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Nightmares were no stranger to him. Waking up disoriented and groping around himself in search of something to ground him had become part of Beomgyu's routine. Of course, with the nightmares came nights full of anxiety that left him shaking and wide-eyed until it was time to get up.
Sleep deprived, nauseous and running on two spoons of Nutella wasn't Beomgyu's best look, he could admit that. This didn't, however, excuse the wary looks he had been getting all practice, which in his opinion, were quite rude.
"No, Hyung, hear me out." He had been toying with the thought of dropping the 'Hyung' when talking to Soobin (it sounded hilarious in his head), but it was probably still too early for that, considering he had been added to the group only a handful of weeks ago. "If I don't get a bus ticket later, I have more money to spend on extra ramen."
"It's raining." Soobin sounded pained as he clutched his water bottle tighter, a little bit afraid and very concerned. This physically unstable and mentally questionable version of Beomgyu hadn't been introduced to the team yet, and they weren't taking it as well as expected.
Beomgyu's classmates had never had a problem with his biweekly episodes of bloodshot eyes and shaky hands, but perhaps that was just because they were used to it. Or at least, Beomgyu was beginning to think that with Yeonjun very obviously keeping himself within arm's reach and ready to catch Beomgyu if he were to fall. Cute, but also mildly infuriating.
"If I run fast enough, the rain gets intimidated by me and I don't get wet," Beomgyu replied with his completely rational observation, thank you very much.
"Beomgyu, what," Soobin shook his head in disbelief, "what are you even talking about."
Their dancing instructor chose this moment to return to the practice room. Beomgyu squinted at the mirror to either clear up his fuzzy vision or his headache, earning himself Soobin's hand feeling the temperature of his forehead and Yeonjun shuffling even closer.
"Hyung I'm fine." He dodged the hand and quickly joined Taehyun in front of the mirror. Yeonjun and Soobin shared a look behind his back.
The rest of the practice felt longer than it ever had. Beomgyu's head pounded and his entire body felt like he had just run a marathon or two. By the time the instructor shot them all a supportive smile and a well done, but let's keep going over that tomorrow, he was just about ready to collapse, or cry, or scream. Really, he just felt like shit, but it wasn't anything new to him, so he waved her off with a smile.
Beomgyu wasn't planning on going home yet. Most days, the members would stay behind after official practice times both to perfect the moves and to show their determination to the company. This day wasn't going to be any different, although Beomgyu did find himself slumping down against the wall not five minutes later.
His legs had turned to jelly somewhere along the way and were limply balancing in front of him. He didn't really have the energy to move, instead just kind of sitting there and breathing, arms slung over his knees and forehead resting on his forearms.
That all was going to fix itself once he got some caffeine and sugar into himself, as it always would when he couldn't afford to slack off on days like these. So it was completely unnecessary for Taehyun to unsurely walk up to his side and return to practicing for the third time now.
"I'm still alive, if that's what you're wondering," he mumbled upon Taehyun's fourth approach, making the boy scuttle back to the mirror. "Sadly. A guy can only dream." Oops. Hopefully that hadn't been loud enough to hear.
He lifted his head up and squinted against the pounding the light brought to his head. Kai, who was already looking at him, jumped when they locked eyes and pretended to be focused on his dancing. Beomgyu allowed himself another second to close his eyes, before moving to push himself up. "Can we go over the second chorus with formation again?"
"Actually," Soobin spoke up, stretching his arms over head while walking over, "I was just about to take a break too. Why don't we watch Yeonjun for a bit?" He smiled an awfully placating smile.
Yeonjun shot them a thumbs up through the mirror, and yeah, his moves were definitely looking the best out of all of them. Although Beomgyu would like to claim he was catching up at an acceptable pace, even if the way to go was still long.
Soobin slid down the wall next to Beomgyu and took a drink from his bottle. Beomgyu looked back and forth between his hyungs. It felt like they were conspiring against him, for some reason, but he couldn't figure out what they could possibly be getting from this. He frowned at Soobin with furrowed eyebrows.
But then Soobin slowly, carefully moved his arm to drop it around Beomgyu's shoulder with a small smile. That ended that line of thought, and Beomgyu dropped his chin onto his forearm and managed to watch Yeonjun dancing for a whole minute before feeling his eyes slip shut.
Soobin looked up from Beomgyu, who was looking uncharacteristically small under his arm, to see the rest of the members already looking back. He shrugged, feeling a bit out of his depths, and began slowly rubbing the boy's back, feeling his body shaking.
Beomgyu tried protesting that all he needed was a little sugary snack and he would be good to go again, but the heavy warmth of the hand rubbing up and down his back kept him from moving too much. Someone sat down on his other side and Beomgyu could hear the sound Soobin and Taehyun talking over his head, though it all sounded like he was underwater.
Against his will, he fell asleep surprisingly quickly.
