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I'm writing a twenty-one-part (yes, twenty-one-part) series! One story for each member because I'm overly ambitious and honestly? I just really wanted to see if it could be done. I already had this story in my repertoire so I've just labelled it as the first in the series and the rest are yet to come.
TRIGGER WARNING!!!!!!!
This story contains potentially triggering content such as graphic depictions of self-harm, suicidal ideation and attempted suicide so if there is a chance that those things will offend or upset you then I urge you to reconsider whether or not this story is right for you. In addition, this is an add-on of one of my other fics named "White Dwarf" so it does strongly reference that plot.
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“Hyuck, open the door! Open the door, Donghyuck!”
He couldn’t. He was too heavy.
“Donghyuck!”
His head hurt too much. He couldn’t lift his arms.
“Break it down!”
“I can’t, I’ll hurt him!”
“Taeyong, fucking do it!”
“Donghyuck, get away from the door!”
He couldn’t. Why didn’t they understand that? He couldn’t move.
Why was it so loud? And the lights were so bright. And the hands were grabbing. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like the loud or the lights or the hands. He wanted to go to sleep. Just for a little bit. Just for a little …
“CALL AN AMBULANCE! PLEASE!”
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Donghyuck had heard about it. He had seen it on TV and in Instagram posts and on the girl he sat next to in Biology class when her sleeve rode up too far one day. He was no stranger to the act of desperation that it was but he had never understood it.How could somebody want to so brutally mutilate their own body? How did you get to that point in your life where carving chunks out of your own skin was the only option? Why didn’t people just ask for help instead of tattooing scarlet paintings of misery on their arms? Were they that starved of attention? Donghyuck had never understood it.In a way, he still didn’t.He just lived it.That was what he thought about as he glared at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, hands braced on the sink and furious eyes welling with unshed pearls swimming with his anger.He couldn’t understand how things had gone so wrong. In Africa, there were starving children, voicing the pleas of their barren stomachs through their own sour-tasting mouths. On the streets, there were elderly men curled into balls, wearing the only things they owned as they dreamed of a roof over their head. Back in his hometown, his childhood friend was playing “pirates” with a gummy toddler, throwing the sticky bundle of snot and laughter around on the bed just so that he wouldn’t have to hear the lisping question, “When’s Mommy coming home?”He, Donghyuck, was loved by hundreds of thousands. He was praised daily. The public made Twitter posts complimenting his smiles, his laughter, his dance, his voice. His members wrapped him in their arms and pressed their kisses into his neck as he screamed and begged for mercy. He, Donghyuck, was the luckiest boy alive.He, Donghyuck, was standing in a bathroom with a bloody razor clutched in a trembling hand.A thin sheet of metal, sharpened at the edges for the purpose of scraping stubble off skin, had become his only friend as he manipulated it, using its abilities for his own selfish destruction. What if it was screeching at him as he dragged it across his skin? Stop hurting yourself! It’s dangerous! If it was, it would be the only time he would hear those words.When he’d first started, he had needed to have something to focus on that wasn’t the crushing sensation that his life was hurtling towards a goal he wasn’t sure he wanted to reach. As their popularity grew in leaps and bounds, the money they earned only seemed to be feeding the monster that seated itself on his shoulders, stuffing its face and weighing him down. He had needed to know there was something in his life he could rely on and he could always rely on his body to bleed.But now he was out of control and every time he told himself that he would put down the blade forever, that monster on his shoulders would remind him how he was worthless. How he was useless. Talentless. A burden. A psycho. A disappointment. And the only way to make it stop was to seek the sensation of rusted metal slicing through his skin.“Why are you so disgusting?” he whispered at his reflection.He hated every feature on his face, every curve on his body, every scar etched into his wrists. And his thighs. And his ankles. And his stomach. He could pinch a handful of flab that hung off his abdomen, letting him feel it wobble as he walked and jiggle as he danced. He could have matched the shade of blue under his eyes to the sky after the sun had lain to rest for the night.He smirked and his smile was hideous. That’s what the fans called him. The sun. An omnipresent orb of warmth and light. They had no idea he was so cold. They didn’t see the goose bumps that pricked the skin that was marred with wounds. Some of them thin and white and barely visible to the naked eye but the majority of them chunky and scarlet, elevated above all the others by the scar tissue that had to build its barricade as high as possible to keep the red blood cells imprisoned.And what was worse was that he couldn’t see any reason to stop. He was already tainted with blemishes of self-loathing to the point where there wasn’t a body part he hadn’t tarnished. Even his face bore the scratches of his fingernails, reminiscing the times when he had clutched at his chin so tight it had drawn blood.Disgusting. Unlovable. Despised.What kind of role model was he? There were little girls still learning how to apply their makeup that clamoured over his image on a screen and what did he have to show them? That it’s okay to mutilate your body?Repulsive. Damaged. Weak.The voice was getting too loud again. Its claws had sunk deep into the meat of his shoulders, digging into his skin and hissing the degrading words into his ear. He had tried to shake it off, he had tried to fight back and cast it away but it was like a parasite, invisible to everybody except the one whose life was gradually being sucked from their bones.He needed it to stop. He needed to silence the whispers.Amber.He should call Taeyong. That’s what they had agreed he’d do when the strings started tugging. The traffic lights of restraint were switching and now he was halfway to stopping. Just like cars stopped on the highway. His pain would stop with a slice.Amber.He should call somebody. His phone was right in front of him but the voice was screaming now. It had to be stopped. He couldn’t take the assault. Those words were laced with a truth he had acknowledged long ago and he didn’t need to be reminded of their candour. Amber.It was too loud. Just a single flick would silence it. Press and slide. That’s all he had to do. Press and slide and the torture would end.Amber.The blade had been in his hand since he’d locked the door. It was right there, just waiting for permission to slash and stab.Amber.