The rehabilitation center wasn't very big.
It consisted of several rows of buildings squeezed closely together, like a small campus that had grown without much planning.
The male residents occupied two separate zones—two rows of two-story dormitories standing side by side. Altogether there were roughly four hundred men living there.
The women had their own area: a single row of one-story rooms housing about a hundred residents.
The two sections were completely separated, divided by a narrow corridor and constantly watched by guards.
Between them lay a wide courtyard.
There was a volleyball court, a small football field, and even a modest flower garden with stone benches arranged around it. In the afternoons the sunlight fell gently across that courtyard, turning the whole place strangely peaceful—almost like a school campus rather than a rehabilitation center.
At the far end stood the dining hall, a large building that also contained a surprisingly well-stocked canteen.
Inside the center, cash wasn't allowed.
Money sent by family members would be converted into purchase vouchers, which functioned like currency inside the camp. The vouchers ranged from small denominations to larger ones, just like real bills outside.
Everything had to be bought at the canteen.
Clothes that matched the center's dress code.
Snacks.
Toiletries.
Cigarettes.
Instant noodles.
Basically anything a bored human being could possibly want.
The only catch was that everything cost almost twice as much as it did outside.
The canteen was run by two young women—one from the southern provinces and another from the north.
I had heard a little about this system during my detox week, so it didn't surprise me much.
I pulled out a voucher, walked over to the counter, and ordered a cup of coffee. After placing the voucher down, I wandered to a quiet corner and sat down.
I waited.
And waited.
No coffee came.
When I finally turned around, I saw the northern girl standing behind the counter with a perfectly blank face.
My coffee had been sitting there the entire time.
She glanced sideways at me and said,
"Your coffee's here. Were you waiting for me to bring it to you?"
That was new.
Self-service coffee was something I had never encountered before.
But I had already stepped into this strange world, so there was nothing to do except adapt.
I walked over, picked up the cup, and gave her a polite smile.
"I just got here," I said. "Still learning how things work."
She rolled her eyes at me, then deliberately turned away and pretended to be busy.
Honestly, if someone like her had crossed my path outside this place, she wouldn't even have existed in my world.
Yet here I was, smiling politely while she treated me like an inconvenience.
Strange place.
What puzzled me even more was something else.
Ever since leaving the dormitory, I had been wandering around the yard for nearly half an hour. My eyes had swept across the courtyard several times.
And yet I hadn't seen a single woman.
Not one.
Were they all so lazy they stayed inside their rooms all day?
I was still wondering about that when the front gate suddenly swung open.
Two large buses rolled inside the compound.
The doors opened.
And suddenly the courtyard exploded into motion.
A whole swarm of women poured out.
For a moment my vision blurred.
There were older women in their forties or fifties, their faces wrinkled like dried apples.
There were younger ones too—hair dyed red, gold, green, all kinds of colors—moving in groups toward the women's dormitory.
Later I learned the routine.
During the day, the female residents were transported to a nearby textile workshop where they spent hours doing simple sewing work.
At that time, though, I barely paid them any attention.
To be honest, I still felt uneasy around women who used drugs. The prejudice clung stubbornly in my mind.
Still, if addicts were divided into social classes, the women here were probably somewhere near the top.
Even the middle-aged ones.
Staying in this center cost a small fortune—almost ten million pesos a month if you calculated everything.
Without families who were both wealthy and still willing to care about them, none of these people would have ended up here.
They would have been out on the streets long ago.
And the residents here weren't just spoiled rich kids either.
There were plenty of complicated characters.
Take Antonio Cruz, for example—the man I had met in detox.
He looked like a gentle scholar. Soft-spoken. Calm. Almost like a philosophy professor.
But the moment he stepped out of the room, several heavily tattooed men rushed forward to greet him.
They carried his belongings for him like bodyguards escorting a VIP.
Someone told me he had once been a big name in other rehabilitation centers.
A serious player.
Not to mention several well-known gangsters from the city who were also staying here—even though, as far as anyone knew, they had nothing to do with drugs.
Apparently the center served another purpose.
It was the perfect place to hide for a while.
From enemies.
From the police.
From trouble.
As long as you paid the fees, no one cared who you were.
Still, the largest group of residents were the rich kids.
