Beginning in Chains

by Yorb

Summary:

Yumiko touched the corner of the photo with her fingertips, then pulled her hand back as if burned.

This wasn’t supposed to be personal.

It couldn’t be.

And yet…

Chapter 1: The Decision

The courtroom had always felt like a second home to Yumiko. Not in the sense of comfort—there was nothing comfortable about fluorescent lights and the stale tang of recycled air—but in the sense of belonging. She understood the language of this place: the shuffle of papers, the murmured objections, the rise and fall of voices that carried the weight of futures.

She had only been practicing for a year, but her professors at Harvard had called her a prodigy. She’d clerked for a federal judge, graduated at the top of her class, and been recruited by one of the most prestigious firms in the U.S.. Her life, on paper, was everything she had planned.

Yumiko adjusted the cuff of her blazer as she slipped into the courtroom. Her own case wasn’t scheduled yet, but she preferred to watch the proceedings before hers—it gave her a sense of the judge’s rhythm, their temperament, the little tells that could shape the outcome of an argument.

Today was no different. She carried her briefcase with its neat files, her legal pad balanced against her palm. She’d expected routine motions, maybe a plea bargain discussion.

What she hadn’t expected was her. 

She had come to court for a hearing unrelated to Magna’s. A corporate dispute, tedious but high-stakes, involving more money than she could comfortably imagine. She was representing a wealthy client, a man who had smiled at her condescendingly when she shook his hand and then proceeded to ignore every legal instruction she gave.

Yumiko had taken the case because it was good for her résumé. That was the answer she gave herself each time she felt the weight of dissatisfaction pressing on her ribs.

Then the bailiff called another case.

“State v. Magna Barnes. Docket 214.”

The name was unfamiliar. But the defendant who rose to her feet, shackled at the wrists, pulled every eye in the room.

There was something unyielding in her stance, something defiant in the way her chin tilted up as if daring the world to break her. Her brown hair fell unevenly into her face, unkempt, her arms marked with stark black tattoos that seemed to scream rebellion.

The whispers started immediately. Yumiko felt them ripple through the gallery—words like violent, gang, lost cause.

She ignored them, studying the girl instead. Magna’s expression was blank, almost bored, but her eyes… there was a sharpness there, a glint that cut through the pretense of apathy.

Then Yumiko’s gaze shifted to the man standing beside her.

The court-appointed defense attorney.

Her stomach sank.

---

Magna Barnes sat at the defense table, shackled at the wrists, posture slouched so far down it seemed she wanted to sink into the chair and disappear. But her eyes—dark, sharp beneath the curtain of brown hair that fell into her face—were anything but invisible. They burned, restless, darting across the courtroom like a trapped animal scanning for threats.

Yumiko froze in the aisle for a moment, struck by the rawness of it. She slipped into a seat near the back, set down her files quietly, and tried to school her face into neutrality.

The hearing had already started. Magna’s court-appointed attorney—a balding man in a wrinkled suit that smelled faintly of cigarettes even from a distance—was fumbling through notes, flipping papers as though seeing them for the first time. His tie hung askew. He flipped pages without purpose, muttering “uh” every few seconds. He stammered through procedural objections, missed crucial opportunities to counter the prosecution, and at one point referred to his client by the wrong name.

Yumiko’s chest tightened. This wasn’t just incompetence. This was malpractice.

She wasn’t naïve—she knew public defenders were overworked, underpaid, often given caseloads so heavy it was impossible to keep up. But this was something else. This was negligence dressed up as incompetence.

She glanced at Magna. The girl hadn’t reacted. Not when her own lawyer bungled the timeline, not when the judge scolded him for failing to submit evidence correctly. Magna sat there, shoulders loose, eyes fixed on nothing.

Like she’d already stopped believing in the outcome.

The prosecutor, sharp and smug in contrast, took advantage of every stumble. Objections flew. The judge sighed audibly. The attorney stammered apologies, tried to recover, failed again.

And through it all, Magna sat motionless except for the faintest twitch of her fingers against her thigh—tap, tap, tap, an anxious rhythm.

The prosecution painted a clean, brutal picture: a teenage girl with tattoos, a temper, and a motive. A murder committed in anger, wrapped in mystery but obvious to anyone with “common sense.”

The defense? Barely an outline of one.

Yumiko found her pen moving across the margin of her notes, unbidden, as she jotted down every mistake. Every lost chance. Every time the defense attorney failed to object.

---

Yumiko leaned forward, studying. She had trained herself to notice details: a juror’s distracted glance, a witness’s tightening jaw, a client’s restless habits. But here, she couldn’t stop cataloguing Magna herself.

Her slouched posture screamed I don’t care. But the rapid bounce of her foot betrayed the opposite.
Her eyes stayed fixed forward, but every time her lawyer floundered, her jaw tightened visibly.
Her hands clenched once on the table, then relaxed, then clenched again.

It was the body language of someone who cared too much, who was furious, but who had learned the world wasn’t safe enough to show it.

---

The attorney objected out of turn—incorrectly. The prosecutor smirked. The judge snapped, “Overruled,” with undisguised irritation.

Magna exhaled sharply through her nose, not looking at her lawyer, not looking at anyone. Just staring ahead as if she’d already accepted the futility.

And something in Yumiko twisted.

It would have been easier to look away. Easier to chalk it up to another broken case, another failed system, another person ground down beneath the machinery of the courts. Yumiko had seen it before; she had told herself she couldn’t save them all.

But this—this was unbearable.

She saw the resignation in Magna’s shoulders, the mistrust hardening her features, the way she kept her distance even while chained at the table. It wasn’t just that her attorney was incompetent. It was that the system had already abandoned her, and she knew it.

---

Yumiko’s pen stilled against her notepad.

She had graduated top of her class at Harvard. She had landed a coveted position at a prestigious firm, one that fast-tracked her toward wealth, influence, a career her parents could boast about back in Kyoto. She wasn’t supposed to get involved with cases like this.

But watching Magna’s defense unravel in real time, she knew she couldn’t stay silent.

She stayed seated as Magna was led away in chains, her eyes following the girl until the heavy doors shut behind her.

Something gnawed at her ribs, sharp and insistent.

This wasn’t her case. It wasn’t her problem. She had a client waiting, one who could pay her billable hours ten times over.

But the image of Magna’s face lingered. The blank mask. The glint of something harder beneath it. And the quiet, unspoken truth: this girl didn’t stand a chance, not with a defense like that.

Yumiko thought of her own life—of the privilege that had paved her path. Parents who believed in her. Professors who pushed her. A law firm that had snapped her up because her pedigree gleamed on paper.

And here was Magna Barnes. Nineteen years old. Fighting for her future with a shield made of paper and cracks.

Yumiko closed her folder slowly.

---

The decision wasn’t clean or measured. It wasn’t weighed against her workload or her firm’s expectations.

It was a jolt. An instinct.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she rose, crossed the aisle, and approached the bench.

“Your Honor,” she said, her voice carrying across the near-empty courtroom.

The judge, an older man with tired eyes, looked up. “Yes, Ms. Okumura? Your case is next on the docket.”

“I’d like to file an immediate motion to substitute counsel for the defendant in the Barnes case. Pro bono.”

The words were out before she could second-guess them.

A ripple of surprise went through the room. Even the court reporter paused mid-typing.

The judge’s eyebrows lifted. “You want to take on the Barnes appeal?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Her voice was steady, firmer now. “I believe the defendant has not received adequate representation. I’ll handle the case myself.”

The judge studied her for a long moment. Then he nodded once, almost imperceptibly. “Very well. File the appropriate paperwork before the end of the day.”

And just like that, it was done.
---

Yumiko gathered her files, slipped out of the courtroom, and moved with purposeful strides down the hallway. She could already hear her mentor’s voice chastising her— pro bono work will sink you if you choose the wrong client, Okumura.

But her mind kept returning to Magna’s clenched fists, her restless tapping fingers, the quiet fury she tried so hard to disguise.

It wasn’t indifference. It was survival.

And Yumiko knew, with startling clarity, that she would not let Magna fight alone.

---

Later, Yumiko would wonder at her own impulsiveness. It wasn’t her style—she was methodical, deliberate, rarely careless with her decisions.

But as she walked out of the courtroom, briefcase in hand, she felt something she hadn’t in months.

Purpose.

Her corporate client could wait. The hollow echo in her chest was gone, replaced with a certainty that surprised her.

She didn’t know Magna Barnes. She didn’t know the truth of her case, or whether she was guilty, or what had brought her here.

But Yumiko knew one thing with absolute clarity:

She wasn’t going to let Magna face the system alone.

Chapter 2: Fault Lines

The decision should have felt reckless.
Instead, it felt inevitable.

Yumiko walked quickly down the courthouse steps, her heels clicking against the stone. The crisp autumn air bit at her cheeks, yet she barely noticed. Her pulse still thudded with the aftershocks of what she had just witnessed: Magna Barnes shackled at the table, her attorney unraveling like an amateur, the slow suffocation of justice happening in plain sight.

She tightened her grip on her briefcase.

I can’t walk away from this.

---

Back at the firm’s downtown office, the contrast hit her like a slap. The marble lobby gleamed; the receptionist greeted her with polished courtesy. On the walls, framed awards celebrated cases won, clients defended, reputations built.

This was the life she had trained for—Harvard Law, top of her class, coveted position at a luxury firm before she’d even turned twenty-five. She had been the model daughter, the proof of her parents’ sacrifices, the one who had fulfilled her father’s creed: Excellence, always.

And yet, walking through the glass doors into the sleek conference room, she felt suddenly out of place.

---

“Okumura,” came a voice from the head of the table.
It was James Whitmore, one of the senior partners. He looked up from a spread of documents, eyes narrowing slightly. “You slipped out of the courthouse early today.”

Yumiko straightened her posture. “Yes, sir. I—there was a case before mine. I needed to observe.”

He waved a hand, dismissive. “Observation is fine, but remember, your docket is already full. Don’t get distracted.” His gaze was sharp, paternal in the most condescending sense. “Clients pay for focus. Our reputation rests on efficiency.”

“Yes, sir.” Yumiko’s voice was cool, professional. But inside, her mind bristled. If only you had seen what I saw.

She sat, opened her files, let the meeting wash over her—billable hours, quarterly targets, new high-profile clients. But the entire time, her mind drifted back to the courthouse. To brown hair falling into guarded eyes. To the tense coil of a young woman’s body bracing for disappointment she had long accepted.

---

That evening, at her apartment, she called home.

Her father answered. His Kyoto accent still colored his words, though softened by years abroad. “Yumiko. I saw the firm’s newsletter. Your case last month—well done. You are climbing quickly. As expected.”

“As expected.” The familiar weight settled onto her shoulders.

Her mother’s voice chimed in the background, warmer. “We’re proud of you, sweetheart.”

Her father continued: “Your brother Tomi will present at the surgical conference next week. An entire auditorium will hear his research. Already he is becoming a leader in his field. This is what I meant for you both—prestige, excellence, achievement.”

Yumiko closed her eyes. She loved her family. But the words were a vise tightening around her ribs.

Should she tell them she was about to gamble her reputation on a prison case? On a pro bono defense of a girl already branded a murderer in the public eye?

She could already imagine her father’s response: Wasteful. Naïve. Sentimentality has no place in law.

So she said nothing.

