silence

The file was heavier than it should have been. Not in weight, but in content.

Dr. Kim Taehyung sat alone in the small office assigned to him, a single lamp burning against the dusk. The folder on his desk was marked in bold red: “Patient #214 — Male, 14 years old.”

He opened it, expecting the neat clinical summaries he had studied countless times in medical school. Instead, he was met with a collage of pain—fracture reports, faded photographs of bruises, psychological assessments scribbled with words like trauma, severe withdrawal, suspected long-term abuse.

Taehyung’s eyes moved down the lines of the report:

Multiple rib fractures, untreated for days.

Cigarettes burn along the forearms.

History of malnutrition.

Repeated nightmares, violent night terrors.

Selective mutism developed after age eleven.

There were darker notes too, written in hurried, almost desperate handwriting from previous doctors:

“The patient refuses to speak. Avoids eye contact. Exhibits signs of deep mistrust and paranoia. When touched unexpectedly, he reacts violently—as if defending himself from an unseen enemy.”

Taehyung turned another page. His chest tightened. Attached was a drawing, messy and childlike, done in black crayon. It showed a small stick figure curled in a corner while towering shadows loomed above it. No faces. Only hands—cleaned fists, raised belts, reaching claws.

He exhaled slowly, setting the picture aside.

The boy had been in the hospital for months. No progress. No connection. His parents—if they could be called that—were under investigation, but the damage was already carved into the boy’s bones, into his silence.

Taehyung leaned back in his chair, the ticking of the clock pressing against his skull.

This wasn’t just another case file. This was a child who had been broken piece by piece, and handed to him like shattered glass.

For the first time since his residency began, Taehyung felt doubt gnaw at him.

Could he reach someone so far gone?

Or was this boy already lost to the darkness that raised him?

He closed the file, but the black crayon drawing still burned behind his eyes.

Tomorrow, he would meet the boy.

Tonight, he could only prepare himself for the weight of silence.

# NEXT DAY #

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.

And At that moment, he knew this room would become the place where he would either reach the boy… or watch him disappear further into the dark.

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