the same stupid socks

by fawns_and_freckles

Summary:

Hyunjin has been at JYPE psychiatric facility for six months, and he has no intention of leaving. He's perfectly happy deflecting questions about his feelings, tonguing his meds, and sharing a singular (illegal) iPod nano with Jisung, Seungmin, and Innie. So what if he can't exactly remember chunks of his childhood, and so what if the mere notion of rejection makes him want to rip his hair out? So what if he's running out time before he's passed on to the next inpatient hospital?

Felix has been a dancer for the Poirot Ballet since he was thirteen, and he has no plans of stopping dance (or his determined path towards perfection) any time soon, no matter how much his body wants to take him out of the game. So when he's sentenced to two weeks of mandatory inpatient treatment for a supposed 'Adderall dependency', he's less than thrilled. After all, he's been nothing but a perfect, moldable, emotionless doll for years. How is he supposed to fake a sickness he doesn't have, while keeping his actual 'illness' secret?

And why does that asshole Hwang Hyunjin have to be so goddamn beautiful?

Chapter 1: a danger to himself and others

Notes:

I’m back back back back back again !!
And with a very different fic than last time – one that requires a hefty handful (or twenty) of trigger warnings and disclaimers.

As you can see from the tags and the fic summary, this story surrounds characters who are very much mentally ill. At the risk of being overly vulnerable, I pulled as much from my own desperately-unwell experience (partly because, well, write what you know, but also because it allows me to be more accurate). That being said, the experiences I’m pulling from are my own, and I’m very aware that mental health looks different on everyone!!

To avoid horribly long author notes at the beginning of every chapter, I will be putting the TWs/Disclaimers/Relevant callouts at the BOTTOMS of my chapters this time around! But the upfronts will have big scary “READ WARNINGS PLZ” to ensure that the warning is indeed there.

On that note: PLZ READ THE DISCLAIMERS FOR THIS FIC AND TWs FOR THIS CHAPTER AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE!!! These characters are NOT OKAY for a while but I want u to be okay if you choose to read!!! Thank u!!!

(Also, I’m sorry if you’re an air beneath reader who was hoping for more of the same. While this fic will have a happy ending, it’s very AU, everyone’s super fucked up, and they’re not always nice about it! Idk I’m sure some people will be disappointed, I’m sorry if so!! )

And now, let’s go – here’s a brand new fic, upload schedule to come as I find my rhythm with the plot and characters. Hoping to at least do once a week (bc if you know me, you know these chapters get ... long).

Playlists are going to play a surprisingly strong role in this fic. Featured songs for this chapter are I Can't Handle Change by Roar and Oh No! by Marina and the Diamonds.
Find Hyunjin's playlist here and Felix's playlist here for a sneak peak of future songs.

I hope u don't absolutely hate it <3 <3 <3

"Hangin’ out where I don’t belong is nothin’ new to me

I get tired and I get sick and then I lose the strength to leave..."

Hyunjin wonders if he’ll be able to wear a hole in the floor of Dr. Choi’s office; he’s been tapping his foot for the past twenty-five minutes on the same floor tile. It’s the same tile he stomped on two days ago, and two days before that, et cetera. Hyunjin’s personal tile since he arrived at JYPE nearly six whopping months ago. 

“Hyunjin,” Choi sighs, rubbing his temples. “We have five minutes left. The only thing you’ve told me is that the dining hall keeps running out of pancakes in the morning.” 

“They do,” Hyunjin huffs. 

“You also very passionately told me that, and I quote, ‘sweet breakfasts are for weaklings and children’...” Choi flips through the sickly yellow binder labeled Hwang , “two weeks ago.” 

“Both can be true,” Hyunjin shrugs. Choi clicks his tongue and leans back. 

“Will you at least tell me if the current dose of Lamictal is working, or if you think you need to titrate up?” 

“Will you at least tell me why thirty young adults are being starved of their breakfast options?” Hyunjin counters. Choi blinks at him like he’s from a different planet.

Hyunjin knows that look; he’s seen it the face of every adult he’s met since he can remember having thoughts. That momentary distaste, that what’s wrong this kid smile adults love to flash at children who are a bit … off. 

Choi sighs again and closes the file on his lap. 

“Do you want to get better?” 

It’s the same question at the end of every session. And the answer? A fat, resounding no . 

But that’s a wrong answer. 

“Doesn’t everyone?” Hyunjin asks instead. Choi hates when Hyunjin answers in questions, so he makes sure to do so at every turn. 

“I’m not here to talk about everyone, I’m here to talk about you. You're turning twenty-four soon. Two weeks from now, you’ll hit six months of inpatient. Most people either transfer to outpatient after four or are moved somewhere more restrictive after seven. I don’t want you to live the rest of your life jumping from treatment center to treatment center.” 

You’re implying I have a life to live otherwise, Hyunjin barely contains. All the while, a familiar, bitter panic rises within him. Transfer. Move. Change.

“The Lamictal is fine,” he says instead, lip curling. “If you really want to help me, up my trazodone. I can hear Ji snoring from across the hall.”

tha

Choi just sighs again, but makes a note in Hyunjin’s file. Little victories.  

By the time he slinks out of the office, Jisung is already waiting; he’s scratching at the skin on his inner elbow again, and Hyunjin swats the offending hand away. 

“Didn’t Minho-hyung get you gloves?” 

“They’re itchy,” Jisung grimaces. 

“Try bandages again,” Hyunjin suggests. “Why are you here? I thought you didn’t have individuals til three.” 

“I was bored. Listening to you be an absolute cunt to Choi is the highlight of my day.”

Hyunjin snorts and hip checks him as they start walking down the hall. “You should get better hobbies.” 

Jisung rolls his eyes and does a little twirl in the corridor. “Ah, yes, so much to do here! Maybe I could color with dulled crayons, or perhaps beg for a chance to look out the window.” 

“No, Ji, think bigger – you could try irritating Seungmin until that one vein in his neck gets all gross, or see how long you can talk to Minho-hyung before you turn red–”

“Don’t you have a personality to borderline,” Jisung hisses, but there’s no malice. Hyunjin laughs. 

“I swear to God you have no clue what my diagnosis means!” 

“Yes, I do,” Jisung snorts. “If you recall, I was the one on the receiving end of it for at least a week.” 

“Deserved it too,” Hyunjin rolls his eyes. “You were so twitchy-” 

A door opening at the end of the corridor shuts them both up. A moment later, Minho snaps his head out of the dance room. 

“Hwang, Han, why can I hear you from the other end of the hall?” Minho says in a clipped voice, eyes narrowed as if Hyunjin and Jisung (and Seungmin and Innie) aren’t his favorite patients. 

“Because you have very lovely, sensitive ears,” Jisung beams back. Minho blinks once like a bored cat. 

“Han, get your gloves or so help me I will knock you down a level. You can say bye-bye to extended night hours.” 

“You wouldn’t!” Jisung gasps. Minho quirks a brow and disappears back into the room, the thudding of the door punctuating his threat. “He wouldn’t,” Jisung repeats. 

“Sure, sure,” Hyunjin waves a hand as they amble the halls. 

JYPE is a venus fly trap – pretty at first glance, but a glance is all it takes before you realize you’re stuck. The halls are all old wood and ornate paintings, the windows grand and tall, but the doors are sealed shut unless you have a key code; and all of the door handles and sinks are slanted. The furniture is beautiful and vintage, but bolted to the floor. The yards are enchanting, but unattainable until you reach level four at least, and even then, you have to be accompanied by a counselor until you reach five. 

“I heard something interesting,” Ji adds as they near the cafeteria. 

“Do tell,” Hyunjin says boredly. 

“We’re getting a new patient today.” 

Hyunjin trips over air. “Really?” 

New patients were something of an anomaly at JYPE because the admission criteria was ... specific. You couldn't be too sick – sick was for hospitals – but you also couldn't be well, or you’d be in outpatient. No, JYPE patients were dangers to themselves and others, but smart enough not to vocalize it until said dangerous tendencies landed them in the ER or in a cell. Even then, it usually took a well-placed phone call to get an interview with admission. 

Yeji had been the one to call for Hyunjin.  

Jisung’s parents didn’t call, because he doesn’t have any, but his parole officer apparently had an in at JYPE, and the production company he’d interned for was willing to vouch for him. It helped that Chan was Ji’s supervisor at the company, was the one who found him in the bathroom foaming at the mouth. 

“Diagnosis?” Hyunjin asks immediately. 

“Not sure,” Jisung says. Hyunjin purses his lips and Jisung nods in frustrated agreement.

Because at JYPE, your diagnosis is a kind of currency, synonymous with your name. 

Han Jisung. Twenty-two. Panicked addict.  

Hwang Hyunjin. Twenty-three. Borderline personality; emphasis on the bored.

“Who was the last new person here? That girl from Madrid?” 

“The schizophrenic one? I remember her. Where’d she end up going?” 

“Either too sick or not sick enough,” Hyunjin murmurs to himself. He pretends his chest doesn’t clench at the idea. Jisung frowns at him, then tugs at his sleeve.

“Come on, the cafeteria opens soon for lunch and I want to steal Minho a pudding cup.” 

---

"One track mind, one track heart

If I fail I’ll fall apart..."

Felix arrives at Joyous Youth Patients’ Escape (JYPE, according to the sign, which is smart because that name is truly horrible) with Madame Poirot on one arm and his RA on the other. He struggles to drag his suitcase behind him, but neither Madame nor Eliana volunteer to help. 

If I can drag this fucking suitcase, I should be allowed to dance, Felix bites back the statement. He doesn’t want to make Madame more disappointed than she already is. 

“Two weeks seems unnecessary,” he says instead; little wildflower voice, brittle and small. Madame doesn’t like when he speaks too loudly (the depth of his voice isn’t delicate enough, it ruins the fantasy), so he always makes sure to keep his head bowed and his volume low. “Sam only went to the hospital for seventy-two hours last year.” 

The woman in question shoots him a sharp glance down her nose. Phantom pain shoots across the back of his legs and down to his toes. “Sam tried to kill himself.”

“So I should have tried to kill myself,” Felix grumbles under his breath. Apparently he’s not quiet enough – Madame’s arm snakes away from his elbow and her hand finds a sharp purchase at the nape of his neck. She always keeps her nails long, and at that moment, he feels the crescent blade of them breaking skin. Still, a desperation is building with him, one that outweighs the fear of pain. “Please, Madame, I’m fine – I’ll make sure to have more electrolytes, I’ll do more stamina training, but two weeks-” 

Madame turns on him with a sharp nod to Eliana, who takes several steps back.

“Yongbok, it’s not enough that you collapsed during rehearsal, you collapsed in front of a film crew. How do you think that makes me look, hmm? Irresponsible, that's how.” 

Shame crawls up Felix’s neck like crystalizing ice. 

“So you’re going to stay here, convince all these doctors that you’re fine, and if you make it out after two weeks in time for the callbacks, maybe I’ll still consider you for White Swan.” 

Felix swallows hard. His whole body thrums with a restless energy that seems to pool in his feet. He wants nothing more than to drag his headphones from the confines of his backpack, blast the music until he can’t hear his own thoughts, and dance until he’s perfect. 

“Yongbok, answer me,” Madame tightens her grip on his neck, but he doesn’t dare wince. No, Lee Felix doesn’t feel pain. He doesn’t feel at all. “I thought we stamped out that brattiness years ago. Be my good little doll, yes?” 

Or be no doll at all. 

“Oui, Madame,” Felix says. “I’m sorry.” 

She squints at him for a long few seconds before lessening her grip, just slightly. “The showcase is in a month. If you’re not back by then, you can kiss your pointe shoes goodbye. Got it?” 

Felix swallows, but his throat is tights and sandpaper dry. “Oui, Madame.” 

“Good,” she says. 

When he was told he’d be transferred from the hospital to an inpatient facility, Felix had imagined sterile white walls and harsh fluorescents, ambling bodies in paper gowns and rubber socks; stern-faced doctors and nurses with straightjackets and eclectic probes. 

But when Eliana pushes open the front doors of JYPE, he’s met with what he can only describe as a beautiful manor: rich wooden floors, soft blue walls, and sloping windows; the room is lit with warm lighting courtesy of the chandeliers above, that very light falling across thick looking rugs and gold-framed paintings. It’s clearly an entry room for the facility more than anything else given the handful of couches, random assortment of magazines on the coffee table, and check in desk. A woman sits behind it, smiling as they enter. 

“Lee Felix Yongbok?” She asks, rising. She wears a doctor’s coat over a button down and slacks, but her smile is warm – a far cry from the nightmare doctors he’d created in his mind while he laid in the ER. 

(“We really don’t offer the services he needs here, the ER isn’t enough, but I need to recommend him to some kind of treatment option.”

“Well I need him in rehearsals. We have a showcase coming up in a month and a ballet to rehearse in two weeks.” 

The doctor and Madame spoke over his head, like he was a broken down car. It didn’t even register to him to be bothered. This was just how Madame cared. 

“Fine. Given his circumstances, I might know a place that can clear him more quickly.”)  

“Yes,” Madame answers for him. Felix, he wants to correct. But if Madame told the facility Yongbok, then Yongbok it is. Just another punishment. 

“Hello,” Felix whispers with a small bow. 

“I’m Dr. Kim, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she nods at him. “I know this all must be pretty frightening, but I assure you that everyone in this facility wants nothing more than to help you.” 

Madame’s grip tightens enough that Felix manages to hold back a frown. Help. More like sabotage. 

“ Merci - Thank you,” Felix bows again, switching from French to Korean at the last second. 

“You can leave your things here – I’m sure you read in the consent forms-” 

Nope, didn’t even see them actually. 

“-but it’s customary that we search luggage for anything that could be a harm to yourself or others.” 

He isn’t stupid. He knows that privacy and independence do not go hand in hand with psychiatric facilities, but it still hurts when his suitcase is pried from his hand. He hates himself so viscerally in that moment, because Madame was right: this is his fault. It’s his fault for not being stronger; for falling, and staying down.

When Felix fainted in rehearsal (a taped rehearsal at that), he hadn’t gotten up. No, apparently, he’d been white as a sheet, cold to the touch, and blue-lipped. And maybe, Madame would have been able to convince staff to leave him alone had he fainted for one minute or so. But Felix had lied there, unresponsive, for more than fifteen minutes, and by then help was already on the way. 

(Philippe told him it was the film crew, not Madame, who’d called the ambulance. Then again, Philippe was jockeying for the role of White Swan as well, so who was to say what the truth actually was. Mind games were as common in the company as caffeine pills and broken toes.)

It doesn’t matter. The result is the same. Felix is trapped here.  

“We’re ready whenever you are,” the doctor (Dr. Kim, he reminds himself) says, a sachet of paperwork in her arms. Madame pulls him into a hug, the sudden pressure of a comforting body as warm as it is shocking, until her mouth is inches away from his ears. 

“It’s your own fault you’re here,” she whispered. “Do not disappoint me further.” 

Felix purses his lips, clenches his fists, and nods. 

“I won’t,” he promises. Because Madame is holding his spot for him, she’s giving him two weeks. She’s good like that, she’s loyal. 

(And sure, he may fear Madame sometimes, but she’s made him everything he is today and doesn’t look too closely when Felix blinks back black spots after rehearsals or dances until his toes bleed. In a way, they both get what they want – her, the perfect malleable dancing machine, a rising star, a gravity of publicity for the Poirot Ballet; and him, a no-holds-barred road to perfection, all the tools he needs to stay put on the very pedestal that had been carved for him as a child.)

“Now Felix, if you’ll come with me,” Dr. Kim says. Felix turns his head, but Madame is already walking to the door with Eliana. Neither of them look back. The sight is more jarring than he expects, and if the action of crying hadn’t been trained out of him, tears probably would have sprung to his eyes at that very moment. 

Felix is alone for the first time since he was thirteen. Felix is alone, bitter, frightened, and dizzy. 

(And, okay, the dizziness isn’t new, but literal isolation, not just mental, is shocking in its novelty.)

“It’ll be okay,” Dr. Kim promises. “We’ll get you the help you need.” 

I don’t want help, Felix thinks. I want to be out of here yesterday. 

“Okay,” he says instead. 

Dr. Kim leads him through a door, down a surprisingly well decorated hallway (still wood paneled, still warmly lit) and through a key-card guarded door. Immediately the scent of antiseptic and the harsh glow of hospital lights puts him on edge. 

“I promise the rest of the facility is as lovely as the entry room,” she smiles. “But a clinic is a clinic, no matter how many paintings you hang.” 

Felix just nods. She leads him into a small room, standard as far as medical offices go, and hands him what he initially believes to be a wad of paper. 

“If you can just take off your clothes and put that on, I’ll be back momentarily to conduct a quick physical.” 

Felix’s heart jumps to his throat as he examines the garments – a paper gown and flimsy shorts so barely-there that they’re almost worse than the concept of going without. His jacket hangs heavy around him like an anchor. 

“Can I leave my underwear on please?” He asks in a hoarse whisper. She purses her lips but nods. 

“Yes, of course. I just need to take a look at you, draw some blood, get your weight, and then you’ll be good to go.” 

Weight. Blood. Fuck. 

“Thank you,” Felix bows. The second the door shuts, he staggers towards the paper-wrapped bench, barely catching himself on the side of it before his legs buckle. 

Shit, shit, shit. 

He squeezes desperately at the pocket of his jacket. The weights are there. Heavy, corporeal, and there. Felix forces himself to take a steadying breath until the black spots in his vision clear, then starts to peel himself out of his clothes. Off goes the jacket, then the sweater, then the thermal shirt beneath until he’s left in a thin tank top not unlike the leotards he wears daily. He strips away his jeans and leggings until he’s down to just his briefs and his socks. 

He digs in his jacket pockets and pulls out the four metal disks, each two kilos in weight. He puts one each in the grippy-soled hospital socks (at the toe because it reminds him of his pointe shoes), and two in his briefs. It would be funny looking if the weights weren’t quite so cold, and if he wasn’t so terrified of passing this first test. He rips the hair tie out of his pony tail and knots the elastic of his underwear extra tights so that his underwear won’t be weighed down and off of his body. 

The paper gown is flimsy. It’s too revealing – too much arm, too much leg, too much chest. At least it’s long enough to cover the bruises on his back and upper thighs; at least it isn’t tight. 

“Yongbok, are you dressed?” 

Felix shoves himself onto the bench with a stifled groan, joints and head protesting in tandem at the movement. “Yes.” 

Dr. Kim enters with a rolling tray – a syringe and other medical devices lay on top of it. 

“Do you faint easily?” 

Felix pauses a beat too long before speaking. “Did you … did you read my file?”

Dr. Kim smiles guiltily. “Well, yes, but I meant from getting your blood drawn, not from stimulants and exhaustion.” 

Felix thinks of the black spots. He thinks of the iron and potassium doctors at the hospital insisted he needs more of. “Probably.” 

“I’ll have you lay back then, and afterwards I’ll get you some cookies and juice to restore your blood sugar.” 

Like hell, he thinks. 

“Okay,” he says instead. He reclines stiffly, cognizant of the weights shifting in his socks and underwear. He doesn’t even blink at the pinch of the needle, nor does he wince when his wooziness increases tenfold. 

Dolls don’t show pain because they don’t even feel it. 

“Very well done, Yongbok,” Dr. Kim says calmly. Finally satisfied with her blood draw, she removes the needle and presses a cotton swab to his inner arm. 

“Dizzy?” 

“No,” Felix lies.

“Maybe stay down for a moment. Do you want me to get the juice now or after-” 

“After is fine,” Felix says quickly. He lets a few moments pass, then pushes himself upright. He knows he must look grey, despite the warm foundation and concealer he’d slathered onto his skin in the cab, and he knows his hands are positively trembling, so he keeps them knotted in his lap. 

“If you will, I’d like to weigh you now,” she says. Is he imagining it, or is she frowning at his legs, at the knobs of his knees. 

“Of course,” Felix tries to smile, tries to look like he doesn’t have a care in the world when it comes to the scale before him. He makes sure he doesn’t move like he’s dizzy, nor like his underwear is at risk of falling off, though both are actively true.  

He steps on the scale and tries to remember not to hold his breath, but this wait – the few seconds before the mental math begins – has always been always a strange sort of purgatory. Dr. Kim shifts the dial to the right, then to the left, then right again. 

When it pauses, it lands on 55. 55 kilograms. 

A safe number, 122 pounds. 

The numbers flash and rearrange before his eyes, unasked for, uninvited, rote practice by now. 

With the weights on his body subtracted, it 55 becomes 47. 105 pounds. 

105, 105, 105. 

A dangerous number. 

Not perfect yet, though.

How the hell am I going to weigh myself over the next two weeks? 

“How tall are you?” Dr. Kim asks. 

“Five foot seven,” he answers. “171 centimeters.” 

The doctors at the company like to have metric and imperial measurements for everything. Twice the amount of numbers for Felix to keep track of. 

Lucky for them, he loves numbers. Counting, especially. Never mind the fact that, since thirteen, he hasn’t attended regular school – Felix’s own, unique brand of math perfectly suits his life as it is. 

She motions for Felix to take a seat, this time on one of the chairs instead of the bench. 

“Any substances in your system that are going to pop up in your labs?” She asks. 

“Adderall,” he answers easily. “And caffeine pills.” 

She types the data into her laptop, nodding. 

“Do you currently have any thoughts of killing yourself?” 

“No.” Also easy. He can’t dance if he’s dead. 

“Is anyone harming you, either sexually, physically, or emotionally?” 

The bruises on Felix’s thighs ache, but he mentally shakes himself. 

“No,” he says firmly. 

“And you understand that you’re due to stay here for a minimum of two weeks-” 

What?

“Minimum?” Felix asks. He hears the way his voice pitches anxiously. “I was told I’d be here for two weeks only. I’m … I’m in the running to be cast as the White Swan in Swan Lake, and the callbacks are two weeks away–” 

Dr. Kim looks slightly startled; maybe it’s because he hasn’t said more than three syllables at a time since she’s met him. 

“I can appreciate your anxiety to get back to your life,” she responds carefully, “but at the end of the day, we have a legal duty to ensure that you’re safe, and your Madame… she has a level of guardianship over you that we have to honor.” 

Dr. Kim’s face twists sourly before she smoothes it away with another smile. Felix bites his tongue. He pinches his thigh. He focuses on the yawning, gnawing hunger in his gut, and then holds that pain in his mind like a child cradling a wounded bird, anything to keep from lashing out.  

“Of course,” he finally says. 

Because Felix has spent his life before a mirror. 

He knows how to make his eyes wide and shiny. 

He knows what the jut of his lower lip did to people. 

He knows how to be a doll of a thing. 

“And thank you,” he adds for good measure. 

“Well, that concludes our time in this room,” she rises. “I’ll just take your clothes, and-” 

“I can’t wear my clothes?” Felix whispers. She smiles, but it’s filled with such pity that Felix almost wishes she would just frown. 

“Soon, you’ll be able to,” she says. “But for today … well, I’ve heard it’s like wearing pajamas.” 

She waves a hand across Felix’s paper gown. 

Whoever told you that was a fucking liar , Felix can’t help thinking. 

“Is there any way I could get a blanket?” he asks instead. 

He ditches the cookies when Dr. Kim's back is turned and pretends to sip at the juice box as she escorts him out of the clinic. His head is spinning as he is led, a slightly-scratchy blanket draped across his shoulders and toes aching where they press against weights in his socks, into the actual facility. Like the entry room, everything is clearly designed to evoke comfort and warmth, but the constant presence of doctors and the very obvious bars on the windows is disconcerting at best, stifling as is. 

“Unfortunately, you missed dinner. Did you eat before you came?” Dr. Kim asks. 

“Yeah,” Felix lies. 

“Okay, good. Breakfast is from eight to nine, lunch from noon to one, and dinner from six to seven. There are always snacks available, you just need to ask a staff member.” 

Felix’s fears manifest as phantom cramps in his legs, a panicky need to move and move fast. Thankfully, Dr. Kim doesn’t seem to notice his anguish (as if Felix would let it show), and as they round a corner, they pause before a small bedroom. Door open (and clearly meant to stay so, given the thick stopper wedged beneath it), he can make out a small single bed, a nightstand, and nothing else. Another door within the room shows off a tiny bathroom – nothing more than a toilet, oddly sloped sink, and miniature shower that can’t be more than two square feet in size. 

“Our residents typically live two to a room barring any extenuating circumstances. For tonight, at least, you’ll sleep here, and then we’ll place you.” 

And that’s fine, honestly. Felix doesn’t remember the last time he slept in a room with fewer than four other bodies alongside him. He can only hope that his roommate ends up being semi-normal. He’s only here for fourteen days if he has anything to say about it – even if he was the type of person who could afford to have friendships, he wouldn’t start looking for them now. 

“Tomorrow you’ll meet with Dr. Choi, one of our head psychologists. We also have several counselors who lead different activities as well as individual and group sessions. After you speak with Dr. Choi, we’ll put together a therapy and activities schedule for you.” 

He doesn’t need therapy; he doesn’t need counseling. He isn’t normal, but he’s spent his whole life training to be just that – an anomaly, a body made to break the laws of gravity and beauty and perfection. 

To do that, Felix had to have rules of his own – rules based on the very fundamentals of life; entropy, metabolism, equivalent exchange. He takes those rules, bends them and twists them; he balanced on the precipice of possibility, and on relevé no less. 

He knows what Dr. Choi and Dr. Kim and Chan and every other counselor crawling these halls – with their careful smiles and soft, hang-in-there pep talks – would think of his rules, but Felix has no intention of handing over his secrets to success. It isn’t his fault that he’s stronger than them. 

He knows he’s here because of his own inability to push through the pain, but the idea of playing ‘sick’ triggers some kind of emotion within him. After a moment, he realizes it’s anxiety. 

“Yongbok? Are you okay?” 

“Yes, of course,” Felix answers instinctively. Dr. Kim smiles at him, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. 

“In that case, I’d like to show you to the community room. It’s where most patients spend their free time, and it’s also where we host group therapy sessions. You’re lucky, you made it just in time for today’s session.” 

Felix wonders if his smile looks as brittle as it feels. 

“Very lucky,” he manages to say. 

---

"...I can’t handle change, I can’t handle change, 

nothing I do is ever good, nothin' I do is ever good enough..."

Chan is already waiting when Hyunjin, Jisung, and Seungmin enter the community room for seven-thirty PM group. 

Hyunjin likes Chan. Everyone likes Chan. Whereas Dr. Choi, or even Dr. Park himself, make Hyunjin want to break something, Chan just gets it; literally, because he’s sat where they’ve sat, and technically, because Chan is a workaholic who managed to get his certificate in counseling in record time. 

How he finds time in the day to work as a producer and listen to them bitch, Hyunjin will never know. Then again, he hasn’t played responsible adult in quite some time.

“Here comes trouble,” Chan snorts when he sees the three of them enter. “Sung, weren’t you supposed to be at the gym today? Changbin seems to think he saw you sneaking out of the lunch before he could grab you.” 

“Uh … I don’t know, Hyung, maybe Changbin is experiencing visual hallucinations,” Jisung makes his eyes big and shrugs. Chan rolls his eyes. 

“Go to your schedules! They’re there for a reason !” 

“But hyung, the gym is awful,” Jisung groans as he flops onto one of the couches in, what he and the others lovingly refer to as, the Bitch Bowl. Four couches, several bean bags, and a couple overflow armchairs chairs, all arranged to create a circle around a coffee table, filled with snacks, paper cups for juice and soda, various stress and fidget toys, and a fresh box of tissues. Always a box of tissues. 

Hyunjin has never had to touch them. 

“You’re just embarrassed you can’t lift more than twenty pounds,” Seungmin swipes a cup of juice from the table and sits on the chair furthest from the couches as possible. Hyunjin wordlessly joins Jisung in the loveseat to his right, knowing Innie will take the armchair to his left. They all know not to crowd Seungmin, but others aren’t always so aware, and Seungmin hates when he has a meltdown at group. 

