It started long before Niko ever knew. When he was a child, crying silently in the dark after his parents fought downstairs, a soft warmth filled the room. Hoseok knelt by his bedside, brushing invisible fingers through his hair. The fear didn’t vanish, but Niko found his thumb in his mouth and stared at the ceiling until sleep pulled him under. Hoseok stayed until morning.

Years later, Niko sat on a school rooftop, knees pulled to his chest. The voices inside his head were louder than the shouts of classmates below. You’re nothing. You’re too much. You’ll never be enough. Yoongi stood behind him, arms folded, gaze heavy with knowing. "You don’t have to believe them," he whispered, voice like thunder muffled in velvet. That afternoon, a teacher stopped Niko on his way out. “You alright?” they asked. He hesitated, then nodded—but something had already shifted.

At 17, when Niko lost his first love and thought no one could possibly understand the ache of disappearing from someone’s world, Jimin hovered nearby. The boy wept into a hoodie on the bus ride home. Jimin watched him gently, pressing one hand to Niko’s chest. "Love didn’t leave you," he said softly, "it just made room for something else." The pain didn’t vanish. But Niko breathed easier that night.

Namjoon stood beside Niko during a panic attack, silent but solid as stone. He didn’t try to make it stop. Just placed steady energy in the room. Slowed time with his presence. And when Niko finally gasped in air and began to sob in the kitchen floor, Namjoon placed a line into his heart: "This moment is not forever. You are still here." Niko held onto that thought for the next five years.

Taehyung brought color into the grayscale moments. When Niko felt detached from the world, like a background character in everyone else's story, a stranger gifted him a handmade bracelet. Another time, a cat rubbed against his leg and meowed until he smiled. Taehyung stood nearby, hands tucked in coat pockets, eyes soft. "You matter more than you think. Let me show you."

There was a night Niko stood in front of his mirror and hated everything. His skin. His voice. His very presence. Jungkook appeared then, his presence fierce and aching. He didn’t say anything at first. Just watched, pained. When Niko broke down, fists clenched, breathing sharp, Jungkook placed his hand over Niko’s reflection. "You’re still worth love. Even when you feel like this." The mirror didn’t lie. But that night, Niko didn’t break it.

Seokjin was the laughter that caught Niko off guard when he least expected it. The poorly timed joke. The internet meme that made him wheeze. The friend who sent a voice note that made him laugh until his stomach hurt. Jin never tried to fix the bad days—he just reminded Niko there were still good ones, too.

When the world felt quiet and heavy, they didn’t leave. When Niko pushed everyone away, they stayed. And when he smiled—really smiled, freely and without weight—seven lights gleamed brighter for a moment in the invisible plane above.

They weren’t waiting for him to be perfect. They were simply keeping him alive long enough to remember he was already enough.

Even when he forgot. Especially then.