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Sometimes, Sehun has days where he feels so separate from reality it’s like he doesn’t exist.
It usually starts in the morning, right after he wakes up, in the silent, empty moments just before his alarm goes off.
He’s become quite good at hiding it, the disconnected feeling. It’s not all that hard, given the image their company gave him is a little like his personality to begin with. So on mornings when he wakes up and stares at the ceiling and is painfully aware of the absence of something in his chest, Sehun just plays into his natural poker face a little better than before.
As the day goes on, he slips in and out of it. Physical touch and human interaction pulls him back into the flow of reality, but the tether snaps quickly, fragile under the weight of responsibility and exhaustion. Soon enough the current drags him under, and Sehun watches the world through a glass screen, isolated and numb.
He gets extraordinarily picky about the tiniest things. Little, silly, stupid mistakes lead to Sehun staying behind for two, three hours, coming back to the dorm in the darkest hours of night. Junmyeon, more often than not, stays awake for him. Sehun never hates himself more than in those moments, when he’s too tired and empty for even guilt to seep through the barrier.
Nothing gets through except sadness.
It’s the one thing Sehun can feel, and he drowns in it. Sinks so deep that when he comes back to reality the only thing he can do is curl up in his bed and cry. Baekhyun sometimes catches Sehun in those moments, ruined and desperate for something he can’t name. But Sehun is so good at hiding, so good at making people forget that he feels, that those blissful moments of comfort are few and far between.
Normally, it comes in phases. A short burst of nothing, then a long period of feeling and light and warmth. But the spaces between the emptiness are getting shorter and shorter, and Sehun can’t help but wonder if one day he’ll slip and never get back out.
<><><>
Sehun wakes with the sunrise. There’s a slit in the curtains which manages to be angled directly at his face every morning, but the last time he tried to fix it Junmyeon woke up as early as Sehun and cursed his existence for a full three days.
It takes about twenty seconds of Sehun looking at the ceiling to recognise the familiar ache in his chest. A delusional part of his mind suggests filling the hole with coffee, which doesn’t work (Sehun has tried many times and all of them ended in him having an agonising headache for the rest of the day), but coffee seems far more appealing than lying in bed with his thoughts and Junmyeon’s tiny snores.
Sehun wanders out into the kitchen to the sight of Jongin cradling a steaming mug of cocoa between his hands. It’s bitterly cold now that Sehun has abandoned the warmth of his bed (their heating broke last week and no one has fixed it yet), and he has the strangest sensation of watching himself shiver but not feeling the chill.
Approaching from behind, Sehun wraps his bare arms around Jongin’s waist, flopping his head onto his shoulder. Jongin smells like Christmas, like warm spice and apples and sweet pastry, and a little like Kyungsoo, too. He leans back against Sehun, sighing at the warmth, and Sehun feels a little lighter. “Morning,” Jongin greets, and chuckles softly at Sehun’s answering grunt.
Sehun squeezes Jongin gently, yawning into the soft material of his sweater, before detaching and shuffling over to the coffee pot. Jongin follows him, pressing up against his side and taking slow sips of cocoa as it gradually cools down enough to be drinkable.
Minseok, as it turns out, had the foresight to make coffee before going out on his run, and Sehun pours a third of a mug then fills the rest with milk. He’s never been able to tolerate black coffee (or tea, for that matter), something Jongdae gives him endless shit for. The hum of the microwave fills the silence for a while, until sharp beeping signals the start of Sehun’s daily quest to drink enough caffeine to function like a human.
After the clock hits 6:30 everyone starts to wander in at random intervals, but Sehun only really notices their presence once Jongin leaves him for Kyungsoo and a dead weight strikes him in the chest at the loss of contact.
Chanyeol and Junmyeon are banished from the kitchen once breakfast preparations start (there’s been too many incidents to risk having them within a five-foot radius of anything that does something even remotely to do with heat, including the toaster), and Minseok comes back just in time to have a shower before the food gets completely demolished.
The thought of eating, however, makes Sehun so nauseous he can feel his gag reflex kicking in, so he decides to take a cup of coffee and go in search of Baekhyun, who hasn’t emerged from his room yet.
While it’s heating up, Sehun spends a minute just observing the members at the table. They’re all interacting with each other, each conversation in competition with the next, laughing too loud and smiling too bright for how early it is, but it’s always been this way. When they first came together they all needed close relationships to make up for the people they left behind, but over time what ended up happening was the formation of one rather large, rather eclectic family.
