D is for Disorder

It was dark.

Kae panicked as she woke up and couldn’t even see her hands in front of her.

“Jae?” she called out in fear as she turned back and forth frantically despite not being able to see anything.

It was cold.

“Jae!”

She shook her head.

No…she couldn’t be alone…YoungJae promised her…and YoungJae never lied to her…

“Jae!” she tried again though her voice was already shaking in fear. An ominous shiver ran up her spine. Something was after her…she didn’t know what, but she felt it. “Jae!”

With her last desperate call, she picked herself off the floor and started to run.

“Jae!”

All she could hear were her heavy, breathy pants.

 “J-Jae!”

It was silent.

He has to be there…she just…wasn’t looking hard enough…

“Jae! Jae! Jae!” she screamed continuously, her voice starting to crack and become hoarse. She refused to cry despite the painful sting in her eyes. Crying would blur her vision, and then she would never find YoungJae. So she kept her tears in and continued to run into the endless abyss.

“Kae?”

She froze.

That was YoungJae’s voice!

“Jae!” she called back as her head whipped back and forth like a tracking dog finally picking up on the track it had been searching for. Suddenly, she saw a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

“Jae!” she called out as she ran towards the person she had been looking for, not even bothering to question why he was fluorescent in the otherwise pitch black void she had been wandering aimlessly in for awhile. She was just happy that he was smiling at her with open arms. Without any questions, she ran into his welcoming embrace.

“Jae…” she sighed in relief, hugging the familiar individual for comfort. He hugged her back. Everything was okay again…

“Why did you leave me, Kae?”

She froze. The voice coming from YoungJae was demonic. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she stared up into black voids engulfing his normally beautiful brown orbs. She screamed and struggled, trying to get away from the slowly transforming being.

“STOP! JAE! HELP!”

His warm grin turned devilish and malicious as his canines elongated into fangs.

“NO!”

Her hands ended up on his neck to strangle him.

“GIVE ME BACK, JAE!”

~

She woke up in a cold sweat when she heard YoungJae’s voice screaming her name. Her eyes followed her arms to where her hands were…wrapped around YoungJae’s neck. With a gasp of surprise, she let go and gently rubbed the bruises that started to form from her tight grip. She apologized endlessly while YoungJae offered her a weary smile of reassurance, still trying to regain his breath but more worried for Kae.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…” she cried out as YoungJae began hugging her again, trying to calm her down. She nuzzled against his neck with a whimper.

“It’s okay…it was just a nightmare…you’re okay…don’t worry, I have you…”

“Please don’t put me in the black room…I don’t like the black room…I don’t like it…” she whimpered with a shaky voice as he rubbed circles on her back to assuage her. His action proved useful as Kae slowly fell back asleep.

And again, everything was peaceful.

Except YoungJae’s mind.

He frowned as he chewed on his lower lip.

~

Lightly, his finger tapped repeatedly on the keyboard. Soft clicking sounds resonated in the large and otherwise quiet room. However, nothing appeared on the computer screen before him. A long sigh broke the clicking noise, which ironically began to irritate the one that was responsible for the noise.

“Jae?”

He hummed idly in response, still staring at the screen.

“Is something bothering you?”

YoungJae could almost hear the pout in her voice, so he turned around and patted her on the head, ruffling her hair a little.

“Of course not. Can you go find DaeHyun for me?”

She stiffened at his name.

“…the male twin, Kae…”

“…”

He sighed and held her hand.

“I already talked to him. I promise you he will be nice to you, so I want you to make an effort too, okay? For me? Besides, if he does anything, you tell me and I’ll kill him,” he reassured.

“Why can’t Jae come with me…I don’t…Kae doesn’t like being away from Jae…” she asked, looking down.

“I have something I need to do, okay?”

He stayed strong despite her downcast look.

“Kae…I’ll be right here when you get back…” he promised.

At his promise, she looked up and smiled with a nod. With that said, she turned around and left YoungJae to himself.

“…how do I even start?” he muttered to himself, staring back at the blank screen. Another long sigh left his mouth before he decided to try something. His mind went back to the first time he met Kae again. She went from killer to child in a second.

Maybe…

“…weird mood swings?” he typed in and pressed enter.

“Hmm…bipolar disorder?”

He clicked the first link and read over it.

“…mood disorder…mania…appear excitable…difficulty with sleep…psychotic behavior…including violence…”

God, this was depressing. It sure sounded like Kae to him…maybe she was bipolar?

Hmm…but she didn’t exactly go through cycles of these weird mood swings as described, it was more like things set her off…

Regardless, this wasn’t a bad start to his search. Oh, what’s this?

“Can sometimes be misdiagnosed as having schizophrenia…” YoungJae scratched his head. From what he remembered about schizophrenia, it seemed unlikely that Kae would have it…although…it didn’t hurt to try. He clicked the link over the word into a new tab and began reading.

