Stendhal's Syndrome - JongSang ✔︎

Chapter 1

On a fine and weather pleasing day, the brown-haired male sat on his living room sofa, looking out the window to see what roamed his neighbourhood. A sigh left his mouth to see nothing new. The only thing remotely interesting was to know he was getting a new neighbour but even then did he hardly care.

It appeared the new family consisted of both parents and two children who were both boys. Yeosang, as a person who wasn't exactly fond of people, hardly cared that they seemed to be his age. He had no intentions of befriending them anyway. 

One of the boys was seen carrying a rather large and expensive portrait. At first glance, Yeosang could tell that the painting was rather beautiful and so he examined it until he accidentally made eye contact with the boy carrying it. 

Yeosang felt himself grow light-headed and before he knew it, he collapsed with his world going completely dark around him. His body falling off the sofa while the neighbour boy just watched puzzled at the way the boy fell backwards and disappeared. Strange. The male simply shrugged off the incident, assuming Yeosang was one of those stereotypical nutcase neighbours.

When consciousness finally decided to enter back into Yeosang's body, he found himself on a bed. On his bed to be exact. He figured his Mother dragged his body to his bed and so slowly sat up without question, lifting his hand to feel his head.

"Was that portrait that beautiful?" Yeosang asked himself, puzzled as to why he collapsed due to a painting.

He cautiously pulled himself out of his bed to ensure he wouldn’t get dizzy and headed down the stairs to look for his Mother. There he found her with a strange woman while they chatted over a cup of tea.

He didn't understand middle-aged women and their cups of tea over gossip but whatever. He liked their gossip and wouldn't judge.

"Ah, there he is!" Mrs Kang announced once she saw her son enter their dainty kitchen. "Come and meet our new neighbour."

Yeosang entered the room and bowed to the woman. She was quite lovely but not lovely enough to make him pass out.

"Hello, Ma'am, I'm Kang Yeosang."

"What a lovely son!" She gushed. "You'll get along just fine with my son! I'm Mrs Choi."

Yeosang smiled and took a seat at the head of the table, being handed a glass of water that he sipped as the two continued chatting.

The topic of him fainting was no longer present in his mind and he simply daydreamed of what he could do during the summer since he was out of school. 

University was out for the time being and he was glad he could take a break and relax for a bit until hell would start again. He didn't even hear what the women were talking about, so engrossed on the thought of what he could do during the course of the two-month break that he didn't care enough to listen.

Lay in bed all day? Mayhaps learn how to bake a pie? Waste time by staring out the window all day? Or at least until something beautiful would catch his eye and he would faint. Help his mother do chores? Colour or draw? There were a variety of options that he could do while staying inside the house and he would probably do them all.
 
He was only interrupted from his contemplating thoughts when the ding of the doorbell went off. His brain returned back to reality and he noticed his Mother looking at him.

"Would you be a dear and get the door?" Mrs Kang asked.

He nodded and headed to the front door to see who came to visit them. It couldn't be a friend because he didn't associate with other people frequently nor would it be a family member because those bitches would let themselves in without warning.

The male cautiously opened the door, meeting the eyes of the new neighbour.

"Hello! I'm your new neighbour Choi Jongho!"

Yeosang tried to give a smile but all he could focus on was his head going fuzzy. Wasn't the portrait the cause of this feeling? Then why was he feeling fuzzy if the portrait wasn't present?

He felt his eyesight go black and he suddenly fell forward, landing on the new neighbour's chest. 

The new male was shocked. Why did this person suddenly collapse on him the same way he had seen him collapse backwards around an hour earlier? It was weird.

"Uhm, excuse me?" Jongho called out, managing to drag the unconscious body with him to the kitchen where he found the two Mothers chit-chatting. "He just fainted on me."

Mrs Kang quickly got up, a delicate hand over her mouth as she approached the two. She took her son from Jongho's grasp and with slight difficulty, dragged his body up the stairs.

Midway up the stairs, Jongho realized that the woman was struggling and stepped in to take the unconscious body.

"Thank you," Mrs Kang said in full appreciation. "He hasn't fainted like that in a few weeks. I guess new additions in the environment made his brain go into overdrive."

"So this happens often?" Jongho inquired, a bit curious to know why the male fainted twice in a day.

"Oh yes. When he was a child he would faint several times a day but it started slowing significantly as time went by and now he only faints when he sees something really unique," she worded carefully, not wanting to scare the new boy.

Mrs Kang felt something go off within her, causing her Motherly senses to want to act up. Yeosang fainted often but very rarely did he faint because of another person. Most of the time it was someone on the television or someone in a magazine but now, seeing that he fainted because of someone he saw in real life was scary.

Her baby was growing up and spreading his wings to leave the nest. If it was what she thought it meant, soon enough he would be trying to overcome his syndrome and getting closer to the male. It was a long shot but still, at least she knew that her son thought the new neighbour was a masterpiece.

"Oh? But both times I've seen him, he’s fainted. So he faints when he sees something he doesn't like?"

Mrs Kang laughed. She was deeply amused to hear that. It was quite on the contrary and she oh so desperately wanted to tell the new neighbour the real reason but she decided she could wait for her son to explain if he wanted to. On a side note, she was quite surprised to find out the reason her son fainted previously during the day was because of the male in front of her as well.

"Oh no, no dear. That's not the reason. But let's go down to your Mother, yeah?"

Jongho nodded and followed Mrs Kang out the room, leaving Yeosang's still figure on his soft bed. He could admit, the male he hadn’t even properly met and who was laying there was stunning.