InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Jailbirds ❯ Meet the Inmates ( Chapter 2 )

I needed to do something to stop me from studying biology….. So I decided it was about time I did the second chapter of this!!

 

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Not long after settling into my new cell a warden came to collect me to go begin the arduous task of sewing the name tags on to my clothes.

 

She was a red head, it wasn't natural of course, I could see the black roots, they were pretty obvious being around an inch and a half long and completely contrasting… and even with her very unreal shade of green contacts, I guessed she was still pretty, her lovely clear skin was what I particularly noticed, I was surprised she didn't clog it with foundation, though with skin like that you'd want to show it off.

 

So I sat there for how long, I didn't know, but it was pretty painful, I kept stabbing myself with the damn needle, and what's worse was that I was sitting at the desk beside the grid I came through earlier, (she had been the same warden that opened it for me and “Just Miroku”), in full view of everyone, and a lot of the inhabitants were looking at me and laughing at my poor needle craft.

 

I kept letting choice phrases loose every time I jabbed myself, and eventually the warden sighed,

 

“Didn't your mother ever teach you how to sew?” she asked me bemused.

 

“No, she tried though, and before you ask, I was kicked out of Home Ec. class too” I argued back, I was stressed, the stupid thread fell out of the little hole again!!!!

 

“Oh… why?” she came from standing behind me to sit on the corner of the desk.

 

I sighed, “If you do this thingy for me, I'll tell you…” I offered her the lone thread and needle, and she had it threaded before I could even glance properly at my handy-work.

 

I took it, grateful to her, “Well Mama tried for years but I just couldn't get the hang of it, and Home Ec. class, well lets just say, I set two kitchens on fire, a girls hair and the teachers books as well, I burned the soup and stinked out the kitchen for a week, I imploded an oven with my coffee cake and the only successful meal I ever made was six types of eggs, but Suki did the boiled egg for me… and I only did that because I forgot the other ingredients, then when the teacher found out, she sent me outside the room and afterwards went to Hawaii for three weeks, all in the space of a month.” I was almost done with the clothing, can you believe I had to stitch the things to my shoes and slippers too?

 

She let out a silent whistle, “Impressive…”

 

I grunted as I tried to at least get the two materials attached, it's not as if they needed to be pretty or anything…

 

Ayame, or at least that was what was on her tag anyway, and I exchanged some more very small, small talk before I returned to my cell with my clumsy, multi-coloured stitch name tagged clothing in tow, leaving my normal, matching clothes behind…

 

Eventually it was dinner-time, this had been one long and painful day, I needed some grub, even cheap salty Ramen sounded like the ambrosia of the Gods right now…

 

The doors clinked open and me and Sango jumped up to join the single file line to the cafeteria, I looked down onto the line of mis-matched baggy clothed women below us, it looked a lot like a couch potato convention, all queuing up for the wide screen T.V.

 

I wonder how long it'll be until I can see T.V. again, and they had just started showing re-runs of Takeshi's Castle too, I loved that show! When I was a kid, my brother and I used to watch it religiously everyday after school…

 

We eventually made it in the entrance to the cafeteria, I'd never seen a hall so big in my life, even my High schools Gym wasn't half the size of it, from behind, Sango spoke in my ear,

 

“This is the only time every prisoner is out and together at the same time, usually everyone is too hungry to make trouble, or… a lot of trouble anyway”

 

I looked around, trying to see if I recognised anyone from school or from a news scandal.

 

Sango helped me out on the matter however since I didn't spot anyone, she pointed out people I should know, or just be aware of…

 

“See the old lady over there?” She pointed to a wrinkly, short, elderly lady with one eye and very long grey hair, farther up the queue. “That's Kaede, she's been here almost 30 years”

 

“Wow” I commented

 

“Yeah, she's a doctor, uh was, she was done for killing off her older, richer patients after getting them to leave all their money to her, she's very kind now though, she's probably turned mild after being in here for so long”, Suddenly there was a beady eye turned on Sango by the woman in question, we both gasped and looked away trying to be non-chalant about it, but failing miserably….

 

“But, anyway, she knows everything and everyone that's worth something, so if you need anything from advice to chocolate, she'll be able to get it for ya, but for a price you understand…”

 

I nodded.

