Archive of Our Own

Jiseok's nightmares begin on that random night they bring home the mirror. 

Seungmin and Jooyeon work together to force Gunil from either the desk in his room, or the one in the studio. They recruit Jiseok because Gunil is weak to all of them, and Jungsu and Hyeongjun are just busy. 

All they do is walk, really. 

They take the rare opportunity to explore a part of Seoul they hardly frequent, and there are plenty of those. When the sun is setting and curved, cracked rooftops are painted a golden poppy orange. They're drunk off each other, sunlight champagne laughter bubbling inside them. Swaying off crumbled sidewalks, dipping into the road, no one dare be left behind. 

Stopping sudden, squatting, Jooyeon peers into a shop's display window. He pushes his fingers to the glass, the pads of them coming away dusty, leaving prints behind. "Look, it's Hyungs," he observes in a hushed shout, pressing his nose close. At once, they crowd around him, peeking beyond him to verify. 

It's an old garden statue, of a mouse and a cat, the cat curled up in a nap, the mouse burrowed into its fur atop its back. The paint is chipped, the mouse's snout and mouth missing, glue remaining there from a failed mending. 

"I'm not a mouse," Gunil gripes, pushes his palms against the flat of Jooyeon's head, lips faintly pursed as he examines the figure, nostalgic. 

Squinting at the sheared snout, trying to deduce why a ruined piece of all things was front and center, Jiseok quips, "Close enough." He even straightens, takes Gunil's nose between his fingers, snorting when Gunil yelps and stumbles back, breathing out through his mouth. 

Not given the chance to recover, his wrist is trapped in Seungmin's determined grip. "It's an antique shop. We gotta check it out." He doesn't quite ask, before tugging Gunil into the store along with him. Nothing but curious, Jooyeon and Jiseok follow behind them. 

Seungmin tells them absentminded to be quiet and to be careful. Together, they might very well be the bull in the china shop. An accessory of his fixation, Gunil is dragged behind Seungmin rather willingly. Endeared by Seungmin's admiration for the things both in and out of fashion. 

Distracted with old toys, sculpted robots in dented, colorful cardboard and glass combs of all the rose and blush hues, they don't realize Gunil is lost in the mess until Seungmin tells them, looking for him. "I was checking if they had any clothes and I turned around and he was gone." 

Tearing his awed gaze from the tiny collection of retro sci-fi figures, Jiseok frowns. "How did you manage to lose our leader? He's not small." 

"He's not that old either," Jooyeon chirps, Seungmin regarding them both with dire exasperation. 

Pulling them up by their collars, ever the nagging figure of a mother, they all go looking for the whole person they managed to lose in the cluttered, claustrophobic piles of things once adored and now forgotten. Sold without souls. 

It's in the very back of the shop, the light dimly filtered through towering rickety bookshelves and clothes racks of sneezes. "It's creepy as shit back here," Jooyeon whispers, squeezing Jiseok's hand for unnecessary courage. He jumps, clapping his hand over his mouth to stifle his yelp when they stumble upon someone. 

Standing before a mirror, full length and framed elaborately with shiny worn-down copper flora. Jiseok loves metal flowers, the juxtaposition of them. This mirror though, he's not fond of it. Gunil turns from it to look at them, eyes wide, complexion shadowed in the dark. "Oh," he greets them with, lackluster. 

"Jesus, Hyungie. Thought we lost you," Seungmin sighs, coming up behind Gunil, wrapping his arms around the older's waist, hooking his chin over Gunil's shoulder. "Does this mirror make you look extra pretty or something?" He narrows his eyes into the reflection, smiling pleased at the image that glares back.

Blinking slowly, Gunil frowns distant. "Extra?" he scoffs, "What do you mean by that?" The faux offense halfhearted. He strains his neck, trains his stare to the ground, he fights it. Still his eyes shoot back to the mirror, pupils constricted against the darkness, brows knitted. 

Slipping away from Gunil, Seungmin picks up the mirror, just barely shorter than him, Gunil wincing. "Let's get it!" So get it they do. Now it sits innocuous, on the wall of their living room. Frankly, Jiseok thinks it doesn't fit. 

The nightmares are simple. Short in some sense. They go a little like this: Jiseok wakes in his bed, but it's not either Seungmin nor Gunil who wake him. It's no one. It's nothingness. He's alone in the dorm and he can't leave. And no matter how endlessly he searches, begs, cries for his friends, for anyone at some point, no one comes. There isn't anyone to come. 

Then he spots that unsightly mirror hung on their living room wall, all metal flowers and pockmarked glass. He steps before it—and wakes up, tear tracks dried tacky on his face. 

The first time it happens, he deals with it. The second, he climbs down to Seungmin, shakes him awake, and tries Seungmin's company to stave away the loneliness clinging to his skin like a deadly disease. Except, Seungmin never woke up; he was just sleep talking while Jiseok told him everything. Needless to say, Jiseok doesn't try that again. 

He goes to Hyeongjun instead, just so he doesn't have to rouse Jooyeon from his log-like slumber, and the simply clueless expression he receives is harrowing, so on the third time (the charm), he wakes Jooyeon and slips into the younger's bed, positive Jooyeon's arms wrapped tight around him like a teddy bear, would do more than enough to keep him under. 

Except it doesn't. 

Under Jooyeon's awful sherpa blanket, he gasps awake, eyes flicking down to the small puddle of salt formed on Jooyeon's honey sweet skin. He shoots up, wiping hastily at his face, and then, with the hem of his shirt, Jooyeon's arm. If Jiseok wants any sleep before their second week of promotions, it was time for last resorts. So Jiseok ventures into the dark hall, irrationally put off by the emptiness of it, and turns the knob to Jungsu and Gunil's room. 

With caution, he peers in, slightly more afraid of catching Jungsu and Gunil in bed together than he is his own nightmares. However, Jungsu is alone in his bed, and Gunil's bed…appears unfortunately empty. Jiseok bites his tongue, stifles a sigh. They've all had their late nights, this thing he won't internalize. 

For some reason, he doesn't bother waking Jungsu. Instead, his feet carry him to the ladder, climbing up it not of his volition. Halfway clambered into Gunil's bed, does Jiseok realize what he's doing, rubbing baffled at his bleary eyes. 

Testing the waters though, he pulls himself up, into the neatly made duvet and sheets. He crawls along the old fashioned patterned bedding, tucking one of Gunil's precious plushies to his chest, laying his head tentatively to Gunil's pillow, breathing in mint chewing gum and Seungmin's lavender shampoo. 

He buries his head into the pillowcase, curling his legs beneath the duvet, careful not to tug it free from where it's folded beneath the mattress. And he sleeps, doesn't wake. 

No nightmares. 

Without a question, without even a word, Gunil lets him be. He plucks a backup pillow and blanket from the closet, places them on one end of the couch, and sleeps there for several nights. Jiseok suspects, somehow, that he knows of the nightmares. Maybe Seungmin was awake a little bit that first time, and told Gunil and Jungsu or, more probable, Hyeongjun had confided in Gunil, guilty he couldn't do anything himself. Jooyeon hadn't been awake enough to remember them, only remembering waking up to Jiseok’s face the next morning. 

So with little acknowledgement, just the kiss to Gunil's cheek that Jungsu gives when Gunil is taking some of his clothes out the room for the next morning, Jiseok rests in Gunil's bed. Indefinitely, for the foreseeable future. At least until when he wakes up, he's not terrified that when he looks down, Jungsu will have disappeared, and he's been left entirely and absolutely alone . 

He requires a bit more attention and company the days following the not talked about sequence of events. Then he isn't the only one acting odd. 

Now Gunil is. 

It's the stress certainly. Gunil is always working harder than ever, and ever grows bigger and bigger with each new milestone they manage. They're all struggling to wrap their heads around it, handle it, the fame and the effort that's gotta be put in it. Sometimes, Gunil just becomes strange with it. 