“Shit!”It wasn’t supposed to hurt that much. It had never done so before: the white hot burning sensation that sizzled into a dull throb, pulsating along with his thudding heartbeat.He had gone too deep. In his desperation to feel the silence, he had pressed too hard in a place too precious and a dam had broken. Too deep. Too hard. Too precious. Too broken. Too much.Red.His vision was starting to blur, a cloud of brilliantly white light blossoming in front of his eyes and causing his body to forget how to stand. He reached out blindly, his good hand groping for the sink.Red.His fingers were slick and slippery, unable to hold his weight as his right leg decided enough was enough. It buckled underneath him and he crashed onto his backside with a loud thump, grunting as his head bounced painfully against the tub.Red.Red like the handprints on the basin. Red like the front of his T-Shirt and the denim of his jeans. Red like the tiles on the floor. Red like the tissue paper that was too thin to absorb the flow. Everything was red. “Hyuck, open the door! Open the door, Donghyuck!”Red. He needed to shout out to them. ‘Red’.“Donghyuck!”Red. His tongue wasn’t cooperating. Red.“Break it down!”“I can’t, I’ll hurt him!”“Taeyong, fucking do it!”“Donghyuck, get away from the door!”Everything was red. It was all red. Him, them, it, there. Everything was red.Until it was black.“CALL AN AMBULANCE! PLEASE!” ------------------------------------- Mark turned over in bed, hissing in irritation at his body’s inability to find a satisfactory position. Lying on his back was uncomfortable and lying on his front meant that his pillow propped his head up at an awkward angle. He ditched the headrest on the floor but the sheets were flat and cottony and … urgh.Letting out his frustration in a dramatic sigh, he rolled towards the edge of the bed and groped around in the dark until he retrieved his pillow. It was only when he swung it back into position that he noticed the lack of a Donghyuck-shaped lump on the other side of the room.“Hyuck?” he whispered into the darkness, frowning at the lack of reply. “Hyuck?”Scrubbing his tousled fringe out of his face, he reached out and clicked on the bedside lamp. The sudden illumination elicited a squeak of repulsion from his throat as he shielded his eyes from the offending glare.“Hyuck …” it came out as a childish whine, intended to lure Donghyuck out of wherever he was hiding, but it only increased his anxiety when his call went unanswered for a third time.Donghyuck had been … struggling recently. He had tried to hide it but Mark had walked in on him and Taeyong kneeling in the bathroom, cleaning the jagged incisions in his dongsaeng’s sugary skin. He’d wanted to cry or vomit or both when he’d saw the forlorn look of defeat on Donghyuck’s face but Taeyong had banned him from asking any questions.They had let him in on the traffic light system after that. He’d learnt that green meant his friend was starting to itch for the burning of metal on skin. Amber meant the temptation was starting to overpower him, too strong to resist any longer. Red meant it was too late. Red for danger. Red for blood.And Mark had heard the word ‘green’ far too many times in the last few days for Donghyuck’s midnight absence not to terrify the living daylights out of him.He scrambled out of bed and slipped through the door, trying not to make enough noise to wake any of the others. If Donghyuck was … Then it would be in the bathroom. That was his favourite place: the lock to keep the interferers away, the toilet to permanently dispose of incriminating evidence, the tap to wash the bacteria down the drain.There was light crawling out from underneath the bathroom door, golden fingers stretching across the carpet. Mark’s heart was beating in his throat. He should get Taeyong. Taeyong was good at this. Taeyong was the one who had taken the first aid course after Donghyuck had confessed to his extracurricular activities.Mark turned towards the leader’s bedroom door, already reaching out for the handle, when there was a colossal thud from inside the room where the water ran red. It sounded heavy. Not like someone had dropped a shampoo bottle. It sounded like a body had hit the floor.“Donghyuck?”There was no reply. There would have been silence if it weren’t for the pounding of Mark’s heart and the sound of blood rushing in his ears.“Donghyuck?”Nothing.“Oh, shit … Shit, shit, shit … Taeyong-hyung!”He crashed into Taeyong and Johnny’s room, his hand slamming down on the light switch and his panicked voice screeching louder than the startled grunts of the woozy figures buried under their covers.“Hyung …” Mark panted as he lunged for Taeyong’s groggily groaning figure and seized his arm in a vice-like grip, tugging with all the strength he had.“Mark … Wha …?”“Donghyuck,” was the only thing Mark could get out. It was the only word his tongue could wrap itself around because it was the only person he could think about in his mind that was spiralling into a state of terror. But it was enough.“Fuck.”Taeyong shoved Mark ruthlessly aside in his dive for Donghyuck, ignoring Johnny’s confused cry from the opposite bed. He dashed down the hallway and slammed his shoulder into the bathroom door.“Hyuck, open the door! Open the door, Donghyuck!”Mark caught up to him, chest heaving and hands fisted in his hair as he watched Taeyong hammering against the wooden barricade with no response to his bellowed pleas.“Donghyuck!”He attacked the handle, rattling it, twisting it, screaming at it in the desperate hope it would relent and open a portal to their brother who could be bleeding to death just two feet away from them.“Break it down!” Mark suddenly yelled, grabbing Taeyong’s arm and heaving him away from his fruitless exercise.His leader wasn’t hyperventilating like he was but he wasn’t calm like he always told Mark he should be in these situations. They had never been locked out like this before.“I can’t, I’ll hurt him!”He was already hurt. He could be already dead for all they knew. If he had hit the radial artery, he would be gone in minutes. They didn’t have time to hesitate.“Taeyong, fucking do it!”Taeyong swore under his breath, gripping at his hair before finally coming to his senses. He shoved Mark aside, out of harm’s way, before backing up against the opposite wall.