He has had a handful of imaginary friends throughout the years.

The first one, Sanghyuk, taught him how to ride a bike.

The second one, Chanhee, kept him company as his parents settled the legalities of their divorce.

The third one, Youngbin, showed him how to seek refuge in music.

None of them felt quite as real as Zuho did.

The new school wasn't supposed to be a problem.

His parents had been ever so careful in choosing it — interviewing the entirety of the teaching staff as well as the school administration to ensure that they were fully capable of upholding the zero tolerance policy on bullying — but they had failed to take note of how horribly well-connected some of the students were, and it was due to these lapses in judgment that Seokwoo found that he was to become the of everyone's jokes once again.

How he managed to attract the wrong sort of attention was beyond him, but he found that all of his tormentors poked fun at the exact same things — his glasses, his too-long neck, his intelligence. His height, which should have been an advantage as he towered over everyone in his batch, only served to support his bullies' belief that he was a freak of nature. And in a school that catered to the upper one percent — kids who were rich enough that having sub-par marks didn't pose too big of a problem — studying diligently was viewed worthy of ridicule.

So Seokwoo kept to himself. Though he had mastered the art of blending in at the tender age of six, his tormentors had a knack for picking him out of the swarm of students. This spurred him to become more elusive, to find little-known routes and hiding places — buying him enough time to eat his meals in peace and evading the dreaded sound of his tormentors' footfalls.

For a while, it worked. He was able to survive a full week without any new bruises to show for it, but his strategy didn't hold up for very long. They were able to ferret out his hiding places one by one, even stumbling across a few that Seokwoo himself didn't know of. And when his reprieve was cut short, they were more ruthless than ever before.

It was Tuesday when they found him sitting in an unused classroom — the last of his sanctuaries. That night, he went home with a bruise on his cheek, the rest of the day's injuries tucked underneath his clothes. When his father asked about what happened, Seokwoo replied that he'd tripped on the stairs, hoping that his father would see through the lie.

With luck as rotten as his, it wasn't hard to fathom that things didn't quite work out the way he wanted them to. His father nodded, told him to put some ice on the bruise, and refocused on the presentation he'd been working on. Seokwoo grabbed the ice pack and tended to his injuries alone.

He was five years old when his sister died.

She was his best friend — perhaps the only real friend he has ever had. She was two years his senior, and though everyone seemed to hate Seokwoo right off the bat, she was an entirely different story. She attracted friends like a moth to a flame, but she never gave Seokwoo's bullies the time of day. You and me against the world, Seokwoo, she'd said. I'd never leave you behind.

Two months later, a car crash rendered her promise null and void. A month after that, Sanghyuk came into being, and Seokwoo's counselor concluded that his new friend was a coping mechanism.

 Seokwoo wasn't stupid.

Far from it, really; his grades were the highest in his batch, so he knew that the most logical thing to do was to tell his teachers about the torment he'd been enduring for the past six months. But he also knew that the students he'd be snitching on had friends in high places, and that in spite of the school's supposedly airtight anti-bullying regulations, his complaints would most likely fall on deaf ears.

So he kept his head down. He hid his bruises to the best of his ability — made easier by the fact that his bullies were ever so careful to rough him up where no one would see — and tried not to let the pain affect his academic performance. If he winced at odd times throughout the day, his father was too preoccupied to notice; and on the weekends he spent with his mother, she was far too intent in believing that nothing is wrong to notice if anything was amiss.

Seokwoo faced his problems alone, the way he always had ever since his sister died.

They say that most marriages end after the death of a child. 

The same was true for Seokwoo's parents. His sister's death had broken something in all of them, but it was his parents' marriage that was damaged beyond repair. His mother was sitting in the driver's seat when his sister died, making it all too easy for his father to cast the blame on her. In the eyes of the law, it was nothing but a tragic accident, but Seokwoo's father was too blinded by grief to see reason; and if Seokwoo was being honest, his mother looked like she blamed herself as well.

His parents' separation was finalized a year later. It was a long twelve months filled with legal jargon that his young mind couldn't possibly comprehend and more nannies than he could count on both of his hands; and in the end, he was allowed to spend the weekends with his mother, while his dad — as the more financially stable parent — served as his primary guardian.

They moved out of town, operating on the belief that a change of pace would make it easier to forget. Seokwoo's new neighbors were even worse than the previous ones, and he found himself favoring the company of a boy named Chanhee over theirs.