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"I waw woma woeer." Beomgyu paused in the middle of pulling off his socks. He made eye contact with Kai through the bathroom mirror, who had a toothbrush in his mouth and apparently, something to say. Something Beomgyu did not understand in the slightest, but that had never stopped him before.
"I totally agree." Going by Kai's expression, that response had made absolutely no sense, but arguing wasn't really an option unless he wanted toothpaste on his shirt. Upon not receiving another garbled answer, Beomgyu turned his back to Kai and quickly took off the rest of his clothes, getting in the shower and pulling the curtain closed behind himself.
The water was freezing when he turned it on, making him yelp and hurry to turn it to a warmer temperature. In the minute it took for the water to heat up, Beomgyu rushed through washing his hair and had begun applying conditioner, until finally, warmth hit his shoulders. With a happy sigh, he reached back to turn it from warm to hot, and then even hotter.
The heat soothed down his shoulders and back. Beomgyu could practically feel it working out the knots in his tense neck and burning away any tension. He turned it even higher, and when the water began to really burn, he closed his eyes and leaned into it, feeling like he was being reborn for a good minute. This was really hitting the spot.
Kai's voice reminded Beomgyu of the fact that he was still alive and had not, in fact, died and gone to heaven. The words sounded a lot clearer than before and lacking in toothpaste. "Hyung, you're steaming me."
Beomgyu reluctantly opened his eyes, staring at the wet tiles. "You're a steamed bun now. Enjoy it." Kai giggled and Beomgyu, feeling content and hot in the pain, smiled at the wall of steam rising up around him.
The sound of the bathroom door opening could be heard, followed by Yeonjun groaning. "Why is it that every time I want to shower, one of you is in there already? I call dibs on the next one."
"I was going to shower first!" Kai complained, "Beomgyu hyung stole my spot first!"
"Should've been faster," Beomgyu responded, finally rinsing the conditioner out. He felt the most relaxed he had all day.
Kai wasn't done complaining. "You're all bullies. I'm being mistreated here, wait until Taehyun hears about this, he'll beat you up."
"I miss when all of you were still small enough for me to throw around. Tiny Taehyun would be quivering in fear before me."
"Alright, I'm done." Beomgyu regrettably shut off the water, immediately missing the sensation of it running down his back but enjoying the lasting heat that had seeped into his skin. Blindly, he reached outside the shower curtain to snag a towel.
Once Beomgyu had (mostly) dried off, he reached outside again for his underwear and stepped out of the little oasis the shower had become. At least the air inside the rather small bathroom wasn't as cold as the rest of the dorm was sure to be, so he didn't immediately begin shivering. Dripping everywhere, he slipped past Yeonjun and reached around Kai to grab his hair products, intending to finish his routine quickly so he could have more alone time with his games after.
However, his plan was interrupted by a hand pressing against his shoulder out of nowhere. The cold contact disturbed the heat Beomgyu had sucked up and made him jump. He turned a pout Yeonjun's way, who still hadn't taken the hand off his shoulder.
"Beomie." Yeonjun's expression made him hesitate in his movement. The older seemed conflicted as he kept pressing on Beomgyu's skin, watching carefully as it turned bright red as soon as he let go. "Your skin is so hot." He frowned. "How warm were you showering?"
Beomgyu just shrugged and began working some oil into his hair. "Hot showers are nice. Loosens all the muscle." And he enjoyed the calm he found in the burn, but that wasn't very in-character for him, so he kept it to himself. He looked over himself in the mirror, and yeah, he was definitely pretty red, but that would fade soon enough.
Yeonjun finally took his cold hand off (Beomgyu wondered if it really was cold or if Yeonjun was right and his own skin was just that warm in comparison) and instead shrugged off his shirt. Kai exchanged a look with Beomgyu through the mirror when Yeonjun pulled back the wet shower curtain, turned on the water and stuck his hand under it.
Yeonjun actually yelled.
"Beomie holy shit! That's so hot!" He shut off the water just as quickly and held his hand away from his body, as if that would change anything. Personally, Beomgyu thought he was overreacting, it was really just a nicely hot shower.
Kai frowned and shuffled to the shower to put his own hand under the water. This bathroom was definitely too small for three people.
Kai gasped at the water's temperature and shut it off again. He looked up from his now red hand, at Yeonjun, then at Beomgyu. "I knew it. You were cooking yourself."
"More like burning", Yeonjun added. Beomgyu let his hair flop onto his forehead and picked up one of the hoodies from the communal pile of shower laundry. His socks were long gone in the pile.
Cuddled up in the hoodie, Beomgyu made the mistake of looking up to be met with the sight of Yeonjun's lips pressing together tightly and Kai making big, sad eyes at him. Yeonjun put both hands on his hips, getting comfortable in his lecture stance. "I feel like your habits are really getting out of hand. I know you used to struggle in the past, and—"
Beomgyu mentally apologized to his pants when he abandoned them on the bathroom floor and sprinted. Talking about his feelings was not something he did.
