damned_institute | Day 25: Sun Room (Fourth Shift)

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Day 25: Sun Room (Fourth Shift)

The concept of gardening in the greenhouse was not one that Hitsugaya was particularly fond of. It was likely exceptionally warm inside, whereas the young captain had a preference for cold climates. He also needed to make himself available for anyone who happened to want to speak with him. The sun room overall seemed the best choice.

As a warm and cheerful nurse led him into the sunroom, he glanced around. At the moment he was the first one there, which was good, as it meant he could keep an eye out for one of the many individuals who had expressed curiosity about the 'arts and crafts' division. It also meant he could watch out for Omi or this Hellsing woman. He excused himself from the nurse and proceeded to a seat that gave him a good view of the entrance. If not for the fact that he was being held here against his will, he might have felt happy. Real rice. He hadn't had time to eat as much as he had hoped, what with his meeting with Mustang, but he still ate a lot more than he'd had the opportunity previously. Even Momo seemed to be acting more like normal.

As unpleasant as the day had begun, it was turning out to be a good day.

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This place was more boring if he thought, if Kairi had been here for so long that she forgot exactly how long she had been here. Luke hoped that he wouldn't be stuck here for that long. He couldn't be, people needed him back home, and he already screwed up once. He wasn't going to let anyone down again!

... But to get home, he had to know his way around, and unfortunately, Kairi didn't. Luke frowned. She wasn't allowed to go out on her own...? Luke didn't think she looked particularly weak; maybe she just never had any combat training. Then again, where he came from, 13 year old girls could become Fon Master Guardians or God-Generals.

"Why not? Is it because you need someone to protect you, or... Someone's not telling you that you can't, right?" Luke thought that was horribly unfair. No one should restrict anyone's movements like that. He could understand if Kairi just wanted protection, but... if she didn't...

"It’s not that!" Kairi quickly assured Luke, giving him a serious face right back. "It's just that people worry. Like my friend Sora, and my other friend, Riku."

At that time, Kairi looked around suddenly, as if saying his name would magically call him from whatever hole he was hiding in. When she deemed things Rikuless, she continued.

"We've just ... been through a lot. I've had my heart stolen before, and then I was kidnapped..." she counted on her fingers then, sticking up two. "So that kind of puts them on edge and all that. And it's not like I don't want to ignore them and just go out on my own, It's just that I don't want them to worry about me, because they've done so, so much for me." Allowing her hands to fall to her sides again, she shrugged her shoulders, and looked up to Luke once again. "Anyway, enough about me, really. Tell me about yourself!"

Luke quickly understood, realizing that Kairi's friends were with her. It was natural for them to do so; Luke would have been the same about his friends as well. Well, at the same time, he wouldn't wish that any of his friends were here, although he did miss them. As long as they were safe, that was all that mattered to him.

"I see. You have good friends," Luke grinned. But then, what Kairi said next... wait, what?! He never heard of anyone talking about losing their heart and getting kidnapped so casually. Especially losing her heart. Was that even possible? Was she saying that she died and came back to life? Luke stared for a moment, trying to comprehend.

"... You lost your heart?" He repeated. Luke didn't mean to be rude, but that was the strangest thing he had heard for a very, very long while.

... So far, Luke's reaction was the best. Grinning up at her new friend, Kairi brushed her hand through her hair, pushing it off of her shoulder and onto her back. "Oh! In my world, there was this ... evil man who was going around trying to open this doorway called 'Kingdom Hearts', and he needed seven hearts from these princesses called 'Princesses of Heart'. Anyway, I'm a princess of heart. So...”

She continued to explain then, using hand motions as well as facial expressions to portray her story in a rather interesting way.

"And so, that's how I lost my heart and am still alive today! Oh, and I'm not a zombie, by the way." And with that, she smiled.

Kairi seemed quite calm about it. In fact, if Luke didn't know any better, she might have been bragging a bit. But he was still staring at her like she just said someone ripped out her heart and then put it back, which she did, so this whole thing was rather awkward.

