#just don't read if you can't handle dark themes and SEVERE angst and strong descriptions of suicide :D | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kaiso-woo · 6 months

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Just Stay.

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-> Masterlist

PART 1 of my ‘Stay Series’ - a long hypothesised journey of a relationship between Bang Chan and Reader.

WC: 6.8k | Overall ‘Stay Series’ Synopsis: Bang Chan experiences the suic!des of Stays, so when you lot choose to die, he dies right along with you. Reader is the “antidote” to this condition.

Notes: Second Person Narration, Skz Fluent in English, Swearing, CaféOwner!Reader, Fem!Reader, Idol!Chan, Barista!Chan, Suic!de (Strong Descriptions), ANGST (LITERALLY EVERYWHERE, NO NEED TO SQUINT), Fluff (At the End)

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PART 1

!!Casual reminder this is entirely fictitious - Chris/Christopher in my work does not represent the actual Bang Chan - this is purely my imagination and nothing more - this goes for all other SKZ-Members too!!

What should you do when you witness the end of a life? Cry and wallow in the darkest corners of disconsolation? Feel your heart shatter, a million fractals of sharply glittering reflections exploding in a mere fraction of a second? Some believe time is nothing more than an illusion though – so should you instead decide to lie on your bed, a place of restless solace, and stare up at the empty ceiling?

If this were the case, could you then be compared to a lonely garden gnome, fated to ponder life’s every aspect through a single perspective? Would you shrivel away from the light, choose to accept the pitiful concept of simply existing and allow your garden to wither; green to grey, flesh to bones, petals to stems? Perhaps your coping mechanism is to simply scream. Shut the doors. Close your blinds. Block your ears. Scream. Dry your eyes. Breathe…

Scream.

He does none of those. Instead, his eyes flutter closed momentarily, chest heaving, hands shaking, before he pulls himself away and picks up the computer mouse again. They’re becoming more frequent, or maybe he’s becoming more attune to them.

He doesn’t witness these deaths, exactly. He feels them; what it’s like to have the frigid wind tug at your hair, howling in your ears, the moment of impact with the blistering ground causing him to flinch violently, hand clamped over his mouth in a desperation to quell any yell; what it’s like to have your vision swim, blotting in and out of darkness, your throat constrict as though a pressure is forcing its way from inside out, desperate, erratic gulps for sweet sweet oxygen achieving nothing; what it feels like to stand there, shivering, your heart rate increasing tenfold, breaths quickening to mere pants, as you will every instinct in your body to remain still – ‘do not move’, you think, ‘it’ll be over soon’, you remind yourself, ‘the lights are closer now, and they’re fast, they won’t stop’.

How dearly he wishes for them to stop.

He’s better at dealing with them now, definitely more subtle. The panic that envelopes him every time he realises something is about to happen however, will never leave him. He’ll drop what he’s holding, frantically disappear into one of the empty rooms in the company building, lock the door and rake a hand through his hair. The number of times the stylists have grumbled at him for messing up his styled hair is limitless, but he doesn’t care, why should he?

The studio door clicks open, and his head snaps to the sound. Immediately, he attempts to steady his breath, and pulls his expression into his signature straight smile :] as Jisung enters the room, a plastic bag filled with takeaway containers in his hand.

“Eh? What’re you doing here…?” Chan grins, his eyes widening dramatically. Swiftly, he swipes his computer mouse to the top of the screen to check the time.

2.23am

“It’s so late Jisung, were you practicing choreo?” he continues, hitting save on his keyboard so he doesn’t accidentally delete his work while distracted. “I brought you food,” Jisung mumbles, lowering it onto the coffee table and carefully unpacking it all. Chan’s mouth begins to salivate excessively as the smell of chicken wafts towards him, but he rubs his face and resists the urge to sit down with Jisung and eat to his heart’s content.

Jisung plucks a drumstick from the box, “Why are you working here alone?” he questions, a sad pout on his chubby cheeks as he wanders over to the computer, careful not to drop any crumbs. Chan shrugs, hoping it’ll satiate Jisung’s concern.

