damned_institute | Day 36: Arts & Crafts Room

The nurse had told Wash he could go anywhere he wanted and the thought Is home included in that? crossed his mind, but that sounded too pathetic to say aloud, even for him. So he silently eenie meenie minie moe'd through his options, ended up choosing the Sun Room, and then promptly decided the Arts and Crafts room would be more interesting. At least there might be stuff he could fiddle with and distract himself.

A part of him couldn't decide if he was relieved or not he didn't get a visitor. He didn't think it would've gone the way a proper visit was supposed to go, but...

He stepped into the room and sat down at an empty table, rifling through the materials absently. This place looked much too cheerful. Although maybe that was better than looking much too scary, but it was so cheerful it was almost scary and now he was starting to confuse even himself.

After a second, he picked up a pair of scissors (these weren't scissors, they were more like plastic chopsticks) and a sheet of construction paper and began cutting.

[hi Badou~]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hanatarou was proud of the fact that he seemed to have possibly made a new friend, or at least an acquaintance willing to tolerate his presence (which was generally good enough for him). It was, however, a little chilly outside on the field so he was willing to head back in when given the choice.

He hadn't entered any of the rooms off the Sun Room yet, and curiously peeked into each of them in turn, torn for a moment between the music room and the crafts room before finally settling on the latter. One of the other patients seemed to be enthusiastically playing with some glitter, so the shinigami very carefully avoided that part of the room lest an unfortunate sparkly incident occur, and found himself a quiet table to one side.

After gathering some supplies, he began very carefully making flowers out of pipe cleaners and tissue paper, the tip of his tongue sticking out as he concentrated. A cardboard base sat to one side, waiting to hold the flower arrangement when he was done. It wasn't anything resembling the monthly 4th Division ikebana showcase, but it was the closest he could come to home.

[waiting for a Rinali]

Rinali hadn't seen much of Allen today, which made her a little sad. She worred about him, especially after the night he'd had. So she went and left a note for him. Nothing special, just letting him know she still planned on sticking by his side, and that she was worried about him. She paused briefly there, considering the last line before deciding to scribble it out. That accomplished, she wandered into the Arts and Crafts room to get a chance to relax.

There she saw another boy about her age, putting together what looked like a flower arrangement using some of the crafting materials given. She walked over and took a seat by him. "That's a very nice arrangement," she said with a smile. "Planning on making a gift for someone?"

Although the arrangement had been coming together about as well as could be expected with the materials Hanatarou had to work with, as soon as someone started to pay attention to him that all ended.

At the sound of someone addressing him the shinigami started and gave a quiet yelp of surprise, dropping the "flower" he was holding so that it, in turn, knocked its fellows over in a domino effect. He blinked a couple of times, then glanced from the fallen flowers up to the newcomer and immediately blushed a little in embarrassment.

"No, it's...um. I w-was just. Well. Playing around. It's nothing." He pushed the flower pile to one side and picked up another pipe cleaner, twisting it nervously between his fingers. "Um. S-sorry. Hello."

Rinali couldn't help but giggle at the mess Hanatarou made when she sat down. It was adorable how he stammered so suddenly and tried to discount what he'd done. "Well, it's still a very nice arrangement. Or was." She giggled a little more. "I'm sorry, that's very cruel of me to laugh. I didn't mean to startle you and ruin your art." She reached across the table and began setting the flowers back up, doing her best to arrange them the same way Hanatarou had. "Here, let me fix them."

She looked over at him and smiled. "Hi. I'm Rinali."

"Oh, ah, it's nothing special," Hanatarou insisted, ducking his head as he picked up another pipe cleaner and attached it to the first, using that as an excuse to not look up at the newcomer. It wasn't anywhere near as nice as real flowers would be, and even if he had real flowers he certainly couldn't come up with something to rival one of Unohana-taichou's arrangements.

It was rather nice of this girl to pretend otherwise, though. And even if she was laughing, it wasn't in a mean way, so maybe she was willing to be friendly. But then she started picking up the flowers again, and the shinigami glanced up, one hand reaching out a little before drawing back again. "Ah! No, it's all right, you don't have to...it was just..."

He cut himself off, realizing that there wasn't really much point in trying to stop her, and somewhat hesitantly returned the smile. "Um. I'm Yamada Hanatarou. You can just call me Hanatarou, though," he added, lest someone else start trying to address him as 'Yamada.'

"Here," Rinali said, finishing setting them back up. "Did you want to work on them together? I'm not really familiar with these materials, but what you were doing seems to make sense, I think we could make a lot of these before dinner!"

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Hanatarou," she said warmly.

She pulled out one of the pipe cleaners and looked at it. "What are these, anyways? I've never seen a material like it before...it's obviously synthetic, but it's far more refined than what I'm used to working with."

Hanatarou hesitated a moment before answering, eyeing the girl curiously to see if she really meant it. It rather seemed like she did, so he finally gave a small nod, though the blush remained. "It's just...um, flowers. It's silly, but. Well." It was actually kind of relaxing, to just sit and try to make them and not really think about anything else.

He lowered his eyes again, shoulders hunching slightly as he added another of the pipe cleaners to what he was working on, twisting it around so that it resembled a leaf. "It's some kind of wire, but with, um. Some kind of fuzzy stuff on it. I don't know what they're for, but they seem to work well for this..."

"No, it's not silly at all," Rinali assured him. "It's sweet. Most men would never want to do something like this unless forced."

She frowned, looking at the pipe-cleaner. "It takes a lot of getting used to. I don't know what era you're from, but I come from 1899. A lot of things have changed since then..."

Most men were also not Hanatarou, and were probably glad of that fact. But he wasn't about to comment on it; his blush darkened a little at the word "sweet" but otherwise the shinigami appeared to be completely focused on his work.

"1899? Really?" He frowned slightly as he considered that. If people he knew from back home could have arrived here from different times, then it didn't seem entirely strange for other people to have done the same thing. A century was a bit more than he would expect, but - honestly, he wasn't quite sure what to expect when it came to this place, not anymore. "Um. It's, ah, a lot later than that for me."

Hanatarou regarded the pipe-cleaner "branch" he'd made for a moment, then set it to one side and pulled some paper, scissors, and glue closer. If she didn't think what he was doing was stupid, then he might as well keep working on it, right?

"I somewhatassumed so," Rinali said, working on her own flower arrangement, picking out blues and purples and blacks...comfortably dark colors. "There are a few people here from my past, but the vast majority are from my future. Tell me, Hanatarou, do you come from space? Does earth even still exist where you come from?"

"...space?" Hanatarou had started working on assembling a flower but paused at the question, blinking in puzzlement. "N-no, I'm...well, I'm not from Earth, I'm from Soul Society. But, um, I don't think humans live in space anyway."

He glanced down again, carefully removing the petal that had become stuck to his finger, then put it in its proper place. "Do...people live in space where you're from, then?" Although he was fairly certain that humans hadn't done any space travel in 1899, he wasn't exactly that concerned about history and could have just missed something.

Day 36: Arts & Crafts Room

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject