Chanyeol lets out a pathetic yowl when he enters the apartment and Jongdae calls out his greeting from the kitchen. It’s not an unusual occurrence anymore. As days pass, it’s obvious that Chanyeol becomes more and more unhappy with his job. His once so bright smile fades and the joy he used to have while talking about his students has turned into a lacklustre rant about his boss. Jongdae wants to help, he really does, but he doesn’t know what to do.

He has tried, multiple times, to get Chanyeol to talk but the taller man usually dismisses him with a sad excuse for a smile and tells him not to worry. Except that’s not really possible.

Chanyeol doesn’t know how he changed Jongdae’s life but Jongdae’s on a mission to let him know. Instead of cleaning while the other three are at work, Jongdae works through memory after memory, trying to find a timeline that makes somewhat sense. He digs up old names he never thought he’d get to say out loud again and he recalls the incident that got him to Misty Vale in the first place. He hasn’t told either of them about his initial diagnosis and everything that followed. Jongdae reasons Joonmyun and Kyungsoo don’t need to know those details. But Chanyeol deserves to know, if only because he’s in distress and it would be a sweet reminder of how he’s not the failure his boss seems to think he is.

When the night falls over Seoul and the city is lit with artificial yellow, Jongdae knocks on the door to Chanyeol’s room. He’s oddly nervous although he knows he’s got nothing to be nervous about. This is a chapter of his life most people have tried to erase in hoping he’d become normal. But Jongdae isn’t normal and Chanyeol is a friend that deserves to know. The response from the other side of the door is a weak ‘door’s open’ and Jongdae opens it just a fraction to peer inside.

“Oh, hey,” Chanyeol says as he looks up from his desk. Jongdae tip-toes inside and sneaks a peak at the drawing Chanyeol has been looking at. It’s a child’s drawing, a tall stick man on the left side with a bunch of smaller stick boys and girls sprawled out towards the right. In the top right corner is the name Haeun spelled wrong.

“Haeun drew this for me today in recess to tell me I’m her favourite teacher.” Chanyeol pauses and looks at the drawing again, tracing the small stick figures with his index finger. “I hate it there. I feel like I’m going to hurt one of them when it’s all just too much. They’re constantly keeping an eye out on me to make sure I do it as they wish and I feel … I feel trapped,” he admits.

Jongdae rests his hand on Chanyeol’s shoulders and starts a light massage.

“Maybe it’s on time you find somewhere else?” Jongdae suggests and Chanyeol looks up with disbelief. Then he shakes his head and turns his gaze towards the desk again.

“Who would want to hire me?”

It sounds nothing like the Chanyeol he met to give up this easily and Jongdae presses his thumbs hard into the other man’s muscles, making him squirm under his grip.

“I would want to hire you if I was a principal of an elementary school,” he says and continues the massage. Chanyeol sighs.

“Maybe,” he says and Jongdae lets go of his shoulders.

“I would!”

Chanyeol turns around in his chair and looks at Jongdae with a tiny smile. It’s barely there, but it’s enough for Jongdae. At least for now. Knowing that he can still somewhat say the right thing makes everything just a little better.

“What’s up?” Chanyeol asks after a few seconds of silence. Jongdae stills when he remembers his purpose and he flops onto the bed instead, lying on his stomach. He takes a deep breath as Chanyeol’s chuckles float into the room behind him and then he turns so he can look at Chanyeol.

“I wanted to tell you about my time at Misty Vale,” Jongdae says. “But if you don’t have time it’s okay. It doesn’t have to be today.”

He’s kind of hoping it isn’t. Despite all the preparations he has done, the memories are still somewhat unpleasant and even with the medication, they unravel some of the voices and some of the distant hallucinations he once had. Jongdae has been free of psychosis ever since he started living with Chanyeol and taking his anti-psychotics, but he knows they’re lurking right beneath the surface, just like always.

It only takes a small mishap, a tiny gap to let the voices gain power and the battle will be bigger than it has ever been before.

