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Felix knows that something is wrong the moment he wakes up. The dorm is too bright and too quiet, and he hasn’t heard his alarm yet. Reaching for his phone, he sees that he should’ve been out of bed almost an hour ago. He has to be at the studio in fifteen minutes. Why on earth did no one wake him up?
Acting on instinct, he jumps out of bed before he’s even fully awake, pulling on the first clothes his fingers touch and almost tripping over the pants when he tries to get to the bathroom at the same time.
He brushes his teeth with one hand, reaching for his moisturizer with the other, there’s no time to properly wash his face. It’s hard to do both at the same time, so he figures his mouth is clean enough and rubs in the moisturizer while heading back to the bedroom, throwing together what he needs.
Luckily, he’s done this so many times that he doesn’t need to think about what to bring with him. Glancing at the clock, he’s reminded that he has five minutes until practice starts and decides that food isn’t a priority. He could run by the kitchen to grab a banana, but it wouldn’t really make a difference.
The only thing he slows down to do properly is lock the door, and then he’s flying down the stairs, feeling like the elevator will slow him down. He wouldn’t be so stressed if it was just the group; they might be annoyed for a moment, but it would quickly be forgotten. But they have a run-through for a big performance today, with dozens of dancers and multiple choreographers and directors there to observe.
It’s such an important day, he doesn’t understand why no one made sure he was awake. Because he’s a grown adult, he reasons, and he shouldn’t need anyone else to be responsible for him. Mornings are chaotic, Felix usually doesn’t even get to see everyone until they’re at work, but they must’ve realized he was missing from the group at some point.
He’s on the last staircase when his heel lands too close to the edge and his foot slips right off, the momentum pulling him backwards. His tight hand tightens on the railing and his left flails out, hitting the stairs hard as he catches himself. His speed is too high to break the fall; his body continuing to move after his hand presses against the step. There’s a sharp pain in the back his head, and a moment of confusion.
His eyes blink open, spots dancing across his vision. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter that he’s in a rush because his head pounds and he can’t quite remember the impact. He doesn’t move a muscle, feeling his heart thud in his chest and fighting the weight of his eyelids. He doesn’t know how to react and doesn’t really have the capacity to process what happened either.
The pain persists for a long moment before eventually settling down into something more bearable. As his head calms down, he feels the painful stretch in his shoulder and realizes he’s still holding onto the railing, the position awkward and pulling on his arm.
Tightening his grip, he pulls himself up to sit, closing his eyes against the throb in his skull. His hand automatically finds the spot of impact, and he’s relieved when there’s no blood on his fingers. Nothing bad happened, he reassures himself, it just really hurt, like hitting his funny bone.
A buzzing in his pocket reminds him that a car waits outside, and the driver knows they’re late too. Bracing himself against the stairs, he yelps and falls back down when a sharp edge digs into his palm. Looking over, his heart stutters in his chest.
His ring broke in the impact. The set he shares with Hyunjin, one white and one black band. The white one was snapped clean in half, and Felix tries not to think about how hard he must’ve hit the stairs for that to be possible.
Carefully picking up the pieces, he feels tears pressing in the back of his throat. He never took them off. For over a year he’s worn them every moment of every day, even while he sleeps and showers and cooks. And now… His phone buzzes again, and he snaps out of it. Taking the black ring off as well, he slips both into his jacket pocket, and he feels naked. His hand is too light, as if it suddenly weighs nothing.
He doesn’t have time to dwell on it. Holding onto the railing, he pushes himself back on his feet, freezing for a moment when the room spins. Then he carefully descends the rest of the stairs and slips into the car, apologizing to the driver.
By the time he makes it to practice, he has mostly forgotten about the fall. His headache has settled enough to easily be ignored, and he’s sure it’ll completely go away in no time. He’s met by annoyed looks, and doesn’t even let them say anything before defending himself.
“Any one of you could’ve made sure I was awake.” Felix snaps, not as forgiving as usual. He feels forgotten, or neglected, and he doesn’t know which is worse. No one says anything to that, not even to reassure him that they didn’t mean to leave him behind.
Felix is handed a white vest with his name in large letters and slips it on over his jacket. Then they get right to work. The group and backup dancers have practiced separately, and today is the first time putting it all together. It’s always exciting to see how it all comes together.
