, unannounced death of Lee Sihyeon. The bleak image of the morgue still surfaced in their dreams.So seeing him alive again felt like nothing but a miracle. It was a miracle, of course—but with the sense that someone had granted them one more chance, they kept vigil by the side of Sihyeon, who would not open his eyes. They decided they would take it all, even if he screamed the moment he saw them to get out. To understand. And this time, to protect him from the things that left him so exhausted and in pain.But the Sihyeon who opened his eyes was a completely different man.Even when the members swarmed «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» him in a flurry, at most he called it noisy—he didn’t chase them out. When Rajoon, who had always especially liked Sihyeon, hovered at his side or held his hand, he didn’t say much. The old image of him knocking a hand away with a chill face felt like a lie. He didn’t bother arguing back at Euihyun, with whom he’d never gotten along; sometimes he even gave a short laugh, like he was amused, and Euihyun—hot-tempered and mood-driven—had no reason to pick a fight.He’d used to ignore Chan’s solicitous care, and now he accepted it naturally, even brushed a quiet thanks past him sometimes; he didn’t seem to mind Sanyoo’s touch, which he’d avoided like a seizure before. When Sanyoo ruffled his hair or spoke kindly, that face no longer bristled—and Sanyoo, astonished, reached out even more than usual.Which only made them worry more.They didn’t hate it—no, they liked it so much they thought they could wish for nothing more if things stayed this way.But when, just like now, they caught another person’s face flicker across his features, a nameless unease rose that they couldn’t do anything about. Competing thoughts tangled their minds—I hope he gets his memory back, and I hope he stays like this forever. Knowing there was no answer yet, all they could do was let out short sighs and leave the hospital.

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