Like all teenagers, Choi Junhong once thought himself invincible.

Hour after hour of dance practices, performances, interviews, filming, and what-have-you were nothing to him - he’d bounce right up after three hours of sleep and be raring to go after a morning energy drink.

(Jongup used to be like that too, he remembers, but that had stopped sometime in the middle of the year. Was it Japan or Thailand? He couldn’t remember anymore - could only recall when they had to carry Jongup into their van one day after dance practice and hook him up to an IV. He’d looked so small, face taking on a grey pallor under the tanned skin, and Junhong found himself wondering when Jongup’s cheekbones had started looking quite so pronounced. His closest friend in the group had never been quite the same after, sleeping longer and longer hours until he had the same haunted look in his eyes as the other hyungs.)

Now, he realizes, as he collapses bonelessly onto his bed - his bed, that he hasn’t slept on in years - that exhaustion really does creep up on you, settles deep into your muscles and bones and the very fibers of your being that even when you’ve slept for nearly a whole day you still don’t feel like you can get up. He can go through the motions, but even lifting his arms to brush his teeth feels like running a mile.

(Perhaps this was why Yongguk had lost more and more weight as the years went by, why he was so thin to start with. Because he had the dreams of five others resting on his shoulders and he’d had his freedom taken away - freedom he’d once had and freedom he’d been promised. Junhong doesn’t know what his favorite hyung is doing now (although he’d heard Yongguk was going to Prague with one of his old friends) but he knows their leader isn’t the happiest singing watered-down love songs to prepubescent girls.)

He does, at least, have enough effort to keep eating, although he doesn’t have much of a choice now that he lives with his mother again. He’s definitely not on track to lose any of his baby fat anytime soon, not after the five or so pounds he’s pretty sure he’s gained in the past few weeks, but he feels a bit better, if nothing else. It’s nice to have a mother’s care after essentially being raised by a bunch of other teenaged boys for several years who had no idea what they were doing. All the packaged food he ate probably would have given his mother a heart attack.

(Junhong wonders how Himchan is doing - his mother, too, is probably trying to fatten him up a bit, but he knows just how afraid the second-oldest is of fat and gaining weight. He doesn’t understand it much, because he’s always been rather lean, but he figures it makes sense that if you once thought you were ugly and became beautiful, you’d be forever afraid of going back. It’s a shame, he thinks, because Himchan is worth so much more; he’s mastering a dying art, is ridiculously witty, and is the best second mother anyone could hope to have.)

Their songs come up on the radio sometimes. By sometimes, he means twice in two weeks, although he’s pretty sure they’ll stop entirely soon. Their songs never got airtime unless they were currently promoting, and even then it was always either on a hosted radio show or one of their crowd-friendly songs, the kind that made Yongguk scowl a little and the others cough nervously. Junhong listens to their songs on his iPod sometimes, but all the voices sound like strangers to him.

(Even Daehyun’s - the voice that had filled nearly all of his waking hours from the moment he’d first moved in to their dorm. He misses the vocalist, especially when he’s at home alone and the silence, once so welcomed, now feels so alienating. He misses how Daehyun would talk about everything and nothing and even when everyone was dead tired, they’d still manage to crack a smile. He misses how Daehyun would sing all the ing time - in the shower, in the car, at meals - until everyone yelled at him to shut up. He wonders if Daehyun still sings.)

Junhong doesn’t watch any of the year-end award shows. B.A.P isn’t nominated for anything, anyways. He won’t pretend he’s not disappointed, because First Sensibility had been their most mainstream album to date and he’d hoped they’d get some recognition for it, but there’s probably something to be said for promoting in the beginning of the year and spending the next three months on tour and most of the ones after in Japan. Awards have never been their end goal, but it hurts to see groups that are newer overtake them when they can’t even defend their position. They’re not the best, no matter what their group name might mean, but Junhong definitely thinks he’s heard better than some of the others.

(Youngjae had made a game out of the theatrics of it all. They’d watch the awards shows back online and laugh at some of the ridiculous outfts and have some joking trash-talk that always ended with Yongguk reminding them to stay humble and respect others who were working towards the same dream. But Youngjae would wink conspiratorially at Junhong, sometimes, and offer him a bag of forbidden chips. He hadn’t been close to Youngjae, but it was small moments like this when Junhong knew none of them were outsiders. They made for an unlikely pairing, but sometimes opposites worked. And there was always room for apple jokes.)

Sometimes, Junhong dreams.

He wonders why, because he’d always thought he’d been living them out, but they’d come more and more frequently lately. Sometimes they were simple and happy, like getting new skateboards and eating crappy ramyun, but other times he woke up sweating and unable to move as black holes threatened to swallow him alive and bodies of the dead piled around him. Sometimes it’s warm and sometimes cold and sometimes burning, but it’s always there. He doesn’t know why he’s suddenly dreaming so much, but he figures he’s got to run on something.

For him, it might have been on dreams and too little sleep.