WARNING: Long chapter ahead.

#iKON #NEW_KIDS_BEGIN #BLINGBLING #BDAY

COMEBACK: May 22, 2017 – 6:00PM KST

GET READY, SHOWTIME!

WHEN SUMMER ENDS

by Discordance

PART 4

Awaken

A pink petal, gently swept away by the morning breeze, landed softly on the pavement.

The flowers were in full bloom, and the trees that rose over the sidewalk blinded passerbys with a beautiful combination of deep pink and corn-yellow.

Forsythia and Azalea, both awakening in the same month, the month of promises and beauty and life.

The cold air was finally alleviating, leaving in its place the warming rays of the sun, the ring of bells and the cool spray of the ocean. More and more people filtered out of their homes, called to the welcoming draft and clear skies. One thought was common in their minds.

It’s finally time.

It’s finally time to propose to the girl he loved. It’s finally time to say goodbye to their dear eldest brother who’s flying to the other side of the world. It’s finally time to meet the baby that they loved dearly for 9 months, the beginning of their new future. It was finally time for all these dreams to be fulfilled.

It was time now…for all things to awaken.

Bobby collapsed onto the wooden floor in a sticky mess of sweat and clothes.

Through his exhausted haze, he saw Jinhwan panting and reaching for a bottle of water as he wiped the thick layer of sweat with a rag from the basket. But he didn’t have enough strength anymore to turn his head to see how the other members fared.

Anthem music blared out from the speakers once again, but it wasn’t even 5 seconds before it was shut off.

“Bobby-hyung, you have to work on your arm movements in that last part. You’re too slow.” Bobby merely nodded slowly at the evaluation of their ever watchful leader.

Hanbin appeared in his vision, wiping his head and sitting down on one of the seats against the wall. The younger was thin, very thin, and it was worrying. His face even seemed gaunt despite their attempts at shoving food at him.

Chanwoo walked by him and Bobby immediately stuck a hand up. The youngest sighed and grabbed his hand, pulling him up, a bit too fast that his brain swerved at the sudden though expected movement. He lazily leaned against him, lightly patting the maknae’s leg to move while holding him up.

Donghyuk was intent on getting the moves down to the beat, his body moving so fluidly without the music that it almost made Bobby envious.

Just almost.

Chanwoo dropped him down on the seat next to Hanbin who was pressing a cool water bottle to his face. He immediately slouched back against the wall, grabbing a towel and placing it on his forehead. Jinhwan and Chanwoo sat down together on the floor.

The silence in the room descended, shoes gently slapping against hard wood the only sound echoing throughout the mirrored room.

But as always, even though they were all far past the degree of being merely comfortable with each other, far past the degree of communication with words, there was still something missing. Something that was entirely obvious looking at all the other members right now. Something that had to do with their choreography, or even the song they were practicing.

And the longer the silence stretched onward, the longer they were left to their thoughts, the quicker it would come to the surface and –

Music started playing. Instrumental.

Bobby opened one eye.

“We need a break.” Junhoe dropped his head in on his folded arms, seeming on the verge of falling asleep at the computer desk. Acting as if they weren’t even having a quick rest until now.

Bobby fully expected Hanbin’s, ‘15 minutes,’ but it never came. Their perfectionist leader was now closing his eyes and leaning his body against the far wall. Like he too was beginning to sleep.

He wasn’t surprised. He couldn’t even remember when Hanbin came home last night.

Or more accurately, when he came home this morning. 

“Hanbin-ah,” he nudged the younger, who didn’t respond. “Hanbin.”

“What?”

“You should take a day off tomorrow. Catch the breeze, get some fresh air…sleep.”

Again, he didn’t answer. Which was the equivalent of saying a big unequivocal no.

Yeah, Bobby understood, loud and clear. But that didn’t mean he would abide by the hint. “You know what?” He jumped to his feet and grabbed the younger’s skinny arm. Dragging a protesting and suddenly awake Hanbin out the door he yelled, “Be back 5!”

