Work Text:
breathe.
“no! no, don’t you dare!”
breathe. jeongin, you need to breathe!
yang jeongin was at war.
he was at war with himself, the crushing desires to take so much of his pain and pull it away from this plane of existence. his mind was a battlefield, each little nook and cranny housing evil thoughts like soldiers in trenches, waiting for one brave soul to cross the line and steal the only glimpses of hope he could find from his very eyes. one step onto the battlefield, between two trenches, and that tiny sliver would be blown to bits by bullets and grenades of doubt and frustration and rage. jeongin seldom let those tiny pieces of hope creep into his consciousness, anymore.
the last one that one had crept into the battlefield with careful precision when chan-hyung got the call from jisung-hyung at changbin-hyung’s hotel room. it had tried, so desperately, to move with precision, to hold its ground, to push on and on without any of those dark and evil tendrils of fate noticing it was there. he prayed on the way to the hotel, pretending not to notice the sheen in chan-hyung’s eyes, or the way that his jaw was set as if it were wired shut. it was bad enough his hyung had already lost his dream, but with it went three of his brothers.
innie was in the process of grieving, too. there were often nights where he found himself reaching for his cell phone, pulling up seungmin’s or yongbok’s numbers; even texting them, before realizing that he had buried them days before. sometimes, he would wake up in the middle of the night, or early in the morning, and have muscle memory take over to get him ready for practice, until he realized that there wouldn’t be any practice, anymore. hyunjin didn’t want them to give up. they had said that when they made the choice to record again. they wanted to honor him in their album, to move on with stray kids like it was as normal as it could be. hyunjin wouldn’t have wanted them to give up.
but hyunjin gave up. seungmin gave up. felix tried so hard to reconcile, to recognize what was wrong, but he’d been so frail and weak that he was basically already a ghost by the time channie-hyung arrived. jeongin thought, surely, that was it. they were going to lean on each other from now on. they were going to try their best. 3racha was going to carry on their legacy and maybe innie could try his hand at a solo career; minho could start teaching dance to kids, like he always said he would. they could move on; make something of themselves.
and then, changbin gave up, and that careful, meticulous shred of hope stepped on a landmine on the battlefield.
the explosion in his head rocked his world as he followed channie-hyung up the stairs from a distance. he hadn’t listened when he was told to wait in the car. if his friend was in danger, he was going to be there. jisung was always frantic. there was no reason for jeongin to think the worst. his hyung cried at the drop of a hat; a pin to the hardwood floor. he was allowed. jeongin would never be caught dead being so vulnerable, but jisungie-hyung always had that quality to him, even when they were trainees.
jeongin never thought his hyung got the best edit of their show. while it was true that han-hyung was always a pillar of their lives, there were times when he would make sure the cameras were cut, or he was in a spot where he could hide without any staff of the show coming to call him out, and he would break.
it’d been like that, before. when it was just jeongin, chan, yongbok and jisung. they’d been close. they hadn’t had a home outside of that dorm for a while. jeongin had the closest home, and even then, busan had been hours away, so they leaned on each other a lot. when jeongin was homesick, his hyungs would soothe him. when jeongin struggled in school, chan-hyung and jisung-hyung would sit across from the table and help him as best they could, while yongbok would practice his korean until his nose bled.
suffice to say, jeongin knew han jisung. he knew jisung cried over every little detail. he had known from the first time he had heard shaky sobs from his bunk, or the way chan-hyung would sometimes tentatively enter the room and sing him to sleep because otherwise jisung could never quiet his mind.
so the hope persisted until he rounded that hotel hallway corner, and he came face to face with his worst fear, all over again.
the landmine exploded, taking his hope with it and sending an acrid reminder of it through the bile that had emptied itself from his stomach. jeongin couldn’t remember how to breathe. even with chan-hyung’s arms around him, rubbing soothing circles on his back, all he could focus in on was the stretcher, and the way that they had—they had zipped a bag over changbin’s face before jeongin even got to say goodbye.
suddenly, that dream, the one of continuing for their friends, was crushed under the weight of the loss.
changbin’s funeral was grand.
his family was rich; even if they were before, their son’s success as a musician certainly elevated the status and budget of such an event, but jeongin couldn’t help but feel nauseous at the way half of the guests carried themselves. jeongin hadn’t met half of them. he knew changbin’s family. they all knew each other’s families, but the extended ones were there, and people were approaching jeongin left right and center, offering condolences and pats on the back and sad little anecdotes to make it seem like it was going to be okay; that half of their team hadn’t fucking killed themselves over the past couple months.
finding hope to attempt to cross that treacherous battlefield him his brain felt like an impossible task. even when he tried, and he did try, to look at the bright side, all he was met with was the relief that he didn’t have to keep doing this without some of the most important people in his life.
stray kids was dead. the it died with hwang hyunjin, and they had all been puppeteering it’s corpse in the name of honor.
there was nothing honorable here. there was hardly anything at all. just four broken boys who had lost four others.
but changbin’s funeral was grand. it was publicized. it was shown in media outlets all across the country, and jeongin didn’t have it in himself to try to look presentable through his grief.
a black button up and black slacks could only do so much when he forewent nearly all makeup. he knew he was going to cry. he was strong, but he wasn’t fucking heartless.
the eulogy was split between the four of them. chan-hyung started with some anecdotes about changbin when they met, how he worked well in the studio. minho-hyung took over, saying the kindest things about his love for them and his family. jisung-hyung couldn’t get much out, but managed to let everyone know that there was no one else he’d rather have written music with. that it was an honor and a privilege to know seo changbin.
jeongin fucking choked.
his hands were shaking, his eyes focused on the microphone again, jisung’s hand rubbing against his back like chan-hyung’s did when he watched changbin’s corpse get wheeled away. it felt like they were back on the survival show. jisung was showing him how to rap, how to move through it. he had worked so hard, pushed jeongin to his limit because he knew he would be better for it.
he didn’t feel better for it, now.
“i—“ his voice was trembling. he gripped the podium a little harder. “i… i just want to say i’m sorry. i’m sorry, and i love you, hyung, and—thank you for—for helping me, and teaching me to be the person i am today. i wouldn’t be here without you. i… i hope you can rest easy now. you always deserved the breaks you never took.”
he didn’t know what he was saying. the speech typed out in front of him felt foreign, the hangeul shifting and molding into something harsher, angrier, but before he could blink it away, he stepped back, shaky hands gripping the paper and nodding towards changbin’s mother, hoping that she could save the trainwreck that grief-stricken jeongin.
publications caught on. of course they did. jeongin was no stranger to the public eye. he had been a kid when he forced himself in front of it. it was his dream to be a figurehead; a celebrity; an idol.
unfortunately, thirteen year old yang jeongin didn’t know any of the boys he had spent a lot of his life with when he auditioned for the company, and he also didn’t understand the ramifications of his actions. teenaged innie never thought he would make it this far.
he never thought he would make it far enough to be a household name, at least in south korea, partially internationally. he didn’t think he’d make it far enough to play sold out arenas with his best friends at his side.
he didn’t think he would make it far enough to watch four of them die, and he expected to keep his composure because dispatch showed up.
getting home from the funeral, he locked himself in his room. chan tried. chan tried so hard to get him to come out, to accept the soup that minho made because jisung had cried himself sick, but jeongin was not in the mood to exist in a world where seo changbin was six feet underground, especially when his phone was blowing up.
headline: stray kids’ remaining members distraught at bandmate’s funeral; jype under investigation.
jeongin groaned at the article his mother sent him. he knew she meant well. she had held him as he cried; traveled to seoul and stayed with him for a few days after seungmin and felix. she held him as he broke; as he processed the fact that his best friends were no longer there with him. she left a few days before changbin, which was probably the worst thing that could have happened, because he needed her after seeing his hyung’s broken, lifeless body in the hotel hallway.
jisung’s screams echoed in his head. he held his breath and looked at the text.
[from: eomma <3
were you mistreated, jeongin?]
jeongin wanted to laugh. he wanted to point her back to the survival show, being sixteen and being treated as a liability and a pawn for an interesting story. he wanted to point her to his school life stage, wanted to show her all the things that his boss had told him that made the cut. there was plenty that wasn’t aired, but jeongin knew what she meant.
the thing was, it was par for the course in this industry: jeongin learned the hard way, that if there was anything you didn’t like about this industry, you would not survive. idols were mistreated constantly; trainees even more so. thinking about chan; his hyung, his rock, and how much he had gone through to get where he was; seeing him struggle and fight and lose sleep and members to get them where they were, only to continue to say he isn’t doing enough…
were they mistreated? was that even a fucking question?