( Touch me, and I’ll bite you, Seungmin had threatened his first day, glare hitting each and every person in the Bitch Bowl. 

His story made it clearer why.)

He fiddles with the cuff of his jeans. He’s glad to have them back – his last ‘stunt’ of upending one of the community room tables resulted in having his clothes taken away, and he’d trudged miserably through the ward in hospital-grade sweatpants and t-shirts for three days. Even though the majority of his accessories were confiscated at the door (and presumably remain under lock and key, along with his phone, wallet, and cigarettes), the small freedom of his own clothes is precious; he hadn’t realized how precious until they were taken from him. 

Hyunjin has always liked to dress to make a statement; if people were going to constantly comment on his appearance, at least he could shift the narrative. His hair is long – longer now than six months ago, when it had hit his cheekbones, not his collarbones – and deep cherry red; while he considered dying his eyebrows to match, he’d settled on cutting a slit through the left one instead with the front-office box cutters (for that, he’d been on lockdown). His outfits are largely black, red, white, or distressed denim, but today he’d gone all black – baggy black jeans, a black tanktop, black combat boots, and the usual black arm warmers. Choi had realized that accessories, namely jewelry, were a fairly effective bargaining chip, but sharp metal was a no-no regardless. As such, he’s been allowed, with good behavior, to order plastic jewelry, likely made for toddlers. It’s unideal, but Hyunjin makes it work, so his ears are host to a dozen studs, hoops, and dangly charms.

 So what if one of them is the black cat from Hello Kitty? It’s cute. 

( “You look like you’ve killed someone,” Jisung had said when he’d met Hyunjin the first day – twitchy, already half-way to hyperventilation, still grey from withdrawal, and sweaty from the Methadone. 

“Only attempted,” Hyunjin had answered sarcastically. Jisung’s eyes had flashed wider. 

“Who?” 

“Myself, dumbass,” he’d snarled. Jisung’s eyes had popped even wider and then he’d laughed so loudly that a nurse came running to check on them.

Which was a good call. Hyunjin was splitting, literally and mentally, and had promptly tackled Jisung to the ground for laughing at him. ) 

Slowly, the room fills. Innie lopes in at the last minute and sinks into the spot wordlessly left open for him. His eyes are red and his pupils are pinpoint; he’s clearly just come from individuals, but he won’t meet Hyunjin’s eye for confirmation, so Hyunjin settles for passing him the packet of cookies he’d saved for the youngest.

“Do you want the iPod tonight?” he whispers. Innie’s eyes widen. 

“But it’s your night-” 

“You look like you could use it,” Hyunjin cuts him off, letting his finger brush soothingly across the back of Innie’s hand. The youngest bites his lip, but his shoulders relax a fraction as he sits back and opens the snack packet, shoving a conceringly-large handful of cookies into his mouth. 

“‘fanks,” he slurs around the food. Hyunjin rolls his eyes and kicks him lightly in the shin. 

“Where’s the new kid?” Jisung whispers. Hyunjin shrugs just as the doors open. 

Dr. Kim enters first, her smile fixed in the exact same way Hyunjin remembers from his first day. 

“Chan, I have a new recruit for you,” she says. Chan sits up; he looks so achingly hopeful that it almost makes Hyunjin wonder what ‘better’ could look like if he bothered to try.

“The more the merrier,” Chan beams. 

Jisung snorts.

Choi stands aside, and with a crinkle of paper, a man steps in. Well, Hyunjin thinks he’s a man – his head is bowed, and shoulder-length blonde hair hides his face. He wears the customary paper gown and shorts that they all donned upon intake, but he’s been allowed a waffle-knit blanket, so his body is entirely cloaked save his sock-clad feet. 

He moves like he’d crawled out of hell and walked all the way to JYPE himself. 

“You can take a seat next to Innie,” Chan grins, despite the fact that the stranger hasn’t looked up. He must be able to see through that mop of hair, because he tiptoes (literally, Hyunjin realizes, the newbie is walking on tip toe) to the couch and sits in the only available space. 

Finally, he lifts his head, his bangs falling to either side.

He still looks like hell. 

But he’s also beautiful. Beautiful the way a chrysalis or a butterfly or spun sugar is beautiful. 

Huge brown eyes like a deer’s. A small button nose and plump heart shaped lips (though they look slightly more blue-tinged than can be healthy). Sharp cheekbones. A bit too sharp, maybe, as well as his jaw. And those enormous eyes are rimmed in dark shadow, despite the foundation Hyunjin can tell was applied, and thickly at that. 

Still – stunning. 

And yet, he doesn’t look like he knows where he is; he doesn’t look around the circle at all the faces watching him, and he doesn't seem particularly frightened. He’s like a statue. 

Interesting. 

He can tell Jisung thinks so too, because he leans forward just a bit. Seungmin studies the stranger the way he studies anyone new – shrewdly, like they’re a potential bomb that he’ll need to be ready to neutralize before detonation. 

Innie just stares with unabashed intrigue. 

“Yongbok, right?” 

Maybe-Yongbok opens his mouth, but then closes it and nods. The silent type, then. Jisung was like that too, when he got here, as was Seungmin. Hyunjin and Jeongin, on the other hand, were loud, blatant in their anger at being institutionalized. 

Either behavior usually finds stasis after a couple rounds of group and a heaping spoonful of individual counseling. 

“Well, welcome to group – not much to be scared of, it’s more of a time to chat productively than anything else,” Chan chuckles, smile like a warm cup of hot chocolate; as if they’re a group of friends hanging out at a bar. As if this is voluntary. 

That’s how he gets you, Jeongin had said once. Flashes his dimples, pretends it’s a really chill conversation, and the next thing you know, he’s got you hip-deep in a therapy session you didn’t realize you were in. 

It’s what made Chan good at this job. He never pushes, he never lectures (unless it’s truly deserved). He just speaks and, more importantly, he listens. 

Yongbok clearly doesn’t believe the speech. If anything, he goes more still; if it wasn’t for the aircon ruffling his flyaways, Hyunjin might think he really was a statue. 

“Does anyone want to tell Yongbok some of the guidelines for group?” Chan claps, opening the conversation. Jisung grins. 

“Only talk when you have the talking stick.” 

Chan’s eyebrow twitches. “For the hundredth time, Sung, it’s not a talking stick, but …” Chan grabs a stressball from the table and tosses it in his palm. “Well, the idea’s the same.” 

“And everyone has to talk,” Jisung adds. 

Yongbok still doesn’t move, but it’s like his spirit retreats even further into his body. Jisung pouts a bit at being ignored.

What the hell is wrong with him? Hyunjin wonders. 

“Yes,” Chan nods. “It doesn’t have to be a lot, and it doesn’t have to be illuminating, but you have to speak. Beyond that – we don’t insult each other, we don’t censor each other, and we don’t use offensive language. Got it?” 

Yongbok just blinks at Chan. Chan, used to difficult young adults as he is, doesn’t seem the least bit ruffled. 

“Okay, I know we all know each other’s deals, but would anyone be willing to introduce themselves?” 

Everyone tries to keep their eyes down, but Innie isn't quick enough, and it’s probably a bit because he was busy sending heart eyes at the counselor. Chan beams and tosses Innie the ball. 

“Shit,” Innie murmurs under his breath. “Um, I’m Jeongin. Or Innie. Everyone calls me Innie. I’m nineteen. Um … I don’t know what to say?” 

He shoots Chan puppy-dog eyes; no one is immune to Innie’s puppy-dog eyes. 

“What was your schedule today?” Chan prods kindly. “Anything there you might want to talk about?” 

Innie’s eyes harden. “No.” 

“Innie,” Chan says softly. He huffs and slinks into the couch.

“I had individuals, and it wasn’t fun. They’re thinking of keeping a nurse with me whenever I shower because, supposedly, I’m turning the water too hot.” 

Hyunjin’s chest pangs. He exchanges worried looks with Seungmin and Jisung, but they both shrug – clearly, this is news to them as well. 

“Do you think the water’s too hot?” Chan asks. “Honestly, I mean.” 

“No!” Innie insists. “I … maybe? Not hot enough to hurt, I know that much.” 

Innie’s voice turns a bit stubborn at the end, his arms, sleeves trailing over his hands, rising to cross against his chest. 

Yongbok doesn’t look at Innie, but he tilts his head to the side just slightly. Hyunjin wonders if he’s trying to figure out why hot water would be a no-no, or if he’s realizing, at this very moment, how much privacy he’s given up by walking through those beautiful front doors. 

“If you want it hot for physical comfort, I believe you. I’ll talk to your counselor, okay? Maybe we can find a nice compromise,” Chan promises. “Anything else you want to say? Maybe a fun fact?” 

Innie rolls his eyes. They all know this is for Yongbok’s benefit. 

“I can fit my whole fist in my mouth and I like to sing.” 

A chorus of giggles floats across the room, because they’ve all seen Innie’s ability to do exactly what he’s bragged about. Innie blushes, but his smirk is genuine as he tosses the ball across the circle to Hana ( antisocial ). 

Hyunjin zones out as patient after patient ( joyful youth after joyful youth ) speaks. Some actually have things to talk about. Jae ( paranoid schizoaffective ) got caught tonguing his antipsychotics, and confesses that he’s scared to lose the company of his hallucinations. Meaghan (bulimic, burner ) went down a level for throwing her breakfast tray at the window that very morning. Others just comment on the latest book they’re reading, snacks they wish were available, freedoms they’ve achieved from going up levels. 

Chan responds to each and every complaint with the exact same level of seriousness, whether it be mild or severe, mental health related or otherwise. Bryan (oppositional, angry, fantastic kisser from what Hyunjin recalls) starts to aim the stress ball in Hyunjin’s direction, but all it takes is a single glare for his hand to falter and the ball to go to Seungmin instead. Seungmin doesn’t say much beyond complaining that laundry days need to occur more often, and he shouldn’t be expected to wear tight clothing just because he goes through his loose clothing too quickly. 

Hyunjin jerks his head in the newbie’s direction when Seungmin finishes. Seungmin rolls his eyes, but a moment later, there goes the ball, sailing in a perfect arc and landing expertly in Yongbok’s lap. 

Yongbok stares at the toy like it’s an alien device. 

“What about you, Yongbok?” Chan asks. Yongbok shifts and his whole body crinkles with the gown’s movement. Hyunjin feels a pang of sympathy – he remembers how humiliating it was to sit half-naked in a room of fully-dressed young adults.

“What about me?” He finally speaks. 

“Whoa!” Innie whispers (far too loudly). Hyunjin rolls his eyes at the reaction, but he gets it. Yongbok’s voice, while whisper-quiet, is deep . 

Chan’s eyes flicker towards Innie, a nonverbal tsk , but slide easily back to Yongbok with his classic dimpled grin. “Well, it’s your first group; this is your chance to introduce yourself, tell us a bit about you…” 

Yongbok nods slowly. Hyunjin leans forward just a bit, as does Seungmin; he’s not surprised to see Seungmin studying him, because there’s a strange sort of emptiness in his expression that Hyunjin has never seen on a person not maxed out on benzos. 

“I’m Yongbok,” he says softly. “I’m here for two weeks.” 

And that’s all he offers. 

Hyunjin feels something prickle across his shoulders. It’s not anger, not yet, but it could be- 

“Okay,” Chan nods. “What brought you here then?” 

What’s wrong with you? Is the real question, just the one that Chan can’t ask out loud, not with that phrasing, at least. 

Yongbok’s throat bobs as he swallows. It’s the first movement that isn’t a slow blink. 

“I took too much Adderall,” he finally says in a voice like a robot’s. 

Silence stretches, but he doesn’t add anything else. 

“That’s it?” Jisung asks. 

“Ji,” Chan chides. He repositions himself in his seat like an athlete shaking off a missed goal. “Adderall’s a hell of a drug, yeah? Must have been some reason you started taking it-” 

“I’m a dancer,” Yongbok interrupts, then twitches as if expecting to be hit for speaking out of turn. “It’s not a big deal, I’m not the only one. I overdid it, so I’m here to get it out of my system. That’s it.” 

Yeah right, he thinks, taking in the waxy pallor of Yongbok’s skin, the dark shadows of his eyes. Whatever is wrong with this kid is not a two-week issue. 

And Hyunjin can’t help it. He laughs.

Yongbok glances up for a quick, fleeting moment, but he’s back to his staring contest with the floor before Hyunjin can even raise a brow. 

Chan is relentless, a dog with a bone. “Sometimes, if we feel like something’s wrong, it can be tempting to overdo it-” 

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Yongbok cuts in, his voice just shy of sharp. Jisung jumps in the seat beside Hyunjin. “I mean, I’m not crazy.” 

There’s a palpable hiss of tension that slices across the room. Innie tugs his sleeves ever further over his hands and shifts away from Yongbok. Jisung laughs, a single dry hah , and crosses his arms. Seungmin just sits forward, eyes still narrowed and calculating. 

Hyunjin scoffs. 

Yongbok’s eyes flicker to him, but they’re gone as soon as they land. 

“Ah, we try to avoid words like crazy,” Chan laughs awkwardly, his pencil tapping at his clipboard in syncopated rhythms. “No one here is crazy – that’s not a diagnosis, just a judgement on behavior that lacks a good bit of nuance.” 

Chan has always been good at that – soft-spoken, smiley mollification; he’s the human persona of ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed’. 

It would be funny, if Hyunjin wasn’t so full of hot, burning rage. 

Why would anyone want you, Hyunjin? You’re fucking crazy!

“Well, I’m not, regardless,” Yongbok says to the ground. “I’m a dancer, I took too much Adderall, I’ll be gone in two weeks. That’s the story: beginning, middle, end.” 

He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like a truth unshakeable. Like one-plus-one, like the-sky-is-blue. 

Like he’s not crazy, and then definitely are. Hyunjin clenches his fists a little more tightly. 

Chan frowns at the boy before him. 

“Dance, huh?” he asks. Yongbok’s “What kind? What makes you like to-”

“You said I could talk as much or as little as I wanted?” Yongbok cuts him off weakly. He holds the stress ball towards Chan with a shaky hand. “I’m done.” 

Chan’s mouth gapes for just a moment before settling into a rigid smile. “Of course, that’s fine.” 

A steely silence seems to have sucked away half of the oxygen in the room, or maybe it’s  just anger pulsing at the edge of Hyunjin’s vision; either way, he’s snatching the stressball from Yongbok’s outstretched hand before he can really question it, before Chan can stop him. 

“If you’re not crazy, Yongbok” he says, “why are you the only one wearing a paper gown?” 

“Hyunjin,” Chan warns. Hyunjin shrugs. 

“Just trying to get to know him, hyung!” He tosses the stressball in his hand, but his eyes never leave Yongbok, even though the man in question won’t look at him. “After all, if he’s not crazy, shouldn’t he be in outpatient? Or maybe he’s sick-” 

“I’m not sick.” 

Hyunjin almost drops the stressball. The words are not fragile and small. No, Yongbok is staring (at the floor still, admittedly) like it personally offended him, and his voice is all gravel and ice. 

Hyunjin feels himself grinning. 

“Well, you’re in here with us, aren’t you?” He croons. 

Yongbok glances up at him and this time, he doesn’t look away. 

“For two weeks,” he whispers. 

Hyunjin lets his gaze slide across Yongbok’s blanket-clad body like a weapon. When he responds, he can practically taste the sarcasm dripping off of his tongue. 

“Uh-huh. I’m so sure, Princess . ” 

“That’s enough, give me the talking stick- the stressball, ” Chan leans forward, plucks the stress ball for himself. “Yongbok just arrived, Hyunjin. Check your hostility at the door next time.” 

Hyunjin scoffs softly but sits back obediently. Chan looks around the circle and sighs as he throws the stressball to Jisung. Jisung barely manages to catch it, eyes it, then Yongbok, with a dangerous glint in his eyes. Then he grins. 

“Hi,” he says. “I’m Han Jisung, and I’m a sick, pill-popping crazy person.” 

Hyunjin smirks. Chan sighs sharply. 

“That’s enough. Group’s over since you can’t take this seriously-” 

“Hyung!” Jisung scoffs, but Chan silences with an unusually severe frown, and Ji swallows his complaints with a sour-lemon pout. 

“C’mon,” Innie elbows Jisung in the side, and the four of them rise. Yongbok stays seated, and when Hyunjin passes him, he makes sure to bump his foot against the side of his chair. 

Yongbok flinches.

“Let it go,” Seungmin is at his side in a heartbeat. Jisung loops his arm through Hyunjin’s in a tight knot that Innie mimics on his right. He bites his tongue until he tastes iron, and when they’re nearly out of the room, spares one last glance to Mr. I’m-Not-Crazy-

Yongbok is looking back. 

And long gone is the blank, anonymous stare. No, Yongbok’s eyes are black with anger, all pupil, and that sharpness Hyunjin had noticed in his features seems more like carved ice than skin.

It shocks Hyunjin for several reasons – because first of all, there it is: proof of humanity, of reaction, of anything ; secondly, it confirms that Yongbok does, in fact, mean every word he just said. He means to draw the line between them and himself. 

And third, most jarringly and concerningly of all: 

Icy rage is horribly, painfully attractive on him. 

---

"I know exactly what I want and who I want to be, I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine

I’m now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy, oh, oh no, oh no..."

In the end, Chan asks Felix if he’s okay about thirty different ways before he begrudgingly allows him to go back to his room, and even then, it’s only with several reminders that he can always ask a staff member or the designated night counselor (that night it’s a man named Minho, apparently) for anything he might need. Before Felix slips away, Chan hands him a piece of paper ( ‘just some information for tonight, we’ll give you full tour tomorrow morning’ ) but at long last, Felix half-speed walks, half-stumbles out of the community room and in the vague, hazily remembered direction of his room.  

Felix is tired. He’s so, so tired, but he knows he will not be able to sleep until he can get in a nightly workout. As soon as he stumbles his way into his temporary room, he half-collapses on the bed, not bothering to turn on a light, and strips off his socks; his toes are numb and bloodless from where they’ve been scrunched against the weights, and he absently stretches them as he removes the weights from his briefs as well. He hides all four inside his pillowcase in a mad rush, and then sits gingerly on the bed. The paper Chan had given him crinkles against his already-crinkly outfit. He lifts it, squinting in the darkness of the unlit room. 

 

Welcome to JYPE 

Hello, Yongbok,

It is with open arms that we welcome you to JYPE. As you embark on your healing journey, we hope you know that we are honored to be a part of your growth and young adult navigating the difficult journey of mental health. 

Bed checks are conducted hourly by the night-counselor on duty. They are available throughout the night and day for you to speak with about any concerns, fears, or questions that may arise. 

Please note that breakfast begins in the cafeteria, located on the far right wing of the facility (see the map on the backside of this sheet for further reference) at 8:00 AM and concludes at 9:00 AM. Should you find yourself hungry in the interim, the nurses in the medication bay (located in the central hub) can provide you with snacks. You will be served set meals tomorrow and will then be able to choose different options afterwards. 

We understand that this experience may seem frightening, upsetting, or frustrating to some, but we truly believe you will leave JYPE feeling more capable than you entered it. Please try to enjoy your first night, and we look forward to beginning your journey come morning. 

 

Best, 

The Staff at JYPE  

 

Felix can’t move. He can barely think past that third paragraph. You will be served set meals. Set meals. Options fly across his mind, each one more and more nauseating. Will he be allowed to eat in his room? Will they watch him? What will lunch be like, or dinner? 

He presses his fingers to his pulse point, but no matter how much he holds his breath, no matter how hard he flexes his toes, the anxious energy continues to build within him. 

God, he can’t do this. 

He needs to dance. He needs his headphones. He needs clothes that will swallow him whole and he needs people to stop expecting him to speak. 

He needs to get out of here, not in two weeks, and not in a month, but right now – and Felix doesn’t remember the last time he felt so at the whim of emotions, the last time his world existed beyond mirrors and calf cramps and dollike behavior. 

“–I mean, there’s obviously something wrong with him.”

A voice floats just shy of too close to his room, and it takes Felix a moment to place it. Hwang’s friend, Innie. The one who wasn’t supposed to take hot showers. Felix moves before he can think otherwise, feet carrying him silently to the edge of the door where he presses himself in the shadows. From this angle, he catches the moment Hwang and his friends pass by his room, ambling slowly like they have no real destination but probably aren’t in a hurry to go to bed. 

“–that’s an understatement,” says the one who’d sat beside Hwang, with the big eyes and pouty cheeks. Ji, Chan had said. “He looks like a fucking disaster.”

“He looks sick ,” Hwang responds; he’s not using that cocky, better-than-you drawl, but the sheer anger in his words seems to scrape through the air like a serrated blade.

“Yeah, but did you really have to goad him with the ‘Princess’ shit?” the boy who’d complained about laundry rolls his eyes at Hwang. 

“I’m glad he did,” Ji huffs. “He said ‘crazy’ like it was a bad thing-”

They turn a corner, and their voices meld into unintelligible echoes. Felix slips back into the room and collapses against the side of the bed. The black spots are dangerously closely clustered, the room spinning so much that he swallows a gag. 

What the fuck is wrong with me, he thinks. Fighting back just because someone tried to get under his skin? He’s had fellow dancers say far worse, and never once has he risen to take the bait. 

Sick. The words settles at the base of his stomach like a ball of grease. That was the straw that broke his back, wasn’t it? Too close, way too close. If Hwang noticed, it’s just a matter of time before Chan or Dr. Kim or the elusive Dr. Choi do as well? 

At least he has someone, besides just himself, to blame for his absolute discombobulation. The biggest asshole of all time. Hwang Hyunjin (an elegant name, Felix considers as he moves through the blessedly-empty halls), the kind of name he can imagine rolling across his tongue like a candy. Hwang it is, then. One syllable. Barely a puff of air. 

Thankfully his attitude doesn’t match his face (because if he was as delightful as he is beautiful, then God truly would have had favorites). Princess, he’d called Felix. So cocky, so condescending, like his comfort with a fucking psych ward and its operations was something to be proud of. He’d said Yongbok like it was a curse, and the genuine hatred Felix had witnessed in his periphery had been frightening.

Crazy, he’d implied with the nod to the paper gown. 

That same humiliating sense of nudity, combined with a painful wrack of shivers down his freezing body, makes his head spin again, but Felix pushes himself upright regardless, walks to the window, and gently rests his hand on the sill. He feels every vertebrate, every bone and ligament, tighten as he adjusts his feet into first position, then plies until his legs burn with the tension.  

His calves ache, his abs clench and cramp against emptiness, and muscle memory takes over as he begins to exercise.

In two weeks, he’ll be back where he belongs, no paper gown in sight. 

At the end of the day, they can call him sick all they want. Madame will call him perfect. And Hwang can spout bullshit as much as wants. He’ll be the one stuck behind locked doors and barred windows when Felix gets the fuck out. 

Notes:

Disclaimers: 

• This is AU!! I tried to pull from the Kid’s natural personalities, of course, but some of their characteristics won’t shine through initially because of the backstories/trauma I have given them. At the end of the day, the characters as you’re meeting at the top of this story are, well, ill, and if they seem wildly AU at the upfront, it’s because we have healing to do! Also, in no way do I want to imply that I think the actual Stray Kids have the diagnoses I have forced upon them!!! Additionally, they’re not always nice!! I feel like everyone in air beneath was kind and sweet and also more canon universe, but here there’s gonna be some tension. Hiss hiss this is fiction AU ahhh! 
• These characters are sick!! (I mean that literally, not as a judgement); their thoughts, especially in upfront, are sick thoughts, some of which I very much pulled from my own experiences with different mental health conditions. As such, they could be very triggering; what they think of themselves, their conditions, and their behaviors are inherently flawed. Many of these characters romanticize the hell out of their illnesses at the beginning! And when it is their POV, such romantic language will be written down! I do not believe their romanticizations, though for some of them I used to, but if that will be hard for you to read, please be careful with ur brains. I’m quite fond of ur brains.
• This story will have a happy ending! I never mentioned that until quite late on air beneath, but it feels worth mentioning here since it’s gonna be really heavy and dark at different points.
• I’ll add a blanket TW here, and then with individual chapters I’ll call out any uniquely triggering moments. Unlike air beneath, I likely won’t upload alt/clean chapters, but rather will utilize bolded sentences in areas that are more graphic so that you can skip if you want.
TWs for this chapter: very disordered thoughts about eating and body weight, active disordered eating, very negative self-talk, discussions of suicide (not pictured), discussion of past and active addiction, allusion to self-harm (not pictured) Again, just to establish (and to prevent anyone getting deeply upset with me in the comments), this story has all the potential to be triggering! Like with air beneath, i want people to be able read this fic; unlike with air beneath, there’s a lot more to consider. I want people to have genuine emotions because of my writing, but I don’t want people to be affected, triggered, etc. because of the content. Please be careful with yourselves, read the tags, read the author’s notes, etc.

Chapter 2: if you can't say anything nice, say it louder

Summary:

Felix is used to having eyes on him, but only on stage; Hyunjin is used to anger, but not like this.

(Tensions continue to mount between Felix and Hyunjin, and anyone in the crossfire is fair game.)

Notes:

the !! response !! on last chapter!! holy hell y'all are amazing, thank u so much! in response, here's a very concise (12k words), easy-to-read (angsty and frustrating) chapter.

Hyunjin's song from his playlist this chapter is Freaks by Surf Cruise .

Felix's song from his playlist this chapter is No Wind Resistance! by Kinneret

And catch the Same Stupid Socks playlist here

!! TWs AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER PLZ READ THEM THANKS LOVE U MEAN IT <3 <3 <3 !!

"Don’t kill me, just help me run away from everyone,

I need a place to stay..."

Hyunjin has his exercise block bright and early the next morning, and he’s loathe to admit that he fucking needs it. Changbin takes one look at him and waves him inside the gym without a single word. 

It’s a small room, stale in smell and dimly lit; there’s a treadmill that works seventy percent of the time, a couple weightlifting benches and barbells kept under a judiciously-guarded lock and key, a sad, semi-deflated exercise ball, and three very well used punching bags. The yoga mats are noticeably missing, which means Minho is currently winning the ongoing-battle and has them stashed in the dance studio. 

But Changbin makes it feel like a five-star luxury experience. He leads boxing classes with probing questions traded as often as soft-mitted jabs (‘tighten your fist on your left hook’, ‘why do you think you’re so resistant to therapy?; ‘you need to loosen your hips when you dodge’, ‘what is it about clothes that makes you feel so secure?’). For the less physically-prone, he guides tai-chi meditations and grounding routines that Seungmin and Jeongin are, in particular, very fond of. 

But Hyunjin doesn’t want to talk. He wants to destroy. 

“You go too hard, you get gloves,” Changbin says in lieu of a greeting. “Got it?” 

Hyunjin nods sharply, strips off his hoodie, readjusts his arm warmers, and beelines to the furthest of the punching bags. He alternates each punch with a huff of breath, relishing the sting of his knuckles against the dusty canvas. 

He’ll never truly understand Innie’s particular brand of coping, but he can’t deny that the (barely there) pain seems to settle the haze of confused fury to a simmer instead. 

And simmer is an improvement. Because last night, after group, he’d been boiling. 

"...Where I can cover up my face.

Don’t cry, I am just a freak..."

“Our room or yours?” Jisung had offered. 

He didn’t consider the sanctuary of a room. When his emotions spiked like this, he couldn’t think of his bedroom without having the urge to barricade the door shut and hide under his blankets like a child. 

“Maybe the roof?” Hyunjin had grunted. 

“Okay,” Ji nodded. 

Seungmin had led the way, Jisung and Innie still on either side of Hyunjin. They hadn’t let go of his arms, like they were afraid he’d break away at any moment and run right back to the community room, unleash the hurt-masked-as-fury and try to get Yongbok’s ice-sculpture facade to crack- 

“Breathe, Jin,” Innie whispered. 

Oops. He’d been crushing both of their arms a bit more tightly than intended. 

“Fuck,” he’d grunted. “I can’t believe I let him get under my skin. I’m so fucking stupid-” 

They ambled down the hall, going the longer but quieter way, the way that didn’t pass directly in front of the med bay. 

