Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

my chest is an aviary, hundreds of caged birds 

flutter and shudder and whistle 

soft songs and incomprehensible words 

[...]

the robins and blue jays and wrens and larks,

all choir my unending pain 

dorian green - when the caged birds sing

Hyuntak can’t hear anything. The voices speaking to him are muffled, distant, like he’s locked himself inside of his own body. He can’t stop clenching and unclenching his hands, the skin at his wrists rubbed raw from the cuffs. The guard behind him keeps a hand pressed between his shoulder blades, steering him forward with no more care than one would move livestock.

The intake is mechanical. A guard barks at him to strip, another rifles through his belongings before shoving them in a box. Cold hands pat him down, clinical but invasive; fingers pressing beneath his arms, down the sides of his ribs, across his groin, between his buttocks. He tries not to flinch, not to look so ashamed, and focuses on a stain on the wall. 

They hand him a light green uniform and watch him change with disdain, and the fabric of it smells like old sweat, already transferring wrongly to his skin. One of the guards shoves a bag at his chest containing a thin, beat up roll-out mat and blanket, a cheap set of toiletries, and a change of uniform.

The air shifts as they enter the main block, gets heavier, sour with a mix of bodily odor and disinfectant. A chorus of voices rises, chaotic and jeering from the tiny windows in the cells lined up like cages in a zoo. Hyuntak doesn’t lift his head, but he feels eyes tracking him, sizing him up. A few whistles, a laugh pitched too high, a growl.

“Hey, fish,” someone mutters from behind one of the doors. “You’re a pretty boy, huh? I’ll meet you soon.”

His stomach turns. 

He’s not small—lean muscle earned from years of Taekwondo and basketball and swimming still clinging to him—but here, none of that matters. Every step carries his own disbelief, the agonizing certainty that he shouldn’t be here. He didn’t do it, he didn’t do anything. No one cares.

By the time they shove him through the high security wing, Hyuntak’s jaw aches from grinding his teeth. He thinks he’s going to throw up, but he doesn’t remember the last time he ate anything. 

“Poor bastard,” one guard mutters as they walk him down the last corridor. “The mad dog is gonna eat him alive.”

“The office people probably made a mistake, look at this motherfucker,” the other snorts, poking Hyuntak in the back.  “Bet he won’t last the night.”

“Hey, maybe that’s why they put you with him, fish,” the first guard leans into him, fake whispering like sharing a secret, like this is just locker room talk. “Maybe they think you can entertain that lunatic.”

They don’t lower their voices, and Hyuntak’s stomach knots tighter as soon as he realizes they’re talking about him and about who he's going to be sharing a cell with. He doesn’t ask questions, can’t, doesn’t think he’ll get an answer and can’t push the words past his lips, fear making all of his muscles lock up. 

Then, the doors to the cell open, his cuffs are unlocked and he’s pushed inside. 

Once again, he thinks he goes blind and deaf for a second, his mind refusing to acknowledge the sound of the door being locked behind him. Vision blurring, ears ringing, unable to breathe or feel his fingers. 

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, stuck in place, trying to get his vision to focus on his fingers, opening and closing to get rid of the pins-and-needles feeling. He knows, distantly, how pathetic he must look. How vulnerable, how much of an easy target. 

Hyuntak can’t bring himself to care. 

Everything is so wrong. It feels too much like a nightmare, but no matter how much he forces himself to wake up, his chest keeps squeezing with the immovable truth that this is his reality. He can’t run away, he can’t hide, he can’t reach out to his friends. 

Go Hyuntak is in prison for muder, and he’s going to be torn to shreds before he can dream of getting out. 

When he finally has some sense of self return to his body, he looks up. 

The cell is slightly bigger and less disgusting than he expected. There is a small, barred window to the outside, directly facing him. A single wall separates the toilet from the rest of the room, barely a semblance of privacy. The space isn’t particularly unkempt, and the foul odor doesn’t cling to the four walls as badly as it did on the outside. 

A single thin mat lies against the wall on the left. There’s a man sitting cross-legged beside it, head bent over a deck of playing cards spread in uneven rows. It’s like an instant shock to his system, remembering that yes, there’s someone in the room with him. His cellmate. 

‘The mad dog’, the guards had called him. 

There’s something so strangely casual about him, like he’s not in prison at all, just passing time. He doesn’t look up right away, moving with deliberate ease, sliding one card into place, flipping another. 

When Hyuntak finally takes a step toward the right side of the cell, as far away from him as possible, his eyes finally lift. 

The first thing Hyuntak notices is the glasses. Surprisingly good frames, almost too stylish for the place they’re at. Then the hair, tied behind his head into a bun, with a few stubborn pieces framing his face down to his jaw. 

Hyuntak doesn’t know if it’s the way the guards talked about him, but he’s something close to striking. Even in his relaxed position on the floor he’s intimidating, and Hyuntak feels the alarms blaring on the back of his mind as they usually do when an opponent is obviously above his skill. 

The mad dog studies him in silence, eyes scanning from head to toe. 

When he pushes himself to his feet, Hyuntak takes a step back instinctively. The man’s mouth curves into an amused smile, like he’s satisfied with causing fear so easily. 

Standing, he’s even more imposing. Taller than Hyuntak, lean but clearly muscular, infinitely more dangerous if the little he just heard has any truth to it. It’s the way he carries himself, too, how he steps forward into what Hyuntak naively had already deemed his space, his half of the cell; as if he’s sharing a cabin with Humin on a trip and not a concrete box with a criminal. 

“You’re shaking.” The man speaks, amused, leaning in close enough for Hyuntak to catch the faint scent of cheap soap and cigarette smoke. He even curves himself as one would when talking to a child, as if Hyuntak is that much smaller. An degradation tactic, most likely. And it works. 

Hyuntak doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t know what one could reply to a non-question like that. 

His cellmate snorts, “Geum Seongje.” 

It takes Hyuntak a beat to compute he just offered him his name. That he can work with, so he nods, trying to hold eye contact and avoiding the urge to stare at the floor. 

“Go Hyuntak,” he mutters.

Geum Seongje seems to consider that for a second, squinting at him as if trying to place something. “Go Hyuntak. Are you famous? Have I heard your name before?” 

Hyuntak’s throat closes up, and for a second he thinks Seongje is going to follow that up with the last thing he wants to hear. 

“I don’t think so.” 

Geum Seongje studies him some more, and the seconds stretch out into what feels like an eternity, so much so that Hyuntak wants to ask him if this is the moment he beats the shit out of him, and if so, to please hurry up. 

“Huh,” Seongje chuckles instead, unfazed, unreadable.

He sits back down, gathering his cards into a neat stack, going back to ignoring Hyuntak’s existence, humming to himself. 

Outside, lightning rips through the sky, and then deafening thunder. Hyuntak adjusts and sits on his own beat up mat, with his back against the wall and his spine straight and tense. He stares out of the window and through the thick bars and focuses on keeping a panic attack at bay. 

When the tears start, he buries his face in his arms. Seongje says nothing. He only watches.

Hyuntak loses track of time at some point. He doesn’t remember when the rain truly starts pouring, or when everything goes black outside.

He cries himself into a fitful sleep, self preservation thrown out the window, his back turned to Seongje. The ratty pillow and blanket do little to keep the cold from seeping into his bones or muffling the way he whimpers like a wounded, newborn puppy. 

Still, he survives his first night.

—

Morning comes, still harsh and damp.

Through the faint reflection on the window, Hyuntak catches sight of himself, then wishes he hadn’t looked. His face is wrecked, his eyes puffy and red-rimmed, his skin sallow. He looks exactly like someone who spent the night crying himself dry. He looks weak.

As he exits the toilet area, Seongje glances at him once, a single flick of the eyes, and snorts. No greeting or comment. Just that little sound, as if his face is an inside joke only he’s in on.

When they leave their cell for breakfast time, Hyuntak tries not to look like he's following behind Seongje for protection or something equally idiotic, but his feet drag and he looks a mess, so he’s not sure how much more pathetic he can look.

The mess hall is loud with trays clattering, spoons against metal. As soon as they step inside, heads turn toward him. A handful of stares stick to him, and he tries his hardest not to meet any directly, to squash that confrontational instinct as he passes through, as though they’re beneath his notice.

His mind works in the patterns it knows from the outside, and it keeps trying to slot these strangers into categories, measure them, make sense of why they look at him like that. It doesn’t hold here. There’s no logic he recognizes in this place.

He takes a tray, steps through the line in a blur. The food is watery soup, bland rice, sad sides and it registers as little more than shapes and steam. When he turns around he feels, stupidly, like he’s back in school and standing in a cafeteria, unsure where he’s allowed to sit. ​​Who’s popular, who’s a loser, who’s going to beat him into a pulp.

Geum Seongje sits alone at a table, not dignifying him with a look, and Hyuntak refuses to sit by him, in any case.

Instead, he spots a man at the far end of the hall, someone who came in on the same bus as him the day before. The guards had called him the reoffender, and he occupies one out of six seats. There’s no novelty there, clearly, so there’s no crowd watching him eat. Hyuntak heads his way, takes the chair as far from the man as the table allows.

The man only acknowledges him with a nod, so Hyuntak figures it's fine.

From the corner of his eye, Hyuntak tracks Seongje’s table. Tries not to, but it’s stronger than him. He spoons the tasteless broth into his mouth quickly, barely chewing the mushy rice, when two men approach the ‘mad dog’. They speak briefly, and Hyuntak’s not looking directly at them so they don’t catch him staring, but when both men glance in his direction, he feels it like a shove between the shoulders.

Then the sound comes, sharp metal scraping against tile. It snaps the hall quiet in an instant.

All heads turn to see one of the men hunched over, hand clutching his shin, cursing under his breath. Seongje’s foot rests casually on the leg of the chair he apparently just drove into him.

“I didn’t have a very good night of sleep,” Seongje says, voice calm but just loud enough to carry. “You really shouldn’t piss me off this early in the morning.”

The guard at the entrance doesn’t even move. His hand rests on the butt of his gun, more out of habit than concern.

“Dongha, Seongmok, back to your seat,” he says lazily. “Finish your food, gentlemen.”

And that’s the end of that.