“Donghyuck, get away from the door!”Mark clamped his hands over his ears to protect them against the cacophony of splintering wood and clang of the lock snapping clean off. By the time he had opened his eyes, Taeyong had already disappeared into the hum of the bathroom light.Johnny had finally staggered onto the scene and Mark saw the expression of horrified realisation dawn on his face before he lunged forwards into the room.Mark hadn’t realised the strangled sobbing sound had come from him until his hand instinctively clamped itself over his mouth to deny his dinner a return appearance. He had seen people bleeding before. He had seen Donghyuck bleeding before. But not like that.His best friend’s head was cradled in Taeyong’s lap, his eyes only half open and blotchy from swelling. The leader was stroking the side of his face and threading his fingers through his hair as he whispered pleas to the boy bleeding out on the bathmat.Johnny was kneeling beside them, a scarlet towel clutched in his trembling hands as he pulled Donghyuck’s arm into the air and wrapped it in the fluffy folds, cursing as the white was poisoned by the red in a matter of seconds.Mark couldn’t move. The three of them were right in front of him, within touching distance, but it felt like he was watching a movie. Their clothes, their skin, their hair were drenched in scarlet that seemed impossibly more vibrant against the pristine white of the bathroom walls and the pasty paleness of Donghyuck’s face.He could only watch as Taeyong raised his head, his eyes streaming rivers of fear. His gaze locked with Mark’s, mirroring each other’s petrification before Taeyong’s quivering lips finally formed into coherent words.“CALL AN AMBULANCE! PLEASE!” ------------------------------- Mark didn’t remember which action followed which after that.Others had been roused by the screaming, signalling an army of panicked puffy-eyed zombies stumbling out of their rooms with slurred questions and bewildered expressions. Yuta was the first one into the bathroom and as soon as his groggy mind had caught up with reality, he slammed the door behind him and barricaded it from the inside.There had been a cacophony of yelling as various people hammered on the wood and demanded entry or answers or something that wasn’t the mind-numbing oblivion they didn’t understand.Mark had lost feeling in all his extremities, letting his body slide clumsily down the wall until he hit the floor. Jeno was beside him, shaking his shoulder and calling out to him with words that all melded into each other. Taeil was in front of him, silent and statuesque as he tried to piece the whole puzzle together in his mind. Mark never learnt if he had managed it.Someone must have finally called an ambulance and by the time the rotating blue lights were casting moving shadows on the hallway wall, every last member had been drawn from their rooms by the sounds of sirens and screams.The bathroom door burst open and there was an instantaneous surge of panicked boys, all trying to discover what kind of horror show had been going on between those four walls at this ungodly hour of the morning. But any attempts they had were thwarted by the barrier Johnny and Yuta put up around Taeyong as the leader hurtled towards the stairs, Donghyuck’s body in his arms.The kid’s neck was like melted cheese, bent at an impossible angle in his unconscious state, head lolling lifelessly against Taeyong’s arm as they moved. All four of them were stained scarlet but nobody could get a proper look at the true cause of the damage before Taeyong was staggering down the stairs, gripping Donghyuck like the world would end if he let go.Everybody was shouting, demanding and begging for explanations, but Yuta held out from his place at the top of the stairs, barring anyone from following Taeyong and Johnny towards the honing call of the ambulance. Taeil seemed to have realised that his biological status was needed and situated himself at Yuta’s side, yelling for quiet.Mark didn’t move. Mark couldn’t move. He had seen his best friend swimming in blood. His own blood. From an injury he had inflicted on himself. Donghyuck had slit his wrist while Mark was rolling about in bed, content and oblivious. He should have noticed he was gone. He should have been the hyung. He had failed. And now Hyuck was dying. ---------------------------------- His alarm clock didn’t sound right.That was the first thing that came to Donghyuck’s mind as his thoughts slowly emerged from his state of slumber. The beeps were much slower than usual, drawn out and lethargic, and the pitch was lower than his normal wake-up call’s supersonic scream.He should move to silence it before Mark yelled at him from across the room but his arms were so heavy, like they were encased in lead and strapped to the mattress. Speaking of which, his bed didn’t feel right. It didn’t smell like the blankets he was used to cocooning himself in every night and he was almost certain there were two pillows under his head rather than his preferred one.Trying to open his eyes caused him the most distress. It hurt. His head pounded with an ache so intense that he couldn’t help the groggy moan from escaping his throat. He would have bet money on his eyes having been pinned closed with the weight they seemed to have acquired overnight and prying them open took far too much effort.When he finally blinked past the sudden intensity of illumination that attacked his retinas, he registered the reality of his surroundings. The alarm clock had been the heart monitor at his side, his Naruto bedspread was crisp to the point that it rustled when he moved and the once vibrant colours had melted into plain white, and what should have been Mark sleeping across the room was Taeyong.His leader was slumped in the chair beside the bed, his chin resting on his chest at an awkward angle that would surely leave him with a terrible cramp when he awoke. It took Donghyuck a good three minutes to realise why his hyung was dressed in hospital scrubs and it finally hit him when he saw the plastic bag of bloodied clothes at his leader’s feet.He had screwed up.He had screwed up spectacularly. He had dug too deep in his desperation to feel something that wasn’t despair and numbness and now his worst fear had solidified from nightmare to conscious horror. The others surely knew everything now and at some point, he would have to face them and their confusion or their disappointment, whichever they chose to go with.Taeyong and Mark were supposed to be the only ones with the knowledge of his emotional instability. Now even Jisung would have to be told and his sixteen-year-old mind would be infected with the truth behind the smiles and the sunshine Donghyuck had become so well known for.And suddenly he needed physical contact. He needed to be hugged and held and promised he would be okay. But when he tried to reach out to Taeyong’s prone figure, there was a sharp stab of pain in his left wrist and he looked down to see his papery matchstick arm mummified in bandages. And then he couldn’t stop crying.The sound of his sobs pulled Taeyong to consciousness, like a mother naturally tuned in to the cries of her child, and it took the leader less than five seconds to climb into Donghyuck’s hospital bed, pressing his lips into the kid’s hair and gently rubbing his finger back and forth over the smooth skin of his hand.