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minghao is tired. he’s trying to write but he keeps drifting out of consciousness, leaving messy ink stains across the pages of his notebook. junhui and chan are fast asleep and have been for quite some time; mumbling and shifting on either side of him, and minghao can’t help but wonder what angels dream about.
it’s raining and he wants soonyoung to be home. he heard jihoon get back a little while ago, which means that it really is late. he doesn’t want to risk reaching across chan to grab his phone though, so he supposes he’ll just have to wait it out.
minghao keeps telling himself that there is nothing to worry over, nothing at all, but it would take a fool not to notice that soonyoung has been overworking himself recently. he’s been skipping meals and skipping meetings and even his fake, the-cameras-are-on persona is starting to crack slightly, no matter how desperately he wants to seem perfect.
and they are not, contrary to popular belief, a group of fools. minghao had spent his water break earlier in the day with his ear pressed against the door, trying to discern the tones of hushed korean being shared between seungcheol and soonyoung. he remembers seungcheol’s stern voice telling soonyoung that he should take better care of himself, and that it’s not beneficial to the team if there is a member on the verge of a meltdown. it was the same speech that minghao had heard seungcheol give wonwoo last year, and jeonghan had caught him eavesdropping before minghao could hear soonyoung’s reply.
it wasn’t as if he was dissatisfied with the leader’s scolding of soonyoung, but it was clearly uneffective. everybody is still worried and everybody is still too shy to say anything, and so now minghao is left in situations like these, awake at an ungodly hour and praying that they won’t have to make any late night trips to the hospital.
minghao freezes for a moment when he hears the unmistakable sound of a key unlocking the front door. he’s still sitting up in bed, and he sends a thanks to whatever unfortunate deity has been given the task of watching over him. then, he begins to pretend that he’s actually writing something, jotting down a stupid line about rainy nights.
it takes a few minutes before the bedroom door opens, and he keeps his eyes trained on the paper. he can’t help but play it cool, it’s ingrained in him at this point to appear detached.
he doesn’t look up until soonyoung collapses on top of him, burying his head into minghao’s chest as he wraps his arms around the younger boy’s waist. soonyoung is damp and minghao would normally yell at him for not showering before trying to cuddle, but soonyoung is holding onto him so tightly that suddenly he cannot bring himself to care about sweat.
minghao places his journal down in the small space between him and junhui before reaching up to run a hand through soonyoung’s hair and press a kiss against the soaked strands.
“hey, i’m glad you’re home.” minghao mutters.
there’s a silence that seems to stretch on for miles, enveloping and isolating. “hey.” minghao says again. he puts his hands on soonyoung’s cheeks and lifts his head until he can see his face. soonyoung still won’t meet his gaze.
“hey, sunshine, is everything alright?” minghao asks. his tone is level but he is handling soonyoung like he’s a porcelain doll.
soonyoung’s eyes flicker up to glance at minghao before quickly pressing his face into minghao’s sweatshirt again. his body starts to shake slightly.
“soonyoung. soonyoung. sunshine, please look at me.”
when the other boy listens, minghao is met with the sight of a bloated face, red and splotchy. soonyoung’s jaw is set, his teeth digging into his lower lip, and he’s so obviously trying not to disintegrate, to lose it and disappear completely, never to be found again, that minghao draws in a soft gasp.
“hey, it’s okay.” he says, because he’s absolutely horrible at comforting people. “i’m glad you’re home.” he repeats.
he kisses soonyoung’s forehead, and the feel of minghao’s gentle lips against his skin is all it takes. soonyoung lets out a whimper before the tears start to spill over, mixing in with the raindrops and the sweat that is already running down his face.
it’s well known to those around him that soonyoung feels far too much far too deeply, which means he never just cries in the same way that he never just smiles. when he laughs, it’s a beautiful thing, like dawn or a nostalgic song, and when he cries he sobs like heartbreak, like standing in the middle of a valley during the worst thunderstorm of the year.
so minghao isn’t particularly surprised as he watches soonyoung weep, but that does not mean that he doesn’t feel like his own heart has been bruised, swollen and aching as it beats like a hummingbird inside his ribcage.
he isn’t surprised by any of this, really, minghao reckons that everybody has a breaking point. even kwon soonyoung. especially kwon soonyoung.
