Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

stimming.  

that’s the word jisung learns when he spends too long scrolling on tiktok and ends up in some kind of talking space for neurodivergent people. it’s the word jisung learns but doesn’t fully know just yet, but he knows it probably means something for him, so he looks it up.

there’s lots of videos and comments and posts out there about stimming. about how everyone does it to some extent, but it’s something neurodivergent people do a lot more often and freely. and there’s videos of examples of stims while people talk about why it happens. about stimming helping anxiety or being used to express distress or as a way to express happiness.

jisung figures out he’s been stimming for the past few months now, because one of the videos features someone doing that thing he stole from chan. the one thing where chan shakes his fists with a big smile on his face when he’s excited.

knowing he’s been stimming for a while isn’t scary like jisung thought it would be. 

it’s nice to know he’s letting himself do something so naturally even if he’s never done it in front of people. well, minus the time jisung copied chan’s stim right in front of him. jisung hasn’t done it since—mostly because chan mistook it as jisung poking fun at him and even though it got cleared up right away, jisung doesn’t want to risk offending chan again.

jisung stims behind closed doors. in his room all alone or with bbama as an audience. partially because jisung hasn’t ever felt like he was allowed to express his emotions in front of other people in any capacity.

jisung learns more about masking, which is how jisung learns that there’s a name for the fake little personality he puts on for other people to make them more comfortable with him. it’s the name for the way jisung refrains from doing something that’s “weird” and usually causes someone to half-jokingly ask him if he’s high.

he’s spent his entire life conditioning himself to be a blank slate for everyone to project their own concept of his personality upon and jisung just lets them. he doesn’t laugh when he wants to most of the time, and he doesn’t smile often, either. he hides his anger and his fear and his anxiety is only visible in the form of shaking hands and glazed over eyes. he pretends nothing affects him ever.

it should be weird and unsettling for people, but for some reason people like jisung? always have? like, they tell him he’s such a good listener and a good kid. and they think jisung is hilarious because he’s “eccentric” and some of the things he says makes people laugh even when he’s being serious.

jisung thinks it’s because he lets people step all over him. 

no matter what trait they project onto him, jisung will play that role dutifully. he scripts his conversations and reactions to whoever he’s with and to the traits they’ve assigned jisung out of nowhere. it makes them happy with him and jisung’s fine with that. that’s all that’s mattered to jisung for a very long time.

being a blank slate isn’t all that matters to jisung anymore, and it hasn’t been since he met chan last summer. it isn’t that bad at first, because jisung and chan only talk when they’re walking their dogs together and their relationship doesn’t have too much depth. 

after that very first songwriting session where jisung met changbin for the first time, which is almost a year old memory by now, jisung really starts to hate being a blank slate. not because chan and changbin are projecting traits onto him or anything, but because jisung wants to be himself and he realizes he doesn’t know who he is anymore.

it took jisung a long time to realize how often he’d been doing mental gymnastics to try to figure out how chan and changbin view him and how to act accordingly. jisung was painfully awkward and his personality was inconsistent and disjointed for those first couple of months. and when jisung gets comfortable enough to want to be himself around them, jisung tries to conjure up his real personality. and turns up blank.

jisung knows he likes rapping and making music. and he knows his favorite foods and his “quirks” that are just his neurodivergent traits. but he doesn’t know who he is. as a person. he doesn’t know what the fuck his personality is, or what he wants to do with his life.

jisung wishes he could say he’s been discovering himself and finding himself, but he’s mostly been distracted with trying to find more answers for his neurodivergence and what label fits him the most. which is part of himself, obviously, but jisung is (hopefully) more than his neurodivergence and his trauma. and he wants to know who that person underneath the trauma and neurodivergence is. because jisung hasn’t known for a long time.

if jisung thinks for too long, he starts to realize how much of his childhood he missed due to all the emotional abuse and not being nurtured by a single adult around him. he was left to his own devices or being yelled at for doing something wrong or he was being made fun of. and there wasn’t anyone to indulge jisung in his interests or anyone to help him explore them more, so jisung grew up as kind of a blank slate to begin with.

jisung spent his most formative years with a lot of anger, anxiety, and depression. he spent his middle school years being emotionally abused with no way to escape his suffocating home because his mother refused to let him see his friends outside of school and birthday parties. he spent a lot of his time online in spaces he was far too young to be involved in and he spent it not finding himself like other kids were starting to.

he found himself in high school. slowly, but surely, in the first few years. when his friend group comes back together and is more stable and his mother’s guilt over jisung’s dad disowning him gives her the compassion to let him see his friends outside of school.

jisung was a loud teenager. very rowdy and stubborn. seemed kind and docile because he was quiet in front of adults and kids he wasn’t friends with. was loud and bratty in an affectionate way. had a hell of a potty mouth and witty jokes and sarcasm at the ready. was carefree and full of crazy ideas that surprised the hell of out people because jisung’s brain is different and it’s finally funny and interesting instead of embarrassing and annoying.

jisung was someone his friends relied on for advice and venting. he was the go-to. probably the only time he’s been a solid first choice for anything, but he’ll take it because he’s his best friend’s second choice, and in a 7 person friend group, that’s the most he's ever been prioritized. 

he loses himself during summer break following his first year of college.

it was small at first. mostly just jisung coming to terms with the fact that he was abused as a child and neglected, too. just him trying to piece it all together so he can acknowledge it and then pretend it never happened because that’s too much space in his brain for it to take up.

jisung’s relationship with his mother was the best it’d ever been during his first year of college and his realization taints it heavily. he starts closing himself off to her instead of trying to keep mending their relationship. it’s mostly unintentional, because that’s when jisung’s mental health just…plummets.

all of a sudden, jisung’s anxiety is the worst it’s ever been and he’s suicidal every single day but he manages to act normally. and then jisung falls into a friend group through online group chats and social media platforms. they help for a while and then they start becoming more turbulent and they become reliant on jisung the same way jisung’s friends used to rely on him. and that’s fine.

until one of jisung’s friends becomes as suicidal as he is and it’s a battle to comfort his friend while he tries to sort through his own struggles. and jisung starts getting panic attacks for the first time in his life that revolve around his past traumas and the fear that his new best friend is going to kill themself when jisung isn't there to talk them down.

he starts staying up all hours of the night so there’s always someone awake to talk his best friend down. he sets alarms every hour to check on his friend and he hears so many graphic details about his friend’s suicidal thoughts and their self harm while he’s juggling his own. and jisung stops sleeping because he’s so anxious that he just can’t.

it evolves into agoraphobia pretty quickly. 

like, jisung stops leaving the house altogether because every time he tries to, he starts having a panic attack about not having cell service and not being able to be there for his friend and jisung can’t risk it because this friend is the best thing that’s happened to him in a while.

jisung was only agoraphobic for a couple of months. maybe 4 at the absolute most. but it’s in that period of his life that jisung has panic attacks and anxiety attacks so constantly it feels like they simply don’t stop . he’s constantly nauseated due to it and he can’t think or function . it’s so bad jisung legitimately feared he would have a mental break. one where he’d lose himself and probably never be able to be functional again.

it’s after a few months of that that jisung cannot handle it anymore and he sees a doctor. he gets some medication for his anxiety and it works. the anxiety goes away.

the anxiety goes away and it stays gone for a very long time. like, even now jisung struggles to feel full fledged anxiety.

but with the loss of anxiety comes the loss of emotion and the ability to think. jisung becomes a zombie. the meds make his mental health worse. they make him more suicidal and numb and so painfully empty and jisung only knows what happened during that period of his life because his texts tell him. he remembers nothing for 6 months.

he realizes in those 6 months that he’s transgender and he spends three days sobbing all the time. it hurts and jisung doesn’t know how he missed it the whole time. jisung is confused and upset and it’s all he thinks about for those days until he finally gives in and tells someone and lets them use his new name and test run some pronouns. the relief makes him sob, too.

the realization came with crippling dysphoria. 

jisung struggled to do anything without thinking about his body or his hair or the way he was being perceived. he wanted to punish himself for being born in a body he’s no longer comfortable in. he wanted to stop existing because it was so uncomfortable and it felt so wrong because jisung wasn’t what he was supposed to be.

he gets a binder a few months later thanks to people online donating money to him. he cuts his hair to his shoulders to see if he thinks he’s ready to have it even shorter. and he gets more gender neutral clothing for his birthday the next year. and jisung bites the bullet and cuts his hair to “boy” length a month after that. it all helps.

and now here jisung is, a few years down the line. with his two best friends that he’s, like, out but not really out to. and bbama, his loyal companion that jisung’s really grateful to have.

bbama’s currently sitting up on his hind legs, resting his little paws against jisung’s shoulder as he tries to nuzzle into jisung’s face with his cold, wet nose. jisung is currently flapping his arms in annoyance and begging bbama to leave him alone. bbama is ignoring him.

bbama’s been in jisung’s face for the past 10 minutes, nuzzling at him and putting his paws all over jisung and overall being in jisung’s personal space. bbama doesn’t give a fuck how much jisung flaps his arms and whines at him to go away. he’s just focused on getting all of jisung’s attention on him.

some days, jisung doesn’t mind bbama’s affections and how needy he is when it comes to getting jisung’s attention. but some days, jisung is on edge because he’s on the verge of being overstimulated and bbama getting all up in jisung’s space, touching him, and refusing to leave him alone no matter how many times jisung expresses his disdain gets on jisung’s nerves so fucking bad.

it’s not directed toward bbama himself. it’s more that jisung feels trapped and overcrowded and that feeling scrambles his brain up like crazy to the point where jisung cannot function because the little dog in front of him is testing all of jisung’s limits.

it’s not bbama’s fault—it’s just one of the symptoms of jisung’s neurodivergence.