[to: eomma <3
no more than anybody else.]
he clicked off his phone, despite the continuation of vibrations and notifications. people were tagging him, news outlets posting blurry videos of him crying into chan-hyung’s arm, minho-hyung rubbing his back while jisung-hyung tried his hardest to block the scene. jeongin had seen the clips already. jisung looked fucking rabid. he was so close to snapping at the cameras, to fighting some of the publicity staff, but jeongin had kept his hands placed firmly clasped around jisung’s wrist. han jisung was a lot of things, but in that moment, jeongin could tell that the thought in the forefront of his mind was to be a good hyung.
jeongin didn’t need to see the pictures to know the crazed look in his eye. he didn’t need to open his phone to know what they were saying.
get him under control.
idols shouldn’t break like this.
what about their idol image?
none of them gave a shit about it, anymore. they weren’t idols. they weren’t a part of a group anymore. they were just men. men who lost their friends, and who were grieving.
their final moments with the physical form of one their best friends was tainted by media coverage.
it made jeongin sick.
a lot of things made jeongin sick, nowadays. ever since seungmin; ever since chan had come back from his emergency trip and sat him down on the couch. he’d been in a perpetual state of nausea ever since chan told him what he’d seen; since he told him to call his mom, see if she would be able to help.
she only soothed it for a moment. the ache always returned. jeongin was starting to recognize the futility of banishing it.
jeongin was starting to notice the futility in everything.
it was the same war in his head, tugging at his heart and his mind, forcing him to choose a side: life or death.
he’d been fighting death since birth. every person in the planet was handed a predetermined expiration date. no one knew, was the things. life just became a gamble of friendships, a battle against the inevitable, like shooting an armored tank with a .22, just to try and hold it off. jeongin always saw his tank in the distance, and those shreds of hope would often rise to the challenge; force him to move forward, staring down the tank in the face, hoping that none of the doubt in his mind or the bad things in his life would throw a grenade in his face.
sometimes, the hope won out, and jeongin could sharp-shoot death in the face; stopping the tank in its tracks for a while. when he found chan; found his brothers, the tank seemed to stop and wait, as if it knew. as if jeongin was pouring himself into something that would fulfill him, but at a cost.
when hyunjin’s charred body was identified, the tank came charging full speed towards him, and jeongin realized it had been lying in wait, like a predator stalking its prey.
when he saw changbin, the tank vanished, and death reared it’s ugly head in his direction, as if it taunted him.
“it would be so easy.”
life was cruel, putting those predetermined expiration dates so close to each other. maybe this wasn’t a coincidence at all.
“you could see us again.”
jeongin sighed into his pillow, opting to shut his phone off, completely.
i want to.
“they’ll understand. they’ll all understand. we were never meant to be apart, innie. none of us.”
wouldn’t i be leaving them behind?
“not for long. not—not forever, iyen-ah. everyone dies, eventually.”
jeongin sighed and shut his eyes. he couldn’t be thinking like this right now. he couldn’t betray his hyungs like that. he couldn’t give jisung the chance to find him like he found changbin. he couldn’t make chan-hyung bury another brother. he couldn’t make minho sit through another funeral. he couldn’t—
“but you should.”
“shut up.” he sniffed, shaking his head against his pillow.
“don’t you miss us, jeongin?”
“i can’t even see you.”
“but you could.”
jeongin shook his head again, sucking in another breath. he closed his eyes, trying not to let the tears escape, because god forbid he feels.
hours passed like that, jeongin clinging to his pillow, eyes shut, tears streaming down his face; collecting in a puddle against the sheets beneath him. he must have dozed off within a few hours, because the next thing he knew, the sun was filtering through his window, and he was forced awake by a gentle knock at his door.
“jeongin,” chan muttered, his voice raw and raspy, “i… i have to go out today. i have a meeting with the company to, um, discuss the demos we have; what to do with them. there are a few i think you’d like, if you want to come with, i can always see if we can delegate some of them as solos between us. i know seungminnie had some really good ones written that jisung drafted up after… yeah, um.” chan’s voice shook. “i was… i was hoping you’d come with? i would take sungie, but he’s not talking. not even to minho.”
another pause.
“i just… I don’t want to go alone, i would normally take changbin with me on things like this. he’s always—he was always better at communicating what we needed. i don’t know if i can do it alone.”
jeongin, for all his credit, did really think about it. he pondered it for a good few seconds, but the more he thought, the more it felt wrong; like he was never meant to have this power; to be in the meeting room meant for their producers, the ones who not only put in the work to learn the songs and dances to perfection, but to make them in the first place. jeongin didn’t write. jeongin barely made it into the group in the first place. there was no way he would feel welcome in a meeting designated for the members who were worth something.
“what about minho-hyung?” he offered, voice tired and filtered with sleep.
