Chapter Text
“Do it again Jisung, and get it right this time. We don’t have much longer till we’re expected at our next schedule, and the instructor said we can’t leave until everything is perfect.” Minho is firm, not wavering the slightest after he finishes speaking. Jisung masks the hurt he feels, keeping a neutral expression as he nods his head in agreement with his hyung.
He starts the rap all over again, the beginning steady and perfect from how many times he’s already done it. He’s hitting every beat on time, saying the right words to his rap, and Jisung thinks he might make it through without a mistake. But then comes the part he keeps messing up, and Jisung can feel the pressure mounting with the steady sound of the song. Panic surrounds him, and in the end Jisung is sure it’s what throws him into messing up again.
“Stop!” The music stops playing, and Jisung is left staring at the floor in shame. The silence in the room is heavy, and he can feel his members' eyes on him.
“I’m tired of this Jisung. You’re our main rapper along with Changbin, so how come you keep messing this up?” Frustration is dripping off Minho. If his tone wasn’t enough to tell, then his body language of pulling out his hair would be. Jisung feels sick, and he just wants to avoid his members judging looks, but he forces himself to glance at them anyway.
Hyunjin and Felix are talking together, taking occasional peaks at Jisung. It makes his throat close up, knowing they’re probably talking about him and his failures. Changbin is next to Minho, rubbing the older’s shoulders to get him to relax. And Minho is glaring Jisung down, body not losing its tenseness no matter how hard Changbin tries. Jisung feels guilty for upsetting his hyung so much, and he knows there’s nothing that could excuse him.
He’s so tired, and Jisung has found that exhaustion is his trigger for making mistakes. Still, that doesn’t excuse his poor skills today, because his members are also tired, and they’re not messing up as much as he is. The company has put a rush on their comeback, fearing the public is forgetting them the longer they rest, and it’s stressing everyone. Chan has taken to late night writing sessions again, and Changbin has started joining him. Seungmin is taking extra care of his throat, a scarf practically glued around his neck twenty four seven. And Jisung- well he’s lost all his free time.
When Jisung isn’t working on a new song, he’s practicing his dance, and when he’s not dancing he’s working on his rap and vocals. Any other time he can be found eating or sleeping, and that’s what led to his multiple mistakes today.
Jisung hasn’t regressed in over two weeks.
He’s used to regressing more, needing his headspace at least once a week. When Jisung is stressed more than usual, then he’ll need to be little more too. He’s regressed as often as four times in one week before, so going a full two weeks without has been difficult. The need he feels to be little is so strong, pulling him towards it’s comfort without him even realizing. There’s no time for it though, for him to drop all his worries and be little. Jisung has stopped himself far too often nowadays, and the regret of doing that is hitting him for the first time. Maybe, if he had just let himself be little, Jisung wouldn’t be in the position he is now.
“Are you even listening to me?!” Minho’s voice is screechy, and Jisung is far too exhausted to deal with this any longer. The tired side of him decides that he’s angry instead of upset, and he’s lashing out at the older before he can even stop himself.
“No, I’m not listening to you, because you’re being really fucking annoying right now! Who do you think you are, Mr. Perfect? News flash, I’m not the only one in this room who makes mistakes!” The tension in the room is fit to burst, and Jisung’s anger doesn’t settle down a bit after his outburst. If anything it’s bubbling more, and he’s ready to snap at everyone in the room. He’s stopped dead in his tracks though, by Changbin leaving Minho’s side to stand face to face with Jisung.
“You don’t talk to hyung that way, Jisung. You’re acting like a disrespectful brat.”
Brat — he’s a brat.
The word repeats itself in his mind, suffocating him. Nothing but a brat. A bad boy.
Tears spring to his eyes, and flow down his cheeks in the next second. Jisung doesn’t register the shock on Changbin’s face, because all he can focus on is how to get away. Get away from the meanies who have yelled at him, who hurt him. He doesn’t know where to go, mind racing too fast and not making sense to him.
He ends up in a corner of the room, far away from all the others. He’s scared, and he wants his caregiver more than anything now. Choked little sobs leave his throat, and Jisung digs his nails into the palms of his hands. He tries to ground himself with the pain, but it only upsets him more when he hears his Da’s voice in his head.
“Don’t hurt yourself baby, you’ll make Da cry.”
“Why Da cry?”
“Because Da’s baby will be hurt, and Da never wants to see his baby in pain. He’s too lovely, and Da would rather be hurt than see his baby like that. Understand sweetheart?”
“I ‘stand Da-da. Sungie no more hurt.”
“That’s my good baby!”
“Da!” He sobs, rocking back and forth in his spot. It’s too much, he’s never been alone before like this. His Da-da has always been with Jisung when he’s dropped, always there to take care of him. But he’s not here now, Jisung is alone with these— these meanies! His Da left him with the meanies!
