[FIC] Memories

Title: Memories
Characters: Super Junior
Rating: R
Chaptercount: 23/26
Summary: Fifteen people try to find the memories they forgot - or maybe they're just looking for each other.
A/N: A fic written on a hunch. One day I thought; "Super Junior. And vampires. This calls for a fic!" and well.. Here we are? Memories is one of the stories that I'm proud of, despite its sometimes messy storyline. It's also a story that won't be fully understood until you've read it completely. Things will be very confusing as you read, but will also get explained in future chapters. Be warned.

- - - -

A deafening silence fell over the people around and Hyukjae frowned slightly, looking from one to the other as they slowly let go and spread out a little more again. The first one to realise what was going on was the maknae of the group, who had remained surprisingly silent up till then, “I... think he doesn’t remember us yet.” Henry mumbled, making everyone else think about the option.

“He never will.” Homin spoke up at that, after having kept aside for quite a while by then. Immediately the mood in the room grew a little colder again, but it was not as bad as it had been. “He has been reading your minds for a while now. The only memories he has of that band are your own, but he can’t see himself in them because he’s convinced he was never there. The only way for him to regain his memories was by letting his first sire give them back, but some smartpants decided to kill her before we could tell her to do so.” He sent a not-so-subtle glare in the direction of the sleeping Kyuhyun but got interrupted by Misun at that.

“Homin that’s fine now, please stop this superiority act. I’m growing tired of it. It’s not like you’re the only capable person in this room. They also know what they’re doing, despite what you may think.” she stated coldly, turning around then to walk to the members. “Okay, guys, I’ll do my best to explain this clear enough so you can understand everything.”

Hyukjae almost breathed a sigh of relief, knowing he’d be able to trust Misun’s words. Maybe she didn’t always say everything, but at least the things she did say were always true - or had been so far.

“Homin is the oldest vampire there is.” she started. “And because of that, was at one point also the only one left with powers like his. But he had seen his brothers die because they held on to their strength too much, and for that, he wanted to share his in hopes of living longer. The old vampires can only pass on their abilities to one other person only, so they have to be careful with who they pick, because the powers will be spread throughout their offspring - or so we call it. Every person changed by one of you can have powers too.” Misun stopped for a moment to allow the information to sink in as the members looked like they needed it.

“The reason he chose Jimin is because he knew she would change no one but you guys and he knew you would probably not change anyone who had plans to take over the world.” At that point, Homin wanted to interrupt but a mere glare from Misun made him shut up again, making Hyukjae wonder just how this woman had so much power over the old and unbeatable vampire. The two seemed to consider it normal, however, so he hoped she would explain that part too at some point.

“So here’s the deal.. Jimin was one of your fangirls - a Yesung biased as they would say at the time. When Homin changed her after your concert, he was not included in her hate. She hunted for all of you, took you out one by one in the most various ways so that she’d never be found out by normal humans. In the end, only Jongwoon was left and she did her best to keep him and his family alive. But the car accident was unexpected.” Misun turned to look at Jongwoon and Hyukjae wondered for how long they had been together, but he didn’t ask, letting her continue her explanation instead.

“Jimin sent all the ones she had sired towards the scene of the accident, hoping they would be in time. Jungsoo reached the scene first. He dragged me out of the car before tending to Jongwoon because I was still conscious at that moment. Luckily our daughter was at her grandparents. Even though I was wounded, I was fine, but Jungsoo came to tell me not much later that Jongwoon had not survived. Little did I know that he had changed him into a vampire in order to keep him from dying. The only reason I survived was because I felt I should live for our daughter.” Hyukjae found himself wondering who their daughter might be, glancing at Li Yin shortly before discarding that idea.

☆.:**´¨`**:.☆

Donghae eyed the woman talking to them. He did not remember her, but she seemed to have been close to them all the time. When she talked about Jongwoon’s car accident he suddenly got a flash of an image - possibly coming from Homin - and then everything was clear as crystal. He didn’t say a word however, waiting for Misun to continue talking. And she did, apparently having found the rhythm in her story.

“I struggled to get better the first year after the accident, being kept in a hospital where my revalidation was done. Our daughter came to visit me once, but I refused to see her after that, as she looked too much like my deceased husband. I mourned, at some point refusing to live on even, which was about the time when I met Jack.”