“i… really don’t think he’s going to leave hannie right now, but can… i can ask.”
jeongin closed his eyes, guilt coursing through his veins as he glanced down at the shadow of chan’s feet beneath the door.
“i… hyung, why are you going now? if they told you they need you now, after—after yesterday, the only reason i would go would be to yell. loudly. angrily.” it’s not like he had a contract that was viable anymore. stray kids died with hwang hyunjin; buried itself with seungmin and felix, and began to decompose with changbin. jeongin didn’t have to hold his tongue, anymore.
“we have to… to figure out what’s going to happen, ayen-ah. we can’t just… they need me to tell them what to do.”
“why you?” jeongin rolled himself out of bed, socked feet sliding against the hardwood floor of his room. he shuffled over to the door, trying not to slip, but his hyung needed him. “tell them to reschedule.”
jeongin opened up the door, determination stabbing through the frustration and grief. his hyung was struggling. fucking obviously, he was, but chan was still in leader mode. he was still stuck in damage control. he was still, fuck, stuck as bang chan, when jeongin knew he needed to be chris. he needed to be channie-hyung. he needed to be allowed to break, to shatter. jeongin wanted to be the broom and dustpan for when he did.
“why? are you not feeling okay?”
jeongin blinked owlishly at his hyung, clenching his jaw in frustration. “are any of us, right now?”
chan shook his head, but he did not drop the facade. there was no way jeongin was going to get him to stop. it was sinking in that the only way jeongin could help was to accompany him on this stupid trip talking to his stupid boss about their stupid friends and this stupid scandal.
“i signed up for this,” chan offered, but jeongin saw straight through his bullshit.
his eyes were red. his lips were chapped. channie-hyung was shaking as he tried to steady himself for jeongin. his hyung looked like he was about to break out; his skin red and irritated. he looked close to death, and if jeongin didn’t know better, he would have called in for a wellness check and a possible lockdown on him.
but he didn’t.
“you did not, ” jeongin hissed, hands frantically reaching out to latch onto chan’s. “you didn’t sign up to lose people, channie-hyung.”
“i should be used to it,” he whispered, gaze clouded as he looked up at jeongin. “i… i lost people before, kinda. bam-hyung and younghyun-hyung, i lost them when i was, what, sixteen? seventeen? i was alone then, until i found you guys. people have this… this habit of moving on, and i have to—to pick up the pieces.”
“they’re not dead,” jeongin whispered, squeezing his hyung’s hand until he could feel each individual bone and tendon against his fingertips. “you—you still have them. you can call them and visit them and… this isn’t the same, hyung.”
“i… it feels like it is,” chan whispered. he made no attempt to move his hand away. “it feels like i can just… just call bin, or text lixie or pester seungmin… i went to their dorm, you know. it’s untouched. it’s like a tomb. the company wants to rent it out again. we need to call movers, or something.”
“channie-hyung—“
“i talked to wooyoung last night.” his voice cracked. “after the funeral, he called me. he’s taking a bit of a hiatus. i don’t think i’ve ever seen him so upset, and you know how he is, innie. he’s just like hannie. he feels so much and he couldn’t breathe, last night. i told him to call—to lean on his boys and ours, too. i apologized for not doing any better. i… i need to do better.”
“hyung—“
“innie, i’m not asking as your leader or your hyung. i’m asking as someone who desperately needs what’s left of his family. please don’t make me go alone.”
chan didn’t wind up going alone.
by some miraculous stroke of fate, minho managed to get jisung out of bed when chan called. they walked, as a unit—all four of them, straight into the meeting room where they were told under no uncertain terms that they were not allowed to speak of the company unless it was an official notice or statement that had been approved by the company’s pr team. fine. easy. the nda felt like overkill, but it made a little more sense when they were presented with the next option of dotted lines to sign.
contract terminations.
they were optional. jeongin had been assured of that when the boys’ wide eyes spooked the hr people into damage control. it wasn’t a threat. it wasn’t even a push. it was just there, an out, if they wanted it, and if they didn’t, they could stay.
they offered chan-hyung and jisungie-hyung alternative contracts, possibly becoming full time producers for the company. minho was offered a position as a choreographer if he wanted it. they didn’t have to stay making their own music, they could ghost-write other art and create for other people who would replace them. people who would cover up everything that had happened.
or, they could stay. they could keep making music, work for themselves.
or they could leave altogether, move out, do their own things and move on with their lives and pretend that nothing happened, all they had to do was sign a dotted line and it would all go away.
