Archive of Our Own

Changbin’s palms have grown rougher in the past few years. His hands are callous-covered and can grip weights and machine handles just fine. His hands have learned how to be steady.

In the dimly lit gym, he sits on the bench press and studies his hands—the lines that cut through them, the callouses, and the few scars he’s picked up from his life as an idol.

His hands are not steady right now. His hands are shaking. He is so tired. He is so scared. He is so, horrifically, brokenhearted.

“I don’t understand,” Chan says from where he’s crumpled against the mirror, where he’s been crying since Changbin closed his mouth. “I don’t… I don’t get it. It’s barely been a month.”

“I don’t want to leave the group,” Changbin says. He presses his palms together. He looks up at Chan, who is the image of heartbreak.

“I know that,” Chan says, voice snagging on his breath. “That’s why I don’t—I thought we all agreed to do it all. Everything. Together. Why are you telling just me? Why not e-everyone-? What is wrong—what happened-?”

Chan covers his face with his hands and tries to breathe. Once, Changbin wrapped a blanket around Chan when he was in this exact position and Chan nearly suffocated. He'd panicked and unwrapped him in a frenzy and they'd fallen into laughter over it.

This feeling is nearly the same. But there is no giggly laughter after panic now. There is no unwrapping the blanket. There is just panic. Fear.

“I told Hyunjinnie this morning,” Changbin says. “And Seungminnie and Yongbokkie at breakfast. Minho-hyung and Hannie and Ayen-ie after that. I have different relationships with each of you. A communal…”

“Break up,” Chan says. “A communal breakup was too much for you?”

“It’s seven relationships. Not one. I’m trying to respect each of you,” Changbin says. His knuckles feel tight. Chan’s face is still covered.

“You are,” Chan breathes. “I know you are. That’s the worst part.”

It’s quiet for a long moment. Chan stops crying. Breath, heavy and filtered through his hands, fills the space.

Changbin watches as Chan’s shoulders rise and fall into the posture he holds himself in as leader when they’re out in public. The sight terrifies Changbin. It’s the nail in the coffin when Chan looks up, face tear-stained but fit for company cameras. A mask.

“We’ll have a meeting tomorrow morning. Seven in the morning in the practice room before practice,” Chan says, and his voice is media-trained even. “About the future. About wants and boundaries. I’ll—we’ll want total honesty, Changbin-ah.”

Changbin feels his body shaking at the atomic level.

“When have I ever not given you that, Chan-hyung?” He asks. His voice shatters a bit, halfway through.

Between Chan’s eyebrows, a furrow appears. An error in the perfect—true sorrow.

In the softest, and thus angriest voice Changbin has ever heard from Chan, he hears: “Get out. I don’t want to see you until tomorrow.”

In the company car with Stray Kids second manager, Chinmae, they both stay quiet the whole drive home. When Chinmae parks the car, he turns around to look at Changbin.

“Do you want to talk about the meeting yesterday?” He asks. “We’re in this together, Changbin-ah. You aren’t alone.”

“I’m okay,” Changbin says. “Thanks for driving me home, hyung. Have a good night.”

Chinmae nods, but his frown is entirely too evident.

He’s been with them since debut. He's been with them through it all.

“Get some rest, Changbin-ah,” Chinmae says. “True rest.”

Changbin nods and closes the door.

True rest is Jeongin curling up to put his back to Changbin’s when they go to bed, sharing in warmth of body heat and steadiness of love. True rest is found in-between Chan and Jisung on the bed they share when they get the approval for the demos on a new album. True rest is Seungmin asleep on his thighs, both of them napping between schedules. True rest is Hyunjin laying on Changbin’s back on their couch at home. True rest is Yongbok and Minho curled up under Changbin’s arms, giggling at some internet joke while Changbin tries to sleep.

That reality is now an impossible dream.

Changbin made it so himself.

Hyunjin is not at their apartment. Changbin shouldn’t be surprised. He will have gone to Seungmin’s. Or Minho’s. Maybe they’re all in the same bed talking about how today went, while Changbin takes off his shoes in an empty, and cold, and silent apartment.

He turns on the kitchen light and looks at the calendar pinned to the wall besides the fridge. The one Hyunjin painted just for them. This one is covered in flowers, green and blue and purple.

There, on the thirtieth of June is a blue circle. There are twenty one days until Hyunjin will cross it out with his black pen. Three weeks.

Changbin eats nothing. He is not hungry.

He stands in the shower. The water run over him. It is not hot enough. He digs his fingernails into his skull, right at the top of his head where Felix likes to press kisses when Changbin sits down.

There will be no more kisses. Changbin made sure of that this morning.

Yongbok had curled into Seungmin in their dining room while they cried.

They’re both tender hearted.

Walking out of their apartment felt like walking on glass.

It takes a long, long time for Changbin to pull himself together enough to reach out and turn off the water. All of himself drips down the drain with the runoff.

He curls up under cold sheets and counts the seconds until he falls into something like sleep.

Changbin wakes up before his alarm, dripping in sweat and something like the aftermath of fear hanging from his tongue.

The silence in his room echoes back.

He eats something left in the fridge. He doesn’t taste it.

Pulls on clothes he’s pretty sure are clean.

He’s almost out the door before he realizes he’s wearing a sweatshirt that Jeongin left over once. He turns around to change. Taking off the sweatshirt aches something bone-deep.

Going to the gym helps, just a bit.

Until Chan walks in and makes eye contact with him.

They don’t talk. They’ve never needed to. They mirror each other from across the room.

‘Get out,’ Changbin hears in Chan’s voice. ‘Get out.’

Changbin pushes his body past what it can take and nearly pops his shoulder out of its socket because he didn’t take the time to stretch well enough. His shoulder aches, the heat under the skin almost a balm to his heart. Chan’s breathing through his final set is a pattern of ocean waves. Everything hurts.

Everything hurts.

He picks up his bag and leaves with Chan. Stepping out into the city offers no safety from the noise in Changbin's head, it only worsens it. They both walk to the corner together. Silent. When they part ways, their parting is silent too.

Changbin stops for a short shower back at the apartment before calling Chinmae to come pick him up.

“You’re headed in early,” Chinmae says as he drives through Seoul with little traffic getting in the way. It’s still dark outside. Changbin wonders if anyone slept last night. Chan didn’t, Changbin could tell. Seungmin probably couldn’t either.

“Group meeting,” Changbin says.

“Getting ready for the end of the month meeting, hm?” Chinmae asks.

Changbin’s heart lurches in his chest.

“Something like that,” he says.

“Have you gotten any rest?” Chinmae asks. He raises an eyebrow at Changbin in the rearview mirror.

“No, hyung,” Changbin says. “I haven’t.”

“You know that this kind of thing isn’t the end-all-be-all of your career?” Chinmae asks. “You’ll still be able to make music. Just not be on stage.”

“Sure,” Changbin says.

That’s not the point. That’s never been the point, despite the company stressing it over and over again.

They’re quiet the rest of the way to the building.

The elevator ride up to the practice room feels long.

The walk down the hallway even longer.

He’s there so, so early.

And still, Minho has beaten him.

He looks up at Changbin in the reflection of the practice room mirror and halts his movements.

When Minho turns to Changbin, it’s clear he’s been here a long time, and that he’s tired. He’s dripping sweat like Hyunjin. He probably hasn’t slept. That surprises Changbin. It makes him hurt.

Minho hadn’t done more than make noises at Changbin’s words the last few minutes they’d talked. He’d gotten quieter and quieter until Changbin had left Minho on his and Jisung’s couch, still and silent, staring at the wall, like a statue.

The song Minho has vibrating through the speakers fades out and Minho goes over to turn it off.

He doesn’t look at Changbin when he speaks.

“Why didn’t you talk to hyung before?” He asks.

He’s out of breath but his voice is steady. Changbin is reminded of an old video playing through laptop speakers by a campfire. A much younger Minho talking clear through the devastation of his dreams and loss of team while sending only support. Voice steady. They’d been surrounded by cameras, then. “Why did you not want to talk this out with me?”

“There’s not much to talk about,” Changbin forces out after a moment of quiet. “It just… Wasn’t working.”

Minho scoffs.

“Wasn’t working,” he says. He turns to look at Changbin, his face flat. He glances at the closed door. “We’ve been dating for a month. What wasn’t working that couldn’t be fixed? You were one of the first to suggest—“

The door opens and they both fall into easy camera stances. Chan and Jeongin file into the room. They both look miserable and yet have such straight shoulders. Changbin digs his fingernails into his palm.

“Good morning,” Chan says. “You’re both here early.”

Minho rolls his eyes and turns to go and stretch against the wall.

“I’m not playing nice today,” he says to the room. “I can’t fucking do it.”

Chan nods, just once, and sets his bag down on the bench where there’s already one backpack leaning. Changbin realizes he’s still gripping his own bag. He drops it at the opposite end of the bench and can’t make eye contact with Jeongin, who keeps trying to look Changbin in the eyes.

“Are you not playing nice today, either, hyung?” Jeongin asks.

“I’m not playing at anything,” Changbin says.

“Right,” Jeongin says, turnign away to go and stretch next to Minho. The door opens again and the other four file into the room.

Seungmin is carrying two cups of coffee and he brings one to Minho right away. Jisung has his hood up and he moves to hang off of Chan’s shoulders and bury his face in Chan’s back. Felix and Hyunjin are holding hands and Yongbok has obviously been crying.

Changbin is going to be sick.

“I’m sorry. Give me two minutes,” he says, and then he runs out of the room and down the hall and barely makes it to the toilet in time before his stomach empties itself. His whole body shakes with cold.

He wipes his mouth and flushes, goes and washes his face, rinses his mouth out.

When he opens the door, Jisung is leaning against the hallway wall, hood up, arms crossed.

Jisung had locked Changbin out of the studio. He’d yelled at Changbin. He’d started crying and he’d yelled and he'd shoved Changbin out of the studio and locked it.

“Everything okay?” Jisung asks. His voice is tense but his eyes are worried.

Changbin nods. He can’t do anything else.

“Yes. Sorry,” he says.

Jisung turns away and walks him back to the practice room. He holds the door open for Changbin, like Changbin’s going to run again. Jisung locks the door behind them.

It’s habit, how they all sit down in a circle when Chan clears his throat.

“I call the beginning of a meeting. I give us two hours until practice,” Chan says. “Two hours to discuss yesterday and residual feelings. No screaming. No labels. No lying. No phones. Are we agreed?”

“Agreed,” they all say, and the word cracks in Changbin’s throat.

Chan turns to Changbin. The look he has is one of the hundreds of things Changbin fell in love with. It’s his serious face. His I-Mean-Business face.

“None of us were given a reason we felt mattered enough,” Chan says. “We want to know why you decided to break up with us. It’s been a little less than a month. What couldn’t be fixed or worked on?”

It’s quiet. It’s rules of the team meeting—no one interrupts an asked and unanswered question.

“I just,” Changbin starts and clears his throat, still torn with acid. “I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Couldn’t do what?” Minho snaps. “Couldn’t kiss us when it wasn’t for the cameras? Couldn’t hold our hands when there were romantic feelings involved? Did it get too gay for you? Did it get too real? Can you only do vague situationships?”

“That’s not it,” Changbin says, cold sweat down his spine, at the same time Jisung says: “Hyung, too mean.”

Minho looks away.

“I love you,” Changbin says. It’s the only truth he’s ever really known. Changbin closes his eyes.

“I love you all so much,” he says. “I just. I thought it would be enough but it’s not. It was just so much. I couldn’t do it. Not, not fairly.”

“One month,” Seungmin says. “It’s only been one month. We’re all still learning, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Changbin says. He opens his eyes. He shouldn't spend this time looking away from them. He can't find the courage to look at them. He feels something scrabbling at his insides—something like guilt, or regret. Grief in another name.

“It’s not hyung’s fault if he can’t get his heart where ours are at,” Hyunjin says. And the words sound like an insult even though they’re not. They feel like a knife to the ribs, to the stomach—where Changbin will bleed out, slow.

“Did any of us do something wrong?” Jisung asks, anxiety ever-present. “Is there anything that we can just… do differently?”

“Sung-ah,” Changbin says. He has to blink back the tears that strike him. The terror that fills him. “You could never do anything wrong. None of you did anything wrong. You never, ever have to change. I love you as you are. I always will.”

Jisung crosses his arms over his knees and looks away.

“You’re one of the strongest people I know,” Yongbok says, his fingers playing with Seungmin's in his lap. “Could you not fight for us?”

Changbin looks at his own hands in his lap. Callous covered, rough and wide. There are spots on his palm that have nearly blistered from this morning's workout. Blood feels too close to the skin.

“That’s what I’m doing,” he says. He looks up at them all. Inhales slow, exhales slow. “There is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for Stray Kids and its members. I’m fighting for them. I want them to succeed. If I stay in this relationship, I can’t promise forever with Stray Kids. I can’t promise a forever. I can’t. I wish-“

He pauses.

“I want you all to be happy. And we find our happiness with Stray Kids. All of us do. I’m not going to jeopardize that for any of you.” He looks around the circle at each of them. “I know we said eight or nothing. I know we said we’d do this together. But I can’t. I’m sorry for the dishonesty but I didn’t—I didn’t know it’d be so much—You all deserve everything-“

He’s crying, now. All he feels is embarrassed—all he feels is hollowed out, rotting and mangled. He bows his head and closes his eyes.

“Oh, hyung,” Jeongin says. And the lightest touch of a hand covers Changbin’s own.

“Please,” Changbin whispers.

“Too much, Jeonginnie," Chan says. “Give him space.”

Jeongin’s hand moves away and It takes a short minute until Changbin’s breathing normal again. He’s gotten too good at pulling himself together.

“Did you even want this relationship in the first place? Did you want to date all of us? Or just one person?” Seungmin asks.

Changbin’s heart goes so cold.

“It was never just one person,” he says, the words pulled up from the mud buried in him. “I wouldn’t have committed if I felt differently. And of course I wanted this. This has been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever been a part of in my life.”

