PASSION Chapter 5 Part 8

Chapter 5 Part 8

While he was trying to process what he had just heard, when he stayed silent for a moment, Shin Lu whispered in an anxious voice:

"Are you upset? ...Do you dislike it, Brother?"

It was an anxious and pitiful voice that seemed about to drip tears any moment. Before properly processing what he had heard, Tae-ui quickly answered:

"What are you saying? That couldn't be."

But even that answer lacked some strength. Shin Lu's words slowly reached his brain, but he wasn't sure if he understood their meaning correctly. Shin Lu had dreamed of sleeping with him.

Slowly, slowly his face grew hot. He felt heat gradually spreading up from his heart. First his face turned red, then his earlobes and neck grew hot too. Even his confused lips were hot.

Tae-ui embraced Shin Lu again with the arms he had loosened. And with his lips buried in Shin Lu's hair, he just blinked his eyes. Something felt unreal. He lost confidence in his comprehension ability. Yet the body in his arms was so warm and lovely.

As Tae-ui just held Shin Lu with a hot red face unable to say anything, Shin Lu asked quietly:

"...Brother. When will you come out after going in?"

"Ah... after ten days."

When he stammered his answer, Shin Lu closed his mouth again. Then at some point, a tiny whisper brushed his ear in a shrinking voice:

"Brother, let's go play in Hong Kong when you come out. And there... let's stay overnight. ...I'll book... a nice place, a room. ...Let's go together."

Tae-ui couldn't say anything. Words were blocked and wouldn't come out. His lips stiffened and his tongue froze. He just helplessly looked down at his own hands embracing Shin Lu's back.

Strange. Why did he feel so shy and ticklish? He now understood what Shin Lu was saying. But his chest felt extremely ticklish. Though it wasn't his first time mixing bodies with someone and wasn't anything special, his heart felt ticklish and fluttering.

"Uh... yeah..."

Only after speaking did he think how foolish he sounded. He could have said something cooler but what a slow and naive answer.

Though berating himself, his stiffened tongue still wouldn't loosen so he just held Shin Lu's back tightly. Shin Lu too tightened his arms around Tae-ui's waist with his face buried in his shoulder. Thump thump, the sensation of heartbeats from their pressed chests rose through their skin. But he couldn't tell whose heart was beating. Probably both.

After staying like that for a long while, unable to move or speak and just holding each other, they flinched apart at the sound of a door opening and closing somewhere in the corridor. Around the corner, whoever it was couldn't be seen. Footsteps grew distant in the opposite direction.

The two stood half a step apart staring blankly at each other's feet. After staring at Shin Lu's feet like that for a while, Tae-ui suddenly smiled. This had happened before too. Times when they were too awkward and shy to look at each other. Even now his chest still felt ticklish having him in front.

Tae-ui slowly raised his head. Shin Lu had raised his head too and was looking at him. When their quietly gazing eyes met, Shin Lu's face reddened then he smiled brightly. Tae-ui ended up smiling too.

"I wonder if... the pager will work properly in solitary too."

He thought it would be nice if he could still receive messages in there.

Even if he couldn't send replies, it would be really nice if Shin Lu sent even just brief greetings. As if having the same thought, Shin Lu muttered "Yeah."

Ticklish, ticklish.

His anxiety flew away, his laments flew away, and he already desperately looked forward to the day he would come out of solitary before even going in.

"Solitary"

Drip.

The first sensation he felt upon entering that place was auditory.

The faint echo of water drops falling came from far away.

Though normally it would be such a small sound he wouldn't even register hearing it, with vision blocked, hearing became most sensitive. And touch became just as sensitive.

He slowly waved his hand stretched out in front. His fingertips touching only air suddenly met something hard and damp. What he touched on the right was a wall. Probably stone. Covered in moss.

"...Wow... This is too much. What era is this to have a prison like this..."

Before he could finish speaking, there was a thwack sound and his head exploded in pain.

"What prison? If you came in for committing crimes, shut up and follow."

The elderly instructor standing beside Tae-ui spoke disapprovingly and pulled the iron chain. Being dragged by the chain linked to his handcuffs, Tae-ui had to shout urgently "Wait, slowly please, I can't see, I'm telling you I can't see ahead!"