He closed the bedroom door behind him and locked it before Yeonjun or, god forbid, Kai could go after him. He spun around to face the room and spotted Soobin on his bed, squinting at his outfit choice. "Is that my underwear?"
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'So it's going to be one of those days,' was the first thought Beomgyu formed upon waking up the next morning. His legs had felt numb when he shifted them under his blankets and it seemed like he was looking at the world through a fog, washed out and distant. He hated existing on days like these the most, even more than the ones that had him throwing up from crying too hard in the bathroom, trying to stay quiet.
Instead, he would be stuck in this weird detached state with the only thing he could feel being a distant sense of nausea and exhaustion. His own thoughts would be running in circles without a break for hours, if not days, and he would be stuck in the middle of it, unable to even cry.
'I should cut today,' had been the next thought, and it might have even cheered him up if he hadn't immediately remembered that he was clean for years now and couldn't ruin that for some temporary comfort. He blinked up at the ceiling, body tired but not really his, and tried to think of an alternative to interrupt the spiraling. His go-to would have been a scalding shower, but after running from that conversation the night before, he wasn't exactly looking to remind either Yeonjun or Kai of it.
'I'll figure it out.' As he left the room, he didn't even pause to pull a sleeping Soobin's blanket over his head like he usually did for his own amusement every morning.
Taehyun was already in the kitchen, and Beomgyu remembered that he was currently in his meal prepping phase, which was great if you were a hungry idol coming home after grueling dance practices, but not so great when you were Beomgyu having one of his Beomgyu-days where eating seemed like the least desirable thing in the world and the sight of food made him nauseous.
"You're awake already?" was the first thing Taehyun greeted him with, which in Beomgyu's opinion, was quite rude, but was quickly followed up with, "Did you even sleep?". With a nod, Beomgyu looked over his shoulder and watched him work his knife magic on a pile of vegetables that were then pushed into a bowl.
"You good?" Beomgyu quickly pulled a small smile onto his face and nodded more enthusiastically to sell it. Seeming doubtful, which again, rude, Taehyun stepped to the side and pushed a bell pepper across the counter in Beomgyu's direction. "Wanna help me chop?"
Two minutes later, Beomgyu had methodically taken the bell pepper apart. He pushed the chopped up vegetables off the cutting board with his knife and reached for the next one. A grimace wormed its way onto his face when he realized that he was holding a tomato. Next to him, Taehyun snorted and grabbed the tomato from his hand to cut it himself. Beomgyu looked at his empty hand for a second too long.
The knife he was holding was sharp, and the sight of it made something in Beomgyu's gut settle. He pressed the tip of it against his finger, feeling more than seeing the sharp edge glide into his skin and underneath. For a second, the skin remained the same pale yellowish colour it had gotten under the pressure, before, around the silver metal, red began to well up.
It collected into a thick drop that soon slid down the curve of his finger and along the palm of his hand. Beomgyu's blood had always been a pretty colour, just a touch more vibrant than what seemed natural. Next to it, the veins shining through his skin seemed even more sickly.
His expression remained perfectly relaxed as he pressed more of the blade against his finger, watching the bead of blood drip down onto the counter. It looked different there than it had just a second ago, lifeless and cold on the marble. The fog around his head cleared up a bit, so he kept pressing.
"Gyu?"
Before Beomgyu even had the chance to collect himself back into his own body and form a response, the knife was removed from his hand. A body shoved itself between Beomgyu and the counter, keeping its back to him and grabbing his wrist.
"Damnit," Taehyun hissed through clenched teeth. He spun around to face Beomgyu, still blocking the blood from his sight and keeping Beomgyu's bloody hand hidden behind his back. He didn't like the vacant look that sat on his hyung's face. Beomgyu blinked at him numbly.
Taehyun, now muttering under his breath, grabbed a paper towel from next to the sink and threw it on top of the drop of blood on the counter, then pressed another one onto Beomgyu's finger to hold it himself. He pushed aside his own abandoned cutting board to make space on the counter. "It's fine", Beomgyu heard himself speak.
However, the fight left his body when he was suddenly picked up. Taehyun spun him around and placed him, stunned, onto the space on the counter he had just cleared and held him there a second longer before hurrying off down the hallway. "Stay here."
Beomgyu pursed his lips when Taehyun reappeared before him with a box of band-aids. The cut was so small that it shouldn't even count as a proper cut, and now that the blood had been wiped away, it looked like nothing at all. "It's barely even bleeding." Taehyun gave him a look that made Beomgyu hold his tongue.
"Just let me put it on." He grabbed Beomgyu's wrist with more force than what seemed necessary, or maybe it was necessary, Beomgyu wouldn't know. He had never been one for band-aids, he was more of a toilet paper and pressure kind of guy.
