Chapter Text
One week.
You had one final week of sun-soaked freedom before your classes were set to begin. And here you were–pencil twirling in your hand and eyes glued to the front while the professors voice bulldozed on and on, talking animatedly about cadaver studies and the special illustration tools you would be learning how to navigate this upcoming fall. Things you had already read about. A syllabus list you had already reviewed.
It didn’t hurt to be ahead. More specifically, it didn’t hurt to be ahead of him.
Against your will, your eyes slid over to the back of Namjoon’s head from where he sat four rows ahead–like he always did. He said being in the front offered less distractions. You liked being further back so you could see the bigger picture. Although right now, the only picture you looked at was him. Silver-blonde hair starting to grow out from his summer cut and bit messy like he had run his hand through it too many times. He probably thought it looked stylish. You thought it was a terrible attempt at recreating Albert Einsteins famous look.
You squinted.
There he was–smug fucking bastard. Head bent over his desk. Obnoxiously thick glasses perched on the edge of his nose. Button down smooth and notched with crisp lines. A Metal straw stuck between his lips while he took his notes. Notes.
Cue you rolling your eyes.
Who the fuck takes notes during early orientation? Clearly Namjoon.
Out of spite you flipped your notebook open to a fresh page, mindlessly jotting down whatever the professor spat out of her mouth. Nothing useful to you, but you couldn’t let him risk the chance of getting ahead. Not this time.
Some may say you’re petty, you just like to say you’re a woman true to her word.
Was that promise only made to yourself without him present? Perhaps, but it was a promise nonetheless. One made behind a humming vending machine outside of your fourth grade gymnasium after your perfectly proportioned heart diagram lost to Namjoon’s picturesque sculpture of the brain. You could see it now: little you, tears streaming down your cheeks as you hugged that poster board and mini 3D heart in your palm, broken in your hand like the one that beat in your chest; your little soul craving vengeance.
There was no telling why hate was the emotion that stuck to him more than any others. Maybe it was the way your mother seemed to drown him in the compliments she couldn’t ever seem to find when it came to you, or that smug little smirk he had shot your way when the frilly blue ‘1st place’ ribbon had been pinned to his table.
The same one he shot you now–dark brown eyes regarding you over the lid of his reusable cup, lips curled just up enough just to sting your ego, but not enough to be read as anything but passive to an unsuspecting onlooker. A look he saved especially for you.
Giving another exaggerated roll of your eyes his way, you fixed them back on your notebook and the strange diagonal path your handwriting had taken while you weren’t looking. Easy fix. Erase, rewrite, tidy the margins…There we go. Perfect, just how you liked it to be.
This rivalry wasn’t one-sided–you had definitely earned the ranking of enemy number one in his book when your popsicle stick bridge lasted longer than his during a 6th grade project. Ever since then it’s been a race between who could do the most and who could do it better.
Dean’s list. AP classes. A third language course to your second. You standing proud on a spelling bee stage while he slaughtered his opponents at a debate next door. Sculptures. Oil paintings. The spring musical vs marching band. Anything one of you did, the other had to do something just as grand. If there was a list of any sort, you and Namjoon were climbing tooth and nail to land on top of the other, clawing past the others around you like none of them mattered.
So of course it made sense that when you graduated high-school and hiked off to college all bright-eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take on your B.S in molecular biology–he was there too. Two dorm floors up at night, and two seats to your left during the day at half your classes. You had only let yourself be disappointed for a week before making it your business to ignore him.
Now, there was no disappointment when you saw him mosey in thirty seconds after you did that morning, because at this point you had begun to expect him everywhere. You would have actually been more alarmed had he not shown up to the masters program orientation to listen to the professor explain what your next two years of Medical Illustration hell would look like. Reading between the lines of the syllabus told you that it would consist of negative hours of sleep and cramping hands–but then it would be over. Your dreams accomplished, the degree yours. The compliments from your mother showered onto you instead of him. A life you could only dream of leading with a connection already waiting at a big health magazine in Vermont, a comfortable life tucked away from small suburbs and over-priced pizza. This endless competition between you and Namjoon dead and buried for a chance at freedom and success. The little girl inside of you that nursed her broken heart squealing with excitement.
Unless he somehow applied for the same job you did. Which wasn’t out of the question when your mother so happily provided him with your connection’s number one late friday at dinner when she’d had too much Tito’s and cream-heavy pasta to care how much that hurt.
Your mouth went sour just thinking about it, the image of him tucking the torn piece of notebook paper with your mom’s cousin’s number into his pocket for safe keeping. This field was competitive enough as is, you didn’t need that giant oak tree of a man taking up more space in your path than he already was.
The professor clicked the remote in her hand and changed the slide. New sentences crawled across the screen, and your pencil kicked in to motion to copy them down. Namjoon’s did too, gaze flickering back to assess your pace before speeding up.
You grit your teeth, urging your hand to write faster, ignoring the iron hot ache that budded in your wrist and the back of your fist. That was normal, you told yourself. It was just the heat of summer burrowing into your skin and sucking the water from it. A normal reaction to dehydration. You cast a cursory glance to your cup of iced coffee, wincing when you tried to recall the last time you had a glass of water.
Suddenly you became hyper aware of the rest of your body, and the acute pang in your tailbone, a fuzzy stabbing sensation radiating down the back of your thigh. No biggie. Just restricted blood flow.
You shifted in your seat just enough to offer the relief you needed. It worked for now.
Glancing at the clock, you noted there were only a few more minutes left of this and you could be free of his presence (and this offensively hard chair). A few more sentences. A few more pages.
Your hand really fucking hurt, but you refused to slow down. It’s nothing a little ice and electrolytes couldn’t fix.
With a clap of her hands, the professor sent you off with a warm welcome to campus and a grin too wide for someone who just talked about dissecting fascia and autopsy studies for an hour. Eh. Maybe that could be you in ten years–you had no room to judge.
