Another one of my numerous songfics (I really should stop these) this time to the Cell Block Tango from Chicago. It's a Kingdom Heart/Ouran crossover and, I'm pretty sure, is the only story I have ever written with no (live) males in it. I hope you guys all like it, although I'm not totally happy with the ending - put it down to ridiculous working hours - enjoy :D
Usually when one is accused of a crime the general consensus is innocent until proven guilty. However, when you are found next to the body of the sole heir to the Suoh family empire, covered in his blood it is a very different story. When you're discovered by the house-keeper with a dead body, blood on your hands and a gun at your side you wind up spending six days in a women's prison awaiting trial. As Haruhi Fujioka was unfortunate enough to find out.
"Get used to it," the guard stated gruffly as he shoved Haruhi into the large jail cell and slammed the barred door shut behind her. "'cause, if you get sent down, you're gonna be here for a good long while." Haruhi heard the lock clang loudly then the guard's footsteps echo down the hall before she let out the breath she had been holding.
A few days ago her life had been perfectly normal until she had come home to find her fiancé, Tamaki Suoh, lying dead in their bedroom with a gun on the floor next to him and six bullets in his chest. Her cries of anguish had alerted the house-keeper who took in the scene and jumped to her own conclusion. She had called the police and Haruhi had been arrested. Now she had to spend six days in Crookem County Jail waiting to find out if she would be charged with Tamaki's murder or not.
Swallowing her tears Haruhi took in her depressing surroundings. The large cell was made up of one large cell surrounded by three smaller cells, each with two beds and bars cordoning them off from the communal area. In the large part of the cell was a table with five girls sitting around it playing cards. Three of them looked very similar except for their hair; one had long blonde hair, another long red hair and the third cropped black hair and Haruhi assumed they must be related somehow. The other two were taller than them; one had cropped blue hair and the other had slicked back blonde hair with two antenna like strands coming out of the fringe.
Haruhi took a few tentative steps towards them, hoping that they wouldn't notice her just yet. She had had a long and insane day and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep, not make pleasantries with convicts. Then again she didn't actually know which bed was hers yet so she had to at least say something to them. She took another step towards the table and was about to open her mouth when the red headed girl cut her off, laying her cards down, face up on the table.
"Rummy!" she exclaimed, grinning broadly. The taller blonde looked over at her cards then threw her own down on the table in frustration.
"God fucking dammit!" she yelled and the red headed girl laughed loudly, gathering up the cards and shuffling them.
"Sorry Lar, looks like I win again." she stated.
"You're a god-damn cheater Kairi!" the one called 'Lar' growled, glaring at the girl opposite her.
"Now now, no need for name calling." the blue haired girl laughed. "It's not Kairi's fault you suck at Rummy."
"Shut the fuck up Aqua." the blonde snarled still glaring.
"Why don't we play Poker?" the black haired girl piped up.
"Because Lar sucks at that too!" the red head cackled.
"Why you little..." the blonde began, jumping to her feet and slamming her hands down on the table as she did. Before she could finish her sentence the shorter blonde cleared her throat loudly, making the other four look at her.
"Guys, play nicely, we have company." she stated and turned to smile at Haruhi. "Hi and who might you be?" she asked.
"Um I'm Haruhi Fujioka." Haruhi introduced herself, shuffling awkwardly and feeling a blush creeping up the back of her neck.
"Welcome to Crookem County Jail," the blonde smiled. "I'm Namine. These are my sisters, Kairi and Xion," She indicated the red haired girl and the black haired girl respectively and they each gave Haruhi a smile of recognition. They must be triplets, Haruhi thought, or there can't be that many years between them. "and that's Aqua and Larxene over in the corner." The blue haired girl waved slightly and the tall blonde gave Haruhi a nod.
"Nice to meet you all." Haruhi said although she didn't really mean it, she had no desire to associate with criminals.
"So what are you in for?" Aqua asked leaning forward on the table on her elbows.
"It's a long and complicated story." Haruhi replied rubbing the back of her neck in discomfort.
