Ruaan walked back onto the field rolling his shoulder slowly.

It popped twice.

He stopped walking and stood very still and waited to see if anything was broken. Nothing fell off. The shoulder still moved like it just had opinions about the direction.

’It’ll fix itself overnight,’ he told himself. ’Probably.’

The murmuring started before he reached the group. He braced himself and looked around and found that nobody was looking at him with the specific expression of people who had just heard something scandalous. They were looking at him with the expression of people who had just watched someone try to lift a weight that was three sizes too large for them and dislocate their own shoulder in front of forty witnesses.

He exhaled in relief.

Yoon appeared immediately, as if he was summoned.

He walked over with his arms folded and stopped in front of Ruaan and looked at him with the calm patience of a man who had given a deadline and was here to collect on it.

"Time’s up," Yoon said. "So tell me. What’s your answer?"

Ruaan looked at him.

He thought about what Harolin had said in the storage room. The sabotage. Bottom ten. He thought about the condition he had spent the last forty minutes designing in his head. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"I’ll do it," Ruaan said.

Yoon’s eyebrows went up slightly.

"Under one condition," Ruaan added.

Yoon looked at him with the expression of someone who had not been expecting resistance at this stage. "Conditions? You’re in no position to be setting conditions."

"Maybe not." Ruaan spread his hands. "But if you don’t want to agree, that’s fine. I’ll just say no and we can see what happens from there."

Yoon’s jaw tightened.

He looked around the field. Made sure nobody was close enough to hear. Then he smiled with his mouth and nothing else and said, "What condition?"

Ruaan grinned.

"I’ll sleep with you," he said, "only if you rank up after tomorrow’s game to black and blue or pure black." He kept his expression open and easy. "Stay in the rank you’re in now and the deal is off."

Yoon stared at him.

Then he laughed.

He let out a short and sharp laugh, like this was the simplest thing he had ever been asked. "That’s it? That’s your condition?"

Ruaan nodded.

Yoon looked at him with the bright satisfied eyes of a man who had already won something. "Easy. I’ll rank up tomorrow and when I do..." he leaned forward slightly "...I’m going to fuck the living hell out of you."

He walked away.

Ruaan watched him go and tightened his fist at his side and thought, ’Harolin better not let that man rank up. Not even one level.’

.

.

Training ended and the shower block became immediately chaotic.

Hot water was available on training days and the entire facility knew it and responded accordingly. Men running. Men arguing about spots. Doors slamming. Voices echoing off tiles. From outside it sounded like a very specific kind of disaster.

Ruaan stood at the entrance, looked at the situation, and turned around and went back to his cell. He didn’t want to be in the midst of bigger men, staring at their asses and cocks. He was so not interested.

He lay on his bed and looked at the ceiling.

He thought about Harolin saying to meet at the officer’s shower at 1am.

He rolled that around and thought if Harolin wanted that ’thing’ again.

The storeroom had been one thing. That had happened. He was fine with that having happened again. But meeting again voluntarily at 1am in a shower block when you already knew what the man looked like without a uniform was a different kind of decision with different kinds of implications.

He rubbed his chin.

’Why does he want to meet,’ he thought. ’Just to talk? That doesn’t sound like Harolin. Harolin doesn’t just talk.’

He looked at the watch on his wrist.

He closed his eyes.

He was going to rest for one hour and then get up for dinner. He was absolutely not going to overthink it.

.

.

He opened his eyes.

The cell was dark and filled with the sound of snoring.

He turned his head and saw Yoon face down on his pillow. Petre curled toward the wall. Luca is flat on his back, already gone.

He looked at the watch.

1:22 AM.

He sat up so fast his shoulder popped back into its correct position with a sound that made his eyes water. He pressed his lips together hard and breathed through the pain for three seconds and then grabbed nothing because he had no time to grab anything. Not even soap or a towel. Nothing at all.

He stood up and reached the cell gate.

He could make an excuse. He could say he fell asleep. That was the truth. Harolin would understand. Harolin was a reasonable person when he wanted to be which was approximately never but still.

He walked to the officer’s shower block. The door was unlocked.

He pushed it open and stepped inside.

Two showers are running.

He stood in the entrance and blinked. His eyes were still swollen from sleeping. He rubbed them with the back of his hand and looked at the two running stalls on opposite ends of the block.

He didn’t know where Harolin was.

He chose the right side. That was where they had been before, the time with the other officer asking about General Lily and Harolin caging him against the wall with the shower running. That side felt like the right one.

He walked toward the right stall. The person inside had black hair visible over the top of the partition. Tall. Built. Standing under the water without moving much.

Ruaan blinked again and tried to get the sleep out of his eyes.

He stopped in front of the stall.

"Lily?" he said.

The person reached forward and turned the shower off.

Then just stood there.

Ruaan took that as confirmation and started talking immediately.

"I’m sorry for coming late. I fell asleep and I didn’t realise how late it was. I’ll take whatever punishment you decide. I know I was supposed to be here at one and it’s already—"

He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the bench beside the stall.

He was about to step in.

A hand grabbed his arm from behind.

"What do you think you’re doing?"

Harolin’s voice came from behind him.

Ruaan turned around.

Harolin was standing in the entrance of the shower block. Fully dry. Fully dressed. Looking at Ruaan’s bare chest and then at the stall Ruaan had been about to step into and then back at Ruaan with an expression that was very tightly controlled.

Ruaan turned back to the stall slowly.

"Who is that?" he said.

The man in the stall reached forward and turned the shower back on. Then apparently decided something and reached forward again and turned it off. Then stepped out.

Oren George stepped out of the shower.

Fully naked.

Everything about him that the tight boxers had suggested was now confirmed and present and entirely visible and pointing in Ruaan’s direction. It was hard, big and thick.

Ruaan’s eyes went down, went back up and went down again.

Harolin’s palm covered Ruaan’s eyes from behind.

"Don’t look at that," Harolin said flatly.

"I wasn’t looking."

"You were absolutely looking."

"I was just—"

"Don’t look at it." He turned his head toward Oren. "Why are you pointing that at him? Cover yourself."

Oren looked between the two of them with the expression of a man who had come to shower in peace and was now standing in an increasingly complicated situation.

"Why is he here? What is he doing here? And..." his eyes went to Ruaan "...who is Lily."

Ruaan reached up and moved Harolin’s hand off his eyes.

Oren was walking to the bench to find something to cover himself. Ruaan’s shirt was closest. Oren reached for it.

Ruaan saw it happening.

He lunged forward to grab his shirt before it could be used as a cover for that situation.

Oren moved it up without thinking.

Ruaan’s hand closed around the wrong thing.

Oren made a sound.

A loud one.

It was involuntary, low and sharp and the kind that bounced off tiles.

Ruaan released immediately and stepped back with his hand against his chest and looked at it and then looked at Oren.

"What the hell was that?" Harolin pulled Ruaan back.

"My shirt..."

Oren stood there for a moment and breathed and then picked up the shirt and very carefully covered his hard self with it with the dignity of a man who had decided that tonight had not happened.

From the other side of the shower block, where the second shower had been running quietly this entire time, the water turned off.

Footsteps.

Then a voice, casual, coming around the corner.

"Who’s there? Hello?"