Guide To Surviving Prison Is Getting Screwed By General Lily! [BL]

By evening, Seo had made himself comfortable enough in Ruaan’s room that he had reorganised his side of the space and found a corner for his LEGO box, which was away from the direct AC airflow, explaining that this was for the battery health of the items inside.

Ruaan did not ask follow-up questions. He didn’t want to learn anything related to... that.

Harolin had left in the afternoon with the card in his pocket and a look on his face that Ruaan understood meant he was going back to work and would return later, so Ruaan should not do anything that required explanation.

Ruaan had nodded and watched him leave.

By evening both of them were hungry.

"Huh? Ruaan, are we heading to the grey cafeteria?" Seo asked, already moving toward the door.

"Grey cafeteria," Ruaan confirmed. He still didn’t want to see Cullen.

They walked out together and made it approximately halfway to the grey block before Seo stopped.

Ruaan turned around. "What?"

Seo looked at the corridor that branched toward the grey section and then at the corridor that led to the VIP cafeteria. He folded his hands behind his back.

"You’re avoiding the top café, aren’t you?" Seo said.

"I’m not avoiding anything. I’m just choosing to eat here. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, right?"

"Same thing." Seo tilted his head. "I’ve never seen a top one eat at the grey cafeteria before."

Ruaan shrugged. "Well, where is my crown? Maybe I’m the first."

He turned back toward the grey section and walked closer to it.

Seo grabbed his shoulder and he stopped walking.

"I understand you don’t want to see Cullen," Seo said. "But look at it this way. If you go in there—" he nodded toward the grey cafeteria "—every person in that room is going to stare at you for the entire meal. You know what they’re like. A top one eating at the grey table? You’ll be the most interesting thing that’s happened today and you won’t be able to finish a single plate."

Ruaan paused and slowly rubbed his chin.

He thought about the last time he had eaten in the grey cafeteria. The stares. The commentary. His name was moving from table to table. He wasn’t even the top one then.

He pulled his shoulder free. "I still don’t want to see Cullen."

"Whatever Cullen does, he won’t touch you," Seo said simply. "I’m going with you."

Ruaan looked at him.

"I just want to eat in peace," Ruaan said.

"Then go where the food is better and the audience is smaller," Seo said.

Ruaan looked at the ceiling briefly.

"Fuck!"

They went to the VIP cafeteria.

.

.

Cullen was already at the centre table when they pushed the door open.

He saw Ruaan first and stood up immediately, which Ruaan had not seen him do for anyone before, and took two steps toward the entrance.

Then Seo came through the door behind Ruaan, their hands briefly connected because Seo had grabbed his wrist at the last second in the corridor.

Cullen stopped.

He looked at Seo. At hand. At Ruaan. He tilted his head slowly with the expression of a man doing arithmetic.

"Ruaan," he said. "You brought a guest."

"He’s not a guest," Ruaan said. "He’s Seo. He’s my friend."

Cullen looked at Seo for one more second with the flat assessing attention of someone filing information away. Then he looked back at Ruaan.

"I see... a friend. Well, you missed breakfast," Cullen said. "I was starting to think you weren’t coming for dinner either. I was worried about you."

There was no version of the truth that Ruaan was going to offer here. He couldn’t tell Cullen that he was avoiding him. Especially not that. He smiled and said, "I’m starving. Can we eat?"

Cullen gestured at the table across from him.

Ruaan sat. Seo sat beside him.

Seo looked around the room slowly, taking it in. The actual furniture. The lighting. The general absence of metal trays and grey walls.

"It’s like a proper restaurant," Seo said.

"Right?" Ruaan said.

"Expensive and very clean."

"The food is better too. Wait until you try it."

"I’m already excited." Seo looked at the empty table. "Do we get menus or—"

"Finn is bringing it," Cullen said.

Ruaan went still for exactly one second when he heard his name.

