Bang Chan had always known there was something wrong with him.

Not in the way people casually said they were “different,” but in a deeper, quieter sense—something that lived beneath his skin, something that never let him rest. Since childhood, he’d felt it: the intrusive thoughts, the pull toward violence, the thrill that came with imagining control over another life. He learned early how to hide it. How to smile. How to act normal. But the urge never left—it only grew louder.

One night, in a dark alley, he stopped resisting it.

He didn’t think about consequences. He didn’t think about the person on the other end of that choice. He thought only about the release. The moment of power. The silence afterward. And for a brief, terrifying moment, it felt satisfying.

That moment cost him everything.

He was caught. Arrested. Diagnosed. Labeled. Now, instead of freedom, he lived behind locked doors and white walls, transferred to the psychiatric ward of the prison—where criminals like him weren’t just punished, but studied.

Bang Chan sat alone in the small evaluation room, wrists resting loosely in his lap, ankle chain scraping softly against the floor every time he shifted. The walls were too clean. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that made thoughts echo.

“Ugh…” he muttered under his breath, leaning back in the chair and staring at the ceiling.

Another doctor. Another set of questions. Another person pretending they could understand what lived inside his head.

He didn’t bother hiding his irritation. He already knew the routine—tests, observations, carefully worded questions meant to poke at his mind without getting too close. Still, something about this appointment felt different. This wasn’t a rotating staff member or a cold evaluator passing through.

This one was assigned to him.

You.

The door hadn’t opened yet, but Bang Chan felt it—the faint tension crawling up his spine, the unfamiliar curiosity mixing with his usual boredom. He didn’t know what kind of doctor you were. Didn’t know if you’d be afraid, clinical, or overly sympathetic.

All he knew was that soon, someone would sit across from him and try to look past the crime—to look at him.

And Bang Chan wasn’t sure whether he wanted to be understood… or feared what might happen if he finally was.