"Choi! We gotta talk!"
Mr Choi jumped from his chair as Jin burst into his office. "Seokjin? What—"
"Why didn't you tell me I'm in a loony bin?!"
"Now, that's not a nice term to call this place."
"Answer me!"
"Um… Mr Choi?" A baby-faced boy muttered, as he got up from the couch and put his ginormous glasses back on.
"It's alright, Mingyu," Choi replied, his bright gaze focused on Jin. "Seokjin will leave thisminute, right?"
Jin snorted. "The hell I will! Get out, Mingyu!"
With a sigh, Mr Choi nodded at Mingyu and waited for the boy to leave his office, before addressing Jin in a stern voice, "Seokjin! I didn't want to say it in front of Mingyu but you can't just burst into my office while I'm having a hypnosis session! You're lucky we were just about to start—"
"Stop changing the topic!" Jin pressed through his teeth. "I asked you a question!"
"And you think I owe you an answer?"
Choi's amused chuckle made Jin ball his fists. "Stop playing games with me! You're the boss of this place! Of course you owe me an answer! And I guess it was also you who separated me and Hobi upon arrival! Because I'm a troublemaker with behavioral issues, and my brother is not!"
"Seokjin! Please calm down! The only reason you're here is because you suffer from memory loss. I didn't tell you that you were admitted to the psychiatric ward because it would have been too much for you. Besides…" The sparkle in Choi's eyes darkened for a split second. "What makes you think I was the one to… separate you?"
"So you're saying there was no way my amnesia could be cured in the other part of the building?" Jin walked over to the window and pressed his hands onto the window still. The sunlight burned his eyes and kindled his rage even further. "Lemme guess! I'm not allowed to see Hobi because you think I'm gonna attack him like a rabid beast! Because I'm a lunatic, and lunatics are dangerous, right?!"
As Jin turned to face Mr Choi again, his arm accidentally bumped against a lamp and it fell off the desk. The sound of the bulb breaking made Jin lose all control. He grabbed the pen holder, the tape dispenser and the filing basket and threw them across the room, into Choi's direction.
"Seokjin! Stop right this instant!" It was astonishing how Mr Choi was able to pronounce each syllable with urgency while his arms covered his face.
"What are you going to do to me now? Throw me into a padded cell like this Jimin-kid?" Jin laughed and moved to the bookshelf. "Go ahead! That's what you do with lunatics, right?!"
"Put this down!" Choi yelled, as Jin got hold of a photograph in an oversized wooden frame. "I'm warning you, if you break this, I'll—"
With a cynic smile, Jin threw the picture frame to the ground, using all his strength.
Choi looked like he was about to jump at Jin's throat, but instead he took his phone to make a call. "Mr Kim? Your assistance is required here… Right. We have… an issue..."
"No issue! Just a random lunatic!" Jin shouted and started pulling the books from the shelf, dropping them one by one. "Bye, C.G. Jung! Bye, Dr Wayne Dyer! Bye, Nathaniel Branden!"
Not even ten seconds later the door to the office was kicked open. Jin rolled his eyes when he recognized the security guard who approached him.
'Oh, it's YOU. I knew you were trouble from the beginning,' was written all over Namjoon's face. Although Jin did his best to evade the security guard, Namjoon tackled him in the blink of an eye. Keeping Jin in a neck lock, Namjoon dragged him toward the door.
"Let go of me, bast—!"
"What do you want me to do with him?" Namjoon cut Jin off and turned to Mr Choi, which sent a gnawing pain through his jaw.
Mr Choi took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and sighed. Nobody in the room could tell whether it was a sigh of relief or of disappointment. "Just take him away from here." After he put his glasses back on he addressed Jin. "For now, I'll let you go with a warning. But if you happen to throw another tantrum I have no other choice than to take appropriate measures."
'Appropriate measures?' These words gave Jin goosebumps. 'What the hell does that mean?'
"Understood?" Choi pressed him for an answer.
Still locked in Namjoon's tight grip, Jin had no other choice but nod reluctantly.
"I hate guys like you!" Namjoon hissed as he dragged Jin through the hallway. "Instead of taking responsibility for your life, you lash your low self-esteem onto others! Did ransacking Choi's office do any good to you and your situation—or to anyone else?"
