Woohyun was never fond of car rides. The only one who had cars were the rich, and the authority, and Woohyun was neither one of those. The last time he rode a car was back when he was eight years old, when he and his family were driving to the province to visit his grandmother.

Yes, they used to be rich. His father even considered buying another car. But ever since that car accident ten years ago, no one had survived to provide for him and his brother. Mother and father—both dead on the spot when the car slipped and tumbled about because of the icy, slippery road.

So ten years later, Woohyun gets to sit on the backseat of a car again—police car—to be exact, which was taking him to military camp. He breathes in and out quite roughly, holding his dear life unto the seatbelt buckled around his waist.

Woohyun doesn't look out the window. He doesn't look anywhere else, but instead focus his eyes on his shaking hands which were tightly gripping the strap around him.

I'm safe. I have a seatbelt. I'm in a police car. I'm safe.

"Scared of the road?"

Woohyun looks up to see the soldier's eyes, as if mocking him, through the rear view mirror. Woohyun shakes his head before his eyes go downcast once again.

"I…I don't want to talk about it." He replies with a soft tone.

The blonde driver chuckles a little, stirring the car to the left with much speed that it makes Woohyun's heart race. "If you're scared of a little car ride, then how do you think you'd survive inside the camp?"

"I'm fine." Woohyun retorts with a slight frown. He tries to suppress the furrow of his brows and closes his eyes, breathing deeply to calm his nerves and racing heart.

Woohyun doesn't realize that he's fallen asleep. Not until the same soldier from before kicks him awake. "Pick up your bags from the trunk. Follow me."

Woohyun nods quickly and does what he was told. He had three bags in total; one backpack and two duffel bags. Then, he follows after the soldier quickly inside the compound.

The walls were very, very tall. Woohyun estimates them be at least 50 meters in height, and they spread very widely both to the left and to the right until Woohyun couldn't see any signs of the wall anymore because of the trees that had swallowed them inside their forest.

They go through a small door which was built up to the side of the wall. Once he steps inside, the first thing he sees are the soldiers, also known as the the men in the stupid uniforms he despised so much. They were all the same. All abusive and loud and violent. Woohyun hated with much depth every single one of them.

"Hey, newbie." The blonde whistles to catch Woohyun's attention. "Over here."

Woohyun follows the soldier inside what seemed to be the control room. It was cramped and hot, and Woohyun just wanted to get out of the room as soon as possible. And as if the dry air wasn't enough to suffocate them, the soldier kicks the door shut with his boot.

"Give me your bags."

Woohyun's jaw tenses with hesitation. "Is that necessary?"

The blonde puts on a playful expression, looking Woohyun from head to toe. "You hiding something?"

"No."

"Then give me your bags."

Without another word, Woohyun slides his bags to the blonde's direction. He watches the soldier rummage through every single one of his things, and thankfully, nothing was found to be worth confiscating.

The blonde throws the bags at Woohyun, which the teen successfully catches. "Great agility." The soldier compliments. "We sure could use that around the team."

"I don't think I'd want to join your team." Woohyun says as he slips his arms through the holes of his backpack. Again, he stares squarely at the soldier, whole face tense.

Shrugging, the blonde walks over to Woohyun with a playful smile. He them slowly slides his finger across the bottom of Woohyun's neck. "You know what's next after bag inspection?"

Woohyun closes his eyes. "What?"

"Body inspection." The other whispers before he pushes the other quite strongly, causing the teenager to lose his balance, only to gain it back a second later. "Strip."

"I think I'm good—"

"I said strip."

Woohyun breathes in air as he closes his eyes. He tries to calm down, not to get mad or shout for help. Slowly, he says, "That isn't necessary."

The blonde looks awfully pissed off at the moment. "Fine. If you're not going to do it them I'm—"

"Key."

The door swings open with a force, and in comes another soldier with a boy in casual clothes following from behind.

"Taemin." Key returns with his face still portraying his mood.

"What were you doing?"

"Body inspection." Key points a finger at Woohyun with a roll of his eyes too. "The boy wouldn't take his clothes off."

Taemin sighs and walks over to Woohyun. He pulls Woohyun closer and places his palms over Woohyun's chest as he pats them down to his pants. "He's all good. See, Key? He didn't have to remove his clothes."

"Whatever." Key sits down on a chair which looked like it was about to fall anytime soon. Woohyun wishes it'd be right now. "Who's that?" Key asks, beckoning over to the other teenager behind Taemin.

Taemin looks behind him before he pulls the teenager up to the front. "Lee Sungyeol. Turning 18 in a few months."

"Don't touch me." Sungyeol snaps at Taemin.

Taemin looked fairly surprised, and Woohyun's just as surprised as to why Sungyeol wasn't shot in the head yet. "Relax. Just give me your bags."

Sungyeol stiffly throws his bag to the floor to which Key is quick to search. "A lighter, an army knife, cigarettes—"

"They're mine." Sungyeol grits through his teeth, watching with anger as Key places all the confiscated things in his drawer.

"Not anymore." Key smiles teasingly. "Now, how about that body inspection?"

Taemin sighs and does the body inspection himself, which Key watches with a displeased look. Sungyeol pries Taemin's hands away from him, eyes glaring. "I said don't touch me."

Woohyun watches from the side, rather amused. Who does this Sungyeol kid think he is?

"You've got some attitude on you." Key remarks. Well, obviously. But he doesn't seem too affected by it. "Better change it now if you don't want to end up in a hospital bed later."

At that, Woohyun swallows hard. It was an indirect threat. Although Key and Taemin doesn't look like the ones to beat the hell out of them, Woohyun knows that there will definitely some people down the road who's more than willing to do so.

Lee Sungyeol doesn't speak. He bends down and grabs his bags from the floor before he's out exiting the room. Woohyun just finds Sungyeol more interesting by the minute.

"Who the does he think he is?" Key spits out angrily, taking the confiscated cigarettes from the table. He lights one of them up and puts it between his lips.

Taemin glances over to the door where Sungyeol just went out through. "I'll go get him." And Woohyun mentally screams at Taemin not to leave him alone in the room with Key, but Taemin is already out the door.

Key exhales out a puff of smoke. He gestures over to Woohyun with a smile. "Want to continue where we left off?"

+

Woohyun learns from Taemin's babbling that Sungyeol didn't have a family. Sungyeol was a runaway rebellious teenager from the orphanage for a few months now. Once the police finally had their hands on him, they enlisted him in the camp even if he wasn't technically 18 yet.

They were walking through the busy fields of the camp, all eyes of the trainees on the newbies. Sungyeol didn't really seem affected and continued to walk ahead of the both of them. Woohyun, on the other hand, was wary of their stares.

"Don't mind them." Taemin says when he notices Woohyun's uneasy eyes wandering about. "They're just curious of the newcomers."

Woohyun thinks that maybe Taemin wasn't such a bad person. Despite him being officially part of the army, he was the nicest one Woohyun's ever met. He wonders how that was even possible. How such a soft spoken, gentle looking soldier was content with working with such vicious and violent human beings.

But Woohyun doesn't ask. He would never dare to, anyways.

The two of them stop walking when Sungyeol stops too. Taemin immediately senses his dilemma, as there is two separate paths in front of them. The soldier leaves Woohyun's side and takes the lead.

"We're gonna go—"

"I know where to go." Sungyeol cuts him off and starts walking towards the right side. Woohyun just stays there, frozen.

"How does he know where to go?" Woohyun whispers to himself, which unfortunately, Taemin hears.

"It's a long story." Taemin replies, which only confused Woohyun more. "Let's go."

As they walk further into the gravelly path, they get swallowed