Chapter Text
The ancient fluorescent light above Yoongi’s head is making a buzzing noise, three long pulses and then a pause; rinse and repeat. Yoongi would press his hands to his ears to drown out the maddening sound, but his hands have been cuffed since leaving the courthouse. Jostling his wrists too much would make the digital lock beep, which in turn would prompt the guard to stand up from his station, stroll down the hallway to where Yoongi is sitting, and maybe threaten him with assault for disrupting his perfectly idle existence.
Yoongi’s heard stories of these places, the so-called processing centres, so he knew what to expect. The procedures are punitive by design – to be locked up in a liminal space and stripped of all contact with the outside world, having to wait for something that is both imminent and elusive.
Logically, Yoongi knows that soon enough he’ll be shipped off to a rehabilitation facility in some provincial city. He wishes he’ll be taken south where some of the larger facilities are located – that way he would at least be close to his parents who live in Daegu. Maybe they could visit him and bring him some books to read. If books from outside are even allowed.
Yoongi is unsure of how long he’s been waiting in the narrow corridor that smells like a mix of artificial lemon and old sweat, though it should be early afternoon by now. After getting his sentence read by a rather uppity judge, he was given a sandwich for lunch that contained exactly one slice of cold-cut cricket meat. The officers escorting him said that Yoongi would get a quick health inspection and be then deemed fit for transport, but that was surely hours ago.
A door swings open at the end of the hallway, and a flat female voice calls out Yoongi’s name. This time there’s no guard to push him around – the cuffs around his wrists will shock him if he tries anything, and there is hardly anywhere to run in the small, confined space. The sense of autonomy is still a small mercy, and Yoongi quickly shuffles his feet to the old-fashioned examination room with a medical bay which looks like something that came out of the year 2022.
Yoongi gets his blood drawn with a needle that’s way thicker than necessary, and while the medical bay makes a concerning whirring noise while analysing the sample, the nurse or doctor (who never bothered to introduce herself) speeds through a checklist of questions about possible medications and chronic conditions.
“Not even fine dust illness?” the woman asks when Yoongi denies having any noteworthy medical issues.
“I wear a mask whenever I go outside,” Yoongi says with a shrug.
“Ah, a lot of people that come through the centre don’t have the funds for the ones with proper filtration. You’re quite lucky, Yoongi-ssi.”
Yoongi doesn’t feel all that lucky, but he doesn’t have the energy to argue with this doctor-nurse-person with a cold smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“The facility you’ve been assigned to doesn’t provide masks, but it’s well into the countryside, so you might just dodge another bullet there,” she says, winking at Yoongi as if she’s doing him a huge favour by revealing a tiny piece of information about his destination. She takes her time studying the blood analysis report, brows pinched in concentration, but for some reason Yoongi has a growing suspicion that the woman might not fully understand what she’s looking at.
“Everything seems to be in order,” she says after staring at the monitor for what she must deem as an appropriate amount of time. She even clicks the red X in the corner without bothering to save any of the data, and Yoongi loses any chance of finding out about the level of microplastics in his blood, which is one of the few things he’s concerned about.
“I will clear you for transit,” she states, sounding pleased with another job well done. Yoongi is left to stumble back into the hallway, from where he is picked up a short eternity later. He and three other inmates are taken to a minibus that’s waiting at the loading bay behind the building. The journey south begins in complete silence except for the radio that paints a soft, dull soundscape of poppy music and advertisements for services that offer help with emigrating overseas. Yoongi has always found them a little silly and deceptive – there aren’t many countries that accept immigrants, and those that do aren’t much better off than Korea. It’s a fantasy those companies sell, the novel Korean dream.
Do you suffer from chronic dust illness? Take your family to the sunny Papua New Guinea and begin the adventure of your lifetime!
Our mission at Hangsang is to protect your bodily autonomy. We help people of alternative sexual tendencies find permanent residency and employment in countries that have signed the Ottawa pact of 2046.