When the call ended, Yumiko sat in the quiet of her apartment, staring at the city lights through the wide windows. Her reflection in the glass looked polished, successful, exactly as she was supposed to be.

And yet she could still see Magna Barnes’s hunched posture behind it.

---

Later that week, as she prepared her motion files, her colleague Nathan paused at her desk. “Hey, I heard you filed notice to substitute counsel in a felony appeal?” His brows lifted. “Pro bono?”

Yumiko didn’t look up from her papers. “Yes.”

“Not exactly the kind of case we’re known for.” He leaned against her desk. “Barnes, right? The girl who killed her uncle? Media circus waiting to happen. Why stick your neck out?”

Yumiko finally met his gaze. Her voice was calm, steady, but beneath it coiled something fierce. “Because someone should.”

Nathan blinked, startled by her intensity. After a beat, he chuckled awkwardly and backed away. “Alright, Okumura. Just don’t let it tank your trajectory.”

Trajectory. The word echoed long after he was gone.

---

In bed that night, Yumiko lay awake, hands folded over her stomach. She thought of Tomi, already lauded in medical journals. She thought of her father’s endless expectations, her mother’s quiet pride. She thought of the firm’s partners, who measured worth in billable hours and glossy victories.

And she thought of Magna Barnes. The girl in shackles, barely older than a high school student, who sat in silence while the system failed her. The girl whose every flicker of movement betrayed the will to fight, even if she had no faith left.

Yumiko exhaled slowly, a vow crystallizing in the dark.

Whatever the cost, I’ll be the one who doesn’t look away.

Chapter 3: First Visit

Summary:

Finally! They meet for the first time

The walls always smelled like bleach.

It wasn’t the clean, sharp kind of bleach you’d smell in someone’s kitchen, though. This was heavier, sour, clinging to the concrete blocks of the cell until Magna swore she could taste it when she breathed too deep. Two years inside, and she still hadn’t gotten used to it.

The cell was small. They all were. Four paces from wall to wall, one narrow cot with a mattress that had long since lost any softness it once had, a toilet bolted to the corner, and a slit of a window high up where the bars cut the sunlight into lines. Sometimes she stared at those lines for hours, tracking how they shifted across the gray floor as the day passed. The sunlight never reached her bed.

That suited her just fine.

Magna sat with her back against the wall, knees pulled up, tattooed arms resting over them. The ink swirled up her skin in black and gray, bold patterns that marked her body like armor. The guards had looked at her differently when she first came in—like she was already branded as trouble. Maybe they were right.

She rolled a cigarette between her fingers, unlit. She hadn’t smoked in months—the supply ran dry more often than not, and she refused to beg favors from anyone inside—but holding it gave her hands something to do. Something besides clenching.

Voices drifted from the corridor. Someone laughing, someone cursing, the constant hum of the prison’s heartbeat. Magna tuned it out. She had gotten good at that—shutting the world off until all that was left was the silence in her head.

It was safer that way.

Her thoughts wandered, as they always did when the noise dulled. She saw her cousin’s face, pale and streaked with tears the night she had finally whispered the truth to Magna. She saw her uncle’s eyes, bloodshot, arrogant, filled with that same cruelty Magna had known since she was a child. She remembered his last breath, the way the knife had felt in her hand, the silence afterward that had been heavier than any prison wall.

They didn’t know for sure that it had been her. The state had tried to prove it, but there hadn’t been enough evidence. Circumstantial, weak. Still, she was here. Still, they had taken her freedom.

And now they wanted to take the scraps of hope she had left, too.

The door clanged open. Magna blinked out of the fog of her thoughts, shoving the cigarette back into her pocket before anyone could see. A guard stepped in. His voice was flat, routine.

“Barnes. You’ve got a meeting with your lawyer. Get up.”

Her lawyer. Right. That idiot in the cheap suit who couldn’t string two decent arguments together in court if his life depended on it. The one who’d shrugged his way through the trial, who hadn’t bothered to fight for her the way she’d needed him to. The man she was supposed to trust with her appeal.

Magna rose slowly, stretching her legs, the chains at her wrists clinking as the guard cuffed her. Her muscles ached from hours of sitting still. She let the guard lead her down the hall, through the familiar maze of gray corridors and buzzing fluorescent lights.

The visiting rooms always smelled different—like old coffee and paper. She hated them too.

When the door opened, Magna expected to see the same man waiting, slouched in his chair with his stack of useless papers.

But it wasn’t him.

The woman at the table was young. Not prison young—not the hard, weathered kind of young Magna saw every day—but really young, maybe mid-twenties. Sharp suit, neat hair pulled back from her face, dark eyes that seemed to catch everything at once. She didn’t look like she belonged in this place at all.

She looked expensive.

And she was staring right at Magna, like she’d been waiting for her.

---

The penitentiary always looked the same from the outside: a slab of concrete against the sky, featureless, functional, designed to strip away personality. Yet walking through its gates today felt different. Yumiko smoothed her blazer as she passed security, as if that small gesture could steady the weight pressing against her ribs.

She had met clients in lockup before. But this was different. This wasn’t a client she had inherited from the firm, or someone who had the money to fight their charges. This was a client she had chosen—impulsively, irrationally, against every careful plan she’d made for her career.

Magna Barnes.

The guard’s boots echoed as he led her down the corridor. Yumiko matched her pace to his, but her mind ran elsewhere. She kept seeing the courtroom: Magna’s defiant slouch, the way she’d stared straight ahead while her lawyer crumbled. It wasn’t indifference. Yumiko had seen indifference before, real and hollow. This had been something else—armor, sharp edges turned outward.

The visitation room was small, sterile. A table bolted to the floor, two chairs, the faint tang of disinfectant lingering like a permanent guest.