Shuffling your notebook and laptop into a neat stack, you barely noticed when a shadow loomed behind you. Not until it took one long, obnoxiously loud sip of iced coffee, the metal straw clanging against the rim.
“You coming for dinner on Friday, or should I mark you absent?”
Huffing to yourself, you buttoned up your bag and ducked beneath the shoulder strap, not even sparing him the smallest of glances. “I’m obviously coming, I’ve never been marked absent in my life. My mother would kill me if I didn’t.”
That was a lie. Not the part about your mother killing you–that was true–but as for your attendance, you had actually been hoping to weasel your way out of it with the excuse of prepping for the first week. You had piles of laundry to do, your apartment was in need of a good deep clean, an appointment to knock off your roster, and you were pretty sure there was an electric bill tucked somewhere beneath one of your textbooks that you kept forgetting to pay. Truth be told, you were exhausted. The kind of exhausted that afternoon naps and eight hours of sleep weren’t curing. And the last thing you wanted to do was sit at a dinner table with Namjoon while both your mothers gushed about how great he was.
Namjoon hummed. “Just checking.”
“Why?” You scoffed. “Thought you could try and win extra mom points while I’m gone or something?”
His face scrunched in distaste, and he took another sip of his drink. “No. Just wanted to know how many plates to set out. Mom was asking.”
Pacing back up the stairs of the lecture hall, you cooed over your shoulder at him. “Aww. Are you staying with mummy for the week?”
“Oh, you mean I shouldn’t enjoy free rent for the summer and home cooked meals?”
“Not when you’re twenty-five.”
“Not when you’re twenty-five” Namjoon mimicked the pitch of your voice and rolled his eyes, still following you out into the hall. “God forbid I try to be nice to you.”
Giving him a once over, you hum thoughtfully. “Hmm. It doesn’t look good on you.”
Using your shoulder, you shove your way out of the front door and skip down the steps, stopping abruptly at the bottom to fumble for a set of ear buds and plugging them into your ears, drowning out anything else he could say. You had a schedule to keep up with, and you didn’t feel like wasting any of that precious time fraternizing with the enemy. Your routine was simple yet effective; one you followed everyday without fail. And right about now you were due for your afternoon walk around the campus grounds before you’d head home, shower for the night, attempt to do some household chores before sprawling out on your desk and working on your drawing skills. There was nothing else that reignited the childlike wonder of flipping through colorful medical textbook diagrams than being able to draw your own.
Sleep was in there somewhere if you had time.
Walking was less than pleasant. The soles of your feet burned. Each step sending sharp pains up the arch of the foot that wrapped around the side and bit into the muscles and tendons there. Damn you for choosing the flattest shoe you owned that day. You made a mental note to pack your walking shoes into your bag on the first day of classes to avoid this...set back in the future.
By the time you had clambered up your apartment stairs you were screaming internally, cursing your own blood line for your poor footwear choices. All you could think about was putting your feet up after a nice hot shower and curling around a book–probably one of your last chances to read for leisure in a while.
So you did just that, washing off the sickening memory of Namjoon and his stupid coffee that smelt too much like your own and his stupid voice. Trailing steam across the hardwood floors as you paced to the kitchen for an ice pack, you snagged one for your wrist and let the fridge door suction closed. Pausing just beside it, you debating getting one for your feet. It did sound nice, after all the muscles were still raging against you.
Shaking your head, you decided against it. It would pass with a bit of rest and maybe a quick nap–nothing worth using up another ice pack for. You only had two anyway, and it’s not like you were limping around. It was just a cramp. Nothing you couldn’t handle.
_________________________________________
The week came and went faster than you had liked, bringing Friday along it’s slithering back with a sense of dread and self-pity you had no right to be feeling. You had five days to get your shit together and you hadn’t. Instead you had chosen to spend the time moping about your apartment about the impending conclusion of your break, the days a blur of aching feet, stiff wrists and a headache you couldn’t seem to shake for longer than a few hours.
You loved summer. Hated the heat.
It was the only reasonable conclusion you could give for feeling the way you were as of late. Heat was making your muscles sore. Heat was making your headaches worse. You just needed to drink water and cool down, you reassured yourself. Take the day to let your muscles breathe and your body catch up with the week ahead.
Though when you saw Namjoon jog down your block every morning at six am on the dot–hair brushed back by a sweatband and skin glowing with the rise of the sun–it squashed your resolve to rest and had you tying on your tennis shoes, taking off for the complexes gym with nothing but six ounces of water in your system and a prayer to the tylenol gods to have mercy on your poor battered brain.
Something in your mind nagged at you to slow down. Begged you to just accept that maybe today you only ran four miles instead of your strict eight. Whispered up through the pages of flipped textbooks and the cursive ink of your degree that was hung above your sofa that rest was just as necessary as effort. And of course it was! How could one expect growth without proper recovery?
Not for you though. You were built different in your mind.
Your wrist was only kind of sore by now anyway, and your feet would only hurt after the ten minute warm up instead of before. So in your twisted mind, you were improving! Just...slowly. If you pushed just a bit harder, you could build up better endurance and kick these little aches and pains to the curb.
That’s what you told yourself as you breathed through the shoulder presses, using the time to mentally organize your to-do list for the day. After procrastinating all week, it was piled high with errands, grocery lists, meal prepping, and of course, the fucking laundry that never seemed to end. Not to mention, past you seemed to have a bounty out for your sanity, because you had naively scheduled your annual physical later that afternoon with barely any time to spare before the dreaded dinner. The you from six months ago had such higher expectations for yourself. She probably thought to herself: “Oh how perfect! Knock it all out in one week! I’m such a smart, punctual superstar!”
Stupid. You were never doing that to yourself again.