“I’m broken,” Donghyuck choked out through a throat clogged with mucus and misplaced tears. He expected Taeyong to contradict him. To tell him he was beautiful and perfect and the light of all their lives but what he said instead was far greater than any cliché compliment. “Then we’ll just have to put you back together again.”“How?”Taeyong’s fingers slid from Donghyuck’s hair and instead cupped his chin, gently levering the kid’s face out of the crook of his neck so that they could look at each other. Hyuck saw the exhaustion in his hyung’s eyes and it only increased the intensity with which the faucet of guilt in his gut filled his body to bursting point.“We’re going to get some help, Hyuck,” Taeyong whispered, so gently that Donghyuck couldn’t even find it in himself to resist. He knew they had past the point of resisting a long, long time ago. “You need someone who actually knows what they’re doing and I need someone to tell me how to look after you so that we can make sure this never happens again. Okay, Hyuckie?”Donghyuck nodded obediently and Taeyong snagged a tissue from the bedside table to wipe the tears and the snot from his dongsaeng’s puffy red face.“I’m going to be right here with you, Hyuck,” he promised as he combed the tousled hair behind the kid’s ear. “We’re going to get through this.”And Donghyuck believed him because Taeyong never lied. Taeyong would be there until the very end. Even when he was old and grey and bouncing grandchildren on his leg in an old rocking chair by the fireplace, Taeyong would be just a phone call away if ever those voices came back.But for now, he needed someone else. They had to try it a different way and change their tactics because whatever they had been doing up until now just wasn’t enough.After all, you could install as many traffic lights as you wanted but it would take a lot more to put an end to the bloody brutality that would forever plague the roads.
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Donghyuck hadn’t known how much he would hate it when he agreed with Taeyong’s plan in the hospital room. He hadn’t realised how humiliating and dehumanising the most simple and everyday things would make him feel.Take going to the bathroom, for example.Every time somebody came down the corridor when he was going into or coming out of the bathroom, he would catch the momentary terror in their eyes as they picked up the pace to reach his side. He would cringe at the fake jovial flourish to their not-so-subtle questions.“You feeling okay, Hyuckie?”“How’s your day been?”“Did you sleep well?”“Can I just nip in there before you?”And he would feel his ears radiating the itchy and uncomfortable heat that only came with true embarrassment as he was forced to make infuriatingly polite conversation with them until they deemed him emotionally stable enough to take a dump by himself.And doing the washing up.That was something he hadn’t thought would be so overdramatised. He had thought he was just helping when he rose from the table after dinner, gathering his and Jisung’s plates in his arms, and made his way over to the sink beside Jeno.“I’ll help,” he’d piped up, depositing the plates beside the sink as he reached for the first knife to scrub.But before he’d even fastened a secure grip on the soapy handle, Jeno had snatched it from right in front of him with an unnecessarily harsh snap of, “I’ve got that.”Donghyuck had wanted to yell at him there and then. To scream that he was perfectly capable of picking up a blade without wanting to slice and stab and slash. To bellow that he wasn’t an alcoholic or a drug addict who couldn’t even be in the presence of their chosen poison without surrendering to temptation.But he had done none of those things because the kids were behind him, watching tensely from the dinner table with their hands clenched into white-knuckled fists of uneasiness, and he wasn’t about to make a scene in front of them.So he had quietly accepted Jeno’s overprotection and proceeded to dunk the plates into the soapy substance in the sink, wishing more than anything that he had a razor blade waiting for him up in his bedroom.He supposed it was cruelly ironic. That the more they tried to stop him from relapsing, the more he wanted to relapse.That night, he had been truly broken. He’d lain facedown in his pillow with his fist in his mouth to try and muffle the sound of his own crying so that he wouldn’t alert a deeply slumbering Mark to his midnight meltdown.He wished he’d died on that bathroom floor. Before Mark had woken up. Before Johnny had stunted the bleeding. Before Taeyong had carried him down the stairs. He wished more than anything he didn’t have to see the reflection of his limp body cradled in his leader’s arms every time he looked one of them in the eye.He hated the hovering. He hated the caution. He hated the locks on the bathroom cupboards and the keys to the box of all the sharp objects. He hated the careful glances at his bare arms to check for fresh incisions and the winces when all they were met with were faded scars.He hated himself. He hated them. He hated everything.“This is why you need to see a therapist,” Taeyong murmured as Donghyuck finished telling him about his night of searching the entire house for anything with a sharpened edge. “It’s dangerous, Hyuckie. What if you’d found something? Mark waking up last time was a miracle. It might not happen again.”“I know,” Donghyuck whispered, fixated on a hangnail protruding from underneath his nail bed. He pulled on it, gently tugging downwards until the sliver of dried skin ripped clean through its base and blood started to bead at the top of his finger. Taeyong didn’t notice.“You don’t want to be like this, right?” the leader continued, lowering his head slightly to try and position his face in Donghyuck’s line of sight. “You don’t want to suffer with this for the rest of your life, do you?”