You could recognize them instantly.
Dyed hair.
Tattoos everywhere.
Walking around shirtless to show off their muscles.
They swaggered into the canteen, ordered coffee, and talked loudly enough to drown out half the courtyard.
Every day new residents arrived, so no one paid much attention to me.
Which was perfect.
Less trouble.
Maybe life here wouldn't be so bad after all.
"Can I sit here?"
The voice beside me was soft—almost shy.
I turned around.
And nearly dropped my coffee.
How on earth could someone that beautiful exist in a rehabilitation center?
The girl standing there had a face that was almost painfully pretty.
Her head was slightly lowered, as if she were embarrassed. In her hand she held a cup of soda.
Even wearing the center's plain uniform—clothes that looked more like pajamas than anything else—she still looked stunning.
If she dressed in expensive brands outside, people might mistake her for a high-class escort.
Wait.
Why was I thinking something like that?
Just because a beautiful girl appeared inside a rehab center didn't mean she had to be a prostitute.
That was a terrible thought.
I quickly waved toward the empty seat.
"Of course. Go ahead."
She sat down carefully, smiling in a way that made her lips curl slightly.
Normally I was extremely confident in my own good looks.
But even so, this situation surprised me.
Was my charm really that powerful?
She had barely sat down before she started firing questions like a machine gun.
My name.
Where I lived.
What job I had.
How long I had been using drugs.
After a while she paused, pretending to think about something.
For a brief moment I wondered if she was about to ask for my body measurements or something equally ridiculous.
Instead she suddenly leaned closer and asked,
"Hey… when you came in… did you bring any with you?"
I blinked.
"Bring what?"
She patiently clarified.
"You know… the stuff. Didn't you sneak some in?"
And just like that, my pride collapsed like a balloon hit by a bucket of cold water.
She hadn't approached me because she found me handsome.
She had approached me because she thought I might have smuggled drugs inside.
Seeing my confused expression, she immediately realized I had just come out of detox.
Which meant I had nothing.
I shook my head.
She sighed—looking even more disappointed than I was.
Without another word she grabbed her drink and walked back to a group of girls nearby.
I saw her shrug.
The other girls' hopeful expressions instantly turned into sharp sideways glances directed at me.
As if I had personally ruined their day.
The conversation left me feeling slightly embarrassed.
But later, once I became more familiar with life inside the center, I began to understand.
For the people living here, nothing in the world was more attractive than drugs.
Except perhaps one other thing.
Sex.
Unfortunately for them, both of those things were completely forbidden inside the rehabilitation center.
Drugs being banned was obvious.
But sex was treated almost like another kind of drug.
Some residents carried HIV.
Some had other infectious diseases.
And some girls were rumored to deliberately get pregnant just to earn an early release.
Because of that, the administration enforced extremely strict rules.
Men and women lived in separate areas.
Female guards constantly watched over the women's dormitories.
There were almost no places in the entire center where couples could be alone together.
If anyone was caught, they would be thrown into the disciplinary cells.
Those cells were tiny.
Barely one meter wide and two meters long.
Inside, all privileges were removed—except for three meals a day.
Yet none of that stopped people from trying.
In fact, more residents were punished for sex than for fighting or even using drugs.
Usually only the powerful guys had a chance with the girls.
Either you had status…
Or you had money.
Because none of the girls here were exactly innocent.
If you wanted to be with one of them, you needed something in your pocket.
And more importantly, sex inside the center was never just about two people.
You needed a room.
Someone to stand guard.
And an entire group willing to keep their mouths shut.
Snitches were everywhere in this place.
They worked faster than rockets.
Back when I was still in detox, I had already heard several hilarious stories.
Two people finally managed to sneak into a room.
They had barely pulled down their pants—
When security burst in and dragged them straight to the disciplinary cells.
At the time, I still couldn't understand something.
Why did people here seem so obsessed with sex?
They were willing to risk punishment—willing to risk almost anything—for a single chance.
And shame?
That word didn't exist in the vocabulary of most residents.
Whenever an opportunity appeared, they rushed toward each other like wild animals.
Even if someone else was standing right beside them, watching.
And that…
became one of the first strange experiences I encountered during my early days outside the detox ward.