damned_institute | Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

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Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

Hitsugaya left the chapel no less frustrated than before. The head doctor once again had chosen not to hide his face, yet promised he would be making an appearance at some time in the near future. He didn't like being patient, but there wasn't much choice. Either the head doctor would show his face, or he wouldn't. Renji had already seen him, and knew how to find him. That was enough.

The thought of eating made him slightly nauseous as usual, but he knew he needed to get his strength up. He could either be weak and try to force his way through brunch without eating anything, or he could be smart and actually give himself something to eat. And there was rice. Rice and fruit. He took a heaping pile of rice, and grabbed as much watermelon as he could fit on his plate, then proceeded to an empty table. He scanned the room, watching for Momo. He wasn't exactly looking forward to their conversation, knowing how she'd acted yesterday; however, he knew he had to speak to her, and there was a good chance that she would show more restraint now that the drugs were out of her system.

Thoughtfully he consumed his rice and waited.

[free at the moment, pester if you wish]

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Max was disappointed the head doctor hadn't showed up in the chapel; she'd have had a few choice words for him. Then again, she wouldn't be surprised if everyone else in the chapel hadn't had a few prepared themselves, in which case the head doctor probably realized that unless he had a death wish, the chapel was the last place he should be.

So instead she allowed her nurse to nudge her into the caf and filled her tray with far more food than it looked like a girl her size could tuck away, and started for an empty table. On the way, however, she came across a boy haphazardly trying to balance his tray and himself and looking like he was having a little difficulty.

"Need some help?" she offered, pausing beside him as she shot him a friendly smile and a wink.

The young mage had about gotten himself situated when he was approached by a female patient he didn't recognize. He blushed a little from the attention. "Uh..n-no. I'm fine, thank you." It was the motherly sort of attention, he realized as he sighed inwardly. Figured.

He took his seat, picking through the the odd assortment of food he'd been given for the best parts first. Glancing around for Claude out of the corner of his eye, he wondered what the blond would think if he saw him with an attractive older girl - even if she was just trying to be friendly.

"Ahh, sorry," Max apologized, her grin turning rueful. She saw him glance around and wondered if he was waiting for someone? "I'm not interrupting, am I? If you're waiting for someone, I can buzz off."

"No!" Leon said a bit hastily before catching himself. "I mean, it's fine. You can sit here. Sure thing." He even made certain there was room next to him, though the entire table was empty. He started on his breakfast slowly, not wanting to look like a pig in front of the girl.

"So, um... How are you?" the mage asked. He utterly failed when it came to small talk with women.

"I'm starved," Max laughed, sinking down into the seat beside him and shooting him a sideways glance. "I'm Max, by the way," she introduced, popping a piece of sausage into her mouth. "What about you?"

"I'm pretty hungry too," Leon answered with a smile. Then he realized the last question had been in regards to his name. "Oh! My name's Leon. I' haven't seen you here before, but there's a lot of people so it's not too surprising..."

He filled his mouth with half a piece of toast to keep himself from going on and potentially making a nuisance of himself.

"There are a lot," Max agreed, glancing about the cafeteria that was even now filling up with people from elsewhere. She recognized a some, though she'd spoken to very few of them. Most of them she'd just noted in passing, memorizing the faces of those around her.

Then she turned her attention back to him, beginning to work on her breakfast. "Have you been here long, Leon?"

"Four nights and three days," Leon answered automatically around his food. He'd just had a similar conversation with that Mousse boy, after all, so he didn't need to think over the response this time. "It feels longer than it really has been."

It wasn't even a full week. He could only imagine what things must be like for those who'd been there before he arrived.

"It does, doesn't it?" she mused, munching on her English muffin, pondering her own days here. "I've been here a little longer than you, but it already feels like weeks upon weeks. Time just feels like it moves differently here, even though I know that's not really possible.. Then again, we've all been dropped here like this and forced to adjust quickly, so I guess it sort of makes sense, too."

