MLCD Chapter 4.1 || New Moon

He had met Shavonne nine years ago at the Lute Penitentiary.

The ice cold waves crashed against the cliff. With a loud splashing, they broke apart, creating pale spray. Seagulls flew up, squawking into the dark black sky where one couldn’t tell apart day or night.

Winter in Bunch was often said to be bitterly cold, but compared to this place, it might as well be summer. Lute. Located at the northernmost point of the country, Lute was extremely cold. Forget about agriculture, not even a single blade of grass could grow there.

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There was a well-known story of how, about 1,800 years ago, the barbarians from the south who had invaded this place called it “useless land” and ended up not occupying Lute. It was also widely known that the group of people who had fled to Lute to escape the barbarians’ murders, rapes, and plunders – half of them had frozen to death, and the other half had starved to death. It was an abandoned land until a penitentiary was established there 50 years ago.

There were no clear criteria for internment. At first, it seemed to be only political prisoners, but then common criminals were brought in as well. A conman who had scammed someone from the royal family and was trying to flee the country, a coachman who had committed adultery with a count’s daughter, a textile worker who had accidentally crippled a blood relative of the prime minister… The crimes were varied.

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There were also people who had been brought in without committing any crimes. In reality, they probably hadn’t committed any crimes, but they had done something that displeased the ‘higher-ups’, though they were unaware of it.

Those were the kind of inmates there were. They all were really different from each other. Age, occupation, hometown, family, education… The inmates could list countless ways in which they differed from one another, as many as the ‘reasons why I want to go back home’. Yet, they had one thing in common: they would die in this penitentiary.

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Except for one.

He had ‘bitten’ the guard who had come to work.

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‘Biting’ is what they called it, but the actual meaning wasn’t just biting. Sometimes it did involve biting, in the literal sense, but ‘biting’ generally meant harming someone using not just the teeth, but the entire body – hands, feet, head, and so on. Rarely, they even used tools.

“Let go, you son of a bitch!”

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In a cramped solitary cell, there was only a dim incandescent bulb, and there wasn’t a desk, chair, or even a bed. It was completely isolated from the outside world. The door was locked and needed a code, but since he was illiterate, he couldn’t open it. He couldn’t break it either. It was an iron door, and judging from what he had seen when the guards opened it, the door was as thick as an arm.

That sturdy iron door blocked everything. Nothing could get in or out without the warden’s permission. No people, light, shadow, seasons, cold, heat, and not even a sound.

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The lack of sound was unfortunate, at least for the guard he had bitten. Even if he cried, shouted, or screamed (if he were a normal person), there would be no one to hear it.

“Fuck, let go! Let- ah, aah!”

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He tore off the nametag on the guard’s uniform. It seemed to be clumsily sewn on, as it came off with a ripping sound. A small, solid metal nametag, no bigger than two fingers. No one would consider it a weapon, but to him, anything he used became a weapon, even a withered blade of grass.

Grasping the nametag, he sharpened the edge and stabbed it into the guard’s eye. No, ‘stabbed’ wasn’t quite accurate – he more like gouged it out. The guard let out a scream. His limbs flailed, trying to push him away, but to no avail.

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He grabbed the guard’s neck. It was hot, and he could feel the pulse throbbing. He could see his own hand wrapped around the neck, his nails ragged and the skin under his nails festering, almost rotten. There had been times when his nails had grown healthy and new skin had formed, but that was ages ago, in a distant past. Using a hot poker, searing him, stabbing him with sharp objects and cutting him so that his injuries would fester – day after day, he had undergone such ‘procedures,’ so it was only natural that his body was falling apart. His nails no longer grew healthy, and where there should be new skin, there was only pain.

It’s all their fault.

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His yellow eyes, glaring at the guard, were burning. The hand gripping the neck tensed up, the tendons on the back of his hand looked hideously prominent, maybe because he was skinny.

It’s all their fault.

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There was a sound of bone breaking. No dying screams. The guard’s body went limp, his eyes rolled back, whites showing, never to close again.

Yet, the fire in the yellow eyes showed no sign of fading. He climbed onto the corpse, grasping the metal nametag and began cutting to pieces the body. As the nametag’s edges weren’t like a knife, being too dull, it was more like digging the flesh than cutting it.

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How long have I been doing it for? The nametag, unable to withstand the constant pressure, finally broke with a snap. The broken edge was sharp, sharp enough for real cutting.

But before he could truly start doing it, mist began to fill the room. It was gas. He didn’t know it was gas, nor did he know the purpose of this gas, but he knew it made him vulnerable. According to the guards, it was a precious commodity, only to be used when absolutely necessary.

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His mind grew hazy. His body went limp. His legs buckled, his arms weakened. Even his hands were not spared. The nametag slipped from his grasp, clattering to the floor with a metallic thud. His body crumpled next to the nametag.

He tried to get up, but could only twitch helplessly, unable to rise.

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Familiar footsteps were heard. He managed to lift his eyes to the room filled with gas. The iron door was open. Someone was approaching him. It was blurry, but he could make out a bald head, a large mole on the neck, and a black gas mask. He was the one the inmates called the ‘Vice Warden.’

“Did you bite someone again?”

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The ‘Vice Warden’ kicked his face, which was on the floor. The decorative pin on the boot tore his cheek. Blood oozed from his cheek. It was hot, but not painful. No, perhaps it was painful, but he just didn’t care. Compared to the times his skin had been seared, his nails twisted with a hot poker, or having his flesh flayed, a torn cheek was nothing.

Though he was too weak to fight back or even sit up straight due to the gas, his piercing yellow eyes never lost their intensity. He glared at the ‘Vice Warden’, blood vessels bulging so much to the point that cracks seemed to appear in his eyes.

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The ‘Vice Warden’ seemed displeased by this.

“Fucking dog doesn’t even know its place.”

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His face was stomped on by the boot. The dirt clinging to the sole dug into his face. It stung. It even got into his eyes, making them sting. But he did not close his eyes, nor did he look away. He continued to glare at the ‘Vice Warden’ with his bloodshot eyes. If looks could kill, he might have killed the ‘Vice Warden’ over and over again.

But alas, looks can’t kill people.

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“You’ve bitten five guards this winter alone. Do you know how much it costs to hire, train, and dispose of one guard? The budget is already drained, goddammit…”

He did not understand what the ‘Vice Warden’ was complaining about. Words like “hire,” “train,” and “dispose of” were all unfamiliar to him. The word “budget” was something he had never heard before. The guards, including the ‘Vice Warden,’ no, the people around him, were always using words he didn’t know.

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Anyway, what “hire,” “train,” “dispose of,” and “budget” meant didn’t really matter. He bared his teeth and growled. The ‘Vice Warden’ clicked his tongue. “You’re a dog that doesn’t even recognize its owner.”

Dogs walked on four legs, had tails, and sharp teeth. He walked on two legs, had no tail, and his teeth were not sharp. But he was a dog. He may look human, but he was **a dog. Everyone called him a dog and treated him as such.

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A long time ago, there were guards who were unsure whether he was a dog or a human, but that changed once he started “biting” people. Now, everyone agreed that he was a dog. A ferocious dog, a dog that didn’t recognize its owner, a dog that must be shot without hesitation if it runs wild.

“If only Mr. Pharrell had authorized it, I would have dumped you into the sea to feed the fish long ago… damn it.”

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The ‘Vice Warden’ used more words he didn’t understand. The sea and the fish were both unknown to him. From the context, it seems the sea was a place, and the fish were some kind of living being.

In his mind, the sea resembled the cramped solitary cell, with a dim incandescent bulb on the ceiling and a sturdy iron door. The fish had no hair or tails and looked like the people in uniform with nametags, walking on two legs. Of course, this was a ridiculous assumption, but he had only met the guards and Pharrell. He was a man who had been born in a cell, raised in a cell, and (probably) would die in a cell, so that was the best he could imagine.

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“Stay put.”

The ‘Vice Warden’ spoke. He didn’t wonder why he was told to stay put. Based on a lifetime of experience, he knew what the ‘Vice Warden’ was about to do.