Jiseok sits in Gunil's bed, listening apprehensively as Jungsu and Gunil exchange heated whispers beneath him. Everyone and their guardian angels know exactly what it is they're arguing about. Jiseok had watched the argument brew from the moment Hyeongjun spotted the eye bags Gunil was sporting to practice. 

Eventually, he grows tired of it, rolling over, hanging a limp arm over the metal side and saying, "I'll give you back your bed, Hyung. If you're not getting enough sleep." 

Gunil snatches himself from Jungsu's bed, snapping uncharacteristically, "No." 

They all, even himself, blink in surprise at his curt tone, and he immediately goes and grabs Jiseok's loose hanging hand. "Sorry, sorry, that was rude. No, Jiseokie, really. I'm fine. If my bed helps you sleep, then it's yours." They haven't really discussed the oddness of that either. How it has to be Gunil's bed, no one else's, how Gunil hasn't even bothered to remove his own bedding, how Jiseok doesn't want him to. 

Shaking off his stern tone, Gunil runs a twitching hand through his hair, and leaves the room without another word. Jiseok and Jungsu watch his back as he goes, bewildered. "What the fuck was that?" Jiseok hisses, flicking the top of Jungsu's head. 

Not even bothering at annoyance, Jungsu groans, slapping his hands over his face and falling back into his bed. "Stress," he answers warily, because that's all they have. It's all they know to grasp. 

Stress. 

Eventually, the solution wears off all of its own. No matter how much the pillows and blankets are integrally Gunil , after Jiseok sleeps in them long enough, they become his. And so the shield of Gunil's bed loses whatever power it'd once had. 

Jiseok dreams again. 

It's somehow more terrifying than before, to wake up in Gunil's bed, finding no one beneath, or anywhere at all. It feels briefly incredibly real. For the few minutes he's stuck there, he's the only one alive in the whole world, and he can't breathe by himself. 

He approaches the mirror gasping, and shoots up awake, again in Gunil's bed. Fingers trembling, he grasps the frame of the bunk, tilting over, peering beneath. He exhales shakily, matching his breaths to Jungsu's rising and falling chest. 

Legs weak, Jiseok climbs down the ladder, his feet hitting the soft carpet startling him. He leans over Jungsu, reaching out a trembling hand and laying it hesitantly over Jungsu’s shoulder, shaking lightly. Jungsu grumbles, turning away from him, and Jiseok pauses, debating whether or not to wake his Hyung at all. 

He pulls away, leaving the room with one of Gunil's plushies tucked under his arm. He's thirsty, hair sticking to the sweat along the skin of his nape. He rubs his eyes, trying to regain air in his pulsing lungs. 

A voice, a whisper, brushes his ears, climbs the hall's walls. Inaudible, cold, crawling down his spine with claws. Louder, clearer and familiar, "You're wrong." Jiseok stands there still, inexplicably shivering and hears it again, less quiet, audible enough for him to distinguish the tremble of it. "You're wrong ." 

Weaker, strongly wavering. "You're wrong." In a plea, "Stop." 

Jiseok stumbles down the hall and into the living room, peering over the couch. "Gunil-hyung?" 

Tearing his head from where it's leant against the mirror's fingerprinted surface, Gunil gazes up at him wide-eyed, almost unseeing. Those eye bags that have since being spotted caused many an argument, on ghastly display in the street lit room. "Jiseok? What are you doing up?" 

Jiseok's face fights between a frown and something frailer, a sob without the tears, much like a grimace. Torn between his nightmare and his worry. His eyes snap to the mirror, brows rising and knitting. "What about you?" he asks, voice high, "Are you o—" 

Gunil stands, holds Jiseok's face in his hands, erasing the words from the tip of Jiseok's tongue. He squints down at Jiseok, concern shaping his gentle features stony. "Another nightmare?" he hums, careful. 

His gentle, coddling voice paired with his crooked fingers resting on Jiseok's cheeks, the stark fear of abandonment fresh between his teeth, makes Jiseok forget Gunil's stressed strangeness, lunging forward and burying his stinging eyes into Gunil's shoulder. Just so he can hide, and not have to share. 

Gunil strokes his hair soft, murmuring into the part of his head that grows over last, the most fragile bit of the bone, penetrable, "It's okay. It's okay, Jiseokie. I'm right here." He pulls them into the couch, curls Jiseok into his embrace where he fits crassly. 

In Gunil's arms, surrounded by the comfort of Jungsu's body wash and the sour note of Hyeongjun's nail acetone, each member chipped along Gunil's skin including himself, Jiseok's dreams disappear. 

While Jiseok is sleeping fitfully, it would seem Gunil is beginning to not sleep at all. 

He's visibly exhausted all the time, and none of the members know what to do, discussing it in sporadic bursts, going silent as he enters the room, unusually unaware of their conspiratorial chatter. He'll yawn into his hand and face them, somehow smiling just as he always would, sunny and bright, just for them. 

It takes a short while for Jiseok not to be able to bear it any longer. Forcing himself to move from Gunil's bed back into his own; it's not like Gunil's pillow is absorbing his nightmares any longer. He always ends up leaving it in the middle of the night anyway, to join Gunil in the living room, to bask in his embrace, and maybe try to figure out why the hell he won't sleep . 

Surprising and not, Gunil doesn't go back to his bed even with Jiseok gone. So the bed remains empty, rotting away as the mattress and pillow sink into fullness, untouched and undisturbed. Jungsu begins to get wary. "You'd think you'd like being in a room alone," Jiseok snorts when Jungsu tells him, "Seungminnie sure as hell wasn't in any hurry to welcome me back." 

Mouth twitching up, faintly amused, Jungsu stabs a chewy, red-tinged piece of tteokbokki vengefully. "You're not Seungminnie's boyfriend," he'd grumbled, "And you're not five seconds from collapsing." The words disquieted the both of them, and Jungsu had put his face in a desperate blanched hand, chewing aggressively. 

They try their hardest to get Gunil to sleep, to get him to do anything that bears any semblance to rest, and it's ailing them too. Seungmin and Jungsu share Jungsu's bed one night, and they invite Gunil, and even that doesn't work, only leaves Jiseok alone in his room, doomed. Jooyeon is ready to burst into tears at the sight of Gunil, and Hyeongjun is discontentedly tired of throwing out the food he cooks Gunil. 

Something reaches a head when Gunil shows up to practice one day, as out of it as has become typical, and Jooyeon bounds up to him, taking his hands in his, ready to babble away, when Gunil flinches violently, hissing and tearing his hand back to himself. Jooyeon freezes, eyes wide, broaching watery, before he looks down, blinking the unshed tears away in frantic hurry. 

"Hyung!" Jiseok remembers vividly the crack in his voice, the too high octave and the vibrant concern that ran deeper than was normal, "What happened?" Jiseok glances over in tandem with the others, and his breath cuts short at his chewed cheek. 

Gunil's knuckles are bloodied. It's visible through the gauze haphazardly wrapped around them, the bandages slapped over the back of his hand. He tries to hide it in the sleeve of his sweater, sheepish. "Nothing, Joo, it's fine really." Even he knows he isn't getting out of this one, staring at the ground hollowly in the silence before Seungmin stands. 

Practically vaulting over his chair and keyboard, Seungmin pulls Gunil to the ground, ripping off his uselessly used bandages, revealing to the unsettled room, the full extent of Gunil's battered hand. All surface level, cut skin and bruised complexion, but it's still a sight that makes Jiseok slightly sick. 

Seungmin lets free a shuddering exhale, not quite sure how to react to the injury splayed in his palm. A bit disbelieving until he prods the knuckle, and Gunil winces, sealing the deal for sure. "Shit, Hyung," Seungmin breathes, standing and pulling Gunil up, leading him by the shoulders immediately out the door, Jungsu scrambling to follow. 

The three left, sit there unmoving. Jiseok struggles to swallow, his mouth dry enough to make up for it. "Will he be able to drum like that?" Hyeongjun asks, face and voice not relaying much, but his eyes are haunted. He holds his own hand to his chest, fearful. That's his biggest fear after all, any separation from his instrument. 

