Boxed In

Jeon Wonwoo.

Where illusions are "the real world" and reality is but an illusion, there is no scope for dreamers; for desires and useless reverie. But one among thousands; a chosen few- The Degenerates, they dream. They dream and they question, they challenge and they discover, they tread the steepest mountains and wade the deepest oceans. Yet, they are shunned; treated as "less". For dreaming. They are cast away and neglected for thinking. For believing there exists something more real and more satisfactory outside of this vouchsafe mirage.
In a society where the dreamers are the realists and the "realists" mere lab rats, Jeon Wonwoo was nothing. He didn't believe neither did he dream. He didn't question neither did he understand. He didn't want to live neither did he want to die. He didn't want to love neither did he want to hate. Wonwoo was gray.
Jeon Wonwoo was only an "angsty teen" with nothing to believe in and nothing to hold on to. No one to give love to and no one to call his own. No place to call home and no place that he could belong. Wonwoo was gray.
Jeon Wonwoo was a rare case; he wasn't an experimental failure per se but neither was he a success. He was just one of the shortcomings of the system. Wonwoo wasn't a part of The Degenerates and neither was he a part of The Followers. Wonwoo was just Wonwoo. People didn't treat him badly because of how his mind worked- they barely knew him, they cussed at him and messed around with him because he was always alone. They knew he had to no one to go back to, to complain to, to have someone defend him. They knew quiet, skinny Wonwoo would take it. He would take it all without sparing them a glance or even uttering the slightest of words.
Wonwoo knew he was never gonna be accepted anywhere. He was too shady to belong to the Followers and too quiet and calm to belong to the Degenerates. Wonwoo was gray.
No one knew who his parents were or how he ended up here. All he knew was that he was dropped off as a little kid, barely a week old, at the Training Headquarters. A note did come in his basket, it read: He doesn't belong.
He doesn't belong. That's what Wonwoo's believed his entire life. He lived knowing that he was never truly going to be wanted or loved.
He knew he would never belong.
He always wondered what it would feel like to be loved, to be cherished; to be needed. If his own parents didn't want him, why would anyone else?
He attended training daily, sat alone at lunch, came back to the stark, almost blinding white of his room. Ah, the silence in the void of his room was almost deafening.
Wonwoo was scared. Wonwoo was scared of being loved. Despite how much he craved it, he was scared. He wasn't meant to belong. He wasn't meant to exist. And no one was reckless or stupid or crazy enough to fall in love with the mistake that was Jeon Wonwoo.
In a world of monochromatic hues, Jeon Wonwoo was a sober gray.