Chapter Text
Block T Subject #01
Background information
Birthname: Kim Taehyung
Alias: V
Sex: Male
Date of birth: 1995.12.30
Place of birth: Daegu
Date of apprehension: 2001.03.05
Place of apprehension: Daegu
Abnormality: Two feathered, protruding appendages capable of flight. Appendages appear to show incredible strength. Further testing shows individual has bone structure matching that of an avian creature.
Practitioner in charge: Dr Kim Namjoon Dr Bang Sihyuk
Additional information
Risk: Low - Passive
Notes: Subject previously part of Korea National Institute of the Abnormal Beings before it was compromised. Largely compliant and obedient, however can appear to be unstable at times.
The Apprehension
At five and a half, Taehyung was as a child as curious as the next. However, he hadn't truly been kissed by the summer sun nor climbed a tree as tall as his home like his chingu. Instead, the boy had remained inside for many of his days playing with anything and everything. His parents had tried to form a normal family - marrying, buying a house, having a child - however it was not what they were graced with. Taehyung was born healthy, only with two black wings folded against his back. Luckily for the boy, the birth had been in the young family's home. Unluckily, those beautiful appendages meant that his home had become his prison.
Taehyung had been allowed a few minutes in the garden for the first time in a month. The mild air nipped at his cheeks, a resulting rosy colour blooming under his naturally tanned skin. It was just past midday and so the boy's wings were strapped down to seem little more than unnatural bulge under his shirt to any wandering eyes - as unlikely as it may have been. Nevertheless, he felt happy. He giggled as he ran around the small space, jumping over the long-forgotten flowerbeds and running his hand along the rotting wood of the high fence. Taehyung stopped barely a second later as a small splinter of wood got trapped in his forefinger. Tears sprung to his eyes but he pulled the offending item out quickly. A small drop of blood pooled from the tiny mark which he licked clean without a hint of hesitation.
All of a sudden, he heard cars come down the generally quiet street; it was too loud for one lone visitor. He couldn't explain why, but his stomach started to twist uncomfortably. Fear wasn't something he'd felt before, but his body knew it instinctually. The noise of the engines stopped but the fear didn't go. Nobody visited him other than his grandparents. Not aunts nor uncles, cousins nor family friends. He ran toward the back door of his house, only to find his parents frantically scrambling around. Their house may have been small but it was certainly lived in. Taehyung's bedroom was downstairs in place of an old study - his parents had kept him downstairs since before he could smile, fearing their child may try to fly and fall. Or perhaps praying that the wings would be useless if there was no temptation of flight.
"What are we going to do?" Taehyung heard his mother cry, her voice filled with pain. He wandered deeper into the house, wide eyed and searching for comfort. Finally, he found his parents in the front room.
"Momma?" At the young boy's words, both adults turned. His mother rushed towards him, kneeling in front of him and frantically grabbing his face and shoulders.
"My boy, my baby boy."
"You need to get him out or hide him. They're coming." The voice of Taehyung's father was beginning to crack, but the child couldn't figure out why. He was scooped up into his mother's arms in an instant. His legs wound around her hips and his arms around her neck, however he felt he had to cling to her harder with the way her hands shook around him.
The sweet vanilla of her perfume was enough to settle him slightly but he was far too aware of her panic. The glance he managed to steal out of the window was useless - he could see black windows of black cars, and the men climbing out of the vehicles covered in the same dark shade from head to foot.
"Momma, who are they? Did they come to play?" To such a young boy, it seemed like the only explanation. He hadn't been exposed to the true darkness the world possessed.
"Yes! Yes, sweetie! We're going to play hide and seek, okay?" She pressed a kiss to his temple as she turned to carry him upstairs. He gasped and squealed, excitement wiping his mind of anything else. "You're going to hide first, okay? You can't come out until papa or I get you."
Taehyung pouted at his mother.
"But you know where I'll hide."
"Yes, baby, but only because the hiding place will be so good they won't know where you are!" Her voice cracked as she spoke. They had entered the bath room and Taehyung was lowered onto the toilet seat. He grinned.
"Momma is so clever! Are you hiding with Tae-Tae?"