I can’t tell you the truth. I can’t tell you that the first thought I have whenever something even slightly bad happens is to get the box of razor blades. I can’t tell you that because I don’t want to see the look in your eyes when I do. I don’t want to see the disappointment or the anger or the fear or whatever it is that you feel when you see me. I already know I’m a freak. I don’t want you to know it too.
“No, of course not,” he responded blankly, watching that tiny rivulet of blood trace a scarlet snail trail down his finger. “Then will you at least try and go to this psychiatrist I found?” Taeyong pushed, reaching out to take his hand and frowning slightly when Donghyuck slid his injured digit under his thigh. “If you don’t like it then I promise we don’t have to go back to her but she’s got really good credits and she’s sworn to confidentiality.”Donghyuck didn’t answer; he simply watched the hand that wasn’t hidden underneath his leg being caressed by Taeyong’s ever-so-gentle touch.“Hyuckie?”Please don’t call me that. I’m not a child and even if I were, I’m not your child so please stop calling me that. “Will you do it for Chenle?”Donghyuck raised his head, brow furrowed in confusion. Why the hell was Chenle a part of this conversation all of a sudden? Taeyong apparently read the bewilderment in his mind and clarified, albeit slightly reluctantly, as though the new information would somehow trigger his dongsaeng to start craving the sight of his own blood.“Chenle’s been crawling into bed with me every night since you were taken to hospital.”Donghyuck froze. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to hear how he had brutalised the teenage minds of his bandmates. He already knew the subject of Chenle’s nightmares and he didn’t need Taeyong to make him feel even worse by confirming it. But Taeyong did anyway.“He told me that every time he goes to the bathroom, he feels like he can still see your blood on the floor. And he can’t sleep at night because he’s terrified he’ll wake up to the sound of me and Mark breaking down the door to get to you.”Donghyuck didn’t realise a stray tear had slipped free until Taeyong’s thumb came out of nowhere to brush it aside. He tried to turn his face away, to hide his embarrassment, but his hyung took a gentle grip on his chin and brought it back again.“We all love you, Hyuckie,” he said and his eyes were swimming with sincerity without the slightest inkling how desperate his dongsaeng was to escape this conversation. “We just want you to be safe. So will you try?”
Anything to get me out of here. Anything to make you stop looking at me like I’m made of glass. Like you’ll break me at any second. Like I’m not already broken.
“Okay, hyung.” ----------------------- “When was the first time you decided to cut yourself, Donghyuck?”“Please don’t use that word,” Donghyuck ground out, looking at anything but the infuriatingly patient woman sitting with a clipboard in the chair across the room from him.He focused on the pastel blue walls, on the painting of the Han River hanging to his left, on the flowers resting in an ornate vase on the table top next to a box of tissues, and he found himself inwardly sniggering.This woman brought people in here, expecting them to open their hearts and spill their guts as she scribbled their darkest secrets onto the paper in front of her. They were just lifelines to a paycheque for her. She didn’t care about them. Only about the money they were bringing in.If one of her clients managed to pull themselves out of whatever hole they were in, that was just another name to add to her list of achievements. And if a client killed themselves then all she had to say was, “I did my job. You can’t save everyone.”“Why don’t you like that word, Donghyuck?”“Because I just don’t,” Donghyuck spat back, sinking further in the padded chair with his arms folded defensively across his chest. “It sounds bad.”“Okay. Let me re-phrase. When did you first decide you wanted to harm yourself?”“I didn’t just decide!”He didn’t know why he was being so hostile. He had never been so rude to anybody – let alone a woman – but there was something about the way she strategically chipped away at his protective barriers that made him feel incredibly vulnerable. And he hated feeling vulnerable.The snaps and barks and hisses were just coming out of his mouth without his mind’s consent and he knew that if he could see himself at that moment, it would only add to the guilt he already experienced on a daily basis every time he looked at Taeyong or Chenle.“Was it a spur of the moment thing?”“Yes … No … I don’t know, okay?” he shouted, shuffling uncomfortably in his seat.The truth was, he had absolutely no idea how to answer any of her questions. There had been no sudden epiphany where he simply decided he wanted to litter his body with scars. He could barely even remember the first time he’d thought about it. It had just happened and then he’d spiralled and snowballed and finally crashed.“It’s okay, Donghyuck. We can talk about something else if you want.”He couldn’t have explained why but that only made him angrier. The way she manipulated him was so expert, like she knew exactly how to gain his trust and leech the truths out of his marred body. He knew how she worked.Distract them. Make them think they’re in a safe place. Get the first sliver of information. Dig deeper. And deeper. Get more information. Burrow further. And further. Get the whole story. Spout some bullshit about mindfulness and self-help diaries. Discharge the patient. Get the credits. Get the money.She had no right to his life. She had no right to his memories or his thoughts or how he decided to deal with them. She had no right at all.“I’m sorry, I don’t think this is working,” he announced, getting to his feet and scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “Can we call it a day?”The psychiatrist didn’t look shocked. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. She was trained to act void of all emotions. If he told her he’d been abducted by pirates and forced to work for a shoe factory in Kenya, she wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.“That’s okay, Donghyuck,” she repeated, making one final flourish on her paper before she turned her full attention to his loitering form. “Shall we make another appointment for next week?”“Um … I don’t think so. Thank you. I’m sorry.”He left before she could say another word, pulling his cap over his eyes and strapping his mask to his face just in case there was a fan curled up in the waiting room. A fan who looked up to him and idolised him without the slightest idea that he was just as screwed up as they were.Johnny was on his phone when Donghyuck slid into the passenger seat beside him, pulling the door shut and ripping his mask off with a sigh of exhaustion.“That was fast,” his hyung commented, putting down his mobile and shuffling slightly to face the smaller boy better. “How’d it go with …?”“Can we just go home?” Donghyuck interrupted, leaning his head against the window and closing his eyes, fiddling with his mask in his lap as he willed Johnny just to start the engine and not ask anymore questions.“Are you okay?”“Just take me home!” he snapped, and he could feel the airy atmosphere around them plummet below zero.“Okay,” Johnny conceded, slotting the keys in the ignition and kickstarting the car into gear. “Whatever you say, Donghyuck.”Donghyuck did not miss the slightly-resentful use of his full name. ----------------------- That night was the worst.Donghyuck lay flat on his back, staring up at the shadows cast on the ceiling by the slither of light between the curtains and the leaves brushing against their window from the outside. He could hear the wind wheezing a low warble and Mark’s steady breathing in the bed beside him but all he could think about was the feeling of endorphins coursing through his veins as metal burned against skin.Green.He fisted his hands in the bedsheets at his sides, trying to focus on something else.Green.All he had to do was open his mouth and call out to Mark.Green.But he hadn’t done it in so long and the scars had already started to fade.Green.He felt lost without them. Like he needed them to feel complete again.Green.It would be okay as long as he didn’t go too deep again. Not like last time. It would be worth it for that feeling of release.Amber.The floorboards creaked underneath his feet and every muscle in his body tensed as Mark gave a groan and rolled over, tangling himself up in his blankets. Donghyuck held his breath, willing the gatekeeper to go back to sleep and feeling his heart leap to his throat when Mark raised his tousled head and cracked open his puffy eyelids.“Hyuck?” he croaked, struggling to extract his arm from his burrito before rubbing his eyes groggily. “Where you goin’?”“To the bathroom,” Donghyuck snapped harshly and even in his half-unconscious state, Mark still managed to look hurt. “Is that allowed?”Mark gave a grunt and returned to his cocoon of warmth, oblivious to Donghyuck’s silent sigh of relief.Amber. Amber. Amber.There would be something in the kitchen he could use. Even if he had to wrap a glass in a tea towel and go outside to smash it into the ground, there would be something. Anything. Anything to give him that feeling.Amber. Amber. Amber. Amber.“Chenle?”There was a frightened squeak of a child that had been caught and Donghyuck reached out to turn on the lights.“Chenle, stop!”He lunged forwards and fastened his arms around Chenle’s stomach, wrenching him away from the stove so forcefully that the kid’s hand was forced to let go of the burning metal. Donghyuck pulled him to the sink, frantically turning on the cold water and grabbing hold of Chenle’s wrist.The little boy in his arms let out a wail of agony as his scalded palm was forced under the freezing waterfall. He struggled to draw away and save himself the necessary torture but Donghyuck held him still and eventually, Chenle buried his face in his hyung’s neck as he sobbed into the fabric of his shirt.“It’s okay … It’s okay … It’s okay …” Donghyuck hushed, feeling his own tears burning his eyes but unable to brush them aside without letting go of Chenle. And that was something he wasn’t ready to do just yet. “You’re okay, Chennie. You’re okay.”“I thought it would feel good,” the teenager wept, speech muffled through snot and spit and the fact that his mouth was pressed against his hyung’s throat. “I thought it would make me feel better. But it just hurt.”And Donghyuck had never felt more broken. He had no more words. He had no right to cry or scream or laugh or do anything because he was falling. And now he had brought Chenle down with him.“We’re going to get better,” he promised, both to himself and the whimpering boy he held against his chest with one hand suspended over the sink as its burned flesh was neutralised by the iciness of the water that drenched it. “We’re going to get better together, Chennie. I swear to God, we’re going to get better.”They went to bed together that night with Chenle curled up under his arm and Mark still snoring obliviously just a few feet away. Donghyuck had wrapped his injured hand in clingfilm and swore to himself that he would take him to hospital the next morning.But as he was lying there with a child nestled into his chest, he realised that life wasn’t a solo. It was a group project. Losses were catastrophic and in order to survive in an industry where survival was so desperately difficult, they had to protect each other.The next morning, Donghyuck made two appointments with his psychiatrist.One for Chenle.One for himself.
