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!]

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Hanatarou paused when Keman began to laugh, then finally offered an uncertain smile of his own. "Umm. Well." With his luck, it was fortunate the shinigami hadn't poked out an eye or lost a limb or something equally terrible. Of course, he was part of the 4th Division, so the mishaps thus far had been easily tidied up. "I-it is just juice."

After a second's consideration, Hanatarou removed the rest of the food from his bag and shoved the damp napkin inside, then carefully took up his own juice box. With the tip of his tongue sticking out as he concentrated, the healer very carefully imitated Keman's earlier demonstration, though without spraying juice all over. He regarded the successful straw implantation for a moment, startled that he had actually succeeded, then curiously turned the container around in his hands. "Why do they have to make this so hard?"

Oh, there was a smile. Keman grinned at his slightly soggy new friend. "You're a lot better at it than I am, at least?" He took a sip from his now mostly-empty juice box. There was barely a mouthful of juice left. "I think it's got to be some sort of test," he joked, "in which case I failed it miserably."

Well, there were other things he could've really failed at. At least it was just juice.

"Oh," he said after a minute, "I think you mentioned that Rukia's from the same place as you? Does that mean you're also a...Shiny...no, that's no it...Shinigami?" He'd mangled the pronunciation somewhat, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

At least the juice tasted pretty good, Hanatarou noted, when he was drinking it and not getting it all over himself. Maybe that was the point of the "juice box" - once you'd figured out the puzzle of opening it, the sense of accomplishment made the contents taste better?

When Keman asked his question, though, Hanatarou was startled enough that his hands tightened on the box he was holding - fortunately, enough of the juice was gone that it didn't have the same effect as earlier, but for a second he thought that it might and almost dropped the thing. "Y-yes, um." The shinigami nodded, quickly shoving the juice box into the bag with the discarded napkin lest he fumble with it some more. "I'm...but I'm not, er. R-Rukia-san is much stronger than I am."

"Is she?" Keman shrugged and gestured vaguely at a point somewhere just below his shoulder. "My little sister is about this tall and weighs a great deal less than I do, and is about twice as powerful as I am. Maybe even more than that. I'm the absolute weakest of our little group, and I still get by." He smiled. "I hate cliches, but power and strength aren't everything, right?"

"Well, I-I guess...?" Hanatarou smiled again, a little less hesitantly this time. It was very nice of Keman-san to try to be reassuring and all, though the shinigami wasn't terribly concerned about the fact that he was smaller and weaker. It might be nice to be special and powerful, but he wasn't and that was just how things were.

Hanatarou carefully removed the wrapper from the granola bar like he'd seen Keman do earlier, glad that this couldn't make a mess all over. "I'm just 4th Division. Um. A healer. N-nothing special."

Keman clapped the other boy on the shoulder. "Being a healer is special, especially here. People get hurt all the time, and you'll be able to to help them. What do you mean by '4th Division,' though? And...ah..." He blushed slightly. "Do you know Orihime Inoue, by chance? Since you're from the same place and you're both healers, and...yes."

Hanatarou looked momentarily startled at the gesture. "Ah, th-the 4th Division is the medical and supply division of the Gotei 13. Um. I, I don't know how much help I would be, b-but if I can help, I'd like to." He gave an embarrassed little half-shrug and shook his head once. "When I was out last night I just got in the way."

He perked up a little at mention of Orihime's name, though, blinking up at Keman curiously. "Orihime-san? Um, yes, I...I've met her. She and her friends were in Soul Society for a while, a-and before I came here I was supposed to be with a group going to find her."

Day 35: Bus 1

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