"I'm so sorry," Yoosung kept repeating, hugging you close against him, unsure of what to do. You were shaking uncontrollably, your heart was thundering against your chest, your head was pounding, you felt like you couldn't breathe. The entire room was spinning and it just felt like anything that could possibly be going wrong was.
"I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do," you kept saying, the words flying out of your mouth. The feeling was fleeting, unnatural, unstable, unreal. It was completely and utterly terrifying. It was the most debilitating feeling in the world. You were having a panic attack. Again. You thought you were over this part of your life, that it was something you could pack up and mail away and never deal with ever again. But it always came back to haunt you… it was like a ghost that you could never shake away because it stalked you every single living moment… a shadow of who you are.
"I-I thought I was getting better," you stammer, gripping onto Yoosung's arms, trying not to throw up, trying not to faint, trying not to die.
"You are getting better!" Yoosung encouraged with a twinge of concern laced in his voice, still making sure to hold you close in case you fell. "You have been making so much progress, baby. This was just a tiny step back from all of the work that you have done."
You shook your head, in absolute denial. You lost faith in yourself the moment you started feeling panicky. It crept up on you, completely unexpected. But when it hit, you knew exactly what it was and there was no escaping the situation. This was something you were going to have to deal with for the rest of your life. It wasn't something that you could get surgery for or get a vaccine for. It was just something that plagued you… every single day in every single way in every single place.
"I'm so sorry," you tried to bite your lip and not cry in front of him. Yoosung hated seeing you cry, not because he was annoyed or disappointed with you. He would never feel that way towards you, because he understood how much you worked and how hard you fought against this. He saw you take the medication the doctor prescribed to you, go to school, go to work, try to live life no matter how hard it was. He encouraged you by writing little sticky notes of encouragement next to your breakfast, giving you kisses on the forehead when you were tired, and reminding you that once you had a panic attack, you could call him and would be right at your side in the matter of minutes. You both worked hard at this. But sometimes it just failed. Crumpled. Cracked into a million little pieces and shattered and split even more as it landed all over the floor.
"It's not working it's not working it's not working nothing's working," you breathe, beginning to hyperventilate.
"I think you should sit down," Yoosung urged, his expression now marked with clear apprehension. "I don't want you to pass out."
"O-okay," you obliged, nodding your head vigorously while trying to catch your breath. The blond lead you into your room, making sure you were able to find a place to sit at the edge of the bed.
You sat, your hands trying to find something to do by running themselves up and down, over your knees, up your thighs, and then back down again.
"I can't seem to calm down," you whispered to yourself. "Nothing was working nothing was working nothing was working."
"Just try your best!" Yoosung smiled, taking your hand and putting it in his lap. "I know you can do it."
"No, sometimes I can't," you say, jumping as he touched you and taking your hand back. "It's not that easy."
"How about we try the breathing exercises the counselor told you about that one time?" Yoosung suggested, his face lighting up at the thought. "You inhale for five seconds, hold your breath for one, and then exhale for another five seconds. Why don't we give that a shot?"
You rigorously shook your head. "No," you murmur nervously. "It doesn't work, it never works. Sometimes, no matter how much I try breathing, I can't calm down."
"Can you please try to do it?" Yoosung asked.
"No, I don't want to do it!" you snapped, growing increasingly frustrated. You stopped yourself before you said anything more. Yoosung looked hurt. You could've sworn his violet eyes began to water, but he quickly looked away before you could see.
There was a moment of silence between you two, but just a moment before he started talking again.
"What about guided imagery?" he said. "Those worked really well for you a few months back when you were having that one panic attack, remember? The really bad one where you started crying in the restaurant?"
You just shook your head. "No. I don't want to do any of it."
"Sweetie, if you want to calm down you have to try to work through this with me," Yoosung asserted. "I want to help you."
"Stop forcing me to do this with you!" you shouted, gripping the sheets, your hands tightening into fists. "I don't want to do any of it."
