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Jongin is running. Where to? He doesn’t know. Does it matter? He doesn’t know that either (it doesn’t).

His eyes are wide open, pupils small pin-pricks in pools of chocolate brown (maybe his eyes’ll be blue next week if his parents decide that he needs to change his eye color again to look a little bit more exotic, or maybe they’ll even be green, who knows) as he bolts through the forest, the branches and bushes ripping at his school uniform.

In short, Jongin is experiencing a panic attack. It’s not the first time – nor is it the last, he’s sure – but this is by far the most violent he’s had in months. He feels as if he can’t breathe even though his lungs are rapidly gulping down oxygen every second to sustain his muscles in his frantic running, feels as if someone’s tied a slowly constricting noose around his throat to hang him. Maybe decapitate him too, because why not get a little creative, why not spice things up every once in a while.

Then he’s tripping on his own two feet, unceremoniously tumbling to the ground in a heap of limbs and awkward angles, his heart beating in his throat and pulsing in his head and rushing blood through his veins. He curls his fingers in the short grass that cushioned his fall.

He still can’t breathe, feels the noose tighten and the material cut into his skin even though he knows that it’s only imaginary, hears the sounds of the guillotine as his executioner rolls up the blade. He gasps for air.

This day had been going fine. He’d caught a glimpse of Do Kyungsoo’s mop of unruly hair right before his first lesson had begun (he still felt bad about having left the boy alone when he’d been attacked two weeks ago, but it wasn’t as strongly as it had been the days right after the incident, and so Jongin had been able to resume chasing the boy with his gaze despite knowing he should stop before he got himself stuck too deep) and felt kind of happy that the boy’s bruises seemed to have healed up nicely. Then he’d spent his lunch period in his sanctuary, eating his lunch in the peace of the tranquil forest.

But then, during the last lesson of the day, his class had been shown the results of the impromptu test their teacher had given them a couple of days ago, and that’s where everything had come crashing down (he should’ve known that this day had been going far too well, he should’ve known that something bad would happen, he shouldn’t have let his hopes get up like that).

Jongin had gotten 99 points out of 100, because he’d gotten sloppy at the end and written ‘x 3,678’ instead of the correct answer ‘x 3,679’.

His parents will be absolutely furious.

Teeth digging into his lower lip and drawing blood, Jongin squeezes his eyes shut. On any other day but this one he would’ve been able to take this unexpected blow. He would’ve squared his shoulders, clenched his fists and gone home and told his parents of his failure. He’d have been able to endure their rage, their disappointment in him and their vehement barks as they lashed out at him, telling him how he’s the one representing their family in school and how could he fail them like this?

On any other day.

But it didn’t happen on any other day, it happened today. Today, when Jongin had thought that maybe he’d get to spend one day in peace, maybe everything isn’t so bad after all, maybe it’ll all be better soon, maybe he won’t have to feel like a dog until the day he leaves this hole of a society, maybe – if every day from this point on is like this one – it’ll at least be a bit more bearable to live here until he gets out of there.

Yet all he got for his attempt at being optimistic was just another slap from Life, and it burns. Burns like nothing Jongin has ever felt before (except, yes, he has; every other time he’s let himself get his hopes up he’s been crushed just like this, every goddamn time and he’s sick of it but can’t seem to learn to stop hoping altogether).

But to be honest, it isn’t the test itself or the fact that his parents will punish him again that is the sole causes for this panic attack of his. No, they are only the catalysts; the last drops of liquid that made the glass overflow, the embers setting the wooden house aflame. Because while sure, Jongin is getting by, slowly progressing through his life and patiently waiting for the day where he will finally be able to break away from this cage, he is very far from okay.

He hasn’t been okay for a long time, to be honest, but he’s been able to not pay that sad fact any attention by engrossing himself with thoughts of Do Kyungsoo (and that boy is proving to be the best distraction Jongin has ever had before, a distraction that allows him to forget the miserable state his mind and soul is in, and maybe that is why Jongin’s become so attached to someone he doesn’t really know? Because that person has become a safe haven for his mind to hide away from reality in?) while actively trying to hide the shattered fragments of his being behind a thick veil of disgust and hate that he’s projecting at the people around him.

But no one can run away from anything forever, and today it caught up with him, and this time he can’t protect himself from the ugly truth; the truth that there is a difference between living and surviving, and no matter how much he’s consciously trying to deny it the fact that he’s only barely surviving won’t magically go away by itself.

A sob wracks through his body, and he curls in on himself.

Jongin is nothing if not broken.

He doesn’t want to be like this, and he wishes with every inch of his soul that he could stop being this strange and wrong and defect, but he doesn’t know how to fix himself. Hasn’t got the right tools or the requisite knowledge for it.

So he clings to his dream, wishing and praying that he’ll manage to achieve it, because otherwise he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

After all, his dream is the only thing that makes living worth it.