"And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, is that if something happened to one of us--excuse me for saying this--but if something happened to one of us tomorrow, I think the other one, the other person, would grieve for a while, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, have someone else soon enough. All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory."

― Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

--

"We got all the kids some blankets, coloring books, and snacks to make them comfortable," Jooheon explained as he led Hyunwoo toward the interrogation rooms after they'd both restocked on caffeine. "Well, that was mostly Hoseok, but still." He opened the door to one of the rooms, popped his head in, and closed the door without entering. He repeated the process several times before he apparently saw Hoseok on the other side of the glass, and he shouldered open the door, leaning on it so Hyunwoo could slip past. Then they both took a seat in front of the observation mirror.

Hoseok was currently talking with Minhyuk, who had ignored the coloring book but had accepted the blanket and snacks.

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," Hoseok was saying. "I'm not here to interrogate you, Minhyuk. I'm really just here to listen."

"So I don't have to say anything?" Minhyuk asked, pulling the blanket a little together around himself. "Not if I don't want to?"

"Not if you don't want to," Hoseok confirmed with a warm smile. Hyunwoo frowned; it seemed like Hoseok got along so easily with kids, and Hyunwoo wished he were that naturally sociable.

Minhyuk looked down for a moment before looking back over at Hoseok. "Can me and Hyungwon be in the same room?"

Hoseok nodded. "We can make that happen, but I'm going to listen to Hyungwon first, okay? He might have things he wants to say but doesn't want you to hear, and I want to make sure he has an opportunity to be listened to if he wants it."

"All right." Minhyuk nodded, restless but satisfied for the moment. "What do you want to know?"

Hoseok shook his head. "It's not about what I want to know, Minhyuk. It's about what you want me to know. You get to choose what – if anything – you want to tell me. And Minhyuk, you don't owe me any information. You don't have to tell me or the officers anything, if you don't want to."

"But what I tell you could help the case, right?" Minhyuk asked, looking up at Hoseok with eyes older than his years.

Hoseok shrugged. "I'm just the psychologist. Yes, it's possible that you may know things that could help with the case, but my priority is your health and safety. I work with the police, but that doesn't always mean we want the same thing. Although-" Hoseok paused to look up at the window with a knowing smile even though he couldn't possibly see Hyunwoo or Jooheon. "I think it's safe to say that these officers have the same priorities as me right now."

"You want me to pick out pictures or something?" Minhyuk asked uncertainly, eyebrows dipping.

Hoseok read his anxiety at the thought and shook his head. "I don't think we need to do that right away."

"Then what exactly do you want me to say?" Minhyuk asked, clearly frustrated as he picked as loose threads on the blanket.

"How are you feeling?" Hoseok asked, switching tactics a little bit. "Not just physically in the moment, but mentally. How do you feel as a result of what happened?"

"Guilty," Minhyuk said quietly.

"Why's that?"

"Because it was my fault that it even happened, and it was my fault that Hyungwon went too. Everything that happened to him is my fault."

"No, Minhyuk," Hoseok corrected softly but firmly. "The only people responsible are the ones that hurt both of you. You're not at fault for what happened."

"That's what you and Officer Hyunwoo say, but I know the truth," Minhyuk said, sniffling.

Eventually, the sniffling turned to crying, and Jooheon and Hyunwoo stepped out of the observation room to wait in the hallway while Hoseok comforted Minhyuk.

--

They moved into the next observation room just in time to watch Hoseok enter.

"Hi, Hyungwon," he greeted softly, and the boy at the table looked up for a brief moment before going back to his coloring page. He paused briefly to scratch at a red rash on his arm – most likely the resurgence of his eczema – but then he resumed coloring.

"What are you working on?" Hoseok asked as he sat down in the seat next to Hyungwon.

"Picture," Hyungwon muttered, busy with the red crayon.

"You're coloring a...a candy? Is that right?" Hoseok asked, leaning forward to peek at the art masterpiece in progress.

Hyungwon mumbled something, and Hoseok asked him to repeat it.

"...passing them around like candies," he said in an odd tone as though he were repeating something he'd heard rather than using his own words.

"Passing what around like candies?" Hoseok asked, a frown on his face.

"They'd pick out the ones they liked the best, the shiniest ones, and then they would take turns unwrapping them," Hyungwon said, still working on his coloring rather than looking at Hoseok. "And then they would get a taste, and once they'd gotten enough of the flavor, they'd pass them along to someone else to try. Like candy."

