Chapter Text
The first thing Yunho noticed was that the woman was smiling.
Not nervously, the way most fans did when they finally reached the front of the table after waiting for hours. Not with the dazed, disbelieving happiness he had seen thousands of times at fansigns.
She was smiling at Yeosang as though they shared a secret.
Yeosang, oblivious, was bent over the album in front of him.
“What should I write?” he asked, pen poised over the page.
The woman didn't answer.
Yeosang looked up.
And Yunho saw her hand disappear inside the sleeve of her oversized jacket.
For perhaps half a second, his brain refused to make sense of it.
Then there was silver in her hand.
A tiny aerosol canister.
"Yeosang-”
Yunho moved.
Not fast enough.
The woman leaned across the table and pressed the nozzle.
The hiss was tiny.
Almost absurdly tiny.
Yeosang jerked backward with a sound Yunho had never heard from him before.
The second burst went wide because Yunho caught the woman's wrist and slammed her arm downward against the table.
Chairs scraped.
Someone screamed.
The albums stacked between them crashed to the floor.
Yeosang had both hands over his face.
“My eyes-”
That was all he managed.
Then he folded forward.
Security reached the woman perhaps two seconds later.
To Yunho it felt like twenty minutes.
One guard dragged her backward while another seized the canister. She was shrieking now, fighting hard enough that her chair toppled behind her.
“Don't let him look at them!”
Her voice cut through the chaos.
“He shouldn't look at them! Those eyes aren't for them!”
Yunho would remember those words long afterward.
So would Wooyoung.
Because Wooyoung was three seats away.
And for one terrible second, all he could see was Yeosang hunched over the table with his hands pressed to his face.
Then instinct took over.
“Don't touch your eyes!”
Hongjoong's voice was sharp enough to cut through the room.
Wooyoung was already climbing around his chair.
“Yeosang!”
San caught him by the elbow because security personnel were surging toward the table from both sides.
“Let go of me.”
“Woo-”
“Let go.”
San did.
Wooyoung dropped to his knees beside Yeosang.
Yeosang's breathing was ragged.
Not crying.
That almost made it worse.
His shoulders were rigid, his entire body locked around whatever was happening behind his hands.
“Hyung.”
Wooyoung reached toward him and stopped.
He was normally incapable of being near Yeosang without touching him. An arm around his shoulders. Fingers around his wrist. A dramatic kiss to his cheek simply because Yeosang hated making a fuss about it.
Now he didn't know where he was allowed to put his hands.
“Don't rub,” Yunho said. He was breathing hard. “Yeosang, don't rub them. Please.”
“I know.”
Yeosang's voice was strangled.
Of course he knew.
Even in agony, he sounded offended that Yunho thought he didn't.
Wooyoung nearly laughed.
Instead his throat closed.
Managers were shouting orders. Security was evacuating the fans. Someone killed the background music, leaving the room suddenly filled with crying, scraping chairs and frantic voices.
“Water,” Seonghwa said. “We need to rinse his eyes.”
One of the managers had already called emergency services. Another was speaking rapidly into his phone to the venue's medical team.
Mingi stood frozen behind his chair.
Jongho looked frighteningly calm.
Hongjoong looked even worse.
Hongjoong in a crisis became unnaturally still.
“Everyone back,” he said. “Give him space.”
“I am not moving,” Wooyoung snapped.
Hongjoong looked at him.
“I'm not asking you to leave him. I'm asking everyone else not to crowd him.”
That was different.
Wooyoung swallowed.
“Okay.”
Yeosang lowered his hands.
Every member recoiled.
Not because the injury looked grotesque.
Because it was Yeosang.
His eyes were squeezed nearly shut, tears pouring continuously down his cheeks. The skin around them had already turned angry red. He blinked once and immediately shut them again.
“Can't open them,” he whispered.
Wooyoung's stomach dropped.
“You don't have to.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
“I know.”
Under any other circumstances Wooyoung would have hit him.
Instead he grabbed the sleeve of Yeosang's shirt and held on.
The venue's first-aid room had a proper eye-wash station.
Getting Yeosang there was another matter.
He could technically walk.
He could not see properly.
Bright light made the pain worse, and opening his eyes for more than a fraction of a second triggered another violent wave of burning.
Yunho moved to one side of him.
Wooyoung immediately took the other.
“I can walk,” Yeosang muttered.
“No one said you couldn't,” Yunho said.
“You're both holding me.”
“So?”
“So I know how walking works.”
“You just walked into a chair.”
“That chair attacked me.”
It was such a Yeosang answer that Wooyoung's eyes filled instantly.
He turned his head away.
Yeosang, unable to see him clearly, missed it.
San didn't.
San's expression changed.
Wooyoung saw the pity and instantly hated it.
“Don't,” he warned.
San quietly looked away.
At the sink, the medic explained what she was going to do. They needed to irrigate Yeosang's eyes continuously with water or saline and flush out as much of the irritant as possible. He should not rub them. They needed to remove any residue from his face and clothing.
Yeosang nodded.
Then the rinsing began.
And his composure finally cracked.
The first stream hit his eye and he recoiled violently.
“Ah-shit-”
Wooyoung caught his shoulders.
“I've got you.”
“Burns.”
“I know.”
“It really fucking burns.”
“I know.”
Yeosang's fingers found Wooyoung's wrist and closed around it hard enough to hurt.
Wooyoung welcomed the pain.
“Again,” the medic said gently. “I know it's uncomfortable, but we need to keep rinsing.”
Yeosang gave a tiny nod.
The second attempt was worse.
His breathing fractured.
He tried to turn away.
