Day 69: Breakfast

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar scowled, both relieved and angry that he had woken up once again in his own bed. That lanky man who had become his new roommate on the night of his death was sound asleep one bed over.

This was coming to be the new "normal." It was infuriating.

As always, he begrudgingly followed his nurse into the cafeteria and took a seat. He preferred to file in with the majority of the patients in order to avoid sticking out, but no such luck this morning.

Scar stared at his food rather than starting in on it, despite the newly found appetite that had been lost thanks to that blasted sickness. He had a lot to think about. He hadn't managed to find Frank last night. The damn intercom had beaten him to it. And judging by Tsubaki's reaction to him, he had been out for at least a day's time. How many had noticed? Cared? It couldn't have been many.

But it was the few who did whose detection Scar was desperate to avoid.

[Eddyyyy!]

Comments

[knightspirit]

"Tsurugi," Kyousuke responded. "Nice to meet you." Reserved as he was, there was no reason not to be polite.

But he should probably say something a bit more instead of falling back into silence, which gave the boy a little pause. He was in no way opposed to socializing, but he was more used to listening than speaking. "... Have you been here for long?" he went with after a moment. Not the best subject, but it was start, he guessed.

[gald_digger]

“Yep!” Anise replied before taking another bite of her strawberries. It wasn’t really something to be happy about, though the fact that after all this time, she was still alive and sane was a good thing. “About six weeks, I think.” She’d already taken the time to count when she answered a similar question yesterday, so she was able to answer without stopping to count.

She stopped chewing and started cutting her pancakes into smaller, bite-sized pieces. “I’m guessing you’re newer, huh?” Not totally new if she’d seen him around, but relatively new, she was guessing. “Where are you from?” Chances were low that he was from Auldrant, but Anise had heard enough about other planets that she just might recognize a place name.

[knightspirit]

Six weeks... That made Kyousuke look up in mild surprise. It wasn't much by normal standards, but when it came to this place, it sounded like forever to him; a lot of things had happened in his short stay here. Too many things. But this girl still seemed to be keeping her head up, which was something Kyousuke could respect. ... He'd have to keep doing that himself.

"Yeah. About five days if you count the night I came." He stabbed into his stack of pancakes and took a bite before continuing. "I'm from Inazuma Town, in Japan." It was a well-known neighborhood where he was from, but as far he could tell, it didn't seem to mean anything here.

[gald_digger]

"Japan? I've heard of that place!" Anise said, looking proud of herself. "I know a lot of people from Japan." Well, knew was more accurate. A lot of them had disappeared; more than she wanted to think about. In any case, that meant this kid was from Earth, so he probably wasn't experiencing nearly as much culture shock as Anise had.

She hoped that didn't sound too weird just now, but if Kyousuke had been at the institute for five days already, he had to know about other worlds, right?

[knightspirit]

With such a variety of people here, it was hard to tell whether Kyousuke should be surprised or not. In the end, he just ended up snorting in faint amusement. "Really. I'm not sure if I've met anyone from there yet." Most of the people he'd talked to here weren't much like him in some way or another, be it from not understanding the technology much, or the sorts of weapons they carried around. It could get bewildering sometimes, but it couldn't be helped, and in the end it made no real difference to him. People were people, and that was good enough.

"So what about you?" he returned. There was a good chance whatever response he got wouldn't mean anything to him, but learning about what sorts of people were trapped here probably wouldn't be a bad thing.

[gald_digger]

He hadn't met anyone from Japan? Anise looked around the room, expecting to see tons... but there was only one person she recognized as being from there: Soushi. Everyone else... Were they gone? An empty feeling formed in the pit of her stomach, and she quickly took a few more bites of pancakes in some hope that it would make her feel better.

"I'm from Auldrant! That's... the planet's name, I mean," she clarified, still finding it a bit awkward that she had to be so clear about it. "Most people haven't heard of it."

[knightspirit]

"Auldrant...." The name of a planet. It had been easy enough for Kyousuke to contend with the idea of other worlds, but he still wasn't used to thinking quite on that scale, so even if it was about what he'd expected, he was still a little surprised despite himself. "I guess the universe is a big place," he commented.

He wondered how they'd managed to gather people from so many different places like this; that certainly couldn't be an easy feat. But it seemed like everyone was as in the dark about that as he was, so it seemed a little pointless to bring up.

[gald_digger]

Tsurugi looked a little surprised, but not totally shocked. He must have heard about the other world stuff from someone else. Anise was just glad he didn't seem to think she was a total weirdo for mentioning it. "Yeah..." she agreed, her gaze somewhat distant as she found herself dwelling on that thought. Though her people hadn't developed space travel, they'd observed the stars enough to have some sliver of an idea of how huge the universe was.　It was so big that she could spend her entire life searching, and never find her home again. That was kind of a depressing thought.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for Anise’s thoughts to come back down to Earth, and her smile returned. “I’m just glad people from Earth are, like… normal-looking. Can you imagine if we got kidnapped by some weird, gross-looking aliens?” She took a few more bites of her strawberry-topped pancakes as she expanded on that thought. "I mean, I even heard that people who don't look normal get turned into humans. So if that happened, we'd all be one-eyed lizard people or... something!"

