It was hard at the beginning. Whenever she wanted to laugh hard at something, she usually hid in Jisung's shoulder. When Blakely were nervous or scared, she usually hugged or held anyone hand, depending on who she was next to. Now, she couldn't do that.
Fans were talking about how it was bothersome to see her all over the boys, and she didn't want that to escalate, no matter how hard it was to do it. Because the thing was, in order to make sure that she refrained from doing it in the public eye, Blakley had to do it in private too.
She were exhausted, it was early in the morning and she hadn't slept so great last night. Unlike usual, she didn't just ask one of her brothers to let her sleep with them because of the nightmares.
Changbin went to hug her, like he usually did when both of them were tired, but she just avoided his arms, moving to her water bottle instead. He looked at Chan in confusion but the elder just shrugged as if to say he didn't know what was up with her either.
Hyunjin had invited Blakley to go with him to pick up the food he had ordered, but she just shook her head. He had frowned. "Blake, this is supposed to be a tradition of ours."
She just shrugged. "Not this time"
The final straw for them was when she was nervous in the car on the way to an interview. Blakley chewed on her lower lip as she stared out the window. Seungmin reaches for her hand that is tightly fisting the hem of her skirt, but she snatched it away from him as if he burned her and Minho finally asked the question. "What's going on with you?"
Blake frowned, leaning back as if to bury herself in the seat. "Nothing."
"Bullshit," Changbin states bluntly. "You won't let us touch you. It's like you're scared of us."
"You never want to be around us," Jeongin pointed out. "Like you suddenly can't stand us."
She frowned. "It's not that at all, I just-" she sighed heavily, cutting herself off and Seungmin grabbed her hand before she could blink, encouraging her. "I saw a lot of tweets about Stays thinking I'm too clingy with you guys..."
"You're not even-"
"They said I'm around you guys physically too much and I rely on you more than I should," she quoted and Jisung frowned, snapping his fingered to make sure she was looking at him. "None of that is true except for the fact that you rely on us, as you should. We're a family, and what kind of family isn't there for each other?"
"Yeah, but-"
"No, that's it. You don't bother any of us because sometimes we need that too, and any fan who said that isn't a fan. They're jealous, because we love you and just want you to be okay, yeah?"
Blakley smiled at that, going to apologize but Seungmin cut her off. "Can we cuddle now? We always cuddle in the car and I'm sad because you've been depriving me," he whined, leaning his head on her shoulder, making her giggle and the rest of the boys to smile since they haven't heard it in a while.