In his lifetime, Yoongi has only once seriously considered leaving. He was studying in Pyongyang at the time, lonely and unsure of his future. He was lounging on his bed in a refurbished soviet style flat when his mother called to tell him what had happened to his older brother. Yoongi didn't even cry, he just started packing his suitcase in a blur, trying to book tickets to take the KTX to Daegu.
For a moment, he considered getting plane tickets instead.
Yoongi glances out of the side window just in time to see the bus speed up onto Highway 1. There’s a good chance Yoongi will end up in his home province of Gyeongsang. Small mercies, Yoongi muses with a grim smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, as the road opens before them, endless and grey.
///
“Would that be all?” a bored corrections officer asks through the cutout in the safety glass.
Yoongi nods shakily, throwing one last longing glance at his wallet and phone that he placed on a plastic tray.
“Through that door, please,” the officer grunts, nodding his head, and Yoongi steps into a small white room. His hands are no longer cuffed together, but he feels helpless under the bright white lights that make his eyes hurt.
“Strip.”
For a moment, Yoongi blinks his still burning eyes, hands on the hem of his grey hoodie.
“Clothes… off,” the guard says, drawing out every syllable as if talking down to a mentally impaired person. Yoongi unzips his hoodie, fighting back the heat of anger and embarrassment that creeps up onto his cheeks.
He stands there naked, cold and clammy with sweat as the guard makes him bend over for a brief yet humiliating moment. At that point, Yoongi doesn’t really have thoughts as such – he’s merely an observer of his own body, the thin limbs and pudgy stomach that are the result of the sedentary lifestyle he’s indulged in for the past few decades. The bags under his eyes from nights spent worrying that the judge might not rule in his favour.
After the strip search is over, Yoongi is given a bright purple jumpsuit to wear, so bright it might glow in the dark. From what little research he was able to do from home, he knows that the colour of his clothes will change depending on how long he’s been at the facility. The colour is absolutely ridiculous, but Yoongi is desperate to cover his nakedness, so he shimmies into the suit as quickly as he can, just to have another guard come through the door to get him with little regard for the fact that his upper body is still completely exposed. It makes Yoongi feel like he’s seated on a conveyor belt with machines prodding and squishing him from all directions as he gets closer and closer to the huge meat grinder at the end of the line.
The new person leads Yoongi to an interview room of sorts, ordering him to take a seat. This one seems more alert, less bored of his job, but Yoongi remains on his toes. The guard’s eyes linger on Yoongi’s bleached hair for a bit too long for comfort, after which he heaves a sympathetic sigh.
“You understand that no sexual conduct or intimacy of any kind is tolerated in this facility, right? All kinds of BDSM and general kinkiness included,” The officer says. He has two stripes on the shoulder of his jumper instead of the one stripe the first guy had had. “Should you be found breaking this rule, you’ll be separated from the other inmates for your own safety.”
Yoongi is completely numb inside, shrinking into the too-large jumpsuit, but he manages to nod in acknowledgement.
“Separate meal times are assigned for each block, and I’m afraid the dinner shift for dormitory block B is already over and the canteen kiosk is closed for the night. But breakfast is served tomorrow at seven thirty.”
Yoongi’s stomach gurgles loudly in response. He almost asks if the officer has any food he could spare, but he’ll be here for way too long to risk making a poor first impression as a difficult customer. Yoongi could even ask around at the dorm, see if someone had a little bit of extra food stashed away, but he’s not excited about the idea of being indebted to a stranger on his first night.
He can just drink lots of water and go to sleep, it will be fine. He’s been without food longer than this, when he was a poor student who was too proud to go to his parents for money.
“Let’s see here…” the officer says, tapping his fingers against the edge of the desk. “You have a one year sentence with parole. Be on your best behaviour, and you’ll be out in eight months. Attending the mandatory counselling sessions and being polite to the staff will all be held in your favour when we consider early releases. A well-raised, pretty thing from a good family?” The officer taps at Yoongi’s family name on the admission form. “You’ll be out before you know it.”
