Renjun woke up completely disoriented. His vision was blurry, hair in his face, and couldn't make out any definitive object to show him where he was.
Rubbing his eyes didn't help because he couldn't move. The lime green hue of the digital clock unreadable, only its light source.
Renjun groaned, from the feeling of it he was laying on a solid surface, deeming it his floor. But what he was really confused about was why he was on the floor.
As a steady sleeper, he didn't move around a lot.
So waking up on the floor was not common, at all.
Soon he felt the headache kicking in, groaning again.
He was in pain, and didn't know why.
He could hardly open his eyes in the green hue, darkness surrounding him.
Realization hit him.
He was in sleep paralysis again.
Unable to move, he laid on the cold floor.
This was another reason he wanted someone to live with him. He didn't want to bother someone else with his problems, but in situations like this he had to admit to himself that he needed someone else.
After staring at the ceiling for who knows how long, he slowly moved the tips of his fingers, gradually getting feeling back into the appendages. Still stuck, but could now feel, he ached, pulling himself up into a sitting position. Leaning against the bed frame, he started to think.
Why was he even here? To suffer? To be a lab rat for the rest of his life? Just how long was Renjun going to let himself be stuck in this situation? Being stuck in the empty wing for the rest of his life showed no appeal to Renjun. But he knew that was his fate. He didn't want to be in this society anymore. Constantly trapped, with nowhere to go, no safe place to just be himself. But Renjun wasn't quite sure who himself was. What exactly is his personality?
He often thought like this when he was awoken in the night, and couldn't go back to sleep. What exactly was he to do else wise?
He looked up at the dark ceiling once again, tears threatening to fall. He felt the familiar tightness in his throat, and the tears bridging at his eyes.
What am I going to do?
He continued to lay there, staring at the ceiling.
He never had these thoughts before. He used to always be inputting, without question, like a robot.
But meeting the two boys, made him realize that he was not a robot. He is a human being. With human feelings. And he knew that with the smallest contact he had with the other two had messed with him. The only problem was that he wasn't quite sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Looking at the time as his vision started clearing up, he noticed that it was only 12:30.
Sighing, he laid back under the covers, suddenly nervous if he were going to be able to go back to sleep.
In hopes of sleeping once more, he recalled the sound of a seashell. Hearing the sound in his mind, he began to fall back into the deep sleep he left.
. . .
Jaemin was worried.
Jeno was worried.
They had woken up from sleeping on the couch, Jeno first then he shook Jaemin awake, in hopes of seeing Renjun again. They quickly got ready, and were the first ones out of the dorm, truly a rare sight. They had on big smiles walking up to the school.
But there was no one there.
Not in front of the building, not waiting in the canteen. They even braved to trip up to the Full Capacity Memory Wing, to only find that the smaller wasn't there.
So now they sat in the canteen, with Mark, Donghyuck, Chenle and Jisung, staring off into nothing, highly confused.
The older had always been here, but where is he now?
"Did we scare him off?" Jaemin asked Jeno, worry laced in his voice.
"I doubt it?" Jeno tried to smile off the confusion, but the statement ended like a question.
The other boys weren't quite sure if the two were alright, but decided not to interrupt their blatant stares into space.
Where is he?
. . .
Renjun sat on his floor, clutching his head, as pain continued to course through. Ever since he woke up again, he had felt weak, and didn't have the strength to even stand up.
He pushed himself further into the mattress against his back in hopes of receiving some comfort, but didn't.
The tears were bridging his eyes, threatening to spill. But Renjun just let them fall, not having the strength to stop the flow.
Disoriented, and vision blurry, all he could think about was them.
. . .
It was the start of another day, and still no Renjun.
Jaemin looked at Jeno, dead serious, and voiced his sudden thought.
"Want to skip?"
Jeno looked at the other perplexed.
"What?"
The others had overheard and gave Jaemin the same look.
"I really hope you're talking about the skipping that little kids do, because otherwise you should know the answer," Donghyuck said, full of sass.
Jaemin looked at Mark with an exasperated look, "Ah Hyung~"
"What would be your reasoning?" Mark asked.
"Renjun. He hasn't been here, and that can be seriously hurting him. He could be in trouble," Jaemin explained.
"Renjun?"
"Wait, Renjun??"
Mark had asked in confusion, and Chenle in realization.
"Yes, Renjun," Jaemin emphasized.
