damned_institute | Day 39: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

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Day 39: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

Yue was all too pleased to leave the cafeteria by the time lunch was over, even if he still wasn't satisfied that Fai was properly taking care of himself. It was clear that Touya hadn't accepted the answers he'd been given and intended to find out just what the guardian wasn't telling him, and being watched so closely was beginning to get uncomfortable.

It was clear that the truth would have to come out at some point, especially if they were going to be spending any amount of time together. Avoiding him was entirely out of the question, but at the same time Yue stubbornly refused to consider the idea of just outright telling him about what had happened in the last week. It was a dilemma indeed, and only served to make him even more irritable than ever.

How could he admit any of it? That he was weak and crippled, betrayed and altered by his creator? That he'd almost broken the promise he'd given in exchange for Touya's power? The latter he couldn't help but be reminded of every time he saw this Touya, who had only just gone through it, and would remember it even more clearly.

Fortunately Yukito was staying silent for the moment, although he could feel his other self's disappointment at being unable to speak to Touya so far, and it didn't make him feel any better.

In the midst of all this Yue was rather dismayed to realize that the nurse wanted to lead him to the music room, of all places: that was the room where he'd met the Sakura-who-wasn't-his-Sakura the week before, and needed neither the reminder nor the inevitable noise in that room. He abruptly halted in his tracks and refused to continue on. The nurse seemed initially disappointed, but finally agreed to let him stay in the Sun Room instead; the guardian found a corner in which to stand, arms folded across his chest and lost in his own ~~brooding~~ thoughts.

[for Sokka]

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He really hadn't had the chance to get at the board everyone kept telling him about, and again wasn't able to go for it even though he was again in the same room since, well, something caught his attention. White hair had seemed to be a theme running here, but something about the person with white hair he spotted this time just kept him from ignoring curiosity. And hey, at least this one had hair long enough!

Sokka didn't call out to the person at first, since whoever it was had their back to him, and only got up close enough to peer around and up at the face. No, not who he kept thinking about - as if he really would find Yue here - but man, she was pretty!

"No, bad Sokka!" Sokka whispered to himself, shaking his head. He shouldn't be thinking about things like that! If Suki ever found out... she'd probably do something Ninja-ish to him that even he couldn't imagine right then!

There was someone looking at him.

Yue was generally quite good at outwardly ignoring any and all distractions, but today? Today he was already in a bit of a mood, and after he'd already had to deal with being glared at by Touya of all people, the total stranger peering at him curiously didn't do much to improve it.

"What?" he asked, eyes narrowing slightly as he turned to regard the young man. Hopefully this wasn't another silly question about exploding hearts or something like that. He had important things to worry about.

...to brood over, Yukito murmured, with a faint mental sigh.

Sakura hadn't heard anything from Kakashi or the others for the majority of the day, so she tacked up a quick bulletin note before finding a seat on an empty couch. It was hard to be sure how her talk with Sasuke had gone, but at least she'd managed to assess the damage done to his eyes. It would be near impossible to fix here, but maybe once they were back in their own time and place, she could do something. That or she should probably see what kind of medical books she could get her hands on here and what kind of supplies. With all the experimentation, this place was ripe with both, unfortunate as it was.

The room was pretty empty except for a couple of guys. Well, she was pretty sure they were both guys. One of 'em had really long hair and a face with more feminine features, but the build was more or less masculine. She'd just have to wait and see if anyone else showed up.

[Naruto]

After his nice lunch with Haku, Naruto felt more relaxed, calmer than he had in the last 24 hours. Things were still running through his mind but he didn't feel like moping anymore. He'd figure them out one at a time, later.

He spotted Sakura immediately, grinning wide and walking to her.

"Hey, Sakura-chan!" He called.

Sokka stopped shaking his head and opened one eye to peer up. Uh-oh, he'd been spotted! But that wasn't the first of the problems he found with his position.

"You're a guy?!" his mouth fell as he pointed in disbelief.

_{[For the catboy.]}

After lunch, it was straight back to the Sun Room for the vampire. There was no music in any sense of the word here, certainly none to be enjoyed, and so there was no choice to be made if he were still adhering to the staff’s rules. He reclaimed the same couch as before, and now that the sun had moved, it was in more shade than before.

He sat back in a slump, head on the cushion, feet against the edge of the table. Sleeping and eating, those were about the only physical actions he could take, though as always his mind continued to act outside of that lazy routine. Naturally, trying to make up for the rest Wolfram had cost him seemed like the natural thing to do, now that he and the ninja boy had gone, and the meeting between ‘groups’ had cooled down. But… his listlessness didn’t necessarily equate to being able to relax. It felt unwise to close his eyes now.