“Jisung, what’s wrong?” The voice is close, and Jisung pulls his head up from his knees quickly. In front of him is Hyunjin, and although the other didn’t yell at him today, Jisung is so scared of him. What if Hyunjin wants to yell at him too? Tell him he shouldn’t be crying, because big boys don’t cry? Jisung hides himself again from the fear, flailing his arms out in front of himself to keep the other away from him.
“Go ‘way!” He yells, aiming to hit some part of the other if he dares to get too close.
“Jisungie, you’re scaring us. Can’t you please tell us what’s wrong? We just want to help.” Jisung can recognize it’s Felix who’s talking to him now, but as with the others Jisung is scared of him too. He doesn’t want the meanies' help, he wants them to stay away from him.
“No wan’ help! Only wan’ Da!” He zones out after that, hiccupping in his corner as fear consumes him. If his Da was here he’d pull Jisung into his arms, he’d shush him and tell him he’s a good boy. He would remind Jisung that he is so strong for crying, because all strong people cry when they’re sad. He just wants his Da.
“What are we going to do?!” Hyunjin whispers frantically, gaze never once leaving the boy in the corner.
“I don’t know! This doesn’t look like a normal panic attack, what are we supposed to do?” Hyunjin can see the guilt and worry on Changbin’s face, and it only worries him more. None of them know how to handle this, and it’s only getting worse by the minute. When Hyunjin looks at Jisung again, the boy has blood leaking down from his hands. The sight of the blood causes the worry to rise in his throat, and Hyunjin does the only thing his mind can come up with at the moment. He lunges for his bag, and digs out his phone. Once the device is in his hand, he dials the one person he thinks can help.
“Hello?” Seungmin answers on the first ring, and Hyunjin is more than grateful.
“Seungmin, I need your help. It’s Jisung,” Hyunjin rushes out.
“Hyunjin slow down, what’s wrong? I can hear Jisung crying, and it has me concerned.” Seungmin sounds about two seconds away from showing up at the practice room to see for himself what’s happening.
“Practice was hard today, and Jisung couldn’t get his one rap right. You know we’re all stressed Minnie, so Minho hyung ended up snapping at Sungie. Then Sungie snapped at Minho hyung, and Changbin hyung snapped at Sungie for snapping at Minho—“
“Hyunjin,” Seungmin interrupts. It brooks no room for argument, just the sound of his name being said that way.
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Hyunjin exhales. He tries again. “What happened is Changbin hyung scolded Jisung for yelling at Minho hyung, and then all of a sudden Jisung burst into tears. And then he ran to a corner where he’s been since. He keeps saying he wants Da, which makes zero sense to me. That’s not why I called you though— Seungmin, he’s bleeding.”
No longer struggling with his explanation, Hyunjin’s shoulders droop.
“Okay,” Seungmin starts. “So why did you call me about this?” That causes Hyunjin to falter.
“I- you-. You and Jisung are the c-closest right now. I thought if anyone knew what to do it would be you?” He finishes. It’s silent for a moment, but then
“Well in this case, you’re right. Now put me on speaker so I can talk to him.” Hyunjin rushes to do as Seungmin said, telling him the speakerphone is on a moment later. Hyunjin holds his breath, and prays this helps.
“Jisungie?” Jisung hears his Da-da’s voice echo throughout the room, and he looks around for him quickly. He’s nowhere to be found still, but Jisung is sure he just heard his voice. How?
“Da,” he cries quietly, hands wiping at his tear stained face. Jisung feels something wet smear across his cheeks where his hands are touching, but he assumes it’s from his crying.
“Baby, hey. What’s wrong, can you tell Da what happened?” Seungmin is gentle, and for the first time Jisung begins to feel a small amount of calmness seep into him.
“Da, the meanies yelled at baby,” he sniffles. Jisung looks at Minho and Changbin defiantly, gaze letting them know that they’re the meanies.
“Someone yelled at you? Oh sweetheart I know how sensitive you are to that. It’s okay, I’m sure they didn’t want to hurt you baby. Da is coming now, but I need you to be good and wait for me okay? Can you do that?” Seungmin’s kind reassurance and instructions sort Jisung’s head back into calmness, tears no longer falling. He nods his head yes, and then his Da is laughing.
“I know my silly baby just nodded his head because he forgot I can’t see him! Tell me with words honey.”
“Yes Da-da, I wait,” Jisung answers verbally this time.
“I’ll be there so soon. Hyunjin, please take me off speaker now.” His Da’s voice disappears then, and it has Jisung freaking out once more. The fear and panic all come back one after another, before Jisung’s lower lip is wobbling and he feels like he’ll start crying any minute. His Da said he’s coming, but Jisung is scared he won’t. He left him with the meanies once, what’s stopping him from doing it again?
