Chapter Text
The room is sterile and lifeless. Whatever souls had once roamed within are hanging by a thread, more specifically, the wire thread of a phone. Anyone who wanders inward is heavily frisked and given as watchful of an eye as those whose residency this heartless realm is. Anytime a visitor is granted access past the surveillance, they're greeted with a wall adorned with glass panes and shattered hopes on the other sides. This environment is seen as humane to some, allowing those imprisoned in this asylum to have contact with the outside world, drip feeding them humanity through the telephone line. However, this contact with the outside world is often not enough, the weekly glimpse of hope not sustaining the hearts of those trying to rectify their crimes.
A red-headed woman is met at the door of the prison's call center, one of the two officers at the door greeting her by name. She's an unmistakable presence, as she's been here every week for the past two years to make her visit. Often times she is profiled by her peculiar fashion, looking like she made a wrong turn and wound up at the penitentiary instead of a rave. Today she adorns a black and white checkerboard poncho sweater, an ankle length black skirt patterned with cartoonish red skulls, and short black rain boots. A fashion disaster to the highest degree. Some would think she just comes here to torment the prisoners with eyesore after eyesore, an unusual punishment against those stuck in orange jumpsuits. A guard leads her to the end of the hall to meet the one she came for, and the one she's spent over a hundred weeks coming for. Almost synchronously, the two women sit down and pick up the phone, an all too familiar ritual.
"Hey Junko," the anti-fashionista says, putting her elbows on what little space the shelf in front of her provides, leaning forward towards the reinforced glass between them.
"Hello Hecatia," Junko states tiredly, having woken up fairly recently, "what brings you here so early? It's hardly even noon, I assume you have to be somewhere?"
"Yeah, Piece got into some trouble at school today and they have her in detention, but I got time," Hecatia states, twirling the phone's cord in her finger, "you know I always have time for this."
"And is this your punishment for her? Surely any one of those children seeing you drag her out will never let her live it down," Junko says, sitting back in her chair to make sure she's not seeing some sort of illusion with Hecatia's fashion, "checkerboard and skulls..."
"Hey! It's called contrast, you can look it up anytime you want to," Hecatia replies snappily, glaring at a Junko who now has the smallest of grins on her face. After a second of silence and readjustment, Hecatia sighs, putting a hand in her hair. "I put the little rascal in public school for a week and she's already gotten into some sorta mess, I guess I shoulda seen it coming but, still. Let's just hope she didn't deck some poor kid in the jaw."
This is the typical stream of conversation for these two. Hecatia receives some friendly ridicule from Junko, Hecatia snaps back, then she shares a little bit of her family life. The duo have known each other since they were teenagers, and with them coming into their 30s, it's a tight friendship that has stood the test of time. Even in these trying circumstances.
Police sirens begin to blare outside of a normally peaceful neighborhood, the noise droning through the night sky. The vehicles are surrounding and barricading a singular home amidst them all, the commotion drawing the attention of the neighbors, most of them standing on their front lawns to spectate whatever chaos may conspire in front of them. This is more than just a noise complaint or annoyance, the volume of authorities there signifies something dire has happened. One of the neighbors, a poor soul named Ringo, is in hysterics of what she'd just stumbled upon, incomprehensibly spouting at the officers. It's apparent she was the one who made the call in the first place, but hasn't calmed down since.
Two individuals disperse into the home, an investigator and an armed officer. The sight they come across is just as gruesome as it was described. In the living room of this home, an assumed father and young son lie on the floor, their bodies cold and without a pulse. No sign of battery, stab wounds, or bullet holes, just two cadavers. The officer double-checks the situation, confirming what was reported and found. According to the incoherent screams of Ringo, the two were found lifeless some twenty minutes ago when the former had arrived to return something she'd borrowed from the family. The bizarre part of it all is that she didn't outright know who the man and boy were, as the neighborhood was a place "where everyone knows everyone," and that they obviously weren't from around the area. The home belongs to a woman named Chang'e, and her alone.
The crime was ruled as a murder-suicide, with the bodies being taken to a mortician for an autopsy. The investigation is not over, however, as there's still a very important person at-large who wasn't found at the scene.
"I doubt it, you've always said Clara was never the violent type, even though you took the girl at an age most wouldn't," Junko says, cupping her elbow with her other hand to steady her hold of the phone.
"Yeah I know, it's just the other trouble I know she can get herself into, kid's astonishingly clever," Hecatia says, leaning back in her seat and crossing her legs under her skirt, having to shuffle around to make sure her boots don't track grime onto her prized fashion. "I remember hearing about the stigma of getting a kid over the age of like, five, from an orphanage, and I took a kid at eight. But like, come on, I wasn't letting the poor girl rot there. Seeing that little ball of energy frown now wounds me enough as is, I don't want to imagine anything worse." Whenever conversation creeps onto Clara, or Piece if going by Hecatia's nickname, it's hard for Hecatia to not immediately begin to fawn over the child. She'd adopted the girl very shortly before she felt inclined to pay Junko these visits. Odds are, whatever punishment is delivered for Clara in the future is not going to be all too harsh.
