The feeling didn’t last.  I woke up at four the next morning, having spent the entire night in Ryeowook’s cot.  Despite the ungodly hour, I wasn’t very tired.  But I still felt like complete .  My first waking thought was something along the lines of: Ryeowook’s really warm and oh my God what I would give to stay with him like this for the rest of the day.  I didn’t remember every thought that flooded my brain shortly afterwards, but I did remember what happened yesterday.

“,” I hissed under my breath.  Yep.  That pretty much summed up every emotion I was feeling.  Images began to fill my vision, despite the fact that I couldn’t actually see anything except for the back of my eyelids.  If I could keep my eyes closed forever...

“Hyung?  Are you okay?”  I opened my eyes again to see Ryeowook’s concerned face a foot away from mine.

Nope.  Apparently wasn’t a good enough word to describe all that.  As Ryeowook’s eyes searched mine, the same sinking feeling that had been present all throughout last night came back.  It felt as if someone had placed a large dumbbell on my chest.  I had been wide-awake a mere few seconds ago, but I was suddenly tired again.  My head hurt just from thinking about everything I would have to do today.

“Huh?”  I had been watching Ryeowook’s mouth form words but I hadn’t heard a thing.

“You look really drained right now.”  His forehead creased.

“Oh.”  I shrugged off Ryeowook and sat up slowly.  I did a double take, alert once again.  My attention diverted from Ryeowook as I saw my mother standing in the room, looking at me with an amount of disgust equivalent to the amount in the glares I shot at Sunny when she wasn’t looking.  My throat began to close up, but I couldn’t even find the strength to cry out in frustration.  Frustration and disappointment and self-loathing and misery and every negative emotion in between.

I stared at the empty doorway with wide eyes.  My hands shook and my head spun  I hated the sadness I could never describe, the heaviness that came whenever I thought about my life and what I was being forced to do with it.

“You’re hallucinating, Sungmin, you know you’re hallucinating.  Stop it,” I mumbled to myself.  “Snap out of it, come on.”

“Hyung, are you okay?”  I became aware of Ryeowook’s hand on my arm.  “Do you need help?  I’m here if you need to talk.  Can you try your best to explain how you feel right now so I can help?”  I glanced back at him and took in his worried expression.

No.  No.  None of this is okay.  Look how low you’ve stooped now.  You can’t even work up the strength to pull yourself together and appear at least partially sane.  You can’t rely on Ryeowook forever, Lee Sungmin.  You should know that by now.  You’re pathetic, exactly like your own mother thinks you are.  None of this is okay.  Why are you even this sad?  Come on, get your together.  Answer Ryeowook at least.  Surely you can do that.

“Mm.”

“What the , Sungmin.  What did I just tell you?  You’re wallowing in your own self-pity.  Don’t think about how you just want to disappear and forget about your responsibilities.  Don’t think about how you just want to give up because even thinking about doing something is exhausting at this point.  Snap out of it.  Stop drowning in your own head.  You pathetic, stupid little--”

“Sungmin?”

I had been talking to myself again.

“I just--”  I struggled to put my words together.

Tell him what’s wrong so he can help.  Don’t tell him because it’s stupid.  Tell him because you know he does care.  But what if he doesn’t?  What if he’s just saying it to be nice?  It’s none of his business anyways.

“I’m just,” I said at last, much more slowly than I intended to.

Ryeowook nodded slowly.

“Just what?”

“I just-- I just really don’t want to deal with--”  I sighed and made a half-hearted attempt to shrug.  Something inside of me snapped and I glared at Ryeowook.  “Can you please just go away?  The last thing I want to do is talk to you right now and I’m so tired of this and just go away.  Please.  Get the out and--”

There was a silence as Ryeowook stared at me, his face blank.  It was then that I realized how harsh and jarring my voice and my words had become.  My eyes widened again.  I hadn’t meant it.  But wait, I had.  I didn’t want to deal with Ryeowook right now, even though I knew it was the best thing for me to do.  My eyes were still locked onto his, unable to look away.

