Sometimes, Jongdae felt like walking on a pit of coals would be better than having to wake up at five in the morning to go to dance practice for the first four hours of the day, too tired from lack of sleep that even the thought of dancing or even singing was something he just didn’t want to do. While other days, he didn’t mind it so much, even enjoyed it on occasion, because it meant that he would be getting better at dancing, every hour increasing his non-existent skills. He was slowly closing the gap between being a terrible dancer to a decent one, even though he wished he could be a great dancer like Yixing, Minseok, or Jongin, because dancing was something he enjoyed, even if he couldn’t move with grace or power like some of the other boys.

He may not be graceful, but he genuinely enjoyed moving his body to the beat of the music, swaying his hips, and bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet whenever a good song came on. He genuinely found dancing to be fun as he got to let himself loose in ways similar that singing did, but when he was lacking a lot of skills compared to the other members who had years of training under their belts, he found that he often envied those of whom that were able to create magic within a few moves. While Jongdae on the other hand was someone that tried to create magic, but often times failed while doing so, because his movements were too awkward and stiff, his dancing still making him one of the more weaker dancers of the group.

However, with all the practice he had been doing since their debut to their comeback, he had been able to increase his skills and become a front line dancer for the intro to their latest song. It was a feat he didn’t think was possible when compared to those who took to dance like he did to singing, but ever since he started getting better at Chinese, he made it a goal of his to work on his dancing and become one of the more able bodied dancers of the group. He may never be as good as Jongin or Yixing was, but he would be able to hold his own, and he wouldn’t be known as the weakest dancer of the group anymore, especially since Kris had been marginally better than him when they first debuted.

His perfectionist tendencies and pride driving him to become better at all the things he lacked, because even though he was a singer that loved music and just wanted to sing, he was also an idol that wanted to do it all. He wanted to become a member of the group where none of the others had to worry about him when it came to practices and performances or become a burden to them because he couldn’t get a certain skill set down.

He had already been a burden once when he had to combat the language barrier of Mandarin and still sing well enough as M’s main vocalist, doing his best to get out a lot of the kinks when it came to the language so he would butcher it to death. It had been hard and tiring especially since it was so much more confusing to him than Korean, forcing him to have spent hours upon hours perfecting those mini album songs and not sound like a fool, a feat that prohibited him from practicing his dancing skills as much as he wanted. However, it was worth the extra time to all those native speakers that were already looking harshly at a group that catered to them with a Korean lead singer instead of a Chinese one.

By now, he had the singing relatively down, his skills improving with every lesson and practice, and his modeling ability was pretty good compared to the other members, him being a natural in that area. Nowadays with most of his skills rounded out, dancing usually took some precedence when it came to what he wanted to practice.

Jongdae hated to wake up in the morning, but he always made himself do so as much as possible. Why did he do so? The satisfaction that it was just bringing him closer to his goals.

However, that day - well, the past couple of days - no, weeks, it seemed that it was getting increasingly harder to wake up and find the practices as meaningful as he had before. He still liked that he was getting the extra practice he needed, but with the way his body seemed to be betraying him with always feeling weak, hurt, or tired, he found little motivation to do well. His body becoming too tired to keep up with what was going on sometimes that he literally had to force himself to continue through sheer willpower, even though there were days where all he wanted was to go back to sleep.

He knew if he got those extra hours of sleep then he would feel better, feel more refreshed and ready to continue the day. But probably only for one day. With the constant long days of work, the sleepless nights, and just his body feeling more and more terrible each day, he felt like he was continuously losing a battle, a battle that seemed impossible to win.

His body was betraying him, breaking down on him during one of the worst times possible, literally taking all of his willpower and pride to overlook the fact that he had been feeling terrible for weeks now. His throat was taking the brunt of the abuse he was putting his body through, feeling like it was on fire or that he was swallowing glass whenever he ate, drank, or even breathed wrong. He hated the feeling, but he knew it couldn’t be anything worse than the common cold, or at the most, some type of virus that would go away with time. His body always fought off whatever it was especially since he never had a cold for longer than a week before. Or that’s what he wanted to think, because if he thought it was anything else, then the thought would scare him to death. And he couldn’t afford thinking like that.