The name sparked some memories inside of Donghae, but he had no clue what to connect them to, so instead of trying to figure out his own mind, he kept listening to Misun’s explanation, hoping that would give him more of an idea of who the Jack person would be.

“He had come in contact with vampires before and told me all about them. He sought me out because of my job, asking me to help him find a way to make them more able to walk in the sun and less needy of blood, so they could live without harming humans so much.” Misun smiled bitterly at a past memory.

“He brought me to what is now the Facility, back then a mere bunker where he had a few vampires locked in to test my remedies on. Some of them died during the process but he eased my guilt saying they should have been dead already anyway. We were about one year into the Daywalker project when Hangeng entered the Facility. I knew he didn’t know about me because I only became Jongwoon’s girlfriend after he disappeared, but even when I asked him about Super Junior or anything from his past, he had no clue what I was talking about.”

Misun exchanged a short glance with Hangeng at that and they smiled shortly at each other. The two obviously went far back, Donghae realised at that moment. How long ago would their meeting have been? If this really was a whole scam like he felt it to be at first, then would his friend be involved in it as well? More and more, he started to realise that it was all very real. Every word said to him since he regained his memories. And still Misun continued.

“That’s when I realised Jack made our Daywalkers wipe the vampires’ memories when bringing them in. That’s also when I started to doubt that all of you had really died. Li Yin came in as a nurse not much after Hangeng but when Heechul was plucked from the streets as well not that much later, I finally started to believe what earlier had only been suspicions. Suddenly I felt hope that maybe some of you - if not all - had not died, but merely been changed.” She smiled lightly.

“I thought about the possibility that my husband may still have been alive and that it might also take years before I found him, so that’s when I came up with the idea of vengers - a way to make humans live as long as vampires. And right as I started looking for vampires to help me with my idea, Homin showed up.” Her eyes flashed to the vampire who was standing so still it looked as if he were dead.

“He told me about vampires and the way they worked. He showed me everything there was to know about them, cooperating in every test I wanted to do until I developed a way that would make it possible to get all the strengths of a vampire yet none of its weaknesses. That’s when he offered an exchange. He’d help me with my project, make sure it’d go well, if I helped him by using the Daywalker treatment on him.”

“Now there’s something most don’t know about Daywalkers, but when they were created, Jack demanded a way to have them taken out easily, in case they’d ever decide to stand up against us. By injecting the needle into the neck in the same spot every time, it will create a vulnerable spot there which – if attacked in the right way – will cause those vampires to turn into ashes. However, even though Jack demanded this, when Hangeng entered for changing, I told his nurse – Li Yin – to do it in different places every time.”

Donghae vividly remembered the way the two Daywalkers coming along with Ryeowook had dissolved into ashes because of a single movement from the latter. Now he had gotten his explanation for that and his eyes went to Youngwoon, who was obviously thinking about those same memories.

☆.:**´¨`**:.☆

In a corner of the room, Jongwoon stood watching his wife. His hold on the two vampires was still there, but he had woken them up so they could listen along, even though he was keeping their feelings away from them still. He decided they deserved to be able to hear the explanations as well. But it was getting harder and harder to hold himself in check, with the feelings of three people running through him, none of those people very calm.

Yet he managed, keeping the image of his wife in front of his eyes, telling himself he didn’t want to hurt her. Misun was oblivious to his struggle, however, keeping her eyes moving over the other members as she talked with no indication that she was actually seeing them. She seemed more lost in her memories as she told the story and somehow he was convinced that the ancient vampire was feeling the same things along with her. It irked him.

“Homin knew about this, which is why he went through the trouble of getting to know me instead of simply entering the Facility and having the change done to him that way.” Misun spoke up again, smoothly continuing her story. “I took his deal because I could use the help and we went on with our earlier experiments, turning him into a Daywalker first. It worked, of course, since I had done it plenty of times in the past. For the other experiment, turning me into a half-vampire, we needed several tries.” There was a short exchange of glances between Misun and Homin, both of them the only ones to know what would come next.

“The first three times we started with preparations when Homin would suddenly stop and tell me where it would go wrong. I’d then take another look at my calculations and we’d start again. It worked the fourth time, and I was the first venger in existence. But what neither of us could have foreseen was the way it linked us together. By using his venom for my unnatural change, I had not made him my sire, but the effects had gone the other way around.”

