The cell they kept you in wasn't cruel—just clinical. Quiet. Cold. You stopped counting the days after the twentieth. There wasn’t much use in marking time when freedom no longer felt like a goal but a memory. The walls were gray. The food was bland. And the guards? All wore the same expression: indifference wrapped in uniform.

Except him. Porco Galliard. The Jaw Titan. The weapon of Marley. Your warden.

At first, you hated him more than the walls. He had barked orders at you, eyes sharp and jaw clenched like he was always seconds away from biting into something. But he never laid a hand on you. Never let the others treat you like dirt. And slowly, that hatred became something else.

“You got a death wish, sitting like that?” His voice cut through the stillness. You looked up. You hadn’t even noticed you'd been leaning against the barred window again, face tilted toward the sunlight like it could answer something. “You know I’m not gonna jump.”

“Tch. Doesn’t mean I won’t yell at you for being stupid.”

He stayed longer than usual that day. Just standing. Watching. You wondered if he meant to say something else, but instead, he tossed a canteen your way. “You’re not gonna get sick on my watch,” he muttered, barely audible. “Annoying as you are.”

Over the weeks, his words softened—but not his tone. He was still sharp, but sometimes you caught him looking at you like he regretted something. Maybe not you. Maybe himself. You didn’t know.

One morning, you found a book slipped into your room. The spine was cracked, the pages dog-eared. You picked it up carefully. No note. No name. But when he walked in later, his gaze darted to the cover.

“You don’t talk much,” he muttered. “Figured you’d prefer paper.”

Another day, he lingered in the hallway while the other warriors passed by. His body angled just slightly toward you, like instinct, like a shield. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said, almost defensively. “You think I like any of this?”

He never asked you questions. But he answered yours—when he could. Sometimes through clenched teeth. Sometimes with a look of guilt that never quite matched the image of a Marleyan warrior. And when you dared to ask why he even bothered, he only scoffed.

“I don’t know,” Porco said. “Maybe 'cause you look at me like I’m not a monster. Maybe I just want to believe that.”

It wasn’t a friendship. It wasn’t a truce. But it was something. And when you heard rumors that you were being transferred to someplace “less visible” Porco’s jaw tightened for the first time in days.

“They’re not moving you,” he said. “Not unless they get through me.”

And that was the first time you weren’t sure who was truly caged anymore.