"Your hair was blue back then," Junko interjects, wanting to get a word in edgewise in this conversation before Hecatia completely slips off the rails, "I personally thought it looked better that way."
"You said the same thing when I bleached my hair to blonde," Hecatia states, hunching forward and squinting at Junko, "I swear you have something against my natural, red color." She runs a hand through her hair, turning her head as if to force Junko to look at it.
"This is Aya Shameimaru at Lunar Drive with breaking news on this developing story!" the reporter exclaims, a solemn look on her face contrasting the energy of her words. The usually sensationalist reporter stands in front of a familiar cul-de-sac, her body language reading as if she was attending a funeral.
The TV broadcast blasts in the kitchen of Hecatia's home, the woman cleaning the dishes from dinner had earlier in the night. Hecatia squints at the TV screen, her heart dropping to the pit of her stomach as she realizes the location the news has anchored down on. She turns to the kitchen table, the new addition to her home fiddling with a portable game console, the noise being unwelcome in this circumstance.
"Clara, you're not in trouble, but, go to your room," Hecatia states with strict conviction, looking at her daughter with utmost fear and uncertainty in her eyes. The idea of seeing this location on the news spikes her anxiety, as any news covering the ongoing story has for the past week.
"But-" Clara attempts to speak up, pausing her game and only turning her head halfway before she's met with more stern speech.
"Go to your room, don't give me a hard time," Hecatia shouts, pointing her finger in the direction of Clara's bedroom. She sighs, realizing that this may not be a great impression in the first week of having this girl as her daughter, "I'll, take you out for ice cream tomorrow, just go, please." Clara drops dead silent, taking herself and her game away from the scene, Hecatia not getting time or a good angle to gauge the reaction. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on viewpoint, Hecatia turns to the television again to figure out she hadn't missed much of the story. As she had feared, it was right outside of Chang'e's home, the location where a heinous crime had just happened a week ago.
"-what'd we learned of was an affair with the local politician Chang'e, whose text messages with the father had revealed a plan to kidnap his son and elope elsewhere, has devolved into a situation with more carnage." Aya states over the broadcast, the first portion of her sentence not being caught by Hecatia in time, but it's assumed little of importance was missed. "As if this were a textbook crime, Chang'e had returned to her home, the scene of the murder-suicide, and was immediately assaulted by the ex-wife and ex-mother, Junko." Small, low-quality graphics flash on the screen, showing a photogenic photo of Chang'e and an old, cropped photo of Junko from her social media accounts.
"Two years, two years for something anyone with a heart would have done in that situation," Hecatia mumbles, looking at the clock to see it ticking at 12:27, signifying their visit was just about to be wrapped up. "But, a few days and that's all going to be behind us."
Junko sits in silence, dead eyes staring at the shelf in front of her. The two had gone a little silent earlier, when Hecatia ran out of Clara-related things to say. This is also fairly typical, it's hard for Hecatia to be one hundred percent conversational with only a week's worth of new information in her head. This unusual visiting hour can also be to blame for Junko's sluggishness, as it's a little off her circadian rhythm for this day in the week.
"I'm just about done remodeling the guest room to suit you, I even got some concert posters from when we were teens hanging up in that room, you'll remember the busted eardrums soon enough," Hecatia says, leaning forward with a little more energy in her system. "I was also planning to tell Piece today about the whole thing, she probably won't care all too much, kid's never complained when I've had guests over in the past." This does showcase one of Hecatia's biggest flaws: short-sightedness. It's a big change coming in all three of their lives, maybe it's best to tell your daughter a little sooner about an ex-felon coming to live with you.
Hecatia drops the plate in her hands onto the ground, the sound of porcelain shattering being suppressed by her own befuddlement and surprise. She'd kept in heavy contact with Junko ever since the news of the crime broke through to the community, as she couldn't comprehend the damage of the situation on Junko. Learning that your husband had been cheating on you, kidnapped your son, and then took both of their lives, through the local news, could have on a person. Apparently he had done it out of cowardice, being unable to go through with the final phase of eloping with Chang'e. It was also done hastily and cleanly, as he had forced himself and his son to ingest a dosage of painkillers that'd do a bear in.
She'd always known Junko as a very pragmatic woman, the foil to her rather wild own rather wild personality. While the dread that surrounding the grieving Junko was palpable, never did Hecatia believe she showed a sign that she'd go personally seek out Chang'e and try to kill her. Little did she know, things were now switched up in a horrid, tragic way.