It doesn’t, of course, and his pout morphs into a small frown. Jisung tries to shove the chicken into Chan’s mouth, offering it to him demandingly. “You eat, you eat,” Chan waves it away and turns back to his computer, “You wanna listen? I think it’s almost finished, something’s just not right with the auto tune… I think. It sounds off,” he picks the headphones off the desk and holds them out for Jisung, who has taken a bite of the chicken happily and is munching away. Again, he tries to give Chan the chicken drumstick, and refuses to take the headphones until Chan is eating the chicken.

As Jisung listens to the song, Chan’s mind drifts back to the corners of his thoughts, the shadows that have been swirling there for a long while now. He doesn’t know when it first began, doesn’t want to remember it to be honest. He was in his room, dozing off into a comfortable sleep, the purple LEDS providing a soft glow to the darkness.

It was abrupt, swinging into him out of nowhere, but he sat bolt upright, hands grappling with the sheets desperately. His vision swam, and he retched on dry air. He groaned and keeled forwards, hands suddenly clutching his chest as it tightened painfully – corkscrewing into his heart, but at the same time it was as though someone was trying to pry it open. He retched again, and he regretted in that moment that he had chosen purple to light his room earlier. The colour was making his head pound, his belongings swimming in and out of his vision, worsened by his unstable swaying.

In a panic, he crawled over to the side of his bed. Then with a last hacking cough, he vomited onto the floor, the acrid taste on his tongue causing him to recoil, the stinging burn in his throat making his eyes water. Not that it mattered. He couldn’t see shit anymore. A dry sob escaped his lips, as he desperately tried to fumble for something to ground him back to reality. He saw speckles – grainy, fuzzy, surreal.

The world tilts, and maybe he falls off the bed too. And he’s gone.

“It’s not the auto tune effect – it’s the timing of the bridge,” Jisung drags Chan back to reality, his head bopping slightly to the music. Chan blinks and scoots aside to allow the younger to fiddle with the computer mouse, rewinding the audio so he can listen again. Chan is finishing off the chicken drumstick, so he hums in acknowledgement instead to Jisung’s feedback. “Yeah, it’s the bridge. The vocals need to be delayed a little,” Jisung concludes, “Want me to fix it up?”

In the silence of the room, Jisung pulls over another chair and gets to work. Chan watches him contentedly for a while, happy to absorb himself in the clicking and tapping of his first child’s proceedings - watching him edit and perfect the track they’ve been working on for the past few months. Jisung glances at Chan, his concentration breaking, “You’re unusually quiet.”

Chan reaches over and squeezes his shoulder comfortingly, “Just thinking.” “Right... well, eat more. And then go to bed,” Jisung insists, briefly squeezing the hand on his shoulder in return. Chan sighs and hoists himself out of his chair, sinking back onto the couch so he can easily dig into the food. “Thanks mate,” he mumbles, and when the man makes no move of acknowledgement, Chan smiles softly and nibbles on some more chicken.

He woke that time, on the floor of his bedroom, dangerously close to the stinking heap that was his vomit. His head pounded, a dull ache ringing in his skull as he mustered all his strength to simply stand up and pull over the blinds.

“What the fuck was that?” He groaned, resting his head on the window and basking in the warmth of the early morning sun, so comforting, so full of life – a steady presence. After he spent the next ten minutes gathering his wits and cleaning up the mess, he brushed it off as food poisoning; maybe something in the food Hannah cooked last night (he’d never tell her that, of course).

On another day, in another place, maybe a few weeks from then, he had returned to Korea, jumping straight back into his busy schedule. They were in the middle of an interview, not the first, and certainly not the last. In hindsight, he was thankful he had chosen to stand in the back row. At first he thought he merely needed to cough, a ticklish sensation wrapping around his throat, a ghost of a hand caressing his neck. He swayed dangerously when he felt it tighten harshly, so suddenly, and his heartbeat escalated, his legs becoming jelly.

His head snapped back as his whole body teetered over the edge of the platform he was standing on. A searing pain blazed across his neck for a second, causing him to grapple with it in shock. Changbin grabbed his arm at that point, preventing him from completely falling over backwards.

“You okay?” he whispered, careful not to draw too much attention to the pair, professional as always. Chan corrected himself and tried to control his breathing, forcibly inhaling and exhaling through his nostrils. He pulled a face, his eyes wide, and waved his arms a little, “Thanks. Almost lost my balance there.”