“bbama, please , just leave me alone.”

bbama sticks his nose on jisung’s cheek. it’s a jarring sensation that makes jisung flinch away and clench his fists because he’s getting the urge to pull his hair out.

“please?”

the dog just sits there, waiting patiently for jisung to acknowledge him further. jisung finally takes a deep breath, cups bbama’s little face in his hands as gently as he can, and he gives bbama a little kiss on the forehead.

“bbama, my guy, i love you so much, but you are annoying me to death right now. i’m gonna pull my hair out if you do not leave me alone.”

then bbama luckily gets the memo. he squirms out of jisung’s hands and starts getting the zoomies in jisung’s bedroom floor. it’s not the best alternative to having bbama all up in his face since his running is loud, but jisung will take what he can get so he just leaves bbama be.

jisung’s been doing a lot of research into his overstimulation and what that entails and what the results of it can be.

it’s there that jisung starts reading more about meltdowns and he finally starts breaking down the barrier of meltdown stereotypes when he sees multiple accounts of people being able to hold off their meltdowns until they’re in a safe space. and he reads about how many people have shutdowns as well.

that changes a lot of ways jisung views his most emotional moments, because he was under the impression that meltdowns could not be held off or contained. he’d assumed that a meltdown was an uncontrollable thing that meant no matter the situation and no matter how public, someone would be unable to do anything but cry and break down.

once he learns that meltdowns can be held off with shutdowns, jisung’s whole world opens up so much more. 

jisung’s always related to the concept of a meltdown, but he’s never felt so impassioned by his circumstances that he’d just break down in front of other people or in public. he may have wanted to do it and imagined it, but he’d never allow himself to do something like that because it wouldn’t end well for him and it was just embarrassing to him. 

he’s always been the type to simply go blank and go numb and stop feeling or thinking or responding when he gets too overstimulated or when something ruins his mood. he’s always held it in and went mute until he was able to slink off to his room, where he would then cry his eyes out and pull his hair and scratch his arms and hit himself on the thighs or arms because he was feeling too much to control it.

jisung thought it was a result of his depression and anger, but the more he thinks on it, the more he realizes how often he has that kind of reaction when his day gets knocked off kilter or something goes wrong or when he gets overstimulated. 

and jisung realizes after all this time that his “breakdowns(?)” have probably actually been meltdowns.

jisung’s always related to the non-verbal episodes people talk about. 

jisung’s spent over half of his lifetime being essentially mute because he feels like he’s unable to talk or even think about using his vocals chords in many situations. he thought it was because he was shy or something like adults always said, but jisung was a horribly anxious child who was the kindergarten crybaby. he was a child who was physically unable to force himself to talk to anybody who didn’t live in his house. 

he was a confused little child who didn’t understand how to interact with people and couldn’t express himself despite possessing an impressive vocabulary and an ability to read by the time he was 4 or 5. 

people assumed it was shyness, but in reality, it was jisung’s inability to interact with other human beings without fear. all because he didn’t understand how to hold conversations with someone else and he always thought he was going to say the wrong thing. he didn’t know how to script conversations at that age, so he hardly ever talked and felt like he was always saying the wrong thing when he did.

people thought jisung would grow out of it as he got older, but everyone let jisung get really comfortable with never speaking.

they let him get away with never answering questions out loud in class and they let him do his work on his own instead of in groups and they let him skip out on presentations and nobody ever pushed those boundaries. not that he’s sure pushing those boundaries would’ve helped, but it certainly hindered him now, because he’s still very much like that at 21.

jisung doesn’t know how ethical it’d be to push those boundaries with a child as anxious as he was, but he wishes the adults in his life had given it a try. now he just feels stunted and awkward and he still goes through all those mute lapses in part because everyone let him get away with never making conversation with strangers all those years ago (the other part is the shutdowns).

jisung’s boundaries were pushed in a lot of areas at home since he was being raised as a neurotypical child in an emotionally and verbally abusive household, though, and jisung was as stubborn as could be. so maybe it wouldn’t have helped to have someone push him to speak more, after all.

“you wanna go to the store with me?” jisung’s mom asks out of the blue one day.

“sure.”

jisung may not like grocery stores or most public places, for that matter, but he does like a good excuse to get out of the house and listen to music for a couple of hours. he likes walking around aimlessly and studying the people around him while all his favorite songs play in his earphones.

he’ll no doubt get overwhelmed and annoyed very easily once they’re done with the first store and they’re halfway through the second. he’ll get irritable and he’ll want to roll his eyes and pace around like a trapped animal and he’ll get bored of stopping every 5 seconds to stare at aisles they’ve seen a million times over.

but hey, jisung loves car rides and listening to music, so he says yes.

jisung glances up from the cart and starts looking around the aisles because he’s incredibly bored and if there’s one thing his mother loves to do, it’s spend an excessive amount of time browsing the shelves as if they haven’t shopped here every week for 4 years.

his eyes flicker from some colorful packaging on the shelves to the old man who is standing far too close to them to a screaming child down the way. and finally his eyes land on two familiar figures standing at the most open part of the store. and jisung freezes.

both of them turn around at the same time and make eye contact with jisung. and both of them smile and jisung would smile, too, if it weren’t for the precarious situation he is now in. because chan and changbin are waving at him and looking like they want to come over and start talking to him about something.

it’d usually be very welcome and nice to run into chan and changbin when he’s not expecting it. but now is not one of those times, because jisung’s mother is right there next to him and if there’s one thing jisung never wants, it’s for those three to meet. his mother would use jisung’s deadname in about 2 seconds flat and she’d say something embarrassing about him and then she’d ask chan and changbin a billion and one questions because she’s never met them or heard about them before. and jisung can’t express how awful that is and how much he’d hate that.

so jisung glances between them and his mother, his eyes going wide and his face expressing what he hopes is alarm and a silent way of saying “ yikes .” he shakes his head as vigorously as he can without catching his mother’s attention. he goes as far as giving both of them a little gesture to say “not now.”

thankfully chan and changbin mirror jisung’s expression and give an understanding nod. they give him a little smile and one last wave before they go back to what they’re doing and jisung prays to every god out there that his mother didn’t notice that whole little exchange.

jisung never talks about his mom with chan or changbin. he never really mentions her or tells them about any of the shit she’s done to him or how she’s treated him his whole life. but he doesn’t really have to give any hints, because that alone is enough. especially combined with the fact that chan and changbin have kind of caught on to jisung’s home environment not being the best and the fact that jisung was perhaps abused as a child.

so chan and changbin getting the hint that jisung really doesn’t want them near his mom is a saving grace.

jisung can’t imagine how awful it’d feel to know that they’d met her and that she’d present as such a cool, laid back mom that all of jisung’s other friends have loved and adored and adopted as their own because none of them realize that she’s neglectful and emotionally abusive and that she’s borderline hated jisung since he was a child. he can’t imagine what impression they might have of her or how much she’d like chan and changbin. how she’d try to adopt them like she adopted all jisung’s other friends. how jisung would have to sit back and watch his mom be a mom to literally everyone in his life except for jisung—her actual son.

that’s all a nightmare that jisung would rather have as a hypothetical for the rest of his life. if there’s one thing jisung wants, it’s for chan and changbin to never have contact with his mother in any way, shape, or form.

his mother luckily has no clue that jisung just had that little exchange behind her back. and she doesn’t see any of the little micro-interactions jisung has with chan and changbin because they keep bumping into each other in random little parts of the store.

“fate really wanted to fuck with us today,” chan says when jisung comes over to their apartment later in the evening.

