What if...? || Markhyuck

-x-

[2 years earlier]

[minhyung]

We sat in a circle, looking at each other, as if we understood our deep thoughts without words. However, the truth was different, because everyone here had their own world in which they hermetically closed themselves. They could look at you but their eyes were actually penetrating you or running to the side. We were a community of crazy people but as individuals in this seeming community, we didn't have any common points.

"Luke, can you please take off your mask?" asked the therapist. "We would like to see your face when you talk to us.

"Of course," he answered with a deadly smile, placing a piece of cardboard on the top of his head.

"We can start with you or do you prefer to listen to your colleagues first?"

"I have nothing to hide," he replied carelessly, bumbling with his foot on the knee of the other leg. He felt very at ease in a situation in which we were all maneuvered.

It was supposedly the same every week. All patients assigned to one doctor were invited to a larger room to avoid being overwhelmed and confessed their sins. Luke told me that week after week everything is supposedly going as before. Each person usually told the story of their lives again but sometimes there were exceptions when people created a completely different picture of their own past. Each time the therapist wrote something in her notebook and said that we would see each other in a week.

For the first month I went through a period of initial quarantine, which was included in the regulations of this institution. As a result, I didn't attend similar group meetings and I had no idea what they were actually about. However, Luke was a veteran here. After two years at the center, he thoroughly worked out every detail of local life. He didn't tell me, of course, all the information he had. Dose everything in healthy proportions to increase my curiosity or save me from loss.

"Why are you here, Luke?" asked the woman.

"Because I killed my parents and sister," he replied calmly, without ceasing to smile slightly.

"Do you feel guilty about that?" she continued but silence answered her. Brunet for a long moment looked around the ceiling, constantly holding his hands in pants pockets. Suddenly, however, he clucked his tongue, tilting head as if he hadn't come to any fascinating conclusion.

"My mother always taught me not to regret anything in my life," he laughed to himself. "Then answer this question for yourself, my lady."

"Thank you for your input," she murmured almost immediately with disappointment, putting a line in her notebook. "Suzy?" she suggested.

"Yes?" asked the girl, looking at her interlocutor with big eyes.

"Do you have something to tell us today?" Suzy nodded slowly, covering her eyes with fingers. "Don't hesitate, we'll all hear you out."

I didn't listen to her.

I looked at Luke curiously and he was looking back at me all this time. He never wanted to tell me why he was here. He claimed that there would be a day when I would come to it anyway and by that time he wanted to keep me in suspense. We have determined that the therapy day will be the breakthrough moment when we both learn more about each other. We treated it as fun.

Now I knew and he was waiting.

What I heard was disturbing to me in its own way. I lived in one room with the killer. What kind of man had such scruples not to do the same with me? Still, I found peace inside. Surprisingly, Luke's past didn't bother me at all. In fact, what I heard made the boy's character more unusual and interesting.