damned_institute | Dayshift 42: Bus 2

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Dayshift 42: Bus 2

Before anyone could come to any decisions for their next move, the room suddenly filled with a thick fog. Faster than he could realize what was happening, it had filled up the entire room and swallowed every single one of his friends. Then there was that undeniable stench of iron, blood and... he last remembered taking a step back and feeling that slippery skid and the realization of what that was. By the time he yelled, he was sitting straight up in his bed like he'd bolted awake. Like it'd been nothing more than a bad dream. ...What the hell just happened?!

"Oh! Good morning!" The nearby voice made him yelp with a half squeak-like noise. Oh, for hell's sake. It was one of those freaking nurses again. She was beaming at him like nothing had happened at all. Before he could so much as ask one question, the hag started blathering real fast about some field trip and buses and getting changed and hurrying up before everyone left without him and... OH MY GOD, WHAT WAS SHE DOING?! She was grabbing at his shirt like she was about to start helping him get dressed (or undressed in this case).

He flailed in a desperate attempt to get away from her and yelled his consent to go along if she would get out and let him change HIMSELF. What was the matter with her?! Thankfully, she left but told him to hurry. Hell if he knew what she'd do if he took too long. So for the sake of not getting freaking stripped, he quickly changed into the clothes she'd left on the bed. Clothes being the ugliest looking white-and-black track pants he'd ever seen and a bright blue sweatshirt with a cute little penguin design on the front. This was some kind of joke, right? ...Not to say the penguin wasn't cute or anything but there was no way, no way, he was wearing something like this in public.

But the nurse had burst right in again, and before Kanji could offer much protest, he was being pulled down the hallways and through the doors of the bus. He'd yelled some things her way, but she totally wasn't listening at all. By the time they stopped, he was standing at the front of the bus with a paper bag and the nurse had run off to cart another poor sap along. Frickin' PERFECT. For the sake of not standing up there like some kind of zoo animal for everyone to stare at, he plopped himself into one of the seats by the front and sighed in complete exasperation.

[Free. No limit.]

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When the fog came in out of nowhere, Honey worried that they wouldn't be able to see their enemy attack, and when he felt the squishy nastiness of something underfoot that definitely wasn't just grass and dirt... and it hadn't rained today so...

He was clutching Usa-chan tightly when he woke up in his bed. Hika-chan had to be okay, right? And Takashi? They were all right next to each other and even if it was a robot, Honey would've recognized the sounds of a fight.

Still, the entire thing left him pretty shaken up when the nurse came in with a change of clothing in the morning. Most of it was too big, but at least they had a belt to keep the jeans up and even rolled the cuffs for him. There was a long sleeve black shirt and a blue hoodie with short sleeves to go over that. It definitely wasn't the height of fashion, but it would do for a commoners day out.

He'd try extra hard today to find a phone or a way out. There had to be something, right? He took his bagged breakfast and bounced onto the bus, carrying Usa-chan along with him. Maybe, at the very least, he'd be able to make some new friends.

[First post reserved for Tsubaki. Limit: 2]

Tsubaki didn’t complain when the nurse arrived with clothes and the same bag of items. The pants felt too tight and form-fitting, but that was just their style, the same with the shirt with sleeves ending midway down her forearms. Her chest felt too exposed. Her nurse, however, seemed proud of the top layer she presented next: a long, dark violet sweater with a flounce hem that gave the appearance of a dress, ending at the tops of her thighs and exposing the longer sleeves of the shirt underneath. It was feminine and probably a nice find, so the nurse had an excuse to be self-satisfied.

But it was hardly what Tsubaki cared about.

She would have happily stayed curled in bed, maybe to remember what real sleep felt like, maybe just to think. Thinking was about all she could do. The battle she'd been in the middle of only moments before was over, the night was over… and she didn’t have a say in it. She probably wouldn’t find out what had happened to Ben, or Ritsuka and his companions, or the people stuck behind those locked doors, not unless she bumped into them in town, and even then… It was over.

Another failed attempt. And these failures were far different from those she’d tallied up with Black☆Star’s ceaseless optimism.

She was dragging her feet over things she couldn’t yet change, and she knew it, but it was always an uphill battle to begin thinking positively in the light of day. It got harder every morning. And on that day, Tsubaki’s smiles and responses to her nurse felt so brittle, she was afraid the woman would see through them.

That, she could change.

