damned_institute | Day 27: Lunch

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Day 27: Lunch

Renji wasn't so certain what this grilled cheese thing was all about, but he liked the sound of some soup. Even if it was strange western soup, well... there wasn't anything bad people could do to soup, in his experience. His good mood was starting to fray at the edges, a little, from the strain of dealing with the Ichimaru issue, and even more from what had been on the bulletin board earlier.

He'd never had difficulty simply writing something before. But...

He shook his head as he entered the line. He didn't want to think about it. He wanted to hold on to the tenuous equilibrium he'd managed to find.

Renji got himself a large bowl of soup, water, and even one of those sandwiches, just to try it. Old habit, recently awakened, had him over to one side of the cafeteria, where the fewest people possible would have the chance to pass behind him. He sat there with his back toward the wall and started eating.

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Ken startled slightly at the sudden greeting, his eyes flew open--and there was Aya. Finally. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

Ken pulled his tea off the tray and pushed it across the table toward Aya's. An offering of sorts, he knew the warning signs of caffeine deprivation in the other assassin. The tea wasn't as strong as coffee, but it was hot and had at least some caffeine in it.

"I'm fine."

"Don't lie to me," Aya muttered as he sat down and glanced at Ken through his messy bangs. Nobody was 'fine' after being clonked to the head with a baseball bat. But it seemed Ken was in no immediate danger of collapsing, and no signs of brain damage, at least major one, was to be detected. After studying him for a moment carefully, Aya relaxed a bit. Maybe for once there had been some luck with them along the way.

He considered the tea cup for a moment. It wouldn't have been a surprise to either one of them if he had refused it. But obviously today was different in other ways aside from luck as well.

"Thank you," he said silently before curling his fingers around the handle of the cup. Was he humoring himself or Ken, it was a mystery to himself as well. A mystery he wouldn't spare another thought for. Violet of his eyes was still worried as he regarded Ken over the brim of the cup.

"You know I've had worse hits to the head than that," Ken responded easily. It was true, after all. His tangle with Farfarello at the Ani Museum had nearly killed him. "I've been better, but I'm not going to collapse or anything."

"Are you alright? How...how hard did I hit you?" How much more guilty did he have to feel in addition to the fact that he'd attacked his friends in the first place?

That earned Ken a pair of arched brows over the tea cup. Aya stayed silent until Ken had stammered out the last of what he had to say before lowering the cup to the table and regarding Ken seriously.

"I'm fine. You could have done far more damage than you did." It'd take forever the heal and he'd have to pull the bandages tighter tonight before heading out but in reality, it wasn't a big deal.

Ken nodded in relief. "At least there's that." Ken wasn't happy about having attacked Aya, or anyone else, in the first place. But at least he hadn't been able to do much damage to anyone (besides Artemis, but from what Ken had seen of the boy in various shifts, he looked pretty well off, considering) before being knocked out.

Maybe Ken had gotten the worst of it himself, which would have been pretty damn ironic.

Aya studied Ken silently, let the moment stretch without words and instead picked up his fork and at least poked his food across the plate. The tension in the bits of his stomach had not quite let him out of its hold and worry over a teammate, friend made him thoughtful.

"How's the head?" he asked silently after a moment, directing his gaze down to his food.

"Sore as hell, but I'll live." Ken glared disapprovingly at the medications he'd been given, then sighed and choked them back dry. The drowsiness almost wasn't worth the relief from the headache, but he'd deal with it anyway. He chased the pills with a bit of soup, looking at the sandwich he'd been given with no little disgust. It was sitting in a pool of butter, for crying out loud.

Snorting softly, Aya gave up with the sandwich, losing interest in it as quick as he could slide it across his plate with a trail of glistening butter. He pushed the tray aside completely and then moved the teacup back towards Ken, resisting an urge to reach up an try his forehead for temperature. There were limits he wouldn't be crossing now.

"Something that is yours ended up in my possession," he said silently, glancing over the cafeteria for nothing particular.

Ken looked up at Aya. "...what would that be?" He knew it was only likely to be one thing, the way Aya said it. He grinned slightly. "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?"

"Anyway, I won't be able to pick it up tonight. I don't think going anywhere I don't have to on crutches is a good idea."

The only sign of amusement Aya allowed was a small quirk of lips at Ken's words. What indeed?

Wait, crutches? He glanced at Ken's direction, frowning. Omi had been bandaging Ken's leg the night before but he hadn't thought for some reason... Well, fuck.

"What's your room number?" he asked simply, he'd drop the claw to Ken's room. Maybe he ought to stay there with Ken. Having his both sides stabbed was enough to put a dampener even to his stubbornness.

Ken met Aya's expression with an explanation. "Omi got me in the back of the leg trying to take me down. It'll heal, but until then my knee is in a brace and I can't move it. Makes me pretty damn useless."

"It's M13. Might want to wait a while, till my roommate's gone, he's not that bad but I don't think you'd get along well with him."

Nodding, Aya fell silent yet again. It meant that Ken wasn't able to move around for a while. From personal experience, he knew that healing happened weirdly quickly here, but that didn't change the fact that normally wounds like he had took months, he wasn't sure of Ken's case but assumed something at the same measure. He'd been here for five, maybe six days and it felt eternity already.

"I'll probably be talking with my roommate for a while before anyhow." Hopefully he could have added but left it out for some reason. He was very hesitant in dragging Ravi into the mess that was Weiss.

