Day 65: Intercom, Evening

[damned_intercom]

As some of the clouds from earlier began to clear, the intercom jingle sounded over the intercom once again.

"Hello, patients!" came the Head Doctor's cheery voice. "I hope you're all feeling fresh and clean this evening! To top it all off, we've prepared a scrumptious herb chicken dinner for you to eat before bed. Of course, we have vegetarian options available, so please don't hesitate to ask the nurse if you're interested in that.

Also, since we have the pleasure of welcoming a few new patients into our family, some of you will be receiving new roommates. Let's do our best to give them a nice, big Landel's Institute welcome, shall we?"

The Head Doctor gave a friendly chuckle. "Well, anyway, enjoy your dinner!"

With that, the intercom shut off.

[Note: All dinner threads are posted in response to this entry. Be sure to check the Roommate Assignments if you're not sure what room/roommate your character has! Thanks.]

Comments

[lovesthepain]

Not much interest in reiterating what he knew? Harpuia couldn't say he particularly blamed Tsurugi; his own day, after all, had been all but entirely devoted to fact-finding. It may have amounted to disappointingly little concrete information, but he could see how going over it again and again would wear thin. Harpuia wasn't one for wasting time on repetitiveness; he was content to simply leave it at that, if there was nothing useful to be gained. So Harpuia merely nodded and looked away, focus sliding onto the tray of food he'd been wanting so badly to ignore.

It made no sense, of course, for a machine to want to eat. Anything he put into his mouth was likely to just ruin his insides -- block cooling fans, short out delicate circuits, throw off the gyros that kept him balanced. Provided, of course, his insides were still mechanical. X may have had no trouble embracing the conclusion that the reploids had all been rendered human, but it was a concept that was harder for Harpuia to embrace. He had nothing against humans, of course, but...

"Tsurugi... forgive the strangeness of this question." Harpuia glanced back to his roommate. Tsurugi was eating, so he must be naturally human, right? It was a little embarrassing to ask a question that should have been obvious -- this shouldn't have even been a reason for internal conflict at all, should it? -- but he had no frame of reference to draw from. "What does it feel like to be hungry?"

[knightspirit]

Kyousuke would have been content enough to let the conversation end; silence was fine with him, and he had never been one to talk for the sake of talking. If it came to it, listening had always suited him more. He ate slowly, making glances toward the door, all too anxious for it to finally unlock. Waiting for it seemed worse when it was so close, and his patience certainly wasn't at its best today. If it weren't for the meal, there was chance he'd simply stand in front of the door, staring at it with his arms crossed. As it was, he simply gave it a look of disdain. It was childish, maybe, but he was still burning to do something more proactive.

The question distracted him from that. Despite the situation, it one of the weirder things he'd heard during the day, and he had to look up in surprise. To feel... hungry? He would think Harpuia already knew; everyone had to eat, after all. Had he misheard that?

"... What do you mean?" he asked carefully.

[lovesthepain]

Fair enough; a question that weird definitely warranted some form of explanation. "I'm not truly human. I'm actually a reploid. Because I was mechanical, not organic, food has never been necessary for me. If I did ever attempt to eat, I can only imagine it would have landed me in the repair bay."

Harpuia didn't want to admit it, to be honest -- he wasn't the least bit ashamed of being a reploid, but he despised situations that made him look ignorant, and even having to ask in the first place was bothersome enough to begin with. He looked away, frown deepening ever so slightly.

"I have avoided eating the other two meals given to me because I don't want to believe that I need them. I can acknowledge that I'm feeling something that I've never felt in my usual body, but it's difficult to put a name to these kinds of bodily cues without any previous experience to fall back on."

[knightspirit]

This was... difficult to process. Or more accurately, incredibly bizarre. The term 'reploid' wasn't one Kyousuke was familiar with, but there was enough context to understand it. Mechanical. Inhuman. Like that robot he'd run into the previous night. But what really caught his attention was the was in that statement. Past tense. How did that even work? Was it even possible? .... No less possible than the sickness going around, he realized. If they could change people into something inhuman, who was to say they couldn't do the reverse? It wasn't the most sound logic, but he couldn't imagine a reason someone would lie about something like this, either.

He looked down at his tray, having the sense to keep from commenting. It wasn't for a lack surprise, but that this had be difficult enough without any strange reactions or careless questions. Harpuia already looked uncomfortable, and there was no reason to add to that. But hunger? He wasn't sure where he was supposed to begin on that. It was such a natural thing it was hard to simply lay out.

"It's... draining," he decided after a moment. "If you go too long without eating, you'll start start to feel less energetic and can't concentrate as long. Sometimes your stomach will feel strange, or your head will start to hurt. But the most important thing is that if you don't eat properly, you won't be able to bring out as much power, and you need as much of that as you can get in place like this."

It was hard to say if that made any sense, but hopefully it did enough that he'd listen to his warning.

[lovesthepain]

Vague though it might have been, it was still a description Harpuia felt he could understand -- after his oh-so-wise choice to ignore all the other meals offered, he was definitely feeling the consequences. Tsurugi was giving him valuable advice, and as much as Harpuia wanted to cling to the idea that he was still robotic, there was no reason to disregard it. It would have been beyond foolish to actively hinder his own chances at survival.

Harpuia turned to his own meal, picking up his fork with a lingering hint of reluctance. At the very least, he could appreciate Tsurugi's graciousness about the situation -- he knew that the situation probably warranted some degree of incredulity, but the fact that Tsurugi didn't even bat an eyelash at an apparent robot-turned-human asking how basic biological drives worked said something about his character.

"Thank you. I know I asked you a difficult question, but that does help me." A miniscule sliver of chicken was peeled away (this used to be a living thing) -- too small to choke on, and hopefully too small to gum up the clockwork inside if that faint hope he was still mechanical proved to be true. He raised it to his lips with obvious trepidation (this had once been moving, living muscle) and took a bite (like a grain thresher carving up an unlucky fieldmouse). Chew -- mastication, the utilization of teeth to render food into an easy-to-break-down (and undoubtedly gross-looking) slurry -- and swallow, which was a very strange-feeling act in and of itself.

His first impression? Eating, like many of the aspects of this new body, was an unappealing necessity.

"...It's not easy to be human, is it?"