Christmas Special! 

“There has to be something wrong” Kris sighed as he ruffled his own hair. It’d almost been two weeks since the incident and still- the investigation was going nowhere; the reason being that the case was starting to get pushed behind. There were other murder cases and heists to be taken care of, so a case where the police felt that the culprit had already been found was pushed aside. But Kris knew better. Something wasn’t right with the information that they’ve been given.

Kris scanned his eyes on the sheets of notes regarding the case, including interrogations results and other data they could get their hands on. But the pieces just weren’t fitting. And so far, the only clues they were getting were pointing fingers towards Zora.

“I’ve spoken to the doctors concerning the victim’s condition” Kyungsoo informed before handing Kris another sheet of data. 

“And?”

“She’s still unconscious. But they say she should wake up in two weeks maximum” He said.

Kris sighed heavily yet again. two weeks? Could they risk waiting that long?

Kyungsoo watched at Kris twisted his lips in thought and furrow his eyebrows at the sheets, hesitating to continue, “We…We haven’t really contacted the mental institute though…they said it wasn’t necessary but I think that, you know, maybe we could talk to them and maybe even…” Kyungsoo paused when Kris suddenly glanced up from the papers and directly into his eyes, his eyebrow raised.

“What are you suggesting?” Kris questioned, suddenly intrigued.

Kyungsoo cleared his throat, “Well, n-not that I’m being biased towards the situation but I was thinking, since it’s going to be Christmas soon, maybe we could, I don’t know, get Zora home for a day? Maybe? I mean, I know she can- ”

"Bring Zora home for Christmas, huh?" Kris gave that idea a thought…and a smile tugged at his lips.

Two weeks earlier…

“Zora…Zora-sshi…Zora?” A gentle voice rang in Zora’s ears, gradually but surely waking her up from her uncomfortable sleep. “Zora, it’s time to wake up, honey” The voice continued. With her vision still blurred, Zora tried to sit herself up on her bed with much difficulty. She hadn’t felt this horrible in years. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt as though all her energy had been drained out of her. Every muscle in her body just didn’t seem to want to move and her brain and throbbing mad.

As she sat up, Zora rubbed her tired eyes before a sudden chill suddenly ran down her spine. It was getting colder and colder each day and she wondered if this mental institute even had heaters installed in them it was that cold. “Are you feeling alright?” The gentle voice continued to ask, however Zora could barely make out who she was. All she knew was that the lady didn’t sound like her usual caretaker with the fake sugar-coated high pitched voice. No. This voice was a lot friendlier and perhaps even younger.

Zora just nodded her head, still dazed. 

“Breakfast is being served downstairs…would you like to join or would you like it in here?” The woman asked. Zora could tell she was walking around the room; her ears could detect the change in ambience.

Zora searched for her glasses at the bedside table, but she noticed a blurry hand reach something out in front of her. Figuring that it was her glasses, Zora took it and pushed it up to the bridge of her nose.

With a clearer vision, she looked up and found a smiling face greet her. She definitely wasn’t her usual care taker. But she was one of them, Zora could tell by the white and baby blue uniform the women wore. Knowing that she couldn’t ask her question properly, Zora just stared at the women quizzically until she finally detected the curious look in her eyes.

“Oh. Sorry. I’m Taeyeon. You’re original care-taker is on her Christmas break so I’m looking after you. I’m new here so hopefully we can get along. It’s always nice to have a friend when you work, right? You don’t mind do you?”

Zora shook her head. Taeyeon seemed a lot more friendly than her other care taker. A lot more bubbly and talkative too and not to mention she smiled more. It gave off a brighter aura, something she hadn’t seen much off since she came here.

“So, how about it? Breakfast downstairs?” She asked again.

Zora smiled and nodded her head. Her other care taker never offered the choice. She just brought the food up and that was it. Zora never even knew her name because she never told her.

Zora didn’t even know what time it was, but judging how quiet it was, she assumed that it was still pretty early. Not to mention there were only a few people in the dining hall. All of which had their care takers with them. Zora analysed the area as she followed Taeyeon to a table. Just like everything else in the institute, everything was white. White walls, white chairs, white tables. But Zora couldn’t bring herself to say that it resembled her old bedroom a single bit. Her bedroom wasn’t the lonely and artificial white the institute was made up of. Her room was a much warmer white; a brighter and more comforting white.

“What would you like? They have soups, rice, ddeokbokki…”

Zora almost flinched when ddeokbokki was mentioned.

You’ve…never had ddeokbokki? Baekhyuns voice echoed in her ears. A vision of his bright, amused smile flashed into her brain. It’s not spicy, trust me! Zora couldn’t refrain the light smile that appeared on her lips. It was a bittersweet memory to her.

