Once The Light Fades

2-Hongjoong-ah?

"Hongjoong-ah? I need your help."

That was the last thing Hongjoong expected Taeyong to say.

He honestly expected it to be worse news than that.

 ie: one of his members ran away and was heading in the direction of the KQ Entertainment building.

Which happened more often than you would think.

"Taeyong-hyung? What's going on?"

"I-I....can we video call?"

"Sure, let me just make sure Wooyoung and San are actually asleep."

Hongjoong walked down the hallway and opened the door to Wooyoung and San's room. Surprisingly, they were both asleep. He then went back out into the living room rather than into his and Seonghwa's shared room, so he didn't wake his hyung up.

He opened his laptop, typed in Taeyong's ID, and soon he popped up on Hongjoong's screen.

Taeyong's eyes were red and puffy, and it was pretty obvious that he had been crying at some point during today.

"Yongie-hyung? What happened?"

"Joongie, our manager-he-he's doing it to me. The same thing your old one did to you. And-and I don't know how to fix it and I need your help and I'm really sorry i'm bothering you this late but i'm scared and-"

"Shh, calm down, it's alright. We're going to figure out how to fix this, okay? I promise."

"O-okay."

"I'm going to come over to your dorms tomorrow, and we're going to make this stop. I'm so so sorry Yongie, you don't deserve any of this. Did you tell Taeil-hyung or Johnny-hyung?"

Silence filled the room, and Hongjoong could tell that was a no.

"Hyung, why didn't you tell them?"

"Don't want them to worry...it'll only put more pressure on them,"

Hongjoong sighed. Taeyong appeared to not realize that sometimes there was a thing as too selfless. 

"Taeyong, you don't have to keep everything to yourself you know."

"I'm not keeping everything to myself. See? I'm telling you."

"Hyung stop being a smartass, you know what I mean."

There was a sigh from the other end of the call.

"Yeah...I suppose. But only because you said so."

"Thank you. I'll come over tommorow, but in the meantime you should go to bed."

"I will, thank you Joong,"

"Anytime hyung, I'm always here."