A clash of thunder soon followed by a bright flash of lightening signaled the inevitable approach of a wicked storm. The impending storm sent a chilling wind through the city, cooling the sun's last dying rays. Fall was once again approaching, declaring its arrival with a foreboding downpour. Hakyeon watched as the first sprinkling of raindrops splattered on the pavement below. Gradually, the somber leader's focus became disoriented. Instead, his thoughts deviated to what he now believed to be a memory. The haunting memories saturate his mind, severing his hold on the real world until he is left with no hope for escape. Onlookers wouldn't suspect something amiss, thinking of it nothing more than that of a young man watching a downpour raging outside. They would never realize that the man was a captive within his own subconscious. 

"Hakyeon," a solitary figure called after the stoic man. Dressed in only a pair of pajama pants and a T-shirt, the newcomer seated himself cross-legged beside the other. He waved a hand in front of the other's inert eyes and frowned when he didn't draw a response. Wonsik released a long sigh and brushed his naturally black hair out of his eyes. He noted the dark rings under the leader's eyes acquired from many accumulated sleepless nights with disdain. The comeback was wearing all of them down, like how water slowly turns boulders into pebbles. There's nothing any one of them can do to change it though. They've all become accustomed to the daily fatigue that comeback promotions bring. Daily performances, talk shows, variety shows, interviews, photoshoots...They should be used to all of that. However, they are only human. The human body can only operate on so little sleep, with so little food, and with so much energy exertion for only so long. Eventually, they would all break.

Wonsik himself remembers a time when all he did was sleep when there was an opportunity. The other members were all nice enough to allow him the few moments of escape into his dreamland, if only to joke at his expense, but he appreciated it regardless. There were plenty of occasions when Hakyeon had even caught him sleeping on camera, but didn't wake him up. Their leader most of all knew how exhausted everyone was.

As of late, Hakyeon seemed to be fading out of reality. It was the only way that Wonsik knew how to describe it. Their leader was spending increasingly more time within the confines of his own mind that some days he would barely utter a word. Their manager had taken the dancer to the doctor one blisteringly hot summer day after he had collapsed. They wrote the incident off as a case of heat exhaustion, but it continued well after the summer heat began to dwindle.

Another flash of lightening lit the room, illuminating the leader’s face and accentuating his sunken features in shadows. “You need to sleep. We have a performance tomorrow.” Wonsik sighs and gently shakes the other’s shoulders. The gentle gesture seems sufficient enough to rattle the leader out of his trance, the older man blinking back to reality.  He didn’t turn immediately as the recognition returned to his eyes, instead he took in the sights of the evening storm in front of him and gave his mind time to bury the memories that kept resurfacing.

Finally, Hakyeon turned to the member who had shaken him out of his thoughts, immensely grateful to Wonsik for being his personal savior. Wonsik looked expectantly to the other, knowing the excuse that the leader was about to give once again. “Ah sorry,” Hakyeon sighed before looking out over the rainy landscape once more. For a moment Wonsik thought Hakyeon might possibly tell him what was wrong. I got lost, was always the excuse he gave them, but with no explanation how could they ever hope to understand what that phrase meant? Wonsik worried that maybe the leader had gotten trapped in his mind once more as a long silence stretched between them. “I seem to get lost more and more these days.” Wonsik let out a frustrated sigh. He wasn’t upset about the fits, as their manager calls them, but because Hakyeon refused to explain to any of them what was going on in his head. He always danced around the subject with them, hell, he had even avoided it with the therapist that the company had sent him to.  No one could get answers from the secretive man.

“Come to bed, we have to be up early,” the rapper urged, to which the leader nodded tiredly and stood on shaky legs.  Hakyeon and Wonsik parted ways to go to their separate rooms, but Wonsik stopped when he noticed Hakyeon pause with his hand on the door handle.

“Thank you.” Hakyeon whispered before opening the door and disappearing into his room. Wonsik wondered what the sudden gratitude was for, but his bed was beckoning him and he decided not to ignore its calls. He laid down, feeling a little weary about the small little thank you before bed. Something wasn’t right.

He should have listened to his gut feeling. The next morning, Wonsik awoke to Hyuk’s frantic cries. The rapper shot up, already aware that something wasn’t right the night before. When he entered the dark room that Hakyeon shared with the blonde maknae, he witnessed the younger shaking the slumbering leader harshly. “Hakyeon, he won’t wake up.” Hyuk wept, his face stained with tears. “They took him back. They trapped him again.”

Wonsik didn’t know what Hyuk was going on about, but their leader was unmoving and pale. His normally tan skin looked clammy and sickly. “He needs to go to the hospital,” Taekwoon declares, his soft voice is laced with urgency.

“No, they took him back.” Hyuk’s wails are unsettling for all of them, as they all feel a strong sense of déjà vu take hold of them. Jaehwan gently grasps the youngest boy’s shoulders, but the blonde doesn’t let go of the unconscious leader. Hyuk seems to calm down though and let’s his thoughts roam free. He doesn’t think the others will believe him. After all, he was the only one who remembered the maze before.

Photo Credits go to Dave H.