Cheol

"Hey, did you hear? New boy's necklace is Grass."

"Grass? How lame."

The two friends sitting at a table beside Seungcheol were laughing away. He knew them from his Computer class: Aaron and Lizzy. The duo were always talking about the oddest things ever. Their conversation topics ranged from their theories about the creation of Earth to the components of scented perfume. 

There had been a newbie that came a while ago, and Seungcheol pitied him. He was a short male with a cute face. His nervous eyes were darting around as he was lead to his new room to live in for the rest of his life; his new clothes that he was forced to wear was slung over his shoulders. Seungcheol caught a glance of his necklace as the poor boy walked by. As expected, it was Grass.

Seungcheol smirked to himself, thanking that he got a cool Symbol.

Everyone who entered in this.. place always had an unbreakable necklace around their neck with a unique Symbol. Some people would get neat Symbols such as Star, Wing, Eye, or Brain. Others, unfortunately, would receive unsatisfying Symbols such as Rock, Book, or Dust. People are given this necklace by random chance, and Seungcheol was lucky enough to get Fire.

Several minutes later, Seungcheol heard a voice. "Hi."

The male looked up from his black cup of coffee and met eyes with a young-looking boy. It was the newbie. He had strange pink hair that was neatly done, and he had a wide smile that revealed his gleaming white teeth. His eyes were very small to the point where you couldn't really notice his sclera.

For a second, the newbie was startled. Man did this guy seem intimidating! His huge eyes were just drilling into his soul.

He cleared his throat and said, "Uh, so some guy told me to go to you so that you could show me around."

Seungcheol raised a brow. "Oh really?"

The boy nodded. 

"Call me Cheol," Seungcheol said, extending his hand out.

"I'm Jihoon," the small male peeped as he shook the older's hand gently.

Jihoon noticed that Seungcheol was eyeing his necklace. His very stupid necklace. Jihoon began to turn crimson red and wanted to tuck his necklace underneath his tight suit, but it'd look weird.

"Well, Jihoon, sit down and let me tell you about this miserable place."

Soonyoung

For a moment, Soonyoung was tempted to create illegal drugs.

A single thought of making illegal drugs never occured to him until he was told the story of the legendary Shin Haneul.

Shin Haneul was a witty person who managed to get away with everything. He took the medicine-making course and started off with a good first impression. Over the year, he successfully stole dangerous chemicals from the lab along with a bunch of medicine to use as a base in making unauthorized drugs. It wasn't long before he drugged the whole community and attempted to escape. No one knows whether he was killed or left the district for good.

Sure, Soonyoung was a pretty bright guy, but he wasn't sure if he had the ability to create something on his own. He did want to leave this place though.

"I'll just.. push the idea away for now," he muttered, as he continued his studies.

Soonyoung bit on his pencil and tried to concentrate on the passage about allergic reactions. It was hard to, with the idea and story floating around in his mind. After zoning out for a few minutes, Soonyoung set his pencil down and slammed his book shut. He grabbed his laptop off from the shelf beside him and lifted the screen up.

He opened a browser and typed in "illegal drug components" but hesitated to press enter. Soonyoung remembered that the workers who were part of this whole system thing examined people's search histories to see if anything was off. He knew that it would be a huge giveaway.

It was too risky to be lazy. The only thing Soonyoung could depend on were his knowledge, books, and lecture notes. He was pretty good at grasping the idea of chemical reactions in the body, the ingredients in the chemicals, and the amounts needed for the drug depending on the strength. Soonyoung was suddenly willing to break the rules to leave this place for his own good.

Wonwoo

Wonwoo and Mingyu decided to eat sushi after their post-workout session. The two cleaned themselves, after class was over, in the locker room and set out to the cafeteria. Wonwoo went to get plates of sushi and Mingyu sat there, waiting for him to return with the mouthwatering deliciousness. Sushi was Mingyu's weakness, and on top of that, his Symbol is Fish. 

After three days of waking up, not remembering a single thing, and was told that he had to live the rest of his life in this enclosed space, it didn't seem pretty bad. He met nice people, and had a great instructor. The food here was free, which meant that Mingyu could pig out whenever he wanted to. Just kidding. When Mingyu was introduced to this place, he was handed a phone, just like everyone else, that kept track of his health and other vital things that needed to be supervised.

He was unable to exceed the amount of 2,700 calories which disappointed him. Mingyu loved to eat, and whenever he got the chance to, he'd eat a lot.

Wonwoo came back with raw sushi and other exotic foods that made Mingyu drool a bit. It looked amazing and was a perfect meal to eat after his workout.

"We can eat like this every day, right?" Mingyu asked, as he broke his chopsticks in half and began eating.

Wonwoo chuckled. "Yes, but that wouldn't be good for our diet."

"We can always work harder the next day," Mingyu said, with rice in his mouth.

"Today's a special day, considering that it was your first day."

"There will be more special days soon, yes?" Mingyu asked.

Wonwoo nodded. "One day, if we can, we could sneak some alcohol and drink away the night."

"Hah! You're making it sound like we aren't living in a super strict place right now."

Wonwoo leaned over and whispered, "I do want to leave soon, though. Just to run around free and do whatever I want without being watched all the time."

Wonwoo's eyes traveled to Mingyu's Symbol. It was a circle with a smaller circle inside followed by a tiny circle in the center. He wondered what Target (no, not the store) was supposed to mean.

He heard from somewhere that Symbols weren't given to everyone by random. It was picked out and handcrafted especially for them. Maybe it was because they possessed a hidden power that connected to their Symbol, maybe that it was just a mere talent or skill that they were going to develop. It was strange, though because Wonwoo had no idea why he got Moon.

Minghao

"I'm hungry. Hey, Junhui, let's go eat something in the cafeteria," Minghao said.

"Sure, let me just get my bag first."

The two of them walked into the crowded cafeteria. It was nearly lunch time, and everyone had the same idea to sit down and eat with their friends. Junhui walked over to an empty table as Minghao headed straight for the food. The cafeteria was basically a buffet, with healthy foods. Sure there were a few guilt-foods that he wasn't allowed to eat, but Minghao begged the cafeteria workers to hand him some. No one could resist Xu Minghao's aegyos. They always gave in.

After about ten minutes, Minghao came back with a tray of rice, chicken meat, spinach, soup, kimchi, a bottle of water, and a two bags of Chocopie.

"Dang, Minghao. You're pretty awesome," Junhui commented, his eyes glued on the food.

"I almost got caught, you know," Minghao replied, as he began placing Junhui's food in front of him.

As Junhui noticed that Minghao only brought one bottled water, he asked, "Were there no more water bottles?"

"Oh, there were many, but I didn't feel thirsty."

"Oh really? Come to think of it, I haven't really seen you drink water."

Minghao shrugged. "The desire for water never really occured to me."

"That's weird," Junhui said, raising a brow. "You should get yourelf checked."

"You know that I'm scared of checkups," Minghao reminded.

"You mean needles."

"Shh!"

Junhui let out a soft laugh. His face resumed back to the curious expression and asked, "When was the last time you drank something?"

Minghao rolled his eyes around the room as he tried to recall the memory. "About. two weeks ago? Or something like that."

"What! Impossible!"

"Well, it is possible for me, since I'm alive right now." Minghao pinched himself just to make sure. "Yep, I have human flesh."

"Maybe it has to do something with that Symbol of yours," Junhui squinted. 

"Yeah. Water. I rarely drink anything. How does that connect?"