Genre: angst, romance Requester: Verse2wo Textual reference: Voodoo Doll by VIXX, Someday by VIXX

 

Pull the sunglasses over my eyes, keep my hood up, don’t look at the reporters. “Ken! Ken!” was all I heard. “We heard that you’re going on a break for a while, why is that? You’re not leaving are you?” I shook my head, refusing to answer. It’s no use, they’d find out anyway.   “Ken! Wake up! We have vocal lessons in half an hour and we need to eat before.” I rolled around in bed, feeling achy and my throat feeling scorched. “Come on Ken don’t pretend you’re sick again.” I groaned hoarsely as I tried to pull the covers over my head. N’s loud voice definitely wasn’t helping the pounding headache I had either. “Do you want Leo to get annoyed again?” he crossed his arms. I blew my nose in a fresh tissue and piled it up with all the other tissues beside me. “Hyung.” I called out tiredly. N sighed and went to the living room – probably to get Leo. Moments later, Ravi and Leo appeared in my room. “Yah, get up you lazy bum.” Leo scolded. They both took hold of my arms and tried to pull me out of bed. I felt Ravi’s grip loosen a bit. “Hyung, I think he’s sick. His temperature doesn’t feel right.” N sighed frustratedly and fetched the thermometer, placing it in my mouth. Tickly, so tickly. I tried to fight the urge to cough but I failed, spluttering out the thermometer on my bed. N knelt beside me and felt my forehead. “Let’s call the doctor, he feels quite hot.” I groaned again as I felt cold liquid rushing down my throat. I opened one eye to see Ravi pouring water in my mouth. I took the glass gently and drank down the last of the water, wincing as I swallowed. “Does it hurt a lot?” I nodded tiredly. Hongbin and Hyuk entered my room quietly. “I called the doctor. Is Jaehwan hyung alright?” Hongbin asked, concerned. Hyuk pouted and patted my head. “Ken Ken get better soon!” he smiled, making me smile too.   “Say ahh!” the doctor instructed me, trying to look down my throat with a torch in his hand. “A-” I croaked. The doctor sighed and felt my neck, humming. He nodded to himself and wrote something down on his pad. I tried to sit up to see what he was writing but I was pushed back down. “How long have you had a sore throat, Jaehwan-ssi?” he asked. I looked at all of the members. “About…week?” I cleared my throat and tried again. “A week.” I answered more clearly this time. He wrote down some more things on his pad and turned to N. “Looking at his throat, I would say he has Laryngitis. I would have to look properly at the vocal chords to see if it was chronic or not.” “So what should we do? He’s one of our main vocalists.” Ravi butted in. The doctor looked at me. “He’ll get better soon but until then he might want to take a break. It’ll help his throat heal better.”   I pushed open the door. This is wrong. You’ll never get better by doing this. Did you listen to the doctor? I shook away the (probably rational) thoughts and sat in front of the bar. Stop! Don’t do it! Just order some water you pabo. “Vodka?” the bartender asked. I nodded. Right now all I needed was to drown out all the thoughts in my head. I could forget that I was ill. I could forget that I had to take a break from my career. I could forget being pampered by the members because I was ill and seeing them all look at me as if I was going to die. I was sick, quite literally of it all. Of course I knew if it was another member I’d do the same but what could I do? It’s not as if being ill means you care about that all too much. I sipped the alcohol down and motioned for another. What has happened to you, Ken? You never drank much before this happened. “Steady on there! Why are you drinking so much?” someone behind me questioned. I shrugged. “Bad day?” I shrugged again. “Broke up with your girlfriend?” I shook my head. “Got sacked at work?” I shook my head. “Well what then?” I chugged down another glass and motioned for another, but the girl stopped the bartender and turned to me, lowering her voice. “You don’t talk much do you?” she furrowed her eyebrows. I looked into the bottom of my glass. “You’re mute, aren’t you? Poor thing.” She rubbed my back soothingly. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t a mute, but then I’d probably either say something stupid or not be able to say anything at all, which would pretty much prove her point. Plus, I didn’t talk at all these days, so she was pretty much spot on with her guess. “Have you been a mute for long?” she asked. I