Kim Jongin glanced at his watch. 7: 47. In less than fifteen minutes, the first bell would ring and another long, arduous day at school would begin. Could he make it in time?

“ it,” he muttered heavily underneath his breath, chaining his bike to the nearest lamp post and running to the entrance of the red brick building, instinctively leaping backwards as the automatic doors opened. Breath minty and cold, he jogged to the front desk, lifting the hand-knitted scarf off his mouth. "Mizu —”

“— hara Kei," the bubblegum-chewing receptionist finished, eyes never leaving the silver glow of her laptop screen. "She's ready to see you."

Barely pausing to gasp a thank you, he dodged a supply-laden cart to dash down the hallway, nearly crashing into a wheelchair-bound boy in his eagerness to see her, stumbling in front of a quiet little door labelled "Mizuhara." His heart thumping in anticipation, he raised a hand to knock against the wood.

"Come in!" came the soft-spoken reply.

Flinging open the door, all of his worries melted away at the sight of Kei. Russet tangled up locks, wide jack-o-lantern smile and bathed in morning sunlight.

"Hey, stupid!" she chirped, scooting over to allow him to sit on the edge of her bed. Her freckled hand moving in jerky motions, she traced a finger across the neat blue stitches of his scarf, positively beaming. "Firstly, you're wearing the scarf I got you."

And with a devious glint in her chocolate eyes, she yanked on the scarf with a little more force than necessary, positively cackling when Jongin winced in response. “Secondly, why are you even here right now? You have school soon.”

Jongin simply curled his fingers over her cold ones and gently pried them away from his scarf. “Don’t worry; school doesn’t start for another hour.”

Kei frowned at him, glancing at the wall clock, but decided to let peace reign since it was so early in the morning and the effect of her meds would kick in soon. "Don’t come complaining to me when you can’t graduate because of all the times you were late, kiddo."

"Like I said, it’s okay." he assured her, lying through his teeth. He only had twenty minutes left to get to his first period class, but that hardly mattered now.

"Okay, then." She leaned back in bed, closing her eyes.

They sat in blissful silence.

"Brother Bear," Kei blurted, hesitating. "Have you...seen Taozi lately? The Brat hasn’t visited me in weeks."

His stomach twisting, he swallowed back a gulp and forced a smile. "Well...no. He's — he’s back home in China now since the exchange programme is over, so I haven't talked to him much lately. Don't worry, though, he'll come around eventually. He always does."

No. He's gone. Tao is gone, he wanted to scream. He's gone, and he's not coming back.

But Kei, sweet-because-the-meds-are-working-their-way-into-her-system Kei, nodded, accepting his clipped response. "Okay. When he comes back, tell him to stop by here. I'm knitting a scarf for him, too, but don't spoil it for him, okay? It's supposed to be a surprise."

He fought back tears, clutching her hands tighter. "He'll love it. I'm positive."

She smiled serenely by way of response. "Okay."

Kei proceeded to interrogate him about his grades, friends, and what he'd had for breakfast this day, smacking her lips and making silly faces in anticipation at his vivid descriptions of his kimchi soup and egg rolls.

"I'll bring you some next time," he promised, making a mental note to check the institute’s policies for foodstuffs. "I'm trying a lot of new things now, so you'll get a real feast!"

She murmured in contentment.

After several more minutes of her hair and speaking in soft tones, just when Jongin thought he had successfully calmed her down, Kei’s left hand shot out and gripped his arm tightly.

“H-hey, what’s wro—’’

Jongin couldn’t finish his sentence because she was having another episode again.

She's drowning, consciousness merely lapping at her toes. The waves pull her in, farther and farther from the distant shore; tiny wind-swept bungalows and white sand that tickles at her feet and a voice that begs her to wake up.

("Snap out of it, noona!")

But she pays the drifting sounds no mind. Drowning isn't such a bad way to go, she figures, peace and serenity and the little guppies twittering around her bare feet. It's calm, it's beautiful, it's home. Back to the blue depths of origin, where a brave fish flopped onto land and sprouted legs, where Aphrodite rose up from the cream of foamy waves.

(Midas claims her as his own, turning her pale skin into pure gold beneath the sunlight.)

The ocean is nothing like Zitao’s vulnerability, or Jongin’s flash bang of brilliance. Just the lull of seagulls and the chatterings of the whales, taking her away from the world she had loved and hated. Suffering, where she was ground into glass, and joy, with waddling penguins and a warm bowl of kimchi soup.

(Two boys, welcoming her home; giraffes and painted cardboard.)

It's fading now. The sobs grow dimmer, the sky whitens, and she sinks deeper, deeper. All she is conscious of is the beating of the waves, the slowing thump-thump of her heart, and the shock of her reddish-brown hair as it drifts past.

(She can feel the tubes and the air mask for the briefest moment, smells the sharp odour of chemicals. There are shouts for someone to leave.)

Two hands encircle her wrists. Something shimmery, something warm; the ocean feels icy in comparison. It might be her imagination, but there's a boy floating alongside her, lips pursed, eyes studying her like she was a puzzle to be solved. His hair is a vibrant colour not unlike her own, almost surreal in a pool of pastel blue.

(A unfamiliar face, her memories surfacing and her mind tries to grasp one that can possibly make the identity of the stranger known to her.)

"Are you here to take me away?" Kei hears herself whisper, barely audible over the hypnotic whine of a dolphin. She reaches out to brush her fingers against the boy’s jaw, strangely tangible. It's an odd contrast with her blurry figure, all pulsing skin and peachy fuzz.

The boy shakes her head, lips twitching into a semblance of a smile. He leans forward, breath ghosting against Kei’s ears.

"It's time to wake up."

Kei focuses and yet again, the universe has placed her back into reality, thus making her Wonderland so very far away. She doesn’t realise that her skin has gone deathly pale and her body is racked with violent shivers. Nurses hover over her; one steadying a berating mask over her face, one trying to wrap her frail body in as much blankets as possible, one barking orders at everyone and another speaking hurriedly into the phone with a doctor, presumably requesting for him to swing by Kei’s room.

The young lady in question notices nothing. She briefly thinks back on the times as a child when she’d spin herself around violently until the world became a blur of colours. In that moment, she felt like how she did after spinning; horribly dizzy to the point where it was nearly amusing, but the wind had been knocked out of her so harshly that she didn’t have the energy to laugh, much less to move.

The door creaked open, and a wave of cold descended across the room. The echoing footsteps of two leather shoes sent shivers running up Kei’s spine, belonging to a man with streaked dark hair tied into a messy ponytail, his lips upturned in a small smile.

Dr. Hwang’s eyes were kind, but in reality he was slightly annoyed that the twenty-three year old patient had to act up when his favourite season of Desperate Housewives was on.

“Good morning, Kei. Rough start for today, huh?”

Laboured pants escaped from her lips, causing hot air to fog up inside her oxygen mask. The action discomforted Kei, and her fingers twitched in response. How did she even manage to stop breathing this time?

Her doctor sighed and released the room door from his grasp, thus blocking the sight of the heartbroken boy that was only holding her hands a few moments ago.

Kim Minkyung was running late.

The night before she was up surrounded by mountains of empty Starbucks cups and piles of History textbooks. Her normally alert catlike eyes didn’t have as much eagerness and spark to them as she’d like and the mounds of concealer caked unto her normally bare face made her feel warm all over.

This is what you get when you cram for a test, Minkyung chided herself. Her oxford clad feet tapped impatiently on the bus floor as she willed the streetlight to flash green. Seconds tic