Hoseok leaned back in his chair, eyes troubled and posture tense. "Who are 'they' and 'them'?" he tried asking, but Hyungwon ignored him and continued to ignore all his following questions.

After five minutes of noncooperation, Hoseok finally admitted defeat and met Hyunwoo and Jooheon out in the hallway. "I'm worried about him," Hoseok stated directly. "He's one of the youngest children the team recovered. And sometimes kids can shield their emotions and pain behind stories or drawings  - even claiming that the events happened to someone else – but to see a child removed on multiple levels at once is..." Hoseok took a deep breath before meeting their eyes. "Troubling, to say the least."

"Are any of the other kids reacting like that?" Jooheon asked, lips slanting in a concerned frown.

Hoseok hesitated before tilting his head from side to side. "Yes and no. Are they reacting in the same exact way? No. But do they all show signs of attempting to cope with the trauma of sexual abuse?" He exhaled heavily. "Of course they do. But every victim copes in a different way. One of the other boys that was recovered – he's maybe two years older than Minhyuk – outright denied the fact that he'd ever been sexually exploited. He said nobody had ever touched him. But we know for a fact, based on the newspaper clippings the team found, that he's been missing for over a month. And once our medical examiner takes a look at each child, I'm positive that we'll find physical evidence pointing to sexual abuse for every one of them."

"So why deny it?" Hyunwoo asked. Part of him wanted to meet the boy and learn his story, but it felt like his heart was too heavy to hold any more pain.

Hoseok grimaced, kneading at his knuckles while he verbalized his thoughts. "It's a complicated issue. There's the abuse in and of itself, and some victims try to deny it to create the narrative – at least to themselves – that it never happened. A defensive protection mechanism, basically. But there's more than just the trauma factor. A certain amount of shame – unjustified shame that of course they shouldn't carry but do nonetheless – goes along with it. And that factor is exponentially higher in male victims of sexual abuse because society has perpetuated the idea that men, the biologically stronger of the two sexes, should be able to resist exploitation more successfully than women."

They fell into an awkward silence in which they each contemplated what Hoseok had said.

"But it's some sort of awful catch 22," Hoseok said with a sigh. "People expect victims to be female, and so they provide resources for female victims. But society largely avoids or ignores the possibility of male victims, so you don't see as many resources for them. You can find all sorts of centers and programs for women who are victims of sexual abuse, but those same resources for males are much rarer, which makes coping with the aftermath much more difficult for victims who already feel socially pressured to be ashamed."

"You mentioned other coping methods?" Jooheon asked after a long moment. "There's- whatever Hyungwon is doing, and you just mentioned denial. I'm assuming neither are healthy options, right?"

Hosoek started to shrug again but caught himself with a sheepish grin. "I'm sorry to give you more grey answers, but...it's not exactly black and white. Some studies propose four main categories of coping mechanisms – avoidant, internalized, angry, and active-slash-social coping. And within each of those categories are a number of other mechanisms – minimizing, rationalizing, disassociating, vanishing, lashing out, lying...But to give you an example of what I mean..."

He paused and looked up at the ceiling tiles while he tried to pick a good example. "Take supervigilance." He was about to go on when he noticed Hyunwoo's confused look, and he smiled and backtracked to explain. "Supervigilance is...well, it's like a state of constant alertness. Someone experiencing this is always anticipating a threat or attack, always putting themselves in a position for easy egress." Catching Hyunwoo's dipping frown, he quickly clarified, "Exit, I mean. Always searching for an easy exit in case danger arises. Or sometimes supervigilance manifests in an interpersonal way, in which the subject is anticipatory instead towards the moods and actions of others."

Hyunwoo gave a small nod to show that he understood at least partially, and Hoseok nodded back before continuing on with his earlier point.

"Some victims develop this sort of supervigilance as a defensive mechanism. They're trying to prevent themselves from being hurt again, by situations or by people, so they remain highly cautious. So, is this coping mechanism 'good'?" Hoseok paused after throwing up a pair of air quotes, but neither of them answered because he had a degree in psychology and they didn't. "Well, they're less likely to be endangered if they're constantly on alert for it, so in a sense, it's effective rather than innately good. But moreso than that, someone who is supervigilant and therefore more perceptive of their environment – possibly obsessively so – may find success in a career where it's helpful to be detail-orientated. So, not all coping mechanisms are inherently bad, is what I'm trying to say. The question is simply whether the function serves well in a specific environment. A supervigilant person may have a more difficult time living in the city, for instance, because there's so much to observe that the person may be overwhelmed by trying to process it all."

