Road to Utopia - NCT

23 - Always Read The Fine Print, Kids

(A/N - Starts with 3rd person POV and switches back to Jisung afterwards)

"What do you mean by 'failed experiments'?"

The leader took a sharp intake of breath and rummaged through one of his desk drawers for a thin file. He placed it onto the desk for Chenle to see. It didn't have much information and there were many rough sketches of arrows and messily written notes added to it.

"That's all I know. Mark knows more about it, but if you ask him, he won't say anything about it, I'm not sure why."

Chenle picked up the file and flicked through it. It mentioned how the government were always testing out new "nutrition pills', but the ingredients said otherwise. At first, it was the blue pill, which lead to paranoia and subjects usually found ways to off themselves. They switched ingredients and made the green pill, but patients either refused it due to the colour or had chronic bouts of sickness. Again, it was scrapped, and the orange pill was made. Not much information was on this, but it showed no side effects according to the government data.

"So how is this considered a failure? There are no side effects."

"It may look like that, but it actually had so many adverse effects that they decided to scrap the whole idea of it. This data shouldn't even exist."

"Like what? They can't be that bad-"

"Death," Taeyong stated. "It causes death."

Chenle gasped. "Why would Jisung put himself through that? And how does he even have access to them?"

The leader shook his head. "I'm not sure, but we'll have to do a room search and probably interrogate him."

"But why?" Chenle muttered to himself in disbelief.

"And you are aware that all of these drugs offer a sense of susceptibility to the government's indoctrination?"

The younger nodded. "He also can't remember taking them."

"I'm starting to think whatever he's taking is the actual reason as to why he's so forgetful." Taeyong scoffed. "And when you were in school, was he ever like this?"

"A little shy and awkward, maybe a little forgetful, but not to the extent of completely forgetting periods of time."

The leader scrunched his face in concentration. "Keep observing him quietly, we'll decide a course of action if this escalates."

The Dream member nodded again before standing up and making his way towards the door. "I'll update you on what I find."

"Oh, Chenle?" He glanced up. "Search his room on Monday, he'll be out for a few hours in the afternoon."

~~

"Just be careful, okay?" Mark warned before I left the van. We were currently outside the therapist's office and my stomach was doing somersaults whilst trying to comprehend that I was back here.

"Yeah, of course, what could go wrong?"

"Everything," Taeil answered. "I'm not exactly sure why we're here but be on guard and try to act naturally."

"Remember, if you hear one of us say 'watermelon', run and we'll be ready. If you need to leave, your word is 'keyring'."

I nodded and made my way into the reception area. The grumpy lady at the front was still working there after four months and just grunted at my arrival. I sat on one of the cold, wooden chairs, waiting for my name to be called by the demon lady.