Soobin chose this moment to stumble into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and yawning. The sunlight coming in through the window sent him reeling back and into the doorframe, after which he clutched at his back in pain.
"Mornin", Beomgyu said, observing Taehyun's fingers wrapping his in a band-aid. The place where Taehyun was leaning against his legs was beginning to feel warm, and it would have annoyed Beomgyu if he wasn't so weirded out by the concept of being able to feel anything right now.
"I've never woken up without choking on my blankets before. The world is healing", was Soobin's groggy response. He paused halfway into the kitchen as he caught sight of Beomgyu sitting on the counter, finger held dutifully still and Taehyun going to return the band-aids to their place in the bathroom.
Soobin yawned again and tried to fix his messy bed hair. It didn't work. "What did you do?"
"Was cutting vegetables and cut my finger a little bit. I don't know why he's being so dramatic." Beomgyu shrugged, lowering his finger. Looking at the band-aid made a little bit of colour return to the world.
The response was immediate, coming from Taehyun reentering the kitchen. "On purpose, Hyung, he cut his finger on purpose."
Now that woke Soobin up. He dropped his hand and fixed Beomgyu with that look he got when he was in leader mode. "Beomgyu, this is enough. I know you don't want to talk about your self-harming habits-" Beomgyu tried to protest, but was stopped by Soobin holding up a finger to his face. "They are self-harming. And we all know that you have been getting worse. I would like to do this at your own pace, but if you're getting into dangerous territory, we're putting a stop to it now. Now, do I need to tell the managers?"
Beomgyu quickly shook his head. He was hating this so, so much, and could feel his own racing heart going wild in his chest. His breathing felt weird and not enough, but it was all somehow far, far away.
Taehyun thought he might hate this current look on Beomgyu even more than the blank one. He put a hand on Beomgyu's knee, to get his attention or distract him or something, but he barely even twitched.
Beomgyu felt exposed sitting on the counter in front of the two, so he kicked his feet back against the cupboard to distract himself. He tried to get back to himself, to hold onto the feeling of the hand he knew Taehyun was touching him with, and it worked, if only barely.
"I'm not doing anything dangerous." He grit his teeth at the following silence. They all knew of the scars across his upper arms, which were barely visible and old but there, and it was clear they didn't believe him.
"Anymore." There. That seemed to be doing the trick. Beomgyu dared raise his eyes and was met with Taehyun's hardened expression and Soobin's pained one. He knew Soobin probably hated pushing him into something he was clearly uncomfortable with.
"Promise."
Soobin nodded, expression tight, then stepped forward and pulled Beomgyu into a sudden tight hug. Next to him, Taehyun took Beomgyu's hand and held it against his chest. It was all a bit much, and Beomgyu still wasn't sure if he was feeling numb or panicked or both, but at least his members were there.
"I'm hungry, can we eat now?" He really wasn't hungry. Anything to get away from this conversation would be fine for him right now.
"Okay. We are talking about this though, when you're ready." Soobin pulled back a bit, keeping one arm around Beomgyu's shoulders and ruffling his hair with his other hand. "And you're banned from the cooking knives."
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It wasn't a rare occurrence for members to get sick, with their busy schedules and diets consisting of ramen and tangerines. But it wasn't often that they got sick enough to be sent home early from practice, like Beomgyu ended up being that day. Kai, who had been rubbing his temples all day, was sent along with him with the job to make sure he got some rest.
An hour after dragging himself through the front door, Beomgyu was sitting in front of the TV, watching a new Netflix series. Kai, taking the choreographer's assigned job very seriously, had somehow managed to coax Beomgyu into sitting between his legs and leaning on his chest so he could 'keep an eye on him'. Beomgyu didn't call him out on just wanting to cuddle.
It was a drama about love, or discovering yourself, or something, it wasn't really Beomgyu's thing. Still, he found himself fixated on the screen, zoned out of his surrounding completely. Two characters stood at a gas station, and just as the conversation was getting somewhere, another love interest pulled up on his motorcycle.
The drama really wasn't that good.
Being as focused as he was, Beomgyu didn't notice how Kai's fingers had trailed along his arms, tracing the scars drawn across his skin. They were thin and pale, barely noticeable unless you knew what you were looking for, but they were there.
Kai wasn't stupid, he knew how they had gotten there. He had watched these scars gradually fade in the time he had known Beomgyu, from the pale pink they had once been to the pretty much unnoticeable colour of his skin.
He remembered the first time Beomgyu had had to admit defeat and shed his hoodie during training, barely a week into training with sweat dripping down his brow. Kai wouldn't have even noticed the healed cuts if it weren't for Soobin's wandering eyes lingering a few seconds too long. Soobin hadn't said anything, even when it was obvious that Beomgyu knew that they knew, but he had given the boy a hug during a break.