"Let go of me!" Jin yelled, hoping a certain someone from the nurse's office would hear his cry.
"Why? So you can run away and avoid the truth? I wish I was in a position to teach you a lesson—"
"Joonie!" A strict, high-pitched voice rang across the hallway, followed by energetic footsteps. "Let go of Jin! And why are you even speaking to him?!"
With a forceful push and an audible sneer, Namjoon released Jin from his grip and faced Nurse Suzie, mimicking her crossed-armed stance. "I wouldn't have to lower myself to this kind of talk if there wasn't a good reason!"
Nurse Suzie sighed and shook her head. "I've heard your rampage just now, and—yes! To some degree you're right! But treating others with disrespect doesn't make things better! Besides, Jin is a nice kid deep down! Just like you!" Namjoon avoided her gaze, but the nurse stepped to his side and picked up eye contact again. "I'll take care of Jin from here. You go and do… supervising stuff... or whatever task you are paid for."
Taking a deep breath, Nurse Suzie faced Jin. He expected her to flash him a smile, but her face remained sullen. "Do you… want to talk about what happened?"
"Not with him around!" Rubbing his neck, Jin nodded in Namjoon's direction. The security guard did not give an inch and observed Jin with eagle eyes.
"Joonie, would you mind leaving us alone for a moment or two?"
"Fine!" Namjoon marched off. "I hope you know what you're doing!
As Jin took a seat on the couch and looked around, he could understand why Nurse Suzie called this place her secret hideout. The room was more than half as small as Mr Choi's office, but it was at least thrice as comfortable. The center attraction was a huge, messy shelf stuffed with art supplies and bags containing tiny colorful beads, that resembled candy rather than actual crafting goods.
"Have you fallen in love with this room, too?" Nurse Suzie had returned with two mugs of tea.
"Yeah. I feel like this is a real room, not a facade of perfection to cloak others into a fake sense of security."
"It's Mrs Choi's therapy room. During my break I come here often to slurp some tea. The door is always open, so if you want to retreat, go ahead."
"I'd love to, but if that Namjoon-guy catches me in here, I'll be in trouble. Tsk! Such a bootlicker." Fortunately, the sound of the mugs being placed on the table drowned Jin's last sentence.
"Joonie? Ah, don't worry about him too much. Actually, he is as cutey as pie most of the time. You should have seen the mess he made the other day. He accidentally put the wrong chip card into the reader and somehow managed to break the facility's whole security system." Noticing that Jin did not return the laughter, the young woman took a sip of tea and asked in a quieter voice, "So… what exactly happened to Mr Choi's office? I've figured you… kinda… dismantled it?"
Jin sighed and stared at the mug in front of him. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
"That this place is a fucking loony bin!"
"Oh, Jin. This is not a nice—"
"I don't care whether this is a nice term or not!" Feeling guilty for screaming at his confidante, Jin lowered his head. "I just feel… betrayed! By you, by Choi and by whoever sent me here without my consent! Just look at these folks here! There's the blonde kid who mutters silently to himself, the anorexic bag of sunshine, the paranoid mochi-face, and then… there's me!"
Nurse Suzie extended her hand to grab Jin's, but as she realized her arm was too short to grasp him, she just dropped it onto the table. "Being here doesn't mean you're faulty or defective. Facilities like this were created to help you recover. We're all here to support you, Jin."
To Jin, this sounded like one of those canned responses everyone recited but nobody believed. He took a sip of his tea and flinched at the sweet aftertaste. "But I'm not like them! I suffer from memory loss, not amental illness! I just don't understand why Choi is keeping me here!" He put the mug back down on the table and wiped his mouth before burying his face in his hands. "All I want to do is see my brother! Is that so hard to get?"
When Nurse Suziemade a cooing sound, Jin took a peek through his fingers and saw the most adorable expression of kindness he had ever seen on her face. "I think it's lovely how much you care about your brother, even when you're not related by blood. That's very sweet of you."
"Thanks, now I feel like a freak for caring about a twelve-year old," Jin mumbled and scratched his nose to hide his blushing cheeks. Nothing was worse than being called sweet. "Besides, it's not a big deal."
