It was their last performance of the tour, they were due on stage in twenty minutes and Hyunwoo had gone missing.

“He went to the bathroom.” Wonho piped up when a staff member asked where he was.

“That was half an hour ago.” Kihyun pointed out. “And he knows what time we need to be on stage.”

Kihyun seemed tense and Changkyun couldn’t blame him. The last performance of any tour was always a big deal. The fans would be expecting a lot from them and they couldn’t afford to mess up. But he was more worried by Hyunwoo’s disappearance than he was frustrated by it and as he shared a look with Jooheon he could tell he felt the same. The look they shared wasn’t accompanied by butterflies though he noticed. In fact since that night in the hotel he’d only felt the butterflies again once. They’d been nearing the end of their last show in Japan and Jooheon wrapped his arms around him from behind and murmured something in his ear, playing up to the fans. Changkyun had shivered, his stomach somersaulting but that hadn’t meant anything. Jooheon’s breath had been on his neck that was all and his neck had always been sensitive. If anyone else had done the same thing he was sure his reaction would have been identical.

But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. There were more important things for him to be worrying about, namely Hyunwoo. Their penultimate show the night before had already taken a lot out of their leader, Changkyun could tell. He just hoped he hadn’t passed out from exhaustion somewhere. He raised his hand. “I’ll go find him.” He offered and their manager nodded, giving him the okay.

“Be quick.” Someone called after him and Changkyun did as he was told, he pulled open the dressing room door and set off down the corridor at a trot.

Hyunwoo wasn’t in the first bathroom he tried but that didn’t surprise him. There were other bathrooms in the building and if he’d snuck off to throw up like Changkyun was starting to suspect he had then he’d probably headed one of those, trying to minimise the risk of being caught. And yes, sure enough, Changkyun found him in the second bathroom he tried, hunched over the sink furthest from the door. When Hyunwoo heard the door creak open he looked up, startled but when he spotted who it was he let his head drop back down again with a sigh.

“How are you feeling?” Changkyun asked as he walked further into the bathroom. It was a silly question. He could tell that Hyunwoo had recently been throwing up, the smell in the room made it obvious and he could see the elder’s reflection in the mirror too. He looked pale, even under the stage make-up he was wearing. But it was the only thing he could think of to say.

Hyunwoo simply shrugged.

“Have you been throwing up the whole time you’ve been gone?” he asked next.

Hyunwoo shook his head and straightened up, turning around to face him. “No.” he said. “Not the whole time.”

Changkyun wasn’t convinced, he was pretty sure Hyunwoo was doing that downplaying how bad he was feeling thing he did so well. “A lot of the time?” he amended.

“Maybe.” Hyunwoo mumbled, the admission hesitant.

Changkyun frowned. “Do you feel up to going on stage?” he asked. Hyunwoo didn’t look well at all. It wasn’t just that he looked pale, Changkyun swore he could see his hand shaking as he ran it through his hair.

“I need to.” Hyunwoo told him. “I can’t pull out last minute. People have paid to come and see us, all seven of us.”

“But they’re not going to enjoy seeing you struggle though, are they?” Changkyun said, trying to reason with him. “No matter how much they’ve paid.” He’d managed to hide how terrible he'd been feeling from the fans up until now but only just. Changkyun had seen his smile slip more than once and he’d noticed it was taking him longer to catch his breath between tracks than it normally did. And if he’d noticed then sooner or later the fans were going to notice too. They were observant like that.

“It’s just one more show.” Hyunwoo told him, stubborn as ever. “I’ll be fine. I’m not going to quit because I feel a little shaky.”

He was doing it again, downplaying things. ‘A bit shaky’ was definitely code for ‘like total ’ but he could tell by the set of Hyunwoo’s mouth that there was no point arguing with him. Not that he had the time to argue with him even if he wanted to, they were due on stage in about thirty seconds. “Okay, just promise me you won’t push yourself too hard.” He demanded instead,

“I promise.” Hyunwoo said but Changkyun didn’t believe him. Taking it easy… that just wasn’t him. But he didn’t have time to debate it with him further, if they didn’t start moving now then they were going to be in serious trouble.

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

The show started a mere twenty minutes after it was supposed to. That was nothing really, there’d been longer delays before and those had been through no fault of their own. But that hadn’t stopped Kihyun glaring dangers at Hyunwoo as they were waiting for the curtain to go up.

And he was scowling at him now too. It was solo and collaboration time and they were all backstage, bar Hyungwon and Wonho who were in the middle of performing their colab. They could hear the crowd from where they were and they seemed to be loving it. The group track they’d performed before coming off stage hadn’t gone fantastically well though. At one point Hyunwoo had missed his cue completely, he’d missed his first line and failed to step forward when he was supposed to. Kihyun had almost mowed him over. They’d managed to carry on and end the song without incident but Kihyun still wasn’t happy about it.

“Sorry.” Hyunwoo mumbled. They were mid costume change and he was currently focusing on doing up the buttons of his shirt so he didn’t have to look anyone in the eye.

“Don’t worry about it Hyung.” Jooheon told him, slapping him on the back.

“We’ve all made mistakes on stage before.” Changkyun reminded him, adding some reassurance of his own. He grabbed a bottle of water, uncapped it and held it out to Hyunwoo. He looked like he needed it.

But as he handed the bottle over to him he noticed Kihyun roll his eyes.

And he wasn’t the only one to notice, Jooheon did too and barked a defensive “What?”

