The heavy electronic click of the cell door echoing through the block usually signaled the end of the day's turbulence, but as I stood there, the silence inside my own unit felt louder than the chaos of the yard. My hand was still buzzing from the contact, the memory of his throat beneath my palm lingering like a static shock.
"You're a bit jumpy for a serial killer, aren't you?"
The voice was smooth, cultured, and entirely devoid of the jagged edge of fear that usually followed anyone unfortunate to be on my badside. Kim Sol didn't scramble away. He stood up from the timber floor with a slow, feline grace, brushing invisible dust from that oversized grey sweater. He looked around the cell,with a look of pure, unadulterated disgust, as if he'd just been checked into a roadside motel with a roach problem.
Then, he looked back at me. His gaze wasn't a glance; it was a clinical scan. He raked his eyes over my frame, measuring the breadth of my shoulders and the height of my stance as if I were a piece of furniture he was considering buying but found slightly too gaudy for his living room.
For the first time in my life, the biological machinery that governed my existence stalled. My Alpha instincts didn't tell me to fight. They just... went silent. Confused.
Static filled my head where there should have been a command to dominate.
"Well?" Sol prompted. He leaned back against the wall of the cell, crossing his ankles as if he owned the square footage.
"Are you going to keep staring?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He leaned down, retrieved his standard-issue bedding from where it had fallen during our brief scuffle, and placed it on an empty shelf with a meticulousness that bordered on obsessive.
I stayed rooted to the spot, my mind racing to catch up with my senses. Something was fundamentally wrong. I could pick up the scent of every man in this wing from twenty yards away. The sour tang of old sweat, the metallic sharp of adrenaline, the heavy, musk-laden aggression of Alphas.
But Kim Sol? I breathed in , drawing air deep into my lungs. Nothing. He didn't smell like a dominant Alpha. He didn't smell like an Omega. He didn't even have the flat, neutral scent of a Beta.
He didn't smell like anything at all. In a world defined by pheromonal secondary genders, he was a sensory void.
He sat down on the edge of the cell sizing me up with that same arrogant tilt of his chin. The silence was broken by the heavy thud of the door opening again. Two more inmates shuffled in. One was small, his shoulders hunched as if he were trying to occupy as little space as possible. The other had a certain "corky" energy - a forced bravado.
I had been told the population increase meant more inmates joining my unit, but I hadn't expected a crowd. Three newcomers? Including a rich, arrogant bastard who was currently treating me like an exhibit in a zoo?
Sol smirked when I finally cleared my throat and stood up straight. I wouldn't show him that he had me rattled. I hated people I couldn't categorize, especially when they lacked the pheromonal roadmap that told me exactly how to break them.
I retreated to my usual corner, the shadows offering a familiar comfort. The two new arrivals walked in nervously, clutching their beddings like life rafts. They scurried toward the remaining empty shelves. I glanced at their tags. One blue, one white.
The pheromones hit me instantly. Blue tag: Omega. White tag: Beta. The Omega was practically vibrating with anxiety, but underneath the scent of fear was something else - a chemical, sharp undertone. He had smuggled something in. Drugs. I could smell it through whatever packaging he'd used, but I looked away. It was none of my business unless it disrupted the peace of my corner.
"Hello," the Beta stammered, both of them bowing formally before retreating to the far wall. They looked terrified. I couldn't blame them.
"We will split up clean up," I said, my voice dropping into that authoritative, unmoving register that usually made men's knees weak. "I don't like messy places."
The Omega and Beta nodded frantically, their heads bobbing in unison. I reached for a scrap of paper and a pencil, quickly scratching down the rules of the cell- boundaries, silence hours, hygiene standards. I read them out loud, the words sharp and final. I had shared this cell with only one person for a long time, and I had grown accustomed to the predictable rhythm of a duo unit. But with the crime rates climbing and the warden's hands tied, the privacy I had cultivated was being stripped away.
"And what if we don't follow these…. Rules?"
Kim Sol's voice cut through my instructions. He was staring at me again, his eyes raking through my form. He was trying to push my buttons, poking at the S-class Alpha to see if the monster would growl. I tightened my jaw but refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
I ignored the question and pointed toward the small annex. "The room next to the bathroom is the rut room. If the suppressants aren't available or they don't work, go there."
It was a modern upgrade in the newer correctional facilities- a way to separate those in heat or rut to prevent the kind of mass pheromonal violence that used to plague the old prisons. Most inmates just used it for private hookups, but it served its purpose of keeping the general area from smelling like a breeding ground.
The Omega meekly whispered that they had already been briefed by the guards.
The door hissed open a final time, and a fourth man stepped in. Unlike the jittery newcomers, he moved with the relaxed, heavy stride of someone who had long ago accepted the prison as his natural habitat. He had a yellow tag - a B-class Alpha.
