The Glasses Come Off

By Tanzy

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by people who are not me. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Rating: R

Summary: Kazuhiko Amamiya wasn't himself all the time in prison. Written for 15 minute ficlets on Livejournal. The keyword was Alias.


The guards in prison have selective hearing. Sometimes, the guards can't hear the screams echoing in the halls. Yousuke Kobayashi is one of those people who seems to be surrounded by a cone of silence.

He calls himself Kazuhiko Amamiya now; some are convinced it's a fake alias. But prisoners who spent enough time around the guy have started to wonder. If it's a fake, it's a near perfect act with only a couple of cracks.

Two years into his sentence he killed another prisoner. He can't remember it, he blacked out during a work detail after someone had turned on a radio. But he's heard what the other prisoners say about him. The other guy was some big burly brute of a foreigner who'd been put away for beating his girlfriend to death. He'd been making his rounds on the other inmates, which is how it always went in prison or at least he seemed to think so.

The guards found him in the showers with his left eye ripped out and his face smashed in. Whoever had done it had tried to write their name on the wall with the bloodied remains of the guy's eye. The steam from the shower had caused the blood to run, leaving a streaky blur on the white tiles instead. The other prisoners know it was Amamiya who did it, but they're not telling anyone. Some of them will still be having nightmares about the look in his eyes years from now, who could have known such intense homicidal glee could be contained behind a pair of wire frame glasses? Even hardened criminals are afraid of monsters that go bump in the night.

The guards certainly aren't investigating too hard, not with Kobayashi's links to the police. Amamiya certainly can't remember any of this, he can remember folding sheets in work detail, and then waking up in his cell. The only sign days have passed are the marks on the wall. It looks like someone had tried to claw a message into the wall.

The message is simple; it says, "I'm waiting." Amamiya doesn't want to think about why his fingers throb.