This old man, the oldest not just among instructors but among all officers in the branch, received elder treatment from them even though UNHRDO was definitely not an organization that operated on seniority. Some time ago his uncle had said about this old man "When I first entered UNHRDO as a member, this old man was already firmly in his position."

Hearing that, it seemed he stayed in the instructor position not from lack of ability but because he didn't want promotion. This old man who wouldn't take offered promotions and just wanted to handle solitary and occasionally give lectures was quite peculiar.

Tae-ui had to keep crying out "Ack, ack" while being dragged by the instructor. It wasn't a joke or exaggeration - he really couldn't see ahead. Though there were small yellow lights dotted on the walls, coming suddenly from a bright place with free vision into this pitch black darkness with only dim lights sparsely placed, his vision went black and the lights might as well not have been there.

This was the solitary confinement they had only heard was on basement level 7. The place they said people came out looking like skin and bones. When he had asked if it was a prison, his uncle had frowned and answered "Prison? It's not that horrible a place." So Tae-ui had thought solitary was just like a study room or simple isolation facility. A single room like a two-pyeong goshiwon (~6.6 m² or 71 ft² apartment room.) That's what he had imagined solitary to be.

But hell no.

This was a prison. And an underground prison at that. Moreover, an underground prison with extremely cruel facilities that seemed impossible in modern times, that human rights organizations would rise up against immediately if they saw it.

While being dragged by the instructor, bumping here and there and walking while crying out, Tae-ui's eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. He could see his surroundings fairly well even in the dim light. And when he looked around with his now seeing eyes, Tae-ui corrected his earlier thought.

An underground prison with extremely cruel facilities that human rights organizations would rise up against. That was too gentle an expression.

Could this be like where they brought people to torture in underground dungeons during medieval witch hunts? It might have been less severe but not worse than this.

As he had felt with his fingertips when first entering this place, the walls on all sides were stone. Stones that looked like they wouldn't wear down even after thousands of years. And on top, moss that also looked thousands of years old covered them damply.

"Just when was this branch building built? Surely it can't be hundreds of years old?"

When Tae-ui muttered in disbelief, the instructor dragging the clanking iron chains snorted.

"The Asian branch is the most recently created among UNHRDO branches. It's not even 30 years old, and they say the branch building gets renovated every year with all new facilities. How can someone who's stayed here say that?"

"But how can there be such a rotting, decaying basement? And if it's renovated every year, what's with this blue-green moss?!"

"It suits it better with moss. We work hard to renovate it every year. It's my masterpiece."

"..."

Tae-ui looked at the instructor with a shocked face.

"Have you been here since this branch was first built, sir?"

"Well, I did the design."

So it was this old man.

Tae-ui nodded his head big while staring piercingly at the instructor even in the darkness. The shock from when he first came to this island and saw the branch building vividly revived.

The exterior of this branch building that seemed to have spent enormous money on making the latest facilities look more worn down. Unlike the splendid, impressive appearances of headquarters and other branches seen in promotional photos, the culprit who made only this place look like a collapsing abandoned prison was all this old man.

Looking up, water drops occasionally fell from stone icicles grown like stalactites on the distant high ceiling. Water had pooled in places on the soaking wet brick floor.

Along both sides of the narrow straight path were cells with iron bars spaced sparsely enough to prevent people from coming out, making them seem half open. Still, each cell seemed quite spacious at about 5-6 pyeong.

Though hard to see in the darkness, fortunately the inside of the bars didn't seem quite so extreme. The floor didn't appear wet and there seemed to be one or two basic pieces of furniture like drawers or desks. However, with only tiny dim lights as small as Christmas lights on the ceiling for illumination, it didn't seem possible to read books or do anything in there.

At least it's only ten days. If told to be locked up here for months, he'd go crazy from boredom.

Tae-ui, now able to make out his surroundings fairly well, skillfully avoided protruding rock pieces in the walls while being dragged by the instructor.

Though it didn't seem like they had gone far, they reached a dead end. Given that on other floors it seemed the corridor would continue three or four times the distance they had come, clearly the basic structure here was completely different from other floors too.