The door creaked open.
The boy’s head snapped up instantly, eyes wide, body curling tighter into the corner. His knees locked against his chest, arms wrapping around them like chains. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe—just stared, as though the very act of looking away might get him hurt.
From the doorway, Dr. Kim froze. The case file hadn’t prepared him for this. The notes had been cold, clinical: selective mutism, trauma, paranoia. But seeing it—seeing a child shrink into himself like prey cornered by a predator—was something else entirely.
When Taehyung took one slow step inside, the boy flinched violently, as if the air itself had struck him. His fingers clenched the fabric of his pants until his knuckles blanched white. A thin sound slipped past his lips, half-breath, half-panic, before vanishing back into silence.
Taehyung’s chest tightened. He kept his movements deliberate, quiet, setting a chair in the middle of the room. The scrape of metal on the floor made the boy’s eyes flicker upward for a fraction of a second—wild, frantic, like a hunted animal scanning for escape. Then his gaze dropped again, head pressed hard into his knees.
He’s terrified of me, Taehyung realized. Not just me—of anyone. Of what people mean. Of what they’ve already done to him.
The boy’s breathing was uneven, every inhale jagged, every exhale shaking as though it burned. He made himself smaller, smaller still, shoulders trembling against the wall.
Taehyung sat. He didn’t approach, didn’t speak right away. He knew words could cut deeper than silence. He watched, and he thought of the file, of the drawing in black crayon, of the line that said no guardians. Alone. Abandoned. Fourteen years old, already older in pain than Taehyung himself had ever been.
Finally, he spoke, his voice low, careful:
“I’m Dr. Kim. I won’t touch you. I won’t force you to talk. I’ll just stay here.”
The boy didn’t respond. His eyes stayed hidden, his body wound tight like a knot that refused to loosen.
But Taehyung stayed anyway, the weight of the boy’s silence pressing on him like stone.
He’s not a case, he thought. He’s a child. A broken one—but still a child.
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