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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"Of course," she said. There was only a thin border between black and purple, and she couldn't help but try and tweak it as she began gathering up the little black pieces. Nothing happened, of course.

She began setting up her pieces as soon as Honey had the board unfolded, laying them on the red squares for contrast. Of course, this meant Honey's pieces would have no contrast at all, but that was problem with checkers; it only used half the board.

"So, Honey-chan, have you been here long? The Institute seems like a scary place for a young boy like you," she said as she finished her set up. While Yukari could agree with filling a scary haunted hospital with various people just to watch them struggle and squirm, torturing little kids was just creepy and gross. Youkai weren't exactly model parents, but Yukari couldn't help having some maternal instincts towards the child.

Honey helped her set up the board as she liked, kicking his feet back and forth under the table. It took a minute, but he was proud of himself for remembering where all the pieces went.

"I've been here for a few days," he told her. "It's a little scary, but I'm not that young. I'm a senior in high school this year." Honey gave her one of his most charming host club smiles. "What about you Yuka-rin? How long have you been here?"

A high school senior? Japanese or American? Wait, seniors in either country were eighteen. Or was he from another planet? A cute little alien where fourteen is a high school senior and considered an adult by their standards?

No, no, no. She was letting her imagination run away. Despite the fact that there was obviously something funny with languages going on - how else could she understand a space robot or why did these nurses speak Japanese? - she'd notice most people were missing some of the various inflections and most conspicuously any of the honorifics native to the language, yet this little boy - she couldn't help but think of him as such - was quite obviously speaking it without whatever magical language system Landel had employed.

So maybe he was just short. And cute. And carried around a stuffed animal and acted like a little kid. Ahh, there was no helping it. As a youkai, she knew that human standards of growth were a poor measurement of age - after all, she'd be an old lady if she were human; scratch that, she'd be dead - but form affected function, and most youkai who looked like children were children, even if they were decades old, but wait, wasn't he human? So many questions, she couldn't help but think the cute little kid act was a facade, it was so much more likely than some eighteen year old who just happened to have cutely stunted growth.

Her mind was racing in multiple directions, only pausing occasionally to meet in committee and parse out their conclusions, but outwardly she only showed a pleasant smile and mild curiosity.

"Are you really? I would never have guessed," she said. "Excuse me for my presumption, but you do look quite a bit younger than that." Unless he was from some alternate universe Japan where all eighteen-year-olds looked this way? Why was a blonde little kid like him in a Japanese highschool anyway?

"I've only been here since yesterday," she replied. He'd agreed it was a little scary, so that meant he knew the institute for what it was, right? "So you've been out at night? What does someone as cute as you do?"

More like, what sort of powers do you have that keep you from simply being gobbled up by the first thing that comes along?

"Well, it's your move," she also pointed out, waving a hand at the set up board. "Fire before smoke." Or so they said, but Yukari always found it amusing to just stir up some smoke and watch everyone else run around looking for the fire.

She eagerly awaited his reply, both in game and out. Truly, she had found an interesting toy.

"People say that a lot," Honey commented, sliding a red piece forward on the board. "But I don't mind being a little bit small. I just haven't hit my growth spurt yet." Or that was the popular theory. Honey was really serious about not caring if he stayed small though. It bothered some people, but it didn't bother him.

It was usually considered rude to ask a lady how old she was, so Honey decided to move the topic along. "So what kind of place is Yuka-rin from?" He'd heard of people from all parts of the world, so it was usually neat to hear about that, and besides, it was a good way to get to know her and let her talk a little bit more about herself.

No, Yukari was pretty sure once you hit eighteen, you didn't have any growth spurts left to look forwards to. Not that she was any kind of expert on raising humans.

"Well, I'm from Japan," she replied, moving a piece out to meet Honey's and stop its movement in that direction. "Sort of. Gensokyo's not exactly on the maps."

Which was an understatement; as far as the Outside World was concerned, Gensokyo didn't exist.

"Really?" Honey looked up, somewhat surprised. "Me too! I don't remember ever visiting a Gensokyo, but usually my family goes abroad when we travel. I go to Ouran High School, have you heard of it?" Usually the answer was yes, of course, but here fewer and fewer people knew the school.

He waited patiently for Yuka to take her turn. "Is it a small town? We did visit a commoner's village a little while ago." That was when they'd had the refreshing contest between all of the hosts. It'd been nice for a visit, and the treats there had been really good, but he was glad when they'd gone back home.

"Sorry, I can't say I pay too much attention to school names," she admitted, which was true. When she did go into the Outside World, checking the educational system wasn't exactly high on her list of priorities.

Commoner? Was he some kind of rich kid? He had said his family traveled abroad a lot. A rich bocchama shotara foreigner who eccentrically carried around a stuffed pink rabbit at his little rich kids private school... yeah, she could sort of see it. He probably had some cool, quiet type guardian sempai - wait, he was a senior, so maybe another senior? - never mind that, now she was thinking of fiction, not reality.

"Gensokyo's a very large place," she said, finishing her move in opposition to Honey's. "But it's also not real. At least, not to the people outside it."

