Jiho didn’t know what to expect when he returned home that evening. Both Jaehyo and Minhyuk had told him that he mustn’t stay long in the studio that night. They’d said that they all needed to... talk.

Needless to say, Jiho was scared for his life. On his way to their apartment, Jiho tried to think back, overanalyzed everything he’d done in the past couple of weeks in an attempt to decipher what had made the two throw that threat at him. What did they want to talk about? Even after all that thinking, he came up with nothing.

Walking through the door, Jiho prepared for the worst.

“I’m home!” He announced while kicking his shoes off.

Before he could take off his coat as well, he found himself in an embrace, and perhaps allowed himself to relax a little.

It was Kyung of course, giving Jiho a kiss on the cheek before letting go of him. “Welcome home,” he chirped.

“Hi...” Jiho tried to take a look in edgewise, to see past the hallway if the others were there. And if they were, he wanted to see if they seemed angry.

“Are you hungry? Yukwonie made those giant dumplings, you know the ones,” Kyung was saying, taking Jiho’s coat and hanging it for him.

He was confused. This treatment was the exact opposite of what he’d expected to come home to. And where was everyone?

“I’m not hungry. Later, maybe,” Jiho muttered, ruffling his hair and looking around once more. “Say... You don’t happen to know what the others want to talk about, do you?”

Kyung turned around with his hands on his hips and shook his head with a reassuring smile. “It’s nothing serious. Just... hear them—us—out.”

 Jiho frowned. This didn’t sound very reassuring.

Anxiety built up in his gut as Kyung looped their arms together and led him to the living room where he sat him down in one of the armchairs. The armchair was suspiciously pushed to a central position, overlooking the rest of the room; the couch where Pyo seemed to be playing some game on his phone while Taeil was reading next to him, the other armchair that was opposite of the TV where Yukwon sat, watching something, the door that led to the kitchen.

“What’s going—”

Jiho’s question was cut off when Pyo leapt up and sat on the armrest on Jiho’s left and hugged him so tightly he nearly cut his breath short.

“Hey hyungie. How are you?”

“Fine...” Jiho was feeling cornered. Kyung had also taken a seat on the armrest of the armchair that Jiho was sitting in, to his right.

He was surrounded.

In walked Minhyuk and Jaehyo from the kitchen. Minhyuk was holding a bowl and chopsticks, eating the aforementioned dumplings Yukwon had made.

He squeezed himself onto the couch next to Taeil, who opened his mouth for Minhyuk to feed him a bite of the dumplings, which he did.

“Oh, we’re all here! Great,” Jaehyo hummed and stood in the centre of the room.

Yukwon muted the TV. Taeil put his book down. Pyo was playing with a strand of Jiho’s hair.

Jiho swallowed. “What’s up?”

Jaehyo crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “Right. So, to get straight to the point: We’re worried about you.”

Jiho stared. At first only at Jaehyo, then he threw a dumbfounded look around the room, and then looked up at the two sitting next to him. “What?”

“We know that ever since the whole contract thing things have been different,” Minhyuk said.

“And you need to work—a lot,” Yukwon continued.

“But you’ve always been a workaholic and now it’s gotten so much worse,” Taeil spoke.

Kyung placed his hand on top of Jiho’s head, and the younger got an overwhelming urge to push him away, something he’d never felt before.

“You’ve fallen into some unhealthy patterns of behaviour,” Kyung then said. “Mainly, that you don’t sleep.”

“Like at all,” Pyo muttered.

Hearing this, Jiho did push Kyung’s hand away. This time when he looked around the room, he was frustrated.

“That’s what this is about? My sleep schedule!?”

“Hey take it easy,” Jaehyo said, stepping forward.

“We’re just worried,” Minhyuk added. “We know you can endure a lot, we know we’ve all worked under crazy conditions and you were always the one to take it the best, you’re the Woo Jiho—but this is just not good for you. You can’t live off of caffeine.”

Jiho shook his head and stood up from his designated spot, glad that neither Pyo nor Kyung attempted to keep him down. “Guys, this is ridiculous. You do realize this is ridiculous, right? I’m fine! I just have a lot of stuff on my hands that won’t take care of itself. I don’t have time to snooze all day.”

“Right, but we’re not asking you to throw away whole days,” Yukwon said, a bit snappish. “We’re talking about normal amounts of rest that the human body needs to function.”

“I’m functioning just fine, thank you very much,” Jiho snapped back at him.

“Baby, yesterday I watched you stare at a wall for twenty minutes,” Taeil said, gentle, but evidently losing his patience.

With so many people losing patience at the same time, Jaehyo was starting to feel anxious with the thought that he wouldn’t be able to keep everyone calm.

