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]

Comments

[fyeonly.livejournal.com]

"Well, then I don't think it's too bad," Naomi decided. "I don't want to squeeze it too hard, though, just in case. It's probably just inflamed and tight. I'll see if I can work that out for you." She rolled her thumbs over the muscle gently, in what she hoped was a soothing motion.

"I used to do this for Raye - his shoulder would get tight if he spent too long on the firing range."

[el-lolly-eat.livejournal.com]

L tensed a little a as she started working on his leg. He had accepted the touch when it had been necessary to seek a second opinion, but this was becoming more contact than he had anticipated. He knew she was only trying to help, and it wasn’t as uncomfortable as the time she had hugged him, but…

He tried to keep himself focused on something else. This had been the first time she had mentioned her Fiancée since her first night here. L took this as a queue that she wanted to talk about him. Considering the time she said she was from, he hadn’t been dead for a week yet. “I am sure you miss him.” He said.

[fyeonly.livejournal.com]

"Yeah." Naomi bit at her inner cheek, working her thumbs over the swollen muscle with an almost clinical distraction. "It's ironic, isn't it? And a part of me's so angry... he was so insistent I quit the FBI because he was worried something would happen to me. And then I do, and something happens to him." She didn't think life could possibly offer anything more ironic.

"And then I get thinking, what if... what if it had been me? What would be different if I hadn't quit like Raye wanted? What if I'd done what I wanted? And then I feel guilty, because as much as I miss Raye, I'm glad I'm not the one that's dead." She shook her head. She knew she probably sounded like an awful person, but somehow, she didn't think L was the judgmental type.

[el-lolly-eat.livejournal.com]

“I imagine if one cares for someone, they would be worried about the person being in danger and make an effort to protect them from it.” L said, “Life decisions are guaranteed to leave you with a lot of ‘what if’s?’. Unfortunately, we can’t go back and find out what would have happened if we had made another choice. It is better not to dwell on it, accept the decisions we have made, and look forward to the opportunities the future provides us with.”

It was getting harder to resist the urge to pull his leg away, “There is no reason to feel guilty for it. Though, if you can’t escape doing so, perhaps it is more comforting to assume that he had succeeded in protecting the life he was afraid you’d lose if you had stayed on the job.”

[fyeonly.livejournal.com]

"If he cared about me, he would have listened to me and respected what I wanted," Naomi mumbled, and immediately flushed after she'd said the words. She shouldn't talk like that, not now. She cleared her throat and looked away for a moment.

"I'm sorry. I guess I'm still angry over the whole situation. We... we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things, and now that he's gone, I just keep thinking about how things could have been different. What I could have done different, what he could have done different.... But that's probably normal. There." She pulled her hands away and glanced up.

"Any better?"

[el-lolly-eat.livejournal.com]

Whatever Naomi had been saying to him was partially lost by his concentration in keeping himself from jerking his leg away. Just when L had decided that enough was enough and he couldn’t bare it any longer, she had finished the massage. He quickly pulled his leg away, and clung to it “Thank you, and yes. Quite.” L said having difficulty hiding the discomfort he had been feeling in his both his voice and expression. Thank goodness that was over.

L turned back to his plate and quickly picked up the other cinnamon roll. He quietly licked the frosting. It made him feel a little better. Looking around the room again he noticed Light has shown up, and was now being embraced by who he was pretty sure was Misa. Damn… Yagami-kun had managed to get to both Naomi and Misa first so far.

L looked back in the direction where he had seen the man who he thought looked like Mello. The young man was looking at him. “It appears that we might have another adversary, and ally here.” L pressed his fingers against his lips in a gesture of silence hoping that if this young man was Mello, he would understand the message.

[fyeonly.livejournal.com]

Naomi followed L's gaze, curiously.

"How many allies and adversaries could show up?" she asked, discreetly looking in the direction L was looking. She couldn't tell who he was looking at - all she saw in that direction was a pair of what looked like effeminate teenage boys.

And one of them looked drunk.

Honestly, the more she thought about it, the less and less the problems of home seemed to matter. Where they were and what was going on... it made more sense to focus on that than anything else.

[el-lolly-eat.livejournal.com]

“Undetermined.” L answered unemotionally. Then he spoke in a quiet tone so that Light wouldn’t happen to hear what he was about to say, “I am unaware of any events that may have transpired after my demise. However, I can guarantee that one or both of my heirs would have taken up the case I failed to solve. It appears that one of them has just arrived… Along with the Second Kira.”

[fyeonly.livejournal.com]

"...Second Kira?" Naomi blinked. "How many Kiras are there?" She only knew of one, the one who had killed Raye and the others. There were more?

[el-lolly-eat.livejournal.com]

“There have been two that I have been made aware of.” L said, as he took another lick at the frosting on his cinnamon roll. “The second Kira obtained the same power to kill as the first, only unlike the first one who needed both a name and face in order to kill, the second one needed only to….” L’s voice trailed off as he noticed the beginnings of a riot breaking out.

His eyes widened with interest as he watched the event unfold before him; not wanting to miss the opportunity to document this event. He started counting in his head, not only the number of patients, orderlies, and nurses involved, but the time. “Maki-san, for the sake of obtaining data, starts counting the seconds out loud right now, and don’t stop until I say.” This was an order. Hopefully she would relieve L from juggling it all himself. He would have enough on his hands.

[fyeonly.livejournal.com]

What was this power, anyway? Naomi realized there were still large gaps in her file of information.

But that didn't matter right now, because a bunch of idiots had decided to stage a coup in the middle of breakfast. Stupidity in large groups, like she always said.

L gave her an order and she snapped to attention immediately, just glad they wouldn't be getting involved.

"1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi..." she began, wishing she had a stopwatch rather than trying to do it like this. She figured she was close enough to accurate, but she had know way of knowing for sure.

[el-lolly-eat.livejournal.com]

He made a quick mental note to add an additional 7 seconds to her count later to make up for the time he had used speaking and quickly went about counting everything else; coupling each number to the time Naomi was giving him, and memorizing them for later use.

The only circumstances in which he would ask Naomi to stop her count, would be if the patients involved in the riot were subdued, or if the rioters started moving in their direction and it became vital for the two of them to move their location for the sake of safety.