damned_institute | Day 27: Sun Room (4th Shift)

Entry tags:

Day 27: Sun Room (4th Shift)

Momo's mind was turning over all the possibilities surrounding this "field trip" to the surrounding town when she settled down in the corner of the Sun Room away from the Arts & Crafts room. She curled her legs underneath her as she waited for Shouko-san to find her. The shinigami had no idea what she looked like, so she kept an eye on all those entering the room.

It was still very cold, or at least she was cold, and the momentary thought of getting her coat from her own room passed through her mind amidst the field trip thoughts. She pushed it away and decided to deal with it being as cold as it was since she'd already been late to one meeting today and didn't want to start making it a habit.

As she waited, she pondered the next day's possibilities. Maybe, just maybe, once away from the institute the shinigami will have access to their full reiatsu. And if not, maybe they'll have a better idea of how they are being limited so much. Maybe Aizen would be able to find her then. He'd save her... right? Right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Brock glanced over at the newcomer without any hint of recognition - the only thing he remembered about last night actually in the Sun Room was hitting the floor, seeing a shape, and then getting up close and personal with the wall. As far as he knew, this new guy was just making small talk...and Brock was hardly in the mood for that now, especially when he was sure random people didn't just go up to you, basically ask if you were okay, and honestly mean it.

He snorted. "I'm alive. And who're you?" It was blunt, almost rudely to the point, but he was still in pain and he thought he had a right to be bitchy if he felt like it.

Much as he didn't feel like talking, at least it wasn't Parker coming over here to play Mother Hen at him. And Kasady was doing the smart thing and avoiding him - not that it would save him - so he supposed there were worse people he could run into.

He hadn't recognized him? All the better. If Gin was surprised or even pleased by that revelation, his face didn't show it. He simply wore the same smile he always had.

"Ichimaru Gin," he replied when asked his name. "And y'self?" It would be good to have a name to go with the face. Even if he didn't get anything useful from the man, at least he'd know that much.

Brock couldn't tell how he felt about Gin. The man had one of those smiles he couldn't read, and he couldn't tell at all if that was a condescending smirk or an actually sympathetic smile.

"I'm Eddie," Brock said after a moment. He didn't like feeling off-balance like this. There was just something grounded about knowing what he thought of people and what other people thought of him. None of this gray area bullshit. And why was Gin smiling again? What was there even to smile about in this place?

"Nice t'meetcha Eddie-kun," he replied automatically. Another Ed today? It was a Western name, wasn't it? Seemed odd, but then, people said the same thing about his name.

"Hope y'don't mind th' company. Figure if y'wanted quiet, you'd be in th' library, ne?" He made himself a little more comfortable in his seat. Eddie hadn't supplied much in the way of conversation, but perhaps he could still draw him out into being a bit more friendly.

Eddie-what?

Shooting Gin a confused look - what was that kun thing supposed to mean? - Brock shrugged. And couldn't help wincing a little. Even that still hurt. He still wasn't sure what to make of Gin, but it looked like the other man wasn't going anywhere fast. Might as well humor him.

"It's quiet enough," Brock said. "'Sides, books aren't my thing."

He could and did read when he had a reason, but that was the thing - he only did that kind of thing if there was a point to it. Reading for fun? Didn't seem to him that fun to begin with, not when he could think of better things to do like watch a movie or terrorize Parker. Or kill Kasady. So reading? Not exactly a the top of his list as something he immediately thought of doing in his free time.

Glancing at Gin, he changed the subject. "So where're you from?" Kind of a personal question, sorta, but it was bugging him. First that kun business and now ne.

Old habits were hard to break. It was easy to forget that a lot of these people weren't used to some of his more Eastern traditions. It was possible Eddie was from a completely different planet than he was. In which case, his confused expression made a bit more sense.

He was used to getting some flack for his Kansai-ben accent, but it was a bit unusual for them to be quite so baffled.

"Osaka, Japan," he explained. "Earth," he added with a smirk, just for good measure. "N' you?"

"Yeah, I think I figured out the Earth bit," Brock said. He knew where Japan was, at least, even if he couldn't hope to point out Osaka on the map. "I'm from New York."

He didn't bother saying what country because come on, it was New York. Not only was it famous in its own right, it was one of the few places where you had an honest-to-God superhero. Or, at least, that was what everyone thought last time he'd been there - NY had taken a total U-turn from distrusting the "friendly neighborhood Spider-man" to being totally gay for him. He wasn't sure what they had in Japan besides a love for raw fish, people in cheesy monster suits, and giant robot; as far as he was concerned, Gin might as well be from another planet.

New York was somewhere in America, wasn't it? Shinigami rarely paid much attention to things as trivial as geography in the human world. But he could always just smile and nod and pretend he knew what Eddie was talking about. "Ain't really been too far outta the country," he lied easily. "What's it like over there?"

"Big," was the first thing that came to Brock's mind. "Skyscrapers everywhere. And crowded. Pretty hard to get a job in that town."

You had to cheat, manipulate, grovel and do whatever it took to get your foot in the door, as far as Brock was concerned - the incident back at the Daily Bugle was just proof of that. Even Parker, with his I'm-your-Average-Joe act, had cheated to get paid by Jameson, what with the fact he was basically pimping photos of himself to the rag and laughing his way to the back. And shutting out honest workers like Brock here who were just normal humans and had no choice but work for a living. It never made sense to Brock why Parker didn't just use his powers for what fun, like any sane person would use them, instead of agonizing about what his old corpse of an uncle would do.

Brock shifted his position on the couch, wincing. If he relaxed a little bit, he'd feel a tad less sore than before. Glancing at Gin, he saw that the guy didn't really look all that Japanese - at least not what he expected, not with that weird gray hair, too gray for someone who looked as young as he thought Gin was. Could be dyed, Brock thought, and then had to wonder who in their right mind would dye their hair gray.

That? Backwards.

"Pity," Gin commented. "Least y'don't have to worry about that much here, ne?" he added with a shrug. "Got all y'meals provided, room n' board. Just have t'worry about th'nightlife." He gave a short, quiet laugh.

"So what all y'do back in New York?" might as well ask, since apparently it was so difficult to find work there. Probably best not to mention that the afterlife wasn't much better in that department. Poverty was even more widespread than in the human's world.

Brock only snorted at this. He'd had everything he needed before finding himself in Landels: he had the symbiote and all of Parker's little powers - which really made the problem of meals, room and board a moot point since he could always take what he wanted when he wanted it, and his diet these days wasn't exactly refined by human standards. He didn't need some mutant prison giving the essentials when he was perfectly capable of getting them himself.

"I was a photographer," Brock said. He picked at an invisible thread poking out from his pant leg, shrugging. "Job wasn't my calling."

That was the short, short version. While he'd liked taking pictures, that kind of thing just paled in comparison when you were a Host. Who cared about photos and newspapers when you had all this power offered to you?

"So what about you?" Brock asked. "What'd you do in Japan?"

He knew enough about human technology to be familiar with the term. It seemed a fairly frivolous sort of profession though. But if one could get by on taking pictures, why not? Then again, it sounded like Eddie was having a difficult time of it.

"Thinkin' of goin' into somethin' else then? When y'get out 'course," he asked, with a curious tilt of his head.

As for his own job. "Now let's see... I worked as somethin' called a shinigami. What was th' word for that one... Death God? Soul Reaper? They got s'many names for us these days. But I ain't much for it anymore. Had a bit of a fallin' out with the comp'ny."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Day 27: Sun Room (4th Shift)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject