Convict Unit: Black Parade

Big Fist left, and a nagging sense of unease settled over Jae-hee.

He was propping his chin on his hand, humming thoughtfully, when Status Window tapped him on the shoulder.

“Boy-kun. Is your indigestion any better desu?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. The Doctor pricked my fingertip with a needle, and it cleared right up.”

“What? Was it some kind of traditional medicine clinic desu…?”

Status Window pushed his glasses up his nose and let out a small chuckle. “Anyway, if your stomach’s settled, let’s go grab dinner desu! I’ve already scouted out the Mess Hall!”

How the heck does this guy have room for more food after all that jajangmyeon?

Still, he couldn’t deny he was curious about the so-called Mess Hall.

Jae-hee pushed himself to his feet. “All right. Where is it?”

***

The residential levels of the prison cruise ship Paradise Lost occupied the top ten decks.

Excluding the Rooftop on Deck 10 and the Shopping Arcade on Deck 9, Decks 1 through 8 housed the inmates’ cells.

Each of these decks had its own free dining hall—the Mess Hall.

Deck 1, with its high population and large proportion of new inmates, had a particularly massive one located midship.

This Mess Hall had three defining characteristics.

First, it was free. Second, the portions were small.

And third, it tasted like shit.

“This food tastes like absolute garbage desu… I thought it was dog slop desu…”

Status Window grumbled, setting his spoon—made of plastic so it couldn’t be used as a weapon—down on his empty tray.

Despite his complaints, he’d scraped it clean.

Jae-hee, on the other hand, had barely touched his. Not only was the mysterious, viscous gruel disgusting, but the lingering effects of his indigestion left his stomach feeling unsettled.

Jae-hee quietly scanned the dining hall.

Even with the terrible food, the place was packed. It was, after all, the only place to get a free meal and one of the few places on Deck 1 where you could actually breathe.

Besides the prisoners eating, there were just as many sitting around in small groups, chatting as they stared out the windows at the sea.

I was half-expecting some kinda hazing ritual where they’d knock my tray over the second I walked in…

Jae-hee let out a sigh of relief. For all his concern, surprisingly, no one bothered him.

Actually, it was more than just not being bothered…

“Hey, kid!”

“Yo, Rookie!”

“Eat up, little runt!”

Every time he made eye contact, someone would break into a wide grin or wave.

He nodded and waved back, but he couldn’t make sense of it. “Why is everyone so friendly?”

“I heard you made one hell of a first impression desu. What’d you do?”

“Ah, because of my introduction back then…?”

On his first day, while being chased by Razor’s goons, Jae-hee had put on quite a show as he passed through the residential deck. The other inmates’ reactions had been pretty enthusiastic at the time.

“You basically already passed the hazing ritual, didn’t you desu? After all that chaos, you survived, and you pretty much shattered Razor-kun’s crew all by yourself desu.”

“Uh, I didn’t shatter anything…”

“That’s how everyone in here sees it. You’ve proven your skills now, Boy-kun. Your Affection Grind was a huge success.”

Affection Grind? The heck is that?

While Jae-hee tilted his head in confusion, Status Window patted his own stomach.

“Well, it doesn’t matter how much grinding you do on these losers. Not like they’ll trigger any heroine events desu. Boy-kun, why don’t we hit the Shopping Arcade?”

“The Shopping Arcade?”

“If this is dinner, I’ll be too frustrated to sleep tonight desu. Let’s go get some snacks…”

“I’m still not feeling great, so I don’t think I’ll eat anything else today.”

“What?! I’m disappointed, Boy-kun! I thought you were a man of greater ambition desu!”

Despite his words, Status Window clearly didn’t have the guts to go to the Shopping Arcade alone and started pestering Jae-hee to go with him.

Jae-hee was wondering what to do when it happened.

“HRAAAAAGH…!”

A sudden, violent commotion erupted from outside the Mess Hall.

Jae-hee turned toward the noise, puzzled. “What’s all that racket?”

“Sounds like a fight! Let’s go watch desu!”

What could possibly be more entertaining in prison than watching other people fight?

All around them, inmates threw down their spoons and scrambled outside. The two boys hastily joined the crowd to see what was going on.

CRASH! CLANG!

The moment they stepped out, they saw inmates brawling, sending a mountain of stacked trays crashing to the floor.

“Kill that son of a—”

“Get him! Surround him!”

“Finish it already, you fucks!”

One prisoner was surrounded, taking a one-sided beating from a mob.

It was Razor.

With his right shoulder mauled by the Phantom Tyrant, bandaged and immobile, he fought with only his good left arm, a short bone knife clutched in his hand.

“You god-damn-fucking-sons-of-bitches…!” he spat, his curses even thicker than usual as he fought like a cornered beast.

He slit one attacker’s throat and plunged his knife into another’s gut before ripping it out. In an instant, he’d left two men critically wounded on the floor.

Drenched in blood, Razor roared ferociously. “Come on!”

He jabbed the bone knife at the surrounding prisoners, and they scrambled back.

“All of you! I’ll take every last one of you shits to hell with me!”

His bravado was short-lived. The remaining attackers roared and charged as one.

Razor frantically swung his knife and turned to flee.

“Fuck, fucking, bitches, you think I’m gonna end like this…?!”

Scrambling down the corridor, Razor rounded a corner and came face-to-face with Jae-hee, who was just peeking his head out to see what was happening.

Their wide eyes met in shock and locked.

A few seconds later, heavy footsteps thudded from around the corner.

Razor’s pursuers rounded the corner behind him.

“Where’s that little cunt Razor?!”

“He’s a short motherfucker, but damn, he’s fast…!”

“Find him! Kill him—!”

