GET FREE [jaeyong]

[12]

[TWELVE]

"Oh, feeling ridiculed, feeling like a fool, don't know what to do. Lost my heart, don't got shit to lose.

I'm holding my breath and watching my step. I'm listing regrets, and you made that list. You're my depression. Your first impression wasn't deception, you were lying."

≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺

TAEYONG stared at the schedule his mother laid out for him, the month of MARCH 2019 looking back in all it's numerical glory. His brown eyes dotted between all the dates of the past and became stuck on the 23rd — the little white square was filled with these yellow smiley stickers and red hearts that was painfully tacky to look at, but there was one bold sticker in the middle that said, 'IT GETS BETTER'.

That was about two weeks ago. He didn't need a calendar to remember that specific date.

There was a blue circle drawn in expo marker around April 5th, which was today, the evening before he had to return to school in the morning. To say that he was anxious was an understatement; he's had at least three panic attacks from the time he woke up until now, and each of them lasted for a dreadful amount of time.

When Taeyong is in one of those episodes, it's extremely difficult to coax him out of it — he feels like he can't breathe, his hands are uncontrollably shaking, and his brain comes up with dangerous thoughts.

Obviously he keeps those ideas where they came from, but he can't help but beat himself up about it when the anxiety eventually dwindles down a bit. Embarrassingly enough, it's habit to come to -those- conclusions, even if the majority of the time the thoughts are passive and he has no intention on following through with them; it still hurts to think about.

Taeyong sighed and bowed his head, rocking back and forth on his feet: there was a restless feeling inching upon his skin again, and he really didn't want to have another anxiety attack.

He heard his door creak and instantly his head flew up, heart jumping.

The boy relaxed once seeing his mother. She offered him a small smile and walked inside the room, asking as she shut the door, "Still anxious about school?"

His lips drew into a line, thinking about what to say very carefully. "Yeah, I mean— what if people find out?" he answered quietly, shuddering at that possible scenario.

The woman sat down on his bed, gazing at him softly. "That's very unlikely to happen," she chimed back, voice carrying this optimistic ring. "Remember what the therapist said?"

Taeyong gave a pessimistic roll of the eyes. "'If anyone asks, tell them I was sick and I don't want to talk about it'."

"Yep, easy way to go about it and at least you're not lying," she responded simply. Taeyong's lips drew thinner as he looked back to the floorboards.

Sick. Right.

"You're sick." Taeyong didn't say — or more so, couldn't say — anything after that. He was beaten, derailed of any defense mechanism he had.

Jaehyun was right.

"I'm sick and don't want to talk about it," Taeyong repeated one more time, words tumbling out in a robotic fashion. He chewed on his lip and looked back up at his mom. "That sounds pretty questionable, doesn't it?" he muttered with the raise of an eyebrow, not liking the idea of admitting to people, let alone himself, that he was 'sick'.