“i know! it’s like the universe wanted to microdose me on what my own personal hell looks like.”

neither of them ask why jisung’s personal hell involves them meeting his mom. they don’t ask why jisung doesn’t want them around her. and they don’t bring her up even when they’re talking about the near disaster that was them running into one another in the store at least 6 times in 30 minutes.

it’s the same reason they never ask to go over to jisung’s place. it’s why they never offer to walk jisung to his door and why they wait outside of the apartment building when they’re picking him up. they’re boundaries that chan and changbin dutifully respect. jisung is forever grateful.

if there’s one thing jisung has to put up with when he comes over to chan and changbin’s apartment, it’s being manhandled and cuddled constantly. honestly, you’d think it was chan’s life goal to carry jisung around like a sack of potatoes or that changbin could not exist without clinging to jisung in some capacity.

jisung’s touch starved ass took a really long time to adjust to all the touching and contact, but now that he’s used to it, it’s all he craves. even if he pouts and whines and complains loudly whenever he’s being carried or hugged.

all the skinship makes jisung open up so much more than he thought he was going to when it came to chan and changbin. especially so soon into their friendship, but jisung has long since realized he’s unusually comfortable around those two.

jisung starts letting some of his traits slip through into his interactions with chan and changbin.

it starts off as jisung saying weird or bizarre things whenever it comes to mind, because talking shit all the time in the name of fake arguments has made jisung less mindful of everything that comes out of his mouth. which is crazy, considering how much energy jisung uses to police himself on the way he talks and what his scripts are like.

chan and changbin will either laugh, start a very long running joke with jisung, or they’ll give him a bewildered look coupled with an amused smile. chan is the best when it comes to long running jokes and escalating the situation, but changbin will match all of jisung’s chaotic little brother energy and he’ll help jisung cause enough chaos and noise that chan can do nothing but sit there beside them looking like a very worn out old man.

the urge to be annoying and wild for the sake of generating a reaction from someone resurfaces pretty soon after that. it’s something jisung never quite grew out of because nobody exactly paid attention to him as a child. he’s never had his fill of satisfaction when it comes to annoying someone in minimal ways.

jisung didn’t think that day would ever come again, but lo and behold, it does when changbin tackles jisung and shouts at him obnoxiously on a day where jisung is purposefully being bratty in a playful way. jisung feels that part of himself blip right back into reality as he laughs and tries to squirm out of changbin’s hold.

one of jisung’s favorite pastimes is pestering changbin and interrupting him when he’s trying to talk about something until changbin grits his teeth, sighs, and either yells at jisung or tries to play fight him. then both of them wind up in a smiling, laughing pile of limbs until jisung either starts annoying changbin again or one of them finds something else to do.

jisung learns the boundaries very quickly after a few instances of changbin actually getting mad at him. it resulted in a lot of anxiety and self-hatred on jisung’s part, but changbin forgives him within a few hours. it doesn’t stop jisung from worrying about it for a while, though.

the little incidents of jisung accidentally pissing changbin off ends up saving jisung a lot of overthinking and anxiety in the long run, because it solidifies the concept that changbin is willing to let jisung know when he’s done something to upset him.

chan is a lot more patient and level-headed than changbin is, so it takes much longer for one of those incidents to happen with him, but he fixes things with jisung very willingly. jisung feels so bad about pissing off chan that it takes him a few days to emotionally recover from it even after they make up.

jisung almost never gets mad or upset about anything, so he’s never been the one getting upset first. partially because jisung will let people get away with almost anything in the name of peace and self preservation. partially because jisung barely feels any kind of emotion that would cause an argument or hurt feelings when it comes to anyone.

jisung introduces his stimming slowly and subtly at first even though he’s seen chan do similar movements very freely and considerably often. all the funny looks and scoldings from adults during his childhood have made jisung self-conscious about stimming.

he keeps to it tapping his fingers, swaying his feet, rocking back and forth when he’s sitting down, and swaying when they’re standing around. he keeps those up for a month or so. then he does slightly bigger motions that all involve his hands in some capacity. 

his favorite stim with his hands is to touch his fingertips together, leaving his index finger and pinky finger sticking up straight; then jisung shakes his hands side to side in a small motion. he’s also a fan of opening and closing his hands while leaving his thumb and pinky sticking out. and he likes flexing his hands so only the two fingers in the middle move in some odd little motion. sometimes jisung likes hitting his knuckles together, too.

he catches chan or changbin watching his hands sometimes, but neither of them comment on it or ask jisung what he’s up to.

jisung knows stimming is usually a tool people use to express an emotion or something, but jisung stims near constantly to combat a lot of his boredom and restlessness. none of his hand stims or his rocking or his swaying feet are a sign of anything. it’s just that jisung needs to move or else he can’t think.

jisung keeps doing his research into his symptoms and the types of neurodivergence that he seems to fit with the most. he keeps finding terms for things he’s struggled with his whole life and all of the descriptions and accounts of them are so accurate it hurts.

he’s actually having fun learning about himself. it’s not as scary as he thought it’d be, but maybe that’s because jisung researched this when he was in high school, said ‘huh i kind of identify with this,’ and then stopped thinking about it because he was too blinded by stereotypes to realize that it applied to him way more than he was thinking it did.

one of the main factors of jisung brushing it off comes down to the fact that growing up in an abusive environment forced jisung to learn how to read every single cue when it came to body language or the way someone would change their speech patterns when they were pissed off. which means jisung understands social cues to a decent extent and he’s very good at picking up on jokes and memes.

jisung was repressing a lot of his childhood at the time because he hadn’t had the abuse realization quite yet. so jisung didn’t remember being essentially bullied into learning and following the social cues other people naturally picked up on and understood. and he didn’t remember how often people would stare at him like he was a funny little anomaly. and he didn’t remember how often his peers would seem put off by him before they let him into their group anyways because jisung is noticeably neurodivergent enough to be teased but not fully isolated.

jisung didn’t realize how much he relied on scripts and his fake personality until last year, when he suddenly forgot all of his scripts and personalities that he puts on for his family members because he hasn’t had to interact with anyone in a really long time like that.

from a very young age, jisung felt like everyone else in the universe got a rule book and a script that jisung never received.

all the people in jisung’s life innately knew how to make small talk and how to reply to other people instead of just awkwardly staying silent. other people knew how to start conversations and when to inject themselves into conversations without being rude. and jisung had no clue how someone was supposed to learn how to do that. nobody ever taught him.

jisung felt like the rules applied to everyone in the universe but him. as if the rules wouldn’t extend to him if he did something wrong or if he needed help. which is unreasonable, because jisung faces the same (if not less, because he was a well behaved kid) consequences as his peers. but it feels different and jisung doesn’t know what’s going on. all he knows is that he’s always felt like an alien that got dropped among human beings.

jisung decides he wants to breach the concept of him being neurodivergent with chan and changbin. but not in one of those serious sit down conversations because those are awkward and it’s not really a huge deal that jisung’s just telling them certain traits about himself that they’ve probably picked up on at least slightly by now.

so jisung decides to go about it in the most casual way he can think of.

“i have sensory issues,” is what jisung says brightly when he enters the apartment.

changbin raises his eyebrows at the news, half amused by the way jisung’s decided to greet him today. there’s a hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

“i’d say ‘congratulations’, but i don’t think it applies right now.”

“it doesn’t!” jisung says cheerily.

changbin snorts.

“well, then, my condolences.”

“i’ll need all the condolences you can offer. like, all of them. steal some if you have to.”

“i’ll see what minho can do for me.”

minho is chan and changbin’s friend that jisung really should have met by now. 

it’s not like chan and changbin are hiding jisung from their friend group. actually, they’ve invited jisung over to meet their friends multiple times, but jisung never goes because meeting new people is awkward and jisung is afraid of not fitting into the rest of the friend group he knows chan and changbin share.

jisung encouraged them to mention their friends and talk about them in the hopes that hearing about those people enough will give him the push he needs. so jisung gets some of the inside jokes and he knows basic personality traits so he gets the jokes chan and changbin make about them sometimes.

for example, jisung knows minho is a menace to society and he’s going to help changbin acquire as many stolen condolences as jisung desires.

“tell him to put his own condolences in or i don’t want what he’s offering.”

“greedy.”

“i deserve retribution.”

“for what? being a demanding little gremlin?”

“you’re one to talk about being a gremlin when you look like that.”

chan walks into the room and looks between them. he looks like he woke up not too long ago, judging by his unruly curly hair and the way he’s squinting at them. also his lips have that donald duck thing going for them.

“what’s going on?” he asks.

“i have sensory issues,” jisung smiles.

“he’s demanding condolences,” changbin informs chan.

“i’ve got like 5 bucks and a sandwich. how’s that?”

“deal!”

“what the fuck? i have to give you all my condolences and steal some to satisfy you and chan gets off with 5 bucks and a sandwich?”

“you should learn how to negotiate,” jisung shrugs.

he turns to chan.

“can i have my condolence sandwich now?”

“if you want it to be burnt,” chan replies tiredly.

wow, what a fucking win for jisung. he’s getting all of changbin’s condolences (and some extra stolen ones) and chan is going to give him a toasted sandwich? jisung would’ve been happy with some plain sandwich that was cold, but now he’s living like royalty.

chan obviously wasn’t serious about the 5 bucks and the sandwich, but he’s definitely going to make the sandwich now that jisung asked because that’s just the kind of dude chan is. he’s got it in his dna to act like a dad or something. jisung vastly appreciates it.

jisung sticks his tongue out at changbin. changbin kicks jisung in the ass.

jisung gets his sandwich but it comes with the unfortunate side of chan wanting to actually talk about jisung’s sensory issues announcement. which means jisung has to try to explain weird things he knows chan and changbin probably won’t understand and jisung has to try to figure out the wording for shit like “sometimes the captions on things are too small and it makes me feel like my teeth are going to fall out.” or “i can barely wear short sleeves because the air feels like a cheese grater on my skin.” or “when i touch dryer sheets, it makes my teeth squirm.”

he does get an odd sense of satisfaction from the horrified grimaces on their faces when he tells them about it, though. so between the sandwich, his stolen condolences, and grossing both of them out, jisung’s had a pretty decent day.

jisung introduces the topic of sensory overload to chan and changbin, who both seem to know exactly what jisung is referring to and they even know a little about it without jisung having to explain it, which is something that confuses jisung to no end.

they still ask what they can do for jisung in those moments, though, and jisung does his best to tell them that he kind of has no clue how to deescalate that situation because he just masks the discomfort and waits for it to go away. they don’t look too happy about jisung’s answer.

jisung just keeps introducing topics like that.

“you know what i hate?” jisung says out of the blue. “making eye contact with people.”

changbin glances over at jisung, making direct eye contact with him before he registers what jisung’s just said and he looks away with furrowed eyebrows.

“huh, why?”

“it’s so weird. like, why do people like staring other people in the eyes? how does that not feel invasive and creepy to everyone? i hate it.”

“invasive and creepy for you?”

jisung mulls it over, trying to interpret if changbin means as the recipient or the one making the eye contact. he finally says:

“i feel like looking people in the eyes makes me seem creepy and invasive. which is weird, because i know making eye contact makes people feel important and listened to. but i just feel like when i’m the one looking them in the eyes, they’re going to get mad at me and think i’m weird and creepy and it feels intimate and that’s a freaky thing to feel with strangers.”

changbin hums.

“is it just the eye contact or?”

“looking people in the face feels similar,” jisung says. “i’m not cool with looking people in the face unless i know them super well. even then, it’s kind of iffy and not something i like doing on the regular.”

“okay. how can we make sure you’re paying attention and stuff without making you look at us, then?”

“i’m always paying attention. i can’t not pay attention whenever there’s someone talking near me or if there’s someone in the room with me.”

“that sounds awful.”

“mmm. it’s annoying sometimes, but after a while, you learn to get used to it.”

“how did you teach yourself to pay attention to people all the time?”

“i didn’t…i’ve just always been like that.”

“the best and worst superpower all in one,” changbin says.

“i am the world’s lamest superhero.”

“well, someone has to be,” changbin says.

jisung slaps him on the arm with an indignant noise. changbin stares at him in offense. he slaps jisung back and jisung overdramatically writhes on the couch while he cries out to chan that changbin is being mean to him.

jisung doesn’t realize how little he thinks about his physical reactions to things around chan and changbin until a day where they’re recording a track together. 

in the moment they’re monitoring the verse jisung just recorded, jisung feels so pleased and excited about how his tone and rap turned out that he stands up tall, grins, and proceeds to flap his hands for a good few seconds.

he feels eyes on him and all of sudden it kicks in that jisung just very obviously flapped his hands right in front of chan and changbin. and jisung knows he’s seen chan do his happy claps and his happy shaking fists thing a million times, but it feels different when it’s jisung doing this kind of gesture.

the smile drops off jisung’s face and he abruptly drops his arms.

“i take it you’re happy with this take?” chan asks.

jisung nods, cheeks burning.

“don’t worry,” chan says. “it was cute.”

“sorry.”

“why are you apologizing for expressing your happiness?” changbin asks.

jisung shrugs.

“express it however you want, man. we don’t mind.”

jisung goes into his shell for the rest of the day, extremely self conscious about that whole little moment. chan and changbin don’t bring it up to tease him or to tell him that it was weird and neither of them imitate the way he flapped his hands, either. 

jisung still takes another month to warm up to doing that kind of thing in front of them.

it takes a few months for jisung to finally have a moment where he snaps at one of them for the first time.

the brightness on his phone is far too bright. no matter how many times jisung tries to adjust it, the screen either becomes too dark for his comfort or so bright jisung’s eyes can barely handle it.

the track chan is listening through is too loud and jisung can’t focus when there’s music playing so loudly in his ears while he’s staring into a screen so bright. his eyes won’t actually focus on anything on his phone screen and his brain is getting scrambled up due to the incessant music playing on top of it.

jisung’s ears start to get this horrific noise in them that’s the audio equivalent of pins and needles. and jisung’s brain starts to feel like it’s nothing more than a bunch of short zaps of electricity so bad he can no longer think straight. he can’t think a coherent thought at all.

he tries to bear it and push through it and find a good middle ground for his phone screen’s brightness. he tries for a good 10 minutes before jisung’s senses are only picking up the brain zaps and the sharpy, staticy whine in his ears. and jisung is about to lose it.

his hands are shaking as he pretends to type out lyrics on his phone, but it’s hard to play pretend when chan starts speaking to him.

“how are your lyrics coming along?”

“fine.”

then chan tries to start a conversation with jisung about the track jisung asked him for the other week. which usually, jisung would be totally up for, but jisung is having a sensory overload for the first time in months. for the second time in front of chan and changbin, nonetheless.

jisung feels like a trapped animal and everything going on with his ears and his brain is so fucking painful that jisung can’t function and he doesn’t want to exist right now. so he finds a gap in whatever chan’s saying to him.

“sorry, i really don’t want to be talked to right now,” jisung grits out.

changbin not so subtly looks over at them with questioning eyes at jisung’s tone.

“are you okay, sungie?” chan asks. “did i do something wrong or?”

jisung pushes his balled up fists into the legs of his jeans and he takes a breath that feels hot and constrictive in his chest. he tries his fucking hardest to keep a cap on how fucking awful he feels so he doesn’t take it out on chan and changbin for no reason.

“i don’t want to be talked to right now.”

“what happened? what’s going on?”

jisung’s ears are screeching . he can’t think, he can’t think, he can’t think, he can’t think.

“ please , stop talking.”

changbin gets up, probably to mediate between them or to ask jisung why he has a sudden attitude, but jisung cannot do this right now . 

jisung abruptly stands up and he grips his ears so tightly it hurts. then he stumbles his way down the hall to the bathroom, where he wrenches open the door and closes it behind him a bit too loudly. and jisung collapses onto the ground next to the tub and he slams his fists on his head to try to get it all to stop .

the breaths in his chest shudder with panic and discomfort as his ears screech like crazy and his brain zaps endlessly. jisung feels like he can’t do anything but sit there and desperately try to make it stop .

there are tears streaking down his cheeks and his breathing becomes painful as jisung pulls on his hair and scrubs his hands against his face so hard it probably leaves little specks of bruising on his skin.

his hands are shaking too hard and everything is pent up so jisung slams his fists down on his legs as distressed whimpers leave his throat, hopefully too quiet for anyone to know what’s going on. he can’t stop cycling between grabbing his ears, slamming his fists on his head and thighs, and scrubbing his face roughly. he feels like he can’t breathe or think and it’s all just painful and awful.

it takes nearly 20 minutes for it all to simmer down. 20 minutes before jisung is able to come back to his senses and realize how rude he’d just been to poor chan. he’s probably worried chan and changbin, and chan probably thinks jisung is mad at him, and jisung is sitting here on the bathroom floor after having his first meltdown in months.

jisung feels guilt start eating him from the inside out, but he’s so exhausted. it’s still hard to breathe and tears are still streaking his cheeks. he’s still shaking from the meltdown and his sensory overload.

jisung sits curled up on the bathroom floor for 15 minutes before he wipes the tears away and checks his face in the mirror. just as he suspected—he looks like a fucking wreck.

he rinses his face in cold water and takes deep breaths to settle himself some more. there’s nothing he can do to hide the speckles of bruises on his cheekbones, unfortunately, but those seem to be the only physical evidence of his meltdown.

he steps out of the bathroom with his shoulders hunched in on himself and his eyes directed to the floor. he feels so fucking bad. he won’t even let himself sit down, he just lingers in the doorway until changbin quietly and hesitantly says:

“hey, sungs.”

“hi,” jisung whispers. “i’m sorry.”

all three of them are silent for a few minutes while jisung builds himself up to speak again so soon.

“you didn’t do anything wrong. i’m not mad at anybody, especially not chan. neither of you did anything, i just got really overloaded and overwhelmed out of nowhere and i really needed to be alone until it stopped.”

“how’re you feeling?”

“tired,” jisung sighs.

“why don’t you go lay down for a while and recharge? take my bed. feel free to close the door to block out any noise.”

jisung lays in changbin’s bed for an hour or so, alternating between dozing off and feeling so ashamed of himself and apologetic towards chan that it makes him nauseous. neither of them come to talk to him or anything, so jisung can’t help but build it up in his head that both of them are upset with him and don’t want to be around him right now. he worries he’s ruined his relationship with chan.

he shuffles out of changbin’s room feeling anxious and nauseous. he thinks about just scooping bbama up and walking out of the door without a word, but chan is still sitting on the couch when jisung makes his way into the living room.

“hi, sungie.”

chan’s voice is gentle and he doesn’t sound upset. it makes jisung’s vision blur as he keeps his back turned.

“can you come here?”

it takes a lot of effort to force himself to turn around with his pathetically wobbling lip and his tear filled eyes, but jisung doesn’t want to leave chan hanging. he doesn’t want chan to assume he’s still upset with him.

jisung takes small steps toward the couch, refusing to look up as he does. he picks at his fingers as he waits.

“why don’t you sit down, hm? it’s okay.”

jisung obeys, feeling the tears rush up again when chan leans into his space a little bit and uses the side of his hand to wipe something off the bridge of jisung’s nose.

“are you feeling better?”

and chan’s concern for jisung after jisung’s been an asshole to him today is enough to make the tears start flowing freely. he feels himself hiccup as the tears start to fall. he feels chan hug him close and start patting him on the shoulder. jisung feels his hand reach up and grab the fabric on chan’s shoulder as he starts crying into the crook of chan’s neck.

“oh, sungie.”

and jisung heaves sob after sob into chan’s neck as chan ever so patiently hugs him and pats him until he stops. and he doesn’t make jisung move away when the tears finally slow down and cease.

“i’m sorry,” jisung croaks.

“for what?”

“snapping at you earlier.”

“thank you for apologizing. i forgive you, sungie.”

“but i—”

“you were in sensory overload.”

jisung tries to protest, but chan just keeps brushing it off like it’s no big deal that jisung snapped at him out of nowhere multiple times. and jisung wants to protest more until chan confirms that he did feel hurt and confused, but that he understands that jisung was too overwhelmed to properly exit the situation.

chan talks about it like he’s done his research or something since jisung brought the topic up a few weeks ago. it feels weird. in a good way.

jisung carries the guilt of it for about a week before it wanes and things go back to normal between him and chan.

jisung ends up having the “i think i’m autistic” conversation with chan and changbin. he’s so anxious about it that he doesn’t really remember the talk itself, but it goes relatively well and much smoother than jisung thought it would.

jisung expected maybe a denial of his autism or a lot more questions, but they’re immediately supportive and accepting. which weirds jisung out because it’s a big conversation and a big thing to find out about someone in his opinion. but chan and changbin just breezily accept it and don’t treat him differently.

jisung is so confused.

it’s the beginning of september now and jisung is not too excited about this month in particular because there’s a weird limbo in his life where he both anticipates a certain day of the month and he dreads it more than he anticipates it.

if there’s one day of the year jisung fucking hates more than anything, it’s his birthday.

one thing jisung hates about his birthday is receiving gifts and the amount of clutter that his new gifts is going to cause.

jisung hates receiving gifts from his family and his long-term friends because the mask and personality he’s been using around them is outdated. it’s been outdated for around 4 years now and jisung thought everyone would catch on and realize that jisung’s personality and likes are fundamentally different now, but nobody notices. not a single bit.

everyone thinks jisung is the loud type who loves the concept of partying and doing things without warning. they think he’s a generally eccentric, crazy, wild child who loves doing things for the hell of it—all things that would’ve been accurate had jisung been a teenager. they think jisung is a fan of socially drinking and goofing around and being in loud places (jisung very much is not like that anymore).

for some reason everyone assumes jisung loves painting? they assume he loves making art even though they never see jisung painting and jisung never talks about painting and they never see any product of said paintings that they assume jisung makes all the time. they keep giving jisung easels and canvases and paintbrushes and paint that jisung never uses because that is a random hobby they’ve projected onto him.

jisung is so annoyed because this mask and personality is so old and he hasn’t even been trying to upkeep it for everyone, yet they refuse to see how different jisung has become in the last couple of years.

nobody seems to see how much more reserved jisung has gotten. or how quiet he is and how reluctant he is to socially drink with them. they don’t notice that jisung is no longer impulsive to a fault and that jisung is more inclined towards more subdued social experiences. which is kind of stupid, because jisung’s been begging to go on a picnic or on a road trip or to the aquarium for a couple of years now and nobody’s ever once taken him seriously. they all think he’s still into the idea of dancing at clubs or something.

their lack of perception means jisung gets a variety of gifts that he never enjoys. they all feel like clutter and like jisung is a truly unreadable person, because nothing he gets reflects his interests or things he’s into. they’re all items jisung would’ve liked years ago, because people apparently think he hasn’t grown or changed since he graduated high school.

having a bunch of new stuff jisung isn’t going to like or use means he’s got to stress about where to put all the new items, which is annoying. and it makes jisung feel kind of bitter. which is mean, because jisung should appreciate the fact that people want to buy him gifts in the first place.

but that brings up the next reason jisung hates his birthday: everyone treats it like a hassle. a burden. like celebrating the mere fact that jisung was born on that particular day is annoying and difficult for them. jisung would understand if all their other birthdays went like that. but they don’t.

jisung’s brother got a very nice birthday where his grandmother took everyone in the family to a nice steakhouse for dinner. everyone ate dinner together and enjoyed each other’s company and then their grandmother invited everyone over to her house. and they all drank together and had ice cream cake and they played games until it was well past midnight and everyone had a great time—jisung included.

has jisung ever had a birthday like that? nope.

jisung’s last birthday was spent at his grandmother’s house with pretty much the same number of family members around. but instead of everyone sharing a meal together, jisung had to make his own meal and sit down to eat it in the kitchen without anyone to share it with. and even though he stayed in there for a good 40 minutes, not a single person came to talk to him or spend time with him or congratulate his birthday. he sat alone, texting his friends and thinking about how unhappy he was and how annoyed everyone else seemed to be that they couldn’t just be home relaxing.

the second he’d finished his meal, his mother rushed him home and made jisung blow out his candles on a birthday cake that nobody else ate. his mother gifted him a shirt that wasn’t even wrapped, then she went to bed and his brother went to hang out with his girlfriend and jisung went back to his room and cried.

his birthday the year before that went about the same, except jisung didn’t see his mother or brother for the entire day, because his mom was working and his brother was at college. 

the year before that, they’d had cake together and drank together. jisung had gotten to go to the mall to spend his birthday money and it would’ve been a decent birthday. but jisung’s brother spent the entire time shopping for himself and he impulsively decided to get a haircut in the middle of the shopping trip, so jisung had to sit alone waiting for his brother for the better part of an hour. and everyone was in a bad mood because jisung’s brother had an important celebration the day before that’d gotten ruined, so jisung’s brother used jisung’s birthday to do everything he wanted to do the day before. and jisung’s best friend had moved away a few months prior, so jisung had nobody to spend it with.

jisung expects his birthday this year will be pretty much the same. he’s dreading it.

not a single person asks jisung what he wants for his birthday. which is quite annoying, considering nobody actually knows what jisung is like anymore and they will fully admit it half the time. so jisung is no doubt going to get a bunch of things he doesn’t want for a hobby jisung’s family made up for him. and his aunt is going to give him religious stuff and a bunch of outdated women’s clothing.

his mom gets mad at him because he doesn’t want an actual birthday cake for his birthday even though jisung hasn’t liked cake in a few years now. and she seems mad at him for wanting some cheesecake instead, but she luckily gives in to that request and says she’ll let jisung pick out the flavor himself.

she complains about jisung’s birthday falling on her day off as if jisung can control which day of the week his birthday is on. she also complains a lot about how much stress she’s under lately with all the shit she has to do but doesn’t want to and she lists jisung’s birthday along with all the events she is dreading which…ouch. and jisung’s brother invites his girlfriend over the week before, so jisung gets to pre-game his birthday with some nice self-hatred beforehand.

jisung very stupidly thought maybe his mom and brother were actually planning a birthday surprise for jisung or something, because they’ve been kind of secretively talking about something and hanging out together without him a lot more often. and jisung tries not to get his hopes up, but can you blame him for wanting to feel special and loved for once in his fucking life?

those hopes crash very quickly when it’s 2 days before jisung’s birthday and jisung’s brother suddenly asks what they’re going to do on the day of. and his mom says she has no clue and she completely forgot about it.

jisung feels himself shut down and close off as soon as she says it. and she asks him what he wants to do and he lightheartedly mentions a trip to the aquarium, but she refuses to even play along a little bit, complaining about gas prices and how long it takes to drive to the aquarium.

perhaps jisung cries that night, but hey, nobody has to know.

jisung’s grandma asks what he wants for his birthday, and jisung asks for a celebration instead of a gift. to which his grandma says she can do that, but it might be late because of travels for her job, so can he wait a few weeks or so? just until mid-October? jisung says of course he can.

the night before jisung’s birthday, jisung’s brother leaves to go on a camping trip with his friends. and he won’t be back until halfway through the next day.

the night before his birthday, jisung complains about going home and chan and changbin offer for jisung to just crash at their place. as much as jisung would love to crash there and spend his entire birthday with them, he knows his mother will be pissed off with him for ditching, so jisung sighs and says:

“sorry, i have family shit tomorrow. i probably won’t be able to stop by or anything.”

then changbin asks jisung if he’s going to come to the party that they’ve been trying to talk jisung into going to. it’s a party for one of their friends that they want to introduce jisung to and jisung is half tempted to go simply to escape the aftermath of whatever shitty birthday he’s going to have to endure tomorrow.

jisung says he’ll think about it. and he goes back home and falls asleep wishing he’d stayed with chan and changbin.

he wakes up at noon, which is kind of early for him given his night owl tendencies. in case his mom wants to start doing birthday stuff earlier. which is what he thinks is what’s going to happen, because while he’s laying in bed trying to assimilate to being awake again, he can hear his mom and brother talking in the hallway with each other and there’s a lot of noise as if they’re getting ready to go somewhere.

and they do leave, but they don’t text jisung about it and nobody comes to his room to tell him so jisung rolls out of bed and takes a shower and cries a little bit because they’ve been gone for 2 hours now and nobody’s said a word to him and none of his long-term friends even remember that it’s his birthday today.

they come back with jisung’s cheesecake (he didn’t even get to pick it out himself) and some balloons for him. the balloons are nice. they’ve never surprised him with balloons before. and he thinks they’re going to start the day after that, but they don’t see him again for another hour and a half.

his mom comes in to ask what he wants to eat for his birthday and miraculously, jisung’s favorite restaurant is open for once when he’s actually allowed to eat from there. and she asks if there’s anything he wants to do today, so jisung tells her he wants to go into the section of the town that’s mountainous and has a little coffee shop by a stream that’s really relaxing.

he ends up waiting an extra 40 minutes to leave the house and by then it’s 4:00. and his favorite restaurant closes at 6:30, so he’s only got an hour and a half to spend in the pretty part of town with the coffee shop and some nature trails.

jisung’s mom lets him and his brother order a coffee from there, but she only lets him sit for 5 minutes before she’s rushing him to pick somewhere else to walk around at. which ruins the vibe because jisung very much wanted to sit here by the water (she didn’t let him pick the seats, they’re the furthest away from the stream that they possibly can be) and enjoy the nature.

but he goes up some of the little trails and he’s having fun with his brother, picking up random flowers and pointing out bugs and animal tracks. all the while his mother complains as if time is zooming on by (it’s not). and his mom is complaining about the heat. and she’s complaining about how tired she is and about how jisung didn’t want to go grocery shopping today, so she’s holding it off until tomorrow which is going to make her more tired.

jisung somehow holds onto his decent mood during the nature walk and his mom complaining at him about the restaurant thing. and they pick up the food and they all watch a movie together for once (jisung gets to pick) and they have dessert and jisung hangs out with his brother well into the night.

it was a fine birthday, he guesses. he didn’t get any gifts. everybody just gave him money, like they have for almost every celebration possible since he was 14.

he feels empty, so he picks up the rest of his cheesecake and slips out the door to walk the three blocks to chan and changbin’s apartment.

he doesn’t tell them what day it is or why he’s in a bad mood. he just sets the cheesecake down, announces he brought a late night snack, and they chill for the rest of the night watching shitty movies and annoying each other.

he ends up staying the night. 

he ends up agreeing to go to the party that all of chan and changbin’s friends are going to be at.

jisung follows them around like a lost duckling for a little while to be introduced to everyone as they walk around the venue. there’s loud music playing and it’s only moderately crowded, so jisung’s feeling alright. he’s weirdly fine in environments like this.

he meets the friend the party is for last.

“hello, jisung!” felix says. “it’s nice to finally meet you!”

felix’s voice is deceptively deep and jisung imagines the way it’d reverberate in his chest if he were the one with that voice instead and oh , for the first time in jisung’s life, he’s experiencing envy over a voice that’s deeper than changbin’s.

changbin’s voice is only a little deep and it’s more husky and raspy than anything. it’s a voice jisung really likes both in terms of changbin’s rapping and singing and just when it comes to listening to changbin talk.

changbin’s voice is very comforting to listen to when he’s not high tension. it feels soothing and easy to listen to even during the moments where jisung’s senses are shot to hell and back and he thinks he’s about to lose his goddamn mind. 

changbin’s voice can also be very loud due to some excellent vocal projection that jisung’s wanted since he was a kid. jisung’s always been self conscious about his inability to speak loud enough for others to hear on a regular basis. and while the sheer power and volume of changbin’s high tension voice grates on jisung’s senses when he’s overstimulated, that voice is one of the main reasons jisung bothers changbin all the fucking time when he’s not overstimulated.

felix and jisung end up chatting without changbin or chan interfering, so both of them slip off to see everyone else. and felix winds up mentioning that today is his birthday and jisung finally notices the cheesy pin latched to his shirt with his age on it.

“oh, you’re my birthday twin!” jisung says over the music.

and felix smiles, all happiness and sunshine and warmth just like he’s been described to jisung a million times before.

“no way! we’re birthday twins??”

“same year and everything!” jisung confirms. “mine was yesterday!”

felix’s smile morphs into a pout and jisung thinks he’s done something wrong until felix says:

“chan and changbin never told me that you were my birthday twin. i would’ve sent a ‘happy birthday’ your way if i’d known!”

“don’t worry about it,” jisung says.

“we can celebrate our birthdays together,” felix suggests. “i don’t mind sharing mine!”

“that’d be fun!”

jisung doesn’t bring up the fact that chan and changbin do not know that jisung’s birthday was yesterday, because jisung never bothered to tell them the date. they never asked and jisung didn’t want them to feel obligated to spend time on him that day or to get him a gift or anything, so jisung just kept quiet about it.

he’s known chan and changbin for over a year now and he’s hoping it takes them a while to realize that they’ve never celebrated or heard about jisung’s birthday before.

they spent the last hour of jisung’s birthday with him anyways, and that was the only thing that got jisung through the day. it was the only time of the day where he didn’t feel like a hassle or like he was putting a damper on people’s days by simply being born on that day in particular. that was more than enough for jisung. no gifts or parties needed.

jisung may not have needed or wanted a birthday party for his actual birthday, but he’s having a lot of fun being paraded around by felix and minho as the “honorary birthday twin.” he’s enjoying the random amount of affection and kindness all of chan and changbin’s friends are giving him despite how long jisung’s been avoiding meeting them. he’s enjoying the people, because they’re just like how they’ve been described to him and somehow they’re even better than jisung assumed they were.

jisung’s mood almost diminishes in a flash the moment felix finds chan and changbin at the party. where felix stomps up to them with jisung under his arm and complains:

“i can’t believe you didn’t tell me that jisung was my birthday twin!! that’s so unfair!”

chan and changbin’s faces go blank and questioning. jisung feels anxiety curl in his stomach.

“jisung’s your birthday twin?” changbin asks.

felix nods vigorously.

“shit, ji. happy birthday, man. i can’t believe i forgot.”

chan’s frowning.

“i could’ve sworn i had everybody’s birthdays written down. i can’t believe i missed yours.”

jisung doesn’t want them to feel bad, so he just says:

“did my birthday ever come up in conversation? like, i’m pretty sure i’ve never told you guys.”

“maybe? you could’ve lied about the date or something?”

“huh? why would i do that?”

“chan lied about his birthdate for 3 years straight. he’d tell us the wrong date and pretend his birthday didn’t exist when we tried to celebrate or anything.”

“yeah, don’t listen to him about when his birthday is. he’s probably lying so you won’t do anything for him.”

okay. maybe chan and jisung have more in common than he thought they did.

“oh! your birthday was yesterday, wasn’t it?” chan asks.

“oh, that’s why you were busy yesterday?”

“he brought us cake and everything i can’t believe we didn’t catch on!”

jisung smiles.

“dumbasses,” he says affectionately.

changbin puts him in a headlock and rubs his knuckles into jisung’s hair without much force behind it. the action makes jisung smile harder.

jisung keeps getting left alone with chan and changbin’s friends, which means he keeps getting pulled into their little groups of 2 and 3 as they sing karaoke and dance around and take tons of pictures together.

“do you have an instagram?” hyunjin asks.

“uh, i only have one for posting music.”

“is it cool if i tag your music account in this?”

jisung kind of wishes chan or changbin were nearby to swoop into conversations so he could feel more comfortable around all these strangers. but they’re busy somewhere else, so jisung is here, taking selfies with their friends and realizing that the only accounts jisung has on social media are directly linked to his deadname and everyone who used to know him.

“sorry, i kind of prefer to remain faceless.”

“oh, should i not post the selfie? it’s cool if you don’t want me to.”

jisung’s never had his picture posted on the internet since he got his hair cut short. jisung’s never been passed off as a guy on social media. but…jisung’s hometown is nearly 4 hours away from here and jisung can’t think of anybody he knows around here or who would know any of these guys. so he says:

“you can post it! i just wouldn’t have an account for you to tag me with.”

“that’s fine.”

mingling at the party goes well, but jisung’s so exhausted by the end of the night that he crashes in chan’s bed and sleeps until noon the next day.

jisung gets put into a group chat with all of chan and changbin’s friends. he lingers for a couple of days, observing and watching everyone interact so he can get a better gauge on what they’re like and what parts of him will fit in the most with this group of people.

chan and changbin finally start getting jisung to hang out with their friends, two new ones at a time as per jisung’s request. jisung is able to blend into the background a little bit and observe some more while still being part of the conversation and making what he hopes is a good impression on them.

jisung doesn’t fully feel himself relax until they’re hanging out with seungmin and jeongin at a cafe and jisung hears seungmin make a joke about being autistic. he almost brushes it off, but seungmin makes another joke about it in the group chat later, so jisung awkwardly goes to a private chat and texts seungmin to confirm it.

seungmin is, in fact, autistic and even though jisung isn’t diagnosed and is new to identifying with the label, seungmin is very welcoming to jisung. and they start talking about themselves and their lives and jisung’s never felt so seen by anybody in his life.

chan and changbin’s reaction to jisung’s announcement about probably being autistic makes a lot more sense now. so does their accommodating language and their lack of judgment when jisung does “weird” shit in front of them.

mid-October comes and goes, along with chan’s birthday at the start of the month. jisung’s grandma never mentions the birthday celebration jisung was supposed to have. she’s probably forgotten about it.

jisung doesn’t want to feel entitled and spoiled, but he’s feeling annoyed and upset with the fact that jisung’s brother got a $200 family dinner at a steakhouse, 2 bottles of nice booze, and a whole game night while jisung got $70 and nothing else from her. 

it stings. it always fucking stings that jisung’s mom, brother, estranged sibling he doesn’t even acknowledge, his aunt, and his grandmother all get nice, fun family celebrations put on by her. but jisung hasn’t gotten one. pretty much ever. not since he turned 14 or so, at least.

his birthday falls at a stressful time of year, so everybody’s always complaining about the events they have. and about the family reunion that always takes place a week after jisung’s birthday. and you think maybe they’d acknowledge jisung’s birthday then, but nobody does.

nobody’s made an actual effort for jisung on his birthday in years. and could you blame him for wanting that what he’s spent most of his life being neglected? could you blame him when everybody else is getting celebrations put on by other people? why is jisung the only one who doesn’t matter here?

jisung starts hanging out with seungmin without chan and changbin as a buffer. it’s kind of scary at first, but seungmin is nice and he’s very chill. he can get high tension like jisung half the time, which makes jisung more comfortable because seungmin is good at going along with his jokes and he reacts well to jisung’s more crazy moments.

hanging out with seungmin is nice and easy and in some ways, it’s more comfortable than hanging out with chan or changbin.

when jisung’s with seungmin, he doesn’t have to worry about eye contact or looking directly at him out of politeness. he doesn’t feel like he has to keep watch over his facial expression or his tone of voice. he doesn’t have to pay any mind to his vocal inflection or to the way his words sometimes sound like they’re being pulled from different sentences because jisung says them like they don’t belong together. he pays no attention to the canter that either makes it sound like jisung’s speaking in an odd melody or like a robot.

seungmin drops his mask around jisung in the same way. he stims when he feels like stimming, which is a lot more often when they’re not around other people. seungmin falls into a more monotone way of speaking that is sometimes exchanged for a sing-songy tone that gets stuck in jisung’s head constantly. and neither of them really look at each other all that much, but it’s very nice, because jisung expends a lot of mental energy trying to gauge when he’s supposed to be looking at the person he’s hanging out with and how long he should be looking at them for.

seungmin’s got this cute puppy dog aura and a very cute resting face that jisung finds himself sneaking peeks at a lot. he just looks so boyish and cute and jisung’s brain is fixated on that little expression seungmin has on his face often.

jisung tends to get fixated on aspects of the people he loves like that. he’ll get fixated on this specific way he saw changbin pout at him one time and he thinks about it multiple times a day for a month. or he’ll see chan make a cute, dumb expression when he gets the hiccups and jisung will think about that constantly, too. jisung thinks about felix smiling a lot because there’s something so aesthetically pleasing about the way his mouth looks when he’s laughing.

jisung doesn’t know what it means, but he’s glad to have those moments in mind more often than not. he’s glad to have people in his life that he wants to think about and people that he likes enough to remember little things like that.

seungmin lets jisung ask questions about what it was like growing up knowing you’re autistic and about the whole experience from seungmin’s perspective. it helps jisung gain a lot of insight into his own symptoms and things about himself that he never realized or took the care to manage instead of simply ignoring.

seungmin gives jisung tips on self regulation and on things like burn-out and shutdowns. and they compare meltdowns and non-verbal episodes and they bond over shared experiences that jisung’s felt ashamed about until now.

at the very beginning of November, jisung’s mother suddenly comes into his room and announces that jisung’s grandmother is going to finally do the celebration jisung asked for…at the end of the month. which, okay, jisung is fine with.

well, until his mom mentions that his grandmother wants to do it on his mom’s birthday. as in, jisung asked for this particular celebration, got told “yes”, got ghosted on it, and then got his celebration taken away and given to his mom instead.

jisung couldn’t even have his celebration. his own party. his own event. no, it got re-gifted to his mom and it’s going to be considered as “his” even though his birthday will have been 2 months ago by that point in time. and it’s basically not even his anymore, he just got invited to someone else’s birthday party that was the birthday party he wanted and asked for.

as bad as his relationship with his mom is, jisung doesn’t want to get mad at her. she didn’t ask for the celebration to fall on her birthday. she seems confused and fronted by the plan as much as jisung does. and she’s going to let him make decisions on the food and stuff so it’s still a little bit his.

but jisung resents so much that his only birthday thing got taken away from him and given to her. how could he not?

the change of plans on the birthday celebration sends him into a spiral of sorts. he gets so fucking upset when he hears what’s going to happen that he breaks down in tears 3 different times that day alone. he tears up whenever he thinks about it for more than a few seconds at a time. and he spends the next week feeling turmoil and resentment and self-hatred and anger coiling up deep in his chest.

he’s so snappy and he’s so mean and he wishes he could stop, but he’s torn up over it. 

literally everybody else in the family matters and is important except for him. he finally asked outright for his own celebration, got told “yes”, and it’s going to be gifted to his mom instead. he didn’t even get his own thing, he’s just going to be invited and it’s still “his” because he asked for the event but it’s on someone else’s birthday. and how is that fucking fair?

why isn’t jisung allowed to have anything? what did he do? why does nobody in the family make an effort when it comes to him? what’s wrong with jisung?

it takes 4 days for jisung to have an anger induced meltdown where all he can do is pull a pillow over his head, punch it multiple times, and wind up crying in the way that’s just huffs and gasps more than anything.

he struggles to get out of bed. he struggles to make it through the day without breaking down again.

his grandma planned such a nice birthday for his mom. she even asked his mom to get off work a little early so they could celebrate. they have the celebration jisung asked for (that he isn’t the focus of nor is he acknowledged about). they do a lot of stuff that day and his mom gets gifts she really likes that are in tune with all of her interests. it’s a really nice day for her. 

jisung wants to die.

jisung and seungmin go to the aquarium together on a monday morning when nobody’s around and there’s no sign of daycares or schools going on a field trip for the day. just to sit down and watch the fish swim around in their tanks because jisung loves to visual stim here and seungmin’s inclined to join him to do the same.

they don’t speak for a while, but jisung is thinking about some of the autistic experiences they haven’t compared yet and a big one is looming over his head. out of morbid curiosity because jisung has read that it’s a fairly common thing for autistic people to have a disconnect to the concept of this thing in general and he’s curious about seungmin’s stance on it.

“can i ask you something?”

“sure.”

“as an autistic person, have you ever had a complicated relationship with your gender or is that not something you’ve ever really thought about?”

seungmin goes quiet for a long time. it makes jisung nervous.

“i mean, i would question the importance of gender roles a lot but i wouldn’t say i ever truly thought about my gender and my relationship with it until recently. i didn’t mind identifying myself with certain aspects meant for boys and i didn’t mind identifying myself with aspects meant for girls.”

seungmin’s eyes flicker to the shark swimming past them, his face open as he speaks.

“all that mattered to me was that i liked the way i was dressing and that i liked my hobbies and i didn’t really care what that meant when it came to how other people perceived me. i wouldn’t say i’m 100% a boy and i wouldn’t say i’m a girl, either. i’m just somewhere in the spectrum that leans toward masculinity because that’s what i feel more comfortable with.”

“are you non-binary?” jisung asks.

“maybe,” seungmin replies. “i haven’t thought about it much.”

“have you ever thought of testing out any of that? new pronouns or anything? or is that not something that ever came to mind?”

“i tried different pronouns out online for a couple of months to see what i thought about it. i think i’m more inclined to he/him than anything else.”

jisung hums. seungmin glances up at him.

“what about you? what’s your relationship with gender like?”

“oh, i’ve been trying to trans my gender for the past couple of years now. it’s just too expensive at the moment and i’m not really safe to do that.”

“that sucks.”

