Chapter 76: The Grey Cafeteria, Seo’s Provocation, And Lev’s Observation!
Ruaan carried the empty tray back to the kitchen himself.
He had not planned to. He had found himself walking in that direction after finishing Harolin’s breakfast and decided that returning the plates was the reasonable thing to do. It also gave him a second reason to leave the room before he spent the entire day watching anime on someone else’s Netflix subscription.
He found the kitchen attached to the back of the cafeteria. A woman at the counter looked up when he approached and took the tray.
"Thanks for the meal," Ruaan said.
"You’re welcome. Would you like to eat...?"
Then she paused and looked down at his uniform.
Her expression shifted. "Oh. I’m sorry. If you’d like to eat more, someone can bring it to your room. You don’t need to come here."
Ruaan looked at the menu board behind her.
It had changed, not just the items.
The presentation and the actual descriptions.
Things that looked like they had been designed by someone who understood that food was supposed to taste like something. The new menu that the director had announced was already in effect.
"Don’t worry about that. I’ll eat here," Ruaan said.
She blinked. "Here? In the grey section?"
"Is there a rule against it?"
She thought about it. "Not technically. What would you like?"
"Something light," Ruaan said. "Whatever looks good."
She carefully put together a tray as if she had been given an unusual request and was taking it seriously. It was almost the first time a black uniform was eating in a grey uniform cafeteria.
She mixed plates and different dishes for him. A bottle of water. A small cup of juice that looked like actual juice rather than the vague approximation of juice that had been on offer during the first week of his arrival.
Ruaan thanked her and turned to find a seat.
He noticed it immediately.
The floor was cleaner, and the seats were better. Not dramatically different but noticeably maintained. He stood at the edge of the room with his tray and thought about the first dinner he had eaten in this cafeteria with his new cellmates, the staring and the hierarchy and the sounds from the far corner that he had been trying very hard not to process.
He really had been here for three weeks, and it felt so long.
He moved toward an empty seat.
People noticed the black uniform before they noticed him specifically. A ripple of awareness moved through the tables. Then recognition settled in after.
The table he was approaching shifted.
People moved. But they didn’t move away from him. They’d moved sideways, making room for him.
"2525," someone said. "Are you sitting here?"
Ruaan looked at the space they had made. "I was going to."
"Come sit with us," a voice from the next table called.
"No, here."
Ruaan looked between them with confusion flooding his face.
He sat down where he had been heading, and the table rearranged itself around him with the specific energy of people who wanted to be close to something without being obvious about wanting to be close to it.
He picked up his fork.
"Why is everyone being strange to me?" he said.
"Uh... you see," The person beside him scratched the back of his neck. "After the last Thursday game, you helped the bottom ten. You stopped Cullen from doing what he always does after."
Ruaan looked at him. "What? Me? I only helped one person."
"But after you got your friend out, Cullen stopped torturing us." The man shrugged. "He let the rest of us go. And since then, nobody has been beaten till today."
Ruaan listened to them and sat with that.
He had not done it for the bottom ten. He had done it for Seo, and he had made a deal with Cullen that served his own purpose, and the fact that everyone else benefited from it had been entirely incidental.
He felt slightly fraudulent.
"You’re all thanking me for something I did for myself," he said.
"Ha! It doesn’t matter why you did it," someone across the table said. "Result is the same."
"Keep Cullen in check for us," another voice said. "You’re the only one he listens to."
"I don’t know that I have that much influence over him," Ruaan said. "Anyone can go from top one to bottom ten. Me included."
"Not Cullen, though," the first man said. "He’s been top one for—"
"Why do you think Cullen can’t become bottom ten?"
The voice came from behind him.
Ruaan flinched hard enough that his fork clattered against the tray. He grabbed the edge of the table and turned around.
Seo was standing directly behind him with his hand on Ruaan’s shoulder and his expression wearing the warm, open smile that Ruaan now understood was fake as fuck.
