a formula for how to deal [reposted from penned_paper/katsudono]
Title: a formula for how to deal
Focus: taemin-centric (with jongtae and taekey interactions)
Rating: pg-13
Wordcount: 4 369
Warning: swearing, mental illness and (very light, imagined) sexual situations.
Summary: taemin's in the facility, living as he always has. that is, before jonghyun comes and tries to help him.
Note: remix of sweet dreams by itachibana13 for kpop_ficmix originally posted here. many thanks to my handholders; calvin, platypus and porcupine! minor typos have been fixed up, and any inaccuracies to these conditions can be blamed on wikipedia...
-
There used to be a pretty girl who Taemin liked, though she didn't care much for him.
"Hi," he said every morning before sliding into the seat next to her. She tossed her hair, smiled at him briefly before turning back to her friend. His heart always twitched -- in delight that she had acknowledged him, or in disappointment, he couldn't tell -- before he took out his books for the day.
Now, in the facility, there's only blinding white and a sort of boredom that descends every day without fail.
"Hi, I'm your doctor."
He doesn't look like a doctor, just a run of the mill guy. Okay, not really run of the mill with his hair and piercings and the clothes he has under -- a t-shirt, was he really a doctor? -- and the bracelets. So many bracelets.
"Hello, doctor."
"So my name is Dr. Kim, but you can call me Jonghyun... Taemin."
Dr. Kim, Jonghyun, smiles encouragingly at him, but Taemin just crosses his arms, focuses so his hands will stop shaking.
"Today will just be relatively brief -- let's talk a bit. What's your favourite colour?"
Taemin smiles, a bit calmer just at the thought of it. "Orange."
Jonghyun nods and notes it down. "Animal?"
Taemin takes a moment to think. He gets a flash of orange on yellow, a dried out yellow with the relentless sun and the sky --
"Lion."
Jonghyun writes it down again.
"Drink?"
Taemin shakes his head. "Whatever's warm."
"Food?"
Taemin thinks. "Chilli."
Taemin doesn't deny he has a problem, but it's kind of unnerving seeing Jonghyun note all these insignificant things down, like they're part of a larger picture that Taemin can't be bothered opening his eyes to see. It's almost half past five, and Taemin knows what the time means, and his fingers start twitching, he starts getting anxious, breaths short and difficult, and Jonghyun looks at the clock too.
"Let's leave it there for today. You better go back to your room."
Taemin stands and the security guards escort him out.
There's a new patient in the facility, he hears, but rumours come and go, and Taemin's learnt to see things with his own eyes before he takes anyone's word for it.
That is, unless that person is Donghae, who seems to know everyone and everything. He catches Taemin's arm when they're outside during their mandatory fresh-air hour.
"New one's a weird one," he laughs in Taemin's ear, and Taemin wiggles out of his grasp.
"What do you mean?"
Donghae shrugs, stuffing is hands into his pockets and Taemin imitates him, fingers twitching.
"Class 5, with the straitjacket and all," Donghae says, grinning, cocky. Taemin stares at him.
"For real? But there hasn't been--"
Donghae shooshes him, places his right hand over Taemin's mouth.
"Classified info, don't tell anyone. I'll see you around, Taemin."
He walks off with a wave and Taemin stares at the sky until he can feel the image of the sun burned into his retinas.
"How're you feeling today?" Jonghyun asks as Taemin's being led in, and he shrugs.
"Better than yesterday." His eyes don't hurt as much, and he can't see the aftermath of the sun when he blinks anymore.
"Let's talk about your family, Taemin. Tell me about your family."
The memories about his family were one of the firsts he let go of. They're of no importance to him now, since he's here and they clearly don't care for him.
"I had a mum, dad and an older brother." Taemin shrugs. "Just, you know, a normal family."
Jonghyun taps his pen against the table, and Taemin wants to snatch it away, cease the sound.
"Normal family? What would you describe as normal?"
"Just, you know. Mother, father, one-point-seven kids. The normal. Like, what statistics says, what everything else says."
Jonghyun taps the pen again, a steady metronome on the tabletop.
"Do you want normalcy? Just want a normal life and family again?"
"Well, yeah. Doesn't everyone just want a normal life? Just you know, live outside and live normally. Go to school, date, study, work. Get into uni, get a job, marry and have their own kids. That's I want. I don't care, I just. I just want that."
He's clenching his hands, tight on the armrest of the chair. His jaw is strained and he's curling his toes, tension in every part of his body. He has a sudden urge, to just light something on fire. See the fire, feel the heat curl around his fingers and look at the very middle of the flame where it's simply white-hot, white-bright, burning.
Jonghyun clears his throat. "That's enough for today. I'll see you tomorrow, Taemin."
The walls are a bare sort of dull, and the lines Taemin scratches with his dulled nails shine, the paint turning shiny.
It's boring, and he can't remember the last time he was outside, and the memories he had so carefully gathered and kept safe are now disappearing, vanishing.
He remembers a girl who used to be in his dance class; cheerfulness and confidence dripped from her very being, and the way she danced never failed to take his breath away, even if she was a year younger than him.
Minji, he remembers her name was and scratches it into the wall, shining for a moment before he turns away and forgets where it is.
They're slowly loosening their hold on him, Taemin can feel it. Instead of being confined to his room twenty-three hours out of twenty-four, they let him go to the library with some of the other patients, let him eat in the cafeteria with Class 1 and 2 patients, and his fresh air time gets extended.
