New
When the Circuit Breaks
The index card in Mingi’s jacket pocket had grown soft and frayed at the edges from how many times he had smoothed his thumb over it.
It was covered in Seonghwa’s neat, sloping penmanship, with tiny hand-drawn stars beside the most important notes: * *11:45 AM: Meet outside Euler Hall, Room 204. Do not knock. Wait until the class empties.* * *Lunch: Dining Hall B (the quiet one by the botanical garden). Cutlet or plain white rice with dried seaweed. No red sauces touching anything.* * *2:15 PM: Campus Library, fourth floor, corner study carrel by the non-fiction stacks.* * *Headphones must stay charged. (Spare cable in outer pocket of his yellow backpack).* * *Do not touch his shoulders from behind. If he freezes, give him space and wait.*
Mingi exhaled a long, shaky breath that fogged briefly in the crisp late-October air.
Today was the test. Both Seonghwa and Hongjoong were completely tied up until evening—Seonghwa locked in a six-hour mandatory draping practical where professors forbade phones, and Hongjoong tucked away in an off-campus acoustic laboratory for an advanced mixing seminar. Yunho had a broadcast exam across town.
That left Mingi. Just Mingi.
He stood against the brick wall of Euler Hall, shifting his weight from one scuffed boot to the other. His stomach felt like a knot of tangled fishing line. He had always been the kind of person who second-guessed every syllable out of his own mouth, who apologized when someone else stepped on his foot. The idea of being responsible for another human being—especially someone as fragilely balanced in the world as Jung Wooyoung—made Mingi’s heart hammer against his ribs.
At exactly 11:45, the heavy wooden doors of Euler Hall swung open.
A handful of upper-level math students filed out, rubbing their eyes and complaining about matrix calculus. Mingi stayed flat against the brick, keeping his posture loose, just like Seonghwa had advised.
Then came the flash of bright yellow.
Wooyoung emerged last. His oversized hoodie swallowed his hands, the large black ear-cups of his noise-canceling headphones firmly suctioned over his ears. He wasn't looking forward; his gaze was fixed on the ground three paces ahead of his sneakers, his steps rhythmic and precise, avoiding every crack in the pavement.
Mingi didn't move toward him. Instead, he stepped into Wooyoung’s peripheral vision and simply matched his direction of travel.
"Hey, Wooyoung-ah," Mingi said softly. His deep voice barely carried over the autumn breeze, calm and unhurried.
Wooyoung didn't look up, but his fingers gave a small, fluttering ripple against the hem of his hoodie. He adjusted his trajectory by a single foot, falling into step beside Mingi.
A quiet, immense wave of relief washed over Mingi’s chest. *Step one complete.*
The walk toward Dining Hall B was peaceful. Wooyoung took comfort in predictable geometry, walking along the edge of the stone walkways with meticulous care, his silicone fidget cube clicking rhythmically between his fingers. Mingi didn't force a single word of conversation. He simply kept his tall frame positioned between Wooyoung and the occasional passing bicyclist, acting as a quiet, physical buffer against the world.
Lunch went surprisingly well. They secured a booth in the far back corner near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the greenhouse. Wooyoung ate his pork cutlet with mechanical precision, cutting each piece into identical squares before taking a bite, his eyes occasionally drifting out toward the ferns swaying behind the glass.
Mingi ate his own noodles in companionable silence, periodically checking his phone to make sure no urgent texts had arrived from Seonghwa.
Nothing had. It was 1:45 PM. They were ahead of schedule.
"We have thirty minutes before the library," Mingi told him, keeping his tone gentle and low. "Do you want to take the path through the arts pavilion, or go the long way around the pond?"
Wooyoung tapped the table twice with his index finger—their established shorthand for the arts pavilion route.
"Arts pavilion it is," Mingi smiled.
That was where everything went wrong.
The arts quad was usually the quietest sector of campus on Tuesday afternoons. But as they turned the corner past the ceramic studios, Mingi’s heart dropped into his stomach.
The main cobblestone thoroughfare was barricaded behind bright orange construction fencing. A crew of campus maintenance workers was digging up a broken water main right in front of the sculpture court. A massive industrial generator was thrumming with a teeth-rattling shudder, and an excavator was slamming its steel bucket into the pavement with a bone-jarring, metallic *CLANG*.