“But you can’t commit now?” Hyunjin asks. His voice is so sharp.

Changbin shakes his head.

“No,” he whispers. “I can’t. I wish. I cannot explain to you how much I wish I could.”

“Do you just need space, hyung?” Jeongin asks. So, so hopeful.

“That wouldn’t help, Jeonginnie,” Changbin says. “I’m sorry.”

The room is quiet for a long time.

“You planned out yesterday really fucking well,” Jisung says. “How long have you been planning the breakup to have the conversations with us in shifts?”

“Two days ago,” Changbin says.

“It took you one day to decide to break up with all seven of us?” Minho asks.

“Would you rather I’d have done it one a week?” Changbin says. “I’m not cruel.”

“You talk as if you still are in love with us,” Felix says. “I don’t understand why you’d give that up.”

It’s not a question Changbin knows how to answer, so he stays silent. Hyunjin scoffs and crosses his arms.

“You’re not leaving Stray Kids?” Chan asks.

Changbin swallows.

“Unless you all ask me to leave, or I am voted out, I’d like to stay,” he says. His stomach is lead. He looks Chan straight in the eyes. “I would do anything for this team. If it is best for the team, I will leave.”

When they were both much younger, smaller and world-hungry in a different way than they are now, Changbin had sat in a meeting with Chan and Park Jinyoung. Chan had looked at him with wide eyes, full of hope and determination, and asked Changbin to join the beginnings of a group that would debut through a tv show. Changbin had put his hands on Chan’s shoulder and looked him right in the eyes.

“I’ll follow you anywhere, hyung,” he’d said. “I’ll do anything for this team.”

The Chan now—older and wiser, but still kind and determined—nods with tears in his eyes.

“I know, Changbin-ah,” he says. “I know you would. You’re not leaving.”

The room is quiet for a long few minutes. Changbin wants to believe Chan so very badly.

“Nothing else at the moment?” Jisung asks. Everyone shakes their heads. He turns to look at Changbin. “Are we free to ask you anything later?”

“Always,” Changbin says. He presses his palms together and pain lances through him at the motion. Open wounds on his hands, blood on everything he touches. “This doesn’t mean you don’t have me as someone to rely on. It’s the romance that… isn’t possible. But I will always be here. Just a call away for all of you. Until the end of my days.”

It’s an oath he speaks into the mirrors of the practice room that reflect and reflect and reflect the faces of the men he loves into memory. They all look as heartbroken as he feels.

“I don’t want to accept this,” Seungmin says. “I don’t want to.”

And the thing in Changbin that’s been curled up in the mud of him, sitting heavy and scaled in his stomach, teeth bared at the world, unfurls.

“Well,” Changbin says. “You’re just going to have to.”

Seungmin gets up, walks to the door, opens it, turns to look at Changbin with a set jaw.

“Fuck you,” Seungmin says. “You should know I’m not a fucking coward.”

And then he steps out and the door shuts behind him with a click.

“Meeting adjourned, I guess,” Jeongin says, dry and cut. He looks at his watch. “Practice starts in an hour.”

It’s the worst practice of Changbin’s career.

But he gets through it.

They all do.

For what it’s worth, they are professionals.

Hyunjin doesn’t really return to their apartment the following week.

He’ll come by for clothes and art supplies and a shower in his own bathroom. But Changbin rarely sees him. Hyunjin does not talk to him unless he is forced by necessity.

Changbin sits in an empty house and it’s quiet. He’s not sleeping well. Or much.

His bed is cold and empty. He gets up halfway through the second night of an empty apartment and moves to the couch.

In all honesty, they weren't together long enough to have fucked on the couch.

A week ago, Changbin woke up in his bed with Hyunjin pressed naked and warm against his front, breathing softly while Seungmin stroked his hair, Jeongin snoring faintly against Changbin's back, his arm tight around Changbin's waist.

The bed has too many memories.

The couch has been for movie nights, and dinners, and the occassional makeout session.

It’s not an uncomfortable couch. Hyunjin picked it out.

Changbin pretends he falls asleep better there than in bed.

He lies awake for a long, long time.

When Changbin gets to their studio for work the next day, he pauses with his hand on the doorknob.

It opens.

Jisung is in their office space when Changbin steps in, spinning in his chair and humming. He’s wearing shorts and a sweatshirt that used to be Minho’s in his dancing troupe days. He looks young and tired and handsome.

“Hey, hyung,” he says, and keeps spinning.

The last four weeks, Changbin has been greeted with a kiss, light and full of energy once the door closes.

He drops his bag in it’s usual spot and goes to sit in his chair.

“Hi, Jisung-ah,” he says. It’s stilted and wary, and Jisung glances sideways at him.

“Stop being weird,” he says. “Chan-hyung’s in a meeting. He’ll be here soon. Do you want to start with Fuck This Shit I’m Out or Your Name Is Trash?”

Changbin grimaces and turns to his computer to log in and pull up the tracks.

“Those are our only two options?” He asks.

“Gotta have one done by the end of today,” Jisung says. “You pick.”

“They’re both awful,” Changbin says.

“Yeah, well, sometimes things that you don’t like happen and you just have to roll with it, hyung,” Jisung says.

Changbin freezes.

Jisung rolls his chair over. He moves the mouse out of Changbin’s hand and clicks on Fuck This Shit I’m Out.

“Chan-hyung’s gonna make us change the name when he gets here,” Jisung says. “But I say we pick this one.”

Changbin forces breath into his lungs.

“I’m–”

“Don’t apologize,” Jisung says. “Get to work, lazy hyung. Those music muscles aren’t for nothing.”

Jisung is trying so hard. Changbin can see it in his shaky hands, his red-rimmed eyes, and sharper bite than usual, despite the jokes he’s making like normal. Changbin will do anything for Jisung. He will do whatever Jisung needs him to do for the rest of his life.

“Hey!” Changbin says. “My music muscles are perfect for this. We just need to fix the bass line Chan-hyung laid.”

“He was sleep deprived past the point of no return when he made it,” Jisung says, nodding. “I agree.”

They lose track of time working on it, and when they come up for air and are hearing the same beat on repeat, they spend some time stretching and drinking water.

Changbin waits until Jisung is balancing on one foot to ask.

“You don’t have anything else–”

“Hyung,” Jisung says, eyes closed and still balancing on one foot. “You don’t get to ask those kinds of things right now. If I want to talk, I will talk with you.”

He opens his eyes.

“Okay?” He asks. It’s not even close to mean. It’s such a soft sound that Changbin can barely nod in response.

Chan comes in with his laptop under his arm and a water bottle in hand. He’s gotten maybe two hours of sleep.

“Hey, guys,” he says. “You fix my shit bass line yet?”

They work, because they need to.

There is no other option.

It’s late in the evening on the third day since Everything, when there’s a knock on the door. In the late evenings, when Yongbok can’t sleep after he’s gotten back from an international flight or schedule, he comes to Changbin. Changbin knows Felix got back a bit from a day event in Japan a bit ago because he texted the group chat. It’s been the only text in the group chat since the breakups, besides Minho’s usual dance practice text of: “ch~” which is an inside joke between him and Seungmin that no one has yet to figure out, but they all know means practice in an hour.

When Changbin opens the door, like habit, like clockwork, Felix is standing outside, a jacket on that nearly swallows him—Chan’s probably, and a beanie over his hair. Changbin is surprised to see him there, considering the break up, and how Felix may hate him at present moment.

“Come on a walk with me, hyung,” he says. This, too, is habit.

Changbin should say no.

He takes his own coat and steps outside to close the door behind him.

There’s no one outside at an hour this late. They walk down the street in silence for awhile. Changbin wonders if they’re both pretending it’s normal. He keeps glancing over at Yongbok’s nose peeking out over the collar of the jacket. Felix seems undisturbed, just thoughtful.

Once they stop at their usual corner, Felix turns to look at him.

“You said you’re putting Stray Kids as a team over our relationship,” Yongbok says. “Do you care about the music and fame of it all, more than you love us?”

Changbin stops walking. Felix stops and turns around to look at Changbin, eyes searching. He’s got a sad little thing of a smile on his face.

Changbin shakes his head.

“Surely you know me better than that,” he says. “Is that really what you think of me?”

Felix shrugs.

“You breaking up with us was the most out of character thing from you I’ve ever experienced,” Felix says. “And I was there when you got so drunk you wanted to go and kill our old manager.”

Changbin hums, hands in pockets.

“Not my best moment,” he ends up saying.

“No,” Yongbok says. He spins towards the direction of his apartment. “But very chivalrous. We'd help you hide the body. Walk me home?”

Changbin loves this man. He could not ever say ‘no’ to him.

“Do you remember the night we read that article?” Yongbok asks.

“The twelve tips?” Changbin asks.

Felix nods.

A little over a month ago, they’d been in Felix’s bed, Yongbok had been leaning against Changbin’s chest, scrolling through his laptop while Changbin had read through a small poetry book that Seungmin and Hyunjin had recommended. When Changbin had glanced at the screen, there’d been an english word he hadn’t known the definition of.

“What’s this one mean?” He’d asked Felix, pointing at it on the screen.

“Oh,” Felix had said. “Um. Polyamory. It’s uh…”

He’d scrolled up.

“‘The practice of having multiple relationships at once.’”

Changbin had squinted.

“Like cheating?”

“No,” Yongbok had said sharply, and then relaxed, apologetic at his tone. “Sorry, no. Everyone involved knows that, um, there’s others involved. It’s all agreed upon.”

Changbin had been tired, and the poetry line he’d kept reading, over and over again, was: ‘Give up what you love most. Only one person is admitted.’

“What?” He’d asked. “Give me an example.”

Yongbok had leaned further against Changbin, like a blanket, heavy and warm.

“Okay, um,” he’d said. “So it’s like. If you and I were dating, and I was dating Hyunjin, and you were dating Chan, and Chan was dating Jisung, who was dating Minho, who was dating Jeongin who was dating Seungmin, who was dating me. And we all knew we were dating other people. Or if like, we were all dating each other? So you were cool with me seeing Hyunjin, because you’d go on a date with Chan and Seungmin when Hyunjin and I went on dates.”

“Or were fucking,” Changbin had said, because he’d been tired and his brain had suddenly become very fried at the hypothetical romance that hit too close to home. Once, and only once, he and Chan had slept together. It’d been more than just hooking up, really, but they’d been younger and scared, and once had been enough at the time because it got entirely too real. This conversation is that same terrifying too real. But Changbin is older now. Older and more sure of himself and his place in the world—more sure in his place in relationship to the others that make up his world. “I wouldn’t be mad if you weren’t just dating but, like, fucking, too.”

Yongbok had slid his laptop off his lap and rolled over to dig the point of his chin into Changbin’s chest. The room had grown a still quality, like the top of a pond.

“Jinnie and I wouldn’t fuck,” Yongbok had said. “We’d make love.”

The buzzing of wildlife had appeared in Changbin’s ears.

“Would you want that?” Changbin had whispered, half joking only in the way one wears a lifejacket unbuckled over their chest. A just-in-case.

“We aren’t even dating,” Yongbok had whispered back, face soft and split-open. In the dim light of the room, he'd glowed. “This isn’t real.”

“It could be,” Changbin had said. Fireflies over the pond, shaking. He had been sure that Felix had felt his heart thundering under his chin. Live boldly, live boldly. The stage had never felt further from him. He'd never been so perceived in his life. “It could be.”

“I’d want that,” Felix had said. “I’d want you, too.”

Changbin had watched as Yongbok had sat up over him, legs bracketing Changbin’s hips.

“What would you want?” Yongbok had asked. “If it could be real?”

“I’d want you to be happy,” Changbin had said. He had settled his hands on Felix’s thighs, tucked his fingertips under the hem of Felix’s shorts, just to know the skin there. Just to learn it’s name.

“My happiness is your happiness,” Felix had said. And then his voice had dipped, pleading. “Hyung, please.”

“I’d want you to kiss me,” Changbin had said, exhaustion and the image of flickering lights behind his eyes when he blinked. “I’d want you to kiss me and all of them to watch.”

Yongbok had leaned down and his hair had tickled Changbin’s cheeks. Changbin had put his hand just behind the shell of Yongbok’s ear, and pulled him the last few centimeters.

His lips had been warm, and soft, and full of love.

Changbin had been in love with Yongbok before then.

But that was the moment he knew it was forever.

“Yes, I remember that night,” Changbin says. The air around them shakes with the force of the memory.

“You were so sure,” Yongbok says. “I thought you were so sure.”

“I was,” Changbin says, because he cannot lie.

Felix looks at him over the collar of the jacket, his cheeks pink, the tips of his ears tucked beneath his beanie.

“And now you aren’t?” Felix asks. “What changed?”

Changbin looks up at the dark sky, listens to the buzzing of the streetlights. There are cameras on every corner of their walk.

“Everything,” he says.

“That’s so vague,” Yongbok says, frustration slipping through what he’s tried to keep an even tone.

“It’s the only answer I have,” Changbin says, hands out and palms up, callouses exposed to the cold.

Felix turns to keep walking home. Changbin follows behind. A shadow. A ghost. A dog at the gate of heaven.

“Are you safe?” Yongbok asks as they turn towards the corner of the building he and Seungmin live in. It’s a street down from Changbin and Hyunjin’s building.

“Safe?” Changbin asks. “I think I’m wary as a person—“

“No, hyung,” Felix says, putting a hand on Changbin’s shoulder. “Are you physically safe right now? Are you sick, or, or—I know this sounds crazy, Seungmin says it sounds wild—are you dying? Because we were thinking—Hyunjin and I—and you had that meeting at the company the day before. Did that have anything to do with you breaking up with us? Are you dying?”

“I’m not dying, Bbokkie,” Changbin says, and he wants to put his hands on Yongbok’s waist, but instead he takes a step back. Felix’s hand falls away from his shoulders. “I’m not sick. I promise.”

“You’re safe?” Yongbok asks. His voice is wet.

Changbin swallows. Nods.

It’s this that makes Yongbok start to cry.

