Ruaan hadn’t slept.

Not even close.

He lay on his back all night staring at the ceiling while his brain replayed every single moment in that bathroom with Seo’s collection of horrors. The sizes. The sounds. The way Seo had looked at him after each one was like a scientist observing a very interesting experiment.

None of it had entered him.

He was very clear about that and he was also happy.

But he had seen enough to understand exactly what ’entering’ would feel like and the understanding alone had kept him awake until 5am with his legs pressed together and his face buried in his thin pillow.

He had seen the way Seo’s hole clenched around the toy as he thrusted in and out even with the lube. It was tight and it looked very painful.

He had already made a choice and a decision to never let something like that enter his hole. Not even a finger.

Not Cullen.

Not the toys.

Not Seo.

Not—

’Harolin.’

He didn’t know why he almost hesitated when he thought of Harolin. He had sucked his cock and he was aware of how massive it was. Something like that could kill him in five seconds. He shivered as the thought of it as he adjusted his pillow and sat up.

He started buttoning his shirt up, ready to go about his day.

It was Monday and it’s already 6 days since he came here bhe sure was getting used to prison life, but he had to spend 2 damned years here?

He turned his face away from his own thoughts and immediately made eye contact with Yoon, who was sitting on his bed already dressed and staring at Ruaan with an expression he was doing a terrible job of making casual.

Ruaan frowned at him and immediately, he looked at the wall.

’I wonder if he has something to say to me,’

Ruaan grabbed his shoes and left.

.

.

The corridor outside was already moving. People were already heading to wherever skill day took them. They conversed between cells, talking about random things. Monday’s energy was different from every other day.

He was heading somewhere when he heard two men discussing, as they walked past him.

"...no way I’m going to woodwork. I’ll just hide in the bathroom since I don’t want to bump into Cullen and get beaten by him again,"

"Oh, dude! You didn’t hear? Cullen’s been sick for two days apparently. I doubt he’s coming. Ha! Serves him right!"

Ruaan slowed and pressed his lips together.

’Two days.’

The pills were working exactly as promised. Which meant woodwork was temporarily Cullen-free, but also meant he had two days before the man recovered and remembered where Ruaan lived.

He thought about it for half a second.

’Electrical,’ Seo had said. Seo was in electrical. He was going to choose the same thing and it wasn’t because of Seo. He just wanted something safe. His hands were too pretty and weak to hold a hammer and of course, even if Cullen gets better, he definitely doesn’t want to be in the same space with him every Monday.

He found the registration office at the end of the officer’s corridor and knocked twice.

"Come in."

He pushed the door open and walked toward the desk, looking around the office as he moved.

"Hello, I’d like to register for—"

He saw who was sitting at the desk.

Harolin looked up from the papers in front of him.

Ruaan’s face did something he couldn’t control immediately. He raised his hand and waved. Actually waved. Enthusiastically. Like they were friends at a market.

"You look tired," Ruaan said. "Are you okay?"

Harolin said nothing.

He was looking at Ruaan with an expression Ruaan couldn’t fully read. It was flat on the surface, which was normal, but underneath it something tight and very specific that was less normal.

Before Ruaan could say anything else the door opened behind him.

Seo walked in mid-yawn, one hand pushing his glasses up, papers already under his arm. He registered Ruaan and shuffled closer with the easy comfort of someone who had spent the previous night in proximity.

"You’re registering already?" he asked.

"Yeah."

Seo took another step and winced. Just slightly. His hand went briefly to his lower back.

Ruaan put a hand on his waist automatically. "Huh? Are you still hurting?"

"Not much. It’ll pass." Seo straightened up, winked at Ruaan once, grabbed papers from the back storeroom, and left without looking at Harolin at all.

Ruaan watched him go.

Then Harolin’s voice came from the desk, quiet and even.

"So that’s who you were with. In the bathroom. Earlier today."

Ruaan turned around slowly. "How do you know I was—"

Harolin stood up. "Which department are you registering for?"

"Wait, how did you find out that I was with—"

"Answer the question, 2525."

Ruaan went still.

’2525?’

Not Ru. Not even his name, Ruaan.

He swallowed. "Electrical."

Harolin laughed.

The laugh was short and low. The kind of laugh that had nothing to do with anything being funny. He tilted his head back slightly, looked at Ruaan with something dark and patient moving behind his eyes, and then stood from the chair and walked around the desk toward the door.

The lock turned.

’Click.’

Ruaan looked at the locked door, looked at Harolin standing in front of it and took one step back.

"Why did you lock the door?"

Harolin looked at him. "Do you know why I specifically requested to be the officer on duty today?"

"That doesn’t answer why you looked at the door," Ruaan said and saw Harolin adjusting his sleeves. "What are you up to? You’re scaring me, Lily,"

"One." He held up a finger. "Because I knew you were coming here today, Ru."

"What? What are you saying?"

Ruaan’s brows creased in confusion.

"Two." Another finger. "There are no cameras in this office, so I’ll be able to do whatever to you without any evidence."

"I don’t understand what you’re—"

"Three." His voice dropped. "It’s the perfect place to punish you."

The word landed in the room and sat there.

’Punish.’

Ruaan heard that word and he knew he was fucked. First, Harolin called him 2525 and now, he was going to punish him. For what? Why?

His back hit the storeroom door.

He didn’t even know when he was moving. All he knew was that, he didn’t want to get caught by Harolin. His legs had decided before his brain caught up. He grabbed the handle, shoved the door open, threw himself inside, and slammed it shut behind him.

He pressed his back against it and looked around.

The storeroom was large. Much larger than it looked from the outside. It had shelves running the length of it, boxes stacked high, equipment for every department. Wire coils. Wood planks. Metal rods. Enough hiding spots if he moved fast enough.

’Once again, I’m confused. Why is he punishing me?’ he thought, scanning the room frantically. ’What did I do? All I did was go to the bathroom. That’s it. That’s completely normal. I went to the bathroom and Seo happened to be there with a LEGO box and—’

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The knock hit the door so hard that Ruaan felt it through his spine.

"Open the door, Ru." Harolin’s voice came from outside. It was completely calm but the man wasn’t calm. "Don’t keep me waiting."

"No I will not!" Ruaan yelled. "I will not be stupid enough to listen to you and open the door."

A pause.

"Fine," Harolin said, still calm. Somehow worse for being calm. "That store is very large." 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Ruaan heard his own breathing.

"You’d better hide before I get in there."

’He’s bluffing,’ Ruaan told himself. ’There’s no way he’s going to come in here after I’ve locked the door from inside. He doesn’t even have the keys with him. So, it’s totally imposs—’

Ruaan paused when he heard keys jingling right outside the door.

He stopped breathing and immediately moved.

He was fast for the first time in his life. He moved low, ducking between shelves, squeezing past a stack of boxes and pressing himself into the narrow dark gap he found at the back corner behind a shelf of wire coils. He folded himself in as small as he could go and pulled a box slightly in front of the opening and went completely still.

The door swung open.

Light flooded in.

And quiet footsteps started moving into the room with the same unhurried energy that Harolin brought to everything — like he had already won and was simply going through the motions of letting Ruaan figure that out.

The shelves creaked as something was moved.

The footsteps came closer.

Ruaan pressed himself against the wall and stopped breathing entirely and thought about every decision he had made in the last six days that had led him to this exact moment crouching behind wire coils in a storeroom while the most terrifying man in Blackmere looked for him.

The footsteps stopped.

Right outside the shelf and there was silence.