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jisung knows when it’s coming because he’s pessimistic and he knows himself and he knows the patterns of his depression by now.
it starts like this: jisung regains the ability to think and feel and he’s finally in the moment and able to feel like he’s actually in control of his body to the fullest extent. then he spends a few weeks to nearly 6 months feeling good and capable.
it ends like this, as it always does, because life says “fuck han jisung” : one little thing knocks him off that high. it’s usually small and insignificant but things decide it’s best to slip away in the considerate fashion that makes it feel like a mudslide or an avalanche.
jisung spends most of the days post-avalanche like this:
for the first few weeks, jisung wakes up feeling groggy and shitty. his body stops granting him the ability to sleep well. he’s still able to make it out of bed most days without too much of a problem.
talking to his mother and his brother doesn’t feel like a hassle just yet. he’s not super fond of his mother, but his brother’s finally home and they’re getting along again, so jisung is stupid and hopeful and spends a lot of time hanging out with him.
one day, they don’t hang out and spend the whole day in each other’s presence and the next day ends up the same, and then another day after that. which is fine, because apparently jisung’s brother is staying home and doing his next college semester online. they’ve got plenty of time to spend together.
they don’t end up spending much more time together in the next month. instead, his brother spends more time with their mother, who’s never been a fan of jisung for some reason jisung can’t place but it’s probably got something to do with being the firstborn girl of their family and his undiagnosed neurodivergence that definitely caused tension when jisung was growing up. he’s sure some of it’s got to do with the sudden change of his haircut and the way he dresses that nobody ever really addresses but they all know what it means.
it’s fine, he supposes. their mother likes his brother the most and jisung’s known this for a couple of years now. no surprise there.
it doesn’t stop that odd tinge of hurt and the desire to have a mother who loves him and wants to spend time with him, too. it doesn’t stop him from imagining having a mother who cares about him and asks about him and pays more attention to him. it doesn’t stop him from wanting a mother he can confidently come out to—one who’d probably accept him and make the effort for him; jisung knows his own mother wouldn’t extend that to him. not fully.
it doesn’t stop him from wanting to be in his brother’s place, watching shows with their mom and just hanging out for the fun of it but never inviting jisung or telling him the important things they discuss.
jisung’s out of the loop a lot. he mostly finds things out through everyone discussing it in front of him and them being confused when he doesn’t know what they’re on about. it makes jisung feel invisible.
jisung feels less enthused by everything and vastly less interested in all things that have ever caught his attention before. even the fail-safes stop working and jisung’s forced to aimlessly click through the oblivion that is the youtube algorithm in an attempt to distract himself and at least pump a little bit of dopamine into his body.
he’s desperately trying to ignore the longing to have a mother who loves him or to be in a place where he can fit in perfectly and feel like he belongs there and doesn’t have to second guess his place in the world or in others’ lives.
jisung’s only able to ignore those feelings because depression comes with brain fog and being out of orbit. he feels like he experiences everything secondhand even though it’s his life and his body and his actions.
he’s been on edge for the past week and a half now, because his period is late. and it’s not out of fear of being pregnant or anything, but rather the feeling of not knowing when it’s going to come. he can’t plan for it and mentally prepare himself for it because it’s late for the second or third time in his entire life and goddamn it, can the thing arrive already and put him out of his misery?
it arrives. two and a half weeks late when jisung thinks he’s finally gotten lucky enough to have a missed period with no consequences.
it’s sometime later, in the bathroom when he randomly glimpses in the mirror as he's changing shirts. that’s when he accidentally catches sight of something peeking out of the edge of his shirt—so foreign that it unsettles him. it takes a couple of extremely still seconds to realize it’s just his unbinded chest that he never quite looks at and wasn’t prepared to see.
idealistically, he’d think back on this later and laugh at himself for the confusion and initial unease the moment brought him. but things haven’t been ideal for jisung lately, so he just ends up feeling like an alien in his own body instead.
that night, when he’s watching a youtube video and trying to ignore all the jumbled up thoughts and repressed feelings he can’t seem to get control of, his brain conjures up the image of him with a flat chest and incisions that have just begun the healing process. of what he’d look like if he ever had top surgery.
nothing about it is radical or groundbreaking despite it being the first and only time jisung’s been able to picture himself like that.