jeongin had no alternative contract. they said he could go on as a solo artist, if stray kids was truly over. they said he had the option of being his own person, one of the prides of the company; someone to look up to.
jeongin wanted to go back to eight years ago and ask the same people in the meeting room then, before his debut, would have thought about that.
jeongin really considered it. he well and truly considered going on to be a solo artist, under the same company who had abused him mentally as a kid, the same company who wanted to see him kicked from the group before it debuted, the same company who told him he had a tendency to puff out after a long weekend with his hyungs, that eating was optional, that disorders were part of the industry. he considered staying with the same company who breathed down his neck for perfection, told him to keep himself from drinking water so he could look gaunt and angular; emphasize his adult features. jeongin truly sat and considered separating himself from his hyungs—going the selfish route and becoming a solo performer because that was all he was fucking good for.
he wasn’t channie-hyung. he couldn’t produce or mix music. he wasn’t jisung-hyung. he couldn’t write a good lyric or find a clever rhyme scheme. he wasn’t minho. he learned dances, but he could never make them up like his hyung. jeongin was himself, a good little soldier, who followed orders and never spoke out of turn and never once did anything wrong in fear of being punished.
yang jeongin was being given the only opportunity that fit his skill set, being jyp’s little attention whore—the soloist from the group that all fucking died or left because he was the only one who couldn’t move on.
“can we think about it?” chan asked, and jeongin had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from snickering.
that armored tank that housed death was staring jeongin down, now, barrel of the cannon pointing straight at his chest.
he didn’t need to think about it. his head went back to changbin’s funeral—the invasion of privacy, the cameras and shutters and the way jeongin’s tears and wails of grief were broadcast to the entire world in a moment that never should have been publicized.
think about it? he wasn’t thinking about it. he was done being a tabloid. he was done being a public figure. he missed his fucking hyungs.
“come home, jeonginnie.”
jeongin set his jaw; clamped it shut.
“take as much time as you need, boys.”
and then it was the four of them, left in the room as the door shut behind the executives, and jeongin stood, abruptly.
“i’m going home.”
chan looked up at him, concern evident in his expression. “ayen-ah, we have to talk about this.”
“talk about it later. whatever you guys do pretty much dictates what i do.”
“what? iyen, no,” minho muttered, “you’re a part of this team.”
“if you could even call it that.”
jisung froze from where he sat between minho and chan, eyes welling up with fresh tears, even if he’d only been able to stop crying a mere five minutes ago. “we—we are a team, no matter what. we—we stick together, we stay.”
“oh, grow up,” jeongin hissed, “we stay? we stay? seriously? i guess someone forgot to tell the other four. guess they must have missed the memo, because they left. they fucking left us alone, stuck here to… to what? be some cover story? some tabloid? what do we do? stick around, become stray? half of us are missing, cut the fucking name in half. what then, huh? what if you guys go with the offer? you guys are fine. you’ll always be fine. you can keep writing and producing and dancing, because you are valuable and strong and unexpendable and i’ve got, what, a decade before i become arbitrary? they’ll replace us. they’ll forget, but you’ll all be fine.”
the room remained silent for a moment, the others staring back at him in confusion and awe; fear, until chan spoke. “jeongin,” he whispered, “do you… do you actually think that little of yourself?”
jeongin scoffed. of fucking course he did. he was tired and achey and grieving and everything was going back to business as usual while he was still stuck in a hotel hallway every time he closed his eyes.
jisung sniffled. jeongin saw red.
“get a hold of yourself,” he spat in the elder’s direction. “don’t let jy pd-nim see you cry. he’ll just terminate your contract for you.”
“jeongin,” minho warned, “i know you’re hurting, but that does not—“
“i’m going for a walk,” he announced, turning on his heel, “call me when you figure out what you want to do.”
“ayen, wait,” jisung whimpered, but jeongin was already out the door.
