district 9 || stray kids

3

Time skip, three weeks

The campus cafeteria is noisy, patrolling with nurses in white plastic garb. The doctor is absent, so the boys are a bit more rowdy. Over almost a month, Chan got to know the rest the boys and the dangers, got his own bobby pin, learnt to pick locks...

Right now, everyone's too hungry to care if the nurses are here. The boys only get two one-hour mealtimes a day.

"We're getting another boy," Jaebum says over a mouthful of rice. He stabs a piece of chicken breast with his chopsticks and chomps down on it. Jaebum can be considered a senior: he's been in this hell of a dungeon for three years and he's nineteen turning twenty.

"I was the last one, right?" Chan says. He eats a piece of Jaebum's chicken.

"Yes. It isn't normal to have one so fast, though. He must be a criminal," Hoseok adds, joining in the conversation. Minho scoots closer and bites into his apple before commenting, "He must've done something really bad to get sent here that quick. He could be a murderer!"

Jeongin wiggles his fingers. "Or a ghost," he jokes. He shovels rice into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks. Next to him, Hueningkai dips a piece of chicken into a saucer of sesame oil. Kunpimook sips his soup across Namjoon and Seungmin.

Chan has gone into the maze for the flower picking a few times now. The thorns were needles, shredding his hands to ribbons. Chan had wondered, during his first meal here, why everyone's hands were calloused and scarred. Now his hands match the crowd.

He has to go into the maze again today, with Yeonjun, Woojin, Felix, Minho, Jisung, Hyunjin, Hyungwon, Wonpil, Donghyuk, and another boy he doesn't know the name of who has deep black catlike eyes and tensed shoulders.

Full after a meal of rice and chicken, Chan sighs and pats his tummy. The food is the only consolation here.

Hyungwon whines when he hears his name being called for maze duty, but he doesn't dare make it audible or complain, because complaining would earn him a punishment.

Punishment won't kill you, but it'll hurt you bad. So bad that the last boy to go through it wouldn't speak for a year.

Boys with the souls of old men retreat into their rooms. They study characters and maths in there, in the full blue light with single textbooks and one pencil ready on their beds. The nurses would come in to take them away when it was time to sleep.

Jeongin gives his neighbours (Jimin, 045, and Dowoon, 046) a sympathetic smile before following the line of duty boys and a nurse to the maze.

...

The bus rolls through the barbed wire fences and gates, metal roof reflecting green light. The driver transfers from his seat to the back, opening it up with a key.

Two men in black rubber suits force a boy into the main office. He is fit, wears a green checked vest over a black-and-white shirt and black trousers, black trainers, black socks. Everyone that comes in has three expressions - scared, aggressive, and wary. The boy sits in front of the doctor with tensed shoulders, hands folded politely in his lap.

"What is your name?"

"Seo Changbin."

"No. Your name is 241."

Changbin is smart. He swallows his fear and panic even if every hair on his body is standing on end now.

"Yes, sir," he says respectfully.

"How old are you, 241?"

"I'm sixteen, sir."

The doctor is taken aback, but chooses not to show it. He clears his throat. "Do you know why you are here?"