he stops thinking about the image 3 seconds later, nonetheless, because imagining himself with a surgery he’ll probably never be able to have isn’t going to do anything but make him feel numb and vaguely hopeless.
he checks his notifications and opens his chats to see if any of his friends messaged him yet. like maybe his phone forgot to notify him because it’s been doing that for the past 6 months. but it hasn’t. his chats are devoid of replies and he’s got nothing to distract himself from the buildup of emotion trapped behind the wall he constructed without realizing it.
he gets through the night only because he keeps accidentally astral projecting out of his body, just hovering in the top corner of his room and watching the blurry image of his still body sat in front of his laptop. he doesn’t comprehend the videos he plays or the thoughts that pop up like that little shock of static electricity you get when you shuffle your feet across the carpet and touch something after.
jisung hasn’t been doing a lot of thinking lately, but he’s not sure it’d do him any good to be coherent. not when the threat of a breakdown has loomed over his head and buzzed beneath his skin for the past few weeks. not when he’s got all these fuzzy notions of his friends not wanting him around anymore and thoughts of them ghosting him because he’s been quiet and boring lately.
rationally, jisung knows they’re probably stuck in a loop where both his friends and jisung feel that way and thus text less. but he still feels unloved and unsure of himself. and he’s struggling to have the energy to pretend he’s doing alright. he texts less.
it’s all so stupid when jisung looks back on it, because, well, jisung’s never been particularly rational or reasonable when it comes to the randomest things. he’s not sure why he gets so incredibly upset when his mother and brother take off to the laundromat without informing jisung (kind of. he’s mad he didn’t get to stick some of his favorite clothes in the laundry so he could have something he actually likes to wear over the next few weeks).
it starts off as anger. jisung hates being out of the loop and he hates that he’s apparently just supposed to assume everyone’s intentions and actions without having anything explicitly stated to him or discussed in front of him.
anger fuels into this mixture of despair and rage that makes jisung feel like the world’s ending or something, all because nobody told him about the laundromat plan. ridiculous, he knows, but he loses his ability to function sometimes and when he’s living his life without many things to keep him happy or satisfied, not having half of his favorite clothes clean is enough to spark it.
the breakdown that comes isn’t what jisung wanted, nor the one he was expecting. it doesn’t release any of the pent up emotion or make him feel any lighter.
jisung’s home alone, but he still rips through his closet to grab some clothes and a towel and he locks himself in the bathroom because he’s far too used to having these kinds of events in a private area where nobody can catch him in the act. and he’s trying so hard to keep it together even though nobody’s around.
but he can’t stop his hands from finding their way to his hair, nor his fingers from curling in and adding pressure. he’s barely managing to stop himself from pulling on his hair until it comes out in big clumps because ow, that’d fucking suck and jisung’s not about to give himself bald patches, thank you very much.
there’s this monotone groaning noise deep in his chest that won’t stop. an odd manifestation of the intense discomfort he’s feeling from having the miniscule change in his life for the next two or so weeks. it just goes and goes and jisung can’t make it stop—it just comes out of his chest in this weird endless groaning that’s taking over his ability to breathe.
he ends up in the fetal position of the shower floor for nearly 40 minutes straight, clenching his teeth and clenching his eyes shut while groaning and groaning. his chest is heaving with the need to cry but jisung can’t make himself and it’s getting hard to breathe so the groaning mingles with these pathetic little rasps that have a slight whine to them. his vision has spots in it but jisung is not functional and he’s not sure where he’s gone because he isn’t even watching himself from across the room. he’s just not there at all.
he only gets up to properly shower and the groaning persists and so do the breaths that tell him perhaps he’s having a panic attack or something. the slight whine in them is telling jisung he isn’t breathing enough but jisung isn’t in control right now, so he groans some more and stops himself from yanking his hair out more and more.
he thinks he curses under his breath or makes comments about the situation that’s causing this over dramatic reaction, but he can’t tell. all he hears is the groaning and his breaths and he’s thinking he might pass out soon because those spots in his vision aren’t going away no matter how long he stands up and blinks.
he wraps himself in his towel and sits on the bathroom floor for half an hour, still groaning and still upset. he only gets up and dresses himself when he hears his mom and brother get home. he forces the groaning to stop and the breakdown(?) to end, because he’s only capable of doing that when he’s got people to hide his declining mental health from.
