Changbin x Wooyoung Car Accident Part 1

It was only meant to be a relaxing evening for the members.

Hongjoong and Seonghwa were curled up together, talking softly about things that didn't matter too much. Yunho, San and Mingi were playing their video games together to help them wind down for the night, which would probably rile them up, but they're grown adults and Hongjoong couldn't be bothered to try to tell them otherwise. Jongho was in his room working on a essay, doing the responsible thing of developing his knowledge of Ancient World History further and Yeosang was just on the phone to his parents, letting them know about when would be the best time for them to come visit their child up in Seoul. The only one of them, however, who was not in the dorms, and that was Wooyoung.

"It's getting towards 7, Joong. What do you want to do?" Seonghwa asked, putting a finger in between the page of the book he'd been reading. It was clear that Hongjoong still felt a little bit wary of letting the younger members out of his sight, especially with those who are older than him. But there wasn't anything that could have indicated towards the eight of them that Changbin isn't anything but a gentleman towards Wooyoung, always bringing him home happy, smiling and on time. 

"Sorry." Hongjoong sighed softly. "I-" He wasn't sure when the feeling first started to fester in him, but he couldn't help but worry about something. "I'm just worried about Woo. This is the first time that he's been out with Changbin-ah when it's dark. What if something was to happen to the two of them while they are out?"

Seonghwa nodded with a sigh. He understood the younger leaders worries perfectly, what with the fact that if anything happens to Wooyoung, they have to think about the children and what they are going to do with that department. Hangyeol was a very sweet child and lived at boarding school for the majority of the year, but there was a lot of issues still up in the air about the custody of him and if something was to happen to Wooyoung, it would mean that there are a lot more things to have on the leaders shoulders.

"I get that you are worried at the moment, especially considering that San's going off on leave to help out with Seho when she comes and with Yunho losing everything, but if the worst does happen, which I don't think it will, we are going to work out everything." Seonghwa looked directly to Hongjoong, ensuring that he didn't break eye contact with the younger as he pondered how to feel about everything. It didn't last long as the leader huffed a weak breath, dropping his chin to his chest and mumbling instead.

"I just don't want something to happen to them and for Hangyeol to grow up without a dad."

Seonghwa reached forwards and took hold of the younger hand, squeezing it softly for a moment. It made sense that Hongjoong would feel like that, especially as he and his own girlfriend were starting to think about having children in the future. "Wooyoung and Changbin might seem like they are so unbelievably stupid with us, but on their own and even together, they know what's up and how to get themselves out of bad situations, okay? They'll be okay in the end." 

Hongjoong nodded, opening his mouth to speak as the door open, with San looking at them with a soft smile. He came in further, standing at the chest of drawers set just by the door. 

"Jongie was saying he was feeling hungry, so I'm just going to start making something." He said.

"Make something that can be saved, yeah? Woo might want a little something when he comes back." Seonghwa said with a smile. He often was the one who would make the meals, being in charge of the members children whenever they would visit the dorms, but San was becoming more versatile in the kitchen with the imminent arrival of his 5th child. Better late than never, but beggars can't be choosers.

"Of course." San nodded. "We have some things left over in the fridge, so I'm just going to try to make a beef broth or something like that. It shouldn't take too long, okay?"

"Alright Sannie. We'll be out when it is ready." Seonghwa smiled.

In the Stray Kids dorms, however, it was a lot different.

Instead of waiting for a while and making a more simple dinner, Chan and Minho decided amongst themselves to make a nice dinner for the members as they were starting to gear up for a comeback very soon and that meant diets. 

The 5 in the dorms were all doing their own things, respectful of each other's spaces and still being around if they are needed. 

Seungmin was quietly playing a game as Jeongin signed up for a couple of different college courses to start in only a couple of months in February. Hyunjin was on the phone in the quiet room, communicating with the fans. Jisung was taking a quick nap as he had been dealing with a headache for most of the day and Felix was just at the kitchen table brushing up on his Japanese. 

"Wait." Chan whispered for only Minho to be able to hear.

"What?" Minho asked, looking up from the onion he'd been chopping up for the dish. 

Chan couldn't describe the feeling that had been steadily growing in his gut, but now it was too large to even think about ignoring it anymore. It felt like someone had told him that he was not going to debut anymore, or that he was not an idol and that this was all a figment of his imagination. 

"Why do you look like when you stood in cat poop for the first time?" Minho said, his face deadpan as he returned to chopping up the ingredients more. 

"Don't you feel that?" Chan whispered. Minho looked at him strangely, like the leader just asked him to sell his cats.

"Feel what?"

Chan wasn't too sure how to even begin to describe how he was feeling in the moment. All he really knew was that he wanted to make sure that everyone was safe, which included Changbin. He couldn't shake the feeling of being unsafe, that all is not calm on the waters of Stray Kids.

"I can't read minds, you know." Minho cocked an eyebrow up before slipping in the chopped onions into the frying pan. "You're going to need to tell me if you want my help."