Yumiko set her folders down carefully, aligning them into a neat stack, and drew in a slow breath. Calm. Professional. Steady. She had repeated the words like a mantra last night while she couldn’t sleep.

The door on the far side buzzed. Hinges groaned.

And then Magna entered.

---

Her brown hair was pulled back messily, strands escaping around her face. Her prison uniform sagged on her frame, yet nothing about her seemed diminished. She walked with her chin lifted, her posture loose but purposeful—as if she wanted the whole room to know she couldn’t be broken, not by orange fabric or locked doors.

Yumiko noticed the subtle details: the stiffness in her left shoulder, suggesting bruising; the faint twitch of her jaw when the guard’s hand lingered on her elbow; the way her eyes scanned the room before settling on Yumiko.

That was when everything sharpened.

The suspicion in Magna’s gaze was immediate, cutting, almost physical. She didn’t sit down at first. She sized Yumiko up like an intruder, like someone who’d walked into her cell uninvited.

“You’re not my lawyer,” she said finally, her tone flat as steel.

Yumiko inclined her head slightly. “No. I’m not Mr. Phillips.”

The guard fastened the cuffs to the table and left. Magna rubbed her wrists, flexing her hands - clearly annoyed -, then sank into the chair opposite Yumiko with a slouch that was almost theatrical. Arms crossed. Chin tilted downward just enough to glare from beneath her lashes. A posture that screamed, You don’t belong here.

“Then what the hell are you doing here?”

The woman folded her hands on the table, calm, composed. “My name is Yumiko Okumura. I’m an attorney with Park & Meyers. I was in court during your last appeal hearing. I… wasn’t impressed with your defense. So I’ve decided to take your case. Pro bono.”

Magna blinked at her, then barked out a sharp laugh that made the guard shift uneasily. “Pro bono? What, you just decided to swoop in and play savior?”

Yumiko didn’t flinch. “I don’t think you’ve been represented fairly. Everyone deserves that much.”

Magna leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowing. This had to be some kind of joke. Some rich lawyer from a glossy firm walking into her life out of nowhere, talking about fairness like it was something real.

“Let me guess,” Magna drawled. “Harvard. Daddy’s money. Got bored with corporate clients and thought you’d come slum it with the rest of us?”

A flicker of something crossed Yumiko’s face—offense, maybe, but controlled. She nodded once. “Harvard, yes. The rest… no. I’m here because I want to be. Not because I have to.”

Magna snorted. “Right. Sure.”

But as she looked at her, she realized Yumiko wasn’t bluffing. There was no arrogance in her eyes, no pity. Just quiet determination.

That, somehow, was worse.

Magna shifted in her chair, the cuffs biting into her wrists as she folded her arms on the table. She hated the way Yumiko’s calm eyes stayed on her, like she was trying to see past the sarcasm, past the hard shell Magna had built brick by brick.

“Well, Yumiko Whatever-Your-Name-Is,” Magna said dryly. “Thanks for the pep talk, but I don’t need charity. Go find someone else to rescue.”

Yumiko’s lips pressed together, but her voice stayed steady. “This isn’t charity. You’ve got a case worth fighting for. I read the transcript from your trial. Your defense didn’t present half the evidence they should have.”

“Because there isn’t any,” Magna shot back.

Yumiko tilted her head slightly. “Or because no one looked hard enough.”

Magna laughed again, though this time there wasn’t much humor in it. “Lady, you don’t get it. People like me—we don’t get second chances. Not in court. Not in life. The system doesn’t give a damn about the truth. All it cares about is putting another ‘criminal’ in a cage.”

Her voice rose with each word, enough that the guard cleared his throat in warning. Magna sat back, forcing herself to swallow the rest of what she wanted to spit out. She wasn’t about to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her lose control.

Yumiko leaned forward slightly, her voice lowering. “You don’t have to trust me right away. But I’m not leaving. I’ve already filed to be substituted as your counsel.”

Magna froze. “You what?”

“Since yesterday. I filed the substitution motion myself.”

Yumiko kept her expression neutral. She had learned long ago that silence could be more powerful than defense. So she let the words hang in the air until Magna’s restless foot stilled.

“I know this wasn’t explained to you,” Yumiko said, her voice low, measured. “That’s why I came today. To tell you directly. I’ll be taking over your defense.”

Magna tilted her head, eyes narrowing, assessing every syllable. Her arms tightened across her chest. “Why?”

Yumiko blinked. “Because you deserve a proper defense.”

“Bullshit,” Magna shot back immediately, her leg bouncing again. Her fingers tapped against her bicep, a restless staccato. “Nobody does anything for free. Especially not lawyers in fancy suits.”

Her gaze flicked pointedly to Yumiko’s pressed blazer, her polished shoes, her manicured handwriting on the legal pad.

Yumiko didn’t flinch. “You’re free to doubt me. But I’m not leaving. Not unless you ask me to.”

That earned her another long silence. Magna stared, jaw tight, fingers drumming, as if trying to rattle Yumiko out of her calm. When that didn’t work, she exhaled sharply through her nose and slouched even deeper in her chair, muttering, “Doesn’t matter. I’m screwed either way.”

Magna’s chest tightened. She hated this—hated that a stranger had barged into her world and was now holding the last fragile thread of her future in her perfectly manicured hands. She hated the calm, patient look on Yumiko’s face, like she wasn’t rattled by Magna’s attitude at all.

Mostly, she hated that for the first time in a long time, something in her gut flickered. Not quite hope—she didn’t dare call it that—but something dangerously close.

Yumiko leaned forward slightly, careful not to crowd, her hands still folded neatly. “Not if I can help it.”

Magna’s eyes flickered. A tiny shift. Almost imperceptible, but Yumiko caught it. The bounce of her leg slowed. Her crossed arms loosened, just enough for her fingers to curl around her own elbow instead of pressing tight against her ribs.

