Chapter Text
“Hyunjin?”
Something is touching him, but it feels far away. It tugs on his skin, but there’s no feeling of touch. Everything is so fuzzy, his mind swirling and swirling like he’s on the most dizzying amusement park ride of his life.
“Come on, Jinnie. Come on.”
It jumbles around, his head, maybe his brain too, and all he can focus on is the heaviness of his eyelids and the resounding pressure in the back of his skull. It builds and builds until it feels like he’s going to explode. His eyes squeeze further shut, and his throat vibrates.
“Oh my god— Is he waking up?”
“You have to open your eyes, please.”
“That’s so much blood.. Isn’t that too much?”
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. All the noise around him, all the movement jossling him. Every touch makes it worse and he wants to scream at them. His throat moves again, but this time he can hear his own whining. Scratchy and high and desperately in pain. He wants to move, change into a position that doesn’t hurt every fiber of his being, but he can’t.
“Jinnie— Jinnie, it’s okay. Can you hear me? It’s okay.”
It sounds familiar, the voice, it sounds like Chan. But a lot breathier and higher than he’s used to, like he’s talking with something squeezing his chest. It sounds like he’s in pain too. From seeing whatever Hyunjin must look like, or from suffering a similar fate, he has no idea.
Hyunjin has no idea what’s going on.
A whine catches his throat again, and this time he feels his eyelashes get wet. It hurts, his chest moves along with his whines, hitching in pain. It hurts.
Something wipes away the tear, a hand cupping his cheek. He can feel it this time, the fingers cradling his face, and the strands of hair stuck to his forehead. Something sticky is keeping them there, the same way it’s leaking out of the back of his head.
He forces his eyes open, and it’s so, so bright. He can’t see anything other than the vague outline of a silhouette.
“Hyunjin? Hyunjin, oh my god— Please say something.”
The sounds register in his head, but the words don’t make sense. The world fades in and out, black around the edges and spots littering the canvas, but the big blur above him is still there, and a part of it keeps moving.
“Hyunjin! Please!”
It’s Chan. The frizzy outline of a head of hair and the eyebrows pulled deep into each other. It would’ve been an expression that terrified a younger Hyunjin if it wasn’t for the big, wide eyes that didn’t shine anger at all, but something much scarier.
Panic. Hyunjin had never seen him panic.
“Mm,” Hyunjin can’t keep his tongue straight. “Ch— cha.. hy— nng.”
Chan’s voice is quiet, and it sounds like it’s made of glass. “Hyunjin…”
The fear in his eyes only grows, and Hyunjin has no idea how to soothe him. He tries to speak Chan’s name again, but he can’t move his tongue around the syllables.
“It’s okay, just stay awake.” Chan’s voice sounds wrong. He should never sound like that, like he’s trying to hold back tears. “You don’t have to talk, just keep your eyes open, okay?”
That sounds good. Hyunjin doesn’t think he can make himself understood, anyway. He doesn’t want to expend the energy, it sounds tiring— to think. But he also wants to know what’s going on, why it hurts to move, why the world looks like he’s underwater. Why Chan is crying.
He hears a sound again, he thinks it’s his own voice. “Wha— what…”
“Ssh.” The hand is still cupping his cheek, rubbing circles below his eye. “Help is on the way.”
It doesn’t answer any of his questions, but somehow it’s still a relief. He can feel his whole body relax with the touch. It still scares him that he can’t talk, but wherever he’s lying is starting to grow comfortable. The little awareness he’s gotten back to his limbs is starting to fade again, leaving him with a blissful numbness.
“Hey, hey, eyes open!”
He doesn’t realize he closed them, that the world went dark again. All he knows is the alluring pull of sleep, where all his senses dull, where the pain will fade.
Light invades his eyes again, for a second, until he welcomes the dark once more.
“No, Hyunjin! Stay awake!”
He can’t speak, only make a vague noise of disagreement. He can imagine Chan laughing if he were back in the dorms, the older trying to wake him up in the morning. Is that what’s happening? But then why does it hurt?
It doesn’t really matter, because sleep is too tempting either way.
“—jin!”
The voices fade out slowly, and he should be more concerned about how stressed they sound, but nothing matters anymore. Nothing except the blissful silence when the world fades out.