Chanyeol rises from his chair and joins Jongdae on the bed. They’re lying in silence next to one another for a minute. The temperature in the room seems to climb with the anticipation and Jongdae’s mind is filtering through the lies and the things he actually wants to tell Chanyeol.

“Can I ask a question?” Chanyeol asks after a while and Jongdae feels his heart skip a beat with nerves. His fingertips are tingling like usual when he’s nervous and he feels his throat constrict a little. But this is Chanyeol and Chanyeol wouldn’t ask something Jongdae wouldn’t be able to decline answering. So Jongdae nods. Chanyeol can ask.

“What’s psychosis like?” Jongdae turns in bed so he’s lying on his back and staring at Chanyeol’s brown ceiling. Chanyeol follows his gaze while Jongdae organizes his thoughts. What’s psychosis like?

“It’s like … “ he starts and Chanyeol waits for him to continue. “You don’t really notice it. It’s not like you’re suddenly somewhere else and everything just overwhelms you. Hallucinations … I mean, my hallucinations at least, they usually start as a smell. Like when you’re outside and suddenly you smell something that doesn’t make sense. A flower in winter or coffee where there is absolutely none. Sometimes it’s fire. You just shrug it off. It doesn’t matter.

Then paranoia sets in but I guess this is individual. Paranoia sets in for me. You smell things, the voices in your mind tells you something is after you and you isolate yourself. At least I do. People tell you to do things and you just can’t because your mind tells you otherwise and you see it. The world is completely wrong when they tell you something isn’t there because you see it.”

Jongdae looks at Chanyeol.

“Close your eyes,” he demands and Chanyeol does so. “Ok, try to imagine what I’m telling you. You smell perfume. The perfect mix of fruity and oriental. A woman’s perfume. Right here in your room is the most delicious smelling of women’s perfumes. There hasn’t been a woman in here but the scent is certainly here. Nobody can tell you otherwise. Are you following me?”

Chanyeol nods but keeps his eyes closed so Jongdae continues.

“Now imagine a small voice in the back of your head that tells you there has been a woman in your room. You don’t know her and you have never seen her. But she has been here, the voice reassures you of that. She’s still here, in fact, but you can’t see her. The voice is persistent, though. You can smell her perfume, surely she’s here. She’s watching over you. She’s making sure you don’t do anything you’re not supposed to do. If you step out of line, she’ll punish you. You don’t know what kind of punishment, but she will punish you. That’s for sure.

And then you turn around and you see her in the mirror. You don’t have a mirror but you see her in the mirror you don’t have. So you go to tell Kyungsoo about the woman in the mirror and he scrunches up his nose and tells you it’s nonsense. But you saw her. You’re positive you saw her. She was right there. Kyungsoo tells you to go back to sleep. You can’t sleep now. Not when she’s there.

So you sleep on the couch, only to wake up to her standing over you. She’s laughing. The voice is telling you that you’ve done bad. You need to be punished. She continues laughing at you, her perfume overwhelming you and making you choke. It’s horrible. Joonmyun looks at you like you’re insane when you tell him to watch out for the woman behind him so he doesn’t step on her toes. But you’re not insane. She’s right there. You see her! Why can’t Kyungsoo and Joonmyun see her? Why do they not…”

Chanyeol opens his eyes and shudder and Jongdae stops his sentence.

“Man, that’s horrible!”

The taller man grabs his pillow and presses it against his chest. Jongdae shrugs a little. It’s been his world for so many years that even though he knows, he still can’t fight his psychosis when they become too strong. Jongdae has learned to live with the knowledge that he will sometimes wake up and find people scared of him and his reality.

“Of course it’s individual. This is just how mine are.”

“How do you live?” Chanyeol asks and then realizes how his question sounds and covers his mouth with his hand.

“I didn’t mean…” he tries but Jongdae knows exactly what he means. He isn’t offended either. Jongdae has asked the same question many times over and over again except when in psychosis.

