Chapter Text
'FOLDER OF DOOM'
CHOI SAN
Patient Number: 1117
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: 10/07/1999
Address: Seoul, Gimpo, Private Residential Property
Occupation: Musician
Relationship Status: Single
Sexuality: Straight
Religion: Athiest
Prior Health Concerns: [REDACTED}
Notes Revised. For full notes contact Dr. Lee on the provided number
Clinic Opening Hours: 9:00AM - 6:00PM
1st Patient Session - (Beginning Session)
Patient has a fixation on shiney objects: Hydroflask, phone screens.
Additional fixation: Sensitive to human voices, zones out of conversation persistantly.
Patient's comments: "I will never been understood, I'm not good enough, I'm pathetic, I'm a freak."
Addition notes: Patient lies about feelings of happiness. When asked why, response was limited.
Complained of a continuous low mood, comments suggest feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.
Additional symptoms; Guilt ridden, low self-esteem, irritability.
Areas of concern: Habitual under-eating as a coping strategy for his stress.
Ended the session with a discussion on what Mr.Choi wanted to achieve.
Resolution made with patient: To be more open and truthful with his emotions to people around him.
//
FILE UPDATED: Sexuality: Homosexual
3rd Patient Session
A struggle to grasp his homosexual identity. Patient reports he had hidden his sexuality from his family and peers for five years.
Repressed sexual tendencies. Still has the ability to feel mild sexual urges despite low mood.
Stress on his psyche causing 'voices' in patient's head.
Experiencing breaks in reality.
Patient's comments: "Head is full of demons- they have names. They call me disgusting, a betrayer, a liar, I'm hated, my nature is not pure, I'm ugly."
When asked who named the demons, patient's response suggested confusion, unable to answer from lack of knowledge or memory.
Symptoms that persist: Hopelessness, helplessness, anxiety, low mood, under-eating.
Possible diagnosis: Severe Clinical Depression and Anxiety.
Resolution made with patient: Work on unlinking food with distress, to see food as a means of joy and fufillment.
//
6th Patient Session
Feeling's of minimal readjustment.
Unresolved emotions of fear and an inability to stand up for himself.
Patient opened up about personal information, sensitive dialogue REDACTED - full conversation can be found in clinic notes.
Personal information revised: Experienced a breakdown from multiple emotions and stress in a highly triggering scenario. 'Person A' found out about Mr.Choi's emotional state by accident, patient felt forced and highly stressed, 'Person A' was able to take on a comforter role, although the person was the initial trigger for episode; suggesting the patient can be consoled by the people around him, patient does not have any toxic relationships in his place of residence. Recommended to stay where he feels he can best improve.
Symptoms that persist: Fear, low self-esteem.
Improvements in areas of hopelessness, helplessness and claims general mood is improving.
Triggers: Situations that make him feel under pressure, 'Person A', and patient's own analysis on situations that are led by 'demons'-read voices.
Diagnosis: Mild Depression, Generalised Anxiety Disorder.
Resolution made with patient: To start standing up to the voices or situations of low self-esteem, new statement to go by "Be Brave Choi San".
//
9th Patient Session
Doctor's Notes: Patient now able to hold eye-contact for full session. Weight has been put on- main indication of food relationship improving. Laughs at my jokes and new emotions discussed.
Patient's comments: "I have more hope, I try standing up for myself more, 'Person A' will be my Designated Person. I have told everyone around me I have been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. They support me."
Patient has requested no prior notes to be shared or sessions discussed to Designated Person unless he provides consent.
Audio recording:
PATIENT NUMBER 1117 : TRANSCRIPT
"I think I get upset with him at least once everyday, and hurt.
How do I say this? It's just~ like that. You know how it feels?
When he's not with me I feel empty but when he is I get annoyed.
But still...I can't escape him. I think it's quite a fated relationship."
(Author's Notes: San's own words from a Tingle interview)
Symptoms that persist: Irritability, delusion, refusal to face life's challenges.
Doctor's main concern: Patient has a liability to develop unhealthy relationships due to a lack of positive self-esteem.
