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The dorm in 2026 felt different now that half the members were discharged or preparing for their own enlistment cycles. SEVENTEEN had survived another comeback, another world tour, another round of schedules that would have broken lesser groups. Seungcheol—S.Coups, their eternal leader—was finally home for more than a few days, knee still taped from the follow-up surgery he’d warned everyone about during his birthday live the year before. He’d laughed it off on camera, but Jeonghan had seen the exhaustion in his eyes.
Jeonghan had offered to help clean out the old storage room. “You hoard too much junk, Cheol-ah,” he’d teased, flicking Seungcheol’s forehead. “I’ll sort it. You rest that leg.”
Seungcheol had grumbled but agreed, limping off to the living room with a controller and a promise to order chicken later.
Jeonghan worked quietly, humming under his breath. He loved these rare domestic moments—when the dorm wasn’t chaos, when he could pretend they were just two guys who’d known each other since they were teenagers dreaming of stages. He pulled out boxes labeled in Seungcheol’s messy handwriting: “Pre-debut,” “2019,” “Lyrics – do not throw.”
The 2019 box made his chest tighten. That was the year everything had cracked open.
He remembered the announcement like yesterday. November 18, 2019. Pledis dropping the statement mid-Ode to You tour: S.Coups has been diagnosed with symptoms of anxiety. He will temporarily abstain from activities to rest. The fandom had trended #GetWellSoonSCOUPS for weeks. The members had cried in the practice room the night they found out. Jeonghan had stayed up until dawn with Seungcheol that first night, holding his hand while he shook through a panic attack that came out of nowhere on a hotel balcony in Bangkok.
“Hannie, I’m fine,” Seungcheol had whispered then, voice hoarse. “Just… too much. The pressure. Being the one everyone looks to.”
Jeonghan had believed him when he said he was getting better. They all had.
He opened the “Lyrics – do not throw” notebook first. It was old, the cover faded, edges soft from years of being carried in backpacks and dorm drawers. Seungcheol’s handwriting filled the pages—half-Korean, half-scribbled English, chords sketched in the margins. Jeonghan smiled as he flipped through.
There were early drafts of “Adore U,” notes for “Don’t Wanna Cry,” doodles of the members’ faces with silly captions. A page titled “UJB” that made Jeonghan laugh out loud—Seungcheol’s private nickname for himself and Jeonghan before the whole group started calling them mom and dad. Another page had a half-finished melody for what became “Home,” with the line Even when the world is loud, you’re my quiet circled three times.
Everything he’d expected. Proof of the boy who’d carried thirteen dreams on his shoulders since trainee days.
Jeonghan kept turning pages, careful not to smudge the pencil. Toward the back, the ink changed—darker, pressed harder, like the pen had been gripped too tight. Dates appeared in the corners. 2018. Early 2019. Right before the hiatus announcement.
He almost closed the book. Almost.
But a loose sheet slipped out, folded small, tucked between two blank pages like it had been hidden on purpose.
Jeonghan unfolded it.
The handwriting was Seungcheol’s, but jagged. Shaky.
If I don’t wake up tomorrow, tell the members I’m sorry.
Tell Jeonghan I tried. I really tried to be strong for him, for all of them.
I can’t keep doing this. The panic—it comes when I’m on stage, when I’m alone, when I close my eyes. I smile and say I’m okay because I’m the leader. But I’m not. I’m drowning.
I keep thinking one more concert, one more practice, one more smile for the cameras. But tonight the voices won’t stop. “You’re failing them. You’re weak. They’d be better without you.”
I love them too much to keep dragging them down. Maybe if I’m gone, they can breathe.
Don’t look for me. Just… let me go quietly.
—Choi Seungcheol, 03:14 a.m., somewhere in the practice building
The date was scrawled at the bottom: November 10, 2019. Eight days before the official hiatus announcement.
Jeonghan’s hands started shaking so badly the paper rattled. He read it again. And again. The words blurred.
This wasn’t lyrics. This wasn’t a song. This was a suicide note.
Old. From the worst of the panic disorder days. The days Seungcheol had hidden from everyone except the company doctors and maybe a therapist they never talked about publicly. The days when he’d smiled through soundchecks while his heart raced so hard he thought he was dying on stage.
