pic credit to http://tb-cont.tumblr.com

"He's...

he's gone."

I stood there, speechless. Shivers ran down my spine and radiated to my stomach, causing me to bring my hand over my mouth to steady this crippling nausea. Seconds turned into hours as neither one of us spoke, the other letting it sink in as he himself tried hard to keep it together.

"Mr. Wu," he cleared his throat, "had Mr. Yixing overexherted himself in any practices these past few days?"

I thought for a second and then shook my head. Everything had been normal.

"Hmm... Then in that case, he probably hit or got hit by something which in turn loosened the clot. It traveled to his heart, and that's where it got caught. There was a bruise on his hand, but we haven't yet been able to determine..."

Anything else he had to say faded into black as his last sentence echoed off of the aching walls inside of my skull.

'...hit by something...'

// FLASHBACK //

A few seconds later I could hear the door to his room being slammed shut so hard that it rattled the windows. I violently sighed something that was a cross between a scream and a grunt, anger taking over. I clenched my fist and slammed it against the granite countertop. I felt no pain and looked down in question only to see a hand inbetween mine and the counter. My eyes traveled upwards to find the owner and saw none other than Yixing calmly standing there.

// PRESENT //

'...loosened the clot...'

More chills racked my frame as the reality of what happened slowly started to settle. The doctor dismissed himself after giving me his condolences, and left me there to stand in the now spinning room. A heavy wave of nausea had me running to the nearest trash can, wretching. Getting the flashes of memories to stop was impossible, sending my eyelids crushing shut to try and rid myself of the now heart-wrenching memories.

When I was able to control my emotions, I forced myself to step back towards the waiting room where Tao, Chen, and Luhan were. Each step I took was riddled with guilt and shame.  As a leader I was supposed to watch over my members, my brothers, care for them, trust them, forgive them, do everything for them... I have failed.

I truly have.

XiuMin was no where in sight. I couldn't blame him; I told him to get out of here. 

But never in my life did I think he would be gone this long.

Yixing was...

How was that taking care of him? How am I supposed to watch over him now?

"Yifan." A soft yet stern voice interrupted my thoughts. Who was it from? It sounded familiar, but... 

I just couldn't place it.

A fuzzy image of the two I missed most played before me. They were laughing and smiling together-

"Yifan," another soft voice came through, making the image before me blur more. A comforting feeling overcame my fingertips, slipping through them and warming them. I felt pressure, something squeezing my hand, and the vision before me distorted into something real and clear. My daydream subsided. Tao stood beside me, hand in hand with me. He looked at me with longing, wanting to ask what happened yet unable to find the courage to do so.

Knowing I needed to do what came with the job as a leader, I looked all of them in the eye.

And shook my head 'no'.