Resolution made with patient: Address 'Person A' with true feelings, "Vulnerability is healthy and your sexuality is natrual".
//
12th Patient Session - (Last Session)
Third session in a row the Designated Person/Person A has attended.
Relationship analysed as non-toxic, patient is not made to feel vulnerable with passing comments.
Person A discussed how Mr.Choi is improving in his private and work life- Person A is a direct contact in Mr.Choi's day-to-day life.
Patient's comments with Designated Person present in room: "I feel able to talk about what's bothering me, I'm more optimistic, my body doesn't shake anymore, my hand tremour is gone too"
Patient's overall demeanour as analysed by Doctor: Able to experience a healthy set of nerves, trigger points reduced, Choi San is now off the 'At High-Risk of Relapse' list.
Patient advised to see me (Dr.Lee) once every two months to discuss progress and to monitor for possible relapse.
Diagnosis: Depression treated with psychological talking therapies. Anxiety treated and stable, healthier coping methods established.
Final Notes: Ability to experience positive thoughts that may turn obsessive - this has been discussed with patient and will be worked on privately away from the clinic.
//
Ping.
{New Message}
Heartache
sure I'll take a bath, im on my way back from gym, see you soon
17:38PM
Message Read
//
San had a plan.
His plan was called 'Honesty'.
Like the demons that once had names, San named his new found voice.
His new voice was called honesty.
San wanted Wooyoung to share his voice of honesty too.
Checking the message from his soul mate, 'Honesty' was set in motion.
Never a better opportunity to present itself than in the confines of a bath tub with no way out other than spilling secrets not meant to be kept.
Spilt like the bubbles that would rush an escape over the tub's edge or pop to non-existence.
He needed to corner Wooyoung before it was too late and he too succombed by demons.
San shivered at the thought.
His precious Wooyoung, all down and beaten.
He would hate that.
As much as he got annoyed at the other for leaving him that morning, he still wouldn't wish that treatment on anyone.
Not even himself. Not anymore.
San laid on his bed watching the boring white ceiling.
Message read. Phone discarded.
He had to make a new excuse.
How would he explain to the members that Wooyoung, and him, a very not straight him, are going to take a bath when the other comes home.
The ceiling started detailing the possible excuses roaming his mind.
Wooyoung hurt himself at the gym?
...
I hurt myself at dance practice?
...
I'm trying to see his naked body to validate my gayness?
Nothing provided fruitful. If operation 'Honesty' was going to commence then San needed to build a stronger lie.
A lie...
I don't want to lie.
The ceiling was no longer boring.
It was mind-fucking.
Snatching at the discarded phone San read the message again.
And again.
And again.
Still no excuse would be good enough to disguise the truth.
"My door is always open..."
Hongjoong.
Mattress reclaiming its earlier form, imposing body lost.
San followed the route to the leader's room.
Lately he would get told off a lot more.
So he didn't like the room very much.
It still stung his eyes with disinfectant each time.
Eyes only ever turning red from the product, now never the turmoil.
San stood in the hallway contemplating the door with childlike hypocrisy.
He knew the longer he kept his relationship with Wooyoung a secret the worse he would be punished by the leader.
Raising a leg to scratch at the other, San contemplated some more.
Ignoring Jongho who passed by, asking him if he's ok.
He didn't reply, just studied the flicks of wood shedding at the bottom of the door.
The dark brown mahogany, rich in colour, matching the man who occupied it.
The wood was also rich in scrapes and marks from where suitcases would be rushed past or bikes flown through.
Each door in the dorm held a memory, a feeling.
Hongjoong and Seonghwa's reminded him of parental control and conflict resolution.
The bathroom reminded him of naked bodies and gay awakenings.
The living room reminded him of every member combined. It reminded him of home, the countryside, the feeling of being unconditionally loved.
The kitchen reminded him of frustration. Every member probably sharing the same feeling. Either the lack of cooking skills between the eight men or the personalised food plans littering the fridge.
Jongho and Mingi's room was probably the best room. No pressures, just games, just fun.