Without letting the others contemplate any longer, Jaemin grabbed Jeno's hand, and pulled him out of the white building, running towards Renjun's dorm.
They had to go fast in fear of getting caught.
Although Renjun's dorm was closer to the school than their own dorm, they still arrived at the front of the huge building, breaths heavy.
Leaning over, hands on his knees, Jaemin looked at Jeno, a big smile on his face.
"We're here~"
Jeno smiled back, a laugh on the end of his tongue, if he weren't so out of breath.
"We didn't get caught," Jeno said joyfully.
Walking towards the huge building in front of them, they went to the door once more, a happy silence over the both of them.
Just as they went to the door, Jaemin grabbed the handle, becoming surprised as the door was unlocked. He looked up at Jeno, worry across his face.
Without saying anything else, they rushed into the dorm, only to be met with complete darkness.
Hurriedly, they both drifted to their nearest wall, looking for a light switch to turn the lights on.
Jeno found one, and flipped the switch, which filled the room with a bright light.
Both boys gasped at the incredible living room in front of them.
There was a long couch, in the shape of an "L" and it looked more than capable to fit all of their roommates. They continued to gape, until Jaemin snapped out of it, and tried to look for Renjun.
Walking down the slight platform in front of the front door, they stepped into the living room, to see a clean kitchen, and the beginnings of a hallway.
Silently, they walked down the hallway, looking at the six doors going down the large corridor.
They opened each door, only meeting silence until they got to the door at the very end.
He has to be in this one.
The boys slowly opened the door, the slightest of lights illuminating the small figure laying on the bed in the center of the room. He was curled into a ball, shivering under the thick covers.
The two boys' hearts broke.
Renjun still hadn't noticed the other two, trying to get the excruciating pain to go away. Even though he knew that it wasn't, he still strained, trying to keep the pain at bay, but the strain becoming pain itself.
He whimpered, the small noise resonating around the room, and startling the other two.
Renjun knew that it would be better to give into the pain, but he still tried. He hadn't been able to sleep for the past two days, trying to keep this pain out of his system. He tried every method of pain relief that he could recall, but the truth was that he could only do so much laying in bed, weak.
He had also been hallucinating since one o'clock this morning. Seeing things, and hearing things. He was confused between what was real and what was not. Jaemin and Jeno being many of his hallucinations.
So when Jaemin and Jeno popped into his view, he sighed heavily.
"I told you guys to go away," he said weakly, trying to close his eyes.
The other two were confused, but went along.
"But why would we?" Jaemin asked, voice low but sweet to Renjun's ears.
"Because, you guys are just hallucinations, not real," he answered.
"Do you want us to be real?" Jeno asked, sitting on the edge of Renjun's bed.
Renjun didn't feel the sink in his mattress, but nodded slightly.
"I'd die for you guys to be real. But I'm also glad you aren't. Because being in paralysis is embarrassing-and here I am talking to figments of my imagination," Renjun gave out a fake laugh, sighing.
"What makes you say that?" Jaemin asked, also sitting on the mattress, across from Renjun's face.
Renjun felt that sink though.
His eyes widened.
Am I hallucinating this, too?
This was a whole other level.
"W-well, this i-is embarrassing b-because I can't m-move," Renjun stuttered, watching Jaemin's hand reach for his face.
The warmth that came from Jaemin's hand on his face melted away Renjun's defense against his pain, making his body vulnerable to the pain.
His eyes fluttered shut and he passed out, giving into the pain.
The other two in the bedroom, looked at the boy in worry.
They were trying to go along with the distressed boy and his ramblings, and wasn't trying to worsen his condition, but they didn't know what else to do.
So they stayed, laying beside the smaller, but not too close, with Renjun in the middle.
Jeno let out a deep breath, shaking slightly as he did.
"What do you think is wrong?" Jeno asked, absolutely concerned about the boy in between them.
"He something about being paralyzed? It was probably sleep paralysis but if he's been like that for two days, he needs some help," Jaemin informed him, looking down at the sleeping boy.
Slowly he reached out to the boy's dark hair, stroking his hair softly.
He smiled lightly when Renjun let out a content sigh in his sleep.
"We can ask him when he wakes up," Jaemin said, looking back up at Jeno, only to find the older asleep, faced towards Renjun.
Jaemin smiled softly at the sight, and decided to lay down the same way, looking at the faces of the other two boys.
I could get used to this.