Day 30: Cafeteria, Breakfast

[whiteychan.livejournal.com]

Hitsugaya woke with a start.

His entire body ached, but the pain was nowhere near as bad as it had been the night before. His injuries had been tended two with clean gauze and bandages, and he found every movement wasn't agony. He wasn't in the best of shape, but thanks to the miracle of landel's strange time distortion, he had mostly recovered from the vile poison without having to waste anyone else's talents.

And in his hand, still...there was the key.

He dressed quickly, sliding the key onto the key ring from his desk drawer and stuck it into his pocket. Whether the key stood to gain them anything or not, it stood as a vital reminder that they could succeed in this place. There was hope, as insignificant as it often seemed. They could beat this place.

That small shred of hope made getting up worth it.

The nurse who escorted him to breakfast was cheerful, and commented idly about how wonderful it was to see young Tommy Winters up and about again after his unfortunate run-in with a bad case of food poisoning. He smirked slightly, knowing that any lies the institute forced into their heads were only that: lies. He wouldn't buy it for a second. And on top of that, the concept of muffins sounded almost appetizing. While he still preferred his authentic Japanese cuisine, the food here was slowly becoming more and more bearable. He would have preferred a warm bowl of sweet nattou over rice over the mufffins, but they would do. The plain yogurt and fruit, on the other hand, was excellent. He piled his plate high with fruit as usual, and got several small bowls of yogurt as well.

Finding the most convenient table to the end of the food line, he took a seat and scanned for the new arrivals. New arrivals meant people who would be lost and confused. Renji did a good job of making a bulliten post last time...he should recommend abarai-fukutaicho do the same again this time.

[Waiting for Angel]

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[rectifies.livejournal.com]

Gaining consciousness when one thought they were perfectly awake was disconcerting. The realization yesterday hadn't been a dream was even more so. It was ridiculous how easily Ken could tell, especially with how similar his dorm room was to hospital's. He did not even have to peer down to see he was still wearing that silly uniform nor strain his ears to know the intercom's voice belonged to neither Fuuka nor the chairman.

Oh, great. he thought. I passed out and missed the Dark Hour. Groaning, the boy turned over to kick away the covers, only to discover the cold, smooth touch of wood. It took several seconds to register its source, but when he did, he still managed to gawk for several seconds more.

The broom from the janitor's closet. Had Yukari taken him back to one of the rooms?

Too late to consider that now as he heard the knock and the distinctive pitch of a nurse's greeting. In a panic, Ken threw the broom under the bed and ran out to the door, nearing running headlong into the woman's front side. She thought he seemed too eager for something as meager as breakfast, but the boy managed advert her suspicions away from the room. Thus, they reached the cafeteria without incident.

He couldn't help but think of school as the boy picked up a tray and headed toward an empty seat. If experience rang true, finding his teammate would be a pain. Ken would simply have to wait until after breakfast.

[gentiana-clusii.livejournal.com]

Ken had woken up back in his room, sore, with a feeling of distinct unaccomplishment. He'd said that Weiss came first, but really he hadn't even made an effort to finish his impromptu 'mission' after finding Aya. On top of that, he'd seen the look on Aya's face well enough last night. The disappointment and almost-pity that Ken had hated just a handful of years ago...he was slipping again.

He had just enough time to hide his bugnuks, the bottles of poison, and the bottles of medicine before the nurse came to the door to drag him to breakfast. Aya and Omi were already in discussion, and Ken needed time to gather his ragged thoughts. He blinked, noticing a small boy sitting alone--he knew he really shouldn't judge by appearances, not when his best friend had been raised as an assassin since he was eight, but still...

Ken took some fruit, some cereal, and stared at the messy and gooey cinnamon roll the nurse had dropped on his tray with a saccharine smile, rolling his eyes before heading for an empty seat opposite the boy. "Hey. This seat taken?"

[rectifies.livejournal.com]

He was in the middle of chewing on a particularly stubborn piece of roll when a voice spoke. Turning up, Ken met the eyes of a seemingly pleasant-faced man, another adult. For a place that reminded him of school, there were certainly quite a number of grown-ups around.

"Oh, no," he replied after a hasty swallow. "Go right ahead."

[gentiana-clusii.livejournal.com]

Ken flashed a smile and sat down. "My name's Ken. Been here long?"

Ken had almost lost track of how long he'd been here...probably about a week by now. How time flew.