"N-no, sweetie. I'm going to talk to them and tell them how sweet and special my boy is." She knelt on the counter beside the sink to press various places on the ceiling. The little boy watched with a frown.
"What are you—" All of a sudden, part of the ceiling swung down, "wow, momma! Are you magic too?" He shuffled closer to the edge of the toilet seat. It made sense to him - he was told his wings were magic, so she must be magic too.
There was a loud crash from downstairs which caused Taehyung to jump. Muffled shouting echoed throughout the house. The boy didn't have time to ask any questions as his mother gathered him up into her arms before raising him above her head. "Reach up for me, baby. Climb in there. Quickly, now." He obliged, the extra boost his mother provided by pushing his feet being the only way he could get in.
The darkness was suffocating. The only light was coming from the square in the floor that he'd entered through and he instantly wanted to be back in his mother's arms.
"M-momma I don't like this hiding place. It-it's dark." Taehyung curled up into himself, staring into nothing.
"Stay there, sweetie." And then the shadows took over. The contrast of the fading vanilla and damp, musky smell mixed in a way that made Taehyung's nose crinkle. He whimpered softly before remembering the game - his mother would come back for him soon, he just had to be quiet.
Even as his eyes started to adjust to the complete darkness, he hugged himself tighter. He could barely make out vague outlines of what was right in front of him and yet his own mind began to taint his vision. Taehyung saw shapes of varying greys that followed his eyes. His heart began to beat faster. It was almost synchronised to the thumping of heavy boots climbing up the stairs. As his breathing quickened, Taehyung forced himself to close his eyes. He knew he had to be brave - he could get out soon.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he was found.
The child bit on his lip as he listened to the voices below. No. His mother told him to stay.
"Downstairs is clear!" There was a voice below - deep, masculine. He seemed upset. Tears began to prickle in Taehyung's eyes. Was the man grumpy because he wasn't going to win?
The floor beneath the boy began to rattle as something was thrust up into it. He covered his ears and whimpered, shuffling away from the loud banging.
Then the light was back.
"Hey! Over here!" The same voice called from within the bathroom. They weren't supposed to find him, his mother was. Taehyung shuffled slowly away from the opened hatch. The sudden light burned, but something felt...off. Rustling blocked the majority of noise that Taehyung could hear - but not the sound of his mother's scream.
"M-Momma?" The young boy whispered. Not a second later, there was a head popping up through the floor.
"Hey, kid. You alright? I've come to get you. Your momma wants to see you." It was a man, as far as Taehyung could tell, but there were no distinguishing features. Dark material covered half of his face while weirdly-shaped glasses covered the other half. Taehyung frowned.
"Momma said she'd get me. Where is she? I want my momma." His bottom lip quivered and he shied away from the hand that was being offered to him.
"She's just downstairs, okay? Let's go see her, yeah?"
One, two seconds past before Taehyung nodded slowly. He crawled toward the man who backed down into the bath room. Once the boy could see properly, he found three other people in the small bathroom, and more seemingly just outside.
"C'mon." The man urged. His arms were stretched out.
After a deep breath, Taehyung swung his legs over into the opening, wiggling forward slightly. The man grabbed his thighs and started to pull him down. However when Taehyung was back into the bathroom, he wasn't lowered to the floor like he expected. He was thrown over the man's shoulder and two of the strangers grabbed his arms. Bewildered, he stared between them and the cold metal that was being clasped around his little wrists. He supposed they were like his mother's bracelets - but instead of pretty pinks and greens adorning them, his new bracelets were plain silver and were joined together by little loops. Taehyung frowned.
"Why?"
His question went unanswered, instead he was subject to the jostling caused by the man carrying him down the stairs.
By the time most people are adults, they have forgotten what they saw when they were Taehyung's age. Yet, the image of his house being destroyed would never leave him. The sight of the tables flipped, the cupboard doors flung open - the books he'd been reading an hour prior scattered all over the floor. It was chaos, and Taehyung's mother would never allow it.
"Put me down now, please." The boy's voice shook as he wiggled against the tight hold. "I-, I need to see momma," he said more firmly. Again, he was ignored.
