He flinches at a sudden, sharp smacking sound and draws a thick, zigzag line across his science notes. Gasping, he grabs for his big white eraser and harshly rubs across the paper, trying to remove the black stain he accidentally caused and naively erasing parts of his notes as well. The sound returns as he cries over his ruined schoolwork. Cheek pressed to the sheet of paper, he blinks his eyes open wide, unsure of where the sound is originating from. Once it happens again, he realizes that it's coming from his window and he pushes his chair out, walking over to it and moving his red curtains out of the way to peer down into his tiny backyard. His mouth immediately drops open at the person standing there, looking awfully like a burglar in an oversized pullover hoodie and a pair of matching sweatpants and poised to throw another rock. Opening the window, he sticks his head out.

"What are you doing here?" he whisper-yells, hoping he's quiet enough so he doesn't alert his mother of the other's presence and start a scene.

"A guy can't come visit his boyfriend?" Yifan whispers just the same. His voice sounds like it's been amplified to an anxious Xiumin and he shushes the younger boy.

When Yifan asks if he can come up, Xiumin panics. His heart races, his breathing skips multiple inhales and exhales, and his vision blurs. It's a bad idea, terrible. While not the first time Yifan's snuck into the house, the last time he was over without permission, his mother came upstairs, having heard their voices, and he had to stuff Yifan into his closet to keep from being caught. His mother slapped him that night for making too much noise and it took everything to prevent the taller boy from going after his mother and giving her a piece of his mind -- which actually meant a piece of his fist and Xiumin wasn't about to let the overprotective boy hurt the woman who gave birth to him. But letting Yifan up tonight...he just doesn't think he can handle the fear of a repeat of the last time. Who knows what Yifan will do if his mother barges her way into his room and punishes him for the smallest reason like before?

Tell him no. I don't want him up here.

He starts to decline, listening to the similar, yet different voice in his head, but before he can tell Yifan that he's not in the mood for company, the Chinese boy is already scaling the building, climbing up their fence, lightly crossing the awning his mother installed over their back porch, and wiggling through his window. Sighing, Xiumin closes the window behind him and leans against it.

"You don't look happy to see me." Yifan frowns, his thick brows furrowed with his disappointment.

Xiumin shakes his head, pushing himself from the window to circle his arms around his boyfriend's waist and lie his head on his chest. "I'm just tired. I've been really stressed lately."

Tell him to leave. I. do. not. want. him. here.

Hushing Minseok, Xiumin leans further into Yifan when the latter returns the hug, slipping his arms around him and kissing his hairline.

"Why didn't you tell me? Are you feeling okay?"

He nods. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

Yifan separates them, holding Xiumin's shoulders at arms length and looking down at the smaller boy in concern. "How can I not worry about you?"

"You don't need to get too worked up over me. I don't want to burden you just because I haven't been getting enough sleep," Xiumin says sheepishly, looking away from Yifan's eyes. No matter how worried he looks, there's always an eerie hardness to his eyes and Xiumin can’t stand to look straight into his gaze for too long.

Frown deepening, Yifan squeezes Xiumin's shoulders. "It's not a burden. Your health is important. What would I do if you got sick because I wasn't looking out for you?"

There is no chance for Xiumin to oppose his boyfriend as he's ushered to his bed and instructed to lay down, Yifan climbing onto the bed behind him and pulling him into his larger body. Resting his head over the center of his chest, Xiumin listens for his boyfriend's heart beat, smiling lightly when he hears the dull sound.

"I'm fine, really," he says after Yifan shifts beneath him and he can no longer hear the precious sound of his heartbeat.

"Where have you been going after school? I always look for you to walk you home, but you're never around?" Yifan asks.

Xiumin knows that whenever Yifan evades a topic, he's done listening to whatever Xiumin has to say about it and the older boy should just shut up and talk about something else. "I have music club meetings," he reminds him. "I told you, you wouldn't need to walk me home after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays anymore."

"You shouldn't be walking home alone."

"I'm not." Xiumin looks up with a curious expression when Yifan stiffens.

The Chinese boy glares down at him. "Who are you walking with if you aren't walking home alone and you aren't with me? Don't tell me it's..."

"Zitao," the both of them say, one chirpy and unsuspecting and the other laced with poorly concealed distaste.

