Fluffy SKZ oneshots🧸

Count on me🍼

Little: Jeongin

Caregiver: Chan

No one's POV.:
It had been a while since Jeongin was last able to get a good night's sleep. Though he had always been the member who went to bet the earliest, he struggled to fall asleep and lately it always took till the early morning hours for the maknae to doze off. Considering how early they had to get up, that left only a few hours for him to rest, which certainly wasn't enough and left him tired and lagging behind. Even those few hours of sleep weren't really restorative and more often than not, Jeongin kept tossing and frequently woke up from nightmares. When the insomnia and nightmares first started, he thought he'd rather stay awake than be plagued by the horror he experienced during his sleep, though as time passed and he started to feel more and more run down, he didn't care about being terrified, if only he could sleep. Not wanting to worry his hyungs, Jeongin did some research to try and figure out why he was struggling and how he could fix that on his own. One of the pretty obvious reasons was that he was pretty stressed from his work. He was still young and the hours they had to work daily had been straining from the very start. To make matters worse, they were always in the public's eye and everyone was waiting for a misstep on their part, which might even end up ruining their entire career. Jeongin had always been scared of saying something wrong in front of the cameras or not being able to perform their choreographies as elegantly as his hyungs and those worries stressed him out even more than having deadlines to meet.

Since stress was most likely the reason he had trouble sleeping, Jeongin made it his nightly ritual to have a cup of warm chamomile tea with honey before bed and use lavender-scented shower gel when he showered in the evening. He also stopped checking social media before going to bed for the fear of reading something hurtful that would occupy his mind while he was supposed to be sleeping but all his efforts were in vain and the maknae found himself lying awake once again. The entire group was asleep by now, even Chan and here he was unable to shut off his racing mind. When did his thoughts become so loud and disruptive? Jeongin wrecked his mind thinking about his chances of quieting his mind. He used to be better at handling his thoughts, so why couldn't he now? What did he do different back then? Feeling like he was missing something important, the maknae glanced around his dark bedroom. He knew there was something he was supposed to remember but he just couldn't. His eyes fell on his roommate, Jisung slept peacefully cuddling the massive pig plushie on his bed, breathing calmly. Seeing the plushie, the younger felt a sense of nostalgia and comfort. Now he knew for sure that there was something he used to do to deal with the stress but he still couldn't point out what it was. Figuring a plushie might help him, Jeongin took out a fox plushie that he had been gifted at a fansign and got comfortable with it in his arms. He instantly felt weird and fuzzy and it was scaring him. His mind had gone foggy and the youngest was now really afraid of the effect sleep-deprivation had on him. Confused and scared, the maknae once again fell into a restless sleep, being woken up by a disheveled Jisung twice because he had started to cry for help during his nightmares.

The group had noticed their youngest member acting off, of course they had. Jeongin had grown a lot quieter and when asked about it, he always responded that he was only tired, which was the truth, he didn't feel sad or depressed, he was just really run down and kept spacing out a lot, so he couldn't really participate in conversations. He had looked so sincere, that the others couldn't help but believe him and after reminding him that he could always come to them for help, they stopped bothering him. Jisung once pointed out that the younger had nightmares more frequently but Jeongin only sighed, knowing that his hyung was woken up rather rarely compared to how often he really did dream bad. Once again, the issue didn't seem too serious and got brushed off again, mostly because the maknae seemed uncomfortable being questioned about it and they didn't want to push him too much. Thinking it wasn't too bad and that the youngest was just exhausted from their schedules like they all were, it came as a shock when Jeongin collapsed during one of their dance practices. He never lost consciousness but suddenly feeling extremely dizzy half-way through the choreography, he weakly dragged himself to one of he walls, lying down, so he wouldn't hurt himself by falling. Taking shallow breaths, he waited for the dark spots to disappear and for the ringing in his ears to quiet down. Even though he was still somewhat conscious, he wasn't fully there and startled when his vision cleared and he found Chan hovering over him and studying his face worriedly.