“I’m scared Cheolie, I’m really ing scared, it’s bad. You guys told me that he wasn’t the same. But you also said that he was fine. He’s not fine he’s hurting, so much he doesn’t even seem like the same person...”Jeonghan said sighing.

Seungcheol took this as the initiative to try to calm the latter down. He held his boyfriends hand as he slid his hand down his forearm in a calming way. He wasn’t sure it was working but he figured that he got the answer when he saw the younger shake his hand off of his own. 

“No,I won’t calm down. That boy is hurt. He’s hurting and I can’t let that happen, he’s practically my child,” Jeonghan was practically yelling. He was quite sure that everyone in a 20 mile radius could hear him now. But he didn’t care. 

How could they not see it? Something was clearly wrong with the younger and everyone was either pushing it aside like it was nothing or they were really just trying to have it be over and done with. He was sick of it. 

He was once label mom of the group and he wasn’t angry when he was because it was true. He was very protective of his boys, and no matter what he wouldn’t let them down in a time of need, and especially not now. When one of their youngest was hurt. 

“I, i-it’s pretty bad but we are in the middle of promoting so I’m not surprised that it’s coming up. He’s probably just stressed out from this and all the performances that we have coming up. Hopefully he will be okay and it’s probably just that,” 

“NO! It’s not just that because I saw it. I’ve seen bad, I’ve seen Junhui pass out backstage and crack his head open on the corner of a speaker. I’ve seen Hoshi break his ankle practicing. Remember when Woozi got so sick a few years ago?” 

Seungcheol didn’t plan on doing much more than nodding now that he had successfully pissed off his boyfriend he wasn’t going to get a chance to speak much without being yelled at or given the look. So he did just that.

“I’ve seen panic attack and mental breakdown but this is like ten time worse. Woozi and Wonwoo are depressed or whatever but they don’t...they don’t,” Jeonghan had to stop he felt himself almost crying. He put his face into Seuncheol, leaning down to find his collarbone. 

“Have you seen it? Have you seen how bad it is? He cuts himself, he sees things when he’s asleep he’s less then 75 pounds. 3 days ago when Joshua brought him back he was 78 pounds but he hasn’t eat since then...can you really not see it?” 

Seungcheol is mentally decapitate himself. Really? And what kind of leader was he to not be able to see that their hip hop maknae was hurt so much and he hadn’t seen it at all. He wanted to like punch a wall for himself to feel better. 

“It’s okay...” 

“It’s not...” Jeonghan said. 

“No your right but it will be, I promise.” 

“Okay.” 

————————

Hanson couldn’t sleep, to say the least. His head hurt and he couldn’t even find a way to describe the burning pain that was laced throughout his thighs and his wrist. The blanket brushed against the bandages, and it hurt. 

It burned his skin uncomfortably and it felt so bad. His skin still itch, like the feeling he got when he needed to cut. But it was much worse, at least he didn’t feel haunted by the snake that was in his veins. 

He was tired and his eyes burned with lack of sleep and the feeling of being on your phone to long. The room was too hot and too cold at the same time. He wanted sleep and it was pulling at his eyelids. Until he was to tired to put up a fight against it.  

He felt his eyes slip closed and he began to fall asleep. 

____ 

He was running. He couldn’t tell from what but he was running as fast as he could trying to escape, all he could see was white but by now it was starting to turn black, but it was closing in. He was panting. 

It was coming closer to him and he couldn’t shake it. He feeling of cold and creepy was chasing him. He was scared...it was so cold, so empty and chilling. Like being alone after a horror movie, he was scared 

But it wasn’t over it was catching up to him. He could feel it, he looked back as he ran ran and he tripped over something. It was catching up to him and then he could see nothing but black. The darkness was surrounded him. He shivered. 

Dark wrapped around his body and he sighs. He couldn’t see, but the dark made itself a silhouette of a person who was walking over to him. He couldn’t see the face but the eyes were red. Closer it walked as it stopped squatting in front of him...holding out his hand. 

‘You can’t let go of your demons so easily can you Vernon? No you can’t who else would be here to pick you up when your all alone...’ the voice was shilling. Because the voice was his own. The person reached out pulling him up to his feet and he stared straight into his eyes. 

The cold hands wrapped around his throat and circles his whole body. He gasped as it did so. His body was no longer his own. He was scared the darkness was so scary it was depressing it was chilling and terrifying. He gasped. He couldn’t breathe. He  couldn’t breathe. Hecouldn’tbreathe.

————————

When he woke up he felt the same kind of throb in his head as he tried to shake himself of that feeling the cold and the chilling feeling of dread and alone he was scared. He wanted to find his boyfriend as he walked down the hallway to find him. 

He put his ear on the door to try to make out some yelling from the room that Jeonghan and Seungcheol room. He was scared. Sure they argued but they never ever yelled at each other when they argued. Sure they argued but they would talk back and forth to each other or hiss some insults but he would never hear them yelling at each other like that. 

He felt his eyes prickle with tears. He sighed, he caused so much suffering for his whole group because he couldn’t keep himself together like he had all that time. But he didn’t. And this is what it caused. 

He went downstairs to find the dorm room mostly empty, he looked around to see anyone. He saw Chan skipping around downstairs. He felt a rush of heat to his cheeks as the embarrassment was real. He took a peak down at his wrist, some angry red lines still present so he pull on the hem of his sleeve. 

Short sleeve shirt wasn’t going to cut it. He went back in his room and found some pastel pink shirt that smell like Joshua. He pulled the sleeves, and he grabbed some of Joshua leggings to. Once he was sure that the scars and angry red cuts weren’t showing he let out a sigh of relief. 

