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Chan couldn’t help biting down on his bottom lip as he clicked through the file he had been working on, trying to figure out what was wrong with the melody so that he could fix it. Something just wasn’t working, but he couldn’t quite place what was wrong. He had been working on it for weeks, and it still wasn’t coming together the way he wanted it to.
It didn’t help that Chan wasn’t sleeping well; “Ceremony” promotions and the North American tour had taken their toll, and it seemed as though his insomnia was back and worse than ever. But it wasn’t just his insomnia that had come back with a vengeance - the dull ache in his chest, the way he couldn’t get himself to feel excited or happy or anything else. Most of the time he just felt flat, which he knew was a bad sign. It had been a long time since he had been depressed, but he was well aware of the signs that things were going to be bad very, very soon.
“Hyung… you should hang it up for the night,” Changbin commented, as the younger man put a hand on his shoulder to remind him that the others were there. “You look exhausted… it’ll be easier after a good night’s sleep…”
Chan took a deep breath, sighing and shaking his head. “I need to figure it out…”
“You’re not going to get it by just staring at it all night… especially not when you’re already exhausted,” Changbin reasoned. “Come home with us and get some rest. Your dark circles are starting to get dark circles, and I know you haven’t been sleeping properly for a while now…”
Chan didn’t respond for a moment, realizing that Changbin had already clocked what was going on in his head if the younger man was pointing out his lack of sleep. The other members were usually good about not pressing Chan when it came to things like this - at least not until they felt as though they had a reason to worry. And despite the fact that Chan thought he had things under control, Changbin had obviously noticed. “It’s…”
“Don’t tell me it’s not that bad. I haven’t seen you smile - like really smile - in way too long,” Changbin interrupted. “You’re not okay.”
Chan leaned forward, rubbing his eyes for a moment as he tried to process what was happening. “Who else…?”
“Sung-ah is suspicious, but I don’t think anyone else really knows anything yet,” Changbin replied. “Maybe Minho-hyung… he can catch on pretty quick, even if he doesn’t act like it all the time. How much longer are you going to push this, before you say something to the managers?”
“We don’t have time for me to get pulled…” Chan began.
“We don’t have time for you to ignore your mental health,” Changbin asserted, shaking his head. “We need you, hyung… we need you healthy. But most importantly, we need you with us.”
Chan sighed. “I’m not suicidal, Binnie…”
“Now,” Changbin replied. “But how long is that going to be the case, if you aren’t taking care of yourself? It’s not like it would be the first time things have gotten that bad…”
“I can’t write worth a shit on the medication…”
“You can’t write worth a shit when you’re this depressed, either,” Changbin pointed out. “At least if you take the medication and talk to your therapist, I don’t have to stress out about whether or not I’m still going to have a leader in six months.” There was a long moment of silence, before Changbin spoke again. “I don’t want to fight with you about all of this, hyung… but if you aren’t going to go to the managers yourself, I have no choice but to do it for you. We’ve lost enough people in this industry already.”
Chan could feel the tears stinging at his eyes at Changbin’s choice to mention the number of other Idols that had lost their battles with depression in the last few years. It was especially painful, because Changbin knew. Even though it had first happened even before Jisung had joined him in the company’s trainee program, Chan had confessed to the other members of 3RACHA a few years ago. They knew that he’d made an attempt and it had failed - that he’d spent almost a month afterwards with Son Hyunwoo refusing to let Chan out of his sight, only because Chan had begged the older man not to tell the trainee managers what had happened. Chan still felt a bit guilty about the older man losing his spot in JYP, in part because Chan knew that some of Hyunwoo’s training absences had been his fault. Chan still regretted the fact that Hyunwoo hadn’t gone to management.
“Please just let me help you, hyung…”
“I’ll handle it,” Chan replied, shaking his head. “I’ll talk to the managers tomorrow…”
“Tonight,” Changbin interrupted, shaking his head. “Please… because I’m honestly not going to sleep tonight unless I know that you’re safe. That you’re going to be getting help. Please… let’s go tonight.”
Chan closed his eyes. “It’s late…”
“All the more reason you should do it now… you can go to the hospital overnight, and maybe everything can be handled before the morning…” Changbin began.
“Or I can be hospitalized for God knows how long…” Chan replied, shaking his head. “If I go to the hospital, they’re going to keep me. They’re not going to let me come home, Binnie.”
“Maybe that’s what’s for the best…” Changbin began. “Maybe that’s what you need, so that you can get your life back. So that we can get our hyung back…”
“So that Stray Kids doesn’t lose my music…” Chan began, feeling a sudden surge of anger. As ridiculous as he knew it was, his brain was telling him that Changbin only cared because they needed Chan’s music. Chan knew that wasn’t the truth, but he couldn’t stop the emotions that were bubbling up.
“So that we don’t lose Stray Kids. So that we don’t lose you,” Changbin replied. “Without you, none of this exists. You are the reason they even gave us a chance. You are what kept us together through all of the shit we’ve faced in the last eight years. It’s not about the music, or what you can do for us. It’s about the fact that we all believe in you, hyung. If something happened to you, we wouldn’t be able to keep going because none of us could do it without you by our sides. None of us would want to do any of this without you.”
Chan took a moment to just breathe, processing everything Changbin had said. “You and Han could handle it…” Chan began.