Hyuntak tries to ignore the vertigo of knowing whatever they said, it had something to do with him. He’s so focused on keeping his food down that he almost misses when the man sitting across from him speaks.

“So they really threw you in with him?” he asks with just the right amount of disinterest that doesn't seem fake.

Hyuntak nods. “Whatever that means.”

“From your face, I would’ve guessed you figured it out on the first night, but apparently not,” the man raises his brows slightly. 

Hyuntak wants to laugh at the idea that he needed Geum Seongje to do anything to him for him to bawl his eyes out all night. It’s understandable, though, that the man doesn’t assume he’s a distraught, innocent person.

“We’ve stayed out of each other’s ways.” 

A complicated expression seems to pass over the reoffender’s face for half a moment before he goes back to his neutral, disinterested stance.

“Keep your head down. Don’t get in trouble. That’s my advice, if you care for it. People are scared of him for a reason.”

Hyuntak doesn’t need convincing. He already feels it, the way Seongje’s presence pulls at the air in a room, swallowing up everything else.

“And are you scared of him…?” Hyuntak prompts. 

“Seokdae,” the man answers the unvoiced question. “I don’t cross him, he doesn’t cross me. Sometimes we do business.”

“Right,” Hyuntak says, unsure of what to do with the information but tucking it away nonetheless. “Hyuntak.”

“Yeah. Good luck, Hyuntak.” That's all he gets out of Seokdae before he quietly goes back to his food, unwilling to speak any longer. 

Soon, they're finished and ushered back to their cells with no yard time due to the rain that refuses to let up, Seokdae leaves him with a curt nod, and peels off toward his own unit.

When he walks into their shared cell, Seongje is nowhere to be seen. 

—

There’s something about the way time passes in a cell that scrambles Hyuntak’s internal wiring. The hours lose shape, his thoughts loop back on themselves until they’re frayed at the edges.

From somewhere beyond the wall, he hears the restless life of the block, voices rising with frustration or meaningless chatter, and the occasional sharp bark of a guard. Metal rattling, knuckles pounding against bars in brief, pointless rebellion. The air itself feels taut, as if too many bodies are pressing against the same set of concrete boundaries.

For what feels like half the day, Seongje doesn’t come back.

Hyuntak sits on the edge of his mat, elbows on knees, staring at nothing. He has no books and no one to talk to, and it’s just his second day, but it feels like it’s been longer. Just the damp chill creeping in from the window and the faint ache in his temples from trying not to think too much.

The temptation to lie down and let the day dissolve into sleep gnaws at him, but the idea of being caught in that kind of vulnerability when Seongje walks in is… No. He’s not that stupid, doesn’t lack that much self preservation. 

He stands, stretches until his shoulders pop, then drops to the floor. He does push-ups, crunches, squats and whatever the space allows him to. He even keeps a slow rhythm, because this is not for training or tiring himself out, but for keeping his brain from turning into a mush boredom and unease. 

Outside, the rain never stops. The gusts of wind are so strong they sound like the growling of an animal, the light in the cell shifts even though it’s still day. Typhoon season greets the facility as if it’s swallowing it whole. 

—

As lights go out on his fourth night, Seongje speaks to him directly once more. 

“If you drop a single tear tonight, I’m going to suffocate you in your sleep.” 

He says it so matter-of-factly that one would think he’s giving him a weather report, telling Hyuntak it won’t stop raining anytime soon. 

“Shit,” Seongje adds after a beat, shifting against his mat, “I’d welcome the hole at this point if it meant I could get one decent night of sleep. You’re pissing me off with all this fucking whimpering.”

For some reason, Hyuntak hadn’t stopped to consider his crying might be affecting Seongje. It isn’t, not in the human way, but the disruption clearly is. 

The embarrassment washes over him, and he almost finds himself apologizing for it. He’s just been given a warning as if he’s a child breaking curfew, and he wonders what’s going to happen to him if he dares. 

He doesn’t dare. Head down, no trouble. He tries so hard that he spends hours awake, mind wandering through the same questions he’s asked himself a million times, over and over again. 

What could he have done differently? Why would nobody believe him? What did he do to deserve this? Who killed him? Why? 

The tears don’t come, but the anger does.

—

They’re let out again on the yard on his fifth day, though it’s still raining slightly outside. 

Hyuntak suspects even the guards are starting to feel it; the tight, claustrophobic pressure of being stuck inside too long. The kind that coils in everyone’s gut and makes tempers rise faster. The longer they stay cooped up, even the ones who have other routines to break the monotony, the more the air changes. It’s like a string being wound too tight, ready to snap at the slightest tug. 

The fences around the yard are high, crowned with spirals of razor wire. Cameras glint from every corner, each lens angled just right to catch everything. There’s no place to hide here, but that doesn’t stop eyes and voices from finding him.

Hyuntak thinks he feels them before he sees them, the heads turning, conversations faltering, gazes lingering too long. An ugly grin here, a chuckle there. The kind of attention and comments that make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

“I know he cries nice,”

“Think he’ll scream?”

“It’s been a while since we got a nice looking bitch ‘ro und here.”

“Don’t try to run when I fuck your face, pretty girl.”

They’re not just lewd, there’s weight behind them, the kind of threat that’s too raw in its violence. He keeps his face blank, but his pulse climbs, and the damp air suddenly feels even harder to breathe in. 

He wants to walk away, but he can’t. He already looks weak enough, and he may have leverage on surprising them by being a trained fighter, but there’s only so many he can take down by himself if he gets cornered. Especially if they have something sharp, or if they get him on his knee.

Across the yard, Seongje is sitting on a low concrete bench, one knee drawn up, his arms resting lazily over it. He smokes a cigarette while watching with some interest, Hyuntak can tell, though his expression doesn’t change much for his usual deadpan with underlying amusement. 

Hyuntak tries to shut everything out, going through the set of exercises he mentally set up for himself, all except for the knee-focused ones. 

Those he saves for the privacy of their cell whenever Seongje fucks off to god knows where. 

—

Hyuntak had always cleaned up real good. As an athlete, he used to spend most of his time dripping in sweat through intense training sessions, and subsequently through laborious physical therapy, but it was a different story outside of those hours. He would never let it stick to him. 

The moment he got home, he’d scrub himself raw in the shower, work lotion into his skin, go through the motions of doing some skin care.

At first, it had been mostly stuff he got in PR packages or brand deals, but with time, it became part of his routine. 

People had realized his face sold as much as his Taekwondo medals and trophies did—if not more—so that, too, was part of his job. It’s because you’re a pretty boy, they’d say. It’d be a shame not to make the most of it.

That’s why he kept his hair grown out just enough to fall in an easy wave across his forehead, why his skin stayed clear and plump once the worst of his teenage acne passed, why he was always photographed looking like the whole package—sharp body, clean face, and what everyone had drilled into him were ‘boyish charms’. It made him money, it got him sponsors, so he never complained too much despite the constant embarrassment.

And it’s not like vanity is what gnaws at him now, while locked up for a crime he didn’t commit. It’s just that he has a lot of time to think, and it feels unreal that the person he sees in his reflection is the same as the one he used to see reflected months before. 

It’s like the life he lived for years belonged to somebody else now. 

He’s turned into a shell. Emptied out, dragged around by nerves that won’t let him rest. He doesn’t eat properly, doesn’t sleep well. His face is all hollowed out cheeks and sunken, darkened eyes. The kind of face no one should want to look at.

And yet they do.

He can feel it amping up in the yard. The eyes tracking him and lingering, the kind of leers that strip him down without even touching. They circle him like dogs testing the edge of a chain, and it’s only the number of COs on duty that keeps them at bay. 

But he knows, at some point, the guards will loosen the leash. 

He can only stay in and hide behind the fact that no one dares enter Seongje’s cell for so long before someone finds the gap and he gets himself cornered. He knows it, feels it in his bones. He’s going to get in trouble one way or another, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

The fear sweats out of him, soaking through the only two sets of uniform he has, leaving his skin sticky, his hair oily, his whole body stale and unclean. He hasn’t braved the showers, or anywhere outside of the mess hall since the first time. He’s terrified of who’ll follow him in, what kind of hands he won’t be able to shake off. 

He hides, he postpones, he thinks maybe one more day. But it’s past the point of choice now.

Seongje makes sure of that.

“You reek,” he points out flatly one morning, not even bothering to look up from where he’s stretching on his mat. 

The words cut nearly as sharp as any of the threats muttered out in the yard. Hyuntak wants to snap back and pretend it doesn’t matter, but the shame grips him too tightly. 

Of course Seongje notices, and of course he points it out on one of the rare occasions he deems necessary to acknowledge Hyuntak exists.

“Go to the fucking showers.” 

He throws the words over his shoulders as he leaves their cell. It sounds like an order and it is one, leaving the indignity to fester like an infection and Hyuntak to feel like one.

He hates himself for it, that even in the middle of everything, when his insides feel scraped raw, there’s still enough of him left to care about how disgusting he is. He feels like he’s going crazy. 

He loses track of how long he contemplates the unused towel and soap kit on the corner of his room before he shakily picks them up and makes his way to the showers. 

—

“You have seven minutes,” the singular CO guarding the showers says as Hyuntak joins, more worried about whatever he’s watching on the tiny, concealed TV screen he has under his station. 

The room reeks of mildew and cheap disinfectant when he walks in. He breathes out a sigh of relief when there are only two other inmates inside, an elderly man and a skinny guy he could easily knock out. 

The first rush of hot water over his shoulders nearly makes his knees buckle. It’s the first real comfort he’s felt in days. He scrubs at his arms and legs and face, like he can wash off more than just the grease. For a brief moment it almost works, despite the disgusting floors and walls and the terribly chemical smell of the cheap bar of soap. 

The other two men with him finish quickly, their chatter fading with the slap of rubber sandals on tile. The second the door shuts behind them, the silence turns cavernous. 

Hyuntak feels it immediately, his pulse climbing up. He starts rushing, lathering and rinsing his scalp in short bursts, desperate to be done before anyone else comes in. 

He’s nearly finished when the door opens again.

When he glances up through the spray and wipes off the water from his eyes, his stomach drops. It’s the pair who had circled Seongje in the cafeteria days ago, Dongha and Seongmok, accompanied by two other men he only distantly recognizes from the disgusting comments made at the yard.