“Don’t say that,” Innie pinched his arm lightly. “No one likes the 'I'm not crazy' types, and I mean, there’s obviously something wrong with him.”

“That’s an understatement,” Ji added. “He looks like a fucking disaster.”

“He looks sick ,” Hyunjin had responded; he was almost surprised at the fire in his voice, even moreso at the odd twist of distress when he recalled Yongbok’s too-still posture and unfeeling stare.

“Did you really have to goad him with the ‘Princess’ shit?” Seungmin raised a brow. 

“I’m glad he did,” Jisung said as they rounded the corner towards the bathrooms. “He said ‘crazy’ like it was a bad thing.”

I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy…

Hyunjin didn’t really remember the awkward climb from the furthest-stall toilet through the horribly narrow window, nor did he really remember how he scrambled into the fresh air. It had been the sting of the gravel on his palms and the blessedly, antiseptic-free scent of fresh air that had him blinking back into awareness; all three of his friends were watching him. 

“Give me a sec,” Hyunjin had mumbled. They hadn’t looked the least bit affected when he’d slunk to the ground, buried his face into his arms, and groaned. He’d have screamed, if he could have, screamed until his throat tore apart, but if a nurse heard, their little rooftop sanctuary would be lost forever. 

I’m not crazy. The but you are had been heavily implied. 

Hyunjin called himself crazy all the time. He, Ji, Innie, and Seungmin had no reservations when it came to making jokes about their respective mental illnesses (something Chan had to try very hard not to laugh at). But when Yongbok had sat there, so still and void of feeling, like he was above them all because he didn’t view himself as crazy, all Hyunjin had seen was red-hot fire. 

“You planning on screaming some more?” Seungmin leaned over him and nudged his foot, identical sock to identical sock. “If someone catches us up here, we’re gonna have to talk about feelings, and I’m so tired of explaining to Dr. Ham that I have no interest in somatic therapy.” 

Hyunjin had snorted despite himself and let Jisung drag him to his feet. 

“You good?” 

“Better,” he’d promised. “Cigs?”

Ji popped the collar of his jacket, reached into the inside pocket, and shook the carton like a magician about to perform a card trick. Hyunjin rolled his eyes, stuck out his hand, and Jisung dropped both the cigarette and lighter into his open palm. The flicker of flame scratched satisfyingly against Hyunjin’s ears, but nowhere near as satisfying as the first, smoky inhalation. 

“Minho-hyung knows you smoke,” Seungmin said, standing a few feet away from them. “I mean, he hasn’t said it, but I’m positive he knows.” 

“Can’t prove it, though,” Hyunjin said. He leaned against the wall and tilted his head back. They weren’t technically far from Seoul, but they were far enough that he could make out the stars. 

“Do you think they have him on meds?” Jisung had asked. The he didn’t need defining. 

“Not if he’s here for Adderall,” Hyunjin meant to flick some ash onto the ground, but the wind carried it to Jisung’s dirty white converse instead. 

“I’ve never seen someone sit that still,” Innie hugged his arms around himself. 

“Well, he’s a piece of work,” Jisung whistled. “I’ve gotta be honest, if he wasn’t such an asshole, I’d want him to hang out with us – it looked like he wanted to go toe-to-toe with Jin. Maybe he’d like the Same Socks Brigade if he likes dancing.”

“No way,” Innie snorted. “Him? Fighting with Jinnie? Fighting with anyone? ” 

“I guess that would require actual emotion,” Jisung shrugged. 

Hyunjin thought of those icy black eyes. “I don’t know, I think there’s something there. One second it was like he was on a different planet, but when I looked back at him, it was like he was trying to incinerate me with his eyes.”  

“Adderall might still be in his system,” Innie shrugged. “Sung was like a monster when he showed up – remember that time he tried to goad Chan into a fist fight?” 

“I don’t think he’s here for Adderall,” Seungmin said suddenly. The other three fell silent. Seungmin readjusted his footing, socks scraping on the cement, his back still ramrod straight, but his finger tapping in thought atop his sweatpants. “He was lying.” 

“How do you know that?” Innie had asked. Seungmin had raised a brow. 

“Have I been wrong yet?” 

And the truth was, no, he hadn’t. Seungmin didn’t just observe people, he studied them with a distrust that bordered on paranoia (as valid as that paranoia might be). It also meant that he was constantly watching and analyzing body language and microexpressions to deduce a person’s true intentions. As shattering as the reason was, the skill itself was useful, and more importantly, Seungmin was proud of it. 

(Seungmin could be proud of a triple homicide, and Hyunjin would support him all the same.)

“He’s probably taken Adderall, but I don’t think it’s the reason he got himself stuck here.” 

“Well either way, he’s a brat,” Hyunjin hissed. “I hate the ‘I’m not crazy’ types. They always think they’re so much better than us.” 

“Yeah, not cool,” Jisung grumbled. 

“It seems like he genuinely believes it,” Innie added. “Like, I don’t think that was defensiveness. I think he doesn’t believe he should be in here.” 

“He’ll get knocked down a peg,” Seungmin waved a hand. “No point antagonizing him and getting yourselves in trouble. At least wait til he has his street clothes back.” 

Hyunjin had hummed in somewhat noncommittal agreement, but that small pearl of anger was still lodged hot and heavy in his throat. He didn’t cope well with confrontation – it either resulted in loud, angry explosions or whatever distraction he could get his hands on: booze, pills, sex that felt closer to self harm than pleasure, something to destroy – it never mattered, so long as it dragged Hyunjin into blissful unthinkingness. 

“We’re not supposed to lie in group,” Hyunjin said. 

“If Chan didn’t call him on it, maybe he’s not lying?” Ji shrugged. Seungmin immediately shook his head. 

“Trust me. It's not just pills for him.” 

Innie tugged more aggressively at his sleeves and glanced at the still open window. “All I know is Chan looked pissed. If there’s anything that’s going to knock him down a peg, it’ll be Bang Chan Disappointment.” 

“All I know,” Hyunjin had huffed, stamping his cigarette with more force than necessary, “is that two weeks is definitely not staying two weeks.” 

"...I am just a freak,

I am just a freak,

I am just a freak..."

“Hyunjin!” 

It isn’t Changbin’s sharp yell that pulls him out of his memories, but the just-shy-of-firm grasp of his hand around Hyunjin’s wrist, right at the seam of his arm warmers. 

He pulls back like he’s been burned.

“Shoot, are you okay?” Changbin asks. 

“Scared me,” Hyunjin says. Lies? He’s not sure. He’s never sure why a hand on the skin of his forearm feels like liquid fire, but if he really tries to remember-

Stop. Don’t. 

“You’re going at it a little hard, yeah?” Changbin suggests. It’s the awareness of his stinging knuckles that chases away the tendrils of panic, back to the darkest recesses of his non-memory. The skin isn’t splitting, but it’s red and dry; one more punch might have done it. 

“I guess,” Hyunjin huffs. Changbin tosses him a bottle of water and Hyunjin slumps to the ground. Changbin joins him, leaning against the wall. 

“Feel cooler?” Changbin asks. Cooler, because Hyunjin describes his emotions as hot. 

Hyunjin shrugs. “New kid fucking sucks.” 

Changbin raises a brow at him. “That’s what you said about Jisung.” 

“This is different,” Hyunjin hisses. “One of the first things he said at group was that he ‘wasn’t crazy’.” 

Changbin winces. “Well, it was his first night. And he’s not the first person to come in here claiming that they don’t need help. Innie had that line of thinking, didn’t he?” 

“I guess,” Hyunjin scoffs, running his fingers through his long hair. The feeling of sweat amongst the strands makes him want to cut it down to the scalp. “But I get it with Innie, you know? He knew what he was doing wasn’t healthy, but he also knew he didn’t wanna stop-” 

“Maybe whatever’s going on with Yongbok is the same,” Changbin says slowly. Hyunjin glares at him. 

“Are you trying to therapy me right now?” 

“It’s kind of my job, and this is exercise therapy, so…” 

Hyunjin flicks the water bottle at him, and Changbin yelps at the droplets that splatter against his face. 

“That was not a productive transference of emotions!” 

“You’re not a productive transference of emotions!”

“Wow, you got me, kid.” 

“Don’t call me kid, you’re barely a year older than me.” 

Maybe that was why Hyunjin felt the most comfortable with Changbin. They all loved the hyungs, but each one of them tended to gravitate to one over the other two in times of distress. Innie had to grow up fast, wore his independence like a suit of armor, but Chan’s overt, caring nature was exactly what the youngest needed when he was spiraling. Seungmin’s darkest moments turned any moving body into a weapon, but Minho has a way of moving with such intention, speaking so soothingly, so he was Seungmin's pick when the flashbacks raged. While Jisung was head-over-grippy-socked-heels infatuated with Minho, Chan was the one he knew from the outside, the one who could serve up candy-sweet love and salty-hard truths in equal measure. 

And for Hyunjin? Well, when he spiraled (or split), Chan’s softness felt too much like pity, and Minho’s calmness became aloof rejection. It’s Changbin who doesn’t stop Hyunjin’s anger, but redirects it; who phrases his ‘what’s wrong’s like a friend asking casually, not like a therapist who wants to fix Hyunjin and send him on his way. 

“Well, he’ll only be here for two weeks, supposedly,” Hyunjin flops onto his back, his sweat now uncomfortably cool and itchy between his skin and shirt. 

“So just ignore him,” Changbin shrugs. “Or try to figure out why he’s bugging you so much. Chan mentioned him to me, sounds like he didn’t say much.” 

“He said enough,” he glares at the counselor. 

“Okay,” Changbin nods, but he clearly wants to say more. Like he thinks Hyunjin is being the unreasonable party, not the literal sickly Victorian terror with ice in his eyes. 

“Can I leave?” Hyunjin asks, but he’s already standing. Changbin glances at his watch. 

“Techncally I have you for fifteen more minutes. How about we try a grounding exercise?” 

Hyunjin rolls his eyes so hard it hurts. He also stays – it’s Changbin, after all. 

---

"I don't know how it ends, I can't see it in the distance–

But can you ever reach the end of a timeless existence?"

Felix skips breakfast and, shockingly, no one comes to get him. He supposes that, with Adderall-induced exhaustion likely splattered in bold on his intake form, there’s no need for supervised meals. Still, he doubts he’ll get lucky with lunch. 

And the fact is, he’s hungry. 

He’s blinking against the black spots far too early in the morning as he flies through an abs-and-legs workout, and they’re still pressing resolutely at the edges of his vision while he changes out of his horrible paper gown and shorts into a different paper gown and shorts. Eventually, it gets bad enough that he flops back on his bed to stare at the ceiling. 

If he hadn’t failed, he’d be an hour into rehearsal already. The showcase is huge for Madame personally, and for the company. So far, most of their performances take place in Paris, but to be invited to perform in Seoul isn’t just an opportunity for the dancers to get internationally noticed; it represents global domination for Madame. 

He’s toying with running through the choreography for his callback when, at precisely ten, there’s a knock on his door. 

He’s expecting Dr. Kim again, or maybe Chan, but a counselor he’s not seen before leans against the door frame. He has sharp eyes, almost catlike, and a face so elegant that a familiar stab of jealousy shoots down his spine. 

“Hi,” the man says. “I’m Lee Minho, one of the counselors here. Yongbok, right?” 

“Yes,” Felix says, fighting a wince at the sound of his Korean name. Minho doesn’t smile, not like Chan, and it’s comforting in a way – like Felix doesn’t have to match him gesture for gesture, false-hope for false-comfort. 

“You weren’t at breakfast?” Minho asks. Felix shakes his head. 

“Overslept,” he lies. “I’m not a big breakfast person.” 

Minho shrugs, and Felix has to hold back a sigh of relief. 

“If you change your mind, there are snacks available between meals, you just need to ask. Otherwise, are you ready for your appointment with Dr. Choi?” 

Illusion of choice, Felix thinks. He rises wordlessly, making sure that the blanket doesn’t shift. 

The halls are quiet – everyone must be in some kind of session, crying their eyes out or punching walls – but Minho doesn’t try to fill it. 

You can do this, he tells himself. You have a dependency on Adderall and caffeine pills, you’re overworking yourself; that’s all. Play nice for the doctor, do you time, and get the fuck out. 

“It’s okay to be freaked out, you know,” Minho says as they arrive at a closed door near the clinic. “You’re in a new place, you’re having difficult conversations. No one will be mad at you if you get upset.” 

Felix swallows. His throat is drier than he realized.

“Yeah,” he says noncommittally. Minho’s lips flatten, but he doesn’t push. Instead, he opens the door. Felix has no choice but to enter. 

Dr. Choi is younger than he expected, likely no older than forty, but everything about him – from the cut of his suit to the way his hands rest, interlocked, on top of a sickly yellow folder – screams established. 

“Yongbok, welcome to Joyous Youth Patient’s Escape,” he says with a smile; Felix wonders, vaguely, if everyone will smile quite as insistently as Dr. Choi and Dr. Kim. Maybe they think smiling will keep a houseful of fucked up young adults from offing themselves. 

“Thank you for having me under such short notice,” Felix answers when he realizes Choi is waiting for him to speak. 

“Dr. Park, the founder of JYPE, happens to be an old acquaintance of Mrs. Poirot,” Choi explains. “Besides, you fit a certain niche of patients we happen to be more inclined to take on.” 

He wants Felix to ask what he means, that much is clear. And Felix is trained – no, designed – to be a chameleon for others’ expectations. 

“How so?”

“Well, you’re clearly ambitious. You have quite the career ahead of you, or so I hear. So I can’t imagine jumping between treatment centers is your idea of a good use of time.”

Felix bites back a snort. Or maybe it would have been a scoff. He’s spent so long masking microreactions that it’s sometimes hard to imagine how he’d actually behave if he was allowed. 

“It’s not,” Felix admits. “I don’t want to be here. I want to get back to my life.” 

Dr. Choi eyes him shrewdly for a few seconds too long – long enough to stretch Felix’s comfort unnervingly towards discomfort. Then, he simply nods and flips open the file. 

“So, Adderall,” Dr. Choi taps at one of the forms. “Tell me about that.” 

Felix swallows and prays that Dr. Choi doesn’t catch the bob of his throat. “I work late hours. My job is physically exhausting, and we were preparing for auditions for Swan Lake on top of all the other performances we do. One of the other dancers at the company gave me a number and twenty euros later, I had Adderall. I just took it too far.” 

He resolutely leaves out the fact that he wanted to curb his appetite, and the omission makes him sound mechanical; clinical even. Dr. Choi doesn’t give anything away – his posture remains stiff, his eyes remain unreadable, and only the itch of his pen against paper indicates that Felix’s words affect him in the slightest. 

“Too far. Tell me about that.” 

Felix surreptitiously pinches the skin of his thigh, right where a particularly aggressive bruise has been blooming for days. 

“Not having to rest the same way I would have before became a bit addicting. I didn’t realize that I wasn’t sleeping enough, and I didn’t realize how much of a toll that was taking on my body.” 

“Tell me about the toll.” 

Felix bites the inside of his cheek to keep from frowning. Tell me about that, tell me about that. Is that this guy’s script? 

“I overexercised,” Felix says as calmly as possible. “Dancing is strenuous. You do things to your body that it isn’t necessarily designed to do. I ended up straining my muscles past the point of being healthy.” 

When he phrases it that way, he sounds more like a gym bro – too many reps, not enough spotters – but Dr. Choi’s eyes narrow and he sits up a little straighter. 

“Adderall abuse is common, especially in your age group. University students trying to get ahead while juggling part time jobs, young adults who want to party all night long regardless of the amount of depressants in their systems … they forget to rest, forget to pause and assess how they’re actually feeling-” 

You are a doll. Dolls do not feel. 

“-so obviously our first priority will be getting the Adderall out of your system. On paper, you’re here because your stimulant dependency has resulted in physical depletion. But cause of that dependency can in many forms – pleasure, work, perfection, et cetera. As of now, we won’t be starting you on any medication regiment – not until we can assess underlying reasons for your dependency – so the majority of your first week will involve daily therapy, either with me or one of our other head counselors, as well as group therapy.” 

Felix isn’t just biting back his frustration now. No, he’s all but gnawing on those final strings of his sanity, a desperate stray with a bone. 

“You met Chan already,” Dr. Choi continues. “He’s going to be your counselor here. You’ll have a check with him every day, and hour-long sessions with him every other day.”

Great. 

“Based on your conversations, we’ll recommend you for some of the other therapeutic activities. We have art therapy, writing therapy, dance therapy-” 

What? For a brief moment, the clouds part, the sun breaks through; if they have dance therapy, do they have a studio?  

“-but until we conduct an additional physical, you won't be permitted exercise or strenuous physical activities.” 

“Why?” Felix asks. Dr. Choi glances up at him and away from the file for the first time since he started talking. 

“Yongbok, you arrived because you collapsed. Dr. Kim has some … concerns about your physical wellbeing, so until we have more information, I can’t in good conscience allow you to risk your health.” 

Felix is probably drawing blood with the force of his nails against his own palm. If he can’t dance, if he can’t rehearse, what kind of state will be in for the callback? For the showcase?  

Thankfully, he must have his Lee Felix, premier danseur mask on pretty well, because Dr. Choi clearly does not pick up on the absolute panic he’s spiraling towards. Instead, he closes Felix’s file and gently rests his hands on the mahogany desk. 

“Now, withdrawing from Adderall doesn’t have any notably dangerous side effects. That being said, if you have any symptoms you’re worried about, you are always welcome to speak with Dr. Kim, but I don’t want you to be frightened if you do feel irritable, foggy, or nauseous. Those are very common reactions to coming off of a stimulant. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re feeling a little slow or grouchy. Of course it’s important that you eat, but if you find it difficult to stomach large amounts, don’t push yourself.” 

Now that, Felix can work with. He shifts in his seat and bites his lip. 

“I didn’t manage to stomach breakfast,” he says. “They had a set meal for me, but … well, I figured I was just nervous…” 

Lies, lies, lies. And Dr. Choi eats them all up. 

“Ah, I’m sorry to hear that. Did you tell the kitchen?” 

Felix shakes his head. “I didn’t want to be a bother…” 

Jut your lip, widen your eyes, bat your lashes but never quite close them. Look down, like it’s hard to admit this. Like this is the thing you’re ashamed of.

“Oh, Yongbok, you wouldn’t be,” Dr. Choi assures. “When you go for lunch, ask the kitchen for whatever you think you can eat, okay? In a couple days, you should be able to eat more, but for now, just do what you can.” 

Hook. Line. Sinker. 

“Thank you, Dr. Choi,” he smiles – his practiced, polite smile, the one that doesn’t show his teeth or stretch the fat on his cheeks.

Dr. Choi doesn’t keep him for much longer, and when Felix leaves the office, he exhales so deeply that his shoulders and back crack and pop. It’s eleven-thirty. Half an hour until lunch, until he has to waltz his way into a room full of people not wearing what ultimately comes down to a dress made of tissue paper and, somehow, eat. 

Then he gets to meet with Chan. Perfect, happy Chan. 

In the meantime, he decides to walk; he’ll call it exploring the facility if asked, but every step is at least a couple calories seared off his body. 

Initially, he’d assumed that JYPE just looked like a manor from the outside, but as he walks, he realizes that it is, indeed, an old house. Clearly, renovations were done, and after one lap, he thinks he has the gist. 

The ward is a massive loop – rooms at the outside of the perimeter like the crust of a planet, a continuous hallway like the mantle, and a bank of offices at the c that Felix realizes is the hub for the nurses and staff. Some of the rooms are hidden behind windowless doors and thick locks, but the largest room is very visible – a medication center, it seems. It’s set up like a food truck – open window that shows off locked cabinets of pill bottles, a desk at which a nurse sits currently, a small stack of paper cups beside her. 

Where the front of the loop hosts the (very, very deadbolted-and-key-carded) door to the entry room, as well as Dr. Choi, Dr. Kim, and a mysterious Dr. Park’s offices, the back is all therapy and healing. There’s what seems to be an art studio (from what Felix can see through the small window in the door), a gym, the large room Felix had gone to for group, a series of phone booths, and- 

“A studio,” Felix breathes. 

He freezes when he passes the dance room; only the marley floors are visible through the window, but even in his periphery, they pull him to a stop. He finds himself pressed against the glass a moment later, breath fogging the window. It’s not enormous, nothing like the dance studio back in Paris, but a ballet barre lines the back wall, and what he can only assume are mirrors reflect refracted lines of light onto the floor. A stack of yoga mats are stacked in a pyramid in one corner, a bin of physical therapy supplies to their right, but Felix couldn't care less. 

He tries the door knob before he can even consider the exercise ban, and when the lock engages, a small flicker of hope he hadn’t registered fizzles and dies. 

“Yongbok?” 

Yongbok, you what did I tell you about prying- 

Felix flinches and jumps away from the studio door, nearly losing his grip on the blanket draped around him, but it’s not Madame’s voice calling to him; it’s Minho again. 

“I was hoping to catch you before you left Dr. Choi’s office. I heard you haven’t had an official tour yet but…” he eyes Felix’s posture and grins, “...it seems you were taking the self-guided approach?” 

“Sorry,” Felix says. Minho steps closer. 

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he says. “Looking at the dance studio?” 

“Yeah,” Felix nods. 

“Chan mentioned you’re a dancer,” Minho continues. “What’s your style?”

He feels another rush of energy course through his body, a faint, unplanned smile tugging at his lips. “Ballet.” 

Minho whistles. “Very fancy. I took a couple of ballet classes in University, but contemporary and hip-hop have always been my specialties.” 

“You're a dancer?” Felix whips his head up, eyes wide. He catches a flash of surprise across Minho’s face before the counselor is grinning softly. 

“Yeah, I'm a dancer.” And it’s obvious now that Felix is looking. He’s all sinewy, lean muscles, the kinds so specific to the lengthening of lines and the building of one’s core. Even his outfit (loose joggers and a compression tank) is similar to the one Felix arrived wearing, sans thermals. Minho is lucky, though; his body seems to displace the muscle well, and any extra weight he might be carrying is dispersed. “I was with a company for a while but eventually started teaching more than I performed. Chan mentioned that JYPE was looking for a dance therapist, and since I’d also majored in psychology, it was a perfect fit.” 

“So, you're not a dancer anymore?” Felix asks, confused. Minho looks just as perplexed at his question. 

“Not professionally, I suppose, but for fun, yeah! And to teach, I need to be able to do the moves myself as well.” 

It’s like a square peg in a round hole. Felix turns the thought around in his mind, this way and that, but he can’t make it make sense. He’s not about call Minho a liar – not only would that be horrendously rude, but it could get him in trouble – but when he thinks of his identity, dancer is more true a title than his own name; and that title has only come about from years of strenuous training, from those precious moments where he gets to glow on a stage, beneath lights and the appraising eyes of hundreds, to defy gravity and physics.

“You okay?” Minho asks. “You look like you got lost in your head.” 

“I’m fine,” Felix stands up a little straighter. “Sorry.” 

“You don't have to- nevermind. You missed breakfast so you must be starving by now-” 

You have no idea. 

“-so how about I show you where the cafeteria is?” 

He tightens the blanket in his fists. “Okay, sounds good. Thank you.” 

Minho escorts him; they’re similar heights (Minho had maybe a couple centimeters on him), but Felix feels small at his side. Not small the way he would like to be, but young. Maybe it’s his severe lack of real clothing, or maybe it’s the veil of weakness he can feel surrounding him. 

Still, he tries his best to walk like he’s not as unstable as he feels. The cafeteria is on the far right of the loop, behind double doors that are thrown wide open. Immediately, the smell of food (something greasy, something meaty, something rich and filling) turns his stomach. 

Like with the rest of JYPE, it looks nothing like his nightmare-fueled imaginings (which, perhaps unrealistically, involved wrist and ankle straps on the chairs and plates stacked high with every fear food imaginable). It’s closer to a dining room than anything else, all round wooden tables and seats that make Felix’s lower back twinge preemptively. To the far right of the room is a buffet stand, steaming trays already in place. When a staff member emerges from a swinging door, Felix can just make out an expansive kitchen. 

Minho starts to head to the buffet, and Felix follows, his grip on the blanket so tight that his fingers are starting to cramp. The entree options today seem to be some kind of braised pork, tteokbokki, vegetable japchae, and bulgogi fried rice, but a massive tray of rice and a vat of kimchi are there as well. Two covered bowls, ladles laid beside them, promise soup. 

Felix is going to throw up. The steam rises to meet him and he holds his breath. 

“You’re the first here,” a staff member emerges from the kitchen; she wears an apron, hair net, and a smile that turns from joking to soft when she notices Felix. “Hello, I heard we had a newcomer. I’m Chef Jang. You must be hungry, I don’t remember seeing you at breakfast.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Felix lies, a bit breathless.  

“You have a set meal, Yongbok?” Minho asks. 

“Dr. Choi said I could choose something else,” Felix says. “Coming off the Adderall causes nausea, and it was really bothering me this morning.” 

He expects Chef Jang or Minho to push back, but the former nods, smiling. 

“Of course! You should have mentioned that this morning, I could have prepared you something light. What do you feel like you could stomach now?” 

Felix has to eat. It’s been forty-eight hours, and he’s never been one for fasting; clearly, fainting is too risky. 

“Do you have any light broth?” he asks softly. She steps behind the buffet and lifts the lids of the soup. One bubbles viscously, yellow and loaded with chunks of indeterminable ingredients. Definitely cream based, probably a curry. The other, though, is clear, cubes of tofu and seaweed lazing across the surface like lilypads. 

“Tofu miyeok-guk is a light option,” she explains. “I can give this to you with some rice-”

“Just the soup, please,” Felix’s whisper is verging on a plea. Minho hesitates. 

“Are you sure? That’s not very filling.” 

I know, Felix thinks. 

“I don’t think I would be able to stomach much more right now,” he says instead. Minho sighs but nods at Chef Jang, and a moment later, she’s pushing a tray with a steaming bowl across the counter. 

“Drink?” she asks. 

“Green tea, if you have it?” Felix whispers. She chuckles. 

“We always have green tea. There are tea bags in the community room as well, though you have to ask one of the counselors or nurses for hot water.” 

Felix tries not to wonder why hot water has been banned – he briefly considers Innie’s complaints about lukewarm showers, but he’s still unsure of the connection there – as he accepts a full plastic mug, tea bag in place. She places a napkin and rubbery spoon next to the bowl.

“I have a couple of things to tackle before lunch myself. Will you be okay alone?” Minho asks. 

“Of course,” Felix says. If anything, he’d prefer being alone, and with the cafeteria still empty, he might actually get through the meal without panicking. Minho nods. 

“I'll be back to eat soon in case you change your mind."  

Felix appraises his seating options before choosing the small two-seater table furthest from the buffet, close to the windows. 

The soup stares up at him; Felix feels like the explorer of an alien planet, trying to assess the threat level of an organism otherwise unknown by man. Miyeok-guk. Felix ate Korean food as a child, whenever his Mum made it or if his grandparents were visiting, but that was years ago; that was before Madame, before he uprooted his life from Australia to Paris, before his mind became a room of mirrors and calculations. 

The calculator in his head doesn’t know Korean. It knows cheese and meats and bread; it knows every manner of protein and produce. It even knows desserts. It does not know Korean meals, and more importantly, neither does Felix – not anymore. What is in this bowl that he could count? He sniffs the broth – salty, definitely seaweed, with a classic umami aroma that makes him nervous. At least the tofu is unfried, but is their oil in the broth? He can estimate based on miso soup alone, but the uncertainty makes him grip the blanket a little tighter. 

Fuck, I want a cigarette. 

The cafeteria is starting to fill. He recognizes a few faces from last night, but drops his eyes before they can look back. It’ll just get harder the more people arrive, and Felix cannot faint…

The first sip of soup explodes on his tongue, trickles down his throat in a rivulet of salt and warmth. The second spoonful is in his mouth before he can stop himself, then a third. 

