The white ceiling that greets Chanyeol when he opens his eyes doesn't give him cause for alarm, since it is what he sees every morning after waking up in his bedroom. Yet, as quickly as he had dismissed the thought that nothing is amiss, the thought that something is amiss strikes at Chanyeol and this time, he fully wakes with a jolt.

Shooting up, Chanyeol wildly turns his head and instantly notices that the room he's in isn't his bedroom. It’s too big, and Chanyeol is ing certain that his bedroom only has one bed instead of the many that’s in here. , he thinks, it's the–

“Ah, you’ve woken up.”

–infirmary. Chanyeol snaps his head in the direction of the voice, and isn’t all that surprised to see the school nurse walking towards him. He’s surprised, though, to see her looking at him fondly. The school nurse has never looked at Chanyeol like that, and Chanyeol is a little spooked because, well, let’s just say that Chanyeol has had run-ins with the school nurse more often that he would wish for; run-ins that usually involve a certain student with an old black bag.

And speaking of that student…

“Um, where’s…” Chanyeol gulps, the student’s name lodged in his throat for it’s been awhile, a long while since his name has made its way past Chanyeol’s lips. It tastes foreign, but at the same time, it’s oh so familiar. “Where’s Kyungsoo?”

The nurse’s fond expression slips off her face and confusion immediately contorts her facial features. “Kyungsoo?”

Chanyeol nods. “Yes. Where’s Kyungsoo?”

“Did that fall cause more harm to your head than I thought?” A hand is lifted to Chanyeol’s head, and Chanyeol feels fingers pressing lightly into his scalp. He gives the nurse a confused look as well, brows furrowing even more when the nurse pulls her hand back and tilts her head to a side, her confusion still written so clearly on her wrinkled face.

“More… harm than you thought?”

“Yes,” The nurse says, hand going back to Chanyeol’s head and a palm rests itself on Chanyeol’s forehead; her hand is cold on his skin. “But I’m certain that there are no bumps on your head, so why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you behaving like this?”

“Behaving like what?”

“Behaving like you’re not Do Kyungsoo.”

Chanyeol’s look of confusion instantly slips off his face. Furrowed brows, slight frown, narrowed eyes all disappear from his countenance. The loose hold on his facial features causes his mouth to fall open as Chanyeol attempts to absorb the nurse’s words. Behaving like you’re—I’m—not Do Kyungsoo.

Not... Do Kyungsoo...

Ten seconds later, the realisation dawns on Chanyeol and he immediately bolts. In his haste to get out of bed, Chanyeol gets tangled up in the blanket that’s still draped over his legs and he falls onto the floor with a thump. Ignoring the nurse’s warning of giddiness, Chanyeol flings the blanket off of himself and dashes out of the infirmary, stumbling a couple of steps due to the disuse of his legs. The moment he steps into the hallway, fingers still curled around the edge of the door, Chanyeol knows that something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.

As one of the few whose tall stature towers over most of the student body, Chanyeol knows that he can only literally see eye to eye with a couple of other students, such as Kris, Sehun (he’s getting there), and one Johnny who transferred in from Chicago. There’s another tall male student in Kyungsoo’s class whom Chanyeol doesn’t know the name of but he’s walked past Kyungsoo’s classroom enough times to recognise his face; those dark circles on the boy’s face are the reason Chanyeol always forces himself to sleep at 11pm every night (yes, even weekends). But right now, Chanyeol isn’t looking over the numerous heads of the student body. It’s not that he chooses not to, but more of the fact that he can’t. In fact, not only is Chanyeol not looking over the sea of heads, he’s also looking eye to eye with students. Or more specifically, he’s staring into a pair of eyes—whose sleepiness can’t mask the concern swirling within those orbs—without tilting his head down.

Something is definitely wrong.

The owner of the sleepy-concerned eyes opens his mouth, apparently about to say something, when Chanyeol suddenly snaps out of his confused daze and unceremoniously pushes past him and runs. He shuts out the hollers coming from behind him, choosing to focus on the sound of blood rushing to his head and the pounding of his shoes on the hallway floor as Chanyeol makes a beeline for the boys’ washroom. And when he finally stops at a sink, Chanyeol instantly drops his head forward, eyes resting on the tap instead of looking at the mirror installed above. He grips the sink, nails scritching on the smooth surface, palms pressing hard into the cold ceramic. His knuckles begin to pale, to ache, but Chanyeol doesn’t care. He’s not paying attention. There’s something else occupying his mind.

Please, Chanyeol thinks. Please, he desperately thinks in his head. Please don’t let it be true, please. His grip on the sink tightens, and his knuckles turns into an unhealthy shade of pale pale pale. But Chanyeol doesn’t care. He’s still not paying attention. That something else is still occupying his mind. There is no way, no ing way.

There is no way that I’m–

Chanyeol inhales deeply, mentally counts to three before raising his head, eyes flitting to look at the reflection in the mirror. He screams.

And in the mirror, Do Kyungsoo screams right back.

---

“Are you really alright, Soo?”

At the gentle voice that wafts from his left, Chanyeol reluctantly lifts his head before turning it to look at the student who just spoke to him. A familiar pair of orbs greet his own, and Chanyeol immediately recognises them, recalling them belonging to the boy whom Chanyeol first found himself staring at when he stepped out of the infirmary. The eyes are doing the half-sleepy, half-concerned thing again; Chanyeol drops his gaze and turns back to his—Kyungsoo’s—scruffy sneakers. One of the aglets are missing. Chanyeol briefly wonders where it is.

“Soo–”

“Xing, you’re annoying him.” Another voice pipes up, coming from his right and beneath a neatly-kept fringe that constantly drops over his eyes, Chanyeol sneaks a glance at the boy seated opposite him. It’s another of Kyungsoo’s friends; the one with eyes that are big and bright, though slightly smaller and a little dimmer than Kyungsoo’s. (Not that Chanyeol had been comparing and observing Kyungsoo’s face; he hadn’t.)

Chanyeol darts his eyes back to his shoes, ignoring the frayed end of a lace to stare at the tiny hole near the head of the left sneaker. It looks like it’s going to rip more; Chanyeol is tempted, so that he can see his big toe pop out or something. And in the midst of his pointless thoughts, Chanyeol hears yet another unfamiliar voice. “Yeah, you’re just going to earn yourself a huge whack on the back from him.”

The student walking on his left—Xing, was it?—snorts and just when Chanyeol silently heaves a breath of relief that the conversation has died, an arm slides across his—Kyungsoo’s, technically—shoulder and a warm breath tickles his—Kyungsoo’s—left ear. “I’m sorry, Soo. I hadn’t meant to annoy you.”

The way silence descends upon the group of them once Xing stops speaking prompts Chanyeol into thinking that perhaps his– no, Kyungsoo’s friends are waiting for a response from him. He shuts his—no, Kyungsoo’s (ugh)—eyes and scrunches up his face, not caring about the sudden feeling of three pairs of eyes on him, splashing buckets of confusion, worry, and sleepiness on his face. It feels foreign, those emotions, but Chanyeol doesn’t mean it in the way that he hasn’t felt these emotions before. He means it in the way that the people who are emanating the emotions are people that Chanyeol are unfamiliar with. He doesn’t know them at all, despite seeing them hanging around Kyungsoo. The unfamiliarity is unnerving, and Chanyeo