"Whose isn't?" Kairi grinned. The other girls laughed softly.
"What are you all in for?" Haruhi asked trying to change the subject.
"It's a long and complicated story." Larxene stated echoing Haruhi's words.
"First degree murder." Xion told her.
"All of you?" Haruhi asked.
"Yep." Namine replied a little too cheerfully in Haruhi's opinion. "We are The Five Merry Murderesses."
"And you make six." Xion smiled softly.
"Pardon?" Haruhi asked. How could they possibly know? She didn't think she looked like a murderer, did she? "How did you…?"
"Everyone in here is in for murder." Aqua explained.
"Then why did you ask?" Haruhi tried not to snap. If she had to spend at least six days with these girls she didn't want to get on their bad side by pissing them off on the first night.
"We respect each other's privacy." Kairi shrugged. "If you don't want to talk we won't force you too."
"Well, if it's all the same to you, I don't really feel like talking right now." Haruhi replied. "I've had a really tiring day and I just want to go to bed." Aqua nodded towards the nearest cell.
"There's a spare bed in my cell, you can crash in there." she stated.
"Thanks." Haruhi stated and made her way over to the cell. Just as she was about to enter the cell she turned to face her new cell mates. "Just for the record, I didn't do it." Before any of them could say anything she entered the cell. Without getting undressed she climbed into the made bed and pulled the covers up over her head so that the others wouldn't see her shoulders shaking as she silently cried herself to sleep.
So you have to do that every morning?" Haruhi panted doubling over as she followed Namine into the communal showers after the guards had put them through their paces on the track that morning. Even in high school P.E. class she had never been made to run that fast or that hard for that long in her life. She was drenched in sweat, red faced and gasping as she clutched the stitch in her side.
"Pretty much." Namine replied taking her hair out of the pony tail she had tied it in and ran her fingers through it. She seemed completely unfazed by the work out but then again, Haruhi thought, if she did this every single morning then she would be used to it by now. "It's killer at first but after a couple of days it stops hurting four hours later."
"Four hours?!" Haruhi cried practically collapsing as the other four girls joined them. As she walked passed Xion clapped her on the shoulder.
"You did well, Haruhi, you're still on your feet. I couldn't stand after my first run." she told her.
"Thanks." Haruhi panted standing and beginning to peel off her sweat soaked clothes along with the others before following them into the sprays of hot water.
"So you never told us last night," Namine asked as she began washing her hair. "who did you kill to wind up in here?"
"I told you," Haruhi replied stiffening suddenly under the hot water. "I didn't do it."
"Ok, ok." Namine replied raising her hands in defence and Haruhi want back to relaxing her aching muscles.
"You know," Aqua said tentatively after a moment's silence. "no one's going to judge you if you did do it."
"Yeah," Kairi smiled in a friendly manner. "we're all in here for the same reason."
"I know, I just..." Haruhi stopped suddenly. She had been about to say that she didn't want to be associated with criminals and murderers but she didn't want to insult the people who could make the next few days very difficult for her. She sighed; she might as well tell them what she was supposed to have done. "Tamaki Suoh." she said just loudly enough for the others to hear. "That's the guy I'm supposed to have killed."
"As in heir to the Suoh Empire, Tamaki?" Larxene asked washing her shampoo out of her hair. "Damn girl, you aimed high!"
"I came home and found him lying dead in our bedroom, he'd been shot." Haruhi said, choosing to ignore the blonde's comment. "The house-keeper found me and drew her own conclusions about what happened."
"Hey!" Xion exclaimed suddenly. "Wasn't Tamaki Suoh the blonde with the really bright blue eyes?"
"Yeah why?" Haruhi asked in mild confusion.
"Just Nami's got a bit of a thing for blue eyes blondes." Kairi grinned.
"Like Roxas." Xion added, grinning like her sister.
"Ah Roxas." Namine smiled reminiscently.
"Who's Roxas?" Haruhi asked.
"Roxas was Namine's husband." Kairi stated.
"They were high school sweethearts." Xion added.
