HALLUCINATIONS - JisungxNCT

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On one bright side, Jisung hasn't been going to extra practise lately.

On the bad side, he doesn't really need to go to extra practice to be absolutely exhausted. Promotions have them going to bed late at night and waking up extremely early in the morning. Jisung, who usually sleeps very well, is now struggling to catch even three hours of sleep every night. Not just because of the hectic schedules, but because of the absolute fear and terror he lives through every day.

The hallucinations haven't stopped. In fact, the lack of sleep have only made them worse. And the more he worries about it, the more vivid they become. Jisung knows that the moment he thinks about it, they will appear. So he tries his very best to forget, to think about other things. It doesn't work.

During practice, he watches his members disappear into thin air through the mirror, and has to keep his lips shut not scream out in fear. It's getting too realistic, and no matter how many times he sees it, Jisung can't get used to it.

When they eat, the food can turn from delicious meat into dirt and sand in just a few seconds, and Jisung is still forced to swallow it all down with a smile on his face. It doesn't even taste good anymore, that's how far it has gotten.

During recordings, Jisung hears himself make mistake after mistake, his voice cracking and sounding absolutely terrible, but he know it's a hallucination after the members don't react one bit. It's just hard to keep track of his actual mistakes, and his hallucinated mistakes, especially after they have gotten so realistic. Sometimes he makes a mistake but ignores it, thinking it's a hallucination, and everyone gets annoyed with him. Jisung hates that. He hates people being annoyed with him.

They are deep into the resonance promotions, and Jisung doesn't see the end. He can't remember what it was like to wake up late in the morning, nothing but silence to greet him. He can only think back to the terrible alarm sound that rings through his head every morning, before the sun has even begun to rise. Every day is the same. He wakes up, does something he can't quite remember, hallucinates, and goes to bed. Then he wakes up from nightmares and suddenly his alarm clock is wailing again. Jisung is at the brink of going crazy at this point, and he doesn't understand why.

He's dealt with promotions before.

What's so different this time? Why is he exhausted to the bone, getting no sleep, barely managing to eat and feeling nauseous every second of the day? Why is he hallucinating?

But no matter how much time he spends trying to figure out why, nothing gets better.

So now, two months after his first hallucination, Jisung is sitting in their black van. They have just finished filming another variety show, and all seven members of NCT dream have somehow crammed into one van. He is shaking, like always. Scared from whatever hallucination he saw today at the filming set, and scared of whatever future hallucination he's going to see at night. It's quite late, and outside darkness lays itself over the city that never sleeps. Jeno and Renjun are sitting on either side of him, the rest are in front. He wants so badly to fall asleep on one of their shoulders, but his fear is keeping him from closing his eyes.

To avoid any hallucinations, all Jisung can do is stare down at the floor of the car. The rest of the members have probably assumed that he's zoning out. Unlike most days after filming and practicing, they are not tired and quiet. Instead they are all discussing loudly and having fun together, playing some game that Jisung can't remember. He himself is too tired, and too frightened to even try to join their shenanigans. But it's when Mark laughs particularly loudly at something Haechan has said that he flinches. Normally he wouldn't, but he's just so tense, and so scared. Obviously, Jeno and Renjun both turn to look at him in surprise.