Of all the people to come visit him in prison, she was the one he'd least expected. Maybe that was why he found himself so excited when she would come by. Or maybe it was something about her... That always-cheerful spirit seemed to wear on him.

~~~

The first time Chie Satonaka came to visit Tohru Adachi during his confinement in prison, she seemed scared. Her face showed unease, and it seemed like she didn't know what to expect. Maybe she was just as surprised to see him as he was to see her, which seemed strange considering she'd been the one who decided to visit him. Maybe she was second guessing herself...

"Hey..." He broke the silence from his side of the plexi-glass window, speaking into the phone in a tired voice, "Never would've expected to see you here."

"H-Hi..." she replied nervously, letting out a frightened squeak. He smirked a little but managed not to laugh, and that suddenly seemed to ease the tension a bit. She puffed out her cheeks and pouted, "D-don't laugh, it's not funny!" Her face was red and she was clearly embarrassed.

"No, it's not funny... but it's kinda cute..." he chuckled, but he might have gone too far. She backed away from the window, a little scared by his tone of voice.

"So you... you really killed... Ms Yamano and Saki-senpai?" she wasn't looking at him, she couldn't bear to, so she jumped a little when she heard the thud of his forehead pressing against the window. He was looking down, and he looked sad.

"Yeah. Not like I can deny it, I confessed. That's why I'm in here, y'know..." His voice was an odd mix of bitter and amused. It, like so many other things she could think of about him at the moment, scared her.

"Why? I mean... you helped us save Nanako so you must be a good person..." She didn't mean it to sound so naive. What she'd really meant to say was that there must be some good in him.

"You really believe that? There's no good people, and anyone who thinks there are is a liar or an idiot." He scoffed, looking to the side. Truth be told, he wanted to believe her but right now it was too much for him to admit.

"That's not true..." she frowned, staring at his empty hand drumming the table on the other side of the glass, "Even... even people who do really bad things have some good in them."

That conversation hadn't gone on much after that, and Adachi assumed that would be the last he saw of her, that his 'rough exterior' would've scared her off. But a few months later she was back again.

~~~

"You... came back?" Adachi couldn't hide the surprise on his face, especially considering that she was smiling so brightly this time. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung open, he almost dropped the phone, but managed to catch himself. Chie laughed at that.

"Yep! I'm convinced you're not a lost cause!" she smiled, before leaning forward and going on, "Oh, you might've already heard this, but Nanako's made a complete recovery!" she winked and smiled bigger, which he hadn't thought was possible since she was already so cheerful it was almost blinding to look at her.

"Really? Th-that's so great!" He actually hadn't known, it'd been a while since Dojima had visited, he realized. Well, not that long, really, but the last time he'd visited Nanako had still been in the hospital.

"I thought you'd be happy to hear that! See? There's some good in you after all!" Chie poked her finger at the window teasingly and Adachi sighed - but not without a slight smile - and shook his head.

Conversations continued like that for the first year. There was usually about a month between each visit - Adachi assumed she was coming by herself since he never saw anyone with her, so maybe it was hard getting the time or maybe she had to save for a while to afford the train fare - the prison was outside city limits, so walking wasn't an option. Each time Chie would update him on everyone else - particularly the Dojima's, since that was all he was really interested in - make some comment about there being some good in him, and leave it at that. After a couple more visits, she started asking more personal - but trivial - questions.

~~~

"What's your favorite color, Adachi-san?" Chie tilted her head to the side and it almost seemed like she was talking to a new friend and not a convicted felon.

"Hmm... green." He answered with a nod after thinking it over for a minute.

"Really? Mine too! What kind of green?" she bubbled, and he just stared back utterly puzzled.

"Um... light green?" He answered hesitantly, turning his answer into a question as if she was quizzing him.

"Wooow! That's so weird... what's your favorite animal?" It was like twenty questions. Twenty dumb questions you might ask a little kid. Why did she want to know all of this?

"Um... ducks, I guess? I like dogs, too... Oh, and kappas! But those aren't real, so I don't know if they count..." He looked even more confused now.

"Uh-huh, I see..." the way she was talking, he thought she was writing it down for future reference, but when he looked at her she just seemed to be concentrating really hard, "I'll be sure to remember that..." Remember it? Remember it for what?

"O...kay... is that all you came here to talk about?" he backed away from the window with a raised eyebrow.

"Pretty much... oh! One more thing! What's your favorite food?" she smiled at him and he could no longer fathom what might have been going through her head, if anything. Despite this, he answered this question much quicker than the last two.

"Cabbage." the word was out of his mouth before he even seemed to know he was talking, and she wrinkled her nose at him and gave him a weird look.

"Really? Cabbage? Well, whatever..." she shrugged and started to stand up, pulling the phone away from her ear.

"Wait, what? That's it? That's all you've got to say to me?" he stood up and was quickly embarrassed for how angry his outburst had sounded.

"Am I forgetting something? Oh, um! Bye, Adachi-san! Be good and I'll see you next time!" she waved as she put down the phone and headed out. He just stood there dumbly for a few seconds, still trying to grasp what had just happened.