The neighborhood kids for seeing things that didn't exist. Seokwoo ignored their jibes, hoping they would grow tired of picking on someone who never fought back, but of course they never did.

It was a week before graduation when things finally came to a head. 

As painful as his tormentors' ministrations were, their blows always had some semblance of caution in them. They made sure to hit him hard enough to satisfy whatever urge they had to take their frustrations out on a living, breathing punching bag — but not so hard that Seokwoo would be moving too strangely, drawing attention to all the injuries he had sustained. It was a rickety system, one that was setting itself up for failure, and fail it did. One grossly miscalculated push caused him to tumble down the stairs, turning the world on its head before ultimately being smothered in black.

When he came to, he was surrounded by white, and for a few seconds he figured he must have gone to heaven. But there was an IV drip attached to his arm, and his parents were sitting slumped in plastic chairs on either side of the bed he was lying down on, causing him to conclude that he wound up in a hospital instead. He must have made some sort of noise, because before he knew it, his parents were engulfing him in a hug, miraculously mindful of his injuries despite their obvious enthusiasm.

Doctors filed into his room soon after, as well as representatives from his school's administrative staff. Seokwoo told them everything, then, finding that he was unable to lie when faced with the worry lines marring his parents' face and the bandages littered across his lanky frame. The school promised to consult his parents in doling out suitable punishment to the guilty parties, and his doctors suggested that he see a therapist — a suggestion he promptly refused a full two minutes before he slipped back under.

The next time he woke up, his parents were nowhere to be found, but in their stead was a boy with grey hair and a mouth that was quirked up at the corners.

Despite what his tormentors would have you believe, puberty had been kind to Seokwoo.

He shot up like a tree, lean muscle replacing what had once been just skin and bones. Though he looked gawky and too tall for his age, his newly acquired traits could have been his ticket out of the D-list had he been confident enough to use them — but the people sitting atop the social ladder made sure that he never would.

The ploy was obvious, far too obvious, and Seokwoo cursed himself for not having realized that much. At the time, however, he was desperate to believe that good people still existed out there — that he wasn't doomed to a life without friends, with only the occasional projections from his head to keep him company — and so he fell into their clutches all too easily.

He was young, lonely, and extremely naive — foolish enough to think that the popular crowd would invite him to one of their parties out of the goodness of their hearts; foolish enough to believe that wearing a giraffe costume to a pool party wasn't at all stupid if the aforementioned crowd said so.

The events that followed made yearbook history, and Seokwoo resolved not to speak to anyone at school — the only exceptions to the rule being his teachers and a boy named Youngbin who was two batches ahead of him. The latter didn't exist, as he was well aware, but he figured that having a fictional friend was better than not having any friends at all.

It took a month before Seokwoo’s doctors viewed him fit for discharge.

He found those four weeks to be absolutely grueling. His days revolved around taking his medicine, eating hopelessly unappetizing hospital food, and as little movement as possible. His ribs needed to set, which wouldn’t be possible if he kept squirming about — something his doctors tirelessly reminded him of. Really the only highlights of his hospital stay were the delivery of his high school diploma and the fact that his parents paid him more attention in that single month than they ever had in all the years that had passed since their separation.

But in the spaces between his doctors’ hourly visits and his parents’ fussing — he had, after two weeks, managed to convince them that they didn’t need to look after him around the clock — he talked to Zuho.

Zuho was everything that Seokwoo wasn’t — confident, sociable, and easygoing. Seokwoo knew, without a doubt, that Zuho wasn’t the kind of person who let people walk all over him. If Zuho ever wound up in the hospital like Seokwoo did, it would be because the former punched his way through a brawl — not because a bunch of teenagers shoved him down the stairs. Still, they got along surprisingly well, never mind the fact that were worlds apart. He could talk to Zuho about absolutely anything without fear of being judged, bringing about a feeling of ease that none of his previous counselors and therapists were able to achieve.

And though his doctors remained firm that he would have to meet with a psychiatrist eventually, he started getting better even without therapy — all owing to the grey-haired boy who sat at his bedside.

Two hours had passed since they broke into the abandoned sports center.

They were seated at the lip of the grimy old swimming pool, Seokwoo shivering slightly in the cold evening air. Zuho was right beside him, a couple of beat-up skateboards taking up residence in his lap. He wasn’t looking at Seokwoo, eyes fixated on some point in the darkness, but his voice — seemingly too loud inside the deserted building — wrapped around Seokwoo like a shawl.

