Jooheon left. It wasn't sudden, and they all knew it was coming in one way or another, but there was a disparity between knowing that it might happen and having it actually occur. In order to complete the program, he needed to pass two consecutive evaluations, and after he started taking his prescribed medication, he managed to pass both, one and then the other two weeks later, and within a month, his bed was empty, his desk unused.
Everybody missed Jooheon but didn't want to say it for various reasons. Kihyun felt abandoned to a degree; he grew more bitter, more unstable, but to acknowledge Jooheon's absence was to acknowledge his own spiraling condition, so Kihyun said nothing on the matter. Changkyun's anxiety perked up because unlike many of the other patients, he had a family that he wanted to go home to, but that was impossible for him in his current state. Minhyuk's solution to Jooheon's absence was to simply ignore it, driving himself even harder to be the light in the darkness for them, exacerbating his own condition by exhausting himself by trying to emit too much energy. Wonho didn't know Jooheon well enough to miss him, necessarily, but he missed the camaraderie that the seven had built up. Six just felt...empty.
For Shownu, who had been in the program the longest, the mental institution had become a home of sorts to him, M-wing his family, not to mention that Jooheon had been his roommate. He internalized his own feelings on the matter.
As for Hyungwon...there was no one to greet him with a "Hey Skeleton," when he sat down at the breakfast table. Even if Jooheon hadn't liked him at first, he'd acknowledged Hyungwon's presence, and when they'd gradually become friends, Hyungwon had found himself caring for the turbulent boy who burned with the intensity of a dying star, the boy whose anger could light a thousand cities.
But he'd left, and Hyungwon had stayed, and that was that.
***
The classroom was charged with a negative, defeated energy. Everybody looked tired since they hadn't been sleeping well, and Hyungwon knew he was close to passing out.
The teacher was late, and maybe that's why it happened. Maybe that was the incident that made Minhyuk do what he did.
Without getting out of his seat, he propped his head on his hand, elbow planted on the desk. "I think I'm going home, too," he said. Nobody said anything. Maybe he took that as encouragement. "I have to get back and take care of my mom. You know how she is. She...she needs me."
Hyungwon, who had been resting his head on the desk, arms folded beneath him, turned his head to look the other way, away from Minhyuk, so Minhyuk wouldn't see the sadness and anger fighting each other in his eyes.
When Hyungwon had first arrived at the institution, he hadn't been accepted. But he'd earned it eventually, and he'd come to feel accepted here.
Only now, everyone else seemed to think that they didn't need him as much as he needed them.
They were all leaving him.
The teacher entered the classroom before anyone could say anything, and a month later, there was another empty desk in the classroom.
