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Minho hadn’t really expected to end up watching his members have a snowball fight at two in the morning. But there was a fresh blanket of snow on the ground and alcohol in their systems. One thing had led to another, and Jisung had shoved a handful of snow down Hyunjin’s jacket, and Changbin had gotten caught in the crossfires, and suddenly everyone was hurling snowballs at each other.
Under normal circumstances, Minho wouldn’t have minded much. He may have even joined them. They were drunk and having fun, which was fair enough. But he was cold and had been feeling off all day. There was a faint, dull ache in his head that the over-the-counter painkillers in the medicine cabinet hadn’t been able to chase away that was only worsening with the noise the group was making, and an odd sort of fogginess in his vision that blurred anything that wasn’t his member’s faces alongside a weird energy that made him feel as if his skin was buzzing yet didn’t give him the strength to deal with what was happening in front of him.
Really, it was his fault he was in this situation. Jisung had offered to tell the others Minho wasn’t feeling well. He’d even offered to skip their gathering altogether and watch a movie with him instead, but walking out in the snow seemed so appealing at the time and something had compelled Minho to insist that he could handle the group’s outing. He heavily regretted it now. What could possibly have made him think it was ever a good idea?
A stray snowball hit him, and Minho didn’t bother to look at the culprit, retreating to sit on the wall of a garden a short ways away, where he could still see the members clearly, but hopefully stay out of their way. With luck, this would be over soon, and he could finally, hopefully, sleep whatever he’d come down with off.
Unfortunately, luck wasn’t something he seemed to have today.
Minho gritted his teeth as his headache spiked, and he looked up in time to see a snowball, thrown by Changbin, strike Jeongin in the chest. For an instant, he wasn‘t watching a snowball fight at all. Jeongin had been hit by something, blood spurting from his chest as he began to fall, the snow beneath him turning red. Changbin wasn‘t the one to hit him, his mouth opened in a scream Minho couldn’t hear, something holding him back from getting to Jeongin.
He blinked and it was gone, his headache ebbing to faint twinges of pain. Jeongin was on the ground, brushing snow off his chest to reveal an untorn shirt, the snow beneath him pure white. Nobody held Changbin back from coming to check on him, laughing as he apologised.
Minho felt sick to his stomach. What had just happened? He blinked a couple times in case whatever he had seen was going to come back, but the scene in front of him didn‘t change. He must have imagined it. But since when was his imagination so vivid? And why would he imagine his members in pain like that? It must have been the illness he‘d come down with.
“Are you okay, Lino-yah?”
Minho jumped at the voice, having been too focused on Jeongin and Changbin to have noticed Chan coming up beside him. He spared him a glance before going back to watching Jeongin, who had already moved on from Changbin’s attack and was helping the older gang up on Seungmin.
“You look pale,” Chan continued when Minho didn’t respond to him. He reached up to feel his forehead. “You feeling okay?”
Chan was the least drunk of the group at the moment, save for Minho himself, who hadn‘t had any alcohol out of fear of worsening his headache, so it made sense that he’d been the one to notice. Still, Minho silently cursed that it was Chan who had come to him.
“I’m just tired,” Minho lied.
“Hannie mentioned you were feeling sick earlier. He wanted to drink less and look out for you, but you know how he is with his alcohol tolerance.” Chan took his hand off his forehead, satisfied Minho wasn’t feverish, but sat beside him instead of going away. “Are you sure you’re okay? You looked like you were in pain a moment ago.”
“I’m fine,” Minho reiterated.
“It’s fine if you’re not! If you’re sick, you’re sick. It happens. I can hurry the others along so you can get some rest! My dorm is easier to get to, you can crash there tonight. I’ll let you have my bed if you don’t feel like sharing. I can sleep on the sofa. We have plenty of pain meds you can have, and I’m sure Innie wouldn’t mind letting you borrow some of his clothes…” Chan trailed off, pausing for a moment. “Hey, can you look at me?”
Minho hesitated. He was half-afraid that if he took his eyes off of Jeongin for too long, he’d find that sickening image before him when he looked back.
“Okay,” Chan said quietly when Minho didn’t move, fingers resting on his shoulder for a moment. “That’s fine. You don’t have to.”
He hesitated for a moment longer before clearing his throat and heading to gather the others and start to herd them home.
Chan tried to get Minho to come with him and Jeongin, but preferring to be sick in his own bed if he had to wake up sick tomorrow, he insisted on going home with Jisung. Chan relented with little argument, but made Minho promise to text him how he was feeling when he woke up. He spent the walk home routinely glancing at Jeongin, but the image he’d seen didn’t come back.