jisung’s ribs have hurt since that shower breakdown he had. he can’t blame it on his binder, because jisung hasn’t left the house in a few weeks and he’s been too out of it to have any dysphoria. that’s one of the only positives to being out of his body so often—it’s harder to feel uncomfortable in his body or to think about the future he wants but knows is probably never going to happen.
being in the fetal position must’ve put pressure on his already fucked up ribs (all thanks to his bad binding habits when he realized he was trans a couple of years ago). it sucks and he can’t sleep comfortably, but jisung’s sleep habits have been subpar at best for the last 2 months, so jisung isn’t at liberty to complain.
his mom convinces him to go grocery shopping with her later that week and jisung agrees mostly because she’s actually inviting him to do something with her for once.
the binder isn’t half bad now that jisung’s ribs have gotten used to being in constant pain thanks to his little breakdown. but jisung’s clothes are half bad (horrible, actually) because jisung’s selection of boy’s clothing is very limited with their current income and somehow the clothes always look too big on him.
he spends a lot of the shopping trip with his earphones shoved in and his music up enough to drown out the immense amount of noise in the stores but low enough that he can still hear his mother when she speaks. he also spends a lot of time telling himself not to do anything weird in public and more time telling himself to ignore the looks he can feel half the people there shooting his way.
he ends up behaving oddly anyways when his mother stops in aisles for too long and jisung ends up pacing like a trapped animal. and when the checkout line takes forever and jisung won’t stop tapping his hands against the cart in some kind of pattern because he’s got a lot of pent up energy. not even the look his mother shoots his way stops it and jisung should feel embarrassed but he doesn’t.
his ribs still hurt like a bitch, but jisung’s going stir-crazy and his brain is going to melt if he stays in the house any longer with his unloving mother and aloof brother.
jisung’s spent too much time sitting in bed, staring at the wall, and imagining a different life where all of his friends still live nearby and they hang out together like they used to back in high school when jisung was far more functional.
it wouldn’t work out, because jisung looks different and he’s fundamentally different to them, he guesses, because now he’s a dude instead of the girl they used to know. and he understands, maybe, because they’re all sheltered and uncomfortable with things they aren’t used to and can’t understand. but it still hurts and makes jisung feel like an alien.
his mind thankfully pulls him out of his memories of high school friends and back to the boy a few years older than jisung that lives somewhere in their neighborhood.
jisung’s met him a couple of times now and they’re on a first name basis with each other. the guy even greets jisung with a big smile every time they pass by each other on the sidewalk or in a nearby cafe or somewhere out in town when jisung really isn’t expecting to see him. sometimes they stop and talk for a while and jisung finds himself soaking in the boy’s attention and his smiles.
jisung’s brain is melting. he’s lonely.
impulsively, jisung leaves the house in a thin jacket and aims to walk around the neighborhood until the pressure in his brain stops. and lo and behold, the universe is on jisung’s side today, because he’s only a block away from the apartment complex when a familiar voice is calling a greeting out to him.
“jisung, hi!”
he turns and smiles without needing to fake it for politeness sake.
“hi, chan!”
chan waves him over with a dimpled smile as he sits on the edge of what used to be a fountain but is now some sad looking concrete structure without water in it. jisung is walking over immediately and sitting down beside chan, who is looking much broader than him in his own thin jacket.
“it’s been a while,” chan says.
“been busy,” jisung lies.
chan nods like he understands—jisung knows that unlike himself, chan actually is busy with work and hobbies and projects and his friends.
“berry and i have missed seeing you around with bbama.”
berry is the name of chan’s dog that jisung is head over heels for. she loves hopping up next to jisung and nosing at his hand until he scratches her behind the ears. and she gets along well with jisung’s dog, bbama, who is a little white mop of a thing full of energy and a zest for life.
chan and jisung have walked their dogs together a handful of times. all coincidental, but nice all the same. it’s how they got to the point where they now sit and talk together without their dogs as a buffer.
“bbama’s been too obsessed with meeting my brother to care about hanging out with us,” jisung says.
it’s a half lie. bbama has been overjoyed to have one more person to give him endless amounts of attention. but bbama’s also got this attachment to jisung that formed out of nowhere and he’s been spending quite a bit of time clinging to jisung.
“decided he’s too good for us, huh?” chan jokes.
jisung smiles, because chan’s nice and chan’s probably the person who’s been the easiest for him to talk to over the past few years.
