It was past midnight already.

Ruaan had spent the past few hours eating dinner... whatever they served on the plate, he hadn’t even checked... and came back to the cell alone. The rest of his cellmates had gone to shower.

He lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

Yoon was the first to return. He came in wearing nothing but a small towel around his waist, using the larger one to dry his hair and chest, moving around the cell like he wasn’t actively making sure Ruaan could see everything.

He sat on his bed with his legs apart, letting the small towel do the bare minimum.

Ruaan glanced over once.

He saw what was happening at the side of that towel and looked back at the ceiling.

"You’re not going to shower?" Yoon asked, casual, like he was making conversation. "You know we’ve got until some time next week."

"I don’t feel like it."

Yoon’s brows came together.

He’d left the shower early on purpose because he thought... he didn’t know what he’d thought. That Ruaan would look at him and that something would happen between them. That the body he’d been trying very hard not to think about since the changing incident would produce some kind of reaction.

But nothing. Nothing happened.

Ruaan was staring at the ceiling like the ceiling was the most interesting thing in the room.

"Are you perhaps going to shower later?" Yoon tried again. "You know, when it’s late or..."

Ruaan turned his head slowly and looked at him. "Why? Are you stalking me already?"

"What?" Yoon laughed too fast and too loud and grabbed the larger towel to cover himself properly. "Fuck no! Dude, why would I do that? I’m just concerned about you."

He turned away.

Ruaan watched the back of his head for a moment.

’This boy knows,’ he thought. ’He must have heard me and Seo talking and now he wants in.’

He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.

He just needed everyone unconscious by 1am. That was all he needed.

.

.

Midnight came and passed.

Ruaan opened one eye and checked the room. Yoon was sleeping. Petre was sleeping. Luca was also sleeping, facing the wall like always.

He swung his legs off the bed quietly, grabbed Harolin’s soap from the shelf, and slipped out.

.

The prisoner bathroom at midnight was almost like a completely different place.

It was empty and clean-ish with absolutely no chaos, no steam, no sounds he didn’t want to hear. Just tiles and running water and the perfect quiet.

Seo was already there.

He was sitting in the corner with his pants on and a comic open in his lap, because of course he was, because Seo Jihan would read a BL comic at his own funeral and feel no shame about it.

"I see you are here," Ruaan said. "I’m glad you didn’t forget the timing by reading your comic."

Seo laughed as he looked up and stopped.

His eyes went from Ruaan’s face downward and his hand went slightly slack on the comic and for a full three seconds he just... stared. Ruaan’s face, everyone knew. They knew how dashing and beautiful he was.

However, Ruaan’s body was apparently a different conversation entirely. The tattoo. The waist. The pink nipples. All of it just standing there in the bathroom lighting being completely unfair about itself.

Seo folded the comic slowly and covered his mouth with it.

’Oh,’ he thought, behind the cover. ’This is going to be fun.’

He stood up and walked over. "We have unlimited time since we don’t want anyone barging in on us doing something."

"Doing something?" Ruaan tilted his head. "We’re not doing anything, are we?"

Seo moved behind him and put both hands on his shoulders and got a full, direct view of the tattoo across his back and the line of his waist and quietly thanked himself for wearing tight pants today because without them, the boner situation would have been significantly more obvious.

He cleared his throat.

"I brought tools that can help us," he said, and stepped away.

He reached into the corner and produced a small cardboard box.

’LEGO’ was written on the front in cheerful yellow letters.

Ruaan’s face immediately softened. "Oh! I played with this when I was a kid. It was actually really—"

Seo opened the box and Ruaan went completely still.

There was no LEGO. Not a single one. Not a single brick.

The box was full of things that were shaped nothing like bricks and had nothing to do with building anything... unless you counted the kind of building that happened in very adult circumstances. They were different colours and sizes and things with buttons that Ruaan couldn’t name and didn’t want to name.

He kept on staring at them with the expression of a man whose childhood had just been taken from him.

Seo picked up a purple one and clicked the button cheerfully. Nothing happened. He clicked it again.

"Oh," he said, unbothered. "I used this three days ago. Battery’s dead." He set it aside. "I can charge some of them tomorrow." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Ruaan said nothing.

Seo dug around and pulled out a black one and pressed the button hard.

It vibrated immediately. Loud, buzzing in his palm with zero shame.

He pressed it again. The vibration doubled.

"Aha." Seo looked up with the satisfaction of a man who had found exactly what he needed. "This one’s perfect."

He held it out toward Ruaan.

Ruaan stepped back with both hands up. "No. No no no. Don’t look at me like that. There is no way that thing is entering my body. I will rip."

Seo laughed genuinely, already reaching for the waistband of his trousers. "Who said anything about it entering you?" He nodded toward the shower. "Step under the water, Ruaan."

Ruaan looked at the shower, looked at Seo and looked at the buzzing black thing in his hand.

"Fuck," he said, very quietly, to no one.