She shoved the feeling down hard.

“You’re wasting your time,” Magna said flatly. “You’ll see for yourself soon enough. And when you do, don’t act surprised.”

Yumiko didn’t answer right away. Her gaze lingered, unreadable, and then she slowly gathered the papers she’d brought with her. She slid them into a neat folder, tapped it once against the table, and stood.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll go over your appeal strategy. Try to get some rest, Magna.”

The sound of her name on Yumiko’s lips made Magna’s jaw tighten. No one said it like that anymore—soft, like it belonged to a person and not just a prisoner number.

Magna looked away. “Don’t bother.”

But Yumiko was already turning, already walking to the door with steady steps. She gave the guard a polite nod as she left.

The door shut behind her with a metallic clang.

Magna sat in the silence that followed, her heart thudding harder than she wanted to admit. She stared at the empty chair across from her, at the faint warmth left in the air where Yumiko had been sitting.

“Great,” she muttered. “Another lawyer to screw it up. Lucky me.”

---

Later that night Magna lay on her cot, staring at the ceiling. The sounds of the prison carried through the bars—distant shouting, the clang of doors, a burst of laughter that didn’t last long. She closed her eyes, trying to let it all blur into background noise.

But her mind kept circling back. To Yumiko’s voice, steady and firm. To the way her eyes had locked onto Magna’s like she wasn’t just another inmate. To the words she’d said: I represent you now.

Magna hated how those words had stuck under her skin.

She told herself it didn’t matter. That Yumiko was no different from anyone else who had ever pretended to care. Sooner or later, she’d leave too. That’s what people did.

But as exhaustion finally pulled her under, Magna dreamed not of her uncle’s face, not of her cousin’s broken voice—dreams that had haunted her for two years straight.

This time, she dreamed of dark, steady eyes that refused to look away.

Notes:

Comments are welcome. Critic as well, as long as it's in a polite way. Also English isn't my first language so feel free to tell if you find any mistakes. So I will hopefully not make them again :)

Chapter 4: Round Two

Summary:

Yumiko keeps her promise and comes back the next day

Morning came early, as it always did. The clanging of cell doors and the bark of guards snapped the prison awake like clockwork. Magna sat up slowly, rubbing a hand across her face, trying to shake the restless night.

She hadn’t meant to dream about that woman. It unsettled her. People didn’t take up space in Magna’s head unless they were dangerous. And Yumiko? She didn’t know what she was yet—but dangerous felt like a safe bet.

The day passed in its usual blur—breakfast that tasted like cardboard, a shift in the laundry room, the endless, hollow chatter of women who had learned to survive on scraps of boredom. Magna went through the motions, but her chest felt tight, as if she were waiting for something.

By afternoon, she knew what.

When the guard appeared at her cell again, keys jingling, and said, “Barnes. Lawyer’s here,” Magna’s stomach twisted before she could stop it.

She followed him down the corridor, cuffs cold around her wrists. She told herself she didn’t care who was waiting on the other side of the door. But when it opened and she saw Yumiko again—hair tied back neat, papers spread across the table, eyes lifting immediately to hers—something inside her betrayed her. Relief.

Magna masked it with a smirk. “Back so soon? Didn’t figure you for a glutton for punishment.”

Yumiko smiled faintly. “I said I’d be here.”

The guard closed the door, leaving them in that stale, too-bright room again. Magna sat slowly, the chair legs screeching against the floor.

“So,” Magna said, folding her arms. “What’s today’s sermon about? Justice? Hope? The American Dream?”

Yumiko didn’t rise to the bait. She slid a thin folder across the table. “Your trial transcript. I’ve highlighted the parts we’ll challenge. I think we can argue ineffective assistance of counsel. Your previous attorney didn’t call key witnesses, didn’t file certain motions. It’s a strong angle.”

Magna stared at the folder but didn’t reach for it. Her throat felt dry.

“You really think that matters?” she asked, her voice low, bitter. “You think anyone’s gonna care enough to listen? To them I’m a teenager with ink who they already decided was guilty the moment she walked in. That’s all they see when I walk into a courtroom.”

Yumiko’s gaze didn’t waver. “That’s all they’ll see if you give up. But if we fight—if you fight with me—then we make them see more.”

The words landed heavier than Magna wanted them to. She clenched her jaw, leaned back in her chair, and stared at the ceiling. She didn’t want to believe her. She didn’t dare.

But some traitorous part of her wanted to try.

She looked back at Yumiko, at the unflinching steadiness in her eyes.

The silence that followed stretched thin, electric. Magna’s pulse jumped, and she hated it. She forced a crooked smile, pushing the tension away with sarcasm.

“Careful, Counselor. That almost sounded personal.”

For the first time, something flickered in Yumiko’s expression—just a flicker, there and gone too fast. Yumiko didn’t push. She opened her file and began calmly, “I want to review the timeline with you. Step by step. You don’t need to explain anything you’re not ready to. Just the facts.”

---

For the next hour, Magna tested her.

She gave clipped answers, eyes darting away, shoulders shrugging as though none of it mattered. She slouched so far down her chair Yumiko half-expected her to slide off. When Yumiko pressed for clarification, Magna responded with sarcasm. When Yumiko waited patiently, Magna filled the silence with a sigh, rolling her eyes like a teenager forced to do homework.

But Yumiko didn’t flinch.

She watched everything. The way Magna’s fingers twisted the hem of her sleeve when she was skirting too close to something raw. The way her jaw clenched before she said “I don’t remember.” The way her gaze sharpened—not dulled—when Yumiko mentioned specific dates, proving she did remember, just didn’t want to admit it.

Yumiko noted it all without calling her out. She asked precise questions, wrote careful notes in her neat, measured script, and let Magna set the pace.

