damned_institute | Day 36: Waiting Room, Lobby 2

It wasn't the greeting that finally snapped Yukari out of her thoughts; perhaps with any other person, it may have taken her a moment or so before she bothered to look up at all. It was that voice-- oh, she knew it all too well, even if it was one she hadn't heard in a very long time. Oddly enough, it didn't quite register to her at first, as if she couldn't place the name right away. But all she had to do so solve that little problem was to look up. And she did.

In mere seconds Yukari suddenly forgot to breathe, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly agape; she wasn't sure why she was ready to say anything when nothing came to mind. She sat frozen in her seat, disbelief as clear as day written on her face. No way, no way. This wasn't possible. They didn't-- they couldn't--

Somewhere in that time frame, Yukari managed to push herself up to her feet, her eyes never leaving the man's face. Her sights weren't lying to her, that really was...

"... Dad?" was all Yukari could say in response, her voice very clearly reflecting her feelings.

"Of course," he said. "What, you thought I would be too busy to come and see you? That's ridiculous. I always have time for my Kara," he said, ruffling her hair affectionately. "Not even working late last night could keep me away from here today."

She would be pleased to hear the news he had for her later, I'm sure, but first, he wanted to check on his daughter's well-being. He took a seat next to her, and motioned for her to sit down. "How have the staff been treating you? I know it can't be fun for you to be here. Your mother, stepmother, and I had a long talk, though, and we decided that it was for the best after you tried to hurt yourself."

He nervously adjusted the collar of his shirt. "Now, tell me. Are you feeling any better at all?"

Oh, god. This was like some horrible, twisted dream, and Yukari didn't have the slightest idea how she was supposed to feel about it. Her father was here-- if there was anyone at all she ever wanted back, it was him. But he was using that fake name of hers, not to mention he was, well... gone. She understood what he said, but none of it made sense. This was as though they took who he was supposed to be and made him believe everything the nurses here wanted him too.

Her bad mood from earlier was starting to come back, although for entirely different reasons.

Yukari only jerked slightly when he ruffled her hair, the same way he did when she was a little girl. This was too much. Insist she was someone else? Whatever, it was easy enough to brush it all off. Pit her against some monsters? Fine, she could deal, they were creepy as hell but at least she could get over it. But never in her life would she imagine she was prepared for this. She frowned slightly in confusion, eying the chair she had just been in; now she really wasn't in the mood to sit, but... Yukari resumed her spot again anyway.

"Stepmom?" Yukari echoed. That couldn't be right; if her father was somehow alive in this made up life of hers, why would she have a stepmother? If it wasn't for his death, of course her parents would still be together, and her mom wouldn't have started flinging herself at every other guy she ran into! "Of course I'm 'feeling better'!" She didn't mean for her response to sound so snappy, but Yukari couldn't help but feel like that was such a silly question. Nothing was ever wrong with her in the first place! "I'm fine-- I've been fine."

He frowned, wide, dark eyes narrowing. "You're not fine, Kara, and the fact that you don't remember what happened speaks to that, I'm afraid." He sighed deeply, then continued.

The staff had warned him that she might need to be reminded of what she had been like before, and that it was an unfortunate aftereffect of the hallucinations the poor girl had been suffering from. It didn't make it any more pleasant to need to do it, however.

"Your mother and I divorced when you were a child, and I've been remarried for quite some time. You decided to come and live with us after I remarried, actually, and you grew very close to your stepmother. In fact, while you've been away, we've had some happy news, and I think you'll be thrilled to hear it. We've found out that we'll be having a baby. You won't be an only child any longer."

He smiled at her. "Won't it be great to have a little brother or little sister? Don't worry, your stepmother has made me promise to take some time off work when the baby is born. I don't know what the Knight Company will do without me, but they'll just have to make do."

... What?