Yoongi feels like throwing up at the last comment, but there’s nothing but bile in his stomach. The officer tells him he looks a bit pale and offers him Instant Caffeine from a paper cup. It tastes even less like real coffee than the substitute Yoongi is used to drinking, but he greedily gulps down every drop, chasing that tiny kick of energy that might help him over the rest of the humiliating process.
“All better, Yoongi-ssi?” the guard coos as Yoongi crushes the paper cup in his hand. “Follow me.”
Yoongi does, walking through endless corridors, passing through the infirmary and the counselling offices that are supposed to make him better, make a model citizen out of him again.
“This is it, dormitory block B,” the guard says, disinterested now, twiddling with a box of nicotine patches. Yoongi has already used up his novelty value, and all it sold for was a cup of the shittiest coffee substitute. “You’re in… oh? Room B77. Good luck.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Yoongi wants to ask but the guard is already going his merry way, Yoongi is left alone in the echoing hallway with linoleum and a faint mildew smell that might be coming from the communal bathrooms. The door is completely off its hinge, propped up carelessly to the side as if no one has simply bothered to fix it.
But water damage and the health risks it poses aside, Yoongi can’t shake off the feeling that he’s trapped in a summer camp at the end of the world. He doesn’t know what happened to the other two people who were brought in with him, and he hasn’t seen any other inmates.
Yoongi can hear his heartbeat in his ears as a sluggish thump-thump-thump as he drags his feet past rooms B73 and B75. The door to Room B77 is unnecessarily heavy when he goes to pull on the handle, and it opens with an unoiled creak as if to make discreet exit and entry harder. Yoongi ducks into the cell-like room and sees grey walls, grey bunks, grey sheets that were once white, and…
Ill-fitting black coveralls. Eyes sunken deep into their sockets, staring ahead. Sharp nose, pointy chin, not a shred of fat on the person’s body. The jumpsuit isn’t buttoned all the way up, and Yoongi can see a glint of metal resting between birdlike collarbones. Some sort of dog tag, perhaps military-issued.
Yoongi’s new roommate doesn’t react to his weak-spirited greeting in any way. He’s sitting on the edge of the bunk with his feet planted on the floor, so perfectly still that for a moment Yoongi wonders if the man is blind or deaf. Repeating his greeting a little more loudly, Yoongi forces his legs to carry him to the other side of the room where a second bunk is pushed against the wall. He places his small rucksack on the mattress, trying to conceal how badly his hands are shaking.
The lights are off in the room, so Yoongi faces the tiny window to get what little daylight he can, dull and muted as it filters through the frosted glass. Yoongi starts spreading his few belongings out on the bed, as it feels important to organise them into two neat piles of hygiene products and personal items he’s been allowed to bring with him from home. There’s a small picture of his brother, a bar of soap, and a silver bracelet gifted by his brother on his twentieth birthday. A tube of toothpaste that looks a bit like it’s been used by someone else.
He’s compartmentalising already, some twenty minutes into his sentence. A maniacal laughter bubbles up in Yoongi’s throat, stuck behind his tongue, inappropriate for a place so fundamentally unamusing.
There’s no warning, no noise – Yoongi doesn’t so much as feel the air behind him move before he’s pushed face-down into the coarse blanket, a knee pressing down on the small of his back, strong hands twisting his arms behind his back.
This is how Yoongi will die. Without rhyme or reason, as people always do. He’s been an utter fool to hope for a different fate, a chance to make something of his accidental existence on this rotting carcass of a planet. Yoongi fights back for the sake of it, wriggles his hips and kicks his feet until he tires himself out.
It’s only when he goes perfectly pliant that the man speaks.
“You didn’t take your shoes off.”