Grimacing through your last set, you uncapped her bottle of water and held it up to your lips, pouring some into your mouth while you inspected the weight. Your reps felt harder to push through, each press upwards like moving the weight through peanut butter instead of air, an unusual challenge that tested your already thinned patience. Shrugging, you twisted the cap back on. It was the same amount as last week, if not a couple pounds lighter.
Maybe you had simply miscounted your reps. Or perhaps it was the damn heat again.
You passed Namjoon going back up the stairs, the man stretching his long limbs outside the building’s propped open doors while he caught his breath. Averting your gaze from him, you shuffled by to pry open your mailbox, frowning when nothing came tumbling out despite not having checked in a few days.
“Good workout today?” Namjoon asked breathlessly.
“Yup.” You replied, flat and clearly disinterested in hearing his voice. Adjusting your earbuds in your ear, you hoped he’d get the hint. Clearly he didn’t.
Namjoon shook out his arms and raised his watch to observe it’s screen, grinning back up to the side of your face. “Almost at seven miles. How about you?”
Slamming the metal door shut you stalked past him, taking the stairs slowly. “Eight. And an upper body circuit.” Stopping to lean over the second staircase’s railing, you winked. “Try and keep up.”
Skipping up the steps your legs felt numb and shaky, trembling muscle tucked inside skin that didn’t feel real. The heel of your foot struck the third floor landing, and in seconds the breath was ripped from your lungs–a bolt of lighting crawling over your ankle and up the flat of the shin, everything it touched lift tingling and weak. A clunk of bone against bone. The restricted movement that had panic eroding the edges of your confidence.
From below, you heard the telltale sound of the glass door to the building swinging closed, sneakers scuffing up the concrete stairs, and a cough that sounded too familiar. As far as you knew, Namjoon didn’t live here, but you had seen him going into that stoner’s apartment on floor two; a tall and dreamy culinary arts major that used his skills to appease his strange, smoke-leaden appetite.
You held your breath, bent at the waist to rub soothing circles into your ankle, hobbling away from the opening so he wouldn’t see. Wouldn’t hear the quickening breath of panic that maybe something could be wrong.
He stamped up to the landing below you and meandered through the hall on his left, disappearing after the smell of cooked food that smelt suspiciously of warm peanut butter and breakfast pizza.
Waiting until you heard the door to an apartment close, you tried to stand again on unsteady feet, sucking in a breath of air when it felt just as sharp. In a few excruciating steps, it began to disperse, the dust of the pain settling like it had never been stirred in the first place.
Weird.
You didn’t let yourself dwell on it, letting the moment roll off your back like water, trudging up the last flight of stairs and bee-lining for the shower. A few ankle rolls and tendon exercises were added to your workout goals for the next day, believing it was nothing more than a weak spot that needed a little tough love.
Tough love was the only love you truly believed in.
Sweat and the musty smell of gym air clung to your clothes and skin, and you wished nothing more than to be rid of them and embrace the warmth of the water.
Steam billowed in the bathroom, floating in thick clouds that moistened the air and felt good to breathe in. You took your time, massaging the ball of your ankle, running fingers over your stiff wrists and digging into the pressure points around your scalp. It felt good to breathe out the tension into the shower and let it run down the drain, relief coming in the form of increased blood flow and a comforting heat that didn’t smell like asphalt and burnt grass.
Your feet sunk into the plush bath mat, body parting the steam to stand in front of the sink, towel wrapped around your body while you started to pat in your skin care–serums and hydrating creams that promised perfection. Reaching for the second bottle, your hands lagged just a second behind direction, the movement clunky and disorienting. Shaking it off, you pinched the dropper between two fingers and tipped your head back, hovering it over your cheeks.
Black spots crept into your vision, your brain doing its own impression of a tilt-a-whirl ride around the perimeter of your skull. Hands shook and arms trembled, your brain fuzzy and dense like a rock. A dull pulse situating behind the right eye, annoying and disorienting. You hastily lowered the bottle back to the counter, blinking rapidly. Your eyelids fighting for their lives against the haze like puny windshield wipers in a category five hurricane. Counting your breaths, the feeling subsided with nothing but a slightly elevated heart rate to remind you that what ever had happened was real.
Shaking your head, you laughed at your own reflection, doing your best to diffuse the situation. To distract yourself. “Jesus, is this your first day alive?” Grabbing for the next bottle you continued on, jumping back into the hurried pace you perpetually kept, always moving through every action like you were being chased.
Laundry was next on your list, dragging the hamper from your room and taking care to empty pockets, sorting the lights from the darks. Folding what was in the dryer straight from the source, stacking it atop the machine in pristine columns that you slotted into place in your closet and drawers. Everything neat. Everything perfect, just how you liked it.
To your delight, you didn’t run into Namjoon again on the way to your car, giving you all the space you needed to prepare yourself for the appointment–or in your case, blasting the radio and treating yourself to an iced coffee so the buzz of the drink would numb the simmering panic of being under a doctor’s scrutiny.
It’s ironic, isn’t it? Someone who was training to be able to draw the intricate functions of the human heart or the wonders of pregnancy in explicit detail had a fear of a meager doctor’s visit. To be fair, it was probably your mother’s fault–that woman would rather be caught dead than in any medical facility. She was quite content with her teas, essential oils, and way too much ibuprofen than was possibly good for her kidneys. She spoke of doctors like beasts in a fairy tale, out to get you with nothing but their own best interests in mind, ravenous claws made of needles to shuck you with as they pleased and mouths foaming with poisonous chemicals and dehumanizing insults. Your mother did always have a knack for theatrics.
Can’t say that didn’t affect how you viewed them at least a little bit.