They never really talked about it. Not when they were formed into a group, not when they debuted, not after. It was just an unspoken thing to pay special attention to Beomgyu when he got quiet, to pull his hands apart when he began picking at his cuticles, to check up on him when he was being suspiciously quiet inside the bathroom. To gently get him out of his own head.
One night, when all five of them were still sleeping in the same room, Kai had woken up to see Yeonjun kneeling on Beomgyu's bed and coaxing him through breathing exercises.
"Hyungie."
That night, in the dark, Kai had been able to make out Beomgyu's shaking frame clutching onto Yeonjun's hands like they were the only thing keeping him grounded. Yeonjun had kept their foreheads pressed together and held onto Beomgyu's hands just as tightly. When Kai had asked what was wrong, Yeonjun had told him to go back to sleep, but didn't protest when he instead grabbed his plushie and moved beds. With Kai's weight leaning again his back, Beomgyu had eventually managed to calm down and fall asleep.
Now, Beomgyu blinked his attention back into reality at Kai's call. His hair flopped into his eyes as he leaned his head back against Kai's chest, snuggling deeper into him.
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask?"
For a second, Beomgyu was confused on what Kai was talking about, until he noticed the fingertips tracing the faint lines he had at one point dragged across his own arms. Kai's hands were warm on his skin.
Beomgyu waited for that terrible, anxious pull in his chest that always came with a mention of the topic. It was like there was a weight pressing down on his lungs, but there was also too much air in them but not enough, and Beomgyu felt cold and ashamed and ready to curl up in a dark, empty room. He had felt it when his brother had asked him about what then still looked like accidental scratches like he knew, and Beomgyu had laughed it off. It had been there through most of the year he was fourteen and at his worst. He knew it like the back of his hand and knew when to expect it.
But the feeling didn't come. His throat didn't close up, the air didn't get too thick to breathe. Beomgyu remained feeling warm and secure in Kai's hold. Maybe, it was okay to talk about it like this, when it wasn't scary and uncomfortable. Maybe he could say what he was thinking, had been thinking for years, and Kai would just be right here and they could keep watching this awful drama with great acting. Maybe he would be okay.
"Yeah", he responded.
Kai didn't say anything for a good minute. Beomgyu tried to get back into the drama still running on the TV, but his previous focus didn't come back the same.
"How old are they?"
"These?" A small laugh jumped out of his chest at the question before he could stop it. Wouldn't it be pretty obvious, considering Kai had been there for most of the fading process?
"Nine years, maybe? They're pretty old."
"Is that why they're so light?"
He hummed and lightly thumped his head against Kai's collarbone in a nod. "Most of them weren't very deep in the first place."
Kai didn't seem to like that a lot. His hands momentarily froze, before he rubbed over the scars with his thumbs. Beomgyu knew what he felt, that the ones on his right arm could pass for normal skin, while his left arm felt bumpy with long lines. He didn't use to care for symmetry a lot.
"Do you have them anywhere else?"
Beomgyu bit his lip and looked down. These scars weren't raised and angry like the ones on his thighs, but the members didn't know more about those than from flighty glances. He never thought they ever would, yet here Kai was, palms rubbing up and down his arms.
"... Yeah. On m' thighs."
Kai breathed deeply into his hair and wrapped his arms around Beomgyu's middle. It was a little worrying for him to be this quiet. Beomgyu hoped he wasn't forcing himself to talk about topics that made him uncomfortable just for his sake. He had been dealing with it on his own for long enough, he could keep doing so without making his maknae break down.
"Do you... Do you still do it?", Kai asked timidly. Beomgyu turned around in his arms, keeping both his legs slung over one of Kais. Both his hands landed on the younger's cheek, inspecting the expression he wore on his face. Kai blinked back up at him, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth with a light flush across his cheeks and eyes. Beomgyu knew that flush, Kai always got it before he started crying.
"Are you sure you're okay to keep talking about this? We can just watch the drama instead."
Kai shook his head quickly. "No, Hyung, please tell me. I want to know."
"I don't cut anymore." It felt good to say it. He was clean from cutting, had been for a long time, and it hadn't been an easy process to go through on his own. Kai's face seemed to lighten up. Beomgyu felt embarrassed enough by what he was going to say next that he dropped his hands into his lap and looked down at them. "It's... different things I do now."
Kai's face fell. Beomgyu felt a hint of that terrible, anxious pull in his chest again, and was just about ready to play it off and retreat back into his room, when he was pulled against Kai's chest and held close.
"I know."
Beomgyu's breath got caught in his throat. He tried to pull back, but was held back by the arms around him. "You do?" He hadn't thought he had been obvious with his coping mechanisms, at least the ones he was consciously doing, and none of those were anything that screamed I am depressed and hurt myself!
