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Chan thought he had been doing better.
He really, really did. He had been at home for a little over four months now and he dutifully attended his therapy sessions (although they made him feel worse than before). He saw how his kids gradually became more relaxed around him, guards lowering as they saw the improvements.
Chan wasn’t stupid; he saw how the entire dorm had been made attempt-proof after his return—no open blades, nothing sharp, more plastic cups than glass, nothing breakable easily with arms’ reach.
It hurt him every single time when he caught one of his members sneaking glances at him, watching him carefully whenever he looked at something even remotely dangerous for more than a second. He could understand their worry, of course; he knew he would be way too protective if it was one of his kids, but he was the leader. The younger ones shouldn’t have to take care of him, yet they did, and it made him feel weak and too vulnerable.
From the outside, one would think he was doing just fine. He seemed happier, did all his duties with renewed vigor, performed and sang and danced just like he used to. The managers had stopped looking at him with a horrible mix of pity and fear and his life was pretty much normal.
But from the inside, Chan was tearing himself up.
It all started one late night (just like the night of his attempt, Chan’s brain reminded him). He was back in his studio but this time he wasn’t alone; Jisung had gone with him but the younger was asleep on the couch and Chan couldn’t bring himself to wake the boy up, even though Jisung was supposed to be watching him (he was sent under the guise of work but Chan knew it was because Minho didn’t want him to be left alone at night).
Contrary to before, his songs were actually coming along just fine, but he had worked way too much and had slept minimally (read: not at all) in order to make them sound that way. It was worth it to see the awed faces of Changbin and Jisung when he gave them the song to listen to and edit, but now, when he was sitting in his black studio chair and gazing blankly up at the ceiling, he couldn’t help but mourn the sleep and respite he could have gotten the night before.
When he got back to the dorms after giving in, waking Jisung up, and collecting his stuff to go home, he also told himself that he couldn’t help the way everything was starting to look more tempting. He told himself he couldn’t help how the sheathed blades in the kitchen somehow looked shinier; he told himself he couldn’t help how he noticed the ceiling was just at the perfect height; he told himself he couldn’t help how the literal water from the shower looked much more promising than before, even as it swirled down the drain and fell into nothingness.
He felt like a parrot repeating its master’s words; his therapist always told him it wasn’t his fault that his brain worked like it did but he just couldn’t bring himself to actually believe the statement. Of course it was his fault; he had chosen to attempt that night. What else could he possibly blame other than his own mind?
***
The next few weeks, Chan grew progressively worse. His hands and arms and entire body had this weird feeling, like something underneath his skin was itching uncontrollably. He couldn’t count the number of times he had to physically restrain himself—sometimes by placing books on his hands—in order to ensure that he didn’t mutilate his arms, which had actually nearly healed over. Yet when he looked down at the almost-unblemished skin, the stark white skin going up and down in straight lines stared back at him unforgivingly and he had to swallow heavily and force his eyes to look at something else.
He tried to conceal it around others, tried to protect them from his harmful tendencies, but he knew that his kids were on high alert—Minho probably noticed something (nothing got past him) and told them all and Chan hated it, hated their pity, hated the worried looks, but he just couldn’t hate how much they all loved him even though it hurt.
Several times he found himself gravitating towards sharp objects like the razor in the shower or even the scissors in his drawer by his bed. His head was blessedly free from the dark, oppressive thoughts during the day but at night, when he had to come home and go to bed and see all the tempting objects, the ideas and possibilities and fears poured right back in, filling his head with dark, viscous liquid that seeped into his brain and didn’t leave.
In order to combat his growing terror of sleeping, he reasoned, he just wouldn’t come home at night. He started hanging out later in his studio, managing to convince whichever member was watching him to leave and stating that he was just finishing up and would be back in five minutes, and it was actually working. Kind of. Sometimes (most of the time) the member didn’t leave and he had to concede and go home, but he just took really quick showers and slept right in the middle of his bed, away from the edges that were near possibly harmful things.
Honestly, he felt like he was starting to go insane. He hated the constant feelings of unease and wariness and inadequacy but didn’t know how to stop feeling them. He threw himself into his work until he was so tired he couldn’t think straight—and therefore couldn’t think harmful thoughts—but the lingering dread that seemed to have established a permanent presence within him never faded. He tried to get out of the shower as fast as possible but it was getting harder as he spent more time glancing at the blades before hurriedly looking away.