As they approached the front door, Taehyung could see more of his ruined house. His father was on the floor - a strange place to sleep, Taehyung supposed. His mother, however was being held by two strangers. Something was in her mouth, but the boy could still hear her muffled screams. She attempted to pull away, but it only seemed to make the stranger on the right more angry. Taehyung didn't know the word that stranger spoke to his mother, but it didn't seem like a nice one.
"Momma!" He screamed and fought against the man holding him. The woman tried again, harder, to break free but instead ended up on the floor when the man to her right slapped her across the face. It was the last thing Taehyung seen before he was hoisted into one of the black cars.
The smell of leather and metal abused his nose. He was pushed into the backseat, not even having enough time to sit upright before someone slid in beside him and the door was slammed shut. The shouting outside was too muffled to make out specifics, but a loud bang had him scrambling up to try to look out the back window. Before he could even catch a glimpse of what happened, he was yanked down with a heavy hand on his shoulder. Two men approached the car, climbing in swiftly and leaving Taehyung's ears aching from the change of pressure from their doors closing.
Wide eyes stared up at the men in the car. "Where is momma?" The boy asked quietly, "Is momma okay? I want to see her." His lower lip trembled but he tried to be brave. Only a cold silence met him. Tears began to flood his vision, wet streaks marking his flushing cheeks. "I want my papa. He said I'm not allowed out without him or momma."
"Just shut up, kid. We're doing you a favour."
—•—
The building the line of cars pulled up to was grand. A big house? Taehyung had wondered, his mind too exhausted from the journey to conclude anything else. The pale stones spanned up three floors, but it was too wide to take in all at once. The drive way was long and bending, though seemed to continue past one side of the white building. Most of Taehyung's vision was mixed with the sight of greenery, however it was easy to see a woman stood in a white coat at the top of the few steps to the front door. Before he had a chance to ask anything, the boy was dragged out of the car, supported mostly by a hand gripping the shirt between the top of his folded wings. Taehyung wanted to tell the man that he could walk just fine by himself because he was a big boy - but even as they stood still, the hand remained and so he remained silent.
"Kim Taehyung?" His eyes snapped to the face of the woman who spoke his name. He took in the sharp point of her nose, her pale skin, the yellow of her hair. Taehyung frowned. Apparently, that was all she wanted. Her eyes the colour of his father's soju bottles lifted from him to the man holding onto his back.
"Take him into room A. Dr. Bang is already there."
Dr. Bang was a stern-looking man. Taehyung wondered if any of the people there ever smiled.
"Taehyung," the doctor crouched in front of him when he entered the nearly bare room, "we know you have a secret. We're going to help you. Your mother and father didn't take good care of you, but we will here."
The boy frowned. No, that didn't sound right at all. His parents loved him, but all those people seemed to do were boss him around. Not to mention the nipping metal around his wrists or how they hadn't even asked him if he wanted to go with them. His lips began to part in protest, but was interrupted.
"We would like to see them, Taehyung." The man that had been holding onto his shirt released him when the doctor spoke again. He grabbed Taehyung's arm, yanking his hands up in the air before removing the ugly bracelets. "Please remove your shirt."
Taehyung complied after a few moments of hesitation, revealing the straps that held his wings in place. They were tight and constantly red, though the pain had become barely a niggle after so many years. Straps horizontal across his torso held the bulk of his wings down, while two diagonal straps across his shoulders restrained the bony, thicker upper parts. His wings were rarely free - occasionally he would stroke them when he was sat in the bath, but he struggled to move them.
The doctor leaned forward and began to undo the buckles. While the reduced pressure felt nice, Taehyung began to pull away. Dr. Bang shook his head and clicked his tongue, giving Taehyung a glance that had him stilling for fear of a scolding. Finally, the black material was pulled off completely. The boy's wings felt heavy on his back without the extra support. They dropped slightly into a more relaxed position.
"How intriguing." The man in front of him reached over to touch the black feathers. "Poor condition." One of the wings was lifted then released. Taehyung chewed on his lip. "It's alright now. You're home. Here you will face no stigma for who you are." The man claimed before stepping away, leaving him in the control of the people who had taken him from his parents.
Taehyung had never been subjected to a greater lie.