In her defense, she had a hand full of pretty shitty run-ins with doctor’s in the past. One of them tried giving her medication she had expressed she was explicitly allergic to, and another called her a liar to her face pretty much every time he saw her, bossing her around her entire pregnancy and making her feel less than. This fear ran deeper than her, beginning somewhere from her father who had struggled with keeping his own heart beating and standing upright by the time he hit thirty, turned away with scratching heads and confused shrugs by every doctor he saw, constantly being told to “exercise and eat better” all the way up until a sixth stroke wiped him out before he could hit 40. Because of that, your doctor growing up was hard work and dedication. Kisses on the forehead drenched in good intentions and colloidal silver. Good vibes and gritted teeth.
And you lived, right? More or less.
Your pulse skyrocketed the moment you turned off the exit near the practice, and was all but falling out of your mouth when you stepped onto the pavement of the parking lot. It was just a yearly check up. Nothing to lose your fucking mind over.
You knew how this would go. Check in, slump in a hard-bottomed plastic chair for ten minutes, close your eyes when a nurse dragged you on the scale, and then sink into the sterile plush table and crinkled paper for the doctor to take one look at you and send you home. And that’s how you liked it. He didn’t ask many questions, and you didn’t offer many answers. A mutual understanding that neither of you wanted to be there.
Illegal? Maybe. But you weren’t rushing to stand on trial any time soon.
Dragging your feet up to the desk, you smacked your insurance card on the surface and pulled your purse up to preemptively pluck out your ID, tossing out a clipped “2:30 with Dr. Stevens.”
The woman behind the desk paused her incessant typing, an apologetic smile gracing her features. “I’m sorry miss, but Dr. Stevens isn’t in today. They have you seeing Dr. Malkovich–is that alright?”
You froze, stammering. “Uh...y-yeah. Sure.”
“I’m so sorry, someone should have contacted you about it. Did you receive any notice?”
Thinking back, you had gotten a notification from your health portal that you had so conveniently swiped away and forgotten about. Plastering on a polite smile, you feigned forgetfulness instead of cowardliness. “Oh shoot, they had. My bad.”
That should have been your first hint that this appointment was going to go nothing like your previous ones. Yeah the chairs were still uncomfortable, and you still looked away when the nurse led you to the scale, but when you situated yourself on the obnoxiously loud paper, you didn’t wait in a cold room for ten minutes only to be interrupted by an old man that didn’t bother to look at you. Because within two minutes, a young woman in her late thirties scuttled in, curls running rampant down the sides of her face where they escaped from an over stretched claw clip and eyes so kind they melted your fear when they met your own.
“Dr. Malkovich,” She took your hand, shaking it firmly before falling back onto the stool and scanning her badge on the computer screen. She didn’t make small talk. Didn’t talk about the weather or ask if you had any vacations planned. Instead she brewed over the information in your chart, a soft crease forming between her brows while she scrolled further down. She clicked on another section. Then another.
Finally she spoke. “Your blood pressure is a bit low and your heart rate was on the higher end. Is that normal for you?”
“Guess so.” You shrugged.
The doctor hummed, tapping her finger mindlessly against the back of her mouse. “I noticed your last panel had some abnormalities. Did Dr. Stevens go over those with you?”
“Briefly,” You lied.
Her brown eyes flitted over your form doubtfully, then back to her screen. “Since it’s been a bit, I want to order another if that’s alright with you. Just check for any patterns. See how things are going.” Tugging out a small device from her pocket, she clicked on the light and scooted her chair in front of you, waving the beam over your eyes. “Have you been experiencing anything new you want to talk about?”
You thought back to the moment on the stairs. The headaches. The fatigue. The aches and cramps in your feet. The dizzy spell in the bathroom. Sighing, you knew the only way to beat out your mother’s deeply sowed beliefs was to prove her wrong, so you relayed to her (though begrudgingly) the strange occurrences that had been scattered over the past six months, and watched her face carefully for any sort of reaction.
Without warning, she grabbed for your hands and gave them a testing squeeze, her skin so warm against the cold skin of your hands your breath hitched. Clicking her tongue against her teeth at the temperature, she dropped them back into your lap. Next, the pads of her fingers prodded over the sides of your neck and below your jaw, pursing her lips when one spot was particularly tender. You knew what she was feeling, you could map out the lymph nodes in your neck and every vein and artery below it–draw the shape of the thyroid in your sleep. “Your hands always this cold?”
Hesitating with that question, you genuinely pondered over the answer. Were they always that cold? “Honestly? Yeah. It’s just...always been that way.” You relented softly.
“And all of these other symptoms, have those also just ‘always been that way’?” She tilted her head, quoting what you said with a small half-smile.
All you could muster up was a shrug, feeling far too exposed and vulnerable on the examination table than you had prepared yourself for. “Mom always said it was normal.”
The doctor chuckled under her breath at that, unwinding the blood pressure cuff from the little wire cart and coming to stand besides you, ripping apart the velcro latch with a deafening scratch and hovering it over your arm.
“What are you doing? They already did that.” Anxiety swirled around your abdomen.
“Sounds like you could be experiencing some circulation issues among other things. I’m going to put a pulse monitor on and a blood pressure cuff, and I’m going to have you move around a bit for me. Think you can do that?”
Taking her up on what you had only taken as a challenge, you shrugged. “Sure.”
You should have fucking said no.
Because if you had, you wouldn’t be sitting in a walk in lab while a nurse takes vial after vial of your blood for testing. Wouldn’t have two different referrals tucked under your arm for two different specialists. Wouldn’t have heard her say the words “With your family history, we just don’t want to risk not looking further.” Or her kind smile when she told you to start “taking it easy”.
There was nothing to fucking look for. No reason to take anything easy. You were fine. Perfect even.
If you weren’t, you would fix it. You would do whatever it took to fix it.
Your mind was reeling when you stepped up to the Kim’s front porch, wringing your hand through the strap of the bag while noting your mother’s parked sedan. You weren’t sure if the twist in your stomach at the sight of it was excitement or foreboding.
You were late.
