Day 61: Arts and Crafts Room (Third Shift)

[oyaji]

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!]

Comments

[oyaji]

The older man had been so focused on his little project, he hadn't realized the lovely voice was speaking to him. Then again, he was the only one in here. After a beat of silence, Kotetsu finally looked up and locked on to the girl standing right in front of him. The strange familiarity made his chest ache suddenly and all concept of communication vanished along with it. He sort of shook his head to banish the strange spell.

"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?"

[stranded]

Kairi tilted her head to the side from the odd look the man was giving her, but before she could ask him if he was okay, he answered her question, and she smiled. "It certainly looks like something, but I understand. This is the arts and crafts room, after all."

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

[oyaji]

"Kairi, huh? That's a pretty name..." He was confident she already knew that, but it never hurt to remind a girl. It was every father's right to spoil his daughter and Kotetsu had to play some serious catch up to make up for all the time she had spent away in here.

"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

[stranded]

Kairi smiled warmly at his compliment, ducking her head slightly with embarrassment. "Thank you."

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?"

[oyaji]

"Ah," The infamous paper crane. He had been hoping to wow her with his authentic Japanese--or was it Chinese?--skills in origamiship, but the crane and he were star-crossed rivals, destined to end their struggles in tears time and time. In fact, if it hadn't been for a fellow classmate helping him out, Kotetsu would have failed that day's exercise.

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.

[stranded]

Kairi watched Ko with a surprised expression, watching as he explained where he came from with rather ... sparkly explanations. It made the redhead smile, and she nodded her head, clapping her hands once he was done with his fabulous posing and grand hand gestures and words.

"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.

[oyaji]

Oh dear. Ohhh dear, what had he done? It had sounded like such a good idea at first, making up a kick ass story to dazzle the depressed minds of the institute. Now look what he did, she seriously believed him! If he told her the truth, would be she be upset? He couldn't deal with that kind of rejection, especially not from a little girl!

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.