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Ni-ki woke from the dream with his heart aching in the quiet way that hurt more than panic ever did. In the dream, everything had been simple. He had peace — not the fragile kind that cracked when someone looked at him wrong, but real peace. The kind that stayed. And Heeseung was there too, close enough that Ni-ki didn’t feel like he was constantly reaching for something just out of grasp.
Reality took it back the second his eyes opened.
The building was already loud, even when it was quiet. Hallways that echoed, glass that reflected him back in pieces. Sometimes, when he stood near the windows, the thought drifted in uninvited. Would anyone really care if he fell from the HYBE building? The idea didn’t scare him as much as it probably should have. It felt distant. Manageable. Like a bad joke he could tell himself.
If he survived, he imagined the words leaving his mouth automatically, rehearsed and empty: I thought I could fly.
It sounded ridiculous.
Which meant people would believe it.
People believed ridiculous things all the time, especially when it made them uncomfortable to believe anything else.
Once, in the kitchen, he almost didn’t walk away. His hands were shaking, the room too bright, the noise pressing in on him from all sides. He caught Jake’s eyes across the counter. Jake paused, just for a second, and Ni-ki felt something dangerous bloom in his chest — hope. Maybe Jake would say something. Ask if he was okay. Tell him to sit down. Tell him to stop.
Ni-ki waited.
Jake looked away.
The moment dissolved like it had never existed, and Ni-ki felt stupid for thinking it had. He stood there a second longer than necessary, then moved, because that’s what he always did. Keep moving. Don’t make it awkward. Don’t make it real.
No one ever did.
Not when it came to ENHYPEN.
On camera, they laughed easily. They leaned into each other, smiled wide, sold warmth like it was second nature. Fans loved those moments — clipped them, replayed them, called them proof. Ni-ki watched himself inside those memories and felt nothing but distance.
It all looked real.
It just wasn’t.
They were K-pop idols. Every second was timed, filtered, rehearsed. Even love felt contractual. Especially love.
On camera, it always looked like Jake and Ni-ki were inseparable. Best friends. Laughing too loud, leaning too close, matching energy like it came naturally. Sunoo fit into the picture too — bright smiles, easy warmth, proof that ENHYPEN was a family.
Off camera, everyone minded their own business.
They passed each other in hallways, scrolled through their phones in the same room, existed side by side without really touching. No one asked questions. No one lingered long enough to notice when Ni-ki went quiet.
That night, Ni-ki dreamed again.
In the dream, he had everything he wanted. Peace came first — deep and still — and then the rest followed without effort. When he woke, his chest ached from how real it had felt.
Someone was beside him.
Konon lay close, her arms wrapped around him like she’d always been there. Her presence was warm in a way nothing else ever was. She smiled down at him and whispered,
“As long as I’m here, no one can hurt you.”
Ni-ki sucked in a sharp breath, panic flaring — but Konon only laughed softly and pressed two fingers to his nose.
“Don’t want to lie here forever,” she said lightly. “But you can learn to.”
Air vanished. His thoughts scattered. Just as the fear peaked, she pulled her fingers away.
Ni-ki gasped — and then felt it.
Lightness.
His body didn’t weigh anything anymore. The room tilted, and suddenly the bed was below him instead of around him. Konon took his hand and guided him out into the hallway, then toward the living room, her grip steady, confident.
None of the members noticed them.
Jake sat on the couch, phone glowing against his face. Sunoo laughed quietly at something on his screen. Others were there too — present, but not really. For now, Konon and Ni-ki were ghosts.
She stopped in front of the mirror.
Ni-ki looked — and flinched.
Reflected back at him were all the marks he’d given himself in the quiet hours of the night. Every secret he’d learned to hide. Every wound he pretended didn’t matter.
Konon stepped beside him, her gaze gentle but firm.
“If I could change the way you see yourself,” she said, gesturing toward the reflection.
Then she spun him around.
Ni-ki faced the living room again — his members, hunched over their phones, laughter muted, attention elsewhere. Alive. Unaware.
“You’d realize,” Konon murmured, “that right here… they don’t deserve you.”
Ni-ki broke the surface with a sharp gasp, water spilling everywhere as he lurched upright.
For a moment, nothing made sense. His chest burned. His vision swam. Then he saw it — the bathtub, the water sloshing over the edge, his own reflection warped and shaking.
Right.
Before the dream.
That was what he’d been doing.
Drowning himself.
He pressed a hand to the porcelain, breathing hard, trying to ground himself. Maybe it had all been a nightmare. Just another one. But the feeling clung to him — the certainty that someone had been there. That someone still was.
It reminded him of I-LAND in the worst way. Not the cameras or the stages, but the sense of being suspended in time. Like those years happened to someone else, and the person he’d been back then never really came back with him.
Ni-ki didn’t tell anyone. He never did. Letting people know meant expectations, meant hands reaching for him, meant promises he didn’t know how to keep. Someone would want something from him, and disappointing them felt worse than disappearing quietly.
Later — or maybe immediately, time felt unreliable — he slept again.
Ni-ki dreamed he had everything he wanted.
Peace came first. Then warmth. Then the familiar weight of arms around him.
When he opened his eyes, Konon was there.
She smiled like she always had, close enough that he didn’t feel alone for once.
“As long as I’m here,” she whispered, “no one can hurt you. Don’t want to lie here forever… but you can learn to.”
The room tilted.
Ni-ki felt himself lift, that same hollow lightness taking over as the floor slipped away. Konon didn’t ask him to follow — she just moved, and he went with her. The world reshaped itself quietly.
They stood in a graveyard.
The air was still. Names blurred together. Konon handed him a shovel, its surface dull and reflective. Ni-ki looked down and saw himself staring back — fractured, unfamiliar, marked by everything he tried not to see.
“If I could change the way you see yourself,” Konon said softly.
The ground gave way.
Ni-ki fell.
Darkness rushed up to meet him, dust clouding his vision as everything went weightless again. Just before the world disappeared completely, Konon’s voice reached him one last time, calm and certain.
“You’d realize here… they don’t deserve you.”
Black.
Ni-ki didn’t wake up , he was buried under that same grave and never crawled out.
Would he do it again?
And again.
And again.
The attempts blurred together, not as memories, but as urges — quiet, persistent, patient. Waiting for the next moment he felt small enough to vanish.