—
somehow, he wound up back home.
chan-hyung wasn’t home. he had texted him when jeongin got in, saying he’d be helping minho with jisung, that he knew he was hurting, but he shouldn’t have spoken to them like that; that there was leftover seaweed soup in the fridge and if he needed anything, to call or come by minho and jisung’s dorm, just across the hall.
channie-hyung was giving him space.
jeongin felt himself breathe a sigh of relief, but guilt, as well.
he was staring down that tank, trying to see if he could pinpoint the projectile in the barrel, if it was steel or copper or iron. he couldn’t make out the material, but he could see the smooth round edge of whatever it was, and he swore he could feel the chemical charge begin to heat up behind it.
one push of one button, and death’s armored tank would render jeongin a pile of bones collapsed on the ground of his own mind battlefield.
and the thing was, that thought was comforting. so comforting, in fact, that he found himself taking a step forward, as if daring death to slam it’s scythe on the big red button that he could imagine was under the turret, and put him out of his fucking misery.
but death did not offer him such kind favors, no.
no, if jeongin was going to leave, he was going to have to do it, himself.
death popped the top of the turret as yang jeongin turned the bathtub tap.
in his battlefield, it was so vivid. the air pushing out of the turret, death themselves climbing out of the tank, cloaked body amorphous until it hit the ground, and it took the form of a human.
jeongin ran his hand under the tap, forcing himself to breathe through the sting of the scalding water. maybe, if it was too warm, it would shock his body into taking a breath when he submerged his face. maybe then, he’d drown faster.
death approached him, scythe up in the air, forcing the battle around them to stop and the bullets to stop flying as they approached. jeongin did not shy away. he inched closer.
the water was hot. jeongin tore his hand away from the tub and reached for the hooded creature on his battlefield.
death looked a lot like seo changbin.
it wasn’t him. jeongin at least had half a mind to conclude that the hallucination plaguing his brain since birth couldn’t be his hyung because he was looking up at him, but jeongin also didn’t care. he was close enough.
hi, bin-hyung.
“hello, iyen-ah.”
jeongin gently pushed the cloaked figure’s hood down, allowing changbin’s ashy post-dyed, faded hair to see the light of day. it was cloudy; always was on yang jeongin’s battlefield. there wasn’t a moment he could remember where the sky was not a smooth wash of gray, where petrichor didn’t fill his nostrils every time he closed his eyes.
changbin didn’t stop him. he simply stared back.
“are you sure about this, jeonginnie?”
jeongin nodded and opened his eyes.
the bathroom light was warmer. the humidity coating his face was but from the tropical misery of his battlefield, but the hot water vaporizing in front of his eyes. he tried to breathe. he tried to tell himself that this was for the best, but he felt the tug of panic underneath the push of pleasure; release.
“ayen, wait!”
jeongin closed his eyes again, forcing him back onto the battlefield. changbin was already taking a couple steps back, as if he was headed back up to the turret to press the button to shove the cannonball out of the barrel and into his chest, but he kept his eyes directly on the younger boy, even as other figures began to surround them.
from behind changbin, a twist of flexible, charred limbs climbed over the tank, clinging to the metal like it was his best friend. he started back at jeongin. jeongin smiled back. hi, hyunjinnie.
the amalgamation of limbs turned it’s body towards him, and some of the char began to regenerate, just enough for jeongin to make out the face of the first friend he lost. “hi, ayen-ah.”
another one climbed up from the trenches, stumbling towards the group with no accuracy or focus. jeongin almost panicked, watching him step close to meticulously placed landmines, but every time he got close, it was like an invisible string kept him on track.
yongbok! be careful!
“don’t need to be,” came from icy lips. jeongin shuddered. felix continued, “i’m already dead.”
jeongin almost reached out for him when he got close enough, but changbin pushed his hand away with a stern look. “no,” he murmured, “stop. don’t touch, iyen-ah. not before you make your choice.”
“ah, hyung, look at him.” jeongin startled hearing the voice pipe up right beside his ear. seungmin was always good at sneaking up on him. he was light on his feet and as quiet as a dead mouse, most of the time. “i think he’s already made his choice, isn’t that right, jeongin?”
“ayen, wait!”
jeongin whipped his head around, stumbling slightly at the force of the movement. he felt changbin’s strong hand hold him up as he turned to see a shaking, trembling jisung on the other side of the field, faceless soldiers of his mind holding muskets and bayonets at arms, directly at him.
no.
jeongin felt his head spin, his friend staring back at him. jisung!
“come back. come back, innie, i’m sorry.”
jeongin nearly took a step, but he felt an arm on his shoulder. he turned back to see felix, eyes wide. “no, no, yang jeongin. he has to come to you.”
jeongin stared as jisung was thrust onto the field.
“it’s okay, han-ah! you’re okay!”
a new voice had him startling and turning to look just behind jisung, where minho stood, bound and exhausted, but still staring in with passion and determination. “step on the patches! they’re decoys!”
no, no, stop! stop, jisung! don’t take another step, please, i—
jeongin let out a choked whimper, opening his eyes to let the tears drop into the water below him. he could still hear them. he could still feel them in his head.
