Day 37: Sun Room (4th Shift)

[secret-orchard.livejournal.com]

There were still too many things on Armand's mind for him to truly relax. The morning with Alec had been a help. And seeing that TK was going to be well helped him know that it was time to work out something else, but what? He'd already, without success again, tried to reach one of the club leaders about his sole idea of something new and different. Maybe it was hopeless.

There was no way he was going to play with paper and glue like a small child, and he glared at the nurse as best he could until she gave up on the idea. There was a free chair in the Sun Room--in fact, there were many free chairs--where he settled down to see what the new patients looked like. Prisoners, not patients. He felt bad that he had to remind himself. Even if he was crazy, he wasn't going to give in to Dr. Landel's game, not today. He nibbled on an overgrown cuticle and kept an eye on the room. No dozing today.

[for Citan]

Comments

[mrmewmaker.livejournal.com]

"Uh, hi, Joshua." Shiki had to stifle the nervousness in her voice. She was still reeling a little bit from the confirmation that something had actually happened between the blonde and Neku. Despite her reservations, she motioned for him to take a seat.

"Mr. H. had asked where Neku was," she explained. "I was just about to explain what happened yesterday." She looked down at the floor, trying to calm her nerves and collect her thoughts. Shiki wound up twirling a bit of her still-damp hair around her finger, then looked up to begin explaining things.

"Well...he looked just like Neku, and sounded just like Neku. But something wasn't right. He was calling me by the false name that the Institute calls me, and he was - well. He seemed less emo than usual. Wouldn't you agree, Joshua?" It was a silly thing, to be sure, but, well, it was the truth.

"And that's when they started talking about that thing I asked you about a minute ago, Mr. H. The...well, the fight."

[catstreetblues.livejournal.com]

Ah, and there was the man of the moment. "Hey Josh!" Sanae gave a wave. "Yeah, I was just catching up a bit with Shiki here; nice to see that you've met each other." Well, now this was convenient: he didn't have to go hunting for anyone else, and while making acquaintances was no problem at all, meeting familiar faces so soon made getting his bearings just that much easier.

He listened as Shiki explained the situation with Neku. It was as if they had talked to another parallel version of Neku: the basic scheme was the same by the sounds of things, but there were a few key differences. "Less emo", for example, didn't sound like the Phones he knew at all; in fact, if he were to name some of Neku's defining traits, "emo" or some variation of it would have made the list.

"It sounds like an alternate or parallel version of him," Sanae observed. "Don't know if I'm right about that, but that's my guess. And...what's up with the fake names anyway?" At first he thought that they had just simply mixed him up, but with what Shiki had said, it sounded almost as if the Institute purposely assigned fake names.

[4lulzngiggles.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I agree entirely," Joshua agreed with Shiki's statement, then added a snide comment of his own. "Oh, and he mentioned getting to 'slam on' in a Tin Pin Slammer tournament. That's not the Neku I know." Quite the contrary, his Neku would rather ram the pins down his own throat than use the lingo of the Slammurai. It was rather cute, in Joshua's opinion; hence why it was so strange to not have it happen on schedule.

The mention of a 'fight' was completely ignored by Joshua, as though the issue had either (A) already been resolved or (B) wasn't worth resolving in the first place. Instead of worrying about not!Neku, he focused his attention on Mr. H., a rare look of confusion on his face. "What do you mean, 'fake names'?" He had, after all, been referred to as 'Joshua' even by the staff.

Of course, that wasn't his real name, but he would have been rather stunned if such knowledge had become public domain.

[mrmewmaker.livejournal.com]

Shiki had to laugh, despite her nerves. "No, it's really not. I can't see Neku actively entering a Tin Pin tournament unless his life depended on it." Even then, it might be a tough call. He'd never been one for trends, and Tin Pin Slammer? Definitely a trend.

She paused for a moment, looking between Joshua and Mr. H. while she tried to figure out how to best respond to the question. "Well, they call most people here by a name that's not their own. I get called Nicole, and other people get called different things, too. I guess it's happening to you, too, huh, Mr. H.? But, well...Neku called me Nicole, but he called Joshua by his actual name. It's weird, isn't it?"

Shiki looked down at the floor for just a minute. "And there was something else, too. I...think you could be right about the parallel version thing. Either that, or the people on the bulletin board were right when they said the 'visitors' had been here in the past and had been brainwashed and released." She would much rather it be an actual parallel Neku. That - though weird - she could understand.

[catstreetblues.livejournal.com]

"Sure is: I'm 'Mr. Inouye'- or 'Mr. I', to stick to the trend- to the staff." Sanae shrugged. "It threw me off at first, but really it's just one of those things you have to deal with." Having a different name wasn't too bad, all things considered. It was like having a secret identity, kind of like a superhero, although he wouldn't go that far.

He looked at Joshua. "Still, as far as fake names go, it'd make sense if...nah, never mind. My mind's not thinking straight." Yeah, it was time to switch the subject; it wasn't like Joshua's real name was something that needed to be emphasized anyway.

Parallel worlds and 'visitors' sounded like a nice thing to go back to. "So, did this other Neku mention that he'd stayed in this institute before?" Sanae asked, frowning slightly. "Although I myself would never actually say that I had been in a mental asylum," he admitted. He couldn't see any versions of Neku being in a crazy house, though, although there was always a deviant somewhere.

[4lulzngiggles.livejournal.com]

That was way off for Mr. H, and Shiki was most definitely not a Nicole. Yet his name remained the same, so why- oh. The older man's comment made Joshua think of what it had to be... they were saying that 'Joshua' was his real name, what he really was, and not just the name that he preferred for himself. When he thought about it that way, it made perfect sense, and suddenly felt a lot more grating than it had been only a few moments ago. That's how it usually felt with Mr. H- he always seemed to notice those things that Joshua didn't.

At the exchange between the other two, Joshua simply shrugged. "They could both be right," he stated, as he knew more than most how 'parallel' worlds worked and what could happen in them. "Though I don't think he ever said that he had been here. Probably wouldn't want to admit it, knowing him."