TWENTY-THREE

Luhan woke up early the next morning, unable to sleep, Kyungsoo’s words still imprinted onto his mind. Afraid his tossing and turning would wake Yifan, he settled onto the couch in the living room, mindlessly flipping through magazines and books on the coffee table to pass the time.

It was nearly five in the morning when Junmyeon entered silently, surprised to see Luhan standing beside the sofa, stretching his arms out above him and sighing. He tilted his head softly, and watched Luhan card his fingers through his hair, yawning into his palm. Luhan couldn’t see Junmyeon, seeing as Junmyeon was behind him, and didn’t hear when the younger approached.

He turned around to check the clock, and Junmyeon didn’t have time to hide. He gasped when he saw the leader standing there, shirtless, wearing basketball shorts and running shoes, and stumbled back in horror.

“Junmyeon!” he choked, clutching his chest, “you scared me!”

Junmyeon smiled lightly and ducked his head, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he chuckled, advancing forward and pushing his hair from his eyes. Luhan tried not to panic, but seeing Junmyeon approach him, without anything to cover his torso, flaunting his fit body, his muscle, how skinny and small he was compared to his fat, fat body—

“Why are you up so early?”

Luhan jumped, and gulped when he saw Junmyeon so close. His eyes met Junmyeon’s, before trailing down to his collarbones, his body, his arms and legs and how perfectly tiny and thin he was…

“Luhan?”

“Y-Yeah, sorry.”

Junmyeon smiled softly. “Couldn’t sleep?”

They locked gazes once more, and Luhan felt himself beginning to shake. He hated being so close to someone so perfect, when his body was so pathetic in comparison.

“Yeah,” Luhan replied quietly, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry. Did—did I wake you?”

Junmyeon shook his head, eyes widening. “Of course not! I was actually going out for a run, I didn’t expect you to be awake.”

Going out for a run.

“Do you want to come? It helps burn off steam.”

Burn off steam?

More like burn off fat.

The thought lingered for a while in his mind, and he questioned whether he wanted to go or not.

It’ll burn calories.

He approximated a 400 calorie loss, knowing Junmyeon was a pretty fast runner, and words of agreement tipped on the edge of his tongue.

That’ll definitely kill off breakfast – and hopefully lunch.

But when his eyes locked on Junmyeon’s body once more, and images of his disgusting reflection flooded his mind once more, he quickly declined, stepping back.

I’ll never be able to keep up with him.

Junmyeon frowned. “Are you sure?”

I’ll look so pathetic beside him.

Luhan felt upset seeing the look on Junmyeon’s face. He didn’t mean to offend the other, but he couldn’t help feeling scared.

I’m too fat to run, anyway.

He put his head down, embarrassed. “Yeah, I—”

He jumped when Junmyeon took his hand.

“Are you upset about yesterday?”

“Huh?”

Junmyeon tapped his chin lightly, making Luhan raise his head. “Kyungsoo. You’re worried about Kyungsoo, aren’t you?”

“N-No, I just—”

“You can talk to me, Luhan.”

You can talk to me, Luhan.

“You can trust me,” Kyungsoo said, “you can trust me, Luhan. Nobody else is ed up like us. We’ve only got each other and ourselves. There’s nobody else to trust. Everyone’ll just hurt you, like those voices in your head.”

Luhan pushed away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Junmyeon furrowed his eyebrows. “Kyungsoo’s outburst last night.”

“I-I just don’t want to run, okay?”

Which was a lie. He did want to run. He wanted to run and run, forever and ever until his body was bones and he was thinner than every other person in the world. He was simply self-conscious of running, in public, beside someone who was “obviously” fitter and slimmer than himself.

Noticing the panic in the elder’s eyes, Junmyeon stepped back.

“Sorry.”

Upset, Luhan covered his eyes and moved back to the couch, slumping down and putting his forehead in his knees. Junmyeon bit his lip, eyes softening, but resisted comforting the other and slowly backed out the door.

