"What do you fear most in life Soojung?"

"Lack of purpose. Being unwanted. Abandonment."

"What constitutes those fears? Can you name any situations where these feelings have been ignited?"

Krystal slouched back into her chair, sighing as the wave of unwanted memories came flooding back all at once. She shut her eyes just for a moment.

Keep it together. You can't let people see you weak like this anymore.

"Are we done yet?" Krystal sighed, apparently indifferent towards the paid therapist trying to help her, "I'm bored of all these questions. They never change."

Ms Kim sighed too. Closing the notepad and clicking the pen shut on her lap, she stared at Krystal pensively. Her eyes were dark and poignant as they observed the young woman with an educated gaze, but whatever answers she searched for in Krystal's face, remained impossible to decode.

She raised an eyebrow at her patient, "Miss Jung, you do know your parents don't pay for these sessions so you can sit here rolling your eyes, right?"

Krystal scoffed, "And do you know that they don't pay you to have non-psychological opinions?"

"Lucky for me, I trained in business economics also - I can tell when sessions aren't cost-efficent."

Krystal scoffed, averting her eyes out of embarrassment. Her tongue was quick, but nothing could prepare her to go up against a trained psychologist who was clearly used to bratty college students.

"But now," Ms Kim sighed, rising from her chair before walking to her desk that stood before the window, "I'm going to end this session early." she then reached down to her desk, pressing the tape recorder 'off'. 

Krystal looked up at Ms Kim confused - she'd never usually stop recording their sessions despite Krystal's complaints - why had she suddenly changed tactics now?

"As an adult concerned for someone she's known for the past year," Ms Kim started, perching on the edge of her desk, the table plaque stating her name and doctor's title glinting in the early morning sunlight, the seemingly countless piles of patient files sprawled across the desk. Krystal figured her documents would be among them.

But nothing could distract her from the dread of the incoming question. It wasn't hard to guess what she'd be asked. 

"Are you okay, Krystal?"

Krystal sighed.

"I'm fine."

But that was just it. She wasn't. She didn't know whether she ever could be fine again - it was a possibility that was so desperately out of reach, yet Krystal had no idea how to reach it. It was like everything she cared so much about had been taken away from her in the space of a couple of years, and she was powerless to stop any of it from happening.

And now?

She had no idea what she was doing. Her goals seemed pointless, her targets meaningless. Even waking up in the morning didn't seem to excite her the way it once used to.

Krystal was just stuck in limbo, a paradox she had no hoping heck of escaping. 

"My questions," Ms Kim started, "They never change because your answers don't either, and until we can see some form of improvement, I'm not sure these sessions will be of any use much longer."

Krystal closed her eyes for second, as if it would help her block out the sudden hopelessness that overcame her, as if closing her eyes would actually blind her form the worthlessness surrounding her. 

"I'll try and be happier," Krystal smiled slightly, not feeling truth behind the words in the slightest.  

If Ms Kim picked up on this farce, she certainly didn't show it, "Okay. You're free to go."

Krystal was clearly surprised, "What, no motivational pep talk to get me feeling good about myself again? Not even an IHOP gift certificate that I won't use?"

Ms Kim laughed ever so slightly, "No strings attached, you're free to go."

Krystal looked up at her therapist wearily, cautious about whether or not to treat the dismissal as suspicious. But seeing no obvious deception, she slowly rose from the chair and made her way out of the mahogany-centric shrink-room, not sparing a second glance. 

Ms Kim however, sighed and stared detractedly down at Krystal's files on the table, the countless papers concerning this single patient. She gingerly pressed the 'on' switch button on her recorder. 

"Client has left the office, but again, Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy seems to have had little effect. Client meets most criteria for the ICD outline of Clinical Depression - consideration now must be given for the patient to begin drug therapy. If not, it is unlikely that the patient will ever recover."

~

"Well aren't you a happy one today?"

"Shut it Sulli," Krystal snapped as she threw her jacket onto the back of the sofa, setting her keys and purse on the side table after entering their apartment.