Kihyun, already in a bad mood, did not take this well. “You two need to stop pandering to him.” He bit out.

Jooheon’s expression darkened further. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice dripping sarcasm, “I didn’t know looking out for my friend’s wellbeing counted as pandering. I’ll just leave him to struggle on his own from now on, shall I?”

“Maybe you should.” Kihyun said with a frown, taking a step closer to Jooheon.

It was at this point that Minhyuk, who up until then had been watching events unfold from a distance, stepped in. “Now isn’t the time.” He cautioned, a hand going to Kihyun’s shoulder.

Kihyun, far from pacified, shrugged his hand off. “If now’s not the time when will it be?” he asked. “He’s been making mistakes like this for weeks, and people, you included, keep making excuses for him.”

It was Minhyuk’s turn to frown. “So if you weren’t feeling good you wouldn’t want us to cut you some slack?” he asked.

“No!” Kihyun exclaimed. “No, I wouldn’t want you to cut me some slack. I wouldn’t need you to. And do you know why I wouldn’t  need you to?” he didn’t wait for an answer. “I wouldn’t need you to because I’d have been an adult and done something about it myself.”

It looked like Minhyuk was about to jump in and defend Hyunwoo again, Jooheon seemed on the verge of saying something too but neither of them got the chance to because Hyunwoo did it himself. He’d been staring at the floor, expression closed off as Kihyun had talked but at his last statement he finally looked up. “I will.” He said, his voice quiet.

“Excuse me?” Kihyun seemed surprised, as if he’d forgotten Hyunwoo was standing right there as he talked about him. Maybe he had, the older man had been pretty quiet.

“I’ll do something about it.” Hyunwoo clarified. “And I’ll tell you why I left doing something about it so late, but you’re not going to be happy about it.”

Kihyun’s frown only deepened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

But Hyunwoo was saved from replying, he was up on stage next and someone was herding him away from them so the could fix his hair.

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

Changkyun was worried. Again. The seven of them were standing together, hand in hand as they took one last bow before leaving the stage. Jooheon was standing to his right, Hyunwoo to his left and while Jooheon had his hand in a vice like grip as he beamed at the crowd Hyunwoo’s grip was nowhere near as strong and he smile he was wearing seemed forced. They were all sweaty and tired but Hyunwoo was pale on top of that, and Changkyun swore he was trembling. He looked like death. The sooner they got back to the dorm the better. He needed some rest.

And then that was it. The crowd was still screaming but they were waving their last goodbyes as they reluctantly turned to leave the stage. Unsurprisingly Jooheon was one of the most reluctant to do so and Changkyun found himself going back for him, taking him by the hand and physically pulling him away.

And while he might have been worried about Hyunwoo Jooheon was on a high and that high was contagious. As Jooheon threw an arm around his shoulders and they left the stage together he couldn’t help grinning like an idiot. They’d just performed in front of thousands of people and no matter how many times they did that it never felt real. The adrenaline high that came with it was no joke and he didn’t think it was a feeling he was ever going to get used to. And yes, he knew the come down was going to be brutal, give it a couple of hours and the exhaustion would hit. But by then they’d be back at the dorm and he’d be able to collapse into his own bed. How he’d missed his own bed while they’d been on tour. So with the guarantee of his own bed to look forward to he was happy enough to share in Jooheon’s excitement as the elder dragged him along, even though he knew it wasn’t going to last.

But the giddiness and excitement didn’t get to last as long as that. In fact it lasted for about two more minutes then it was shattered for them by a surprised shout followed by a thump, a bump and a yelp of pain.

“Hyung!” someone yelled and there was the sound of someone running down the staris. He and Jooheon who had both frozen when they heard the thumping and bumping shared an apprehensive look. Then Jooheon, obviously thinking the same thing he was, dropped his arm from his shoulders and they were both hurrying forward.

As they rounded the corner in front of them they came across Wonho, standing at the top of the small flight of stairs that led down to the dressing rooms. He looked wide-eyed and shaken. “I hardly touched him.” He told them, voice wavering, “I just… I just tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention and he went down…”

He and Jooheon followed Wonho’s gaze to the bottom of the stairs. Hyunwoo was sitting up, his back against the wall. He was holding one arm closely to his chest, a grimace on his face and Minhyuk and one of their managers were crouching in front of him looking concerned. Hyungwon and Kihyun were both standing off to the side, also looking worried. Changkyun watched as Minhyuk murmured something to Hyunwoo, Hyunwoo answering with a nod, then Minhyuk was gripping one of Hyunwoo’s arms, their manager the other and they were hauling him to his feet. As Hyunwoo stood, putting weight on his right foot, he winced, his ankle buckling and Minhyuk had to catch him before he hit the floor again.

“He just went down.” Wonho repeated, still looking shell-shocked. “His legs went from under him and he just tumbled.”

And Changkyun was brought back to reality. Hyunwoo had just fallen down the stairs. He was pregnant and he’d fallen down the stairs.

“Let’s find a first aider.” He heard their manager say as he and Minhyuk helped Hyunwoo limp his way down the corridor.

All a first aider was going to do was patch him up, then their manager would probably wait until the next morning to take him to their usual doctor. Which would be all well and good if there wasn’t a baby to worry about Changkyun thought. He started down the stairs. He needed to talk to Hyunwoo, remind him that it wasn’t just his health they had to think about.

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~

A/N: Chapter thirteen guys! We're getting there. Thanks for all the lovely comments. Let me know how you think the story's going so far, I'm curious to know.