Her conflicted feelings were getting worse and worse; it was a life story that, if Yukari could bring herself to honestly admit, didn't sound all too bad. It sure sounded happier than the one she knew, there were no accidents and deaths, no scorn from neighbors and no blame set on her father... A life that sounded appealing, a small part of her had to say. Although she had to wonder why her parents would ever separate at all under those circumstances-- she remembered her mother to be a good person once upon a time, Yukari only hated her for what she had become. Heh, perhaps in this make believe life, her mother had become that terrible person much sooner. She wouldn't have blamed her father for ever leaving her.

"Yeah," Yukari answered, sounding a little sullen. He sounded so happy about it... Like this is how his life was supposed to go. The news was yet another surprise, of course, but she could hardly bring herself to show it. It was all lies and deception, she needed to remember, whether they were using his face or not. Her real father always called her by her name. "That'll be... great." She paused for a moment, before adding more; something she wished she could have said when she was younger; "Work isn't more important, anyway."

"Kara, you never did like the number of hours I worked. I must have explained a thousand times how important it was, but you never listened." He kept the lecture on the light side, though, not wanting to upset his daughter or send her into another one of the fits she'd been having. "It took what happened to make me realize I'd been neglecting my family."

"I've never been more scared for you than the moment I found you. We knew you hadn't been yourself. Your teachers had sent notes home from school, your boyfriend hadn't been coming around, but none of us really knew how troubled you were." He closed his eyes and fidgeted with his tie.

"We thought you were just talking about some ghost story you'd heard at school, but..."

Ghost story? Uhg, she wasn't touching that one! As if she'd go around talking about those stupid rumors people like to spread...

Yukari fidgeted slightly in discomfort, trying to keep her frown to a minimum. Yeah, that's what he always said before. Work was more important than this and that, and look how things ended up! If only the damn Kirijo group didn't insist on needing him so much... With a sigh, she sank some in her seat.

"I'm..." What, sorry? Maybe if this were all true she would be, because putting this much trouble on someone who was supposed to be her family was beyond her. But what should she be sorry for when it wasn't? Yukari didn't have a clue what she was supposed to say in response.

"We're the ones that should be sorry - me, your mother, and your stepmother. You kept talking about hearing things and seeing things...and we kept on going about our lives. I was working long hours on an important project, but you should have been my priority."

He sighed - he really hadn't intended to make her uncomfortable, and she clearly was. "Kara, you were sick, and we let it go until it was too late - until someone found you in the school dorms covered in blood. You had always been so strong and so independent, and we assumed you would be all right, that this was just a phase you were going through. You had always liked ghost stories, after all."

He turned to look at her, patting her shoulder reassuringly. "I resolved right then that it doesn't matter what the Knight Company wants from me. I'm going to be there for you, because I don't want to ever see you that way again. And...I should ask, since you're so upset. You don't want to hurt yourself like you did that night right now, do you?"

"Huh?" Yukari lifted her head again, giving him an odd look. "Don't say that," she continued, shuddering briefly. "I hate ghost stories." Honestly, how could he claim that about her?! She wasn't going to try to disprove everything he was saying, but this was definitely something she would.

Yukari kept silent through out most of the story though; it was entirely too strange thinking what if this really was her life. She would never let this sort of thing get the better of her. But all this is what the institute wanted him to believe, and no matter how much she protested he would say otherwise. Dammit... Landel was going to pay for using her father's face in this way. His name had already been tainted enough back home-- this was going too far.

She averted her eyes away again when he patted her shoulder. "No," she replied after a moment's hesitation, simply and half-heartedly. Yukari never did, but who knew what saying that would lead to. "I don't."

That was an odd reaction. "What? But.." he began to protest that point, but stopped. If Kara was insisting she didn't like scary stories, then that very likely meant that she wasn't hallucinating about them, and it was better not to push that point too hard.

"I'm so glad," he said. "The doctors still don't think you'll be ready to come home for a while, but it seems like you're making progress. You always were determined, so I'm glad to see that hasn't changed."