"Okay, well, what about Hyungwon?" Hyunwoo asked, trying not to sound frustrated.

"It's hard to say exactly what mechanism he's using," Hoseok admitted after a moment. "In terms of the main four categories, he aligns most closely with avoidant behavior. Specifically..." Hoseok tilted his head. "Dissociation, maybe. The idea there is that the subject is able to escape the situation mentally as it's happening. A safe space in the brain, so to speak. So they cope with traumatic events without necessarily feeling them, which sounds good in theory but can result in this same mechanism being triggered by other things, whereupon they'll once more disassociate and vanish into that mental safe space. They don't really process the trauma because they're essentially blocking it out as it's happening, which can make a healthy recovery more difficult."

Hoseok paused as though checking through what other mechanisms might apply. "There's another theory that's fairly similar. Some people refer to it as 'disappearing' or 'fading,' or a number of other terms. It's another way of referring to when a subject 'disappears' into their own headspaces and just...checks out from the world for a while. Some subjects have described being in this space and feeling invisible in a sense, or feeling as though others couldn't see them once they had 'disappeared' or 'faded.' It's another way of avoiding reality."

Hoseok looked at Hyunwoo specifically, a worried set to his mouth. "That's what I'm worried about with Hyungwon. One of these sorts of mechanisms may have enabled him to get through those traumatic experiences, but if that behavior continues, then I'm worried what it will mean long-term for him."

"But you said-" Hyunwoo fumbled to find the right words. He wasn't a psychologist, and he didn't have a college degree. So he couldn't possibly be as eloquent as Hoseok, and that frustrated him a bit. "You said- you said that these kids could still be healthy and successful, even with their coping mechanisms."

"Some can," Hoseok half-agreed with a small nod. "But earlier, when I was talking about supervigilance – that's a mechanism that can be honed into a skill of perception. But disassociation only serves to remove someone from reality, which in turn pushes them farther away from recovering and healing. That isn't to say that someone who experiences disassociation or 'disappearing' can't be healthy or successful," he hurried on. "Just that it's more likely to create issues in the future rather than resolve them."

"And...and Minhyuk?" Hyunwoo asked after a moment.

Hoseok nodded to himself, mentally running through his notes from earlier. "Minhyuk is...surprisingly well-adjusted. He doesn't seem to be in denial of what occurred, and while he isn't particularly forthcoming with his experience, he doesn't seem to experience psychological avoidance. And I didn't detect any 'angry' or chaotic behaviors. A lot of children end up displaying that sort of behavior as a means of signaling that they need attention and care – I identified one or two children that I believe fit in this category – but Minhyuk is..."

Hoseok shrugged. "I can't yet claim that he's doing well because I can't presume to know that after only a short discussion, and symptoms can always manifest later, but he doesn't seem to be struggling as much as the other children." Hoseok crossed his arms and pursed his lips, deep in thought. "My initial conclusion was that he's more concerned at the moment with acting as a caretaker to Hyungwon, which could result in him neglecting his own psychological needs for the time being. But again, that's not necessarily bad – a lot of people cope by helping others cope because it validates their own feelings and experiences. Not only that, compassion towards someone else has also been shown to decrease anxiety and depression, so I think this could be a helpful mechanism for Minhyuk."

Jooheon opened his mouth, seemingly more than ready to continue debating the psychological theory at play, but Hyunwoo interrupted. "Can I move Minhyuk into Hyungwon's room now?"

Hoseok looked caught off guard for half a moment before he nodded. "Sure, do you want me to-"

"I got it, you guys can keep talking," Hyunwoo said, already giving a small wave and walking down the hallway. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in what Hoseok had to say; he wanted to understand what the kids were thinking, it was just...It was hard to stand around talking indirectly about hypothetical things when he could just go talk to the kids directly and make sure they were okay.

Although that was a stupid thought since of course they weren't okay, but he felt like if he could just talk to them, then maybe he'd be able to figure out if they were going to be okay.

He went to Minhyuk's room and knocked politely before pushing the door open and leaning in without ever actually crossing the threshold with his foot. "Minhyuk?"

Minhyuk looked over, and a small smile appeared on his face when he took in the identity of his visitor.

