900326

[or: Minseok learns to live. Luhan is taugh to smile sincerely.]

Title: 900326

pairing: (Xiuhan)

genre: angst, hospital, psychological

word count: -

warnings: mentions of mental illnesses and different abuses

summary: 

Minseok's home has been the four white walls in the hospital for as long as he can remember. As a bearer of the genetic disease cystic fibrosis he is forced to spend his life indoors, with the date of his death set before his 18th birthday. All that changes when a thin stranger with an unreadable gaze and faded, red Converse hides in his room without notice, and disappears so as well. And it seems like they both have something to teach each other.

Excerpt (most likely being changed to 3rd perspective):

“Where are you from?” I ask. It’s been silent for so long, and I point to my bed. “Sit,” I demand. I know I should be more careful if a random stranger bursts into my room, but I’m intrigued if anything. It’s not like I have anything better to do anyways, so I guess if he suddenly draws a knife and kills me, it’ll all be my fault.

The boy does what I say, as I keep still in my place by the window. “Block C,” he replies easily. “Block C, section 4.”

I take strolls through the hospital every now and then when I feel good enough to move over bigger distances, but I have never heard of Block C. I wonder why I’ve never thought about it before. I am in Block A. I’ve been to B, D, E and F. But I have never left a second thought to the missing letter. “I don’t think I’ve ever been there,” I say, my palms gripping the edges of the windowsill. This is fascinating indeed.

“Of course you haven’t,” the boy says, almost like he is used to say just that. He takes off the pair of red, worn All Stars hi-tops he is wearing, and crosses his legs in my bed. His white shirt hangs loosely around his body, and he straighten the ends of it as he sits down. “Because that’s where the twisted people go.”

I scan my brain, thinking about what the different places have to offer and who goes there.

“The mental hospital,” I let the words escape my lips, the obvious part of the hospital always left out. “That’s what you are, mental?”

The boy shrugs, giving me a lopsided smile. “That’s up to the individual person. I say I am perfectly healthy, with a twist to the average norm. Some doctors say I am mentally ill. Some say I am crazy. But how do you know where one term ends and another begin? All three are tangled in each other.”

He expects me to reply that he is crazy, I know it. I can see it in the way the corner of his mouth twitches ever so little; in the way his hands clutch the sheets of my bed to hard his knuckles turns white, ready to get up. He waits for me to throw him out of my room, screaming for the nurses to come get him. But I find his words perfectly reasonable. So I don’t answer them at all.

“What is your name?” I ask instead. The term ‘the boy’ doesn’t seem right to me anymore. Usually, I never bother to find out people's names as they are eventually switched out anyways, but now I find myself wanting to know.

“My name is Luhan,” A flash of surprise is seen in the depths of his eyes, but it comes and leaves in a matter of milliseconds. He realizes I’m not scared of him. A smirk threatens to play on my lips, but I suppress it.

“Is that your full name?” I tilt my head, leaning slightly forward. My bare feet aren’t touching the floor, and I swing them back and forth in a slow, even motion.

“I don’t know. I have no idea where I am from, really,” he says, shrugging. “It’s a real fun story -  but I’ll save that for another time.” He grins as he talks, wrapping his hands around his ankles.

I lean backwards against the window again, feeling the cold sensation from the surface creep over my skin in the back of my neck. It sends shivers down my spine, but I can’t leave out the small thought saying the shivers are because of this so-called Luhan, not because of the cold. I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around how easily he says it – no secrecy whatsoever. Like he doesn’t care if the world knows he’s mad. Is that how one becomes after a while?

“You don’t know?” I ask curiously. “You’ve never tried finding it out?”

Luhan shakes his head. “Dunno,” he confirms. “Of course I’ve tried finding out; the hospital wouldn’t want an unknown patient, would they? They’ve even tried hypnosis. As of now, I’m no one.” He looks strangely comfortable with the fact that in the eyes of the authorities, he’s a no one, someone without memory and a resident’s registration number. He seems so at ease, being a ghost to all the registers.

“And it doesn’t drive you crazy?” I just can’t follow him, but somehow it only makes me want to understand him more. Or maybe it’s not understanding, but rather mapping his way of thinking. Either way, I want to know.

Luhan tilts his head, smiling as he looks at me like I’m a naïve child. “Oh, but that’s the fun in it. In the end, it’s what makes it so interesting,”

I close my eyes, trying to understand what he says. In one way, I see the logic in his untraditional way of thinking. In another way, he seems too relaxed. Maybe it’s his way of dealing with it – brushing it of like dust on his shoulder.

I sigh, changing positions once more. Leaning my back against the windowsill again, I am facing Luhan with a clear view of his full figure. One of my legs is dangling in the empty air, as the other is leant against the other side of the sill. And I catch myself studying his clear, porcelain-like skin as to find any flaws in his appearance, something that could make him seem more real, if that was a possibility. “I wish I could think like you,” I say and lean my head against the window. “You make it sound so easy when you’re literally forgotten by Life,” Outside the rain falls down evenly, but I don’t even notice, as another colour has come onto my palette. The problem is, I can’t figure out which colour it is because just when I think I have, it changes. Luhan is a puzzle, one of those ten thousand pieces-sets it takes years to complete. It’s just nice that I have all my life to figure him out, because in that moment I decide that I’m going to solve him.

“Everything sounds easy when you want it to,” Luhan states. “It makes it a little bit better when you’re on the verge of going truly mad,”

I let out a laugh, raising my eyebrows at him. “Not when you’re me,” I reply. “When all you have is these walls and an infinite number of hours, even the simplest thoughts become mazes,”

“Then you just have to fill those hours with something, don’t you?” Luhan asks like it is the simplest thing in the world.

“You say it like it’s just putting a band aid over a scratch on the knee. Believe me, if I knew how, I’d fill them. The only problem is: If I try to go outside and do something, I’ll for sure get a lung infection and die. I only have myself in here, and you grow tired of yourself after some time.”

Luhan releases the grip on his ankles, and instead starts to rock back and forth restlessly. “Doesn’t it become lonely, after a while?”

“It’s quite weird, actually. It’s like getting something you didn’t want for Christmas. At first, you look at it and find it boring, not worth even being noticed. Then, after a while when you realize it’s the only thing you have left, you look closer and actually find it interesting. You begin to study it, and it replies in the same motions, making a friend. But then after a while, you grow tired of it and try to throw it away instead. The problem is, it’s pretty damn hard to get rid of yourself when you’re alone like this.”

Luhan didn’t answer me after that. He studies me for the longest time, before he stands up and puts on his red All Stars again. Walking over to the door he rests his hand on the door-handle, before he turns to me. I follow him with my eyes, without moving as I watch him get ready to leave.

But instead of just walking out, Luhan flashes me a smile. “It was interesting, talking to you. I’ll be sure to visit again, so be prepared,” he says before disappearing out the door, shutting it without a sound. And I sit there left, with only the messy bed sheets as the proof he was ever there. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen to twenty minutes he was here in total, and somehow it feels like he raised more questions than he answered. He is the strangest person I have ever encountered, surpassing the people in my books and on the streets by far. But interesting, he is surely interesting.