Summary: Astro finally gets the news about their leader. Some take it better than others.

[Read on AO3]

“I feel like a drowned
rat,” MJ grumbles as he and Eunwoo squelch up the stairs, groceries in hand.

“Oh, stop moaning,
hyung,” the younger boy returns mildly, tucking a cheap, dripping umbrella
under his arm. “I told you not to go jump in the pothole, but…”

“It looked like a puddle! What’s the point of rain if you can’t jump in
puddles? I was deceived!”

“You were acting like a five year old, and as
a result you ended up in two feet of water and nearly drowned the bok choy and
carrots along with yourself. You’re lucky it wasn’t an open manhole cover.”

MJ is saved from
having to reply by them finally reaching their apartment. He punches in the
code for the door and opens it.

“Finally!” comes
Sanha’s strident crow as the two dripping young men enter the apartment.
“Bin-hyung! Minhyuk-hyung! The hyungs are finally back!” He turns back to the
two of them and grins like the proverbial cat that got the canary.

“I hope you like doing
laundry, hyung,” he singsongs teasingly, rocking back and forth on the balls of
his feet.

“What are you talking
about?” MJ asks, just slightly peevishly as he and Dongmin begin shucking off
their soaked coats. “We’re clearly the winners here.”

“Oh yeah, I can definitely
see that, hyung. Out of curiosity, did you actively
go stand in a storm drain, or…?”

“Why don’t you c’mere
and find out, brat.” 

“Meep! Binnie, save
me!” Sanha dances out of the way as MJ tries to wrestle him into a soggy
headlock, and takes shelter behind Moonbin, who’s emerged from his room along
with Minhyuk.

“Don’t kill the
maknae, MJ-hyung, we still need him,” Bin says amusedly. “What’s this I hear
about you being the winners, though? Clearly we got here before you.”

“But Jinjin-hyung beat
you home, so technically, we won,” Eunwoo says, before stopping and raising one
eyebrow. “Jinjin… is home, right?” The maknae line glances at each other in
confusion.

“No…? Bin finally says
slowly. “Why would he be? Wait…” He narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Wait, don’t
tell me you sent him home early so you’d get home first!” MJ and Eunwoo
carefully look everywhere but at their dongsaengs.

“Hyungs!” Sanha gasps.
“That’s cheating!”

“Well, technically-” Rocky and MJ begin at the
exact same time.

“We can argue
semantics later,” Eunwoo interjects. “Bin, you’re sure Jinwoo hasn’t been
here?”

“Pretty sure we would
have noticed him by now, hyung,” Moonbin replies drily.

“Where’s Jinjin-hyung,
then, if he’s not here?” Sanha asks, a note of worry starting to creep into his
tone. “Is he okay?”

“I’m sure he’s fine,
kid,” MJ hastens to soothe his youngest dongsaeng. “You know Jinjin. He
probably just got stuck in traffic or stopped for a snack.” Despite his
assurances, MJ can’t help the tendril of worry that begins to worm its way into
the back of his own mind. Where is
the rapper, anyway? Even though he’d gamely kept up with the group earlier, MJ
could tell the younger boy had been in obvious need of a nap and maybe a couple
more cold pills, which was part of the reason why he’d offered to let him go
home early in the first place. He should have come right home. It’s odd that he
still isn’t back.

“In fact, here, let me
call him real quick to see what’s taking him so long.” He digs his phone out of
his pocket and dials the leader’s number, tapping his foot impatiently against
the floor. Of all the times to live up to his nickname of “the slow rapper,”
seriously…

MJ’s backpack starts
buzzing. Dongmin digs through one of the pockets and pulls out… Jinwoo’s phone,
the caller ID clearly reading “MJ-Hyung.” The two glance at each other in
dismay, and then Myungjun facepalms dramatically amid the maknaes’ snickering.

“Um, MJ-hyung?”
Minhyuk speaks up. “Not to interrupt the moment, but you’re kind of creating
your own lake in the middle of the floor.” Myungjun looks down to see that a
growing puddle of dirty water is indeed growing underneath his soaked lower
half.

“Go change, hyung,”
Dongmin grins. “I’ll compare hauls with the maknaes and let you know how it
goes.”

 

0000000

 

“Face it, hyung, you
lost. Fair and square.”

“Oh, come on! We got
the bag of special edition shrimp chips, that counts for three whole extra
items!”

