BOUND & BROKEN | JEONGCHEOL AU FF

CH 1: NEW FISH IN THE POND

Seungcheol stirred in his sleep, the morning sun rays seeping through the small window on the right part of his cell. He closed his eyes and draped an arm over them to block the light.

387 days.

It's been exactly 387 days since these four walls became his home. 387 days since their stupid mistake led to them straight to this prison. 387 days wasted doing nothing. Seungcheol wanted to punch someone. Just 708 more days. That much and they're out of here to finally pay back their rival gang. Yes, Seungcheol will make sure they will all pay.

The clanging of locks disturbed his early morning revenge plan- signaling the automatic opening of each cell room. He sat up for a start and brushed his fingers through his hair then got up to put on the prison shirt. He grunted when it got caught around his upper arms- well either the cloth shrunk or his daily push ups have been finally paying off.

Heading out, he tugged on the cell bars he passed by on and shouted, "Get your fat asses up, everyone! Time for breakfast." his sudden outburst elicited a lot of cursing and annoyed grunts but when he looked over his shoulder, he saw most of them up and ready to head out anyway. With majority of his gangmates walking behind him, they made their way down to the galley for their morning ration.

"Ah Choi Seungcheol!" a familiar voice called out to him and he stopped on his tracks. "It's been a while!" It was Jung Hae In, one of the main guards on his side of the prison. Also, a very close sunbae back in highschool. He motioned for his gangmates to head down first.

"Ohh hyung!" Seungcheol exclaimed. "Were you back just now? How was the wedding? I'm disappointed I didn't even get an invite." he pretended to pout.

"Right, coz bringing criminals to my wedding will make my bride feel at ease." the guard said sarcastically. "By the way, I was in the office just now. I heard a new fish is entering our part of the pond today." Seungcheol raised an eyebrow. "I haven't heard about that."

"Apparently, no one tells you anything when I'm not around." the guard snickered and was met by a hateful glare. "Well I hope your cage is clean because you're about to get yourself a roomie."

"What? I'm sharing a cell? With someone who's not in my gang? I don't think so." Seungcheol crossed his arms. No way in hell are they putting in a possible bug inside their extremely tight unit- not when they're halfway done with their revenge plot.

The guard tapped him on the shoulder, "Well, you better suck it up because I'm the one tasked to bring him in later after the classification officer is done with him." Hae-in was already a few steps away when he turned to call out on the prisoner again. "Don't worry, I saw him. He's really pretty."

Seungcheol wanted to punch the guard- just like he did years ago when he made a similar joke about a pretty male senior who's been crushing on Seungcheol. "You know that's not how I roll." he reminded the other but the other just shrugged and went on his way.

Seungcheol finally headed straight to the galley and immediately, he saw Soonyoung waving his arm at him- signaling they've already gotten him some chow. He nodded and made his way to their usual table and sat down on the middle part of the bench. "What took you so long? we almost got into a fight with the new brownie because he thought Hoshi went back for a second serving."

"What even is a brownie?" Seungkwan asked Soonyoung.

"Kitchen staff, duh~" the latter replied waving his chopsticks in the air. Seungkwan hoffed, "Since when did you start using prison slang?"

Soonyoung looked at him as though he's about to hit him, "Since we're in the prison, duh."

Seungcheol grinned and mumbled a quick thanks to his gangmates. While eating, he glanced around to observe them all and of course, they are in their usual loud selves except for Minghao who's busy listening attentively at Jun saying non-sense but he's laughing anyway.