Yes, Jinwoo is beautiful, that’s what they say to Seunghoon when he compliments the other patient to Minho, but of course there are sides of Jinwoo that he doesn’t quite like to see. Or he does because it’s Jinwoo, but seeing those sides make him hate the world even more.

Seunghoon hates when he sees that smaller boy is having a break-down. Seunghoon hates when he sees the older one’s mania and happiness turn into self-hatred and sad songs, lonely nights and shutting everyone out. Seunghoon hates seeing new scars with blood around the edges on Jinwoo’s body. That is not beautiful, at all.

Seunghoon knows that Jinwoo thinks that Seunghoon’s psychotic episodes aren’t beautiful either, it’s not beautiful when Seunghoon is dragged into a room where he has to calm down while a nurse watches him. You know that’s not beautiful, it scares me , Jinwoo tells him while Seunghoon lights another cigarette and happily takes drags of it. He always offers Jinwoo some because he has seen Jinwoo smoke when they were in the Seoul mental ward together last time at the same time, but nowadays Jinwoo claims he doesn’t smoke. Bull , that’s what Seunghoon says but then again, you never know.

The first time Seunghoon was admitted to the mental ward was because his depression and psychotic episodes had taken over - Seunghoon was about to commit suicide, he was seeing things that shouldn’t be seen, Seunghoon thought that someone was out there, trying to kill him. Maybe Seunghoon shouldn’t have run away like he did, but he was found wandering around the streets of Seoul, totally psychotic and on the verge of psychosis. Seunghoon doesn’t remember anything from it, he doesn’t remember how he begged them to kill him, he doesn’t remember the alcohol reeking from him, he doesn’t remember anything, not even the first days in the ward. But if he remembers something, it’s meeting Jinwoo.

“Let me go, just let me go and die!” is heard from the hallways, and Seunghoon slowly rises from his bed. Nothing special, or hectic like this, usually happens in the ward, so it rises Seunghoon’s curiousness. The nurses have told him that he sounded like that when he was admitted - life drained out of him, all ready to do anything to die. Hopeless, senseless, faceless. He was a nobody to himself at that point, he didn’t feel anything, he had completely lost the will to live. But now, is there another one like Seunghoon? Is someone there to take his place so Seunghoon could go home? That is just bull, too much of wishful thinking because they won’t let Seunghoon go home in a long time, that’s what they said - something about changing and rising medications, something that Seunghoon didn’t care about. Seunghoon opens the door and sees a young boy - just like him - fighting against the nurses and doctors, trying to get himself free. The boy’s focus is broken when he sees Seunghoon standing in the hallway. Seunghoon flashes him a smile and the boy smiles back. Seunghoon thinks that the boy should smile more often.

“Do you think that we will go to hell? Or, is there even a place that is hell?” Jinwoo asks and continues Seunghoon’s hair, running his hands through it as Seunghoon lays his head on Jinwoo’s lap.

“I don’t know, to me this place where we live in is hell, so I hope I’ll get out here once I die. But I am such a bad person, so I don’t think I’ll get anywhere better. But I hope I’ll be with you, even once I die”, Seunghoon says and lights up his cigarette, taking a drag of it. It’s calming but nothing is as calming as Jinwoo being there. Nothing will ever compare to Jinwoo. Seunghoon’s mind is a wild place, thoughts going from place to place, messing each other up, but then there’s Jinwoo on who he can focus on any moment.

“Now you are just being a cheesy motherer”, Seunghoon can hear as Jinwoo’s lips turn into a smile, and he hopes that Jinwoo’s mind isn’t running out of place anymore as much as it used to, he hopes that maybe tomorrow Jinwoo won’t be in their bathroom crying his eyes out, wishing to see red when Seunghoon is trying his best to get Jinwoo to unlock the door. Seunghoon also hopes that Jinwoo won’t be running from a place to another, doing anything even because of the lightest of impulses

But then there is also Jinwoo hoping that he won’t wake up to a letter on his table from Seunghoon, saying that it’s his time to go. Jinwoo hopes that he doesn’t have to in the future search the whole house for Seunghoon who has gone hiding from the monsters he sees.

They both know they are hopeless cases, medication piling on them but not helping, wards not being useless when all they do is just not care what they say. -ups , may some say. Maybe they are.

And as Jinwoo presses a kiss on Seunghoon’s lips and as Seunghoon graps Jinwoo by the neck so it doesn’t end they both know that sometimes it’s okay to be like this. It’s okay to be not okay. And when they deepen the kiss, when Seunghoon sits up so he can kiss Jinwoo better, when their fingers brush on each other’s bare skin, sending shivers, maybe that’s when they know that the other accepts them the way they are. Seunghoon forgets the half-smoked cigarette, Jinwoo forgets the thoughts running in his head, and they both just focus on pulling each other closer, so close that they can feel like uniting.

In a way they are both poisoned but sometimes it’s okay.