Suddenly, Jisung sees his rattle being held out to him. His eyes widen, looking at the rattle and then up at the person handing it to him. Felix is smiling gently at him, quietly urging him to grab the toy. Jisung reaches out for it hesitantly, grasping the rattle and shaking it. The rattle makes noise the minute he shakes it, and the sound has Jisung giggling happily. He continues to shake it, watching the little beads inside move with awe. He can feel someone wrapping his blanky around his shoulders, and if Jisung were feeling bigger he’d wonder how they knew where to find his stuff. As it is he’s not big, and so the thought never crossed his mind, too happy to be playing with his rattle over everything else.
Time slips away as he plays, at some point his other comfort toy- a pretend phone, was handed to him. Jisung doesn’t know how long he plays with the toys before his caregiver shows up, but here he is. Seungmin is panting in the doorway of the practice room, eyes resting on Jisung’s form. Jisung wants to run to him, but he can’t bring himself to move, trapped in the corner. He throws his arms out in front of him, crying out “Da!” once again in his last feeble attempt at getting the caregiver’s affection. Seungmin runs to Jisung then, scooping the little up from the ground and into his arms.
“Oh boo, look at you! My poor baby must’ve had it so hard today, Da-da is sorry for not being here sooner! You’re okay now, I’m here,” Seungmin is whispering to him, making Jisung feel safe for the first time all day. He rests his head on Seungmin’s shoulder, and puts his thumb in his mouth to suck on.
“Seungmin, what’s going on here? I’m really confused.” Minho looks at how calm and comfortable Jisung is in Seungmin’s arms, and it adds further to his confusion.
“I’ll have to explain it later, but he’s dropped into little space. He’s never done that before without me, so I’m not surprised with what happened. Also, when he’s big again you and Changbin hyung both need to apologize to him.”
“We didn’t mean to hurt him—“ Changbin tries to defend, but Seungmin silences him with a hand in the air.
“I know you didn’t intend to hurt or upset him. But it happened anyway and you need to apologize, and take responsibility. I’m sure it’ll make Jisung feel better, and he might even apologize to you both as well, because that’s what he does. Now, if you’ll excuse us I need to go clean the smeared blood off his face, and clean out the cuts from his palms.” Seungmin doesn’t wait for a reply, and instead walks himself and Jisung out of the room.
He grabs Felix on the way out, dragging him with them to the bathroom.
“I need help cleaning Sungie up. You don’t mind, do you?” Felix fiercely shakes his head no, moving to help Seungmin with cleaning the boy up. Seungmin works on his face, wiping the blood and tears away gently. He kisses his little nose, and blows air on his damp cheeks, making the little giggle. Meanwhile Felix works on his hands, cleaning the blood from the small cuts from Jisung’s nails. The crescent shaped cuts make Felix sad, wishing his friend had never felt the need to cause himself pain like this.
“I think someone should cut his nails so this doesn’t happen again,” Felix suggests.
“I used to cut them all the time, this was a rather frequent thing Jisung did back then. He hasn’t done it in forever though, so I let him keep them a little longer. I didn’t expect this situation would happen though, I’ll go back to cutting them now.” Felix nods at Seungmin’s explanation. Questions fly through his mind, and Felix doesn’t bother stopping them from tumbling out.
“When did this even start? You taking care of Sungie like this.”
Seungmin hums pensively before saying, “I guess it started somewhere after our promotions with “I Am You?” Yeah, somewhere after that comeback was when he came to me about being little, and I offered to help him.” The caregiver blows a raspberry on Jisung’s cheek, and the little squeals happily. It makes Felix want to laugh in his own happiness.
“That’s a long time, how did you keep it so well hidden?”
“It wasn’t easy. Finding time together where no one was around so Jisung could be little was hard at first. Keeping our friendship the same in the group was a little hard- I wanted to be around him more but Jisung was worried we’d look suspicious. It was all just trial and error really.” Felix accepts the answer easily, and is finally done cleaning the little’s hands. He stands up from his squatting position, and Seungmin picks Jisung back up from where he had him sitting on the sink in the bathroom.
They go back to the practice room where all their things are, and Felix gathers his own bag first. Then he gathers Jisung’s things, surprised at the rather spotless state of the rattle. He was sure there was dry blood on the toy too.
“I cleaned it with some wipes while you guys went to the bathroom.” Felix whirls around to see Minho’s sheepish expression. He smiles at his hyung, and thanks him for Jisung and Seungmin. All six of them leave the room together, ready to head back to the dorm. Felix is curious about whatever happened to their second schedule, but with the chaos of today he’s hoping it was canceled. He thinks they’ve had enough excitement after all, and judging by the way Jisung is nodding off on Seungmin’s shoulder, he’s sure at least one other person agrees.