I'd be lying if I said I slept well that night. As I tossed and I turned, all that was on my mind was her. I was worried for her, I was worried that that place would turn her into one of the people in the cells around her. Thinking about that, I had no doubt in my mind that if I walked into that room and saw she had changed, either gotten weaker or shut herself out even more...It would hurt my heart. 
I didn't know her, nor did I know why she was in prison, whether she had friends or family but what I did know was that she was slowly opening up to me and me only. I was the person who had the most potential to make a difference to her life and I had no ing idea why I wanted to make that change.

As I grabbed the glass of water by my bedside and downed it trying to alleviate my dried out throat caused by praying that she'd be okay and have a good night sleep, I realised that this girl had awakened things within me that I didn't even know existed. I felt like I needed to be there for her, I felt like I needed to get her to trust me so she'd have somebody to talk to when she's ready. 
Trying to think of reasons for doing this…was this like being maternal? Was I trying to be something like a mother figure to this girl because she looked like she was only in her teens?

Amongst those prayers, I also prayed for myself. I prayed that I'd get to patrol solitary even though I know it was impossible. Newbies couldn't do something like that, only the most experienced CO's were allowed to watch over those particular inmates. Why? Because that's where the most dangerous ones were housed, the mass murderers, serial rapists and bombers that had killed hundreds if not thousands of people. 
Solitary was watched by around five officers at a time, all bulky and burly men. Maybe it was ism, I'm not sure but I knew that if Taeyeon wasn't in one of those cells, I'd want to keep as far away as possible from them.

The alarm clock rang soon after I decided to try to get another hour or so. Part of me was ready to jump out of bed and go and see her but the other wanted to stay in bed and groan for I had only managed three hours sleep, if that. Nevertheless a job was a job so I got up, did my business and left in record time. The drive to work was even harder than getting up this morning as all my eyes wanted to do was close. I was lucky that there weren’t many cars on the road or I may have just crashed, I guess I had to thank the stupidly early hour shift for that.

Thankfully I got there unharmed and in one piece but really wasn't in the mood for action today. I grunted at my colleagues as they greeted me and then patted me down before walking into the main building, the strong lights in contrast to the still reasonably dark outside actually causing pain to my eyes. And just to top off my exhaustion, worry and irritability, I saw none one other than King Kong walking around looking like the Cheshire cat. She was walking with a slight limp and a hand on her stomach which managed to cheer me up a little and I fought the urge to smirk but the smile on her face really didn’t sit well with me. She may as well have a sign stuck to her forehead saying ‘I got Kim sent to Solitary!’ Why the hell was she even here? Why wasn’t she in the SHU too? I guess because good old Nichkhun had gone easy on her whereas the person who refused to sit and get beaten to a pulp and fought back in self-defence got into a small and filthy room for punishment. This place is ed up, angry wasn’t even the word to describe my mood right now.

Unable to look at her foul face any longer, I marched straight over to his office, actually having to wait outside for a few moments to control myself before walking inside without knocking.

“Tiffany, hey” he smiled “Are you okay? You look tired” No Sherlock.

With a super fake smile, I sat down opposite him “I'm curious as to why I've run into Kong just outside your office" I said with a straight to-the-point tone, he didn't seem to notice however. Instead he was staring with that same vile smirk I usually encountered but more disgusting if that was even possible...He wasn’t staring in my eyes either.

Due to the rush this morning, I had maybe accidentally left a few buttons undone on my shirt which showed my cleavage. Not caring whether I made it obvious, I simply buttoned up my top and looked at him with a subtle glare while he redirected his gaze and gave a slight chuckle.

"Kong?" he finally replied, politely looking into my eyes this time.

"Big girl, involved in the fight with Kim yesterday" I answered, my tone monotonous.

"Ahhh. Well yes, she's new so she's been given a warning. Plus she’s only just gotten out of the infirmary.” I gave a slight smile at that, bowing my head and clearing my throat to take attention away from it though.

"Can I ask when Kim will be allowed to return to her room?"

"A few more days will straighten her out" he answered. He couldn’t have sounded nice if he tried which just caused me to clench my fists, not caring that my nails became embedded into my palm and would soon emit blood from my skin from the force.

