Chapter Text
***
It was the day that he decided to leave them all, and Seungmin was the first one to notice.
“Where did Hyunjin go?” he asked Minho, passing over one of the bottled energy drinks he was holding onto. The older gave him an answer that he didn’t fully approve of by heart; he knew Hyunjin long enough to understand that ‘not feeling physically well’ was not an excuse to be interpreted literally. Jeongin and Felix decided to simply shrug it off, mumbling something about giving that poor boy a break and a couple comments on how hard all of the members had been pushing themselves recently.
The timing felt so off, he thought. Minho seemed synced with him on that note, and he reacted quickly yet acted casually, asking the older if he could use a longer break to grab something from the dorm. He hoped that both of them were just overreacting; Hyunjin might be known for having a fragile mentality, but that doesn’t equate that he personally would like to be treated as porcelain art pieces. But there was just something alarming – something blaring out from the back of his head – that made him unable to slow down his steps going back home.
He had started running before he had realized. The normal passing of trees, pedestrians or the convenience store at the crossing all felt so abnormal; his heart was beating so fast that he could no longer distinguish if the source was the intense exercise that he’d never been used to, or the irrational fear of something happening, something he would never want to imagine happening to his teammate, his friend, an essential part of his ordinary life that made him feel less ordinary of himself.
No one answered the main door at his knocking, or calling, or screaming of Hyunjin’s full name.
Kim Seungmin searched every single other room before he set his eyes on the bathroom at the end of the hallway, the one only Chan and Hyunjin would use for a bath. Most other members were not as passionate about steaming baths, either full-body or the fashionable (time-efficient) half-body ones. The thought of his members gave him comfort, and the fact he couldn’t find his member anywhere else gave him a greater amount of pain and despair.
He slammed the door open, with such a force that the thin piece of paper sign - indicating “DO NOT ENTER; CALL 112 [*1]” - got knocked off the tiny strip of tape, falling off to the ground like a dying butterfly struggling to go up with broken wings for the very last time of its life. All he could see was red, a disgustingly beautiful shade of red, slowly taking away the life of someone who was once so full of life.
How could this be the Hwang Hyunjin he knew?
***
Jisung ran into the practice room, panting, eyes rimmed with redness. It was Chan who sent him here, after receiving a phone call from Seungmin that left the leader trembling, unable to form a complete sentence until Changbin took over the phone. And the exact same response appeared on Changbin, who quickly held onto Chan’s arm to get them both running down the JYPE building towards the direction of their dorm.
Chan pleaded with him to meet with the three who were still at practice in the room here and not let anyone leave, and he would do anything to make sure Chan’s words were put in full force. Jeongin kept asking him what happened, and he had never hated himself so much for not knowing; Chan and Changbin had decided not to tell him, and he obliged knowing that they were doing it out of their best ever intention.
The phone of Minho vibrated, along with Chan’s full name and a picture of his genuinely happy smiling face.
“It was Hwang Hyunjin, isn’t it.” Lee Minho heard himself say that. He had to block the door with his entire body and force to stop the remaining three – especially Jisung – from leaving his vision. They couldn’t afford to let anyone else go stray at this point; Minho was neither the oldest nor the leader, but it has always been part of his responsibility for his dongsaengs to stay safe and sound.
“I can’t - I don’t know what to do, Minho-ah.” Chan responded in a choking voice. “He cut his wrist open.”
Chan sounded like he was running, like he was crying his heart out, like he had lost control of his physical and emotional strength as the one and only leader of Stray Kids. Minho’s first instinct was to console him, to comfort him, but not a single word was able to find its way out of his mouth. So he stayed silent, listening to Chan’s hitched breathing sounds and sobs, until he heard Changbin banging a door open and calling for Seungmin. He moved his phone off his ear, turned on the speaker on full volume, and held it high up, projecting towards his three dongsaengs .