Oh. That was right, he had something for her. "Your mother and I met briefly before I came here. She said to tell you that she's sorry that she wasn't able to make it, but she's...well, you know your mother. Always on the go."

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small box. "She asked me to give you this. It's a bracelet she picked out for you. She said she hoped you would think of her when you wore it." He lifted the lid, showing the small silver bracelet with rose quartz adorning it.

Progress. Right. The only progress Yukari was determined to achieve was the kind that would get her and everyone else out of here-- to their real homes, not whatever kind of world this place built up. It was almost kind of depressing to think about, knowing she wasn't going back to whatever role she was supposed to be taking; this man who was supposedly her father was going to end up disappointed in one way or another.

Yukari wasn't in the least surprised that her 'mother' didn't bother to show up. She never did, but if anything Yukari was more than happy to keep it that way. Back home, she hadn't seen her mother in quite a few years and wasn't complaining about it. The only contact the girl had with her was the occasional phone call, and even those were an absolute pain to deal with. 'Always on the go', all right-- to her next boyfriend of the week, maybe. What happened next managed to deter those thoughts away, however.

She was surprised to see the bracelet when he opened the box-- she was surprised there was a box at all. The fact that her mother thought about her enough to even bother was, well... Yukari didn't want to be happy about it, nor did she want to be reminded of that woman at all. But there was still something about it that let Yukari take the box in her own hand and inspect it for a moment. It really was beautiful... It was awfully similar to something she saw at the mall that she liked enough to consider getting.

"... Dad," Yukari spoke up again after a period of silence, sounding much like a modest child scolding their parent for doing something like this. With a breath, she rubbed at the corner of her eye with the palm of a free hand. "You didn't-- she didn't have to."

"Now, now, don't cry," he replied, noticing that she looked as if she were just about to do so. "I know you must be disappointed that she wasn't able to come see you herself, but she really does care about you. She just...well, as I said, you know your mother."

He refrained from going into further detail. The real reason that his ex-wife hadn't wanted to come was that she found it too difficult to think about her daughter in a place like this. He found it just as difficult, but this was his baby girl. There had been no question that he would come.

In the end, it was easier to just stick to the subject at hand, rather than getting into all of the complicated issues. "She beat me to the punch on that one, actually. I know you've always loved things like that. I was going to wait for your birthday, Kara, but."

He looked around the room - there were nurses gathering already. That meant time was growing short, and he still had messages to pass on before he left. "I'm afraid I won't be able to stay much longer. I have a lot of messages for you. Which one do you want to hear first, the one from your friends, or the one from your boyfriend? I know you won't want the one from school right away."

She didn't want to, especially right here, but everything was starting to get so emotionally draining, that's all she wanted to do. Yukari managed to refrain from doing so, though, because there were all these people around them and her father would probably insist some more not to. Instead, she closed the box carefully and left it on her lap.

It was for the best, Yukari decided, that this mother figure of hers didn't come in the end. Whether she was caring or not, Yukari was sure she might have ended up bickering with her as usual, and that was one of the last things she needed right now.

Messages, huh? The girl glanced up at him blankly, as if she weren't sure where to begin, either. She didn't even know who these apparent 'friends' were, and... a boyfriend? It wasn't that dating was beyond her, but Yukari had never been one to seek out a relationship, nor did she really want anyone getting that close to her anyway. Besides, who would want to go out with a girl who was supposedly crazy? No guy she knew, for sure.

None of this was making sense to begin with, anyway. "What did my friends have to say?" Yukari picked, going with the order he gave the options. It was easier than trying to decide which one she should go with first.

"Well, your archery club teammates say that they miss you, and hope you won't be too out of practice when you get back. The longer message is from your friends at the dorm - what are their names again? The two seniors, the one boy in your class, and the shy girl...Ah, right. Andrew, Melanie, Josh, and Faye. They said to tell you that they're all concerned about you, want you to get well as soon as you can, and they're sorry that they couldn't do more to help. They said they would also try and come visit you, if you don't mind them coming."