“he’s betrayed us.”
“tell bbama i’ll bribe him with treats if he comes on a walk with us next time.”
“will do.”
jisung’s not out of the closet to anybody but a select few people online. hasn’t come out of the closet in two years because he’s never met anybody else that he felt like he could be that personal with.
it’s obvious, he knows, to some extent, that he is transgender. he can tell in the way people stare at him in the supermarket like they know he is and they’re trying to gauge him or figure him out. it’s judgemental as much as it is curious, but it’s obvious all the same and jisung doesn’t mind because it’s something and it was all he had for a very long time.
well, then he met chan. and although jisung’s never said it or mentioned it, he knows chan knows .
jisung thinks chan knows in a way that those people in supermarkets don’t. because chan doesn’t stare at him in a way that makes jisung feel small or alien. and chan doesn’t give him questioning looks sometimes. and chan didn’t look confused when jisung introduced himself and chan never hesitated to refer to jisung as a boy in any capacity.
chan treats jisung like a friend and like he’s just as much of a boy as chan himself is. and jisung preens with the attention and the friendship and the way chan still politely averts his eyes whenever jisung slightly adjusts the front of his shirt or moves the bottom of his binder so it’s not crushing his diaphragm.
jisung’s incredibly relieved that there’s no tiptoeing around how to introduce himself to chan or any need to alter the ways jisung would prefer to refer to himself when chan’s around. because now he can call himself a boy and other masculine things without a second thought and chan does the same for jisung just as naturally.
chan and jisung sit by the not-quite-a-fountain and talk for a long time about their personal lives and what chan’s been up to. they banter and joke and jisung asks chan for advice on lyric writing and producing, because they both make and upload music as a hobby.
chan’s got a bigger following than jisung—rightfully so, in jisung’s opinion, because that guy’s a great producer and jisung’s been trying hard to follow in his footsteps at least a little bit. but chan compliments jisung’s lyricism a lot and they talk about music for a while and chan brings up his roommate every once in a while who’s also a producer.
jisung enjoys his talk with chan and his brain stops melting for a couple days afterward, though the initial good mood weans when he gets home because his mother starts an argument with jisung about something jisung isn’t in the mood to deal with.
jisung’s mother is mad at him and jisung supposes it’s because the dishes are piled up in the sink even though jisung isn’t the one who used them. it’s not like she cares about the tidbit of information or the fact that jisung does almost every other chore in the house. she just doesn’t care because jisung never washes the dishes.
it’s due to some vendetta jisung randomly developed against dish soap. his brain decided one day that jisung’s hands are never going to be rid of the dish soap after he touches it. and that he’ll never be able to get all the soap off the dishes he’s washing so they’ll never be truly clean.
it’s a headache and jisung started getting anxiety attacks over it, so he simply stopped washing the dishes. and his mother’s been subtly mad about it ever since. and she brings it up to him all the time even though jisung hardly ever uses the dishes. she acts like it’s still his fault that there are dishes in the sink.
his mother used to be home a lot more often. she used to see jisung more and she used to put in effort to spend time with him, too.
for the past few years, she’s had a new job that takes up a lot of her time. and she’s always picking up extra shifts and working extra days just because she can. when she’s home, all she talks about is work. and her coworkers. her entire life is work and spending time with jisung’s brother.
jisung used to think those christmas movies where kids had workaholic parents were stupid, but he gets it now. he understands the sinking, cold feeling of his mother speaking to him to talk about work and how much of her time she dedicates to work. how she’s either working, talking about her job, or ignoring jisung in favor of his brother.
when jisung’s brother was away for college, their mother never used her free time to spend with jisung. to talk with him or watch something with him or ask about his day. she’d bring him his favorite drink and ignore him until it came time to tell him dinner was ready. then they’d eat in separate rooms because she didn’t want to eat with him, and she’d go to bed, and go to work, and it’d repeat.
it’s not neglect, because jisung’s old enough to take care of himself even though he struggles sometimes and his mother provides for his basic needs. but the child inside of him feels like it is. and it hurts him to have a parent so aloof and uncaring for him.
jisung wants to blame himself—and sometimes he truly does. and other times, like tonight, he thinks back on being a little kid who was struggling too hard in their environment without anyone to support his child self. and that little boy never deserved to be ignored or yelled at for the way he acted out or the way he struggled to articulate himself or stand up for himself.
