Donghae took his hands off his ears, a really bad habit he has developed over the years of being insane, his eyes slowly opened to look at the floor beneath him. Why was he in here? His roommate wanted to know, the one person that you pretty much have to make friends with. He wasn’t too sure he knew himself; he remembered all the things he did but which one was the one that made his mother decide to send him to a mental hospital?

            Sungmin continued to look at him, right into his eyes, apparently he had no discomfort with eye contact; Donghae wasn’t sure what to tell him. “Um,” he began, looking anywhere than the dark eyes upon him, “I…I don’t know.”

            “You don’t know? Do you forget too?” Sungmin asked, hoping to find someone else whose memories faded quickly just like his own.

            “No, it’s just…it was my mom’s choice.” Donghae said unsure of himself, it’s true that it was his mom’s choice but it’s not like he put up a fight.

            “Well, whatever it is, you must be pretty okay with it, otherwise you wouldn’t be 24.”

            Donghae looked up with a furrowed brow confused, “I’m not 24, I’m 19.”

            “No you goof, not your age, the number on the door,” Sungmin said waving a hand at the closed door; obviously the number of it wasn’t on their side anyway, “we’re the same age by the way.”

            Donghae looked at the door and back at his roommate, he wasn’t too sure what the number of it had anything to do with what he did to get in a mental hospital. Sungmin could immediately sense his confusion and sighed, “You didn’t pay attention when Doctor Lee was taking you through the place?” It’s like he could read Donghae like a book.

            “Err, no not really.” Donghae said, wondering which one of the two men who lead him here was Doctor Lee but instantly figured it must be the one who was talking.

            “Well pay attention to me, kay?” Sungmin winked at him and Donghae could sort of feel himself blush. “There are four floors here in the academy, the floors go by who the doctors think is the most sane to who is the most unstable, starting at the top. We’re on the fourth floor so the doctors think that we’re pretty easy to control, right?”

            “Right.” Donghae said.

            “It doesn’t necessarily mean that the people on the top floor didn’t do anything bad to get themselves here,” Sungmin continued, wiping his nose, “someone could have shot up a convenience store or something but if they don’t lash out and follow the rules then they get the top floor.” Sungmin laid down on his bed, putting his head on his pillow. “The people on the bottom level are the ones you have to watch out for though, they are the real crazy ones.”

            Donghae started to get nervous again, the last thing he wanted was to get hurt by someone crazier than him. “Do we ever have to, like…deal with them?”

            “Oh, all the time.” Sungmin said bluntly even though he could feel Donghae being scared. “The whole academy is broken up three groups of random people from each floor, we all go to lunch and outside and all that crap together. Don’t worry; roommates are always together in the group and since you’ll automatically be in mine I think that bumps us up to 15 people now.”

            Donghae just nodded, thinking that it must be inevitable to avoid the scary people and he’d just have to learn how to deal one day; he just didn’t want to learn today, he wasn’t ready. He looked around for a second to see what time it was exactly but there was no clock; he and his mother got there pretty early and he’d been there probably an hour already, time was going by quickly like he hoped. “You don’t have clocks?”

            “Uh, no,” Sungmin answered, “the whole concept of time freaks a lot of people out in this place so they just never gave any clocks. It’s annoying at first but you get used to it, honestly.”

            Donghae only nodded again, it was kind of awkward that he wasn’t really able to answer Sungmin fully but he couldn’t help it. “The way I tell time,” Sungmin started again, “is just by the schedules throughout the day they give us. We haven’t gone to breakfast yet so it must be before ten AM.”

            “We always have set schedules?” Donghae asked.

            “Man, you really didn’t listen to Doctor Lee!” Sungmin laughed, “Keep that up and you’ll leave here exactly as you came!” He sat up in his bed to better talk to Donghae, “We always have breakfast in the morning, after that is study session and some free time, then lunch, then therapy sessions, free time, dinner, and then more free time.”

            “And that’s every day?”

            “Every damned day, unfortunately,” Sungmin sighed. “They say a set routine is good for the brain though so, I don’t really question it.” He ran his fingers through his jet black hair, each strand folding out from behind his fingers. “After a while, you get used to it.”