Ruaan breathed.
’Seo is an enemy; it’s better to keep enemies close,’ Ruaan thought to himself. ’Be careful, Ruaan.’
He did not push Seo away.
Seo sat down beside him and looked at the table and then at the people sitting around it.
"Anyone can go from bottom to top," Seo said pleasantly. He pointed at Ruaan. "He did it in one game." He looked back at the table. "So. Why exactly can’t Cullen Ray go from top one to bottom ten?"
The table went quiet.
Then murmuring started as people started considering what Seo said. Seo had said it calmly and logically, and people were doing what people did when logic was presented to them in the right tone.
Ruaan looked at his food.
He did not like where this was going. He could see the shape of it clearly, and he did not like it, and he could not stop it without making a scene, and Seo knew that.
He lifted his head to look at Seo.
A hand came through the air between them.
It connected with Seo’s face.
Seo went off the chair completely. His body hit the floor, and people around them scattered, chairs scraping, voices cutting out. Ruaan was on his feet without deciding to stand.
He looked back.
Cullen.
He was standing where he had appeared from nowhere with his fist still extended. His eyes were wide with anger as his teeth gnashed against each other.
Seo was on the floor laughing.
His lip was bleeding, and he was laughing, looking up at Cullen with the expression of someone who had gotten exactly what they were looking for.
"I wasn’t lying, though," Seo said, touching his mouth and looking at the blood on his fingers. "Every grey uniform in this room would watch you bleed if you hit the bottom ten. And you know it."
Cullen’s leg came back.
Ruaan stepped between them.
"Don’t," Ruaan said.
Cullen looked at him. His chest was moving fast. "You’re covering for him. After what he did to you."
"I know what he did," Ruaan said and whispered between them. "But there are people watching, and he wants you to do this. Don’t give him what he wants."
Cullen looked past Ruaan at Seo on the floor.
"Hey." Ruaan touched his face with both hands, briefly, tilting it back toward him. "Look at me."
Cullen looked at him.
His breathing slowed.
"He’s trying to provoke you," Ruaan said. "So just walk away."
A long pause.
"I’m only doing this because of you," Cullen said. "If he talks shit again, I’ll kill him."
He turned and walked out.
The cafeteria erupted.
Ruaan sat down and looked at his food and found he had no appetite left.
Seo got back onto the chair beside him, still touching his lip, still with that specific expression.
"Shit!"
Ruaan shook his head and stood up.
He threw the rest of his food away and left.
.
.
At the corner table, Lev watched all of it.
The Seo provocation. Cullen’s punch. Ruaan stepping in between them. Cullen’s face when Ruaan touched it.
He twisted the end of his hair around one finger.
Dominic was stabbing his fork into his food with aggression, like someone who needed somewhere or something to transfer his aggression to.
"You see how difficult it is," Lev said. "You have to work twice as hard, Dominic."
"Shut up," Dominic said. He dropped the fork on the table. Stood up. "I’m going after him."
"Good luck," Lev said, waving.
He watched Dominic leave.
He turned to the third cellmate sitting across from him. He was still eating silently. His head was slightly down, so his hair covered most of his face. He had been eating the same way since they sat down. Focused and unaware of everything around him.
Except Lev had noticed that he was always slightly angled toward whatever was happening in the room.
Lev reached forward and adjusted his own hair.
"Good food, right?" he said pleasantly.
The mute guy did not look up.
Lev looked at the side of his face.
’Such a waste,’ he thought. ’That handsome face, and he can’t even talk.’
He looked back at the door Ruaan had walked through. He thought about Cullen’s face when Ruaan touched it.
He thought about Harolin’s eyes finding Ruaan in an auditorium full of people.
He thought about whatever weird relationship Officer Oren had with Ruaan.
He twirled his hair around his finger and looked at the ceiling.
’Everybody wants him,’ Lev thought. ’And none of them can keep him.’
He smiled to himself.
’I just need to find the right timing.’