“Ddeokbokki? You want that for breakfast?” Taeyeon chuckled amusingly as Zora nodded her head. “Okay. Stay here and don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back”

Whilst Taeyeon quickly nipped to the kitchen, Zora took the chance to observe her surroundings. She hadn’t been out of her assigned room much. But she figured as much. If they thought that she was dangerous then it made sense to hold her captive. However, Zora took the advantage and opportunity to really observe how the institute was built; what it consisted of and where everything was from the moment she stepped out of her room.

The building itself didn’t look too complicated. It was simple to get around, she admitted. The only problem was that everything seemed  identical to one another. Every floor looked the same apart from the ground floor. Although, Zora did notice how certain rooms had different coloured plaques. Hers was a metallic gold, most were white and some were metallic baby blue.

Zora had even timed how long it took for them to walk to the dining hall from her room. 7 minutes 21 seconds. That is if they took the lift from the 4^th floor to the ground floor. And there were 6 floors in total. She estimated that, judging from how long the corridors were, there were probably more than 15 rooms on each floor. Whether they were all occupied or not was another question though. 

The dining hall wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either, which either meant that there weren’t many ‘patients’ or that they usually only brought them out a group at a time to avoid any incidents.

Zora looked around the rather empty hall to try and recognize any of the unfamiliar faces.
One girl couldn’t stop chuckling whilst she was eating and Zora was uneasy at the fact that she could choke at any moment. Another boy was sat on the other side of the hall, having his care taker have to practically force feed him. Then…there was another boy sat in front with his back to her. One with such light hair that it’d almost reminded her of King’s human form, only it wasn’t quite as platinum. His care taker wasn’t next to him and Zora assumed that he must have gone into the kitchen to get his food the same as Taeyeon did for her.

All of a sudden, the boy turned around, as though he detected someone was looking at him. But the second she made eye contact with him, both seemed to freeze on the spot. The boy had pale, almost a translucent skin tone, and his messy blonde tousled hair covered his eyebrows and just about reached his eyelashes not to mention the angle which he turned unveiled his perfect side profile to her. But what shocked her weren’t his incredible good-looks, but the magnificent colour of the boy’s eyes. They were like pale blue transparent crystals. The colour of the morning sky but in the form of diamonds. 

But this boy…She’s seen him before. It was the first day she stepped foot into the institute, Zora remembered her depression, having to leave everyone and everything behind made her gloomier than ever. But other than her emotions, Zora remember that one boy. The one boy she noticed standing from afar, through the window, smiling at her as if to say ‘everything’s alright’ and even that day, she couldn’t help but feel an odd familiarity with him. 

“Hello” He greeted with a respectful bow, snapping Zora out of her thoughts. She waved awkwardly to him and the boy returned it with a gentle smile. “My name is Luhan” He said. Zora smiled back, unsure as to how to tell him what her name was. She only realized now that she’s never really had to introduce herself before. She never really came out of the house until a couple months ago and since then; Baekhyun was always there to do it for her. So she was stumped- when the boy caught her by surprise, “Zora-sshi…am I correct?” His voice was so soft that Zora couldn’t help but wonder if he had some sort of throat condition.

She simply nodded at him, not noticing the utter relief and joy in the males eyes. Luhan bowed his head once again, “Nice to finally meet you” He said before suddenly turning away again, leaving Zora to sit there, dumbfounded. What did he mean by finally? Had he heard of her before?

Her chain of thoughts were disrupted yet again when Taeyeon finally made her way back with a tray with two bowls of ddeokbokki, two bowls of rice and two packets of bread. “Sorry for the wait. Figured I might as well eat with you too, you don’t mind do you?” She smiled.

Zora shook her head and returned her smile. Her gaze fell to the steaming bowl of ddeokbokki in front of her. "You like it?" The same voice echoed in her ears.

Bittersweet indeed.

A few days passed and Zora was waking up with new pains in the most random places and times. One day she woke up with the biggest head ache. At times she even got dizzy spells and Taeyeon had to get her a wheelchair because she was scared that she would collapse. There were even times when her eyes randomly stung, and stung bad, so bad that Zora was surprised she could still see the next day. There were nights where she felt like her insides were burning, like fire was burning her veins. Taeyeon was so worried that she made sure to tell her superiors and hopefully get her to a check-up at the nearby hospital. But apparently the only thing they said was that she might have had an allergic reaction to something in the hospital and it should disappear soon which Zora was suspicious yet relieved to hear. 

Every morning, Luhan would bow and greet her with a smile and slowly, but surely, they interacted more with each other. He even taught her sign language every morning which Zora very quickly picked up on. True that she’d never had an interest in sign language before, but who knows when it might come in handy. What caught Zora’s attention though was that Luhan’s care taker was never with him. Luhan was always walking around by himself. She even occasionally spotted him buying drinks from the vending machines that were only used by the caretaker and share them with her.  It must’ve meant that Luhan didn’t need to be watched all the time. Which was good, she assumed.

