Prison life is no different than high school detention, the four of them decide as they’re trapped inside a cell together.

It’s not like any of them have ever actually been inside before to know. But from what they’ve experienced so far, it’s enough for them to realise that everything they might’ve heard or once believed about prison life is false.   It’s actually quite slow moving.    There are half-dead officers yawning and leaning over photocopiers all over the place with only their coffee to keep their minds working. And they couldn’t forget the clock above their heads that appeared to mock them as it counted all the hours, minutes and seconds they were kept in there.   The four of them aren’t certain if they’re meant to talk to each other--or at all, despite how they’re special cases and ended up being put in one cell together like a dysfunctional family.   It was nice but unnecessary as long as the silence continued.   The eager guy of the group, Kim Jonghyun, began with a cough for attention. “Ah, I guess you’re all wondering why I called this meeting.” He laughed, shyly giving his blonde/brown dyed head a few scratches.   “You’re not funny.” The loner of the group, Kibum no-last name, who apparently owned one corner of the cell, coldly argues. He’s upset or annoyed or whatever, that much was clear from the start when he tried to punch the officer who arrested him in the stomach for touching him.   The guy wearing a dark blue jacket with the hood up raised his hand, glancing at both cell-mates before he spoke. “Actually, I thought it was funny.” He says. Yet there’s no laughter coming out of his mouth, and he’s not even grinning.   And then there’s the Red headed male sitting beside the hooded guy who’s more interested in watching his legs swing back and forth than anything else. But why someone who looks eligible to take a basket of baked goods to his grandmother is even in a prison cell is beyond the comprehension of the other guys.   Jonghyun leans against the cold wall again and folds his arms over his chest, sighing heavily as he thinks about how he ended up in prison in the first place. He was in a hurry and it was one of those now or never moments that he wasn’t about to let slip through his fingers. And it was meant to be a good night for him, he had plans and everything! And well, his plans almost went as expected. But they became ruined the moment he tried to be a little creative, and the cops caught him and arrested him before he could even explain himself.    So in a nutshell, that was his short story about how he ended up in prison on the 1st of December. And he’ll explain himself more when and if the rest of his so-called prison family asks him to.    And speaking of them, he wondered about their reasons for being thrown in prison as well. He doubted it was anything serious but he still wanted to know what Mr. Angry Loner, The Mysterious Hood and Little Red had been up to that had gotten them in trouble.   Yeah, he had time to give them all nicknames.    “So what are you all in for anyway?” Jonghyun, like the eager sparrow he is, finally asks as he feels more comfortable than earlier. “Robbery? Murder? Theft? erting the course of justice? Or maybe--”   “It’s really none of your business why we’re all in here.” Mr. Angry Loner interrupts. “And what is it with you anyway? Are you a cop or something?! You’d better not be!”   “Why would a cop be in a prison cell?” Little Red asks in confusion with a tilted head.   “Cop’s son then, whatever!”   “Chill out, I’m not a cop or anything like that!” Jonghyun assures them, mainly because he knows he might get punched later on if he’s not careful. “I’m just trying to get to know my cell buddies, that’s all.”   ‘Buddy’ isn’t a word that’s really thrown around in prison, let alone at people you’ve only just met. But although none of them really look convinced, they could tell a that Jonghyun was harmless and that he just wanted to be humoured and given attention for a while, like a sweet puppy.   “My name’s Kim Jonghyun and I’m twenty-five!” The eager sparrow introduces once he’s allowed to. “I work part-time at a café in town and they have the best coffee and donuts! Oh, and I play the guitar, a little.” He claps to end his turn and looks at the others. “Alright, who’s next?”   They look reluctant to contribute again until Jonghyun insists on clapping repeatedly and shouting ‘Who’s next’ all the while to make one of them crack.   It turns out to be the guy wearing the hooded jacket, and he raises his hand again to let them know. “I’m Lee Jinki and I’m twenty-six.” He notices the looks he gets and eventually works out that he’s the oldest of the little family. “Uh, I like to sing a lot, mostly in the shower. And one time…I tripped and fell over a guitar.”   The awkward silence Lee Jinki gets afterwards makes him wish he could hide away in his hood, but he can’t. And that’s when he directs the attention to the Red head sitting beside him, who’s too lost in his swaying legs to realise it’s his turn, until he hears a cough from the desperate man.   