"Can I have a watch?" he asks one of the guards when he's in the library, a book about differentiation and integration on his lap. This is what he should be concerned with; being outside in the real world, sitting in a classroom and studying maths, learning about useless things he'll never have to know again.
The guards talk amongst themselves before they nod at him.
"We'll ask for you."
When Taemin comes into Jonghyun's office, there's a small package on the desk for him.
"Open it," Jonghyun says, smiling, and Taemin does. It's a small watch, a nondescript face in white with black Hindu-Arabic numerals and a black strap. It's keeping in time to the clock on the wall exactly, the ticks synchronised.
Taemin tries it on his wrist, fumbling just slightly when he attempts to do it up, but Jonghyun refrains from helping.
"Like it?"
Taemin looks up and thinks that no way can Jonghyun be a doctor, not like the ones who diagnosed him and shoved him into this prison. Jonghyun's grin is bright and almost begging for recognition, and Taemin nods.
"Thank you."
With the watch, Taemin instantly feels at peace. It's like a piece of his life is ordered now, and he can measure the times when the guards will come to pick him up to take him to the cafeteria, or when he's due for an appointment with Jonghyun. Taemin looses the on-the-edge feeling, the nervousness and tension that had been with him every since he entered the institution, and he likes it. He likes it very much.
His favourite place is the library now. Peaceful and quiet, and it's when he's walking to the library from the cafeteria, already having shrugged off his guards, that he sees someone he doesn't recognise, someone definitely not Class 1 or 2.
“Are you Kibum?” he can't help but ask, wondering if the rumours are true. If what Donghae said was true.
“No, go away.” Taemin's a bit pissed off at the light dismissal, the acknowledgement that he isn't worth even a glance. He hasn't felt anger in a while, and he doesn't want to, so he fingers his watch, remembers Jonghyun's kind smile.
“Oh. Well if you are, Jonghyun says you have to meet him in the library now,” Taemin spits out, but the boy misses his tone, more interested in his mirror. Narcissus, I hope you drown yourself, Taemin thinks.
“Tell him I’m not coming.” Taemin crosses his arms. What is he now, a servant?
“So, you are Kibum?” He raises an eyebrow as he says the words, wondering if the rumours aren't true, and Kibum's just a brat who acts high and mighty because he can.
The boy finally looks up, glaring at Taemin as hard as he can, but Taemin's taken worse. Like a glare and raised eyebrow would scare him.
“Who are you?”
“Taemin." Like his name actually mattered here, when only your disorder and Class really defined you. No question about it now.
"You’re Kibum. And Jonghyun is looking for you.” Jonghyun's nice, Taemin doesn't want to cause any trouble for him.
Kibum rolls his eyes, still high and mighty, and Taemin wonders what will bring his downfall. “You can tell Jonghyun that he can go screw a - ”
“Taemin!” They both look up to see a nurse nearby, pointing at her watch.“Taemin, it’s five twenty-eight! You only have two minutes.”
Two? But he made sure that--
He looks at his own watch, and the nurse is right, and shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, Taemin thinks as he sprints to the nurse. He can't get back to his room in two minutes.
He starts counting down, looking at his watch as he nears the nurse.
A minute forty-five left.
Shit, shit, shit, for fuck's sake.
He runs. Turn left here, turn right.
One thirty-two.
Straight ahead. His head starts spinning with thoughts, with fucking contaminating thoughts about sex, about someone else's body lying next to him. That girl, that one he saw every morning before class, what was her name, the feeling of her hair--
One thirteen.
Soft between his fingers, and he sobs aloud, dirty thoughts, dirty fucking thoughts, and what an irony that is, dirty and fucking, fucking and dirty, fucking dirty thoughts--
One nine.
He runs, thinks about measuring his breath in and out, the steady thumping of his feet on the floor, and he turns right, left, but he can hear only the panting of his own breath, panting like a dirty prayer, a dirty, sexual noise--
Fifty-two.
His room, he must think about his room. Empty, all empty. No one else there, no one, and the thought sickens him as he thinks of what else he could do, alone in his room, and a body--
Thirty-eight.
Body, soft, lithe, flexible. Minji, her name was, Minji, he whispers like a curse, and he stutters to a stop, breath laboured and nowhere where he needs to be. He needs water, clean pure water to rid himself of these thoughts, dirty, unclean--
Twelve.
Dirty and unclean, dirty and unclean, dirty and unclean, like a mantra, like a prayer, he sobs, and one of the nurses takes his hands as he stands there, but he shakes her off, not wanting to contaminate her, and he's stuck in the middle of a place that is white, white all over and so pure and clean that he can't bear to dirty it with his thoughts, bear to--
Zero.
The fire in him, the lust, the desire, the want. He needs to burn it all, needs fire, right now, needs to get rid of these dirty, impure this, this impurity inside him, this--
The nurses drag him into a room as he screams, as he screams and screams and screams, wanting to get rid of this, this thing inside of him. He sobs aloud, thrashes, wishing for water, wishing for water to douse himself in, to drown himself in, or just a fire to burn it all. Fight fire with fire, he remembers someone telling him, long ago, and he needs to fight fire with fire now, and he thrashes. Fire, water, fire, water, fire...
"We were readying you for your release, you know," Jonghyun says quietly.
Taemin's fingers twitch, guilty as they fold over his lap.
"It was, you know, the time. I just. I couldn't get back in time. It hurt, it was really. It hurt real bad."