So... some evil man needed the seven hearts of seven princesses to open some door. Luke got that part. What he didn't get was how Kairi managed to live and get her heart back. It hadn't really hit him yet that she was metaphorically speaking and she didn't mean her physical heart.

Luke re-directed his gaze to her chest, not realizing that he might have looked like a dirty pervert and pointed.

"So... wait, some guy took your heart? But how did your friends bring you back to life? Did they just... put it back in?" Luke didn't think you could just... put the heart back. Maybe there was some magic involved. But there wasn't even magic on Auldrant that could bring people back from the dead. Unless Kairi never died. But she had to, because some guy removed her heart...

This was confusing.

Luke seemed confused. Maybe it was the way his face scrunched up and he just stared. His head lowered a bit, but it looked like he was still staring at her ... and so she followed his gaze and his pointed finger, and just ... stood still for a few seconds.

... She was reminded of Axel's "rack" comment for a minute, and her cheeks flared up. Yet she suddenly realized he was pointing to the general vicinity to where her heart was located. Oh. Oh, okay then.

"Y-... Well, it's kind of hard to explain..." Scratching at her cheek for a moment, she paused, and opened her mouth to explain -- but then suddenly realized that ... she didn't know how her heart had been put back in. "... Um, well, my heart was ... actually being kept safe by my friend Sora." She knew that the more she explained, the more confused the poor boy would be. Sighing, tried her best to explain.

"You see, when the guy came for my heart, it... escaped. And went to Sora. But he didn't know until a few seconds before he released it ... You see, he had to stab himself with this special keyblade in order for it to come out. The keyblade unlocked things. So ... it ... unlocked my heart?"

After a few moments, Kairi stood there in silence, thinking to herself. And after said few seconds were over and done with, she spoke again.

" ... You know what? I don't really get it either."

It wasn't until Kairi blushed did Luke realize he wasn't just pointing at her heart, he was pointing at her... yeah, didn't someone tell him it was rude to point? Luke blushed just as badly as Kairi, quickly lowering his arm and turning his head away.

"Oops, sorry, I was, um...!" Luke babbled, but it seemed that Kairi understood. She continued to speak, explaining the situation... or trying to. It didn't really help Luke at all, though he couldn't blame her; Kairi couldn't have been alive when her heart was taken, so she probably didn't understand how it worked either. But if she was one of those... Princesses, maybe they could come back to life once the heart was returned.

But then she started talking about how her friend Sora... had her heart... and he had to stab himself to free it... and now Luke was getting gruesome mental images of a kid cutting his chest open to free her heart, which was making him wonder how the kid even got her heart, and damnit all, Kairi came from a weird world.

"Uh... OK," Luke decided to let it end at that. This sounded more like something Jade would be interested in. He made a mental note to tell jade about it whenever he saw him. Maybe Jade could make some sense out of it.

"... Wow, I don't even know where to start. My life isn't as interesting as that," Luke grinned sheepishly. Well, he thought his life made an interesting enough story (though certainly not a pleasant one to tell), but wow, what Kairi told him was incredible.

With a shake of her hand, Kairi dismissed the whole ... pointing at her boob thing, and simply moved on and listened to him speak. "Oh, that was last year. My life isn't interesting anymore. Now I'm just a schoolgirl! ... Until I was kidnapped by Axel, anyway."

Realizing she was only making things worse, Kairi lifted her hands, her face blushing slightly as she shook them in an "AHHHH" kind of way. "O-oh! It was no big deal, don't worry about it! ... My life isn't really interesting or weird, I promise!" ... Who the hell was she kidding?

Anyway.

Suddenly realizing that the two of them had been standing for a while, Kairi looked around, then smiled back to Luke. "Why don't we sit down or something? It would be much easier to talk. And you can tell me about yourself, so I don't sound like the only weirdo. Or you can at least tell me where you are from."

Kidnapped by Axel?!

Kairi shrugged it off again, and quickly invited him to sit with her somewhere. Luke was very tempted to ask her to go on, but she did have a point. Besides, talking solely about her made him feel like he was being nosy or prying into things that he shouldn't be.