"We found out that we live relatively close to each other so we decided to walk home together after music club. His Korean isn't all that great but he's a cool kid and he helps me with my Chinese. You even said I've been getting better."

"Stay away from him."

"But he's my friend. He's my only friend. Yifan, you can't —”

“When is the opening night for the musical?”

“Next Friday…” Xiumin frowns. Why can’t Yifan hear him out for once? Zitao is such a sweet boy and they’re both all the other has. Zitao’s still too afraid to go out and make friends and Xiumin doesn’t blame him because if he suddenly moved to China with his terrible language skills, he wouldn’t want to socialize either for fear of being ridiculed. He’s sure that if Yifan wasn’t so worried that someone was going to start bullying him again (even though Chanyeol has that front covered and Yifan doesn’t do much to stop him) or so overprotective, he and Tao would get along well. What’s so wrong with getting close to his club members? He doesn’t understand.

If you listened to me, you wouldn’t be upset. I told you to kick him out. How many times do I have to tell you to do something before you start realizing that I’m right?

“Be quiet,” Xiumin mutters under his breath, earning Yifan’s attention.

“What did you say?”

Smiling, he waves his hand. “Nothing.”

Xiumin sighs, looking out the window of the school infirmary. He should have gone and found Yifan earlier instead of deciding to roam around the school to stretch his legs; then he wouldn’t be here sitting across from the nurse again as she cleans a busted lip and a thin cut along the curve of his cheekbones. It wasn’t exactly his fault, more a problem of circumstance. He just happened to come across Chanyeol as he was traversing the halls and he recognized that the younger boy was in a bad mood since Chanyeol immediately pushed him into the wall as he walked past instead of teasing him first. Normally this is no big deal but Minseok had decided he wanted to come out to play and say a few nasty words to their bully. Of course that lead to punches being thrown, Xiumin retaking control of their body so he could pacify Chanyeol — he failed — and him ending up with more scrapes and bruises than he’d like.

“You’re good to go, Xiumin,” the school’s nurse says, patting his shoulder sympathetically. Minseok always complains about how he hates her because she knows he’s being bullied but doesn’t do anything about it. Xiumin tells him that it’s okay, that she has other things to worry about and Minseok says it’s bull and that she’s a nurse and an authority figure and she shouldn’t allow the students at the school she works at to be beat on like punching bags.

He nods his thanks to her, slipping off the wrinkled, white cot sheets and leaving the infirmary, his backpack slung over his shoulders. He had a music club meeting but he also told Yifan he would walk home with him afterward. It’s been about thirty minutes since the end of their club meeting. He doesn’t know where Yifan is, neither does he have his cell phone on him. Sighing, Xiumin looks up at the ceiling as he walks through the halls, heading toward the front exit, hoping Yifan’s waiting for him there.

I’m not going to talk about how pathetic you are so can we switch? I want a smoothie.

“We don’t have any money to get a smoothie, Minseok,” Xiumin replies aloud.

Can we beg someone to buy us a smoothie? I can make a kick- WILL DANCE FOR SMOOTHIE sign if you find me some cardboard and a marker.

Not paying attention to where he’s going, he almost slams into another person, only missing them because they move out of his way.

“Xiumin?”

Blinking twice, Xiumin looks at the other person in the hallway. “Ah, sorry Tao. I’m a little out of it right now.”

The Chinese boy gapes at him before grabbing Xiumin’s face in both his hands. “What happened to you?” He rants off a session of questions, who what when where why how.

Xiumin averts his eyes to the ever so interesting tiled flooring, mumbling out a meek ‘Chanyeol’.

Zitao’s fingers dig into the side of his face and Xiumin looks up because it sort of hurts. He notices the distant yet smoldering glare of the other, his eyes looking as if they’re filled with erupting volcanoes and Xiumin grips his wrists, prying his hands away from his face before Zitao unknowingly inflicts more injuries on him in his cloud of anger. The action brings Zitao out of his haze, those dark eyes zoning in on the smaller boy’s.

“Why do you let him hurt you? I can beat him. I did take martial arts back home.”

“No.” Xiumin shakes his head. “Just leave him alone. You don’t fight fire with fire. I don’t want you to get hurt either. He’s really scary and he’s probably capable of killing you with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back.”

“Xiumin, that’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe so, maybe not. But…enough about Chanyeol. Why don’t we go get ice cream or something?” Xiumin offers as they exit the school and pass the grand gates at the edge of the grounds.