Jonghyun sighs and puts his pen down, and Taemin keeps his head bowed. It's more than shame that keeps his head downturned, just the weight of guilt and disappointment sitting at the base of his neck, and he clenches his hand.
"You've been elevated again to Class 3. You were at Class 1 just yesterday, before your incident, you know." Jonghyun's voice is quiet and Taemin can feel the disappointment, the quiet hopelessness. "What set it off?"
"Just the time. I couldn't get back in time."
Jonghyun frowns, and his displeasure is evident.
"Taemin, you know yourself best. You know what happens at half past five, and you know how to prevent it best. You're always prepared for this, every single day. Something must have prevented you. Come on Taemin, I can't help you if you don't say anything."
Taemin plays with his watch, a small smudge on it from the previous day when one of the nurses had tried to grab his arm.
"I. I met Kibum."
Jonghyun freezes.
"Kibum?"
"Kibum."
He expels a breath, and runs a hand through his hair, and Taemin likes it, the colour. Like fire, warm and comforting. Maybe that's why he trusts Jonghyun so much.
"What happened?"
Taemin shrugs. "We just talked. I lost track of the time."
"Lost track of time."
He's aware of how it sounds, to be diagnosed as OCD and then to lose track of time, one of the most essential things to him. One of the things that define how he lives his life just dismissed, just like that, and Taemin looks down at his lap.
"You know that with being demoted to Class 3 you'll have restrictions placed back on where you eat and who you meet with, with how many hours you are allowed outside your room and you will be permitted only certain items."
Taemin nods.
"With special consideration placed, we've decided that you will return to eating in your room, but you are allowed out to the library and into the courtyard during the previously allocated times. From 4pm until 8pm, you are not permitted to leave your room at all. Prior to or after that, if the guards escort you and you have special permission, you may go wherever you wish in the facility."
Taemin nods again. Jonghyun puts down the papers and looks at him, before sighing.
"You can go back to your room now."
He's in the library, trying to clear his head. It's the only place that the guards leave him alone, and he takes a puzzle, one of the few miscellaneous items permitted.
Someone enters, furtively and sounding nothing like the guards or other patients. The footsteps are unsure and light, not drugged out or with purpose. Taemin looks up to see Kibum kneeling beside him, and he wants to ignore Kibum, but he kind of wants to hit him too.
“So you’re a pyromaniac, and you have OCD?” are his greeting words, and Taemin's hand clenches until the edges of the puzzle piece bite into his skin, looking back down to the puzzle.
“Yup.”
“Sounds kinda contradictory to me.” Kibum's tone is nothing, almost devoid of emotion. Just cold fact, and Taemin realises that even if Kibum's running away from the guards, away from the doctors and their medicine, he's turning into just another patient. Lifeless until something triggers him.
“You’re an oxymoron too," Taemin bites out. If Kibum coming back to him means anything, it simply means the rumours are true. "You can put in and take out memories of other people, yet you’d rather not remember the past yourself.”
But then, no one remembers anything after being in here for so long, and the only thing is a flicker of memory, a flicker of whatever defines them (their disorder, their Class) and then just pure white.
Taemin doesn't look up as Kibum continues with, “I guess that’s why we’re here, huh?”
It's true. Donghae with his open affection yet fear of being touched, Henry with his compulsive urge to touch everything, to play music until his fingers and lips bleed, but then hating sounds, hating the sounds of footsteps, of another's voice, of a door opening and closing. The contradiction of living.
Taemin lets out a small, curt nod as he fits another piece into place, and Kibum sighs, throwing something at the opposite wall. A piece of sky goes into place next.
It's quiet for the next few moments, just him fitting puzzle pieces into their place and Kibum staring at the wall before he hears sounds, soft but purposeful.
“I hear footsteps,” he says, and Kibum looks over. “I think they’re still looking for you.”
There's a beat of silence as Taemin's hand hovers over the puzzle before Kibum grabs it.
“They really never give up, do they? C’mon Taemin, let’s go.”
The sky is bright and Taemin decides he doesn't like it, prefers the quiet and peace of the library. Some of the others are over on the basketball court, playing. It's such a normal scene that Taemin wishes it was true and they weren't locked away in some facility.
Kibum drags him past them until they're in the courtyard, and the gates are the only thing barring them from freedom. From a normal life.
“What do you think is out there?” Kibum asks, and Taemin shrugs, dropping his hand.
“Trees, grass, rocks, more trees?” That's what his books say, anyway. Kibum sighs at his response.
“Do you remember what you were like before you came here?”
Taemin looks over, sees the wistfulness on Kibum's face and the shield that he has on is gone. He wants freedom, he wants a normal life like they all do in here, and he suddenly wants to do Kibum a service. So what if Kibum made him return to Class 3? It was his own fault for not keeping track of the time, and he closes his eyes, trying to bring something to mind. Even just the image of the pretty girl that greeted him before class, or that girl who danced -- Minji?
But he can't. He just remembers that feeling, always at half past five, that burning and the pain. The fire, and how back then, water didn't really help. Only burning, only seeing himself expressed in fire helped him.
“No, not really. All I remember is…fire.”
“Oh. Well, I was the social kid. I was always out with friends shopping, flirting with girls, and just being a teenage kid." Taemin can't help but roll his eyes a bit. "Now, I don’t even remember what my best friend’s voice sounded like.”
The last part strikes Taemin because, and he tries, he can't hear his friends' voices either. Can't remember their faces, can't remember his brother's -- does he even have a brother? He kicks the dirt, wondering if Kibum was going to become like them, wiped free. A clean slate.
