Sister
The first time I met my brother-in-law was at the family introduction dinner.
My only blood relative.
It was because my sister had called me there.
"Hello. I'm Lee Min-seok."
"Ah... yes. Hello. Hayoon's younger sister... Lee Nayoon."
My first impression of him was excellent.
That constantly smiling face, the easy comfort he projected.
Above all, the way he looked at my sister carried the gentle kindness you only ever saw in a man truly in love, so the wariness I had brought to protect her melted away within minutes of meeting him.
Every time I saw him after that, I thought the same thing: he was a genuinely good person.
He treated me with the same consideration he showed my sister.
I even found myself thinking that if I ever met a man of my own, I would want someone just like him. After my sister, he was the person who brought the most ease into my life.
That was the kind of man he had been....
"Surprised?"
Right now he felt more uncomfortable than he ever had before.
Why was this man here?
At first I had only thought he looked alike.
The features of his face and the build of his body were identical, yet I had decided it was impossible to run into him by chance in a place like this.
But he had called me his sister-in-law, and faced with a reality I could not refuse, my heart was on the verge of collapsing.
"Mmph..."
I answered the man in the guard uniform by pure reflex.
All I could manage were the muffled whimpers forced out around the gag, yet the questions I wanted to hurl at him piled up like a mountain.
Why the hell are you here?
And was what you just said about my sister actually true? I wanted to demand an answer.
"Let's see~ Special handcuffs and a gag. Looking at this, it's one of the punishments they give when an execution gets interrupted. Don't tell me my sister-in-law was last month's execution candidate? I heard you were a newcomer... hmm."
My brother-in-law casually reached toward me.
He took hold of my chin and locked eyes with me.
Amazingly, he was looking at me with the exact same face, the exact same expression, the exact same... smile he always wore.
But I could not do the same.
I wanted to turn my head away that very second.
This appearance.
I didn't want him to see it....
Normally I would have laughed off his playful teasing with a "Brother-in-law, stop it," and stepped on his foot, but now I could not bring myself to do anything of the sort.
Trembling all over.
Caught in a touch I could not refuse.
All I could do was wait for his next command.
"Whew~ Look at this. Why are you shaking so hard?"
"...How could I not shake? Hoo."
Everything in front of me went dark.
The sudden shock left me with no idea what to do.
My thoughts themselves refused to turn, and the urge to confirm the facts surged up inside me.
Why....
Why was my brother-in-law here?
And did my sister... know about this?
Was she really here, just as he had said....
I wanted to know everything.
But I was a prisoner, and I had no right to demand anything.
The frustration burned through my chest and squeezed my body tight.
"...Stop that and take this one out. She's interrupting the training."
"Huh? Is that okay?"
Leviathan nodded at my brother-in-law's question.
Then he turned to the other prisoners and barked the order.
"All right! Prisoners. From now on, excluding Nayoon, the three of you will run a total of thirty kilometers. And you will be faster than yesterday, no exceptions! Every minute you're late adds ten minutes to the torture time, so get on those treadmills!"
He deliberately avoided my gaze.
Yet I understood Leviathan's intention.
He was looking out for me right now.
Worried I would hesitate because I was holding my cellmates back, he had given a slightly eased command, and he did not glance my way even once until I left the training room.
I quietly bowed my head to him.
"...Leave the high heels here. I'll come get you later."
"Mmph... mmph."
"Go on."
Once his permission was given, my brother-in-law pulled out his terminal and spoke something to the control room.
In the meantime I bowed my head to my cellmates as well.
Even though Leviathan had lightened the load, the fact that I alone was escaping the harsh conditions still sent a wave of guilt through me.
But my cellmates answered with smiles of their own consideration, and I was able to take slow steps toward the hidden truth.
"And take this with you."
"Huh? What's this?"
"...Go unlock her. It's today anyway."
"Ahh—got it. So you'll come pick her up later?"
"Yes. I'll head to the visitation room."
