K-Pop Sickfics

Chocolate Doughnut-Hyunjin🎈Stray Kids

Requested by: sireohae

🍩

"You know it's okay to be different, right?" Lee Know had told Hyunjin while they lay on the grass of a random park at midnight looking up at the sky. "You don't need to live up to the things people on social media say. You're Hyunjin, a person defined by nobody else other than yourself."

A long silence followed the older's words, there were no other sounds in the park that night, no kids playing around, no cars, no music, nothing. It was late after all.

"I know...it's just that I don't feel comfortable showing other sides of myself to everyone."

"I mean that's ok too. You can be yourself but if you're not comfortable showing the public..."

"But I'm tired of hiding hyung" he whispered, contradicting himself, "It's not just with the public."

Hyunjin then turned to his side, facing the oldest. Lee Know answered by turning his head toward him. They looked into each other's eyes, Hyunjin biting his lower lip anxiously; wanting to spill a secret he had been carrying with him for months.

Hyunjin had been feeling insecure, he wasn't satisfied with the way he thought or acted. He recently had started to feel nervous, and anxious in situations where he didn't use to and his body started changing with these feelings. His body lost most of its muscle mass, his usually slim figure becoming even slimmer each passing day. His eyes became dull, and dark circles started to form below them. He was stimming subconsciously more and more each day. This being the only way to get rid of his uneasiness.

All of this, his manager's fault.

Some days it was tedious for him, trying to act like he used to. The feeling of changing and being different ate at his mind. He didn't pay any mind to it at first, thinking that the things that bothered him, how he solved problems, and how he sometimes couldn't understand people was normal for everyone else but he slowly started to notice that the way he processed things was a bit different. He lived struggling with this and many other things since before his debut but he hasn't had the time to think deeply about it. But now, since it tampered with his work more than it did to his daily life he wanted to tell someone. And so he did.

He had heard what his manager thought about it, he had put his trust in him to be the first person he told but it didn't go as expected. Hyunjin was shouted at, insulted, and blamed. His manager claimed that he would lose his job if word got out. They would think he was a bad manager, that he didn't take care of his artist. What would his colleagues think of him when the artist he was managing turned out to be so...faulty? He told Hyunjin that it was nothing, it was probably his imagination. He just had to move on. Which sent Hyunjin into a stress-induced block.

His manager was never like this! Hyunjin thought. But what the young artist didn't know was that his manager had gotten a warning and he was to be demoted from his post shortly due to some strict evaluations.

His manager was on the brink of a breakdown and his honest confession had tipped the cup over.

"You don't have to do things quickly," Lee Know said lowly, snapping Hyunjin out of his thoughts, "Go at your own pace. If you start feeling like you should tell one of us, do it but if you can't, there are other ways. Just don't isolate yourself. The group is here for you. I'm here for you whenever you need me." the oldest smiled softly turning back to looking at the sky not shortly after.

Hyunjin smiled fondly, feeling happy that he got to talk to the other like this. It had been a while since they had gotten a break from work and since it didn't look like they were getting another opportunity any time soon they both decided to ditch the company building and go to anywhere that looked comfortable and peaceful for a break.