damned_institute | Day 38: Game Room

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Day 38: Game Room

She’d never been in the Game Room before.

It didn’t look spectacularly interesting, she had to admit… but it’d be more fun than just hanging out in the Sun Room, right? Yuffie idly thumbed through a deck of cards, walking around the room to examine various bits and pieces. Board games, video games, chess… No really awesome prank material that she could see, but maybe she could rope somebody into a game of poker? That could be fun, but… ah, then again, most of the patients were just like her -- they didn’t have anything really cool that she could swindle out of them. Not until Nightshift, anyway.

Still! She’d keep it in mind. It wasn’t like there was anybody else in the room yet anyway, so any potential swindling would have to wait a little while. What could she do in the meantime, huh? Pick- pocketing a nurse could be fun..! Wait -- no, not when it was quiet like this. She’d have to wait until there was more cover, unless she got distracted. Yuffie hadn’t stolen anything in days, not since that time in Doyleton, with the Kaito kid…

Yuffie smirked. That had been fun.

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"Anyone particularly interesting that's caught your eye?"

Schuldig didn't wait for even so much as an acknowledgment before sitting down nearby, giving Gin an undisguised once-over. As far as interesting went, Gin was the only shinigami who'd intrigued him in the entire institute thus far, out of both past and present company. Most of them were so obsessed with duty or honor or just plain good intentions that it was hardly even worth listening to them...but not Gin. He was a man with very few (but cast-iron) loyalties, similarly few compunctions, and a delight that bordered on the sadistic for enlivening the lives of the dull people that surrounded him with irritation, terror, and/or chaos.

In short, he was so much like Schuldig that the telepath was fairly certain that they'd either get along splendidly or wind up killing each other, and he'd gone far too long without determining which.

Once again, Gin found he had company calling on him, rather than the other way around. It didn't happen often, and most often it helped break the monotony rather nicely. He passed the man a smile, having seen him a few times since he'd been here, though never having actually met.

He let his eyes wander the room for a moment. There were actually a few who had caught his eye; it was fairly easy to recognize who the seasoned fighters were and who was just monster food.

"Not many," he said without the slightest change in expression. "Though I s'pose you'd be up near th' top of th' list. What c'n I do for you stranger?" People who approached him usually wanted something. Otherwise the smile that was just a little too friendly, and the eyes that hid just a bit too much were enough to keep most away.

"Really," Schuldig replied with a smirk that Gin might well find strangely familiar. "And what have I done to draw your interest?" While the telepath had every reason to be interested in Gin, he couldn't think of anything he'd done to catch the shinigami's attention...or, more accurately, he'd done any number of things that might have intrigued Gin but he didn't think the man had a face to connect to his actions yet.

However, Gin had asked a good question, which meant that Schuldig opted to actually acknowledge it rather than selectively filtering it out. What could Gin do for him? Provide entertainment, certainly, although he did that well enough naturally that Schuldig had hardly needed to approach him for it. And while there were any number of possibilities for collaborations between them, he had no particular guarantee that they'd opt for cooperation rather than homicide. So what, exactly, was he looking to accomplish at the moment? After a moment's consideration, he grinned. "Well, neither of us has much of a reputation for playing well with others, so I couldn't help wondering if we'd be able to get along with each other."

"Not many 'round here are friendly enough to approach," Gin replied innocently. "So I s'pose that's enough to make you interestin'." It was the truth, at least partially.

Gin had a natural suspicion for nearly everyone he spoke with, but this time it was not unfounded. The man already knew him as well as his reputation. While he hadn't exactly made a secret of who he was, one would have to be paying fairly close attention or at least run in the same circles to add in all the rest. Possibly a member of arts and crafts, though if this one had the same tendency for trouble, he highly doubted it. He'd spent a fair amount of time looking over the bulletin board though, so he had his suspicions. Those could wait though.

"Araa," his smile grew a little wider. "Is that so? Well I s'pose it depends on what kinda games you like playin'," he added with only a second's thought. He glanced across the table with half-lidded eyes at the redhead.

"Saa... now where's my manners. You seem t'know me already, but I ain't even asked your name."

"Schuldig," the telepath replied, smirking. "But you already had your suspicions, didn't you?"

What kind of games he liked playing? Oh, now that just wasn't fair. How could Schuldig possibly narrow it down? There were so many. "The kinds of games I like playing are the ones I win," he replied after a moment, smirk widening. "For some reason, no one else is ever as enthusiastic about them..."