"Of course," He grinned, and they both walked to a nearby table and sat. Of course, despite Kairi's story, she didn't seem all that strange to him. After all, Luke's own origins were quite strange as well to some people, and the company he kept might have been considered even stranger.

"Well... when I say there's not much to talk about me, I wasn't kidding. I'm from a land called Auldrant... and I spent pretty much all of my life in my father's manor. I wasn't allowed outside or anything. See why I got upset when you said you weren't allowed to go out alone? I thought you were like me," Luke laughed. Thank god Kairi wasn't like him. "But I was makde to stay inside, because..."

Should he tell her? Shouldn't he? The reason wasn't the same as it was back then. Luke wasn't really sure if he wanted to tell Kairi the truth about him. They had barely met. But it was a part of who he was.

"Hey, what would you think if I told you that for the first eight years of my life, I was stealing somebody else's life?"

Moving after Luke, Kairi sat down and linked her hands together, resting her elbows against the table as she rested her chin to her fingers. Listening to him talk, she took all the information in ... a world called Auldrant. Never heard of there before. Made to stay insi --

Wait, what?

She paused in her thinking and sat up straight, looking to Luke as he continued to speak. When he asked her his question, she smiled softly, resting her chin once again to her hands, her eyes falling shut. "... If you think I'm going to be wigged out or something, you're wrong. I ... understand. I've heard of it before, actually." For example, that Riku replica that was currently wandering around.

Opening her eyes, Kairi gave a sad smile. "I'm ... sorry you had to live through that, though. I ... hope things are better for you know. You deserve it, you know?" And she let out a soft, nervous laugh, hoping he wasn't going to get angry at her for what she was saying.

He really wasn't sure what to expect from Kairi, but for some reason, Luke wanted someone to know about him. Where he came from, who he truly was. Maybe it'd help him find actually find the answer to those questions himself. Kairi seemed like someone he could trust for some reason - he supposed that was what being a 'Princess of Heart' was all about. The name did seem to imply that she was pure-hearted and a good person.

... And, she really was. Kairi really surprised him; she knew someone like him? Well, he's soon find out. Except Luke wasn't really sure how he was going to say it.

Spilling out the most important event of his life to a complete stranger. Landels continued to amaze Luke - who knew he'd be doing something like this?

"Well, I'm not... I'm not my parent's original son. Their original son was named Luke first. But someone kidnapped him when he was ten years old, and they replaced him with me. I'm a perfect copy of him, after all. No one knew, not even me. I didn't know anything, I was just born. And the real Luke, he went on to become a God-General. I stole his life and he hated me for it. Well, he probably still hates me." The whole time, Luke had a distant look on his face as he reminisced on his life story. It felt more real to him now that he could tell someone else about it.

Though that was a lot to dump on a complete stranger.

"Oh, um, the reason I'm telling you this is because he's here too. He goes by the name Asch now. Um, he looks like me with long hair, so if you run into him, don't call him Luke, OK? He's gonna get real mad and I don't want you to get yelled at or anything." Luke's expression had totally changed; he was smiling and looked rather embarrassed. "He can be kind of scary when he's mad."

As Kairi listened, the more she felt for this poor boy. Of course, she was sure that Luke was older than her, but ... just the things he spoke about made him seem so young. The sadness that was in his voice was practically tangible.

"I'm not my parent's original daughter either ... but I was only adopted. I never knew my real parents. Not that I'm trying to ... I'm sorry. I won't interrupt." She lowered her head then, out of embarrassment or shame, whichever. She shouldn't have interrupted him when he was talking. He didn't say anything to her when she was talking, right? Where were her manners?

Looking up at LUKE when she noticed he was smiling ... she couldn't help it anymore. Standing up, she strode around the table, and proceeded to pull the taller boy into a hug. Of course, he was still sitting down and she was standing, so his head was somewhere in the vicinity of her chest/neck, but she didn't care. Instead, she continued to hug him.

