damned_institute | Day 35: Bus 1

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Day 35: Bus 1

Sanji woke up groggily to find his nurse already in his room. He gave a sleepy and half-hearted "Buh?" before realizing that nurse meant dayshift, and he'd fallen asleep after dinner.

"Shit!" He sat up abruptly, which gave his nurse a start. "Nami-swan!" How had he allowed himself to sleep through an entire night? What if she'd tried to return to the basement? What if she'd been waiting for him to appear and protect her? He'd let her down!

"There, there. Calm down." His nurse set a familiar flannel shirt down on the bed and Sanji eyed it with confusion. The last time he'd worn that had been... "Sorry I didn't knock or anything, but I was so excited~!" A pair of jeans followed the shirt. "Today is the field trip into town! Aren't you looking forward to it?"

The chef had to admit, the town had been an interesting enough place the last time he'd been. If he could find Nami early on he might even be able to lead her around... So he didn't complain too much as he changed into the other outfit (which he really wished they'd let him keep - anything was better than the regular gray) and was led out to the first of the buses.

He took a seat near the front, hopefully easily visible to any of his crew - especially to a certain member of his crew.

[for Usopp!]

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Oh hell no.

That was the sum of Kaito's thoughts when the nurse dropped off a pile of clothes for him to wear on the bed. He would have stared incredulously at the t-shirt in the pile if he could have brought himself to even look at it.

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.

It had taken most of his courage to touch the shirt in order to fling it across the room, and his nurse had been very displeased when she returned to see that he'd changed into the worn jeans and sneakers she'd brought, but not the t-shirt. It took the rest of his courage not to resist (too much) when she forced the shirt over his head. He was just glad he was able to cover the horrible, horrible shirt by asking if he could get another shirt, or a jacket--anything, because he was cold. Or so he said. In truth, he just couldn't stand to see the shirt; just knowing he was wearing it gave him chills.

The nurse bustled away, returning a moment later to give him a thick black hoodie with a white skull and crossbones on the back. He pulled it on gratefully before following her over to the buses without fuss, glad that the shirt and its infernal message was now out of sight. If he could forget he was wearing it, or ditch it as soon as he had a moment... all the better.

The nurse dropped him off on a bus, leaving him with a brown paper bag with breakfast in it. He looked around quickly, looking for a seat. There was no sign of Hattori, but... was that Yukari?

Kaito headed for the girl and slid into the seat next to her. "Morning," he said, smiling at her. "You look good in pink!"

Edited 2008-09-05 00:57 (UTC)

Yukari glanced up from her dull looking gaze out the window, brightening some when she saw who took the spot beside her. Hey, it was someone she knew after all! "Mornin'," she replied, sliding closer to the window to give Kaito some space. "Oh, um," Yukari made a sheepish face at the compliment and brushed out her skirt. "Thanks. It's a nice change from what we normally have to wear."

"Yeah, having real clothes is nice," Kaito agreed, suppressing a shiver at the thought of the shirt he was wearing underneath the hoodie. No, he couldn't think about that. Pleasant thoughts, pleasant thoughts... Yukari was wearing a skirt. That was definitely pleasant.

It was just a shame she was sitting down. He could have flipped it were it not for that.

"I never thought I'd miss jeans so much," he said, picking at a loose thread on said jeans. "Or pockets."

He'd really, really missed his pockets. He was still short the number he would've liked, but it was a definite improvement over the patient uniforms, even with wearing the coat...

"Anything is better than those things they make us wear," Yukari responded with a sigh. "It's like nobody has any fashion sense around here."

She started on her breakfast by pulling out the apple slices; she was pretty hungry, come to think of it... Once again, she didn't have much of a dinner the night before. If there was one thing she was glad for, it was that they were good about serving food, even if it was mostly things she wasn't used to having. "This whole trip sounds like they're being a little too nice to us," Yukari commented after finishing her first apple slice. "I don't want to complain, but doesn't it?"

Kaito laughed. "What, you don't like grey and drab?" he questioned, grinning at her.

Following Yukari's cue, he reached into his bag of breakfast to pull out a muffin. He took a bite of it, thinking over what Yukari had said about the trip.

"You're right; it does seem like it's kind of weird," he agreed. "Real clothes, fresh air, a change of scenery... That announcement about it said we'd be chaperoned in town, but shouldn't they worried that some of us'll try to slip away and escape? It's not like we'll be inside the building where they can do... whatever it was they did during that riot."

Yukari rolled her eyes. "As if. I can't think of a worse color choice to use."

Slowly, she continued on, "Yeah." She knew she probably wouldn't try to run off herself-- Yukari was aware that sneaking around wasn't exactly her forte. But giving them this much freedom... There had to be someone that would be able to take advantage of it, chaperoned or not. "Landel must be pretty confident if he's allowing this much."

Although, she'd much rather not try to stir up trouble, not when the staff was everywhere. A nice day was much preferred.

"Do you think the people in town will believe us? If they knew what was going on, maybe we'd have some outside help."

"Oh, but it's so fetching on you!" Kaito insisted. After a brief pause, he smiled and admitted, "But pink really is much more your color. It brings out your eyes."

