Day 73: Breakfast

[lighthearted]

When Sora woke up, he was so worked up that he practically thrashed his way out of bed. He probably would have fallen straight out of it and onto the floor if he hadn't caught his foot against the ground and then forced himself upward into a sitting position.

But it didn't feel like he'd slept at all. His heart was pounding, his face flushed with worry. Tsurugi... It had been Tsurugi, but he'd looked different. And he'd barely even been able to talk, he'd been so out of it. What had this place done to him?

If Sora went out to the cafeteria, would he end up talking to a Tsurugi who had purple hair? And what would that mean? Would Tsurugi even show up for breakfast this morning?

There was just too much he didn't know, but sitting around in his room worrying about it wasn't going to do any good. Sora stood and let out a bracing breath, glancing over to Link's sleeping form in the opposite bed before he approached the door and anticipated his nurse.

She seemed to sense that he was worried, because she didn't chat with him too much on the way over to the cafeteria. Sora didn't even have the presence of mind to stop by the bulletin. He just went straight to the mess hall and got a tray of food while half-distracted, parking himself right near the entrance from the Sun Room. He barely ate his food, instead keeping an eye out for Tsurugi with two shades of hair in mind.

[For Tsurugi.]

Comments

[repelling]

Standing on the other side of the door, witnessing the immediate aftermath of the Institute's experiments, had been sobering, if not shocking. To think that he still could be, after what he'd witnessed in his own world -- detonating Shinigami come to mind, skin bulging, bubbling, expanding -- or that Sora-kun could be, after his months here. Concern and confused horror became muddled, and he was waking, the backs of his eyelids imprinted with skin that burst under purple hair.

He shook his head, looking over to the other bed, noting Tsurugi-kun still asleep. Little wonder. Uryuu dressed, waited at the door, and as was his norm, insisted on washing up at the bathroom before proceeding to the cafeteria. He was a little early, but he knew not tremendously, and so the trend seemed to continue: less and less patients by the day. A slow, steady trickle. Knowing better could not prevent him from searching each face, though he refused disappointment when the expected proved factual: she was still gone, and no other new, yet familiar faces.

Giving the "pigs in blankets" a bland look, he passed over them for the standard fruit cup and juice, noting Sora-kun's position near the doors but taking an empty table to himself, if facing the doors. Spearing melon and chewing mechanically, he noted Kratos-san's entrance, and with little else to look at, kept his attention idly on the man as he moved through the line. There was Irving-san, close by, but Kratos-san--

Uryuu felt a distinct, and niggling sense of deja vu. Kratos-san dropped his tray one seat down from him, and Uryuu blinked, biting down on a strawberry.

He waited.

A minute passed.

Oh, come on.

No, he refused. Uryuu would not clear his throat. Not this time. He would not seek the attention. No. Might as well time just how long it took Kratos-san to notice.

[forsworn]

Lloyd seemed to be totally engrossed in his current conversation, and with that observation, the brief hope that perhaps they would only talk for a short white died, and Kratos resolved himself to a breakfast of solitude and whatever the lady in charge of food had unceremoniously dumped on his plate.

He cut the first so-called "pig in a blanket" in half, speared it with his fork, and was about to take a bite when he happened to glance the other way and catch sight of Ishida staring at him. It then began to dawn on him that perhaps the boy had been there the entire time and he, being so utterly preoccupied with Lloyd, had failed to notice.

Hm.

This certainly sounded familiar.

Very slowly, Kratos set his sausage half back on his plate and straightened up. "Ishida," he said, his face betraying no sign of embarrassment. "Good morning."