The Little Red bows respectively first to them all, knowing that he holds the position of being the youngest in their little group. “I’m Lee Taemin, eighteen years old and I’m in my last year of high school.” He says brightly with a smile that warms even the loner in the corner. “I enjoy dancing and sometimes I sing as well, but it’s never anything big, usually just those catchy jingles you hear for those phone adverts and stuff, you know?”   The rest of the group just stared at him, expecting a recital of one of those jingles. But he doesn’t say anything further, and so they all turn to look at Mr. Angry Loner in the corner.   “No thanks,” Kibum says. “I’ll pass.”   “Come on, you’ve got to give us something!” Jonghyun insists strongly, mainly because it’s the loner’s story he wants to hear about the most with the cold attitude he has. “We told about you ourselves, so now it’s your turn.”   “Yeah but it’s not like someone held a gun to your heads and demanded to hear about your ing life stories, short-!”   “Well, what are you in here for? At least tell us that.” Jinki calmly asks, trying to reason with the kinder side of the stranger, if there is one.   Kibum sighs and reluctantly offers up a deal. “How about you all go first and if your stories are interesting enough then I’ll let you hear mine, okay?” He bargains with a certainty in mind that a bowl of fruit will be more interesting than their lightweight reasons for being in jail.   “Yah, that’s unfair!” Jonghyun whines.    “Life’s unfair but it’s not my problem.”   “But what if they’re not interesting enough?!”   “Then tough peaches, short-.”   In the midst of the heated argument that doesn’t look like it’ll calm down any time soon because of how stubborn both sides are, Jinki’s stomach fails to keep itself quiet. And it’s not his fault because he did go out to eat a good meal, but he ended up getting arrested instead.   Thankfully though, he did manage to grab some food from a chicken restaurant in town, and he could feel that the bag of chicken in his pocket was still warm.    “Hey, are you guys hungry?” Jinki asks them as he holds out the bag of chicken. “You can have some chicken if you want. By all means, please help yourself.” And then he’s left to defend himself from the hungry three who rush over to him and practically attack the bag to get at least one piece of chicken for their hungry selves.    It’s like watching animals on the discovery channel or restless kids fight over food at Christmas.   Maybe, it was similar to how real families behaved.   “Ooh, it’s so good!” Taemin cheers just as he off the sauce round his lips, which--unintentionally--looks a bit suggestive. And it doesn’t help that he’s all over the place about how good it tastes because it paints pictures.   “Why do you even have chicken on you anyway?” Kibum asks, not that he cares, but he’s curious. And he needs a distraction from Little Red’s . “I thought the cops would’ve taken it from you when they brought you here?”   “Yeah--believe me, they wanted to.” Jinki admits, laughing a little at the memory of when he nearly cried trying to keep his only source of food on him. “But it wouldn’t have done them much good to take it from me.”   “Why not?”    “Because, I them all.”   There was a blatant hold on speaking for a while until--to Jinki’s horror--the three of them released the pieces of chicken and began to hack, cough and spit out what they could of the food.   “Don’t waste them! I’m hungry too, I could’ve eaten those!” Jinki exclaims, horrified. And he’s only so close to crying again at the sight of the good food being discarded. Could he help that the chicken looked and smelled so good that he had to it to satisfy himself?!   “You’re sick, man!” Jonghyun shouts, after he coughs some more.   Taemin, quite hurriedly, raises his hand. It’s a wonder how he was able to recover so fast after eating chicken a stranger had already . “Okay, I’m ready to tell you guys how I ended up in here, if that’s alright?” He asks.   “Go ahead, Taemin.” Jonghyun encouraged, totally missing that it was the first time he called the red-head by his actual name.   “Hm, it actually might be easier if I show you.” Taemin murmurs in thought, not to anyone in particular apart from himself as he stands up and thinks about it.   The three member audience don’t know why he ended up getting arrested on the same night and thrown in to the same cell as themselves, so they couldn’t even agree or disagree that a visual explanation would be better.   But perhaps they should’ve asked first. That way, they wouldn’t be in the awkward position of watching Taemin about to take his clothes off, starting with his pants.   “Stop, what do you think you’re doing?!” Jonghyun quickly stands up to ask, putting a halt on the unexpected strip show that none of them were prepared for, or completely against either. “Are you telling us that you’re a stripper?! At your age?!”   “N-No, of course not!” Taemin says, blushing. “At least, not really.”   “You either are or you aren’t!”   “I don’t have any control over it, it just sort of happens.” Taemin doesn’t know how else to explain his habit, especially since he can’t even make sense of it himself.   The rest of them give him expressions more shocked than the ones they had when they were eating Jinki’s chicken saliva.   “Okay, this is what