Kotetsu T. Kaburagi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oyaji) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
damned_institute2012-01-23 08:08 pm
oyaji) wrote in damned_institute2012-01-23 08:08 pm
Entry tags:
Day 61: Arts and Crafts Room (Third Shift)
Now that he had finally been allowed back inside, the warmth from the Sun Room hit him like a heated slap in the face. With ruddy cheeks and the sticky feeling of perspiration from his little walk/job with Niikura made him feel like a sun-burned mess. His nurse was kind enough to take his jacket from him before he went to the restroom to splash a little water on his face.
It also gave him a moment to himself, completely alone and silent so he could think. The water in the sink continued to run, but the older man was more occupied with the mirrors. He stared at his wet reflection as he took a few slow breaths to help contain himself. The longer he stayed here, the more surreal it all felt. Slowly, he began to feel less and less attached to this reality because he believed it was only a matter of minutes, seconds before he woke up.
He couldn't let the sensation overwhelm him. In fact, he picked a hand up from the sink and pinched himself to prove his point. Bizarre or not, this was his situation and he needed to figure out soon just who put him in it. The fact that none of the nurses would even humor his talk of his Hero alter ego said many things to him. Suddenly no one had even heard of him and it was an all too familiar problem that made his blood run cold. In spite of it all, he needed to be on his toes. This was no time to fall apart, he reminded himself. With one last deep breath, Kotetsu put his clueless smile back in place and stepped out of the bathroom with his nurse in toe who gave him a quick tour of the all the places he could go if he chose to.
He passed one room and took three steps back to get a better look. "Ah, excuse me, ma'am! What's this one?"
"Oh, that's arts and crafts," she said flippantly, not expecting a grown ass man would be interested in playing with clay. Well, she was clearly mistaken now that he saw the extent of the materials. They had a lot in here! And he had the perfect idea. If the staff here refused to regard him as Wild Tiger, he was just going to have to force it on them.
Snickering like a fool, Kotetsu grabbed several sheets of black construction paper, glitter, glue, and a pair of safety scissors before sitting down at a vacant table. Actually, all the tables were empty. He was the only one in here and that was probably for the best since he was making himself a makeshift domino mask of ultimate secretiveness.
He laid all the pieces of construction paper on top of each other before he began cutting out something that looked like an elongated figure eight with little barbed fins at the bottom. It wasn't going very well. Kotetsu was confident he could probably cut a tree down with a stick of butter faster than these scissors would cut through the paper.
He was going to be here for awhile.
[Kaede Kairi, come to papa!]
It also gave him a moment to himself, completely alone and silent so he could think. The water in the sink continued to run, but the older man was more occupied with the mirrors. He stared at his wet reflection as he took a few slow breaths to help contain himself. The longer he stayed here, the more surreal it all felt. Slowly, he began to feel less and less attached to this reality because he believed it was only a matter of minutes, seconds before he woke up.
He couldn't let the sensation overwhelm him. In fact, he picked a hand up from the sink and pinched himself to prove his point. Bizarre or not, this was his situation and he needed to figure out soon just who put him in it. The fact that none of the nurses would even humor his talk of his Hero alter ego said many things to him. Suddenly no one had even heard of him and it was an all too familiar problem that made his blood run cold. In spite of it all, he needed to be on his toes. This was no time to fall apart, he reminded himself. With one last deep breath, Kotetsu put his clueless smile back in place and stepped out of the bathroom with his nurse in toe who gave him a quick tour of the all the places he could go if he chose to.
He passed one room and took three steps back to get a better look. "Ah, excuse me, ma'am! What's this one?"
"Oh, that's arts and crafts," she said flippantly, not expecting a grown ass man would be interested in playing with clay. Well, she was clearly mistaken now that he saw the extent of the materials. They had a lot in here! And he had the perfect idea. If the staff here refused to regard him as Wild Tiger, he was just going to have to force it on them.
Snickering like a fool, Kotetsu grabbed several sheets of black construction paper, glitter, glue, and a pair of safety scissors before sitting down at a vacant table. Actually, all the tables were empty. He was the only one in here and that was probably for the best since he was making himself a makeshift domino mask of ultimate secretiveness.
He laid all the pieces of construction paper on top of each other before he began cutting out something that looked like an elongated figure eight with little barbed fins at the bottom. It wasn't going very well. Kotetsu was confident he could probably cut a tree down with a stick of butter faster than these scissors would cut through the paper.
He was going to be here for awhile.
[
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The redhead is surprised when she sees the room empty - minus one person, and instantly she is all smiles. She doesn't think she has ever seen the man around before, and ... well, how could she refuse making new friends?
"Hello," Kairi greeted cheerfully, a bright smile crossing her lips as she looked down at what the man was doing in front of her. "What are you making?"