“I didn’t wish you ill, but it sucks there’s not another reason. I don’t want to lose you, hyung,” he cries.

Changbin wants to hug him and hold him close in all the ways he knows Felix likes. He takes another step back. Felix sobs harder.

“I’m sorry,” Changbin says. “You’re not… You don’t have to lose me. I’m still here.”

Felix shakes his head.

“I want to respect your wishes, hyung, but it’s so hard. It’s so hard to think this will ease in any way. I’ll always—always love you.”

“I’ll always love you too, Yongbok-ah,” Changbin says. Felix turns to look at him, eyes wide, face damp. “It’s why I tell you this: go inside and eat. Cuddle Minnie. Sleep.”

Felix steps into his building, shoulders shaking.

Changbin waits on the sidewalk until he sees the light in Felix’s room, eighteen floors up, click on, orange and pink.

Seungmin and Hyunjin will hold him.

Changbin goes back to the apartment and the couch, which is cold, and slowly becoming uncomfortable. He finds the poetry book and he rereads the lines over and over until he falls asleep.

‘Give up what you love most. Only one person is admitted.’

Chaeryeong squints at him from across her kitchen table, hands wrapped around her coffee.

“You bought a house?” She asks again.

“Not yet!” Changbin says. He turns around his phone and shows her the listing. “I’m thinking of this one. What do you think? You have good taste.”

She takes his phone and scrolls through the pictures.

“It’s pretty,” she says. “It’s got good light and the porch is big.”

She glances up at him.

“It’s kind of big for one person,” she says. “Finally greedy, oppa?”

“I’ve always been greedy,” Changbin says, in a mocking way.

Chaeryeong rolls her eyes.

“You’re never greedy in an evil way,” she says. “You’re very self-sacrificial sometimes. Who is the house really for?”

Changbin takes his phone back and turns it off.

“It’s just a dream, really,” he says. “I don’t know.”

Chaeryeong sips at her coffee.

“What?” Changbin asks.

“Nothing,” she says.

“What?” He asks.

“Nothing!” She says. “Something’s up with you and you aren’t telling me. You don’t have to tell me.”

Changbin steals her coffee to sip from it, but she grabs it back before he can.

“Rude,” she says. “Fuck off, give me that. Stop pouting because I caught you.”

“You didn’t catch me,” Changbin says. “I’m just fine.”

Chaeryeong squints at him again.

“Uh-huh,” she says. She points at his hands. “You’re working out too much. It’s not good for you to over-do-it.”

Changbin’s knuckles are cracked and dry from the workout this morning. He’d boxed. Had felt the pain and pushed past it.

“I’m just trying to prepare for the new comeback,” Changbin says. “You know how that is. I’ll put medicine on it.”

“If you won’t tell me what’s going on,” Chaeryeong says. “I’ll tell Wooyoung-oppa.”

“Tell him what?” Changbin asks.

“To fight you,” she says. And then picks up her phone. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat.”

“I’m preparing for a new comeback,” Changbin says. “I can’t just eat anything.”

Chaeryeong looks up at him with her biggest puppy dog eyes. She could put Seungmin to shame.

“Please, oppa?” She asks.

“Gross,” Changbin says. “Ugh, fine.”

Her laughter helps fill the gaping pit in the middle of his stomach, just a bit.

Chan comes into the studio with his laptop and sits down on the couch behind Changbin, who’s already taken up post at the computer.

“You guys didn’t come together,” their mixer, Nanseol, says. “Are you fighting?”

When Changbin turns around to look at Chan, Chan’s eyes are firmly locked on his laptop screen. The bruises under his eyes are dark.

Changbin used to be allowed to press his thumb there. He used to be allowed to rub away the tension.

He is not allowed that, now.

'Get out,' he hears.

'You're not leaving,' he hears.

“Chan’s allowed to be mad at me,” Changbin says to Nanseol. Nanseol rolls their eyes.

“Oh my god,” Nanseol says. “This is worse than the fight you guys had about S-Class.”

“We’ll get things done before the deadline,” Chan says, looking up at Changbin. His eyes are a new moon. Changbin wants to make him smile. He broke Chan's heart a few days ago.

“I know that,” Nanseol says. “You guys are professionals.”

“We’ll start with ‘Jump the Fence’ when Jeongin gets here,” Chan says. “He can set the tone Minho will follow later.”

Changbin nods and Jisung stumbles through the door, a puffer jacket on over a sweatshirt. He looks exhausted and he practically limps to the couch to curl up there, eyes half-open.

“Hey guys~” He says. “Nanseol-ssi, did they start fighting without me?”

“Nope,” Nanseol says.

“Skrr~” Jisung says, closing his eyes and nuzzling into Chan’s shoulder. “We starting with ‘Fuck This Shit I’m Out’?”

“We’re starting with ‘Jump the Fence,’” Chan says.

“So, yes,” Jisung says.

Jeongin walks in along with Beomsu, their manager, and Heeyeong, their scheduler.

It thuds upon all of them—the job.

The recording goes as it should. But not better.

It's clear to everyone that something is off.

Beomsu pulls Changbin aside later to talk outside in the office space attached to the recording studio.

"Do they know?" He asks. "Did you tell them?"

Changbin shakes his head. Beomsu has two kids now, and he frowns at Changbin with the look of a dad.

"You've gotten better at that," Changbin says, mimicking the frown.

"Will you talk with them?" Beomsu asks. Changbin shrugs.

"I'm not sure it'll help," he says. "It's not going to be a fun meeting for any of us. Why start the mourning process now?"

Beomsu puts his hands on Changbin's shoulders.

"You aren't alone," he says. "They care about you."

Hyunjin pushes open the door, a water bottle in hand and a blue flannel on over a t-shirt. His hair is pushed back by a headband.

He's gorgeous and he's glaring at Changbin and Beomsu.

"Are you lecturing Changbin-hyung without me?" He asks Beomsu, walking past them towards the recording studio. "Tell him off a little louder next time, I might get here earlier to join in."

When he steps into the recording studio and the door closes behind him, Beomsu turns to look at Changbin.

"What in the world did you say to them?" He asks. "They're almost treating you like—"

Like the member who left, is what he's thinking. Changbin knows he's not wrong. It got bad the week leading up to him leaving. Tensions had been higher, words sharper. Chan had had the same shadow hanging over him from before debut, but instead of a haunting it'd come with a fierceness.

"We talked about something," Changbin says. "They're all allowed to be mad at me. I'm mad at me."

"Do we need to organize any—"

"No, hyung," Changbin says. "The last thing we need is company involvement in any way. Just save it for the meeting at the end of the month."

Beomsu hums.

"If you're sure," he says.

"I'm sure."

Jisung sticks his head out.

"Hey," he says. "You guys ready? We're almost done."

"You could have started without me," Changbin says.

Jisung rolls his eyes.

"You'd never let us live it down," he says.

They finish recording all that they need to, and Nanseol finalizes the first draft while they all sit there.

It's not a bad song.

They all know it but they don't say it—it doesn't feel the same.

It's in their own studio that night, Jisung curled up on the couch with a notebook, Chan working through another draft on his laptop, headphones on at the desk, and Changbin sitting on the floor, stretching his legs and reading through old raps that might have a semblance of something good in them, when Jisung finally starts asking questions.

"When you brought up us all being in a relationship together," he starts off, "Was it because you just wanted to fuck us all?"

Changbin looks up at him. Jisung's hair is slicked back, and he's wearing a tank top, the same blue flannel Hyunjin was wearing earlier, now wrapped around him.

Changbin knew he was in love with this man on an evening they had gone out for ramen from the store on the corner down the road, and Jisung had laughed at his own joke so hard he'd choked on his noodles. He had looked ridiculous and they had been so young, but there has always been a light in Han Jisung that Seo Changbin has loved.

"I fell in love with you before anyone else," Changbin says to Jisung. There's no expression change on Jisung's face except for a slight twitch in his mouth. Chan turns around in his chair and takes his headphones down. "It wasn't about sex. You know that. You know me the way I know you. What are you really worried about?"

Jisung shrugs.

"It was such a fast turn around," he says. "You and Lixie confessing love to all of us, and introducing polyamory, and then negotiating relationships with us all in a more official manner than the fuckery we were all doing beforehand, and then changing your mind barely a month later only a few days after we all slept together? It's hard to not assume that you just wanted to fuck us and then left when it wasn't what you thought it would be."

Changbin nods.

"That's fair," he says. He takes his time to think before he fully responds. It's moments like this that he loves most about them—the ability to be quiet and just sit with them while they all think through things.

"My confession was real," he ends up saying. "I do love you all. It's the relationship aspect I really cannot do. Not because of anything you guys could or couldn't do. Things changes in ways I didn't expect—"

"What things?" Jisung asks. He sits up straighter on the couch, hand gripping his pen and his journal. "What things changed?"

"Just, like," Changbin says, and he stumbles. "Like internal stuff. With me. Stuff with me. Nothing, like. Major. But like. I can't just. I thought that all of us dating would be different, and I don't think I can do all of the idol stuff and a relationship."

He breathes.

"There's so much that I'm always thinking about for Stray Kids," he says. "And I tried, but I can't be an idol and be dating."

Jisung frowns.

"Minho-hyung and I were together for so long," he says. "We figured it out."

"And I'm happy for you," Changbin says. He is. Their love makes him so, incredibly, effervescently happy. "But I can't. I just can't."

Jisung starts messing with his pen, looking away. Changbin lets him think, glances at Chan.

Chan is staring back at him, face unreadable.

After a long moment, Chan sees something in Changbin and nods, turns back to his laptop but keeps his headphones off. The sound of his typing fills the room. He closes his laptop and turns back around.

"You don't hate me?" Jisung asks, in the smallest, smallest voice.

Changbin shuffles over to Jisung and kneels in front of him, makes eye contact with him.

"I could never, ever hate you," Changbin says. "In fact, I love you very much."

"All of this is really weird, hyung," Jisung whispers. Because, in all things, Changbin has been Jisung's safe place the way Jisung has been Changbin's.

"I know," Changbin says. "I'm sorry. You're allowed to feel whatever you need to about it all."

"What if I'm furious at you?" Jisung says. "What if I hate you?"

"Allowed," Changbin says. "Encouraged, even."

Jisung curls his shoulders forwards. Chan comes to sit next to him on the couch and wrap an arm around him. Because Changbin can't do that anymore.

"I don't want to hate you," Jisung whispers. He puts his head in his hands.

Changbin doesn't respond to that—he doesn't think he can in any way that's fair.

"Anything I can do?" Chan asks, he looks down at Changbin, still kneeling on the floor. "For either of you?"

Jisung shrugs. Changbin is stuck staring at Chan's eyes. He keeps expecting them to be full of anger. He keeps being surprised that they're not.

He shakes his head. Chan nods.

"I'm here for you both," Chan says. His thumb is making circles into Jisung's shoulder.

Changbin stands.

"Ten minute break?" He asks. "I'll go get us some snacks."

And then he leaves the room. He leans against the wall outside and forces breath into his body. He will have them for so little a time. He will have them inside him forever.

He goes to get them snacks so they can write a song that they'll have to scrub his name off of.

Going to work after that makes his skin itch.

Chan and Jisung are entirely too normal. Once, and only once, does Changbin walk in on them kissing. It’s such a perfect parallel of the first time he saw them kissing that he nearly passes out from the panic and sheer sorrow that rises in him.

They can’t write anything truly good. It’s discordant and ruinous. Changbin feels no pride in the work. He is counting down the days until the company meeting at the end of the month. It will kill him—this meeting. It will be his saving grace.

Chan is making music that sounds like a soul shattering.

Jisung lyrics hurt to read.

Everything Changbin makes is as fucking hollow as he is.

He lays on the couch and listens to 'One Last Time' on repeat.

In the dark morning, phone alarm ringing him awake, he is cold, his arms empty.

A mud-covered animal digs claws into his ribs.

He cannot eat.

He goes to the gym and cracks his knuckles open against the punching bag.
He tells himself it doesn't matter.
He's wearing gloves for every performance they're doing in the next week.

During the middle of a dance practice Chan asks Beomsu and Chinmae, and their dance director and choreographer, Ryulee, to step out for ten minutes.

He locks the door behind them and they all turn to Hyunjin, who has been vibrating more and more during each hour of practice to the point that he now can’t hit every beat. He’s frustrating himself and he’s about to snap.

It’s been probably two years since Hyunjin has gotten this worked up in practice. He’s gotten better lately in letting things roll off his back. This is a Hyunjin from years ago, snarling and biting at the bit in his mouth, racing towards a dream. This is a desperate Hyunjin and they can all feel it.

When they all turn to look at him, he bares his teeth in a mock smile.

“Fuck you,” he tells them, and then points at Changbin. “And fuck you!”

Their new album is something almost jazz-like, and their dance choreographer has Changbin dipping Hyunjin at the end of the second verse. It’s a mock dip—almost over the top drama. It’s something Hyunjin and Changbin would usually love.

Their movements have been so stiff—Changbin has felt Hyunjin grow tenser and tenser with each run through.

“I’m sorry,” Changbin says to the room. It’s all he’s been saying lately. “I’ll do better.”

“I don’t care about the stupid fucking dance!” Hyunjin yells. “I want you to call me baby!”

And then he drops to the ground like a puppet with strings cut. Jeongin and Yongbok settle to the sides of him, hands hovering but not touching.

“Fuck you,” Hyunjin says, voice raspy and quiet. “I hate this. I hate it.”

Changbin’s hands are curled into fists at his side.

“I’ll step out,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

He leaves no time for anyone to stop him—he doesn’t look to see if anyone will. Knowing that answer would hurt the most. He leaves the room and closes the door behind him.

When he turns, Chinmae, Beomsu and Ryulee are all staring at him from the couch in the middle room.

“We’re taking a ten,” Changbin says. And it’s because every part of him has been inspected, critiqued, and picked apart by millions of people, he’s able to walk out of the room like a normal person.