Thirty minutes late to be exact. All of the extra time spent chatting over next steps, waiting for an opening at the lab, and picking up a preemptive vitamin D prescription digging further into your time for the day.
Against your expectations, Namjoon was the one who had opened the door, still chewing a haphazardly shoveled bite of food he had probably scooped up on his way to the door, a loose grain of rice stuck to his bottom lip. He grunted, stepping aside to let you brush past him. You didn’t miss the way his eyes zeroed in on the pharmacy bag or the piece of gauze wrapped around your elbow. That sickening, inquisitive gleam taking over the rich brown of his irises; tantalized by the potential of a new challenge by the looks of it.
From down the hall you could hear the women chattering away at the table, their voices climbing over one another in innocent excitement, punctuated with squeaky laughter and clinking silverware. It seemed your absence hadn’t stopped their afternoon in the slightest. Rounding the corner, you tucked the paper bag into your purse before your mother could lay her eyes on it and forced the edges of your mouth to soften into a smile.
“Sorry I’m late. My appointment ran a bit longer than usual.”
Raising her wine glass to her lips, your mother tried to hide her displeasure behind a tight-lipped smile. “No worries, hun. Have a seat.”
You wasted no time in helping yourself to the meal at the center of the table, scooping rice and thinly sliced marinated meat into your bowl, practically drooling at the sight of it. A small gasp broke you out of your stupor, a hand shooting out to steady your forearm.
“You let them poke you?”
Fighting back the urge to roll your eyes at her dramatics, you pulled your arm from your moms grasp and sunk into the plush dining room chair. “It’s their job mom. It’s just to make sure everything is good.”
“They don’t need to be stabbing you with needles and running a bunch of tests to know that.”
“That is quite literally their job, mom,” You snorted, shoveling a bite of food into your mouth. “Ever heard of a phlebotomist?”
The conversation moved onward without you in it, the two of them laughing over something that had happened within their book club meeting the previous evening or sharing offhanded antidotes about their week. Somewhere in between HOA gossip and grocery prices, they circled back to their favorite topic–Namjoon.
“Oh hun, did you hear that he signed up for another 10k? It’s in a couple weeks.”
The force of your grip nearly bent your spoon in half, the sharp edge of your disdain barely concealed. “Wow. That’s great.”
“And he signed up for the tutoring program for the semester. So he will be mentoring younger students on the campus for an extra boost. The professor asked him personally.” His mother chimed in, absolutely beaming with pride.
Out of the corner of your eye, Namjoon winced into his drink, ears turning a faint shade of pink. “Mom-”
“You must be so proud!” Your mother gushed, patting Namjoon’s forearm lovingly.
Your mouth went dry, gaze falling down to your half eaten bowl to nudge the grains of rice around with the back of your spoon. That burning need to prove that you could be better–that you could do better rearing it’s ugly head. The heat from it clashing with the icy cold whisper of your doctors voice telling you to take it easy. To rest. A storm brewed in your mind as the two fronts battled out their differences.
In your pocket your phone buzzed, giving you the distraction you needed from their bubbly discussion about Namjoon’s new apartment that sounded eerily close to yours. It was a notification from your health chart, a few of the test results had already been received and reviewed.
Tapping on the icon you scrolled through the panels, the flagged abnormalities staring you back in the face. A message from Dr. Malkovich already scrawled out beneath it.
“Please call the office to schedule a follow up, as I would like to discuss these results in person. I look forward to hearing about your visits with the specialists until then. Take it easy, and don’t hesitate to reach out if anything new pops up. -Dr M.”
“Is everything alright, hun?” Your mother finally addressed you again, her eyes clearly prodding over the blatant medical insignia on the apps homepage over your shoulder.
“Yep,” You cleared your throat, shoving your phone into your pocket and keeping your eyes down on your bowl. “Just the doctor getting back to me.”
“And everything’s good?” She pushed further, placing her glass back on the table. Everyone had paused to look at you, their stares feeling less like friendly concern and more like a pack of wolves with sharp teeth ready to tear into you if you said otherwise.
Lifting your own glass to your lips, you focused on the rose colored bubbles that lined edge of the ruby liquid. “Like I said, everything’s good.”
That answer was satisfactory for your mom to move on from, diving head first into her wine and jovial gossip. Though someone else didn’t seem as convinced by your answer, their eyes staring holes into your forehead, and their curious energy hanging so thick over your head you thought it might rain with questions.
Keeping your glass where it was you poised it for another sip, face scrunched up into your best ‘the fuck is your problem?’ look, which he returned with a pointed look at your phone, his brow flinching upwards just slightly.
What’s all that about? It seemed to say.
Your glass hit the table a bit harder than necessary, your mother shooting you a look from the corner of her eye that was too quick to see the silent ‘fuck you!’ you shot to Namjoon. He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling behind his next bite of food.
The last person you wanted to talk to was him. You couldn’t wait to get home and crawl beneath the covers of your bed and pretend the day had never happened. Maybe even delete the health app entirely if you were feeling extra wild–tie up any loose ends to your delusions that whatever was going on was just the heat.
Tomorrow you would go to the gym and train like you were running for a 10k. Because Namjoon was. And you couldn’t let him hold that over you.
Everything was good. Everything would be good–you’d make sure of it.
_________________________________________
Everything was not good. Your body made sure to tell you that every time you rolled out of bed or sat bent too long over a text book. The gym which was once your friend and most trusted medicine–a naive shield against any ailments–dug the knife of betrayal deeper into your back with each passing week.
The faster you ran from this mystical being that had carved out a home in your body, the closer it crept, claws extended to shred through your foolish beliefs. The heavier you trained, the worse you felt despite the thousands of health influencers online trying to convince you otherwise. Sleep called to you more than you cared to admit, more than you thought it needed to, but no matter how much you tried to feed into its starved greed, it was never satisfied. The beast craved more, and punished harder when you didn’t listen.