The door closed just as he heard Jinhwan ask, “…5 minutes or 5 o’clock?”

Hanbin struggled half-heartedly against Bobby’s strong grip all the way to the front entrance. Eventually, he just complied with being hauled around like a rag doll.

They walked through the streets, Bobby’s feet instinctively leading where they needed to be. Stopping briefly at a convenience store to buy a few snacks and two large bottles of water, circling back to a bridge overlooking peaceful waters hidden in the heart of the city.

The two young men placed their arms on the stone railing, mirror opposites in broad daylight. One strong-shouldered and muscled, the other thin and sagging with an unseen weight on their shoulders.

Too long, Bobby concluded, too long since he brought Hanbin here to get some peace of mind.

During WIN, they once had snuck away from the members to eat food outside the Trainee Building. They enjoyed it, despite having to bring a camera along with them.

The next few times that happened, there were no cameras, but the stress inside had been building up dramatically as time passed. The stress that came along with trying to keep the members away from disbandment, protecting them from being cut from the team, striving hard to show YG that they improved and that there was no need to hurt what was already hurting.

Before long, their uneventful adventures were not used for their own amusement and peace. It soon became an outlet…a time where Hanbin and Bobby could just talk. Talk about life. Talk about the problems that always rose up no matter where they looked. Talk about the dreams of their future.

At that time, they were young. Deep in their hearts they knew how to get through those problems. Because they had the drive. They had the determination. They had the patience and experience of hours of preparation to make it through.

But now they didn’t have that. This time, no amount of practicing would have ever been able to prepare them for the inner turmoil that was dominating their minds.

Yunhyeong was a gaping hole in their hearts, and there was no denying it.

“Sometimes I wonder…if we’re just being unfair.” Hanbin stared up ahead where the stream curved away from view. “A lot of people feel the same way we feel. Even worse. Some people have family with cancer…amputation…diseases without a cure…They have almost no hope at all. And yet, here we are, wallowing just because we’re afraid of what we don’t know could happen.”

Bobby shook his head. “Everyone feels differently, Hanbin. Pain is relative. It’s not the same for everyone else.” He smiled wryly as he half-heartedly joked, “Take a punch at me, I could take it. Take a punch at you, you’ll find yourself on the floor before you know it.” He looked at Hanbin meaningfully. “It just so happens that this knocks us off our feet easier than the others.”

Hanbin didn’t respond for a long time. “How do you feel about this, Bobby?”

“Me?” He raised his face towards the clear skies. Blue and vast, without a cloud in sight. “All things considered…I could be better. Bummed out, worried, not only for Yunhyeong but our hopeless leader who’s stupid enough to believe a flimsy twig is the best body shape anyone could ever have.”

Hanbin quietly snorted. Bobby shifted closer and threw an arm over the younger’s bony shoulder. “Don’t forget, we still need our leader. And we can’t have a good leader until he’s not out of his mind thinking of things he shouldn’t be thinking.”

“You’re changing the topic again,” Hanbin murmured.

Bobby ‘ngeh’-ed. “I don’t got much to say, anyway.” He shook his shoulder lightly. “It’s your turn.”

“There’s nothing else to say.”

“Bull,” Bobby immediately said.

Hanbin blinked at him. “Bull?”

He waved it off. “Just...nothing. Ignore it.”

A middle-aged couple walked past them, their chatter filling the air with sweets and promises of caramel chocolate and sweet tarts.

“How...how do you live with knowing that someone who’s been with you for so long is...gone? Not gone like Taehyun-hyung, but gone gone?”

“But he’s not.”                                                

“Just – what if? How could you bear with that?”

“Hanbin –” Bobby looked at him in the face directly, hands grasping the younger's thin shoulders. “I thought we already went over this. Jinhwan-hyung went over this. So what's really going on?”

