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“Yeah~Fix on! Neul bakkan kkochdeuri pine issgo sipeo geudae pume

Nan kkore seollebal chine chagaun nunbichi nal bichwojwooseumyeon hae..~”

You can’t help but smile when you hear those first three words vibrating through your ears from ATEEZ’s “If Without U” track.

'Fix on.'

It was his rap trademark. The deep raspy voice flowing into those words, punctuating with the melody of the song and making his voice being easily your favorite part of all ATEEZ songs. You looked out through the moving buildings as the bus you are riding in breeze the cold October morning, almost fogging up the window. You can’t help but think at how tiring the day will be at the office today.

Releasing a deep sigh you glanced at your phone just in time as a facetime ID filled in the screen of your phone pausing the song you are listening to. The ID belongs to the manager of your boyfriend.

As odd as it is, you can’t help the immediate anxiety creeping up your toes. You pressed to answer the call. Instantly, the manager’s face came into the screen.

“Oh, Y/N! Good morning! Where are you?”

Confused but you still replied. “I’m in a bus going for work, manager Seong. Why? What is it?”

“Aah~ I just called to tell you that we brought Mingi to the hospital. His in the room getting checked up on. The kid complained about back pain before the recording started, that we had to bring him in.”

“What?!” You feel your stomach dropping that you almost lost grip of your phone.

“Yeah. I figured you didn’t know. But I just want to tell you that we’ll be bringing him back to the dorm after we’re done here. He told me not to tell you yet though, saying you’ll get worried and it might not be that serious. But I can’t do that, I know that kid’s scared. So I had to tell you.”

A bit shaken, you still nodded and thanked the manager before hanging up. Immediately sending a message to your supervisor for your absence today.

Silently cursing Song Mingi because that little head boyfriend of yours did not even tell you anything about it last night. Or that he was already feeling something weird on his body. You were video chatting with him, before he fell asleep on you while rambling something about Wooyoung pranking Seongwha in the bathroom, that for the life you, you refused to picture anything he was saying because it was just weird. You were turning the lights off in your room and when you came back on the phone, Mingi’s gaping mouth and light snoring was the only thing coming through your phone. Muffling your giggles with your hand and admiring his ridiculous but attractive side profile for a good minute, you whispered your ‘goodnight, I love yous’ to him before ending the call. That was not the first time that happened, and you understood so well how tired he must be. Also, you never call him in the morning and only send a good morning encouragement text because you know that he would be very busy pre-recording and he needed to focus. It would be usually him that would call you on his free or waiting time. It was the arrangement you both agreed on since it was much convenient.

It has been a year since ATEEZ debuted and you saw how they worked their asses off that you were afraid it was going to catch up with them. You were well aware of Mingi’s back issue, too but you thought he was getting better from it.

‘Guess I was wrong..’ you think to yourself as you get off the station, to hail a taxi and be dropped off near ATEEZ’s dorm and wait for the manager’s ‘ok’ signal for her to come up the building.

*****

“Oh! You’re here. Come on in!” ATEEZ’s manager greeted you as you were ushered inside and helping you with the take out bag of chicken and jokbal (pig's trotters) you brought with you. You dropped by the boys’ favorite restaurant first getting the food before going straight to the dorm.

“Where is he, manager?” you asked as you placed your shoes on the shoe closet and followed the manager to the kitchen.

“He’s at his room. He was given immediate therapy and took medicine. Turns out it was an inflammation in the back joints and ligaments, and it's even different from his existing back injury.” The manager hissed before turning to you, “Did he tell you anything?”

You stopped and remembered both of your phone call three days ago after his pre-recording for Inkigayo, he whined a bit about hi