"We've been noticing some things", Kai admitted, "Yeonjun and I talked about it a few times, but the others definitely noticed some stuff as well. We weren't sure if asking you about it would only be making it worse, so we didn't. But... I'm still worried about you, Hyungie." He tapped Beomgyu's hand resting on his lap until he looked up and met his eyes. "I don't want you hurting yourself"
"I don't want to either." He didn't. The comfort wasn't worth it, because here he was here right now, warm and cuddled and protected without needing to put his own body through anything beforehand. He leaned back down against Kai, where he fit right under his chin.
"Can I help?"
This was new territory, for the both of them. Beomgyu thought about it for a minute. On the TV screen, the male lead got into a dramatic car crash.
"Maybe... Can I just..."
Kai hummed into the crown of his head, urging him to go on. "The next time, when I feel bad, can I just... be with you? It helps to just not be alone."
"Of course."
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Soobin had been noticing a new pattern in Beomgyu's behaviour. The younger had always had those moments where he got this far-off look and stopped speaking. He would scratch at his arms or skip meals or keep pushing himself to dance long after the others were finished, until his legs shook. Some days, he would be seemingly absent from his own body until late at night, when he would crawl into another member's bed.
During those times, Soobin always got a bit worried. He and the other members always tried to keep close to Beomgyu when he got like this, as it wasn't a big secret that he had some struggles with his mental health, until he got back to his usual cheerful self.
The last two weeks have been a bit different though, because now Beomgyu didn't retreat into his own space to be alone as often anymore. When his hands got antsy he wouldn't use them to pick at his cuticles anymore but would find Kai and play with his fingers instead. He would scowl at his breakfast in the mornings, but instead of skipping it, would wait for Kai to wake up and force down a few mouthfuls while the younger was eating. Whenever the way Beomgyu was acting set off alarm bells in Soobin's head, Kai was already with him and the two couldn't be seen more than five meters apart.
Which was why it was even more worrying than it used to be when Beomgyu sent them off with a "I'll be home later, don't wait for me with dinner." after practice. It was unadvised by instructors and seniors both to stay behind alone after practice, yet somehow, Beomgyu had managed to smile convincingly enough for them to go ahead unworriedly.
An hour later, no Beomgyu in sight, Soobin thought about how stupid the group was as a collective to let their member most susceptible to overworking himself just for the sake of being overworked practice by himself. Checking in on Kai, who had been checking his phone every five minutes and pacing around his room for close to an hour now, showed that the youngest was thinking the same thing.
"He'll be home soon, Hueningie," he tried to reassure, "He won't be alone for too long."
"I really hope he won't."
His legs ached, far past the soreness that came with the hours of daily dance practice and more of a deep, pulsating pain that got worse when he stopped moving. His hands shook in their gestures and facial expressions, as he was used to practicing with his dancing, were out of the question. The music wasn't at its usual volume that the instructor had to shout over, it was just loud enough for Beomgyu to hear over his own panting and the sound of his footsteps, which seemed to echo in the empty room. The lights in the hallway outisde had long since been turned off, no longer spilling in from the crack under the door into the practice room.
Beomgyu gritted his teeth and carried on dancing. Each movement felt horrible but amazing, his body running on fumes. His bag sat next to the closed door by itself, where he had left it even when the other members had taken theirs home. It looked odd there, separated from the usual pile of belongings the members put together every day.
As the song faded out, Beomgyu stayed still in his ending pose, waiting for the silence to end. The next song started, taking Beomgyu back in time as it was one of their older ones, but he stayed still and breathed for a moment longer. He could feel his lung expand and deflate inside his chest, the rush of air sounding louder than the music.
His knees buckled under the weight of his body (or his thoughts, which seemed more and more plausible as the night went on) and faster than Beomgyu could do something about it, they hit the floor. Kneeling, in the middle of the practice room by himself, Beomgyu was reminded of his training days, when he had to play catch-up to the skills of the other members and ended up kneeling in practice rooms exhausted more often than he would like to admit. Those years brought more than one uncomfortable conversation about overworking oneself with them.
He eventually managed to sit back onto his calves, once he caught his breath. With more struggle than he would like to admit, he pushed himself over to the speaker, more crawling than walking, and picked up his phone with a shaking hand. His fingerprint was too sweaty to be recognized, forcing Beomgyu to type in his code while struggling to hit every button.
Kai had sent him a worried message 30 minutes after the members had left, asking if Beomgyu was sure he was fine and when he was coming home, and Beomgyu bit back a wince when he realized that that had been hours ago.
Beomgyu met his own eyes in the mirror. They were distant, almost looking through his own reflection, deep circles under them. His body ached and shook where he sat, only collapsing back onto the floor when he tried to get up. Beomgyu's reflection tutted at him unattractively as he admitted defeat. He was done for the day.
He disconnected his phone from the speaker, painfully pushed himself up onto his feet and slung his bag over his shoulder on the unsteady way out. The hallways were empty and lit up with too bright lights when he stepped into them. The Hype building was massive and bustling with activity during the day, but now, Beomgyu stood in the usually crowded artist elevator alone.