~~~

About a month later part of the mystery was solved for him in the form of mail. The envelope was green, and he could've guessed it was from her without reading the return address. Inside was a card in a different shade of green - handmade by the looks of it, as was the envelope. It had the feeling of a "Get well soon" card written by a child.

On the front of the card was a duck holding an umbrella that had been made out of paper and pasted on. There weren't any words on the outside, but when he opened it there were more cut-out paper animals: a dog with a fishing pole and a kappa biting the end of it. It was so bizarre that he almost forgot to read what was written in it. Shaking his head, he looked it over again and read the words:

For Adachi-san. If this makes you smile even a little, then there's good in you.

There was a smiley face sticking its tongue out before the signature "Chie Satonaka," and - although he was trying not to, just to be contrary - he couldn't help but smile at the card. What a strange, happy girl she was.

~~~

From then on, slowly, there was a change in Adachi. He began moping around his cell less and less and started humming to himself, or laughing to himself. It wasn't that he didn't feel bad for what he'd done to be put in here, but life didn't seem quite as pointless anymore. He looked forward to visits from everyone, but especially Chie - she always had something silly or strange to say.

Chie's visits grew gradually more frequent, but Adachi didn't notice because it seemed like so long in between visits. His inmate - a scrawny guy named Yashiro Nikata who usually kept to himself - even started commenting on Adachi's change in mood, usually asking him if he had a girlfriend - which would occasionally set Adachi over the edge and cause him to start yelling at him. He would deny to his inmate, to himself, and to anyone else who asked having anything more than friendly feelings for Chie Satonaka - she was still a teenager, after all.

But time, as he had begun to notice, was moving more quickly than he realized. He'd already been here almost two years. Nanako was almost nine now and Dojima's nephew had gone home and stopped visiting altogether, but he would've been out of high school. Which meant that Chie was out of high school, too. But every time he started to think about that he had to shake his head.

The snow came and most visits seemed to stop for a while. Before the year was over, though, the Dojimas and Chie had both come to visit and ask about Christmas and New Year's present ideas. Adachi had shook his head at both of them, saying it was just a hassle and that he didn't really want anything, but at the end of the year he found himself with a scarf, hat, and mittens set from Nanako, a simply designed coffee mug from Dojima (which was confiscated due to the possibility of Adachi breaking it and trying to cut himself on the ceramic edges. Dojima should've known better), and another cutesy card from Chie with a sort of I.O.U. slip inside:

Sorry there's no present! Tell me when your birthday is next time!

But by the time she came to visit again, his birthday would have already come and gone. February was a little too soon after New Year's for her to have gotten him anything, anyway.

~~~

Chie visited again in mid-March, on a date that puzzled Adachi in particular. March 14th, or White Day, was when boys gave gifts to girls who had given them Valentine's, so why was a perfectly eligible girl spending her White Day at a prison?

"Shouldn't you be spending the day with your boyfriend or something?" He had asked partly in an attempt to find out if she had a boyfriend, and partly out of bitterness toward said possibly-existent boyfriend.

"I-I don't..." Chie looked down, apparently upset, and he was afraid he'd offended her by asking, "I don't have a boyfriend. I've never had a boyfriend!" Ok, yeah, she was definitely upset. He had ruined any other attempt at talking with her that day, either, because she started to cry, then yelled at him for staring at her, and then left.

For the first time since she'd started visiting him he felt like he'd really screwed up. It wasn't even on purpose, but he'd obviously really struck a nerve. For a long time after that he obsessed over it, wishing he could take it back, wondering if she would ever come to visit again, and then wondering why he cared so much if she did or not. Words like 'boyfriend' and 'never' swirled around in his mind, too, and against his will he started to have thoughts. Dirty thoughts. Chie was nineteen now, out of high school and ready to start college, but in his thoughts he'd imagine her in her school uniform, blushing so adorably, lifting up her skirt...