"Major, but non-life threatening injuries were sustained by Chang'e, and the commotion had alerted the neighbors to notify authorities and intervene. As it stands right now, both women are in police custody and are to be tried by the end of the week," Aya states over the mic, the camera panning a little away from her and to the officers, who were now shoving a disheveled Junko into their vehicle with little resistance.
"Son of a bitch, I, why..." Hecatia mumbles to herself, slipping on a jacket over her pajamas and kicking into a pair of sandals, readying for a trip out in the frigid night air. She has no idea where she has to actually go to accomplish her goal of finding her friend, but she's willing to travel all night to find out. "I just told you to stay home and it'd all sort itself, why'd you have to act like a lunatic." She fumbles around with the pockets of her coat, dropping her car keys onto the ground and then hastily scooping them back up. Hecatia puts a hand on the front door to the apartment, shouting back for Clara to hear, "Mama's going to be out for a while, if I come back to find anything broken, you're in big trouble young lady!"
"This is Aya Shameimaru with Channel Ten News, covering the most devastating story I and this town have heard of in recent memory, signing off," comes the voice from the television, before cutting to commercials.
The minute hand on the clock ticks to 12:30, one of the guards coming up to Hecatia and notifying her of something she's already far aware of. On the other side of the glass, another guard puts a hand on Junko's shoulder. Hecatia holds up a single finger, the guard on her end being gracious enough to let her get her last words in edgewise.
"I'll be here to pick you up with Piece, and we're going to go out to lunch. Let you two get to know each other a little bit, then you can settle in back home. If you need to be with just me at any point, let me know, alright?" Hecatia says, putting a hand to the glass and giving Junko an oddly motherly gaze, something she's learned to perfect these past two years, "I'll see you again soon Junko."
"See you soon, Hecatia," an exasperated Junko says over the line. Even in her most despondent torpors here, whenever she gets to talk with Hecatia, she always has to say hello and goodbye. Perhaps it's the time in prison that's kept her in line with formatting her days and weeks against her will.
"Time's up, Ms. Lapislazuli," the guard states in an exhausted tone, as if Hecatia had a history of dragging these out for too long.
"Yeah yeah, I know, yeesh," she retorts.
As Hecatia stands up and reluctantly makes her way out of the call center, the guard with his hand on Junko's shoulder nudges her to get moving. As if like a mannequin being posed by an artist, she too moves without much primary thought. She's been so used to this life that, despite her time in the slammer not even being a tenth of her total lifetime, she's scared to how she'll adjust to the outside world. Hecatia's a friend Junko can trust with her life, but she fears she might become too much of a burden. After all, how much welfare can one person have? Will her battered mental state allow her to integrate into that home well? What about Clara, a young girl reaching a critical phase in her growth at age ten, will a disparity between her and Junko wear Hecatia's charity thin? Although Junko's body will no longer be imprisoned, her mind might not exactly follow suit.
A few minutes pass, and Hecatia's in the driver's seat of her car, texting away on her phone before she starts the engine. Most of her texts are flying out to close friends of hers, some to Clara about being at the school soon. Her own day has just begun, and she's definitely sure there's going to be some mayhem going forth. Hecatia haphazardly drops her phone in the cupholder of her vehicle, then turns her key in the ignition. Time to get out of this parking lot and onto the road.
"Alright, what could you have possibly gotten into?" Hecatia whispers to herself, pressing her foot on the gas.
GENSOKYO POLICE DEPARTMENT CASE REPORT
CASE #32454
DATE OF INCIDENT: 11/02/20XX
PERPETRATOR: JUNKO (SURNAME NOT FOUND)
FELONY CONVICTION(S): FIRST DEGREE INTENTIONAL HOMICIDE, TRESPASSING.
SENTENCE: TWO YEARS WITHOUT BAIL OR PAROLE.
INTRODUCTION AND CONVICTION: On the evening of November 2nd, at approximately 10:13pm, the suspect Junko had been on the property of Chang'e (Surname Not Found), awaiting the homeowner's arrival inside the house, unarmed. It is assumed that once Chang'e entered the home, Junko had charged at her. The damages sustained were not fatal, however the crime showed premeditation, enough to qualify. Junko herself had only sustained minor injuries from the struggle. Due to the events detailed in Chang'e's own case (Case #32453, Date of Incident: 10/26/20XX), the potential sentence was lowered to two years, as it qualifies for a crime of passion and clouded judgement from the perpetrator. However, to avoid possible instability before the sentence is up, no chance for parole, bail, or appeals were granted. Junko had plead guilty in court, and a unanimous vote of the jury agreed. This concludes the case report.