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   JANUARY 26

sometimes i feel like i'm underwater. no one else feels the way i do. i can see the happiness on their faces, like sunshine above the surface, but i can't feel the warmth.

...

   It felt like something was going to happen.

   It was maybe two or so weeks ago now that Jisung had given Minho a massage. Since Minho asked Jisung to give him a massage. Though it made his mind even more of a complicated mess, the it had helped Minho's body immensely, and physically, he felt better for a while. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for a different kind of discomfort to settle back in, because just a few weeks that were getting increasingly worse later, Minho wasn't doing too well. Again.

『 ↳✧･ﾟ

i thought i was back to normal.

i was sleeping okay again, mostly all throughout the night, for a reasonable amount of time... why am i spending more time awake than asleep when i'm in my bed again?

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 』

   Minho was tired. Tired of classes. Tired of lying sleepless in his bed. Tired of desperately pushing away the thought of missing a certain feeling.

   More and more, a strange (yet not unfamiliar) emotion had a faint grip on his heart all throughout the day, whether he was sitting quietly at the end of the table in the cafeteria, taking his steaming hot showers, or trying to jot down notes in classes. Misery was slowly settling in and clinging to him everywhere he went.

    It was Christmas break all over again.

    A month ago he'd been feeling remarkably similar to this. Besides that strange emotion, every day he found himself exhausted yet sleepless, anxious to the point where his head felt ready to burst, and filled with a sense of falling apart little by little In his mind, all these things were one and the same. He thought of all these kinds of discomfort as side effects of something called 'misery', because, to him it seemed easier to endure if it was just one thing.

    He knew this feeling of misery now, and thinking back to the last time he felt it— thinking of what happened as a direct result of his misery on that night... well, safe to say: along with the now-familiar misery came a newfound sense of danger, like something was going to happen this time, too... another thing for Minho to lie awake at night remembering, picturing unwillingly, adding to his list of regrets— of things he wished he hadn't done.

    ...So, very quickly, Minho's mind was set on enduring this misery with all his might. Handling it on his own, so that no one would ever know what he'd been wanting and he'd go back to his normal self.

    If he just held on a little longer, he could probably make it through another bout of insomnia-filled weeks without doing something that would completely destroy any remnants of his reputation for being tough and stoic and independent. 

    Once again it was getting hard to focus in class (or anywhere), not so much because of sore muscles, but because the misery seemed to cover him— his head was under so much pressure it felt like he was submerged in it from the shoulders up— and it was hard to pay attention to anything but the weight of it. It felt like his ears were muffled, and his eyes stung like they were bathed in chlorine. Sometimes he felt like he was sinking.

    But when he was in his bed, lying down, trying to sleep, it was so much stronger, and every night it was as if the emotion poured out of his mind to fill up his whole body with aching. It was a searing, throbbing pain that was only half there. Or maybe it wasn't there at all. It was all in his head. But it was something he'd felt before, either way.

   He was longing for something, but he wouldn't dare to let himself ponder what on earth it could be, because as soon as he let that longing sit in his mind it could be summarized and judged with words that would make him feel horrible— words that he already had enough of in his mind. All he wanted to do was ignore it.

     If he were honest with himself (which he hardly ever was), he now understood what it was that he was missing; what his body was aching for so intensely that it felt like his chest was caving in— because he felt it before and only one thing had helped. If he were honest he'd  known it from the night he called Jisung, and maybe a while before that, too.

     So maybe he knew exactly what he wanted. It didn't matter. He rejected it. He was currently still trying to forget that that night ever happened, just like the night before they'd gone home for Christmas break, when he had a breakdown right in front of Jisung. He hated how weak he looked, in his own memories, and how he must've looked to Jisung. He'd rather just blame his behavior back then on sleep deprivation, and say that it was just a coincidence that he was finally able to sleep for a while after Jisung had come to his aid.

    Forgetting, or rather, keeping the memories off of his mind, was a much easier task when he was able to sleep. But he was having problems again; now for about two weeks he'd been missing more and more sleep each night. Not only that, but his appetite had been disappearing, too, and that was a nasty combo that had him feeling extremely weak and lightheaded on the daily, so every single time he stood up he had to take it painfully slow, otherwise he felt like he'd topple over. It went on for days and nights that Minho had lost track of, until he was again, fearful that he wouldn't wake up in the morning.

     That night he laid quietly, mind buzzing endlessly no matter how much he shoved his head into his pillow, eyelids drooping, begging to be closed. It made no difference, at this point, if he opened or closed his eyes. By now he knew full well that with his mind this active, there was no chance of falling asleep anytime soon.

    The whole-body ache, the searing pain, and the sensation of his chest caving in... he was past the point of denying (to himself, at least) that he knew what they came from. He decided he was finished with confusing himself by pretending to be unaware. Lying to himself had stopped working. It was obvious by now. It was obvious a long time ago.

『 ↳✧･ﾟ

i know what it is.

i want it.

why do i want it?

why do i miss the feeling of jisung's arms around me?  i hate that i want it, more than almost anything i've ever hated in my life... but i'm scared of staying like this, too...

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 』

    Pitiful as it was, and as much as it made him want to die from embarrassment though there was no one in the room to see, he even tried running his hand through his hair the way Jisung did weeks ago, and wrapping his own arms around his body a minute or so later, but it wasn't the same. His body still felt so uncomfortably bare and nothing he did was enough to satisfy it— to quell the ache.  

 Interestingly, his mind wasn't just on Jisung. Felix, the boy who constantly clung to his friends like a koala, was there too.

  if i.. imagine myself in felix's shoes.. asking jisung "can we cuddle?"—

   Minho shot up in his bed, shivering and panting.

   He shook his head, hard. He wanted that thought out. Gone. Away from him. The vigorous shaking made him dizzy. Still, he lurched forward recklessly on the mattress, reaching out in the dark for his desk, searching blindly for the plastic bottle he'd left there. When it was in his palm, and he pulled it off the desk, he groaned.

   Empty. The whole bottle of melatonin gummies he bought the other night, when he left the dorm at an ungodly hour, looking for a way out of his nightly torment, was already completely gone, and it hadn't seemed to do much good, if any.

   He laid back, head hitting his pillow roughly.

『 ↳✧･ﾟ

 i want to puke. it's so frustrating because in my head, i can't understand why it makes me feel like this, but my emotions tell me that it's so sickening that i don't even need to consider whether it makes sense or not.

i just— i feel like i can't do this. again.

every night, i feel so desperate and it sucks because i know that the exact thing i'm longing for is only a couple steps down the hall. but if i go there's no taking it back. in the morning i wake up, assuring myself that i can handle this and should never give in again but.. if it's like this every night and just keeps getting worse... how can i do this?

it's the fact that the life that i keep wishing i had— a life where i feel like i'm above the water, as happy and carefree as everyone else seems to be—whenever i get like this, always seems to be only a few words away.

...if only i were to open my mouth.

seeing jisung or even chan hyung in front of me and knowing that if i only asked them for help, maybe i wouldn't be such a mess— maybe i could actually be happy— it scares me and it frustrates me.

i won't do it. i tell myself that every day. i'll regret it just like every other time. 

but still, when every night is torture, and i can't fall asleep... one of these nights, will i just give up? again? 

i gave in once. i hate that i did and i hate that it helped even more. but i could at least pretend that it didn't help, and jisung wouldn't need to know that he was right about me. he doesn't need to know just how weak and pathetic i am, even though he's unfortunately already seen some pretty pathetic stuff from me.  

so what if i'm a weakling? i'll just die if i keep pretending i can deal with this won't i? ...no, no. i'm being too dramatic. i'll be fine— i can do this. 

...

i'm scared. 

i'm frustrated.

help.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 』

        Minho didn't sleep at all that night, and it all felt far too familiar.

꘎♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡꘎

sorry that i was late again with this one ;-; the main reason for it this time is that i pulled another 'i want more detail so imma split this one in half and make it three times as long' lololol but yeah the version i was about to post on saturday just felt lacking and i didnt like it. ...at this rate i might need to change the update schedule to once a week because i keep being unsatisfied

...but, double update :]