Slow, the voice whispers in his mind. Count to fifteen. Take smaller bites. Drink the broth first. 

The noise is so loud in his mind. Numbers and macronutrients like a whirlpool, chased by a more primal desire for more food, more protein, more solids. He hates this, the internal battle, how cacophonous his head becomes at every meal. 

Half is good, the voice promises. Half, hide the rest in a napkin- 

Is it enough, though? Felix feels dizzy, suddenly, as if the reintroduction of food to his system has reminded his body that it hasn’t had nourishment for days. He glances over his shoulder to find Chan watching him, Minho at his shoulder. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Felix shakily scoops the remaining chunks of tofu and seaweed into his napkin, the broth seeping through the paper and against his palm. When he stands, black presses against his vision, but he cannot fall. Right now, nothing is more paramount than escaping. He grabs the tray and half-walks, half-stumbles to the trashcan, dropping the napkin and hidden food  into the waste bin, then practically throws the plastic spoon and dishware into a bin for later cleaning. By the time he’s done that, his vision is back with him, and he surreptitiously glances at the table where Chan, Minho, and a buff man are now eating.

Minho is watching him. He whispers something to Chan, who catches his eye and grins tightly. 

That's not good. 

He bows his head so that the counselors can’t see the whites of his eyes and beelines out of the dining room. He’s all but running towards his bedroom, glancing back as if either will materialize with pointed questions-

He probably should have watched his footing more closely. 

The rubber soles of the socks trip him up, and then he’s catapulting forward, colliding hard with a body–

For a moment, all he can do is cling to the body and blink away the black spots, but then arms are shoving him back and he crashes to the ground. It’s such a familiar thing, falling, but he doesn’t quite manage to curl his body, to absorb the hit, and the feeling of hardwood against his hip bone sends a flare of pain shooting down his leg. He doesn’t scream, doesn’t yelp, but he loses his grip on the blanket. 

When he looks up, Kim and Innie are staring down at him. 

Scratch that, Innie is staring, eyes locked on where cool air hits the now-uncovered bruises on his thighs. 

Kim, though, is staring through him. Those calculating eyes are bugged out in his skull, and his posture reminds Felix of a marionette's – held up only by accidental tension. 

“Minnie, are you okay?” 

Hwang appears a moment later; he sounds so soft, so concerned, so not how he sounded last night. It’s like someone threw a sheet of fine, butterfly-woven gauze over him, smoothed out some of those harder edges. 

Kim (Minnie?) isn’t just staring anymore; he’s practically vibrating with how hard he’s shaking, that floppy head of hair like a dying autumn leaf in a gale. Every tendon in his neck seems to be tensed in a way that must be painful, and his heartbeat is visibly racing in the thrumming hollow of his throat. Felix can only blink up at him – wondering, for a horrible moment, if he’s about to attack Felix for bumping into him. 

Ji appears too, he and Hwang both watching Kim with bated breath. Felix doesn’t know what’s happening, but he wonders why neither boy is making any move to offer their friend any comfort. 

Then, Hwang looks down, and the gauze is gone. He is a knife in a human body. Poised to stab. 

“What the fuck did you do?” He hisses. 

Felix shakes his head, mouth gaping like a fish. “I - I just - I didn’t mean-” 

“Did you touch him?” Hwang’s hiss drops to a growl; his fists clench at his side. 

“I just - I wasn’t looking-” 

“Jin,” Innie murmurs. But Hwang doesn’t seem to hear it; there is only the enormous matte blackness of his pupils and a small but intentful step forward. Felix scrambles backward, socks catching on the hardwood, until he’s able to get his feet beneath him, and he definitely stands up too quickly because his vision is more spots than not. 

“Answer the question,” Hwang ignores Innie entirely. Felix takes a step back. Hwang mirrors the movement; he gives Kim, still locked in whatever trembling trance Felix accidentally put him in, a wide berth. Felix feels his back hit the wall, and suddenly Hwang is inches away from him, glaring down the bridge of his nose. 

Control, control, control, Felix chants it to himself. Swan, Doll, Machine. 

He has had choreographers, instructors, agents, casting directors scream inches away from his face, scream until they were spitting, until Felix could do nothing but study his own reflection’s nonreaction in the whites of their eyes. 

So why, for the second time in a row, does he feel that composure slipping away like mist. Why is this stranger, with his aesthetic tailored like a shield and his eyes like fire, crawling beneath his skin like something parasitic. He looks sick, Hwang had said. And right now, Felix feels sick. Alarm bells screech in his mind, the only thing louder a rushing fury he doesn't think he’s ever felt before.

“Are you gonna say anything, Princess?” Hwang scoffs. “Or is it too hard to hear in your ivory fucking tower-”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Felix finally finds his voice. Hwang’s lip curls.

“What’s wrong with me ? You’re the one who touched Minnie-”

“I fell on him, I didn't touch him-” 

“Yeah, sure, play the victim,” Hwang snarls. “Just because you’re sick-”   

Felix’s mind goes concerningly blank; his teeth ache like he wants to bite something. He raises his chin (lower your gaze, Yongbok), bares his teeth (don’t smile like such a child, close your lips). 

“I’m not sick,” Felix grits through his teeth, ignoring the barb, which seems to visibly displease Hwang. “I told you. I’m here to get off the Adderall and get back to my life. You’re the one who won’t leave me the fuck alone.”

“So you do have emotions in there after all.” Hwang laughs – a sharp sound, mean. And he takes another step. Felix’s spine presses against the wall. He can feel every notch of his vertebrae. “Is this weakling thing just an act, then? Paper gown with big, sad eyes. I bet people back home just eat that shit up, don’t they? Wake up, Princess, you’re in here with us now-” 

“For two weeks,” Felix whispers.

Hwang raises a brow.  “Oh yeah? What’re you actually in for? Because not crazy doesn’t get you an invitation inside, and just Adderall is pretty weak. No, let me guess.” Hwang eyes him up and down. “Try to kill yourself, Princess-?” 

“Don’t call me that-” Felix growls. 

“You’re right, too easy,” he continues, “Bipolar, maybe? Nah, that’s wrong too. Maybe a cutter-” 

“Jin,” Innie says. Felix can’t see him or Ji or Kim over Hwang’s shoulder, but there’s a hurt tone in Innie’s voice that Hwang seems happy to ignore, or unable to hear. 

“Fucking Christ, ” Felix curses to himself. “Not only do I have to waste away here for two weeks, but turns out I’ll be dealing with you-” 

“You’re delusional if you think you’re getting out of here in two weeks-”

“Just because you’ve been here for two years-” 

Their voices are too loud; they echo down the halls, maybe on an endless loop – and Felix hasn’t been this loud in so long-

“Guys,” Ji hisses softly. 

Hwang takes another step. Felix has to tilt his head back to look at him. God, he’s dizzy. At least Hwang looks properly angry, not haughty; at least Felix is getting under his skin too. 

“Maybe you should go back to being quiet,” Hwang growls, “instead of acting like a spoiled brat.” 

“At least I’m not a fucking psychopath,” Felix snaps. “Just because you’re hot doesn’t mean you can be a fucking dick-”

Hwang’s entire face goes dark, like a storm cloud has drifted across the overhead lights, and his hands are rising up to do - what? Punch him? Grab him? For the first time, Felix realizes where he is – alone, in a hall, with a man whose diagnosis could very well be one of violence-

And Felix feels the energy thrumming, not in his feet, but in his hands. Like he too wants to reach up and grab Hwang by the collar, wants to physically shake him until he stops talking- 

“Hwang! Lee!” 

The wall of Hwang’s body disappears; the buff counselor is pulling him away, and then Chan appears to stand between them. Hwang doesn’t even blink as he’s maneuvered away and beside Innie. Minho is by Kim’s side, not touching him either, but whispering quietly

“What the hell is going on?” Chan says sharply. 

“He touched Minnie,” Hwang growls; his glare never leaves Felix. 

“So you were going to, what, attack him?” 

Ji falls in line with Hwang. He doesn't look like he wants to fight Felix, but he’s certainly not going to jump to his defense. If anything, his step forward feels more like an alliance, a line further drawn in the sand. Regardless of whether he supports his friend’s actions, he’ll take the same blame, the same consequence. He’ll back him. Something like jealousy joins the rage flexing in Felix’s fingers. 

“It was more of last night,” Ji says cryptically, not snitching entirely but shifting some of the blame in Felix’s direction. He does not look at Felix when he tells Chan this. 

Chan’s brows raise. 

“Go to individuals, Hyunjin,” he says, gaze sticking to Felix’s face despite the fact that Felix won’t make eye contact. “I believe you and I were due for a one-on-one regardless.” 

"...I'll bet ya I can run faster with no wind resistance,

I'll fly under no conditions.

Teach myself complete submission,

While I grant myself complete permission."

Chan leads him not to the community room, but to an office nearby it. It’s nothing like Dr. Choi’s office – it’s cluttered, but comfortably so; pictures and polaroids taped to the wall, several lamps that paint the room in a warm glow rather than the fluorescence of the overhead light, armchairs instead of hardbacks. 

Felix is directed to one of the armchairs; there's a stuffed wolf on it that Felix isn’t quite sure what to with, so he settles for awkwardly cradling it in his lap. Between the plushy and the blanket, he feels like a scolded kid. 

“Tea?” Chan asks.

Felix nods. “Green.” 

He takes the mug (actual ceramic) with shaking hands. “Careful, it’s hot.” 

But the pain against his fingertips is the only thing grounding him right now; he’s swallowing the remnants of rage like a man dying of hunger, and with each ebb of fury, regret and terror flow back in its place. He doesn’t know what his punishment will be, and Chan’s perpetual smile only disconcerts him further. 

The counselor in question settles in his own chair – not behind the desk, like Felix would have expected, but on the diagonal to Felix’s seat – with a mug of tea and a yellow pad of paper in his lap. He wishes the desk was there between them; this feels too familiar. This feels like Chan could, at any moment, reach across the empty space and hit him, or worse, look too closely. Felix keeps his head bowed.

“We should probably talk about what happened,” Chan says.

Felix shuts his eyes. Chan doesn’t sound angry, and that’s all the worse. 

“But maybe we can touch on that in a bit. For now, let’s just chat.” 

Felix swallows, but doesn’t move. He’s locked in place, he’s powered down, awaiting instruction or stimulus or direction. He does not know what Chan expects him to be right now-

“Can you look at me? Would that be okay?” 

The question itself is what drags Felix’s gaze upwards. Why is he asking Felix’s permission when he’s the one with the power? Still, when their eyes meet, Chan smiles. 

“You seem pretty nervous. Wanna tell me what’s going on in your head?” 

He might laugh if he was bold like Hwang or snarky like Ji. Instead he just shrugs. Chan cocks his head. 

“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

“I don’t need your help,” Felix says. He’s relieved to hear that his voice has returned to normal: soft, monotone, uncaring. “I’m just here for two weeks to get the Adderall out of my system, then I’m gone. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you don’t need to do it with me.” 

Chan frowns and glances at the pad of paper. “You had your first individual session today, right?” 

“I spoke with Dr. Choi,” Felix confirms. 

Chan sighs, puts the paper to the side, and shifts in the seat; he pulls one leg up towards his chest, the other relaxed on the ground. The small adjustment makes him look younger, likely no more than a few years older than Felix himself. 

“Choi’s gonna end up giving me your file. He does it with every newbie that walks through these doors. He’ll only give me the one from your intake, though he’ll tell me anything significant I need to know as you continue meeting with him – any big triggers, anything I should make sure the other patients avoid, stuff like that – so I don’t want you to think of me like another doctor.” 

Felix finds that the words don't really affect him. Choi has his alibi, so it’s not like Chan will find out anything Felix doesn’t specifically want him to know. If anything, he’s concerned about the inverse – about Choi learning of his fight with Hwang. 

More eyes on him, but not the way he likes them. Not on a stage after bone-numbing hours of practice. He takes a sip of his tea, intent on staying silent as long as possible- 

“When I was eighteen, I jumped off a bridge,” Chan says. 

He whips his head up in time to catch Chan’s slightly self-deprecating smile. 

“Yeah, not my finest moment. I managed to convince my parents that I fell, but about a month later, I tried again. Pills. Obviously, it didn’t work.” 

“Obviously,” Felix echoes. Then, unbidden and unpermitted, he asks: “You were a patient here?” 

Because that’s clearly where this story is headed, right? 

“Yup,” Chan pops the ‘p’ and sits back a bit. “Fought it the whole time, told everyone that I shouldn’t be locked up, that everyone else might be off their rockers but I was totally normal.” 

“But …” Felix trails off, expecting a sharp shush that doesn’t come because Chan isn't Madame isn’t here; Madame would never sit so casually. 

“You can ask whatever you want,” Chan urges. “You’re in a hospital. It’s kind of a blanket approval to speak your mind.” 

As if, Felix thinks. 

But still he asks. “But you were off your rocker. You tried to kill yourself twice.” 

“Yeah, but I didn’t feel crazy,” Chan shrugs. “To me, at that time, killing myself was the most logical thing in the world. And in the in-betweens, I was so normal. I was going to school, I had just landed an internship, I was seeing someone. Totally normal.” 

And he knows, in that moment, what Chan is trying to do. He’s trying to get Felix to draw the parallels – trying to show him that, like Chan, his normal is nothing but. 

Felix also knows that his normal is, to others, abnormal. Normal people don’t want to be sick. Normal people don’t have calorie calculators where their frontal lobes should be. 

“Well, I probably shouldn’t have overdone it on the Adderall,” Felix says easily. “I don’t know what else you want me to say.” 

For the first time, Chan’s soft, easy smile dims. It might be frustration? Irritation? Felix feels his stomach sink inexplicably – he needs Chan to stop asking questions, to not needle towards the right direction, so why does his expression of disappointment feel physically painful? 

“Last night, you said ‘crazy’ like it was a very bad thing,” Chan changes topics. “So you clearly think you’re here for a different reason than the others.” 

“I am,” Felix says. “I’m not bipolar, I’m not suicidal, I’m not seeing things. I didn’t realize wanting to be as perfect as possible was a diagnosable problem.” 

It’s too close to the truth, too close in a way that makes Felix’s throat clench and his stomach full of soup whine. 

“What’s wrong with him anyway?” Felix deflects; he’s always been good at that. 

“With who?” Chan sounds pinched at the phrasing, the use of wrong, but he still bites. 

“The red headed dude who yelled at me,” Felix says, like he doesn't know his name. Chan grimaces. 

“I’ll be speaking with him, don’t you worry,” Chan assures him. “But I don’t want to talk about Hyunjin. I want to talk about you. What do you feel like you need while you’re here?” 

Felix doubts Chan will actually punish Hwang; he can tell there’s a familiarity there, a bond, and Felix, accurately, is temporary, a passer-through, a little ghost that Hwang likely won’t remember months for now (because with that attitude, he belongs here- )

“Yongbok-”

My name is Felix-

“I don’t.” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. Chan raises his brows, but only minutely. “I fell during practice. A documentary crew saw and insisted I go to a hospital. The hospital wouldn’t release me without some kind of intervention. My Madame knew Dr. Park's wife.” 

Cause and effect, this so that. By the time Felix is done talking, his mask is back on, his posture is perfect, and he can just tell that Chan hates it. 

“Yongbok, if you were sent here, it’s because the doctors at the hospital think you’re in need of intervention-” 

“Two weeks of it,” Felix interrupts. 

Then he tenses. 

Chan doesn’t hit him. Of course he doesn’t. 

“Well,” Chan sighs, “I hope you at least allow yourself to accept some help while you’re here. Two weeks doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’ll get pretty boring if you don’t refuse to speak the whole time.”

Felix almost laughs, but it gets caught somewhere in the base of his esophagus before it can bubble up. Silence isn’t a prison to him, nor is drifting from room to room. The real torture will be having to speak, having to wax poetic about an addiction he doesn’t have while choking back the truth. The torture will be sitting still, watching his muscles atrophy, while a perfectly fine studio tempts him from behind a locked door. 

The torture will be ignoring Hwang, who seems insane, and who’s probably itching to confront Felix again for touching his friend, however accidentally. 

“So,” Chan says, “what happened with Seungmin?” 

“Seungmin?” Felix asks. Then he remembers – Kim Seungmin. “I tripped when I was leaving the cafeteria. I fell on him.” 

The memory of his eyes, of his trembling, loosens the knot of rage that had been retying itself as the mention of Hwang. Felix swallows a sip of still-scalding tea. 

“I didn’t mean to,” he admits more quietly. “I swear-” 

“I believe you,” Chan says quickly. His lips purse and move left to right. “Seungmin doesn’t do well with touch. You didn’t know – and even if you had, there was no way for you to avoid falling on him, of course – and I’m sure Seungmin knows that too.” 

“Does Hwang?” Felix murmurs. Chan looks like he desperately wants to ask something but is forcing himself not to. 

Instead he asks: “What did Hyunjin say that got under your skin?” 

Princess. Sick. Paper Gown. Two weeks? Really? 

“It doesn’t matter,” Felix whispers. He doesn’t elaborate; his silence must stretch long enough for Chan to give up, and he does so with a small sigh and a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Instead, he rises from his chair, opens the drawer of a filing cabinet, and pulls out a sheet of paper and a clipboard. He hands them, and a nubby crayon, to Felix, swapping them for his tea. 

“I’d like to have you fill this out,” Chan says. “Nothing official, no right or wrong. It’s more of a … a word association exercise.” 

Felix blinks down at the Hangul as if the characters will warp into French or English if he tries hard enough. 

“It’s English on the back, if that’s easier?” Chan suggests. Finally, he sits behind the desk, and Felix pinches his thigh just to feel something other than unease. He flips the paper and, sure enough, he finds a series of questions in English. Like Chan said, none of them seem particularly incriminating, and at the same, not particularly useful. What do you think is your most positive trait? When was the last time you laughed so hard that you couldn't breathe? When you think of your brain, what do you picture? 

Nothing to lie about, nothing to safe-guard. There’s no word minimum, either. 

“Now?” Felix asks. Chan nods, pulling a laptop in front of him. A moment later, soft lofi music plays from a speaker Felix can’t see. 

“Unless you’d rather continue talking?” Chan asks. And Felix swears there’s a glint of teasing in the crinkle of his eyes. 

He picks up the crayon without further question. Stupid word association it is. 

---

"My head is filled with parasites, black holes cover up my eyes. 

I dream of you almost every night.

Hopefully, I won’t wake up this time,

I won’t wake up this time."

Choi doesn’t yell at him for fighting with Yongbok, and that’s somehow worse. Maybe he, like Yongbok, expects Hyunjin to be crazy. 

Yongbok’s going to have all of the counselors fooled, he can tell. He’s too fragile. If Hyunjin called someone a psychopath, he’d risk a level, but when bambi-eyed and broken-voiced Yongbok does it, surely it’s a misunderstanding. 

Apparently, Yongbok didn’t snitch too much, because Choi doesn’t dock him any privileges. He just reminds Hyunjin that everyone’s healing journey is different, that Hyunjin has the power to walk away, yada yada yada. 

He’s released during activity block, and the hallways reflect it: empty. He’s grateful – he doesn’t want to face the others now, doesn’t want to consider how he’ll apologize to Seungmin for exploding instead of helping, nor how Innie feels about him throwing cutter out like a curse. Instead, he beelines down the hall, slips into his room, closes the door behind him, and sighs. The afternoon sun trickles through the leaves beyond his window and dapples across the wooden floor; it paints a pattern on the hospital-grade, piss-yellow comforter – in the night, he’d kicked off the sage-green throw blanket Yeji had gifted him, and he gently places it over the duvet, then straightens his pillows. In the glow of the sunlight, the gallery of prints (Monet, pools of flowers and greenery like explosions of Xanax across his eyeballs) feels less like a desperate anchor to sanity, more like a pretend coffee shop wall. If it weren’t for the underlying scent of antiseptic, maybe he could sink into the fantasy.  

Hyunjin’s not like Seungmin, who was granted a single room with negligible negotiation. No, there is an empty twin bed, empty night stand, empty dresser, untouched for months. Choi tried to place patients with Hyunjin, but they all vehemently begged for reassignment after a night or two. It’s not like Hyunjin was mean to them; apparently, they were just scared – scared of the nightmares he never remembers, but supposedly result in him screaming. The nightmares that never occur when he has the room to himself, or when it’s his turn with the iPod. 

Just because you’re hot doesn’t mean you can be a fucking dick.

Maybe, if Yongbok hadn’t pressed emotional salt to Hyunjin’s open-wound insecurity, he would have responded with Oh, so you think I’m hot, Princess?- 

He sinks onto his mattress and his eyes drift to his nightstand. It hosts some mystery novel that Seungmin swore by but Hyunjin has yet to read, the art books he’s read dozens of times, and a single photo that Yeji mailed him. Them at sixteen, her free of the NG tube but head still wrapped in a scarf, brows and lashes absent, eyes glittery but cheeks hollow. And Hyunjin, one year post-fleeing, visibly hungover, hickey on his neck. 

He owes her a call. He knows that. It’s just easier through letters. 

‘You’re lucky, Jinnie. You’re the pretty one.’

Hyunjin groans, leans back on the bed, and pauses when he feels something hard beneath his pillow. He moves it and smiles. The iPod – and on it, a note in Innie’s handwriting. 

Figured you could use this, love your fellow psychopath. 

“Thank, Iyen-ah,” Hyunjin whispers. When he turns it on, their playlist (same stupid socks) is already open. Hyunjin pops in one of the earbuds, curls on his side, and waits until the bitterness carries him to sleep. 

In his dreams, Yeji has a full head of hair; in his dreams, she’s the pretty one, too. 

---

Chan tries very hard to avoid staring at Yongbok as he fills out the paper, but he fails. 

He knows well enough that appearances have no correlation to mental health. When he was at his worst, he looked great. He was hitting the gym, eating well, smiling in photos with friends and family. But if appearances were not, in fact, deceiving, then Yongbok would be the post-child of help this kid now. Something about the way he clutches the blanket around his shoulders, the way he doesn’t move, the way he avoids eye contact like he’ll get punished for it, is achingly concerning. 

Eventually, Yongbok finishes. He slides the paper back to Chan and retracts his hands at lightning speed, as if expecting Chan to handcuff him to the desk if given the chance. Chan has barely said, ‘You can go if you want-’ before he’s slipping silently out of the room like a ghost.

Chan resists the urge to follow him and focuses instead of the paper. The same series of questions he’s asked patients since he started working full time. A bit nonsensical, a bit flowery, but insightful, especially for patients like Yongbok who are hesitant to speak. A glimpse behind the diagnosis and the paper gown and the masks. 

He starts reading, and with each question, something prickles at the back of his mind. A memory, he realizes; familiarity in the answers. When he reaches prompt four, he sits back, huffs a breathy laugh. 

“No way,” he says to himself. He spins around his chair and wheels towards one of the filing cabinets. The file he grabs is thick, and at the very back of it is a slightly-creased, identical sheet. He hesitates, but puts it beside Yongbok’s answers. He places a finger on each paper and slowly works his way through the questions, one by one. 

 

1. When was the last time you laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe? 

Don’t remember, maybe watching a movie

When Ji spilled his tea in front of Minho

2. When you think of your brain, what do you picture? 

A whirlpool

The ocean

3. When you think of your body, what do you picture? 

Metal and glass

Farmland

4. When was the last time you cried? What was it about? 

I haven’t cried since I was thirteen

I haven’t cried since I was thirteen

5. If you could tell your five year old self something, what would you say? What about your fifteen year old self? 

Work harder. Work even harder

Lock the door. Pack deodorant when you run away

6. If you could leave JYPE for an afternoon or evening, what would you do? 

Go stargazing

Look at the stars

7. What do you think is your most positive trait? 

I’m a hard worker. I stick with tasks, even if they’re painful

I’m a really loyal friend

8. What about your most negative trait? 

I’m a robot. I have no friends

When things get hard, I run away or get angry 

9. Is the glass half-full or half-empty? 

Full. If it was empty it would just be empty

Empty – if you got a half-empty glass at a bar, you’d be disappointed

10. What is one habit you wish you didn’t have? 

Smoking

Smoking

11. If you could have one thing right now, what would it be?

Actual clothes

My fucking clothes back

 

The differences are night and day – but literally; so opposite that they’re complimentary. Full versus empty, but with the same line of thinking. Metal and glass versus farmland, but both products to be used by others. Hard work and loneliness, friendship and quitting. 

And the similarities… 

Well, a whirlpool and an ocean imply depth, danger, possibilities. 

Stargazing – there’s a dreamy quality there, but a lonely one. 

Smoking. Chan huffs. Maybe Changbin wasn’t imagining the smell of smoke coming from the men’s restroom. 

It’s the crying that Chan goes back to. Thirteen. It’s such a young age, but the fact that they both remember … 

Chan collects the papers, wanders down the hall to Choi’s office, and knocks. At the muffled ‘come in’, he enters. Choi is bent over a file, his lips pursed in thought, but he brightens at the sight of Chan. 

“Chan-ah, what brings you here? Is it about the altercation outside of lunch?” 

Chan slips into the chair opposite Choi. “Kind of. Maybe? Just something interesting that I want to show you.” 

Choi raises a brow. Chan places the papers on the desk and turns them so Choi can read. 

“I like having the kids fill these out when they first arrive, and then have them answer some of the same questions before they’re discharged. It gives me a sense of their outlook, their talkativeness, their self-perception, and then it allows them to see how far they’ve come once they’re ready to leave. It’s not a waterproof test, and the kids fill them out themselves, so you have to take it all with a grain of salt, but …” 

Choi’s mouth drops open. He leans closer to the papers, like Chan going question by question, then sits up. 

“This is Hyunjin’s from when he arrived… and Yongbok’s from today?” He asks incredulously.

"Yup," Chan snorts.  

"Well, shit." 

“That’s what I thought too.” 

“The same kids who were half-way to a physical fight an hour ago?”  

“Exactly,” Chan says. 

Choi sits back and whistles. “Well caught, Chan. What do you want to do with this information?” 

Chan hesitates, but Choi nods encouragingly, so he takes a deep breath. “Hyunjin is stagnating. He likes it here, he has friends, he feels safe, but he’s preventing himself from the internal work – the scary work – that could allow him to feel safe beyond the facility. He’s sensitive, absolutely, but he puts on a front when it comes time to talk about his past or his fears. And yeah, he pulls stupid stunts and acts out, but I haven’t seen him at risk of splitting since he, Ji, Minnie, and Innie all bonded together. Not until …” 

He taps Yongbok’s paper. 

“This kid shows up. Something about Yongbok affects him. And I don’t think it’s because Yongbok gets under his skin, I think it’s because Yongbok scares him. And well, speaking of Yongbok, he’s got just as much of a mask up, but against the whole world, not just us. Look at his answers – he speaks about himself like he’s a machine.”

Choi’s thoughtful smile twitches into a frown. Chan pauses, and Choi sighs. “Yongbok was referred by the hospital under the guardianship of his dance company’s owner, Selene Poirot. He’s been in her care since he was thirteen or fourteen, I believe? His life as a dancer is all he’s known his entire adolescence until now.” 

“You don’t like her,” Chan guesses. Choi sucks at his teeth. 

“I don’t know her well enough to have an opinion. Park's wife knows her through work. But that environment … Well, I have a feeling there’s more to Yongbok than he or Selene have offered. It might not be that he has a lack of feelings-” 

“-but he doesn’t know how to feel them,” Chan interrupts. Choi nods, a flicker of a proud smile overtaking his face. “Except, he actually felt something today, otherwise he wouldn’t have snapped back at Hyunjin.” 

Choi looks at the papers again. “They bring out something in the other that we’ve been unable to do so far – and going on six months with Hyunjin. What did he say to anger Hyunjin yesterday?” 

“Yongbok said he wasn’t crazy, that he didn’t need to be here,” Chan says slowly. Choi laughs in disbelief. “Compare that with Hyunjin, who seems to not want to leave…” 

Choi turns to his computer. He types rapidly, then cocks his head. 

“Has Yongbok been placed in a permanent room yet?”   