The cycle continued for the next week or so until one night Chan just couldn’t resist the hypnotic pull of temptation any longer. The itching sensation had only gotten worse until it felt like his whole arm was burning even when he hadn’t touched it. His head was pounding from exhaustion and he just really wanted to sleep, despite knowing that he would (maybe) wake up and repeat everything all over again the next day.
Chan sat on the covered toilet seat, wrapped up in his towel, razor in hand, just staring at his arm. His hands twitched but made no further movement, and when one of the members knocked on the door asking him if he was done, he’d flinched at the noise before hurriedly saying that yes, he was done, throwing his clothes on and leaving the razor in its original place.
That night, Chan didn’t sleep at all.
***
“Something’s wrong with Chan-hyung,” Jisung whispered to Minho one day as they were in the practice room going over choreo. When Minho glanced at him in confusion, Jisung’s eyebrows knitted together. “You haven’t noticed anything?” he asked anxiously, fidgeting with his fingers like he wasn’t confident in what he’d seen anymore.
“No, not really,” Minho responded, sneaking a glance over at Chan. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary, but there was a firm set to his jaw and his eyes were slightly distant; nothing Minho would have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for something wrong. “Why? What are you seeing?”
“I- um,” Jisung said nervously. “It’s not really anything specific, just- he just has this air of, like, sadness around him all of a sudden? He’s been a little quieter I think and he’s started throwing himself into work, which, yes, I know, isn't really out of the ordinary, but we just released an album; he usually takes it easy for a couple days afterwards. I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into things-”
“No, now that you say something, you are correct,” Minho mused, shooting another glance at the leader who, thankfully, didn’t seem to have caught onto the conversation. “I’ll tell everyone to be on the lookout; thanks, Jisungie.”
The younger nodded, slightly puffed with pride, and the dance practice continued without a hitch.
***
Chan twitched, arms positively burning and mind begging him to do something, anything, to make it stop. He knew what his subconscious was really asking for, though, yet he refused to give in; he would be better. He had to, for his boys.
But the urge just didn’t go away…
Chan sighed in frustration, running his hands through his hair and flopping onto his bed, laying on his back and placing his hands underneath the cool pillow at his head. His eyes flitted to the bathroom just across from his bedroom before he forcibly closed them, breathing a deep sigh out of his nose. No. He wouldn’t. But what if he did?
The idol muttered a curse under his breath as he flipped onto his stomach, hands still under the pillow as he buried his face into the white casing. It fluffed around his head, encasing it and blocking out some of the noise of the dorm, replacing it with a comforting near-silence.
The bed suddenly sunk right next to him and Chan jolted in surprise, unburying his face to see the newcomer.
“Minho,” he said in surprise. “What are you doing here? Is something wrong? Is someone hurt?”
“Slow down, hyung,” the younger responded sternly. His dark eyes glinted in the near-blackness of Chan’s room, and the leader could tell that the talk he would be having wasn’t going to be a nice one. “To cut to the chase, we’ve been noticing some behavior that we think is a bit worrying.” He held up a hand when Chan instantly tried to protest, and the elder quieted down with a grumble. “It’s nothing major but you’ve obviously been so tired this week. I get that we just had a comeback and I know that being the leader carries bigger responsibilities than I know, but sitting down and barely managing to stay awake is a whole new level of exhaustion, hyung. It’s not okay and frankly, we’re a bit worried as to what it means. There are other signs we’ve seen but the tiredness is the most apparent one, in my opinion.”
“I-” Chan started but trailed off, unsure of how to respond to Minho’s observations. He didn’t think he had been that apparent but he guessed he had and that was his fault. “Is everyone worried because of me?” he asked meekly, wanting to break the silence but not knowing anything better to say.
Minho’s gaze softened the tiniest bit. “They’re definitely all worried, but your wording made it seem like it’s your fault and that it’s somehow causing us trouble, but it’s not, hyung. To be honest, you’ve always taken the blame for everything even when it’s the furthest from the truth but just let us worry for you without consequences from you. It’s not your fault that you act like this, nor is it your fault for trying to be better but not seeing any ‘obvious’ signs of improvement. Healing isn’t linear and we expected bumps, but we just want you to recognize that you have people willing to lift you back up, so you should use them. That’s all, hyung.” He finished with such a vulnerable air of softness in his voice—one he rarely, if ever, used—and Chan went silent for a moment, lost in his head.