he wants to heal baby jisung who never got his ideal childhood of being some grimey little boy who liked playing in dirt and finding bugs. he wants to take care of inner baby jisung, but jisung isn’t sure how, because it’s not like someone modeled good parenting or healthy habits for him.
instead, inner child jisung screams and drowns jisung in a relentless yearning to be young again or to be coddled by someone until he feels better. jisung knows he’d never feel better no matter how much he was coddled, though, because childhood trauma sucks and being told you’re noisy and annoying your whole life scars you.
jisung spends too much time mourning his lost childhood that got ripped away from him all because he wasn’t born in a body he felt like he belonged in. he blames his younger self for not knowing earlier. he feels apologetic to his younger self for not knowing and for all he missed out on.
thinking about living as a boy makes jisung sad. he only gets a taste of it around chan. and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to safely start testosterone or raise the money it’d take to have top surgery. and jisung doesn’t think he can really come out to that many people without putting his safety at risk.
coming out to his mother wouldn’t go well, though, so jisung sucks it up.
jisung tries to stop drowning in his own thoughts. he tries to direct it to his music, because his account’s been sitting empty and unused for the past three months. but nothing comes out well and it feels like a jumbled, incoherent, disjointed mess.
jisung abandons the project for now.
nevermind.
jisung made the mistake of bringing the failed song up to chan, and chan offered to help him work on it at chan’s place. with his producer roommate, if that was alright with jisung.
jisung’s tired of being so isolated. he’s wearing thin right now and he really needs some time out of that stupid fucking glass closet he’s trapped in when he’s not hanging around chan. jisung agrees.
chan lives a couple blocks away from jisung in a similar looking apartment building and his floor number is the same as jisung’s is.
“my roommate should be home soon. we can get started without him, though.”
“okay.”
jisung doesn’t know what to do with himself. he feels awkward and out of place, because he’s never been to chan’s apartment before and this is a massive step in their friendship. and jisung’s honestly forgotten what having friends in real life is like at this point.
berry saves him from the anxiety two seconds after jisung sits on the couch in the living room. she’s jumping up next to him and squirming all over jisung’s lap with her wagging tail and little yips. she doesn’t stop even after jisung gives her an ample amount of ear scratches and pats.
chan brings him something to drink and he sets out an array of snacks as he gives jisung a smile that jisung wants to say is affectionate and amused.
“she likes you.”
“good, i like her, too.”
“you’re welcome to bring bbama next time, if you want.”
next time. jisung hasn’t hung out here for more than five minutes and chan’s already open to having him over again. that’s good, right?
“sure, if you don’t mind him getting the zoomies and breaking something.”
chan laughs.
“all zoomies are welcome in this house.”
“even mine?”
chan’s smile is definitely amused now.
“if you get the human zoomies, we can go out somewhere and let you run off all that energy.”
the banter is dumb, but jisung’s smiling and chan is smiling back at him and it’s enough to relax jisung and take him off the edge of an anxiety attack.
they get to work after a few more stupid comments and jokes to one another. and chan attentively listens to jisung talk about his failed song and the direction he wanted to go with it. he gives jisung advice as he reads over jisung’s lyrics and even offers up a few of the tracks he made if jisung thinks one of them will fit with the way he wants his song to sound.
jisung refuses to give chan a definitive answer about just taking one of the tracks chan made, but chan doesn’t seem to mind. he just steers jisung back to lyric writing and they work together to make jisung’s song less of a jumbled, disjointed mess.
there’s a moment where jisung takes his jacket off and he catches chan staring at a gross, oddly shaped bruise jisung had given himself during one of his breakdowns(?). right on jisung’s bicep where his shirt is slightly too short to cover the whole thing. and he can tell chan wants to ask if he’s either being, like, abused at home or if he’s alright, but chan must see how tense the concept makes jisung, because he drops it for now.
halfway through refining jisung’s song, the front door to chan’s apartment opens and there’s a guy standing in the doorway looking very confused. he’s staring right at jisung with his eyebrows furrowed and his lips looking kind of pouty.
jisung shifts uncomfortably under the attention and the guy only snaps out of it when chan speaks.
“you’re late.”
the guy’s eyes widen and he drops the coat hanging over his arm to rest on the back of the chair in front of him.