His own room littered with similar scrapes upon the door. Yunho's laughter at his inability to win any games ricocheting from the postered walls.
Yeosang's and Heartache's room held the strongest feelings and memories. The freshest of which was the leg he was denied that morning.
The pins and needles that prickled his calfs were telling him he had stood too long in one place.
The eyes peering around the corner from down the hallway were telling him he looked mad.
The resolution that sounded his mind told him 'be brave Choi San'.
And the knock that echoed the hall told him there was no going back.
"Yes?"
A muffled voice behind the door.
A handle turned.
The hallway empty.
//
Wooyoung questioned why the dorm seemed empty upon arrival.
San told him Hongjoong wanted to go out and eat with the guys.
But, he really was just giving them space.
To figure it out. To solve their issues. To find answers in each other.
Hongjoong's rant turned puzzle fixer, ending with 'the talk' and something about be careful and only under this roof.
Needless to say, San didn't think his own parents would ever dare the subject with him.
So he was silently thankful as the mahogany door was shut and the eyes down the hall still questioned his sanity at the reappearance.
At present it was a different set of eyes on him.
The only other set of eyes in the dorm.
Built up confidence trickling away.
He didn't have to start on operation 'Honesty' straight away. Right?
He didn't need to figure out an answer as his body was stolen from its spot where he stood.
Where he had been waiting in the living room like a puppy with separation anxiety, for an owner that was always late for feeding time.
Squeezed and felt on.
Played with.
"W-Wooyoung" Pushing Heartache out of their mini makeout.
"Yeah?" Excited eyes.
Maybe the fact that they were alone together made Wooyoung feel freer, San thought.
He wasn't against being explored, especially by a hot, sweaty, sticky sexual antagonist.
But, San wanted answers more than he pondered the possibility of sex.
"You smell, lets get you in the bath"
"I do not smell" Pushed out lips, eyebrows furrowed.
"Ok you don't smell, just sticky."
"Sticky- yes."
San mumbled the first lines of the plan across his head.
Time to set things in motion.
Here goes nothing.
San had read 'The Art of Seduction' it was for heterosexuals.
Still educational enough, as San locked eyes with the man.
If anything in his whole five years of closet peeping at the straights, some being secret closet dwellers themselves;
It was the shake of a bare ass that could turn their head from the lockers.
So San took a few steps back, then some more.
Stripped of his top.
Turned to walk away from the puzzled closet dweller.
Shuffled from his shorts. Taking more steps toward the bathroom.
Freed from his boxers. Entering the room of gay awakenings.
San didn't even have to shake his ass.
Wooyoung had been following since the shirt toss.
He must have lost his own shirt on the way too.
//
The bath was already filled and ready.
Ready to be spilt and bubbles ready to be popped.
Jumping into the warmth was tempting.
Staying in the hold of a sweaty man had won, however.
Hands grabbing his ass. Holy.
Pushed against the counter. Sinful.
Wooyoung's hands protecting San's behind from the cold marble.
It could be seen as a sweet lover's gesture of care.
San didn't kid himself.
It was the poor learning of a boy still questioning.
San could be the teacher.
Lips latched San's neck.
Red contusions sucked deep.
To an outsider, Wooyoung could look like a lover.
San all but swooned as lips travelled up to capture his.
Heterosexual seduction wasn't much different to homosexual seduction, San believed.
They were secretly the exact same.
Seduction and sexuality.
His game of seduction finally working.
It used to be San clinging, falling from his every breath.
Now it was Wooyoung, as San pushed him away.
Away from having too much.
Too much of what San now respected of himself.
He wasn't a game. No one could play with him unless invited.
Surprisingly, holding back his deep-seated long-term desperation for the other had given Wooyoung space to breathe.
Space to decipher the signals that were not all coming from San but Wooyoung too.
Dipping a toe in the bath water, San was ready for project 'Honesty'.
So he delved in without a worry in the world.
Naked confidence.
It had taken him a while.
It resonated to him the words Wooyoung once said. Nude and proud, folding clothes, hiding his own nerves.
