damned_institute | Day 27: Breakfast

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Day 27: Breakfast

Day came too soon.

Sora hadn't been able to find Rena, had instead been forced to crumple onto the grass of the recreational field and bleed all over himself, and hadn't even accomplished what he'd been sent out to do. What he'd been entrusted to do. He didn't know how he was going to be able to face Renji and the others, but he also knew he wasn't going to hide from them, either. That would just be low, after all, and he was ready to face up to the consequences.

He didn't try to make excuses for himself. Even though there had been a Special Counseling patient, they had managed to take her down by sheer numbers. The fact that he hadn't seen any sign of Rena was what had him the most worried. He hoped he could find her today.

The boy laid in his bed for a good while that morning before his nurse finally came in to collect him. She clucked over the bandages wrapped tightly around his chest and leg, and asked him if he was okay to walk.

Once Sora assured her he was fine (he didn't really want to use crutches, as that would just attract attention to himself, and he didn't need others worrying over him), they made their way to the cafeteria. Sora yawned and winced against the bright light of morning - it seemed even earlier than usual, and he realized why when they entered the cafeteria and found it empty.

The boy shuffled over to grab a chocolate chip pancake, a bowl of cereal, and a glass of milk (good for the bones, or so his mom had always told him) before settling at a table. He kept an eye on the door, hoping he would see Rena walking in soon.

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"Right, he's still my friend..." But what if there came a time where Roxas just tossed that all way? It already happened once, so he wouldn't put it past the blond to try it again if he had the opportunity. Sora's optimistic words didn't do much to help Axel in the least, but he had to give the brunet props for at least trying, and so rewarded him with a wider smile.

"Must be hard not having your Nobody close by, it's almost like losing a part of yourself." He sighed quietly, wanting nothing more to do with the subject and attempted to steer the conversation elsewhere.

"So..." Axel started, clicking his tongue once. "What did you do back on your Island anyway?"

After having surveyed Sora's memories he already knew the answer to that question, but it was something that tore away from what they'd been talking about just moments before.

It was kind of weird that Axel had almost been able to read his mind, but it was something he must have been through himself, right? Sora knew that he and Roxas were a special case, since he had returned to his original body after becoming a Heartless. All the other Nobodies had never really gotten the chance to know their Others... It was kind of sad.

He wanted to ask about it, but it was more than a little obvious that Axel was done with that subject. Sora wasn't completely oblivious, so he let it drop and answered the question instead.

"Not much. Swim around in the water, spar, race, collect coconuts..." Or at least, that was how it had been before they had left. He hadn't had much time to get used to island life after returning, since he'd been brought here, but he figured that response would work well enough.

"Collect coconuts..." Axel repeated with a snort, thoroughly amused at the brunet's choice of words. "Did you guys ever do that thing with the coconut bras and grass skirts?"

Though the redhead could never imagine a life so simple, seeing as that he barely remembered anything from his own past. After having spent so many years with various amounts of research, it felt a little odd that he'd been given so much free time. Of course, this didn't technically count as a vacation of sorts, but it was definitely something above what he was used to.

"It's hard to imagine doing something like that for almost 14 years. Don't you ever get bored?"

"Huh?" Sora just gaped at Axel for a moment, having no clue what he was talking about, but then he recalled something along those lines being mentioned when he was at the Pride Lands, and he started snickering. "No, no! Though that does sound like something Selphie would enjoy." She always liked trying out new things like that. Kairi, on the other hand, might think it was weird... or she might like it. It was kind of hard to guess with her.

As for Axel's other question (he was really curious today!), Sora smiled and shrugged. "It was all we knew for a long time. We had a whole play island to ourselves, and there was six of us, so we could come up with some pretty fun games... Though Riku didn't usually go along with it," he said with a pout.

"But we did get bored eventually. I mean, that's why we decided to leave in the first place, you know?"

"Ah yes, I remember the naiveté." It was certainly a feat to do regarding the fact that they were nothing more than optimistic island kids back then. Axel chuckled quietly to himself, smearing a forkful of pancakes along the surface and chewed diligently at the contents.

Whether it was his good mood or an attempt to recover from losing Roxas, he suddenly reached over and let his hand linger on top of the brunet's spikes before ruffling them lightly. It had been only 11 days since he arrived (maybe more or less, he couldn't really remember at the moment) but a lot had certainly happened within the span of two weeks.

Axel didn't remove his hand just yet, leaving it there for nearly half a minute before finally deciding to pull back.

"Kairi told me what happened to her the other night." His voice was barely audible by then, letting his eyes linger about the Cafeteria before spotting the aforementioned girl talking to what appeared to be another redheaded... girl.

