Life smells like death

Chpater 1

3:00 a.m.

The sign of the clock beside his bed shined with white neon letters.
Another restless night, filled with nightmares and fear.

He went to bed around midnight just to wake up three hours later.
His breath was still heavy and fast, cold sweat was all over his body making his clothes damp and sticky.

The same dream all over again, the same situation, the same feelings.

He wore his slippers and walked out of his shared bedroom. Tomorrow was just another day of practice, he had to pull himself together.

He made his way to the kitchen and filled his favourite cup with water.
He knew he had to pull through this.
His nightmares should step aside and for the time being he had found his solution. Two sleeping pills per night and he fell asleep as if he was hit by a car... ironic thinking how his dreamland was occupied by cars hitting people.

Before going back to his bedroom he checked if Chan was alright. His nightmares put him on edge, always being jumpy and scared. Once he made sure he was sleeping he gluped his pills and in a matter of minutes fell asleep.

What saddened Hyunjin the most was the fact that he knew all of these were the outcome of his own mental fragility.
But ever since he was triggered by the incident the dreams and restless, sleepless nights started again.

Morning came earlier in Hyunjin's preference. Jisung, after a generous try he managed with a lot of struggle to wake Hyunjin up calling him egoistic, as he was making everyone late.

When these words entered his ears a chuckle left his lips, barely being heard.
He was stunned by how nobody had noticed he slept less than Chan even and how if he was being honest he abused the pills that helped him fall asleep.

Breakfast was noisy, the time passed by quickly with Hyunjin mostly playing around with his food. It wasn't that he didn't want to eat, his appetite was just nowhere to be found the last few weeks.

He washed his face and wore his practice clothes. At the moment, he wasn't on speaking terms with his members really, only Jisung and Jeongin would talk to him, mainly because they were the ones to wake him up.

Hyunjin was sad about that too. He didn't like this whole situation, he would prefer to just admit everything and let life move on but he just couldn't do it, because he had nothing to admit.

With that in mind he chose to skip breakfast, not that he was hungry anyway.
If anything, his appetite was only decreasing as days passed and his mental health was going downhill.

He had opened up to his members about his battle with teenage depression and how his physical health had a huge impact in his mental health.

He had child cancer.
From the age of seven he was in and out of hospitals.
He had gone though every therapy out there, he had been diagnosed with brain cancer at first but thankfully his recovery was fast, it took him around a year.
Then leukemia came... it was hard.
The doctors gave him six months yet he managed to get through that too.

When he was diagnosed with lung cancer... his life had turned upside down.
He was thirteen and a year after he thought everything had come to an end he had to puke blood.
His mood was only dropping as long as he was in the hospital.
He was going to school from time to time, being called bald freak for his hair loss and the fact he would always wear a mask.

This whole experience in his teenage years made him a shell out of himself.
He had lost his way, his dreams but soon found dance and then the opportunity to debut in a group created a new dream for him, so he chased it and he didn’t regret it.
In the back of his mind he always had, weird, sad thoughts he would never dare to share with anyone. What could he say either way... that he had bitten cancer but still didn't appreciate his life and that he wanted to die from time to time or that suicide has always been his back up plan because he always felt like a burden to everyone around him?

He couldn't say anything that would have been something a coward would do, and he wasn't one. So he kept silent, as much as it pained him. He only shared the part of his cancer and depression and how he got through them.
Never had he once spoken to his members about the monthly visits to the doctors or about his current mental health, he was always perfectly fine.

In the car to the studio he sat by the window.
He loved this seat.
He felt as if he was watching that world like a movie and oh, he loved movies.

The car ride was shorter than Hyunjin would like but at least he would dance now and he hoped that this would make him feel more like himself.

Boy was he wrong... in the middle of the first song he managed to stumble upon his feet and got scolded by Minho. When it kept happening, the choreographer grew angry telling him to either exercise more, even after practice, and take it more seriously or quit.
Soon Hyunjin knew it was going to be a long day... or more likely week.

Hours later, after being scolded for thousands of times he told him manager he would stay behind for further practice.
But the truth is he wanted to stay to punish himself for screwing up.
He was angry at himself for everything that occured the passed few days yet he could only watch things escalate.

Returning home at 2 in the morning, he showered, ate an apple as nothing had entered his stomach today, he took his sleeping pills and went to bed only to be woken up, too soon for his preference by an angry shake.

Everything reminded him how life can change in a matter of seconds.