Silent Boy [Woochan - Eng]

Chapter 8/1

He couldn't move, his entire body feeling numb and heavy, his mind was foggy and fuzzy. He tried to breathe, but something inside his mouth didn't allow him to and his hands wouldn't respond no matter how hard he tried to make them move. When he tried to move his leg, a terribly strong pain pierced his body. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't find his voice and the panic started to fill his body.

He tried to open his eyes, but they put up resistance, wanting to stay closed. He didn't want that, he wanted them to open and he managed to force them it the end. But a white light coming from above him left him blind for a few seconds, until his eyes could focus and his brain could finally process something: it was a lamp.

He attempted to move his head, to look around, but it was fixed in its place with something he couldn't identify. His heartbeat started to rise again, this time faster, and he could hear a sound like pee go faster as the fear filled his veins. His eyes wandered around the place quickly, trying to capture as much of the room as he could from his position.

White sheets, white walls, a lamp above him, an electrocardiogram with a green line going up and down at an insanely fast speed... his eyes went back at that last thing. Was somebody hurt? And why was their heart beating so fast? Was it that bad? Would that person be okay? He started to think, worrying over somebody being wounded or dying.

Then it hit him.

It wasn't somebody. It wasn't just a random person who'd had an accident. It wasn't somebody else. It was him. The electrocardiogram was marking his heartbeat while he was having a panic attack. The reality hit him so hard that he tried to scream again, in vain. Several twitches starting to roam his body, making his heartbeat go faster than what it was already.

In between all that, he didn't hear the door being slammed open, or the bunch of people dressing in white rushing into the room. He didn't hear them yell around him. He could not feel anything but the chaos inside of his own body. The dread of being caught up in a cage of his own. But then the sudden sensation of peace and relaxation spread in him, his eyes closed again, and the fear and panic abandoned his being.

He woke up.

His hands were shaking and sweat was covering his body. His hair stuck to his forehead and neck. His breath was agitated and almost painful in his chest. Trying to calm down, he sat at the edge of the bed, his feet resting on the cold floor that made him feel somewhat better. He got up a few minutes after, sighing and going towards his bathroom. Thinking about why, after such a long time, that nightmare had come back to haunt him on his sleep.

🐻🐻🐻

The weather was really cold, proving that it was indeed January and that Winter was still far from being over. And that was probably one of the reasons why he should've accepted to come in a car to school, but he really wanted to walk that day. It was the first day of school after the winter break and he felt happy about coming back. Because it was his last year and now it was only a few weeks from being over. And he was anticipating his graduation a lot.

That's how, on January 18, Kim Woojin was walking at 8:30 am toward his school, with a big black coat on since it was like -8 degrees. But it was okay, he enjoyed the cold. He never considered himself a winter lover, but he liked the season. And he had the luck of living in a country where it would snow, which made winter more interesting. However, what made him really happy wasn't the soon ending of his high school student life, but the fact that he would get to see Chan again.

During winter break, although they all kept in contact, they didn't really have the time to meet up a lot. Since most of them had to travel to different cities for the festive days, to family meetings and things like that. In Chan and Felix's case, they went to back to Sydney for almost two weeks, and Woojin was excited about seeing him again. Because, even if they weren't dating or anything, Woojin really enjoyed Chan's company. And at this point, he was sure his crush wasn't even a crush anymore, he had fallen in love with the cute and funny curly haired boy.

He was close to the school already when he saw Jisung and Minho walking a few meters ahead of him. They were holding hands and perkily talking about something that Woojin was too far away to hear. It made him smile, those two had started dating the day of Minho's birthday, although nobody was sure about who asked who or how the confessions went. He continued observing them from the distance, giggling when Minho suddenly stole a kiss from Jisung, and the younger boy blushed. Jisung hit Minho's arm embarrassedly, and Minho started to laugh at his reaction. Woojin looked away when Minho stopped walking and held Jisung's face with both hands. When Woojin looked at them again, they were walking close together, Jisung hugging Minho by the waist and resting his head on his shoulder.

When Jisung and Minho were about to enter the school's building, Woojin rushed his pace. Making sure he would reach them at the lockers.

"Woojin hyung!" Jisung called him as soon as he entered. Jisung already had the school' shoes on and was only waiting for Minho to put his on. He went to hug him.

"Oh, hi," Minho greeted from the floor where he was getting his shoes off.

"Hey," Woojin answered, Jisung still hugging him, "How was the break?" He answered, walking toward his own locker, with Jisung still hanging on him.

"Pretty great," Minho answered him, from the floor again but now putting on the school' shoes. "It was really nice to go back to Gimpo after all these months."

"Yeah, being at my granny's house in Incheon was fun too," Jisung said, "My family says we are really similar and that I got my personality from her, I guess that's why we get along so well."

"I can barely deal with one Jisung, imagine with two," Minho said, shaking his head.

Woojin smiled, "Eternal Party." He finished changing his shoes and they all walked inside the building, talking about those moments during the break that they hadn't already told each other in the group chat.

Woojin found especially cute that Minho and Jisung managed to go on a date during New Year's day. They were showing him the photos that had been a mess (hence they didn't send them to the group chat, now named The dad, the mom, and the seven dorks). Woojin couldn't stop laughing at one photo in which their camera was about to fall and you could see a succession of photos with Minho's face going from a smile to running trying to capture the camera and his face was just funny as hell.

He found cute how even if Minho and Jisung were walking normally because of the anti-PDA rules of the school, the way they were slightly inclined towards each other.

Woojin entered his classroom, the one that would be his last classroom as a high school student. And also the one he wouldn't have to visit after a few weeks. He was excited, ready to try and use the little knowledge of KSL that he had acquired in the past few months by studying hard and improving thanks to Chan's help.

But when he entered the classroom, Chan wasn't on his seat like he would always be. He tried not to think about the fact that Chan never, not even one day, got to the classroom after him. Telling himself that he was probably just late. Because that happens to everybody, right? But when ten minutes after that his teacher got into the classroom and Chan was still not there, he started to worry.

"Maybe he's just really late," Woojin said to himself, trying to convince his worried mind.

But by the end of the second period, he had lost hopes of Chan coming to school that day.