It takes Yoongi an ungodly amount of time to understand what the man is on about. He thinks he might be getting a friction burn on his face that remains mushed into the bedding, and his back feels like it’s about to break if it’s forced to arch any more than that.
“I – I’m…” Yoongi stutters in a muffled voice, trying to turn his head to the side. “I’m so sorry. I just assumed the floor would be dirty. I’m sorry, my bad.”
Wrong words. Yoongi realises his mistake the second the words leave his mouth.
“Dirty?”
A hand comes up to grip Yoongi’s hair, forcing his neck to bend at an unnatural angle. The position they’re in reminds Yoongi of all the wrong things, but he can’t think about the possibility that his roommate might just force himself on Yoongi.
“Please don’t hurt me,” Yoongi croaks out. His lashes feel damp and heavy, sticking together in clumps even though he’s not crying.
He’s not crying.
The pressure on his back disappears just as quickly as it came, and Yoongi slumps down to the floor in an ungraceful heap of limbs. His roommate isn’t saying anything, he’s just standing there quietly as Yoongi swallows back salty tears and mucus.
Realising he won’t get any other reaction out of the man, Yoongi reaches a hand to yank the slip-on shoes off his feet and haphazardly shove them under his bunk. He’s still knelt on the floor – he doesn’t want to anger the man in any way.
“My name is Min Yoongi,” he offers timidly, gaze fixed onto the man’s knees. “Please take care of me.”
The man laughs airily at Yoongi’s wording. Too cordial, then.
“Don’t touch my things, Min Yoongi,” he grits, teeth white and a little terrifying. “The floor you’re kneeling on is mine. That sink is mine. In the bathroom, the toilet stall on the far left is mine. Got it?”
Yoongi’s eyes flit over to the tiny sink in the corner with a bar of soap on the side, and a clean-looking towel hanging off a hook next to it. Neat and tidy to the point of compulsion
“I won’t,” Yoongi promises hastily, even though he almost points out that he can’t possibly abstain from touching the floor.
“Good.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Yoongi blurts out, shifting his knees that are starting to ache, “where are all the others?”
“It’s meditation hour, everyone has to attend,” the man says without further explanation about why he’s in his room instead.
“Sounds a bit cultish, yeah?”
Yoongi’s roommate doesn’t reply. Rolling up his sleeves, the man walks over to the sink to wash his hands, carefully lathering the soap onto his fingers and palms, water sliding down his wiry forearms; all because he touched Yoongi with those hands.
///
To say that Yoongi has slept poorly would be a gross understatement. All night, he lay in bed on his side like a foetus in the womb, with his back against the cold wall and knees hugged to his chest, watching his roommate’s chest rise and fall with soft puffs of breath.
Yoongi cried too, a few rogue tears that snuck up on him, dead-certain that if he closed his eyes even for a minute, the man on the other side of the room would get up and smother him with a pillow for the simple crime of tampering with his belongings.
When Yoongi leaves for breakfast at seven twenty-five, his roommate is still asleep with no signs of rousing. Yoongi doesn’t know how the guy managed to sleep through the alarm that sounded like someone shoving an air horn against his eardrum, but Yoongi deems it wiser not to shake him awake. The man is all skin and bones anyway, and one more skipped meal won’t make a real difference.
Yoongi’s hair is a frizzy mess without any of his usual products at hand, and there’s nothing to be done about the bright purple of his clothes, but he tries his best to blend into the crowd slowly trickling down the hallway and toward the canteen. Most of the inmates seem to be men between the ages of twenty and forty, slow and stiff in their movements like reptiles at dawn.
