damned_institute | 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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

Day 35: Bus 1

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