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Jisung was an anxious boy, that was pretty clear to see. Because of this Jisung had a lot of nervous ticks, most of them harmless. But for those few that weren’t? They were bad.
Jisung doesn’t mean to hurt himself, a lot of times he just does it without thinking. It only occurs to him after the fact of the damage he had done to himself.
It was a long day of practice as they geared up for their latest comeback. Everyone was feeling the heat and working overtime to make sure it was perfect.
They had made it back to their dorms, all winding down from the busy day. The boys decided to have a movie night to destress from today’s events.
So that’s how Jisung found himself sitting on the smaller couch, waiting for the boys to start the movie.
Chan was still trying to round up everyone. Felix and Hyunjin were still changing into some comfy clothes after their shower. Minho was off in the kitchen with Changbin getting snacks together and Seungmin was taking a seat on the other couch, knowing well enough he needed to claim a seat fast before he got stuck on the floor. I.N. had run off to grab something from his room.
Slowly one by one everyone was finding a spot on the couch. The only one missing was Hyunjin, causing Chan to go across to the other dorm to get him. Together the other boys just sat around, discussing their day and the pressures of this comeback.
It was a simple comment.
Jisung knew Seungmin didn’t mean anything bad by it, just a light teasing.
“If you keep messing up your lines we might just have to start calling you Hannie-Hyung.”
It was supposed to be a little jab, teasing how the older boy gets tripped up on his lines from time to time.
But did Jisung do it often enough for it to become an inside joke?
Has he been that bad about messing up?
Was he holding the boys back by how much he was messing up?
Jisung didn’t fully realize his nails were starting to scrap against his thighs,
It felt… comfortable. Comfortable and painful at the same time. Like something that forced him out of his head.
Pain helps distract him from his thoughts.
“Hannie!” I.N. calls, getting the boy’s attention, his hands still digging their way into his thighs.
I.N. didn’t wait for a response as he flung himself onto his hyung’s lap, wrapping his arms around him.
“Missing cuddles from my Hyungie,” I.N. mutters.
The weight of I.N. sitting on his lap forced Jisung to pull his hands away from his thigh, instead letting them rest around the boy.
Neither one would acknowledge what just happened. It wasn’t the first time one of the boys stopped Jisung from harming himself by stopping him or distracting him.
He felt bad.
He knew he just worried all of them with his nervous ticks.
He wishes he could stop.
“Hannie, what movie do you want to watch?” I.N. speaks from his lap.
The boy finally glances over to see the maknae smiling wide at him. He offers a smile back, pulling him into a tighter hug.
“Anything you want, Innie,” Jisung responds simply.
Soon all the boys were accounted for and they began the movie. I.N. tossed a blanket across the two before settling his head onto Jisung’s shoulder. Together the boys snuggled as the movie played out.
After the movie everyone went off in their own directions, I.N. finding his way to Jisung’s room with him. I.N. didn’t want to leave Jisung alone. Plus he did want to snuggle up with one of the members, feeling himself getting frustrated by their schedule himself.
So that’s how the two boys found their way to Jisung’s bed, cuddling up together and resting for the busy day to come.
The next day was busy like they thought but more on the music-producing side than anything. 3Racha was having to go through and clean up some potential B-track songs.
They had been sitting there for a good four hours already, just going through the songs and making little tweaks where it was needed.
“Channie-hyung, can you look at File 12 and tell me what you think?” Jisung asked, glancing over to the leader.
“Yeah, of course, let me take a look, one second,” Chan remarks, clicking through a few things on his computer. The older boy listened to the song, nodding his head a little as it played out. As the song finishes out Chan pulls down his headphones.
“It’s not bad but I think the chorus could use a bit of work. It seems disconnected from the rest of the song.”
Jisung nods, turning back to his own computer and re-opening the file.
Jisung could feel himself getting frustrated, that was the third song Chan told him to re-edit. He leans his head on his hand, scrubbing through the song one more time.
Why was he being such a screw-up?
It would be a good idea to let Chan and Changbin take over all the songs.
They don’t need him.