"How does it even get like that?" Jooyeon mumbles, staring on in the space Gunil left behind, horrified. It's the sort of question they desperately don't want the answer to, but unfortunately need . 

Clearing his throat, standing straight, Jiseok strums his guitar, not connected to its amps, the sound of scraped strings jagged and harsh, snapping Jooyeon and Hyeongjun from their spells. "C'mon. Seungminnie and Jungsu-hyung have got him. Let's work on some stuff since it's just us three." 

Preoccupied, the two nod, getting into places without much will at all, distracted the whole way. 

Jooyeon and Jiseok are wrestling on the living room floor when they come upon it. Jiseok bumps his head lightly into the wall beside the mirror when Jooyeon tackles him to the ground, reaching for his phone in Jiseok's hand, Jiseok refusing to hand it back, a sore loser only in this instance. 

Abruptly he halts their little game, hissing and grabbing Jiseok by the arm, pulling him into sitting position. "Careful," he murmurs, pushing Jiseok away from the wall, putting his fingers to the ground. He picks something up Jiseok can't see, frowning at Jooyeon curiously. 

"What? Is there a bug? Jooyeon, please don't tell me you're holding a bug right n—" He bites his tongue, eyes widening. Jooyeon turns to him, holding up the small shattered piece of mirror glass on display. Its jagged form picks up on the sun, reflecting it along the walls and ceiling, rainbow and blinding. 

Carefully leaning down, Jiseok tucks his hair behind his ear, scouring the hardwood floor for anything crystalline. With a sharp intake of air, he picks up yet another. Smaller and relatively safer, but a shattered piece of glass nonetheless. He cups it in his palms, breathing shallow. 

Together, they raise their heads to the mirror, running their eyes along its unbroken surface. Not a single crack or splinter in sight. Completely unharmed. A chill breaks out over Jiseok's skin, only worsening when Jooyeon shakily pokes his shoulder, holding another piece of glass, smaller than either of theirs, but not reflecting anything. 

Covered in the thinnest film of rust red. 

"What are you guys doing?" 

They jump, spinning around, stuffing the glass in their pockets upon seeing Gunil, standing behind them with a cheery grin. His hand hangs limp at his side, now properly bandaged, completely white. Bruises bloomed beneath the gauze and adhesive. Jiseok can't help but stare. 

They don't really say anything. No one knows how to say anything to Gunil much these days. It's as if he's shut off his ears, closing them and quivering like a deaf dog wherever he stands. Their words bounce right off his skin like thrown stones. Jooyeon is close to tears. Jiseok pulls him in discreetly, and they just stare. 

A faint furrow in his brow forming, Gunil just shakes his head fondly, and steps away, indifferent. He flexes his hand, hides it in front of him as he walks into the kitchen. They watch on. 

"What the fuck is happening, Ji?" Jooyeon whispers, pulling out the glass once more, all of his arms quaking uncontrollably. The red in his hand makes him green. 

Rubbing his hand over Jooyeon's back, Jiseok shakes his head, staves off this impending, frightening headache. "I don't know," he murmurs back, but some part of him tells him: Yes you do.  

A week before it happens, well past the hectic pile of promotions, Gunil does something entirely unthinkable, and it almost sends Seungmin and Jungsu spiraling. 

Sprawled on the couch, head in Hyeongjun's lap, Gunil's pillow laid over his chest, his phone propped atop it, Jiseok observes suspect as Gunil pulls Seungmin and Jungsu into his and Jungsu's room. At one point, he could've poked fun at it, teased Hyeongjun about it until Hyeongjun was adorably red. Now, they could only hope something as assuring as any of that would occur. 

They both bear witness to Seungmin throwing open the door only a couple minutes later, pale in the face, storming off into the bathroom, the water running immediately after. Jungsu follows behind, words dying in his throat as he tries to grab Seungmin before the bathroom door slams shut in his face. 

He stands there amidst the hall, hand hanging raised midair. Appearing hopelessly lost, blinking back the glossy sheen to his eyes. Jiseok sits up, throws an arm over the back of the couch. "What happened?" he asks, more than curious at this point, direly needing to know, panic tinging his every moment, resting simmering beneath the layers of his skin, waiting to rise at any oddity. 

Jungsu's eyes snap to Jiseok and Hyeongjun, as if just seeing them. He glances over his shoulder before jerkily pacing up behind the couch, knuckles white where they grip onto the soft sofa cushion. His voice trembles, tumbling out, "Hyung asked…he wanted to know if we'd…" The words don't want to come, Jungsu clenching his hands in frustrated fists. 

Seungmin once again slams the door open, face damp with water. He barely looks their way before stalking back into the shared room, determined and intent, his arms crossed over his chest. Jungsu chews on his lip. "One second," he says, straightening and rejoining. Jiseok could burn holes into the door Jungsu softly shuts behind him, endlessly staring at it. 

"What do you think is happening?" he asks. 

"Something weird. Something…not good," Hyeongjun answers, tired. He's been nervous for so long, it wears him down more than it does anyone else. 

After an eternity, or at least close to an hour, the door opens back up, and Gunil trips out of the room, Seungmin's entire weight leant against his back, his arms wrapped around Gunil's shoulders, his feet keeping their steps aligned. Gunil giggles beneath him, lighter than Jiseok's seen him in weeks, Seungmin kissing him repeatedly on either cheek. "What do you want for dinner?" he says in this sappy soft voice Jiseok has never heard from him before. "I'll cook anything for you."  

"Min…" Gunil gripes, leading the other into the kitchen. 

Dazed, Jungsu leans against the doorframe, watching them with a halfhearted smile. Jiseok throws his legs off the couch, patting the space beside him insistently, even Hyeongjun giving Jungsu urging eyes to sit, and to most of all explain . 

Hesitating only a second, Jungsu joins them on the couch, resting his arms on his knees, his chin in both hands. He stares blankly at the coffee table before them, at the sliver of his reflection in the mirror beyond it. "He asked to break up," he delivers hollowly. 

Even Jiseok feels punched in the gut, deflating staggeredly. "What?" he and Hyeongjun sound in unison, shock not even beginning to describe the ice cold spike in Jiseok's veins. 

He looks over to Seungmin smothering Gunil in the kitchen, seemingly holding nothing back anymore. "You didn't though?" 

Squeezing his eyes shut, shaking his head, Jungsu runs his hands through his hair. "He didn't want to actually break up," he elaborates unnecessarily. "It just—he…He was in his head. Thought…thought it'd be better for us if we weren't…" He bites his tongue, digs the nail of his thumb into his chin. 

"With him," Jiseok finishes for Jungsu, tone bland. Expression muddied, Jungsu nods unhappily. 

Picking at the loose threads of his distressed jeans, Hyeongjun asks with a hopeful rise at the end of his query, "But you convinced him otherwise?" He looks behind him, at the scene taking place before the stovetop. 

Jungsu tears skin from his lip, agitated. "We didn't break up." It's all he has to say. Not that it matters, in the end. 

Gunil is gone either way. 

Without a trace, without a trail. The front door swung open, phone left behind, no camera catching even a glimpse of him nearby. There's no leads, no sign of anything. He's just there one night, and erased off the face of the earth the next. 

Jiseok can't even cry, and trust, he tries. Anything to relieve that agony bottled deep inside. He just sort of sits back, and watches as everyone dies a little deep down, a part of them, the band's heart, somewhere their metal strings and veins can't reach. Part of him refuses to believe it at all. Gunil? Gone?

Gunil would never leave him behind. Not if the world demanded it of him; not ever. 

Jungsu is bigger than all of them, but he's so small when Jiseok holds him, kneeled to the floor, sobbing into Jiseok's lap, unable really to stand, he's tried once or twice now, his knees bound to the ground. Jiseok can't see past it, Jungsu, inconsolable. His sight hones in on the shuddering bones of Jungsu's spine beneath his fingers, unable to still. There's nothing else. 