He didn’t want there to be anything wrong with him. He didn’t want there to be anything purposefully wrong with his body, especially his throat. Just thinking of it could tear apart all the hard work he had done and essentially his dreams of showing the world his music, his song, his voice. He didn’t want to think anymore than he had to, but as the days had gone on, it was becoming more and more apparent that something was going on, but Jongdae was in denial that it could be anything else.

However, even though he was doing his best to get through it, to go on and practice, to have fun with the others, and do what was expected of him as an idol, the others still noticed what was going on. They didn’t say anything because they thought Jongdae could take care of himself, was taking care of his health, being responsible after himself. But after weeks, they knew they had to do something and get him to go see a doctor.

So when Jongdae woke that morning, expecting to do what he usually did, to bare the pain in his throat for another day and wish for himself to get better, he found that something was a lot different that morning. Instead of slinking out of bed and pull on some sweats, he found himself too tired and dizzy to even move while his throat felt like he had swallowed a bunch of cinnamon and was swollen to the point that it was a bit difficult to breathe.

But knowing that if he didn’t wake up and go to practice like he did everyday, he would worry the others. And to Jongdae who cared so much about the others and how he viewed himself to be sometimes knew that he didn’t want to do that, especially since it seemed like that’s all he had been doing for days now. So when he tried to pull himself up into a sitting position, he quickly found himself flopped back on his bed, his head spinning and his body feeling weaker than it had before. It was so disorientating that he almost felt like crying and asking for help. But knowing that they had practice and had more comeback preparation stuff later, he tried again, this time a bit more successful than the last, finding himself leaning on the side of his bed. But he was unable to move without the room spinning or feeling like he was going to die if he didn’t take it easy and focus on his breathing first, trying his best to ignore the excruciating pain that flared from the back of his throat and down his esophagus.

Minutes later, eyes closed and still trying to come to terms with how terrible he felt, Joonmyun and Jongin woke to see Jongdae shaking and sounding a bit like he was wheezing, his face in complete discomfort. Instantly jumping out of their beds, they stumbled over to him to take in the sight of his unbelievably pale skin, cheeks tinged with pink, his forehead hot to the touch as if he was burning up from the inside. Even worse was when they saw that his throat looked beyond swollen with lymph nodes raised and looking a fiery red, they knew that whatever Jongdae said to deter them from taking him to a doctor was going to be null and voided.

Jongdae looked like death and seeing him trying his best to get used to the pain and to force his body to get up from his sitting position to go to practice made the two beyond unwilling to listen to any of Jongdae’s excuses if he tried to use them. Because as they carefully tried to get the boy to speak to them, Jongdae could only look at them with feverish eyes, his orbs now wide to show fear and sickness, obviously telling them the rest they needed to know. With how he looked and how awfully swollen his throat was, Joonmyun quickly had Jongin move to get Kris and the manager.

Nodding towards his hyung, Jongin quickly found himself in front of Kris’ shared bedroom, barging in, not caring about the other members in the dorm and shaking the older boy awake. “Hyung! Hyung! Kris-hyung! Joonmyun-hyung and Jongdae-hyung need you. It’s Jongdae, he’s not looking very good, he’s-he’s-”

Not even bothering to let Jongin finish, Kris quickly jumped out of his bed and hurried down the hall, yelling over his shoulder, “Go get manager-ge then!”

