in this place where I trapped myself

Minseok isn’t exactly sure when it starts. It just starts.
 
With EXO and their busy schedules he begins to feel sad. The others don’t notice it because they’re just as busy and it’s not really in their interest to know either. On the other hand, Minseok doesn’t talk a lot and so he doesn’t have a lot of close friends amongst the eleven other boys he lives with.

That is not to say that Minseok is lonely or doesn’t want to be in EXO. He does, he likes being in EXO and he likes the others. He likes it when Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Jongdae joke around, he likes it when Luhan and Sehun talk loudly in the dorm in the middle of the night. He likes listening to Kyungsoo singing or watching Jongin return home from a day full of dancing.

He enjoys his coffee in the silence of the night and he enjoys the rush in they day when they’re on TV-shows or performing on stage. Minseok truly likes his life.

Which is why it is weird when he finally himself notices that he feels a little sad. However sadness is a feeling and feelings can be dealt with.

He tries everything to get rid of the sadness in his heart. He does everything he used to find pleasure in but nothing really helps.

It doesn’t work when he goes to his favorite cafe and orders an espresso. It doesn’t work when he talks to his mother. It doesn’t work when he drinks a bottle or two of soju and gets himself wasted. Nothing helps.

When he showers, he forgets himself in the shower, someone banging on the door and shouting from the other side of the room but he doesn’t hear it.

Minseok sits in the shower when the water turns cold, crumbled into himself, trying to get rid of the sadness, wash away the feeling he can’t seem to get rid of otherwise. He sits there until someone breaks the door open and turns off the water and asks him if he’s okay. Minseok doesn’t answer.

He goes to bed without a word and for the first time he sees the worry in their eyes.

Minseok doesn’t sleep that night or the night after. Then he falls asleep and sleeps as much as he can because he realizes that with sleep the pressuring feeling of sadness disappears.

Joonmyeon comes to wake him up one afternoon and asks again. Are you okay? The same questions. Minseok sends him a smile and nods. Of course, he is okay, there is no reason for Joonmyeon to worry about him.

With those words he forces smiles during interviews.


They get a break after their latest promotions and Minseok sleeps twenty hours a day and eats close to nothing. That is when he hears the voice for the first time. It’s just someone breathing heavily close to him and he turns around but finds that he is alone in the room.

There is no one breathing heavily close to his ears but the sound is there, the sound is definitely there. He shakes it off and goes to the kitchen to brew himself a cup of coffee. The breathing never stops.

At one point Minseok just accepts that it’s there. It’s not bothering anyone so he’s not going to bother any of his bandmembers either by telling them.

Jongdae corners him one day and smiles a sad smile at him. Hyung, are you sure you’re okay? Do you have anything you want to talk about? We could go out for dinner, you’ve lost weight.

Minseok turns to look at himself in the mirror. It’s true that he lost weight, working out and dancing without eating much definitely makes kilograms disappear. But it’s not like he’s underweight or unhealthily skinny like the rest of his bandmembers so he just sends Jongdae a smile and shakes his head a little.

No, I’m fine, go eat with Baekhyun and Chanyeol, he tells Jongdae and Jongdae whines a little. Minseok leaves him.

In his room that night, the heavy breathing turns into a deep voice, telling him that eating isn’t necessary. To take a look at the scale and see how much weight he actually lost. Because that is the only thing that counts.

At this point, Minseok doesn’t even check the room to make sure that he’s alone because he knows the voice comes from his head. That somehow it's trying to kill him.

The voice gets its way though and Minseok stops eating completely. This sends Luhan into a frenzy and he force feeds Minseok one evening, only resulting in Minseok puking on the living room floor, unable to hold it in.

Luhan cries and Minseok shouts, grossed out by the taste of bile in his mouth and Luhan's tears. But I only care about you, Luhan screams, the rest of the members scrambling into the living room to see the sight of Luhan on the couch with tears flowing down his cheeks, Minseok standing on the floor, vomit on the floor as well and the rest of the food on plates on the table.

Then stop caring, Minseok screeches at Luhan before he stomps into his bedroom and locks the door, not allowing anyone to enter.

The only thing comforting him is the voice in his head, now joined by another, one telling him that he did well puking, the other telling him how disgusting he is.

Minseok knows. He has known ever since the sadness seeped into his bones and decided to stay for good.


Over the next few weeks Minseok loses so much weight that even the fans notice. They notice his fake smile and when he passes out on stage, he makes headlines. EXO’s Xiumin underweight - is he eating disordered?

And he beats himself up at night and tells the company that he is fine, he was overworked, whatever, but he is not ill. Definitely not ill.