When Tsubaki was led on to one of the buses just like before, she was making sure there were no chinks in her genial demeanour. She didn’t have simple answers for someone asking after what had her down, so she’d make sure there were no questions in the first place. It was something easy she could do, at least. And now that she was on the bus, she needed to find a seat--

A flash of pink caught her eye, and she looked again. Oh, Honey and his stuffed animal. She hadn’t forgotten the exchange on the bulletin board--in fact, her intentions hadn’t changed much, no matter what had happened the previous night. Even if plans had changed, she could still say hi. Which was exactly what she did. She approached with a little wave. “Hi. Good morning.” Or something like it.

"Tsubaki-chan!" Honey brightened when he saw a familiar face. There were plenty of things he didn't want to think about, and catering to a sweet girl like Tsubaki was a great way to take his mind off of things.

"Come sit with me and Usa-chan?" he asked, sliding over to the window so there was plenty of room for the three of them. Last time he'd gotten to sit on Takashi's lap, but he hadn't seen the other boy yet this morning.

"Did you do okay last night? Me an' Hika-chan an' Takashi were gonna go to gets bats in the shed, but there was a giant robot car!" Just the kinds of things his family had always said weren't real. Well if they could see it now they'd be in for a surprise! "Well, it wasn't both at the same time, but it could transform from one to the other! It was amazing! Ah- but scary too!"

She smiled back at him, bag held in front of her. “Of course! I’d love to,” Tsubaki said, and took a seat beside him.

They hadn’t spoken in person for a couple of days, and even though a full twenty four hours in this place could feel like an eternity, it didn’t seem so long in this instance. Honey looked like he was in the same good health he’d been in during their breakfast together. That brought some relief--she hadn’t talked to either of the twins in even more time, and hadn’t heard much about how they were doing.

It was easier to hide the truth on the bulletin, after all.

“A giant robot car? I’ve never seen anything like that before. Was everyone okay?” she asked. Because generally speaking, most amazing and scary things one could run into during nightshifts were also dangerous. Just Honey, his friend Takashi, and Hikaru? Maybe Kaoru had been elsewhere… She wanted to ask more, but there was still Honey’s question in the air. Knowing the particulars of her night in detail would probably tank the conversation, however. “Oh, I saw a monster, too, but night ended quickly after that.”

Already he felt a little better. Tsubaki was nice and he was excited to go to town again. Even if they couldn't find a phone, they could still try to have fun.

"Mm hmm! I used to have toys like that when I was little," Honey explained, completely ignoring the fact that he was already quite small. "I thought they only existed in anime! I wonder how they hide something like that!" Fantasies of a secret base under the institute full of transforming robots and gundams and other things found only in his favorite animated shows bubbled up in the back of his mind.

"Ah, well I'm glad you're okay Tsubaki-chan," he told her when she answered. He might seem innocent and naive sometimes, but he was pretty good at reading the atmosphere, especially when it came to what girls wanted to talk about, and of course, what they didn't.

"What do you want to do in town today? I'm excited, I think it'll be a lot of fun!"

“Yep, I’m fine, and I’m hoping the other people I was with are as well, so I was thinking of keeping my eye open during our visit to see how everyone is.” She shifted the bag in her lap, her smile growing slightly. Tsubaki had long ago mastered the art of building and blending her responses just so. “I’m happy you’re all right, too; I haven’t been able to talk to the Cake Club in a while. Though of all things, running into a big robot sounds a little dangerous…”

And it didn’t hurt that Honey’s bubbly nature made it easier. His enthusiasm had the power to be really infectious.

But it was also in her nature to consider things differently. The robot he was talking about probably had been dangerous, in more ways than one. An enemy? One of the brainwashing victims? Tsubaki didn’t quite have the same easygoing curiosity; she wondered if it could be the true form of one of the patients, and how much damage something like that could cause on the recreational field. But she wasn’t about to let her dark presumptions towards what went on during nightshifts show any more than her downcast sense of helplessness. Anime… She’d watched a little bit in her childhood, though nothing distinct about cars and robots and that kind of thing, and she hadn’t had toys like that, either.

“Hmm… I can’t imagine. It’s another mystery?” she said slowly, a thoughtful expression crossing her face. When it came to how things happened in Landel’s, she’d stopped trying to picture the possibilities. That stuff was a little out of her depth. But the look was soon after replaced with another smile. “Maybe they have a toy store in Doyleton,” she offered, “with the same kinds of toys you had.”

"That's a good idea Tsubaki-chan," Honey nodded at the young woman's plan. "I should probably do that too. It was hard to see at the end, everything got so foggy I couldn't tell where they were. So I hope they're all okay."

He waved off her concern with a smile and a head-shake from Usa-chan. "We're tough! And besides, the robot didn't come bother us, so maybe it was one of the good ones?" Highly unlikely, but he wasn't about to worry Tsubaki.