“Well, looks like we’re finally meeting the new fish,” one of them drawls, Dongha, eyes roaming too long over Hyuntak’s bare frame.

Hyuntak’s gut twists. He angles his body away, trying to make himself bigger. “Just finishing. I don’t want any trouble.” His voice cracks with how fast he says it.

“Relax,” Seongmok says, voice dripping with ill intentions. They step closer, blocking the way out.

The bug-eyed one steps closer, shoes squeaking on the wet tile. “What trouble? We’re here to have fun.” His hand flicks out, shoving Hyuntak’s shoulder. The floor is slick, and Hyuntak stumbles, barely catching himself on the wall.

Then his ankle is hooked, and his legs are swept out from under him. He hits the tiles hard, shower spray streaming into his eyes and mouth.

“Don’t act so tough. Nothing more annoying than a bitch that thinks he can fight back,” another one sneers, planting a knee on Hyuntak’s chest. 

Water splashes as he thrashes, trying to push up, his fists landing a few hits. He even kicks once, sharp enough that it catches one of the men in the guts. But his knee slips and buckles on the second try, hitting the floor hard and sending shockwaves of pain through his body.

He’s shoved down again, his cheek smacking the wet tiled floor.

“So you’re gonna be quiet, aren’t you?” Dongha fake whispers in a way that makes his insides twist. 

Hyuntak chokes on a scream, water and fear burning down his throat. He bucks hard, thrashing, but the weight on him doesn’t let up. They laugh like they’ve already decided what they’re going to and the implication is heavy in the air.

A palm forces his face into the shallow pool of filthy shower water. He sputters, the back of his skull ringing from the pressure, lungs burning. Hands roam down his naked back, and he thinks dimly, this is it—

“Leave,” 

The fifth voice cuts through the echo of the showers. Calm, disinterested.

Hyuntak can barely hear it through the panic, but the weight disappears off him all at once. Hyuntak coughs, dragging himself upright as best he can, clutching his knee with one hand, trying to breathe through the panic.

For a moment, Hyuntak thinks a guard has finally intervened. When he looks up, however, he nearly recoils in surprise.

Seongje is at the entrance, towel slung over his shoulder, expression flat as stone. He doesn’t even look at Hyuntak, just at the men, who straighten instinctively under his gaze.

They drag it out, cursing and muttering, but eventually leave.

Hyuntak is left curled against the tiles, shaking and gasping for air under the spray. His dripping hair getting in his eyes, his lips taste like mold and copper and disgusting water. Seongje turns the knob on the stall beside him, steps under the water with a composure that makes Hyuntak’s humiliation even sharper.

Seongje finally turns to him, studying him like he’s only just decided to really look. Assessing, weighing. Hyuntak wants nothing more than to wipe that unreadable expression off his face with a fist. Somehow, that’s a more welcoming feeling than pure disgust. 

“Why did you help me?” he forces out between shallow breaths, his hands digging into the slick floor as he tries and fails to push himself up. His knee screams in pain.

“Help you?” Seongje has the nerve to look almost confused, lower lip jutting out in a mock pout. “I just wanted to shower in peace. Watching you get raped by those pathetic fucks isn’t exactly that.”

It’s like acknowledging what just happened out loud allows for the revulsion to manifest in his guts. The nausea is unstoppable, so he folds to the side and retches, nothing but sour bile burning his throat, getting washed down the drain. 

It almost feels like a purge, as if the acid can cleanse the filth out from inside, burn the bacteria and whatever other nasty shit he just ingested. The spray still pours over him, soaking his hair, choking his breath until he fumbles for the handle, but his hand slips, useless.

Another hand cuts off the shower for him.

Seongje carries on rinsing under his own stream, utterly unfazed, while Hyuntak dry-heaves on the tiles. 

“You know,” Seongje finally speaks, too conversationally, “for now they’ll leave you alone, while they think you’re under my protection. They’ll try again once they realize you’re not.”

Hyuntak drags his head up and glares at him, hollowed out. 

“So your options are limited,” Seongje drawls, turning slightly to him. “Either you learn how to protect yourself and make yourself useful…”

“Or?” Hyuntak snaps, his whole body trembling with adrenaline and repugnance.

“Or you get claimed by me.” Seongje clicks his tongue, as if it’s obvious. “Which, honestly? So far you’ve done nothing but irritate me, so there’s not much incentive.”

For one dizzy second, he can’t even process it, can’t reconcile the word with the raw terror still flooding his veins. Then comes the rage at the mere thought of being claimed like an object, or a dog chained to its owner. 

It sparks something ugly in him, but it’s even more twisted that the blinding fury, the surge of defiance grounds him. Gives him back some control, some courage. Makes him tremble with more than fear, but also with his nerves straining to hold back the urge to attack.

“Claimed?” The words rip out of Hyuntak, making him force himself upright despite the white-hot throb in his knee. He staggers, but stays on his feet. “Claim me?”

Seongje shrugs. “That’s the law here.”

“If you ever lay a finger on me, I’ll fucking kill you.”

For a moment, there’s silence. Then Seongje bursts out laughing, the sound harsh and echoing, but somehow non-threatening. He’s amused.

“Damn. You really are insane. Good, keep that up. It’s better than the annoying kicked pup act you’ve been sulking around with.”

“I’m warning you.” Hyuntak spits the words like blood. “I don’t give a fuck who you are.”

Seongje shuts off his own shower, water dripping down his chest as he turns back with that same infuriating calm. “I do like my playthings feisty. But suit yourself, I don’t care either way. See ya back home.”

He wraps a towel around his waist and strolls past him with a chuckle, then doesn’t spare him another second look as he leaves.

—

Hyuntak sits on his mat pushed against the wall, hair still damp from the shower and plastered to his forehead. The cell feels smaller than ever, every corner pressing in, every sound amplified against the concrete.

For once, Seongje is in the room, with his back to Hyuntak and leaning against the windows that face the hallway, speaking in hushed tones to the inmate who handles deliveries. 

Hyuntak doesn’t try to follow their words. He stares at the opposite wall, letting the events of the shower replay like a loop. 

He counts the days since he arrived. Eight. It only took eight days for this place to stain something in him. 

Something inside him snaps him into clarity and an idea comes to mind. 

—

Breakfast the next day is eerily calm. Hyuntak grabs his tray and glances around, half-expecting to see the usual leering or threats, but he notices immediately that Seongje was right. Most of the inmates steer clear of him, even if their eyes flick toward him now and then. There are no overt threats, no smirks that linger too long, just avoidance. 

Hyuntak hates that, somehow, the psycho did end up helping, giving him space to breathe, to exist with a little less weight, even if it’s temporary. 

He makes his way to the back and sits with Seokdae again. The man glances at him, eyes taking in the swelling of his lip, the dark bruises shadowing his cheek, and then he lowers them back to his tray without a word.

When the meal is done, he rises and trails behind Seokdae as they leave the dining hall.

Seokdae raises an eyebrow, not accusatory, but asking without words what Hyuntak wants.

Hyuntak asks him about the service he wants, and how to get it without being asked to suck cock in return. Seokdae exhales, long and deliberate. He doesn’t answer immediately, letting Hyuntak stew in the uncertainty as he walks. Almost too long. Then, he finally replies.

“I’ll do it,” Seokdae says quietly.

“And what will that cost me?” Hyuntak asks in a heartbeat, because it's at least easy to understand that that's how everything works in this place. 

Seokdae huffs. “It’s not like you have shit right now.” He leans in slightly, lowering his voice. “But I know you’re someone outside. Next time you get a chance to talk to your lawyers… Tell me beforehand. You’ll get your price then.”

“Deal.” Hyuntak nods, swallowing a knot of relief before he follows Seokdaw to his cell.

Chapter Text

The difference unsettles him, but there’s a grim satisfaction in the way it feels. His hair, or at least what’s left of it, pricks against his palm, cropped almost as short as a buzzcut and wholly unfamiliar. Seokdae did a decent job.

He can’t decide whether it makes him look any rougher, or if it at least strips any of the softness away, but the memory of hands yanking his head back and slamming his face against the filthy shower tiles is still too fresh. This way, that won’t happen again. There’s no weight or grip for anyone to use against him. 

It isn’t a look he likes, but vanity no longer matters. What matters is the purpose it serves, and there’s something steadying about seeing himself altered. Watching the version of himself that he used to be just rotting away was worse. 

This feels like a reset. This is how he has to present now. Go Hyuntak, who killed someone. Go Hyuntak, who is a dangerous criminal and will lash out at anyone who tries fucking with him.

The thought loops in his head until the cell door whines open. When Seongje steps inside Hyuntak, for once, doesn’t feel the need to immediately look away. 

This time it’s Seongje who pauses, who actually stops mid-step, eyes settling on him with a focus they hadn’t before. He doesn’t smirk, doesn’t taunt. He just looks, taking in the change, lingering in a way that tells Hyuntak he’s been noticed.

Hyuntak forces his chin up, lets that look burn into him, lets it stick. 

If Seongje wants to see something different in him, then fine. Let him.

“Who helped you?” he asks, voice betraying nothing, but something flashes in his eyes. Hyuntak can’t pin down what it is, sharp and maybe even curious, but it’s gone too fast to name.

“Does it matter to you?” Hyuntak huffs. He doesn’t raise his voice, but he holds the stare and doesn’t let it waver.

The silence stretches until Seongje finally shifts, drawing his glasses from his face. He cleans them with a folded edge of his shirt leisurely, and Hyuntak knows it for what it is. It’s not retreat, but dismissal. It’s not a territorial win if Seongje doesn’t let it feel like one, if he doesn’t take him seriously. 

When the glasses slide back into place, Seongje is already back to his usual drawl.

“Guess not,” he says, flat, careless. “Your funeral anyway.”

Hyuntak tenses defensively. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“If you start owing pigs, they’re gonna come back to collect.” Seongje shrugs as though the warning is only another passing observation. “And you also look like a fucking teenager now. Some of them like that.”

“Speaking for yourself? Is that what you’re in here for?” Hyuntak spats back before he can stop himself. If he thought that would strike a nerve with Seongje, the way he chuckles proves him wrong right away.

