damned_institute | Day 28: Bus 2

Entry tags:

Day 28: Bus 2

Momo tugged on the collar of the light blue sweater she was wearing as she followed her nurse to wherever these buses were, winding her hair up into its customary bun as she went. It was an odd feeling, knowing she was about to go outside of the institute's borders. Maybe the Head Doctor was about to make an error and the shinigami, as well as everyone else, would no longer be limited and they could finish what they started several nights back.

That was probably too much to hope for. She was feeling better this morning, even with the blood moon, and was mildly looking forward to the bus ride. Captain Jack said he was going to be here this morning and even if it wasn't customary breakfast in the cafeteria, she's be satisfied with him sitting next to her on the bus.

The nurse handed her a muffin, some napkins, and a small box with a straw. She stared at this box for a moment before shaking it. From the sound it contained liquid. How odd... Momo wasn't sure why they would but liquid inside a small paper box - it didn't make any sense to her and she wasn't sure how one was supposed to get it out of the box.

Clambering onto an empty bus, Momo chose to sit in the very back near the emergency exit. Maybe she could force her way out of it as they were moving and escape the limiter enough to come back and level the institute, freeing everyone. Or maybe she just wanted to be able to see everyone that was on the same bus as her. Wishful thinking versus reality.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Good morning," Momo replied automatically, though she was somewhat distracted by the juice box in her hands. It was such an odd contraption. She turned the box over and peered at it, pulling the plastic straw off its side.

The shinigami held the little plastic package containing the straw up in the light and tilted her head at it. Did they expect her to somehow gets the tiny edge of the weak plastic straw through the thick paper that the liquid was contained in? She set the juice box onto the seat next to her where her muffin sat so she could use both hands to extract the straw from it's cellophane confinement.

... and promptly dropped the thing, still in its packaging, onto the floor.

"Oh no!" Momo exclaimed, flustered that she couldn't quite figure the whole juice box thing out. She leaned over and attempted to find where the straw had run off to.

At least she hadn't gotten the straw out of the plastic first. The floor of a bus couldn't have been sanitary. "...do you need some help?" Juice boxes could be difficult sometimes, but watching her...had she ever seen one before?

Ken stabbed his own juice box and held it out. "You can just take mine if you want." He didn't care for the overly-sugared fruit-flavored water these things usually contained.

Aha! There it was, hiding underneath the seat just in front of her. Momo knelt on the floor and fished it out, not caring how unlady-like she seemed in the process. She stood back up, the little straw held triumphantly in her hand and she sat back down on her seat.

Her eyes widened as she saw Ken apply the straw to his own box. How did he do that? There was no way that tiny straw would be strong enough to get through the thick paper.

"Wow! How did you..." Moving the straw to her off hand, Momo took the box Ken offered her and peered intently at it. She tilted her head seeing the hole the straw had made in a small circle of a different material. She then picked her unopened box up and compared the two. Finding the same spot on her box, she held the box Ken had given her gently between her knees as she successfully extracted the straw from the packaging and stabbed her own juice box in the indicated location.

The shinigami's face lit up as she got the straw into the box, an impish grin on her face and she held both boxes up to Ken to show him she figured it out, very proud of herself.

"Thank you," Momo said, holding his juice box back out to him. "Such a silly thing to put perfectly good," she took a quick sip of her drink, "apple juice when a cup would do perfectly fine."

"I guess they're just worried about us spilling it all over." Ken took the juice box back and set it to the side, tearing off a chunk of his muffin. Some breakfast. "Either that or they think we're kids." Juice boxes were usually reserved for the elementary school crowd, after all.

"I'm Hidaka Ken. Nice to meet you." Friendly smile in place, Ken settled himself in with his leg stretched out into the aisle, thinking it distinctly awkward to be sitting on a bus when he couldn't bend his knee. But even if his nurse had given him the option, he wasn't going to miss the trip into town. Like Aya had said last night--it was an opportunity. Now that he was free enough of angst to actually think about it, he could appreciate that.

