damned_institute | Day 34: Breakfast

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Day 34: Breakfast

[starting off in M13]

The last part of the night was little more than a blur in Homura's mind. The men had rushed in, but not joined them, instead staying off to themselves. Before any of them had a chance to react, however, a voice sounded through the air, mocking some other person Homura had never heard of, and the patients themselves.

To Homura, whoever that man was, he sounded a great deal like a god.

But before he could ask questions, the demi-god found himself no longer in the chapel, but some strange room on a bed. Is that what Kenren had meant from his earlier warning? Homura sat up, glad at least that the world didn't spin when he did so. Then the same man from before began to speak again, with a completely different tone. It was confusing to hear him talk that way, calling them patients instead of prisoners as he had before. Homura listened quietly as the announcement was made, then got out of bed.

Maybe he wouldn't have to go anywhere yet. It wasn't like Homura knew where to go anyway, and that meant he had time. If this was his room, and if he had been here as long as Kenren had said, there was a chance he could find something with answers. The Taisho had even told him that Homura had seen Rinrei. Certainly he would've written something down, made a map, something that could let him find her again! He started with the desk at the end of his bed, first finding a small stack of notebooks. Picking up the first, he flipped through, turning the pages with quickening desperation as he found each one to be blank.

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He felt like he was sticking to things. He most certainly wasn't, but he could feel it in his mind. He needed a shower and requesting one after his little display this morning probably wasn't going to work. He regretted acting so rashly, but... who would blame him? They came and took him and tortured him, did worse than torture him and now--

Himura. Wonderful.

Not only did he have to deal with the knowledge that he was disgustingly filthy and injured, but now Himura. He couldn't stab him, he couldn't do a thing. They were allies. Right. Allies. He had to remember that.

It was humiliating to appear before him in this state, but Okita had no choice. Anytime he attempted to get up either a nurse or his injuries protested. He absolutely hated being an invalid. "Of course, Himura-san," he said, maintaining his usual veneer of pleasantness. "Please, sit. We've been missing each other quite a lot lately, don't you agree?"

"We have," Kenshin agreed. He sat, but part of him wondered if he shouldn't postpone their meeting yet again. Okita didn't look to be in the stablest of moods. But...no. They'd put this off for far too long already. Okita had a right to know, didn't he?

The rurouni picked at his food for a moment, thinking. How was he supposed to go about this? Just blurt it out? Soften it, somehow?

"The first time that the two of us met," he started slowly, "was in the January after the Ikeda-ya Incident. You were on patrol with Saitou...and he wouldn't let you cross swords this one because you were already showing signs of consumption." He was talking faster now, hoping to get it all out before Okita could interrupt. "It was the first that this one had heard about it, but it was not the last. You died in the first year of Meiji, about three and a half years after that day."

And there it was. The truth he had never let a single soul utter before because saying it was not only taboo, but it was defeatist. In their day and age, it was a death sentence, a slow and agonizing one that left the greatest of men broken in the end. Long before the Ikedaya, he had known. He had known when Hijikata began doling out medicines and nothing seemed to work. The Ikedaya had only confirmed it.

But here, he had been freed. No coughing, no sickness, no strange fatigue, nothing. He had a time when he was...healthy. Three and a half years. He had awhile yet. That was the most important thing. He had time.

Before, he would have been able to laugh and say things like "Oh, but I'm feeling perfectly fine!" Not anymore. Not when he knew what was crawling about in his system. It was back. And Saitou would know. If Saitou knew, then the others might. Maybe he didn't have time after all. Himura seemed terribly flustered though and although hearing that he was going to die of this disease did, in a way, cut him, he wasn't about to falter in front of the enemy. Sitting back in the wheeled chair, Okita licked the strawberry mess off his fork and tapped it against his lips. He had to play it cool. He had to keep himself under control.

The enemy had just told him he was going to die--

Calm. Right.

A smile crossed his lips and he looked at Kenshin over the fork, tapping it just to keep himself sane. "So that's how it goes, is it? I wonder why you wouldn't tell me sooner. It's not like I have that little problem here, after all." A lie. Lies were good.

