damned_institute | Day 45: Breakfast

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Day 45: Breakfast

Mori woke with a start. He lay on the bed for a moment, staring up at the ceiling and sighed quietly. Another day, another round of shifts and people and-- Wait a minute. Breathing in carefully, Mori's brow knit together as he realized that his ribs were no longer broken. After testing his collarbone, he found that it, too, was healing faster than it should have. Not that he was complaining, but there was something odd about broken bones setting so quickly. Pushing himself up out of bed, the teen shook his head, knowing that he'd have another day or two of the sling and then he'd be free from it.

But more important than that was finding out how Mitsukuni was doing. The last thing he remembered was the bathroom and gathering metal. Since they were together at the end of the night, Mori was certain that Mitsukuni would be fine, but...well, he still liked to confirm such things with his own eyes. With the twins gone and Tamaki still missing, Mori didn't want to take any chances anymore. Especially not with the strange announcements this morning.

As usual, his nurse came to collect him and helped him into his sling. Then he followed her quietly into the cafeteria, taking notice of the unusually empty bulletin board. They really were cracking down on it already. Weird. Even weirder? For once, he was the first into the room. Picking up a tray, he pointed out what he wanted, making sure to take double of the pancakes (asking to keep them away from the sausages for now), double of the strawberry jam and biscuits, and an extra helping of fruit. To top it off? Milk. It'd help his bones mend. Hopefully.

Going to a nearby seat, Mori took a look around the empty room and shivered. Kind of eerie in here without anyone else but the nurses. Someone was certain to come sooner or later though, right? He hoped so at least.

[for Chihaya]

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[No problem!]

"Uh... 'morning?" Jean looked down at the young boy's grinning face, his own creased brow hiding no small amount of confusion. The Look went away quickly though and he turned his head away, almost as if he were embarrassed to be caught sitting next to the boy.

Jean tried to clear his head, telling himself that he felt perfectly normal today. Nevertheless, his first thought had been 'Where'd all the fur go?' which he knew wouldn't get him any free passes out of the institute. The boy seemed somehow familiar, but Jean didn't want to act too friendly lest the nurses think him still delusional. And he knew that that was where he'd known the boy, in his mind, even though the Chopper he knew was a walking, talking reindeer.

Since the boy knew his other self ("Zoro"), Jean decided that he would try and treat him with a little consideration. It was the least he could do for a person he'd had so many fond (yet, sadly, false) memories of.

"What's your name?" he asked, nicely, and with a quirk of his lips that could be taken as a smile.

Chopper frowned. "It's me; Chopper. Did you forget what I look like now already?" he asked. Or maybe he'd gotten ill and wasn't thinking straight...

He stood up in his chair so that he could reach across the table to press his hand across Zoro's forehead. It didn't feel like he was running a fever, but that just meant there was one symptom he didn't have out a long list of possibilities. "Are you feeling sick? Have you been eating right?"

The food here was pretty good (though it could never match what Sanji made!), but if Zoro wasn't getting proper nutrients, it would be more difficult to prescribe a diet for him than if they were back home on the Thousand Sunny.

He took 'Chopper's hand and gently pushed it away. No use yelling nonsense and scaring the poor guy, sick in the head as he was.

"I... no, I don't feel sick. And I've been eating okay. Really." As far as he was concerned, he had been. An athlete had to keep up his strength and he knew from experience that a good diet was just as effective as a strict training regimen. That kind of thing had been drilled into him since before he was old enough to get beaten up by his sister.

"And uh, I know about... Chopper," Jean whispered the name as if it were some terrible bad word he didn't want anyone else to hear. His eyes flickered from left to right and his tone was almost childishly secretive. "I meant your real name. I realized that I don't know what it is."

He added for good measure: "And you should stop pretending to be a doctor, you know. I don't think it helps anyone in the long run." If anything, his intentions were good. It would be nice if his pretend nakama got better too. Maybe then he'd make some real friends.

"But... Chopper is my name," he said quietly, feeling uncertain. He pulled his hand away and climbed off the chair, sitting down again. "TonyTony Chopper; that's what Dr. Hiruluk named me."