“If you watched me for twenty minutes, maybe you’re the one who has a problem,” Jiho spat.

Taeil frowned and opened his mouth to respond, but knowing that whatever he had to say would lead to a fight, Minhyuk stuffed a whole dumpling into his mouth.

“Everyone calm down,” Kyung called out. He’d stood up from the armrest and was now standing on the side, arms crossed.

He wasn’t the one to get angry, but at the moment he was throwing such death stares that everyone shut up immediately. The only sound in the room was that of Taeil struggling to chew the big dumpling.

Seeing how upset Kyung was, Jiho thought that pushing him away had been a wrong move.

But Kyung didn’t say anything else. He’d merely created order, allowing Jaehyo to proceed.

“We’re just looking out for you,” Jaehyo said. “No reason to be mad at us.”

Jiho’s shoulders dropped, released of the tension caused by anger. But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to admit that he was truly and thoroughly exhausted. He didn’t want to admit that they’d been right.

Pyo shuffled forward and carefully hugged him from behind.

“I do sleep, okay?” Jiho muttered. “You guys are overreacting.” He didn’t respond to Pyo’s affections, but he didn’t push him away either. , now he felt awful for doing it to Kyung earlier. He’d have to apologize.

“I don’t think so,” Minhyuk said. “I think you don’t realize how much you’re messing up your health this way. It’s not just sleepiness, it’s heightened anxiety, weakened immunity, memory problems, lower concentration and, well, mood swings.”

Jiho rubbed his face and sighed. “ hyung did you google this ?”

Minhyuk pursed his lips. “Maybe so. But I’m right.”

“Just start going to sleep,” Jaehyo said tiredly. His tone was pleading.

“We might have to set him a curfew,” Pyo joked, attempting to lighten the mood.

“Do not set me a curfew,” Jiho protested. “I have so much work, I can’t go home when you tell me—”

“Funny how you’re implying you’ll actually stick to the curfew,” Yukwon pointed out, smiling faintly.

Jiho paused. He remembered that Pyo’s comment was just a joke and it occurred to him how scary it was that the mere thought of having to come home early and not work all night stressed him out. He spun around in Pyo’s arms and buried his face in the younger’s shoulder.

Jaehyo walked over and wrapped his arms around Jiho as well, thereby creating a hug sandwich.

“It’s okay,” Jaehyo said. “You just need some rest. Your work won’t suffer as much as you think. You’ll work better and you’ll be more concentrated if you’re well rested. Please stop making your health suffer like this.”

Jiho sighed. For a long while he didn’t say anything, he just kind of melted into the dual hug. Then he mumbled a very quiet, “Fine.”

Apparently this was what the others were waiting for. Before long Jiho found himself in a group hug that he couldn’t really breathe in, but still appreciated. When it dispersed, he got a smack on the bum and he heard Minhyuk say,

“Off to bed now. We won’t calm down until you’ve slept at least seven hours.”

Jiho whined, but he obliged. He got ready for bed, put on his pyjamas, brushed his teeth and all that. Minhyuk even served him a cup of warm milk.

But before he could fulfill his promise of going to sleep, Jiho needed to talk to Kyung.

He found the elder at his desk, hastily typing away at his laptop.

“Well, look who’s working now,” Jiho said jokingly.

Kyung turned to shoot him a glare. “I do sleep more than ten minutes a day though.”

“Ouch.”

But Kyung had already turned back towards his screen and was no longer acknowledging Jiho.

He sighed and walked over. “Hey… I’m sorry I pushed you away. I shouldn’t have… I just got angry and—didn’t want any sympathy.”

For a little while Kyung resumed his work, until he could no longer pretend. He sighed and pushed his chair away from the desk, spinning to face Jiho.

“It’s okay… It just hurt a bit. We were trying to help, and for you to—” He stopped himself there, he didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole. “But I guess it doesn’t matter now.” He smiled and opened his arms.

Jiho leaned down to hug him. “I really am sorry,” he mumbled.

Pulling away, Kyung poked his cheek. “Tell you what—I’ll wrap this up and we can go to sleep together. After all, someone has to watch over you. Who knows if you’ll try to sneak out and go back to your studio.”

Jiho shrugged sheepishly.

 

He’d never fallen asleep quicker. The sheets had never been so cool and so heavenly soft. He felt as if sinking through clouds, like floating. Down, down, he felt as if he was falling like a lead in the wind, even though he was being held. He was warm, tucked away in Kyung’s embrace. Sleep came in waves, spreading through his body to the tips of his toes, until fully claiming him.

This whole rest thing wasn’t so bad after all.