At the end of a hallway on the fourth floor, there’s a small conference room that could fit maybe four people around a small table. As it is, there’s a window up at the top of the wall opposite the door, and nothing else in the room but a single trash can by the door that hasn’t been touched in probably four years.

There is probably no dust in this room simply due to the fact that they all use it as a hiding spot entirely too often.

Changbin sits down against the wall under the window and stares at the door.

He tries to breathe evenly.

The door opens after a long few minutes and Lee Minho sticks his head in.

He doesn’t ask, just steps into the room and closes the door, leans up against it to look down at Changbin.

“Are you okay?” He asks. “It never feels good to have Hyunjinnie yell at you.”

“Because you know exactly how I feel,” Changbin says, and then looks away. “Sorry, that was too much.”

Minho shrugs.

“I’ll give you a pass this time,” he says. “I’ve already been pissed at you.”

“Playing nice today, hyung?” Changbin asks.

Minho slides down the door to sit, arms hanging over his knees. The tips of their sneakers touch.

“What’s playing nice?” Minho asks. “What breakup doesn’t feel like the world is ending?”

When Stray Kids first started out, Minho had been dating a guy from his high school. He’s the only one out of all of them that’s ever dated seriously before. He’s the only one who’s been through a breakup before. A breakup Changbin helped him process. They went out drinking, once, when Chan was too busy to join, and all the other kids were at a schedule.

“It’s like he’s walked away with a part of my life that I can’t get back,” Minho had said into Changbin’s shoulder. They hadn’t been hugging—Minho had just ended up slumped there in a booth in front of a slowly emptying grill of meat.

Changbin had put his arm around Minho and pressed his closed mouth to Minho's head like a mock-kiss. He hadn't gotten it, then. He'd wanted to go to Minho's ex and beg for the pieces back.

Minho had shivered in his arms. Just once.

“It’s only been a month,” Changbin says to the Minho across from him. “I didn’t expect it to hurt this much.”

Minho stares at him, face still as water in a puddle.

“You didn’t think it would hurt you this bad,” Minho says. “What about it hurts the most?”

It would be an unfair question if Changbin hadn’t been the one to break up with Minho.

“I do still love you all. And I don’t like to hurt you. And I’ve hurt you all badly. Even though I know this is better in the long run for you.”

Changbin’s hands are bruised from the boxing he did this morning. He split a knuckle even though his hands were wrapped. He’s running his thumb over it when Minho reaches out and takes Changbin’s hand.

He runs a fingertip over the cut on Changbin’s knuckle and Changbin feels all breath leave him.

Minho glances up at Changbin.

His eyes are wide, his face is flat.

His tone is the soft one. The one for his cats.

“Is it better in the long run for you?” Minho asks.

“I don’t know,” Changbin says, voice cracking.

Minho pulls his hand away.

Changbin finally gets it.

Minho takes away a part of Changbin’s life in the movement.

Changbin stands. “Shall we?”

Minho stares for a long moment. Blinks once, twice. He’s beautiful and strange. Changbin will never not want to kiss him.

“Hyunjin yelled at me once for stealing an entire tube of his fancy toothpaste,” Minho says.

“Why?” Changbin asks.

Minho shrugs.

“Was just curious,” Minho says. He stands.

“Let’s go,” Minho says. He touches Changbin’s forehead very lightly with his fingertips. “It’ll be okay. We’ll make it be okay.”

There is so much love in the words, Changbin has to choke down the tears before stepping out of the room.

Chinmae stops at a red light and turns around in the driver’s seat to look at Changbin.

“Have you talked with them, yet?” He asks. "Beomsu and I talked. We're worried."

“Sort of,” Changbin says. “They’ll find out everything at the meeting.”

"Is that wise?" Chinmae asks.

"The light's green," Changbin says.

Chinmae turns back around and the car moves forwards down the road. Changbin keeps his eyes out the side window, where the city skyline fades into the fog, and the entire upper half of the city exists in a limbo.

Changbin empathizes. He presses a hand to his chest and wills his heart to settle.

“You don’t see that backfiring?” Chinmae asks when he stops at the apartment building.

Changbin gathers his things, shoves his cap down on his head.

“It’s all shit, hyung,” he says. “Sorry you got caught up in it, too.”

Chinmae frowns at him.

“Don’t ever apologize,” he says. “You did nothing wrong. I’m sure your members will understand.”

“Goodnight, hyung,” Changbin says, something predator and bone-skinny curling in his stomach. “Thank you for driving me home.”

Changbin and Jeongin both are waiting to get their makeup done at three in the morning for Music Bank. The room is dim and everyone else is faintly dozing—Jisung fast asleep as Yunhee-noona paints his lips.

Jeongin sits next to Changbin on the couch, and he reaches out with his pinkie towards Changbin, who is trying to focus on a game on his phone.

“Hyung,” Jeongin whispers. “Come get a snack with me?”

They creep over the other members and step out the door into a hallway that always reminds Changbin of the church he visited when he was younger—everyone is quiet but quick, moving with purpose and direction. He and Jeongin have to dodge two new idol groups that look like middle schoolers. Every single one of them has wide, awe-struck eyes, bruises of exhaustion under them. Every single one of them is world-hungry.

“I remember when you looked like that,” Changbin says as they round the corner towards their favorite vending machine.

Jeongin hums.

“I think I liked you even then,” Jeongin says. He glances at Changbin. They’re both wearing deep green clothes with golden thread woven through it. With no makeup, under harsh lighting, Yang Jeongin’s face is still perfect.

Changbin swallows, begins to punch in the code for Jeongin’s favorite snack. Habit. He pauses halfway through.

“Go on,” Jeongin says. “I don’t mind.”

Changbin finishes punching in the code and then punches in the code for his snack.

“Iyen-ah,” he starts. He is so wary of the people moving through the hallways—tired, stressed, and always listening. Always watching. There are cameras in every other hand.

“I know, hyung,” Jeongin says. “I know. I’m sorry for pushing. It’s just. A lot to deal with, you know? But I’m trying.”

Jeongin leans down to grab their snacks and Changbin aches.

“You’re so mature,” he says. “So grown up, Ayen-ah~! So wise~!”

Jeongin rolls his eyes and shoves Changbin’s snack into his chest, turning to walk away.

“I’m trying, too,” Changbin says, when they’re halfway back to their room. “I know it’s not the same, but… Thank you, Jeonginnie.”

“Don’t thank me,” Jeongin says. “You never have to thank me.”

“I thought you’d be more mad,” Changbin says.

“I am,” Jeongin says. “Chan-hyung and I have talked a lot, and that’s helped. Everyone has helped, really. I didn’t want to take my anger out on you. You’re hurting as much as we are, even if you won’t tell us the full reason yet. But that’s okay. We can wait. It’s just something that will take time.”

Jeongin stops outside their room, where everyone is probably still trying to sleep in the single hour they have.

“We have all the time in the world, hyung,” Jeongin says.

Someone with a clipboard rushes by with a group of technicians. Beomsu appears.

“You guys need to get in the makeup chairs sooner rather than later,” he says. “You’re taking an earlier spot—a whole group canceled with food poisoning.”

Changbin doesn’t get the chance to reply to Jeongin. Half an hour later, they’re sweating from a three minute performance and the room is full of cheers. The dip with Hyunjin did so well there’s a call for an encore and they both oblige STAY with wide smiles and laughter. Changbin thinks he’s the loneliest he’s ever been when he holds Hyunjin in his arms. Changbin waves and smiles and nods and jokes.

Through it all he cannot look at Jeongin. Not once. Only Chan—who notices all—notices. He raises an eyebrow at Changbin, smiling for the cameras, and Changbin shakes his head, smiling wide as he can.

They’re in the car back to the company, and Chinmae is driving.

Chan sits next to Changbin with his headphones on, texting his sister.

“You know,” Chan says, pulling his headphones down and turning to Changbin. “You know you can tell me anything. Always.”

Changbin keeps his eyes on the back of Chinmae’s seat.

“I know,” he says. He takes a deep breath and turns to Chan. “You know you can tell me anything. Always.”

“I know,” Chan says.

The entirety of the world sleeps in his gaze.

Safety!—Changbin’s body is screaming as he looks upon this man—Safety!

“My sister is calling you an idiot,” Chan says.

“That’s fair,” Changbin says.

Chan smiles at him, a small and sad thing, and puts his headphones back on.

Changbin makes eye contact with Chinmae in the rear view mirror. Chinmae is frowning.

“You’re always frowning, hyung,” Changbin says.

“It’s ‘cause I’m always around you,” Chinmae says, but he smiles. “You guys okay?”

“STAY loved the song,” Changbin says, turning to look at the city. “I’m happy because of that.”

That evening, Changbin stares at the circle on the calendar.

There’s less than a week til the meeting.

He goes to the edge of their living room, where Hyunjin has put all their weights and straps and a single yoga mat against a bookshelf.

He works out until he can barely stand.

He’s sitting in their office, alone, staring at a blank page, pen in hand, trying to come up with a title that matches the theme of the next album that will never carry his name, when Wooyoung calls.

“Hi~” Changbin says.

“What’s wrong?” Wooyoung asks. He’s dead serious and straight to the point. Changbin’s blood goes cold.

“What’s wrong?” Changbin asks. “Nothing. I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“Chaeryeong-ah called me because she’s worried about you, and then Seonghwa-hyung said Minho-hyung is sad as fuck right now and the only answer I got vaguely had to do with you, so I checked with Yeonjunnie and guess what?” Wooyoung asks, breath irrelevant to his importance of sharing these words. “Both Yeonjunnie and Chaeryeong-ah are worried about you! Both of them! They rarely agree on a place to eat! So you better tell me what’s wrong before I have to come and fight you myself. I know you’ve got bigger arms than I’ve got a head, but I don’t fucking care. I’ve been practicing with Sannie and I can take him to the ground like nothing, now. Tell me. What’s going on?”

Changbin stares at the blank page.

He feels so, so alone.

“Do you know what polyamory is?” He asks.

There’s silence on the other side of the phone for a long time.

“When are you free, Changbinnie? Let’s talk in person,” Wooyoung says.

“I can do tonight?” Changbin says.

“Alright,” Wooyoung says. “Come over to ours.”

And he hangs up the phone.

Changbin puts his head down onto the empty page and breathes. Maybe he can empty his brain this way. Maybe, finally, this will be the song that makes him a shell of a person. Maybe then he won’t have to feel everything he’s feeling—it’ll all just sit in a song for others to touch and examine and pick apart, beat by syllable by beat.

Wooyoung, Yeosang, and San are all at the apartment when Changbin gets there, and San and Yeosang are halfway through a card game that Changbin has been taught how to play at least eight times. He does not remember the rules but he can tell by San’s face that he’s losing.

“You want anything to drink, Changbinnie?” Wooyoung yells from the kitchen that’s two meters away from where Changbin is standing.

“I’m good,” he yells back.

Wooyoung takes him and a bowl of fruit to the bedroom at the back of the apartment that’s full of purples and greys, with a painting of a landscape and wild horses hanging over the dresser, and cuddles up next to him.

“Polyamory, hm?” He asks, once they’ve settled in.

Changbin’s heart goes in his throat. His arm around Wooyoung tenses.

“Are you interested in learning about it?” Wooyoung asks.

Changbin glances at Wooyoung out of the corner of his eye.

“If I said yes, what do you know?” Changbin asks.

Wooyoung shrugs under Changbin’s arm.

“I have four boyfriends,” he says. “And three boyfriends-in-law. I could interview them for you.”

Changbin blinks. Blinks again.

“What?” He asks.

“It’s technically three boyfriends today, though,” Wooyoung says. “I get Yeosang every even day. He’s very picky about schedule and I love him, so, we do want we can.”

Wooyoung turns to Changbin, eyes wide and searching.

“You don’t care, right?” He asks. And Changbin loves Wooyoung so, so very much. The same big-terror-joy rises in him.

He shakes his head.

“I love you,” Changbin chokes out. “I don’t care.”

He swallows.

“Woo,” he says. “I…”

He can’t speak for a long minute.

“Oh, Changbinnie,” Wooyoung says, and fingers brush over his cheeks. He’s crying. Changbin is crying. And suddenly, he cannot stop. Every tear he’s blinked back, every sob he’s swallowed—it pours out of him as water from a stream—continuous and natural. He hates it. He keeps his face buried in Wooyoung’s shoulder and does more than hates it—he hates himself.

He hates the situation and how there’s nothing he can do to change it.

He is stuck with two horrible options, but at least one is better for the loves of his life.

After a very long time, there’s a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” a voice calls. Yeosang is sitting on the edge of the bed with a glass in hand. “You need to drink some water.”

Changbin sips at the glass in shaky hands and Yeosang pats him on the head, the bicep, the thigh, and then leans over to press a kiss into Wooyoung’s hairline.

“It’ll be okay,” he tells Changbin, and then he leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

Changbin leans back against the headboard, looks at Wooyoung who is still clinging to him, eyes wet with sympathy tears.

“You don’t need to interview your boyfriends,” Changbin croaks. “I broke up with mine.”

He tears up again and water pours down his cheeks.

Wooyoung immediately hugs him even tighter, rubs a hand down his back.

“Oh, Changbinnie,” he says. “Oh, honey.”

It is nice, for a moment, to be in the arms of a friend.

Changbin doesn’t answer any of the questions Wooyoung asks, and Wooyoung stops asking once they start getting ready for bed. But despite the unanswered questions, Wooyoung still ushers Changbin into brushing his teeth and changing into some of San’s clothes. He teases Changbin about rolling up the ankles of the pants to fit them, and he tucks Changbin into bed and kisses him on the forehead.

“Heartbreak is a terrible thing,” Wooyoung says. “You don’t have to go through it alone.”

Changbin falls asleep bracketed by San and Wooyoung, and he wakes up overheating in the middle of the night, the edge of a nightmare at the edge of his vision still lingering.

The seven of them had been staring at him, blood on their faces from his claws.

Changbin and Chan see each other every day at the gym.