Chan raises a brow. “Are we prepared for World War 3?” 

Choi looks back at the papers. “We will be.” 

Notes:

Could I have split this chapter into 2? Yes. Did I? No. Will I get better at making these chapters any shorter? probably not !

Click here for TWs!

TWs for this chapter: lots of ED thoughts and behaviors from the perspective of the ED-haver, crude/aggressive language about mental health in general, panic attack/dissociation, discussion of a suicide attempt, allusion to self-harm

Chapter 3: exercises, grounding or otherwise

Summary:

When it all comes to a head, Hyunjin expects to be more angry; he does not expect the guilt, nor the panic he can't place.

Felix just wants his clothes back. Seriously, when can he get his fucking clothes back.

(Aka, if you have two patients who seem to hate each other, why not parent trap 'em).

Notes:

hello <3 yup, an update two days after the last! bc I'm a glutton for writing at three AM!

more seriously, I think I'm going to shoot for 2x a week uploads, Tuesdays and Fridays (barring writer's block, general life craziness, or the A03 curse striking me down – in which case, I will upload one a week!)

Hyunjin's song from his playlist this chapter is brutal by Olivia Rodrigo and Felix's song from his playlist this chapter is Oblivion by Grimes .

And catch the Same Stupid Socks playlist here

(sorry for the length! sorry if the pacing is crazy! sorry bc I don't know how to write conflict sometimes!! but we're finally starting to move towards less outright hostility/more bonding!! )

TWs for this chapter are at the end as per usual!

“I never walk about after dark, it's my point of view

'Cause someone could break your neck–

Coming up behind you, always coming and you'd never have a clue…”

After his one-on-one with Chan, Felix spent the rest of his first full day wandering the halls, endless loop after endless loop. And if he lingered by the dance studio door? Well, Minho wasn’t there to notice. He knew he’d be given some kind of schedule – filled with mindless therapies and soulsearching and tissues – but until then, there was nothing; no expectations, no tasks, no purpose . He could almost convince himself that no one knew he existed, but the fantasy was, and continues to be, destroyed any time another patient passes him. 

Clearly, his altercation with Hwang has gotten out to the masses; voices drop and eyes widen at the mere sight of him. The stares make him feel itchy and naked all at once. 

I want my clothes. I want a cigarette. I want to dance. I want my fucking clothes-

At dinner, he opts for the same soup he’d ate at lunch and sits with his back to everyone else. It’s not entirely uncomfortable, because it’s a lot like his days at the company sans any dance. It’s that lack of dance, maybe, that makes him feel…lonely? 

He dumps the rest of the soup in the waste bin as soon as the thought occurs to him. He hates himself a little for noticing that Hwang isn’t there yet. 

Which leaves him at the end of his painfully long first day hungry and tense. It’s eight PM. There’s no group therapy tonight (apparently, it occurred that morning while he was speaking with Dr. Choi, something he’s supremely grateful for) so he returns to his singleminded laps around the ward. Tonight, he’ll try to actually run through the callback choreo in full; there has to be a corner of the temporary room that isn’t directly in a security camera’s line of sight-

“Yongbok?” 

He freezes in place. The buff counselor who’d pulled Hwang back is standing mere yards away from him. Felix had been so lost in desperate frustration he hadn’t noticed. 

“Yes?” Felix asks. The counselor is shorter than him, but he’s broad and muscly and Felix has a strange urge to hide himself behind the expanse of his shoulders. 

“I’m Changbin,” he smiles. “I don’t think we’ve, uh, officially met yet?” 

Felix bites his tongue, but the blood rushes to his cheeks regardless; the confrontation with Hwang isn’t exactly the first impression he wanted to make. 

“I came to show you to your permanent room if now’s a good time?” 

If now’s a good time? Felix wants to laugh. As if he’s been doing anything worthwhile with the miles he must have walked throughout the facility. 

“Now’s fine,” he says instead. Changbin grins. 

“Follow me, then! I know the temporary rooms can be a bit claustrophobic, so hopefully this is good news-” 

They reverse the direction of the loop Felix had been taking, counterclockwise instead of clockwise, and it’s a little embarrassing how dizzy the switch makes him feel. They pass his temporary room, round the hall towards the bedrooms, and are heading past the clinic (and the scale that lies within), when he remembers.

The weights. 

The weights, hidden in a pillowcase that is certainly going to be laundered any minute now. The weights, in a pillowcase only Felix had used, which would be suspicious at best, damning at worst. 

He doesn’t realize he’s stopped walking until Changbin says his name twice. 

“Yongbok?” he repeats a third time. “You okay?”

“I, uh, just realized - is there a bathroom nearby?”

He sounds frazzled. Changbin probably thinks he’s about to shit himself. And honestly? Good. The urgency might sell his absence a bit better.  

“Yeah, of course,” Changbin nods. “Back the way we came on the right, across from the med bay window; I’ll wait here for you-” 

“Thank you,” Felix half-bows, half-stumbles backwards. 

As soon as he’s out of Changbin’s line of sight, he’s running. Not a gentle trot, not a quick pace, but a sprint. His feet slap against the floor until he reaches the temporary room-

Fuck. 

Hwang is leaning against the wall, eyes narrowed at the med bay window. He’s got that long, dark red hair pulled back into a bun, showing off rows of piercings along the shell of his ear. He’s dressed casually – blue jeans and a black t-shirt, matching arm warmers on each wrist – but he looks like a model. If Felix wasn’t so panicked, he’d probably be horribly, bitterly jealous. 

Hwang looks up, and the bored expression shifts to jittery intrigue. 

“Hi, Princess,” he drawls. “Come to call me a psychopath again?”

“That’s not my name,” Felix grumbles. He keeps walking until they’re feet apart – he can see the bed from this angle – and then he hesitates. There’s a nurse at the window of the med bay, typing on a computer and side eyeing Hwang in equal measure. 

“Hyunjin, I told you, there’s no directive from Dr. Choi to add hydroxyzine to your trazodone.” 

“C’mon, I crashed hard today. I won’t be able to sleep without something extra-” Hwang says sulkily. Felix takes a half-step into the doorway while Hwang’s eyes are mid-roll. 

It’s technically his room, right? There’s nothing suspicious about going in. Except he’s lacking a hair tie, and there’s no way he’ll be able to hide the weights in his underwear without securing the elastic. The only thing worse than someone finding the weights would be someone finding them because Felix pantsed himself. 

Hwang glances into the room, then back at Felix. “The royal quarters not up his highness’s standards?” 

Felix feels himself prickling. If he was a cat, his fur would be puffy. 

“Not now, Enculé ,” Felix says quietly. He wants to say fuck off or you’re fucking asshole or can I borrow a hairtie , but the nurse is still there, and she’s watching intently, but he figures the french insult will go undetected and infuriate Hwang. 

“I’ll call Dr. Choi now and see what thinks about the hydroxyzine, okay?” she tells Hwang. “But if he says no, you’ve gotta leave and come back when it’s time for nightly meds. Deal?”

Hwang tilts his head side to side in mock ponderance, then sighs. 

“Fine.” 

She reaches for a phone and Felix knows this is his best chance. He slips inside the doorway with a rustle of paper and beelines to the bed. When he shoves his hand into the pillowcase, he exhales in relief. The weights are there.  

He has the blanket. He can wrap two of the weights in it and stash them in his new room the first chance he gets. He pulls them out and sits on the mattress, shoving his socks off with shaking hands-

“What are you doing?” 

Hwang is technically still in the hallway, but he’s using every centimeter of his infuriatingly-tall body to lean into the room. Felix pinches his thigh and shifts so the weights are hidden behind him. 

“Can you shut the fuck up?” he whispers. Hwang’s brows disappear into his bangs, and for a moment, Felix is sure he’s going to alert the nurse. Instead, he spares her a glance, then slips into the room. 

It’s not that much better of a scenario. 

“You’re hiding something,” he says more quietly this time. “Is this about what’s really wrong with you-” 

“Nothing’s wrong-” 

“-because otherwise you wouldn’t be whispering, right?” Hwang cuts him off with a smirk that borders on a snarl. 

Felix feels his nose twitch. Control, control, control-

“I just wanted to sit down,” he says slowly. “Can you just leave me alone?” 

Hwang rolls his eyes. “It’s only two weeks, right?” He meanders towards the window. “You can put up with me a little longer.” 

Felix takes the momentary absence of Hwang's gaze on him to shove a weight into each sock, then pulls them back on. He tugs the blanket tighter around his shoulders and clumsily bundles the remaining weights in the fabric-

“What’d you just hide?” 

Hwang has turned away from the window. His eyes are narrowed on Felix’s hands, now gripping metal and blanket alike. 

“Nothing,” Felix says quickly. Hwang takes a long step towards him. 

“You absolutely just hid something in the blanket,” he says sharply. 

“You’re absolutely seeing things,” Felix echoes. Hwang scoffs. 

“You might think I’m crazy but I’m not that brand of crazy-” 

“Hwang!” the nurse calls. “You know multiple patients aren’t allowed in temporary rooms.” 

Hwang’s gaze sharpens; his hands flex at his side, like he wants to tear the blanket away from Felix’s body (and what a shitshow that would be).

“ Hwang! ” The nurse calls again. Hwang huffs, and Felix takes the brief beat of distraction to slip around him and back into the hall. He moves as quickly as he can, but the weights in his socks feel heavier than they did the first time he hid them, and he’s hyper-aware of the grip he had on the ones in the blanket. Still, when he returns to the hall he’d abandoned Changbin at, the counselor doesn’t question his absence. 

“You good?” he asks. It’s so casual, the way anyone on the street would speak, but the notion of wrongness still twists in Felix’s stomach. 

“Sorry,” he says. Changbin laughs. 

“Dude, you don’t need to apologize for using the restroom. I know you’re not exactly independent here, but there are some things every person has a right to, and the bathroom is one of them.” 

Felix feels his body trying desperately to circulate blood to his cheeks. There’s that whiplash again – a kindness he doesn't quite understand. There’s got to be a shoe ready to drop, right? 

“Anyways,” Changbin says, consulting an iPad, “your room is-” 

He flourishes his hand dramatically, then freezes, doubletaking at the room and his iPad in rapid succession. He smiles belatedly, and it’s such a poor attempt at disguising surprise that Felix wants to laugh. 

“Your room’s this one,” he gestures to the door just behind him. Felix shuffles to the doorway and peers inside.   

“Home sweet home?” Changbin says, almost teasingly. Felix feels his eye twitch, but he can’t quite find it in himself to be frustrated. Not when he sees the explosion of color. 

The room isn’t dissimilar to his own temporary abode – two beds instead of one, sure, but the same bolted windows and slanted furniture. The difference is, the steps his roommate has taken to customize the space. Namely, the wall of prints hung on the wall, the blankets and pillows that brighten the space. Felix takes a cautious step inside, and then turns back to Changbin hopefully. 

“My things?” 

Changbin’s sad smile is answer enough. “They’re still going through your luggage. Soon, though.” 

Felix deflates. The whiplash of fury to fear already has him on edge. The knowledge that he’s going to be stuck in the paper gown even longer makes him want to throw himself off the roof. 

I need a cigarette. 

He sinks onto the mattress – unmade thus far. Changbin doesn’t move, but he doesn’t say anything either – just hovers in the doorway expectantly. Felix shifts anxiously. With the lack of linens on the bed, there’s no pillowcase in which he can conveniently stash the weights, and with Changbin barely five feet away, he can’t exactly hide them amongst his roommate’s belongings. 

Felix squints at the paintings above the other bed and, despite the situation, finds himself fighting a smile. Monet, all of them, and at the very center, the Woman with a Parasol. He thinks of his room back at the company; he doesn’t have nearly as many posters as his roommate, but he had some Degas prints, Van Gogh’s sunflowers, an impressionist print of Bondhi beach. For a moment, he wishes he’d thought to bring them- 

For what, thirteen more days? 

Felix turns his attention to the nightstand. There’s a book, dust collecting on the cover, and a framed picture, face down. 

“They should be bringing bedding soon,” Changbin says. “You still have a couple hours until curfew. Do you want to go to the community room? Are you hungry?” 

“I’m fine,” Felix says. In his mind, he’s a little doll with a pull-string; or maybe a magic eight ball, primed with the same handful of responses. I’m fine. Sorry. I’ll try harder next time. I’m not hungry. 

Except everything’s already been turned on its head, hasn’t it? So many new phrases in just a day. At least I’m not a fucking psychopath ; Just because you’ve been here for two years; Can you shut the fuck up?   Even Enculé, for once directed not at Felix but by Felix.

He’ll go to sleep soon, and then it’ll be thirteen more days. Only thirteen and then he’ll be himself once more. 

“I’m fine,” he says again. He doesn’t know if he’s telling Changbin or himself. Changbin nods regardless, and though he seems hesitant to leave the room, he does. 

The empty room doesn’t feel as good as he’d hoped. For once, isolation feels like loneliness. 

"...I never look behind all the time, I will wait forever,

Always looking straight - thinking, counting all the hours you wait.

See you on a dark night. See you on a dark night..." 

---

"I feel like no one wants me, a nd I hate the way I'm perceived

I only have two real friends, a nd lately, I'm a nervous wreck..."

Hyunjin’s nap definitely threw off his circadian rhythm, but despite the renewed energy, all he wants is to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over his head, and blast their playlist until his ears bleed. At least he’s not spitting with rage anymore; even the bizarre interaction with Yongbok doesn’t send him spiraling. If anything, it validates that Yongbok is totally hiding shit and definitely isn’t just here for Adderall. 

He can’t manage to be too smug, not when he wanders from the med bay to the community room and finds only Jisung and Innie at their usual table. 

No Seungmin.  

“Is he okay?” Hyunjin rushes over to the two of them. Jisung and Innie exchange a loaded glance that has Hyunjin’s heart clenching and his breath hitching. 

“He’s okay,” Jisung says when he notices Hyunjin’s rising panic. “Well, he’s not okay -”

“He’s okay as in safe, relaxing, and probably four hours into a fat dose of klonopin,” Innie cuts Ji off. “Obviously, Chan-hyung said he could eat in his room tonight. I think Minho-hyung is hanging out with him.” 

Hyunjin exhales, and it’s only then that he becomes aware of how tense he’s been since his fight with Yongbok.

“Iyen-ah,” he says softly. “I’m sorry. I said - I mean, you know that I don’t-” 

“Is this about the cutter comment?” Innie cuts Hyunjin off with a wince, as if the stuttering is causing him pain. Hyunjin nods meekly. “It’s okay. I mean, don’t say it to me like that, yeah? That would be fucked up.”

“It’s still fucked up, though,” Hyunjin acknowledges. Shame singes away the last tendrils of grogginess. 

“We’re in a psych ward,” Innie rolls his eyes. “Fucked up is standard.” 

“Thanks for the iPod,” Hyunjin adds. “It’s your night, so if you want it back-”

“You gave it to me on your night,” Innie shrugs. “We’re just trading.” 

He grins, all dimples and crescent eyes. Jisung coos, tries valiantly to pinch his cheeks, and the grin morphs into a scowl. “Personal space? Ever heard of it?” 

“I can’t help it,” Ji coos again. “Your emotional maturity and healthy communication is just so cute .” 

“The hyungs aren’t even here, why are you sucking up with therapy speak?”

Jisung ruffles Innie’s hair one last time before he settles down.  “Seriously though,” he appraises Hyunjin, “are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” Hyunjin says quickly. Too quickly. Jisung raises and brow and Hyunjin scoffs. “What, I am- ” 

“Chill, Jinnie,” Ji says lightly. Maybe Hyunjin’s nap was a good idea, because he can’t find it in himself to be irritated. “Let me rephrase. Did Choi skin you alive?” 

Hyunjin snorts. “No, actually. I guess Yongbok didn’t rat me out, at least not yet, because he just reminded me to not be a dick, basically.” 

“That’s lucky,” Innie says, but it’s with a frown. Hyunjin understands the expression - he, too, is waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

“You were pretty pissed back there. I thought for sure they’d keep you longer,” Jisung continues, a pout pulling at his mouth. “You’re super lucky the hyungs only caught the end of the fight. If you two keep fighting, you’re going to get your curfew moved up.” 

Hyunjin pouts. “I’ll have you know I just had at least a two minute conversation with him!” 

“I’m assuming you didn’t yell at him given you’re here, ” Innie says. Hyunjin clicks his tongue. 

“Just because I have BPD doesn’t mean I’m completely void of self control.” 

“Oh, completely agree,” Jisung nods. “I think your lack of self control is an independently wielded-”

“What happened with Yongbok?” Innie sighs, cutting Ji off; he does let Ji wrap his arm over his shoulder, which mollifies him enough into silence.

“I was by the med bay and he basically sprinted down the hall to the temporary rooms. Got all freaked out and shifty when he saw me. He ended up going inside and by the time I looked in, he was grabbing something and hiding whatever it was in that blanket he’s been wearing.” Hyunjin bites his lip. “Nurse-on-duty called me out before I could see what it was, but I’m positive it has to do with his diagnosis.” 

“Why do you want to know so badly?” Jisung asks. Hyunjin side eyes him.

“Why don’t you?” 

“I do . I’m just not about to get a cork board and a red string out about it like you are.” 

“I’m trying to figure out his diagnosis, not solve a murder,” Hyunjin glares at him. “Ji, I’m bored. Let me have this. Besides, I’m not gonna be a dick to him about it. I just want to know .” 

Jisung starts to scratch at his inner elbow, then sneers at the gloves he’s wearing when there’s no stimulation of nail-against-skin. “I want to know too.” 

His eyes drift towards the windows, tongue poking out in thought.

“If Min is right, which - and don't tell him I admitted this - he usually is, then the Adderall might be true, just not the full truth. Maybe he is an addict and Adderall’s just the tamest of the addictions? I mean…” he looks down at his elbow again. It’s been months since the skin there was bruised and pocked, but sometimes Jisung stares like there are invisible track marks only he can see. “I didn’t start with the hard stuff. I started with Xanax. If he started with Adderall, maybe he went towards coke or meth?” 

“Isn't Adderall basically just meth?” Hyunjin says. Jisung shrugs. 

“Dude, I’m about the downers. My anxiety is upper enough.” 

“He doesn’t seem like an uppers guy either, though,” Hyunjin says, tapping his finger on the table. “He’s so still. Seriously, I’ve never seen someone sit that still.”

“Or not react so much,” Jisung adds. 

Innie picks at a thread at the end of his sleeve. He’s been, ironically, so still that the movement draws Hyunjin’s attention. He’s staring at the table top, jaw clicking. 

“Innie? You good?” Innie jumps and looks up. Hyunjin cocks his head. “Care to share?”

Innie glances between the two of them. His leg is jiggling beneath the table. Whatever he’s thinking, it’s clearly been festering for a bit. Finally, though, he sighs and hangs his head.

“I think he’s here for self harm.” 

He says the words so fast that they’re nearly unintelligible, but not quite. Hyunjin and Jisung look at him with identical expressions of bewilderment. 

“What?” 

Innie sighs exasperatedly, but there’s a blush creeping onto his cheekbones that screams embarrassment. “He’s walking around with that blanket wrapped around him like he’ll fall apart without it. I mean, I haven’t seen his arms or legs since he got here. Well,” he frowns, “I hadn’t seen them.” 

“What do you mean?” Hyunjin sits up. “C’mon, you saw something, what was it-”

“When Minnie pushed him away, the paper gown kind of … rode up? And the blanket wasn’t covering his legs. He doesn’t have scars or cuts, but he had bruises.” 

“Bruises?” Jisung says. “You think he’s, what, hitting himself?” 

Innie shrugs. “I don’t know, okay? I just noticed it. And I didn’t get very long to look.”

Hyunjin looks back out the window. Twilight has faded almost completely to night, and with it comes a familiar gloom – the knowledge that, like every night, he will struggle to find sleep. 

Is Yongbok hurting himself? Maybe. Hyunjin has no reason to dismiss the possibility. He’s talked to the kid three whole times (and done the bulk of the talking, at that), and he’s either received brief flashes of anger or a lack of emotion altogether. 

He remembers when Innie came. The youngest on the ward with eyes like shattered glass, bandages up to his elbows, splints on three of his fingers, and a bone to pick with whoever dared to get in the way. He supposes Yongbok carries with him a vaguely similar sense of desperation, and get-me-the-fuck-out in every step, but still… 

The little flinches. The mechanical movements. The flexing of his feet. 

“I’m still gonna bet on drugs,” Jisung announces. 

“You’re biased,” Innie says. 

“Dude, so are you,” Ji laughs. “I bet Min thinks he’s got PTSD, and Jinnie probably thinks he’s borderline.” 

“He’s not borderline,” Hyunjin says. It comes out more wistfully than he expected, pulls the others’ collective attention. 

“How do you know?” 

And the truth is? If Yongbok was borderline, everything Hyunjin said to him would be like splitting with a bow on top. All rejection, all dismissiveness. The realization makes a frustrating sort of guilt settle in his stomach. 

“I just do,” he says. 

Jisung and Innie look at each other again, but they don’t ask Hyunjin to elaborate further. They try to get a little songwriting in, but without Seungmin, it feels wrong, especially given that he’s the Same Socks Brigade member who usually keeps them on task and focused. By the time Minho is pointedly reminding them of curfew (much to the blushing glee of Jisung), all Hyunjin has accomplished is a lackluster staring contest with his own reflection. 

Once it's nearly curfew, he and Jisung drop Innie at his room, then circle towards the emergency holding rooms in the center of the ward. Behind one of the doors, Seungmin sits – his knees are probably pulled to his chest, his eyes are probably searching anxiously for bodies that aren’t there, and Minho is probably the only thing keeping him anchored to reality. 

Hyunjin has spent nearly 180 days within these walls, but, barring the first three days, today has drained him more than any of the others. All he wants is to curl into his bed and see if he can learn to dissociate. 

But when he and Ji arrive at his room, the hairs on the back of his neck all stand on end.

Because his room isn’t empty…

No, and suddenly, the walls are three feet closer than they were that morning. Gor a moment, his skin seems to tug tight and red-hot across his skeleton. 

He blinks, but the image doesn’t change. 

Yongbok is sitting on the bed that has been empty for so long, Hyunjin has stopped seeing it. He’s sitting there, and he’s so infuriatingly blank, blinking those huge, long-lashed eyes like he’ll be able to start a hurricane with the wind alone. 

“Fuck no,” Hyunjin says. His voice doesn’t sound like his own – it’s warbled through the sound of blood rushing in his ears. 

“I think I agree,” Yongbok says softly. His lower lip juts out just a bit. Hyunjin wonders if he’s conscious of the gesture. 

Jisung wraps a careful hand around his bicep. 

“Jin,” he whispers, “stay calm-” 

“Fuck no!” Hyunjin says more loudly. 

“Hyunjin, hey-” Changbin jogs around the corner and sidles into the room, as if to put himself between Hyunjin and Yongbok. His hands are face up, palms open, like Hyunjin is some kind of wild creature about to attack. The implication is as offensive as it is apt. 

“No, hyung, what the fuck! ” Hyunjin spits. Changbin doesn’t even flinch, and that’s not what Hyunjin wants. Yongbok does, though, a small twitch of the neck and lashes that makes Hyunjin feel inexplicably worse. He turns to Jisung. “Did you know?” 

Jisung hugs himself and shakes his head. “The fuck, Jin, of course not ,” he hisses. Hyunjin takes a heaving breath, then another when the air doesn’t properly reach his lungs, and Jisung’s expression softens. “Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay-”

“This-” Hyunjin points at Yongbok, “-is not okay! Everyone knows that I don’t have a roommate for a reason!” 

“What?” Yongbok says quietly, a little scared; Hyunjin can tell he’s asking Changbin, and the sight of Changbin melting has the same effect as someone shoving a mixer into his guts and setting it to max speed. 

“Jin, Yongbok needs a room, and you have a bed,” Changbin says calmly. 

Calmly. It enrages him, which is wild, because Changbin never pisses him off. There’s just something about Yongbok in the same room as him, the expectation that he’s being difficult , that is sending his anxiety ( anxiety? Since when? ) to a crescendo. It’s a dismissal, or at least it hits that way, though even Hyunjin can recognize that his level of distress is not just out of left field – it's from a different stratosphere. A stratosphere of terror without a memory, of fear without a root. 

“Not my room!” Hyunjin yells. “Put him somewhere else! Better yet, the fucking street since he doesn’t think he needs to be here-” 

“Jin,” a voice says sharply from the doorway. It’s Minho. 

“Oh, fuck,” Jisung groans. 

“It’s true!” Hyunjin scoffs. “I- I can’t sleep in a room with any - with him !” 

Choi appears behind Minho and Hyunjin pauses just long enough to realize that he’s running out of air. Just long enough for Choi to brush past Minho and beckon Hyunjin with a nod. 

“Hyunjin-ah, walk with me.”

Normally, he’d fight just to fight, just to piss off Choi, but Yongbok is still sitting on the bed, and there’s far too many people in the bedroom for Hyunjin to take a decent breath. He brushes past Jisung, who squeezes his shoulder on the way out. 

To his shock, Choi leads him to the garden door and, with a tap of his key card, holds it open. Hyunjin slips on one of the pairs of sandals, steps outside, and tries to disguise the greedy gulp of fresh air he takes. 

“Do you want to walk or sit?” 

“Walk,” Hyunjin snaps. 

Choi matches his pace – that pace being fast, furious, and clumsy. The garden is small – fenced on all sides, but fall flowers are starting to emerge, and the night smells simultaneously sweet with their aromas and sour with dying leaves. It’s like a cooling balm to his frayed nervous system, but when the spiking fire dwindles, he finds less fury than he’d expect. He finds desperation.

“I can’t,” Hyunjin says. 

“Why not?” Choi asks. Like always, his voice is neutral, betraying nothing, and for the first time, he gets why Choi is probably a good psychologist. There’s no judgement, no obvious right or wrong. 

“I just can’t.” 

Choi plucks a fallen leaf from the ground and runs his thumb over it. “Hyunjin, I chose Yongbok to room with you because he’s done more to affect you in a day than I’ve done in six months.” 

“He’s made me angry,” Hyunjin scoffs. “Isn’t that everything I’ve been trying not to do?” 

“Anger isn’t some evil thing,” Choi says, “but when you use it to mask other emotions, it can be damaging to you as much as others.”

Hyunjin wants to tell Choi exactly what Yongbok has said to him, but he’s not a snitch, no matter how infuriating the patient. Instead he digs his nails into his palm and kicks a rock. 

Choi stops and turns, shoes scraping on the dirt path. Even though Hyunjin is taller than him, he feels childlike. “If you really can’t share a room – with him or with anyone – you just need to give me a reason. Not the fact that you don’t like him, and not the fact that you’ll scare him with the nightmares.” 

Hyunjin swallows, but his throat is dry, so he ends up trying desperately not to gag instead. Because the fact is, whatever the reason is, Hyunjin doesn’t know it. 

“I chose this because I think, and Chan thinks, that it will be good for you. You’re not opposites; if anything you’re complementary-” 

“Yeah right,” Hyunjin sneers. “I am nothing like him.” 

Choi inhales sharply. “You know I won’t make you do this if you think it will hurt you.” 

“ Fine ,” Hyunjin grunts. And then, because he can’t help himself – “It’s only two weeks, right?” 

Choi smiles, but it’s a bit flat compared to the rest of the candid conversation. “I think it’ll be good for the both of you.”

Hyunjin doesn’t dignify the notion with a response. Choi doesn’t seem to expect one of him. He’s half tempted to bring up the pancake debate, if only to reestablish their usual back and forth of stubborn nonsense meets exhausted professional.

Choi lets him sit in the gardens for a bit longer (under Changbin’s supervision, of course), but eventually, there’s no more putting off to be done, and Hyunjin dry swallows his trazodone (also under Changbin’s supervision) like the bitter pill this day has become. His chest feels uncomfortably tight and his stomach is a growling mass of anxiety. 

Stop being fucking scared, he tells himself. Be pissed. You should be pissed. 