But standing in the kitchen, it’s as if Sehun is looking at the domestic scene through glass, like the lives of the people he cares about more than anything else in the world are nothing more than pictures on a screen. It’s disconcertingly familiar, and with resigned acceptance Sehun feels the first strands of unexplainable, irrational sadness seeping into his mind.
Once the coffee is done, Sehun leaves the room quietly and goes to knock on Baekhyun’s door. The hallway is cold, almost silent in contrast to the buzz in the kitchen, and Sehun feels the weight settle firmly over his mind like an ominous blanket.
There’s no response to Sehun rapping his knuckles against the painted wood, so he opens the door softly. Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s room is one of the neatest in the dorm (nothing can beat the room Minseok shares with Jongdae and Yixing), which came as a complete surprise to all of them. Chanyeol’s bed is made, pristine the way you find in hotel rooms, and the blinds have been opened.
The only thing visible of Baekhyun, however, is a head of pastel pink hair sticking out from the top of his covers. He’s huddled into a little ball, presumably to try and ward off the uncomfortable cold that comes from having both feet poking out the bottom end. He looks so tiny, and Sehun is hit with the sudden urge to pick him up, blankets and all, and take him to the couch demanding cuddles, because cuddles from Baekhyun are magical.
But that would be too obvious. Sehun’s need for physical comfort and reassurance skyrockets when the glass wall comes down, and Baekhyun has caught him in the aftermath enough times (not often, but still enough) to know the symptoms. Besides, if Baekhyun has stayed in bed this long he must be completely exhausted, and the last thing Sehun wants to do is make Baekhyun worry about something that isn’t his problem. It’s Sehun’s problem, and he’ll try damn hard this time to fix it without involving anyone else.
“Baekhyun?” Sehun calls softly at the pile on the bed, and there’s a faint stir but no vocal response. Frowning slightly, Sehun wonders if Baekhyun is sick, but prays he’s just sleeping.
“I have coffee for you and there’s food in the kitchen,” Sehun tries again, and this time two delicate hands come up to emerge from the covers and wrap over the top of them, pulling down enough that Baekhyun can poke his face out into the room. Upon seeing that Sehun does, in fact, have coffee, he sits up lazily, propping himself up on one hand.
The covers fall a little, revealing that Baekhyun’s oversized t-shirt has slipped off one shoulder. His hair is a mess, cheeks still sleep-flushed, and him blinking slowly to try and get rid of dream residue leaves Sehun sort of wanting to scream because how on earth can one human be that cute.
A little more awake, Baekhyun smiles at Sehun, eyes scrunching into little crescents as he reaches out his hands and makes grabbing motions. Sehun passes the coffee to him with a returning grin, but it feels so wrong on his face that it’s a struggle to keep it there until Baekhyun looks away.
Coffee finished and mug left on his bedside table, Baekhyun shuffles into the bathroom clutching a change of clothes, throwing a sleepy “Thank you Sehunnie,” over his shoulder with a sweet smile. Left alone, Sehun sits down on the bed, hands finding a pillow and hugging it to himself. It smells like peaches and cream and comfort, and Sehun can feel the backs of his eyes burning, vision blurring abruptly.
Everything in him is screaming to stay, to wait for Baekhyun to finish his shower and then ask for cuddles, and Baekhyun will give them to him, like he always does, but their schedule starts at eight this morning and Sehun knows he’ll only sink deeper if he gets hugs this early in the day and then has to last without them.
It’s physically painful for Sehun to force himself to stand up and leave the room, abandoning the pillow and taking the empty mug instead, but he’s determined to heal himself this time, goddammit, and submitting to his need for human contact is not part of that equation. There’s a tiny, nagging voice in the back of his head, telling him he’s never been able to pull himself out of the sadness before, not without help from other people, but Sehun shoves it away. He sinks in response, heavier in his isolation, but Sehun decides to ignore that, too. He’ll be fine.
Right?
<><><>
Three days later, Sehun is drowning.
He hasn’t slept for two nights, self-enforced contact ban leaving him deeper than he’s ever been. There are bruises under his eyes and his appetite has dried up and he feels like little more than a walking skeleton. It’s probably a miracle that no one has noticed, blaming it on the long rehearsals and hours of extra practice Sehun does, but it’s coming to a point where Sehun will have no choice but to ask for help.
Everything takes more effort than it should. His limbs ache, bone-tired and sore despite the stretching he does before and after every session. He has a free schedule today, but with the amount of mistakes Sehun let slip into his practice last night he knows he’s going to have to go into the studio anyway.