It feels like Changbin's personal hell. He knows that Chan hasn't been talking to a lot of people about this. Who does he have besides the members? Who, of his hyungs, would he trust with this? Changbin used to be the person Chan would come to. He used to be the person that could carry all those worries, live all those moments together. Now, he watches in a mirror as Chan runs himself to exhaustion and stretches out the muscle pain.

Changbin waits, once, for Chan to finish and then goes to sit on the bench across from him, while Chan breathes.

"How are you?" Changbin asks.

Chan looks up at him. Glances around the gym with a few people scattered through it.

"Fine," he says. And then he stands up and leaves, dropping a hand on the top of Changbin's sweaty hair as he passes.

It's this that cements Changbin's decision.

Chan is heartbroken. He is shattered and alone. But he is strong and kind. Better that Changbin breaks up with him now than create any situation where Chan would have to make the decision himself.

He's been through enough pain as it is. Better to rip the bandaid off now.

There’s some variety show that Changbin and Seungmin both have to attend before the full release of their album. Hyunjin and Jeongin are headed to some magazine interview and photo shoot, and Minho, Jisung, and Chan get to go and eat food on some fancy cooking show.

Yongbok gets a free day. He sends them all a selfie of himself in bed, wrapped in blankets and blonde hair messy.

‘I slept in today!!!!’ the message reads.

Seungmin, Jeongin, and Minho all send a middle finger emoji at the same exact time Hyunjin replies with ‘PRETTY SUNSHINE’ and Chan sends a picture of Jisung sleeping in a green room with the caption ‘I’m so glad Yongbokkie.’

Changbin likes the message, laughs at the picture of Jisung, and turns off his phone.

Seungmin looks up from across their own green room. Everyone has cleared out to probably argue something with the editor or production crew. No managers or company people lingering for now. They could come in at any moment to call them out to stage, but for now, it’s just Changbin and Seungmin.

“It is weird,” Seungmin says. And then glances down at his phone again.

He doesn’t need to explain what’s weird. Changbin used to send messages back to pictures like that along the lines of ‘can’t wait to join you!!!!’ and ‘wearing something cozy?’

The breakup itself is what’s weird. The aftereffects, the consequences of it are what’s weird.

“Yeah,” Changbin says. Because it’s conscious effort on his part to not send a text like that. It’s conscious effort to remove the romance in his action. Even more difficult to remove it from his thought—that’s probably an impossibility.

He doesn’t realize he’s still staring at Seungmin until Seungmin looks up and raises an eyebrow at Changbin.

“See something you like?” Seungmin asks, his tone sharp.

He's dressed in a matching soft-denim outfit, a dark wash that nearly matches his dark hair, with a white t-shirt underneath it. His cheeks are blush-heavy and his eyes are sharp with grey liner and something silver at the corners of his eyes. Lyrics about stars fill Changbin's head.

“No,” Changbin says, and he glances down at his hands. The cuts on his knuckles have healed over and the lines in his palms are easy to follow with a fingertip. “Sorry.”

Seungmin sighs.

“I’m trying to accept your decision, hyung,” he says. “It’s hard to do that when there are moments where you’re not acting like we’ve broken up. I still feel so much love from you.”

When Changbin glances up at Seungmin, the other is staring.

“I’m trying, hyung,” Seungmin says. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re still trying, too.”

Changbin clears his throat.

“That might be too hopeful, Seungminnie,” he whispers.

“What is hope?” Seungmin asks. His tone isn’t even angry. It’s steady, and even, and Changbin loves this man. “Do you know? You gave up at the first sign of difficulty as far as we can tell. You won’t give us a full answer. You still love us, so why can’t you try? Why can’t you at least try?”

“I did try,” Changbin says. “For a month. Why is that not long enough to you? I’m sorry it’s not a good enough answer. It’s the only one I have. Yes, I still love you. But I can’t. I just can’t anymore. Why won’t you trust me in that?”

Seungmin frowns.

“It’s not fair,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” Changbin says, and Seungmin shakes his head.

“Enough sorries,” he says. “I know I haven’t… respected you as much during all this as you’ve respected us.”

“You’ve always liked to push my buttons,” Changbin says. “It’s what I like about you.”

“I shouldn’t push your buttons in this, though,” Seungmin says.

Changbin shrugs.

“I broke up with you out of the blue,” he says. “You’re allowed anger at that. You’re allowed frustration and some resentment from that.”

“I couldn’t resent you, hyung,” Seungmin says. “Never.”

There’s a blue circle on the calendar at home that is haunting Changbin.

There is a meeting that is happening in a few days that is haunting Changbin.

“There is nothing in this world that you could say or do to me that could ever make me not love you,” Changbin says. “I will take whatever you give me, whatever you need to say or do to process anything. Ever. You’ll always have me, okay? Even if it’s not in the ways we both thought you would.”

Seungmin nods, slowly, as he processes all the words.

He hums a line from Kim Johan’s ‘I Want To Fall In Love.’

Changbin shakes his head and laughs, just a little.

“You’re playing mean,” he says.

Seungmin sings: ”Are you really happy in this moment?”

If Changbin were brave enough, he’d hum the following line.

Instead, they wait in silence until they’re called to perform for the cameras, the show hosts, and the fans.

On stage, Seungmin puts a hand on Changbin’s shoulder and it feels like fresh air.

“I’m playing mean today, hyung,” Seungmin says before a game they're going to play for snacks. “Lee Know-hyung taught me well.”

“Bring it on,” Changbin says, grinning. “I can take it.”

Seungmin grins back—his pure puppy one.

It’s a bit like baptism, honestly. Changbin feels washed clean by it. Absolution.

He breathes deep and even.

Minho calls him while making dinner, once.

"Is it fair to make different meals for different people on the same date?" He asks. On the phone screen, the small version of him has rolled up sleeves and is cutting up yams.

Changbin shoves away the shuddering feeling of heartache and thinks through the question.

"I think that's more than fair," he says. "I think that's sweet."

Minho hums and goes back to cutting up the yams.

"I wish you were here," he says. "Is that too mean to say?"

"You can say whatever you want to me, always," Changbin says.

"I think it's mean of a hyung to say that," Minho says, as though he didn't hear Changbin.

"You've never worried about that before," Changbin says, humor heavy in his tone. Minho looks up at the camera with sharp, idol-trained eyes. Changbin swallows.

Minho gets his face right up to the camera, so his whole eye fills the screen.

"I have a knife in my hand," he says.

"Oh no," Changbin says. "He's figured out how to murder through a phone!"

Minho squints at him and backs away, shaking the knife at the screen.

Changbin loves this man.

"Do you remember when we went out drinking after my breakup with Hyunwoo?" Minho asks, and he goes back to chopping.

Changbin nods.

"I do," he says.

"I wanted you to take me home after," Minho says.

"I would have said yes," Changbin says.

"It's why I didn't ask," Minho says. He looks up at Changbin through his eyelashes. "You're a stupid man when you're in love."

"I am not the one in paboracha," Changbin says, like Minho didn't just stab him in the heart with a yam-flavored knife.

Minho shakes said knife at him and then a timer goes off behind him.

"Gotta go," he says. "Love you, Binnie~"

And then he hangs up.

Changbin eats chicken at his kitchen counter and feels the prowling of something in his ribs.

It's when Changbin is on the couch, halfway through a book about Hwang Jini, that Hyunjin comes home.

Changbin turns around to watch over his shoulder as Hyunjin chucks his bag on the floor by the door, slides off his shoes, and moves to practically fold in half over the top of the couch, rolling over it to land on his back, his feet ending up in Changbin’s lap.

“Hey,” Hyunjin says, eyes closed. “Rub my feet and tell me about your day.”

“Only because you asked so nicely,” Changbin says, setting down his book and wrapping a hand around Hyunjin’s ankle.

This shakes him. Every time. The trust with which Hyunjin offers up his livelihood, his soul, his being, into Changbin’s hands. The bone under his hands is so fragile. It is precious. Changbin cradles it.

Changbin digs his fingers into the arch of Hyunjin’s foot and watches Hyunjin’s eyes open like the sun rising.

“Tell me about your day,” Hyunjin says.

“I worked out,” Changbin says. “And I went to a meeting with Chinmae and Beomsu. And I finished a demo for the new album that Hannie will be able to record. I made some phone calls. I called my mom. I had dinner. And I was reading just now. Poetry by Hwang Jini.”

Hyunjin raises his eyebrows.

“You’re reading poetry?” He asks.

Changbin shrugs.

“You got me to like it,” he says. “It’s been…nice.”

“How’s your mom?” Hyunjin asks.

“She’s doing well. She was doing laundry and she caught me up on all the drama with my aunt and uncle. They’re still fighting over how to redo their kitchen.”

“This is the kitchen with the ugly green and purple and yellow wallpaper?” Hyunjin asks. “Your uncle still wants to keep it?”

“Yep,” Changbin says. “He’s escalated to threatening to sell the microwave if my aunt redoes it.”

“And neither of them can cook,” Hyunjin says. “So that would be pretty bad.”

“But they can afford a new microwave if they’re redoing the whole place, anyways,” Changbin says.

Hyunjin hums.

“How was your day?” Changbin asks.

“Jisung and Jeongin both stayed the night at Yongbok and Seungmin’s place, so we all had breakfast this morning. I went on a walk. Went to a meeting with Sunyoung-nim about what this next year will look like for me in the fashion world. Practiced in the studio and worked on my knees and hips—you know I’ve been trying to make them more clean in transitions. And then I got dinner with Lee Know-hyung and we talked a lot about things. And I missed you, so then I came home.”

“Welcome home,” Changbin says, his voice cracking around the last word.

“Welcome home,” Hyunjin mimics with the same voice crack.

Changbin digs a knuckle into his anklebone.

“Nooooo,” Hyunjin whines, pulling away and sitting up so that he’s staring at Changbin from the end of the couch.

Three weeks ago, Changbin would have grinned at him in a way that would have ended the night at three in the morning, instead of eleven in the evening.

Now, all he can do is stare at the bruises of exhaustion under Hyunjin’s eyes.

“How are you doing?” Changbin asks.

Hyunjin rolls his head back to stare at the ceiling.

“Better,” he says. “Not as fucked up, but still fucked up. Trying.”

He looks at Changbin.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m about the same,” Changbin says. “Time will improve things, I know that much.”

“Have you written any new songs?” Hyunjin asks. “I have.”

“Yeah,” Changbin says.

“Will we ever get to hear them?” Hyunjin asks. “I might share mine.”

“Maybe,” Changbin says. He thinks of pages full of scribbled thoughts and heart-wrenching metaphor. “Maybe.”

“I don’t ever want you not in my life,” Hyunjin says. “I want you there when I’m grey-haired and ugly.”

“You’ll never be ugly,” Changbin says. “You will always be beautiful.”

“Beauty is nothing,” Hyunjin says.

Changbin shakes his head. He knows Hyunjin's wrestle because he knows the man who sits next to him.

“I’ve seen how hard you have worked to get here,” he says. “I know the dreams in your heart, and how much further you want to go. You do not give up. That is what is beautiful.”

Hyunjin puts his arm on the back of the couch, rests his head in his hand.

“I’ve been mean to you,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Changbin says. “Never. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“Minho-hyung was right about breakups,” Hyunjin says. “They’re hell to go through but you learn a lot.”

“He is right about that,” Changbin says.

They sit in silence. The refrigerator hums and the aircon kicks on again.

“I will be in your life as long as you let me,” Changbin says. “It just won’t be what we thought it would be.”

Hyunjin shakes his head slow.

“I started this friendship with you expecting only that," Hyunjin says. "I am satisfied—grateful, even—to stay and keep that friendship. If you don’t want anything more with me, how can I be mad at that? I was more mad at what felt like a broken promise, but you haven’t wavered. You’re still supporting us. Helping us. Helping me. Life is not a drama.”

“You deserve only good things, Hwang Hyunjin,” Changbin says. He clasps his hands together in his lap so he doesn’t reach out, instead. He starts picking at his callouses.

Hyunjin closes his eyes, like he knows what Changbin is thinking.

“I’m going to wash my face, and brush my teeth,” he says. “And tomorrow, when I wake up, I’ll never ask this of you again. Not once, in my life.”

Hyunjin opens his eyes, and Changbin already is shaking his head. Whatever slithering thing that lives in his stomach is scrambling. Panicking and tearing at his lungs to get out.

“Please,” Hyunjin says, voice thin. “Kiss me goodnight just this once. I didn’t know the last time we kissed would be the last, and I can’t have that. Please, Changbin.”

Claws tear at his belly, his ribs, his heart.

“Go wash your face and brush your teeth,” Changbin says.

Hyunjin doesn’t move for a long time, but eventually gets up and walks down the hall.

Changbin stands and clears his water cup from the coffee table, goes to rinse it in the sink and set it on the rack. He wipes down the counters, hangs the rag over the edge of the sink.

The blue circle on the calendar is four squares away.

Changbin leaves the kitchen, heart aching, and moves through the living room to fluff all the pillows on the couch and turn off all the lights. He folds the blanket he's been sleeping with over the back of the couch. Now that Hyunjin is here, he can't sleep in the living room. It exposes him too much to a man that knows him too well.

He double checks the door is locked and then turns to the hallway, where Hyunjin is stepping out from the bathroom, his long hair pulled back by a headband, wearing his set of dark blue pajamas.

The aircon turns off.

The apartment quiets.

Hyunjin’s eyes are so soft in the dim yellow light coming from his room.

In five days, Changbin will never get this image, this moment, this reality, again.

“Come here, baby,” he whispers.

Hyunjin’s face breaks.

“Hyung,” he says, voice wet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about what your face would look like. You’re so sad. I’m sorry, I didn’t think.”

In two steps, Hyunjin is folding himself into Changbin’s arms, his face tucking into Changbin’s shoulder.

“I won’t ask, again, I won’t,” he says.

Changbin pulls him out of his arms, puts his hands on Hyunjin’s face.

“Hyung will always love you,” he says. “But not like this. You can always lean on me, but that is as much as I can give you from now on. Okay? You need to think more logically, Hyunjin-ah. No acting with emotion.”