“oh, shit, i forgot what day it was. sorry bro.”
berry bounds up to him with her floppy little ears and noses at the guy’s ankle until he bends down to pet her.
“this is my roommate, changbin,” chan says to clear up jisung’s confusion.
changbin’s straightening up now, a flash of recognition on his face as he looks at jisung again and says:
“you’re jisung, right? chan talks about you all the time.”
jisung isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or not.
“nice to finally meet you, dude,” changbin says.
dude.
“nice to meet you, too.”
jisung isn’t sure if changbin knows or not. he doesn’t know if chan’s told him beforehand or if changbin’s just really good at taking things in stride or what. but jisung finds he doesn’t care too much because changbin is incredibly welcoming and he’s very keen on helping jisung and chan with the song.
their session devolves into shit-talking and joking around and telling stories about each other and themselves at some point. and jisung’s having a great time—probably feeling the best he’s felt in months, all thanks to chan and changbin. he’s laughing and talking about himself more freely than he’s used to all while he has a lapful of squirmy puppy who’s picked up on their good moods.
jisung’s usually self-conscious to the point where he can barely function around strangers. even if there’s a mutual friend as a buffer. but he’s too caught up in how easily he seems to fit himself into chan and changbin’s chaotic banter and conversational topics. on top of the high of getting to feel the most like himself he has since…who knows when?
chan offers to walk jisung back to his apartment complex and jisung isn’t too surprised when chan holds him back for a minute with his concerned eyes boring into jisung’s. jisung isn’t a fan of eye contact, but he doesn’t feel like he can divert his eyes from chan’s as chan quietly, and incredibly gently, says:
“if you ever feel unsafe, you’re more than welcome to come over. i can meet up with you and walk with you if you want to, or changbin can. both of us are up all hours of the night if you need anything.”
the sentiment is so kind that it kind of makes jisung want to ugly cry. but he doesn’t know how to tell chan that the only person jisung’s unsafe from is himself sometimes, so all he utters is:
“thank you.”
and chan goes the extra mile of giving jisung his phone number and changbin’s phone number as well.
jisung barely holds it together on the elevator ride up to his apartment and the walk into his room. he only gets the door closed before he’s ugly crying with all his might, thankful his mom and brother seem to be gone at the moment because, yikes, it’d be embarrassing to be caught like this right now.
it’s the most loved and cared for that jisung’s felt in the past six years. all from a boy who barely knew him.
making friends and being kind of out to two people isn’t going to solve jisung’s mental health issues. realistically, jisung knows this. but he still feels disappointed and confused when his next bad day is only three days after his session with chan and changbin.
it’s the first time since his lows started again that jisung struggles to get out of bed. he spends four hours laying there, alternating between staring at his phone and the wall while bbama lays next to him and occasionally nuzzles at jisung in the hopes of getting him to move.
jisung drags himself out of bed ten minutes before his mother comes home from work, because thinking about all the questions she’d ask him and the complaints she’d make about him still being in bed so late just weren’t worth jisung’s energy.
she pops into his room (without knocking because she hasn’t respected his privacy in years) and brings him the drink she always buys him. her one symbol of love or affection or whatever that she shows jisung.
as soon as she’s gone, jisung’s vision blurs. he knows she won’t be back until dinner’s ready and then he won’t see her again until tomorrow to repeat this. and he just feels so goddamn empty and dissatisfied. so unloved by the one person who was kind of supposed to love him and want him around.
he’s so unhappy .
chan started a group chat with jisung, chan, and changbin even though chan and changbin live together. just so chan and changbin could chat with jisung at the same time to include him in their antics.
the group chat and his private chats with chan and changbin tide jisung over on the days where he feels like he can’t do anything. when his fingers can barely move to hold his phone and tap out replies to their messages. when he can’t get out of bed and has to listen to his mother talking at him about why he’s being so lazy and why are there dishes in the sink, jisung?
chan offered to come get him once when jisung complained about his mother’s suffocating presence, but jisung declined immediately. he didn’t need chan showing up to his apartment to accidentally out jisung or learn his deadname when jisung’s mother answered the door.
jisung’s sure chan would understand and be extremely mindful of that boundary if jisung brought it up to him. but jisung doesn’t want to let go of this weird half-out-of-the-closet thing he’s got going on with chan and changbin, so he just stays cryptic and weird about it.
