6.

Chapter 6

Sunoo had never liked the quiet. Silence left too much room for his thoughts, too much space for memories he’d rather leave buried.

Blackthorn was never truly silent, not even at night. The walls groaned, the ventilation hummed, and sometimes—if you listened closely enough—you could hear the faintest echoes of voices that didn’t belong to anyone in particular. But in the observation room, with only Riki across from him, the silence felt heavier, more deliberate.

Sunoo didn’t look up from his notes, pretending he was unaffected. “We’re not here to talk about me.”

Riki’s smirk didn’t falter. “And yet, you seem so tense all of a sudden.”

Sunoo tapped his pen against the page. “I’m here to assess your progress.”

“My progress?” Riki chuckled, leaning back in his chair. The movement made the chain on his cuffs clink against the table. “That’s funny. I wasn’t aware we were working toward something.”

Sunoo finally met his gaze. “That depends. Are you?”

Riki tilted his head. “That depends. Do you want me to be?”

There it was again. That feeling of being pulled into something he couldn’t quite name. Riki spoke like he was leading a conversation neither of them had agreed to have. Like he was setting the pace, knowing Sunoo would keep up whether he wanted to or not.

Sunoo exhaled slowly. “You don’t belong in Blackthorn, do you?”

Riki’s amusement didn’t fade, but something in his expression shifted—just enough for Sunoo to notice. “Interesting theory. What makes you say that?”

“You’re too calm.” Sunoo’s voice was steady, despite the growing unease in his chest. “Most high-risk patients here show some signs of instability. Outbursts, compulsions, loss of control. But you… You sit here like you’re exactly where you want to be.”

Riki rested his chin on his hand, watching him. “Maybe I am.”

Sunoo frowned. “Then why did someone try to move you?”

For the first time, Riki didn’t respond immediately. He just stared, his smirk flickering at the edges. “So you saw that.”

Sunoo hesitated. He hadn’t planned to reveal that yet, but Riki’s reaction made it clear—he already knew.

“I did,” Sunoo said carefully. “Someone with influence wanted you in a lower-security facility. But Blackthorn denied it. Why?”

Riki hummed, tapping a finger against the table. “You really don’t like leaving things alone, do you?”

“I like answers.”

“And yet, you’re avoiding the real question.” Riki leaned forward slightly, eyes glinting. “Why do you care?”

Sunoo clenched his jaw. “Because you’re my patient.”

“That’s not it.”

Sunoo didn’t reply.

Riki tilted his head, watching him the way a predator watches something smaller, something trapped. “Do they know, I wonder?”

Sunoo’s fingers curled around his pen. “Know what?”

“That you’re just like the rest of us.”

Sunoo’s breath stalled. He forced himself to remain still, to keep his expression unreadable. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Riki grinned. “Don’t I?”

There was a beat of silence. Sunoo could hear his own pulse in his ears, a steady, drumming reminder that he was letting Riki get too close—too close to something he had spent years locking away.

“You were here, weren’t you?” Riki’s voice was softer now, almost amused. “Not as a doctor. Not back then.”

Sunoo’s grip on his pen tightened. “Stop.”

Riki’s smirk widened. “Why? I think it’s fascinating. Dr. Kim Sunoo, former patient of Blackthorn Asylum. That must be quite the file.”

Sunoo’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood abruptly. He shouldn’t be reacting—he knew that. But the air in the room felt suffocating, pressing down on him in a way it hadn’t in years.

Riki sat back, satisfied. “Hit a nerve?”

Sunoo forced his breathing to steady. “This session is over.”

He turned, reaching for the door handle, but Riki’s voice stopped him cold.

“They treated you like a case study, didn’t they?”

Sunoo’s fingers froze against the handle.

Riki continued, voice smooth, unhurried. “A promising young mind, plagued by something they couldn’t quite define. Anxiety, maybe. Depression. Or something darker. Something they wanted to fix.” He tilted his head. “Did they succeed?”

Sunoo squeezed his eyes shut for half a second, then forced himself to turn back, meeting Riki’s gaze with all the calm he could muster. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Riki just smiled. “Oh, but I do.”

Sunoo’s heartbeat was too fast, too loud. The memories pressed against his mind, unwelcome and relentless. The cold of the observation rooms. The whisper of voices in the halls. The feeling of being watched, studied, reduced to symptoms on a page.

He had been fifteen when he was first brought to Blackthorn. Too young to understand what it meant to be institutionalized, but old enough to feel the weight of it.

They had called it an evaluation. Said it was for his own good. That his mind worked differently, and they just needed to understand how.

But Sunoo knew better now.

He hadn’t been a patient. He had been an experiment.

And Riki knew.

Sunoo’s hands were steady as he gathered his notebook, pushing down everything clawing its way to the surface. He didn’t have time for ghosts.

He met Riki’s eyes one last time. “I’ll see you next session.”

Riki’s grin was slow, deliberate. “Looking forward to it, pretty doctor.”

Sunoo walked out without another word.

But as the door shut behind him, he knew one thing for certain.

Riki wasn’t done with him.

And worse—he wasn’t done with Riki either.

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Yeeeeaaaa longer chapter!!