You have enough money for ice cream but not to buy me a ing smoothie? Some original personality you are.

‘Please don’t start arguing, Minseok. This is for a good cause.’

And my smoothie isn’t?

‘I’ll buy you a smoothie later, okay?’

Forget it. I don’t even want the stupid thing anymore.

‘Don’t be like this Minseok, please.’

There’s no reply from his other half and Xiumin mentally calls out the other’s name again, pouting when the other blatantly ignores him. He starts to apologize to his other personality when there’s a harsh tug on his shoulder. When he turns around with curious eyebrows raised, Zitao looks at him like he’s insane.

“Do you try to walk into speeding traffic everyday like it’s no problem?” Zitao says in rapid-fire Mandarin and Xiumin only understands three words out of the entire sentence. Realizing the Korean doesn’t understand, he points at the street before them and the cars zooming past like there’s no such thing as a speed limit or traffic laws.

Chuckling awkwardly, Xiumin apologizes for his airheadedness for the second time.

Zitao’s expression shifts into worry and he places a hand on Xiumin’s head, lightly ruffling his hair. “I think I should just take you home. I don’t want something else happening to you.”

Xiumin’s disappointed but he allows Zitao to turn them around and lead them in the direction of his home. He doesn’t really want to go home so soon, but there never seems to be enough things to do to keep him busy and out of the house. During the walk home, Xiumin keeps to himself, desperately trying to get a response out of his sulking alternate. But Minseok stays in the recesses of their mind, just out of Xiumin's reach, and it hurts. Lately, Minseok has been getting angry at him and ignoring him more and more and whenever he takes control of their body he always goes against what they agreed on — calling himself Minseok to other people, purposely acting out in class, disobeying their mother, picking fights with Chanyeol (like earlier) — and Xiumin feels terrible because he knows Minseok must be tired of him but for the other to actually ignore him...Xiumin feels like he's losing a part of himself. He's had Minseok with him for, literally, as long as he can remember. He remembers when they were kids and Minseok would pout and whine because he was always trapped and didn't get to physically play with the toys, having to live vicariously through Xiumin.

Now, it feels like his best friend is leaving him, like they're drifting apart and he doesn't know what he has to do to fix it. He doesn't know if there is a way to fix it. The freedom to express himself is probably what his alternate wants but the original can't let that happen, not now. Not when he's still in school, about to graduate, and still living with his mom. If anyone finds out they're going to send him back to a therapist. He already went in his second year of high school when his mother was getting suspicious of his behavior and looking for ways to justify kicking him out of the house. Minseok had made it a point to force control and lash out at their bespectacled psychiatrist and insult his degree every time they had an appointment. They were constantly unstable then, often switching back and forth between each other, and the fear of being found out by other people drove Xiumin into a panic, starting up a need for prescription anxiety medication. He still takes that medication, still freaks out whenever Minseok takes control and he can't remember all the details. He would love for Minseok to be as free a person as he wants to be, but Xiumin just can't risk it.

Zitao separates from him to head to his own house when Xiumin’s two blocks away from his own, turning down a side alley and waving over his shoulder.

Xiumin waves back, shoulders slumping as he continues on to his house alone. Unhooking his keychain from his backpack, he unlocks the door, chiming a lackluster greeting as he steps into his house. He stares at his shuffling feet as he moves into the living room.

"Welcome home, Xiumin."

Xiumin snaps his head up so fast he pulls a muscle in his neck. Seated on his couch, right next to his mother, is Yifan.

"W-What are you doing here?" He stares at the Chinese boy who looks way too comfortable in his house. Yifan should hate his mother, Yifan does hate his mother. Right? So why does he look so content? More importantly, why is his mother so calm? She hates unexpected visitors. She doesn’t like expected ones either. That’s why Xiumin stopped trying to bring his friends over back when he had more than one friend.

"You didn't tell me you had a boyfriend, Xiumin darling." His mother frowns at him. He can’t tell if the sweet tone to her voice is real or just an act. He doesn’t know if any of this is real. Maybe Chanyeol knocked him unconscious and he’s actually still in the infirmary, dreaming.

“I…I. Uh, he’s…I’m…” He turns to Yifan, unable to get words to work. “What are you doing here?”

