Chapter Text
When Hyunjin wakes up, he knows it won't be one of his good days.
It's Changbin at the door that woke him, though he's already left, leaving the door to Hyunjin's room open to pat to the kitchen.
No matter how softly Changbin wakes him – and he does his best to do so – anger and frustration are the first emotions he feels every morning. And though the open door adds to it, it's a proven tactic to get him out of bed and into the bathroom. Pain shoots up in his temple as he sits up and he downs the glass of stale water on his night table, even though he knows it won't really help.
He doesn't bother looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, stripping out of the sweaty shirt and shorts he slept in to stand under the shower before the water has heated up. He does the least skincare he can get away with and towel dries his hair. He only looks up from the sink to comb his hair to dry somewhat orderly. His face is puffy as always. Brows sunken low over his eyes that barely open beneath their swollen lids. He presses his fingertips into the skin below his brows, his jaw and ears to work against the puffiness and wipes away the tears that keep slipping out. He wonders if it's his head forcing the pain out through his eyes. He sniffs and takes a deep breath, practicing a smile that makes the muscles in his face twitch in exhaustion. Maybe he's lucky and they'll recover by the time he makes it on stage.
Though they barely stayed in the dorms, because of tour and over sea schedules Changbin knows him well enough to not talk to him as they leave for the car.
It's their second concert of the tour, still in Seoul and Hyunjin wants to scream at the timing of his episode. Though he should've seen it coming. He knows he overdid it during preparations. Knows he could've done with less head-banging, less repetitions to achieve the sharp cutting perfection he's known for in dance. But he loves this type of dancing too much to think of the consequences when he's doing well.
And he has been doing well. Until this morning. Or last night when he felt his cheek twitch when he laughed at one of Changbin's jokes. Or that lunch break when the sun outside was still bright beneath his shades and he barely felt the effect of his third iced americano. But this sort of thinking will only send him into a spiral of self-loathing and that won't do. And so he sits down on the couches to wait for his turn in the makeup chair; sighs and swallows an anti-inflammatory with his airpods in noise-cancelling mode and pretends to sleep. Another well-practiced routine.
-
He jerks at coldness touching his hand and it's Changbin again, handing him an iced americano wordlessly though he looks at him questioningly to see if he's okay. He shrugs, because the pain is bearable and will go away with the right amount caffeine. But not the dizziness, not the nausea at the idea of food, not the fear of lights, not the... He stops another spiral. It's useless anyway.
-
It's one of those days where he can't get any peace. He opens his eyes at commotion filtering through his earphones and spots Jisung and Minho play fighting. There's no other word for it, even though the two of them insist it's sparring. Though a mating ritual would be a more accurate description maybe. Minho is blocking Jisung's half-hearted attempts at boxing until he gets bored and puts the other into a headlock, giggling way to highly and delighted to be threatening. They only stop when the talker camera is pointed at them by a staff-hyung and another goes to stop them.
It's off-putting, this open display of affection and still Hyunjin feels something twist in him that isn't just envy, jealousy. He sympathises with the way they both startle as though they had forgotten about the world around them. He can see Minho's ears blushing from across the room, sees Jisung's face scrunch up in annoyance before it glosses over into a lighthearted version of it, aimed at his hyung instead. Hyunjin knows what it feels like to listlessly try to reign feelings in that are too big, come too organically to guard. That once they are out there and real, they might not be appreciated. And the shock of it won't fade and only sets in after the affection has burst out anyway.
He turns on the couch, draws his legs up and leans against the backrest to not face them anymore.
His thoughts about them feel invasive, but he hasn't been able to stop them. Since they all moved into their new dorms or maybe even since the start of the tour and their renewal of the contract, domesticity surrounds them whenever they're together. And even when they aren't, the air of the other is still there. It's like a shared space of their own has solidified their dynamic – their relationship – into something so habitual that they have forgotten how to be on their own. And see, Hyunjin has no proof for all of this beyond his obsessive observations and the jabs and jokes of the other members that neither Minho nor Jisung ever bother correct. But he can't help it. It feels right to look into him for the reason behind his knot of emotions that appears when he's in a room with them outside of a schedule. There is no distaste at the nature of their relationship of course, but for the simple fact that they have what he wants. Desperately, since he understood what love meant for him.
And so he watches every time although it pains him to try and work through the jealousy as it appears like a pavlovian response. To maybe live through them vicariously, to school his heart into being happy and only happy for them and to make his face reflect his intend.
He's too tired for all of that today.
Jisung stops him anyway. He gasps in this wonderfully predictable and dramatic way at seeing him, waxes poetic and blows raspberries at him. It works partially, since it drives Hyunjin out of his spiral, gives him an easy expression of feigned disgust to form his face into and escape the two of them and the talker camera to browse the other rooms.