"Okay."
With that short exchange between the guards finished, I left the training room.
And I followed behind my brother-in-law....
No—behind the new guard, Asmodeus.
That familiar back I had seen so many times... now felt like it belonged to a completely different person.
The place my brother-in-law took me was his own guard office.
Just as Leviathan's office sat near Cell 3, his office was attached near Cell 5.
A place I had never once entered in the month since arriving on Prison Island.
When the door opened, a space that felt both familiar and completely foreign appeared.
And....
"Nayoon!"
"Mmph?"
My sister was there.
"Hey now. A479! Raising your voice without vocalization permission! What do you think you're doing?"
"Ah... I'm sorry."
"...I'll let it slide this time. Here. Take this."
"Yes. Thank yo... what is this?"
"The keys to my sister-in-law's handcuffs and gag, apparently. I'll get a chair and something to drink ready, so unlock her in the meantime."
"Yes. Understood~"
What my brother-in-law had brought were the keys that could open the special handcuffs and the harness gag.
My sister took them and came toward me.
A little over a month had passed since the last holiday.
My sister looked the same as she had then.
But one thing was different.
She too was wearing the collar that marked a prisoner, just like me.
And there was one more thing.
"Aww~ Don't stare so hard. It's a little embarrassing to show my little sister this look. Though I guess even on Prison Island this is pretty rare?"
My sister's prison uniform was different from mine.
Most of us, myself included, wore white camisole-style prison clothes.
They were not identical designs like real uniforms, but they were little more than rags, so anyone could tell at a glance that the wearer was a prisoner.
My sister, however... was not wearing anything that looked like a prisoner's clothes.
No—she was not wearing clothes at all.
"Nngh... uh..."
While I was still thinking, the gag came free.
The moment the harness gag left my mouth, the saliva that had pooled inside dripped down in thick strands, and because my jaw had been forced open for so long, I could not close my mouth properly.
Even in that difficult state, the first thing I had to ask about was my sister's appearance.
It was more urgent than knowing why she and my brother-in-law were here, more urgent than understanding the situation itself.
"Ah... aah..."
"Don't force yourself to talk. Good grief. What is all this. These are special handcuffs, right? Did you actually get executed last month or something?"
My sister unlocked the cuffs as if she already knew everything.
Thanks to her quick hands, my own hands soon found freedom again.
When the cuffs came off, my fingers, swollen from days of trapped sweat, appeared.
The sensation in them was so raw it felt like I could touch the very flow of the air itself.
With those hands I grabbed my sister's body and forced my jaw to move so I could ask.
"Si... Sister... that body... the tattoos... did you... get them...?"
My sister's bare body.
She was completely naked, without a single thread covering her.
And tattoos had been inked across her entire body.
They covered her everywhere.
Most of them were red, so that from a distance they would have looked like nothing more than wounds.
I held that body and trembled.
The texture under my fingertips was unmistakably human skin.
"Heh. Yeah, that's right. They're tattoos. But they're not what you're thinking. Right~ Guard?"
"What do you mean 'guard'? Call me a correctional officer."
"Ah~ right. Hehe. Old habits die hard. Okay then, Officer? How much free time do we have?"
"Leviathan said he'll come pick her up later. Until then you can talk freely. Same goes for my sister-in-law. All right, everyone come sit over here... and drink one of these energy drinks."
"...Thank you."
The conversation between my sister and brother-in-law right in front of me was not very different from their usual atmosphere.
If not for the guard uniform and the tattoos covering her whole body... it would have felt genuinely warm and welcome.
But my heart could not feel that way.
"All right. Shall we start talking properly now?"
How long had it been since I last sat in a chair?
I had finally been freed from the gag that had tormented me for the past three days, and the special handcuffs had been removed as well, yet what shook my heart all over again was the simple feel of the chair.
Compared to always collapsing onto the cold floor, this comfort was on another level entirely; my hips actually trembled a little.
