THE EDGE OF BREATH
Pairing: Seventeen x 14th member!Reader
Warning: sasaeng broke into reader’s room | creepy delusional fan behavior | physical attack | traumatized reader
MDNI | READ AT YOUR OWN RISK
Notes: Hello everyone, this is my first fic here and english is not my first language so I apologize if there’s a lot of typos and mistakes. Also, this fic is inspired by @scoupsakakitty “Intruder in The Dark” please check her fic out as well. Thankyou and enjoy ^^
Japan, 2023
The concert haze still clings to you like glitter dust.
Hours later, your voice is hoarse from all the jumping and shouting through encore after encore. The adrenaline that carried you off stage melts into exhaustion, but the afterglow of the concert clings to you — a quiet hum beneath the tiredness, reminding you that you were alive in those lights.
“Tomorrow’s a rest day, right?” Jeonghan yawns, eyes watering.
“Half a rest day,” Seungcheol corrects. “We have that meeting with the beer company at two.”
Groans ripple through the group.
It’s your first stop of the Japan leg — Tokyo. The air still hums faintly with energy, the way every first city of a tour does.
The lobby smells faintly of clean linen. The hotel staff bow and the soft voices of your managers guiding each member toward the elevator. You tuck your keycard into your jacket pocket — Room 1714, last door at the end of the hall.
By the time the elevator dings open, conversation has dwindled to tired murmurs. Vernon stretches until his shoulders crack, Seungkwan hums under his breath, Hoshi walked quietly with Woozi while he’s busy typing something on his phone.
“Goodnight, guys,” you whisper when everyone stops outside their rooms.
Whispers of goodnight echo through the hallway as you tap your keycard against the door lock. The door clicks open, and you toe off your sneakers, slipping into the hotel slippers you’d left by the door that afternoon before you left. Inside, the room greets you with light spilling in from the window — the curtains not fully drawn, allowing the city glow to seep through. Your bed neatly covered, your suitcase sits by the wall exactly where you left it that afternoon. Everything looks … normal.
Still, a strange tightness lingers in your chest. It’s like your body knows something your mind doesn’t yet.
As you cross the room and drop your bag onto the coffee table near the window, something stirs. From the edge of your vision, you catch a flicker of movement at the corner of the curtain.
Your body goes rigid.
You tell yourself it’s nothing — maybe just the exhaustion from the concert making your body too aware of every small sound and shift, more sensitive than usual.
But the more you try to ignore it, the more restless you feel. Maybe it’s better if you go to another member’s room to crash. Mingyu or Jun might still be awake since both of them like to do a post concert livestream.
You walk toward the door, trying to shake off the unease. But before your fingers can curl around the doorknob, a hand yanks your other arm back. You stumble, the air catching in your throat.
A voice, low and trembling with something that sounds like devotion twisted wrong, breathes against your ear.
“Where are you going, my love?” The words are gentle, almost tender. But every syllable crawls down your spine like ice.
You turn away from the man, but his grip tightens on your hand.
“Let me go!” You grit out, the words breaking between fear and anger.
He chuckles — a sound that sinks into your core, heavy and unsettling. “Now why would I do that when I finally have you to myself.”
You can see it now: this man isn’t in his right mind. Your pulse spikes, and instinct takes over.
You thrash your hand hard, and his grip slips. You seize the chance, reaching for the doorknob again, hoping this time you can get out — but heaven forbid it be that easy.
He yanks your hair, just enough to drag you backward, away from the door. His arm locks around you, holding you close, and your eyes start to sting with tears.
“Why are you running away from me?” his voice whispers, right against your ear. “You wanted me to find you when you kept looking for me in the crowd tonight, didn’t you?”
Your heart hammers against your ribs. You can feel every pulse echo in your throat. The panic sharpens your senses — the weight of his hand, the smell of his clothes, the faint rustle of fabric when he moves.
What is he even talking about? You’ve smiled at thousands of faces before. You waved, you laughed, you sent hearts to the crowd because it’s what you do. It’s your job, your way of showing gratitude to the people who support you. But this man, he’s taken something simple and turned it into something twisted. His words rot the memory of the concert, staining it with delusion.
The thought barely settles before panic snaps you into motion. You twist sharply, elbow slamming back against him. He lets out a sharp sound — half pain, half surprise — and his grip falters. You don’t wait. You wrench free, stumbling toward the door. Half-running, half-falling. Your fingers brush the handle but then he grabs your wrist again, dragging you back with a strength that makes your breath hitch.
