damned_institute | Day 41: Intercom, Evening

When the intercom's jingle sounded, there seemed to be some kind of tapping in the background noise, like letters being punched into a keyboard. It stopped and the Head Doctor chuckled.

"Hello, everyone! I'm actually taking a break from paperwork for once – everyone needs some recreational time, you know! – and of course, now we can all look forward to a scrumptious dinner from our cooks. Tonight, herb-seasoned grilled salmon is on the menu, served with buttery mashed potatoes and asparagus. All our regular drinks and vegetarian options are available, and for dessert, we will be serving yellow cake with a whipped cream icing.

"...Well! I can hardly wait to get my own dinner after saying all that. Good bye for now, everyone, and enjoy your delicious food!"

The intercom clicked off.

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Kaiji was also letting something (or a lot of things, really) distract him from the main goal of getting out of here, which also had to do with things that he didn't have before. That was about as far as the similarities went in this situation, unless Scarecrow secretly owed a lot of very bad people (and one decent but questionable person, to be fair to that surgeon) a whole lot of money. Did Scarecrow even know what money was?

It was kind of weird, thinking about what Scarecrow might or might not have known that seemed so ordinary to him.

"You like being outside, huh?" he questioned casually, not seeming to have an opinion either way. Well there was another apparent similarity. Except Kaiji didn't have to live outside because he was a scarecrow, he had to do it because he didn't have anywhere else to go. "Makes you feel a little less trapped, I guess." Sometimes.

Kaiji paused to think for a moment. Was it even possible to take a shower the wrong way? He cocked an eyebrow, looking a little confused before answering: "I don't think it's possible to take a shower the wrong way." He supposed the quality of it could differ, but really.

"Anyway," he waved off the comment about talking too much and the shower thing in one movement, "don't worry about it. I thought of something earli- wait!"

Wait. Waaaaaiiiiiit. What the hell, lions.

"Lions!? Seriously?"

"Yes, a lion!" said the Scarecrow, still amazed that he'd met another lion in a place like this. "He said he was from Savannah, wherever that is. There are a number of people who don't seem to know what a scarecrow is, so I was surprised t all to meet someone who used to be a lion, especially amongst all the people here. I guess I got lucky!" Thinking about Lion should have made him homesick, but he was enjoying conversing too much. And speaking of things he enjoyed--

"I think the outdoors does make me feel less trapped, in a way," he said with a nod. "It's also familiar, even though I've never actually 'felt' things like grass on my feet and the sun on my face until I got here and into this body, you know?" He made a vague gesture with his hands- this was all so hard to explain somehow. "I guess it's because I was made to be outdoors in the fields. Maybe that explains it."

And there was that feeling of guilt again, as he was enjoying himself here. You're a prisoner, and this isn't home, he told himself shortly. They're keeping you here against your will- this isn't some sort of a vacation, and you have a lot of responsibilities to attend to when you get back. Who knows how things are running without you!

He stopped for a minute. Probably the same way they run all the time, he thought a little more somberly.

"So what was it earlier you thought of?" he asked, kicking his mind for trying to work overtime on him.

What the hell. What. The. Hell. Kaiji had met dead people, a kid with some crazy mystical glowy power or some shit, a girl with pink hair, another girl who thought it was normal to walk around covered in blood, he shared a room with a scarecrow, and now there were fucking lion people. Great. Just great.

"God, this place!" he growled in frustration, "I swear I'm the only normal human here!" It was upsetting, and he was reminded of it every. Single. Day. These people weren't like the ones he had been trapped with before: there was no one like Ishida, or Furuhata, or Sahara, hell, he'd even settle for Funai. The closest he'd encountered were Badou and possibly Tyki, and he was just waiting for them to reveal some crazy secret power or they were actually ghost-squirrel-fairies something.

To emphasize his displeasure with the state of things, he made a quick exhale through his nose in a sad-angry little huff and remained silent for a little while, focusing on his food and settling down after his little outburst.

He could take some solace in his grand plan, at least. "My idea is..." How could he describe the extreme significance of this? "Hang on, this might be hard to explain."

Okay, so it was basically a halfassed plan to try to make moonshine. Maybe a grand introduction to the fact that he required alcohol was in order.

"Alright, you know how you start to kind of not feel well if you haven't eaten or had anything to drink in a while?"

Golly. The Scarecrow sat quietly, pondering the loneliness Kaiji must have been feeling as the only 'normal' human in the institute- it was easy to forget his own woes with his roommate in a situation like that. Before he could begin to ponder whether Kaiji was being sarcastic or serious or maybe just overly dramatic (he did seem to be a little of all three, after all), his roommate spoke again, hopefully to explain this idea he'd had.

He gave the man a nod. "Yeah, I'm acquainted with the feeling now. What about it?"

Well good, that was one less thing for Kaiji to explain! Now all he had to do was link it to his need for alcohol in a convincing way and he wouldn't sound like a colossal loser. If it had been anyone else, they probably would've thought poorly of him for this, but Scarecrow? Kaiji could explain addiction in a reasonable, non-condemning way and it would probably sink in just the right way.

"There are some people out there," Kaiji started in a very serious tone, "like Badou and I." Badou seemed to be an extreme example, actually. It probably would've been wise not to mention him. "We're different."

That was kind of an understatement. Hell, for the most part it didn't even apply to their need for various substances.

"What I mean is that we get that kind of feeling if we haven't had certain other stuff." Now he just had to come up with the reason why he needed to sneak it. It would've been unfair to say that Kaiji needed alcohol to live. "But the thing about it is, we don't need it to live, only to live comfortably. So the Institute doesn't let us have it. So my plan..."

That's right: body-snatching had nothing on this injustice. "Alcohol!" he declared triumphantly, "I'm gonna try to find some. And if I can't find some, I'll make it."

It was the best plan ever.

Day 41: Intercom, Evening

:D

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