changbin invited jisung to walk berry with him earlier in the week, and jisung agreed to bring bbama along so changbin could finally meet him.
jisung doesn’t account for the rapid decline in his mental health the night before. or the huge breakdown he has out of nowhere. one bad enough that he doesn’t remember any of it or the following hours. he doesn’t expect to have a brain fog so bad his eyes can’t focus.
but he does. he has that stupid earth-shattering breakdown.
what jisung doesn’t do even though he knows it’s probably for the best is cancel on changbin. nope. he leashes bbama up and pulls on his coat and he walks down to the fountain that isn’t a fountain and he greets changbin and berry with the biggest smile he can manage.
changbin catches on immediately, his eyes filling with concern and his features softening. jisung knows he probably looks like shit and it’s hard to pretend he’s feeling any semblance of okay at the moment.
“you alright?”
jisung nods.
“we don’t have to walk the dogs today if you’re not feeling well enough to.”
“no,” jisung murmurs, “i want to.”
changbin wants to debate with him—it’s obvious in the way he bites his lip and his eyes flicker back and forth in his own internal debate. he sighs and nods, deciding to indulge jisung.
“alright. let’s go, then.”
the walk is eerily quiet at first, like maybe changbin’s afraid to speak to him or something. like if he says something, jisung will have another breakdown in the middle of the sidewalk. but then he starts to talk in a way that leaves jisung room to reply if he wants to without pressuring him into replying. and jisung’s so grateful he could cry.
half the time, changbin’s rambling to jisung about his life and random shit that comes to mind. and the other half, jisung spends replying to him and talking about the dogs. and it helps. jisung’s brain fog recedes a little bit and he gets distracted.
changbin offers for bbama and jisung to hang out at his apartment. jisung accepts. he doesn’t want to be cooped up in his stuffy apartment feeling invisible for the rest of the day.
bbama, in fact, gets the zoomies and tangles himself up in changbin’s phone charger. it thankfully warrants some endeared laughter on changbin’s part and both of them working to untangle bbama while berry nudges them with her nose to get her own dose of attention and ear scratches.
they hang out in the living room to keep an eye on bbama and berry so they don’t cause too much chaos. there’s a lapse of silence at first where changbin quietly asks:
“do you want to talk about it?”
even if jisung wanted to, he couldn’t. he doesn’t know how to talk about his mental health or his feelings. he’s heard his mother shame mentally ill people too many times. heard her say suicidal people are selfish. he hasn’t trusted her since that time she found out he was hurting himself and she threatened to send him to a mental hospital where she wouldn’t let him contact anybody until he got better. he was 13.
“nah.”
“me or chan are always here if you ever want to.”
“thanks.”
changbin lets him drop the subject after that, and they spend their evening watching shitty tv and youtube videos together while playing with the dogs.
changbin doesn’t comment on jisung’s shaky fingers or how much quieter he’s being compared to his usual self. he just lets jisung make himself comfortable and he keeps jisung company. it’s nice. one of the nicest things jisung’s had someone do for him, even if it doesn’t seem like much.
chan comes home later in the evening and joins them. he orders takeout for all of them and the quiet, casual hangout continues.
chan walks jisung and bbama back home again. he stops jisung outside of the apartment complex again. he gives jisung that intensely caring look again, and says:
“if you ever need a break from home, you can come over anytime. bbama’s welcome, too. bin and i don’t mind.”
“thanks.”
and instead of sending jisung off, chan opens his arms. and jisung doesn’t feel like he knows chan that well despite knowing him for the last five or six months. their friendship only really bloomed three months ago, and jisung tries not to attach himself to people so quickly in case they ghost him or something.
but jisung feels safe with chan. like he’s some little kid being taken care of and cared for in the way he’s been craving. and he trusts chan.
jisung hugs chan. he returns the hug and feels chan rub his back reassuringly until they part and chan gives him that same kind smile he always does.
“i mean it,” he says. “you’re always welcome to come over.”