The air outside the building was cold against the skin of his exposed face and under his clothes where the wind blew. He hadn't thought to take a coat in the morning, as it wasn't really needed when their manager had picked them up and they wouldn't be outside for more than a minute. He was regretting that decision now.
Instead of asking their manager for a ride to the dorm, he instead pulled the loose sweater jacket closer over his T-shirt and began walking. Jisoo would be ready to jump out of bed and pick Beomgyu up in his pyjamas if he called, he was sure, but Beomgyu wasn't really in the mood for company.
He pulled a mask onto his face, shoved his hands into his pockets and walked.
He felt awful and unsafe and empty. He had for a long time, long enough for it to be a part of who he was. It was the reason he couldn't fall sleep in silence, why he turned to humor in situations that had others upset.
He had hit rock bottom, thought about grabbing his jacket in the middle of the night and finding a nice bridge to jump off of. He had turned the blade and hovered it above his skin, thinking about how hard he would have to press to slit his veins open. Hours have passed by him in a daze, staring at walls and thinking, always thinking, until he had nothing to think about anymore and came back around to the start.
He had been there, but he had also gotten better and discovered that the person beneath his depression was pretty cool. He knew what it was like to wake up not feeling dread, how he could appreciate small things like the pet rock sitting on a different surface every day at the dorm. He remembered the staff's elated expressions when he first started entering rooms with a smile and chatting with the noonas who did his makeup instead of zoning out the second he was made to sit still.
He knew who he was under his mental health issues, and he wanted to get that person back. He had gone through this once before and was not looking for a repeat. He didn't want to go back to having to remove the hair dryer from the bathroom before taking a bath because he couldn't trust himself. He didn't want to be throwing up in the middle of the night again, unable to breathe until he hit himself hard enough to leave bruises.
He wanted to be okay again, he didn't want to layer fresh scars onto his old ones. Most of all, at that moment, he really wanted his members to be with him.
When Beomgyu remembered to pay attention to his body, he found himself standing in front of the dorm's front door. The pain in his arms and legs had turned from comforting to icy cold. He began rummaging through his bag, unsure of how long he had been standing there, but the dark and the cold numbing his fingers made it impossible to find his keys. He felt awful like this, and a pit of wrong formed in his stomach.
The door was opened within seconds of Beomgyu ringing the doorbell, slamming into the hallway's wall from the force it was pulled with. Kai's antsy face greeted him, eliciting a pang of guilt in Beomgyu's gut.
"Hyung! Are you okay?! Where were you?"
Kai grabbed Beomgyu's sleeve, pulled him through the door and shut it behind them. His eyes burned into Beomgyu's back as he kicked his shoes off and put down his bag. When Beomgyu looked back up at him, Kai was frowning at his lack of warm clothes. "You're shaking. Are you cold?"
"A bit", Beomgyu responded. It came out shaky and quiet and wrong, not as reassuring as he had intended it to be. Kai's worried expression turned even more worried, if that was even possible, as he herded Beomgyu into the living room, where Soobin and Taehyun were already waiting for them. "Do you need a blanket? A hug? Something?"
Soobin took one look at Beomgyu, got up from his spot on the couch and caught the younger in a hug. Beomgyu couldn't help the way he stiffened up at first, before slowly melting into the hug. Soobin made a noise in the back of his throat when Beomgyu tucked his face into his shoulder.
"You okay?"
Beomgyu nodded and sucked in the comfort for a second longer before he pulled back. Soobin dropped his arms almost reluctantly, and Beomgyu caught him sharing a look with Kai over the top of his head. He slipped out from between the two to drop down onto the couch.
He suddenly felt really tired, like a weight that he didn't know had been pressing down on his shoulders was suddenly much too heavy to keep carrying. His legs stayed splayed out before him, feet on the ground, and he didn't even have the energy to pull them up to his chest and curl up. Taehyun carefully slid a little closer.
Soobin and Kai shared another look before sitting down on the floor in front of the couch, turning back on the anime that had been paused on the TV. They immediately fell into a half-heated half-joking discussion about the scene that started playing.
"Aigoo." Yeonjun joined them in the living room, coming out of the kitchen. He frowned at Beomgyu's frame slumped down on the couch, looking smaller than he was supposed to. "Baby must be hungry."
He placed down a bowl of food they all knew Beomgyu wouldn't touch on the coffee table and pressed a cup of steaming tea into Beomgyu's hands. Keeping his back in touch with Beomgyu's legs, he settled down on the floor in front of the couch. He said something Beomgyu didn't catch, which made both Soobin and Kai snap their heads to him and turn their discussion against him. Yeonjun shrugged at their onslaught.
With his members' chattering in the background and the cup warming his hands, the cold and the pain began to set in. When the tears started, Taehyun was already next to him with an arm wrapped around his shoulders, and Beomgyu didn't hesitate to hide his face in his shoulder before he started sobbing.