Throughout the rest of the interview, he remained silent, thinking hard. What just happened? And why did it feel like… he had just been… hung?

It took him months to string two and two together, months of spontaneous moments of death, in which he remained alive. He’d be drowned countless times, be stabbed infinitely, shot in the head, electrocuted, run over by train… after train… after train, until he fully accepts that these were all connected.

As time wore on, he began to hear things too, inner monologues he supposed, of their voices. He figured if this condition, whatever it was, lasted long enough, he’d soon be able to see it too.

Stay. Just stay. Stay’s. It’s you. You’re not staying. He was burning in the middle of a fire. That much was obvious by the scorching pain on his skin, brutal enough that he just wished he couldn’t feel. He screamed into the couch pillows, knowing full well that the studio was soundproof, but paranoid all the same that any of his members would hear him.

‘Thank you Stray Kids, for everything.’

Stay. He couldn’t tell at this point whether the pain was his or from the person who was dying. Both, perhaps. All this time, the people who were dying, the people who were killing themselves, were Stay’s. Or maybe this time was a coincidence, maybe this person just happened to be a part of the fandom.

It wasn’t though.

More and more often, in the midst of some version of death, he heard thoughts, whispers:

“You got me this far Stray Kids.” “Skz you’re my everything.” “Keep fighting Stray Kids.”

“Chan, I love you.” “Thank you Chan.” “Life was good thanks to you, Chan.”

Fuck. This. Shit.

Stay.

His members were either dense, playing dumb or he was an incredible actor and the sneakiest being on all of planet earth. He had no idea how he had managed to hide this, for so long, and not hear a peep out of any of them.

Sure, he attributed his puffy eyes (from tears) to a lack of sleep, or too much time in front of a computer screen. Maybe his lack of sleep could be contributed to insomnia, not that he genuinely didn’t want to sleep with the fear that he might wake abruptly to a strangling death. Again.

More recently, in an attempt to be more cautious, when that panic settles in - a familiar feeling of fear, 'I can do this. I'm going to do it. I want to die. Do I want to die?' - he'd excuse himself to the bathroom.

“Chan hyung’s gone to the bathroom.” – posts Hyunjin.

Yeah. To die.

He yawns, stretching as he returns to the studio from a genuine bathroom break. He’s excited to return to his work; a sample he’d stumbled across waiting to be incorporated into a new song. After he shuts the door, he checks the time on his phone.

There’s an hour and a half until 12am– he needs to do Chan’s Room soon too, it’s Sunday. He was comforted by Chan’s Room, to see so many Stay’s on his lives, thankful to have them there, rather than at the top of a building, or sinking at the bottom of a river. He decides that the sample can wait – it’s saved anyway.

He flipped his black hood over the top of his cap, carefully adjusting it so it was presentable, and began to set up the live. He had a few songs in mind that he’d play for you all but was really hoping you’d contribute to the song suggestions too. He smiled, and he laughed, and he danced along to the songs, joyously reading your comments and responding with enthusiasm despite it getting later into the night.

Then the mood shifted when his eyes skimmed over a particular comment. He froze, and his bubble of security popped. He wasn’t sure if he had managed to blot you out, or if the fear had only crossed through after you had sent that message, but he was positive that the person who typed the question, was the person currently pressing a knife to his heart – a small, sharp prick on his chest.

Chan inhaled sharply and swivelled in his chair, “Yeah don’t… don’t hurt yourself, yeah?” The chat exploded with questions and comments, wondering why he was bringing it up and offering words of comfort. The sharp pain on his chest receded slightly, but the fear was still there, the emotional pain ever present. “Just because you have a lot of stress, it doesn’t mean that you have to relieve it by hurting yourself.”

There. Same user. New comment. ‘Your future isn’t worth living for’? Bullshit.

“If you think about the future… it’s best to just keep away from that and find different ways of relieving stress.” Self-consciously, he fiddles with his hoodie drawstrings and swivels in his chair again, desperate to hide the panic flicker across his features briefly. The knife was back.

“You never know what’s going to happen in the future. Something might go wrong, then there might be a turning point and then- from then on you feel really, really regretful,” he’s rambling at this point, thoughts unhinged, spluttering and mixing like mush in his brain. He just needs to get you to stay.