“You really can’t decide when to be gutsy and when to be stupid, can you?” Seongje clicks his tongue, amused. 

And the thing is, Hyuntak knows he’s being too reactive. But he feels like he’s woken up from sleep paralysis, or a night terror, or something of the sort. Like he was drowning in fear of the worst for the past week, but since the worst has nearly happened, he’s only gasping in mouthfuls of anger. That, and everything about the way Seongje acts riles him up.

It makes heat creep up Hyuntak’s ears. He feels the moment they turn bright red, and now that they’re no longer covered by his hair, they’re in Seongje’s full view. 

“And you really can’t mind your business. Just go back to pretending I don’t exist, man.” 

Seongje pouts in mockery, exaggerating the expression as if Hyuntak is nothing more than a source of entertainment, a joke. Then, without warning, he steps closer.

Jesus fucking Christ. 

“Your business is my business,” Seongje taps the tip of his finger under Hyuntak’s chin, a fleeting touch that’s more about dominance than contact. By the time Hyuntak swats at him, indignant, Seongje has already pulled back, droping on his mat with a groan. He sits facing him, posture relaxed, eyes sharp. “Have you ever heard pigs screeching? I hate that fucking sound. I don’t want it anywhere near me.” 

“I thought you were the big bad,” Hyuntak provokes. “Can’t keep them away from you?” 

Seongje considers him, then smiles. “Did you also know they eat anything? Like injured baby birds, if they fall into the pen, things like that.” 

He makes a point of dragging his eyes down Hyuntak’s body as he says it. Hyuntak’s stomach lurches when he realizes that instead of leering, Seongje’s gaze just lands on his bad knee, knowing. Remembering. 

“You say that like you’re so different from them,” Hyuntak is almost proud of the way his voice conceals his fear. “But you were the one talking about claiming me yesterday. Isn’t that the same thing? You’re as disgusting as they are, only with a God complex.”

“Hyuntak-ah, you’re missing a very important point.” Seongje’s voice finally betrays the aggravating, nonchalant in which he carries himself, sounding firmer than Hyuntak has ever heard directed at him. “If I wanted to take you against your will, I would’ve already. They threw you in here with me because they figured if I turned you into a little wife I’d be occupied, and they’d have an easier time keeping the wing calm. I’m being awfully nice to you, actually.”

Hyuntak swears he doesn’t flinch. “You’re being nice by not raping me? Thanks man.” 

For the first time since Hyuntak stepped foot in this cell, Seongje’s mask fully slips. Then, Hyuntak can finally catch a glimpse of what everyone means when they talk about Geum Seongje. 

Whatever clouds his eyes like that doesn’t belong to any sane man. 

“I’m being nice by not teaching you to shut the fuck up when it’s good for you, Hyuntak-ah.” 

His voice is calm, even steady, and that’s what makes it worse. It’s not a threat nor a warning, it’s sojust a fact to him. “You’re not as grateful as you should be. I said I like feisty, not irritating.”

Hyuntak swallows hard, pulse spiking in real fear. The type of violence Seongje emanates can’t be faked. Yet, Hyuntak still tries to think of something to say, rattling his brain for anything to snap back at him for, to show teeth like a cornered, injured animal. Just like Seongje sees him.

But Seongje doesn’t give him the chance. He leans away, plucks a book from the pile near his mat, and his attention folds inward as if Hyuntak no longer exists. He stays there, sucking all of the air out of the room and leaving Hyuntak to suffocate over and over again, but never to die.

–

Hyuntak nearly cries at the feeling of arms around him. It’s a comfort he hasn’t known in so long, so startling in its familiarity that it makes his throat ache. 

He’s always been stronger, taller if only by a little, but enough to make Hyuntak feel a bit coddled when held like this. Hyuntak laughs under his breath at the display of affection, remembering a time when something like this was unthinkable, when he barely tolerated being near Hyuntak. He used to be so moody back then, and Hyuntak had truly believed he hated him. Maybe he had.

Not now, though. Now Hyuntak knows better. They’re not best friends nor are they lovers—that place was taken by someone else long ago—but what they share grows in the strange, unexplainable limbo between that and hostility. In a narrow sliver where all three overlap, that’s where they’ll lie forever.

In a cruel trick of life, no one else had ever understood Hyuntak like he did, or understood him like Hyuntak could. Just their luck.

“I still get freaked out at how clingy you can get,” Hyuntak says with a grin, but he doesn’t shrug him off. “You look so scary and mean, but you’re worse than Baku.”

The grip around him tightens suddenly, enough to sting, teasing, before he eases up to let Hyuntak breathe again. “I’m being generous with you, Go Hyuntak. You look like some pathetic kicked puppy, so this is obviously what you need.”

“Right, right. This is for my sake,” Hyuntak mutters, letting him win this one. His chest aches with affection, stained with a deep sadness Hyuntak can’t find the source of. He relaxes his shoulders into the hold. “I missed you, dickhead. It’s so fucking weird, right? You’re here and I still miss you.”

The chuckle that comes from behind him makes Hyuntak’s insides twist. He feels the nearly irresistible pull to turn around, to look at him, commit him to memory just in case—but something in him resists, like knowing the sight would undo everything. 

“You’re act so cute sometimes, it doesn’t fit you.” Warm breath brushes his ear, a gentle sigh and affectionate voice. “And of course you miss me, idiot. I’m not here.”

Hyuntak stiffens. “What?”

“I’m not here,” he repeats, voice light in a way it rarely ever was, his mouth close enough to Hyuntak’s skin to raise a shiver. The arms around him clamp down again, trapping him, refusing to let him twist around and demand an explanation.

“You always take jokes too far,” Hyuntak says, but he sounds like he’s pleading, his voice suddenly unsteady, a knot forming in his throat and the back of his eyes starting to burn. “Come on, stop.”

“It’s not a joke,” comes the reply, but it sounds painfully gentle in its cruelty. “I’m never going to be here again, Tak-ah. Did you forget so easily?”

Hyuntak doesn’t want to ask. He doesn’t want to remember, but the truth gets pulled out of him anyway, like unforgiving hands digging into the earth and ripping out the roots of a tree to the surface.

Na Baekjin is gone. Na Baekjin is dead. Na Baekjin is not ever coming back. 

Not for the first time, the idea of wanting to die, too, crosses Hyuntak’s mind. The weight of it presses down until he can hardly move, until his chest feels hollow enough to split.

Not-Baekjin presses a kiss to the back of his head. “I’m sorry, Tak-ah. Baekjin is not here. Baku isn’t here. Seo Juntae isn’t here. In here, there’s only me.”

The voice doesn’t belong to Baekjin anymore and Hyuntak knows it. The ache in his body nearly drowns it out, but Geum Seongje would never stand for being ignored. Hands slide down his sides, deliberate and slow, slipping beneath the stiff prison uniform and the thin white tee clinging to his damp skin.

“You don’t have me either, do you?” Seongje clicks his tongue in mock disappointment, a smile Hyuntak can hear without looking. “But would it be so bad, Hyuntak-ah?”

Hot tears spill freely down Hyuntak’s face now, and a hand hooks under his chin, turning him. He couldn’t force himself to look at Baekjin, but Seongje’s face comes into sharp, merciless focus.  

He leans in, and Hyuntak gasps when a warm tongue drags up his cheek, tasting the salt of his tears. Disgust cuts through him, but arousal follows fast behind, invasive and undeniable. 

It’s been so long since anyone’s touched him like this. If it weren’t for pride, he wonders, for the fragile sense of who he is, would it be so bad? Could this even count as bad? He’s made so many bad choices before. 

His reasons falter by the minute, stripped away until nothing stands between him and the wanting.

Seongje laps at the new tears as if they’re nourishment, then mouths and bites his way down Hyuntak’s jaw, the sensitive skin of his neck, leaving wet heat in its wake. One hand drifts lower, cupping his clothed cock through the cheap fabric, and Hyuntak shudders when he realizes how hard he already is.

“See, Hyuntak-ah,” Seongje breathes against his throat. “Your body knows what it wants.”

Hyuntak bites his lip hard enough to taste iron and grinds helplessly into Seongje’s hand, shame twisting tighter with each movement, spurring him on.

“Come on,” Seongje murmurs, coaxing and certain. “You’ll thank me when you finally give in. Let go, Hyuntak-ah. You’ve got so little to lose.”

Before Hyuntak can speak, his surroundings shatter. 

He wakes slick with sweat on his forehead, his cheeks sticky with tears, and his body aching with a hard-on that feels like punishment.

The cell is dark. Seongje lies as still as stone on his mat, his breathing slow, unaware. Hyuntak turns away, wiping his face with a trembling hand, willing the shame-rooted erection to fade.

More than anything, he forces away the memories and the longing, a pain so sharp it lights up every nerve and squeezes his heart until he can hardly bear it.

He tells himself he’ll live because he has to. He’ll keep going, keep adapting, do whatever it takes not to end it himself. But it doesn’t stop him from praying—quietly, desperate—that he won’t have to wake up again.

It isn’t really death he wants. It’s erasure. To shrink down into nothing and fly away, to erase his name from the pages of his life as though it had never been written. To undo every mark he’s left on anyone’s life and vanish backward into a clean, sharp cut in the fabric of reality.

But like all prayers, this one is ignored. Morning still comes and Hyuntak still opens his eyes, alive and caged.

–

For the first time in days, Hyuntak feels something close to excitement. He can’t decide if it’s better or worse that his lawyer chose the latest possible time slot of the day to come, but it makes Hyuntak nearly giddy for hours, clinging to anything that isn’t the dull emptiness that eats him alive between meals and lights out.

The guards walk him down the corridor and into a secured meeting room when the time comes. 

Kwon Seokhyeon is already there, seated at the metal table, posture crooked. He’s young, but the glasses perched on his nose and the exhaustion stamped into his face make him look older, worn down.

Hyuntak sits, hands restless against the tabletop, anxiety crawling up his spine.

“Hello, Hyuntak-ssi. How have you been?”

It’s a stupid question and they both know it. Hyuntak looks gaunt, dark circles etched under his eyes, hair clipped short. Who knows how much weight he’s lost at this point. 

He doesn’t waste time. “Still here,” he answers flatly. “So…?”