It feels achingly wrong. All of this. Why is Jiseok the one holding Jungsu? He's not strong enough for this. He's not got the strength to pull Jungsu up. He looks wildly to his side, where Seungmin is silently curled into the arm of the couch, Jooyeon's nose pressed to the back of his neck, shoulders wracked with soundless cries. He almost calls for him, tells him to pick Jungsu up, he can't. Presently though, neither can Seungmin. 

Hyeongjun certainly couldn't, blank-faced and stick thin limbs quivering in his unshakeable shock, shivering like he was stuck in ice. You'd think it true, the way he stands straight, struck frozen. 

Jiseok itches to tear his hair from his head, wondering frantically, who of them is supposed to be strong now? How is Jungsu ever going to be freed from the ground, if no one is there to pick him up? He's going to rot there, and he's going to take Jiseok with him. 

Their manager's voice trickles through the walls, muffled, coming through the water stuck in their clogged ears. Urgent and clipped. Jiseok hears it over and over, he's not allowed even the opportunity to forget. 

"He's missing. Goo Gunil is missing." 

A fifth of every one of Jiseok's worst nightmares has come true. The person who would chase the dreams away, decidedly and devastatingly, missing . Jiseok hates the word, hates it more with every passing minute. Missing. The only ones missing are Jungsu, and Jiseok. Seungmin and Jooyeon and Hyeongjun. They're missing, missing him. 

What Gunil is, is gone. 

"Jiseok-ah," a voice says, repeats, Jiseok doesn't know how many times, "Jiseok-ah. Jiseok." Jiseok blinks, makes eye contact with his manager hazily, nodding once. "Can you tell me anything? Was there any indication Gunil-ah might have planned this? Any signs?" 

Jiseok swallows the shards of implication, cotton mouthed as he answers vaguely, "He was stressed." He feels Jungsu's tears soak through his pants, reaching out, grabbing the manager's arm, grasping it desperately. "That was it. He was only stressed. He would never leave us willingly though. Please. You have to find him. Please—" 

Cutting him off before he can slip into his impending spiral, the manager pries Jiseok's fingers from his jacket, shushing him soothingly. "We will, Jiseok. I promise. We will." He stands and turns, walking out the front door, and Jiseok almost screams. Don't. You'll be gone too! But the manager only steps out, doesn't disappear. 

His body is wracked with something brutal. It chokes him, spills from his mouth, harsh and barbed, unwieldy and ugly. He slaps a hand over his mouth, bites on his thumb, but still it leaks. This awful, mournful sound. 

It’s not crying. Crying would only be so forgiving. Jungsu's arms, fragile and feeble, come up around his waist, squeezing, and Jiseok falls apart over his back, shutting his eyes, pleading to wake up, because surely, this is just another nightmare. 

One day Jungsu is devastated, left behind and alone despite the others. The next day, he is the oldest. 

He wakes them up, eyes still stained a puffy red, and makes sure they all eat, bringing the food to Jooyeon’s mouth forcefully, Jooyeon accepting the spoonful robotically. He and Seungmin don’t look at each other. Jiseok thinks only then will the pain be too great to resume anything, heartbreak and this almost guilty ache. As if somehow, it was their plural fault alone, that Gunil was…

Hyeongjun brings with them tissues to the company. Jiseok thinks it grounds him, holding the white thin paper in his pockets. They’re crumpled beyond repair when he hands them to Jiseok, who then wipes Jooyeon’s leaky eyes and snotty red nose. 

It's practice as any other day, except at every other hour, one of them is pulled from the room, questioned. Jiseok doesn't look behind him once, doesn't look up at all, doesn't fucking dare stare into the awful mirror. He can't bear seeing the empty space behind him and Jooyeon, beside Hyeongjun and his tissue. 

When they pull him out, bring him into a studio renovated for them to testify in, it's all a blur. He's the last one they take, the most unreceptive to their small talk queries throughout the day. They ask him all the same questions he asks himself, the same ones he desperately wishes he had the answers to. 

Do you have any idea where he is? No. 

Did he say anything to you about going somewhere? No. 

Was there any conflict between him and—No. 

And then that one question, the question that somehow haunts Jiseok most. 

Were there signs? 

Asked in such a way, it makes the whole thing sound so much more morbid. As if Gunil weren't just gone, he was gone . By his own hand no less. The notion makes Jiseok cross his arms over his stomach, curl over them, trying hard not to be sick on the investigator's too prim and pressed button up and ties. 

It's a question that ails Jiseok, because he hesitates, pauses and thinks. Even having to contemplate only means one thing. He can't say no. They ask him if there were signs, and he stares at them, blank as a slate. Utterly lost to them and to himself. Measuredly, after far too long, he answers in a frail voice, "He was stressed. He…he wasn't getting any rest." 

The man, face too blurry in Jiseok's shrouded vision, levels him with an indifferent gaze. "Do you think—" 

Jiseok stands, shakes his head, fingers trembling where they slap against the table. "No matter what," he declares, a shake in the strength of his voice, "He wouldn't leave us. Not…not like this." At his own expense, Gunil would never , and Jiseok refuses to even entertain the thought, especially to some ambivalent other. 

They could probably go on poking and prodding at Jiseok's slow pumping heart, but they can tell; this is over. They're not getting anything else out of him but his misplaced anger. So, with measured nods, they dismiss him. He tears out of the room and down the hall, stopping outside the practice room where he hears the other members inside, talking at a low, sluggish pace. 

He drops his forehead to the wall, hugging himself against the hard surface, biting down on his tongue until he tastes blood. So the tears won't fall. He can't be so torn over this. To be so tattered over this, would be to acknowledge in some convoluted sense, Gunil's absence. To make it real in a less than temporary way. To remind him that when they return to the dorm later that night, he won't be there, waiting, ready to run his hands through Jiseok's hair, smile his way. 

Jiseok sinks, squatting to the ground, puts his palm to his mouth, and exhales shudderingly. He will not be broken. He will be strong. 

He steps into the practice room, a strained smile on his face. Were there signs? He teases Jooyeon good naturedly for the red staining his face, wiping it once more with tender love in his quivering hands. Were there signs? He jumps on Jungsu's back, poking the older's cheeks until he smiles, for the first time all night and day. Were there signs?  

It starts with stress. It always starts with stress. Though in modern day human society, stress is about as avoidable as the sun and wind and air. Any study will tell you, Gunil is a cortisol addict, and so is every other member in the band, every other person in the world . 

Then there was the talking. The cold voice, almost Gunil's. Late at night when no one should have heard, but Jiseok did, and where Jiseok forgot. By this point, Gunil refused to sleep away from the living room, granting Jiseok entire sovereignty over his bed. It's not like he was sleeping anyways. 

The injury. Blood on his palms, bruises dancing along his knuckles, red and blue were typically Gunil's colors, but Jiseok never wants to see him battered with them ever again. 

The glass. Mysteriously spread along the floor the very same day Gunil's hand is discovered and bandaged. 

The breakup. The one that didn't happen, but was so very wrong no matter the conclusion. Not that it mattered, in the end. 

The equation isn't making sense, the calculations off a smidge. Jiseok is missing a crucial variable. There were signs. If he sat still long enough, he could list them all in agonizing detail, tearing out a bit of himself to remember each one. Where did it all begin? 

Jiseok lays on the floor of his nightmare, no one there but him, but for the first time, it's not so terrifying, almost clarifying. A breath of fresh air, the empty space allowing room for his grief to expand in entirety. Clouding all of the air, pushing up against the walls. This was but a dream. Now he almost didn't want to wake. When he did, the members would be there, but it wouldn't be everyone . 

He sits up, sighing, hands flat against the floor, grounding. He turns his head, looks at the mirror that will take him back. He tilts his head, ear all the way flat against his shoulder. His eyes widen. He isn't alone, a figure sitting in the mirror's reflection, not him, blanketed in shadows. He rushes to his feet, frowning. 

No one else has been here before.  

He rushes before the mirror, makes to look into the unbroken glass, breath caught in his lungs. 

He wakes up in Gunil's empty bed. 

