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ParamnesiaKyungsoo is the kind of boy who tiptoes through life with an air of caution. He looks before he leaps, thinks before he speaks, makes sure that every step is calculated three times over.
And so he stares at his patient, appraising and dissecting and looking for something - anything - that makes sense.
"What do you mean, Jongin?"
The boy sitting on the hospital bed, body curled unto itself, is nothing more than a shell. Jongin - or is it Kai, now? - sits up, fingers grasping the sheets so tightly that his knuckles turn white, and looks Kyungsoo straight in the eye.
"That wasn't me, that was Kai."
"No, Jongin," Kyungsoo says. He slows his words down, drags out the syllables and tastes the boy's name on his tongue. He may be new to this job, and Jongin may be the first patient he's ever had, but he graduated at the top of his class with good reason. "You are Jongin, and you fell down just now."
Jongin shakes his head violently. There's a furrow between his brows as he stares at Kyungsoo, and the elder is momentarily stunned by his unflinching gaze.
"Kai fell down, and someone helped him up," Jongin insists. "I think it was Sehun or Luhan, but I can't be sure."
It is times like these that his words seem lucid but don't make sense.
Kyungsoo lifts a hand slowly, rests it on Jongin's forearms. The younger's fists immediately unclench, blood rushing back to his hands, and Kyungsoo can't help the slight smile that finds its way onto his face.
A good doctor wouldn't touch his patients, but Kyungsoo never claimed to be one. The first couple of times he initiated contact - a shoulder rub here, a slight nudge there - the boy would stiffen up immediately, shoulders tense and rigid. But now, he has taken to Kyungsoo like flies to honey, relishes in the small touches that are given out like candy on Halloween. It's one of the reasons why Kyungsoo is the only one assigned to him.
"Sehun is under probation, and Luhan's discharged," Kyungsoo says. He wants to add 'for now' at the end, but he doesn't.
(Because they all find their way back here eventually, no matter how long it takes, their minds and thoughts too jumbled a mess for society.)
"Don't you feel the pain, though?" he asks, gesturing toward the boy's waist. His torso has been bandaged up thoroughly, and Kyungsoo knows that underneath the gauze lie bruises and scars.
"It's not from falling down," Jongin explains. He talks slowly, conscientiously, as if explaining to a child. "It's from practising too much. But it's not an injury, you know. I can still dance."
"Sure," Kyungsoo smiles.
From what he's heard, Jongin used to be quite the dance prodigy back in his day. Then the darkness crept in and flipped a switch, lodged it in place such that there was no going back.
Sometimes, when he's patrolling the grounds, he sees Jongin around - occasionally with Sehun or Luhan flanking him - and the boy will break into dance. He dances to the sound of the breeze and the low buzz of chatter and the shrill screams of another. He dances to nothing and everything.
This injury is one sustained from one such incident. Kyungsoo watched silently as Jongin twisted and turned, tripped over nothing and landed on his back with a loud thud. He watched as the nurses, Baekhyun and Jongdae, rushed forward and carried the boy, princess-style, to the infirmary.
"Be sure to rest up, okay?" Kyungsoo says. "I'll make sure the kitchen prepares cinnamon rolls for you."
He reaches a hand forward, ruffles Jongin's hair - it's a lot shorter now, the locks forcibly snipped off after they found the boy with half his head shoved down a can of white paint, claiming it's for his next showcase - and lets his hand caress the side of Jongin's face just so.
"Okay, Kyungsoo," Jongin smiles.
It's one of those smiles that reaches the eyes, almost convinces Kyungsoo that the boy is just as normal as he is. (That's not saying much, though.) It's entirely different from the confident smirks that occasionally appear, accompanied by an air of arrogance and unprecedented forwardness. This smile reminds him their walks around the grounds, talking about nothing and everything, laughing until their sides hurt.
His other fist is no longer clenched, Kyungsoo notices. The sheets aren't bunched up, knuckles no longer white. A wicked grin creeps onto the boy's face. Kyungsoo hears his own heart racing, feels the shiver of pleasure rush down his spine.
If he wasn't insane, Kyungsoo thinks, I'd fall in love with him.
Jongin - no, Kai - leans forward, a predatory glint in his eyes. Kyungsoo is completely still, his heart a mess of apprehension and curiosity and desire, head tilted to one side as he appraises the other.
A finger brushes itself across Kyungsoo's lips, thumb darting into the small space in between. Brazen and full of adrenaline, Kyungsoo gives the callused tips an experimental , his own fingers itching to do something, anything. They're still staring at each other, neither willing to back down.
It is over as soon as it begins. Kai leans back onto the bed, arms behind his head and an annoyingly satisfied smile on his face. Kyungsoo gives a small smirk of his own, one that hints at a promise and a future that is as uncertain as it is bleak.
He gets up and leaves, turns back one last time to see Jongin still staring at him. Their gazes lock, and once again it is a tug-of-war between the two. It is a game that produces no winners, no losers, only frustration and fleeting moments of bliss that slip away as soon as they start.
The boy smiles.
"See you tomorrow, Kyungsoo."
A/N: holy it's finished. thank you for all your feedback, subscribes and votes; every single one of them means a lot to me and I'm glad you found this story interesting enough to read. it's a bit of a mind. look up the dictionary definition of paramnesia, and take it as you may. :')
you can also read this story as a oneshot on my livejournal.
explanation of the story (warning it is LONG):
jongin was a patient with a mental illness all along; he stays at the hospital, sehun and luhan are fellow patients. the bakery is synonymous with kyungsoo's office, the dance studio with the grounds (i.e. outside of the ward, where he dances and basically spends all of his time). baekhyun and jongdae are nurses. kyungsoo is a psychiatrist. his first day at work = first time jongin meets him at the 'bakery'. (soo likes to offer him cinnamon rolls, bread and coffee during their sessions.)
because this is a hospital of my own conjuring, patient and doctor are allowed to interact freely; soo tries to help jongin's condition by establishing a somewhat more friendly relationship with jongin, talking with him and basically being friends. this, of course, becomes a more ual/romantic/????? thing as time goes on, as illustrated by jongin's fantasies (find out which of them are real lol) and soo's pov.
all scenes from chapters 1 to 4 in jongin's POV are a distortion of reality. essentially, there are three 'realities': the actual reality is one where he is a patient in the hospital (1), the second layer is that of kim jongin the dancer (2), and the third is kai (3). in chapters 1 to 4, all paragraphs are either 2 or 3. you can tell it's 2 because jongin is referred to as jongin, and kyungsoo as kyungsoo; for 3, kai/jongin's name is never stated outright in the narrative - only in quotes - and kyungsoo is referred to as D.O. instead. that's why certain instances play out differently, e.g. chapter 2 where jongin thinks he told kyungsoo the date of his showcase when, in actual fact, it was only in his head (i.e. reality 3) that that happened.
basically if you look through you'll be able to discern 2 from 3 though ultimately, 1 is the actual one. ...yeah I'm quite confused too but this is a mind fic for a reason so
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