“He was already like this when I found him in the bathtub…” Everyone was now able to hear Seungmin breaking down. “I tried to bandage over the wrist, and – we don’t have a tourniquet at home so I wrapped this shirt on the upper arm as tight as I could… But the bleeding doesn’t seem to stop; I can feel his breathing and pulses but all so weak and I – I don’t know; I’m so sorry this is the best I can do.”
They heard a lot more following up on that, like Chan’s failed attempt to tell Seungmin that he’s done enough as his own voice was muffled by his own tears, like Changbin’s comforting words – more towards the unresponsive Hwang Hyunjin than Kim Seungmin — saying that the sun would rise again and the darkness would be dissolved into nothing, like their manager’s calling about the arrival of paramedics and the urgent need to transfer him to a hospital.
At the end, not that many of them were still paying attention. Felix grabbed the phone off his hand with a horrified expression, asking Chan something in English that he didn’t receive any clear answer from. Jisung was kneeling on the wooden floor, pressing Jeongin’s head close into his chest, telling him that Hyunjin would be fine, even though he himself was shaking uncontrollably.
Even though none of them knew if he would actually be fine by the end of day.
***
The seven of them reunited in the practice room not too long after the call. As usual, Bang Chan was the last one entering the room, and the natural instinct of doing a quick head-count for all eight members hurt him more than ever. He could barely stand from the adrenaline crash, and the weight of possibly losing Hyunjin dragged his stance down even further.
“I’m really sorry.” Minho stood up from the little circle of cuddling pile, going straight up to Seungmin, Changbin, and Chan with the most sorrowful expression one might ever find on his face. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let him go back home alone.”
Seungmin, in response to that, just cried even harder. His plain white shirt was stained in different shades of red, some patches turning brown yet some still fiery, warmly fiery, contrasting the pale, cold skin of that motionless body he had found sinking down the redness. His beautiful voice — the one that Hyunjin never ceased to admire and compliment – was completely destroyed; he couldn’t stop wailing even when there were barely any more tears left to shed.
Minho reached over to the side table and grabbed some sanitizing wipes, trying to clean the blood stain covering all over the younger’s hands and lower arms. Seungmin shivered at the touch of Minho’s warm fingers, and looked up at his hyung, asked him a question that no one except Hyunjin would be able to answer.
“Why didn’t he come to me?” He said, not expecting any answer from anyone present.
Their managers, accompanied by a couple of staff members in charge of public relations, rushed into the practice room, told them to stay together until further notice, and informed them that they would be soon seen by the company’s appointed counselors for crisis intervention. We are working to minimize the negative impact of this matter , they announced, leaving a small team supervising them for security purposes.
Felix was the first one to notice the little pile of folder and notebooks — packaged and tied up with strings using the exact same textiles that he had seen on his birthday present from Hyunjin not too long ago – that was held tightly in Chan’s arms. He recognized the hand-written note saying “to Stray Kids members” on top of the pile, but before he could react, the entire pile was forcibly taken by one staff member, claiming that they had to go through everything left by Hwang Hyunjin before the actual recipients had access to the content.
Each of them was then called out for emergency counseling, one by one, to the outside, and sat through a full-length session of psychiatric evaluation. The ones inside were mostly interrogated with questions regarding “abnormal behavior” or “presentation of excessive mental distress”, forced to watch a group of strangers sight-seeing upon what Hyunjin had left for them: a notebook, a sketchbook, a hard drive, and some miscellaneous sheet music of his half-formed solo projects.
“Have you gone through the drive?” One of the staff turned to another. “Nothing special in here: the notebook was for lyrics and the sketchbook for some ordinary drawings.” The other one just shrugged and said that only dance practice recordings were to be found , not a single trace of last words or alarming statements regarding the company. The group had a quick exchange of words, and finally agreed to return the pile back to the members. Jisung took over the notebook; Felix chose the sketchbook; Jeongin received the sheet music with both hands.