“We don’t want to handle it. I don’t even know if Sungie could handle the stress of losing you, let alone come back here and try to work again if something happened…” Changbin replied. “Please… let us help you, before anything can get worse…”
Chan felt sick at the thought that something happening to him might cause that much pain to his members - his kids. That was something he hadn’t thought about. As much as he was hurting in that moment, he knew that he couldn’t do anything to hurt his brothers. “I’ll go.”
“Tonight?” Changbin asked.
Chan nodded slowly. “Tonight.”
“Okay… let’s go,” Changbin commented.
Chan shut down his laptop, packing everything into his bag before he followed Changbin out of their studio and down to the parking garage where a manager was already waiting to drive them home. As much as he didn’t want to do it, Chan knew that Changbin was right and that this was what he needed to do. Chan was just thankful that everyone else had already left in the other van, so that he wouldn’t have to have this conversation in front of anyone else.
“You guys ready to go?” Joochan, their manager, asked as Chan climbed into the seat behind him with Changbin following close behind.
“We actually… we need to talk to you about something, first,” Changbin began, nudging Chan.
“What’s going on?”
“The uh… the insomnia’s getting really bad again,” Chan replied. “I’m getting… I’m depressed…”
Joochan put the car into park, turning around to look at Chan with obvious concern in his eyes. “Chan-ah… I need you to be completely honest with me right now,” the man began. “Do I need to take you to the hospital right now?”
Chan glanced over at Changbin, who simply reached out and squeezed his knee gently in a reassuring gesture. Chan turned back to the manager. “I’m not suicidal right now, but I don’t know… I haven’t really slept in a couple of weeks. The first time I attempted, it happened really fast…”
“The… you’ve attempted suicide before?” the manager asked, clearly shocked. Chan had admitted to being suicidal in the past to their managers, but never that he’d actually tried it.
“When I was fifteen… and…” Chan took a deep breath, glancing over at Changbin as he debated whether or not he should finish. “It was Tylenol the first time, because I didn’t know that it was almost impossible to actually kill yourself that way. The second time was during the survival show. I had stronger painkillers that time, but I didn’t finish taking them… Sung-ah came to me because he was upset after Minho got eliminated, and I stopped to help him…”
“I didn’t know that…” Changbin began, looking even more concerned than he had already been.
Chan looked down at his lap. “I didn’t want anyone to know,” he admitted. “I… I was more ashamed of that one, because I could have ruined everything for all of us…”
“Okay… we’re going to drop Changbin off at the dorms, and then you and I are going to head to the hospital to make sure that you aren’t currently a danger to yourself,” Joochan commented, turning back around to put the car into reverse again so that they could head out.
***
Chan was exhausted as he made his way into the dorm he shared with Jeongin, kicking off his shoes and just leaving them as he shuffled towards his bedroom. He was exhausted; it was almost four in the morning, and he was only now getting home from the hospital. Joochan had already cancelled all of Chan’s schedules for the following day so that he could rest, but he honestly wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to make himself actually stay home. He’d left the hospital with a few days worth of medication - enough to get him started with the prescribed treatment, at least until his appointment in the psychiatrist’s office in a few days for further testing to make sure that he was receiving the appropriate treatment.
Chan sighed as he saw Changbin sitting on the sofa, staring down at his phone. “Hey…” Chan commented, as Changbin looked up at him.
“Hey,” Changbin replied, smiling at him. “What did they say?”
“They restarted my antidepressants,” Chan admitted. “I have an appointment to talk with the psychiatrist again the day after tomorrow, and Joochan-hyung is going to set up therapist appointments once he’s back at work tomorrow.”
“So… what does that mean?” Changbin asked, moving so that Chan could sit down next to him on the sofa.
“I’m not really sure yet, beyond that,” Chan admitted, shaking his head. “We didn’t talk about the specifics tonight… I’m taking today off to rest, and I assume tomorrow is probably going to involve meetings with the company about where we go from here… probably a hiatus, if I’m being honest. I don’t know if they’re going to give me a choice about that.”
Changbin took a deep breath. “I’m sure that it’s for the best…” the rapper replied. “Are you okay?”
“I’m… I don’t even know what’s going on anymore,” Chan replied, shaking his head. “I just want to go to sleep right now, and pretend like none of this is real. But I know that isn’t helpful, so I guess I just have to push through until I figure something out…”
“You don’t have to do it alone,” Changbin reassured, reaching his hand out to squeeze Chan’s knee gently. “You know that we’re going to be there for you. Whatever you need… we’re going to stay by your side, because we’re your brothers.”
Chan nodded. “I know,” he replied. “I don’t want to burden any of you. But I know that I can’t do this on my own.”
Changbin shook his head. “No, you can’t… and you will never have to,” the rapper reassured. “We were there for Sungie through the worst of his anxiety. We’ve been there for each other through so much in the last eight years… this is just going to be another part of our story. Something else that we figure out how to work through together. Because that’s what we do. Because we’re family.”
“Thank you,” Chan replied, taking a deep breath. “Thank you for seeing that I was struggling. And thank you for pushing me to act, rather than trying to just muscle through all of my mental health issues like I normally try to do. I needed you to say those things. I needed to hear that you guys need me.”
“We’ll always need you, hyung,” Changbin replied. “As long as we’re Stray Kids, we’ll need you.”
“We should try to get some sleep,” Chan commented, shaking his head. “It’s really late… do you want to stay here? There’s plenty of space in my bed for two…”
“If you don’t mind,” Changbin replied. “I think I’ll feel better knowing that you aren’t alone.”
“Honestly… I think I will, too.”