Minho didn’t bother showering, spending only enough time to replace his outside clothes with something more suitable for sleeping before getting into bed. The pain in his head didn’t keep him up for long, and he quickly drifted off, hoping that sleeping would somehow fix whatever was wrong with him, and he’d wake up refreshed and ready to go about his day (which would, admittedly, probably mostly be listening to Jisung complain about his hangover).
Of course, he wasn’t that lucky.
When Minho woke, he didn’t really feel better. But he felt no worse than he had the night before. His head still ached, his vision hadn’t fixed itself, and he still felt that weird energy running through him, but at least he felt rested, though not energised.
He got up, briefly glancing in Jisung’s room to see the younger still fast asleep before heading to grab painkillers from the bathroom’s cabinet, both for himself and Jisung. There was an unfortunately low number of pills in the bottle, and Minho sighed, knowing he should get some more. He took half a dose for himself, leaving two doses for Jisung whenever he felt he needed them, putting it on his bedside table with a glass of water before grabbing his coat and wallet to head to the convenience store.
It was snowing lightly when he got outside, a flurry swirling around him before a gust of wind pushed it ahead of him. Minho followed it, having needed to go that way anyway, until it joined a snow bank. Minho walked on, his worsening headache only encouraging him to move faster, and he turned towards an alleyway that would take a few minutes off his travelling. It wasn’t pretty, poorly lit even during the day, but it was convenient. He’d used it many times before.
As he turned, taking a few steps towards it, the pain in his head spiked again, and saw a figure in the snow at the far end of the alleyway, lying face down. His hair was matted with blood, dyeing the snow a brownish red, but even being unable to see his face, Minho could tell it was Hyunjin.
Eyes widening, he took a few quick steps towards him, only for the image to disappear as suddenly as it had come to him. He froze in front of it for a moment before hastily turning and taking the long way.
What was happening to him?
When Felix texted him the next day to ask him if he wanted to get ice cream from the same convenience store with Seungmin, Minho was quick to accept. Not because he particularly wanted ice cream, but because he was still shaken by the—hallucination? vision? Whatever he had seen. He had no idea what had happened to the version of Felix he’d seen or if he would be able to stop it if it happened to his Felix, but he didn’t want his members going into that alleyway without him if he could help it.
Minho had lied and told the others he’d shaken off whatever sickness he had come down with, but they still watched him with cautious concern as they made their way towards the alleyway. He kept his gaze decidedly focused on his shoes as they walked even as his ever-present headache spiked, ignoring Seungmin nudging his arm to try to get him to look up. If he didn’t look up, the bloody sights that seemed to follow the head pain wouldn’t come to him.
A flurry of snow was flung into his vision, brushing against his hand as if to get his attention before blowing away. Minho kept his eyes from following it. He’d keep his head down until the headache stopped.
But the wind changed and the snow came back, twirling around his legs. When it couldn’t stay in the air anymore, a new flurry took its place. It was almost as if it was consciously trying to get him to look up.
Minho hesitated and finally let his eyes follow the flurry’s path around him, and as if it noticed, a gust of wind blew through the alleyway. Minho followed it, and once again was met with a gruesome scene. This time, Jisung was slumped against the alleyway’s wall, blood from his neck staining his shirt. Chan was defending him with his body despite being covered in blood himself, while Seungmin and Felix wrestled with a few people whose backs were turned to Minho, trying to stop them from getting closer. Minho tried to look down at himself to see if he was bleeding, if he was armed, if he had any part in this fight, but he saw nothing. Not hands, not legs, not shoes.
“—ung? Minho hyung!”
The sight disappeared as Felix’s voice broke through, and he turned to see him and Seungmin looking worriedly at him.
“…yeah?” Minho managed.
The two were silent for a moment before Seungmin gently tugged on Minho’s arm. Minho hadn’t even noticed he’d been holding it.
“Let’s go back,” he said.
“I thought you wanted ice cream,” Minho mumbled, trying to ignore that he’d just been unresponsive for who knew how long in front of the others.
“We don’t need ice cream, hyung,” Felix replied, trying for a bright smile but failing to look anything other than afraid for Minho. “We can order some to be delivered instead if you still want it!”
Minho begrudgingly agreed, knowing they’d insist on going back if he resisted. There wasn’t much point in arguing after what they’d just seen from him today.
As Seungmin tugged him out of the alleyway, Minho noticed Felix typing something out on his phone, probably texting Chan. Maybe some of the other members too. He sighed loud enough to earn a concerned glance from Seungmin. So this was going to be something the group would be talking about behind his back.
It started snowing as they walked back. Minho watched as it fell, wondering if it somehow knew what was happening to him, or if his mind had just made that up too.