His body doesn’t get the memo. As he creeps from the med bay and slips into his room ( their room now, he thinks), his hands twitch at his side and his throat goes drier and drier. 

The overhead light is off, but the lamp is on. Yongbok is curled on his side, the blankets pulled above his face so only the split ends of his hair are visible; that, at least, reduces some of the anxiety, but Hyunjin still finds himself changing behind the open door of his wardrobe to make sure Yongbok can’t peek. He brushes his teeth a little too quickly, leaves the door cracked a little too wide, slides beneath his blankets, and shuts off the light. 

The moon is bright tonight. It pours through the windows and across both beds; it would be easier to sleep in blinding sunlight, he thinks. It would be easier to sleep if Choi would pull trig and just prescribe him Ambien or at least hydroxyzine – he’s already capped the max dosage of trazodone.

He turns on his side, faces Yongbok’s bed, and watches. Even in sleep, he’s barely moving, and if he’s breathing, it’s silent. 

Or he’s faking. 

“Hey,” Hyunjin says; even at a murmur, his voice sounds too loud, or maybe the room just feels ten times smaller now that there’s another person here. “I know you’re awake, Princess.” 

Yongbok doesn’t move for a moment, long enough that Hyunjin starts to feel stupid, but then the blanket it tugged a little lower, and he catches sight of Yongbok’s profile in the moonlight. 

“I told you not to call me that,” he responds. 

“I don’t want you here,” Hyunjin says. 

“That makes two of us,” Yongbok says. 

If he had to describe their tones of voice, he would reference the sound of twin blades being unsheathed. 

Hyunjin lifts himself up on one elbow. Yongbok doesn’t mirror him, but he does turn his head, and the action seems to cost him much more energy than is appropriate. 

“You’re hiding something,” he says. 

“You seeing things ,” Yongbok hisses, mocking and exhausted all at once. Hyunjin’s lip curls even though Yongbok can’t see it. 

“You might have the counselors fooled that you’re this sweet, fragile thing, but not me.” 

“I really don’t care what you think,” Yongbok sighs. 

Hyunjin snorts. “Yeah you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t fight back.”

“Leave me alone, then,” Yongbok finally sits up and when he glares at Hyunjin, his eyes are bright with moonlight and icy anger. “Stop fucking prying and I’ll be gone. It’s what you want, right? Me out of here?” 

Hyunjin chokes on a wince. It is what he wants, right? Yongbok gone, his room to himself, anger has a weapon, not a reaction? 

“Whatever,” Hyunjin snarls instead. “Fuck you, Princess.” 

Yongbok laughs. It’s sharp like a slap. 

“Fuck you right back, Enculé .” 

They don’t realize it, but they’re waiting each other out, listening for the sounds of slow breaths, watching for shifting bodies beneath blankets. After an hour, Hyunjin is turned away, and he slowly sifts the iPod from beneath his pillow, snakes an earbud into his ear, and presses play in the middle of whatever song Innie had been listening to last. Felix slips out of the bed and works his way through a shrunken form of the callback choreography, through sit ups and crunches that will have his vertebrae bruised come morning. 

Neither of them sleep until nearly three in the morning. Neither of them notice, either. 

'"...Cause I love people I don't like, a nd I hate every song I write.

And I'm not cool and I'm not smart,

And I can't even parallel park..."

---

"...And no, I'm not a jerk. I would ask if you could help me out

It's hard to understand…"

When Felix wakes the next morning, Hwang is already gone, and he’s already late to breakfast. He blames the workout, the stress, and the half-cup of broth he’s consumed since he arrived to JYPE. 

“Twelve days,” he tells himself aloud as he pulls on yet another paper gown. 

Hwang made it painfully, blisteringly, agonizingly clear how he felt about having a roommate last night; Felix never thought he’d agree with the man, but he’s plenty pissed himself. He’s just not stupid enough to make a scene about it. 

To be fair, Hwang (admittedly) stops trying to appeal to any higher authorities within JYPE after he’d stormed off to Dr. Choi yesterday. 

But just because he stopped going to the counselors doesn’t mean he’s accepting the situation. Felix finds himself on the receiving end of fiery glares from the second Hwang lays eyes on him at breakfast; then again in the community room – hissed whispers to Hwang’s friends that Felix can’t make out but can imagine pertain to him and his paper gown and lack of craziness. 

He practically sleep-walks his way to lunch, hackles raised the moment he smells food. He refuses to look at the entree options (they smell too good, too dangerous, stop, stop, stop-), so it’s more soup for him. More fucking Miyeok-guk. 

“Thank you,” he says to Chef Jang. She frowns at his tray. 

“Are you sure you want this again? I really think you could do with some more protein. I can make you an omelet, or even just a serving of rice-?” 

Felix would die for a grain of rice. Just one. 

Weak, weak, weak-

“I’m fine,” Felix whispers. She grimaces at the tray again, but pushes it forward, mug of green tea already steaming. 

“Tell me if you change your mind,” she says. It’s what she said this morning at breakfast as well. Felix’s stomach clenches as he sinks into the first available two-seater table. How long will he be able to stretch the Adderall-withrawal excuse? How long until he has to choose his meals from a set list like the rest of the patients? 

His face must be twisting towards ugly, because a shadow falls over the soup and a voice like poison cuts through the food noise.

“What’s wrong, meal not to your standards, Princess?” 

Felix looks up through his lashes. Hwang stands with a tray of his own and a smirk like a snarl. 

“Or should I say roomie?” Hwang adds lowly. 

Kim, Innie, and Ji are there as well. They flank Hyunjin, expressions nowhere close to as fierce as the one Hyunjin wears, but definitely not friendly. 

“Leave me alone,” Felix says. 

“Kind of hard to do now that you’re sleeping three feet away from me,” Hwang hisses. 

“I didn’t choose it either, you know.” Felix looks back to the bowl of soup. The seaweed looks like slugs, all of the sudden; the color of the tofu reminds him of bones. “I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.” 

Innie laughs, but he at least has the decency to try to turn it into a cough.

“Whatever you say,” Hwang drawls. “ Princess. Enjoy your lunch-” 

Maybe it’s the hunger. Maybe it’s the gown. Maybe it’s the way that Hwang’s hair is pulled half-up, showing off cheekbones Felix will never be able to starve himself to. 

Because the voice that comes out of him is deeper than he knew he was capable of speaking. It is black ice. “Can you do me a favor and fuck off, Enculé ?”  

“What did you say to him?” Ji snaps. “Who do you think you are-”  

“Hey!” 

They all jump at the voice that comes from behind Felix. Minho glares, tray of his own in hand. 

“Hyung?” Ji practically whimpers. His cheeks go from milky white to bright pink in a nonsecond. 

Felix tries to find some satisfaction in his (and the others’) stricken expressions, but he’s far too distracted by the cramping in his stomach and the ache of adrenaline in his veins. 

He shoots to his feet, knuckles white where they grip the tray, and storms to the waste bin, but the sudden movement makes his vision swim. Someone says something, maybe tries to grab him, but he swats the hand away. He needs to either lay down or faint (or both), and he can’t do either here.  

He barely makes it to his bed – in his brand new room, with his horrible roommate and his pretty art and beautiful face – before the black spots pull him under. 

"...'Cause when you're running by yourself

It's hard to find someone to hold your hand..."

---

"...All I did was try my best,

This the kind of thanks I get?

Unrelentlessly upset..."

They did nothing but stare as Minho moved – quickly, desperately – towards Yongbok, but whatever he said did nothing to reduce the whites around his irises or quell the trembling in his fists. Minho watched, looking close to panic himself, as Yongbok stormed out of the cafeteria. 

But now, when he turns around and strides back to the four of them, the panic is gone. There’s just narrow-eyed rage. 

“Hallway,” he growls. “Now.” 

Hyunin tastes blood – maybe it’s because his heart is in his throat, or maybe he’s been biting his lip like a starving animal. He keeps his head bowed as they slip into the hallway. Twenty-four hours ago, he was in this same spot but flipped – he was the one with a bone to pick, not Minho; he was backing Yongbok into a corner, not feeling the weight of the wall at his own back. 

“What the hell is wrong with all of you?” Minho snaps. 

Jisung drops the pudding cup he’d been holding like a lifeline since Minho appeared. It splatters, strawberry cheesecake in flavor but viscera in appearance, across the floor. Hyunjin feels that familiar sensation of defensive anger tightening around his stomach. 

“What are you talking about?” He spits. Minho, though, doesn’t face him with anger so much as with disappointment, and on him, it’s rare; it looks wrong. 

“Do none of you remember what it was like to come here?” Minho asks. “I have personally watched each and every one of you walk these halls in paper gowns. Are you really going to tell me that you didn’t say anything in those early days you didn’t mean? Can you honest to God say that you were your best self?” 

The ensuing silence is heavy.

“I know he was cold in group, but you’re still punishing him for a very normal, human reaction that occurred three days ago.”

“He’s not just being cold to us,” Jisung whines. “He’s being hostile!” 

Minho’s eyes flash. 

“Because he doesn’t know anyone! Because he’s scared! Because the four of you took one look at him and decided he was a lost cause, and then went ahead and kept pushing him! I’m not saying defensiveness is healthy, but can you really blame him for not wanting to be best buddies with you?”

“He touched Minnie,” Hyunjin growls. “And then he called me a psychopath.” 

Minho doesn’t scoff, per se, but his exhale might as well be one. 

Seungmin, though, he scoffs. The step he takes away from Hyunjin feels like it spans miles. 

“Hyunjin, come on. Don’t use Seungmin’s literal diagnosis as ammo against Yongbok. It’s unfair to both of them. And besides, Yongbok fell. Innie told me himself . He doesn’t know why Seungmin’s here, you realize that, right? At least don’t use Seungmin’s trauma as a pawn in a fight he’s not even a part of.” 

The words sting; phantom fingers wrap themselves around Hyunjin’s wrists and he wants, very suddenly, to tear off all of his skin.

"You don't think I get that?" he snaps. "I don't like being like this, Hyung. I don't like being the fucking asshole in the ward-"

Minho must see something behind Hyunjin’s rage-mask because he takes a step forward and rests a hand on the back of Hyunjin’s head, his nails gently scratching the skin there. 

“You are a good person,” Minho says seriously. He then looks at Jisung, Innie, and Seungmin (tearful, sulky, and icy-eyed respectively). “You’re all good people. That’s why I’m so surprised. You’ve never treated another patient like this before, even when they behaved far more unkindly than Yongbok. Him being new doesn’t excuse what he said to you, nor the way he speaks about mental illness, but that’s a conversation for him and Chan. You don’t have to be friends with him – I know he’s not been innocent in all of this, I have an idea of what he said yesterday – but just … treat him like a person, for fuck’s sake. He’s stuck in the paper gown, he’s not from Korea, he walks around like we’re going to-” 

Minho swallows whatever he was going to say. Then he nods and levels them all with another, disappointed stare.

“I don’t want to hear that you made him feel lesser-than again, got it?” 

His stare lingers on Jisung, then lands firmly on Hyunjin. 

“He didn’t ask to be your roommate. And for what it’s worth, I don’t agree with throwing either of you into that situation. Be pissed, be upset, be anxious – but not at his expense. He told you to leave him alone, so maybe you should listen.” 

Hyunjin feels like he swallowed glass. No, not glass – ice, because his stomach is sunken and cold with a mix of frustration and shame. 

“Go eat,” Minho says. His gaze flickers to the floor, to the mess of pudding between them. “Scratch that, clean up your mess first, then go eat.” 

It feels like mess is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.  

"...They say these are the golden years b ut I wish I could disappear.

Ego crush is so severe.

God, it’s brutal out here…”

---

"...You know it's good to be tough like me, but I will wait forever

I need someone else t o look into my eyes and tell me:

'Girl, you know you've got to watch your health'..."

Felix’s second group is in fifteen minutes and he thinks he’s going to throw up. Or maybe that’s just the consequence of his accidental fast.  

He hasn’t been able to shake Hwang’s eyes on him since he stormed out of the cafeteria. He feels shaky and weak, naked and vulnerable, and he stopped going to Church once he moved to Paris, but he thinks he should start again because God clearly hates him. 

He slips into the community room with his eyes fixed on the ground. He’s aware of Chan’s eyes watching him, but at least Minho’s not here – something in the elder’s expression feels a bit too knowing. Hwang and the others are crowded around the snack table, and he tenses when he sees them notice his entrance, but they don’t approach. 

“Hey,” Chan slides next to him. “You okay? You look tense.” 

“I want my clothes,” Felix says. His voice sounds miles away and too tired for his age. “Please.” 

Chan moves so he’s standing in front of Felix now, but Felix refuses to meet his gaze. He doesn't know what he looks like exactly – has none of the control over his expression that he’s accustomed to wielding – but he can’t imagine it’s the face of someone who just needs to get off stimulants to feel better. 

“I know,” Chan says. “You’ll get them tomorrow morning, I promise.” 

I don’t know you, Felix thinks, so what good is a promise from you. 

The anger feels immature and overwhelming all at once, and he knows that if Chan keeps speaking to him in that soothing voice, he’ll snap. But when he turns, intent on finding a seat as far away from the others as possible, he collides with a body. 

Well, this time, a body collides with him – Ji. His eyes are wide, mouth agape, hand extended and wrapped around a now empty cup. Empty, because whatever liquid was within it is slowly but surely seeping through his blanket and into the paper fabric. 

“Shit,” Ji whispers. “I’m-” 

“I’m fine,” Felix says through clenched teeth. Chan arrives a little too quickly to be casual, like he’s expecting another fight. 

“Ah, that’s bad luck. You okay?” 

“Fine,” Felix says again. 

“Here, I can take the blanket-”

“No!” 

Felix doesn’t mean to yell. He certainly doesn’t mean to sound as scared as he does. Regardless, both happen – the sharp yell, the acrid fear. Chan freezes, hands hovering inches away from the blanket. 

“Are you sure?” he asks quietly. “It’s a wet blanket, now; can’t be comfortable-”

“Then give me my clothes,” Felix says quietly. Barely a breath, more of a thin hiss. 

“Jisungie,” Chan says without looking away from Felix, “can you get some paper towels from the bathroom?”

“Yup,” Jisung sounds all too happy to escape the situation. 

“Yongbok,” Chan says slowly, “I can get you a different blanket-” 

The soda is fully sticking to his skin now. Full sugar, he didn’t see diet on the table, and what if it gets into his skin-? 

“Please,” Felix whispers to Chan. “Please, I just want my clothes.” 

Chan, to his credit, looks genuinely shattered when he reiterates what he’s already told Felix. “I know, and I’m sorry. Tomorrow morning. I’ll bring them myself.”

The finality of his words feels like ice water coursing through Felix’s veins. He’s so, so cold, but worse than that, he feels flayed alive. He wants an outfit he can control, wants a menu with actual calories, wants to find a room with a lock and dance until his muscles burn. He wants Hwang to stop looking at him, and more importantly, he wants to stop being forced to observe the way Hwang is with his friends-

“Are you okay?” Chan asks softly. Felix blinks, prepared to say yes, but–

His eyes feel hot. 

No. No, no, no, Felix – pretty little doll he is – does not cry. 

He will not break a nearly decade-long streak of being tear-free. 

Will not, will not, will not- 

He bites his tongue until the threat of tears dies, until he can taste enough blood that he finds himself wondering how many calories he’s accidentally ingesting. 

“Just cold,” Felix settles on. 

And yeah, it’s a bit to watch guilt flash across Chan’s face, and a bit because he knows okay will look every bit the lie it is. The last thing he wants is for Chan to learn his tells. 

“Really, if you give the blanket-” 

“Restroom?” Felix asks sharply, butting him off. Chan sucks at his teeth but nods.  

“There’s one down the hall and to the right,” he says softly. Felix is storming away before Chan can even close his mouth, steps clumsy. He might have slipped were it not for the stupid fucking hospital socks with their stupid fucking rubber grips- 

You don’t slip, the voice whispers in his ears. He pinches harder at his thigh as he slams the bathroom door open. It smells slightly of cigarette smoke, probably a desperate odor of his own imagination because holy shit he would kill for a cigarette. 

He’s moving so desperately that he almost forgets to stop, almost slams into the wall and barely catches himself on one of the sinks. His heart pounds in his chest and ears, a relentless pulse that he can’t help but divide into eight counts. His fingers are numb where they grip the stupid slanted sink, purple at the nail beds, red at the edges. He observes one of his shaking palms and finds bloody crescents littering the skin. 

“Fuck,” he hisses only to find himself concerningly breathless. He closes his fist, then brings it down against his thigh in a fast, hard punch. The pain radiates, tender where he’d taken a cane to the very same spot mere days ago. He lifts his hand and does it again. “ Fuck! ” 

Again and again, he drives the bony edge of his wrist against his leg until the pain is louder than his heartbeat. When it’s all too much, he lifts that hand to his pulse point, drags his eyes up to mirror-

“Fuck,” Felix breathes. 

He looks like shit. His concealer is far too faded, and the circles beneath his eyes are nearly blue; blue like his lips (which is bad, very bad). The freckles on his cheekbones are starting to peak out, only covered where his hair (stringy, greasy) falls over his face. It’s the first time he’s seen himself, really seen himself, since he was admitted two days ago; the mirrors in the bedroom are plasticy and warped, but this one is real, and it throws Felix’s lack of control right back at him the same way the fluorescents above throw shadows under his eyes and beneath his cheekbones. 

He grabs some paper towels and blots the blankets before shifting them aside. Sure enough, the front of the gown is sodden and transparent, sticky and awful. 

Felix feels disgusting, but it’s his body, two days without workout, without control, that makes him moan low in his throat; it’s a desperate sound he’s only heard animals make, and he feels every bit like cattle. 

Felix isn’t stupid, he knows he’s objectively underweight, according to scales and BMI charts. He knows that, if he was normal, he’d be thin. 

But he’s not normal. And his eyes have mutated to account for the lack of normalcy and the expectations people have for him. After nearly a decade, he barely registers the protrusion of his chest bones or the aggressive visibility of his clavicle, because his neck is not swan-like at all. The gown might bellow over his arms in a way that, by illusion, makes them look willowier, but he can still pinch a centimeter of skin on his bicep that he’s confident isn’t muscle. His legs receive the same treatment – the growing gap between his thighs does nothing to distract from the bulk of his hips. To add insult to injury, the bruises are visible when he shifts, dark lines on the backs and sides of his legs. That alone confirms the fact that he cannot shed the blanket. 

Felix doesn’t want to look normal. He doesn’t want to be fit or healthy. He wants to look fragile and delicate, like something to be cautious of, to handle with care for fear of breaking; and he knows that he’s praised for it by choreographers and donors at company dinners as much as he’s insulted for it by the other dancers; and yet he knows, somehow, that it’s not their praise driving him. He doesn’t know what it is that makes him starve. He doesn’t know why the hunger feels like a security blanket. 

Felix glares at himself in the mirror. He wishes he could wrap his own hands around his reflection’s throat and squeeze. 

“If Chan thinks you need the blanket too much, he will take it away,” he tells himself. “You already fucked up with Hwang. You cannot fuck up again. Be a doll, or be no doll at all.” 

And then, for good measure, he repeats it. 

“ Tu ne peux plus te tromper. Sois une poupée ou ne sois pas une poupée du tout.”

In French, he can imagine it’s Madame speaking to him through the mirror. He may have failed himself, but he won’t fail her. Not again. 

He cups his hands beneath the sink and takes long gulps of water from the tab until the black spots are gone. With a final shuddering breath, he watches the mask slip back into place, turns on his grippy-socked heel, and storms out of the room. 

He didn’t notice the pair of dirty converse beneath the far stall. 

But Jisung noticed him. 

“...See you on a dark night. 

See you on a dark night.” 

---

“Got a broken ego, broken heart…”

“Hey,” Jisung slips into the seat next to Hyunjin with seconds to spare. “I have a favor to ask.” 

Hyunjin raises a brow. “What?” 

“Don’t start shit with Yongbok today.”

Defensiveness roars to life – not because he disagrees, but because they already got read the riot by Minho not two hours ago – but then he catches sight of Jisung’s expression. He’s not anxiously pleading, nor is he irritable. No, he’s simply asking, and he looks … older. Mature. 

He also looks unnerved. 

“Is this about getting on Minho’s good side?” Hyunjin forces himself to swallow down any snippiness. “I’m not gonna start shit, okay? I’m not gonna be besties with him either, he’s the one who walks around like he’s better than us-” 

“And we both know he’s not,” Jisung says. Still evenly, still maturely. “Jin, we both know he’s not fucking fine. I just … please. It doesn’t have to be for him, it can be for me-” 

“Okay,” Hyunjin says. “I’m not, like, trying to be a fucking bad person-” 

“You’re a good person,” Jisung says quickly. “I know he said a lot of shit, and it all happened to be your, uh-” 

“My triggers?” Hyunjin grits through bared teeth. Jisung grimaces. 

“Yeah, pretty much.” 

Hyunjin sighs, scanning the room. Yongbok is as far away from the rest of them as possible, little more than a mound of blankets and blonde hair. His eyes are blank again, fixed on the floor, but even sitting, he looks a little unstable. Jisung’s watching him too; so are Seungmin and Innie. "I don't know why I can't just ignore him," he hisses. "If I knew what was up with him, maybe..."

Jisung bites at his lip. “I don’t know if I think it’s drugs anymore.”

Before Hyunjin can push ( because there’s something Ji’s not saying ), Chan claps his hands to start group. 

(Yongbok barely speaks. When he does, it’s robotic. “I’m tired.” “It’s been a long day.” “Yes, I’m getting a lot out of therapy.” 

But when Chan asks him, after a long silence: "Anything else you want to add?”, Yongbok looks up and there's a spark in the black of his eyes when he responds: “I’ll add more when I get my clothes back.” 

Hyunjin has to turn his head to hide his surprise. 

He remembers saying the very same thing when he first came to JYPE.)

---

Yongbok doesn’t show up for dinner and Hyunjin is caught between a sense of injustice that he was allowed to eat elsewhere and guilt, because he knows the cause. He sees the effects of his barbs throughout the evening – every time he and Yongbok pass each other, the latter drops his gaze and seems to shrink into himself. 

It’s a Wednesday, which means that the phone booths are open for an extra hour and, as a result, the hallway outside of them is packed. Hyunjin rolls his shoulders as he weaves through the bodies and beelines to the mail room instead. Sure enough, there’s a letter from Yeji – the envelope fat. He presses it to his nose and smells the familiar aroma of lavender and disinfectant. He doesn’t open it, though. This day has been hell enough – he’s too at risk of misinterpreting the contents of her letter right now. 

Yongbok is in their room. He’s freshly showered given the way his damp hair hangs darker blonde around his eyes. He doesn’t look up when Hyunjin enters, but his shoulders tense. It takes nearly five minutes of silence on both their parts before he relaxes. 

Hyunjin tries to read the book Seungmin recommended, but he’s too tense himself with the presence of another body here. It doesn’t help that Yongbok is simply staring at the wall. His trazodone hasn’t done shit and he was rejected hydroxyzine again, but he turns off the light and rolls onto his side at 10 PM sharp. He’d passed the iPod to Seungmin, and he misses it like a vital organ. 

He doesn’t know how long he lays there, staring at the window and the moon through the leaves before he hears Yongbok move. He’s surprisingly quiet as he displaces the blankets, but the soft padding of his feet on the ground is short lived. 

For a fear-stricken moment, Hyunjin is certain that he’ll turn around and find Yongbok staring down at him, inches away, but when he rolls over, he sees only the top of a blonde head on the other side of Yongbok’s bed. Hyunjin rubs his eyes, sits up a little taller- 

“Are you doing a plank?” he asks. 

Yongbok – for all his stillness, all his stoicism – jumps violently, his arms nearly giving out beneath him, before he sits up, his head now visible above the mattress. There’s a moment in the shock when he looks almost human. Younger.  

And then his face hardens. 

Hyunjin snorts. “Sorry.” 

“Why are you awake?” Yongbok asks shortly. 

“I’m bad at sleep,” he responds; it might have been snarkier if he wasn’t so goddamn tired. “Are you seriously working out right now?” 

Yongbok glances at the door, then back at Hyunjin. He sits up and sights, running his fingers through the hair he has officially decided is too long. “I’m not gonna rat you out. Not if you tell me.” 

Yongbok blinks at him – still angry and defensive – then pulls the blanket off the bed, wraps it around himself, and sits on the edge of the mattress. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I have to stay fit for a callback in less than two weeks, and I have nowhere else to exercise.” 

“There’s literally a gym,” Hyunjin says, instead of the spiteful response he yearns to volley ( oh, you still think you’re two-weeks-only, Princess ?)

Clearly, Yongbok was expecting it too, because he preemptively tenses, then blinks a couple times before relaxing, however fractionally. 

“I’m not cleared for exercising, apparently,” he grumbles. His lip juts a bit. He’s showed more range of emotion in these last thirty seconds than Hyunjin has seen from him in the past two days. 

Oh, Hyunjin realizes. He doesn’t know that Hyunjin can see him in the moonlight. 

He looks scared. He looks tired. He looks preoccupied in a way that would seem more fitting on a surgeon or a soldier, not a twenty-something waif. 

I’m sorry, Hyunjin considers saying. You were an asshole, but I was first. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I bite. I think I still hate you.  

“I won’t rat you out,” he says again instead. “Just don’t wake me up.” 

Yongbok’s lips part in surprise. Without the unforgiving overhead lights, the blue tinge isn’t visible. In the moon, he’s not so much scary as he is unearthly.  

“Okay,” he says finally. Hyunjin nods once and lays back down. 

“I still don’t like you,” Hyunjin adds. 

“Feeling’s mutual,” Yongbok says. 

“...And God I don’t even know where to start.”

Notes:

I SWEAR everyone's going to talk more next chapter (aka actual interactions that aren't just fighting), and we'll continue to learn more about everyone and their stories!!

Click here for TWs!

TWs for this chapter: continued ED thoughts and behaviors from the perspective of the ED-haver including discussion of a sick body, hostility between two idiots re: mental health, medication discussion, discussion of self-harm, discussion of drug addiction, discussion of abuse, and I think that's it?

(In case you were curious, encule roughly translates to "fucker" (according to google). Stay tuned for more shitty French translations coming to a fic near you)

thank u endlessly <3 <3 <3

Chapter 4: i'll tell you mine if you tell me yours

Summary:

Collateral damage isn't the recommended way to make friends, but it can help bridge the gap between 'enemy' and 'roommate'.

(Felix grapples for control; Hyunjin grapples for information; Jisung just wanted a cigarette.)

Notes:

hello again angels <3 endless thank yous for the hits, kudos, and comments -- they very genuinely keep me feeling brave enough to hit post !

back with another chapter, of course! helpful vocab for this chapter: the ICD, or International Classification of Diseases, is basically the global DSM5 / a whopping 800 page PDF with all of the clinical markers and requirements of various mental illnesses !

Feix's song this chapter: Grocery Store by Cavetown
Hyunjin's song this chapter: Sick Dogs by hey, nothing
The Same Stupid Socks playlist

Please see TWs & Chapter Summary at the end, I hope u don't hate it as per usual, I love these sad lil emo guys sm <3

“Can you hear all of my open wounds?

I'm whispering as loud as the flowers bloom.

I've been somewhere in the sky, don't worry, 

I'll be right on time if I can help it, I'm so sorry…”

When Felix wakes the next morning, it’s with an exhausted sense of deja vu – once again, he is achingly sore from last night’s workout, cold all the way to his bones, and alone in a room made for two people. He almost wonders if he imagined the shadowed conversation with Hwang last night. 

As he rises, so does a wave of dizziness – it’s so sudden that he gasps and presses his fingers to his throat. A surge of genuine fear courses through him. Is his pulse normally this sluggish, or is it just the consequence of recent consciousness? He pulls his hands down and catches sight of his fingers in the process. Shaking violently, nail beds blue-

For the first time, doubt creeps in. He’s had his routine under lock and key for years. Sure, there are physical consequences, but he’s adapted to them so much that’s he’s forgotten how it feels to live otherwise; forgotten how it feels to not get black spots when he stands too quickly, forgotten what it’s like to be lukewarm instead of freezing; forgotten that his muscles and organs shouldn’t feel like sandbags on a hot hair balloon. 

