“… So what’s his problem, anyway?” Fang sighed forlornly, lifting his head to stare at the modern ceiling tiles as he and Rai followed the general stream of inmates down the hall. Everybody was wearing their orange uniforms in some shape or form, and dimly Fang imagined that they were riding down a river of orange juice. 

“Aris?” The boy glanced at him and lifted a hand to ruffle his curly hair with a rueful shrug. “Trust me, just ignore him. He’s a grouchy hermit.” 

“But he’s my cellmate, I couldn’t ignore him even if I wanted to,” Fang complained, edging away from a violently coughing man on his right side. In doing so, he bumped into Rai, who promptly also collided with a pair of men beside him. 

“Hey, watch it, bitch,” the man snapped, pushing Rai back into Fang. His companion leaned forward, a grin on his face as he added with a purr.  

“We’re gonna want a go at your ass for that one, Rai.”  

Irked, Fang clenched his fists, about to step forward and defend the boy – but Rai lifted a hand to his chest, keeping him back. Instead, the boy’s light brown eyes narrowed in a big smirk as he faced the men. 

“Sure, but you’d better bring your friends or I won’t be satisfied.” 

At that, the men laughed and pulled each other ahead. “We’ll keep that in mind!” 

Surprised, Fang walked in silence for a while, his brain still trying to process what he’d just seen. Eventually, Rai shot him a wary side-ways glance.  

“What’re you, constipated? I can show you to a bathroom.” 

“No,” Fang said with a shake of his head, brows still furrowed in perplexity as he gazed at the sea of orange bodies and dark heads. “Why do you let them treat you like that?” he blurted out after a moment of hesitation. 

To his faint indignance, Rai laughed and gave him a light punch on the shoulder. Fang had to shove down the instinct of punching him back. “Well, aren’t you a precious little angel.” The boy grinned darkly, hooking a finger into the collar of his uniform and pulling it down to reveal a series dark red marks on his collarbone. “I’m gay. I’m also a masochist. I like it when they treat me like that.” 

“Ehhh?” Unaccustomed to hearing either of those words, Fang frowned and slid his hands uncomfortably into his pockets. “But why would you like it?” he asked despite himself, shooting the boy an apprehensive glance as he expected Rai to get angry. 

But instead the boy’s light brown eyes were thick in amusement. “Because I’m used to it. And because it feels good.” 

“In there?” Raising an eyebrow dubiously, Fang shuddered as he tried to imagine it. “Doesn’t it hurt?” 

Laughing, Rai grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the crowd, into the laundry room. “Wanna try?” he teased, hooking his arm around Fang’s shoulder and leaning close with a hoarse murmur. “I’ll be gentle.” 

“N-No fucking way!” Fang exclaimed, wriggling away in a panic. Chortling, Rai walked away, gesturing briefly for him to follow as the boy headed towards the benches by the windows. Disgruntled, Fang trotted after him. 

“Here,” Rai said, handing him a warm uniform as Fang managed to edge his way into a spot at the benches. “This is the best station to work at because we just have to stand here and fold stuff. If you come too late, the benches get full and you’ll be stuck with the other jobs like handling dirty clothes or wheeling heavy carts around.” 

“I don’t mind wheeling heavy carts around,” Fang grumbled, taking the uniform and staring at it apprehensively for a moment. He’d never folded clothes before in his life.  

“Watch me,” Rai said with a chuckle, reaching forward and grabbing another uniform from the basket in front of them. Obediently turning to watch the boy, Fang instead found himself rapidly distracted by another red mark on the side of the boy’s neck.  

“… Hey, are you watching?” Rai’s annoyed voice cut into his haze of thoughts and Fang blinked to see a pair of narrowed hazel eyes glaring at him.  

“Yeah,” he lied, lifting up the uniform in his hands cluelessly.  

“Oi oi, you sure they only took your blood yesterday?” Rai scoffed, tossing his folded uniform in a separate basket and grabbing another fresh one. “They didn’t take bits of your brain, too? Or did you just not have any in the first place?” 