Changbin and Chan connected the hard drive to their own laptop; it took them half of the first video to realize that these were definitely not “just dance practice recordings”. They were tutorials, to be exact: the kind of tutorials that were created to accommodate most of their choreography into a version with a seven member line-up. Some of the songs had been performed by only seven members during Hyunjin’s hiatus, and even for those ones, he made comments throughout the entire live performance with things to improve upon regarding the changes in formation and/or moves.
They managed to show the rest of the members the videos without attracting too much attention from the supervising crew. The horrific realization finally caught up on each and every single one of them, almost brutally, telling them that this unimaginable was no more than a tragedy foretold.
***
By the time they were allowed to go back to the dorm, it was already early morning of the next day. The security crew would not be supervising them any more, and the management team from Division 1 made the decision to postpone all of their schedules through the end of next week. They were told to stay in the dorm, and the company for now would make a public announcement using “potential COVID exposure” as an excuse for this temporary hiatus. Along with that, the manager, who was at the hospital for the past few hours, finally brought back so far the best news they were to expect –
Hyunjin made it through the acute blood loss.
Over the phone, the doctors in charge gave a fairly detailed explanation on the hemorrhagic shock that caused his loss of consciousness; Seungmin’s first aid application was in time for the total blood loss to be maintained below the dangerous limit. The strategy of damage control resuscitation had been initiated to reduce the risk of coagulopathy, acidosis, and hypothermia — the “lethal triad” that commonly occurs in trauma. They would be continuing to monitor some more physiological responses such as tachycardia and tachypnea, and although he was still unresponsive at this point, his vitals signs seemed to stabilize after the blood transfusion procedure.
“He should be able to wake up in a day or two. I will keep you all updated.” The manager said, ending the call in a hurry to bring the news to the PR team at JYPE.
They spent the rest of the day – or maybe the next day as well – doing nothing. None of them was able to fall asleep; the most resting they were able to get was dozing off, holding onto each other while waiting for more updates from the hospital. The company had ordered a professional team to clean the house thoroughly before they got back, and the bathroom, which used to smell like Hyunjin’s expensive hair treatment, was now marinated by the scent of hydrogen peroxide.
Videos were playing on the television serving as the background noise for this deadly silent atmosphere. It started with a complete list of their music videos, and then the algorithm simply took over and played a bunch of related content, until Chan impatiently stopped the auto-playing and plugged in the HDMI cord from the TV onto his laptop.
There was something more important for them to figure out, and the only sources that might lead them to a possible answer were these dance practice videos compiled by Hyunjin, with one of the earliest recording files created on the day of their victory on Kingdom .
Jisung, tired of himself crying, went to Hyunjin’s bed instead. He wrapped himself in the soft textile — a pile of unwashed clothes and blanket — seeking for the imaginary comfort that he was still there with them, and everything that had happened in the past 30 hours was just an absurd dream.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let it pass. Because out of all seven of them, he was the only one who should have been able to foresee its happening.
+++
No one expected them to be this close so quickly; not even Bang Chan the leader, who originally proposed the idea of them staying after team practice to help each other improve rapping and dancing, respectively. Everyone, including Hyunjin himself, joked about how an intense fight at the basement level was a crucial part to form a strong and beautiful friendship. Jisung didn’t hate this; he liked this interpretation better than what had actually happened, and decided to keep it as a secret — a harmless truth that no one else would expect to hear from him, Han Jisung.
And he broke his promise to himself on that day, the day after their public performance of Hellevator that led to the elimination of Felix, when he found Hyunjin alone in the practice room with no lights on.
He was about to ask if Hyunjin was alright, and quickly realized that it was such a pointless question to give in the first place; everyone was so devastated after the PD-nim announced Felix’s elimination. No one was alright; no one would be alright for a long time.
He turned on the dimmest light from the control panel, and without any hesitation, went to hug the taller boy from the back. Their hearts were both beating so fast, one echoing the motion of another, like they were two bodies connected by one soul.