Jeonghan remembered the signs now—the way Seungcheol would disappear to the bathroom for ten minutes too long, the way his hands trembled when he thought no one was looking, the way he’d hug them all a little tighter after every show like he was afraid it would be the last.
He’d never known it got this bad.
Tears hit the paper before he could stop them. One drop smeared the ink on tell Jeonghan I tried.
He didn’t hear the door open.
“Han? Chicken’s here—wait, why are you on the floor?”
Seungcheol’s voice. Warm. Alive. Limping closer.
Jeonghan couldn’t look up. He clutched the note to his chest like it might disappear if he let go. “Cheol… why didn’t you tell me?”
Seungcheol froze when he saw the notebook open on Jeonghan’s lap. The loose paper. His face went pale.
“Oh.”
Just that. One small, broken sound.
He lowered himself slowly to the floor beside Jeonghan, bad knee protesting. For a long minute, neither of them spoke.
“I wrote that the night I had the worst attack,” Seungcheol said finally, voice quiet. “I was alone in the practice room after everyone left. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I thought… if I just ended it, the pressure would stop. The members wouldn’t have to worry about their leader falling apart anymore.”
Jeonghan’s breath hitched. “You were going to—”
“I didn’t,” Seungcheol cut in gently. “I sat there for hours. Cried until I couldn’t. Then I called my mom. She talked me down. The next morning I told the company I needed help. That’s why the hiatus happened. I never meant for anyone to see that note. I thought I threw it away.”
“But you kept it,” Jeonghan whispered. “In your music book. Like a reminder.”
Seungcheol reached out, hesitated, then took Jeonghan’s hand. His thumb rubbed over the knuckles the way he always did when words failed him. “I kept the whole book because it has the good parts too. The songs we made together. The ones that saved me. That note… it’s proof I survived it. Even if it’s cruel to read now.”
“It is cruel,” Jeonghan said, voice cracking. He finally looked up. Seungcheol’s eyes were red, but steady. The same eyes that had led them through two military cycles, through injuries, through everything. “Knowing you felt that alone. Knowing I was right there—practicing beside you, teasing you, calling you idiot—and I didn’t see how close you were to…”
“You did see,” Seungcheol interrupted softly. “You were the one who dragged me to the dorm after shows and made me eat. You were the one who sat with me during the panic attacks I couldn’t hide anymore. You held my hand the whole flight back from Bangkok when I thought I was dying mid-air. You never left.”
Jeonghan shook his head. Fresh tears spilled. “Not enough. I should’ve—”
“Han.” Seungcheol cupped his face, thumbs wiping tears. “Stop. It’s old. I’m here. I’m still here because of you. Because of the thirteen of us. Because that night I chose the melody instead of the ending.”
He took the note gently from Jeonghan’s fingers and folded it again. Then he did something Jeonghan didn’t expect—he tore it slowly, deliberately, into tiny pieces.
“No more hiding it,” Seungcheol murmured. “No more keeping proof of the dark days like a secret weapon against myself.”
Jeonghan watched the pieces scatter. Then he surged forward, wrapping his arms around Seungcheol’s shoulders, careful of the knee, burying his face in the crook of his neck. Seungcheol smelled like the same cologne he’d worn since trainee days—safe, familiar, home.
“I love you,” Jeonghan whispered against his skin. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, but it felt heavier now. “Don’t you ever—ever—write something like that again. Even in your head.”
Seungcheol’s arms tightened around him. “I won’t. I have too many songs left to write with you.”
They stayed like that on the cold storage-room floor until the chicken got cold and the dorm lights dimmed. Eventually Seungcheol pulled back just enough to rest their foreheads together.
“Help me finish that old melody?” he asked, voice rough but smiling. “The one in the front. ‘You’re my quiet.’ I think it needs a bridge about surviving.”
Jeonghan laughed wetly. “Only if you let me add the line ‘and if you ever scare me like that again, I’ll kill you myself.’”
“Deal.”
Later, when the members trickled back and found them on the couch—Jeonghan’s head on Seungcheol’s shoulder, the old notebook open between them to a fresh page—they didn’t ask questions. They just piled on, thirteen bodies fitting the way they always had.
And somewhere in the margins of a new page, Seungcheol wrote in small letters:
For Jeonghan. Who stayed. Who made the quiet loud enough to drown out the dark.
The note from 2019 was gone.
The melody was just beginning.