“Are you already losing yourself?” he asks, and Kibum stares at him, silent.
“Am I already losing what?”
“Yourself,” Taemin repeats. “Hyung, this place is scary. It’s a normal hospital, but before you know it, you don’t remember anything about yourself anymore. And then, when and if you are ever released, it’s hard to go back to society.”
He suddenly remembers when he had first come here, a vivid flash for just a moment. It had been at 7pm, just after one of his 'episodes,' and his mother had stuffed him into the car before driving him to this place. The forms had been signed for his admission before he had been led away to his room. But the memory, it disappears right after he experiences it, and Kibum's voice brings him back to reality.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t be forgetting myself this soon. You’re just paranoid, Taemin.”
Taemin wonders if these are the words that everyone says at first, that they'll keep themselves before they're stripped of everything. That it occurs before anyone realises, and Taemin jerks when Kibum's hand lands on his head before it shifts, minuscule movements, and his eyes flutter closed.
He experiences something, something in his mind that feels foreign and distasteful, but he lets it reign. It's a memory, he realises, one that Kibum had just given him.
It's dark. It's a place he doesn't recognise, and he feels uneasy, feels on the edge again and he wishes for something to burn, something to steady himself. There's a woman screaming at him, screaming words he can't hear. He reaches up to his ears and feels cotton wool, and he tries to tug it out, but they stay stuck and he can't hear anything, just muffled screaming and muffled swears before the black that tugs at his vision wins, and he faints. He submits to darkness and it's the first time he's felt at peace for a while.
"Let's talk about Kibum."
Jonghyun crosses his legs and Taemin looks at his hands on the desk, clasped and with the watch on his wrist.
"What about him?"
His mind keeps flickering back to that memory, the one fuzzy around the edges with a woman screaming and just darkness. It's a bit unnerving but otherwise alright. He just wants to light it up, to be able to see.
"What do you think about Kibum?"
Taemin thinks for a moment.
"I feel sorry for him," he says, and this can't be the answer Jonghyun wants because his eyebrows hit his hairline.
"Sorry for him, how so?"
Taemin shrugs.
"He's struggling. He's fighting the system. Just letting go and letting the system take charge is easier. It'll bring about change for the better and it'll get you out of here faster."
Jonghyun stares at him.
"Did something happen between the two of you? Because it says here that he inserted a memory into you -- you know that memories are a fragile thing, and even the slightest disruption of them can cause psychological problems? It can cause people to go insane, to want to kill themselves?"
Taemin laughs, and Jonghyun realises it's the first time he's heard that sound from Taemin, hell, heard a laugh in the whole facility.
"But Jonghyun, hyung." They both still at the word, but Jonghyun can't help the grin and Taemin continues, encouraged. "I feel. Sometimes you need something to open your eyes, you know? I think Kibum helped. It might not be good for me psychologically, or even in the long run but seeing what he sees, seeing what he experienced." He licks his lips, buying a small amount of time but continuing. "You know, it puts things into perspective. Do you know what memory he gave me?"
Jonghyun shakes his head, and Taemin leans forward, eyes bright.
"He gave me the memory of his mother, I'm sure of it, of his mother losing her memories and accusing him, of screaming at him and banishing him. It must've been horrible for him, to have his own mother shout at him and not even recognise him, but for me? I think I needed to see that. I'm not a Class 5; I'm not even a Class 3. I'm Class 1 or 2 at best because I know what's wrong with me and now? I want to try fix it. I want to make myself better because I want to go back to the real world and sit in class and learn English or French, and dance again, and learn about the volumes of impossible shapes and why icebergs will one day flood the world. Hyung, I want to go back to normal, and I want you to help me."
It's a slow process, and Taemin learns to deal with his disorder. To carefully clock away some time at half past five so that he can deal with what he has to do, to drench himself in cold water, to scrub at his body until it burns and to perhaps light something on fire.
Jonghyun helps too, even if he's preoccupied with Kibum. They still have daily sessions together, but now it's of Jonghyun telling Taemin about the outside world, reacquainting him with the concept of currency and teaching him the train lines again. It's of Jonghyun bringing in the morning paper and reading it together, of filling out the crossword and betting how right the weather forecast will be.
"I found a maths textbook in the library!" Taemin says happily when it's two o'clock, walking into Jonghyun's office.
Jonghyun looks up from his notes, closing a file and raising his eyebrow.
"Maths? Like, numbers and addition and subtraction and--"
Taemin laughs. "Yes, and division and multiplication and volumes and graphs and differentiation and integration..."
"Parabolas," Jonghyun practically sobs. "Hyperbolas, complex numbers and permutations and combinations and binomials and--"
"Wow, okay, I never learnt any of that at school. Teach me?"
Taemin's staring at him, wide-eyed, and Jonghyun really wants to do the best for him, do the best he can in this situation, but he can't deny the truth.
"I suck shit at maths. I can teach you the history of the rubber band, if you want?"
They spend the rest of the hour in companionable silence as Taemin reads his textbook, happily absorbing maths formulae while Jonghyun alternates between mourning for Taemin's future and reading notes on Kibum.
"Good news," Jonghyun says three weeks after Kibum had inserted the memory in.
Taemin looks up from his book on the history of Asia, fingers playing on the edge of the page. When he gets out, he's going to travel the world and not regret a single moment of being alive. He's going to live life, if he can help it, visiting World Heritage sites and indulging in foreign cuisine.
"Yeah?"