“We’re working to file your notice of appeal,” Seokhyeon says. “It should only take a few more days.”

“And then?” Hyuntak leans forward, already pressing.

Seokhyeon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Then we wait. We request documents, we study, we prepare. You have to understand, Hyuntak, this is going to take time. Especially with the people involved.”

As if Hyuntak doesn’t already know. He ignores the bitter words on his tongue.

“I know,” he forces out instead, voice tight. “I’m aware. It’s just… hard not to be impatient in a place like this. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“You have to hang in there.” Seokhyeon nods, clinical, as though patience can just be manifested. “But this isn’t the most important thing I came to talk to you about. Well, it is, but there’s more.”

Hyuntak’s stomach coils, bracing. “What else?”

“Good news, first. There’s money sent to your account. It should be available by tomorrow,” he says, and a little bit of the weight on Hyuntak’s shoulder lifts. “I’ve transferred as much as regulations allow. I’ve also filed to register Seo Juntae as a visitor and trusted contact. He’ll soon be cleared to visit and bring you things. He asked me to pass along the message that he’ll come as soon as he’s permitted.”

Hyuntak's heart squeezes in his chest. He's known Juntae for so long, he knows his heart, he knew, deep down, that he wouldn't forget Hyuntak’s existence. Yet, the confirmation throws him a lifeline, just like that. It's so easy to forget, Hyuntak realizes, that he's worth something to someone outside this place.  

“Oh. I—thank you,” Hyuntak says, swallowing back the sting in his throat. “Please tell him I miss him.”

“I’ll let him know.” Seokhyeon nods once. “I also bought up to the kiosk limit and brought you books Seo Juntae picked out. They’re with registration now, you should have them by tomorrow.”

Hyuntak really has to put effort into not crying, biting his lip so hard he nearly breaks skin. It hurts even more, to feel anything other than anger and fear. To remember he’s human, to be given so little of something everyone takes for granted. 

“But Hyuntak-ssi, there’s something else,” Seokhyeon says carefully. “From what I understand, your cell has no access to TV, yes?”

Hyuntak nods, weary. “Probably has something to do with my cellmate, to be honest.”

“I’ll see what I can do about that.” Seokhyeon’s mouth tightens. “But you should know that they’re running a story on your case tomorrow night.”

Hyuntak’s blood goes cold.

“I’m not sure, I mean, the extent of what they know inside,” Seokhyeon continues, choosing his words carefully. “But I thought you shouldn’t be taken by surprise.”

It feels like being dropped right back into hell with that simple sentence. The same nauseating helplessness clamps down on him, the knowledge that there’s nothing he can do to stop everyone from remembering, from knowing, having his name tied to something he can never take back.

“I’m sorry, Hyuntak-ssi,” Seokhyeon offers, though it sounds more procedural than personal. “But you shouldn’t run into too much trouble, in any case, beyond some… Choice of words. Refrain from reacting or getting into further trouble.”

The instinct to snap at him rises fast, bitter and hot, but anxiety drags it back down. What good would it do? Someone like Seokhyeon has no fucking clue what it’s like in here.

“What about Baku?” he forces out instead, voice clipped.

“Park Humin continues to be as little involved as possible,” Seokhyeon reassures him. “He will probably face some backlash after KBS runs the story, but it shouldn’t affect him for long. He’s well represented, and he’s made no mention of you or Na Baekjin since the trial.”

Hyuntak exhales, shaky and lightheaded. Out of everything, beyond the impossible dream of acquittal, this was what he wanted most. For Baku to be safe, for him not to waste his life and career defending someone already branded a lost cause.

He has no right to feel hurt about something he insisted on. The ache comes anyway, a cruel reminder that they’re not kids anymore, and they no longer belong to a world where Baku would leap to his defense just because someone said his name with the wrong tone. Those boys no longer exist. 

No. This is exactly what he wanted. 

“I’ll return next week,” Seokhyeon says as the guard outside shifts, signaling time’s up. “Hopefully with news as good as they can be.”

Hyuntak doesn’t answer. He just sits there, taking every second he can to mourn his life yet again. Seokhyeon will have to take his silence for what it is.

–

They take him to an office afterward, but the small spark of excitement over the books has already fizzled out.

There’s a clock on the wall, Hyuntak notices. Another thing he’s been deprived of since he arrived. 

The officer in charge of handling the registration does so at a leisure pace, infinitely bored as he looks through the pile of exactly five books and their content; types information loudly and slowly in his computer, checks in between pages for hidden notes, scribbles, codes. 

Hyuntak’s gaze continues to drift to the clock, then back to the officer. He has twenty six hours to go. If he focuses, he can hear the faint click of the second hand mocking him, counting the seconds just as lazily as the officer flips through pages. 

–

The TV is brought to their cell right after breakfast, destroying any hope Hyuntak had of, at least, Seongje not having the chance to watch it. 

Seongje doesn’t comment on it beyond a snort, which makes Hyuntak even more uneasy, as it might just prove to him that Seongje is not human. 

No one should be above clinging to any sliver of contact with the world outside. Of the certainty that the TV will be turned on three times a day, telling them exactly what time of the day it is. Eight, twelve, six. 

Maybe this is what Seongje’s world has already been irreversibly reduced to. Hyuntak tries to imagine him in the world outside, but nothing about the conjured up pictures make sense in his head. 

What did Seongje do before? What landed him here, exactly? Did he have a life? Family, friends, girlfriend? 

Was he clinically insane and did he kill with intent? Was he a serial killer, a stalker? Was he framed? Did he have a job? How old is he? How long has he been inside? 

What, if anything, does he really want from Hyuntak? 

It might be his strangest coping mechanism yet, to obsess over all of the things he doesn’t know about the person who could, if he wanted to, kill him in his sleep. It works in a strange way, to fill his head with thoughts of Seongje. Stupid, creative plans of figuring him out, or of protecting himself against him, or trying to read his silence. 

It makes the hours go by faster, although it does get embarrassing every time he’s caught staring. His ears burn and Seongje smirks knowingly. Does he really know, though, what Hyuntak is thinking? He doubts it. 

From outside—and the irony of the timing is not lost on him—one would think Hyuntak is a teenager with a crush. Fittingly, he’s come to realize incarceration is as close to hell as it is to being in a classroom, sometimes. 

By the third and final time the TV turns on that day, Hyuntak feels numb. He stands by the window and avoids looking at the screen, trying to drown out the words, the sound of his own name coming from a well put together journalist. He avoids looking at Seongje any longer. 

“Olympic golden medalist Go Hyuntak, twenty-three, has been officially convicted for the murder of teammate and bronze medalist Na Baekjin—”

He tries to focus on the saving grace that at least he won’t have to face everyone else in the immediate aftermath. He knows, however, that he’ll be the gossip at breakfast once again. Not because of what they’ll think he did, but because of the reason why they’ll think he did it. 

He knows the insults will come with renewed satisfaction, wrapped in fake disgust, in the same breath they’ll leer and lust, such hypocritical bigotry. He’ll be proven, in their eyes, to be inferior. They’ll swear he even wants it, that he must be so desperate for men.

Before he realizes it, he’s already riled up again. He shakes his leg, restless, unable to keep still. When he looks at the TV again, the segment has already ended. His gaze inevitably drifts back to Seongje.

Hyuntak doesn't know what he expected from the man. Relentless mockery, probably. An opportunistic glint in his eyes at the handed ammunition. But instead, what greets him is Seongje's self-satisfaction, lazy and knowing, as if none of this comes as a surprise to him.

“Ah,” Seongje drawls, shaking his head in a caricature of disapproval. “The state of journalism in this country. They missed a whole lot of information, didn’t they?”

Hyuntak blinks, his stomach twisting. “What—what the hell are you talking about?”

Seongje leans back against the wall, the book he never really reads dangling lazily in his hand. His eyes find Hyuntak and stay there. 

“You wanna know something funny I found out?” He poses it as a dare.

Hyuntak doesn’t answer. He doesn’t trust his own voice.

“We went to the same middle school, you and I,” Seongje says with what looks like immense glee. His grin flashes wide and gummy, almost inviting, if Hyuntak had a taste for the rotten.

Hyuntak frowns. “What?”

“Yeo-il Middle School,” Seongje explains easily, like he’s been waiting for this moment. “Lived in the same district and all. I’m older, so no, we wouldn’t have been in the same class, but it’s funny how life works. Who knows how many times we’ve crossed paths before, Hyuntak-ah.”

It takes Hyuntak a second too long to absorb that, his mind tripping over itself while cataloguing the tone in his voice, the dangerous satisfaction in his eyes. “And how the fuck would you know that? Why are you digging up information on me?”

Seongje doesn’t even flinch. “You think I wouldn’t want to know who they threw in my cell?” His laugh is good-natured. “Also, I told you I thought I recognized you from somewhere. Little golden boy, disgraced by a murder charge. You’ve got something interesting about you, at least.”

“Don’t—” Hyuntak starts, but the words catch in his throat. He doesn’t even know what he wants to forbid.

Seongje tilts his head, smile stretching wider, as if that hesitation is exactly what he’d been fishing for.

“They put a picture of you up at the school gate, from what I remember. Warning kids they could always stay out of trouble and become heroes instead of lowlife gangsters who’d end up in jail.” 

Hyuntak’s fists clench so tight his nails dig into his palms. He can see it so vividly, the image of himself punching the smug expression off his face until Seongje turns into nothing. But Seongje would probably still smirk with his face busted, missing all his teeth. 

“Look at us now, huh?” Seongje points between them, taunting. “We both ended up here.”

“You know nothing about me,” Hyuntak spits, venom sharp on his tongue. 

“Wrong. I know everything there is out there to know about you. Well, not everything,” Seongje shakes his head, and his nose twitches, enjoying himself more by the minute. “Tell me, I’ve been dying to ask. Which one of them were you fucking? Na Baekjin, Park Humin? Both? I heard it gets crazy in the Olympic village. Now that’s gossip even my people can’t dig up.”

It’s like striking a match near a gas leak.

Before he can think, Hyuntak’s already moving. He surges forward, blind rage driving him across the cramped cell, tunnel-visioned. Seongje doesn’t bother getting up, he just sits there by his mat, waiting. 