"I just want you to feel better…" Yoosung trailed off, breaking his gaze on you. "I don't want to see you like this. It hurts me as much as it hurts you."
"Why are you being so selfish?!" you screamed. "Do you think I want to be like this?" Your lip quivered. "Do you think I like being crazy?"
You both stopped speaking for a minute.
"I-I don't think you're crazy," Yoosung protested. "I think you are going through a rough patch, and that you need help."
"You think I'm crazy!" you started laughing. Your hands also began to shake. "I'm insane to you! I'm just this lunatic, maniac, weirdo who freaks out over nothing! I am just your little mental patient. Your community service project."
"Babe, stop saying these things," Yoosung tried to comfort you. "You are only making it worse. I don't think you are crazy, not in the slightest. I think what you are saying was crazy. But you? Crazy? Never."
"I'm not calming down I'm not calming down I'm not calming down," you kept saying, trying to stumble and sort through your racing thoughts. "Everything hurts, my heart feels like it's about to explode… I want to throw up."
"Then try to calm down with me," Yoosung said, rubbing his hand over your back. "Nothing was wrong with you physically. It's the anxiety that's causing you to feel these things. We've been over this."
"I'm sorry, okay?!" you lash back. "I don't know everything, I don't remember everything sometimes! I'm sorry I'm such a bother to you. You can leave." Yoosung could sense the sarcastic twinge in your tone.
"Stop, stop saying these things!" Yoosung cried, holding your hands down. "You know I would never leave you. I'm here for you no matter what."
"I can't deal with this, I don't know what to think I don't know how to breathe, just get out!" you yell, your breathing becoming all the more punctuated.
"Baby…" Yoosung said. "I'm not leaving you like this."
"Get out," you say, pointing to the door, breaking your hand free from his grasp. "You're not helping the situation, you're only hurting it."
"I'm sorry…" Yoosung apologized, still gripping onto your other hand with concern.
"I said GET OUT!" you shouted, your voice bouncing off the walls and echoing through the room, permeating the finality of your decision.
Yoosung stood up wordlessly and left the room, closing the door behind him and leaving you on your own.
You fell back onto your bed, sobbing quietly into your hands, waiting for the anxiety to just go away on its own. It didn't. It just kept building and pounding against your chest. With Yoosung gone, it was getting even worse. The room still kept spinning and spinning, and no matter how much you tried to readjust your position or lay down for a little bit, it still persisted. You couldn't take it anymore, you had to find the way out. You stood up, opening up drawers and cupboards and closets. The medication. Where did you last put it? Anxiety always seems to find a way to obstruct your memory and cloud your judgment. You should know where it is. But where was it? You opened the drawers to your dresser, looking underneath piles of shirts, shifting through your jewelry box, removing the comforter and the blanket off of the bed, and then flying into the bathroom. It shouldn't be in here, though. You remember you took it in your bedroom. You opened the cabinets inside the washroom, sifting through hairbrushes, cosmetics, soaps, jars, first-aid kits. Where was it. Where was it where was it where was it. Your head pounding became all the more severe as you raked through your memories, trying to see if you maybe left it somewhere but forgot.
Where was it, God damn it?! Why isn't it here?! Why was it that once you need the medication, it was absolutely nowhere to be found? Fuck. Fuck it all. You went back to your room, looking through your desk. It has to here. There's nowhere else it could possibly be. Rummaging, throwing, peeling over, folding, shuffling. It's not here. It can't not be here.
"Is something wrong?" you heard Yoosung's voice permeate through the door.
You curse under your breath, trying to find the medication unnoticed, despite your persistent frustration. "Where the fuck was it where the fuck was it where the fuck was it," you murmur, digging through some more drawers in the bedroom. You have to have found it by now… maybe your eyes just skimmed over it or maybe it was hidden underneath some papers or something. It can't not be here. It has to be in this room. You hear Yoosung fiddling with the doorknob, probably deciding whether or not he wanted to attempt to tame the tiger today.
