Still A_Stray: Living With Stray Kids (ot8 fanfic)

Chapter 26 ★

TW for this chapter: mild swearing, very vague allusions to domestic violence

Rolling in the deep inside my head

A mundane fact about me is that my mouth gets ridiculously dry when I sleep, and so I was pulled out of my dreams in the middle of the night with my tongue practically glued to the inside of my cheek and the cup of water on the nightstand empty.

I'd been having a nice dream, too. I wasn't sure what it was about exactly, but I knew that Claire was in it, because I could still remember the color of her eyes. I was thankful that even though I hadn't seen her in a while, I could still picture the exact shade of her irises, even in foggy dreamlands. Maybe that was what had made it a good dream.

Nevertheless, I stumbled into the kitchen, trying to make as little noise as possible. We'd all gone to bed somewhat late, courtesy of the far too-long game of Catan the members had dragged me into. There were only four colors, which meant the members had split into teams, which meant everybody was arguing twice as much—within their own group and with their opponents—which of course meant no one got anywhere. I had stayed behind to help clean up the game, so I knew that Felix and Jeongin were staying in the pullout in Chan's room and Minho was with Jisung. I was pretty sure Seungmin was sleeping with Changbin, but I didn't know—I'd left for bed before he had.

Despite all of this, there was still a large chance someone had ended up sleeping on the couch, so I was careful to be quiet as I padded into the kitchen, cup in hand. Even though I was virtually blind in the darkness—the sun had set long ago—I was priding myself for being stealthy.

Of course, that was when I tripped over a stool.

I grabbed the countertop to stop myself from falling, banging my elbow on the corner with a grunt of pain. The stool let out an oomph, revealing that it was not, in fact, a stool; I fumbled for the light switch, preparing to meet my perpetrator head-on. However, they found it first.

I was left blinking in the sudden brightness; had it been a robber or some kind of kidnapper, I probably would've been dead by then. Luckily, it was neither of the two.

"Seungmin, what are you doing awake? Go back to bed."

"That's rich, coming from you," Seungmin shot back, pulling his sweatshirt hood over his head to glare at me from where he sat, cross legged, on the floor. "Why are you in the kitchen at this hour?"

I held up my empty cup. "I was getting water. What's your reason?"

"Same as you," he said—a little too quickly for my liking.

I looked at him—really looked at him. Memories from before flashed through my mind, reminding me of how quiet he'd been all through dinner and Catan, not even protesting when Jisung beat him for the Longest Road. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, of course I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be? It's not like I'm sitting on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night or anything." He didn't meet my eyes.

I placed my cup on the counter and slid down onto the floor next to him, gently pulling off his hood. In the light, I could see that his eyes were red, his face streaked with tears, and my breath caught. I'd never seen him cry before. Seungmin turned his chin away, his jaw tensed. I wanted to comfort him right then—wrap my arms around him and bury whatever this was with hugs and whispered words—but I held myself back and instead said slowly, "I don't have anywhere else to be right now. I certainly won't be able to go back to sleep. So ... if there's anything you want to tell me, I'm here."

"It's nothing," he said quietly, still playing a game of hide-and-seek with me: if I can't see you, then you can't see me.

"Or if you don't feel comfortable telling me, Chan is probably awake—"