“I--”  My voice shook and I felt tears flood my vision.  What was I supposed to do now?  Sungmin, now you’ve really ed things up.  Sungmin, you idiot.  Sungmin, you ing .  What has Ryeowook done to you?

But--

Shut up.  You’ve ed up already.

Before I could do something else I would regret, I got up and stormed out the door, closing it behind me.  I was surprised it wasn’t locked.  Someone must have forgotten to lock it the night before.  Or maybe it had already been opened before I had gotten up.  I stood just outside the room for over ten minutes to calm down before I realized what I had done.  Patients weren’t allowed outside their rooms before the nurses woke them up.  I tried the door.  It was locked from the outside.

I resisted the urge to hit my head against the metal as hard as I could.  Idiot, I snarled to myself.  This isn’t an awkward situation at all.  What were you thinking, going outside?  What good would going outside do you?  But when I knocked on the door gently, Ryeowook appeared within seconds and allowed me back in.  Surprisingly.  That was the last thing I expected him to do after what I had said to him.  So much for not doing anything rash, Lee Sungmin.

I didn’t feel entitled to get back into Ryeowook’s bed anymore and I wasn’t exactly calm.  I wanted to talk to him, but at the same time, I just wanted to be left alone.  My bed was really cold and I gathered the blankets around me more tightly and buried my head underneath my scratchy pillow.

“Sungmin hyung?”  I heard a quiet voice after a few minutes.  I inched the pillow away a little so that I could see.  Ryeowook’s face was a foot away from mine and he was holding out something grey.  As my eyes adjusted, I realized that it was my stuffed totoro.  I looked back up at Ryeowook and watched as he looked at me, then the stuffed animal, then the ground.

“I thought it might help a little,” he said softly.  He brought the totoro a little closer to me and I took it.  It didn’t really help, but I hadn’t expected it to.  If I had known what would help me, I would have already done it.

“Thanks,” I replied, tucking it under my covers and squeezing it.  Ryeowook was still kneeling on the ground and I adjusted my head so I wasn’t looking at him sideways.

“I know what it feels like.  Being yelled at for something that isn’t your fault, I mean.  I know the circumstances are different for everyone, but everything will turn out okay in the end.  I promise that everything will be fine in the end.  You’ve already survived for so long and I know you can keep it up.”

His words made me feel a bit better, knowing that at least he partially understood.  Not very much, but at least it was better than nothing.

“Thanks,” I repeated.  I still felt hollow inside.  I still felt like there was no point in trying anymore, that life had become so meaningless.  What was I going to do once I got out of here?  All I had to look forward to was stress and work and even more stress.  And what good was all that going to do me?  I clutched the stuffed animal so tightly that my hands began to shake.  Don’t think like that, Sungmin.  Ryeowook wouldn’t want you to think like that.

I looked back at Ryeowook, who had gone back to his own cot and was reading a manga while lying down.  I tried to distract myself by watching him instead of thinking about what would happen to me.  He flipped through the pages, his eyes moving across the panes slowly.  Occasionally, he would smile a tiny half-smile at the book, or shift in his blankets, or rub his eye while stifling a yawn.  Once, he glanced across the room at me and we made eye contact for a few seconds.  We looked at each other without talking, and Ryeowook suddenly smiled.  It was still a small smile, but it was still a whole one.

His smile didn’t really make me feel any happier or less crappy about myself.  But as the room grew slightly lighter as daylight arrived, I did feel a tiny bit more stable.  Not better, but more stable, and I told myself that it was a start.

The day went on as usual.  Just because I was-- as my mother would say-- ‘feeling out of it’, that didn’t mean the entire world stopped for me.  Life always went on.  Unfortunately.

It was also unfortunate that once Ryeowook left, my mood worsened.  It hadn’t been very high in the first place, but having Ryeowook there was comforting.  And he had left for his early breakfast, leaving me alone in our room with the exception of some very dangerous thoughts in my brain.

