Chapter Text
It was no secret that Bang Chan had a complicated relationship with sleep.
Chan knew it, the rest of Stray Kids knew it, hell, even their fans knew it. His consistent lack of sleep had morphed into a sort of morbid joke over the years, with group members offhandedly commenting “Ah, you know how Chan-hyung is, always staying up late working!” or “He only sleeps three hours a night and yet he works so hard. Uwa~, our great leader Bang Chan-hyung!”
They sang words of praise, but the worried tones hidden beneath were clear. At some point, his insomnia had stopped being an inside joke and had instead become a point of concern.
His members tried coaxing him out of his room to take a break every once in a while, persuading him with food or cuddles to shut down his laptop even five minutes earlier than usual. Changbin and Jisung had even tried to implement a “no more studio work after 2 am” rule. A rule which Chan often broke, and no amount of aegyo, bribery, or outright pleading could make him follow it once he had gotten in the zone.
He saw the overwhelming number of comments from fans saying he needed to take care of himself, get more sleep. Bang Chan works so hard for us, don’t you think he deserves a break?
You look tired, Channie. Have you slept?
I don’t know how he functions. I’d die if I slept as little as him.
Please take care of yourself! We love you, Chan! Make sure to sleep a lot tonight, okay?
And he tried his best. He really did. Tried to set boundaries between work and rest. Tried to have a strict routine.
Tried to give in when his members begged him to stop working and just rest already, hyung, please.
He was trying to be better.
But in the end, there was just too much work to be done.
Countless meetings with his managers, company officials, even JYP himself. Vocal lessons, dance practice, photoshoots, song recordings.
Variety show appearances, music show performances, award ceremonies.
Recording sessions, music video planning, comeback preparations.
The list went on and on and on.
Too many deadlines to meet. Too many people to impress. Always striving to remain relevant and grow in popularity.
There simply weren’t enough hours in the day to do everything Chan wanted, no, needed to do.
Heaving a tired sigh, Chan clicks the save button on his latest music recording for the millionth time before slowly lowering his head to the desk. The wood feels cool against his skin and he closes his eyes, reveling in the brief moment of respite. He resists the urge to check his phone and instead focuses on his breathing, trying in vain to stay awake.
Even without looking, Chan already knows that it’s past midnight. It has to be—it feels like he’s been trapped in the studio for days. The tiny room has no windows, which is a blessing and a curse in and of itself, so it’s impossible to tell, but deep down Chan knows. It has to be some ungodly hour of the night-turned-morning. It wouldn’t be a typical day in his life otherwise.
There are only four more months until Stray Kids’ tentative comeback and they’re still nowhere near finished with the songs they plan to put on the album. Of the thirteen tracks considered, only one is technically finished. And calling it “finished” is being generous, in Chan’s opinion.
The rest of the tracks are still in the early stages of development, so bare-boned that the only thing of substance they have are the background music for the first verse and the chorus. No melody. No lyrics. Just a fleeting idea of sound that could barely be called an instrumental.
Chan wishes the fans knew just how much work it took to put together an album. Of course, he always wants to provide fresh content for STAY, since it would keep them occupied until the next album release and potentially attract new fans, but there’s hardly any time to do anything else other than music production these days. It takes up so much of his time and brainpower that by the end of the day, he doesn’t have the energy to do a vlog or a V Live unless it’s already been penciled into his schedule.
That’s why he’s beyond grateful for the other members like Felix, Jeongin, and Hyunjin who always manage to find time to record something extra in addition to their already hectic schedules. Even if they’re exhausted or only have a few minutes between the next activity, they make time to take pictures for Instagram or do a quick V Live.
Compared to the rest of the group, Chan can’t help but feel horribly inadequate.
They’re just as busy as I am , he always thinks, and yet they get so much more accomplished. Why does it seem like I’m the only one struggling to keep up?
He sighs, rubbing his head against the desk in a halfhearted attempt to shake off his thoughts. Spiraling down into an echo chamber of self-hate would get him nowhere. It would just be a waste of time—something he can’t afford right now.