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“Time to work.” The ‘Vice Warden’ added, “That idiot kicked the bucket, but I can’t just leave it be, I’ll have to do it myself.”

He sneered as he looked at the guard’s corpse sprawled on the floor.

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That’s when he mustered all his strength and grabbed the ‘Vice Warden”s leg. “What the?” Taking advantage of the ‘Vice Warden”s surprise, he sank his teeth into the leg. He bit down.

The ‘Vice Warden”s scream sounded distant. “You, you damn dog.” He stammered, trying to shake him off, but he wouldn’t give in so easily. Like a leech, he clung and sank his teeth into the ‘Vice Warden”s leg. He tasted the salty blood seeping through the pant leg.

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Realizing he couldn’t shake him off no matter how much he hit or shook him, the ‘Vice Warden’ hastily pulled a baton from his pocket. He struck the back of his head repeatedly. It was only after the third blow that he finally released the ‘Vice Warden.’

The ‘Vice Warden’s’ pants slipped through his fingers. Blood oozed from the back of his head. The hazy consciousness that had been dulled by the gas was now growing increasingly murky. The light in his eyes was dimming. The ‘Vice Warden’ kicked him, spitting in disgust.

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Knocked down, he was tied to a chair with ropes, not the common kind found on the market, but thick sailor’s ropes used for navigation. Soon, a poker, a knife, and a long staff came into view in his blurring vision. They were the tools used for “work”.

It had begun, never missing a day.

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• **

Just as always, when the “work” was done, he was thoroughly injured. There wasn’t a single part of him unscathed. His limbs were numb, his chest, waist, and sides were oozing blood and discharge. Blisters had appeared on the burned areas. Searing pain enveloped his entire body.

― Don’t bite.

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The ‘Vice Warden’ ordered him. He simply glared at the ‘Vice Warden’ and said nothing. The ‘Vice Warden’s’ red-hot poker swept across his chest.

― Answer me.

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He still didn’t answer. The ‘Vice Warden”s face hardened. A cold voice slipped through his clenched teeth.

― Alright, then we’ll have to train you. Our job is to teach you when to bite and when not to.

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And so, all his fingers except his left foot and two pinky fingers were broken to prevent him from biting with his limbs. Of course, the ‘Vice Warden,’ who had been severely bitten on the leg, did not forget to make sure he couldn’t bite with his teeth either. He had to wear a muzzle – a hard, cold muzzle that made a ting, ting sound when touched. He had expected all his teeth to be pulled out, so he was surprised.

After the “work,” he slept. At first, the pain was so excruciating that he couldn’t sleep, but now the fatigue outweighed the pain, as he had grown accustomed to it.

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There was no one in the solitary cell but him. When not doing the “work,” he was always alone. He limped to the edge of the cell and curled up on the cold, hard floor. The moment he woke up, the cycle would repeat: endure “work,” sleep, bite the guards, endure the “work,” sleep, bite the guards… That was the life of a dog and the life of a guard. That was the only life he knew.

Slowly, sleep crept in and his eyes closed. The universe disappeared and reappeared in the darkness that filled his vision. The universe. This place, where the only thing present was the dim incandescent bulb, without even a desk, chair, or bed, with an iron door thick as an adult’s forearm – this was his universe.

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***

It was the day he had woken up after fifteen nights of sleep.

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He had awoken to faint sounds coming from beyond the iron door. An ordinary person wouldn’t have heard anything, but he was different. It was only natural as dogs had better hearing than humans.

― …This side is the… corridor… and that side is… the cafeteria…

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It was a familiar voice – the one they called the Superintendent. When he first saw him, his hair was black, but now it was gray.

A responding voice was heard. One he didn’t recognize.

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― And this room?

Who is it? He thought. A new guard, perhaps. It didn’t take long for him to deduce that. It had been fifteen nights since he last bit a guard. Fifteen nights. Enough time to replace the vacancy.

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He wanted to bite. But his body hadn’t healed. Not only had it not improved, but the pain had been worsening daily, to the point where even moving was a struggle. His bones were slow to mend, and the wounds from the “work” oozed blood and secretions. The muzzle remained, with no one to remove it.

― Shh, this is the room where the dog is.

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The voice continued.

― It’s extremely dangerous. Just in the past year, we’ve lost twenty guards who were bitten to death by it! Twenty!

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― Twenty?

― Yeah. The higher-ups, like the Warden or the Vice Warden, can subdue it with gas or something like that, but us ordinary guards… We can only pray that the ‘dog duty’ doesn’t fall on us.

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― Does that mean anyone who encounters the dog will definitely die?

― Not exactly. The dead guards died because they foolishly approached it without the proper protective gear. Those reckless guys… I knew their fate from the moment they wouldn’t wear the protective gear, saying it was a hassle.

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― So, Superintendent, are you saying it’s not dangerous if I wear the protective gear?

― That’s not it either.

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― Then what is it?

― The dog’s unpredictable. It is quite temperamental. Rub him the wrong way, and it’ll bite immediately. When that happens, the protective gear is useless. It’ll scratch it, tear it into pieces, and bite through it as if it’s nothing.

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― Oh… So it’s a really dangerous dog.

― Yes. I dare say, the most dangerous dog in the world. But…

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― But?

The guard’s voice lowered, as if whispering a secret.

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― Don’t you want to see it?

― Are you crazy? No, have you gone mad¹? Ah, no, I apologize. I got carried away… But didn’t you just say it’s the most dangerous dog in the world?

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― It’s a unique dog. If not now, you may never get to see it.

― I don’t care. I don’t have the guts to risk my life out of curiosity.

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The new guard added, sounding hesitant.

― I’d like to live to a hundred if I could. Maybe eighty. Sixty at the least.

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The Superintendent continued in a low, whispering tone.

―It’s safe. Just a few days ago, the dog went on a rampage and got thoroughly punished by the Vice Warden. It’s got a muzzle on and its front and hind legs are broken. It can’t bite, let alone move properly.

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― …

― So? Aren’t you curious?

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The new guard was silent, troubled.

To prevent the hesitation from dragging on, the Superintendent pressed him.

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― Wouldn’t you like to see it?

The response came in the form of a sound. There was a clunking noise, and the iron door opened. He found himself facing the Superintendent and the new guard at the doorway. The Superintendent had a faint smile on his face, as if anticipating a reaction, but the new guard did not.

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The new guard could not take his eyes off him. He, the one with the muzzle, his limbs broken, his body covered in wounds.

“The dog…”

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The new guard spoke, his voice faintly trembling. An ordinary person might not have noticed, but he was different. It was only natural – dogs have better hearing than humans.

“… is so…”

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He met the eyes of the new prison guard. He saw ‘something’ in his eyes, but he didn’t know what it was. Just as people said things he didn’t know, just as he didn’t know the sea and the fish, he didn’t know what was in the eyes of the new guard.

“…beautiful².”

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Luckily or not, he didn’t know what “beautiful” meant.

***

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Someone had come on the night when he, as always, was curled up in the corner of the room, sleeping.

The sound of the iron door clanking made him silently open his eyes. His golden eyes were filled with wariness. Who could it be? **No one would struggle so much to open the iron door. After all, anyone working at the Lute Penitentiary, from the Warden to the ‘Vice Warden’ to the Superintendent to the errand boys, was thoroughly trained in the methods of managing the facility (which of course included the method of opening the iron door).

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The mystery was quickly solved.

― Damn, why won’t it open?

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An irritated voice came from beyond the iron door. It was a familiar voice – the new guard who had come with the Superintendent earlier that day. The gaze of the man standing at the doorway, staring intently at him, was still etched in his memory. Perhaps it was because it was a look he could not decipher that it remained unforgettable.

What had the man said back then? “The dog is so beautiful,” or something like that? He wasn’t sure if “beautiful” was the exact word. It might have been “bootiful” or “bitiful.” In any case, it was the first time he had heard that word.

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― Open… come on.

Muttering softly, the man seemed to lose his patience with the stubborn iron door and kicked it. Of course, he couldn’t see the man’s figure beyond the door, but he knew for certain that it was the same dull, echoing thud that had sounded when he himself had kicked the door.