“This is how it works,” Zuho stated, leaning back on his palms, “we live in a world where money rules practically everything. But if you’re an artist, well, your work is rarely appreciated. Some people make it big — they become renowned painters, best-selling authors. But the chances of that happening to just about anyone might as well be one in a million.”

Zuho crossed his legs then, shifting to face Seokwoo as he continued. “The sad thing is, when people do get famous, they let it get to their heads. They tell you that they haven’t changed, that they’re still doing what they do because it’s their passion, but that’s not really the case anymore. Whether they like it or not, money comes into play the minute people start wanting more of them. It isn’t about artistic expression anymore. It’s about releasing content that would reel in loads of profit. To hell with artistic integrity — just do your best to feed the capitalist machine.”

There was a beat of silence before Zuho bumped his leg against Seokwoo’s, both brows raised in question as the latter lets Zuho's words sink in.

“Well,” Seokwoo began, “I think you’re right. I also think you need to take a breather though. Wouldn’t want you to go full-on debate mode.” he added, a teasing lilt to his voice.

“Shut up.” was Zuho's only reply, his laughter sharp in the stillness of the night. “What you need to do is make use of this thing. I didn’t carry it all the way out here for nothing, you know.”

Seokwoo eyed the spare skateboard warily then, mind running a mile a minute with all the possible ways this could go wrong — he didn’t have the slightest clue when it came to riding the blasted thing, after all. But Zuho could be unbelievably persistent if he wanted to, and when the night drew to a close, the scrapes and bruises littered across Seokwoo’s arms were borne out of recreation rather than the harassment he was used to.

It took a while before his parents found out about Youngbin.

When they did, they made sure to set an appointment with a highly recommended therapist. Youngbin was the third imaginary friend Seokwoo has had, after all; and though his parents would never say it out loud, he knew they were worried that he was going insane. And so he went to every single session — never mind the fact that he has always hated therapy — just so he could put his parents' minds at ease.

In between his compliance and the ever-decreasing frequency of Youngbin's visits, Seokwoo's parents stopped worrying their heads off, but Seokwoo suspected that it had more to do with his therapist's words than anything. “His friends aren't imaginary — at least not completely.” his therapist had said. “The human brain can't invent new faces. Chances are, these are people he'd seen before. Maybe he bumped into them, maybe he passed them on the street. This is just his way of coping with stress.”

As relieved as his parents been after hearing those words, he didn't really like the explanation all that much. He could see their faces so clearly in his mind's eye — Sanghyuk's, Chanhee's, and Youngbin's. If three people really did have those faces in the real world, Seokwoo wouldn't know what to do if he ever met them. His friends — his imaginary friends — had gotten him through some of the lowest points of his life, and Seokwoo didn't want anyone to ruin the image he had of them.

What if the real Sanghyuk thought he was a freak? What if the real Chanhee made fun of his neck? What if the real Youngbin bullied him?

Those, Seokwoo thought, would be far more painful than anything he has had to endure so far.

Rain fell in buckets outside the library windows.

Seokwoo was curled up in an armchair, legs tucked underneath him as his eyes roamed the pages of a book propped up against his lap. Zuho was seated opposite him, thin legs dangling off of the arm of his chair as he shifted restlessly.

“Tell me again why we're cooped up inside.”

It sounded like a question more than anything, and Seokwoo heaved a sigh before turning his attention to the other boy.

“It's frickin' pouring outside, Zu.” he retorted, speaking slowly as if to a child.

His friend remained undeterred. “Exactly. Why aren't we running in the rain, then? I bet it's better than any of those steam jet showers or whatever the hell they're called.”

“One, they're called jet showers. And two, I'm really not that keen on getting sick.” Seokwoo reasoned, but his concerns were brushed aside with a lazy flick of the other's hand.

“Details. Come on, live a little. Isaac Newton didn't discover gravity by locking himself inside the house, you know.”

“Of course not. That story involves an apple tree, after all, and unless you think apple trees grow indoors — ”

A raised brow was all it took to shut him up, and by the end of the day, Seokwoo's temperature was through the roof.

He would argue that it was definitely worth it, though.

He can't really remember when Sanghyuk left.

If Seokwoo stopped to think about it, he wouldn't able to recall the exact moment any of his imaginary friends vanished. It was as if they were there for one day and gone the next, with the only indication of their existence — albeit imaginary — being the fact that they left him a little happier than he was before they showed up.