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This chapter contains a major character death from another story that I wrote so please don't read if it will upset you. The first thing Donghyuck learned was that recovery was slow.The second thing Donghyuck learned was that recovery was difficult.The third thing Donghyuck learned was that recovery was easier if you had a little brother by your side to do it with you.He and Chenle had attended the first appointment together, fingers interlocked and thighs pressed together as they shared the same padded seat in the room with the orchids painted on the walls and the woman with the clipboard. Taeyong had suggested they go separately but Chenle had refused to step foot in such a place without the comfort of his hyung by his side.So Donghyuck had gone. And he’d worried that he would be just as unpleasant as last time, snapping curt and cryptic answers and marching out of the room barely twenty minutes into the session. But with Chenle by his side, the kid half on his lap with his burned hand clenched in a painful-looking fist, Donghyuck forced himself to endure it.“I don’t know why I did it,” Chenle was whispering, staring down at the crusted scabs splattered over his palm. “I was just lying in bed, listening to Taeyong-hyung breathing, and I thought to myself, ‘will it take the pain away?’”Donghyuck winced, an expression that did not go unnoticed by the psychiatrist who was hanging on Chenle’s every word, watching as the kid inspected his scarred hands with a blank expression on her well-trained face.It was agonising to listen to Chenle’s explanation. The kid had been so quick to talk, so eager to open up and get better, but Donghyuck could feel his own self-loathing building up inside with every word that tumbled from the little boy’s mouth. He had introduced Chenle to this world of torture and mutilation and now it was his fault the child was in therapy.“And did it take the pain away?” the psychiatrist pushed gently.“No,” Chenle shook his head, lifting his gaze to look Donghyuck right in the eye and squeezing his hyung’s thigh with his good hand. “No, it didn’t. It just made it worse.”Then you don’t understand, Donghyuck thought to himself. It doesn’t make you feel the way it makes me feel. You don’t get the release and the endorphins and the overwhelming sensation of relief. And he was glad that Chenle didn’t. He was glad he wasn’t as damaged as Donghyuck himself was. But he hated the way those eyes bore into his face, pleading with him, begging him to please stop hurting himself because it wasn’t worth it and it didn’t help and it was dangerous.Because all those things didn’t matter to Donghyuck.“And what about you, Donghyuck?”Donghyuck raised his head, shocked slightly. Up until now, the questions had been directed solely at Chenle. The appointment was under his name and had been intended for him only but here was this woman, taking full advantage of Donghyuck’s inability to refuse her help. She knew that he had to be the role model to his little brother and if that meant cooperating with therapy then that’s what he had to do.“For me, it does take the pain away,” he muttered, feeling Chenle’s grip on his leg tighten and hating himself for not being able to look away from his grubby shoelaces. “It makes me forget about everything that’s going on inside my head and focus on … something else.”“Might I suggest something?” the psychiatrist inquired and Chenle nodded eagerly while Donghyuck just raised his head to meet her eye. “Every time either of you feel like you want to hurt yourself, take a pen and draw on your arm.”She picked up a pen from a little pot painted with daisies and fairies on the table beside her, rolled up her sleeve and inked a thin, straight line across the inside of her forearm to demonstrate.And they had tried it. Both of them.And it had worked. For a little bit.The marks left by the pens did not bring the same euphoria that the blade had but to feel a sharp nib digging into his skin, leaving behind a velvety line in its wake, was enough to help convince him that it really was the same thing.After a few weeks, he started drawing. Literally drawing. He played with the scars already carved into his body, incorporating them into his amateur designs. Like a snake coiled around a fleshy branch of skin cells or a narwhal with a lumpy red nose.It wasn't perfect. He still had those thoughts that the creations he spawned couldn’t erase but it was progress.The comeback had approached, the asshole of a manager had acted up and Donghyuck had slipped, but Taeyong caught it before it got too serious and before he knew it, they were back on track again.Chenle was moving in leaps and bounds. He laughed again, he screeched dolphin noises at the top of his lungs, he threw himself onto the nearest person every time a joke fired itself across the room and Donghyuck watched him with an immense sense of pride gnawing away at the guilt settled in his gut.They were getting better together. Slowly, but surely, they were recovering hand in hand.And then came the trigger. Then came the detonation button that set off the bomb and rubble was projected into the air at a colossal speed, plummeting down on top of them and crushing their inferior bodies underneath its mighty weight. Taeyong died. And it all fell apart.Donghyuck found himself lying flat on his back in bed, remembering the night when his hyung had caught him relapsing in the bathroom and he’d cried pathetically in those strong arms that would never hold him again. Taeyong would have known he was sick back then, would have known what was going to happen, but Donghyuck had only been focused on himself.He had promised himself he would stop forever when they left for the tour. Because when he got back, he would show Taeyong – because Taeyong would be there waiting for them – that he hadn’t made a single incision while he’d been away. That he had been strong. That he could still recover even if Taeyong wouldn’t.But then they had got back. And Taeyong had already closed his eyes for the last time.Donghyuck never got to show him the progress he made. He never got to stand in front of his leader and say with a flawless truth: “I got better. I’m not broken anymore”.And then he wondered something. If he had just asked Taeyong why he was throwing up in the bathroom that night instead of crumbling into a wretched ball of snot and spit, would his hyung have told him what was wrong? Would he have told him about the tumour blossoming inside of him? And would Donghyuck have been able to get Johnny to take him to the hospital?Would they have saved him?If he had just thought about someone other than himself, would Taeyong still be here?“Did I kill you?” Donghyuck whispered into the silence as he sat on the floor of his leader’s bedroom, staring at the pristine sheets tucked crisply underneath the mattress with perfect precision.Johnny had moved into Doyoung’s room. He said it was because the extra bed there was bigger but they all knew the real reason. He couldn’t open his eyes every morning and see the untouched covers and the pillow that would never again rest a head poisoned with years’ worth of hair dye.Donghyuck was now the only person who came in here. The rest of them couldn’t handle it and if he was honest with himself, Donghyuck couldn’t really either, but he knew it was his punishment. He had to be reminded of his selfishness by the empty bed before him.Empty. Empty forever.“Is it my fault? Could I have saved you?”He didn’t know why he was asking a question for which he would never receive an answer. That was probably the most painful thing. He would never know if his suspicions were correct. He would never know if Taeyong’s life was still salvageable at that time? If the doctors could have carved the poison from his body.And then something caught his attention.He shuffled forwards, rotating onto his stomach so his arm could reach under the bed, groping for the shadow he’d seen lurking by the wall. His fingers closed on cold metal and he pulled at the discovery, sitting up as a smallish box was dragged into view.There was a simple catch on the front, sealing it shut. It needed no key and Donghyuck flipped the lid without a second’s hesitation.And burst into tears.There was the packet of razor blades Taeyong had confiscated from the bathroom an eternity ago. He had hidden them where he thought Donghyuck would never find their potentially lethal abilities, but now he was gone. He wasn’t here to silence those voices that were beating at his chest and clawing at his eardrums.But it was the envelope that caught Donghyuck’s attention. He fished it from the box with a trembling hand and dribbled a tear onto the spotless paper, watching the moisture seep through the surface like ink.It was addressed to him.