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As expected, a pained groan came from the other side of the door. If he was lucky, it would be just a numb, tingling sensation in the leg. If unlucky, the flesh might have been torn off. He had experienced the latter.

The man didn’t give up. The sound of the iron door clanking continued, along with the man muttering to himself.

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― Goddamnit, the Superintendent was able to open it somehow…

After struggling for a while,

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― Ah, got it.

The sound of metal clicking echoed as the iron door opened. It was surprising that someone who hadn’t even learned how to properly manage the facility was able to open it.

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Is he here to work? The thought made his body stiffen. His back was rigid. His arms and legs were frozen as well. Fifteen nights ago, blisters had formed on his feet because of Vice Warden’s red-hot poker. The blisters had burst and reformed five times over. This was the sixth time. The wounds had worsened as his feet scraped against the floor, oozing secretions and blood.

I want to bite him. I can’t even use my mouth because of the muzzle, but I want to bite him. I can barely move with my broken bones and unsteady limbs, but I want to bite him. I could do it if it weren’t for the gray smoke that makes me weak. If he gets closer, I’ll pounce on him. I have this annoying metal muzzle, but I can use it to beat him to death.

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He could kill a person with just a nametag. There was no reason he couldn’t kill a man with the muzzle.

Hissing breaths seeped out between his clenched teeth as he glared at the door.

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Soon, a man entered.

“Where is… Ah.”

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The man scanning the room spotted him in the corner and froze. He stared back without blinking, showing his bloodshot eyes. Have I scared him? The man flinched and instinctively tried to step back, but quickly regained his composure and began to talk in a hurry, clearly flustered.

“He… hello?”

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He didn’t respond at all, just staring silently at the man’s face. His face was full of vulnerable spots. Eyes that could easily burst if attacked, the jaw that could disrupt his balance, a philtrum, ears and temples that he could use to make him stop breathing. The man’s image was etched clearly in his mind.

I want to bite him.

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The savage urge welled up in his throat like sputum.

He watched as the man hesitated, then moved his lips again. His lips were paler than any he had seen before. A tepid voice slipped out between them.

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“…Hi?”

This time too, he gave no response. The only difference was that he swallowed back the urge surging up to his chin, his Adam’s apple bobbing briefly.

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The man took a step forward. But that was it. There were seven steps between them. That was the safe distance the man maintained.

The man crouched down and sat, removing his hat to meet his gaze slowly.

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“What’s your name?”

A question flew his way. It was a meaningless question. No one tells a dog to speak. He simply glared at the man with hostile eyes, showing no reaction.

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“How old are you?”

Another meaningless question. He glared at the man with hostile eyes, showing no reaction.

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“What about your family?”

Yet another meaningless question. He glared at the man with hostile eyes, showing no reaction.

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Has he realized his questions are pointless? The man sighed deeply. He absently played with the brim of his hat, glancing around the room – at the far wall, the ventilation pipe, at the tips of his shoes, and then lowered his head. Soft sighs escaped from his bowed head.

He was puzzled. He didn’t understand why the man was sighing in front of him, and he didn’t particularly want to know. The world was full of things he couldn’t comprehend. No, the world itself was something he couldn’t understand. But he wasn’t allowed to know. It was only natural. No one tells a dog to be an expert on all things.

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The man lifted his head. It was clear he wasn’t calm, but he was purposefully trying to appear so. Even someone like him, who was not skilled at reading faces, could easily tell.

“Right, there’s no time to dawdle…” the man muttered to himself, then started taking something out.

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He froze. It must be a tool for working. A poker? A knife? Or maybe a baton? While he was thinking, the light from the incandescent bulb illuminated the ‘something’ in question. It wasn’t a poker. It wasn’t a knife. It wasn’t a baton either.

It was a white cloth.

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“Wipe yourself.”

The man tossed the white cloth towards where he was. The white cloth fluttered in the air and gently landed in front of him. But he didn’t pick it up. He didn’t even look at it. He continued to glare at the man with hostile eyes, showing no reaction.

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He didn’t know what that white cloth was. But it was surely a tool used for working. A poker makes blisters, abscesses, and burns. A knife cuts his flesh, makes him bleed, and makes dark scabs. A baton causes bruises. But what about that white cloth?

Not knowing something was dangerous. If he wiped his body with that white cloth, he might get boils. Or a disease that rots the flesh could spread over his entire body.

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“Why aren’t you wiping yourself?”

The man tilted his head. Then, as if realizing something, he snapped his fingers.

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“Ah. You don’t know how to use a towel, right?”

He asked in a questioning tone, even though he must have known there was no way he would answer. “Like this.” The man picked up the cloth and mimicked wiping his body. “Use the towel to rub and wipe off the blood clots like this… Are you watching properly?” He still spoke in a questioning tone, even though he must have known there was no way he would answer. As if he were a human. It was suspicious. No one would tell a dog to become a human, after all.

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He reached for the white cloth. Even just reaching out, the pain was so great it felt like his entire arm was shattered. “That’s right, like that. Just like that.” The man’s encouraging voice sounded excited. The man wasn’t aware of the fact that the reason he was enduring such pain to pick up the white cloth wasn’t to wipe his body.

The next moment, the sound of the cloth tearing echoed in the room.

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It wasn’t torn just once. Two, three, four, five times… Shreds of the torn cloth lay messily on the floor.

He looked at the man.

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The man’s face was frozen. His eyes twitched and his Adam’s apple bobbed incessantly as if desperately suppressing his emotions.

“…I told you to wipe off the blood clots, not to tear it.”

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The man spoke. His voice was strained.

“That towel was mine.”

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He just looked at the man, showing no reaction.

“Don’t you know you shouldn’t damage other people’s property?”

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He just looked at the man, showing no reaction.

“Can’t you hear me?”

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He just looked at the man, showing no reaction. Is he angry by my lack of response? The man’s next words had a harsh tone, unlike before.

“Just because people here keep calling you a dog, do you really think you’re a dog? You don’t walk on four legs, you don’t have a long snout, you don’t have a tail. Do you still think you’re a dog? Not a human?”

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He just looked at the man, showing no reaction. After staring at him for a while, the man finally muttered a short curse, “Damn, he really thinks so,” and rubbed his face with both hands. Of course, to this too, he just looked at the man, showing no reaction.

It was after a considerable time had passed that the man spoke again.

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“…Listen.”

His voice was dry. He seemed drained from trying to compose himself.

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“You probably won’t even pretend to listen, but you should know anyway.”

He still showed no reaction. The man continued regardless.

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“You’re not a dog.”

He still showed no reaction.

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“You are…, no, never mind.”

He wanted to add something but stopped himself.

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“Anyway, there’s no dog as handsome as you. I’m serious.”

It was as the man said. Whether it was saying he wasn’t a dog, or that there was no dog as handsome as him (he didn’t know what ‘handsome’ meant. Perhaps it meant ‘bites well’?), it was something he would ‘not even pretend to listen’.

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“Huh.”

The man sighed and got up. “I’ll be back soon, so stay put. Understood?” He rolled up his sleeve, glanced at his wristwatch, and added, “In about… 20 minutes.”

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I’ll be back soon. After saying that, the man left the isolation cell. With a clank, the iron door opened, and with another clank, it closed again. He was alone. All that was left for him was the isolation cell, the light from the incandescent bulb, and his body covered in bruises, pus, and pain. Oh, if he had to count one more thing, there were also the shreds of white cloth scattered on the floor.

‘I’ll be back soon.’

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The man said he would return. It wasn’t a strange thing. Guards never abandoned their work midway. From what he had overheard, guards received something based on the number of successful times they had ‘worked’. What is it called again? There’s a specific term for that something.

After a moment of trying to remember, he actually recalled what it was called. Money. The guards called it ‘money’.

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He didn’t relax. Tension was his way of living. Being hit hurts. Being burned hurts, being cut hurts. The pain was the same, but the difference was that it hurt less when he was tensed.

