Chapter Text
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“Everyone, take five,” their dance teacher sighed. “Then we run through the entire thing again.” Since some of you can’t seem to remember the choreography, he didn’t say. Everyone heard the message loud and clear anyway.
If Seonghwa didn’t already feel bad, he would have definitely felt awful by now. The words were directed at him. He was the only one missing the beat. He was the only one bumping into other people, the only one stepping on toes and messing up the formations. He was trying his best—really, he was— but his body just wouldn’t move the way he wanted it to, the fog in his brain slowing both his thoughts and his limbs alike.
“Hyung, come on, please pull it together,” Jongho muttered, words pricking at his already bruised conscience. “I’d like to go home sometime soon.”
“Sorry,” Seonghwa mumbled. There was no response. Jongho had already moved on to chat with someone else across the room. The room was too bright, everything a little fuzzy, and he shook his head to clear some of the fog. Their dance teacher called them back, and they ran through the song again.
Seonghwa wasn’t really sure what happened after that, the rest of their practice was a massive blur, but he must have done something right because their dance teacher finally seemed satisfied enough to let them go. Or, maybe he finally got tired of Seonghwa’s incompetence that he just gave up. Either way, the practice had taken its toll on all of them and they were all glad to be dismissed.
Seonghwa rushed back to their dorm as soon as he could, with guilt swirling in his gut and all his mistakes playing on loop in his brain. The familiar scents of their pack soothing his nerves a little bit. It wasn’t the first time he’s had an off day, but he hadn’t felt this bad since before their debut—before they became an official pack. His skin crawled with unease, and he absentmindedly scratched arms to get rid of the feeling. It helped a little, but mostly it left trails of red along his arms.
He needed to do something—anything to distract him from the oppressive weight of his own thoughts. A stray sock caught the corner of his eye and he honed on it like a beacon. He could clean. He could do that. He was good at that, unlike dancing. With unease swirling in his gut, Seonghwa pulled his cleaning kit from its spot under the sink and got to work.
First, he picked up any stray objects or clothing and put them back where they belonged. Then he started wiping down all the counters. That wasn’t enough. He cleared all the cabinets and wiped them clean, inside and out; even the very tops of them weren't spared. He placed everything back where it belonged and wiped the counters again because some of the dust had fallen, settling on the previously cleaned surface. He vacuumed, mopped, and even brought out the lint roller to make sure that everything was absolutely spotless. It had to be spotless. It was the least he could do after messing up so much today.
The reminder of his failure just made his mood even worse. The skin crawling feeling came back with a vengeance.
“Food. Cookies,” he mumbled to himself, nails digging into the soft flesh of his palms. “They like cookies. I can do that.”
He made his way into the kitchen and started the process of measuring and mixing. His hands shook so much that he kept spilling things all over the place, but eventually he managed to make neat rows of dough on two trays. Experience taught him that one was never enough, and The thought of his pack devouring his cookies as they usually did lessened the ache in his chest enough to get him through the rest of the baking process. It went smoothly, a contrast to anything else that had happened that day, and he made sure to plate it nicely before setting it on the table where anyone could see it.
It was getting a little late, and even though Seonghwa’s limbs were heavy with that inexplicable exhaustion—where did it come from? He’s gone through worse and has functioned on less sleep before, so why now?—his mind was restless and unable to sleep without the rest of his pack accounted for. He sat down on the couch with a sigh, tucking one of their many blankets tightly around himself as he flipped through the TV channels mindlessly, his eyes drooping as the minutes passed by. Before he knew it, he was fast asleep, the remote falling from to the ground with a soft thud.
—
Awareness trickled back slowly. Seonghwa buried his face into soft sheets, feeling the warmest he’s ever been in what feels like forever but was only really a few hours. The corners of his lips rose. Someone must have carried him to their bed. The thought of being surrounded by his lovely pack spurred him to leave the warm sheets, but, contrary to what he first thought, he was the only one in their dorm.
