(Untitled)
who: adachi and yosuke
where: prison
when: post-sympathy crime
what: working on the assumption that sympathy crime will end with adachi's imprisonment and souji and yosuke have a moderately happy ending, yosuke gets the courage to confront adachi in prison, after souji has gone back home to city, and stand before him to tell him - to show him - the ( Read more... )
where: prison
when: post-sympathy crime
what: working on the assumption that sympathy crime will end with adachi's imprisonment and souji and yosuke have a moderately happy ending, yosuke gets the courage to confront adachi in prison, after souji has gone back home to city, and stand before him to tell him - to show him - the ( Read more... )
The receptionist seemed to process his information at an unbearably slow pace, and he tugged at the collar of his turtleneck every so often as he tapped his foot and waited. It wasn't the season for heavy sweaters -- the buds on the cherry trees were already beginning to bloom -- and his bruises from that time had long since faded, but he had grown accustomed to the feeling of the scratchy fabric surrounding his throat. At the very least, it made him feel a bit more secure -- and at a time like this, he needed all of the security he could get.
Yosuke had grown so absorbed in counting the specks on the tile at his feet that he was almost taken by surprise when the woman at the counter finally spoke up again. When confronted with the question of who he wanted to visit, he hesitated -- it was the last chance to back out, and his instinct was telling him to run -- but he bit his lip and tried to keep a straight face as he quieted those voices in the back of his mind. With the most convincing smile he could muster, he croaked out a name to the woman waiting in front of him.
"Tohru Adachi."
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"Get dressed, Adachi," the guard growls. "You've got a visitor."
I don't want to see them, whoever it is, he thinks, and he rolls over in bed.
The guard sighs. "You got five minutes to clean your ass up and come down to the visitors' area."
After the guard leaves, Adachi reluctantly dresses himself in the only clothes he was allowed to keep from home - his white shirt and his dark pants, full of creases from not being used in months, smelling like his musty drawer of prison wear. Before he exits his room, he passes the mirror - and he almost doesn't look in it, but curiosity gets the better of him, and he stops to look at his face.
His eyes have always been this ugly, grayish-brown, almost like the color of dirt, but they always used to carry a glint within, whether it was one of false kindness or hateful deviance. They were ugly, but they weren't dull. And now they're dull. There's no light, and his face is sunken in like he hasn't been eating properly, even though he eats three meals a day. And on his right cheek there's a scar from where some big burly motherfucker Yankee slugged him in the jaw for copping an attitude during a basketball game. Adachi recognizes the irony of the face that's staring back him, but resolves to look away and not think about it any longer. He's got some poor bastard to go talk with, and he's not in the mood for that wince of disgust and fake pity he gets whenever anyone stops by. With any luck, it'll be some pissant from the force wanting to question him, and not Dojima.
The guard puts him in handcuffs per usual and leads him into the room with all the glass windows, and he glances around, trying to figure out which sorry bastard is his today.
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He was infinitely familiar with the setting after watching hours upon hours of cop dramas, all caught on late-night television when he honestly had nothing better to do, but he'd never imagined being in one himself. It had almost felt like he'd stepped into a TV set the moment he walked into the room, a bit of nostalgia from his TV-hopping days back when Souji was still in Inaba. But the realization that this was real came when he sat down on the low-grade chair, the thin cushions worn down to the fabric at the bottom from the years of asses all seating themselves in the same location. Ken Watanabe had probably never had to sit down on something this uncomfortable before.
When he finally spots Adachi in the corner of his eye, standing at the door and looking around as if he didn't know who to expect, his first instinct is to duck down and make himself seem as small as possible so that he might pass him over. However, he hadn't come here to hide himself, nor to show off how pathetic he still was after the five, nearing six months it had been since the truth surrounding him had been revealed. So instead, he sits himself up a little straighter and takes a deep breath, trying -- and just barely succeeding -- in calming his nerves a little, so that he could face his fears with at least a thin veil of composure.
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Hanamura's the last person Adachi expected to show up here. To give him a little credit, he'd finally stood up for himself in their final battle, but it was only mildly impressive. He could smell the kid's hesitation, the desire to shrink away and hide like a mouse in its cage. He could sense Yosuke's skin crawling in Adachi's presence, like he was in the room with doom and death itself. And still, to this day, it's almost an empowering feeling; he could find that spark of hatred that drove him through the year in Inaba and run with it again if he wanted.
But the guard leads him over to Yosuke's cubicle, and as Adachi sits down in front of him, he demands Yosuke's eye contact immediately. Don't drop it, Hanamura. Look at me. If you have to come here, you better fucking look at me. Look at what your friends have reduced me to, a pile of pathetic fucking shit.
And then, a smile parts his lips, slightly dirty teeth revealed. With a deep breath, Adachi speaks through the glass. "Long time no see."
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