I ate my bland breakfast with some of the others, Ryeowook not being one of them, of course.  CL and I talked again while Sunny took our vitals.  Sunny asked me questions about my mental health.  The longer I sat there, watching her jot down notes, the more my mind began to drift off.  I mentally replayed my entire day so far while I answered the same questions I had been answering for days now.

It was all just so pointless.  There was no purpose behind anything I did.

The more I thought, the worse I felt.  I could feel something in me sinking but I didn’t know what to do about it.  My eyelids slid over my vision, too heavy for me to keep up.  Like the rest of my soul.  I was so tired.

“Sungmin-ssi?”

My head snapped up and I realized I had spaced out.

“Huh?”

“I said, how are you feeling?”  Sunny tilted her head to the side and spun her pen around her thumb.  “Is there anything wrong?”

Yes, everything’s wrong.  I feel like absolute and no amount of your medicine will change that.

“No,” I said shortly.  “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“Tired?  How much sleep did you get last night?  Would you like me to prescribe stronger sleeping pills?  Or perform a few tests to further analyze your sleeping habits?”

I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes.  I realized belatedly that Sunny was still watching me and that she had obviously noticed.  Sure enough--

“Is everything okay, Sungmin?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth.  “There’s nothing wrong and I don’t need sleeping pills.  I got more than enough sleep last night and I’m feeling fine.”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Sunny remarked in a concerned tone of voice, causing me to clench my fists under the table.  “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“No.  There’s nothing wrong,” I repeated slowly.

“Are you sure?  You know you can always come to me if--”

“Is there anything you can do to make talking to you less boring and pointless and stupid than it always is?”  I flared up and slammed my hand on the table, blurting out my thoughts without fully processing them and cutting off Sunny completely.  Too late, I realized my mistake and half brought up my hand to clap it to my mouth.  Then I put it back down.  .  If I remembered correctly, this was the second time I had said something rude to her.

Lee Sungmin, what have you done?  She’s going to contact your mother now.  She’ll tell her that you’re not making progress.  You’ll never get to go home.  But then again, what happens if you do get to go home?  Either way, your life is absolutely pointless and you’ll never be anyone.  You will be someone: the CEO of some big company.  But you will be no one because no one will ever care about anything other than that.  What’s the ing point?

I blinked and realized belatedly that I was crying, my lips trembling and tears dripping down my cheeks one at a time.  Sunny had never seen me cry.  She had seen me angry and enraged once, but never in tears.

God, Lee Sungmin.  What’s the matter with you?  With that thought, my hands began to shake and I started to sniffle.  Stop crying.  God ing DAMNIT, stop crying.

It didn’t work, of course.  Within a few seconds, I had broken down completely.  Only sniffles left me, not actual cries, but they were still pretty loud.  Stupid, stupid Sungmin.

I didn’t really know why I was crying.  You don’t even have a reason to cry.  This is just the way things are and you can’t change that.  You’re just being pathetic.  So ing pathetic, just like everyone thinks you are.  I cried harder and harder and I began to shake as tears continued to pour from my eyes.  Suddenly, I felt someone tugging at my arm.

“Sungmin, you need to get up.  Can you please get up for me?”  Sunny’s voice sounded muffled and faraway.  I really didn’t want to get up.  What was she going to make me do now?  But I was too tired to scream at her.  My feet robotically lifted my body up the chair and I brought up my hand to my face to wipe the snot dribbling from my nose.  But then Sunny prevented me from doing so.

Sunny was hugging me.  Sunny, the woman who had always treated me as if I was a toddler who was clueless to the way the world worked.  Sunny, one of the many doctors we made scathing remarks about when she was out of earshot.  Sunny, one of the most ignorant and annoying people I had met in the hospital.  And she was hugging me, patting my back gently and for once, completely silent.  She was a solid half-head shorter than me, but she stood on her toes and rested her chin on my shoulder, still completely silent.  Her petite arms were wrapped around my body tightly.

