Taeyang’s eyes linger as Hwiyoung and Jaeyoon leave the room. The door slips out of the elder’s fingers and pushes a loud bam through the air as it snaps back into place. He feels terribly alone, with this metal barrier suddenly separating him from the two only lifelines he has in this team. The other members stir slightly at the intruding noise, and turn to him as he sits leant up against the wall. His eyes shift as they glare at him while snickering amongst themselves. He never felt this weak before, unable to even stand up and walk out of the room without any help. If he cannot even do that, does he have the right to be bothered by this uncomfortable situation in the first place? Him being here has after all, turned out to be pointless. He should have stayed back at the dorm.

Inseong rises from his seated position, trudges over to the sun, and prudently kicks the sole of the sun’s foot. He looks down at him with a stoic expression. “Hey. Are you going to answer us, or not?” They get full attention as all heads in the room turn against them. “We’ve been asking questions all this time, why do we get no answers? Are you deaf?” The oldest remains still, staring expectantly. A knot forms in Taeyang’s stomach. It twists with the expressions on his face.

“Um…” He keeps his head down.

The other members start flocking around them. Jaeyoon puts a hand on Inseong’s shoulder, leaning against it to support himself as he follows the older man’s line of sight. They all stand densely packed around the one on the floor, now getting inpatient, tapping feet and sharing annoyed glances with each other. Sanghyuk squats down in front of him, next to his outstretched legs.

“Seriously? You’re not going to say anything?”

Taeyang remains silent. “What do they want me to say?” His mind races as he tries to come up with something satisfactory to their requests, to explain his own thoughts, but they are jumbled and hard to make sense of, even to himself. A prolonged silence hangs in the air. The members lose patience as they realize they will not get anywhere with this approach. In a tired final attempt, they start pestering him for answers. They poke and push him, complainingly voiced comments because they are all fed up and are all questioning the sun’s motifs. Could he not even give them a simple explanation when they have to go through so much trouble because of him? Instead they must go out of their way to force it out of him, causing themselves to feel like bad people. After all, they did not want to do this, especially when they got this reaction. Shielding himself with his forearms, Taeyang feels frightened and trapped in the middle of this group of people. They pull on his arms and shake him, and all he wants to do is retreat. “Stop it, stop it, stop it…” he chants in his mind over and over again. The world around him is darkening, and the floor is sinking. He does not know these strange hands touching him, voices raised and talking over each other.

“Just say something”

“Why are you being like this?”

“Stop being childish, we just want to talk”

His heavy breathing hitches as he jolts back to reality with a surge of sharp pain through his body. As Rowoon was reaching down to grab hold of the younger’s sweater, his knee hit Sanghyuk, who started flailing frantically before toppling over onto the younger’s left leg. Instant realisation hits him as he lands sprawled out across the younger dancer’s limbs. He quickly gathers himself off, as a loud noise of pain is heard that brings everyone to silence. The room turns cold as the younger slowly brings his forearms down to move his palms to his face, all in complete silence, head turned down. His muscles are tightened, unmoving as if a rubber band was stretched inside of him, gradually tightening and about to snap. Whispering to each other, panicked, turning heads, they linger until Inseong pushes Jaeyoon’s shoulder, motioning them all to sit back down. Sanghyuk remains still in front of the younger, opening and closing his moth to say something, straining his mind for an apology. His face is, unlike himself, slack. A drop inside his stomach as the younger suddenly pulls in a hard breath. Juho pulls him along before any words spill out.