"Married young." Larxene put in.
"They were the perfect couple." Aqua finished and Haruhi couldn't help but notice that they all referred to the couple in the past tense then Namine finally spoke.
"Roxas is the reason I'm in here." she stated.
"What?" Haruhi asked.
"Roxas and I started dating when we were sixteen; we got married pretty much as soon as we were old enough. For the first couple of years he was amazing; so sweet and attentive and he would do anything for me." Namine stated as she began massaging conditioner into her hair. "Then, after we'd been married for about a year he started to change. No more flowers, no more breakfast in bed and it didn't bother me but then he started to do things to intentionally annoy me."
"What do you mean?" Haruhi asked.
"You know how people have these little habits that just get you down?" Namine answered with her own question. "Well Roxas used to do things that would irritate me all the time just because he knew it would irritate me; he liked to see how far he could push me."
"What kind of things?" Haruhi asked. She was beginning to wonder where Namine was going with this. When she had said that Roxas was the reason she was in prison she assumed that she had killed someone for him but now, the way that she was talking about him in the past tense, she sounded like she had...
"See Roxas liked to chew gum." Namine said. "No," she corrected after a thoughtful pause. "not chew, pop! All the time popping his damn gum! So I come home one night after work, looking for some sympathy, and there's Roxas lying on the couch having done nothing all day. Place is a mess, I've got to prepare dinner and Roxas is just chewing...no, not chewing popping his gum smirking at me because he knows I'll do it. I start making dinner and he keeps popping his gum and eventually I turn round and say to him 'Roxas, if you pop that gum one more time...' and he did. I was really angry so I took his shotgun off the wall and I fired two warning shots into his head."
Haruhi stared, wide eyed, at Namine. She seemed so calm talking about how she had killed her husband over a minor irritation! Sure, there were things that Tamaki had done that had annoyed her and, sure, she had thought to herself 'if he does that one more time I'm going to kill him' but she would never have really killed him for it.
"Then what happened?" Haruhi asked, her voice croaking slightly as she spoke.
"The neighbours heard the gun shots and called the police. I was arrested and thrown in here." Namine replied and Haruhi noticed the slight edge in her voice. "That run made me hungry, I'm going to go get breakfast." she said suddenly brightening and heading for the changing rooms.
"Ooh sounds good!" Xion agreed and followed her sister out of the shower, the rest of them slowly following once they had finished washing. Haruhi stared after them, still trying to process what Namine had just revealed.
"Don't judge her too much." Larxene told Haruhi as she walked passed.
"I wasn't." Haruhi lied. She was only partially lying; she didn't judge Namine but to her it did seem to be an over-reaction to something Haruhi would consider to be only mildly annoying.
"She gave you the cliff-noted version of what Roxas was like when in reality he was a lot worse."
"What do you mean?" Haruhi asked.
"Roxas wasn't a nice guy." Larxene replied. "After they got married he didn't treat her well at all; constantly berating her and bringing her down all the time. There's only so much you can take before you snap, you know."
"Why didn't she say anything?" Haruhi muttered.
"Nami's the kind who tries not to let the bad stuff in, you know." Larxene replied. "Now come on; let's go get breakfast before the others eat everything." With that she left the showers and Haruhi followed after, trying to process what she had just been told.
"So how long were you and Tamaki together?" Kairi asked later that afternoon when the six of them were sitting outside in the prison's large courtyard.
"Well I met him in high school..." Haruhi began.
"High school sweethearts?" Namine cut her off, her eyes glazing over slightly at the romantic prospects. "That's so cute!" Haruhi raised an eyebrow at her; she could almost see the stars in her eyes and the pink hearts and flowers around her head.
"Not really." Haruhi stated. "I was working as a host in his club to pay off a huge debt over a little misunderstanding."
"You were working in a host club?!" Larxene cackled with laughter.
"I was very flat chested in high school," Haruhi muttered, her face heating up. "and I had very short hair."
"Know the feeling." Xion smiled and gave her an encouraging hug.