"Do you want to go sit in Hyungwon's room instead? Hoseok finished talking with him," Hyunwoo offered, and Minhyuk nodded, standing up while still clutching the blanket to his chest. He paused only to grab a few snacks from the table before following Hyunwoo out into the hallway and two doors down.

Once again, Hyunwoo gave a light knock before holding open the door, letting Minhyuk go ahead of him. Hyungwon didn't look up until Minhyuk plopped down in the seat next to him and dumped a small sea of strawberry fruit snacks on the shiny steel table.

"I got strawberry," Minhyuk declared loudly, overcompensating for the silence of the room.

Hyungwon stopped coloring to look over at Minhyuk, and he seemed to exhale spiritually in a sense, sinking back more comfortably in his chair and losing interest in his drawing. "I have blueberry," he said quietly, pushing his pile of fruit snacks in the middle toward Minhyuk's so they had a veritable mound.

"Can I have one?" Minhyuk asked, already reaching for a blueberry fruit snack pack as Hyungwon nodded.

"Do you want a strawberry one?" Minhyuk asked, and Hyungwon just shrugged.

They conversed among themselves for a little bit, mostly just Minhyuk talking, as Hyunwoo took in the scaly red patches on Hyungwon's arms with a small frown. Those upset him just as much as everything else, for some reason, maybe simply because they represented pain that had been completely avoidable.

Hyunwoo wanted to stay, but he thought that maybe they needed a little time alone, just kids, so he closed the door and walked back toward Hoseok and Jooheon.

"...where people can get into trouble, drinking or using drugs as a means of temporarily blocking the memory of trauma." Hoseok paused, still facing Jooheon because he hadn't yet seen Hyunwoo come back. "These children are at higher risk for that mechanism of coping in the long run due to their environment. If they return to their homes – assuming most of them reside in the fourth quadrant – then those substances will be easily accessible for them to abuse."

Jooheon looked over at Hyunwoo with a fake smile that hid the usual concern. "Hoseok here was just telling me about other risk factors for the kids."

Hoseok took a step back and adjusted so he was facing both of them. "It's not definite-"

"But highly likely," Jooheon said with a sigh. "These kids have been exposed to drugs since they were born. And I'm not trying to generalize here, I'm just trying to be realistic. The neighborhoods these kids are from have high drug activity. The chances of them falling into a pattern of drug abuse before were high. Adding in factors of sexual exploitation and childhood trauma..."

He sighed, dropping his head and rubbing at his temple.

"Hey," Hyunwoo said softly, eyes troubled. "You don't know that that's what will happen. Hoseok said earlier that they could grow up to be healthy and successful."

"But do you really think that's what's going to happen?" Jooheon asked, still rubbing at his forehead, and maybe it was the fatigue or the fading of adrenaline, but he sounded close to tears. "Every kid I work with, I always tell myself, You don't know what'll happen. I always believe in them and try to get them to believe in themselves. And I'm so convincing, I fool myself. And then three years later, I'm busting them for selling, or I'm identifying some OD victim, and I..."

Jooheon's hand lowered from his forehead to wipe at his eyes. "I just can't- I don't want to do that anymore. I don't know how many more kids I have to watch ruin their lives or die too young. And..." He looked up briefly with watering eyes to look at the door to Hyungwon and Minhyuk's room. "They're just so young," he mumbled, looking down once more and wiping harshly at his eyes to catch any remaining tears. "I don't want to watch them get older. I don't want to see what they'll become."

Maybe that was why Hyunwoo's anxiety hadn't eased after they'd been rescued. Maybe he'd known that they'd fixed the immediate issue only to unearth a lifetime of trauma. Maybe he would never be able to rid himself of this perpetual feel of unease.

"Not every kid is Gunhee," Hoseok said gently, and Jooheon froze up before glaring at Hoseok. The change was so sudden that Hyunwoo took half a step back. He realized that he'd never seen Jooheon angry, really angry, before, and that this was probably it.

"I wouldn't have told you about it if I'd known that you'd bring it up every fucking time I'm upset," Jooheon said. "You're here for the kids, aren't you? Then why the hell are you digging around in my head? Go fuck with someone else's mind for a change."

Hoseok looked slightly taken aback, but he put his hands up respectfully and spoke in his normal soothing voice. "Jooheon, I'm just trying to-"

"I don't care," Jooheon snapped. "What you're trying to do and what you're doing are the same thing to me. And I asked you after last time not to bring it up. I asked you," Jooheon said, his eyebrows furrowing downward as he relayed the breach of trust. "So how come you gotta remind me every fucking time?"