When Magna snapped—“What’s the point, anyway? None of this changes anything”—Yumiko simply absorbed it, unshaken. “It changes how the court sees you,” she said softly. “That’s worth something.”

And though Magna rolled her eyes again, her foot had stopped bouncing.

---

By the time the guard returned, Magna’s arms were still crossed—but her posture wasn’t quite as defensive. She lingered as Yumiko gathered her files, watching her stack each page squarely, aligning edges until they were perfect.

“You’ll be back?” The words slipped out sudden, unguarded, like she hadn’t meant to say them.

Yumiko paused, met her gaze. “Of course.”

Something flickered across Magna’s face then—something Yumiko couldn’t name. Surprise? Relief? Fear of caring at all?

It was gone before she could decipher it.

---

As Yumiko walked back through the sterile halls, she exhaled slowly. Her hands trembled faintly as she tucked her files into her briefcase.

Magna Barnes was angry, suspicious, uncooperative. Every defense mechanism in the book wrapped tight around her.

But Yumiko had seen more than that. She’d seen the glimmers between the cracks—the restless foot that stilled, the eyes that sharpened, the question that slipped out despite herself.

And Yumiko knew, as she stepped out into the harsh daylight, that she would keep coming back.

Notes:

Comments are welcome. Critic as well, as long as it's in a polite way. Also English isn't my first language so feel free to tell if you find any mistakes. So I will hopefully not make them again :)

Chapter 5: The Courtroom

The courtroom always felt colder than the cell.

 

Magna shifted in her seat, the wooden bench beneath her unforgiving, the cuffs around her wrists a constant reminder of where she belonged. Her tattoos peeked from beneath the short sleeves of her jumpsuit, bold and dark against pale skin that had barely seen sunlight in months. She knew what everyone in the room saw when they looked at her: a girl trying too hard to look tough, already marked as guilty before the first word was spoken.

 

They weren’t wrong about the tough part.

 

The bailiff’s voice droned, announcing the case number. Magna kept her eyes low, staring at the scratches carved into the table before her. Years of defendants had sat in this same chair, each of them clawing their frustration into the wood. Maybe one day someone would sit here and feel the imprint she left behind.

 

Her old lawyer had shuffled papers beside her at the last hearing, muttering about “limited options” and “just taking the plea.” She’d tuned him out. She already knew how that story ended.

 

But now, when the heavy oak door at the side of the room opened, it wasn’t the shambling, sweat-stained man who entered.

 

It was her.

 

Yumiko Okumura walked with a calm precision that didn’t belong in a place like this. The sharp cut of her suit set her apart instantly—too polished, too sure. She carried a leather briefcase, her expression composed, but her eyes sharp as glass. Every step echoed. Heads turned. Even the judge looked up.

 

Magna felt something twist in her chest, unwanted and unfamiliar.

 

Yumiko sat beside her without hesitation, setting the briefcase on the table. “Good morning, Magna,” she said quietly.

 

Magna shot her a glare. “Didn’t I tell you not to bother?”

 

“You did.” Yumiko’s lips curved slightly. “And yet, here I am.”

 

Before Magna could bite back, the judge called the court to order.

 

The state’s attorney launched into his well-rehearsed speech, painting Magna as reckless, violent, a danger to society. Words like premeditated and remorseless rang through the chamber. Magna clenched her fists, nails biting into her palms, but kept her eyes on the table. She’d heard it all before.

 

Then Yumiko stood.

 

Her voice carried across the room, smooth but firm. “Your Honor, with respect, this case is not as simple as the prosecution would like to make it seem. What we have here is a young woman who has been condemned more by appearances than by facts. The state has leaned heavily on assumption, not evidence.”

 

Magna’s head lifted before she realized it. Yumiko stood tall, dark eyes unwavering as she spoke. She gestured cleanly, no wasted movement. Every word landed with precision.

 

She looked… fearless.

 

The judge leaned back, listening. The prosecutor frowned, flipping through his notes.

 

Yumiko continued, “We will demonstrate that the previous defense counsel failed to present critical inconsistencies in the state’s case. We will also show that the evidence is circumstantial at best, and insufficient to sustain the weight of a conviction.”

 

Magna stared. She’d expected another halfhearted excuse, some bland filler to keep up appearances before the inevitable loss. Instead, Yumiko was cutting through the air like a blade.

 

And she was cutting for her.

 

The rest of the session blurred. Witnesses recited statements. The prosecutor hammered on intent. Yumiko challenged each point, never raising her voice, never flustered. She caught slips, highlighted contradictions. When the state tried to paint Magna as a violent delinquent, Yumiko countered with her school records, with character statements from teachers who hadn’t been called before.

 

“Magna Barnes is nineteen,” Yumiko said firmly. “A student. A daughter. Not a monster.”

 

Magna’s chest ached at the words.

 

By the time the judge called recess, Magna could barely process it. The guard guided her into the small holding room beside the chamber, chains clinking.

 

Yumiko followed, setting her briefcase down on the metal table. The door shut behind them with a heavy thud.

 

Magna spoke first, her voice low, sharp. “Why are you doing this?”

 

Yumiko blinked, surprised. “I told you. You deserve a fair defense.”

 

“No, don’t give me that line.” Magna’s eyes burned. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I did.”

 

“And I don’t need to,” Yumiko replied evenly. “That’s not my job.”

 

Magna stood, pacing the small room. The chains tugged at her wrists, the metal biting. “Bullshit. No lawyer just throws themselves into a case like this for free. There’s always a reason. Publicity? Some moral crusade? Which one is it?”

 

Yumiko straightened slowly, her calm unshaken. “None of the above. I saw a girl sitting in court, abandoned by the system that’s supposed to protect her. And I saw a defense so weak it was practically negligence. That was reason enough.”