The company provides him with vitamins because he has to take care of himself.

That is how it all spirals into something he can't control.

Another voice has joined the other two and the breathing is back and Minseok thinks he is going insane so when he is told to take ten vitamins, he swallows them all and lies back down.

His stomach hurts that night, he almost feels nauseous but he doesn’t throw up the pills. Nobody notices the ten missing vitamins the next morning but Minseok is no longer hurting and he wants it back.

The voice tells him to do it again. Do it again, do it again, do it again. The other voice screams at him to don’t. You’re messing up your diet, do not take the pills. Don’t.

Minseok takes the pills. Ten vitamins again. Baekhyun sends him a sad smile and talks to Chanyeol about how worried he is, Minseok knows because he hears them talking.

Not that his bandmembers are easy to hear, not when his mind is screaming at him in multiple voices but he has to. Doing interviews are beginning to trouble him, he cannot focus on the interviewer nor the answers his band members give.

Singing isn’t easier and instead of giving him more lines, they’re cutting him away. The fans argue on the internet. SM, why isn’t Xiumin oppa given more lines? And nobody knows the truth except Minseok who smiles when the voices tell him that he’s pathetic for not even doing his job.

Minseok is no longer straining his smiles but his eyes never reflect his mouth and it makes it look insane more than anything.

He waves at the fans while the heavy breathing once again sends shivers down his spine. He takes eight vitamins before he feels nauseous this time and he hates himself.

The next time he takes six before his stomach protests and Minseok wonders why. Why can’t he stomach ten pills anymore? It angers the voice and it angers Minseok.


He sits in the shower, water and the dorm is sleeping because it’s three thirty am. The water is cold, his clothes are drenched but he’s not moving. How did he succumb to this?

The voices shout at him to stop wondering and start following their commands.

A female voice joins the other three and tells him to take Kyungsoo's shaver and take the blade. He does. He follows her order like a puppy and silently wonders when he got so weak but she praises him and he feels accomplished.

Good boy, Minseok. Now cut. So he does. Deep cuts pressed into skin, ruining the perfect facade and letting the red seep out of their confines.

The water mixes with the blood on his arms but he continues to force the blade into his smooth skin. It’s ugly, but Minseok thinks it’s beautiful. He gets a shock when the door opens and a sleepy Yixing enters the bathroom.

Hyung, he asks and Minseok leaves, water still on, clothes dripping on the floor and blood coloring his arms.

Yixing tells the others, of course, he does, and they all get together in the living room, ready to discuss what is going on with Minseok.

Minseok doesn’t hear them because he is focused on the maniacal laughter that has joined the voices in his head.

At some point he clutches his head and a tear rolls down his cheek. A smile is graced on his lips however and his band members are scared, he knows. Minseok gets up. He needs a glass of water for his headache, he tells them and leaves into the kitchen.

In the kitchen he searches for the vitamins, swallows fifteen for the first time and feels his stomach clench in protests. He hears Jongin gasp behind him and drops the glass of pills onto the floor, which scatters and the pills spread.

The voices shout at him for being such a klutz, for not taking better care, for losing them when they were the only thing that helped him.

Minseok breaks down and cries in the middle of the kitchen, pills spread everywhere. Jongin thinks he cries because he cannot handle it anymore. Minseok knows he cries because he spilled the pills and lost their comfort.


Minseok gets exempt from all promotions and is told to stay inside, to talk to the therapist the company has paid for. He doesn’t stay. He leaves as soon as his band members have left for training. He sends the receptionist at the farmacy a smile and buys fifty painkillers over the counter.

He brings them back to the dorm and stares at the pills. The voices encourage him. All of them.

Do it, Minseok. Think of the comfort of the vitamins. Find the blade and make art, Minseok. Think of how skinny you could be. So he brings the pills to the bathroom and undresses.

He enters the shower and turns on the water and lets it soak him. It takes little effort to wrestle the blade from Kris’ shaver this time but he feels accomplished when he feels the sharp edge on his body. He swallows the pills.

Ten first, then a cut on his stomach. Another ten pills and another cut. He swallows and paints on his body, the blood flowing, the maniacal laughter in his head combined with cheers and the heavy breathing.

And when he has finally swallowed all the pills and his stomach is screaming from pain and his head is feeling heavy, he closes his eyes and focuses on the voices.

I did it, he tells them. I did it.


They come back to a silent dorm and it isn’t until Chanyeol notices the sound of water running in the bathroom, that they all look at each other, scared of what they might find when they open the door. None of them expects the sight they see when they enter the bathroom.

aUTHOR'S NOTE

Thanks for reading.