So this was Schuldig. Convenient as it was to have a name to go with the face, or rather... a face to go with the name, Gin wasn't terribly surprised. Now that he had all, or at least a good handful of the pieces to the puzzle, he could start putting those pieces together.

"Y' sure you ain't givin' me too much credit?" he asked, waiting only a moment before he gave a sigh, as though his own fun had just been spoiled. "Ara... kids these days."

Honestly, it was refreshing just to have someone who wasn't a complete and total idiot around to speak with. For the moment at least. Though it did mean he might have to be a little more careful. As far as games went... "Smart boy," Gin gave a short laugh at that. He liked winning well enough, but the game itself was half the fun. Not to mention they weren't likely to be winning much in this place, but that was another game entirely.

"But where's th' challenge winnin' all th' time? Gets boring after a while, ne?"

"Entirely sure," Schuldig replied easily. Gin probably already knew about his telepathy - if the Mastermind knew nothing else, he knew that Gin's casual attitude belied a mind like a blade, and he couldn't believe Gin hadn't merited due attention both to any mention of telepaths in Landel's and to any of his many bulletin board conversations ~~being smug about~~ remarking on his talents. Entirely aside from that simply being a matter of interest to most people, and something Gin was likely smart enough to consider exploiting for his own goals...well, Gin was a secretive man. A telepath, to him, wouldn't be just a person of interest or a potential tool, but a possible and significant threat. So it was almost certainly safe to operate under the assumption that Gin had already connected his name to his powers.

And if it wasn't...well, Gin was like him. Nothing was entirely safe with people like them. "Kids these days, boy..." Schuldig repeated back with an upwards twist at the corners of his mouth that wasn't exactly a smirk. "Not that I could expect to match the age of a shinigami such as yourself, but I'd hardly consider me that young. And, in fact, as long as I have access to your head, I think you could say that functionally, I'm just as old as you are." He leaned forward slightly, and if his curved lips from before couldn't have been called a smirk before, then neither could his bared teeth now be called a smile. "Certainly too old to be condescended to with talk like that."

Before the lean and the look could last quite long enough to be interpreted as a threat, Schuldig reclined again, sharp lines smoothing out into a more relaxed pose. "And what kind of talk is that, anyway? The only reason it's not challenging is because no one else is as good at it as I am. And I'm not the type of person to lose just for a change of pace - I'd prefer instead to look for someone who might help even the odds."

The more Schuldig spoke, the more Gin had to agree that they were fairly similar. And as fun as playing with someone like Schuldig would be, it also meant a certain amount of caution ought to be called for.

"Saa," he replied, an amused smirk on his lips, "my sincerest apologies then, Schuldig-san." He spoke sweetly, in a way that made it quite clear his apology was anything but sincere. Schuldig might have some advantages, but it only made things more interesting. If the man thought it was enough to do anything to frighten Gin, he was sorely mistaken.

At the last of Schuldig's little tirade, he let a near-silent hiss of laughter slip out. It'd been a while since he'd heard someone speak so bluntly and actually have the stones to back it up. "Had t'make sure," he said with an innocent shrug. "S'pose I just ain't as talented as you."

Not that he couldn't read many of the people here just as easily as Schuldig could. They just had different methods and both of them were well aware of it. "But that does sound excitin'," and he was always up for a challenge, if only to see if he was capable of completing it. Besides, playing with the same old toys could only occupy him for so long.

Schuldig didn't care if Gin's apology was sincere, or if he was frightened or not; he hadn't really expected to scare the shinigami, hadn't even intended to. He'd simply wanted to get across the idea that they were very much alike - which he'd succeeded at - and that he should be treated with respect and caution as a result. Looked at from that standpoint, his tactics had been flawless.

"Just out of curiosity," he said mildly, discounting the rest of what Gin had said - the other man hadn't really meant much of it, and agreeing might be a bad idea when they were playing so well together, "what were you trying to accomplish on the bulletin board earlier? You knew Momo and Rangiku would never let you take over. Was it just for fun, or did you have some sort of plan in mind?" Actually, Schuldig was relatively certain Gin had just been stirring up discord for the hell of it, and wasn't really interested in the answer to that question. What he wanted to know was what Gin's plans were in the institute, on a much broader scale...but he wasn't sure even asking directly and hoping for Gin to think about them would work. Gin was cunning enough that he'd likely see through that strategy; in fact, if he was half as clever as the Mastermind was assuming he was(after all, they were a lot alike), then even this sidelong approach probably wouldn't stir up much for the telepath to sift through. But it couldn't hurt to try.

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Day 38: Game Room

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