“I’ve been trying,” Hyunjin says, and the first tear falls from his eyes.

“I know,” Changbin says. “I’m proud of you. I’ve been trying, too.”

Hyunjin nods and breathes in, the air quivering in sound and rhythm.

Changbin pulls Hyunjin’s head down to where he can press a kiss to Hyunjin’s forehead.

Hyunjin whines.

“Hyung,” he says, pulling back.

“Will you sleep okay tonight?” Changbin asks.

Hyunjin breathes in, and Changbin watches him settle himself. He nods.

“I’ll be okay,” he says. He wipes his face. Breathes deep.

“Sleep well, Hyunjin-ah,” Changbin says.

Watching the door close to Hyunjin’s room is the gate of heaven shutting and locking. The clawed, fearsome thing in his stomach has resorted to teeth. It’s eating him alive. He loves them this much.

He loves them all this much.

Everything hurts.

Changbin lays in bed, awake until the sun rises.

He gets up, dresses, and goes to the gym. Chan is there. They work out silently, they part ways silently.

Everything hurts.

When he goes to wash his hands later, his callouses crack open again and blood fills the lines in his palm. He wraps them up and watches them shake.

Their EP releases.
The jazz song climbs charts.
They do an interview, they film a small thing to celebrate it.

The group goes out to eat with their staff, and it's only slightly awkward. They are all performers. They've spent years training for these kinds of events.

At the end of the evening, the group divides, and Changbin watches seven of them get into two separate cars. Two cars that are probably going to the same place.

Changbin gets his own car and goes to his empty apartment. Hyunjin certainly won't be coming back tonight.

Changbin's bank account is full of money and he sends half of his new paycheck form the release to his parents and the other half to his sister.

His sister calls him immediately.

Changbin sits on the floor of his living room, back against the wall, and stares out the wide windows that Hyunjin loves. Seoul glimmers with golden and silver and neon lights.

"Hey, noona," he says. "You're still awake?"

"Take it back," she says. "I don't need the money, and you know it."

"I know," he says. "I just wanted to give it to you."

"Bin-ah," she says. "Are you doing okay?"

He's tipsy. Whatever lives in his stomach now has turned the soju into poison. Truth serum. Same difference.

"Noona, I'm gay," he says. He closes his eyes against the brightness of the city outside the windows. He's so dizzy.

His sister hums.

"I know," she says. "It's okay. I love you."

Changin opens his eyes, his eyelashes sticky.

"You know?" He asks.

"Changbin," she says. "You never shut up about Han Jisung when you first met him, and then you never shut up about Hwang Hyunjin when you met him, and so on and so forth. I have heard you wax lyrical about Yang Jeongin's smile and Lee Yongbok's freckles and Kim Seungmin's humor entirely too much. I don't even want to know how many songs you've written are actually about Lee Minho or Bang Chan. Yes, little brother. I know."

"Oh my god," Changbin says.

"It's okay," she says.

"It's not," Changbin says, voice cracking. "It's not okay."

It's quiet on the other side of the phone for a long minute.

"Noona?" Changin asks.

"I'm coming to visit," she says. "I was checking my calendar. I can be there in three days, okay? I'll take you out to noraebang and we'll do stupid shit."

"No," Changbin says. "I, actually. I can't, then."

"Why not?" His sister asks. "You have something planned?"

"Company meeting," Changbin says. "How about, can I… Can I come visit you in four days? After the meeting?"

"You can always visit me," she says.

"Okay," Changbin says. "I'll see you then?"

"You're paying for your own taxi," she says. "You don't take that money back, I'm spending it all on you when you get here."

"I love being the spoiled kid," Changbin says.

"Ugh," his sister says. "You're awful. I love you. I'll see you soon."

"Love you," Changbin says. "See you soon."

The phone goes dark and he stares out the window until he feels tired enough to sleep. He collapses into his bed and his mind quiets into unconsciousness.

In the dark of his bedroom, Changbin wakes in cold sweat. When he turns on the lamp on his bedside table that he let Seungmin pick out, the yellow light shows blood on his sheets.

His hands are soaked in blood.

Jisung has only ever described these, Changbin has only witnessed them, but he knows immediately when he has to force his breathing to slow, has to press a bloodied hand to his bare chest—he is having a panic attack.

He opens his mouth and gasps—he's drowning.

He is drowning.

He lays on his blood soaked sheets and counts seconds for every breath until the sun rises.

Jeongin answers the door when Changbin knocks. There are faint bruises on his neck. Mouth-sized ones. Changbin feels half his brain leave him.

“Idiot,” Jeongin says, ushering him in and closing the door behind him. “Just enter the code next time. We’re ex-boyfriends, not strangers.”

Seungmin is sitting on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket with a mug of what is most likely hot chocolate in his hands. His eyes are unfocused.

“We’ve been having a lazy morning,” Jeongin says, moving to sit on the couch and tuck Seungmin under his arm. “Chan-hyung won’t be here until lunch time. Want to watch Jisung’s latest documentary recommendation with us?”

Changbin has no other answer but to sit down on the couch and stare at the television.

It’s a documentary about the Nile River. Changbin learns nothing.

Halfway through the narrator talking about what could be donkeys, Seungmin moves to set down his mug on the coffee table.

“How are you doing?” Jeongin asks in his soft aftercare voice, and Changbin gets up to take the empty mug into the kitchen.

He washes the mug about four times.

When he comes back into the living room, Seungmin looks more focused and is playing with Jeongin’s fingers. Jeongin is grinning, ear to ear.

“Thanks for washing my mug, Changbin,” Seungmin says.

“Sure,” Changbin says, sitting down on the couch and looking at the tv, which has been turned off.

“He wanted to talk with Chan-hyung,” Jeongin says, and Changbin turns to see Seungmin frowning.

“Talk to him about what?” Seungmin asks.

“Stuff,” Changbin says. “Company stuff.”

“Does it have to do with why you broke up with us?” Jeongin asks.

Changbin turns to look at the black screen of the tv that reflects all three of them in shadowed detail.

“Does my every action have to be defined by that?” Changbin asks.

Jeongin’s shadow shrugs.

“Maybe it is to me,” he says. “Maybe that changed how I viewed you, or at least, my relationship with you. All I know is that you’ve been acting more heartbroken than someone who usually breaks up with someone acts.”

“Ayen-ah,” Seungmin says. “Teeth.”

Jeongin bares his teeth and Seungmin pokes the bone of them. Jeongin kisses Seungmin’s fingertip.

"Sorry, hyung," Jeongin says to Changbin. "That was harsh of me."

“I’ve never done this before,” Changbin says. “And neither have you—how do you know what someone is supposed to act like after breaking up with someone else?”

“I know they probably shouldn’t be lovestruck,” Jeongin says. “Not horny as hell just seeing some bruises.”

Changbin looks down at his hands.

“I just don’t understand it,” Jeongin says. “You of all people should know how much it’s changed things for us all.”

Changbin shakes his head.

“You don’t need me as much as you all think you do,” he says.

The front door closes.

They all look up to see Chan standing at the end of the hallway, in shorts and a hoodie, beanie pulled down to cover his eyebrows, backpack slung over his shoulder.

It was after 'Miroh' had it's first win.

They'd been tired and world-hungry in a way that gnawed at their bones every waking moment. They'd been stoked with adrenaline and triumph and then shuffled off to their apartment like children.

Changbin had been curled up in the bed next to Chan on their bottom bunk, and Chan had been wide-eyed and frozen in panic.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't plan that," he'd said, in response to the soft and gentle kiss he'd given Changbin when he'd said goodnight. "I'm so sorry."

Changbin had reached out and tugged Chan against him, his lips still tingling. They'd been thinner, then. Smaller in stature and life lived.

Chan had gasped, curled closer. It had been dark in the room, but they'd been lit by the glow of light from the hallway shining in under the door. Jisung and Felix, surely still awake.

Changbin had been horny and his crush on Chan hadn't gone away—not through the survival show, or their debut. Not through the grueling hours and practices, the crushing rules, the glorious adrenaline of performance, the love of loyal fans. Changbin had still come home to Chan, sweatshirt on over his head, and curls loose in the evening, and liked him more than a boy should like a boy.

In a single kiss, Chan had shattered the image Changbin had of him and built it back up into a person Changbin was about to fall in love with.

"Don't be sorry," he'd said, fitting a leg between Chan's thighs. "Finish what you started, hyung."

"Changbin-ah," Chan had breathed, rolling on top of him. "We really shouldn't."

"I don't care, hyung," Changbin had said, fingers pushing back the curls on Chan's head, tucking them around Chan's jawline. "Live boldly. Kiss me again. It wasn't long enough last time."

"This can't be anything besides this," Chan had said, hot and solid against Changbin's body, barely moving. "It's just—hah—just this. Two bodies."

Changbin had swallowed down everything from the moment, including the tears of it, and pulled Chan down into a kiss that bruised.

"Yeah, hyung," he'd whispered in Chan's ear as they'd both pulled their pants down. "Just this. Two bodies."

"Just two bodies," Chan had said, and Changbin had pretended not to hear the tenderness in his voice.

“You… what?” Chan asks from the hallway of his and Jeongin's dorm. “You think we don’t need you?”

“Can we talk in your office, Chan-hyung?” Changbin asks.

“No, hang on,” Jeongin says. “No leaving like that. You think we don’t need you? Stray Kids wouldn’t be here without you!”

Changbin points at Chan. He keeps his voice steady.

“Stray Kids exists because Chan had a dream, and we all believed in it enough to work hard enough to make it reality,” he says. “That’s why Stray Kids is here. Stray Kids exists whether I’m here or not because of how it started.”

“Why are you stubborn about this?” Seungmin asks. “See what we’re trying to tell you.”

“I do see what you’re trying to tell me,” Changbin says. “There’s a very big difference between need and want. You do not need me. But you want me. That’s not possible anymore. I’m sorry. I thought you were willing to give this time, Ayen-ah. I need more time.”

Jeongin blinks.

“How come you need more time but we can’t get any?” He asks. “Don’t be a hypocrite.”

Changbin’s shoulders tense.

"That is not—" He starts, and he feels the rising anger in him, the claws coming up his throat.

“Let’s go to mine. This isn't productive for us, Innie,” Seungmin says to Jeongin, standing up suddenly and grabbing Jeongin's arm with both hands. His voice is so soft. “We’ll leave you two to talk.”

They both file past Chan, who’s still standing in the hallway, backpack over his shoulder.

The door closes behind them.

Chan stares at Changbin.

"Are you stupid?" He asks Changbin. "You think we don't need you?"

"I know you don't," Changbin says.

Chan scoffs and chucks off his shoes, drops his backpack on the couch. He moves into the kitchen and Changbin watches as he sets out things from the refrigerator on the kitchen island.

"What is it you wanted to talk to me about?" Chan asks, once he's washed his hands and has started chopping garlic.

Changbin gets up from the couch and moves to the island, sits down on the barstools that Yongbok picked out.

"I'm bringing up something bad," Changbin says. "Because you should know about this before the company brings it up at the meeting."

Chan sets down the knife and puts his hands on the counter. He closes his eyes and breathes out. Inhales.

"Wait," he says.

He picks up the knife and finishes chopping the garlic and white scallion, and onion. He slides it into the pot and adds the ribs drained of blood that have been sitting on the stove. Jeongin probably set them there. He fills the pot with water and then turns and adds ginger.

He sets the burner to boil and then goes to the cabinet where he and Jeongin keep their drinks.

He pours two shots of whiskey and sets one down in front of Changbin.

"I'll be right back," he says. "Watch the pot."

Changbin picks up his glass and downs the whiskey, lets it warm him—stomach to tongue. The thing in his stomach settles at the burning.

When Chan comes back, he has a small journal the size of his palm, and a pen.

"This has to do with the meeting you had at the company the day before you broke up with us," he says. He doesn't ask. He opens the journal and clicks the pen. "I'm not an idiot, Changbin-ah. I know what these things look like. I went through this exact thing before. I thought you'd come to me earlier. Tell me what it is."

Changbin closes his eyes, puts his head in his hands.

"There's a picture," Changbin says. And the words are a knife.

"A picture," Chan says. "Of what?"

"A kiss," Changbin says.

He doesn’t know how, but there is a picture.

A picture that won’t get released until the thirtieth.

A picture the company was able to keep out of the media until July first.

It’s contract breaking—any kind of relationship that is romantic or sexual in nature. He and Chan both know this.

The picture will be a full-blown scandal.

He had sat at a conference table and been given two options: let his own career tank, or take Stray Kids down with him. Changbin would rather die than ruin the dreams and effort and work that his members and partners have made.

“I’ll leave first,” he’d said. The words had ruined him. He’d known it before, but he felt it again in a way that was convicting—how much, how dearly, he loved them.

"Just a kiss?" Chan asks. Changbin watches him write this down in the journal.

"Yes," Changbin says.

"And your face is visible?" Chan asks.

"My face is the only visible face," Changbin says.

Chan nods and writes down something else.

"It's contract breaking so they've asked you to leave the group?" Chan asks. His voice doesn't even waver. Changbin feels like he's watching a car accident. Shattered glass under his hands. So much blood.

"They, um," Changbin pauses. "If I leave before the picture goes public, it won't hurt the group. It's just me. We'll make it official on the thirtieth. The picture will be released on the first of July."

Chan writes down something and glances up at Changbin.

"'It won't hurt the group'?" He asks, setting down the pen. "Because we aren't hurting now?"

Changbin looks away.

"It's not—"

"Not, what?" Chan asks. "You broke up with us to not hurt us when they kick you from the group? You didn't think to involve us in the decision making at all?"

"What decision is to be made?" Changbin asks. "It's me or you all. I'd rather it be me!"

"We don't want you to get hurt!" Chan asks.

Changbin puts his hands on the counter. The marble is cold against his broken, scabbing-over skin.

"I am already hurting," he says. "I would be hurting either way."

Chan practically snarls at that.

