I. WONDERWALLS

Kwon Jiyong never knew how to react to crying women – especially to the one before him now. Seeing Min (nee Lee) Chaerin bursting in tears was a bizarre view, even after all that happened to her in the last 20 plus years.

“I'm begging you Jiyong” she sobbed “Please take care of my son until Dara is ready”

“Are you sure it's him?” Jiyong, his signature deadpan expression visible, crossed his arms “For the first time since-”

“Yes” Chaerin nodded while looking for a tissue in her designer bag “He hasn't been active until now and I'm sure it's him, believe me. Dara said she still needs around 3 weeks until she will be sure the surgery will go well”

Now Jiyong sighed and looked at the big folder on his desk with a written name on it.

Min Yoon Gi.

“Are you sure about this surgery though?” he asked seriously, locking his stare with hers “It's not that I don't believe Dara, she's a world-class famous neurosurgeon, but that's-”

“Then what do I have left, huh?” Chaerin abruptly stood up, going in circles around his office “We've tried everything! Jiyong, you were the first who diagnosed my son when he was ing 4 years old! You were there when he-he...” Chaerin stopped and took few deeper breaths, trying to calm herself down “He's locked up for almost all his life, constantly on meds and therapies, no one knows what to do and nothing helps! He was in the States, Switzerland, now Busan, hell, in the past I even took him to the voodoo witch in New Orleans, priest in Vatican and monks in the Himalayas, can you believe that?” she chuckled like she just said the funniest thing ever “All was good for the past few years, like he gained some control...Until this morning”

Chaerin looked again at Jiyong, the pleading painted all over her face.

“Dara wants him monitored by you. I want him monitored by you” she continued taking the seat back “I know he's an extraordinary case and I know you're busy...But just let Dara work without any rush”

Jiyong looked at the folder again.

In his entire career as a psychiatrist he never saw so many files about just one person. More ironically, that person was the son of his best friend.

“Consider it done” he gave up, crossing his arms but smiling lightly upon seeing Chaerin's eyes sparkle again “But I will not be monitoring him, I logistically can't. He'll get a personal nurse”

“Thank you, thank you!” Chaerin closed her high-school friend in a bear hug “But can that be a girl, please?”

“A girl?” Jiyong furrowed his eyebrows “What if he will snap?”

“No, he's a gentleman. He never snaps at women, that's why I asked”

“Both of them?” Jiyong pushed, observing Chaerin solemnly. But she was confident.

“Both of them”

“So how about the third one?” he pushed harder and heard nothing in answer.

2 WEEKS LATER

Jisoo woke up right after first signal. Her pager rarely called at that kind of hour, especially when the head doctor Kwon had a night shift.

Isolation ward. Manic attack. Nr 59994.

She sighed upon reading the message on the screen again. V.

Without bothering to properly dress herself she covered pajamas with a coat, did her hair in a messy bun, put on Timberlands, grabbed the keys and rushed to the parking lot.

She started the car almost as fast as a cigarette now nonchalantly swinging between her lips. She did not smoke but somehow each time when it was about V she just had to.

So now she was basically a chainsmoker.

On the way Jisoo thought that she really needed to quit, just like move out from the city center somewhere closer to the suburbs where St. John's Mental Asylum, her workplace for 3 years now, was.

Jisoo was a nurse – or actually a head nurse – but she still could not comprehend why she got an emergency call at 3 am. on Wednesday. Then she felt like face-palming – of course, V.

When she arrived at the main gate she spotted a familiar Honda pulling back.

“They called you as well?” she asked with a smile while exiting her car “And I thought I'm on the run for the special snowflake award here”

“Good morning to you too Ji” Jung Hoseok, Jisoo's colleague, had a grin plastered to his face as usual “V went crazy again”

“You don't say” she pointed at the big sign above the entrance, reminding them where they were.

“Looks like they finished the renovation at the top level” he continued, completely ignoring her sarcastic comment “The amount of books the transportation company has brought was enormous!”

“Yeah, that” Jisoo rolled her eyes thinking of a restoration suddenly taking place on the abandoned 11th floor of the asylum for the last few days. No one really knew what was going on but the changes seemed to be massive, moving the walls included “Jin said he saw the same crew taking there a freaking piano”

“Yeah, heard that too”

Hoseok was not really a nurse but more like a guard – he constantly got paired with Jisoo on the daily hospital rounds and often acted like her protector, literally. He was also responsible for keeping the patients in their lanes in the fields like the opened garden, canteen and the common area. Really, dealing with mentally unstable people often meant serious physical interactions and Jisoo was forever grateful that Hoseok was always around. It was somehow fascinating how that slim guy could easily knock down someone twice his size and pinch him to the ground until the nurses arrived with oxycodone.

They arrived at the 5th floor where all of the high security isolation wards were. Spotting which one was currently occupied was easy as two guards – one of them with freshly bitten and bloody ear - and one doctor, were standing near the closed, heavy metal doors.

“Ah, Jisoo-ah” Park Bom, the therapist from the 3rd floor, looked tired and worried at the same time “He bit Mr. Kang and demolished the room. He says nothing but your name”

Jisoo and Hoseok exchanged the knowing looks.

“Did he get something?” she asked while taking a glance inside the cell. The frown crept on her face immediately “Tied and masked up? You said he kept on saying my name!”

“We had to” the injured guard snapped and just in that moment they heard a horrific shriek from inside the ward. They all jumped in their spots but not Jisoo. Without any warning she put her hospital ID card on the reader, opening the cell automatically and standing eye to eye with the male inside.

“Hey V, good morning” Jisoo started after closing the doors and ignoring the shocked reactions of her co-workers “Thanks for the dinner invitation, how do I look?”

The person in front of her, wearing a straitjacket and a mask around his head, preventing him from biting his tongue and lips, quickly calmed down. His posture suddenly became smaller and his heavy breaths quietened.

“Yeah, I look like , I know” she continued, taking a step closer. The man stiffened but stayed in one place. In the glimpse of an eye Jisoo caught Hoseok being ready to interfere but he knew better than anyone to just let her work.

“Ok V, I'm going to take the mask off now. Can I do it?”

As always no response was heard but she carefully approached him, putting her hands on the back of his head where the buckle was.

Click!

The pair of beady eyes landed on her but Jisoo just smiled softly, slowly removing the mask. As soon as his mouth was free he gritted his teeth, growling.

“V, I want to get you out of here but you need to help me” Jisoo whispered, one of her hands still on his head, it lightly “We need to get you a haircut”

The growl stopped and Jisoo grinned.

“Very well” she commented while going behind him to untie the jacket “I can take this off too but until troxyca hits you'll stay here. Is that ok?”

Silence.

“V?”

Silence.

“Please, V”

Loud sigh.

“Ji...Soo”

Jisoo giggled upon hearing her name.

When she got kicked out of the medical university and, thanks to her mother and her unlimited connections, got an offer to work as a nurse in the St. John's Mental Asylum she never thought she will stay here for so long. But that was before she met V.

V was in the asylum since he turned 18 after devastating a gas station, killing dozen of people in the result and being sentenced for a lifetime in prison to what he reacted with nothing but laughter. His reaction made the judges think twice as they directed him to take additional tests and the results were obvious: mentally unstable, suffering from many different kinds of maniacal states, probable pyromania and arousing from the sight of blood, labeling him as a sociopath with sadistic tendencies and growing schizoaffective disorder that needed to be monitored. And so V ended up here, becoming the most extreme case the asylum currently had.

Too bad no one knew where did V come from and who he was. He barely spoke besides laughing, yelling, growling and saying the consonant 'V' hence the nickname they gave him. Sometimes when he was actually stable thanks to medicines and silence he allowed himself to tell few basic sentences or repeat the names but he still remained an enigma without any trace from the past life.

On the first day of work Jisoo quickly crossed her path with him and then something strange happened. She read his files that described him as an 'animal', 'criminal' and 'uttermost danger' but V, being tied to bed and looking absolutely fragile and scared, reached out for her hand and barely whispered the words she will never forget.

“Please help me”

And just like that she decided she will.

Jisoo exited the cell, shaking the memories to the back of her skull.

“He has many attacks lately” doctor Park stated while the whole group began their way to the lift “He reacts to something”

“But to what?” Hoseok visibly saddened “He was doing great! Seriously, for the 70 days straight he has been to a normal room...And now the ward again”

“The renovation? Maybe even the Thai girl?” Jisoo put a finger on her chin, seriously thinking “She's pretty loud and you know sensitive he is when it comes to noises”

“Speak of the devil” one of the guards said when they saw another group approaching them from the other side of the corridor. The poker-faced doctor in the lead, Choi Seunghyun, meant only one thing – 10th floor, schizophrenia. Behind his back they easily spotted one nurse and one guard, pushing the occupied bed on wheels.

Hoseok gulped and without looking he knew Jisoo did the same.

They heard of Lalisa Monoban, one of the newest patients in the asylum. She arrived to St. John's with panic attacks, incredibly scared and almost unable to speak. At first everyone thought it was just an overdose or a diminish of an extended borderline manic stage but the longer she stayed – the worse it was. Suddenly out of nowhere Lalisa Manoban, the student from Bangkok, started to claim that she was seeing unshaped beings and hearing voices, mostly hissing at her to 'run' and commanding her to 'jump'.

“Poor girl” doctor Park said emphatically, covering . No matter how long she was working she could never get used to schizophrenic psychosis.

While evading Hoseok and Jisoo took a glimpse at the ill girl tied to the bed and her partly opened eyes. She was exhausted, that was certain, but still remained to look incredibly beautiful.

That was heartbreaking.

“He's coming” she abruptly said with Thai accent, her blunt gaze somewhere on the ceiling “He's coming for you, Kim Jisoo”

Jisoo froze, feeling the chills running down her spine while she slowly turned around to look at Lalisa Manoban. But she saw nothing but the group from the 10th floor opening the doors to the next isolation ward, putting the bed inside.

Jisoo stood still until her pager rang again, making her jump.

“You ok?” Hoseok asked, still waiting and thinking of Lalisa's odd words as well. But he decided to not push the topic.

“Yeah yeah, I'm good, sorry, that was just-um, whoa” Jisoo shook her head and took the pager out “Oh really? The head is calling”

She waved her hand at Hoseok and went in the other direction, going straight to the doctor Kwon's office on the 1st floor.

She knocked the doors four times, as always.

“Come in!”

Kwon Jiyong, the head doctor of the St. John's Mental Asylum, was sitting behind his desk – a cup of coffee on his right and the thick folder on his left.

“Didn't took you long Jisoo-ah” Jiyong winged his eyebrows “Coffee?”

“Yes, I'm dying to have one”

“How are things at the 5th?” the head doctor asked while approaching the express and filling a mug “Is V alright?”

“So so” she grimaced, accepting the cup “He's distracted lately, apparently doctor Park is trying to figure what that is. My bet goes to the renovation noise” Jisoo took a sip and looked at the men with a slight annoyance “Will you finally tell me what was that about, uncle?”

“And that's why I called you here” Jiyong grinned and took his seat again, patting the folder with his hand “I'm sorry to hear V isn't doing well, as you will have to say goodbye to him for some time”

“What?!” Jisoo squealed “You can't fire me!”

“I'm not firing you, I'm giving you a very special task”

With that he casually tossed the massive folder over the desk, making it stop in front of Jisoo.

Min Yoon Gi.

Jisoo's eyebrow perked.

“More special than V?”

Jiyong only nodded and Jisoo went quickly through the documents, spotting nothing spectacular but the duplicates of probably every possible psychiatric hospital around the world in every language existing.

“This patient, Min Yoongi, is the one your mother will perform the surgery on”

Jisoo, for the second time today, froze.