[FIC] What's in a name: Donghae

Title: What's in a name: Donghae
Characters: Donghae
Rating: G
Wordcount: 597
Summary: ‘Don’t ever give up.’ his father had said, so he hadn’t.
A/N: I wrote the first drabble (which was Leeteuk's) on the 8th of May and since then have gradually written the others as well. It is one drabble a member. There are no plotlines, this is basically my positive fangirl view on what goes on in their minds I guess, and I just really enjoyed writing these out, although it sometimes was a major battle.

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Don’t ever give up.’ his father had said, so he hadn’t.

Other people could have told him the same thing over and over again, but it would never have gotten the same effect, for he loved his father dearly. And what else could he do but grant a dying person’s last wish? Even now, almost five years later, he still didn’t know why those words had left such a big impression on him. Yet they had, and he was now living he consequences. Not that he thought those consequences bad, but it was just strange how a few words could have such an effect on him. Then again, his father had been very dear to him of course.

Never in his whole youth could he have guessed that, one day, his father, the closest friend he had, was going to be taken away. Not once did he think about such tragic outcomes. Especially not at times when his father took him out fishing or when they sang together. He had always seen his father as the strongest man on earth and in his eyes, nothing would ever have been able to defeat his father. But then reality had come knocking..

God knows why it had to be his father getting sick. Why not some evil mafia leader or some bloodthirsty tyrant? The world would have been better off without them. Or why not he himself? No, life had to suck and make his father sick. As the memories of happy afternoons spent singing died away and were replaced by memories of hospitals and scary machinery, he had slowly started to fear the worst, but had never voiced his fears, afraid to make them reality that way.

He had lived his life as an SM trainee, meeting the other members one by one and gradually growing closer to some of them. There had been no real difficulties or annoyances, yet he had also never really given it all much thought. Because his father was sick, he tried to do his best as a singer, tried to make it all worthwhile, tried to live the life his father could never have. But it was all in vain, for it was still him living his father’s dream, not his own. Even after debut, although he worked hard, he sometimes got bored with it and remembered his own dream of being a famous soccer player. Until he was given the news that his father, his best friend, was no more.

After that day, no training was too hard anymore and no practice too long. He would go on until he fainted from exhaustion and would wake up just to get back to work, because he didn’t believe that his father would have wanted him to slack. And somehow, somewhere along the way, his father’s dream had also become his own. Seeing the fans cheer for him, feeling the love they gave him, he felt as if a little bit of that emptiness inside of him was filled up.

Every time he thought of giving up, there would be his father’s words in his head, and every time he painfully remembered his father, there would be understanding looks and reassuring hugs. He would be able to go on again, seeing the love he got from his members and he would feel refreshed, knowing that the fourteen of them would be by his side, forever and always. With those things in mind, he could keep going, savouring the reassuring knowledge that somewhere up there in heaven, his father was always watching over him.