He frowned slightly at the thought of Landel. Yukari was right; Landel had to be confident in order to taunt them with a bit of freedom. It had to be an illusion, a misdirection...

Or maybe he just wanted them to think that? Misdirect them by not misdirecting them? He had to be pretty smart to have pulled this whole mental institute scam off in the first place, so it wasn't much of a stretch to think he could predict how they would react to the temptation of freedom.

It was like a carrot on a stick.

"I don't know if they'd believe us... Landel said this was a weekly trip, didn't he? They're probably pretty set in their view of the 'crazies', unless this whole mental hospital is a fairly new deal," he admitted. "But if we could convince someone that we're sane and that Landel is nuts, maybe that person could convince the rest of them..."

Yukari blinked for a moment, giving Kaito a stare before averting her eyes away from him; yeah, as if she'd give him the opportunity to look at her like that! ... Even if the compliment was nice, and they had already established last time he had no interest in her. In that case, fine, she'd let him slide with that, as long as it stayed that way. It was terribly annoying when boys did that just so they could hook up with her; if it was a genuine compliment, on the other hand, and only that, well... Yukari liked knowing, despite her outfit not being something she would choose on her own (the fabric didn't look nearly as nice as they did on her other clothes), it still looked okay.

Not that she would ever admit that, though. Instead, she feigned a slight frown, eventually turning her head towards him enough to look at him from the corner of her eyes. "Not really," she said flatly. "It could be better."

And that's all she could say without flat-out lying.

Yukari began emptying the bag some more, pressing it flat on her lap and setting everything in it on top of it. There, that would make this a little easier. "Maybe so," she replied disappointingly. "That would be just our luck, huh? But he couldn't possibly have influence over an entire town, too." Hopefully. It made sense he could have all the influence in the world inside the institute's walls, but could he have it beyond that? She rather hoped not. "Let's just hope these guys aren't fond of the mad doctor and could be."

"Oh, but you make it work," Kaito insisted good-naturedly. "And for you to look good in what the Institute's forced you into, you must look amazing in clothes of your own choice."

He took a bite of his muffin, chewing as he thought about how far Landel's influence might extend. "Well, it wouldn't hurt to try to talk to people in town and convince them..." he concluded. As long as they weren't going to be dead set on the idea that they were all nuts, maybe it would help.

... Sigh, he was going to keep at this, wasn't he? He was starting to sound awfully persistent.

"You know," Yukari began, smirking as though she thought he was up to something. "I don't know what you have in mind, but the flattery won't get you very far."

She leaned back in her seat some, eyes heading up towards the roof rather than outside the window. It didn't matter much which one of those was better to look at when she was mulling as much as Kaito was. "Alright. I will then." She took a moment to finish off the apple slices, then, "I'm not gonna be holding my breath though."

Kaito laughed. "Are you kidding?" he asked, grinning. "Don't you know that flattery makes the world go 'round?"

His grin slowly faded, replaced by a much more pensive look. "I think I will, too. Maybe between the two of us, or more if we can get some other people to join it, we'll find someone who'll believe us."

With his muffin finished now, Kaito opened the bag to see what else was for breakfast. He pulled out the granola bar, peeling open the wrapper. "I hope their idea of chaperoning is going to be loose. I think I would go crazy if I've got a nurse hanging over my shoulder all day."

"Maybe in yours," she responded back with a slight roll of her eyes.

Yukari nodded in agreement to the plan. "Right. We've got nothing to lose by trying." Except maybe further convincing the townspeople that they were crazy instead of the other way around. She was a little doubtful, because she couldn't deny if someone tried to tell her about some kidnapping, monster infested hospital she would be a little incredulous... Okay, now she couldn't brush it off as some weird story, but before she definitely would.

She wasn't sure whether to feel confident about the idea or not.

"Tell me about it," Yukari said with a sigh. "At least being able to pretend I have some sort of freedom from them for a while would be nice."

"Let's make it a mission," Kaito suggested. "We've both got to talk to the people in town to try to make them understand what's going on." Or to make them understand some of what was going on... It would be easy to sound completely nuts if they unloaded the full story on the first person they found, but if they approached the subject carefully, maybe it would work.

"But even if trying to convince them doesn't work, maybe we can at least dig up some good information."

Kaito fell quiet for a moment to finish off the granola bar, but then continued, "And, the third and most important part of the mission: go crazy, but don't go crazy." He grinned at Yukari. "Have fun, try to ditch any guards we might have, and enjoy being outside of that damn place."

"I think I can manage that," Yukari said, slipping a slight chuckle. 'Go crazy'? Despite the grin, he sounded so serious. Crazy just wasn't her thing; it seemed more like something Kaito was more capable of.

Convincing, she wasn't so sure how to approach, but Yukari knew she had to be able to get some sort of information. The people in the town couldn't be completely oblivious to what was going on-- even something like a rumor or a strange story would help. Those were usually twisted around into nonsense, but they had to start from somewhere.

"Mission accepted. I can promise to be able to get some of that done."

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Day 35: Bus 1

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