Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

                It’s seriously not even that bad of a fight.

                They’re just reaching the pre-chorus in the song when Jisung screws up the choreography, moving to the left instead of the right. He catches it immediately, sure, but it’s still annoying seeing himself go the complete opposite way in the mirror lining the wall across from the group. But, it’s just practice, and they still have a long way to go before they’re show-ready on this new song anyway. This early on, you don’t stop dancing for every little mistake; you get through the song, go over missteps, and start again.

                Hyunjin apparently feels differently.

                He steps out of his pose and stands with his hands on his waist, rolling his eyes. “You gotta stop screwing around,” he tells Jisung’s reflection, not bothering to turn to face him.

                Someone cuts the music. Jisung scrunches up his nose. Why is this worth stopping over? “Who’s screwing around? You’re the one holding us up! It’s not that big of a deal.”

                Hyunjin sighs dramatically and gestures to their reflections. “It’s a big deal when seeing you mess up messes me up every time I see it.”

                “Here we go,” Seungmin drily comments to Jeongin.  The youngest idol just shakes his head. They’ve all seen this before.

                “Ha!” Jisung exclaims humorlessly. “How’s it my problem if you can’t keep your eyes off of me?”

                Deciding the situation calls for some extra obnoxiousness, he gets in Hyunjin’s face (which requires him to stand on his tippy toes) and smooshes his own cheeks in a sort of bastardization of the concept of cuteness. Hyunjin shoves him back, not hard, just so that he stumbles a bit.

                “Can you take things seriously for once in your life?!”

                “Guys,” Chan interrupts. The mirrored wall shows their leader scrubbing a hand over his face tiredly. He’s so tired lately, they all are. “We’re taking fifteen. And you two,” he makes a point of locking eyes with Hyunjin and Han in turn, full of disapproval. “Take a walk. Don’t come back until you’re ready to be part of a team.”

                Jisung’s ready to argue with Chan immediately, but Hyunjin scoffs and marches out the door to the dance studio like a moody teenager. If they have to take a break, Jisung might as well do the same and get out from under Chan’s disappointed gaze. He makes a show of sighing as loudly as he can as he stomps over to his bag and grabs his phone. He stuffs it in his back pocket with more aggression than he needs to.

                “We’ll be waiting to see you guys kiss and make up,” Changbin shouts at his back and he retreats out the door.

                “I’d rather die!” Jisung sing-songs back with an exaggerated fake cheerfulness.

                “Hey!” Chan scolds.

                Jisung doesn’t even look back, just throws his hands up in mock-surrender as he leaves the room—and heads in the opposite direction of Hyunjin.

------------------

                As much as Jisung hates it, this is usually how they resolve fights in the group. Back at home, the quarrelling parties are made to separate before the argument goes too far and someone says something they regret. They usually go hide in different bedrooms (or Chan’s office, sometimes) until they’ve cooled off and either apologize or interact with each other in a way that shows they intend to pretend the argument never happened.

                After all, they live and work together. And idols are dramatic. They’re going to get on each other’s nerves sometimes. It’s not a big deal.

                What really sucks, in Jisung’s opinion, is when they have to have these “time-outs” when they’re somewhere else. He can’t hide in Minho’s room for a few hours until he calms down when they’re on a schedule and supposed to be working on choreography. The only option is to walk around the building for a while to get some distance, but it’s never enough time and it’s embarrassing because Stray Kids aren’t the only ones there. And sure, random JYPE employees and the occasional other idol or group aren’t going to know that he’s essentially been exiled until he can behave himself, like he’s a preschooler or something, but he knows, and that’s mortifying enough.

                With that in mind, he spares a glance down the hall behind him. Hyunjin’s already disappeared around a corner and he thinks, good, let Hyunjin have to walk past the receptionist and security station. Jisung, for one, would rather no one see him at all. Shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket, he wanders down a few hallways at random until he comes across an unmarked door. Impulsively, he shoulders it open and steps into a narrow, secluded stairway he’s only been vaguely aware existed before. There’s a fire exit a ways below him, at the bottom of the ground level steps, and looking up shows a few more rather spooky flights of steps not meant to be seen by anyone other than the office staff. He takes them at a jog, even though his legs are aching from dancing all morning.

                There’s a door at the top and it’s clearly rooftop access not meant for anyone but maintenance. But it doesn’t seem to have an alarm or anything, so he checks to make sure no one’s followed him into the stairwell and decides to let himself out. The cold winter air will help get his brain back on track.

                The door’s heavier than any of the internal doors, but it’s not locked from the inside. He can imagine JYPE office workers sneaking up here for a smoke break. Jisung figures if he gets caught on the roof he can charm his way out of getting into trouble pretty easily. Security seems to like Stray Kids well enough even if they are louder than most of the other groups that borrow rooms for practice. If that doesn’t work he’ll just play dumb. No, sir, he had no idea this obviously maintenance-only door wasn’t for random idols to use.

                He pushes through and is simultaneously blinded by the snow-white midday sky and struck by a burst of freezing air that startles an inhuman yelp out of him.  Well, he thinks, he’s already distracted from his previous annoyance by the cold. He pulls his hood over his head and pulls the neckline up to his nose, resolving to pace around up here for few minutes, just until he can’t stand being without his coat anymore.

                It’s wild how the winter sky can be so bright when he can’t even see the sun. Still, he rather likes the way the blanket of white clouds that fill his view above and the snow below contrast with the blacks and grays of the buildings reaching from one point to the other. If he was in a song-writing mood, he’d probably come up with a really lovely metaphor for it. Right now, though, it’s close to noon and he skipped breakfast, so all he can think is that it’s like an inside-out Oreo. That one’s not gonna make it into any lyrics.

                He heaves a big sigh so he can watch his breath turn to clouds that can join the others and remembers fondly pretending to be a dragon when he and the guys had a little too much to drink one night at a party and had to walk home to the dorms, a few weeks back. The cold hadn’t seemed as harsh then, but there hadn’t been any snow to look at yet either so there was a tradeoff.

                  Anyway.

                He decides to head back in, because his little tiff with Hyunjin has cost them enough practice time and he hates to be the one holding them back. That, and he’s freezing. He makes his way back to the door and confidently pulls on the handle and—

                The door doesn’t budge.

                He jiggles the handle again and it’s clearly locked. “Ah,” he says out loud, blinking. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do. He looks around the rooftop, like something will just materialize nearby that will let him back into the building. Nothing does.  Shit.

                He grips the handle with both hands and yanks it up and down as hard as he can. He’s kind of afraid to break it and get in trouble, but if he can get back inside with no one seeing him no one will have to know it was him in the first place. When he can’t feel the door move even a centimeter he realizes that fear is unfounded anyway. The lock is, apparently, a lot stronger than he is.

                He backs up a ways and gives the door a dirty look. He knows that’s not going to help, but it makes him feel better, which might be considered helping if you don’t think about it too much.  He decides to run at the door and ram it with his shoulder. It’s a decision he makes the second it pops into his head, like if he waits the door will read his mind and shore up its defenses against him. Unfortunately, life isn’t a video game and the door doesn’t have to become sentient to stop him. He slams into it with all his weight a few more times and all that happens is his shoulder hurts.

                “Come on,” he whines pathetically. He turns to stomp away and regroup. He barely makes it two steps before he slips on a patch of ice and crashes painfully backward into the door, smacking the back of his head on the handle as he does so and landing harshly on his ass, not having enough reaction time to try to save himself with his arms. There’s nothing to grab anyway.

                He sees stars. He hisses in pain and rubs at the back of his head. He looks at his hand to confirm he’s not bleeding, which he’d be happy about if it wasn’t for literally everything else about the situation.

                As he sits against the door, kind of stunned, legs still splayed on the ice patch in front of him, he has to allow himself a moment to zone out before he gets pissed off again. He stares first at the sky, then the small overhang above him, then at the small icicles hanging from the awning’s corners. The awning only covers a small space directly above the door, which is probably fine for when it’s raining. In the middle of winter, however, all it’s done is allowed snow to repeatedly collect and then melt onto the ground in the same spot until it froze into the patch that sent Jisung flying backwards.

                He knows he’s kind of a dramatic guy, but it really does seem like the universe is out to get him.

                He rubs the back of his head again, not sure if the headache he’s getting is from the physical injury or the mental anguish. It doesn’t really matter. He’s gonna have to get one of the guys to come save him, and he’s going to be in trouble with them for getting himself stuck up here. They might even have to find a maintenance person if the door doesn’t open for them (after all, he’s not sure if it only locks from one side or if it became locked once it closed behind him), and then he’s going to be in actual trouble, probably, so that’s something he’s not looking forward to.

                It’s gonna be so embarrassing.

                Maybe if he looks really pathetic everyone will feel bad for him and he’ll get off easy. It wouldn’t exactly be hard to do right now.

                He has to pick someone to call. Obviously he’s not calling Hyunjin until they’ve made up. It’s the principle of the thing. And Felix is probably trying to make peace with Hyunjin on Jisung’s behalf. He doesn’t want to call Chan either because he’s already made enough of an ass out of himself and Chan will either be more annoyed at him or will feel bad for him being in the cold and that will make Jisung feel even stupider than he already does. He’d like to try Minho, but there’s no way he’d ask him to climb all those stairs and come all the way up to the roof as afraid of heights as he is. It’d be cruel. He’s not convinced Seungmin will be able to find the stairs he went up because last week after a fan sign the maknae had all of the group as well as their manager looking for his cell phone only to realize it was in his pocket the whole time. So, process of elimination leaves him with Jeongin or Changbin. Jisung weighs the options and decides that although Changbin will make fun of him for getting into this predicament more, he’ll also be more sympathetic to his plight since he’s always seen him as a little brother.

                Changbin it is.

                It’s at this point another problem presents itself: Jisung had put his phone into his back pants pocket because it always falls out if he puts it in his hoodie pocket. He’d also fallen on his butt pretty hard. The realization jolts through him and takes his mind off the blooming headache as he frantically fumbles to pull his phone out of his pocket.

                It’s… not a pretty sight.

                The screen is a mess of cracks and dead pixels. He can still see most of the display, but to say his phone’s in rough shape would be an understatement. He runs his finger across the screen and it feels scratchy but not like it could cut him or anything. The more concerning thing is that nothing moves. He taps at his contacts, his messages, the gallery, TikTok, YouTube, everything—the entire screen is too busted to detect his touch.

                Jisung loudly cries out in frustration, but all is not lost. He tries the virtual assistant.

                “Call Seo Changbin,” he tells it. Nothing happens. “Call Changbin!” Nothing. “Call, uh, call Felix!”

                He tries the rest of the members’ names just in case, but it doesn’t work. He’s either damaged the microphone or something’s wrong with the way the assistant’s set up but either way he’s screwed. Jisung taps aggressively at the icons that continue not to respond to him. He has half a mind to throw the damn thing across the roof but instead he drops it into his lap and rests his throbbing head back against the door. His butt is sore and his head hurts and he’s freezing and there’s nothing he can do about it.