Instead, he blearily raises his head, eyes coming to rest on the screen in front of him. The music editing software looks like a rainbow with how many separate sound recordings are stacked on top of each other. Chan’s eyes begin to water with the strain of staring at a screen nonstop for hours on end, colors muddying together and becoming one giant blur.
Which song was he working on again? How did it go? There’s a pressure building behind Chan’s forehead that’s making it too difficult to think.
Right. The title track. Or, what Chan hopes will be the album’s title track. At the rate things are going, he’ll be lucky if they have enough material to release a mini-album, much less a full one. Or worse, a measly digital single.
There’s a strangled, high-pitched sort of groan that Chan belatedly realizes comes from his own mouth as he looks over the various sound layers. He’s been working on this track for so long now that at this point it just sounds like white noise, and he knows that he should stop for the night and listen to it later with fresh ears.
But his deadline is creeping up quickly, like a snake slithering through the grass. Except he already feels like the snake has him in a chokehold and it’s slowly squeezing the life out of him. He has a meeting with JYP tomorrow ( Today? What day is it anyways? ) to go over the album tracklist, and if he doesn’t have at least two songs to present to their CEO, he’ll be in deep shit.
He sighs again—he’s been doing that a lot these days—and starts the song from the top once more. The deep bass reverberates in his head and he feels the percussion hammering away in his chest like a second heartbeat. He drums his fingers against the desk absentmindedly as he lets the music flow in one ear and out the other.
There’s something missing. Something extra that would really make the track pop, elevate it to the next level. But Chan’s brain is too tired to pinpoint exactly what it is.
Maybe it needs more percussion? Or perhaps some piano layered on top of the synths to give it an 80s retro-pop vibe. Chan shakes his head, clenches his fist in frustration. How long was the stupid song going to give him trouble? Why couldn’t he just finish it already?
It’s so tempting to rage-quit and delete the entire track altogether, but Chan has done that once before and it was the single biggest regret of his life. So he resists the urge and instead saves his work for the last time before finally, finally deciding he has had enough.
The universe seems to sense his quiet admission of defeat, for no sooner does he close the editing software than his phone starts to ring.
He doesn’t bother to look at the caller ID as he answers the call. He has a pretty good idea of who it is anyway. “Hello?”
"Hyung, are you still at the studio?” Jisung’s voice is loud, bordering on shrill, and Chan winces, moving the phone a good few inches away from his already sore ears.
Something about Jisung’s tone of voice sparks a small flame of irritation in Chan’s chest, and he wants to snap back with of course I am, unlike someone who decided to slack off and go home early, but stops himself before the first word can leave his mouth. He knows he’s not actually angry, he’s just tired. Tired and in desperate need of a good night’s sleep.
Instead, he takes a moment to calm himself and think of his next words carefully. “I was just about to leave,” he ends up saying. And while it’s not entirely the truth, it’s not a complete lie either. He’s not really in the mood to be scolded by the younger member, so even though he had planned on remaining in the studio until he could finish this song, he decides to wrap things up and head out early. At least this way he can placate the rest of the group and hopefully get some more sleep.
Hopefully .
“Aish…” There’s an indistinct grumbling and something about owing Changbin five-thousand won before Jisung’s voice crackles through the speaker again. “It’s five-thirty. Jeongin will be getting up for school in a half an hour.”
Well shit.
Chan makes no attempt to suppress the curse that he mumbles to himself as he hurriedly begins to pack up his belongings. He only half listens to Jisung’s disappointed sigh as he frantically saves his work and stuffs his laptop into his backpack before bolting out the door.
Waiting for the elevator would take too long, so despite being on the sixth floor, Chan takes the stairs down to the lobby with lightning speed. He nearly trips and smashes his face into the floor multiple times, but before he knows it he’s dashing out of the JYP building and onto the sidewalk.
The sky has brightened, pastel blue with wispy pink clouds like freshly-spun cotton candy, signaling the start of another spring day. The crisp morning air nips at Chan’s nose as he half-walks-half-jogs down the city streets. Jisung’s lecturing drones on and on in his ear but he ignores it, his mind a jumbled mess of I’m late, I screwed up, I messed up again, god damn it—
He stops abruptly, nearly causing a head-on collision with another pedestrian when some of Jisung’s words manage to filter through his chaotic internal panicking and into his consciousness.
