I liked going out to dinner. Yongguk and I didn’t get to do it very often because my doctor said being around more than ten people at a time would be too stressful for me. Every once in a while I was able to talk Yongguk into taking me out though. It was nice getting out of the house from time to time.

“Thank you for taking me out, Guk.” I smiled across the table at my boyfriend. I knew it had been a bribe – at least I did once my brain was working right again – but that didn’t mean I was any less thankful. He didn’t have to go through with his end of the bargain. “And for the soda.” I lifted my glass up. I hadn’t had one in months.

“I told you I would, Channie.” He sipped at his water and reached over to grab my free hand. “You took your medicine.”

I sighed softly. I had to be medicated to be normal. Yongguk would never have taken me into public if I was drug-free. I didn’t even get to go in public medicated most of the time because I couldn’t handle it. Too many voices. Too many noises. How could I know what was real? “I’m not happy Yongguk…”

“What?” He seemed shocked. I don’t know how he could be though.

“I’m not me anymore. You know that. You’ve known me my whole life. I wasn’t like this until all of this started happening to me…” I looked down at my half eaten plate of noodles. “I was a scholar before. I played music. I was happy. Now I’m just some medicated waste of space. I can’t go one day without my pills or I’ll be an utter mess. I’m not me. I sit around all day and wait for you to get home. I don’t have anything in my life but you and, as amazing as you are, that’s just… that’s not healthy Yongguk… if I wasn’t messed up you’d think it was weird for me to be that way.”

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but nothing came out of it. I was sure it was because he realised I was telling the truth. He realised that I wasn’t normal. He had to. It was obvious.

“I tried to do things I use to do but it’s not fun anymore. Nothing keeps my interest and nothing makes me happy. I’m just here.” I took a sip of the beverage in front of me. It was hard telling him this. I didn’t even know what I was trying to tell him. I just needed someone to understand. “I’m not unhappy, but I’m not happy either. I don’t know what’s wrong with me Guk. Well I do… I’m completely mad, but… I just exist Yongguk...”

I heard him sigh and then he slid into my side of the booth. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly to his chest. “I’m sorry Himchan…” His arm slid up my back and laced through my hair. He pressed a kiss to my head and held onto me as though I would disappear if he let go. “I’m so, so sorry Himchannie…”

I grabbed onto him.  I wanted him to make everything go back to how it was when we were younger. I had been normal and happy. I didn’t even understand like he was staying with me any longer. He could do so much better. “I want to be someone again Guk… I don’t want to be nobody anymore. I’m so tired of being nobody.”

“You’re not nobody Himchannie.” His grip tightened even more. “You’re everything to me.”

He held me to his chest until I had calmed back down and pushed him away. I hadn’t meant to cause a scene and I regretted not holding my tongue. Now things were going to be even worse. I was probably going to get even more poisons because of this. “I don’t want to talk about it any more.” I mumbled and went back to eating. The noodles had gotten a bit cold but that was better than continuing the conversation. I didn’t want more poisons. I could only hope that Yongguk would just forget the conversation because if he didn’t he would want the doctor to give me more poisons that would supposedly fix me.   

“Would you like if I bought you some instruments Channie?” He tried to grab my hand but I pulled it back.  “Maybe you could learn a new instrument?”

“I don’t want to learn a new instrument.” I mumbled, shoving as my noodles into my mouth as I could. “I liked the ones I use to play… I’m not allowed to play anymore. I guess I’m at a risk of shoving a drumstick through my skull or something… I’m apparently very determined to end my life.”

“Himchan…”

“I’m impressed with how creative I am.”

He grabbed onto my hand and pulled it across the table. “Baby… It’s scary. Your doctor keeps telling me that you’re at risk… I don’t want to lose you.”

“Yeah…” I shrugged my shoulders. I was done with this. There was nothing else I wanted to say and nothing else I wanted to hear. There was nothing I could say to change his mind. There was nothing left to say. Things weren’t going to change.  “I just want to go home and take my sleep poison.”

He said something that sounded like ‘it’s not poison’ but didn’t try to continue talking to me. He had probably figured out we were at a standstill and that there was nowhere else to go with this line of dialogue. He was a smart man. “I’ll leave your drum in the living room tomorrow before I go to work…”

I nodded my head as I finished off the soda. I had made things uncomfortable. I did that a lot. “Guk? Do you remember our first date?”

He hummed but didn’t say anything. I wondered if that meant he didn’t recall or that he didn’t have anything to say to me. I watched him finish his pork, remembering how much I had when we were kids for the way he held his eating utensils. Back then I had never expected it would be something I got to look at every single day once we had gotten older. My mother had told me we would drift apart with age – she said that almost always happened with childhood friends – but we had grown closer and, much to our parents’ disappointment, we had become much more than friends. We had finally started to drift though. All because of me.

“We were nineteen.” He kept his gaze down when he spoke a few minutes later. “I asked you out in your bedroom and you’d slapped my chest because I’d kind of attacked you and we’d been making out for over twenty minutes. You got mad at me for not asking you out sooner. I was flat broke so I could only take you out for ddukbokki in the park. I wanted to give you more but I couldn’t, that didn’t bother you at all though.”

“You use to laugh at me when I told you that you were all I needed.”

“I still do.” He put his chopsticks down but still didn’t look at me. “Why are you asking?”

“I like thinking about it.  We were happy back then.”

“We’ll get back there one day. I promise. We’ll both be like that again. We’re going to get through this.”

_____

So here's chapter four~ Yongguk bribed Himchan in the last chapter and this is what Himchan got from that. I don't know what else to say. Himchan tried to make Yongguk understand what his feelings were doing but it wasn't all that effective since he didn't know what he was feeling. I'll update on Thursday~ Leave me nice comments maybe.