---------------

                About ten minutes after Jisung and Hyunjin got into it with each other, Chan finds himself mindlessly scrolling Twitter. He glances up and takes mental note of the locations of his members. He likes to know where everyone is. Changbin, Jisung, and Hyunjin are still out of the room somewhere; Felix is showing Minho a cat video on TikTok; Jeongin and Seungmin are sitting on the floor, taking turns trying to flip one of their water bottles.    

                “Aah!” Jeongin exclaims suddenly, panicked as he grabs the water bottle and sets it upright.  Chan pretends not to notice when the two youngest look to him to check if he’s seen that they’ve managed to spill some water on the floor. Apparently thinking they’ve gotten away with it, the boys hurriedly start drying the droplets with their sleeves, whisper-laughing as they do.  Chan pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s annoyed, but it’s just to hide a fond smile.

                Changbin reenters the dance studio and plops himself onto the bench next to the leader. He must have gone to the snack machine downstairs because he’s scored himself a candy bar. It kind of makes Chan wish he’d had them all go to lunch instead of just a break, especially because he’s pretty sure Jisung and Felix both skipped breakfast earlier and it’s almost noon anyway. Still, he’d purposefully scheduled them a shorter practice time in the studio so they could leave earlier and get other stuff done. If it wasn’t for Hyunjin and Jisung, they’d be on their way to stop working on the choreography around one, then he could take them all for a late lunch and then they’d split off into different activities. As usual, things never go to plan.

                “Want one?” Changbin offers, a welcome disruption of his thoughts. He’s got one of those big chocolate bars that’s actually several small ones individually wrapped inside. Chan’s surprised the machine had something like that.

                “Nah, mate. Thanks though.”

                “Lixie!” Changbin shouts across the room. His voice is louder than necessary by, like, a lot, and it echoes across the mostly- empty room.

                “Yeah, hyung?”

                The next thing Chan knows Changbin is winding up the throw a piece of chocolate to Felix. The other Aussie makes a valiant attempt to catch it in his mouth (wrapper and all), but instead it hits him in the forehead. Changbin is laughing immediately and Chan keeps it together until Felix flings himself to the ground like the chocolate to the face killed him and then Chan’s losing it too.

                Minho emotionlessly drones, “Nooooo,” without even looking up from Felix’s phone in his hands. They’re all laughing pretty hard after that.

                It’s probably been twenty minutes since their “fifteen” started when Hyunjin makes his way back to the room. He casts a gaze around the room and pouts. “Where is he? I’m ready to get this over with.”

                “Hannie’s not back yet,” Chan tells him, looking at the time. He frowns.

                “Of course not,” Hyunjin mumbles.

                Chan hits him with a sharp look that tells him to leave his attitude at the door. Hyunjin rolls his eyes and takes his spot in front of the mirror, stretching. After a few moments, Minho joins him and then the maknae follow suit. Chan puts his phone back into his bag and stands, stretching his back out as he watches Changbin poke his head out the door and look both ways down the hall. When he turns back around he looks at Chan and shrugs. No sign of Jisung yet.

                “What is he doing?” Chan wonders aloud. It’s been around half an hour now.

                “And you guys always say I’m the dramatic one,” Hyunjin sighs, tying back his hair.

                “I’m sure you can earn your title back, hyung,” Seungmin replies. Hyunjin tries to look mad but the amusement’s clear on his face.

                “I’ll message him,” Changbin volunteers. He’s the only one who hasn’t put their phone aside yet anyway. He types out a quick “u coming back sometime today?” then tosses his phone onto Chan’s bag and joins the others.

                Another fifteen minutes later, Hyunjin is showing the youngest three an idea he has to segue between two positions in the choreography more cleanly. Chan finds himself looking between his two eldest members.  Minho, who has been staring at the clock on the wall for a while now, voices all of their thoughts. “How is he not back yet?”

                Facing Changbin, Chan asks, “What did he say when you messaged him?”

                The rapper walks over to the bags and checks his phone. “Nothing. It says he didn’t even read it.”

                Chan frowns, a bit taken aback. “He didn’t seem that mad. Hyunjin, did you see him earlier when you were walking around?”

                “Nope,” Hyunjin replies disinterestedly, “we steered clear of each other.”

                “Huh.”

                “I can go look and see if he’s at the vending machines,” Changbin suggests.

                “Hyung, you just want an excuse to go get more chocolate,” Seungmin laughs.

                “I gave most of it to you guys!”

                Chan takes another look out into the corridor but all he sees is a custodian mopping at one end. “Yeah, go ahead and do that, Binnie. I’m gonna take a walk around and see if I spot him somewhere. Maybe he ran into someone and got caught up talking to them.”

                “It’s been like an hour. Nobody wants to talk to someone for an hour.”

                “Innie, not everybody’s like you.”

                “A shame, really.”

                Minho walks over and retrieves his own phone. “I’ll check the bathrooms.”

                Chan looks at him with concern. Minho and Jisung are so close that they always seem to know what’s bothering each other.  Whatever Minho thinks is going on is usually right. “You think he got sick?”

                “Maybe,” Minho shrugs, “I’ll message him; he might reply to me.”

------------------

                So the fun thing about how destroyed Jisung’s phone is, is that he can kind of, almost, sort of read his messages when they come in. More specifically, he can see the preview of the message as it briefly pops up on his home screen, which he’s getting really tired of looking at. He has to squint because with all the cracks some characters are kind of hard to make out, but he can more or less read what comes up. He just can’t reply.  Or open the message and see the entire thing. Or do anything with his phone but turn it on and off, which he’s done about a million times now. The only saving grace is that he never bothered to re-enable the lock screen after he disabled it for quicker, covert access to his phone when he was trying to cheat at a trivia game he was playing with Felix the other day.  He wouldn’t be able to put in the code in his phone’s current state, and it goes without saying that it can’t scan his fingerprint either.

                At least the others are starting to notice he’s missing.

                He’d tried so, so hard to get the screen to allow him to reply to Changbin’s message, but he’d gotten nowhere. Since then, he’s resorted to huddling against the door with his knees to his chest, arms pulled out of the sleeves on his hoodie so that he can have them up against himself instead. He’s so cold. There’s a single lightbulb above him, right next to the door under the awning, but it’s not like it’s putting out much heat. The wind is the main problem, but at least if he stays against the rooftop access there’s one direction it can’t hit him from.

                His phone buzzes inside his hoodie, and he pops his head inside it to see what he can of the message.

                [Minho]: Jisung. You have ten seconds to reply to me or else I…

                That’s all he gets in the preview. If he has to guess, he’s probably being threatened in some way. A few moments later, he gets another message that seems to confirm this.

                [Minho]: so you have chosen death

                It gets a laugh out of Jisung for the first time since he got stuck up here, what, an hour ago? He hopes this means someone will find him soon. He’d tried yelling after about half an hour but got nothing in response, and the cold makes his throat feel raw. He needs to keep his voice in case they film something later, so he stops. He’ll try again if he hears someone in the stairwell.

                Speaking of death, Jisung’s really hoping it’s not cold enough to freeze to death. He doesn’t think it is, at least not while it’s daytime, but the longer he considers it the more he realizes he doesn’t actually have any idea how cold it has to be to kill someone. JYPE’s sure gonna look stupid if one of their idols dies on their roof. Still, he muses, at least it’ll be a decent building to haunt. Ghosts in horror movies always seem to haunt run down places, so it’s nice he’ll have somewhere clean to roam the halls of.

                He’ll try to possess a vending machine and give everyone free snacks. It’ll be great. Jisung the friendly ghost.

                He thinks he should probably derail that train of thought before it goes any farther.

                His phone vibrates again.

                [Hyunjin]: hey. Srsly where are you?

                [Hyunjin]: I can’t believe you’re still mad

                Jisung huffs in frustration. He’s not still mad, he was barely mad in the first place! Hyunjin must think he’s being so extra right now.

                A few minutes later, another message comes in. It’s Felix this time.

                [Felix]: hey, where did you go? You can talk to me if you…

                Jisung would really love to see the rest of the message, as much as it hurts his heart to think that Felix believes he’s ignoring him. Jisung would never do that. Felix would probably have to kill somebody first, and even then Jisung would at least want to know why he did it.

                Over the next hour or so, Jisung’s phone periodically buzzes with new short or partial messages, and still no one comes to get him.

                [Chan]: where are you?

                [Minho]: are you upset or something

                [Felix]: just so you know, nobody’s mad at you so if you just…

                [Seungmin]: would it help if I sent you some memes hannie

                [Hyunjin]: I’m not mad anymore. Come back so we can get…

                [Chan]: call me

                 A blustery wind throws some flurries at him, and he hunkers down into his hoodie again. It’s the strangest feeling, to know the others want to talk to him but to be unable to reply. He’s looking at messages from the people he cares the most about, who care the most about him, and yet he’s never felt so lonely. He misses them already, it’s kind of pathetic.

                When his phone reads 14:00 he feels another sinking in his stomach. Changbin was really excited to show him a new verse he came up with, this afternoon when they have some time to play around in the recording studio. Jisung had made the usual banter with him and they’d poked fun at each other’s rap skills, but Jisung had been really looking forward to hearing what he’d come up with. The way Changbin raps when he’s really into it feels like a thunderstorm. It gets under Jisung’s skin like electricity and pumps him up so much he won’t be able to sleep at night unless they have a solid jam session.

                Looking up into the white sky, Jisung supposes he should be glad it’s not freezing cold and also storming.  The occasional snowflake here and there won’t soak his clothes like rain would. If he tries to focus on the positives that’s about all he can come up with. He’d had a brief stress-cry half an hour or so ago that he’d had to cut short because the wind was making his tears sting his face. His chest still hurts from holding his breath until he’d gotten his breathing under control.

                He’s opted not to try anything too strenuous even though he knows he ought to keep moving to stay warm. He’s afraid he’ll sweat and just make himself colder. He has to do something, though, so he forces himself up off the ground. His whole body aches—his ass from the fall, his head from the door handle, his heart from the messages he wishes he could answer. Still, he puts his arms back into his sleeves and crosses them over his chest.

                He walks forward, staggering every time a particularly brutal gust of wind strikes him. He hasn’t considered looking over the edge of the roof because he’s afraid to see the drop—Minho might be the one with a full blown phobia, but that doesn’t mean Jisung likes heights either. But it’s not like there’s anything else to do.

                Instead of looking down, he looks straight out. It’s honestly kind of breathtaking to see the midday bustle of the city slowed down so severely by the snow on the ground and the low visibility when the wind picks up a snowdrift. Mother Nature doesn’t care if you can get somewhere on time. It’s so quiet, too; he’s never really thought about the sound-dampening qualities of snow. Not that it helped him be heard when he was yelling earlier.