His head started to feel itchy. Like it was making his skin crawl how bad it was. Unconsciously he started to scratch at his scalp, his eyes still scanning over the screen at his music.
He had to have been scratching at it for a while before feeling his fingertips becoming wet. It was only then he became conscious of what he had been doing.
And what that wetness was.
He pulls his hand out of his hair to see red spread across his fingertips,
Blood.
It had only happened a few times that Jisung had made himself bleed, normally he was better at stopping himself before he reached that point.
Today was not one of those days apparently.
Jisung rolls his chair back, gaining the attention of Changbin who was sitting next to him. Changbin’s attention first turns to the boy before his eyes shift down to see his hand.
Without an ounce of hesitation, Changbin was on his feet, reaching out for Jisung’s wrist. With that, the older boy leads Jisung out of the room, all the way down to a nearby bathroom.
Changbin doesn’t let the young boy touch anything with his hand as he turns on the water for the boy to wash away the red that was staining his skin.
With that Changbin makes quick work, gathering some paper towels and pressing them against the younger boy’s head where a small wet patch was.
During this time Jisung finishes washing his hands and Changbin offers an extra couple of paper towels so he can dry them. Jisung tosses his paper towels in the nearby waste bin, before feeling an arm wrap around his body.
The two stand like that for a little while, Changbin still applying pressure to the back of Jisung’s head as he relaxes into the older boy's arms.
After a bit of time, Changbin removed the paper towel from Jisung’s head, patting a little at it to make sure the bleeding had stopped. He disposes of the paper towels before taking the time to wash his own hands.
“How about we take a break and grab some food? We can bring something back for Chan too.” Changbin states, lacing their hands together.
Jisung offers a small smile before nodding.
He appreciated how Changbin didn’t bring up what happened, and didn't scold him for making his scalp bleed. Just reassured him and made sure he was all taken care of.
The two boys head out of the bathroom and eventually out of the building. They head off towards a nearby restaurant where Changbin treats Jisung to a meal.
Soon enough they finished their food and headed back, an extra meal in tow for the leader they had left at the studio.
The rest of the day went by a lot smoother.
————————
It’s been a crazy few weeks but the boys were finally starting their comeback. Currently, they were getting mic’d up for an interview they were doing for some Western YouTube channel. Jisung couldn’t really remember which one considering it was their third one today.
Jisung was luckily placed in the back row for this interview, stuck between Felix and Seungmin.
Sitting next to Felix put a lot less pressure on Jisung to speak. Sometimes he was very energetic and excited to talk during these interviews but other times he just liked to nod along and agree.
The interview started and everything seemed to be going smoothly. Jisung was jumping in every now and again when he felt comfortable and the whole vibe felt nice.
Until it wasn’t.
Jisung was pretty tired from all the interviews today and it was getting harder and harder to understand the English that was being spoken around him.
Everyone’s eyes glance towards him and he is pretty sure a question had just been asked to the boy but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was asked.
Chan was the first to realize Jisung’s deer-in-headlights moment and covers for the boy so he doesn’t feel awkward. But it was a little too late as Jisung was already feeling more and more self-conscious.
His hands ball up into fists, his nails slowly digging into his palms. Jisung had registered the initial sting of his palms but couldn’t for the life of him seem to stop it, to unfurl his hands and release his palms from the pain.
It wasn’t until he felt another pair of hands encapsulating his own that he was brought back to their current circumstance. He glances down to see Seungmin pulling Jisung’s hands closer to him, his hands covering both of them. Seungmin slowly starts drawing small circles on the backs of both his hands, slowly getting the boy to relax his hands until they finally lie flat against his thigh.
Jisung moves to take his hands back, thankful for what Seungmin had done for him. But Seungmin wouldn’t let the hand closest to him go, instead taking it and interlacing their fingers.
The interview continues and Jisung feels a little more at ease from the comfort of his boyfriend. Every now and again Seungmin squeezes their joined hands, almost like a check-in signal to make sure Jisung was doing okay.
Jisung would always squeeze back in response, a few times squeezing on his own because of his own anxious feelings.