No matter, he decided. Their scents were still fresh, faintly lingering in the air, so everyone must have left not too long ago. Seonghwa didn’t know how he had missed everyone—they weren’t exactly quiet even on the best of days—but he had just been so tired.
Seonghwa went through the familiar motions of starting breakfast, humming happily to himself. The rhythmic actions of chopping vegetables brought him back a little more until he finally started feeling like himself again. He opened the cabinet under the sink to dispose of the scraps and froze.
His cookies lay at the bottom of the compost bin.
His limbs turned to lead and his mind raced as he tried to figure out why his cookies were thrown away, practically untouched. No—that was wrong. One of the cookies had teeth marks along one side. Someone took a bite out of it and then threw them away.
Were—Were they really that bad? None of his members ever had any problems with his food before, always so eager to get a taste that they often bickered about it. What was so different this time?
Seonghwa smelled something burning, and realized with a jolt that the stove was still on. He stumbled back to his feet to turn it off, hoping that the food was still salvageable. It wasn’t. It only made him feel worse.
He forced himself to calm down, even though all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball and sob. It was probably a misunderstanding. They wouldn’t throw food away like that for no reason—they wouldn’t throw his cooking like that away for no reason. Taking deep breaths, he grabbed his phone and blindly dialed a number in his emergency contacts list.
“Hey, Hwa, what’s up?” Ah, he's called Hongjoong.
“Joong-ah,” Seonghwa said, trying to keep his voice steady even if his hands weren’t. “Where are you?”
“At the studio.” He sounded distracted. There were some voices in the background.
Okay. That wasn’t too far away. “I’ll visit you.”
“Ah, sorry, I’m actually pretty busy right now an—Oh! I totally forgot about that,” Hongjoong said. He spoke quickly with someone else before turning his attention back to Seonghwa. “Sorry, gotta go! I’ll talk to you later.”
The line disconnected before Seonghwa could even say goodbye. He would call someone else. It would be fine.
He tried Jongho’s number next, but he didn’t even pick up. Yunho did, but Seonghwa’s relief was short-lived when he stumbled over his words, barely able to ask when Yunho might come back to the dorm.
“Are you trying to be cute right now, hyung?” Yunho sighed. “I told you I had dinner plans with some of my friends and wouldn’t be back until later tonight.”
Did he? Seonghwa could barely string a coherent sentence together, let alone remember his packmates’ schedule. He must have been silent for too long because Yunho just hung up. Seonghwa tried to stop his hands from shaking so much by digging his numb fingers into his arms. It would be fine. He could call Mingi next, hope blooming in his chest. It would be fine. It had to be fine.
“I’m at the gym right now,” Mingi panted, very obviously between sets. “Can’t talk. See you later.”
“Wait!” Seonghwa said, trying to stop Mingi from hanging up. “Is—What about Yeosang? Do you know where he is?” Seonghwa had to ask now, unsure if he had the energy to keep calling his busy pack members after Mingi’s rejection. They always said that they had time for him, that he could call them whenever he needed anything, but it turns out that he was wrong.
“Hyung,” Mingi’s tone was exasperated and it only made Seonghwa feel worse, numbness spreading from his fingertips to his limbs. “It’s Thursday. Yeosang and I always work out on Thursdays.”
Seonghwa didn’t even realize what day it was. He clutched tightly at his phone.
“I really have to go now, before I take too long of a break and it ruins my workout.”
“Sorry, I—”
The line disconnected. Seonghwa was hanging on by a thread. One more time. Just one more time. There was still Wooyoung and San. They were probably together, which saved him from making two separate calls, a task that was too big for his overwhelmed brain.
“Hello?”
“Where are you? Is San there?” Seonghwa fought to get the words out of his mouth, hating how clipped and confrontational it sounded but physically unable to say more.
Wooyoung huffed in annoyance, obviously taking it the wrong way. “Well, if you must know, we’re in the practice rooms.”
Seonghwa hung onto the words like a lifeline, quickly slipping his shoes on and heading out the door. He tried to keep Wooyoung on the phone as he stumblingly made his way closer to them. “ You’re…practicing?”
