Archive of Our Own

"my name, no one shall ever know."

Lee Donghyuck is dead. 

That's what the news articles said. A blurry photo attached to the story of the tragic death of a high school senior from Cheong-A Arts High School, days away from the highly-awaited arts festival.

Everyone ate it up. The story of the orphan who took his own life because of his pitiful living conditions and the cut throat competition at Cheong-A. 

Bullshit.

It’s disgusting, how easy it was for them to cover everything up, presuming he was dead without even finding his body. Living their lives as if he never even existed. His jaw still tightens at the memory of that night, his naivety that inevitably led him to that moment.

He was one-track minded, easily blindsided. 

He had nothing to his name except the debt that had accumulated from his mother's final months, all of which were spent in the hospital. 

He barely had a roof over his head, jumping from relative to relative, making good with anyone who would take him in. He spent every waking hour outside of school working odd part-time jobs that barely sustained him.

He had nothing, but he had a dream. And it was enough to keep him going, that dream of his. 

It was a dream born out of love. A love that grew from countless melodies his mother used to sing him to sleep, a love that never wavered even through the toughest of times. 

But what are dreams, even? 

What are they but a figment of his imagination? Wishful thinking, in hopes of manifesting the things he desired the most. 

Like a slap across the face, he had found out the hard way that dreams are for fools who aren't born with silver spoons in their mouths. 

Because someone like him who had nothing was almost too easy to strip bare. 

“Do you really have to come back to Seoul?” 

Taeyong lights a cigarette and settles himself by the vanity. Donghyuck notes how gaunt his face looks, even more so in his dimly lit dressing room.

Donghyuck nods. He’s been waiting for this moment for four years. He’s not going to let this chance slip through his fingers. 

Taeyong’s eyebrows are furrowed, the way they usually are when he knows Donghyuck’s planning on doing something he'll eventually regret.

“Haechan-ah, you remember what they did to you, right? Don’t you think they’ll do it again? Stay here with me in London, you're graduating soon. You get to perform as Haechan here. Why go back?” Taeyong mutters in a single breath, proceeding to take a long drag from the cigarette between his lips. 

He sounds defeated, and Donghyuck could only apologize. 

“Hyung, I'm sorry. I have to do this. I have to find out who tried to kill me.”

Taeyong told him he had been on the brink of death, unconscious for days. 

He only remembers bits of that night. The party on the Huang’s private yacht, a supposed friendly event before the festival. The music was loud. There was an open bar, even though most of them were minors.

He wasn't even invited in the first place. Renjun wasn’t his friend. While he never really said or did anything, just from the looks he's received, Donghyuck is aware of what the son of one of the richest men in the continent thought of him.

He was only there because Jaemin asked him. And he was stupid enough to believe that Na Jaemin, who lived just a floor short of the penthouse at Hera Palace, actually reciprocated his feelings, that the kiss they shared meant something. 

He vaguely remembers that nauseating  feeling, like the world was spinning, so much so that he could barely stand straight. The copious amounts of alcohol he drank and the fact that they were caught in the middle of a thunderstorm at sea adding up.

Everything else was a blur — the panicked screams, the flickering lights, the rocking of the yacht.

But a fleeting memory still haunts him, testament to the nightmare that doesn't seem to want to end. 

It's hazy, but he knows it’s real — the memory of him holding onto the railings as the storm raged on, a blurry figure above him, prying his hands loose, letting him slip into the dark seas.

“So, will you play for me? At the festival?”

It’s late, and while most students have left for extra classes, lessons, or god knows what their money could buy them, Donghyuck knows Jaemin will be here, at the practice room his parents donated under his name, the one he could freely use as he wishes.

Donghyuck stands a few feet away from the grand piano, from Jaemin who’s barely spared him a glance the entire time.

He wouldn’t have even dared to try asking Jaemin if he had a choice. But someone was hell-bent on sabotaging him. Whoever it was had gone through the lengths of making sure all the piano majors rejected him and every other pianist in the country ignored his calls. 

But Na Jaemin is different, no one would dare tell him what to do.

He’s desperate, and if that meant having to beg on his knees, he’d do it. 

Jaemin finally spares him a glance, “What’s in it for me?”

Jaemin looks mostly amused, but there’s a glint in his eyes that Donghyuck can’t place. 

“I’ll do anything you ask me to,” he pleads, throwing away what’s left of his pride. He doesn’t even care any more. All he needs is to win the daesang, for the recommendation to SNU and to prove every other asshole in this school that he doesn’t need money to buy his way into his dream university. 

“So just this once, Jaemin. Help me.”

“You’re a Lee, Donghyuck. You’re our Haechan.”

He had always been a Lee was what he wanted to say. But he didn’t dare ruin the moment. Not when Lee Taeyong was right before him, about to burst into tears, telling him that he was his long-lost half-brother. Lee Taeyong who was South Korea’s pride and joy, a premier danseur at The Royal Ballet, and an heir to the LM Group.