Kenshin had braced himself for...something--another attack with plastic cutlery, perhaps--but nothing came. No attack, no harsh words...not even a sharp look. In fact, Okita seemed almost resigned to it.

So Kenshin had been right, it seemed. Okita knew about his disease. He had been consumptive during the raid on Ikeda-ya, though if he'd actually coughed up blood there for the first time was anybody's guess. The rurouni certainly wasn't about to ask.

And yet...Okita was acting a little too sanguine for someone who had just been told that he wouldn't live to see his twenty-sixth birthday. Even for someone as good at hiding his emotions as he was, that was pretty out of character.

That could mean a few things. Either Okita was even better at masking his feelings than Kenshin thought, or he was lying. He still had the disease, somehow. He had seemed so healthy before...had the "doctors" here managed to hide its symptoms, even from the person carrying it, somehow?

Speculation would only get Kenshin so far, though. It would be best if he just played along, for right now. "Oro?" he asked innocently. "Have you been cured?"

Damn him! Damn him for asking that question! Okita could still taste that disgusting mixture at the back of his throat. He still remembered the doctors telling him when he first arrived that he'd been cured and kept apart from others for awhile to ensure he was "safe." He remembered the freedom of knowing for one week, one glorious hell-filled week, that he was going to live.

And now it was gone. History couldn't be changed. Were they preparing to send him back? Back to die?

He couldn't let the mask slip. He had to pretend that he was, indeed, cured. He had to pretend that last night, being taken, being tortured, hadn't happened. Kenshin didn't know. Only the ones who had come knew and he could pass it off as something else entirely rather than...the kiss of death he'd received. Focus, control, calm - he had to retain these things if he wanted to get through this meeting without stabbing Kenshin in the face just to make him stop asking questions.

"When I arrived here, yes - the physicians mentioned they had to treat me for something." That much was the truth. "When you mentioned...that just now, I can only assume it was what they treated."

Only then, they've given it back. How long before he started coughing? How much longer did he have here?

Leaning forward, he set the tines of the fork down on the table, smiling at Himura in a little less than friendly manner. "Is that why you've been so edgy around me, Himura-san? Afraid I was going to make you ill?"

"No," Kenshin replied, openly and honestly. He didn't want to keep playing this...game of theirs. Hiding lies between false smiles didn't compliment either of them at all.

"We did fight on opposite sides of the Revolution, and you did try to stab this one with a knife on our first day," he reminded Okita, laughing slightly. "Okita-dono, as much as this one respects you, he must admit that when he is with you, there is a much more immediate danger than catching tuberculosis." It had been meant as a joke, and he hoped Okita would take it as such.

Ah, right. That little incident. It had been Okita's first encounter with the drugs in this place and it certainly hadn't been his last. Moving away from the idea of tuberculosis was good though. He hated dwelling on that, he hated people knowing and if Himura ever found out that he was ill again... No. That just wouldn't happen. It was as simple as that. The Battousai would never know that his enemy was weak again and he would never get a chance to strike. Not that Himura would ever-- Okita sighed internally at his own ridiculous thoughts and wondered if he'd ever stop seeing Himura Kenshin as a Choushuu rebel. "Yes, well, you did tell me you were part of the Choushuu and I had just arrived." Okita smiled pleasantly and withdrew the fork, stabbing a berry instead of Kenshin's throat. "I've been good since then, haven't I?"

Except for the slide incident, but Himura kind of deserved that one. ...kind of. "Besides, unless I'm given orders, you're safe and sound. So you needn't worry about anything else and certain not about catching anything from me."

The doctor had been quite specific about that. He was non-contagious, just a lab rat and a test subject. He would be the only one to suffer and hopefully, the only one to know. "So relax, hm? I'm not so foolish as to try stabbing you again with the nurses right here."

Kenshin smiled. "Yes, that was something of a mistake on this one's part, wasn't it?" If he had known then what he knew now, he wouldn't have mentioned the Bakumatsu at all, and he and Okita could have actually...gotten along. "And you have." Well, except for that incident with the slide, but he had kind of deserved that. Hadn't he? Still, they would never be able to move past the mutual tension. Okita would always see him as Choushuu first and rurouni second.

"That's good to know" he said lightly. Now...time to lead the subject even further away from what they had been talking about.

