One afternoon, in a certain prison.
A man stood in front of the tiny washroom within his prison cell. It was occupied; had been for the past hour or so.
He tapped his feet impatiently, looking close to tearing the door down and dragging the b*stard who was hogging the toilet out by the collar. "Oi! Lee Hyuk! How much longer are you going to take?! Stop f*pping in broad daylight, you dirty f*ck!" he yelled crassly.
"F*ck off! I wasn't f*pping!" the young man in question responded aggressively.
"Out! OUT! I've been dying to use the f*cking toilet for so long! F*cking get out, you b*stard!" He slammed his fists against the locked door, glaring into the small, rectangular window on it. In his limited vision, he could see the guy standing over the toilet, no doubt doing his 'business'. He was just too 'healthy', he guessed, as the b*stard had been in the position for a while now.
A prison guard noticed the noise, and began banging his baton against the barred cell window. "Hey, hey, hey, hey! What's with all this racket?! Shut the f*ck up!"
The two arguing people immediately locked their mouths shut. There was no point in defying the prison guard, lest their merits would be deducted and their rights taken away.
Hyuk grumbled as he pulled his pants up and flushed the toilet. He washed his hands properly on the small sink within the washroom, then pointedly threw the door open, nearly banging it into the man outside.
"Motherf*cker—!" The man hissed in pain as the door grazed him.
"There! Are you f*ckin' happy now?"
"F*ckin—oi, I would've been happier if you didn't hog the godd*mn toilet for f*cking hours!"
"Stop fighting~ the nosy b*stards outside can hear you~" the eldest of the cellmates, Lee Moon Deok, warned in a singsong manner. He flipped through another page of his newspaper, barely paying attention to the bickering duo.
Hyuk sent a final glare at his cellmate before retreating to his favourite corner. He turned his back to his cellmates, ignoring them as he sulked.
Of course, the recent altercation was not the reason for his bad mood. No, it was more than that—
—Hyuk was lonely.
It had been months since Yeo Ri's last visit, and it was painful not being able to see her. Despite the fact that he was carefully watching his behaviour, allowing him to keep his visitation rights, he was met with radio silence. The letters had stopped as well, causing him to worry that something had happened to her. Or perhaps... perhaps she had forgotten about him.
It wasn't impossible. Yeo Ri was a celebrity now, he thought, and there must be so many guys—who are better than him—throwing themselves at her. He didn't want to doubt her but Hyuk knew his own self-worth. He was a dumb*ss who barely finished high school, a futureless trash who fell in love with his own sister. Surely the girl could do better.
Hyuk's mood soured even more thanks to his own conjecture. His eyes burned, and he pursed his lips tightly to stop himself from letting the tears fall.
'Stop being such an emotional, overdramatic idiot,' he chided himself inwardly. 'She's probably just busy.'
Hyuk tried his best to convince himself that this silence was temporary—that Yeo Ri would obviously come to see him or write to him once her schedule clears up.
He missed her so much.
He rubbed his wet eyes on his arm roughly, refusing to cave in to his melancholy.
"You crying? No way—you're really crying?" one of his cellmates guffawed.
"F*ck off, sh*thead! I'm not!"
"Hey, if you miss your sister so much, why don't you just call her?" Lee Moon Deok closed his newspaper. The whole cell had been in a strange mood lately thanks to the weeping guy. Hyuk's melancholy brought the whole cell down, and despite their snark and jabs, they truly tried to take care of the young man and his fluctuating emotions. It couldn't be helped—there was just something about Hyuk's close relationship with his sister that warmed their hearts. It was rather endearing how the normally angry boy would become so soft when it comes to his sister.
Hyuk raised his head and looked at his cellmate with uncomprehending eyes, "I can do that?"
"What? Of course you can," the man answered. The inmates were allowed to make one outgoing phone call a day, or every few days, depending on their clearance. It was rather strange that Hyuk didn't know about it when he'd seen the others go out and request calls before. "Don't tell me you didn't know that..." Lee Moon Deok muttered, his voice edging on ridicule.
"I know that!" his face warmed up. It just slipped his mind that he could do it. Besides, even if he knew about it, why would he call her? What would he say? What if he was bothering her? She must be really busy if she couldn't even visit him.
"I mean, can I call her? Won't it be a bother? She's so busy..." he spoke his mind.
His cellmates sent him strange looks after hearing his depreciating thoughts.
"Your sister?" Lee Moon Deok turned to the pile of pink envelopes neatly arranged in Hyuk's box. "The girl who tells you she—ahem, I mean, the girl who goes out on her way to buy cute stationaries and spray perfume on your letters?"
Hyuk glared at him, noticing his slip up. He knew these bunch of b*stards liked to snoop around his stuff. It irked him that his privacy kept being breached, but he wasn't in the mood to pick fights so he let it be. In any case, it wasn't like there was anything incriminating in those letters, and he wouldn't care if they found out about his true relationship with Yeo Ri as long as she remained unhurt.
"...You're right," he gruffly agreed. Yeo Ri was too nice. It was more likely that she was waiting for his call, considering how she used to stay up all night just to wait for her brothers to come home.
The burden in his mind lightened thanks to his cellmate's reassurance.
"It's the wisdom of the elderly," Lee Moon Deok replied wistfully.
"You talk like you're ancient," another cellmate, Soo Tae Gyu, remarked, giving the self-proclaimed elder a kick on his leg. The two eldest members of the cell began bickering as per usual, and the three younger ones went about their business while tuning them out.
Hyuk made up his mind to give her a call—but first, he needed to get back to his daily workout routine. In his sweetheart's last letter, she mentioned about some celebrity that reminded her of him. 'That won't do,' he thought as a feeling of uneasiness enveloped him. He won't lose to some actor! Girls liked fit guys, don't they? So he had to keep up his body shape so that Yeo Ri wouldn't lose interest in him.
With newfound motivation, Hyuk began doing pushups as he formulated the words he would say on his future phone call.