He takes a deep breath, and drills his eyes into the camera, pleading with what little he could offer, “If you really, really can’t help it or if you really just don’t know what to do or you’re really- really lost, as I’ve always said,” he smiles, eyes shimmering, “come here; look for me, ask me, talk with me.” He waits, praying, fiddling his thumbs below the desk.

And the agonising feeling fades, leaving him deflated, relieved.

“I’ll try my best to relieve your stress,” he concludes, then spreads his arms wide. He knows Stay didn’t ask for it, but he was offering one of his hugs more for himself than them.

His relief would be short-lived. He can’t save everyone.

I guess, it’s about time I introduce you. You, not as one of those who have given up. Not as one of those who have caused Chan’s suffering. I introduce you, as simply you. You, who carefully pulls your keys out of the café door. You, who draws down some of the shutters with a soft smile. You, as wonderful, loving, bubbly you.

You make your rounds around your haven, your café. It’s a combination of everything you could possibly imagine to be creative. It’s been your dream to create a safe hub for the public that incorporates a library, a café, study area, art studio, computer labs, rehearsal room and even a recording studio.

Pets were welcome, of all kinds, as long as they wouldn’t fight with each other, and you were open from 7.30am in the morning until 1am the following day.

If anyone fell asleep studying, working on music or reading, you’d leave them where they were and pull out the blankets you kept in storage. The policy for this was simply a bond of trust. Customers could stay working for the night as long as they didn’t mind watching you drift around in the morning in your bedhead and PJ’s, slowly beginning to set up for a new day.

You would always offer them a morning hot chocolate, coffee or tea, free of charge, but more often than not, they’d leave their money on the counter when you turned away, refusing to let you best them in a game of generosity.

Books could be borrowed, studios and study rooms booked, pets left in the backyard day/night day care. Equipment was supplied in all the rooms, instruments for loan, computers to log into, art tools for perusal. The rule for these? Don’t break them. If customers break them, they pay for them.

If something run’s out, let you know. You only offered the basic necessities anyways, so you restocked them yourself. Anything else customers bring for themselves. It was safe. It was cosy. It was yours. Yours to give. Admittedly, you still had to pay off the loan you took out to set up the place, and if time grew short you were considering shutting down the recording studio – it was the least used area.

You pushed the last few stray chairs in as you considered whether to make yourself a final cup of tea before settling down in your apartment upstairs. There were two people currently dozing in various locations of Café Studio, one of whom was a regular. A third customer was sipping the last dregs of his coffee, watching your humble movements out of the corner of his eye.

“Mind if I call it a night on one of your couches?” he asks, scraping back his chair to place his mug on the counter by the coffee machine. That’s James. James fucking Jamison. Always here for whatever reason, never not here, where you wanted him to be. You withhold a sigh and the temptation to pinch the bridge of your nose, “Yeah, go for it. You know the drill.”

You welcome all customers, all are valuable guests. Except for him. He just won’t take a hint.

He saunters idly over to you, hands in his pockets, and clears his throat, “So… are you sure you won’t be free any time this week?” You can feel his eyes drilling into your back and scrunch your nose distastefully, pulling out your phone as if to check something, “I can’t, I run this place.”

He’s still staring at you, so you whisk your earphones out from a pocket in your apron and plug them into your ears. It doesn’t take you long to press shuffle on your playlist, and immediately your current favourite song begins to play, as if it knows exactly what would help you through this situation, or maybe they knew.

“What if you just shut the place down for the day?” he asks with an awkward laugh, running his hand through his hair dramatically. So cool. You roll your eyes and turn around to face him, internally dancing to the song in your ears. You give him a once over, genuinely considering him, “I can’t shut down my only source of income for a day.” “Even for-”

“Especially not for you.” The two of you stare at each other and you can sense that somewhere in those blue eyes of his, you’ve angered him. He’s not pleased, and he never has been with your constant rejections, but so far he hasn’t tried anything. He would be stupid to do so, with surveillance cameras set up everywhere and two customers sleeping not far away.

Go kill yourself.