He couldn’t resist too much. If he tried to bite them, they’d put a muzzle on; if he tried to tear them with his hands, his wrists would be broken; if he tried to crush them with his feet, his ankles would be broken. But tension was different. Tension was a resistance that could never cease unless he decided to.

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Just because people here keep calling you a dog, do you really think you’re a dog? You don’t walk on four legs, you don’t have a long snout, you don’t have a tail. Do you still think you’re a dog? Not a human?

The man returned quickly. Unlike earlier when he had struggled to open the iron door, not knowing how, this time he opened it without a single mistake. The man who appeared at the doorway with a clank had a slightly flushed face. His voice was the same. “I came back quickly, right?”

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Without waiting for a response, the man pointed to his wristwatch with a satisfied expression. “See? It only took 13 minutes from the tool storage room to here. It was worth running after all.” The round watch had clock hands inside it. There were symbols written along the edge of the watch. 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…, each number representing a time, but to him, who couldn’t read a clock and was illiterate, they were no different from scribbles.

It was then that he saw the object in the man’s hand. The moment he realized what it was, his breath turned cold. It seemed that this was the tool the man had brought from the tool storage room, as it wasn’t there when he first came in but was now.

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What the man had brought was a baton.

A baton. Sturdy, heavy, and easy to use even for beginners, it was an indispensable tool for working. Being hit with a baton caused him bruises and it wasn’t rare ending up with broken bones. Unlike the batons usually used by guards, the one the man brought had a hole at the end. He didn’t know why the man had brought a baton with a hole, but it didn’t matter. Whether it was a baton with a hole or without, it would hurt just the same when hit.

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His gaze sharpened as he observed the man. Tension crept into his neck. Would the man swing the baton sideways or downwards? He couldn’t guess, but he hoped it would be the latter. If the man intended to swing, he would close the distance between them by five steps, but if he intended to swing downwards, it would be different. He would close the distance by three steps. Three steps. The closer, the better to pounce on the man.

He imagined the scene of the man’s face being smashed against the metal muzzle. The image of the man’s face with blood splattered, flesh mashed, and teeth shattered was vivid in his mind.

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However, the man’s next action deviated from his expectation.

“If you tear it again this time, I’ll get angry for real.”

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The man was threading a cloth through the hole in the baton. The shape, thickness, and material were identical to the white cloth he had torn earlier.

“If I had many towels, I wouldn’t care whether you tore one or a hundred, but unfortunately, I haven’t got many towels.”

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While saying this, the man tied the end of the cloth to the baton pole to prevent it from slipping out. Even then, as if still not satisfied, he tied it with a double knot.

“Do you know that I’m so poor that I only have three towels? One was given to me here, I had one before coming here and the other one I bought to commemorate getting a job… and someone tore it to shreds.” He glared at him, not unkindly, emphasizing, “‘Someone’, you know.”

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Naturally, the man’s gaze shifted from him to the cloth scraps scattered at his feet. “If it had been torn moderately, I would have mended it and used it again…. Thanks to someone, I’ll have to buy a towel with my first paycheck.”

Then the man adjusted his grip on the baton. He, who had been momentarily distracted by the incomprehensible words the man had been spouting (What is this ‘towel’ the man keeps saying? What is a ‘job’? What is to ‘commemorate’?), finally regained his tension.

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Perhaps instead of swinging sideways or downwards, the man was planning to do another kind of hit with the baton that he didn’t know about. It wasn’t an unfounded guess, given that the man had only been doing things he didn’t know and saying things he didn’t understand.

His body stiffened. He didn’t want to imagine what kind of unfamiliar pain the man’s unfamiliar action would bring, but he couldn’t stop imagining it. I don’t want to imagine it. If, by some chance, he were allowed to make a wish, he would wish not to imagine rather than wishing not to feel pain.

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Imagination hurt more than reality. He couldn’t bear the fictional pain of imagining his body being crushed more than the actual pain of his body being crushed.

The distance between him and the man was still seven steps. Without moving a single step from that spot, the man extended the baton with the cloth threaded through it. Is he going to hit me? Just as he was about to unconsciously pull his body back, the baton touched his shoulder stained with pus and blood. More precisely, the cloth threaded through the baton.

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He froze.

“Tell me if it hurts.”

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The cloth was soft. He thought it would sting like sandpaper, but it didn’t. Whether it was because the man had carried it in his arms or because he had been fiddling with it while threading and tying it to the baton, the cloth also had warmth in it. He thought it would be hot like a heated poker, but it wasn’t.

“Oh right, you don’t speak. If it hurts, nod your head. Or shake it. Okay?”

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The cloth began to rub and clean his shoulder.

But it didn’t hurt.

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He tried to back away but couldn’t. Not only was there nowhere to retreat to as he was at the edge of the room, but he also couldn’t move his body. Frozen, he couldn’t even twitch.

“It’s not cleaning you well.”

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Confirming that the blood and pus weren’t easily wiped off, the man slightly furrowed his brow.

“It must have dried up. If I had known this, I would have brought it soaked in warm water.”

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A short sigh. “I can’t just go back and come again since it’s time for the guard to come… tsk. There’s no choice.” He shrugged and continued. “I’m going to scrub hard. It might hurt incomparably more than just now… anyway, if it hurts, nod your head. Or shake it.”

The cloth rubbed and cleaned his shoulder again. Although it was a movement with more force than before, it didn’t hurt at all. It didn’t sting or burn. To him, accustomed to his skin being seared, nails twisted with heated pokers, or flesh torn, this was less than a flea bite.

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But he was still frozen, unable to move. What kept him from moving wasn’t a poker, knife, or baton. It was the cloth. The thin, light cloth that he could tear to shreds if he felt like it.

“It doesn’t hurt?”

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He showed no reaction. It was the same non-response he had shown repeatedly, but this time it was a bit different. While the previous ones were because he had no intention of responding, this one was because he couldn’t respond even if he wanted to, as his whole body was frozen.

“…I guess it doesn’t hurt.”

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He must be very patient. The man persistently spoke to him who showed no reaction.

It wasn’t just the shoulder that was cleaned. Chest, stomach, back, waist…. By the time the waist was cleaned, the cloth threaded through the baton had become stained with blood and pus. As much as the cloth had become dirty, he had become clean, and the blood, pus, and scabs were gone.

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“Now that the blood is wiped off, I can finally see your features.”

That’s what the man said. As with many things the man said, he couldn’t understand what it meant. But he couldn’t ask. He couldn’t nod or shake his head. Because his frozen body wouldn’t move.

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The man withdrew the baton. He untied the threaded cloth and muttered, “It cleaned a lot,” words that could have been either admiration or lamentation. He folded the cloth once horizontally and once vertically to make it about the size of a palm and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. Of course, he didn’t forget to check if any blood, pus, or scabs had gotten on the baton. He was preparing to leave the isolation cell.

He dusted off his dirty uniform and adjusted his tilted hat. He looked like he was about to say ‘I’m leaving’ and leave abruptly, but the man didn’t. He hesitated.

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“You know what.”

He began.

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“I know you turn a deaf ear to what I say, but hear this. No, listen to me.”

He continued.

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“When dogs get hurt, they lick their wounds. What was it? Dogs have some kind of bacteria or something in their saliva that heals wounds.”

He didn’t know what he was trying to say. He looked at the man. He showed no reaction other than looking at him.

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“When people get hurt, they clean the wounds either with water or by applying disinfectant. If that doesn’t work, they wipe it with a clean cloth.”

I still don’t know what he’s trying to say. He stared blankly at the man. He showed no reaction other than looking at him.

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“You didn’t lick your wounds.”

Incomprehensible words.

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“You wiped your wounds with a clean cloth.”

Again, incomprehensible words.

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“Right?”

And then, as if he thought he would naturally understand what the man was trying to say, he didn’t add any further explanation. The man was trying to look nonchalant with a stiff face, but his eyes weren’t. He was avoiding his gaze, seemingly embarrassed.

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“…I’m leaving.”

As he was about to turn around after saying goodbye, perhaps annoyed at him for not showing any reaction from start to finish, he shot out one last thing.

