Minhyuk woke up in his hospital bed, as always, stretched his arms and took his sketchbook. He got up and, just as he was about to leave the room, his gaze fell on the empty bed near his. He had almost forgotten his roommate had just been discharged. He was lucky enough, his previous roommates were gone too, but not only from the hospital.

'Ah, true...Dowoon is gone' he whispered softly, then smiled and shrugged, exiting the room and going straight to the roof.

It was luckily too early for the nurses to notice him and stop him. Everyone knew him there, of course they would've stopped him. He sat the nearest he could get to the edge, that wasn't that near since there was a high railing which was supposed to stop people from trying to jump or accidentally fall from there.

"As if anyone could be that stupid to choose the roof as a way of dying when you have a whole hospital full of potential lethal weapons" Minhyuk always thought. The boy then started sketching the view he had from there, trying to capture the beauty of the sunrise in front of his eyes. The sky was so pretty, so beautiful it made Minhyuk feel powerless. What's the point in constantly seeking the perfect form of beauty, when all you had to do is lift your eyes and look around you?

Minhyuk didn't understand what kind of beauty humans were always trying to achieve. His definition of beauty was simply 'something you don't get tired of staring at'. The boy kept on sketching everything beautiful he saw, from the mighty red sky which was faded with orange and pink-ish colours, stained by some blue and pink clouds there and there, to the small feather a bird must've dropped on that roof, which was black, faded with red on the edges. It must've belonged to a pigeon, he thought.

He realized it was time for him to come back to his room when he saw the light blue invading a wider portion of the sky, swallowing the pink, the red, and everything he had seen before.

The nurses were probably already around and would've started freaking out if they didn’t find him in his room, so he came down the stairs and returned to his room, dragging his feet and rolling his eyes a couple of times childishly as he didn't want to be caged into that aseptic white room again. He didn't remember he was also alone now, at least not until he saw the empty bed and the neatly folded bedsheets on top of it. 'Ah' Minhyuk said quietly 'right, he's gone...' Minhyuk didn't feel bad about being alone, but he thought about the boy who had been with him until last night. He was now free. He was somewhere out there, breathing air that doesn't smell like hydrogen peroxide. But he wasn't jealous at all. He was scared of the outside world he hadn't seen for so long. There certainly were amazing things out there, but that's the world that caused him to end up in that exact room.

He didn't have to worry though, he wasn't leaving any time soon.

It was now 8 AM and the white-haired boy was bored. He was impatiently waiting for the nurse to come and check-up on him, at least he could get some human interaction. The nurse arrived five minutes later, and the boy sat on the bed as soon as she entered, while greeting her with a bright smile 'Soo-noona!' he almost shouted, to which the older lady chuckled

“Good morning, Minhyuk-ah' she smiled sweetly “Cheerful as always, I see” they both chuckled.

The two didn't have much of a special relationship, but had now known each other for nine years, and both had become used to the other's company. “Alright, let me check if everything's fine, Minhyuk-ah” she looked at him with eyes that were hinting he should've done something, so he rolled up his sleeves, letting the nurse check his wrists and arms. She seemed happy to find no new cuts on them, so she proceeded to check up the boy's body, and found no new cuts at all, a few scratches there and there, but at least the boy hadn't looked for a knife or something with which he could hurt himself last night.

The nurse smiled “Well done, Minhyuk-ah! Let's make these the first two consecutive days in which the checkup went all well, okay?” she asked, wanting to encourage the boy in getting better.

She knew how much he's suffered, and wanted him to finally go out and live his life like any other boy his age should do.

“Fine!” the boy agreed, smiling again. He waved goodbye to the nurse and laid back on his bed.

He knew the two day streak thing was not going to happen, but he still wanted the nurse to trust him and to believe he truly was trying to get better. It's not that he wasn't trying, but mostly that he didn't know how. He didn't know how to stop feeling the urge to grab something sharp and make a new cut appear on his skin. He had been depressed for almost half of his life now, and even when he was happy, he could still feel that annoying 'this is not going to last' feeling. He still was known as the brightest patient there, though, hilarious, isn't it?

Before leaving, Soo had mentioned something about a new roommate, he wasn't really impressed by that, he didn’t even remember how many roommates he had had nor all of their faces, and he knew that new people were hospitalized and patients were discharged every day, so it truly wasn't a big deal, but he was still curious, was this roommate going to leave before him, too?

In that hospital, patients were not divided in specific areas based on their illness, so he wondered about what would be his new roommate's problem, too. He had been roommates with people who had had an heart attack, people who had genetic mortal disorders, and, as for the last one, people who had broken one or two bones.

Minhyuk wanted to draw again, he found that extremely relaxing and, as time passed, he had discovered he was pretty good at it, too, so he got up to take his sketchbook and looked for his pastels in his backpack. He found them, but while he was looking for them, he found something. Something that reminded him of his childhood, the only period of his life he had spent out there. He took the small notebook in his hands, and started flipping its pages, until he found that specific page:

"I, Lee Minhyuk, am going to be the head of the most important and feared clans in the whole world, the X clan!!! We will be seven, just as much as these Xs are! I'm going to be the leader because I found the Xs, and we're all going to be a group of handsome true friends, who rule the world!!"