The force sends you flying backward. Your body slams into the drawer first before your head hits the floor with a dull thud. Pain explodes through your skull, your vision blurring at the edges, ears ringing so loud it feels like the world is collapsing in on itself.
You try to stand — your hands scrambling for balance, your legs unsteady but he’s already moving toward you. Slow, deliberate steps that make your stomach twist.
“My, oh my. A little feisty idol, aren’t you?” His tone drips with mockery, and you can hear the smile in his voice. Before you can react, he’s on you. His weight pressing you down, trapping you in place.
Your body jolts in panic. Every nerve screams to move, to fight.
You thrash beneath him, kicking, twisting, desperate to break free. “Hel—” The sound barely leaves your throat before his gloved hand clamps over your mouth, cutting it off. He lifts his other hand, index finger raised to his lips — a silent, chilling gesture. “You’ll wake everyone up,” he whispers, voice soft and almost playful. “We don’t want any interruptions while we spend our precious time together, do we?”
Tears stream down your face. For a moment, you feel completely powerless — pinned down, breath shallow, fear clawing at your chest until it hurts to think. Every part of you trembles, caught between panic and disbelief that this is really happening. A sick twist of disgust coils in your stomach. Not just at him, but at the way he turned your kindness, your work, into something so vile, so delusional.
And then, somewhere through the fear, something inside you snaps. A pulse of anger breaks through the fog. You’ve fought your whole life to stand where you are. You remember the long nights in the practice room, the exhaustion that made your lungs burn, the rejections that left you crying behind closed doors. You remember every time they told you you weren’t enough, every time you proved them wrong. You fought to belong, to be seen, to be heard. You won’t let him take that from you. You won’t let him win.
Your breath burns in your throat as you move. The world narrows to instinct. You need to survive. Something hard brushes against your fingers on the floor, cold and solid. You grab it without thinking. A lamp. The weight of it steadies you just enough to act. You swing it into his head.
A shout tears through the room. The lamp shatters into pieces; he clutches his head in pain, and in that instant, the hold he had on you breaks. You don’t wait to see what damage you’ve done. You kick him away, then crawl and stumble toward the door.
You wrench it open. The hallway light hits your face like a slap. You run. You don’t know where, only that you need to get far away from him. Fear surges that he will drag you back again like before.
The next thing you feel is impact. You slammed into someone. Your shoulder collides with something solid. “Hey what’s going—“
You scream before your mind can register anything else. Your voice is raw and hoarse, painful to anyone who hears it. “Get away from me!”
“Hey—hey, it’s me!” A hand catches your arm.
The voice cuts through the noise. Familiar. Grounded. Joshua.
Your vision spins as you try to focus on him. His face, usually calm, now etched with alarm. “What—what happened to you?”
You can’t answer. Words refuse to come out. All you can do is shake your head, chest heaving, eyes darting behind you toward the open door of your room — the darkness inside, the broken shape of a man trying to move.
Joshua follows your gaze, and his expression shifts from confusion to horror. “Seungcheol!” he shouts, voice cracking higher than you’ve ever heard it. “Someone! Call security!”
Doors fly open one after another. Members spill out, bleary eyed and startled. The hallway fills with noise — questions, footsteps, panic rising in every tone.
“What’s going on?” “What happened?” “Is that—?”
You barely register who’s speaking. The world feels far away, sounds warped and thick like underwater echoes.
Seungcheol appears next, all command. One look at you — at your trembling hands, at the chaos behind you and he’s already issuing orders. “Lock the hallway. Don’t let anyone in. Mingyu, call the front desk, get security and an ambulance. Jeonghan, stay with her.”
Wonwoo drapes a blanket over your shoulders. Minghao stands beside you, speaking softly, but the words don’t reach. Your focus splinters — Dokyeom’s voice somewhere near. Dino’s hand hovering, unsure if he should touch you; the distant sound of feet pounding down the hall; Seungcheol’s voice again, steady but urgent.
Then the adrenaline that’s held you up begins to slip. Your knees buckle. The world tilts.
Joshua catches you before you hit the floor, his arms trembling as he calls your name, but your vision’s already going dark around the edges. The last thing you feel is the blanket tightening around you, and the faint echo of someone saying, you’re safe now.