“Hyung? Are you sleeping?”
Minho wasn’t, but he didn’t open his eyes or roll over to face the door, hoping Jeongin would just leave him alone.
He was tucked into Chan’s bed, the older having insisted he stay at his place once the news of what had happened in the alleyway had spread to him so that he could keep an eye on him. Minho had protested, but a worried Chan was a stubborn Chan and Minho was doomed to lose the argument from the start.
He heard Jeongin’s footsteps come across Chan’s carpeted floor and sighed internally, kind of wishing he’d just been left alone. It was the early hours of the morning and he didn’t want company. The bed dipped, but Jeongin said nothing, silently running a hand through Minho’s hair. That was nice, at least, even if Minho would have rather been alone.
The repetitive motion soothed his headache and almost lulled him to sleep for real before the door creaked open again.
“Iyen-ah?” came Chan’s voice, softened by concern. “Why are you up?”
“I wanted to check on hyung,” Jeongin replied, voice trembling. Had he been crying without Minho even noticing?
The bed dipped more as Chan sat next to Jeongin. They were silent for a moment other than Jeongin’s sniffling. Minho had to fight not to react to the maknae’s crying.
“I’m so scared,” Jeongin whimpered at last, voice muffled, probably from hiding his face in Chan’s shirt. “He… did you hear how Seungmin hyung was describing what happened?”
“Shh,” Chan tried to soothe him. Minho heard the sound of a hand rubbing against fabric.
“What if there’s something really wrong with him?”
“I’ve already asked the manager to schedule a doctor’s appointment for him.”
“What if it’s not fast enough? What if he’s dying?”
“He’s not dying,” Chan assured him. “Listen to how well he’s breathing. He’s okay. I’ll tell the manager to get one as soon as possible, alright? Even if it cuts into practice or something.”
That seemed to relax Jeongin a bit.
“You should sleep,” Chan urged, standing up.
“I wanna stay here,” Jeongin sniffled.
“Minho might not like you climbing into bed with him like that while he’s sleeping.”
“I don’t care. He can yell at me tomorrow morning if he wants. I just need this.”
“Okay,” Chan said softly. “Come get me if you need anything, yeah?”
“Good night, hyung…”
The door clicked shut. Minho felt Jeongin lie down next to him and let him put an arm gently over him. He felt something wet against his shirt’s collar and heard sniffling for a few more minutes before Jeongin gradually went quiet. Minho felt the now familiar intensifying of his headache as he did, but waited until he was sure Jeongin was asleep to open his eyes to find himself back in the alleyway. It was blurry, not unlike how everything but faces had been over the past week, and he could vaguely see someone crouched in front of him. Chan, maybe. Maybe Jeongin. Maybe someone else. A face too blurry to recognise stared in horror at something behind him, mouth open, but everything was as silent as the falling snow. His eyes closed without him commanding them to, and when he opened them, he was back in Chan’s bed, looking out the window at the heavily falling snow.
He closed his eyes again with a soft sigh. Maybe he was going crazy. But he could swear that the snow had something to do with what was happening to him.
He couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment.
Minho wasn’t able to escape the watch of Chan and Jeongin until dinnertime two days later, when the two were distracted with cooking and he was able to slip out of the door.
It was still snowing as it had been since the day in the alleyway with Felix and Seungmin, and Minho blinked to keep it from his eyes, heading to a more secluded place than right outside the building before crouching beside some freshly fallen snow.
“Is it you?” he asked it out loud. “Have you been doing something to me?”
The snow, of course, didn’t reply. Not immediately. Minho buried a hand in it.
“Are you doing something to me?” he repeated.
The mass of snow seemed to wrap itself around his fingers, melting into his skin.
“You are,” he decided that meant. “Why? What’s the point? Why are you making me see these awful things?”
The snow was still.
“Show me,” Minho pleaded. “If there’s a reason I have to go through this, show me it.”
There was a twinge of pain in his head, like the snow was reminding him of the headaches that came with the visions.
“I don’t care. I want to know what’s happening to me.”
A few flakes fell on his forehead. Are you sure? the snow seemed to ask.
“Yes,” Minho whispered. “Show me.”
And pain exploded in his head. He gritted his teeth against it but didn’t lose focus, looking at the scene before him.
He watched as figures clothed in black chased the group down the alleyway. Minho couldn’t tell what they were, if they were crazy fans, crazy haters, or something else. They closed in on them, and Minho watched himself fall first as one of them plunged a knife into his back. They held Changbin back from helping as a knife was thrown into Jeongin’s stomach before drawing the knife across his throat and letting him crumple. Hyunjin tried to run for help but was struck in the back of his head while the remaining four members fought against them, acquiring wounds that led to Jisung collapsing. As the figures closed in on his unarmed members, it was clear how this would end.