                They should record a track inside an igloo. There’s probably a place to do that. Maybe in Europe or something.

                He thinks of the fun he should be having right about now with Changbin’s thunderous rapping, and can’t help but compare the snow to someone else—Minho. It’s cold, yes, but there’s a quiet playfulness there, too. Simplicity, even though every snowflake is unique. And an ethereal beauty unlike anything else.

                Jisung’s heart feels heavy in his chest. The sun will go down in a few hours, and if the temperature drops too low Jisung may never get to tell Minho about the snow.

--------------

                “He’s not here,” Chan tells the others once they’ve finally called off their impromptu search party. What had started as the eldest three casually wandering the building looking for Jisung had evolved into seven people jogging around the halls for hours and peeping into random people’s offices as they were trying to work. They’d made the dance studio their HQ since they’d reserved the room for the day anyway. They’re all frustrated now, but they’ve searched every inch of the building with no results and there just isn’t any other possibility.

                “He has to have gone home.”

                “How?” Seungmin asks, “He can’t drive and both the cars are still here anyway.”

                “Maybe he took a taxi?”

                “All his stuff is still here, including his wallet,” Felix says, patting Jisung’s abandoned bag as it lies on the bench beside him. “The only thing he took was his phone, right?”

                Hyunjin has been more quiet than usual and Chan can read the guilt on his face. He won’t admit it, but he’s definitely blaming himself for upsetting Jisung.

                “Could he have walked home?” Hyunjin offers uncomfortably.

                Chan leans heavily against the doorframe.  It’s the same conclusion he’s come to, though Chan has no idea why he would. Jisung hadn’t seemed so upset that he wouldn’t reenter the room to get his belongings. Even when he’s actually upset, he doesn’t hate being around them that much.

                “I mean, I guess he must have?”

                Felix makes a noise so sad Chan has to restrain himself from crushing him with a hug.

                “He doesn’t even have his coat.”

                They all get quiet at that, picturing their friend walking home in the freezing cold, trudging through the snow all alone.

                “He’s gotta be at home. Come on,” Chan says softly, stepping aside to hold the door for the other members to walk past.

                One by one, they each make their way out of the room slowly. It feels wrong to be going anywhere as seven instead of eight, but the sooner they get home the sooner they can figure out what’s going on with Jisung.

                Chan watches Felix’s back as he catches up to Changbin, then turns back to the room. Minho is just standing there, looking at his phone. There’s an unreadable expression on his face that makes Chan feel empty inside. “Come on,” he says again, even softer than before. Minho gives him a strange, pained look, but he wordlessly grabs Jisung’s bag and heads out.

                Chan casts a final gaze around the studio, then turns off the lights and locks up.

-------------         

                Jisung’s not at home.

                Even before the guys barge in, toss their coats and shoes on the floor, and start calling his name—before they split up and start looking into different rooms in case he’s hiding from them, Chan knows he’s not there. There’s an innate feeling of wrongness in the air. He suspects Minho feels it, too, because while the others wander around calling out to their missing friend, Minho just makes his way to the nearest window and stares out with a look of longing so intense Chan feels like he should leave. This expression is not for him to see.

                It’s only a few minutes before everyone trickles back into the common area. Nervous looks are exchanged and they all understand without speaking that no one’s found Jisung. Chan looks at the clock and sees that it’s after five; turning his head to Minho at the window shows the sun starting to set. It gets dark so early this time of year.

                “I looked under the bed and everything,” Seungmin says sullenly. It’s an emotion that doesn’t belong in his voice, and it breaks Chan’s heart.

                The silence returns to the atmosphere, suffocating them all. Felix, Changbin, Hyunjin, Jeongin, and Seungmin—they’re all looking at Chan, and all he can do is stare back because he doesn’t know what to tell them.

                A long, unsteady exhale gathers everyone’s attention as they turn to Minho. Without looking at any of them, he voices all of their thoughts for the second time that day:

                “Something’s wrong,” he tells them. “Something happened to him.”

                Chan knows they’re all thinking it, maybe not in the front of their minds but the feeling’s been creeping up his spine all day. There’s too much that doesn’t make sense. Jisung hadn’t been more than a little irritated this morning. He wouldn’t have ditched them like that. If he wasn’t planning on coming back he would have taken his stuff with him. They’d even asked the receptionist on their way out and she hadn’t seen him.

                Most importantly, he wouldn’t have ignored them. Chan should have known something bad was happening the moment Changbin said Jisung hadn’t read his text.

                “We don’t know that,” he tries, because he’s the leader and it’s his job to keep them calm. It’s also his job to look out for them all and here he is, having lost his first ever group member, with absolutely no idea where to look for him or what to do.

                “Has he looked at anyone’s messages, at all?” Hyunjin asks, scrolling through his phone to double check what he already knows—none of his texts have been opened.

                Felix steps away from the group with his phone to his ear. Chan tries to swallow his anxiety as he watches him pace around the edge of the room.

                “Where else would he go?” Chan’s never heard Changbin sound so helpless before.

                No one has an answer, because of course they don’t, because Jisung would not do this. He would never do any of this; he cares too much about them all individually, about Stray Kids, about Stay, for disappearing like this to be something he’s chosen.

                “Minho-hyung, did you have an idea?”

                Confused, Chan turns to see Minho’s left his spot at the window and is behind him, pulling his shoes back on. He doesn’t answer.

                Forcing himself to act, Chan looks back over the rest of their confused and worried faces and quickly comes up with a plan. “Ok, uh, we’ll take the company cars and go drive around, see if we can figure out the route he might have taken.” They’ve got access to two cars and only he and Changbin can drive anyway so it’ll have to do. “Innie, Seungmin, you guys are staying here in case Jisung shows up. When he does, you’re gonna call me immediately, okay?”

                If either of them have a problem with that, they don’t show it. It probably helps just to have some direction at this point.

                “Changbin, Felix, Hyunjin, you’re together,” Chan orders, grabbing his own boots and pulling them on as quickly as he can. “Minho, you and I can meet them—“

                “Where are you going?” Hyunjin cries out suddenly, but he’s looking over Chan’s shoulder. Chan whips around just in time to see Minho grab his coat and disappear out the door.

                “Minho!” Chan calls after him. He shoves the laces into his boots instead of tying them and grabs his coat, throwing it over his shoulders as he chases after him. “Wait!”

                He gets out in the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door of the lobby just in time to see Minho climb into the backseat of a taxi and take off.

                “Where’s he going?” Changbin asks breathlessly from behind him, he can hear the others all hurrying down the steps above them.

                All Chan can do is shake his head. “I don’t know.”

------------

                The sky is fully black by the time they clamber into the cars. The youngest two are still staying home in case Jisung shows up there, but now it’s just Changbin and Felix in one car because Hyunjin insisted on being with Chan.

                “This is my fault,” Hyunjin says, like he’s been saying over and over since they started driving. Chan’s not sure if he’s apologizing to him, or Jisung in-absentia, but either way his guilt is misplaced.

                “It’s not,” he tells the younger idol, “It’s really not. You guys had a little argument but that—“

                “I started it—“

                “—And he gave you attitude right back. You guys do this all the time, and then you’re best friends an hour later so just… stop, okay? This is all gonna turn out to be a big misunderstanding.”

                Out of the corner of his eye, Chan watches Hyunjin bite his knuckle and turn to face out the passenger side window. He stays quiet after that but Chan can practically hear his mind racing. He hopes Hyunjin’s mind is kinder to him than Chan’s is, because ever since that inherent feeling of wrongness set in, all he’s been able to think of is the worst. Someone has taken Jisung, or someone has hurt Jisung, or there’s been an accident and Jisung needs help but they can’t find him—

                He takes a deep breath to steady his nerves and tries to focus on driving even though he has no destination. “You have your phone, right? Call Minho, put him on speaker so we can figure out where he went and what the hell he thinks he’s doing.”

                Hyunjin nods hesitantly and does as asked. The phone rings twice before it connects, though the first thing Chan hears is an indistinct exchange between Minho and someone else—the cab driver, presumably. “Minho,” he starts, and he knows his tone is too aggressive by the way Hyunjin flinches beside him. He continues anyway. “Where are you? You cannot just run off like that without telling anyone where you’re going.”

                There’s the sound of a car door slamming a bit too hard and a quiet growl of frustration. “He’s around here somewhere, I know it.”

                At least he’s answered, Chan thinks dully, turning onto a side road where he can drive more slowly and keep an eye out for Jisung. “Minho, listen to me.  I can’t lose track of you, too. You need to tell me where you are.”

                A deafening noise blasts from the phone’s speaker and it startles Chan for a second before he realizes it’s the wind. “No, you listen,” Minho argues back. Chan understands his frustration, truly, he does, but making him have to find Minho as well as Jisung is going to help nobody. “We have to have missed something some—“

                Minho’s voice cuts off so suddenly that Chan thinks he’s hung up, but when he steals a glance over at Hyunjin’s phone Minho’s name is still on screen. He looks back to the road without saying anything, waiting for Minho to speak.

                There’s a sharp, terrified gasp.

                The call disconnects.

---------------

                Jisung’s pretty sure he stopped shivering sometime before sundown. He’d hoped he’d at least get a decent view of the sunset, what with being trapped on top of a building and all, but there are taller buildings in the way and the cloud coverage just meant a change from white to a sickening shade of yellow to black with not much in between. It was a subpar sunset, even considering how you can’t usually see much of one from the city on a clear day. One out of ten stars, do not recommend.

                He’s been more focused on his phone anyway—the battery’s actually lasting longer than usual since he can’t reply or answer calls or anything. So that’s something. He knows he should have been periodically getting up and walking around at the very least, but the cold in his bones has brought with it a deep exhaustion, and all he has been motivated to do is look at the message previews. Every once in a while he gets to stare at the image of one of his friend’s faces through all the cracks and dead pixels while his phone vibrates over and over as they call him. It’s not as nice as the message previews.

                For a while before sunset, he’d gotten a bunch of texts from Changbin short enough that he knew he was reading the whole thing. It hadn’t been much, just his name and every variation of it, but it was something to look at besides the nothingness around him. It’s weird how normally an endless string of “Han, Hannie, Jisung, Jisungie, Sungie, etc.” would drive him nuts but now it makes him feel happy someone’s thinking about him.

                Or was, at any rate. He hasn’t gotten any messages from Changbin in a while now. He’s had a bunch of calls from Felix, which would be really nice if he was able to answer them, but as it is all the calls are doing is taking up his screen so he can’t read the messages as easily. He’s really clinging to those messages, so he doesn’t appreciate the added difficulty.

                His hands are so numb he hears the vibration before he feels it, and this time it’s Innie.

                [Jeongin]: listen, Chan-hyung definitely thinks you’re dead

                The bluntness startles a laugh out of Jisung, which turns into more of a wheeze before he’s able to get his lungs back under control. Another buzz.