“Yeah, but look, we
got the red bean jellies, which also counts for three whole extra items. We
tied. And since we got home first…”

“Hehe, you’ll be doing
my laundry for the next three days, MJ-hyung! I’ll be sure to leave extra, just
for you~”

“Dongmin-ah, tell me
honestly. How unlikely do you think it is that Fantagio would be down for
forming a new, three-man idol group anytime soon?” 

“Extremely. Besides,
it won’t really look good for our image if word gets out that Astro broke up
because of a scavenger hunt.”

“Mmm, thought so. Next
best thing?”

“Next best thing.”

“Um… hyungs? What are
you…?”

“ATTACK!”

 

0000000

 

About thirty minutes
after the pillows and cushions are all returned to their proper places on beds
and couches and the screams and war cries have died down, Dongmin sticks his
head into the larger of the apartment’s two bedrooms, where MJ is lying on his
bed, watching a drama his phone. “Do you… do you think we should call
manager-hyung?” he says quietly so that the maknaes – who are currently playing
a synchronized game on their phones in the living room – can’t hear. “Just in
case?”

MJ thinks for a
moment, worry starting to gnaw at him in earnest. Jinjin still hasn’t come
home, then. “We’ll give him fifteen more minutes,” he finally answers, just as
quietly. “If he’s not back, or at least called us by then, then yeah, I think
we should let the manager know.”

Dongmin nods and ducks
out of the room, while Myungjun turns his attention back to his phone. Or tries
to, anyway. He’s having a hard time focusing. It’s not like him to worry
overmuch (he prefers to leave the title of Astro’s resident fussbudgets to
Jinjin and Eunwoo, thanks), but he can’t seem to shake the feeling of impending
doom that hit him ever since Eunwoo pulled their leader’s phone out of the
backpack. He knows it’s probably nothing; like he told Sanha earlier, Jinjin is
stuck in traffic or something, and they’ll all have a good laugh about this
later after he and Eunwoo chew him out for making them lose the game before
bundling him into bed to take a nice, long nap, so why does he still feel so…
tense? It’s weird. It’s weird and he doesn’t like it.

He’s just about to
clamber off his bunk to go find one of the younger kids to play with to take
his mind off things when his phone starts to buzz. He nearly drops it in his
haste to see who’s calling, and his heart sinks when he sees an unknown number
instead of Jinjin’s. Stupid, his mind
reminds him, Jinjin’s phone is on his bed,
you dummy, of course he wouldn’t be the one calling you. He answers it
anyway. Jinjin could have borrowed someone else’s phone to call him, after all.

“Hello?”

“Is this MJ? Kim
Myungjun?” a delicate, mellow voice asks. It’s maddeningly familiar, but MJ
can’t quite place it. And they’d used his stage name to refer to him. Someone
in the idol industry, perhaps?

“Yes?” he
answers confusedly. “May I ask who’s calling?”

“Cha
Hakyeon.” MJ swears his heart skips two whole beats once his mind places a face
with the words. “Or VIXX’s leader N, if you prefer.”

“Oh! Sunbae-nim!” MJ sits
bolt upright in his bed and just misses cracking his skull on the ceiling by about
half a centimeter. He folds into a quick bow on instinct before remembering
that the older man can’t see him. “To what do I owe the, er, pleasure?” Oh, if
only he wasn’t currently distracted with worrying about Jinwoo, he can’t even
freak out properly about a sunbae idol calling him up out of the blue…

“Just ‘hyung,’ is
fine, MJ. And I apologize for calling so suddenly, but it’s about Jinjin.”

MJ snaps to attention
immediately. “Jinjin? Wait, you know what happened to him, sunb- hyung? Is he
okay? Is he alright? Where is he? Is -”

“Breathe, MJ, calm
down,” comes N’s faintly amused voice from the other line as the rest of the
boys cluster around next to his bunk, drawn by the sound of their leader’s
name. “Before I say anything else, let me stress that Jinjin is perfectly safe.
He’s sleeping on my living room couch at this exact moment, as a matter of
fact. But,” N’s voice turns serious, “earlier today, I found him getting mugged
a few blocks from our apartment building.”

“Mugged?” Myungjun
says faintly into the receiver as the bottom drops out of his stomach. A
visible wave of panic ripples through the rest of the members. Sanha gasps and clutches
Dongmin’s arm tightly, eyes reflexively welling up with tears, while Bin
instinctively grabs Minhyuk’s hand and squeezes as if his life depended on it. “How…
how bad…?”

“From what I can tell,
he’ll be perfectly fine in a week or two, Myungjun-ah, don’t worry,” N hastens
to assure him. “It’s just some cuts and scrapes and bruises, nothing some rest
won’t fix, but all the same, he should probably take it easy for a few days
just in case.”

