Kevin likes to smile.
Strexcorp likes employees who smile.
Everyone likes Kevin's smile; he has a "cool" smile, even Cecil said so!
Kevin needs to smile, so he convinces himself he likes to.
Kevin smiled at himself in the mirror, trying to see if he could make it feel less fake.
It didn't feel less fake.
Part of him wanted to go off his meds - that little syringe of sunny yellow liquid he needed to take three times a day. But then he remembers, so doesn't.
The drugs - no, medication; it's medication - make him feel manic and blurry most of the time, not at a happy medium like most people.
Kevin's smile didn't falter as his black eyes traced the dark bruising that underlined them, or his grey, gaunt cheeks.
He was the picture of happiness in the studio.
His chest ached and his throat was tight with the all too familiar sensation.
Take your medicine! Now! Now! Take it now!
He grabbed the sunny syringe from where it was lying innocently on the window sill. He tried to prepare it before it happened -
But it was too late.
Salty water stained his cheeks with red blotches and he saw a sight he's seen too often when he let his smile drop.
Then came the consequences.
The blades and needles in his head - implanted behind his eye - embedded themselves and a pained scream was torn from his throat.
Blood ran along the tear tracks on his cheeks.
He took his medication, injecting into one of the few good veins he had left among the track marks.
Strexcorp has cured him