Months had gone by, the heat no longer a suspect you could point your finger at when your joints shook or your head threw its own firework show behind your eyelids.
At some orthopedic specialist your doctor had wanted you to see, they advised you against running– against heavy lifting and everything that made you feel powerful. Everything that made you feel like you were in control.
They gave you a list of exercises to do in your home, on your floor, or in your bed. Exercises that were too easy for your muscles that they didn’t believe that you trained because your blood work and physical examination had said otherwise. Apparently, you had decreased muscle mass. Apparently in their eyes, you weren’t trying hard enough, but somehow trying too much. A scold and a redirection. Correction for the sake of care.
Your mother must hate the doctor’s office because it must feel like looking into a mirror; for everyone there acted just like her. No praise, only critique.
That doctor wrote another referral, some rheumatologist on the edge of town that had a five month waiting list and a hefty copay, sending you away with a pat on the head and a “try and work on these exercises for us, okay?”
Of course you listened, the insulation that couldn’t or hadn’t been doing anything at all scorching your pride. You did those exercises six times a day instead of three just to prove that you could. Limited all the foods they told you to even though you weren’t really eating them in the first place. Drank even more water than you already were.
The next occupational therapist then of course told you that you drank too much water and tried too hard. She threw around the word Fibromyalgia with a voice so soft and angelic it was like she was talking to a baby. A suggestion that she couldn’t stick onto you yet. A condescending tone masked behind sweetness. A series of flashcards that explained shit you already knew. Shit you already did.
If you were doing everything right to fix it, why wasn’t it fucking fixed already?
“How many miles did you do this morning?”
You blinked away the blurry haze of your thoughts, coming to on the leg press machine in your complex gym, eyes flitting up to a face that made you instantly regret having good vision. Namjoon’s question shouldn’t irritate you. It was something he asked you each time he found you in the gym since he had scurried into an apartment on the first floor at the start of the semester. The first couple weeks you would gloat about your mileage while wiping well-earned sweat from your brow. As of recent though, you found yourself fibbing–making up numbers on the spot and watching him believe it.
The lie much easier to say than the truth you would never admit out loud: that you couldn’t run anymore. Seeing the way he’d puff out his chest and laugh at you meant you would take that secret to the grave.
It was easy to fool him with the way you suddenly found yourself heaving after a simple strength routine, muscles weak and shaking from thirty minutes of low intensity movement, sweat pouring down your temples like it deserved to be there–it all made the lie believable.
But today?
You weren’t sweating. You were crumbling from nothing. Thighs quivering from only two minutes on the machine. Fatigue crashing into you like a tidal wave that weighed heavy on your eyelids.
Still you lied, voice smaller and more defensive than you intended. “Nine.”
One of his brows quirked upwards into his sweat dampened hair, lips pursed as he drank in your state. “Nine?”
“Yep.” You averted your eyes to the window in front of you. “Keep up.”
You sounded flat even to yourself. Everything felt flat. Your eyes sight lacked some of its dimension. Your sharpened edges of wit were nicked with exhaustion. Exhaustion you didn’t deserve. You hadn’t even fucking done anything yet. Only three months into your first semester and you felt like this. Three months and what you had thought would be a little bump in the road was becoming a sink hole.
Namjoon seemed to notice something was off, hesitating besides the machine for a beat too long. His body heat hovering just a hair too close. Finally, after a few minutes of just standing there with his annoyingly observant eyes scanning your features he found what he wanted to say.
“You good?”
Profound. The exhale you released from your nose was supposed to be humored, but just sounded a bit cynical. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He ran his tongue over his teeth, body shifting like he was weighing what he wanted to say. “Your mom said you were going to a new doctor. How’s that going?”
Humiliation ravaged your insides, twisting and coiling tight like a snake waiting to sink its teeth into whatever sorry soul happened by its den. You missed two dinners and all of the sudden your mother is spilling out your secrets to whomever she wanted. It was unclear why you were humiliated, but something about Namjoon getting a whiff of your current predicament felt like salt on a fresh wound. He was the last person you ever wanted to know about how you’ve been. You couldn’t bear seeing that stupid fucking smirk when he’d rub in his superior genetics.
Snatching up your water bottle from the floor you scowled. “Great. Why the fuck do you care?”
Namjoon didn’t bite right away, content with just watching you squirm under his scrutiny. “Because you seem to care a lot about me caring.”
“I don’t.”
“Clearly you do or you wouldn’t be so defensive.”
Pushing yourself out of the seat, you shook your head at him, veering off towards your gym back and hoisting it over your shoulder. “I could care less about anything to do with you.”
“Our whole lives seem to beg to differ, but go off.” Namjoon scoffed, bending down to adjust the weights on the leg press machine. Higher than you had it. Much higher.
Your throat constricted as though that very weight had wound itself around your neck. “Yeah, right. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Shoving open the door to the hall you let it bang against the exposed brick and close on its own behind you. A promise to yourself that next time you saw him, it would be a victory of yours and not his. If you couldn’t beat him in the gym you would continue to dominate him in the lecture hall. Easy.
Finals popped around the corners like the zombies in one of those kitschy haunted houses your friend had dragged you to the previous autumn–surprisingly shocking even though you had smelt its arrival from a mile away.
Studying was a nightmare.
Answers started slipping through your fingers for you to fumble to catch just in the nick of time. Letters mixed themselves up on the page. You saw doctors more than you saw your own mother–each one of them left you more puzzled than the last, scratching their heads and sending you home with more physical therapy referrals and a pat on the back to “exercise more and eat well”. Pain was now your closest friend. The strange aches and sharp tugs of muscle or bone more consistent than your sleep schedule. The fatigue whittling down at your motivation.
