Guide To Surviving Prison Is Getting Screwed By General Lily! [BL] Chapter 67: The Flashback, The Obsessed Guards, And A 25kg W

Ruaan stepped around the corner.

Seo was standing in the corridor with his arms loose at his sides and his broken glasses straight for once and his expression wearing the sa warm openness it always wore. Like nothing had happened. Like the conversation Ruaan had just heard had been a different Seo entirely.

Cullen stepped around the corner behind Ruaan.

Seo looked at him. Then back at Ruaan.

"You brought company," Seo said pleasantly.

"What was that?" Ruaan said. His voice ca out flat. He didn’t sound angry or flat, because he had gone past the stage of reacting.

Seo tilted his head. "What was what?"

"Don’t," Ruaan said. "Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about."

Seo looked at him for a mont. Then the pleasantness shifted slightly into sothing more honest.

"I told you what I wanted," Seo said. "In the gym that night. I wasn’t hiding it."

"You told Oren," Ruaan said. "You didn’t tell ."

"Would you have listened?"

"That’s not the point."

Seo stepped forward. Cullen moved at the sa ti, putting himself slightly between them without making it obvious, which Ruaan noticed and filed away.

"I’m not going to hurt you," Seo said to Ruaan. Directly. "I ant that then and I an it now."

"You just asked soone to rig a ga so I end up in a punishnt cell," Ruaan said.

"So I could be close to you," Seo said. "And so I could be close to Harolin." He spread his hands. "I’m not pretending I’m not selfish. I am. But I would never actually hurt you, Ruaan. You’re the closest person I have here."

Ruaan looked at him.

Cullen said nothing but his posture said everything.

Seo looked at Ruaan with the real version of his expression. The one without the performance on top. It was still warm but complicated.

"I’m still the sa Seo you know," Seo said quietly.

"I know," Ruaan said. "That’s what makes it confusing."

Seo looked at him for one more mont.

Then he pushed his glasses up and turned and walked away down the corridor without rushing.

Ruaan watched him go.

Cullen was quiet for a mont beside him.

Then he said, "Are you hungry?"

Ruaan looked at the grey cafeteria entrance. Then at the VIP corridor. He honestly did not know when he had agreed to walk in that direction but by the ti he had finished thinking about it they were already inside and Cullen was at the centre table and Ruaan was sitting across from him and the food was already being brought out.

He looked at his plate.

He was not very hungry.

But he picked up his fork because the doctor had said to eat and because sitting here was better than sitting in his room alone with the sound of Seo’s voice in the corridor running on repeat.

Cullen ate.

Ruaan moved food around his plate.

"What is going on between you and that officer?" Cullen said.

Ruaan looked up.

"Harolin," Cullen said. Not accusatory. Just asking.

"I don’t want to talk about it," Ruaan said.

Cullen nodded once like he had expected that and let it go. It was the version of Cullen that Ruaan still had not fully adjusted to.

"Seo approached ," Cullen said instead. "Yesterday. He was trying to get to report Harolin to managent. To have him removed." He said it flat and factual. "He frad it as following the rules. But I could tell what he was actually doing."

Ruaan looked at him.

"He wanted Harolin gone so he could get closer to you," Cullen said. "And to Harolin, apparently, which makes less sense but." He shrugged. "People want strange things."

Ruaan put his fork down.

"Has it always been like this?" Cullen said. He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. "I an. You’re handso. Cute, even, when you’re not trying to be difficult. But this many people." He gestured vaguely at the general concept of Ruaan’s situation. "Has it always been like this for you?"

Ruaan lowered his head.

He sat with the question and felt it pull sothing loose.

.

.

First year of college....

He had t Kian in the library during exam week. Kian was studying economics, had a loud laugh, and had asked Ruaan to explain a concept he had been stuck on for an hour. Ruaan had explained it. Kian had asked if he wanted to get coffee.

Three weeks later they were together.

Six weeks after that, Lev arrived at the sa college as a damn transfer student.

Ruaan had not been surprised. Lev had a talent for finding him. What had surprised him was how fast it happened. One introduction. One study session that Ruaan had ntioned in passing. One week of Lev turning up wherever Kian was.