Hanbin did not look at him. He looked behind him, through him, to the side, anywhere. Bobby saw his Adam’s apple bob even though he was staring intensely into his eyes.

“...I’ve been having dreams…

Bobby paused. He had noticed the dark bags underneath Hanbin’s eyes.

“The news reports…everything I heard…I can’t help but think of what happened to Yunhyeong-hyung. What he must have been feeling when he was in that car, all alone…” His voice trailed off and he swallowed thickly, turning from Bobby’s hands, and putting his forehead on his hand. His mind seemed eons away, and Bobby didn’t need to guess what he was thinking of.

The accident, that almost took their older brother away from them…and still has the potential to.

The taxi was found in a wide, abandoned alley, flipped over halfway, one side of metal completely crushed. The reports said that it was not far from the main road, but it was far enough that no one would have been able to hear the collision, especially during the night where few people traveled the streets.

The car that collided with them left only bits and pieces of its monstrosity. Disappeared from the scene, just as swift as the other car that had followed close behind, the presumed source of the shooting. The black box in the taxi fractured and unable to capture a clear image of the cars involved that evaded the four-ways and three-ways subtly monitored by cameras.

The driver… Bobby’s anger boiled deep inside him. The driver had been gone – no one knew why he had not called the police as soon as he had recovered enough to move. Theories ran the mouths of the telecasters but Bobby barely paid any attention to them.

It didn’t change what had happened. That Yunhyeong-hyung’s life was put on the line because of a simple lack of action. Whether through fear, trauma, forgetfulness, it didn’t matter. It was already done.

“Hyung…the car was crushed. Yunhyeong-hyung could’ve been awake throughout that entire time, and no one would have known. He could’ve been bleeding out, and suffocating, and no one would have been able to answer him when he was so confused and hurt...” Hanbin covered his eyes, his wobbling lips lifting to reveal the clenched teeth. “Hyung, he could’ve been screaming for us and we would’ve been sleeping." 

Bobby closed his eyes and inhaled raggedly. Exhaled.

“He could’ve been terrified and we wouldn’t have been there to calm him down. If that’s what he thought before he – ” Hanbin choked. “If that was his last thought…I don’t think I could live with it.”

“Hanbin.” Bobby’s voice was low and urgent. And suddenly overwhelmed with the urge, he grabbed and pulled the younger towards him, in his arms where he wanted to squeeze the poisonous feelings that was plaguing his younger brother’s heart right out.

Hanbin didn’t respond at first, but slowly Bobby felt him grab hold of his jacket and press his face just a bit against Bobby’s clothed collarbone. He didn’t feel liquid. He wasn’t expecting there to be. For now, all he wanted was for Hanbin to know that he could lean on someone at this moment.

Bobby didn’t try to refute what Hanbin said. It was something that he knew, he knew still lurked underneath the surface for all of the members. There was a hint of truth to his words, of a possibility that they couldn’t deny. And the only person to put an end to these thoughts, confirm their fears or deny them, was not here with them.

(And will possibly never will.)

“…Yunhyeong wouldn’t have wanted us to feel this way. Feeling responsible and guilty for what happened to him. He would want us to smile and he would say that he was unconscious the whole time, so he couldn’t have been able to feel a thing.” The words were just coming out of his mouth, driven not by his own will, but meaning every word of it. He tilted his head down to look at the tuft of yellow-black hair beneath his chin. “How do you think he would react if he finds out we’re jumping to conclusions and assuming that he’s dead when he’s not?” he said quietly, feeling a tad sorry when Hanbin flinched slightly at the taboo word. “How do you think he’ll react when he finds out that we’re assuming the worst will happen, and we’re preparing for it even though we don’t know if he would wake up?

“I’m not asking that you forget, Hanbin, believe me, I will never ask that of you. All I’m asking is for you to remember that Yunhyeong wants what’s best for us – what’s best for you. He wants you to believe something good will happen, because if we don’t, you might as well be giving up now. The least we could do for him is believe that he could wake up and believe that he could recover.”

