Alone | NCT

Chapter 33

Jaemin let out a deep sigh as he opened his locker. It was the start of another week of school, a week full of tests and assignments.

Jaemin shouldn't be worried, he had been studying and working hard in his room. He had also been working hard during his training hours, the leaders often complimenting him for his focus during their lessons.

Yet, something bothered Jaemin as he stared at the pictures inside his locker, polaroids that he had taken with Rena. There was something unsettling about them as he stared, and that's when he realized what the feeling was. Guilt.

Jaemin suddenly felt two hands covering his eyes. "Guess who." Jaemin plastered a smile on his face, turning around to see his girlfriend.

"Hey, you didn't even guess!" Rena whined. Her pout quickly disappeared as Jaemin tightly wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace.

"I'm sorry." Jaemin mumbled into the crook of her neck.

"Huh? I couldn't hear that, what did you say?" Rena asked him. Jaemin lifted his head, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"I said I'm tired." Jaemin lied. Rena softly rubbed his back.

"I am too, don't worry."

...

"There are seven different interrogation techniques that we use. Suggestibility, deception, verbal and non-verbal cues, pride-and-ego, good cop/bad cop, mind-altering drugs, and lastly, a favourite, torture." Sejung told the group of sophomores sitting on the mat in front of her.

Today Sejung was doing her lesson on interrogation techniques. Haechan noticed Ten standing in the corner, watching Sejung's every move with a tablet in his hand.

Haechan thought Sejung's lesson topic was an interesting one, one that was probably more important than one would expect. He could definitely see himself using the skills he would learn today in the future.

"First, let's talk about suggestibility. A person's suggestibility is how willing they are to accept and act on suggestions by others. Methods include sleep deprevation, white noise, and possibly drugs. Sometimes, these can be considered torture and can inhibit the ability to provide truthful information." Sejung explained.

"Deception is basically lying, misleading, or implying something that is not necessarily true. Verbal and non-verbal cues is watching how the behaviour changes after several interrogations, noting what cues may be shown when lying or telling the truth. Pride-and-ego is complimenting or insulting to make the person provide information. Good cop/bad cop involves two interrogators, acting in a way that the person may think that the 'good cop' is on their side so they provide them with the information." Sejung continued.

"Mind-altering drugs and torture are both pretty self-explanatory, but both have been proven to be ineffective in the past, so we tend to shy away from them." Sejung told them. Haechan noticed Renjun raise his hand. "Yes, Renjun?"

"Isn't torture used quite often though?" Renjun asked.

"Yes, that's right, but never on it's own. We typically use it with another technique." Sejung informed them. Sejung looked around before clapping her hands together.

"Now that we're familiarized with the tecniques, let's try them." Sejung said.

The sophomores took turns interrogating each other, each focused on different techniques. Sejung would whisper the technique they were supposed to use so the person being interrogated wouldn't know Haechan was assigned pride-and-ego and he had no problem insulting Renjun for the fun of it.