"So you used to dress up as a guy and let girls fawn all over you?" Aqua asked and Haruhi nodded. "How did your school even allow one of those clubs?"
"Tamaki set it up and he was the school director's son." Haruhi explained.
"So he liked the ladies?" Kairi asked, raising an eyebrow.
"That wasn't the main reason he set it up but he didn't not like the attention, if that makes sense." Haruhi stated shuffling awkwardly. "He wasn't like a man-whore or anything but he was very good at giving the girls what they wanted."
"Hey Kairi, he sounds kind of like Sora." Namine stated giving her sister's shoulder a playful shove.
"In what world is he like Sora?" Kairi asked incredulously turning to stare at her sister.
"Sora was a man-whore." Namine shrugged.
"Sora was a bigamist." Kairi corrected. "there's a difference."
"Who's Sora?" Haruhi asked.
"Kairi's ex-husband." Xion stated.
"And he was a bigamist?" Haruhi asked shocked.
"I didn't know that when I married him." Kairi shot back. "See," she sighed beginning her explanation. "I met Sora Young from Salt Lake City about two years ago, when I was travelling round the States. He told me he was single and we hit it off right away. So we got married very quickly and we started living together; he'd got to work, he'd come home, I'd fix him a drink, we'd have dinner together. I was pretty happy being a stay-at-home wife. Then I found out; single, my ass! Not only was he already married, he had six wives – one of those Mormons, you know."
"Six wives..." Namine mused.
"Makes you wonder where he found the energy." Xion stated.
"So," Kairi continued, ignoring them. "one night, when he came home, I fixed him his drink like usual, pretending everything was normal."
"Real ladies don't make a scene." Aqua stated.
"But they don't take it lying down either." Larxene smirked.
"So what did you do?" Haruhi asked, although she already knew the answer:- there was a fatal reason Kairi was in here after all.
"I didn't do anything," Kairi replied as a devilish smirk formed on her lips. "it's not my fault that some guys just can't hold their arsenic."
"You poisoned his drink?" Haruhi asked, her voice rising slightly.
"His mum found him the next day and called the police." Kairi continued ignoring Haruhi. "I was arrested on suspicion and when the autopsy results came back I was charged with his murder, wound up here a few days later."
"You found out he was married to someone else so you poisoned him?" Haruhi asked trying to wrap her head around what Kairi was saying. She knew she should be horrified with what she was hearing but at the same time she could see it from Kairi's point of view. She had hated seeing Tamaki flirt with other girls when he was being a host; it made her want to rip off the heads of the girls fawning over him.
"I did what I did because I wanted him to pay." Kairi replied. "He lied to me and basically played me for a sucker the entire time we had been together."
"I guess so..." Haruhi muttered quietly.
"If you'd have been there," Kairi said equally as quietly. "and you'd have seen it, I bet you you would have done the same." Haruhi bit her lip, as Namine began to turn the conversation to a happier topic, because she knew that Kairi was right.
The next few days passed in a similar, routinely fashion. The guards would wake them all up for an hours run (which Haruhi was beginning to find a little easier each day) then they would have breakfast then visiting hours before lunch. After they had eaten their afternoons were spent outside before dinner. Once their final meal was done they were put through another, less intense, work out and their evenings were free to do as they pleased. During this time Haruhi and her cell mates usually spent their time playing cards and talking.
Haruhi had three days before she was due to go on trial to decide whether she would be spending the rest of her life in prison or not. That morning she had receive a visit from one of Kyoya's assistants about the trial. She was glad that the Ootori family were providing her with a lawyer, and that it was going to be Kyoya himself. It meant that Kyoya believed Haruhi's innocence; he wouldn't help defend the person who had killed his best friend if there was a chance that they were guilty.
Haruhi placed a card face up on the table in front of her before picking up another from the pile, adding it to the ones in her hand and grinning at Larxene. She and her five cell mates were partaking in their nightly ritual of kicking Larxene's backside at cards and the blonde was already loosing rather badly. Larxene looked at the card Haruhi had just put down, then at her own and threw her cards down on the table.
