Work Text:
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
The hands on the clock moved painfully slowly, inch by inch moving towards the next fragment of time. Each second was somehow an hour, and the hours stacked up on each other to create a passage of time that seemed endless. The passing of every second was rewarded with a sound, a tick that echoed through the stifling silence.
Seungmin couldn’t breathe. He lay in his bed, ears strained for the sound of the next tick, as if that was the only thing anchoring him to this room, to this world. He stared up into the darkness, his heartbeat moving as sluggishly as the passing time, sending a slow pulse thrumming through his veins . His thoughts were like honey, trickling through his mind at a snail-pace but with none of the sticky-sweetness.
Everything was heavy, too heavy. Seungmin’s chest hurt with the weight of his emotions, and he wanted it to stop. He begged the blackness above him to make it stop, to spare him some air and help him breathe.
He couldn’t go on like this. How could he? His mind was running through everything in his life, pointing out all his mistakes, his failures. And they were a lot, enough to be fuel for Seungmin’s thoughts through this never ending night.
What could he have done better?
Everything, his mind told him viciously.
I tried, he pleaded. I tried so hard.
It was never enough.
How much was enough?
Definitely not this. Not what you are right now, his mind said mockingly.
It was a flurry of attacks. He saw images of tears in recording studios, thousands of hours spent in a practice room, singing until his voice was raw and cracked. He thought of a few days ago, when he was sitting at a table, his head bent with the force of defeat as he had pressed the pencil into the paper with enough force to break it. But he still couldn’t come up with a single word, a single tune.
Chan always told him to take his time. How much ever he needed, that the solo projects were important, but everything good needed time. Chan always understood. He was always kind, too kind.
How many times will you let him down? How many times will you let them all down? His mind hissed at him.
Please, he begged. I don’t want to let them down. I want to be enough. How can I be enough?
What could I have changed?
Tears traced a hot path down his cheek as everything around him splintered. Everything was hazy fragments and somehow they were all digging into Seungmin, piercing him until he could feel nothing else. In a blur of suffocation and hurt, Seungmin blindly reached for his nightstand. His fingers curled around something familiar, and he brought it to his chest, cradling it as if it would act as a vacuum and suck away everything that was painful.
His old baseball.
His fingers traced the ridges at the seams, where the red stitches criss-crossed and held everything together. He gripped the ball hard enough that he knew that in the morning, the stitches would leave seemingly permanent marks on his palm. He curled up almost into a circle, limbs close to his torso with his baseball at the center. And he wondered.
He wondered if it would all have been better, easier if he was never a part of it to begin with. Easier for his members, that is. They wouldn't have had to always wait, look behind and pause for him to catch up. The same question kept swirling around his head, over and over, until it consumed him and took him under, and the exhaustion slowly crept in.
What could I have changed?
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
He was standing in a baseball field. The wind whipped his hair and the skies were blue. His team walked towards him loud and cheerful, and Seungmin felt warm all over. His heart was light as laughed and ran towards his team, ball and gloves in hand.
They practiced for hours.
Seungmin felt the sun on his back and the sweat on his skin, and he felt free. His mind was a channel, gathering all his energy and concentration and funnelling it into his pitch. He raised his arm and threw, all his fears and worries flying across the ground with his ball.
“You were born for this, Seungmin-ah!” his teammate cheered.
Seungmin smiled. He felt like he was born for this. It was easy, like breathing, something he had been doing ever since he could remember. It was familiar and comforting, and he was used to it.
“That was great, Seungmin!”
“Perfect throw!”
“You’re going to make it big, I know it!”
His teammates' encouragement seemed to flow endlessly, never waning with the long hours of practice.
However, the elation Seungmin was feeling slowly chipped. Little by little, cracks webbed across until the tiredness of hours and hours of playing finally set in. He was left feeling confused. Where was the rush he felt after every game? He always used to feel like he was on top of the world, but now he just feels small. There was a hole, a gap where there should have been something else filling it.
His teammate handed him a bottle of water. His blond hair swung across his face as he leaned forward in the loose circle they were all sitting in, and offered the plastic bottle to Seungmin.
“Thanks, Felix,” Seungmin said gratefully.
“Felix?”
His teammates looked at him confused.
Something was wrong. Alarm bells were ringing in his head, and everything was urgent, somehow. He needed to do something.
“Felix?” Seungmin asked.
His teammates grew more and more puzzled. Seungmin’s ears were ringing, and he was panicking.
“Hyunjin? Jisung?” he called frantically.
The faces around him were dissolving, rippling like disturbed water. The hole in chest was growing bigger until he was left gasping for breath.
“Chan? Minho?” He was screaming, and everything slowly disappeared.
However, instead of complete blackness appearing like Seungmin expected, there was a wheel of color, spinning so fast it made him dizzy. He squinted his eyes as he tried to make sense of the rapidly moving objects, the bright colors. Finally, everything slowed. Seungmin could see figures moving and conversing with each other. He then heard a familiar voice.
“I’m so sorry, I messed up.” Minho, looking devastatingly young, was crying, breaking apart as Chan held him in his arms. He saw himself, his teenage feature scrunched as he had tried to stop the overflowing tears. He relived the pain once more as he watched it all unfold, when they almost broke apart and couldn’t be whole together.
He then saw Hyunjin. This Hyunjin was a few years older, sitting with a Seungmin of the past. He was looking at Seungmin with a world of love and pain in his eyes.