You wince as sharp pain crackles across your forehead, “Sorry what?” James blinks at you quizzically, his sizzling demeanour vanishing at your confusing outburst. “I didn’t say anything.”

Go. Kill yourself.

You hiss, hand clutching your forehead, and stumble into the nearest table. James is onto you in a second (“Woah there”) trying to support you, when the table was doing just fine. “Back off,” you snap, pushing him away, which causes you to stumble back into the window, the last one without its shutter pulled down, “and shut up.” Again, he blinks at you, ever the stupid dolt he is.

‘Heh… funny.’ Why’d I say that?

Desperately, you swivel and press your forehead to the cool of the glass window, groaning in agony. The music playing in your earphones becomes too much, so you tug them out of your ears, your phone lighting up on the paused song of “Silent Cry”, by Stray Kids.

I wonder if it’ll still be funny after- if I-

You crack your eyes open and peer outside, dimly trying to discern whether this was a voice in your head, or a voice in real life. It spoke with a pained clarity, exhaustion numbing what could have been a voice of laughter and passion. How you knew this, you had no idea.

“Hey, are you good? Are you on your period or something?” James piped up helpfully, and if you weren’t so heavily concentrated on scanning your surroundings outside you might have kicked him out of your store right then and there.

Then you spotted someone. A lone figure, shrouded in the hazy glow of a streetlight, leaning over the bridge railing. Café Studio was located on the banks of the local river, wide enough for boats to barge through, deep enough to be terrified of the unknown creatures writhing within.

You watched, the incessant pounding in your head diminishing the longer you stared at the figure. If he wasn’t standing in the middle of the light, you wouldn’t have spotted him in his completely black outfit. Someone certainly wasn’t one for colour. He leaned further over the railing, clutching his beanie to his head as though afraid it would fall off in the wind.

In seconds, you had ripped your phone and headphones from your apron, leaving it on one of the tables, and fumbled with the key to unlock the café door. It was chilly out, but you ignored the goosebumps speckling your skin, and James’ confused fucking shouts – like would the guy stitch his mouth shut please.

That was him. The idiot leaning too far over the railing was the one whispering nonsense in your brain. How you came to this conclusion was to anyone’s guess, but it was him. In the seconds it had taken you to sprint over to him, he had clambered on top of the railing, balancing precariously, his hands in his hoodie pockets, gazing into the depths of the water.

Maybe in another life, if you weren’t out of breath trying to stop him from ending it all, you might have been enamoured by his features. As you drew closer, you could make out the defined cut of his jaw, his wide shoulders, plush lips tinged with pink from the cold, dark eyes alluringly intimidating. This wasn’t that life though, and you paid no attention to any of it really.

A dawning realisation settled on your features however, after a brief assessment of his face caused you to realise that you knew him, perhaps not personally, but still knew him. “Bang Chan?” you whisper, the name falling from your lips in a panicked whisper, “Chan no…” your legs work harder, and you pray almost deliriously that he doesn’t do it. Don’t do it. He can’t.

“Bang Chan!” you yell, losing all sense of discipline as he sways gently, contemplating, “Chan!!” he doesn’t appear to hear you, absorbed in his own mind. You’re there, you’re right there, and this time, when you call desperately, “Christopher!” his eyes snap up to meet yours.

It’s this particular moment, that will be ingrained in your mind in the following years. The way his eyes spark in shock at the sight of you, then relax, as though he understands, and has complete control over everything in his life.

Without hesitating, you snatch at his clothes and tug him backwards. His heavy body crashes into yours, but you don’t care. You wrap your arms safely around his waist as you tumble to the paved path in a heaped mess of clothes and limbs.

He wriggles around in your grasp, trying to position himself more comfortably, and eventually wind up staring each other dead in the face, blinking through your lashes up at him, his palms on either side of your head.

An uncomfortable silence settles between you, fizzing in the limited space between your faces. Then without warning, you roughly shove your hand behind his head and pull him down into a hug, tears beginning to stain your cheeks.

“What the fuck? What the fuck?” you croak, needlessly shoving your hand underneath his beanie so you can tangle it into his curled hair, “What the actual fuck, were you doing?!” you cling to him tighter, and your breath escapes in garbled gasps that quieten to silence when you feel the trickle of wet tears on your neck.