 

“And that over there,” -she pointed to a girl sitting at a bench near us, laughing along to some joke one of the other girls was telling- “that's Yura, she embezzled a load of money from the beauty salon chain `Hanazono', then burned one of the Spas down when she found out the police where coming for her… she'll usually do your hair for you if you ask, she loves doing peoples hair so she might ask you first, she doesn't ask for favours or anything and its great since we've usually got nothing else to do….”

 

“…….cool”, they were lunatics here, that much was definite, but they were cool lunatics, maybe it wasn't going to be so bad after all…

 

“Oh, Kagome, you might recognise her!” The arm beside me pointed to a serene looking young woman, sitting facing us on a middle bench, quietly eating whilst listening intently to the girl beside her, “that's Ono Tsuyu, remember the tiger that ran loose around Nagoya about 3 years ago?”

 

“Yeah…” My eyebrow quirked as I glanced at Sango through my peripheral vision, keeping my head directed towards Tsuyu.

 

“Well she's the one that smuggled it over here and was selling it at the time it escaped, she used to smuggle exotic animals from the continent. Her father was in the trafficking animals business as well, that's how she was introduced to it, she never knew any better really, if you ever talk to her, its like talking to a child, she was so isolated from society growing up, she hasn't a clue about interacting with other people outside business, I doubt she even knew what she was doing was wrong….”

 

“It's still disgusting, I can't believe how people can be so cruel and heartless as to traffic innocent creatures and even children, surely they can't even have souls...” I was appalled, I was determined not to talk to her, the first person on my list to avoid, so far.

 

Sango nodded, “Indeed, what's even worse is the people that buy them, makes you sick doesn't it?”

 

At last we were at the counter, the contents of the trays had me begging for the forgiveness of my salty Ramen…

 

There was plain rice, which didn't look so bad, and some horrid, red, lumpy gooey stuff was plopped onto my plate beside the rice.

 

I waited for Sango to get her gruel and followed her to an empty bench in the very back, there were spaces on some of the benches further up, but I was going to follow Sango, until I at least knew what to do myself…

 

I extracted the plastic spoon from under the red concoction covering half my plate,

 

“No chop-sticks?” I looked at Sango who was sitting across from me, tucking into hers.

 

“Nope, just plastic spoons”, she grinned, “too many suicides with the chop-sticks”

 

I glared at her in amazement my eyes wide, “What? With chop-sticks? How the hell can they do that?”

 

Chop-sticks?

 

“Easy” she laid down her spoon so she could mimic the movements, “they put one in each nostril and slam their head on the table, quite gross, thankfully I was here long after they implemented the spoons as standard…”

 

I stared on incredulously, she just sounded so casual about it!! I was never going to think about chop-sticks the same way again.

 

“They do it with pens too…”

 

“Um, Sango, couldn't they just break the spoon in half and stab themselves with it?” I asked, she just looked at me, her mouth too full to allow speech, I waited as she swallowed.

 

“Kagome honey, by the time the plastic even broke the skin there would be about four wardens sitting on you and one coming with a sedative, they're quite efficient round here, speaking of mashed potatoes, remember the string of poisoned children in Kyushu a few years ago, from them all licking frogs…..?”

 

I nodded in the affirmative; I was going to attempt some rice…

 

“That was one of Tsuyu's frogs too it reproduced quite rapidly…hey, Kagura, pass me the soy sauce, please.”

 

There was only one other occupant at our table, on the very opposite end, she silently slide the bottle down to Sango, and caught it easily when it returned, and resumed eating. She was beautiful I had to admit, but she gave off a deadly air, her hair was tied neatly in a bun, her features finely carved, her eyes where dark and….sad. Still she managed to wear her over sized t-shirt and ugly unshaped tracksuit bottoms with a regal grace I noticed as she finished and walked away.

 

She was the only one moving, everyone else was stuck to their large white benches, wanting every last minute of chat time available.

 

“Couldn't they smash the soy bottle and cut themselves with the glass?”

 

Sango heaved a heavy sigh, “Its plastic Kagome….”

 

I at last decided to dissect the gruel, so with my trusty plastic spoon I delved into the mess and spread it around the plate, there was more space since I had eaten the rice untainted by it.

 

It was red, and had a lumpy almost gelatinous texture, it contained what seemed like small tofu cubes, but I was warned about the possibility of it not actually being tofu, it being crow instead, also there were two types of bean, not clear on what breed, or even if they were from this planet anyway, and… OH NO!!! Not cucumber!!!!

