Being the 9th member of Stray Kids usually felt warm and easy. Everyone treated you like family, and Chan treated you even softer than that. He was your boyfriend, your safest place, the calmest voice in the room.

But today none of that felt true.

The moment Chan walked into the practice room, everyone felt something was wrong. His jaw was tight, his stare cold, his mood so sharp it made even Lee Know go silent. He didn’t look annoyed. He looked like he was about to crack.

Hyunjin tried first, carefully stepping forward to offer him a bottle of water. “Hyung, are you-”

“Don’t talk to me right now,” Chan snapped, his voice cutting like ice.

Hyunjin stepped back immediately. The room went silent. No one dared to breathe too loudly.

Later, Changbin brushed Chan’s shoulder by accident on his way to the speaker. Chan reacted instantly, voice raised in a way none of you had heard before. “Can everyone stop touching me?”

It wasn’t anger. It was something deeper. Something desperate.

Felix came to your side, voice tiny. “Y/N… I think he needs you.”

Seungmin nodded. “You’re the only one he won’t blow up on.”

You weren’t sure they were right, but the way Chan’s hands were shaking told you someone had to try.

When you approached him, he was sitting alone in the corner, elbows resting on his knees, fingers buried in his hair. He looked like he was holding himself together by the thinnest thread.