He slowly made his way down the stairs, delicate legs making a soft sound as he walked down the stairs. He padded his way into the kitchen as he blew stray hairs out of his eyes and found the maknae rummaging through the cabinets to try to find something. 

“Hello hyung,” Chan said. Happiness seeping through his voice. “I made breakfast just Incase you wake up.” Although Chan hate the title of maknae he was one of the most amazing maknae ever. So sweet and caring for his hyungs and so peppy. 

“W-what are you look for Chan-ah?” He asked looking over Chan’s shoulder see if he could find what the youngest was looking for. There wasn’t much to see because whatever was being search for was covered by Chan’s body so he couldn’t see it. 

“Don’t worry about that hyung, I’ve got it.” He paced over to the coffee pot to grab some for his hyung he make it just like Hansol liked it, and then he placed the cup beside the pill bottle, grinding up antidepressant and painkillers into the cup. 

He gave Hansol the cup but before he placed it down he saw the elder of the two scratching at his wrist. He gave a question look before he remember a few days ago when Joshua has brought home his boyfriend announce that he self harmed. 

Immediately a switch flipped off in his head as he almost dropped the cup. Slamming it down on he counter, (surprising it didn’t break) he raced over the the elder, his wrists were heavily bandaged but he had managed to pull of some of the bandages and scratch at the cuts that he had carved into previous perfect skin. 

The blood leaving the cut was allot more than Chan had expected but not life threaten. He grabbed a cotton ball and a roll of gauze wrap and he undo some of the bandages on his hyungs wrist. ‘They needed to come off anyway,’ Chan told himself. ‘It could infect the wound if they didn’t.’ 

He pressed the cotton ball enough to dry the blood but he was too scared to hurt Hansol, he was too reluctant to press it down like he knew that he should to stop the bleeding altogether. So he look into his hyungs eyes for some possible assistance. 

“It’s fine, it can’t hurt any worse than some of the other things that I’ve done to myself,” Hansol said, with a fake smile that was hanging o n by a thread. Chan wasn’t sure if that was supposed the be reassure or not but at least it gave him some breathing room. 

He pressed it in a little harsher than expected and he felt Vernon flinching and jump at the sensation he made a facial expression ‘sorry’ as he continued on. Then replacing the soiled cotton ball with a newer one, he began to re-wrap the injury. 

The elder let out a small sigh, wether out of content or pain? Maybe something else but Chan couldn’t tell what exactly so he assumed that it was maybe one of the options. Hopefully content. He handed the elder the cup of coffee. 

“You know you’ll never sleep if you drink all this caffeine hyung,” Chan stated with a giggle, raking his eyes up and down Hansol  for some sort of reaction to tell of he heard him or if he spaced out like he usually did. 

“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” Hansol wrapped his hands around the cup and was enveloped in the scent. “I can’t sleep no matter how tired I am. If I close my eyes I’m afraid I won’t wake up. There’s something in my dreams that haunt me.” 

“I’ll sleep with you hyung, I will make sure that you can sleep and I will protection you from the thing that’s haunting you and stealing your sleep, okay,” Chan’s voice was so positive that Vernon almost choked on his coffee but he nodded anyway. 

Even though he was hours away from when he would actually fall asleep he was so tired. He could feel his eyes drooping closed as he continued to sip his coffee. Chan could tell. He moved to behind his hyung so he could lift him up. 

“No, Chan~ah, I’m really heavy and I don’t want you to get hurt carrying me,” he started but he never got a chance to finish his sentence because he was heaved up into maknaes arms and carried to his room. The maknae sent him one of his beaming smiles and laughed a little bit. 

“Actually hyung, your pretty light. Hmmm, I’m pretty sure that Woozi could carry you. Maybe Minghao,” he chucked at the thought. Minghao who struggled to pick up a bag of rice would maybe not be able to but it was proving a point so it didn’t matter about specifics. 

He looked over at the elder who smelled like aesthetic coffee and strawberry, like always. The strawberry was be forever lingering smell that came from Joshua sometimes you could catch the hint of Vanilla that Vernon would carry. 

But it reminded Chan of allot of things, but mostly that it would be okay. He decided to lay down next to his elder as he moved to tuck the blankets in around the elders pale and skinny frame. 

He assumed the medicine would kick in as he slept or it already did. He was pretty sure the painkillers worked in 30 minutes after they were ingested so he was pretty sure that it had already began pumping through his veins. 

He knew about the antidepressant, the walls were thin and Jeonghan wasn’t very quiet when he was angry or stressed so he had a good idea what he had to do. He was pretty sure that they would have kicked in because usually once Hansol was awake he wasn’t going back to sleep for a while even if he was extremely exhausted. It was unheard of. 

He kept on looking over at his hyung, true there was only a year (less than really) between the two and sometimes he find it pretty easy to forget. Hansol has a deep voice when rapping, and talking so he seemed older at some points but he really wasn’t. Chan had actually thought that he was older than Joshua when he first met Hansol 

Hansol either acted his age most of the time or like a 2 year old but it was really hard to remember and wrap his head around the fact that Hansol really wasn’t as old as he seemed to be really. And he ponders that allot. 

Looking at Hansol as he slept was like looking at a baby really. His features were so soft, hair smooth against his forehead, body wasn’t rigid and his face looked squishy even with the dramatic weight loss thing. He was really a child and Chan wanted to run a hand through his chocolate hair because it looked so soft. He smile when soft snores left the elders mouth. 

“Goodnight hyung.” He said to nobody in particular. But he mentally swore to himself that he would be there for his hyung. Hansol was the type to silently shoulder everything to himself and not tell anybody. But he promised himself he would always be there for him. As he slowly drifted to sleep himself.