“I’ll be back in half an hour, okay?” he said gently, fingers closing around the doorhandle.

Luhan didn’t respond.

Junmyeon shut the door.

Everyone was worried when Yifan was the last to sit at the table the next morning for breakfast. It raised even more suspicion when he met eyes with Kyungsoo, put his head down on the table and started to cry.

Chanyeol reacted first, knocking over his chair to grab onto him. “Yifan!”                          

Chanyeol pulled his head off the table and grabbed onto his shoulders, panicking. “Yifan, what is it?”

Yixing quickly took hold of Yifan’s hands. “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?”

Yifan leaned back in his seat, head bowed, and cried into his chest, ignoring the frantic tugs from Chanyeol and hand squeezes from Yixing.

Kyungsoo stared at him expressionlessly, seemingly calm, but inside of his mind, he was anxious. He didn’t want anybody to talk about what he’d said the previous night. He didn’t want Yifan to make even more of a scene out of it.

Yifan finally stopped crying when Minseok banged his fist on the table and yelled out that crying was ruining his voice, and demanded for him to stop. Kyungsoo smirked to himself at the irony of it.

Tears still falling from his cheeks, Yifan pursed his lips, trying not to cry, and Yixing held his hands tenderly, staring into his eyes.

“Yifan,” he whispered, “please talk to us.”

He looked up at the ceiling, forcing his tears back, and exhaled shakily.

“I got a call this morning,” he whispered, voice breaking, “from the rehabilitation unit.”

Yixing’s grip on his hand weakened.

“Woosung – my bulimic friend – he’s…he’s in hospital. He’s having hallucinations, heart palpitations, blackouts. His organs are failing him. They can’t save him. He’s dying.”

Everyone had completely frozen. They all knew about Yifan’s bulimic friend, but Yifan himself seldom spoke about him. It hurt him too much to think about him, so nobody ever asked.

Slowly, Yixing placed his hand on the latter’s shoulder. “I-I’m sure they’ll be able to do something.”

Yifan shook his head. “Y-You don’t understand…he…he needs me. They called me because he’s not going back. He’s going to die there, in the hospital. And…and he needs me with him.”

Everyone looked at their feet. Yifan sounded torn.

“Today,” he whispered, “I’m going to contact management. And I’m going to stay with him until he’s gone. I don’t care how long it takes.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Junmyeon said immediately. Yifan glared at him.

“He’s ing dying! He’s dying, and he’s got nobody! Do you really expect me to just leave him there? I don’t care if I lose this ing job! I need to be with him!”

With that, Yifan stood up, pushing away Chanyeol and Yixing, and stormed out, leaving everyone lost for words. All of their hearts hurt for Yifan, but Kyungsoo couldn’t block out the sick stir of relief, that somebody else was worse off than him, a distraction from him, for everyone else.

“There are only eleven members here,” the choreographer snapped, fingers drumming against the CD player. “Who is missing, and why?”

“It’s Yifan,” Junmyeon said quickly. “He’s gone to speak with a higher staff member. About personal issues.”

The man sighed. “Health reasons?”

Junmyeon glanced at the other members, who looked away.

“His friend is…dying. He wants to see him.”

He scoffed. “Irresponsible. Putting his personal life before his career. I’ll have to speak to him about this—”

“Sir, please,” Yixing said timidly, “his friend needs him right now. He hasn’t got much time, and he’s got nobody left. Please, sir, we can dance without Yifan. Just for today.”

After a long pause, the choreographer rolled his eyes, and pressed ‘play’ on the CD player.

“Get into position. He’d better be back soon.”

An hour into practice, Yifan stepped into the room, puffy-eyed and silent. He bowed deeply to the dance teacher and sidled into position without a word.

“Excuse me,” the instructor snapped.

Yifan looked up, bowing again.