            The no clocks and the schedule, he said you get used to both after a while but Donghae didn’t really want to wait that long, he wanted to feel comfortable as soon as possible. His ever-building anxiety was just growing the more Sungmin told him about this wretched academy.

            Sungmin stood slowly from his bed, throwing his arms over his head and stretching wide, his shirt lifting up to reveal his belly button. He sighed loudly as he threw his arms down, “might as well get ready, it should be breakfast soon. Did you eat already?”

            “Yeah,” Donghae said, remembering the milk stains on his shirt, “Does that mean I don’t have to go?”

            “Pfft, no,” Sungmin laughed, “You always have to stay with the group. Since it’s your first day and you don’t know all the rules yet you wouldn’t get in trouble but I probably would considering I should have made you go down. You’re not trying to get me in trouble, are you?” Sungmin teased, flashing Donghae a smile that literally glistened.

            “N-no.” Donghae said nervously, hoping not to give Sungmin the wrong impression; he was also a bit distracted from his perfect teeth. Now that Sungmin was standing fully in front of him, Donghae could actually get a good look at his appearance. He was a bit thick, thicker than himself, but not with profound muscles; he also had an extremely boyish face, his features were extremely soft and welcoming. Donghae was surprised a bit that Sungmin’s own body was a bit contradictory to his face; he began to wonder if his own features were like that.

            Sungmin was already over in front of his dresser and talking before Donghae’s attention spam came back and he only heard the end of his sentence at “…damned drawers never open.” Sungmin pulled out an off white button down shirt and matching pants, they were exactly like hospital clothes but a bit thicker and with more fabric. “Every day,” Sungmin began, “this is what we wear when we go downstairs, you should have a pair in your drawer too.”

            Donghae instantly stood up and walked over to his dresser at the foot of his bed, his suitcase was still on top of it and he wondered why he couldn’t just wear his normal clothes instead, but figured it had something to do with ‘everyone being the same with equal status and blah, blah, blah.’ He pulled out the slightly stuck top drawer to see a pair of perfectly folded and crisp white hospital clothes. “Mine are different than yours, mine are whiter.”

            “Newer,” Sungmin corrected, “You can always tell how long someone has been here by how dirty their clothes are.” The boy lifted up his shirt over his head to reveal his pale skin underneath; he didn’t necessarily have muscles that you could directly see, he was rather smooth, but Donghae could feel his strength. Sungmin then removed his pants to show his thick, hairy legs; he was fiddling with his uniform too much but Donghae couldn’t look away. “If you feel silly, you can change in the bathroom.” Sungmin told him.

            “No, I’m fine.” Donghae looked back at his perfectly folded uniform in his drawer, he almost didn’t want to touch it because it would never again be folded the same way. A bit reluctantly, he took it out of the drawer and placed it on top of his suitcase; he removed his shirt and pants, taking a bit of time to take off his converse, and replaced them with the uncomfortable uniform. He body felt very free and loose from how big the uniform actually was on him.

            “It’s one size fits all,” Sungmin said giggling at him, “I guess you’re more on the puny side, huh?”

            Donghae just looked down at his own body, seeing that the white shirt nearly made it down to his knees, he kind of just wanted to hide in the room so no one else would see him like this. “Are they all going to tease me for it?”

            “Not the size, but the color of it.” Sungmin said, “Everyone could tell you’re new.”

            Donghae sighed aloud, not looking forward to what is about to come; he leaned over to reach for his socks and shoes to put them back on and had one converse hanging off his foot before Sungmin came over and placed a hand on his shoulder.

            “No shoes downstairs, people like to throw them,” Sungmin said looking down at Donghae who just so happened to be less than a foot away from a very private part on Sungmin’s body. He straightened himself up awkwardly, Sungmin’s hand weighing him down. “There are a lot of stupid rules like that, you’ll get used to it.” Sungmin said that one more time, making Donghae almost cringe.

            Hae sort of shrugged out of Sungmin’s grip before placing his socks in his open empty drawer and letting his shoes fall where they were. Sungmin walked around him and into the bathroom door next to him; Donghae heard him start the water and the sound of a toothbrush scrubbing on his teeth. Donghae stood there awkwardly before walking back over to his bed, too lazy to put away his clothes just yet; he plopped himself back onto the hard mattress and folded his hands in his lap.

