Road to Utopia - NCT

4 - Oh Sheet

"So, any idea what you want to be?" Kun asked me and pointed at the list of roles at the back of the sheet.

Doctor, alchemist, flirt, hacker, shooter and/or sniper, driver, gun-supplier or drug-stopper. Those were the roles I could do and I had to pick two, three if I was feeling ambitious. Yet, none of these roles in particular appealed to me. Where was the role of couch potato and food-eater?

"One question: what do half of these roles mean? Like the sheet just says to pick some roles, but not what they mean."

Kun laughed at me. "I don't know whether to say 'well done' for noticing that, or if I should call you 'dumb' for not knowing what half of these mean!"

"I know what some of them are! But what the heck is a 'flirt', or an 'alchemist'?"

"Ah, a flirt is someone who goes undercover a lot, or they act as a distraction." Oh, I guess that makes sense now. "And an alchemist is just someone who makes potions, antidotes, poisons in some cases, which help on our missions."

"We're also great people too!" A soft voice called out, winking at me before joining us on the bar stools. "Hi, I'm Jungwoo, both an alchemist and a flirt. Lovely to meet you!"

I bowed my head slightly. "Nice to meet you." I mumbled.

"So, are you struggling to pick? Kun hasn't tried to read your character yet?" My character?

He sighed. "I was going to before you came here. But so far, he looks too much of a mess."

"What? What's going on?" Me, a mess? The audacity of this man! Is he a mind-reader or something? And did he try to assume my mental state?

"As an Intel, I'm good at information gathering. And one way I can do that is just by looking at a person for a few minutes and observing them. It also works for placing newbies onto the right role, and to this day I haven't placed any of our members in the wrong groups." Kun explained. He grabbed a glass of wine from the counter and drank it.

"What about Che-"

"I said a drug stopper and the kid chose shooter, what could I have done? If he wants to train in combat, he's free to because I don't dictate his choices." Ooh, did Jungwoo hit a bad spot?

"Anyway, for some reason, it's really hard to read you. It's like you haven't lived your - what are you, 18? - years fully. Like chunks of your life have disappeared. Do you have amnesia?"

I frowned. I'm missing parts of my memory? "As far as I'm aware, I don't have memory loss or been in an accident. And wow, I am 18! How did you know?"

Kun frowned with me. "I told you: I specialise in character-reading. And interesting...well, as a safe guess, I think a hacker, alchemist or even a sniper. What you do with this information, I don't want to know. Just go to Johnny soon and tell him what you want to be." Kun left quickly through another door, which seemed to lead to another set of stairs. There's another floor?

"I'll have to leave you too, err...."

"Jisung."

"Ah, Jisung! Yeah, I have a mission soon, so I just came to pick my gear up from the closet. Bye, Jisung, I hope you pick soon. Also, feel free to come down to the second floor's meeting room if you ever want to find me!" He hopped off the bar-stool, giving me a small wave before disappearing into another room. This place seems too mysterious, it's already weird enough that there's a whole floor under the restaurant, never mind two! I think I should explore it soon.

"Ah, newbie, right?" Another voice called from the door I came in from. I'm not sure I can handle more new people right now. "I'm Taeil, the head doctor. Johnny said you tripped down the stairs and I just want to check you're OK. Do you want to follow me into the infirmary? Or would you prefer to stay here and do it?"

"I'll follow." Heck, I totally forgot about that! It doesn't hurt anymore.

I entered the infirmary after Taeil and it looked exactly like a hospital. It fascinated me how different it was in here, especially since this place wasn't supposed to be an official floor.

"Don't mind Xiaojun here, he hangs around here too much."

"I'm hurt, Tae, you know you love me." This Xiaojun pouted cutely.

"Sure, now I have a patient, do you mind?" He grabbed a first aid kit and patted the bed next to him.

"Not at all." Xiaojun grinned.

I made my way to the bed and sat down. Taeil rolled my pant leg up and felt the area around my ankle. And not once did I feel pain.

"Are you sure you can't feel anything?" I nodded. There was no pain, but the swelling told a different story. And I haven't even said anything about the large bruises forming around it. "That's odd, maybe you're still running off adrenaline. I'll just wrap it and you should try and stay off it as much as you can. Don't forget to elevate it." He started to wrap some bandages on my foot tightly while lecturing me about how to keep it safe and not making it worse.

"Well, I'm done. If you need anything else, come and find me." He gestured for me to leave.

"Thanks." I moved off the bed and was about to leave before the Xiaojun guy stopped me.

"You look familiar; do I know you from somewhere?"

I frowned. Do I know him? "I don't think so? I mean, I work as a waiter upstairs, but I only started a few days ago."

"I don't know then." He held out his hand. "Xiaojun, shooter and sniper. You can usually see me in the training room downstairs with Hendery or Yuta."

I shook his hand back and gave a small smile. "Jisung, not sure what I want to be. Oh, aren't you the one who recruited Mark?"

Taeil gasped from behind us. "He told you that?" I nodded. "Wow, he must have really wanted you in the team, he usually doesn't tell people how he came here."

Was I special then?

"Wait, are you Park Jisung?" Xiaojun gasped in realisation. I nodded again, really confused as to where this was going. "You're Chenle's friend, right?"

"You know Chenle? He's part of all of this?" I was shocked. My best friend, he's part of all this?

"Didn't you read the sheet?" Of course, the sheet!

I rushed out of the room back to the bar, ignoring Taeil's screams to stop running. I grabbed the sheet and scanned it. Sure enough, Chenle's name was at the bottom: training to be a shooter and flirt.

Was he lying to me this entire time? He first came to my school three months ago and we instantly became friends. Was that him actually becoming my friend, or was it just him going undercover to scope out more members?

"Jisung?"

END

DUN DUN DUN

Isn't this just a mafia book right now?