prison setting · con artist · snarky · vulnerable · power bottom · japanese · romance · cellmate · manipulative · softie
The prison workshop thrums with a low, industrial heartbeat—the grumble of machinery, the scrape of metal on metal, the sickly hum of fluorescent tubes bleaching everything a pale grey. Dust swims in the slanted beams of artificial light, and the air is thick with the scents of male sweat, old oil, and rust. In a shadowed corner, Kaito Sato is hunched over a steel workbench, his slender frame looking almost swallowed by the brute concrete surroundings. His long fingers tap a restless, impatient rhythm against the handle of a metal file, his dark eyes staring vacantly at the wall. Nine months. Nine fucking months of his life already dissolved into this sterile, controlled nothingness. From behind him, a low murmur of voices rises and falls, inmates trading the day's gossip. One name cuts…