"Oh yeah, by the way! I just wanted to thank you for that day. The project work-"

"It's nothing."
Jungwon cut her in.

"No, it's really nice of you to-"

"Just stop it with those words."
Jungwon glared at her.

"Why-"
Hwayoung then got cut off when she realised that he was getting mad.

His anger attacks are getting a little more often these days... But, how am I supposed to even help him if he was not going to tell me even the slightest bit on what happened to him? It has already been almost a month and I do not even have a clue to guess what happened to him.

"Where are you going?"
She asked when she noticed him getting up from his seat.

"Toilet."
He replied and walked away.

She then let out a sigh of relief when he was gone from her sight.

She could not stop thinking about what he told her yesterday...

-

"Uhmm, who's that on the painting?" Hwayoung gulped in fear.

"Just a random girl." Jungwon replied quickly.

Being a professional therapist, with just one glance, Hwayoung could directly tell that Jungwon was lying but, she was not going to say anything about it.

-

"Actually come to the think of it, she actually kinda looks like me..."
Hwayoung recalled the young lady on the painting.

"I have to look at it once more." Hwayoung thought to herself.

And, she determinedly pulled the curtain to the side and stared at the painting once more since Jungwon was not here yet.

Hwayoung noticed a small signature at the corner of the painting.

"Y.JW"
She read out softly.

"Yang Jungwon? Wow, he's talented..."
She complimented and continued to admire the other parts of the painting.

The colour contrast, outlining, shapings-

Basically, everything looked so perfect.

"Who is this, really?"
Hwayoung muttered as she pouted her lips.

"It's you." Jungwon's voice could be heard from behind.

"J-JUNGWON, OH- HI THERE!" Hwayoung acted as if nothing had happened as she quickly pulled back the window curtain and covered the painting.

"It's you..."

"It's you..."

"It's you..."

That was only when Hwayoung processed what Jungwon just said into her mind.

"It's me?"
Hwayoung said in amusement although she already guessed earlier that the 'young lady' might be her.

She was just shocked that he would actually paint a painting of her.

"But, why though..."
Hwayoung asked.

Jungwon remained silent as he pulled back the curtain open which revealed the painting again.

"Because I don't want to feel alone." Jungwon then finally replied.

"You don't want to feel alone?"
Hwayoung crossed her eyebrows slightly in confusion.

"You should have known that I did a background check on you before I allowed my mother to let you be my therapist. Before you, there were so many therapists' recommendations from my mother but, I chose you in the end."
Jungwon said.

"I wanted someone who I can actually relate to. I do not want to hear those useless therapy talks where the therapists asks sensitive questions and the patient needs to try their best to respond."

"Those are just plain stupid."

"I'm sure you have experienced anxiety before. One of the most common symptoms but, least often talked about was worrying about how others think about you. All of us wants to be well-liked by everyone. However, for anxiety patients, it's even more complicated."

"We aren't sure of how to respond to others since we are only looking for absolute correct answers. But, we feel the need to answer them if not, we would think that they will think that was are stupid, embarrassing and all."

"After we have answered them, we will then start to over think about what we should have told them instead. I don't think I need to further explain this, you are a therapist and you've even experienced it before."
Jungwon explained.

"Social anxiety disorder..."
Hwayoung muttered out those three words.

"The intense, persistent fear of being watched and judged by others."
She added.

"When I was younger, if I was not the top scorer in every subject in school, once I come back home, my father would hit me."
Jungwon finally confessed.

"What..."
Hwayoung let out softly when she noticed the shocking similarity between him and her past.

"My mother did not know anything because she was working overseas for years and she finally came back this year."

"She caught my father trying to stab me and fortunately, she managed to stop him on time."

"The problem then went to the court and my parents got divorced this year. As you can tell, my mother got the child's custody."

"My mother brought me to all sorts of doctors. And, most of them diagnosed me with PTSD and social anxiety."

"How I got social anxiety is that I tend to overthink about how others think of me. Did they think of me just like how my father does? Even sometimes, the words that come out from their mouths were the same as my father's."

"Did Jungwon do well for the test?"
He quoted an example.

Hwayoung could see Jungwon trying his very best to hold in his tears while he explained.

"There's this room in my house where it's called 'metal room'. I get hit over there when my father gets mad at me." Jungwon walked out of his room while Hwayoung followed him from behind.

The room was just next to his-

As soon as he opened the room, everything that Hwayoung could see was just metals.

Even the walls were made of metal.

"No wonder it's called the 'metal room'..."
She thought when she noticed the frightening number of swords, whips, canes, knives, golf clubs and many more in the room.

Hwayoung nearly let out a scream when she saw huge stains of blood on the wall at the end of the room.

On the other hand, Jungwon just stared endlessly at them.

"Was he that traumatised until that he does not even react to them anymore?" Hwayoung looked at him and thought.

"Jungwon, Let's head back."

Just like what she said, Jungwon walked back to his room with her.