"Baby…" you hear him say. "I am coming in, okay? It doesn't sound good at all."
"Please don't!" you cry back, still rummaging, sorting, pushing, reorganizing, opening. Where was that medication. "I'm fine, just please, just leave me alone."
"I'm not going to leave you alone!" Yoosung asserted. "If you can't do something on your own, I'll be right by your side, every step of the way to help you with this." He paused before he finished. "You don't have to do everything by yourself, you know?"
"You don't have to do everything for me!" you shout back. "I can find a bottle of pills on my own, it's so easy! I-it's so easy!"
"I'm coming in…" Yoosung said, opening the door, immediately locking your gaze as his eyes landed on your face. You were a mess. Hair strewn everywhere, teardrops budding and flowing over your eyes, hands shaking, heart pumping, breath quickening. Nothing was going your way, ever.
Before you could stop him, the lanky blond wasted no time in holding you in a warm embrace. It felt so good. It felt so good to have him hold you, and to have him comfort you. Even if Yoosung wasn't the best with saying really eloquent and meaningful things during stressful situations, he was always there for you, whenever you needed him,whenever you wanted him to do something for you, he was always beside you. It didn't matter if it inconvenienced him or took up his time. He wanted to do whatever he could to make you feel better.
You were silent as your hands slowly crept up onto the sides of his jacket sleeves, tugging them closer over your back while you ducked your head against his chest. You were always jealous of how normally, how slowly, how calmly he inhaled and exhaled while you barely even managed to catch your own breath. He had such an optimistic, romantic view of the world. Another quality of his that made you infinitely envious. You remembered that one time you both went on a date at that fancy cafe he promised he would take you to a while back. For some reason on the way home, the metro was late by a good half an hour. Naturally, you would have gone absolutely insane and demanded a reason as to why it didn't come on time. But Yoosung saw it as more time to spend with you. He would play some classical music from his phone, and coax you to dance with him, right there in the middle of the train station for everyone to see. That was one of the fondest memories you could recall sharing with him.
He interrupted your train of thought by placing his hand on top of your head and stroking your hair very gently and rhythmically. After a moment of silence, Yoosung raised a bottle of pills and dangled it in your face. "This what you're looking for?" he asked. "I think you left it in the kitchen yesterday when you took it after dinner. You just forgot to take it back to your room."
And there it was. It was always so easy for him to sort through problems of any kind. Big ones, small ones. Like that time when you lost your keys and started freaking out, but Yoosung fumbled around and found them just under the couch cushion. Or when it began raining that time you both went downtown to see a movie, but he packed a spare umbrella because he checked the weather beforehand. Always so composed, so fearless, so calm. You wished you were like that all the time. You wished that your anxiety was something that could leave you… something that could fly away and never come back. Like a thousand butterflies in a giant cage… all you had to do was fit a key into a lock, twist, and presto! All of your troubles, doubts, and worries would be cast off into the sky and never heard of or reminisced over ever again. If only anxiety was actually like that. If only it were that easy.
Yoosung's voice snapped you back to reality. "Sweetie?"
"U-um, I…," you stuttered before snatching the bottle out of your boyfriend's hands, greedily trying to pry the cap open. For some reason, the lid just wouldn't budge. Why wouldn't it fucking budge? The directions on the cap were so clear: Push down, twist left, pull up. It's. Not. Working. Why. Isn't. It. Working. Fuck.
"Baby, let me see that," Yoosung offered, extending his palm outward toward you.
"No, I got it," you countered, still laser focusing on opening the container.
"You're doing it wrong, here I got you…" he said, reaching over your head, trying to take the bottle away from you.
"Stop it!" you snapped, tugging it away from his grasp, desperately mashing the lid down and twisting as the label instructed you to.