"God-damn it!" she growled.
"Wow you really do suck at cards." Haruhi laughed, gathering up the cards from the table and shuffling them.
"Piss off." Larxene glared at her and folded her arms over her chest in anger.
"Aww don't be mad, Lar," Namine teased. "it's not Haruhi's fault that you suck."
"When did I get this reputation of being shit at cards?" Larxene asked incredulously.
"When you lost all your desserts to me for a year on your first night in here." Xion laughed while Larxene continued to glare at her.
"New topic." the blonde snarled as Haruhi began dealing out new cards for all of them.
"Ok Haruhi," Kairi grinned pointing at her. "was Tamaki your first?"
"First what?" Haruhi asked stupidly and as soon as the words were out of her mouth she realised what Kairi had meant.
"Aww you're so cute." the red head grinned and Haruhi blushed deeply. "Was Tamaki your first lover?"
"Well of course he was." Haruhi snapped. "I was engaged to him!"
"That's even cuter." Kairi stated.
"Weren't your husbands the first guys you slept with?" Haruhi asked her face still scarlet.
"Larxene's certainly wasn't." Aqua smirked at her friend and Larxene just smirked back.
"I was a bit of a get around before I was married." she stated shrugging.
"Only before?" Xion snorted derisively.
"Hey, I never slept with anyone else while I was with Axel." Larxene stated defensively.
"He didn't see it that way though." Aqua shot back.
"Who's Axel?" Haruhi asked.
"Larxene's dearly departed husband." Xion told her.
"Dearly departed?" Haruhi cocked an eyebrow.
"Well he may not be dear." Namine grinned.
"But he's certainly departed." Kairi cackled and Larxene allowed herself to chuckle.
"Axel and I used to drive each other crazy." she stated. "He never believed that I was staying faithful to him and I got fed up of him constantly accusing me of cheating."
"Did you guy used to fight about it?" Haruhi asked and Larxene nodded.
"All the time and it wasn't just slightly raised voices either." she explained. "I'm talking screaming, smashed glasses and broken plates."
"Didn't your neighbours call the police on you at one point?" Xion asked.
"Quite a few times actually." Larxene replied. "Whenever we had a particularly bad one they'd show up out front and tell us that if we didn't keep it down we'd be arrested."
"So what happened?" Haruhi asked although she was pretty sure she knew. Out of all of the girls in here Larxene was the one that she could understand being incarcerated for murder the most: - she seemed the most unstable out of them all.
"Well one night I'm in the kitchen carving up a chicken for dinner. I'm already pretty pissed, cause he's late, and then in storms Axel in a jealous rage. 'You've been screwing the milkman' he says and he keeps saying 'You've been screwing the milkman'. Now," Larxene continued after a short pause. "our milkman was some pink haired fag named Marluxia and, to be perfectly honest, Axel was more his type than I was."
"Why are the good looking ones always gay?" Aqua asked none of them in particular.
"So I start shouting, he starts shouting, he starts throwing plates, I start gesturing, still holding my carving knife. He then lunges at me and ran into my knife." Larxene smirked and her eyes turned malicious." He ran into my knife ten times over."
"Ten times?" Haruhi breathed. She had guessed that Larxene was a little sadistic but she hadn't realised she was that sadistic to stab someone ten times!
"When Axel ran for me he was holding a broken glass that he was planning on shoving into my skull." Larxene stated. "Also considering the way he had treated me throughout our marriage he had it coming."
"I guess so." Haruhi murmured. "if he was trying to kill you..."
"There's only so much you can take before you finally snap." Larxene stated. "Axel just pushed me too far that night; he only had himself to blame."
"Don't they all." Namine stated darkly and the room fell into a tense silence before Larxene reached forward and took the cards from Haruhi and began dealing them out.
"Now," she said brightly, trying to lighten the mood. "give me one more chance to smash you all at Poker." With her words and tone the mood began to revert back to what it had been and the chatter started up again as Kairi and Namine began to tease Larxene about her appalling card playing skills. Haruhi picked up the cars that Larxene had handed her and all she could think about was Tamaki and the things that he did to push her buttons. He had never pushed her to the point of actually considering killing him but if he had been trying to kill her... If it was a choice between her life and his, then Haruhi couldn't honestly say that she wouldn't have done the exact same thing.
The next morning Haruhi couldn't bring herself to get out of bed. She lay there staring up at the ceiling trying to muster the energy to move. She couldn't quite, as hard as she tried, get her thoughts and feelings to make sense. When she had first arrived at Crookem County Jail she had been adamant that she was innocent and the girls she was sharing a cell with were deranged murderers that deserved to be imprisoned. Now she wasn't so sure.
Namine had been ignored and put down by her husband, Kairi had been lied to by hers about him being married to other women and Larxene's had attacked her with a broken bottle. If Haruhi had found herself in the same position; if Tamaki had attacked her, cheated on her or did nothing but chastise her for years on end she couldn't, in her heart of hearts, honestly say that she wouldn't have done the exact same thing. Haruhi wasn't a killer – she had never had the capacity – and she had loved Tamaki with everything she was but she could sympathise with her cell-mates.
"Hey," a quiet voice said from beside her breaking her out of her thoughts. She turned to see Aqua sitting on the floor beside her bed. "you ok?"
"I guess." Haruhi sighed and heaved herself up in bed.
"What's up?" Aqua asked taking hold of Haruhi's hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.
"I don't know." Haruhi sighed again. "It's just this place...all this waiting around..." she tailed off.
"You worried about your trial?" Aqua asked.
"A little." Haruhi admitted.
"You got a good lawyer?"
"An old school friend of mine and Tamaki's." Haruhi replied. "Kyoya Ootori."
"You'll be fine." Aqua told her. "He was my prosecution so he's kind of one of the reason I'm in here."
"If you don't mind me asking," Haruhi began tentatively. "how did you end up in here?"
"Myself, my husband, Terra, and our mutual friend Ventus had this triple act thing and we'd tour around entire countries wowing punters with our show. It was this elaborate Cirque du Soleil type thing and with the last number in our act we did twenty acrobatic tricks; splits, spread eagles, flip flops, back flips, one right after the other. Well, this one night we were in Cicero; the three of us were in this hotel room drinking and having a laugh when we ran out of ice, so I went out to get some. I come back, open the door and there's Ventus and Terra doing number seventeen; the spread eagle! Then I find out our 'mutual friend' has been fucking my husband for months, trust my luck being married to a closet gay."
"Hang on...Terra and Ventus were both guys?" Haruhi asked after a moment's thought.
"Yeah." Aqua replied. "You would have thought it would have been the other way round, me fucking him, right."
"So what did you do?" Haruhi asked.
"Well, I was in such a state of shock that I completely blacked out – I can't remember a thing. It wasn't until I was washing the blood off my hands that I even knew they were dead."
"So you might not even have done it then." Haruhi stated. Aqua shrugged.
"I don't know, I'm pretty sure I did considering the amount of blood splashed up my arms when I came too but it might have been in self-defence, I just can't be sure." Haruhi opened her mouth to reply but a greeting from the door cut her off.
"Morning!" Namine sang poking her head into the cell, Kairi, Xion and Larxene standing behind her.
"Morning," Aqua replied turning to smile at them.
"What's up?" Kairi asked.
"I was just giving Haruhi the story of Terra and Ventus." Aqua told them.
"Ah," Xion mused. "Aqua's little rage fuelled black out."
"I don't get why you're so pissed." Kairi stated.
"Yeah I would have filmed it." Xion smirked.
"Or asked to join in." Namine added.
"You three are twisted." Aqua said shaking her head.
"If only you could remember what happened then you wouldn't be serving twenty-five to life in prison." Larxene smirked.
"They had it coming." Aqua shrugged a slight smirk playing on her lips.
"If they were fucking for months behind your back, they had it coming all along." Xion stated.
"But if you blacked out how do you know what really happened?" Haruhi asked.
"I don't." Aqua stated. "I can say I didn't do it till I run out of air but if I'd done it how can you tell me that I was wrong?"
"I guess..." Haruhi murmured. Tamaki had always been popular with the ladies but it wasn't in his nature to cheat but if she had caught him cheating, especially with another man, she didn't even want to think about how she would have handled it.
"Anyway," Aqua said, giving Haruhi a gentle slap on the legs and pushing herself to her feet. "you need to get out of bed or the guards will come and drag you out to the field."
"Ok..." Haruhi sighed and heaved herself out of bed.
"Cheer up Haruhi," Namine smiled. "it could be worse; you could have slept with a gay."
"I didn't know he was gay when I married him!" Aqua exclaimed giving her a shove as they all made their way out of the cell, Haruhi following silently behind her mind still reeling as she tried to make sense of her still jumbled emotions.
"I will never get used to this food." Larxene stated giving the food dripping from her fork a disgusted sneer.
"You're stuck here for, at least, the next sixteen years," Aqua stated. "you're going to have to."
"Yeah but this stuff looks like it's got new stuff growing on it." Larxene replied giving the grey gloop a disgruntled look.
"It probably does." Haruhi stated giving her own food an experimental poke with her fork, it really did look disgusting.
"My cooking was much better." Kairi mused. "If they let me in the kitchen here I could whip up a feast in thirty seconds flat."
"Sure you could, Kai." Namine replied through a mouthful of food. "Are you going to eat that?" Kairi shook her head and Namine pulled her sister's plate across the table and began to dig in.
Cooking was my thing!" she exclaimed. "The amount of times I cooked for Sora it should have been."
"My mother always used to say cooking was like an art." Haruhi piped up.
"Everyone is an artist in their own right." Aqua stated.
"Hey Xion didn't you used to date an artist?" Namine asked moving on from Kairi's plate to Xion's untouched food.
"Yeah," Xion mused. "Riku Lipschitz; he was a real artistic guy."
"Sensitive type." Larxene stated handing her plate over to Namine who was slowly making her way around the table.
"A painter." Aqua told Haruhi also pushing her plate to the blonde; she was the only one who seemed to be able to stomach the disgusting food.
"Put his heart and soul into his work." Kairi added.
"And everything he created looked as beautiful as he did." Namine concluded with a mouthful of food. "Hey, Haruhi, you going to eat that?" Haruhi shook her head and handed her plate over.
"Only problem with Riku was he was always trying to find himself." Xion sighed. "I guess being the artsy type also lends itself to being a bit of the hippy type. He'd go out every night trying to find himself and I just shrugged it off as his artistic flare. Then, I found out, that on the way to finding himself he also found Ruth, Gladys, Rosemary and Irving."
"Hang on, isn't Irving a..." Haruhi began.
"Yep." Xion cut her off.
"Aqua and Xion like boys who like boys!" Namine sang and both Aqua and Xion turned to glare at her. "Hey don't blame me that you two are both fag-hags." she added in defence.
"Shut up Nami." Aqua snapped.
"So what did you do when you found out he'd been sleeping around?" Haruhi asked grinning at Namine's comment.
"We broke up." Xion shrugged. "I guess you say we broke up because of artistic differences," Haruhi watched as her expression turned dark and menacing. "he saw himself as alive and I saw him as dead."
"Dirty bum." Kairi stated flatly.
"Such a dick." Aqua added.
"You three just need to stop finding guys who cheat on you or tell you they're single when they're not." Larxene stated.
"Yeah well you and Nami need to find guys who treat you better." Kairi shot back.
"You all need to find better guys." Haruhi chuckled softly.
"Yeah but where's the fun in that?" Xion replied a hint of bitterness in her voice. The table fell silent as each girl thought about the men they had killed, the men that had driven them to murder. Haruhi's thoughts turned to Tamaki; she missed him so much. She hated the thought that she had to live without him and it made her blood boil to know that his murderer was still out there and that she was most likely to take the fall for it. Haruhi's train of though was suddenly interrupted but Namine hiccupping loudly, holding her stomach.
