“He will be okay.”

Almost everyone in the corridor let out a relieved sigh when the Doctor said the words. Almost, because Eric was still having the horrified look on his face when he asked almost immediately, “Can I see him?”

“Of course, you can, Mr. Mun.” the Doctor smiled, gesturing to the door.

Hesitatively, Eric took few steps forward and pushed the door open.

The strong smell of medication hit his nostrils when he approached the white-sheeted bed. His steps faltered when the face of the figure on the bed came into his sight.

There he was.

His Hyesung.

Lying motionlessly, as if he was sleeping, Hyesung’s face was as beautiful as Eric had always remembered. Eric felt tears on his eyes as he saw Hyesung breathed faintly, his chest rose up and down.

He was alive.

His Hyesung was alive.

Eric fastened his step and reached the bed in no time, hand hovered on top of the others’ before gripping it tightly, desperately, frantically. Hyesung’s hand was still colder than it normally was, and the last time he nagged at him, the last time those lips pouted cutely because of him, the last time those fingers ran through his silky hairs were seemed like already long time ago when in fact he was just being unconscious for merely an hour.

“Hyesung-ah…” he whispered; tears escaped from his eyes. He took the hand before his lips and kissed it gently. “Hyesung-ah…”

More tears ran down his cheeks as the Little Prince didn’t respond to his call.

“It’s not your fault.” Came Minwoo’s voice from his back.

Eric didn’t turn around, he didn’t even flinch, but Minwoo knew he was listening.

“We were just… Playing. No one would ever know everything will end up like this. So Eric-ah, don’t you dare blame yourself for what happened tonight.”

“Minwoo-ya…”

Minwoo heart clenched at how broken the Leader’s voice was.

“If there’s something wrong with Hyesungie… What should I do?”

---

“If you can do it what will you do?”

Hyesung yawned while the other four pairs of eyes looked at Dongwan who was grinning from ear-to-ear.

The Shinhwa members were eating together in Hyesung’s apartment. They had just completed recording all parts for their 12^th album and decided to have a little feast. They went shopping for ingredients and cooked—well, Andy, Dongwan and Eric were cooking while the rest played with Hyesung’s game console. After eating, they chattered about practically everything until Dongwan brought up an interesting subject.

The Astral Projection, that is.

“We really can travel everywhere, right?” Minwoo’s eyes narrowed as he was thinking. “I want to go to Mount Everest… And see how you’ll look sooooo small from above…” he chuckled.

“Can we really fly when we’re on our astral state?” Junjin asked interestedly.

“Walk, jump, fly… They said we can do everything; gravity won’t affect our soul, it affects our body but not our soul.”

“Uwaah, I wanna try walking on the sea surface!” Andy chimed. “But Hyung, how could you know that much about this Astral thingy?”

As if he already waited for someone who would ask him that, Dongwan pulled a book from his bag and waved it in front of others’ face. “Jajaaaaaaan.”

“What is it? How to Perform Astral Projection?” Andy read aloud. “Woah, you’ve been practicing?”

“I tried, but I always ended up falling asleep.”

“Let me see.” Eric, who had been silent all this time, snatching the book and quickly, opened the first few pages. “It seems interesting.”

“Let’s try it!”

Hyesung groaned while everyone else shouted in agreement.

The main vocalist was tired. The recording of his part took longer than everyone else’s. He did retake so many times because he wasn’t really satisfied with the result. Now that he was full and sleepy, he just wanted to have some sleep.

But there was no way he would have a peaceful sleep when s were around.

“Can’t we try it another time? I’m sleepy.”

Five different voices ignored his request at once.

“Hear, hear, it’s said that you have to be in a state of deep relaxation to do this.” Eric read. “So one of us should lie down and try to relax while the rest of us will be the observers, how is that?”

“Call, call!”

Hyesung leaned on the couch and closed his eyes, feeling the sleepiness slowly took over his mind. The members’ voices seemed like coming from far away.

“..sung-ah.”

“Hyesung-ah!”

Aish. Hyesung’s eyes snapped open in an instant as he stared irately at Dongwan. “What?!”

“Don’t sleep! Seriously, this guy…”

“But I’m sleepy!” the Little Prince pouted. “Don’t you know how comfortable it feels when you’re full and warm after a long tiring day singing your heart out? I spent half a day to record my part for heaven’s sake, please give me a break!”