“What did you say?” he asks. It comes out harsher than he intends for it to because Jisung pauses before repeating himself, his tone apprehensive.
“ Changbin-hyung and I were just thinking that you should take a break. Just for a day, at least.” He adds that last part quickly, knowing Chan would protest any amount of downtime. He continues, “I’m sure JYP would understand and push back our meeting another day or two.”
Chan really, really wants to scoff at that, because honestly, for all the effort their CEO had made at trying to treat his artists as human beings, he was still just as tough on them as any of the other Big Three CEOs. Sure, being in JYP had its perks—an emphasis on mental health and being able to take breaks when desperately needed being one of, if not the biggest—but at the end of the day, it was all about money.
JYP, and by extension Stray Kids, doesn’t make money if Chan takes a break. He needs to keep producing, needs to work hard to make new music, otherwise he’ll lose his creative control over the group. JYP took a massive gamble with Stray Kids by allowing them to be almost entirely self-produced, something that was practically unheard of in the company, much less the kpop industry itself. If Chan can’t prove to his boss that he’s capable of one, consistently producing music, and two, producing music with consistent quality, then he can kiss his entire career goodbye.
So no, Chan thinks, JYP would absolutely not give them an extension. Jisung’s a fool to even entertain the idea.
“Wow, okay hyung, rude.” Jisung mutters. Shit, did he say that out loud?
“Sure did, buddy.”
Chan shakes his head and rubs furiously at his eyes. “Shit, Jisung. I’m sorry. I’m just really tired right now.” It’s a piss-poor excuse, even though it’s true, but the apology is accepted anyway and Chan feels a little less guilty about his irritable behavior. If anyone were to understand how truly stressed out he’s been feeling lately, it would be Jisung and Changbin without a doubt.
After all, the two of them have said far worse things about each other. Calling Jisung a fool would probably be more of a compliment than anything else.
Around the corner, the Stray Kids dorm finally comes into view, a towering skyscraper that hardly stands out among the rest of the highrises in the concrete jungle that is Seoul. In a way Chan is glad that it looks so commonplace and has no unique qualities—sasaengs can’t track them down as easily when practically every apartment building in the city looks the same.
He readjusts his face mask as he quickens his pace, taking the stairs two at a time up to the apartment lobby. There’s a rather inconspicuous black van parked next to the sidewalk that causes Chan to do a double take. He curses under his breath. Their manager is already here to take Jeongin to school. Which means—
“Oof!”
Something solid collides with Chan and he stumbles back, hand unconsciously darting forward and grasping at whatever happens to be in front of him in order to keep his balance. He feels his foot slide backwards, plunging into open air where he thought there was a step, and suddenly he’s going down—
A hand grips his shoulder, clamping down hard. Chan is yanked back to a standing position before he can even blink. It makes him so dizzy he feels sick.
“Hyung?!”
Chan’s gaze finally focuses on their maknae’s face, his expression a mix of surprise and concern. “Jeongin-ah,” he breathes, still trying to get his bearings straight. Once he’s sure he’s not going to topple over, he shrugs the hand off his shoulder and instead reaches up to ruffle the younger’s hair, earning him an annoyed glare that quickly softens into a grin. “Aish, sorry about that, Innie.”
Jeongin beams down at him despite almost being bulldozed over just moments prior. His fox-like eyes crinkle up into half-moons as he smiles, readjusting his backpack over his shoulder. He spares a quick glance at his phone.
“You made it,” he says happily, innocently.
Guilt churns in Chan’s stomach and it makes him physically nauseous. There was another rule that Stray Kids had enacted several months ago: Chan must be home in time to see Jeongin off to school. It acted as a fail-safe for when he broke the rule about no studio work after 2 am (which was constantly). The members, but Changbin and Minho especially, had ganged up on Chan one morning after he had locked himself in a studio room and worked nonstop for two days straight.
Chan didn’t remember much about what they said, considering he was sleep deprived out of his mind at the time, but he did know there was a lot of crying involved, particularly from Jeongin, and the threat that if he ever stayed out too late and couldn’t be there for when Jeongin left to go to school at 6 am, the members would physically force Chan to stay home for at least two days. No working, no practicing, no nothing. They would lock him in his room and force him to do absolutely nothing.