Hyuntak grabs him by the collar and slams a fist into his mouth. The impact is solid, satisfying, the first moment of true relief Hyuntak has felt in days. 

But it’s gone just as fast.

Seongje only laughs, a low rasp breaking into a full grin. Blood starts to drip from the corner of his mouth where the impact split skin, trailing down his chin. He licks it away as if savoring the taste.

Hyuntak freezes, realization cutting through the haze of rage. He’s fucked up. Badly. His fatal flaw has always been being too quick to let the anger cloud his judgement.

It still doesn’t stop him from raising his fist again. However, this time Seongje moves quickly, precise. His hand shoots up, catching Hyuntak’s wrist in an impossibly strong grip. His fingers curl tight, twisting until pain shoots up Hyuntak’s arm.

Hyuntak snarls, thrashing against it, but it’s like trying to wrench free from a steel trap. A groan tears out of him, raw with frustration.

Then Hyuntak’s eyes lock with Seongje’s, like flame meeting flame. For a suspended moment, the world holds its breath. Fury roars in him, tangled with disgust, with loathing so sharp it has a taste and sound. 

Yet underneath it all, adrenaline lights him up with a nearly forgotten thrill in his veins, the same one he hasn’t felt since the last time he stepped foot in a dojang. It feels good. His body remembers what his mind doesn’t allow him to. 

He twists against Seongje’s grip, throwing his weight forward, breaking free and driving him down to the ground. His forearm presses hard across Seongje’s neck, pinning him.

Seongje doesn’t resist.

His smile, this time, is small. Open and unguarded, carrying no venom. His eyes roam over Hyuntak’s face with the wide, unblinking curiosity of a little boy staring at something strange and fascinating. 

“You’ve got such an attitude, Hyuntak-ah,” he whispers, the words nearly secretive, disconcerting. “I wonder who you pissed off to get thrown in here.”

Something hooks Hyuntak’s gut, but he isn’t given the chance to think about it before the doors to their cell are bust open. Boots hit the concrete, voices shout. Rough hands tear him off Seongje and force him to his knees, arms behind his back, so tight his shoulders scream. The metal cuffs bite into his wrists.

Seongje stays sprawled on the floor, looking up at the officers as if they’re old friends in on the joke. “Our athlete here was just teaching me some martial arts,” he says, voice syrupy with amusement. “I’m not pressing charges.”

The officers bark back at him, pushing him into a sitting position with much less force, warning him to shut his mouth before he finds himself in the hole too.

Their eyes lock as Hyuntak gets yelled at by the guards, but he has no idea what they're saying anymore. All he can look at is Seongje. His words, for once, wash over Hyuntak like sand running inside an hourglass. Grain by grain, slowly, steady. He tries so hard to make sense of them.  

Seongje lifts his hands in mock surrender, and mouths to the officers loud enough for Hyuntak to catch, “You know, he’s got a bad knee. I’m just trying to keep you guys out of legal trouble.”

Not once does he break eye contact out of his own volition, even as he gets pulled to his feet, hauled up like dead weight.

He feels like begging. 

What did you mean by that?

He wants to scream. He doesn't get the chance to as he’s pushed out of the cell and down the hallway. 

Thrown in here. He hadn’t asked if Hyuntak had done it or why, what made him snap so badly he killed his rival. Who did you piss off to get thrown in here?

Not even two weeks inside, Hyuntak gets put into solitary confinement. 

In the oppresive quiet, there’s only the possibility of Geum Seongje, of all people, believing his innocence to keep him company.

Chapter Text

At first, he thinks he can measure it—by pacing, or by counting between one breath and the next—but gradually, he loses track of time inside the hole. If he thought it was bad in the cell, where at least he could see daylight or hear the alarms, solitary confinement is certainly something else entirely.

The floor refuses to let him rest. Hard and unyielding, it digs into him no matter how he lies on it. The mat they’ve given him is barely more than a sheet, too thin to soften the concrete or cover him fully. 

His back aches constantly, but his knee is worse. An endless, pulsing throb that makes him grit his teeth. He curls on his side, stretches out, sits up; but no position gives him any rest. And then, just when exhaustion finally claws at him enough to drag him under, a sudden bang rattles the metal door as a warning. He’s not supposed to sleep yet.

But fighting to stay awake is not much better, not only because of the brightness, but because of the lack of anything. There’s nothing to look at and barely any noises but the rustling of his own uniform, no external stimuli his brain can try to stick to. It forces him to stay with his own thoughts like torture. Forces him to think of Baekjin, of Baku, of everything that went wrong to get him to this point.

That’s when Seongje sneaks his way inside his head. In his weakest moments. You have such an attitude, Hyuntak-ah. I wonder who you pissed off to get thrown in here. It comes to him whenever his brain tries to jolt itself awake. It’s not comfort, not even close, but it keeps his mind from slipping and the emptiness from seeping in and taking over. 

He knows Seongje is dangerous, evil, disgusting. The mad dog. Everyone is afraid of him for a reason, and Hyuntak is not sure he even wants to fully know what he's done. But that's still someone in this cage who could possibly believe him, for whatever reason. 

And that thought, as poisonous as it feels, is all Hyuntak has to hold on to.

–

The hallway feels longer than he remembers. Every step drags; his knee feels heavy and his eyes sting from oversensitivity when faced with natural light. The guards tell him two days should be enough to get him back in line, and that makes him even more dizzy. His body feels like it spent a whole week locked in there. Time still fails to make sense. 

They push him back into the cell, and one of them speaks sharply, “I don’t wanna hear whatever you two do in this cell. This is a warning.” A jab of a finger at him, then at Seongje, and the door closes once more with a harsh sound. 

And then it’s, once again, just the two of them. 

Hyuntak feels his throat raw and dry from the lack of use. He risks a glance at Seongje, and the first thing he notices is the bruise on the corner of his mouth where his fist had landed. Hyuntak put that there—his hands, his anger—and proved to himself Seongje isn’t inhuman. Proved to Seongje he’s not a toothless dog.

He probably should say something, but he can’t even begin to think of what or how to act, his brain too exhausted to work properly. 

When he drops his gaze, something catches him off guard. By his mat, stacked neatly in two small boxes, are all of the things from the kiosk; ramen packets, soda bottles, boxed juices, crackers. They look untouched. Seongje must’ve put them there when they were delivered. The thought nearly makes Hyuntak laugh, the absurd idea of Seongje respecting his personal property. 

He crawls into his mat, facing Seongje just in case he has ideas about getting back at him. Seongje doesn’t move. He just watches, as unreadable as usual behind his glasses, and that makes Hyuntak’s skin prickle. He forces himself to meet that gaze, but only accomplishes to do so half-heartedly, through heavy lids, pupils still burning from light. 

He must look pitiful, like this, as weak as he feels. Easy prey. But Seongje doesn’t reach for him to exact revenge, doesn’t attack or even threatens to. 

“Go to sleep, Hyuntak,” is all he says. “It’ll be a while before anyone bothers you again.”

Hyuntak’s instinct is to fight it, to keep watching and keep guard over himself, but the moment his eyes flutter closed and he pulls his cover over his face, the darkness is a relief too soft to resist. Even with daylight outside, even with Seongje’s looming presence, even with the pain in his knee that hasn’t let up in two days, darkness pulls him under and his body shuts down. 

–

Seongje’s hand on his shoulder shakes him back to the world, and for a moment Hyuntak doesn’t recognize where he is. His body doesn’t react fast enough to swat at him or go into defense mode, still moving sluggish, heavy as if he’s made of stone. His mouth feels like cotton and his lips are dry and cracked, but at least the burning in his eyes is gone and the pounding in his head has dulled into something tolerable. 

It’s dark outside now, leaving him with that disorienting feeling, unsure of how many hours he’s slept but, by some miracle, he slept through the day. No guards doing counts for the sake of waking up inmates, no loud noises, not even Seongje having pulled him out of it. 

When his thoughts finally catch up, he realizes Seongje is speaking to him. Real Seongje, not the memory of his words. 

“Wake up, Hyuntak-ah.” 

Hyuntak blinks in his direction, but by the time he thinks he should respond, Seongje is already at  the door, crouching down to receive the trays and bowls being passed by the kitchen helpers. 

“Fucking hell,” Hyuntak mutters, voice dragging like sandpaper in his throat.

A quiet snort answers him. 

He drags himself upright and manages with effort to set the table. He watches as Seongje pours the bland chicken broth into a bowl of instant ramen, and his stomach catches up with the reminder he’s got the same small luxury now. 

Hyuntak copies him, slower, waiting for his noodles to soften while he pours half a bottle of water down his throat in one go. It burns going down and spills out the corners of his mouth, but he quite frankly is past the point of caring. 

Seongje slurps at his ramen and watches him. “You look like shit,” he finally observes. “It really scrambled you, huh? The hole.”

Maybe hyuntak is too messed up to think straight, maybe he's been carved out hollow, so now he's clinging to any delusion of relief. Maybe it's the reminder of what Seongje said before. But Seongje doesn't sound like he's gloating, or like he's amused about his suffering for once. 

He points it out like it was the expected outcome, neutral. From him, it sounds nearly sympathetic, if Hyuntak didn’t know any better.

Hyuntak glares at him, or at least tries to. “The fucking lights in that place.” 

Seongje nods as if that’s all the confirmation he needs. 

“They don’t usually throw newbies in the hole like that.” He comments unhelpfully.

Hyuntak shoves the spicy sauce around in his bowl, bitterness growing. “Yeah, well. Guess they fucking hate me then.” 

A short laugh. “Just the idiot who put you on your knees and dragged you. He’ll keep picking on you, just so you know.” 

Hyuntak lifts his eyes, waiting for an explanation, but Seongje gives him none. He only shrugs lazily like always. Hyuntak wants to kick him for speaking like this all the time.

“Great,” he mutters, his appetite disappearing into nothing. “Because everyone else on my fucking case isn’t enough.” 

Seongje points his chopsticks at him. “You know, some of them might back off now that they know you can fight and shit. Not all of them, though.” 

Hyuntak breathes in deep, trying to keep the weariness from twisting into rage. “Because now they’re sure I’m a faggot.”