Jonghyun's face looks like it's about to burst with the force of his smile. "You're getting out."
Focus: taemin-centric (with jongtae and taekey interactions)
Rating: pg-13
Wordcount: 4 369
Warning: swearing, mental illness and (very light, imagined) sexual situations.
Summary: taemin's in the facility, living as he always has. that is, before jonghyun comes and tries to help him.
Note: remix of sweet dreams by itachibana13 for kpop_ficmix originally posted here. many thanks to my handholders; calvin, platypus and porcupine! minor typos have been fixed up, and any inaccuracies to these conditions can be blamed on wikipedia...
-
There used to be a pretty girl who Taemin liked, though she didn't care much for him.
"Hi," he said every morning before sliding into the seat next to her. She tossed her hair, smiled at him briefly before turning back to her friend. His heart always twitched -- in delight that she had acknowledged him, or in disappointment, he couldn't tell -- before he took out his books for the day.
Now, in the facility, there's only blinding white and a sort of boredom that descends every day without fail.
"Hi, I'm your doctor."
He doesn't look like a doctor, just a run of the mill guy. Okay, not really run of the mill with his hair and piercings and the clothes he has under -- a t-shirt, was he really a doctor? -- and the bracelets. So many bracelets.
"Hello, doctor."
"So my name is Dr. Kim, but you can call me Jonghyun... Taemin."
Dr. Kim, Jonghyun, smiles encouragingly at him, but Taemin just crosses his arms, focuses so his hands will stop shaking.
"Today will just be relatively brief -- let's talk a bit. What's your favourite colour?"
Taemin smiles, a bit calmer just at the thought of it. "Orange."
Jonghyun nods and notes it down. "Animal?"
Taemin takes a moment to think. He gets a flash of orange on yellow, a dried out yellow with the relentless sun and the sky --
"Lion."
Jonghyun writes it down again.
"Drink?"
Taemin shakes his head. "Whatever's warm."
"Food?"
Taemin thinks. "Chilli."
Taemin doesn't deny he has a problem, but it's kind of unnerving seeing Jonghyun note all these insignificant things down, like they're part of a larger picture that Taemin can't be bothered opening his eyes to see. It's almost half past five, and Taemin knows what the time means, and his fingers start twitching, he starts getting anxious, breaths short and difficult, and Jonghyun looks at the clock too.
"Let's leave it there for today. You better go back to your room."
Taemin stands and the security guards escort him out.
There's a new patient in the facility, he hears, but rumours come and go, and Taemin's learnt to see things with his own eyes before he takes anyone's word for it.
That is, unless that person is Donghae, who seems to know everyone and everything. He catches Taemin's arm when they're outside during their mandatory fresh-air hour.
"New one's a weird one," he laughs in Taemin's ear, and Taemin wiggles out of his grasp.
"What do you mean?"
Donghae shrugs, stuffing is hands into his pockets and Taemin imitates him, fingers twitching.
"Class 5, with the straitjacket and all," Donghae says, grinning, cocky. Taemin stares at him.
"For real? But there hasn't been--"
Donghae shooshes him, places his right hand over Taemin's mouth.
"Classified info, don't tell anyone. I'll see you around, Taemin."
He walks off with a wave and Taemin stares at the sky until he can feel the image of the sun burned into his retinas.
"How're you feeling today?" Jonghyun asks as Taemin's being led in, and he shrugs.
"Better than yesterday." His eyes don't hurt as much, and he can't see the aftermath of the sun when he blinks anymore.
"Let's talk about your family, Taemin. Tell me about your family."
The memories about his family were one of the firsts he let go of. They're of no importance to him now, since he's here and they clearly don't care for him.
"I had a mum, dad and an older brother." Taemin shrugs. "Just, you know, a normal family."
Jonghyun taps his pen against the table, and Taemin wants to snatch it away, cease the sound.
"Normal family? What would you describe as normal?"
"Just, you know. Mother, father, one-point-seven kids. The normal. Like, what statistics says, what everything else says."
Jonghyun taps the pen again, a steady metronome on the tabletop.
"Do you want normalcy? Just want a normal life and family again?"
"Well, yeah. Doesn't everyone just want a normal life? Just you know, live outside and live normally. Go to school, date, study, work. Get into uni, get a job, marry and have their own kids. That's I want. I don't care, I just. I just want that."
He's clenching his hands, tight on the armrest of the chair. His jaw is strained and he's curling his toes, tension in every part of his body. He has a sudden urge, to just light something on fire. See the fire, feel the heat curl around his fingers and look at the very middle of the flame where it's simply white-hot, white-bright, burning.
Jonghyun clears his throat. "That's enough for today. I'll see you tomorrow, Taemin."
The walls are a bare sort of dull, and the lines Taemin scratches with his dulled nails shine, the paint turning shiny.
It's boring, and he can't remember the last time he was outside, and the memories he had so carefully gathered and kept safe are now disappearing, vanishing.
He remembers a girl who used to be in his dance class; cheerfulness and confidence dripped from her very being, and the way she danced never failed to take his breath away, even if she was a year younger than him.
Minji, he remembers her name was and scratches it into the wall, shining for a moment before he turns away and forgets where it is.
They're slowly loosening their hold on him, Taemin can feel it. Instead of being confined to his room twenty-three hours out of twenty-four, they let him go to the library with some of the other patients, let him eat in the cafeteria with Class 1 and 2 patients, and his fresh air time gets extended.