Worse, the detour routed all student pedestrian traffic through a narrow, covered glass breezeway that amplified every sound into an echoing chamber of chatter, dragging footsteps, and scraping skateboards.
Mingi reacted instantly. He moved to turn them around. "Wooyoung, wait—let’s take the other—"
It was already too late.
The generator let out a deafening backfire, a sharp, violent crack like a gunshot that echoed off the glass panels of the breezeway.
Wooyoung stopped dead in his tracks.
His entire body went rigid. The silicone cube slipped from his limp fingers, bouncing uselessly across the pavement. Even through the heavy padding of his noise-canceling headphones, the sheer vibration of the backfire had ripped through him.
Mingi saw the exact moment the circuits overloaded.
Wooyoung’s eyes went wide, glossy with immediate, blinding terror. He let out a choked, ragged sound—a high, keening noise from the back of his throat that Mingi had never heard before. He clamped both hands over his headphones, pressing them so violently into the sides of his head that his knuckles turned stark white.
"Wooyoung-ah," Mingi breathed, his own panic flaring red-hot in his chest. "Hey, it’s okay. Let’s turn around. Look at me—let's go back."
Another screech tore through the air as the excavator scraped concrete.
Wooyoung crumbled.
His knees simply gave out, sending him crashing down onto the cold flagstones. He curled in on himself instantly, pulling his knees up to his chest, tucking his forehead into his shins, and rocking violently back and forth. The keening sound escalated into frantic, gasping sobs. He began hitting the side of his own head with the heels of his hands, striking at the headphones as if trying to beat the noise out of existence.
Nearby students slowed down, heads turning, murmurs starting.
*“What’s wrong with him?”* *“Is he having a seizure?”* *“Should we call campus police?”*
The eyes. The staring. The rising wall of sound.
Mingi felt a spike of suffocating vertigo. His lungs constricted. His worst nightmare was unfolding in real time: he was alone, Wooyoung was suffering, and Mingi didn't know how to fix it. He reached into his pocket for his phone, his hands shaking so violently he nearly dropped it. He could call Seonghwa. He could call Hongjoong.
*No.*
Hongjoong was across the city. Seonghwa’s phone was off. If Mingi didn't handle this right now, Wooyoung was going to injure himself on the concrete.
*Think,* Mingi ordered himself, biting down on his lower lip until he tasted copper. *What did Seonghwa say? When the world gets too big, you make it small.*
Mingi shoved his phone back into his pocket. He didn't hesitate.
He dropped down to his knees right in front of Wooyoung, heedless of the rough stone biting into his jeans. He didn't touch Wooyoung—Seonghwa had warned him that light, unpredictable touch during a meltdown felt like burning electricity—but he positioned his massive, broad-shouldered frame directly between Wooyoung and the bustling crowd, cutting off the visual stimulation and blocking the stares of the onlookers.
"Back up," Mingi snapped at a group of gawking freshmen, his voice dropping into a sharp, commanding baritone that startled even himself. "Give him space. Move along."
The students scattered, intimidated by Mingi's sheer height and the fierce intensity in his eyes.
Mingi turned back to the trembling bundle of yellow fabric. Wooyoung was hyperventilating, his forehead pressed against his knees, sobs wracking his small frame in violent, shuddering waves. His hands were still slamming against his ears.
Mingi shed his heavy, oversized denim jacket in one fluid motion.
Instead of wrapping it around Wooyoung, which might feel trapping, Mingi held it up like a dark canopy, draping it tent-like over Wooyoung’s head and shoulders. It immediately blocked out the glaring sunlight, the visual motion of the campus, and created a private, shadowed cave on the pavement.
Mingi sat cross-legged on the stone, keeping the jacket held high enough so Wooyoung wouldn't feel smothered, but low enough to create a distinct, safe boundary.
"I’m right here, Wooyoung," Mingi said.
He didn't speak loudly. He pitched his voice low, at the lowest end of his register, a steady, resonant rumble that carried more physical vibration than pitch. He remembered Hongjoong saying that Wooyoung responded to low frequencies because high pitches felt like needles to his ears.
"You’re okay," Mingi murmured, repeating the words like a steady, unchanging mantra. "The noise was loud. The noise was too big. I know. It hurts. You’re on the ground. The ground is solid. It’s not going anywhere."
