Seo packed up his LEGO box carefully as if he was handling fragile equipment, which in fairness he was, and headed for the door.

Ruaan followed him out and they separated at the corridor fork.

He stood there for a moment after Seo disappeared around the corner.

He did not want to go back to his cell.

He specifically did not want to look at Yoon’s face knowing what he knew about Yoon’s face and what Yoon’s face had been doing twenty minutes ago while pressed into Ruaan’s spare uniform shirt.

"Is there somewhere else I can be right now?" He asked himself as he stared at the corridor.

’But if I don’t go back, where the hell would I sleep?’

He exhaled.

’I just have to go back and pretend I saw nothing because I’m sure Yoon was going to pretend he did nothing. That’s how this works. We’re adults.’

He went back to his cell.

.

.

He heard it before he got there.

He heard multiple voices. It wasn’t just from cell 109 but from the surrounding cells too, people spilling into the corridor, heads leaning out, that specific quality of noise that meant something had happened that everyone had something to say about it.

Ruaan pushed through the small crowd and stepped inside.

He looked at what everyone was looking at.

His bed.

More specifically, what was on his bed.?

Someone said behind him, "It’s almost like a tradition at this point."

Another voice. "Someone’s got it bad for the new one."

"You think it’s Cullen? You very well know he leaves his mark on the ones he wants—"

"Cullen’s been running to the toilet every hour. He’s not cumming anywhere."

Laughter scattered through the crowd.

Then the conversation shifted, the way conversations in Blackmere always eventually shifted back to the same point.

"Just how attractive is this guy?"

"First Cullen, now this..."

"Who’s next, the officers?"

More laughter.

Ruaan stood in the middle of it and said nothing. Not because he had nothing to say. He just didn’t know how to say it.

He looked at Yoon.

"Yoon."

Yoon flinched. A small, barely visible thing, but Ruaan was looking directly at him and caught every millimetre of it. "What?"

Ruaan opened his mouth.

He had questions. Specific, detailed, direct questions. He knew exactly who had done this and exactly how it had gotten there. Of course, he has just one spare shirt and that’s the same one that Yoon had pressed on his face while moaning repeatedly.

He closed his mouth and stopped himself from asking anything.

Because asking those questions in front of everyone would require explaining how he knew, and explaining how he knew meant explaining what he had seen through the cell door, and that was a conversation he was not having in front of an audience or privately or ever.

He walked to his bed and picked up the uniform with the sheets. He held them in a bundle at arm’s length.

"None of you saw who did this," he asked his cellmate the question.

The three of them shrugged. Of course, they won’t know since it was skill day. Nobody had been here. Nobody except Yoon.

Petre pointed at Yoon. "Yoon found it first actually. He came in and saw it and called everyone."

Ruaan looked at Yoon.

Yoon looked back at him with the wide earnest eyes of a man who had committed a crime and then reported it to the authorities himself.

Ruaan smiled.

"Thank you, Yoon," he said pleasantly. "That’s very, very helpful of you."

He walked out.

.

.

The laundry room was empty when Ruaan entered.

He stood in front of the washing machine and looked at what he was holding and made a decision about the shirt immediately. He didn’t need two. He had one on his body already. He took the spare shirt, thought about Yoon’s face buried in it, thought about the sound of his own name coming out of Yoon’s mouth, and ripped it in two.

Immediately, he threw it in the bin. He didn’t look back at it.

Sure, he didn’t want to wear something that had another man’s cum. He frowned. He was furious.

If he were at home, he would have tossed both the shirt and the sheets into the bin, but not now. He can’t afford to get a new one since he’s not only a grey uniform but also a bottom ten. He groaned silently and thought of a way to get more sheets.

.

The sheets went in the machine. He stood and watched the cycle run and then ran it again because once was not enough. Then a third time. Then rinsed separately. Then dried. Then ironed.

He stood holding the finished sheet and looked at it.

It was clean. Completely clean. He had made certain of that.

He almost cried anyway. He didn’t want to use it if it was clean. He sniffed it. It smelled clean like detergent, whenever he remembered what was on the sheet. He ended up gagging.

"Fuck! I hate this,"

The laundry room door opened and he turned around to see who it was.

It was Finn who walked in.

He looked at Ruaan.

Ruaan raised a hand and waved.

"Hi..."

Finn didn’t say anything except to glare at Ruaan. The glare lasted maybe two seconds and it was not the look of someone who was embarrassed or uncertain or any of the things Ruaan had assumed Finn felt when they were in the same space. It was flat and cold and direct in a way that had nothing accidental about it.

Then Finn walked past him without a word and stopped in front of a washing machine and started loading it like Ruaan was furniture.

Ruaan’s eyes followed Finn. He remembered what Seo said about Finn today and swallowed hard. He was trying to get Cullen back which meant he saw Ruaan as an enemy. He just didn’t know why that had to mean he should be ignored.

Ruaan stood very still.

’What,’ he thought quietly, ’the hell was that?’