He squeezed the younger’s thin arms. “You dream about those things because you think about it. Hanbin, just let it go. Remember, it’s just a possibility. And everything you just said? It might not even come true. We don’t know if it has or will happen, but we shouldn’t focus on it. Don’t forget about it – learn from it, and when we’re about to cross that bridge...we all will need someone to lean on. So don't you dare try to go at it alone, because it's never going to work. You need us as much as we need you, Hanbin, and not even this is going to change that.”

The sounds of the city echoed to their ears, cars honking and the river quietly surging underneath them. A bird flew overcast, cawing loudly and flapping its powerful wings in the sky, a new destination in mind.

And miraculously, the heaviness around them lifted.

An inhalation that came entirely from the stomach. An exhale that expelled the breath of polluted air like wind.

“…Thank you, Bobby.”

The older rapper smiled, eyes squinting into crescents. “If only you don’t just say that at times like these.”

“Yah…” Hanbin didn’t even have the strength to properly protest, but when he pulled away, a smile was tugging at the corners of his lips. His shoulders looked a bit less slumped, lighter, and Bobby couldn’t stop the pride from flaring up in his chest.

“Believe that he’ll wake up, huh?” Hanbin smiled a little wider. “You couldn’t have put in a less cliché way?”

Bobby laughed hoarsely.

“If you’re going to act all cliché, two actors are better than one.”

A cellphone rang.

 A hand moisturized by a cold bottle of water reached for it, not looking at the caller ID before pressing answer.

“Bobby-oppa!”

“Hanbin!”

"Jiwon-oppa! BI!"

"Hanbin-oppa, please look here!"

Bobby and Hanbin were nearly tripping over themselves trying to get away from the group of fangirls who appeared just as they were about to turn the last corner, fumbling words of thank you’s and apologies bubbling out of their mouths every minute. Until finally, a few girls took control and allowed one last handshake and autograph with the YG artists before attempting to tame the small crowd.

They bowed in haste before leaving the area as fast as they could without seeming that they were trying to flee. They loved their fans dearly, but now was just not the right time.

Bobby was afraid they smelled his body odor.

It didn’t take long for them to reach the YG building. They greeted the watchman at the front and navigated their way to the practice room quickly. Along the way, they bumped into their manager, fondly dubbed as Manager Potter because of his large round glasses.

“Where did you two go?” he eyed them, holding a few papers in his hand.

“Nowhere.” Bobby elbowed Hanbin at his shameless reply.

“We just went outside for some fresh air, Hyung,” Bobby said. “Hanbin wasn’t feeling well.”

Manager Potter’s eyes widened. “Are you sick? Do you have the flu?” Their manager felt Hanbin’s forehead to see if his temperature was high. Hanbin pulled away, an uncomfortable but humorous smile on his face.

“I’m not, I just needed to go outside.”

“What about me, Hyung? Do you think that I’m sick?” He fanned himself, puffing slightly and twisting his face in his best painful act. To his lack of surprise, Manager Potter didn’t even look his way.

“If you say so…” He looked reassured, at least. “I’ll be with you guys in about…” Their manager checked his watch. “30 minutes. Or maybe Yunhyuk will. I’m not quite sure about it yet.”

“Well, don’t hurry~” Bobby and Hanbin tiptoed around the man, who followed their movements with a raised eyebrow. “We’ll be there for another hour anyway. And the hour after that…until night…when people should be going to sleep instead of working and sweating their butts off.”

Their manager shook his head, walking away. “You all chose today to work on the dance routine, not me.”

They shrugged and called their goodbyes, heading once again to the practice rooms.

“Hey, Bobby-hyung,” Hanbin said as they reached the stairs. “What do you say you come work with me tomorrow? There’s something I’m having trouble figuring out.”

