Underneath a blue-white spotlight, lies a naked boy on a rectangular medical table. The harsh light illuminates this small arrangement and that is it; reminiscent of a street lamp at midnight.
To every side of ██████ is an empty black void. The only things he can see upon raising his head, are countless pairs of hands, all sizes and colours, emerging from the blackness and restraining him to the cold, flat table.
What, do they think he's gonna bite?
There's a man who ██████ guesses is a doctor, leaning over him. He's wearing a blue medical mask, a white hair net, a lab coat and glasses, everything obscured but a pair of crinkled eyes.
"This hair..." the man muses, giving the boy's head a ruffle.
"I was born with it, you idiot," he growls. "Let go of me."
The hands tighten, strangling his upper arms, wrists, and various points on his legs and waist. There's something scratchy and thin wrapped around his neck but he can't see what it is.
"Born with it?" the man repeats, mystified. His brown eyes glitter, and he slips out of the boy's vision. Moments tick by, in which ██████ struggles, spitting and thrashing. Cold sweat glistens on his skin; it trickles down his back and forehead, and tickles his balls that have tightened to the point of pain. His chest is flushed with humiliation. For anyone weaker, fighting would be useless, but ██████ isn't weak. He isn't.
"Yeah," he grunts, shivering. "What, you think it's magic or something? Fucking boomer—stop touching it!"
"And what about your lips?"
██████ cries out in frustration, teeth gritted. The breaths of all the people holding him down fill his ears. He wishes the man's cold, gloved hands would stop stroking his scalp like he's some dog, and as the other hand reaches for his mouth, he turns his head away.
"If you keep struggling like that, I'll have to drug you."
"If you would let me go, I'd be way more likely to answer your questions about my fucked-up body!" the boy yells, half-laughing. He strains a few more times against the hands. "For fuck's sake—!" He can't even fucking see them, they're so desperate to hide. "Ha, this is what I get for having blue hair? If I'd known that I would've fucking killed myself already."
The man smiles down at him, then sighs. "Oh, calm yourself. You will be let go. I just need to test how obedient you are."
Panting, the boy blinks. He faces the man, agape and confused. "You'll... let me go?"
"If you're good and still."
"I'm so good and still," he breathes, eyes darting around the room as he attempts to relax. "You... won't believe it."
It feels good to have nobody restraining him.
"Good," the man reviews. "Now, the lips."
██████ stares hard at the man's inscrutable face as wrinkled rubber meets the chapped flesh of the boy's lips. They are pinched, prodded and pulled outwards, where he feels the cold, dry air hit his parched gums. A cough builds in his throat but he needs to wait until the man is done.
"Good," the man says again. He slips out of sight; there is the sound of a pen scratching hard and quick on a clipboard. The man reappears. "Have they always been this colour?"
"Yes," the boy says. "Ever since birth. It's a birth defect."
"Did your parents or ancestors have a similar condition?"
"No."
"Do you know why?"
"I was frozen as a baby," he says. "From... from what I've heard. My mother, when she was pregnant with me, she fell into an icy lake a few times and gave birth to me in the same lake. It froze the inside of her womb, so I was born cold. What you're seeing now is literally just how I am."
"I see." More writing. He hardly even flinches when the hand strokes his hair again, combing through its thick, soft bowlcut. "Blue hair is impossible for a human to develop naturally."
The boy grits his teeth again, jaw flexing. Barely restrains himself from saying, I know that.
"And yet I see that the hair all over your body is the same colour. Your legs, your pubic hair, your armpits, your nasal and facial hair. It is all blue from the root."
Yeah, 'cause my body is fucked up. Did you not listen?
"Before the lake incidents, what colour would your hair have been based on genetics?"
"Like, dark brown, I think," he says, eyebrows creasing to remember. "I'm half Vietnamese, so have fun trying to find a blond hair anywhere."
The man lets out an amused breath. "That won't be needed. I understand completely why you are the way you are."
That combination of words does strange things to the boy's brain. He feels very, very worn down. Tired. "So you believe me?"
"I do, yes." The man turns away, producing a couple of plastic clicking sounds followed by the hum of what seems like a radio. ██████ can feel it vibrating through the table. "Tag for BBD. I'm sure the team will be very intrigued; it's a huge bonus that the defections are harmless—but precautions will need to be taken due to a chronically low body temperature. Ha! I know you will. Mm, yes. I'm certain it will be well-loved. Yes, I'll meet you there later, thank you again."
Two clicks, and then silence.
It drags on.
The boy swallows, finally—he doesn't know what the fuck is happening off this table but there's a tension in the air, waiting to be broken. The hands on his body are limp, maybe forgiving since he was good and answered all the man's stupid questions. He blurts, "Can I leave now?"
There's nothing more terrifying than to feel a dozen pairs of hands clamp down on you at once. Deep, calm laughter echoes around the room, and the boy's stomach twists and empties itself. He's probably just shat all over the table, as a hand covers his mouth and muffles his strained, apologetic cries.
"You were very, very good," the man praises, his voice cracking with fondness. "There are a just a few more operations we need to complete on the body, and unfortunately we can't have you awake during that time."
Cold, scentless metal on his neck.
Pierces his skin.
He wails, angry, his eyes finding the man's gentle brown ones and wishing he could gouge them out.
Ugly ass motherfucker, he thinks before the drowsiness overtakes him. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.