swxtched. | jhs

FIVE, the five stages of grief.

SOMETIMES, SHE CAN really feel it. Her dry bones straining under the weight of the life she wants to live but cannot because of her amputated arm. 

Musician, athlete, artist— it depresses her to think about things like nurse, surgeon— at some point in her childhood, she even wanted to be an idol. The weight of it all is real.

Especially now, when she's somehow managed to get literally stuck in a different life.

It's everything. The feeling of her hairy armpits. Her saliva and mucus and sweat and other fluids. Her masculine scent. She can't help the hypersensitivity. Every protruding vein and lump in her throat and every itch on her skin. Every sneeze and cough. Every time her hands start sweating the second she freaks out. Every time her eyes look down at a person she'd normally look up to. Every nail and every tooth. Every unfamiliar ache and crack and even her every breath— everything is not hers.

This is going against every fibre of her being; her soul's rejecting this alien body like an uncooperative prisoner.

"Hey, Hoseok-ssi?" Hoseok says beside her. They're still laying down on the floor of his uncle's underground dance studio, staring at the ceiling, pretending to be casual friends. At least, that's how Green sees it.

Green sighs shakily at the name. Does she have to get used to that? Can she deny this for even a moment longer?

"Hey," Hoseok says again.

Eventually, she's going to have to give this body a shower. And she'll have to eat. And then eventually take a dump. She hates pooping anywhere besides her house. How can she—

"Hey."

Green balls her hands into fists. "What?"

"Do you have a curfew?"

"Not really."

Hoseok furrows his brows. "You know, I don't know what 'not really' means—"

"It means," Green scorns, "my parents always assume I'm somewhere just studying, because that's what I've been doing since I got my arm amputated. They work 'til late and fly to Japan a lot anyways, so they're barely home. So it doesn't even matter."

Hoseok doesn't say anything at first. Green's thankful he's not asking any further.

Even though deep down she knows he might have to one day.

"Do you think I can write with the robot hand?"

Green's head rolls to the side before she knows it, and gives him a dry look. Hoseok stares back, appalled at her judgment.

"What? I just thought about it. I'm not left-handed."

"You're me, remember? You can probably write with my left hand."

"Well, I've never juggled in my life, and suddenly my body managed to do that with your mind."

He saw that? "Well, I can't speed walk for more than five minutes without burning out, but I can in your body."

"But if my mind is in your body, would handedness count?"

"Why don't you get a piece of paper and find out?"

Hoseok sulks for a second, unsettled by Green's condescending tone. Maybe he really is dumb. She's starting to convince him. 

He shakes the negativity off a second later and abruptly stands up, grabs his bag, and shuffles through his things to grab his green notebook and pencil. He holds them up proudly while looming over her. Then he sits cross-legged beside her, not caring about his skirt (he's wearing a pair of shorts underneath. Thank God, Green thinks), and flips his notebook to a blank page.