“Did you break something or something?” Bobby rummaged through his mini-pack and found a piece of candy. He unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth, saying, “Cause if you did, I’m not going to be much help.”

The younger rapper rolled his eyes. “There’s this melody that I can’t get. I need help squeezing it out.”

“Mm, what type of song is it, again?” He jumped the last couple rows of stairs, followed by a much calmer Hanbin.

“It’s like…” Hanbin clicked his tongue, thinking. “It’s supposed to sound like a soundtrack to this mystical land or something. Like, we start off calm and building up, and then we suddenly reach the point where everything just…explodes into color. I got most of it down, but I can’t help but feel like something’s missing. I need another ear.”

Bobby stopped at the door to the practice room and turned to look at him. “Do you have lyrics written down?”

Hanbin nodded.

“Good. I don’t want to ruin your little project by putting everything you don’t want on there,” Bobby laughed. He opened the door for him and followed Hanbin inside the practice room. “I don’t want another scolding, leader-san~”

Hanbin snorted. “You’re going to get it whether you want to or not.”

“So cruel. And yet you always deny it on interviews.”

“I just don’t like you guys saying it all the time and making…it…”

So engrossed were they in their conversation that they didn’t notice the tension in the air until they turned their heads and saw the members’ faces.

Jinhwan-hyung was holding his phone.

“Hyung?”

The way they stared at him without blinking was giving him more than the creeps. Was it way past 5 o’clock, already? Bobby looked to the clock on the wall. It said 4:59, which meant they were just in time. He turned back to them just in time to see Jinhwan open his mouth and say –

“…They called.”

For a moment, Bobby and Hanbin just stared uncomprehensive at them.

But then, as the clocked ticked the extruciatingly long seconds by, as he looked at each of the members before him, he finally identified their expressions. The blank frozen looks on their faces that he knew only pointed to one thing.

Shock.

His body felt like it was dumped with cold water before going through a blazing furnace. The words bounced along the walls of his mind, a jumble of confusion and burning desperate hope conflicting with horror overtaking his senses.

“Wh-who did?” He didn’t want to believe it was true until he knew for sure.

“Yunhyeong’s mom.” Jinhwan scrambled to get his stuff, with the other members following suit like a pack of deranged chickens. “We gotta go, we gotta go!”

“Wait – wait, Hyung what’s happened?” Hanbin struggled to get the eldest hyung’s attention as he too grabbed his jacket and essentials. “Hyung? Hyung! Wait! Jinhwan-hyung, what's happening?”

“He woke up, Hanbin!” Jinhwan shouted, stopping just as he was about to step through the doorway.

Bobby and Hanbin both froze.

“He woke up and we have no idea how long he will stay awake so stop standing there and hurry up!”

The rappers jolted and scrambled to follow after the other members who had ran out of the practice room as they delayed. They stampeded down the hall, apologizing profusely to the staff members who they frightened and almost ran over without stopping.

They ran out of the YG building and hailed a couple of taxis and Bobby was only faintly aware of the screams of several fans that occasionally monitored the building on the opposite side of the road.

His heart was pounding. There was a sheen of sweat gathering on his forehead and a hot iron pressing against his stomach and – frickin’ heck, the car would not move fast enough. Hanbin seemed to share the same idea because he leaned forward and asked the taxi driver to speed up because it is an emergency. He exhaled a bit when he felt the accelerator be put to use.

Donghyuk’s phone rang and he nearly dropped it as he tried to answer. Even without the speaker they could hear the scolding of one of their managers, asking what was going on and “where are you going and why are you leaving without anyone with you?”

Bobby didn’t listen further to hear Donghyuk’s words stumbling over each other due to the jumble of emotions not leaving his system yet. He could understand perfectly. There was no order to his thoughts at the moment and he didn’t believe it would slow down until they reached the Hospital.