Felix locks in, solely focused on getting the performance right. He likes days like this because it’s so easy to shut out the world and only exist in the performance, perfecting every movement and making sure everyone fits together. But today feels different.
The broken ring burns a hole in his jacket pocket, pulling his attention away from what he’s supposed to focus on. His annoyance builds every time he loses his train of thought, and he can feel the tension building in the group as well. Because when Felix spaces out, he ruins it for everybody.
He feels dramatic for being so on edge because of a stupid ring. It was cheap and made of plastic, and it really shouldn’t matter that much. It’s not like his entire relationship with Hyunjin depends on the white piece of plastic.
The room is cold, it always is when they practice, but Felix quickly starts sweating in his thin jacket anyway. He barely registers that he wouldn’t normally be this hot as he struggles to get it off from under the vest. His fingers won’t close tightly enough around the fabric, slipping rather than tugging at it. Letting out a frustrated noise, he doesn’t see how multiple members look at him in surprise, not used to seeing him in such a bad mood.
Jeongin is suddenly right there, pulling the vest up so Felix can take off the jacket like normal. Felix feels like a child, needing help to get undressed, and refuses to look at him or acknowledge the help. There is no time for them to say anything, but Jeongin looks strangely at him. Normally, Felix would know what he tries to say, but he’s too confused to even try.
There are two choreographers for this performance, and Felix feels like he wastes their time. It doesn’t matter how nice or professional a person is when Felix is the one who makes the majority of the mistakes. They’ve practiced this so many times already, and Felix had no problems with the new moves, but today he returns to muscle memory. He does the choreography how they’ve always done it, rather than how it’s been modified for this performance.
You’d think he’s never done this before. As if they haven’t done countless award shows, music shows and the like with special performances of their biggest songs. He feels everyone’s frustration with him, and wants to yell at them that he knows. He’s as annoyed at anyone that he’s suddenly incapable of doing something that should be so simple.
When Minho walks up to him, he expects a stern talking to. He bites his lip to prevent himself from talking back to his hyung, lowering his head in defeat. When the back of Minho’s hand touches his forehead, Felix looks up with surprise. He doesn’t look angry, just concerned.
“He doesn’t feel hot.” Minho says to someone, talking right over Felix’s head. If anything, it only makes Felix angrier. They could’ve just asked if he felt okay. They didn’t have to conspire behind his back.
“He still looks pale.” Chan says, appearing at Minho’s side. Felix takes a measured breath, swatting at Minho’s arm. The movement hurts his head. Everything hurts his head. He doesn’t know when the headache returned, but he’s suddenly very aware of it.
“Thanks.” Felix says sharply.
“What hurts?” Chan asks, not even flinching at Felix’s tone. Felix crosses his arms over his chest, and fights not to squint. The lights are unnecessarily bright.
“Nothing.” Felix says stubbornly. Minho glares impatiently at him and Felix glares right back, half-expecting Minho to lunge at him. But once again, Minho just looks worried.
“Your head?” Minho says, seeing right through him. Felix opens his eyes a little wider in protest, and they burn.
“I said nothing.” Felix insists. Chan sighs, grabbing Felix by the wrist and pulling him out to the hallway. Every step echoes in Felix’s head, and he can’t hold back a low groan, or prevent his hand from shielding his eyes.
“Tell me what happened.” Chan says. Felix slumps against the wall, working hard to think. The pain envelops his head, reaching for his jaw and neck and throbbing behind his eyes.
“What happened is I overslept because you forgot me.” Felix feels so whiny when he says it out loud. Maybe he would’ve already forgotten about it if he hadn’t gotten hurt in his rush to get to work, or at least if someone had been with him when he fell. He’s thinks that he lost consciousness for a moment, but he isn’t sure, and doesn’t know for how long, or whether to be concerned that his head still hurts so much, because he didn’t see how hard he hit it.
“I’m sorry, Lix. Someone should’ve gone back when we realized you weren’t in the car.” Chan says. Felix feels a little better when he doesn’t try to explain or make excuses.
A sudden warmth drips down Felix’s lips and Felix reaches for it in confusion, fingers coming away glistening with red. Chan’s eyes go wide, tilting Felix’s head back and pinching the bridge of his nose before leading him down the hallway, to the nearest bathroom.