There were moment where Zora just wanted to take a stroll though. And being the kind hearted and reasonable person she was, Taeyeon agreed to let her walk around the garden for 15 minutes max. As she strolled around in Taeyeon's coat, gloves and shoes, admiring the frost covered flower, she only just realized how much she missed drawing and writing. However, she remembered the very specific order that the very intimidating man from the first day had said to her…and it has still been scaring her to this day. Her mind wondered on thoughts until she suddenly saw Luhan sitting on the bench nearby, gazing at the sky with a blank yet peaceful expression on his face.

She’s seen the boy with the said expression in more than one occasion; with that mix of peacefulness and longing in his eyes. And as if by instinct, Luhan turned directly towards her and smiled, bowing yet again. Zora bowed back as she stepped closer to him. The boy straightens slightly before asking, “What brings you here?”

Before she could even answer, she noticed the thing that had looked almost like a sketchbook on Luhans lap. She tilts her head at it quizzically before asking him through sign language ‘What’s that?’

Luhan chuckled, “Are you not going to greet me first? I am an oppa you know”

Zora pulls a face at him before mouthing a quick ‘Hello’ to him, causing the male to laugh even more. He grabs the sketchbook along with the blue marker before standing up and handing it to her. “A sketchbook…For you” He said.

Zora’s eyes widened at him. She points at herself quizzically.

Luhan smiles, “It’s a Christmas present…take it” He said softly. “You can use it for whatever you please…perhaps it will come in handy, for when no one can understand you” There was a knowing look behind his gaze however Zora hadn’t detected it as it disappeared as quick as it came. She softened at his kind gesture before carefully taking the sketchbook and the marker. She turns the front page and writes on it.

Thank you. She wrote.

Luhan suddenly gazes at her. This time Zora can detect not only the peacefulness, but the solemnness that was beneath his eyes. Suddenly worried, Zora uses sign language again, ‘Are you alright’? She asked. Luhan doesn’t seem to have a reaction. He just stares at her…he gazes at her beautiful eyes with the olden shards and feels a sharp pain of nostalgia shoot through his body.

“I’m just glad…” He finally replied, although barely audible. “That I finally met you” He finished with a whisper.

Not grasping what he said, Zora tilts her head at him before sighing. She flips the page of the sketchbook again and starts writing.

Are you hungry? She wrote.

Luhan gave it a thought before he nodded, “How about some ddeokbokki?”

A few more days pass and the pains seemed to have subsided a little, although she did wake up with bruises on her arms, Zora chose to ignore it. As Baekhyun said, she was a bit of a klutz, even if she didn't remember how she got them, it was probably just her fault. Just the thought of him scolding her brought a small smile to her face- as stupid as it sounds. It was a Thursday afternoon, she was going visit home on Saturday so she was high in spirit.

With Taeyeon as her new care taker, Zora was getting out of her room more often which was great. She’s been on every floor so far apart from the very top which was apparently for ‘staff only’. Zora got to know a few people…well, she tried to get to know them. The chuckling girl didn’t seem to want to stop laughing and the other boy just kind of scared her by how…‘unhappy’ he seemed. Then again, these people must be in a mental institue for a reason. She and Luhan grew closer though. Taeyeon would smile whenever she watched the morning sign language lessons you had with Luhan and she was amazing by how quickly you learnt the alphabet. In fact, Zora probably learnt it in under ten minutes.

Luhan noticed how Taeyeon was watching her with wide eyes and chuckled, “She’s a fast learner” He said as-a-matter-of-factly.

Taeyeon nodded in agreement, “You can say that again”

Zora smiled before she took out her sketchbook. Before she could even search for a pen, Luhan took out a black biro in front of her. Zora chuckled a little before taking it. It was weird how well Luhan knew her already despite only having met each other for a few days. 

‘I’m not that great at it yet, but I’m learning’ she wrote and showed Taeyeon.

Before Taeyeon could even argue, the appearence of a certain man startled her. “Kim Taeyeon?” The deep intimidating voice called. 

“Y-Yes?” She stuttered, quickly getting up from her seat.

The man’s gaze fell onto Zora and Luhan before returning to Taeyeon, “A moment of your time if you please?” Although he seemed polite, the tone in his voice said otherwise.

Taeyeon cleared , “Yes” She quickly dashed towards the man who then led her out of the room. 

Zora glued her eyes onto the man until he and Taeyeon were out of sight before she turned back to Luhan, concern and worry present in her eyes. Luhan sighed and shook his head; indicating for her not to worry. “It is probably a small matter…Although if you wish, you can always ask them about it later” He said.