That seemed kind of silly. Most schools were named after the district they were in or something easy, but Ouran was the most prestigious high school in all of Japan. Ah well. He wasn't looking for recognition really, it just would've been nice to know that he hadn't dreamed it all up.

"That's okay," Honey reassured her, looking over the board for only a few seconds before he moved another piece.

"Since I haven't heard of yours either. But..." he looked up, eyes wide and curious. "I don't understand. Is it like Alice in Wonderland?"

"Actually, that's not a bad comparison," she said with a smile, maneuvering her next piece, just getting things into position for now. "Gensokyo's a wonderland filled with all the things humans have forgotten, like magic and gods and youkai."

And Gameboy colors, old iPods and articles about the moon landings, among other things. Truly, Gensokyo accepted all that humans no longer believed in.

So Yuka really was from something like Alice in Wonderland? Honey's widened ever so slightly. The playful side of him wanted to believe and thought it was wonderful that someone could live in a world like that, but logic told him that shouldn't be possible. Not that he listened to logic as often as he probably ought to.

"They really have magic?" Honey asked, forgetting the game for a moment. People had made mention of it a couple of times on that bulletin, but there was just as much chance that they were really crazy or something instead. Though with the monsters they'd already seen here, maybe it wasn't so far fetched.

"Mmhmm!" she said with a nod, giggling a little at his look of child-like wonderment. There was definitely no way to think of him as eighteen. "I used to be able to do magic outside of here, and I can still do a little at night."

It was a bit of an oversimplification, since her powers were inherent to her nature, and probably wouldn't be considered "magic" by a skilled thaumaturgist, but all things considered, she doubted Honey would differentiate between true magic and pure supernatural ability.

It was kind of funny to see a grown up that was able to act so childish. Soubi did it too and he was sure when he got to be that age, his spirits wouldn't have diminished any. Being a grown up and acting like one were two very different things after all.

"That's amazing Yuka-rin!" Honey said, notably impressed. He was looking forward to meeting Anise too later this evening and seeing whatever kind of magic it was that she could use. It seemed like something out of a cartoon, magical girls and things like that.

Honey made sure to move his piece this time, sliding another red checker across the board.

"Thank you, Honey-chan," she said, casually moving her piece out to meet his, enticing him to jump it. "But I'm sure you can do a lot of cool things too, right? I'm sure a senior like you has skills outside of just schoolwork."

She was sure he had some interesting points beyond just being adorable; everyone else she'd met so far had some kind of skill or power, and from the sounds of it, so did many of the others she hadn't yet met.

"Mmmmmm," Honey made a thoughtful noise, trying to decide if there were things worth mentioning. "I'm really good at eating cake, and playing with toys, oh! And Tama-chan says I'm an excellent host." He nodded in a self satisfied way, as though those were very important and difficult skills. Of course he did well in Math and Science and of course Athletics, but none of those sounded very cute.

He didn't hesitate to jump her piece, even if it was obvious. It was just a game after all.

Or maybe he just cuted the monsters to death.

"A host? What do you mean by that?" Yukari asked, honestly curious. The image of Honey dressed in a suit at a ballroom party came to mind. Well, he was a rich kid. "And who's Tama-chan? A friend of yours?"

Or maybe another stuffed animal. He acted young, but surely he didn't believe they talked back to him - unless they did, which was interesting in an entirely different way.

She jumped his piece in reply, leaving them both more or less where they started, only each down a piece. Oh, and she had a piece further forwards.

"Mm, well we have a Host Club at my school. Girls like to come and visit us and have tea and sweets. We have lots of different types to cater to what the girls like," he explained as easily as if he were talking about the weather.

"Tama-chan is the king type, so lots of girls like him," he added, "but I'm the loli-shota type." At that, he flashed her a sweet smile and a pair of deep brown eyes, hugging Usa-chan to his chest. "What type do you like best Yuka-rin?"

Yukari had heard of this sort of things in the Outside World. The idea of one as a school club was rather novel though; they really were upper class if they had that kind of time and money on their hands. Honey seemed a bit young for that kind of work, but she had to remind herself that he was eighteen or so. Besides, some people went for that kind of thing ~~herself included~~.

Speaking of which, there he went with classifications right out of a manga. Not that's she'd heard of a "king type", but she could more or less imagine what kind of grand, charming prince that entailed. Loli-shota was a term she'd heard used before, and she couldn't help but agree with that designation; Honey certainly fit it to a T, and the only reason she didn't scoop him up and give him a big squeeze was the table in the way.

"Hmm, my type?" she murmured, leaning an elbow on the table and her head on her hand as she gazed at him. "Well, the serious types have their points..." They were hilarious to tease. "And I suppose the mischievous ones can be fun..." Partners in crime.

"But I suppose, after all," she said, reaching out with her other hand to brush her fingers against his cheek affectionately, "the cute ones might just be the best."

To tease, that was.

Not yet, though. She still didn't know much about him, so she didn't really know what buttons to press. Besides, the amusement derived from him just being cute hadn't run out quite yet.

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Day 38: Game Room

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