It was just brief thoughts like that, at first. Nothing too dirty, just mental fanservice and panty shots. But as the weeks went by and she still didn't come back, he found himself increasingly preoccupied with thinking about her. The thoughts themselves still weren't that dirty, but they could not have picked more inappropriate - or appropriate, depending on how you looked at it - times to come into his head.

~~~

It was actually one of these inappropriate times when he got the news. He was having a dream when Yashiro shook him awake, a mocking and still perverted grin on his face, and told him that "his girlfriend" was there to see him. Adachi had scrambled awake, ridiculously embarrassed, and hurried to go meet her. He'd been unable to shake the embarrassed blush from his face as he answered the phone - completely avoiding eye contact with her lest he get a nosebleed.

"I-I'm sorry about last time, Adachi-san..." she said, "You were just asking a question, I shouldn't have gotten so upset..." She seemed sincere about it, which ironically only made Adachi feel worse for having asked in the first place.

"I-It's alright." he swallowed the rising lump in his throat. And you can call me Tohru... he wanted to say, but kept to himself, "I'm just glad you came back, I thought for sure you were going to stop visiting altogether."

"What? That's silly! I wouldn't stop coming over something like that!" she laughed, but he wanted to point out that it'd taken her over three months since her last visit to come back. "Anyway, how are you? Your face looks all red, have you been sick?"

Oh, I've been sick but not in the way you're thinking... he mused to himself and then wanted to hit himself. Her bright spirit made him want to be a good person, but her cute face and other... features... made him want to do such bad things with her... It just wasn't fair.

"Hello? Adachi-san? Ohmigod, are you ok?" she'd clapped a hand over her mouth and he realized that while he'd been off in his own little thoughts his nose actually had started bleeding.

"Ack! Y-yeah, I should be... I just need some tissues and I'll be..." he clamped a hand down on his nose to stop the bleeding and looked around for one of the wardens to get him some Kleenex.

"I'm sorry you're not feeling good, maybe I should go..." Chie stood up to leave, and Adachi jumped into action, the hand that had been on his nose slamming against the window and leaving a small, smudgy trail of bloody fingerprints.

"Wait! M-my birthday... It's February 1st! Sorry I didn't get to tell you last time. Uh... when's yours? Not that I'll be able to get you anything if I'm stuck in here, but I'd still like to know." he blurted it all out so fast it was a wonder she even understood what he was saying.

"February? Aw, so then I missed it... Next year for sure I'll get you something, then! Oh, and mine's July 30th. Just a month away!" she smiled, "I'll be 20! I'll be able to drink!"

He smiled, and for the first time since she'd started visiting he made a request of her. "If you can, try to visit again before then. You're probably doing stuff on your birthday, so..." he trailed off, and she nodded.

"Ok, I'll try! See ya, Adachi-san. You take care!" she waved and left, and he dizzily let go of his nose, dropped the phone, and fell backwards onto the floor smiling to himself all the while.

~~~

She actually did visit on July 30th, he was surprised to see. She was dressed different - she'd gotten her hair cut recently, it looked like, and was wearing a cute little halter top and miniskirt combo - it wasn't her usual style, but it was hot and Adachi had to yell at his brain to not dare get another nosebleed.

"Hey, happy birthday! I didn't expect you to actually come on your birthday; I thought you'd be out celebrating with friends..." He smiled, and for the first time wondered I wonder if she thinks of me that way or if I'm too old for her...

"Ah, I'm going out for a drink with some college friends tonight. This weekend I'm gonna hang out with Yukiko, but her birthday's not until December, so she can't drink yet." When she mentioned her college friends he realized there was so much he didn't know about her. She was free out there, on the outside. She didn't need to wait for him or for anyone; she could just take life in stride. While here he was counting down the days until he could get out of this hellhole...

"Sorry I don't have a present... anything I could think of to give you is probably pretty creepy..." he laughed nervously, and she laughed with him.

"Haha, it's ok! You're smiling! That's a good present!"

"What are you talking about? Don't I always smile? He tilted his head to the side.

"Hm... well... yeah, I guess you do lately! See? I told you that you were good!" she smiled smugly, and he wondered if she had any clue how he felt about her.

"I guess you were right..." he laughed, thinking if I'm good, it's because you changed me. and alternately If you knew some of the thoughts in my head you might not feel that way...

"Keep it up and maybe they'll let you out even earlier!" she laughed, and winked but the suggestion actually registered and he considered it seriously for a moment.

"You really think they would? I mean, like... good behavior or something?" The sooner he got out, the sooner he could... he stopped himself right there before he went too far.

"Yeah! I mean, I don't see why not! If you need witnesses for that I'll testify! I'm sure Nanako and Dojima-san would, too!" If she hadn't added their names to the end he might've interpreted her words as a signal, but of course she was just being friendly and helpful.

"Yeah... wouldn't that be peachy..." he smiled, his minding dancing around forbidden fruit.

"Yup! Well, I've gotta get going. You keep smiling, ok?" she looked at him, but she hadn't needed to tell him. He was beaming at her, his mind still halfway in lala-land.

"Huh? Oh, of course! Until next time!" he waved as she left.

~~~