Needless to say, Chan had been very good about coming home on time since then.
Except for today. Chan swallows thickly, remorse squeezing his throat. He could so vividly remember Jeongin begging him through tears to start taking better care of himself. So to see him so happy this morning, so relieved that Chan had met the bare minimum standard the members had set for him, it makes Chan feel like shit. Because he was almost late. He almost blew it. He was so close to disappointing them again.
He couldn’t bear to see Jeongin cry like that again.
It’s been silent for an uncomfortable length of time. Chan blinks, coughs awkwardly and fiddles with his backpack strap. “Just barely,” he quietly admits.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees one of their managers exiting the van by the sidewalk. Jeongin notices and follows his gaze, expression morphing into something akin to disappointment. “It’s okay, hyung.” He says it with a gentleness that makes Chan want to cry.
Man, he’s really fucking tired.
“Aish, go on or you’ll be late!” He reaches up to pinch the maknae’s cheek, soliciting an annoyed whine from the younger. Chan smiles fondly as Jeongin turns away, heading towards the van. “Have a good day at school!” he calls out.
Jeongin shoots him a smile as he opens the van door. “Go to bed, hyung!” he replies, and as soon as he closes the door behind him, the van pulls away, disappearing around the next corner. Chan watches it go, the guilt still simmering within his gut, but not quite as overwhelming as before.
Heaving a heavy sigh, he fishes in his pockets for the dorm key. The dorm is dark and silent as he enters, save for the creaking of the door as he shuts it softly behind him. Chan walks quietly past Jisung and Jeongin’s room and around the corner.
It’s eerie being in the dorm like this, so early in the morning while everyone is still sleeping. It’s too quiet, and normally he begs for any quiet moment he can get. But now, as he returns from another fruitless night of work to his members sleeping peacefully without a care in the world, the silence is suffocating.
Passing Minho, Hyunjin, and Seungmin’s room, he finally makes it to his own room at the end of the hall. The door is slightly ajar already, since Changbin prefers the soft hallway light rather than a full-blown nightlight. Chan pushes it open carefully, cringing as it squeaks on its hinges. Thankfully, neither of the other two occupants stir.
Chan sets his bag down on the floor slowly. He could go into the bathroom and freshen up a bit before he heads to bed, but his head is pounding too much and his eyelids are getting heavier and heavier with each passing second, so instead he climbs up the ladder to his bunk bed and settles in around his pillow fortress, pajamas be damned.
Normally his mattress isn’t the most comfortable thing to sleep on, what with him claiming the top bunk and all, but for some reason this morning it feels soft and fluffy like a giant puffy thundercloud. Chan sinks into it, sighing contently. He must be really tired for the bunk bed to feel this good. He wiggles around a bit, trying to find the perfect sleeping position, when something hard digs into his head from underneath his pillow.
There, stashed between the thin covering of his pillowcase and the hard mattress, is a small prescription bottle filled with yellow oval tablets.
Zolpidem, 10 milligrams, it reads. Chan’s sleeping pills.
He’s had the prescription for a long time, since before he even came to Korea in fact, but he hasn’t had to use it that often. It was more for emergencies, or cases when Chan couldn’t fall asleep for days on end. Things got kind of dicey a year or so ago when Chan had to take a pill every day for a week straight just to get even a few measly hours of sleep. Thankfully, these days his insomnia isn’t nearly as bad.
Chan removes the bottle from under his pillow and stares at it through bleary eyes, debating in his head if he should take one. It’s already nearly six o’clock, and he has to be up again at ten for a schedule; considering one pill will knock him out for at least a solid eight hours, it doesn’t seem worth it. Besides, he feels tired enough to fall asleep on his own and with relative ease.
It’s best to skip it, he ultimately decides, and shoves the bottle under the pillow to his right, which he has jammed against the bed board and the wall. It’ll be there if he ever truly needs it. Which, he ponders grimly, hopefully won’t be any time soon.