“They only took my blood,” Fang confirmed, wincing as his arm stung at the memory. They had jabbed so many needles into the inner side of his elbows that by the end of the day it had turned purple. Then, to top it off, they’d gone on about giving him ‘real punishment’ and slit the back of his left hand. It hadn’t been a deep wound but when they went and pushed a lighter into the edges of his cut, he’d screamed until his body became too weak to make any more noise. Even now, as he struggled to mimic Rai’s moves, his left hand shook with pain. 

Evidently noticing his choppy movements, Rai glanced over briefly and slowed down. Grateful, Fang sighed, successfully folding his first uniform and gazing at the rumbled, messily tucked in fabric with a satisfied huff. 

Rai laughed, shaking his head slightly and tossing another one to the boy. “Whatever. You’ll get the hang of it eventually,” he said, scratching an itch behind his ear. 

Noticing that mark again, Fang struggled for a moment before asking, “Are those marks from a man, too?” 

Rai paused, his hazel gaze wary and confused for a couple seconds before he seemed to realize what Fang was asking. Then, smiling mischievously, the boy said proudly, “Yeah, Han gave me a bunch last night.” 

 “Zhu Han?!” Fang yelped incredulously. The dark-haired man’s stiff face flashed into his head. “He’s gay too?!” 

“Shh!” Rai shushed him, looking uncharacteristically abashed as a couple inmates around them turned their heads. “No, he’s not, but it’s not like he has a lot to choose from, you know?” The boy pointed out, tossing his eighth folded uniform into the basket as Fang struggled to finish his third. “Most of the guys here will take any hole they can get.” He paused for a moment, seeming to think about it before smirking darkly and adding, “Aris isn’t any different. So you better watch out.” 

“Ehh?!” For some reason, that thought sent a jolt of shock – or at least he thought it was shock, it tingled into his spine in a similar way – through his body and Fang turned his head to give Rai an anxious stare. “But I think he would be better as a hole,” he blurted out, face heating up immediately after. 

Rai’s cheeks puffed as he let out a short, explosive laugh. But it was a humorless sound, and he returned to work promptly with a tinge of spite in his forced smile. “Aris might not look like it, but he’s the scariest guy here. The other men know not to approach him in that way. Those who do quickly find out why.” 

“Why?” Fang asked immediately, eyes wide in oblivious curiosity as Rai shot him a faintly irritated look. 

“You really don’t know how to hold back, do you?” The boy sighed, continuing anyway as he gazed a little gloomily at the half-folded uniform on his bench. “This is a prison, you know. Nowadays, most of the guys here are just perverts or petty thieves, but some of them are real criminals. Rumor has it that Aris used to work for a branch of the mafia in Hong Kong. They say he was the top assassin, a merciless killing machine who was trained in every weapon.” Lowering his voice, Rai leaned closer, eyes darting around self-consciously. “After the flesh-eating virus took over, it wiped out everybody in the gang. Aris was like a rabid dog with no leash. They say he went on a rampage and massacred a bunch of people at the apartment where his family used to live – but when the police came, he didn’t put up a fight. That’s how he ended up here.” 

“A rabid dog?” Fang mused, instinctively rubbing his cheek – still bruised from that first punch. Sure, it had hurt – enough to knock him out – but there hadn’t been any murderous intent behind it. The man was just strong. “More like a caged wolf.” 

“Anyway, that was in the past.” Rai shrugged. “We’ve been here for a long time and he was completely different back then.” The boy smiled ruefully. “He wasn’t too different from you, in some ways – a violent, foul-mouthed guy. He was just a bit more mature. Oh well, everybody has to wake up someday. You will too, eventually.” Rai sighed airily, then glanced distractedly at Fang’s hands, which were paused in surprise. “Hey, don’t slack off. If we finish folding all of the uniforms before the cleaners can refill our basket, we get to leave early you know?” He leaned over and whispered, “We’d get to be the first to go for lunch.” 

“R-Really?!” Eyes sparkling, Fang grabbed his next uniform with a flurry of excitement and started haphazardly folding random parts over. Beside him, Rai laughed out loud, his bright voice washing over the general rumble of machines and chatter like a thin coat of glitter. 

“Do it properly or it won’t count, Fangie!”