"Babe, if you just give it to me I can open it for you," Yoosung encouraged, his voice comforting yet stern.
You were intransigent. "No, no I can do this on my own! Just let me do this for once."
"You aren't doing it right, though," Yoosung asserted. "I can help you open it faster."
"No…" you whisper under your breath, holding the bottle close to your chest, unable to shake the feeling.
"Baby, are you okay? Once I get this open for you you can take the medication and calm down. Just give me the bottle," Yoosung justified.
"No," you repeated, clenching the pill container between your ever tightening fists.
"Just hand it over, sweetie," Yoosung poked. "It's not that big of a deal."
"WILL YOU PLEASE STOP SAYING THAT?!" you lash out one more time, taking Yoosung aback, his eyes wider than distance.
"IT was A BIG DEAL!" you shriek in retaliation to his shock. "IT'S A BIG DEAL BECAUSE I WANT TO DO THINGS FOR MYSELF. ON MY OWN. That means you don't get to help me find things or open things or cook things or do anything because I'm sick of it. I WANT TO HELP MYSELF. I WANT TO HELP MYSELF BUT YOU'RE NOT LETTING ME. S-so stop asking me if I need this or want to do that or if this or that or that or this will make me feel better because it won't! Because I'm not like you, Yoosung… I-I don't just get problems and then think a little and then come up with a solution and then bam it's fixed, that's not how my life works. It's not fair how you take how easy your life was for granted all the time. It's just. Not. Fair."
Yoosung could tell that you were in a delicate state. "Me doing this for you isn't me solving your problems for you," he explained. "I just want to help you help yourself. So sweetheart if you would just let me help you open-" His hands wrapped around the bottle, catching you completely off guard.
"STOP IT!" you screamed, trying to pull the container away from him, the tension causing the entire bottle to fall onto the floor. Dozens of pills came flying through the top of the lid, splayed all over the carpet, onto the bed, spinning on their bottoms before coming to a final rest.
More silence flooded through the bedroom, creating all the more friction between you and Yoosung.
"Get out."
"I-I didn't mean that, I'm really sorry I don't know what to say."
"Just get out."
He did, making sure to close the door behind him. You sunk to the ground, lip quivering, picking up the pills one by one and gingerly returning them back to their container. You dumped two capsules, no, make that three, into the palm of your hand and eagerly swallowed them with a mouthful of water. It usually takes a few minutes for the medicine to settle in, so you rummage through your closet to find something to sleep in. The medication usually knocked you out for several hours at a time. Quickly slipping on one of Yoosung's baggy LOLOL guild t-shirts, you dove underneath the safety and the privacy of the covers and comforters that spread over your mattress and fell into a deep slumber. Your thundering heart gradually slowed to a normal rhythm, your headache also left as soon as it came, your legs started trembling, and your body returned to its normal temperature. The warmth of sleep overtook you, for just a few moments, you forgot about what occurred in the room just minutes before.
You awoke in darkness - the early morning light that poured into the room what seemed like only momentarily before was now the whimsical reflection of the moon. You slept for the entire day, and deservedly so, you chuckle to yourself. It took a while for you to remember what exactly happened earlier today - the fight. Screaming, crying, finding, opening, spilling. Yoosung's face. All of the little details eventually came back, as they did. You buried your face into your hands, running your fingers through your tousled bed hair. You finally mustered the courage to crack open the bedroom door and show yourself into the kitchen. And there he was, keeled over the kitchen stove, probably stewing some disastrous concoction. The chopping board was a chaotic arrangement of poorly diced celery, carrots, and potatoes.
"Oh, (Y/N)!" Yoosung exclaims, turning around. "I didn't know that you would be up already. You seemed fast asleep just earlier before… I'm just making some dinner for you because I didn't want you to get hungry."
"Th-thank you," you stammer, while blushing furiously. You pull out a chair from under the dining table and plop yourself down.