Exhaling a drawn-out sigh, Chan closes his eyes and tries to silence the thoughts swirling around chaotically in his mind. That damned song keeps nagging at him, along with the sense of impending doom he can’t help but feel about the upcoming meeting with JYP. If he could just figure out what was missing—that final touch that would make the song feel complete…
“Hyung?”
Chan startles as Changbin’s voice unexpectedly cuts through the silence. He leans over the bunk railing only to see Changbin squinting at him through bleary eyes from across the room. The younger boy’s hair sticks up in seemingly every direction and there’s a thin line of dried drool at the corner of his mouth. Evidently all of Chan’s tossing and turning has woken up the other member.
“What’s up, Bin?” Chan answers quietly, mindful of the fact that Felix is still sleeping in the bunk underneath him.
Changbin stretches his arms like a cat, then rolls over to face the wall. “Thanks for the money, hyung.”
Chan blinks, confused. “Money?” He doesn’t remember giving Changbin any money recently.
He can practically hear the mischievous smile in Changbin’s voice. “Sungie and I made a bet on how long you’d stay at the studio.”
Ah, that makes more sense. He remembers Jisung being upset about something like that. Chan chuckles, amused and yet unsurprised. “Well, I’m glad something came out of all that work,” he says ruefully.
“You were there for longer than usual this time.” Changbin tentatively notes with a hint of worry in his voice. “Did you finish the song?”
It’s an innocent question, and he knows Changbin is just asking out of curiosity, but for some reason it makes Chan feel as if a boulder has dropped in his stomach and suddenly there’s a giant wave of shame washing over him. Because no, he has not finished the song, even though he’s been working on it for weeks. If it was Changbin or Jisung, they’d be four or five tracks deep into the album by now.
It’s something that’s been plaguing Chan for the last few months or so, the feeling of being inadequate. He thinks it’s all stemmed from when he fell ill back in July; he was out of commission for several days and he’s been playing catch up ever since. But it seems like no matter what he does, he can't get back to where he used to be.
Though he doesn't consider himself one of the best dancers in Stray Kids by any means, he can still pick up new choreography relatively quickly compared to some other members. But just a few days of missed practice has really set him back. Previous choreos that he could practically dance in his sleep are now giving him trouble. Chan often finds himself stumbling over even the simplest of footwork, and more often than not he's being singled out and scolded by their dance teachers. You need to practice more, they always say, as if the hours upon hours of work he puts in, or the late nights he spends in the practice room alone, drenched in sweat and almost passing out from overexertion, aren’t enough.
His singing hasn’t been that great lately, either. At first, it was easy to blame the hoarseness in his voice and the struggle to reach high notes on being sick. But now that he's fully recovered—and has been for a few months, at least—Chan has no excuse. He has no explanation for why he can't hit that one note, or why his tone keeps falling flat or going too sharp.
Well, he does have one explanation. He just simply isn't good enough.
Not good enough at dancing, not good enough at singing, and definitely not good enough at songwriting, if the past twenty-four hours is any indication.
Tch, Chan scoffs at himself as he suppresses a yawn. I’m not even good at sleeping, for fuck’s sake.
“Hyung?”
Oh, right. Changbin asked him about the song. “No, I didn’t finish it," he shamefully admits.
Changbin hums, seemingly unbothered, but Chan wonders if the rapper is secretly annoyed with him. Chan certainly wouldn’t blame him, considering he’s already annoyed at himself. “That’s okay, we can work on it later today.”
“You really don’t need to,” he argues. “I can figure it out, I just need a little more time.” Please, let me prove that I'm not completely useless.
“The meeting with JYP-nim is tomorrow afternoon,” Changbin says pointedly, and Chan grimaces.
“I’ll have it done before then, I promise.”
The younger member sighs and flips onto his back. He glances over at Chan, and the poorly-veiled look of worry in his eyes is suddenly too much for Chan to handle and he turns away, hiding his face in his pillow.
“You work so hard, hyung, you know that?” Changbin’s voice is soft, almost a whisper. “You should rest; you deserve it.”
Chan closes his burning eyes against the tears that threaten to fall. He doesn’t answer, can’t answer, because if he opens his mouth he doesn’t think he’d be able to stop himself from telling Changbin that he’s wrong.