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ATEEZ has been exceptionally busy since Mingi joined them back at KQ. Filming contents, Kingdom performances, Imitation promotions, VLives, Photoshoots and more. They hadn’t gotten a full nights rest in their dorm in weeks, preparing content for ATINY. But finally, after nearly a month of packed schedules, they have been given a full four days to go home and rest up.
Piling into the dorm, takeout dinner in hand, there is a lot of excited chatter. Yunho and San are talking about what games they want to play, Yeosang, Jongho and Hongjoong sharing sentiments of sleeping and Mingi and Wooyoung discussing a movie marathon. The only person not talking is Seonghwa, who is currently facing a lot of inner turmoil.
Because of how busy they had been, Seonghwa hadn’t gotten the chance to to regress in over a month and he had been slowly slipping ever since they got the news of the break. His problem however was that he still hadn’t told any of his bandmates about his little space, and he doubted he would have the energy or time to explain it before he slipped. Just the thought of little space was bring him further down.
Seonghwa moved towards his and Hongjoong’s shared room, intent on lying in bed and hopefully sleeping before he had the chance to slip fully in an effort to avoid any awkward situations. His efforts were thwarted by Hongjoong, who decided that in order to celebrate their break they should all eat dinner at the table together, something which happened very rarely.
Hongjoong noticed Seonghwa trying to slip off and called out his name, “Hwa? Where are you going?”
Seonghwa stopped walking, scrunching up his face and sagging his shoulders in defeat before turning around and looking at Hongjoong with the most tired face he could muster, “To bed?”
“No you’re not. You can stay awake for twenty minutes to eat dinner with the rest of us while it’s hot, okay?” Hongjoong looked at him with a caring expression and Seonghwa knew he couldn’t resist that face. He felt himself slip at the motherly tone Hongjoong used, but made the effort to attempt to bring himself back up as he nodded and made his way to the table, taking a seat. Hongjoong nodded as Seonghwa sat down, moving to help the rest of the members grab plates and utensils.
Seonghwa closed his eyes, trying to ignore everyone around him as he concentrated on not falling off the edge. He knew he was dangerously close to slipping right there at the dinner table, he just wasn’t sure how close. He also want aware that he had already slipped some and was quickly falling down the hole. When he next opened his eyes he noticed that everyone else had started taking food from the various takeout containers and that his plate was the only one currently empty.
But when he tried to move his hand to grab a spoon he quickly realised that he was much weaker than usual, the way he usually was while in little space. The realisation made him tip off the edge, finally slipping down all the way to baby space, the product of all the stress he had experienced in the last month pushing him down. He closed his eyes, his brain drowning out the voices of the others.
He only reopened them when he noticed that it had gone silent. Hwa stared at his plate for a couple seconds before noticing that someone was calling his name. He looked towards the voice with a doe-eyed innocent expression, little space in complete control of his mind. His eyes finally landed on Hongjoong, who looked concerned.
“Hwa? Hwa? ……food…..….okay?” Hwa couldn’t make out many of the words Hongjoong was saying, the sentence too long and words to complex for his baby brain to figure out. He then noticed the other members around the table. There were seven sets of eyes staring at him and suddenly little Hwa realised that he had slipped around the members, something he wasn’t meant to do.
All seven members were instantly concerned and confused when Hwa stared crying. A sense of panic moved through the group, they all knew that this wasn’t just Seonghwa crying from stress. They’d all seen Seonghwa cry before. This was more… childish. It almost felt like a child crying.
“What do we do?” Jongho breaks the awkward silence that had befallen the other members. This also breaks Hongjoong out of his deep stare at Hwa. He quickly stands up, moving towards the door of the kitchen. All of the members look at him, confused.
“Hyung?” Yunho speaks up, “Where are you going?”
Hongjoong stops and looks back, his expression worried and speech frantic, “Seonghwa’s not okay, I’m gonna go look in our room for something that might help cause we aren’t accomplishing anything here. Stay here and, I don’t know, Google it or something?”
With that Hongjoong leaves for his and Seonghwa’s shared room. The rest of the members look between Hwa and each other, not sure what to do. Mingi grabs out his phone, “What do we search?”
“What?” San asks.
“Hongjoong-hyung said to Google it, but what do we Google?” The rest of the group grab out their phones, sans Yunho and Jongho, who are trying to get Hwa to calm down with little success.
“I dunno, just Google whatever comes to mind?” Wooyoung suggests. Those with their phones out start googling, with the exception of Yeosang, who stands up and heads down the hall to help Hongjoong, thinking that a better alternative.