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“Thank you ve―ry much for turning a deaf ear.”

There was a clank sound of the iron door opening and closing.

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― When dogs get hurt, they lick their wounds. What was it? Dogs have some kind of bacteria or something in their saliva that heals wounds.

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― When people get hurt, they clean the wounds either with water or by applying disinfectant. If that doesn’t work, they wipe it with a clean cloth.

― You didn’t lick your wounds.

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― You wiped your wounds with a clean cloth.

What was the man trying to say?

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That night, he kept thinking about it over and over.

The man’s voice echoed in his ears the entire time he was awake. No matter how hard he tried to shake it off, he couldn’t. The more he tried, the clearer the voice became. Eventually, the man’s face even began to appear before his eyes. That face that was full of vulnerable spots. Eyes that could easily burst if attacked, the jaw that could disrupt his balance, a philtrum, ears and temples that he could use to make him stop breathing…

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But he couldn’t remember what color the man’s eyes were. He couldn’t remember the shape of his jaw, what color the philtrum and ears were, or whether there were visible veins on his temples. And so he couldn’t remember the man’s features.

He began to picture the missing parts of the man’s face in his head. What color were his eyes? Black like the Vice Warden’s? Or gray like the Superintendent’s? But neither the black eyes nor the gray eyes seemed to fit the man.

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He tried to imagine the man’s appearance with every color he knew. The color of the iron door, of a heated piece of iron, of the hazy smoke used by the guards when subduing him, of pus, of the shadows that appeared because of the dim incandescent bulb… All of them didn’t feel right. It was as laughable as saying he had a scarless body, or smooth, unblemished nails, or didn’t feel a throbbing pain all over his body.

So, inevitably, he failed to imagine it. It was understandable. That meager imagination had only been used to estimate how much pain he would feel after being hit. With an imagination that hadn’t developed even a speck, there was no way he could picture the man’s appearance. He decided to stop trying. No matter how much he tried to imagine it, it was useless. Unless the man showed up again, his imagination would be just that, imagination.

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He was convinced the man would not return. He had reasons to believe so. The first reason was that the man had said “I’m leaving.” He had even grumbled, “Thank you ve―ry much for turning a deaf ear.”  If he had intended to come back, he would have said “I’ll come back.”

The second reason was that the man hadn’t “hurt” him. The fact that he “wasn’t hurt” was a miracle, and miracles don’t come to dogs. It might happen by mistake once, but not twice. He curled up. The night was ending.

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But the man came back again. It was two nights after he had left.

However, the man was injured this time.

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He had a purple bruise around his left eye. It was not just a bruise, but also quite swollen. As a result, the man couldn’t open his left eye properly, opening it less than half the size of his uninjured right eye.

He stared up at the man, as stiff as a rock. The fact that, contrary to his expectation that he wouldn’t, the man had come back made his whole body tense up, and also that he was injured.  He couldn’t take his eyes off the man’s face. More precisely, off the man’s swollen, bruised left eye.

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It wasn’t long before the man noticed his gaze.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

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He asked as he unwrapped the bundle. The bundle. The last time the man had brought a baton and a white cloth. This time, it was a bundle. He just stared at the man instead of answering. It was strange. The man had lowered his gaze to untie the bundle. But how did he know I was looking at him? Does he have eyes on his forehead? No, his forehead doesn’t have anything. Does he have eyes between his eyebrows? No, his brows are normal. So how?

“How can I not know when it’s so obvious you’re staring at me?”

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The man explained, as if he had understood what the man was thinking. The man kept trying to untie the knot on the bundle, but it wouldn’t budge, so he finally bit through the string. With a thud, the broken string fell to the floor.

“Don’t worry about the bruise. It’ll heal up quickly.”

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The man said, shrugging his shoulders as if it were no big deal.

“My eye was just about to burst, but luckily it didn’t. Well, at least I used up all my luck for this year.”

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Suddenly, a spark of life appeared in the man’s eyes.

“Aren’t you curious about how I almost had my eye popped out?”

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There was a playful tone in his voice. The unexpected question made his face pale. How did the man end up getting hit hard enough to almost have his eye burst?

If he hadn’t known the man was a prison guard, he would have thought without hesitation that the man got hurt while being beaten up. But unfortunately, he knew the man was a prison guard. Guards were the ones who did the beating, not the ones who got beaten up. The possibility that he was injured while being beaten up was almost none.

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Then why?

“…I guess you’re not curious after all.”

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The man concluded on his own. Since he had been just staring without showing any reaction, it was understandable for him to think that.

“I thought you’d be hard to deal with from the start, but I didn’t expect you to be this cold. Not that I didn’t expect it, but….”

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That’s when it happened. The moment the man casually looked up, their gazes met as his eyes had been locked on the man all the time. The man didn’t get flustered. He smiled. That smile, making his eyes softly curve, the slightly up corners of his mouth and the playful wrinkles on the bridge of his nose were all being watched by him.

“I did it myself.”

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The man spoke. He blinked silently, not understanding what he was saying. The man explained again with a soft chuckle.

“I almost burst my own eye.”

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For a moment, he thought he wasn’t a dog, but something even more dumb than a dog. Maybe even more than an iron door, a ventilation pipe, a shovel, a knife, or a baton. Even after hearing his explanation, he still couldn’t understand.

“Isn’t it funny? I thought you’d laugh…”

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He beat himself until his eye was swollen and bruised?

“The problem is not that you think of yourself as a dog, or that you destroy other people’s things, or that you turn a deaf ear instead of listening, or that you don’t speak, or that you don’t laugh when I tell you to.”

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He did the work on himself?

“It is said that the human body is the most fragile thing in the world, but I guess I’m the exception. I banged my head against the wall, but didn’t get a bump. I stubbed my toe on the door, but didn’t get a bruise. I punched myself in the face, but only got a nosebleed. I even tried lying far away from the fireplace and pushing the blanket away, but I was still fine. So I borrowed a tool. A baton to my eye and bam.”

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He hurt himself?

What on earth for?

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He still couldn’t understand. He thought it would be easier to understand an iron door, a ventilation pipe, a shovel, a knife, or a baton than to understand the man.

The next moment, the mystery was solved.

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“I needed an excuse to get my hands on some painkillers.”

The man laughed, with his swollen, bruised eyes. Those eyes weren’t black, nor gray. They weren’t the color of the iron door, nor the color of heated iron, nor the hazy smoke used by the guards when subduing him, nor the color of pus, nor the color of the shadows that appeared because of the dim incandescent bulb. It was a color he didn’t know. He later learned that color was called green.

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“For you.”

The words swallowed him whole. Every muscle, blood, flesh, nerve, subconscious and conscious, every thought was consumed without leaving a single thing behind. Silence filled his throat.

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The man was different. He was fine. He shrugged his shoulders as if it was nothing, as if it had no meaning.

“But even when I said it hurt, they didn’t give me any. They said the painkillers are too expensive for a warder. I was told that one bottle would cost me three months’ salary, and I don’t think that was a lie.”

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The man was standing in front of the iron door. It was the same as last time, but something had changed. Last time, he was standing awkwardly in front of the iron door, holding a baton with a cloth around it. This time, he was sitting comfortably, opening the bundle. The distance between the man and him was still seven steps, but today it felt different.

“So I asked, how do the warders here get painkillers when they need them? Do they just grit their teeth like people in the Middle Ages? Or do they smuggle in banned drugs? Hah, and you know what those fucking stupids gave me as a substitute for painkillers?”

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The bundle opened, and something round, small, hard, and covered in a grayish scaly pattern, with a strange smell, rolled out of it. A quick glance showed there were dozens, if not hundreds, of them in the bundle.

It was the first time he had seen such a thing, but it seemed the man was familiar with it. He took one out of the bundle without hesitation and held it in his hand.

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“This.”

He taught him the name of that thing.

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“An onion.”

Onion. He rolled it around in his mouth, but he couldn’t become used to pronunciate it.

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“Edgar― he’s another warder like me. The only difference is that I take care of the odd jobs, while he’s the one who slacks off. Anyway, he told me this has amazing effects. It cleans blood, reduces inflammation, prevents colds, helps you recover from fatigue… Ah, and it also gets rid of smells.”

