From seven to seven-thirty PM, that was the best time to shower. It was the middle of recreational hours, and more often than not Aris found that he had the showers completely to himself. Most people showered right after dinner, or just before curfew.  

That specific night, he had showered a little bit later than usual, at eight, and there had been two other men chattering away. Because of that, he was already in a bad enough mood – and when he turned the final corner to the hallway where his cell door was, Aris felt his spirits twist even further.  

“Stop! No, leave him alone, please!” It was those two brats, vainly trying to defend themselves against three heavyset men – or at least, one of the brats was. The dark-haired kid named Yuya was jumping around spewing that pleading wail of his, struggling to get away from the man who was holding his hands behind his back. In front of him, his older brother with the brown curly hair was hanging in a haphazard way between the other two men, uniform loose, lips and ass filled.  

“What’s the problem? He’s a prostitute, ain’t he?” one of the men jeered, grabbing Rai’s hair and pulling his head forward. “Look, he’s obviously enjoying it. He’s slobbering like a dog over my dick.” 

“Yeah, come on. You’re his brother so you must be the same, right?” the man holding Yuya said, leaning forward and pulling back the boy’s uniform with his teeth. 

“No! Stop it!” Yuya screamed, tears glistening in his dark eyes. Rai stirred, attempting to lift his head only to have it shoved back down. 

“Hey.” Annoyed, Aris called out to them as he stepped forward, dragging his moist towel off of his shoulder. “You ugly shitheads are in the way. Get out of my sight.” 

Two of the men exchanged apprehensive glances. The one guy who had been humping Rai’s mouth met Aris’s glare and grinned.  

“What’s this, another pretty face come to join the party? How perfect, there’s three of us, and now there’s three of you,” the man said tauntingly, oblivious to the anxious looks his companions were giving him as he walked up to Aris. 

Standing in front of the man – Aris returned his dark, lust-glazed stare with a disdainful look. Then he lifted his hand to the man’s face and shoved his entire head into the wall. 

There was a thunderous crack and the man slid to the ground, revealing the splintered wall where his head had been. Slowly, blood began to trickle from his nose, and as his mouth parted in shock his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell limp.  

“Now there’s only two of you,” Aris replied calmly, wiping his hand gingerly against his towel. Stepping over the man’s body, he flung his towel back over his shoulder and cast the other two men on either side a dark glare. “Show me your disgusting faces again and I’ll make that number zero.” 

Spluttering in apology, the men pulled their pants up and scrambled away with frightened noises. Once they were surely gone, Aris released the breath he’d been holding and walked past, only to have something small latch onto his arm. 

His first instinct was to snap those fingers right off the boy’s hand – but when he turned and saw Yuya’s glimmering, dark irises, he felt the violent urge wither in his chest.  

“T… Thank you…!” Yuya stammered, still piecing together the torn halves of his uniform together as he bowed. 

“… I wasn’t trying to save you or anything,” Aris muttered, averting his gaze only to notice the brown-haired brother crumpled against the opposite wall. He met the boy’s stare briefly and was immediately caught by a familiar, deadened glaze in those light brown irises. That was a look beyond desperation and hopelessness. But beyond pain, too. Aris was only too familiar with it. 

Though it hadn’t been his intention, Aris found himself standing over the boy. “Hey,” he heard himself call out as he nudged the dirty, semen-stained uniform piled around Rai’s thin ankles. “Get up. You’re making your brother worry.” 

“Ah – no, it’s not like that –” Behind him, Yuya began to splutter hastily, but Aris silenced him with a hand.  

The boy stirred, lifted his hazy eyes upwards, and stared at Aris for a moment. Then he sighed, leaned his head back against the wall, and started to laugh. “… And who the fuck are you?” he crowed, when his giggles finally managed to trail off. “Are you looking for an ass to fuck, too? You’re pretty, so I wouldn’t mind – or are you the type who prefers to be done? In that case, I have a dick and it’s still pretty functional –” 

“A-Aris!”  

Yuya’s panicked cry echoed in his head for several seconds after the explosive bang of his fist smashing the wall died off. He was leaning close now, close enough to smell the fluids smeared over the boy’s body.  