“So crass,” Seongje pretends to scold, all faux offended. “But yeah. To hate you or try to fuck you, either way, now they think they’ve got an excuse.”

Hyuntak stares into the now deep red color of his broth. He considers the nightmare that is his life. He never expected prison to be easy—mostly because he never expected he would be in prison at all—but this is no life. Living on alert every day is going to drive him insane. 

It’s too ridiculous to even ask the questions that crawl up his throat in the aftermath of that realization.  

What do you think of me? That thought alone feels needy, pathetic. Then, Do you think I’m weak?, humiliating, like he’d be offering himself up just to be torn down. And worst of all, the one that tastes desperate before it even leaves his mouth, Do you really think I didn’t do it?, clinging to any crumble of hope even if it comes from someone he despises and fears. 

When he finally looks back up, his voice chooses the safest one it can find.

“What about you?”

Seongje tilts his head. 

“What about me?” He leans back slightly, one hand loose around his chopsticks, the other resting on his knee. “I told you, I already knew about all of that before.”

Hyuntak averts his eyes one more time and refuses to be the one to break the silence that follows. He doesn’t know why he expected Seongje, of all people, to give him a bone.

But it is Seongje who breaks it, of course.

“I think you’re a little interesting, Hyuntak-ah.” His lips twitch at the corners, not quite a smile. “Things had been pretty boring around here for a while.”

Whatever the hell that means, he doesn’t explain any further. One day, Hyuntak promises himself he’ll make him speak like a real human being. No riddles or hidden meanings. 

–

Later, after the dishes have been cleared, counting has passed and lights out is called, Hyuntak lies awake in his mat, sleep not coming after he just spent an entire day passed out. The silence is threatened only by the occasional shuffle of fabric or deep breath that tells him Seongje is awake too.

He doesn’t mean to speak to him. The thought leaps out of him before it’s fully formed, bypassing every blaring alarm in his body. 

“What if I said yes?”

The words are small, nearly whispered, but they hang in the air regardless. 

His pulse thunders in his ears. For a moment there’s nothing, and Hyuntak wonders if he’s imagined Seongje’s movements, if the man really is asleep, if this was his chance to bury the question in the dark and pretend it never happened. But when he turns, Seongje is already watching him.

“...Yes to what?” The question comes smoothly. 

Hyuntak’s throat closes up. He has to be going insane by anticipation. 

“You know to what. Your offer.”

Even in the dark, Hyuntak can see that grin blooming across Seongje’s face, the smug curve that had been gone earlier when he had seemed almost human, back in full force.

“I don’t remember offering you anything, though.”

The embarrassment kicks him like a physical sensation. Technically, Seongje’s right. He had never spoken the words, never offered him anything. 

Hyuntak swallows dryly, and thinks maybe it really is a sign. An out for the stupid decision he was about to make out of desperation. 

“You have to beg, Hyuntak-ah,” Seongje continues, however. “That’s the first thing that I want. And then, I’ll consider it.”

Heat floods Hyuntak’s face and chest. His whole body burns with the need to react, lash out, do something. There he is again, the fucking psycho; therefore, there it is again, Hyuntak's quick rise anger. 

“I’m never going to beg you for shit,” he snaps, nearly spitting the words out, even if he has no confidence in them anymore. “All that talk about claiming, and you want me to beg?”

The grin widens, like Seongje’s been waiting for this exact moment. He tilts his head, once again, like a puppy would, as if Hyuntak just proved some private theory of his correct. 

“You know what, Hyuntak? You’re right.” Seongje agrees.

That, alone, is cause for concern. Nothing more is said for the night, and Hyuntak is left wondering what he fuck has he started, and why does he keep giving Seongje what he wants without meaning to.

–

The doors clang open and the cells release the inmates into the corridor, the same dull tide every morning. Hyuntak steps out and, without thinking, his feet fall into rhythm behind Seongje’s. By the time he realizes it, they’re already halfway down the hall, guards herding the line toward breakfast.

He should peel off, move elsewhere, but he doesn’t.

Hyuntak goes through the motions of getting his food, grabs his tray and sets toward his spot near Seokdae. Then, a scrape of metal cuts in front of him. Seongje, sitting at his own table, nudges an empty chair out with his foot, blocking Hyuntak’s path.

He looks down at it, then at Seongje. The man just flicks his eyes from the chair and back to Hyuntak, an almost lazy frown on his face, like he’s irritated the obvious hasn’t been caught on to.

For some reason, Hyuntak sits with him without question. Pride, he’s finally coming to realize, is useless in the face of self preservation. 

The stares prick at his skin for a moment, but they’re surprisingly easy to ignore. They might not be sure what sort of relationship or deal he has with Seongje, but it could be something, so they wouldn’t dare touch it just in case. 

Across from him, Seongje spoons up rice and eggs like it’s any other day, like they’ve sat together every morning before. 

“Eat, Hyuntak-ah,” Seongje points at his tray. 

So Hyuntak does. 

When he risks looking, Seongje is smiling faintly, a kind of smile he doesn’t think he’s seen before. Approving. It makes Hyuntak a little nauseous, but it’s strangely grounding in the same breath. 

Because while Hyuntak is coming to terms with being unable to preserve himself, it’s better if he only has to worry about Seongje. He could be a worse monster than all of them combined, but he’s still only one. A man is a man with weaknesses and desires everywhere in the world.

He’ll do what he has to do to have some resemblance of peace. 

So they finish breakfast with nothing remarkable said between them. Hyuntak is compliant and Seongje is satisfied. It’s anticlimactic, how his anxiety after the disaster in the news fizzles into nothing, as if it never mattered at all, because Seongje is an invisible wall.

As they start moving on their way outside, Hyuntak still wants a word with Seokdae. When their eyes catch across the room as the crowd disperses slowly, he almost pushes himself to go, but something in his gut stops him. He doesn’t need Seongje’s hand on him to know it’d be a problem. He can feel it. 

Seongje’s planning something. He’s probably always scheming something.

So instead of breaking away, Hyuntak stays behind him. His own curiosity, that stupid gnawing thing, keeps him in Seongje’s orbit and follows him out. 

The weather is once again an ugly, gray thing, but outside is outside, so Hyuntak will savor it.

“Do you smoke?” Seongje asks suddenly, his stride easy, a step ahead before climbing to the sad excuse for bleachers. He drops onto the highest row, looking at Hyuntak with curiosity. He has a view of the whole yard from where he is.

Hyuntak shakes his head. “Not since high school,” he answers, “Training and all.”

“Well, there’s no taekwondo now,” Seongje says, fishing out a cigarette from a beat-up box and holding it out like an offering. 

Hyuntak hesitates, then thinks, fuck it. 

He plucks the stick from Seongje’s fingers and examines it, then brings it between his lips, only to realize he’s got no lighter. He shifts uncertainly, and Seongje chuckles as he pulls something from the breast pocket of his uniform. Not a lighter, per se, but something similar—assembled with batteries, a paper clip and wires. 

The spark it produces very obviously burns Seongje’s fingers, but he doesn’t so much as flinch, just expertly takes a long drag of his cigarette when it starts burning at the tip. He leans back, savoring it, his posture sprawled and relaxed like he’s a king, like he’s got nothing to worry about. 

He tilts his head, motioning for Hyuntak to lean in.

Does he expect Hyuntak to–?

Hyuntak’s hesitation is obvious and it only serves to further amuse Seongje, but he does it anyway. He doesn’t know if he really expected Seongje to just light it for him with the same makeshift lighter, but even if he did, it’s obvious that’s not the man’s intention at all. 

Seongje only observes as Hyuntak leans closer, struggling to steady the cigarette between his lips with the tips of his fingers and light it off of his. He feeds off of Hyuntak’s reactions like plants would feed off sunlight.

After a while, the cigarette is pulled from Hyuntak’s mouth before he can complain, Seongje’s grin curling slowly as he puts it between his own lips. He touches the end to his own, taking his time with the drag before returning it, lit, to Hyuntak’s waiting mouth.

Hyuntak still hates the smell of it, so he expects his body to reject it. He expects coughing from the lack of practice and nausea from the strong taste, but the smoke fills his lungs and he immediately understands why they’re gold currency. 

He holds it inside for what probably is too long before slowly, erratically releasing the smoke. His eyes water, but the sense of calm hits instantaneously. 

“Good?” Seongje asks, smug. 

“Shit,” Hyuntak mumbles, but he can’t find it in himself to lie. “Yeah. Been a while.” 

Seongje nods good-naturedly.

He takes a seat near Seongje, not beside him exactly, but one step down. Seongje doesn’t say he can, but he also doesn’t kick him or tell him to move, so he relaxes on the concrete and smokes in silence, watching the other inmates going about their rec time business.

“Tell me, Hyuntak-ah,” Seongje says after a few minutes of quiet. “What’s your deal with Seokdae?” 

His tone is light, but Hyuntak straightens up his spine almost as soon as he’s spoken to. He considers lying, but tells himself it’s better not to. He can recognize Seongje is being his version of nice to him since he got back. He’s an asshole, sure, but he’s not actively antagonizing him. 

“I owe him a favor,” Hyuntak says simply. “For the haircut.” 

Seongje hums. “What kind of favor?” 

Hyuntak is confused for a second before he realizes what the question really means. He fights the urge to roll his eyes, because it’s really none of Seongje’s business. “Not that kind. He just wants me to ask my lawyer about something. Hasn’t told me what, though.”

“Ah,” he can see Seongje nod from the corner of his eye. “Your shit lawyer.” 

Hyuntak frowns. “He’s fine.” 

Seongje clicks his tongue, “I told you I did my homework on you. Your lawyer is shit, Hyuntak-ah. The case was weak as fuck, he could’ve gotten you out.” 

He says it so casually, without any underlying humor for once, like it’s simply a fact. He doesn’t really ask whether Hyuntak is guilty or not, doesn’t sound like he cares either way. When Hyuntak looks back at him, Seongje is not grinning, or smiling, or smirking. There’s nothing obviously malicious in his eyes, but there’s also no pity or sympathy. 

He just looks back, eyes dark and unreadable. 

“And yet, here I am.” Hyuntak says. 

Seongje takes another long drag and exhales, taking his time to speak. When he does, it’s behind a veil of smoke. 