At that, Jongwoon wasn’t able to hold back a growl, and it wasn’t until several people turned to look at him that he realised it had been rather loud. His wife was one of the few not looking at him, however, which made him even more anxious. His whole body was tensed up, the muscles in his arms bulging with the strength with which he was clenching his fists.

What calmed him down was not his own self-control or some harshly needed words from his wife, but a wave of understanding surging through the ties that bound him to Kyuhyun. The younger probably was the only one to really understand how hard it had been for him to see his wife like that and then have to hear how she was bound to another. Kyuhyun had, after all, killed his once-upon-a-time girlfriend’s husband when he found out about him, something that had haunted him ever since he had done it.

Jongwoon felt his muscles slowly relax, the strain on his hold over himself disappearing with the continuous understanding he felt. He started focusing on Kyuhyun then, sending back the same kind of understanding to calm both their hearts, and the gratefulness he got in return was more than worth his efforts. Throughout their whole exchange, Misun remained oblivious to his pain, however, as she kept talking.

“No one knew that I had changed, however, and because my heart was still beating, no one would find out either, I made sure of that. But my plans changed when Li Yin came to me one day around the time that Siwon and Ryeowook entered the Facility. Heechul and her had spent a lot of time together and she had found in him someone she wanted to spend her life with. She came to me to ask for permission to get changed into a vampire.”

☆.:**´¨`**:.☆

When his girlfriend’s name was mentioned, Heechul’s head shot up and he turned to look at said person. She was standing farther away than he had thought, so he reached out a hand to her. Almost immediately she was by his side, curling into his side. He had always known she changed into a venger only at the beginnings of their relationship, but he had never known her reasons. Even though he’d rather hear them from herself, he wasn’t going to interrupt Misun’s story.

“I told her it would only work nicely if she would also take the painful Daywalker treatment afterwards, but she didn’t complain. It was then that I realised she was as serious about it as I had been, so I offered her the option of becoming a venger. Having been close to both of them, Hangeng offered his help and by doing so, he regained his memories of the past. We’re not exactly sure why or how it happened, but it did.”

Heechul knew what was coming next in the story, as he still vividly remembered the difficult choices he had to make throughout those next months. Having Li Yin by his side had been wonderful, but he had never been one to stay in one place for long – especially not when it was forced. And when Hangeng gave him his memories back as well, he was certainly not going to stick around to watch that Jack dude misuse his friends.

“That was five years ago. After that, Zhou Mi showed up soon as well. Several months into the whole Daywalker program, Heechul decided to leave. He was not up for being someone’s lapdog, being used to go around and catch bad vampires. Jack was not happy about it, but even he knew that there was no use trying to get him back by force. So he trained Zhou Mi to be the best Daywalker we had in order to be able to get Heechul back one day. He never really was anywhere near good enough for that – no offence Mi – but Jack believed he was.

Things stayed quite low, but then Youngwoon and Donghae entered around the same time and when Hangeng heard of what Jack planned to do with them, he started protesting. You see, the Facility started out as a place where vampires would get treated so they wouldn’t need to drink blood as often and could live a more normal life. But over the years, Jack’s ate for the race grew and he slowly started to have everyone brainwashed, memories getting wiped from the start, treatments becoming more ruthless.

The moment Hyukjae entered, Hangeng and Jack got into a big fight and Jack decided to get Hangeng’s memories wiped again too. For some reason – I guess Li Yin might have been in between that – he stalled a little, which gave me time to find out about it. but didn’t make it in time to stop the whole thing. Luckily the two of them had made up their plan already anyway, based on Li Yin’s siredom over him.

From then on, things went from bad to worse, however. Jack tried getting more control and I told the nurses to give the patients some more freedom. Sang Mi listened best, letting Hyukjae wander around a lot. One of those days he helped Donghae and Youngwoon escape, around the same time as Hangeng got his memories back. Jack sent a trio of Daywalkers after them, Ryeowook being one of them. That’s kind of where the search for all the Super Junior members started, I guess.

Not long after, Hangeng and Li Yin left, which Jack saw as a sign. He took over the Facility completely, leaving me with no real power. I stayed, however, in case anyone would still need me, and that turned out to be the case a few weeks later when Hyukjae, Siwon and Sang Mi finally left too. That’s when Heechul called and we came straight away. When I realised who we were dealing with, I told Zhou Mi to call for Homin straight away as I didn’t know how things would work out.”