                [Jeongin]: you’re not dead, right?

                Just like that, Jisung’s miserable again. It’s really saying something that he feels almost as bad about the worry he knows he’s causing everyone as he feels physically terrible from the cold. Almost. The freezing is definitely still worse.

                He needs to get up. He winces and struggles like an old man as he forces his aching body to its feet. The last time he got up was quite a while ago, when he’d had to finally bite the bullet and go take a piss over on the far corner of the roof. He wasn’t super proud of that, but he also didn’t feel that bad because, like, what else was he supposed to do?

                He’s really hoping there are no security cameras up here.

                He nearly falls right back down once he’s fully standing. He’s not sure if it’s because he hasn’t had anything to eat all day, or the cold, or the fact that he’s been sitting so long, but he’s super dizzy. It could be worse, he guesses, because at least the moments when his head is spinning his body doesn’t hurt as much. He takes the deepest breaths the frigid air will allow him and then starts staggering across the roof. He doesn’t particularly want to stray far from the lightbulb by the door because it’s his only light source and also he’s not totally sure which dark corner he peed in earlier. If that’s how it happens, if he slips on his own frozen piss puddle and dies and becomes a ghost, he’s gonna take it up with God’s manager. That would be inexcusable.

                Right, right, walking. Maybe it’s the snow quieting the world or maybe his ears have just experienced more silence today than they’re used to, but he thinks he hears a car door slam shut all the way down on the street below. One of the security guards must be leaving. He stumbles over as fast as he can because maybe he can yell and get their attention and get off the fucking roof finally.

                He falls to his hands and knees, which doesn’t hurt in a normal sense but does rather painfully jar his head. It’s probably for the best that he falls now, though, because he can crawl the rest of the way to the edge and look over without falling off. The first thing he sees is a taxi speeding off and the second is—

                He thought the sight of the snow-covered buildings was beautiful, but now he’s almost brought to tears because it’s Minho. Minho’s down there. He’s holding his phone to his ear and as best as Jisung can make out, he looks pissed off at whoever he’s talking to but Jisung literally does not care because Minho is here. He looks like an angel with the street light reflecting back onto him from the snowy ground. But he’s not looking up.

                Jisung has to get his attention. He tries to yell, but his voice is scratchy and won’t go any louder than the “indoor voice” Chan’s always trying to make him use. All he can think is that he sounds like the girl at the end of Titanic, only he doesn’t have a dead guy to steal a whistle off of so he’s out of luck there. The next thing he thinks is that he could throw his phone, but he’s seeing double on and off and he doesn’t want to risk either hitting Minho with the phone from this height or losing the phone into a gutter without Minho ever seeing it.

                It’s right when he’s weighing the pros and cons of tying his shoes together, winging them at the street light, and hoping for the best that a miracle finally happens and Minho looks up.

                It’s been dark for a while now but the light from the door must be enough to illuminate him because the shock on Minho’s face definitely means he sees him. Which is weird because Jisung sort of expected him to be happy or maybe really mad to see him, but instead the color drains out of his face and he runs into the building faster than Jisung’s ever seen him move. He must be in a lot of trouble.

                Well, now Jisung just has to wait for Minho to find a security guard or a maintenance guy to come get him and this nightmare of a day will finally be over. He’s in pretty high spirits now that he knows he’s not going to freeze to death, but his legs don’t agree, so he ends up crawling back over toward the door before he tries to stand up. It’s easier than trying to get up and walk.

                He’s not sure how long it takes for him to get to his feet this time, but he can hear rapid, pounding footsteps on the other side of the door and he realizes Minho’s actually coming up himself, at a sprint judging by the sound of it. Jisung manages one step toward the door before it flings open and Minho flies out at the speed of light, crashing into Jisung and sending them both to the ground.  Jisung’s not sure if he slipped on the same ice patch he had or if he just tackled him for the hell of it. It hurts, kind of a lot to be honest, but at least Minho manages to get his hand behind Jisung’s head before he conks it for the second time on this godforsaken roof.

                It takes a minute for Jisung to be able to say anything since Minho’s knocked what little breath he had in his lungs out of him. In that time, Minho pulls him up so he’s sitting and holds him so tightly against his chest that Jisung can hear his frantic heartbeat. Jisung can’t really bring himself to move his arms so they just hang limply at his side while Minho repositions them so it’s more like one of the really poorly reciprocated hugs Jisung forces on Jeongin sometimes.

                After several seconds of listening to Minho catch his breath while he struggles to do the same, Jisung manages a rather lame, “Hey.”

                Minho pulls back from him to look him in the face, “’Hey,’ that’s the best you can do?! Do you have any idea how badly you scared me—“

                “Oh shit, are you crying?”

                “Shut up, you idiot, I—“ Minho looks like he wants to strangle him and honestly, if that would be half as warm as being pressed against his chest was, Jisung will probably let him. Minho rubs his sleeve across his eyes and sniffs loudly. Jisung wants nothing more than to sink back into his embrace, but Minho grips his shoulders tight instead, keeping him at an arm’s length. “You could have fallen off the roof, do you not realize that?! I saw you hanging over the edge like that and I—“ He cuts off with a choked sob.

                Jisung blinks. Had he really been hanging that far over? He’d only been trying to figure out how to get Minho’s attention. He’s succeeded at that, anyway. Minho keeps one hand on his shoulder and moves the other to hold Jisung’s cheek. His hand is so much warmer than Jisung’s face that it stings a little, but in a good way.

                “You look fucking terrible, by the way,” Minho tells him, sounding more like himself despite the worry in his eyes giving him away. “Your lips are blue.”

                “You could kiss them,” Jisung proposes.

                Minho rolls his eyes at him. “As cold as you are, we’d get stuck together.”

                “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

                “Shut up. Have you been out here all this time? You seriously look like a corpse.”

                “Yeah, I— THE DOOR!!” The realization hits him harder than Minho did when he tackled him to the ground. He throws himself sideways out of an alarmed Minho’s grasp so he can see past him and—

                Yep, the door’s closed.

                All the adrenaline leaves his body as quickly as it arrived. Minho grabs him, panicked, as he slumps to the side. “What’s wrong?! What happened?!”

                “I—the door locked behind me when I came up here. I tried to force it open and everything, but it wouldn’t move,” he explains gloomily. “Then I fell and broke my phone and maybe also my skull and my ass. I saw everyone’s messages but I couldn’t answer, and—“

                “You hit your head?” Minho interrupts, looking almost as worried as he had when he first saw him.

                “It wasn’t that bad,” Jisung tells him sulkily. He’s missing the point. The important thing is that the door is locked and it needs to not be locked so they can be not on the roof anymore.

                Minho gives him a look he can’t quite figure out in his current mental fog. There’s a buzzing again, but this time it’s not coming from Jisung’s pocket, it’s coming from Minho’s coat. Someone’s calling him. He completely ignores it in favor of fretting over Jisung. He takes his coat off and wraps it around Jisung’s shoulders, which makes his head swim in a good way. Next, Minho pulls Jisung back so he’s resting against his chest again. He wraps one arm around his shoulders to keep him there and uses the other to dig his phone out of the coat pocket it’s in. All Jisung can do is lay lethargically in his grasp and hope his body starts absorbing some of Minho’s warmth.

                Minho’s phone stops vibrating, then starts again almost immediately. He answers the call, and their heads are so close together that he doesn’t have to hit speakerphone for Jisung to be able to hear.

                “Chan.”

                “Did you seriously hang up on me like that?! Midsentence?! I thought you got hit by a car or something!”

                Minho grimaces and holds the phone a few inches away, eardrums rattling from Chan’s shouting. “Quit screaming. I found Jisung.”

                There’s a pause on the other line before two voices speak at once.

                “Where?” Chan demands.

                “Is he alright?” another voice asks simultaneously. Jisung moves his head up a little so he can see and sure enough, it’s Hyunjin’s name on the caller ID. He definitely doesn’t seem mad anymore, so that’s nice.

                Minho hums and looks into Jisung’s eyes with a clinical gaze, the same one he uses when they watch their performances back and look for mistakes.

                “I think he’s okay-ish.”

                “What does that mean?!”

                “I mean he’s like half-frozen and he might have a concussion but I don’t think he’s about to drop dead or anything?”

                One of them makes a strangled noise of distress.

                Jisung could really go for that stress-cry right about now. “Tell them I’m fine. You’re freaking them out.”

                “Is that him? Let me talk to him,” Chan demands seriously. Minho acquiesces and puts them on speakerphone.  Neither Chan nor Hyunjin say anything so it falls to him to bridge the gap first.

                “So the important thing is you know none of this is my fault.”

                “Jisung,” Chan sighs his name in relief, and Jisung can picture him sagging in his seat wherever he is. “You sound awful, what happened to you? Where have you been?”

                Minho kindly fields the question for him. “Apparently, he’s been locked outside on the roof since this morning. The receptionist didn’t see him leave because he never did.”

                “The roof? You’ve been out in the cold all this time?” Chan’s voice cracks.

                “Yeah. Also the door shut behind Minho so if you could send somebody to come get us—“

                “We’re already on our way.”

                Minho doesn’t mention his almost falling off the roof, which Jisung is thankful for. He feels guilty enough for causing so much worry. They end up hanging up so that Hyunjin can call the others and tell them Jisung’s been found and so Chan can get his nerves back under control long enough to drive back to the JYPE building.

                “We’ll get you warmed up soon, Jisungie,” Minho speaks softly into his ear. Jisung’s pretty much beyond the point of caring by now. He knows Minho will keep him safe and that Chan and Hyunjin are coming to take them someplace warm so he lets himself space out for a while, watching the slow snowflakes drift down like feathers from the black sky. He sticks an arm out as far as he can even though the limb feels like it’s made of lead, and watches a sizeable snowflake land on his sleeve. Minho tries to grab his arm and force it back under the coat but Jisung just smiles at him and shows him what he’s caught.

                “Look, Minho. It’s you.”

                “What?”

                “The snow,” he clarifies.

                “What?”

                Jisung hears another car door slam somewhere nearby and gives up trying to explain. Minho shakes his head and watches the door impatiently. After a few minutes it swings open and Chan bursts through, eyes wide as he hurries to kneel beside them.

                Minho has the forethought to exclaim, “Chan, the door!” But luckily Hyunjin appears and lingers in the doorway to keep it from closing on them again.

                Jisung doesn’t even realize how far he’s sunken down into Minho’s coat until Chan’s pulling the collar aside so he can look him in the eyes.  “Jisungie,” he starts cautiously, like he’s talking to an injured animal or a frightened child. “God, you look terrible.”

                “Thanks,” Jisung mumbles.

                “I’m serious. Hey, we’re gonna take you home but can you show me where you’re hurt first?”

                Jisung’s not sure what he’s talking about so he just stares at Chan uncomprehendingly.

