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Jeongin closed his eyes as he leaned back into the couch in their living room, exhausted.
It had been a rough couple of months; although he had chosen to withdraw from his final year of high school to reduce his stress levels, his parents hadn’t taken the news well. Jeongin understood why they wanted him to finish high school - he knew that his career as an Idol wouldn’t last forever, and honestly Jeongin wasn’t sure that he wanted to stay in the music industry once Stray Kids inevitably ended. Having at least a high school diploma would give him options after his career as an Idol ended, and Jeongin knew that his parents wanted him to have a good life. In the end, it had taken getting Chan and Minho on the phone to explain that trying to keep up was having a serious negative effect on Jeongin’s mental health to get them to accept his decision. Jeongin was honestly just thankful that he was an adult, meaning that he didn’t have to have their permission to withdraw.
Unfortunately, taking away the stress of school hadn’t been a perfect solution for Jeongin’s problems. While his job wasn’t as stressful as school had been - especially given the fact that the company was more than willing to make accommodations for his new medical issues - there were still stressors involved in being an Idol that weren’t good for his recovery. He was still working under the same restrictions that had been implemented when he’d first started struggling after his return to Seoul - not being allowed to work if he hadn’t been able to sleep, and only being required to do as much as he felt capable of in a given day. But without the stress of school, it had been decided that he could participate in group activities again.
Preparing for his first comeback since his sleepwalking accident was uniquely stressful. Although he had briefly worked on the group’s last comeback before being pulled, Jeongin didn’t really have much of a memory of that time period; the insomnia he had been suffering from at the time had affected his ability to create new memories, according to his neurologist, and he likely wouldn’t ever really remember much about the months immediately after his injury. While he’d gotten better in that respect, there were still certain things that he struggled with.
It hadn’t taken long for the group to discover that Jeongin struggled to learn their new dances. While he had difficulties at first with remembering the group’s older dances, they hadn’t realized until recently that his ability to learn new dances had been affected as well. Jeongin had always been a bit slower at learning the dances than most of the others, but the difference was significantly more pronounced now and Jeongin couldn’t help feeling guilty about the fact that his own struggles were causing difficulties for the other members of his group now, too.
“Yah… Innie, you need to go shower,” Seungmin commented, gently pushing Jeongin’s shoulder as the slightly older man walked by behind the sofa.
“Yeah…” Jeongin replied, forcing his eyes open and trying to force himself to his feet. It turned out to be a bad idea, as Jeongin stumbled slightly when he tried to walk towards the bathroom and had to be caught by a very concerned looking Seungmin.
“Whoa… are you okay?” the elder asked.
“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine,” Jeongin replied, regaining his footing as he heard someone else hurrying into the room.
“What happened?” Changbin asked quickly. “Innie, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, hyung. Just tired,” Jeongin replied, shaking his head. “I lost my footing standing up, but Minnie-hyung caught me. I’m okay.”
Changbin nodded, although Jeongin could tell that the man wasn’t completely convinced. “How’s your head?” the elder asked, moving to take one of Jeongin’s arms as though he was afraid that Jeongin might collapse on them at any moment if he didn’t help him back to the couch.
“It’s fine, hyung. I have a little bit of a headache, but it’s not bad,” Jeongin admitted, letting the other two sit him back down on the couch without complaint. “I think it’s just from stress… I haven’t had a bad headache in weeks.”
“Maybe you should lay down until time for dinner…” Changbin began.
“It’s his turn to shower first,” Seungmin replied.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Changbin commented softly. “You go ahead, Minnie… I’ve got this handled.”
Jeongin could tell that Seungmin wasn’t really happy about leaving them, but the man left as Changbin sat down next to him. “I’m really okay, hyung… I just stood up too fast and lost my balance, that’s all,” Jeongin replied, shaking his head.
Changbin watched Jeongin closely for a moment, nodding slightly. “How are you sleeping?” the older man asked softly, reaching out to gently massage the back of Jeongin’s neck. “They took you off the meds again a few weeks ago, right?”
“I’m sleeping okay,” Jeongin replied, closing his eyes. “Falling asleep isn’t really a problem. I’ve been having some nightmares, but I’ve been able to fall back asleep pretty quickly afterwards.”
“Nightmares?” Changbin asked. “Like what?”
Jeongin shrugged. “It’s mostly just a lot of big, blurry shapes. Someone is holding my head still, and I can’t move at all,” Jeongin replied. “Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe, too. And things are happening to me but I don’t have any control over any of it…”
“It sounds like you’re starting to remember things about the night of your accident,” Changbin replied softly.
