airplane mode; kv ✓

thirty.

The digital clock on a wooden desk read 3:33 PM. A distant sound of cars and rain added onto the warm and comforting ambience of the room.

"He's still not letting you work?"

"No, not even if I beg or show how I'm so happy," Taehyung slouched down and stared down at his hands, "He thinks I'm like super mentally ill or something,"

"He's worried for you," The psychiatrist smiled at the boy, "Have you told him about the schizophrenia?"

"No." Taehyung answered hastily, "I'll tell him when I start the medication. What did all those tests reveal?"

"Ah," The woman stood up and picked up a bunch of scan results and test results, "Well firstly, your mother had schizophrenia, correct?"

"Yeah, so what? Is it genetic? Did she give it to me?"

"There's no specific gene for schizophrenia, it just raises your chance of having it by 13%," She informed the boy and sat down again, "We did some tests and scans, we found that you have really high levels of dopamine in your mesolimbic pathway," she pointed at an area on a brain scan.

Taehyung stared at it blankly, "The fuck is that?"

"It's a part of your brain that's responsible for all kinds of things such as feeling reward and pleasure," She explained, "When you were young, you took drugs right? Like cannabis?"

"Yeah I did smoke weed a few times but I quit, so what?"

"Well, when you take drugs that increase your dopamine levels it can impact this area. It's what can explain your positive symptoms," She placed the scan down, "They act as if they're dopamine and then bind with your receptors, which therefore basically increases the amount of dopamine received- since you already had the predisposition of having schizophrenia, this triggered it."

"What? Some weed from like 4 years ago?" Taehyung scoffed and leaned against the couch again.

"Not just that. But the environment you grew up in. You had conflict in your family, then you ran away and had to live on the streets for a year- you did all kinds of stuff on there which obviously impacted your mental health. All these factors were a trigger for your schizophrenia, it lead to the development of schizophrenia."

"So I wouldn't have had this shit if I stayed at home or something?"

"If you stayed in a safe and healthy environment. There are so many studies and cases of people who have a certain mental disorder ready to be triggered, but it never happens because they grew up in a good environment. There's even a person who had the brain similar to a murderer and a family history of violent crimes, but he never murdered or committed a crime because he wasn't in such an environment."

Taehyung slowly nodded. Frustration began to build up inside of him knowing that if he had just been lucky enough to be in the right home he could've had a perfectly healthy life. Tears stung his face and he cleared his throat that felt tight.

"What else? What's with the freezing randomly and not moving for hours?"

"That's catatonia, also explained by the neurotransmitter imbalances," The woman placed away her papers and picked up a paper, "I know you aren't interested in support groups, but being newly diagnosed-"

"I don't want support, just give me the drugs and get rid of it," Taehyung let his bottom lip quiver, "How the hell am I supposed to talk to people like this? Or tell anyone? Do you know how strange I'd seem to them? And how quickly I could lose my job?"

"I know, unfortunately I can't change other people's mindset of you. I can only help you, and I assure you that you are capable of working fine," She reassuringly smiled at the unconvinced boy, "But please tell someone, someone you spend a lot of time with."