Hyungwon clawed frantically at the hands on his neck. His lungs burned, clawing at him from the inside, hungry, relentless. Black spots started appearing in his vision, multiplying and spreading. He raked at the hands with his fingernails, trying to draw blood, anything to loosen the pressure. He felt his knees buckling beneath him, the hands still holding him up, hungry, relentless; his vision, total black, but he still felt the hands, still dug at them with his fingernails until-
"Ow! Son of a bitch!"
Hyungwon stirred, opening his eyes, but he was met with darkness.
"Finally, you woke up," Wonho said after removing a finger from his mouth. It was bleeding. "Sorry, I didn't mean to swear at you, it was just a reflex."
"I-" Hyungwon paused. Did I die? Or faint? Is this the dream, or...?
"You were twitching a lot in your sleep," Wonho explained, and even though it was hard to see Wonho in the dark, Hyungwon knew it was him by his voice. "And then, um, you started scratching at your neck, but when I tried to stop you, you started scratching at me instead, so..." He paused, fumbling with the words. "Well, then you woke up."
"Did-" Hyungwon hesitated. He was pretty sure the suffocating part had been the dream, and this was reality. "Did I hurt you?"
"Me? No," Wonho said with a faltering laugh as his right hand throbbed from where Hyungwon's fingernails had cut into the skin. "Just a flesh wound. No harm done."
They fell into silence. Kihyun was asleep.
"You probably think I'm crazy now," Hyungwon said slowly, and Wonho licked his bottom lip.
"No I don't," Wonho said, but he couldn't forget the moment in the middle of the night when he'd been woken up by the scratching sound of Hyungwon's hands clawing at his own neck.
"You do," Hyungwon said. It wasn't an accusatory statement. Hyungwon just sounded...tired. Like he'd heard it once, heard it again, and had gotten tired of insisting otherwise.
"We're all a little crazy here," Wonho said with a smile in the dark that didn't reach the recipient, trying to make everything all right, but he knew he'd made a mistake when he heard the shuffling of sheets as Hyungwon turned his back to Wonho, facing the wall.
Wonho bit his lip. He hadn't meant to upset Hyungwon, but...the guy had been trying to hurt himself - and shortly after, Wonho - in his sleep. Hyungwon seemed to be a nice enough kid, sure, but it was becoming rather apparent to Wonho that Hyungwon really did belong here, and not just for narcolepsy.
Wonho remembered thinking that crazy or not, they all just wanted someone to believe in them, to convince them that they were at least a little sane.
But maybe...
Maybe Wonho didn't have to be that person for Hyungwon.