"Can I have a watch?" he asks one of the guards when he's in the library, a book about differentiation and integration on his lap. This is what he should be concerned with; being outside in the real world, sitting in a classroom and studying maths, learning about useless things he'll never have to know again.
The guards talk amongst themselves before they nod at him.
"We'll ask for you."
When Taemin comes into Jonghyun's office, there's a small package on the desk for him.
"Open it," Jonghyun says, smiling, and Taemin does. It's a small watch, a nondescript face in white with black Hindu-Arabic numerals and a black strap. It's keeping in time to the clock on the wall exactly, the ticks synchronised.
Taemin tries it on his wrist, fumbling just slightly when he attempts to do it up, but Jonghyun refrains from helping.
"Like it?"
Taemin looks up and thinks that no way can Jonghyun be a doctor, not like the ones who diagnosed him and shoved him into this prison. Jonghyun's grin is bright and almost begging for recognition, and Taemin nods.
"Thank you."
With the watch, Taemin instantly feels at peace. It's like a piece of his life is ordered now, and he can measure the times when the guards will come to pick him up to take him to the cafeteria, or when he's due for an appointment with Jonghyun. Taemin looses the on-the-edge feeling, the nervousness and tension that had been with him every since he entered the institution, and he likes it. He likes it very much.
His favourite place is the library now. Peaceful and quiet, and it's when he's walking to the library from the cafeteria, already having shrugged off his guards, that he sees someone he doesn't recognise, someone definitely not Class 1 or 2.
“Are you Kibum?” he can't help but ask, wondering if the rumours are true. If what Donghae said was true.
“No, go away.” Taemin's a bit pissed off at the light dismissal, the acknowledgement that he isn't worth even a glance. He hasn't felt anger in a while, and he doesn't want to, so he fingers his watch, remembers Jonghyun's kind smile.
“Oh. Well if you are, Jonghyun says you have to meet him in the library now,” Taemin spits out, but the boy misses his tone, more interested in his mirror. Narcissus, I hope you drown yourself, Taemin thinks.
“Tell him I’m not coming.” Taemin crosses his arms. What is he now, a servant?
“So, you are Kibum?” He raises an eyebrow as he says the words, wondering if the rumours aren't true, and Kibum's just a brat who acts high and mighty because he can.
The boy finally looks up, glaring at Taemin as hard as he can, but Taemin's taken worse. Like a glare and raised eyebrow would scare him.
“Who are you?”
“Taemin." Like his name actually mattered here, when only your disorder and Class really defined you. No question about it now.
"You’re Kibum. And Jonghyun is looking for you.” Jonghyun's nice, Taemin doesn't want to cause any trouble for him.
Kibum rolls his eyes, still high and mighty, and Taemin wonders what will bring his downfall. “You can tell Jonghyun that he can go screw a - ”
“Taemin!” They both look up to see a nurse nearby, pointing at her watch.“Taemin, it’s five twenty-eight! You only have two minutes.”
Two? But he made sure that--
He looks at his own watch, and the nurse is right, and shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, Taemin thinks as he sprints to the nurse. He can't get back to his room in two minutes.
He starts counting down, looking at his watch as he nears the nurse.
A minute forty-five left.
Shit, shit, shit, for fuck's sake.
He runs. Turn left here, turn right.
One thirty-two.
Straight ahead. His head starts spinning with thoughts, with fucking contaminating thoughts about sex, about someone else's body lying next to him. That girl, that one he saw every morning before class, what was her name, the feeling of her hair--
One thirteen.
Soft between his fingers, and he sobs aloud, dirty thoughts, dirty fucking thoughts, and what an irony that is, dirty and fucking, fucking and dirty, fucking dirty thoughts--
One nine.
He runs, thinks about measuring his breath in and out, the steady thumping of his feet on the floor, and he turns right, left, but he can hear only the panting of his own breath, panting like a dirty prayer, a dirty, sexual noise--
Fifty-two.
His room, he must think about his room. Empty, all empty. No one else there, no one, and the thought sickens him as he thinks of what else he could do, alone in his room, and a body--
Thirty-eight.
Body, soft, lithe, flexible. Minji, her name was, Minji, he whispers like a curse, and he stutters to a stop, breath laboured and nowhere where he needs to be. He needs water, clean pure water to rid himself of these thoughts, dirty, unclean--
Twelve.
Dirty and unclean, dirty and unclean, dirty and unclean, like a mantra, like a prayer, he sobs, and one of the nurses takes his hands as he stands there, but he shakes her off, not wanting to contaminate her, and he's stuck in the middle of a place that is white, white all over and so pure and clean that he can't bear to dirty it with his thoughts, bear to--
Zero.
The fire in him, the lust, the desire, the want. He needs to burn it all, needs fire, right now, needs to get rid of these dirty, impure this, this impurity inside him, this--
The nurses drag him into a room as he screams, as he screams and screams and screams, wanting to get rid of this, this thing inside of him. He sobs aloud, thrashes, wishing for water, wishing for water to douse himself in, to drown himself in, or just a fire to burn it all. Fight fire with fire, he remembers someone telling him, long ago, and he needs to fight fire with fire now, and he thrashes. Fire, water, fire, water, fire...
"We were readying you for your release, you know," Jonghyun says quietly.
Taemin's fingers twitch, guilty as they fold over his lap.
"It was, you know, the time. I just. I couldn't get back in time. It hurt, it was really. It hurt real bad."
Jonghyun sighs and puts his pen down, and Taemin keeps his head bowed. It's more than shame that keeps his head downturned, just the weight of guilt and disappointment sitting at the base of his neck, and he clenches his hand.