“Duly noted,” MJ replies, feeling slightly giddy from sheer relief. “I’ll call
our manager and we’ll be over as soon as we can to pick him up-”

“Ah, about that,” N
interjects. “We – that is, the other members and I – were discussing the
matter, and we think it would be safer for all parties involved if you waited
until morning to pick him up because of the weather. There have already been a
number of car accidents reported today since the rain started, and I don’t want
to risk you all getting into a car accident as well. It would probably be best
for Jinjin if he was able to rest for a while without having to travel, too.”

Myungjun’s first
instinct is to argue, to insist they get Jinwoo back as fast as humanly
possible, but as much as he wants (needs) to see Jinjin again, the practical
part of him knows the elder idol is right. They have nothing to lose by letting
Jinwoo stay overnight with VIXX (goodness, isn’t that a thought), but
everything to lose by potentially getting into an accident because of the
weather. “Well… if you’re sure it won’t be a bother, hyung…”

“Absolutely no trouble
at all,” N replies firmly, and Myungjun can hear the smile in his voice, laced
with a special kind of sympathetic warmth that tells the younger man that the
older idol knows very well what it’s like to feel the same worry and panic
about his dongaengs that’s churning in Myungjun’s gut right now. “I’ll text you
our address, and you can come over in the morning to get your leader. If
there’s anything else you need, I’m just a phone call away, alright?”

“Thank you, hyung.” MJ
suddenly feels like crying, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep
the tears at bay. Not in front of the members, and certainly not in front of N. Everyone needs him to be strong right
now. “Just… really, thank you. For looking out for our Jinjinnie like this.”

“Any half decent
person would have done the same thing,” N replies, the warm smile still evident
in his tone. “I’m just happy we could help. Jinjin’s a special kid.”

MJ has to smile at
that, a curl of warmth thawing a little of icy chill that’s taken up residence
in his insides. “That he is.”

They exchange
perfunctory farewells, and the second MJ removes the phone from his ear, he’s
immediately accosted by four very worried boys.

“Jinjin-hyung was
mugged?” Sanha blurts out, beating the other three to the punch. He’s still clutching
a longsuffering Dongmin’s arm in a white-knuckled death grip. “Is he alright is
he okay who was that on the phone do we need to go get him what- MMF!”

“I think,” Dongmin
says firmly, as he keeps his hand pressed over Sanha’s mouth, “we should all
keep our mouths shut for the next thirty seconds and let MJ-hyung explain
what’s going on.”

“Good plan,” Bin
mutters while Minhyuk nods mutely, the two younger boys still holding each
others’ hands tightly.

Myungjun climbs down
from his bunk, herds them all into the living room, and explains the situation
as clearly as he can while trying his best to ignore the ever-growing sense of
guilt that’s replacing the panic he’d felt earlier now that he knows Jinjin
will be alright. He was the one who suggested Jinwoo go home early. He’d still
be with them safe and sound if Myungjun just hadn’t opened his big mouth- okay, now is not the time for
self-recrimination, Kim Myungjun, focus. Focus for the kids, you can kick
yourself all you want later.

The younger boys still
seem quite worried by the end of his brief summary, but they do seem to be
breathing a little easier now that they’ve heard the whole story, or what
little MJ knows of it.

After a couple moments
have passed while everyone tries to process what was just related to them,
Moonbin speaks up. “…You do realize that this means Jinwoo-hyung’s basically
having a sleepover with VIXX right now, right?” The rest of them have to smile
a little at the thought.

“Figures that it’d
take an incident like this to get us properly introduced to them,” Dongmin
replies with a small but genuine grin. “We’ll have to grill him for details
once he gets back.”

“I still wish he was
with us instead, though,” Sanha says quietly.

“We all do, San, but
there’s no point in sitting around speculating,” Rocky, ever the sensible one,
says, ruffling the younger boy’s hair comfortingly. “Dinner still needs to be
made. You want to come help me with the noodles?” He holds out his hand to Sanha
and smiles.

“Okay.” Sanha gamely
tries to return the smile, though it ends up being more of a wobbly grimace, and
takes Rocky’s hand, allowing himself to be pulled in the direction of the
kitchen.

Moonbin eyes flick
back and forth between his two hyungs for a couple seconds before he follows the
two youngest members. “I’ll help you with the table, Minhyuk. Sanha no, those
aren’t noodles those are potato chips don’t
–!”

