damned_institute | Day 44: breakfast

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]

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If it had been anywhere else at any other time, Yukari certainly would have felt awkward; she wasn't much of the type to offer hugs to begin with, and this was Junpei. She would have sooner walked the streets of Iwatodai in some hideous, gaudy attire than given him a hug willingly. But she didn't, because she knew he probably needed this more than she could imagine, and the brief lack of hair indicated as much when he latched on.

Yukari wasn't sure what to do aside from patting his back silently. What he was saying still didn't make any sense, because someone getting killed during the night happened frequently enough (a thought that sickened her), and they normally stayed... well, gone. But Junpei was still here, and Yukari didn't know what to think of what he was saying, so all she did was slightly turn her head towards Minato with a quizzical expression that asked if maybe he knew what to say or do.

But then Junpei continued on, and Yukari could swear her heart skipped a beat. "... Gone?" she echoed disbelievingly. "But-- I was just talking to Mitsuru-senpai last night. How could she-- all of them be..."

The quizzical look Yukari had aimed was returned, albeit in a much milder form than what one would expect from a confused teenager. Minato had been mulling over Junpei’s comments about dying when he finished with his newest bit of information. What?

Granted, he couldn’t say anything about Ken’s presence in the institute, but he had seen Mitsuru yesterday. He had traded notes on the bulletin board with Akihiko. How could they be gone? The impact was dulled by the fact that he was new to this place and had no idea what the others had been through while here, and he knew that.

“How do you know that?” He could understand Chidori and Junpei’s connection, but the others…

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Junpei let go of Yukari and sat back up with a soft, "Thanks."

He then sighed heavily and grabbed his napkin, wiping at his face. "I know because I asked my nurse about them. You too, Yuka-tan. I'd have asked about you," he said to Minato, "but I don't know what the nurses call you. They told me the others had been discharged and that I should take them as inspiration to get better or something."

He was quiet a moment. "They said Chidori had been discharged as well."

For a long minute, Yukari only stared at Junpei before finally clenching a fist on the table's edge; she was angry at first, but then, she didn't know how she was supposed to feel afterward. It was true that anyone could disappear in an instant, but in all the time she had been here, it never ended up being someone Yukari knew personally. She didn't want them to be gone, because it meant less familiarity in such a foreign and horrible place, and it also meant less power they had behind their team, but... It was such a selfish way of thinking, right? Them not being here anymore was a good thing-- or so she hoped, because there were all sorts of theories and ideas floating around that could happen and none of them were good.

She had a right to feel uneasy about it, Yukari thought.

"So now what?" Yukari asked, breaking her silence. "What do we do with just us?"

He had questions, but he wasn't sure this was the time to ask them. Right now, they had to think about what was keeping them going. Back home, the answer was clear. Here -- also clear, but not nearly as neat and tidy as stopping the end of the world.

And without either senpai around, they didn't have anyone to give direction. No one to issue orders or make sure they were all ... still around from day to day.

Minato drank his juice before responding. "We keep going. We figure this place out."

As far as he was concerned, they had no other choices.

"Yeah, we will..." Junpei rubbed the back of his neck. "Man... I've gotta blow off some steam tonight or I'll eventually end up doing something even more stupid than normal. I'm gonna take the evoker tonight, okay Yuka-tan?"

He then looked at Minato. "Dude, I've got two questions for you and they're all damn important. What the hell are the nurses calling you and when are you from?" He pointed at his chest. "They're calling me Josh Hart and I'm from the end of November, a week after Chidori died." His hand started to shake again, but he quickly clenched it into a fist and set it on his leg.

“Christian Aarons.” The use of Western names was still strange, but at least he was noticing a pattern here. The Western food in the cafeteria, the racial variety around here… But his mind was wandering again. “The date was December 31st before I arrived.”

If none of the others were from around December… Did that mean he was the only one who knew the reason for the Dark Hour’s continued presence?

Day 44: breakfast

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