Between the heartbeats (a Straykids Story)

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.....he was a Stray Kid who had lost the map to his own heart, and as he heard the distant sound of the members' van returning to the basement, he realized the most painful truth of all: He wasn't waiting to get better. He was waiting for the strength to start lying again.

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Hello everyone,

This is my first and likely my only fanfic. It is Hyunjin centered and deals mostly with the topic of idol life in combination with depression and a wish to be oneself.

It is more or less a journey about finding inner peace, when pressure is too high to deal with.

Hyunlix is a topic but not the main theme.

Content Warning: This story touches on many dark themes... please only read it if you feel mentally and emotionally prepared for them. I will rate this 18+, even though there is no smut.

The story deals with:
Self-harm
Eating disorders
Depression
Suicide

It was created during a very difficult time in my life, in "collaboration" with AI. I don't want to hide that fact. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to put the storyline (which is entirely my own) into words myself. You could call it "therapeutic writing" for me. Of course, it is all just imagination and weird thoughts in my head, it is nothing true about it.

Furthermore, English is not my native language, so I made use of some help with the phrasing.

Nevertheless, I wanted to share the resulting story with you.

Throughout the story, I will reference five songs (all credits go to the respective artists). If you like, you can listen to the tracks at the corresponding passages, though the story can be understood without knowing them.

Demons - Imagine Dragons
Everything I Wanted - Billie Eilish
Runaway - Aurora
End of Beginning - Djo
In This Shirt - The Irrepressibles

The story is already finished (around 80.000 words), and I will be publishing it piece by piece.

Best,
noctam

Stay safe. 🐺 🐰🐷 🐰 🐿️ 🐥 🐶 🦊 ✨