            Sungmin walked out of the bathroom drying his lips with the collar of his shirt, maybe that’s why the shirts get dirty, Donghae thought. The black haired boy took his pile of dirty pajamas on the floor and placed them on top of his dresser, the silence of the room was kind of awkward because they didn’t have much to talk about. Donghae didn’t realize that he was literally staring at Sungmin before the other boy looked up at him and smirked, causing Donghae to look down at the ground a bit embarrassed.

            “So,” Hae began, “how long have you been here?”

            “Well-” knock, knock. The sounds cut Sungmin off mid-sentence and he turned to look at the door, “that’s breakfast.”

            Donghae swallowed, his nervousness was suddenly more of a reality; he could easily handle meeting someone new that he would be sharing a room with but to go into a room full of many new people was just scary. He stood shakily, smoothing out his oversized shirt against his body, thinking of any way to try and get out of this. Although, he knew it would be impossible.

            Sungmin walked over to the door and opened it, revealing the hallway behind it where boys were walking to the right towards the staircase Donghae saw his mother disappear in. None of them glanced into the room; they all had their heads straight forward looking towards their destination, like a little army.

            Sungmin motioned with his head for Donghae to walk over; the two of them walked out into the hallway, Donghae less than an inch behind Sungmin, and started walking in the same direction with everyone else. For an instance, Donghae thought he heard someone whisper behind him but wasn’t entirely sure if his head just made it up. Their small crowd was headed down all those flights of stairs and joined with another group of boys all together in one endless pack, from the other floors Hae figured; he was concentrating not to trip and subconsciously he stuck a hand on Sungmin’s back. The stairs never seemed to end and all the boys around him seemed very used to this trudge, Donghae wondered which of them was going to be in his group with Sungmin.

            At the foot of the stairs, the crowd was going through a set of double doors that was set facing to the right; before walking through Donghae looked to the right and saw the first hallway that he and his mother were just in not too long ago. This time, all the doors were open but it was still just as empty of people as it was before. Hae suddenly felt his arm being gripped and turned to see Sungmin’s hand on him.

            “This is where everyone gets together to eat,” he said.

            Donghae couldn’t see the room over all the heads but once everyone actually got through the double doors, they dispersed to where they were going to sit and Donghae could see clearer. It was almost like a small school cafeteria but the ceiling was much lower than typically, the tables were long and rectangular with typical red chairs. Sungmin pulled on his arm to the left- an empty table awaiting them and they sat right at the end of it. Donghae thought it’d be nice if no one else joined them but with the amount of boys here compared to tables he was sure that each chair would be filled. There were two empty seats next to him and two next to Sungmin, six to a table; he wondered if Sungmin already had four other friends that were friendly and could fill them or if he just always sat alone until now. Hae didn’t dare look around in fear that people would look at him and start talking about him, he remembered what Sungmin said about them teasing him for his crisp white shirt and then for even his own name.

            “Minnie! What’s- oh!” A tall, and fairly attractive man came walking up behind Sungmin but got a surprised when his eyes laid upon Donghae, who immediately looked down into his lap. Minnie? They already have nicknames. Instantly, Hae felt like he would never be able to make a friend because everyone is already good friends with someone. The man took the seat next to Sungmin.

            “That’s Donghae, this is Kyuhyun.” Sungmin introduced them, the tall boy nodded. He had slightly long, black hair that was completely messed up everywhere- like he just woke up and walked out of the door.

            “Finally you have a new roommate; they said you were getting one for months now.” Kyuhyun said to Sungmin, talking as if Donghae wasn’t sitting right there.

            “Yeah,” Sungmin said, obviously awkward already that Kyuhyun was speaking only to him like Donghae wasn’t there. “Kyu is 17- the door number, not his age- so he’s the floor under us; he’s in the same group as us, too.”

            Donghae nodded, not particularly sure how to answer a statement. He did however, noticed that Sungmin called him Kyu.

            Hae folded his hands in his lap, Kyuhyun and Sungmin started talking to each other- most likely something that Donghae could not engage in with them. He wanted to look around but couldn’t bring himself to do it, the wood table before him was very interesting all of the sudden.