Yoosung continues working on the meal he was preparing for you, leaving little room or casual conversation.
You wanted to apologize. You probably should. It was your fault that the entire thing started, after all. You should have just let him help you and then it would have been over with. I mean, that's his job. He was your boyfriend… he was supposed to do these things when you were struggling.
"U-um, Yoosung.." you start, trying not to make eye contact with him as you drop your head shamefully toward the table. "I-I just wanted to say…"
"Hm?" he inquired, turning around after adding one last finishing touch to the soup he was brewing.
"UmI'mjustkindofsorryaboutearliertoday,Iguess," you fail to articulate.
Yoosung tilted his head to the side, and when he finally understood what you were saying he tilted his head back and laughed, almost unquenchably.
"You don't have to apologize!" he dismissed, setting a bowl of mediocre-looking chicken soup in front of you. "This is what I'm here for. This is what I'm supposed to do."
"A-are you sure?" you question hesitantly, dipping your spoon into the bowl.
"Of course!" he nodded. "And… I was thinking after you finished dinner, maybe we can play some LOLOL together?"
You shook your head immediately in disapproval. "You know that I don't play games."
"Maybe you can at least watch?" he pleaded, pouting and setting his head against the table.
You contemplated before finally capitulating. His adorable expression left you no choice, after all.
"Ugh, okay fine," you obliged, rolling your eyes, managing to take a few sips of the chicken soup. It actually wasn't half bad, a step up from the marinara pasta he vouched to cook for you a few weeks back.
The evening drolled on as evenings did, although it did admittedly mostly comprise of you failing to finish the chicken soup that Yoosung cooked for you and him insisting that he wash the dishes and not you. He then dragged you into his way-too-messy room that you have clearly instructed him to clean multiple times per week if the two of you were to be able to co-exist as a couple. He would only sometimes deliver on that agreement, to your dismay. You sat on his lap, crossed your arms, and rolled your eyes into the sky, ranting about how LOLOL damaged way more brain cells than it should, only to have Yoosung give you a kiss on the cheek and guarantee that he will kill every single scrub in sight in order to impress you. It wouldn't, really. But that was okay.
Then you cuddled. You forgot whether or not it was on his or your bed. All you remember is that it was very comfortable, and very safe. You felt protected from every single scary thing in the world when you were locked up in his arms.
"I'm sorry about trying to help you too much today, baby," Yoosung said, hugging you close against his chest and resting his chin on top of your head.
"I'm sorry for not letting you help me," you reply, giggling as he gave you another kiss on your neck.
"I promise you that the next time you have a panic attack, I'll let you make all the decisions," Yoosung nodded with dignity. "Just tell me exactly what to do, and I'll do it. If you want me to leave the room, or close the door, jump off a building… anything."
"Stop…" you laugh, leaning back into him. "I really don't know about the last part, either."
"But I want to!" Yoosung persisted, cuddling you further by pulling you even closer against him. "I want to do everything I can for you, but if you want to have your own space so that you can figure everything out I will make sure to respect that for you."
"Th-thank you…" you stammer. You didn't think that he would be so understanding after just one incident. It made you feel so so lucky to have someone by your side when you were at your most vulnerable state. You two weren't a perfect pair, far from it. You fought, you disagreed, you overstepped boundaries, you never knew what would be best for each other at any moment in time simply because you love one another way too much. Yoosung sometimes just didn't know how to deal with your panic attacks, and sometimes you just didn't want his help. You broke up, ignored each other, and made up all over again. It was a never-ending cycle that you weren't sure about whether or not you were enjoying it, but it didn't matter. It never did. All you knew at this current moment was that Yoosung made you feel like the most blessed girl on this entire planet. And you couldn't ask for anything more than that.
The night dragged on, pulled and twisted and came back together. You two ended up making out for a feverishly long period of time afterwards and then falling back asleep tangled in each other's dysfunctional yet loving embraces… all in a day's work.