At the bottom of the page, under his powerful note, he found seven temporary tattoos, who all had the shape of an X, written in different fonts. He chuckled while looking at the page, as he exactly remembered writing that. It was the day when all of his classmates had turned against him for no reason at all in elementary school, when he got bullied for the first time. He had decided he would become so powerful people would've feared him, so no one would've ever dared bullying him again. He had started crying after writing that because he wanted to have that power right in that moment. He wanted to be able to fight the bullies and stop them from doing that to anyone else.

He wasn't alone at home that time. His mother was home, and could hear the boy's hiccups and cries, and she was probably even annoyed by them. She wasn't heartless, she just didn't care about that son she had had with a man she had only married because of his money. She had had that child because he wanted a son and she feared he could've left her if she didn't give him one.

Minhyuk always knew his mother didn't care a single bit about him, but often hoped she could at least fake being interested. He only wanted his mother to pretend caring about him. To fake loving her son. But she never did. She did raise him, but never showed an inch of love for her son. He grew up without the warmth of a family.

His father, on the other hand, had wanted that son. But he didn't want a son to raise him, treasure him and care about him. Oh no, his father needed a son so he could have someone who could inherit all of his money, in order for it not to get lost or given to charity, since he had no other relatives left. Minhyuk's father cared about his money more than he cared about his own life, so the man worked every single day from early morning to late evening.

Minhyuk almost never saw him, because even when his father was home, he never spent time with his son, he most likely spent time with his wife and with his rich friends who often came over, and Minhyuk was forbidden going out of his room when those friends were at home. Minhyuk's mother didn't even work, her husband’s money was enough for them three, so she spent most of her time at home, with her boyfriend. Yes, she had a side relationship with another man, not surprisingly since she didn't love her actual family a single bit.

Minhyuk grew up not knowing what love was. His mother's twisted and sick idea of love was the only example he had, oh, and his father's love for money, too. He learnt how to idolize material things, but didn't know how to treasure people.

When Minhyuk was eight, his parents divorced, since his mother found out her husband was cheating on her too and was able to divorce and still have her money granted. Minhyuk has never seen his father since then, because after the divorce, he started living with his mother and her boyfriend, who had had another child, a little girl. Minhyuk saw how his mother looked at the baby and almost didn't recognize her. He could see love in his mother's eyes for the first time. No one had ever looked at Minhyuk like that. Those eyes weren't looking at him, but they were enough for him to realize his mother wasn't the heartless monster he thought she was.

By eleven Minhyuk had already experienced way too many bad things for a kid. He was brought up coldly and didn't feel like he belonged anywhere. He had seen his parents split up and had lost his dad. And he had seen his little step-sister die. Leukemia, they said. The baby wasn't born to survive for long and that was the saddest and most unfair thing Minhyuk had ever experienced. He couldn't think about the fact that some people just weren't made to live. What did that child do to deserve such a cruel treatment?

It was then that Minhyuk completely lost his already little faith. How could someone create such beautiful yet cruel creatures, and then kill them like that? There's no justice in this world and Minhyuk understood it maybe too early. A child should still believe in the perfect lie the world is seen as by the majority of people. Some people wake up from that perfect illusion and stare confused at the mess they're in, try to wake other people up, but it's not their job and they can't do anything about it. Some people are given the strength to unmask the lie, some people aren't. Some people can close the fairy tale book and accept what reality is, some people can't stop flipping the pages and read lies over and over, but they're not dumber than the others, they just don't want to stop believing in a better yet fake reality.

Minhyuk was twelve when he made his first cut on his wrist. He felt too overwhelmed by his own negative thoughts, even though nothing in particular had happened. He suddenly felt the need to rebel from that sick world, but couldn't do anything else other than what he did.

Stupid.

Silly.

But he was still a child. A child with a soldier's scars, but still a child. Minhyuk never stopped since then, he had become addicted to the blood dyeing his skin a bright red colour, addicted to the sharp pain which followed the cut, addicted to the fresh metal passing through his flesh.

The world seemed to have suddenly become grey. Minhyuk couldn't find happiness nor beauty anymore. He had lost his determination and all his faith in life. He thought nothing good could ever happen in a world like that, and in the end, everything would fade and reach his end anyway, so what was the point in going through life every day, in keeping on walking without a place to arrive to?

Minhyuk was fifteen when he decided those questions didn't have an answer and would never have had one.

He was fifteen when he bleached his hair for the first time.

He was fifteen when his mother found his body lying on the bathroom's floor, a bottle of bleach near it.

He was fifteen when he was first hospitalized, and when the nurses found the cuts on his body.

He was fifteen when his mother told him she would visit him every day.

He was now twenty-four, and since that moment, he had never seen his mother ever again.

“What a silly child I was” he sighed as he put the notebook back, not noticing that the X tattoos had fallen on the floor. He took his notebook and started drawing whatever came on his mind. He firstly drew a child with one of the X tattoos on his neck, who held a sword in one of his hands and wore an armor made of dreams. He still remembers dreaming about that, that same day, while he was asleep, but he never drew that nor paid much attention to it, but now, it seemed to be the first thing coming up to Minhyuk's mind, so he kept on drawing that same dream, adding details and also drawing the child's friends. Other six knights with the same X tattoo, all around the first child, supporting him and making him feel wanted and useful, because he was their leader and they loved him for guiding them to the right path.

It was so childish yet to Minhyuk's mind, it meant more than any of his previous drawings.

He suddenly heard a knock on the door, to which he didn't respond, is not like they were truly asking for his permission anyway. As soon as the people came in, he realized what was the matter. “Minhyuk-ah, this will be your new roommate, Son Hyunwoo.”