"Just because it's you"
It was a sad enough truth that Wooyoung seemingly didn't know himself at the time, San meandered.
It wasn't time for the main plan yet so he could only but question it himself.
How long were you going to suffer in silence too Wooyoung?
Miserable thoughts didn't have time to germinate, Wooyoung was finally stripping.
Licking his lips at the other in outward attraction.
Clothes lessening on the body that held his countless dreams and wishes.
A body delving into water too, with maybe more worries than the world was ever told or led to believe.
"So what's all this about?"
Wooyoung seemed so innocent playing with bubbles ignoring his 'problem'.
"This is just about us." Smiling at the Innocent with familial bond.
"Us? How come?" The slapping of water, the froth of new bubbles.
"Because I like you and you like me." The drip of a distant tap.
"Yeah?" Wooyoung was barely listening, too busy being a child.
San needed him to grow up.
"It's because I love you and you like me"
Bubbles began popping to death, no froth maker working his magic.
"I don't San..." A flutter of lids.
"Then what is this?" Foot pressed to reigions between legs.
"SAN?!" Wooyoung panicked a hold on San's foot.
"It's ok, I like you Wooyoung. How many times do I have to tell you that for you to understand?- It's ok to like me back, I won't hurt you."
Foot brought back to his own person.
Bath tidals stilling.
San was reaching out an olive branch.
His eyes were begging the poor boy to reach back and grab it.
He didn't expect tears.
He didn't expect soft sobs.
He didn't expect to actually be told he was liked.
San watched as rough fists rubbed harshly at the broken face.
Denial was heartbreaking when tackled.
"I-I do like you S-s-san" A hiccup or two found their way around the tiled room.
It hurt San's heart to recieve a confession so laced with pain and tragedy.
He could only do what he knew best in times of devastation.
Surfing to the opposite side of the tub.
Pressed against the other's side.
It was San's turn to comfort the other with a mother's remedy.
This time it was just along the side of his head, all Wooyoung would show him.
Face still buried deep in sorrow and sobs.
When Wooyoung had finished reading the 'Folder of Doom' many weeks ago, San had wanted to comfort him then too.
'Sad or traumatised'.
He had made Wooyoung sad.
Wooyoung cried.
Wooyoung cried for him.
Or was he crying for himself?
San didn't really know.
All San knew was that he had unknowingly constructed a wall between them both.
Coming out as gay, declaring his long-term love for the other, sharing the secrets about what he felt around Wooyoung.
It built up a fortress, with a moat and a defence strategy like Fort Knox.
"We promised Woo"
"I-I know"
The real and raw promise had been broken.
They didn't tell each other everything afterall.
San had taken too long to confess and ended up plunging deeper into his already existing pit.
Wooyoung suffered silent on the sidelines.
"What happened? Why didn't you tell me? We had so many opportunities Youngie"
San's own tone wavering, as his own tears pleaded freedom.
"I couldn't d-do it, not to you"
San wished for Wooyoung's sobs to stop but the cries only grew louder, the flood gates were open.
"Hey, hey, hey It's ok, everything will be alright Woo-Woo, I'm here, I'm always here." Cradling the side of the head he was allowed.
Scrunching the damp hair.
Soothing a shoulder with kisses.
Repeating the words he knew Wooyoung would listen to, and that he all but waited to voice for years.
"I love you, I love you, and I love you some more" The words were of little consolation for the pieces he had to pick up.
San had thought the pieces of his own puzzle, once needed spelling out.
The pieces of Wooyoung's puzzle needed all but finding.
"I couldn't San, I just couldn't, I can't."
"You can" Smoothing strands. Aiming to soothe his heart. "What couldn't you do to me?"
Answers, he wanted answers.
Answers for the heart that sought his.
Answers for the hands that would find his.
Answers for the reason to why Wooyoung was lying to himself.
Accepting San's 'I like you's' and 'I love you's' with a smile so bright but a voice unsaying.
Unsaying the words back.
Making it all too real.
"You were going through so much because of me-"
"-What?"
