Tracks, a SKZ story

Chapter 10 Seungmin POV

As I walked past Chan hyung's room later that night I heard crying coming from inside. I let out a breath and leaned against the door. I was glad Felix was back, but I wondered what this would do to Chan hyung, and through Chan hyung, our team. Chan hyung's health, physical and mental, and slowly declined as Felix laid in the hospital wing.

When he had first woken up from his brain tremors, as we "lovingly" nicknamed them, he went even more hysterical when he saw Felix laying unconscious beside him. We all tried to calm him down, but it took Jisung knocking him out at super speed to keep another brain tremor from happening. Then Changbin and Minho hyung had to drag him to his room and tie him to the bed so he didn't freak out. Once he had regained consciousness it took another couple hours to fully calm him down. He kept chanting that he wanted his "sunshine" and he wouldn't calm down without him.

Once we got him calm, he was too calm. He didn't react to any of our jokes or attempts to cheer him up, the most we got was a lip twitch or a blink in our general direction. Of course, with Jeongin being so new at that time we tried to get him to continue being the leader, but all his attempts were half-hearted and sometimes he would randomly start going into hysterics. Eventually, it became too much and Minho hyung took charge of training, keeping Chan hyung confined to their room.

We all watched as Chan hyung slowly became more of a shut in. It affected each of us differently. Minho hyung got more stressed and began lashing out at us more often. Changbin hyung started acting more kindly toward the rest of us in an attempt to somewhat keep the peace. Hyunjin started sucking up to Changbin hyung even more because he was scared of Minho hyung. Jisung became a go between for us and Minho hyung because he was so unpredictable. I just tried to protect Jeongin as much as possible because he was new. Jeongin tried to keep being his cheerful self, but sometimes I heard him crying late at night.

After a while of sitting at Chan hyung's door, it creaked open and Felix came out. When he saw me he slid down the wall and sat next to me. His cheeks were streaked and his eyes were red and puffy.

"What was it like while I was gone?" He whispered.

I sucked in a breath. "Mm... It was... Interesting to say the least. I never realized how much of a joining factor you were to our team."

"Obviously Channie hyung took it pretty hard. I've never seen him grow his hair out this long without re-bleaching or dying it. Not to mention he rarely cries in front of me and..." His voice broke. "He thought I was a hallucination, Seungmin. A hallucination. Why... Why did I have to do that?"

"Hey..." I rubbed his shoulder as sobs racked his body. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have just up and decided not to go into a coma. That's not how that works. Sure, Chan hyung was a bit of a handful, but there's nothing you could have done about it. I think he's become a bit too attached to you and the fact that he thought it was his fault didn't make it any better."

"It wasn't his fault, though." Felix sniffed, peeking through his arms at me. "I decided to go in after him. I knew what that could entail, but I still did it."

"Because you care about him and you didn't want him to hurt himself or others. And you knew that if he woke up and found out he did hurt other people he would feel terrible." I supplied. "You guys have been together for longer than any of us. That's obviously done something to your dependency. And you both seem to have some sort of attachment issues, which doesn't help."

Felix sighed, wiping a stray tear from his cheek. "You're right. But I still wish there was something I could have done."

"It's in the past now." I said. "The only thing you can do is look to the future."