Was this really happening? He and Hanbin were just talking about it not too long ago and for this to suddenly come up out of nowhere…was God answering their prayers? Was Yunhyeong going to be okay?

The buildings passed by in a blur, but to Bobby’s frustration it still took them 15 minutes to get to the Hospital. Bobby paid the driver and Hanbin practically pushed him to get out of the car. Up ahead, he saw the tall figure of Junhoe just disappear behind the front doors.

It was reminiscent to their arrival more than a few weeks ago, except there were no reporters or fans crowding the entrance and making it difficult to get inside.

Several times, Bobby almost slipped as he skidded around the corners, making sure to slow down enough when there were people going down the halls, Hanbin and Donghyuk following close behind. He caught up to Jinhwan just as they reached the doors of Yunhyeong’s room.

And they all stopped.

Inside…they would see the beginning of their future. The sacred momentous occasion that would determine how everything will play out in the end – their career, their brotherhood…their lives. And none of them were ready to see it, the fear in their hearts overtaking them in an instant as they stared at the innocent door blocking them from the one major step in gaining the answers they yearned for in absolute silence.

And just when Bobby gained the courage to lift a hand and reach for the door…

It opened.

There was no doorway of light that greeted them to their salvation. The morning rays filtering into the room were not angled to reach the door, but it provided them with a soothing assurance.

An assurance that almost caused their hearts to stop when they saw Yunhyeong’s little sister gazing at them with eyes of gorgeous wonder and a radiant smile upon her face.

“He’s…”

If it were possible, Eunjin smiled even wider at Jinhwan’s hesitant utterance. She beckoned them in and they wobbled forward like penguins trying to get through the door all at once. Once they were all through, she closed the door, grabbed Jinhwan’s wrist, and placed a delicate finger to her lips.

“He’s sleeping,” she whispered. Any mounting disappointment was taken away when she continued, “We weren’t there when the doctor called saying that he woke up. But he did a couple times before we got here and now he’s resting again.”

“We…we thought he was awake when you called,” Junhoe said, getting distracted by the bed that lay not too far from them.

“He fell asleep before I called. But the doctor said he could wake up again soon.”

She tried to pull them towards Yunhyeong’s bed, but they remained rooted in place. “Eunjin,” Jinhwan said. The younger sister of Yunhyeong looked at him, but nothing Bobby knew he wanted to say came out of his open mouth. Instead, after some hesitation, he settled on, “How is he, really?”

She looked at all their weary and hopeful faces. And something was going across her mind, something they didn’t know until her eyes shuttered and a gentle expression of trust and happiness came across her face.

“He saw us,” she said gently. “He saw Mom, he saw Dad, and he saw me. And he...he said our names.”

Nothing could express the unadulterated joy that burst in Bobby’s chest like fireworks. His legs nearly shook with the overwhelming relief and he could see that the other members fared similarly. Choked bubbling laughter strangled their voices and it was only after Eunjin shushed them gently and pulled once again that they allowed themselves to be led to the only bed in the room.

As always, Yunhyeong looked great. The light surrounded his body in a cocoon of warmth, but the curtain prevented it from reaching his unblemished face and disturbing his peaceful features.

The members stood around Yunhyeong’s bedside awkwardly at first, but as the seconds ticked by they all started to relax, content to just stare at Yunhyeong’s face and…wonder.

“Noona,” Bobby heard Chanwoo say quietly. “Did he say anything else?”

Did he say anything else about us?

And then he remembered.

It wasn’t over yet. It was far from over. Yunhyeong…if the damage taken to Yunhyeong’s brain was strong enough to put him in a coma, who knows what else could be affected? It could be his thoughts, his emotions, his ability to move. And just what if…what if…

What if Yunhyeong recognized his family, but he didn’t recognize them?

But before he could even go past that – that horrifying possibility and the foreboding feeling that came along with it, something happened. A tiny bit of movement out of the corner of Bobby’s eye and the sounds of the members’ breaths catching in their throats.

