damned_institute | Day 32: Sun Room (2nd shift)

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Day 32: Sun Room (2nd shift)

After the couple glasses of water Leon managed to gulp down during breakfast, the mage felt immensely better. He was still a bit tired, but that was nothing a little lounging on one of the sofas wouldn't cure. Stretching his arms above his head, he couldn't help but wish he'd had the chance to grab one of his new doctor's coats before leaving his room that morning. Maybe they would have let him get away with wearing it. Maybe.

He grabbed an empty sofa, pulling out the journal he tried to keep on him at all times. It was nearly complete now. Just a couple more pages to go. It might not improve his spellcasting that much, but any improvement was better than none. It was getting to where it might be too dangerous for him to use spells at all, if it left him so worn out without even finishing a monster off.

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"Hey, you can't blame a guy for wanting to guard his territory." Axel threw his arms up in defense, trying to make it sound like Roxas was accusing the wrong guy. But hey, with most of the couches and armchairs now filled he was glad he played the greedy card earlier in the game.

Ah, so he was right after all. It was pretty upsetting, to tell the truth, but he wasn't going to mope all over his best friend like that. He had to hand it to Sora for being a man and bashing his way through the mundane task of explaining the basics.

"That's Sora for you, but that makes sense since he's been here the longest. I think I've only been here for a little over two weeks. It sure feels like it's been months though."

Roxas rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but there's 'guarding your territory' and there's 'being a couch hog.' Big difference." He sort of glad Axel had been greedy earlier, too, but since saying something along those lines out loud would ruin their mock argument, he didn't.

"... Sorry for disappearing on you," he added in a more subdued tone, probably out of the blue to anyone who didn't understand his thought processes. Hearing that Axel had arrived at Landel's about as long ago as he had, though, and knowing that he'd been gone for about a week now if Sora was right was enough to make him feel guilty. He didn't think he'd had control over his disappearance and he certainly couldn't remember it happening now, but he still felt bad about it.

Axel grinned, about to poke fun right back when Roxas suddenly apologized from out of the blue. And just like that the redhead quieted down, staring at his friend intently before sighing.

What a way to ruin the fun, but he should've been used to this by now. Still, it didn't feel quite right for the latter to be blaming himself for something he didn't have control of. In his opinion, the best thing he could do right now was to just grab his friend by the head and try to squeeze those thoughts out, but Axel opt out and instead threw his arm around the blond's shoulder.

"Hey, don't sweat it. The important thing is that you're fine and dandy. Of course you aren't out of the woods yet, still being stuck here and all, but it's a start."

"Yeah, but..." Roxas shook his head. He still sort of felt like he should have done something, or... augh, he didn't know. This was too confusing. Maybe he should just let it go? Hayner had said something like that before-- not really said it, since it hadn't actually been him-- but... well, it was still good advice. It sounded like it was, anyway, and with Axel saying pretty much the same thing now...

"Sorry," he muttered again. ... Yes, he really was apologizing for the fact that he'd just apologized. He realized just how stupid that sounded a second or two later, though, and quickly so that Axel wouldn't latch onto it and start teasing him about it or something, he changed the subject. "So, uh, what have you been up to? Besides hogging couches-- sorry, 'guarding your territory,' I mean."

Axel rolled his eyes, using the same hand he had on Roxas's shoulder to punch the teen lightly over the head. As much as he liked his friend, it was always hard to get him to think of something else once someone got him going.

But thankfully enough the blond seemed to have gotten the picture and changed the subject to something a little more bearable.

"There isn't much to do here but fight for your life and try to escape. Did Sora tell you about the different groups that go about trying to find a way out?"

While Roxas didn't appreciate his head being the target of Axel's misplaced affection again, he wasn't bothered enough by it to do more than toss his friend a mock glare that eventually faded into a smile. He'd try not to do it again, but it always seemed to happen regardless, so... Anyway, new topic.