“What-?” Felix doesn’t get to finish the question before catching himself in the mirror, seeing the blood running over his lips and dripping off his chin, staining his shirt. There’s so much of it that his head spins. He was never good with blood, especially his own.
“Lean over the sink.” Chan says while moving over to the paper towel dispenser. Felix does as instructed and feels sick at the red splattering on the white porcelain. He automatically tries to tilt his head back, but Chan grabs his neck and pushes him back down. “It’ll run down your throat and make you sick.” He explains. Felix quickly leans forward, blanching at the idea of vomiting blood.
A wad of paper is held to his nose with an instruction to gently blow. Then Chan pinches his nose and tells him to breathe through his mouth. There isn’t much else to do but wait, so Felix closes his eyes and breathes, tasting the metallic tang on his lips. He can’t remember the last time he had a nosebleed, but he knows that it’s never been more than a couple of drops.
“I’m sorry, Lix.” Chan repeats himself. Felix barely listens. “We should’ve realized you didn’t feel well and needed a little push to get up.”
“I didn’t-” Felix can’t get the words out, feeling like he’ll choke if he doesn’t breathe. He wants to tell Chan that he felt fine when he woke up, that he hit his head and is starting to get really scared. Because this isn’t normal, and he’s wondering if the bad mood is from hitting his head as well.
“You don’t have to talk. Let’s just stop the bleeding first, yeah?” Chan says soothingly. Felix barely nods, but the movement still throbs behind his forehead.
A few minutes pass before Chan slowly lets go of Felix’s nose, both of them relieved when blood doesn’t pour out. Another wad of paper is held to his nose with instructions to be very careful when blowing his nose, just to clear out any excess blood.
Felix feels like a kid again when Chan wets some paper and cleans his face, rubbing at the now crusty blood on his skin. He’s so gentle, with such a focused look on his face, Felix melts under the touch, finding himself wishing for Hyunjin’s embrace. He’s sure he would’ve fallen asleep standing up if he could lean back into Hyunjin’s arms. It’s as if he woke up so fast this morning that he never got to adjust to being awake.
“Did you eat?” Chan asks while stuffing all the bloody paper in the trash. Felix turns on the tap and rubs at the blood in the sink, doing his very best not to think about what it is or where it came from.
“No time.” Felix says simply. He can’t be blamed when he never intended to skip breakfast. Chan just nods, taking over the job of cleaning the sink. Felix happily lets him, feeling so sick at the sight. He can still taste it and the scent hangs in the air, or maybe he just smells the layer coating the inside of his nose. He’s tempted to stick a finger up there and scrape it out, but doesn’t want to risk another nosebleed.
“It’s about time for lunch anyway. You can’t go on without food.” Chan decides. Felix is relieved, not sure he could’ve stayed upright if he had to dance as well. It’s hard enough to walk in a straight line as he follows Chan back to the studio.
He still isn’t hungry, but he knows he has to eat. He probably feels all wrong because he hasn’t eaten, blood sugar and energy bottoming out. Anyone would be exhausted after dancing for hours with no food in their system. He’ll probably realize how hungry he is when he starts eating, but right now he still feels queasy from the blood.
While he waits for lunch to be set up, he finds Hyunjin and lops down right in his lap, leaning back into his chest. Hyunjin wordlessly wraps his arms around his waist, resting his chin on the top of Felix’s head.
Felix jumps when something touches his arm, barely suppressing a groan when pain flares in his head. It sits like a ring of pressure around his skull, as if he’s wearing a tiny rubber band. Looking down, he sees that Hyunjin has found his empty finger, and something tightens in his chest. Hyunjin always fiddles with Felix’s hands, pulling and twisting at the rings. It was stupid to let him get so close if he didn’t want Hyunjin to notice.
“You’re not wearing your rings.” Hyunjin sounds sad. Felix scoffs because it’s such a pointless thing to be hurt by. As if Felix would deliberately take of the rings rather than talk to Hyunjin if he had a problem.
“I didn’t have time to put them on, did I?” Felix tries to soften his voice, but it still comes out sharper than intended. How hard does he have to hit his head to knock the kindness out of himself? Probably about as hard as he needed to hit it in order to knock himself out. And the more he thinks about it, the surer he is that he lost consciousness.
“But you never take them off.” Hyunjin points out, touching Felix’s naked finger with such care. His fingertips twist around the base of Felix’s finger as if he can still feel them.
“My finger was green last night.” Felix lies, belatedly remembering that it’s cheap metal that turns skin green, not plastic. Hyunjin’s tenses against Felix’s back, a strange silence settling over them. He pulls in a breath as if to speak, and Felix pulls away from him fast enough to feel dizzy. “Drop it, will you?” He snaps. Hyunjin’s eyes widen, then he looks away and doesn’t say anything else while they wait.
Felix still feels sick when lunch is ready. There is a large table set up with takeout, and Felix picks a few pieces that would normally look tempting. Then he sits with the members, but tilts his body away from them, pretending to be alone. It’s better than making small talk with a random dancer, which is a strange thought because he normally loves getting to know the people they work with.
His appetite doesn’t return the moment he tastes food. Instead, it feels like it retreats further away. The dull ache of nausea comes instead, making every bite feel slimy in his mouth and thick as it moves down his throat. He doesn’t pay attention to the feeling, aware of how important food is, and he doesn’t particularly feel like being stared down by Hyunjin again if he leaves anything on his plate.
He lies down for the rest of break, desperate to gather some energy. Using his jacket as a pillow, he curls up on his side, facing the wall, and shuts out the world. He was in too much of a rush to bring his noise-cancelling earbuds, but he’s used to background noise. Despite not feeling sleepy when he lies down, it doesn’t take long for sleep to pull him under.
Felix wakes with a feeling of déjà vu, feeling like he’s back on the stairs, the impact of the edge of the step revibrating through his head. It takes too long to realize that someone’s shaking him, and even longer to remember where he is.
“You’re not usually this hard to wake up.” Hyunjin mutters, as if to himself. Felix blearily looks at him, squinting at the lights behind his head. “Come on, break’s over.” Hyunjin jerks his head to the side, but Felix can’t follow the movement without squeezing his eyes shut to stave off the dizziness.
“Hyun-” Felix grabs for him, just wanting to cuddle with him and go back to sleep. He shifts against the curled-up jacket under his head, and something clangs sharply against the floor. Their eyes land on the broken ring at the same time and Felix’s eyes burn with bitter tears.
Hyunjin picks up the broken pieces, eyes softening. “Is this why you’re in such a mood?” He asks, no hurt or anger in his voice. Felix so badly wants to say yes, but there’s so much pressure in his head and he can’t think.
“My head.” Felix lifts an arm to cover his eyes, but it doesn’t move right. He can’t seem to actually find his eyes, even when he looks at the arm as it flails over his head. Letting it drop to the floor, he closes his eyes, but the lights are still so bright.
“Felix, look at me.” Felix tries, but there are two Hyunjins above him and he doesn’t know which one to look at. “Did you fall?” The question is easy enough, but he forgets what it was before he can reply.
“Ring,” Felix says, trying to portray that his head hit the stairs with the same force as the halves of the ring Hyunjin holds up. “My head.” He repeats, picking one of Hyunjin’s hands and hoping he’s looking at the right one.
“Channie-hyung!” Hyunjin’s voice rises and Felix flinches, gritting his teeth. There’s a roaring sound in his head, as if he can hear his own blood rushing, and an erratic thumping that he can’t quite place. His eyes close again, and his body goes numb. It feels like he’s floating, being carried away by the waves.
“I think he hit his head,” Hyunjin voice comes from so far away. “I asked if he fell and he just slurred something about the ring as his head.” The voices fade into something unintelligible, and Felix is so far away, he doesn’t understand how he can be so tired without falling asleep.
“Felix!” His eyes snap open at the loud voice, and he groans at his head’s reaction. “Eyes on me.” Chan says, hovering over him. Felix tries, but he still doesn’t know if he’s looking at the right version of Chan. “Did you hit your head?”
“My head.” Felix repeats, knowing he’s supposed to say something, but forgetting what he was asked. “Ring.” He mumbles, reminded of how it broke. He flinches when he remembers hitting his head, eyes widening with the realization. “The stairs.”