He adjusted his tie once again. "Your boyfriend - I'm sorry, I can never remember his name. The dark-haired boy, with the hair that looks blue in the right light. He said that he misses you, too, very much, and that he apologizes if he did or said anything to make you upset."

W- wait, her 'boyfriend' was supposed to be... him?! This would have been a million times easier if Yukari had no idea who he was referring to, but unfortunately she did, and she could nearly feel her cheeks going red. How embarrassing! Sure they were good friends back home, but they weren't together!

God, this was awkward. Was everyone she knew paralleled here in one way or another? It took Yukari a moment to place the names to faces, although once she figured out the pattern it wasn't hard. Augh, no way, they couldn't all come here. As much as she'd like to see her dormmates again, she would prefer to see the real them, not these fake alternates who all claimed to be something else entirely (the fact that there were alternates to begin with belatedly struck her as baffling, but that could be something to think about later).

She wasn't going to be saying that aloud, though. "Um... I'll think about it," Yukari responded, attempting to hide her flustering. After a pause, mostly to regain her bearings, she added, "I do miss everyone, but..." It was kind of awkward admitting so, and perhaps if it were anyone else she wouldn't have; sadly, he'd never understand she was talking about other people entirely. "I'm glad it was just you."

"I'm kind of glad it's just me, too, Kara. It's been a while since we've really gotten to talk, hasn't it?" He smiled at her, ruffling her hair again. She wasn't close to crying anymore, which was a relief.

"We used to do this all the time when you were a little girl, remember? I'd take you out for ice cream or some other treat, and you'd talk my ear off about everything in the world. You were always so eager to go, and you even made a game out of seeing how fast you could get ready. It seems like only yesterday."

"Yeah..." All the time-- whenever he managed to get a day off of work. Or maybe it was more often than she thought; Yukari couldn't say she remembered every day, it was a long time ago. "Yeah, I remember."

"We could do something like that again." Yukari knew it would be nothing but an empty promise, but in the meantime, going along with this talking to her father as if she really could go back eventually and see him again... It might have been selfish of her, grasping on to some strange temporary satisfaction like this, but if it was she didn't care right then.

"Then, that's a promise; one I intend to keep better than I have. I'm sorry that I haven't been there as much as I should have been. I could make excuses, but there aren't any. I failed you."

He looked down at the floor, inspecting the carpet in the room. "I just hope you can forgive me. I know you're strong enough to get better, but I also know I haven't exactly done right by you."

Yukari was doing a pretty good job of inspecting the floor, herself; she fell silent, although she already knew what she wanted to say. When she finally spoke up, her voice was soft and sincere; "I'm not blaming you for anything, dad."

Whether it was in this world or her own, even after doing possibly the worst in either, Yukari never could do so. Besides, back in Yakushima she was told to keep on to her hope, so that's what she was going to do. There were other people who were at fault for how things ended up, anyway.

"I wouldn't blame you if --" He stopped in mid-sentence when a nurse walked up to the pair.

"Mr. Blenn? I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm afraid that your visiting time is almost over. You'll need to say goodbye to your daughter now." The nurse that approached them sounded truly apologetic.

When she walked away, he sighed. "It seems as if I only just got here. I'm sorry I can't stay longer, Kara," he said, frowning deeply. "I'm glad we got to talk, though. I promise we'll do that more, starting the minute you come home. That will be soon, too. You're my brave, strong, and determined little girl, after all. You always have been, and you always will be."

He reached over and gave her a hug. "I have to go now, but I promise I'll come back as soon as I can. I love you, Kara."

A moment later, he stood, turning reluctantly and walking towards the door. He turned around once more, waving, and then left.

Day 36: Waiting Room, Lobby 2

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