He scanned the room, his eyes landing on me first. A wide, bright smile broke across his face. He ignored the tension in the air and walked straight toward the Omega and Beta, who were still huddled like cornered prey.
"He scared you, didn't he?" CJ said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy as he pointed a thumb back at me. I scowled at him, but he didn't even flinch. "Don't mind him. He's just a downer. A total buzzkill."
He knelt before them, his energy radiating outward. "My name is CJ," he said, extending a hand. The two inmates looked at each other before reluctantly shaking his arm. He gripped their hands firmly, a gesture of solidarity that seemed alien in this cell.
Then, CJ's gaze shifted to the figure on the bunk. His smile fluttered for a fraction of a second. I saw it ,the confusion. He could sense it too. The lack of scent. The absence of a biological signature. In a world where everyone had conformed to the emergence of secondary genders, there hadn't been a "Null " for hundreds of years Kim Sol was a walking impossibility.
CJ looked between me and Sol, then forced his bright grin back into place.
CJ was the head of the prison wood workshop he was in his fifties and had already been in prison for years.He usually came in later than the others, his clothes often smelling of cedar and sawdust. He was disgustingly, obsessively into woodwork. I'd teased him about it before, telling him it was a waste of time, but he'd always shot back that if I had a single passion in my life, I wouldn't be so damn boring. I never had a counter for that.
We weren't friends at first. His relentless optimism was like a headache that wouldn't go away. But he was persistent, and since I'd chosen to work in the shop to pass the time, he'd started cutting me slack on the production quotas. After months of sharing a cell, I had finally stopped trying to ignore him.
Sol sized CJ up with that same arrogant, analytical gaze. I wondered if it was a reflex for him, a byproduct of being a chaebol heir who had to know the value of everything in the room. It was irritating. Everything about him,the air of entitlement, the silent defiance,grated against my nerves.
Our eyes locked again. Sol smirked. It was a tiny, sharp movement of his lips that felt like a challenge. He reached out and took CJ's hand, holding the handshake longer than necessary, his eyes never leaving mine.
Was he trying to gauge my reaction? Did he think he could use CJ to get a rise out of me?
If he was trying to be an idiot, he was doing an excellent job. CJ didn't pull away immediately; in fact, he looked like he was enjoying the attention. CJ was an Alpha, but he was a B-class, more governed by his whims than the rigid biological pride of an S-class. He'd done plenty of questionable things in pursuit of a good time, and I wouldn't put it past him to be intrigued by a scentless anomaly.
"Dinner!" a voice bellowed from the corridor.
CJ let go of Sol's hand and moved toward the door as the meal slots were serviced. He gathered the bowls of rice and side dishes, placing them down on the floor.
"Bin, take out the table," CJ said casually.
I wasn't in the mood. My Alpha pride was already bristling from Sol's presence. I didn't move. Instead, I jerked my head toward the Beta newcomer. The man scrambled immediately, scurrying to the corner to unfold the small, collapsible table we kept tucked away.
CJ shook his head at me, a small, knowing smile on his face. "Bullying the newcomers? That's beneath you, Bin," he joked, though his eyes remained observant as he began setting the food.
I rolled my eyes and looked away, refusing to engage with his teasing. But I could feel the weight of Sol's stare. It was like a physical pressure on the side of my face.
I didn't give him the satisfaction of eye contact. I moved to the table, preferring to eat before the rice turned into a cold, congealed block. I expected CJ to take his usual spot beside me, but the idiot chose to sit between the Omega and the Beta, likely trying to soothe their nerves.
I felt a presence slide into the space next to me. I glared, my appetite souring instantly as Kim Sol sat down, his shoulder nearly brushing mine.
CJ got up to grab some extra bowls and chopsticks from the higher shelf. He reached into a hidden crevice near the vent and pulled out his tucked-away contraband - extra seasonings and dried meats. I wondered how the guards had missed it during the afternoon inspection, but then again, CJ had a way of making people look the other way.
"A small gift for my new friends," CJ said happily, sprinkling the dried meat onto the newcomers' rice.
I looked to my side. Sol was still watching me, his eyes dark and unreadable.
"What?" I finally snapped, my patience reaching its limit.
"You are an S-class Alpha," he said. His voice was raspy, a low vibration that seemed to bypass my ears and go straight to my spine. He eyed me up and down again.
"It's not secret information," I deadpanned, shoving a spoonful of rice into my mouth.
I could see CJ watching us, a teasing glint in his eyes as he opened the rest of the food containers. "Let's eat," CJ announced, playing the role of the cheerful host in a room full of criminals.
Suddenly, Sol leaned in. He moved so close that his breath hit the sensitive skin of my neck. I felt a violent shiver race down my spine,not from fear, but from the sheer audacity of the movement. I kept my eyes fixed on my bowl, my knuckles whitening around my chopsticks.
"I haven't fucked one yet," he whispered.