“MIRAE!” Suyeon yells, shoving through hordes of clusters of confused students to reach her best friend. “Mirae, oh my god, are you okay? Mirae! Do you need water or like-,”

“Shut up!” Jongin hisses. Suyeon freezes in her tracks, blanching.

Jongin’s demeanor has pulled a full 180 degree transformation from “arrogant and cocky” to “deathly serious”. He pulls up Mirae, supporting her by the shoulders.

“Let’s get you to somewhere quiet,” he murmurs, leading her behind the counter and to the kitchen. The barista attempts to stop the two, but Jongin merely pushes her aside. Suyeon follows, absolutely distressed, Sehun hot on her heels.

“I c-can’t breathe,” Mirae squeaks, her chest throbbing. “I-,”

Jongin her hair in gentle, repeated motions. “It’s okay. You’re doing fine. Tell me what you need now.”

“Medicine,” she breathes. “My medicine.”

Jongin is blank, until his mind suddenly bursts upon an epiphany. Is the OCD medicine he found Mirae’s? He looks upon the girl in astonishment. It couldn’t be... is it? But she’s the last person he would expect to have an anxiety disorder! How could it be-

    Think about that later, Jongin instructs himself. He reaches into his bag, about to withdraw the orange bottle of medicine- until he realizes he left it sitting on his countertop at his house. Dammit!

    “Mirae, what’s happening?” Suyeon asks weakly, reaching towards her friend. She clasps Mirae into a giant hug. “What’s going on-,”

    “Sehun, get her water,” Jongin commands. Sehun gives his friend a wide-eyed nod, scurrying off to the sink. As he’s filling a glass cup with ice-cold water, wild thoughts run through his head. He didn’t know Jongin was even capable of being this serious. What’s happening? And what is wrong with that Mirae girl? She’s having a complete meltdown, but why?

    “Mirae, we’re going to breathe together. Okay?” Jongin takes her hand. “Breathe in on the count of 10. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...,”

    Mirae complies with Jongin’s calm instructions. Slowly, the itchiness in the palm of her hand begins to lessen.

    “Mirae, can you lift your hands above your head?” he asks. Mirae draws in a deep, ragged breath, and Jongin is about to repeat his request when slowly, she raises her arms a few centimeters above her head.

    Jongin smiles. “Good job. You’re doing amazing. You can get through this, Mirae. I’m here for you.”

    Suyeon and Sehun are watching this entire encounter with wide eyes. How is this guy we don’t even really know able to help my best friend more than I can? Should I know how to do this?

    She tiptoes over to Sehun. “Has he done this before?” she asks him softly. Sehun shakes his head, dazed.

    “He seems like a completely different person,” Sehun murmurs. He watches his best friend, whom he had previously thought was nothing more than a wealthy pretty face, gently take care of Mirae.

    The tight knot in Mirae’s chest has loosened. She doesn’t feel okay, but her body is not trembling so hard anymore. Mirae clutches on to the hand in front of her, wholly reassured by the placid voice directing her, acting as her lifeline amidst a sea of chaos.

    “It’ll be okay.” the man says, and Mirae exhales.

    What a mess.

    Sehun collapses against the low microsuede sofa in his living room, thoroughly exhausted. After Jongin, for some bizarre reason unknown to him, insisted on taking Mirae home, Suyeon blew up about how she had no idea what was going on and how there was no reason for her to trust Jongin with her friend (which was a pretty stupid thing to say, seeing how Jongin was the person who finally calmed down Mirae). Then Jongin and Suyeon started shouting at each other, causing Sehun to develop a headache.

But that was the least of Sehun’s problems; when he got back out of the kitchen, he discovered that a full-out brawl had erupted between the Daegu and Daewon basketball teams. Sehun had to split them up, deal with Suyeon’s little boyfriend Hoseok trying to take him on one-on-one, and agree to compensate the cafe owner for the damage.

Couple this with the fact that he had earned practically no money from tutoring and today was the worst day ever.

