Behind Closed Doors
The Currency of a Thawing Heart
The air in the interrogation room was thick, not with the clinical coldness of Milgram’s usual atmosphere, but with a stifling, artificial humidity that seemed to cling to their skin. Es felt the weight of Yuno on his lap, a physical reality that defied the logical boundaries he usually maintained. Her heart was a frantic drum beneath his palm, a rhythmic contradiction to the lazy, nonchalant smile she wore even as their lips parted. The silence that followed the kiss was heavy, broken only by the low, mechanical hum of the hidden ventilation system struggling against the heat they had generated.
He didn't pull away immediately. Instead, Es kept his fingers hooked under her chin, his gaze searching her eyes for a flicker of something—anything—that wasn't a rehearsed performance. Yuno, ever the actress, simply tilted her head, her blonde bangs falling over her eyes as she let out a soft, airy giggle that vibrated against his chest. It was a sound he had heard a dozen times before, yet in this proximity, it felt dangerously intimate.
"My, my," she whispered, her breath smelling faintly of the strawberry sweets she always seemed to have tucked away in her pockets. "The Warden is more proactive than I thought. Is this part of the judgment? Testing the prisoner's reactions to... physical stimuli?"
Es felt the heat rise to his ears, a flare of irritation sparking in his chest at her ability to turn even a moment of genuine vulnerability into a taunt. He let go of her chin, his hand sliding back to her waist to steady her, though he didn't push her off. The friction of the movement felt like an admission of some unspoken truth.
"Don't be absurd," Es muttered, his voice regaining some of its characteristic bite, though it lacked its usual ice. "I am simply... observing. You claim to seek warmth, yet you treat every interaction like a transaction. I wanted to see if your heart would remain as 'cold' as you claim when faced with something that has no price tag."
Yuno’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second, a tiny crack appearing in the porcelain mask she wore so well. She leaned back, her hands still resting on his shoulders, her fingers tracing the stiff fabric of his uniform. "A transaction? How cynical, Es-kun. I told you, I love everyone. Love is free, isn't it? It’s just that everything else—the time, the effort, the 'warmth'—well, the world doesn't run on good intentions alone."
"Milgram doesn't run on currency," Es countered, his eyes narrowing. He looked at her, trying to reconcile the girl who spoke of abortion with such flippant disregard with the girl whose pulse was currently racing against his hand. "It runs on truth. And right now, you’re lying to yourself as much as you’re trying to lie to me."
Yuno laughed, a sharp, melodic sound that lacked any real mirth. She shifted her weight, the chair creaking under them, forcing Es to adjust his stance to keep them both balanced. "Truth is such a heavy word for a boy who can't even remember his own birthday. Are you sure you're the one who should be talking about honesty? You're a hollow vessel filled with rules you didn't even write."
The jab hit home, a needle pricking at the void where his memories should have been, but Es didn't flinch. He was used to the prisoners lashing out; it was a defense mechanism, a way to deflect the spotlight from their own stained souls. He tightened his grip on her waist slightly, pulling her an inch closer until their knees were locked together.
"My memories are irrelevant to your sins, Yuno. Whether I remember my past or not, the law of this prison remains. You killed someone. You ended a life before it could even begin, and you did it because it was 'bothersome.' Because it threatened the comfortable, shallow warmth you’ve built for yourself."
Yuno’s expression went flat. The playful light in her eyes extinguished, replaced by a dull, glassy stare that made her look more like a discarded doll than a teenage girl. The humidity in the room suddenly felt oppressive, like a physical weight pressing down on their lungs.
"Bothersome," she repeated, the word tasting like lead on her tongue. "Yeah. It was. Do you know what happens to girls like me when they stop being 'fun'? When they start carrying 'baggage'? The warmth disappears. The gifts stop. The smiles turn into scowls. I didn't want to be cold again, Es. I just wanted to keep the heater on a little longer."
She reached up, her fingers grazing the collar of his shirt, her touch light and trembling. "Is that so wrong? To want to stay warm? You're doing it right now, aren't you? Holding onto me because this room is lonely and the job is terrifying. We're the same, Warden-kun. We’re both just shivering in the dark, pretending we’re not."
Es looked at her, really looked at her, past the compensated dating, past the clinical reality of her crime, and past the cheerful facade. He saw a girl who had commodified her own affection so thoroughly that she no longer knew how to feel it without wondering what the catch was. And yet, here she was, sitting in his lap, her heart racing not out of fear, but out of a desperate, starving need for a connection that didn't require a receipt or a fake name.
"We are not the same," Es said softly, though the conviction in his voice was wavering like a candle flame in a drafty hall. "I have a duty. I have to decide if you can be forgiven. If I let myself become 'warm' with you, my judgment becomes clouded. Is that what you want? To manipulate your way into a 'Not Guilty' verdict by playing on my sympathy?"
Yuno leaned forward, her forehead resting against his. The proximity was staggering; he could see the individual lashes of her eyes and the slight tremor in her lips. "Would it work? If I kissed you again, would you forget the blood on the floor? Would you forget the 'ethically questionable' things I've done?"
"No," Es whispered, his breath hitching as her scent—floral and artificial—enveloped him. "I wouldn't forget. I can't forget."
"Then let's not talk about judgment," Yuno murmured, her eyes closing. "For just five minutes, let's pretend there's no Milgram. No Warden. No Prisoner Number Two. Just... Es and Yuno. Two people in a room that’s finally, finally warm enough."
Es knew he should push her away. He knew Jackalope would have a field day with this, mocking his lack of professionalism, his descent into the very human emotions he was supposed to transcend. He could almost hear the creature’s grating voice calling him a "failure of a judge." But as Yuno wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder, he felt a strange, terrifying sensation in his own chest.