There are so many questions floating in his head. He still hasn't gotten over the fact that he was alive, when he was absolutely sure his eyes have fluttered shut for the last time as the waves pulled at him from every direction. 

He should have been dead. 

But here he was.

“I've been looking for you since our father told me years ago, on his deathbed, that he might have had another child,” Taeyong’s voice is calm, soothing even.

“We never really had any good leads. But when you showed up at Cheong-A, there was a buzz at Hera Palace,” he states, taking Donghyuck’s hand in his, “the kids were all scared, you were too good. A friend's brother talked about you a lot.”

“I was curious, so I watched the video everyone was talking about. Your viral one of you singing at the hallway? You sounded familiar. Your voice sounded like our father’s.”

Donghyuck startles. He never met his father, doesn’t have an idea who he was. His mother just told him he didn't have one, and while he tried digging through every corner of their tiny apartment for anything that would tell him about the man his mother refused to speak about, nothing turned up.

"You're my brother, and I'm making sure no one can ever hurt you again."

"Nessun dorma?" 

Jaemin looks over the sheet music he brought, the two songs he's decided on, his favorite and his mother's favorite. 

Una furtiva lagrima. Nessun dorma. 

Jaemin raises an eyebrow, and Donghyuck bristles at the slight gesture. 

"Yeah, so?" he snaps. 

Jaemin tilts his head and levels him with a look, eyes dark and scrutinizing, "You're crazy, I don't think you can do it." 

Donghyuck scoffs. He knows he should hold his tongue. He's the one who needs Jaemin after all. Imagine the wave of shock that resounded through the hallways of Cheong-A Arts High School when he signed up for the preliminaries with Jaemin's name tacked next to his as his pianist. 

Everyone was talking about how he'd surely win since he had Jaemin by his side like a cheat key. So aside from their sentimental value, he chose these songs to prove to everyone that he'd beat them regardless of who they think was on his side. 

He's not even sure if Jaemin is on his. He, who prides himself in being good at reading people, cannot for the life of him get a proper read on Jaemin. 

Countless irreconcilable images fill his mind. Jaemin, who's maintained an impenetrable image, both admired and feared by students and teacher alike, is the same Jaemin that he'd seen slumped over the keys of the piano, knocked out cold, probably hitting the end of his caffeine high. 

The same Na Jaemin who agreed to be his pianist with no strings attached, to practice with him every single day, as long as he was definitive, sure that he'd win the daesang. Otherwise, he would have to pay the price. Donghyuck doesn't even want to think about what a person who had everything would ask from him.

But he doesn't waver, because he knows this is the only way to both prove his worth and take home the trophy. 

"Play it. I'll show you."

Taeyong brought him to London, where his brother had been based for the past three years with The Royal Ballet. 

People believed Lee Donghyuck was dead, so it was easy to slip into his life as Lee Haechan. In London, he was sometimes Peter, an English name Taeyong fondly gave him, knowing they'd only butcher Haechan. 

Taeyong lived in a six-bedroom estate that made Donghyuck's jaw drop. 

"This was our father's last gift to me, before he passed. He wanted me to live comfortably even though I was away from home," Taeyong smiles wistfully, as he toured Donghyuck around what was to be his home. 

"I want to share with this you, Haechan-ah," he takes Donghyuck's hands in his, the tightness in his grip almost desperate, speaking of the loneliness he must've felt. 

An only son whose mother died at childbirth, whose father always worked himself to the bone and was never home. 

They were similar in a way. But Donghyuck had his mother by his side, showering him with all the love she could muster while working three jobs to make ends meet. 

He squeezes Taeyong's hands, smiling in a way that he hopes is comforting, "Okay, hyung. I'll stay."

"What the fuck, Lee? I said move." 

Donghyuck stares back. Jongmin was getting braver now that his family finally moved in to Hera Palace, at the lowly twentieth floor. Donghyuck would scoff at the audacity, but that was the point of this, if he reacts, Jongmin and the rest of the Hera Palace kids get what they want. 

A reason to get him in trouble. 

And he's not going to give him that. 

The other Hera Palace kids watch as Jongmin taunts him — Jeno, Renjun, Ryujin, even the twins, Hyunjin and Yeji. 

He doesn't flinch, doesn't move when Jongmin tries to get him to stand up and leave. He holds his ground, because he can't afford to break. 

They can't let them walk over him. Because unlike them, who've lived all their lives in comfort, who've never worked for minimum wage a single day in their lives, this is all he has. 

They want him gone for good, expelled from Cheong-A. But he can't and won't let that happen. 

"You think you're so tough, huh?" 

Before he could even react, a cold, sticky liquid is poured on his head. He hears the snickers, but he doesn't move. This isn't anything new. If these kids think he hasn't gone through worse, working odd jobs, wiping tables down at restaurants with drunk, old men acting like they owned the place, they're wrong. 

"Getting brave there, Ahn Jongmin?" 

He hears the frantic whispers, the heavy footsteps that stop when a red-faced Jaemin comes into view. 

He feels Jaemin grab his arm to pull him off the chair. He doesn't even realize his hands are shaking until Jaemin stills them in his own. Jaemin gives him a once-over, frown growing even deeper, cracks in his unbreakable facade showing. Jaemin removes his blazer and places it around his shoulder. 

All eyes were on them. But Jaemin was only looking at him.

He can't help but giggle, reading through the invite once again. Things are falling into place, and he didn't even have to lift a finger. 

An invite to the annual winter concert hosted by SNU's Department of Music. 

For more than a year now, word about a young countertenor has been making rounds around the scene.

His name? Haechan. 

He didn't think he'd be able to sing again, for it brought about memories that were too painful for him to even recount, coupled with reality of what his dream almost cost him. It felt like it'd be too much for him to handle. 

But singing was more than a dream. Singing was something he loved.

And even though he's been stripped off of his old life, he still had his voice. 

It was easy to find his groove once he found a coach that knew how to condition his voice. He's been joining competitions left and right, bagging medals and trophies. 

And he knows he should be happy. He's carving a new dream for himself, one that's even bigger than anything his younger self could have come up with. And yet.

There was an itch that just wouldn't go away. 

He wonders if the news had reached Seoul. He didn't even try to hide it. There are probably videos from performances floating on the internet. Have they seen it? Have they seen him?

He crosses his fingers and hopes they haven't. After all, it would ruin the surprise. 

He types out his response. He wouldn't miss it for the world. 

"You're drunk." 

"Am not," he mumbles, smiling fondly at the hint of concern he senses from Jaemin's voice. 

He knows he is though, slightly drunk, mostly tipsy. He lost Jaemin for a bit, when it started raining and they had to leave the deck. He got dragged into some drinking games by familiar faces, the few who don't seem to want to make his life miserable. 

It was fun. Except, the drinks he had were probably too strong, stronger than the watered down ones his co-workers slip him sometimes. 

It doesn't matter though. He's okay, Jaemin's here. 

"Hyuck, how much did you drink?" 

He tilts his head a bit and his vision spins, forcing him to lean on the wall beside him entirely. It doesn't go unnoticed, because he suddenly feels Jaemin's hand on his waist, warm and steadying.

He sets his gaze on Jaemin. He has to blink away the haze, but they're close enough that he could make out the fine details of Jaemin's face. Jaemin's always been so… attractive. That much he knows. 

But after spending time with him every single day for the past month, he's come to realize that he's more than just a pretty face and the spoiled heir he seemed to be. 

Maybe it's the trick of the light, but Jaemin looks so ethereal like this. They're close enough that he could… 

He shakes away the thought, quickly averting his gaze, "Not enough." 

A smirk makes its way onto Jaemin's face, familiar and dangerous. They've been playing this game for a while, and Donghyuck is aware that this is his game to lose.

"Do it." 

Donghyuck may be drunk, but he doesn't have to be told twice.

Seoul National University was his dream, to get into its prestigious music department to be more precise. 

That dream has fizzled out for obvious reasons. The irony laying with the fact that he literally almost died trying to get into this school. But he still finds the novelty in it. It's somewhat fascinating that things still led to his, him being able to perform at the department's grandest concert, not as a student but as a guest of honor. 

How no one realized he's Lee Donghyuck astounds him, but he guesses it's the new look. He runs his hands through his honey locks, checking his make-up on the mirror one last time. The smokey look was a choice, a really good one at that.

He muses lightly about flower wreaths that lined the lobby, how they bore very familiar names, which makes everything all the more exciting. 

Everyone was here, just rooms away. He's set to close the concert while the judges finalize the scores, and he's determined to make a bang.

There's a knock at the door, a junior poking her head in, "Haechan-ssi, we need you backstage now."

He hums, letting himself be led through the hallways. He spares the student common room a glance. The faces he sees almost throw him into a time loop. He scoffs, looks like the Hera Palace kids still get what they want. 

He walks past them. He's nearer the stage now, and he feels a slight chill down his spine. He checked the program. He knows who's onstage at the moment. 

The way he plays still haunts Donghyuck in his dreams. He's still stuck in the limbo of doubt and betrayal, and he still doesn't have an idea what to do with the memories he used to hold dear. 

They don't matter anymore. They shouldn't. 

So when the song ends and the applause dies down, he holds his ground. 

He takes in the puzzled look on Jaemin's face, one that quickly morphs into shock. Almost like he'd seen a ghost. Rightly so. 

Because Lee Donghyuck may be dead, but Haechan surely isn't.

And Haechan is hell-bent on taking back what should have been his.