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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"A heart breaker, huh?" Kaito said, still grinning. After a short pause, he laughed again, raising his hands up between them as if in surrender. "Okay, okay, I'll stop now. Promise."

He dropped his hands into his lap, shifting his position again to get more comfortable.

"Good," Yukari replied. "... I'll give you credit, though," she continued, her tone falling into a more casual one. "You learn quicker."

Much better than the persistent ones. Then again, Kaito couldn't have been entirely serious, or at least planned to get anywhere with that. Not here, anyway.

"I always have been a fast learner," he responded cheerily. "And it helps to know when to give up."

Not that he actually would always give up even when all signs pointed to it being the smartest choice... He never quit when it came to teasing Aoko, but getting chased by his friend and her mop in the end was really half the fun!

Alright, so he was just a shameless flirt. He would fit right in at Gekkoukan; it may have not been her thing, but a lot of the girls often fell for those acts.

"Something more of you guys should pick up on," she said with a playful roll of her eyes. "That aside, sheesh; I bet I sound like I'm trying to be a challenge to get." Or something. Like Yukari knew how their brains worked.

"I was picking up on more of a 'not interested' vibe than a 'playing hard to get' one, really," Kaito replied. His grin relaxed into a friendly smile as he continued, "If I'd thought you had been pretending, I would've stopped after the initial compliment. I may tease, but I don't string girls along."

He could have stopped there regardless. Eh, at least nobody else overheard, or so she hoped. But nobody knew her here, so maybe that would spare her from anyone actually caring. Maybe.

Auuugh. What was a better topic? It wasn't as bad as most of the other things she's talked about before, here, but it was kind of heading towards awkward. She wasn't about to talk about herself like this!

"So," Yukari began, in a totally abrupt way to divert the conversation. "Ekoda, huh? I can't say I've been around there, either."

Kaito didn't miss the sudden change of topic, but he wasn't going to fight it. He'd had his fun, and he wouldn't press further if she was uncomfortable with the subject.

"I'm not surprised. Tokyo's a big place, and Ekoda's not exactly high on list of sights to see."

"I haven't been there long enough to see too much of it," Yukari replied. Before she settled back to Iwatodai, she had only gotten a little taste of all the places her mom and she moved to. Never sticking around one area for long was always such a pain.

Curiously, she tilted her head some. "Are you looking for people from close to home? Usually no one asks right away where someone is from."

"Finding people from home wasn't really my intention, but after meeting some people who aren't even from Earth, I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask," he explained. "Just to be sure."

He really didn't want to make the mistake of assuming that this place was definitely worse than people's homes again; that particular mistake could've turned out very badly, and he was grateful it hadn't.

"Oh." She made a thoughtful frown. "... I don't really get it, myself," Yukari admitted, then sighed. "Everything about this place is just too crazy for my tastes." And she was only putting that lightly.

"Yeah, it's so weird here," Kaito agreed. Crazy wasn't necessarily bad, but this place was definitely the wrong brand of crazy... especially at night. "So how long've you been stuck here?"

And so they've done the inevitable and drifted back into talking about Landel's. It was impossible not to, though, there wasn't anything else to talk about; everything, in one way or another, was going to point right back to it.

"About three days," Yukari answered, sinking back into the couch. "I know it's not that long, but that's still three days too many."

"Mm," Kaito grunted in agreement. "I got here about the same time as you, then... And I definitely agree with you there."

He frowned, pushing out of his relaxed position against the couch and stretching slightly. Three days was already way too long to be in this prison. What would a week be like, or two?

"I think I liked talking about home better." Or teasing her, but there was only so far he'd push someone he'd just met. "What's it like in Iwatodai?"

The same as her? This was the first time she'd met someone who wasn't already 'experienced' with Landel's; it was actually sort of... comforting, in a way, knowing he might be as clueless and lost on many things like she was. Whenever she did look at the bulletin, most people looked like they knew what the heck they were talking about. Or maybe he wasn't-- Yukari managed to pick up on a good handful of things, perhaps he was able to get just as much, or more.

She didn't bother asking, however. It was hard to disagree with Kaito's last statement.

"Yeah, me too," Yukari agreed, then became thoughtful. "It's... nice, I guess. There isn't anything special about it, it's a pretty typical city. But I like it."

Kaito smiled again, his temporarily dampened mood lightening once they steered away from the topic of the Institute.

"That's good," he said. "Always helps to like where you live. I don't think I'd want to have been anywhere but Ekoda growing up."

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Day 32: Sun Room (2nd shift)

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