Doing as Kris and Joonmyun asked, Jongin quickly grabbed one of their managers from their room, feeling just as panicked as he had before, words coming out shakily, his gestures a bit crazed from worry. He knew he was probably being a bit disrespectful somehow, but Jongdae was sick and his hyung’s health was more important than being polite. As he continued to explain, he didn’t even notice Tao and Sehun make their way towards him, worry on their faces as they settled in behind him. The two wanted to ask what was going on and what was wrong with Jongdae as Kris and Joonmyun had taken to banning the other members from entering the room, obviously worried that too many people would cause more problems than good, making for the two maknaes quietly listened to the dancer speak.

By the time Jongin had finished speaking and the manager was walking past the boy and down the hall, Tao and Sehun looked just as wrecked as the dancer did. So when Jongin turned towards them, he could only grab the two and pull them in a hug to comfort them and himself as well. The two quickly wrapped their arms around him and each other, letting them draw comfort from each other. That seemed to help as moments later, they let Jongin pull away from them who now felt a bit more grounded than he had before. Eyes quietly asking what was going on, Jongin softly told the two that Jongdae was sick and that it looked bad enough that a doctor’s visit was definitely in order, but the slight tremble and ache to his voice told them that it was probably worse than that.

Feeling terrible at the news, Tao even going so far as crying, tears coming from his eyes like waterfalls which quickly attracted some of the other members of the group. Yixing, Minseok, and Luhan said nothing as they found themselves next to the youngest members, already knowing what was going on and filling in the blanks as needed without any explanations. Without any words, they quickly went to comfort the three. Minseok quickly pulled Jongin in his arms, while Tao found himself enveloping Yixing in a hug as he cried into his shoulder. Luhan quietly took Sehun away to a nearby bed to talk things out, the two lying side by side to each other, as Sehun unloaded everything he had learned.

While Chanyeol and Baekhyun did their best to hear what was going on from their side of Jongdae, Jongin, and Joonmyun’s shared room, the two had their ears against the wall while faces filled with worry. Kyungsoo was pressed between them, the two holding onto him for dear life. Somehow, the two were thinking that having the younger boy in their arms would help with everything they were feeling at the moment. Jongdae was their friend, was the third part to their little trio, so seeing and hearing how awful everything was, it threw them for a loop. And even though they knew it probably wasn’t best to have the younger boy with them like this, Kyungsoo let them do as needed, trying his best to stay calm and bask in the warmth that the two older boys provided, knowing that his presence there was helping them a little bit.

However, in the shared room, things were a different story as somehow in the span of a half an hour, Jongdae had went from being too tired and in pain to speak to crying uncontrollably. The boy was literally shaking with the effort, barely able to breathe because of the pain and how swollen his throat was that it just made him feel even worse, his sobs almost eerily silent from the gesture.

Joonmyun’s arms were around him as he quietly muttered “You’ll be okay,” “You’ll be fine,” or “It’s okay” into his ear, but the boy too spooked to calm down.

While Kris was a foot in front of them, pacing back and forth as he wore holes into the carpet, worried about Jongdae and what was going on in the background with one of their managers, the man ranging from soft, angry mutterings to almost screaming. Kris could barely make sense of what the man was talking about, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good, obviously on call with SM Entertainment. The other two managers were making rounds between them and the other members, giving updates whenever they came back into the room, faces looking a bit drawn from the effort of trying to keep all the members calm and as little worried about Jongdae as possible. Kris could only take what they said to heart and focus as much of his attention on Jongdae, who looked anything but well as minutes wore on.

Feeling that pacing wasn’t doing anything and with as little success as Joonmyun trying to calming Jongdae down, Kris fell to his knees in front of the two, only to take Jongdae’s face in his hands. Quietly telling him to breathe and calm down, Kris’ voice was soothingly soft to the younger boy, while Joonmyun’s touch around his arms and Kris’ hold along his face grounded Jongdae enough to calm his tears.