People seem too tired to pay attention to Yoongi, too eager to get their fill of artificial caffeine and watery porridge that surprisingly doesn’t taste as vile as it looks. Food is food, and Yoongi even tries to get another portion, but the food dispenser flashes an error, stating that Yoongi has exceeded his allowed calorie intake. An inmate responsible for the kitchen leers at Yoongi down his nose and tells him to come back in two hours when they open up the kiosk, because he’s blocking the line. He mumbles out an apology and slinks back to his seat, throwing a jealous glance at a group of bigger men who have portions double of Yoongi’s. They’re eating messily like dogs, spilling porridge all over their trays and cackling at some tasteless joke, and Yoongi has to look away because his stomach throws a somersault.
To make matters worse, Yoongi’s luck at flying undetected runs out after breakfast.
‘Exercise hour’ is held in a barren courtyard between dormity blocks A and B. The sky is a muted shade of blue today, the sun faintly visible behind the dust clouds, and Yoongi dares draw his lungs full of air, a small luxury he’s rarely allowed in Seoul.
The purple jumpsuit makes Yoongi a moving target, turning heads like he’s magnetised. He’s a new face, new meat, and these people are bored out of their minds from the routine that’s supposed to cure them of their anti-societal behaviours. But Yoongi isn’t here to be anyone’s bread nor circus. He’s here to walk around in a circle and get back to his room. He’s going to walk around this yard three hundred and sixty-four more times and then he’ll be free. Not that things will go back to normal – having an offence on his record, however arbitrary, will ensure that he’ll never find employment in his field again, but that’s a problem for a future Yoongi to solve.
Yoongi finds a quiet spot by the perimeter fence that’s almost three metres tall with a coil of barbed wire at the top. There’s only yellowed grass and a narrow gravel path behind the fence, some kind of passageway for the guards. Yoongi takes a moment to scan his surroundings, trying to find a friendly face, anyone he could chat up to learn some basic information to help him keep his head above the water. Not much about these places is known to the public – the general population thinks these people shameful, a footnote in the great history of unified Korea. Yoongi isn’t quite ready to count himself into the bunch, even if it’s self-deception.
Yoongi thinks he’s going to be standing there for the rest of the hour, like a sitting duck, watching people flock in pairs and trios and larger groups that hang around near the smoking area. It’s rare for people to smoke traditional cigarettes, but it’s all that’s allowed here, and people seem to take advantage of the slight loophole by the masses.
All of the groups look rather closed off, and the occasional loners have a haunted look in their eyes – similar to how Yoongi’s roommate, but with a touch of looming insanity that makes Yoongi’s skin crawl. Despite everything, he hasn't gotten that feeling with his roommate. The man seems perfectly in control of himself, using just the right amount of force to render Yoongi pliant and terrified but refraining from mindless cruelty.
Lost in his grim thoughts, Yoongi almost misses that someone is looking at him intently across the yard, even now that the initial wave of excitement over Yoongi’s entrance has died down. It’s a man with bright red hair that sticks out like a sore thumb in the muted greys of the courtyard. He’s leaning against the wall with one foot propped up against the concrete, chewing on the cardboard stick of a lollipop.
Drawing a deep breath, Yoongi approaches him. The man’s eyes widen in what could be surprise or satisfaction, and he pops the half-melted strawberry lollipop out of his mouth.
“Hello,” Yoongi says stiffly, going to bow and then remembering how poorly his roommate had taken to his display of good manners. Surprisingly enough, the redhead bows to him first, just a slight nod of his head but enough to count.
“You look like a lost puppy,” the man says, twirling the lollipop in his small fingers. His lips are stained red. “Or maybe a kitten… hmm. What can I call you?”
“I’m Yoongi. Min Yoongi.”
The man snorts loudly, letting his eyes trail down Yoongi’s body.
“Nice to meet you, Yoongi-ssi. I’m Park Jimin, but people here largely know me as Chimmy. We use aliases around here, it’s safer that way. Less chance of getting uselessly attached.”
“Ah, right,” Yoongi says, feeling dumb and incompetent. Jimin squints his eyes playfully, but there’s an edge to his gaze that wasn’t there a minute ago.