"Because you haven't dealt with it emotionally," Hoseok said, still calm, but there was worry on his face. "And every time you end up in a similar situation, you react in the same way. It's not healthy for you, and it's not fair to the victims."

Jooheon looked like he wanted to argue some more, but after a second, he turned away and started walking back toward the other end of the station where the cubicles and break room were located. Hyunwoo hung around another second, avoiding Hoseok's pleading gaze, before following after him.

He found Jooheon in front of his desk, arms crossed and head laying across them.

"You all right?" he asked quietly as he settled into his own chair. For some reason, he felt calmer knowing that other people were emotionally struggling as well. He felt less alone, in a way. Like someone else lashing out validated his own difficulty in keeping his temper in check.

"I hate shrinks," Jooheon muttered after a moment, and Hyunwoo huffed lightly.

"You're the one who told me I should talk to one," Hyunwoo reminded Jooheon, and his partner groaned.

"I know, I know. It's generally a good idea. Just..." Jooheon didn't sit up, but his eyes met Hyunwoo's. "Once they figure out what buttons to push, they're like a five-year-old with a PS4. They never let go of the fucking controller and they just button mash away. And I know he thinks he's doing it out of some fucked-up benevolence but..."

"Nobody appreciates being mentally dissected," Hyunwoo agreed. He wasn't sure which mental buttons Hoseok would try to push with him. He honestly wasn't sure where he'd drawn his own lines in the sand. But he was discovering things about himself that he'd never known – this anxiety, this frustration – and they worried him. He wasn't sure he wanted someone else to magnify those unpleasant features.

"Yeah," Jooheon agreed after a moment. His eyes fell from Hyunwoo's to instead stare at the cubicle wall. "He was from the fourth quadrant in the Walour Motel, same as Minhyuk and Hyungwon."

"Gunhee?" Hyunwoo asked, and Jooheon nodded his head slightly.

"He was my best friend, growing up. I lived a few blocks over, and we would hang out from sunup to sundown." A small crossed Jooheon's lips as he reminisced. "We got into a lot of stupid shit, but nothing really bad. Didn't touch drugs, cause we'd seen what they did to everyone around us and we didn't want that." The smile flickered. "He was...so surprised when I told him that I was thinking about becoming a cop. He told me the same things everyone was telling me – that cops had it out for people in our neighborhood, that the system was unfair, that I'd never make it anyway. But I asked him how the hell I was supposed to change any of those things from outside the system?"

Jooheon's eyelids slid down half an inch. "So I joined up and he stayed back. I checked in with him every now and then, but...it just wasn't like before. It's hard being a cop and a friend at the same time. The same way it's hard being friends with Hoseok when he's trying to pick at your brain all the time. It's just different." He sighed, and the smile disappeared. "But I still checked in, and I asked him if he was getting into drugs, and he promised me-" Jooheon's voice cracked. "-he promised me that he was never going to do any of that shit and that it had nothing to do with me being a cop, that he just didn't want to. And I thought...I really thought that he meant it, that me and him could make a difference somehow, that if we turned out better than the rest, other people would follow our example."

Jooheon's eyelids finally fluttered shut, and his voice along with them.

"What happened?" Hyunwoo asked as softly as he could.

"What do you think happened?" Jooheon asked with a small huff, eyes still closed. "I was the lucky person who got to ID him when he overdosed."

"I'm sorry," Hyunwoo replied out of instinct, but the words sort of came forth on their own.

"So am I," Jooheon said, and somehow, the words sounded like a question. "There was so much he could've been, could've done. But he only got as far as the needle in his arm would let him go." A slight pause as Jooheon circled back to their earlier conversation. "Hoseok says...I feel guilty. That I couldn't save him." Another pause, only this one sounded like Jooheon was waiting for Hyunwoo to fill it with agreement. He stayed quiet. "But I'm honestly just so disappointed that he didn't save himself."

The words hit home with Hyunwoo, even if he couldn't immediately identify why they resonated with him quite so much. Another apology was hesitating on his lips, but somehow, he sensed that Jooheon didn't want more apologies on his friend's behalf. "And you're worried that these kids...that they'll turn out the same way?"

Jooheon's eyes fluttered open to fix Hyunwoo with a sad gaze. "I just don't want you to be shocked, later."

--

published 02/08/21 (mm/dd/yy)

4363 words