Day 30: Cafeteria, Dinner

[captain-hunam.livejournal.com]

The cafeteria was all but empty when Zelnick got there. He was a little disappointed; he had gotten the impression that patients usually ate dinner in their rooms, so he hadn't arranged to meet anyone, and there really wasn't anyone to sit by and engage in conversation yet.

Quietly, he collected dinner and a big glass of orange juice, and chose a seat near the food-serving counters. Talking for so long had made him thirsty... and, well, fruit juice was a luxury he had missed.

[Stalk away, my dearest Admiral. <3 ]

Comments

[be-my-tool.livejournal.com]

Zabuza nodded, looking in Haku's direction. "That doesn't surprise me as much as it should."

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

"Hm?" His head turned a bit towards Zabuza instead of just his eyes moving. That was an interesting thing to say.

[be-my-tool.livejournal.com]

"Even if you don't particularly like the guy, there are many reasons to want to make sure he is still here or to pay attention to what he is doing." He looked back at Kurogane. "That you would spend so much effort glaring at the door when you don't actually plan to do anything is something I can relate to."

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

"Feh," he snorted, turning his eyes away from the other man and setting them back on the door. He didn't like being told things like that. It was too much like when the kid had called him kind. "Don't say stupid things," he ordered as though Zabuza would listen. He didn't care if the guy related or whatever; he was only doing this because Fai wouldn't get it otherwise.

That's perhaps why the comment got under his skin so much.

[be-my-tool.livejournal.com]

Zabuza chuckled darkly. He was far more amused by Kurogane than he would have been the day before. He looked at the door again, waiting to see what this Fai person really looked like.

"You must really hate the guy," Zabuza said, but there was a tone that hinted to the fact that he thought it was possible the irritation Kurogane showed wasn't just based on hate.

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

That went without saying. He didn't much care for the underlying tone Zabuza was using though and sneered at it. "That's my business."

[be-my-tool.livejournal.com]

Zabuza was too amused by this guy. He ate a bit more without saying anything, watching the door.

"You sure this guy is gonna show up?" he asked. "It's possible he's disappeared. People do that a lot around here." Just as he said it though, a tall blond guy walked into the room. "Is that him?" Zabuza asked, as he watched the blond be lead by his nurse to sit next to another man with darker hair.

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

The moment Zabuza started asking, Kurogane watched the idiot walk in. He caught his eyes for just a moment before the other averted his attention. Kurogane had expected Fai to do as much. "Yeah," he said finally once he'd noted where Fai had gone to sit.

The odds stood now that Fai would not put his attention on the area near the door again while he remained in the room. That would have been too much of a risk for him. Kurogane would continue to watch him for a bit, though not continuously since he knew where Fai was sitting now. Looking back to his food a moment, he started eating a bit and wondering over how he'd get to Fai that evening. His room wasn't anywhere near the same number as Fai's own. Where were those rooms in relation to each other?

[be-my-tool.livejournal.com]

Zabuza watched Fai out of curiosity for a while and then looked over at Haku again, just to check on the boy. After that he focused on his own food, not really caring to add to the conversation with Kurogane until he was finished with his meal.

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

"You said that Haku kid is working on a map, right?" he asked once he'd thought about it a bit. Even if it wasn't completed, just the general area for where Fai was in relation to M67 would have been helpful.

[be-my-tool.livejournal.com]

Zabuza nodded. "He is. He has most of it memorized, but he can made a copy if you would like one."

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

Kurogane nodded as well. A map would be excellent. "I know how to get some places already from last night, but the room I was taken to earlier was not the one I woke up in then." Which, he was convinced, would be the room he'd be starting at once night began. Starting from another place wasn't necessarily a problem, but it would hinder his sense of direction for a short while.

[be-my-tool.livejournal.com]

"What room?" Zabuza asked. "Do you know?"

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

"Mine? Had a sixty-seven on it." He thought a moment about the number of the room Fai had run into, but couldn't remember the exact number. He had been occupied with Fai at the time, so room numbers hadn't been his main concern. Still, from where he'd started... "And the idiot's is somewhere in the ninetys."

[be-my-tool.livejournal.com]

Zabuza nodded. "The boy and I will meet you outside the men's bathroom in your block tonight to give you a map. In order to meet your idiot you'll have to go around the main men's block to reach the one that shares space with the women's block." He grinned slightly as he looked at Fai. "And judging by the looks of your idiot, that's not surprising."

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

"All right," he agreed first, then shot Zabuza a mad glare.

He'd understood Zabuza's meaning with his last comment well enough, but though he himself was aware of just how feminine his traveling partner could act, getting told so by someone he'd just met did not sit well. He wouldn't have cared if someone had said it to Fai's face - that idiot probably liked the attention anyway - but when it was directed his way, he definitely cared. It was like associating him with that perky idiot. Something like that was... it just didn't... for an warrior to have to...!!

Kurogane couldn't even find the words to express just how annoyed that association made him, so he instead took to growling low like a dog while keeping his red glare on Zabuza.

[be-my-tool.livejournal.com]

Zabuza didn't care about the glares. He had gotten much worse before and in places far more dangerous than this so called hospital during the day. Plus, he was offering Kurogane some important information. It wasn't as if the guy could just outright kill him. He pushed his empty tray away from him and looked at Kurogane.

"You're lucky they put all these drugs in my system today. Usually I'm not so generous."

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

There would have been a problem if Zabuza couldn't handle some glaring, whether intended or not. Glaring was Kurogane's default expression after all. And really, Zabuza was earing these glares for how he kept pushing the wrong buttons where the magician was concerned. He should have expected they'd get increasingly worse if he kept aggravating him, especially after how Kurogane had responded earlier.

Teasing the Shinobi never ended well.

Except for today. Kurogane didn't see Zabuza as the type to go running just because he was getting glared at, and Kurogane in turn didn't feel like doing much more to get his point across either. Like Zabuza was saying himself, getting drugged earlier had been a lucky thing. An annoying thing, but still a lucky one, and apparently for the both of them.

"You too?" he asked before he could stop himself, glare calming back to his normal sour expression. Giving away that he had gotten drugged by these people was a fact he'd rather have kept secret. It did reflect his ability here somewhat, after all. His curiosity had been getting the better of him all day though and precisely because of that fact. Apparently it was still going so. Maybe he wasn't over the drugging effect just yet. "What'd you do?" Or, possibly, what hadn't the man done? Kurogane had ignorance to blame for his own sedation, but for someone who had been here longer than a day, he had to assume Zabuza was more familiar with how things went here. He would have been smart enough not to earn a drugging had he been aware of the possibility. So, whatever he'd done, it must have been intentional.

[be-my-tool.livejournal.com]

"There was a riot." Zabuza said. Of course he had joined, how could he not? Despite how futile it was, a fight was a fight and he had loved every second of it.

Just then the intercom piped up and Zabuza stood. "By the bathrooms," he repeated. Then the orderlies he was with saw him out, making sure he didn't cause any more trouble.