The man fiddled with the onion for a moment, then suddenly asked a question.

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“You don’t believe me, do you?”

There was no need to believe or not believe. At the part where the man said it “cleans blood”, he was puzzled about what it meant for the blood to be “cleaned”. Cleaned? Does that mean the blood becomes transparent as water?

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But so far all the guards’ blood had color without exception. When it flowed, it was bright red, and when it coagulated, it turned dark. The parts about “reduces inflammation”, “prevents colds”, and “helps you recover from fatigue” were also mysteries to him. What is “inflammation”? What are “colds”? What is “fatigue”?

He knew he was basically illiterate. But while he was illiterate, he had never thought of himself as deaf. However, listening to the man’s words made him wonder if he was not just illiterate, but deaf and empty-headed as well.

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“Of course you wouldn’t believe it. I myself don’t even believe I was given onions, so how could I expect that you’d believe it? If onions could truly cure it all, then hospitals wouldn’t even exist. If you just have to eat onions from your garden when you’re sick, why would you need a hospital, right?”

He looked at the man. The mouth that denied the properties of an onion and the hand that brought a bundle of onions seemed to belong to two different people. As he wondered why the man brought the onions if he didn’t believe in them, the man spoke up.

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“But I have to at least try something.”

He shrugged his shoulders and added, in a casual tone like the standing guards outside the iron door asking each other, “Did you sleep?”, “Did you eat?”, “How’s work?”

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“Because it must hurt.”

Once again, there was only silence coming out of his mouth.

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The man is strange. Neither the guards, nor the batons, knives, and pokers, nor the Vice Warden’s beatings, nor even the smoke that Pharrell let out made him so docile. But the man was different. Without using batons, knives, pokers, or gas, without hurting him, all he did was spout incomprehensible words, yet the man had made him so weak that he couldn’t even bite.

Being with the man, it felt like the muzzle had been clamped over his mouth to the point that all his teeth had been pulled out. His arms and legs felt like they were broken, with the tendons torn.

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“Leaving it alone and thinking it’ll heal on its own is just dumb talk. Or something someone who’s never been treated in their life would say. If you leave it alone, it gets infected. Thinking it’ll heal on its own and leaving it, only to have the body fall apart, or the flesh fester and rot to the point of having to amputate limbs – that’s not how it heals. You have to clean it, apply medicine, wrap it in a bandage, and take pain medication if it hurts, and then wait for it to heal. And you.”

The man’s lengthy lecture fell on deaf ears as the man focused solely on the man’s face. But the sudden reference to himself made him belatedly snap to attention.

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“You need to get better.”

The displeasure was evident on the man’s face as he said that. The moment he thought the lecture wouldn’t end there, the man scolded him.

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“Instead of just letting the words go in one ear and out the other, you need to listen carefully.”

The man suddenly threw the onion he was holding. He caught it without dropping it. “Huh.” The man seemed not to have expected him to catch the onion. A laugh escaped the man’s lips. “Your reflexes are pretty good.” The man looked down at his hand. There, on the hand that had always been empty, rested a small, round, hard onion.

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Guards absolutely never gave him items. They didn’t give out anything solid like an onion, nor even things like thread, paper, or cloth. It was understandable given that just a metal nametag the size of two finger joints could easily kill someone, they wouldn’t want to risk handing out objects and figure out what’d happen.

Is this man really a prison guard? He grew curious. The man wore the uniform of a prison guard, wore the cap they use, and referred to himself as a prison guard, but somehow he didn’t seem like a prison guard. He toyed with the onion. It was still warm, as if it still had the warmth of the man who had just been holding it.

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“What are you doing not peeling it?”

A scold fell from above. Peel it? In his entire life, the only thing he had peeled was the leather of the guards, so he was dumbfounded.

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The man had already taken a new onion out of the bundle and was beginning to peel the skin off with his right hand while holding the onion in his left. He watched the man peel the onion intently, then looked down at the onion in his own hand, then looked up again to closely observe the man peeling the onion. He did this several times. After his observation was complete, he clumsily imitated the man’s hand movements and began peeling the onion skin.

A problem arose not even a minute later.

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His eyes stung. When he inhaled the hazy smoke, his eyes would sting, but not as much as they did now. He became teary. Onions had the effect of making one’s eyes water involuntarily. He wondered if onions might actually be more dangerous than the hazy smoke.

The wonder turned into suspicion. Just as the Vice Warden had paralyzed me with the hazy smoke and started beating me up, is the man trying to paralyze me with the onion and then beat me up? Is the man trying to look like someone who would never hurt me, but maybe it’s just acting and he’s actually lying?

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He didn’t know how to handle his doubts. Even if he did, he wouldn’t have been able to extinguish the suspicion that had been ignited.

The hand peeling the onion stopped. The suspicion was burning his mind. The man must be lying.  If not, why isn’t the man doing what a prison guard should do: working? Why is he not hitting me with batons, knives, or pokers?

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The man had no reason not to hurt him. On the other hand, he had plenty of reasons to hurt him. He was a despicable being. He was violent, biting people indiscriminately, stupid, unable to understand the man’s words, and prickly, not even responding when the man spoke to him. No doubt. The man is hiding a sinister motive. I’ve made up my mind. As he made the judgment, he thought he had made a very clever deduction.

It was then that he felt a gaze. The man’s. The man had forgotten about peeling the onion and was just staring fixedly at him. When their eyes met, the man finally spoke. A murmur came out.

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“…If it stings too much, don’t peel it so quickly.”

His suspicion hardened. It’s clear. He’s just acting kind to hide a sinister motive. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be this generous.

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Embarrassed, the man explained, “It’s just that… I’m weak to crying faces.” But to him, it sounded like a lame excuse.

He answered by throwing the onion he was holding. The thrown onion rolled to a stop at the man’s feet, seven steps away. The man silently looked down at the onion, but only for a moment. An unexpected word came out of the man’s mouth.

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“Sorry.”

But he wasn’t fooled. He looked at the man with skeptical eyes.

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“I should have brought some goggles for you. That was inconsiderate of me, right?”

A soothing voice. For a moment he was about to crack, but just as prey bait needs to look appetizing to lure, people hiding sinister motives usually did sweet-talking. He kept looking at the man with skeptical eyes.

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“…No. I should have prepared some kind of reward. Making you peel the onion and not giving you anything is too thoughtless, right?”

A gentle voice. For a moment he was almost swayed, but just as a hunting animal needs to be skilled, people hiding sinister motives usually have exceptional acting. He kept looking at the man with skeptical eyes.

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“Alright, alright. I should have peeled it myself instead of making you do it. Telling a sick person to peel onions was just so brainless of me, right?”

A tender voice. For a moment he was about to waver, but just as a hunter waiting for prey needs great patience, people hiding their sinister motives are usually persistent. He kept looking at the man with skeptical eyes.

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“Yes, it’s all my fault. I had no consideration, no thoughts, no brains. You can hurl every insult you know at me. Just stop being angry. Damn, with your face glaring at me like that, I just can’t muster the courage to take care of you.”

A pleading voice. For a moment he was confused. With difficulty, he maintained his skeptical eyes at the man. Since it was an eye contact made by him and that didn’t happen naturally,, as he kept glaring, his eyes started to hurt. A stinging pain spread around his eyes.

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“…Forget it. Hah, I was the fool for thinking you’d understand.”

The man sighed repeatedly, rubbing his temples as if he had a headache. He flinched. What if by any chance, which is highly unlikely, but just in case, the man isn’t lying? What if the man leaves, disappointed, and never comes back?

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His heart sank. He had never felt this way, not even when his ribs were broken from beatings. Since no one had taught him, he didn’t know what he should do now. Without knowing, the nails on his hands had dug into the floor. Vivid droplets of blood formed under his deformed nails.

But the man didn’t leave. He picked up the onion rolling at his feet and began peeling the skin. Like he had, the man’s face became teary. He was confused again. Is the onion not a dangerous object like I believed after all? Or is it but the man just doesn’t care?