            Just then, a hand clamped onto the top of his head and ruffled his hair around, “who’s this?” a boy asked behind him.

            “Donghae,” Kyuhyun said, “Donghae this is Zhou Mi, my roommate.”

            “But everyone just calls me Mi,” the tall boy said before taking the seat next to Donghae and facing him. He was wearing glasses and had a very friendly face (his hair was a brownish color which made him wonder if they were allowed to dye it in here) so Donghae nodded a hello to him and turned his head back to the table. Mi joined in on Kyuhyun and Sungmin’s conversation where they left off like he’s been there the whole time; Donghae felt like an elementary student on his first day at a new school. He could slowly feel his fingers creeping up the sides of his cheeks to cover his ears but right before he could Mi bumped his shoulder with his hand, “Don’t you think, new guy?”

            “W-what?” Donghae said lowering his hands to rest on the table.

            “Don’t you think it’d be nice to have windows in this cafeteria?”

            Donghae looked up for the first time and looked around; it’s true there were no windows on the walls but just posters of flowers and one of a meadow. It was rather small actually, very small. There were only four tables on either side of the wall, each having six chairs and most of it was already full besides the handful of boys that were standing over other tables talking to their friends. A few boys were already looking at him when his eyes spanned over them but each one turned their attention back to their own table once they made eye contact with one another.

            “Right?” Mi asked, nudging Donghae once again.

            “Oh, y-yeah. A little sunlight.” Donghae said, still a little tense talking to him.

            “Okay everyone, sit down please!” Donghae looked up to see a pudgy woman standing on the opposite side of the cafeteria with the double doors that they walked through. She was holding open a single door that two other women (one fat as well, and the other really skinny but much older) came walking out of, each pushing a cart that had multiple tiers with plates of food on them.

            “Yes, food!” Kyuhyun said, turning his body to look at the women with trays.

            “Oi, Shindong!” Sungmin called to a rather squishy boy who was walking over to them. The women started putting the plates of food down on the tables in front of the boys; Donghae’s table was the third one from the woman on his side of the room.

            “Who’s this?” Shindong said once he made his way over and sat down next to Mi.

            “Donghae, he’s my new roommate.” Sungmin answered.

            “Herro!” Shindong said to him jokingly, giving a peace sign.

            “Hi.” Donghae said, smirking at him.

            “So you’re 24, huh? I’m 14,” Shindong started, “My roommate’s name is Leeteuk, he’s sitting over there at that table with the blonde hair.” Shindong pointed at a general direction and Donghae looked but there were a few blonde heads so he’d never be able to tell who he is but he turned back to Shindong and nodded like he did. Just then, a boy came over and slammed both hands on the table in front of Donghae, who jumped including practically everyone else in the room, and he leaned his face in really close to him.

            “Jesus, Kibum, you scared me!” Mi yelled at him.

            Donghae was practically frozen to the scary boy in his face who, just as quickly as he leaned in, leaned back and laughed. “Just kidding, new guy,” he said with a friendly smile, “I’m just pushing your buttons- what’s your name?”

            “D-Donghae,” he nearly whispered, his heart racing.

            “East Sea?” Kibum smiled at him.

            “Uhh, yeah.” Donghae said, remembering Sungmin saying that people were going to for it. Kibum walked over and sat down next to Kyuhyun.

            “That’s Kibum, don’t let him fool you, he’s harmless- he’s 21.” Sungmin assured Donghae, “only a few doors down from us.” Donghae nodded, looking down at his hands which he folded in another on top of the table once again. So he already met everyone that would be sitting at this table which is five people out of the 14 others in his group. Looking around, he wondered who else could possibly be with him when the fat woman with the cart of food came to their table.

            “Yes! What is it today, Honey?” Kyuhyun asked, standing up to get a better look at the tray.

            “Pancakes today, sugar.” The woman named Honey answered him, handing a plate full of hotcakes to his outstretched hand.

            Shindong was already standing next to the cart grabbing his own plate, pulling it up to his face and breathing in a long sniff. “Delicious,” he said to himself.