Gently, you remove your hand from his head and relax your body, allowing him to remove himself from you if he so wished. He burrows his face further however, his arms collapsing onto his elbows, and suddenly you can hear him sobbing.

The tears on your neck weren’t your own. He sounds so broken, crying his heart out as though he were a lost little child who dropped his ice cream. The raw emotion and lack of restraint in his sobbing scrapes at the threads of your heart, and again, you’re crying. Crying with him, for him – understanding everything, and nothing at the same time.

Eventually, you wipe the tears from your face, trying to figure out what to do next. You need to comfort him, talk to him, remind him that he’s worth this world, and the world doesn’t deserve him because by god- if anyone knew even a scrap of what this man meant- he’s laughing. Why is he laughing?

His warm breath tickles your neck as he chuckles, his sobs magically morphed into an amused laughter, which is the most concerning thing by far. Chan pulls away from you, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he laughs and hastily dries the tears on his face.

“Sorry. I am so sorry you had to see that,” he grins, and you frown at him. “Sorry I had to see what? You almost jump off a fucking bridge, or your tears? It better not be the latter Christopher, or I’ll gladly rewind time and push you over myself.” Almost immediately, you regret the words tumbling out of your mouth when his face crumbles again, “Would you really?” he whispers, sitting up beside you.

“No. No I was kidding. I was just- you’re allowed to cry, Chan,” you sit up too, and then it’s just the both of you, sitting alone, a strange pair, by the railing of a bridge. “So you know who I am then?” he dutifully asks, gingerly fixing his beanie and offering a small smile.

“Yeah,” you take note of the way his posture deflates, and add quickly, “But it doesn’t matter. None of that matters. What matters is that you tried to…” your words die in your throat at the reproachful glint in his eyes, shimmering eerily in the lamplight. Instead, you stand up and offer him a hand. He cautiously accepts it, allowing you to help him stand with you. “Y/N Y/L/N. Nice to meet you,” you smile, giving his hand a shake. He stares at you, bemused, and shakes your hand back. “Christopher Bahng. And… thanks.” You’re not sure if he’s thanking you for stopping his plummet to death, or for helping him sit up, or for letting him cry… he could be thanking you for a lot of things, so instead, you do the next best option.

“Want to head over to my café? I’ll make you a cup of coffee,” you offer, flicking your head to the still lit building, where fucking James is standing outside, ogling you from afar, his hands on his hips. “Sure… only… I assumed you’d know I don’t drink coffee,” he shoves his hands into his hoodie pockets again, and as your eyes slide from James and then back to the man in front of you, you suddenly struggle to process everything that’s just happened.

“Why would I? We just met,” you flash him a coy smile and lead the way. You stroll into the café, holding the door open for Chris so he can step through, his hands still in his pockets. James makes to follow, but you slam the door shut in his face and lock the door swiftly.

“Uh…” Chris begins, his eyes wide, asking for an explanation. “No questions. He won’t leave me alone, and that’s that,” you grin brightly, then rush to disappear behind the café bar and begin to prepare him a drink. He seats himself on a stool and tries to watch as you work. You grow uncomfortable in the silence, especially with him watching you so closely, so you instinctively begin to ramble.

“This is Café Studio. You might have noticed by the sign out front.” He nods, indicating he’s paying attention. “I run this place entirely myself, and I live above…” You tell him everything you can think of, from the studios attached to the café, to your favourite pets that frequently get dropped off for day care or overnight stays. His eyes light up when you mention the recording studio, and you have a feeling he’ll go back to the topic after.

In no time, you have two hazelnut croissants prepared, a steaming mug of white hot chocolate for yourself, and a mug of caramel hot chocolate with a dusting of cinnamon for him (you refuse to tell him what’s in his drink, which makes him pout sadly because he loves it). You lapse into silence as you eat and drink, and you know you need to breach the topic again, somehow, you can’t just leave it unattended.

“Can I ask…” you begin, but he interrupts you smoothly. “I just wanted to see what it would look like.”

Chan knew he could never tell you that he’d experienced death a hundred times over in the past months. You’d think him insane.

You knew you could never tell him you heard his voice, loud and clear in your head. He’d think you delusional.