Days pass with no dreams. Jiseok gets the most sleep he’s had in weeks. He doesn’t feel well-rested, more on edge than ever. No leads, no si— He’s realized, the same way Jungsu is the eldest, he’s the second oldest. He sympathizes a lot more with Jungsu now. It’s a lot, being the right hand. 

Even with their schedules significantly cut down, the team is juggling a lot, the weight made heavier with wallowing. Limbs leaden with loss. They don’t really talk about it, the gaping emptiness in the room. Just shape themselves around it, holding onto each other tight, lifelines. 

Seungmin takes indefinite residence in Jungsu’s bed. Jooyeon and Jiseok in Gunil’s. After a while, Hyeongjun can’t stand it, lays a blanket and pillow on the floor, and holds Seungmin’s hand to a fitful sleep. 

It could be poetic. One pillar down, and they all fall a little bit with it. A crumbling foundation. The body without its heart. Jiseok fruitlessly wonders if it would be different, if any of it made sense. If the signs aligned, and Gunil’s leaving was, somehow, in any way, of his own volition. 

As far as they’re aware, Gunil is just as likely lost, as he is taken. 

There’s bags under Jungsu’s eyes, and Jiseok clings to him, wraps his arms around Jungsu’s neck from behind as Jungsu practices unfeelingly, stuck in his head. Jungsu clings back, with an intentional distance. “I’m not going anywhere,” he yawns into an assurance, pressing his keys repeatedly, in cacophony. 

But there’s bags under his eyes, and Jiseok watches his hands; stress is where it begins. “That’s what they always say,” he mutters. The notes and music stop. Jungsu stares unseeing down at the black and white tiles. He turns around in Jiseok’s arms, buries Jiseok in his neck. Jiseok can’t lose Jungsu, if he’s a part of Jungsu. So for both their sakes, Jungsu melts into his flesh, pasted there with soundless tears. 

He doesn’t ask Jungsu to stay. He can’t cope with another broken promise. 

He doesn’t dream, but tonight he can’t sleep. There’s salt dried sticky on his cheeks, and the sensation is driving him insane. The reminder of crying, why he cried, is grosser than sweat slick skin. 

He disentangles himself from Jooyeon’s sleeping grasp, Jooyeon not bothered at all, turning over and snuffling into his bare arm nonplussed. Jiseok descends the ladder, carefully sidestepping Hyeongjun’s unguarded lanky form. He surveys the room, quick, counts the heads of all his friends. 

His heart pounds in his ears. He’s giving in, breaking brittle, to his want’s will. The ache has grown too strong in his chest, stronger than him. Like growing pains, nothing will soothe it. Like a growing child, Jiseok seeks comfort despite it. 

Jiseok enters the living room, cautious, alert, feeling like he’s doing the forbidden. He stands over the couch, breathing in shallow staccato. He crumbles into it, surrendering to sorrow. Burying his face into yet another of Gunil’s pillows, curling around it, bowed into it, a sacrifice or the prayer. 

It’ll ruin the smell, damage the stupid preservation, but when does the point of that lose sacredness, and become something simply wasted? 

This is why he liked metal flowers. The beauty, only somewhat dulled, for the sake of a maintained immortality. The softness and color is lost, but not the sentiments. Maybe he doesn’t like metal flowers so much anymore. He’s sick of resemblance. He wants the real, solid thing. In his arms, at this very moment. 

Slow, he swivels his stare from Gunil’s droplet soaked pillowcase, to that awful framed mirror, taunting Jiseok where it rests. Something shifts along the glass. Unable to help it, a scared thing when worn down to it, Jiseok’s heart leaps alongside the lump in his throat. 

It’s only his hair though. Dark and peeking out along the sliver of bared reflection. Moving with him, until it isn’t. He sits up steady, but his reflection stands. Stalks closer to the glass, presses its hands to the surface, meets his eyes, and grins. It speaks. 

“Can’t sleep?” 

Pulse racing, Jiseok clambers over the couch, jams his spine into the back of it where the mirror can’t see him, where he can’t see it. Chest heaving, mind a flurry, Jiseok stays there ‘til sunrise. Careful not to look the mirror’s way, he scurries back to Jungsu’s room, tucks himself back into Jooyeon’s hold. 

Just so that when he wakes up, he doesn’t think Jiseok’s gone. 

The next night, armored in one of Jungsu’s hoodies, shielded by one of Jooyeon’s blankets, Jiseok sits shakily before the mirror, anxiety cold along his spine in spite of the soft fleece layers. 

He examines himself in entirety, never before memorizing all the quirks of his features to such scrutinizing extent. The way the corners of his eyes crinkle. The eway his pupils constrict. The way his nose flares and his lips ever so slightly purse. 

It’s disconcerting, disorienting, until it’s downright frightening, watching himself smile when he doesn't feel it, reaching up his fingers along his lips, having to feel his skin against skin to know he's moving at all, his reflection not matching him. He takes in a trembling breath, watching his mismatched self smiling wider at his shaken reaction. 

He moves in closer, the reflection not expecting it, smile dropping as Jiseok almost comes nose to nose with it. "What are you?" he asks, putting on a brave face, a brave voice, his quivering hands clenched in Jooyeon's blanket. He's safe here, hardly even alone, not in his armor and shield. 

"You." 

Jiseok shakes his head before the syllable can even fully leave the reflection’s mouth—it's so strange, seeing his mouth move, not being in control of the uttered sounds. "No you're not," he objects, "Not even close. I'm not stupid." He almost reaches up to touch the mirror's surface, but the reflection's eyes dart to his rising hand, widening almost eagerly, and Jiseok stops himself right then and there. 

Less defeated than should be, only somewhat amused, the reflection smiles at him close lipped. "Maybe." Then, with the smile on its face, making Jiseok look a tad deranged, it makes more an effort to mimic Jiseok's movements, blending into Jiseok, blurring the lines that separates them, perhaps simply for the hell of it. 

Once bored of it, the reflection stops, resting its forehead to the line between them. Whatever that line is separating, Jiseok no longer has a clue. "What are you doing here? Just to investigate?" it asks, voice cloying. It almost sounds exactly like Jiseok's, similar enough to make Jiseok shiver, just enough different to sound like someone entirely different. Like his voice through a warped microphone, the batteries dying. 

Pursing his lips, Jiseok doesn't respond. He doesn't think he needs to. Whatever this is, he doesn't like it. He knew he had reason to be wary of the mirror from the beginning. Of course it turns out to be fucking possessed. 

Pouting, the reflection sits back, laces its fingers in its lap. "Why don't you just go back to the couch, if you're going to be such a spoilsport," it complains, "You're not going to find your little Gunil sitting here staring ." 

Jiseok near jolts out of his skin. He narrows his eyes, jerks to his knees, pressing his palms to the frame, not daring touch the glass, but glaring into it regardless. "What gives you any right to talk about him? What the hell do you have to do with us?" His nails dig in the crack between the mirror and wall, ready to tear it out and smash it along the ground, furious like he's never expected to be, like he's never been before.

A glint sparking in the reflection's eyes, inhuman and entertained, it sits up to match Jiseok's height, using it to taunt Jiseok. "Now, don't get so angry," it whispers, its voice crawling up and down Jiseok's arms with the legs of centipedes, "I know it hurts, but you don't have to take it out on me ." 

Jiseok shakes. It tilts its head, pouts poignantly. "Oh, poor Jiseokie. It must be so terrible. You could've done anything to help him, but you didn't. You let him waste away and now he's gone. How awful, must you be." Jiseok's eyes go wide, his jaw going slack. He stares on at his horrible reflection, face paling at rapid pace. 

Hanging Jiseok's head between its shoulders, it fakes lament. "He would've done anything for you. He does. And you couldn't even keep your eyes on him." It shakes its head, sighing. "You lost him. How do you lose a whole person? Are you really so useless?" 

Jiseok sinks slowly to his shins, each word a blow to the gut, one after another, he's not given any time to recover. "You're not a good friend, are you?" the reflection asks, like an earnest question, "Definitely not a good team member. Gunil was wrong for picking you." 