His psychiatrist — the newest one, the one he'd been asked to see after he started talking to Youngbin — had reasoned that he used his imaginary friends in order to cope with all of the stress he undergoes in his daily life, and Seokwoo can't really fault the aging doctor for his logic. It made perfect sense, after all — he met Sanghyuk after his sister's death, Chanhee stuck with him in the months that his parents settled their divorce, and Youngbin simply winked into existence after his old school mates had taken to dubbing him “giraffe boy”.

The way his psychiatrist sees it, this was how his imaginary friends worked — they show up, they help him cope, and once he is able to stand on his own two feet, they disappear.

Seokwoo hated how the most important bonds he had ever developed could be worded in such simple terms, but what he hated more than anything was the fact that his psychiatrist's statements rang true.

“I was starting to think you wouldn't show.”

The old swing set creaked under his and Zuho's combined weight, no amount of resentment coloring his tone despite the fact that he had waited half an hour for the grey-haired boy to show up.

“Ever heard of the phrase ‘fashionably late’, Kim Seokwoo?” Zuho quipped, the smile on his lips — a smile Seokwoo knew almost as well as his own — not quite reaching his eyes.

“I prefer the term ‘rude’.” Seokwoo fired back, nudging Zuho's foot with his own to redirect the other's gaze. “You all right?”

“I'm fine.” came the reply, Zuho shooting him a glance before looking away just as quickly. “Hey — didn't you say something about driving to Sungkyunkwan tomorrow?”

“Yeah. My parents thought we should scope the place out. You coming?”

“Nah. I mean it's not like you need me there.”

Seokwoo's brows creased into a frown — irked by both Zuho's words and his forced nonchalance — and he did his best to push back the anxiety those two sentences had caused.

“What are you talking about? Of course I need you there. Who else is gonna find places I can go to when I skip class?”

“I’m pretty sure that's what friends are for, Seokwoo.” Zuho replied, the chuckle that followed sounding all but sincere.

“I don't have friends. I don't need friends. I have you.”

Desperation crept into his voice then, hands wrapping around the swing's chains like a vice. His eyes could have drilled a hole onto the side of Zuho’s face with how long he had been staring, but the other boy wouldn't so much as look at him out of the corner of his eye.

Zuho's voice was quieter than he had ever heard it — “I can't let you keep living inside your own head.” — and that was when the dam broke. It was as if every single one of his fears bubbled up onto the surface, the tears that spilled out of his eyes making it difficult to see; and he knew right away that not remembering when his imaginary friends left would be far better than this — because Seokwoo hated farewells, has hated them ever since his sister said goodbye on the way to ballet practice and never came back, and now Zuho was leaving him too.

“You'll be all right, Seokwoo.” were the last words that fell from the other's lips.

By the time he stopped crying, Zuho was gone.

C-House was pretty decent as far as dormitories go.

If he was being honest, it was the bathrooms that really sealed the deal for Seokwoo. Each room had its own en suite, sparing him the potentially disastrous awkwardness that came with using communal shower rooms. Though his people skills weren't quite as atrocious as they were before — he had, after all, made a conscious effort to socialise with his fellow freshmen during the campus tour and the orientation — he wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of sharing bathroom space with an entire dormitory.

The rooming situation, though — that was going to take some getting used to. He was accustomed to isolation; has been since he was six years old. He worked alone, albeit not of his own volition, and he hasn't shared a living space with anyone since his sister died and he got a new room that belonged only to him.

So the thought of sharing this room — more than enough for a single person but erring on the side of cramped when housing two people — was a bit daunting. He and his roommate would be living in each other’s pockets for an entire semester, after all, and he could only hope that his tentative attempts at socialisation would be enough to pull him through in the following months.

And so he racked his brains for a proper introduction as he sifted through the boxes containing his possessions, intent on making the best possible impression — something that wouldn't tip his roommate off about all those years he'd spent at the bottom of the food chain.

He was placing his textbooks on the top of the desk he'd claimed for himself when the door creaked open, and in his haste to turn around and greet the newcomer, he managed to bump his head into the bookshelves lining the wall.

“Are you okay?” his would-be roommate asked, and Seokwoo coughed out a ‘yes’ as he turned around —

— and stopped.

Because the boy standing in the doorway might as well be Zuho's twin, the only difference being the black of his hair and the pitch of his voice — which was far deeper than the voice Zuho had spoken in.

“Yeah. I'm fine.” repeated Seokwoo, more to convince himself rather than the other boy. “Kim Seokwoo.”

The boy's grip was firm as he clasped Seokwoo's proffered hand. “Baek Juho.”