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"Oh! Uh--" he faltered in his attempt to respond and clear the table at the same time. Multi-tasking was not one of his better skills and it took a bit of extra processing power before he made hiding his artistic calamity top priority. "--this is nothing really, I was just, uh, you know, messing around." It was a hurried explanation, but that was the best he could do on such short notice! Once it was out of the spotlight, the former Hero recovered his friendly demeanor.
"Hello," he greeted in turn with an enthusiastic grin as if he had never been making something and she had never asked her question. "What's your name?"
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After deciding that the man is nice, Kairi sat down across from him with a smile, reaching forward to grasp onto a piece of origami paper in the middle of the table. She had to remember how to ... actually make the crane to make it. She was glad there were many pieces of paper in front of her.
"My name is Kairi," she told him with a smile. "I don't think I've ever seen you around before, so I decided to say hello. I hope you don't mind the intrusion."
sorry for the late response
"Oh, no, no, it's fine! I was starting to get lonely being the only person in here!" he lied with a warm smile. Again, someone had picked him out of the patient body as new and he found it strange how easy it seemed to be. Well, if it was that obvious there was no reason to try and say otherwise. "I just woke up this morning, actually" for unknown reasons, he reminded himself bitterly. "Name's Ko--" The older man stopped abruptly, struggling whether or not to go ahead and finish his name or wave it off. The bigger part of him wanted to tell her honestly. She was a sweet little girl with no parent to confide in or rely on. It wouldn't be such a terrible thing if that were him and yet...
Kotetsu knew better. If he wanted to protect her, the former Hero couldn't let her know his real name. She could become collateral damage if this charade was bigger than simply an alcohol problem or a bump on the head, as he suspected it might be. He didn't want to lie to her--and on their first meeting!--but the consequences for ab bit of instant gratification were much too steep.
"Eh, Kobayashi. Or you can call me Ko! That's... easier." Hopefully his anxious laugh didn't sound as painful to her ears. It was probably a good idea to start moving the subject along. "So, anyway, what're you making?" The origami paper was obvious of course, but there were innumerable things you could do with it.
don't worry about it bb! <3
She always found it easy to read people, and right off the bat the princess of heart could tell that the man was hiding something. Who was she to judge? After all, as Kairi figured, she was hiding things too amongst the population of Landel's. Her Princess of Heart status, for example. She couldn't just go around telling someone who she was. It wasn't safe.
"Alright, Ko it is," she told him with a smile. She wouldn't push it. It wasn't fair to him to try and make him tell her something he didn't wish to share. She wouldn't push that on anyone. "It's nice to meet you, Ko."
At the mention of her origami, Kairi looked down, a sheepish grin crossing her lips. "Oh! I'm trying to make an origami crane. A boy I met a few weeks ago taught me how to make them, but I'm afraid I don't remember the exact steps," she laughed, folding the paper back and forth, trying to remember exactly how to make the bird. She'd get it sooner or later.
"So," she started up again, smiling. "Where are you from? I mean ... before here, of course. What world are you from?"
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But there were other ways to wow someone and Kairi's latest question gave him just the excuse he was looking for. A self-satisfied grin and a dramatic laugh began his tale. "D'oh ho ho hooo! I am glad you asked! I come from a land of black oceans and shimmering stars!" He added jazz hands to the mix to really emphasize those stars. "All who know my name quake with fear when they sail my waters for I am Kobayashi: Keeper of the Nightingale Seas! Conjurer of Storms!" Yes, this was going swimmingly if he did say so himself! Ah man, if only he could have used that pun publicly. What a waste of improvisation!
If he hadn't been worried that his nurse would put an end to him if he grew any louder or stood on the table, well, Kotetsu would have certainly done so! Instead, he compromised for a flashy pose where he sat, pointing just beyond Kairi. "The waters whistle and sing at my beck and call as I strike down the evil and unjust where they join my eternal chorus!"
No matter what, all that time he wasted today coming up with that story was so worth it now.
no subject
"Sooo ... does that mean you lived on an island? Because if so, me too!" she told him happily. "Destiny Islands, to be exact. It's a small world, but it's home.
"But yours sounds wonderful too!" she continued, smiling all the more. "And you have a very beautiful way with words, if I do say so myself. Have you ever considered perhaps writing? I used to write in my spare time, but there's not exactly much free time to do things like that anymore, considering .. well, where we are."
It is then that Kairi decided that she liked the man who sat in front of her. He made her smile, and he seemed to be a rather silly person, so how could she say no?
Especially considering it could have turned out that he could have been ... well, a real crazy person, like the woman from those many weeks (was it months now?) ago. She'd take what she could get.
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Plus, she said he had a real way with words! A spot in his chest tingled for a bit, warming him up from the inside-out. It was the same feeling he had when he won Kaede's affection, though that had been fleeting the last few months. Frankly, Kotetsu was desperate for any compliments he could scrape together and hold onto for even a moment.
"Ah, ha ha, you think so?" Kotetsu could feel his cheeks growing warm as he tried to keep a humble air about him. It wasn't working very well. "I had a journal for a bit I guess..." However, nothing in it was in any way substantive.