Lying in bed, examining a hairline crack in the ceiling, Sehun realises he just really wants a hug. The force of it hits him like a blow to the sternum, punching the air out of his lungs. It’s such a simple thing to need, physical contact, but Sehun is a master at overcomplicating situations, usually resulting in nothing but pain.
By the time he gets up the dorm is deserted, everyone having begun their schedules for the day, except Jongin and Kyungsoo, who get a late start. Sehun is almost tempted to go and kidnap Jongin, but then he sees both of them on the couch, watching children’s cartoons. Kyungsoo is lying on Jongin, nestled in his lap, and the pure adoration in Jongin’s eyes as he looks down at Kyungsoo, carding gentle fingers through his hair, is enough to have Sehun backing away quickly, not wanting to disturb anything.
In the kitchen, Sehun stops the microwave just before it beeps, and gets out of the area as fast as possible. He wants to leave Jongin and Kyungsoo in peace, yes, but a larger part of him is jealous, so stupidly jealous over the fact that Kyungsoo is getting exactly what Sehun needs.
It’s almost unconscious, the way Sehun walks into a different room, curls up under covers that aren’t his, and presses his face into a pillow that smells of peaches and cream.
Sehun’s coffee lies abandoned next to the lamp in favour of him hiding under the covers in a tight ball on his side. It’s dark and warm and smells like comfort and Baekhyun, and Sehun can feel himself pulling back from the edge a little. He knows that eventually he’ll have to force himself back into reality, into the isolation and the sadness that seem to fade into the background when he’s here, but it’s too much of a relief to be able to breathe again for Sehun to think about that.
He spends so long in the quiet peace of warmth and comfort, drifting in and out of consciousness, that when Sehun emerges from his cocoon the room is painted gold in the light of sunset.
Sehun doesn’t want to get out of bed, but people will probably start arriving home in a little bit, and it’d be far too obvious that something was wrong if Sehun was discovered still blocking out the world. It takes the sound of muffled laughter for Sehun to jump into action, barely remembering to take the now stone cold mug out with him.
In the hallway, away from the light and the lazy warmth, Sehun sinks again. It’s dizzying how quick it happens sometimes, the contrast so stark Sehun is left reeling in shock as everything in him becomes dead weight.
He darts into his own room just as the front door swings open. The last thing he wants is to have to talk to people, to put up the façade he’s so very good at, because it hurts now. He’s been doing it for too long. It’s probably not healthy, for Sehun to be feeling like this for so long, but he can’t help it. It’s not exactly something he has control over.
Sehun finds himself lying in bed, on top of the covers, staring once again at the hairline crack in the ceiling. The hum of conversation slips through the door, coming from the kitchen. Now and again, Chanyeol’s laughter booms out over the top of everything, loud and excitable, the way it always is.
The smell of something savoury and a little spicy weaves through the flow of sound, and Sehun realises he hasn’t eaten at all today. It’ll probably taste like cardboard in his mouth, and settle heavier than a brick in his stomach no matter how little he eats, but Sehun isn’t stupid enough to not eat.
He’s tired, Sehun registers vaguely, despite doing nothing at all, and a brief pang of guilt strikes him. The rest of the members are probably twice as exhausted, from endless schedules with very few breaks. But he needs to eat if he doesn’t want to waste away, become useless once back in reality, so Sehun pushes through the haze and stands up, shuffling to the door.
It’s disproportionately loud in the corridor compared to his room, and Sehun finds himself lingering, attempting to put off hiding under the suffocating mask for as long as possible. But he gets so lost in his own head, trying to plan out how to talk to people, how to smile in the way that looks least fake, that the door opening doesn’t register until Sehun hears his own name as a question from a voice that could only belong to one person.
When he shifts his gaze up from an unseeing stare at the floorboards, he’s met with the sight of Baekhyun looking at him, concern shining bright in dark chocolate eyes.
His eyebrows are furrowed as he looks Sehun over, and Sehun is suddenly extremely conscious of the fact that he’s in a ratty pair of sweatpants and an old white t-shirt, whereas Baekhyun resembles a living god.
But once Baekhyun looks straight at him, realisation flashes quick through sharp, perceptive eyes and Sehun is suddenly wrapped in a firm hug. He reciprocates immediately, melting back until he meets a wall, and something in his chest gets very tight. There’s a mop of pastel pink hair directly in front of his face, and Sehun submits to instinct and buries his face in it, startling an affectionate laugh out Baekhyun.