"You do not have to be hurting alone," he says. "I don't understand your thought process in this. I simply do not get it. Explain it better to me."

"You haven't even asked who I was kissing," Changbin says. "Because you're afraid of getting hurt even more. I understand already how traumatizing this is for you. Me leaving ignites old, awful feelings. No song encapsulates this kind of fracture. It is a different kind of heartbreak. It is better to sever both the relationships and the group from me now, than act as some sort of parasite while you all continue on to whatver albums and tours you do, and I waste away making songs for solo artists who don't get me the way you do. I will never write a song for Seungmin again. No solo for Minho. No rap for Han or Hyunjin. No spotlight for Yongbok. No harmony for Jeongin. No topline for you. I will never get to do that again. What is the point in making music if it can't be for you?"

Chan blinks and a tear falls from his eyes.

"What happened to writing for yourself?" He asks. "Where did that go?"

Changbin shakes his head.

"What song has ever been for myself?" He asks. "Every song is to make stray kids stay. Everywhere. All around the world. It's been for them, and it's been for you."

Chan sniffs and turns to the pot on the stove. He pulls out chopped carrots and mushrooms from the fridge and adds them to the pot.

For a long minute, he stands at the stove and breathes. Then he comes back to the island and downs the shot of whiskey. Then, and only then does he pick the pen back up and look at Changbin.

"Give me the details from the meeting, please," he says.

And Changbin does.

They sit down and eat the ribs at the dining table with rice.

"You think this is the end of your career," Chan says, when they're halfway through lunch. "And also the end of any possibility of a relationship with us."

"I do," Changbin says.

"That's fearful of you," Chan says. "What happened to 'live boldly'?"

Changbin swallows his bite.

"What happened to: 'Just this. Two bodies,'" Changbin says, and Chan flinches. "People change."

Their spoons and chopsticks clink against their bowls.

"Did they threaten anything else?" Chan says. "To make you so afraid?"

"I know it doesn't seem like it, but I am trying to protect you," Changbin says. "I wouldn't be doing a good job protecting you all if I told you."

"Because they threatened something about us?" Chan asks. He doesn't even wait for Changbin to confirm his guess. He shakes his head. "These motherfucking cunts."

"I can take this, hyung," Changbin says. "Let me take it. Don't make it worse for you guys. I am only doing what you have done for us for years. I am trying to pay you back. I am sacrificing myself for you all. Can't you see how much I love you from it?"

Chan sets down his chopsticks.

"I'm the hyung, I'm supposed to protect you," he says.

"Not from this," Changbin says. "It's my choice. Will you tell the others?"

"I'm going to fix this," Chan says.

"You can't," Changbin says. "My signature is on the contract. That ink has long since dried."

Chan wipes his hand down his face.

"I hate it," Chan says. "What's so bad about a kiss?"

Changbin closes his eyes. He shakes his head.

"I'm not telling you any more," he says. "Please. Just leave it."

He hears Chan inhale sharply. Chan likes for things to hurt, sometimes. He likes to push too far. Changbin waits for the question.

"Who was it you were kissing?" He asks.

Changbin stands up and picks up his plate.

"Thank you for lunch," he says, voice cracking. "Don't worry, I'll have all things on my end finalized by the day before the meeting. I've taken care of most everything by now."

Chan doesn't move the whole time Changbin puts his dish in the dishwasher and goes to collect his jacket and put on his shoes. Just before Changbin leaves, he turns around at the dining table to look across the living room towards the entry.

"Changbin-ah," he says. "I was waiting for you before I met you. I have always needed you and I always will. I love you."

Changbin wants to ask questions that he already knows the answer to.

"Goodnight, Chan-hyung," he says, and then he slips out of the door and makes sure it locks behind him.

He doesn't really sleep, the two nights leading up to the company meeting after his talk with Chan. Work is a steady pattern, and he eats. Hyunjin has sort of moved back in and that helps things feel a bit normal, but Changbin knows he won't get this beautiful normalcy for long, so it ends up hurting in small ways he doesn't expect.

He works out too much every day.

He makes calls. Sends emails. Writes cards. Transfers money.

He can't write anything good.

The one thing he’s able to put to paper is a song that’s a true goodbye. He records it the night before the company meeting and it takes him entirely too short a time to record it.

It is an emptying of his soul.

It is, he thinks, the closest to a wedding vow he will ever make to these men.

Chinmae picks him and Hyunjin up for the meeting and keeps trying to make eye contact with Changbin in the rearview mirror.

When they get to the building, he puts a hand on Changbin's shoulder in the elevator.

"I've always got your back," Chinmae says. "No matter what."

"Thanks, hyung," Hyunjin says. He's been looking better lately. Changbin cannot speak. He cannot breathe. "You know I hate these meetings."

When the elevator opens on the right floor, Changbin turns to the right and practically sprints for the bathroom.

All that comes up is bile. He couldn't eat anything this morning.

Hyunjin is waiting outside the stall, leaning against the counter.

"What's wrong?" he asks, arms crossed and face frowning. "Yongbokkie said you weren't sick."

"I'm not," Changbin says. "Just anxious."

"Why?" Hyunjin says. "Do you know what this meeting is about?"

Changbin is trying not to cry and Hyunjin isn't helping. He digs his fingernails into his palms.

"Changbin-hyung," Hyunjin says. "What's wrong?"

Changbin opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it.

"'Mountains are the same as in the old times, but streams are never the same,'" he quotes. "'They keep flowing day and night, so they can not be the same.'"

There's a knock on the door and Chinmae opens it.

"We're going to be late," he says. "Let's go."

They don't announce his leaving very kindly, but they definitely do it very cleanly.

Even CEO Jeong showed up for this to sit at the head of the table. Changbin would be honored if he wasn't so humiliated.

They are surrounded on all sides by staff and shareholders. Their managers and staff are sitting interspersed between them, so only Minho is sitting next to Changbin, and Seungmin next to Chan. The table itself is long and thin. It's not made of wood. It shines under the lamps hanging from the ceiling—chrome and cold.

"It's a consequence of his actions," Park Jinyoung is saying. "There's no other option, and the picture is released tomorrow. It's better to announce his departure today before the scandal ruins the whole group. We just need you all to sign some paperwork and we'll be done here."

Changbin's heart is being eaten by something he cannot fight.

“When did you find out?” Seungmin asks, breaking the silence of the room. He’s furious. He’s beautiful. Changbin stays quiet.

“Seungmin-ah,” Chan says, holding out a hand, glancing around the room at their managers, their higher-ups, their deciders of fate, and body shape, and skin tone in photographs.

Seungmin stands, hands on the table to yell across it at Changbin. “When did you find out, you self-sacrificial idiot?! Was it three weeks ago?!”

“Kim Seungmin,” Park Jinyoung says, scandalized, Changbin thinks.

He can’t quite tell because he suddenly exists in the vacuum of space where the seven men he’s in love with are staring at him, waiting for an answer.

“I call the beginning of a meeting,” Chan says. His voice is leader-steady. His voice is the sound of safety and home. “I give us twenty minutes. No screaming. No labels. No lying. No phones. Are we agreed?”

Changbin watches every one of them open their mouths.

“Agreed,” they say.

Minho reaches out his hand and places it on the table, palm up and open.

Changbin covers his palm with his shirt and takes it.

“Agreed,” he says. He looks at Minho, whose face is tilted sideways. Peering at Changbin.

“Did you find out about this three weeks ago?” He asks Changbin.

Changbin nods.

“Is that why you made,” Jisung pauses, glances around the full room of powerful people with contracts in hand. Contracts of financial and career security for everyone here except Changbin. Changbin can be a farmer. He’ll work with cows. He’ll work with cows and be satisfied because his boys will still make music and be happy on stage. “Is that why you made such a sharp decision with us all? Separately and all together? Three weeks ago?”

“Boys, I don’t know what this is,” Park Jinyoung says. “But there’s no time for this.”

Changbin nods at Jisung.

If he opens his mouth, songbirds will mourn in droves.

Chan stands and claps a hand on Seungmin’s shoulder. Seungmin, who is crying, silently. He hates yelling.

“I'm sorry, Park Jinyoung PD-nim, CEO-nim,” Chan says. “I’m calling a recess of twenty minutes. We’ll be back.”

The CEO stands.

“You walk out of that door and you cancel your contracts,” He says. “We have paperwork to sign. Sit down and stop wasting time. Do you expect us to negotiate?”

Jisung points at Changbin from where he’s been placed at the end of the table.

“Don’t open your fucking mouth,” he says. “Don’t you dare.”

"Hyungs," Jeongin says, and they all turn to him, arrow pointing north in a room filled with people like this. "I put forth the motion Chan-hyung tabled after Woojin left. The emergency one."

The whole room goes quiet.

Changbin thinks, briefly, he's been hit over the head. He thinks, surely, he's about to die.

They'd figured out how to do their group meetings—the rules, the manners of them—a year after Woojin had left. After the dust had settled and they'd felt steady and sure, practically clingy, in their need of each other.

In the first meeting, where they'd figured out how they wanted to do votes, and manage motions, and opinions, and questions that kept getting interrupted, Chan had put forward a motion.

"This is not one I intend to put forth to vote on today," he'd said. "This is one for later on, much later on, if we ever need to, we can pull back out and put on the table again. I always want you to have an out, if you need it. But this is an emergency rip cord only. And it only passes unanimously. It's all of us or none of us."

"If we separate, we die," Minho had said.

"If we separate, we die," Hyunjin and Jisung had said at the same time, and pointed at each other, laughing.

No one is laughing, now.

"I second the motion," Yongbok says, and Changbin whips his head to look at Yongbok, who has stood up and is staring at him.

"Boys," Park Jinyoung says. "I'm not sure what game you're playing here, but—"

"All those in favor?" Jeongin asks.

Changbin stands up.

"I won't let you do this for me," he says. "I'll resent you for this."

"'There is nothing in this world that you could say or do to me that could ever make me not love you,'" Seungmin says. "That's a direct quote. From you. I am not afraid of you resenting me."

Seungmin stands up.

"I vote in favor," he says.

"No," Changbin says.

"I could never hate you," Jisung says, standing. "I vote in favor."

"No," Changbin says. He presses a hand to his chest.

Minho stands next to Changbin, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm a stupid man, too," he says. "I vote in favor."

Changbin is shaking his head. "No."

"We have all the time in the world, hyung," Jeongin says. "I vote in favor."

"No," Changbin says. "Don't do this to yourselves."

"It's okay that everything's changed," Yongbok says. "How boring life would be if it didn't? I vote in favor."

"No." Changbin's breath is gone. He loves these men. He hates them for this.

"What are we voting for?" CEO Jeong asks. "Jinyoung-ssi, what have you taught these boys? We're making an announcement no matter what. The picture is entirely too damning. Show them, Eungwi-ah."

A young woman steps forwards and opens a yellow manila envelope. She pulls out a picture the size of a school notebook and places it on the table for all of them to see.

"Hyung," Hyunjin breathes, because he sees what Changbin saw the first time he saw the picture. What the rest of them will see.

It's a picture of Changbin kissing someone in a car, with long, dark hair.

If the person looking at the picture had never kissed Hyunjin before, they'd never know it was him. But Changbin has seen Hyunjin kiss someone. He knows what the back of his head looks like when he's pressed close to someone and is sharing breath.

He knows how it feels to kiss Hyunjin, and be in love with him, and feel his giggle brush upon his cheeks like sunlight.

"I am thinking logically, hyung," Hyunjin says, turning to look at Changbin with wide eyes, full of love. "I vote in favor."

Changbin makes eye contact with Chan from across the table.

I'm the better option, he wants to say. Let me go down instead of you all.

"I have a really nice payroll of lawyers," Chan says, in response to whatever he sees on Changbin's face.

"That's very nice, Bang Chan-ssi," CEO Jeong says. "What the hell is going on?"

"Live boldly," Chan says, staring at Changbin. "When the eight of us are together, we live. When we fall apart, we die. I vote in favor."

"Hyung," Changbin says. "You've worked so hard. You've all worked so hard. I can't. It's not fair to your dreams, to what you've accomplished."

"We've accomplished all of this together, Changbin-hyung," Jisung says. "All of us. Including you."

"Now hold on," Park Jinyoung says.

"You've worked hard, too," Yongbok says. "The world is bigger than this room."

"If you boys break your contract, you owe us thrice the amount you signed upon, plus interest," a shareholder says. "That's what you're talking about, isn't it?"

The room starts to climb to a clamor at the statement, but if there is one thing Changbin's loves of his life have always been good at, it's being loud.

"We can make music anywhere, hyung," Jeongin says. "There are places we can still change people's lives."

"The future is unknown," Hyunjin says. "Hwang Jini was wrong when she said 'The men of fame are like streams; once gone they never return.' We don't give up. You taught us that."

"I live this with no regrets," Minho says. "What are they when faced with a life well lived in spite of them? We want to live that life with you."

"You can take it, hyung," Seungmin says. "I'm not a coward but neither are you. You know what real strength is."

People around them are yelling now, but Changbin has been built for these seven men. When he looks at Chan, Chan is staring with new moon eyes.

"It's been a long enough time, Bin," Chan says. "Let your hands rest. I want you to make music for yourself again. Please, love."

"This will break your heart," Changbin says.

"You leaving is what breaks my heart," Chan says, and a wry grin stretches across his face. "I thought you'd follow me anywhere."

Changbin closes his eyes.

"I wanted to protect you all," Changbin says.

"What is protection now?" The CEO yells. The room quiets. Changbin opens his eyes. "You're all fools. Sign the paperwork and we won't sue you all to hell and back for breach of contract!"

Chan leans forward to the stack of paper in front of him and picks it up. He looks through them and then leans across the table to hand them to Changbin.

Changbin swallows.

"Like I said," Chan says. "I have a really nice payroll of lawyers. Trust me, Changbinnie."

Changbin feels the weight of the paper in his hand.

He can barely read the words there.

What is in his chest is breaking through, cracking bone and ligament, stretching muscle and lengthening teeth.