“you could stop this, right now, yang jeongin.” changbin’s voice was a little heavier now. “all you have to do is come with us.”
jeongin ran his hand through the water, trying his hardest not to flinch at the scald.
“but he could get to me,” jeongin whispered. “he could—i could apologize. i need to apologize.”
jeongin stood from where he knelt, frantically turning the tap to where the water stopped and he could grab his phone without worrying about flooding the bathroom.
call: hannie-hyung
ring.
ring.
ring.
ring.
ring.
hey! you’ve reached han jisung! call back if it’s urgent. if not, leave a message and i’ll get back to you asap!
jeongin blinked. was it urgent? did he need to do this? did he really need to blubber to his hyung about how bad he felt? after he ruined everything, anyway?
jisung’s footsteps against the damp soft dirt echoed in his mind, and jeongin realized something.
he didn’t want to die with regrets.
call: hannie-hyung
ring.
ring.
ring.
ring.
ring.
hey! you’ve reached han jisung! call back if it’s urgent. if not, leave a message and i’ll get back to you asap!
call: hannie-hyung
ring.
ring.
hey! you’ve reached han jisung! call back if it’s urgent. if not, leave a message and i’ll get back to you asap!
call: hannie-hyung
hey! you’ve reached han jisung! call back if it’s urgent. if not, leave a message and i’ll get back to you asap!
hey! you’ve reached han jisung! call back if it’s urgent.
hey! you’ve reached—
oh, fuck this.
“hyung,” jeongin whispered after the tone, “i’m sorry. i’m sorry for everything, i didn’t mean it. you don’t need to grow up. you have taken such good care of me and the others and you make me happy and you didn’t deserve to get snapped at for losing a friend. you didn’t deserve any of it. i’m so sorry. i love you. i love you so much, and i wish—i wish it didn’t have to be like this. please. please, just… take care of our hyungs, okay? and don’t let the reporters find out. don’t let them— i love you. i have to go. i love you.”
jeongin hung up the phone, tossed it onto his bed, and turned back to the bathroom with a fervor and determination that seemed foreign to him. he wanted to scream. he wanted to—fuck, he just wanted this to be over.
no contract termination. no solo career, no four-member-boy-group called stray. nothing to do with him, at least. yang jeongin was done.
he was done with the camera flashes. he was done with the magazines and the stories and the glitz and the glamor. he was done with his trauma being publicized. he was done.
jeongin didn’t think before he plunged his face in the scalding water and took a large, deep breath.
of course, his body protested. his lungs could not differentiate between the oxygen in the air and the oxygen in the water. jeongin nearly pulled his head out, gasped for breath, but with his eyes closed, he could see jisung’s shaky footsteps on the painfully unstable dirt across the field, trying to find him. jeongin shook his head. stay where you are, han-hyung, please!
“they’ll kill me if i don’t move.”
jeongin stared at him, then minho, who was shaking hysterically, his eyes focused on jisung’s ankles, and made the horrifying, but undeniable discovery.
everyone on this battlefield was already dead.
jeongin’s chest constricted, his hands shaking as he stepped forward towards his hyung. jisung was so scared. jisung was terrified, staring at him with wide, teary eyes. “ayen, wait, please, no!”
a gunshot sounded from the field, but instead of jisung’s terrified and trembling body falling to the ground in front of him, jeongin turned to look behind him, and his heart sank.
“minho!”
jisung’s voice was shrill as he turned, his heel digging into the soft dirt with such force that it sent him careening backwards, his back hitting the ground below.
jisung wailed, trying to find his footing as he pushed himself through the mud, “no! no, minho-hyung, no!”
jeongin took another step forward, shaky hands reaching towards him as he felt a stronger pair of hands grip at his shoulders.
“you know what you have to do,” minho’s voice sounded from behind him, and jeongin simply nodded.
as long as jisung’s safe, please.
his chest hurt. his body hurt. it was tingling as if the world around him was manifesting the agony of grieving all of his hyungs at once. he didn’t think it could hurt worse, but he didn’t care.
lower your weapons. it’s time.
faceless soldiers dropped the barrels of their muskets to face the dirt, and surrounded jisung’s screaming form, as if to distract from his existence.
jeongin opened his eyes to face the bottom of the tub, but the blurry shapes of bubbles and swimmers in his vision seemed to paint the same picture of that battlefield.
his vision tunneled, his body seized, and suddenly he couldn’t feel the urge to breathe, anymore.
he closed his eyes, turning back towards the armored tank, and took his position in front of the canon,
this was it. this was what he had to do; to protect the others, to escape. all he had to do was let that canon hit him square in the chest, and it would all be over.
changbin kept his hand in his shoulder. seungmin climbed the tank and did the honors.