Sniffling a bit, Jongdae couldn’t help but feel much worse than he had earlier, the crying doing nothing but causing more pain and exhaustion that he found himself leaning tiredly onto Joonmyun, letting the older boy take the brunt of his weight. Joonmyun grunted a bit at the sudden shift, but allowed the boy to lean into him as the managers was still having a fit, trying to figure things out. This was enough for Kris as he let out a sigh and turned back to the managers to ask, “May we take Jongdae to the doctor’s now? Because if he goes off again like he did moments before, we’ll most likely be having an ambulance coming instead.”

Slamming the phone shut and looking more pained than he ever had, the manager nodded, “Kris, get Jongdae to his feet, we’ll be going to the ER. Joonmyun, you’ll have to watch over everyone else. Practice is in forty-five minutes.”

Feeling anger at the suggestion of practice, especially after everything that happened that morning, Joonmyun wanted to say something terrible. But he was able to hold himself back in time, knowing it wasn’t the manager’s fault but SM’s as he nodded, “I understand.”

Kris then carefully pulled Jongdae away from Joonmyun and steadied him until he was leaning heavily against him, his breathing still sounding a bit like a wheeze. He cautiously helped the boy along, ignoring the way Jongdae whimpered against him as he led Jongdae out of the room with the manager behind them, but not leaving before giving a soft murmur of, “Take care of the boys, we’ll call as soon as we find out what’s wrong, okay?”

Joonmyun could only nod before doing what was expected of him, because Jongdae may be sick, may be going to the hospital, but the world didn't stop for one person. And in the idol world, that was even more true.

“Mr. Kim? I’m sorry about the wait. You can come along now, your friend can come too if you want.”

Feeling his heart race at the man’s words and his fear increase tenfold from how he had been feeling earlier, his patience was worn thin from waiting in the emergency room for hours. He waited for good news that would clear up all the anxiety he had been feeling that to receive something much worse in return made his world come a halt. The only thing he could hear was the doctor’s expectant voice at the door, feeling everything from that day build up around him, making him feel even worse than he had moments before.

He couldn’t even speak without his throat feeling like razorblades or screwing up his voice anymore than it was, and while there was the urge to reply with his usual sassy attitude and confidence, he couldn’t even say anything. Didn’t know what to say really, because even though he wanted to murder this odd and scary moment with cynicism, he couldn’t. All he could do now was nod, eyes flickering beside him to the figure of a worried Kris who was giving him his own form of support with a simple nod in reply, telling the younger idol to be strong even without words.

But the thing that Kris didn’t know was that Jongdae didn’t feel strong. He didn’t feel anything right now besides being scared and nervous as he turned back to the doctor and allowed him speak. Taking in as much as he could, he quickly found himself moving forward, still a bit shaky from earlier, as he followed the white coat of the man into several bland hallways before stopping inside an examination room, a typical one too. Automatically walking towards the bed and sitting gingerly on the white crackley paper that covered it, he tried to distract himself from the dreaded words that he would have to hear very soon, clearly able to remember everything the doctor had done, but still too freaked out about the possible outcome of everything, of what the man would say.

Words that would start from the paper he was holding in his hand, fingers sweaty and clammy as if he was holding his own death sentence. It might as well be so, considering from the fact that this was his voice that he had to write about. Every single little detail, everything that was going on, all the symptoms of how terrible he was feeling, how many days it had been since it started, EVERYTHING. Jongdae didn’t remember some of the details, didn’t even want to remember some of the details but with his group leader now breathing down his neck and fastening him with his strong gaze, worry just lining the edges of his eyes, he didn’t have a choice but to write as much as he could. It had been excruciating, digging up all of those things that he didn’t want to think about earlier. That had been what kept him going and to now finally bear them on paper out to the world made him feel as if he was a failure. That he didn’t do enough to keep himself together and not have anyone else worrying about him.

“If you would please, Mr. Kim. Did you write down the symptoms that you’ve been having?”

The doctor’s naturally calming voice helped tug Jongdae out of his slowly unraveling thoughts, making the boy blink for a moment before hesitantly nodding and handing the folded and slightly wrinkled paper to the man. This was it, the final piece to what was behind that door that he didn’t want to open.