“Neither Minho-hyung nor Felix deserved this.” he heard Hyunjin say, through the vibration of his vocal cords and the air as an external medium. “They are both brilliant dancers. They both work way harder than I do. And somehow I got the privilege of staying but they didn’t.”
Hyunjin paused for a second, wiping the silent tears off his cheek. “This is too unfair for them.”
He wanted to refute that statement, wanted to tell Hyunjin that he shouldn’t deprecate himself in such a horrible manner, but he was in no position to tell him that. And the best he could do was to switch the subject of this conversation, in the hope to show that it was something out of the control from any of them.
“Your words can’t make PD-nim change his mind.”
“But my death can.”
He couldn’t believe what Hyunjin had just said. Thus the taller boy repeated, with the articulation he learned from practicing rapping with Jisung.
“Jisung-ah, my death will serve more purposes than my life.”
Hyunjin looked almost relieved; his entire face, including the puffy eyes and dried skin from crying too long, too hard, showed a faint shade of euphoria. “Yeongdong Bridge is the closest from here. There can be quite some patrolling at night but I can make it work.” He said, as if talking about which late-night snacks to choose from. “Or maybe Mapo Bridge is the better option. I heard the wind there is really nice.” [*2]
Jisung felt nothing but freezing coldness creeping into his skin.
He remembered overhearing Seungmin, who joined the team later than most of the other trainees, once whispered to his hyungs after another fight broke out between him and Hyunjin, “I really don’t get why they couldn’t get along… They are the same person after all.”
And in response to that, Changbin said, “Not everyone loves themselves.”
He was always angry. He was always depressed. He always wanted to show his full potential but his mental state didn’t allow any of it. He didn’t know how to face Hwang Hyunjin; he didn’t know how to face this mirrored figure — the self-loathing, easily-irritated, and hopelessly suicidal image — of Han Jisung himself.
“Please don’t do this to me…” he pleaded, staring into Hyunjin’s eyes. “Please don’t leave me here alone after giving me the hope to carry on.”
“That time in the basement, when you corrected my dance move in front of everyone, I was so, so ready to just let go. I couldn’t handle it any more, and that thought just snapped in my head.
“I know you would never let down your pride, not to mention that you were in the right position to point out my mistake. So I told myself that, if this dude didn’t take his words back, I would not give myself another chance to be a huge disappointment ever again…
“But you apologized to me right after!
“I was so furious ‘cuz you apologized. I couldn’t fathom the fact that you apologized to me for something you didn’t even do wrong, and that thought has haunted me since then, telling me there’s still something to live for.
“That’s why it got on my nerves. That’s why I yelled back at you even harder and said such horrible things in front of our teachers and other trainees. I picked up my stance to fight against you, telling you to mind your own business, because you didn’t let me go, even when I was ready to let myself go.”
Both of their faces were covered in tears at the last syllable of Jisung’s words. Hyunjin had buried his face at Jisung’s chest, grabbing onto his sleeves, as if Jisung was the only anchor he could find amongst the void of life. He must be in so much pain, Han Jisung thought, holding him even tighter in his embrace, waiting for the heavy emotional disturbance to calm down.
That was also the very first time that Hyunjin showed his wounds to Jisung, figuratively and literally, as he tugged down the sweatpants’ waistband to his lower abdomen area, fingers trembling in shame and fear.
His eyes widened at the sight: Hyunjin marked that entire sentence, the line he messed up at their very first public performance for Hellevator, onto his own skin.
+++
Jisung found himself screaming silently into Hyunjin’s blanket when Chan woke him up softly.
“He’s awake, and he asks to see you there.”
***
The past three days had not been treating anyone well, Jisung thought. During his car ride to the hospital, their manager barely had a moment without talking to someone on the phone. He was content about that, strangely; he didn’t know what to say besides asking about Hyunjin’s wellbeing, which would make another dumb question with an obvious answer.