For many years Jongdae didn’t want to live with such debilitating disease, didn’t want to live as a failure but he’s still here because God knows why and for that he’s thankful.

“It’s okay. I wanted to die before, but the meds really do miracles. And I got a good friend who took me serious despite the schizophrenia.”

It takes a while before Chanyeol realizes he’s the friend and when he does, he splutters in his haste to say something in defense. Jongdae laughs out loud and it is refreshing. He might not have told Chanyeol everything he had planned but it’s okay. It can wait.

The road to finishing high school as a 25-year old man is a lot more complicated than Jongdae thought it would be. He can’t enrol in a normal high school and adult education is more expensive. Even if it isn’t private, it would still cost him a lot of money.

Joonmyun has been telling him to go back home, talk it over with his parents, and even though Jongdae calls his mother twice weekly and has met her for coffee in various cafés, he’s still to go back home and stay there. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t afraid of going back home.

The idea that he doesn’t need his medication was what brought him to Chanyeol in the first place and even though Joonmyun and Kyungsoo has accepted that he’s there as a fourth roommate by now, Jongdae still can’t help but feel like he’s intruding and that going home would prevent him from coming back as more than a friend for a few hours. Even though he had been so determined in the sun, Jongdae is starting to lose his motivation.

Chanyeol’s lack of fight in his own struggle affects all of them as well. They all know there needs to be changes if everything has to work and even Joonmyun and Kyungsoo have started telling Chanyeol to look for other jobs. Kyungsoo even offered to speak to his boss despite working at a middle school. It’s all to no avail, however.

Jongdae has started to clean the apartment again to get his mind off of his lack of education and the challenge that getting one is. To his surprise, Chanyeol has joined in with a smile and the excuse it’s easier to clean when they’re two.

They laugh a lot when they balance on each other’s shoulders to dust off the top shelves of the book case. They dance and sing like a couple of fools while they wash the living room floor. They act out Romeo and Juliet as they clean the kitchen and wash the dishes. They fight each other in a grand battle with the vacuum cleaners but when they sit down on the couch after a hard day’s work, they get to tell each other silly little things.

Chanyeol tells Jongdae about his older sister and his niece. He relates stories of past friends and girlfriends. He talks about overseas travels and those camping trips that was in the next town over. There are plenty of things to see and plenty of people to meet and when Chanyeol isn’t thinking of his job situation, his enthusiasm for the world is inspiring.

Jongdae, on the other hand, gets to tell Chanyeol about the first psychosis that got him his diagnosis and his admission to Misty Vale. He talks about Eunjung, his favourite nurse who never gave up hope. He tells Chanyeol about the people he met and how he saw them get discharged. He retells the psychosis when he met Chanyeol, resulting in Chanyeol waking him up in the middle of night, complaining of nightmares.

 On a sunny day when the temperature is too high to be outside, Chanyeol finally proposes the idea that they clean the entire apartment, including their bedrooms. Cleaning Chanyeol’s bedroom is without surprises. Joonmyun’s is by far the messiest and it takes a while to clean but when it shines, the satisfaction is so much bigger.

Going into Kyungsoo’s room is like entering a different universe. The walls are the same grey as the rest of the apartment and the bed is covered with a blue bedsheet like Joonmyun’s, but that’s about where the similarities end. His desk is filled with nail polish in every color, a small mirror stands proud in the left corner stacked on top a couple of books.

The make-up palettes are bigger than Jongdae has ever seen them and the pencil holder holds eyeliners instead of pencils. Chanyeol lifts a picture he finds on the shelves. It’s of two women in extravagant clothing and with make-up flawlessly painted on their faces. They look stunning in their confidence.

“I didn’t know Kyungsoo had a girlfriend,” Jongdae says when he takes the picture from Chanyeol to study it closer. One of the women look oddly familiar. Chanyeol shrugs and continues dusting the shelves, removing jewelry he has never seen Kyungsoo wear and putting it back in disarray.