“But Hyung it’s your own fault.” Junjin retorted, and Hyesung glared at his Baby Bird for not siding with him. “It’s true! You kept retaking even though we said it’s been perfect, and in the end you admit that it really is, after… How long? An hour of retaking the same part…”

Hyesung wanted to retort back but he just couldn’t say anything since Junjin was speaking the truth. Yes, he was perfectionist, worrying that he wasn’t good enough, insisting to do it all over again and ignoring Eric and Minwoo who tried to convince him that he already did great.

“I’m doing my best for our comeback album and this is what I got?” he sulked.

“We just wanna have fun…” Minwoo shoved him his puppy eyes. “You don’t wanna have fun with us? Now I’m sad…”

Hyesung slapped Minwoo’s shoulder and straightened his back in defeat. “Okay! Let’s do it, let’s do this Astral thing, this is what you want, right?”

“Yaaay!”

Hyesung sighed; he forgot that s still act like five years old sometimes.

He listened halfheartedly while the others continued discussing things.

“But because we need to be aware of our body even though our soul wandering somewhere else, we have to stay focus. And we shouldn’t be outside our body for too long, some said it weakens the connection between our body and soul, so we need to be back on time. Okay, let’s start. Who will do it?” Dongwan asked eagerly, looking around. They exchanged glance.

“Eung… I’m easily distracted, so I don’t think I can do it.”

“I fall asleep too easily, so I don’t think I can’t do it.”

“Ah… Since my waist is hurt… I don’t think I—“

“What it has to do with AP?” five different voices yelled at Andy.

Hyesung yawned again, his eyes felt so heavy.

“Then Hyesungie, you do it!”

“Huh?” Hyesung blankly turned his head to Eric, who beamed.

“You’re light sleeper, so among all of us, your soul will be the easiest to reenter your body, right?”

Light sleeper...

A bulb appeared above Hyesung’s head after hearing Eric’s words.

“Yeah! I’ll do it!”

Great. How could he don’t think about it earlier. Of course he would be the one who perform the AP, what was so hard to lie down and close his eyes and relax anyway?

Hyesung wasted no time to lie down on the floor, not really caring about the hard and cold floor. He just wanted to have some sleep, few minutes would be enough.

“Okay, I’m ready.” He said as he closed his eyes.

“Now listen to me.” Dongwan commanded. “Close your eyes and try to relax your body…”

Hyesung failed to hear the rest of Dongwan’s words because his body felt so light and his mind was slowly shutting off. Finally. He thought triumphantly, congratulating himself for having been able to deceive his childish friends.

He felt relax and calm as he let himself fell deeper and deeper into his slumber.

Or at least that was what he thought, because next second he could see a spot of light appeared somewhere before him. The spot grew bigger and bigger, the light was now overtaking the dark. But rather than being dazzled, Hyesung felt the light illuminating his surrounding, and things started to appear around him. The feeling was like being waken up from a nap. And he could see Dongwan, Eric, Minwoo, Andy and Junjin above him, staring at him intensely.

Wait, when did he open his eyes?

“Is he sleeping?” Junjin queried.

Sleeping? Couldn’t he see that he was wide awake?

“Yah, I think he’s sleeping.” Minwoo agreed.

Hyesung was about to get up, but he couldn’t feel his body weight anymore.

“What…?” he whispered as he leaped into his feet, as light as feather. It didn’t feel right. Something was wrong. Hyesung turned around to look at s, but what he saw in front of him made his jaw dropped and eyes widened in shock.

“No ing way…”

He was staring at his own body, lying on the floor, eyes closed. The members sat around him.

“W-wait! How could this…” He stuttered.

Hyesung closed and opened his mouth, trying to say something. How weird it was, seeing himself sleeping like that. His friends didn’t seem to hear him, as they kept staring to his body attentively. Hyesung was lost for words. He tried to touch Junjin, who was closest to him—his soul—but the younger didn’t seem to feel anything as his translucent hand went through his shoulder.

“Jin-ah!” he called out frantically, but Junjin was completely oblivious of him.

“I’m one hundred percent sure he’s sleeping.” Andy stated. “Ey… This Hyung…”

“Let’s wake him up.” Junjin reached out his hand but Eric grabbed it.

“Don’t. Let him sleep some more.” The Leader said. “He’s tired.”

 “Ah… You!” Minwoo suddenly exclaimed, surprising the others. “You did it intentionally, right?”

“What?”

“Choosing him!” the main dancer then pouted. “Seriously, you did it so he could get some rest, didn’t you?”