"You've been elevated again to Class 3. You were at Class 1 just yesterday, before your incident, you know." Jonghyun's voice is quiet and Taemin can feel the disappointment, the quiet hopelessness. "What set it off?"
"Just the time. I couldn't get back in time."
Jonghyun frowns, and his displeasure is evident.
"Taemin, you know yourself best. You know what happens at half past five, and you know how to prevent it best. You're always prepared for this, every single day. Something must have prevented you. Come on Taemin, I can't help you if you don't say anything."
Taemin plays with his watch, a small smudge on it from the previous day when one of the nurses had tried to grab his arm.
"I. I met Kibum."
Jonghyun freezes.
"Kibum?"
"Kibum."
He expels a breath, and runs a hand through his hair, and Taemin likes it, the colour. Like fire, warm and comforting. Maybe that's why he trusts Jonghyun so much.
"What happened?"
Taemin shrugs. "We just talked. I lost track of the time."
"Lost track of time."
He's aware of how it sounds, to be diagnosed as OCD and then to lose track of time, one of the most essential things to him. One of the things that define how he lives his life just dismissed, just like that, and Taemin looks down at his lap.
"You know that with being demoted to Class 3 you'll have restrictions placed back on where you eat and who you meet with, with how many hours you are allowed outside your room and you will be permitted only certain items."
Taemin nods.
"With special consideration placed, we've decided that you will return to eating in your room, but you are allowed out to the library and into the courtyard during the previously allocated times. From 4pm until 8pm, you are not permitted to leave your room at all. Prior to or after that, if the guards escort you and you have special permission, you may go wherever you wish in the facility."
Taemin nods again. Jonghyun puts down the papers and looks at him, before sighing.
"You can go back to your room now."
He's in the library, trying to clear his head. It's the only place that the guards leave him alone, and he takes a puzzle, one of the few miscellaneous items permitted.
Someone enters, furtively and sounding nothing like the guards or other patients. The footsteps are unsure and light, not drugged out or with purpose. Taemin looks up to see Kibum kneeling beside him, and he wants to ignore Kibum, but he kind of wants to hit him too.
“So you’re a pyromaniac, and you have OCD?” are his greeting words, and Taemin's hand clenches until the edges of the puzzle piece bite into his skin, looking back down to the puzzle.
“Yup.”
“Sounds kinda contradictory to me.” Kibum's tone is nothing, almost devoid of emotion. Just cold fact, and Taemin realises that even if Kibum's running away from the guards, away from the doctors and their medicine, he's turning into just another patient. Lifeless until something triggers him.
“You’re an oxymoron too," Taemin bites out. If Kibum coming back to him means anything, it simply means the rumours are true. "You can put in and take out memories of other people, yet you’d rather not remember the past yourself.”
But then, no one remembers anything after being in here for so long, and the only thing is a flicker of memory, a flicker of whatever defines them (their disorder, their Class) and then just pure white.
Taemin doesn't look up as Kibum continues with, “I guess that’s why we’re here, huh?”
It's true. Donghae with his open affection yet fear of being touched, Henry with his compulsive urge to touch everything, to play music until his fingers and lips bleed, but then hating sounds, hating the sounds of footsteps, of another's voice, of a door opening and closing. The contradiction of living.
Taemin lets out a small, curt nod as he fits another piece into place, and Kibum sighs, throwing something at the opposite wall. A piece of sky goes into place next.
It's quiet for the next few moments, just him fitting puzzle pieces into their place and Kibum staring at the wall before he hears sounds, soft but purposeful.
“I hear footsteps,” he says, and Kibum looks over. “I think they’re still looking for you.”
There's a beat of silence as Taemin's hand hovers over the puzzle before Kibum grabs it.
“They really never give up, do they? C’mon Taemin, let’s go.”
The sky is bright and Taemin decides he doesn't like it, prefers the quiet and peace of the library. Some of the others are over on the basketball court, playing. It's such a normal scene that Taemin wishes it was true and they weren't locked away in some facility.
Kibum drags him past them until they're in the courtyard, and the gates are the only thing barring them from freedom. From a normal life.
“What do you think is out there?” Kibum asks, and Taemin shrugs, dropping his hand.
“Trees, grass, rocks, more trees?” That's what his books say, anyway. Kibum sighs at his response.
“Do you remember what you were like before you came here?”
Taemin looks over, sees the wistfulness on Kibum's face and the shield that he has on is gone. He wants freedom, he wants a normal life like they all do in here, and he suddenly wants to do Kibum a service. So what if Kibum made him return to Class 3? It was his own fault for not keeping track of the time, and he closes his eyes, trying to bring something to mind. Even just the image of the pretty girl that greeted him before class, or that girl who danced -- Minji?
But he can't. He just remembers that feeling, always at half past five, that burning and the pain. The fire, and how back then, water didn't really help. Only burning, only seeing himself expressed in fire helped him.
“No, not really. All I remember is…fire.”
“Oh. Well, I was the social kid. I was always out with friends shopping, flirting with girls, and just being a teenage kid." Taemin can't help but roll his eyes a bit. "Now, I don’t even remember what my best friend’s voice sounded like.”
The last part strikes Taemin because, and he tries, he can't hear his friends' voices either. Can't remember their faces, can't remember his brother's -- does he even have a brother? He kicks the dirt, wondering if Kibum was going to become like them, wiped free. A clean slate.
