He is sure that it was only mere minutes, but it felt like an eternity for them to had been hidden behind the walls of one cell in the corner that could hide them well from the eyes of the people who would pass through the corridors. At this point, he won’t risk being seen by anyone. No one could be trusted. He never trusted anyone in the first place to start with. He keeps looking over at Yuri on the other side of the walls. They both had found themselves some pipes that they had broken off from the toilet to protect themselves. Yuri was holding the pipe tightly. Just like him, he is being completely silent but CJ can sense that Yuri is still ‘lost’ somewhere in his head. CJ fights the urge inside him to just scream for him to ‘come back’.

When the sounds of footsteps outside faded, CJ moves closer to Yuri, risking himself being exposed to passerby, if there is any. But he doesn’t care. He longs to touch Yuri. He wants him to ‘come back’. He holds Yuri on the shoulders with both of his hands and tries to speak in the lowest voice that he can mustered. “Yuri, what happened back there?” He asked, straightforwardly and also determinedly.

Yuri refuses to look into his eyes for a moment, but later relent. “Some things just never left, CJ,” he started. He also seems to try to speak under his breath. He slumps down against the wall and brings his knees to his chest. CJ also lowers himself down, making sure to keep eye-contact with the boy. “I was taken back to the Red Room,” he said.

Surprised to hear something unfamiliar to him, he waited for Yuri to keep talking but time is ticking. They are lacking in time. Yuri doesn’t move on with his story and CJ is well aware that even though there’s a need for him to be patience, he has to rush him to speak. So he leans closer and peck a kiss on Yuri’s lips. It isn’t like him to try and comfort someone but Yuri is important to him and he doesn’t want to lose Yuri like that. He likes the normal Yuri. The emotionally vacant Yuri. The Yuri that would smile while he rips someone apart. The Yuri he had attached himself to. And he doesn’t want to be the only want attached to Yuri. He wants Yuri to be attached to him too. Call it love or obsession or just possessiveness. Call it whatever. But that’s what he wants and CJ always gets what he wants. “Yuri, it’s okay. Keep talking,” he assured him.

Yuri sighs and trembles a little. It is unlike him to waver as such and it makes CJ even more worried than before. “The children were taken to this room. My mother and uncle were some of the adults there. There were others. And the children… they were just… they’re there,” Yuri spoke incoherently. “The children were more than just molested. Some were murdered. Some were tortured. To the death, of course,” he stopped talking the moment his tears stream down. And CJ pulls him close into a hug.

“It’s okay. I understand,” CJ said. He gets the gist of the story. Yuri didn’t say he was one of the children but CJ can as much guess the rest of the story. While caressing Yuri, he looks around anxiously, desperately hoping no one will appear at any corridor and saw them there. “You’re okay now, Yuri. They’re gone, right?-”

“-Not all of them,” Yuri interrupted. “I couldn’t see their faces. I don’t know who they are.”

CJ clenches his fist into a ball. “Don’t worry, we’ll find them,” he assured him. “We’ll find them and we’ll kill them all. We’ll torture them and we’ll make sure they’ll suffer even worse than those children, okay?” CJ broke the hug and looks into Yuri’s eyes which are now shining with eagerness.

“I’ll get to strangle them all, yeah?” He asked, turning cheerful.

“Of course. You’ll strangle them enough so that they’re close to dying and then you’ll release them and let them live and you can repeat it over and over again. Let them suffer,” CJ suggested. Yuri then smiles. His normal innocent-like smile. CJ feels relieved at even the sight of the smile. He’s ‘back’. “Now, where were we? We need to find a way out of here, okay?”

“Yeah,” Yuri said cheerfully. “Let’s look for the Chief then. He’s in charge of the place anyway,” Yuri proposed.

“Yes. Let’s…,” CJ simply replied. The truth is he has a bad feeling about looking for AC. If something as bad as this could even occur at such a place, AC must have been immobilized, or even worse killed. But that’s their best plan at the moment so he will go along with it. For now.