“okay,” jisung says.
he’s not sure he’d ever be able to accept that invitation for what it was. he doesn’t think he’ll ever fit into chan and changbin’s lives well enough to just come to their apartment uninvited. he doesn’t think they mean that as much as they’re acting like they do. and jisung hasn’t been over enough to feel cool with doing that, anyway.
he cherishes their friendship with everything he has. truly, he does. but he’s cautious and afraid, because surely the best thing in his life is going to disappear pretty soon. jisung’s been struggling to catch a break for the last five or so years now, and he’s not confident he’ll be able to stay in touch with chan and changbin often enough for them to keep trying with him.
jisung hangs out with them individually a few times, and together a handful of times. to work on music and to just fuck around and have fun. he texts them nearly every day in both their group chat and their private chats. and he walks bbama with whoever’s walking berry that day.
then jisung starts losing his days. not intentionally. it just sort of happens sometimes. where time slips away from him and he spends days staring at walls and clicking through youtube videos and shows on netflix without actually seeing them.
hours slip past jisung. it becomes days. he replies to chan and changbin less. he doesn’t walk bbama as often, because by the time he’s pulled himself out of the brain fog, it’s like three in the morning. he starts going to bed later and his coherence is slipping away from him.
the world’s like molasses. jisung can barely move. it feels like everything is in slow-motion and jisung’s thoughts are, too.
his last text to chan or changbin was two and a half weeks ago. jisung truly doesn’t remember the whole time he’s been out of it. not even a little bit. one day he’s making rice and suddenly he blinks and he’s laying in the dark in his bedroom eighteen days later.
bbama is resting his head on jisung’s stomach, fast asleep like he’s been laying there for a while now. maybe he has been. jisung has absolutely no clue.
it takes jisung three days to muster up the courage to text chan and changbin back. it causes so much anxiety his stomach hurts and he feels like he’s going to be sick, but he does it because he misses them and he’d like to have his friends back in his life.
they reply almost as soon as jisung sends the messages. and jisung’s barely got time to stop himself from tearing up in relief when changbin’s asking him to head down to the fountain so they can meet up and see each other.
jisung honestly can’t tell if it’s two in the afternoon or two in the morning, because his blackout curtains work a little too well. and the light hung up in his room tends to counteract the effect of the sunlight peeking through his curtains.
either way, he agrees.
jisung doesn’t make it to the fountain before changbin’s rushing up to him and squishing him in the tightest hug jisung’s ever had. damn those muscles. they’re squishing the life out of jisung right now.
“we were worried about you.”
jisung peeks over changbin’s shoulder to see chan’s tense smile. poor guy probably thought jisung’s home situation was worse or something. jisung was going to have to set him straight about that assumption.
“sorry.”
“you don’t have to be sorry.”
changbin’s voice is all rumbly and it vibrates against jisung’s chest because changbin is holding him so fucking tight, holy shit. jisung thinks changbin might break his fucking rib before jisung’s poor binder usage ever will.
“i’m sorry.”
“don’t be sorry,” changbin repeats.
jisung’s only able to breathe for a second. the moment changbin steps back from the hug, chan is pulling him into another hug. thankfully less tight and restrictive than changbin’s. his ribs might survive the night.
chan and changbin ask him questions about what happened and where he’s been. all jisung says is some extremely vague replies about how he lost track of time and something about being busy. they let him get away with it.
they end up hanging out together at some 24 hour cafe (it was, in fact, two in the morning) and they just soak in each other’s presence and drink something to warm them up. they split a few desserts together and jisung breaks up the quiet atmosphere between them with some stupid jokes and a dumb story about what he was like in high school.
chan and changbin smile in relief and changbin tries to one-up jisung’s story with his own. everything feels more normal after that.
it’s a constant cycle.
jisung has his off-days and his breakdowns(?) and his actual breakdowns and he spends random days mourning his lost childhood and muddy future. there’s some days where he simply can’t leave his room because he’s so uncomfortable with his body to the point where it feels humiliating to be looked at. he still feels utterly invisible and unlovable in his home. he still feels like the world’s biggest disappointment to his mother.
jisung’s got real life friends, now, though, that he can escape to. not quite to the point of accepting those offers chan gave him so earnestly. maybe he will one day? he’s getting there. either way, he’s got two friends who he’s started making music with. and he’s got company whenever he walks bbama and he’s got people who actually seem to miss him when he disappears sometimes.
jisung’s not going to magically get better. his life isn’t magically going to feel completely bearable and happy. but jisung’s got some stability and he has friends and it’s helping. he isn’t drowning on his own anymore, even though he still can’t bring himself to open up to anyone.
for now, it’s enough.