"Shhh," Changkyun murmured, smoothing Hyungwon's and pushing the errant strands off his forehead. "Calm down, okay? I'm here. Just breathe."
Hyungwon's eyes were wide, his words incoherent as he rambled, having awoken straight out a nightmare, and each syllable was smashed into the next. This had become a common middle-of-the-night occurrence, and Changkyun was used to understanding little to none of what Hyungwon said.
It didn't bother him as long as he didn't consider Hyungwon to be in his right mind. Instead, he thought of Hyungwon as someone who was sick, someone who needed to be taken care of. He didn't have medicine or shots, so all he could really offer was comfort, and he did his best.
Because Hyungwon was sick.
Because Hyungwon was insane.
And babbling incoherently was just part of all that. Changkyun had gotten used to tuning it out, because he considered it as part of the illness, not part of Hyungwon.
Because his attacks had been happening near every night now, Hyungwon had taken to sleeping in Changkyun's bed after some initial reluctance. But Changkyun had reassured him time after time that it was fine, that it wasn't weird, that it was okay if that was what would make him feel okay.
So Changkyun would often be woken up in the middle of the night, if he'd found sleep at all, by Hyungwon rocking back and forth, his knees pulled up to his chest and his hands ripping at his hair, and it would be Changkyun's job to rub his back, pull his hands away, hold them together in his and rock Hyungwon against him. Then he'd wait for Hyungwon's frantic mutterings to grow quiet to the point that Changkyun could no longer hear him. He'd then slide his hands under Hyungwon's knees, going slowly to make sure that Hyungwon was okay with him doing so, and unfurl his legs so they were no longer crunched up. He'd lie Hyungwon down, make sure the taller boy was comfortable, before fixing Hyungwon up a bit, pushing his hair out of his face, straightening his shirt, those kinds of things.
It made Changkyun feel like Hyungwon's mother in a weird way, but wasn't that what a mother was, a caretaker? Only being a caretaker for Hyungwon meant that being equals, that just being friends, wasn't really possible. Of course Changkyun enjoyed the other's presence, and of course he considered them to be friends in a way, but it was impossible to do things that friends do when he was more focused on making sure Hyungwon ate and that he felt okay and that he wasn't about to have a mental breakdown.
Usually, after Changkyun laid Hyungwon down, the older boy went silent and eventually fell back asleep, but this time was different.
"He didn't believe me," Hyungwon said, his voice sounding desperate and lonely in the dark. Betrayed.
Changkyun just keep smoothing Hyungwon's hair down. Sometimes, when Hyungwon talked, the words sounded like they made sense and like he was talking about something real, but more often than not, Changkyun suspected that it was all rubbish, just random strings of words in random places that happened to make logical sense by coincidence on occasion.
So he didn't really take Hyungwon seriously.
Because it wasn't Hyungwon talking, it was the illness.
But then that changed.
"Wonho doesn't believe me. I know you don't believe me and that's okay but Wonho doesn't believe me and he said he would," Hyungwon continued, sniffling softly, and Changkyun felt his muscles tense. He didn't know what to say. "Nobody believes me," Hyungwon repeated. "Can't you believe me? No, you can't, you can't believe me..." Hyungwon trailed off, answering his own question.
Changkyun sighed. He was torn between caretaker and friend. As a caretaker, he should just try to get Hyungwon back to sleep, knowing that all of his incessant ranting was bullshit anyway, but as a friend...
"Tell me," Changkyun said with some reluctance. "Tell me what I'm supposed to believe."