“in three.”
jeongin closed his eyes and tried to tune out jisung’s screams.
“two.”
he clenched his fists, knowing it was his last chance to feel the lively sensation of flexing his muscles.
“one.”
jeongin braced for the hit. he hoped it would be quick.
the cannon went off, loud and angry. his ears were ringing. his heart was—pounding?
there was no weight on his chest, but his shoulder stung, and he was against the mud on the ground, a weight pressing into his shoulder.
“no! not you, too, jeongin, no!”
… channie-hyung?
jeongin heart was beating fast and thready, but he couldn’t open his eyes. he couldn’t take a breath. he couldn’t… he couldn’t do anything. it was like he was frozen, like his body had given up, even if his mind was still that stupid fucking battlefield.
“breathe.” channie-hyung.
“no! no, don’t you dare!” seo changbin.
“breathe. jeongin, you need to breathe!” channie-hyung.
jeongin’s eyes ripped themselves open, the water in his chest and his stomach making an appearance moments later. he was somewhere between the battlefield and the bathroom, the stench of petrichor still strong in his nostrils as he closed his eyes once more.
he took a shuddering breath. it hurt.
“jeongin! jeongin, can you hear me?” his hyung’s voice sounded like he was underwater. jeongin couldn’t speak. he could barely draw in shaky, tiny breaths.
“h-hyung,” he whispered, eyes slipping shut.
chan was above him on the battlefield, staring into his eyes, terrified fingers gripping his face.
“oh, innie, i’m so… so sorry.”
jeongin clenched his jaw, glassy eyes staring up at him, up above him—wait, wait, no!
changbin-hyung!
jeongin watched as changbin’s strong arm wrapped around his hyung’s throat, pulling him off. chan remained limp, like he had given up; like he was fully aware of what saving jeongin did.
“i’m not your fucking hyung.” seo changbin sneered. “get the other one.”
jeongin’s head whipped around just in time to see jisung being lifted by the faceless soldiers. they held his squirming, unstable body with ease, not even flinching as he thrashed and kicked at the soldiers. seo changbin pulled chan down, forcing him onto his knees. he kept a hand tangled in his hair, forcing chan to keep his head up and watch.
“stop.” seo changbin’s voice echoed throughout the field. the soldiers stopped. “make him watch.”
jisung screamed. he screamed and keened and fought and cried, but they had him, gripping into each limb as seo changbin brought down his scythe directly into chan’s chest.
“no! please, no, chan-hyung! he wasn’t supposed to be here, he wasn’t supposed to— channie-hyung, no!”
“breathe, jeonginnie, i’m right here.” chan’s voice echoed in his head, even as jeongin watched his corpse fall face first into the dirt. it was as if god, himself, was walking jeongin through this headspace, this hallucination, holding onto him, needing him to come out the other side.
jeongin knew he wasn’t making it that far.
“you could have avoided this, you know.” the voice was hyunjin’s. “you could have just come with us. you didn’t have to call them. you didn’t have to know they’d find you.”
jeongin tore himself from the battlefield, his chest aching. it was getting harder to breathe. everything was getting so fucking hard and all jeongin could do was sit and let it.
“ch-channie-hyung,” came from his chapped lips, his voice raw and exhausted. “c-can you—can you s-sing, for me? p-please?”
“drop him.” seo changbin’s voice made jeongin nauseous.
chan’s tiny whimper came at the same time jeongin heard a landmine explode in his head. jisung was no longer screaming.
“help’s on the way, innie, just stay with me. please, please, jeongin, i can’t lose anyone else.”
you already have, hyung. you just don’t know it, yet.
“why’s it—why’s it alw’ys gotta b-be you?”
he heard chan sob. he blinked. the barrel of a musket flashed in his vision.
“i… i lead, jeongin—you guys are supposed to-to come to me. it has to be me.”
jeongin couldn’t breathe. he heard the safety of the gun click off.
he didn’t want to hear it.
“sing. channie-hyung, sing, please.”
“i… i’ll sing, jeongin, just hold on.”
he felt chan’s warm hand slip into his. jeongin cracked a smile.
levanter never sounded so heavenly, but jeongin figured it would as he transitioned from his living plane straight to hell.
a gunshot. the battlefield faded. chan’s voice carried him home.
and now that i’ve left it all behind me, i’m flying high.
i’m flying high.