The moment of clarity – if it could be called that – fades again. He floats away, eyes closing, and this time nothing can make them open back up.
-
Felix realizes that he’s in a hospital room. He’s pretty sure that he’s been awake for a while, it doesn’t feel like he just woke up, but he’s been so far away, he doesn’t know what happened after he fell asleep at practice.
“Felix?” A familiar voice makes him look over, groaning at the pain in his head. It’s not as bad as it was, and the pressure is gone, but it still throbs. “There you are.” Hyunjin lights up when their eyes meet. Felix reaches for his hand, feeling like they’ve barely touched all day.
“You had us worried.” Chan stands behind Hyunjin, leaning on the back of his chair. Looking around, Felix sees no one else, and he’s kind relieved that the whole group isn’t hanging over him. At least not yet. He can only imagine how they’ll react to seeing him in a hospital bed.
“What? Why?” Felix asks in confusion. He doesn’t remember much. There was pain and confusion and a dawning realization that he was wrong about something.
“How about the brain injury you were hiding from us?” Chan says, as if he’s attempting a joke but missing the mark. Hyunjin flinches, fingers tightening around Felix’s hand. Felix suddenly remembers the fall and feels stupid for not realizing something was wrong when he knocked himself out.
“I thought I was fine.” Felix says sheepishly, looking down. He finds a crease in the bedding that looks far more interesting than his friends’ faces. He didn’t mean to hide anything serious or scare them.
“The doctor said it might’ve been a missed brain injury. Sometimes the symptoms come later, he might’ve really believed it.” Hyunjin says quietly, speaking to Chan. Chan lets out a long breath and nods.
“What even happened?” Chan asks, seeming to decide that Felix isn’t lying. Felix knows better than to gamble with his health, and they all know that.
“I was late, so I was running, and I fell on the stairs. I tried to break my fall, but I hit my head.” Felix says, cringing at the memory of the impact. His hand lifts to the back of his head, feeling how sensitive his scalp is around the place he hit it.
“You should’ve told someone.” Chan says, sounding defeated. Felix feels horrible for worrying him. If he knew he’d severely hurt himself, he would’ve told the driver to take him to A&E the moment he stepped into the car.
“I really thought I was fine. It barely hurt anymore when I got to work, so I didn’t think anything of it.” Felix reiterates quietly, embarrassed of being so wrong. “Is it bad?” He asks, figuring the answer can’t be too scary since he’s awake and able to hold a conversation.
“It could’ve been worse.” Hyunjin says, but he looks a little pale. Felix almost doesn’t want to know what he’s remembering. Whatever happened while Felix was fuzzy landed him in the hospital, and Felix can only imagine his friends’ fear.
“They were worried about a brain bleed when I mentioned your nosebleed, but it’s just a concussion. They had to give you something to bring down the swelling, which is probably why you feel better now.” Chan gives a more extensive answer. It takes a moment for Felix to remember what he’s talking about; the rush of blood that poured out of his nose in the middle of a conversation. He didn’t realize how out of it he was at the time, but it all feels so blurry now.
He feels sick at the thought of how bad off he must’ve been to need treatment for brain swelling. But it explains why he gradually got worse through the day, and why he can’t remember anything even though he was awake. He must’ve started clearing up when the pressure on his brain was alleviated.
“The ring.” Felix suddenly remembers, glad to have an excuse to change the topic. “I landed on the ring, it broke.” He feels his throat tighten with emotion and wonders if the concussion makes him emotional or if it really meant that much to him.
“It’s okay, Yongbokkah. It’s just a ring.” Hyunjin smiles softly. He finds Felix’s empty finger again, squeezing it as if he can tell how naked Felix feels. They were always a tiny bit small, and his finger adjusted to the size over time, leaving a small dip where they used to sit.
“But you gave it to me.” Felix protests. He was so sure that he was in a bad mood because the ring broke, but he realizes now that it was the concussion and brain swelling.
“And if it hadn’t broken the fall, you’d have hit your head even harder.” Hyunjin points out, and Felix clamps his mouth shut. Hyunjin is right; even though he didn’t stop the fall, he must’ve slowed it down. It could’ve been so much worse if his head was the first thing to make contact with the stairs.
In a way, Hyunjin’s ring saved him from a worse injury, and that makes him feel a little better.