“You said you wanted to walk home together but I couldn’t find you after your club stuff and came here to make sure you got home alright.” Then the tall, Chinese boy faces his mother, a charming smile on his face. “Do you mind if I go up with Xiumin to his room?”

“Not at all. Go ahead.”

Still stunned by the sudden appearance of his boyfriend, Xiumin stumbles over his feet when Yifan clutches his arm and drags him up the stairs and to his bedroom. He trips, falling into the foot of his bed, bag falling off his shoulder, when Yifan’s heavy hand pushes him from behind. The door slams behind them and his stomach drops at the sound.

Picking himself up from the floor, he turns around, his incredulous expression masked by his denial, trying to pretend Yifan didn’t mean to push him and it was an accident. “Are you mad at me?”

“No.” The stiffness to Yifan’s shoulders makes him think otherwise.

“Are you sure?”

Raising an eyebrow, Yifan scowls. “Who did you walk home with?”

“I told you months ago that I walk home with Zitao.”

“And I told you months ago that I don’t want you around him. Are you cheating on me?”

“No, I would never —” The sound of the blow reverberates throughout the room but it’s all drowned out by the electric sting spreading across his cheek.

Lifting a hand to his face, Minseok turns to Kris with a glare fierce and fiery enough to start wildfires in Antarctica. “Did you just hit me?!” He shoves the taller boy back two steps, internally pleased with the surprised widening of his eyes. “Where the do you get off thinking you can touch me let alone slap me?”

‘Minseok, no! Let me handle it!’ Xiumin tries to regain control of their body — anything to keep this situation from escalating into something serious. He’s sure Yifan didn’t mean it and it was a slip of his hand — even though in the back of his own conscious, void of his naive ability to see the good in everyone, he knows that’s impossible for Yifan to have accidentally slapped him.

You can’t handle it, Xiumin. You can’t handle anything. And like that, as the corners of Yifan’s mouth curl so far down he looks like the coloring book representation of every small child’s under-the-bed nightmare, Minseok squashes Xiumin’s mental will, pushing the latter so far back into their mind, he doesn’t have a chance to crawl out.

It’s one of Xiumin’s biggest regrets that he didn’t try harder to keep Minseok contained that night because after that, everything started to fall apart.

It’s super stressful to be himself in this body because he is too much for it, his personality is too big for it. Sometimes, when he gets the chance to breathe, he ponders over how and why he came to be and why exactly he’s Xiumin’s alternate. Xiumin doesn’t exactly remember the events leading up to the split of his subconscious and, of course, Minseok doesn’t know either. They’ve both spent time reading over the possible causes for Xiumin’s disorder, the most prominent theory being childhood trauma but what was the terrible thing that happened to Xiumin that damned Minseok to a lifetime of sharing a body with someone who is too stupid to recognize that the people he associates with are only going to cause him more pain. Minseok hates it. He was created for a reason, right? And yet, he never truly sees the light of day; feeling the sun on his skin is a rarity. What’s the point of his existence if he never has a chance to even fulfill his life’s purpose — whatever that is. All he gets to do is watch Xiumin crumble under the suffocating weight of his boyfriend’s aggressiveness — while Minseok isn’t always one hundred percent aware, he knows that Yifan grabs Xiumin’s wrists and hands with too much strength, kisses him with too much force, threatens him when Xiumin puts up even the smallest of protests — and unknowingly fall into a trap he won’t be able to climb his way out of. He tries his hardest to convince Xiumin that Yifan is wrong for him, that he’s a wolf in a cheap, poorly-stitched, halloween sheep costume, but even though they share the same mind, nothing gets through. Which because if Xiumin gets hurts one day and realizes that he should have listened, it’s not like Minseok can beat him up for being stupid because then he’d just be hitting himself.

Groaning, Minseok throws his head back against the top of the park bench he’s sitting on. Even when he’s blocking out Xiumin’s thoughts, his own are focused on the other. It’s like he’ll never win!

“There’s no fun in harassing you if you already look down.”

Glancing up, Minseok meets Chanyeol’s gaze, barely picking up on the almost perfectly concealed worry in the giant’s dead, dull, brown eyes. Instead of pretending to be Xiumin, what he usually does when he’s not otherwise angry at the taller boy, he hunches over, propping his elbows on his knees and says, “Xiumin’s never going to be your friend if you keep messing with him.”