There was a brief silence between them once he could no longer keep digging himself into a dark hole. It was either further down where a time bomb no doubt awaited him or start the arduous task of tunneling back out. The former was his usual answer to everything, but he was learning slowly that it inevitably hurt more in the long run. Sometimes that band-aid needed to be ripped off, so you may as well do it soon and quickly instead of letting it gradually grow infected.
"Actually, Kairi... About what I said, you know, being a storm conjurer and... making water sing. Well, that wasn't... I was just teasing you--I, I didn't think you'd really--I mean a lot of the people have really cool stories and I--" This was just not going well. Kotetsu decided to change up his strategy. "B-But I do live on an island, though! Just like you!" Again, those white lies just came sailing out before he could even stop himself. It was sort of true that he lived on an island, or a peninsula at the very least! Kind of.
"And it is layered in bronze and silver and gold!" Sort of. "I used to live in the Bronze district, though it is really crowded. It's probably not as pretty as your island. So the question is!" His voice grew serious as he stared hard at Kairi with his amber eyes. "What... was your favorite thing about your home?" Hopefully she wouldn't get too homesick, but maybe it would help her keep her sights set on getting out of here as soon as possible. yeah, that was the way to look at it! He was simply building her ambitions and strength like a good Hero!
As she thought about it, Kotetsu grabbed a piece of green origami paper and began folding it haphazardly.
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He turned back with a sigh, resigning himself to being as well-behaved as humanly possible and hoping they didn't search his pockets on the way out. One idea did cross his mind: perhaps he couldn't take the plastic safety scissors or tubes of glitter, but he could ask if he'd be allowed to take something else, like something he'd made. They'd probably tell him it was just a way to fuel his delusions, but he figured it couldn't hurt to work off some stress with some old-fashioned letter-writing. It reminded him of his days out at sea, when he was separated from his beloved Elaine for months at a time. He could have written entire novels dedicated to her at that time.
Grabbing a sheet of paper and a few crayons, he got to work.
My dearest Elaine,
A pause, after which he couldn't think of what to write. What did one write in a hypothetical letter to the woman he loved when she'd been at the institute before? Did she still have her mind? Was she Elaine from the past, or would she know of the future? How much was safe revealing to her without sounding crazy? 'Honey, I saw an inspector get mauled to death by an abomination worse than any conjured by voodoo' generally wasn't a good start for such a thing.
He reached into the bag and pulled out the cookie, starting on it first.
[Michelangelo]
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Of course, that didn't stop him from trying to munch on his cookie as he walked, and he had just gone to shove the bag under his half-arm when his nurse gave him a disapproving frown.
"Michael, you could choke if you walk and eat at the same time."
His response was to roll his eyes, but he put the cookie back in. No use arguing with her. The cookie would still be there when he got to wherever he picked.
Surprisingly, the arts and crafts room drew him. He hadn't really drawn anything beyond maps and descriptive drawings of armaments in a long time, but his conversation during the shift previous had cheered him up. Rainbow was a pretty cool kid. Maybe... he could try something.
Which felt weird. He hadn't really... It had been forever. But as he got in, he saw the clay and changed his mind.
Clay would be an interesting challenge. He hadn't tried using it with just one arm before, and had only gotten his hand on it once or twice back home. Mike wasn't sure he could make anything of worth, but at least it'd be something to try that would help further hone his skills.
So, he grabbed himself some wax paper and a big hunk of clay, bringing it towards the tables. He'd have to eat first before he could play with it. Mike could handle that, really. Mike's lunch was safely tucked under his half-arm again.
It was a bit of a surprise to see Guybrush there as well. Well, at least he knew where to sit now. Mike walked over to the guy and dropped himself into the seat and his clay onto the table in the same motion. He then put his lunch bag down carefully.
"Yo, Guybrush," Mike nodded at him, leaning over a bit to not-quite-read the paper. "Writin' a letter?"
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"I thought I might write a letter to my lovely wife, Elaine," he explained, holding up the page. "My artistic skills leave something to be desired, but I'm sure the emotional content will shine through my talentless drawings."
He took another bite of his cookie, eyeing the chunk of clay Mike had brought with him.
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"... Huh," Mike finally made a sound, then looked away from Guybrush to dig into his bag and pull out the cookie first. "Never took you for a married man."
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The crayon halted its progress across the paper as he sighed, his smile fading. "Or that's how it will be, I guess would be more accurate. She was here at the institute for a while, but she was from the past, before we got married. There's nothing quite as awkward as having a conversation with the woman you've been married to for seven years about all that time you've spent together that she hasn't experienced yet. I just hope she didn't change her mind."
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"Well, if you're still married, you're still married," Mike replied. "You wouldn't remember getting married if you didn't get married, so she obviously still marries you."
One of these days he'd get used to applying Science Fiction to his everyday life. He decided to skip the whole 'alternate timelines' explanation. That might be a little much for Guybrush.