--

The walk to the shower hall was rather entertaining. Uruha kept teasing me about dropping the soap and then said if I felt anything poke me in the back it’s game over. I laughed along with him. The stereotypical prison shower stories didn’t phase me like they should.

I chose a stall a little farther off from everyone else. The water was warm to my surprise. The asylum was too cheap to give us a decent temperature. I could still remember when my room was 12 celsius for two weeks. I just stood there for a while enjoying the warmth before the guys behind me started to cheer and wolf-whistle. I turned slightly and saw them crowded around a couple on the floor. I quickly averted my gaze to the other side of the room as one man flipped the other onto his stomach. The room was filled with the mixed sound of whoops and screams in the next moment. I stared at the lockers blankly, voices drowning out of my head. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t let this affect me this easily.

“That’s a good boy Takanori.”

My eyes snapped opened to see him leaning casually against the lockers. He was only clad in pants and had rope draped over his shoulder. He smiled his ugly crooked smile.

“C’mon Takanori, you know I didn’t touch you there.”

“Stop…” I whispered weakly and squeezed my eyes shut. “Shut the up.”

“You’re dirty.”

I covered my ears, curling down into a ball on the ground, tears mixing with the water pouring over me. The men behind me continued to laugh as the man continued . They didn’t even care.

“She doesn’t love you anymore anyway.”

“You’re all liars…” I choke out. Footsteps came towards me and I felt an aggressive hand on my waist. It was more of a split second reaction. I don’t quite remember how I got there. It doesn’t matter anyway. In the end I had two orange teeth in my bloody hands, and the man who grabbed me was on the floor in pain. My eyes were wide and deranged as I looked up to see him cackling as he faded off to god knows where. I looked back to the man at my feet who was cursing at me. He went for my feet and I kicked him in the mouth, ignoring the pain in my foot. I stepped on top of his throat, adding pressure gradually.

“Don’t ever ing touch me,” I seethed. I saw Uruha come around the corner, staring at me in shock before he dragged me out of the room, back to our lockers. He tossed my jumpsuit back at me and we both changed. We were halfway to the cafeteria before I finally decided to say anything.

“You’re not gonna ask what happened?” I asked, shoving my hands in my pockets.

Uruha shrugged his shoulders. “Honestly sugar, there’s not much to ask,” he laughed to himself as we walked into the cafeteria. “Besides, you beat the out of him sugar. Ain’t no one going to be messing with you.”

I laughed with him, gathering our food and sitting down. We chatted for a few minutes before three men sat down at the table with us. I turned as Uruha started chatting with them, so I knew they were friends.

“Hello Aoi,” Uruha cheered in a singsongy tone. I merely raised a brow as the raven haired man scoffed and looked over at me. “Who’s this?” he asked.

“I’m Ruki,” I answered, looking him in the eye. I hated when people acted like I wasn’t there. He looked me up and down, laughing at my stern tone.

“What are you 150 centimeters? You look like you're 15,” Aoi said, crossing his arms in triumph.

“I don’t know if you wanna do that Aoi. Ruki here just knocked out a guys teeth for touching him, ain’t that right sugar?” I rolled my eyes and turned back to my food. Nonchalantly, I put the still bloody teeth I had in my pocket on the table, mentally laughing at how Aoi gagged.

“Ah, dude I’m trying to eat!” he complained, covering his mouth.

“Oi, shut up,” another man two seats down called over. Uruha giggled and grabbed a tooth chucking it at him.

“Enjoy Rui,” he cheered as he laughed.

Rui picked the thrown item off of his shirt and looked at it for a few seconds before his face crumpled in disgust.

“Is this a ing tooth?!” he yelled. I bust out laughing with Aoi and Uruha. I couldn’t help it. His face was priceless.

The fun was short lived though as a man walked up and shoved Aoi out of his seat, moving Aoi and everyone next to him down a seat. He had a partially blond streaked mohawk that clashed oh so terrible with the orange jumpsuits. I narrowed my eyes at the rude gesture as Aoi struck up conversation with him like nothing even happened.

"Guess therapy went pretty bad, huh?" the raven haired man asked. "What-" he was cut off as the man raised a hand, silencing him, and turned towards me.

"Move the down," he said. "I'd rather look at Uruha than you're ratchet face."