"Yo, believe me, my friend! It is a helluva deal! Since I moved to South Korea, my sisters didn't even bother to contact me once. Neither for New Year's Day, nor for my birthday! I'm so jelly of people who are on good terms with their siblings."
After drinking up the rest of the tea—'Urgh! I should have a diabetes check-up once I get out of here', Jin thought as he gulped down the disgusting brewage—the nurse changed the topic.
"I only have a few minutes of my break left," Nurse Suzie replied while glancing at a clock on the wall above Jin's head. "Anything else you want to talk about?"
"I'm fine," Jin sank back into the cushions. "Unless you happen to know a way to cure amnesia as quickly as possible..."
"Actually… yes, I do!" The woman jumped to her feet. "I used to be a caretaker for the elderly back in the US, and there was a method we used to stimulate their cognitive functions."
Jin could not hide his grin. "Let me guess. Playing bingo or shuffleboard?"
"Show the elders some respect," the nurse scolded him as she searched the shelf laden with beads wrapped in plastic bags. "I'm speaking about aromatherapy." She grabbed a bag and threw it to Jin who caught it mid air with one hand. The presumed beads turned out to be scented wax pellets. "Mrs Choi must have the biggest collection of fragrances in the multiverse. You can even mix them to create individual scents. I tried mixing pineapple with coconut once, but it didn't smell like Piña Colada at all, so I don't recommend that combination."
"So you're saying all I need to do is inhale some scent to get my memories back? It can't be that easy!" Jin threw the bag towards the shelf, but missed his mark. 'First hypnosis, now this aromatherapy crap. Just what kind of mental ward is this!'
"Oh, c'mon!" Nurse Suzie scolded him as she picked up the bag. "Do you want your memories back, or not?"
"I do, but—"
"But what?"
"This is nonsense!" Jin shook his head. "You can't tell me that sniffing the scent of roses for long enough will make me remember how the heck I got here!"
"Okay, so first… inhaling random scents is not how aromatherapy works. And second… This stuff is more powerful than you believe. Last year at the staff member's New Year's party, I broke into tears when I sensed the scent of rice pudding. Joonie told me later that evening that the sense of smell is deeply connected with the brain and must have evoked a memory linked to it."
"Did it evoke a memory?"
"It sure did!" She wiped her eyes, which signaled Jin it was better not to question her any further. "All I'm suggesting is that you try the same. Do you remember any particularly pleasant smell at your home?"
"My place didn't smell pleasant," Jin replied frankly, as he recalled the stench of alcohol, cigarettes and moldy dust lingering in every single nook. He doubted Mrs Choi's collection would include these fragrances.
"Ah, no rush. We don't have time now to get into detail anyway, 'cause my break is over in… minus 13 seconds."
Nurse Suzie stuffed the bags back on the shelf, shooed Jin off the couch and carefully peeked around the corners of the door frame. After checking whether the coast was clear, they sneaked out of the room, pretending to have just met in the hallway.
"I need to prepare some diet plans which should have been finished this morning," the nurse answered a question Jin had not asked. "What are you up to now?" In response to Jin's shrug that followed she suggested, "how about you make some friends?"
"Yeah… friends…" Jin glanced to the side, adding 'Who needs friends who have lost their minds?' in his head.
By the time he finished that thought, they had already reached at the nurse's office. Before they parted ways, Nurse Suzie folded her hands and beamed at Jin. "If you ever need something, don't hesitate to drop by. I know I told you before, but I can't state it enough. We're all here to help you. Okay?" She extended her hands, but in lieu of ruffling Jin's hair she gently patted his shoulder. "Well then, see you later, alliga—"
"Wait. Before you start your shift… Can you please do me a favor? I know I've thrown away my chances to see Hobi today after destroying Choi's office, but…" He sighed and brought as much desperation to the surface as he could handle at the moment, "...could you maybe… you know… put in a good word for me?"
"Umm… Jin? Speaking about Hoseok... there's something I need to tell you." Her whole demeanor morphed from quirky nurse to mortician in a matter of seconds. "I've spoken to the other employees and checked the facility's database once again, but… there is no Jung Hoseok listed here."
To be continued…
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