The rest of the interview goes off without a hitch and soon the boys are heading back to their hotel to get some rest and continue their promotions in the States.
The next day they had a performance on a late-night talk show, so before the show, they rented a studio and worked on their choreography. They were a little rusty since they hadn’t properly danced the song in almost two weeks now.
So the first run-throughs were filled with little mistakes by all the boys as they tried to clean it up and get it performance ready. It was after those few run-throughs that things seemed to be going bad.
“Hannie, you’re late for the chorus.”
“You need to step to the left, Jisungie.”
“Jisung, your movements need to be sharper on the bridge.”
Every correction that was being said seemed to be coming toward the anxious boy. Jisung nods to the latest correction, taking his spot once more as the song starts to ring out.
One more run-through.
One more correction was thrown Jisung’s way.
Minho decided to call for a break as everyone went off to their water bottles. Jisung could feel the worry boiling up inside of him, his lip catching between his teeth as he started to chew on it. He slowly makes his way to his own water, taking a seat against the mirrored wall.
He couldn’t bring himself to remove the lip from his teeth as his hands started to fiddle with the water bottle cap. Jisung didn’t realize he had been biting down so hard on his lip, not until the metallic taste hit his tongue.
He reached up to his lip, wiping at the corner of his mouth, seeing a small streak of red on his thumb. He ran his tongue over the busted cut on his lip.
He fucked up.
They’re supposed to be performing, he can’t show up with a busted lip. Their makeup artist is going to be furious with him. As the anxiety starts to build up in him again and he unconsciously starts to chew once more on his lip, this time on the other side.
Luckily Hyunjin was standing nearby observing the younger boy. As Jisung started to chew again on his lip, Hyunjin knew he needed to act. Luckily by this point, it was only the boys left in the dance studio.
Hyunjin takes a few steps to close the gap between the two boys, kneeling to be face-to-face with Jisung. Jisung’s eyes flutter as Hyunjin’s face appears suddenly before him.
He doesn’t have a second to process what was happening as he feels a kiss being pressed to his lips, his eyes automatically closing.
The kiss stung a little as Hyunjin pushed against Jisung’s lip. It had a slight metallic taste but neither of them minded it much.
Jisung’s mind had gone blank by this point, any sense of worry quickly fading away as the two boys shared this moment.
Jisung feels a soft hand caress his cheek and instinctively his hands fall against Hyunjin’s sides, helping to steady the squatting boy.
After a few seconds, Hyunjin slowly pulls away from the kiss. Jisung opens his eyes to find the older boy smiling back at him.
“You’re doing a great job, Hannie.”
Jisung knew part of him wanted to disagree, but it was drowned out by the love he was feeling from his Hyung.
After a few minutes, Minho calls everyone back together to continue working on the dance. After the break, and a little bit of help from Hyunjin, Jisung felt a lot better as he got back into the dance.
Their performance on the late-night talk show went amazingly.
————————
The boys were back in South Korea and back to their daily grind of working.
Jisung was hard at work, freshening up on some of the old dances and working on a few new songs. He was feeling a little bit of pressure from some of the comments he was reading on their interviews and performances. Everyone had high hopes for their comeback and Jisung wanted to make Stays happy.
They had loved the performances and interviews and were buzzing about their upcoming tour, another pressure that’s been weighing on Jisung.
He had returned to the dorm but his mind couldn’t drift from work as he fixed himself something to eat. As he looked over the pantry at all the food they had Jisung brought his hand up to his mouth.
With one hand reaching out for different types of food before dropping them on the counter and repeating, his other hand was busy as he chewed at his nails.
He had managed to bite down three of his nails before Minho had found the younger boy in the kitchen. It didn’t take him long to register the younger boy chewing on his nails, it being one of his more prominent ticks.
But Minho knew how to keep Jisung from biting at his nails.
He wastes no time walking behind the younger boy, flinging his arms around his midsection. He rests his head on Jisung’s shoulder, shooting a goofy smile at him.
“Can I paint your nails, Hannie?”
