damned_institute | Day 36: Game Room

Welly welly welly welly welly welly well.

Emperor Peony Upala Malkuth IX felt like he hadn't moved in a long time. Man, were these bones getting weaker or something? He wasn't a creepy vampire like Jade, he wasn't going to disintegrate in the light or anything. But as he struggled to pull himself out of bed, and promptly fell to the floor, tangled in sheets in which he had slept similar to an eggbeater last night, he couldn't help but look around.

Hmm, maybe it had been a while since he'd been awake. He certainly felt refreshed, that was for sure. Like he'd slept and slept and slept. Mm, how nice.

When the nurse came to tell him how long he'd been sleeping (through all of yesterday!) it didn't even strike Peony that other people might have been worried about his absence. They were big boys; they could handle themselves. Even cute little Anise was more man than the rest of 'em.

So what would a guy like him do in a place like this? Play with silly little gadgets, of course. It'd been a few days since he'd had the chance to tool around with the weird fontech they kept in the Game Room. So he grabbed one of the Nintendo GAME BOY TMs that were sitting on the table. And found the on switch.

Plopping into one of the cushy seats, the emperor began to engross himself in the set of little falling blocks like it wasn't no thing. How absolutely droll, the way they all seemed to fit together! And how totally lame that they didn't have toys like this on Auldrant. Boooo.

[for Cheating Boy A]

"You've been really lucky that your friends had decided to visit you, João!" The nurse babbled on as she escorted him to the game room. Now that he had visitor shift over with, he was finally allowed to go there.

Though 'lucky' wasn't the word the Noah would use for describing those visitor shifts. Despite how he had acted around them, the whole ordeal didn't sit all that well with him. He shrugged, eventually guessing that thinking about it too long wouldn't be helpful.

The hobo sat down at a random table, absent-minded-ly doing some card tricks with one of the decks lying around to keep himself occupied. He had a deck of his own right now, of course, but with the staff watching their every move they simply remained in his pocket.

Today had been disappointing, and it was hard to keep much enthusiasm, but he tried. Rukia's disappearance had hit him pretty hard, combined with the mess last night, it was just difficult to imagine that things would be getting better anytime soon.

Without much to do, he'd drifted off in the Sun Room, though it was rare for him to feel so lethargic. Must be the lack of sleep in this place. With a yawn, he tottered into the next room, ushered by a nurse. There weren't really any familiar faces, not any he'd been formally introduced to at least. Except for one.

Allen sat across the table, watching the card trick for a moment before he put on a faint smile. "Hey. Haven't seen you for a few days."

Tyki hadn't actually noticed Allen approaching before the boy had sat down and spoke up, too deep in thought to notice much of what was going on around him. He was surprised for a moment, but soon recovered his composure.

What a funny thing for the boy to say that, though. "What? Thought I had already kicked the bucket?" he said, but the grin that had appeared on his face proved that he was just teasing. His white side wasn't much of an ass compared to his black, anyway.

"Oh- well, no, nothing like that," Allen replied, caught off-guard by the man's answer. He rested an elbow on the table, placing his chin in his hand.

If this guy could make a living hustling cards, he could probably make one anywhere. Allen ought to know. He did look like he'd been having a rough time, though that seemed to be true of many, if not most of the patients. "I don't know if I ever caught your name. Um, I'm Allen. Allen Walker."

His name, huh?

Tyki guessed that it would have happened sooner or later. Not that the Noah did a real effort of hiding the fact he had two lives, but he wasn't all that obvious about it either. At the very least, it had never stopped him from simply using the same name regardless which side he was in.

Until now, at least, but only because there was a huge risk of outright blowing his cover. Of course, both of his sides were nothing like each other, so it could easily be a case of two people sharing the same name. One had to wonder if the boy happened to be this gullible, though.

But it was pretty easy for him to think of a fake name, was it? After considering the most interesting of the two options, he finally answered;

"The name's Tyki."

There weren't many people in this room, but they were all strangers to her. She glanced around nervously, then picked up a deck of cards and retreated behind one of the couches, sitting with her back against the back of the couch. She knew the nurse would scold her for hiding, but at the moment Hanyuu didn't care. Even though she was afraid of ending up alone again, a few minutes of solitude wouldn't do any harm.

After fanning several of the cards in her hand, she looked over them carefully. Were these marked, like the ones back home had been? Hanyuu couldn't tell; she'd never paid close enough attention to see how the individual cards had been marked.

The spirit sighed, realizing how sad that seemed now. Over a hundred years she had watched and laughed along with them, yet never had she considered trying to memorize the various marks. Well, paying attention to the people holding the cards was much more important, wasn't it? And besides, it wasn't as though she expected to ever actually play with the other club members. And now that the club lacked one very important member...

"Auau," Hanyuu sighed once more as she grouped the cards back together and shuffled them. Or rather, she tried to shuffle them. Instead, it looked as though she had decided to take part in a very impromptu game of 52 pickup.

Tokito's first instinct was to grab one of the Game Boys, even if it was a clunky old one and probably didn't have any good games. But a moment's thought immediately revealed the problem with that idea: his hand was still stiff and a little achey from the fit he'd had, and he'd probably crush the life out of the Game Boy if he tried to use it. Then there would be awkward questions, and maybe he'd get in trouble, too.

The second-best option was, of course, hiding alone in a corner somewhere, but someone would probably be nosy and come up to him if he did that. Tokito scowled to himself and gave the nurses hovering around him a suspicious glare. Worse yet, they might try to make him socialise. Stupid nurses.

Eventually Tokito settled on choosing the least offensive person he could think of to spend the shift with. A little kid seemed just about right, as long as they weren't the bouncy noisy kind. This kid definitely didn't look bouncy, or noisy. So Tokito crouched and started helping her pick up the cards. "Hi."

Hanyuu had thought she'd picked out a decent hiding place--even if it wasn't very hidden. She hadn't expected anyone to suddenly start helping her with the cards, and she jumped slightly when someone did just that. Thankfully she managed to hold onto the cards she'd managed to already pick up, so they were saved from having to go through a second round of pickup.

"Ah, h-hi," she said, managing to give him a quick smile once the surprise shook off. "And, um, th-thank you... For helping with the cards, I mean."

Tokito managed a smile, since the little girl seemed so very shy. He wasn't usually an impressive or intimidating sort of presence, but maybe any adult was scary for her? Picking up the last few cards, he arranged them into a neat pile and offered them to the little girl. "This is a good spot. Cozy. I'm Tokito."

Hanyuu nodded as she took back the cards. "Y-yeah, I thought so too. I didn't think anyone would find me here." Unless someone didn't see her and ended up tripping over her, or unless someone threw something behind the couch and accidentally hit her... Actually she hadn't thought about that last possibility before; this was a much better alternative.

"But it's okay that you did!" she quickly added, not wanting him to think she wanted him to leave. "I don't mind. I'm Hanyuu. It's, um... It's nice to meet you, Tokito."

Tokito felt more at ease with Hanyuu than he had at any point since arriving here. She was so small and cute and obviously harmless! He felt his smile getting a little wider, a little more genuine. "I like quiet places too, but the nurses are such busybodies. I figure if we're together they'll think we're okay and not bother us. Did you want to play a card game?"

That really was a good idea! As long as they were with someone else, the nurses shouldn't have any reason to scold or bother them. And Tokito seemed like a nice person, especially since he'd helped pick up the cards, so maybe it really was a good thing that he found her.

"Sure! I'd love to play a game, but... Auauu, I've never played any card games before." Watching and playing were two different things, after all. "Are there any games you know how to play?"

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