Day 67: Breakfast

[knightspirit]

For the first time since Kyousuke arrived, waking up didn't feel the slightest bit strange or out of place. It was still like night had suddenly stopped, with nothing in-between then and now, but instead of being disorienting, or like there was something missing, it was like waking up from a nightmare. His breaths came heavy and anxious, everything flooding back to him, but unlike last night, he had more mental clarity, and he actually understood what it meant.

Sora... was dead.

After a moment, his breathing seemed to ease up, and he sat up slowly, and simply stared down at his blanket. The motion hurt quite a bit, a lot worse than it had yesterday morning, but he seemed to be in decent shape, all considered. Sore, battered, a little faint, but compared to worst of it...

He wondered if he should feel upset right now, or want to yell, or cry, but the truth was, he didn't. If anything, he was just numb. Tired and listless. He wasn't sure what to think or feel about anything, but somehow it seemed distant and disconnected, like something that hadn't actually happened. Yet, if he lingered on it too long, the lifelessness grew into something nauseating, heavy and constricting in his chest, and he didn't even notice until he realized he was gripping his bedding unnecessarily hard. So he forced himself to relax, and not focus on it too much. ... He preferred the cold sort of nothingness.

When the nurse arrived, she wasn't empty-handed, unfolding a wheelchair by his bedside and looking at him expectantly, as if she wanted him to settle himself into it. Looking at it was strange and uncomfortable, and he found himself refusing automatically.

"... I can walk fine. I don't need—"

"What you don't need," the nurse said sternly, "is to be overexerting yourself. You got to walk around yesterday, and what do you do? You go and reopen your injuries! Honestly, Mr. Taylor, you might be young, but you need to take better care of yourself! Today, you're resting, and if you're good about it, we'll see about maybe taking the chair away tomorrow."

That was bad enough, but then she wouldn't even let him wheel himself, and pushed him along from behind. This was totally unnecessary... But though it made him feel helpless, Kyousuke didn't have the energy to argue, so he let her do what she wanted. She asked if he wanted to make a quick trip the bulletin, first, but... Would the news be there? There were people who deserved to know, but there would be reactions to it, questions he didn't want to answer, and feeling his stomach give a lurch, he decided he didn't want to deal with it. Any of it.

Once in the cafeteria, the nurse asked him about breakfast, but Kyousuke insisted he wasn't hungry. ... He wasn't. Sensing he wanted to be left alone, she wheeled him off to an easily overlooked portion of the cafeteria, but quickly returned, setting food and some juice in front of him, "just in case." She set a small paper cup with a couple of painkillers on the tray, and after that, she left, leaving the boy to stare down the meal he didn't really want.

[ Kratos! ]

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[rocksthecourt]

Wasted nights were an annoyingly frequent occurrence here, unfortunately. Last night had, for the most part, felt like an absolute lost cause. All he'd gotten out of it were some lackluster items, some insight on the more useless areas of the institute, and some fun facts about the water. Oh yes, and let's not forget that little bout of trauma and the bite to his ankle to complete the experience.

From the sound of Herr Doktor's last announcement of the night, however, other people had had it worse last night. Two people had died. At least. And it sounded like other people had been made to do it themselves. Likely due to this monster illness that had been plaguing the institute for a while now. Herr Doktor had never bothered to count when it came to incidents involving Special Counseling or the coliseum. It was sick, really. All of it. The fact that he actually mocked them all for it made it all that much worse, too.

That of course begged the question of just who was left alive this morning. How many people were still there? And what of those he knew personally? He knew a few people who had been sick, actually. Were they still alright? How much longer before they ended up going the same way? Dammit. It was moments like this that made him hate wasted time like last night most of all. There was no time! ...Spending all of his time fretting and thinking of time limits was only going to emotionally drain him, though. Impatient as he was, he needed to pace himself accordingly or else he would just waste more time. So he should just focus on gathering information and planning for tonight. ...And checking up on those he knew just to be certain of their status.

In fact, that was exactly what he decided to do when he reached the cafeteria. After he'd gotten his food, he scanned the room trying to find as many familiar faces as he could. A difficult task since it was still early and people were only filing in now.

There was at least one such person here already, though. Yomi. It had been several days since he had seen her last, but twist in his gut as soon as he saw her was just as raw as if it had only been yesterday. He still remembered it all vividly: how they had been trapped, that fantastical fight in the coliseum, how she'd been killed, the panicked and broken state she was in after somehow being brought back to life. It was a miracle for her even to be sitting there, but that did nothing to alleviate the memories.

Looking at her now, one would never know. She seemed fine enough sitting there. She didn't appear to be in any agonizing pain nor did she have any visible injuries. Even her expression seemed normal. Collected. Very different from the last time he'd seen her. That wasn't to say everything was fine with her, however. She was, as stated, just sitting there; not eating, just sitting. It looked like she was possibly lost in thought and there was a good chance it was due to something horrible. That was something he kept in mind as he approached her.

"Fräulein," he said, both as a way to bring her attention back to reality and as a greeting. The smile he offered was simple and gentle, an attempt to be sensitive considering what might be potentially bothering her. "Good morning. ...How have you been feeling?"

He did hope she felt comfortable enough to potentially speak to him about such things. Some women could be fickle when it came to things like this. Not that he was used to playing therapist for people, but he did hope that if something was upsetting her and she needed to cry to someone about it, she could consider him an available avenue. Heaven knows people need that in this place.

[she_is_ruin]

Yomi had just finished deciding whether or not she should leave a message for Albedo on the bulletin board when a certain someone entered the cafeteria. A man, looking and whole and healthy and amazingly well-preserved for someone who was, by all accounts, nothing more than a normal human.

Klavier.

The moment he turned her way, Yomi knew there was an unpleasantly high chance there was going to be some attempt to... to bring up what had happened before Landel had launched his little epidemic. Even if he didn't, his presence was enough to do it for him. Old wounds that didn't heal properly oozed, contaminating everything, impossible to ignore, and old memories were the same. Especially the painful and intimate ones... like those from the Coliseum, and from everything before and after it.

Klavier had been privy to a lot--more than he should--and that was impossible to ignore. He carried the stink of her pain and regret on him. Ghosts of a humanity that should be dead.

He was a walking history lesson that she could do without.

Yomi lifted her eyes and blinked, expression as smooth as glass. Her wounds had healed, yes, and so had that temporary lull in the sesshouseki's control. She was not broken or weak. She would not cry in front of a man. She was not the old Yomi.

She followed him with her eyes before nodding, an almost tranquil smile working at the corners of her mouth. Things had changed, anyway, things that would probably shock Klavier when he found out. "Morning." There was a moment where she pretended to think over her words. "I'm feeling fine. Back to normal."

[rocksthecourt]

Back to normal, was it? Doubtful. She had been through more horror than most people experience in a lifetime. It wasn't exactly something one just bounced back from with no consequence. But Klavier pretended to believe her and accepted her answer, spreading his smile wider into something more like relief.

Yomi was a strong woman. Whether she was putting up a front or not, the fact that she could smile at all herself was a positive sign.

"I'm glad." He finally took his seat across from Yomi, obviously showing more interest in speaking with her than in eating. "I take it that also means you haven't... gotten ill recently either?"

There were actually a lot of things he wanted to talk about regarding that one night in question. As well as the night before it. So much had happened in such a short span of time, it was a little boggling. Everything else had actually managed to keep him from thinking back much and questioning. Was that a bad sign on his part, that he was just accepting these things to the point of pushing them aside for this long?

However, Klavier wasn't so crass as to just press her for details immediately. Even if she said she was fine, he wasn't completely insensitive. Especially to a woman. So he would ease in and gauge her mental state a little first before touching on any of that. Besides, he was actually curious about the illness and other matters as well.

[she_is_ruin]

Setting aside the pretense of breakfast worked well enough for her; she had enough to occupy her already without being lambasted with messy overtures of sympathy over morning waffles. She didn't know what good would come out of discussing the infection, but if Klavier wanted to focus on that, so be it.

The irony would keep her well-fed all on its own, at least, considering what had been happening to the ill prisoners in the dark of night.

Albedo and I are killing the people you're talking about. Isn't that exciting news?

"You mean because of Landel's experiment? No. My being otherwise occupied might have given me a free pass." That, and Yomi wasn't the most sensible candidate for that kind of experimentation, not in her opinion. "I see you don't have a rash. That's good, isn't it?"