"By the way, I knew what I was walking into, but seeing my little sister as a prisoner is still pretty surreal. Don't you think?"
"I was pretty shocked seeing my sister-in-law too. I always thought she had a nice body, but putting her in a prison uniform... damn."
"...Honey? What did you just say?"
"...Ahem. A479. This is Prison Island."
"Tch."
The almost comedic back-and-forth between my sister and brother-in-law continued.
Their conversation kept crossing the boundary between ordinary social relationships and the relationships of Prison Island, and it made it hard for me to grasp reality.
So I asked.
"...Um. Brother-in-law? And Sister.... Did the two of you already know about Prison Island?"
Both of them looked at me at the same time.
Then my sister blinked and turned the question back on me.
"Do you have any idea how shocked I was? Nayoon. How on earth did you even find out about this place? When he contacted me I actually wondered if it was just someone with the same name. Did you always have this kind of inclination?"
"...What? What are you talking about? Brother-in-law... contacted you? How did he even know I was on Prison Island...?"
I could not understand the words.
How in the world had my brother-in-law learned I was here?
No matter how comfortable we were with each other, I had never left any hint of that sort.
I had told no one I was entering Prison Island, and more importantly I had left no traces or evidence at home.
That was why a meeting like this had never even crossed my mind.
Especially the fact that my brother-in-law was a guard was even harder to believe.
"How did I find out? Your brother-in-law's workplace is Waltz Production."
"...Ahem."
"Huh? Oh. Did I not mention that?"
But if that was the case, everything could be explained.
If someone on the inside had informed my brother-in-law that I was here... given how they always aimed for complete honesty in their marriage, my sister would inevitably have found out as well.
Even so, other questions remained unanswered.
"Okay, that part makes sense, but then why are you here, Sister? And what are those tattoos...? Don't tell me... you came here after hearing I was here?"
"No. That's not it."
My sister's answer was firm.
"Actually, when I heard you were here I seriously considered canceling the reservation. You said after the holiday you were going on a trip for about half a year, remember? So I thought it was a good chance to go to Prison Island with peace of mind for a while and put in a reservation. But while I was waiting for my turn in the queue, it turned out you were already on Prison Island!"
"Ah... come to think of it, the inmate number..."
"That's right. My inmate number is A479. I'm way senior to you on Prison Island, okay~ Nayoon. Think about it. What older sister would follow her little sister just because she was enjoying her sex life?"
It was a reasonable point.
The sister I knew would respect someone's tastes, but she would never interfere.
With only the two of us left as blood relatives, we had always respected each other's freedom; even if contact was sparse, whenever we met we shared every story with a warmth and closeness no other sisters could match.
The only problem was that those stories had always excluded the sexual side of things, and that omission seemed to have led us straight into this situation.
"Honestly... I'm worried too. What kind of face I'm going to show you... Ha. It's too late to change the options now."
My sister let out a long sigh.
Beside her, my brother-in-law frowned and scratched his forehead with a finger.
A subtle current ran through the way they looked.
My mind raced, and with a sudden suspicion I asked.
"Sister... what exactly are those options?"
"...Haha."
And then the true nature of the options began to spill from my sister's mouth.
As I listened to them one by one, my own brow twisted just as badly as my brother-in-law's.
"...Brother-in-law, did I hear that right just now?"
"...You did."
"Why didn't you stop her?"
"Sister-in-law... do you really think your sister is the kind of person who would listen if I tried to stop her?"
"Even so! Something that extreme, you should have stopped her! You're her husband!"
Even though I knew what the uniform he was wearing meant.
Even though every instinct screamed at me not to, I still exploded with anger and snapped at him.
At those words my brother-in-law hung his head low, and my sister tried to step in to block my fury.
"Aww~ Nayoon. Don't yell at your brother-in-law. Actually he already cut a lot of it down. Originally..."
"Sister."
"Hm?"
"Shut up."
"...Okay."
My sister had to hang her head just like my brother-in-law.