"I think I'm going to be sick." she said softly, her skin paling.
"So your trial's tomorrow isn't it Haruhi?" Namine asked that night as they sat playing cards again.
"Yeah." Haruhi replied.
"You nervous?" Namine asked.
"A little." Haruhi told her. She had been trying, and failing, all day to not think about the prospect of her trial tomorrow. She was terrified about facing the court, partially because if she was found guilty then she would be thrown in jail for a good few years for a crime that she hadn't committed and if she was found innocent then she had to work out how she was going to live the rest of her life without the man she loved.
"You never did actually tell us," Kairi said as she dealt out cards. "what was Tamaki like?"
"I don't really know how to describe him." Haruhi shrugged. "He was just Tamaki; he was so flamboyant he could easily have been mistaken for gay, he had a way with the ladies, and he had this weird obsession with calling himself my 'daddy'."
"So Suoh had kinks?" Larxene asked.
"Sort of, it was something he did since high school back when I was kind of like his student; he was teaching me the ropes of being a host and he used to refer to me as his daughter. It stopped once we started seeing each other." Haruhi explained.
"So you guys were together since high school and you were engaged?" Aqua asked.
"Going to be married next April." Haruhi replied. "Both of us had always said that we wanted a spring wedding underneath a load of cherry blossom trees."
"How romantic." Namine sighed and Haruhi shook her head and grinned.
"But then," she sighed. "I came home and found him dead in our bedroom."
"Is there anyone you can think of who would have motive to kill him?" Xion asked and Haruhi shrugged.
"I don't know, not anyone I can think of." she replied. "Of course I was the main suspect and as there's no proof that it wasn't me so..." she tailed off.
"Did you ever..." Namine began.
"Think about killing him?" Haruhi asked. "Yeah all the time; there were things he did that made me so mad. His constant flirting, his insistence in referring to himself as 'daddy', his childish sulking if I upset him. If I'm totally honest there were times when I thought that if I had a gun in my hand then..." She tailed off and sighed heavily.
"Yeah but did you do it?" Larxene asked and Haruhi shook her head.
"Uh uh, not guilty." she stated.
"Then you stick to that in the trial tomorrow." Aqua told her. "Tell them the whole story and they won't be able to convict you."
Haruhi's trial passed quickly the next day. She was too nervous to pay any real attention to what was being said about her even though she knew she should – it was her future that was on the line after all. She couldn't seem to get her mind to focus on the trial (aside from in the few minutes when she was on the stand) all she could think about was the stories of the girls who, over the last few days, had become her friends.
Namine; who had suffered years of being ignored, Kairi; who had been lied to, Larxene; who had been attacked, Aqua; who had been left for another man and Xion; who had been cheated on multiple times. They had reasons to kill the men who had used them and abused them and if Haruhi had been in their position she probably would have done the same. She had loved Tamaki but if he had done those things to her she wouldn't have hesitated. Those five girls had brought out a darker side of Haruhi that she hadn't known she had possessed until she had been arrested for a crime that, before, she never would have dreamt of committing.
A tap on her arm suddenly broke Haruhi out of her thoughts and she turned to where Kyoya was indicating to see the members of the jury returning from their conference. The head of the jury was carrying a small white piece of paper and written on that paper was Haruhi's entire future. If she was found guilty she would be back at Crookem County Jail and imprisoned for however long her sentence was and if she was found innocent she would have to live, alone, with the knowledge that Tamaki's real murderer was still free. The head of the jury remained standing as the rest took their seats.
"In the case of Haruhi Fujioka for the murder of Tamaki Suoh," the man read out in a clear voice and Haruhi sat with baited breath waiting for her sentence. "we find the defendant..."
...Yeah, sorry then ending kind of sucked. The intention was to leave it open for your interpretation but I, as I said before, I kind of wrote the end after finishing a ten hour shift...not one of my brightest ideas. Hope you enjoyed the rest of it though :D S-E xxx