Satisfaction [NCT]

38.

———

He arrived home from school like usual. His mom went back to the office to finish up her work. His therapist was sitting on the couch like usual. "Hi Jaehyun." She greeted. He greeted her back and sat down on a different seat. "How was the school day?"

"It went fine." He shrugged.

"What was the most difficult class today?"

"I don't know, maybe Korean as usual but history seemed pretty hard today too, I think that was due to all the reading we had to do." Jaehyun answered honestly.

"How is the language learning coming along?"

"It's been pretty good recently. It's still so difficult to read in Korean but luckily the teacher doesn't call on me to read paragraphs like she does for other students. I think my speaking has gotten better though." He smiled. "I know I have definitely become more confident in what I say."

"That's fantastic! Why do you think that is?"

"I know it's because of Taeyong. He is really patient with me and has been really easy to talk to."

"I'm glad you've found him. I have noticed an improvement in your Korean too. You seem to be improving a lot, is there something that you wish was improving but isn't?"

Jaehyun shook his head. "No, well I don't know, nothing comes to mind."

"How has your eating habits been?"

"Normal, I eat 3ish meals a day plus snacks."

"How about sleeping?"

"Oh -uh..." he thought about what to say. "Sleeping could be better."

"How so?"

"I get a lot of nightmares or I wake up in the middle of the night thinking I see one of them. Sometimes I just can't fall asleep at all." The therapist kept asking questions, finally getting some useful answers out of Jaehyun.

After the session, she took out the notebook she keeps on how he is everyday. Most days had full paragraphs written, talking about the level of anger he showed as well as the level of sadness he showed. Most days took at least 10 minutes to complete, but today's took only a minute.

October 18
He is finally opening up to me.

———

JM: How was the swim meet?

M: it went well, I'm moving onto the next one
M: what's up?

Jaemin didn't text Mark personally too often. He had a feeling there was a purpose behind his texts.

JM: nothing much, I have been home all day, kind of want to do something

M: you want to do something with me?

JM: only if Hyuck isn't there. I love him but I need a friend who won't judge me for what I say

M: are you okay?

JM: oh yeah, definitely, I just have so many things I want to talk about but I don't know who to talk about them with

M: well, you're lucky
M: I somehow made haechannie mad at me today, he wanted a night to himself, do you want to come over? I should be home in 10-ish minutes.

JM: you sure your parents are okay with it?

M: of course

Jaemin had his mom drive him over to Mark's house, getting there 20 minutes later. He greeted Mark's parents and went with Mark to his room.