Minho leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss to Chan’s cheek, wishing him a good night before he left, sock-covered feet quiet on the wooden dormitory floor. Chan sat in the silence for a moment, contemplating. His fingers twitched but made no further movement.
He slept fitfully, too awake to actually feel rested in the morning, and thoughts far too loud for his brain to shut off properly.
***
Chan sat on the toilet seat once again, water dripping off his hair and onto the cold floor at his feet, some of it running down his back underneath his shirt. The razor, held tightly in his hand, glinted evilly at him in the sharp bathroom lighting like it was taunting him. His hand was shaking, he noticed distantly. His whole body was cold, his mind a freezing river slowly pausing movement as the ice overcame it.
You made your boys worry. You were supposed to be better and you’re not but you’re making it everyone’s problem. What is wrong with you?
With trambling fingers, he slowly lifted the razor to his arm, thoughts giving in to their losing battle yet movements still hesitant, like one last desperate attempt to resist.
As he pressed the blade to his skin, a deep red droplet welling up, the door suddenly banged open and he jolted, dropping the blade and flinching, eyes wide.
There were his boys—all of them—standing in the doorway, faces ranging from worried to downright terrified. Minho, in front of all of them, carefully made his way over to the eldest. He picked the blade off the ground, wrapping it in a towel and tossing it in the trash, before he finally fixed his gaze upon the leader.
Chan felt like bursting into tears. He felt them welling up when Minho looked at him with the most heartbroken gaze he’d ever seen in his entire life. When a broken “Hyung…” came from one of the boys, Chan finally gave in, tears rolling down his cheeks as he buried his face in Minho’s shoulder, body shaking from emotions and from the coldness that hadn’t left him since he finished showering.
Minho’s hands instinctually came to cradle the back of Chan’s skull, patting and smoothing down the black curls found there, whispering meaningless words to the leader as he cried. Minho could feel his own tears springing to life at the sheer state of despair his hyung was in, but he had to be the stronger one, he reminded himself.
“Can you all go back to your rooms, please,” he asked (ordered) and there was minimal argument from the other members, only fleetingly sorrowful glances cast at the duo before they left the doorway, going back to their bedrooms in a tense silence. Minho turned his focus back to Chan, whose cries had quieted down to sad little sniffles. “Hyung,” he gently started and Chan startled at the sound of his voice, burrowing further into the fabric over his shoulder like he didn’t want to look at anything. “Hyung,” Minho repeated, “you know we need to have a talk about this.”
“I- I know,” Chan replied, voice breaking from the sobbing it had endured. “I just- I really, really can’t do it tonight. I can’t. I just want to sleep so, so badly. Please, Minho, can I sleep?” he begged, and the younger didn’t have the heart to refuse, especially since he knew Chan had not been sleeping well at all for the past couple of weeks.
“Sure, hyung,” he replied. Wordlessly, he helped Chan up from the toilet, walking with him to the elder’s room where they both collapsed on the bed in the darkened room. Chan fell asleep almost instantaneously, Minho not long behind him, curled up next to each other and feeding off each others’ warmth. For the first time in a while, sleep came easily.
The next morning Chan woke up feeling exhausted but weirdly put together. Like the previous night had unearthed something deep within his mind that finally clicked with something else in just the right way. He couldn’t quite figure out what those two pieces were, but he heavily appreciated the refreshing feeling.
The spot next to him in bed was empty, sheets a bit rumpled and messy from Minho likely rolling straight out of bed, his weird little habit. Yet Chan felt himself missing the familiar warmth of another person holding—caring for—him when he was vulnerable. Breathing out forcefully, Chan got himself up for the day, washing his face with cold water to make himself wake up more and pointedly not looking at the dark circles he knew he would find under his eyes.
Plodding quietly into the kitchen, he was met with such a familiar sight his heart ached. His kids, all seven of them, gathered around the table and conversing with each other—a bit quieter than usual, sure, but it was a step forward. Chan knew the past few days had been rough on them because of him.
“Hey,” he said softly, voice rough from the heavy sleep. Everyone’s eyes flicked to him and then to Minho, who looked right at the leader. For a moment, there was an awkward silence that Chan absolutely abhorred.