He didn’t have time to prepare a lot for the visit. The manager told them that Hyunjin would be transferred to the inpatient psychiatric unit as soon as his physical health allowed, and the regulations there weren’t generous enough to let in quite some art supplies that Hyunjin typically used (for good reason). Before he got overwhelmed by his own anxiety, Chan helped him order a large bouquet — a beautiful mixture of daisies, carnations, and other little ones that he couldn’t name, embraced by green foliage — that was almost too big for Jisung to hold onto. He also carried an entire set of watercolor brush pens, a gift he was planning on giving Hyunjin for Christmas, inside a pencil case of leather texture to get rid of the original packaging with hard plastic.
His parents already left when Jisung arrived. Hyunjin’s hair seemed to be growing a little bit longer than the last time he saw him, one side tucked behind his ear yet another side lightly caressing his sharp jawline. He was covered in a thick wool shawl over the hospital gown, left lower arm hiding under the tray; he seemed so concentrated on drawing with a mechanical pencil that Jisung wasn’t even sure if he noticed him coming.
It was Kkomi that Hyunjin was drawing.
“I actually don’t remember much.” Hyunjin said, eyes still focused on the notepad denoted with the hospital logo; his wristband was dragging back and forth on the paper surface, and Jisung pretended not to see that. “I only remember seeing Kkomi, after I picked up the box cutter. He was barking at me, really, really loudly. I don’t ever remember hearing him barking like this, especially given that he had already been so sick when he came to my family.”
“Suddenly I was back home again, and Kkami was there, too. I was just so happy that Kkami got a chance to meet his hyung, but before I was able to bring Kkami closer, he started growling, almost like a wolf, towards Kkomi. Kkomi got startled, and was trying to run away from us; I wanted to run after him but Kkami bit into my pants, still growling, as if he was scared that I would never come back.
“I looked down at the floor and all I saw was blood, my own blood. Kkami was standing in my blood, barking and crying. And I finally realized that couldn’t be Kkomi.”
Hyunjin looked up from the little piece of paper, forcing a smile on his face for Jisung. “How could that be Kkomi? Kkomi has become a little star, shining from the sky, from a really, really long time ago.”
Jisung asked him, “Do you want to become a little star, too?”
Hyunjin didn’t answer. He moved to the side, emptying half of the space on the bed for Jisung to lie down. He was so cold, even across multiple layers of clothings Jisung could still feel the chills coming from the taller boy tucked in the blanket. He didn’t smell like the perfume Felix had gifted him; he didn’t smell like the 50,000-won-worth hair treatment; he didn’t smell like a medley of charcoal, acrylic paints, canvas panel, or wooden easel.
He was never a fan of hospitals, but the pungent odor of rubbing alcohol and disinfecting bleach meant that Hyunjin was still alive.
Jisung was sobbing before he could stop himself. He was basically locking Hyunjin into his arms with such strength that should definitely have made the hugged one feel pain. Yet Hyunjin didn’t stop him either; he stayed in the position of the little spoon, and all he could hear was Jisung, sound waves traveling through the air and through his broken body. He let Jisung fall asleep alongside him; this poor boy didn’t seem to receive any rest for the past three days, thanks to him, Hwang Hyunjin.
“I won’t be able to be a little star; that’s for souls that deserve love and hope.” Hyunjin whispered, and lightly squeezed Jisung’s hand. “I’m afraid that I will go straight to hell.”
***
He was guided towards a different VIP room the next time he came to visit Hyunjin at the hospital. It was on a lower level with a floor-to-ceiling window; instead of the busy city view of Seoul, the nice little courtyard on the back side of the main hospital building was shown really well. The setting put him in a lighter mood; he hoped this was something that could pass onto Hyunjin as well.
There was a little pile of Hyunjin’s artworks next to the pencil case that Jisung brought for him, and the owner of those seemed to be immersed with another one at this moment. He didn’t bother to cover up his left hand this time, wrist heavily bandaged up, contrasting with his skinny, pale lower arm, fingers holding onto the water color pen with a particular shade of red similar to the one he tried to hide underneath the bandage.
