Stray Kids Drabbles

A flicker of hope (3)

After dating for months, Changbin was pretty good at understanding the in's and out's of dating you. He knew what made you laugh and what made you cry. He knew your favorite things and your dislikes. Best of all, he knew when you were lying to him. Unfortunately, you didn't know this.

As your eye bags grew and you began to push away the snacks Changbin offered you, he knew something was wrong. He even asked what had you so down, but you brushed him off with a soft smile. You reassured him that everything was okay, you were just in a brief funk. Not wanting to upset you, he took you at your word, but he never stopped keeping an eye on you.

That was last week and at the beginning of this week, you looked drained. Once again, Changbin made sure you were okay, but you brushed his worries aside. "It's just the cold weather," you smiled as you said. "I'm always like this around this time of year." You struggled with seasonal depression, but never to this extent.

His worry for you only grew. Sitting on the edge of your bed, he waited for you with his hands clenched together. His knee bounced up and down while he waited for the shower to turn off. You disappeared into the bathroom and left your phone on vibrate in the middle of the bed.

Changbin had been ignoring it, but over the past few minutes, it vibrated numerous times. He began wondering if the scenario was an emergency. The two of you had each other's phone passcodes, but you rarely went on each other's phones. You only used Changbin's phone to play games occasionally.

Sometimes he'd think he'd be nearly finished up at the studio and ask you to come over. You'd show up and usually find him focused and working on a completely different task after getting distracted. He'd give you his phone and let you play a few games he downloaded specifically for you.

On the other hand, you'd sometimes steal his phone while he was sleeping and take selfies of yourself. Other times, you'd angle the phone in unflattering positions and take photos of him that he'd find later. The two of you found it amusing and it never hurt anyone. He deleted the photos of himself and kept the photos you took of yourself.

When your phone vibrated again, he couldn't help it anymore. Curiosity mixed with anxiety and the grueling combination led him to typing in your passcode. He scrolled down your notifications and paused when he saw there were multiple unread text messages from your older brother.

Alarmed that there was a family emergency happening, he clicked on the notifications. He expected panic from your older brother, but he didn't expect text after text filled with insult after insult. He scrolled up on the messages and his eyes widened in shock.

Vile insults and death threats filled the screen. He continued scrolling up, up, up. You never responded to the insults, but you must have been reading them because your brother mentioned you were leaving him on read. Changbin kept scrolling trying to figure out when these text messages first started, but they were endless.

The shock was replaced by an instant anger. He scrolled back down and let his thumbs fly across the screen frantically. They were supposed to be your older sibling. How dare they turn around and treat you like this? What happened to the older sibling being a role model? It didn't take long before a text message came back.

'I can't believe my younger sibling is so weak, they can't fight their own battles. How pathetic. How does it feel to be dating a loser?'

The response nearly sent Changbin over the edge. The only thing that brought him back to reality was the sound of your voice. He glanced up to find you wrapped in a towel.

"What are you doing?" You asked.

Changbin suddenly turned the phone towards you. "How long has this been going on?"

Your heart sank as you recognized the thread of messages your older brother sent you. You swallowed the lump in your throat. "A while," you managed to respond.

"Have you been reading these?"

Your head lowered in shame as you weakly nodded.

"Why are you putting yourself through this mental torment? You're beautiful and this," he held up the phone. "This is pathetic on your brother's end. Is he really so miserable that he attacks you every single day?"

You shrugged in response. Changbin glanced down at your phone and navigated his way through the phone until he found the block button next to your brother's contact. After blocking him, he deleted the string of text messages.

"Come here," he held his arms out towards you.

You padded towards him silently. He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you closer to him. "How dare they insult the love of my life. I can't believe he'd do something like this." Changbin scoffed, "this is why you're the better sibling."

A faint smile tugged on your lips.

"And for your punishment," Changbin announced. "You get to let me cuddle you for the next hour and I get to tell you all the things I love about you."

"But I need to get dressed," you pointed out.

"I don't care, it can wait. Now where do I begin? Your beautiful smile? Your infectious laugh? Oh, I love your laugh!" He giggled and leaned back which caused you to fall on top of him. "Get comfortable baby, you're gonna have a long night."