“…mental disorder…poor emotional responsiveness…social…dysfunction…”

He rubbed his forehead. These all sounded like Kae to him to be perfectly honest…

“Uh…Kae…what exactly is wrong with you?” YoungJae groaned as he placed his head on the table. Rather than being tired of researching, he was beginning to feel drained from the stress of actually finding out. Because then he would have to admit to himself that she was…mental…

“…maybe you do belong in a psych ward…” YoungJae mumbled sadly to himself. He wasn’t a doctor. He could look all this stuff up but he wasn’t trained to diagnose anything. He couldn’t take her to see anyone though…they might take her away from him, including the doctors at HQ. While he had sent Kae off because he didn’t want her seeing any of this stuff, he also remembered DaeHyun talking about EunWoo having some sort of medical interest. Maybe she could give him a better idea of what to look for because…he had no idea what he was doing.

Just as he was about to give up, he looked further down the page.

“Multiple…personality…disorder?”

“Be careful of the other ones…”

Kae’s words from when she attacked him that one night ran through his head.

“…other ones…” he repeated as he clicked on the link, “dissociative identity disorder.”

“…mental disorder…at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality states that alternately control a person’s behavior…” he read out loud before staring at his screen for awhile.

Could that be it?

Dissociative identity disorder?

It made the most sense to him…that…Kae that he met that night was nothing like the Kae he knew and yet it was clearly her. Are there other “Kaes” that he didn’t know about?

“More importantly…do you know, Kae?”

“Know what?”

A bunch of keyboard mashing and mouse clicking later, he turned around to a startled Kae and a judging DaeHyun, who had upgraded from lying motionless on a couch to hobbling around on crutches.

“N-Nothing!”

Kae pouted, “Is Jae keeping secrets from me?”

He stared silently at her face for much longer than Kae became comfortable with. A hand waved obnoxiously in front of his face broken him out of his stupor.

“…dude…you’re gonna bore holes into her…what did you call me over here for anyways? …and why couldn’t you have just called me? We both have cell phones, you know…or did you just feel the need to be an and make me walk?” DaeHyun demanded impatiently as Kae awkwardly moved towards YoungJae, clearly still very uncomfortable with being with DaeHyun. Realizing he might have scared the strange girl, he offered a small apologetic smile before turning back to YoungJae with a bored look on his face.

“Call your girlfriend for me.”

“…girlfriend?”

YoungJae rolled his eyes before sighing out, “Go EunWoo. Whatever you two are. I know you have her number.”

Their resident “brain” didn’t even bother hiding his smirk at the slight blush and stutter that came out of his clueless friend at the mention of the girl’s name.

“W-We aren’t dating! Besides, why do you want to talk to her?” DaeHyun fired back defensively.

“Because unlike everyone else around here, she actually went back to school and therefore is the most useful to me at the moment. Stop acting like an overprotective boyfriend if you aren’t dating and just call her for me. It’s not like I’m trying to pull moves on your girl, what kind of friend do you think I am?” YoungJae groaned in annoyance that he had to actually explain himself to this idiot he called his friend. With a twitch of irritation on DaeHyun’s side, he sighed in defeat, not really able to argue with YoungJae’s reasoning without sounding like “an overprotective boyfriend”…which he wasn’t…because…he wasn’t interested in EunWoo like that…nope…because he was still in denial.

“Oh, EunWoo, it’s YoungJae. I have a request for you. Could you find a few books at the library for me? …yeah, if you could look them up for me that would be good…you’re done with classes, right? …whatever works best for you…if you could photocopy it, it would probably be best. …oh, or you could use the scanner and send it to my email…yeah, let me give you my email address, that’ll probably work best.” He continued talking to EunWoo as DaeHyun shot him an odd look, clearly wondering what he was doing. Suddenly, YoungJae turned around and pointed at DaeHyun to Kae, signaling for him to watch her, as he got up and moved to the corner to talk in private about what exactly he wanted.

“What do you expect me t-” he started to yell in frustration as he threw both arms out while glaring at YoungJae’s back despite the fact that the other male couldn’t see him. DaeHyun stopped when he saw the terrified look on Kae’s face. He slowly put his arms down and sighed in defeat. He did promise YoungJae he would be nice to her…

“Hey, Kae?”

She flinched at her name before turning to DaeHyun, though not actually looking up at him. He scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

“Umm…I guess I haven’t really introduced myself…so…how about we start from the beginning?”

~

Dissociative identity disorder.

“A mental disorder characterized by at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality states that alternately control a person's behavior, and is accompanied by memory impairment for important information not explained by ordinary forgetfulness.”

“One of the most controversial psychiatric disorders with no clear consensus regarding its diagnosis or treatment.”

“Diagnosis is often difficult as there is considerable comorbidity with other mental disorders.”

“DID have been attributed to disruptions in memory caused by trauma and other forms of stress.”

“…the other ones…”

Kae…you might be more dangerous than I thought…

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Oh, credit to Wikipedia for all the stuff about the disorders because I was too lazy to find actual research articles and it would be what YoungJae would have probably used anyways.

…

/has nothing to say/

Oh wait, yes I do. YONGGUK, JUST GO DATE JIEUN ALREADY.

~Kira :3