Rai realized it, too. He grinned, parted his lips, and puffed a breath of foul air into Aris’s face. “… How about it, pretty-boy?” 

“Rai, stop,” Yuya continued to plead. The boy had grabbed Aris’s shoulders and was trying to pry the man away now. “I’m sorry, my brother isn’t like that, he just doesn’t know how to say nice things. He’s really just trying to look out for me, even though I’m only his half-brother, o-our parents died a year ago and he’s been taking care of me since s-so p-please don’t hurt him –” 

“Shut up,” Aris heard himself growl. Yuya immediately fell silent, though not before uttering a small whimper of fear. Turning his attention back to the curly-haired brother, Aris narrowed his eyes at that insolent hazel gaze. “… Taking care of your brother? Don’t joke around. You’re just a horny bitch who doesn’t even try to fight back while your little brother is screaming and crying and begging them to stop.” 

At that, a flash of anger crossed the boy’s eyes in a brilliant gold glint. Next thing he knew, there was something wet dripping from his cheek, and Rai was grinning as he wiped the side of his mouth.  

The brat had just spat at him. Spit probably thick with pre-cum. Unable to stop himself, Aris reached forward and wrapped his hands around the boy’s thin neck. 

“A-Aris, no! Please –” Yuya’s shrill cry jolted through his head, but that only irritated him further. 

“… Fuck off,” Rai panted, hazel eyes a smoldering ball of fury. “If I don’t give them what they want, then they’ll go for Yuya. This is the only thing I can do. Are you saying you can protect him better…? Someone like you couldn’t possibly understand –” 

“Aris – Aris, please, let him go, he didn’t mean it…!”  

“If I had the chance,” Aris hissed, gritting his teeth as he squeezed the boy’s throat just a little harder. A grimace of pain flickered through Rai’s face and he felt a sense of pleasure, but it quickly turned into a spurt of wretchedness when he heard Yuya’s sob and realized the boy was hugging his back tightly. Letting go, Aris watched the brown-haired boy bend over with a violent cough. “… If I’d had the chance to protect my little brother, he would still be alive. At least you have that chance.” Standing up, he gently pried Yuya’s fingers away from his waist and turned to face the teary-eyed boy. He paused just long enough to throw his towel at Rai – then he grabbed Yuya’s hand.  

“Stick with me from now on,” Aris muttered, ignoring the surprise glittering in the boy’s flushed cheeks and round eyes. Glancing over his shoulder briefly, he caught sight of Rai sitting up against the wall, towel draped over half his head and shoulders shaking with what looked like laughter. “… Until your brother gets his shit together, I’ll be the one protecting you.” 

… Fuck. Opening his eyes, Aris blinked for a moment at the lamplight-splashed wooden beams of the upper bunk above his bed. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep until he found himself waking up. And if that wasn’t enough, in his mildly disoriented state he heard the tell-tale clanging of their cell door opening. 

He managed to sit up quickly enough to look like he hadn’t passed out as the thick metal doors slid open. There had been laughter but it died off abruptly as the silhouette of a short-haired boy slipped into the room.  

Fang paused for a moment in the doorway, waving at someone outside and shouting ‘good night’ before he shut the door behind him. Then he turned around. 

Aris tensed instinctively as the boy’s dark gaze met his, expecting that stupid mouth to open and blurt out something loudly – but Fang swept his gaze away, and was quiet as he brushed past. Instead, he went towards the sink and started washing his hands. 

… He must have heard, Aris thought, eyeing the boy as Fang, finished washing his hands and face, started stripping his uniform off. As the orange fabric slowly peeled away from the boy’s lean shoulders and back, Aris felt his thoughts grow a little hazy, his gaze coming in and out of focus on Fang’s shifting back muscles and shoulder blades. 

It wasn’t until Fang turned and froze, their gazes meeting, that Aris blinked and realized he’d been staring. The boy looked like an animal caught in headlights, Aris mused somewhere in the back of his head. But he cleared his throat and turned away, trying to ignore the moment. 

