Hey, let's attempt to heal things. That always goes so well.

I've had this chapter partially written for weeks so let's just...delete everything and try again.

...

Wooyoung's POV

...

Christmas came and went without a fuss, and now we only had a few days until school started up again. A part of me couldn't wait to get back, as there wasn't much for me to do when I wasn't there. Another part of me, the bigger part, felt sick over the fact. Not a kind of sick you would think, with upset stomachs and headaches. No, this kind of sick was a numbing feeling through me. It prayed on my sanity too.

Currently I sat cross legged on my bed, my laptop balanced on my knee as I attempted to write something. Anything. SecretARMY378 had also gone quiet, which didn't help my fragile mental state in the slightest. Did I do something wrong? Maybe I scared him off finally. Maybe he left because my updates crashed to a blinding halt. I got messages and comments all the time asking what happened to me and when Color My World would be continuing. But the truth was I had no idea.

I didn't really feel motivated to write ANYTHING, much less the thing people wanted me to write. And it really fucking sucked because I did want to continue it, I just wasn't sure if I could stay focused for long enough to accomplish it. I felt demoralized by my real life and didn't want that to translate to my work. After all, this was the final chapter. The one everyone wanted. Especially after the cliffhanger from the previous chapter.

"Maybe reading it myself?" I mused. I needed this drive back. Writing had always been my therapy, and without it I  felt a little empty. I opened the story, but after briefly skimming the first few chapters I could feel my concentration slipping. I sighed, switching back to editing mode and opening the blank part. "Maybe if I start transferring it from my notebook to the computer the rest will come?" I never did it that way, but I was willing to try just about anything. I was desperate. I found the notebook containing the story, but when I went to pick it up something inside me began to bubble and boil and I dropped it like I'd set it on fire

Curse San for turning something I love into something I despise.

"Please," I begged to no one. Or to everyone. I had no idea anymore. "Please, I want to finish this. My fans have waited long enough. Please just let me finish this story. I don't care if I never write again after this. But I have to finish this one." But inspiration didn't suddenly strike like a lightning bolt like they always portrayed in the fanfics I read. No, I sat there and stewed in my own feelings until I wanted to scream. "Why isn't anything working?" I practically cried. "Why?"

"Wooyoung?" I froze as someone knocked on my door. Mom. "Wooyoung, can we talk, please?" I debated, very heavily, what would happen if I said no. But finally I sagged forward.

"Come in," I told her. The door swung open like it was in slow motion and mom stuck her head in. "Hi mom," I greeted, closing my laptop and setting it aside. She followed the movement with her eyes, then peered around the rest of my room. Guilt shot through me like it always did whenever someone saw inside my space. I finally erected the bookcase again and put the books back. But paper still littered the floor, torn up stories I couldn't bear to throw away. A small stack of dirty dishes cluttered my nightstand. My fairly lights lay in a heap in the corner. The only thing put together was my little section of my room with my albums.

"Your father and I know something is wrong," she started. I found something incredibly fascinating on the blanket beneath me. I felt the bed dip slightly as she added her weight to it. "You can't fool us Wooyoung. I know you try not to bother us with your problems, but it hurts me knowing your hurt." I winced, picking at a thread on the blanket and avoiding meeting her gaze. "Please talk to me Wooyoung. Is it why we haven't seen your friends around here much this year? Is it why you've destroyed your room?" Each thing ticked off felt like another weight added to my shoulders, pressing down down down. "Is it why you've stopped writing and reading and doing all the things I thought you loved?"

"Mom," I choked out before I lost it, praying my wobbly voice was just my imagination. "I don't really want to talk about this right now." I still wouldn't meet her gaze, but I could feel her frown burning the top of my head. "I'll tell you another night, okay? But not tonight." Because admitting it out loud made it all the more real. Because admitting I had a problem felt like a weakness I couldn't show. Because because because...

"Alright sweetie." She carded her hand through my hair once before rising and heading out the door. Once I heard it click behind her, I released the breath I'd been holding. I finally looked up, casting my gaze around the room like the right answer would manifest from the walls themselves. I rolled my shoulders a couple times to work out the knots and sort of sagged against my headboard, my thoughts spinning wildly around my brain like an out of control hurricane.

I wouldn't tell her the truth. I couldn't. Admitting it was showing a part of myself I'd kept carefully hidden from them for years. They didn't know of all of my passions. My following. And the less they knew, the better. I wanted to be a son that made them proud. And while I adored writing fanfictions and crafting worlds with words, I just wasn't sure how they would react to it. I couldn't bear the looks on their faces if they didn't approve.

"Why can't I just be normal?" I wondered aloud. "Then none of this would be happening in the first place. Why can't I like sports or rock bands or... anything but what I like." I sighed, rolling myself into my blanket. That was enough crisis for one night.

...

San's POV

...

"Hello San." My eyes roamed the small room, taking everything in. The supportive posters plastering the walls. The heap of toys in the corner. A bookshelf meticulously organized dominating the wall to my left. I fixed my gaze on the woman in front of my, dressed in a navy business suit, a pair of wire rimmed glasses dangling from a chain around her neck. She scribbled a few things in the notebook on the desk. I swallowed thickly, digging my fingers into the wooden armrests on either side of me. "I see you were recommended to come here by your doctor," Dr. Choi continued.

"Yes," I answered shortly. I still didn't want to be here. I didn't need therapy. I didn't need a stranger prying into my personal life. I could handle my baggage myself. I'd always done it that way. "I was." Dr. Choi's gaze flicked up to meet mine. She was pretty, I supposed. Soft features and rounded eyes and plump lips. But her eyes held the intensity of the sun. She wrote something else down, then settled on twirling the pen in her fingers as she studied me. I looked away, studying a self help poster like it was the most interesting thing on the planet.

"You don't have to talk of you don't want to," she suddenly spoke. I started but still didn't look her way. "I get paid for the full hour regardless. So if you want to sit here in silence, we can." Ouch lady. Real subtle there. But I bit my lip and continued to watch the posters, praying they would mysteriously abduct me and take me away from here. "Let me do some talking instead San." Now I did meet her gaze, hoping I kept a neutral expression on my face. "You doctor did inform me that you guys talked a bit before he recommended me. Passed out at school unexpectedly. Told your parents you were probably dehydrated. But that wasn't the case, was it?"

"I..." What did I even say to that? How did she know so much already? Granted, they probably communicated before I got here. "No," I admitted quietly. So quietly I almost didn't hear my answer. "That wasn't it." Dr. Choi set the pen on her desk, leaning forward slightly in her chair. But I sealed my lips on the matter. No more. No more prying into my life.

"It says here you asked if you were a monster," she said oh so gently. I froze. "Very rarely are people actually full of evil San. Usually guilt. Frustration. Sadness. Fear. And sometimes those things come out aggressively. I don't think your a monster. I think you're hurt." Once again tears stung my eyes. I angrily swiped them away. I hated crying in front of people. It showed weakness. It showed a side of myself not many people got to see. "I think you keep things bottled up inside to deal with on your own because it's so much easier than asking for help. I think you hate showing weakness to others because you've always been the strong one." My face must have betrayed me, because she sat up straighter. "How am I doing here San."

"Surprisingly good," I admitted. "Pretty much." I debated what to say next. Maybe actually talking about it for a change would help me feel better after all. Maybe it wouldn't feel like I was trying to walk around with giant weights chained to my ankles. "There's this boy, Wooyoung. Jung Wooyoung. We...we were friends for a long, long time. A group of eight of us. We were unstoppable together. They were my best friends. I grew up with them by my side.

But then the oldest two, Seonghwa and Hongjoong, they moved away to go to university. It left six of us left. And I guess without those two, we couldn't function as a big group. I split with Yunho and Mingi. Wooyoung and Yeosang went another way. We left Jongho behind. Wooyoung is...different. He likes things most of us don't like, at least at our age. And...and we've made fun of him for a long time for it. It started out innocent enough. Little jabs here and there. Ripping pages put of his notebook because his favorite thing to do is write. It was supposed to be funny. But it's escalated into us hiding his stuff, writing notes on his locker, getting our classmates to laugh at him.

The final straw was when we found his notebook on the ground and kept ahold of it all week. I read it out loud to our whole lunch hour on a Friday. It was to humiliate him, which I did succeed in. But as I read it I realized I knew the story. I read the updates every week. Wooyoung is my favorite Wattpad author. I didn't even know it. But this whole month has been a blur of sickly feelings and a knife in my gut. I shouldn't have done it, but I did."

"Do you regret it?" Dr. Chou asked. I stared at her, dumbfounded. "You sound remorseful. You must regret it?"

"I do," I agreed. "I regret it so much. It was never supposed to hurt him. Not really. It was just supposed to... to..." Saying it was supposed to take the focus off me sounded dickish. "It's Wooyoung. He's lovable and dorky and kind and I'm pretty sure I've turned something he once treasured into something he's never going to look at the same way ever again." This was the most I'd ever spoken on the subject, at least out loud. And once I started I couldn't stop. I had to get it all out before I lost the nerve to continue. "And... And I miss what we had before all this. I always had. I just don't know what to do because no one believes me when I say I'm sorry. And maybe they're right. Maybe I don't deserve forgiveness. But I... I just..." I trailed off as more tears manifested, but I let them be this time. I never allowed myself to cry out my frustrations. "I just... I love Wooyoung. I love what he does. I was one of his biggest supporters. But I've ruined it. I'm just like dad. I take something precious and destroy it." I was definitely babbling now. Dr. Choi's eyebrows drew together and she pursed her lips.

"I think you need a few more sessions with me," was all she had to say after the silence stretched so thick it was damn near suffocating. "I think you have a lot you've kept inside." She met my eye, and this time I held firm. "I won't ever repeat what we talk about here, okay? Not unless I deem it life threatening. This is going to be your safe space to let it all out, okay San? You're safe here."

"Thank you Dr. Choi," I replied, slumping over in my seat, feeling mentally exhausted. But good. It was a start anyway.

...

Bout damn time we see San in therapy. Clearly he needed it.