Jiseok's eye twitches. The reflection's said the wrong thing and it doesn't even know it. "Don't fucking say his name." He peers up through his furrowed brows. "Unless you know something. You see everything don't you?" He leans in, at the end of his patience. "Where is he?" 

Put off, trying to play it off, the reflection chews pointedly on its lip. "How should I know? I'm only you after all. Unobservant and—" 

"You're fucking terrible at this," Jiseok scoffs, looking away, "I don't give a shit what you have to say." 

A corner of its mouth, of Jiseok's mouth, falls. The reflection quirks a brow, cups its hand around its mouth, like it's telling Jiseok some secret. "He didn't think I was terrible at this. Everything I told him. It was true," it tells, and Jiseoks heart plummets to his stomach where it churns and roils, "He cared quite a bit. He listened so well. What a lacking leader, what a pitiful, pathet—" 

Jiseok grips the mirror's frame, raises a fist, not caring anymore about anything but getting rid of this thing once and for all. 

"Stop!" 

He goes lax immediately, all the fight in him draining, deflating. His vision briefly fails him, and when he focuses back on the mirror, it’s no longer an excuse for a reflection that stares back. He exhales, eyes instantly flooding. "Hyung?" he rasps. 

Sitting opposite Jiseok, in the same sweater and sweats Jiseok last saw him in, hair lackluster and eyes somehow even duller, is Gunil. His hands pushed up against the glass, his palms splayed and teasing. Jiseok wants desperately, achingly , to reach in, take them, but he knows that's exactly what he isn't meant to do. 

Huffing humorously, mustering a wry smile, Gunil nods, "Hi, Jiseokie." 

Tugging Jooyeon's blanket tighter around him, Jiseok equates the warmth it brings him with the much missed sight of Gunil's face. Worn and exhausted as it is, stained a blue and purple in the mirror's refracted light. As long as it's Gunil . It's agony, not being able to reach for him. Jiseok curls his fingers into his thighs, chews on his cheek to keep from shedding tears. 

He can't even speak, everything in him wrung and dry. His entire focus honed in on the warped mirror before him. Gunil blinks, swallows like it hurts to. He opens his mouth, closes it, sighs. Rubbing his eyes, he asks, has to ask, an underlying urgency to the fatigue of his words, "Are you guys okay? How are you doing?" 

Jiseok's brows press into his top lashes, his mouth helplessly turning in the starkest frown. Plaintively, he shakes his head, biting down on a wobbling lip and chin. 

Gunil drops his head to the surface, Jiseok able to see the way the strands of his hair splay out and fan over something solid. He could have tricked himself for at least a second, that Gunil was sitting right in front of him, but the invisible reminder only serves to remind him again and again, that that wasn't the case. 

"I'm sorry," Gunil mutters, fists clenching over the reflected hardwood, nails scrabbling against the hard floor. Jiseok can hear it. He can hear Gunil. How in the world?

He clenches the fabric of the blanket. "Is this a dream?" he whispers, unable to raise his voice any higher without it fracturing awfully. He knows he hasn't fallen asleep since this morning, returning to Jooyeon's arms, but maybe the lack of rest got to him. Maybe he's back in the company, dozing away in a plastic foldable chair. Because there's no way this is real . 

Pressing his mouth into a thin line, arms shaking where they hold him up, Gunil utters, "I wish." 

Jiseok lunges as close as possible, his breath fogging up the glass, blurring Gunil's face. "Where are you? What happened? Are you okay? Hyung, Hyung you have to come back. We need you," Jiseok's voice rises and rises, coming apart like glass under a scream. 

"Jiseok," Gunil gently interrupts, "Jiseok, Jiseok. Breathe, please." He holds his hands out, pushing them up and down against the air, until Jiseok's chest evens out, his shoulders slumping in surrender. 

He sits more comfortably on the ground, resolving to stay here as long as he must. "Was it…" His voice quivers, breaks and trails off. "Was it our fault, Hyungie? Did we…were we not loving you enough?" His fists shake white-knuckled in his bouncing kneed lap. 

Gunil's face goes impossibly further ashen. "No," he claims, voice big and solid, "Absolutely not. God, Ji, it's got—it's got nothing to do with you guys. I—" He looks around him, expression warping and twisting, beyond unsettled. "—I don't know where I am." 

He breathes heavy, slow, like he's sleeping, but he's looking to Jiseok, eyes tired like maybe he hasn't done that since he's left. He whispers, in grave, disquieted admission, "I don't know where I am, Ji. I don't even know how I got here but…" 

"You're stuck." 

Gaze downcast, Gunil presses his palms to the glass to prove a point. No matter how hard he pushes, his wrists trembling with the force, his skin blanching and reddening, nothing gives way. "I'm stuck," he affirms. Though perhaps, trapped is a better word. 

"How? Do you…I don't even know where to begin." Jiseok drags his hands down his face, barking out a watery laugh. "You're stuck in a fucking mirror, Hyung? Am I supposed to Snow White your ass?" 

A small snort leaves Gunil, and it makes Jiseok's lungs lighten minimally. He looks up, and Gunil is gazing at him soulfully. "I miss you guys," he murmurs, "I miss you. So much." 

Jiseok's face twitches, that sting in his eyes close to unbearable. "Don't say that," he hisses, "Like you're not coming back. I will get you out of here, Hyung. I will. I will—" He sits up on his shins, the blanket dropping to the ground around him. He touches the glass, ignoring Gunil's sharp intake of air. "—tear you out with my own bare hands."  

Gunil blinks up at him, his expression stern, demanding Jiseok stay where he's safest, but his eyes, they plead. They plead to be saved. He opens his mouth, moves to put his hand up against Jiseok's, to touch him in any way even if it's only imaginary. 

He disappears, and Jiseok stares back into his own, furied eyes. 

Jiseok rips away before it can talk. 

Same as before, the next night, Jiseok is there. Down one layer, this time in one of Jooyeon's jackets, zipped up all the way to his throat, protecting his voice and air. He sits before the mirror, bracing himself. His reflection hardly gets a word in before Gunil is breaking through it, wading past Jiseok's false image, leaning haggard against the glass. 

Somehow, he looks even worse than he did the day before. 

"What's it doing to you?" Jiseok asks, voice stronger and firmer than it'd been yesterday night. He's prepared this time around. He'd spent all day spaced out, dipping in and out of reality, figuring out exactly how to figure this out. This question wasn't one he'd thought of beforehand, but evidently, it's more than relevant. 

He'd been silent all day, really. It wasn't unusual, these days, everyone a little bit lost within themselves. Just more so than usual. He's reeling still, caught between sorrow, grief, and gratitude. He can't tell anyone Gunil is…found, in some sense. He'll sound crazy. He might be; his delusions might give his members too much hope. Only here, with Gunil in that stupid stuck mirror, is where he feels most comfortable at the moment, and also the most unmoored. 

Gunil hesitates, parting his lips and raising his head. Jiseok glares at him, feeble, but enough. "Don't try lying to me, Hyung. I'm not the one who needs coddling right now. I'm in better hands than you." He crosses his arms, digging his fingers into his arms. 

Looking down, Gunil exhales. "I don't know exactly what it's doing but…I can't sleep. I…I don't know what I"m doing. I'm not awake the whole time, but I can't sleep. It's…" He chews on his lip, squirming under Jiseoks's unyielding attention. "It's draining me. Making something for itself out of me. Something like that." 

He smiles up at Jiseok weakly, and Jiseok just knows , it's worse than what it sounds, that Gunil couldn't avoid sugar coating it. 

His heart sinks to his gut a little bit more with every passing minute he spends finding his leader. Jiseok stares, worrying his cheek. This needs to be done quick then. "How do I know you're real?" he asks, once and for all, before he moves on from the idea entirely. There's no time for doubt. "How do I know you're not just…a reflection?" 

Gunil contemplates, takes Jiseok dead seriously just as Jiseok needs him to. "Well, I can only be a reflection if…" He points behind Jiseok, shrugging. If there's a him to be reflected. "I don't know if the mirror can conjure me without it but…" He frowns, pressing up against the glass, tapping his fingers along the surface, meeting Jiseok's gaze meaningfully. Tapping, tapping, tapping, the noise grating and inexplicable to Jiseok. 