Amid the sudden commotion
in the kitchen (a common occurrence in the Astro dorm when Sanha is allowed anywhere
near the food preparation process; Rocky’s handling it with practiced ease),
Myungjun decides he shouldn’t put off calling their manager any longer, and
decides to step out into the hall to get a little peace and quiet while he does
so. Before he can take more than a step, However, Dongmin’s grabbed his arm and
bodily pulled him into his and Moonbin’s room, closing the door behind them.

“Dongminnie, what-”

“I know what you’re
thinking, and it’s not your fault, hyung,”
Eunwoo says, quietly but earnestly. “So derail that train of thought right now
before it goes any further. Jinwoo-hyung isn’t here to say it, so I’ll say it
for him. And don’t lie to yourself, you know that’s what he’d say to you right
now if he could.”

“It doesn’t matter what he’d say, Dongmin,” Myungjun
retorts fiercely, all traces of his usual happy virus persona buried under the
weight of the current situation. “The fact of the matter is, it was my idea to
send him home early, I didn’t make sure he had his phone so he could keep in
touch, and then something like this
happens. I’m the oldest, and since, as you pointed out, Jinwoo isn’t here right
now, even if this isn’t my fault, it’s still my responsibility.”

The younger boy’s eyes
widen, clearly taken aback by the vehemence in the vocalist’s tone, and
Myungjun immediately softens. “I know you’re just trying to make me feel
better, Dongmin. And I appreciate it, I do. I just… I’m the one who’s supposed
to look out for him, you know?”
Because Jinwoo may be the leader of Astro, but Myungjun is the oldest; when
things become too much for Jinwoo to handle, Myungjun is the one he confides
in, the only one he allows to see his breakdowns when the burden of being the
leader is just too much for him to bear alone. And it’s killing Myungjun inside
that he’s unable to do anything for his best friend right now other than sit here
in this small apartment and worry.

By the look in
Dongmin’s eyes, he seems to understand. “I know, hyung. I know. Accidents just
happen, sometimes. Just…” Dongmin places a hand on his shoulder and squeezes,
“make sure you’re not blaming yourself, alright?”

Kind of too late for
that, honestly. “Yeah, sure.”

“Because if you are, then you should be blaming me,
too,” Dongmin continues, which stops Myungjun cold. “I took your side, you
know. I could have protested and Jinjin and I would have outruled you, and he
would have stayed. But I thought you had a good idea, and Jinwoo needed to go
home and get some rest anyway. I’m as much to blame as you, if you want to play
that game.”

Myungjun’s heart
wrenches painfully as the taller boy hangs his head, unshed tears welling up in
his eyes. “Dongmin… you’re not… I don’t…” 

“Exactly,” Dongmin
says, smiling tightly. “If you’re not going to blame me, then don’t blame
yourself. Deal?”

MJ huffs a small laugh
and closes the small gap between them, wrapping his arms around the younger
boy’s torso. It’s hard to remember sometimes that Dongmin is actually three
years his junior. “How did you get so smart, kid?”

“It’s a talent.” MJ
can hear the smile in the other’s voice as he returns the hug, sniffling a
little. “Also self-preservation. Someone
has to be the mature voice of reason around here, might as well be me.”

“Brat,” Myungjun says
with infinite fondness, leaning back and cuffing him gently upside the head.
“You’re lucky I’m such a laidback and easygoing hyung.”

“I know,” Dongmin
replies, equally as fond. “We’re all lucky to have you as the oldest,
MJ-hyung.”

“You’ve turned
sentimental in your old age, Dongminnie,” Myungjun huffs teasingly, to cover
the warm happiness bubbling up inside him at the affectionate words of
affirmation.

“If I’m old, what does
that make you? Prehistoric?”

“Yah, get outta here
before I kick your ass, insolent punk!”

“But this is my room-”

“Out!” Myungjun waves
the hand holding his phone imperiously at the door, his loud giggles probably
completely undermining the stern image he’s going for.

“Alright, alright, I’m
going, I’m going,” Dongmin laughs, making a tactical retreat. “I’d better go
out and help make sure Sanha doesn’t burn the kitchen down anyway.”

“You do that,” MJ
sniffs theatrically, making a show of turning his attention back to his phone.
He can’t help the grin that spreads across his face once the door closes behind
the other vocalist. He then notices that N recently sent him a text with the
directions to VIXX’s apartment, and his grin fades. He scrolls through his list
of contacts, and selects one, pressing the phone to his ear with a silent sigh.

“Manager-hyung? It’s
me, MJ. Doing okay, thanks. Listen, we have… a bit of a situation, here…”