"How many days is a few more days…" I didn't particularly want to know the answer fearing that it’d be longer than I initially thought... I was right.

"I guess a week should do it. The little will learn her lesson by then I hope" How could he just sit there and sentence a young girl to something like that? What the hell was wrong with him? Was it just to get revenge for her talking back to him yesterday? Wow, just wow. My anger was at its peak and the urge to inflict bodily harm on this man was getting to be a nuisance.

"Can I also ask..." I cleared my throat and lowered my head trying to avoid showing my eyes that right now, if anything like Taeyeon’s were alight with fire. "…how old she is?"

"Who, Kim?" I nodded my head, still not looking into his eyes for fear he'd find something within my own. "Why on earth would it be necessary to have that information?" Now he sounded suspicious, perfect.

"I was just wondering..." I replied while trying to think up a reason to want to know. 
"I don't know whether to treat her like a kid or like an adult and it's frustrating." I smiled slightly, hopefully coming across like I didn't care about her.

"I still don't see why that's any of your business."

"Oh, okay" I replied with obvious frustration and went to stand up only to stop when he spoke soon after.

"She's not 'Taeyeon'" he said, making me furrow my brows in confusion. "She's not 'Kim' either." He rose from his seat and walked around his desk before sitting on the edge, right in front of me and looking down at me as he spoke. "She's 'inmate'"

I said nothing though it was clear to me what he was saying. He was basically requesting that I don't call her anything but inmate and that I wasn't entirely happy to do. Not when we had come so far, not when I had the potential to help her open up. I'd need to use her forename eventually when she started to trust me.

"Say 'inmate' like they are all the same to you. It reminds them that they're not really people"

"But they are people" I retorted.

"You can't think that way. They are sheep. We feed them and herd them from one room to the next. They are not like you. She is not someone you can befriend and then have coffee with. It's not possible." He then leaned forward until he was uncomfortably close and whispered in my ear. "She's nobody."

"She's somebody" I raised my voice a little, standing up quickly causing the chair I was sitting on to screech before taking a step away from him. "They are all somebody. We are not told their crimes because we are expected to treat them all the same. Some CO's are harsh and unforgiving but this one?" I pointed myself and realised there was no stopping my passionate argument now, regardless of the fact that I was talking to my boss this way. "This one believes in treating them nicely, fairly unless they throw it back in my face" I'd already had this conversation with Park… "I'm sorry if you don't like that but that's the way I am."

I was offended to see he was smiling throughout my whole speech while shaking his head, disagreeing with everything I was saying. "What makes you think any of them want your pity? They don't care for your kindness, they don't care for your sweet words or your nice tone Tiffany. All they care about, are the keys on your belt, the pin in your hair...All they care about, is freedom."

This man was no better than some of the despicable officer's working in this building. He was obviously their leader, they lived to please him. I scoffed and started to walk out hearing him speak once I had gone out of eyesight.

“You may leave.”

*******

As if I had expected my prayers to get to go down to solitary to be granted, I went to find out my posts for the day only to be disappointed. I was to do the usual - Counting, contraband search and watching over breakfast etc etc. I was pleased to see I’d be with Yuri for the contraband sweep but I still wanted to go to the SHU to at least see that Taeyeon was alive.

Clearly, that wasn’t to be so instead I tried to forget she was down there suffering and put my work head on to get on with things. It worked at least, after telling myself she was a tough young woman and could handle herself I got through the count pretty easily and started the contraband search without so much of a thought about the girl, finding myself having a nice time talking to some of the other inmates. For example the girl who hurt her ankle…I found out her name was Jang and she used to work in a bank until (in her own words) she told me she got too greedy for her own good, attempting to sneak some money each time people came to add to their bank accounts.

I was reasonably impressed as she explained how she had worked out that a certain corner near the desk wasn’t covered by the security cameras so used it to her advantage until one day she got caught. She had stolen over 800,000 won by the time she slipped up and exposed the money which was then shown going into her pocket.

“How long are you in for?” I asked out of curiosity as