They meet in October at the very end of a train platform.

  "Stop doing that," a deep voice chides. Jongin knows it, but he asks anyway, a hand on the side of his neck.

  "Doing what?"

  "That," Chanyeol says, frowning. "Cracking your neck. You know it's bad for you... What'll happen if you break your neck one day, hm?"

  To that, Jongin only shrugs. He's honest now. He's bitter- his hesitation and uncertainty and consideration had long since dissolved in the acid of his resentment. "Why do you care? Nothing will happen." His eyes find the mosaic tile, watching the lines climb each other until they drop off the ledge into gravel and train track. "I can't die."

  'm not real.

  He should have expected this, really, because Chanyeol has always accommodated him- has always listened to him whine and throw his life around like a joke- and perhaps this is why Jongin had deluded himself into thinking that patience was what his friend was moulded of. But as the horn blares and the breathe is wrenched from his throat Jongin still cannot help but be shocked, even as the colour drains from his skin and his neck is locked in breaking point.

  ah... this time, Chanyeol gets angry first.

  Screams ripple throughout the station, but Jongin cannot hear them over the sound of blood rushing to his ears. His wrists fly to the arms caged around his head, strong arms that trembled with the intent to snap his neck- and maybe Jongin should have listened, should have sought him out and apologised in the last month, but it's too late now. He can't breathe. He feels the pressure. It's on the wrong place.

  "You can't die?" Chanyeol seethes. The train station swims around him, a whirl of colours and blurring spots and hecan'tbreathehecan'tbreathehecan'tbreathe. "You aren't real, huh? You're just a subset of me- your very existence is dependent on me, isn't that right? So you won't die unless I die first- is that what you're saying?" A hysterical laugh rips out of his throat and it's so loud so strange so not-Chanyeol, grating against every fibre that knew his friend Chanyeol- who are you? "Since you seem to love the idea of breaking your neck so much- come now, little fool! I'll let you break it in the most satisfying, most thorough way possible!"

  This time, Jongin hears the screams. He drops and flies, like the lines on the mosaic tiles, and sees the train headlights, white and bright.

  White as rain sheets, white as lightning, white as the bone that cut the skin on his knuckles.

  Jongin wakes up alone in a white room.