Kyuhyun launched himself down the hallway and into the bathroom before violently puking into the toilet. Some small part of him couldn’t believe he had anything in his stomach at all. Kyuhyun stopped to catch his breath, before the thoughts in his head organized and became coherent.

Selfish. Getting drunk, feeling sorry for himself while his brother had been hurting himself just to pull himself back together because of what he had done; while his brother, the person he loved more than anyone or anything in the entire work had been dissociating, for the first time in years. How could he not notice?! He felt panic like he never had before, and ran back down the hall to Onew. 

He was just sitting. In the same position he was before; unmoving, expressionless, empty. Dissociated.

Kyuhyun rushed over and held his brothers blank face in his hands. “Jinki-ah! I'm so sorry! I did this to you… this is all my fault… all my fault,” Kyuhyun cried. He held the boy to him tighter than he ever had, just the same way he did when they were young boys, and Kyuhyun would discover his brother in the same exact state. Frozen in time, unable to pick up and put the fragmented pieces of himself back together, Kyuhyun was always there to protect and comfort his little brother when he was at his most vulnerable. Except this time, he was the cause, not the help.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m sorry
Voices
No, not voices
One voice
Both far away and close 
everywhere and nowhere

Singing
Nothing made any sense, it was
Somehow too much,
and
nothing at all
Pieces of reality passing by
a Kaleidoscope of mismatches and nonsense
Both broken and whole
And he just kept singing

~~~~~~~~~~~

For the rest of the day, Kyuhyun took care of his dongsaeng. He cleaned the boys wounds, and wrapped both forearms with fresh bandages. He made lunch and dinner. He made tea, and fed the boy himself while he sang, the same way he used to when young Jinki would be trapped inside his hellish attacks of terror and panic. He texted the rest of SHINee from Onew’s phone and Super Junior from his own phone, telling both groups that they were contagiously sick in SHINee’s dorm. He sang and talked to the boy, and slowly coaxed him back from his dissociated state, picking up and putting back together the pieces he knew he was responsible for breaking.

Onew hadn't spoken much, but Kyuhyun could tell that his brother was intact and mentally aware by the time he went to tuck him into bed. Regardless of their predicament, he wasn't about to abandon his little brother for the night. He hesitated, but ultimately leaned down to kiss the boy on the forehead. 
“Goodnight, Jinki-ah. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I won’t leave you, ever again,” Kyuhyun vowed. He would keep that promise to his grave.