First

I'm so sick of soup.

Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. A variety of three soups; Miso soup, Kimchi Jjigae, Udon soup. Every morning. Every afternoon.
Every night.

I'm the only one who has to fight the gag reflex, so my parents don't notice. I'm the only one who thinks about how bland the soup tastes now, because I'm so used to it.
Why?
I'm different.
And I'm the only one who knows.

Everyone else? The injection worked on them. I don't remember anything but the pain of it.

"Minhee, get ready for school."
I grit my teeth. I'm sick of that sentence, too. Same monotonous voice, over and over and over again. As if my mother was a robot, or a broken cassette player.
"Of course, Mom."
I left my dish on the table as I always did, grabbed my grey backpack, and made my way to school.

Another thing I was sick of? The color grey.
The school uniform is grey.
Every piece of clothing you'll ever see is grey - except President's, of course.
However, once again, I'm the only one who notices.

I'm in grade nine, and I'm fifteen.
Fifteen years of pretending.
Fifteen years of hiding.

It took me a while to realize I was different. I'd always be late saying hello to the teachers. Everyone else did it in perfect synchronization.
After a few weeks, I gave up and pretended to have said it, doubting that the teachers thought much of it.

I never knew how wrong I was.

"...And if it wasn't for the wonderful President, we would be completely lost, not prosperous like we are now.."
My teacher drones on and on about how wonderful President was while I space out, pretending to listen, as I often do.
Nobody even knew President's real name. All we knew was that President was a middle-aged woman.

Suddenly, the door bursts open. Everyone froze, as if someone pressed a pause button.
Me, being the idiot I am, turned to look instantly.

"Outsider."

My blood ran cold; I'd heard that term before. My teacher's monotone voice appeared in my mind, repeating the words she'd been preaching since day one of nineth grade.
Outsiders don't think like us; they are to be turned in the minute you meet one. They are a corruption of the government, and plan to take our personal freedom and rights away; would you let them do such a crime? No!
All too late, I try to fix my mistake. Something crashes into the back of my head, and all at once, my desk is far closer than I'd have liked it to be.

"I wonder who she is?"
"Well, she's obviously like us; or else she would have been put somehwere else."
"Yeah, but maybe they got her mixed up? I don't see no mark, Lay."
"It's probably hidden by clothes, Jongdae."
"You sure?"
A scoff. "Do you see how many layers she has on?"
"Yeah...but still."
"Just...shut up, will you? She's waking up."
"Lay, why are you always so push-ow!"

My eyes flutter open. Two boys sat opposite of me, one donning black hair, the other donning brown. Both have brown eyes.
I sit up, startled, and hit my head on something hard. "Where am I?" I mumble, rubbing the now-sore spot.
The boy closest to me shrugged. "Prison. They put 'Outsiders' here, so we don't 'corrupt' the thing the call 'prefection' and 'government'," he says, using his fingers as quotation marks.
I smile. Finally - someone like me. Maybe I wasn't so crazy after all.

"When was the last time you ate?" the boy to me asks, shifting slightly on the cement floor.
"This morning."
Jongdae and Lay exchange looks. "You've been here for three days," the farthest one says, leaning back against the wall.
I purse my lips. "Who are you?"
"Lay. The dork over there is Jongdae," he says, pointing to the boy next to me.
Jongdae scrunches his nose at Lay and sticks out his tongue.
I swing my feet over the edge of the bed. "Well...I'm Minhee. Are we the only people here?"
Jongdae stands up and begins to pace. "No. If you're referring to Outsiders, then yes, we're the only ones they've found."
My eyebrows furrow together. We're the only ones they've found. "You mean there's more like us? Outsiders?" I ask slowly.
Lay leans forward slightly "Well, yeah. We've met a few others. What they teach you in school isn't exactly what you should expect."

In other words, I shouldn't expect evil masterminds planning to take over the government and take away personal freedoms that don't exist.

"No , sherlock," I say sarcastically.
Jongdae smirks as Lay rolls his eyes and stands up. "I like her. Can't we keep her?" Jongdae asks.
Lay scoffs. "She's a human, not a goddamn pet, Jongdae," he replies coldly, simmying his way through the bars that seperate my room from another.
I pull my knees to my chest and focus on Jongdae. "Is he always like that?"
Jongdae shrugs.