“Baekhyunnie. Baek, you’re alright. You’re good. You’re safe. No one is angry, no one is going to hurt you. It’s alright.” Chanyeol chanted into Baekhyun’s ear in an attempt to calm him, the others were crowding around them, also whispering words of comfort until Kyungsoo shooed them away, saying that crowding him was not going to help.

He secured his arms tightly around the younger – the hadn’t expected this to happen. It was so sudden, a simple mistake and immediately after that came the tears and the apologies.

It broke Chanyeol’s heart. It broke all their hearts, honestly. They’d thought he was getting better, but apparently they were wrong.

The younger was still apologizing. They were inaudible, but his lips were still continuously forming the words ‘I’m sorry.’ And ‘Please don’t hit me’ over and over again. The taller male continued to counter the apologies with ‘It’s okay’ and rubbing Baekhyun’s back soothingly.

Kyungsoo was next to them also rubbing his back, the others were standing to the side, simply watching with concern and sorrow etched onto their faces. Even the ever-smiling Jongdae wasn’t smiling, not in the slightest.

When the flinching had started to die down and the disbelief on Baekhyun’s behalf that they weren’t going to hurt him had stopped, they’d thought Baekhyun was getting better. Which he was, but they overestimated it.

Baekhyun had stuffed up one of the moves during practice one night, it was nothing major, he’d made less mistakes than anyone else in the room, but apparently he thought differently. He’d frozen immediately, moved his hands to cover his face as endless apologies spilled from his quivering lips. The members were confused at first, but then slowly that confusion turned into a complicated mixture of panic, shock, worry, concern, and anger. They weren’t angry at Baekhyun, not at all. They were angry at the fact that he’d just stood there, didn’t even try to defend himself from the blow he’d assumed was coming, he’d just accepted it.

It took a whole ten minutes of getting – attempting to get – the singer to calm down and a multitude of “No one’s going to hurt you” and “It’s okay, you’re alright, don’t worry about it, you’re safe” to actually get him to breathe. Chanyeol wrapped his arms around him and the small male finally came to his senses when he registered the rapper’s warmth as safe.

No one spoke about it after for the rest of the duration of practice, deciding that it was a conversation to have without the younger lest he have another panic attack.

It was at that moment that the members – despite what they wanted to believe – discovered that Baekhyun was not as okay as they thought he was.

Their comeback was close. They’d been preparing for quite a while now and they were about to start releasing teasers. The members were fairly certain that this album would do well; it suited their style, the choreography had enough fan-service in it to be a killer, and the songs really showcased off their different talents.

While they were worried about the responses Baekhyun would receive, they knew that there was nothing that could be criticized about his singing. The album was with his falsettos – which is something that none of them could do to his standard, despite being older – and powerful voice in hopes that it would distract people from the fact that he’s a new member.

The only issue at the present time was preparing for variety shows. They had a live showcase before their initial release and they needed to work on their teamwork to make it as easy as possible. Of course they’d be asked about the new addition to the group, and they had to prepare for the worst of questions.

Which is how they’d landed themselves in this situation. A group ‘meeting’ in the practice room. Only, they were all silent in deep thought.

That was until Jongin broke the silence, though.

“What if we ask them to not ask any questions beforehand?”

Junmyeon shook his head, “No, there’s still a chance that they’ll ask us about it even if we do. We can’t risk not being prepared.”

The new addition in question was feeling quite guilty at the moment. Everyone was stressed out because of him. I shouldn’t have joined the –

“What if we come up with a code word? Like, if someone senses that it’s going into dangerous territory, just say the word in a random sentence to alert everyone.” Yixing suggested. “Or, if Baekhyun starts to feel uncomfortable in a situation, he can say it and we can help him out. Because there’s no way we’re going to get out of being asked questions.”

The members all let out sounds of agreement, Kyungsoo being the next to speak up.

“But it has to be something that’s easily put into a sentence, normal enough for people to not notice, and uncommon so that we won’t have to use it in a situation that isn’t uncomfortable or dangerous.”

“What about ‘unbelievable’? It would be easy to use in a situation like that, probably.” Sehun proposed.

Minseok looked at the others, “What do you guys think?” he asked.

“That would work,” Chanyeol began, “If someone asks us something like ‘what was your reaction to having an addition to the group?’ we can say something like ‘well it seemed unbelievable at first…’ Or if they ask Baekhyunnie what he thought about entering he could say ‘It was unbelievable’ or something.”

Junmyeon nodded, “Sounds good. Baekhyun, are you okay with that? Using ‘unbelievable’ as a code word?” he asked.

Baekhyun’s head shot up, nodding his head quickly in agreement.

The other members were still worried about him. They’d had a conversation about the incident already, and the most they could come up with was creating a code word. They’d brought it up today as if they’d only just thought of it so as to not make Baekhyun suspicious, even though he probably wouldn’t be.

There was nothing they could do about the panic attacks apart from help him through them and be as alert as they could about situations that could spark another one. Especially live. Of course, Baekhyun’s mental health would always be priority, they couldn’t risk him having an attack in front of countless people. They didn’t want the small male to have to suffer through the embarrassment of that or have people talk about him as though he was invalid any more than people already do.

That night everyone slept well, they had to get in as much sleep as possible before their showcase. Chanyeol had been planning to post another selca with Baekhyun but he figured after everything that’s happened recently he’d give him a bit of a break. He’ll just post one tomorrow.

Which is exactly what he did.

“Baekhyunnie~” He singsonged as he waltzed into said person’s room unannounced at 5AM sharp.

There was a grunt that sounded from the mound of blankets on the bed adjacent to the window, but when nothing followed that the rapper slowly made his way over to the bed and ripped the covers off.

“Morning!” He exclaimed with a bright smile. Still no reaction from the fast asleep seventeen-year-old with messy pink hair.

Chanyeol was startled when a voice sounded from somewhere behind him.

“Chanyeol-hyung can you actually shut up please. It’s 5 in the morning. Too early for your bull.”

He seemed to have forgotten that Baekhyun was temporarily sharing a room with Sehun. The taller turned to face the other who was currently glaring at him, still covered in his blankets. He obviously had no intentions of waking up, and by the looks of it, neither did Baekhyun.

“I already had enough issues with Baekhyun last night. Did you know he whimpers like a puppy in his sleep? It was cute at first but it just kept happening.” He continued.

“Well, maybe he had a bad dream?” Chanyeol chuckled.

Sehun let out a huff, “I don’t think he had a 7-hour long bad dream, hyung. But it’s fine. It’s not his fault, I’m just grumpy because I’m tired so I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me to sleep in peace.”

The taller simply sighed and relented.

“Okay, but later you’re taking a photo with me and Baek to put on Instagram.”

The other rolled his eyes, “Is that really all you came in here for? God, please leave.” He laughed.

Chanyeol smiled in return and left, though not before covering Baekhyun back up with the blankets.

Later that day, once everyone was awake and preparing themselves for a day full of practice and teaser releases, the main rapper of the group was looking for someone.

That certain someone was currently in an animated conversation with Jongdae as they ate breakfast. Kyungsoo had mentioned to him the other day about Jongdae poisoning Baekhyun’s mind and that they needed to stop it before it gets worse, but it was bound to happen eventually so why not let it happen early?

He didn’t want to be too clingy towards Baekhyun so he let them be; he had to find Sehun anyway.