“I didn’t know either.”

Chanyeol shrugs a little when he deems the shelves clean enough and he rearranges a bracelet so it looks a little neater. Jongdae finishes with the desk and tilts his head slightly as he observes his work. It looks almost as neat as when he started but Kyungsoo can’t possibly care if purple is now next to green instead of red. It’s the small details.

They open the closet and stares at dresses they never in their wildest fantasy had imagined they’d watch. They are big and bold, some without much coverage and other’s as the most amazing ballgowns ever to have been created. In the right corner of the closet is a sewing machine on top of a box that reads “sewing”. There are a good 20 pairs of stilettos. It’s all just really confusing.

It’s Chanyeol that starts it first when he pulls out a dress and holds it up to his large frame. Chanyeol is much taller than whoever the dress is intended for because it looks way too short, barely covering his crotch. He snickers and Jongdae pulls out a pair of stripper heels with black lace. They are only a little bit too small and he stumbles when he finally forces his toes in.

Chanyeol starts laughing as he watches Jongdae almost break his ankles on the heels. Together they walk through the feminine clothing in Kyungsoo’s closet, questioning his ghost about the girlfriend neither of them knows he has.

A sharp cough sounds from the doorway and Jongdae whips around so quickly he loses his balance and Chanyeol has to catch him to prevent him from falling flat on the floor. Kyungsoo stands in the doorway, clearly displeased with their shenanigans, hands tightening around his map and his eyes murderous. Jongdae looks down and tries with all his might to drop the shoes and Chanyeol stammers out something that is supposed to sound like “it wasn’t our fault”. Kyungsoo takes none of it as an answer.

“Get out. Get out right now!”

When Jongdae finally gets the shoes off, he hurries away and Chanyeol stammers out more apologies on his way out. Kyungsoo glares at them before he shuts the door with such power that the apartment shakes.

 It would be a lie to say that Jongdae doesn’t avoid Kyungsoo in the days to follow. He hides behind Joonmyun for breakfast, ropes Chanyeol into playing with him in the afternoon and apologizes when he meets Kyungsoo in front of the bathroom. Kyungsoo is still visibly annoyed with both of them, his remarks sharper than usual, but after 10 days Joonmyun has had enough with the drama and he threatens to lock both of them in the bathroom if they don’t resolve whatever it is that’s going on.

Jongdae considers which of the two options are scarier but he’s left without the choice when he, on a Thursday afternoon, receives a text that Chanyeol and Joonmyun has been roped into a meeting at work. That means Kyungsoo will be the first to arrive home and while Jongdae could hide in Chanyeol’s room, it’s also slightly immature to do so.

Not that Jongdae cared in the past but he has learned a lot and hiding away is getting kind of silly. So he decides to do the right thing - face Kyungsoo.

And when Kyungsoo arrives home, Jongdae doubts his decision and almost flees back into hiding. Kyungsoo doesn’t let him, however.

“Look, this is stupid. I’ll tell you my secret if you promise not to tell the other two,” he says while his fist is holding Jongdae in place, making sure he doesn’t run away. Jongdae looks at the floor and takes a deep breath. Facing Kyungsoo is more terrifying than a psychosis. He can’t believe he just thought that. Then he nods and looks up. Kyungsoo sighs and lets go of Jongdae’s shirt before he plops down on the couch. He leans back and stares at the ceiling and Jongdae stands in front of him, waiting anxiously for what’s about to come.

“It’s all mine.” It takes Jongdae by surprise and he blinks twice. What is that supposed to mean?

“What?” he asks meekly and Kyungsoo sends him a lopsided smile that is so beside what he has sent Jongdae in the past days.

“The clothes, the make-up, the shoes which you thankfully didn’t expand. It’s all mine. Wait here,” he says and gets up and Jongdae sits down instead, trying hard to make any sense of what he’s being told. How can all that belong to Kyungsoo? Kyungsoo comes back with the same photo Jongdae and Chanyeol found on the shelf when they were cleaning and sits down next to him. He hands it over and Jongdae stares at it, not knowing what to see. One of the girls is still oddly familiar but he doesn’t make the connection before Kyungsoo leans in and points to her.