Kian had told Ruaan it was nothing. Then Kian had stopped calling as often, claiming he needed space. Then Kian had told Ruaan, with genuine apology in his eyes, that he had feelings for soone else.

Ruaan had looked at Lev at the next campus event and Lev had smiled like he had won sothing.

The second ti was a different person. Sa pattern. Different tiline, but faster.

Third ti, Ruaan had already started keeping distance trying not to fall in love before it happened, which should have helped.

It did not help.

What happened next was that all three of them found him at the sa party in the second year. Kian and the other two, all of them having separately arrived at the conclusion that they wanted Ruaan back and that the others were standing in the way. Ruaan had watched from across the room as an argunt started. Then escalated into sothing that required security and an ambulance.

One of them had put another one in the hospital. He had almost killed him, claiming it was ’Eliminating your rivals’.

Ruaan had stood outside the party in the cold and looked at the street and thought about the fact that three people had just hurt each other over him and he had not done anything to invite it except exist in their vicinity and be soone they had decided they wanted.

He had not dated anyone after that until Dominic.

He had not planned for Dominic either.

.

.

He ca back to the present.

Cullen was watching him.

"I don’t know why it happens," Ruaan said. "I’ve never understood it. I don’t try to attract people. I’m not even that easy to be around." He looked at his plate. "But most of the people I end up attracting are bad for sohow. Or bad for each other." He picked up his fork again. "I stopped trusting it a long ti ago."

Cullen was quiet for a mont.

"One of them ended up in the hospital," Cullen said.

"Yes."

"Over you."

"Over the idea of ," Ruaan said. "There’s a difference."

Cullen looked at him, wondering what to do with the information he had just received. Then he leaned back.

"Focus on getting better," Cullen said. "The ga is in less than a week now. You need to be in shape." He paused. "I’ll deal with Seo."

Ruaan looked at him. "Don’t hurt him."

Cullen raised his eyebrows slightly.

"He’s still my friend," Ruaan said. "I don’t know what that ans right now but he is. Just. Deal with him in a way that doesn’t involve the infirmary."

Cullen looked like he had a response to that and chose not to give it.

.

.

Ruaan ate enough to satisfy the doctor’s instructions and went back to his room.

He stayed there.

He read. He lay on the bed and looked at the ceiling. He took the key from around his neck and held it in his hand for a while and then put it back. He thought about the morning and about Harolin crouched on the floor with his hands around Ruaan’s. The word ’We’re together now’ kept replaying in his head over and over again.

He thought about Seo’s voice in the corridor and Lev’s face in the auditorium.

He thought about Dominic’s lips on his forehead and ’I’ll take that position from him.’

He closed his eyes.

’There is no way history can repeat itself, right?’

.

.

The officer training gym was quiet in the afternoon.

Most of the regular staff used it in the morning. By midday, it was usually empty enough that Harolin could work without managing anyone else’s presence.

He was on the bench with the bar above him when he heard the voices.

Three of the lower-ranking guards. Near the door. Not bothering to keep quiet because they had not noticed him in the back corner.

"The new ones from yesterday," one of them said. "The blonde one. Have you seen him?"

"Everyone’s seen him," another said. "He was in the auditorium this morning."

"He fucking looks like a girl."

"Better than a girl."

Laughter.

Harolin kept lifting. He wasn’t concerned about them or what they were discussing. Till...

"I don’t care about any of them," a third voice said. "Honestly."

"Huh? What then do you care about?"

A pause.

"Do you know the prisoner 2525?"

Harolin’s hands tightened on the bar.

"Who is that?"

"The top one. The one who’s been here two weeks and sohow got to the top." The voice had a specific quality to it. Like soone who had been thinking about sothing for a while. "Have you seen him properly? That face."

"Everyone’s seen his face."

"I an up close." Another pause. "Have you seen him without his uniform on?"

Harolin set the bar back on the rack.

He sat up.

He looked at the far side of the gym where the weight rack was. At the iron plates stacked in order by size. At the one with 25kg written on the side in white.

He thought about it in the specific calm way he thought about most things.

’One hit to the head would probably be too much, right? But one hit to the leg would make him break two or three bones. More manageable.’

He stood up.

He picked up the 25kg plate.

He turned around and started walking toward the three guards like a man who had all the ti in the world.