I do not own Ouran High School Host Club. Not even close.
Normally, I would have represented myself, like I did with Suoh, but this case was different. Since this was actually going to court, it would probably look better if I had a puppet head. Also, I'd rather not have a break down in the middle of making my case. I ended calling up Suoh's lawyer. He looked intelligence and probably would have done a good job if Suoh wasn't a sentimental moron. He agreed to a preliminary meeting. That was good enough for me.
Tamaki's driver agreed to take me to the meeting. He'd become like my chauffer as well, and I felt bad about it. Since there were no annoying, idiotic hosts to bug me, I sat up front and talked to the poor guy. Turns out that he was really nice. He asked what I was suing Mr. Hinora (the maintenance head) for. I told him my sob story, and he actually understood. He must have been at least sixty, but I suppose he remembered his youth. When I started crying halfway through, he took one of my hands in his and comforted me. I was done crying by the time we reached the building. He wished me luck and helped me out of the car before going on his way.
Once I was in the building, I rolled my over to the info desk. I talked to the lady there, and she gave me a badge. I didn't like her very much. She was too short. She only waved her hand to her left when showing me to the elevator, as if getting up were too much of a problem. It took me at least fifteen minutes to find the extremely well hidden elevator. A few minutes later, I was in the lawyer's office.
"So what happened that makes you want to sue Mr. Hinora for murder?" he naïvely asked. I told him the same thing I told the driver. I cried, again, which irritated me to no extent. Instead of comforting me, he got a hard look in his eye. "We're going to win this case. Do you know anyone who would be willing to testify?"
"I have the entire maintenance staff. There's fifteen of them."
"Perfect," he said. "I'll deal with sending in a formal letter to him and arranging court dates. Just leave it to me, and I'll see you in again in a week, okay?"
"Alright." It didn't take as long as I thought it would. I had a good forty five minutes before the driver, whose name I really needed to learn, would be there to pick me up. I could have called him, if I had a cell phone, but I didn't, so I was stuck. That was when I saw the sign for an indoor skate park. Cue idea.
Despite being pushed everywhere for most of my existence in a wheelchair, I'd actually gotten pretty good at wheeling myself around. Having other people do it for me was just me being lazy. That's why, once I was in the skate park, surrounded by those ramps, I went crazy. I jumped and swerved and made all of those skater punks jealous. I hadn't felt that free in years. I warmed up a bit on small jumps, then I moved onto the half pipe. I had some friends I'd made help me up, and I was set free. I was going so fast and flying so high and doing it over and over again. It was absolutely exhilarating.
As with every good high, a crash comes soon afterward. And did I crash. The chair tipped over when I tried to do a flip midair. The chair went flying in one direction and I went straight down. My legs, still in their casts, hit the top of the ramp, and the rest of me hit the ramp itself. I stayed bent over at the waist like that only for a moment before I tumbled head over heels down the ramp. I ended up stopping when I rammed head first into my chair. It hurt almost as much as falling out of that basket, but this time it was my fault.
The stand-by medics were already racing across the huge room, dodging skateboards and people on their way. I was just really glad I'd dropped my stuff in a locker before I started. My laptop would have been totaled. I had a nice reunion with my friend the stretcher and his wife the ambulance, and they took me back to their place: the hospital.
It was another Ootori. It was like they owned every hospital in Japan. Actually, I knew this wasn't true, but I seemed to find myself in quite a few of them. I got a nice room and a very familiar doctor took me into surgery. The anesthetic was nice, and it knocked me out surprisingly fast.
When I woke up, there were seven people in the far corner of the room. Sorry, make that six male people and one oddly boyish female person. Talk about de ja vu. Those seven people just turned out to be seven annoying hosts and Haruhi. Tamaki immediately began to flip out. I went to hit him upside his head to shut him up, but my arm was unnaturally heavy. One glace to my right showed my arm was covered in a cast.
"Please don't tell me," I began.
"That you broke your arm in four places?" Ootori cut me off. I groaned. Now I couldn't even get around on my own any more. If that wasn't enough, I found out that I had been assigned a body guard. Actually, I got a seven for one deal, because wherever their idiot king went, the rest were sure to follow, like Little Bo Peep and her sheep.
They took me back to my apartment, which I'd gotten to keep thanks to worker's comp. Apparently, Suoh Senior was giving them each one of them a day off a week to watch me. They'd have to make up their work, but no one seemed to mind.
The first week went pretty smoothly. I usually just ignored them and worked on my laptop. The twins were irritating, but even they got discouraged after a while. I went to my meeting with the lawyer. Mr. Katachi, the really nice driver man, drove me and Ootori, who just happened to be watching me that day. Thankfully, this wasn't going to be one of those cases that take years to go to court. Our court date was in a week. It was sooner than I'd expected. The case that was supposed to be presented that day had been thrown out when the defendant died. My lawyer had gotten his foot in the door quick enough that no one else could take the day.
The week went by in a blur of preparations and tears. It was really happening. He was finally getting justice.
The twins picked out my outfit for court. If there was one area in which I trusted them was fashion. They were raised by a fashion designer after all. It was a simple white, button-down shirt and a navy skirt. I had Haruhi help me into it. It hadn't taken me long to figure it out once I got to know her. She crossed her legs, was girlishly thin, and she just so happened to fall on me on her way to the kitchen one day, so it was pretty obvious.
It was tough to get over my casts, but we did it. My left sleeve was too tight, though, so we had to cut it off. Overall, I looked nice. The navy skirt went with my navy casts, and the blouse accented my tan skin.