He just seemed like the kind of guy that needed a hug.

A few seconds later, she realized what she had done exactly, and a blush danced across her cheeks, as red as her hair. Pulling back, Kairi took a step back, clasping her hands behind her again. "S-sorry. I didn't mean to without asking and all that ... sometimes I just can't help myself."

Huh, so Kairi was adopted? Luke could sort of see how that was; Luke could consider himself adopted. His parents didn't disown him, at least for now. It was a great relief; at least at the manor, he felt like he had some purpose. As long as he was doing something, he was able to keep his mind off it...

But now that he had time to think about, he might as well tell it to somebody, so that they could smack him and tell him to snap out of it. Luke really did miss his friends, more than he could say.

He was sort of hoping Kairi would continue speaking, but she instead did something very surprising (she did a lot of things that surprised him and they just met!). Luke certainly didn't expect her to hug him!

He was so surprised, he didn't even remember to awkwardly hug her back, and when she pulled away, his face was redder than his hair.

"Ahhhh! No, no, it's OK!" Luke flailed, jumping up and trying to make himself not look like an idiot (and miserably failing). "I probably looked that pathetic! I mean, uh... uh... thanks?"

Good going, Luke! You just made a complete moron of yourself without even trying!

"I'm sorry for dumping that all on you. I mean, we just met and all... it's just that, you told me some amazing stuff so I felt like I had to... well, there's tons of other stuff I could have told you. Augh, I'm such an idiot! I mean, just don't get Asch mad, and I... uh... Yeah!"

Luke sat down again, burying his face in his hands before his face started glowing red.

"N-no! It wasn't that! I just ... I just ..." Her own hands rose to cover her cheeks when Luke continued to talk, as if the motion would hide the fact that she wasn't blushing like a tomato.

Watching as he sat down, she took in a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Grabbing a chair, she dragged it close to his own, and sat on it, her hands resting on her lap. "You know, it's kinda funny. I know we just met, but I feel like I can tell you anything! I ... hope that doesn't sound weird or anything." Watching as he continued to hide his face in his hands, she reached out to gently tug onto his hair. "Oh, honestly!" Letting out a soft laugh, she pulled away then, turning to rest her elbows on the table again.

"Honestly? I'm kind of ... honored you would tell me that. Me, of all people! And we just met too. I mean, that's ... something big. And yet you told little me. I'm ... I don't know. Happy? Is that weird?" Her tone was a bit nervous, because she honestly had no idea what to say. When she was embarrassed, she couldn't stop talking.

Now they were both embarrassed. It took Luke awhile to calm himself down before he could start talking, and by then, Kairi was telling him how she felt like she could tell him anything and how honored she was that he told her such an important thing.

Honored? Happy? He didn't see how his sob story could make someone happy, especially when it was a bit much to tell someone he just met, but... well, if it made her happy, Luke wasn't going to argue with it.

"Well, I thought I could trust you... for some reason. I guess that's what a Princess of Heart does," Luke guessed, showing that he was actually paying attention. Luke always made sure to pay attention, it actually saved his life sometimes. "I don't think it makes you weird." Liar.

Well, now what? They were done being embarrassed and red face, though the thought amused him. "Hey, you said your friends were here? Sora and... Riku? What are they like? They sound tough."

Well, any kid who could stab himself in the heart and live sounded tough to Luke.

Kairi let out a soft laugh, not really sure what to say about the whole Princess of Heart thing. She had never thought about it that way before, really.

At the mention of Sora and Riku, a soft sigh escaped her lips, and she leaned back in her chair. "... Well, I guess they're strong and all that. Sora and Riku can both weild keyblades, and are really, really good with them. They were my first friends when I was adopted on the Island ... so they mean a lot to me. Sora's the random silly one that always makes me laugh and smile, Riku--" At this point, she looked around once again, making sure. Coast was clear. "Riku's the serious, overly protective one that always has to be the strongest one in the group. Both of them kind of go perfectly together, it's like they're opposites."