He finds fruit, another iced americano and another couch to settle into and chews the fruits with his eyes closed, ice cubes stuck into his cheeks to keep his head cold.
He floats with the cathartic music in his ears. Melancholic, moody, calm and way too raw and honest for the almost sterile white walls of the improvised green room. With every breath the tension seeps out of him until he swims in this fog of almost peace and not-quite sadness, every single muscle relaxed and still to make him feel cocooned in his own skin.
-
The next time he opens his eyes is at the motion of someone siting down on the couch next to him. It feels dreamlike to look up at Felix. He's still bare-faced, his hair a messy halo around his head. He looks like an angel, like he always does. Like the music in Hyunjin's ears.
He doesn't register he's being spoken to until Felix lifts a hand to his head, his eyebrows on his forehead risen in worry. Hyunjin shivers at the felling of his hand brushing over the short hair only millimetres from his scalp. He removes his ear phones to hear what Felix says, mostly. Maybe to make him stop touching him too.
"Sorry, too sensitive?", he asks, retreating his hand and letting it fall to his side.
"Hm?", Hyunjin hums. Too wound up to speak properly.
"You have a headache, right?" he asks again. Quietly and pained like he can feel his pain. Hyunjin used to think that's how it was for them.
A headache. He knows Felix knows he has migraines. And that he's familiar with the distinction. It would bother him were it anyone else getting it wrong. With him it feels deliberate, like he's softening the blow of the question, using a euphemism of sorts to not make it that big of a deal to begin with.
He shrugs his shoulder in answer and winces at the nausea and pain in his neck.
"I'll give you a massage, come on." It's no coincidence either that it isn't worded like a question. He would turn the offer down, has turned it down many ties before. Or after, really.
He turns side-ways to face the wall, trying and failing to relax his shoulders, to not jump at the first touch of Felix small, soft hands on his bare shoulders. They've been on other arms today, he's sure. Felix never comes to him first. Not anymore.
"It's been a while, hm?", he murmurs behind him. Voice so low he almost feels it more than hears it.
"Sit up properly, it's not good for your knees.", he says next and Hyunjiin untwists his legs beneath him as he feels Felix sit down. Close but not close still. It's overwhelming enough. He's gentler with him, doesn't dig in his fingertips and elbows to get a reaction like he does with the rest of them. His fingers are light as they guide his head to turn and test the range of motion. They glide down to his shoulders as he murmurs: "Just relax." and lifts them up and back down. One of his hands stays on his shoulder while the other moves down his arms, squeezing softly and laying Hyunjin's hand down on his own thigh. He does the same on his other side and Hyunjin closes his eyes against the image of his hands, lax but orderly. It feels inappropriate somehow.
"Is that good?", Felix asks, silly and gremlin-like all of a sudden and Hyunjin turns his head only too look at the same skijigi from earlier with the talker camera. Felix exaggerates his movements and Hyunjin groans in response, his annoyance at the camera concealed by this act for the camera, even though Felix' hands remain gentle. The cameraman leaves them to it and Felix' hands slow their movement and he closes his eyes again.
He weaves in and out of the floating state from before, relaxed to a point where he thinks he can let go, until Felix switches to a different muscle group and he has to adjust to a new sensation.
"You're so tense.", he mumbles and this time he really feels it, his body resonating with the sound, tiny hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He can't suppress the involuntary shiver that ruins through him. Felix only strokes his hands down his arms, as if to soothe Hyunjin's hypervigilance too.
"If it's just the pain, that's fine. But if it isn't, you know you can talk to me?", Felix says, calm, never rushed, some time after. He doesn't know how he does it. This steady timbre of his voice; words clearly distinguishable, even when he's tired, even when he talks so low it shouldn't be more than the vibration of a sound. It echoes within him hollowly, shakes him up. This shallow shell of pain and self-pitying, self-inflicted misery. He could never dream to sound like him. Like warmth and sun, like home. Maybe that's his role. To be a body of sound, resonating, never sounding.
"Hyunjin?" Felix has stopped his movements and when Hyunjin opens his eyes he can see him, bent over his shoulder to look at him. I know I can talk to you, he thinks. But I don't think you deserve to hear what I have to say. You don't deserve to hurt like that. But Felix knows all about pain too, of course.
"It's not - ", his voice breaks, scratchy. "It's just this too.” He points at his throat. “And I want to do well for Stay." It comes out strained, too high or too low, he can't tell. Wrong, despite the effort it took to squeeze them out of his voice box. It's a white lie, because it is the pressure, but he doesn't want to do well for Stay, he wants to do well for himself. Can't deal with the shame, the pity from Chan, the way Felix' eyes gloss over in sympathy, despite his best efforts to not show his pity. Hyunjin is selfish, otherwise he'd have taken the medicine earlier, no matter if it makes him throw up. He'd have refused Felix anyway, would have asked him about his back instead.