“What are you waiting for? Come sit, hyung,” Minho said, breaking the silence with his impatient wording and cracking the thin sheet of ice that had begun to form over everyone’s hearts. Chan smiled—no dimples, but it was a smile—and took his seat next to the second-youngest, a plate of food already in front of him. Minho gracefully let him get some food into his empty stomach before clearing his throat and initiating The Talk. “So. Chan-hyung.”
The elder set down his fork and gave Minho his undivided attention, though his eyes kept flicking away from him, nervous about what he could be asked (and also feeling so incredibly ashamed).
“I…don’t know where to start, really, but, um…” Minho trailed off, eyes vacant like he was searching for the right words, everyone else hanging on desperately to the conversation. “I…do you think there was something specific that triggered your episode, or…? Because I think we all thought you were improving,” Chan flinched, “because you were!” Minho hurriedly added. “You were totally improving and we could all see it, but then we started noticing some changes. Is there anything you could think of as to what might’ve happened so we can try and prevent it in the future?”
“Honestly, not really,” Chan responded vaguely, giving up on eye contact and picking at his nails. “One day it kinda just…started, I guess. My skin felt weirdly itchy but like…underneath my skin, if that makes sense. Sorry, I know it sounds kind of weird, but, um, yeah. It just didn’t go away and I wanted it to stop, so…” He made hand motions to communicate wordlessly, a lump in his throat reminding him of what he had done. “I just- I really, really wanted to be doing better. I thought I was but then I started gravitating towards blades again and I just…collapsed mentally, I guess. I had tried for so long and I’ve gone to every therapy session but- now it feels like I haven’t made any progress and it hurts.” He cut himself off with a choked noise, frustrated tears welling up that he quickly blinked away.
Someone placed a hand over his, stopping the nail mutilating, and Chan startled, looking up to see Felix smiling softly back at him. “Hyung, I know that, to your perfectionist, genius brain that we all love so much, it seems like you haven’t made any progress. But you just have to know that you have. From that night in the dorms—” Felix paused, choking up and swallowing heavily before continuing, “—you’ve changed so, so much. The damage we saw that night was so awful, hyung. I know that I won’t ever forget it, but,” he said sternly, noticing how Chan was probably stuck in his feelings of shame and guilt, “you’ve only grown from there. You’ve made active efforts to be better and actually stuck to your new routines which I know must be hard for you, to adapt so suddenly to such new things. We are so unbelievably proud of you, hyung, and we always will be.”
Chan felt the tears returning, a few dripping down his cheeks as Felix gave him his soft, beautiful smile he loved so much.
“Recovery isn’t linear, hyung,” Seungmin chimed in. “Setbacks are expected and that’s fine. What matters is that you keep trying and you don’t give up.”
“We’ll always continue to believe in you, Chan-hyung,” Jeongin murmured shyly, looking down at his plate. “We know you can do it so we’ll always be here to support you through your journey.”
“You’re trying so, so hard, and that’s what matters, hyung. Sure, the road might be bumpy, but we stick together and support each other through it because we’re brothers, and brothers don’t abandon each other for anything,” Changbin said firmly.
Chan was definitely crying now, gripping onto Felix’s hand like a lifeline as his kids continued offering their words of encouragement.
“No matter what else comes up, hyung, we’ll still be here. There is nothing you could do to actually make us leave you. Never ever,” Jisung said quietly, looking like he was fighting back tears of his own.
“You are, hands down, the strongest person I will probably ever know, Chan-hyung,” Hyunjin said, grinning. “But even the strongest people fall sometimes; what’s important is that we’ll be your support system through it all. Let us be there for you, please.”
For a few moments no one said anything else, fondly watching Chan smile through his tears as he absorbed all their carefully chosen words.
“They’re right, you know,” Minho finally murmured. “You’ve grown up believing there was no one you could safely lean on because you never know when they won’t be there—which, in this industry, is a fair belief—but it’s different now. You have seven dongsaengs who love you more than words will ever be able to say, so let them be people you know you can fall back on.”
“I’m working on knowing that,” Chan whispered, tears still streaming down his face. He gripped Felix’s hand tighter before releasing it, drawing it back to his chest. “But I think, deep down, I’ve already accepted you all as my forever family. If you’ll have me, that is.”
The boys all glanced at each other before facing Chan with blinding grins.
“Of course we will. Always and forever, Chan-hyung.”
Still astray, astray, astray; just stuff it all, ‘cause I’ma go on my way
-Lonely Street