Jongho picks up his chopsticks and grabs a piece of meat off his plate. Yunho watches him quizzically as he moves the meat towards Hwa’s mouth, “Seonghwa-hyung? Are you hungry? I have some meat for you!”
At the sound of food Hwa opens his eyes, still crying. His eyes are blurred with tears and he can’t see anything in front of him. Hwa brings his hands up to his eyes and rubbing them, knocking his head on the saucy piece of meat in the process, splattering the sauce on his forehead. Jongho and Yunho both stifle a laugh, the others’ heads peaking up in interest.
Hwa wipes his forehead and realises that his hand now has sauce on it, so he sticks his fingers in his mouth without a second thought, no longer crying at all. His members all watch him with varying degrees of astonishment.
Mingi’s the first to speak, with a rather confused tone, “He’s acting like a kid.”
There’s a murmur of agreement and the quick typing of phone keyboards before Wooyoung announces “Little space!”
“What?” Multiple voices are heard in reply.
“Hwa-hyung is in little space.”
“And what is little space?” Yunho asks on behalf of the other members.
“Little space is where you get into the head space of a child, entering a child like care-free space away from the adult world. It is a way of coping with stress.” Wooyoung reads off his phone.
“So he is a kid.” San states, “Or like, he’s being a kid.”
Wooyoung nods, “Right now, yeah. That’s basically what this site says.”
“Ask him.” Mingi says. The others look at him confused
“What?” Jongho asks.
“Ask Seonghwa-hyung if he’s in little space.” Mingi clarifies. Jongho looks at Hwa, who is still sucking on his fingers, seemingly unaware of everything going on around him, then at Mingi, then back at Hwa and opens his mouth.
“Uh, Seonghwa-hyung?” Hwa looks away from whatever he was concentrated on up on the roof and over at Jongho with a quizzical expression, “Are you, uh, in little space?”
The group holds a collective breath as they wait for Hwa to answer. Hwa looks around at the other members, and just as they think that he didn’t understand the question he looks back at Jongho and nods.
“You’re in little space?” This time it’s Wooyoung who asks the question. Hwa looks at him and nods again. Just as he opens his mouth to ask another question, Hongjoong and Yeosang reenter the room. Hongjoong is holding a pacifier and teddy bear in his hands.
“What have you figured out?”
“Hwa-hyung’s in little space.” Yunho provides. After a little explanation both Yeosang and Hongjoong are caught up and they pay attention to Hwa again, who is tracing circles on his plate with his finger. Hongjoong hands the items to Yunho, who gets Hwa’s attention.
“Hey, Hwa, buddy?” Hwa looks up at Yunho, then notices the items in the mans hands, immediately going to grab them excitedly. Yunho lets him and Hwa quickly places the pacifier in his mouth and wraps his arms around the bear. The group takes a second to coo at the little’s cuteness before talking to figure out what to do.
After a few minutes of the seven members talking and Hwa basically ignoring them, Hwa’s tummy rumbles and he whines, looking over at Jongho and his full plate of food. The maknae looks over at the little, noticing his gaze, “You hungry?”
Hwa cocks his head to the side and nods, confirming that yes, he is indeed hungry still. The rest of the group fall silent as Jongho takes some meat into his chopsticks and uses his other hand to gently pull the pacifier from Hwa’s mouth. Hwa lets him and gladly accepts the food.
“Okay,” Hongjoong decides, “Let’s all eat and worry about this afterwards, the foods getting cold.”
There is collective sigh of agreement and they all settle in to eat dinner. Throughout the meal both Jongho and Yunho take turns feeding Seonghwa off of their plates, with the occasional mouthful offered by the other members from across the table. Within ten minutes the eight boxes of takeout they had brought home is gone and seven content men and one very happy little remain.
When it is clear that he won’t be receiving any more food, Hwa puts his pacifier back in his mouth and realises how tired he is. He leans to his right and rests his head on Yunho’s shoulder, the newly appointed pillow looks down at him and smiles, “You gotta admit, he is very cute.”
“He is,” Hongjoong agrees, smiling at the little, motherly instincts kicking in, “He also looks very tired,” He looks at Jongho, “Can you carry him to bed?”
Jongho stands up and picks Hwa up, Hongjoong following him to his and Seonghwa’s room, where Jongho puts him down. Hwa barely fusses, burrowing into his pillow as Hongjoong tucks him in. Hongjoong makes a ‘shh’ gesture and Jongho nods, leaving the room quietly. Hongjoong observes Hwa for a couple seconds, deciding that he is adequately asleep, before turning off the lights, closing the door and wondering how the hell he never noticed this in the first place.