"Yeah, he did. He didn't say much about them, though-- just that they exist. We ran out of time before we could talk about it more." The shift changes were going to get really annoying, he could just tell. "Are you a part of one or something? Can you tell me about them?"

"I guess if I have to," Axel groaned, trying to sound as annoyed as possible before slipping into something more casual.

"These groups go under the names of different clubs and I know of at least three that are out now. The Arts and Crafts Club looks like the biggest out of the three since there seems to be at least a dozen or so people signing up every night. As for the one I'm in, the Cooking Club, it tends to vary between six to nine."

The redhead scratched his chin in thought before continuing.

"As for what they do... well... it really depends. Some times people are assigned the task of exploring this place to see if they find any new areas. Other times they're assigned to follow clues to useful knick-knacks that some guy or gal on the radio gives. It gets pretty busy here, believe it or not."

Right, so... the Cooking Club and the Arts and Crafts Club. Roxas stared blankly forward for a second, expression deeply confused before he finally gave in and asked, "Uh, why do they have those names? I mean, aren't they sort of...?" He trailed off, thinking about it for a second, then amended, "Okay, so the 'Breaking-Out-and-Getting-Home Club' isn't the best name either, but did they have to choose something so...?"

He shook his head. They'd probably had their reasons, and honestly, he didn't feel like going over all of them with Axel right now-- assuming the redhead even knew them, that is. For all he knew, his friend could think they were just as ridiculous as he did.

"So you're in the Cooking Group. That's fitting. Are Sora and Kairi in that one, too, or are they in Arts and Crafts or some other one?" He sort of hoped they were all in the same group so that it would be easier for him to choose, but it probably wasn't going to happen.

Axel just shrugged at Roxas's question. "Beats me, I wasn't the one that came up with those names."

It didn't take a genius to know that there were codes involved, but Axel had no desire to find out what they meant any time soon. So instead the redhead jumped into the next subject without any hesitation, giving his friend a sort of apologetic look as he did so.

"I'm afraid to say we aren't in the same group. I'm pretty sure Sora's dragged himself and Kairi into the Arts and Crafts Club, but I'm about as lost as you when it comes to the rest of the Org."

"... Oh." Great. Okay, so... joining the Arts and Crafts Club would mean he might get the chance to work with either Sora or Kairi, which would be cool because he still didn't really know them that well except in that weird, detached sense he'd gotten from all those dreams about them. If he joined the Cooking Group, though, he'd be able to work with Axel, his best friend, and since the group was smaller... or would it be better to just join the other club and save himself the trouble of having to choose? How many clubs were there, anyway? Axel had said there were at least three, but... uh.

He looked off to the side, feeling conflicted. Maybe he could just not choose at all and just tag along with whoever? He didn't want to make a nuisance of himself, though, and if he wasn't really a part of any group, they might get annoyed at him bouncing back and forth between the two. He wasn't really sure. This whole thing was still new to him, and while he was getting the niggling feeling he was making mountains out of molehills, that didn't make him stop.

"Is there any real difference between the two?" he asked, mainly so that he could delay some form of decision for now, if any. He was sort of leaning towards joining the Cooking Group just because it was smaller and because Axel didn't have someone in it in the same way Sora had Kairi, but he wasn't even sure if that was good criteria to judge by or not. Probably not.

Like all good friendships Axel had to wait patiently for Roxas's answer, but he wasn't sure how long that'd take since the teen was rather infamous for getting himself caught up over trivial things. The redhead pursed his lips, leaning back against the couch and looked around the room for any familiar faces.

It didn't take long for him to spot Sora who seemed to be chatting it up with some tall, lanky guy. He couldn't really get a good look at who it might've been so the best he could done was just assume that the brunet wasn't going to die any time soon. The redhead also caught Luxord from the corner of his eye, but since just glancing at him would've been enough to give him an eye infection Axel quickly diverted his attention elsewhere.