His nailbeds have never been quite this blue. His head has never swam this early. He’s never noticed the fuzz of hair on his arms and legs – like downy feathers. 

Before he can panic, however, there’s a knock at his door. He immediately wraps the blankets around his shoulders and clears his throat. 

“Yes?” 

Chan’s face appears in the crack, dimpled even in two inches of space. He enters the room like it’s Christmas morning. 

And then Felix realizes why he’s here and, you know what? It’s better than Christmas. 

“My clothes?” he gasps. He forgets to keep his lips closed over his smile, can feel his whole face give into happiness, and Chan goes a bit pink so it must be particularly horrible to witness. 

“Your clothes!” Chan recovers, beaming. “I wanted to make sure you were in your room before I brought everything in. I’m guessing now’s a good time, but we can wait until after breakfast if you’d rather-” 

And Chan is grinning cheekily, tongue peaking between his lips in what Felix belatedly realizes is jovial teasing. He shakes his head desperately. 

“No, now, please. I mean - please?” 

Chan laughs. Felix knows he’s blushing (maybe it’ll bring some color to his lips – if his nailbeds are blue, so is his mouth) but he’s so ready to get out of the paper clothes and into some real ones. He’s so ready to stop worrying about the blanket slipping and revealing bone or bruise. 

“Alright,” Chan nods, “make sure your drawers are clear and I’ll go grab your things.”

The weights. He’d stashed them in the empty dresser last night. The second Chan leaves, Felix is on his feet. He rushes to the dresser and tries his best to put his back between the top drawer and the corner camera as he removes the discs and tucks  them into the fabric. He looks around the room – the pillowcase no longer feels like the smartest option; if he’s going to get clothes, and any other belongings, he’ll be able to wrap the weights there. His eyes slide to the right, where Hwang’s dresser is visibly stuffed with clothing, the drawers caught on loose sleeves and thick denim wedged between the gaps. Felix glances back at the door, prays that Hwang isn’t on his way back from breakfast, and rips open the top drawer of his roommate’s dresser. It’s an absolute mess of what he quickly identifies to be sweatshirts. He shoves the weights to the very back, half-wrapped in black knit pullover, but as he’s pulling his hand away, his fingers brush against something wooden. 

It rattles. 

Madame always disliked Felix’s natural inclination towards curiosity – not curiosity he reminds himself, since Madame isn’t here to do so, nosiness – but he still opens the drawer further. Inside is a small wooden jewelry box – pretty, simple save an engraving of an Iris on the lid. Felix opens the box and gasps. 

Inside are dozens and dozens of pills, either peachy-pink or butter-yellow. Felix pinches one between his fingers, examining it, but beyond a faded series of numbers on the back, there’s no distinguishing features that tell him what the medication is. He hears distant footsteps and immediately closes the box, shoving it back to the depths of the dresser before hurrying to the bed once more. 

Why does Hwang have a box of pills, and what are they for? 

He doesn’t have a lot of time to consider the question before Chan is back; he doesn’t have Felix’s bag, but rather a plastic tub of the things from within it. He rests it on top at the foot of Felix’s bed. 

“Thank God,” Felix exhales. 

“Now, it’s not everything,” Chan warns. “Some of your belongings aren’t allowed in the ward, but-” 

“It’s clothes,” Felix says. Like an anchor in a hurricane. He reaches cautiously towards the bin, hesitating when he realizes he wasn’t given permission, but Chan nods and he immediately removes a sweatshirt from the top – one of his favorites, baby pink and fleece inside. The fabric is soft beneath his fingers, promising warmth and oversized-security in equal measure.

“I also have a schedule for you,” Chan says. Felix pauses and blinks up at him. “You’ll still have individuals with Dr. Choi and one-on-ones with me, but we discussed your case and assigned you a few additional activities that we think could help.” 

Despite the shame that crawls up his throat at the notion of the counselors talking about him, Felix accepts the single-sheet schedule Chan passes him. It’s very simple, clearly printed from a computer recently given the warmth of the paper. He focuses on the items for today. After breakfast, he has Creative Writing Therapy, whatever that means, and then the promised one-on-one. There’s a hefty block of time between the one-on-one and his individual therapy with Choi, which is set for after lunch. The ensuing days fill more and more – like he’s a frog in tepid water, and they’re going to set the therapy to boiling before he can notice – but Dance therapy is noticeably missing. At least there’s Physical Therapy on his schedule, but he doubts it’ll be the PT he’s used to. 

Just a little longer, he reminds himself. His pulse seems to thrum again, still slow. It feels like a warning. 

“I’ll let you change,” Chan says, making his way out of the room. “Hey, weird question, but do you like music?” 

The question is so out of left field that Felix drops the schedule. It drifts to the floor and slides half-way underneath the dresser, but neither he nor Chan make any move to grab it. 

“I’m a dancer,” Felix says. Chan’s tongue pokes at the inside of his cheek. 

“You can still like things that aren’t dance, right?” 

Is this a trick question? 

And maybe Felix is a little drunk on the promise of pants and shirts and control, because the words bubble out of him.  

“To dance is to love music."

He’s quoting Woo, he realizes, and a pang of longing hits him like lightning. 

And for some reason, Chan grins – not the counselor-smile, soft and careful, but the grin of a man in his twenties. 

“Good to know.” 

“...I’ve been trying not to cry in the grocery store,

Little bully inside pinning me to the floor…”

---

“I’m freaking out, I start to drown,

Maybe I like the way that sounds.

Don't write that down, it's just a joke–

When I die it'll be the smoke…”

Creative Writing Therapy is, currently, Hyunjin’s favorite of the activities available to him at JYPE. Art Therapy is too on the nose, Exercise Therapy is only fun when he’s angry, and Dance Therapy hurts like salt in an open wound. 

It’s also the only activity block that all four of them take together. The whole Same Socks Brigade. Hell, it was where they met all those months ago. 

Hyunjin remembers that first day – Innie still in a paper gown, Seungmin mere days with clothes of his own, and he and Jisung joined at the hip after weeks of butting heads – when they all happened to sit at the same table. The particular room they used for Creative Writing Therapy was the closest to a classroom – square tables (bolted, of course, to the ground), stiff chairs (unbolted, which was risky is Hyunjin’s opinion), a chalkboard, and windows towards the gardens that felt cruel in their temptation. 

“You’re all smart,” Chan had said, “and you’re all very aware of why you’re here. You know the clinical markers of your mental illnesses. You probably have the ICD requirements half-memorized by now.”

And wasn’t that the truth – back then, before then, and to this day. Hyunjin knew his diagnosis backwards and forwards, as well as many others. All things mental un-wellness had become somewhat of an obsession (not an ICD-coded obsession, which would be a code MB26.5 symptom) for him. 

You’re not borderline, an early-day’s doctor had said. You’re someone with borderline. 

And Hyunjin had thought, not uttered: Either I’m borderline, or I’m truly a bad person.  

Innie (who had still been nameless, at that point) had huffed at Chan’s words. It was clear, based on the amount of bandages on his arms, that he was probably at JYPE for a suicide attempt (Code MB23.R), maybe general self harm (MB23.E), but who knew what the underlying cause was. 

Seungmin (not yet Minnie) was less of a mystery – acute PTSD (6B40), haphephobia – but whatever had driven him towards a fear of bodies and skin and enclosed spaces had yet to be shared (and Hyunjin might be nosy, but he wasn’t enough of an asshole to press).

Jisung, he knew: panic attacks (MB23.H) by the bucketload, numbed by Xanax, and then a whole lot more. 

Hyunjin knew exactly where his diagnosis lied in the ICD-11. 6D11.5, wedged right at the bottom of the list of personality disorders. Borderline pattern, he’d read at sixteen, just two days before running. 

“But,” Chan had continued, “I want you to forget all of the language you know about your diagnosis. Forget the clinical stuff, forget the words doctors have told you, forget the things that are written on your files.” 

Hyunjin must have pulled some kind of face, because Seungmin, Innie, and Jisung had all looked at him. 

“I want you to think in adjectives. The weirder the better. And then I want you to write down all those adjectives that you think fit with how you feel.” 

“You want me to give my anxiety a color?” Jisung had asked sarcastically, but Chan had nodded. 

“Exactly! We already do that in language, right? People talk about feeling sad as feeling blue. But when I was deep into my depression, I thought of the world as grey. I thought on a monoscale. So I would use grey as an adjective. I’d use flat, hollow, endless, tepid…” 

Hyunjin was still wrinkle-nosed at the idea, but Jisung was nodding and so was Innie. 

Chan nodded at the tables. “I have all of your notebooks out. Just give it a try.” 

Chan always ended his instructions like that. Just give it a try. 

Hyunjin had picked a crayon (red), opened his notebook (full, but rarely with the assignments from therapy themselves), and sighed. Innie hadn’t moved at all, and Hyunjin realized it was probably because several of the fingers on his right hand were in splints.

“I’m guessing you’re not a lefty?” he’d asked. Innie had grimaced, seemingly caught between his own anger at being at JYPE and his frustration at the lack of mobility. 

“I’m not that lucky,” he grumbled. 

“Or forward thinking?” Seungmin nodded at the splints. 

Innie’s eyes narrowed, but when he responded, it was with fast, scathing humor. “Wasn’t exactly trying to live to the splint-stage.” 

And then his eyes widened as he realized what he said. Jisung and Hyunjin burst into poorly-muffled laughter, though, and his face melted into a rosy-cheeked grin. 

“I'm Hyunjin, by the way,” he’d said. Then pointed at the still-giggling Ji. “That’s Jisung.”

“Seungmin,” Seungmin had added. “Don’t touch me and we’ll get along great.” 

“Jeongin,” the newbie said (and Hyunjin also remembers the first time he accidentally said Jeonginnie, then Innie, and the youngest had failed to bite back smiles. “Nice to, uh, meet you? I guess?” 

“How about we just work in one notebook,” Jisung suggested. “It’ll be more interesting, right?” 

“Will he let us?” Innie looked at Chan, who was meandering from table to table. 

“He’d let us do anything so long as it wasn’t actively harming us,” Hyunjin said. “So, what color is your mental illness?”

It had been giggly, nonserious, and objectively stupid – until it wasn’t. Until Seungmin said “when someone touches me, my skin feels like cookie dough or glue,” and Innie said, “weird, mine feels like a piece of fruit that ants got a hold of.” And Jisung said, “oh, mine used to feel like that too! Like fire ants!” 

“So like … claustrophobic,” Hyunjin said. 

And they’d all nodded. 

“What’s your head like?” Seungmin asked. 

“Stupendous, or so I’m told,” Jisung said, at the same time Hyunjin said: “No complaints yet.” 

And then they’d followed it up with: Loud and stormy, respectively. Soon joined with an interesting safe from Seungmin and fluorescent from Innie. 

The words became more complex, more vivid; soon they were couplets, phrases, a quadruple venn diagram of unfathomable comparisons and achingly familiar metaphors. They hunched over the notebook like a four-headed beast, Hyunjin’s hand cramping around the red crayon until it was so blunt they had to swap it for another. 

“It’s like a song,” Jisung had whispered, looking at the cramped pages. 

“Shit,” Innie nodded. He trailed the metal tip of the splint on his index finger down a series of four lines, each of their individual answers to Jisung’s prompt of what’s going on in your head? And the answers: stillwater, smoke, ants I can’t kill, voices that won’t shut the fuck up no matter how much I try. 

Hyunjin paused, crayon trembling. And then he’d slowly, vulnerably, written out a stanza. 

Brain full of still-water.

Head full of smoke;

ants I can’t kill, and a voice I can’t choke. 

They’d all stared at the stanza – the chorus – in a silence that felt electric. 

“That’s really good.” 

They’d all jumped, and Chan had laughed apologetically from where he’d been leaning behind Jisung. 

“You’re digging into your free time, you know,” he’d gestured to the empty room. “Therapy ended fifteen minutes ago. Is this a song?” 

They’d all looked at each other. Innie and Seungmin were understandably cautious around Chan, but Hyunjin nodded minutely at Jisung, who took a deep breath. 

“Would that be a problem?” 

“Ji, it’s Creative Writing Therapy,” Chan rolled his eyes. “You never showed me your lyrics before. If you four want to write songs together, and if they’re anything like this, go for it. Besides,” Chan looked at each of them with something achingly close to pride, “you seem to have a natural talent for it.”

And so they became a foursome. The Same Socks Brigade, they’d decided. Well, Jisung had decided, and he’d been so earnestly excited at the name that the rest of them had gone with it. Hyunjin doesn’t like to admit how much the title doesn’t burn, not like every other emotion seems to, but warms him. Soon enough, they shared everything: contraband (cigarettes and booze, when Hyunjin could convince Beomgyu to buy and bring them), snacks (when Seungmin’s mom sent care packages), gossip (when Jisung lingered near the counselor’s table to hear them), and, most venerably of all, the iPod. Because Innie, crazy Innie, had stuffed the shitty iPod nano and charging cable into the bandages on his arms before they took away his belongings. 

“Did you add any songs to the playlist?” Jisung asks when Hyunjin slides into the seat beside him, pulling him out of his memories with a clumsy jolt. “I feel like I’m in a rut with new music.”

“Not when I last had it, but I can try to think of some to add when it’s my turn again,” Hyunjin suggests. “You know it’s gonna be angry, though, so if you want sweet acoustics, ask Minnie.” 

Ji grins. “Maybe I want angry.” 

“Just try to make it mainstream enough this time,” Seungmin leans towards them. “I get twenty minutes on the computer if I’m lucky, and the last time you recommended a song, I had to download it from a ten-year-old YouTube video. Do you have any idea how hard it is to use Youtube-to-mp3 without a nurse noticing?” 

Hyunjin opens his mouth to respond ('Says the man who keeps adding French songs to the playlist'), but the door to the room opens, and any thought he might have had, intelligent or otherwise, vanishes. 

The doors open and Yongbok enters. 

The doors open, Yongbok enters, and he clearly got his clothes back. 

Long gone is the paper gown and the cloak of blankets (though the silhouette isn’t entirely different, Hyunjin supposes). He’s clad in an enormous baby-pink hoodie that must be two sizes too big for him given the way the sleeves pool over his hands and the hem falls to the thigh of his joggers. His blond hair peaks out from behind the hood – and the hood has literal cat ears sewn on it. The joggers are a creamy white, not loose but not tight either, cinching at the ankle above the same grey socks they all wear. 

“Glad to have your clothes back?” Chan grins. 

“Very,” he says, and even though his voice is small, there’s an obvious note of contentment – or maybe just an absence of frustration – that makes him sound much more human and much more like he’d  sounded last night. He takes another step forward, into the sun streaming through the windows, and his hood falls back.

Jisung chokes on his coffee. 

Without the hood, the sunlight illuminates his face. Whereas last night’s moon erased some of the more unhealthy shades to Yongbok’s appearance, this morning’s sun seems to taunt a beauty that could be if he got color back in his cheeks and lips, if he let his eyes sparkle. But that’s not what renders Hyunjin incapable of breath. 

Freckles. 

Freckles, all across his face. Clearly Yongbok didn’t get his makeup back, and clearly any remaining concealer had washed away, because his face is littered with dozens of stars. They dance across the bridge of his nose up to his cheekbones, they kiss the thin skin of his eyelids, and they flirt with the too-wide neck of the hoodie. 

He must have been successfully disguising them until now, and he must dislike them, because he pulls the hood back up and ducks his face.    

So no, Yongbok is not wearing the stupid paper gown; Yongbok has freckles and is dressed in malfitting, oversized clothes the color of tea cakes and he looks so insanely cute and he has freckles and big eyes, and Hyunjin is fucked, and he has freckles- 

“Well,” Seungmin murmurs in Hyunjin’s ear, smiling like a demon, “this’ll be interesting. I mean, maybe not for you – you’re really red – but it’ll be interesting for me to watch!” 

Hyunjin doesn’t hit Seungmin, not like he’d hit Ji or Innie, because that would be cruel and friendship ending. All he can do is glare. Seungmin just smiles smugly. 

“Alright,” Chan claps his hands and plops into a desk chair. “Today we’re returning to an old favorite. We’re not writing about mental illness today. Instead…” 

Hyunjin’s definitely more than a little distracted as Chan walks them through some writing prompt, but he’s already decided that he’s going to spend the hour-and-change they’re given to spew feelings onto notebooks with crayons alone wordsmithing a verse that’s been rattling around in his brain. Thankfully, Yongbok has taken a seat as far back as possible, and Hyunjin finds that - so long as he’s not looking at his roommate - he can semi-focus on his notebook.

(And sure, the verse he’d been mulling had featured floral imagery, but suddenly he had an aggressive urge to rewrite it about constellations-) 

“Let me guess,” Chan wanders over to where the four of them are congregated around their usual table, “you won’t be joining the rest of the group in today’s prompt?” 

“That’s rhetorical, right?” Ji teases. 

“How are the songs coming?” Chan asks instead of confirming. 

“We’ve got, like, thirty ideas,” Innie frowns at his own notebook, “but nothing’s really finished.” 

“Well, finishing a creative pursuit can be scary,” Chan suggests. “If it’s finished, you’d typically have someone look at it and give feedback. And then you’d actually perform it, too.” 

Hyunjin bites the inside of his cheek. Innie, too, ducks away from Chan’s knowing gaze. The counselor raises his brows. 

“C’mon, guys, your shit is good. My offer of bringing some equipment in still stands-” 

“Maybe next time,” Hyunjin murmurs. Chan opens his mouth to protest, so Hyunjin adds: “What do you have him working on?” 

It’s a bold question – both because it’s Hyunjin asking about Yongbok, but also because it’s objectively nosy. Chan hesitates, glancing towards Yongbok who is (so soft looking in that sweatshirt, what the literal fuck-) scribbling on a piece of paper with all the focus of an open-heart surgeon. 

“Freewriting about not mental health,” Chan says eventually. “You’d know that if you’d paid attention when I spoke.”

“Sorry, hyung,” Hyunjin grins cheekily, “you know I’m at risk of transient dissociative symptoms."

It’s a line pulled straight from the ICD. Chan clicks his tongue, flicks Hyunjin weakly on the side of the head, and murmurs something that sounds suspiciously like brats, the lot of you. 

The way he says it, though, is all love.  

The rest of the hour passes in a blink. They clean up lyrics – at this point, they’ve all written independently as well as together – and Seungmin hums a melody that Jisung guesses the notes for. Hyunjin is finally giving into the imagery of galaxies when Innie sits back in his seat and tugs at his sleeves. 

“Hey,” he whispers. “What if we did try.” 

“Try?” Hyunjin asks. 

“Try to record the songs?” 

“What?” Hyunjin gasps. 

It’s an inane notion, but Innie nods. “Why not. Maybe even when we get out of here? I mean, we’re all going to get discharged one day, right-?”

Hyunjin’s stomach plummets at the exact same time the familiar sense of fury courses through his veins. Innie must see the shift – he freezes. Even though he can’t possibly know why his words are a perfect storm for rejection-meets-insecurity, they are.

“Sorry-”

“You’re good,” Hyunjin grits. He tries to rein in the sick feeling in his gut, gaze sliding towards Yongbok as he does so. He’s still hunched over his paper, writing and pausing to tap the crayon in triplet beats when he thinks. He’s shockingly un-still like this, but even his fidgeting seems choreographed somehow. Tap-tap-tap of the crayon, a flex-flex-flex of his right foot, and then an odder gesture – he wraps the index finger and thumb of his left hand around his right wrist, then switches to the left wrist, then back to the right. 

MB23.M, the code comes to him unbidden. Psychomotor agitation. 

“You’re staring,” Seungmin says. 

“I’m analyzing,” Hyunjin whispers back. 

Seungmin joins him in said analysis. His eyes narrow. 

“What?” Hyunjin asks. 

“Nothing,” Seungmin says. “Nothing yet.” 

They both watch as Chan releases the group of patients. Yongbok jolts, goes very still, and then tears the paper he’d been so diligently writing on out of the notebook, crumples it into a loose ball, and drops it into the waste basket on his way out.

“...I’m feeling cold, this woman’s old,

As if she knows something I don't

She's looking bored, am I a chore..?”

---

Seungmin is the last out of the room. He always is – clambering through the narrow doorway alongside even the most slow-moving body makes his palms sweaty. It gives him a front row seat to Hyunjin’s gay panic and Yongbok’s absolute obliviousness that he’s both, a, being observed, and b, acting so oddly. 

He glances down at the waste basket before he leaves. The crumpled up ball of paper rests on top. 

It’s objectively intrusive, he tells himself. It would be a violation of Yongbok’s privacy, of Chan’s trust. 

But he thinks back to Yongbok’s expression when Seungmin had pushed to the floor – at least what he remembers of it, before the flashbacks robbed him of his vision of the present. He’d been absolutely terrified, his whole body curled like he was anticipating retaliation, but his hands never rising to defend himself. He thinks of the way he’d glared at his Miyeok-guk. 

He takes the paper and shoves it into the pockets of his sweatpants before anyone can notice.

---

“...It must be easier than it seems,

But I can't get these thorns out of my teeth…”

 After Creative Writing Therapy (which Felix begrudgingly admits to himself and himself alone wasn’t entirely unpleasant), he heads to Chan’s office for their one-on-one. To his surprise, the counselor doesn’t ask him about what he wrote, nor about Hwang beyond a casual how are you finding your new room? Instead, he asks him about dancing. Not if Felix is taking things too far, or if he enjoys being at the Poirot Company, but about the music. Before he knows it, the hour is up – and Felix has spoken more in that hour than he thinks he’s spoken in the past three months. 

So, all things considered, the day is far better than the two-and-a-half before it; at least, it’s better, until he enters his room (sans Hwang, as he expected) and spots a paper on his nightstand.

There’s a menu on his nightstand. Paper, cutesy clip-art of smiling strawberries at the corners, check marks beside meal options. Please fill out and submit to the medication bay before curfew, instructs the menu in a voice Felix reads as saccharine and syrupy. 

Felix had thought, hoped (naively, why is he always so fucking naive) that maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to granularly compose his own menu. That he’d be able to recreate the very meals he’s eaten every day for nearly a decade. But no, of course not – the entrees he’d seen in the cafeteria’s buffet weren’t there for show, they were the options for the day. At least with breakfast, he can choose his fruits, or so it seems, and he can specify yogurt over cereal for the mandatory dairy option. But lunch? He needs a protein-main, a carbohydrate-side, a produce, and a drink. Dinner is even more mysterious, offering up names of Korean dishes Felix doesn’t know, more sides, and dessert. 

Lunch is so soon, and breakfast just happened. He feels like an idiot now – on top of the usual soup, he’d asked Chef Jang if she had hardboiled eggs. The simple protein had felt like a good idea, but now, it seems to have reformed in his gut and increased in weight – heavy and poisonous like a stone made of dark magic. 

All that work, all that suffering, and for what? The voice hisses in his mind. They take your makeup, they take your clothes, they take your control. Kiss the callback goodbye, Yongbok, because how the hell are you getting out of this-

He doesn't register the moment he grabs a handful of his own clothing from the bin, only the satisfaction of chucking it hard against the wall. A pair of pants follows suit, then one of his pillows. And he throws them in threes, always threes, preparation, rotation, resolution-

“Whoa!” 

Ji is standing in the doorway, hands belatedly covering his head, prepared to deflect the pillow Felix is amping up to hurl. 

He gasps and drops the pillow. Ji stares at him with huge eyes, mouth slightly open. He looks like a cartoon squirrel come to life. When he seems sufficiently confident that Felix isn’t about to attack him, he drops his arms. 

“Nice sweatshirt,” he says. “I like the color.” 

Felix blinks several times. He waits for a jab, for a comment about how Felix thinks he’s not crazy. It doesn’t come. 

“Thanks,” he responds. 

Ji takes a half-step into the room. He must have gotten used to this being Hwang’s room alone, and Felix doesn’t have the umph to kick him out, not when his blood is roaring in his ears and his entire body feels like it’s full of cyanide.

“Why are you throwing shit?” Ji asks. Felix wrinkles his nose and Ji grimaces. “I swear I mean that as a question, not a dig. Besides, it seems like you’ve been at it for a while. Must have been pretty cathartic.” 

They both look at the floor, at the scattering of clothes. At the mess, at the disarray, at Felix’s failure splayed across the room in t-shirts and socks and-

“Hey,” Ji is suddenly in front of him, arms hovering on either side of his arms like he wants to comfort Felix, but isn’t sure if touch is okay. Felix isn’t sure if touch is okay either – he doesn’t remember the last time someone stood this close to him without the imminent threat of pain or criticism. “You’re breathing really fast. Are you having a panic attack?” 

A what? Felix doesn’t have panic attacks. Felix isn't freaking out – that would be insane-

Except, oh. He is. Every breath feels just out of reach and, when he manages to inhale, not enough. It reminds him of the seconds between stepping on the scale and seeing the number. 

“I think you’re having a panic attack,” Ji says softly. “Do you want me to get-” 

“No,” Felix rasps. 

“That’s cool,” Ji says. He doesn’t look like he thinks it’s okay. In fact, he looks at a loss. “Um, I get them too. Basically why I’m here - well, not why why. Technically I’m here because I got hooked on heroin. Well, not, like, at first? At first it was just Xanax my social worker prescribed, then vicodin my foster mom had-” 

Felix is absolutely enraptured by Ji (Jisung, he amends), partially because he’s never seen someone talk so quickly, and partially because Jisung is sharing all of this information with Felix without a care in the world. 

He sinks slowly onto the mattress as his breaths continue to evade him. Jisung hesitates in his rambling. 

“Are you sure I shouldn’t get someone,” he asks. “You look … well-” 

“Sick?” Felix spits, but his voice is weak. It’s like a kitten, claws out, against wagging-tailed labrador. Jisung winces. 

“Yeah, that wasn’t- I probably shouldn’t have said-” 

“It's fine,” Felix runs his fingers through his hair. “It’s-” 

He looks at the clothes on the ground.

“What set you off?” Jisung asks cautiously. Felix raises a brow. Set you off, like he’s an unstable element at risk of fiery reaction. 

“What set me off?” Felix laughs. He stares at the palms of hands, at the sorry excuse for a machine his body is becoming. “I’m trapped in a building while I should be rehearsing for the most important callback of my entire career. I can’t drink tea without asking someone maybe three years older than me to get me water. I need to be able listen to fucking music, and I need to be somewhere where there aren’t cameras everywhere, and I need - I need-” 

I need to get out of eating this food, I need to burn it off, I need to shut the fuck up, becauwe if talk about it Madame will never love me again-

His stomach howls. It’s been two and half days of barely-broth and that fucking egg and maybe he should have at least had a piece of fruit because his blood sugar is definitely crashing, and if he walks into dinner with this gnawing abyss in his gut, he’s sure he’ll eat every single thing on that horrible hot-lunch bar. 

I’m so fucking hungry, I need to eat, I need-

“What I need is a fucking cigarette!” Felix snaps. 

Jisung’s eyes raise. He laughs. “Oh. Why didn’t you say so?” 

Fifteen minutes later, Felix is wrapped in an extra sweater and creeping into the men’s bathroom at the far end of the activities hall. He’s probably walking far too suspiciously, but he doesn’t pass a single nurse or counselor to question him. 

When he enters, Jisung is already waiting for him; he’s in a denim jacket and a cap, which immediately tells Felix that he’s underdressed for the fall temperatures. Hell, he’s been shivering ever since he entered the hospital; before that, even. 

“I didn’t think you’d show,” Jisung says. 

“Nicotine is hell of a thing,” Felix responds. 

He’s calmer now – less panicky, more pissed. The anger isn’t much more comfortable, but when he digs his nails into his palms, it feels like control, or the illusion of it. 