Jisung was a little frightened by the initial contact before he registered it as his hyung. With his nail sitting between his teeth the boy nods.
Minho smiles wider and quickly grabs ahold of Jisung’s arm and pulls him off towards his room. After digging around at his desk for a second he finds a small basket that has a few different polishes inside.
With that he leads Jisung to sit on his bed, placing the basket beside him before getting comfortable himself. He takes a second to dig through the polishes, deciding the ones he wanted before tossing the rest to the side.
He takes hold of Jisung’s hand, carefully starting on the thumb, coating it in a thin layer of polish. The two make small talk as Minho works on Jisung’s nails.
They talk about their comeback, how excited they have been about everyone’s reactions, how they couldn’t wait for the next few days and the things they had planned for the rest of the week.
Eventually, Minho was applying a top coat across all the nails, smiling down at his handiwork.
“What do you think, Hannie?”
Jisung smiled down at his nails, they were mostly black with a white smiley face on his ring fingers and a heart on his thumbs. The pinky and pointer fingers were black and white stripes and his middle fingers were just solid black.
“I love it, Hyungie,” Jisung responds, giving a kiss on the boy’s cheek. The boy wasn’t pleased with this and immediately pounced on the younger boy, making him fall backward onto the bed. With that Minho proceeded to cover Jisung’s face in kisses, making sure to land several of them on his lips.
As long as Jisung had nail polish on his nails he could never seem to have the heart to chew them.
The next few days went by a lot better than Jisung had initially anticipated. Everything seemed to be turning around for the young boy.
Well, that was until…
It wasn’t one singular thing that had Jisung off today. He just seemed to wake up on edge. It happened from time to time, he just had to wait it out the best he could.
He had made it through most of the day, making it back to the dorms before showering and winding down. Felix and I.N. had invited Jisung over to play some games and relax for the day.
Currently, Hyunjin, Felix, I.N., and Seungmin were racing in Mario Kart as Jisung watched on the sidelines with Minho who was also waiting for a turn to play.
It started unconsciously, per usual. His hair was just bothering him. Even with it mostly dry it felt like every two seconds he was having to brush it back from his face.
Eventually, he got frustrated, lacing his hands into his hair before gripping onto it and tugging. He just wanted to rip out his hair, for whatever reason it seemed to be pissing him off at the moment. For the next little bit, Jisung felt himself tighten and loosen the fists he had in his hair, tugging on the entwined hair.
“Hannie-hyung?” Felix calls, snapping Jisung out of his daze.
He glances over to the boy, seeing the outstretched controller in his hand. Nodding he takes the controller from the younger boy.
“Here, take a seat in front of me so you can see better,” Felix says, patting the floor in front of where he was sitting on the couch.
Jisung nods, moving to where the younger boy asked him to. He’s quick to adjust his character before Seungmin starts up the next game. As he starts on the first lap he feels a set of hands start playing with his hair.
“Do you mind if I braid your hair, Hannie?” Felix asks, still playing with the ends of Jisung’s hair.
“I don’t think I have long enough hair for that, Lix,” Jisung responds, trying to stay focused on the game.
“I can make little ones at least.”
“Okay baby, if you want to you can.” Jisung remarks back, sliding his way into second place behind I.N.
With that the younger boy got to work, making little braids all throughout the rapper’s hair. Every once in a while Jisung felt a light tug before Felix muttered an apology and kept going.
The gesture was small but it meant the world to Jisung. He always loved it when one of his boyfriends played with his hair, it always made him feel so relaxed. By the time they had finished the race, Jisung had about a dozen little braids scattered in his hair.
Jisung slept without taking down any of the braids that night.
The next day Jisung found himself heading to the studio late at night with Chan in tow. Changbin headed off to the gym, saying he’d come by the studio in a few hours to check their progress.
So the two boys got comfy as they started on their music. Every now and again there are back-and-forth conversations between them about checking out a track the other had finished or taking over on a song the other was stuck on. At some point Chan had left to go to the bathroom, leaving the younger boy alone.