“About that… recording studio… does anyone use it?” he inquisitively asks, and you shake your head sadly in response, wiping croissant crumbs off your face. “Not really… I’m considering selling it. I need to repay the loan I took out, and if the recording room is just dead weight then I don’t see why-” “Don’t. It won’t be dead weight,” he hurries, and is about to say more before he reconsiders, “Mind if I check it out?”

Of course you don’t.

Chris returns to his hotel later that morning. It’s 4am by the time you crawl into bed, recounting the events of the day in a sluggish fashion. Only 2 and a half hours ago you had pulled him away from certain death.

A shiver disturbs your spine as you replay the memory, and you curl tighter into your blankets. What if you hadn’t? His inner monologue certainly didn’t sound like he simply just “wanted to see what it looked like.”

Somehow, you manage to drag yourself through the rest of the morning, living off a few hours’ sleep at most. Thankfully, there aren’t many customers to begin with, giving you a chance to get organised a little later than usual. Chris had left with a small smile and a wave, and you watched him disappear down the street, a part of you worried he’d decide to try the bridge again.

He returns in the afternoon with the same small smile and wave, shocking you to the core. He’s got a cap pulled low over his eyes, hood pulled neatly up, and a black mask obscuring most of his face.

The only reason you recognise him this time is because of those actions, and the particular way his eyes crinkle, disappearing when he genuinely smiles. Quietly, he asks for the same drink you made him earlier that morning and asks to borrow the recording studio – “change of scenery,” he explains casually.

As the days go by, he visits as often as he can, always with those same twinkling eyes, and always still carefully covered up. You have no idea how he’s managed to convince his company to continuously let him out in public without staff, nor how long he’s staying here for.

He must be on vacation or something because this was certainly not Korea. You frequently check up on him too, never hesitating to ask whether he needs any support. He shakes his head every time and stares at you unblinkingly, trying to convey a message through only his eyes.

You’re already helping him. This haven, your haven, is helping him already. You don’t know this of course. Nor do you know that his odd connection to suicidal Stay’s has ceased. He hasn’t felt them in ages, and in a twisted way, he’s relieved – hasn’t felt this light in a while.

“Mind if I book the whole café out for a day?” he mumbles to you from your side, his hands nimbly working with the coffee machine to produce an order for a customer. One day he had asked if you could teach him a few things on the machine. Before long he knew how to make every drink, and happily watched underneath his mask as customers sipped his creations.

Every drink that is, except for the special one you made for him – it was actually your Mum’s recipe. You refused to teach him, but he could easily figure out the ingredients and method to make it for himself by now, if he really wanted to, which perplexed you every time he asked you to teach him.

Truthfully, he didn’t really want to know. He just liked seeing the tiny crease on your forehead and adorable smile whenever you refused. And now… he had even more reason to come back. For the hot chocolate. Definitely.

“The whole-? Library and everything?” you inquire, as you refill the jar of chai powder. “Mhm,” he hums, nodding to a regular as they float by, “Staff want us to film a Skz-Code Episode while we’re here, and they left it up to us to decide where.” “Oh. Sure. What do you need, for me to close up for the day?”

“I want you to stay though. Don’t disappear upstairs to your apartment… please. Can you stay and… watch?” he innocently asks, and you stare at him in surprise, clipping the jar in your hands shut with a snap, “Am I allowed to?”

It turns out that would be their last day. They returned to Korea on the following. In hindsight, you wish you had hugged Chris tighter when he tackled you with one before they left after filming, raising the eyes of several staff members and causing the Skz Members to chuckle with one another.

Chris was hugging you because he would miss you, and he was afraid that if he left, the traumatic episodes would return.

You were hugging him because you were full to the brim with Stray Kids’ warmth and happiness, but also because an unfamiliar safety nestled into your stomach as he hugged you, burying his face into your neck – the same place he had where he first met you.

“See ya soon, mate!” Felix called, carrying a box of your brownies. He had given you his recipe, and you eagerly followed its instructions while you watched them record their episode, smiling contentedly at their tinkering laughter, “These taste better than mine!”

“No one can beat Felix’s brownies,” Hyunjin muttered through a smile, but he’s happily munching on one of yours all the same. Jisung also has his mouth stuffed, his chubby cheeks wobbling as he nods his head. Seungmin offered you a polite handshake, and Jeongin an energetic round of high fives.

