"Escape?!" Seohyeon repeated, only in a more surprised tone, "As in leaving the district?!"
"Exactly," Jihoon grinned confidently while his other companions sighed in defeat.
"But... why would you want to escape?"
Wonwoo looked up at Junhui in disbelief.
"You haven't told her about anything?" He asked, but Junhui only shrugged.
"I wanted to take things slow," Junhui explained, "but Mr. Impatient here just had to drop the bomb."
He glared at Jihoon, who simply held up a peace sign and grinned. Seohyeon was curious about the gesture and tried imitating it, lifting up her index and middle finger with the rest of them curled into her knuckle and holding it up just like Jihoon. The sight made Junhui stare at her with adoration and forget about his irritation towards Jihoon.
"But why would you want to escape?" Seohyeon asked, still holding up the peace sign.
"We all have our reasons," Wonwoo stated, "I want to see what happened to our world in person, for history experience."
"I want to travel," Soonyoung said, eyes shining with excitement, "there's a whole world out there! Full of people and places that we could never see here in the District. Plus, this place is kinda boring you know?"
"I want freedom," Junhui said, "Freedom of speech, freedom to do what I want, freedom to go wherever I want. You can't get that here."
"I just want to leave," Jihoon shrugged, "I hate it here."
Seohyeon admired all their reasons (though Jihoon's reason seemed was quite vague). She never realized people had all these thoughts about how their lives were run. She did admit; it's been only two days since she went pill-free, and her views are already being questioned and changed.
Suddenly they heard the door click, which made Seohyeon panic and hide behind Junhui. She thought that someone had spotted their coming into the library and entering the secret room. If anyone found out where they were right now it would be her and Junhui's fault. But the boy only chuckled, knowing that it wasn't anything bad.
"Relax," Junhui said, "it's not anyone suspicious."
Right after he said that the door opened, and in walked a very very familiar individual.
"Instructor Jisoo?!" She exclaimed, causing the former to chuckle.
"Looks like we have a new recruit?" He said in a teasing tone, "Nice to see you Seohyeon."
"I don't understand," she began, "you're apart of this too?"
Jisoo nodded, his grin growing wider.
"This whole thing was kinda his idea," Junhui explained.
Jisoo took out a small computer chip and placed it on the table.
"If we're going to escape, we need a whole team to join us," he began.
Jisoo tapped twice on the chip, causing a hologram to pop up. He pressed on one of the files which had a list of names and profiles of different citizens in District 17. He tapped on a name, revealing a profile picture along with a list of information about the individual.
"Mingyu: ID Number 2, age 17, student and protector trainee."
He tapped on another name.
"Seungkwan: ID Number 5, age 16, student and medical trainee."
He swiped towards another profile, one that startled Seohyeon a little.
"Minghao: ID Number 103, age 17, student."
Seohyeon glanced over at Junhui, wondering if he knew about recruiting their friend. From the looks of his facial expression, she assumed he did know but was a little hesitant about it.
Jisoo swiped away the file and opened up another one that said "CLASSIFIED PROFILES." There were just ID Numbers, no names for some odd reason.
"Jisoo, who are all these people?" Soonyoung asked, the word classified triggering come curiosity to develop inside of him.
"Prisoners," Jisoo stated.
"WHAT?!" The students (except for Jihoon) exclaimed in unison.
"The people in this file are currently imprisoned within the district for whatever reasons. Most of the time people who go there are only imprisoned for a short term, maybe a week or two before being released. When they're released, special employee workers erase their memories from when they were locked up and let them come back to 'normal' society with everyone else."
"What do you mean most of the time?" Junhui asked.
"There are special cases," Jisoo explained, "where people are permanently imprisoned until the end of their lives."
The students all looked at each other, exchanging the same, terrified expression.
"Unless, someone goes through the whole release process for them," Jisoo grinned. "These people have faced many injustices from District 17. They're the people we'll be recruiting."
He tapped on an ID number, and he profile of a student popped up.
"ID Number 3733, age 17, former student and medical trainee. Imprisoned for almost a year."
"Why was he put in prison?" Soonyoung asked.
"He broke the law, stupid," Jihoon said.
"Yeah but how though?" Soonyoung asked again.
Jisoo simply chuckled. "If we release him from prison, I'll let each of them tell you themselves."
He swiped away before tapping on another.
"ID number 7, age 16, former student. Imprisoned for two years so far."
