damned_institute | 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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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.

Day 40: Recreational Field

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