Sulli was sprawled across the sofa, completing whatever assignment was due in the next day, (probably another overdue Philosophy essay), her two creepy Sphinx cats milling about her lovingly. Krystal reeled slightly as one of them approached her to greet her. She was much more a dog person, not to mention they looked freaking creepy.

"You're home early. Have you passed assessments yet?" As per, Sulli wore less-than minimal clothing - only booty shorts and a tank top, apparently unaffected by the slight chill to the autumn air. The playfulness and warmth in Sulli's smile was reflected by her body language as she crouched to interrogate her housemate.

Krystal groaned as she lethargically threw herself onto the other sofa, "No."

"What?" Sulli asked in disbelief as she changed positions again, "Krystal, you've been attending that academy for almost a year now, when will I get my invite to a government event?"

Never, because I don't go to government prep-school on my Saturday mornings. I go to that on Tuesday afternoons, and I haven't even entered examinations. Instead, I'm stuck in an office with a shrink who is obsessed with mahogany furniture and has an abnormal abundances of IHOP vouchers.

Krystal hated lying to her friends. It wasn't that she took pleasure in it or actually wanted to lie, she just felt ashamed of the label that came with her disorder. 'Crazy', 'freak', 'psycho' were all just unfriendly labels that Krystal knew she'd never be able to shake off should she reveal her problem, so the best way to avoid the titles and stigma, was to not open up about it at all.

Some people tease. Certain people give up on you. 

"I just hope you're okay with that," Sulli pouted as she began to play with one of her cats, "I'd hate to think you're wasting time there." 

For some reason, Ms Kim's words echoed through Krystal's mind. Was she simply wasting her time in that shrink's office? If she showed no sign of getting better, what the heck could she do? She couldn't simply force herself to be happy, but surely there were ways she could be her old self again?

Before Krystal could reply to Sulli's concerns, the front door sounded as Amber arrived home. Krystal mumbled, "I'm no stranger to time-wasting."

"You're early," Amber observed as she took the grocery bags into the kitchen area, "What gives?"

"She still hasn't passed the test," Sulli commented as she contorted her cat into an angle that no cat she be contorted into. Krystal eyed the scene with disgust, the cat's bulging eyes freaking her out. Wanting to escape the animal's gaze, she made her way to the kitchen area to help Amber unload the shopping bags. 

Amber pulled a face at Krystal's 'failure', "Get some nerd to sit the paper for you, you'll pass in no time."

"Yeah, because that's the sort of thing government employers look for in their workers," Sulli teased from the sofa as the cat sprinted out from her clasps.

Krystal rolled her eyes, a smile playing at her lips, before Amber questioned her 'failure', "I don't know. I guess....I guess I just don't want to learn the stuff."

"But you know you need to, right?" Amber asked as they continued unloading the bags.

"Of course," Krystal defended, "Like I said, I just don't want to."

"Are there other ways you can enter the Foreign Office?" Amber was clearly trying to get Krystal to think seriously about her goals, but she wasn't having any of it. As a business major, sniffing out potentialities was Amber's forte, whilst the only thing that seemed remotely motivating and appealing for Krystal was the prospect of curling up in bed.

"She could cross the border?" Sulli suggested, apparently serious as she played with her other cat, "It'll get her foot in the door at least!"

"Probably," Krystal shrugged, ignoring Sulli's stupidity, "Not that I particularly want to look."

"In that case," Amber sighed, a hint of sarcasm in her tone and dramatic sigh, "I guess you don't particularly want to go to a party then, either."

"Party?!" Sulli immediately leapt up from the sofa, apparently forgetting about her work and throwing her other cat over her shoulder, "Who's is it? Where is it? Are there cute boys? Are they single?"

Krystal scoffed. Not only was Sulli's eagerness repulsive, but her readiness for male encounters was shocking. Krystal remembered their days in highschool when Sulli was the sweetest, most stereotypically innocent girl possible, god-fearing and abstinent - until she met her boyfriend. Krystal was never concerned much for him, she just remembered him being 10 or so years older, a penchant for poetry as well as a tumultuous love life. Amber hated him, for sure - still ranted about him from