"Whatever you decide," Chan says. "We will all, always love you."

Changbin takes a deep breath in and lets the thing in him howl.

"I love you all, too," he says. "I vote in favor."

It takes the muscle he has built to do it—the stack of papers is thick and heavy—but it takes him seconds.

Changbin rips the stack of papers in his hand clean in half.

The whole room erupts into screaming—all of Changbin's loves yelling in celebration, the shareholders and company cabinet in dismay and anger, the staff in confusion.

"Step out, we've been Stray Kids!" Jeongin yells. "Meeting adjourned!"

Minho throws the paper pieces into the air.

The rest of the day is a blur, honestly.

Changbin knows that Chinmae drives him and Hyunjin home to pack a bag, and that there's a meeting that Chan and Minho and Jisung attend with three of Chan's lawyers to sort out the financial and legal debacle that Changbin caused.

"You caused nothing," Hyunjin says, grin on his face, one hand lightly holding Changbin's bicep. "None of it is your fault."

"Chinmae-hyung and Beomsu-hyung are out of jobs now," Changbin says. "That's my fault."

"Channie hired us already," Chinmae says. Hyunjin and Changbin both stare at him in silence.

"What?" Changbin asks.

"Already?" Hyunjin asks. "Wow, he was prepared."

"He offered us a job as 3RACHA managers if Stray Kids ever disbanded," Chinmae says. He glances at them in the rearview mirror. "We've always got your backs."

"Holy shit," Changbin says. "Will that even pay enough?"

"As your manager," Chinmae says, raising an eyebrow. "I know for a fact it will pay more than enough, no matter what company you're under. You could build your own by now, if you really wanted to."

Hyunjin giggles.

"This is fucking crazy," he says.

They pull up at the building.

"Come on," Hyunjin says, tugging at Changbin's arm. "Let's go pack a bag."

Hyunjin has half a bag packed at all times, and Changbin just fills his with workout clothes and some comfy lougewear.

"Where are we going?" Changbin shouts down the hall.

"I have no idea," Hyunjin replies, rushing across the hall to his bathroom, practically skipping.

Changbin blinks.

"How do you know what to pack?" He asks.

"Did you pack your pajamas?" Hyunjin asks, coming to peer into Changbin's room. He stares at the bed. "Hyung."

"What?" Changbin turns.

"Your—oh my god," Hyunjin drops his face care routine on the floor and stumbles towards Changbin, hands fluttering around him. "What's wrong? Yongbokkie swore you weren't sick—he said—"

"I'm not sick," Changbin says, Hyunjin starts tugging up his shirt. "Jinnie, Hyunjin, wait—what?"

"There's bloodstains on your bedsheets," Hyunjin says. "Show me where you're hurt."

Changbin curls into himself immediately, tugs down his shirt and steps back.

"I'm fine," he says.

Hyunjin pulls out his phone.

"I'm calling Minho-hyung," he says.

Changbin holds out his hands.

"Hyunjinnie, it's just this," he says.

Hands heal quicker than most parts of the body, but Changbin's have not healed fast enough. Not when he keeps cracking open blisters, not when he keeps picking at his scabs. It looks like he's slid his hands over hot concrete ground.

"Oh, hyung," Hyunjin says, voice cracking. He reaches out and takes Changbin's wrists in his hands, turning them over to see the cracked knuckles. "This is why you've been wearing gloves so often?"

Changbin nods and pulls his hands back.

"Let's finish packing," he says.

"Hyung," Hyunjin says.

"Come on, Hyunjinnie," Changbin says. "Don't leave your twelve step routine on my bedroom floor, I may steal it for myself and get prettier than you and then where will you be?"

Hyunjin shoves his shoulder.

"Fine," he says. "But don't think I won't tell the others."

Changbin knows that he will. He knows Hyunjin will because he is loved. So, so dearly loved.

Chan is grinning when they meet him at his and Jeongin's place.

"BamBam-hyung was incredibly helpful," he says. "He sent me all of Jaebeom-hyung's notes. And I've had these lawyers on retainer since just after we won Kingdom. We'll be getting the rights and IP's no problem."

"No problem!" Jisung yells in english from where he's play wrestling Jeongin in the living room. "Let's fucking go!"

Yongbok has climbed onto Minho's back and is giggling, and Seungmin has curled around Hyunjin and Changbin at the same time in the entryway, where eight bags are now stacked.

"Like, we're still a group?" Changbin asks. "Stray Kids…"

"Will still exist," Chan says, and he's as steady and sure as he is when he's just gotten off of the stage. "I've had this prepped in my journal since 2019. Got7 just helped clear the road for us."

Changbin feels his knees go weak a bit. He thinks this is the hottest Chan has ever been.

"You're so sexy," Hyunjin says.

Chan's ear go bright red.

"So what next?" Yongbok asks from where Minho has now headlocked him in a cat puddle, on the floor next to Jeongin and Jisung, who are making out and break away from each other in a slick sound to listen to Chan's response to the question. "We're all packed up. Where are we going?"

"Thoughts on us all moving in together again?" Chan asks. "Just for a bit?"

Jisung rolls into sitting up on Jeongin's lap.

"I'm down," he says.

Everyone quickly agrees. Changbin nods.

"I was going to go visit my sister," he says. "Let me actually call her later. Why are you asking?"

"I was thinking we could go househunting," Chan says. "Get us a place outside the big city. Just hop around to find a place we might like?"

"Here's a thought," Changbin says. Everyone turns to him. "So, I bought a house? Already?"

"What," Seungmin says.

"I bought a house a few days ago because I figured Hyunjin would kick me out after today, and I got a place in Yeoju," Changbin says.

"You thought I'd kick you out?" Hyunjin asks, and then he disentangles himself from Changbin. "Actually, more importantly, Changbin isn't doing well."

Yongbok shoots up from next to Minho.

"I thought he wasn't sick!" He says. He turns to Changbin. "You said you weren't sick."

"I'm not," Changbin says. "I've just been… Low."

Jisung gets up from the ground and moves to take Changbin's hands. He sees the injuries there and redirects his hands, taking Changbin's wrists and pulling him to the couch.

"Let's all sit down," he says.

When they sit down, Changbin's hands are curled up in between Jisung's. Everyone stares and Changbin curls into hisself.

"Oh, hyung," Yongbok says, exactly how Hyunjin said it.

"It's fine," Changbin says. "It just. Happened these past few weeks. I've been… Stressed. Scared. I didn't mean for it to get this bad."

Minho gets up and leaves the room.

"Chan-ah, your first aid kit is still in the bathroom?" He yells.

"Yeah," Chan says. He doesn't look away from Changbin.

"Were you low before the meeting you had?" Jisung asks. "Before you broke up with us?"

Changbin shrugs.

"I don't know," he says.

Minho comes back in and kneels in front of Changbin. He starts to methodically clean every injury on Changbin's knuckles and palms.

"What don't you know?" Minho asks.

"I was just. Tired," Changbin says. "Everyone watching. All the time. The picture didn't help. I've been so scared. Cameras are exhausting. Performing is exhausting. I really haven't done something for myself in so long."

He glances around at all of them.

"I love Stray Kids. I really do. I'd do anything for this group, for the message behind our music. I love making music and I love making it for you all." He pauses.

"You love Stray Kids to the point of nearly killing yourself for it," Jeongin says, straight to the point.

"It'd be worth it," Changbin shrugs.

"You need therapy bad, hyung," Jisung says. "And that's coming from me."

"I think you're one of the more sane ones," Seungmin says.

"Because you would know," Jisung says.

"Sanity is overrated," Minho says, and he and Seungmin high-five. Minho turns to Changbin's hands and starts to bandage and wrap every injury. He looks up at Changbin. "You know we love you, right? Everything about today is because we love you."

"I know," Changbin says. "I love you, too."

"So, we're getting hyung therapy, Stray Kids legally is safe, and Changbin-hyung bought a house," Hyunjin says. "Are we taking, like, an extended vacation for the next few months in this house while hyung gets therapy, and maybe all of us do therapy, and we just, kind of, sleep for twenty hours a day until we decide to release more music?"

It's quiet for a moment before they all start suggesting other activites to do over their break.

"We should go back to Australia," Jeongin says.

"I want to fish," Minho says. "Hyunjin, come fishing with me."

"Chan-hyung you said you'd volunteer with me now that Hyunjin has," Yongbok says. "We should do that, too."

"We're having movie nights every week," Hyunjin says. "It's law."

"I'm not moving from a cuddle pile for three days," Jisung says. "I refuse anything else."

"I'm beating Yongbok in ranking," Seungmin says.

Chan stays quiet, just watching from where he's settled next to Changbin on the couch.

Changbin looks at him.

Chan smiles at him, soft and sweet.

It takes a moment, but Changbin is trying to live boldly. He leans against Chan's shoulder and just breathes in the smell of the man he loves. Chan's arm comes up to wrap around Changbin's shoulders. Minho's hands are gentle around Changbin's own, and the rest of them are talking so loud, and laughing even louder.

It's easier than breathing—how Changbin falls asleep.

When he wakes, he is warm and well-rested. The top level of the house gets just enough sunlight in the morning to wake them all gently, and when Changbin stirs, so does Chan, Jeongin and Hyunjin between them.

They slip out of bed and down the stairs quietly, pulling on their running shoes and stepping out into the cool morning.

They take their time stretching and move as one towards the path to the road and the river beyond it.

They don't need to talk on their run, they haven't ever needed to, not even a month ago, when they first got here.

The sun rises slowly over them, and by the time they arrive back at the house to find Minho doing pilates with Hyunjin and Yongbok on the porch, they're sweating through their shirts.

"Welcome home," Jisung says, and he gets up from where he's been sitting in the doorway stretching to give Chan a light kiss. He's sleepy with it, still waking up and hair a mess. Changbin feels his smile slide from his face as Jisung reaches out and pulls Changbin into a kiss like the one he gave Chan.

Jisung steps back from them and turns to go inside.

"I'll start the coffee pot for you all," he says, yawning.

Changbin feels lightning making a home in his chest. His lips are not his own. He's shaking, faintly.

Everyone else on the porch is staring in silence.

A moment later they hear from the kitchen: "Fuck!"

"Sungie?" Minho asks.

Jisung steps into the living room so Changbin can see him from the porch.

"I kissed you," Jisung says. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Changbin says.

Jisung arches an eyebrow.

"Jeonginnie! Seungminnie! Get out here!" He yells.

There's some faded thumps from the bedroom upstairs and the two of them stumble down the stairs. Seungmin is wearing only a big t-shirt and Jeongin has a single sock and a pair of boxers on.

"What?" Jeongin bites.

"Okay, Mr. Grouchy," Jisung says. He waves his hand at Changbin. "Sorry to wake you, but I was going to ask this sweaty man to be our boyfriend and I figured you wouldn't want to miss it."

Jeongin's eyes go wide and Seungmin blinks.

"You haven't asked me yet," Changbin says. "You just kissed me."

"I'll do more than that, if you want," Jisung says. "My other boyfriends have to be cool with it, though. Let me check with them."

He turns to the rest of them. Changbin feels blinded by how big their grins are.

"I broke your hearts," he says.

"Do it again and they'll never find your body," Minho says.

"Some people would call that abuse," Changbin says, pointing a finger at Minho.

"You wouldn't," Seungmin says. "It turns you on."

Chan and Hyunjin laugh.

"Changbin-hyung," Yongbok says. "We love you all so much."

"Sorry, but you've been completely forgiven," Chan says, shrugging. "You were forgiven ages ago. You don't fight us on this. It's a yes or no, we love you no matter what."

"I thought I fucked this up too badly," Changbin says. "I thought you would never want me again."

"Impossible, Seo Changbin," Hyunjin says. He inhales and grins. Changbin sees bravery in this man. "Come give me a kiss, baby."

The morning breaks warm and golden over the porch, the wood glowing like water.

Changbin steps sure and careful towards where Hyunjin is sitting. He kneels down and reaches out, brushes Hyunjin's hair behind his ear.

"Hi, baby," he says. And in view of the entire world, lit up in the light of the sun, with the soft and rounded cheek of Hyunjin in his hand, he leans forward and kisses him.

A hand slips into his other hand—Chan's—and someone presses a kiss to the top of his head—Yongbok.

"Me next, hyung," Jisung says. "I want a go, again."

"I was woken up for this," Jeongin says. "I should be next."

"Rock paper scissors for it," Seungmin says. "I woke up, too."

"Coffee," Minho says. "I need it first. Seo Changbin's kisses can wait."

"We should spend all day inside," Hyunjin says, pulling back from Changbin and grinning. His lips are red and wet and Changbin feels a song unlock in his heart.

"Mhm," Changbin says, nodding.

"Minho-hyung," Jisung says. "He already looks so fucked out. You've gotta see him."

Minho steps outside, a mug in his hand.

He takes a long drink from it and then steps forward to run a hand over Changbin's jaw.

"Pretty," he says, and he presses a kiss to Changbin's slack mouth. "Yes, we should spend all day inside. The night, too, I think."

"I'll die," Changbin says.

Yongbok laughs from above him, fingers carding through his sweat-soaked hair.

"No you won't," Yongbok says, leaning over him to kiss him softly.

"But what a way to go," Seungmin says, wistfully. He reaches out for Changbin and pulls him into a kiss. "Hi."

"Hi," Changbin says. A hand lands on his thigh and squeezes.

He turns to see Jeongin grinning next to him. When Jeongin leans forwards, he places a soft kiss to Changbin's nose before he sets a bruising kiss on Changbin's mouth. Changbin pulls back, panting.

Jisung tucks a finger under his chin and nuzzles noses with him. Changbin grins and kisses him.

"Boyfriend~" Jisung says.

"Boyfriend~" Changbin says.

He turns to Chan, sitting next to him, still holding Changbin's hand like it's precious.

Changbin—the luckiest man in the world—watches as Chan lifts his hand and kisses Changbin's knuckles.

Changbin's hands are steady and smooth under Chan's lips.

Changbin's lips are steady and smooth under them, too.