Momo glanced down at the box and shrugged a little. "I suppose it does function in a manner that prevents spillage, even if getting it to work is a little confusing." She flashed him a grin and chuckled. "And they do think we're children, confused children."

She took another sip of her drink and then examined her own muffin. It had some kind of berries in it and crunchy things on top. "Mmm, I'm Hinamori Momo. Nice to meet you Hidaka-san," she said as she poked experimentally at the muffin. Odd Western foods. "Do you know what this is?"

"They are hard to open sometimes. If you don't stab it hard enough, the straw'll just make a dent, and if you stab too hard, juice might shoot out of the end. The kids I used to coach would have juice-fights with them." Ken grinned. It'd been fun to watch (and he'd gotten a few shots in) but their moms had been pissed off.

"It's a muffin. Sort of a cross between cake and bread, usually with fruit of some kind in it." Decent, for western food. Just not something Ken would usually eat for breakfast. At least not without eggs and whatnot.

"Oh... a muffin," Momo said and pulled a piece off, popping it into her mouth. It was an interesting combination of flavors and texture. She decided she liked the berries in it. "It's good."

"Juice fights..." A mischievous twinkle sparkled in her eye as she thought of the look on Hitsugaya's face if she conspired with Rangiku to have one of these juice fights with him in the middle. It would be priceless.

Unfortunately, thinking of Ran right now made her think of Gin. Such thoughts were never pleasant nor happy.

"Yeah, they're decent." He popped another chunk of muffin into his mouth. "Not like the grease-covered stuff they usually try to feed us." Some of it was almost nauseating.

"Having one of those would lighten the mood around here, at least." Ken drank some of his juice, frowning slightly at the taste of it. It was alright, at least.

When Momo fell silent, Ken looked over--almost worried, but it wasn't really his place to ask.

Momo pushed the thoughts of Gin and all that away when she noticed ken watching her. The smile returned to her face and she giggled. "It probably would, though I think the nurses would be a little upset that we got juice all over these clothes they gave us."

She giggled again and eyed what Ken was wearing. "You can tell they put a lot of thought into their choice for each of us," she teased.

"The '80s were bad enough first time around. I don't want to relive them." Ken picked at the baggy gray cargo pants he'd been forced to wear. "...or whatever time era these clothes are from." He missed his comfortable sports jerseys and jeans. "At least there's no obnoxious smiley faces." Thank God for small blessings.

Momo chuckled. "Judging from many of the others on this bus, it appears I lucked out with this sweater and pair of pants," she said after another piece of the muffin.

The bus was starting to fill up, so Momo cast a look up the aisle and giggled seeing what the nurses had dressed Hitsugaya in. It was adorable. She would have to tease him about it later. Though who she really was looking for was Captain Jack. She was hoping he wouldn't end up on another bus and was purposefully not sharing her seat with anyone since it was reserved for him. She also hoped, for his sake, he wasn't standing her up again. At least she had pleasant company while she waited.

"Oh, I don't know - I kind of like the smiley faces." She grinned impishly at Ken. "Sometimes people need to be reminded what a smile is."

"I'm friends with a few of them." Ken grinned right back--he obviously hadn't forgotten how. Or at least he recently remembered. "The smiley faces just make them more grumpy."

Ken also looked around the bus--but he didn't see anyone he knew at all. ...scratch that, there was Farfarello. Oh happy day, stuck in an enclosed space with the crazed assassin. Oh, and there was the kid who'd beaned him with a book yesterday. And Hitsugaya...Ken still felt a twinge of guilt when his eyes passed over that particular head of white hair, even if he hadn't so much as laid a finger on him the other night.

Momo giggled again. "My best friend is a grumpy pants I swear doesn't know how to smile unless I tease him so bad he does it just to get me to go away," she said. Half the time she thought Hitsugaya's smile muscles were broken. "It's cute though watching him try and be all stoic and stuff when I know somewhere deep inside is a big huge smile. He probably doesn't like the smiley faces either."