But when you found yourself shivering in the breezy lecture hall that December, you prayed that it would all be worth it when your professor returned your research paper onto your desk with a subtle curve of her lips, traipsing down the rest to slip them onto the desks of your peers. You didn’t dare flip it over, not until Namjoon’s packet slid across the dark wood and into his hands. Then you looked.
Waiting until the teacher was distracted with another student, you held it up, index finger hovering below the score written in bright red ink. 100/100 :).
Even from your distance you could see Namjoon’s eyes widened a fraction at the score on your paper, an inaudible scoff shaking him. He shook his head, cheeks hollowed in frustration and pad of printed writing dropped back down to his desk. Briefly he flashed you his own.
99/100.
You rode that high for the rest of the week, carting around the paper in your bag like it was a trophy. A reminder of why you studied so hard your eyes burned and your body gave out. Friday rolled around and you couldn’t wait to bring it up to your mother. Couldn’t wait to slip it into conversation like it was nothing–like it wasn’t something you had cried over, begging your hands to just fucking work when they kept lagging behind your brains command or your headache to stop trying to kill you.
A score of this caliber would have just been what you expected for yourself in the past, but for some reason after the tribulations of the entire first semester, you couldn’t lie and say you hadn’t wept with relief. That it didn’t soothe the budding worry that maybe hard work wasn’t enough.
Now was the time, your mother pouring her second glass of pino gris and Namjoon’s mother busy helping you pass the plates around the table.
You slipped it in so nonchalantly, not letting the excitement warm your tone in case your mother took note of it and tried to chase it out with icy words. Just a ‘-and I totally aced the final-’ in between your brief update of your week. The key with your mother was giving her just enough to feel interested but not too much as to make her feel like she was already told all the good bits. Give her bait to bite.
And she immediately did so with glittering eyes. “Really? What was your score?”
Preening under the glow of her glee sent your way for once, you stifled a grin. “100%. She told me how impressed she was after class.”
Readying her next bite your mother’s smile curved upwards, proud and gentle. You braced yourself for the words of pride you craved to hear, hands gripping the silverware in your fist. Then her head tilted to the side, glazing over you and shining onto Namjoon instead.
“And what did you get?”
You swallowed. Hard. The action burning more than you cared to admit.
Namjoon shrugged, his expression placid and unbothered. This didn’t seem to mean much to him at all. “99.”
Nodding, your mother hummed to herself, cutting a piece of pink steak with her knife. “See, now that’s more realistic. I don’t believe in 100s. A good teacher knows there is always room for improvement.”
Grease seeped out from her cut and onto her steamed vegetables, pooling around the base of her plate. Watching it was hypnotizing. It kept you distracted enough not to throw up all over Mrs. Kim’s nice burgundy table cloth. The conversation chugged on, the tracks of it unfettered by what you now realized was an unimportant interruption.
Buttery potatoes and crisp broccoli florets seasoned to perfection might as well have been a mirage of cardboard and acrylic paint in your mouth, teeth sinking into the same bite over and over again. You sunk into the background, trying not to let the dejection drag you too deep. When you looked up to the the clock on the back wall, you inadvertently met Namjoon’s shameless stare.
He didn’t look smug like you had expected him to. Instead he was reserved, chewing pensively while he raked his gaze over every inch of your face. Like usual, he quirked a brow up. A silent challenge to say something to him.
Except this time you didn’t have it in you to give in. Turning back to your plate, you soaked up some of the gravy that had dribbled down your potatoes with the smallest piece of broccoli you could find. You weren’t sure if you could stomach anything else. He had barely said anything, yet your rage burned brighter than ever.
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It was late. Too late for you to be up trying to fold laundry like you were. An art project that would have previously taken you maybe a few hours in the past had taken all of your weekend, meaning your household duties had taken a backseat while you wrangled your last art project for the season into the submission box.
The mess got under your skin, far too embarrassed to admit to yourself just how many days worth you had let pile up on top of the washer or on the floor of your bathroom. Something as simple as picking it up off the floor feeling like a workout after spending all your energy on physical therapy and studying.
You had enough of wrinkled trousers and balled up hoodies straight from the dryer, and set out to chisel at the mountain of clothes you had to put away.
And it ached. Made your bones creak with each folded shirt or hung up sweater, your equilibrium knocked off kilter when you’d reach your arms over your head to try and line the stacks into neat rows.
Which didn’t work. The stack tumbling to the floor into a wrinkled pile of half-folded fabric for you to pick up and refold. You tried again. And again. And again. Fingertips refusing to move the way you wanted them to.
Tears built wobbling walls in your eyes, a groan tearing out from your chest as you snatched up the pile and tossed it onto your bed in frustration, running a palm down your face to try and calm your breathing. Your closet was just short of how you liked it. Your perfect organization swapped out for whatever worked–crooked towers of sweatpants and shoes that started to pile on the bottom. Jackets hanging in different directions. Methodical organization breaking apart at the seems just like you felt.
Just when you were about to let the first tear fall, a knock resounded at the door, echoing through the quiet apartment and bouncing around your skull to dance with the brewing headache that awaited you.
Holding yourself together for a few moments, you waited for the person to leave. It was almost eleven, no one had any business standing outside your door anyway let alone knocking for your attention. You just wanted five minutes to cry about what an awful weekend you were having.
The person knocked again, unrepentant and persistent.
Tiptoeing to the door, you peeked through the little peep-hole and stifled a string of profanities, fumbling to untwist the lock and yank it open. “What the fuck are you doing here right now?”
Namjoon didn’t seem taken aback by your sudden outburst, giving you another aggravating once over that felt too intimate. Like he had you all figured out from one glace. Holding up a thick envelope between two fingers so you could see, he finally spoke. “Found this in my mailbox. Figured you’d want it–seems important.”
Scanning the sender, your body froze, a chill running down your spine and settling cold in your belly. The rheumology and arthritis institute. Important information enclosed. Return address requested.
