Solitude

Reminiscence

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" Once, I broke my nose after playing baseball." He said. " And needed to have minor surgery to set it back up."

They were talking about sport, spawned from Tag's curiosity of Roman Alaric's workout schedule. At first, they were joking on how there's nothing else to do in prison except working out and getting into fights; something that you need to do unless you wanted to get flabby during your time here, but not many were willing to fight him due to his big build and muscles (and they grew exponentially during his time here)—so what's left is working out. But even then, there's only so much work out you could do around here before you got bored. Roman Alaric mentioned that sometimes the inmates would play soccer, and most of the time, they ended up with more bruises and scrapes than they should be.

" 'After' playing baseball?"

" Seire was a diehard fan of The Giants. On the other hand, I was not really into any sport in particular; I was just fond of teasing him. I kept on saying that his team sucks balls and not the kind of balls that they hit with bats."

Tag tried to hide her laughter, but she knew how fun it was to tease someone. Her being the receiving end of the stick was no rare occurrence and her friends never failed to tell her about how amusing her reactions were to their teasing.

Long story short, that childish banter turned into a fist-fight, and then an 11 years old prosecutor Kenneth Seire swung his bat to the face of his dear cousin, broke his nose, and got grounded with no baseball for a month.

" It's practically your fault." Tag said between peals of laughter.

The accused man never denied that, but he wouldn't admit it out loud. Until this very second, neither of them was talking about that incident, not even to their parents. And neither wanted to be the one to apologize. At times like this, when Roman Alaric talked about his childhood with so much joy and childlike expression, she wondered if that kid had always been there all along, waiting to be unleashed, waiting for someone—anyone—to listen to his adventures. Roman Alaric never had the chance to enjoy his childhood moments to the fullest. After all, he carried a very big responsibility on his back; of two big names, of his name, of the high praises and hopes people put on him and his future. That kid with a broken nose was forced to grow up faster than anyone else to meet those expectations.

Tag's hands itched for a camera to capture that light-hearted chuckle from the man in front of her.

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Those were good memories, happy times. 

But today was the day she dreads the most, yet being the most anticipated at the same time.

They're finally getting into the first chapter of The Great Roman Alaric's downfall.

The first few minutes were always spent in silence aside from greetings. The chair would scrape the floor, the cuff would clink as he settled down, rustle of Papers as Tag flipped the pages to their last meeting, and finally, the telltale click of the voice recorder being turned on. But none of them would utter a single word.

Tag cleared her throat. There's a lump that made it difficult for him to speak. " Good evening, sir. How was your day so far?"

" Same old, same old. We had chicken soup for breakfast. The best around here."

" Was it made by that kind old lady that gave you the last piece of meat before?"

" Indeed."  

Both of them smiled at the memory, of a much younger Roman Alaric that's not yet accustomed to the prison life, walking around with a blue eye from an underhanded fight. He gave as much as he got, though. And if the other party fought him fair and square, that would have been an absolute win. At that time during dinner, the oldest cook, Suzanne, scooped one more portion of meat to his plate.