Real quick before this chapter starts. please do read my author's note at the bottom of this chapter when you're done!

Okay, you may commence your reading now :D  

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“I don't have yellow eyes.”

Yongsun sees Byulyi’s pupils dilate and hears her swallow. Byulyi grabs onto the skinny wrists attached to the hands holding her cheeks, pulling them away from her face with the apocalyptic force of the damned. Her eyes sparkle with unshed tears, controlled rage making her voice clipped.

“Don't with me, Kim Yongsun. Not about these kind of things.”

“I swear on my life that I'm not ting you, Byulyi. I don't have yellow eyes!” Yongsun’s voice raises slightly, and she immediately wishes she can swallow her words back, because Byulyi’s gaze turns furious, as though the dam of rage had broken.

“What the hell do you mean you don’t have yellow eyes? I can see them! Your eyes are yellow! Your eyes are yellow, Yongsun!” Byulyi yells, her hands shaking and squeezing Yongsun’s so hard that Yongsun is almost frightened - she shouldn't have raised her damn voice by mistake, even if she was trying to rebuke. God no, her eyes are brown, they’ve never been yellow in her life. And at that moment, the psychologist looks almost...crazy, as though something had snapped inside of her.

“Byulyi,” Yongsun says, wrenching a hand from Byulyi’s grip, tilting her face again to make the younger woman look at her. She forces Byulyi to look at her, staring into her dark brown irises with burning intensity. She has to force herself to stop shaking like she has hypothermia. “My eyes are brown. They’re not yellow. They’re brown. They’re br-”

“They’re freaking yellow, Yongsun!” Byulyi screams, her voice nearing hysteria, her voice drowning out Yongsun’s. Her eyes are wide, tears finally making their cursed escape down her face, tracing glittering trails of liquid over the curve of her cheek. It slides over Yongsun’s thumb, warm and searing and Yongsun grits her teeth, her jaw tense.

Byulyi slumps, her scream dying in a choking of tears, and she shakes her head, almost childlike. “No, they can’t be brown. They’re yellow. Yellow.” Her voice breaks, and Yongsun has to take a few deep breaths because Byulyi is always the composed one, and Gods, Yongsun doesn't know what to do when the younger woman is the one who needs her now, not the other way around.

“Byulyi, look at me. Please.” Yongsun meets Byulyi’s gaze, the younger woman’s full of fear and disbelief and shame at her own pitiful state. “My eyes are brown. Look at me.”

And Byulyi does. They lock eyes, both desperate for the other to understand - Byulyi can’t. Yongsun’s eyes are acid yellow, she can see them with her own eyes. Not brown.

“You told me your eyes are yellow, when I first met you. You told me yourself. Out from your own mouth. Why are you contradicting yourself? Why are you lying to me?” Byulyi’s breath hitches and she has to swallow to stop herself from choking again.

“I didn’t say anything of the sort, Byulyi,” Yongsun says, alarm replacing the helplessness. She doesn’t understand. She’d never claimed to have yellow eyes. Her brain works at a frenzied rate, trying to fit pieces of the sparse puzzle together. “I never said I had yellow eyes. Gods, I would never lie to you on purpose.”

“You have to be lying. I heard you say it. And I can see it. Why don’t you believe me?” Byulyi asks desperately, glassy eyes latching onto Yongsun’s with vain hope.

“Because I did not say it, Byulyi. I never said it. And I should know myself, I’ve never had yellow eyes for as long as I’ve lived.” Yongsun’s mind races, information clicking together at the speed of sound. She doesn't get it. She just - she just doesn't get it. “I was born with brown eyes and I've lived for twenty six years with brown eyes.”

Byulyi screws up her face, her nose scrunching and eyebrows pulling to the centre of her forehead. She suddenly pulls away roughly, flinching.

“Byul-”

“Stop saying my name!” Byulyi growls, her voice almost animalistic, her palms flying to find purchase on her temples. Her pupils are dilating again, dark brown irises lightened by the sunlight, and the tears flow afresh. “Stop saying my name!”

“I - I didn't-” Yongsun’s words die in , and she grips the edge of the tabletop so hard that her knuckles threaten to burst from the taut skin. She swallows so hard that it's all she can hear for a moment, and then Byulyi’s choking sobs register again. Something occurred to Yongsun, and she’s sure that she’s hit the damned bullseye.

Oh, my God, she’s hallucinating.

“Stop!” Byulyi yells, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Psych!” Yongsun yells just as loud, thanking every deity possible that the walls of Byulyi’s office are soundproof. She doesn't need Yuna or anyone bursting through the door. She grabs Byulyi by her upper arms, and the psychologist stops blubbering, her voice trailing to a faint whimper. “Psych. Listen to me. You-” Yongsun swallows again, chickening out at the last second because she can't, she can't make herself say it. “You have to calm down.”

Byulyi crumples, and Yongsun is too shocked to hold her up in time. The psychologist sits on the ground, legs pulled up to her chest, tears streaking her face and her hands over her ears. And Yongsun wants to look away from this pitiful woman who she desperately does not want to pity.

In that moment all Yongsun can feel is desperation and rage. Not at Byulyi, but just at the world. And so she mentally screams up at the heavens. Why must everything in my life have obstacles? My dad, the bullies, my depression, my DID, and now you're doing this to the only other person besides my mom in the world that I actually care about?