He kept his face easy and reached for the water glass in front of him and took a slow drink and did not look at the door.

He thought about the cold bathroom and Harolin saving him. He had caught Finn and sent him to the dark room for two days without meals. Harolin’s voice delivered that sentence like it was a scheduling matter.

The door opened.

Finn walked in with the rolling tray, moving with the same precise attention he brought to everything in Cullen’s presence. He got halfway across the room before his eyes found Ruaan.

He looked at him.

Then looked away.

His face had settled into something that was not the cold flat anger from the shower block. It was more controlled than that. More managed. The expression of someone who had been in a small dark room for two days with their own thoughts and had come out with a decision made.

Ruaan watched him and thought,

’Maybe he learned something. He’s not going to secretly poison me, right?’

He wanted to believe that.

"May I serve?" Finn asked.

Cullen looked at him. Then at Ruaan. Then back at Finn. "You can serve yourself and the guest. I’ll handle Ruaan."

Ruaan put his hands up immediately. "No. Absolutely not. Non. Whatever the word is in every language, that."

Cullen blinked. "What?"

"I can serve myself," Ruaan said. "It’s not complicated. I have hands."

"You’ve never served yourself before," Cullen said.

"I’m doing it now." Ruaan stood up and took the tray from Finn before either of them could respond and looked at the contents. Plates, covered. A jug of juice. Bread already sliced.

He served Cullen first because that felt like the politically sensible choice. Then Seo. Then Finn, who looked at his plate like it had surprised him. Then himself.

He sat back down.

"Have you actually served before?" Seo asked.

"It’s not a complicated skill," Ruaan said. "You put the food on the plate and hand it to the person."

"You looked very focused about it."

"I was being precise."

Seo smiled.

Ruaan took a bite.

He made a sound he hadn’t planned to make. The kind that came out when something was genuinely better than expected and his body reacted before his composure caught up.

"Good?" Seo asked.

"It’s very good," Ruaan said.

"It tastes incredible," Seo agreed, trying his own plate. He closed his eyes for a second. "This is genuinely heaven."

They ate.

Cullen was watching both of them with the particular expression of a man trying to understand a dynamic he had walked into mid-story.

"Is there something going on between you two?" he asked.

Seo tilted his head with an innocent smile. "Why do you ask?"

Cullen looked at him flatly. "I wasn’t talking to you. You’re in the bottom ten. Don’t open your mouth in front of me."

Seo closed his mouth.

The warmth went out of his eyes for one second, fast and clean, and then the smile came back and he looked at his plate and continued eating like nothing had happened.

Ruaan put his fork down and looked at Cullen.

"If you’re going to talk to my friend like that," Ruaan said, very calmly, "we can go eat in the grey cafeteria. With the stares and everything."

Cullen looked at him.

"I mean it," Ruaan said.

A pause.

Cullen looked at Seo. "I won’t do it again." He said it like a man swallowing something he would rather not swallow. "You two are just."

He gestured vaguely.

"We’re friends," Ruaan said. "That’s it."

Cullen made a sound that was neither agreement nor disagreement.

Finn, who had been very quiet and very focused on his own plate since sitting down, looked up.

"The rumour is already spreading," Finn said. His voice was even. Like he was sharing interesting weather information. "That they’re staying in the same room. Seo’s cellmates haven’t seen him since the afternoon. His things are gone."

Cullen looked at Ruaan.

Ruaan looked at his juice.

"How far has it spread?" Ruaan asked.

"Far enough," Finn said. "I heard it during my punishment. The officers probably know by now too."

Seo and Ruaan exchanged a glance.

Ruaan said ’I didn’t think about this.’

Seo’s said ’I thought about it extensively.’

Cullen set his fork down slowly and looked between the two of them with the focused, patient attention of a man who had been building toward a question and had finally arrived at it.

"So," Cullen said. "Are you two just friends?"

He leaned forward slightly.

"Or are you fucking each other?"