CH 6

My hands trembled. I’ve seen many things for the first time in my life since I possessed Lemony, but it’s the first time I’ve heard gunshots. I was swept to the floor and rolled over without even thinking about running away. Perhaps because I couldn’t feel pain, my head and whole body, which had to be painful, felt nothing, but this was certain.

“I want you to die.”

I didn’t die. As a low tone of contempt resounded, the eyelids that had half given up slowly rose. The bullet was lodged in the wall. That bullet would have been on my head if Deon hadn’t hit me.

“I didn’t mean to ask anyone else to die carelessly.”

He attacked me calmly and stared down the hallway without giving me a glance. Probably looking at the shooter.

“Senior! Senior!”

It was then.

“Is the first-class prisoner dead? Did I shoot well?”

From the side of Deon’s gaze, someone ran toward us with that outspoken voice. It was the prison officer who ran away earlier.

“Senior, what is this situation?”

The man who came running out of breath quickly checked on me and Deon and hesitated. It was a puzzled expression because Deon did not die.

“Why the first-class prisoner looks so fine?”

“…because the bullet flew at me.”

When I, who was under Deon, pushed my head out, his foolish face was colored with surprise. It wasn’t until he saw me under the giant man that he seemed to realize he had messed things up.

He looked as if a scary teacher was calling him.

“I’m sorry! I, uh, uhh….. I’m sure I shot the first-class prisoner….  Uh, uuuh! What is this!”

The man, flustered and trying to make an excuse, was frightened once more when he saw the shackles linking Deon and me. The quiet atmosphere became noisy. Anyway, I thought you were leaving me and running away, but it looks like you really came to save me.

“Calm down. As for how this happened…”

“Have you already used the shackles on the first-class prisoner?”

I blinked to see what was going on, and the man who was twinkling his eyes was opening his mouth wide.

“Senior, you even shackled your own hand so that a first-class prisoner wouldn’t run away…”

What?

“As expected, Senior! You have a tremendous spirit of sacrifice!”

….it’s not like that. As I narrowed my eyes in disbelief, faithful applause erupted from the quiet hallway.

“I’ll take an example!”

For some reason, no one was normal here.

◆

“I’ll report the situation!”

Crackle. The torch, which had been making a pleasant sound, began to grow smaller. I’m sure someone filled up the oil and kept the torch. But the ownerless Dreys Prison was getting darker and darker.

In the middle, a man who did not fit in with the shabby hallway blinked innocently.

“That, I mean, the current situation… The first-class prisoner threatened Senior. So Senior tried stop the first-class prisoner with the shackles.”

“That’s right.”

“That’s why the first-class prisoner put the rest of the shackles he was wearing on the Senior. At that time, I almost shot Senior Lemony’s head due to my inexperience, and the first-class prisoner saved Senior.”

The screaming man lowered his head.

“Conclusion! I’ve sinned to die!”

I nodded disapprovingly at the objective self-reflection. Deon frowned as if he didn’t want to hear it, and immediately turned away.

Fortunately, that man shattered the subtle tension between Deon and me. From my point of view, it wasn’t a bad situation, but I couldn’t believe that such a person was a prison officer.

If you had such a unique personality, you could have appeared in the novel at least once. Well, I thought it over, but that wasn’t the point. Among the invisible extras, there must be all sorts of people. Lemony was one of them.

First of all, I thought I should do something from that sparkling gaze that asked for compliments.

“…you’ve apologized for now, so that’s fine.”

The man who stiffened his neck at my words nodded his head. Even the way he saluted seemed awkward, but he seemed to know how to shoot, so it would be helpful.

It doesn’t matter as long as he didn’t shoot me. 

His impression seems to be a prison officer, so I decided to ask his name first.

“What’s your name anyway?”

“You forgot my name… Senior, did you drink again? My name is Day.”

“I’m sorry it seems like I’m interrogating you, but what class officer are you?”

I put my wrist on that man is not a first-degree prison officer. There’s no such thing as a stupid attitude and no whistle.

“It’s sixth class.”

It was the lowest class.

“Wasn’t the sixth class on the bottom floor?”

“…well, the angry sixth-class prisoner kidnapped me and went upstairs. Fifth-class prisoner kidnapped me again, and fourth-class prisoner kidnapped me again…”

“….therefore…..”

The shock was so great that Day couldn’t speak. He seemed to be tall and quite built, but what he does is like a puppy. Come to think of it, Lemony is 21 years old in settings, but he looked younger than me. I wonder if he’s about 20 years old.

“Somehow I ended up on the 6th floor.”

Still, he finished his answer and gulped down his dry saliva.