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Everything was a mystery. The reason the man didn’t leave and stayed to peel the onion, the reason he cut the peeled onion into pieces and asked “You’re not going to bite me if I get close, right?”, the reason he was approaching with big strides despite him showing no reaction worthy of a response…

Onion pieces were in the man’s approaching hand.

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Their seven steps distance became six, then five, then four. There was no sign of any threat from the approaching man. Even the last time, when he had wiped the man’s wounds with the baton, he had felt a sense of unease, but not this time.

What has given the man the confidence that I wouldn’t bit him? The muzzle? No, I wore it last time as well. My injured body? No, my body wasn’t in good shape last time either. What is it then? He couldn’t figure it out. More precisely, in the situation where the man was steadily coming closer, he didn’t even have time to think about it.

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It wasn’t the man who was afraid. It was him. With no place to retreat at the edge of the room, he unconsciously tried to back away. As he hastily tried to retreat on his knees, he bumped into the wall. The cold wall against his back felt as cold as his own body.

The man didn’t miss that. He stopped walking and asked.

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“Are you afraid of the onion?”

The man gestured to the onion he was holding.

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“Or are you afraid of me?”

The man pointed to himself with his finger. It was a meaningless question. He himself didn’t know what he was afraid of. Maybe it was the peeled onion, maybe it was the man closing the distance in the blink of an eye, and maybe it was himself.

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Three steps away. Fortunately or unfortunately, the man didn’t come any closer. Bending down to be at eye level with him, the man extended his hand. It held a piece of onion the size of a child’s fist.

“Try it.”

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He couldn’t. His body was frozen in fear, and his mind was captivated by the man’s eyes right in front of him. He thought the man’s eyes from seven steps away were a vivid color, but up close, at three steps, they were incomparable. If there was anything in this world that wasn’t painful, it would have the same color as the man’s eyes.

The man thought that just like demonstrating how to peel the onion, he should also show how to eat it, so he took a bite of the onion piece. The next moment, the man’s face scrunched up unpleasantly. “…See? It won’t kill you to eat it.” Struggling, the man said with a straightened face, “Of course it’s just that it won’t kill you. The taste is really… let’s not talk about that.”

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The man held out the onion. Of course, he didn’t budge. It wasn’t a strange outcome since his body was frozen in fear, and his mind was captivated by the man’s eyes in front of him. The man hesitated, then pushed the onion piece through the gap of the metal muzzle he was wearing. “Take a bite.” He quickly added, just in case, “Of the onion, I mean. Not my hand.”

Only then did he snap out of it and do as the man instructed. He took a bite of half the piece and swallowed. The sound of gulping made his Adam’s apple move. An incomprehensible thing happened in the next moment. He thought the man would be pleased that he did as instructed, but the man’s face paled and he cried out.

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“Wh-why are you swallowing it! If you choke, you could die!”

He was stammering, seeming greatly alarmed. He couldn’t understand the man’s fuss and just stared at him with bewildered eyes.

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“If you want to kill yourself, do it when I’m not here. Damn it, how do you think I’ll feel if you die when I’m trying to help? I might have to live with guilt for the rest of my life. I brought the onions to ease your pain, not to choke you to death. Understand?”

He had done as instructed, but far from being pleased, the man was just yelling at him. He was a bit irritated. He tried to take another bite of the onion piece the man was holding and swallow it. But the man quickly pulled the onion piece out of the metal muzzle before he could bite it. He said “No,” but unlike when the guards say “No,” the man didn’t hit him.

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The man cut the onions into tiny pieces, the size of his fingernails, within a range he couldn’t interfere. But unfortunately, he couldn’t eat them, because just as the man was about to feed them to him, the man realized the time. The man’s face paled as he checked his watch.

“I have to go, I’m late…” Leaving him behind while he was confused, the man hurriedly gathered his things. The man didn’t leave any onions behind, recovering every single one, saying he couldn’t bear to see him use the onions to commit suicide.

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“I’ll be back.”

The man left. The distance that had narrowed in an instant widened just as quickly. Three steps, four steps, five steps, six steps, seven steps, and with a click of the iron door closing, the man disappeared from his universe. He was left alone in the solitary confinement cell once again.

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That day, he didn’t sleep at all. He traced the places the man had been. Beyond the seven steps, in front of the iron door, where the man had sat. Six steps away, five steps away, four steps away, where the man had walked. Three steps away, where the man had bent down to be at eye level with him.

Unsatisfied with just following with his eyes, he decided to go to the places the man had been himself. He wanted to sit in front of the iron door, walk the six, five, and four steps away, and bend down at the three steps away to match the eye level.

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But he couldn’t get up. His arms recovered quickly, but his legs recovered much more slowly in proportion to how fast his arms did. Whenever he tried to stand, he would lose his balance and collapse. So he crawled on his knees. He sat in front of the iron door. He crossed the six, five, and four steps on his knees. At the three steps, he tried to force himself to stand and bend, but ended up falling over.

How long have I been doing this? My legs don’t have any strength to hold me up. When he checked absentmindedly, his knees were raw and bloody. He touched his knees. The coagulated blood on the wounded skin smeared onto his hand. Strangely, it didn’t hurt. Probably thanks to the onions the man gave me, he thought.

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• **

As promised, the man came again.

It was always similar. The man would open the iron door, and he would be silent. “You won’t even greet me?” he’d grumble, and then there was silence. “Well then, hello to you too. I hope you’re doing well.” he’d greet him, and silence again. The man paid no heed and unwrapped the bundle with the onions.

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Some days the onions were peeled, and some days they weren’t. On the days they were peeled, they were even cut into fingernail sized pieces. When the man pushed the onion pieces into the metal muzzle he wore, he ate them. After a certain amount of time passed, the man would say “I’ll come back again,” saying goodbye, and leave, closing the iron door.

When left alone, he would go to the places the man had been. He would just sit there, sometimes lie down and sleep, sometimes mimic the man’s postures until his limbs got tangled and cramps spread through his body.

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Today was a bit different.

“Here, take this.”

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The man pushed a slice of onion into the metal muzzle. After silently staring at the onion slice the size of a fingernail, he suddenly bit down on the man’s finger.

It wasn’t part of any plan. In fact, he wasn’t used to making plans. “When the iron door opens, I’ll bite the guard,” or “I’ll take the guard’s nametag and gouge his eyes,” or “When he comes close, I’ll crush his face with the metal muzzle” – the plans he had made so far were simple, shortsighted, and one-dimensional.

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And this was no different. He bit the man’s finger because he was curious about what it would taste like, no more, no less. He knew two tastes of malice: the first was the bitter secretions he had tasted when he sucked on his own fingers after “work,” and the second was the slimy flesh and disgusting taste of blood when he had bitten a guard.

He was curious about what the man’s flesh would taste like. Is it bitter like my fingers? Or is it disgusting, with a flavor of blood like a guard? Or perhaps…

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But the man’s finger had no taste at all. It was strange. He sank his teeth deeper into the man’s finger. He felt the warmth fill his mouth. The hard nail pressed against the roof of the mouth, the soft finger touched his tongue. The calluses on each finger tickled the teeth and gums, but still he could taste nothing.

His senses were highly developed. Like a snake, his vision was acute, and he could easily discern objects even in the pitch black of his solitary cell where not a ray of light entered. Like a shark, his sense of smell was heightened, and even blindfolded he could tell how much blood or pus was oozing from a wound, or how much flesh was charred.

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His hearing was as good as a cat’s, and he could hear the sounds coming and going beyond the iron door. His sense of touch was as refined as a spider’s, and he could distinguish whether something touching him was a poker, a sharp knife, or the handle of a long baton.

If there was one sense that was underdeveloped, it was his sense of taste. It made sense. All he had ever tasted in his life were pus, blood, the uniforms and shoes of the guards, the dirt on the soles of their shoes, the exterior of the ventilation pipes, the knives with slivers of flesh clinging to them, the dark red stains on a baton, and the onions the man fed him.