                “Your head,” Minho prompts him. To Chan, he quietly adds, “he was just saying some weird stuff about the snow, it didn’t make any sense.”

                It would have made perfect sense if he’d had a chance to choose his words better, thank you very much! Still, Jisung doesn’t have the energy to argue anymore today. He might as well cooperate.

                “It’s like, the back, kind of, but it’s really not that bad. It doesn’t even hurt that much anymore.”

                “Okay,” Chan replies, still sounding nervous. He runs his hand along the back of Jisung’s head until he touches a sore spot that makes the younger idol flinch. “Yeah, there’s a little bump there. You’re telling the truth that it’s not that bad, right?”

                Jisung frowns. “Why would I be lying?”

                “I’m just making sure. You weren’t unconscious, right? You didn’t black out or anything?”

                “No, no, I’m seriously okay, hyung.”

                Chan exchanges glances with Minho like they’re both trying to decide if they believe him. He looks Jisung in the eyes again, searching for something. After a moment, he nods. “Okay, okay, good. Let’s get you home so you can warm up, alright?”

                Finally. Chan stands and extends a hand to Jisung to help him up. Minho stays at his side and helps him to his feet. It goes well until he’s upright and suddenly his vision goes out and he starts tipping over against his will. His numb fingers grip weakly at Minho’s shirt and Chan hurries to his other side to steady him. Jisung tries to take steadying breaths until his vision comes back, but the air is too sharp so he just ends up wheezing.

                “I- is he—“ Hyunjin starts worriedly, but Jisung cuts him off. He knows his friends are worried but so help him, he’s gonna lose his mind if Hyunjin steps out here and that door shuts again.

                “I’m good, I’m okay,” he slurs, “I’m good, let’s go.”

                He’s not totally sure how they manage to get down the narrow steps together or how they avoid security but after an indeterminate amount of time he’s being shoved into the backseat of a car. He starts to fall over sideways again, but Minho climbs in from the opposite side and helps him to sit up and lean against him. Chan starts the car and cranks the heat up as high as it will go and Hyunjin hops into the backseat on the other side of Jisung so he’s got a source of heat on either side. He’s definitely not mad anymore, then.

                Jisung starts shivering again as they start moving, and it reactivates all the aches in his body that have been numb for the past hour. It feels like his bones are vibrating. Most of all, he’s just worn out. He sinks into Minho’s side, trying not to shake too violently, and closes his eyes for what can only be a second before he hears Chan’s voice from the front of the car.

                “Hey, wake him up.”

                The absolute nerve of these people he calls his friends. He’s had the worst day ever and he’s exhausted and he’s not opening his eyes for anything, that’s final.

                “Jisung,” Minho calls in his ear, more sweetly than Jisung would have thought him capable of. He wants to have a dream that sweet.

                A painful pinching of his cheek drags him back to reality and he swats weakly at Hyunjin.

                “Stay awake, idiot.”

                “You stay awake, moron,” he argues lamely, doing everything he can not to stutter from the shivering wracking his body.

                “That doesn’t make any sense.”

                “Jisung,” Chan says from the driver’s seat. Jisung squints at the rearview mirror and sees his leader’s eyes flicker to him. “You can sleep at home, once your temperature is up. Stay awake until then, yeah?”

                Jisung whines loudly despite his teeth chattering. “I’m seriously so tired; just wake me up when we get there.”

                “Jisung,” and this time he’s being scolded. “If you can’t stay awake until we’re back, I’m gonna turn this car around and we’ll go straight to the hospital. Don’t try me.”

                Jisung huffs dramatically, but doesn’t have it in him to fight. “I wasn’t even sleeping.”

                “You definitely were.”

                “I was not.”

                “You were.”

                It’s got to be incredibly annoying to Chan but the back-and-forth does the trick of keeping Jisung alert long enough to get him home.            

------------

                The rest of the members are blurs of color running around the common area as Minho and Chan practically drag Jisung to the bathroom. He thinks he could walk by himself by this point, though he feels a little clumsy from his shivering and frozen joints. Chan reaches into the shower, fiddles with the faucets until the water's temperature matches the room around them, then leaves the claustrophobic space to find Jisung some clothes to change into. Jisung lets Minho help him with his hoodie but shrugs off his attempt to help with his sweatpants.

                They’ve all lived together for a while now, so everyone’s seen everyone else by now but… he’s been really cold, you know? Jisung would rather be naked by himself right now, if he has to be.

                Minho doesn’t leave the room until Jisung shoves him toward the door. Even then, he rolls his eyes and tells him, “don’t lock the door,” before he exits.

                Jisung doesn’t particularly have the energy or the dexterity in his cold hands to do that anyway. He struggles out of his pants and underwear and carefully steps into the shower. He doesn’t want a repeat of his earlier fall on the ice, so he lowers himself to the floor slowly and sits with his knees to his chest. He's sure it's not, but the water seems like it’s a million degrees at first the way it burns. He’s too drained to reach the faucet and change the temperature, and after a couple minutes it starts to feel like it's not warm enough.

                The indoor air is easier to breathe than the invisible glass that had been outside. Now that he feels safe, he’s more comfortable than he’s been all day, even with the trembling and head and body aches. It’s no wonder he finds himself nodding off.

                It’s short-lived.

                Actually, he has no idea how long he’s in the shower before the door opens violently and someone turns the water off. There's a draft and he’s instantly cold again. He stirs and makes a vague attempt to cover himself but someone throws a towel at him. It’s Minho again.

                “I knew you would be asleep. Are you trying to drown, you idiot?”

                Jisung scowls at him as best he can with what little fight he has left. “You can’t drown in a shower,” he argues, voice still weak but not quite as stuttering as it was in the car.

                Minho laughs in a way that very much suggests nothing is actually funny.

                “You’d be the first to figure it out. You really want to try your luck after today?”

                He supposes he doesn’t.

                Minho sets the clothes Chan found for him on the counter nearby. “Get out. You gonna be able to get dressed by yourself?”

                “Yes,” Jisung replies as petulantly as possible. Minho doesn’t leave this time; instead, he turns around and apparently that’s all the privacy Jisung’s allowed to have now. He’s kind of miffed about it for a minute, but then he finds himself staring at Minho’s back as he struggles to dry off and put his clothes on. It’s not the first time he’s admired his broad shoulders, so he spots the tension in them right away. He knows all the guys must have been worried about him today, but Minho…

                He thinks it must have hurt the most for him. After all, if Minho was missing and no one knew where he was, Jisung wouldn’t be able to function. He’d be on the brink of having a panic attack every second until he found him. Minho doesn’t wear his emotions on his face so obviously, but their connection is special and Jisung has always been able to read him.

                He’d gathered from when Chan called Minho on the roof that Minho must have run off alone to find Jisung. Chan worries about all of them so much, so openly. Minho’s fears and concerns usually stay deeper under his skin, so he must have been stressed beyond belief to have panicked like he had.

                The guilt in Jisung’s chest grows, but so does a feeling of warmth that has nothing to do with his body temperature. He finishes dressing by pulling an oversized sweatshirt that he thinks is Changbin’s over his head, then snakes his arms over Minho’s shoulders, around his neck. The other man jerks in surprise at the touch, then turns around so they're face to face.

                The intense look in Minho’s eyes has Jisung feeling suddenly shy, so he looks to the side. “Thank you for finding me.”

                Minho plants a soft kiss on his forehead. “I never would have stopped looking.”

                Jisung knows it’s true.

                There’s an awkward knock at the already ajar bathroom door. Changbin is there, doing his best to look anywhere but at them. “Chan, uh—Chan sent me to see if everything was okay?”

                The mildly put-out look on Minho’s face makes Jisung laugh. “Yeah,” Minho replies in a long-suffering tone. He removes Jisung’s arms from around his neck and takes up a position at his side instead, wrapping an arm around his waist. Jisung’s hoping to be lead to his room so he can finally get under the covers and let his brain fall into a dreamless sleep, but Minho guides him back out to the common area. They want him where they can see him.

                He spots Chan in the kitchen stirring a mug of what looks like hot chocolate. Felix appears from the maknae’s bedroom area carrying a pile of blankets almost bigger than he is. One of the blankets hangs down by his feet and trips him up, so Jeongin grabs it and then all of a sudden they’re pretending Felix is a bride walking down the aisle and Innie is carrying the train of his dress, complete with Seungmin “singing” (if you can call it that) “Here Comes the Bride.”

                Jisung loves them all, so much.

                Minho leads him to a couch and gently shoves him down onto it. He curls up on his side immediately to conserve heat as the youngest three approach with the massive wad of blankets. Hyunjin shows up from behind the couch and says, “Here, this one first.”

                He drapes an electric blanket over Jisung and then disappears back behind the couch to find an outlet to plug it into, but not without a comforting squeeze of Jisung’s shoulder. Soon enough Jisung is weighed down by just about every blanket in the dorms. It’s heaven.

                Chan sets a mug down on the coffee table in front of him. “I called management and pulled some strings. They're sending someone over to check you out and see if you need to go to the hospital after all. But you can get comfortable for now, I'll let you know when they're here. And we'll see how you feel in the morning but you get to rest all day tomorrow either way. I made sure at least one of us will be home at all times too in case you’re feeling sick.”

                Jisung hums in response, only half-hearing what Chan’s telling him. His eyelids are so heavy.

                “Hey, you don’t want to eat something—or, I made hot chocolate?” Between longer and longer blinks, Jisung sees Chan smile at him fondly. It makes him even warmer. “Alright, we’ll get you something later. I'll wake you up when medical's here. Get some rest, Sungie.”

                With Chan, Minho, and the others looking after him, he does.

                His heart finally feels warm.

Chapter Text

                Half an hour isn’t much time to nap, but it’s enough to give Jisung the energy to psyche himself up before JYPE’s medic arrives. He’s always hated doctor’s appointments—it always feels like he’s shown up to class and forgotten his homework. He knows it’s ridiculous, but it just feels like if he’s not the picture of health, he’s doing something wrong. He expects to be reprimanded. That’s never what happens, and he knows that, but it’s how he feels every time.

                The fact that someone has to come all the way to their dorms, in the evening, just for him, adds to the guilt in his chest. He really does feel infinitely better than he had earlier (which is admittedly not saying much), but he’s determined to look as okay as possible for this medic. If he seems poorly, it’ll feel like he’s failed a test. He wants to get a good grade.

                Seungmin rouses him from his short sleep when they hear the medic’s arrived downstairs. Jisung sits up carefully, still dizzy, and throws most of his blankets aside. He keeps the electric one wrapped around his shoulders. He rubs his eyes and then smacks his cheeks to make himself as awake as possible with the time he has to work with.

                Beside him, Minho gives him an annoyed look. He’s not sure what he’s doing wrong.