“What?” Chanyeol’s eyes widen and it’s the first time Minseok’s ever seen a surprised look on his face. It’s sort of cute in a disproportionate kind of way.

“He’s never going to see who you really are. He’s never going to notice that you’re some miserable kid who has a bad temper because it’s a defense mechanism and not because you’re actually a bad guy. He’s not going to understand that you beat him up because you want him to crack and retaliate against you, because you want him to hopefully look in your eyes like I have and see how much you’ve suffered and how much you’re still suffering, because you know that Yifan hurts him as well and you want him to finally realize that if it’s wrong for you to use him as a punching bag, it’s wrong for Yifan too.” Tilting his head, he stares forlornly at the younger kid and shakes his head again. “But he’s too dense to notice, too caught up thinking the world is a fairytale and no one is a bad person. Not even you.”

It takes Chanyeol a second to compose himself and wipe the confusion off his face, masking it with the blank expression he’s mastered over the years.

Minseok sighs. “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you like this as if you—”

“I know.”

This time it’s Minseok’s turn to ask; “What?”

Chanyeol sighs and slides onto the bench next to him. “I know. I know that my true intentions will go unnoticed and unappreciated, but this is the only reason I live, hoping that one day all of my pieces will align and the effort that I’ve given for the past two years will be worth it. If it wasn’t for that, I probably would have killed myself months ago…” Chanyeol chuckles and the emptiness to the sound is frightening to Minseok. “That sounds really sad when I say it out loud but it’s not like anyone would have mourned.”

“I—”

“You’ve always been a mystery to me, Kim. I didn’t think much of it when we were in middle school — I just thought you were doing horribly at going through the rebellious teenager phase — but there’s something genuinely wrong with you.” Folding his arm over the back of the bench, Chanyeol turns his body to face Minseok, all of his attention on the older boy.

Minseok rolls his eyes, mildly offended. There’s nothing wrong with him. “Why do you say that?”

“Aside from you just referring to yourself in third person during that very touching speech two minutes ago?” Chanyeol points out. “Though, I get the impression that you weren’t talking about yourself, were you? I might be failing most of my classes, but I’m pretty observant. What I thought were mood swings when we were younger, are a lot stronger now. Like you’re almost a completely different person. I know you act and all that but I’m not exactly sure if you’re trying to act as someone else or if that’s how you are.”

A girl wearing a school uniform from a different school walks past them, her hand curled around that of another girl who can’t be more than five years old, and Minseok watches them go, sitting up when Chanyeol shifts and pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Minseok’s not surprised he smokes.

“Please call me Minseok,” he says.

Lips pursed around a cancer stick, Chanyeol looks away from the flame of his lighter at Minseok with lifted brows, humming his unspoken question.

“You were right when you said you didn’t think I was talking about myself. My name is Minseok.”

Pocketing his lighter, Chanyeol nods. “And who are you, Minseok?”

Surprised at the unexpected question, he gapes. “What do you mean?”

“Xiumin’s that weak, unsuspecting thing like you said so who are you?”

Minseok blinks before casting his eyes to the sidewalk. He laughs dryly. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

Chanyeol fiddles with his cigarette and Minseok thinks that’s end of the conversation before the giant reaches out to him. “Want a puff or two?”

Staring at the white thing, he takes it and unsurely brings it to his mouth. He never thought about smoking before — Xiumin has a somewhat weak respiratory system, and it’s not like he’s in control of their body long enough to even ponder things like this. He has no idea what he’s doing so he mimics the men he sees on the street and in movies and inhales, taking in too much smoke at one time. Somehow he manages to the cigarette back into the other’s face while he’s coughing his lungs out, quite sure he’s on the verge of death. He feels Chanyeol take it back, a much livelier laugh erupting into the air.

“We’ll have to work on your skill.”

“Never again.” Minseok waves him off when he finally stops wheezing.

“It wasn’t that bad. Everyone’s first time is a little rough.”

“I refuse,” he says, punching Chanyeol in the shoulder. “And stop laughing at me, .”

Chanyeol smirks around the filter but stops laughing as requested. “You’re not so bad, Minseok.”

“You aren’t either. I’m actually surprised we’re talking like this. I mean, I pretty much told you that I’m just a product of Xiumin’s multiple personality disorder.”