            “Hello there,” Honey said to Donghae, placing a plate down in front of him which had three pancakes and two balls of butter on the side. She placed plates down in front of Sungmin, Mi, and Kibum who all thanked her and then she placed a small container of syrup in the middle of the table before pushing her cart to the table behind Donghae. Donghae looked around at everyone on the table who began to eat with their hands, while Kyuhyun and Shindong fought over who got the syrup first, and his eyes settled on Sungmin’s plate in front of him.

            “Err, no forks?” Donghae asked him lowly, not really wanting to converse with anyone else at the table.

            “No, too dangerous they say; I know it’s gross but would you rather starve?” Sungmin asked, picking up a whole pancake with his hand and shoving half the thing into his mouth. Donghae looked back on his own plate and picked one up, avoiding the mess of butter and syrup and taking a small bite; it wasn’t bad but he wasn’t necessarily hungry because he already ate that morning. He remembered how he got himself cereal because his mother couldn’t bother making him breakfast on the last day she’d see him for a year and he thought about how much he’d love to see his mother get stabbed with a fork. Donghae found himself raising his hands to cover his ears again but once more he was interrupted, this time by Shindong asking if he was going to eat and when Donghae shook his hand, Shindong stole his plate from him. Kyuhyun let out an “aw, come on” before stealing the pancake Hae already bit into, earning an “I asked for it!” from Shindong. Donghae chuckled a little; the table after that was relatively quiet except from an occasional sentence from someone who wasn’t chewing. After about ten minutes, everyone was just about done and boys started standing up once again to talk to their friends at different tables.

            Sungmin stood and stretched his arms up over his head letting out a yawn, “c’mon, we should go to study session early so we can get a desk with each other.”

            “You’re not sitting with me anymore?” Kyuhyun asked, standing up next to him.

            “No, I don’t wanna leave Donghae to sit alone, stupid.” Sungmin said hitting his shoulder lightly.

            “Pfft, whatever!” Kyuhyun said obviously joking, grabbing Sungmin’s hand and pushing it away. Donghae couldn’t help but notice their flirty manner they had with each other and felt a bit uncomfortable with it.

            “Sit with me, Kyuhyun.” Mi said, walking around the table to join them. Kyuhyun agreed and the two of them walked away. Sungmin motioned for Donghae to follow him so he quickly got up and walked with him to the side of the cafeteria where the women came from. There was another door that boys were trickling through, where Sungmin led Donghae to.

            “We don’t have to clean up our plates?” he asked.

            “No, other people usually do that.” Sungmin answered bluntly. On the other side of the door was a large sitting room with couches and chairs with a large hallway that led out of it. “This is where people hang out during free time, but not our group; our living room is the next floor up, same with our classroom…if you wanna call it that.”

            “Do we have actual class?” Donghae asked, walking fast to keep up with Sungmin who was leading him down the hallway.

            “Yeah, I think today is Algebra, I don’t really remember; they hardly teach us anything but it’s required by the law.” Sungmin said waving his hand around.

            Mi turned around to face them, “yeah, it’s a joke. They could care less about it.”

            Donghae half frowned, he didn’t want any school but hopefully if he didn’t have to do much work than it wouldn’t be that bad. “Besides,” Sungmin started, “now you get to see who’s in our group.” Donghae gulped, he felt just as nervous as he was before going to breakfast and once again, walked as close to Sungmin as he could without being on top of him. At the end of the hallway was a large set of stairs that everyone started walking up- there weren’t many other people with them in the stairwell and Donghae wondered if any of them were going with his group. At the top there was a landing which turned them around to another set of stairs; at the top of that there was an identical hallway and Donghae could see the living room at the end of it. “This is us,” Sungmin said, “classroom is just this way.” The four of them walked halfway down the hallway and went into a room on the left.

           On the inside there were two columns of desks that fit two people each, four desks in each column, and a large desk in the front with a chalkboard behind it; there was no one in there yet which Donghae wasn’t sure if that was a good thing just yet because then everyone coming in after them would notice him right away. Sungmin walked to the back and sat in a desk on the opposite row, the second one from the back while Mi and Kyuhyun sat in the desk in front of them; each desk had a small stack of paper and two pencils. Two other people who were in the stairwell walked in behind them and sat at the second desk from the front in the other row that was next to the door. Sungmin was talking to Kyuhyun while other people kept coming in slowly; only a few looked at Donghae at all, one of them said something to the person they were sitting next to and then looked at him, so it was obvious who they were talking about.