Wooyoung let out another ragged sob, his breath coming in fast, shallow hitches. But the self-hitting slowed. Under the heavy denim of Mingi's jacket, the darkness seemed to provide a tiny sliver of relief.
"Breathe with me if you can," Mingi rumbled softly, exaggerating the deep, rhythmic rise and fall of his own chest. "In... and out. You don't have to look. You don't have to move. We can sit here until midnight. I’m not going anywhere."
The industrial excavator gave another shuddering clatter in the distance, but Mingi leaned forward, using his own back as an acoustic shield, humming a flat, steady drone right against the fabric of the denim tent.
Minutes stretched out. Five minutes. Ten minutes.
Mingi’s knees ached terribly from the hard stone, and the cold autumn wind bit right through his thin t-shirt, raising goosebumps on his arms. But he didn't twitch. He kept the jacket firmly anchored, his voice a low, constant hum, a lighthouse beam cutting through the fog of sensory agony.
Slowly, the violent rocking began to subside.
The frantic hitches in Wooyoung’s breathing lengthened into wet, exhausted sniffs. His hands slipped down from his headphones, tangling weakly into the hem of his oversized yellow sleeves.
He didn't come out of the ball. But the acute terror had drained out of him, replaced by the profound, heavy exhaustion that always followed a neurological crash.
Mingi picked up the silicone cube from the ground, wiped the dust off it against his jeans, and slowly slid it under the edge of the denim jacket, resting it gently near Wooyoung’s sneaker.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then, a trembling hand in a yellow sleeve reached out. Wooyoung’s blunt fingers found the familiar rubber ridges, pulling the cube close against his chest. He clicked one of the buttons.
*Click.*
It was the most beautiful sound Mingi had ever heard.
"Good job," Mingi whispered, his throat tight with sudden, overwhelming emotion. "You did so good, Wooyoung-ah."
They stayed like that for another fifteen minutes, until the construction crew shut down the generator for their afternoon break. The sudden silence that settled over the quad felt like a blessing.
Mingi slowly, carefully eased the denim jacket back, letting the soft, indirect afternoon light filter in gradually so it wouldn't blind him.
Wooyoung’s face was blotchy and pale, his dark eyes rimmed with red, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. He looked utterly drained, hollowed out by the surge of adrenaline. True to form, he didn't look Mingi in the eye.
Instead, he lifted his head just an inch. His gaze drifted down to Mingi’s bare arms, which were covered in chill bumps from the wind.
Wooyoung reached out with both hands, took the denim jacket Mingi was still holding, and clumsily pushed it back toward Mingi’s chest.
He gave it two firm, distinct pushes.
*Put it on.*
A soft, breathy laugh broke out of Mingi’s mouth, part exhaustion, part sheer relief. "Okay. I'll put it on."
Mingi slid his arms into the denim sleeves, the familiar weight settling over him. He stood up slowly, his knees cracking loudly, and offered his arm—not his hand, but his elbow, bent at a clear ninety-degree angle, just the way Seonghwa guided Hongjoong.
Wooyoung didn't take the elbow. Instead, he stood up on trembling legs, swayed slightly, and reached down to grip the edge of Mingi’s jacket pocket. His fist curled tightly into the denim, anchoring himself completely to Mingi’s side.
"Library is too much today, right?" Mingi asked gently.
Wooyoung didn't move his head, but his grip on the pocket tightened.
"Dorm room," Mingi decided. "Bed. Heavy blankets. No lights."
They walked back to the freshman residence hall in total silence. It took twice as long as usual because Wooyoung’s legs were still shaking from the aftershocks of the meltdown, but Mingi matched his shuffling pace step for step, never rushing, never pulling away.
When they finally reached Wooyoung’s dorm, Mingi helped him inside. He drew the heavy blackout curtains across the window until the room was plunged into soothing, velvety darkness. He watched as Wooyoung kicked off his shoes, climbed directly into the center of his mattress, and pulled his thick weighted blanket all the way up to his chin, his silicone cube safely clutched in his palm.
Mingi stood by the door, his heart finally returning to its normal rhythm.
"I’m going to sit out in the hallway until Seonghwa gets back, okay?" Mingi murmured into the dim room. "You’re safe. Get some sleep."
He turned to slip out into the corridor, quietly pulling the heavy door shut behind him.