                Changbin appears to shoo the rest of the guys away as Chan leads the woman into the common area, talking quietly with her. Minho doesn’t move an inch, of course; he’s firmly attached to Jisung’s side whether it’s practical or not. The others, for their part, allow Changbin to chase them off but don’t go far. They’re worried, of course, and they want to hear what the medic has to say.

                They could be a little less obvious about it, though.

                Hyunjin and Felix stay posted in the kitchen, pretending to text silently behind their turned backs so they can eavesdrop. The screens on their phones stay black. Changbin seems to have left at first, but every so often Jisung spots his arm from around the corner and realizes he’s standing in the hall leading to their bedrooms. Jeongin and Seungmin are probably the least sneaky. They keep randomly “needing” to come grab something out of the room. The two maknae take turns and eventually they’re casually grabbing a throw pillow, a potted plant, a singular shoe that belongs to neither of them.

                Jisung would think it was funny if he wasn’t so nervous about the medic. She’s a middle-aged woman, pretty in a sophisticated way with a fiercely intelligent gaze. She kind of reminds him of his mom that way, which makes him feel even worse—he’ll have to tell his mother what happened to him next time they talk. She’ll be upset, and he’ll have to convince her she doesn’t need to fly all the way to Seoul. She’ll tell his father and his brother, and he’ll have to find a way to make them believe he can take care of himself. They already have their doubts.

                When Chan brings the woman over, Jisung greets her politely, though he doesn’t stand for fear of how unstable he’ll be on his feet. Even though she smiles at him, he can’t help feeling like he’s in trouble.

                “Your friend here tells me you’ve had quite the adventure today,” she begins, keeping the mood casual. Jisung’s not sure if she’s a doctor, nurse, or something else, but she has a lapel pin that says JYP, so she must be employed by them directly.  He wonders how much the company knows and if he’s going to get punished for trespassing and causing trouble. He’s ruined Stray Kids’ schedule for at least today and tomorrow, too.

                “Um, yeah, I guess,” he stutters, heart fluttering. Minho puts a hand on his knee and it’s only then he realizes he’s been shaking his leg nervously. He hopes he hasn’t been doing it for long.

                “Could I look at your hands, please?” The medic kneels on the floor in front of where he’s sat on the couch, setting a professional-looking bag to her side.

                Jisung raises an eyebrow, confused, but complies.

                “Thank you. Don’t be so nervous. I just want to check your fingers for frostbite, dear.”

                Chan exhales a weak laugh, sounding as anxious as Jisung feels. “Frostbite. I never even thought about that.” 

                The medic checks his hands over and seems happy with their condition. Jisung wants her to let go of him, but instead she moves to hold his wrist at the pulse point. He wants to hide under his blanket and disappear. “I understand you’ve had a head injury, is that right?”

                He straightens at that. “It’s really not that bad—“

                “Yeah, he, uh,” Chan interrupts, shutting him up with a glance. “He fell and hit the back of his head on a… metal door handle, right, Minho?”

                Minho nods wordlessly. Something’s up with the vibes he’s putting off, but Jisung doesn’t have time to contemplate that at the moment.

                “That must have hurt.”

                Well, duh. “It didn’t—or, I mean, it did, but like, it’s not a big deal? I feel pretty okay now?”

                The woman smiles at him kindly. “You don’t sound so sure. Tell me, are you feeling dizzy? Or maybe sick to your stomach?”

                Of course he is.

                “…Not really.”

                She hums, locking her shrewd eyes onto his. It takes all his willpower not to look away. Now she reminds him of Minho, and he’s never been able to deceive Minho.

                “Your friend also said you were asleep when I got here. Are you feeling more sleepy than usual?”

                Jisung fidgets with his blanket uncomfortably. This is starting to feel like an interrogation.

                “I mean, it’s like…” he pauses, trying to come up with something that will dismiss the concern he feels beating down on him from the rest of the members in nearby.  It’s hard to think with his brain pulsating. “I think I’m just tired because it’s been a really stressful day? It’s not like I can’t stay awake, you know? I’m—I’m a normal amount of tired, I think?”

                “Okay,” she replies simply. It’s at this point she retrieves a tiny flashlight from her bag and shines it directly into his eyes without warning. He winces immediately, and she grabs his chin to make him face forward so she can examine his pupils.

                She takes his temperature, listens to his heart with a stethoscope, and checks his blood pressure. All the while, Jisung can feel the weight of Minho’s stare on his shoulders and hear the steps of Chan’s pacing behind her. The rest of the guys are being entirely too quiet. Eventually, she starts collecting her things back into her bag.

                “Well, I think you’ve probably got a mild concussion, and you’re a little dehydrated. It seems like you’re feeling alright otherwise. While I would rather you had gone to the hospital earlier, I’m glad you’re doing relatively well now. I hope you’ll go to the urgent care if you start feeling worse, but ultimately it’ll be up to you.”

                She stands and glances from Minho to Jisung to Chan, and offers a small smile. “I know the higher ups expect a lot out of you kids. I’m glad you have each other for support.” She goes to hand Jisung a business card, but Minho grabs it first. If she’s put off by it, she doesn’t show it. “I’m in Seoul for the next week, so you can contact me directly with any changes in how you’re feeling if you’d like. Otherwise I’d just say you need to take it easy for a few days. Rest your voice, and no particularly strenuous dancing or roughhousing, alright?”

                Jisung nods eagerly, despite how it makes his head throb. He can’t wait for this to be over. All he wants is some sense of normalcy restored.

                “It was nice meeting you,” she says politely. Finally, she joins Chan’s side and he leads her out.

                Jisung slumps against Minho in relief. He’s not sure if he passed, but the test is over.

--------------

                “Thank you so much for coming on such short notice,” Chan starts, flustered, as he escorts the medic into the hall and down the stairs. “We were all pretty worried about Hannie, so…“

                “Keep a close eye on him for the next few hours,” she directs. “He seems to be doing well all things considered. I meant what I said; I’m really glad you boys look out for each other. I’ve worked with a lot of idol groups and some of them can hardly stand each other. I could tell right away that you’re all very close to one another.”

                Chan laughs a little. “I’m sorry the guys were kind of breathing down your neck. None of us have much of a sense of personal space with each other.”

                “Don’t apologize, it’s charming how much you all care,” she laughs back. Chan’s really glad management sent someone so kind. Especially since it had looked like Minho was ready to bite her head off if she made one wrong move.

                They cross the lobby, but Chan stops right before they trigger the automatic door.

                “Could I ask you something, just quickly, before you leave?”

                She frowns. “Of course.”

                Chan rubs at the back of his neck, unsure how to put his worries into words. But, he has to know.

                “So, like, in your… professional opinion,” he starts, unable to look her in the eye. “I don’t know how cold it has to be out there exactly, but… I mean, if no one had found him, would he…? Since the temperature drops at night, would—would it have—“

                She waits patiently for him to fight through his words. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to look at her.

                “If- if we hadn’t found him, and he was stuck out in this weather all night, would—could he have… died?”

                The medic opens her mouth to reply, then closes it. She offers him a sympathetic smile and touches his shoulder gently, in a motherly way. But she doesn’t say no.

                “It’s a really good thing he was found.”

                She says it kindly, but the words pierce Chan’s heart like an arrow. He’d suspected but now he knows. If things had been just a tiny bit different, if Jisung had hit his head a little harder and been knocked unconscious, if Minho hadn’t been able to spot him from the ground— Jisung would still be up there right now.

                On the roof.

                Alone.

                Freezing.

                Dying.

------------

                With the wind taken out of his sails, Chan sluggishly makes his way back to their dorms. He wants to see everyone, especially Jisung, but he’s afraid they’ll read what he knows in his expression. He tries to think of anything else. Outside the door to the common area, he takes a deep breath and plasters a smile on his face before rejoining them.

                They’re all swarming around Jisung, each member trying to stick as close to the rapper as possible. Jisung has moved to lie with his head in Minho’s lap, and he’s once again been covered with the blankets he’d shed when the medic came to examine him. Jisung hadn’t seemed totally honest about his condition earlier. Now, he’s gone a little pale, though Chan knows that often happens when his anxiety is getting the better of him. He’s hoping that’s all that’s wrong besides the concussion, because at least Jisung’s anxiety is something they know how to deal with. The devil they know versus the one they don’t.

                Felix, Seungmin, and Jeongin are seated on the floor in front of the couch, and it looks like they’re trying to pick out a movie. Chan’s not sure if it’s a good idea for Jisung to be watching a screen given how badly the flashlight had seemed to hurt his eyes.  There’s microwave popcorn loudly popping in the kitchen, and when Hyunjin returns to the living area with it the others cheer. This is a group of guys who regularly have contests to see who can scream the loudest—their neighbors hate them.

                Jisung flinches subtly and Chan knows their volume bothers him.

                It occurs to him, not for the first time, that Jisung might not tell them if he’s in pain.

                Chan takes a seat next to Minho, who’s gently stroking Jisung’s hair. Since Minho doesn’t acknowledge his presence, he looks over to Changbin on the other couch across from them and catches his eye. Changbin’s told him once, after the two of them had helped the younger calm down from a panic attack, that Jisung is the one of them he worries the most about. Chan discreetly nods down at Jisung and Changbin seems to get the message: they need to keep an eye on him.

                The images scrolling on the screen stop with the highlight on Disney’s Frozen, and Jeongin sets the remote down.

                “Hear me out.”

                Jisung takes a second to comprehend what movie he’s suggesting and starts giggling. Felix and Seungmin do, too.

                “That’s not funny,” Minho says sternly. It’s the first time he’s spoken in ages.

                There’s an instant tension throughout the room.

                “I mean, it’s a little funny,” Jisung returns, sounding small as he turns his head to look at Minho’s face.

                Chan glances out of the corner of his eye and finds Minho’s just glaring straight ahead, looking through the TV rather than at it. He keeps a hand carding through Jisung’s hair even as the other looks up at him with concern.

                “Executive decision: no musicals, guys,” Chan says finally, desperate to break the silence.

                “What? Why not?” Hyunjin asks, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. The tension dissipates somewhat.

                “Hannie’s supposed to rest his voice, remember?”

                Jisung looks perplexed. “I’m just gonna watch it?”

                “No, he’s got a point,” Seungmin realizes. “Hannie-hyung, you can’t watch something like that and not sing. That’s, like, physically not something you are capable of doing. You’re always singing.”

                “No, I’m not!”

                “You literally sang my own name at me for like twenty minutes yesterday,” Changbin adds.

                “Well, you were ignoring me,” Jisung mutters defensively.

                “Yeah, I’m not gonna do that again,” the older rapper scoffs, more softly than he probably intends. Chan hates the guilt in his eyes.

                It gets uncomfortable again. It’s unnatural for their dorm to be quiet. This must be what people mean when they say a silence is loud.

                Someone’s stomach makes a weird noise.