 

Magna froze. The sincerity in Yumiko’s tone was like ice water down her spine.

 

“You don’t get it,” Magna whispered. “People don’t… people don’t fight for me. Not really.”

 

For the first time, Yumiko’s composure softened. She stepped closer, not too close, but enough that Magna could feel the weight of her presence.

 

“Then let me be the first,” Yumiko said quietly.

 

Magna’s throat closed. She wanted to laugh, to shove the words back in Yumiko’s face, to remind her that nothing good ever came without a price. But instead she found herself staring at her own reflection in Yumiko’s dark eyes.

 

And for the briefest flicker of a second, she felt something she hadn’t in years.

 

Possibility.

 

The guard knocked, breaking the moment. “Time.”

 

Yumiko stepped back smoothly, collecting her briefcase. “We’ll continue tomorrow. Get some rest.”

 

Magna didn’t move as the guard led her away. Her pulse was still hammering, her mind replaying that one sentence again and again: Then let me be the first.

 

Back in her cell, she lay on the cot staring at the bars of sunlight crawling across the floor. They still didn’t reach her bed.

 

But tonight, for the first time, she didn’t mind.

 

 

 

Chapter 6: The Echo After

The hum of fluorescent lights pressed down like a headache.

Magna sat at the narrow table in the visitation room, her cuffs clinking against the chain at her waist. The room smelled faintly of disinfectant and something sour that even bleach couldn’t scrub out. She kept her eyes on the concrete floor, waiting for this latest farce of a “meeting” to begin.

Part of her still expected the old court-appointed hack to stumble in, sweating through his suit, offering her another deal that would ruin her life. She braced herself for the disappointment.

Instead, the door opened, and it was her again.

Yumiko.

Her dark hair was tied back today, a single strand loose at her temple. The same sleek suit, though this time she carried no briefcase, just a slim folder. She walked with that same unsettling calm, like the room bent around her instead of the other way around.

Magna’s chest tightened in a way she hated.

Yumiko sat down opposite her, setting the folder neatly on the table. “How are you feeling?”

Magna gave her a flat stare. “Like I’m in prison.”

A ghost of a smile touched Yumiko’s lips. “Fair enough.” She opened the folder, flipping through crisp pages. “I wanted to go over your testimony again. Not details of guilt or innocence—” She glanced up, her gaze steady. “—but how the prosecution might frame you. Your background, your appearance, even your silence. They’ll twist all of it.”

Magna leaned back, folding her arms as far as the cuffs would allow. “So what? Let them.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” Magna’s voice was sharp. “I don’t care what they say. I’m not getting out of here anyway.”

Silence stretched. The fluorescent hum filled it.

Then Yumiko leaned forward, her hands flat on the table, eyes fixed on Magna’s. “Magna, listen to me. That defeatism—if you walk into court with it, they’ve already won. You think they don’t see it? You think they won’t exploit it? The system is unfair enough without you handing them your throat.”

Magna flinched at the intensity, but didn’t look away. For a long beat, they just stared at each other across the scratched metal table.

Finally, Magna muttered, “Why do you even care?”

Yumiko didn’t blink. “Because someone should.”

The words lodged under Magna’s skin like glass. She wanted to scoff, to spit some bitter line about how caring didn’t change a damn thing. But her mouth stayed shut.

Yumiko sat back again, composed as ever. She slid a sheet of paper across the table. “This is the timeline the prosecution will argue. I want you to walk me through it, step by step. Where you were, what you remember. Not explanations—just facts. We’ll build from there.”

Magna hesitated. She knew she couldn’t tell Yumiko the whole truth—not yet, maybe not ever. But something in Yumiko’s eyes, steady and unyielding, made her pick up the paper anyway.

Her voice was low, grudging. “Fine. But don’t expect me to play nice.”

“I never do,” Yumiko replied smoothly.

---

For the next hour, they went through it.

At first, Magna’s answers were clipped, deliberately vague.

“Where were you that evening?” Yumiko asked.

“Out.”

Yumiko’s pen scratched once across the page. She didn’t look annoyed. “Out where?”

Magna shrugged, chains rattling. “Around.”

Yumiko tilted her head. “Magna, ‘around’ won’t work in court. The prosecution will translate that into ‘nowhere verifiable.’ Try again.”

Magna smirked, though it held no humor. “You’re good at this lawyer thing, huh?”

“Good enough that I don’t let you sabotage yourself,” Yumiko said evenly.

Magna’s smirk faltered. She dropped her gaze back to the paper. “I was walking. Near the high school.”

“Alone?”

Magna hesitated. “Yeah.”

Yumiko made another neat note, then glanced up. “That matches the statement from a neighbor. They saw someone with your build near the field. The prosecution will lean on that. You need to be ready.”

Magna rolled her eyes. “What do you want me to say? I was out buying ice cream? That I skipped down the street humming songs?”

Yumiko didn’t rise to the bait. “I want you to tell me the truth in a way that keeps you from looking like a monster on the stand. You think the jury cares about the gray areas? They don’t. They’ll latch onto whatever picture the prosecution paints, and right now that picture is of an angry, violent teenager with tattoos and a motive.”

Something hot coiled in Magna’s stomach. “They already think that. Everyone does. Even you.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I did,” Yumiko said simply.

She shifted uncomfortably, trying to bury the strange warmth rising in her chest.

The questions kept coming.

“What time did you get home?”

“Late.”

“How late?”

“After midnight.”

“Anyone see you?”

“No.”

Yumiko didn’t sigh, didn’t scold, didn’t show frustration. She just adjusted, pivoted, found another angle.

“You were still in school at the time, correct?”

Magna gave a short nod. “Senior year.”

“What were your grades like?”

Magna raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? You want my report card?”