"Not really," He answered with another shrug. "I personally don't know who runs the Arts and Crafts Club so I can't speak for them, but I've known the 'president' of the Cooking Club since the day I got here."

It was then that he raised his arm, pointing it at the direction of the bulletin board.

"I'm sure a lot of their posts are still tacked up there so you can read those and choose for yourself."

"Oh. Right." The bulletin board. Roxas had seen some people going up to it and posting messages out of the corner of his eye, but he'd been too busy talking to Axel and fretting over which group he should join that he hadn't really gotten around to taking a closer look at it. Man, he really needed to fix that, huh?

"... I'll take a look at it later," he hedged, glancing at it. He really was going to, but since he wasn't sure just when the shift would end and he didn't want his conversation with Axel to be cut any shorter than it inevitably would be, it could wait for now.

Assuming most of his other questions could be answered on the bulletin, he moved to a different topic-- one that he was sure only Axel and a few other people could talk with him about. "So, uh, could you tell me what happened when I was here before? I didn't get to ask Sora about it and I don't like having huge gaps in my memory." He paused. "Again."

"Fine, Fine," Axel replied with a lazy wave. "Just don't wait until the last minute, okay? They usually have their assignments posted up by fourth shift so be quick about it."

Roxas's next question wasn't going to be as easy to answer, but he tried his best anyway.

"Well, there's quite a bit to go over, but I guess I can slip you a summary before they pull us apart." But where should he start? The redhead guessed the beginning was as good of a spot as any so he went for that.

"I'm pretty sure we arrived on the same day since you were pretty damn confused when we bumped into each other. There wasn't anything spectacular that I can remember, but you got thrown across the hall by a giant scorpion and was out of commission for a day or two because of that. Oh, and you met the president of the Cooking Club too, but that was back when there weren’t any factions around and it was more of a free-for-all."

Axel pursed his lips, not because he didn't have much to say, but because he didn't want to say too much. There were a few things he wanted to hold off until they had more time to talk, and he wasn't in the mood to dampen their conversation for the third time that shift.

"I remember we got to play Monopoly once! You kept landing in jail though..."

"I won't." What reasons would he have for procrastinating, anyway? Uh, aside from the obvious ones.

Axel's summary about his previous stay here was met with a blank look and a somewhat incredulous expression as Roxas tried to figure out how, exactly, a game of Monopoly was something worth mentioning. Little things like that weren't exactly unimportant, from a sentimental point of view, but with all the other crazy things going on here...

Oh well. At least Axel was consistently weird enough that he'd gotten used to it by now. Sort of.

"Maybe we should play again sometime," he muttered instead. "And... wait, a giant scorpion? How giant are we talking here?" With how many different kinds of Heartless both he and Sora had run into, talking about giant scorpions shouldn't have bothered him that much, but a giant scorpion that could throw him across a hall and knock him out of commission for a day or two was something he couldn't help but feel a little bit apprehensive about. What kind of monsters was this place churning out, anyway?

Axel grinned sheepishly when Roxas gave him that all too familiar look, rubbing his chin in thought when the questions continued.

"Well, it was big enough to pick up Sora and squeeze him to death. Or at least, it would've if it hadn't been for me." It wasn't exactly the most glamorous of rescues seeing as that he got knocked out in the end, but that wasn't something he had to divulge to his best friend. Axel was about to continue when he heard the intercom go off, signaling him that their time was up for now.

"I guess that's that," He sighed, pushing himself off the couch and reached forward to grab the pair of crutches on the ground. It was a good thing he gave himself some time to prep since his nurse walked over just as he made sure he wasn't going to tip over.

"Let's get you to the cafeteria, Mr. Flynn. They're serving pizza." He nodded to his nurse, glancing over his shoulder at his friend.

"Hey Roxas," Axel started. "If you need to get a hold of me you can always use the bulletin. In fact, you can use that to tell me what you’re going to choose."

And so, with a final wave, he followed his nurse out the Sun Room.

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Day 32: Sun Room (2nd shift)

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