Earlier when he had nearly stumbled through the door with only Kris holding him up with a gentle arm around his shoulders, there had been several tests run on him. Most of them were the standard ones, taking his blood pressure, temperature and the like, but when the doctor had to check over his throat, that was when Jongdae had began to start panicking. It was in his head all along, that maybe... Maybe something just wasn’t right with this sort of condition that he was having with his throat being in such terrible conditions. But it wasn’t until the man began to touch and gaze closely at it that it truly started to surface past all the barriers and blocks that he had put up in the last few weeks. The doctor had said nothing about it though when he was doing the initial examination, and simply told Jongdae to go outside back into the waiting room after he was done and that they just needed to wait on some tests, but that it was beneficial for Jongdae to write down everything he had felt ever since his sickness had started.

Now that was the paper that he had handed over to the man and even as he could hear the quiet crinkle of it opening in the eerily silence of the room, none of it helped him to calm down in the slightest. In fact, it did just the opposite, the silence causing his own thoughts and doubts to grow even louder inside of his own head. Jongdae felt like he was a small boy again, the time that he became so feverish and hot that his mother had to drive him to the doctor so that they could prescribe him pills and cure him of whatever virus had been plaguing him then. But he was a grown adult now with the same childish fears running through his head, blood pounding through his ears and transporting his self back to a state of unnatural fear of what was to come, the anticipation for it to happen so suddenly that he almost felt like he couldn’t breathe, his lungs feeling as if they shriveled up and his throat felt even more swollen than ever.

“Mr. Kim? Are you listening?”

Jongdae twitched at the sudden increase of volume in the room, his head instantly snapping up from those tentacles of thoughts that had him firmly ensnared in their grip. The doctor’s face was completely impassive as the boy desperately tried to find some sort of body language coming from the professional, anything to give him a sign of hope. However, there was none as the doctor simply folded the paper up and tucked it into the medical folder that held Jongdae’s records before clearing his throat.

“After running some tests and going off the symptoms you’ve presented to me, it has come to my notice that you have a chronic case of laryngitis.”

Laryngitis? For that moment as the doctor paused, Jongdae was completely bewildered. He was sure he had heard it somewhere, something to do with the throat, but never really paid attention to what it really was. Was it something that could be cured easily? His mind was frantically trying to make sense of what the man was saying before he could explain, but his breath was now hitching in his throat and preventing him from being able to think clearly.

The doctor seemed to pick up on the state of panic that the boy was now going through with just how frantically he was trying to pull air into his swollen throat, reaching out to gently place his warm hand on top of Jongdae’s knee. “Mr. Kim. Please calm down, there is no reason to panic right now. I need to tell you what you and I can do to help your condition. Deep breaths, it won’t help your larynx by irritating the tissues around it by trying to breath so quickly.”

Jongdae felt as if he had gone numb at the moment, detached from his body as soon as the doctor had placed his hand on him, unable to do much of anything besides nod and stare with wide eyes at the man, even Kris’ presence did nothing to help deter him from feeling as he did. He didn’t know what to do now besides listen, trying desperately to take that advice, but when every breath felt as if he was swallowing sand, it still didn’t help much.

It was only a few minutes later when the doctor deemed Jongdae calm enough that he leaned back into his chair. As soon as he removed his warm hand from the boy’s knee, this immediately caused Jongdae to feel as if he had just lost a sense of security and the feeling of panic began rising once more, hysteria seeping from his body from every pore.

“I’m not exactly sure where you managed to get this particular strain of this influenza virus, but from what you’ve written and the tests we ran on your larynx tissue, this form of laryngitis was developed mostly by an overuse of your vocal cords. I’m sure you might have been fine if the virus had not gotten to you earlier, but with the combination of the flu and you overworking your vocal cords, your larynx has been inflamed severely. There also might be the possibility of you having developed nodes on your vocal cords due to the strain and we will have to run more tests on your larynx to make sure. I want to just tell you this now, if you do have vocal cord nodes, you may have to go into surgery to remove them, Mr. Kim.”