Chan sighed, turning his back on the chopping board he'd been slicing carrots on. "I'm feeling nervous, like something's happened to one of the kids."

"Okay. And what do you want to do about it?" Minho asked, also turning away from the chopping board, but so that he could still see the hob if he needed to. 

Even if he would never like to admit it, Minho would always be his favourite member for giving honesty to Chan. Minho never strayed from giving Chan whatever he needed, whether it is a reality check or a smile, Minho always made sure that Chan got what he needed. None of the members ever really gave him that, so Minho was always a breath of fresh air on a warm summer day.

"So I should just calm the fuck down?"

"Er, yeah." Minho said, like it was the most obvious solution.

"Ah." Changbin sighed, looking at his phone for a second. "Didn't you mention something about getting back early?" 

Wooyoung nodded, looking sadly at his boyfriend. "Yeah. I have a photoshoot in the morning and the only place they are picking me up at the moment is the dorms."

"Okay. We can head back if you want to." Changbin smiled warmly.

"I don't want our date to end yet."Wooyoung looked down to their linked up hands. "We've had a really nice time together and I don't want it to end just yet."

"We can go back out again soon." Changbin crossed his leg up more so that he was sitting upright instead of laying on the grass. "Or even call, whatever you want or need, we'll make it happen."

"Maybe you can stay over." Wooyoung gently traced Changbin's veins with one finger. "Or even come to pick up Gyeol. He'll love that."

"Of course. Like I said-"

"Anything."

"Can I just have some rice?" Jisung softly asked, rubbing lightly at his hairline to try to get rid of the headache that was really plaguing him.

"Sure Sungie." Chan nodded, passing over just a small bowl to the rapper. "Try to eat as much as you can, but don't force yourself, okay?

"Do you want to all sit down to watch Twenty Five- Twenty One?" Hongjoong asked as the k-drama of choice for that evening.

A chorus of agreements filled while the member continue to eat their meal together, each of them involved in their own worlds as well as their own thought trains. It was moment like these that made all of the years of training very much worth it to Hongjoong, to see his family happy together, eating a nice meal, if only it could be all eight of them together.

"Don't worry so much Joongie. Woo's fine." Seonghwa whispered softly, making sure that the others were not listening in to their conversation.

"I know." Hongjoong nodded weakly. "He'll be absolutely fine."

Minho and Jisung slipped away from the rest of the group, settling down in the rappers bed to cuddle away Jisung's nasty headache as Changbin slowed down to a red light.

"You can go to sleep if you want to?" He cooed, seeing his boyfriend trying to stay awake for the rest of the journey with him.

Wooyoung weakly smiled, his lids drooping with tiredness pulling them down with the weight of the world trapping them under their efforts of chaos. "Wake me up when we're home, okay? I have something I wanna talk about."

"Of course Baby." Changbin wanted to reach over and press a small kiss into the centre of Wooyoung's forehead, but the red light turned back to green, so he needed to drive away just as Seonghwa received a phone call.

Oh, hi Jiwa, what's up?" He asked, pressing the phone to his ear as he plated up a couple of different snacks for the 7 of them.

"Seonghwa, hi." Jiwa was a friend from middle school who recently reconnected with Seonghwa after living and working in the US for a while. He'd lost his job in the company that he worked for and no longer was able to stay, so came back home and was reaching out to a couple of friends for any sort of help. One of their mutual friends told Jiwa that Seonghwa worked in the entertainment industry, so Jiwa got back into contact fully telling Seonghwa what was going on, not expecting any help, just people who he might be able to talk to about anyone who needed workers. Seonghwa decided to take it upon himself to talk to the company about any positions that needed to be filled by someone and luckily there was one in the support staff. Jiwa now works with HR in the company and often contacts the members to ask if they need anything.

"I know this is a rather late phone call, but I've just been trying to get in contact with Wooyoung, as he needs a check up done, however I've not had any luck with getting anything from his phone at the moment. Is he not with you at the moment?" 

"Oh. He's actually out with Changbin, from Stray Kids, he's on a date." Seonghwa said, getting a few different things out of the cupboards and the fridge. 

"Got it." Jiwa chuckled. "I'll phone up in the morning. Thank you Hwa."

"No problem Ji. Was that everything?" He asked, moving the device up more. 

"Yep. Have a great rest of your night and I will see you soon." Jiwa chirped happily.

"You too." Seonghwa nodded. "Get home safely."

"I should do, yeah. There is quite a bit of traffic tonight, so I should be getting going. Good night Seonghwa."

"It happened so fast. I was just driving as normal and all of a sudden I see the car coming at me. All I though to do was swerve into the central reservation."

"Okay, thank you sir." The police officer said. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"I just feel sore at the moment, but nothing too much." The man described. "But it might just be the shock of everything."

"Yeah. Just keep an eye on it and if you start to feel anything, do tell someone as you might have been hurt and the shock is covering it up at the moment." The officer said before leaving the man alone, walking the short distance to the absolute shit show by the reservation of the bridge.