The limo ride seemed to go on forever. There were cameras and reporters surrounding the courthouse. Everyone wanted to get a shot of the poor girl suing a rich man for murder. I was jostled and shoved inside, where there were no cameras in my face and no shouting. I took my place by my lawyer and saw Hinora across the aisle. The judge came in, and the proceedings began.
The first day was given to Hinora. His lawyer stated how his death wasn't Hinora's fault, and how he never hit employees. All of which were lies. I couldn't count the number of times I'd had to patch up one of my extended family because of him. I stopped paying attention after about ten minutes of listening to that squirrel of a man. I started to daydream, and before I knew it, it was over.
The reporters basically attacked me. I got hit on the head with more microphones than I care to remember. The club followed me into the limo. Of course, they also just had to follow me into my apartment. Then, for no reason at all, I broke into tears. I didn't sob. Tears just started flowing down my face. Little did I know then, that it would be the first of many tears to come in the next days. Eventually, after many a failed consolation attempt, they left. I fell asleep after that. I just fell out of my chair, collapsed on my mattress, and passed out.
I was awakened by two ginger demons poking my face. I really wanted to throttle them, but three casts wouldn't let me. Instead, I let Haruhi put me into today's outfit (which looked a lot like yesterdays). The twins did my hair and makeup, much to my displeasure. Then, it was down the steps and into the limo.
The same crowd of reporters was there, plus about fifty hundred more. Today was the big day. My testimony was coming up. If it was possible, even more microphones were shoved in my face as I made my way inside. I think there were police people there, but I couldn't be sure. I just let the hosts get me inside.
The interior of the courthouse was the exact opposite of the outside. It was quiet, calm and peaceful. There were no reporters, no crowds, and most importantly, no microphones. I took my respective place beside my lawyer. He smiled at me and gave me last minute pointers on how to testify. Then the judge and jury came in, and the proceedings began.
I didn't pay attention. It was overwhelming. It seemed like we were doing well judging by the jury's sympathetic faces. Suddenly, I was being wheeled to the front of the room. This must've meant that all of the other workers must've already testified. I was the last to go, the clincher. I was stationed in front of thee stand, since I couldn't go up the step. I took a deep breath and began my sob story.
"I was twelve when I started working at Ouran. My parents had just recently died, and I was trying to make my way in the world. The first person I ran into was Takeshi. He was a year older than me. He was tall and handsome. He was the one that walked me to my interview and my first friend there." Suddenly, it was like it was happening all over again. It was like I really was twelve and scared and cried myself to sleep every night.
"When I was accepted, he was the first to congratulate me and the first to tell me things weren't right. I didn't think anything of it at the time. Then, I started seeing his bruises. When I asked him about them he just said, 'I told you things weren't right.' I started seeing him more, and taking care of his injuries. Well, what more can I say?" I smiled sadly and began twisting the silver band on my right ring finger.
"He was, no, he is the love of my life. He gave me this ring on my fourteenth birthday and said that the second I turned eighteen I could move it over to the other side." Great, now I was crying softly and twisting my ring and watching how the tiniest little sparkle in the middle of the band caught the light. "You can't imagine how I felt. It was like I was Cinderella and he was my prince. Then one day, he didn't show up for work. He was taking care of his mother. She was sick, and it was going to be a day before his dad was back in town. He was a gardener, you see, and he cut the grass on the soccer fields. Practice had to be canceled since the grass wasn't cut, wh-which is a really stupid reason, if you ask me. The next day, Hinora called him into his office. When, he didn't show up by the gates to meet me, I got worried.
"Th-that's when I found him. He was just tossed on the ground like a rag doll. A bloody, bruised rag doll. I-I had to half carry-half drag him to a hospital. When I got him there, they ran tests, and th-they said that there was n-nothing they could do for him. H-he was bleeding too much internally. I t-took him to my apartment, since it was closer than his. I took care of him for three days. He c-couldn't move much and I-I did my best, but it wasn't enough. I held him every night, you know? He said it helped. I didn't believe him, but I did it anyway. He died in his sleep. In my arms." I was bawling now. We had expected for Hinora's attorney to question my testimony, but he remained silent. If I had looked up from my ring for a second, I wouldn't have seen a dry eye in the room. Everyone from the people watching in the back of the room to the judge and jury were crying. Even Hinora and his attorney let a few loose.
I was wheeled back to my spot by my lawyer. The judge pounded his gavel and the jury disappeared through a door. I was still looking at my ring through tears. I couldn't stop crying. I thought there was limited amount you could cry, but I must be an anomaly. People began milling around, and the Host Club made their way up to me. I guess I am normal, because the tears had stopped, but sobs still racked my body. Tamaki's eyes shined with tears as he gave some long speech I didn't really pay attention to, the twins were drying their eyes with hankies, and Honey was bawling as hard as I was. Even Mori let down his usually stoic expression and let a few loose. Of course, Ootori had his mask on, and I wouldn't expect anything less.
The jury came back out just two hours later. Their verdict was guilty, and I started crying again. This time they were tears of joy, though. It was finally happening. He was going away for life. He couldn't hurt anyone anymore. I could tell Takeshi was smiling down on me. He was probably laughing and telling all of his new friends about how his little Italian spitfire had finally gotten him justice after nearly a year. I could almost feel him standing next to me as I watched Hinora escorted away by two officers.
I didn't have much time to think about how relieved I was, because Tamaki had come up with an idea. They were taking me out for ice cream to celebrate my win. If they weren't blind they would have seen that I wanted to be alone, but they were, so I let it go. We pushed through the throng of people, and I was placed into the waiting limo. Then, we were off.
I know. More tragic backstory. Ugh. I know it's really cliché. Don't kill me.
