Weak. Soonyoung is weak.

It isn’t in the line of his body as he shuffles through the final steps of the choreography, practised too much, so much that his arms are hanging limp and his head is turned back towards the heavens.

It isn’t the sweat-soaked vest. Not in the short, sharp, humourless laughter spilling from the open cavern of his mouth, nor in the way his limbs fold under, crashing his knees down into the plywood flooring. A grunt permeates the air and then the planes of mirrors, and still, the laughing continues.

Soonyoung is aching. Foundations slipping out from underneath him – he falls, onto his elbows, onto his forearms, stomach, left cheek – as he feels them rub against the fabric of his sweatpants.

Creek. Smash. Buzz, broken, but his cheek is cool where he melts himself into the ground.

His frame is still shaking, puffs of air leaving his nose like a coal-guzzling, high-speed cargo train. One puff, two puff – he shuts up after that. There’s a burn at the base of his spine where the pillar feels broken. Soonyoung’s out of energy to laugh. His brain is whirring, has been for weeks, but it’s almost out of energy, too.

The patch of ground he’s on is starting to warm up. There’s a crick in his neck.

When he hears the door open from the other side of the room, Soonyoung wonders if there’s a crick in his heart, too.

“Huh. So this is where you went.”

Soonyoung didn’t realise that his eyes were shut but he flutters them open anyway, manages to heave himself up into kneeling at an angle. His palms slip-slide along the wood for purchase but come up empty, and he’s about to go down again, but then there’s a steady mass at his side, an arm hooking under his chest and pulling him upright. 

Jihoon grabs onto his wrists and shifts to sit in front of him. There are crinkles around his eyes and when he speaks his voice carries a worried lilt.

If Soonyoung could sentence himself now, he’d put himself on an island, too far away to do harm and too close to land to grant him peace and quiet. Jihoon reaches up to fix his own hair and Soonyoung stares, mesmerised by the golden strands.

Soonyoung never suited blonde.

“C’mon. The hyungs ordered a takeaway. We thought you’d gone back to the dorm.” Just as he tunes into the conversation Jihoon’s standing up and walking away, and it aches in a way that his back doesn’t to turn and see only a retreating figure.

Jihoon stops at the doorway. He twists around to raise an eyebrow.

“Yeah.” Soonyoung’s voice is shaky, raspy, but he gets it together enough to rise to his feet. “I’m coming.”

The apples of Jihoon’s cheeks light up. He smiles, keeping eye contact as he opens up the door, and Soonyoung feels the expression make his heart stutter and stop. Jihoon is majesty.

Soonyoung is demented.