Niko stopped feeling like a person.
It was subtle. A slow erasure. First went the appetite. Then the joy. Then the hope. Then the ability to care. Eventually, even sadness got tired of visiting. What was left wasn’t numb—it was worse. It was nothing.
And nothing is the hardest thing to fight.
But they fought it anyway.
He hadn’t left the apartment in six days.
Curtains closed. Lights off. Phone dead somewhere under the bed. He didn’t remember the last time he showered. He didn’t remember what day it was. He didn’t care.
Yoongi did.
He sat on the edge of the bed, invisible, one hand over Niko’s chest. Just… being there. Letting some warmth trickle in where the cold had made a home.
When Niko finally rolled over and took a breath deeper than the others, Yoongi whispered,
“There you are.”
Namjoon found the notebook.
The one under the mattress. The one with tiny, sharp handwriting and darker thoughts than anyone had seen. Pages of self-hatred, outlines of ways to vanish, lists of reasons why no one would miss him.
Namjoon didn’t destroy it.
He added one page. Blank paper. And in the center, a sentence in ink that Niko didn’t remember writing.
“What if I’m wrong?”
He stared at it for hours.
Didn’t touch the others for days.
Taehyung curled up beside him when the nightmares came.
Not the screaming kind. The quiet ones. The ones where Niko was back in the house he hated, sitting across from people who never saw him, saying things they didn’t mean.
Taehyung held his hand while he twitched in sleep, soaked in sweat, whispering to nothing,
“It’s not real. You’re not there. Not anymore.”
Niko woke up gasping, heart racing, unsure why he felt like someone had just pulled him out of the water.
He didn’t remember the dream. Just the drowning.
Taehyung stayed by the bed all night.
Jungkook once stopped his hand.
Niko had a needle in one, not for medicine. His eyes were glassed over. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t scared. He just wanted to feel something again.
But his hand wouldn’t move.
Shaking. Frozen. As if someone held his wrist still.
Jungkook couldn’t speak. Just stared, mouth pressed in a line, tears falling soundlessly.
Niko dropped the needle. Collapsed to the floor. Slept there until morning.
Jungkook stayed crouched beside him until the sun came in.
Jimin watched him give everything away.
Old clothes. Photos. Trinkets. As if preparing to disappear without mess. No big gestures. Just quiet goodbyes.
He touched the stereo. Let it play a song from years ago, one Niko used to sing when he had friends. When he still smiled. When he still danced in the kitchen in mismatched socks.
Niko froze when it played.
Stared at the speaker.
Didn’t cry. Didn’t smile.
But didn’t finish the boxes, either.
Jimin laid his head against the couch, knees to his chest, eyes closed tight.
Seokjin couldn’t stop the whispers.
The ones in Niko’s head that said you’re a burden. That no one meant it when they said they cared. That even if he vanished, the world would keep spinning just fine.
So Jin whispered louder.
In moments when Niko blinked without reason. In seconds when his breathing calmed for no cause. In places he should’ve been entirely alone, but felt… almost watched.
“You’re still here.”
“You matter.”
“You’re loved.”
He never heard it. Not clearly. But sometimes the silence cracked just enough to let the words in.
And Hoseok… Hoseok held him the night he broke for real.
No attempt. No planning.
Just collapse.
Ugly, gasping sobs in the middle of the kitchen. Hands in his hair. Knees on cold tile. Screaming into a dish towel because nothing was left.
Hoseok knelt beside him and held him.
Not physically. Not visibly. Just fully.
Arms of air. Warmth of presence. He pressed his entire being into the shape of comfort.
And Niko felt it.
Not imagined.
Felt.
Like someone was there.
He cried harder.
And then… he stopped.
And then… he slept.
Not peaceful. But survived.