“i’m sorry.” soonyoung hiccups. “i’m disappointing you, aren’t i?”
minghao tighten his hold on the elder, begins to rub soothing circles into soonyoung's back as he shakes his head, no. never. “of course not.”
“i will, eventually.” his voice is shaky. junhui is awake now, watching in complete stillness as his leader crumbles. “i’ll disappoint everyone. i promised i would be great, or at least okay…” he shuts his eyes for a moment. “but you know me. i never keep my word.”
soonyoung rests his head against minghao’s shoulder. “i don’t know what i’m doing. look at me, i’m twenty-one and i’m crying like a little kid. you must be so annoyed. i’m disappointing.” he repeats.
(minghao finds some sort of painful irony in the fact that soonyoung was expected to act like an adult when he was still a child, and is now trying to apologize for the immaturity inevitably catching up to him.)
“you know that’s not true.”
“but what if it is?” soonyoung snaps back.
(he wants to say that he’s already letting seungcheol and jihoon down. he wants to say that he misses his mother and some days he is so exhausted he can barely stand up straight. that he keeps having these nightmares where all his friends leave him, that he is miserable when he is alone but it is astronomically worse when he is being held by chan or junhui or minghao and he still feels numb. he wants to say that he is relentlessly anxious that the cameras will catch him staring off into space and picking apart his own skin. but he doesn’t. the words lodge themselves in his throat and he swallows them like diet pills.)
“because it isn’t in your nature to run a race and not finish first. you couldn’t give up if you tried. burn out and you’ll just set yourself on fire again.” minghao responds easily. “that’s why you’re having this problem in the first place, if you haven’t noticed, you’ve been trying too hard.”
“i don’t know about that.” soonyoung pouts in a way that is so familiar it seems unfitting on his tear-streaked face. “it doesn’t matter how hard i try if nothing ever works.”
he doesn’t like being brutally honest, sliced upon like he’s on an operating table. he’s vulnerable and the tears are still flowing.
it’s then that junhui sits up to pull soonyoung off of minghao. he lays the leader down on the mattress and pats his head like he is sick. “things do work.” junhui insists. “and if they don’t right now, then they will soon.”
it’s not exactly the most renowned sentiment but soonyoung nods all the same.
everything is quiet for a moment as junhui presses kisses to soonyoung’s cheeks and lays down next to him, resting his head against his chest.
chan crawls over too, fitting his small body between minghao and soonyoung, positioning himself beneath the canopy of their limbs. soonyoung hopes that the youngest had slept through everything.
“things will be okay soon. i don’t know when, but they will.” junhui repeats, for lack of anything better to say. then: “i do know, however, that right now, you need rest.”
soonyoung nods once more.
they let him cry himself out, sniffling and murmuring as he tries to calm down. junhui peels soonyoung’s clothes off and replaces them with a dry cotton night shirt. they try to comfort him with kisses and soft words but junhui doesn’t know if soonyoung even hears them.
(the worst part of all this, of course, is that there is still very little they can do. soonyoung can tell them every negative thought he’s ever had and they still can’t assuage all of his pain, but the feeling of uselessness is something that the three boys are very familiar with, so they try and fix what they can and hope that it will be enough.)
hours pass before someone speaks again. it’s chan, the only one left awake, and his whisper is inaudible anyways. he says the only thing he can think of, the only thing he could manage to come up with during soonyoung’s entire episode. “we love you.” he says. it’s simple and underwhelming, but he repeats it like a prayer until he falls asleep, too.