"May this one ask you a question?"

"I would have found out eventually," Okita said, raising the strawberry to his lips. It wasn't until it was almost to his mouth that he felt a lingering sensation of last night's filth on it and paused. Just thinking of that turned his stomach and made him lose his appetite. Still, he couldn't make it seem like he was at all out of sorts, so he sniffed the berry once just for show and then ate it. He didn't really taste anything.

Kenshin was trying to turn the conversation light again and Okita wondered what he would do if he hadn't been so utterly distracted by his wounds and his...problem. Acting natural had never been so hard. The disease, he could have dealt with, but the torture before and the taunting - that was eating away at him. He needed a shower and he needed to get away from people, but he had meetings lined up during the day.

He was about to go for another strawberry when Kenshin had to be vague. He just had to be vague. A question could mean anything; Homura, Hijikata, the war, his life, Himura's life, their alliance, the weather - the gods only knew what Himura was about to ask. Hesitation seemed normal, as did a wary sort of amusement. Okita went with those emotions as he considered Himura's request. "Certainly. What is it you'd like to know?"

Yes, Okita would have found out. And then he would have come after him with that knife again. Or with another pen. Or...maybe, if he had managed to keep it secret for long enough, with his new katana that Adelheid had forged through bizarre means. Maybe, in the long run, it was best that they had gotten over with it quickly?

As for the question...Kenshin was silent for a little while, wondering how best to phrase it. Part of him still didn't want to admit weakness in front of a (former) enemy, but logic won out. He needed to gather information.

"Have you ever encountered a creature here that...seems to be made of air, and is icy cold to the touch? It takes away its victim's will and leaves them feeling apathetic in return."

Keeping secrets from Okita Souji normally didn't work out too well in the end. If Kenshin hadn't told him, Okita would have found out and the rage at having helped an enemy would have caused him to do very not nice things to the rurouni. As it stood, they were on an uneasy truce and Okita was willing to let it stay like that so long as Himura stayed in Hijikata's good graces. He liked the rurouni well enough once he ignored the whole internal drive to kill the enemy thing.

Watching Himura now, Okita wondered just what sort of bomb his former enemy was about to drop on him. He was picking his words carefully, but whether it was out of tact or uneasiness was difficult to read. They weren't on the best of terms in Himura's mind either, then. Good to know.

And even better when the question finally came out. Okita felt relief flood him when Himura neglected to mention anything about disappearances or anything else that happened last night and he smiled, as if he was happy to help a fellow 'comrade.' This wasn't so bad to answer. "Yes, I have. It was spoken of on the bulletins as well. The shadow creatures feed off a person's will, leaving them a husk of who they once were. You encountered one last night?"

[okay, I lied. Shortish post ahoy?]

Okita looked almost...relieved when Kenshin asked about the will-sucking creature. What had he expected him to ask? Well...a variety of things, the rurouni supposed. There was so much left unsaid between them. Kenshin's recount of the first time he had met the young captain face-to-face was the closest he had ever come to outwardly admitting the fact that he had fought--and killed--members of the Shinsengumi during his time as a hitokiri for the Choushuu Ishin Shishi. Those things had to be left a secret, if the tenuous truce that kept Okita from shoving a knife into Kenshin's jugular was to hold.

"Yes. This one had also read about them on the bulletin, but...it didn't quite prepare him for the actual experience," he admitted. "But this one was lucky; it was only a glancing blow. Another young man in our group got the full brunt of it, and he did not fare half as well."

Why bring up the will-sucking creature if Himura already read about them? Watching the other carefully, Okita tried to figure out the man's angle. Was he just trying to change the subject? Was he trying to do a Landel's version of small talk? Or was he hiding something?

..did he know?

Okita quickly shoved that idea out the window. It was impossible for Himura to know anything. As far as the rurouni was concerned, Okita was injured, but not ill. He was cured, healthy and (as much as one could be in this place) reasonably well-off. "Unfortunate," he replied, eyes scanning the room for a moment. Heiji had mentioned Zuko's disappearance and now was a good time to check for the scarred teen. No sign of him so far. "At least your speed helped you, yes?"

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Day 34: Breakfast

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