           A couple minutes later almost all of the class was there, every desk was full except for the one directly behind Sungmin and Donghae, and Hae counted only 14 people there including himself. A tall, large man came through the door with a textbook and a solemn look on his face. He sighed before placing the book down on his desk and then turning around and immediately writing algebra problems on the board. Sungmin picked up a paper and handed another to Donghae before copying down the problems on the board. Donghae had no idea what to even do with them so he just copied them and then stared at his handwriting. The whole class was completely silent and even the teacher was sitting at his desk writing something while saying no words; the silence was eerie almost and Donghae put his hands over his ears. Sungmin noticed this and then tried to explain some of what to do with the math, but Donghae’s head was not ready for that.

           Just then, the door opened and a rather skinny boy with long black hair came strolling in with a look on his face like he practically owned the place. “Nice to join us, Mr. Lee.” The teacher said. Another student snickered and the skinny boy smacked him jokingly on the arm.

           “You’re welcome,” the boy said, slowly walking to the back of the room.

           “He never said thank you,” a boy with wavy brown hair who sat in the front row said.

           The skinny boy just ignored him and continued his walk to the desk behind Donghae and Sungmin, the only empty seats open. Meanwhile, Sungmin was trying to explain the exact same thing he was explaining before- he forgot that he already said these exact words not five minutes ago. Donghae told him he was repeating his words and Sungmin just smiled and looked back down to his paper; Donghae found his eyes falling back on the skinny boy who locked eyes with him causing Donghae to face forward quickly.

           “Who’s this?” the skinny boy said aloud, sitting in his seat loudly after that.

           Donghae froze, it was like an elephant in the room- everyone knew that he was the new guy but no one wanted to come out and actually ask who he was. Sungmin turned around to face the skinny boy and said for what felt like the millionth time that day, “this is Donghae.”

           “So you finally got a roommate, Min? So I guess the rumors of you trying to kill all your others are fake?”

           Sungmin sighed, “just leave me alone Eunhyuk,” he said agitated before turning back around to face the front.

           “Heh, heh, kill.” A boy with brown hair and thick lips in the desk directly next to Donghae’s said while looking down at his paper which was completely colored in from his pencil.

           “No talking,” the teacher said looking up from his piece of paper over his glasses.

           “Talking.” The boy said after him.

           “That means you too, Henry.” The boy named Henry just continued coloring in his paper like nothing happened.

           Donghae could hear Eunhyuk let out a “huff” behind him and then he poked him in his shoulder with a pencil. Donghae turned his head slightly, his heart beat gaining fast, “I don’t get any of this, could you come back here and help me?” Eunhyuk asked with a smile. Donghae could practically hear his heart fall into the pit of his stomach.

           “Mr. Lee, do I have to say it again?” the teacher warned.

           Eunhyuk just leaned back in his chair and went silent. Donghae continued to stare at his paper and prayed to God that Eunhyuk won’t say anything to him again- he didn’t make a great first impression. Sungmin’s paper was halfway done with gibberish and Kyuhyun’s was completely full- how did the teacher expect Donghae to know the answers if he was never taught this? It seemed like the teacher didn’t even know of Donghae’s existence since he didn’t acknowledge or even look at him. The rest of the “class” went by rather slowly, Donghae heard an occasional conversation between two people but other than that it was annoyingly quiet.

           Randomly, the teacher looked at the watch on his wrist and stood up, “Okay, see you tomorrow.” Almost instantly, every boy was standing in the room- before Donghae could even think, the boy named Eunhyuk ran his hand through Donghae’s hair, winked, and went running off to the door.

           Donghae froze but right after started fixing his hair back to the way it should be. Sungmin didn’t even notice but was already talking to Kyuhyun; Mi turned around in his seat, “told you it’s a joke.”

           “Yeah you weren’t kidding,” Donghae agreed, but still looking to the door where he last saw the skinny boy run through

Sooooo, yeah.
I'm extremely sorry it's been forever since I updated but I lost my internet literally like a week after I posted this and I only just got it back today.
I got pretty far in the story though during all this time- still not done with it though >.<
Please comment~!