HALLUCINATIONS - JisungxNCT

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There is a man standing in the corner of his bed.

He's wearing a green hat.

Jisung is paralyzed in fear, grabbing onto his bedsheets, eyes wide, not daring to move a single inch. The man stares at him with an unreadable expression. Around them, darkness engulfs the room. If he looked to his side, Jisung would be able to see Jaemin's sleeping figure. He would be able to see the trashcan standing in the middle of the room, neither of the two had time to put it back after emptying it. The stray socks laying on the floor, the faint light coming from the older digital clock, displaying the numbers 4.33. And of course, the small window, from where Jisung can see the dirty city outside.

But he's not outside. He's inside, awake, laying down on his bed, and staring at a man wearing a green hat. It takes a few minutes of absolute terror for tears to start rolling down his cheeks. But for some reason, he just stares at the man, doesn't scream or try to get away. Doesn't yell out for Jaemin to help him. Doesn't do anything.

Maybe it's because of the fact that he knows it's not real. Knows that this is just a hallucination, brought upon him because of all the sleepless nights he's been having lately. Doesn't want to alert his Hyung, tell him that he's hallucinating, make him scared and worried. He doesn't want anyone to worry, and doesn't want to disturb their promotions either.

Lately their entire group has been busy. NCT is finally coming together as twenty three members, with Yangyang, Xiaojun, Hendery, Shotaro and Sungchan finally being confirmed as official members of the group. Jisung has been so excited, everyone knows that. He's practically buzzing every day. Going from dance practice to recordings, filming content and just getting to know the members. There is so much to do, and he's so happy to do it. Shotaro and Sungchan are really nice, like extremely nice. The WayV members are finally promoted properly, together with them. All in all, it's a great time in their life, a great promotion.

But Jisung might have forgotten to take care of himself in the meantime. He is so busy going from practice to practice, rapping and singing and dancing, filming and going to photoshoots, he doesn't have any time for himself. It was all fine, until he started going back to his perfectionist tendencies. If there are new members, there will be new fans, and he has to prove himself to them. So he took time to practice extra, a lot more extra. Like way too much. More than he is allowed, legally allowed. He's still a minor after all, still a minor for a few more months. And it's illegal to work as much as he does, as a minor. But Jisung can't stop.

Reality was bound to hit him though, at one point or another. And now that it has, Jisung doesn't want to worry anyone, or ruin the promotions.

So he stays still, scared out of his mind, until the man just fades away.

The fear doesn't fade away though, it stays, and Jisung ends up falling asleep with tear stains on his face.

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Dancing is really fun.

Jisung likes to dance, and he is really good at it. Maybe too good for his own best, who knows?

But sometimes, the pressure of being the best out of the best, has him going crazy. Doing things like he's not supposed to. Lying. Lying to his members.

He recalls, it was about three hours ago when everyone was heading back from recordings. Jaemin and Jeno were with him, recoding at the same time. Jisung had packed his bag in the morning, deciding to do extra dance practice again in the evening, after work. He was going to keep that decision, and was walking down the corridor at SM entertainment, heading for the practice rooms.