Yunhyeong’s eyes fluttered.

And so it was then, at that 24^th day counted down by the number of sunrises, that they watched the eyes that they longed to see for so long open slowly.

Cloudy black orbs that hid the mischievousness, the happiness and the childish joy of the bearer, a lurking fire in its depths.

Eunjin smiled proudly, caressing her fingers through her older brother’s tussled hair. But her eyes still displayed her amazement at the miracle.

They knew the exact moment when he stopped staring at the wall and finally focused on them. The wavering irises that finally focused on their group. Jinhwan stood at the front and Bobby could see the eldest freezing when those eyes landed on him.

Time stood still.

Yunhyeong’s expression remained blank and unreadable. Still under medication and drowsy from sleep.

And then…he closed his eyes again and rolled his head so that it lay on its side, towards the soothing fingers of his blood sister.

Bobby could’ve sworn his heart stopped.

Coldness crashed down upon him like a tidal wave. His widened eyes staring at their second-eldest brother who had so effortlessly dismissed them without a single thought.

“But—wha—?” Donghyuk’s choking voice summed up their feelings entirely.

 “Oppa?” Eunjin stopped moving her fingers and leaned her ear closer to Yunhyeong’s mouth. That they hadn’t noticed had moved, as much as they didn’t hear his voice. A few heartbeats later, she looked up and beckoned towards them. “Jinhwan-hyung?”

Jinhwan’s hand rose halfway in an aborted motion of pointing at himself in confusion. But he moved forward cautiously as the members watched with trembling hearts, not yet wanting to grasp the reality that they could see before them.

Eunjin got out of her chair by Yunhyeong’s bedside and Jinhwan sat down. She grabbed Jinhwan’s hand and, moving slowly so as not to cause alarm, carefully placed his hand besides Yunhyeong’s. Jinhwan stared at his hand that lay touching the slightly larger hand, pale from lack of sun, seemingly uncertain if it was okay.

But before he could even take the initiative, Bobby saw Yunhyeong’s hand move. They watched silently, raptured as the second-eldest’s hand twitched at the contact and grasped somewhat blindly for Jinhwan’s hand. Yunhyeong opened his eyes again, but this time he was looking straight at Jinhwan. 

Those few precious seconds were agonizingly slow.

Yunhyeong just stared at Jinhwan’s anxious face that was struggling to compose itself for the longest time without saying anything. His eyes blinked several times before slowing, as if wondering if his vision was being deceived.

Then finally he opened his mouth, and this time they could hear him quietly in a slightly raspy deep tone that caused their hearts to shake with unspeakable emotions. 

And at that moment, everything changed.

“…Hyung...Did I leave the stove on?”

For the longest time, you could hear a pin drop on the floor.

Yunhyeong didn’t notice and continued talking with slightly unfocused eyes and slurred words, “...'m...I'm sorry...Hyung.”

The stillness shattered.

Bobby and the members surged forward. Jinhwan slowly hid his face within the hair atop his dongsaeng's head, still clutching his hand like a lifeline as tears spilled out of his cheeks and his shoulders shook violently.

The mattress dipped dramatically as Bobby and the other members tumbled onto the bed, wrapping their arms around Yunhyeong’s torso, laying their head on his chest, his side, his legs, his stomach, careful not to put too much pressure - not just because they knew some wounds could not have healed fully yet, but because they were afraid to break the glass that they held at this moment. 

A glass that was far more beautiful than anything they had ever seen.

And if Eunjin left the room as soft crying began to fill the air or that Yunhyeong’s shoulders also began to shake, none of them were the wiser.

Yunhyeong was awake. Yunhyeong was alive. Yunhyeong remembered them.

And as long as he did, they knew in their hearts that the future was not against them. They will live through this. They will learn, they will rise, and they will heal. 

Just like in the past.

Just like now.