"You just worry me.", Felix pushes and Hyunjin refuses to meet his eyes. "You're good at hiding because you always need your space and I know Changbin gives it to you. But I think...", he pauses, suddenly unsure. "Maybe I'm overstepping, but last year, with Hannie, he needed the space, because he rarely ever takes it. And he had Minho-hyung to take care of him. But you.." have noone, Hyunjin's mind supplies. Self-pity might be an understatement. "I think you need someone to be in your space." And Hyunjin realises that he's done it. He bared his soul again until his walls melted and the worst of all is that he's right. Hyunjin makes a pitiful excuse of an idol, let alone a star these days. He's so dependent on his members and the staff and still unable to pull his weight and lonely and alone despite living and working with the seven best people he's ever met.
"I think Changbin means well, but he doesn't understand what chronic pain does to you. How it can fuck you up. " The self-hatred and anger and shame for needing anyone is suddenly so strong, he has to stand up and just do something. The words tumble out of his mouth and he wants to hold them back even as he speaks, but he can't stop. Felix looks up at him, startled brown eyes in his tiny, tiny face.
"You have no idea how much Changbin does for me. Things I don't even ask for. He knows before I can even tell him how I feel and he gives me space, because I need space. I don't have Minho-hyung, I don't have Chan-hyung or you like Seungmin, but that's fine. I have Changbin. And he gives me space to take care of myself." His throat hurts like he's ripped his vocal chords out and he doesn't know how he's supposed to survive the concert. Something in Felix face locks up and he suddenly reminds him of Minho in their earlier days. His emotions are hidden so quickly, Hyunjin doesn't stand a chance at deciphering them.
"Right, sure. I'll give you space, you could've just asked." He sounds determined, looking at him so unwaveringly that Hyunjin can feel the fight leaving him. "But I don't think you want that. I think we're having two different conversations and I don't know the other half. But I'm not going to stop bothering you. I know you too well. I know that something happened during recording with Chan that you won't talk about, I know that Seungmin's done something to hurt you and I'm starting to think I did too." You did, he thinks and doesn't say. You did, but you've forgotten.
"You worry too much, Yongbok-ah. Too much is going on right now and really, Changbin-hyung is doing his best. But most things I'm just sabotaging myself over. And you can't help me with that either." The words scrape and scratch. It wouldn't surprise him if he tasted blood during tonight's concert. Felix face softens into a look so sad and disappointed - at Hyunjin? - he pulls him into a hug. "I'm sorry, Yongbok-ah. I'm sorry for worrying you."
"Don't be,", he says when they pull apart. "I wish you let me help you anyway. Or any of us. To sort through whatever's in there." He knocks on Hyunjin's head, smiling lopsidedly.
-
The concert passes as well as it can go in Hyunjin's state.
He throws up twice between stages - nothing any of them haven't done before and jugs electrolytes to last through the encore songs. He empties them into the toilet behind the dressing rooms as quietly as he can and barely wills himself to stand back up, dark spots swimming in his vision as he washes his face. The makeup and sweat get into his eyes and he cries of a minute, drinks from the tap and exits the room.
Changbin lingers before the bathroom door, already finished dressing, Hyunjin's belongings in his arms. "Come on, let's go." And that's that.
They don't talk in the car that they take alone, back to their flat. Not on the way up to their floor. Not when Changbin helps him undress and steps into the shower behind him, washing him like they're lovers instead of one-sided, co-dependent flatmates. Hyunjin's shame and self-pity is dull now compared to the throbbing pain that has him leaning on Changbin since he stepped out of the bathroom. There is no decorum left to preserve when Changbin helps him get dressed, because he shakes too badly to do it properly. From the pain and the cold and exhaustion that come with it. He puts him to bed, makes him drink half a protein shake he fights to keep down and places one of the tablets from Hyunjin's toiletry bag under his tongue. All without having to ask.
It's only when he turns the lights off by the door that he asks, more rhetorical than anything: "Do you want me to stay?"
And though Hyunjin has cried enough from the pain, a sound so wounded bursts out of him that Changbin simply crosses their invisible line for the first time, taking off his clothes to join him under the covers and hold him.
And he doesn't say anything. Doesn't comfort him, doesn't say it will get better, doesn't tell him it's okay. Simply wraps his arms around him as Hyunjin makes himself small against his chest, soft and warm and strong.
He falls asleep like that. As the shivers quiet down with the pulsing in his ears until he can follow Changbin's heartbeat instead and letting go is easy.