"You remember?" Sora asked, blinking as Axel's hand reached out and planted itself in his hair. It forced his bangs down into his eyes a little, but the gesture was appreciated, so all he did in response was laugh lightly. While he didn't like being treated like a child, there wasn't anything overly patronizing in the way Axel had gone about it, so he didn't mind.

Once the hand was removed, though, Sora made an effort to put his hair back in order. Luckily for him, it usually just reverted back to how it was supposed to be on its own.

When Kairi's condition was mentioned, however, whatever light-hearted mood he had been in was extinguished. He gave Axel a very sober look and nodded. "Yeah, it... I can't believe that happened to her, but Riku says that he knows a way to fix it, so I think it'll be okay." He had to keep his chin up about this!

"Back when we were monitoring you in Castle Oblivion." The redhead answered calmly, once more forgetting that the latter's memories had been completely wiped of what happened back then. But from what he managed to accomplish in that short amount should've been enough to tell him that he preferred it this way.

Axel grinned weakly at Sora's words, nodding calmly all the while letting the tips of his fingers press up against his chest. He'd gotten used to the constant clicking by then, something that surprised even him. But maybe it was nothing more than a false sense of hope that maybe things could change for the better. It wasn't really his forte to let fate decide his life, but at the moment it didn't look like he had much of a choice.

"Sora." He made a decision then, something he'd surely reprimand himself about later on, but it wasn't as if he was really risking anything. "Kairi wasn't the only one that was taken."

Oh, that again. The events of Castle Oblivion always left Sora a bit unnerved. While he had been informed of what happened there, he knew there was no way he could get every detail of it, not to mention he had no sense of what his particular experience of it had been. His inner thoughts and feelings during that time were gone forever, and seemed to only come back in vague phantom emotions when he was around someone who had been involved in it.

He knew his memories had been a large portion of that incident, so it looked like Axel had gotten a glimpse of them. The fact that the Nobody knew about his past was a little weird, but there was luckily nothing to hide there.

Axel's next words made Sora stiffen up as he stared at the man. "What do you mean?" he asked quietly. He could be implying any number of things, but either way, the boy got the feeling that it was serious.

Axel couldn't help but laugh at Sora's reaction, pushing away his half eaten plate since his appetite had all but left.

"Well, what I'm trying to say is..." He started, crossing his arms onto the table and let his head lean against his shoulder. "Once you get over the shock of having your chest sawed open, the whole procedure isn't too bad. I mean, it could've been worse."

The casual tone in his voice would've been found to be quite disturbing by most, but Axel hadn't bothered to struggle back then. There wasn't much information to be gained, but the entire thing was almost harmless in a sense since half the Organization was entirely apathetic about it, and he knew he wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

But it still hurt like hell.

"What?!" Sora was half-standing out of his chair, his hands planted down on the table (luckily, he had avoided his plate of half eaten food) as he stared at Axel. Something like that had happened to him, and this was the first he'd heard of it?

It wasn't fair. Here was someone else who had been taken and toyed with by the institute, and Sora hadn't been there to do a single thing to help in Axel's case. He eventually fell back into his seat, but his shoulders were slumped and he looked very worn out all of a sudden. It wasn't even like he had been forced to bear any burdens, or be put through any pain - but when his friends were hurt, so was he.

From the sounds of it, Axel's procedure had been even more brutal than Kairi's. Sora closed his eyes for a moment before making eye contact with the Nobody again. "I'm sorry," he said firmly. "I wish you had told me sooner, I wish I had been there to..." To do what? Be there to pick up the pieces? He knew now that there was no way he could have stopped what happened.

He stopped himself, and then sighed. He needed to focus on the important details. "What... did they do?"

Axel didn't react to Sora's sudden outburst, idly grabbing a hold of his glass of orange juice to keep its contents from spilling when the table rattled. He waited until the latter had enough time to compose himself before giving him a look as if that would answer the brunet's question. However, it quickly dissipated and was replaced by a weak attempt at a smile, letting his hand rest on top of Sora's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly.

"Hey, there's no need for an apology. It wasn't like you didn't have your own problems to worry about." He gave a laugh, and a genuine one at that. There was a twinge of sorrow in the mixture, which ultimately grew into something akin to guilt for dumping this on Sora, but he was almost touched by the fact that the teen cared.

"And besides," He continued. "My roommate was there when they took me away, so he ended up forming a rescue team and led them where I'd been taken. Bastard even carried me all the way back to our room by himself after we all got separated."

Axel would admit that he’d been ridiculously lucky about that. He hadn't expected for Ashton to make a vow before he'd been dragged out, and was truly grateful that the man kept his promise. Yet this meant that his laundry list of favors was growing, but he guessed he could make a few exceptions.