“Oh my god, yes , we’re practicing! What else would we do?”
“I—I don’t know,” Seonghwa mumbled. He was almost there.
“I don’t know why you sound so surprised that I’m actually taking my job seriously,” Wooyoung said, sending Seonghwa into a panic. That’s not what he meant, but he couldn’t seem to find the words to explain it. He just tried to walk faster instead. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to get back to the practice we were doing before you decided to interrupt.”
Wooyoung hung up, but it was fine because Seonghwa found the room they were in a few minutes later.
The music seemed too loud for them to hear his knocks. He didn’t want to be more annoying than he already was, but his vision was blurring and he could barely breathe and he needed the comfort of his packmates so he just opened the door and slipped in as quietly as he could.
He’d been feeling so off lately, with a gross sticky feeling in his chest and a prickly unease crawling under his skin. He desperately hoped that Wooyoung and San would see that he wasn’t feeling right and spend some time with him.
He was wrong.
Wooyoung saw him first and exploded. He quickly paused the music. “Jesus Christ, hyung! I already told you we were practicing!”
“I—I know, but—”
“But what? ” San was the one who spoke this time, rolling his eyes.
Seonghwa’s vision was starting to darken at the edges, his breath coming in quick pants. “I just—I need—”
“What you need ,” Wooyoung interrupted. “Is to stop micromanaging us! You’re taking the whole ‘mother hen’ thing to the extremes.”
No. No , that’s not what Seonghwa was trying to do.
He just wanted to spend some time with his pack and maybe try to cuddle the sinking feeling in his chest away. But he didn’t know how to explain that, his thoughts shrouded in a fog, and neither of them seemed willing to listen to his stuttered responses anyways.
The room suddenly felt too small, and the lights were too bright, and he couldn’t bear the weight of Wooyoung and San’s judgemental stares any longer. He turned on his heel and stumbled out the door he came in, not knowing where he wanted to go but just needing to be somewhere far away. He heard someone calling for him, but he was probably wrong. No one wanted him. Not even his pack. The thought of being abandoned broke him to pieces, and he collapsed against a wall, tears streaming down his face.
The hallway stretched out from either side of him, feeling so endless and daunting it made fear rise up higher in his throat. Seonghwa clumsily looked for the nearest doorknob and stumbled into blessed darkness. Immediately, he detected the faint scents of his pack and realized that he was in one of the closets that held their costumes and stage outfits, but it didn’t make him feel better.
The familiar scents only reminded him of how unwanted he was, how useless he was—but he couldn’t help the way he pulled things off hangers to make a nest in the small space between the wall and a tall cabinet.
Uncontrollable sobs wracked his frame, his body and mind aching. He wasn’t even sure why he was so upset at this point, his body moving on autopilot as he clumsily made a small nest. He crawled into the middle, feeling absolutely miserable as he scratched more red lines in his arms in an attempt to get rid of the awful feeling lurking under his skin.
It wasn’t a very good nest, the fabrics too scratchy and stiff, sequins and other accessories digging into his skin. It’s probably why his pack hated him. No one likes an omega who can’t nest properly, and the stylists would be so mad at him for messing their hard work up like this. He was so useless and pathetic. He can’t dance, can’t sing, can’t cook, can’t make a pretty nest, can’t do anything right—
Seonghwa whimpered quietly, pressing his hands to his ears and squeezing his eyes shut. He curled up into a ball and tried not to drown under the weight of his own thoughts—and, oh, that’s just great, another thing he’s failed at.
A wave of despair crashed over him, pulling him down so deep into darkness that he thought he might never come up. It was cold, and he was so bad at nesting that none of the fabrics around him made him feel any better even though nests are supposed to be soft and warm and comforting and he’s such a failure of an omega that he can’t even make a nest properly, even though it’s literally supposed to be instinctual—
Another sob got caught in his throat. He shivered, pulling a scratchy coat closer to his chest and sticking his nose into it, trying to get a whiff of his pack’s faded scents.
Seonghwa wondered if he would ever feel warm again.
—