"Mine'll probably take off almost right away after the doors open." Ken shrugged, he didn't really care about what Homura did, they only had to share a room and Ken had no strong feelings either way about the man.

"He had a katana last night." Ken had seen just a flash of it, but had dismissed it at the time. "I'll ask him where he got it tonight, maybe he'll feel like not being an asshole and telling me."

Aya nodded. Talking with Ravi usually gave him a possibility to act out of his frame and it seemed to calm him down somehow, which was appreciated just at the verge of nightshift. The other redhead was easygoing and never insisted on talking about anything Aya seemed to feel awkward about.

"I've seen some mentions in the bulletin board about a group of people making weapons from metal, pipes and the like. We should probably find out what that's about."

Homura, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy making a game of interrogating Ken about the most random subjects. Tonight probably wouldn't be so random--Ken had a sinking feeling it would involve last night. Homura had seen him taken from the room by the staff for SC, and the intercom announcement afterward--yeah, Ken was pretty sure what tonight's topic of conversation would be. He'd just have to keep his teammates out of the equation.

"Maybe Homura'll be able to tell me. That katana had to come from somewhere. They probably wouldn't be able to make something as intricate as, say, Yohji's watch, though."

"But he could deal with some string I think. I think I have an idea considering that," Aya said softly, looking past Ken again. "I think these people forge the weapons out of materials the recipient is expected to gather."

He had been following the message board rather religiously ever since his arrival. It wasn't his style to respond to anything, but he'd read every bit of stupid information he could get out of the scribbled notes. And now, even against his own desire, he was well aware of a love triangle between three probably younger 'patients', also knew someone 'heartless' liked to 'rp pirate dates' and that Kadaj, who he had met briefly often made a hobby out of annoying others with his sharp tongue. Along all the useless information, sometimes he did catch something important as well.

"Someone called colonel Mustang has been posting notes few times. Ask your roommate if you think it's useful." Aya glanced at Ken, studying him for a moment before leaning back on his chair and picking up few slices of bellpepper from his tray to nibble on.

Ken looked thoughtful. "If he could just use string...probably wouldn't last very long against some of the shit here, though...Omi and me grabbed a volleyball net out of the activities shed a couple nights ago. It's in my closet."

"He does know how to use some other weaponry though. The wire might be his best, but it's more suited to ambushing. Needless to say, the patients are usually on the bad end of the ambushes here." Ken followed Aya's example and grabbed a carrot stick off his tray to chew on.

"They can make weapons, they can make metal string too. Every pen you have already has some metal wire inside curled around the plastic core to make it possible for the pen to open and close. One bit of it is about seven centimeters long. You can do the math from there on." Aya sighed and popped the rest of the bellpepper into his mouth. It was possible to curl the wire around itself on your own as well. He had tried, and got his fingers bloody and hurting, but who said anything around here would be easy?

"But you're right. There's not enough space at the hallways at least for using his weapon." He picked another piece of vegetable and looked straight at Ken. He felt peaceful. He could see the bruises on Ken's face, feel his own, knew it wouldn't be the last time they'd solve troubles by fists with Ken, and yet this did not feel awkward.

"I probably can't, but I do know it'd take a shitload of pens to get any decent length out of it, especially since you'd have to make sure it's strong enough to not just snap." Ken deemed it all very frustrating. "That and if he couldn't throw it out, he'd have to get up close and personal with it. Yohji's not used to fighting that way like we are."

"Half the shit here I wouldn't want him fighting with even his watch."

Aya had counted the pens he had been handed, there was a lot of them. He gave Ken a quirk of brows, knowing it sounded probably insane to have him babble about metal wire inside plastic pens. Normally Aya would have snorted at himself. But normally he wasn't trapped in a madhouse with monsters. At the moment though, he didn't care one damn bit if Yohji would get his wire or not, it'd be virtually useless here anyhow. So he was willing to drop the matter.

"I'd rather not have him fight at all," he said silently, not feeling like elaborating on the matter right now.

"Aa. When I got here, he was expecting me to go after him." Ken, of course, hadn't done anything beyond trying to punch some sense into him. "I don't know if I made it better or worse last shift." Ken sighed. "Probably worse."

"I'm beginning to think there's no way to make it better. Only worse," Aya muttered bitterly. If he would have known how to make it somehow, magically better, he would have. At the moment he was so tired of even thinking about it.

Ken stirred his soup idly. "I told him about what happened after Koua. What I knew of it, anyway."

"I'd talk to Omi too, but I'm not sure how much I could say without triggering his amnesia." That would most definitely be a problem, and while Ken knew it would get tripped eventually--probably in a very bad manner, much like it had back home, he didn't really want to be the one to do it.

Aya grabbed some more vegetables and bit on a slice of carrot. Another problem he'd rather not think about. The damn amnesia.

"Hn." Aya looked away, chewing the raw carrot between his teeth. Yohji had assured him few days ago that Aya could trust in him. At the moment it was hard to believe. It had been easy when there had been just him and Yohji. Now there was Ken and Omi too, and despite logic, he felt responsible.

"Why don't we leave Yohji alone for a while?" he said finally, voice tense and eyes keen on the edge of the table.

Ken opened his mouth to protest, but couldn't find the words. It made sense, after all. But just the same...

"He's afraid we hate him for what happened at Koua, I think. Avoiding him won't make him feel any better about that," Ken said softly. "Did something happen last night after I got knocked out?"

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