At Sora's next question the redhead looked over at him carefully before he reached down and took the latter's hand and coaxed it over to his side of the table. Axel didn't bother to explain, simply pressing it firmly onto the middle of his chest and waited.

It was definitely a relief to hear that there had been people to help Axel after the fact. Sora was glad that Axel had such a good roommate, and that he hadn't been on his own once whatever had been done to him had finished. "That's good," he said quietly. "That's really good."

When his wrist was tugged across the table, though, Sora got a little more nervous. He didn't know what Axel was doing, but figured that if he went along with it, things would become clear.

The moment his palm touched the other's chest, he could feel it. A heartbeat, slow and steady and there. It was kind of comforting, even though it was technically out of place.

"What does it mean?" he asked with a blink. Was Axel not a Nobody anymore? Had he finally gotten a heart back? That didn't make sense, though. The people who did experiments in this place would never have done something so helpful, which meant that there had to be a catch. Either way, Sora wasn't getting his hopes up about this.

"I'm not too sure myself," Axel hesitated as he said this. "But what I do know is that it's not the real thing."

He let go of the brunet's hand, folding his own over his lap and gave an idle glance at ceiling. "It's kind of disappointing, actually. I mean, most of us have searched for years to try and find what we've lost, and then some psycho comes along and tries to play God by dropping a piece of metal in my chest. Talk about no respect for personal space."

Axel had the feeling he should've been more upset about the whole ordeal. After all, he now had the ability to convey emotions in some way or another, so he was expecting something more sporadic. Instead he remained as calm as ever, letting those memories flood in before grinning lightly.

"I guess I gotta give props to the guy for trying."

If Axel didn't think it was real, then it probably wasn't. While Sora couldn't imagine what it was like to not have a heart (his memories of his brief time as a Heartless were vague and unclear), he got the feeling that if Axel really had gotten his back, he would have known it was for real without a doubt.

At least in Sora's case, his heart filled him with so much emotion and feeling for his friends, his situation, everything. He knew that some people were able to experience things in a more muted way, but having emotions was not something that could be faked.

When Axel mentioned that his heart was metal, Sora made a face. That just wasn't right. "It's not fair for them to try and... and..." He couldn't really find the right words, and just ended up sighing.

"I don't know. The heart is something special. It isn't right for them to try and pass off something they created as the real thing." Dr. Finkelstein had also tried that, and all it had resulted in was a monster Sora had been forced to defeat. The heart wasn't something that could be manufactured - it was more complex than that.

...

"There's something strange with it though." Axel found himself murmuring cautiously after witnessing Sora's frustration. It had already dawned him after they arrived back to his room after the rescue operation, so it was something to point out while he was still on the subject.

"It could just be a placebo effect, but I think it works... in a way." It really didn't make sense in the scientific standpoint he was accustomed to, but the redhead couldn't turn a blind eye to the fact that he didn't feel quite as empty. Axel couldn't even blame it on Roxas since the teenager was nowhere to be found.

"It obviously doesn't work like the real thing, but when I get close enough to people..."

He frowned.

"I feel something."

So it... half-worked? Quarter-worked? Something like that. Even if it was all in Axel's head, that didn't really matter. He was still feeling something, and that had to be better than nothing, right?

It was an interesting thing to think about, even if Sora had no explanation for it. He didn't know enough about machines, so if the "heart" Axel had was mechanical, he couldn't provide any insights on the matter.

"That's weird," he responded, though his tone didn't imply that there was anything wrong with Axel's condition. It was just strange, and that couldn't be denied by either of them. "I guess it's good, though, right? I mean..." The boy paused and shifted in his seat. "Do you like it?" He couldn't imagine being able to feel again as being bad, but he didn't want to make any assumptions, either.

"Oh baby, I like it when you're the one to give it~" Axel responded in a disturbingly husky voice, waggling his eyebrows at Sora before pulling back and grinned. But he had to stop and think about the brunet's question, wondering if it was really a step above from what it had been like.

"It's not that bad." He finally answered, peering over at the rest of the Cafeteria as he spoke. "It was a lot easier to manage things before all of this, but maybe I can use this to my advantage as a tool to find the real thing."

The redhead had leaned back onto the table by then, resting his head into his hands and gave Sora a wide smile.

"You know, I've never cried in all seven years of my life. I wonder what that's like."

And just like that the intercom went off, signaling them all that they were about to be moved onto the next shift. His nurse arrived moments after, coaxing him to stand. But before he was whisked off completely, Axel looked over his shoulder and waved.

"It was nice talking to you, Sora."

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Day 27: Breakfast

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