It was a very strange experience.  Sunny wasn’t exactly the first person I would go to if I wanted a hug, but for the first time since I had arrived at the hospital, she was actually  doing something useful.  As the minutes passed, my tears slowly stopped.

“I really shouldn’t be keeping you this long, Sungmin.  What do you have next?”

It was then that I realized just what I was doing.  I broke the hug immediately and practically leaped backwards, nearly crashing into a nearby folding chair.  Sunny opened to say something and looked at me, but then closed it.

“Physical therapy with Taecyeon.  In the common room,” I managed, trying to process what had just happened.  Sungmin, you’re supposed to hate Sunny.  You were just hugging her.  You were sniveling in her arms, for crying out loud.

“You’re already ten minutes late.”  Sunny glanced at the clock.  “Go on to your class and tell Taecyeon that you were with me.  It should be fine.”

Please don’t mention it.  Please don’t mention it.  Can we please just forget this ever happened?  It’s a one time thing.  It won’t happen again, I promise.  I rubbed my eyes again to get rid of any last teardrops and gave a quick bow to Sunny before darting across the room and heading for the door and closing my hand around the doorknob.

“Sungmin?”

.  My hand tightened around the cool metal.

“We need to talk later on, okay?  I want to know how I can help you for real.”  Her voice was slower and more serious than it usually was.  That was a bad sign.  A very bad sign.

.

I nodded to Sunny without making eye contact and headed out the room without another word.

I still don’t like you, Sunny.  Don’t think this changes anything between us.  I don’t trust you and I never will.

Sessions with Taecyeon were always difficult because of the amount of exercise we had to do.  I was always left huffing and puffing after each one because I wasn’t exactly the fittest person there, but this time, it was worse.  I was so mentally drained that my mind refused to give my body the proper commands.  Taecyeon had yelled at us again.  He always yelled at Heechul because he refused to put forth all his effort because he didn’t want to sweat and ruin his skin, but this time, he yelled at me too.  By the time the session finished and we all headed to lunch, my ears were ringing with his cries of ‘ALL THE WAY UP WHEN YOU DO CRUNCHES!” and “CHIN-TO-THE-ING-GROUND PUSHUPS!”

Lunch didn’t start out as anything special.  Heechul and I lined up together as we always did.  As fried rice with small strips of slightly stale bulgogi and noodle salad was shoved onto our plates, he complained about how unfair Taecyeon was by making him do an additional hundred jump ropes just because he had spoken out of turn at one point.  I listened as he talked about how annoying Leeteuk had been to him this morning, asking incessant questions and doting on him excessively.  Listening to Heechul talked always helped me because listening to others talk let me focus on something else besides my own problems so I wouldn’t be as stressed.  Or maybe it was the food that was helping.  Or maybe both.  As he gestured wildly with his hands and sighed in between mouthfuls of rice, I slowly recovered from my torpor and soon, my mind was able to function properly again and I wasn’t as tired.  I found my mind drifting back to Sunny once I was calmer and able to think without stressing out too much.

I wasn’t entirely sure how to judge her now.  Over two months at Incheon Psychiatric, and she was the first staff member to show me a genuine gesture of kindness.  She was also the most unexpected one to do so.  I washed down the salad with a gulp of water and remembered how she had hugged me.  She hadn’t said anything during the hug, hadn’t tried to convince me that everything would be okay if I just stayed positive or that other people had it worse than I did.  I hadn’t said anything, but this was the first time in those two months that she had actually listened to me.

Could it be that she wasn’t really that bad?  That maybe everyone else wasn’t really this bad?  I shook my head after a few seconds and stared at my plate, my eyes closed.  That wasn’t true.  That was ridiculous.  All the hospital staff treated all the patients as if they were stupid children, and that was a fact.  We all knew it to be true.  Sunny was no exception and she would never be the exception.

“Hey, Sungmin, what are you doing?”  I opened my eyes and turned to my left to see Heechul giving me a weird look.

“Thinking?”  I answered after a short while, unable to come up with a more clever response.