All of his other works were out of pencil sketches and the same shade of red, as well.
He must have been zoning out for a long while, as he found Hyunjin staring at him, with those big, tragic eyes that made him almost tear up again. And Hyunjin just smiled at him in response, sitting up straight on the bed; Jisung noticed that he tried to hide the left hand again.
“I’m glad that you will be discharged soon.” Jisung held onto his hand – the unharmed one – and gently tapped on the back of it as comfort. Hyunjin had been here for almost two weeks, more than half of which was spent talking to psychiatrist, counselors, and representatives from JYPE.
It was also about the time for their temporary hiatus as a whole team to end. Jisung really hated to bother Hyunjin with such a matter: he was hospitalized for a good reason, and constantly reminding him of what he had done along with the impact of it was definitely not helpful for his recovery. But he did carry a mission today, and he needed one answer from Hyunjin on behalf of the rest of the Stray Kids.
And while Hyunjin was still deep in his thoughts trying to give an appropriate response regarding his own discharge, Jisung went on and asked him, “Will it hurt you to come back to us?”
“Hurt?” Hyunjin was caught off guard. He looked up at Jisung, perplexed at his word choice. “Why would that hurt me?”
Jisung looked away, bit down on his lower lip bitterly. “We must have hurt you a lot to make you do this to yourself.”
The long-haired boy almost jumped at his words. He grabbed onto Jisung’s arm, trying to explain that none of these had anything to do with them as a team; but his voice cracked as soon as he said that, unable to make any further comment. Jisung hugged him from the side, knowing that this reaction should make a strong enough statement by itself.
Hyunjin was officially discharged on the next day. He hugged his parents when they came by and brought him even more flowers, expressed his gratitude towards the hospital staff in charge of his case, and changed from the plain hospital gown into the clothes brought by his manager. He personally knew every single one of these garments, and because of that, he willingly dressed himself in Changbin’s hat, Jeongin’s necklace, Seungmin’s scarf, Jisung’s t-shirt, Chan’s coat, Felix’s track pants, and Minho’s handmade bead bracelets on both hands.
This was the small warmth spared by all of his teammates that calmed him down during the ride back to the company. His leader greeted him with a warm hug as soon as he arrived, palming his face as if he happened to be the most precious treasure that Chan had ever come across.
“I trust Jisung, but in case you changed your mind since yesterday, I still want to ask for myself, and us of course…” Bang Chan sat him down next to the meeting room, not caring about the attention given by the company staff and their managers nearby. “Will you be comfortable enough to come back to us, after all?”
He heard him making an emphasis on the “all” part, which made him start wondering if he truly deserved such kindness. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking, thinking about how the seven of them had to pay for his own mistake, thinking about how his existence was merely a major inconvenience to his surroundings, and they clearly wanted this inconvenience back for some reason he couldn’t quite comprehend.
And he nodded at Chan at the end.
He felt his leader’s hand gently placed on his lower back, holding him up as they entered the meeting. This was nothing new to him; he had gone through much worse situations during his hiatus earlier this year. In comparison to that, everyone present at this meeting seemed a lot softer on their facial expression; perks of surviving a suicide attempt, he thought. There were also a couple of other JYP artists, in addition to the company staff, who were probably asked to be there as a preparation in case potential threats like this ever happened in their own teams.
He no longer cared about this. He was with Chan and Chan only; Chan wanted him there. Chan, representing the entire team of Stray Kids, had made it clear that they all wanted Hwang Hyunjin there.
He couldn’t afford to disappoint them again.
***
[*1: Police line in South Korea]
[*2: Mapo Bridge is known as the suicide bridge in Seoul. One of the handrails used to have engravings saying “the wind is really nice” to discourage people from enacting upon suicidal intentions.]