“And I told you that I had ten completely different and foolproof plans to off myself. We’re pretty much even.”

Minseok furrows his brows. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“You didn’t tell me Xiumin had multiple personalities.”

Minseok opens his mouth only to close it. He sighs. “Touché.”

He’s deaf to everything as he skips steps, sidesteps and turns out of the way of gurneys — the warnings and commands and yells to slow down, stop running from nurses, doctors, and Jongin alike are static on his ears — rushing to get to the fourth floor of this white, sanitary building that haunts him in his dreams and whenever he sees Xiumin walking down the hall at school, pressed up close against Yifan’s side. He knows that something is wrong between them, just like he knows something is off between Xiumin and Chanyeol but has never made the effort to figure it out or stop it from happening. And now he regrets not doing anything, not telling Xiumin his thoughts about Yifan and how he seemed sort of dangerous. He regrets not protecting Xiumin like he promised himself he would.

Bursting through the double doors leading to the fourth floor and storming through the halls looking for the room number the receptionist gave him over the telephone while he was on the way here, he is stopped by an assertive nurse who directs him — and a following Jongin — to a nearby waiting room because Xiumin is only allowed two visitors at a time since he’s sleeping and currently there are people in the room with him.

After the nurse leaves, promising to inform the current visitors of their presence, Jongin steps up to Zitao and wraps his arms around him from behind. “You need to calm down,” he comforts. “I’m sure your friend is fine.”

“He wouldn’t be in the hospital if he was fine,” Zitao croaks, feeling the buildup of tears now that he isn’t focused on running, focused on seeing Xiumin. “This is all my fault. I said I would look out for him. I said I would protect him and now he’s hurt.”

Jongin tries his best to hush the crying boy in his arms but Zitao continues to rant about how he’s failed his best friend no matter what comforting words he uses. “It’s not your fault, Tao. It’s not your fault at all.”

The door swings open and both boys turn to it. Zitao locks eyes with Yifan and an imaginary switch goes off. He sees nothing but red as he breaks out of Jongin’s hug and charges toward the taller Chinese boy. He lunges at him and only manages to curl his fingers in the collar of his shirt before Jongin yanks him back. “How could you do this to him? How could you hurt him, you bastard?!” He shrieks and rakes his nails down Jongin’s arms, desperately needing to be let go so he can go after Yifan — Yifan who looks so collected and content with life, as if his boyfriend hasn’t been sleeping in a hospital bed for the last two days, as if he wasn’t the one who did it. But Zitao knows it was him. “How could you damage someone so beautiful who deserves nothing but the absolute best?” He slumps to the floor, dragging Jongin down with him.

“It’s obvious that you’re upset Zitao, but this isn’t the place for that.”

Everyone but Yifan turns to look at Chanyeol, standing behind the slightly taller boy. Yifan, cracking a small smirk, walks further into the room, sitting himself down on one of the many couches there.

Zitao grits his teeth. “What are you even doing here, Chanyeol?”

“I’m here to visit a friend. What else would I be doing here? Reading books to dying children?”

The Chinese boy scoffs, turning his head and his nose up at the other boy. ‘Visiting a friend’? If he wasn’t still simmering in unadulterated anger, he’d laugh. Friends. Chanyeol doesn’t have any friends. He’s a bully who mopes by himself when he isn’t causing some unsuspecting kid bodily harm, a poster child for a self-help hotline. If he didn’t know for a fact that Xiumin’s hospitalization (now that he thinks about it, he has no idea what’s wrong with Xiumin. When he asked Xiumin’s mom why he hasn’t been in school for the past couple, she only told him the name of the hospital but no other details about his injuries or ailments) was Yifan’s doing, he’d pin it on Chanyeol years before he’d chalk it up to Xiumin’s natural clumsiness. No matter how nice it is that Chanyeol even came, Zitao doesn’t believe it’s genuine for a second.

Chanyeol snorts, shoving his hands into his pockets and falling onto a couch away from Yifan, partly amused and partly annoyed at Zitao’s speechlessness and his assumption that just because Chanyeol beats on people weaker than him — it’s natural selection, if he doesn’t do it, someone else will (and Yifan already has that covered) — that he’s not allowed send greetings to someone he knows in the hospital. Sure he doesn’t get along with Xiumin, but in his twisted mind, Chanyeol does actually care about him and more than Xiumin, he worries about Minseok who is the closest thing to a friend he’s ever had. Zitao has absolutely no right to question him. Especially when he didn’t do anything.