With an indignant grunt, you snatched the letter from his hands and hid it behind your back so he couldn’t see it. A futile effort when he had probably already read over the title at least twice. “Why do you have this?”
Namjoon scoffed. “Mail guy put it in the wrong box. Happens sometimes.” Gesturing to the letter with his chin, he continued as though the two of you making small talk was a normal occurrence. “New doctor again?”
“Nope. It’s a persistent boyfriend I can’t shake.” Sarcasm dripped from every pore as you rolled your eyes hard enough for it to hurt. “Well thanks for this. See you never.” Shutting the door in his face would have been satisfying had his hand not shot out to stop it from closing.
“Can we talk?” Nothing about his voice implied any sort of competition. It was missing that bitter edge that invaded the back of your throat. This was normal. Casual even.
You wrinkled your nose. “About?”
Namjoon didn’t answer, just looked over your shoulder into the entrance way like he was asking for permission to enter. It felt weird to have him so willingly put the ball in your court–but not unwelcome. Ignoring the alarm bells that had started ringing in your head, you huffed out a sigh worth fifty extra years of age and stepped back to let him in. You didn’t have the energy to fight this either. Your battle with the laundry was still unfinished and you had yet to scheme your next attack.
Kicking off his slides, he shuffled into the main living space, sweeping over the open floor plan that was void of any light save for the lamplight that escaped from the door of you room. It seemed that the absurdity of him being in your home only bothered you.
Rounding the kitchen island, you flicked on the kitchen light, wincing visibly when the rays stabbed straight through your pupils with a vengeance, and propping your elbows on the granite tops to fix him with an expectant glare. “You wanted to talk. So...talk.”
Pulling at where his shirt had stuck to his chest absentmindedly, he stepped closer to hover just beside the counter, never crossing the line by sitting on a stool or leaning against the lip of it. “I wanted to apologize.”
You must be losing your mind. Grabbing your earlobe and giving it a swift tug like it would dislodge the bullshit you had just heard, you blinked. “Pardon?”
“For dinner on Friday.” He clarified.
Shaking your head slowly, you rested more of your weight on the counter top to take some of the pressure off your knees. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“What your mom said was harsh.”
“And it was something she said.” You enunciated carefully. “Not you.”
“I shouldn’t have answered her question.” He looked like he wanted to grab for a stool but stopped, remembering where he was. “I thought that it would make you look better if I did.”
Rage bubbled in your gut, spurred on by a rush of embarrassment that came out in a sneer and clipped response. “I don’t need your help to ‘look better’, Kim. I can handle myself, pretty fucking well.” Shoving past him to duck back into your room, your ears bellowed steam and your breath quickened. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
Fuming, you grabbed one of the toppled shirts and folded it into a clumsy square, picking up the one below it to do the same. The edges of them were uneven, the seems rippled and tags sticking out in odd directions. You were too pissed and too tired to care anymore.
“I wasn’t implying that you couldn’t.” Namjoon appeared in the doorway, arms crossed while he watched you pluck up the next shirt, roaming his eyes over the expanse of your room. Always looking, always soaking in information like a sneaky little sponge. You wanted him out before he found too many clues amongst the piles of laundry and dusty shelves about what was really going on.
“Well that’s how it landed.” You grabbed for the stack of freshly folded shirts and turned to your closet, standing on your tiptoes to shove them on top of the others. It was as if the universe had it out for you, because when you looked up to slide it in place, your vision blurred and your arms dropped as though full of cement, the pulse behind your eyes moving to sit mid forehead.
Shirts forgotten, you pinched the bridge of your nose and supported yourself on the wall nearest to the closet, your weight swaying from one side to the other on legs that didn’t feel connected to your body anymore. You could vaguely hear Namjoon saying something, hear his footsteps pad across the wooden floor–but everything sounded muffled and distorted, a symphony of nonsense your brain couldn’t keep time with.
You felt him before you saw him, large hands steadying your upper arms and the familiar smell of his moms laundry detergent permeating your senses. Blinking away the dark clouds you flitted up from beneath your hand to look at him, his expression crossed between curious, confused, and if you dug around enough...a dash smug.
“G-Get out,” You mumbled, hand planting a weak shove on his chest.
“New doctor, huh?” He seemed proud of himself for a moment. “I knew something was wrong-”
“There’s nothing wrong!” You shouted, shoving him back from your orbit. “I’m just tired. This happens when people are tired.”
“Not usually.”
“Yes, usually,” Growling under your breath you planted two hands on his back and started to push him from your room all the way until the front door, ignoring the way your palms shook against him. “Now get out before you make it worse. I wasn’t like this until you walked in. Must be something wrong with you.”
Namjoon finally seemed to listen, stepping over the threshold and shooting you a knowing look. “I’m going to find out eventually, whatever it is.”
“No you won’t. I won’t let you.”
The glint in his eyes grew brighter. “So there is something to find out then.”
“No–it’s just-Ugh!” You groaned out in frustration, gripping the edge of your front door tight enough to splinter the wood.
“So what’s with the new doctor?”
You shook with fury, wishing nothing more than for the door to actually hit him on the way out. “It’s just to make sure everything’s good! You know, because of my grandpa. Not because of anything with me.”
“I thought they didn’t know what was wrong with your grandpa?” He tucked his hands into his pockets and took on a new air of confidence.
“They didn’t.”
“So then how do they know what to look for?”
Your mouth hung open for only a half a second, but it was enough for someone as keen as Namjoon to pick up on.
“The more you push me away, the more I want to find out what’s making you act so weird.” He lilted, doing that annoying thing with his voice where he pretends to be too cheery but is actually being the biggest dick in the universe. Something you had heard too many times in middle and high-school.
“Well have fun, because there’s nothing to fucking look for. Goodnight.” Finally, he let you slam the door in his face this time, and it killed you inside to know that he had to let you.
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