“it really fucking does,” jisung agrees.

coming out to seungmin so quickly and so easily feels weird. it’s the first time jisung’s said out loud with his own mouth to anyone that he’s transgender. an entire 4 years of sitting on this in his real life and he’s blurting the words out in a nearly empty aquarium with a guy he’s known for about 3 months.

it feels nice, though, because seungmin didn’t even react or seem uncomfortable with it. he just accepted it the second it tumbled out of jisung’s mouth. it’s more freeing and comfortable because seungmin shared his gender experience with jisung, too.

jisung thinks they’re going to marinate in silence for a little bit after that, but seungmin smiles and says:

“i bet we could convince changbin to be your gender transition sugar daddy. you’d probably just have to mention it and give one ‘kicked puppy’ look and he’d give in.”

jisung snorts.

“he’s a marshmallow.”

“exactly! so we should do it. think of all the free gender you could get.”

the vibe of sitting in this aquarium with seungmin is making jisung susceptible to sharing secrets he thought he’d never get to tell someone. so he randomly admits:

“i don’t think changbin even knows that i’m trans. i’ve never explicitly said anything about it to changbin or chan. it’s just…me pretending there’s nothing to notice about my gender and they’re going along with it.”

“for what it’s worth, i highly doubt the fact that you’re transgender would change anything between you guys. but coming out with your sexuality is scary and i can’t imagine how scary the whole gender thing would be, so i can’t say i blame you for not bringing it up.”

“i like the idea of having it be an open secret, you know? acknowledging past stuff and dysphoria isn’t an idea i fuck with. i’d rather just pretend i’ve always been a guy.”

seungmin shrugs.

“it’s your gender, man. do with it as you please.”

“is it wrong of me to keep it a secret like that?”

“you don’t owe people access to your past self. you’re not obligated to come out to people who already see you as the gender you want to present as.”

“okay.”

“in case you’re worried about it, just know i’m never going to tell anyone that you’re transgender. it’s not my thing to tell.”

“thanks.”

“you don’t have to thank me for having basic human decency.”

jisung doesn’t have anything to say to that. it’s not like he’s had his fair share of basic human decency extended to him even with huge secrets like that one. 

the conversation after that is scattered, but it’s more lighthearted and more of their normal type of conversation. they mostly get distracted by the various types of sea life swimming in front of them, and jisung feels himself slip into a zen state with how soothing it is to sit here as long as he likes, visual stimming as someone beside him does the same.

jisung feels a very special companionship with seungmin that only comes with finding another autistic person that he can unmask nearly fully in front of. there’s already a special place in jisung’s heart for seungmin. he kind of wishes they’d met sooner.

seungmin pulls his camera out of his backpack when things start winding down and he starts taking photos of all the sea-life. jisung sits back and watches seungmin set up the shot and he looks over seungmin’s shoulder to get a glimpse at the pictures.

jisung thinks he’s going to be quietly in the background watching seungmin do his thing for a while, but seungmin surprises him when he turns around and asks:

“can i take some pictures of you in front of the tanks?”

“me?”

“yeah!” seungmin smiles. “if you don’t want your face in them, i can mess with the lighting so you’re just a silhouette.”

“do i have to pose or?”

“you can do whatever you want. pose, candid, i don’t care.”

they agree to do half silhouette photos and half photos where jisung’s face is visible. 

jisung does a few dramatic, dumb poses for fun and he also tries his best to appear not totally self conscious in the candid pictures seungmin takes of him staring up at the fish or sitting in front of the massive tanks.

jisung doesn’t really look into the camera a single time, but seungmin doesn’t seem to care. he doesn’t tell jisung to stare down the lens or to look above seungmin’s head to give the illusion of eye contact, which jisung appreciates. given the setting, it doesn’t matter that jisung’s eyes are mostly directed towards the fish, anyways.

seungmin gives jisung a big smile after they’re done snapping photos and he tells jisung:

“i’m going to do some color correction and stuff later and then i can send them to you. you can post them on instagram if you want. i might also post some if that’s okay with you?”

“you can post them. i only use my faceless music account, so i don’t know if that kind of post fits on there, sorry.”

jisung sits next to seungmin and watches him flick through all the photos they took. seungmin doesn’t look up as he asks:

“why don’t you have a personal instagram?”

“i do. i just…haven’t used it in about 4 years…”

seungmin hums.

“are you not interested in revamping it?”

jisung makes a disgusted noise as he says:

“with the people who follow me? fuck no.”

“if you ever wanted to post on instagram again, you could make a new one under your actual name and block anybody that you don’t want seeing it or following it.”

oh…jisung could do that, couldn’t he? especially now that he’s got a group of people he keeps seeing and hanging out with who keep taking selfies and asking to tag him in the pictures they post.

jisung winds up spending half the next day creating a new instagram account and racking his brain for the names of every person he went to high school with. he blocks hundreds of people so nobody can find his account by accident and recognize jisung. he doesn’t want to risk someone sending his account to other people and outing him to anybody who used to know who he was.

he takes a screenshot of it and posts it into the group chat he’s now in with chan and changbin’s friend group.

he gets an influx of followers when seungmin posts some of the aquarium photos and tags jisung’s account in them. it’s anxiety inducing, but jisung’s got to stop being so afraid to do anything publicly as a man.

jisung uses his new account’s follower list as a block list for his old account and vice versa. it takes a bit of his time up, but jisung doesn’t want anyone getting ahold of his deadname or old pictures of him, so it’s worth it.

the hangouts with chan and changbin’s friend group thankfully slow down after a couple months when jisung is starting to get more comfortable with them. it gives jisung time to situate himself and assess how things are going with them.

jisung thinks he’s getting bad again. not in the “suicidal intrusive thoughts” way, but the kind of bad where he feels so worn down and exhausted all the time.

it’s getting harder to go to sleep because doing his night routine and crawling into bed feels like a herculean effort. and it’s difficult to get out of bed, because jisung’s got that mass in his chest and his arms and legs that make him want to curl up into a little ball and never get up.

jisung’s been hating himself a lot more recently. for stupid things like the way he sounded when he said “excuse me” to his brother’s girlfriend. or for the way he looks because he looks in the mirror and while it looks like a boy to him, it’s not a boy jisung wants to be. he’s not sure what his brain means by that, but he’s unsatisfied. he hates himself for how feminine his room looks and how he hasn’t been able to afford to replace his comforter or pillowcases over the past couple of years. and he hates himself for never communicating his needs or when he’s hurting.

“i don’t want to be perceived today,” is what jisung says when chan opens the door to the apartment.

chan’s eyebrows furrow, which is fair because it’s a stupid statement. why is jisung coming over to a place to be around two people if he doesn’t want to be perceived? well, because jisung is lonely. he doesn’t think he can be alone without wanting to burst into tears.

“uh, okay. what does that mean for you today?” chan asks.

“i just…wanna be around without being, like, talked to unless i start the conversation. and i don’t want to really be acknowledged unless it’s, like, someone sitting next to me or cuddling me. does that make sense?”

“yeah, it does.”

chan steps out of the doorway and sweeps out his arm in a grand gesture to invite jisung into the apartment. jisung makes a beeline for the couch and immediately lays down, his cheek pressed into the cushion as berry comes up to sniff at his dangling hand.

“i’m only existing here if you’re offering hugs,” jisung says.

“alright.”

then chan lets jisung lay there on the couch, staring at the entertainment center and the little art pieces on the wall and at berry when she passes through jisung’s field of vision. chan doesn’t speak to jisung and jisung doesn’t feel any lingering eyes on him, thankfully.

the only interaction chan gives jisung over the course of an hour is him scribbling on a little piece of paper that he places on the table in front of jisung with a smile. 

it reads:

“new interactive art installation. no talking, no staring, only cuddles!”

it makes jisung grin and roll his eyes.

jisung is very rudely disturbed after an hour and a half of laying silently on the couch. it comes in the form of the front door opening, footsteps coming up to jisung, pausing for a few seconds, and then jisung’s got a body full of pure muscle mass crushing him.

he whines and lets out a strangled groan as changbin throws himself onto jisung’s back without warning. he can feel changbin’s arms snaking around his waist and changbin tucking his head on his shoulder as jisung whines again.

“scoot over a little before you break my ribs.”

changbin shifts and his weight is no longer in the middle of jisung’s back. it frees up some breathing room and jisung’s ribs are no longer at risk of snapping because his poor binding habits have fucked them up more than he’s willing to admit.

“better.”

so much better, because now jisung is laying on the couch with changbin on top of him and all the muscle and warmth is creating some amazing deep pressure stimulation that jisung’s body appreciates. changbin’s arms keeping a snug hold on his waist just makes jisung feel more comfortable and safe.

jisung would lay like this forever if changbin would let him.

jisung’s pretty sure changbin and chan go to the gym and build up so much muscle so they can give good hugs and cuddles. probably also to pick up their friends like they’re rag dolls, because chan loves manhandling jisung constantly and changbin is prone to carting jisung around when jisung’s feeling unresponsive and lazy.