“About what?  How beautiful that cafeteria tray is?”  He removed all the plates and utensils from it and picked it up, waving it all around in the air and in my face.  I moved back to avoid getting hit and snatched it away from him, setting it back down.

“What was that for?”

“I was only doing the same thing you were doing.  Admiring the gorgeous hue of this tray.  Puke green.  Lovely isn’t it?  Though not as lovely as my flawless skin, right?  It’s too bad we don’t get puke green utensils to match the trays.”  I raised my eyebrows at Heechul’s words and let out a small chuckle.  There were times when Heechul was in such a bad mood that we all avoided him, even the doctors.  But the majority of the time, he was fun and playful and he made me smile with all the random things he said and did.  I smiled again at the mere thought of Heechul and his quirks.  The perks of being in a mental hospital.  Not entirely sure about the hospital staff, but at least the patients were fun to be around.  Not implying that Heechul was mental-- which he wasn’t and none of us were-- but that he was just an interesting and unique person to have as a friend.

“But the utensils are already lovely enough.  What would you call this, Heechul hyung?  Moldy blue cheese?  Or something more gross-sounding?”  I heard a familiar voice behind me and both Heechul and I whirled around to see one of the people I least expected to see.

“Ryeowook?”  My mouth fell open in surprise and I quickly closed it.  “Wait, I thought you weren’t allowed to come over here because--”  I struggled to find a way to phrase my next words without sounding tactless, but I couldn’t think of one.  Instead, I motioned my head towards the table in the far corner that Ryeowook usually sat.  TOP and Sooyoung were still there with the psychiatrist, but Ryeowook was right next to me.

“I finished my food early,” Ryeowook replied, glancing down at the ground for a moment.  “And they said that if I finish all my food without complaining for an entire two weeks, then I don’t have to sit at that table anymore.”  A small smile spread across his face and I smiled back.

“Oh, that’s great, Ryeowook!”  At the sight of my smile, Ryeowook’s smile grew wider, which caused my smile to grow wider as well.  I heard Heechul scoff gently and saw him shake his head as his gaze traveled between the two of us, but he ruffled Ryeowook’s hair and smiled as well before heading over to Hyuna’s table.

“Sungmin hyung?”  Ryeowook looked to make sure Heechul and the others couldn’t hear before he scooted closer to me.  I started to put another bite of rice into my mouth and nodded.

“Hmm?”  My heart rate sped up as I realized something.  Was he going to talk about how I had behaved this morning?  I didn’t want him to mention it.  I didn’t want to mess up anymore.

“I was wondering, remember that talent show we have coming up this week?”

“Yeah.  What about it?”

“Do you wanna do a duet together?”  Ryeowook’s eyes were around.  I stopped in surprise and swallowed the rice slowly.

“Why?  What for?”

“I don’t know.”  Ryeowook shrugged his bony shoulders.  “Just for fun.  It was just an idea.  Because you told me how you wanted to sing too right?”

“Well, I told you that I wanted to be a singer one day.  But that’s close enough.  Yeah?”

“So I was thinking that if you didn’t have anything else you wanted to do, we could both sing.  Since I already know for sure that I’m going to sing, I don’t know about you though.”

I didn’t know why the idea made me happy.  Maybe it was because I was reminded of my dreams of being a singer at SM and having a bit of experience singing to an audience-- even if it was a very small one-- would be good.  You know you can’t-- SHUT UP, you little-- can you please stop being so negative?  My God, come on, just--  I pushed the voices back down with a great effort and tried to get back on my train of thought.  Or maybe it was because I liked the idea of singing with Ryeowook, both of us doing something we both enjoyed.

“Okay,” I said cheerfully, feeling much better than I had felt earlier.  I was actually feeling kind of happy.  It was strange.  The thought of being happy was enough to make me happy.  Wait, that didn’t really make sense.  But oh well, it didn’t matter.