Yumiko’s expression softened, though her tone stayed steady. “I want the jury to see a kid who had a future. Not just the ink on your arms.”

Magna glanced away, jaw tight. “Doesn’t matter now.”

“It matters,” Yumiko countered quietly, “because they’ll make it matter. Let me give them another story to believe in.”

For a moment, Magna forgot to breathe. No one had talked about her like that in a long time—like she was still someone with possibilities instead of just a headline.

---

As the hour stretched, Magna kept testing her, snapping at little things, deliberately tossing in sarcasm to see if Yumiko would finally lose patience.

“You keep writing like you’re solving a puzzle,” Magna muttered at one point. “What happens if the pieces don’t fit?”

“Then I find the ones that do,” Yumiko said without missing a beat.

Magna leaned back, studying her. “You don’t even know if I’m innocent.”

“That’s not the question I’m asking,” Yumiko said calmly. “My question is: can I defend you against what they’re saying? And the answer is yes—if you help me.”

Magna stared at her, stunned by the certainty in her voice. For a moment, she almost wanted to tell her everything. Almost.

But the fear was louder. The fear that if Yumiko knew the whole truth—why she’d done it, who she’d done it for—she’d walk away like everyone else.

So instead, Magna dropped her gaze and muttered, “You’re wasting your time.”

Yumiko set her pen down and leaned forward again. Her voice was quiet, steady, but sharp enough to cut through the fog Magna lived in.

“My time is mine to waste. And I’m choosing you.”

Magna’s chest ached with something she couldn’t name. She hated how badly she wanted to believe her.

---

By the time the guard knocked on the door to signal the end of visitation, Magna felt wrung out. Tired, but lighter somehow, as though the weight pressing down on her ribs had shifted—just a fraction, but enough to notice.

Yumiko gathered her papers, sliding them into the folder. She stood, smoothing her suit. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Same time.”

Magna scoffed. “Don’t you have rich clients to impress?”

Yumiko’s gaze softened—barely, but enough that Magna saw it. “You’re my client.”

The guard unlocked the door. Magna’s chains tugged as she stood, throat tight with words she couldn’t let out.

“Hey,” she muttered, just as Yumiko reached the doorway.

Yumiko paused, looking back.

Magna swallowed hard. “Thanks.”

It came out rough, reluctant, almost hostile. But Yumiko seemed to understand anyway.

“You’re welcome,” she said quietly, then stepped out.

The door clanged shut.

Magna stood there, heart hammering against the weight of her cuffs. For the first time since prison swallowed her whole, she felt something dangerous.

Hope.

---

 

The drive back to her apartment blurred into headlights and asphalt. Yumiko kept her hands steady on the wheel, but her mind was miles away, still inside the cold interview room at Correctional.

Magna Barnes.

Every detail replayed itself in fragments: the guarded tone of her voice, the way her arms folded like armor across her chest, the restless tap of her foot under the table. And those eyes—sharp, assessing, full of suspicion—as if Yumiko herself were another prosecutor sent to break her spirit.

It shouldn’t sting, not personally. Clients distrusted their attorneys all the time. Especially ones who had been failed as spectacularly as Magna had. Still, something about the way Magna’s gaze lingered on her, unblinking, made Yumiko feel… seen, and measured.

And not entirely unwelcome.

---

She parked in the underground garage, took the elevator up to her floor, and slipped into the quiet of her apartment. Normally, she’d unwind with a cupe of tea, maybe skim tomorrow’s casework. Tonight, she dropped her briefcase by the couch and sat in silence, still replaying Magna’s clipped answers.

The way she’d bristled when Yumiko leaned too close with a question.
The way her jaw had tightened when Yumiko didn’t rise to her sharp retorts.
The fleeting flicker—so quick Yumiko almost doubted she’d seen it—of surprise when she realized Yumiko wasn’t going to give up.

Yumiko pinched the bridge of her nose. She doesn’t trust you. She has no reason to. But she needs someone.

That thought anchored itself in her chest, heavy and immovable.

---

She wandered to the window, city lights sprawling below like a constellation. Her reflection stared back at her: sharp suit, clean lines, success made flesh. To the partners at her firm, this was the ideal. To her father, the proof of everything he’d demanded.

And yet none of them had been in that room today. None of them had seen how a nineteen-year-old girl sat like she’d already served a lifetime.

She’s younger than Tomi was when he started med school.

Tomi, at nineteen, had been bright-eyed, ambitious, with every door open before him. Magna, at nineteen, was caged, bruised by the system, braced against a world that had only taken from her.

Yumiko’s throat tightened.

---

On her desk lay the file she’d been given—evidence, transcripts, the skeleton of a case already strangled by negligence. She opened it, flipping past the technical language until she reached the intake photo: Magna, two years younger, before prison had carved its marks.

Brown hair pulled back, chin lifted with defiance. But the eyes—those were the same. Wary. Coiled with fury, and something more fragile hidden beneath.

Yumiko touched the corner of the photo with her fingertips, then pulled her hand back as if burned.

This wasn’t supposed to be personal.

It couldn’t be.

And yet…

---

By midnight she was still at her desk, legal pads covered in her careful handwriting. Strategies formed in her mind—motions to suppress, grounds for ineffective counsel, avenues to revisit witness testimony. Every angle mattered.

But between every paragraph of notes, her mind returned to Magna’s voice. To the way she said Yumiko’s name for the first time— full of distrust and defiance. 

Yumiko closed the file, sat back in her chair, and whispered into the silence of her apartment:

Don’t lose faith in me, Magna. Even if you’ve lost faith in everything else.

Notes:

Comments are welcome. Critic as well, as long as it's in a polite way. Also English isn't my first language so feel free to tell if you find any mistakes. So I will hopefully not make them again :)