“Here you are. And you’ll stay for a while, too.”

For the remainder of rec, they exist near each other in a bubble that mimics camaraderie. 

For that moment, suspended in time, Hyuntak doesn’t care who Seongje is, nor does he care about what he’s done. He’s as much of an animal stuck in a cage as Hyuntak, finding peace in seeing the sky and feeling the outside weather, regardless of how bad it is. 

The wind messes up Seongje’s long hair, not tied back into a bun for once, and Hyuntak realizes how young he is. Older than Hyuntak himself, for sure, but not nearly as old to be as feared as he is. 

He looks away to avoid staring too much. 

The alarm warning them that rec time is over comes too quickly after that. 

Hyuntak sighs, trying to savor the last of it. He closes his eyes and tilts his head up, wishing they at least had a little bit of sun. He feels Seongje standing up behind him. 

“From now on,” Seongje starts again. “You ask for no favors from anyone, not even Seokdae. You pay what you owe him and that’s that.” 

Hyuntak opens his eyes and finds Seongje staring down at him. 

“What?” 

Just like that, Seongje is back to his usual self. Hyuntak has no time to dodge the hand that comes down and clamps around his jaw, pulling his neck taut, forcing him to look up at Seongje’s face. “You heard me, Hyuntak-ah. You want anything, you ask me and I’ll see if I wanna do anything about it.” 

“Let me go, you bastard, what the f—” Hyuntak shoves at him, but the angle is all wrong, his strength caught in the trap of Seongje’s hand, every word bitten off by the ache blooming in his jaw.  He wonders if no guards will intervene.

It’s as good a reminder as any that Seongje is not nice. He can’t let his guard down around him.

“You’ll also learn to thank me when I give you something,” Seongje pays his struggle no mind. “I haven’t heard it a single time. Let’s hear it now.”

The pressure increases, a pulse of pain sharp enough to make Hyuntak let out an involuntary whine. Seongje crouches lower, his body practically covering Hyuntak’s from view. His hair falls over his face, as dark as his eyes, making him look every bit the mad dog people call him. Rabid, unpredictable, biting for the fun of it.

With his free hand, he lifts his cigarette to his lips and takes one last drag, smoke curling around his face. He exhales directly into Hyuntak’s, the sting in his eyes mixing with the dull ache in his jaw. Then, like an afterthought, the ember disappears from sight and resurfaces against the tender skin just below his jawline.

The heat stabs in sharp, unexpected, and a gasp tears out of Hyuntak’s throat before he even registers what’s happening. The smell of charred skin hits him a beat later, faint but sickly sweet. The scalding heat burrows deep, radiating outward from that small point until it feels like every nerve on the side of his neck and down his shoulder is alight.

“It’s not that hard, Hyuntak. Work with me, here.” His tone is mild, almost patient.

It’s no use arguing. The pain knots Hyuntak’s throat until the words come out reluctantly, a bitter surrender. “...Thank you.”

The hand releases him without further ceremony. The cigarette butt drops to the ground.

“See?” Seongje smiles, patting his cheek in approval. “It’s much easier when you just give in.” 

He walks away from Hyuntak just like that, gives his back to him with all the confidence of knowing no retaliation will come to him. 

He’s right. Hyuntak is frozen, too stunned to even raise a hand, the sharp sting still burning. His eyes won’t stop watering, his jaw throbs where the grip had been, and all of it leaves him rooted to the spot.

A few inmates glance over, quick and curious, before turning away and drifting back inside. Hyuntak is left standing alone until he realizes he’s the only one not moving. A CO’s voice cuts across the yard, harsh and impatient. “Hey! You deaf?”

Hyuntak looks at the man making his way to him, his mouth dry, the question hovering on the back of his tongue—didn’t you see that?—but the officer’s glare makes it clear no answer will matter.

“You got something to say?”

Hyuntak swallows, then shakes his head.

“Then move, inmate.” A shove to his back jolts him forward.

His body reacts before his mind does, carrying him in stiff, automatic movements. 

Inside, he feels it thrumming through his whole body, an anger that builds until it’s unrecognizable, deeper and hotter than anything he’s ever felt. He’s blind to everyone else, doesn’t care what they’re seeing, what they’re saying. 

It pulls him toward Seongje like an elastic band snapping back after being stretched to its limit. 

–

The cell door closes behind him, and the sound makes Seongje meet his eyes. He’s leaning against the wall by the window that faces the outside, the place Hyuntak usually hangs around, and watches. Hyuntak moves in his direction slowly, shoes dragging, shoulders tight. He ignores the pain. 

Hyuntak stops one step away from him, pressure in his chest coiled so tight it hurts to breathe. 

He imagines the end of his fist connecting with Seongje’s face, right where he still sports a bruise Hyuntak himself put there. Thinks of the way blood would splash out, or trickle down to Seongje’s mouth; the way he would grin, how it would stain his teeth. 

How much would it be enough, he wonders, to release the anger inside of him? Should he incapacitate him? Kill him? Should he step away and kick him on the chest or the throat? Wrap his hands around Seongje’s neck, watch him fade out? 

“Tell me, Hyuntak-ah, what are you thinking?” Seongje tilts his head, eyes curious and searching, almost exactly mimicking the one he had during the fight that had Hyuntak in solitary. His voice is soft, however, not unkind. “What do you want to do right now?” 

Hyuntak doesn’t answer with words. He drives his knee hard into Seongje’s side, once, twice. The impact sends a jolt up his own leg, but Seongje only barks out a laugh, muffled like he’s holding it in, trying not to make too much noise. 

Hyuntak grits his teeth and strikes again, landing quick strikes with his good leg, throwing his weight into an elbow to Seongje’s ribs. His vision blurs, rage tightening his chest, a scream lodging itself in his throat.

And then Seongje’s body crashes into his, pinning him back against the wall, and his wrists are pinned hard above his head. Hyuntak drags in air, chest heaving, focus narrowing to Seongje’s face right in front of him. He struggles against him like a wild animal.

“Ah, you’re so fun, Hyuntak-ah,” Seongje says, smiling like he means it. His voice is warm, delighted. “Really, really fun. I like playing with you.”

Hyuntak almost snarls the words. “I fucking hate you. Such a piece of shit.”

“Keep it down, we don’t want you back in the hole.” Seongje just shakes his head, as if Hyuntak has it all wrong. “And it was your idea, wasn’t it? What’s a good claim if I don’t take it for myself?”

Hyuntak feels off-balance, like the floor is gone beneath him. He knows, in some twisted way, that it really is his fault for engaging at all.

“Besides,” Seongje goes on, tone lighter, almost casual, “Now you’re marked. We put on a little show and I’m good for my end of the deal. No one touches my toys.”

Hyuntak feels the words on the pit of his stomach. Suddenly, he's too aware of the strength of Seongje's body trapping him, how close they're pressed against one another. 

Seongje’s gaze drops. He licks his lips at the sight of the raw burn at Hyuntak’s neck. “That will scar, by the way. Tiny as it is.”

“You’re fucking sick,” Hyuntak mutters, trying to squirm free, but the attempt only grinds Seongje’s leg between his. The heat of the contact is maddening, disgusting, and still human. Seongje presses closer, still, impossibly. Forces the part of Hyuntak’s legs wider.

And dizzyingly, he thinks wants it. Just for a moment, Hyuntak wants Seongje to strip him of the fight, to cross the line and force himself on him. Maybe this will be it, maybe this is when Seongje finally loses his patience.

“You look good when you look alive, Tak-ah,” Seongje murmurs instead. The nickname rolls comfortably off his tongue, sounding uncharacteristically warm, familiar. It’s the exact opposite of what Hyuntak wants him to feel. 

“Just fucking do it, you psycho.” He grits through his teeth.

Something in Seongje shifts. His eyes soften and he leans in, so close Hyuntak feels the warmth of his breath ghost along the unmarked side of his jaw. Seongje’s nose drags along the line of his face before his lips settle over the mirrored spot of the burn.

Hyuntak flinches at the wet heat of a tongue, the scrape of teeth, the slow, deliberate suction. He shudders violently as Seongje worries the skin between his teeth, laves over it with unhurried strokes, making liquid fire spread down Hyuntak’s veins. His eyes squeeze shut, his teeth bite hard into his bottom lip. He refuses to make a sound, knowing it’s what Seongje wants.

Seongje takes his time with it, savoring, sucking hard enough to mark. He gives one last long, soothing lick; and only then does he release Hyuntak’s wrists and step back, easing his weight away. 

Hyuntak slumps against the wall, chest still heaving. 

“You’re terrible at listening,” Seongje says warmly, as if they’d just sparred for fun. “I told you already—I haven’t lied to you once. I like my toys willing, and if you want something, you’ll ask me. It’s so simple.”

His eyes roam over Hyuntak’s face, then down to his throat, taking in both sides with a hum of satisfaction. They drop to the line of his body, checking for something he already knows is there. Hyuntak is hard. 

Seongje’s eyes lift back up to his face, locking him in place. “Say it again. Consider it your new training routine, you should be good at it.”

Hyuntak feels the chill creep back into his bones. He’s quickly growing tired of the whiplash of sensations Seongje makes him feel.  “Thank you.”

“Good,” Seongje nods, smiling with a strange, almost proud gleam that makes him look unhinged. “You’re good when you want to be.”

He turns, goes to his things, and comes back holding a small pot. Dipping his fingers inside, he smears something cool and sticky over the burn on his neck. Hyuntak flinches slightly at the touch over the tender, painful spot; but then a clean, botanical scent spreads through the air, and slowly, blessedly, the sting dulls. 

Seongje grabs Hyuntak’s wrist and presses the little container into his palm, curling his fingers over it.

Hyuntak stares down at it, mind spinning, then looks back at Seongje, completely baffled. The nerve of this man. 

Hyuntak doesn’t fucking understand him at all.

“...Thank you.” 

Seongje looks elated when Hyuntak says it without being prompted, as though he has given him the only gift worth having.

Hyuntak considers for the first time, then, that his reality is simply that he really is dealing with someone completely insane. Nothing more to it. Someone who follows no logical moral code, whose brain doesn't work in any way a regular person can follow. 

Inevitably, he's going to drag Hyuntak further into his madness with him.