[knightspirit]

Kyousuke idly sipped at juice, pretending not to notice as Anise drifted into thoughtful silence. Thankfully, it didn't last, but what followed was not what he was expecting, to say the least.

"... What?" He'd had a conversation with someone once, who claimed to be a robot shoved into a human body, but like many things here, he'd completely forgotten in the face of more pressing matters. But aliens, like out of some low budget children's program.... give him a break. "That's probably not as good for any one-eyed lizard men stuck here," he comment dryly.

Of course, there weren't any. .... Probably. In a place like this, almost anything could sound credible.

[gald_digger]

Anise giggled. “I guess you have a point there.” She didn’t know of anyone who fit that description, but she’d heard a lot of people complaining about ways their body had been changed. Although she could joke about it, she had to admit… that had to be horrible for them. Anise was just glad she’d been spared that kind of terror – though only barely, considering the illness that she’d just been cured of.

But Anise wanted to keep the mood light, so she figured she’d spare Tsurugi her thoughts about the creepier aspects of the institute. Five days were more than enough for things to start wearing a person down. It was nice to have a semi-normal conversation once in a while, wasn’t it?

“So, um… what kind of stuff did you do back home? Before… this stuff.” She twirled a finger as if to point at the entire institute around them in a single gesture.

[knightspirit]

The things he did, huh... Kyousuke had never been very good with personal questions like that. It felt strange to talk about, and it was also difficult for him to come up with real answers. More so here, since their concepts of what was normal seemed vary. He'd already had to explain several things he considered ordinary.

"My friends and I are in our school's soccer club, so we spend a lot of time practicing," he explained. He wondered if Anise would know what he was talking about, since Link hadn't known what soccer was at all, but he'd deal with that if came up. "It's a lot of work, and it's not always easy, but there's always someone there to lend you a hand. They're interesting guys, so every day tends to be lively."

That feeling of togetherness was something he missed more than he cared to admit, but in the end he could only smile. There wasn't any need to be lonely. It wasn't like all that was lost just because they didn't happen to be together at the moment, and there was no point in worrying over something he couldn't do anything about. He'd just have to keep his head up and find a way through like he always did.

[gald_digger]

“Soccer?” Anise tilted her head as she searched her memory for when she'd heard it before. “That’s a sport, right? We don’t have it where I’m from, but I think you can play it here.” Anise didn’t know a thing about it besides the fact that it involved a ball, but she’d spent enough time reading the bulletin and watching people in the Recreational Field to learn of its existence.

In any case, Tsurugi looked kind of happy when he talked about practicing with his friends, even if he wasn't overly expressive about it. Maybe he had a lot of good memories.

“Still, that must be nice, spending time with friends at school... I never really had any friends close to my age.” Ion was about the only one, but the age thing was still a little questionable there. Not to mention how the boss-bodyguard relationship was a little different from just being schoolyard friends. It was weird to think that now, Ion was out there, believing that they really were friends from school. Maybe the real Ion had wished things would be that simple... Anise sometimes did, too.

[knightspirit]

"Most of the people I've talked to don't," Kyousuke shrugged. He supposed that made sense with all of the different worlds, but it was still difficult for him to picture a place without it. He wondered what he would have ended up doing if he were born in a world without soccer, but it was hard to say, and probably not worth thinking too hard on. Possibilities didn't mean much compared to reality.

"Really?" It was a little surprising to hear that Anise didn't have friends her own, but everyone had their own situation, so he decided against asking about it. "But if you ever feel like it, it's never too late to start." And that wasn't just a platitude; if someone like him could make friends in spite how of vindictive and angry he used to be, anyone could.

[gald_digger]

Huh… Anise was used to most people she met being from Earth. Was Landel aiming for more diversity lately, or something? Then again, maybe it was just a coincidence.

The way Tsurugi talked, it was almost like he took her last comment to mean she had no friends at all! Anise had plenty of friends – it was just that they were mostly older than her. Some of them, two or three times her age. The fact that she didn’t go to school when she was little, and then went into military training, had a lot to do with it. Though that didn’t really explain why she couldn’t get along with any of the other Fon Master Guardians, who were mostly only two or three years apart…

But there was a nicer way to take his comment, and so Anise decided to go with that. “Hmm… is that an offer?” she asked with a playful grin.

[knightspirit]

That was about all Kyousuke needed to realize he'd said a little too much without thinking about it, which wasn't like him, but it was a bit late for that now. As it was, something on the other side of the room suddenly seemed a lot more interesting, so he directed his attention there.

"That's not— Don't get the wrong idea," the boy muttered, trying to sound irritated. "It was only a suggestion." Which was a pretty poor excuse, admittedly, but hopefully that was good enough to appease the situation.

[gald_digger]

Ooh, was he embarrassed? Anise's grin widened at that reaction. It was nice that she could once again make time for some good old-fashioned teasing. "Well, if you insist, I'd be happy to be your friend!"

But no sooner had she said so, than the intercom buzzed to life and the shift change announcements began. She'd just finished eating, so it wasn't the worst timing. "I guess it's time to go. Let's talk again sometime, okay?" Even if she was partly joking earlier, she really did want to make more friends, and Tsurugi didn't seem like a bad guy so far.