Stress relief || Enhypen littlespace/agere fanfic ||

Fog

October 10th, 2023 

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Ni-ki shuffled onto his bed, lying down on his back and staring up at the ceiling. Ever since the group had started finalizing their songs in preparation for their new comeback, Ni-ki had been feeling more tired and stressed, and as a result began distancing himself from his members and becoming more quiet. He longed for the attention of at least one of his members, at least one person to talk to, but found himself having a hard time paying attention to anyone who talked to him. This resulted in short conversations and often his members deciding to simply leave him alone as they thought he was preoccupied with the comeback and wasn't in the mood to talk.

His head was constantly feeling fogged up now, with a worsening headache that couldn't seem to go away. No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't shake the fogged up feeling in his head. Due to this, Ni-ki couldn't find a way to fully relax. Even lying on his bed now, after a long day of working and dancing, his entire body felt tense. He sighed, sitting up and scooting a bit closer to the wall to rest his back against it. He debated for a few seconds, before standing up and tiredly trudging to the bathroom to take a shower.

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As he stepped out of the shower, he felt as the cold air pricked at his skin, sending shivers all throughout his body. He flinched, quickly grabbing a towel and wrapping it around himself in hopes to warm up. He shivered and started shuffling out of the bathroom, forgetting to dry his hair. He entered his bedroom and quickly got changed into comfier clothes, walking out into the living room and situating himself on the couch.

Heeseung made his way over to the couch as well, noticing the state that the group's maknae was in. He sat down next to Ni-ki.

"Ni-ki, you didn't dry your hair." Heeseung stated.

Ni-ki glanced up slightly, noticing his hair was still dripping cool water onto the couch. He sighed and nodded, looking back over at Heeseung.

"Sorry, I forgot." He said, slicking his hair back slightly to try and avoid getting water on the couch.

Heeseung nodded. "Uh, well, don't worry about it. I can dry it, if you want?" He asked Ni-ki.

Ni-ki thought for a second, realizing how much easier it would be to have someone else take care of it for him. He nodded, a small smile forming on his face. "Sure, hyung."

Heeseung nodded as well, standing up and retreating to the bathroom and grabbing a towel. He walked back to the living room, standing between Ni-ki's legs and bringing the towel up to the maknae's head, starting to dry his hair.

As Heeseung dried his hair, Ni-ki felt himself relaxing more and closing his eyes. Normally, he wouldn't have even let Heeseung- or any of his members- dry his hair or do any work for him, opting to do it himself. He had a longing to be taken care of suddenly, to let other people do work for him, and he didn't understand why.

Noticing Ni-ki didn't seem bothered, like he typically would be if he weren't allowed independence in doing basic tasks, Heeseung finished drying Ni-ki's hair and hesitantly reached out to fix a few strands of hair left astray. Ni-ki flinched slightly, but allowed it.

Even slightly embraced it, leaning more into Heeseung's touch.

Leaving the towel folded on the couch, Heeseung sat back down and sprawled out slightly.

"You wanna watch a show or something?" He glanced at Ni-ki.

After a few moments of thinking, Ni-ki nodded. "Okay."

Heeseung reached out to the coffee table and grabbed the TV remote, turning the TV on and starting to scroll. He continued watching Ni-ki, scanning for a reaction of some sort as he scrolled across movies and shows. As he continued analyzing Ni-ki's expression, he noticed Ni-ki's eyes lighting up as he started scrolling past Disney movies.

Heeseung furrowed his brows slightly, but paused and asked Ni-ki; "..what do you wanna watch, Ni-ki?"

Ni-ki mulled over the question, shrugging. "Um.. well, I'unno, what do you wanna watch?"

Heeseung sighed at the question. Maybe Ni-ki was just embarrassed to say he wanted to watch a Disney movie, thinking he would get judged. 

"I just wanna watch something easy, so.. we can watch, like, Frozen? That cool?" He asked, immediately noticing the maknae's excited reaction.

Ni-ki happily nodded, smiling at the suggestion. "Mhm. Sure."

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About halfway through the movie, Heeseung could tell that Ni-ki was exhausted. He kept closing his eyes and hadn't been paying attention to the movie for about ten minutes already, so he turned off the TV, earning an annoyed whine from the maknae.

Heeseung glanced back towards Ni-ki. "What? You weren't paying attention. You should go to bed." He said.

Ni-ki shook his head. "Don't wanna." He pouted.

Heeseung chuckled, giving Ni-ki an amused look. "Why are you acting cute? You never do that.."

Ni-ki crossed his arms over his chest. "M' not acting cute." He spoke with an annoyed tone, standing up.

Heeseung rolled his eyes teasingly. "Sure. Go to bed, Ni-ki. You're obviously tired."

Ni-ki only nodded and trudged his way to the bathroom, getting ready quickly and flopping onto his bed. He pulled his covers up, sighing at the light above that his roommates hadn't turned off yet. After a few moments, he watched Sunghoon enter the room and gave him an annoyed look, expecting him to turn off the light but was disappointed when Sunghoon walked right past him and onto his own bed, closing his eyes.

He sighed and sat up, taking off the covers and walking over to the light switch. Before he got an opportunity to turn off the light, his eye caught onto the bundle of plushies sat on Jungwon's bed, eyes lighting up immediately. After debating between the light and the plushies, Ni-ki settled for the decision to take a plushie and then return to the light switch to turn it off. He walked towards Jungwon's bed and took the nearest plushie, a dog, and quickly hurried back to the light switch.

He flicked off the light and blindly stumbled back towards his bed, and after a bit of struggle was able to successfully find his way back to his bed and pulled the covers up. Before he could lull himself to sleep, he suddenly felt the fog in his head beginning to go away, the headache remaining but now less prominent. Hugging the plushie to his chest, he was able to close his eyes and fall asleep.

A/N happy pride month :D