It smells like peaches and cream and comfort and everything Sehun needs, and he curls around Baekhyun, who presses close enough that there’s a fleeting moment where Sehun feels half human again.
“You okay?”
Baekhyun’s voice is muffled against Sehun’s chest, but the worry is clear and Sehun wants so badly to say no, that he’s really not, to shatter in the warmth of Baekhyun’s arms, where it’s safe and he doesn’t have to pretend. But Baekhyun is leaning so heavily against Sehun, fatigue evident despite his impeccable composure, and Sehun doesn’t want to do that to him, doesn’t want to be any more of a burden than he already is.
“Yeah, hyung. Just tired,” Sehun replies, and the bittersweet tang of the lie wraps around his tongue like a vice.
<><><>
On the seventh day, Sehun breaks.
They’ve been practicing for five hours. It’s night time and everyone is exhausted, having come straight from separate schedules. Sehun is just empty. Numb. Everything hurts but he can’t feel it as much as he should, pushes harder in an attempt to force back the suffocating weight in his chest.
His eyes and nose burn, irrational frustration at the tiniest things making Sehun even more on edge than usual. But he can’t break the glass wall, can’t get away from the unexplainable sadness that pushes down hard enough that his back and shoulders ache.
They’re halfway through the second set of choreography when Sehun has a fleeting moment where his mind goes utterly silent. Then his knees are buckling, sending him falling heavily to the ground. There’s a few stunned seconds where the entire room is frozen, the only sound the heavy bass of the song playing through the speakers, and then a burst of movement.
Baekhyun is first to Sehun, followed by Junmyeon and Chanyeol. In the background, Sehun can hear Kyungsoo and Jongin speaking franticly on the phone to their manager.
Sehun isn’t sure exactly why they’re calling him, given that people have collapsed during practice before and merely retreated to the side of the room with an ice pack and a water bottle and orders to not move for the rest of the choreography set.
But more than that, Sehun is numb. So numb, in fact, that it’s become a feeling in and of itself, so empty that the resulting gap is a physical presence.
He finds himself staring blankly at the roof, detached from reality, the glass wall so thick that sounds directly above him are muffled and fuzzy. His eyes meet Baekhyun’s, which are filled with so much fear and sheer panic Sehun wonders what he must look like, and feels so very guilty for making Baekhyun worry so much when he deserves nothing but happiness.
Vague bits and pieces drift through to Sehun, words like please, and don’t do this to me, and Baekhyun is so, so close, staring at Sehun like he can see right through to his soul, and Sehun watches as Baekhyun shatters alongside him, when the burning becomes tears that track down his cheeks, agonisingly slow.
But the weight is too heavy, pushing him under, deeper, drowning him in waves of isolation and sadness, and Sehun doesn’t have the strength to resist. His eyes slip shut, and the world goes black.
Sehun regains consciousness in a bed that isn’t his own, wrapped around a warm human that smells like peaches and cream and comfort.
His eyes are raw and tired, the way they only get after extended periods of crying, and his whole body aches, but Sehun feels so light. The glass wall has broken, and Sehun is human again, attached to reality.
Baekhyun shifts against him, pressing closer to Sehun’s chest. His arms are clutched around Sehun’s waist, legs threaded together, and he’s pliant and soft in his sleep, hair mussed into loose waves. Sehun’s chest gets a fuzzy type of tight, and he curls even further around Baekhyun, until they’re one large ball of warmth huddled up under the covers of Baekhyun’s bed.
Sehun squeezes gently, and startles a little when Baekhyun laughs quietly against his chest, tilting his head back to look at Sehun. There’s faint dark circles under his eyes, and Sehun feels so very guilty that he has to duck his head down and hide in the mess of pastel pink hair.
“Stop it,” Baekhyun warns, leaning back so Sehun has no choice but to look at him. “I can feel you blaming yourself. Stop it.”
“But-”
A sharp glare from Baekhyun cuts Sehun off, and he shakes his head.
“Not your fault. Just tell me next time, yeah?”
Sehun nods, lips pressed in a tight, remorseful line. Baekhyun offers him a smile, one of those soft, cute ones that tugs just enough for the corners of his mouth to pull up. The look in his eyes is so tender Sehun almost needs to look away, but settles for pulling Baekhyun back into him instead, moulding them together again.
Baekhyun curls closer than should be humanly possible, and Sehun feels an amused puff of air against his chest when he nuzzles his face in that bright shock of pink hair.
It smells like peaches and cream, like comfort and Baekhyun, and Sehun really doesn’t need anything else.