What if...? || Markhyuck

-25-

[may 2020]

[minhyung]

Carl was a symbol of fall for me. A small man who has humiliated, God knows for what purpose, in the name of what ideal. I had no feelings for him. He seemed to me quite neutral.

I was looking at the man I once worked with. He was a former colleague with whom I once created seemingly nice situations that I can now call memories.

I stared at Carl knowing that his days or hours were already numbered. Why, then, did I feel nothing? In my heart I wanted to extract at least one smallest emotion associated with this man, but I couldn't. Each similar attempt bounced off the wall of indifference.

Carl sat in the interrogation room, which he knew very well. Rather, however, he couldn't predict that one day he would become the victim and his torturer someone quite different. Such funny twists can probably be called the irony of fate.

The man was chained to the table with handcuffs. There was no option for him to escape. Steven also tied his head with a thick rag, gagging his mouth so that he wouldn't bite his tongue. Suicide was also out of the question. Carl just simply waited for execution.

"So many months of searching," Marco suddenly sighed as he finished his intoxicating moment of his own triumph. Surprisingly, he automatically credited himself with all the merits of the last months, ignoring the dirty job operators. "And I finally have him," he whispered.

"What you do with him now?" I asked calmly.

"I don't know yet," he replied lightly with a smile. "I am too happy that the reason for my anguish is now at arm's length to decide on his miserable fate literally this second. I nodded slowly, letting him know that I fully understand his emotions. I didn't. However, only this answer was correct. Only that one appealed to Perez. No other mattered. "How do you feel, Mark?" he asked suddenly, breaking the long silence that fell between us.

"In connection with this matter?" I murmured, giving a conscious blank shot. I needed time.

"In connection with your life," he said calmly.

"I think I'm fine," I replied with a shrug. I didn't want to talk to him about my private life and existential dilemmas.

"I'm still waiting for you to explain to me what exactly happened in Edmonton."

"But I don't want to talk about it," I categorically denied. I was surprised that everything what I said, magically didn't reach his ear properly. All these years he should learn that mine no can't be undermined in any way. It's a relatively categorical statement if it's falling from my mouth.

"After all, you'll have to, if you want me not to actively involve you in plans of receiveing Zayn with open arms here in a month," he said spontaneously, including just as spontaneous all the details of this transaction in one sentence. For a moment I felt as if my heart had missed some important bumps necessary for its functioning. However, I remained apparently calm, quietly shaking inside. I didn't understand. Why?

"What do they want here?" I asked angrily, letting Perez understand that Suskind was an intruder here for me.

"It was an exchange by definition, Mark," he explained freely, waving his hands to illustrate this relationship vividly. "Works on the same principles as school one. We are half a year there, they are half a year here. "

School exchange.

It sounded just great.