Chapter Text
I walked into the eerie setting and followed the long winding halls, towards my brothers post. This is the first time I've been to my brothers workplace, and the place certainly did exceed my expectations. The people here were just as creepy as the building itself.
“Can I help you sir,” a lady from around the corner, in dark blue stops me.
I show her my guest tag, but her expressionless face doesn't tear away from my gaze so much to acknowledge the tag.
Still staring at me, she steps out of my way slowly.
I turn away also weirded out by this whole encounter and continue to go on my way.
I don't know what brought my brother to work in a place such as this. There were so many normal places my brother could have chosen to work at. Like at a jail or something. Not here.
I note the bland, grey walls and the white, pristine floors I was walking on carefully.
For some reason, it felt like the floor was going to cave in any second, taking me with it. If felt like I was walking on glass, very thin glass.
I wonder if that's just me.
I spot black, hospital like doors coming up in front of me. I hurry my steps a bit, to ease the nerves I didn't even know I had until now.
Next to the doors, as I got closer, I glanced at the plate above that read ‘Critical Section 7.’
Again I curse my brother for choosing a job like this. He could have at least warned me earlier that he was in a room that had…
“Who are you?” A deep voice resonates through the halls and vibrates in my ears.
Great another creepy person, I think. Where the hell did he even come from? I noticed he just popped up in front of me but I don't remember those black doors opening up in front of me.
“I'm--”
“Your Tae Oh’s little brother, right?”
I blink.
“Good, I was looking for you,” the man continued. “Your brother wanted me to escort you.”
“Why, I can find him just fine by myself. He's in that room isn't he, behind those doors?”
The guy doesn't answer, instead he turns and takes the lead, towards the black doors.
I follow, a little swole that I'm sort of being treated like a child, but I brush that feeling off along with my pettiness and follow behind him.
He opens the doors and steps aside for me to enter. I'm greeted by another long hallway, except wider and to my left were cells. Or what looked to be cells.
Instead of bars though, there was these thick, transparent-like walls that loomed into the cell rooms.
Walking further, I could see the people or should I say patients lying inside the cells.
It was very depressing and pitiful. You'd almost think this was a jail. But these locked up people had on plain black clothing, contrasting the light grey cell walls around them.
At least they were not jumpsuits, I thought and continued walking.
I realized as I kept going down, that the age group for these patients were around my age.
My gaze automatically went to a male, wearing all black. He was facing away from me and crouched down in a fetal position. His light brown was unkempt, and he looked young, or maybe not, as it was hard to tell in the dim lighting of this room.
He was scratching something into the concrete floor and if I we're to guess, I'd say he was smiling. It look like he was enjoying himself by the vigorous way he was scratching and chuckling to himself.
When the boy turned to look at us, the dude who escorted me here barked at him.
“Yah! Taehyung-shi, are you trying to dig to China or something?”
The boy glared at the man, avoiding my gaze.
“To Korea.” The boy answered.
I was surprised he could hear us through the thick glass screen separating us.
“You're real funny kid, don't waste your time. Get back to your bunk.”
The boy didn't listen and went back to scratching.
We kept walking.
All the other patients we passed were either staring off into the distance, sitting on the floor or laying on their bunks.
There was only so much they could do, because each cell just contained a bunk, a attached table to the bunk and a desk and chair.
Approaching the end of the hallway, my escortie stopped me before reaching the next black doors that stood before us.
“Stay here, don't touch nothing or say anything, there's camera’s so I'll know if you do. I'll go call officer Oh out for you.”
Annoyed I agreed.
Whatever.
He leaves me and passes through the doors hurriedly, almost as if trying to ensure that I don't see what's beyond them.
I sigh and turn to face the cells again. My curiosity pushes my feet over to the last cell, near the doors that guy went into.
Different this time, my eyes became glued to another male.
He was on his bunk and looked as if he was sleeping.
His dark brown hair seemed to cover his eye a bit and he curled up into himself almost as if he was cold.
Seeing him made me feel cold inside despite the warm coat I was wearing right now.
He looked like he was shivering.
I spot his grey blanket on the floor by his feet and I'm hit with this sudden urge to pick them up for him and cover him.
A deep chill courses through my veins at the thought.
I almost miss the small movement his hand makes when suddenly his eyes opened and his chocolate dark eyes peered into mine, almost as if he knew I was looking. At the same time the doors behind me bursts open.
Tae Oh strides out, out of uniform and ready to go.
“Jiminie,” sorry for keeping you waiting, what do you want to eat?”
Unwillingly, I tear my gaze away from the boy to address my brother.
“Hyung, do you expect me to feed you, after you kept me waiting for so long?”
I walk up to him and he takes the chance to, swing his muscular arm over my shoulders.
I swat him away in response.
“Ay you little brat, do your hyung a favor. I'm thinking bulgogi, sound okay?”
Course he's still thinking about food.
I sigh.
“Deal, let's go.”
Tae Oh grins.
He starts to take the lead but then suddenly I stop him.
“This room, what is it?” I whisper, afraid the patients in the rooms will hear.
“They can't hear you.” Tae Oh clarifies trying to assure my worries.
“But,” I start.
Tae Oh answers, “These glass walls are one way. We can see them, and they can too but they can't hear us.”
I look at him and silently accuse him of lying.
The boy who was down scratching the floor, clearly answered when the escortie dude asked him if he was digging to China or something.
Tae Oh continued.
“Some, may I say have mastered the art of lip reading over the months or years they've been here. Would that explanation detain that skeptical look you're giving me now?”
“Not really” I say.
“Look here,” Tae Oh points to the floor scratching kid three cells down.
The boy was now laying on the floor with his eyes wide open, showing his big eyes. He was staring at the ceiling.
“That one especially.” Tae Oh confirms. “He's been here a year and learns pretty quickly. We have to be careful with that one. He's smart.”
I roll my eyes.
“Okay,” I say begrudgingly.
“Also him.”
Tae points behind me at the shivering boy. My eyes automatically land upon the boy's gaze again.
He's still staring at me, this time sitting up, on his bunk.
“That kid has been here longer than most. He knows we're talking about him now.”
Distracted I watch the boy, and I don't realize when I ask, “What's his name?”
Tae shakes his head, but I just see this in the corner of my eye.
The boy behind the glass stare me at me deeply, almost as if speaking the answer with his eyes.
I catch his mouth start to move for a second in hope that words come out but he closes it just as quickly when Tae Oh nudges me to get my attention.
“Jiminie are you even listening to me?”
I rip my gaze off of the boy fast, startled.
“Uh, of course I… Wasn't. I'm hungry, let's go eat.” I say changing the subject.
Tae Oh, not noticing anything off, grins and places his arm around me again. As he leads us out, I take one last look at the shivering boy before disappearing out the black doors of which I came from.