                “Oh, hey, we should order actual food,” Chan suggests, relieved. This is simple, this is a problem he can fix. There’s a chorus of approval from the other guys. None of them have eaten much of anything since this morning, and Jisung and Felix hadn’t eaten then either. Chan selects a ramen place they often order from because if he gives the others the option to pick a place they’ll never decide. The perks of being the leader.

                He passes his phone around and lets everyone input their own order because it’s easier to keep straight that way. The device makes its way around the room and circles back until it’s in Minho’s hands. He selects something quickly and tries to hand it to Jisung. Jisung either doesn’t notice or ignores him on purpose. Chan bites his lip, uncertain all over again.

                “What do you want?” Minho asks him verbally instead. There’s a sharp edge to his voice.

                “I, uh, I don’t want anything. I’m good.”

                Chan and Changbin lock eyes for a second, then wordlessly look to Jisung. He seems nervous.

                “Jisungie, it’s been almost 24 hours since you ate anything,” Felix tries, big dark eyes wide with worry.

                “You’re nauseous after all, aren’t you, Jisung?” Chan sighs. He knew Jisung hadn’t been honest.

                “… Maybe a little,” he confesses, sounding embarrassed. Chan has no idea why he would be. Apparently Jisung’s trying his best to worry them today.

                (That’s not fair, of course. He knows Jisung hates worrying them more than almost anything).

                “Pick something.” Minho demands. His agitated tone startles them all, and everyone turns to look at him.

                “Minho,” Chan reprimands softly, “What’s gotten into you?”

                Minho clenches his jaw and selects something for Jisung on Chan’s phone. He shoves it back into Chan’s hand stiffly.

                Chan’s at a loss for words.

                Jisung pushes himself off of Minho’s lap weakly, shifting to sit upright. He adjusts the blanket wrapped around his shoulders and crosses his arms, leaning against the arm of the couch and away from Minho. He refuses to look at Minho.

                The others all look to Chan to save them from whatever this is. They’re in uncharted territory—Minho and Jisung never fight. Most of the groups’ arguments in general don’t get so bad that some time apart can’t heal them, but those two don’t even get that far. Even when Jisung is being as annoying as possible, he can still get a smile out of Minho. He says all the time that they’re soulmates, and so far Chan has seen no evidence to the contrary. The two of them being mad at each other simply does not happen.

                Whatever is going on in Minho’s head to cause this attitude, Chan’s hoping it’ll pass if they leave it alone for a bit. 

                “Can we just pick a movie already?” Hyunjin pleads. They all want to move on.

---------------

                They end up letting Jisung pick the movie, since he’s had the shittiest day, and he picks some obscure horror movie none of them have ever heard of.

                Where normally they’d all be talking over each other to the point that no one could hear the movie, tonight the group just sits and snacks on popcorn until their order arrives. When it finally does, Jisung predictably does not eat anything, though he does drink some water. Chan hadn’t expected him to eat, with as pale as he'd gotten just looking at the popcorn, but he’d hoped.

                It’s worrisome, but he’ll just have to make sure he eats a big breakfast in the morning. Hopefully he’s feeling better by then.

                Three-fourths of the way through the film, after poor Felix has jumped out of his skin for the tenth time, Jisung and Minho seem to reconcile. It’s weird, Chan thinks, watching out of the corner of his eye. Neither of them says anything, but eventually Jisung ends up with his head on Minho’s shoulder and Minho puts his arm around his waist. There are no words exchanged, they just mutually decide they’re not upset with one another anymore.

                If Chan didn’t know better, he’d think they have some kind of psychic link. It’s that bizarre.

                He’s not complaining.

                It’s not all that late by the time the credits roll, but he’s starting to see some of the maknae’s heads bob periodically as they try not to nod off. It’s been a long, stressful day for all of them. Still, no one wants to be the first person to head to bed this early, so Chan has to speak up.

                “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to turn in,” he yawns exaggeratedly. His tactic works and the yawn spreads throughout the rest of the room. Felix and Jeongin both rub at their eyes and it’s disgustingly cute. They all start standing up and stretching while Chan walks around the room and makes sure everything’s more or less cleaned up. For a few minutes everything seems alright.

                “Jisung,” Chan says, putting a warm hand on his shoulder as Jisung blinks tiredly. “Do you mind staying out here tonight, with me? I don’t have to leave until after noon. I’ll sleep on the other couch, that way if you need anything you can just wake me up.”

                Jisung stretches his arms out in front of him, then rubs at the sore spot on the back of his head. “ ’Kay,” he agrees, too exhausted to care about anyone’s sleeping arrangements.

                Changbin herds the rest of the group off to sleepily funnel out of the common area until it’s just Chan, Jisung, and Minho. Jisung curls up on the couch, practically asleep before his head reaches the pillow. Chan turns to get his own pillow and blanket situation sorted on the other couch. He can feel Minho’s eyes on his back the second he turns around. When he turns back around, however, Minho’s got his attention back on Jisung. He pulls a blanket up over Jisung’s shoulders and pauses.

                “I can stay out here with him.”

                Chan’s confused by that. “Mate, you’ve got that costume fitting with Innie in the morning. You should just go to bed, I’ll be here if he needs anything.”

                Minho’s shoulders stiffen and Chan knows immediately he’s said the wrong thing. He expects an argument back, though he’s not sure what the problem is. Instead, Minho stands without facing him, and marches off down the hall towards their bedrooms. Even though he doesn’t say anything, he gives off the most agitated energy Chan’s ever seen him.

                When Minho reaches the hallway, he pauses and spares a short glance back to Jisung asleep on the couch, and suddenly everything clicks.

                Minho was never upset with Jisung.

                He’s upset with Chan.

                And Chan knows exactly why.

                Earlier, when Jisung was missing, it had been Chan who had suggested they all go home. They’d left him. Minho had been hesitant even then, and when he had run off back to JYPE, Chan had tried to stop him. As far as Minho was concerned, Chan had been an obstacle to finding Jisung.

                He’s lost his trust.

                It dawns on Chan, horrifyingly, that if Minho had listened to him, they never would have found Jisung. He’d have been up there all night. The medic’s words from hours before pass through his veins like ice again. In Minho’s mind, Chan had almost gotten Jisung killed.

                And Chan realizes with a sinking weight in his chest, he’s completely right.

----------------

                Jisung wakes up, disoriented, sometime in the early morning. The sun’s not up yet, and the only lights in the room come from the sleepless city outside their window and the sliver of bright that’s escaped around the slightly ajar bathroom door. His head still throbs dully, but being in the dark helps. He’s still kind of sick to his stomach, but at this point he’s wondering if that’s not just because it’s been so long since he’s eaten.

                He pushes himself up from his pillow, head spinning a little, and glances around. The clock on the wall tells him it’s past 4 in the morning, so he’s been asleep for a good while. He’s not feeling particularly rested, but he’s warm and that’s enough. Chan’s snoring softly, totally out cold on the other couch with his phone still in his hand.  There’s a TikTok playing on repeat with no sound. Jisung feels a strange combination of happiness that Chan cares so much about him that he’s slept out here with him and guilt that he feels like he has to.

                Jisung runs a hand over his face and tosses his blankets aside, swinging his legs over the side of the couch. He’s reasonably steady on his feet, now. He casts another glance over to Chan and decides to give one of his several blankets to the leader. Chan has a frown on his face and for a second Jisung’s afraid he’s woken him up when he shifts in his sleep. When he stills again, Jisung decides he’s okay to sneak off to the bathroom.

                The brightness has him squinting hard as he slips in and closes the door behind him. It takes his eyes way too long to adjust, so he just grips the countertop until his knuckles are white and hangs his head down. He sucks in a long breath and holds it, then shakily exhales. He gradually lifts his heavy head and looks into the mirror.

                He looks… not great, obviously, but not as bad as the others’ reactions made him think he would. His face is drained of its normal color and he has bags under his eyes but all in all he basically looks like he does after a panic attack—which is to say, terrible, but manageably so. He expected a lot worse.

                Jisung washes his face more to make himself feel better than out of a real necessity to do so. He feels sort of detached from his body and the cold water on his face is grounding. Maybe it’s the concussion or lack of food, or maybe it’s the quiet darkness of the dorms but he feels spacey. He exits the bathroom, leaving the light on and the door open a crack like it was before.  He considers heading to their shared bedrooms, but he’s too awake now to go back to sleep.  Chan will probably freak out when he wakes up if he does that anyway, and Jisung’s pretty sick of being the one putting that worried look on his face.

                He tiptoes cautiously back into the room when he’s startled by movement in the dark hallway across from him.

                “What are you doing?” Minho asks, stepping into the dim light of the common area. He’s speaking at his normal volume, which seems insanely loud right now.

                “Chan-hyung’s asleep!” He whisper-shouts, clutching his chest. He’d seriously thought there was a monster, which he’s choosing to blame on the concussion. “What are you doing?”

                Minho glances over to Chan’s sleeping form, then silently closes the distance between he and Jisung. Now that they’re closer, Jisung can make out a strange look on Minho’s face. His eyes are shifty, and Jisung gets the feeling Minho doesn’t want to tell him why he’s up at this hour. It hurts, a little bit.

                There aren’t supposed to be unshared secrets between them.

                “I had a weird dream. I was just… checking up on you.”

                Something about that sounds like a lie. It’s more likely that Minho hasn’t been asleep at all. Jisung looks him in the eyes, trying to decipher what he actually means to say. He doesn’t have much luck.

                “I’m fine. You can go back to bed.”

                “What were you doing creeping around like some kind of zombie?”

                Jisung gives him an exasperated look. “I’m not ‘creeping around,’ I literally just had to use the bathroom. I didn’t realize I had to ask your permission.”

                Minho sighs. He seems frustrated, more towards himself than Jisung. His shoulders are stiff and his face is pinched. Jisung’s not sure what to do to help, but it doesn’t seem like he’s planning to go back to bed and Jisung suddenly kind of desperately needs to cuddle someone anyway. And Minho is his preferred human-pillow, so…

                The other guys have said before that Jisung sets the mood of the group and keeps them in high spirits. He’s not sure how much he believes that, but it’s worth a shot. He grabs Minho’s hands in his own, swinging their arms back and forth. When he finally gets Minho to make eye contact with him, he smiles as sweetly as he can manage in his condition, and gets a small crooked smirk in return.

                Success.

                Jisung leads Minho over to the windows. Minho goes to sit in a chair, but Jisung takes a seat on the floor instead, so Minho joins him. Jisung lays back and pulls Minho down with him so they’re both flat on the floor, side by side.

                “If you look out the window from down here, you can see more sky than buildings,” he explains, sensing Minho’s confusion. “Hyunjin showed me once, when he was talking about art stuff. When it’s dark enough, you can pretend like you’re in outer space.”

                Minho hums.

                “It would be better if there were some stars,” Jisung adds, feeling kind of silly.

                Minho turns his head and they’re looking in each other’s eyes again. Jisung thinks he could do that forever.