Jisung knew their deadline for pitching new songs was coming up and they needed as many songs as they could so they had plenty of options if some of them get rejected.
Jisung seems to hit a wall, scanning over a song. He liked it but something was off and he just couldn’t tell what. His hand reached down to start scratching his leg, trying to comfort the anxiety building inside of him.
He stops himself.
This wasn’t the first time Jisung had done this, all day Jisung had found himself trying to stop any harming ticks he had tried to do. His bad ticks were getting out of hand and it was only adding to his anxiety.
Jisung shakes his head, forcing himself to turn back to the computer he’d been working on. After fixing and undoing the same couple of sections again and again Jisung lets out a small sigh. He clicks through a few pages before changing to a different file, starting fresh on another file before going through the same process once more.
Before he knows it it’s been almost thirty minutes since he started and his computer was filled with files of basically nothing. He leans back and takes in the sight of everything, all this time and he’s gotten nothing done. He can’t figure out what he wants for this song and if he tries to stop and focus on a different song he seems to be stuck in the same loop.
His head was cloudy.
He needed to get this done, his group needed him to get his shit together and focus.
His boyfriends….
If he can’t get his shit together his boyfriends are going to be disappointed. They will surely want to kick him out of Stray Kids, and they definitely will want to break up with him. He’s stupid, can’t get this song figured out, can’t focus, can’t be responsible, can’t…. can’t…
Jisung didn’t process the tears running down his cheeks as he started to realize he couldn’t take a breath. His head was growing fuzzier by the second and his vision was starting to blur. A ringing starts in his ears.
Panic.
Jisung had felt this before, many times before. Never has it been this strong. He moves a hand to his chest, feeling his heart beating wildly. Any air he tries to take in never reaches his lungs. His hands are starting to shake and if he doesn’t get it under control he fears what might happen.
He feels himself spin a little as a hand on his cheek makes him jump, his vision still blurry as something, or more so someone comes to sit in front of him.
Sound.
Between the ringing, they’re saying something but Jisung can’t hear it, can’t focus on it.
Another hand reaches out to grab ahold of Jisung’s hand, moving it against something hard.
Heartbeat.
It was much slower than his own but it was clearly a heartbeat.
“-nnie” He can almost make out the words being said.
Jisung tries to focus on the heartbeat under his hand, the feeling of the shirt against his hand, the hand on his cheek, anything that keeps him from being wrapped up in his thoughts once more.
“Jisung.” They called.
Chan.
The person was Chan.
Chan had been calling his name.
“Ch…Cha-” Jisung tries to muster out before being hushed by the older boy.
Chan pulls Jisung into his chest, rubbing a hand along his back and through his hair. “I’m right here. Just focus on my voice, my heartbeat. I’m right here.” His words were comforting.
Jisung lets himself go slack in Chan’s arms, trying to calm his mind as the other continues to comfort him. Jisung’s vision starts to go back into focus and the ringing in his ears calms to silence.
“Channie-hyung,” Jisung mutters, gripping his t-shirt, almost as if he didn’t Chan would just disappear.
“I’m right here, Hannie,” Chan responds, kissing him on his forehead.
After a few minutes of sitting like that Jisung lets his grip loosen, allowing Chan to sit back, taking the pressure off his knees. Chan didn’t say a word as he wipes a thumb across Jisung’s face, clearing away the tears.
The two boys stay like that for some time, as Jisung takes hold of Chan’s hand, drawing random doodles on the back of it.
“I think we should head back to the dorms and get some rest, okay Hannie?”
Jisung nods, offering a half-hearted smile to the older boy.
With that Chan makes his way to his feet, holding out a hand to guide Jisung to his feet as well. With that, the two boys walk hand in hand back to the dorms. That night they make their way to Chan’s bed. Chan plays with Jisung’s hair as he listens to the younger boy rant about all the thoughts that have been weighing heavily on his mind. With a lot of reassurance from the older boy, they find their way to sleep, relaxing in the warm embrace of each other.
Jisung will be forever grateful for his boyfriends and just how well they help him with his anxiety.