The rage makes tears fall, but Yongsun wipes them off and kneels, trying to clear her mind. She has to stop the hallucinations first before she can do anything else. She glances around, an idea forming in her head, though she's pretty sure it won't work, she has to try something. Her hands seek out Byulyi’s tear-stained face again, the gentle contact making Byulyi open her eyes narrowly, as though looking at her caused her pain.

“Look at me,” Yongsun says, trying to keep her voice from shaking, because, Gods, she's near panicking. “Look at me. Concentrate on my face.”

“I can hear them saying my name,” Byulyi sobs, “They - they keep saying it, over and over and over, it's just like last time - why aren't they stopping? They're dead!” Byulyi yells, hands pressing even harder to her ears as though it would really block off the voices in her head. Yongsun squeezes her cheeks harder, forcing herself to breathe. She doesn't know who or what Byulyi is talking about, but she senses that it's important, so she mentally notes it down just in case.

“Focus on me,” Yongsun says, forcing it out as a command, not a statement. “Look at me. Look at my eyes.”

“Yellow,” Byulyi whispers through her heavy breathing, through her glassy eyes are obediently trained on Yongsun’s. “They're yellow.”

Yongsun shakes her head slowly, still maintaining eye contact with the psychologist. “They're brown, Psych. Dark chocolate brown. They’re lighter in the sunlight, more reddish, almost. Brown. They’re brown. Can you see? They’re the colour of your favourite coffee.” Yongsun racks her brain, drawing any knowledge of colours and coffee that she possesses. “Coffee brown. Concentrate on that colour.”

Byulyi closes her eyes, but it seems like she's doing as she's told, because her breathing is evening out slightly.

“Yes, coffee brown. Dark brown, the colour of black coffee without sugar and milk. Now, imagine, it's espresso. It's all espresso. Then you add cocoa powder and hot milk and sugar. The colour’s lighter now. Still brown, but the colour of the bubbly foam that sometimes forms on your black coffee. And there's little milky white swirls in it. Concentrate.” Yongsun speaks quietly, just loud enough for Byulyi to hear, because she doesn't want to snap Byulyi from her imagination. “You fill the rest of the cup with milky foam, and you dust the top with cocoa powder. It's all brown. It's the colour of my eyes, too, not yellow. It's brown, like cocoa. Like coffee. Stop thinking it's yellow. Concentrate.”

Yongsun stares at Byulyi’s face, praying that it'll work and that the yellow part wasn't too much of a stretch. She doesn't know anything about art, and neither does she know much about coffee, but she knows how to make mocha, and she knows Byulyi knows how to as well, because Byulyi’d told her before. She'd read up online. Yongsun just has to hope that it's enough for her to concentrate on and dispel the voices in her head.

It's been over a minute and Yongsun’s beginning to get a bit panicky again. She doesn't know what to do if this doesn't work.

Please, please, whoever is up there, if I've done at least something right in my life, please let this work. Please. Please.

Two minutes. Then Byulyi exhales, hands slipping limply from over her ears and onto her lap. Then she opens her eyes - and oh, thank the Gods and all who is holy, she doesn't have the tortured look in her eyes anymore. Yongsun gasps in relief, sagging backwards onto the ground and bringing her hands to her face, pushing her now sweaty hair away.

Byulyi stares at her as though she's seeing Yongsun for the first time in her life.

“Your eyes are brown,” Byulyi says weakly. “What the hell?”

There is a deity up there after all.

“Psych,” Yongsun says, their eyes locked, brown on brown for the first time.

“Brown,” Byulyi murmurs, catching a stray tear making its slow way down her jawline. She’s staring intently at Yongsun, her glassy eyes seeing but also not seeing. “I think I’m hallucinating. How can your eyes be brown? They’re supposed to be yellow.”

Yongsun’s blood runs cold.

I thought she snapped out of it already! What’s happening? Oh, my Gods, this - this is really bad. She thinks that my eyes being brown are a hallucination? How?

Yongsun looks at her, at her brown eyes dulled from the hell she's just been through, her hair messed and tangled. Her lower lip is snagged by her two upper front teeth, so that the flesh is red and the skin is near breaking.

“I’m going crazy. I’m going freaking crazy. Your eyes are brown!”

“You’re not crazy, Psych. I’ve seen insane people before, and you’re far from being insane. Please, don’t say that about yourself. You must be tired. Why don’t you sit down on the sofa for a bit?” Yongsun has to force her voice not to shake, because her hands are shaking as they grip the hem of her shirt.  

Byulyi’s eyes lose focus for a second. “Yeah, maybe I’m just tired. Work has been stressful lately, and my headaches…”

Byulyi’s teeth break through the skin and blood wells in the small wound, and Byulyi keeps her teeth pressing down on the wound as if physical pain would numb her internal pain. Yongsun knows firsthand that it doesn’t help, but it's enough an action for Yongsun to know that Gods, Byulyi’s case much, much, much worse than she’d thought.

There's a line that a person crosses when they live through enough conscious years as a perfectly normal person, and suddenly go through something so traumatic that it can cause a disorder or a symptom. It's a thin line, but a line nonetheless - and like anything related to mental disorders, tripping and falling over the line can break something. Someone. Yongsun had been broken ever since she could remember. The bullies, her dad at home. Her conscious years, starting from age six or seven, were lived out in misery.

She'd always thought Byulyi was part of the group of people on the other side of the line - the normal ones, so to speak. It takes this long for Yongsun to realise that maybe Byulyi might have been broken for just as long as she has been. Maybe even longer.