“Sorry I’m late, sir. I had to deal with personal issues.”

“I’m aware.”

Yifan bit his lip. “It won’t happen again.”

“Good. I should hope everything’s sorted now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Yixing looked over at the elder uncertainly, but Yifan avoided his gaze.

Yifan opened his eyes and took off his headphones when he felt someone pulling at his sleeve. He looked over to find the empty seat beside him occupied by someone smaller than himself – Yixing.

He frowned; upset his song had been interrupted. “Go sit next to Zitao.”

“I want to talk to you.”

Sighing, Yifan paused his music and stowed his iPod and headphones in his bag, before straightening up and looking at the latter straight in the eyes. “What?”

Yixing’s eyes were soft, and immediately, Yifan felt bad for acting so cold towards him.

“Yes?” Yifan asked, voice gentler.

“How did today go?”

I should have known.

Yifan looked away. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

He waited for Yixing to leave, but instead, the soft warmth of another hand slid into his, and he gulped.

“Talk to me, Yifan,” Yixing said quietly, “I’m here to help you. You can talk to me. It’s okay.”

Yifan bit his lip.

“They said yes.”

Yixing’s eyes widened. “What? Yes to what?”

“They said I could go. Tomorrow morning. And come back the day after.”

Yixing looked shocked, but a smile spread across his lips nonetheless. “That’s great, Yifan! You should be happy!”

“I-I don’t know…”

Yifan ducked his head down, thoughts whirring. He was so happy he could finally, finally see Woosung again, but it could quite possibly be the last time they ever saw each other. What assured him Woosung would even make it?

“Don’t look so down, Yifan. This is a great opportunity to see him again.”

“I don’t know if I can do it,” he whispered, “I’m scared. I don’t know if I can handle seeing him like this. He’s not going to live, Yixing.”

Yixing made a small coo of pity, and hugged Yifan around the waist. “Oh, Yifan…”

Yifan pushed him away. “Don’t. Please.”

Yixing sighed. “Alright. I understand. But I’m here if you need me, okay?”

Yifan didn’t face him.

The younger pulled out the headphones and iPod from the bag helpfully, and carefully slipped the headpiece onto Yifan’s head again, pressing ‘play’ on the screen.

He wondered what song ‘duet’ was, but didn’t ask.

✏ [ a/n ] important bits here yay!!!!!!!! significant-ish woosung related things ayayay now this strange unknown oc finally has some worth lmao actually he's pretty useless apart from the next (few?) chapter/s and a bit further into the story and also he's the reason yifan picks up on the symptoms of the EDs and stuff idk just in case you guys are curious he doesn't really exist like irl he's not based off any real friend of yifan or any person named woosung he's just a random lol oh well i'm sorry for the crappy last chapter and just the generally crappy chapters i'm sorry this story even exiSTS omg but you guys keep me updating proudly you are srs the reason why i keep this story thank you for making me proud of this and keeping me strong, i love you guys so much and thank you for the 50 upvotes omg i (obviously) couldn't have done it without you <3 if any of you guys are curious, one reader here xxmindlesslovexx requested another minseok-based ed/selfharm fic, and i'm glad to say: i've finally got an idea, and it's underway! knowing me and my slow writing it'll take a long time to complete but it's very psychologically-based and kind of brutal so if you guys are into that kind of stuff, you can keep your eyes peeled and i'll tell you if it's up and posted if that's done before the story finishes ;; i know it might be hard to keep up with my stories because my profile is friend-locked but if you guys just send me a friend request i'll gladly accept you ^^ i'm very cautious about who i add now because of a plagiarism issue with one of my oneshots so if i don't accept your request i probably haven't identified that you're a reader of mine. don't take this personally that's just me being unobservant lol you can always leave a comment or contact me elsewhere if you think i haven't accepted your friend request and i'll add you gladly! thanks for all of your support everyone ilysm hope you enjoyed ;; <3

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