“Ji, who the fuck are you talking to?” A voice calls. Felix jumps, unable to place it, because it didn’t come from within the bathroom, and after a moment of panic, he realizes it didn’t come from the hall either. 

Then he spots it – a window, maybe two feet tall, three wide at the very top of the wall of the furthest stall. It’s open. 

The idea of smelling fresh air is as addicting as a cigarette. 

Almost, Felix amends; fresh air won’t curb the hunger. 

“You’re not gonna tell anyone, right?” Jisung clarifies. 

“No,” Felix swears. 

“Aright, then, come on, Yongbok.” 

My name is Felix, he almost says. Almost. 

Instead, he follows Jisung into the handicap stall, watching as he steps gingerly on top of the toilet. 

“Can I get a lift up?” Jisung hisses into the grey sky. 

A face pops down, and Felix’s first thought is: wow, he’s quite handsome when he’s smiling. 

And then that grin falls away the second Hwang sees Felix. 

“What’s he doing here?” he asks.  

“He’s here to talk about our lord and savior, Jesus Christ.” Jisung says, then rolls his eyes. “He wants a cigarette, dumbass?” 

Hwang barely looks at Felix. He stands up, and for a moment Felix thinks he’s going to slam the window closed, but then a hand reaches through the gap, and Jisung grins, clutching Hwang’s forearm for purchase and climbing up the toilet tank like he’s done it a hundred times. And, honestly, maybe he has? Felix is only here for eleven more days, but he imagines a single moment past that would have him itching for an escape in any form. 

Jisung offers his hand to Felix as soon as he’s through the window, and it’s just as well because Felix doesn’t want to accept a single thing from Hwang, and Hwang would probably drop him if given the chance. He wraps his fingers around Jisung’s arm, braces his foot against the wall, and pushes up, begrudgingly grateful when Jisung is able to bear his weight and pull him the rest of the way up. 

Jisung looks shocked when Felix emerges onto the roof, his eyes searching Felix’s body. 

“What?” Felix asks roughly. 

“Nothing,” Jisung shakes his head, but his wide eyes tell Felix that it’s a bold-faced lie. 

In the end, though, he can’t find it in himself to care. 

Firstly, because he’s outside. Outside in the fresh air, autumn sun fighting valiantly to break through the thin cloud layer. The rooftop is walled, as if to ensure any escapee-patient cannot throw themselves off the ledge if they wanted to, but the tree in that tantalizing courtyard has branches that bow high in the air, and the weight of leaves-against-sky is surprisingly jarring. Birds flit overhead, dancing and twirling and every image of free that Felix wants to be. Hollow, unleddened, weightless. 

Secondly, though, is Hwang – Hwang, who has a cigarette perched between those perfect lips. Hwang, who exhales smoke pointedly in his direction. He probably thinks it’s a punishment, but the smell of the smoke is the closest to aroused Felix has felt in two years. There’s something dangerous in those eyes, something like curiosity.

“Well, princess?” Hwang cocks his head. Felix didn’t know eyes could look so dark and yet so anonymous. He gives away nothing. 

“Well, what,” Felix murmurs. 

“See something you like?” 

“Yeah, a ledge,” Felix nods at the roof’s edge, and he’s surprised when Jisung snorts. 

Surprised because he’d a little bit forgotten Jisung was there. 

“A suicide joke, original,” he laughs. From his tone, Felix knows he means the opposite, but he sounds pleased for some reason. 

“I was promised nicotine,” Felix pulls his hood up, shoves his hands under his armpits, and tries desperately not to shiver. It’s useless because he’s at 105-47-so-close, but still. Hwang looks like a fashion model, effortless and at ease; in comparison, Felix feels like a little kid in his candy-colored layers. 

“Well, they’re my cigarettes,” Hwang says simply. He still doesn’t smile. 

“C’mon, Hyunjin, I told him he could have one,” Jisung pouts. Hwang (Hyunjin, Felix thinks of the name again, because he looks like a Hyunjin in the fresh air) glances at Jisung and all of the animosity melts away, leaving only annoyed fondness. Jealousy tears through Felix – he can’t decide if it’s because Hwang is the keeper of the pack, or because he can’t remember the last time someone looked at him like that. 

“It’s coming out of your pockets the next time we buy,” Hwang points the lit cigarette in Jisung’s direction before fishing a pack out of his pocket. He tosses the box to Jisung, who drops it, then the lighter (also dropped). 

“Yongbok?” Jisung offers Felix the pack, and Felix moves more quickly than he knew he could, grabbing a cigarette and lighting it in seconds. “Wow, you really were desperate.” 

“Is withdrawal a crime, too?” Felix snaps. Then he remembers (‘I’m Han Jisung, and I’m a sick, pill-popping crazy person’) and blanches. “I mean - fuck.” 

Jisung cackles. 

“You’re funny when you’re not being a scary statue,” he responds. Felix can’t even begin to imagine what that means, opts for taking another puff of the cigarette instead.

“How do you have these?” Felix gestures to the pack. Jisung glances at Hwang who sighs. 

“I have a friend who lives nearby. He visits once a month, we give him cash, he gives us nicotine.” 

“Amongst other things,” Jisung adds with a slightly dark smirk. 

“Do the counselors know that you come up here?” 

Hwang’s eyes narrow. “No. They’d freak out for sure, definitely fix the lock, so if you’re thinking-”

Surprisingly, it’s Jisung who comes to his defense. “He already said he wouldn’t say anything.”

Felix levels Hwang with a heavy stare. “I won’t rat you out.” 

It’s an echo of what Hwang had said to him last night. He raises a brow. He looks almost impressed, and then he stubs his cigarette and plucks another from the pack.

When his gaze shifts from the lighter to Felix, it feels like stepping into a spotlight. “You haven’t snitched yet, I suppose.” 

The subtext is clear. You haven’t snitched yet, and you better not start now. 

“I’ve lived in shared housing since I was thirteen, give me some credit,” Felix shrugs. 

“Oh shit, really?” Jisung asks. “You a foster kid too?” 

“No,” Felix shakes his head slowly. “I moved to Paris to train at a ballet school, and then transferred to into the company. This is the first time I’ve slept in a room with fewer than four other people.” 

“Whoa, that’s so cool!” Jisung beams. Unlike Hwang, whose stare is like a black hole, something about Jisung makes Felix feel almost normal. He’s giddy, and joyful, and Felix hates that he likes him on instinct. “Wait, so are you famous?” 

Felix’s cheeks are already red from the cold, but he imagines they burn a bit brighter. 

“Not really,” he says softly. “In the dance world, kind of. I’m working towards that. It’s why-” 

He stops himself from continuing and chides himself. He almost said that’s why I need to get out in two weeks. But he can practically picture Hwang’s curled-lip condescension, hear the sarcastic response of 'just two weeks? I don’t think so.' 

“It’s why our showcase in Seoul is so important,” he says instead. “It’s a chance to be seen by new choreographers and industry professionals.” 

Hwang snorts. “You trying to be an idol?” 

“Jin,” Jisung frowns. Felix wrinkles his nose. 

“No. I don’t have the talent for that.” 

Hwang was clearly getting at something if Jisung's warning tone was any indication; now, he pauses, cigarette halfway to his lips. 

“What do you mean? You dance already. You’ve got the visuals. Do you sing?” 

Felix laughs, a small bark of a thing. “With my voice? No, I wouldn’t - no one would want that. No one would want me.” 

He absently touches his freckles, remembering how he’d tried valiantly to scratch them off his first night he spent in Paris. ‘Ils te font paraître sale,’ Madame had hissed, such a far cry from the tone she’d used when she’d met his parents and walked them through a mountain of paperwork. Felix had been forced to translate the words himself with his shitty English-to-French pocket dictionary. ‘They make you look dirty.’

Now Hwang and Jisung are frowning, and Felix feels a step off from the conversation. Do they not grasp the incongruity – the monstrous depth of his voice coming from a face that is neither entirely masculine nor entirely feminine? The perfect skin marred with muddy splatters? The inherent gentleness of his spirit in an industry that is anything but? 

He absentmindedly wraps his hand around his wrist. It’s such a long-held habit that he doesn’t think twice about the gesture. 

“Do you like music?” 

Hwang asks the question. There’s no judgement in his voice, no trap, but Felix still hesitates. 

“I love it,” he answers. 

Hwang hums. Jisung stares at his friend with a raised brow. 

“Do you?” Felix dares to ask. 

Hwang Hyunjin stamps his cigarette into the ground with his sock alone. He doesn’t grin, he doesn't scoff, and while his eyes are still night-sky dark and just as unfathomable, Felix swears he sees a sparkle within them he hasn’t seen before. 

“I love it,” he echoes back. He walks elegantly to the window, slides halfway inside, and then addresses Felix one last time. “Don’t fucking tell, got it, Princess?”

Felix rolls his eyes. “Loud and clear, Enculé.” 

“...It's killing me but I want more…”

---

“...I’m gonna go, I’ve gotta go,

I think my car is getting towed.

She said that's not a real window…”

Hyunjin’s mind is loud; louder than normal. For one thing, he can’t get Innie’s words out of his head. When we get out of here. It would be funny if it wasn’t so awful. 

Of course Innie will get out. So will Seungmin, once he can brush against a body without freezing, and so with Jisung, once the wisps of panic don’t make him want to bury his head in the nearest substance. 

Not Hyunjin, though. Hyunjin’s out of here will be followed by a and to somewhere else. 

He also can’t get the question of Yongbok’s diagnosis out of his head. Clearly, Jisung can’t either – the fact that he brought Yongbok to the roof was significant.  

He spies Yongbok already at dinner, staring down his soup like it’s personally offended him. In his mind, Yongbok dines on Parisian delicacies from a golden platter, brought to him by servants with handlebar mustaches and monocles. He’s obviously Korean, given that he speaks the language (however formally) and wears the features (irritatingly well), but also an obvious foreigner (again, the language, the French and English that bubble up easily, the freckles). Hyunjin can’t figure out if he’s confused by the Korean dishes or if he’s just the snobbish Princess Hyunjin assigns him to be.

When he returns to his room (their room) from the med bay that night, the trazodone hopefully dissolving into his bloodstream and the lamictal burning bitterly in the pocket of his gum, Yongbok is in the shower; it’s good timing, because Hyunjin spits the pill into his palm with a loud ‘bleugh’, rushes to the dresser, and grabs the jewelry box from its confines. The pill joins all the others, but when he pushes it back into the drawer, his hand brushes something cold and hard. 

He fishes a total of four metal discs from where they’re wrapped in his sweater. Hyunjin lifts one in his palm and holds it up to the light. It’s surprisingly heavy for its size, unmarked; more importantly, it’s not his. 

The shower stops and, after a split second of thought, Hyunjin hides the discs where he’d found them, jumps into bed, and pulls out the one book he knows far too much about but hasn’t revisited in a while. The ICD. 

He’s just opened it to a page he’s visited so often that the spine is cracked at its location (Personality Disorders) when Yongbok exits the bathroom. He’s a pile of fabric once again – the blanket covering what seems to be an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants that look like they belong on someone with an extra foot of height. His eyes flicker to Hyunjin’s and they don’t drop right away. 

Well, they drop after a whopping three seconds, but it’s progress. Progress of what? Hyunjin’s not sure, and he’s not sure why he cares. At least his obsession with Yongbok’s diagnosis is something that makes sense, even if he’ll only admit to himself. Hyunjin has been called crazy all his life, and at this point, he doesn’t care to trust people who aren’t also on the crazy spectrum. If Yongbok is, as he claims, completely neurotypical (Hyunjin rolls his eyes to himself), then he’s just like all the others who ran away from Hyunjin when things got hard. 

(Yeji’s letter seems to pull gravity in the room. Hyunjin’s a coward.)

He shakes himself and focuses on the ICD, flipping to its table of contents for mental, behavioral, and neurodevelopmental disorders. Maybe Yongbok has social anxiety (6B04, he confirms in the ICD)? Or asocial behavior? Hyunjin tries to remember if the last asocial-patient was similar to Yongbok at all, but the fact is Yongbok had unveiled very little, and what he has unveiled has only created more confusion, garnered no answers.  

Yongbok rolls onto his side and goes still, like a man pantomiming sleep until it finds him. Hyunjin glances at the ICD one last time before he sighs, slips the book to the ground, and turns off the light. 

He’s done more to affect you in a single day than I’ve done in six months, Choi had said. I think it’ll be good for the both of you. 

Does that mean Hyunjin also affects Yongbok? 

He thinks of the anger that bubbled out of Yongbok, then the little flinches he’d exhibit whenever it arose. He thinks of the flexed feet, the way he’d said callbacks like dance was a God he’d happily martyr himself to. 

And then he thinks of those fragile five months he spent as a trainee. The late hours spent – not partying, not self destructing, but working – in practice rooms and vocal studios. He thinks of the first day he refilled his lamictal and actually took it, and then kept taking it, because maybe, just maybe, he could be Hyunjin the idol instead of Hyunjin the fuck up, the brother of that sick girl, the crazy Hwang son- 

You’re actually practicing? Dude, you’re just the visual. No one expects you to be good- 

Hyunjin squeezes his eyes shut at the memory, at the sting of rejection. He wishes it was his night with the iPod. 

He wonders, fleetingly, what music Yongbok listens to. He wonders if he would like the Same Stupid Socks playlist. 

“...It sorta feels like you know, you know, you know, you know, you know,

The kinda thing that just grows and grows and grows and grows and explodes…”

---

“...Cover my ears, 

I think I’m shutting down, going standby,

Sleep mode, offline…” 

Felix crawls out of his bed in the hazy hours between night and dawn – before the sky has lightened, but moments after the birds have started preparing for the day. He’s surprised he managed to sleep with the energy thrumming in his body, not expelled with exercise. He won’t find sleep again, he can tell, and he can’t bear the thought of laying in bed a moment longer. 

Hwang is curled away from him, maybe asleep but it’s hard to tell. He thinks of the fact that Hwang didn’t rat him out for exercising last night, thinks of the cigarettes on the roof and the bottle of pills in his dresser. 

After his freak out and subsequent explosion of clothing, he’d cleaned up only by shoving the piles of belongings into his drawers – unorganized and unidentified. He situates himself in front of the dresser now and begins pulling out his clothes. He plans to organize them the exact same way he does back at the company – dancewear and warm ups in one drawer, street clothes in another; his thermal tops and bottoms go to the right of his underwear, and his sweatshirts, sweaters, and lounge pants get their own drawer simply because they’re so bulky. 

Except he really doesn’t have a lot of clothing, he realizes. He frowns when he clears the drawers in a matter of moments. He may not have packed much, but he knows he grabbed every hoodie he owned. 

Ice sinks into his skin. 

When he’d realized they’d kept his makeup, he’d been just-shy of panicky. Yes, the freckles are hideous, and yes he wouldn’t mind covering up the dark shadows beneath his eyes or dabbing tinted gloss on his bluish lips, but he wasn’t going to be held in JYPE for ugliness. 

He would, however, risk prying eyes if he couldn’t cover his body. 

And he’s missing almost all of his hoodies. 

He rifles through the drawers again, but no – they’re not there. Neither are his pointe shoes, he realizes with a panicked jolt. Felix was famous at the company for being one of the only men to dance en pointe – and for good reason; he’s spent cumulative years strengthening his ankles, balancing on the precipice of his toes, bleeding- 

He doesn’t realize that he’s breathing so sharply. 

“...Feel nothing, it’s quiet as hell in my room.

I’ve been fighting for my sanctuary. 

How do I stay alive if I don’t wanna be?”

---

“...I don't know if you know, you know, you know, you know, you know:

How cold it gets out here.

How cold it gets out here…”

Initially, Hyunjin doesn’t know what woke him up, specifically, but he can tell that sleep will be hard to grasp afterwards. The sky is already hinting at dawn, and he maybe has to pee just enough that he’s going to be too distracted to roll back over. 

He flops onto his back and glances absently towards Yongbok’s bed – more on instinct than anything else – and then double takes. 

Yongbok isn’t in his bed. He isn’t on the floor beside it, either. 

Where the hell would he have gone? If it was Innie missing, or Seungmin, or Jisung, Hyunjin would assume emergency counseling, the med bank, and the cafeteria for an emergency snack break respectively. 

But the only place Yongbok would go, he thinks, is the dance room, and there’s no way he knows how to jimmy the lock, right? He wouldn’t have gone to the overnight counselor, that’s for sure, and as for the cafeteria? 

Hyunjin thinks of the way Yongbok had picked apart a single hard boiled egg like he was dissecting a cadaver. 

He wouldn’t have done something stupid … right? 

He’s swinging his legs over his bed and sitting up before he has a real plan, and that’s when he spots a tuft of blonde hair – not in bed where it should be, but across from the dresser. Buried in its owner’s knees. 

Hyperventilating. 

“What are you doing on the ground?” Hyunjin asks. The blonde head jolts in surprise, then lifts. Hyunjin expects to see tears on Yongbok’s face, but his cheeks seem completely dry, though he turns away before Hyunjin can spot more than a furrowed brow and pouted lips. 

“Nothing,” Yongbok whispers sharply. 

“You’re just … sitting on the ground?” Hyunjin asks, stretching. His back cracks satisfyingly, but when he runs a hand through his hair, he finds it more tangled than not. 

“Why do you care?” 

It’s probably an attempt to get Hyunjin to stop speaking, an attempt at defensiveness in the form of harsh words, but it’s deeply undercut by sheer, undeniable defeat. 

Hyunjin remembers how Innie was when he arrived, before that first Creative Writing Therapy. Angry and bitter, a gun with the trigger pressed, uncaring of who got in the way of the bullets. Hyunjin had seen something in that anger, something familiar; something that softened with conversation. 

“Because you’re on the floor at four AM,” Hyunjin sighs. “Which is … odd.” 

Yongbok finally turns, and it’s to glare (probably at the word odd, if Hyunjin had to guess). But he doesn’t speak, which is … well, it’s infuriating. 

It’s also a little pitiful. 

“You can glare at me all you want,” Hyunjin sighs, “but you’re not pissed at me right now, are you?” 

Yongbok’s mask cracks to reveal surprise. He chews at his lip; Hyunjin can see blood in the cracks, dark blue in the night. 

“I got my clothes back,” he whispers, closer to desperate than Hyunjin would have expected. Hyunjin tilts his head. 

“I noticed,” he says. “Why is that making you hyperventilate?” 

“I’m not hyperventilating!" Yongbok jumps up with a scowl that is closer to a pout, pulling the blanket from his bed with him, then sits gingerly on the bed. He’s more of a small pile of fabric, less of a person. “It’s - ugh, it’s stupid, you’re gonna make fun of me.” 

Hyunjin pulls his legs up to his chest and rests his head on his knees. Yongbok mimics the motion, seemingly without thought. It’s … it’s cute. 

On a hunch, Hyunjin tucks a strand of his loose hair behind his ear. Yongbok’s hand starts to rise, hesitates, falls uncertainly to his knee. He looks so fucking lost. 

Treat him like a person, for fuck’s sake, Minho had begged. 

“I …” Hyunjin groans internally, but forces himself to speak. “I won’t make fun of you.” 

Yongbok observes him for a long moment, but it’s like direct staring hurts him. Instead, he studies Hyunjin in spurts, short glances. 

Then, he clears his throat, and when he speaks, his voice is so much softer than normal. Not in volume, per se, but lacking coldness; or maybe it’s inclusive of humanity, not the rote, robotic way he speaks with the counselors. 

“I think they kept most of my hoodies,” he says. “And my pointe shoes.”  

Hyunjin notices, then, the open dresser drawers, the strewn clothing spilling from within like vomit.  

“Did it have strings?” he asks. Yongbok raises his brows and nods. “Ah, yeah, you’re not allowed to have hoodies with strings – anything with strings – inside.”

Yongbok scowls. “Why?” 

Hyunjin can’t quite keep the smirk off of his face. “They seem to think we’ll all immediately try to hang ourselves with them.” 

Yongbok blinks at him, those huge eyes of his shinier than Hyunjin has seen before, even in the barely-there light of day; and then, he does something Hyunjin hasn’t seen him do before.

He laughs.  

Yongbok laughs, and it’s like the sound of it (quiet, breathy) is as surprising to him as it is to Hyunjin. It’s a little close to hysterical, but it’s there. A moment later, Hyunjin is laughing too, then pressing a desperate finger to his lips; but the shushing only makes Yongbok’s giggles worse and soon they’re both pressing their hands desperately against their mouths. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m laughing,” Yongbok says breathlessly. “It’s not funny. It’s objectively not funny.”

“Yeah, super serious,” Hyunjin nods. “Not a joking matter at all.” 

Yongboks exhales the rest of his laughter away, and then smiles weakly – clothed mouth, sure, but still; at least it’s a smile until it flickers and fades, his gaze falling back to the bureau. 

“Even the pointe shoes,” he huffs. “Figures. The ribbons?” 

Hyunjin nods. He wants to ask why Yongbok has pointe shoes, because he’s only ever seen girls wear them, but this hesitant truce between them feels about as fragile as a bubble of soap. 

“So they just kept it all?” Yongbok asks. 

“Sorry,” Hyunjin sighs. “They have a lot of my clothes, too, for what it’s worth.” 

Yongbok’s lack of smile turns into a full frown. He seems to be burrowing further into his blanket, and the sight does something funny to Hyunjin that he can’t quite identify. 

“Are you … cold? Didn’t you bring any other sweaters.” 

And there it is – Hyunjin sees the moment Yongbok goes stone-still again, the moment something washes away the glint of emotion in his eyes and the crease of feeling in his cheeks. 

“I didn’t get a lot of time to pack,” he says coolly. “And my other sweater smells like smoke.” 

He curls further in on himself. Even with the blanket, his shoulders tremble. 

He looks like Yeji used to. 

The realization steals the breath from his lungs. 

“Fuck, okay,” Hyunjin jumps out of bed and opens his own dresser. He pulls out his biggest sweatshirt, one he’d shoplifted from the merch stand of some underground concert he barely remembers but, admittedly, is quite fond of. He holds it towards Yongbok. "Take this. Just stop shivering so much, it looks painful."  

Yongbok eyes the sweatshirt like it's something that might be alive with teeth. But another shiver racks his body, and he takes it. By the time Hyunjin has crawled back into bed, Yongbok is swimming in the fabric. 

Hyunjin blames the swoop in his stomach on the early hour, and the increasing desperation to know why Yongbok is here at JYPE.  

“Hey Yongbok?” he says. “Can I ask you something or will you bite my head off?” 

“That’s … never stopped you before?” Yongbok responds. 

“Why were you hiding metal discs in my dresser?” 

Yongbok freezes. He turns his head slowly. His expression is shadowed beneath the hood of the sweatshirt.  

“Why do you have a box full of pills?” he counters. 

If Yongbok is a freezer, Hyunjin is a fighter, and it seems they're both very well equipped at falling into the respective rolls. He sits up so fast that Yeji’s blanket goes flying to the floor. 

“Are you threatening me?” he asks coldly. 

The whites of Yongbok’s eyes are almost luminescent as he studies Hyunjin for a long time. “No,” he says finally. “I thought you were. So I guess I’m letting you know I have leverage.”

Well, he must have meant it when he said he knows no snitching well, because he wields the rules of the ward like a familiar blade. Tit for tat – whether it be secrets or contraband or desserts. 

“What are they?” Yongbok asks. He looks more anxious than Hyunjin would have expected, like the very nature of questioning is foreign to him. 

“You first,” Hyunjin nods in the direction of the dresser drawer. “What are they?” 

Yongbok’s nose wrinkles and his eyes flicker towards the ceiling as he thinks. “Uh, haltères?”

“I don’t speak French,” Hyunjin says. Yongbok’s nose wrinkles even more. 

“They’re, uh, heavy things to lift?” He says. 

“Oh, weights,” Hyunjin says. 

“Yeah.” 

“For dance?” Hyunjin cocks his head. He supposes a toddler could use them for bicep curls, but they’re hardly heavy enough to help build muscle on a grown adult. Yongbok bites his lip. His Adam’s apple bobs. 

“In a way,” he says cryptically. “I need them to get out of here.” 

“That makes no sense,” Hyunjin deadpans. 

“Well,” Yongbok huffs, “maybe not to you. What are the pills?” 

“Lamictal,” Hyunjin says. “Some Wellbutrin, too.”

Yongbok mouths the words. Lam-ic-tal. Well-bu-trin. “What are they for?”

Hyunjin smirks. “I’ll tell you what it’s for when you tell me what’s actually wrong with you.” 

Yongbok scoffs, shoulders bunching by his ears and arms crossing tightly against his middle. “I told you-”

“Fine,” Hyunjin waves a hand and rolls onto his side. “Denial is a river in Egypt-”

“Ugh, you’re annoying,” Yongbok groans. No, he doesn’t groan, he whines. It’s irritatingly endearing. 

They slip back into silence, but it’s a conscious silence. Hyunjin isn’t so surprised when Yongbok breaks it. 

“I’m not a cutter,” he says. Hyunjin whips his head to side and finds Yongbok raising a knowing brow. “You thought I might be, right? Well I’m telling you now, I’m not. So you can tick that off of your hypotheses.” 

Hyunjin snorts. He knows, rationally, Yongbok could be lying, but the same way he knew he wasn’t borderline, he knows he’s telling the truth. 

“Okay, then,” he nods. “Well, I’m not a psychopath. Like you said I was.”

Yongbok stares at him like he’s trying to read his mind. But eventually he nods. 

“Okay then,” he relaxes minutely against his pillows. He keeps fiddling with the cuff of the sweatshirt, a worried pout on his still-bleeding lips. “You won’t … you won’t say anything, right?” 

“If you don’t tell anyone about the meds or the roof, I won’t tell anyone about your weights or your late-night planks, okay?” Hyunjin says the words slowly and tries to keep his tone neutral. 

“Why should I trust you?” Yongbok asks; there’s neither heat nor ice in his words. He’s genuinely asking. 

“You shouldn’t,” Hyunjin laughs. “But you said it yourself – you have leverage. Collateral damage and all that.” 

Yongbok chews at his lip again; he wears his internal debate on his face. He looks so human like this – when he thinks Hyunjin can’t see him. 

“Deal.” 

“Deal,” Hyunjin says, flopping back onto the bed as Yongbok tugs the blankets up to his neck. 

“I still don’t like you, Hwang.” 

Hyunjin huffs. “Could have fooled me, Princess.”  

Neither of them fall asleep, but they don’t speak anymore. Once the sun is fully risen and the birds are screaming at them to get up, Hyunjin slips out of bed and wonders if the fragile bubble is broken. 

Or maybe he and Yongbok only coexist in the border between equally fragile bubble between night and day. 

“...Sick dogs don’t die for free.

Sick dogs don’t die for free.”

Notes:

We're talking :') and not insulting each other :') and Hyunjin is definitely :') noticing :') things :')

Click here for TWs!

TWs for this chapter: continued thoughts of ED/negative body image, jokes about suicide, self-harm (not the act of it but bandages/obvious illusion to it it happening), discussions of drug addiction, panic attacks, general loss of control

Click here for chapter summary!

Basically, Felix gets his clothes, finds a box of pills Hyunjin is hiding in his dresser. Hyunjin has a gay panic about how cute Felix is. We learn that Hyunjin, Jisung, Seungmin, and Innie all bonded in Creative Writing therapy and write songs together, but Hyunjin's past attempts at being an idol make him a bit anxious at actualizing their skills.

Felix is losing it about having to choose food from a menu, trashes his room, Jisung shows up and invites him to smoke with him and Hyunjin, so some small bonding there. That night, Felix has a bit of a mental breakdown when he realizes his hoodies & pointe shoes were kept, and Hyunjin essentially tells him its because ribbons/strings aren't allowed in the wards.

In the end, Hyunjin asks Felix what the weights (which he found) are for, and Felix asks Hyunjin about the pills. They both give non answers, and then tell each other what diagnoses they don't have because these boys are stubborn. Hyunjin gives Felix a sweatshirt of his own because he's gold (and Hyunjin is a simp in the making)