He slid down the hallway wall until he was sitting flat on the carpet, pulling his knees up, letting the exhaustion finally catch up to him. He buried his face in his hands, trembling with the delayed shock of what had just happened.
Twenty minutes later, the elevator doors at the end of the hall chimed.
Quick, light footsteps echoed down the linoleum. Seonghwa came rushing around the corner, his long trench coat billowing behind him, his dark hair disheveled as if he had run all the way from the arts building. Beside him, Yunho was guiding Hongjoong, whose white cane swept the floor with urgent, rapid clicks.
"Mingi!" Yunho called in a hushed, anxious voice.
Seonghwa dropped to his knees in front of Mingi the second he reached him, his hands instantly flying into motion, spelling out frantic, silent questions before he caught himself and forced his voice to work.
"Mingi-ya," Seonghwa breathed, his voice thick with accent and heavy with worry. "The studio professor let us out late. I saw the campus alert about the water main explosion near the arts quad. Are you—is Wooyoung—?"
Hongjoong reached out blindly, his hand finding Mingi’s knee, his blind eyes wide with concern behind his thick glasses. "Did he have an overload? Where is he?"
Mingi slowly lifted his head from his hands. He looked at Seonghwa’s terrified, beautiful face, then down at Hongjoong’s pale, anxious expression.
"He had a meltdown," Mingi admitted, his deep voice rough. "The backfire... it was too loud. He went down on the stone."
Seonghwa’s breath caught in his throat, his hands flying to his mouth in horror. "Did he hit himself? Did anyone touch him? Is he hurt?"
"He's okay," Mingi said quickly, reaching out to gently touch Seonghwa’s wrist, grounding the older boy just as Seonghwa had done for Hongjoong days before. "He hit his headphones for a second, but I got the jacket over him. I blocked the people. I stayed with him until the sound stopped."
Seonghwa froze. He read Mingi’s lips with absolute precision, processing the words.
"You... covered him?" Seonghwa vocalized softly, his fingers dropping from his mouth to trace the air. "You didn't try to pull him up?"
"No," Mingi shook his head. "I remembered the note. I made the world small."
Hongjoong let out a long, ragged exhale, slumping back against the wall with his hand pressed over his heart. "Oh, thank God. Thank God."
Seonghwa didn't speak. He stared at Mingi, his sharp, delicate features softening into an expression of such profound, tender relief that Mingi felt his cheeks warm.
Slowly, Seonghwa brought his right hand up to his chin, fingers flat, and extended it straight toward Mingi’s chest, pressing his palm flat against the center of Mingi’s denim jacket.
*Thank you.*
"He is asleep?" Seonghwa whispered.
"Weighted blanket. Lights off," Mingi nodded.
Seonghwa stood up slowly, carefully turning the brass handle of Wooyoung’s dorm door. He cracked it open by a mere inch, peering into the dark room.
For a moment, all was quiet.
Then, Seonghwa looked back at Mingi over his shoulder. In the dim hallway light, Seonghwa’s smile was breathtakingly bright, radiant with warmth. He held up his hand, making a small, gentle gesture—a thumb tucked between two fingers, then released outward.
*Safe.*
"He left his shoes by the door neatly," Seonghwa signed with a soft, breathy chuckle, his voice melodic and full of emotion. "He only does that when he feels entirely safe. You did good, Mingi-ya. You took care of our boy."
Yunho dropped down beside Mingi, slinging a heavy, warm arm around his best friend's shoulders and pulling him into a tight side-hug. "Told you that you were good with people," Yunho bumped his temple affectionately against Mingi’s.
"Shut up," Mingi grumbled, but he didn't pull away.
Across the hallway, Hongjoong carefully folded his white cane, sliding down to sit on the carpet beside Mingi’s feet, his shoulder gently bumping Mingi’s shin. "You’re staying for dinner," Hongjoong declared with absolute, stubborn authority. "Seonghwa is cooking beef stew. And you don't get to say no."
Mingi looked at the three of them—the boy who couldn't hear, the boy who couldn't see, and his best friend who always listened—and heard the quiet, steady breathing of the boy sleeping safely behind the dark door.
The knot in Mingi’s stomach had completely unraveled.
"Okay," Mingi said, leaning his head back against the wall and finally letting himself smile. "Beef stew sounds good."