“I’m touched. Is that what you really think of me?” Seungmin was asking wonderingly.
Hyunjin looked at him with enough love to crack his heart open. “What do you even know?”
He saw all his members sitting in a circle and talking about Seungmin, their voices full of affection. They were laughing about all his small habits and pet peeves, because they knew him better than anyone else in the entire world.
He watched as Minho, scared of the sudden height of their stage, grabbed Seungmin’s hand for support. He remembered holding the older member’s hand back just as tightly, determined to provide comfort.
He saw as Chan walked across the room to hug Seungmin and wipe his tears, he saw Felix pick him over and over again when no one else did, he saw Jisung take pictures of him when he thought no one was looking. He remembered Jeongin’s steady support, and Changbin’s comforting embrace.
He felt the love that was stronger than all the obstacles they could ever face, a strong red thread holding them all together. He saw the support and awe his members had for him as they watched him sing on stage, not knowing that they were the ones that kept him going through all of it.
The gaping hole in his chest was slowly filled, little by little by all the warm memories he had with his members. It was a photobook, a collection of every timestamp that ever showed how important all seven of them were to Seungmin. It showed him his family.
He then realized that they would wait for him. But they would look back not with exasperation or impatience that he was taking too long, but with smiles and encouragement that if they go forward, they go forward together.
Seungmin finally found the answer to the question that was tormenting him for hours, maybe even years without him realizing. What would I have changed?
He would change nothing. If he was never a part of Stray Kids, he would have never met the members, would have never had the chance to love them. And to Seungmin, that was a fate worse than anything else in the entire world.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Seungmin opened his eyes to a ray of sunlight falling through parted curtains in his bedroom. He sat up straight, and uncurled his fingers from his baseball, realizing he slept with a tight grip on it. He inspected his palm, and saw the faint etch the red stitches left, stubborn even as he tried to wipe them away. He traced his finger across the seams of the ball, on each individual stitch. How sturdy it was, the strong red thread, without which the entire ball would fall apart, broken.
He got up, sat at his desk and pulled out a clean, white sheet of paper. Something was insistently buzzing in his head, finally, after days and days with a haze of foggy silence broken only by oppressive thoughts that his mind chose to throw at him. He touched the tip of his pencil to his paper, gently this time, and the words began to flow.
The music in his head matched the lyrics on his page as he wrote and wrote. The harmonies in his head reached a crescendo; he saw hues of bright blue and he heard the strings of a guitar. He crossed out some, wrote some more. In his mind’s eye he saw warm smiles and the faces of seven people, the people he loved more than anyone else in the entire world. He wrote about Chan’s bright laughter, Minho’s endless teasing, and Changbin’s unwavering loyalty. He wrote about Hyunjin’s powerful love, Jisung’s constant support and Felix’s radiant warmth. And he wrote about Jeongin, the youngest, his forever brother.
He sat back and examined his sheet. His lyrics shone back at him, messy and broken, but perfect because of it. It spoke of eight people, and how they would wait for each other so that they could always be together.
Seungmin took the paper, damp with his tears, to the recording studio. Slowly but surely, the song took life. With the help of his producer, he merged the tune he found in his head with the words he wrote, creating something beautiful. He sang, and he sang again, making sure every note was perfect because this song deserved perfect notes. Hours later his voice turned raw and he was exhausted, but his heart had never been fuller.
He finally did it. It was finally enough.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
“This is for all of you,” Seungmin said softly.
The first notes of the song swelled, as seven sat in anticipation, one in nervousness.
“Ooooh,” Jisung said appreciatively.
They all sat still once Seungmin’s voice could be heard, and they grasped the meaning of the lyrics.
Ah, even if we're a little slow
Even if we get lost in the dark sometimes
Until you and I, who are similar, reach the finish line
Let's run through time together
Seungmin could see the finish line, and before it stood eight people, shoulder to shoulder.
Even if it snows and the wind blows
So strongly that our bodiеs tremble
Let's put down our roots, sprеad our branches
And wait for one more, one more day
He saw tears and pain, but never loneliness because the hurt was always borne on eight shoulders.
As long as we stay
In our own way
I dream of
The freshest, brightest day to come
They stayed true to who they were and they found happiness in each other, together. He saw a bright future, where there would be sadness, but the love made it worth it a hundred times over.
The last of the music died, and Seungmin lifted a nervous head to look at his members. They looked back at him with red eyes.
“Seungmin-ah,” Hyunjin said in a watery voice. That seemed to be a signal for them, as they got up from their seats and walked towards him. They became a tangle of limbs and torsos as they fell into a hug, Seungmin at its center. He laughed as Jisung wiped his nose on Seungmin’s t-shirt. Someone’s elbow was digging into his back. Probably Jeongin’s. Seungmin didn’t care.
Please, Seungmin thought. Please let us forever stay as we are.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
He had one last thing to do.
He was standing in the baseball field, at the very edge. The wind whipped his hair and the skies were blue. He lifted his baseball and looked at it, tracing the firm red stitches with his fingers.
He raised his arm and threw the ball, with as much force as he could muster. With the ball, he let his past go, along with all his doubts and fears on what he should have chosen. He knew now that he would make the same choices over and over again.
The baseball curved across the field in a fine arc, but Seungmin was already walking away and didn’t watch it land. He wasn’t worried about the ball, he knew the red stitches would keep it safe.
He walked back home, the brightest smile on his face.