Much to my dismay Yongguk tried to go back to work after a few days. He had gone stir crazy and stormed out of the apartment during breakfast on the fifth day of his medical leave. He had lasted longer than I had expected. It was horrible being cooped up and Yongguk wasn’t the type of person to be sedentary. He liked to work.

Fortunately a little while after Yongguk left there was a knock at the front door. I knew Jaehwa didn’t knock so that meant it had to be someone worth speaking to. I rushed to the door and threw it open, not caring at all how desperate I looked. “Feeling lonely Himchanchan?” I recognised my best friend’s voice as I was pulled into a tight hug.

“Yongguk escaped his medical leave.” I mumbled. I felt disappointed in myself that I couldn’t keep him entertained enough to stay at home for his health. “He got bored of sitting around here with me.” I tried not to sound too upset but I was sure I failed. It was depressing that Yongguk didn’t want to spend more time with me.

“Yongguk never liked sitting still.” He let go of me and brushed past me so he could sit down on the floor of my apartment. He never needed permission to come in. I was surprised he had even bothered to knock. He never knocked. “I’ll keep you company. How does that sound?”

“You’re going to do it even if I tell you to bother off.”

“This is true.” He smiled up at me and dropped down onto his back. “I don’t get to see you very often.” He pouted, it didn’t suit him. I personally thought he looked a bit daft with his lip jutted out as his bangs fell in front of his eyes. I wanted to take a pair of scissors to them. “I miss you Himchanchan~”

I crossed my arms over my chest and sat down across from him. “You shouldn’t have run off to Japan with some boy then.” He had fallen in love with some Japanese boy from school and had followed him when his visa had run out. I had told him he was stupid but he didn’t listen to me, he said I would have done the same thing if Yongguk left the country. It wasn’t a lie so even though I didn’t want him to leave I didn’t fight too much.

Hurt flashed across his eyes for a split second. “You’re right.” He shrugged his shoulders, obviously pretending that he wasn’t hurt about whatever it was the Japanese boy had done. He was like Yongguk that way, both of them always tried to hide when they were hurting. “He likes Americans. Apparently they’re bigger. Don’t you dare apologise Kim Himchan. You aren’t the one that cheated.”

“Still though.”

“I think you’ve got it a harder lot than I do.” I shot a glare at him for bringing up my condition unnecessarily but he waved me off. “I don’t care about him. I didn’t like Tokyo that much anyway. Seoul is better.”

“You’ll meet someone nice here soon, I’m sure of it.” I reached out to pat his shoulder but before I could my hand was grabbed out of the air.

“Himchannie?” It was Yongguk. I turned around to look at him and I saw the most horrible expression on his face. He looked completely heart broken and I felt my heart sink. Surely he wasn’t looking at me that way. There was nothing for him to be upset about. “Who are you talking to Himchannie?”

I felt my lip start to quiver and I looked back at Hyunki. He was real. He’d been my friend for longer than Yongguk and I had been a couple. I was normal then. I didn’t see things that weren’t real. Hyunki was real. “Friend from school…”

When I looked back up at Yongguk it appeared as though he had deflated completely. I knew what the next words coming out of his mouth were going to be and I didn’t want to hear them. I pulled my hand away from his and used it to wipe at the tears that had apparently started sliding down my cheeks. “There’s no one here Channie.”

“Th…this isn’t funny Yongguk… d-don’t tell jokes like that…” I shoved at him when he tried to grab me, choking on my own tears as Yongguk tried to tell me he wasn’t joking. He kept telling me that Hyunki wasn’t real but I knew that couldn’t be true. I hadn’t been schizophrenic in university! I had been normal. “Why are you saying these horrible things?”

He pulled me to his chest and held onto me as tightly as he could. I tried to shove him away but he wouldn’t let me go. “He’s not real Baby… I’m so sorry…”

“Don’t lie!” I punched at his chest until he let me go. I tore out of his arms, nearly falling over the second I got up onto my feet, and ran into the bedroom as quickly as I could. I hadn’t been crazy in university. I hadn’t been crazy and Hyunki was real. I threw myself down onto the bed, not caring that Yongguk could hear when sobs ripped through my body. My entire body was shaking and my throat went raw almost immediately.

There was banging on our door but I tried my best to ignore it. Yongguk couldn’t do this to me. “Himchannie… Can I come in please?”

That was the last thing I would want. He wasn’t allowed to come home after abandoning me and tell me that my best friend of eight years was a hallucination. Hyunki had been there for me for years, he had to be real. He had taken care of me the time Yongguk told me he was thinking about leaving me, and he had stuck by my side when I told him I was crazy. Yongguk was the only other person who had done that. Hyunki was real and not even Yongguk could convince me otherwise.

I was sane until I was twenty-two. I made it through twenty-two years of life with my mental health completely in tact. “Himchannie, I’m coming in. Please stop crying?” I was pulled in to my boyfriend’s arms and his hands ran up and down my back in what I assumed was meant to be soothing. It wasn’t soothing at all. It only succeeded in making me feel even more like garbage. I knew I had this defect, I had accepted that there was nothing I could do about it, but I wasn’t going to accept that Hyunki was a hallucination. He was just as real as Yongguk was. Neither of them were fake.

I grabbed on to Yongguk’s shirt and let myself sob into his shoulder. This wasn’t all right. Yongguk was real. Hyunki was real. My condition was under control and even if it hadn’t been they had both been around long before I had lost my sanity.

For the first time in years I sobbed myself to sleep wishing for nothing more than for this to be the last time I ever opened my eyes.

_____

Yep. 
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