Strawberry Milk - Jeonglix

34

Jeongin felt numb. He walked all the way home in a state of uncertainty as to what was real and what wasn't. By the time he reached his house, he decided none of it was, but it wasn't so bad. If nothing was real, he didn't have to deal with what he discovered. It was one of the only times Jeongin embraced his detachment.

When he walked into his house, he took his shoes off by the door and heard the sound of laughter coming from the living room, but it was too muffled to comprehend. When he walked into the room, he could see his foster parents sitting on the sofa with some of the other foster kids. He snuck past them like he was invisible, alienated from the rest of his family, only adding to his detachment.

"Hey, you're back early," Seungmin said when Jeongin pushed open the door and made his way over to his bed. Jeongin didn't reply. He seemed out of it and when Seungmin's eyes instinctively landed on Jeongin's hands, he saw the toy soldier being squeezed between his fingers. "Is everything ok?" He asked, turning around in the desk chair to face Jeongin who looked blank.

"I'm ok," Jeongin replied, his voice monotone as his hands stopped fiddling with the soldier. He lay it down on his open palm instead. His eyes were fixed to it, as if he was concentrating hard.

"Are you sure?" Seungmin asked, getting up from the chair and sitting next to him on the bottom bunk, "you look a bit out of it, Innie."

Jeongin looked up to meet Seungmin's eyes. "Everythings distorted except my soldier," he admitted, "you don't feel real."

"Of course I'm real, Innie," Seungmin said, placing a hand on top of Jeongin's but Jeongin soon recoiled. His hand clasped around his toy soldier again and he closed his eyes, squeezing them so tight Seungmin thought it must have hurt. "Ok," Seungmin nodded, trying to come up with an effective strategy for dealing with Jeongin in his current state. "What caused this?"

A thought of Felix flashed across Jeongin's mind, the thought of his tears falling from his eyes as Jeongin turned around and left. It didn't matter, the memory barely felt real anymore. "Felix," he whispered and Seungmin's face dropped. He hoped Felix hadn't done what he thought he had. He almost didn't want to ask the question out of fear, but he had to.

"Did he tell you something?"

Jeongin nodded, eyes reopening to look at the soldier he was clutching in his hand. After another glance, he closed his palm around it and squeezed tight. The feelings were starting to scare him again. Seungmin beside him scared him and the thought of Felix not being real scared him even more. His free hand fumbled around for Sparkles and he clutched the unicorn's horn in his hand, but it's usually soft fur brought Jeongin no comfort. It felt rough. Everything felt worse than if it was real. He barely heard Seungmin beside him, asking him questions he couldn't give answers to. He was frozen, the only part of him moving was his hands that opened and closed around his toy solider that almost seemed to disappear as time went on. All Jeongin was left with was a feeling of dread.

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A week passed and in that time, Jeongin hadn't shown up at the park once. Felix went there every day, sitting on the bench from early morning to late evening and unless his friends were with him, he wasted his time alone. Even when they were with him, Felix was distant. He couldn't fathom all of the guilt he felt and he was nervous about what could happen to Jeongin.

"What's up, Lix?" Chan asked when he sat next to Felix on the bench and ruffled his hair. It was a Sunday and Chan was with Felix but Hyunjin and Minho weren't. Minho and Chan were never at the park together anymore. "You look deep in thought."

"I haven't seen Jeongin in a week," Felix admitted, looking up from the ground he was staring at, "we, um...well, he found the articles I printed off and he was mad at me because I lied to him. I feel- I feel really bad and I'm scared he's not going to forgive me."