"Oh! I wonder if they do! I didn't get to see that much of the town last time. I started making friends and completely forgot! But then, I was really new last time. So maybe this time I'll do better at exploring. Do you want to see if there's a toy shop too Tsubaki-chan?"

She looked into the face of Honey’s little rabbit. Tough, huh? Tsubaki got that impression, too. And in a different way from Patti, who had her own style of acting younger than she was.

But had it gotten foggy outside? She hadn’t been able to tell.

“It’s rare to see the weather change here…” she mused, in lieu of voicing her suspicions. A sudden onslaught of thick fog deserved a lot more scrutiny when it happened at night, and who knew what kind of abilities people and creatures had during the dark hours. But… Tsubaki smiled down at Honey. No, the trip wasn’t bad for making friends at all, and if the town was as peaceful as it’d been last time, then the day had the potential to be soothing for people’s nerves. She was worried about the friends she’d made--and the ones she hadn’t--but there was nothing to be done right away. “Same. My first trip was when I met Hikaru and Kaoru,” she said at first, which was equivalent to saying she agreed with his sentiment. Then she added, with a softer smile, “Mm, okay. Let’s do that. We can talk more.” A toy store wasn’t what really enticed her.

Tsubaki felt a little guilty that she hadn’t and couldn’t be there when Honey called meetings with his group, but she hoped she could still be friends with everyone. And that included weathering the situation.

"I guess so," Honey admitted. There hadn't been much change in the weather, just cold, day in and day out, like this place was on the verge of winter. Besides, whatever that fog was, it hadn't been anything natural, that much he was sure of.

"Tsubaki-chan will come with me?" Honey grinned enthusiastically, "I'm glad! We'll have a lot of fun! Ah- and we can go to any of the shops Tsubaki-chan wants to visit too, okay? We're not back home, but I'll try really hard to be a good host!" he assured her.

Well, that was the long and short of a nightshift… nothing but guessing…

She nodded, summoning a brightness into her smile in response to his excitement. Fun moments were so few and far between. The easy emotions she’d felt while putting out yesterday’s bulletin board message had waned after the course of the night, without a doubt, but defeat after defeat after defeat couldn’t mean she stopped taking advantage of those good times, which was why she knew trying hard to enjoy the field trip was the best thing to do. Tomorrow--when there was also a more public means of communication--she’d see if she couldn’t find out whether or not everyone was all right if she couldn’t find out today.

At the very least, she could hope no one else had stepped into the hall and come into contact with that monster like they’d been afraid of.

As for their destination, Tsubaki was sure it’d be fine no matter what they did (so long as what happened at night didn’t bleed into the day). “Um, that’s okay, I don’t have to be… hosted,” she tried to assure him. Was that what it was? She still wasn’t 100% sure what a school host club was supposed to do, but she didn’t need any special consideration. She’d be happy with just… well, she’d be happy with everyone healthy and accounted for.

Seeing Tsubaki in a good mood was enough to make him feel better and forget just a little of the weirdness and scary stuff from last night. He set Usa-chan down between them and started eating his muffin, pleased that at least there were lots of sweet things in the breakfast this morning.

For Honey, hosting was more or less the way he behaved all the time anyway. There were just girls around to watch him do it. Eating sweets, playing games, hanging out with Takashi.

"Mm, well it's not just that, I really do wanna do what Tsubaki-chan wants to do! I don't know that much about Tsubaki-chan, so... it will help us be better friends, right?"

“Right,” Tsubaki had to agree. Except… he was asking what she wanted to do? Although some activities were more interesting than others, when she was with good company, she was happy with anything, really; she’d already mentioned what she really wanted to do, which was say hi to those she hadn’t seen recently, and Tsubaki supposed she and Honey were on the same point if that happened to include the twins, whom they both knew. Otherwise she felt it didn’t matter. “But honestly, I don’t have any preferences.” And she didn’t want Honey to think he had to cater to her or something like that.

She looked down at the sack lunch she had cradled between her hands. Their stay in Landel’s could feel like it went on forever, but in reality, the acquaintances she’d made while at the Institute were very new. Tsubaki couldn’t say she knew many details about any of them, either, whether or not said details applied to life here.

In regards to that, there was one thing she’d like to do.

Looking back at Honey, she said, “Though, it’d be nice to hear what you’ve been up to the last couple of days. Have things been going okay? And the Cake Club?” A small giggle left her. “And maybe hear more about your home?”

To her, the fastest way to be better friends and to have an enjoyable day was to ask those sorts of questions of others, even if interest was one-sided. Even if her darker concerns were still going to be waiting for her in the back of her mind.

[[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/654401.html?thread=54830913#t54830913)]]

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Dayshift 42: Bus 2

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