He’d taken his journal with him, and it sat against the arm he’d reflexively laid across his injury. The noble tapped the cover with his finger, eyes half-lidded and unfocused. After a long moment, he opened it against his thigh and wrote a line in unembellished script, of a theory he’d read long ago, that really meant nothing to him, but that impulsively came to mind. Then he looked at it, sitting there in the middle of a blank page. Just words. Sighing, he tipped his head back. He could sense the sun’s progress towards the western horizon as well as he could his own body healing…

It was good to see Naruto smiling again, even if he could be annoying sometimes. She smiled back and made room, the couch was plenty big after all. She hoped they could think of some good ideas for pushing Sasuke in the right direction. They might have just a small amount of leverage if they were lucky. Maybe that would be enough.

"Hey," she said back. "Feeling better?"

Surprisingly enough, it was possible for Yue to look even more irritated, and at that question - he did. It didn't help matters that Yukito had immediately burst into silent laughter, which was making it somewhat difficult to think.

The guardian huffed out a faint sigh and closed his eyes, lifting a fingertip to press against the bridge of his nose as though trying to fend off a headache. Or at least stop his other self from giggling quite so much. "Is this somehow a problem?" he inquired, voice flat.

"Yeah! I had lunch with Haku," Naruto said, sitting down next to her with a relieved sigh. He knew what they were going to be talking about, but he wanted to delay it just a little, for once.

At the very least, people possessing the ability of having civil conversations weren't entirely nonexistent. Mocking others was one of Scar's few remaining ways of entertainment, though civil conversations were a nice change from the general stupidity in this place.

Not feeling up for the 'humans creating noise'-shift, Scar settled himself in the Sun Room for the second time today. Male lions had the tendency to be lazy, and Scar was certainly no different from that.

[Free!]

Well, that had been interesting, and informative. Akihiko left the cafeteria with a better idea of what was going on - and more importantly, a sense of who he felt he could trust, and who he would want to keep a closer eye on. He declined the music room for this shift. It would have been one thing had it been unoccupied, because that meant he could have moved things aside and gotten it ready for that night's meeting, but as it was, he would have to wait on that.

He took a minute to browse the bulletin board before taking a seat on one of the couches.

[free, I do believe.]

[Man with a complex okay? 8D]

Touya came out of that conversation feeling extremely unsatisfied. No one was telling him what the hell was going on, and it pissed him off to no end. He didn't know Yue well enough yet, but he was starting to get the impression that he was the kind of guy who would lie. Yuki lied from time to time, but that was only because he didn't want people to worry about him. Maybe Yue was the same... Touya had seen similarities in them during their brief meeting before the exchange, so it was possible.

Speaking of exchanges, Touya figured that if Yue had been here for as long as he'd said, Touya would as well. It couldn't hurt to meet some people, branch out, make some friends, et cetera.

He spotted a man lounging and, without a thought as to whether or not he may be trying to sleep, Touya crossed the room to talk to him.

"Hey," he said. Touya was polite, but never overly stiff. "Mind if I join you? I'm feeling a little tired myself."

Heiji had spent the past two shifts quietly and subtly reading the Sherlock Holmes book he'd checked out of the library a few days ago. If Kudou caught him reading it, no doubt there would be ridicule and plenty of it. It wasn't bad per se, but Ellery Queen was so much better.

He decided to move to to the Sun Room after Lunch, hoping to catch Homura before Homura had to go looking for him. Making that guy wait probably wasn't a good idea. Flopping down on a couch near the bulletin, he continued to read, glancing up every once in a while to make sure he hadn't missed the leader.

[For Homura and Hijikata~]

Edited 2009-02-27 06:20 (UTC)

Haku had enjoyed lunch, but the feeling that he was being given the run around still nagged at him. The staff had no problems telling the other patients that people they had asked about had 'left' or 'gotten better'. Did they think he wouldn't be able to handle it?

The fact that he would not take the news of his abandoment well hadn't crossed his mind at all.

He was calm, polite, and every inch the kind, effeminite 15 year old this place believed him to be when he turned to the nurse who was leading him into the Sun Room.

"I'm terribly sorry if I seem rude ma'am," he said. "But I've asked many times already and have yet to find an answer. What's happened to Mr. Fortune?"

(Reserved for a staff throw down.)

Had he said that out loud? He had, hadn't he? Great going, Sokka! Offend someone else, why don't you? What was one person a day?

Sokka wanted to hit his head into the wall, but instead he closed his mouth and held up his hands apologetically. "No, that's all right. You can be what you want!" He straightened, waving his hands as though that would make things better. "Um, I mean... sorry, there's just... you like this... and this girl... and the moon... and and...!" Sokka suddenly halted, knowing that he probably sounded even more insane than he had before, and after dropping his hands he bent over into a very rigid bow, "I'm really, really sorry," he apologized properly, but it might've sounded more like "please don't kill me".

A girl and the moon? What did this boy know about any of that?

Startled, Yue opened his eyes again and frowned at the bowing figure before him. "Girl? What girl?" he demanded, a hint of some undefinable emotion bleeding over into his voice. He wasn't sure whether to be upset, angry, or hopeful at this point. "Do you know Sakura?"