[rectifies.livejournal.com]

Well, this was a surprise. He knew "Ken" was popular, but it wasn't everyday he met someone with the same given name. Especially outside of Japan. "Really?" Ken began, returning the other Ken's smile. "That's my name, too. Amada Ken." Wouldn't it be weird if he had the same surname, too?

His smile failed to hold as the thought returned to Landel's. "No." The boy shook his head. "I arrived just yesterday." The boy had only been here half a day at the most, and already, he was quite tired of it.

[gentiana-clusii.livejournal.com]

Ken blinked, then laughed. "Well, you can just call me Hidaka then, if you'd like. Doubt anyone'd get us mixed up, though."

Ken noticed the change of expression. "Don't worry. We'll get out of here. It's not half as bad during the daytime either." Usually.

[rectifies.livejournal.com]

"That works, Hidaka-san." Good, not the same surname, though the other Ken had a good point. Like anyone would mistake Ken for...well, Ken.

The boy tackled another piece of the cinnamon roll as he considered the man's words. "What exactly happens during the day?" he asked between bites. "I know they pretend we're patients, but do they actually make us go to therapy?"

[gentiana-clusii.livejournal.com]

"I haven't been here quite long enough to find out for myself, but s'what I've been told." Ken ignored his own cinnamon roll in favor of taking a bite from the apple he'd picked up. "Usually there's activities during the day if there's no therapy. Yesterday...there were visitors." Ken shook his head to clear the memory of Kase sitting there out of it, the anger at hearing that they'd gotten to Sena too. "Anyway, daytime's not really anything to worry about."

[rectifies.livejournal.com]

Ken blinked. Visitors? "Like family and friends?" he couldn't help asking. For a pseudo medical facility, they were certainly taking a risk for allotting visitation rights. There was likely an advantage he was not catching.

"I see..." Overall, daytime did not sound all that bad. Its contrast to night was sharp, but Ken was used to such things. Just a matter of working with the differences.

[gentiana-clusii.livejournal.com]

"...they say it's people you're related to somehow, under the persona they give you. But it'll be someone you recognize. Saying you're someone else." Ken shrugged and stabbed a bit of melon perhaps a bit more viciously than was strictly necessary. "Mine was an old friend. 'Nother guy I know had a kid we both knew back home come. They're not limited to people who're still alive."

[rectifies.livejournal.com]

By "persona", he must have meant those fake names the nurses used. Argilla mentioned something similiar. Then, was this all just one big joke? It wasn't very funny to the boy if it was...

That line of thought, however, quickly diminished, and he was forced to concentrate solely on the older Ken's last statement. "You mean..." Saying the words suddenly took effort. "You mean they raise the dead?"

[gentiana-clusii.livejournal.com]

Ken nodded. "They can, and they do." Ken pushed his tray away and took a moment to smile at the nurse who gave him a disapproving look with perhaps a bit more tooth than usual. It wasn't the healthiest way to get revenge, but Ken didn't want to eat any more anyway.

"Is there anything else you weren't told?" Ken disliked the thought of someone being forced into this so blindly.

[rectifies.livejournal.com]

The younger lost his appetite as well, though for entirely separate reasons. Raising the dead... It simply wasn't possible, was it? Sure, science had done a number of extraordinary things (the Shadows, for instance), but bringing back the dead?

Ken shook his head, his head swimming with thoughts. It was hard to imagine anything that could top what he had just heard, but he would be wise to take Ken's offer. "I don't know," he said. "Is there anything I--"

A commotion on the other side of the cafeteria put an end to his question, the sudden clamor and violence destroying his train of thought. The boy whirled his head around, addressing Ken only when he caught what was happening, "Err, does that happen often?"

[gentiana-clusii.livejournal.com]

And then, the cafeteria exploded.

"...no, it's usually only one or two people who cause trouble. Shit. Keep a low profile, head to the outsides of the room if you can, near the doors." Ken had learned well from riding out prison riots--even starting a few. This had the potential to get really ugly, really quickly, and it would likely end up in a lock down. "If a nurse comes to take you back to your room, don't resist. It'd just get you sedated."

Ken cast a look around the cafeteria, trying to spot Omi, Aya, and Yohji in the madness--he saw Omi, but his leader's eyes slid past him without seeing him, and then he jumped off the table and vanished into the crowd. Oh well. It was taking all of Ken's admittedly lacking patience to stay out of the fight--ending up drugged and drooling wouldn't do any good to anyone, though it seemed that a lot of people didn't care, either one way or the other.

He spotted Yohji and Aya in the crowd, Yohji's height and Aya's hair making them hard to miss. Omi was probably with them. They were probably expecting to spot him in the thick of the fighting.