                “There are plenty of stars,” Minho tells him, voice barely a whisper. They’re close enough that he probably would have heard it even if it was just a thought. “I can see them in your eyes.”

                God.

                What’s he supposed to say to that?

                Jisung finds himself laughing quietly, amused and a little embarrassed. “I can’t believe you can stay stuff like that with a straight face.”

                Minho laughs, too, his ears turning red to match the color spreading across Jisung’s cheeks.

                Minho props his head up on his arm and reaches over to drape his other arm across Jisung’s small waist. “I’m glad you’re up, to be honest,” Minho admits. “I think I deserve to have you to myself for a while since I’m the one who found you.”

                Jisung snorts. “You’d be saying that even if you weren’t.”

                “Probably.”

                Jisung turns onto his side and mirrors Minho’s pose. “Hey, seriously, can I ask you something?”

                “What’s wrong?”

                Jisung tries to choose his words carefully. “You just seemed kind of… pissed off earlier? You’re really tense, I know something’s bothering you.”

                Minho removes his arm and looks away. “I’m sorry. I just—I was really worried about you, earlier. I still am, I guess. I’m trying not to be crazy possessive over you, but like… if I lost you, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d lose my mind.”

                “Hey,” Jisung soothes, “don’t think about stuff like that. Everything’s fine, now, right? I’m not going anywhere.”

                “I know,” Minho sighs. A little tension eases out of his body, but not enough. “I need to apologize to everyone.”

                “They’ll understand,” Jisung tells him, but of course Minho knows that. “Hey, let’s go on a walk in the snow when your fitting is done tomorrow.”

                Suddenly the back of Minho’s hand is on his forehead.

                “What are you doing?” Jisung squirms out from under his touch.

                “You must have a fever or something to be suggesting dumb stuff like that.”

                “I don’t. Come on, you said you wanted me all to yourself,” Jisung brushes Minho’s arm away and climbs on top of him. “Spend time with me.”

                Minho grins, and wraps his arms around Jisung’s waist.

                Looking down at Minho, Jisung can see there are stars in his eyes, too.

---------------

                Chan knows it’s a dream from the moment it starts, but that doesn’t stop the discomfort in his chest.

                He’s in a pure white void, with snow all around him extending outward as far as he can see, but he’s warm. It’s wrong. Ahead of him is a big metal door, one that he knows he’s seen but can’t place right now. There are no walls around it; it stands alone. He approaches the door and grabs the handle. It doesn’t open.

                He feels like he’s being watched.

                Chan walks a few steps to round the back of the free-standing door. Just as he reaches out to press the bar and try to open it from that side, he hears a voice.

                “How could you leave me, hyung?”

                Jisung.

                It echoes from every direction, cold and emotionless, a ghost’s voice. But Chan knows it’s him. He whips around, frantically turning to find Jisung, or something, anything—but there’s nothing but snow, Chan, and the door.

                “You were supposed to protect me but you left me behind.”

                “No, no, I—Jisung, where are you?!” He runs a few paces in different directions, but his legs are slow like he’s in water and he doesn’t know where to go. It’s a dream, it’s just a dream. The voice echoes again, this time from behind the door.

                “Channie-hyung, how could you let me die?”

                 He launches himself into the door and pushes through.

                The snow on the other side is stained red with blood.

----------

                Chan jolts awake, gasping as his phone falls to the floor. He lies there for a minute, staring at the ceiling, remembering the feeling of the blankets on him and the cushion below him. He’s home, he’s in the living room, Jisung is safe on the other couch. The others are all in bed. Everyone is where they should be. Chan sits up slowly and looks over—

                —And his heart stops because Jisung’s not there.

                Chan flings the blankets off and jumps to his feet in a panic. The fabric collects at his feet and he ends up staggering when it trips him up, but he’s got to go, he has to find—

                “Jisung!”

                “Over here,” Minho’s voice calmly responds.

                Chan practically breaks his neck he turns so fast in his direction, but there they are, Jisung hovering over Minho as the older idol holds younger’s waist. They have matching dumbfounded expressions as they stare back. Chan’s chest heaves as he collects himself.

                “Han Jisung, you’re seriously gonna give me a heart attack.”

                “Sorry, hyung,” Jisung says shyly.

                Chan sighs and crosses the room to where they are and gives them a suspicious look.

                “What’s, uh, what’s with the PDA?”

                Jisung twitches, his cheeks flushing, and immediately climbs off of Minho’s chest. Minho’s hands don’t seem to want to let him go.

                “We were just, uh—“

                “Stargazing,” Minho finishes. They share a knowing look and Chan feels like he’s missing something.

                “…Right. So, uh, everything’s okay then?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Okay,” Chan doesn’t want to intrude on… whatever this is, but he’s still keyed up from the nightmare and he can’t help but want to keep them in his line of sight. He pulls a nearby chair over and takes a seat. “You guys are seriously giving me gray hairs.”

                “You can’t blame us just because you’re old,” Minho deadpans, sitting up.

                Chan makes a face and Jisung laughs, making himself comfortable by stretching out and resting his head on Minho’s lap the same way he had earlier, on the couch. The sight of them reminds Chan of Minho’s previous attitude. He doesn’t seem upset now, but Chan can tell he’s still holding something back.

                They sit in silence for a while, looking out the window at nothing.

                Eventually, Chan gets the nerve to speak. “Minho,” he begins quietly. “Listen, I know you’re mad—”

                Minho doesn’t look at him. “That’s just what my face looks like.”

                “You don’t have to pretend. You’re totally right to be upset with me.”

                Jisung grabs Minho’s hands as if to offer him emotional support. Chan wonders what they’ve been talking about, and how long they’ve been up for.

                “No, I need to explain, hyung.”

                Chan stays silent, giving Minho the space he needs to speak.

                Minho takes a second to formulate his thoughts and starts again. “I’m not mad at you. I was just… I was mad at anything coming between me and Jisung. After what happened, it was like I just couldn’t trust anyone to take care of him but myself, if that makes sense.”

                “It makes perfect sense, Minho.”

                For once, Jisung is the quietest of them. He seems content to watch the snow fall outside idly while Chan and Minho deal with the tension between them.

                “It’s not like it was your fault,” Minho continues softly. “None of us knew where he was. What happened wasn’t anyone’s fault, but I guess in my mind I had to be angry at someone. “

                Chan sits back in his chair. “How did you know he was still at JYPE, anyway?”

                “I didn’t, I just knew I had to check again. I figured I’d make security show me the cameras if I didn’t find him right away.” Minho finally turns and meets Chan’s eye with a small smile. “I knew he’d be somewhere stupid, you know?”

                “Yeah,” Chan smiles back, then sobers a little. “I was worried about you, too. I had no idea if something happened to you when you hung up like that. If it wasn’t for Hyunjin I probably would have crashed the car.”

                “You can’t blame me for your poor driving skills either,” Minho jokes dryly. Chan shoves at his shoulder with his foot. “Seriously, though. I wasn’t trying to scare you when I did that. I saw Jisung and I panicked.”

                In his lap, Jisung shifts uncomfortably, but doesn’t join the conversation. He’s got his eyes closed but Chan doubts he’s asleep.

                “It’s alright. I’m glad you spotted him up there.” Minho stiffens and Chan gets the feeling he hasn’t told him everything. “Minho?”

                “Chan, I—“ he begins, voice cracking. In the dim light, Chan can see Minho’s eyes shining and realizes he’s on the verge of tears. It’s alarming. Minho almost never cries, not in front of someone else. “God, you should have seen him. I don’t know what made me look up, I guess I must have felt him watching me. And I knew it was him right away, even though it was dark, and—“

                He takes his hands out of Jisung’s grasp so that he can haul Jisung upright and hold him against his chest. Jisung looks uncomfortable now that he can’t pretend to be asleep. “He was leaning over, a-and he was, like, swaying, and I thought he was gonna fall right in front of me.”

                Chan takes a shaky breath. He can almost picture the image in his mind, and it sends a shiver down his spine. It’s no wonder Minho’s been so upset—he’s traumatized.

                Jisung takes his hands again and holds them close to his own heart. His face goes even paler than it already was and Chan wonders if Jisung is hearing this information for the first time, too.

                “Jisungie,” Minho says, tucking his head into the crook of Jisung’s neck. “I was so afraid that I’d get to the roof and you’d be gone.”

                There are tears streaming down his face now. Chan hops off the chair and almost tackles the other two into a hug. He chokes on a sob and holds them as tightly as he can, like if he lets go they’ll both disappear.

                The three of them stay like that for a while, letting their tears fly without hesitation.

                Eventually they’re all drained.

                But, now that everything’s out in the open, the air feels lighter. Like gravity’s been weighing down on their shoulders all day and suddenly it’s let up.

                Once Jisung’s finally had enough of their affection, he tries to wriggle free from being trapped between his hyungs. “You’re suffocating me,” he whines.

                “Too bad,” Minho replies, though he lets go when Chan does and allows Jisung a fraction of separation from him.

                Chan looks at the clock and it’s around 5:30 in the morning. The sun’s not up yet, but he seriously doubts that any of them could go back to sleep no matter how tired they are. They’re just going to have to be worn out today. Again, he finds himself drawn to a problem he can fix.

                “You guys want way-too-early breakfast?” He stands and crosses the room to flip the light switch. The others both flinch at the sudden light, but Chan’s satisfied that Jisung doesn’t recoil the way he had when he’d had the flashlight shone in his eyes. “It’ll be a while before the other guys are up, but…”

                “That sounds good,” Minho responds, then pauses. He looks at Jisung awkwardly. “I know I was an asshole about it before, Jisungie, but promise me you’re going to eat something?”

                “You do need to eat something, Hannie,” Chan adds, casting a serious look his way. “Even if your stomach is still upset. I’m scared you’re gonna faint.”

                Jisung rolls his eyes at him, thoroughly done with being fussed over. Chan can tell he’s feeling better. “I’m okay,” he sighs exasperatedly. “I know how to take care of myself. I’m not an idiot.”

                “Debatable,” Minho smirks.

                “They’re just store bought so they’re not as good as Lixie’s, but we have brownies if anyone’s interested?”

                “Wait,” Jisung exclaims, his big expressive eyes wide, “I can have a brownie for breakfast?!”

                “I’m about to blow your mind, Sungie,” Chan laughs fondly, “You’re an adult. You can have multiple brownies for breakfast.”

                Jisung’s eyes are bigger than the moon above the clouds and Chan can’t help but laugh at him.

                Minho helps Jisung up and leads him into the kitchen with an arm around his waist. He casually slings the other arm across Chan’s shoulders when they get there. Despite the early hour, Chan can hear the beginnings of movement from the bedrooms. Soon he’ll be able to have all of them in his line of sight at once, safe, where they belong.

                Chan knows, for sure this time, that everything’s going to be alright.