“Ms. Charisma and her friend Flawless Min,” he says and sends the picture a small smile.

“Eh?” Jongdae squeaks and looks up. “It’s you?!”

Kyungsoo shrugs a little and fishes for his phone when he gets a text message.

“How do you expect me to keep this secret? You’re a drag queen!” Jongdae whispers to the picture and when he looks up, Kyungsoo is staring at him with a glare. “Don’t you dare tell those idiots!” he says and Jongdae covers a little in the couch. “But it’s so unfair. You can’t just show me this and expect me not to say anything. I’m so sorry we messed with your stuff. We thought you had a secret girlfriend. Kyungsooooo,” he whines but Kyungsoo doesn’t bow down. Eating dinner with Chanyeol and Joonmyun is a struggle but every time the words are about to slip, Kyungsoo fixes him with a stare that makes it easy to swallow them again.

 When Jongdae receives the confirmation email at midnight, he screams so loud he wakes up all three of his roommates. Neither of them is happy with being awakened on a Wednesday night but Jongdae only cares little. He is going to study for his high school diploma. He’s got accepted to the adult education and now there’s nothing that can stop him from finally getting on with his life. Jongdae doesn’t have to feel like a burden anymore.

In the darkness of the living room he calls his mother who is too tired to be excited for him, but Jongdae knows she cares.

He told his parents about his plans when he visited them a weekend a couple of weeks ago. It had been a weekend away from the apartment and yet they had allowed him his medication and him leaving on Sunday, to go back to being independent with friends. For once, it seems like Jongdae’s life is finally making sense ever since he got diagnosed at the age of 15.

In the morning, Jongdae tells them all again, just to make sure they haven’t forgotten. He even manages to get them lured into celebrating. Jongdae spends the entire day restless with unburned energy. He can’t wait to go out for dinner and get started on the life he has only now realized is possible to live.

Living with Chanyeol has opened so many doors and it feels refreshing.

Jongdae is more than ready to head out for dinner in the afternoon. Joonmyun is on the phone with Jiyeon, a teacher he’s been crushing ever since he started working, and Kyungsoo is grading papers. Chanyeol sits quietly on the kitchen counter, picking his nails while his bangs fall into his eyes. He’s brooding over his job situation like always. Jongdae has tried his best to be a friend, but even with his advice, Chanyeol keeps brooding, keeps creating lists of pros and cons. Jongdae honestly can’t think of any pros to his job but it’s been days since he last told the taller man. He doesn’t need their advice anymore and Jongdae respects that, even if it worries him that Chanyeol looks consistently tired when he returns from work.

“I did it!” Chanyeol suddenly shouts, surprising all of his roommates. Jongdae is the first in the kitchen, leaning against his legs so he can look at the phone in Chanyeol’s hand. On the screen is a picture of an email with the topic termination of contract.

“You … quit?” Jongdae asks, not quite managing to cover the hope in his voice. Chanyeol looks towards him, towering over the small man as he stays on the counter top.

“Yeah.” He pauses for a few seconds. “Yeah. I really did it. , I did it!”

Kyungsoo lowers his glasses from his nose bridge as he enters the kitchen just when Jongdae lets out a shrill scream of excitement.

“Did you really think this through?” he asks and both Chanyeol and Jongdae turns around to face him with incredulous glances. After a few seconds the tallest of them nods and sends the other man a smile.

“Yes, I did. I spent 2 months thinking this through. Jongdae’s starting a new life by getting a high school diploma. It’s on time I get a job I actually like,” he says and puts a hand on Jongdae’s shoulder as he slips to the floor. Jongdae doesn’t want to admit it but he feels proud that his decision to start school again is what have driven Chanyeol towards finding a new job.