 

My moan of disgust brought a quizzical look from Sango,

 

“Its cucumber!!” I told her.

 

The blank glare I received was a little frightening.

 

“They're yucky!!!” I whined.

 

“Stop acting like a baby and either eat the stuff or don't”, she sighed.

 

“But I'm genetically predisposed to hate cucumber, your lucky you can't taste it, I can't touch it, it's contaminated throughout…”

 

“Then don't eat it.” She was beginning to get pissed.

 

I couldn't identify the rest so I let it be, hopefully I would never come in contact with the foul substance again.

 

I decided instead to admire Sango's lovely hair. I noticed earlier what a cool style her bangs were cut in, like something from the very old feudal paintings. It was cool.

 

“Sango”, she glared daggers, daring me to ask a stupid question, I was going to give her an informative statement instead…. “Your hair looks like it's from one of those feudal paintings, you know the really old ones from before the Chinese Tang dynasty made hair rolls popular fashion… is that were you got it from?”

 

She just stared flatly across at me, “What kind of crap do you read?”

 

The bell buzzed for dinner to be over, and we stood in the queue when we were directed too, last of course, and seeing as we were in the very, very far corner… I continued to answer Sango as we made our way slowly, very slowly out of the Cafeteria,

 

“Well I have a degree in Literature and History, and I work in the national library and archives, well I did anyway…. So I'm obliged to read “crap” almost everyday”

 

“Oh, I see”

 

“Yeah, I wanted to be a geisha too when I was younger, but they said I wasn't elegant enough…so that's how I know about the hair thing…”

 

“Oh”

 

“What do you do Sango?”

 

“Oh, um, I'm an Aikido instructor”

 

“Oh… Cool!! I wanted to do martial arts as well, but they said I was too clumsy to actually handle anything remotely dangerous to others, and myself…”

 

“I see…”

 

We were on the bottom floor of our cell block, waiting in line to go up the steps. I looked up and found one warden staring straight at me, gazing really, I couldn't tell much about his appearance from that distance, but I knew he was gazing intently at someone, I hoped dearly that there was someone behind me.

 

I turned around.

 

Nope.

 

He was starting to creep me out. Maybe if I didn't look at him….

 

I could play the insect trick, if I can't see him, he can't see me. I'm invisible.

 

No such luck.

 

Thankfully at least he couldn't see me on the steps, but he resumed his heated gaze as I re-entered the third floor.

 

I looked away, my face very red. This was embarrassing.

 

I looked straight on, determined not to see him.

 

I sighed and sank against the door as it locked; he was seriously freaking me out…

 

“Kagome, you ok?” Sango looked concerned, bless her heart.

 

“Yeah, phew, so who was that Kagura girl? What's she in for?”

 

“Well”, Sango climbed onto her bunk and sat cross-legged facing me on the floor in front of the door. “As rumour has it-”

 

“Rumour?”

 

“Yup, rumour, she doesn't talk to people that much, unless she really has to, or sometimes when she's in a really good mood, but some people think she's a serial murderer, while others say she's an assassin… that's why she has a life sentence.”

 

“She can't be a serial killer” I reasoned, “She'd be in a mental institute if she was, or at least in total isolation…not with us”

 

“Yeah, that's what I thought too, although, sometimes it might seem like a loony bin here, the fact is, no-one knows so they just came up with the juiciest reason they could, no substance.”

 

“I see, so do we like get a break time or something in the evening?”

 

“Only half an hour in the mornings, and on Saturday and Sunday we get an hour in the afternoon instead of the morning.”

 

“LIGHTS OUT IN FIVE!!” screamed a voice.

 

“What?” I was surprised; we only just had dinner…

 

“What time is it?”

 

Sango shrugged, “Five minutes until lights out?”

 

I gave her a flat glare of my own, “What hour is it?”

 

She shrugged again, “I dunno, what month is it?”

 

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A/N:

 

A big thank you to zelix and ficfan7 whom both commented on my originality of this story ^_^

 

And thanks to cherryblosomz, by the way, M/F means male/female relationships, just sometimes the forward slash won't come up in the summary.

 

And again thank you to all those that read and enjoyed but haven't reviewed!