“Are you already losing yourself?” he asks, and Kibum stares at him, silent.
“Am I already losing what?”
“Yourself,” Taemin repeats. “Hyung, this place is scary. It’s a normal hospital, but before you know it, you don’t remember anything about yourself anymore. And then, when and if you are ever released, it’s hard to go back to society.”
He suddenly remembers when he had first come here, a vivid flash for just a moment. It had been at 7pm, just after one of his 'episodes,' and his mother had stuffed him into the car before driving him to this place. The forms had been signed for his admission before he had been led away to his room. But the memory, it disappears right after he experiences it, and Kibum's voice brings him back to reality.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t be forgetting myself this soon. You’re just paranoid, Taemin.”
Taemin wonders if these are the words that everyone says at first, that they'll keep themselves before they're stripped of everything. That it occurs before anyone realises, and Taemin jerks when Kibum's hand lands on his head before it shifts, minuscule movements, and his eyes flutter closed.
He experiences something, something in his mind that feels foreign and distasteful, but he lets it reign. It's a memory, he realises, one that Kibum had just given him.
It's dark. It's a place he doesn't recognise, and he feels uneasy, feels on the edge again and he wishes for something to burn, something to steady himself. There's a woman screaming at him, screaming words he can't hear. He reaches up to his ears and feels cotton wool, and he tries to tug it out, but they stay stuck and he can't hear anything, just muffled screaming and muffled swears before the black that tugs at his vision wins, and he faints. He submits to darkness and it's the first time he's felt at peace for a while.
"Let's talk about Kibum."
Jonghyun crosses his legs and Taemin looks at his hands on the desk, clasped and with the watch on his wrist.
"What about him?"
His mind keeps flickering back to that memory, the one fuzzy around the edges with a woman screaming and just darkness. It's a bit unnerving but otherwise alright. He just wants to light it up, to be able to see.
"What do you think about Kibum?"
Taemin thinks for a moment.
"I feel sorry for him," he says, and this can't be the answer Jonghyun wants because his eyebrows hit his hairline.
"Sorry for him, how so?"
Taemin shrugs.
"He's struggling. He's fighting the system. Just letting go and letting the system take charge is easier. It'll bring about change for the better and it'll get you out of here faster."
Jonghyun stares at him.
"Did something happen between the two of you? Because it says here that he inserted a memory into you -- you know that memories are a fragile thing, and even the slightest disruption of them can cause psychological problems? It can cause people to go insane, to want to kill themselves?"
Taemin laughs, and Jonghyun realises it's the first time he's heard that sound from Taemin, hell, heard a laugh in the whole facility.
"But Jonghyun, hyung." They both still at the word, but Jonghyun can't help the grin and Taemin continues, encouraged. "I feel. Sometimes you need something to open your eyes, you know? I think Kibum helped. It might not be good for me psychologically, or even in the long run but seeing what he sees, seeing what he experienced." He licks his lips, buying a small amount of time but continuing. "You know, it puts things into perspective. Do you know what memory he gave me?"
Jonghyun shakes his head, and Taemin leans forward, eyes bright.
"He gave me the memory of his mother, I'm sure of it, of his mother losing her memories and accusing him, of screaming at him and banishing him. It must've been horrible for him, to have his own mother shout at him and not even recognise him, but for me? I think I needed to see that. I'm not a Class 5; I'm not even a Class 3. I'm Class 1 or 2 at best because I know what's wrong with me and now? I want to try fix it. I want to make myself better because I want to go back to the real world and sit in class and learn English or French, and dance again, and learn about the volumes of impossible shapes and why icebergs will one day flood the world. Hyung, I want to go back to normal, and I want you to help me."
It's a slow process, and Taemin learns to deal with his disorder. To carefully clock away some time at half past five so that he can deal with what he has to do, to drench himself in cold water, to scrub at his body until it burns and to perhaps light something on fire.
Jonghyun helps too, even if he's preoccupied with Kibum. They still have daily sessions together, but now it's of Jonghyun telling Taemin about the outside world, reacquainting him with the concept of currency and teaching him the train lines again. It's of Jonghyun bringing in the morning paper and reading it together, of filling out the crossword and betting how right the weather forecast will be.
"I found a maths textbook in the library!" Taemin says happily when it's two o'clock, walking into Jonghyun's office.
Jonghyun looks up from his notes, closing a file and raising his eyebrow.
"Maths? Like, numbers and addition and subtraction and--"
Taemin laughs. "Yes, and division and multiplication and volumes and graphs and differentiation and integration..."
"Parabolas," Jonghyun practically sobs. "Hyperbolas, complex numbers and permutations and combinations and binomials and--"
"Wow, okay, I never learnt any of that at school. Teach me?"
Taemin's staring at him, wide-eyed, and Jonghyun really wants to do the best for him, do the best he can in this situation, but he can't deny the truth.
"I suck shit at maths. I can teach you the history of the rubber band, if you want?"
They spend the rest of the hour in companionable silence as Taemin reads his textbook, happily absorbing maths formulae while Jonghyun alternates between mourning for Taemin's future and reading notes on Kibum.
"Good news," Jonghyun says three weeks after Kibum had inserted the memory in.
Taemin looks up from his book on the history of Asia, fingers playing on the edge of the page. When he gets out, he's going to travel the world and not regret a single moment of being alive. He's going to live life, if he can help it, visiting World Heritage sites and indulging in foreign cuisine.
"Yeah?"
Jonghyun's face looks like it's about to burst with the force of his smile. "You're getting out."