This was Zoro, right? Zoro, his nakama, the swordsman that was always pushing himself too hard and had no sense of direction... It looked like him, sounded like him, smelled like him, but Zoro wouldn't... Zoro wouldn't act like Chopper wasn't his name, and he wouldn't... say something like that...

"W-what are you talking about? I'm not pretending to be a doctor; I studied properly under Doctorine...!"

Jean only shook his head seriously, sadness somehow permeating through to the very essence of the action. "It's good that your parents taught you stuff..." -- at least, that's what Jean thought 'Chopper' meant when he started mentioning names; he barely knew the boy-- "But you're supposed to go to college for that sort of thing. You know, study for a couple hundred years, then get married or something like that. I wouldn't really know though..."

It was obvious that Jean was trying hard to act friendly, but maybe he was trying a little too hard. He wasn't sure how to act right now, which seemed to make him a lot chattier than usual. At least no one couldn't say that he didn't try to be nice, or to help someone else who obviously needed it. Chopper-Whoever-He-Was was too young to be in a place like Landel's (heck, he wasn't even sure what he was doing here) and though Jean himself was a good example of the kind of healing that could happen at the institute, it still seemed best to help others get on their way to recovery.

Maybe getting the others to start thinking straight would get him points with the higher ups and then he'd be able to go home. Picking up the pieces of his life was definitely more important, regardless of his heart's wishes.

"You know how you called me 'Zoro' earlier?" he asked, looking vaguely uncomfortable saying the name. "That's just a kind of fake name. My real name is Jean-David Hunter. That's all I'm asking about you. I know you have a real name too. Get it?"

"I-I did study. For five years under Doctorine, a-and I haven't stopped just because I joined the crew," Chopper said. His eyes were burning a little now, and he reached up a hand to scrub at them. He wasn't going to cry! Zoro may have been acting strange, but Chopper had to be strong!

He shook his head. "N-no. You're Zoro! You just..." Had amnesia? But why did he think his name was something else? He had to be Zoro; he just had to be. If he'd gotten amnesia, maybe Jean-David was what the Cat Ladies called him.

"A-and I'm Chopper. Chopper is my real name, and Zoro is yours!"

Getting 'Chopper' upset wasn't going to help his situation any, so Jean decided not to say anything else. Insisting would probably just make it worse. He knew how stubborn his Zoro persona was, and how hard headed his pseudo-friends were when they wanted to be.

"Listen, I'm not Zoro." That one thing he had to repeat, if only to tell it to himself one more time. No, there would be no more pretending if he could help it. "Call me Jean. And you can keep calling yourself Chopper but... we can still be friends. Once you guys get better." The very idea of it actually happening appealed greatly to Jean, but he wasn't going to sound needy. He just wanted the other to stop looking like he was about to cry.

Chopper's hands dropped to his knees, and he clutched the fabric of his pants tightly in his fists. "B-but you're..."

He was Zoro, right? He sounded so sure that he was this "Jean" person, though, so maybe... Maybe it was just Chopper's mistake; amnesia wouldn't have convinced Zoro that he was someone else, and wouldn't he listen to his friends instead of the Cat Ladies? This person just looked like Zoro (and sounded like him and smelled like him), and it was coincidence, like how Kaku looked like Usopp.

He looked down. "S-sorry, Zoro... um... Jean," he said quietly. "I t-thought you were someone else..."

"It's okay. I make that mistake too sometimes." Jean scratched the back of his head in silent embarrassment, an action that felt strangely reminiscent of something Zoro would have done. He glanced at his plate of half-finished food and found that he didn't have the appetite to finish it. The thought that Sanji's scolding was all in his head made that all-too-human feeling at the pit of his stomach grow with a kind of sick, self-conscious alacrity. He couldn't help but think how much better Zoro would have been at this whole thing. He would have talked less, and been more decisive.

"I guess breakfast is over," Jean commented after an awkward silence and a quiet, personal look around. "I should go. I'll, uh... See you around?"

Chopper felt rather grateful that breakfast was over, even though he hadn't managed to even touch his food.

"Y-yeah," he agreed, even though this man wasn't Zoro. Maybe he'd turn out to be a nice person now that the confusion was past.... He grinned at Jean, trying to be friendly. "Yeah! I'll see you later, Jean."

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Day 45: Breakfast

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