“Where did you get the hair dye?” Yoongi asks, because Jimin doesn’t seem willing to lead the conversation.
“Bought it at the canteen,” Jimin shrugs, running a hand through the crimson red. “These types of things are considered a non-essential item, so it’s crazy expensive, but it’s whatever. I can get people to buy me stuff if needed.”
“Right,” Yoongi repeats. His hand comes up to his own hair on instinct. His roots will start to look really dumb if he doesn’t touch them up soon, but he isn’t sure if drawing attention to himself in any way is the way to go. Jimin’s eyes follow Yoongi’s hand, as if he knows exactly what train of thought Yoongi’s having.
“Who’re you rooming with, if you don’t mind me asking?” Jimin says, giving his lollipop a coy lick. “No one’s been boasting about sharing a room with a cute blond twink, so I’m naturally a little curious.”
Heat creeps up Yoongi’s neck. Gay marriages have been legal since the thirties, but being outed so casually is still a shock to him. Yoongi isn’t uncomfortable with his orientation, but it’s not something that people ever bring up in conversation. Ever since the ban and criminalisation of all pornographic content, which happened when Yoongi was in his late teens, his entire sexuality has existed in a vacuum, sealed and locked away. Dating apps are minefields, full of bounty hunters trying to get evidence of people engaging in illegal activities, and finding love abroad is almost impossible due to the strong firewalls nations have set up to protect their virtual borders.
Yoongi shakes his head slowly, trying to focus back on the present. “I don’t actually know… who he is.”
Jimin raises his brows. “Can you point him out for me?”
“He’s –” Yoongi turns his head from side to side just to be sure, “– not here. He didn’t wake up for breakfast, either. Which I’m kind of grateful for, if I’m being completely honest.”
“Oh fuck,” Jimin swears all of a sudden, grabbing Yoongi by the arm, the grip firm and steady despite his sudden state of agitation. “You got roomed with the Jester?”
Yoongi almost laughs at the dumb nickname. Maybe he should, if only to appear tougher and uneffected by his roommate’s reign of terror. “I really am not sure. He wouldn’t talk to me much, but he wears black if that helps. It seems to be a rare colour around here...”
Jimin interrupts him with another soft-spoken curse. “I thought they’d given up on trying to make him share a room with anyone. And then they put someone like you… are they out of their damn minds?”
Yoongi can only assume Jimin is talking about the guards. “Why is he called the Jester?”
“Because he jests? I don’t know Yoongi-ssi, he’s been here long before me.” Jimin crosses his arms over his chest. He doesn’t sound nor look amused. “Some folks say he’s killed a man, some think he’s plain old crazy.”
Yoongi raises his brows and then quickly forces them back down. He can’t show his emotions on his face. Can’t make himself vulnerable.
Jimin cocks his head. “Want my two cents on the subject? I reckon it would be foolish to underestimate a man like Jung Hoseok.”
“You know his real name? I thought everyone went by an alias here.”
“And yet I got to know your name, too,” Jimin says, flashing a wry smile. His tongue is just as red as his lips, which gives off the illusion of blood, fresh from an open wound. Yoongi’s nostrils flare, he can almost smell the tang of iron –
“What did you do to get here?” he blurts out, desperate to continue the conversation. He can't bear the thought of having to go back to his room and incurring the Jester’s wrath again.
Jimin rolls his eyes and smacks Yoongi in the arm. “You don’t talk about that shit; it’s better if people have to form their opinions of you blind.” Jimin’s annoyed frown melts into something more pitying. “Most people here are… not good people, Yoongi-ssi. Me included.”
Yoongi must look beyond defeated, because Jimin opens his mouth again. “Though I suppose it doesn’t hurt if I tell you. Pretty much everyone here knows that I used to sell my body on the streets.”
Yoongi swallows thickly. Prostitution is strictly prohibited, which means that Jimin’s sentence must’ve been harsh. He could be pushing forty when he got released.
