Daffodils only Bloom in Spring

6

And so the sun had set and risen, and Mr Kim's teaching vicinity was once again graced with the presence of seven young men, their souls akin to the sun. Sure, it was currently winter, and the sun's rays were shy, tentatively trying to be seen from behind thick clouds of ashen grey and churning black. But an appreciation should be developed for the silent fight that the strings of gold consistently put up, for soon, spring would come again and liquid gold would penetrate and spill out. But when would this spring begin?

"Okay, I think we can start. Thank you so much for coming. I'm glad that none of you backed out of this," Mr Kim spoke with a smile. "I look forward to working with you," he added with a slight bow, eliciting a series of awkward head bops from the students along with a few "please take care of us"'s for good measure.

The teacher laughed. "Please feel comfortable around me," he assured. "I promise we'll have plenty of time to get to know each other better, so I hope this awkward atmosphere fades pretty quickly." The boys nodded, evident embarrassment plastered on their faces.

"Firstly I'd like to talk about the briefing that our dear Mr President gave this morning. He has made it clear that everyone is obligated to get their blood checked before lockdown begins. Now, this comes with its own issues for students and teaching staff as you're still expected to attend lectures, seminars, workshops and so on for the rest of the week.

"It would obviously be unreasonable to expect the whole student body to be able to see a doctor before lockdown, especially with early curfew hours due to it being winter. Therefore, both tomorrow and Friday, doctors will be coming into university to hold checkups on both students and staff. You will not be told beforehand when you will be called out but don't worry yourselves about this. Just do what you have been doing so far; you've come this far without being caught after all. Just remember: languid, fatigued movements and speech, okay? You've got this!"

Taehyung gulped harshly, visibly unsettled and very anxious. He didn't utter a word though, and instead kept his head low, focusing on his breathing.

"In terms of the beginning of lockdown and the protocol surrounding that, there have been no official statements and it will most likely remain that way. I have strung together an idea of what might happen, what seems to be most probable, although we should bear in mind that there might be slight alterations.

"Here's what I think. Since they're doing checkups now, they won't bother checking that everyone is in their houses before lockdown starts, especially not on campus. If everyone gets positive results on these tests, the government will be assured that no one will try to defy protocol; the injections just simply will not allow for it. Those who do have negative results or don't come for a checkup at all will be taken away as per usual, so that solves that issue for the higher-ups.

"It would be nonsensical to check everyone is present on campus. Some students are leaving to go stay with their family for the duration of lockdown. Then officials can force all students to leave, right? Well, no. Some pupils' families live outside of Daegu and obviously, travel outside of the city is prohibited. Likewise, they can't force everyone to stay on campus because not everyone lives in the university dorms in the first place.

"As you can see, it all gets a bit messy but it ultimately works out in our favour. It would be far too time consuming to get a record of where each student is going to stay, and then go around, checking dorms and family homes accordingly.

"There will be very strict patrol on the streets. Anyone who leaves their house will likely be taken away to wherever they usually hold their abductees, or maybe even killed on the spot. That means there will also be close patrol outside of and in the hallways of the dorm buildings. Thankfully, those are on the other side of campus, so if everything goes well, no one should even suspect that we're here."