"Such a young age," Seohyeon mumbles to herself. How horrible.
"ID Number 359," Jisoo continued, "Age 16, former student and defense trainee. Imprisoned for almost three years."
Jisoo took a deep breath, swiping away the profile. He lifted up his trembling finger and tapped on the very last name.
"ID Number 11," he said, his voice a little weak, "former student and trainee, now age 24....
Imprisoned for over 6 years."
Everyone looked away from the profile, their gazes focusing on Jisoo. The instructor only stared at the holographic image the male, scanning the image longingly with a sullen look in his eyes.
"My best friend," he said softly.
The five students were shocked by the statement, their expressions slowly growing into one with sympathy. The look in the young instructors eyes made them all feel so sad for him, though they had never experienced that type of loss. Jisoo noticed them staring at him, but he only laughed it off, swiping away ID Number 11's profile and turning off the hologram.
"Why are you all looking at me like that?" He chuckled, "I'm okay, guys."
Although he tried to assure them he was fine, they all still looked a little worried. However, they tried to set aside their concern and cheer up, circling around the center table; their plan to escape wouldn't be any easier if they were all in a bad mood.
Seohyeon tried to shake off the negative feeling as well. Although she couldn't help but feel a sharp pang in her chest. It wasn't physical; her body was completely fine. Her heart just felt heavy the more she thought about the prisoners they were helping get released. Yes, they were going to be let back into their society, but thinking about how hard it must've been in that prison. Frightened, all alone...
"Seohyeon?" Junhui called out to her, snapping her out of her overwhelming thoughts, "what's wrong?"
She looked up at him a little startled before she noticed her cheeks were wet. She lightly touched her cheek with tip of her fingers, confused by the sudden salty water that came out from her eyes. Was she leaking? Why was water falling from her eyes?
"What is this?" She asked.
Junhui pulled his sleeve so that it was covering his palms, gently drying off the water from her face.
"They're called tears," he explained with a gentle smile, "sometimes when you're feeling sad, you cry tears."
Sad.
"I am a little sad," she said, slightly sniffling, "just thinking about the hardships that those boys went through..."
"It'll be alright," Junhui assured her, pressing his palm against her cheek, "We're getting them out of there. From now on, they won't be alone and locked away."
Seohyeon's eyes finally met Junhui's, causing the male to smile. For some reason, his smile gave Seohyeon reassurance. It felt as if looking at that grin made all problems disappear from her mind. It brought a smile to her face as well, knowing that there was hope in Junhui and in the others.
They turned back to the meeting, where the others were crowded by the table still discussing about the new recruits. Everyone was so occupied with coming up with a plan that they were completely unaware of the intimate moment the two had just shared.
"Our main goal right now is to gather up the recruits, supplies, weapons, and vehicles before the Age Ceremony."
"The Age Ceremony?" Junhui asked.
"Everyone will be gathered inside the Main Auditorium for the ceremony—the guards, head council, everyone." Wonwoo explained, "They'd all be too busy with the ceremony to notice us leave."
The Age Ceremony happened once a year for the District. That day, each citizen would officially be moved up to a new age, each age giving certain privileges and accessibility to certain things. For example, once a child in District 17 reached the age of thirteen, they no longer had to live in the Youth Nursery, where all the young children stayed. They moved to the Dorms, where they would be assigned roommates to live with from then on. At the age of eighteen, Seohyeon's age, the District assigned different jobs to each student moving up to age eighteen or selected a few for certain positions within their community.
This ceremony was a very important and momentous occasion for the District; everyone would be inside the Main Auditorium, no security or anything outside that building. It was the perfect time for them to escape without being suspected or chased after.
However, it was only six months away, giving the secret team little time to prepare, train, and recruit.
"Tomorrow, I'll go to the prison and fill out the necessary paperwork to release the first recruit," Jisoo continued to explain, "we'll start with him and release the others one at a time."
"And the rest of us will work on gathering supplies and the recruiting the students that aren't locked up," Jihoon said, finishing the instructions for Jisoo.
Everyone looked at each other with eagerness boiling inside them. There was a lot to be done if they wanted to escape, and their time was limited. However, there was an unanimous agreement that everyone was confident in what was about to come.
The plan had just begun.
———
A/N: posted three chapters today so there aren't any cliff hangers or anything like that lol hope you're liking the story so far :)