Hysterical screams pierce through the initial peaceful stillness of the night, echoing in every corner of the dormitory, waking everyone up.

Needless to say, Joonmyun is always the first to get up. His eyes fly open in exasperation while he adruptly drags himself out of bed to switch their lights on, before rushing instantaneously to Sehun’s side.

Joonmyun wraps his arms around the trembling Sehun, the younger’s cries muffled into sniffling sobs in his chest. He can feel a patch of dampness on his jersey t-shirt and the sharp hitches of breath.

Their door opens hastily, revealing four groggy boys. They make their way in with shuffled steps and surround the two.

“Everything’s fine now…” Joonmyun recites like a whispering mantra in Sehun’s ear and draw circles on his back with his hand in an attempt to calm him down. He feels Sehun’s body slowly relaxing under his comforting touch.

“Hyung, has he been taking his shots?”

Joonmyun shakes his head and his lips are pressed into a thin line. Silence ensued.

That silent moment resonates with everyone in the room. Nobody will want to go through the same damn torturing routine of injections every single day and night. Joonmyun thinks that there is no need for Sehun to take his jabs for now since his condition is improving.

But he is wrong.

For the corner of his eye, he sees those clusters of tiny red dots tainting Sehun’s smooth pale skin at the wrist areas, and his realization that those are his responsibility only accumulates his guilt. Every time he wills himself to the needle into Sehun’s wrist, he feels like running away. Despite doing it countless times, he still isn’t numb by the sight of it. It’s like reliving your worst memory, and facing your biggest fear, and the cycle repeats, and it hurts more after another.

But for Sehun to get better, he has no other choice, even though it’s killing him inside out.