Hyesung stunned as Eric grinned widely.

“Eric-ah! You spoil Hyesung too much!”

“What?”

“You did it earlier too, in the studio.” Minwoo said sharply. “When he was about to retake his part. You could have told him that it was already his best, but you let him did it hundred times even though he finally agreed to use the one we chose earlier. If only you convinced him, we could have saved few hours!”

Eric chuckled.

“So… Hyung… When do you plan to tell Hyesung-hyung?”

Hyesung frowned at Junjin’s question. What was that about? And he frowned even more when Eric’s face suddenly became dark and serious.

“There’s no way I’d tell him.”

“But why?”

It was Andy who whined.

“Hyung, you’ve been keeping your feeling for too long… Why don’t you tell him?”

Tell what? Hyesung seriously had no idea what s were talking about. But he had to be the only one, because the others were looking at Eric sympathetically when the Leader shook his head.

“I’ll let him find out by himself.”

“It will take Hyesungie about a hundred years to notice your feeling, he’s so dense.”

“Yah!” Hyesung shouted, forgetting that Dongwan couldn’t hear him. He really didn’t get it. What feeling? And with a slap, he realized that he just got distracted by something less important than the fact that he didn’t know how he can end up performing a perfect astral projection only in one try.

Hyesung stood there, staring at his body and recalling how to get back into his body when he suddenly felt someone’s stare behind his shoulder.

He quickly turned around and let out a shock gasp.

There was another soul in front of him, in the form of a woman with sad face.

“An empty body…” she whispered, her eyes glinted.

Hyesung felt another presence beside him and he turned left, just to see another soul of a middle aged man staring at his body with longing on his eyes.

“A body…”

Hyesung’s eyes widened in realization as the two souls started floating toward his body.

“No!” He exclaimed fearfully. “No!”

Hyesung launched forward, he was a step ahead of the two souls, and with all his might he crashed his soul back into his body.

Eric, Minwoo, Dongwan, Andy and Junjin were shocked when suddenly the body in front of them jerked. Hyesung’s eyes snapped open in horror and with a loud scream, he sat up.

“Hyung!”

“Hyesung-ah!”

After letting out a long scream, Hyesung body jerked one more time before he fell back into the floor and stayed still.

The Shinhwa members froze on their spot. Their gaze was fixed at Hyesung’s motionless body. Everything happened so fast that they didn’t even know what had just happened.

“Hyesung-hyung…?” Andy reached out his hand and touch Hyesung hand.

There was no response from the older.

“Hyung… He…” Andy’s face was white as his grip tightened around the main vocalist’s wrist. “The pulse is… Getting weaker…”

There was a short silence after he said the words, and then everyone moved at the same time. Junjin and Minwoo rushed to Hyesung’s body, Dongwan pulled out his cellphone.

“Oh, no, he’s not breathing. He’s not breathing!” Minwoo panicked as leaned above Hyesung, trying to catch the faintest sign of breathing from him. “Hyesung-ah, hyesung-ah!”

“Hyung! Don’t you dare leave us like this!” Junjin quickly pushed Minwoo aside and pressed his palms onto Hyesung’s chest, trying to revive him.

“We must take him to hospital!”

In one move, Eric lifted Hyesung’s body with his arms and got up on his feet. Dongwan held the door for him as he ran as quickly as possible to his car, other members following close behind him.

“Please, Sung-ah, please.” Eric whispered repeatedly all the way to the hospital. His arms wrapped around Hyesung, hugging him tightly. And his heart sank into his feet when he felt the other’s body was getting colder as time went by. “Don’t leave me, don’t leave me. I love you.”

-tbc-

AN: I finally managed to post the first chapter! I'm really sorry for the delay, I didn't realize that I got a lot of things to do... And let me say thank you very much for evie11, ayane_momo, andrewer, milu23, Arisa4, Shinbella, hyuu_hikari, Vien1103, kitiwanw, angelaN, NikeIsCrazy, princessgre, chapy, tashigated, feelgyo, lelamuliani, starlitsung, miss_tri, Izzymon, obsidianbutterfly, clumsyblue, Songhabnida, milan0613, catherine_leite, Chan87, manhyei, seikyu, winry_chidory, ruru2kay, shinhwaforever09, for every one of you who have subscribed and commented on my foreword. I was so surprised and happy to know so many of you anticipating this fic. I hope I didn't disappoint you with this update, and I promise I'll do even better in my next update. Thank you very much! *bows deeply* :D