Somewhere in the distance, Changbin calls out your name, and performs a half heart above his head. You complete it, sticking your tongue out playfully. Not surprisingly, you and Chris have to duck back inside the café to hunt down Minho, who’s been playing with the cats left in your care for the day.

You didn’t find out that Stray Kids were leaving until that night when you spotted a live of them on your YouTube at the airport, and your heart plummeted with a sadness you couldn’t explain.

What… a strange… dream.

Everything become’s more surreal when you discover an envelope by the coffee machine the next morning, tucked neatly under the corner where Chris would usually stand to make his coffee’s. You pull it out carefully; there’s no name penned on the front. Curiously you pull out two sheets of paper. The first you open is in Chris’ handwriting (he had been leaving random notes and scribbling his signature wherever he could during his visits, so you were relatively familiar with it now),

A B C D E F G I wanna send my code to you Eight letters is all it takes And I’m gonna let you know

Lyrics. You flip over the paper and stare in a daze at the phone number scribbled there. Further down the page, there’s more lyrics, but from a different song.

Together, I feel time has flown so fast In my time, memories are crowded I didn’t know the sky was so clear like this until I met you I thought the sun was only scorching Thank you for coming to me And becoming the same shadow as mine before approaching the light

“Chris you cheesy ass,” you laugh, heartbeat thumping loudly in your chest.

You can STAY.

You’re so lost in your own thoughts that you almost forget about the second piece of paper. It’s a receipt. And on the bottom, are more words written in his handwriting.

The loan for Café Studio has been paid off, and the rent on your apartment. It’s all yours now. You can thank me when I come back.

Your eyes widen, and a small gasp leaves your lips. You fumble for your phone and add his number to your contacts. Then sparing no second, type out a message.

(A/N: When dialogue is in script format, it's meant to represent text messages)

You: “No you did not”

In the few seconds that you stare at your message, that you sent to Chris, disbelief written across your features, your phone buzzes with a response.

Chris: “Oh but I did”

You laugh, the sound gradually increasing as you throw your head back, giddy, a delicate pink tinge warming your cheeks.

“Something good happen?” James interrupts, rapping his knuckles on the counter to get your attention, “No side barista with you today? Who was he anyways, and what was with that mask?” “He’s… a good friend. Care for some tea?” “But I don’t like-” “Perfect.”

What should you do when you witness the end of a life? Cry and wallow in the darkest corners of disconsolation? Feel your heart shatter, a million fractals of sharply glittering reflections exploding in a mere fraction of a second? Some believe that time is nothing more than an illusion though – so should you instead decide to lie on your bed, a place of restless solace, and stare up at the empty ceiling?

Chris: “Are you awake?” You: “I am now” Chris: “Sorry go back to sleep” You: “I was kidding Christopher” You: “Of course I’m awake” Chris: “That’s not a good thing” You: “Look who’s talking” You: “Are you all good? Can’t sleep?” Chris: “Just felt like a chat”

They only visited him in nightmares, he discovered, which was still an improvement from before.

You: “Sure” You: “Care to explain your latest Insta post?” Chris: “No haha” You: “You burnt Stayville to the ground” You: “I think that deserves an explanation”

Chris smiles and flops back into his pillow. It certainly was an improvement from before. His mind was working over the possibilities, the many different choices he could make from here on out. Did you have something to do with this condition? Were you the solution to it all? What was it about you, exactly, that drew him to you?

You can thank me when I come back, he had written.

He thinks… he’ll be back for sure.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺

-> PART 2 -> Masterlist

Yay! Milestone Event 1, Check!

Feedback is always appreciated, negative and positive alike. I apologise for any editing or formatting errors, I’m forever learning.

Until next read! - Kaisowoo

#bang chan #bang chan fluff #bang chan x reader #stray kids #bang chan angst #bang chan fanfic #bang chan x you #bang chan fic #suicide #feminine reader #cringecheeseycornycrap #swearing #wth idk what other tags to include #just don't read if you can't handle dark themes and SEVERE angst and strong descriptions of suicide :D #bang chan imagines #skz #stray kids fanfic #stray kids x reader

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