It didn't seem possible, but still - how else would a total stranger have known anything about him?

"Huh?" Sokka lifted his head, peering up with one one eye once again, "Um... yeah, a girl. I don't know any Sakura though..." He slowly came back to a straight position, averting his eyes since the look of the man was pretty intimidating. "See, my girlfriend? Well, she kind of... ..." He started fidgeting with his fingers.

Yeah, all right, so he did sound like a crazy guy sometimes. Well, lots of times, but it wasn't like he was lying!

"Mr. Fortune, dear?" The nurse did her best to pretend she didn't know exactly who that was, and why young Christopher would be interested in knowing about him, but she couldn't help the flicker of concern and mild doubt that passed over her expression. "Oh...my, ah, let me see what I can find out..."

She smiled, reaching out to give the boy what was intended to be a comforting touch on his arm, before she turned away to beckon another one of the nurses closer. The two of them moved a few steps away and conversed in hushed tones for a moment, casting what were intended to be surreptitious glances toward the boy, before the first nurse nodded and moved back to join her charge.

"Well, Christopher, it seems that I have some very good news for you!" she said, smiling brightly at him, as the other nurse hurried off for a whispered conference with a pair of orderlies a short distance away. The men started to move closer, moving in an unobtrusive fashion up behind the boy as his nurse continued, "You see, Mr. Fortune appears to have made a full recovery, and has been released."

Allen had gotten a fair amount of his lunch eaten this time, but it still felt like a rock in his stomach. If Tyki had really started killing other patients, he would have to do something, and soon, before the trend continued. He knew from experience he could kill the man, but what could he do to change the behavior? There had to be some way. Tyki seemed like two entirely different people, one dark and scary, the other a little shady, but a fairly good person. He couldn't just condemn them both.

He'd no real interest with the Music room, an inept as he was with instruments, and decided to go to the Sun Room instead. He'd met a couple new people today, but the room was fairly empty for the moment. If no one came along, at least he could have a little time to think.

[For Harley!]

Haku frowned as he watched the hurried conference. That certainly didn't inspire confidence... And the men moving in made him tense.

Still... He could play the part.

"But... He promised not to leave me behind." Haku tilted his head, reaching up to tuck a bit of hair behind an ear. He pretended to shy away from the men, but was in fact centering himself just in case.

So...not Sakura, then. Yue supressed a flare of disappointment and started to look away, as though no longer interest. Then the boy continued, though, and his story was just odd enough, just close enough, that the guardian's eyes widened slightly in surprise.

"She turned into the moon," he echoed, as though asking for confirmation even though his tone wasn't that of a question. "This girl you're talking about. And somehow...this has to do with me." With him being not a girl?

The nurse clicked her tongue softly and shook her head with a sympathetic look on her face. She wasn't surprised that the man would have made a promise like that, but really, it was best for everyone that the two of them were separated, no matter how upset Christopher might be about it. He still had some steps to take before recovery, after all.

"Well, I'm sorry you didn't have a chance to tell him good-bye. But right now I think it's best that you focus on yourself. Once you've recovered, after all, you'll be released as well." She smiled cheerfully then, and gestured from him toward the door to the music room. "Now, would you like to join the others for music activities, or would you prefer to stay in here this afternoon?"

It seemed to have gone well so far, but the orderlies lurking behind him didn't move. They were only waiting - just in case.

Haku shook his head and shied back from her. "No. I don't believe you. Any of you." This wasn't right. Zabuza wouldn't have left. He'd rather have been dead that abandon Haku. Haku knew that.

Was Zabuza-san ... dead? He glanced back at the orderlies behind him, juding distance, just in case they tried to touch him.

"Now, Christopher, why would I have any reason to lie to you about it?" Now a slight hint of a chiding tone entered the nurse's voice, warring with the sympathy obvious in her expression. "I could find his nurse, if you'd like, and you could ask her. But I assure you, he was released and returned home."

The two orderlies returned the boy's look with equally neutral expressions, hands at their sides as they waited in a deceptively casual stance, ready to move if needed. They wouldn't move unless he did, but if he did they would be quick to grab him.

Leon rushed out of the cafeteria a bit quicker than he probably should have. It wasn't as if the man he'd been sitting with had done anything wrong, but he'd said so little while the boy had tried to be conversational. He hadn't stared too much, had he? There were so many other rude things that he could have done that he hadn't, like asked embarrassing questions about the man's disfigurement. All things considered, he thought he'd done a nice job trying to interact.

The young mage took a seat before the nurse could introduce him to some other strange newcomer. Tonight he needed to practice alchemy again, and for that he'd need all the energy he could muster. If he stressed himself out beforehand he wouldn't get anywhere! He was just going to sit and nap, or if not nap then maybe try to get one of the cats to come over again.

He gave a small nod to the older boy he'd sat next to before scanning the floor for any passing feline.

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Day 39: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

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