It was a thaw. A slow, painful melting of the ice he had used to protect his fragile identity.
He brought his other hand up, resting it on the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her soft, blonde hair. He didn't say anything. There were no words in the Milgram handbook for this. There was no protocol for a Warden who found comfort in the arms of a murderer. He felt her breath against his neck, warm and steady, and for a fleeting moment, the crushing responsibility of his position felt a little lighter.
They sat there in silence for a long time, the only sound the hum of the ventilation and the synchronized beating of two hearts that were far more similar than Es wanted to admit. Yuno’s breathing slowed, her body relaxing against his. For a moment, she wasn't the cynical girl who sold her time for designer bags; she was just someone who was tired of being alone in the cold.
"Es..." she whispered into his skin, her voice muffled by his collar.
"What is it?" he asked, his own voice sounding foreign to his ears.
"You're shaking."
Es tightened his hold, his jaw setting as he felt the tremors through his limbs. "The room is... the temperature must have dropped. It's an environmental fluctuation."
Yuno pulled back just enough to look at him, a genuine, tiny smile playing on her lips—one that actually reached her eyes. It wasn't the wide, flashy grin she gave the cameras or the men who paid for her time. It was small, fragile, and utterly devastating.
"Liar," she teased gently, her finger bopping the tip of his nose. "You're just as human as the rest of us. It’s okay to be cold, you know. It makes the warmth feel better when you finally find it. Even if it's just for a second."
She reached out and picked up his oversized warden’s hat from the table where he had discarded it, placing it back on his head with a playful tilt that obscured half his vision. The spell was broken, the heavy atmosphere dissipating into something lighter, though the lingering heat remained. She stood up slowly, smoothing out her skirt with practiced grace, her movements regaining their usual fluid, feline quality.
"Well! I think that’s enough 'interrogation' for today, don't you? I'm getting a bit hungry, and I bet the cafeteria has something sweet waiting for me. Maybe some of those custard puddings?"
Es remained seated, his hands gripping the armrests of the chair as if to keep himself grounded in the physical world. He watched her walk toward the door, her demeanor shifting seamlessly back into the carefree persona she wore like armor. She looked like any other eighteen-year-old girl, not a prisoner of a psychological purgatory.
"Yuno," he called out just as she reached for the heavy metal handle.
She paused, looking back over her shoulder with a hum of inquiry. "Yes, Es-kun?"
"The song," he said, his voice regaining its authority, though it sounded strained, like a wire pulled too tight. "I'll be extracting it tomorrow. Be prepared. The warmth you found here won't protect you from what the music reveals. The trial doesn't care about how you feel in this moment."
Yuno tilted her head, her eyes sparkling with a mix of mischief and something deeply melancholic that she refused to name. "I know. But at least I'll have a nice memory to think about while I'm being judged. That’s worth more than 2,500 yen, wouldn't you say? It's priceless, really."
She blew him a playful kiss and stepped out of the room, the heavy door clicking shut behind her with a finality that echoed through the small space.
Es sat in the silence, the humidity of the room suddenly feeling cold again as the heat of her body vanished. He reached up and touched his cheek, where the ghost of her kiss still seemed to linger like a brand. He was the Warden. He was the judge. He was the one who held the keys to their salvation or their damnation. He was supposed to be the pillar of morality in this godless place.
But as he looked at the empty chair across from him, Es couldn't help but wonder who was truly the prisoner in this game. Was it the ten souls trapped behind these doors, or was it the boy who had to watch them suffer?
He stood up, adjusting his hat and straightening his uniform, forcing his hands to stop trembling. He had a job to do. He had to process the data from the first trial, analyze the psychological motives of prisoner number two, and prepare for the next extraction. He had to remain objective. He had to remain distant.
"Arbitrary," she had called it.
He walked to the door, his boots clicking rhythmically against the floor, a sound that usually gave him a sense of purpose. He stopped at the control panel, his hand hovering over the lock mechanism.
"I'm not being arbitrary," he whispered to the empty, shadowed room. "I'm being fair. I have to be."
But as he walked down the sterile hallway toward his quarters, the image of Yuno’s genuine smile burned in his mind, a flickering candle in the vast, frozen darkness of Milgram. He knew that tomorrow, when the music started and the "Under Me" melody began to play, he would have to tear that smile apart to find the sin beneath. He would have to look at the blood and the choice she made, and he would have to decide if she deserved to stay in the light or be cast into the dark.
He wondered if the warmth he had felt was worth the chill that was surely coming. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be human—to trade a lifetime of peace for a few moments of fever.
In the distance, he heard the faint, distorted sound of a melody—the beginning of a new extraction process for another prisoner. It was haunting, lonely, and filled with the sound of a heart trying to find its way home through a thicket of lies.
Es closed his eyes for a second, leaning his head against the cold metal wall of the corridor. The surface was freezing, a sharp contrast to the lap where Yuno had just been sitting.
"Just a prison game," he murmured, repeating her words as if they were a mantra that could save him.
If it was a game, he was losing. Because for the first time since he had woken up in this place with no name and no past, Es didn't want to judge. He didn't want to be the arbiter of right and wrong. He just wanted to understand why the truth had to be so cold, and why a lie, when told with a smile and a soft touch, could feel so much like a home.
He pushed off the wall and continued walking, his shadow stretching out long and thin beneath the flickering fluorescent lights. The first trial was over, but the real interrogation—the one happening inside his own mind—had only just begun. And in the heart of Milgram, where sins were weighed and souls were bared, Es realized that the hardest person to judge wasn't the girl who had killed to stay warm.
It was the boy who was starting to realize he was freezing to death, and was finally willing to burn the world down just to feel a spark.