What Am I Left With? • Monsta X

ii.

What? Hyungwon clicked out, confused and uncertain and wounded by the leader's words.

Stay, Hyunwoo clicked out again, and there was no hesitance in his tone, no room for Hyungwon to argue or protest, but he was too upset to stay quiet.

You're taking them with you? Hyungwon clicked out, flicking his tail toward Jooheon, Changkyun, and Minhyuk and ignoring the soft clicks they sent his way in an attempt to soothe him. But not me?

Stay, Hyunwoo repeated, a little firmer this time. There was warning in his tone, but Hyungwon ignored it again.

Why not me? Not enough? he clicked out, and that feeling from before resurfaced, the feeling he got when he thought of his parents or being left behind. Cold.

Bigger prey, Hyunwoo clicked, and the warning was now accompanied by agitation at having been questioned. Need more of us.

But not me? Hyungwon repeated, tail flicking almost on its own. How many hunts had he waited? How many hunts had he known he wasn't strong enough or good enough to be taken with?

Changkyun is fast, Hyunwoo clicked out in reasoning, clearly making an effort to justify his choice in an attempt to calm Hyungwon down. Minhyuk is older. Jooheon is strong.

It was true that Jooheon, despite not being as strong as Hoseok or Hyunwoo, was indeed strong. Stronger than Hyungwon, for sure. But to have that fact produced before him felt like a stinging betrayal.

Not me, Hyungwon filled in, feeling that strange coldness seeping down farther within him along with a foreign sense of panic, as though the darkness around him were somehow growing darker, as though it were becoming unfamiliar.

Stay, Hyunwoo clicked again, but gentler this time. Watch the cave. Protect our home.

Be safe, Hyungwon clicked, not because he wanted to but out of necessity. He always wished for them to be safe before they went off. It just hurt more this time because he'd be the only one waiting for them.

Upset, Hyungwon swam off into the farthest part of the cave, ducking into a crevice that was about twice the width of himself. Something about the alcave made him feel safe, like he was surrounded and enclosed. He could hear clicking from the front of the cave, Jooheon trying to reason with Hyunwoo and Minhyuk arguing that someone should stay behind with Hyungwon, but that made him more upset. He knew Minhyuk was worried that he wouldn't be okay on his own, that he would lose himself, and while he might have appreciated Minhyuk's care at another moment in time, it just reconfirmed his own weakness.

Go, he clicked from the back of the cave, listening as the clicking from the other end cut off abruptly.

Then, after a long moment, he heard the soft goodbye clicks from his choir as they left the cave to head for higher waters; due to their eyes and other features, they couldn't go all the way up to the Above, which was why they waited in middle waters and used their voices to lure prey deeper. Hyungwon knew this only from the stories of others, and it seemed that he would continue to rely on their stories rather than his own. He had no stories to tell from simply sitting in the cave by himself, only a tale of a coldness that perpetuated beyond reason.

--

Hyungwon swam aimlessly for several phases, returning to the cave when he'd tired himself out enough to stop thinking. He knew that if he let his mind run, it would only create darkness within his heart, and there was already too much darkness without six other tails faintly illuminating the cave.

Even so, his head was full of questions he had no answers to.

Had Hyunwoo really thought he wasn't good enough to join them?