"And that, sir, is what I like to call progress," Yongguk said proudly, flashing his award-winning gummy smile.

Himchan flashed a smile of his own, the kind of smile that made Yongguk's heart skip a beat, but he chose to ignore it.

"So," Himchan began, pencil still in his hand.

"Yeah?" Yongguk asked.

"Can I....wash my hands now?" Himchan asked, his face suddenly pale and unsure.

"No," Yongguk said firmly.

"But-"

"No. Progress is made by doing something difficult followed by not washing your hands. If you skip the last part, then the effort you made becomes useless," Yongguk informed him.

Himchan nodded in response.

"Well, I'm very proud of you for your progress today. You have to try not to wash or disinfect your hands after this also," Yongguk said, squashing the urge to pat Himchan on the head.

"I won't," Himchan promised.

Yongguk smiled gently at him in response.

"This is where I take my leave. I have another appointment to get to and I don't want to be late," Yongguk said smiling and turning to leave.

"Wait!" Himchan called out.

Yongguk turned around, confused but smiling.

Himchan blushed.

"I just wanted to know why you're always so on time. Never early, never late. Just right on time," Himchan said sheepishly, secretly wondering if Yongguk had OCD too, if maybe that's why he understood him so well.

Yongguk's smile dissappeared.

"Yongguk?"

Yongguk smiled again, obviously fake.

"I'll tell you when you're fully cured," Yongguk said.

That seemed reasonable to Himchan, but for some reason, Himchan was feeling selfish.

"But I accomplished something today. Don't you think that's worth the trade off?" Himchan asked hopefully.

"I don't," Yongguk said, turning to leave again.

Himchan got up from his seat and grabbed Yongguk's hand before he realized his gloves were still off.

"Himchan," Yongguk said, gesturing to where he was being grabbed but he didn't pull away.

"Please trust me. I'm trusting you. With my disease. With my sanity. With my hands. With my cracked skin and open wounds. The germs of your hands are entering my body as we speak and I'm trying not care because I trust you. Can't you trust me?" Himchan asked, tears forming in his eyes.

Yongguk watched as the first tear spilled over and slipped down his cheek, guilt filling ever fiber of his being. He didn't like the way Himchan made him feel as though he owed it to him to tell him his secret, even if Himchan wasn't doing it on purpose.

After watching the second and third tears spill over, Yongguk sighed deeply.

"Please stop crying. I'll tell you why I'm always so on time so please, stop crying," Yongguk soothed, wiping a tear from Himchan's cheek.

Himchan instinctually flinched before leaning into Yongguk's touch.

"When I had first started out as a therapist, I had few patients that weren't children, and it's still the same. But I had this one patient, a young man, about twenty years old, with a lot of issues. He saw people and things that didn't exist. He would tell me about them in our sessions, and I, of course, would listen. All of our sessions went like that until one day, he told me he loved me. He was very important to me, but I could only see him as a patient so I didn't return his feelings. He still continued to come to his normal sessions, and we eventually got closer, close enough for me to know his phone number and address for emergency situations.

"One day, he called me on my personal phone. Normally, I would have found this odd, but since it was him, i thought nothing of it and answered the phone. He told me that he was going to be killed by someone that I knew didn't exist if I didn't come over within the next thirty minutes. I thought of it as ridiculous at the time, but I went over there anyway, albeit it took me longer than thirty minutes. When I got to his house, two minutes late, I might add, I went into his room to find him dead, a gunshot wound to the head and a note beside him written in his own handwriting that said 'You were late.' Those three words have haunted me ever since. 'You were late'. A simple phrase that usually means nothing changed everything for me.

"And that is why I can't stand to be late. Not even two minutes, one minute, one second. I can't lose someone else important to me. Like you, Himchan. I doubt you noticed, but today when I came into your classroom, I came in at exactly the same time as the first time we met. It may not matter to you, or seem like a big deal, but to me, being late could mean losing another person that I love, and I couldn't bear that. I would be the one needing therapy," Yongguk said, adding a little humor at the end in a vain attempt to lighten the mood.

Himchan shakily wiped the tears that had formed in Yongguk's eyes, trying to comfort him and ignore his urges to wash his hands.

Yongguk smiled weakly at Himchan.

"I'm sorry, Himchan," Yongguk said.

"For what?" Himchan asked.

Yongguk placed Himchan's hand a little further down Yongguk's cheek and placed his own hand on Himchan's cheek. Before Himchan could question him, Yongguk's lips were on his for a fleeting moment before they were gone.

"For that," Yongguk said before turning around and leaving Himchan all alone and confused, one bare finger on his lips.

A/n:
Chapter 11! Long update this time in response to Bibieonni's question and also the realization that if I don't get this story moving, it'll end up being like 60 chapters. Sorry if this feels kind of off-the-wall. My bad.
Anyway, thank you for reading and subscribing! So much love!!!!!!!