Everything that Jongdae had heard prior to that last sentence was wiped away with the thought of surgery, of going under the knife, of possibly losing everything. Surgery wasn’t antibiotics or pills, but something serious, and for him to have to possibly undergo it scared him more than anything.

He couldn’t think beyond the last sentence, the words being repeated over and over again, until he was shaking, crying, and having a hard time breathing again. The panic that had settled earlier had spiked at the words to the point that he knew nothing but surgery, scalpels, and doctors staring down at him under bright lights that hurt his eyes. The scenes and repeated words in his mind made the scared child inside of him whisper in the corner of his mind, “No, this can’t be happening. This can’t be true. What did I do to deserve this? Why are you trying to do this to me? Why are you telling me things that can take away from my dreams? My life? Are you trying to beat me with this knowledge until I can’t get back up, too broken to do anything but live a life where I mean nothing?”

The doctor quietly tried to calm the boy down, enlisting Kris’ help, but neither of them being able to do anything to help the panicked boy. Seeing that the boy was going to continue his fit, the doctor quickly paged the nurse’s station, asking for a light sedative as Jongdae simply fell to his side on the bed, shaking and crying uncontrollably. It was only moments later, that a woman came into the room, syringe in hand and a frown on her face as she took in the scene, seeing how awful the boy looked while his friend looked helplessly at them, willing them to fix what had been done.

Giving the doctor the sedative, the man thanked the woman and made his way to the boy’s side to the needle into the boy’s thigh, waiting for the drug to take effect, removing the boy from his panicked state. Jongdae’s cries slowly come to a close, his shoulders barely shaking as his energy severely depletes into nothing, and his breathing returns to normal, a slight hitch here and there from his sniffling. He couldn’t even think properly at the moment, lulled to a drugged state of uneasy peace while his mind tried to cope with the situation.

Kris looks forlornly at the boy before taking him into his arms and leaning him against him, arm wrapped around the boy’s side as he quietly asked the doctor to continue what he was saying before. Jongdae was listening, but too exhausted to do anything but lean against him and take in the doctor’s words.

“Now, I’ll also tell you what else you have to do, Mr. Kim. I’m sure your friends will be able to take good care of you, so I’m talking to both of you now. You need to let your larynx rest. Which means every day, you will have to use a humidifier or a vaporizer for at least several hours to help you breathe. I will also give you cough sedatives to keep down any more irritations to your larynx. Besides from that, you will have to come in several days from now so that we can run a more thorough test to check if you do have vocal cord nodes or not. As for today, take it easy. Go home and sleep, rest and drink plenty of warm water. Try to eat soup, even ice cream would be good, anything that is easy to swallow until your next appointment, Mr. Kim.”

Making sure that Jongdae was absorbing his words, or at least Kris, who was steadily nodding along with everything he had said, the doctor then nodded back in consent before allowing them to go, giving a, “Very well, you two may leave now,” before showing them out.

Finding the manager near the front desk, the man holding a few packets of information and a slight frown on his face, Kris held onto Jongdae as their manager proceeded to lead them away from the hospital and back to their van. Kris did his best to keep Jongdae from thinking about the diagnosis, uncharacteristically chattering away about anything and everything that came to mind, but the gesture doing nothing to keep the boy from going over everything that had happened in his mind.

Feeling utterly crippled and more than exhausted than he had ever felt, Jongdae allowed the two to take him, feed him some broth, and put into bed, too despondent to really care what was going on around him. Once in bed and away from prying eyes, Jongdae found himself silently staring at the wall, the need to cry apparent, but his eyes too tired and dry to do so; he tried to find comfort instead in hiding himself under his covers.