My face, which had been hardened like a child trying not to cry, naturally loosened up. His gaze went down as he rubbed the nape of his neck with a slightly embarrassed expression, as if he knew that.

It seemed to be staring at my hand. At first, I thought he was looking at the shackles, but he was actually looking at the other hand.

It was a hand that I hurt while falling down earlier. There was a cut and blood, but that part seemed to be concerning.

He was not a bad person.

Of course, I won’t forget the incident where I almost got a bullet in my head, but I won’t forget that you brought a gun for me.

“I’m glad you survived.”

“What?”

“You’ve had a lot of trouble. I’m glad you survived.”

Realizing that I had cut off all the context before and after, I explained it belatedly and smiled a friendly smile. Well, first of all, since he was a co-worker of Lemony, I thought it would be okay to be a little more friendly.

“Also, I feel relieved because I have fellow prison officer like Day.”

I hesitantly approached him and patted him on the shoulder, and the pupils of his golden eyes, which had been staring at my hand, seemed to narrow for a moment.

Like the eyes of a beast looking at its prey and smacking its lips.

“…you know how to comfort me, Senior.”

Suddenly, goosebumps ran through my body as I felt like I was touching a snake.

It was strange.

I felt an unknown sense of intimidation in the strangely changed atmosphere. His gaze and the corners of his mouth, which had only seemed young, seemed to have grown slightly masculine.

“You can comfort me a little more.”

He tilted his head and whispered softly in my ear. The low tone sounded somehow seductive, so I flinched my shoulders and immediately stepped back. I just patted him on the shoulder, but I felt something was going wrong.

“…Actually, it’s the first time I’ve met a human being here. It’s been a while since the prison was like this.”

“What?”

“A person like Senior. It’s the first time.”

When I came to my senses and looked again, Day was back as a young man I knew. Golden eyes like daisy flowers just bloomed, lovely silver hair covering the forehead, smooth skin like a nobleman, and a charming tear mole beneath the eyes.

I felt like a fool for a moment.

“Ah….”

‘A tear mole?’

I think there was a character with a mole in the novel, but I decided not to care because the main characters were all prisoners. Day was a prison officer anyway.

“…how long have you been working here anyway?”

“It’s been a month!”

Was it a baby, not a prison officer?

A growling first-class prisoner. A third-year high schooler who finished the college entrance exam possessed a prison officer. And even a crying prison officer who has only been on duty for a month. I began to worry about how to survive with a combination of three people who seemed unlikely to have it even if I gave it to them.

As I turned my eyes away, as I was fiddling with my chin, something hard hit my round cheek.

“Officer. Is it your hobby to touch men?”

He asked with an awkward expression as if he was uncomfortable.

That something hard was Deon’s chest. Realizing that I had somehow turned around as if I were being embraced by him, I stiffened my neck and took a backward step.

“Senior, what are your plans for the future anyway?”

I felt a soft touch wrapped around my back and shoulders. When I turned my head, golden eyes, smiling as if to calm down, bent strangely.

Oh, my God. There was Day behind me.

“….that’s,”

The saliva collected on its own. Gulp. I swallowed my saliva so loudly that it bothered me that I muttered after a long time.

“I am concern.”

Anyway, why are they so close? Somehow, when I got caught between two men, I felt like I was suffocating. Looking to the right, the overbearing body with the tunic unbuttoned was holding on without any intention of stepped back, and looking to the left, Day, bent down to make eye contact with me, was grinning.

Eventually, I crouched my shoulders like a person trapped in a crowded elevator. And instead of Deon, I turned my head toward Day. Because the face wasn’t as burdensome as the chest.

“I-I want to go to Building C first.”

“Building C?”

Fortunately, Day asked back with a kind smile.

“Yes. I’m going to visit Chief Yvonne.”

“Do you want to keep talking?”

Curious golden eyes opened and closed. The strange green light intertwined like a spider’s web through the gold seemed to be looking at a clean and clear landscape painting. Do you call this work therapy? Facing his calm gaze, I felt my breath calming down.

In fact, the first place I wanted to go when I got away from Deon was Building C. Building C was the central part of the five buildings at Drace Prison, and on the 3rd floor, there was a control room that could control the entire building in case of an emergency.

Perhaps hearing the emergency bell ring, it was clear that Yvonne was still in the control tower. As the only prison officer to survive until the latter half of 『The Shackles on My Hands』, she was the main villain who fought against the protagonists of the novel.

If I stay with Yvonne, I will be able to survive relatively long. She should have known how to release the shackles, so if things went well, I could use a whistle to give him a restraining order.

It was then.