Kibum half-woke several times that afternoon. The first time, he heard Jinki and Jonghyun discussing whether they should wake him up to go down to the cafeteria and eat dinner. Distantly, Kibum was grateful that in the end they decided it was probably better to let him sleep. Some time later, he nearly woke again when Daejung picked him up and carried him to the van to drive back to the dorm. Before the accident he would have been fully awoken by this manhandling of his body, but his control had gotten better. He was able to make himself sink deeper, pulling away from all outer stimulation and wrapping himself in a cocoon of darkness. It was what he had done instinctively while he was in the coma, and the ability, like all his others, was growing stronger. What he couldn’t seem to control was the dream. He slipped straight back into it each time he was nearly woken.

He was the wolf again, in the crumbling city that smelled of rot. He padded along, sniffing at the litter that blew along the dirty gutter, when he caught a horrible smell. Rather than being repelled, he lifted his muzzle and howled in triumph, then began to follow the fetid stench. It brought him to a tiny room in the side of a crumbled building, and there he found Minho, huddled in rags, limbs stick-thin and smeared with grime. He stared up at Kibum like a fox run to ground, his eyes stretched wide with feral terror.

“Why are you following me?” he snarled. Only then did Kibum realise that the rotting smell he had been following was coming from Minho. The shock was not part of his wolf-being, and it woke him.

It was deep in the night, and someone was in their bedroom. Kibum wasn’t startled, because his extended senses had become aware of the familiar vanilla scent while he was asleep. Somehow Jonghyun’s presence seemed like an extension of his dream, because he was standing perfectly still in the centre of the room, looking at Minho. Curled up in a fetal position, Minho’s sleeping posture was eerily similar to how he had appeared in the ruined dream-city. Although it was nearly pitch black in the bedroom, Kibum could detect the rapid, restless flicker of Minho’s eyes beneath his eyelids as he, too, dreamed.

He watched Jonghyun watching Minho for some time, but the vanilla scent never changed, and when he woke again Jonghyun was not there. He lay in the darkness and stared at the ceiling, unable to decide if Jonghyun had actually been in the room or if the whole thing had been part of his dream.

He knew without checking that it was ten past five in the morning - his brain kept track of such things on its own now. Minho’s bed was empty, and he heard the others moving around the dorm. He heard from their quiet conversation that they were letting him sleep as long as possible before they had to leave to get their hair and makeup done professionally at a salon for the fansign. He lay there and stared up at the ceiling, eyes registering every tiny flaw and crack in the paintwork as the weight of his troubles settled over him.

Never had his career as an idol seemed less relevant than it did today. It felt as if a shadow was creeping through the world, darkening all the separate threads of his life. His thoughts kept jumping from Minho, to Mr. Jang, to Dr. Ji, to Jessica, to Taemin, and back again, and always through everything was woven the sickening horror of Krystal. He would never forget the way she had looked at him. It was burned into his psyche. He told himself desperately that it was an accident, that he would never have intentionally hurt or scared her, but he wasn’t sure if that made it any better. He'd hurt her all the same, no matter what his intentions had been.

He dragged himself out of bed, stifling a groan at the way his bones ached. At least the unbearable headache was gone. He went into the lounge and found Jinki packing his bag. He looked up as Kibum came in.

“Oh, you’re up. I was just going to come and wake you. Are you feeling better? How’s your head?” Jinki moved towards him and Kibum took a step back, crossing his arms over his chest and projecting a kind of don’t-touch-me vibe into his aura. It worked surprisingly well. Jinki halted in front of him and instead of touching Kibum’s arm as he had intended to do, turned the gesture into smoothing his own hair back from his face. It was so natural that Kibum knew Jinki wasn’t aware that he’d responded to whatever smell Kibum projected when he didn’t want to be touched.

“I’m fine now,” he said, giving Jinki a smile. “Sorry about yesterday. It got bad really fast.”

“That’s a relief,” Jinki smiled back, but the expression was still troubled. “Listen, Kibum-ah. I know you hate the hospital, but don’t you think we should go and get you checked over? You were in so much pain yesterday, and you’re still getting dizzy spells, and you were feeling sick at lunchtime yesterday too, weren't you? Don’t give me that look,” he half-smiled as Kibum blinked innocently at him. “I know you. I can tell when you’re not feeling well.”

“It was probably only the headache coming on that made me nauseous,” Kibum spoke as reasonably as he could, hiding his dismay at how observant Jinki was. “It’s normal to have headaches after a head injury. There’s nothing they can do about it. Besides, our schedule is way too full for me to be taking time off again.”

“Your health is more important than promotions. We’ll cover for you if you have to miss something. I’m not going to let you work yourself into the ground.” The last words Jinki spoke rather fiercely, his eyes going distant.

Kibum remembered the tangled mess of thoughts he’d gotten a glimpse of when Jinki had touched his hands yesterday. Outwardly, Jinki appeared to be coping, but he was hiding a disturbing level of anxiety, shouldering all their troub