“I guess we have more to celebrate today then,” Kyungsoo says with a smile before he leaves the two of them in the kitchen. Jongdae turns around with a smirk and raises his hand and Chanyeol connects their palms in a high-five.

They’re sitting at a table in a small restaurant. It’s not fancy but Joonmyun swears the food is amazing. There’s a grill in the middle, meat sizzling away as a waitress places their side dishes. Jongdae’s mouth is already watering from the smell and the company of friends is making him happier than he has ever been. The voices are easy to squash when his reality is proof that they’re lying. He no longer suffers from side effects and it’s been almost 6 months without visual hallucinations. Jongdae is at his best and he’s the most comfortable he has been in years.

“Hey guys,” Kyungsoo suddenly says, looking up from his phone to steal a piece of meat from Joonmyun. “Do you mind if my friend Minseok joins us?”

Neither of them minds.

Chanyeol is back to being optimistic, his enthusiasm soaring high and the belief of a better future evident in his speech. His gestures are wide, and he ends up whacking everybody at least once but neither take much offense because his happiness is the most important thing and he shines so beautifully nobody wants to tear him down. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t get teased about being tall, gangly and clumsy.

When Minseok joins them, Jongdae does a double take. Then he blinks twice and tilts his head for another view. There, sitting right beside Kyungsoo, is the male version of Flawless Min. The only person who could possibly embody the woman in the picture next to a drag queen Kyungsoo.

“Flawless Min?” he asks. Kyungsoo sends him a glare, Minseok laughs and nods and Joonmyun and Chanyeol turns to look at him questioningly.

“I thought he’d never tell anybody,” Minseok admits. Jongdae bites his lower lip and tries to get eye contact with Kyungsoo who has fixed his gaze on the meat.

“Tell anybody what?” Joonmyun asks. Chanyeol nudges Jongdae, hoping for a quick answer but gets nothing as Jongdae refuses to say another word. It’s not his fault that Kyungsoo invited Flawless Min to join them. Even though it’s without the drag, Jongdae’s mind still shows him the picture of two men dressed as queens in impeccable make-up.

“About the show,” Minseok says, drawing out his sentence as if he’s regretting he’s ever said anything. “I told him not to be ashamed of it, but …”

Kyungsoo lets his head fall onto the table, a piece of lettuce dangerously close to lodging itself in his hair.

“Ashamed of what?” Chanyeol is now looking curiously at Minseok, his eyes practically begging the smaller man to spill whatever beans Kyungsoo has been keeping secret.

“I’m a drag queen,” Kyungsoo mutters into the table. Everybody turns to look at him and he repeats it, higher this time around. “I’m a drag queen and no, you can’t come to the show Chanyeol.”

The protests that spread around the table has Jongdae exhaling in relief. He sends Kyungsoo a small smile and mouths a sincere apology. Despite it all, Kyungsoo seems somewhat relieved he doesn’t have to go around keeping it secret anymore because the response is not as frightening as he had thought it to be.

Joonmyun admits during dessert that he and Jiyeon has become a couple and that he’s now the step-father to her 2-year-old son. It takes attention off of Kyungsoo for a while and happiness slowly envelops them all.

Jongdae leans back in his chair and takes a look at the others. 10 years ago he’d been diagnosed and sent away to a life led in misery and mundanity. For 10 years he’d never dared to dream of ever finishing high school or meeting friends. He’d never sought out other people because people always left and Jongdae sat back, looking at the same yellow walls with the same nurses around. For 10 years of his life, the only thing he cared about was death.

Now, after fate left him in the hands of an elementary school teacher and his two friends, Jongdae sees life entirely different. There’s hope. There’s spontaneity and fun and there’s happiness. There’s the realization that even though he’s mentally ill and always will be, there will be people out there with him, people who struggle with life decisions like him and people who keeps secrets from their loved ones in fear. People may not be exactly like him, but that’s okay because Jongdae is no longer alone.

Life is strange and the people he has met are stranger but together, it’s all Jongdae could ever wish for.