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! ]

Comments

[nobleman]

Taura? That was a nice name, and Guy smiled in return. "The name's Guy." He realized that he had to be pretty recognizable to most people by now, but at least they'd gotten the formalities out of the way pretty fast. He remembered when every second person he talked to had asked how long he'd been here. Most didn't bother at this point.

But what Guy hadn't expected was for the conversation to take a more serious turn so soon. Not that he minded it. They were limited in their time here, so sometimes it was better to cut to the chase. He realized it had to be pretty obvious that he wasn't sick. He hadn't even gotten any injuries lately, after all.

"I've been working it. Two of my close friends are sick. We finally got somewhere last night... or at least, I think we did." Guy leaned back in his seat and took a bite of his food.

[ninelivesonce]

It had been a quick turn for the serious, but Taura had never been good at not saying what she meant, and it wasn't the weirdest idea she'd ever blurted out. Even when she tried, she usually looked so clearly like she was trying not to say something that it wasn't worth it.

The name he'd just given her was familiar, though. Guy? It had struck her as a bit of a strange name, if it wasn't an alias, and it had stuck with her. And if it was an alias, it was either ridiculous or brilliant or both; she wasn't entirely sure. "Oh! Was I talking to you on the bulletin yesterday? About, um, plants? We found something, too. I just need to figure out what to do with it."

[nobleman]

That look of realization on Taura's face took Guy by surprise, but it didn't take long for her to explain. "Right, the bulletin board... I remember." So she had found something? Did that mean that she had also gone to the forest last night and encountered that strange masked figure? Well, there was only one way to find out.

"What did you find? My friends and I went down to the river in the forest..." Which had been a pretty unpleasant experience, considering the rain. Guy didn't have a stuffed up nose or a cough or any sign of getting sick from that, though, which was a relief. He still hoped they'd be showering today, though. "We encountered someone... or maybe I should say something. But I think whatever it was, it gave my friend a cure."

[ninelivesonce]

Her golden eyes widened at the bit about someone or something, but she bit down on the reaction. Just because some monsters were people, and some people were monsters, didn't mean anyone here was going to jump to the wrong conclusion. Even Landel thought she was human; he just didn't need to suffer from the illusion that his test subjects weren't in order to salve his own conscience. Perhaps he ought to try implanting one in himself. Or he'd started on himself, and surgically removed it. Either way, the result was the same. They were toys to him, but also of equal value. It was something she was never going to get used to.

"Was it the plant? About this big," she said, holding her hand out with fingers outstretched. "With thin leaves and yellow flowers?"

[nobleman]

How had she known? It was almost eerie, that Taura got it right down to the last detail, but Guy realized that there could have been a few different ways for them to find out the proper information. Or she had made it to the forest after all, though she hadn't seemed to recognize the rest of his explanation.

He was overthinking it. The point was that they'd come to the same conclusion, which probably meant that they were right about this after all. Guy nodded. "That's right, it was yellow. I don't know too much more about it than that, but... how did you find out?" After so many long days with no real information to go on, it was a relief to finally have found something promising.

[ninelivesonce]

"Smell!" She grinned, white teeth on full display. "Goku thought he could identify the leaves from the X-Ray room, and he was right." And he'd managed to not turn into a giant monster for long enough to be right. She would have owed Rita several planets'<> worth of apologies if she'd dragged her along only to see her and Goku trying to kill each other again.

"So it worked? Like, permanently?" If that was true -- now they just needed to get it to the right people, and find enough of it. Instead of setting up a quarantine, they could set up a clinic. But only if they had more than a flower or two.

[nobleman]

While Guy had no idea who Goku was, it was clear that he had quite the sense of smell, if he could identify a plant that way. It didn't seem like the most concrete way of determining something like that, but with his own situation to back it up, Guy was pretty much sold on this flower being the cure.

"I'm not sure if it's permanent yet. I'm waiting back to hear from my friend still..." He wasn't going to let on that he hadn't even seen her yet today. Honestly, Guy wouldn't blame Anise if she'd slept in after everything they'd been through lately.

"Do you know what the name of the flower is, though? It would help if we could spread the information..." Unless Taura had already gotten to that point. "Where did you guys find it, anyway?"

[ninelivesonce]

"In the greenhouse. We didn't have time to look for more than one, but I've never seen them have only one of something." If it was the only one, what would she do with it? Had it had more than one bloom? She didn't think so.

"I put up a note with the name -- it's kind of a strange one. Saint John's Wort. We weren't sure what we were supposed to do with it, though, so it's just in my room." Superstitious, calling on a saint to save them, and what was a wort, anyway?

She hadn't heard from Goku yet, either, and the little boy was hard to miss, at least when he was awake. If he wasn't up by noon she might have to see if her freedom in the hallways extended to the halls of the men's dormitories.

"Even if it's temporary, we need to find a way to get the flowers to people. Or the people to them."

[nobleman]

The greenhouse, huh? That was way closer than the forest, and much less dangerous to get to. Not that they'd been attacked last night, but Guy knew it had happened before, and he wasn't going to assume that any other trips out to the woods would be quite that easy. Especially if the weather stayed bad. It seemed to have cleared up this morning, but there was no guarantee that would last.

He took note of the name, figuring that he could always swing by the bulletin if he needed to imprint it further into his memory. Guy didn't plan to forget it, though.

"Yeah. I mean, if there's more in the greenhouse, then that shouldn't be too hard. Those who are well enough to go can collect as much as we can find and then we could distribute them. I think everyone's willing to work together in this case." It was in everyone's best interest at this point, right?

"But thanks for the information. I'm still in shock that we figured something out." It still seemed too good to be true. Guy wouldn't feel completely at ease until he'd heard back from Anise, but this was a start.

[ninelivesonce]

Taura grinned at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling in genuine pleasure. "Let's go make it worth it, yeah?"

She still hadn't heard from Rita, or Goku, so she didn't want to make any promises, but she wasn't going to do anything else. "I'm going to head there tonight, as soon as they let us move." Alone, she could move more quickly, and if it was dangerous, so was delaying. "I hope I won't be the only one."

[nobleman]

"I'm sure I'll be heading that way too, so if I see you, great. If not, good luck." Guy wasn't going to assume that there wouldn't be some trials waiting for them when it came to this. If they were able to just snatch some of the flowers and run off, that would just be way too easy.

With information exchanged and plans made, the intercom actually went off at a reasonable point in the conversation. Guy half-listened to the announcement as he stood from his seat, smiling back at Taura. "Either way, it was nice meeting you."