Hyuck – For when you’re better
And Donghyuck knew he shouldn’t open it. He knew it would be painful beyond imagination but he couldn’t help it. His thumb slid underneath the flap and he ripped at the paper until the contents was available for his shaking fingers to retrieve.
Hyuckie,
I don’t know when you’re going to read this because I don’t know when I’ll give it to you. I hope it’s as soon as possible because I can’t stand to see you like this. It hurts me so much and all I want to do is wrap you up in my arms forever and hold you until all those voices go away.
But if you’re reading this, it means you’re better. You did it, Hyuck! I’m so proud of you. Seriously, you won’t ever understand just how proud. I love you to the moon and back and I swear to God, I’m going to protect you like I couldn’t do before. I’ll make sure no one ever hurts you or makes you feel bad and if something manages to get past me, I’ll hug you until it’s all better again.
You’re so strong, Hyuckie. I don’t think you quite see just how amazing you are. You survived being a trainee, that in itself is the most incredible achievement, and now here you are being the most iconic member of NCT. You did all of that, Hyuckie, while you were battling this disease and I know I’ve said it before but I couldn’t be prouder.
But I want you to know that it’s okay to be weak sometimes. It’s okay to cry and it’s okay to want to make it all go away but it’s not okay to hurt yourself because of it. There is always a future. There is always a world that needs you in it and I want you to remember that. You are so unbelievably special and I know you’ll never see it but I want you to know that there are so many people who do.
You are loved. You are so, so loved. Your family loves you. Your members love you. The fans love you. And, most importantly of course, I love you.
You did so well, Hyuckie. I’m so glad we can put all of this behind us now and move on to conquer the world.
Every ounce of love I hold in my devastatingly-handsome body,
Taeyong-hyung
That night was not the first time Donghyuck had almost killed himself, but it was the first night he had tried. Jungwoo had burst through the door at the sound of sobbing to find 127’s maknae kneeling on the floor beside Taeyong’s bed with a tear-soaked letter by his side and a razor blade clutched in his hand, slashing and slicing and reducing his healed skin to bloody tatters.And Jungwoo had screamed as he’d wrestled the weapon from Donghyuck’s hand, slitting his own palm open on the jagged metal as he hurled it across the room before ripping off his jumper and pressing it to the arm that no longer resembled an arm.He had screamed and Donghyuck had screamed and when Taeil had finally made it onto the scene, he had screamed, too, but this time for an ambulance.And all Donghyuck could think was, they’re going to save me. They’re going to save me and I’m going to live and I’m never going to see him again. So he struggled and fought and kicked and punched. And most of all, he screamed.“Just let me die! I want to see him again! Just let me die! I need to be with him again!”Taeil had flung himself to the floor in front of him, clutching at his cheeks with hands smeared in blood as he roared the words that would haunt Donghyuck forever.“He would kill you if he could see you now! He would be so fucking angry! So you don’t get to fucking leave us when we’ve already lost him! You don’t get to do that!”The last thing Donghyuck had heard before he closed his eyes and melted into the arms of the paramedics was Jungwoo’s soft voice in his ear.“We love you, Hyuckie. We don’t want you to go. We love you. Please don’t go.” --------------------- “That was two months ago,” Donghyuck explained as he sat cross-legged on the grass, a bright red sharpie tracing spirals and swirls on his bare legs. “I haven’t cut since. It’s the longest I’ve ever gone.”He looked up as a crow squawked from somewhere off to his left, flapping its great black wings and projecting itself skywards. He wondered if it was going to see Taeyong, to tell him that his little brother was doing okay.“Chenle and I still go to that doctor. She’s actually really good. You did a great job choosing her. I think a few of the others booked appointments as well, just to talk through stuff, you know? Tell her stories about you, learn how to wake up every morning, that kind of thing. I think it’s working. Ten-hyung laughed the other day. Like properly laughed. He hasn’t done that in a while.”He stopped drawing and gazed down at the abstract pattern his preoccupied mind had invented as he talked to the engraved granite stone sticking up out of the ground in front of him. His eyes roved over the golden letters, Times New Roman – size 67, for the hundredth time since he’d started visiting a month ago.“Can I give you something?” he asked, knowing there wasn’t going to be an answer but needing to propose the question anyway. “It’s kind of a weird thing to leave at someone’s grave and if anyone was watching me right now, they would probably think that I was a psycho, but I feel like it has our own special meaning.”The razor blade tumbled out of the tiny plastic box the second he opened it, plopping harmlessly onto the grass in front of him. Its edge was still stained with a dull scarlet but it hadn’t tasted blood for over sixty days.Its tirade was over. Its control was broken. Its victim was free.“I want you to keep it,” he said, moving aside one of the tiny vases congregating at the foot of the headstone, and beginning to burrow into the ground with his fingers. “You always managed to keep them away from me so I feel like, just because you’re gone, you shouldn’t have to stop. You always loved it when you knew you were keeping us safe. So … here.”He dropped the blade into the tiny hole he’d made in the ground and scooped the dirt back in, indifferent to the grime that clung to his palms and the worm that waved him an indignant ‘fuck off’ as he disturbed its habitat. He replaced the vase on top of the freshly-covered mound and rose to his feet.“Thank you.”His fingers brushed against his lips before he pressed them to the top of the granite, closing his eyes for a brief second as he imagined the feel of Taeyong’s hand wrapped around his own.“I’ll be back soon.”Then he left.