The vision ended as abruptly as it had started, and Minho was left staring at the clean fresh snow, having receded from his hand. The headache was gone, his vision cleared.
“Okay,” he whispered hoarsely, standing up, understanding now.
He had to get back. He had to make sure this didn’t happen. But as he stood and turned, he glanced back down at the snow he was walking away from.
“Thank you,” he called quietly, before hurrying back to his members.
It took another two and a half weeks for the day Minho had seen to arrive. But that morning, Jisung, as happy as the rest of the group to see that Minho had seemingly healed from his ailment, had bounded in to invite him on a group excursion to eat out, and Minho only had to take a look at the outfit he’d chosen for the day to know he had to accept the invitation.
The group was chatty as ever while Minho was quiet and focused, knowing that even if he convinced the group to forgo the alleyway shortcut, they’d still have to walk past it, and the danger could follow them.
Nobody seemed to mind that Minho was quiet, happy to enjoy his company however he wanted to offer it. Minho knew they’d been worried about him, but now that he was doing better and had let a doctor look at him to confirm nothing seemed to be wrong, they were able to relax and take his silence for nothing more than him not being in the mood to talk. It was refreshing.
Minho watched the snow fall, hoping for guidance but getting little more than reassurance that the snow was watching.
“Let’s not take the short cut,” Minho suggested as they approached it, keeping his voice light. “We can spend more time with each other that way.”
He got some weird looks, but he was known as one of the weirder ones in the group anyway, so when he insisted it would be nice to walk in the snow, they’d gone along with it. Minho briefly let himself hope that he’d fully avoided the danger, but a small twinge of pain in his head reminded him to stay alert. It wasn’t over.
Soon, the snow warned. Be ready.
Minho typed the emergency number into his phone. “Here,” he whispered to Hyunjin, who was walking beside him, handing it to him.
Hyunjin blinked at him. “What—”
“You don’t need it yet, but you will. Walk ahead and be ready.”
Hyunjin looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but Minho gave him a firm push and fell back. The snow fell in a different pattern, purposefully staying out of Minho’s eyes. Minho felt an odd sense of pride watching it. Eight members in the group, and the snow had chosen him to receive its message. He was the one the snow would fall differently for.
I won’t let you regret your choice, he silently swore.
Less than a minute later, a sharp pain spiked through his head, enough to alert him that something was happening but leaving him enough room to think and react. Minho turned to see a masked face and a glinting knife, and wasted no time reaching up to redirect the blow. He felt a pang of satisfaction at the shocked expression on his attacker’s face as he wrestled the knife away. Behind him, he heard Hyunjin talking on the phone, voice quick and urgent.
Minho had counted on him to react fast. What he hadn’t counted on was Felix springing forwards from behind him, not frozen with shock as he’d expected. Felix delivered a well aimed kick, his expression a mix of fear and anger. Minho almost yelled at him to stay back, but that would be hypocritical. He was just as determined to protect the members as Minho was. At least his taekwondo skills would help him.
Minho may have had the advantage of foresight, but Felix was a far more formidable fighter, attacking with power but understanding he was outnumbered and retreating when he had to. With an armed Minho’s help and reinforcements on the way thanks to Hyunjin’s call, he could hold his own for a bit at least.
He could hear sirens approaching, but the snow had one last thing to warn him about, directing his attention to where Felix was attempting to split two attackers apart from each other, while another was approaching from behind, unseen. Minho abandoned his own fight to intercept it, taking a knife to his side. His cry of pain alerted Felix to the new presence, and he was able to get out of the way.
Minho collapsed to the ground, managing to keep his grip on the knife and avoid it falling back into the hands of those trying to hurt his members. A pair of familiar hands dragged him away from the fight and laid him in the snow. Chan’s gentle voice coaxed him to let go of the knife so he could take it.
Minho couldn’t quite tell exactly when the fight was handed over to people more suited to handle it, but he could see when Felix crouched in front of him, breathing heavily, a few shallow cuts on his arms. The others gathered around too, Jisung calling the medics over. Minho glanced down at the snow beneath him, turning red from his blood but still holding him. His eyes felt heavy but he kept them open for a bit longer.
“Thank you,” he whispered to the snow that was still falling around him, not caring about the others that didn’t know the full story.
The snow had protected him. The snow was the reason the other members were okay. It wrapped around him like a hug even as his eyes closed, reassuring him that everything would be okay.
In this life or the next.