Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The traffic light blinked to red, the two cars slowing to a stop to join the long queue that was already starting to form in front of the busy afternoon crossroads. Jisung stared out of the windows, trails of raindrops blurring the outside world.

Next to him, Felix huffed under his breath, probably dissatisfied with something happening in his game. Jisung shot the screen a glance, but couldn’t make out much. He’d already taken out his lenses after their schedules ended, and he didn’t have the energy to try and make sense of the fuzzy blobs on the phone. Jeongin was also doing something on his phone, but Jisung couldn’t see more than a bright white coming from his screen, so he had no clue what it could be. In the front seat, Seungmin had his eyes closed, leaning against the glass of the window as he was probably listening to a podcast, same as always.

They were heading to their dorms, and though Jisung no longer lived with them, technically, he still liked to switch up cars every now and then simply for the vibes. The 3racha car was often… loud, or sometimes not even used because they were all night owls and didn’t go back to the dorms at the same time anyway. Opposite to that, the Minho & the kids’ car (as dubbed by Minho himself) was often a calm and peaceful place. Everyone did their own thing, the radio played softly in the background, and if they talked to each other, it was never to the level of shouting or belting as the 3racha car often got to.

So yeah, Jisung had asked to switch with Minho today, and he was really, really glad he did. He needed this after the grueling hours of working on those stupid songs. He was stuck on a couple of them for weeks now and at this point, it wasn’t even funny anymore how often he’d replayed the same couple of beats and verses.

“Do you think this will take much longer, sir?” Seungmin broke the silence, turning to the driver as he popped out one of his earbuds. The traffic jam they were stuck in appeared to be never ending, and Jisung could understand the slight impatience in Seungmin’s tone. He wanted to get home as quickly as possible too; they had an early start tomorrow again.

“Sorry, kid, but the next intersection where we can cut off is ten minutes away at this rate. I think it’ll be another thirty before we’ll be arriving at the dormitories.”

Seungmin sighed, putting back his earbud. “Ah, okay…”

Jisung felt the same disappointment, turning back to the window and staring at the blurry raindrops racing each other across the glass.

It was weirdly meditative, the way he didn’t even have the means to focus his vision and could just stare at those little reflective drops of water trail across the darkened glass. Like little sparkly dots dancing in front of him. The air oozed warmth and blanketed him, and the soft beats from the car radio finished it all. Jisung didn’t really mind, actually, if the traffic jam would take a bit longer. He was quite comfortable.

Felix yawned loudly, making Jisung huff in amusement. He looked away from the window (with a bit of a struggle, but he didn’t pay it any mind).

“You can lean on me if you want,” he offered, but Felix shook his head, pressing his lips together as he suppressed another yawn.

“ ‘m not tired.”

Jisung shot him an unimpressed look, nudging Felix’s leg with his shoe.

“I am too, Lix. And Innie’s already gone.”

They both looked over to Jeongin, who was breathing far too controlled and slow for him to be conscious anymore. He looked so small, curled up like that, his socked feet tucked atop his seat as his hair shielded his face. Felix sighed.

“I’m serious. I wasn’t-” Another yawn cut him off, and he made a small noise of annoyance afterwards. “I felt so energized just now. There’s this stream I wanted to watch when we’re home, and I still have to finish my dailies…”

Though his words did sound excited, Jisung watched in perplexment as Felix’s eyes started drooping in the middle of his sentences. He looked exhausted, but now that Jisung thought about it, Felix had still been a ball of energy when they’d ended practice just fifteen minutes before. Maybe he was already crashing? Somehow, that explanation sounded wrong.

“Sung, something- something’s not-”

“Felix?”

But Felix’s words were petering out, his head lolling to the side before his hands dropped his phone on his lap and his chin met his chest. He was asleep.

Now that was weird.

“Hey, Minnie, something’s wrong with Lix-”

Jisung bent forward to look around Felix and towards Seungmin, but found the younger already asleep against his side of the car as well, his mouth agape as he breathed softly.

Jisung frowned. Seungmin was awake less than a minute ago, and now he looked like he was sleeping deeply already. And the worst thing about it all? Jisung could feel his own mind slowing down as well, as if he was in bed, at the edge of falling asleep himself. This was far too coincidental to be natural. Something was weird. Something was wrong.