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Perhaps his poor sense of taste simply failed to detect whatever flavor there was in the man’s finger. Thinking this, he decided not to let go of the man’s finger. He licked it, running his tongue over the fingertips, pushing against the nails, tracing the knuckles. Still, he could taste nothing. Would chewing it bring out the flavor? He clenched his teeth, ready to chomp down on the finger, when-

“W-Wait!”

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The man cried urgently. Frozen, he stopped trying to bite down and looked at the man, whose face had turned pale.

“Y-You can’t eat that.”

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Not that he was planning to eat it. He just wanted to chew on it. Chewing it might break or cut or crush the finger, but he wouldn’t actually eat it. He ignored the man’s plea. Clenching his teeth again, he prepared to chomp down on the finger. And then.

“Don’t chew!”

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The man cried desperately. Frozen, he stopped trying to bite down and looked at the man. Don’t chew? Why? His puzzled expression betrayed his incomprehension of the man’s order.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I, I can’t have my hand get hurt.”

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He remained frozen, teeth ready to sink into the finger. The man rambled on.

“I, well, I write, you see. Not right now, but someday I will. So…”

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He couldn’t make heads or tails of what the man was saying, but it was clear the man didn’t want him to chew his finger. Doing something someone didn’t want would make them hate you. The guards hated him because he wouldn’t stay still when they were working and because he constantly tried to bite them.

He didn’t care about being hated by the guards, but he cared about being hated by the man. Torn between the urge to chew and the desire not to be hated, after a moment he relaxed his clenched teeth.

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The man seized the opportunity, quickly trying to withdraw his finger from the mouth. Of course, he had said he wouldn’t chew, but he hadn’t said he would let go. He was not going to let go so easily. He growled and clamped down on the man’s finger, refusing to release it. The man couldn’t even think of pulling his finger out, let alone actually do it.

The man looked distraught, but he didn’t care. He began to suck and lick the finger in his mouth. He left nothing untouched – the fingertips, the nails, the small hangnails, the fleshy pads of the finger and the calluses. Still, he could taste nothing.

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“…Can’t you not do that?”

The distressed look on the man’s face had disappeared. He had a strange, furrowed brow.

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“I don’t know if you can understand, but this is… just really weird for me, you know?”

He paid no attention, focused on trying to find some taste in the flavorless finger. Unaware of this, the man frowned. Nervously, he raised his eyebrows and asked.

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“Come on, are you even listening to me?”

Again, he ignored the man. The man looked at him with a distressed expression, then suddenly pointed somewhere and shouted. If he hadn’t been biting the man’s finger, that would have made him jump.

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“T-There’s a guard right there!”

A guard? He mindlessly turned his head to look where the man was pointing. The man was not one to miss an opportunity twice. Taking advantage of the momentary loosening of the grip on his finger as he turned his head, the man quickly pulled his finger out. His finger was wet with saliva from all the licking and sucking.

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The man quickly backed away. Realizing he had been tricked, he bared his teeth and growled, but it was no threat to the man, who had retreated out of his reach. The man calmly took out a handkerchief to wipe the saliva off his finger, and glanced at his watch.

“I’m glad you fell for it in time. If I had been just 10 minutes late, I definitely would have missed the night roll call.”

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The man tidied up. He gathered the scattered onion slices and the onions peeking out from the bundle. He also continued his meaningless chatter as he prepared to leave, like he did every day. It was familiar but… something was different. There was one thing, the most important thing, that was missing from all of this.

The rumbling growl in his throat had stopped. His throat felt stiff. No, not just his throat, his whole body felt stiff. He couldn’t take his eyes off the man. His lips quivered, opening and closing silently, his ragged, cold breath escaping through the parted lips.

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“They charge a late fee, you know. I’m not sure why, but they do.”

Why was ‘that’ missing? It couldn’t be intentional, right? He must have just forgotten. His rigid face turned deathly pale. No matter how he tried to calm down, he couldn’t. His heart was pounding wildly. If he just stayed quiet, the man would leave without saying ‘that’. As much as he didn’t want to, he had to. It was frightening, but he had no choice. His head went blank, and then-

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“I don’t remember when, but I was late one or two times, and Edgar really chews me out if I’m late for the roll call. He just harps on about how I can’t be late for roll call…”

“Are you coming back?”

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“Of course, I’ll be b-”

The voice answered, then stopped. The man looked at him, his eyes wide. “What?” He felt nauseous. Whenever he spoke, long or short, whenever he talked like a normal person, he always felt dizzy, queasy, and sweaty, like wanting to throw up.

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But he had to. The man always said “I’ll be back” when leaving, and he couldn’t let him leave without saying that. In his tiny universe, just eight steps wide and long, he had to make the man promise to come back.

“Are you coming back?”

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He spoke.

A lump formed in his throat. He felt sick. A long time ago, when he was much smaller than the batons the guards carried, he had inadvertently broken the rule of not speaking.

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What he had done wasn’t exactly “speaking” – it was a “sound.” After work, overcome by the searing pain of a crushed knee, he had collapsed and let out a groan. It was a faint, barely audible sound, but the guard (who was now the Superintendent) had not missed it.

Pausing in the middle of gathering his poker, knife, and baton, the guard looked at his distorted face. Grabbing him by the hair, the guard made him open his mouth. Since his teeth couldn’t be damaged, the guard ordered him to stick out his tongue. When he refused to obey and remained still, the guard immediately choked his neck.

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He gurgled, struggling to breathe. The handle of the knife had sliced across his tongue in an instant. A numbing pain filled his tongue. The gums that were also struck began to bleed. The guard tossed him aside. He said that if he had the warden’s permission, he would have jammed a hot iron ball into his mouth instead. He said that for a dog, all it needed was sharp teeth to grip the target, and that having a tongue was unnecessary.

The guard spat on him as he lay sprawled. He warned that if it spoke like a person again, with or without the warden’s permission, he would cut off its tongue.

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After the guard left the cell, taking the baton, knife, and poker with him, he remained motionless on the floor. The blood pooled in his mouth was too thick. He didn’t know if the taste was metallic, the smell was metallic, or both were metallic, but he felt dizzy, queasy, and sweaty, as if he would vomit. This time, what filled his mouth wasn’t blood, but human “words”.

He was sick to his stomach, beads of cold sweat breaking out like boils. The man had an alarmed look on his face. His eyes and mouth were wide open.

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“Did you just speak?”

His voice burst out, agitated. But it wasn’t the answer he wanted, the promise from the man to return to this tiny universe of his, just eight steps wide and long. His throat felt sore.

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“You just spoke, right? Right?”

He seemed quite excited. The man’s voice, urging for an answer, seemed impatient. He was angry. Why is the man only focusing on the fact that I’ve talked? Why did he not care about what I said at all?

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Perhaps he was deliberately doing this because he didn’t want to promise it. The man must hate him. He wouldn’t let go even when the man told him to, and arbitrarily bit, sucked, and licked his fingers, so the man had grown to hate him.

Fear overtook him. The remaining blood drained completely from his body, which had already become pale from dizziness, nausea, and cold sweat pouring like water. He opened his mouth with all his might.

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“Will you come again?”

The man, who had been babbling frantically, “You spoke. You definitely spoke, right?”, finally fell silent. The excitement slowly faded. He asked again with all his strength. It hurt. His throat ached as if it had been stamped with a knife handle.

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“Will you come again?”

A long silence passed. He had experienced every kind of pain. Abrasions, bruises, stab wounds, incisions, lacerations… he knew all about surgical pain and was equally well-versed in medical pain. But this was the first time silence had hurt.

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He thought about which of the abrasions, bruises, stab wounds, incisions, or lacerations the silence felt like, but he had no answer. He decided to think of it as a new kind of pain. Perhaps, contrary to what he had thought, the man might not be something painless. He might be something that hurt, but in a way he had never known before.

“Yes.”

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The man answered. Fear made him be on the verge of unconsciousness.

“I’ll do it.”

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A faint smile appeared on the man’s lips. He felt his knees give way. Fortunately, he was sitting; if he had been standing, he would have collapsed. He was glad he couldn’t stand because of his broken leg.