At the sound of his voice breaking, Beomgyu was suddenly swarmed by worried hands reaching out, which only made him sob harder. Once he started, he couldn't stop, and the tears just kept flowing as he gasped for air. Someone took the cup from his hands, which he quickly latched onto Taehyun. Taehyun pulled him closer, arms a steady weight against Beomgyu's back.
Soobin said something about a blanket, and suddenly, Kai and Yeonjun were running around the dorm. A thick blanket was dropped around Beomgyu, then another, then a penguin plushy forced its way between him and Taehyun. Beomgyu just keep crying, his body shaking with every sob, holding onto Taehyun like a lifeline. He didn't even know what was going on, but what he did know was that the awful feeling in his chest was spreading through his whole body.
When he choked on his own breath, Soobin slid onto the couch on his other side, smoothed out the blankets around him and started muttering reassurances in his ear.
"It's okay, you're okay, we've got you."
Being held tightly between Soobin and Taehyun was more calming than anything he had previously experienced. A hand reached up to pet his hair and finally, finally Beomgyu could breathe again.
He carefully pulled his face out of Taehyun's shoulder and sucked in a breath of air. His hair stuck to the tears on his face and his head hurt, throat raw from sobbing. Once he pulled back a hand from where it had been clutching Taehyun's shirt in a death grip to wipe across his eyes, Taehyun knocked his forehead against Beomgyu's temple and Soobin slid and arm around Beomgyu's waist over the blankets, not willing to let him go.
Yeonjun was standing before them with an unreasonable amount of blankets in his arms, seeming unsure if everyone was warm enough or if maybe throwing more blankets at Beomgyu would help. Beomgyu wiped his sticky face and drew in a shaky breath. His voice was watery when he spoke.
"I don't-... I'm not- okay", he started. Soobin dropped his other hand on his thigh and pulled him closer. Taehyun hummed against his cheek encouragingly. Beomgyu took another deep breath. "I don't want to go through this again. I need help."
He didn't need to explain further, as Yeonjun dropped to his knees at the edge of the couch and pulled him into his arms. His hyung smelled like curry and home, and Beomgyu closed his eyes as he was engulfed. Next to him, Soobin went back to fixing his already straightened out blankets around him. Taehyun stubbornly stayed attached to him, making Soobin huff in fake annoyance and throw an edge of the blankets around him as well.
When Beomgyu opened his eyes, he spotted Kai standing behind Yeonjun with an armful of plushies like a man on a mission, ready to smother his members in them. Kai saw him looking and quickly held out a bunny, dropping a bunch of other plushies.
Beomgyu couldn't help but laugh. He made grabby hands at Kai around Yeonjun's body, making the youngest stumble forward in his hurry to give him the bunny. Once he was close enough, Beomgyu grabbed onto Kai and tugged him forward. Kai fell straight onto Yeonjun, who slumped forward into Beomgyu, squishing him into the couch.
Taehyun was the first one who spoke, sounding a little shaky himself, but none of them commented on it, knowing they weren't any better. "Can we please put something else on now?"
Ten minutes and a second discussion between Soobin and Kai later, Beomgyu had been made to drink his cooled tea and eat a few mouthfuls of curry. Settled between his best friends, a slightly less annoying anime playing on the TV, Beomgyu felt a little more like himself and a lot more relieved than before.
When Beomgyu woke up, it was to the sound of quiet talking. He closed his eyes against the soft glow of the sun, only to be hit by a distant ache spreading through his body. Looking around his surroundings, he realized he was still lying in the living room on the couch, head cushioned on something warm. Barely inside his field of vision, he could make out Taehyun and Kai curled up in the armchair together, asleep.
The soft hoodie and fluffy socks he was wearing weren't his, and neither were the hands rubbing his back. It was so warm and comfortable that he could have gone right back to sleep, if one of the hands didn't move up to tap a pattern onto his cheek. The skin where it made contact tingled, drawing a small whine out of Beomgyu as he leaned into the touch.
"So you're finally awake."
The reference was the thing that actually woke him up. Through sticky eyelashes, he blinked up at the blurry face of Soobin. A soft smile could be made out on his lips, though his eyes were tired and red. Beomgyu felt about ten times as horrible as Soobin looked right now.
"Good morning, sleeping beauty."
Sat on the other end of the sofa, Yeonjun had Beomgyu's feet resting on his lap. His voice was low, both from exhaustion and trying not to wake the younger ones of the group up.
Tired and sore, but wrapped in a sleepy warmth between his members, Beomgyu felt something inside himself settle a little bit.
"I think... I'm ready to talk to a therapist now."
Soobin giggled down at him, running a hand through Beomgyu's hair, splayed out across his lap. Across the living room, Taehyun snorted in his sleep and flung his elbow into Kai's stomach. "I'll let the managers know."