This wouldn't be the first time Leon had been dropped in a new world and been forced to adjust, however. Time hadn't slowed down as much for him while he and the others were on Neede, nor any of the times they went crawling through dark monster infested caves. Perhaps it was because of how often he was separated from the others here.

Or maybe that was just the way Landels worked. Maybe time really was slowed down in order to demoralize its patients. Wouldn't that just figure? "Yeah, I guess," he said absently.

"Or I could just be rambling," Max remarked with a crooked smile. "I do that sometimes. Have you been doing alright? In here, I mean," she added, waving at the room in general. He looked around the same age as Ritsuka - although she was terribly bad at judging ages, especially when some people's ages were mystifying in themselves around here - and she'd seen how hard this place had been on him last night.

Leon could understand rambling, as he did it often enough himself, so he didn't comment on it. When it came to her question he shrugged. If he thought about it, he hadn't really been doing particularly well - upsetting an acquaintance, being useless in battle and then once finally managing spells hardly being able to do more than one before exhaustion took over... At least when he did that he was of some help, but he knew there would be times when that wouldn't be enough and he'd end up getting in the way in his weariness.

"I've done as well as anyone can in here, I think," he answered. At least he had friends, anyway.

"It's not as easy as it sounds," she agreed ruefully. The institute seemed very adept at making efforts seem futile. At least the food was decent, she had to give them that.

"Are you here alone?" she asked, shooting him a glance from the corner of her eye, knowing there were some people fortunate - or unfortunate, depending on how you looked at it - to have arrived with other people from their... worlds. Or wherever it was they came from.

"No." Leon shook his head. "I have friends here. Just a couple, but..." But that was more than a good many other people seemed to have. The boy from the sunroom earlier had been alone. The mage was at least lucky in that regard. He didn't know what he would have done had he arrived here to find himself without any familiar faces. He'd thought that had been the case the first night and that had been bad enough.

"What about you?"

"Nah, I'm the only one here I know," she admitted with a wry quirk of her lips, pooping another piece of sausage in her mouth. "I come from... later then most of the people here. Although I found out my brother has someone that could pass for an identical twin here. It was a bit odd running into him and it not being him on one of my first few days."

"Still, it's a good thing you're not here on your own. Do you know how to fight?" she asked, not underestimating the possibility of what he could do. She'd hardly been any type of normal kid at his age, after all, and everyone here seemed to be... different, in one way or another.

Leon couldn't help but wonder who else in this place had been completely separated from everyone they knew. Was he in the minority, having a handful of friends with him? That would be terrible. He felt sorry for them. As for people looking exactly alike... could that be a product of the multiple dimensions? He wouldn't know what to do if he'd run into someone who looked exactly like Claude but wasn't.

"I can't fight like... with my fists or anything, per se..." Leon rubbed at the back of his head. "I'm a spellcaster. Can't seem to manage much here, though. It's as if the amount of energy I have for casting has been drastically lowered."

"You can use magic?" Max looked impressed, grinning. "They seem to have inhibited everyone's abilities here. They'd have to, or I think none of us would be here anymore. They wouldn't have been able to hold most of these people for five minutes if they'd left us as we were."

She still didn't know how they'd done it, but Max was well aware of the lengths determined people would use to keep their experiments under control. At least these were more interested in the mazer they sent their patients through, rather than... other things. She could imagine a much worse fate in an insane asylum than this, even with as frustrating as it was being here and not back home.

"What's your magic like, where you come from?" she asked curiously. "We don't have any in my world. At least, not that I've ever encountered."

Oh yes. If they'd had their abilities restored, he and the others would be long gone from this place. The monsters here, as far as he'd seen, were nothing like those they'd fought before. It would be like any other dungeon and they'd clean it out fast.

"What's it like? Well..." 'Big and flashy' probably wasn't the best way to describe it. "Some people have different affinities for things than others. Like elements. I'm pretty good with dark, void, and water based spells, though I can use others." He wasn't sure if he should mention the whole demon summoning bit, as he didn't know what she'd think of it.

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Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

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