Biting his tongue, Jiseok nods subtly, rubbing his thumb agitatedly over his pants. Alright then. "And how did you get in here?" Jiseok asks, a bit hesitant, fearing a bit for the answer, his reflection's words clanging around his skull as much as he tries ignoring them. 

Swiping his tongue along his lips, sitting up with effort, Gunil shrugs. "I stepped in." Jiseok's eyes widen, and he tries to wait for the explanation, before his heart sinks. "There's a way to open… this up. It wanted me to step in. It was trying for weeks. But I wasn't going to—" 

He digs his nails into his thighs, biting his lip hard enough to bleed, the beads of red contrasting ghastly against the pale cracked skin. "—But it said it would stop, if I did. And that it wouldn't…it wouldn't talk to any of you." 

Jiseok takes that in, rubbing his thumb over his sweats, friction against the rough lined skin. Weeks. 

"What did it say to you?" he asks, softly, waveringly. He doesn't want to know, as much as Gunil wouldn't ever want to say. But he needs to, doesn't he? He can't let any of what it said appear in any way true . 

Hardly looking up at Jiseok anymore, unable to bear it more and more with each passing minute. "Lies," he answers curtly, and at the very least, Jiseok knows he can agree with that. 

Even though it makes Gunil wince, shake a little in that sucked dry frame of his, Jiseok puts his hands to the glass, knowing it won't suck him anymore than it will spit Gunil out. Just to test the strength of boundaries. He pushes and pushes, Gunil watching on with bated breath. 

Nothing gives. 

"I'm going to get you out, Hyung," he swears, and Gunil just stares, solemn and sad. Jiseok puts his nose up to the mirror, forcing Gunil to look into his eyes, unable to escape them. "I will. You're not leaving us behind, are you?" To which Gunil blinks, a stuttered breath leaving him, hardly strong enough to reach the surface. He smiles, small, but it's real. 

"Anything you put your mind to, Jiseokie, I believe you." 

"You're acting weird." 

Jiseok near chokes on his drink, energy, stuffed full with caffeine and sugar, anything to keep him awake longer. He stares up at Hyeongjun wide-eyed, far from suspicious certainly. He wipes his mouth with a sweater sleeve, Seungmin's today. "We're all kinda acting weird, Hyeongjunnie," he snorts wryly, "It comes with the circumstance."

Not thrown off track by Jiseok's weak attempt at diversion like anybody else would be, Hyeongjun sits beside him in the booth. The company cafe eerily empty. Didn't you hear? A missing person's on the loose. Wouldn't want that to be you, or anyone else you loved. 

Jiseok scoots over, gives room for Hyeongjun and his personal bubble.

Hyeongjun props his elbow on the table, his chin in his palm. "You're acting weirder than…weird," he says smart, blunt, "The others—they can't notice. Jooyeon is too afraid to ask." He taps a finger against the table's edge, the action almost making Jiseok twitch, reactionary. 

"Jooyeon?" he deadpans, "Too afraid. To ask me something?" He raises a brow, pouts, disbelieving. 

Hyeongjun doesn't rise to a challenge, tracing shapes into the table surface. "He's afraid, like everyone else, to bring him up. To upset you, or Seungminnie, or Hyung, any further." 

Letting out a long, labored breath, Jiseok slumps. "Not you?" he wonders, tone true now, feeble as his lungs and pulse feel. 

Finger stilling, Hyeongjun's nose flares almost unnoticeably. "I'm already upset." There's a tremor in his hands, the most steady part of him. He sits up straight, hiding them in his lap. "Bringing it all up doesn't make it worse or better." 

For a minute, they're both silent. Jiseok closes some of the distance between their shoulders. Hyeongjun accepts it. 

"I'm just missing him." It's no lie. He leans in tentatively, rests his head on the bone of Hyeongjun's arm. "How do you reach the unreachable, Hyeongjunnie?" His lip quivers, he sucks it in with teeth. 

Eyes lidding sadly, Hyeongjun sighs. "You just keep reaching, I think." His cheek presses to Jiseok's temple, chest shuddering. "You reach and reach until your arms break." 

Jiseok snorts, ruffling escaping strands of Hyeongjun's silky hair. "We can break our arms right? Just not our fingers." He strums the air, gets Hyeongjun to smile. 

With a hum, Hyeongjun nods slightly. He pauses, brushing his touch over Jiseok's knuckles. "I see you leave at night," he whispers, stealing Jiseok's breath. "Where are you going?" he asks, delicate. 

Jiseok answers bluntly. "I'm visiting him." Knowing Hyeongjun couldn't possibly know what he means, but will still understand to some extent. 

"Don't go too far," Hyeongjun warns soft, "We can't lose you too." 

Jiseok decides that's exactly what's necessary, losing himself, breaking, when Jungsu collapses at his keys. It's at the knees, and he doesn't even fall completely, grasping onto his instrument, the notes of his falling, a jagged cacophony ringing through the air, staining his fingers and their ears. 

He stares stunned into silence, shocked at his own disrepair. 

It's only him, Jiseok, and Jooyeon there, not really playing, mostly a halfhearted attempt at singing. Jiseok, the nearest, is at his side in an instant, Jooyeon close behind. Each of them on either side. 

They cling to his arms, lifting him back into his chair. He looks at neither of them, gaze trained onto the ground, dazed. "Don't tell Seungminnie?" he pleas quietly. 

They tell Seungmin. Immediately. It’s revealed, once Jungsu is coddled and cuddled into the cold clutch of his bed, that Jungsu simply hasn't been eating. It would seem stress and heartbreak robbed him of his stomach, of appetite. 

Only once pointed out, does Jiseok see his hollower cheeks. In his own grief, Jiseok had assumed everyone gaunt like that. It's how his reflection speaks. It's how the glimpse of Gunil appears. 

Laid across him that night, Jiseok listens to Jungsu's heart steadily beat, Seungmin's arm slung over his neck. They'd fed him while in bed, light foods like honey and bread. He'd taken it with humility, grasping their offers with wanly smiling teeth. 

It's not enough. Jiseok knows what it'll take for Jungsu to swallow more than salt and water. 

He peels himself from Seungmin's hold, looks back at Hyeongjun on the floor as he leaves, wonders if and how Hyeongjun sees in his sleep. He sneaks to the mirror, no shield, no armor, just bare skin, ready to break. 

"Back again," his reflection teases, "What a good friend." 

Gunil comes through faster than ever, cheeks hollow, eyes hollower. He looks worse than ever, faint around the edges, lips blue, skin grey. Just looking at him hurts the skeleton. 

Jiseok meets his eyes, head tilted. "Jungsu hasn't been eating. He misses you. We're too much for him all alone." His stare strays discreetly, to Gunil's finger tapping against the glass. He chews his cheek. 

"He's not alone," Gunil claims weakly, features breaking down in worry. "He's got all of you." 

Jiseok takes the thought from his head. "It's not enough." 

Gunil frowns, almost shrugging. "I'm not…What can I do, Ji?. Just—" His brow furrows, pained "—please take care of him. Make sure he's alright. All of you. It's a lot of pressure, I know, I'm sorry." 

"But you were strong enough to handle it," Jiseok remarks. Gunil purses his lips uncertainly, looks at his state of self. Jiseok persists. He asks again, just for the sake of it, "What did it say to you, Hyung?" 

Gunil falters. "I told you, Jiseok. It doesn't matter." 

"It matters." 

The tapping on the glass slows, stammers. "What insecurities always say, Ji. That I was lacking, that I wasn't worth anything, that…" His hand curls in a feeble fist. It's okay. 

Jiseok leans in, finishes for him, "That you're not enough?" Gunil flinches, nods, and Jiseok continues, "And that these are all lies." Gunil sucks his teeth.

"We're strong, and we have each other," Jiseok murmurs, pouring all his earnesty into the fingerpads he presses into the mirror. "Even if we had everything and needed nothing, Gunil-hyung, we'd still need you ." 

Gunil's limbs go slack, his palms flat. He blinks up at Jiseok, lips parting. The tapping stops, subdues, they're both one foot in a trap. "I'll do anything to get you out." They’re prettied words. Almost entirely the truth, not applied here. 

"I'll even take your place." 

Gunil's eyes blow wide, his form flickering in and out, the tapping stuttering. His hand goes still, Jiseok feels his palms begin to sink. He pats the mirror, pulse speeding. 

"Would you, Jiseokie, would you really?" Gunil comes close, piercing stare unrelenting. It's more than unnerving. Eagerness sparking in his features. It's how Jiseok knows they aren't real. 

A little breathless, trying not to be scared. "Of course. Anything." The words bounce back to him, borrowed. 

It's with a gasp, he seeps into the mirror, swallowed up to the elbows. He digs his knees into the frame of the mirror, his spine shuddering with the sheer effort. The mirror wants to take him. Him and Gunil both. He won't let it. 

Then there is it is. A hand around the both of his, calloused, once warm now cold, holding on for dear life. Break his arms he may, Jiseok pulls, with all his will, with all his weight. 

He stands on shaking legs, the soles of his feet slipping. He steps back, and back, until he sees it. Gunil's hand. He exhales raggedly, suddenly stronger than anything. 

He kicks the bottom of the mirror, cracks the glass. Gunil slips out easier. His wrist, then his arm, then his shoulder, just one each. He moves his hold up, circles his fingers around the crook of Gunil's arm. He pulls, and pulls. 

The tip of Gunil's smile, frail and familiar, greets him, and he laughs out giddily, watching the mirror struggle, losing its grip. The shattered bits reach up around Gunil's thigh and neck. Jiseok needs to be swift. 

With one last tug, Gunil falls through, inhaling air in greedy gulps. Jiseok spins, slams his elbow into the mirror with all his might, knocking it off the wall. Gunil grabs a nearby dumbbell, throws it on the surface, the glass shattering in a shower of shards and shimmer. 

They stare at the destruction, breaths and chests heaving. Gunil sinks to his knees, and Jiseok scurries to cushion his fall, giving beneath Gunil's weight. 

He cradles Gunil, tired and fatigued to his chest, sobbing before he realizes it, the tears streaking unstoppably down his cheeks. Consoled, finally finding his comfort in Gunil's frame, almost dwarfing his, pillow and blanket. 

"I missed you," he blubbers, "I missed you, I missed you. So much ." 

"I know," Gunil rasps, honest, stroking Jiseok's hair. He knows . 

Footsteps clatter over the floor, Seungmin's voice coming in and cutting out. "What was—" Two pairs of eyes fall to them, so wide. 

His name falls from their tongues, twin with disbelief. 

Jiseok doesn’t let go, no matter what. He and Gunil are linked inseparably arm in arm while Seungmin cleans the blood and glass from Gunil’s throat, and Hyeongjun cleans them from Jiseok’s arm. 

Jungsu’s embrace encircles both Gunil and Jiseok’s waists simultaneously as he sobs into their shared shoulder uncontrollably. Jooyeon stands behind them, threading his fingers in their sweat damp hair. Really, no one wants to let go, Jiseok just happens to not want to least of all. 

Jungsu pulls back, cups Gunil's cheeks in his quivering hands. "God, where were you? Where did you go, idiot? You don't even know—you can't—" He presses his thumbs down until Gunil's lips are forced into a pout. 

Around a squished smile, Gunil says, hoarse, "I'm sorry. I didn't leave you." Over and over again, he'll say it. Jiseok wonders if he'll ever tire of it, if he should have already. "I wouldn't ever, and I never will." The promise so easy from him, Jiseok knows he'll keep it, at any cost, any stake. 

Chin wobbling, Jungsu crushes his lips against Gunil's, shoulders shaking. Then he pulls Gunil into his neck, breathes him in, never going to lose him again. "You better not." His words weak, too grateful to simply have Gunil in his arms once more, appreciating every passing second with new relish. 

Jiseok spots Hyeongjun's expression from his peripherals. Curious as much as it is suspicious. A brow raised in Jiseok's direction almost accusing. "You found him," he murmurs quietly against the shell of Jiseok's ear. 

Jiseok swallows, eyes falling to their brushing knees. "Believe it or not, he'd never left." 

Seungmin lets out a harsh breath and they all look his way at once. He's pushing Gunil's head to the side, frowning baffled. "Your moles," he mutters, absentminded, "They…switched sides?" He blinks in confusion, and Jungsu backs away, looks on the other side of Gunil's head, tracing Gunil from the tip of his ear to the bottom of his neck. 

"Not switched," he notes, voice distant, dazed, "Doubled." 

Pushing him aside, Jiseok takes a lot for himself, and sure enough, the distinctive moles that mark Gunil, now exist on either side. One on his neck, above his throat, on his lobe. He slides his fingers down Gunil's arm. Both arms, dotted like i's. 

It's almost insignificant, but it's proof. Proof what had happened to Gunil was very real, proof that it had changed him irreparably. Jiseok looks up at Gunil, a lump stored behind his gritted teeth. 

Their stares skirt to the mirror, completely unbroken beneath the dumbbell despite the glass decorating it in frost and shattered sharp snow. "We are getting rid of that," Gunil states calmly, stonily, "Immediately." 

Seungmin squats down on Gunil's other side, pulling his chin towards him. "Are you okay, Hyungie?" he asks, gentle sweet soft. Gunil gazes at him, not all entirely there with them. It makes Jiseok a little scared. 

He creeps forward, digging his chin into Gunil's shoulder. "All of you came back to us, right?" His voice wavers, weak. 

Gunil's eyes flick to him solemn. He nods once. "Yeah, yeah I did. I'm just." He smiles crooked, one side of it too heavy for his face. "I think I need to sleep." Even as he says it, Jooyeon is sitting behind him, pulling him into his lap, playing with his hair still. Jungsu lays over his chest, needing Gunil's heart to be hungry again. Seungmin rubs his hand over Jungsu's back and Gunil's neck. 

"Thanks, Ji," Hyeongjun hums, "For whatever you did. I'm sure it was brave." Then he sits beside Jooyeon, letting Gunil take his hand. Jiseok manages somehow, in some way, to curl part of himself between Gunil and Jungsu. As soon as they shut their eyes, rest finds them. 

Together, Jooyeon and Seungmin swing the mirror between them, before throwing it with all their might into the dumpster several miles from their form. They listen to it fall apart inside against the hollow metal tin container, cheering even if it'll only reform perfectly once again. 

Gunil laughs, the sound well missed and well welcomed. He turns to Jungsu, the wind in his face and along his skin. "Fix my hair?" he requests, "I've had enough of looking at myself." 

Jungsu snorts, reaching up instantly, gently framing Gunil's face with loose strands of dark hair. "Good thing I'll never have enough of that." Much like Jiseok, much like any of them in their unique ways, Jungsu is sure to never let Gunil out of his sight ever again. There's no use for mirrors, with eyes constantly reflecting you. 

Jooyeon gags. "You guys are only going to get grosser," he groans, grabbing onto Seungmin's sweater, preventing Seungmin from joining in. Seungmin almost begins fighting him, Hyeongjun having to pry the two apart. 

Gunil looks through the chaos, meets Jiseok's eyes, and Jiseok mourns it, in some simple sentiment, that Gunil's eyes were once uneven, no longer anymore, but he'd much rather have Gunil the way he is now, than not have him at all. 

Face softening, at least his toothy smile still crooked, Gunil mouths Jiseok an earnest thanks . And Jiseok only gives him a small thumbs up in return, having too much to say about how many times he would do it again if he had to, and how he knows Gunil would only do the same. 

Jiseok doesn't really dream again. It takes a short while, but eventually, they all learn to sleep through the night again, at the sacrifice of one another's hands, clasped in their own. 

They never let go. Only their words matter now. Fuck metal flowers.