“I’d rather not remember, if that’s what it was like…” Jeongin replied. “I don’t know why I can’t even tell who’s there…”
“Because the night it happened, your vision was so messed up you had no idea who anyone was,” Changbin explained. “When they were trying to assess your injuries, you couldn’t even find the paramedic’s hand to follow it with your eyes so they could figure out how bad your concussion might be. We were all worried that you might be blind…”
Jeongin nodded slowly, still trying to process everything. “So… it’s not just a nightmare. It’s real?” he asked.
“Sort of…? It sounds a lot like what you probably felt at the time,” Changbin replied. “I can’t really say anything for sure, because you were way too disoriented to really tell us much of what was going on. But it was really traumatic… I could see how it might give you nightmares now.”
“You’re having nightmares?” Jeongin looked up at the sound of Chan’s question, immediately feeling guilty about the fact that the leader was now going to be worrying about him yet again. “Are you okay, Innie?”
“It’s fine, hyung… it’s not a big deal,” Jeongin replied, shaking his head.
“It sounds like he might be starting to remember what happened that night,” Changbin explained. “You know he hasn’t really been able to remember anything before now… but when he told me about them it sounds like things might be starting to come back a little bit.”
Chan nodded slowly, sitting down on Jeongin’s other side. “Maybe you should bring it up with your therapist during your next appointment… especially if it’s bothering you,” the older man commented.
“I know,” Jeongin replied, nodding slowly. “It’s just… I don’t really know.”
Jeongin closed his eyes again as Chan pulled him into a hug, gently rubbing his back. “It’s a lot,” Chan commented. “I know you have a couple of days before your next appointment… maybe if you try to write it down? Even if they don’t make sense at the time, maybe if you can write them all down you can start to make sense of them when they’re all together.”
“Maybe, yeah,” Jeongin replied.
“We could put a notebook and pen next to your bed, kind of like the journal Sungie keeps to help with his anxiety,” Changbin suggested. “That way, you can write things down when you wake up, so that you don’t forget the details between when the nightmares happen and when you wake up the next morning.”
Jeongin nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he replied. “I can try that.”
***
“What are you doing?” Seungmin asked, sitting down at the table next to Jeongin as Jeongin read over the things he’d written over the past few nights. Changbin had found a blank notebook for him the same night the idea had been brought up, and Jeongin had been trying to remember to write down anything and everything he could think of about his nightmares when they woke him up. It was still a mess, but he was slowly starting to see where some things were the same every single time.
“Trying to make sense of all of this,” Jeongin admitted, looking up at the elder. “I don’t know that I want to remember, but I feel like I have to if I want the nightmares to stop.”
“Remember… you mean your accident?” Seungmin asked, looking over Jeongin’s shoulder at the notebook and Jeongin’s random scribbles.
“Yeah,” Jeongin replied. “I keep having these weird nightmares… Chan-hyung and Changbin-hyung thought that trying to write things down might help me figure things out and hopefully get them to stop…”
There was a moment of silence as Seungmin read the notes, before the elder pointed to Jeongin’s description of the dark blue blob that always seemed to be there. “The paramedic uniforms were dark blue… aish was your vision really that bad when you first woke up?” Seungmin asked.
“My vision is still kind of bad, to be honest,” Jeongin admitted. “Not that bad, but I guess it was probably worse at first? Changbin-hyung said that you guys were worried I might be blind after I fell. But I don’t really remember much of anything from the first few days at this point… I can’t even remember going back to Busan.”
“Wow…” Seungmin replied, shaking his head. “It’s really that bad, still?”
Jeongin shrugged. “I don’t know that I want to know everything, as uncomfortable as the nightmares are,” he replied. “I don’t know if the gaps are worse than the memories that belong there, but I’m also not sure that I want to find out, you know? Like, what if it’s really traumatic and bad?”
“Innie… it is really traumatic and bad,” Seungmin replied, shaking his head. “But I think the hyungs are right - you need to work through all of this, so that you can get some closure on all of this. Especially if it’s starting to make you have trouble sleeping again, when you were finally starting to do better…”
“But what if trying to remember just makes things worse?”
“That’s why you need to talk it out with your therapist,” Jisung commented, as the other ’99-liner came and sat down on Jeongin’s other side. “It isn’t going to be easy… you and I both know how much therapy can suck. But in the end, they’re going to know how to help you deal with all of the stuff going on in your head so that you can get better.”
Jeongin sighed, leaning over and letting his head rest against his arms. “I really don’t want to do this, hyung… it’s scary…” Jeongin began.