"It was all my fault- I don't deserve you San. Not after watching and knowing you liked me. Reading your notes that basically showed how shit I made you feel"
"What?" San couldn't believe his ears.
Wooyoung had thought his breakdowns were all because of him?
"No?- No! Wooyoung I went through what I went through because I was vulnerable. Not because of you. None of what I went through was your fault. I only felt what I did because I was mentally unwell-Wooyoung look at me!"
San had had enough of the side of head he was given.
Hands cupping a heated face.
Both pairs of eyes wet with regret.
"Is that why you can't admit to yourself you like me too? Because you think you were the cause of my depression and anxiety?" San rushed.
The shake of a weak head.
"n-no"
"Then what?" Tone softening as eyes finally met his.
"I don't want you to go back there San, I don't want you to relapse. I don't want to trigger you and make you shut yourself off from everyone again."
Relapse.
Trigger.
Person A.
San knew he should have read the folder before handing it to Wooyoung.
He should have read what was in there and not the day after when it was too late.
Damage already dealt.
San unintentionally was Wooyoung's trigger too.
The trigger that should have figured out he was not alone in his feelings but Wooyoung was right there with him.
The words Wooyoung once sang to him.
'Say the word I'll be here'
San was the one who needed to be more present.
They both made more mistakes.
Mistakes towards each other.
"I can't say for certain it won't get bad again, but I'm trying Woo. I feel good now, you've seen? I don't want to hide things from everyone anymore...I don't want to hide things from you."
Two heads rested together.
Forehead to forehead.
They kissed through the tears.
Solumn and light.
The faint pressure of lips from both sides.
Apologies and remorse holding them back.
Both seeking a breath in closure.
Foreheads still pressed.
Wooyoung's eyes no longer curious.
San's eyes no longer pained.
"I'm sorry San. I do like you, but...love would be too hurtful for me to say as it's not wholly true."
"I'm fine with it." San let Wooyoung talk.
"I don't know when I started to like you back- I just remember liking you and then pursuing you. I didn't mean to use you like I did."
"Don't worry about it"
The sad truth.
San was used for Wooyoung's curiosity.
He also allowed it to happen, not Wooyoung's fault yet again.
"I don't know how you don't hate me."
"I could never hate you...you say some stupid things sometimes."
Normally they would both laugh at the saying.
Now wasn't a time for laughter.
Now was a time for hugs and kisses and apologies to be left on skin to be remembered.
It demanded it.
"So that's why you would go shy each time I told you...you were into me all along." San sucked the neck like a vampire in a drought.
Would Wooyoung agree?
Would he admit it finally?
"y-yeah..."
"Yeah?" A harder suck.
"Yeah"
"How much were you into me?"
San knew himself too well. He had wanted Wooyoung's sweet, soppy, happy, sad, his mind.
He wanted to be on his mind 24/7 like he was on his.
With some of Wooyoung's puzzle pieced together, the picture was easier to interpret.
Now he wanted the hot, the heated and his body on his.
"It was hard holding back San" A weak voice.
"Can I use you too?"
Maybe San shouldn't have used the word 'use', but it still had its intended affect on the other.
"please"
Bath water left to get cold.
Towels left still dry.
The trail of water droplets up the mahogany hall.
Warm hearts.
Cold bodies.
Warm bed.
Warmer touch.
San didn't know if he should give all of himself to someone who didn't love him the same.
But, the love he felt for Wooyoung was enough for the both of them.
With hands on him and bodies pressed flushed.
The tears as Wooyoung cried again bottoming out inside of San.
San didn't cry.
Not again.
He had cried too much.
It was his job to take on the role of comforter now.
To find the missing pieces.
Bring them back to a whole.
To show it was a picture of both him and Wooyoung all along.
The panting of two people.
The creak of one bed.
Things said in the heat of the moment.
"Ohh-a-ahh I love you so much W-Wooyoung"
He really meant it.
"I-I love y-you S-sannie"
Wooyoung would grow to mean it.
//
San sat in his room as the breeze flew by and the light seeped in by the open window.
Blue plastic.
San penciled in a new update to his papered file.
Relationship Status: Taken.