The pursuers shot a glance at Jae-hee and Status Window, who were pressed against the wall to let them pass, and ran by without suspicion. After all, these two were the very ones who had “taken out” Razor in the first place.

The rumbling of their footsteps faded down the corridor.

Once the mob had passed, Jae-hee peeked behind him. Huddled tightly behind Status Window’s broad back, Razor was slumped on the floor, gasping for air.

“Hah… hah…”

After finally catching his breath, Razor looked up at Jae-hee and ground his teeth. “What the fuck was that.”

“…”

“I said, what the fuck was that? You pitying me? That it?”

Razor waved a dismissive, irritated hand. “Forget it. Piss off. I don’t need your damn help. I can handle this myself.”

“Err…”

“What!”

“Isn’t it kinda late to be saying that, after just taking some help…?”

“For fuck’s sake! Didn’t I tell you not to be a smartass?!”

As his temper flared, Razor let out a grunt and clutched his right shoulder. Blood was seeping through the bandages. The violent movements must have torn his wound open.

He let out a pained gasp.

Razor gritted his teeth. “Rotten bitches. If only my right arm…”

Even if his right arm were fine, those numbers are a bit much, Jae-hee thought, but he kept it to himself.

Instead, he asked the question that was really on his mind. “What happened? Weren’t you the ruler of Deck 1, Razor bro?”

Just before the mission, Razor had been the king of Deck 1. He commanded dozens of subordinates with a flick of his wrist. How had he ended up on the run the moment he got back?

Jae-hee couldn’t understand it.

“Still don’t get it, kid? Might is everything in this place.”

Confirming his pursuers were gone, Razor took a long breath and leaned against the wall. “My two top guys, Tat Rat and the Barber, are both dead. And one of my arms is a useless rag. Of course they’d drag me down. You think they were gonna coddle me out of the goodness of their hearts?”

“…”

“Still, I didn’t think the rest of those fuckers would turn on me all at once.”

Once news hit Deck 1 that Razor was in emergency surgery and his two lieutenants were dead, the power dynamic shifted within hours.

Big Fist led the revolt. He had only been biding his time under Razor’s thumb.

Razor’s loyalists were beaten to death or into submission, while the traitors all flocked to Big Fist’s side.

By the time Razor got out of surgery and returned to Deck 1, it was already over.

“Then again, what kind of deep friendship or loyalty can you expect from a bunch of assholes you meet in prison? You backstab and get backstabbed when it’s convenient. Fucking hell…”

Razor chuckled grimly, spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor, and staggered to his feet.

Seeing Jae-hee still standing there watching him, Razor’s brow furrowed into a deep scowl. “What is it, kid? You’ve seen enough. Got something else to say?”

“Well…”

“Or what, you gonna help me? Ha, don’t make me laugh. Unless you’re planning to hide me for the night, get the hell out of my sight.”

As Razor waved him away, Jae-hee nodded. “I’ll hide you.”

“What?”

“My, uh, our room has two empty spots right now.” Jae-hee glanced at Status Window for approval. “That’s okay, right, Window?”

Sweating bullets, Status Window just whistled and turned his back. “I don’t know anything desu~ I’m completely uninvolved in this incident desu~”

“…So there you have it. He says he’ll play dumb.”

Razor stared at Jae-hee, dumbfounded, before asking a short, simple question.

“Why?”

Why was he helping him?

Jae-hee scratched his head, looking sheepish. “You… you made me a really good blade.”

“…”

“Consider this payment for that. Let’s go.”

Razor, still rubbing his chin as if he couldn’t comprehend the situation, finally spoke. “Hey, Jae-hee Han. Let me ask you one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Do you happen to…”

The question that followed was one Jae-hee could never have imagined.

“…have any milk in your room?”

***

Jae-hee and Status Window stopped by the Supply Shop on Deck 1 and bought a variety of snacks, along with bandages, antiseptic, and cartons of sterilized milk.

Jae-hee paid for Status Window’s snacks as a bribe for his silence. Gleefully, Status Window picked out a huge pile of potato chips and fish sausages.

“Are you sure it’s okay to get this much desu?”

“Razor bro said he’d transfer the Credits later. Get as much as you want.”

“Hell yeah~!”

Even though it was mostly processed food, a basket filled to the brim cost less than 1,000 Credits.

Wait a minute. This is only a thousand? Does that mean… I’m kinda rich right now?

Jae-hee pondered this for a moment.

Could it be? Was he… the legendary creature he’d only ever heard rumors about? Was he… Young & Rich?

In any case, they returned to the room and handed the supplies to Razor.

He quickly disinfected and re-bandaged his new wounds from the fight, then downed a carton of milk.

The entire carton vanished down his throat in a series of gulps.

“Hahhh… Fuck! I feel alive again.”

As Razor slammed the empty carton down, Jae-hee stared in awe. “You really like milk, huh.”

“You think I drink this stuff because I like it?” Razor grumbled, tearing open another carton. “It’s because I get nutrient deficiencies from making knives out of my bones.”

Jae-hee gasped, then asked cautiously, “So, does that mean… you’re short because you used up your bones for your ability and… shrank?”

“I was just born short, you little shit!”

“Sorry!”

Razor trembled with rage—his height was clearly a sore spot—but he didn’t press the issue, instead violently chugging the second carton.

He let out a guttural sigh of satisfaction.

After finishing the second carton, Razor seemed to roll words around in his mouth for a moment.

Then, his decision made, his gaze snapped to Jae-hee. “Hey, Jae-hee Han.”

“Yes?”

“You’re gonna be the Deck Leader.”

Jae-hee simply blinked, unable to process the sudden proposal.

A grin spread across Razor’s face as he pointed his index finger at Jae-hee.

“I’ll lend a hand. So you—” The tip of his finger jabbed Jae-hee in the chest. “—take over Deck 1.”