Extra Mini Chapter - Happy Kong Day! ^^

Fifteen minutes is all it usually took for the sleep aid to kick in. Usually. Hongbin glanced at his phone and sighed at the time. He’d taken his nightly dosage of the sweet tasting tablet over thirty minutes ago and yet he was still feeling restless. He’d blame it on the uneasiness of his mind from being in a different place than he’s used to sleeping at, but this was his home. And besides, he didn’t normally have any trouble with sleeping in various hotels when he traveled abroad with the other members for their schedules.

Maybe it was from being away from the members for so long? It’d only been three days since Hongbin last saw any of the others, but it’s not like they didn’t keep in contact. Hell, he couldn’t go five hours without some sort of interaction initiated -most of the time- by Hakyeon.

Hongbin had left a few days ago to visit his family for the Chuseok holiday weekend and was granted a few more vacation days to celebrate his upcoming birthday. He’s definitely enjoyed his time with family members that he hasn’t seen in ages and of course he was excited to be able to celebrate his birthday with them on the actual day of it. But he still missed the members.

He tried to distract himself from his wandering mind by looking around his old bedroom. It worked for the most part, he reminisced for a short while and jumped hard when his ringtone for a certain hyung filled the room.

What the hell was Hakyeon calling him for at this time of night?

“Bin-ah! You’re still awake? I honestly thought I would just leave you a voicem-”

“Hyung. I can’t sleep.” Hongbin whispered weakly. His mind was back to coming up with countless unreasonable explanations as to why he couldn’t sleep.

“Did you take medicine already?” Hakyeon asked calmly. Hongbin was known to simply forget to take the medicine occasionally, and if he was tired enough it wouldn’t matter and he’d fall asleep regardless. All it really did anyway was turn his mind off and keep him from overthinking, but it didn’t seem to be doing it’s job tonight.

“Yeah, like nearly an hour ago. It never takes it this long to knock me out.”

“Are you okay, though? Does anything hurt right now?” Hakyeon’s voice was full of worry, no doubt remembering nights in the past when he’d wake up to Hongbin crying next to him out of pain. Those kinds of nights had stopped for the most part, the last one being months ago, but Hongbin knew that his leader would never stop worrying about him.

“I’m fine, I just-” Hongbin was cut off by a yawn. How long had his eyes been practically burning? He closed them and immediately felt his body relax.

“Ah, maybe your brain just needed to hear my voice.” Hakyeon’s giggles filled the room and Hongbin relaxed even further, exhaustion hitting him like a wave.

“Shut up.” Hongbin sighed. He grabbed the phone off his pillow and switched off the speaker mode before turning over to scoot even further under the covers, resting the phone between his ear and the pillow.

“Mmm, I think you were just restless because it’s your birthday soon and you’re probably just super energized with excitement or something like that. And now that you have me to take your mind off of it your body is calming down and feeling the affects of the medicine. I think it was working all along and I bet you’ll crash in a few minutes.” Hakyeon teased.

“Mhmm, perhaps -yawn- perhaps you’re right, Hakyeonnie.”

“Better not fall asleep on me, Binnie.”

“What are you going to do to stop me?”

-

Any other given time Hakyeon would have taken the opportunity to start something with Hongbin, but the younger member was nearly out cold and Hakyeon hasn’t even gotten to the point of the phonecall.

“Absolutely nothing.” Hakyeon responded, honestly not wanting to keep him from falling asleep. “Hey, Bin-ah.” He whispered into the receiver.

“Mm?” Hongbin hummed, it was so soft that Hakyeon wondered if maybe he’d already fallen asleep.

“Happy birthday.”

“Thanks, hyung.” His answer was only a mumble but Hakyeon understood it nonetheless and could even hear the smile in Hongbin’s voice.

The line went quiet for a few short minutes that felt like ages to Hakyeon who also fighting sleep himself.

“Love you, Hongbinnie.” He whispered, not expecting any response. Hakyeon let his own eyes close and ignored the voice in his head telling him he should probably hang up the phone before he falls asleep with the call still connected.

“Nado, Hakyeon.”

A/N: It seems like Hongbin's chapter is most popular amongst the existing three so far ^_^ So I figured I'd write a little something for Bin's birthday. It's extremely rushed/unedited and 95% dialogue but I hope you like it nonetheless.