damned_institute | Day 40: Recreational Field

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Day 40: Recreational Field

Kio's breakfast ended on a much happier note than it had started. However, for once the announcement truly surprised him. He blinked as his nurse came to pick him up. Recreational Field? But.. but if they had a greenhouse, he wanted to go there. The prospect of gardening was a truly liberating one, an island of joy in this hellhole. He thought about going to the Sun Room and lying down, but it occurred to him that he hadn't had proper fresh air since being here. With a cheery goodbye wave to Honey, he followed his torturer outside.

It was much better than he had expected. The sun wasn't too hot (what time of the year were they in, anyway?), so he walked slowly along the walls, fascinated by the size of the field. He wondered if Sou-chan was alright. He hadn't even checked the board. Well, if Soubi wanted to apologize, Kio would be willing to listen. The place was so crisp and clean. He had to think if anyone had ever gone over the walls. What was out there? Freedom? Or a different sort of monster?

Leaning against one of the walls, Kio took as much advantage of the sun as he could. He desperately wanted a lollipop. One was quietly nestled in his pocket, but he would need to wait until the nurses were busy with other patients before he tried anything. Soubi had gone to some trouble to get them, the least he could do was make sure they didn't get confiscated. So with bated breath, Kio waited for a shift in the mood. He was, for once, content. Not happy, but not going crazy either.

[Sou-chan! Team Loveless deploy!]

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His conversation with Sokka hadn't revealed anything that Shikamaru didn't already know about the institute, but since it also didn't reveal anything that he didn't already know about his future, it was far superior to yesterday's breakfast. Even better was the promise of being let outdoors, and when Landel followed through with it, Shikamaru's opinion of the place improved dramatically. Yes, there was work to be done, and yes, he'd do it, but keeping himself sane was important too. After this shift, he'd work extra hard to make up for it.

Pushing himself like this was still an unfamiliar and awkward feeling, something like a clumsy first attempt at a new jutsu. He was used to doing what was asked of him, and after his miserable first mission, he'd always held himself to high standards, but this was something else: a level of focus and dedication that he would need to maintain for the rest of his life. It was more like a change of nature than a jutsu, really. Growing up fast to make up for the time he'd spent slacking before. As determined as Shikamaru was to meet that goal, even the thought of it made him exhausted. He was annoyed at himself for needing to make this compromise, but not annoyed enough to overrule self-awareness. Better small compromises than big mistakes. In a situation like this, he wished he was a straightforward fighter so he could spend the days relaxing to make up for what he was sure would be troublesome nights. Of course, the straightforward fighters seemed eager to waste the opportunity.

The safest place for cloud-watching was behind the far goal, where he wouldn't have to watch out for wayward soccer balls. The air was cool and so was the grass, something like early spring, and as he folded his arms behind his head and looked skyward with a distant focus, he tried not to think about the fact that this wasn't the same sky that arched over Konoha.

[free]

While Sora was apprehensive about everything that had happened with Nigredo, he did his best to push it to the back of his mind for now. There wasn't much he could do about it right now, after all. He made the effort to look out for Junior when he got onto the field, but the boy was already talking to someone. Since he needed to talk to the redhead about something pretty private, now wouldn't be the best time.

Besides, Sora had a soccer game that he wanted to watch! He tried not to be too upset about the fact that he couldn't participate, but he needed to go easy on himself today if he was going to be worth his weight tonight. His arm and leg were bandaged tightly, which made him feel secure, but too much exertion would start the bleeding all over again.

So when Sora spotted someone around his age taking a rest with a decent view of the soccer field, he smiled and slowly walked over with a slight limp. The stranger was watching the sky pretty intently, but he also looked at ease. It was nice to see that some people could manage to relax here.

"Do you mind some company?" he asked, stopping a few feet away from where the other boy was lying.

Relaxation was a skill, Shikamaru imagined. Many ninja had trouble with it, and even when they weren't actively working they seemed high strung and uncomfortable, slipping between anxiety and anxiety and worrying about things they couldn't change. He didn't need to sit up to know that most of his peers were probably scowling or sulking, and although a small part of him felt like scowling or sulking as well, the vast, vast majority felt like watching clouds. So he was watching clouds.

It was about efficiency, really. Taking care of one thing at a time.

The voice wasn't a welcome intrusion, but Shikamaru was settled into his comfortable mood and felt only a distant flicker of displeasure. As long as it didn't demand anything of him beyond a patch of grass, the voice could do whatever it wanted. Most things in the world did whatever they wanted anyway, and Shikamaru wasn't about to break his lack of concentration just to get annoyed.

He moved an arm from under his head for the second it took to give a permissive wave. "Help yourself."

That wasn't the warmest welcome Sora had ever received, but it wasn't like the other boy had shooed him away, either. Shrugging, he carefully sat down a short distance away from the stranger, glancing out over the field. It was tempting to mimic his companion and fall onto his back onto the grass, but he wanted to keep an eye on the soccer game that might be forming. So far, he only saw three guys gathered around a ball, but hopefully something would start to happen soon.

He took a moment to glance down at the other boy for a moment, whose pose brought up a fond memory.

"Me and my friends used to lay like that," he said with a warm smile. It made him miss Kairi and Riku that much more. Not wanting to get totally sentimental on someone he'd just met, Sora continued. "I think it might be better to do it on grass, though. We always got sand in our hair," he said with a brief laugh.

He hadn't been a fan of that part of it, but what he wouldn't give to be laid out on the beach with his two best friends again...

The pattern of exceedingly nice and exceedingly not-nice seemed to be holding, and so far today, Shikamaru had been lucky. It wasn't as ideal as being left to his own devices, but still, Sokka had calmed into a decent conversation partner and the new boy wasn't being very pushy at all. In fact, he was going to lengths to avoid being pushy, it seemed.

Shikamaru glanced over when he spoke, but only for the instant needed to register his presence. "There aren't as many clouds in the desert either," he said. He'd only had business in the Sand village a few times, but he remembered it being a bother. That was one thing to be grateful for here, he supposed, but something about this sky left him with the uncomfortable and extremely rare feeling that someone he trusted might be lying. "Doesn't get cold though, I guess."

At first, Sora wasn't sure why the other boy brought up the desert all of a sudden, but then it clicked in his head and he laughed. "Oh, no, I don't live in a desert. My home is an island, so me and my friends were always down by the beach, and we'd stretch out at the shore." Maybe it would have been smarter to find a place further inland where there would have been some grass, but the best part was feeling the water lap up against your toes.

"It's pretty warm there, though," he continued. Actually, the weather was usually perfect there. So much about Destiny Islands seemed perfect, but he and his friends had quickly learned that an easy existence wasn't always the best kind. It was hard to say whether or not he would have been happier if he'd never left home, but there wasn't much point in getting caught up in questions like that.

"But... you like clouds?" Not much was going on with the soccer game yet, so Sora tilted his head up to admire the sky himself. It was kind of fun to try and pick out shapes among the different clouds; he hadn't done that sort of thing since he was a kid.

Shikamaru frowned, not sure why he'd assumed that his companion lived in the desert. Yeah, he was more familiar with it, but the Land of Fire had two long coastlines so beaches were hardly a foreign concept. He closed his eyes while he briefly chastised himself for jumping to conclusions, then reopened them. Stuff like that shouldn't be done while watching clouds.

"Yeah," he said. Not as much here as in Konoha, but these clouds were still better than a blank blue. He made a halfhearted attempt to figure out what was different about the two, but when he couldn't immediately tell, he knew that he didn't want to. There wasn't much he could tolerate in this place, so he needed to preserve what he could.

For someone who loved clouds as much as he did, Shikamaru didn't know much about them. They were made of water, and...yeah, that was about it. They had names or something, and there was probably some logic to how they were formed, but part of what he liked about them was that they didn't have to know that stuff. Clouds didn't have to know anything. He felt a familiar but comfortable pang of envy. "Are they the same where you're from?"

This guy must be a big fan of clouds if that was seriously all he wanted to talk about! Sora knew that sometimes it was good to focus on something other than the hospital and the monsters and whatever else, but how long could they really spend talking about clouds?

Still, he was usually up for anything, and so he went along with the other boy for now. "The same?" He watched the clouds for a while longer, remaining quiet for a moment as he tracked one that was moving overhead pretty quickly.

"What do you mean? Do the clouds where you're from look different?" Sora was fairly certain that clouds were white no matter where he went, and he'd been to his fair share of worlds. Sometimes they were dark when it was storming, but he found it hard to believe that the stranger would even like rain clouds.

"No, but I hear that there are lots of places out there. Makes sense that they'd be different somewhere." Shikamaru said. For some reason, considering the skies of dozens of worlds unsettled him more than considering their existence. That was what would truly make a place otherworldly, he figured. Red skies, green skies. It gave him a headache to think about, so he dropped it.

If pressed, Shikamaru could spend hours talking about clouds. The things he'd observed about them didn't bother him the way that hard science might, and there was plenty to describe: the way that some layers moved faster than others, the way they unrolled and flattened before a storm as if trying to separate the sky from the ground. The way their edges were rougher in the cold. Clouds were pretty complicated, even if they didn't have to deal with it themselves. He wondered if the weather in this place ever changed.

"I guess you're right," Sora agreed, though he glanced away from the sky. It was fun to look at the clouds, but it was going to start to hurt his neck after a while. If he laid down it would be easier, but it looked like the guys with the soccer ball were going to get started soon. Maybe he couldn't play, but living vicariously was a decent substitute sometimes.

"I've been to a few worlds, but I haven't seen any with really weird clouds yet," he explained. "It'd be neat to find one, though!" Granted, the other boy here probably wouldn't be there to see it, and Sora had no way of capturing the image for him. In the end, he knew all he was doing was daydreaming, but sometimes that was nice enough.

Realizing that they still hadn't exchanged names, Sora half-turned toward the other boy. "I'm Sora, by the way!" He didn't try to give the boy his hand, though, considering his position. Some of the patients here didn't even seem to like handshakes very much, so maybe it was better this way.

