Detecting Falsehood

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Taehyung's POV

Over the next few days, my life settles into a routine. I'm woken every morning by a gentle knock on the door, the loud opening of the hatch, the appearance of a large breakfast and a small note telling me the date and time. My body clock somehow uses this information to start sorting itself out again.

I'm taken to the bathroom every day, at the same time every day, by a minion. It's not always 21, sometimes it's a woman (again in a face mask) who's not willing to speak to me at all, which is a little crushing. I only find out her number (37) when I ask 21 about it one day and he recognises the description of her.

But the sight of my new and relatively unfamiliar friend comes as a huge relief, as he's the only person I really trust in this confusing mess of a place. Everyone else lies every second they open their mouth. He's much more honest, at least to me, which suggests that he understands the need for truth when trying to make friends with someone new.

It's refreshing, safe to say.

Once I've been taken to that little bathroom, and returned to my cell, I'm often given something to do, a mundane task that I don't really want to do but have to. Copying out letters in a neater handwriting in languages I don't even understand so that I can't guess what's going on, unpicking ropes and then retying them. I'm even given a textbook and expected to make useless notes on things I don't really care about that much.

But it's enough to dispel the boredom, and so I'm not really that annoyed by it.

Gives me something to do.

I'm then given food again in the evening, a large plate of whatever's on the hypothetical menu that night, and 21 returns to take me to the bathroom again. If he hasn't already appeared by this point, he will then. And that's a huge relief, the knowledge that I will definitely have some friendly human interaction at some point at least once a day.

I don't think I'd be able to cope with complete isolation. That'd be too crushing to bear.

And over this time, I learn a lot about my new friend. He's often at least tipsy, and it's a miracle if there's not a bottle or two in his hand. But I get the sense that he wouldn't have it if he didn't have something he wanted to repress, some hidden pain that he doesn't want to deal with.

Something he wants to forget.

And, despite my own personal dislike of alcohol, I understand him. Every day, I wake up thinking I'm home, before the back pain kicks in and I remember that I'm unlikely to ever see anything other than the walls of this dingy little cell, that narrow corridor, that monochrome bathroom.

And it hurts. Of course it hurts. How could it not, when I miss everyone, every person that I've been forced away from?

Jimin, Yoongi, Hobi, their future wedding plans and honeymoon. I won't get to be involved in something I know Jimin's been hoping would happen for nearly three years. I won't be able to see the three of them standing there, suited up and handsome, about to swear their lives to each other.

I won't ever see Jin and Namjoon again. They're like my second parents, always have been. I've known them nearly all my life,  been to school with them since I was six years old. And now they're left with the knowledge that I lost my sister the same day everyone I love lost me. They might even think I chose to give up, to run away from my problems before they overcame me and drowned me in a flood of endless emotion.