Xiumin wakes up to light humming and a crippling pain in his chest. Cracking his eyes open, he follows the path of the nurse as he walks around the room, adjusting crooked tissue boxes and picture frames and drawing the curtains once the sun stops shining so brightly. He tries a smile when the other notices he’s awake but it wavers when he inhales and suddenly the room spins.

“How are you feeling?” The nurse asks as he stops beside the bed dressed in white. At first look he’s a stereotypical nurse — sweet face; broad, charming smile; unaccented and light tone of voice.

“I’ve been better,” he replies.

The male nurse stops him from lying on his side and pages for another nurse. “Anyone with two fractured ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and a concussion will feel bad.” He smiles sympathetically. “I’m Joonmyun. I’m only an intern but if you can’t reach your resident nurse, just yell and I’ll be here in a split second.”

“All that happened to me?” There’s no way that’s true.

But Joonmyun nods, his pretty smile nowhere in sight. “I was told you were pretty beat up when you arrived. The tall guy who brought you in said he found you behind your high school, barely conscious. You passed out shortly after you arrived due to the concussion and were unconscious for almost four minutes. You woke up for a short while, went through a few small tests…you ate but vomited an hour later. You’ve been in and out of sleep for the past,” he glances at a plain analog clock on the wall, “almost sixteen hours, I’d say.”

No way. No way at all. “What did I do for him to do so much to me,” he whispers to himself but from the way Joonmyun straightens up and looks at him in concern, the intern heard enough of his rhetorical question to be wary.

“D-Did someone do this to you? Not to be invasive, but an assault shouldn’t go unpunished.”

“It wasn’t his fault!” Xiumin exclaims, regretting it instantly because his chest burns and the pain is unbearable. Tears welling in his eyes, he waves the hand of his good arm. “I don’t remember what happened, but I probably deserved it.”

Joonmyun stares at him, horror stamped clear across his face. Xiumin can’t bear to look at him so he plays with the sheets covering his legs.

“M-Mr. Kim, i-if you’re in a domestic situation, which is what it sounds like, you should get help. We can refer you to a —”

“No,” he pleads, keeping himself from getting too worked up. “There’s nothing wrong, I’m not being abused, just…no.”

Joonmyun looks like he wants to say more on the topic, like he wants to prove to Xiumin that he needs to talk to someone and protect himself against whoever it is that’s hurting him, but the pained and terrified face of the young boy keeps him quiet. He hopes the boy tells the same thing to another nurse or to a doctor and they can convince the kid better than he can. He’s such a cute kid, he doesn’t deserve the pain or the warped relationship he might be in. And Joonmyun thought he was ready to tackle anything — fresh out of graduate school, moving up in the world — but right now, he has no idea what to do.

“I-I’ll go see what’s taking your nurse so long to get here,” he finally says, allowing Xiumin one more weak smile.

Teeth digging into his lip, Xiumin watches the intern flee, wondering if he’ll actually tell someone about their conversation. He doesn’t want to lose Yifan (because he’s the first person to show him what it’s like to be loved) even though in the back of his mind, he knows nothing is right about their relationship. So he’ll hold onto Yifan until Yifan lets him go, no matter what because they’re in love and nothing and no one can take that away from them.

It’s him and his thoughts until Joonmyun and the other nurse return. He sighs but the exhale catches and he inhales sharply both because of his ribs and one sudden realization. His mind is oddly empty. By now Minseok would have contributed a few judgemental comments, maybe called Xiumin stupid a couple times. Even when his alternate personality is ignoring him, there is usually a distinct cloudiness to his head, always reminding him that someone else is there with him. But, there’s nothing. It’s empty. Not even a bit of static.

“Minseok?” he calls out, hoping his alternate will say something to him in that permanently annoyed tone of voice of his.

There’s no reply. He repeats Minseok’s name like a mantra until Joonmyun returns with a tall, slender woman and even when he calls for him mentally, Minseok never answers.

Later on the doctor tells him he should recover the memories of the incident with time, that his amnesia is only temporary because of the slight brain trauma, but Xiumin has to figure out on his own that he’ll never hear the voice of his alternate personality in his head ever again.