“It was good money, you know. I don’t regret any of it. I also sold worn panties on the dark web but never got caught for that little side gig, so…”
Jimin licks his lips and puts his lollipop back into his mouth for a moment. The bright red looks almost obscene against his plush lips.
“And here…”
“I told you, people here know I was a whore,” Jimin says simply, unashamed. “And because of that, I managed to strike a deal with Kim Baksa. He pretty much runs the show around here, so it’s a great idea to be chummy with him. And he’s not unnecessarily cruel either, so it works out for me.”
Yoongi’s gaze slowly trails to the person Jimin is pointing at. Kim Baksa is tall, broad and muscled in a way that looks functional. The man’s hair is shaved down close to the scalp, and he’s wearing black like Yoongi’s roommate.
“Baksa as in ‘professor’?” Yoongi questions, clearing his throat, trying to appear nonchalant even though his heart is hammering in his chest. “He looks more like an overgrown high school bully to me.”
Jimin snickers, clicking his tongue a little obnoxiously. Yoongi can’t be picky though, he needs all the allies he can get.
“No one knows if he’s a real professor or not, but I can personally attest that he’s exceptionally smart. And he multitasks like no one else – he can be balls-deep inside me and still give out orders to his men without a hitch.”
A cold shiver runs through Yoongi’s body from head to toe. In his rapidly crumbling innocence, Yoongi hadn’t fully grasped what a deal with the professor actually entailed.
“Are you judging me? For being his bitch?”
Yoongi quickly shakes his head, fighting back nausea that has nothing to do with Park Jimin. “Do I need to – to get on his good side, do I need to also…?”
Jimin lets out a shrill laugh, like a songbird that’s locked in the prettiest of cages. His white jumpsuit is baggy on his small frame, but he manages to look awfully pretty and elegant in it.
“I don’t think the prof has a need for another hole to fuck, as he’s got his hands full with reining in the opposing gang. You just need to keep your head low and go introduce yourself at an opportune moment. I can signal you when he’s in a good mood and help you make a good impression. If he ends up liking you, he might help you find protection, or assign you to some easy job with people who won’t give you trouble.”
Gang warfare sounds absolutely terrifying, but Jimin is talking about it with ease, as if he’s got full trust in this professor person’s ability to control the masses. Yoongi throws another glance at the man, taking in his strong, masculine side profile. He looks perfectly comfortable surrounded by his goons, most of them wearing white or grey. Excluding Yoongi’s roommate, Kim Baksa is the only other man in black he’s seen thus far.
Yoongi swallows, warding off the mental image of Jimin together with the man, writhing in pleasure, be it real or acted. It’s not arousal he feels, but there’s an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach.
“I thought there was no sex allowed. Where do you go… to do it with him?”
“The guards are willing to look away,” Jimin explains, tilting his head toward a guard with shaggy hair and strikingly large eyes. “Take Officer Kim Taehyung for instance – he smokes Marlboro Gold even though he’s tried to stop for three months now. One pack and you get twenty minutes. Though lifers get extra privileges – I’m pretty sure the prof could order me to bend over right in this courtyard and there wouldn’t be any repercussions for him.”
“But surely there are no lube or condoms, or STI testing for that matter…?” Yoongi’s pitch is rising higher and higher at every objection, but Jimin pulls him out of his internal spiral by briskly smacking him on the back.
“Relax,” Jimin says, his voice surprisingly authoritative. “I know what you’re thinking right now, but… don’t. It’s no use worrying about things that haven’t happened.”
Yoongi nods blankly.
“And when it comes to me, I’m used to cheap lotion as lube. We’re kind of exclusive with the prof at the moment, too, so diseases aren’t a major concern. If you can find an arrangement like that, it’s not the worst thing, actually.”
“Jimin-ssi…”
“But as I said,” Jimin raises his voice for a second, looking incredibly stern, “I’m used to this kind of life. You’re what, a preschool teacher with a single parking ticket on your record? Your best bet is to stay out of sight, out of trouble.”
Yoongi tries to process all the new information when he suddenly connects two and two together. “Oh God, has that guy, the Jester or whatever he goes by… has he fucked you in the past? Is that why you know his name?”
“Ah no, your delight of a roommate isn’t one to fuck retired prostitutes. He doesn’t fuck at all, as far as I’m aware, which is kind of unusual for a lifer. But I have my own information channels.”
It’s easy to tell what those channels are. Kim Baksa must’ve known the Jester for years – they look around the same age and wear black unlike everyone else. Though Yoongi is silently impressed that Jimin had managed to coax the piece of information out of his pseudo-boyfriend. Perhaps their bond is stronger than Jimin claims. Or is willing to admit.
“Is the Jester in the opposing gang?” Yoongi asks, hoping to squeeze a few more drops of information out of Jimin who luckily doesn’t view him as a threat. “Is that why he avoids the communal spaces?”
“Nah, the Jester is a lone wolf – everyone’s a little scared of him, including the guards,” Jimin replies easily. “He’s been here for so long that no one bats an eye when he refuses to do things. At this point he doesn’t really have a chance to get out, so he might as well, you know? How can you punish someone more who is already beyond hope?”
Yoongi looks down at his feet, the cheap rubber sole shoes he managed to anger his roommate with. They’re silent for a moment, Jimin letting Yoongi process.
“Should I have one of those too?” Yoongi muses out loud after a while, and Jimin frowns, awfully pretty even like that. It’s scary, in a way.
“An alias.”
“You totally should,” Jimin agrees. “But try not to make it really cringy. Or anything cute, people here will smell weakness from a mile away, they won’t hesitate to use anything they can to their advantage.”
“I could be Agust,” Yoongi suggests. “I used to go to these underground rap competitions when I was a teenager.”
“Shut up you didn’t,” Jimin laughs, actually impressed by the looks of it. “Were you any good?”
“I guess I was decent.”
Jimin doesn’t say anything for a while, and Yoongi thinks he’s made a fool of himself once more.
“Okay. Agust it is,” Jimin says with a nondescript smile. “I’ll spread the word.”
This time it’s Yoongi’s turn to grab Jimin by the arm, as the man is about to leave.
“Why are you doing this for me? You seem to be giving a lot of advice that you don’t follow yourself, Jimin-ssi.”
Something flashes through Jimin’s eyes, and Yoongi finds himself pinned against the wall. Jimin is much stronger than his physique suggests, which seems to be a common theme among the inmates he’s met so far.
“Do you have a death wish or what?” Jimin hisses, glancing over his shoulder and grimacing around the lollipop that has found its way back between his teeth. There are multiple pairs of eyes on them, keen and excited. No one will be coming to break them off, Yoongi knows.
Panem et circenses.
“Do not question me, Min Yoongi-ssi,” Jimin spits out. “Do not question Kim Baksa. And for God’s sake, do not question the Jester. Just do what he tells you to do and ask for a transfer when you can. Even if the Jester won’t outright rape you, there’s lots he can do to mess with your head.”
Yoongi blinks sluggishly. There’s a dull throb at the back of his skull.
“You hear me?”
“Am I the local charity case now?” Yoongi forces out, pressing the blunt tips of his fingernails into his palms. “Is that why you’re helping me?”
“Does it really matter?” Jimin sighs, standing back and smoothing out the wrinkles on his jumpsuit. He’s not even out of breath, whereas Yoongi’s knees are buckling under him. If the wall wasn’t right behind him, he’d probably slide to the ground and never pick himself back up again.
“Maybe not,” Yoongi admits slowly, swallowing the lump of humiliation lodged in his throat. “Thank you for your help, Chimmy.”
Jimin gives him a quick wink before turning to leave.
“See you around, Agust. Pleasure meeting you.”