He knew this could be his anxiety talking. His paranoia sometimes reared its ugly head when he let it, but this time he didn’t fight it. Felix had tried to say something, maybe warn him for something, but what?

Immediately, his mind drew up a list of possible doom scenarios, going from having been drugged to slowly dying because of air pollution, and he shook his head, trying to dispel those thoughts before they could bring him to a full-on panic.

He turned to the driver, his last hope. The man was pointedly looking forward, occasionally zipping the car forward a bit and then stopping in the queue again. He looked unbothered, just doing his job. It wasn’t a driver Jisung knew, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Their company gave them different drivers every couple of months, depending on their schedules and the company they hired the people from.

The driver glanced for just a second in the rearview mirror, meeting Jisung’s eyes and quickly averting them again.

That was the last straw.

Jisung didn’t care if this was all just his imagination, he was jumping into action.

Step one of overcoming your fear: you have to confront it head-first.

“Hey, sir,” he called boldly, forcing himself to sit up straighter and open his eyes wider so he didn’t look and feel as tired as he did. “Are we almost home?”

The man grunted, but didn’t give him an answer. Not like how he answered Seungmin normally before.

“Well, are we?”

The man flat-out ignored him this time. That was just rude. The warmth all around him still made Jisung drowsy, and the soft pitter patter of the rain and the radio only made it worse, but he didn’t care. Fighting sleep was a skill he’d perfected over the years (an advantage of being part of the infamous 3racha, he supposed), and that’s why he was easily keeping himself aware. The rest had no such luck, which meant that it all came down to Jisung.

Since confronting the driver hadn’t gotten him any results, he went to the next step.

Step two of overcoming your fear: if confronting doesn’t work, get Chan.

He wasted no time in pulling up the 3racha group chat and messaging their leader, shooting him (and Changbin) a short message of: something weird’s going on, but idk what, and waited with bated breath for a response.

True to his reputation, their number one insomniac responded in a matter of seconds. But his answer did anything but ease Jisung’s mind.

U 2?
Lino, Jinnie and Bin are all out. This isnt normal

Jisung’s stomach dropped. His fingers shook slightly as he typed his response.

just stay awake, we’ll figure this out once we’re home

Jisung nodded to himself, gripping his phone tightly. He could do that. He was the champion of staying up when he was tired. His mind wouldn’t let him rest anyway.

The driver cleared his throat, making Jisung look up, though the man didn’t seem to want to say anything. Instead, he reached out to turn the radio a bit louder.

“Oh, that’s really not necessary, sir.”

The man ignored him again, going back to driving and pulling the car forward a bit. Jisung frowned. As soon as they got to the company tomorrow, he’d tell their manager they should change drivers again. This one had no manners at all.

Now that the radio was louder, he tried focussing on that to stay awake, but the soft low-fi beats only did the opposite. It was rhythmic, making his heart beat just as slow and controlled. Almost as if…

Jeongin’s breathing came to mind. Jisung turned his attention to his members and realized that all of them were breathing in the same pattern. Slow. Rhythmic. With the beat.

Jisung’s heart tried to speed up in fear at what he had discovered, but he found it couldn't anymore. It slowed down just as fast, making him involuntarily sag against his seat as his body was forced to relax by an unknown force.

It was almost as if the radio was doing this.

Suddenly, the driver turning it louder painted a far more sinister scene in his mind as he slowly connected the dots. He could feel his energy dissipating, his breath evening out, his eyes becoming heavy, but he fought it with every ounce of strength he had. He couldn’t risk falling asleep. Not like this. Not when something was wrong-

He could barely type anymore, his eyes not focussing at all on the words. Shit, he was losing the fight, wasn’t he?

He waited a second, then another. Chan never responded.

Jisung’s body slowly stopped responding to him too. His heart was seized with fear as his phone dropped from his lax hand and thudded between his shoes. In the back of his mind, the thought popped up that this really was the crappiest way to die. There were no awesome gun fights, no dramatic accidents, no yelling or crying or screaming or epic sacrifices. Everything was peaceful.

And that was the worst thing. Jisung was helpless to stop any of it, but he also felt so relaxed that he wondered if he even should want to stop it.

With that as his last thought, his eyes slipped closed, and his head hit the glass next to him. He was asleep soon after.