    After popping a cup of instant ramen noodles in the microwave and devouring them in 5 minutes flat, Sehun goes to sleep.

    Mirae blinks open her eyes. She is sitting on a really soft chair. No, wait- it’s a car seat. A heated car seat. She’s in a car.

    Oh, !, Mirae thinks, shooting up. What’s going on? Have I been kidnapped? Where’s Suyeon-

    “Calm down,” a familiar voice says. Mirae’s eyes widen. She whips her head around to the left. Kim Jongin is sitting next to her, his hands on the steering wheel. His eyes are trained on the road in front of him.

    “Wha- is this your car?” Mirae asks incredulously. “What are you doing?”

    “Driving you home. I managed to get your address from Suyeon.” He wrinkles his nose in distaste at the name. “And almost lost my head in the process. She’s so possessive.”

    “She’s my best friend,” Mirae defends. Suddenly, something dawns on her. “Wait... you were the voice.”

    “The voice?”

    “The voice that was... telling me it would be okay.”

    Jongin nods once. “Yes.”

    Mirae looks at him in astonishment. “Um... thank you. A lot. But how did you know what to do?”

    “I just do,” Jongin responds. The silvery light of the streetlamps above them highlight a sliver of his face, and Mirae is taken aback by how old and weary the boy looks right now. He looks so different. Not like the degenerate brat that he usually is. Mirae chooses not to question him further.

    Until Jongin states, “You have OCD.”

    Mirae’s eyes nearly bug out of her head as she stares at him in horror. “Wha- how do you know?”

    “You dropped your medication on the floor of Caffe Creme a few days ago. I didn’t know whose it was, so I picked it up. I’ll give it to you the next time I see you-,”

    “No!” Mirae exclaims, slamming her hand down on her seat. Jongin finally tears his eyes away from the road and looks at her, his eyebrows raised.

    “So you don’t want your medication? Funny, I would’ve thought you wanted to avoid another incident like today’s, Mirae.”

    “Give it to me later,” she replies miserably. “I don’t want Suyeon to see it.”

    Jongin’s eyebrows climb even higher. “So she doesn’t know you have OCD, huh.”

    “You’re the only one apart from my family and my therapist that knows.” Mirae rubs her eyes. “I don’t want others to know. Especially Suyeon.”

    “You’re afraid that she’ll judge you, that she’ll always tiptoe around you, trying not to trigger you or cause a panic attack- even though she doesn’t fully understand what a trigger or a panic attack is, and how they can be prevented with therapy and medicine. You’re afraid that you’ll screw up in front of her, have a moment of weakness with your disorder, and Suyeon will remember that for your entire life and be scared of you. You don’t want to ruin your friendship. You want to be Mirae, not ‘an OCD victim’.”

    Mirae stares at Jongin in silence for one minute, two minutes, three minutes.

    Finally, she says, “Who the hell are you?”

    Jongin’s face is blank.

“No, who are you?” Mirae repeats. “You’re the only who gets it. Even my therapist doesn’t completely understand why I’ve kept it secret. Wait... you don’t have OCD too, right?”

“No.” Jongin responds tersely.

Mirae’s eyes light up in realization. “Oh, then you must have a relative that does-,”

“We’re here.” Jongin cuts her off. Mirae realizes that they have arrived at her house. She turns back to Jongin. “You still haven’t answered the question-,”

“Get out.” Jongin says. He is looking straight ahead of him, yet again. Mirae blinks at his rudeness.

“Alright,” she says, and is about to open the door when Jongin says, “This doesn’t change anything.”

Mirae turns around. “What?”

“I’m not going to treat you like a little flower, just because of today. I still despise you. Don’t expect me to be nice after today.”

“Fine,” Mirae says, her face hardening. “I didn’t expect you to, anyway.”

She slams the car door and stomps inside.

A/N: I AM A COMPLETE PIECE OF CRAP FOR NOT UPDATING IN SO LONG I'M SORRY 

I had writer's block and 0 inspiration for this story but I read some ScorRose fanfics and got over it LOL