“… Aris?” But of course, someone like Fang would eventually speak up. 

Sighing inwardly, Aris leaned back against his propped up cushion and cast the boy a wary look as Fang walked up to the side of his bed and stopped. His head was lowered, his hands loosely clutched in fists by his side. Aris felt his gaze wander distractedly to the boy’s white briefs. They were the generic cotton underwear that everybody wore, so there was absolutely nothing special about his briefs. Really, he couldn’t understand why his eyes had drifted there. In any case, Aris managed to quickly pull his attention back to the boy’s face.  

“… How much do you know about the flesh-eating virus?” Fang mumbled.  

The boy looked so pathetic – cheeks flushed, bangs shadowing his face and head averted – that Aris couldn’t help but reply.  

“Enough. Why?” he said cautiously. 

“Ah… I dunno…” Fang said dodgedly, scratching his nose now as his head lifted and started to trace patterns in the dark ceiling above. “Just curious…” 

What a terrible liar. Yuya had never been good at lying, either. Sighing, Aris shifted, lifting his hands behind his head too as he found a comfortable position and closed his eyes. “They call it the NF-I virus. It’s a mutated form of HIV that only appeared a couple years ago. Basically, whereas HIV targets your helper T-cells – the part of the immune system that activates defences, the NF-I virus targets cytotoxic T-cells – the actual activated killer cells. Normally the killer cells are specific only to infected parts of our body, but the NF-I turns off that specificity mechanism. It turns our killer cells against us, and our immune system starts to destroy the cells in our body, bit by bit. Hence, flesh-eating disease.” Aris shrugged. “If you want to know more you’ll have to ask Han.” Opening his eyes, he glanced at the boy and almost felt a smile flicker onto his face when he saw the utterly lost look in Fang’s glazed eyes.  

“H… Huh?” Fang said, lifting a hand to the bunk rungs as though for support as he swayed in confusion. 

“The virus makes us kill our own cells,” Aris explained. “And depending on which cells are killed first, symptoms can look really different. Makes it hard to predict if the patient actually has it or not. Though, by now, everybody assumes that it’s the flesh-eating disease the moment you get sick.”  

“But… some people don’t get sick with it, right?” Fang had spoken tentatively, seeming to expect his reaction as Aris stiffened. He gazed almost shyly at the man, dark eyes glimmering with that same look of innocent hope that Aris dreaded seeing the most. “You and Rai… and Han… are immunes, right?” 

“… Go to sleep,” Aris ended up saying, voice gruff as he reached for the lamp. But his hand touched something warm, and when he looked over he saw that Fang had covered the lamp switch. This little brat – but before he could voice that out loud, he became swept up in that terrible look of hope again.  

“… What about me?” Fang said in a small voice, suddenly looking like a young child as he stared at Aris, dark irises glowing gold in the lamplight. “I haven’t gotten sick yet, either. Even though I live in a park and all the other grams got sick already. Even mom’s mother got sick, too.” 

“… Who cares?” The heaviness in his chest drove those venomous words out of his mouth. Ignoring the sting of pain in Fang’s eyes, Aris pushed his hand away and turned the lamp off. “You’re nothing more than a street brat, anyway. Nobody will miss you,” he growled, throwing his pillow down and pulling the sheets over his head. 

In the darkness, he heard a heavy sigh, then some quiet thumps and a pause.  

“Aris…” 

What is it now… Squeezing his eyes shut, Aris pretended not to hear.  

“It’s dark, I can’t climb up the ladder…”  

“Fucking hell!” Aris sighed, getting up and turning the lamp back on. “Hurry up,” he snapped, glaring at the boy as, chuckling, Fang scurried up to his bunk. As soon as he was up there, Aris flicked the switch and slipped back under the covers. 

“Thanks, Aris.”  

Fang’s hoarse voice echoed a little in the silence, and suddenly Aris found it intensely difficult to swallow. 

I’m starting to like it better when he calls me Flower-boy, he thought to himself, as Fang’s words spun around and around in his head and started mingling with Yuya’s sweet, gentle whisper. 

“Aris… Aris… thank you…”