I tightened my fist under the table. This guy was an . "And why the hell would I do that? Chose a different ing spot next time," I spat out and angrily scooped up the food on my tray. Why didn't we have forks again? I really wanted to gauge this guy's eyes out. Oh, right.

Aoi's eyes widened in shock and Uruha ducked his head down a tad, sensing the tension.

"Reita stop. You're being an . He's new."

The man snorted and glared at Uruha, pointing a long finger at me.

"And so what? People didn't do to help me when I first got here," he spat. "Besides," he turned to me. "You're the ing lunatic they sent from Wonderland right? I'm sure they surved you're little like royalty over there but-"

He stopped mid sentence as I slammed my bowl of ramen ontop of his head, flattening his god-awful mohawk.

I leaned across the table, scowl etched in every crevice of my face. "If 'Wonderland' treats me like royalty then I must be the ing Queen of Hearts," I inspected one of my pointed nails that I filed everyday. I stopped and met his glaring gaze. "And as Queen my first order will be off with you're ing head." I my heel and walked out of the cafeteria, heading towards the library.

Of course though, I was lost within the first five minutes. "," I cursed under my breath. I wondered for a little bit longer before coming upon a man in his early forties, bald and buff with a book in his hand.

"Excuse me," I said. "Do you know where the library is?"

The man just stared at my blankly. "Что? (what?)," he said, staring at me as if I head two heads.

"I said—," I stopped and looked at the cover of his book. Harry Potter... with Russian translations. I mentally face palmed before trying again.

"Где библиотека? (where is the library?)," I tried again, stuttering over the weird sounds. He still managed to understand me, eyes lighting up as he gave me directions.

We chatted for a little longer, him politely correcting me when I said something wrong. His name was Viktor, he had moved here a little under six months ago. He was in for domestic abuse and going to be released in a little under three months.

I found out his cell was only four down from mine. I also learned that Reita was his cellmate. Apparently that was a first grade to just about everyone.

"He's always an ," Viktor had said. "The only time he's halfway decent is when he's around that weird group of friends; Uruha, Aoi, Manabu, and Rui I think. They seem to make him a second class instead of first."

I told him about me for a little bit and gave details about what went down in the cafeteria. Apparently no one really ever stood up to Akira. There was a rumour that the last person who did was in the infirmary for week. I merely said if Akira wanted to get all pissy just because I dumped food on him then we would just handle it then. I promised I'd meet him in the library tomorrow and went on my way.

--

I got back to my cell five minutes before curfew. Uruha was already in there reading another One Piece manga. He was already four books farther than he was yesterday.

It was silent for a few minutes as I changed and climbed up into bed, beginning to file my nails to their fine point that Wolverine would be jealous of. I don't know why I did it. I guess it made me feel safe, but I'd been doing it ever since I was eight. The prison had just given it back to me since the asylum took it away. I’m surprised they hadn’t thrown it away, especially after I had given them hell over it.

One of the assistants at Thompson Asylum had seen me trying to file my nails on the walls of my room. Of course, the bastard assumed I was doing something ‘dangerous’ and that it must be dealt with immediately. Dr. Hartely had came in had the nurses tie me to the bed while he clipped my nails. I had gotten medicine for OCD after that.

Naturally, I threw a fit and started filing my nails again in secret, even though sometimes they would bleed because they were too short to deal with. I the blood off of my fingers and tried my best to get it off of the walls but it stained. The damn nurse saw it and had me moved to a padded room. They also sewed leather gloves onto my hands, but I’d rather not remember that experience. The entire asylum was violating so many rules from code of conduct and they knew it. When the inspector had came for his yearly checkup we had to wear long sleeve shirts, pants, socks, and hats; at least. They wanted as little of our scarred skin showing as possible. The owner even got off of their lazy long enough to bring the place to 20 celsius. I still had the scars from those damn gloves though.

I heard the cot across from me creak as Uruha put his book away and curled under the blanket. I laid there staring at the ceiling as I waited for him to start speaking.

"So..." he said, filling the silence. "You're the Queen of Hearts, eh sugar?" he said teasingly.

I laughed under my breath and laid down, preparing sleep. "Shut the hell up," I said, and shoved my file back in the pillow case.

"Eh? Yes m'lady wouldn't want you to order the palace to decapitate me now would we sugar?"

We both burst out laughing after that before falling asleep.

--

Notes: I found sometime apart from drumline and school to write this. I also tried to make it a bit longer ^^ Thank you for reading!