Leaning forward in her chair again, Kairi shut her eyes, hands once again holding her chin up. "But Sora can be serious too. Both him and Riku have gone through so much, it's kind of ... sad. I mean, we're all so young, and the things that have happened to them in such a small amount of time. "

Turning towards Luke, she tilted her head to the side, giving him a curious look. "What about you? What're your friends like?"

Everytime Kairi mentioned Riku, she always looked around. OK, she only did it twice, but Luke noticed and wondered if there was something wrong with this Riku person. Well, she did say he was overprotective and it seemed like she wasn't kidding. Did that mean if this Riku person caught them talking, Kairi would get in trouble?

... Man, Luke hated people like that. What a pain it must be for her, looking over her shoulder and making sure this Riku wasn't around.

Luke just nodded again. Yeah, her world sounded crazy. He could only imagine the weird kind of stuff that had happened to Kairi and her friends. It sounded just as bad, if not worse, as the stuff that went on in Auldrant.

"My friends? Well..." God, where was he going to start. They were all so awesome and cool and he didn't know which one he should start off with. "Well, when I was in the manor, my only friend was Guy. He's been working at the manor as a servant for years, and he quit after we lowered the Outer Lands, which is good because I kept telling him too, I mean, I can do things for myself now, I don't need a servant!"

Realizing he was rambling again, Luke stopped and gave Kairi a sheepish smile. But... they were his friends! Luke couldn't help but continue rambling as he told Kairi about his dear friends.

"And there's Tear. She fights by singing powerful spells, we all would have died by now if it weren't for her. She's really cool, but since she's a soldier, she seems kind of cold at first. But she loves cute things, so there's a soft side to her too."

"And there's Jade and Anise. Jade can get kind of creepy sometimes, and it's hard to tell when he's joking or being serious, but he's a powerful Fonist. We also would be dead without him. Anise is actually younger than all of us, she's only 13, but she has this doll that she fights with, Tokunaga? She can beat up so much stuff with it, it's kind of amazing to watch. I love her, but you know, before she wanted to marry me so she could be as rich as a duchess!"

"Oh, and finally, there's Natalia, she's the princess of Kimlasca, and she's the best one Kimlasca has ever had. I grew up with her too, she's my cousin and I was supposed to marry her once we became of age, but... I dunno exactly how that's going to work. I mean, since I'm not the proper heir to the throne, but Asch wants nothing to do with it anymore. I dunno..."

Luke trailed off, thinking about it. That was one of those things that bothered him at night sometimes, though it really wasn't that important in the grand scheme of things...

"Oh, geez, see, I always talk too much when people ask about them. Sorry."

Kairi smiled, enjoying listening Luke talk about his friends. When he finished speaking, she let out a laugh, waving a hand at him. "Oh, it's okay!" Her smile softened then, and she lowered her hands to her lap. "It sounds like you love them very much. They sound like wonderful people. ... Even the creepy one called Jade." Letting out a soft giggle, she lifted her hand to try and cover the noise, yet just ... stopped caring.

After a few seconds, Kairi nodded, a determined look crossing her face. "I know you'll see them again! Don't worry, there has to be some way out of here, and we can all go home and be happy! Maybe I can even visit Auldrant and you can visit Destiny Islands! It would be lots of fun."

At that moment, Kairi grinned, giving Luke an amused look. "Oh, and if you were to marry a princess, does that make you a prince? Or a prince to be? Just kidding."

... Though, she did wonder how marrying a cousin would work.

"Oh, they are! They're the best friends I could ever ask for," Luke agreed, happy to be able to tell someone else how awesome his friends were. They were really that great and more... but now Luke was starting to grow a little depressed. Man, what he would do to see any of them again...

"I guess it would make me a prince," He answered Kairi's next question seriously, despite the fact she said she was kidding. That always bothered him too, actually.

"Actually, I don't even know what title I'm supposed to have. I'm just the Duke's son for now. And if I were to marry Natalia, I'd be... a King? Or a prince? Ah, I dunno, it's all messed up!"

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Day 25: Sun Room (Fourth Shift)

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