It didn't sound very nice at all to Shikamaru, who offered a dubious "I guess" after frowning at the idea. Clouds were supposed to be a certain way, or at least one of several certain ways, and none of those ways could be described as really weird. He liked their constant changes, but only within a certain framework. A completely unfamiliar sky would be far worse than no sky at all, and he opted not to picture it.

"Shikamaru." Why had so many people been starting conversations with him recently, anyway? In Konoha, people usually left him alone unless they wanted something or were on the short list of people who knew what they were getting into and still had the patience to put up with him. Maybe in their worlds, people like Sora and Sokka were like Naruto: able to make friends with pretty much everyone they came across. How did they never burn out on that stuff? Even thinking about the energy it would take to be so outgoing made him feel like he needed a nap.

He yawned loudly, not bothering to cover his mouth, but didn't say anything further.

This Shikamaru wasn't all that talkative, even when Sora was making an effort to make conversation about clouds (since it was the only thing he could be sure the other boy was interested in). Maybe Shikamaru didn't like to talk about them so much as watch them, which made a little more sense. But in that case, what could they talk about?

When the boy yawned, Sora couldn't help frowning. Was he really that boring, or was Shikamaru tired after a long night? It might be a mix of both, but now Sora was wondering if it would be better if he left. At the same time, though, getting up and walking off would be childish, and it wasn't like Shikamaru was being outright mean.

"So..." He was trying again even though he hadn't had much luck yet. He bounced his feet against the grass and then stopped with his left leg when it started to pull at the stitches on his calf. "What do you do besides watching clouds?"

Shikamaru frowned again at the question, but this time his expression was contemplative rather than disapproving. What did he do, besides watching clouds? He slid one arm out from under his head and rubbed his face with his palm. "Boring things, mostly." The day-to-day life of a ninja was hardly thrilling, a fact he deeply appreciated. "I plan a lot of tests." Helping to manage the chuunin exams was tedious enough to complain about every morning, but at least he didn't have his teammates' lives depending on him every second. Usually.

After another moment of thought, he returned his arm to its earlier position. Sora sure had a lot of energy. It was almost like he was making up for Shikamaru's lack of it. "I'm one of the people who defend my village," he added a few seconds later.

Apparently, the conversation wasn't going to end any time soon. If he kept giving simple answers, Sora would just pile on more questions, and he'd already been homesick more than enough for one day. Time to redirect. "What about you?"

Shikamaru made tests? Sora made a face the second he heard the word. Who would enjoy doing something like that? Though it was possible the other boy didn't like it - he had said it was boring, after all. But wasn't he pretty young to be doing that? Sora was pretty sure Shikamaru should still be in school himself.

Though when Shikamaru mentioned that he protected his village, it made more sense. He probably didn't have time for school if he had a job as important as that. Sora had also left school in order to defend people, although for him it was on a much larger scale. That didn't mean that what Shikamura did wasn't important, of course!

"Oh, my job is to go and get rid of these evil creatures called Heartless," he explained, rattling it off as if it didn't sound extremely weird. Everyone here had their own odd story, so Sora didn't expect people to balk too much at his these days. "They have the power to destroy an entire world if they aren't taken care of, so it's a lot of work."

Sora was half-tempted to ask about why Shikamaru planned tests, but he didn't want to offend the other boy when it really wasn't all that important to know.

Heartless? That was, well...that was interesting. Shikamaru supposed that if you had to name an evil creature, 'Heartless' wasn't a bad choice. It cut to the chase, at least. The way Sora talked about them, they sounded like an infestation. He certainly didn't envy a pain-in-the-ass job like getting rid of dozens or hundreds or thousands of whatever the hell a Heartless was. How many of something would it take to destroy a world? Were all of these other worlds the same size as his own?

"That sounds like a hassle," he said, voice vaguely sympathetic. Shikamaru lapsed into a few seconds of silence before remembering that if he didn't keep the conversation going, Sora would. He inhaled slowly, frowning in focus. If he had to ask questions anyway, they might as well be useful ones. "How long have you been here?"

Ugh. Every time Shikamaru thought he'd found a minute to relax, something about this place had to remind him that he wasn't working as hard as he ought to be be. His sigh was annoyed but resigned. He had trouble believing that Landel wasn't a woman.

While Sora wasn't sure "hassle" was the right word, he did have to admit that being the Keyblade Master was a lot of work. He often didn't get a moment to rest before he was moving on to the next world that needed his help. He was usually energetic enough to keep fighting no matter what happened, but he'd had his bad spots in the past.

The whole mess with the Organization had also showed him that sometimes it wasn't the best idea to just keep moving forward without taking a moment to think about what he was doing.

Before he could think about that any more, though, he was luckily interrupted by a pretty easy question--and one that he had unfortunately become very accustomed to answering. He didn't wring his hands over it this time. "A little over a month now," he answered, and then he just waited for Shikamaru's reaction. With the way the other boy usually sounded irritated about something, Sora got the feeling that he wasn't going to take the news too well.

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Day 40: Recreational Field

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