“But if facing it can make the nightmares go away, isn’t it worth it?” Seungmin asked. “Even if it has to be harder for a little while, in the end it’s going to be worth it. Right, Sungie?”
“Exactly,” Jisung agreed. “You trust us, right, Innie?”
“Of course I do…” Jeongin replied, sitting back up.
“Then you know that we wouldn’t lie to you,” Jisung replied, gently putting a hand on Jeongin’s shoulder. “I’ve been there, remember? I know how hard it is to deal with something that scares you with a therapist. But it’s something you need to do, Innie. The nightmares aren’t going to go away on their own, and they’re probably only going to get worse the longer you go without dealing with what’s causing them.”
Jeongin took a deep breath, sighing. “I just… it’s easier not knowing how terrifying that night was,” Jeongin replied softly, not looking at the two older men. “So far, I really only know what you guys have told me. I don’t know that facing the reality of those memories is something I’m ready to do yet.”
“You’re ready… and we’re going to be here to help you through it,” Jisung replied, squeezing Jeongin’s hand.
“Sungie is right… we aren’t going to leave you alone to work through all of this without anyone to help,” Seungmin added. “We’re your friends, Innie. We’re going to be here for you.”
Jeongin took a deep breath, nodding. “Thank you, hyungs.”
“Okay, so let’s look through all of this and see if there’s anything else we can piece together,” Seungmin replied. “Sungie was in the room for some of what happened, so he’ll probably be more help than I am…”
***
Jeongin opened his eyes slowly as he felt a hand stroking through his hair, smiling up at Hyunjin as the elder leaned over him. Jeongin had crashed on the sofa in their living room after his therapist appointment that morning, exhausted from all of the emotions that had come up as they tried to work through the contents of his nightmares. It didn’t help that he’d had several episodes the night before, meaning that he hadn’t really gotten enough sleep. But thankfully their manager had recognized that Jeongin was too tired for anything else, and he’d taken him home afterwards instead of sending him into practice with the rest of the group.
“How are you feeling?” the elder asked, moving back as Jeongin slowly sat up and stretched. “Manager-hyung said you weren’t really in any shape to practice after your appointment.”
Jeongin nodded, reaching up to rub the sleep from his eyes. “It was exhausting,” Jeongin admitted softly. “I wouldn’t have been allowed to actually practice, anyway. I didn’t get enough sleep last night, because of the nightmares…”
“But you’re feeling better right now?” Hyunjin asked.
“Yeah, I am,” Jeongin replied, nodding. “I still don’t fully understand everything that’s going on in the nightmares, but we talked about what I did know and what the paramedics would have done when they were there. Things are still a mess in my head, but the nightmares don’t seem as terrifying…”
Hyunjin nodded, moving to sit down by Jeongin’s side once he’d put his feet down on the floor. “Do you think it would help if Changbin-hyung and Chan-hyung told you everything they remembered from that night?” Hyunjin suggested. “I know we’ve all kind of avoided going into a lot of detail, because it didn’t seem that important. But if it might help you with the nightmares… maybe it could be good for you to know all of the little pieces of what happened that night.”
Jeongin shrugged. “Maybe… that was one thing we talked about this morning,” Jeongin replied. “I don’t really want to put any more stress on anyone else in the group. And I’m worried that it might upset you guys to talk about everything… I know that it had to be really scary for all of you guys, too. I don’t want you guys to have to think about it again, if it hurts…”
“But not knowing seems to be hurting you,” Hyunjin replied, shaking his head. “It isn’t fair for you to worry about us being upset, when not knowing is actually causing you some real, tangible harm. We can handle our own emotions about what happened, if it means helping you get through this.”
“Jinnie is right about that.” Jeongin turned as Minho sat down on his other side, putting an arm around his shoulders. “You shouldn’t have to suffer for our sakes… not when there’s something we can all do that might help you.”
“But if it doesn’t…” Jeongin began.
“Then at the very least, the rest of us have done something to work through our own emotions about what happened,” Minho replied. “That night was traumatic for all of us… I know that it had to be the worst for you, but the whole thing was terrifying. We didn’t know what was going on, or what might happen in the future. All we really knew was that you were hurt, and it was probably going to be bad…”
Jeongin took a deep breath, nodding slowly. “I just… it’s hard to think about. I know I have to work through it. I’m just not completely sure that I’m ready for all of that just yet,” he replied.
“That’s why we’re going to be here for you,” Hyunjin replied. “We’re your hyungs, Innie. We’re always going to be here for you.”