"What are we looking at lads?" He called out, gaining the attention of the rest of the men.

"Go back to sleep, we're about to go over the bridge." Changbin said quietly, not taking his eye off the road. Wooyoung had been waking up, feeling the familiar vibrations of the road change to more something more coarse.

There was no way that they could have predicated what came next.

"We're thinking that the black Range's driver was falling asleep at the wheel."

Wooyoung's eyes flickered a little bit as a stream of light came in.

"He collided with the silver Ford."

"Shit!" Changbin called out, making a split second choice in the moment to dive across the chair as his heart shouted out him to not, to stay. 

"Which pushed into this black VW."

Wooyoung's whole body jolted with the impacted force, his knee screaming at him, the metal rebar making the worst noise known to man as it collapsed against itself. Noise kept coming at him even as his body stopped and Wooyoung turned only just in time to see the other car, the sound being the exactly same as before, if not even worse as it dug into Changbin's side, making his legs fully disappear from Wooyoung's limited view.

"And this car was the last in the pileup."

The lead officer nodded. "How many were in the car?"

"The VW had two. Both have been taken to the hospital on blue lights after a successful extraction. One was not breathing with extreme injuries, the other had unstable vitals, but the paramedics where more hopeful towards him."

"Okay. I want to talk to either of them whenever I can. Names at all?"

"Seo Changbin was the first extracted and Jung Wooyoung was the second."

"Whatever hospital they've gone to, I want their names and the next of kins. What about the others…"

"Just keep looking at me, okay? Do you know your name?" The nice woman asked from just out of the window, she reminded Wooyoung of his own mother. A familiar, warm smile that always made everything feel better.

"W-Wooyoung. Jung Wooyoung."

"Okay Wooyoung, I'm Hyujin. Can you try to stay calm for me, okay? We've got some help coming, but you're starting to hyperventilate a little." She said, just coming into the car's window a little bit to brush away a couple of hairs on his forehead. 

"Ch-Changbinnie. Wh-What about Changbinnie." He asks weakly, trying to move his head towards his boyfriend, slumped over in his chair, clearly not moving.

"Don't worry about him, okay? They'll look after him. Are you two together?"

"Ye-yeah. We only got together a couple of months ago…"

Jisung settled on the couch with a small glass of water in his hand.

"How does that feel aegi?" Minho asked, adjusting the pillows around his boyfriend. 

"I'm okay Hyung." Jisung nodded, his headache finally dissipating to just a slight ache. "I just want you."

"Okay Sungie." Minho conceded, moving around to the other side of the sofa and settled down with the book he'd been reading. 

"Do you mind if I join you guys?" Felix asked, holding up his laptop. "I have a couple of emails I need to send."

"Sure Lixie." Minho nodded. Felix sat on the other side of the sofa and pulled open his laptop, already on the pages. The light tapping of the keys soothing Jisung's head a little bit along with Chan coming through, running his hands through the younger's hair.

"Okay out here?"

"We're okay." MInho nodded, looking briefly up. "Do you want to join us? I feel like its been forever since we've all just sat around, being able to do absolutely nothing."

"Sure." Chan nodded. "I'll just go grab my work."

ATEEZ was in a similar position as all of the members relaxed into the sofa's together, just quietly watching the drama together, all blissfully unaware that their lives have changed forever as the character on the screen went about their lives like nothing was amiss.

"Changbin?" ATEEZ's manager asked. "How long?"

"It happened only 20 minutes ago." Stray Kids' manager said over the phone, already getting his keys and coat together to make the journey to the dorms to get the members. 

"Alright. Bring them to the dorms and we'll tell them altogether."

"Dead. At 12:36am on Friday the 25th of November 2022."

Wooyoung was whisked away to just about see the white cloth being draped before the doors slammed shut on his heart and what had happened only seconds prior to the best person in his whole life.

"Guys. Get up. We need to go." Chan shook Felix's and Seungmin's shoulders, already walking the short distance to where Jeongin had fallen asleep on the floor. "You too Innie. Come on."

"What's wrong?" Felix asked him in thick Aussie English, rubbing a little at his eyes.

"I don't know, but we need to go somewhere, alright? Wrap up, its cold outside." 

And Chan went out, leaving the lights on in the room as he went over to Hyunjin's room to get him up.

"Get up Jinnie." He asked the tired dancer, helping him out bed where Hyunjin had gotten the covers tangled around his legs from an active night's sleep.

"Wha- Where are we going?" The younger asked, blinking sluggishly at the elder.

"I got a message from Manager Hyung to say that we're having an emergency meeting somewhere and that we need go, okay? So just get yourself dressed quickly. You can go back to sleep in a bit.

20 minutes later, they were all sat in the car, obviously wanting nothing more than to be back in bed, but it was dawning on the members what might be going on, what sort of news that they were about to face and why there was an empty chair not filled by a certain rapper.