Chapter Text
So many thoughts rushed passed his mind, pounded against his brain. It was a headache. No, that was an understatement. It was a whole body ache. Everything hurt, and even when he was so absorbed in his thoughts, too out of it to realize how sore his limbs were, everything still hurt. It was exhausting and it was unrelenting, constantly burdening him with reminder after reminder, thoughts that he, in a normal, healthy mindset, would’ve dismissed. He would try his best to convince himself otherwise, that ‘
no, he wasn’t the worst human being on earth
’, or that ‘
no, he wasn’t dragging the team down’
, or even ‘
no, everyone didn’t hate him
’, but his mind could not accept it.
And, yes, maybe Hwanwoong was a limp, sore body splayed across the wood-tiled dance studio floor doing absolutely nothing but lying down in a pool of his own sweat and tears. But it felt way better than choreographing, going home to sleep, or, hell, standing . He was just lying down, crying, damp sleeves only spreading his tears across his face at this point.
God, he felt so helpless. He wanted to get up off the floor, but it felt so hard to. He could sleep where he laid if he wanted, but even that seemed hard to do.
Hwanwoong stared at the ceiling light, vision blurry with the infinite amount of tears in his eyes. He covered his eyes with his arms so the light wasn’t in his eyes. The thought of someone walking in on him like this lingered in his mind. It scared him, but maybe it would be one of the members. It still scared him, but he felt comforted at the thought of clinging to his members, clinging onto the warmth he felt like he was lacking at the moment. He wanted to cry into them, and they would let him, and they would be patient with him, careful not to poke him with questions and force the answers out of him.
As if on cue, someone opened the studio doors, and Hwanwoong’s heart dropped. Hwanwoong was glad he already had his arms covering his face, because he wasn’t going to say a thing if the person were to ask him what’s wrong.
“See you’re doing amazing work. Can’t wait to have a whole dance where it’s just us lying down.”
A teasing voice brightly filled the room. The owner of that voice tugged the tiniest grin at the corner of Hwanwoong’s mouth, relief pouring down hard onto his body as he accidentally let out a wet chortle meant to be a somewhat self-deprecating laugh and instead sounding like a sad, choked whimper-sob.
Seoho, although he wasn’t the best with feelings, was Hwanwoong’s strongest support. Neither of them had emotional talk as one of their strongpoints, but they respected each other’s emotions nonetheless and were the best at cheering people up because of it. Seoho and Hwanwoong had a mutual understanding of each other. Maybe it was because they were together the longest out of the other four, but they knew what the other was thinking and what they needed at times like these.
And so, Hwanwoong was picked up off the ground, and pulled into warm arms.
A sob left Hwanwoong’s lips, his arms falling onto Seoho’s shoulders as he buried his face into the crook of the older’s neck and cried.