“Do you wanna start practicing today during recreational therapy?  We’re technically allowed to do whatever we want during then, so we could go ask if we could borrow an empty room or something.  I already have a few songs in mind and I can show them to you and you can see which one you think sounds best.”  Ryeowook was practically bouncing up and down with delight, and I broke out into a wider smile.  He was so childlike sometimes, even though he was already 16, almost an adult.  I didn’t see that childlike side of him very often, and it made me happy when I saw him that happier side of him.

Suddenly, the buzzer sounded, signalling the end of lunch and snapping me out of my thoughts.  I shoveled down the rest of the food on my tray while Ryeowook stood up and straightened the floor cushions around the low table.

“Recreational therapy?”  He said with a grin.

“Recreational therapy,” I replied, feeling much happier just by thinking about what we were going to do later.  The two of us parted ways and I joined CL.  She greeted me with a friendly wave and began talking about something.  We both started walking down the hall to the examination room where Sunny would take our vitals as usual, but then I realized something and CL’s voice was suddenly blocked out from my thoughts.

Sunny.  My face paled and I felt something in my chest stiffen up.  Sunny would be there.  And I didn’t want to deal with her right now.  At this point, there must have been a noticeably worried expression on my face, because CL suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me.

“Sungmin?  What’s wrong?”  Her face was marred with concern and I opened my mouth to say something.  I didn’t know what.  But it didn’t matter.  We happened to be in front of Sunny’s room, and she opened the door just then.

“CL, Sungmin, come on in!  It’s time to take your vital signs!”  Her voice was bright and perky as usual, and the sound of it made me nervous.  What was she going to do?  Was she going to mention anything in front of CL?  Then I remembered something else that she had said.

I didn’t want to talk to her, not now.  In fact, I didn’t want to talk to her ever.  I was worried about what she was going to do to me.  I was vulnerable and now she had something to hold over my head.  I was very confused about how I felt over Sunny.  Could she be trusted?

As Sunny began her usual routine, starting with taking our pulses, my mind spun.  I already knew she would ask to talk to me during recreational therapy.  She knew I was free then, but I wasn’t free, at least not this time.  I had to practice with Ryeowook and I had promised him that.  That was a legitimate excuse.  Furthermore, I still doubted Sunny.  I wasn’t ready.

I was sweating all throughout the examination.  If Sunny had noticed, she didn’t say anything.  When it was over half an hour later, I bolted up from my chair, running ahead of CL, who looked on curiously.  Sunny squeezed hand sanitizer onto her hands and gave me a look similar to that of CL’s.

“Sungmin-ssi?  Can I ask you to stay behind for a little while?  Recreational therapy is next and I want to take a little bit of time out of that to talk to you.”

I knew how to respond.

“No, I’m kind of busy today.  Sorry.  I’ll do it later on.  It can wait, right?”  The words tumbled out of my mouth clumsily as I stuttered over half of them.

“But--”  She took a step forward and I simultaneously took a step back.

“I have something really important to do today, but I’ll get back to you later.”  I gave a quick bow to her and rushed out of the room before she could say anything else.

Well, I guess it didn’t matter whether or not I decided I would trust Sunny.  Ryeowook was enough, right?  Ryeowook and the others.  They all confused me.  All of them except for Ryeowook and the others.

I started heading down the hall to find Ryeowook so that we could start practicing for the upcoming talent show.

Hi my readers/subscribers ^^ it's been such a long time omfg and I'm so, so sorry that I haven't updated this in literally 2 months... I've been meaning to write this for a long time and I just haven't found time until now... my brain conveniently chooses to write best when I have finals in two weeks O.O I should really start studying at this point instead of updating fics...

Okay honestly, this isn't my best writing... I literally wrote the last 3/4 of this chapter in a really big hurry because I got an idea and I wanted to get it down so it might not have the proper flow I want and some parts may seem abrupt and weird... also because it's been so long since I've updated and I feel bad for not updating... so I'm updating now and I'm really sorry if there's grammar mistakes or parts that seem really random (I'll go back and fix it all in the morning) and to those of you who are still here, thank you for being so patient ^^

Please comment, subscribe, and upvote if you haven't already, and have a lovely day everyone ^^