The shinigami really liked the muffin. "Do you know what these berries are called? I've never had them before."

Ken found himself surprised to be considering Aya's stoicism 'cute' as well. And it was fun to tease him about it, even it was like taunting a tiger. One night and he was already completely out of his mind. What the hell was with him?

"They're blueberries, I think," Ken replied, scrutinizing said muffin.

"Blueberries," Momo repeated as she looked at her muffin. "I like the crunchy things on the top too. I hope they have more of these at future breakfasts, however many more of those we have in this place."

A few more bites and a sip of juice later and the shingami tilted her head at Ken. "So Hidaka-san, what sort of things do you like to do for fun?"

"I can't remember what that stuff is called." Ken looked at his muffin. "Although I have to say, I'm not planning on staying for many more breakfasts around here."

He sat back. "I play soccer. I also like to cook, but they don't seem too keen on letting us do that here. I used to do flower arranging, too." He grinned. "What about you, Hinamori-san?" The use of honorific was unfamiliar to Ken (he wasn't usually one prone to proper manners,) but if she seemed insistent on using them...

Momo shrugged. "Neither am I, but sometimes things take longer than one intends on."

As for what she liked to do... "I like to read a lot and spending time with my division. Sometimes I let Ran drag me out for a little sake here and there." She smiled thinking back on her free time with Renji and Kira. "And then there's the games in the forests with two of my closest friends. We're supposed to be training, but it usually ends up in a game of tag."

She tilted her head. "Is soccer a... game of some kind?"

"Yeah. It's a team sport, two teams of eleven and a ball." He grinned. "Usually, anyway. There's two nets that you try and get the ball into, but there's a player guarding each of the nets. I'm usually one of those. The trick is, you can't use your hands unless you're guarding the goal."

Ken smiled fondly. "I used to teach the kids in the neighborhood how to play, too."

"You're not the first one that I've had to explain the game to." Ken looked slightly confused at that. "It's...pretty well known." As in the most popular sport in the world.

Momo's cheeks tinged pink and she ducked her head down a little. 'I'm a bit.,. behind the times when it comes to a lot of human entertainment."

"It does sound fun, though, like you need a lot of coordination and skill to play it." She wondered if she'd be any good at soccer.

Human entertainment? Had Omi said something...

"I'm going to try and put together a proper game for the next time we get an outdoor shift. I tried to get an impromptu one going before, but...it was too short." Ken nearly pouted. "You can join in if you want. If they don't separate everyone again." Ken didn't understand why they separated the groups by gender, really.

"Sounds fun!" Even if it was an unfamiliar game, Momo was very quick on her feet and she knew her short stature was an asset sometimes in team sports.

"I'll definitely play if I'm around," she said with an enthusiastic nod. "You'll just have to forgive my ignorance. But I'm a quick learner."

"That's alright, I like to think I'm a decent teacher." Ken grinned. He had the experience for it. "It wouldn't be hard to fill you in on the rules, they're not too complicated. And all you need to do with the ball is get it into the net."

"Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Awesome," Momo said, using a phrase she'd heard Hokuto use.

As for where she was from... "Ahh... I'm originally from Japan." She couldn't even try to keep the hint that there was more to that out of her voice. Her cheeks colored again and she suddenly got very interested in the remains of her muffin.

"Umm... you?"

"I'm from Japan, as well. Niigata, though I've been living in Tokyo." Between that tone of voice and the earlier comment about not being familiar with human recreation...Ken wasn't the brightest lightbulb ever, but he could figure out something was up from that much.

None of his business, but he couldn't help but be curious.

"Tokyo is an interesting city, full of life, though I haven't been there in a very long time," Momo replied. She thought for a long moment about the very little she could remember from back when she was alive. It really didn't help her much.

"I can't exactly remember where in Japan I was born," she said. "But I think it was somewhere in Hakkaido." Another pause. "It's a beautiful place."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject