Seventeen-year-old Jung Soojung stares out of her room's window, her chin resting on her soft palms. She watches the raindrops rolling down the windowpane, one droplet running down after the other. She notices how each droplet gets heavier once they touch another one, thus flowing down after a couple of seconds.

Call her weird, but that is pretty much the only entertainment she gets inside the room she has been sleeping at since she was a kid. She rarely goes outside, and maybe, it's acceptable for teenagers, but she has her own reasons. No, she does not play with her laptop and fangirl over hot celebrities or ridiculously perfect-looking boys that doesn't exist in real life; in other words, anime boys.

Seventeen-year-old Jung Soojung is scared.

Today is her seventeenth birthday, and she has yet received any phone calls or text messages. She could not really blame her friends, though. Soojung is the type of girl you would stay away from. No, she is not the school's bully or the drug-dealer that sells those somehow addictive medicines to those innocent souls at school, and neither is she the '' who has slept with the boys from the school's football team. No, she is not that kind of girl.

"Jung Soojung? You mean that Jung Soojung?" they will say if you ask them about her. "She's a freak. Did you hear her suddenly cry to herself in class this morning, and suddenly act as if nothing's wrong with exactly no traces of tears on her cheeks? That's creepy."

Her fingers trace the windowpane slowly. A sense of slight coldness creeps through the tips of her fingers as she does so. It is cold outside, causing the teenage girl to think that those water droplets she sees are melted ice. She sings the birthday song to herself, and her ears catch her own cracked voice, as if has just said each of the song's memorable lyrics. Sure, her parents and Jessica, her big sister, has wished her a happy sweet seventeenth, but it feels empty. She feels as if something inside her feeds on her happiness, leaving her with nothing but unexplainable misery.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you," she finally whispers to herself quite audibly, taking a deep breath after. "Happy birthday, happy birthday..." And then there is nothing but silence for nearly a moment, and Soojung immediately wish that it lasts for a near eternity instead of having a smooth voice running through her nerves, sending chills against her spine.

"Happy birthday to you."

She turns her head and look around the second the voice starts to fade. It sounds exactly like her, except that it is not cracked and it has a somewhat sweet yet dark aura surrounding it, lingering around the small room even though the singing itself has died down. No, this is not the first time the teenage girl has experienced this: she has been hearing a lot of voices that resembles hers in a more melodious tone ever since she was a little child. It changes as she grows up, as if it wants to match hers.

She shouldn't be thinking about it on her birthday, but it probably has something to do with her bipolarity, or so everyone calls it. Everything is somewhat peculiar, especially since she seems to be the only person suffering from whatever the hell she is facing right now. Bipolarity, extreme weirdness, possessed, or whatever they call it: those do not seem to completely match her condition right now. Possession, however, is pretty close to what she is facing. She has tried to look it up once, and sometimes, she feels like something or someone is trapped inside her body within her soul, waiting for that prison-like consciousness of hers to die down, letting it to take over her body completely.

“Soojung, honey?” She hears a faint voice calling her name. It isn’t her imagination; she recognizes the voice as her mother’s lovely voice. A small smile creeps on her face as she turns her body. She tries to part her closed lips and call her mother back, but no words come out. With a sigh, she gets up and opens the door. Mrs. Jung stands right in front of her, and the teenage girl hears a chuckle trying to escape through her mother’s closed lips.

Jung Soojung smiles a genuine smile and does a small bow unconsciously. “Mother,” she whispers, and to her dismay, it comes out rough. Her mother’s gaze trails from her bare foot to her daughter’s eyes; she sees dark circles around them, as if that pair of beautiful eyes haven’t earned themselves some rest for days. That, however, is something the family has gotten used to for some reasons.

“Well,” her mother begins to say, pausing to sniff a little, “I’m sorry to have broken this to you right now, but I hope it doesn’t destroy your mood or anything.”

The teenage girl shakes her head quickly. “Oh, no, I was in an awful state of boredom before. Hearing something would be lovely.” Though those words gives the approach of everything being fine, Soojung still bites her naturally red lips in anxiety. The somewhat uncomfortable tone in her mother’s voice before fills her mind with worries and slight insecurities, but since she has said that, there’s no turning back.

“I didn’t expect him to come at your birthday.” Mrs. Jung pauses to inhale an amount of air, only to exhale the air after. “But Dr. Kim is coming. He’s downstairs.”

The colour in Soojung’s face seems to fade away right after her brain processes those words. Dr. Kim is someone her mother calls since a week before. She claims for him to be a psychologist, and even she doesn’t want her daughter to be facing a psychologist, but she is forced to do this, for her daughter’s own sanity.

After roughly five minutes of convincing and persuading, Soojung finally goes down quite hesitantly. She takes a deep breath before stepping into the living room. The first person she sees is a rather handsome young man with a white coat that looks like a lab coat, making the teenage girl feel more anxious. For some reasons, it makes her feel like she is actually a lab rat and the man going under the title of a psychologist (or maybe even an exorcist, Soojung thought) is a mad scientist. For her, it is both possible and impossible at the same time. She might be delusional, like she has always been, or maybe her mind is trying to tell her something, for it happens sometimes.

“Hello,” the young man finally speaks, waking Soojung up from her thoughts and preventing her from being any more delusional. “You know, you shouldn’t daydream like that. Leaving your mind blank will make it easier for evil spirits to possess you.”

But I was thinking of something, the seventeen-year-old girl wants to argue, but she decides to stay quiet. She examines his features deeper and notices that he looks a bit too young and probably a bit too handsome to be a professional when it comes to handling people with mental problems. For her case, she might or might not be crazy, but even her mother is forced to think that she needs treatments and frequent therapies.

“You’re doing it again,” Dr. Kim points out with a slight chuckle. “Your mom might have introduced me as Doctor Kim or something, and yes, my family name is Kim. The name’s Kim Jongin, and it’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintanceship, Jung Soojung. Do you have any questions, before we start?”

Soojung finally releases the bitter words that have been hanging at the tip of her tongue. “Why do you have to come on my birthday?” she asks, looking at the psychologist as if she despises him. “Out of all days, why today?”

“Why, I didn’t expect that! Happy birthday, Soojung-ssi.” Dr. Kim extends his right arm and Soojung is forced to shake it. Though she is a bit surprised at how patient the man is, she still couldn’t actually make him an acquaintance or whatever that claims their relationship to be. “I promise,” he suddenly says, startling his so-called client. “I would try my best to not make you feel tense and all that.”

Even more bitter words come out of Soojung’s mouth. “Because you’re too scared of making actual promises that guarantee your words by a hundred percent?” she spits out, her voice finally coming back to her normally. If her mother were listening, she would lecture her about manners, but Soojung is an adult; she should know her manners by now.

Dr. Kim – or Jongin – still manages to act calm, when who knows; his blood is boiling on the inside. Soojung smiles in victory, but the smile doesn’t last for long when the psychologist replies with a clever comeback: the one that she should think about before acting all rude. “I am not scared, but I’d rather be a man who keeps his promises. When I say that I try, I will try and I am even trying right now. With that, I would at least be the person I want to be, even if it is just for a moment. If I am just like everyone else, saying things like ‘I promise that I will make you happy today’ or ‘I am responsible for your day’, I take responsibility for your day and I may carelessly break my promise at the end of the day,” he replied with the same calm tone in his voice.

That manages to keep more complaints and stupid arguments from Soojung crawl back to their brain cells in shame. She bites her lips, not sure what to answer him with. She is not harsh or anything: she has been facing quite a lot these days, and the close-to-last thing she wants is a random good looking yet annoying stranger talking to her.

But then, isn’t she the one being the scumbag?

“Fine, whatever,” she says, giving up on giving more dumb-witted comebacks. “What do you want to do with me?”

“Actually,” Jongin points out, literally pointing a finger at her. “I came here because of a phone call from your mother, I assume? But that doesn’t mean that I have no interest in your case, Soojung-ssi; though I don’t know what’s wrong with you, you seem interesting. So, I hate to say it, but I need your cooperation in something, otherwise it won’t work.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I understand that it might be hard, especially when I’m not even a friend, but I really need your help to open up,” Jongin says, gesturing Soojung to sit on a chair in front of him, as if she is a guest in the house. “Don’t hold anything in, just open up. This conversation will only be between the two of us, and for this time, I promise that everything won’t be leaked, even to your own mom.”

Soojung sits down and feels her muscles relax after Jongin has spoken. “Okay, I will,” she says quite uneasily. Opening up to someone is basically the hardest thing she will be doing, and no matter what, there will always be a slight feeling of distrust lingering on her, even begging for it to destroy itself. “But, Doctor, can we find somewhere else to talk? Somewhere private?”

Suddenly all the hatred and bitter words Soojung has for the young psychologist disappears in an instance. Something in what he says makes her feel more comfortable; convincing her mind that he is not worth her hate. Maybe it’s because of his somewhat calm yet persuasive words, and he seems to have that aura that makes her feel like he is worth her valuable trust.

Jongin shrugs. “Well, you’re the one to decide, miss,” he answers whilst checking his watch, waiting for another answer from the other.

“My room,” is what the teenage girl automatically answers. No, they aren’t going to do anything but talk, with Soojung hesitating and Jongin waiting for answers patiently.

“If you feel that it’s necessary and comfortable for you, close your eyes.”

Soojung’s eyelids start to close. She could not see anything but pitch-black darkness; neither could she see her doctor nod slightly. “What do you feel?” Jongin says again.

“Not as tense as before,” the teenage girl replies, her eyes still closed. The doctor lets out a small chuckle, realizing that his previous question is too general and could lead to many answers, or in other words: not specific enough.

“What I mean is, what do you feel these days? What makes me here right now?” he asks, unconsciously choosing his words wisely. Soojung pauses for a while to think: what details should she give him? Should she open up completely now?

She answers after a moment. “As if I am being watched,” she says, her voice slightly shaking. She opens her eyes slightly, and surprisingly, Jongin only nods at her answer without even spitting out quick judgements. But hey, Soojung thinks to herself, that is his job: to listen and to not judge so quickly. That’s how those kinds of people get money: they listen.

“Do you mind elaborating it for a bit?”

At this point, maybe it is okay for her to trust him. This is what you get for being judged basically 24/7 by society: you trust people that do not make instant conclusions about you, and the shallow pool of protection suddenly deepens for them. “I don’t know,” she answers truthfully, “I hear… voices. But it’s like hearing myself speak in a softer, yet scarier way. And it’s like someone has planted a hidden camera around me, but I don’t even know who’s watching me, nor do I know who is talking to me with my own voice.”

Jongin furrows his eyebrows. “I am not going to suggest going to an exorcist yet, but that does sound serious,” he comments, quickly taking out a notepad and a ballpoint pen to jot down her words. Hear voices, being watched, oblivious to those two, he scribbles. “Anything else?”

“They told me that I’m bipolar,” Soojung says monotonously. “According to them, I have sudden emotional changes, like I could be paying attention for a moment in class, and suddenly cry for no reasons for ten seconds, and watch the teacher again as if nothing happened.”

The doctor is quite surprised on how she could say that without breaking into tears. She does not even show any signs of pain, which makes her excellent at deceiving people into thinking that she is heartless and all that. If he has not looked deeper, he would be tricked as well. Somehow, he can feel the slight pain lingering on her chest. For a seventeen-year-old girl, she is indeed very strong.

He clicks his pen again and writes ‘bipolarity’ right below the scribbles he had written earlier. He then opens his mouth to say something, but takes it back quickly. Soojung does not even bother to look. “Okay.” He decides to replace what he was going to say. “Did anything bad happened to you in the past? Something traumatizing or tragic?”

Traumatizing or tragic: to say those words these days is like understating something. Jongin has faced a lot of people with horrible stories behind them back when he was working as a school’s counsellor. Even the word ‘abuse’ has been very familiar to his brain, and it’s not unusual that he finds schoolgirls in his office at that time, their cardigans covering the scars carved on their skin.

“Nothing, actually,” Soojung admits. “If anything, the monsters under my bed are real.”

Jongin blinks. “Monsters under your bed?” he repeats in the form of a question. “Soojung-ssi, what makes you think that they are real? Has anything happened before?"

"I don't know, Doctor. I know that I am delusional, but that's what I meant about being watched. It's like the monster is either inside of me or around me, and I think this is why everything that has happened to me happens," Soojung says, inhaling an amount of air. Just as she is about to continue, she hears the voice again.

"Keep your mouth shut, Soojung."

The girl turns around, and spares a glance to her sides. Nothing, as usual. She bites her lower lip anxiously, and to her dismay, it starts bleeding. It is probably because of her lip-biting habit which she has increased recently and the less water she had, but that is the least of her problems. The voice, unexpectedly, comes out even harsher and colder than her own voice when it's cracking. "Did you hear that?" Soojung finally utters out after a moment of silence.

"Hear what?" Jongin asks, looking around the room. His expression changes in an instant, even though his ears could not catch whatever Soojung just heard. "Tell me. It might be helpful."

"It told me to keep my mouth shut," Soojung answers, highly doubting that it would help Jongin. "This is the first time I hear it leave its sweetness for harshness."

Jongin nods understandingly. "I don't know, but try to go against it. Don't stay quiet; reveal everything you know," he says, receiving a small nod from Soojung.

And then she hears it again over and over again; much harsher and croakier than before each time it repeats itself. “Ignore them,” Jongin has told her when she looks frantic. With a deep breath, she mentally tells them to go away, as if sending a telepathy message. There is silence except for her own original voice, revealing clues about the ‘demon’ slowly. After she is done, she hears it again, this time saying something different, thus sending shivers down her spine in an instant.

“I can never forgive you for this.”