Wooyoung moved with him.
“Just squeeze my hand.”
“I'm already squeezing it.”
“Harder.”
“I might break it.”
“I have another one.”
Despite everything, the corner of Yeosang's mouth twitched.
Then another wave of water hit his eye and the humor vanished.
Wooyoung talked constantly.
He didn't even know what he was saying.
Complaints about Mingi stealing food.
A detailed argument about why Yeosang's room was too cold.
A promise that if Yeosang survived this, Wooyoung was going to reorganize his wardrobe because apparently temporary blindness meant forfeiting all legal rights.
At one point Yeosang rasped, “I'd rather go blind.”
Wooyoung stopped breathing.
The silence lasted only a second.
Yeosang seemed to realize what he had said.
“Bad joke,” he murmured.
“Really bad.”
“Sorry.”
Wooyoung tightened his grip.
“Don't ever make that joke again.”
Yeosang didn't.
The police arrived before the ambulance crew took Yeosang away.
So did senior management.
The woman had been restrained in another part of the venue.
The canister was confirmed to contain pepper spray.
The police wanted statements.
Hongjoong stared at the officer as if he had spoken another language.
“Later.”
“Sir-”
“Later.”
The manager beside him intervened quickly.
“The members witnessed an assault on their colleague. Our legal team will coordinate statements. Right now we're going to the hospital.”
Wooyoung heard only fragments.
Pepper spray.
Direct facial exposure.
Close range.
One eye received more of the spray than the other.
Possible corneal injury.
Ophthalmology.
Observation.
He sat in the van beside Yeosang with his knee pressed against Yeosang's.
Yeosang had a clean towel over his eyes to block the light.
His face was still wet from irrigation.
He looked strangely small under the oversized hooded jacket someone had put around his shoulders.
Wooyoung hated the thought immediately.
Yeosang wasn't small.
He wasn't fragile.
He could be stubborn to the point of insanity. He worked through exhaustion without mentioning it. He could demolish Wooyoung with one sentence and then calmly eat his dinner while Wooyoung complained for fifteen minutes.
But there was something about Yeosang that made people want to put themselves between him and anything ugly.
Maybe it was the contradiction.
He was beautiful in a way that attracted attention even when he actively seemed to avoid it.
Not delicate beauty exactly.
Something cleaner. Sharper.
His eyes especially.
Large and strangely expressive considering how reserved he could be. The kind of eyes fans wrote paragraphs about. The kind stylists designed entire looks around.
Wooyoung had heard people call them pretty so many times that the word had become meaningless.
Until tonight.
Those eyes were currently hidden beneath a towel because someone had decided that beauty gave her ownership.
Wooyoung felt something vicious rise in his chest.
“Did security search her?”
No one answered.
He looked at the manager across from him.
“I asked you a question.”
“Wooyoung-”
“Did they search her?”
“There was a bag inspection.”
“Then how did she have it?”
“We don't know yet.”
“What do you mean, you don't know?”
“We're investigating.”
Wooyoung laughed.
It was not a pleasant sound.
“So you're investigating now.”
Yeosang moved his head slightly.
“Woo.”
“No.”
“Woo.”
“She got close enough to spray you in the face.”
“I noticed.”
“Don't.”
“I'm not arguing.”
“You are always arguing.”
“That's because you're usually wrong.”
Under the towel, Yeosang almost smiled.
Wooyoung did not.
The manager rubbed both hands over his face.
“Wooyoung, I understand you're angry.”
“No, you don't.”
“That's enough,” Hongjoong said quietly.
Wooyoung rounded on him.
“You think it's enough?”
Hongjoong's face hardened.
“I think Yeosang is sitting beside you listening to us fight while he doesn't know whether his eyesight is okay.”
The words struck like cold water.
Wooyoung looked at Yeosang.
Very slowly, his anger collapsed inward.
“Sorry.”
Yeosang's hand moved across the seat.
Wooyoung caught it immediately.
The ophthalmologist said the word vision so many times that eventually it stopped sounding like a word.
Initial visual acuity.
Temporary reduction in vision.
Corneal surface.
Epithelial damage.
No evidence of deeper ocular injury.
They examined Yeosang under magnification after using numbing drops.
Wooyoung wasn't allowed inside for that part.
None of them were.
That nearly caused another incident.
“He can't see,” Wooyoung told the nurse.
“He can see somewhat.”
“You know what I mean.”
“He is with medical staff.”
“He hates hospitals.”
The door opened behind the nurse.
Yeosang said, “I don't hate hospitals.”
Wooyoung spun around.
“You hate needles.”
“There haven't been any needles.”
“Yet.”
Yeosang was wearing disposable dark protective glasses.
The effect should not have been funny.
Unfortunately, with his hair sticking in six directions and his expression utterly exhausted, he looked like a celebrity trying unsuccessfully to hide from paparazzi at three in the morning.
San covered his mouth.
Yeosang turned toward the sound.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“No.”
“You breathed suspiciously.”
Mingi made a choking noise.
For five glorious seconds they were themselves again.
Then the doctor came out.
Everyone stopped.
There was superficial injury to the corneal epithelium, worse in Yeosang's left eye, but nothing suggesting permanent damage at that point. Pepper spray generally caused severe irritation and temporary visual impairment; direct close-range exposure could also injure the corneal surface.
They would treat the injury, monitor healing closely and repeat examinations.
The prognosis was good.
Wooyoung stared at the doctor.
“Good means?”
“We expect his eyesight to recover.”
“Completely?”
“That is what we expect based on what we see tonight. But I don't make absolute promises after an acute eye injury.”